Which is Better, Figured Characteristics or No Figured Characteristics?

[unclevlad]

4 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

What we are trying to simulate is useless for evaluating how well the game succeeds in simulating it? Sorry, no.  The Human Torch doesn't pick up a car because "all Supers have a 30+ STR".  We don't see many Supers trying to execute superhuman feats of agility because not many of them are superhumanly agile, and can treat 14- DEX rolls as a routine matter, no real risk of failure.  We don't see bystanders gasp as Green Lantern manages feats of agility far beyond those of ordinary mortals. Because he's not markedly more agile than ordinary mortals.  His power suite doesn't include legendary to superhuman agility, any more than he hefts a Buick with raw strength, rather than his amazing ring.

 

The fact that we do not see most Supers perform great feats of agility is not a "lack of evidence" - their abilities are highlighted, not shielded from view.

 

Supers can be "better" by having stats of 13 - 15.  You are willing to abide by the description of the skill rolls, but not characteristics?  15 is "twice as good as a normal person", and 23 is into "Legendary" territory.  I don't believe every Super has Legendary agility - the ones whose Agility is truly remarkable are moving into Legendary territory, and some few are Superhumanly agile (which, again, the game defines as over 30).

 

You can only look at the OVERALL result.  The details are not comparable because the contexts are totally different.  Hero characters are built in a game world where initiative is hugely important;  it's arguably far more important than the DEX skill rolls.  They're built within rigid, completely artificial constraints and rules.  Comics characters don't have initiative.  They don't have SPD.  They don't have turns.  They don't have points or construction rules.  They have writer's fiat.

 

What exactly is a superhuman feat of agility?  Lifting things is directly quantifiable.  Agility is not.  Does Green Lantern ever NEED to execute such a move?  Not that I can recall.  Also, in order to execute such a feat, Acrobatics is required...or do you simply let someone make a DEX roll with no penalty, even lacking the skill?  Perhaps GL simply doesn't have the skill.  As you say, it's not something he'd need.  You have no evidence of what his DEX is.

 

Terms like "twice as good as a normal person" are useless when there is no associated number.

 

What do you think "legendary" means?  For me, it's legendary among normals...but for me that's not a very high bar.  

 

Some of this may actually just be that what you consider a "super" and what I consider a "super" might well be different.  If you drop down to Golden Age?  Then perhaps there's more 18 DEX.  They aren't superheroes, tho, in my book.  (Nor were they generally considered "super" heroes at the time.)  t's also possible that what you define as "talented normal" is radically different from mine.  Multiple 18's?  Entirely possible.  NFL linebacker..18 STR, DEX, and CON?  No problem.  I get the sense that you want to redefine "average human" MUCH lower than the rules.  That's all well and good, and they may well be too high...but that would be redefining the context in a very basic way, and has too many ripple effects.

[MrAgdesh]

4 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

Here we have some agreement - the Hero skills system needs an "auto-roll" rule so that what should be routine for the character actually is routine. Clearly being able to make a living with an 11- roll can't mean you mess up your routine job functions 37.5% of the time.

 

You can just use Skill Modifiers for that? An Average Joe who doesn’t particularly think about his job outside of work (11-) should still be able to perform mundane tasks within that job at probably 12- to 14-. 
 

GMs just need to award bonuses for run of the mill stuff, as they would penalties for more difficult applications. 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Hero Skills System already has an auto-roll rule: you only need to use your skill or characteristic rolls for actions out of the ordinary or under stressful conditions:

 

Quote

In ordinary situations, when a character is under no stress or pressure and has sufficient time to perform a task correctly, he doesn’t have to make a Skill Roll (or Perception Roll) — the GM can assume success for ease of game play. Characters must make Skill Rolls whenever they attempt to use a Skill in difficult or dangerous situations, when under pressure, when success is crucial or unlikely, or when in combat.

(Hero System Sixth Edition, book 1, pg 57)

 

I discovered this while copying the rules for Western Hero, and it made a world of sense to me.

Edited August 22, 2023 by Christopher R Taylor

[unclevlad]

And if you had to roll for everything?  A 14- means you still mess up 10% of the time.  So a 14- Chef messes up 1 dish in 10?  He gets fired.  So I'd go further...the GM should assume success, not "for ease of game play" but because it's respecting the point of the skills system.

 

23 minutes ago, MrAgdesh said:

You can just use Skill Modifiers for that? An Average Joe who doesn’t particularly think about his job outside of work (11-) should still be able to perform mundane tasks within that job at probably 12- to 14-. 

 

Specific tasks, yes, perhaps, but you can also assign a task modifier...this is an easy, frequently used task for the skill, so +2 to the roll.  The skills system isn't granular enough to support adjustments, but situational modifiers can be anything.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

So I'd go further...the GM should assume success, not "for ease of game play" but because it's respecting the point of the skills system.

 

That's how I read it as well, its not just streamlining, it is simply logical.

 

And there is a corollary to this rule: if you have a skill, even if you fail, you do better than people who don't have it.  Say you have acrobatics; I screwed this up once in a game, and the player never attempted an acrobatics roll again.  He wanted to flip out a window to avoid a bad guy with a gun.  I had him try the roll, fail, and he ended up draped over the window sill.  OK it was funny but... I failed as a GM.  He should have gotten through the window, but landed on his face, or kicked out part of the window frame in the process, something like that.

Edited August 22, 2023 by Christopher R Taylor

[unclevlad]

This isn't a Hero failing, tho.  It's pretty much system-agnostic.  You're also not unique there;  for some reason, it feels pretty common that "don't make the roll" gets treated as a complete, utter FAILURE.  Like in D&D?  Roll a 1 on your attack roll?  Oh, you hit your buddy!  It can be appropriate at times, but it's really easy to overdo or misuse it.  We tend to like over-dramatizing.  

 

I wonder if a lot of this is related to how Hero promotes a bean-counter mindset...nothing for nothing, the push to cram as much as you can into the limited points you have.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

 

I wonder if a lot of this is related to how Hero promotes a bean-counter mindset...nothing for nothing, the push to cram as much as you can into the limited points you have.

 

Yeah I don't think its inherent to the rules as written but it tends to be a common mindset, particularly for people like me who grind out hundreds of characters and are working on the most meticulous build to get it just right.  Its always good to break away from that and be more easy and focused on the game aspect of fun and entertainment.

[Hugh Neilson]

3 hours ago, unclevlad said:

You can only look at the OVERALL result.  The details are not comparable because the contexts are totally different.  Hero characters are built in a game world where initiative is hugely important;  it's arguably far more important than the DEX skill rolls.  They're built within rigid, completely artificial constraints and rules.  Comics characters don't have initiative.  They don't have SPD.  They don't have turns.  They don't have points or construction rules.  They have writer's fiat.

 

I've played numerous characters who never needed to go first. They can weather an attack or two.  A friend I gamed with for years ran an "Overconfident - 20 Points" character.  I recall a session asking "What's your DCV?"  He replied "Um...four".  Another player yelped "FOUR - what's his DEX???"  The response was "His DEX is 23. His DCV could be as high as 8.   But I've never even HEARD of this clown - there's no way he's powerful enough to hurt me anyway."

 

I've also read numerous GM tirades about players who won't play to the tropes, and always open up with full-force attacks against unknown opponents.  Guess what? If showing restraint means generally losing the battle, the scenario in its entirety or even the character, then the players won't show restraint.  We all need to be playing the same game, and one of those tropes that goes hand in hand with "the Good Guys show restraint" is that the Good Guys may end up at a disadvantage because they show restraint, but they don't end up losers or corpses.

 

3 hours ago, unclevlad said:

What exactly is a superhuman feat of agility?  Lifting things is directly quantifiable.  Agility is not.  Does Green Lantern ever NEED to execute such a move?  Not that I can recall.  Also, in order to execute such a feat, Acrobatics is required...or do you simply let someone make a DEX roll with no penalty, even lacking the skill?  Perhaps GL simply doesn't have the skill.  As you say, it's not something he'd need.  You have no evidence of what his DEX is.

 

A lot of things that the Beast and Spider-Man do are superhuman feats of agility. Nothing Green Lantern does shows impressive agility.  Beast and Spidey have high DEX skills in general.

 

3 hours ago, unclevlad said:

What do you think "legendary" means?  For me, it's legendary among normals...but for me that's not a very high bar. 

 

It's Rasputin's constitution, Hercules' strength, Bruce Lee martial arts and Casanova's charm.  LEGENDARY because it is vastly superior to the masses. Not " bit above the norm" or even "professional athlete".  Maybe "consistent winner of contests that establish the best in the world".

 

3 hours ago, unclevlad said:

Some of this may actually just be that what you consider a "super" and what I consider a "super" might well be different.  If you drop down to Golden Age?  Then perhaps there's more 18 DEX.  They aren't superheroes, tho, in my book.  (Nor were they generally considered "super" heroes at the time.)  t's also possible that what you define as "talented normal" is radically different from mine.  Multiple 18's?  Entirely possible.  NFL linebacker..18 STR, DEX, and CON?  No problem.  I get the sense that you want to redefine "average human" MUCH lower than the rules.  That's all well and good, and they may well be too high...but that would be redefining the context in a very basic way, and has too many ripple effects.

 

An average human is 8s across the board by the RAW. They use the sellbacks from 10 to buy some skills, maybe a stat or two above average, maybe even well above average.  That's defined. A 20 is about as good as a normal human gets - so stacking every NFL linebacker with 18 STR, DEX and CON? Not likely.  Exceeds 20?  LEGENDARY.  You might see a 23 or 25 once or twice in a generation.  A 30 will be remembered for generations.

 

The problem is that the very first group of Champions characters, way back in the first edition, set the bar that Supers - even "not all that unusual" Supers - have DEX of 18 minimum, much more often 23 - 26,and sometimes 30-35.  Then along came Danger International, Justice Inc. and Fantasy Hero and we had to set parameters for "normal humans" when it was too late to dial back "Supers that aren't super in that respect".

 

3 hours ago, MrAgdesh said:

You can just use Skill Modifiers for that? An Average Joe who doesn’t particularly think about his job outside of work (11-) should still be able to perform mundane tasks within that job at probably 12- to 14-. 
 

GMs just need to award bonuses for run of the mill stuff, as they would penalties for more difficult applications. 

 

Doing things at work probably also allows extra time.

 

1 hour ago, unclevlad said:

This isn't a Hero failing, tho.  It's pretty much system-agnostic.  You're also not unique there;  for some reason, it feels pretty common that "don't make the roll" gets treated as a complete, utter FAILURE.  Like in D&D?  Roll a 1 on your attack roll?  Oh, you hit your buddy!  It can be appropriate at times, but it's really easy to overdo or misuse it.  We tend to like over-dramatizing.  

 

I wonder if a lot of this is related to how Hero promotes a bean-counter mindset...nothing for nothing, the push to cram as much as you can into the limited points you have.

 

I don't think it's unique to Hero. I definitely agree with "oh, you blew the roll - that's an utterly catastrophic failure" mindsets being bad for the game.  Even a 1 being a horribly bad result - 5% of the time you totally blow it? Even if a 2+ would have been a complete success?  No, thanks.

8 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

@Hugh Neilson, the Auto-Roll rule., I like. I heard Matt Colville express something similar but he didn’t have a name for it. When I remember, I do try to use something like it.

 

I believe there was a reference some time back to the "he doesn't need a roll - he's effing Tarzan!" rule.

[Duke Bushido]

I don't know id this helps anyone (or if it is even appropriate here),  but I use a methid originally designed just to speed things up, but it works well for skills in general:

 

If you have a skill level of 11 or greater, if after all your modifiers (posistive and negative) are applied, you cannot fail spectacularly.  You can still fail, but not "you accidentally hit your friend" fail.

 

If I may borrow Chris's example above, the xhracter may have missed the nad guy, but he xould have easily flipped or spun his way through the window.

 

Further, if you havw a score of at least 11 or less, you do not roll for routine uses of that skill:

 

I want to write a script that will log each time the lab is accessed.

 

What is your xomputer programming?

 

14 or less.

 

Arw you doing amythinf fancy-  hidden transmission of the data or making the script hidden?

 

No; I just want a simple,script that tracks what keycard,opened rhe door and when ans stores the data for later retrieval on-site.

 

Okay; no need for you roll for that.

 

If your skill is less,than 11 or less, you roll, but if it is a routine use of the skill, you cannot fail spectacularly.

 

 

[Duke Bushido]

Another option for eoutine use of the skill is to reseve the roll in case it becomes relevant;

 

As you and youe companions begin to scale down th wall, there is a lurch in the line.  You freeze in your tracks as you realize the piton above you has moves, and is slowly pulling out of the wall.

 

"I try to acramble back up above it so I can reset it!"

 

Okay. [Makes a roll]  you almost make it!  The Putin comes loose and the jerk on the line snaps it and sends you deopping to the floor twenty feet below!

 

"I roll my luck dice!"

 

Wow!  Two sixes!  Just as you drop, you are instantly snatched to a stop, hanging from your pack harness.  As you carefully look around, you see the stone masons left an oak timber laid into the stone here, probably to start th next few courses of stones.  It sticks barely four inches from the wall, amd,you swing slowly and precariously by the strap on your pack harness.  Your compainionss silently mouth their relief and start carefully dangling a line toward you.

 

Have you bought a new pack recently?

 

No.

 

So this is the same,one you repaired a xouole of sessions ago?

 

Yes; I suppose it is.

 

And what was your leathercraft skill?

 

Dice start rolling...

 

 

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

I've also read numerous GM tirades about players who won't play to the tropes, and always open up with full-force attacks against unknown opponents.  Guess what? If showing restraint means generally losing the battle, the scenario in its entirety or even the character, then the players won't show restraint.

 

This bears repeating.  Players want to win.  They want to not suck. Often, they are tired of sucking in life and want their characters to do what they cannot.  If you make your foes too tough, too hard to hit, too hard to hurt, then:

 

1) they won't stand out, when there's that extra tough bad guy to face

2) If you roll to hit and miss, you're DONE until your phase comes around again, after everyone else has moved, sometimes more than once. 

3) Players feel like losers.  You failed, you tried and struck out, you weren't heroic.

EDIT: I should add one:

4) they will start to power up and stop showing any restraint because they are frustrated and angry at failing or a feeling of not being heroic

 

I'm not arguing that it should necessarily be easy to hit all the time or easy to defeat, just keep in mind what players are expecting and want from their characters.  After all, some players are there just to do something fun with their friends, or to see how the story unfolds, or to role play their character's personality and background without worrying about how well they do in combat.  But for the ones who care, they care a lot.

Edited August 23, 2023 by Christopher R Taylor

[MrAgdesh]

6 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

I'm not arguing that it should necessarily be easy to hit all the time or easy to defeat, just keep in mind what players are expecting and want from their characters.  After all, some players are there just to do something fun with their friends, or to see how the story unfolds, or to role play their character's personality and background without worrying about how well they do in combat.  But for the ones who care, they care a lot.

 

In order to lessen the impact of failures (not a bad thing but repeated failures are not fun), I've toyed with Heroic Action Points (HAPs) in the past but I've never really been happy with implementing them in terms of the bookkeeping involved. I've found that players tend to forget about them and I've typically forgotten to remind them, but I do like the idea of them in principle (like Karma in the old TSR Marvel Superheroes game).

[Doc Democracy]

4 hours ago, MrAgdesh said:

 

In order to lessen the impact of failures (not a bad thing but repeated failures are not fun), I've toyed with Heroic Action Points (HAPs) in the past but I've never really been happy with implementing them in terms of the bookkeeping involved. I've found that players tend to forget about them and I've typically forgotten to remind them, but I do like the idea of them in principle (like Karma in the old TSR Marvel Superheroes game).

 

If you are a face to face group, I find the best thing for that is to have physical tokens, glass beads or poker chips or something and a hat or other receptacle at the side of the table.  Players are likely to have those things in their hands, especially the ones that also like fiddling with their dice, and so be quite awre of them.  If they want to use them, they throw them into the hat, which begins to accumulate tokens.  I keep thinking that I want to do something with that hat and the tokens inside it, but I am never sure what fits.

 

One idea, was that I did not use HAPs as normal.  I would give out tokens instead of experience points, the used tokens are the core pool for what I had out at the end of the game (adding things in for specific stuff - like player invokes a complication).  When a player uses a token, THEN they mark down an XP on their sheet that can be used for growing their character.

 

Doc

Edited August 23, 2023 by Doc Democracy

[DeleteThisAccount]

I prefer an unfigured characteristic simply because even when using a version of Hero that has figured characteristics, I was always using disads to buy my characteristics as if they were unfigured. I sold back all of every characteristic as the first step of making a PC, so every single characteristic was at zero, but then buy them all back up as a whole bunch of separate things.

 

For example, I would lower my Dexterity to 0, then buy it back to where I wanted but with it limited as "Does not contribute to Speed or Combat Value", then also buy a bunch of Dexterity, with it limited as "Only for improving score with OCV", and a third Dexterity with it limited as "Only for improving score with DCV". Then I would buy Speed at the usual 10 points each.

 

And the same for Strength with PD, Recovery and Stun. And the same for Consitution with ED, Recovery, Endurance, and Stun. And the same for Body with Stun. And the same for Ego with OMCV and DMCV.

 

That was all a bit complicated to write out each time, and far too expensive (I never asked for an enormous discount, and then end up buying each characteristic up separately, so I ended up paying several times at only just a little less than full price each time...) but I loved the fact that I could buy a high DCV for my psychic who sensed future attacks, and not also have her be an acrobat sniper for no reason.

 

That was a very clunky fix, and I am very glad that I don't have to use it anymore in 6e.

[Cloppy Clip]

As someone coming in with 6th edition, I'm not sure how exactly figured characteristics were used. Combat Values and Speeds can be set at any baseline, so if you start with a few extra points in those from DEX then that won't affect gameplay so much as long as everyone has similar DEX (if you don't mind everyone having similar DEX, of course), but Defence's value depends entirely on how it scales with Damage, and the figured characteristics from 5E seem to give you quite low defences compared to the damage you'd be dealing out. Were you expected to buy up defence on top of what your figured characteristics gave you, or was everybody playing a version of rocket tag back then?

 

Obviously each table would have come to their own solution, even if it's something like KingAdipose describes where you effective de-figure the characteristics, but I'm curious as to what most people did back before 6E.

[Ninja-Bear]

51 minutes ago, Cloppy Clip said:

As someone coming in with 6th edition, I'm not sure how exactly figured characteristics were used. Combat Values and Speeds can be set at any baseline, so if you start with a few extra points in those from DEX then that won't affect gameplay so much as long as everyone has similar DEX (if you don't mind everyone having similar DEX, of course), but Defence's value depends entirely on how it scales with Damage, and the figured characteristics from 5E seem to give you quite low defences compared to the damage you'd be dealing out. Were you expected to buy up defence on top of what your figured characteristics gave you, or was everybody playing a version of rocket tag back then?

 

Obviously each table would have come to their own solution, even if it's something like KingAdipose describes where you effective de-figure the characteristics, but I'm curious as to what most people did back before 6E.

Yup, you got a bump or rather the starting point of a Secondary Characteristic would be higher than the Base-for free. In 6th PD is starting at 2. However Pre-6th if I bought Strength at 20 then my PD would be (20/5) = 4. So if you had a Brick of 60 STR then your Starting PD is 12. 

[unclevlad]

Yeah, it meant higher primary stats gave you higher secondary ones.

PD was STR/5;  ED was CON/5

SPD was 1 + DEX/10

REC was STR/5 + CON/5

END was CON*2

STUN was BODY + STR/2 + CON/2

OCV and DCV were DEX/3 ...  this is the big one, obviously.  ECV was EGO/3, so you might see a little buy-up there to be...well a little less of a sitting duck.

 

The rounding rules were in effect, too, which mostly applied to CON and DEX.  STR, you'd typically buy full dice of damage.  23 DEX hits both the CV and DEX roll rounding points, which made it extremely efficient.  Given the central role of CV, you'd still see 26 sometimes.  Or the "+1" numbers, 18 and 29.  17 is CV, 18 is DEX roll.  28 is DEX roll, 29 is CV.

 

To make things worse in several ways...in 5E, REC, END, and STUN were *expensive* to buy up from the figured values.  In 6E, REC is 1, END is 1 point for 5 END, and STUN is 1 point for 2 STUN.  In 5E, REC is 2, END is 1 point for 2 END, and STUN is 1.  Flip side, note that DEX was 3 points per, and CON, EGO, and BODY were 2 points.  So, SOME of the increase from figured characteristics was factored into the price.  The cost of REC, in particular, gets to be painful for a higher SPD character.  

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

In order to lessen the impact of failures (not a bad thing but repeated failures are not fun), I've toyed with Heroic Action Points (HAPs) in the past

 

The book keeping is minor, as Doc says, you can use tokens to indicate who has what at the table.  I came up with a Wisdom system to deal with failures, mistakes, and confusion as a way of compensation for when things go awry.

[Ninja-Bear]

A thought struck me the other day. What is the difference between Armadillo and Defender? Both have most of their abilities bought OIF to have abilities above Normal. Defender has NCM since it’s a newer Disadvantage and Armadillo being an OG villain, it wasn’t available. However the decrier of NCM will claim that Defender is getting away with something because of his build. If anything the way I see it Armadillo got hosed because he has to come up with another 20pt limitation that Defender didn’t. 

[Chris Goodwin]

7 minutes ago, Ninja-Bear said:

A thought struck me the other day. What is the difference between Armadillo and Defender? Both have most of their abilities bought OIF to have abilities above Normal. Defender has NCM since it’s a newer Disadvantage and Armadillo being an OG villain, it wasn’t available. However the decrier of NCM will claim that Defender is getting away with something because of his build. If anything the way I see it Armadillo got hosed because he has to come up with another 20pt limitation that Defender didn’t. 

 

In what way is Defender limited by NCM that Armadillo isn't?

[Duke Bushido]

And Defender was an OG hero.  It is his character sheet that is analyzed during the "how to build a character" section in the first two editions.  Possibly the third as well, but I don't remember for certain.

 

 

[assault]

8 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

And Defender was an OG hero.  It is his character sheet that is analyzed during the "how to build a character" section in the first two editions.  Possibly the third as well, but I don't remember for certain.

 

You might be getting him confused with Crusader.

[Hugh Neilson]

19 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

And Defender was an OG hero.  It is his character sheet that is analyzed during the "how to build a character" section in the first two editions.  Possibly the third as well, but I don't remember for certain.

 

 

 

11 hours ago, assault said:

 

You might be getting him confused with Crusader.

 

All the Champions, IIRC, were new for 4e. Much of the IP did not move to DoJ, so many characters referred to in prior editions weren't available to write up as example characters.  Defender is a powered armor character.  1e/2e used Crusader and Starburst as detailed character creation examples, IIRC.

[Duke Bushido]

11 hours ago, assault said:

 

You might be getting him confused with Crusader.

 

 

And I beliebe you are absolutely right;

 

Thanks to you all.

 

 

Edited September 3, 2023 by Duke Bushido

[Hugh Neilson]

20 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

A thought struck me the other day. What is the difference between Armadillo and Defender? Both have most of their abilities bought OIF to have abilities above Normal. Defender has NCM since it’s a newer Disadvantage and Armadillo being an OG villain, it wasn’t available. However the decrier of NCM will claim that Defender is getting away with something because of his build. If anything the way I see it Armadillo got hosed because he has to come up with another 20pt limitation that Defender didn’t. 

 

20 hours ago, Chris Goodwin said:

 

In what way is Defender limited by NCM that Armadillo isn't?

 

Why doesn't Obsidian get a disadvantage for "pays double for mental powers"?  Defender IS "getting away with something" as he avoids 20 points worth of complications.  "I pay extra for things I am not buying anyway" is not a disadvantage,