Old Man

The Maginot Line was less about physical barriers and more about heavy concrete emplacements filled with artillery and machine guns. Take out the latter, and you're left with infantry and small arms in bunkers and trenches that would last until the tanks got past the obstacles. The biggest effect would be political. It'd still be harder for the Germans to push through the line than it was for them to go through the Ardennes, but it would probably have left Belgium and the Netherlands neutral for a few more critical months, until the Germans got around to occupying them.

I, too, am used to giving mentalists some twist or other power to use just to make sure they don't become irrelevant. Typically they wind up with some sort of physical armor (to prevent them from getting killed) and TK or some other physical attack (so they're still useful against robots and natural disasters). But part of what drives this is that mental powers seem kind of vanilla. If the SFX is psi, then telepathy is telepathy, mind control is mind control. It's very hard to make a 'pure' mentalist that is distinctive in some way.

Employ a large RKA against the source of the Change Environment?

Also, the shark should be on fire. Still extremely cool though.

I'd certainly prefer a "pure" mentalist that had no martial arts or EB. Otherwise you're veering into martial artist or energy projector territory. It's hard to resist adding telekinesis to the power set, but I'm more interested in a character that mostly operates on telepathic terms.

I read a few of these, inconsistently. The only series I really remember anything about is Flare, which did veer towards erotic fanfic but which was also a tongue in cheek, almost satirical take on superheroine comics. That's what I took the constant wardrobe malfunctions as, anyway.

Could be worse--my job doesn't give sick days. The fashion around here is to lump vacation and sick time into "PTO" (paid time off), which conveniently adds up to the amount of hours you would get if you just eliminated sick leave. So basically, if you want to be out sick, you have to burn vacation days. Which is why there are always sick coworkers wandering around the office spreading germs.

Having dated women with this power, I'll only add that a linked drain against INT and EGO might also be appropriate. Because what the hell was I thinking?!

Neat, I hadn't noticed the alternate attack roll system in 6E.

I have to say, while decoupling is a highly visible change, I wouldn't call it drastic. Especially when, again, it fixes a rules area that was obviously, mathematically, broken. Drastic would be going off 3d6 or getting rid of half the powers in the powers list.

Argh! Where is the rep button?! I did an orbital mechanics simulation for my junior level mechanics class. Showing trojans and resonant orbits. All in frickin' QuickBASIC which was already dreadfully ancient at the time.

What's the BODY and DEF of a bag of mostly salt water with some trace elements and a hard, calcium-based supporting structure?

There's a big difference between combat balance and general game balance. HERO can only really try for the latter given that things like Seduction skill cost points. And on top of that, there's no way there can be a one-size-fits-all points cost scheme that works for every possible type of campaign. For example, STR used to be way too cheap in fantasy campaigns, because it defined how much damage your character could inflict.* But the original figured stats costs were so broken that buying up certain primaries effectively had negative cost. That clearly doesn't fly regardless of campaign. We've gotten by with band-aids like only selling back one figured stat, but that's what they were, band-aids. What's interesting to me is that despite the obvious brokenness of figured characteristics, even I find myself only grudgingly accepting the new system. It's unfamiliar in a lot of ways. I'm used to having a really good grasp of what a given characteristic value means in-game; I've had a hell of a lot of practice with the figured system that now is out the window; I always liked that related characteristics were mathematically joined. Why am I not over the moon about the change? Nostalgia and laziness, at least for me. *In 6e it also reduces encumbrance penalties, so now it's waaaaay too cheap.

Are you saying his dangly bits aren't vital?

So would you say the x5 STUN mult is accurate?

Honestly I myself am not thrilled about decoupling, but I see it as the lesser evil for a balance problem that really did need to be solved. The ideal solution, in my arrogant opinion, would have been to cost primary stats appropriately as was done in the OP, and keep the stats coupled. But if you do that then it throws the costing for powers out of whack, and then we'd have had to go blow those up too. Decoupling is certainly less intuitive but in the long run it's the cleaner way to solve the balance issue. I'd like to think that that would be enough to convince any veteran HEROphile, but I think the real way to go is just to get them past character creation and into the actual gaming, where coupling matters not. Have a one-off with preconstructed characters, or convert their old characters for them.

That Na Pali pic is seriously squashed horizontally.

That would be quite a loss, but this particular discussion does seem to be making you unusually cranky. To veer back on topic, my suggestions for the issue of veteran Hero gamers not liking the elimination of figureds: seriously, have they tried a couple of games under the new system? I admit I liked that stats were interrelated too, and it doesn't help that stats are Step One in character creation, so it's the first thing you trip over in 6e. But as Shrike has pointed out, there has always been violence imbalance inherent in the figureds system, and Hero had to bite the bullet on that eventually. And once you're past character creation and actually playing, figureds are irrelevant.

I think the most frequently recurring theme in my dreams is that I'm always surrounded by idiots. I got in the pickup and reversed it out of the loading dock. It was so huge, and the suspension and transmission were so soft, that it felt very much like driving a large boat. I headed back up the road to meet up with my friend. As the road ran out, turning into a faint dirt track through the scrub, I noticed a tornado off to my right. I sped to where my friend was waiting--out in the middle of nowhere, no idea what he was doing there--and yelled at him to get in the truck, which he eventually did. The tornado was closing on us pretty fast, kicking up plenty of orange dust on the way, but it was small enough that we'd probably be safe in the truck. Just then I noticed a young woman outside the truck carrying a small toddler. There wasn't even time to roll the window down; all I could do was pound on the window and point. She saw the tornado, which was about fifty yards away, and turned and ran--without watching the tornado. Naturally it moved on an intercept course and ran right over her and the kid, who disappeared in the dust. As the tornado passed I leapt out of the truck to find them. The tornado had knocked them down, and the kid was crying, but they were all right.

It seems like any astronomical event of any significance results in solid overcast here. Especially meteor showers. There was one day when I might have been able to look for the comet, but I had to leave work early that day to rush home, where the clouds were.

A new ABS pump/VDC computer unit costs one thousand American dollars. On top of the suspension work that it also needs, it looks like that car is not going to answer the bell. Otoh the problem is intermittent, so in theory we could still drive it. I mean, what the hell, it's just the brakes. Who uses those anyway?

"Thank you for not running me over."

This morning I did not run over the donorcyclist who dumped his bike in front of me, though only barely. Poor guy. I ruined my tires standing on the brakes, but they were long in need of replacement anyway, so I didn't mind so much. In fact I have a new set on order already. But now the ABS computer in my wife's car has failed, and such is the awesome engineering of a luxury brand that it took the VDC and slip control with it. Now it is 4pm on a weekday, I am headed into another mandatory all hands meeting, and I have no idea how my wife is going to get to work tomorrow. Nor do I have any idea where to come up with the money to buy another car. I suppose I could sell the house.

Oh look, a mandatory all-hands company meeting has been called with less than 90 minutes' notice. I wonder if it will be good news? [/sarcasm]

I can get in, though I have no login there. Still problems?