unclevlad

Not sure I agree there, CRT. So, yeah, what you're saying may be correct, but this suggests the bar to clear isn't particularly high. Side thought...LOS isn't significant for this discussion. Power doesn't need it. The key aspect is the penetrating nature of Spatial. You *can* buy the Mental Illusions with Normal Range (base points x10 meters)...and even Limited Range on top of that, if you want. It'll still work when you're a few rooms away from your victim. But this is also why people have commented about the untouchable mentalist, when you start combining mental powers with a penetrating sense.

I would require you to buy them as Detects. IR and Ultrasonic are priced as adders. Plus, these would be very, very limited by comparison. IR is rather indistinct; it wouldn't readily let you distinguish most objects in a room. Can't see an image on a monitor. Ultrasound, can't hear anyone speaking to you.

The balance is, he can't do it for free. Someone pays for them with character points, in a superhero campaign, or with money in a heroic campaign.

Red Sox coaching staff is in deep doo-doo, I think. 2nd inning. Cleveland has runners on 1st and 3rd, no outs. Rolling ground ball between pitcher and first. First baseman takes 5 full steps to his right to try to snare a ball...when you can see the 2nd baseman in position behind him to make the play. First baseman clanks the ball off his glove...well, he's moving. Ball deflects towards 2nd. He continues that way, picking it up. He then whirls and tries to throw to first...blindly. And wildly. It hits the dugout fence, but the runner who started on 1st still makes it to 3rd. Cleveland ultimately scores 3 that inning. Then, in the 8th...same play. Rolling ground ball between pitcher and 1st. First baseman does it again...goes after the ball, clanks it, recovers, fires blind and wild, and throws it away. He only gets 1 error on this one because it only resulted in 1 base. Bad plays, yes...but worse instruction. The first baseman's job is NOT necessarily to try to grab any ball in range; and trying to make the wild, miracle play is generally a Very Bad idea. And the guy's mostly an outfielder...all the more reason to make sure he gets a LOT of practice time and guidance from the coaches.

Some of these died ages ago, like HoJo's. Not sure I can remember Arthur Treacher's at all.... I do remember Sambo's...and hooooo boy was their imagery racist as heck. I mean, it was blatant enough for a kid to see it, if not exactly understand it. Several of those are victims of corporate shenanigans...which isn't surprising. The ownership history of companies can be convoluted as heck, and as the (very good) host mentioned...buying a company can be done for a multitude of reasons. My favorite root beer was Hires...but they were bought out *many times*. They're a subsidiary of Keurig (yes, the coffee pods company) Dr. Pepper...and basically quashed in favor of A&W...which is a gross miscarriage of commerce. Speaking of franchise spaces getting razed...we had a Church's Chicken that was closed...oh, several years ago now. Before Covid. The building remained boarded up and fenced off...really something of an eyesore...for quite some time, then the whole site was leveled. It's still empty...at least a year later. But this hasn't been a great period to expand. Conversely...one of the local McD's decided it was a pretty good time to remodel. They took out the *entire* existing site; it had one of those play areas in front, that I heard was generally MUCH more of a problem than a draw...and a weird caboose-like thingy, disconnected from the main storefront, in the back...and rebuilt the entire site.

Well..... Arizona drafts Andruw Jones' kid #2 in the draft...some apparently had him rated #1. He signs for a nice, tidy $8.2M signing bonus. And injures his shoulder during his first MLB batting practice. Certainly out for the year. "Unsure" if he'll be ready for the start of spring training next year. Talk about a snake-bit franchise.......... In other news, Mike Trout has a rare spinal issue that, from reports, is going to be a problem for the rest of his career. The stories suggest it's largely manageable...but from the sound of it, it could flare up at any time and cost him time. It's a couple weeks this time. Worse, his track record is really bad. Since the start of the 2017 season, including this one, the Angels have played 806 games; Trout has played in 460. Obviously, last year was the worst, but he only played 140 in '18, so that's still missing 15% or so. And he's out at least for a while as he gets it looked at. It's blindly, foolishly optimistic to expect this will get better, too, as Trout gets older...unless there's some surgical repair option. Odds are that back surgery lays him out for a year...back surgery tends to need a LONG rehab.

Everything old becomes new again.

A snippet from a few days ago, from that article: Of course, if Cal joined them..... I'm not sure the SEC would care, quite honestly. In the major mens' sports, those 4 schools are afterthoughts...at best. Oregon had a few years under Chip...that's about it. A 20-team conference is a joke, too. It's impossible to have anything close to a legit champion, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if the bowl committee took a harder look at overall schedules...the conference regular season champ might well have been gobbling Ding Dongs. I'm also wondering if adding those 4 would be more *disruptive* than productive. Travel. Scheduling. Fan disinterest...diluting classic rivalries. Marketing issues...there's largely a Midwest focus to the conference now, but 6 West Coast teams...? Ugh. It'll be bad enough with UCLA and USC...if UCLA isn't blocked...but they have better reps and markets. If they try to swallow all 6 West Coast programs, I wouldn't be surprised if they choke...and within a very few years, shed some schools. Another issue with 20 schools is splitting the TV and bowl money in so many ways, that adding weak sisters definitely could be a net loss.

Sense is free....and your total would actually be 27. The costs are tricky. First, since all the built-in senses have both Sense and limited Discriminatory, I'm not sure they're even factored in. As Hugh noted, I think the root cost is tied to the complication value. 25 points would get you Very Frequently, Greatly Impairing. 5 more for it being a targeting sense, and 5 more for Range...that's 35 for Sight. For hearing, take your pick...decrease the frequency or the degree of impairment...deaf is usually easier to work around, I think (not *easy*, just easier than blind)...so I think it's got 20 points, plus 5 for range.

While I agree with the potential problem, it DOES work, by RAW. Page 148, emphasis mine: The limitation wouldn't apply just because it's looking through a wall. Besides...would you allow it if the character simply bought Penetrating on his Sight? It's a ton cheaper. I agree that it's a build that shouldn't generally be allowed, but it absolutely is RAW. OP, read the rules about Mental Powers and LOS. Your questions are answered there directly.

Normally, no; the attack will typically interact with the wall first. However, some attacks don't...attacks with Indirect that allows the attacker to alter the point of origin of the power would be an example. Look at the section discussing LOS attacks on 6E1 148, under Mental Powers.

Ahhh....there's no way that the legal system can process cases fast enough to get *5* convictions this year...

The private courses won't be hit first...the public courses will be. Why not both? Shutting down the public courses is strictly municipal policy. There are no direct businesses being shut down...indirect, yes. There is no direct loss of property value. If you shut down a private club, both happen, and the private club has plenty of justification to demand why. Muni courses may be...who knows, 7-10 years away from being shut down, as things are going? Private courses might be only 5-7 years behind that...but that's because shutting down the muni courses will already show the severity of the problem. I also wonder if the Bellagio fountains will be restricted at first. Checking...M-F, its every 30 minutes between 3 and 8 PM, then every 15 minutes between 8 and midnight. Perhaps shorten that to...4:30-midnight, every half hour? Weekends it's every half hour between noon and 8, with the same evening schedule. Maybe noon, 1, 2, 3, 4, then every half hour. There's definitely evaporation losses to consider...you can absolutely feel the moisture in the air around the show. But they're worst in the bright sun and highest heat of midday. Again: it's much more likely at first to reduce it, since it's a major Vegas draw, and reduce it when it'll do the most good, than shut it down.

Since Ohtani is the ONLY pitcher who's hit...other than desperation pinch hitters...they won't award a Silver Slugger, I think. Did he win one last year? 300 strikeouts in a season is rare but not quite impossible...Cole and Verlander in '19, Scherzer in '18, Sale in '17. But they're extremely rare...and rarely repeatable. Also note that Verlander and Scherzer are almost transitional...they're still somewhat tied to older-school thinking...they're built to go longer. Another good comment from the game tonight: every *pitch* is "got to win this pitch." EXTREME short-term thinking...by pitchers, by hitters, by runners. The point was focused on how hitters get pigeonholed...they can't hit lefties (say) and few organizations think past each separate encounter, and give their kiddies a chance to learn to hit lefties. The most obvious case was before the 3-batter-minimum rule for relievers...managers would exhaust their bullpens sometimes within 7 innings, and if it goes extras???? Someone may have to take one for the team.

So MLB Network is doing a Clubhouse Edition game...Stephen Nelson host, CC Sabathia as principal guest, ex-players coming and going somewhat...guys just sitting around talking the game. Current guest is Tom Glavine, so they're talking career numbers...Glavine has the record for Silver Sluggers for pitchers, that's a record that now can't be broken. CC brought up a point about pitchers now...that pitchers are more likely to reach 3000 strikeouts than 150 wins. Not even 200...just 150. I'm not sure I buy that; I would agree with 200, but 150 feels achievable. And note, I think he was thinking of the newest generation...starting in the last decade or so. Because thats when Velo, Velo, Velo's exploded. Here's some numbers...career active innings pitched leaders. Stripped names, they're not useful. First column is # of years, second is IP, third is average AP per year. The 6 and 7 year numbers are probably a bit distorted due to the Covid season but that should be less significant for longer careers. 6 785.1 130.9 6 762 127.0 7 953.1 136.2 7 918 131.1 8 1261.2 157.7 8 1150 143.8 9 1312.2 145.8 9 1155.2 128.4 10 1568.2 156.8 10 1489.2 148.9 11 1655.1 150.5 11 1625.2 147.7 12 1678 139.8 12 1600 133.3 13 1507.2 115.9 13 1470 113.1 14 2138.1 152.7 14 2127 151.9 15 2611.2 174.1 15 2530.2 168.7 16 1958.1 122.4 16 1867.1 116.7 17 3104.1 182.6 17 2492 146.6 18 1205.1 67.0 19 3187.2 167.7 20 1465.2 73.3 That's just the top 2 for each career length. Note how few have managed even 150 innings per year. Some of these are more old-school...exceptional...pitchers. (The 182/year is Verlander.) What it's saying is, even the top pitchers are likely losing a lot of time due to injury...Kershaw's back, Verlander had, IIRC, Tommy John, etc. It's hard to get more than 10-12 wins or so, I'd think, if you're only getting 150 innings...so CC might not be overly conservative here.

Ehh...this is a drop in the bucket. Think Duke Energy's stunt in California...hard to believe that was 20 years ago, but it was. Or the Texas utilities, and the events in February 2021. A big culprit was failure to winterize...cost-cutting, there. Then, of course, exorbitant price gouging because they could.

Every rider is in the GC. The team competition is stage-by-stage; the team score for a stage is the combined time for its first 3 riders. The label of "GC rider" simply means "the rider the lackeys help" who is expected to place high. That's as opposed to domestiques, who are the lackeys who sacrifice their energy to keep the GC guys in good position. Yeah, J-V just put it into cruise control, finishing WELL back...almost a minute. Side by side finish, in 76th-80th. Safely in their own little pocket. EDIT: another aspect of the story. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/07/23/tour-de-france-heat-wave-climate-change/ Story mentions one rider was treated for heatstroke after one of the Alps stages; another one, on a Pyrenees stage, finished and was *seriously* overtaxed. He had medical people watching him; his breathing was hard and fast for too long. The people with him were clearly worried. I don't recall who it was, but I was thinking heat exhaustion with him. And heat-related issues are no joke; it's called heat *stroke* for a reason. Yes, it's absolutely life-threatening.

Joey Cora's days may well be numbered. Boston had another fiasco. 3 more errors today, and a couple more bonehead moves (infield dribbler, pitcher fails footwork and is never close to tagging the bag...the first baseman's throw was fine, the pitcher messed up). 45-35 after winning on the 4th of July, 3-13 since, 1-9 in their last 10. It feels like a classic "you can't fire the team..." situation. And the boo-birds were singing loud and often this weekend.

The most disturbing aspect of this, for me, isn't that it was happening. Corporate managers may do just about anything they think they can get away with. The ongoing safety violations say a lot. No, what bothers me more is the response. Local cops don't have jurisdiction; I get that, it's a state and federal law issue. But when they kick it up the chain? It's lost. Alabama AG refuses to comment; Alabama labor department may not have been notified. It's somewhat similar to the Uvalde breakdown, where chain of command was a mess. There's a big question in my mind whether the state AG was reticent to do anything because the plant has massive economic, and therefore political, clout. Numerous people need to be in jail; quite a few others deserve to be terminated at least, for failure to oversee...assuming they didn't know. If they knew, then it's also criminal.

Weather: severe!!! cold snap, massive blizzard or ice storm, possibly pea-soup fog (but that might be closer to a civil, transportation disaster in the making) Geological: volcano, tsunami (they're triggered by earthquakes) Natural: a massive, deadly red tide (algae bloom) Industrial: nuclear plant incident civil: ship running aground in the Suez Canal Filling it out more might be more a matter of identifying various types. Equipment failure...could be power, could be something like water treatment. Spills...hazardous chemicals (liquid or vapor), blown well head --> oil spill (or Exxon Valdez). Wind and water under weather are pretty nebulous.

What about...leave killing damage is it is, where 1d6 is 15 points. Do a fixed stun multiplier, or perhaps a VERY narrow one. The bigger change is that the STUN is only reduced by resistant defenses, NOT by normal defenses. When this game to mind, I started thinking the stun mult might be a flat 2. Then 3d6 killing would be 10 BODY, 20 STUN average. If you want some variation, then roll a d6: 1-2, 1.5x STUN; 3-4, 2x STUN; 5-6, 2.5x STUN. Or perhaps 1.5x STUN is 1 only, 2.5x STUN is 6 only, everything else is a 2. This is just off the top of my head right now. Even with 2.5x STUN, the max STUN on a 9 DC attack is 45, but that's very unlikely. Conversely, tho, a decent amount of STUN will get through much of the time. It feels like it helps both damage negation and damage reduction, as long as they're resistant, because now the cost comparison is much more strongly tied to resistant defenses rather than normal defenses.

Apparently, Vegas started as a railroad stop between Salt Lake City and Los Angeles. The major impetus for its growth was the construction of Hoover Dam. Yeah, I suspect lots of people won't like the Vegas GP on the streets. With the last stage of the Tour right now, I've been thinking off and on, that really, this would be an awful day to be in Paris. The Bolder Boulder bike race ran at least one year I was there, and I remember how it made the Mall area a confused mess. Las Vegas Boulevard is *packed* most of the time, and they have to shut down the very busy cross-streets too, for a race. Yeah, it'd be a right mess, guv'na.

The last major hurdle's been crossed at the Tour. All the leaders have started...no one tested positive. That's not empty, because 2 other riders did test positive and were pulled out.

The criticism about the CF wasn't losing the ball; sure, as you say, that happens. The problem is he stood there twiddling his thumbs, and didn't even react when he had to see the LF charging over. The claim post-game was that he thought it was out, but...well, we know what happens when you assume. Plus, a couple innings later, there was the moonball pop-up that dropped, untoucned, halfway between the plate and the mound, with the 3rd baseman, catcher, and pitcher all too afraid to actually try to catch it. Nats have apparently set their expectation for trading Soto...4-5 top prospects or major leaguers with limited service time. Translation: young, cheap, and promising to good.

If we required players to know how to play defense, we'd have to do that with a good quarter of them. Could be worse; if we insisted on them knowing how to run the bases properly (especially situationally)...it'd be at least half. A notable question is, the trade deadline is imminent; it's a week from Tuesday. Sox have had a disastrous July...5-13, mostly against the division. But they're only 3 back for the last WC slot, so...buy, hold, or sell? I wouldn't try buying, personally; they're nowhere near close enough to doing something significant in October. Selling...could depend on who else moves. Soto will devour the trade options for one team. Some are pushing for the Angels to trade Ohtani...which I don't think will happen, as he's too interwoven with the team and fan base. Oh, and Sox haters? Jays are up 3-1 after 3 right now.