I haven't built a character since 3rd Edition, but back then Life Support was ludicrously cheap. So the not breathing or eating isn't that exceptional.
3rd Ed didn't let you have more than 3d6 Luck, as I recall, so that's a difference. Luck was pretty expensive, though...
"Science teaches us to expect -- demand -- more than just eerie mysteries. What use is a puzzle that can't be solved? Patience is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking the universe to make sense!"
Superman with all his seemingly limitless power is still weak to two things: Kryptonite and magic, both of which he has absolutely no defense against.
That brings me to my next point; There has to be a weakness, a vulnerability involved if you're going to play some sort of God or god-level character. This isn't up for debate. You're not unkillable, not in this game's setting. Even in the popular comic mediums God characters are actually killable, at least are able to be defeated. Two good Marvel examples that come to mind would be how Ares got torn in half by The Sentry in Dark Avengers, or how Asgardians were dropping like flies due to a weapon designed to kill them in Siege.
Interesting view.
Yet and Ill even back gradi abit on this one, after all we never face true death in an MMO, we respawn. I know some including a character of my own, who treated that as indeed being an undying force.
However on the flip side I have known, especially over on DDO, perma death players, a true rarity in MMOdom people who delete a character and all items they have gained if a single death occurs even due to lag or grieifing. For them they can both claim mortality and undying status because when one has never died you cant really say they are as mortal as the other players who die freuqently on the same toon
Finally although Bentley Berkeley could be beaten, and in fact Id frequently when in a map with a prison section use self destruct to start from that position, it was to live the life of the immortal who freuqnetly gets captured by those after his secret. There was a reason I made myself into the one officially mentioned immortal of coh lore.
Id played blasters since year one of CoH, I played them in every power combo possible I leveled them all to the original 40 cap or at least 38 to play with the last power on their secondary.
And boy did I eat dirt, alot of it. I spent most of those blasters careers at max debt the entire time reaching their max lvl.
And then came the psi/mental sets. Sets Id long dreamed of having for a blaster. the raw dps combined with the single least resisted type of dmg in the game. But more then that, it gave me many tools I knew on a blaster would be not just minor aspects, but an entire tool box to build something out of the box and be more then any previous blaster build of mine.
With a heavy focus on global recharge IO set bonuses, and a build with a decent bit of dmg res and defense on top of strong self regen and an endless supply of energy the blaster I capped to 50 in what for me was record speed of a month of casual play sessions I had found a blaster that I knew was going to do more then any other I had ever made.
More then that, he was simply an unstoppable force by virtually any standard, I found I could not play him with maps set for less then at least 5 players, as drain psyche was a hungry beast and needed as much fuel as it could each time used. Commonly I was solo running maps with the build set for +2x8 which while not top end, prior to the coming of incarnate powers was still pretty top shelf for a blaster who didnt depend on nukes and self rezzing to keep inside a mission as the typical and far more numerous and popular fire x blaster builds centered around in tactics.
It was after running a 3rd respec tf for fun one day with a few randoms and one regular ally of tfs and trials, and the brute started asking me how I was able to go in head on with entire rooms that wiped him out nearly instantly and I explained how it wasnt any one thing, it was everything, every aspect, every power, every bit of timing that kept me going.
But my friend just said in a simplified manner, it was because I had built an immortal wizard type the likes of gandalf.
And that was that, I went on to paragon wiki, and started looking specifically for an immortal named in lore. When I found Bentley Berkeley and recalled the content you met him in, read up on every where he was mentioned, I decided it was destiny. It was an immortal, he was a wizard( my character had already been a generic wizard concept called the Eldritch Magelord), or at least connected to them being on the founding charter of the midnighters. He was more of a mentor, then a stand out here, which appealed to me as I was far more prone to look for new players and show them the ropes then run in closed off cliques like those who lived inside bubbles of personal RP that had no actual tie to the game world.
Bentley Berkeley even the name itself appealed to me, for I was an old school D&D player, and familiar with the slang term Berk from planescapes which is an old english bit of slang for fool. So I even mentioned in my bio how years of students called him ol berk as a joking insult but it had become a loved nickname as those who had first given it to him and frown up moved on and many had fallen during the rikti invasion.
I was far from alone as time went on I met many who did similar things. I knew one who had adopted the role of the npc seer in the ITF. I knew one who had adopted the mantle of Hero One as a female student of the old one. I knew a guy named Simon R leeds, who was a alternate timeline variant of lord nemesis. I wasnt the first nor the last who saw what we felt was a real need in the games world, interactive figures of the games history and lore. We never claimed to be more then other players, but we took on the job of creating a sense of a living and breathing interactive lore rather then lore you just read about.
And yes Ol berk was frankly so very hard to put down calling him immortal wasnt some vanity, dieing on berk when it happened was often strategic or even done for RP purposes to let the new players being mentored have a moment to really shine.
Skylger, I think you're missing 2 important points about our debate.
1, I don't agree character builds and character concept have to have the same limitations, due to the limits of game mechanics and the lack of limit on imagination,
2, I do not consider my character a god or god like, because her power is strictly limited according to what her body can handle channelling. Her body is the vessel through which she channels immense, possibly "god like" power, but because of the fact theres only so much energy she can channel through her body at one time before burning out like a fuse box, she has to pick and choose which actions to do at one time, and how much power of what kind she uses.
True she can stretch the limits on how much power she can channel at once a bit on occasion, but doing so still does not in any way negate the fact the power she can channel at maximum is limited.
Think of it as a rubber pipe being overstressed in a pneumatic machine. the more its stretched the more likely it is to snap, and theres a certain threshold at which it WILL snap.
actually I was making the same point as #1 Just because we can be beaten down physically does not mean we cant say we are immortal, after all we dont ever die in the game world we just get temporarily overwhelmed. Its up to a given player to decide what that actually represents to the players character. For some it is death and the ability to recover from even that, while for some it is a momentary loss of consciousness.
And I get it your a fan of the X Man concept, insane levels of power but a mortal body that can only endure so much at once. The candle that burns twice as bright and all that jazz.
My only problem with that is the idea that such power cant actually reinforce the vessel. Even in science now days we are experimenting with regenerating missing fingers and doing so successfully, and moving on to regenerating much greater masses of lost muscle and tissue from combat injuries.
What I mean is the fact is our body really is not that fragile, and it is honestly hard for me to even imagine a being with actual super human powers being even a little fragile. Its actually easy to imagine beings like superman who with such power are not just hard to hurt, but even if hurt so rapidly recover that harming them is about as meaningful as an ice cream head ache.
Sure magic can hurt superman, sure Kryptonite can debuff him, but you could drive an enchanted sword forged of kryptonite through his heart, bury him in a block of adamantium and drop it to the bottom of the ocean, and should a day come our yellow sun again touches the powder of his bones he will likely rise again as if nothing happened.
I mean I aint no supes fan, but I keep up with the DC based WB mainly made cartoon flicks, and its pretty damn apparent in the modern vision of the last son of krypton that even a bad **** like darksied is not actually in miles of the place supes stands if supe goes all out. And to this date the only being I know of that is truly rated as physcially stronger then him is marvels Hulk proven during the marvel vs dc event years ago. And we all know hulk is so powerful he could stomp his way through all of asguard like it was a paper machete diorama.
So no Thor for example is not akin to superman, the asgaurds are not equal to the kryptonians. In fact a common view now days about the actual destruction of krypton lays in the fact other celestial races foresaw the coming of superman, and recognized the need for such a being at times, but the idea of an entire world of beings with such potential was a nightmare beyond all imagining. And it is. put a yello sun over krypton and it would of given birth to an empire that makes everything ever imagined in comics seem like nothing next to the scope of their power.
I haven't built a character since 3rd Edition, but back then Life Support was ludicrously cheap. So the not breathing or eating isn't that exceptional.
3rd Ed didn't let you have more than 3d6 Luck, as I recall, so that's a difference. Luck was pretty expensive, though...
Never played PnP champs, but I have a D20 book called BESM, it is more or less anime D20, and its alot like you say there, little things like not needing to breathe or eat are trivial in cost.
Even something as potent as say being unable to die during say daylight is only about 3 levels worth of build points. a full kryptonian package as I call it with a single major vulnearbility to help counter costs can be achieved in about 8 lvls of build points. I call that the super boy phase;)
Some forget that for some the threat of being defeated is actually such a turn off it becomes a reason to not bother to play at all.
I routinely have since I first started PnP table top gaming as a teen always built characters to remove all vulnerabilities by the time they reach a certain lvl range based on the expected span of the campaign. I simply prefer to not have to worry over combat encounters and get them done quickly and with little fuss so I can get back to RPing my character in social encounters.
I call it the Zorro approach, simply put you never once expect Zorro to actually lose a fight, maybe overwhelmed or suckered into a trap but not actually lose a fight. And sure the action scenes are good fun, but the best times are those seeing Diego the fop con the baddies into seeing him as helpless, or pretending to be the opposite of his alter ego to the woman he secretly loves and who is already hot and bothered for the real him.
I know that seems insane but even in a game heavily focussed on the action of combat some people are there more to see the story.
For example when I play a game like Tomb Raider, Sleeping Dogs, or Dishonored I play on casual dif, because while the combat stuff can be fun enough I am 99% there just to see the story unfold.
Same reason why I build optimal builds in MMO, I am not here to be challenged by content I am here to explore it. Once I have seen it and done it, the replay value on an alt is so very little for me because I really dont care much how different a play style one build may be over another, it doesnt add enough depth to game play to make it worth the time.
Mentix is Asgardian but not a god. He was born to Thor n Jane after all... So... He is a Demi god who has no god powers or a Demi-Demigod?
Depends on the usage.
In one sense, demigod(s) are those who are more powerful than a human, but less powerful than a god (eg most mutant superheroes). So, therefore no, with no powers, Mentix is not a demigod.
In another sense, it's just the offspring between a god and a human. So, yes, with or without powers, he's a demigod.
Yet and Ill even back gradi abit on this one, after all we never face true death in an MMO, we respawn. I know some including a character of my own, who treated that as indeed being an undying force.
Well you don't really "die" in CO. You get defeated, as in get your butt royally handed to you. Referring to actual death might be stretching it a little in this game on my part. I should instead be saying that characters having a God concept by default should accept that there will be times where they face true risk to their livelihoods and can get their butts kicked when the situation isn't in their favor.
I find it interesting that some folks on this discussion are equating meta-game concepts with concepts applying to the "reality" of the in-game world.
It is possible to view a character respawning as a manifestation of immortality, but in practice it's more like the temporal phenomenon that Tom Cruise's character experienced in his recent film, Edge of Tomorrow. Our characters are "reset" to have another turn at the same situation. As far as the game-world continuity goes we didn't die and come back, we just started over.
And the "immortality" of major comic-book characters like Superman is ultimately derived from one source: writer's fiat. Even the mightiest heroes and villains can be killed by enough or the right kind of force, and the one who decides what that is is the writer. If the writer wants a character to stay dead, he'll stay dead until that writer or another decides to bring him back, in which case he'll provide a method or explanation for how it happens. If a different writer doesn't want that same method to work twice, it won't.
And yet the likes of Superman, Batman, Captain America, Spider-Man, or anyone else who has died in the comics, are never permanently dead not because they can't die, but because they're publicly-recognized properties who make money for their owners. That's the meta-reality beyond the meta-reality.
I made an alt who is a former Army officer chosen to wield Findias, the sword of Nuada Airgetlam, high king of the Tuatha De Dannan. Being an avatar, of course, means he's nowhere near as powerful. The actual power level of the Tuatha De Dannan is debatable. The earliest recordings of Irish mythology disagree as to whether they were actually worshiped as gods, or just legendary heroes. I went for godhood, but only so I could continue the grand tradition of filing the serial numbers off of Thor. I didn't know enough about Champions PnP lore when I made him to learn about The Ban, but it worked out anyway.
IIn the name of the Tortilla, the Cheese, and the Holy Jalape
Choose your enemies carefully, because they will define you / Make them interesting, because in some ways they will mind you
They're not there in the beginning, but when your story ends / Gonna last with you longer than your friends
I tend to see a god or a deity as a class of the power origin. Like a mutant, or an alien. Or a machine.
In comic books it's entirely reasonable to have a deity who's lower in terms of available powers than a machine or a mutant.
Thor is a very powerful Asgardian, but it doesn't makes all Asgardians as powerful as he is. For an example, characters like Apocalypse, Magneto or Ultron could be more powerful than average Asgardian, despite their entirely mundane power origins.
It's just a lack of imagination and poor skills in RP making players think that their toons of divine origin must be more powerful than anything else.
I tend to see a god or a deity as a class of the power origin. Like a mutant, or an alien. Or a machine.
In comic books it's entirely reasonable to have a deity who's lower in terms of available powers than a machine or a mutant.
Thor is a very powerful Asgardian, but it doesn't makes all Asgardians as powerful as he is. For an example, characters like Apocalypse, Magneto or Ultron could be more powerful than average Asgardian, despite their entirely mundane power origins.
It's just a lack of imagination and poor skills in RP making players think that their toons of divine origin must be more powerful than anything else.
Especially with the Ban being in place.
I have heard this many times but what is this "The Ban"?
And for god's (hehe) sake, why does everyone only see Thor as the almighty Asgardian? Siff is awesome too! Especially that weapon... And don't forget Odin, he probably has 10x the power Thor has... And 10x the sleeping time as well...
"Good can be found in heights, even in the deepest pits of evil" but "The valleys of evil always exist in the mountains of good."
The Ban is a kind of supernatural law of nature preventing physical manifestations of deities on the material plane if they are too powerful. The more powerful the being is, the stronger the Ban affects it.
There are some ways of getting around the Ban while retaining more power, but they aren't very usable for player characters.
Effectively, the Ban is just a plot device put into Champions Universe to have divine characters on the same footing as other metahumans.
Sif is a very good example that in comic books being a deity is just a power origin. She's an Asgardian and definitely superpowered, but power level wise she'd have a very hard time trying to keep up with Magneto at his highest despite of him being "only" a human mutant.
Another good example is Marvel's Hercules. A divine power origin, but the same comic book universe has the Hulk or the Thing who technically are both human mutates and could easily got into brawl with Herc. With Hulk having a really big chance at winning.
And, obviously, Superman. Who, despite being often depicted as a semi-religious messianic figure, technically is a solar energy powered alien. As much power as he wields his origin is pretty mundane.
This entire conversation inspired me - and Bulgarex helped a lot...
He's not a god any more, but once he was Kilbern Skyfather, Lord of Justice, Law, and Truth, king of the gods during the Turakian Age. To defeat the evil Lich-King Takofanes, Kilbern's power was bound to the powerful sword Auralia, which brought the Lich-King low and was buried with his corpse to ensure his imprisonment.
Over the millennia, Kilbern's worship died, and he languished in the far reaches of the Astral Plane, forgotten, his power dwindling as happens to all forsaken gods. The only thing that kept him from fading completely was his anchor to the sword.
Then came the day of the Blood Moon, when Takofanes awoke once more. The disturbance of Auralia drew Kilbern, who gathered what little remained of his divine power and fought his way through the barriers between planes. He arrived in the Material Plane greatly weakened, but determined to stop Takofanes' depradations forever. To that end, he has undertaken to live as a hero, drawing increasing power from the increasing number of people who remember him. His goal is to one day regain his godhood, and permanently destroy the Lich-King.
"Science teaches us to expect -- demand -- more than just eerie mysteries. What use is a puzzle that can't be solved? Patience is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking the universe to make sense!"
I find it interesting that some folks on this discussion are equating meta-game concepts with concepts applying to the "reality" of the in-game world.
It is possible to view a character respawning as a manifestation of immortality, but in practice it's more like the temporal phenomenon that Tom Cruise's character experienced in his recent film, Edge of Tomorrow. Our characters are "reset" to have another turn at the same situation. As far as the game-world continuity goes we didn't die and come back, we just started over.
And the "immortality" of major comic-book characters like Superman is ultimately derived from one source: writer's fiat. Even the mightiest heroes and villains can be killed by enough or the right kind of force, and the one who decides what that is is the writer. If the writer wants a character to stay dead, he'll stay dead until that writer or another decides to bring him back, in which case he'll provide a method or explanation for how it happens. If a different writer doesn't want that same method to work twice, it won't.
And yet the likes of Superman, Batman, Captain America, Spider-Man, or anyone else who has died in the comics, are never permanently dead not because they can't die, but because they're publicly-recognized properties who make money for their owners. That's the meta-reality beyond the meta-reality.
I cant say I really agree with the ground hogs day view, I mean it could work if you do always exit out with a ko and let the mission be restarted from scratch, but thats something not alot of groups are going to like and Id see as a purely solo rp approach to playing a paticular concept more then anything.
I mean in virtually all MMO Ive played maps have a long enough reset one can get back before it does and you can pick up exactly where you got dropped at. Sometimes the mob you where on may have healed up but thats not like letting the entire run reset.
Sure some content has lock out mechanics but that is far from the general bit.
I have heard this many times but what is this "The Ban"?
And for god's (hehe) sake, why does everyone only see Thor as the almighty Asgardian? Siff is awesome too! Especially that weapon... And don't forget Odin, he probably has 10x the power Thor has... And 10x the sleeping time as well...
actually although I dont keep up myself Ive heard thor got the odin force whatever the frell that is, and now is the dominant asguardian and one of the most powerful cosmic class beings in all of marvel quite possibly rival to the likes of galactus
I tend to see a god or a deity as a class of the power origin. Like a mutant, or an alien. Or a machine.
In comic books it's entirely reasonable to have a deity who's lower in terms of available powers than a machine or a mutant.
Thor is a very powerful Asgardian, but it doesn't makes all Asgardians as powerful as he is. For an example, characters like Apocalypse, Magneto or Ultron could be more powerful than average Asgardian, despite their entirely mundane power origins.
It's just a lack of imagination and poor skills in RP making players think that their toons of divine origin must be more powerful than anything else.
Especially with the Ban being in place.
what is mundane about the origins of beings like magneto? The rise of mutants is itself steeped in events like the use of nuclear weapons, and that is no mundane thing. Not to mention now days there is some idea being thrown around the x factor is acutally a trait in humans with traces of inhuman DNA, and beings like black bolt are really in a power class all his own for example.
No matter how you look at them they are not anything magical or supernatural in their respective universes (the same can be said about nuclear physics, semantically they can be considered a mundane thing).
On the sidenote, I'll be nitpicky. The word "God" written with a capital letter technically can be used only for beings from monotheistic religions like Abrahamic faiths where it becomes an unique name. For beings like Olympians or Asgardians, or other comic book pantheons, more proper usage is just a "god" with a lowercase because then it's a common noun.
I find it interesting that some folks on this discussion are equating meta-game concepts with concepts applying to the "reality" of the in-game world.
It is possible to view a character respawning as a manifestation of immortality, but in practice it's more like the temporal phenomenon that Tom Cruise's character experienced in his recent film, Edge of Tomorrow. Our characters are "reset" to have another turn at the same situation. As far as the game-world continuity goes we didn't die and come back, we just started over.
It could also be seen as us being knocked out rather than flat-out killed or otherwise incapacitated. Then when we Respawn we would be seen as having awoken, maybe gained our second wind or the like. Though in the case where the enemy also resets and all I agree with your view of it. It is more like the first time either didn't happen or was an alternate time-line and this is another take. Much like how in the Legend of Zelda series we have Link being the hero in one line, dying in another, and not even being in yet another. Stuff like that.
I tend to see a god or a deity as a class of the power origin. Like a mutant, or an alien. Or a machine.
In comic books it's entirely reasonable to have a deity who's lower in terms of available powers than a machine or a mutant.
Thor is a very powerful Asgardian, but it doesn't makes all Asgardians as powerful as he is. For an example, characters like Apocalypse, Magneto or Ultron could be more powerful than average Asgardian, despite their entirely mundane power origins.
It's just a lack of imagination and poor skills in RP making players think that their toons of divine origin must be more powerful than anything else.
Especially with the Ban being in place.
Magneto's origins are more complex and stranger than you think it is. Also at the moment Magneto has a temp loss of some power so I think at the moment an average Joe Asgardian could one shot him ( just at the mo u mind ).
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
Also at the moment Magneto has a temp loss of some power so I think at the moment an average Joe Asgardian could one shot him ( just at the mo u mind ).
Sif is a very good example that in comic books being a deity is just a power origin. She's an Asgardian and definitely superpowered, but power level wise she'd have a very hard time trying to keep up with Magneto at his highest despite of him being "only" a human mutant.
I think I'll start making emphases with bright colors, with animated.gifs if it can be helped, so people can't misread no matter how hard they're trying.
I understood what you said and your wrong on several points and you called Magneto's origins mundane ...yeah because being forced to do bad sh*t by the nazi's then chased by the KGB is mundane. Whats Thor's origins...ah yes his dad is Odin, he is a bit of a brat, he has a magic hammer, THE END!
At his highest power level he does wield cosmic power , he can take anything apart using his powers ANYTHING and put it back together diffrent CAUSE FORCE FEILDS! He can travel through space without the aid of anything and can destroy planets by screwing with its magnetic field. Thats pretty much a deity.
Canon wise Magneto had to actualy do some work and go through some bad stuff to enhance his powers. Thor is just Thor cause its Thor and hes a god and he has a magic hammer.
Be it RP in the club or Heroes in comics being a god is a lazy way to do story telling.
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
I understood what you said and your wrong on several points and you called Magneto's origins mundane ...yeah because being forced to do bad sh*t by the nazi's then chased by the KGB is mundane. Whats Thor's origins...ah yes his dad is Odin, he is a bit of a brat, he has a magic hammer, THE END!
At his highest power level he does wield cosmic power , he can take anything apart using his powers ANYTHING and put it back together diffrent CAUSE FORCE FEILDS! He can travel through space without the aid of anything and can destroy planets by screwing with its magnetic field. Thats pretty much a deity.
Canon wise Magneto had to actualy do some work and go through some bad stuff to enhance his powers. Thor is just Thor cause its Thor and hes a god and he has a magic hammer.
Be it RP in the club or Heroes in comics being a god is a lazy way to do story telling.
Im right with you on this one. Just because someone is still a mortal, and was born of human parents, does not equal mundane.
I mean if anyone thinks a nuclear weapon is mundane has one fract up scale of what is amazing and powerful. Most beings in comics cant put out that kind of energy discharge, those that do are all among the cosmic classed characters with a handful of exceptions like cyclops.
I guess some people become as hard to the amazing things in the real world, and how amazing they are.
We see the sun shine every day, but the power it represents, the energy being constantly put out by it, the virtually unfathomable power that rest at the heart of a sun, this stuff is not mundane just because its real.
The act of regeneration becomes something we inch ever closer to making a standard part of our medical abilities in the day to day, is wolverine suddenly less amazing, his power to regenerate not a super power any more, just a mundane medical advantage?
Life is extra ordinary, so much so that mundania that was imagined by Xanthians really doesnt even exist. While many may live out average ordinary lives. We are part of a species that has crossed the void of space and stepped foot on another celestial body.
Luther black tried that, it didn't work out so well for him.
Then again, Cryptic did have Black change the conclusion of the plan he'd been following for fifty years. :rolleyes:
Black's apotheosis scheme is an interesting example of how broadly the term "god" can be defined. Kings of Edom aren't human gods; they aren't spawned by imagination, they don't require worship. At their height they're by definition mighty beyond any mortal creature; yet some of them have been drained of much of their strength by eons of imprisonment, to the point that enough powerful superhumans could probably defeat one newly released.
No matter how you look at them they are not anything magical or supernatural in their respective universes (the same can be said about nuclear physics, semantically they can be considered a mundane thing).
Chill, guys, it's not worth sweating over one word.
Sometimes mythic gods make a big deal about being gods. Sometimes comics fans make a big deal about a favorite character being a god, e.g. the Thor fans in the endless "Thor vs. Superman" debates. But the comics themselves demonstrate repeatedly that within their universes, "god" is just one possible character origin among many, not innately superior to all the others. Not all mythic gods are equally powerful, either, at least in a fight. Even in mythology some exceptional mortals were a match for certain gods.
But some players want to be what they want to be, regardless of the rules of a game or the precedents from the source material.
Now, the Champions Universe, like the mainstream comics universes, has beings who are more like "gods" in the modern theological sense of "God." They embody universal concepts and forces, such as Death, Nature, Chaos. The tabletop RPGs based on any of those universes don't even try to quantify the power of such entities. Relative to finite beings they're omnipotent and invincible, plot devices more than characters.
Points for classic star trek reference. forget the name of the episode but was a fairly good one.
Even though I'm not normally a fan of the original series due to the style of TV shows at the time, hated the funny sound effects whenever something wierd happened.
Beat me to it. I just hope he was wearing ancient Greek undies with that toga, because the Enterprise crew could totally see up his skirt.
"Science teaches us to expect -- demand -- more than just eerie mysteries. What use is a puzzle that can't be solved? Patience is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking the universe to make sense!"
The best use of a deity was a player who played Athena in my Gestalt-Earth Hollywood Knights campaign. The player portrayed Athena as losing most of her powers (she relied on guns and conventional weapons to go with some low grade but versatile psionics and became the leader of the Knights to serve in her traditional divine role as patron of heroes in the modern world.
She eschewed worship, and had a strained relationship with other gestalts who were "resurrected deity" gestalts from the same pantheon (and tended to come down hard on their heroes, and the monsters they created).
Beat me to it. I just hope he was wearing ancient Greek undies with that toga, because the Enterprise crew could totally see up his skirt.
No way he was wearing a thing modesty is for mortals. But you think Kirk and his crew minded, it was the most swinging ship in sci fi dom that they lived on after all.
Comments
3rd Ed didn't let you have more than 3d6 Luck, as I recall, so that's a difference. Luck was pretty expensive, though...
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
Interesting view.
Yet and Ill even back gradi abit on this one, after all we never face true death in an MMO, we respawn. I know some including a character of my own, who treated that as indeed being an undying force.
However on the flip side I have known, especially over on DDO, perma death players, a true rarity in MMOdom people who delete a character and all items they have gained if a single death occurs even due to lag or grieifing. For them they can both claim mortality and undying status because when one has never died you cant really say they are as mortal as the other players who die freuqently on the same toon
Finally although Bentley Berkeley could be beaten, and in fact Id frequently when in a map with a prison section use self destruct to start from that position, it was to live the life of the immortal who freuqnetly gets captured by those after his secret. There was a reason I made myself into the one officially mentioned immortal of coh lore.
Id played blasters since year one of CoH, I played them in every power combo possible I leveled them all to the original 40 cap or at least 38 to play with the last power on their secondary.
And boy did I eat dirt, alot of it. I spent most of those blasters careers at max debt the entire time reaching their max lvl.
And then came the psi/mental sets. Sets Id long dreamed of having for a blaster. the raw dps combined with the single least resisted type of dmg in the game. But more then that, it gave me many tools I knew on a blaster would be not just minor aspects, but an entire tool box to build something out of the box and be more then any previous blaster build of mine.
With a heavy focus on global recharge IO set bonuses, and a build with a decent bit of dmg res and defense on top of strong self regen and an endless supply of energy the blaster I capped to 50 in what for me was record speed of a month of casual play sessions I had found a blaster that I knew was going to do more then any other I had ever made.
More then that, he was simply an unstoppable force by virtually any standard, I found I could not play him with maps set for less then at least 5 players, as drain psyche was a hungry beast and needed as much fuel as it could each time used. Commonly I was solo running maps with the build set for +2x8 which while not top end, prior to the coming of incarnate powers was still pretty top shelf for a blaster who didnt depend on nukes and self rezzing to keep inside a mission as the typical and far more numerous and popular fire x blaster builds centered around in tactics.
It was after running a 3rd respec tf for fun one day with a few randoms and one regular ally of tfs and trials, and the brute started asking me how I was able to go in head on with entire rooms that wiped him out nearly instantly and I explained how it wasnt any one thing, it was everything, every aspect, every power, every bit of timing that kept me going.
But my friend just said in a simplified manner, it was because I had built an immortal wizard type the likes of gandalf.
And that was that, I went on to paragon wiki, and started looking specifically for an immortal named in lore. When I found Bentley Berkeley and recalled the content you met him in, read up on every where he was mentioned, I decided it was destiny. It was an immortal, he was a wizard( my character had already been a generic wizard concept called the Eldritch Magelord), or at least connected to them being on the founding charter of the midnighters. He was more of a mentor, then a stand out here, which appealed to me as I was far more prone to look for new players and show them the ropes then run in closed off cliques like those who lived inside bubbles of personal RP that had no actual tie to the game world.
Bentley Berkeley even the name itself appealed to me, for I was an old school D&D player, and familiar with the slang term Berk from planescapes which is an old english bit of slang for fool. So I even mentioned in my bio how years of students called him ol berk as a joking insult but it had become a loved nickname as those who had first given it to him and frown up moved on and many had fallen during the rikti invasion.
I was far from alone as time went on I met many who did similar things. I knew one who had adopted the role of the npc seer in the ITF. I knew one who had adopted the mantle of Hero One as a female student of the old one. I knew a guy named Simon R leeds, who was a alternate timeline variant of lord nemesis. I wasnt the first nor the last who saw what we felt was a real need in the games world, interactive figures of the games history and lore. We never claimed to be more then other players, but we took on the job of creating a sense of a living and breathing interactive lore rather then lore you just read about.
And yes Ol berk was frankly so very hard to put down calling him immortal wasnt some vanity, dieing on berk when it happened was often strategic or even done for RP purposes to let the new players being mentored have a moment to really shine.
actually I was making the same point as #1 Just because we can be beaten down physically does not mean we cant say we are immortal, after all we dont ever die in the game world we just get temporarily overwhelmed. Its up to a given player to decide what that actually represents to the players character. For some it is death and the ability to recover from even that, while for some it is a momentary loss of consciousness.
And I get it your a fan of the X Man concept, insane levels of power but a mortal body that can only endure so much at once. The candle that burns twice as bright and all that jazz.
My only problem with that is the idea that such power cant actually reinforce the vessel. Even in science now days we are experimenting with regenerating missing fingers and doing so successfully, and moving on to regenerating much greater masses of lost muscle and tissue from combat injuries.
What I mean is the fact is our body really is not that fragile, and it is honestly hard for me to even imagine a being with actual super human powers being even a little fragile. Its actually easy to imagine beings like superman who with such power are not just hard to hurt, but even if hurt so rapidly recover that harming them is about as meaningful as an ice cream head ache.
Sure magic can hurt superman, sure Kryptonite can debuff him, but you could drive an enchanted sword forged of kryptonite through his heart, bury him in a block of adamantium and drop it to the bottom of the ocean, and should a day come our yellow sun again touches the powder of his bones he will likely rise again as if nothing happened.
I mean I aint no supes fan, but I keep up with the DC based WB mainly made cartoon flicks, and its pretty damn apparent in the modern vision of the last son of krypton that even a bad **** like darksied is not actually in miles of the place supes stands if supe goes all out. And to this date the only being I know of that is truly rated as physcially stronger then him is marvels Hulk proven during the marvel vs dc event years ago. And we all know hulk is so powerful he could stomp his way through all of asguard like it was a paper machete diorama.
So no Thor for example is not akin to superman, the asgaurds are not equal to the kryptonians. In fact a common view now days about the actual destruction of krypton lays in the fact other celestial races foresaw the coming of superman, and recognized the need for such a being at times, but the idea of an entire world of beings with such potential was a nightmare beyond all imagining. And it is. put a yello sun over krypton and it would of given birth to an empire that makes everything ever imagined in comics seem like nothing next to the scope of their power.
Always be Batman.
"Good can be found in heights, even in the deepest pits of evil" but "The valleys of evil always exist in the mountains of good."
~me
Never played PnP champs, but I have a D20 book called BESM, it is more or less anime D20, and its alot like you say there, little things like not needing to breathe or eat are trivial in cost.
Even something as potent as say being unable to die during say daylight is only about 3 levels worth of build points. a full kryptonian package as I call it with a single major vulnearbility to help counter costs can be achieved in about 8 lvls of build points. I call that the super boy phase;)
Some forget that for some the threat of being defeated is actually such a turn off it becomes a reason to not bother to play at all.
I routinely have since I first started PnP table top gaming as a teen always built characters to remove all vulnerabilities by the time they reach a certain lvl range based on the expected span of the campaign. I simply prefer to not have to worry over combat encounters and get them done quickly and with little fuss so I can get back to RPing my character in social encounters.
I call it the Zorro approach, simply put you never once expect Zorro to actually lose a fight, maybe overwhelmed or suckered into a trap but not actually lose a fight. And sure the action scenes are good fun, but the best times are those seeing Diego the fop con the baddies into seeing him as helpless, or pretending to be the opposite of his alter ego to the woman he secretly loves and who is already hot and bothered for the real him.
I know that seems insane but even in a game heavily focussed on the action of combat some people are there more to see the story.
For example when I play a game like Tomb Raider, Sleeping Dogs, or Dishonored I play on casual dif, because while the combat stuff can be fun enough I am 99% there just to see the story unfold.
Same reason why I build optimal builds in MMO, I am not here to be challenged by content I am here to explore it. Once I have seen it and done it, the replay value on an alt is so very little for me because I really dont care much how different a play style one build may be over another, it doesnt add enough depth to game play to make it worth the time.
Depends on the usage.
In one sense, demigod(s) are those who are more powerful than a human, but less powerful than a god (eg most mutant superheroes). So, therefore no, with no powers, Mentix is not a demigod.
In another sense, it's just the offspring between a god and a human. So, yes, with or without powers, he's a demigod.
Just depends on which definition one prefers.
Well you don't really "die" in CO. You get defeated, as in get your butt royally handed to you. Referring to actual death might be stretching it a little in this game on my part. I should instead be saying that characters having a God concept by default should accept that there will be times where they face true risk to their livelihoods and can get their butts kicked when the situation isn't in their favor.
It is possible to view a character respawning as a manifestation of immortality, but in practice it's more like the temporal phenomenon that Tom Cruise's character experienced in his recent film, Edge of Tomorrow. Our characters are "reset" to have another turn at the same situation. As far as the game-world continuity goes we didn't die and come back, we just started over.
And the "immortality" of major comic-book characters like Superman is ultimately derived from one source: writer's fiat. Even the mightiest heroes and villains can be killed by enough or the right kind of force, and the one who decides what that is is the writer. If the writer wants a character to stay dead, he'll stay dead until that writer or another decides to bring him back, in which case he'll provide a method or explanation for how it happens. If a different writer doesn't want that same method to work twice, it won't.
And yet the likes of Superman, Batman, Captain America, Spider-Man, or anyone else who has died in the comics, are never permanently dead not because they can't die, but because they're publicly-recognized properties who make money for their owners. That's the meta-reality beyond the meta-reality.
If I were as rich as Bruce Wayne, I'd hire a good psychiatrist and be Tony Stark instead. Just keep me away from the liquor cabinet.
IIn the name of the Tortilla, the Cheese, and the Holy Jalape
They're not there in the beginning, but when your story ends / Gonna last with you longer than your friends
In comic books it's entirely reasonable to have a deity who's lower in terms of available powers than a machine or a mutant.
Thor is a very powerful Asgardian, but it doesn't makes all Asgardians as powerful as he is. For an example, characters like Apocalypse, Magneto or Ultron could be more powerful than average Asgardian, despite their entirely mundane power origins.
It's just a lack of imagination and poor skills in RP making players think that their toons of divine origin must be more powerful than anything else.
Especially with the Ban being in place.
I have heard this many times but what is this "The Ban"?
And for god's (hehe) sake, why does everyone only see Thor as the almighty Asgardian? Siff is awesome too! Especially that weapon... And don't forget Odin, he probably has 10x the power Thor has... And 10x the sleeping time as well...
"Good can be found in heights, even in the deepest pits of evil" but "The valleys of evil always exist in the mountains of good."
~me
There are some ways of getting around the Ban while retaining more power, but they aren't very usable for player characters.
Effectively, the Ban is just a plot device put into Champions Universe to have divine characters on the same footing as other metahumans.
Sif is a very good example that in comic books being a deity is just a power origin. She's an Asgardian and definitely superpowered, but power level wise she'd have a very hard time trying to keep up with Magneto at his highest despite of him being "only" a human mutant.
Another good example is Marvel's Hercules. A divine power origin, but the same comic book universe has the Hulk or the Thing who technically are both human mutates and could easily got into brawl with Herc. With Hulk having a really big chance at winning.
And, obviously, Superman. Who, despite being often depicted as a semi-religious messianic figure, technically is a solar energy powered alien. As much power as he wields his origin is pretty mundane.
He's not a god any more, but once he was Kilbern Skyfather, Lord of Justice, Law, and Truth, king of the gods during the Turakian Age. To defeat the evil Lich-King Takofanes, Kilbern's power was bound to the powerful sword Auralia, which brought the Lich-King low and was buried with his corpse to ensure his imprisonment.
Over the millennia, Kilbern's worship died, and he languished in the far reaches of the Astral Plane, forgotten, his power dwindling as happens to all forsaken gods. The only thing that kept him from fading completely was his anchor to the sword.
Then came the day of the Blood Moon, when Takofanes awoke once more. The disturbance of Auralia drew Kilbern, who gathered what little remained of his divine power and fought his way through the barriers between planes. He arrived in the Material Plane greatly weakened, but determined to stop Takofanes' depradations forever. To that end, he has undertaken to live as a hero, drawing increasing power from the increasing number of people who remember him. His goal is to one day regain his godhood, and permanently destroy the Lich-King.
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
I cant say I really agree with the ground hogs day view, I mean it could work if you do always exit out with a ko and let the mission be restarted from scratch, but thats something not alot of groups are going to like and Id see as a purely solo rp approach to playing a paticular concept more then anything.
I mean in virtually all MMO Ive played maps have a long enough reset one can get back before it does and you can pick up exactly where you got dropped at. Sometimes the mob you where on may have healed up but thats not like letting the entire run reset.
Sure some content has lock out mechanics but that is far from the general bit.
actually although I dont keep up myself Ive heard thor got the odin force whatever the frell that is, and now is the dominant asguardian and one of the most powerful cosmic class beings in all of marvel quite possibly rival to the likes of galactus
what is mundane about the origins of beings like magneto? The rise of mutants is itself steeped in events like the use of nuclear weapons, and that is no mundane thing. Not to mention now days there is some idea being thrown around the x factor is acutally a trait in humans with traces of inhuman DNA, and beings like black bolt are really in a power class all his own for example.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/mundane
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mundane
No matter how you look at them they are not anything magical or supernatural in their respective universes (the same can be said about nuclear physics, semantically they can be considered a mundane thing).
On the sidenote, I'll be nitpicky. The word "God" written with a capital letter technically can be used only for beings from monotheistic religions like Abrahamic faiths where it becomes an unique name. For beings like Olympians or Asgardians, or other comic book pantheons, more proper usage is just a "god" with a lowercase because then it's a common noun.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
It could also be seen as us being knocked out rather than flat-out killed or otherwise incapacitated. Then when we Respawn we would be seen as having awoken, maybe gained our second wind or the like. Though in the case where the enemy also resets and all I agree with your view of it. It is more like the first time either didn't happen or was an alternate time-line and this is another take. Much like how in the Legend of Zelda series we have Link being the hero in one line, dying in another, and not even being in yet another. Stuff like that.
Magneto's origins are more complex and stranger than you think it is. Also at the moment Magneto has a temp loss of some power so I think at the moment an average Joe Asgardian could one shot him ( just at the mo u mind ).
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
I think I'll start making emphases with bright colors, with animated.gifs if it can be helped, so people can't misread no matter how hard they're trying.
I know his power origin. He's still "just" a mutant. Not a deity or a herald of a cosmic power.
We got da Holiness!!!!
Obey!! @3@
Command; /worship
I understood what you said and your wrong on several points and you called Magneto's origins mundane ...yeah because being forced to do bad sh*t by the nazi's then chased by the KGB is mundane. Whats Thor's origins...ah yes his dad is Odin, he is a bit of a brat, he has a magic hammer, THE END!
At his highest power level he does wield cosmic power , he can take anything apart using his powers ANYTHING and put it back together diffrent CAUSE FORCE FEILDS! He can travel through space without the aid of anything and can destroy planets by screwing with its magnetic field. Thats pretty much a deity.
Canon wise Magneto had to actualy do some work and go through some bad stuff to enhance his powers. Thor is just Thor cause its Thor and hes a god and he has a magic hammer.
Be it RP in the club or Heroes in comics being a god is a lazy way to do story telling.
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
Im right with you on this one. Just because someone is still a mortal, and was born of human parents, does not equal mundane.
I mean if anyone thinks a nuclear weapon is mundane has one fract up scale of what is amazing and powerful. Most beings in comics cant put out that kind of energy discharge, those that do are all among the cosmic classed characters with a handful of exceptions like cyclops.
I guess some people become as hard to the amazing things in the real world, and how amazing they are.
We see the sun shine every day, but the power it represents, the energy being constantly put out by it, the virtually unfathomable power that rest at the heart of a sun, this stuff is not mundane just because its real.
The act of regeneration becomes something we inch ever closer to making a standard part of our medical abilities in the day to day, is wolverine suddenly less amazing, his power to regenerate not a super power any more, just a mundane medical advantage?
Life is extra ordinary, so much so that mundania that was imagined by Xanthians really doesnt even exist. While many may live out average ordinary lives. We are part of a species that has crossed the void of space and stepped foot on another celestial body.
WE ARE NOT MUNDANE!
If someone ask if your a god.
You SAY
YES!
That is Club Caprice made flesh.
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
Then again, Cryptic did have Black change the conclusion of the plan he'd been following for fifty years. :rolleyes:
Black's apotheosis scheme is an interesting example of how broadly the term "god" can be defined. Kings of Edom aren't human gods; they aren't spawned by imagination, they don't require worship. At their height they're by definition mighty beyond any mortal creature; yet some of them have been drained of much of their strength by eons of imprisonment, to the point that enough powerful superhumans could probably defeat one newly released.
Again, as meedacthunist pointed out, "mundane" has more than one meaning.
Chill, guys, it's not worth sweating over one word.
Sometimes mythic gods make a big deal about being gods. Sometimes comics fans make a big deal about a favorite character being a god, e.g. the Thor fans in the endless "Thor vs. Superman" debates. But the comics themselves demonstrate repeatedly that within their universes, "god" is just one possible character origin among many, not innately superior to all the others. Not all mythic gods are equally powerful, either, at least in a fight. Even in mythology some exceptional mortals were a match for certain gods.
But some players want to be what they want to be, regardless of the rules of a game or the precedents from the source material.
-
Who Mourns for Adonais?
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
She eschewed worship, and had a strained relationship with other gestalts who were "resurrected deity" gestalts from the same pantheon (and tended to come down hard on their heroes, and the monsters they created).
No way he was wearing a thing modesty is for mortals. But you think Kirk and his crew minded, it was the most swinging ship in sci fi dom that they lived on after all.