Chat about the game...

Ditto!

Had an interesting weekend. Got in an auto accident on the way to see my first client of the morning. Starting to think that maybe I should make Fridays my office day instead of Tuesdays. Second time since late May I've been in a Friday Accident.

Haven't heard yet if car is total or they are going to fix it. Bumps and bruises, nothing broken though I am missing a few seconds of memory after the accident. I remember hearing the crash but not feeling it, then next thing I know I'm down the road with the air bag deflated [didn't remember it deploying] and trying to stop the car. Brakes went with the accident.

I hit the other car with my right front side, going through an intersection where I had the green light, the guy pulls out of a parking lot into my path. So fast! Didn't even have time to take foot of the gas or swerve. It was like CAR! BAM!

Hope you guys are doing better than me.

Strewth, glad you're ok, save for the bumps n bruises! I was reminded yesterday about my hobby (Motorcycling) being hazardous when a guy who rides out with our group (bunch of us on Facebook go for rides to the coast etc, but I haven't been out for a while with them) passed away. He'd been involved in a crash a couple of weeks ago when riding on his own and the group had found out about it. He was in hospital, supposedly 'on the mend' after touch n go week or so and yesterday he passed. The money contribution I was going to make to help him get back on his feet (he was self employed so whilst in hospital no way to pay bills) will now sadly go towards funeral costs. I didn't know the guy but can tell from the outpouring of grief on the FB group how well liked he was. Think he was in his late 40s.

Be careful out there guys, and enjoy life as best you can, because you never know what's around the corner. RIP.

Hopefully updating later, but have lots of homework to do so may be in the morning. Cheers, Paul

Aiming for update tonight. Latest disaster is that I went out for a few drinks with the Girlfriend after work and she got drunk and fell over. I Spent all night in Casualty with her and she's having her leg stitched today whilst her face looks like she's been 12 rounds with Mike Tyson. My life is officially crazy! Hope you guys are faring better.

We seem to be having a run of bad luck, don't we?

Well, it's explaining my absences. When I'm around at the GF's place I have no access to a laptop to update. Indeed, I seem to be spending most of the time running around and fetching things... hmmmm. Anyway, I have a brief window this morning before I go to work so let's see how far I can get with updates! based on the run of luck this year, I'm thinking we are due a lottery win of a substantial amount at some point, to even things out...

Well, the insurance company totaled my car since I had repairs of over 3/4s of its worth, which by state law they must then declare totaled. I bought a 2017 Kia Soul back on the 4th from the money the insurance company paid me.

BTW, if you are tall like me and are looking for a new car, you want to check out the Soul. It is surprisingly roomy with good headroom, cargo space and inexpensive and beat out Porsche as best rated car of 2017 as by 90 day owner satisfaction rating. First time in decades a non0luxery car got the number one spot. Land Rover came in like 35th.

I bought the Plus model, more power and other goodies. So far I am really enjoying it.

So, anyone seen Thor yet? I will probably wait until it comes out on Netflix since I now have a nice big TV to watch it on.

Ok, in case anyone thinks I've wandered off, I haven't but this year has been a dozy for me. I've just moved for the third time and am in between properties as I write this. I will be in my final new home by the end of November. On top of this, I'm in one of the busier times for me in the year and things are what one might call settled, at least not at present. So, Paul, I know you've been a bit the same, however, I wanted to specifically come on and say it's not you or me, its just been what it's been. I will be slower in replying than normal but I have to prioritize at present and that is why I've not yet replied not because I don't wish to or am going anywhere.

Sj

Dave - completely understand mate. No rush, no worries. The game has slowed down for the most part thanks to my bonkers schedule (even as I type this I should instead be making further notes on the route for the train from York to Manchester. It's something I've been putting off as I learn other routes but have just done Scarborough, newcastle before that and my head is spinning. Like being back in school with homework every night ) Once things settle down (next year should be finished training) things will become more settled and back to normal, I promise!

David - saw Thor, quite enjoyed it. Didn't take itself seriously, they did some crazy stuff to Thor which will need fixing in the next film I expect and i reckon there'll be a mass clearout of actors in the next few films after Black Panther. We know Robert Downey is nearly done, and Chris Evans and Hemsworth will want to do other stuff (Evans wants directing I think). Besides which the wage bill must be enormous by now so bringing in new/fresh actors on lower salaries will appeal to the Disney Execs.

Have spent too long (again) doing work stuff and need to hit the sack, but there will be (at least) one update this week David. Dave, whenever you can mate, no rush. It's usually you waiting for me and things have been absolutely bonkers this year. Let's see... change jobs, move house, girlfriend changes jobs 3 times, breaks her thumb, I run over her cat (he's fine by the way, the thing is nigh on indestructible it seems) and she ruptures her tendon in her leg needing surgery and a leg splint for months. During all of which I'm required to be around and supportive (translation - be a taxi driver).

You ever have one of those years?

(rhetorical question - I know you both have had just as crazy years as I've had...)

Thanks for hanging in here! Cheers, Paul

So .. something I've been wondering about off and on is the strength levels of our characters. If a table could be built strong enough for the heroes of this universe, which known and popular heroes would our characters be pretty much equal to in strength?

Well, this sounds like a kind of 'sat on the fence' answer. As you know marvel and DC have a different way of classifying their heroes. Marvels' 'Class 100' used to be a catch all for the heavy hitters like Hulk, Thor, Gladiator and so on. The game had that at lifting 100 tons.... which is pretty much weightless to someone like, say, Superman, Martian Manhunter, Orion, Darkseid, Wonder Woman etc (12APs in the DC Game system).

If we take Spiderman, say, as a mid level tier hero overall, he's not the heaviest hitter, nor strongest (10 tons or thereabouts) and he has 9APs strength or thereabouts, that would put him at 'Incredible' in the old FASERIP game. At 14 Strength, Haunt is more in the 'Amazing' range or lower end of 'Monstrous' if we are comparing relative power from the old Marvel Game to DC... which doesn't match up so I'm kind of guessing.

Bearing that in mind, for an arm wrestle look at the likes of Rogue (Amazing strength), the Thing on a bad day, She Hulk (on a bad day), Colossus on a bad day. in truth those guys are nearer 17-20APs so Haunt is barely scraping into their league.

Frostbite would give Spiderman a fairly even contest.

Lionheart (at full power) would give Orion a run for his money, fall short of Superman, and reasonably comfortably beat the Thing, Colossus etc. So he's on the lower end of 'Unearthly' and at the very upper end of Monstrous. Superman has strength 25. An angry Hulk would be 28, and so on.

Writeups with DC Heroes game stats

You could lose hours poring through all of those.

Those are writeups by fans who try and convert comics/games/films to DC Heroes stats. e,g,

Silver Surfer
Dex: 12 Str: 16 Bod: 12 Motivation: Responsibility of Power
Int: 08 Wil: 18 Min: 10 Occupation: Cosmic Adventurer, Former herald of Galactus
Inf: 11 Aur: 15 Spi: 18 Resources {or Wealth}: 008
Init: 035 HP: 200
Powers:
Awareness: 06, Bestow: 04, Dimension Travel: 05, Comprehend Languages: 14, Continuum Control: 20, Detect (Energy): 25, Energy Absorption: 20, Enchantment: 12, Invulnerability: 20, Life Sense: 30, Postcognition: 20, Power Reserve (STR): 06, Sealed Systems: 25, Skin Armor: 03, Systemic Antidote: 25, Telekinesis: 08, Telescopic Vision: 30

Bonuses and Limitations:

Detect, Life Sense, and Telekinesis have their ranges doubled (+3)
Continuum Control may be used for uncreating or recreating the Surfboard if need be by spending a Dice Action (+0)
Detect (Energy) can be used to detect and identify (PQ) large concentrations or expenditures of energy (+1)
Energy Absorption can fuel Power Reserve power (+1)
Dimension Travel can also be used for summoning the Surfboard through dimensions (+0)
Power reserve is limited to 3 APs at all times except when boosting it by use of Energy Absorption (-0)
Energy Absorption can only be used at full APs by expenditure of Dice Action (-1) (only 10 APs can be used as the usual Automatic Action)
Skills:
Acrobatics (Dodging): 06, Martial Arts: 06, Scientist: 09, Vehicles (Space): 08, Vehicles (Surfboard): 15

Advantages:
Area Knowledge (Andromeda Galaxy, Milky Way Galaxy, The Earth), Immortal, Iron Nerves, Languages (Interlac, Zenn-Lavian), Life Support (No need to Eat or Drink), Lightning Reflexes, Scholar (Astronavigation), Scholar (Meditation), Shtick (Increased Reserves)

Connections:
Adam Warlock (High), Defenders (High), Dr. Strange (High), Fantastic Four (incl. Alicia Masters) (High), Galactus (Low), Mantis (High), Nova (High), The Cosmic Beings Community (Low), The Sub-Mariner (High), The Star Masters (High)

Drawbacks:
Archenemy (Mephisto), Distinct Appearance, Exile (involuntary on Earth, earlier only), Guilt, Innocent, Mistrust, Misc. Drawback; Catastrophic Übermensch Syndrome (see new rules)

Equipment:
Surfboard [BODY 20, Flight: 47, Skin Armor: 03, Bonus: Hardened Defenses, Limitation: The Flight power is actually derived from the Surfer himself and therefore the board will only work for him, Note: The surfboard is controlled by using the Vehicles (Surfboard) Subskill; while in fast flight his OV is equal to APs of Vehicles]

The Cosmic Surfer
The Silver Surfer is usually portrayed as represented by his stats above. However, there are occasions when he is a truly grand cosmic player. As such he seems to transcend his normal already impressive Physical boundaries, and regularly performs truly astounding Power feats on-par with the most powerful cosmic entities around.

The Silver Surfer is considered to have an unique Shtick, named Increased Reserves, that allows him to spend HPs to increase any AV/EV/OV/RV, related to his Physical Stats or his Powers, up to a total of three times the original value.

As such, the Surfer can spend HPs with his Physical stats to reach maximum values of 36/48/36, respectively (just as any normal character with 18/24/18, respectively, would). All Physical Powers can also be pushed or boosted to a maximum of three times their original value.

This Shtick is a very limited version of the old Bottomless Reserve Advantage, and is considered to cost at least 50 HPs.

=========

They don't always hit the mark, but then again depending on the writer it's hard to quantify what a character can do in game terms. Bear in mind we also play with an adapted set of rules that does away with the increasing of AV/OV/EV/RV because it simply means that characters with a large pool of hero points automatically stomp over anyone else. That said the Surfer is on a par (strength wise) with Lionheart at his best, which he is a LONG way short of right now. I'd expect the Surfer to (comfortably) beat him though. His Continuum Control is one of those game breaking powers and that's just the tip of what he can do.

Actually, I meant the other heroes of our game universe, not DC or Marvel.

Ha! Oh right. Well I haven't fully statted out the heroes of the UKChampions, only when they are encountered. I generally go by the rough classification 1-5 (where 1 is street level/unpowered, 2 is high level street/skilled to world class level, 3 is mid level like Spiderman etc, 4 is high powered and includes the likes of Iron Man, Thing, She Hulk etc. 5 is the upper tier heroes that have no real upper limit as humans have no way to properly understand the upper range of the limits of things that these characters can do).

Haunt is an upper tier 3, Frostbite probably mid tier (though has a wider range of abilities). Yeoman tier 3 (somewhere in between the two) and go from there.

Need to update the who's who, and I am (at any time) open to submissions for characters to use as NPCs, both good and bad guys. That'd be name, powers/skills/ability levels, some kind of short backstory/motivation and we'll go from there.

Don't think the Who'd Who has been updated for years...

Apologies for the absence! I hadn't planned to be absent at all (brought a laptop with me on holiday) but really patchy internet (in mainland Europe???) and lack of time scuppered my plans. Indeed, at several points it looked like I'd be sleeping in a car rather than a hotel/hostel as no internet=no way to book anything when doing the holiday the way and my friends did (no plan, visit 6 countries in 6 days...). I've been washing/catching up with house work all day and finally (!!!) can relax, which means updates from tomorrow as I've run out of time now

Anyway, hope you are both well, I'll get things cracking tomorrow once I've caught up on the last few threads.

Cheers, Paul

Sorry for delay in continuing the Haunt's reply. Busy at work, back is killing me when sitting at computer and going to be early. So may be awhile before I can decide what to do.

I may be awol occasionally (I hardly ever seem to be at home these last few weeks) but am going nowhere and when you are ready to jump in I'll be here. Assuming I'm not at work/at the girlfriends house/out with the kids etc etc...

I'm still alive! My first day off in nearly two weeks (and certainly the nearest I've been to a laptop in that time). have to rush n get changed for a anniversary do I don't really want to go to ( ) right now but will get chance tomorrow to update and things should be better after then - the kids are (finally!) back to school next week. yay!

Cheers, Paul

Had to check post went. Laptop is flat as a pancake too and went into shutdown as i pressed send. anyway, things start moving again in the morning (sunday)

Good to see you back and kids are back in school here too which means traffic is a huge mess! What used to take me an hour to get to first clients of the morning now takes an hour and twenty to do.

Update on Thursday/friday. I have my exams to grind through on Thursday (in addition to fitting around normal working 10 hour days plus travel time) so trying my best to swot up despite my eyes wanting to be closed (getting up at 0200 never gets easier). Once these are out of the way, there shouldn't be any reason why I can't update 2-3 times a week, if not more. Just gotta keep swotting. Don't help when the 3 inch thick rule book makes me want to zzzzzzzz....

And Hurricane Florence is just hours away from me, at least the outer edges. They are sending us home from work in about 90 minutes. Got to unplug stuff and put plastic over the computers and printers and off Friday as well. Unless it turns NW, the center is going to miss Raleigh by a lot, though we are going to be hit by the edges and gets lots of rain and winds gust up to 70 MPH at last report. Lots of water, lots of soaked ground which means lots of big trees falling over in the wind and probably wiping out power over huge areas. Flooding is going to be the biggest worry. Since we are inland, no tidal surges or waves to worry about but lots and lots of flooding.

So I will get my post in but it may be a bit before I get back online.

Turns out my predictions were somewhat (predictably ) off the mark. had the kids on what I thought were days off and working ever since. The problem with passenger train work is that there is no 'down time'. What short break you do have is in a busy mess room and shovelling food down before driving for another few hours. In a way it's better than freight (job security). In most others (non-stop driving, dealing with incidents, irate passengers, exams etc) its a bit rubbish.

Hope you kept safe David. The yearly clobbering from storms is predictable in that it's going to happen, not so when it seems every year gets worse than the last. We get whatever is left when it's done with your Eastern Seaboard and at the moment storm 'Ali' is blasting us about, especially in the North of Britain. More downed trees to worry about for me (last one I had was the last windy spell in July - had to stop an oncoming train in an emergency or it might have derailed. It did stop in time, and the consequences don't bear thinking about. Possible derail and tip a freight train onto the town below from a viaduct ) It's fair to say I prefer sun and struggling to sleep on a night cause its so muggy!

Stay safe.

Cheers, Paul

Florence went more south than west so we only got the edges of it. Still lots of devastation along the coast and inland near large rivers which are still over their max flood stages. Even some of our main highways won't be open until next week. So we got off light and lucky. Only had power flickerings.