Grrl Power #282 – It was this or wrap his arm in ten million dryer sheets
Sydney’s plan continues, this time with a more active result. I hope no one thought Dabbler was going to have to do jumping jacks until Vehemence’s power ran out, or he passed out from hunger. The hypnoboobs (all glory to them) effect isn’t that strong. It’s seriously distracting, but it’s not “mouse pushing a lever to get cocaine until it starves to death.” (Which according to a quick search I did to make sure I got the drug right, isn’t even a thing that happened, or at least comes with a giant asterisk, but it has its uses as an apocryphal tale.)
The flashback panel on this page is supposed to point out that super speed does you no good if you’re caught flat footed. Remember Vehemence was nearly matching Maxima’s speed earlier, at least while Max was doing the even spread with her power pool, and Sydney wanted to make sure Jiggawatt got a chance to do her part before being swatted away. The funny thing is, before I went back and looked at the page to pull the clip, I was sure Maxima said “Well I have to be ready for it!” I considered changing it and making a note that’s how Sydney recalled it to make it more clear why she included that snippet of her day in her plan – but… I thought that would be distracting and hopefully the page makes enough sense without any tinkering.
Here’s the link to the new comments highlighter for chrome, and the GitHub link which you can use to install on FireFox via Greasemonkey.
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I think Mr. Adams frequently stuck in bits of non sequitur humor and then later took advantage of it to advance his story. I don’t think he always had a use in mind for the weird stuff he stuck in – but he was a genius at using it later once it was already out there.
I know I remember one interview/foreword or whatever where he said he was as surprised as anyone when some of the stuff came back around to be relevant. I thought that was awesome.
He also wrote in the forward to the Omnibus Version of the first 4 HHG books that he was tired of people pointing out so many contradictions in the stories. Much of it he attributed it to how many different media formats published them-Radio, TV, record album, etc, etc, ad infinitum & a lot of conflicting stuff wound up getting in there. Also, every different version of the same story has conflicted with every other story, including themselves.
As for the Omnibus Edition, Mr. Adams wrote that he’s aware of the contradictions, many of them were his mistakes or due to faulty memory, some were intentional & the Omnibus was to set the record straight once & for all…Or at least, set it firmly crooked.
isn’t maxima supposed to have a little bit of blue under her nose?
otherwise, when did she cleaned it off?
Cooked of by V I suppose.
you know what i got thinking?
*smack that, all on the floor….
What’s with the pokemon?!? I don’t get it.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1420
You are awesome for going back and finding that, thank you!
there was an experiment involving a rat or a lab mouse, but it wasn’t cocaine. it was that the mouse had its brain wired up to a small current that would be induced to the pleasure centre of the brain and it had two levers, one would activate the current, and the other would provide food. It did die of starvation so you are correct on that.
The cocaine experiment was a test of infrequent rewards. The rat was awarded a small done of cocaine for pulling a lever, but it would not dispense on every pull of the level. The amount of pulls needed to get the cocaine was random.
And just like the rat, human beings are quite susceptible to this. Gambling at a slot machine is a great example. Every so often you will get a payoff. It will probably be small, but it could be big. But the greatest odds are that no matter how much you win you’ll lose more than you make. But by making the payouts infrequent it compels people to think that if they just drop another quarter than they’ll get the big payoff needed to put them ahead. And even when it happens most people will continue playing until it is all gone again.
World of Warcraft has made millions by employing this same strategy. You can build your character up and participate in the big raids, but the specific loot that you need might not drop, or it might drop and go to another player. So you’ll keep playing, paying the fee month after month, hoping for that reward. And as soon as you get it there is always another piece of loot in the same or another raid that will improve your character, or another NPC reputation you’ll have to grind up in order to get access the the rewards they offer. So again you keep playing.
Correction: a small dose of cocaine
I should probably include some of the conclusion (as my faulty memory remembers it).
They played with the frequency. Too infrequent, the rat gave up. Too often, the rat got sated and also stopped. Get it just right and you’ve got what amounts to a zombie on your hands, who will continue pressing the lever/gambling/playing WoW until lack of sleep or hunger drives them away. And they will return.
And this science is well known to casinos who use it to enhance their profits. Bust your player too quickly and they leave and never come back. Flood them with money and the house loses. Pick just the right rate of rape and they will continue playing for hours, losing money steadily but still being happy about it while they are engaged in it. Only later may regret set in, but it will be tempered by the conditioning that tells their brain how fun it was. And so people will return again and again to casinos even though they know they are going to lose money. Even if they “get lucky” and come home ahead “this trip”, their overall balance sheet is a loss.
Which is fine, as long as you control it. There are many expensive hobbies that people pursue which have no chance of paying off. Skydiving, golf, skiing, all of these are hobbies which cost a lot of money. And if you treat it as a hobby or a fun pastime and don’t get sucked into the mindset of “just a few more hours and I’ll make my money back”, then going to a casino and blowing a few hundred dollars here and there is just fine, no worse than a $60 link fee and the cost of the clubs and other gear, or similar expenses for some other hobby.
Actually, the experiment everyone’s talking about was how they found out about the pleasure center of the brain in the 1950s. It wasnt intended to see if a mouse would choose pleasure over food.
The experiment was conducted in the 1950s by two scientists studying the brain – James Olds and Peter Milner. They were trying to find out if rats would be made uncomfortable by electrically stimulating certain areas of the brain, particularly the limbic system.
During the experiment, rats were given an electric current if they entered a certain area of the cage. The idea was that if the current was uncomfortable, they would not return.
However, the rats returned again and again. The brain area that was being stimulated was labeled ‘the pleasure center.’ They were eventually allowed to press the lever that controlled the current themselves. The rats came back again and again to press the lever–sometimes as often as 700 times per hour. The rats chose the current over eating and drinking and eventually died from exhaustion.
A little closer to home: When my dad was young, there was also a pet dog in the family. That dog liked to chew on power cords…Would chew through the insulation & frequently scream out a “yip” when getting shocked. That dog would keep chewing the power cord KNOWING what would happen.
Decades later, after I got married, we had a pet dog in our household too. The first time that dog chewed through a power cord was also the LAST time he chewed through a power cord…
… okay that’s just sad. Now I had to go hug my dog.
Hope you didn’t misunderstand…Our dog didn’t get killed by it, he just decided not to do that any more.
;)
Yep i totally misunderstood :)
Once my father was hunting with a group and one of them had this hound dog that decided to lift his leg to an electric fence. He not only never did that again he had to be carried to even get him close to ANY fence let alone over it. (so you could hunt the next section) I guess dogs can’t sense electric fences or he just wasn’t willing to take any chances. (though I personally think many dogs believe their human “gods” are responsible for everything bad that happens to them when they are present)
That may have occurred because of the body’s innate resistance. Everything from health to diet can change the body’s resistance to current flows. Higher resistances will cause greater cellular damage from a given load due to increased diffusion and heat dissipation. So while one pet can sustain multiple shocks without death, another pet may die instantly from the same injury.
Obviously, the second animal may instead have been less fit, but it’s not like we’d ever know which played a larger role.
That is sad… and unlucky. I’ve had dogs in the house most of my life. Never had one with any interest in power cords at all. Not that I don’t worry from time to time.
I, on the other hand, have manage to electrocute myself… I think the running tally is twelve times? No worse for wear miraculously. I can even tell you the difference between AC and DC current just by how it feels to get electrocuted by it. DC stings like a needle. AC… uhm… buzzes like a strongly vibrating power-tool (chainsaw, leaf blower, weed eater)… only the buzz comes from inside your affected body parts.
I’ve heard stories of people being electrocuted and not realizing what was happening to them. With AC current I can understand why. The sensation is actually really subtle at first and not at all painful. Oh there *is* pain… but that comes when your nerves start to misfire as they die which takes a second or so to happen. And then the feeling is more like you suddenly developed a bruise inside your arm or whatever… again not something that instantly screams, “LET THE F@$% GO YOU MORON!” So… for some the first real sign that something has gone horribly horribly wrong is when they do try to let go and their fingers just wont listen.
I’ve been fortunate… the whole “can’t let go” thing has never happened to me. In fact last time it was my great familiarity with what AC current feels like that alerted me to the problem before any real damage was done. Happened right in front of a customer too… she knew something was wrong when I suddenly stopped speaking to her and got that “oh crap” look on my face. I was no worse for wear though. My arm wasn’t even sore. Worked the rest of the day and the next with no issue.
To contrast: at one point in time my sisters cats both loved to chew cords, mostly phone cords, this was a major annoyance as we were in the boonies and had that horrible dial up internet at the time, and it did in the computer’s sound system at some point too. After a year or two, (and finding out they both like straight chili powder) they suddenly both stopped chewing any cords altogether. When we moved the ole desktop to another room, I noticed two sets of teeth-marks on the power cord for the tower. The dumber one is still around too.
There were actually several experiments in this regard. One such experiment that comes to mind is a mouse being in a cage with water and a device that delivered food pellets when the lever was pressed. Initially, the lever would dispense the food immediately. Once the mouse got used to doing so, however, the researchers placed a delay of a few seconds. Intuitively, you’d think when the mouse pushed the lever and nothing happened, it would sit back and wait. Nope, the reverse is true. When the food didn’t come out immediately, the mouse went and pounded the lever more often. This behavior also manifests in humans. When a person does something and gets a positive result, (s)he will continue to do it even when the initial positive result no longer occurs. In fact, even if explicitly told WHY the positive result is not occurring, people will actually increase the frequency doing whatever it was that rewarded them before, hoping to get the reward, regardless of the cost.
I feel compelled to point out that the interaction of electrons and positrons is incredibly violent. As in mutual destruction on a scale far greater than two freight trains running head on into each other.
And having a tame chia pet handy to eat the resulting radiation does nothing to lessen that violence, except where it mitigates the violent destruction of poor mortal flesh in the path of gamma rays at short range (gamma rays regularly bombard the Earth Our atmosphere blocks them out).
Vehemence was looking for a power up, and he just got it, in spades.
Not the same sort of violence – two different meanings for the same word.
He can absorb natural violence like the violence of the storm or the violent energies of an earthquake (the parts of it he is close to anyway) so if there was such a reaction he would be powered up though maybe not by as much as if there was intent to do violence behind it as well.
I took that to mean he can harness the violence a storm caused to *people*.
Like Dabbler, his demonic power is ultimately fueled by human emotion.
He gets higher quality fuel from violence caused by beings with the intent to do violence but if there were NO living creatures around at all, say he was in a space suit on the moon and a small random space rock came smashing down to form a crater within range of his absorption, he would still get something from it if lower quality.
Dabbler probably gets some trickle of energy from the sex/procreation (she gets juice from both desire and sex itself) activities of “lesser” creatures as well. She probably would love to snorkel at a large coral reef when they spawn en masse as I remember seeing on a show once. (the ocean is so full of little microbes spawning or splitting I bet she is getting a constant trickle charge regardless)
Nekojin has the right of it. If you look at succubi they are powered by lust. Not sex… lust. Sex is an act. Lust is an intangible and unmeasurable concept. The lust involved in having sex would give her power but even one person in a straight jacket in a room by himself thinking lusty thoughts about his girlfriend would generate lust.
If we extrapolate then the kind of violence that powers Vehemence is likely the intangible concept of violence… specifically the *idea* of people taking malicious actions with the intent to harm others… not the actual violent events themselves. In that sense then most violent thing Jigawatt is doing right now is bear hugging V’s arm.
All that said, yeah… this is a matter-antimatter reaction. My understanding of those is that a thimble of antimatter could level an NFL stadium. Is the darkning a thimble worth of possitrons? I haven’t the foggiest. But since the intent to harm is not there I’m not sure V would get anything from it even if it did result in physical harm.
I was trying to get away with not having to dig for quotes but looks like I didn’t get away with it. Luckily I am actually referring to things that the author believes and are general knowledge to some of us so there are some quotes I can get to fairly quickly. First lets do Dabbler since I actually have the least on her ( I guess we’ll get more when she single handedly neutralizes an entire government sponsored super squad! lol )
Taken from the comic at:
Grrl Power #264 – The team receives some bad news -OR- Oh crap is right
Dabbler says, “Tantric users absorb power from sex and lust. Vehemic users…”
SEX and lust. Perhaps this intangible power of yours is generated by all of reality when it engages in this activity not just sentient beings.
DaveB quotes:
“I’ll reiterate one thing I said in the comments for the previous page since it’s easy to miss, is that while Vehemence can draw power from any sort of violence, from a mugging to an earthquake, violence with intent is higher quality and better ‘tasting’. Presumably it comes with lots of Vitamin V. Also there’s a finite amount he’d be able to absorb from something as violent as an earthquake since the range at which he can absorb the energy from is limited. A 2000 mile long fault line’s no good to him if he can only absorb stuff from… well, I haven’t decided his range, but it’s well under a mile. Localized violence is better.”
“A surprising number of super powers come down to gribbly little semantic arguments. Throwing a rock at someone is violent of course? Is being hit by a rock? Yeah, by most people’s definition that is. Rockslides are violent, as are earthquakes. For Vehemence’s purposes, he gets power from any source of violence, but violence with intent… tastes better and is more nutritious, for lack of a better way to say it.”
“I posted about superpowers and semantics earlier, my conclusion was all violence works on him, but violence with intent is a higher quality.”
What he means here is that natural phenomenon provide violence juice but something done by a being capable of wanting to commit that violence is better in some way. Possibly much better. So I am most sure about Vehemence’s manner of “feeding” and I came up with my opinion of Dabbler’s method of feeding by the way she is compared to V and that one in comic quote above which makes a point of mentioning BOTH sex AND lust. There is no reason to mention them both unless there is something about sex that is different from lust. I believe this is Dave’s way of breaking it to us that she gets something from both the physical and the intangible aspects of this natural phenomenon. Perhaps our world is just the physical manifestation of such “intangibles” anyway. ;)
____________________________________________________
I’m not qualified to talk about matter and antimatter reactions though I do remember smarter folk discussing it when it first came up. The “winner” of the discussion seemed to be saying that this particular reaction was referred to as an “annihilation” and a very specific form of annihilation at that. They believed (think they linked a wikipedia page among other things about positron/electron annihilation or some such) that this specific annihilation would produce a couple of gamma photons (? think that’s what they said) per annihilation and wouldn’t do the big bang cause these wouldn’t superheat the surrounding air or something… Yeah, I can look it up if you really want but I think it was generally agreed that no giant explosion would result and the handwavium of the little stuffed animal that absorbs radiation would take care of what it did produce: gamma radiation. Is the production of gamma radiation by annihilation violent? I think we are getting above my pay grade here….
But I can agree that Jiggawatt had no violent INTENT when she did it so he looses the jelly in his jelly roll for sure.
It may be very violent, but it is also on an extremely small scale. So not a whole lot of energy gets released
If it is creating enough gammas rays that a gamma ray eater is required to avoid damage/death to the nearby people, then it is not at an extremely small scale.
And people, intent has nothing to do with V’s power. As has been stated, he powers up from accidental car crashes, violent storms, etc. Positron/electron mutual annihilation is a power source for him, and Sydney’s plan is feeding him power. Perhaps enough for him to kill Maxima. Except that plot armor will protect her, of course.
He gets power from any source of violence true but intent increases the “quality” of his feed from violence.
DaveB quotes:
“I’ll reiterate one thing I said in the comments for the previous page since it’s easy to miss, is that while Vehemence can draw power from any sort of violence, from a mugging to an earthquake, violence with intent is higher quality and better ‘tasting’. Presumably it comes with lots of Vitamin V. Also there’s a finite amount he’d be able to absorb from something as violent as an earthquake since the range at which he can absorb the energy from is limited. A 2000 mile long fault line’s no good to him if he can only absorb stuff from… well, I haven’t decided his range, but it’s well under a mile. Localized violence is better.”
“A surprising number of super powers come down to gribbly little semantic arguments. Throwing a rock at someone is violent of course? Is being hit by a rock? Yeah, by most people’s definition that is. Rockslides are violent, as are earthquakes. For Vehemence’s purposes, he gets power from any source of violence, but violence with intent… tastes better and is more nutritious, for lack of a better way to say it.”
“I posted about superpowers and semantics earlier, my conclusion was all violence works on him, but violence with intent is a higher quality.”
So committing any sort of violence near him is not smart but if you absolutely HAVE to then violence with no intent to commit violence is the best bet. In this case their intent was to neutralize V’s violence and except for Dabbler are probably not terribly aware of any other result so V is only getting energy from the violence itself and not the intent. Though according to him he doesn’t need anymore juice anyway. *shrugs*
Although the conversion of matter into energy is an incredibly powerful process, the mass of an electron is small enough to–
wait let me do math
A lightning is 10kAmps
A coulomb is 1 Amp for 1 second= 6.2*10^18 electrons
Each electron has a mass of 9.11*10^-31 kg (same for the positron)
10kA*6.2*10^18*9.11*10^-31*2*(9*10^16 [E=mc^2])=
oh
10 Gigawatts of power output, which is significantly more than a nuclear power plant.
Jiggawatt’s best use of her powers is to supply enough energy to continuously power multiple cities.
Pretty sure Vehemence doesnt get power from that, at least not in any significant way. Or instead of taunting and tricking superheroes into violence, he’d head to a nuclear power plant or an electrical grid or something.
Well, right now she thought it would be more rewarding to help make sure random super powered asses didn’t destroy those cities. heh
One problem with your math; lightning doesn’t last for one second. The plasma glow afterwards can, but each pulse happens in a fraction of a second.
Also, comic lightning is typically far less powerful than real lighting as any sustained bolt that powerful would annihilate everything around it, including the lightning user. Just look at what arc furnaces do and imagine that coming out of your hand (or being anywhere near you for that matter)!
Looking at the math, it’s easy to see why Dabbler had to interrupt the fight with the Barber-ian quickly. She did say they were all in danger of radiation fatality.
What sorcery is this?
Math. Tis an evil magic and i trust it not
It’s a product of Satan…He’s the SOB that infiltrated the alphabet into it.
Several alphabets…
Never thought of it that way, but yeah, it tottaly makes sense!
Depends on how jiggawatt’s powers works – if her powers ionize the air prior to the lightning bolt, the amount of power needed is much lower (and that allows her to ‘guide’ her lightning bolts)
Besides, apart from her telebolt, her powers are operating at a much closer distance than from clouds to ground :)
(For incapaciting people, i’d guess she limits her powers to those of a laser taser ;)
(She obviously cranked it much more during the press conference, where she melted the tank’s canon)
Actually, I’m confused about the super-speed comment.
If you have super-speed, wouldn’t you need super-reflexes to even be able to use it?
To use it effectively yes. Even better if you have enhanced perception. If you have watch/read Naruto Rock Lee using Super speed vs. Sasuke using it. Both had enhanced speed and reflexes but Rock lee couldn’t attack directly for fear of a counter he couldn’t perceive. Sasuke with his Sharingan could because he could see and react to the danger immediately.
In this case even with enhanced reflexes V isn’t perceiving the danger due to distraction so he won’t react in time.
I’m reminded of an episode of Red Dwarf where the ships computer tells the crew (whats left of them) that it can’t see what’s ahead of them because its traveling faster than light. By the time it can detect something it has already passed it.
we had a LONG discussion about it a long time ago, you’d have to have Superman/Maxima-level resilience, heightened perception and reflexes to even survive long enough to learn how to use Super-speed. (Hitting a wall at mach 3 leaves a pretty splash pattern on said wall.)
Sorry I didn’t see the original discussion, but I’d argue that it depends on how the superspeed is enabled. If it’s just ‘You move faster’ – yeah, you definitely need all of that. If it’s ‘You move and think faster’, then you’ll get the reflexes and perception ‘for free’, but will still need the resilience. If it’s ‘Your personal interaction with the timestream changes’, then you may not need any of them: to you you’re moving at normal speeds, and interacting with things at normal rates. They are just moving very slowly.
The recent TV version of the Flash has basically the ‘move and think faster’ version, with healing as his form of resilience. (Which means it doesn’t help directly in a fight, but he can survive his mistakes.)
Yea, it’s one of those secondairy super powers that just come with the main power, because otherwise the main power wouldn’t work
Super-hunger beeing one of these secondary power (cf. the Flash). On the other hand, having Superman/Maxima resilience isn’t mandatory, you just need to heal real fast.
I love the “ripple affect” of the butt swack. It really conveys the sensation Jiggawat is experiencing in the very best way :D
Something tells me that Syd will be paying for that after the battle is done.
Watch out for wet towels.
Math would just looove to be assigned to the locker room for that particular watch duty.
Heck, I would too.
He’d be an active participant. He is pretty good with his hands.
And we can see that Max is already shifting points from defense. The crystal (tempted to say diamond, which would indicate just how much strength is starting to use) protuberance on V’s arm is cracking in her grip, where it was intact a comic or two back.
Actually, even though diamond is the hardest substance, it’s surprisingly easy to break. Hardest does not mean strongest in this case – it’s a frequent misunderstanding. The strongest material is actually is graphene, far as I know. It’s like diamond in hardness, but NOT like diamond in strength – one atom of thickness of graphene is as strong as a steel bar. :)
That being said, I do think that the crystals cracking under Maxima’s grip ARE an attempt by DaveB to show that Maxima is, in fact, shifting to strength. :) Either because of the myth of diamonds being really hard to break, or because the crystals are not diamond, but some other thing which conducts electricity.
Diamonds are hard, yes,but they are also brittle. It has to due with the fracturing properties of crystalline structures.
Doesn’t matter how hard they were. Nope ratify part is – before, not cracking. Now. Cracking.
Operative part. Autocorrect is weird.
I commented before that Anvil has the same power set, or very close, to a Champions character I had some time ago. After reading this far, it seems to me that ALL of the characters fit fairly close to Champions or GURPS Heroes character designs. Sydney and Dabbler are the most complex characters in terms of powers, advantages, distadvantages, etc., but they all seem to fit. Heatwave and Achilles seem to be characters that a new player would develop, while Anvil and Harem seem to be more experienced character design. In contrast,
SydneyHalo, Maxima, and Dabbler are all advanced-design characters from experienced players pulling all the stops out (or even “Munchkining”).So, David, am I close? Did your characters’ original creation come out of a Champions game that you were involved with? =^_^=
To show that I’m not just guessing blindly here:
Maxima, Halo, and Dabbler all represent different Power Frameworks. Maxima is a classic Multipower setup. Dabbler has a fairly broad Gadget Pool style of Variable Power Pool with Obvious Inaccessible Foci (OIF) as a Limitation. Halo’s powers are a Multipower framework with the Obvious Inaccessible Focus Limitation, which also has the Advantage of Unbreakable and an Accessibility limitation (of only being able to hold two at the same time) .
Although Maxima is the most powerful overall, I’m willing to bet that Dabbler has the most complicated character sheet, possibly by an order of magnitude. =^_^=
Of course, I could be wrong as there are different ways to accomplish the same effect within Champions; I could also be wrong in that just because I can write out the power in Champions, that doesn’t mean that it was created in Champions in the first place. ;)
Dabbler not only has a Gadget Pool but an Elemental power set based on magic. And enough extra powers and skills bumped up to superhero levels to make any GM take one look at the ream of paper the player is presenting and spontaneously combust. Thank the gods Dave doesn’t need to worry about play balance.
Good point. And I’m probably wrong about Dabbler’s Gadget Pool being an OIF. The fact that they disappear when she lets go of them suggests that it’s not actually a Focus at all, since there’s NO way to take them away from her.
The Rad Nommer and the Bondage Bullets didn’t disappear. In game terms, she sometimes uses Focus to keep objects from disappearing inconviently. Her main gadgets are not Focus items. Deathbringer (her sword) is a Focus most definitely. Dabbler can be disarmed. Although the sword has it’s own defenses and can return to her hands when called. I’d let a good player build one and use OAF.
Do not forget Dabbler has(had in wereworld) a bionic arm with a teleporter inside, that allows her to access her private armory/tinker lab.
As I said before, Dabbler is a very complex character. Yes, Deathbringer would be an OAF, no argument. It’s a separate power from her Gadget Pool. The Bondage Bullets aren’t a power, they’re the effect after the power is used. Just because the object creating the effect disappears, that wouldn’t make the effect go away as well. The Rad Nommer may be done in a dozen different ways, either within or outside of the Gadget Pool. And if it can’t be taken away, then it’s just a different visual effect – not all non-focus powers have to be “protected” in the same way, even within the same power pool.
Sorta. Multipowers, from the last version of Champions that I owned (which is several versions ago), only allow a single active “slot” at a time. You could build several slots that had boosts to speed, armor, strength, energy blast, and flight in differing proportions, but they would still be fixed amounts. They would be cheap, so you could design a good number of slots in various proportions, but it looks like Maxima can split her power pool up in any proportion that she chooses. Which takes a variable power pool.
And this multipower or variable power pool is of course just stacked onto a fairly typical flying brick core build.
By the older Champions stuff Max is a forbidden combination of Elemental and Multipower. Elemental providing the basic flying Energy Projector/Brick (aka in our group Capt. Everything) with a Multi included in the Elemental to shift points. A total game balance wrecker.
I really don’t see why Max “has” to be an Elemental Control as well as a Multipower. The latter by itself seems to work extremely well in describing her powers and limitations.
It is entirely plausible that not ALL of her stats and powers are bound up in the MP. If building such a character with the Champions system, I would definitely make sure that the basic stats were AT LEAST in the ‘Competent Normal’ range, probably a fair bit better. ‘Cuz you never know if a baddie out there can put your Multipower into ‘Pause’ mode.
In Max’s case, her physique (and. by extension, her STR, DEX, CON, etc.) may be a standard side-effect of being super (recall there being a conversation on this in the strip a while ago). But her military training / career (and the fitness requirements thereof) is probably also a factor.
Noting the ‘power dial” we see in Max’s thought bubble a few times. She clearly has a relatively modest number of very specific powers (Strength, Toughness, Zap, Flight/Speed, etc.). and the real factor is how much “juice” she puts into each at any given time. She goes all out for Toughness, she is indeed Tough, but can’t Fly or Zap. In “fluid” situations, she divvies up the points between various slots, so she might be (“fairly”) Tough, can Fly (sort of), and (kinda) Fast, or whatever.
BTW, Unlike some power pools out there, it isn’t like she can use her power pool to manifest unexpected abilities like invisibility or cosmic awareness or phasing or telekinesss. Her power mix seems to be VERY strictly defined on what it can or can’t do – kind of wonder if this is a psychological effect or what.
That IS an older version. The older Champions versions were clearly based on the Mon-El design of “only one power at a time,” but newer ones have loosened that a bit. In modern Champions, you can divide up your Multipower’s power pool into a combination of your preset powers, in exactly the way that Maxima’s done a few times. You have a preset defined limit on the number of Multipower powers that you can have active. Within that, you can adjust the pool as you see fit.
For example, you could have 5 different powers (or even 20), but only 2 (or a different number) available at any time. With a 100-point power pool, you could put 50 points toward two different powers, or 10 to one and 90 to another, or 100 to just one. Although I haven’t messed with it, I would bet that it’s entirely possible to make a 5-power power pool, with all 5 available and just a limited amount in the pool – so you could alter the strength of all five on the fly, and be able to go super-def or super-strength or what-have-you as necessary. It’d be very expensive, but it’s doable.
And, as 7thsealord points out, there’s no need to have an Elemental Control pool for Max’s base powers. Dabbler has several power pools, but Maxima can be done with just the Multipower set.
Neat.
But… uhm… shouldn’t Jiggawatt be a bit deaf right now? How can she hear the “Now!”?
Sydney’s error. Fortunately Jiggawatt could see the shield drop and made her move on that cue.
Actually no error on the second go round as she has Jiggies full attention at tht point.
I did notice Sydney didn’t shout this time. Just made sure Jiggawatt could see her release the Shield Orb.
Either that or Sydney actually did shout, but Jiggy just barely heard it.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Vehemence’s “aggro aura” has some healing effects on its victims, given that it can wake them from stunned unconsciousness. You get more violence from people who actually have the ability to commit it.
More like a massive dose of stimulant. Injuries are ignored unless they are crippling. And then they go for a gnaw on the kneecaps. In the end the damage could be worse. Vehemic energy doesn’t seem to be oriented toward altruism.
So one thing I can’t figure out, why are people acting like Vehemence is now fucked? It’s not like lightning actually depowers Maxima so she’s as strong as always, and unless Jiggawatt’s draining lightning works directly on him through those crystals, he’s just as strong as before as well. Which makes him slightly more powerful than Maxima, so he currently has an advantage, unless I’m missing something.
The flashback reminds Halo and the reader that any superpower is only as effective as the attention and reflexes of the person using it. When Vehemence was grinding Maxima down, she had his full attention as everybody else was quite sensibly staying out of collateral-damage range. But Dabbler’s antics have already distracted him enough for Jiggawatt to come in and neutralise one problem, and it’s probably going to take a beat or so of reacting to her before he realises (the hard way) what as-yet-undisclosed mayhem her new distraction has opened up.
Maxima isn’t actually depowered by lightning, but the combination of excessive force and excessive voltage forced her to stat-dump into toughness and out of her other attributes – her strength was down around its baseline of mildly superhuman. Now that she doesn’t need so much toughness just to survive, she can shift stats back into attacking attributes.
He does still have an advantage, as Maxima’s repertoire is somewhat limited in the ‘offensive without violence’ category. They’ll need to come up with another stunt to get him under control, unless that’s further down the Plan.
That is true, but he did grab and pin her before she was stat-dumped, so she’s might get a sporting chance (especially if V stays distracted), but it is by no means guarantee of anything.
Actually he unleashed the lightning AS he was pinning her down.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1557
i laughed and laughed at that phrasing. in a good way :D
The thing is, vehemence is causing damage to maxima two ways, physical crushing, and electricity. Until he broke out the juice, she was still matching him and able to fly. Once he started zapping her, she had no choice but to go turtle mode. Now she isnt getting zapped, so that half of the equation is gone. She can counter him now. The problem though, is that in order to fight back, she has to drop enough armor to the point where he CAN severely injure her or worse. So she had better keep that in mind and make sure not to let him grapple her anymore. Switch to speed and power so she can dodge him instead of tanking the hits. But in all honesty, im picturing this “ending” in the next couple updates. Right now the question is, will she blast him right away? Or beat thirty two flavors of hell out of him first? She looks sorta miffed.
Did halo just sexually harass jiggawatt?
No. She just chose the fastest way to wake her up that guaranteed she would focus on Sydney.
Wait, isn’t Jiggawatt supposed to be bleeding out of her ears and deaf right now? How is she hearing anything?
Jiggy doesn’t need to hear Sydney. The plan of action was in written form & Jiggy’s looking directly at Sydney…The shield is dropping & Jiggy doesn’t need to be an expert lip-reader to know what Sydney is whispering.
Ruptured ear drums do not automatically make one stone deaf. That usually results from not having them seen to medically and getting an infection. Jiggy can still hear, just not very well, which is why while Halo is shouting, Jiggawatt is hearing it more as a muffled, distant sound as indicated by the broken/dashed line around the text bubble.
Normally I would agree but the comic specifically identified her as being stone deaf. It even had an arrow and everything.
Thus, again, she doesn’t need to hear Sydney. She just needs to watch Sydney. You don’t need hearing for that.
Blood from the ears, on the other hand, that’s another discussion.
Yeah, I know, it’s just not like Dave to forget about this stuff.
And the bleeding seems to have stopped. She was out of the fight long enough to wipe off the blood, I think.
My question is, where is the gif loop of Dabbler jumping rope?
Well that depends. Are the news cameras still recording?
I wonder what the News Corp. is going to plan on charging for a copy of that film?…
Jiggawatt’s new hair dye is okay, but holy crap that lipstick the same shade of yellow is ugly. It makes her look like she’s either jaundiced or holding lemon peels in her teeth.
Wait… is it just me, or are there hearts next to the stars on the third panel? The ones indicating that Jiggawatt has a sore but. Because honestly, that’s almost funnier than the fact that she got slapped in the first place.
There are hearts there. Why they are there might be debated. And that could be even funnier.
Not all subs come in stereotypical leather, LOL
BTW, V does not seem that much excited by the shoulderboob he is getting. He must not be from Japan. (-:
He also doesn’t much resemble Leon either, in appearance, attitude or personality…
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/363
It’s me or i see hearts in the 3rd pannel… did jigga like that slash?
4rd*** damn missclick…
I have searched and cannot find the actual video reference, but the last panel makes me think of a cartoon I had seen once where the bad guy had the good guy locked in their one hand, and then EVERYTHING started shaking, except that person’s hand, based on the sudden massive power buildup of the hero, then the explosion of the hero breaking free (I think I am remembering it correctly, but it’s been years and I can’t quite remember it clearer than that).
I did remember watching a video back in middle school showing the experiment using monkeys, not rats/mice.
The more I see of Vehemence, the more convinced I become that he’s basically a brawler at heart. Modern Western society frowns on violence of all kinds (other than stylized stuff like sports) so the kind of guy that used to get a huge kick out of random bar brawls that had no evil intent, just a different idea of what was “fun,” has no outlet. Aside from his current threat to Maxima, he’s actually been rather gentlemanly in a lot of his behavior. We saw before he began his portion of the evening’s activities that he actually liked Sydney, talked to her like an equal, offered a useful comment, and made no effort to harm or sideline her. He was actively embarrassed by the destruction of his pants. His reactions to nearly getting his privates crunched might as well have read, “eep!” He gave them the info that he might have done some serious damage to Vekter when he hit him, so they could get medical attention to him quickly. These are not typical actions for a “villain.”
As long as he can power up ahead of time, with other people feeding his vehemic energy needs before he steps up to the plate, he’s golden. His concern about Maxima is that, now that she knows his weakness, she could easily take him out well ahead of any game, once the power from today’s battle has drained away (assuming it does that). He may be thinking that she’s BOUND to try to take him out. It’s also possible that he’s so powered up that it’s begun to distort his thinking.
I dunno – but I just can’t find it in me to want them to beat him. I mean – yes, this needs to end with the Good Guys on top – but my problem is that I just can’t plunk him down in the “Bad Guy” list. His sardonic list of “Evil Plans” was genré savvy; he even said so. “It’s just the sort of thing a guy like me is supposed to say.” I’m rather sorry that he exploded the idea that this was some kind of audition to join the team, his sense of humor would fit right in.
I want him disintegrated and de-atomized so I never have to see him again … But that just me.
Given how Dave loves curve balls, we could see Vehemence reduced to quarks here. And down the road we meet his successor. A new Vehemence trained by the same Vehemic Master. For a final exam she has to kill Maxima. Not vengeance, once V failed, he was useless and his master would have killed him anyway. Nasty bunch to have hunting you.
You know, now that I am thinking about it, Sydney might have an instinctive connection to her orbs – when she was explaining her orbs to the “council” as she never mentioned that she could see other types of sight then.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/494
However, even though she hasn’t had a lot of time to play with her orbs, this ability appeared almost instinctively from after when she added the point to the skill tree
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1171
To me it seems that this means Sydney is getting a “hint” to what each orb can do. but doesn’t always know she is getting the “hint”. (hence instinctive orb knowledge)
She did not even know herself back during the meeting that she had other sights, she didn’t even know she had Truesight till she saw Dabbler’s true succubus form.
And on the page where she first used the other type of sight she is thinking to herself that since the Forcefield orb had buttons that changed the size of the shield, it might mean that the Truesight orb had other settings too and she lucked her way straight to the vision she wanted. Dave even states in the blog below that page that he would have liked to show Sydney playing around and flick through different visions till she found the right one but he didn’t want to add more delays to finishing the fight.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1564
If she were getting hints or had instinctive knowledge about the use of her orbs then she would probably also have a better understanding what the two unknown orbs do.
something grabbed the comball ? grrpower #105
Gather around Lads and Lassies, its time for another game of “refresh in hopes of the update” today’s contestants are the same as last times contestants: All of us VS The Internet. The Grand Prize for today is a fresh page of Grrl Power! Let the games begin!
Looking here again, I’m pretty sure the speech bubble in the last panel needs to have its tail lead outside of it and not end inside, to make it clear it’s an off-panel character speaking and not Maxima’s hair gaining sentience :\
“The flashback panel on this page is supposed to point out that super speed does you no good if you’re caught flat footed. … The funny thing is, before I went back and looked at the page to pull the clip, I was sure Maxima said ‘Well I have to be ready for it!’ I considered changing it and making a note that’s how Sydney recalled it to make it more clear why she included that snippet of her day in her plan – but… I thought that would be distracting and hopefully the page makes enough sense without any tinkering.”
Well, I had no clue how that flashback was applicable until I read the commentary, so I think the tinkering might actually be in order. I would’ve had no trouble figuring out what the connection was if it said, “Well I have to be ready for it!” I was left wondering, with some unease, what the heck the plan had to do with throwing up.