Daring Mystery Comics #1 - pt. 3

Picking up where I left off with Monako.  Monako falls through a pit trap (and apparently not a deep one) while following the trail of footsteps, though it does raise the question of how no one before him triggered the pit trap. Traps should, out of fairness, apply equally to everyone.

Monako casts Mirror Image to fool the mobsters waiting at the bottom of the pit trap, then attacks them with what appeared to be a new spell that I think I would call Flying Fists. It would make a pair of fists appear in the air and both attack for the caster, per turn, allowing the caster to continue to do other activities. I would probably make this a 4th level spell.

Despite how powerful Monako is (he must be at least 8th level?), when a steel cage drops over him, he appears to be powerless.

Monako and Josie's brother are put in a deathtrap where they are strapped to a table and a razor-shape axe swings lower towards them.  Monako, who has apparently been biding his time all this time -- despite the fact he just watched Josie's brother getting whipped -- now casts another new spell to get them out of the deathtrap.  The spell appears to be Speak with Weapons -- the caster can talk to the weapon and convince it to serve him, and empowers the weapon to float through the air and attack or cut things on its own. This has got to be a 5th level spell.

I've seen stories before where the villain has a back-up hideout, but this is the first story where the a hideout is on a tugboat. I guess it's more of a "hide in plain sight" plan rather than a "get away at top speed" plan.

Muro sets up a very unusual deathtrap for Josie. She's tied to a chair with a keg of gasoline next to her and a lit fuse on the keg. Okay, that part makes sense...but it's a two-hour fuse. Is Muro that unsure about going through with this? And the fuse doesn't even look that long -- how on Earth does it take a whole two hours to burn?

At her brother's lab, Monako casts a series of protective spells on the canister holding the secret explosive powder. One is a Magic Mouth spell that makes the canister appear to speak. Two is an odd one -- it seems to be Heat Metal, making the canister too hot to hold, but that seems like an awfully dangerous thing to do to a canister holding an explosive powder in it. So...the heat must be illusory heat? A low-level illusion spell like Phantasmal Image can't do that...maybe a higher level one, though.  And then the third spell is a Phantasmal Image of Monako himself.

I don't have a lot to say about Phantom of the Underworld...except what a jerk he is. He takes the place of a doctor in order to infiltrate a mob looking to recruit the doctor -- all well and good -- but then he allows himself to get captured and lets the newspapers report that the doctor turned criminal, ruining the man's reputation.

The "Phantom" -- though he's actually called "Doc" Denton all through the story -- has a solution he can give people that makes them temporarily blind. Then, after blinding the mobsters, he simply pretends to have a gun and gets them all to fail their morale saves.

Lastly, Barney Mullen, Sea Rover, has an unusual sea journey, starting in Lisbon and ending in Rotterdam to deliver some gold. At this time, The Netherlands were still neutral in the war. Barney has to deal with German cruisers that try and stop his steamship, French officials who try to con him out of his gold, and a mutinous crew (though, c'mon, guys; this is a "you knew the job was dangerous when you took it" situation...).

One of the cruisers is evaded thanks to thick fog, which should add a high modifier to evasion rolls.

(Read at Marvel Unlimited.)

Wonderworld Comics #8 - pt. 3

Dr. Fung finds it extra hard to find the trickster Scorpio (the trickster class, designed for mediums and psychics, debuted in The Trophy Case v. 1 #4) in his weirdly-shaped mansion. The first room is concealed behind curtains, but behind the room is a secret door keeping the blackmail files safe. The Editor can double up on tricks and traps as well if it keeps the hideouts challenging.

Weapons concealed in canes are so cliche that they'll never fool your players, but a spring-loaded arrow-launcher concealed in a magician's wand? That's a trophy item that will surprise them (though I question the penetrating power of such a weapon -- maybe it would only do 1-4 points of damage?).

Tex Maxon is good in a fight, but not as good as Timmons!  Check out how he kicks a rock with the back of his foot and manages to get enough lift to strike Tex in the head. I'm not sure even professional soccer players could pull off that stunt. It certainly makes me question if Hideouts & Hoodlums needs any facing rules.

It is not unfeasible for someone to fall 150' and survive, as there have been lots of examples of people falling even further and living. The H&H rules are unforgiving , with a fall from that height doing 15-90 points of damage. Now, it's possible that Jon Pulski had 16 hit points and got really lucky, or the Editor set a lower minimum damage (which he could always do, at his discretion).

Fake skulls seems like it could be interesting hideout dressing.

This is K-51, though the influence of Will Eisner makes it seem an awful lot like a Black X story. This takes place in the Philippines, which was an U.S. territory at the time. The rabble-rouser Mussoni is obviously based on Mussolini, though what he'd be doing in the Philippines isn't clear.

Notice how, in fiction, no one ever gets stabbed during a grappling fight. This is borne out in the 2nd edition grappling rules, where if you grapple someone, that opponent can't make any attack back at you that turn except for grappling.

The typhoon is either a wandering event or something the Editor just tossed in, at his discretion, to shake up the plot (it had been a standoff before this). The typhoon is strong and wrecks as if a high-level superhero. X-51 and his fellow agent Claire (she does have a codename, but it's not used past the first page) both make their saving throws vs. science (or maybe plot, or whichever was worse?) to survive the storm, with the Editor rolling for the major antagonists on the ship, while likely hand-waving the rest of the rolls and just saying the crew all died.

The bad guy here is called both a bandit and a robber, but by the way he gets from the side door of the train to the ropes hanging above the train, he must be a mysteryman.

The "chief" is a master criminal; you can tell he is by the bald head. A thug (another mobster type) robs the train this time, using less acrobatics.

The car is full of a mixture of gangsters and thugs. One of the thugs recovers quickly, having made his save vs. plot to recover quickly from unconsciousness (a new 2nd ed. rule). This indicates that even small-fry mobsters are eligible for the recovery rule...though, if there was no such rule, this could perhaps be explained away as a special ability of the thug mobster-type.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Wonderworld Comics #6 - pt. 1

The Flame appears on the scene thanks to the Teleport through Focus power. He shows up here in the middle of an investigation, just courteously turning over evidence he's collected so far to the D.A.

Collecting evidence isn't a requirement in Hideouts & Hoodlums, nor is respecting due process. Rather, they make for additional challenges that a player choosing a Lawful Hero might enjoy.

The Flame makes what looks like a 15' leap downward, apparently without taking 1-6 points of falling damage. I believe I've covered this on the blog before, but leaping down should not be treated as an uncontrolled fall (when the Hero is taken by surprise).

This is Lou Fine at his artistic best. I like this page so much that one panel of it became the cover art to the first H&H module Sons of the Feathered Serpent. Just soak it all in.

Now, this time, The Flame doesn't just leap down, but has to take the extra step of swinging from the wire to land safely. It's unclear which floor he is leaping from, as it looks like the 2nd floor in panel 1, but could be the 7th floor or higher in panel 2. Maybe he doesn't have a leap power prepared for today, so he can't make the leap safely from that height. Or, maybe the power would only protect him, but someone being carried would still take jarring damage from the landing.

The Flame catches a break at the end; instead of having to catch the thug himself, the thug just gets handed over to him. That's moving the pace along!

300 MPH?  That is one fast car, in any age. It was called a super-charged car in 1st edition. I might be making transportation trophies more customize-able in 2nd edition. For example, this would be a Car +2, with each plus representing a bonus feature in the car (or, more specifically, one plus per extra 100 MPH the car goes).

Leaping up or down, easily handled. Leaping sideways into a moving car? That might require an attack roll, or burn a stunt.

The Flame is buffed by Imperviousness here.

The Flame doesn't need to be using a power to get that "heads slammed together" attack. In unarmed combat everyone gets two attacks per turn, so this would count as separate attacks on each head.

It doesn't take one of the raise powers to pick someone up and throw them out of a car; anyone can try to do that too.

Somehow, he ties up Mr. Crass remarkably quickly. It seems like it's less than a turn he spends on it. And how is his car matching speed without anyone's foot on the gas? Autopilot? Maybe this is a Car +3.

The Flame doesn't seem too concerned about blowing up mobsters, so long as he has the boss villain to take into custody. Does that make him Neutral in Alignment?

Should cars be extra susceptible to flame guns? Or could this be an example of Wreck at Range? I suspect the latter.

And now we move on to the Yarko the Great adventure in this issue. Here, Yarko is on a treacherous journey through Devil's Pass in the Himalayas. His encounters along the way are with natural disasters instead of mobsters (though he finds evidence of vampires at his base camp).

A blizzard this fierce might do 1-8 points of damage each exploration turn that the traveler fails a save vs. plot. While the rockslide might do 3-18 points of damage or more if a save vs. science was missed.

The hoshai plant is a strange sort of trophy item. It's really bizarre -- a giant lilly-like plant that grows in molten lava and has blood inside it. But, other than that...it doesn't actually do anything. In this sense, it's more of a trophy to have, like a giant penny, than something to actually use. I plan on having some examples of these sorts of trophies on the 2nd edition trophy list.

After beating the Devil, you would think Yarko wouldn't be scared of three vampires with bows and arrows. Perhaps he's more concerned for the safety of his traveling companion, or just wants to get captured so he can be taken to their leader.

Speaking of which, vampires with bows and arrows is a fairly novel idea.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Action Comics #15

And we come back around to Superman's home title, Action Comic, as we will periodically do, to see what new and exciting stuff Siegel and Shuster have cooked up for us. Here, we're treated to some delightful attention to continuity, as Superman reflects on having saved money earned months earlier in issue #11.

And raising money is the unusual scenario goal in this issue, as Superman has to raise $1 million to save "Kid-Town". For capturing bank robbers, he gets a $3,000 reward from the bank for returning their money, plus $2,000 from the police for capturing the robbers. He saves a rich man's life and gets $10,000 as his reward. Then he receives a plot hook that sends him after sunken treasure worth $1 million by itself.

All of these rewards can be dangled in front of Hideouts & Hoodlums Heroes, though the Editor is discouraged from awarding XP for money that has to be raised for a scenario. Trophy money should be earned on the side while pursuing other goals.

In the course of this adventure, Superman performs the powers Nigh-Invulnerable Skin (but while out of costume!), Raise Car (to lift a massive tree), Hold Breath (said to last for hours!), Get Even Tougher (I presume, since he's able to fight off a dozen sharks!), Hold Train reversed (so he can push a submarine), Super-Tough Skin, and -- of course -- wrecking things.

For some amount under $15,000, Clark Kent is able to rent a steamer ship for two weeks, complete with diving bell. He has to hire his own crew, though.

Another wrinkle in this surprisingly complex Superman tale is rival gangs competing to stop him. One becomes his ship crew, while the other steals a submarine to come after his ship. And Superman has fun with it too, dressing up in a skeleton's conquistador armor to spook the submarine crew.

In Pep Morgan's installment, Pep is given a plot hook by someone he rescued in the previous story -- the start of a series of plot hooks the same character will give him over what is actually a long story arc. He has to catch a combination of gangsters and robbers who are disguising themselves as police officers. Pep disguises himself too, posing as a night watchman and then a policeman himself, to capture the robbers who are using a tricked farmer's farm as their hideout.

Marco Polo shows himself to have some anti-hero leanings in this installment. He knocks out a guard to steal a horse, and then steals a sword from two soldiers (who probably only want to arrest him for horse theft!). I'm not sure how easy it is to snatch a sword from someone else's scabbard, but I'm guessing it's pretty hard and must be a difficult (1 in 6) skill, like picking pockets.

In Clip Carson's adventure, he and his SCM (archaeologist Jim Blake) have been fighting bandits in the Sahara when both sides have to seek shelter from a sandstorm (wandering weather encounter? Editorial fiat?). Jim points out that sandstorms can rip skin to shreds, meaning at least 2-8 points of damage I reckon. Luckily, tents make you automatically immune to the damage. Clip and Jim decide to brave the storm instead; since they emerge unscathed, there must be a save vs. science that lets you avoid the whole damage.

They find a guarded pyramid -- and rightly so, being a national monument. Clip and Jim have a map that will show them where a secret treasure room is inside, but instead of showing it to the Arab guards and offering to share it with them, Clip beats them all up so they can enter and steal the treasure for themselves. The pyramid is the "Pyramid of Cheoks," which clearly means Cheops. While inside, a guard recovers and trains a gun on them from a trapdoor in the ceiling, generously giving them a chance to surrender. But, again, this guy's an Arab, so Clip feels no remorse as he murders the guard. They find the secret door indicated on the map, but run into a mummy at the cliffhanger!

Tex Thompson is taking a break from globe-trotting and is back home in Texas for a change. We see he's an expert dart thrower. He also has an Arab servant named Achmed who never joins him on any adventures and we probably never see again. Tex is asked to find a missing diamond in this story, during which he runs into and adds his second SCM, Gargantua T. Potts. "Gargantua" must be a nickname because Potts is tall, drawn taller than Tex. Other than that, Potts has no special abilities other than being a  horribly drawn racial slur.

Well, well -- Fred Guardineer anticipated global warming! In his Zatara installment this month, "an evil scientist, Berhener, creates a heat ray and uses it to melt a lot of polar ice, causing the oceans to rise, and flooding New York City and many other coastal cities. Zatara is called in, and he figures out where the melting is happening, then tracks the heat ray's creator, Berhener, who turns out to have a mad scheme about extorting the world's governments and banks for a lot of money. Zatara freezes him inside an iceberg, and sinks the heat ray into the ocean." That summary doesn't give me a lot to go on, but apparently Zatara is starting to cast more combat-related spells like Ice Storm or Cone of Cold.

(Superman adventure read in Superman: The Action Comics Archives vol. 1, select pages read at the Babbling about DC Comics blog, summaries of the rest read at DC Wikia.)

Famous Funnies #60

Eagle Scout Roy Powers reminds me that, whenever Heroes travel by sea, they almost always run into some storm, or hurricane. The 2nd edition Hideouts & Hoodlums basic book won't have room to talk about sea voyages, but if I ever get to the Advanced H&H Editor's Guide, I'll have to make sure to give a high chance of encountering inclement weather on any nautical, wandering encounter charts.

Something's not kosher about this, Skyroads...Speed says the canoe can go twice as fast as him. Okay, downstream, I could buy that, but upstream? Those are some strong oarsmen!

I'm sharing this because, not only does this educated Mayan school Sally on her cultural bias, but he then teaches her about fatalism. That is one cool character...

Not only is this gag from Life's Like That pretty funny, but it gives us a rare glimpse of a 1930s-era camper.

As if it even needed to be said -- why you don't want to get into a fight with a whale in H&H (this is from Dickie Dare).

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)

Famous Funnies #18 - pt. 1

Connie is more of a talky sleuth than an action-adventure sleuth, but this installment shows the value of seeing through disguises.

There are two different game mechanics for disguises in Hideouts & Hoodlums.  The first was requiring a saving throw vs. plot to see through a disguise.  The second, introduced with the Villain Class in Supplement II: All-American, gave a percentage chance per level of fooling people.

The Villain Class will likely not carry over to the next edition.  Further, like with Connie, it should be incumbent on the viewer to see through the disguise, rather than incumbent on the disguised to fool the viewer.

This panel from the "Flight" feature is of particular interest to me, since in my previous H&H campaign, the Heroes had to travel by air to China and I had to research this route on my own.

 Ah, Seaweed Sam!  How did I ever ignore you before?  Here we're treated to a new spell, or is it a new magic trophy?  My guess is the latter, so here we have the Shawl of Temporal Relocation.  Each time it is used to cover a living thing, that being is transported back in time (the example here is 1,200 years, but let's say the Shawl sends people back a random 1d6+6 centuries instead).  There should also probably be a saving throw vs. spells to resist, though given how powerful the Shawl is, the save should probably come with a hefty penalty, say, -5 to the roll.

This snippet from Hairbreadth Harry features a trap (chloroform concealed in a bouquet of flowers) and a deathtrap (the cliche of being tied to the railroad tracks).  The distinction between a trap and a deathtrap is that the trap is passive, triggered by the victim interacting with it.  The deathtrap is actively put into motion by the villain.

This snippet from The Nebbs demonstrates why Half-Pints should be treated as combatants (and are statted as such in Book II: Mobsters and Trophies).

From Flying to Fame, here we have our first constrictor snake (also statted in Book II).

This installment of Hairbreadth Harry brings up an element left out of H&H to date -- the weather.  Extreme weather conditions are here shown to cause damage, like weapons, only perhaps more temporary.  The next edition may include some notes like this.

We also get a good idea for a using snow to replace a grappling hook.

Since Harry did not knowingly initiate a grappling attack on Rudolph, Rudolph is not technically pinned.  Rather, the fall probably did enough damage to Rudolph to subdue him.

The next edition should have a note in it about how cushioning a fall like this both lessens damage to the faller and transferring damage to the cushion.

Here we see even a domestic situation can turn into an action-adventure story, thanks to a hostile terrier. Although watchdogs are statted in Book II, that type of dog is likely a 150 lb. mastiff.  For a 30-40 lb. terrier, I would assign it only 1-2 hp, with the ability to bite for just 1 point of damage.

Terriers and mastiffs are likely to both become notes under one entry for Dogs in the next edition.

(Scans courtesy of the Digital Comic Museum at http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/index.php?dlid=23799)