Barnum

The Tech Priest saw his murdered companion about the same time the other heroes did. He leveled his weapon and prepared to fire again.

Dr A. Go ahead and roll your attack. You guys just murdered his partner. He sure isn't planning on surrendering to you. Also, Kaira just dropped the darkness. I don't think you need a notice check in a room this size.

See? If we didn't have the internet, where would a guy like that be?

I'm glad he has YouTube. :)

All done.

A Perception Range effect doesn't need Affects Insubstantial, it's automatically included.

I disagree. Perception powers are not necessarily sensory effects, though they can be.

If you'd like to discuss this further, post your own thread in the Character Building forum. This really isn't the place for this.

Looks great!

It took me a minute to figure out what you guys were taking about . . .

I think I'll pass. :lol:

That would work. It would be 28 PPs, so you could add back the two ranks of Affects Insubstantial.

Sound good?

It had been a few days since the Emissary had received another invitation to Freedom Hall. This invitation came by phone and had not details other than the time and place: Freedom Hall, Saturday 8:00 PM. The message sounded a bit more formal than the others he had received. Most notably, it didn't have the usual, "Come quickly, the city is in danger" sort of feel to it.

Now Saturday had arrived and the evening was pressing on. It was time for the Emissary to keep his appointment.

Here it is.

When Agent Colby looked back, Ginny just shrugged. She hadn't seen the movie, but many times when she closed her eyes, she did, in fact, see evil dead . . . and sometimes evil living too.

"Ready," she said, trying to sound brave.

Ginny fell in between Agent Colby and Ms. Cato. She didn't want to be last. Ginny had seen enough movies to know what happened to the people who were at the back of the line. And she sure didn't want to be in front of Agent Colby's gun. The middle seemed like a nice place to be . . . though the car would be better.

With the sun on the way down, the woods were in deep shade and getting darker. The investigators probably only had an hour or so to poke around before dusk settled in and the woods would be too dark for an investigation. Near the entrance the path was clear and wide enough for two or three people to walk abreast. It appeared to go straight into the woods without a twist or turn as far as the eye could see.

Great faces!

:clap:

The first Tech Priest shot at the still invisible Dr. Archeville but with no target, he missed completely.

The second Tech Priest couldn't see his target either, but for a different reason. He was enveloped in darkness. He was about to fire again, but he felt a burning pain in his neck, gasped, and slumped to the floor . . . dead.

Tech priest #1 is dead. Now we'll see if the desire to throw Legionnaire in jail extends to Kiera too. Should be interesting.

Tech priest #2 shoots at Dr A but misses.

IC post is in the works.

Well, I have to say the ending wasn't far off Dr A's laser-guided shark zombies. But I loved it.

It was exactly what I expected . . . and hoped for.

:clap: :clap: :clap: :clap:

:clap: :clap: :clap: :clap:

Flaw removed.

However, this . . .

Damage 7 (Perception range [+2], Disease [+2], Limited - Damages only if the afflicted character is moving [-1], Affects Insubstantial 2)

. . . is 30 PPs.

But this . . .

Damage 10 (Perception range [+2], Alternative Save - Fort [+1])

. . . is 40 PPs.

If we don't hear from spectrevk tonight, I'll move us forward into the woods.

*cue ominous music*

:)

Have a safe trip, and hurry back!

You're up, Dil. If you want to do something other than torment the boys with wasps, post away.

Please roll for initiative. The boys will be going last no matter what.

Sam stopped and looked over at the strange looking boy. Brad waddled up behind him, huffing and puffing. The small boy they were bullying pulled himself up on his hands and knees as he began feeling around for his glasses.

"Who're you?" Sam bellowed. His voice was loud but had a note of uncertainty in it. "You better geâ€â€" Sam jerked his head and smacked at his neck. "OWWWWWW! What thaâ€â€"

There was a pronounced buzzing sound growing and getting closer. Mashin-kun could see the tiny black spots swarming around the boys, their numbers getting thicker by the minute.

"Beeeeees!" Brad screamed and began dancing around wildly.

The boy on the ground started waving his hands madly around his head, screaming at the top of his lungs.

I'd pay extra to see Indy fight zombie surf monster shark communists!

I'm going with my brother to see this tomorrow. Can't wait! :D

~20 rounds? Where do you get that?

Nullify 10 (all tech descriptors at once) with +2/-2 Extras/Flaws = 20 rounds to jury-rig . . . by the book.

Because APs have to make sense for a given power & source . . . A character has more leeway because of the more direct control they have over their abilities; a flamethrower has no control over its abilities (because it's an object) and there are limits to what can be done with it. A flamethrower cannot be altered to Nullify Fire Effects; an sonic blaster rifle cannot be altered to create Obscuring darkness; a stone floor cannot be altered to become a Teleporter (unless you're a Celestial, since some of their tech seems to be stone-based, but they're PL X entities anyway ).

No, you were demonstrating how silly it is to stunt nonsensical effects off other things (due to the miscommunication about just what the staffs were), not demonstrating how "abusive" it is to allow invention/jury-rigging to grant APs (which is what I was asking, a separate but related topic; "can you stunt anything off anything?" vs. "can you use inventor/jury-rigging to gain an AP?").

Wrong. With the way we handle approving APs at character creation, those two (anything off anything and jury-rigging an AP) are one and the same. We have approved a Teleport APs off of Force Fields, Blasts, and Flight. Space travel off of Blast. The Battlesuit Archetype even has Super Strength APed off of Blast. I'm sure if you asked, the explanation in every case would be something "nonsensical" . . . "They use a common power source." That could be said of anything. It sounds silly when you apply it to a car, because we have a pretty good idea of how a car's engine works, and we don't have a clue how a Battlesuit's power source works, so we just accept the comic logic and say, "Sure!" But it's still just as nonsensical. It is equally nonsensical to think that a device designed for electrocution (or flame-throwing . . . there is really no logical difference) could be turned into a universal technological disruptor. "Here is your electric chair. Now use it to shut down that tank over there. You have 6 seconds. And . . . go!"

This is ultimately a question of balance (and trying to avoid yet another end-run around the Variable Array ban). I have no problem with a player RPing his invention however he wants (as alteration to an existing device, etc.). It's the getting it in 1 round with a DC16 check (when it should be 20 rounds and the check should be DC 35) that is unbalancing.

And seeming, IMO, a tad sarcastic and snarky (especially with the ROTFL emoticon at the end).

And to demonstrate that he is actually a good-natured little guy . . . here he is again (with his brother), devoid of context . . . snark free.

:rotfl: :point:

I suppose the word "Owned" really sums up what Legionnaire is facing at the moment. Gotta hate tech priests.

The "beat down" was just for flavor. Feel free to recover and act normally, if you want.

May I ask why not? (UP says it's possible to do it with GM permission; why would you not allow it?)

Because in most cases it stretches the bounds of credulity. Most heroes don't even have enough control over their own powers to perform a power stunt regularly. If they did, it would be an Alt Power. That is why it takes "extra effort" to pull off a power stunt on the few occasions they do try it. It is too much of a stretch for me to think that I could jump into your head and have the know-how to also pull off a power stunt with your powers. Or for that matter, even know how to operate your device just by picking it up.

Hours? Jury-Rigging takes rounds. Or do you not allow that, either?

Inventing takes hours. Jury-rigging takes rounds. Jury-rigging an alt power only takes 1 round, though you are getting ~20 rounds worth of benefit for nothing.

Ah, okay, now I see a disconnect. See, from the descriptions I'd been reading, I was thinking the blasts were all just funky Kirby-esque energy, not fire/heat. If all these things are is glorified flamethrowrs, then, you're right, there's no way Archeville could jury-rig any kind of tech-wiping EMP for it. In fact, if I'd known that's what they were shooting, I wouldn't have even tried it in the first place. (And rather than let me continue, you should've told me up front it wouldn't/couldn't work.)

May I change my action for this round, since last round he would've found out he could not do what he was hoping to do this round?

But that is my point. Right here is the abuse. If the Refs agree with you . . . then there is no disconnect. A flame-thrower staff can have an Alt Power of Nullify. It can have an Alt Power of fly. We would approve that at character creation. Why would you not think it was appropriate to jury-rig that in this situation? Are you suggesting that jury-rigged Alt Powers have to "make sense" while Alt Powers bought normally don't?

I don't follow.

(But yes, you can do something different this round if you don't want to try the nullify.)

Now you're just being rude.

Nah. You ask "Where's the abuse?" I was just demonstrating. :)