Power Level of the WoW Characters.

[JohnnyAppleseed098]

I was going to run a WoW-like campaign with characters from the actual game. The problem is that I am not quite sure of the power level of the characters that I should make. The characters I am wanting to run are:

 

 

Jaina Proudmore

Arthas Menthill

Kael'thas Sunstrider

Illidan and Malfurion Stormrage

Sylvannas Windrunner 

Thrall and Grom Hellstorm

Uther the Lightbringer

Muradin Bronzebeard

Maiev and Jarod Shadowsong

Lady Vashj. 

 

 

I don't know how many points I should assign to the these NPCs to make them reminiscent of the characters in the actual Blizzard Game. Please Help!

[Christopher R Taylor]

I think you're just going to have to build them the way you want, because how powerful they are varies tremendously based on the story's plot or what is going on.  For example, Thrall can obliterate entire armies... or has to run from some bad guys.  Its just going to be based on how powerful you want them to be as compared to the PCs.

[massey]

I have never played WoW, and have no idea who any of those characters are.  However... I recently read something about converting those types of characters to a different game system, and I think it might be helpful to you.

 

http://www.writeups.org/faq-video-games-writeups/

 

What they decided is that after a certain point (Level 20, whatever that is), gains in power are "holographic".  Meaning, while you appear to be gaining power, you're only doing so because it's how the game measures progress.  Since everything else is gaining power too, you aren't really advancing or adding anything.  A level 20 character and a level 50 character still take like 5 hits or whatever to kill a bear, in their respective adventure zones (or whatever).  So you really haven't added any power.  You're gaining levels just to keep up.

 

So they decided to add more Hero Points (which is a game mechanic in their system) when building the characters, to represent higher level guys.  It's a much more incremental increase than bumping up their stats crazy high.  An end-game Final Fantasy character who does 9999 damage does not need to literally hit 100x harder than an entry level guy who does 99 damage.  It's a video game mechanic that doesn't need to be modeled.  I would suggest that giving high level characters extra Stun, or 2-3 extra combat levels would be fine.

 

In Hero, a different of 3 in Combat Value is very significant.  A 5/5 OCV/DCV guy is going to have complete hell fighting a guy with 8/8 OCV/DCV.  He's gonna get hit on a 14-, and only hit on an 8-.  Likewise a difference of 3 DCs is very significant as well.  A 10D6, 20 Def guy is going to be at an extreme disadvantage against a 13D6, 30 Def guy.

[JohnnyAppleseed098]

I have never played WoW, and have no idea who any of those characters are.  However... I recently read something about converting those types of characters to a different game system, and I think it might be helpful to you.

 

http://www.writeups.org/faq-video-games-writeups/

 

What they decided is that after a certain point (Level 20, whatever that is), gains in power are "holographic".  Meaning, while you appear to be gaining power, you're only doing so because it's how the game measures progress.  Since everything else is gaining power too, you aren't really advancing or adding anything.  A level 20 character and a level 50 character still take like 5 hits or whatever to kill a bear, in their respective adventure zones (or whatever).  So you really haven't added any power.  You're gaining levels just to keep up.

 

So they decided to add more Hero Points (which is a game mechanic in their system) when building the characters, to represent higher level guys.  It's a much more incremental increase than bumping up their stats crazy high.  An end-game Final Fantasy character who does 9999 damage does not need to literally hit 100x harder than an entry level guy who does 99 damage.  It's a video game mechanic that doesn't need to be modeled.  I would suggest that giving high level characters extra Stun, or 2-3 extra combat levels would be fine.

 

In Hero, a different of 3 in Combat Value is very significant.  A 5/5 OCV/DCV guy is going to have complete hell fighting a guy with 8/8 OCV/DCV.  He's gonna get hit on a 14-, and only hit on an 8-.  Likewise a difference of 3 DCs is very significant as well.  A 10D6, 20 Def guy is going to be at an extreme disadvantage against a 13D6, 30 Def guy.

That is a really good idea. I never thought about that. So, I can essentially leave it stagnant after 20 or 30.

[Christopher R Taylor]

What they decided is that after a certain point (Level 20, whatever that is), gains in power are "holographic".  Meaning, while you appear to be gaining power, you're only doing so because it's how the game measures progress. 

 

This is pretty well the way almost all computer games work.  At least in WoW you can go back to lower level areas, and be more powerful than them.  Many games, you can't even go back, the entire game gets more powerful as you do, so nothing really changes.

[massey]

This is pretty well the way almost all computer games work.  At least in WoW you can go back to lower level areas, and be more powerful than them.  Many games, you can't even go back, the entire game gets more powerful as you do, so nothing really changes.

 

Yeah, but does it really make sense for a normal enemy from a late-game area to be so much more powerful than a normal enemy from an early game area?  One late-game soldier could wander through the first half of the game and slaughter every person in every castle.  In a non-computer game, it doesn't work very well.  The evil overlord should just send one of his tougher goons into the early game region and just have him clean house.  Instead of putting a bunch of Lvl 5 Soldiers in the first dungeon, Lvl 15 Blue Soldiers in the mountain pass, and Lvl 25 Red Soldiers in the forest stronghold, just send one Lvl 25 Red Soldier to stand outside the opening castle and kill any Lvl 1 adventurers that wander out.

 

or maybe the difference in soldiers is not really all that big.  Maybe that should be represented in a narrative RPG by a much smaller difference in power.  We just understand that video games scale things a certain way because that's the way they've always done it, but it wouldn't be fun to play in a tabletop game.

[womble]

Some good points raised. But all the characters mentioned are Mary Sues who can pretty much do what the "story writers" at Blizzard want them to do at any point. They're all vastly more powerful than any PC at whatever level-appropriate point you meet them, because they have to be powerful enough to survive assaults by platoons of PCs, mostly on their own (though they often have Summon powers). It's almost not worth statting them up.

[Enforcer84]

I'm pretty sure the words Mary Sue have had all meaning torn from them by trying to apply them to things like video games. 

 

Considering the phrase began as notations for fan-based characters who broke the rules of the worlds they appeared in so that the fan writer in question could alter the world to suit their purposes, applying it to the boss level characters of a video game who are the boss level characters of a video game and therefore are the fricking rules of the story. They all act exactly as they're supposed to in the world. 

 

A Mary Sue, to my estimation would be the guys who hacked the game and let loose the plague that killed everyone in Stormwind for a while. 

 

In the fiction created by Blizzard their powers have been more or less defined. They're no more broken than the main characters of any other series. 

 

/end rant. 

[Tasha]

Though there's no writeups of the Faction leaders/Hero(ines) but there's lots of gaming and lore goodness to be gleaned from the D20 Version of World of Warcraft. You can get a pretty good idea of how powerful things are at least at the time of Burning Crusade or so. 

 

I would build Azeroth like any fantasy world. I would build PC's at around ~200pts (6e) or ~150pts (5e and earlier). The set abilities of all character classes should make building them pretty easy. Though I would probably have a small powerpool for spells for all casting classes for minor non combat spells.

I really guess it depends on the kind of campaign YOU want to run. Currently in Warlords of Draenor the PC's are nearly on the level of the faction leaders. In Legion that's going to continue. So in that game the PC's are basically Superheroes (ie Champions), with Fantasy Trappings. Again this is Hero, it's up to you to decide how powerful the PCs will be and how powerful the top NPCs are.

[Christopher]

Shadowrun advise for four "Powerlevels" compared to the PC that NPC should have:

Inferior (80% of points), Equal (100%), Superior (125%), Superhuman (200%)

 

They might be superior or even superhuman but they have several issues:
They are known. Spynetworks watch thier every move.

They have Governing to do.

They are only one person. There is lots of places where they/thier attention should be.

Thier tactics and weapons are known. People know that Jaina Proudmoore uses Ice Attacks and Water Elements so they might plain stack up those resistances beforehand. Or even recruit someone with a grude+resistance to that element.

 

They are like the Head Captain of Bleach in the Aizen or Bakotou Arcs: So powerfull nobody would even dare to make themself a target for his wrath without a plan how to defeat/neutralise him.

 

The bigger question is actually on what powerlevel the PC will be. And specifically if you will be using Heroic or Superheroic game logic, points and caps.
Personaly I would tend towards the superheroic approach. Jaina is in no way inferior to any ice mage in a Champions World. Except maybe a lot more powerfull.

[Enforcer84]

Are they meant to be NPCs? If they're boss level characters I'd give them better than average attacks, lower than average defenses + damage reduction, and high stun/End. 

Flavor to taste.

[Mister E]

A Mary Sue, to my estimation would be the guys who hacked the game and let loose the plague that killed everyone in Stormwind for a while.

 

 

Kazzak in Stormwind:

 

 

Ashbringer in the Scarlet Monastery:

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

You used to be able to train some really horrific stuff into Stormwind, not sure any more.

[Pattern Ghost]

They probably put everything on a short leash when they redid the old zones in Cata.

[Tasha]

They probably put everything on a short leash when they redid the old zones in Cata.

 

While it was fun the first time that the black dragon from the Blasted Lands was trained into Stormwind. It did become kind of tiresome.

[ghost-angel]

Here's how to handle this in Hero; because it's easier than we're probably going to make it out to be.

 

First, decide on the base rules of your campaign, just choose a few things as baseline, like a power level you're comfortable dealing with or can easily work out in your brain.

 

Like 10 Damage Classes on the average attack, and 20-25 defenses on the average, that kind of thing.

 

Then, take your signature characters and just make them X Tought/Stronger/More Destructive than your average baseline, where X is just how much more over the top you think they need to be.

 

It doesn't have to match the game, it has to match the feel of the game. Which means whatever Power Levels you want to game with (standard Supers feels about right for WoW, but I don't really play that one) and then notch the NPCs up or down from that based on their relative levels in the game...

[Christopher R Taylor]

I agree, ultimately in WoW the NPCs have access to things that PCs don't and are just a little more powerful than the PCs, whatever power level they happen to be at.  They don't usually do more damage, but they can do it in ways that the PCs cannot (archmage Khadgar blowing up the dam, Thrall blowing the entire ocean full of Naga, etc).

[Pattern Ghost]

That last one didn't sound quite right. Maybe toss an "up" in there.

[Christopher R Taylor]

What?  He really likes Naga.  Who am I to judge?

[Tasha]

That last one didn't sound quite right. Maybe toss an "up" in there.

 

No wonder he's liked in the horde...