Who's Tougher, Champions Characters or Fantasy Hero Characters

[LoneWolf]

Another thing to consider is that that champions characters in most cases have a lot higher stats.  Most Fantasy Hero games I have played in use NCM which means going over costs double.  Looking over the sample characters in the 6th edition Fantasy Hero the sample party has an average of 16.2 DEX, 16.8 CON and 3.6 SPD.  Those are very low STATs for a champions character especially the SPD.  This gives the champions character a huge advantage.    

 

The higher SPD means the Champions characters get way more actions in a turn.  Assuming the average Champions character has a SPD of 5 that means a party of 5 Champions characters get 25 actions per turn compared to the 18 of the Fantasy Hero sample characters.  The Higher DEX means the Champions characters will also go first.  Going first and having more actions gives the Champions characters a huge advantage in the action economy.  

 

You could of course boost up the stats of the Fantasy Hero characters and ignore the characteristic maximums to even things out.  The thing is if you keep changing the rules are the characters still Fantasy Hero characters?  
 

[Gauntlet]

8 minutes ago, LoneWolf said:

You could of course boost up the stats of the Fantasy Hero characters and ignore the characteristic maximums to even things out.  The thing is if you keep changing the rules are the characters still Fantasy Hero characters?  

 

I would have to say that would be a definite no.

[Lord Liaden]

43 minutes ago, LoneWolf said:

You could of course boost up the stats of the Fantasy Hero characters and ignore the characteristic maximums to even things out.  The thing is if you keep changing the rules are the characters still Fantasy Hero characters?  
 

 

Hero's The Atlantean Age is inspired by Greco-Roman culture and mythology, and has among the highest maximum power levels I've seen for the genre. Character types include true divine-blooded demigods. Three of the statted NPCs are 1,000 CP+, and have truly superhuman Characteristics, e.g. Strength of 40, 60, and 80. Magic spells run up to 300 AP, and DC can be as high as 18-20. But Normal Characteristic Maxima still apply. Spells are built with more Limitations than are typical for superhero powers, and are bought in a different, unique structure that tends to add up to higher cost. Mundane equipment is free, but magic items cost Character Points.

 

Playing in the setting blurs the line between Fantasy and Supers, to the point where the difference is more style and environment than character stats. But those characters still can't be compared to supers on a point-by-point basis.

[Grailknight]

Champions characters have another not so obvious advantage.

 

The typical fantasy character is built to take damage from KA's and focus more on Resistant Defenses relative to their total. KA's are better at doing BODY so a higher percentage of the character's total is Resistant. You want to minimize the BODY damage and on average, KA's do less STUN past lower defenses.

 

It doesn't show vs your typical monsters, but Normal attacks are in general more effective against PC's than their equivalent DC's in Killing attacks. We had a player join the campaign about two sessions in who was a martial arts nut and he made a monk that did 8d6 Normal with a quarterstaff. He was weaker against big monsters, but just dominated any NPC that used standard armor and weapons because he consistently did more STUN. One of the plots eventually had the party attacked by his old order and it was the closest fight of the campaign because people were getting knocked unconscious in two hits from 12's and 13's on the Hit Location chart and stunned by one hit there.

[Christopher R Taylor]

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"If" is definitely at play here. Let's not forget that Legolas uses no magical weapons over the whole course of the trilogy, books and movies. Not even in Peter Jackson's overblown Hobbit trilogy

 

Possibly.  The way magic worked in Middle Earth was very subtle and was less waving hands about with flashy lights than imposing one's will on things.  Probably everything Legolas had was enchanted in some subtle way (arrows break less, are better at piercing armor, hit a bit more accurately, etc) because remember the dude was centuries old and was among the elves almost all his life where magic was in everything.  So he didn't have Stormbringer but he had an elven sword, which was innately enchanted.

 

And with 1000 more points to spend?

[Lord Liaden]

*Shrug* Assumptions. Legolas in the third Rings movie shot an arrow at a ghost, arrow went right through it. Black Adam's body is suffused with magic, but when he punches Superman it doesn't hurt Supes more than physically.

 

Legolas isn't an ideal example, because to buff him the way you describe, you have to go beyond the precedents in the source material.

[fbdaury]

On 9/14/2023 at 12:09 PM, Gauntlet said:

One advantage I definitely know of for FH characters is equipment. FH characters do not have to pay for it while Champions characters do.

Not necessarily - even Dark Champions characters can be made with 0 point Normal Characteristic Maxima, allowing them to get an equipment pool but means they spend more on their characteristics unless they buy them as powers or through a racial package. Truthfully? Depends on the campaign type - MOTU FH style games are likely to be tougher characters than a 'Street Sweepers' DC or low-end Champions game. All up to what the GM allows/wants in their game.

[Christopher R Taylor]

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Black Adam's body is suffused with magic, but when he punches Superman it doesn't hurt Supes more than physically

 

Yeah Superman's "vulnerability" to magic (he's not especially weak to it, he just doesn't have his normal superdurability) is very inconsistently applied.  Usually, though, directly and specifically magical attacks hit him hard in the comics, like an enchanted arrow.

[LoneWolf]

No all things with a special effect of magic count as magic for purpose of vulnerability.   For example, if I have a spell that gives me a high STR TK and use that spell to hit someone with a car that should not trigger the vulnerability. On the other hand, if I directly attack a character with the spell that should count as magic.  If my spell conjures a rock out of thin air and hurls it at the target that should also count as magic. Most of the time a complication should only come into effect when the special effect is directly interacting with the character with the complication.