IndianaJoe3

We succeeded in taking that picture, and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.
 
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.
 
Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity – in all this vastness – there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It's been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

I'd avoid using Hit Locations entirely. Low damage rolls are limb hits, high rolls hit the head or torso. Low stun multipliers that do BODY anyway slip through a chink in the armor, high multipliers that do little BODY are square hits that hit the armor solid. 

One tip that I haven't seen so far is to keep the CV spread fairly small - no more than 3 or 4. (If the lowest character has a CV of 5, the highest should be an 8.) Don't forget to include Skill Levels and maneuver bonuses in this. This is because the standard deviation of 3d6 is about 3, so that 3 CV spread keeps character's to-hit rolls towards the middle of the bell curve.
 
 

I see X as being a business rival of Rogen's. His original plan was to catch Rogan doing unauthorized gas mining, and get the concession/claim for that area himself. He'd sent the aliens into that area to record Rogan's activities, without expecting them to get captured. When that happened, he tipped off the authorities anonymously and concealed his involvement in the matter. (The aliens will not be happy when they learn he abandoned them.)
 
I'd thought about the idea of X having a mole in Rogen's organization somewhere. Freelyx's idea of Spencer being wired would work well for that. 

Maybe Rogen was being set up? The energy beings were planted where they were specifically to get Rogen in trouble and allow Entity X to take control of his operation. Naturally, X will try to prevent the misunderstanding from being cleared up. OTOH, once the mission is completed, X will ignore the PCs (from his perspective, they're just hired muscle).

"Engage."
 
"I don't know how to turn off the weather machine!"

As your Heresy stat goes up, you get bonuses to interacting with xenos, technology skills, and generally everything involving creativity and unorthodox solutions, but you get penalties to interacting with any of the Imperial orders. Maybe you become more visible/accessible to Warp beings? I'm not really up on 40K fluff.
 
If you switch from calling the stat "Heresy" to "Orthodoxy", then the CoC "Sanity" model works really well. Learning things reduces your Orthodoxy stat. Your Orthodoxy stat is what you roll against to avoid losing Orthodoxy. Exposure to evidence that the world doesn't work the way that the official Imperium doctrine says it does calls for an Orthodoxy roll. When you talk to Inquisitors you have to make an Orthodoxy roll to avoid inadvertently saying something heretical, etc.

"I'd like to live just long enough to be there when they cut off your head and put it on a pike as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors come at too high a price. I would look up into your lifeless eyes and wave, like this. Can your associates arrange that for me, Mr. Morden?"

Thank you.

This was the requires multiple foci suggested by, IIRC, Steve Long to represent multiple items in a slot which can be taken partially away.  The example used was actually for grenades hanging off a belt.  It didn't seem right that a person could grab a grenade and take all the grenades.  The reduced effect is said to be the reduction in charges.

"You don't meet many mad social scientists."

Drumsticks for everyone!

Negligent firearm discharge
Unexpected allergic reaction

Drumsticks for everyone!

You could also use Damage Negation. I created this for large vehicles.
 
Size Matters:  Damage Negation (-6 DCs Physical, -6 DCs Energy) (60 Active Points); Limited Power (Only vs generalized damage) (-1/2), Limited Power (Not vs AoE Attacks) (-0) (40 pts)

"I can't tell if the mechanics are stretching to prepare for a pit stop, or doing the Hokey Pokey."
 - Me, watching the late-night hours of the 24 Hours of le Mans

This is one of those parts of the system that is in a bad spot, mechanically. Honestly, I would just say Sight has Discriminatory by default, and not deal with this vague half-step of what "mostly discriminatory" means. It's an unnecessary system complication.

"We've got a party later, Krosp. Try not to fill up on snacks."

If I was becoming a Themed Avenger, I would choose one of the military-derived arts (Commando training, krav maga, etc). I'd be less concerned about the philosophical aspects and more concerned with how to take a bad guy down.

This lion could be Fabio. It's just a whim away.

This lion could be Fabio. It's just a whim away.

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...
 
Our heroes (in a PAH setting) have some down time, so they head to the beach.
 
Johnny Longshot (normal human, sniper): "I'm going to learn to surf."
 
Tass (telekenetic mutant): "Sounds like a good idea. Of course, I'll just be using my flight at zero altitude and sticking myself to my surfboard."
 
JL: "That still counts. They also surf who only stand on waves."