FreelanceWizard

http://www.nemesiscouncil.com

The Nemesis Council.

The leader is @Dr Nemesis.

Only the strong will survive.

(I'll leave the rest for their leadership to post in response. )

It's a nice gesture, but honestly, ED essentially forces the use of Endurance Reduction enhancements, so this really doesn't help.

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Basic Stealth Powers (Pools, temp powers, and Powers not in a Defense set like Blaster Cloaking Device, Controller Illusion Invisibilities)

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Do what now? I was under the impression that Illusion Control was supposed to have the best Stealth in the game. This would appear to no longer be the case. I'm not really sure why Superior and Group Invisibility, two linchpin powers of a set whose primary CC is based on misdirection, are classed into "basic Stealth powers." SI and GI were built to be the premier Stealth powers; why are they being treated equivalently to things like the Stealth pool?

Furthermore, the stealth suppression that exists now further reduces the crowd control capabilities of Illusion and forces it even further into the "kinda sorta like a Blaster with Defender powers" role Controllers seem destined for in I5. This leaves IC with only Phantom Army and Phantasm for crowd control, you I hope realize? And in what way does it make any sense for Cloak of Darkness or Steamy Mist to offer superior invisibility to a set that has a focus on invisibility powers?

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So we're going back and changing the damage done by AV's so that it's no longer possible for a Tanker to be one shotted.

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Thank you. A damage reduction to AVs, combined with an increase in their HP, should make AV fights feel more heroic by making them longer, while giving support classes more to do. It'll also keep Def characters, who are terribly mangled by most mobs (a side effect of Res scaling with mob damage, but Def not really scaling at all), work better in groups.

I'll echo (no pun intended) the comments on the sound. It's just not terribly appropriate for females, though the bell ring thing at the end of Howl is pretty cool, I think.

I've got some hard numbers on things. The -Res debuff on the Sonic Attack set seems to be around 12.5% for Blasters and 20% for Defenders. The Defender debuff has a +/-2% variance based on the level of the mob (going down as the mob level goes up). It isn't considered an Energy debuff, curiously enough. I didn't check to see if it was considered a Smashing debuff, or if it's just not affected by resistances. Since the debuffs stack with each other and Sonic isn't exactly a slow set, it's pretty easy to get two or three of these debuffs going at once, which drops a mob's Resist by 40 to 60 percent.

On its own, this is pretty crazy. Enervating Field, for instance, is only a -30 Res debuff with a +/- 3% variance, and I believe it's considered an Energy debuff. Knowing this, I made a Rad/Sonic Defender. The result is insane. Lieutenants and Bosses fall with considerable ease to the nearly 100% Resistance debuff and Sonic's substantial damage. She's doing double damage with each shot after the first three.

I think the Resist debuff needs to be reduced, possibly in return for its duration being increased. Right now, it's insanely powerful, especially when stacked with other -Res powers. Otherwise, I think it's a fine set that might have slightly too high damage or too fast recharge.

I believe this set is too much like a Controller primary to be appropriate for a Defender, especially in light of the changes made to Dark Miasma's Hold and to AE Control in general. It seems Trick Arrow was unaffected by either of these changes; if that's an oversight, it needs to be corrected. In any event, it seems unfair to give a Defender equal to superior crowd control to Controllers. As it stands, Trick Arrow receives a single target Hold, an AE Slow, a single target Immobilize, an AE Knockdown, and an AE Hold. It seems like a combination of the effects from several Controller sets and does not at all feel like a Defender set to me.

It is worth noting that Trick Arrow, on a Controller, will improve his control capabilities to the point where he will be more useful than any other Controller currently is. The ability to fire off twice as many single target holds will correct the hole in AE Control that currently exists, and a long duration, fast recharge AE Slow and AE Knockdown will improve that control even further. I don't believe that the other Controller secondaries are comparable, especially since Trick Arrow makes the Controller a better Controller. Groups won't want to take non-TA Controllers unless they can't find a Defender with the primary set they need, as the TA Controller has greater utility.

Trick Arrow should be subject to the same reductions in effectiveness as Dark Miasma and all Controller primaries, or it should be changed into a unique Controller primary.

Ariel, from the Virtue Server, in her combat outfit:

Front view

Rear view (shows the cape design)

Name: New Porter Institute for Psychical Research
Website: http://www.realitywerks.com/phpbb
Leader and Officers: Galen Mentalis (leader), Adamilia, Caya, C. Nightshade, Dark Lioness, Diamond., Lucianna, Mazin Wystan, Shades of Mist
Preferred Contact: Applications forum on the web site. In general, all applicants must have a complete application there to be considered.
Description: The New Porter Institute for Psychical Research is a school for young mutants, with an emphasis on power control, ethics, and mutant rights. Our group specializes in high levels of serious, "hardcore" RP. Characters need not be mutants, but mutants are usually easier to integrate into our plotlines.

Name: Radical Dreamers
Website: http://www.realitywerks.com/phpbb
Leader and Officers: Same as for NPI, as this is a spinoff group covered by our charter.
Preferred Contact: In character interaction in game with one of the members. We currently share the NPI tag for both IC and OOC reasons, but are ICly an independent subgroup and, if we get large enough, will spin off with our own tag. The best way to start working your way in is to get ahold of Galen Mentalis, Caya, C. Nightshade, or Mazin Wystan ICly (probably by running into them in-game or hanging out in npi-ic) or to join NPI.
Description: Some mutants have decided that the current situation in Paragon City is not to their liking, and they'd like to take steps to change it to build a better tomorrow -- whether that's by running for political office, stopping villainy however they can, or attempting to subtly guide the city by manipulating its inhabitants. The Radical Dreamers are this modern mutant nobility. RD derives its plot from IC interactions exclusively and enforces strictly the rule of IC Actions Equal IC Consequences. Members must be, except in very rare exceptional cases, mutants, must believe in the superiority of themselves and their actions as a result of their powers, and probably shouldn't have a problem with doing not exactly nice things to the "mundanes" to protect them. You have to break a few eggs to make an omelet, after all. Entrance is granted by (considerable) IC interaction only, and there is no guarantee of entrance or even remaining in the group if your character doesn't fit in.

You can interact with either group's members in our IC global chat channel, npi-ic, or by posting on our public IC boards.

A post about the Nemesis Council will be coming soon.

Was he acting in a generally IC fashion with the rest of his statements? Were the diminutives he used in IC statements? If so, you overreacted.

The statement of "roleplaying is not an excuse to be a jerk," which is often used, is more directed at being a jerk OOCly, not being a jerk ICly. It's unreasonable to assume that every character will be a pleasant, upstanding, respectful member of society just because they have super powers.

Virtue has been the unofficial RP server, as christened by a number of the players, since beta. So, if you're looking for a generally higher level of RP, go there. Gemini Park, the Atlas statue, and the Paragon Dance Party are the common places to meet RPers.

COVER (http://www.guildportal.com/Guild.aspx?GuildID=15730) is an organization of many RP supergroups on the Virtue server. The sizes range from as small as one to as large as 30 or more.

I'd suggest my groups, but both of them are a bit on the largish side for what you're looking for. Still, you might want to check them out; the link's in the sig.

Let me try to answer your questions, then.

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Projective telepath? And what do you mean receive.

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Telepathy can be looked as a combination of sending thoughts (projective telepathy) and receiving them (receptive telepathy). Classical telepaths are equally skilled in both of these, so they can chit-chat with people mentally, read minds, and do that sort of thing. My character is entirely oriented to projection, so while he can make you see things, he can't access your mind in any way.

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Do you mean the powers do not really exist but only 'appear' to exist to the enemy? And why would this do psionic type damage (whatever that means)?

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Remind me not to post when I'm tired. What I mean is that the effects you see in game, like glowing lights around people's heads for Blind and Flash, are roleplayed as not actually existing in game. For example, when using Blind, my character glares at the target and uses his telepathy to trap them in an illusory world. The light show it produces is there merely for OOC effect, in much the same way Mind Controllers wouldn't actually project whirling black and white spirals from their heads. As for the bit about Psionic type damage, CoH has eight damage types: Fire, Cold, Smashing, Lethal, Energy, Negative Energy, Psionic, and Poison/Unspecified. As Illusion Control does Psionic damage, which is the sort of damage that reflects mental injury (which is why, say, Invulnerability does nothing to protect against it), it only makes sense that it's a mental power.

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What do you see it as? The only reason that worked for me was because I could see telekinetically folding light around your party making them invisible or telepathically convincing an enemy that he is injured making his body go into shock and causing 'damage.'

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Again, I see it as more of a projective telepathy power, but the in game description says it's control over light and sound. I suppose that would mean it involves your character conjuring light shows and other effects that are very convincing for a short while.

Personally, I prefer to see it as a form of telepathy in which you force people to believe certain things -- such as being trapped in an illusory world (Blind, Flash), being attacked by other heroes (Deceive, Phantom Army, Spectral Terror, Phantasm), not seeing you or your group (Superior Invisibility, Group Invisibility), or being horribly injured (Spectral Wounds).

I play my Illusion/FF Controller as being an extremely powerful projective telepath who has very limited abilities to receive. The physical manifestations of the powers are RPed as simply not existing or as being side effects of him blending his force field manipulation with the illusory effect. This works out okay because Illusion does Psionic type damage.

By the by, the "canon" way Illusion Control works is that it's a combination of light and sound control that generates very convincing images. I don't really buy that, myself.

Oh, and most Controller secondaries don't factor in well with the primaries. Radiation, especially, just has to be played out as a completely separate ability your character happens to possess -- unless you want to say that your character emits so much radiation that it can cause people to hallucinate.

Yep, it's Virtue. There's a very strong community of RPers there.

Virtue. It is the beta board designated unofficial RP server, so most of the RPers from beta are on it. That alone gives it an advantage.

Attracting people works better if you use a carrot instead of a stick.

Every rule modification proposed is to "keep out powergamers." Powergamers do not, contrary to popular belief, inherently destroy RP. The Firiona Vie server on EQ has its share of powergamers, and they haven't yet destroyed the RP community there. The "infamous May 8th patch" that lessened many of the anti-powergaming restrictions brought more players in, saved the server, and revitalized the RP community. I should note that many RPers, myself included, refused to play on FV when it first opened because the rules made the game very hard to play. Some of us do like playing the game, you know, in addition to RPing.

What will promote RP is providing rewards for it. When the rewards for RP exceed those for powergaming, powergaming will disappear. The equation is quite simple and has worked on MUSHes throughout the ages; it's also backed by a wealth of behaviorist research. However, coding rewards for RP into the game would very much change its structure and the way it plays, so it'd be unwise for Cryptic to go that route. Making an RP server where you're punished for playing (by, say, sharply curbing your ability to level) isn't going to attract new players -- it's going to drive old ones away.

I agree that the best thing Cryptic can do right now for the RP community is just rename Virtue to Virtue (Roleplay Preferred). That's all they'd need to do to help strengthen the RP community.

Getting involved in RP is really pretty easy -- you just need to jump in and start. The best way to do that is to drop by the Virtue server, since it's more likely you'll bump into RPers there. It's also useful to look around for people who put "RP" in their Info, as well as for people from known RP supergroups.

Let me try to address your specific questions in a specific fashion.

Do I choose on an AT, and build a personality from there?
That's one way to do it. Your archetype and power sets can suggest specific things about your character. A fire-type character might be hot-headed and quick to anger, while an ice-type character could be very cold and efficient. When you don't have any character concept ideas, using your powers as a jumping off point often works well.

Of course, it's also quite possible to play a normal person who happens to have superpowers. That in itself can be great fun.

Would it be easier to choose a "personality quirk" and evolve my character from that, or would that be too dependant on my quirk?

Quirk-based characters can be lots of fun, but you can also burn out on them fairly quickly. If you use the quirk as a starting point and then evolve a more complete personality from there, though, you can get a lot of life out of the character.

Here's something you might want to try. Write down a list of adjectives that describes your character's mindset -- say "manipulative," "cold," and "secretive." Then try to answer some questions about his past. How did he get to be that way? When did he first find his powers? How does he interact with other people? You could also try thinking of movie or book characters that are similar to him and considering what makes him similar, or different, from them.

If I start on one type of character I wanna play, and decide I want to take the character's direction in a new way, should I create a new one so not confuse the other players, or is it in the general guidlines to inform everyone Im trying to go into a new direction?

It depends on how major the shift is. If you want the character to become completely different, you can either create a new one or have something major befall the old one that completely changes his mindset. More gradual changes -- even if they're big ones -- can usually be RPed out. Depending on the people you play with, they may or may not want fair warning about it OOCly.

What would be considered NOT acceptable behavior? as in, it seems RP feeds off of each other's impromptu addition to an evolving script, that being said, if X RP'er says I clobber you on the head with this, is it a general rule that I should follow through with X's actions, or is it okay if I try to change the direction of the interaction if it is a sensible action?

People should never emote things like that ("X smashes Y upside the head, knocking him out") unless they're pre-scripted. That sort of thing is called powerplaying and isn't a good thing. In those cases, you should reword the action to imply an attempt ("X leaps at Y, trying to smash his head in") and the other person can either agree to it ("Y falls back, stunned from the blow") or not ("Y ducks out of the way at the last minute").

The major rules about freeform RP are don't be invincible, don't control other people's characters, don't do things that make people uncomfortable, and don't use OOC (out of character) information IC (in character; this latter thing is called "metagaming"). Of course, those rules can be broken in the case of mutual player consent or with people who know each other well.

There used to be a thread running around in this forum that laid out some ground rules for freeform RP, but I don't know where it is right now. Most RPers are happy to help bring new people into the fold and to share tips and tricks on how to make a good, interesting scene, so feel free to ask questions.

It's right down the street from the Institute, so perhaps we'll cross paths there soon enough.

Ooh, this is just asking for a holy war, so let me fire the first salvo: Champions is evil. Seriously, while the Hero games have a very neat system for power design, the concept of every single skill having essentially its own rules and a bazillion derived attributes is so very 80s. More modern games achieve the same or better simulations with fewer rules.

For superheroics using a mainstream system, I'd recommend D20 Modern if you're into tactical combat or Aeonverse Storyteller (Trinity, Aberrant, Adventure!, and Exalted) if you or your players are more comfortable with Storyteller/WoD. If you're into more indie systems, Instant Fuzion and BESM could do the job -- this is actually one of the few genres for which BESM is well-suited. Godlike basically covers the sort of game you're after, but its system is awful. SAGA, if you can get ahold of it, might give you the feel you like, but bear in mind that it uses cards as its randomizer and that may not be everyone's cup of tea. GURPS, of course, is the worst system ever for running superpowers, and MEGS (Blood of Heroes) isn't much better. Torg/Masterbook would also be an unwise choice unless you like doing lots of math.

For something more realistic, where superbeings have more in common with touchy WMDs than with comic book characters, you might want to do some web searching. I'd recommend my own System X and the superpowered game I wrote for it, but that'd be just as bad as pimping my Wildcard system, based loosely on SAGA.

One problem with recommending game systems is that there are so many systems that work for any particular genre. Much of the choice of system, then, comes down to what sort of mechanics with which you and your group feel comfortable.

I'll definitely support the request for a gathering area. Really, we need some bar areas that we can go into and kick back in game; how else is the Institute's leadership supposed to make fun of caped crusaders and carouse with mutants in other supergroups?

Perhaps a first step might be to select an area where people looking for RP can hang out, then set up a weekly time for the RPers to gather there. This sort of thing has met with moderate success on Firiona Vie (the RP server on EverQuest), at least with a certain group of players.

Virtue RP Supergroups List

*points to sig*

I'm on Virtue, of course, and I'm always up for RP.

D20 can be used freely under the Open Gaming License (OGL). System X is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL).

Of course, if you're homebrewing without a license for the CoH setting, system licensing doesn't matter, right? You still can't distribute the game as anything other than a free fan work on the good graces of Cryptic and NCSoft without crossing that major hurdle. So, you might as well pick the system you think works best. You've got a lot of suggestions here to choose from, based on how much system work you want to do and how you want your game to play.

*points to sig*

Ariel's my main, actually, despite the ordering in the signature. I'm always up for a spot of RP.

Of course, not everyone likes the Hero system. After playing a single game of it, my group of rather experienced gamers dropped it like a bad habit and used Fuzion instead. Once you play games with a single core resolution mechanic, games that use a different rule for every single thing and that only tangentially tie attributes to skills feel... a little broken.

My group uses two systems for superpowered games. For superheroic games, we use Fuzion, as mentioned above -- though we might consider Exalted/Aeonverse or our card-based system (inspired by SAGA) called Wildcard. For games that are realistic but happen to have superpowers, where your superstrong punch is as likely to shatter someone's rib cage and kill them as it is to send them flying, we use a system we like to call System X that's designed for that sort of thing.

I don't particularly like the idea of a standard D20 System game for... well, for anything other than D&D. To get D20 to really work well and have the character customizability that I, at least, demand requires a lot of hacking up of the character creation and advancement systems. WEG D6 involves too many dice, WoD Storyteller is unrealistic in the extreme, Palladium is kludgy, and I won't get into other things like Amazing Engine or the like.

To sum up, my experience with the typical superhero games has been less than positive -- which is why my group created our own.