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Full Version: A thought about the helmet...
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Just an idle question or three.
I don't know if this has ever come up - but what if Doug's Helmet gets broken? Or even destroyed? What then?
How tough is that helmet, anyway? I'm figuring that there aren't too many situations where it could be significantly harmed without outright killing Doug. At least as long as he's _wearing_ it.
But what if he's not wearing it? Has it ever happened in the game that a villain has had Doug in his clutches and deliberately destroyed the helmet? (Seems like that's really what Quincy _should_ have done. Except by then, he was too much into his Super-Villain idiom. Big Grin )
Could Doug use a song from an outside source to repair it? Say - grab a recording on a stereo system of "I'm Alive" and repair/regenerate the thing?
-Logan
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You know Arthur, when you spend two months living on a really big man, you learn a few things about yourself. You learn how nice it is to stay on Earth, and live someplace with no arms or legs of its own. And you learn how important it is to close your eyes and say "This just isn't happening to me."
-The Tick
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Kokuten

I'm sure that that's what the small Flash player in his back pocket is.. and the one on his primary keychain, and the one on his necklace, and the subdermal one implanted in the back of the skull, and.. and.. and..
at least, that's how I'd handle the problem. Assuming that "I'm alive" works on the 'bucket'[Image: kokbanner.jpg]
--- Kokuten Daysleeper, Retired Epicced Officered DorfWire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979
Well, for one thing, Doug's helmet is major armor to begin with (despite looking mostly like a stock cycle helmet), and armor that's been living inside Doug's field for literally decades at that, fully subject to Doug's accidental enchantment effect. It's very, very tough.
And second... well, to put it in Champions terms, he's paid points for it, it's not ever going away permanently.
Storywise, though, it might make for a good complication to break or destroy it so that he has to rebuild it from scratch. Hm. Have to think about that.
To properly answer the other questions, no, Doug's helmet has never been taken or destroyed in game.
Quote:
(Seems like that's really what Quincy _should_ have done. Except by then, he was too much into his Super-Villain idiom. Big Grin )

That, yes, plus the helmet was on the other side of the room from a Doug locked into a chair with what Quincy was quite reasonably sure given his special knowledge were Doug-proof manacles. (Remember, Doug didn't get out of them on his own -- Madigan released him.)
And yes, Doug can use the "clothing healing" effect of "I'm Alive" (as played through an external source) to fix the helmet if he needs to.

-- Bob
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For Jor-El so loved the Earth, he sent his only begotten son...
Quote:
Well, for one thing, Doug's helmet is major armor to begin with (despite looking mostly like a stock cycle helmet), and armor that's been living inside Doug's field for literally decades at that, fully subject to Doug's accidental enchantment effect. It's very, very tough.
I'm in the process of watching Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha and this thought has come to me:
What's to prevent the Helmet from becoming an Intelligent Device like Nahoha's Raging Heart or Fate's Bardiche due to Doug's accidental enchantment effect?
__________________
Into terror!,  Into valour!
Charge ahead! No! Never turn
Yes, it's into the fire we fly
And the devil will burn!
- Scarlett Pimpernell
Nothing except a) no one ever considering the possibility and b) GM fiat.

-- Bob
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For Jor-El so loved the Earth, he sent his only begotten son...
Quote:
What's to prevent the Helmet from becoming an Intelligent Device like Nahoha's Raging Heart or Fate's Bardiche due to Doug's accidental enchantment effect?
"System: Lightning's Hand. Play!"
"I'm sorry, Doug, but I can't do that."
"Bwah?!"Ebony the Black Dragon
Senior Editor, Living Room Games
http://www.lrgames.com
Ebony the Black Dragon
http://ebony14.livejournal.com

"Good night, and may the Good Lord take a Viking to you."
"Tell ya what... You play Lightnings Hand, or you WILL be singing A Bicycle Built For Two in decreasing tempo..."
"...Lightning's Hand coming right up, Boss."
"Damn straight."
-Logan
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You know Arthur, when you spend two months living on a really big man, you learn a few things about yourself. You learn how nice it is to stay on Earth, and live someplace with no arms or legs of its own. And you learn how important it is to close your eyes and say "This just isn't happening to me."
-The Tick
-----------------

Necratoid

Ah... ego items in a campaign. They have a nasty habit of multiplying in number... meaning the DM has to keep multiple extra characters running as well as the campaign.
A powerful ego item will upgrade the character to the point that GMs will starts throwing increasingly nasty things at you until the campaign breaks or your dealing with an evil you with an equally powerful item.
Other options are you have a near useless gimic item... the purely peanut gallery items. You have a super weapon that spends most of its time telling you that this isn't worth its time to fight. These laugh at you a lot.
That or you get the flood of ego items... will saves and their equivalents abound. I was in a campaign (3rd edition DnD) where the 4 players rolled for 8 items (2 major, 4 minor) to represent the treasure found sense the last session. It was a test campaign with a race of cloned half dragons that you rolled for elemental resistances/vulnerability, breath weapon, and dragon abilities gained by level to age category conversion. This made for some rather random characters abilities.
Anyway, out of 6 items my brother got 4 ego (3 of which were 1 and 1/2 handed swords, one handed due to character size and one a breastplate), I got 2 myself and the 2 other for the cleric. The fourth guy 1, but it was discarded due being on a consumable item. So 8/24s of the items rolled were ego... with different dice, in front multiple people. The rolls a 15% chance on weapons (4) and 5% on nonweapon, non consumable items(4). The odds against this are insane.
Considering that DM is responsible for the actions of the ego items... many DMs/GM don't allow more than 1 if at all. GMs have to plan the Ego items reactions, plots are based on these.
For instance, in the first Role-play game I was in (2nd edition DnD, in the late 1990s), the evil party I was in discovered a corpse in golden armor with a golden axe on a throne in some caves. At which point the more power ego sword (both wielded by the parties leader) that insisted its name was MASTER (and thats all your getting minion)) went on to explain that this axe was some uber artifact that obliterate the mind of anyone that grabbed it and it gave them body the cumulative powers of all who had wielded it thus far and when on rampages offing evil. At this point it went on a 15 minute tirade about how we HAD to destroy this things now... No, it was capable of doing it. No it didn't care how much all those scrolls of Mordenkainen's Disjunction cost or how many times we'd have to cast it from scrolls. It was clear we weren't going to just get to ignore it and we couldn't touch it to take it somewhere. Ah, the money eating quest you can't avoid that may lead to the survivors fighting a major war.
So being random and not wanting actually bother with that foreshadowed campaign, mostly because I was a 4th level grunt in a party lead by 9-14 level characters, I proposed a solution that didn't involve me being collateral damage. I also learned that sovereigns gluing major artifacts to the floor is not something that anyone had proposed in the 2 decades the DM had been playing or the experiences of the other 9 people involved. Ego weapons don't like being baths in Universal Solvent (read liquid disintegrate) so it was effetely destroyed from usefulness.
I got no EXP for this solution, apparently he didn't like me making his elaborate (but officially unmentioned campaign) war being abruptly canceled, for a silly reason he couldn't counter out of left field. Which may explain the Sphere of Annihilation in a bag someone threw at me (and thankfully missed by 3-5 feet) in a later ship to ship battle. Sunk the ship and doomed that ocean in the process of that he did.
This is some of my experience with ego weapons. So as someone experienced with them I have to disagree with you two. I mean how would he hear 'A Bicycle Built for Two' He has a juke living jukebox that can prevent him from hearing any song from an outside source.
Instead Doug would be dealing with the helmets personal unkey (like off-key but infinitely worse) version of 'Lightnings Hand' sung to the normal music, loudly, in that case guys. Or play 'Flowers' (it being (super)naturally immune) instead.
Seriously, If your going to theorize on Doug's indestructable helmet becoming an indestructable evil/annoying smart hat... put some effort into it.
I think, perhaps, you are overanalyzing what was merely a joke reference to "2001: A Space Odyssey." SmileEbony the Black Dragon
Senior Editor, Living Room Games
http://www.lrgames.com
Ebony the Black Dragon
http://ebony14.livejournal.com

"Good night, and may the Good Lord take a Viking to you."

Necratoid

You missed I said "you two", because I was also commenting on Logan's two cents.
Yes, I did catch it was a reference to Duex Machina, the Movie.