Wayne Ligon's page

THank you, thank you, thank you... Now I need to go and roll I guess. I guess that is where I come into a problem. The only book I currently have is the core book. Is there like a dummy way to roll or just have a certain amount of points?

That would be a question for the person running the game. In my experience, most GMs opt for the 20-point Heroic Fantasy point build, which you can find at http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/gettingStarted.html

What I would do is go to http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/npcCodex/core/rogue.html and copy that down for the game tonight - it's a good solid bread-and-butter core-rule build that will get you through tonight. Then you can sit down with your GM or another knowledgeable player and they can help you through the character generation process.

What actually happens in your games? Does your table contain the types of things we see on these boards?

Not for a while, but I have witnessed every single thing you mention occur over a period of years and at different tables - I've been at one or two tables where more than one thing you mentioned has occurred. That being characters examined by others for 'usefulness' and the wizards being a walking hellstorm of death while the fighter-types barely ever had the opportunity to wet a blade. Mainly it was due to DM laziness in letting the party take full advantage of the 'fifteen minute adventuring day' where we'd enter a room, the two mages would unleash their most powerful spells on everything in sight. We'd do maybe one more room, then hole up in a safe area until the next day when they could re-prepare spells.

Now, this was if they didn't prep a ton of scrolls, or have a couple wands readied and full.

Man, I just started an L5R game and wanted to get a Jade Regent pawn set figuring that /of course/ there would be one.... :(

Not in our games. SR, energy resistance, concentration checks, saves, range/positioning issues, and other factors can and do mess with both party spellcasters and enemy spellcasters.

That's usually been my take on the entire question. The tables I've seen where GM's complain about how spellcasters just steamroller over everything with no opposition either forget about those rules or never learned them.

There's also something I like to call the 'Last Line Problem'. Most of the time when a person thinks they have a spell that just does something amazingly awesome with no problems, they've forgotten to read that last line where it says something like 'this spell is only useful at night' or 'does not affect turtles'.

Other problems: not paying attention to the type of spell (does it work on this type of target?), not paying attention to the casting time, playing as if everyone has 'quiet spell' 'still spell' or other metamagic feats running all the time, playing as if everyone has 'eschew materials', etc etc etc.

In 'Boar and Rabbit' and 'The Redemption Engine', Sutter has a gay male couple as central characters. I'm not widely familiar with the entire body of Pathfinder/D&D fiction by a long shot, but is this a first?

Other than the rogue in City of the Fallen Sky, I cannot recall any other gay male characters.

In short, Paizo appears to suffer from a distinct lack of attractive male illustrations in general. Clearly a trend that should be remedied in the future...

Well, it's not really only Paizo - heroic fantasy game art in general produces some pretty ugly dudes. I could probably point to exceptions and they'd measure in the single digits.

Did you know they're both main characters in The Redemption Engine, which just came out? :D

*watches Amazon bill increase*

2) It is indeed in Casmaron! And in addition to this story, I hope to explore it more in a campaign setting book down the road. This is potentially just the first taste....

That would be fantastic. Also looking forward to a novel about these two :) I'm figuring they might be on the run for some time to come....

Law does not equate to human law, it equates to Order, the opposite of Chaos.

The second half of your alignment is what you are, the first part is how you go about it - I have no idea why some people are placing 'orderliness' above 'goodliness'.

A law that leads to evil and suffering is a bad law, regardless of it's origin, so a LG character is going to oppose that law with every fiber of her being.

Or a Ranger, for using a bow (which the OP seems to regard as an abhorrent weapon for a Paladin, except when the choice of god forces his arm)?

Many people at times have regarded the bow as a cowards weapon or a peasents weapon because it allows you to damage your foe but at the same time keeps you safe from harm in return. There is some truth to that but it seems to be more for the real hardline or fanatical branches of chivalry than the main body of lore that most knights tried to adhere to. Especially given that archery was one of the chief skills a knight was expected to master.

I've found several discussions of knightly virtues over the years and the abbreviated code below seems one of the best. Notice the emphasis on how the knight is not shackled to a list of bullet points to be ticked off by accountants, but follows a living, breathing Code of Conduct that illustrates what he should strive for.

Given that wyverns are sentient if savage and violent creatures, the paladin should probably have to do some mild atonement for trying to kill them in their sleep, but not lose his abilities or paladinhood. It's almost impossible to reason with them, so the paladin should be penalized for not walking up to them and proposing a nice sit-down.

He probably should have chucked a rock at the first one and said 'Face me, beast! Begone from this place or taste my blade!'. If the wyverns don't flee, then go to combat as normal. That's if it was possible to win a straight-up fight. If not, then certainly a certain degree of deception could be employed. Heck, just stampede some deer in the valley below - wyverns wake up, go to snack on deer, party goes past that area.

If living up to a higher standard was easy, everyone would do it and if all you had to do was follow a list then no-one would ever fail. The whole snarky 'lawful stupid' arguements can apply, if you consider that looking out for something other than yourself or serving an ideal greater than yourself is stupid. Hopefully, no-one does.

The Code

Prowess -- Strive for excellence in all endeavors expected of a Knight, especially martial, yet also otherwise. Embody strength which is used in the service of justice, rather than for personal aggrandizement and gain.

Justice -- Seek always to understand and follow the “right” path, unencumbered by bias or personal interests. Recognize that the sword of justice can be a terrible thing, so its use must be tempered by humanity and mercy. Learn the difference between enforcing the letter of the law, and living within its spirit.

Loyalty -- Be known for unwavering commitment to the people and ideals you choose to live with, and have professed to others. There are many circumstances where compromise is expected. Loyalty is not among them. While your loyalty must never be blind, it also must never be for sale. Be prepared for people to condemn you for your loyalty, when they lack understanding for the basis of your faith.

Defense -- The ideal Knight swears to defend his liege, and all those who rightfully depend upon him. Although this path may be hard, costly, and even seem bitter to others, the Knightly Defender accepts this as an honor, rather than an obligation. In such times, a Knight inspires all with his example and good nature, even his enemies.

Courage -- Being a Knight often means choosing the more difficult path; often the personally expensive one. Be prepared to absorb losses in service of the precepts and people you champion. At the same time, a Knight must remember that stupidity and courage are cousins – pointless risk or sacrifice is not noble. Courage means taking the side of truth in all matters, rather than allowing for the expedient lie.

Faith -- A Knight must have faith in his beliefs. Whatever the Knight’s beliefs may be, they root the Knight with the strength of certainty, and give hope in the face of despair created by human failings. Faith, like Justice must never be blind, yet must persist without compromise.

Humility -- Value first the contributions of others, and give respect where it is due. Do not boast of your own accomplishments; if they are worthy, others will naturally do this for you.

Largesse -- Be generous, in so far as your resources reasonably allow. Be known as a giver of gifts, who expects nothing in return.

Nobility -- Live with dedication to the greatness of character, by holding to the virtues and duties of a Knight. Remember that these ideals can rarely be reached or maintained, and that it is the quality of striving towards them which ennobles your soul. In certain ways, living into his Nobility gives the Knight his greatest reward, for if he is successful, he will be surrounded by noble friends; a band of great strength against the forces of mediocrity, cynicism, cowardice and corruption.

Franchise -- Seek to live these virtues as they were meant to be lived. Accept no compromises in your commitment. When you err, make amends in as public or powerful a fashion as that in which you made the error. Own not only your own mistakes, but the mistakes of others when theirs resulted from yours.

This one's going to be VERY inspired by Indiana Jones AND by the old 1st edition module "Dwellers of the Forbidden City."

Can't wait. That was one of my favorite modules back in the day.

If they get snowed in... how long until cannibalism overtakes the Paizo offices? How long?

Star Trek combines two of the GM's worst enemies: technology that is almost magical and a pre-existing canon that is so loosely defined it might as well not exist sometimes.

A Star Trek GM has to be constantly on his toes against 'The Engineer' player, the guy that can logically extropolate the known facts of, say, the Transporter, and consistantly turn them into a deadly tool of 'I Win'. The show's authors had the luxury of characters in Episode 34 simply not remembering that in Episode 8 we saved everyone in this exact situation by using Maneuver X. The GM seldom has that luxury. It gets worse if you're drawing from later shows that don't even have the restrictions that the original show had (inter-ship beaming, for example). (Another big problem is the ship AI; I honestly think that 90%+ of the positions on a starship are there simply to give human beings something to do).

I'm not sure that the military structure really is a problem in Star Trek. It's more of a way to seperate out people than a hard and fast command and control structure; it's certainly nothing like the military that we have today though it employs some of the same trappings, probably simply through tradition. People constantly question their orders on Star Trek or deliberately break them and get away with it if their idea worked. It's usually never a problem anyway because I think most Star Trek games assume you're not going to be playing Ensign Jack. In the later shows, you also have ships with a significant amount of non-Star Fleet personnel on board.

A somewhat larger problem in a sense is that we are only ever given broad fuzzy hints about what people in the Star Trek universe do when they are NOT on mission or 'in an adventure'. The only big thing we do know is that money is obsolete, so presumably class is obsolete. They've eliminated poverty, hunger and most social ills including prejudice. The mere idea of 'scarcity' is laughable with the matter replicator. About the only 'bad' thing left is political corruption.

I've heard the original script for this has been floating around Hollywood for years with the 'wonderful concept but totally unfilmable' kiss of death attached to it. I'd love to read the original treatment of this film.

As it is, it's simply clumsy. It's really like they set out to make a good comedy superhero film ('My Super Ex-Girlfriend' being the closest we've gotten so far) and then realized 'well, crap, we still need 40 more minutes worth of movie'.

The reveal makes no real sense. It could have, but the whole thing is clumsy, fumble-fingered, and almost boring at the final confrontation. The villain is - and I normally hate this term, but it is so appropo - weaksauce. He comes from no-where and goes no-where. Even his defeat is, I suppose, supposed to be comedic but winds up horrific. The movie makes up addition world rules when it damn well feels like it, and that blunts the last half of the movie, badly. Even it's half-handed attempt at an explanation comes as too little, waay too late.

Furthermore, then entire concept behind the 'reveal' is just deeply, deeply stupid. There really isn't another word for it. I might strongly suspect some studio or editing meddling went on; it could be interesting to see what sort of deleted scenes pop up in the DVD.

The first 40 minutes or so, though, are pretty darn good. The superhero sequences are nicely done and I wish some other superhero movies had had the combat scenes and power-usage scenes we see in this one.

One of the few movies of it's type where the movie winds up being, as far as a horror story, better than the story it was taken from. I think it has to be the best and most faithful King adaptation yet.

I might buy it on DVD, because there is a black-and-white version of the film on the second disc. I think it would work awesomely well in B&W.

The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Up until that came out, it was the original 1977 Star Wars.

I can't seem to find one on an initial search and I am really trying to find a webpage that has forums solely dedicated to preserving 3.5E and has people that can actually post criticisms and negative comments on 4E WITHOUT getting flamed for my opinions.

Have you ever considered that maybe it's the fact that your comments are almost always trollish and insanely hyperbolic that leads to the treatment you get from others, and not the like or dislike you have for 4E?

Surely you didn't think that 4E would be the end, did you? I mean, honestly, what would or could prompt that line of thinking?

I know when I finish a software project, I already have a small file about how I could do things better in the next iteration. That iteration might not come for a couple years, but a little part of my brain is already thinking about it.

In Pathfidner #1, the sheriff of Sandpoint's in a relationship with the owner of the local brothel.

Sandspoint has a whorehouse in it!

I was never a fan of the earlier editions 'keep 'em down on the farm' mentality and I'm glad 3.0 got rid of it. I expect heroes to be fairly powerful people in many different ways. I certainly don't see Pathfinder as escalating any sort of arms race; it rebalances and adds as needed.

I would actually love to hear rationales for changes, simply because designer discussions like that get me to see things in the rules that I never saw before, or look at a rule in a different light. I am a total junkie for 'how/why we did this' boxes in books that say how and why a particular rule or system works the way it does.

"Look! Our RPG has inbred hillbilly perverts as a player race! Does yours?"

"Bob? Do you hear banjos, Bob?"

I'd say a catfolk-like race, just to tick off all the people who'd scream 'FURRY! HATE!'.
A flying race would be nice, and long overdue.

I don't consider it abuse; it's just the way the ability should work. The whole point of it is to keep the cleric from having to constantly blow his spell allotment for healing spells. Otherwise, just give him only healing spells and restorative spells only.

Teleport: Don't directly "nerf" it, just add a handy high-level spell that diverts teleports from their intended target to a specified location. Give it a large area of effect and let your villains divert those teleporting into their demesnes into "more interesting" locations.

Book of Eldritch Might has a number of 'mess with Teleport' spells that I'd personally love to see as variants of the base Teleport spell: Redirect Teleport, Block Teleport, Trace Teleport and a handfull of others.

So far, none of the changes I've seen scream 'incompatable' to me. If it's 'power' you're concerned about, one could certainly argue that material produced by WOTC near the end of 3.5 is 'not backwards compatible' with what's in the core PHB; there are certainly 'better' and 'more powerful' classes, prestige classes, monsters, items, whatever.

I would think most of the usual suspects as far as problematic spells should at least be looked at for some way to cut down their ability to ruin the adventure or produce wonky 'this could only happen in D&D' results.

* Anything that vastly decreases your travel time, especially things that allow you to do it in perfect safety. Wind Walk, Teleport.
* Anything that creates something from nothing, and that something stays around. Create food, walls of iron and stone, Fabricate, etc.
* Anything that doesn't allow a saving throw and especially anything that ignores spell resistance.

You're thinking in terms of yourself, and not in terms of being the Monarch of Korvosa. Think about it this way: assume you live in the United States, you find George Bush's wallet and want to return it. Isn't it a reasonable expectation that White House Security or the Secret Service would want to interview you to make sure you aren't a nutter or an assassin? Or that these security people would want to verify your statements to make sure those statements are truthful?

Actually, it is unreasonable of them to want that. People used to be able to do those sorts of things, just walk up to the President and shake the man's hand, just like the President used to be able to go out and enjoy things as a private citizen. I don't think we should measure things by the hyper-paranoid nature of the modern era we now take as commonplace and natural.

I think the Pathfinder RPG base book should contain several action point systems as optional rules.

I think this would perhaps be the best way to go. I find myself these days hard-pressed to play a game that does not have some sort of action point mechanic. We've used a variant on the Eberron system now for several years and it's worked just fine.

I'm thinking if you are doing point buys in the 70's then the last thing you'd worry about is a +2 bonus here and there; you've already waved bye-bye to any idea that your PCs are not going to have some pretty darn good stats overall, anyway, so I don't see that the racial bosnus matters.

Hmm. Maybe some other class features, like:

3rd level -- Holy: Paladin can bless a weapon to be +1 to hit and damage against evil creatures, outsiders, and undead. Uses: Wisdom Modifier/Day.

5th level -- Walk Towards The Light: Paladin creates a circle of light that heals all allies within 30' of the paladin for HP = to the 2x Paladin's level and removes [2 or 3 Conditions]. Uses: Charisma Modifier/Day.

6th Level -- Holy 2: Weapon is +2.

7th level -- My Heart is Pure: Paladin doubles his Strength modifer for [a short period of time].

9th level -- The Righteous Never Sleep: The paladin doesn't need to sleep anymore and gains +4 to saves or checks against illusions.

11th level -- Peerless Perception: The Deception skill simply does not work on the paladin.

You could simplify a heck of a lot of things with a simple arbitrary rule such as 'the maximum bonus to anything, from any combination of sources, is x', where 'x' is your balancing factor. Set it to, oh, +3 and you kill off the stat race, the arms race, and the magic items race all at once :) Thus, if you had a 16 strength, your BAB, damage and anything else figured off Strength would be at it's maximum forever. Put a +6 sword in his hands, it does no good.

Another one would be 'any spell that cannot be adequately described in four sentences or less gets cut'.

Otherwise, I'm thinking there is a certain lower ceiling to the amount of simplification we can get by the very nature of D&D.

I didn't see a thread for this idea already, so I'll say it here: Paizo, please don't make ANY changes to the 3.5E rules set for the Pathfinder RPG. Seriously, none at all.

Why bother doing a product, especially a product that you know out of the gate has problems that can be fixed? I think people need to get over the idea of rules being set in stone 'cause it simply isn't going to happen. 3.5 already changed 3.0 rules and the world didn't end. 3.5 even in it's lifespan changed how actions work, they changed shapeshifting who knows how many times, they added new things, etc.

How do people deal with houseruled campaigns, then? If you sat down at my table, you'd have to learn new racial rules, combined skills, a new spell list for a couple classes, etc. Pathfinder is less radical than a lot of other setting/rules books I've seen, such as Midnight or Arcana Unearthed.

That said, we are still an iconic short, and I find myself very curious about the obvious desire for an arcane warrior class...

I think that would be a good opportunity for a 'Pathfinder' class :)

I'd think it's not so different than most people's campaigns; everyone is going to have some degree of house rules that would make adaptation a little difficult for certain things. If you played at my table, about 3/4 of the 3.5 supplements would become irrelevant to you; I doubt that the Pathfinder RPG will be as radical as that.

What do you guys think about rogues being able to get arcane abilities?

I absolutely love the idea. It wouldn't be nessesary for me to multiclass almost every rogue I've ever played with 1-2 levels of sorcerer or wizard.

I agree with this as well. Niche protection is all well and good but trapfinding is just something anyone should be able to do.

I don't think skivvies is the appropriate in this context.

They're anatomy illustrations, which are traditionally done this way. Well, technically, they're traditionally done in the nude.

I like the racial illustrations, especially the elf. The ears don't bother me at all and serve to make them distinctive from the other dozen or so Elf races in other settings.

Has there been any discussion on what core 3.5 spells to drop, if any? Are any of the most problematic spells (the usual suspects: teleport being the main one) going to be revised or dropped outright? How will you deal with the multiple-buffing problems?

I'll echo 'get rid of the +2/+2 skill feats'.

1: They really just look like they are there to take up space. Make it one feat and let me or my GM choose the related skills.

2: A +2 bonus is... not really something I want to bother spending a precious Feat on; if I want skill bonuses that badly, I'll buy or commission a stat-boosting magic item that will not only help that skill but all other related skills. Make it more worth my while to choose a skill bonus. Either boost the skill bonus, and/or make it count towards the prerequisite for a prestige class or something.

3: I'd suggest that the feat make those two skills into class skills for me if they are not. I've trained in them specially, above and beyond what I've done in other things. That training or natural talent should be recognized.

At first blush I like most of what I see. I've skimmed it, not given it an intensive read.

My hopes for the next iteration:

1. What will be done to aleviate the 15-minute-adventuring day?

2. Is there a hope we'll see some of the OGL stuff from Unearthed Arcana on the magic side; there's a lot of cool stuff in there, particularly the Spell Templates idea. They've already been presented for 3.0 in Dragon, so here's hoping we can have something like them.

I have cooled off a little on 4E since hearing the experience of people who have seen actual gameplay rather than fluff descriptions and teasers. However, only a little, since the gameplay they experienced was still not finalized product. That and that alone will decide me.

This whole thing comes as my gaming group moves into Mutants and Masterminds, and after that, probably HERO or Call of Cthulhu. We might not be in the mood for D&D for at least a year or so and by then I should know more.

After my last run with 3.5, I'm just about ready to take a long, long vacation from D&D. It will have to change significantly and drastically to get me to come back as a GM; if I have a problem with 4E it's that they didn't change enough stuff.

I also believe that had HASBRO not bought WOTC, then we likely would not have had D&D at all anymore. They infused wealth into the hobby that was sorely needed for the industry to continue.

I would think that Hasbro bought WoTC because they were making money hand over fist; they were a demonstrated moneymaker with a track record in a toy field that Hasbro didn't have a toe in. I doubt they were in any financial trouble at all, other than they were having to contract down to a more reasonable size after Pokemon cooled off. I would have my doubts that Hasbro would buy a failing company.

I believe a system ceases to be once a new system is in the works. You can try to convince me otherwise, but it won't work. If I was wrong, why didn't WotC announced 4e when they began working on it? Or 3.5e for that matter? Explain that, because I already know the answer to it.

If they announce 5E in five years, I'll chalk up another mark on the progress chart. I'd see it as the developers doing their job. I don't think it'll be quite that short a time span, though. More like the seven or so years we have now.

You never stop development. I am sure that once the ball is rolling on 4E, they'll start some sort of water-cooler development of 5E. I am sure that on someone's PC there's a little doodle of 6E, even :) This is just the way things work, and have always worked, for every game system. You always, always think about how to do things better, especially once you start seeing the results of unintentional mistakes or synergys you didn't realize existed. This is how things progress and get better.

Using modular systems to gauge interest is damn smart thinking. If I've been working on ideas for a web page or database, I run up a prototype or I incorporate part of what I want in Future System X in Today's Build of System Y. I get feedback. If it's negative feedback, I know I should not go down that pathway and I start from scratch to develop something else. It's not a money grab or anything sinister; it's just one way of developing things. A pretty darn smart way, too, since it prevents you from wasting a lot of time developing something that no-one will like.

I'm sure that when Gary sat back after doing the DMG, he thought of a dozen better ways he could have done X, Y or Z. And we saw some of those things in Unearthed Arcana, in Dragon articles, etc. Mention has been made of how he wished he'd never done certain things (such as weapon adjustments vs raw AC). I'm sure that if things had gone as things normally go, we'd have seen a second edition of D&D around about 1986 or so that cleared up ambiguous rules, added new monsters, changed the way certain spells worked, etc etc.

1) Do you plan to convert to the new edition of D&D?

Initially I said, 'yes, most definately'. And at some point, I probably will. It's still too early to tell, though. We just started a Mutants and Masterminds game and we'll probably go from that to a horror game. So, that probably means that fantasy is 2 years down the road for me right now. I'll see how things have gone by then.

2) If Paizo converts its RPG products to 4.0, how will that affect your purchasing patterns for our products?

I will still continue my Pathfinder subscription and likely use other Gamemastery modules. I get them for the ideas, concepts and seting info, not for the statblocks. It's likely to me right now that I'll be doing Golarian adventures with Savage Worlds.

3) If Paizo does not convert its RPG products to 4.0, how will that affect your purchasing patterns for our products?

It won't nessesarily affect my purchasing patterns. If you decide ultimmately not to convert to 4.0, then I hope you do your own version of D&D; do what Green Ronin did: take the d20 system and make it your own.

I very much do like the shorter spell descriptions. Most of the current spells are hideously over-written and have been ever since AD&D1E; Stephen King has nothing on Gygax. If you can't get the point of a spell across in a three or four sentences, then it's probably trying to do too much or has so many special cases that it needs revision.

But my hatred began to boil once their concepts and visions began tearing away the "sacred cows" and traditions that makes D&D the game we all recognize, play, argue over, house rule, and DM together. The more of these "changes" I have heard, the more I grew frustrated.

What about all the people running D&D campaigns that don't cleave at all to the so-called established traditions? Campaigns that, for instance, don't have orcs at all or have elves as cousins of dryads, or don't use alignment at all, or don't have planar adventuring at all, or any of a thousand other variations? Lot of people don't use the sacred cows you mention. Most of them won't be missed nearly as much as some people seem to assume.

Just finshed 'Hero' (Superhero prose fiction by Perry Moore; I give it an average C for a first novel; at least he didn't go with the two egregious cliches I thought he would use - 'Soon I Will Be Invincible' by Austin Grossman is a much better superhero novel), and started on 'Money' by Terry Prachett (which features Mr Lipwick from 'Going Postal').

That was pretty darn funny.

The 'Cthulhu' tract parody is at http://esr.ibiblio.org/index.php?p=135 (Warning, language). That was pretty funny, too.

Um, okay. I think you really need to consider things that were changed after playtesting that were the right thing to do. If the game were the same as the early playtest documents

I think playtesting is valuable and you are foolish to dismiss its value.

Your point? Just from what I remember PirateCat and a couple others on ENWorld saying, I'm very glad they bounced a lot of ideas off the playtesters to see if it would fly. A lot did not.

I didn't say that all playtesting was bad, just that playtesters sometimes get it wrong, too. Playtesting is a requirement to make sure that you're not working in the ivory tower, but I can also easily see a situation where playtesters say they like a rule but they are not reacting to how the rule itself works but to some nebulous 'It ain't D&D if we don't have this, even though it's cumbersome and out-dated' thought. That's the kind of stuff you have to watch out for.

Paragons isn't so much a setting as a genre book: it's how to do something similar to the 'Heroes' TV show in the M&M rules set.

The Advanced Powers book is a good tool to understand how powers work in the M&M rules set. I hope you didn't order that thinking it would have a ton of new powers in it like other such books in the superhero RPG genre, because it doesn't. I think there might be one actually new power and one immunity catagory in there; the other 'new powers' are mainly ways of showing new GMs how to make those powers using the stuff already in the main book. I still think it's a very valuable book because of it's designer notes and in-depth look at the rules.

I would definately get Freedom City.

If you're going for the Marvel/DC flavor, then be sure to check out MDSNowman's stuff on the M&M message board. He did a ton of conversions of D&D and Marvel characters to M&M, proving to me that the system can handle pretty much anything since most of those PC's aren't over PL 13.