Smash Comics #7 - pt. 3

And we're back with Invisible Justice, starring the Invisible Hood.

I get the creepy factor IH is going for, but being invisible inside a visible suit seems to take away any advantage that he has in combat.

Steele seems more than capable of mowing down the bad guys without IH's help. This is why it's important to have your supporting cast lower in level than the Heroes, so the Heroes are less likely to be upstaged (though bad dice rolls can still make it happen).

It's too bad that Steele is one of the good guys, because it would be a much more interesting tactic if IH had tricked one of the bad guys into thinking the two fire-eaters (stat as arsonists) who show up are more ghosts, and then get him to shoot them.

Lastly, it must have been super-awkward when Steele was feeling around in the air for IH's shoulders...

Wandering encounters are the potatoes that go with the meat of role-playing games, but sometimes an Editor may doubt himself and feel he's being too subtle with them. That's when you start having bad guys literally crash into the good guys out on the streets.

Tripping is a surprisingly rare fighting technique in comic books, but rarer still are examples like this that show how a trip attack can set up an opponent for a follow-up attack. So I'm wondering, should I add a game mechanic where you forego your own ability to do damage in the turn, in order to give the next attacker a bonus?

The enemy planes use a stunt (Fly out of the Sun).

Chic's readiness to use guns tells me he belongs to the fighter class.

I'm not sure how often pilots in dog fights would crash into each other, but if I ever write formalized dog fight rules for Hideouts & Hoodlums, it will likely include something about a low chance of crashing per turn.

I've posted plenty of times with examples like this, showing how you should not try too hard to hide clues from your players in your games. In fact, judging by this page, you shouldn't even hide them at all -- just leave them sitting out on a desk for anyone to see.

The 2nd edition rules for transportation includes ramming damage for just this type of scene!

The ramming damage for vehicles can be really high; perhaps it would be fair to split those dice between multiple opponents, like how Chic hits three guards at once here.

This is John Law, Scientective. The brightly-colored cellar is the result of the four-color process and the difficulty of printing gray tones back then.

A skill check to hear noise should also include a general sense of where it is coming from, even if only a basic skill check was successful.

A delightfully scientific trap! The strobing neon light keeps you from being able to see that the bar is actually moving back and forth very fast, when it appears to be still, and anyone walking through that door would take at least 1-6 points of damage. It's a good trap for hurting someone, but I'm not sure about it killing them...

In this rare instance, the villain loses a foot race to a woman in high heels. June can really move! Competing skill checks -- some combination of successful ones on her part and failed rolls on his part -- determined her close call.

The ol' pit trap filling with water trap! Making it a little easier, the Avenger left the hose accessible in the pit, giving John an improvised rope and grappling hook.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)