Acroyear

Re: Acro is bored Just a reminder in case people aren't posting. Deadline to cut out the repeat offende... er, winner will be, eh, 4pm my time. Because I'm impatient.

Re: Acro is bored Next post here wins

Re: Alpha or Beta Gamer? I would have to say Alpha. But not out of desire. My characters are often quite decisive. They know what they want to do almost immediately. Don't really care if anyone goes along with it, doesn't try to talk them into it, but they often follow the lead (or go do their own alpha thing, if applicable). If something in particular sounds good I'll offer it up to the individual "hey, shoot your lightning into shark tank" (or whatver haha). This isn't to say they are always the brightest actions, but anything's better than sitting around waiting for some guy to decide what to do next. I'd rather get my ass kicked than wait 5 minutes for someone to come up with a plan. lol However, many seem to think I'm pretty good at it. Abusing weaknesses or tactical situations. Even if not the "leader" role, I often find myself in the "field commander" role. They seem to hate it when I play a character who waits to be given instruction or is hesitant (... but admittedly just to watch the other guys hang themselves on worse moves than I'd make... ok, I'm cruel). "Hahaha. You should have just jumped down the hatch and set off the bomb" "Well, why didn't you tell me?!" "Because my character is your dog! I can't talk."

Re: Alpha Male Contest In the straight fight, I actually wouldn't consider it "out of line" but I fully expect some witnesses say "psh, you needed your stupid pet dog to beat him."

Re: Superhero Images No on both counts. I'm not what you'd call a prolific artist. In fact, I take tons of shortcuts. Add to that, I don't actually possess most of my good stuff. As for commissions, it wouldn't be as cool to charge people when I also give it away for free. This also means I don't have to draw when I don't feel like it. The thought's crossed my mind a number of times, especially right now (I'm unemployed, the holidays are coming, etc). If enough people ask, I might consider it more seriously.

Re: Superhero Images Only at random and when bored. Keep an eye out for the Acro is bored thread to rear its ugly head.

Re: Superhero Images Did this for some dude over on RPGnet, unsolicited, and to further my crusade of chronocide. Thought I might as well share it here for all you hybrid universe type folks I dunno much of the story. The bunny is a manifestation of an Oan or something (or the ring computer) and she has a preference for making creature shapes with the ring. If curious, do a search for "Jordan Kincaid" on rpgnet's forums (that's the character name, not the poster) and maybe you can find more. You can see what I mean when I say I'm not a great colorist... Anywho...

Re: Captain America's Shield

Re: Captain America's Shield

Re: Captain America's Shield

Re: Superman for President? I read that Paragon's motivation is that he's not always there to do that job. This eliminates that problem. Those in power might very well consider this a workable solution without surrendering the country to someone who's not a member of their political party or is likely to make changes that impact them and their supporters. You said it eliminates his motivation. His motivation, as described, is to protect the President and he is seeking office so that the President is safe from super-powered threats. Conscripting him and assigning him this duty in no way eliminates his motivation, what it does do is focus him on the task he is so concerned about. If he truly is a mom, country, and apple pie Paragon and concerned about his rep as an American icon he's going to be looking at quite a bumpy road if he decides that he's going to spite the system by carrying out his duty in a sub-par manner. Most soliders don't want to go to the wars they are sent to. People called to Jury duty almost never want to go to that (and often go to quite some unusual lengths to get out of it). Avoiding civic duty is a criminal offense, however. In Paragon's case, he's an ex-military man. Upon signing up, he agreed (or was forced to agree via draft or selective service registration at 18) that he could be called back if deemed necessary by those in power. All American males face this and, luckily, most of us do not have unique abilities that make us targets for this. When this highly trusted indivudal starts a campaign that says his powers are the only way to protect the President and if the powers that be agree... ding. He's tapped for it. He'll protect the President. That's thought #1. "Let's make him President" isn't even going to enter their minds. What person or people are going to rationally decide that "the best way to protect me, as a person of power, is to put me out of a job, out of power and replace me?" Presidents don't have such power. No matter how good a President he might be, these same mental threats can influence everybody else and render his resistance moot. They would cancel each other out as he gets nothing done and they get nothing done. That means the primary use is that he's harder to kill. Since Presidents don't walk around in heavy armor and undergo rigorous combat training and such, I would say that the system, itself, is quite satisfied with the idea of an elite bodyguard program. His "the only way to keep the President safe" angle would work against him moreso than for him. It's fearmongering. It's saying that only super tough guys who claim to be resistant to mental influences are fit to rule. It's no longer government "by the people" but by the ubermensch. The parties and politicans aren't going to favor this. They aren't going to favor seeing each and every one of their offices becoming vulnerable to takeover by superpowered beings who can step up and say "I should be the Governor of New York. I can't be killed like that other guy." These are things to consider in a campaign. I might have gotten the wrong idea of the campaign, if it's a real silver age style... it's all a non issue. I've concluded it must be more realistic with the recent intro of supers and the use of real world politicians (and assumedly, their politics and all it entails). My response was most definitely of the cowboy variety before I deleted it The question is, how realistic is the campaign? You can't believe those in power are going to roll over so easily when everything is at stake. The money, the power, their careers, etc. If Paragon is truly a beacon of light, hope, and responsibility... it's not really making a problem. This guy is going to do his best, right? Anyway, these are things to consider and could be highly applicable to a realistic campaign. They can be used or ignored. Whatever makes a good story and brings the most fun. If there are more interesting stories by making him President, then do that. It's a no brainer. If you're fishing for ideas on what stories could come from this idea... I've just offered some (and also pointed out some legal stuff you might want to change in a super-powered world - I prefer my supers worlds to be closer to the ideal we hold than the reality, myself). For example, there might be a crew of operatives dedicated to finding out secret ID's for the purpose of a "national security" draft of service. You can't call up "Megaloman" but you can certainly tap "Kent Clarkson." The "good guys" can be more annoying than the bad guys sometimes

Re: Superman for President? He's using the real world politicians, I'm assuming the world is similar to real world in many regards with a recent introduction of super powered beings, and he asked for comments or the pointing out of holes concerning the idea. I responded to the thread starter with possible impacts on the idea. If you want to discuss changes to laws, new laws, or new political angles to a super powered world, fine. However, personal opinions about politics, laws, and so forth belong elsewhere. Slamming someone over answering the question, on topic, because you don't agree with the morality of it is definitely out of line. There are numerous political soapboxes out there you can participate in. The Champions board isn't one of them.

Re: Superman for President? His political motivation? Or his motivation to protect the office of the President? The former, how? There is none. The latter, no. Aside from protecting the President. Which is Paragon's entire friggin' platform and the basis for his fearmongering "the President is in danger". Perhaps you'd be more comfortable insulting me elsewhere before I get this thread locked by responding to you in my stereotypical, American way?

Re: Superman for President? Suddenly, Paragon is not much of a Paragon. "Wah, I don't want to protect the President. I quit this stupid job!" Essentially, his running platform is worthless and will serve only to get him (and others) assigned to Presidential protection. He's going to need a LOT more than threats and fearmongering - which is what he's doing, claiming the President is only safe if HE is President.

Re: Superman for President? Which is not hard to do since "there is no way to protect the President otherwise."

Re: Captain America's Shield Odd thought: If Cap's shield can absorb impact (thus preventing knockback, thus allowing him to survive falls, etc) how the heck does he get it to ricochet and bounce when he throws it?

Re: Superman for President?

Re: Superspeed! Well, it's something wacky for someone with fairly rough sonic attacks. As it's not explained and not something we've ever seen before... it's questionable. Add to that, it seemed to have been removed with little trouble (GA removed it, assumedly, before he started working on her handcuffs while GL was getting thrashed). We both know that the bag stopped it somehow and we weren't given much more. Shoving a rolled up towel or something down her throat is more easily bought, imo. *shrug* And that would have been acceptable to me. We seem to agree here, too. Ordinarily, I would agree with you 100%. However... The length of dialog is already used, in the fight itself, to display the pace/speed of the actions. I have no choice but to use it as a measure since the author set that rule in the beginning. So it's either time used (and thus, characters are acting poorly) or the pacing is discarded in which the writer is writing poorly. This shows more of the poor work here. In all the scrambling and chaos (and after hearing impairing explosions, I'd add) he can hear someone's jaw click. I can only assume that GA moving around and drawing an arrow (which, iirc, includes disengaging a lock in the quiver click click) is hard to miss after they hype up his awareness levels (hearing jaws click, looking at and shooting a microscopic being) and tactical ability. Even if GA managed to be that sneaky, he's not fast enough to stab a guy whom we just established as having reflexes fast enough to trick the Flash and to do things like draw a bag, leap a distance and bag and strip-tie someone's head between their mouth opening and their voice coming out. Sure, Deathstroke is focusing on something, but with all that brainpower and tactical ability, I can't believe he's that out of the loop or that he so totally discounted GA's fighting prowess. This guy has combat experience out the wazoo. In this instance, Deathstroke is portrayed as too weak (as opposed to, perhaps, too powerful). Compared to the level of damage he has been shown to fight through, easily, without missing a beat I consider it "no harm." Deathstroke doesn't carry any emotional burdens over the eye. He flat out flaunts the fact that he's missing an eye, doesn't care if you know it, and he's still good enough to put you in your place. GA is narrating, I believe, (not Deathstroke's wishful thinking) and the next panel clearly shows 4 broken fingers (or, at the very least, 4 severely dislocated fingers). In the following panel, look how far away GA is... there's definitely some footfalls needed (over rubble) for him to get close enough to jump on Deathstroke's back. Again, if I'm to believe his senses are acute enough for such rapid reactions vs Black Canary, I have to wonder what happened vs GA. Again, in this part of the fight, Deathstroke deserves better. Granted, we're going over this with a fine tooth comb, but there's just simply strong errors which make this fight crappy, imo. Flash chest ramming Deathstroke. The Atom being slammed with a laser pointer. Green Lantern trying to throw a punch at Deathstroke, at all. Deathstroke totally discounting and ignoring Green Arrow just because his arrows could not be launched with his bow. Deathstroke flipping out over a some pain. Just poorly executed, imo, with seemingly wild power fluctuations within the same fight (usually you need to wait for a new story arc for that kind of drastic shift), pacing established and then discarded. Both Deathstroke and the JLA deserve better. This could have been a beautiful battle for us fanboys.

Re: Do You Design Characters for the Team?? I try to build around not stealing someone else's thunder. Often I have multiple ideas and wait to see what everyone else builds then let them help me narrow down my choices. If I build something first, then screw the other guys... I'm going to outshine 'em

Re: Good Natured Brawling They were updated in Distopia (Atlas Games?) a licensed product for Hero back in the old days - the idea was that the process Dr. Koo used to empower them became unstable and their powers went a little wild (UV turned into an energy being, Diamond became crystalline, etc). IIRC.

Re: Good Natured Brawling Actually, Firsbee wasn't in the Geodesics. The Geodesics were Dart, Orb, Ultraviolet and Diamond.

Re: I'm building a playable 350 wizard with no VPP That depends on the build, really. A MP with 5 slots is only 5ish points based on the initial description and not much to worry about. However, I can just see someone with an attack MP with many slots who loads up on advantages on the reserve (like AP, 0 End, no range mods, etc) and gets them for free on the slots, is all. If you allow it, you also have to figure out where your line in the sand is if the next guy is more aggressive with it. Might be an issue for some folks. Kind of moot, anyway, as that's how 5e does it

Re: Where does this lim/disad go? I was looking at about an hour or until he uses up all the energy (End Reserve is being used as kind of a timer... out of energy, revert to normal). The widget is just a way to collect and imbue more power into the character than he can do naturally. But the widget is only needed for the imbuing process, it has nothing to do with the actual use of the powers. Joe can collect solar energy naturally and use it to turn into Sunboy. As Sunboy, he can fly, throw around light rays, etc. The more energy he collects in order to transform, the more potent his Sunboy form is. Joe can use a "super solar panel" to collect more energy when he turns into Sunboy. He flies faster, shoot stronger light rays, etc. At this point he is more potent because he collected more energy at transformation, the solar panel has already done its job and is no longer needed.

Re: Where does this lim/disad go? My only concern with the cost is getting "too much" for the points and looking cheesy/point whoring/munchkinny. I like the Aid idea, it works real well based on the concept, but I admit if I saw it on another character I would take pause because it's a cheap way to get a lot of oomf without being too limiting. If it only affected a few powers, I'd have less reservations. I've built up an Aid version, and see quite an advantage. I might try a middle ground idea where some of the powers are aided and other powers (the top end of them, partially limited) are dependent on it. Thus, if the main powers aren't benefiting from the Aid they aren't big enough for the sub-powers to get more oomf.

Re: I'm building a playable 350 wizard with no VPP Assuming, it's within my active point limit, I have no problem with that. Some people don't run AP limits, some run straight DC limits, some just eyeball effectiveness, whatever (for example, "difficult to dispel" and "personal immunity" usually aren't much of an issue in determining the strength of the power and might not be considered towards an AP limit by some GMs, but the extra points spent are just part of the character's gimmicks). To me, advantages on the reserve were always just a mechanical shorthand. A 12d6 0 End EB is 90 active points, thus, 90 Active points should be paid for. By constructing the pool as 60 + adv, the powers within are all X+adv (X=1 through 60, depending on what you buy). You don't get advantages for free. Some might find it more advantageous to buy a 90 pt reserve and adv the slots individually (they you can get, like, an 18d6 blast in there if youw anted), but if you have a 12 DC limit on the campaign, the 60+adv version is a very nice way to display yourself within those limits. Again, it's a kind of mechanical shorthand. Free Advantages on slots, though, go directly against the spirit of most of the system, in my opinion. Especially the emphasis on the "if it doesn't limit you, you don't get a limitation bonus." This says "it can help you and you get it for free!!" This is even more troublesome if you have many, many slots or if you have multiple advs on the reserve. While the caveat exists that the GM can poopoo the construction, the GM can poopoo ANY construction, anyway, so I'm failing to see the point. Anyway, just my take on it. By the book, it's legit.