Rule of X

[The Monster]

I'm setting up my first full-blown supers campaign (I've run JI and FH for over a decade), and I'm wondering if anyone out there actually uses the "rule of x" that the new Champions book discusses in the margins of pages 131-133?

If so, do you have any advice about it? What numbers are appropriate for a "standard superhero" campaign? What factors do you use?

[Trebuchet]

In our campaign of 12 years, we now use a guideline of SPD + DC is less than or equal to 20 rather than a hard Rule of X. All we ask is that characters follow concept; i.e., bricks should hit harder and have higher defenses than martial artists but not move or hit as often, and vice versa. In our group nobody's SPD + DC even hits 20 (2 are at 19), so it seems to work pretty well. YMMV.

While we have a mentalist with a 90 point VPP, his defenses also come from that pool. So while theoretically he can use an 18d6 attack, that would leave him very vulnerable. So his typical attacks are in the 56-60 point range. In our last game, the bad guy was about to kill a human sacrifice with a dagger. The only character who could reach her was our mentalist, Prodigy (Played by Mentor on these boards). Prodigy threw himself on top of the chained sacrificial victim and took the hit in his own back. (No Resistant defenses, either.) He took 12 BODY. Fortunately the Stun was low.

Now that's heroism.

[Captain Xenon]

what about HA? hand-to-hand attacks add to your strength and martial damage, so it can get a fair bit higher than your other attacks.

with a 60 pt attack multipower, someone with str 40 and a martial strike (normaly 10d6 punch) could do either 22d6 with a +12d6 HA, or 18d6 with +8d6 +1/2 advantage (like armor peircing).

the way champions works, you can always do more damage in hand-to-hand combat because strength is cheap. even with caps on DC for a single attack, you can work around that within the system by using a multipower attack. for instance, instead of one 60pt HA, i could instead get two 30 pt slots, and then add stength to both of them. so if there was a 12dc cap, i could have a pair of 6 dc attacks, and add 6 dcs of strength to both of them. possibly one energy and one physical. add in martial strike to reach the 14dc cap for a speed 6 in your spd+dc=20 game, and you have a serious multipower attack.

[Supreme]

My rule of X has generally been that between CV, SPD, Defs, and AP, if you go above average in one you must go below average in another. Averages are 7, 5, 20-25, and 50, respectively.