The Flash

Less extreme speedsters though, that's another matter. You can get at Quicksilver.

Traps work just fine. Explosives, caging, etc.

And area effects: gas, shrapnel, wide beam weapons. Even glue on the floor perhaps?

Pre-Crisis Flash is not a good place to look for ways to beat speedsters. His constant problem was getting caught up in things thrown at him, like high-tech chains or blobs of goo, and so on. It was never explained why he just didn't get out of the way if he was that fast.

And he invariably got out of his restraints by rotating really fast or vibrating.

I do not read the Flash comic. By all appearances it looks as if the overwhelming majority of the people who post at this website are FOOM kind of people. That' "Friends of ol" Marvel" for all of you young Turks born after 1975.

Anyway, if there is any of us who are truly Flash fans perhaps they are the ones who should begin weighing in on this character. Most of us, I think, base how he would do in MSH RPG based upon Mayfair's DC Heroes RPG.

Some of you know what my opinion of that work is. In a nutshell I think the game was doo-doo. It screws with your head worse than Pre-crisis, Zero Hour, and Hyper-time combined. And stay away from the DCU game by D6/Legend as well. I actually got to play that with one of the designers at last year's Heroes Convention in Charlotte, N.C.

I also once mentioned that the Flash is featrued on Cartoon Network's Justice League. It is like a decent comic book, similiar to the way Batman the Animated Series was.

In the cartoon version of the Flash, he is very very fast, but he gets his @#$%& kicked nearly every episode that he is in. He pulls off some stunts that save the day from time to time, but he is a cocky guy that often acts before he thinks.

If his character is playable in a cartoon, then a Game Judge should be able to make him playable on the table top.


Secret Defender

There are numerous ways to "beat" speedsters...Here are some I have used in games. I will list those that use real world possibilities(R)and those that take into acount comic book abilities(C)
1)(R) String multiple levels of piano wire at either head or knee or ankle height. 1 failed Intuition or Psyche feat and Whammo! End of speedster.
2)(C)Mentats..These abilities operate at the speed of "thought", much faster than most speedsters.
3)(R&C)Use the speedsters overconfidence againts them..as in X-Force when Cannonball cold-@#$%& Quicksilver..Quicky was blathering on about his speed to Shatterstar and gets blindsided by the boy from Kentucky.
4)(C)Most speedsters have primarily only their own speed to rely apon. Very few have any other powers(I.E. Super strength/Toughness/Energy Blasts) Put them in situations where the speed is not as useful, or is actually a hinderance(Up against a Brick/Blaster/Floor covered in silicant/Ect).
All it takes to deal with "Anyone" is thinking about the situation.
Thank You

That's what I was trying to say awhile back about characters with speed like Flash and Quicksilver.



" I kill where I wish and none dare resist. I laid low the warriors of old and their like is not in the world today. "

Blast from the past.



DG X(

Marvel > DC

1) Wouldn't work; the Flash can vibrate through solid objects.
2) The speed of thought is approximately 120 metres per second. Flash can move one thousand times that without difficulty.
3) To Flash, Cannonball would have been moving with glacial slowness. He's have seen the punch coming, and been able to run twice round the world before coming back and hitting Sam from behind.
4) Flash can run away faster than any attack can travel.

The problem with Flash isn't that he's a speedster - it's that he can move faster than light. Which makes him effectively a god.

-Wal



Surrender? What? You think this letter on my head stands for FRANCE?

1)Only if he sees it coming..one failed roll...
2)Where did you get this figure? Since flash had been controlled by mentats before..Hou did they do it? (Need I mention a certain Gorrilla)
3)Flash has been side-swiped by members of the Rogues Gallery..None of them move as fast as Sam..with the exception of Reverse Flash/Professor Zoom.
4)Flash has been hit by Boomer-rangs for pities sake! Yes he can move faster than light..But, he is still capable of failing that roll.

Well therein lies the problem. Flash has been bested many times, but that's not becuase they genuinely outwitted his powers, it's becuase NO DC characters use their powers to the fullest. They all start at like Incredible and then slowly work their way up until they finally and just barely win. Superman should never lose, use kyptonite on him and he flys away faster than the radiation travels. And you can't catch someone off guard that lives in world literally stands still, so Flash is in the same boat. But that wouldn't be any fun to read so they treat their heroes like idiots and morons that haven't had their powers for 15 minutes, much less 60 years.

That's the difference, Marvel characters are almost always outmatched and have to overcome, while in DC the characters always outmatch their oponents and yet never seem to use their powers to the fullest.



DG X(

Marvel > DC

Warlock wrote:

> That's the difference, Marvel characters are almost always
> outmatched and have to overcome, while in DC the characters
> always outmatch their oponents and yet never seem to use their
> powers to the fullest.
>

I really like this line.



==
Quidquid latine dictum sit altum viditur. (Translation: Everything said in Latin
sounds profound.)

Flash's power ranks, not his power, make him a nearly cosmic character. I'm sure they're accurate (although I doubt he could destroy Cap's shield or Thor's hammer by vibrating through them), but he's just too powerful a character for normal campaigns.
He would however fit in ok in cosmic campaigns.

There's nothing to stop a GM from powering him down either, though he would hardly resemble the DC character.

I re-read Final Night a week ago or so. During a riot, a Random Mook cold-@#$%& Flash (or hit him in the back of the head with a lead pipe, I can't remember exactly which), saying soemthing along the lines of "Yer just as slow as the rest of us when yer standing still, red!" And it's true -- Flash's senses are no keener than anyone else's, so he can be as easily surprised as any other Mook (he can just react faster under most circumstances).



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Be Ex/20 to one another!

I wonder how he can move faster than he can think.

'cuz all his bodily processes are sped up when he's tapping into the Speed Force. And he rarely goes beyond the sped of light, since when he does, he starts being pulled into the Speed Force (where he'd become part of it forever).



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Be Ex/20 to one another!

That's not true. He has Hyper-Speed as well as Hyper-Running. That's how he can change into his costume in the blink of an eye. And if he has say Unearthly Hyper-Speed then he can do things 100 times faster than a normal human, which also means a normal human c=moves 100 times slower than he does, which also means that the lead pipe would've looked like it was being swung by a 90 year old grandmother frozen molasses.



DG X(

Marvel > DC

Actually, he's able to change costumes in the blink of an eye b/c it's made of "solidified Speed Force energy" that he summons

And the guy hitting him with the lead pipe was behind Wally, so he couldn't see it :p



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Be Ex/20 to one another!

Maybe now, but for years Wally used the same thing Barry did. A costume made of special chemicals that when exposed to nitrogen expands from a miniature costume to a full sized one. He stores it in his ring and when he opens it up the nitrogen in the air causes it to expand to a wearable size. A special charge in the ring causes the suit to give off the stored nitrogen, thereby causing it to shrink down and fit back into the ring.

Which means he still had to put it on one leg at a time. :p



DG X(

Marvel > DC

Gah, I'd fogotten completely about his Costume-in-a-Ring dealie!



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Be Ex/20 to one another!

Wait a minute. You mean there was actually a pseudo-scientific explanation for that whole 'costume-in-a-ring' deal? Gosh. Now I can actually enjoy Superman/Batman: Generations.

-Wal



Surrender? What? You think this letter on my head stands for FRANCE?

Thought he still used it.

Yeah it might appear to him to move that slow, if he saw it coming and because it landed I am sure it felt like it was at full speed.



" I kill where I wish and none dare resist. I laid low the warriors of old and their like is not in the world today. "