Toptomcat

"Good question. Just a moment."

The armored man kneels next to the rubbery robber.

Run firefox.exe in upper-right HUD window. http://www.webmd.com. Search query: "Head injury."

After a moment's pause, he takes a good look at the scalp where his sword hit, then opens the eyelids and takes a close look at the pupils.

"I'm no doctor, and metahuman medicine is tough- but it looks like it's just a concussion."

He stands, sheathing his blunted sword and shaking hands with both Moira and the Red Star.

"More than welcome, Red Star. I go by Shinken. There are others, you say? Interesting. Yes, I'll come back with you in a moment. And you!"

He turns to Moira: the approving, friendly voice contrasts strangely with the vaguely forbidding and rather inexpressive full face mask with weirdly glowing green eyes.

"I'm impressed as hell. You kept your head in a crisis and acted decisively without getting in the way."

He holds out an armored hand: with a faint whirring sound, a business card is deposited into the palm.

"If you're looking, I'd like to offer you a job. People like you aren't easy to find."

Some pretty extensive edits to Shinken. First of all, add this line to the end of the Headquarters quote block:

Due to new board rules reguarding Minions, a small squad of 5 soldiers is all that can be 'on-panel', or participating in a single, active combat encounter, at a given time: should more than 5 happen to be in the immediate area, they can only participate in a combat encounter five at a time, with reinforcements arriving round by round until all of the local minions are exhausted.

Next, replace the Katana and Bokken devices with this new, unified construction:

Device 3 (Daisho, 15 points, Easy to Lose) (PF: Benefit: Disarm Resistance) [10pp]

Strike 4 (Extra: Penetrating 7; PFs: Mighty, Alternate Power 2, Variable Descriptor (Physical, Slashing descriptors if lethal, Physical, Bludgeoning if nonlethal)

AP: Strike 4 (Extra: Penetrating 5; PFs: Mighty, Extended Reach 2, Incurable, Affects Insubstantial 1; Drawbacks: Lethal Only (Energy, Heat, Plasma descriptors)

AP: Stun 6 (PF: Accurate) (Electricity descriptor)

And add a note under it:

The Disarm Resistance benefit means that the device has to be disarmed twice to be fully negated. Disarming the sharp blade gives the Nonlethal Only drawback to the main Strike and eliminates the Stun AP: disarming the blunt one gives the Lethal Only drawback to the main Strike and eliminates the Strike AP.

Also replace Attack Specialization (Shinken's carried weapons) and Improved Critical (katana) with AS (Daisho) and IC (Daisho)

This power is 10 pp, where the combined costs of the powers it replaces is 15 pp. With 1 pp left unspent from the original version, that leaves me with 6 pp to work with.

Increase the rank of the Shinken Battlesuit device by 1, for 4 pp.

Add 4 ranks of Knowledge: Business, for 1 pp.

Increase the Will save by 1 for 1 pp.

With the points in the Device, increase the Dexterity by two- and consequently the in-suit Reflex save and Initiative modifiers. Add the Acrobatic Bluff, Grappling Finesse, and Set-Up feats.

This was a bit of a pain to do. I wish I'd been able to edit the sheet myself.

So Moira isn't Divine yet as of this thread?

No. Largely because you're only 2pp away from hitting PL 11 as is, and you shouldn't have much difficulty in doing enough to earn 2pps this month.

Fair enough. But the 'only x at a time on-screen' part is reasonable?

So... Tony Stark?

(Then again, I'm playing a German Mad Scientist who's trying to break away from some aspects of his family's reputation, yet still honoring others....)

That's a major part of his inspiration, yes.

Depends on what advances more quickly- energy density in your batteries or fuel, or processing power and brain-computer interfaces. The former is a branch of materials science and chemistry that seems doomed to incremental progress until someone works out how to miniaturize safe nuclear power- fission needs heavy lead shielding, and fusion's been twenty years away for fifty years now. The latter is subject to Moore's Law, and there are surgically invasive brain-computer interfaces of the type used by Shinken in the real-world working prototype stage.

For a long time, it *looked* like agility enhancement would be a lot harder than strength enhancement, because of the midcentury advances in nuclear power, materials science, and chemistry: however, the optimistic projections of how those technologies would be applied have stubbornly refused to be realized, while other techs emerged that were less resistant to application.

In short, it's not as crazy as it sounds!

They're also the least 'golden' and most 'brown' of those colors. I think Moira eventually ended up settling on 16.

It's true Shinken doesn't have it per se, the Minions are his HQ's. The HQ which he owns.

Per the new rules, you'd be limited to 5 PL 5 armored soldiers on-screen at any time, the other 95 being on assignment elsewhere, in the hospital following some super-battle, on vacation, or otherwise indisposed.

(Why did you need 100 soldiers in the first place? Standing armies isn't something superheroes usually have, that's more typically a supervillain thing.)

From a gamist point of view, the minions need to be formidable and numerous mainly because their primary function- guarding the headquarters when Shinken is away- will be conducted without any superhuman support, and so they need to be more than a speed bump to a character of equal PL. Their secondary function- assisting in the case of dire emergency- will always be conducted against a force, almost certainly a Referee-controlled rather than a PC-controlled, that overpowers Shinken and all of the minions combined anyway. The most problematic case- numerous and powerful minions acting in concert with Shinken to utterly crush a threat that would otherwise have been an equal challenge- simply does not occur. This is why I'm requesting a slight bending of these rules, effectively treating Shinken as just 1 PL greater for the purposes of these special Minions.

From a thematic point of view, Shinken has a standing army because of a thread of his character I eventually want to explore: that by virtue of his wealth and association with the military-industrial complex, Benjiro is far more powerful than any citizen in a democratic polity probably ought to be, yet he loves liberal democracy and devotes himself to protecting it and behaving as he morally should, despite the vast potential he has for breaking the rules of society. Ares is Blackwater, it's the East India Company, it's the dark side of capitalism, deforming the whole of the social order with its weight and influence...yet, ultimately, all for the good, solely because of the benevolence and self-discipline of the man at the helm. The point is to make moral compasses spin a bit.

This... seems to work perfectly well.

Except Improved Crit, like Attack Specialization, should by the RAW only apply to one particular & specific attack, not an Array of attacks (which the above is). You don't technically have one Strike power, you have two Strikes and a Stun.

Then again, since we are already fudging things and letting you use Attack Specialization (Shinken's Own Weapons), we could probably fudge on that, too.

Steve Kenson would seem to agree.

Ah, no. Not seven separate instances of the same Extra. That'd be fairly insane. Some extras, such as Penetrating, can apply to individual ranks of a power- so that instead of doubling the rank of the Strike as relates to penetrating Impervious Toughness, it's treated as if it were n ranks higher, where n is the number of ranks you bought the Extra at. And Mighty Strikes can buy- must buy, in most cases- ranks of an Extra in excess of the base power's rank to pay for the extra applying to the character's Strength modifier.

My character Shinken needs a little polishing, due to new board rules and an inefficient kludge relating to one of his power choices that has led to unforeseen consequences. I'd like to ask some advice here before submitting my edits to the Character Edits topic, as they will be extensive.

First, there are the new board rules relating to minions. Shinken has a bit of an unusual setup: he doesn't have any Summon power or Minion/Sidekick feat per se, but he does have a very significant security force guarding his Headquarters- a hundred-man security force of PL 5s- as well as a Benefit feat that allows them to set foot outside the Headquarters to assist in the event of dire emergency- such as an alien invasion, mass riots, Godzilla attacking, or any other event for which deploying a small army would actually be an appropriate action. They're not there to dog every step the character takes and provide support fire in massive quantities against every supervillian, as a typical Summon or Minion would.

As it stands, this construction is in violation of 5. Considering the special circumstances surrounding this instance of minions, I request the following compromise: while the security force's numbers remain the same, only one squad of six to ten can be 'on panel'- that is, actively participating in a combat encounter- at a time. When some are defeated, should there be more in the immediate area, they can then enter the combat encounter as reinforcements, but no more than 6-10 can be active at any given time.

Second, there is the question of his swords. The concept is essentially to have two swords, a blunt and a sharp one; each of those swords also has an alternate mode that can be useful in exotic situations, an electrical Stun and a plasma sheath that can effect insubstantial targets. Due to concerns over allowing the original Strike (Drawback: Lethal), AP Strike (Drawback: Nonlethal) construction, Dr. Archeville had me separate the two swords into separate devices before approving the character. Unfortunately, that has run into some technical problems of its own: the attacks being considered separate mechanically prevents his Improved Critical and probably his Attack Specialization feats from applying to both of them, which offends me logically since the two weapons are identically weighted, balanced, and used. Therefore, I would like to unify them again, flavoring the switch between blades as a purely cosmetic choice unreflected in the mechanics except insofar as reflected by Shinken's choice between lethal and nonlethal damage: when he's using lethal, he uses the sharp blade, and when he's using nonlethal, he's using the dull one. Here is the alternate construction:

Device 3 (Daisho, 15 points, Easy to Lose) (PF: Benefit: Disarm Resistance [10pp]

Strike 4 (Extra: Penetrating 7; PFs: Mighty, Alternate Power 2, Variable Descriptor (Physical, Slashing if lethal, Physical, Bludgeoning if nonlethal)

AP: Strike 4 (Extra: Penetrating 5; PFs: Mighty, Extended Reach, Incurable, Affects Insubstantial 1 (Energy, Heat, Plasma descriptors)

AP: Stun 6 (PF: Accurate) (Electricity descriptor)

The Disarm Resistance benefit means that the device has to be disarmed twice to be fully negated. Disarming the sharp blade gives the Nonlethal Only drawback to the main Strike and eliminates the Stun AP: disarming the blunt one gives the Lethal Only drawback to the main Strike and eliminates the Strike AP.

Being technically one Strike power, despite being actually two swords, the irritating concerns about the application of combat feats go away. Are there any serious objections to this construction?

Aargh. This is another irritating and less-than-logical consequence of the strangeness of the compromise we settled on for the two-sword setup. I'm going to have another go at it and submit that version to the Character Edits board.

I said in the roll notes that it was Nonlethal...even though I may use terms like 'sword' or 'blade' in my post, it's just because 'blunt sword' or 'bokken' or the like would have made the flow awkward. I promise that whenever I switch from one weapon to the other- or even one AP provided by the weapon to the other- I'll make a big deal about it in the text and OOC so you'll know. Barring any special notification such as this, the attack is gonna be made with the weapon, and AP of the weapon, that it was last round.

Though you may not need to, considering how I've just landed a PA5 crit on her. :shock:

Shinken almost jumps right after her again- but pauses momentarily.

She just keeps running away from us, not even trying to strike back or even slow us down. That leaves me free to strike with impunity!

The armored hero lets his blade fall to the side as he watches Grab, waiting for the proper opportunity to strike- then, as she hits a telephone pole at an odd angle, he acts. Time seems to slow for him as he begins a charge, leaping long and low to take him just inches over the traffic and pedestrians between him and Grab: he gets there just as she makes an unsteady landing, sweeping his sword in a huge, speed-blurred arc that hits her squarely on the top of the head. Carried up and over the elastic criminal by the force of his own strike, he makes an akward, exposed landing, nearly dropping his sword as he reaches out to a parked car to steady himself.

You and I have some past history with Hieronymus King, don't we? Pursuing that might be interesting.

Which one of those works for you?

Experiment 1

Experiment 2

Experiment 3

Experiment 4

Experiment 5

Experiment 6

Experiment 7

Experiment 8

Experiment 9

Experiment 10

Experiment 11

Experiment 12

Experiment 13

Experiment 14

Experiment 15

Experiment 16

Hmmmmm. Can I even reach her without Extra Efforting my Speed? Earlier she moved 275 feet away from Red Star, so I'm assuming she's going roughly that distance again, but I've only got a 50-foot move.

I generally stick to real, if sometimes exotic, science wherever I can with Shinken. For whatever reason, a hard(ish)-SF inventor in a soft-SF world is a concept that appeals to me.

Benjiro takes the seat he is offered, listening to Dr. Archeville with intense interest.

"I don't understand- wouldn't any sort of gravitic lens remain limited by the permittivity of free space? A gravitic lens is probably the best possible kind in the traditional sense, but I don't see how it'd be capable of the sort of subwavelength imaging that you can accomplish when you avoid the diffraction limit. And what about..."

He trails off for a moment, evidently stuck- then chuckles and looks up.

"In a roundabout way, this is exactly why I am here. You see, I am no real research scientist, although I dabble. I'm just a good engineer with a knack for adapting and refining others' work into usable products. Mr. Michaels- you, on the other hand, seem to have a capacity for genuine innovation in your corner. What you don't have is a good knowledge of how to play the game of military budget appropriations. I've done my homework, examined things closely...in the last three military contracts that Dart was in direct competition with Ares, you've offered a superior product each time. Each time, however, you lost out to us due to flaws in your presentation and execution. Each of us has expertise the other needs.

In short, I'd like to buy Dart from you- lock, stock, and barrel. I walked in prepared to pay a premium of one and a half times over market value- but your immanent partnership with the famed Dr. Archeville increases your value in my eyes immensely, and I think I'm prepared to offer two and a half times market in light of it. You'd keep almost everything- the name, the facilities, the logo, the research staff, and certainly the leadership position. Dart would function as a largely independent subsidiary, pursuing its own projects just as you've been doing. We'd take over the marketing and distribution end of the business, and that would involve some job cuts- but, in the end, it would be difficult to distinguish a typical work day for you before the transaction and one after it.

I know that it's highly unusual for this kind of offer to be made personally- but, in the end, the decision would be made by you and me, and I find that this method keeps such irritations as legalese, market speculation and the dizzying volatility that attends it, and my-bureaucracy-is-bigger-than-your-bureaucracy gamesmanship to a minimum.

You don't have to give me a final answer right away, but I'd certainly appreciate hearing your gut reaction to the offer."

1) Shinken (Benjiro Fujisama)

2) This one is rather ambitious. The immediate thread I have in mind is Shinken investigating a redirected shipment of munitions- probably ammunition supplies for Lonely Point Naval Base- and busting some heads to get it back and determine who's responsible. This would be pretty short and self-contained- but it would lead into hints that something larger is involved, and that The African- a mercenary encountered earlier in Shinken's career in a team-up with Nightrival, here- and subsequently encountered by Nightrival on a solo basis. This eventually escalates to an attempt to pin down and eradicate whatever group is behind the African- probably leading at first to a mercenary group, but eventually hinting at the involvement of Heironymous King. Things eventually escalate to a full-scale shadow war between King's Majestic Industries and Benjiro's Ares Macrotechnology, with increasingly more blatant and large-scale criminal attacks on Ares facilities as Shinken attacks Majestic's illegal activities root and branch- concluding with the destruction of one or other of the business empires.

3) The initial thread will be small in scale, with room for a hired PC villian or two. As things expand, I would love it if other heroes could get involved- preferably Nightrival- and the concluding shadow war phase could involve all manner of heroes and villians, and would make an ideal adventure for the hero team Nightrival's forming in the Force Works thread.

4) 2

I'm willing to work with a GM to change any aspect of this that would make it easier to run or more interesting. Please don't feel bound to run the rest of it if you help me out with the initial thread, or consider it a promise to go through with the larger plot: consider this a GM Request just to run the initial, munitions-hunting thread, if you like. I'm just thinking big, and I'd love it if this sparks someone's imagination and they decide to help me out with my grander designs.

Probably ought to edit the general timeline entry to remove my personal apology for my absence. It just confuses things.

Nov 1, 2007: Sword-wielding battlesuit pilot Shinken, seeking a sparring partner, is directed to martial-arts vigilante Nightrival by his teacher Master Lee. Shinken starts out helping him find his feet as a hero, but eventually takes a back seat to the young man's impressive skills as the two hunt down Zoom dealers and shut down a warehouse guarded by the mysterious but misguided supervillian Nanowire. A brief battle ensues: Nanowire appears to have the advantage to begin with, but turns on his employers when it becomes apparent that he's guarding dangerous drugs- a fact that he was not informed of. (The first half of this story was presented in the thread A Friendly Sparring Match, the second in The Raid. My thanks to Barnum for NPCing Shinken in The Raid due to my sudden and rude disappearance.)

Nov 5, 2007: Shinken and Nightrival reunite in the Freedom League's famous Wreck Room to test their skills against visiting street toughs, ninjas, and soldiers- and finally, each other! Shinken wins two falls out of two in an exciting and acrobatic match. (The second of the parallel sequences of events presented in A Friendly Sparring Match )

Nov 9, 2007: Freedom City's prestigious Midnight Society meets. In a curious coincidence, the meeting contains a number of heroes- most but not all in their secret identities- despite its normally exclusive 'no capes' rule. (The Midnight Society

Nullify (electricity-based powers) would probably make more sense, though.

So the events' dates of occurrence are based on the date the thread was started, and adjusted ad hoc for any threads for which this creates an obvious contradiction?

Just trying to get a handle on how to date some of my older threads.