unclevlad

I also have to wonder if the Pats' locker room isn't buying into Cam. He's...colorful, we know that. When you're winning, that's fine; when not, it can easily rub people the wrong way. Report is that Belichick is sticking with Cam for next week, according to PFT. But I suspect the best he can hope for is to last out the season; he's only on a one-year deal, and this has not been the way to show You Still Have It. EDIT: oh, side note. Saw Pariah's note about the weather at kickoff in Denver. We were mid-80's today...and everyone is forecasting mid-40's for Tuesday. For the high. And guess who forgot to get the heating system inspection appointment set up until last week? (I got one for Nov. 11th. DOH!!!!)

The disparity this year between the haves and have-nots is pretty striking. Last year after week 7, there were only 4 teams with 1 win. This year, there are 7...and that doesn't count the 3 NFC teams with 2 wins, about which the less said, the better.

More on the El Paso outbreak. They're up to about 780 hospitalizations; the more compelling point is that it was 450 just a week ago. THAT is how fast things can fall apart, and that is what you'll get with a reckless reopening. This is why the emphasis by the experts was on containment, back in April, because El Paso is being forced to take several steps to handle the FLOOD of cases. The EP Children's Hospital is preparing to take non-Covid-19 adult patients. The convention center is being converted to a temporary hospital. There are plans to airlift cases to other cities. It's THAT bad. And the moves to reopen that have already been attempted? We've already broken 60,000 new cases today...on a Sunday, which is usually much lower than any other day. Last Sunday, 51,000; the week before, 42,000; three Sundays ago, 34,000. So we're frighteningly close to doubling.

In many ways, the only normal maneuver you need is Basic Shot. +2 range, +2 damage, neutral CV. Offensive Ranged Disarm beats the heck out of Ranged Disarm overall, for only 1 more point. Finish off with (generally) Offensive Trip, and you're largely done. Far Shot and Quick Shot have appeal too, but I think you can live with just Basic Shot just fine.

It's in HSMA. It's +1 segment. I believe this means it acts like the Extra Segment limitation...half phase, the power is actually resolved AFTER all other actions on the next segment. I rarely take it. Far Shot gives +4 on the range mod, and it's much friendlier on CV and time. Neither gives any bonus damage. If the optional, more granular range mods are being used, even out to 48m, Far Shot is better...it'd be +1 OCV, -2 DCV, whereas Distance Shot is +0 OCV, -2 DCV.

Dalton did nothing while he was in, so his loss isn't that impactful. it's post Dak; they had, at least in principle, a puncher's chance. That's gone. And remember, they got beaten down by *Washington*. Not by a good team, or even a mediocre team. Fantasy note: the Cowboys defense/special teams are-9 through 7 games; last year's *awful* Dolphins, who threatened to set a number of (negative) records on defense last year, were only -8. (From one of the ESPN fantasy guys.) EDIT: Cam got yanked after another disastrous performance. 9/15 for under 100 yards and 3 picks. Speculation already happening about whether he'll start next week.

WOW!!!!!!!! Talk about *inept* offense... Pats ran all of 16 plays for a total of 60 yards in the first half. 2 punts, 2 TOs, 1 FG but they only needed 30 yards to get into position. Can't blame this one on no practice time. Meanwhile, the Niners have over 300 yards and a 3:1 (exactly!, how rare) time of possession edge. Projection gives the Niners a 96% win probability, up 20 at half. So if that holds...Pats will be at 2-4. 6 AFC teams are at 5-2 or better; the only good thing for the Pats is, 3 of em are in the same division so there will be cannibalization there. Still, if they can't come back, that's a significant hole they'll have dug. OK, ok, wipe off all those crocodile tears......

Suspension for a game means you forfeit the game check.

It's been one of those weeks. Bengals score to take the lead but let Baker march the Browns 75 yards with no TOs. Badger: I did specify right now. The Cowboy defense is giving up a touchdown a game more. The Dallas offense racked up yards and points in garbage time so its significance is highly questionable; meanwhile, they led the league in TOs and were last in TO margin before today. NOW against another bad team, they barely manage a single FG...IIRC it was a 45 yard kick after gaining all of 7 yards...average well under 3 yards a play. So *that* side is gone. So I'd have to still lean to saying the Cowboys are worse, but to be sure, it could be splitting hairs.

How is it possible for an NFL team to be down 3 scores to Washington, at halftime? It is probable that the Cowboys are currently the worst team in the league. The defense has been AWFUL all year; they're giving up 36 a game. The offense now is hideous; they're averaging under 3 a play so far. Dalton's not helping but he's also not getting any help...the sacks is one point, but I also saw one play early on where he hit the WR dead square between the numbers...and the guy flat dropped it. Pretty sure it wasn't the first really bad drop I've seen from that guy, too. Ewwwwwwwww....Andy Dalton out after a terrible, illegal hit; he was sliding, Jon Bostic dove in, leading with his head, and it was head to head contact. Tossed from the game; I would not be surprised if a suspension is coming.

Stats from last night for El Paso, from local news: You can't take these as rate indicators, either. Progressing from "positive test" to "hospitalized" generally doesn't happen that fast...and the last 2 days alone account for almost 1/4 of those active cases. If we postulate that generally there's about a week between positive test and hospitalization, we start by knocking off 6000 cases that were identified *this week*. OK, we can add in perhaps 1000 cases that recovered, so wouldn't be in the active count. So that 715 is from a pool size of more like 6000 mature cases. So we're looking at something like 12% of cases result in hospitalization. If that rate is extended to the entire El Paso outbreak, we're talking something like 4000-5000 people hospitalized so far, maybe 1200-1600 that've required a trip to the ICU. Probably quite a few of those ultimately died, so we can't add the stats together, but we're still taking a major increase in Serious (or worse) Cases, rather than simply looking at the death tolls. Mind, the death toll is bad enough; discounting that 230,000 people have died because it's "only* about 1/10 of 1% is callous and thoughtless. Do we have to find some happy medium between protection and operation? Of course we do. EVERYONE here agrees with that. The problem is that's not possible due to the scoffers, sceptics, and associated flavors of civil/religious rights to do whatever the heck they want. It's due to an absolute absence of a coherent policy to address the issue; rather the opposite. Attempts to address issues at lower levels have been actively squelched. Attempts to inform have been suppressed or diluted. Europe managed a much stronger re-opening than we ever did, because most countries implemented real policies. But as has also been pointed out: "open for business" does NOT mean "business as usual." I'll grant I'm not the best choice for restaurants and bars; I haven't hit either very much for several years. (My diabetes is well controlled, but that's not an excuse to ignore that it was WILDLY out of whack.) Still, as we said, I'm not going to run the risk of exposure. Some will, to be sure...but a major chunk of people won't, or won't do it as often. THEN you can tack on that many people are likely economizing on things like this, in case they *do* face a furlough or layoff. Business will NOT be normal. Yes, the tighter the restrictions, the more extensive the economic consequences, but Sweden did a very credible job of showing that the damage will still be major.

Don't forget the Senate enablers. They aren't true believers; they just use him (and he uses them) to advance their own goals. And come tomorrow, I suspect they'll have secured a lasting victory regardless of the outcome of the election.

That moment doesn't have to be because Biden wins broadly. If the Republicans lose both the White House and the Senate, they'll be at that moment.

I think we have a solid consensus that we have no agreement whatsoever on what it's worth. The discussion of the applicability to other powers is trying to dislodge the mechanical thinking that it's a big disadvantage due to its relatively narrow applicability. That's a shallow argument, IMO.

One guess what the reason was. Yeah, OK, *maybe* he's cleaned up his act, but I seriously doubt it. Normally I'd say I'm basically neutral about the Bucs, but this...I hope it blows up in their faces. OK, so the Raiders linemen were potentially exposed and have been cleared. I still agree with Old Man that the lack of practice with the game plan can't help. I'd take the Bucs' D for fantasy, and take them to cover, if the game's even back on the boards (it wasn't for a while) up to about 7, I think. The ultimate irony might be if AB introduces Covid-19 and spreads it to a few teammates.

God, that turniphead is vile... And just look through the crowd. Mostly masked, but a fair number in-camera that aren't. Bill Clinton actually had a rally here when he was running for his 2nd term. I went...in part because it was a chance to do so. Never been to one before, probably never have a good chance to go to another. Here's the timeline: --Noon: every building overlooking the field where the rally was to be held was required to be evacuated, checked, then locked. That impacted too many classes, so IIRC, all classes at that point were shut down, as were the non-class buildings. (That's where I worked.) --Around 2-3 pm, the security checkpoints started letting people through. The line was MASSIVE. --Around 6 or so, IIRC, some of the other candidates started speaking... --Clinton hit the stage around...7? I hate to be vague but this was a LONG time ago. If anything, security these days is tighter. So you've got people congregating with strangers for many, many hours. And some...maybe not many but some...with no masks.

Read the stories about China. If an outbreak of any size gets reported, they LOCK DOWN the area. As in, TIGHTLY. As in, if it was tried here there would be rioting. And again...fine, just compare to Western Europe. We have FAR worse results overall. You keep pushing the "oh the reporting is so spotty" as an excuse for the bad US numbers, but that's lame. Sorted by cases per X people, so low is BAD. Yes, Spain and France are basically similar, but most of Europe is doing considerably better. And this was worse. We never flattened the curve. Data from WorldOMeters as of 4 pm Mountain. And...yeah, with about 3 to 3.5 hours to go before the final counts for the day...71,000. On a Saturday. Usually quieter. VERY likely to set a new record. And considering Texas' reputation, calling someone else's reports spotty is Pot, Meet Kettle. How in heck can this be considered anything but a total failure? Oh, and if you want to compare death rates...US 1442. Belgium is 1089, Spain is 1346...but then UK is 1520, Italy 1624, Sweden 1706, France 1886, and those are the WORST in Europe; after that the rates drop considerably (next worst is 1 per 2300). Country, Other Total Cases New Cases Total Deaths New Deaths Population 1 Case every X ppl 1 Death every X ppl World 42875924 411760 1153599 4886 Diamond Princess 712 13 MS Zaandam 9 2 Andorra 4038 69 77304 19 1120 Qatar 130965 254 229 2807805 21 12261 Bahrain 79975 401 312 1 1719346 21 5511 Aruba 4401 36 106908 24 2970 French Guiana 10351 69 301040 29 4363 Israel 309413 573 2372 43 9197590 30 3878 Vatican City 27 802 30 Panama 127866 2622 4335767 34 1654 Kuwait 120927 695 744 4 4290125 35 5766 Peru 883116 34033 33114228 37 973 USA 8818403 71120 230002 718 331611010 38 1442 Chile 500542 1631 13892 48 19167444 38 1380 Montenegro 16629 193 263 8 628091 38 2388 Armenia 75523 2213 1157 12 2964988 39 2563 Brazil 5380635 24985 156903 375 213032208 40 1358 Belgium 287700 17568 10658 70 11605464 40 1089 San Marino 819 42 33953 41 808 Spain 1110372 34752 46760495 42 1346 Argentina 1069368 28338 45325182 42 1599 Czechia 246022 7699 2047 76 10715241 44 5235 Oman 111837 1147 5146213 46 4487 Luxembourg 13713 862 144 3 629124 46 4369 Maldives 11421 30 37 543480 48 14689 French Polynesia 5797 20 281417 49 14071 Costa Rica 103088 1262 1282 17 5108634 50 3985 Colombia 998942 29802 51051776 51 1713 Gibraltar 660 19 33688 51 Guadeloupe 7329 115 400146 55 3480 Sint Maarten 776 22 43027 55 1956 Turks and Caicos 699 6 38879 56 6480 Moldova 71089 833 1669 15 4030993 57 2415 France 1086497 45422 34645 137 65318998 60 1885 Netherlands 281052 8651 7019 55 17146812 61 2443 Bahamas 6268 130 394416 63 3034 Mayotte 4276 44 274825 64 6246 Cabo Verde 8198 94 557867 68 5935 Saint Martin 538 8 38869 72 4859 Iceland 4394 86 11 341937 78 31085 North Macedonia 26394 403 897 14 2083347 79 2323 UK 854010 23012 44745 174 67997872 80 1520 UAE 123764 1491 475 9927540 80 20900 Bosnia and Herzegovina 39758 1265 1075 10 3274324 82 3046 Malta 5373 115 50 1 441913 82 8838 South Africa 714246 1834 18944 53 59540914 83 3143 Bolivia 140612 167 8608 24 11722399 83 1362 Switzerland 103653 2081 12 8674421 84 4168 Dominican Republic 124018 634 2220 6 10881814 88 4902 Portugal 116109 3669 2297 21 10187285 88 4435 Ireland 56108 847 1882 4 4954950 88 2633 Iraq 449153 3204 10568 55 40498846 90 3832 Sweden 110594 5933 10118993 91 1706

Applied to what power? Because if it's on, let's say, a Holy Word like spell...let's say, Blast, with AP, AoE Radius 8 meters...suddenly it's just gained a very nice form of Selective. The fact that it won't work against some things is more than offset by how it does work. On a single-target Blast or RKA, I honestly wouldn't make it more than -1/4, on the premise that this is what you're looking to fight anyway. However, this'd also depend on other factors. Does the character have other, readily available options? Or is this notably restricting his options, and thereby tying up a significant number of character points? This might be worth nothing, for example, if trying to satisfy a Variable Limitations, or possibly a fair bit more in a D&D-ish situation with fixed, hard to change charges.

Actually, you're making a stronger argument that trying to apply the limitation to the entire damage is nonsensical, IMO.

And streaming itself is a rising threat. Since the content producers are moving into the content distribution side via their streaming channels, the theaters become competition as well as channel. MANY things will change by the time we emerge from this. Minor league baseball may disappear, at least as it stands now. Pro (and college) sports that aren't football, basketball, baseball, and maybe soccer and hockey, may well be gutted. Live performing arts are crippled; they're in the same boat. The trick is going to be, they'll have work to do, to come back. Probably a lot of them won't, which is quite saddening, but realistic. We're going to be paying for this pandemic for at least 10-15 years, IMO, so the available resources will be limited and therefore spread thinly. Arts is not likely to be a high priority. And in other ways, the part I find even more worrisome is the loss of local businesses, because the corporations will be better placed to fill in the vacuum. That's got more negative long-term consequences.

The surge in Europe has been noted. Happened to glance at the daily New Cases graph on WorldOMeters...it stood out because.... Yesterday, the total number of new cases almost hit the 500,000 mark...490K and change. The previous worst day was 415K...so this is almost 20% higher. The 7 day averages...on Oct. 1st, 295K. 3 weeks later, it's over 400K...so over 1/3 higher. There's every reason to fear things will only get even uglier over the next 5 months.

The viewpoint of the Washington Examiner can also be noted rather quickly, by a glance through their editorial section. They might as well be a Fox News affiliate.

Why does he really need PD and ED? He's desolid. Doesn't Protect Against Damage isn't a favorite of mine because you still have to buy Affects Physical World on everything, or go with Selective Desolid, which is VERY expensive. And you're presumably going with Always On, so an additional -1 limitation doesn't save you that much. The vulnerability would be to Light attacks. Something that's really rude...a blackout, sense denial power defined as a Mental Entangle. Did a somewhat similar character...wasn't a full-time shadow, but his 'hero form' was that way. The SFX are more "you feel Death's Hand on you" than pure shadow but hey... Multipower, 56-point reserve, (56 Active Points); all slots Linked (Energy Shift; -1/2) Whisper of the Grave: Entangle 1d6, 1 PD/1 ED (Mental Defense (+10 Def)), Mental Paralysis Entangle (+1 1/4) (56 Active Points); Requires A Roll (Skill roll; -1/2) Touch of the Grave: HA +9d6, Reduced Endurance (1/2 END; +1/4) (56 Active Points); Hand-To-Hand Attack (-1/4), Reduced Penetration (-1/4) [Notes: vs. ED, cold based] Death's Touch: HA +6d6, Reduced Endurance (1/2 END; +1/4), Attack Versus Alternate Defense (Power Defense; All Or Nothing; +1/2) (52 Active Points); HA (-1/4) Death's Grasp: HA +4d6, Reduced Endurance (1/2 END; +1/4), Attack Versus Alternate Defense (Power Defense; All Or Nothing; +1/2), Does BODY (+1) (55 Active Points); HA (-1/4) Note that, as written, that mental Entangle is VERY, VERY nasty. It is NOT Dismissible...which is actually my bad cuz this is supposed to be for a hero-type. But for a villain, hey, leave it as is. Breaking it is HARD for most. The AVADs can also be taken straight across. I use it to represent forcing the target's body to shift...call it, if you will, Desolid, usable as attack, with the effect of a lot of stun. The justification works great for teleporters, extra dim movement, desolid, etc. Alternately, NND vs LS: Cold.

Another option would be to define the additional impact in some other ways: --+Nd6 Blast, NND, does Body, defense is don't be the critter type. More than 2d6 would seem VERY powerful. 0 END again, but you get to toss on No Range and OAF, so it's not too bad on cost, but it's definitely more. It has the advantage of fitting the notion; if you hit something with an enchantment specifically targeting that kind of critter, it SHOULD hurt. --You could incorporate something like armor piercing; the problem is, in principle, your STR typically doesn't have armor piercing, so the DCs added by STR have to be recomputed to account for that. That's less than ideal. I might try going with the AP being a +1/2 advantage for the weapon, and saying that does NOT lower the additional damage from STR or martial arts DCs or skill levels added to damage. Or that might be too much of a mess, and not go this route. --If some monster types use notable Damage Negation, the enhancement could be targeted Reduced Negation. It won't always help, tho, if sometimes the type has DN and other times not.

Yah, this could be a limitation but there are too many positive aspects. Way back in the day, there was an old D&D argument about whether "can only be used by elves" was worth a price break in weapon construction. The overwhelming consensus was No because these were being built BY elves, FOR elves, where the intent was the goblins and orcs couldn't grab them from the fallen around them and use them against the elves. Another point has been mentioned. What is "evil"? OK, if you're heavily connecting to the classic D&D notions...there are Protection from Evil and Detect Evil and the like as spells and whatnot, maybe this becomes a philosophical point. But I'd MUCH rather tie it to something definable...critter type like demon, dragon, or undead, some core aspect like cold-based (special effects are cold-based, immune to cold, has a vulnerability to fire...not entirely defined but a lot cleaner than "is evil), that sort of thing. Also, mechanically, if this is considered like a weapon enchantment, then generally it doesn't belong on the whole weapon. HKA, 1d6+1 OAF; +1/2 d6, 0 END, only versus undead (-1 IMO), OAF. So, yes, you still have to be careful swinging it in a crowded room, but you're not trying to squeeze points on the *whole* cost...just some of it. Especially if you recognize that the extra damage is coming from the blade itself, so it's got to be 0 END insofar as the wielder is concerned. Note, too, that squeezing by trying to raise the limitation isn't gonna much matter, it's at -2 for the additional damage *anyway*. 1/2 d6 killing, 0 END, 15 points...-2 knocks it to 5. -3 shaves 1 point. Plus "only versus undead" is still reasonably broad.