zornwil

Re: Mental Powers

Re: Mental Powers Complete tangent by taking it out of context: Here here!

Re: Mentalist Conundrum That's an interesting approach, I like it. DR, as a corollary, based on your experience, how do you feel it would work, then if EGO were 1 for 1 but MD were 1 for 2 (or even 1 for 3), inverting the costs, which I feel might reflect how you're approaching it.

Re: Exponential VS Linear ? I think they're okay...I guess I'd have to see how it scales, but it seems reasonable. Feel free, but don't knock yourself out on this on my account.

When Megascale first came out, I was very suspicious of it, even against it at the very first, but realized it could address several important genre considerations well and decided to cautiously allow it. I've felt good about the results so far. It's been used with Clairsentience reasonably, and our mentalist has it used with an interesting "Area Headache" minor effect that simply reflects her projection of annoyance. That latter example is my favorite example, good fun and very in-character and definitely non-abusive (arguably even over-priced). I'm curious as to others' examples and if anyone has developed any sort of formal "best practice" thoughts? PS - I would also add, a good use of Megascale as well is for plot hooks, which it basically begs. That Megascale Clairsentience - someone powerful may be (depending on your world) bound to notice and become very interested. Megascale Attacks similarly get noticed! Megascale Movement..."what's causing those little tornado effects rippling through the area...".

One factor in many campaigns is how commonly are people able to defend against mental attacks, especially heroes, and, just as importantly, how common are mentalists and therefore techniques to defeat them. To make this black and white for simplicity, a world with very few mentalists and little mentalist defense ends up with mentalists being very powerful de facto as few supers, then, have a rationale, frequently, to have any MD. Not saying no supers will, but generally so many won't that mentalists are much more likely to really slam someone immediately or, conversely, have some otherwise-regular sort of gradient of results from some resistance to lots. Whereas a world with many mentalists and/or reason to build defenses against mentalists often end up with weakened mentalists as just about every "important" NPC and almost all the PCs have some sort of reason to build up strength against mentalists. It's hard to hit a sweet spot in-between without being either a little wonky (which isn't necessarily a bad thing) by explaining how defenses are "just rare enough" and mentalists "just not enough of a threat" so that major supers with means don't all end up with some significant MD as well as techniques for at least the highest-level human security officers. You have to resort to some sort of esoteric production process or some limitations on the top end of what mentalists generally/mostly do to account for this or otherwise have a reason to have that combination of retardation of defenses and some regularity of mental powers/defenses. I'm not suggesting anything wrong at all with all of the in-genre defenses, such as mentalists not just sitting around their amazing fortress and reaching out and sniping others while sipping brandy, and also mentalists hiding from combat all the time, lurking around corners. I'm just saying that mostly we all end up with some interesting rationales and approaches to balance mental powers. And I would point out that often these simply put mental powers at one end or the other of the spectrum and just rely on good RPing to be sensible about it. For example, I know some have mentalists as rare and mental defenses very light except for rare justifications, but it works because mentalists don't go "too far" and/or the mental powers are restrained. And on the other end, which I tend to play, mental defenses are kind of common, but mentalists can certainly buy up significant power levels and they keep it in check except for the needed dramatic moments by in-genre roleplaying and character personas. So all this rambling is, nothing heavy here, no philosophy of something right or wrong, just wondering on others' thoughts on this, and how they address it?

Re: Exponential VS Linear ? And this is why I'd like to see a dumbed-down chart or simple formula (such as lift in phase = (whatever)).

Re: Exponential VS Linear ? I was thinking more in terms of correlating tangible things like lift/etc. to DC, sorry, I must have misunderstood.

Re: Exponential VS Linear ? Well, I'd be glad to see both.

Re: How much XP do you give and why? I like your method, TheEmerged, I wouldn't do it that way as I don't run so goal-oriented but in a way what I do is similar. The core part of my XP/Rep system is how the PCs do against the nature of the challenge. The challenge is qualified as: BIG BAD!; stacking the odds against the players; tough, a worthy challenge; about even, but not enough color; interesting but not that powerful; a background NPC or nuisance. I used a slightly different scale before but changed it to this to relate the level of challenge also to plot, so that "BIG BAD!" is of course a major bad guy, the type that drives a plot or major sub-plot of importance, whereas "about even, but not enough color" means that the villain or the situation wasn't meant to be a major story bit or at least turned out not to be, just your regular thuggy who's tough enough to fight but is the type that the reader just knows can't really affect the PC despite perhaps an appearance of evenness.

Re: Champions Universe Combined Timeline Well, I dunno, this is reference, I think it treads the line between fair use on the board/website and violation, but you raise a sound point, MitchellS. Still, I'm sure (as I know you probably are) that the poster intended no harm and did this without thinking about that, and I applaud the effort.

Re: How do you feel about Superheroes that kill? Well, that says it all about the campaign and the GM right there. :

Re: How do you feel about Superheroes that kill?

Re: How do you feel about Superheroes that kill?

Re: Exponential VS Linear ? I know I saw it before, but if you don't mind, where is your chart?

Re: Mental Powers I think both Hugh and I have granted that this "Machine" class of minds is where the concept gains legitimacy, as there is a built-in constraint in the system prior to this and while it could be somewhat resolved with a -0 Lim, it was very unclear as to whether that made sense, based on the rules, there was still the issue of not having EGO. But, and I sort of hate to say it because I find it to be cluttering, perhaps it would have been better to have "Brain Mental Defense" and "Machine Mental Defense", more consistent with PD and ED. Most characters would have 0 MMD although cyborgs would have some of both, often with an emphasis in one or the other...or you define Mental Armor as BMD and MMD. Like I said, I don't think I like it and I might find that creating a whole new sub-system for Class of Mind is a better solution, because it does address more elegantly that one is typically one or the other and there is a lack of vulnerability to whatever you are not, which BMD and MMD does not do. But there is no real justification as there was not, to my mind, a significant demand/issue regarding the distinction among Human, Animal, and Alien. And defining them this way is indeed an unusual SFX distinction as it is so specific, and I simply don't think Mental Powers are or have been that specific in implementation in some 90+% of games, though of course I only guess. The thing is, this basically states that Mental Powers work in a certain manner, and that is restrictive to an unknown, fantastic quality that has no real-world (and therefore neither in heroic fiction, which is of course our real bar) definition. See, PD and ED have a real-world basis, we understand the essential difference and it obeys physical mechanics familiar both in the real and therefore the fantasy world. Their derivation, though one could (and some do) argue is already too much SFX, is obvious to even the casual reader. And the notion of how Energy can affect you differently than Physical is as well. But how do Mental Powers work? One could claim they are pure energy transmission which can be broadcast into the target mind and that certain breeds have recepters for their own breed of generators. One could claim they are magic and go just about anywhere with that, depending on the type of magic. One could claim they are a broadcast of energy which physically manipulates the target mind, different than the prior situation in allowing modification to any target mind, depending on familiarity and use. One could claim that a brain broadcasts thoughts and images as such and receiving brains get them and interpret them within the receiving brain's context however the physical aspect works. And so on. Each of these has different implications, and some may beg Lims or Advs depending on the setting. I think a simple and central issue is that, as I said, Mental Powers are fantastic and not real-world rooted (well, not yet anyway!). So, in the heroic fiction we emulate, they vary tremendously in implementation. Thus modelling it needs to be extremely flexible and GM-driven. I don't think CoM as stated is "extremely" flexible nor does it really leave things GM-driven. Back to the discussion on Machine "minds", in fact, I see more strength as we consider it not as implemented but if one were to take that example and expand upon it for "how to create a CoM like Machine", then we can also see that we create a method to shift the Char focused against, and we see that the notion is that the char is one typically built up for those superior in that Class, so there is no bonus or penalty because the Char is more or less highly valued than EGO. Perhaps we want to say that among the Animals, their CON is more indicative of their hardiness and what really drives their "EGO", so we can create Animal Class, use CON instead of EGO for Def. It is actually a rather nice mechanic at that point, if elaborated on and clear in regard to the purpose of its implementation. And it leaves various questions on sentient and animal mental issues to GMs, where they belong.

Re: The Last Word Yes, I do, actually, I didn't at first but looked at your post (quoted to see the details) and now I see.

Re: Champions Universe Combined Timeline On mine: Eurostar attacks Sanctuary to get at the alien Enon. They are forced to retreat by the staff, the Champions (who were there at the time), and Euroguard, who had followed the villains to the U.S. Helix Technologies succeeds in creating a human clone with peak normal human abilities. Named Cameron, he is rapidly matured in a special nutrient tank developed by the lab.

Re: "Grond smash!" and other Grond plots That's cool, I like that a lot, very nice. Thinking about that, you could do a related plot where a team member among the PCs learns somehow about this side of Grond, perhaps a mentalist picking up his mental projection or such. Of course it would have to be a PC compelled to help. Anyway, the team then deals with helping the real Grond get out.

Re: The Last Word Huh? "edit :("

Re: Disadvantages of being Undead That was priceless cutsleeve!

Re: Could your Champions character beat... I dare you to! But I could...

Re: The Last Word HA! You fell for my trap - "Last edited by Onyxclaw : Jun 24th, '05 at 08:37 PM. " Now we know! You thought you couldn't get that past me, could you, huh? Uh...huh?

Re: The Last Word HA HA you said "frown" instead of "drown" and it totally discredited your point, now we can point and laugh and I have the last word!

Re: The Last Word Yes, Cruella!