Blackberry

Re: Multipower help and clarification

I would say it should be Inherent, unless someone could drain or dispel your elvenness. If it's something like a magical trick that elves are taught, then I would say it's fine.

Re: Stretching at Range

To me it would mean that you could start your stretch at a point at range and then stretch from that point.

Stretching is already indirect by nature, unless it's Limited to only straight lines. I'd say buy TK or EB-Indirect to model that.

Re: A temporary universal portal

Due to many of these concerns, I dropped the original "tunnel" concept myself.

Re: Heroic Level Hit Locations

I would have ruled it an additional -2 to hit beyond the hit location modifier in exchange for a +1 to the STUN multiple (assuming a killing attack). I wouldn't give any extra BODY damage for free beyond the hit location mod.

Re: Mental Booby Trap

What about RKA BOECV linked to a Mental Block maneuver? The Block represents actively pushing the Secrets Man Was Not Meant To Know to the forefront.

Re: Lose Weakness

yeah' date=' that is pricey, but toss it into a EC and it's a little easier to take I suppose...[/quote']

 

And it has the benefit of not needing a special ruling on Change Environment, plus it's tough for the weakness finder to overcome it except by Power Defense or running away.

Re: Lose Weakness

How about this:

Absorption, any attack where Find Weakness was used, absorbed points go into...

Suppress Find Weakness, ranged, continuous, uncontrolled, sticky.

Re: A temporary universal portal

I do still want that tunnel effect. You do still have to traverse the 10" to the other side of the gate; you just can ignore anything intervening.

Almost sounds more like Desolid, but how to buy limitations that restrict where you can walk while desolid?

Also, with Teleport and Gate, how to buy it so you can move one of the gate ends while it's open?

Re: Armored Cheongsam

As a GM, I'd say you choose; 13 or 14 both could be argued if you go by body area exposure.

Re: Variable disadvantage

This is interesting. What is it in the nature of this character that they have a randomized Vulnerability?

Re: Enhanced Senses = Flash Vulnerability

I might go with Susceptibility -- instead of extra effect, take some STUN along with the effect.

Re: Idea for flashback-driven campaign

One of my campaigns at HC had some flashbacks involved' date=' but not nearly to the extent that you speak. Would there be any conflict with villains in the flashbacks? It would seem to take out the possibility of death, bringing the tension down. If the flashbacks are all role-play then I think you have a winning idea here.[/quote']

 

The idea I have currently is that almost all of the conflicts and fights with villains would be in the flashbacks.

 

The possibility of death is one of the tricky issues. For one thing, I'm generally against a PC just dying, unless the player agrees that the situation was genuine and the PC's death is warranted and appropriate -- such as with a last-ditch dramatic, heroic act and not just in vain.

 

If we decided that the character was simply on the brink of death, the next flashback could start with their release from the hospital after they awoke from their coma a year later. We could even have flashbacks while they're in the hospital, with the player playing a sidekick, guest star hero, police detective, etc.

 

If the player and I decided that death was appropriate, then we'd have to figure something out. We could retcon their taking part in the current timeline as "I wish she were here right now; I've been imagining how she would handle this investigation, and I think she would have looked at this and this". The player could make their next character a shapeshifter who was just taking on the dead PC's form to meet with an old nemesis. We could say that the mechanics expert on the team could have built a robotic simulacrum of the dead PC to fool an old contact.

 

There are always options. This idea would require lots of buy-in by the players to succeed, but I think it could be worth it.

 

Needless to say, leaving a villain for dead and then having him show up alive later is a standard genre trope.

Re: A temporary universal portal

Oh, awesome, thanks!

I've been putting together ideas lately for a new modern-day supers campaign. The central idea I have so far may be a little reminiscent of Watchmen in appearance but not in execution. Tell me if you think this works or if you have better ideas for how to deliver it.

It's 20 years after a standard supers campaign. The heroes have all retired from the superhero business after saving the world one last time and leaving it in the hands of a younger generation of superpowered heroes. (I don't know yet if there was a group retirement or one-by-one.) They've all moved on to other jobs -- perhaps one became a B-grade action film star, one went into tax accounting, one became a bus driver, etc. But they're done with the limelight.

Then something occurs that shakes things up; something connected to that last big world-saving act of heroism rears its head again -- I don't know what yet -- and our retired heroes are driven by duty and need to band together once again and investigate.

As they talk with old contacts, visit old foes in prison, rummage through former battle sites, etc., it triggers a flashback sequence of scenes from those events 20-30 years ago. And that's where the bulk of the action in the campaign takes place. Any one flashback could be just one scene or it could be several sessions worth of connected scenes. Discovering the current plot line would uncover the fact that seemingly disconnected plots in the past were actually connected this whole time.

The characters on the character sheets would be built as they were when they first banded together as a team -- perhaps some were on the team already, but the first flashback would establish how they all came together as a unit to work on what was the original plot. Working through the campaign and the flashbacks, the characters would eventually develop to the point of the present-day campaign (as they were when they retired), where the final set pieces and action scenes would take place, once the plot is uncovered.

Now, that would mean that, as Experience is earned and spent, what's on the character sheet is progressing forward in time. It means every flashback would need to be in linear sequence -- none could occur out of order, unless we prepare separate "backups" of each character at specific "restore points" in the timeline, just in case we hop back there. I'm not in favor of that at all.

What I would like to do is give the players a bit of authorial control to set some of the terms of a flashback in exchange for extra Experience awards (so the characters develop more quickly up to the present day). So, I came up with the idea of "Challenges". When a flashback scene is being set up, a player could call out a Challenge for another player (see below). The Challenged player may decline the challenge ("No, that was Captain Incredible, not me") or accept it by Challenging the challenger or another player. So, only two players could be in on a Challenge, or three, or all players in a round robin.

Two types of Challenges:

- Power Challenge: the player could call out a particular small ability, portion of ability, Advantage, or implied Limitation that was bought off: "Oh yeah, that was before you learned to focus your Fire Blast to be so intense!" or "You didn't even have your fancy X-ray tracking goggles back then." or "I seem to recall that was back when you almost never could get that Deflection Shield to deflect properly!"

- Disadvantage Challenge: the player could call out a Disadvantage, such as a Hunted or DNPC or Vulnerability: "Oh, wasn't this the time that your Uncle Steve walked right out into the street and got captured by Black Mask?" or "I remember, GadgetMaster had just invented that freeze ray, that had your fire powers extinguished for almost the entire time!"

All players who accepted a Challenge for the scene, and did well in dealing with it, would get extra Experience. The Power Challenges would mollify some of the disjointed timeline caused by Experience development, as power control grows with use or atrophies from disuse.

What do you think? Would it work?

The character I'm imagining has a power somewhere between Gateway from the old X-Men comics and the Portal gun from the video game Portal.

He can create a short-hop teleportation gateway between two spots with only a short distance between (say 20 meters). He must be able to see both ends. He does not necessarily need to actually use the Teleport, i.e. step through the portal, to activate it for others.

The tricky part is that the gateway stays open for a few segments, and anyone can step through it and be at the other portal, be they friend or foe, and from either end to the other end.

It can't just be Usable By Others, as that connotes that the Other in question could select their own Teleport destination. It's not a fixed destination, as it can be set to be anywhere within range and distance when the power is fired off. It's not Usable As Attack, because it must be a willing participant to step through. It's almost like a Universal Focus, without the Focus, that burns out after a few segments. Tunneling? But there could be anything in between the two ends, including 19.9 meters thick of adamantium, air, or vacuum.

I will probably be putting Increased END Cost on it as well.

Any ideas?

Re: Affects Solid World

I played in a campaign with a character with Desolid, Always On, and Affects Phyiscal World on 1 point of STR, so that he could do things like walk and open doors.

I would rule that it would depend on the "switch" being "flicked". If he grabbed a grenade from a nearby enemy agent, pulled the pin, and dropped it, I'd allow that a few times, just like I'd allow Professor Liberty to pick up the agent's gun and get off a few shots with it.

If he bought RKA, Explosion, Focus (grenades), and he wants to use his 1 STR Affects Phyiscal World to say that he's pulling the pin on one of his grenades and dropping it, I'd say no. That's clearly stepping outside the bounds of the game system. He should buy Affects Physical World on his grenades.

Re: Endurance Reserve question

Here's a wacky idea. Take 1 pip of Healing END that can only heal the END Reserve. Funnel your Absorption into the Healing power. That way, you won't have to worry about going over the limits of the END Reserve or absorbing more when it's full.

Re: Damage Reduction

The idea that "in an infinite universe there are infinite possibilities" is a fallacy' date=' and thus the thinking that somewhere there is a dimension that matches the exact expectation I have for an altered state or reality is flawed, and the idea that to "alter" reality one instead just travels to a dimension where that state of reality is in existance is broken.[/quote']

 

I can think of a whole lot of things that happen in comic books that are impossible or ridiculous in real life. Why is this the one ridiculous thing you pick that absolutely must not be allowed? A man "becoming fire" makes a lot more sense somehow than hopping into an alternate parallel dimension?

 

If EDM allows one to "alter" reality by traveling to a dimension where what you want is possible then you don't need any other Power -- if you want to fly you EDM to a dimension where that is possible. If you want to kill someone you EDM to a dimension where they are dead -- or never even existed. If you wan't to solve a problem you EDM to a dimension where it is solved.

 

It completely destroys the fabric of a roleplaying game. It's a needless hack, and a game breaking one. IMO people that have fallen into the habit of using it to proxy for powerful and elaborate Powers other than travelling between time and dimensions (i.e., it's standard use), are being both intellectually lazy in not finding a correct way to do the effect on the one hand, and self-deluding on the other in thinking that they are doing anything other than just handwaving something away.

 

I'm currently playing a character whose powers are based around exactly this -- hopping into alternate timelines where things are just slightly different.

So far it's been great. Without the limits that my character has, sure, it would get ridiculous, but without those limits,

her powers could never be even close to fitting in 350 points.

Re: Help With Some Builds

I think OAF is appropriate (it took me some time to digest your thoughts on this) - If the specifc weapon is not there, the spell cannot be cast (even though once cast, it hangs around for a while). And, once cast, if you take away that specific weapon, the Power is not usable (or, more likely, usable by the person that took the weapon away .)

 

Thank you for your comment; it helped me clarify my thinking on how the spell should work.

That's right. It's the same as a Brick with bare Hand Attack OAF written as grabbing a nearby lamppost/car/mailbox/enemy Brick and whacking their opponent with it. It's not a Focus like Green Lantern's ring, where there's only one and it generates the power that then emanates from it, but you must still have the Focus in order to use the power.

Re: Help With Some Builds

I wouldn't use OAF for this.

The problem is, if you don't specify that the power requires a focus, then you can just add +1d6 HKA to your fist, which doesn't necessarily reflect what the spell does.

Re: Can't have power defense, limitation or disad?

It might be worth a 5 point Physical Limitation -- "Can't be aided by magic powers". Even if someone were to apply Power Defense to him via Aid or some such, it wouldn't "take". That's worth at least some disadvantage.

Re: Help building a mental illusion-based invisibility

The way I envisioned it, and your GM may differ, is that the ECV is to determine when someone looks at the area, whether they see the images or not.

 

If they fail that roll, they see the images, but can still have a chance of telling they are "fake" with the normal perceptions rules.

They have to hit me with ECV to perceive the illusion? So I can really only affect mentalists with it, and average people wouldn't stand a chance of perceiving it?

If their ECV roll is successful, then they get to get to subtract thier EGO roll from the total images effect, affecting the Perception modifier for them. With a high enough EGO, they can easily ignore the images pesented, maybe they appear as pale ghosts. It's really up the GM.

 

As far as the Applicable Defense (for BOECV) goes, since the power is versus Perception, I would rule that Flash Defense would be applicable to those that have it, as a direct modifier to the Perception Roll in favor of the character seeing the images.

The images are coming from inside their own mind. I'm not actually making light-based illusions. It's coming from inside my mind and being projected into theirs. So sunglasses won't help.

And it's never meant to be something where someone actually believes a rave party just appeared out of nowhere -- that's what the Mental Illusions are for. This is just a concealment.

This is of course, just my own personal opinion.

- Christopher Mullins

Re: Help building a mental illusion-based invisibility

On the idea of Images BOECV... what would the BOECV do exactly? For normal Images, the viewer makes a PER roll to disbelieve. Would BOECV mean they would make an EGO roll? Would they get to add Mental Defense to their PER roll somehow?

Re: Help building a mental illusion-based invisibility

Hmm, Darkness based on Ego somehow and always thrown on himself? It's essentially just Invisibility at that point, right, since he'll always hit himself with the Darkness and it's infallible?

Re: Help building a mental illusion-based invisibility

I do like the idea of saving a few points, but I think my GM and I will like it better if I go with the Images and link some levels with DCV and Stealth to give a definite effect. I'll probably stair-step the levels to match the successfulness of the Images.