Point Levels in the Universe

[Nightmask]

How many maximum points are PCs in the different universes (Marvel, DC, Image, TMNT, etc) and your own? Should characters be allowed no restrictions if its a good conception? I am thinking that Hulk, Superman, Spawn, Badger are all overcost for PCs in their universes.

[farik]

Your question assumes that one Universe has one set of point totals.

 

In both Marvel and DC different groups have different cost values compare the

X-men to the Avengers

or

JLA to Young Justice

or in TMNT land

The Turtles to Radical

 

now some groups like the TMNT (and usually the X-men) are all built around similar point values this is the type of group I think most Champions games emulate. Now if you want a game where you can Superman and Martian Manhunter fighting alongside James Bond then forget Point totals and just establish damage and defense caps (or heck throw those out too). But by doing this you may have certain characters who do all the so called heavy lifting while other are forced to dive for cover constantly just so you can challenge the others. This might work for your group but it's more common for some players to become annoyed that they have to take a back seat to the more powerful characters.

[Bengal]

I don't think any universe has a specific point cost cap... remember that Hero aims to simulate the genre and not vice-versa. In general though, the power levels are, indecending order, like this:

 

DC (about 1000 points, with some cool exceptions like Green Arrow)

Valiant (close to DC)... remember Valiant? They were gonna be so cool.

Image (about 500, with most of those coming straight and not through advantages.)

Marvel (Somewhere in the realm of 350) I think, with most of the big guns packing on extra through experience. Seems like most Marvel heroes start out feeble compared to DC's, but increase as they go along. Darkhawk would be the main exception to this rule. He started out lame, and continues to be.

[TheEmerged]

For my own universe (the "Neo-Champion" universe), I placed every super-powered PC or NPC (I stole the term "nova" from Aberrant) in one of five strata.

 

Level One is based off 150 points plus 100 points of disadvantages. Theoretically more powerful than a "mere" cop or soldier, except that the cop & soldier wouldn't have to pay points for their equipment. These leads to characters in the same vicinity as the bronze-aged Teen Titans or silver-aged X-Men.

 

Level Two is based off 200 points plus 150 points of disadvantages, and is the level of the PC's. About 1 in 7 novas are level 2 so there are still a lot of them. In my experience this gives an approximate power level of the bronze aged Avengers (no Thor or Iron Man) -- quite powerful but still vulnerable to concerted attacks by well-equipped normals.

 

Level 3 is based off 400 points plus 200 points of disadvantages, and *technically* ends at 999 points. This is a power level appropriate to Spiderman or the pre-JLA Booster Gold (when he also had missile reflection and desolidification) -- someone on a power level sufficient to protect a city by themselves.

 

Level 4 begins at 1000 points, and there are 20 of them in the campaign universe. Not the campaign planet, the campaign *universe*. These are the world-shakers; the Superman conversion, the Dr. Doom conversion... the people that could rule the world by themselves if not for the other Level 4's. My campaign's version of the Golden Avenger is Level 4.

 

Level 5 begins at 2000 points, and there are 3 of them in the campaign universe (again, not just the planet). One of those is my rewrite of Dr. Destroyer. One of those is the Trickster (the being behind CLOWN's origin). The other is a 13-year-old geek who just discovered he has super powers.

[Mutant for Hire]

I'm not sure that points + disads is the best way to define some of these characters. A lot of the older superhero characters have a lot of breadth (lots of different places where they've spent points) instead of depth. A lot of characters have Perks up the wazoo.

 

Take Captain America. He's got an enormous number of perks in things like Reputation, Contacts, and so on. Ditto for most of the most experienced people in the Marvel Universe. Reed Richards has an incredible amount of respect in the superhero community and could easily get the Avengers, the X-Men and most of the solo superheroes in the Marvel Universe to come to his side with just a few phone calls. Even Spiderman has universal recognition by this point. These guys have a lot of points sunk into Perks that don't instantly show up in a fight but do show up in other ways.

 

And of course these guys pick up an incredible number of different martial arts manuvers over the years as well. In terms of skills, knowledge skills on various parts of the Marvel Universe and various heroes and villains, they've also got a lot of points. Raw power wise they've tended to remain fairly stable for the most part. Spiderman isn't significantly more powerful than when he started out, in terms of things like strength and agility, but he's got a lot more skill and experience and could mop the floor with his previous self.

[lemming]

There was the theory that you could have a certain amount of points per Universe so if you only had 5 supers, they'd be really tough compared if there were 100.

[Chromatic]

Originally posted by lemming

There was the theory that you could have a certain amount of points per Universe so if you only had 5 supers, they'd be really tough compared if there were 100.

 

I think if you only had 100 they would still be immensely powerful. I just watched X2 this afternoon--there is a scene where Xavier is in Cerebro and shows Wolverine all the mutants in the world; looks like about 1 in 10 or 12 in the world population is a mutant. Of course lots of them are latent and have the power level of Ron Parr (LSH's Flat lad)

 

So what's the total number of points allowed in a Universe anyway?

[lemming]

Originally posted by Chromatic

So what's the total number of points allowed in a Universe anyway?

Well, I was just flashing back to MagiVax, etc...

I think that was Sam's "justification", but I could be misremembering

[Jhamin]

Originally posted by lemming

There was the theory that you could have a certain amount of points per Universe so if you only had 5 supers, they'd be really tough compared if there were 100.

 

In the Rising Stars comics, all the supers in the world were created by one event and were raised together by the government in a special compound. This is why they all know each other and know what everyone's powers are.

 

As they all share the same origin, whenever one dies their power is distributed among all the survivors.

[Chromatic]

going back to the original question in this thread:

 

Should characters be allowed no restrictions if its a good conception?

 

For a long while now, I've been of the opinion that balancing POWER level between characters in the campaign is much more important than making sure your flying energy blaster and Joe's martial artist are both 345 points with 125 points in disads and 70 points of experience.

 

Lemming's game is a good testament to this. The characters were designed to be "complete" You have all your powers that your concept needs. You have only the disads that will come into play. Do not worry if your character is balanced point wise. My character, Coriolis, started at 504 points. He wasn't extremely efficient, but he wasn't a slouch either. I was careful to not give him scads and scads of skills that didn't fit his original concept (and other players in the game did similar with theirs). Today after a couple of years, he is 512 points, with an unknown number of experience points, and curently leading the "death trap points" as best I can recall.

 

Granted most of the players in Lemming's game have been playing Hero for twenty years or so, and have good clear ideas about what is a balanced power level. I've been playing with a toned down version of this in the kid's game I've run and it seems to work there too, once the players get over the ego trip about character costs. (in the kids game one character is 223 points at the low end and the high end has 290)

 

The comic's heros aren't point balanced (excepting for Heroic Publications perhaps), and infact their powers and level of powers vary from writer to writer.

 

I think that it would be interesting to see what Stan Lee uses to keep track of the characters in his books. How does the editor know that the Hulk grabbing a tank and tossing it to Las Vegas is ok, but Ben Grimm crumpling the bank vault into a tinfoil-like ball in one hand is not?

[Bengal]

Should characters be allowed no restrictions if its a good conception?

 

Answer: It totally depends on who is sitting around your table.

 

Sub-answer: expensive point-total superheroes and villains should be designed as efficiently as possible, with the use of as many power frameworks as possible. And disads do count; every disadvantage you take should be applicable to the game, or it's not really a disadvantage.

 

Sub-Sub-Answer: Characters with high point totals should have their experience withheld and donated to those characetrs who start with low point totals, until everyone has the same amount of points. This is a good way to keep Green Arrow and Superman in the same group, and keep their respective players happy.

 

Sub-Sub-Answer Addendum: Nowhere have I said that it'snecessary for Green Arrow's player to spend those points; it's enough for him to be allowed to accrue them.