Vulcan

Re: Transporter Accident Raoul would flirt shamelessly with all four... and he may just have the skills to pull it off! Failing that he could always just drug them...

Re: Transporter Accident (Presuming we're talking about Star Hero characters here, not the actual players...) Raoul deBausoville loose on DS9? Star Trek may never be the same again! The medical exam would confuse the heck out of Dr. Bashir. "There are no less than 20 different intoxicants present in his system, and a dozen more chemicals I can't even identify! By all rights, he should be in a coma!" (I just hope they don't identify the poisons in his 'medication.' )

Re: Martian Airplanes? Would choppers work on mars? Granted they would take huge rotors, but that might solve the maneuverability problem...

Re: Underpowered tropes? I usually go with defensive strike or martial throw. Offensive strike was the coup de gras. A martial artist has to be played very tactically to be competetive. Either that, or have lots of defenses - and even then it helps to play tactically. That's why martial artist tend to have the scond highest SPD on the team - right behind the speedster. They need the extra actions to dodge/block and still have attacks. It's not that they are 'superhumanly fast' like a speedster, just exquisitely trained to be able to dodge/block and counterstrike.

Re: UN Supers headquarters Because super-tech requires a steady supply of unobtainium, handwavium, or yeahrightium that a normal just can't acquire?

Re: Martian Airplanes? That and if I recall correctly, Mars doesn't have much of a magnetic field left...

Re: strange site My apologies then, Kriostopher.

Re: New team on the evening news Politically, that whole announcement yo-yos between pure vanilla blandness and sheer unmitigated arrogance. That's... not a good combination, in my experience. Any of my characters who had the capability would investigate these guys to the fullest. Maybe even volunteer to 'join' the team for a closer evaluation. If they really are in it to protect the whole world, then there is no problem. But I think they're up to something.

Re: strange site So 'Official Killjoy' isn't just a title, it's a way of life? This is the PULP HERO section where this sort of wierdness belongs, not the NGD discussion! Did you realize that of all the people on this board, you are the one I've come closest to reporting for insulting posts the most? And are you aware that many other people have PM'ed me similar sentimets? Maybe I should just start reporting you every time you start this sort of behavior. Since, becaue you're a moderator, I just can't put you on my ignore list... where again you'd be the only one.

Re: strange site

Re: Brink Of War That's a lot of gods to make up. Have you considered combining the human pantheons into one, and jut making the different cultures interpret them differently? For example, the human gods are worshipped pretty much the same in both human kindoms. The human barbarians either ignore them (in favor of spirit/ancestor worship) or dedicate themselves to the war god... The nomads as a whole are polytheistic, but each individual tribe is monotheistic and worshiping another god while in that tribe is sacrelige (I know I spelled that wrong...). And then the islanders just worship the sea gods, maybe with lip service to the others... For that matter, perhaps the elves worship the same gods, bu differet aspects - where humans worship a god of agriculture, the elves worship a god of 'benevolent nature providing for us...' Just a thought.

Re: Brink Of War Asking the players what sorta cultures/races they might want to play could be useful. Heck, co-opt them and have them design some of the basics of the new races/cultures! Then apply GM perogative to balance them and fit them into the world. So the Big Bad Guy could be someone pushing for the war to happen? Or someone who would profit froma war if it happens? All sorts of possibilities exist... Duh, you've probably thought of that already! Well done! It's always amusing when the players go "DOH! That was the bad guy!" too late to change things. They had the choice to do something, but no reason... I just hate being railroaded (The plot WILL GO THIS WAY regardless of what you want!), especially by being in direct confrontation with an opponent I have exactly NO chance of beating, or even running from.

Re: Brink Of War Now you see, that's the difference between us. I see that as background material, because I'm not at all interested in playing out a scene where the outcome is totally predetermined. Tell me to write it into my background and then start the game when I (the player) am actually relavent to what's going on.

Re: Underpowered tropes? Intriguingly, our group uses Shapeshift vs. Sight & Touch + Mimicry skill to great effect. Of course, the GM doesn't spontaniously change NPC's just to mess up the Shapeshifter either... Maybe your GM just hates shapeshifters.

Re: Underpowered tropes?

Re: Order of the Stick New one is up... And I think it explains quite a bit about what's been bugging V lately.

Re: Brink Of War There have been two things I have found necessary for good running a good campaign. First, that the players have a choice of what to do, and when to do it. Even in my 'Legends Reborn' game with a strict time limit (the reason they were summoned in the first place was to combat a great evil being reborn one year to the day from campaign start...) they have the ability to choose between investigating one or more 'plot hooks' (even if they tend to wind up in the same place )... or even just stay at home and let the wizard make some magic items. Although if they stay home, someone else takes the hook and runs with it, getting the benefit, and they may not be friendly to the PC's... But still, the choice - or at the absolute very least, the illusion of choice - should be there. The second - and this one may be even more important than the first - is having a nemesis for the party. This could be a Big Bad Evil Powerhouse (like Sauron or Dr. Destroyer), a Massively Corrupt Political Figure (Cardinal Richelieu or Senator Palpatine) or it could just be an arrogant rival, but it should be someone the party just cannot easily defeat, and who they cannot ignore. It gives them something to strive against, someone whose defeat marks the very climax of the whole campaign! (On the other hand, the party should not face this nemesis directly in the first episode, either, because nothing squenches some player's interest in a game like getting stomped into the ground first thing. Let the PC's face threats they can deal - like minions - with while the nemasis kills their mentor/family/pet cat. Then they can hate him wholeheartedly without feeling 'stepped on' early in the game.)

Re: Brink Of War Sorta like the difference between David Lo Pan and Egg Shen...

Re: Underpowered tropes? Except that most battlecruiers were nearly as well armored as battleships (the English Furious, Glorious, and Courageous notwithstanding). It's was like the difference between a 25 and 30 PD. Sure, the 30 is higher, but it's not that much higher. Now the three BC's mentioned above actually were egshells with capitol ship guns. 3" armor belt (vs most capitol ships 18-24" armor belt) is more like a light criuser, not a capitol ship. And then they didn't gain enough speed and maneuverability to make up for it... No wonder later BC's went back up to full thickness armor belts.

Re: Underpowered tropes? That's "Egg with a sledgehammer" in our games. And it usually applies to my characters.

Re: Which is your least favorite archetype to play? There's this thing in the rules called "active point caps"... They are usually set around 60-70 points to avoid things like 25d6 Mind Controls - or anything else, for that matter!

Re: Which is your least favorite archetype to play? Well, yeah, I did once. Played a coast guard petty officer (assigned as a liason for reasons I forget) with a light .50 cal. assault rifle and M-203. And since he knew he was highly squishy in comparison to the supers he was up against, he had to be pretty doggone tactical just to survive. And as I said earlier, when he was praised for saving lives, his standard response was "It's just my job." He certainly wasn't a rehash of Rambo, or the Punisher, or whatever. Okay. That's your opinion and you are entitled to it. In my opinion a charcter who spent 100+ points on superhuman tricks with his 'Wal-Mart shotgun' then he might well be superhuman! And Batman not a super? You probably don't think much of the original Captain America either, whose super-soldier serum only took him to 'maximum human potential.'

Re: Which is your least favorite archetype to play?

Re: Utter humiliation power Or you could just buy +60 PRE, only for fear-based PRE attacks. Then ask the GM what the number is to get the target to wet himself. (Is this discussion truly necesssary?)

Re: Help me get into Bricks. One of the villains in our campaign is Poseidon, an aquatic brick with a distinct resemblence to a killer whale... which is why all the PC's call him 'Shamu'!