Power level help

[CleverName]

Help I'm at work without my Hero book -- horrors!

I'm trying to compose some guidelines for my Champions group to spend XP. and I can't remember the standards for defenses / CV's and Attacks.

The characters have earned 31 XP over the course of the game so far and I want to increase the power levels a bit. (Most have been hording points for a while now.) I'm thinking about increasing the AP for attacks from 60 to 70, but I'm blanking on "average" defenses and CV's what would you suggest? I want to send out an email today so they have time to think about things.

Again, this is pretty much a standard 4-color Champions campaign, using CKC villians, etc.

Thanks!

[Marcus]

The Way Ive Always Done It (Offical Value=0)

Hypothetical Damage Cap: 12D6, 60AP

Defense Cap: 30PD/ED, 15MD, 10Power Defense/Flash Defense, 5 LOW

Bricks will be-
60AP Offense
CV 6ish
Speed 5ish
Cap defense (brick may trade down speed to 4 to go a tiny bit over Game Cap offense or defense)

Blasters will be
50-60AP Offense
CV 8ish
Speed 6 ish
Defenses at 70% of full

Martials will be
45AP-50AP Offense
CV 10-11ish
Speed 6-7ish
Defenses at about 40-50%

Speedsters will be
40-45AP Offense (and thats WITH THE MOVE BYs, thank you)
CV 12-13 ish
Speed 7-8ish
Defenses 30% or less

These are obviously just guidelines, not in any way set in stone even in my own games. Many PCs dont shoe-horn nicely into categories, and shouldnt! But if you dont limit only the bricks and the slow blasters to game-cap offense, pretty soon theres a speedster move-bying entire enemy superteams in one long full move for 12+ dice each.

[CleverName]

Thanks, Marcus!

[TheEmerged]

Here's a system I've used for the defensive numbers.

Declare an active cap of X

Build an Energy Blast with a +1 advantage, with an active cost of X. Mutliply the number of dice that result by 2, and you've got a good baseline for the Minimum DEF cap. For example, if X = 60 you end up with a 6d6 Energy Blast, and thus a Normal Minimum DEF of 12.

Build an Energy Blast with an active cost of X and no advantages. Multiply the number of dice that result by 3, and you've got a good baseline for the Maximum DEF a player should have without a Darn Good Reason(tm). Continuing the X = 60 example, you end up with a 12d6 Energy Blast and thus a Maximum DEF of 36.

Build an Energy Blast with a +1/2 advantage whose active cost equals X. Mutliply the number of dice that result by 2.5, and you've got a good idea what the "average" DEF score should be. With our X = 60 example, that results in 8d6 and a "normal" DEF of 20.

For Power & Flash Defenses, you can pretty much divide the above results by 2 and get a working number. In this case, the "minimum" shouldn't be viewed as "everyone has this much" but rather "everyone that bothers to buy it probably has this much". If Suppress is very common in your campaign, you may need to use the number of dice without dividing by two.

Mental Defense is a bit tougher. Generally I make MD an attribute instead of a power, with the "unusual" minimum but the "normal" maximum.

[Marcus]

Emerged, I like it alot. Id go a bit lower on Flash and Power defense than that, but otherwise, I like your idea as written.

[Killer Shrike]

OR, screw AP limits and let people design thier characters to fit the concept, without worrying about artificial limits. :) Just another point of view......

[TheEmerged]

Originally posted by Killer Shrike
OR, screw AP limits and let people design thier characters to fit the concept, without worrying about artificial limits. :) Just another point of view......

And a valid one, but consider this -- it's a good idea to have some framework for what you consider to be "normal", especially in the superheroic genre. AP "caps", or limits, or whatever you want to call them work well for this -- as long as the GM understands there are times to ignore it. I've got an 350-pt NPC with a 200+ active point power in my campaign, for example, because that's the best way to fit the concept.

For example, in my current NeoChampion Universe campaign it's understood that beat cops are carrying a weapon that's effectively a 50-point multipower, that most "Class One" novas can be assumed to have a 60-point framework, and that PC's (considered "Class Two" novas) need a good reason to exceed 75-point frameworks. Even then, one of the PC's has a 110-point power for one of her multiforms...

[Trebuchet]

I think having guidelines is useful; caps are less useful. Character concept is the most important factor IMHO, especially when your players are looking for ways to spend XP. With 31 points, every character could add +2 SPD and enough END to make it work. That would really alter the dynamic of combat without actually changing the level of attacks or defenses. So really you're going to have to allow these upgrades on a case by case basis. Do you really want the team brick to have an 8 SPD? :eek:

In my own 12-year-old campaign many of the more senior characters have XP in the 30s, but the tendency so far has been to add new non-combat Skills or more flexibility. New MP slots have also been popular. Most of the players seem to be spending their XP about 50:50 on combat:non-combat abilities.

My own character, Zl'f, currently has 23 XP but still has 9 unspent. I'm considering buying her an All Combat Level for 8 points to augment her current +2 Hand to Hand. Another martial maneuver or two is also attractive.

[fauxgemini]

Well, at least a benchmark.

I remember from Aberrant it took us months to gauge just how powerful someone's blast was or what would go through what armor. And in that system a perfect defence would always win. :rolleyes:

Now when I was tinkering around in GURPS the "I can bounce bullets" problem came up from time to time. A DR of 18 was enough to handle most handguns but not stop major super powers. (I like lower dice pools for attacks when in that system.)

Now in Champions/Heros my biggest gauge is going to be at char gen with derived stats, but I am curious what happens when pentrating attacks and resistant defences come into play. TIme to run some test fights I guess. :confused:

[TheTemplar]

Using Caps as a way of maintaining balance among your PC's is a fine practice, and can even be done still taking Character Concept into account. The thing to remember is that everything must be relative across the board for NPC's as well as PC's. What the GM of my current campaign has set in place is a system by which a PC can shine in the area they chose, while being limited in others: conversely, the other PC's are limited in that PC's area of expertise. For example -

Speedsters have lower caps in STR and DEF because of raised caps in SPD and DEX

Bricks are Vice Versa

EP's and MA's fall in the middle, but the cost of their powers or Martial packages tends to offset the amount of points the other archetypes get to spend on characteristics, and that prevents them from having DEX to rival a Speedster, or STR to Rival a Brick.

We don't have a mentalist at this time, so I'm not sure what caps would apply to them, but I'm sure it would be along the EP/MA lines but using EGO instead of DEX as the primary attribute.

The Caps are in place, but they don't feel particularly stifling - mainly because they are used to keep everyone's character concept in line with eachother, and to keep damage classes from getting out of hand. 14d6 is the current DC limit for any attack - strong enough to get the job done, but not so ridiculously powerful that it would simply obliterate anything in its path.

Character concept IS the most important part of making a character, but unless you are running a game for just one person, then that character concept needs to be able to fit cohesively into a team. Caps (or "Suggested Guidelines" if you prefer) help to ensure that no one team member is going to be constantly outshining the rest of the team.

-T

[Tamashii2000]

Originally posted by fauxgemini
Well, at least a benchmark.

I remember from Aberrant it took us months to gauge just how powerful someone's blast was or what would go through what armor. And in that system a perfect defence would always win. :rolleyes:



I loved Aberrant's background, but your right it was very very hard to gauge someone's 'power' there as the system was a bit.... umm... clunky.

[fauxgemini]

I'll keep this short.

Aberrant problem was not in the dice mechanic. It was in the chargen. Hands down some powers/abilites need more balancing. Persistant/Resistant/HIGH LEVELed defences won hands down! I could take a STR monster, a Energy blaster, hell, a virus master and anyone with high Stamina and the right extras would just shrug it off. Add to that some Super STR and maybe a powe or two and you could make crunchy little bits out of most PC/NPCS.

What Aberrant needed was a lot of play blancing. Someone needed to figure out the % of successes and then offer suggestions on how to keep your games balanced. Or put some limitations on just how much power you got out of some Mega Stats. Oh well. Still, DAMN good game. Pitty WW dropped the Aeonverse. A 2nd edtion with some fine tuning would have been a god send.

[Doc Democracy]

I think you have to focus on results rather than on abilities.

If your max attack is 12D6 and max defences are 30 then such an average attack versus that defence does 12 STUN. You can then estimate the length of the fights.

If you allow an increase in attacks with no increase in defences then you have the average damage increased to 19 STUN.

The question is whether you increase opponents stats along with the PCs. If you don't then the opponents attacks do less damage and take more from the PCs - existing opponents become easy to defeat - not a bad result and you can move the campaign onto new villains and new challenges.

[Obviously the embarrassed villains go away and spend XP of their own and come back to haunt the heroes at a later date].