Gaming W/Jemal: Mutant Rising OOC (Game has started!)

[Jemal]

Out of curiosity I just figured out how far Kid Super can throw someone, figuring this might come up in combat.

For a 200# person the answer is 2500' or about half a mile. Holy crap! According to my math that means if he threw someone up it would be two entire rounds before he had to worry about catching them. 4 if you don't assume they ended the first round at full height with 0 velocity, but that's more physics than comic book usually allow for. Heck at that point it might even be a good way to get someone out of danger for a short fight. ... Assuming of course they don't kill you once they are back on the ground....

As an aside, I note that several character are putting the mutant descriptor on their powers. As we all mutants? Or is it some other source for our power, or do we simply not know yet?

I love stuff like this, so I'm gonna go through this first.

First off, throwing things up has half velocity (At least in D&D, and that's the rule I'll use for M&M as well, cuz it makes sense). SO, they would fly up 1250 feet. Falling speed is 500-600 in the first round, 1200 each round thereafter. therefore it would take a round and a half to go up, and a round and a half to come down. That's a total of 3 rounds before they hit the ground again, assuming no outside interference... like a roof. or a low flying aircraft.


As for power descriptors - None of you are supposed to know where your powers come from or how they work, so I suppose Mutant is a good desciptor as far as you're all concerned.


Binder Fred
I'd prefer if your attack teleport was reduced to short range.

Also, does your teleporting of items to you depend on knowing where they are? (Gun, suit, etc)? If not the cache doesn't matter b/c you could teleport stuff from anywhere. I presume it works similar to how teleport describes you going TO somewhere? (IE you have to either see it or know it well)

BUT, Snares can be layered, increasing their Toughness up to double initial value. AND we have to remember that his cuffs are in fact infused with a part of his lifeforce. Putting the two together, we could say that, unbeknownst to our earnwhile security guard, infused objects are actually stronger/better at what they do the more lifeforce you put into them. So while Nightshift thinks he's tightening bounds, checking knots, etc, he's actually infusing more and more essence into the bindings with each Move action, making them stronger than reason seems to dictate. It would explain why his armored costume is so much more resistant than the equivalent "mundane" armor as well!

I like. What do you think?

I like this. If we assume that his main 'power' is an enhanced life-force and the ability to strengthen objects with said force, it explains his increased physical stature, his teleportation, why his gun/suit/binds/etc are more powerful than normal. works for me.

Considering this, have you thought of any immunities? Specifically: Aging, Disease, and Fatigue effects would seem to fit in fairly well. He probably wouldn't even KNOW about these powers, as they blend in well with his 'renewed youth'. I'd even give you a discount if you want to take'em.


Rellique
Looks good mechanically, but you may have issues with your attacks and defense being so far under the limits.


Arkhandus
Red Impulse looks good, though I do find it amusing that a speedster has a defense-> toughness trade.

Shayuri
Looks good, I especially like the platform TK flight. very Psi-ops.


Allright everybody, I've got a Rogue's Gallery set up now, and I've decided on a name : Mutant Rising
Please post your characters in that thread so I can give'em a final look-over.
I'd like to get started the game fairly soon.

 

[Binder Fred]

Relique, isn't Shadow Blast already Ranged by default?

I'd prefer if your attack teleport was reduced to short range.

Ah, well you see, that's the rub : his teleport attack power was initially designed to emulate how his summoned weapons worked, i.e. his weapons are supposed to be past targets of his teleport attack power, hence the Reversible and the long range, full-action bits. Without them, there's no parity between the two applications of what is basicaly suppossed to be the same power... Which last point, now that I think about it, probably means the To Me power should be THE prime power of the Summoned Weapon array instead of being where it is now....

Anyway, does the Long Range thing need to be and all or nothing affair? I'd be perfectly confortable with a "1 minute Long Range infusion" drawback or the like, i.e. unusable to tag people in combat, but useful enough to introduce interresting twists now and then while remaining in line with the general workings of the Summoned Weapon array... Would that be acceptable?

Also, does your teleporting of items to you depend on knowing where they are? (Gun, suit, etc)? If not the cache doesn't matter b/c you could teleport stuff from anywhere. I presume it works similar to how teleport describes you going TO somewhere? (IE you have to either see it or know it well)

Mechanically no, he doesn't need to know, more like the To Me power than the Away one as discussed above. His weapons could be anywhere on the planet and he *still* could get them to his hand (this is probably the result of repeated Long Range infusions, i.e. a semi-permanent bound has formed with these objects). Discovery of the cache matters only if the villain(s) tampers with what he finds there : puts the items in a teleport-proof "impervion" cage, destroys them, shifts them out of phase, dumps them into the abbyss of infinite dimensions, "poisons" the lifeforce stored there, shifts it to other, much more "troublesome", objects, etc, etc.

Nighshift also has a personnal conection to some of the items in there, mostly to his duty revolver and to his first pair of handcuffs (given to him by his old army training sergeant, don't you know, a real sign of approval).

All in all it makes a fine Complication, I think, but I could merge it with the "His Essence, infused into various objects" complication if you don't think it stands on its own (?).

[Life-force]

Considering this, have you thought of any immunities? Specifically: Aging, Disease, and Fatigue effects would seem to fit in fairly well. He probably wouldn't even KNOW about these powers, as they blend in well with his 'renewed youth'. I'd even give you a discount if you want to take'em.

Who can say no to free samples? What did you have in mind?

___________________________________________________
Binder Fred, sharpening his shopping bags.

 

[Andor]

Wow. I just took a look at the equipment rules. ...

I kinda understand where they are coming from, but what a confused system! Things aren't costed based on their cash value, but instead on their usefulness, unless it's a very common iten in which case it's undercosted ... by a lot. And some things which shouldn't even show up on the scale used are given a point value simply because it didn't seem to occur to them that they could say 'flashlights are free. Take!'.

According to this system the $30 dollars worth of stuff I carry in my pocket is worth as much as a jet ski. This is incorrect. Likewise a compact car is not more valueable than a sportscar, and a can of pepperspray does not cost as much as an SMG and a pocket pistol put together.

Why are money systems so hard to put together? Especially in a supers game where characters are generally either broke or stinking rich?

*sigh* I guess I'll give Roy a point in equipment to cover his cell phone, and whatever other minutia he may need.

 

[Relique du Madde]

Rellique
Looks good mechanically, but you may have issues with your attacks and defense being so far under the limits.

Heh heh. I get your hint. I'll post several changes in the roll call.

One change I'm not sure is this for the "Dusk Suit" I want to give it a some kind of ability kind of like the "Camouflage suit" equipment item that just gives a bonus to visual based stealth rolls. I'm not sure which to base the power on: Color Control or Morph, or If I should to treat it as a feature.

Relique, isn't Shadow Blast already Ranged by default?

Yeah. But I only mentioned it since I was using Ultimate Power to build the blast (from the Damage power).

 

[Shayuri]

Hehe. The equipment costs are based on the power system, and how much it would cost to build the item in question using PP.

Because equipment points are so cheap though, it's pretty niggly to haggle over each one. In particular most of the 1 pointers aren't really costed on value as much as they're considered little perks/benefits. I mean, a flashlight costs 1/5th of a pp. Really, that's pretty close to free right there. Similarly, something like a cellphone might be handwaveble...but when you think about it, they give you some useful in-game abilities, like contacting contacts, giving you access to emergency services...sometimes even online access wherever you go... It's worth 1/5th of a pp to get that.

 

[Arkhandus]

Red Impulse only has 1 rank of Speed.......and it's really just supposed to be something he'sa ble to use once in a while. But I can't figure out so far how to make it work in M&M. The only apparant way would be if every one of his powers was an alternate power of Force Field, as they were originally supposed to be. And his force field was supposed to need a bit of charging before reaching full power (and the amount of power charged up would dictate the potency of his blasts and such when releasing that psychokinetic power from the field).

 

[Andor]

Red Impulse only has 1 rank of Speed.......and it's really just supposed to be something he'sa ble to use once in a while. But I can't figure out so far how to make it work in M&M. The only apparant way would be if every one of his powers was an alternate power of Force Field, as they were originally supposed to be. And his force field was supposed to need a bit of charging before reaching full power (and the amount of power charged up would dictate the potency of his blasts and such when releasing that psychokinetic power from the field).

That's easy, you give the powers an alternate bought with the 'takes a longer action' limit. So you can buy a blast as a full round action, or a 1 round action or even a 10 min action, and the increasing penalty modifier bumps up the total rank of the power until you're knocking chunks off the moon.

Which is the problem of course. If you're already at the campaign limits, there's nowhere to go but down.

 

[Andor]

Similarly, something like a cellphone might be handwaveble...but when you think about it, they give you some useful in-game abilities, like contacting contacts, giving you access to emergency services...sometimes even online access wherever you go... It's worth 1/5th of a pp to get that.

That's kinda my point. It the costs are based on utility a cell phone is probably worth more than a car. A cell phone is a communications that works almost anywhere and lets you contact anyone in the world instantly, or leave them a message. Or take a photo of the evidence/ bad guy/ alien invasion and send it to your lab/ the cops/ the UP wire. Heck when I started playing Shadowrun every character happily plunked down 3k for a gadget that did less than some cellphones do today.

But because cellphones are cheap and omnipresent then undervalued them. By a lot.

So it's a clumsy system unevenly applied, and results in odditites like a $35 tin of pepperspray costing a much as two lamborghinis. *forehead*

 

[Shayuri]

Hee hee

It's just...powerwise, a lamborghini is basically just a couple of levels of Speed, with maybe some Affects Others on it. All it does in the game is move you around fairly quickly (and it's limited since you can't bring it inside and so on). A tin of pepper spray can disable someone temporarily. I think it -should- be more expensive in points. Now, it's also quite a bit more expensive than a lot of firearms, which makes a bit less sense to me, except that in terms of underlying powers, more points were spent to create the 'pepper spray' effect than were spent to make the 'gun effect.'

I get what you're saying, and even agree to an extent. There's rough edges because of the derivation of the costs from powers. But given how cheap equipment points are, I just don't see it being the "forehead banging" problem you make it out to be.

 

[Andor]

But given how cheap equipment points are, I just don't see it being the "forehead banging" problem you make it out to be.

It's not a forehead banging problem. No ones game will come crashing down because someone trades a tin of pepperspray for 3 jetskis. (A trade I would like to make IRL btw. Anyone? Anyone? Beuller?)

It's a headbanging example of confused and conflicted game design. They simply couldn't make up their minds if they were trying to make a realistic wealth system, or an equipment as powers system, or a game centered wealth system independant of powers. So they did all three, tossed it together and hoped no one would notice.

To be fair, wealth in modern games is a nightmare for almost all game designers. This is just one of the more egregiously kludged systems IMHO.

Heck modern technology isn't just a problem for game designers. Last Worldcon there was an entire panel on 'Seperating your character from their cellphones.'