How does Dr. Doom compare to Dr. Destroyer

[Monolith]

Originally posted by Agent X

IMy complaint in the Champions Universe is that there aren't any examples of heroic icons who can stand against Dr. Destroyer or Takofanes without a dozen heroes of backup. I don't mind the idea that DD and TAK require more than one hero to fight them. I mind that it apparently takes dozens.

I believe that Rashindar and Ushas are two of the most powerful heroes in the CU. I would imagine that there are many others as well who are powerful also, such as Albion. Unfortunately it will be a long time before we ever see write-ups for most them. There just are not that many superhero write-ups for the CU yet.

[Metaphysician]

The trouble with figuring Doom's offensive options is that, for the most part, all the "EB/RKA + Advantage" beams look more or less the same. If I were converting him, I'd simply give him base EB and RKA along with the Variable Advantage bit.

 

Also, he'd have a considerably bigger Tech VPP in his armor, and probably with at least some ability to change in combat, representing his greater flexibility.

 

Oh, and re: nukes, if you link together six separate attacks, you are overcomplicating things. I'll just stick with the 20d6 RKA Mega Area writeup ( for big strat nukes ).

[Agent X]

Originally posted by Monolith

I believe that Rashindar and Ushas are two of the most powerful heroes in the CU. I would imagine that there are many others as well who are powerful also, such as Albion. Unfortunately it will be a long time before we ever see write-ups for most them. There just are not that many superhero write-ups for the CU yet.

It would be nice to include one of these powerhouses as a point of comparison should someone like to have an icon superhero that would fit in with later CU additions.

[Mayday]

I would suspect that the reason there arent many heroes able to take on Dr. Destroyer is because they assume that the players will.

[Metaphysician]

Well, we've seen a couple 600+ point heroes in canon ( Victory, Quasar ).

 

The impression I get is that most of the iconic canon heroes, well, died in the Battle of Detroit. Even those theoretically capable of surviving a 20d6 RKA nuclear orbital death ray probably won't do so well after three days of fighting against Destroyer and his troops and minions, especially since the attack was a total surprise.

[Vigil]

an observation

 

One thing that I don't really like about Champions is just the fact that all of the superheroes seem radically underpowered when compared to the characters which inspired them in Marvel and DC.

 

As of this iteration, it seems that the average NPC super is built on about 350 points...which is a level comparable to The New Mutants. When I began playing Champions over 20 years we quickly realized that the types of stories and, more importantly, combats that we wanted to portray fell outside of what was then the norm for Champions. The one natbale exception to this in the early Champions canon was Strikeforce, which showed charcters as they began and later with significant amounts of experience.

 

So we abandoned all of the NPC, etc and simply used the system to create the level of campaign we wanted from the ground up. At the time, beginning supers were built on 350 - 400 points (including disads) and the scale went up from there (megavillains were in the 1500 - 2500 point range. We felt that this reflected the sort of feel and flavor of the comics that we most liked. Similarly, we never really applied any active point parameters and we found that that balanced out conceptually, also. We found that f you want to build a 350 point character with, for instance, a 200 active point power that that character is going to be exceedingly powerful in a rather limited way while being very vulnerable in others and that the weight of limitations and inherent unblance of the charcter tended to balance things.

 

Now, many many years later, the point totals in our team Worldwatch range from 370 for Spectra to 2 000 for Vigil (who is used, mostly, as an almost omniscient NPC) with the average being about 800 points...just in the same range as the Avengers or JLA. The thing I like about a range that diverse is that it gives the team a real feeling of comic book "realism". After all, Green Arrow and Superman coexist in the JLA and their point spread is proabaly pretty similar, as I imagine, is the point difference between the Wasp and Thor. The other thing that I like about that sort of point range is the fact that charcters then become startified and specialized and their roles become much clearer.

 

And finally, it allows for just the sort of combats mentioned here several times... the lone hero against the megavillain. And there's few things more fun and dramatic to play than an injured, exhausted Job Hatchet putting it all on the line against Gargantuan or Rex Monday!

 

Anyway just my thoughts but I am curious as to the point levels and active point parameters of other campaigns out there.

 

Vigil

[Monolith]

Re: an observation

 

Originally posted by Vigil

One thing that I don't really like about Champions is just the fact that all of the superheroes seem radically underpowered when compared to the characters which inspired them in Marvel and DC.

I disagree with that statement. I think what 5E is attempting to show is that a 350 point hero is quite powerful, and that not every comic book superhero needs to be 1,000 points. As an example of this I would point you to the write-ups of Anubis, Lei Kung, and Guan Di in CKC. Those three characters are gods or god-avatars, and yet they only do 14d6 at most and are all built on less than 600 points. What that is saying is that a "god" does not need to be 2,000+ points in the new Champions Universe.

 

I think it is our natural tendancy to want to make comic book characters more powerful than our game counterparts. If Nightwraith is doing 10d6 martial strikes then Batman must be doing 13d6 because he is Batman! The same for all the comic book characters. We get used to thinking that they are somehow more prolific then our characters.

 

We need to take Dr. Destroyer out of the equation, because honestly he was designed to be cosmic now. But looking at Mechanon or Binder or Black Harlequin can we really say they are weaker than their Marvel/DC counterparts? In many respects I would say those characters are actually more powerful than their progenitors.

[Metaphysician]

Actually, most of those guys probably *are* weaker than their comic counterparts, if you count beans carefully. However, they work perfectly well for a Champions campaign. OTOH, 350 points shouldn't be treated as anything more than beginning level heroes. Heroes with a decade of experience should be considerably more powerful, not 38 points more ( *coughMeteormancough* ).

[Monolith]

Originally posted by Metaphysician

Heroes with a decade of experience should be considerably more powerful, not 38 points more ( *coughMeteormancough* ).

Do you think Batman or Superman have gotten more powerful over the last decade? Does Batman now do 15d6 and Superman 30d6? Comic book characters' powers really change very little within the confines of their own timeframe. That is the fundamental difference between a game and the genre itself. In the comics Superman does not get 16 times stronger and Batman does not learn to punch with 8 times more force. In the games it is not uncommon for Supreme Man to get +20 STR over the course of his gaming career or for Nightwraith to get +3 DC with Martial Arts. And both will probably buy more DEX, DEF, and SPD in that same period of time.

[Metaphysician]

Actually, compared to their immediate post-Crisis capabilities, Superman and Batman *have* gotten more powerful over the past decade. A *lot* more powerful.

 

That said, no, you can't use the comic-stasis cop-out, since the Champions world explicitly rejects that. It has characters actually age, have kids, retire, and die, all in "real" time.

 

Or, another way to put it: if its good enough for PC heroes, its good enough for the NPC heroes. Sure, they may not go up as much as the PCs, but their point levels should mesh with their backstory. Even if a given character's powers are totally static, since they can't develop those powers, with the passage of time and experience the character would develop his skill in various areas.

[Agent X]

Re: Re: an observation

 

Originally posted by Monolith

I disagree with that statement. I think what 5E is attempting to show is that a 350 point hero is quite powerful, and that not every comic book superhero needs to be 1,000 points. As an example of this I would point you to the write-ups of Anubis, Lei Kung, and Guan Di in CKC. Those three characters are gods or god-avatars, and yet they only do 14d6 at most and are all built on less than 600 points. What that is saying is that a "god" does not need to be 2,000+ points in the new Champions Universe.

 

I think it is our natural tendancy to want to make comic book characters more powerful than our game counterparts. If Nightwraith is doing 10d6 martial strikes then Batman must be doing 13d6 because he is Batman! The same for all the comic book characters. We get used to thinking that they are somehow more prolific then our characters.

 

We need to take Dr. Destroyer out of the equation, because honestly he was designed to be cosmic now. But looking at Mechanon or Binder or Black Harlequin can we really say they are weaker than their Marvel/DC counterparts? In many respects I would say those characters are actually more powerful than their progenitors.

I disagree with your disagreement. All I have to do is look at the strength lifting benchmarks, the characteristics guidelines about where superhuman is, and the benchmarks concerning how much a lightning bolt or grass fire does in damage and I can see that 14 Damage Classes does not mean spit in mainstream Marvel and DC comics to the big guns. When a character based on me can do a 10d6 Haymaker with a bat I have a problem with the range you are suggesting.