Steve Long

Re: Life Support, Dispel and Drain Life Support is as subject to being Drained or Dispelled as any other Power. See 6E1 138, middle right column, regarding how to Adjust abilities bought with multiple types of increments. There's no rule specifically forbidding a character to apply Unified Power to Life Support along with one or more other powers, but whether to permit this is, as always, up to the GM.

Re: Is Kinetik a casual killer? You are correct that Kinetik has no Code Versus Killing. Make of that what you will, considering what he's like and who he works with.

Re: Book of the Machine Errata You spelled it correctly. Yes, the Vulnerability for the T-78 should be BODY, not STUN. "Appropriate Immunity" means just that -- any appropriate Immunity that would apply. A character could take a specific Immunity to that one attack, for example, or a broader Immunity might apply. The full Immunity to all Terrestrial Poisons would definitely apply. Self-Contained-Breathing is not a valid defense, though; that's a different form of Life Support.

Re: THE BOOK OF THE EMPRESS -- What Do *You* Want To See? 1. Yes, there almost certainly are. However, that's not to say they're exactly the same as the Malvans and Elder Worm in Earth's dimension. Given that V'han's technology isn't the equal of Malvan technology, certain inferrences can be made. 2. They might be, but they probably aren't. To the extent V'han has conquered dimensions where some analog of the Elder Worm exists, I suspect she's genocidally exterminated them. I certainly wouldn't want those things slumming around in my empire.

Re: Follow Up: Desolid Duplicating That's certainly something the GM should consider in making his final call on the situation. Since, as you observe, the Duplicate is always going to be vulnerable in this sort of situation, there's a far stronger case for not requiring Affects Physical World (+2) than there otherwise would be.

Re: THE BOOK OF THE EMPRESS -- What Do *You* Want To See? Her major interactions/conflicts with Tyrannon and Skarn will definitely be covered in the history section (though of course that chapter by definition has to be a pretty abbreviated version of her personal history; it's such an enormous subject). Her relations with major CU setting entities, like the Kings of Edom, will be discussed in the GMing chapter (just like was done in BotD and BotM, though of course it's done differently in each of the three books because each of the master villains in question has a different perspective on things). The chapter discussing her empire in general has a section on enemies which will also touch on Tyrannon, Skarn, and various other major threats to her (including the Crusaders of the Infinite Realities, an idea I developed based on a suggestion on this very thread! ::cue dramatic theme music:: )

Re: THE BOOK OF THE EMPRESS -- What Do *You* Want To See? That's easy: 1. First, you're assuming all she does is focus on Earth. That's not true (in fact, if she focused entirely on Earth, she'd have conquered it already, most likely). That just happens to be what interests we Earthers the most. 2. To the extent she does, in fact, focus on Earth, it's for a reason I mentioned in an earlier response: it's because it's Earth. We're special. There's no secret high-falutin' reason for it, it's just the way things are.[1] It's a rule of genre fiction akin to the theory of gravity -- it's so fundamental you just don't need to worry about it most of the time. 3. I think some of you may also be assuming Earth is the only dimension V'han has ever failed to conquer. That's not true either. [1] If you wanted a "realistic" reason for it, my response might be, "It's not special at all. We just think we're getting a lot of attention because we are all we can see. We don't get any more attention or activity than any similar dimension." There ya go. Realistic... and also no fun, from my POV.

Re: THE BOOK OF THE EMPRESS -- What Do *You* Want To See? Ding! Give phoenix240 a prize. I'm not going to try to make Istvatha V'han "realistic." That would be counterproductive and quite likely pointless. Nor am I going to reference "quantum splitting" or any other such thing. This is a comic book setting. It's inherently unrealistic. There's some fun to be had occasionally in trying to "explain" or "justify" things in real world terms, but that approach is also likely to suck every bit of Fun out of things if taken too far. And trying to explain V'han "realistically" is definitely taking things too far.

Re: THE BOOK OF THE EMPRESS -- What Do *You* Want To See? Let me put a stop to this discussion of vernacular right now. I will use "dimension" when I want to, and "universe" when I want to. I know when I think they apply, and I am consistent in my usage, and that's the end of that. Move on to some other topic, please. Debating word usage isn't appropriate for this thread, and doesn't help me at all.

Re: THE BOOK OF THE EMPRESS -- What Do *You* Want To See? Absolutely correct. I wouldn't put precise figures on it, but I'd guess that less than half of her Empire consists of "alternate Earth"-type dimensions, and even then not all alternate Earth dimensions are also alternate CU dimensions. Absolutely it will. As I mentioned in my intro post, there's a whole chapter on the multiverse of the CU. A lot of that's being reprinted from TMW (since it's still the same multiverse after all ), but there will certainly be more to it. In that chapter I plan to include descriptions of a dozen or more "example" dimensions that haven't previously been described. Some have been mentioned (such as Britworld), but never described. Nor are any of them going to be quite as simple as, say, "Viking World" from the old Champions In 3-D. Some will be alternate Earths, certainly (again, witness Britworld), but I hope to be a bit more original and a bit more "realistic" than just "a dimension where dinosaurs take the place of people" or whatever. If I succeed, great; if not, I'm sure one of you will be happy to tell me.

Re: Villains (solo) book 3 Believe me, no one's more unhappy about it not being in print yet than we are -- however much frustration you're feeling, multiply it by several orders of magnitude to get ours. A number of circumstances have conspired against us, and while Darren's slowly but surely beating them into submission there's only so much we can do about some of 'em other than wait. If all goes well we hope to get that particular project taken care of soon, but we have learned to be cautious in our optimism.

Re: Teleportation and UOO It has to be Usable As Attack to do what you describe. Usable By Other would allow you to grant another character Teleportation, but that character then controls when/how the power's used.

Re: Desolid Duplicating I’m not entirely sure I understand the question, so I’m going to rephrase it so everyone knows what I’m answering. If I haven’t addressed your actual question, please post a follow-up. Q: Can a Desolidified character who has Duplication create a Duplicate who’s solid and can affect the physical world, or does this require some Advantage(s)? A: Whether to allow a Desolidified character (be he permanently Desolidified, or just able to attain that state whenever he wants) to create a solid Duplicate is up to the GM. Generally speaking the safest course is not to allow this unless the Duplication is bought with the Affects Physical World (+2) Advantage. But if the GM feels that it won’t hurt game balance and the character’s not doing it in a deliberate attempt to avoid the restrictions imposed on him by Desolidification, he can allow it without that Advantage.

Re: Gremlin-like Mutant Since this isn't a rules question, I've moved it to the Discussion board where other fans can respond and offer suggestions.

Re: Setting CSL before combat starts Per HSS/TUS 119:

Re: Critical hits and autofire The critical hit rules on 6E2 118 are optional rules, and therefore whether to use them, and if so how, is up to the GM. In most cases I suspect most GMs won’t worry about critical hits for Autofire attacks against single targets, since there’s already a built-in reward for rolling low in that situation: the character hits with a lot of his shots (possibly all of them). If the GM prefers, he can devise a way to determine which of the Autofire hits do maximum damage (such as “half of them do” or “any hit that occurs once the “countdown” reaches the critical hit threshhold”).

Re: THE BOOK OF THE EMPRESS -- What Do *You* Want To See? Just to clarify one thing that seems to've been overlooked: when I said "half a dozen" character sheets, I specifically referred to from the Imperial Battalion (her superhumans). I did not say "half a dozen character sheets for the book, total." I'm definitely not going to have nearly as many as some of you seem to want, but it's certainly going to be more than six.

Re: Foci vs. Killing Attacks A Foci's defenses are Resistant.

Re: # of Autofire hits on a roll of 3? Good question. I'm surprised it hasn't come up before, but I guess rolls of 3 are only a 1 in 216 chance, after all. If a character making an Autofire attack rolls a 3, ordinarily the number of hits is calculated normally — all the attacks do not automatically hit. (Though in many cases a 3 will mean that all the attacks hit anyway.) However, the GM could certainly allow an extra hit or two (if available), a small damage increase, or some other benefit to represent the critical hit.

Re: THE BOOK OF THE EMPRESS -- What Do *You* Want To See? Thanx for the suggestions so far, everyone! Keep 'em coming! Just remember, this has to all fit within one reasonably-sized, reasonably-priced book that I write in a reasonable amount of time. Unlike Istvatha V'han, I don't have any time travel powers to make my life easier.

Re: Rangeless Telekinesis and STR Generally speaking, applying No Range to Telekinesis isn't allowed under the HERO System rules, per 6E1 296. As to what Limitations are allowed for STR, barring any explicit statement in the rules that's typically up to the GM.

Re: THE BOOK OF THE EMPRESS -- What Do *You* Want To See? "Female full-contact karate." ::drumroll::

Re: THE BOOK OF THE EMPRESS -- What Do *You* Want To See? You'll actually find out more about that by reading Champions Beyond -- and of course BotE, in time.

Re: THE BOOK OF THE EMPRESS -- What Do *You* Want To See? No. Given the nature of her powers, she is a unique being -- there are no other V'hans in any alternate realities. And unless absolutely necessary, she never travels back in time to "meet herself," since that can cause all sorts of problems. I plan to go into this in the section discussing her powers in detail; they have some interesting implications and consequences.

Re: THE BOOK OF THE EMPRESS -- What Do *You* Want To See? Dan, your thoughts about an upcoming book are both relevant and welcome -- in the proper thread. We have threads up in Company Questions, for example, where people comment about upcoming books. They often tell us what they will and won't buy. That's when to tell us you're not interested in a title: months and months before it comes out. If we got enough negative response about a book that far in advance, we could consider changing it, or replacing it with something else. That's one reason why we announce our schedules a year or more in advance. But by the time I've started a WDYWTS thread and gotten to work on a book, "I don't want this book" is an utterly useless and inappropriate comment. A thread asking about suggestions for the contents of a book is in no way a proper place to say "I don't want this book." That's no more relevant or useful at this point than "This book should be all about Foxbat!" or "I'd like to see a supplement on Necromancy." We always want to hear what our fans think about our upcoming titles, positive or negative -- but there's a proper time and place for everything. This thread was posted for a specific, clearly-stated purpose, and your response had nothing to do with that purpose. It would have if you'd posted "I have no interest in this book, but I might change my mind if it included X, Y, and Z." That's well within the confines of the thread, since it discusses what you want to see in the book (even if you don't like the general idea of the book). But "I don't want this book" just isn't appropriate or helpful at this point.