assault

Re: How to handle RKA?

Re: Dr koo

Re: Retcon the CU

Re: How to handle RKA?

Re: Retcon the CU This is one of the key points in my CU. The Forerunners left Earth and the rest of the solar system littered with little enclaves of superbeings. In particular, the "Trans-Plutonian Worldlets" are the primary origin of the various "aliens" that periodically visit Earth. Furthermore, the ability of humans to exhibit mutations, or benefit from radiation accidents is probably due to Forerunner meddling. So the Forerunners are probably the primary source of superpowers, but certainly aren't the only one. Nor is it especially likely that any players would ever find out that they even existed in my game. (I suppose they might if I ever thought of an appropriate plotline). My super-Demographics vary radically from those of the CU, too. Supers are much rarer. Or at least they are more heavily concentrated in specific areas - the "little enclaves of superbeings" I referred to above - and rarely encountered outside them. Of course, since my universe hasn't been published, I have the freedom to vary the above guidelines according to my mood. That's probably the real difference between my CU and the official one!

Re: International Heroes My PNG hero is a Phantom homage called the Grey Ghost. When I was living in PNG in the early 90s, the Phantom was the only comic that I saw, apart from a few copies of an old Batman and the Outsiders issue. The superheroic imagery that appeared in various ads on TV and so on was very obviously influenced by the Phantom. Historically there was enough piracy in the East Indies to support a Phantom style pirate chaser, and New Guinea is a reasonable enough substitute for the African elements of the Phantom myth. Unfortunately, it would probably make more sense for such a character to have been based in West Papua rather than PNG, but still...

Re: Which villain needs an overhaul? I think people should actually reread her entry in CKC. She doesn't just invade with grunts. She is accompanied by her "trained corps of superhumans" as well. They are numbered in the "dozens", at least. One thing that has occurred to me is that while she can travel between dimensions, it's not clear that her subordinates can do so without her. While it would make her empire somewhat unworkable, it is quite possible that her presence is actually necessary to invade, or even scout, a target world. It makes you wonder what her "empire" is actually like.

Re: Which villain needs an overhaul?

Re: International Heroes I've been known to have American characters show up... (My game is set in Australia, so Americans are "international"!) Unfortunately, my game is more generally "on hiatus" than real, but I have characters sitting in my files from New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Hong Kong and the UK. I also have a bunch of Atlanteans, aliens and other characters not associated with any terrestrial nation. Memo to self: design a scenario in New Caledonia or French Polynesia... Because my game is set in Brisbane, I tend to use the Pacific as a setting more than Asia. As a result I haven't really bothered with characters from Indonesia or Sri Lanka or where ever. I probably should.

Re: Every Good Golden Age Supers Campaign Needs: Female crimefighters who wear swimsuits! http://www.toonopedia.com/phanlady.htm http://www.toonopedia.com/blackcat.htm

Re: Every Good Golden Age Supers Campaign Needs: Fair enough. I didn't doubt you could come up with one, but I didn't think he would be quite that obscure! The honourable villain is a good thing in a game, of course, but I don't think they were all that common in the source material. Particularly during the war, when the enemy were the enemy, period.

Re: Every Good Golden Age Supers Campaign Needs:

Re: A Presidential candidate has MS It depends on how deeply you are going into the Buffyverse, but the existence of the Initiative in season four suggests that the US government knows that the supernatural exists and has at least attempted to respond. That doesn't rule out a candidate with links to Wolfram and Hart.

Re: Is Iron Man a power gamer type character?

Re: Which villain needs an overhaul? The main villain I want to see again is Shamrock. However, I would rather not see him at all than have his background tweaked too much. As it is, he's a nice grey area villain who can actually be an ally for some heroes.

Re: Takofanes help It doesn't matter how powerful your characters are when they're fighting Tak. They will lose, unless they find the Wonder Widget. And then they will win, assuming at least some basic competence. The idea of cutting a deal with the Crowns of Krim is interesting, although Tak might well end up taking them over, which would be unfortunate, to put it mildly. And if the PCs can take Tak down in a head to head fight, the GM should probably make him more powerful.

Re: How important is heroism in your campaign? On the Silver Age thing: I'm currently reading the DC "Showcase Presents" Green Lantern volume. It reprints a whole bunch of early Silver Age Green Lantern stories. Hal Jordan kills. It's not explicit, but he does. On the other hand, there are cases where he probably should, but doesn't. In particular, Sinestro gets off lightly a time or two. But the Qwardians are on the receiving end of GL created tsunamis on at least two separate occasions. I won't bother discussing the very silly "romantic" subplot between Hal Jordan and Carol Ferris. It makes Superman and Lois Lane's relationship seem sane. And incidentally, GL only occasionally does things beyond the capabilities of a 350-450 point character during these early issues. The cases when he does so are usually when the villain has already unleashed his doomsday weapon before GL gets there!

Re: How to handle RKA? Points are irrelevant to NPCs. I recommend going with Standard Effect and abolishing the Stun lottery. Its results are highly inappropriate to the superheroic genre. It's OK in heroic games, though.

Re: Robot with an adamantium shell?

Re: Power Armor 'themes'

Re: Robot with an adamantium shell? I've been trying to work out ways of making the character more "robot-y". The thing that bugs me the most is the absence of Life Support, so I've been focussing on ways of shaving enough points to buy some. That pretty much means finding an excuse for sticking some limitations on his Multipower. One possibility is to play with the Adamantium concept. You see, adamantium is difficult to work, so it's conceivable that a fair bit of the robot's equipment might actually be external to its body. Essentially, you would give its multipower a focus limitation, since its flight unit, for example, would be at least notionally able to be separated from its body. Unfortunately, of course, since he's a robot, it's not likely that he would spend much time without his equipment, so part of the limitation wouldn't really apply. Still, it might be possible to do something along these general lines. Justifying an external structure for his strength enhancement stuff might seem a little iffy, but some kind of exo-skeletal structure would work. Essentially, his "shell" would become something more like a skeleton. Hmm... an adamantium skeleton... where have I heard that before???

Re: Robot with an adamantium shell? Try 28 INT and 14 EGO. You save 4 points with no serious drawbacks. Drop these points into PD and ED.

Re: Robot with an adamantium shell? Try something like this: Points Item 125 Characteristics 25 Skills 75 20PD/20ED Armour, Hardened(x1) 4 Knockback Resistance 10 Life Support - Self-contained Breathing 70 Multipower Base 9 Slot 1. Flight (Multi) 2 Slot 2. Megascale Flight (Ultra) 12 Slot 3. Energy Blast (Ultra) 2 Slot 4. +20 Strength, OEnd, No Fig Chars (Ultra) 16 Misc/Tuning === 350 Total The Endurance cost of the EB will be a problem. I don't have the book in front of me, so the numbers are a bit approximate.

Re: Robot with an adamantium shell? I call this problem "Superman syndrome". I'm a shocker for it. Basically, you have defined yourself a character that can't be built on your available points. There are two aspects to the problem. First, your main powers, particularly your defences in this case, are probably set a bit too high. You might need to tone them down a bit. Second, your character needs to spend a lot of points in secondary powers to work properly. After all, a robot needs a certain amount of life support, and probably at least some enhanced senses. The first thing to do is to trim the secondary powers to the bare minimum. Spend as little as possible here. You don't strictly need enhanced senses at all, and you could, perhaps, even trim your life support to as little as having self-contained breathing. Of course that means that your robot can catch a cold(!), but that isn't actually an issue if the GM doesn't make it one. Second, consider using a multipower for your major powers other than armour. Stick your flight, energy blast(s), enhanced strength and so on in here, and switch "your energy" around between them. I suggest a Multi slot for flight, and slightly smaller Ultra slots for everything else. That way, your character can fly slowly while using other powers, and can really zoom along when he isn't. This multipower will burn a lot of points, but can be expanded relatively quickly with experience. Your defences are still going to be a problem, but just do the best you can. As long as your character is a good solid brick, you can fake it well enough. Try to avoid tanks! 8d6 RKAs are nasty. On the other hand, if your character does end up taking Body, you can always say that it is "internal damage that occurred despite his invulnerable shell being undamaged" or some similar line of nonsense. After all, even Ultron has been taken out this way. In short, fake it!

Re: Who Protects Them? I've actually changed my mind while writing my response. I was originally going to say "it depends", but worked out that "not usually" was more accurate. Certainly it's not true in Australia in my world. It probably is true about the US. I haven't really paid much attention to other countries. It mainly depends on the availability of supers to play this role, plus the presence of actual assassination threats. It's the absence of appropriate supers that made me decide that it doesn't happen in Australia.