A god with a gun

It's apparently the only way I can participate in the Incarnate stuff, so yes. I'd say "annoyed" rather than "worked up," because it's not like this is a huge deal in my life. I mean, when the phlebotomist drew my blood today, it was nearly black. I know that means going back into the hospital next week, so in the grand scheme of things this is not a big deal. But yes, I'm irked by it because it cuts into how I have fun. You have fun in different ways and that's cool, but this is my way.

You mean that long series of retcons? It's been retconned again, judging by how the artifact that lets you draw from the well morphs into something origin-specific.

And there is not even a hint that the well has anything to do with mythology either. It's become some sort of mysterious power source directed by unknown persons.

I agree.

I would have made the incarnate system even MORE mysterious, i.e. undefined, and not called it incarnate. Incarnate was just a renamed magic origin Jack made up to say why his in game avatar was stronger than his paying customers', and there is no good reason to expand upon it.

However due to the many incarnate retcons in i19 it is at least much less egregious than the OoP and PP nonsense. A mysterious well of power can be interpreted in many ways.

Ramiel says that it is NOT sentient, just directed, whatever that means, at the incarnate info page.

That's actually what is most funny about the fitness RP arguments. Isn't fitness the most appropriate pool for a natural to take?

It's cool and of course it's your game to play, but it sure sounds like your idea of fun is starting to impede your ability to have fun, and that's no fun.

I'm failing to figure out how something that can possess other individuals and communicate its desires isn't sentient.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

megatrontheist?

Isn't that still technically anime?

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

that's not how I read it at all.

Statesman and Recluse still drank from the wells.

The artifact that lets you draw from the well and morphs into something origin-specific, is a different route to obtaining the same state of incarnate as Statesman and Recluse.

The Well Statesman and Recluse drank from linked them to gods of mythology, and the quick route that they took linked them to it more than they wanted (at least in the case of Recluse who is trying to keep the power but sever the tie).

That's why the player's character is going about it a different route, to not be tied to it as much, while still maintaining the power.

Though, only problem I have with the story as it's given, is when you do obtain full incarnate status, it assumes you have all this massive strength.

I'd prefere to see it as...you're going from B-List heroes (possibly up there, but NOT quite), to becoming A-Listers.

Of course, replace heroes with villains for those who play villains

Ramiel suggests that it could be 'somebody' directing the well, but I don't know the quote.

I'm calling it a retcon because it went from 'incarnate of a deity' to 'mysterious power source that can be many things and that was just one of them.'

also true of captain hammer /running joke.

Incarnate of a deity might be a side effect of fast power.

The well gives you immediate overwhelming power and takes root in you bending you to its whims.

Previous gods where probably men and women who drank too deep.

Here's the thing though, I already consider a number of my characters A-List. Who cares if right now Statesman could potentially beat a few of them in a straight fight? For example, both Captain America and Thor are A-Listers, but could Captain America beat Thor in a straight fight? I doubt it.

well, the way i view it is more in line with the well being a representation of a mataphysical underlying power(similar to chi, the force, the "truth" from full metal alchemist or whatever), your incarnate power is simply your character getting a clearer connection to that power that enhances your already powerful character and becoming a kind of a direct conduit of that metaphysical power. whether you encounter that power through ritual, technology, academic knowledge, intense training or biological variation is immaterial, you are simply being brought more strongly in line with the underlying primal creative force, and that makes you super powerful and a reality altering way. This isnt inherently magical unless you apply a very rigid and canon inappropriate definition of magic.

Yeah, but you basically take the WORST aspect of Origin of Powers and expand on it, making it that much worse. The very idea that "smarts" is somehow the physical representation of some kind of metaphysical power is... Insulting, to be perfectly honest. It insinuates that a smart character is not, in fact, smart, but is actually receiving some kind of divine knowledge. I prefer to leave skill and smarts as being a character's own achievements, rather than some kind of meta-power.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

I don't see how being smart as a super power is insulting...

I meant more a long the lines of being told what to do versus choosing your own path. More prevalient in redside content imo, but the point stands.

And your right, Thor would beat Captain America, but Captain America can hold his own book.

Batman is an A lister, but really, he could lose to a lot of B listers by powers alone, if they keep him at his roots of a street level hero in body armor who knows how to fight.

I think that gets my point across...maybe...possibly...*shrug*

A-listers tend to have a shot (somehow) to stand up against the other A-listers, one on one. Maybe not win, but put on a good show.

Sticking to CoH storyline, Statesman (and even the rest of the Phalanx) and Recluse (and his Lts) are suppossed to the A-Listers, that require a group of B-Listers to take them on, with less of a really good show if they go one on one (obviously there are those who can already do this...but I think the point is made).

Now I do see it from an RP standpoint, like the OP was talking about. I think some of the game mechanics should just stayed game mechanics versus them trying to throw in RP story content to explain everything (power proliferation for example should of, admittedly imo, just put in, and not had a storyline done with it).

not at all, the smarts give you the capacity to manipulate the metaphysical power that underlies powers that eclipse even superhuman powers. if you are using your smarts to devise some electrical ultratech device, your power is not the electricity or whatever tech drives the device, but rather your capacity to know how to create and apply that device.

I mean,we all have our own justifications for how our characters do as they do, but i would really raise an eyebrow at anyone who tried to pass off a character who fought the kronos titan as a totally unpowered human and won and wanted to claim any sort of plausibility to it. on any film it would be derided as ludicrous, even with anime sensibilities it would be glossed over by some mcguffin energy or something.It just seems that you(and ironik) can overlook some gaping implausibilities and not others in a largely arbitrary fashion, but you both still want those stretches accommodated, and that really isnt the story writers job. i deal with having several characters directly related to catholic angelic cosmology, knowing full well that we have all kinds of weird gods and entities that wouldn't fit, but knowing that i initiated the step out of canon, i certainly dont complain that the devs invalidated my concepts, i just take a socket wench to it as best i can and set things to my own preferences,and gloss over what i cant reconcile.

Disagree.

That's EXACTLY the canon definition of magic, according to War Witch-NPC. If you were to postulate Jackie Chan not having his amazing physical gifts until the magical Well of Furies unleashed its mojo on the world, then you aren't talking about a Natural Scrapper but rather a Magical one, plain and simple. If Tony Stark couldn't come up with Iron Man until after being touched by the Well's "inspiration," then you're no longer talking a Tech hero but rather a Magic one. There's simply no getting around the fact that if the source of all inspiration is Magic, then everything it touches automatically becomes of Magic origin, too.

What's insulting is the notion that being smart is *only* because of magical intervention. That limits our ability to tell other stories which are equally as interesting. Which is why I find OoPs so annoying: my Magic users can only exist because of *this* and my Mutants can only exist because of *that*.

Where's the fun of such a straitjacketed system?