How do you define attack power maximums?

[Power-Mad]

More basic stuff from the new guy?

 

Say a campaign limit is set at 60 active points for attack powers. OK, 2D6 Hand Killing Attack, +1 Variable Advantage (+1/2) = 60 active points. Now said character also has a STR of 60. WOW. 4D6 HKA with any +1/2 Advantage and it is only 60 active point! How do you deal with this?

 

Should a limit be set on DC and not active points?

 

How would you count advantage in a DC set limit?

 

Would you count the Variable Advantage as a +1 or just as the +1/2 that it adds to the power?

 

Would you count charges or reduced endurance advantage in the total cost for figuring Active points or max DC? Because if the answer is yes, a character can overcome this buy using an endurance reserve. Does what I just said make since?

 

Thanks Again

 

Power-Mad

[Power-Mad]

Just thought of something else

 

What about Adsorption? Has any one had a problem with this? 60 point attack power maximum. 8D6 Explosive EB. 5D6 Adsorption to EB. Two different powers don’t break the power limit.

 

 

Or multi-power attack. Is that the right term? Ok I Just buy 2 seprate 60 point powers and always use them in a multi-power attack? It that broken? Or is that power gaming?

 

Thanks

[colinjshiels]

RE: Attack Power Maximums

 

Generally, when I set that attack power maximums in my game I set it with effective DCs (that is, as DCs, with advantages prorated in). Besides the HKA example you used, Hand Attack + Str (especially with the way advantages on hand attack work in 5th edition) is another combo to watch. As far as the Absorption example goes, I use 2 simple rules when evaluating a character that absorbs to attacks: As far as the absorption can raise the attack above the DC limit, it must start at that far below the limit, i.e. if the character has a 30 max absorb to EB, campaign limit is 12d6, EB must start at 9d6 and max at 15d6. The second rule is making sure that the character does not have the abiliy to run around at max absorb for significant amounts of time.

 

Obviously some judgement must be used in handling DC limits, as some advantages are worth more than others, and stacked advantages always require a second look. When we started our 5th edition campaign, since we weren't experienced using 5th (and most of them weren't experienced with champions at all), I decided to do 2 things with character generation: First was that any powers that turned out too powerful/too crappy would be rewritten after the start of play, and second was that after they had played the character 3 times, they could rewrite it completely, keeping the xps they had earned, in case they had not designed what they actually wanted the first time.

[Vanderbilt_Grad]

Active Points Limits *and* a DC limit IMO.

 

Variable Advantage is a tough call. If I were using both a DC & an AP limit I would count the HKA as a 60 AP power and I would count the final attack as a 18 DC attack. So if the game has a 12 DC limit this would clearly be over that.

 

In generally balancing powers is tough & requires a lot of GM discresion. Campaign limits are not a bad thing but IMO good concepts that break the limits should be allowed from time to time ... provided that they are not too unbalancing in the GM's opinion.

[BoneDaddy]

This is a good question, and the guidance has been worthy of the question. Let me muddy the waters.

 

Does Find Weakness go to the AP limit? It doesn't strictly effect the DCs, but it allows more damage to get through...

 

Does a martial arts bonus count towards a DC limit? For example, Chiun, old master of sinanju, attacks with his iron staff, a 1d6 HKA. His 4DCs with sinanju and his offensive strike and his 15 Strength (he's spry for his age) he's rocketed up to 4d6 HKA. Lets say the Iron Staff is Armor Piercing - its tungsten. Lets say the Offensive Strike is Auto-Fire - the deadly efficacy of sinanju is legendary. Lets say Chiun also has find weakness with the iron staff offensive strike, what with him being the old master and all.

 

Sweet galloping jeebus, its an armor piercing auto fire 4d6 HKA. With a good find weakness roll defenses are down to 1/4 their original (if they stack. I've always wondered). Active Points are somewhere between 23 and about 72.

 

Is it any wonder they call his student "the Destroyer."

 

Whaddya think, folks? I don't think its too terribly twinkie and it allows Chiun to open up a can-o-woopass on just about anybody who has less than 24 points of hardened resistant defenses. Do you vote APs, or DCs? Either way, how do you measure?

[Vanderbilt_Grad]

That Iron Staff would be limited to being pumped up to 2d6 with both STR, DCs, and Martial Maneuvers. So you would have a 2d6 AP HKA which I don’t personally think is too unbalancing even with Find Weakness. Keep in mind that Find Weakness takes an action to perform so unless Chun has a speed of 7+ I wouldn’t have too much of an issue with that setup.

 

Now if you make the staff a magic 2d6 AP HKA *before* adding STR, DCs, and Martial Maneuvers which will result in the 4d6 AP HKA you were aiming at then I would look a lot more closely. That’s an 18 DC attack which can possibly be augmented by Find Weakness … in a FRED 350 superhero game with 12-14 DC maxes I probably wouldn’t allow it for a PC.

 

And you still haven’t explained how an Iron Staff is a HKA….

[slaughterj]

I eyeball it after setting an AP/DC maximum. You can't just look at AP, because you get the HKA plus STR, etc. situations. You also can't just look at DC, because you get Find Weakness, etc. situations.

[pinecone]

I generally agree with them other persons...personally I set Damage and defense caps...especially with 5th some things cost a bejesus of points and don't really do anything too terrible, so a point cap may simply eleminate entire power sets and concepts....

[TheEmerged]

Originally posted by BoneDaddy

Does Find Weakness go to the AP limit? It doesn't strictly effect the DCs, but it allows more damage to get through...

 

You'll hear this one argued both ways. I'm in the "no" community. FW requires a half-phase action to have the potential for having Armor Piercing against one opponent. To have FW with a decent roll and more than one attack gets fairly expensive. What's more the defense against it (Lack of Weakness) is obscenely cheap relative to FW itself -- not as obscene as under 4th Edition, but still...

 

Does a martial arts bonus count towards a DC limit?

 

Yep.

 

Sweet galloping jeebus, its an armor piercing auto fire 4d6 HKA. With a good find weakness roll defenses are down to 1/4 their original (if they stack. I've always wondered). Active Points are somewhere between 23 and about 72.

 

For starters, you should *definitely* count Autofire toward any DC/AP limits. Second, you'd have to make 2 FW rolls (one of which will be at a -2 penalty) to get defenses down to 1/4 -- at the cost of two half-phases.

[Guest Keneton]

Maybe you should check out the Effectiveness Rating in the free stuff. I suggest you set your campaign maxima at 100 ER for super heroes. Most initial PC's rate at about an 80 ER.

[BoneDaddy]

Vaderbilt_Grad - callow youth, you are clearly ignorant of the ways of sinanju... If'n you haven't read the Destroyer series, or seen the Remo Williams movie, this is the source of my silliness. I recommend the books highly - VERY light, amusing reading.

 

By the "1/4 " part above, I was figuring 1/2 for the AP, 1/2 again for the FW. Am I wrong? I may be.

[pinecone]

I personally let the two both work...but I also consider FW to be part of a characters attack active so a FW for 10 points leaves 50 points for damaging effects in a 12 DC game....but HKA is limited to a maximum of 2X base effect so the tungsten staf does stay almost resonable...really caps and the like are a feel and experience thing, I personally use caps so it's easy to write adventures because I can expect a certan power level...I've also run no-cap games and had fun...but no-cap requires more cooperation from the players to stay fun and "ballence" is harder to maintain. (ie Hulk got KO'd How the bejezzers is Bat's going to stop Abomination?) but handling those sort of "impossable" odds make for the highest highs in roleplaying...as long as your players are mature enough to take a few butt-kickings along with it......