What point level to you play?

[Katherine]

Just trying to get a general feel for preferences.

[JmOz]

350

[Agent X]

350-450+experience

[Guzalot]

350 mostly, but I have a 250 campaign "on hiatus"

[Supreme Serpent]

It varies. Some games we start out relatively low points, 200-250. Most have starting characters at 300 now, though some experienced characters are significantly higher with XP. I'm also starting up a high-point campaign where the PC's can be up to 750pts to start.

[Blue]

I started the players at 300, but they're closer to 350 by now. I just wanted them to be closer to each other in power level when we started. I just accelerated exp earning a tad.

[Metaphysician]

"Typical" in this case is a bit meaningless for me, since New Sentinels is my first Champions game.

In any case, our starting point values were 750 points ( Horus-Re hitting 800 with extra Hunteds ). However, between accumulated experience and very. . . "efficient" character design, I'd say my character, and the campaign in general, fits the 800-1000+ range better, which is what I selected.

[JeffreyWKramer]

I'm the GM for the Sentinels. It's a high-powered campaign, envisioned as being the Champs U equivalent of the JLA. It's been an experiment for me, because all my previous experience as a Champions GM had been at standard (vastly lower) point levels, and the one relatively high-powered campaign I'd played in previously was based on 300 pts + up to 150 in Disads. I'm pleased to say the experiment has worked out marvelously to this point, though I think that is due more to the exceptional players than any specific factor of my GMing.

This high-point level isn't what I'd recommend for most, particularly not for relatively inexperienced GMs, for lots of reasons. First of all, there are very few standard characters from the published books who present any sort of challenge to heroes in that range, which either means you have to do a lot of rebuilding/power boosting of the published characters - and this can be a problem, because some of them really don't support that power level well... does anyone really want to see an 800-point Foxbat??? - or you have to mostly build your own villains. Second of all, characters at that power level have capacities that let them blow through many sorts of standard scenarios, and have points enough for ample amounts of esoteric defenses, reducing the impact of "great leveler" sorts of villains (mentalists, Adjustment Power spcialists and AP/Find Weakness guys (who don't accomplish much at all vs. high levels of Damage Reduction). Third - to repeat a point I made on these boards and which ended up being noted in GALACTIC CHAMPIONS - because they have the points to spend and because VPPs best reflect the wide range of odd feats powerful characters occasionally pull off, characters at high point levels often have fairly substantial VPPs, which allow them a lot of flexibility within the limits of their special effects. This makes it hard to anticipate just what an smart player might throw at you. Speedsters, especially, become lethal when one combines high speed (i.e., lots of actions) with the full range of possibilities presented by a substantial "Speed Tricks" VPP in combination with a Movement Multipower and/or a Speedster Powers EC of some sort.

On the other hand, we're having a blast, so with the right bunch of people, it's clear Champions can *work* at this power level - something I'd previously doubted, personally.

[Super Squirrel]

In the game I play, I am now 407. In the one I run, those there everygame have about 354. They have a base on "loan with lease to buy" at 1 XP per game that is withheld from end game reward.

[Zed-F]

I generally prefer 250 points or less. More than 350, and I would have a good deal of trouble coming up with enough things to buy, unless I just gave up and bought a big cosmic power pool. :D

I'm not a fan of supers whose powers are all inherent and always work. I almost invariably will buy most or all powers with at least some limitations on them. As such, even 200-250 points tends to get magnified to a quite comfortable power level.

[Lord Mhoram]

I play/gm 350+ XP, but I never really like it until a ways in, when the characters hit 500 or so. So I voted in the 500-800 range. That is when things get really good, not just because of points, but you have done a year or two of filling in the world, and tying the characters into it, and you can really have fun with those threads, and weave them all together.

[ChuckB]

350 works great. Allows for characters to be combat heavy and have a lot of noncombat skills/talents and eclectic powers.

[OddHat]

These days, 350 with free real world equipment, office space and vehicles (defined as anything your character could get and keep based on wealth level and contacts). Contacts, favors and perks are sometimes handed out as part of an XP reward. Super-equipment (anything past real-world tech) must be paid for in points, with possible minor point breaks for incorporating real tech.

I'm thinking of trying a higher powered game soon.

[jackalope]

When I first started playing Champions, characters were built on 100 Base + 150 Disads. Anything other than that was some sort of "house rule", probably created by a "power gamer" or "monty hauler". Oh, those were the days.

I spent a month in Mexico when I was 13, and the only books I had with me that were in English were the Champions rulebook (2nd Edition), a copy of Jeff Rovin's Encyclopedia of Superheroes, and Stephan King's The Stand. Over the course of that summer, I stated out every single one of the Dial H for Heros in the appendix (based on five line descriptions no less), and four or five dozen more. That's about 100-120 Champions, about 3 or 4 a day.

Oh wow, sometimes I forget what an incredible geek I am. My, that was a vivid reminder. Anyways, that excercise taught me a lot about getting creative with points. Cause it is HARD to do a lot of concepts justice on 250 points.

Then 3rd edition came out, with the buttloads of new skills and the whole new way of doing martial arts and all these other new things, and now 250 simply does not cut it. I can build a decent character with a clear, unifying thing, who can do one or two things really well, and is otherwise okay on 250 points. Given 350 points, I can realize just about any concept (except, it seems, robots and mystics), and make it sing. It's just a matter of making a competant 250 character, and then giving it 100 points in detailing, some of the more obscure special uses of powers, a really deep skill base, or maybe a fully realized set of contacts. It's awesome.

More than 500 points, and I start to lose the feeling of limitation and the creativity that brings. Characters start to feel bloated and unreal, like little gods. It's boring, IMHO. I can see how people who were really into role-playing might like it, but I'm really into the tactical challenge aspects of superheroics and megapower characters just don't present much of interest.

[OddHat]

For me, the bigest attraction of higher point totals is finally being able to buy all of those nifty Contacts, Favors, and "useless" but cool KS, languages, AK and SS that I never seem to have enough points for. On 350 points, I can make a tough combat Mage or martial Artist, or one that is brilliant and well educated. To do both requires a level of questionable tweaking that I dislike. Batman and Doctor Strange as they are now do not fit well into 350 points.

So, next time around, 500+ Disads here we come. ;)

[Metaphysician]

The best thing about playing high-point heroes, to me, is actually getting to play a *comic book hero.* And not a New Warrior/Teen Titan, either, but somebody iconic.

[OddHat]

The best thing about playing high-point heroes, to me, is actually getting to play a *comic book hero.* And not a New Warrior/Teen Titan, either, but somebody iconic.

Again, agreed. You can build the Justice League cartoon Superman for 350 points, but not the Silver or Bronze age Comic Book Superman. Or Miracleman, or most of the Authority, or...

[Metaphysician]

Actually, you couldn't even build most animated JL members on 350 points. Even Superman's lower end feats place him well above Ironclad level in strength and durability, and then you have to add in the heat vision, extremely fast flight, and various sensory powers ( not even including the Fortress of Solitude ). . .

[OddHat]

Actually, you couldn't even build most animated JL members on 350 points. Even Superman's lower end feats place him well above Ironclad level in strength and durability, and then you have to add in the heat vision, extremely fast flight, and various sensory powers ( not even including the Fortress of Solitude ). . .

I stand corrected.

Er...sit at my desk, corrected.

Well, never mind.

[CrosshairCollie]

I start 350 and go from there. Past a certain point, it just gets to be too much to juggle on a regular basis ("I have a Multipower with 27 slots in it ..."), and I prefer to keep the heroes at least on the level where they still have something to fear from conventional armed forces (or supers-specific special forces). Okay, it may not be a LOT to fear ... but it's something.

[Chimpira]

Back in the day I used to start players off with 250 including disads. After finding out about the new setting of 350 I made the adjustment. My players are all new to the Champions system so I wanted to start off with what is considered standard. If they reach 1000 points, then so be it. It will be a sign that it was a good game and we have had played for years.

[ghost-angel]

We have several games going...

One, the main one, has reached the 700+ level and climbing.

The other ranges from 250-450, usually falling at 350 or so. That has rotating players and characters, though I've got one 450pt character in it from sheer stubborness to not pull out and play any of my other characters.

[LadyChaos]

We've always used 375 as a base--even before the new rules. A couple characters are nearly 20 years old, but experience comes in such small amounts that even those characters are only up to about 450 by now.

We keep it manageable by having DC limits and characteristics limits. 12-15 dice is the average damage. We also tend to buy a lot of what I call characterization skills--the ones that your PC really should have that really aren't a lot of help in game but flesh out the character. Stuff like art history.

[Metaphysician]

75 points over 20 years?? Geez, your stingy. Any particular reason??

[Storm Shadow]

I always played with low powered characters (250) :(

[Hopscotch]

I was involved in an old campaign that started fourteen years ago at the old 100+ 150 point level. We went pretty stong for a few years and then met infrequently for a few years. none of us ever broke 300 points. We were not in the CU, and had almost exclusively home-made villans.
I have recently started a new campaign set in the same world with charcters made from 200 + 100 in disads. This is an odd number, I know, but I was including one old player and wanted his character as is to fit in with the new group. I have decided that I like the new numbers, especially the disads. 100 seems to me to be a better number that keeps players from taking disads just to take them. I also require my players to take a certain amount of non-combat skills to flesh out the characters.
Just as a side note, we steal a page from the old Villians and Vigilantees game by playing ourselves with the addition of superpowers.

Hopscotch

[LadyChaos]

75 points over 20 years?? Geez, your stingy. Any particular reason??
Just always done it that way. Also, the past several years we've been lucky to play once a month.

[assault]

I don't get to play as much as I would like....

"Artistically", I like 250-300 points - 150 points + 100-150. I've even experimented with higher disad points, so you can play a Superman-type character - who will fall over horribly when somebody whips out the Kryptonite.

350 is OK, but I have a nasty tendency to build underpowered characters at this point level. The problem seems to be that I'm really building 250 point characters and adding "neat stuff", rather than building at the slightly higher power level.

450 is nice, if you build your characters as though they were 350 point characters with extra padding and filling. Obviously this is an extension of my previous point - _these_ are the 350 point characters I have such problems building on 350 points.

Cosmic points are cool. I played in an unlimited points game way back in about 1990 or so. Our characters were mainly really badly designed, and sucked horribly, even though we were all experienced players! :)

I didn't try especially hard to build my character for power, but I probably should have tried a bit harder - he really could have used some flexibility, even without more actual muscle.

My preference would be for 250-300+, except, of course, for interactions with "real world" objects. That factor tends to require point bloat, but that just raises new problems with characters with massive VPPs and so on.

I guess it really boils down to "what power level would I prefer to GM"? In that case, 250-300+ is probably my answer, so that's how I'm voting.

[Hawksmoor]

I cut my teeth on 125+150 pointers in BBB Champs. I happily embraced the 200+150 pointers in FrED. However, I have always liked the well roundedness and out and out fun of the 400-500 point characters.

On a side note I have always found a lot of disadvantage points to be frustrating. 100 points is about the wall for me, beyond that I am groping and hammering to get those last 50-75 points hammered down.

I am currently ramping up to start *running* a game in the GGU with the odd total of 410. Essentially 396 point characters with a 14 point required package for the team. It seems like a lot of points but most of the PC builds I was given could have used 500-600 points before phishing took over.

Hawksmoor

[zornwil]

I think I've always started at 200-350, but I usually allow for rapid growth and the campaign eventually moves into the 2nd tier of the poll, if it lasts long enough the 3rd.

I have never really asked for too many Disad points. I like them to be at no more than 100 and I think 50 is fine.

[st barbara]

Hmm After asking a few questions we reckon that "St Barbara"was about 350-400 points when she was created.Rather more now ! After about 5 years of play she is about 700 points worth. We've had a break of over 12 months since we last played however.

[paigeoliver]

When we do Superheroes it is 100 + 150, just like grampa used to do it.

[Just A Guy Name]

When we do Superheroes it is 100 + 150, just like grampa used to do it."And..let me tell you, we were glad to get it, too!"
"Suure, grampa.:rolleyes: "

Heh, I thought I was the last 250 pt guy left ;)

"And experience?! You kids have it easy! Back in my day, we were lucky if we got one 1 pt per month! Real time!" [drone]

[paigeoliver]

"And experience?! You kids have it easy! Back in my day, we were lucky if we got one 1 pt per month! Real time!" [drone]

1 point per month!

Back in my day we lay in bed at night dreaming about getting 1 point per month.

In my day the GM applied a permanent 1d6 strength drain to each character once a week, and he let us have 1 point of XP per year, but only to be spent on knowledge skills.

And we were thankful for what we had.

[Metaphysician]

And then 5e came along, and they made things better for us young whippersnappers. :p

[Chuckg]

Why, I remember in 3e, to get that one experience point, we had to walk five miles uphill to the DM's house! In the snow! Both ways!

[zornwil]

Why, I remember in 3e, to get that one experience point, we had to walk five miles uphill to the DM's house! In the snow! Both ways!
We couldn't even walk unless we paid points, NOTHING was free, not even base 10 chars! And we were LUCKY if we had STR to be drained! Instead we sat around with one power at around 10 AP (at most) and required -8 in Lims, so we could use the power maybe one session. And we liked it that way!

[Chuckg]

Bah! Your DM's actually let you buy characteristics up to 10? Why, I remember when the campaign max limit was set at 5! With the threshold for NCM at 2, so we all had to pay double! And you actually had superpowers? You were living in Club Med! We had to sacrifice goats in the DM's driveway just to be allowed to buy Talents! And only the GM's girlfriend ever got a Perk!

[Metaphysician]

I don't know, I think "GM's Girlfriend" ought to *be* a perk, paid with points, and probably based on VPP. . .

[Chuckg]

"Shagging The DM" *is* an official cheat... err, I mean feat... in Munchkin D20... ;)

[Pendaran]

I have to ask, reading this thread, given what 5e says on xp, and such things...

How is it possible to consistently play at, say, 350? Is xp never handed out? Or at rates far more slowly than the book itself recommends? Even by virtue of a campaign managing to actually last a few years, 350 will be relatively quickly jumped up from.

[Metaphysician]

I have to ask, reading this thread, given what 5e says on xp, and such things...

How is it possible to consistently play at, say, 350? Is xp never handed out? Or at rates far more slowly than the book itself recommends? Even by virtue of a campaign managing to actually last a few years, 350 will be relatively quickly jumped up from.

Well, I would *assume* that the 200-350 category is filled mostly by people still playing to 4e point standards. I definitely see your point, though; going strictly by book guidelines, the only way point totals would rise slowly is if a given player never earns any of the optional bonuses, and the adventures are always relatively easy, but very long.

OTOH, I *did* notice something interesting in the sidebar on the very same page, 346 Hero 5e, bottom of the sidebar:

"And never forget, villains get Experience Points too. . ."

[nexus]

I have to ask, reading this thread, given what 5e says on xp, and such things...

How is it possible to consistently play at, say, 350? Is xp never handed out? Or at rates far more slowly than the book itself recommends? Even by virtue of a campaign managing to actually last a few years, 350 will be relatively quickly jumped up from.

I think the question would have been better put what point level do you start play with.

[Metaphysician]

The thing is, going by the XP guidelines in the book, a weekly campaign is going to rack up each player a bare minimum of 50 XP a year, and as much as a 100 if the player is a really good roleplayer. At those rates, characters are going to go from even 250 points to fairly hefty totals in only a couple of years.

[Pendaran]

if you manage to clock three a session (which isn't insanely out of the realm of possibility, honestly), you're looking at 100-150 xp a year, yeah.

[Katherine]

Sorry, I meant more so what level do you generally prefer to start with.

[zornwil]

Well, I would *assume* that the 200-350 category is filled mostly by people still playing to 4e point standards. I definitely see your point, though; going strictly by book guidelines, the only way point totals would rise slowly is if a given player never earns any of the optional bonuses, and the adventures are always relatively easy, but very long.

OTOH, I *did* notice something interesting in the sidebar on the very same page, 346 Hero 5e, bottom of the sidebar:

"And never forget, villains get Experience Points too. . ."
I dunno if I'd assume that. I ran 250 point games with Disads as an add-on to that from 1983 or 1984 up through 1994, and after not gaming a while started at 150+65, which I still run though I've adopted much of 5th edition. Hasn't really been based on the book guidelines.

[Blackjack]

For me, the bigest attraction of higher point totals is finally being able to buy all of those nifty Contacts, Favors, and "useless" but cool KS, languages, AK and SS that I never seem to have enough points for. On 350 points, I can make a tough combat Mage or martial Artist, or one that is brilliant and well educated. To do both requires a level of questionable tweaking that I dislike. Batman and Doctor Strange as they are now do not fit well into 350 points.

So, next time around, 500+ Disads here we come. ;)

Oddhat,

You are absolutely correct. Neither Batman nor Doctor Strange could be built on 350 points. Remember, though, that these two each represent the VERY BEST in the world at what they do... Batman is unarguably the (DC) World's Finest Detective and Doctor Strange is the (Marvel Universe's) Sorceror Supreme. Both have been active heroes for many years (have LOTS of XPs...)

Most groups who play a JLA- or Avengers-style campaign probably start at a higher point level than 350.

[Metaphysician]

I dunno if I'd assume that. I ran 250 point games with Disads as an add-on to that from 1983 or 1984 up through 1994, and after not gaming a while started at 150+65, which I still run though I've adopted much of 5th edition. Hasn't really been based on the book guidelines.

Let me ask then, how many points where the characters that were active through that entire 10 year campaign when it ended??

[zornwil]

Let me ask then, how many points where the characters that were active through that entire 10 year campaign when it ended??
Of the regulars, they went as follows:

Desperado (left campaign a little earlier) ended at 562 + 131.

Nightshade ended at 581 + 100.

Necromancer ended at 679 + 115.

Dr. Time (the player missed a lot of games) ended at 443 + 95.

Whoops, just reread your note, this was over 4 years consisting of 43 sessions. That time period I mentioned above was divided between Boston, Charleston, and Greenville.

[Metaphysician]

Wow, thats alot of XP for only 43 sessions. No complaints here.

[zornwil]

Wow, thats alot of XP for only 43 sessions. No complaints here.
Yeah.

My current game has seen 39 written-up issues (with 2 more still to write up) for an XP award range of 145-155 for those in more issues, and of those the most was 155 with a couple or three absences. So basically a little over 4 an issue although there's also bulking up points for Reputation levels.

My full experience/reputation system is at http://www.realschluss.org/x-champions/house_rules/ch_gaining_reputation_and_experienc.htm