DEX Ranges

[MisterVimes]

I have noticed that despite the increase in Base Points (from 100 to 200) that DEX has gone down a lot across the board. What's the average dex in your campaign?

[Jhamin]

I took the conversion to FREd as a chance to reduce the dex of all characters in my game by about 6-8 points. Seeing as I did it globally everyone's ocv/dcv stayed the same relative to each other, but now my player's robocop copy has a 10 dex instead of an 18. It just feels better.

[MisterVimes]

Originally posted by Jhamin
I took the conversion to FREd as a chance to reduce the dex of all characters in my game by about 6-8 points. Seeing as I did it globally everyone's ocv/dcv stayed the same relative to each other, but now my player's robocop copy has a 10 dex instead of an 18. It just feels better.

I noticed the change AFTER I gave my new crew (only one of which had played HERO) the gospel according to me... so they all have 25-30 DEX (save one 23 and one 33)... Then I looked at CKC and CU and went: "Hmmmm... "

So maybe NEXT time around I can scale down.

[Edsel]

I voted for 25-30 though in actuality that may be a bit high. My current character has a 23 Dex and so do one or two other characters. I think that 30 is about the maximum though. We also seem to average a 5 SPD though in the martial artists case it is 7.

In our campaigns it has always been exceedingly rare to see any character (PC or NPC) with a DEX above 30 or a SPD above 7. There are a few but they are generally of the Epic villian / NPC variety.

[JohnOSpencer]

Originally posted by MisterVimes
I noticed the change AFTER I gave my new crew (only one of which had played HERO) the gospel according to me... so they all have 25-30 DEX (save one 23 and one 33)... Then I looked at CKC and CU and went: "Hmmmm... "

So maybe NEXT time around I can scale down.

Preach on! My current group laughs at most of the CKC villians of thier power level(and a bit higher). Agents might as well blaze away evey chance they get since they hit on average on a 7- at close range, and the PCs can hit most without breaking a sweat.

John Spencer

[MisterVimes]

Originally posted by JohnOSpencer
Preach on! My current group laughs at most of the CKC villians of thier power level(and a bit higher). Agents might as well blaze away evey chance they get since they hit on average on a 7- at close range, and the PCs can hit most without breaking a sweat.

John Spencer

Then it's time for the Arms race. Do what I did and give the agents Targeters (+4 CSL w/one weapon). There is someone out their making these things and selling them to the Agents on the cheap.

The Heroes can investigate and shut down the designer, but by then it's too late and all the Agents hit on an 11-

[Monolith]

Originally posted by MisterVimes
I noticed the change AFTER I gave my new crew (only one of which had played HERO) the gospel according to me... so they all have 25-30 DEX (save one 23 and one 33)... Then I looked at CKC and CU and went: "Hmmmm... "
I think what you are looking at in CKC is a conscious design decision to make the villains less impressive than the heroes they will be fighting. For example, most of the villains will have a 20 DEX instead of a 21. I believe this was done to allow the hero with the 21 DEX to go first.

The average DEX in CKC is 23, not includes all the low dex agent types in the book as well. That still seems to be around the same average as it was in 4th Edition.

[Acroyear]

I clicked 25-30 but it's really 24-28 I think. Over time the real slow and real fast have kind of moved toward the middle.

[MisterVimes]

Originally posted by Monolith
I think what you are looking at in CKC is a conscious design decision to make the villains less impressive than the heroes they will be fighting. For example, most of the villains will have a 20 DEX instead of a 21. I believe this was done to allow the hero with the 21 DEX to go first.

The average DEX in CKC is 23, not includes all the low dex agent types in the book as well. That still seems to be around the same average as it was in 4th Edition.

Really? I don't doubt you, I just had an image of the average (for 4th and prior) being 25-28.

Back when AC did the poll about gaming styles and points I noticed that my group was almost a dead match for the average: High Dex, High firepower... Make the first shot count ind of gunslingers.

Essentially I've had to make the average DEX around 25-27 since most of the Players have 28's.

Not that it's a huge issue, it just seperates them from the agents a bit and requires 'tweaking'

[ogier300]

My baseline DEX was always 24. Martial Artists and fast folks would get up to 27, and the slower brick-types head down to 21. An 18 or 30 was fairly extreme to the outer ends.

[Monolith]

Originally posted by MisterVimes
Really? I don't doubt you, I just had an image of the average (for 4th and prior) being 25-28.
I got 23.9 for the average DEX of the characters in Classic Enemies. Now keep in mind that this includes characters such as the 35 DEX Rainbow Archer, the 35 DEX Pantera, and the 33 DEX Thok. So the DEX averages between the two editions are fairly consistant across the board.

I used to have a player who always purchased his characters with a 25 DEX. He felt it gave him the edge in combat 75% of the time. That is still true in 5th Edition as well.

[MisterVimes]

Originally posted by Monolith
I got 23.9 for the average DEX of the characters in Classic Enemies. Now keep in mind that this includes characters such as the 35 DEX Rainbow Archer, the 35 DEX Pantera, and the 33 DEX Thok. So the DEX averages between the two editions are fairly consistant across the board.

I used to have a player who always purchased his characters with a 25 DEX. He felt it gave him the edge in combat 75% of the time. That is still true in 5th Edition as well.

I guess it's the arms race. The first thing my players do (no matter the group) is buy DEX.

[Patriot]

My games all over the place
a brick with a 12 dex, but also one with a 29
a speedster with a 37 but I've also had onw with a 21 (and the disad clumsy)
Martial atrists stick around 25-27
E-casters 24-26

[mattingly]

I inherited a campaign. The current DEXes are 23 to 28, but I'd prefer them to drop by 5.

[Keneton]

Its not the Dex's in CKC that are the problem. It s the lack of good (8 point or 10 Point) levels making their ranged DCV's way too low. I hate stupid levels with flight and crappy +3 with multipower levels. They are nearly useless and are completely inefficient. That is why the CKC guys fall down so fast. Its the levels.

Their attacks and defenses are ok. Their Cons ae on average low, and frequently they buy up figureds when more Con cost less.

My two ep.
:)

[Tamashii2000]

Originally posted by JohnOSpencer
Preach on! My current group laughs at most of the CKC villians of thier power level(and a bit higher). Agents might as well blaze away evey chance they get since they hit on average on a 7- at close range, and the PCs can hit most without breaking a sweat.

John Spencer

I have something simular happening in my game. My players seem to walk through most of the villians (from CKC and my own homegrown ones) with out breaking a sweat. Ohh well back to the old drawing board.:rolleyes:

[Tamashii2000]

Actualy, in my game it happened the other way around, the dex range went up. However I have primarly a group of martial artists....

[Supreme]

Average DEX in my games is always 20. I mandate it that way so that people can make characters well within human limits and not be completely left behind. It also means that I don't have to go overboard to make my agents a threat.

[MarkusDark]

That's interesting because the characters in my game are either 14 or 23 - no middle of the road. I also make all my villians with 18, 21, 24, 27 and so on - that way they almost always have the initiative over those tryin' to save 2 points. ;)

Mark

[tesuji]

Originally posted by Monolith
For example, most of the villains will have a 20 DEX instead of a 21. I believe this was done to allow the hero with the 21 DEX to go first.


Wow!

And here i thought it was simply minimaxing the divide by three rounding thing which makes 20 CV7 just like 21.

[Ghost Archer]

Even though my campaign has always ranged from 18 to 35, most end up between 25 and 30 and I don't have a problem with that. After all, we are superheroes and supposed to be faster then normals. Generally only a speedster or MA goes over 30 and generally only bricks end up around 20. I made no adjustments when FREd came out.

[tesuji]

25-30 would be the choice in my games.

Of the half-dozen or so heroes, mine is the only one with a dex below 26. Mine is 23. The others are 26, 27, 30, 30. Speeds are 5-7 with two at 5 two at 6 and 1 at 7.

the villains i have built run 20-30 tho i have a number below 20, one as low as 13.

[lemming]

Hmm, in my campaign the heroes are Dex 14 to 38. I think the fastest NPC is also a 38. The slowest is 8. (Though I've got something that's a 1, but that's for much later.:cool: )

The ranges I've played in the past as PC's have been Dex 8, Speed 4 all the way up to Dex 53 Spd 12.

The 8/4 was forced to go to 8/5, but that was because we had a 72/15 on the team.:D

[Agent X]

I don't care what the average dex is. If the players in my campaign want to be hard to hit by agents and most low-powered villains that is fine with me. Just means we will spend more time with the challenging foes because we narrate a great deal of their mopping up of agents.

Habitual desire to tell "safe" stories is the bane of exciting campaigns. I really think a great deal of DEX talk centers around GM emphasis of "control issues."

[ZootSoot]

Originally posted by MisterVimes
I have noticed that despite the increase in Base Points (from 100 to 200) that DEX has gone down a lot across the board. What's the average dex in your campaign?

Average won't say much in my game as the actual range is pretty extreme ranging from 10 to 53 . . .

[Chaosliege]

In our game, we run between 20 and 30. We have one speedster with a 33 I think.

Brick: 21
EP1: 24
EP2: 26
Egoist: 30 ego
MA: 26
PA: 26

Hmm.. I guess we are kinda high.

[zornwil]

So how do I count the guy who turns to stone and either drops on people or is used as a bludgeon :)

He only does that sometimes...

Anyway, it's hard to really say much about DEX averages because so many characters have skill levels and one character has AID and one character changes to bizarre forms with limited capabilities and so on.

[Tamashii2000]

Originally posted by tesuji
Wow!

And here i thought it was simply minimaxing the divide by three rounding thing which makes 20 CV7 just like 21.

I normaly make my villains either one point below or one point above the pc their supposed to fight, depending if I want them to have an 'edge' or not.

[tesuji]

Originally posted by Tamashii2000
I normaly make my villains either one point below or one point above the pc their supposed to fight, depending if I want them to have an 'edge' or not.

I have seen this sort of thing discussed before.

Do you extend his to other aspects such as offense power (dice), defense (PD/ED), toughness (con/stun) and so on?

For example...

One guy with DEX 30 but PD/ED of 20 will face a villain with 29-31 dex. Another guy with 20 dex but PD/ED 30 would face a villain with 19-21 dex. Would you also slant the defenses of the villains to likewise nalance out the extra PD/ED of the second PC, bought with points he saved on dex?

I do not have that much experience with this type of villain design, but it seems like the need would exist to equalize all the various elements, or at least in a dynamic balance sense, in order for this design scheme to work out. If not, Is that your experience? Is equalizing just dex working out?

[JohnOSpencer]

Originally posted by MisterVimes
Then it's time for the Arms race. Do what I did and give the agents Targeters (+4 CSL w/one weapon). There is someone out their making these things and selling them to the Agents on the cheap.

The Heroes can investigate and shut down the designer, but by then it's too late and all the Agents hit on an 11-

Ohh, already on it. Actually someone is stealing our resident Iron Man rip-offs technology and selling it. The biggest problem they've had so far is 5 mooks in his powered armor with a little teamwork. It doesn't hurt that without his armor he would probably be beaten by a street punk unarmed. The mooks have better stats than him. Add the armor and they are icky. Also his wonderful technology has helped mooks all over the city upgrade their dinky 8 or 9d6 blasters for the mighty 12d6! Best of all the players all blame him.

John Spencer

[JohnOSpencer]

Originally posted by Keneton
Its not the Dex's in CKC that are the problem. It s the lack of good (8 point or 10 Point) levels making their ranged DCV's way too low. I hate stupid levels with flight and crappy +3 with multipower levels. They are nearly useless and are completely inefficient. That is why the CKC guys fall down so fast. Its the levels.

Their attacks and defenses are ok. Their Cons ae on average low, and frequently they buy up figureds when more Con cost less.

My two ep.
:)

You realize that those "stupid" levels with flight add to thier DCV while moving or dodging? Their CONs are probably low because of character concept. Or perhaps some of them are built lower powered and then XP added to make them seem experienced rather than just powerful. The DEX actually is the problem, characters went up 100 points to start so immediatly players start buying more DEX, figurin that the villians went up also. Surprise, surprise, the villians stayed about the same, just gained more versatility and less stupid power limitations.

John Spencer

[Keneton]

Levels with flight do not add to DCV unless the GM uses an alternate non core rule. Doing so does not make sense as this makes a 2 point level count against both hth and ranged DCV which takes a 5 point dcv level to do. This alternate rule is not the norm see FRED, UMA and Ninja Hero to clarify.

Buying up figued characteristics to account for conception is fine with me. That is not the case in the examples I saw, but I can see where that would happen.

Apply the same argument to Dex if you are a conception purest. They would gain levels not Dex as their skill increased. You need a conception that indicates fabulous coordination and speed to have a Dex over 20.

Why would it be ok to buy up dex and not buy up con?

Your argument about buying more Dex with the 1-00 points is defeted by your argument for not buying up con as conception. Did their conception change, or where they just looking for more CV as this brings efficiency?

[Monolith]

Originally posted by Keneton
Levels with flight do not add to DCV unless the GM uses an alternate non core rule. Doing so does not make sense as this makes a 2 point level count against both hth and ranged DCV which takes a 5 point dcv level to do. This alternate rule is not the norm see FRED, UMA and Ninja Hero to clarify.
It is a listed GM's Option rule though, and many people consider anything actually listed as optional to be fair game and part of the core rules.

[JmOz]

On the skill levels, it is also required that you USE the movement power in question. I will point out that a 3 point skill level can be used for DCV if you use the right attack...

[JohnOSpencer]

Originally posted by Keneton
Apply the same argument to Dex if you are a conception purest. They would gain levels not Dex as their skill increased. You need a conception that indicates fabulous coordination and speed to have a Dex over 20.

Why would it be ok to buy up dex and not buy up con?

Your argument about buying more Dex with the 1-00 points is defeted by your argument for not buying up con as conception. Did their conception change, or where they just looking for more CV as this brings efficiency?

Yes their concepts changed when they went from making 250 point characters to 350 point characters, its hard not to.
As for my DEX argument, you are taking my PCs and comparing them to Hero Games' villians. They were made by entirely different people. You can't compare my PCs to whoever made the CKC characters. My PCs have about 3 years combined experience with the average being about 6 mo of every other week playing. I showed them some old PCs of mine, the old champions, the heroes from san angelo and then they made characters.

John Spencer

[MisterVimes]

Originally posted by JohnOSpencer
Ohh, already on it. Actually someone is stealing our resident Iron Man rip-offs technology and selling it. The biggest problem they've had so far is 5 mooks in his powered armor with a little teamwork. It doesn't hurt that without his armor he would probably be beaten by a street punk unarmed. The mooks have better stats than him. Add the armor and they are icky. Also his wonderful technology has helped mooks all over the city upgrade their dinky 8 or 9d6 blasters for the mighty 12d6! Best of all the players all blame him.

John Spencer

You are an Evil, Evil man... I applaud you.

[slaughterj]

Originally posted by Monolith
I think what you are looking at in CKC is a conscious design decision to make the villains less impressive than the heroes they will be fighting.

IIRC, Steve said he set the designs (i.e., DEX figures, etc.) for villains based on his perception of their concept, and what the DEX values mean (i.e., 20 is human MAX, 30 is legendary (IIRC), etc.), and so he didn't think anyone merited more than a 30 DEX in CKC.

[Mentor]

Originally posted by MisterVimes
I have noticed that despite the increase in Base Points (from 100 to 200) that DEX has gone down a lot across the board. What's the average dex in your campaign?

Our campaign falls right into the 20-33 range and hasn't changed much since we added the FRED 100 points. Our team members were the first "Supers" to show up so we mostly fought agents, military and high tech thingies. Since then, we have managed to hold our own against the more common Supervillains and such.

I might add that like Zoot suit's, our campaign DEX range is pretty wide with the lowest being 18 and the highest being 38, but these are single extremes.

[lemming]

Originally posted by zornwil
So how do I count the guy who turns to stone and either drops on people or is used as a bludgeon :)

He only does that sometimes...

Anyway, it's hard to really say much about DEX averages because so many characters have skill levels and one character has AID and one character changes to bizarre forms with limited capabilities and so on.

Have I mentioned recently that I'm in awe in how you keep everything balanced with such extremely abusive possiblities?

[Emerald Mask]

Actual range in my supers cmpaigns are 15 to 24- with a one pc at 29.

[Keneton]

In regards to the objections voiced about my point on good levels, let me restate my thinking. I actually believe many of you are in agreement.

1. Good levels (8 or 10 Point levels) can effect your DCV regardless of attcak type and or maneuver. Other levesl cant and dont.

2. Any GM can choose to use 2 point levels as good for DCV vs any type of attack when the character flies. I object to this in my campiagn (see the house rules thread) and it IS and ALTERNATE rule. If you see this as core, fine! I still think it stinks as 3 point and 5 point HTH levels wont count vs range DCV so 2 points shouldnt either. It defies logic and should be treated like a PSL.

3. Regarding Jim Oz's post about 3 point levels, sure they can be in DCV vs an applicable attack or vs. all is combined with a Martial Dodge. In practicle play in team fights against supers these levels become very ineffective. Villains like Doc D should not have cheap levels. Good or bust.

Please note that this is my opinion. This thread is an opinion poll thread.

When people abject about Dex they are not generally objecting to Order of Action or Skill rolls, they are generally objecting to CV! CV is the issue here. Good levels make CV work.

Look at The Warlord for Example with his 20 Dex. He does have Lightning Reflexes, but even better has 6 (countem!) 6 good levels so that while fighting defnsively can keep a fighting DCV of 15 using his punch/snap kick and have an 18 DCV with a dodge. That's decent for a suit guy!

:D

[Nightfire]

Originally posted by Acroyear
I clicked 25-30 but it's really 24-28 I think. Over time the real slow and real fast have kind of moved toward the middle.

People with high dexes, actually slow down? I've had a slow creeping upwards over the years. The high dex people aren't much faster, but all the 18s have moved into the 20's

[death tribble]

I put the old campaign one in. That was base 28. Dex Spd 6

The new one was more like Dex 20. But I was playing a Speed 4 Dex 18 guy.

[st barbara]

Dex is a bit of a problem in our campaign. "St Barbara" has a dex of 50 and one of the new characters due to come in soon has an even higher dex (100 + !) so the AVERAGE dex in our game is going to be ridiculously high. Perhaps it would be beter to look at the "mean" (i e most common, I think that i got the term right ) dex rather than the average in cases such as "Team Zenith 3" where you have characters whose "off the scale" Dex artificially raises the average !

[JmOz]

St,

I beleive you are looking for Mode, Mean is what most people think of as average

[Vondy]

My game runs 18-24 for dex and 3-5 for speed.

There are exceptions, but not many.

[Blue]

In order of acension: Bricks (4-5, 20), Energy Projectors/Mentalists(5-6, 23), martial artists(6, 23), speedsters(7, 28).

I've instituted a starting maximum in my campaign of 35 DEX, 9 SPD. Given the overall point limit that's likely more than they can buy anyway :D

[Trebuchet]

Originally posted by st barbara
Dex is a bit of a problem in our campaign. "St Barbara" has a dex of 50 and one of the new characters due to come in soon has an even higher dex (100 + !)

Just out of curiousity, what possible rationale could there be to have a 100 DEX? An 18 roll still misses.

[Vandal]

We've been running the same campaign for nearly 18 years now, with the same core of players and characters. Our DEXs run the gamut pretty good. An average brick would have a DEX lower than 18, a martial artist 23-28. Megavillains often go over 30. Usually when we make stereotypical bricks we give them low DEXs but lots of offensive levels. They get hit a lot, but they connect with enough frequency to be worth something as damage sponges AND offensive catalysts.

[slaughterj]

Originally posted by Trebuchet
Just out of curiousity, what possible rationale could there be to have a 100 DEX? An 18 roll still misses.

Ah, but even in situations where you are at half-DCV (sweeping, surprise, etc.), you are still extremely hard to hit :)

[Trebuchet]

Originally posted by slaughterj
Ah, but even in situations where you are at half-DCV (sweeping, surprise, etc.), you are still extremely hard to hit :)

Bah. If someone tried to use that rationale in my game, every attack by an NPC would be Area Effect. Police revolvers would mow down entire blocks with one shot. :rolleyes:

I've never really liked the HERO system's halving of DCV anyway because it screws high DEX characters. A character with an 8 DCV loses only 4 DCV, but a character with a 15 DCV loses 7 DCV. Hardly seems fair.

[st barbara]

To "Trebuchet" Er Because she (the character is I think female) can ? I have no idea how this extreme dex will operate in game terms because, in many ways, the game that "St Barbara" plays in is "Champions" in name only ! Until I get a copy of the rules (which are being worked on, and have been being worked on for some time !) I can't say how things are going to work. I find this frustrating , but I don't want to stop playing, I have far too much fun with "St Barbara" to give her up !