Dr Archeville

Watch out for Feral Ghouls and Super-Mutants!

Never chase a shapeshifter. So now Sylar has: * Electrical Control * Morph (any humanoid; Must touch someone to copy their appearance, Action/Full Round drawback) * Regeneration (all conditions, including death; cannot resurrect if brain is destroyed) + Immunity (aging, poison, probably disease) * Postcognition (must have item to focus on) * Sonic Control (as a Cone Area Strike, possibly with an AP of Corrosion for when the original user grabbed someone and screamed their face off) * Super-Senses (detect lie) * Telekinesis (Damaging, Range/Perception; Subtle) + Leaping + Slow Fall? + Subtle Force Field? * Transform (objects into gold; Duration/Continuous, Range/Touch) And per the online graphic novels, he's got Transform (item to item with writing on it). The original owner used it to sign dozens of contracts at once. Interesting they had an actual shapeshifter this time, since that had been the plan for Candice Willmer's power, but they decided to go with the Illusion-based Morph (altering your perceptions of how you see her) because they wanted all powers to be (more or less) purely mental things. Which does sorta-kinda work: Matt's telepathy, the various precogs, Nathan's flight as a form of TK, Meredith's fires as pyrokinesis, and even Claire's regen & Jessica/Niki's enhanced/super-str as a type of biofeedback. (There was an ep of The Bionic Woman where she worked with a psychic who excelled at biofeedback, for both Healing and Boost/physical ability scores; they got into a bit of a rivalry to see who could do things better. One notable advantage of bionics over psionics: bionics don't fail if your concentration wavers.)

I'd been planning on doing something like this. Even dropped a hint about it in a thread where Doc was chatting with Eric Micheals (whom he knows is smart, but does not know is the villain Malice... or does he?). But if someone else beats me to it, I don't mind!

Sorry, I thought I already had locked and archived this!

No, the News thread is exactly where that belongs.

Make your save, +6 bonus total. DC 16. If you pass, Quark gets nothing (and can't try again during this combat, unless he uses Extra Effort). If you fail, Quark mimics 30pp of your powers.

Sure. Ecal, you still here? These back-and-forths haven't been taking a round each (even if I tried I couldn't speak all of Doc's lines from one post in six seconds).

Sadly, no :(

Warriors & Warlocks is now available in PDF form.

See, this is why I'm not entirely comfortable with letting players spend pps while a character is actively in a thread In that case, yes, it could work. I thought you could voluntarily fail any save, but the books say you cannot voluntarily fail a Toughness save. I'd say that you can, as long as the Toughness isn't coming from Protection (which is Permanent); you can choose to not add the bonus to Toughness from Constitution or Force Field, and just make a Toughness save based on your Protection. Which, I believe, would work out to a Toughness of +6 for DS. As for whether or not he would: would he, seeing as he knows squat about Quark and that weird beam he's firing? ;)

Hrrmmm... If it's a fake ID along the lines of a simple plastic badge with your name & photo, I'd say that could be done with Morph (assuming that either your normal clothes are some sort of Morphic Molecules, or you're doing the "my clothes are my skin" thing Mystique and Morph do... though in that case, someone tearing off the ID badge would hurt!) If it's a fake ID with name, photo, and a bar code that scans your ID... I'd probably allow that for Morph, if you also made a Computer check to make sure you got the bar code right (and of course you'd also need sample barcode on hand to study). If it's something fancier, like an ID badge with a magnetic strip containing info, yeah, that's at least Precise Subtle Create Object, along with a Craft (Electronics) roll.

Unfortunately, we realized nothing happens: Dark Star's Impervious Toughness (rank 8) is greater than Quark's Alt Save/Toughness Resisted Mimic (rank 6), so he cannot Mimic anything from Dark Star. If not for that Impervious Toughness, though, DS would need to make a Toughness save (DC 16). If that failed, Quark would then Mimic 30pp worth of stuff from DS.

Afraid?

It has not yet been answered, unfortunately. It's one of the (many) things the Refs are still mulling over. Sorry :(

Isn't there a sequel coming out soon? Where he has to get electrical shocks every hour or so or else his new artificial heart stops?

*clears throat. kitten falls out, quickly sucks it back down* Captain Knievel is a complete and total psychopath. Quote, you yourself have likened him to the Joker, and a few others have, too. Now, there's nothing wrong in and of itself with that type of character (else the Joker wouldn't have been plaguing Batman for almost seven decades), such characters are often liked by readers. Many villains have their fans amongst the readers. Even Sylar has his fans. The problem is how characters (especially Nonplayer Characters) in the setting itself react to him. Continuing the Joker comparison, not many people in the DCU like hanging around the Joker, and those who do -- like Harley Quinn -- are for the most part completely insane. (Luthor only tolerates him because he'd rather know where he is than not, and because he'd rather the Joker was going crazy on the heroes rather than on his villain team due to feeling slighted for not being invited... but do keep in mind that even Luthor is, with his monomaniacal obsession with destroying Superman, not entirely sane.) Or, to quote the Trickster, "when villains want to scare each other, they tell Joker stories." Writing Joker-centric stories is fine. Writing Joker-centric stories from the Joker's PoV leads to madness. And that's what's seemed to be going on here, you were making posts where many/most NPCs agreed with/cheered for the Captain, since the character himself thinks that's what everyone would do. And while your statement of "in any given society, not everyone is going to share the same viewpoint (his) there will always be a few people that disagree" is true to a point, the point fails when the character in question is a complete psychopath, and so about the only people who'd "see his way of things" are other psychopaths. (And I do mean Psychopaths, people so dangerously insane they should be locked away in Providence Asylum.) And even then, their particular idiosyncrasies may not mesh well with K's worldview. Now, if he were a new and fresh character, one who was never before seen, then his flamboyance may win some over at first, at least until he blows up the first car or dangles the first baby out a window. But now's not the beginning -- Knievel's been active for about three months, plus whatever activities he had in his backstory. At what point were you going to start having the public realize what a monster he was? Because, to us, there was absolutely no indication that that was going to be happening, or that you were even thinking of having it happen, hence our stepping in. This is what we want to make sure is made evident. Yeah, it's fine for Capt K to think everyone loves him, and that everyone sees him as an idol... but we also need you to show that others -- most others -- view him as a dangerous lunatic, and have them react accordingly. In other words, we'd like for your posts to be a bit less subjective, and a bit more objective. To accurately reflect that, yes, Freedom City is a place where Heroes are lauded and Villains are reviled (and the two are for the msot part very easily differentiated). I've seen that you've been willing to compromise and edit your posts, and that's Very Good. I do also need to warn you: if you don't make some significant changes, if it looks like you're not changing and you slip back to your old posting habits where many NPCs cheer the Captain and go out for drinks with him after seeing him drive a truck full of dynamite into a bus full of nuns, there will be consequences. Terrible consequences. This is Strike One. Don't get a second strike.

I have not.

I really need to do this for "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings."

"Dat's a bit unfair, Kapitan," Archeville said, extending his lower lip in the barest hint of a pout. "If ve do it dat vay, I vill haff answered t'ree of your qvestions, but you vould haff answered only two of mine. De arrangement vas for an equal exchange."

That's fine, I've certainly been there before. Just a reminder, you've got two 15pp, two 20pp, and two 25pp Inventions to go.

"I appreciate your honesty, Kapitan. As for how I go hold of dese images... vell, like I said, I keep in touch mit a lot of people, in many, many fields." "Now, to your qvestion: do I dink I am smarter dan Metahumans, de ones who posses true Meta-intelligence? Und how do I feel about dem, do I resent them for being born mit vhat I haff had to vork for? Interesting qvestions. For de first, it depends of course on de Metahuman in qvestion." Archeville manipulated the controls on his E.S. once more, and a trio of holographic heads appeared, then flickered out before they resolved clearly. The Doktor cursed a bit, continued trying to adjust the device, but now nothing at all came out. "Vell, dat's embarrassing -- seems I drained more charge dan I anticipated vhen I vas vorking earlier dis morning. Vell, no matter," he continued as he clipped it onto the side of his Gravimetric Belt, under his lab coat, "it should not take long to recharge, den I can resume de visual portion of dis exchange." "Now, vhere was- ah, yes. I vas going to show you images of three Metahumans I haff comes across in mein adventures. However, I vill instead discuss von meta-genius in particular, von whom everyvone in Freedom City should be at least passingly familiar mit: Doc Otaku. I do admit dat he is smarter dan me, und better in certain technological fields, particularly robotics." "Dere is also Professor Psion, whose self-experiments unlocked latent mental abilities vhich he believes lie mitin all of us, und increased his already-impressive intellect. Dere is also de Cosmic Mind, whose experiments left her a disembodied incorporeal mind mit great mental power, including an enhanced intellect." Unknown to Knievel -- unknown to anyone else in the room, and largely unknowable to anyone else on the planet -- Archeville had been sending Dark Star a message, a message he'd entered into his Electromagnetic Screwdriver (while pretending it was running out of power) and, by interfacing with the gravity manipuating components of his Gravimetric Belt, transmitting as a low-level gravitational fluxes that Dark Star's unique senses could perceive. It was a short, concise message -- Archeville only had so much time to type -- but it was fairly clear: At signal, immobilize. Do not damage. He stops pacing, and looks at Knievel. "All t'ree of dese individuals are Metahumans, und deir skills either match or exceed mein own, at least in certain fields. Do I resent dem for it, for being born mit or taking shortcut to gain more, for being such dat dings come so very naturally to dem? Certainly not. Mein ego is not so delicate dat I need constant validation of mein own self-vorth, nor do I feel threatened or intimidated by others who are better dan me. I do not feel de need to be 'King of de Hill,' nor am I so childish dat de only vay I can make meinself feel bigger is to knock down everyvon around me. Vhat you can do, und how you do it, are not nearly as important as how you use your abilities, as vhat you do mit your life. I do hold some resentment torvards dose t'ree, but it is solely because of de misguided uses to vhich dey put deir great minds, not de fact dat deir great minds are the result of less study und vork dan mein." Archeville moved back to the podium, and leaned its side. "Und now my qvestion for you. You said you vere a cripple vonce. Howso? Vere you born crippled, or vas it due to some accident, and accident perhaps caused by your reckless lifestyle? Und how do you come to stand here now, to be so threatening to so many dese past few months?"

If Vulture weren't unconscious, he would in fact say that you're a very pretty man.

That's a fine edit, there. Now we need that Notice check from the Captain.

I'm not gonna bother rolling for Doc, I'll say that his distance from Arrowhaw is sufficient to give enough penalty (-1 per 10 feet distance) that he couldn't make it. Any infatuation they may've had would've died the moment they saw him blow up cars and realize he sent a woman into the hospital.

Better... but still not quite there. "I'm an amoral monster! Wanna party?" No sane person should want to agree to that.