"Standard" Power Level -- Not So Super?

[Guest innominatus]

In another thread people have been discussing how various "world-beater" supervillains would fare against real-world military forces, especially since the recent boost in potency conventional weapons have received in "The Ultimate Vehicle" and other sourcebooks. While I can't speak to the realism of those writeups, I do observe that with the "grunt" VIPER agent shooting up from 100 pts. to over 180, characters at the "Standard" power level just don't seem all that impressive, even with the jump from 250 to 350 total points with the latest edition of the rules. And even for the writeups of villains (who aren't constrained by point balance), there seem to be a lot of supers who, although they look pretty impressive in terms of their combat capabilities against other supers, can't hit many of the "benchmark" displays of superhuman ability.

 

By "benchmark displays", I mean the sort of things that you see all the time in comic books and movies that make you stop and say, "Whoa, that guy is bad-ass!" Things like walking through a hail of gunfire completely unscathed, or picking up a car and throwing it a country mile, or breaking the sound barrier, or surviving a nuclear explosion. It wouldn't be unreasonable to expect the absolute most powerful beings in the Champions Universe to be able to perform such feats, and the rules provide ways to build such capabilities. But just how many of the published characters can actually pull off these stunts? Grond and Ripper, the two strongest characters in CU, are lucky to fling a Yugo a mere 100 meters with a running start. Thanks to the ol' "STUN Lotto", even Doctor Destroyer can't completely disregard a Navy SEAL team armed with M-16's and the Teamwork skill. Defender's maximum sustainable flight speed is a "breakneck" 63 MPH. Put the Champions Universe's best and brightest at Ground Zero and what do you get? Either they walk away without a scratch (assuming they have Desolidification), or they'll suffer at least an Impairing amount of BODY damage (in the case of Doctor Destroyer, assuming average damage and that he's just using his standard defenses) and probably be at Death's door knocking loudly (in the case of a so-called juggernaut like Grond).

 

I'm curious: have many of you out there experienced this seeming "disconnect" with the genre when using the published villains and NPC's? Do you find you have to re-tool the bad guys substantially to get that authentic "world-beater" feel to your master villains? Do you play at the "standard" power level, or do you give your players the extra points necessary to let them accomplish truly SUPERhuman feats? I'd be interested to hear from players and GM's as to what power constructs and gimmicks they've come up with to more adequately simulate the genre. To get the ball rolling, allow me to submit a little something I came up with...

 

I remember a scene in one of the Superman movies where Supes (as Clark Kent) spots Lois Lane and attempts to cross a busy street to get to her. In his typical bumbling manner, he steps in front of a moving cab, and it bumps into him. Clark apologizes and moves on, only to reveal the cab hit him hard enough cave in the cab's front end. Now in Champions terms, it's hard to see how you could have a scene like this happening. Superman isn't abnormally heavy (I don't think), and he's not *mystically* anchored to the Earth or have suction-cup feet; so I would be hard-pressed to justify buying straight Knockback Resistance for him. But unless he was just *pretending* to be unaware of the cab and was actually Braced the whole time, the cab hitting him *SHOULD* have sent Clark flying, just like it would for any other person. The way I handle it in my campaign is to buy for my "brick" NPC's what I call "Passive Knockback Bracing". Basically, the characters buy Knockback Resistance equal to what they would resist if they were Bracing with only their Casual Strength. (For example: Defender with his 40 STR would be justified in buying up to 4" worth.) I then add the Limitations to the Knockback Resistance "Non-Persistent" (so they'll still go sailing if they're unconscious or otherwise incapacitated) and "Doesn't Stack with Active Knockback Bracing (-1/4)" (since the Knockback Resistance is really a function of their super-strength, having it add to active Bracing would be like "double-dipping" to me). I think this does a decent job of simulating a character who is SO strong he can ignore the effect of impacts from forces that are significantly weaker than he is, even if those forces are still pretty powerful in absolute terms (like a speeding car hitting the Last Son of Krypton).

[Lord Liaden]

I heartily approve of the concept of "Passive Bracing," innominatus, and I will doubtless incorporate it into my high-powered games. But couldn't this be considered just another variation on Casual Strength, without the need for a power build?

 

I have several rule adjustments and power constructs I've used to put a high-power "feel" into games of that type, some of which I mentioned on that other thread. It's a bit late for me to get into them now, but I promise to return in detail tomorrow.

[Guest innominatus]

I appreicate the kind words, Liaden. Although for future reference? It's a "helluva thing" (killing a man, that is), not "an awesome thing"....

 

 

And yes, I suppose your GM could just say that the Casual Strength Bracing could just be a "freebie" for all characters; but since it only seems to have a noticeable combat effect with higher-STR characters (I generally set the bar at about 40+ STR), and since not all GM's may approve, I just go ahead and buy it -- it just helps add to the *feel* of the character being super-strong, and that that strength permeates every aspect of their lives. Just like I'm very fond of the "Doesn't Know His Own Strength" Physical Limitation for "Brick" characters. I mean, realistically -- if you were strong enough to lift 100 tons, could you *consistently* restrain yourself to the point of using only 1/1000th of your natural muscle so you could blend into normal society and seem no stronger than the average joe? Even a slip up of a single percent would have steel-bending, bone-crushing repercussions....

[Killer Shrike]

Its like anything else -- its all relative.

 

If you want to hit the PCs w/ a nuke and have at least some of them survive it reasonably unscathed you have 2 choices:

 

a) Make the nuke just powerful enough to affect the characters you think should be affected

 

Know how much a nuke does and then scale the points on the characters until they can buy enough defenses to resist it.

 

I think a) is going to work better most of the time just because makes for some mega-powered characters that cant be checked easily.

 

 

If the PCs primary opponents are in the 350 range and the PCs are supposed to be made from better stuff, then yeah, you need to start them at least at 400 pounds if a large group of PCs or 450 to 500 if small. Most of the established Marvel groups which are not specifically made up of kids learning their powers would probably be easier to convert in the 500+ range, with the Avenger level stuff starting at 750 for all but the lamest of the Avengers.

 

If the PCs primary opponents are 175~ point agents, then 350 should be pretty tough by comparison.

 

Personally I find the 425-475 points range to be the sweet spot w/ champs. Powerful enough to be notable, not yet so powerful that it takes world-class threats to challeng you. But again, thats relative to the type of campaign I normally play in and likely has little meaning to someone spinning things a little differently.

[Pattern Ghost]

re: Movie Superman's weight. Actually, I do think in the first movie, he tells Lois that he's abnormally heavy. Dense Kryptonian flesh or something. So maybe a little KB resistance for that version...

[Trebuchet]

99.9% of comic book heroes wouldn't survive being nuked. Sure, Superman and Thor can probably handle it, but does anyone think Spiderman, Cyclops or Batman would survive being at Ground Zero? (Well, OK, Batman would because he's Batman and he'd figure something out.)

 

I've never been entirely happy with Hero's "Stun Lottery myself, and this discomfort goes clear back to 1st Edition Champions. It's always seemed to me to be illogical for a Killing Attack to generate a high amount of STUN when it didn't do any BODY. Isn't STUN supposed to represent how much pain is caused by an attack While BODY damage represents actual physical harm? I've seen some good house rules regarding this topic; the one I liked best (Lord Liaden's IIRC) is that if a particular Killing Attack cannot cause BODY to a particular character even with a perfect roll then no STUN ever leaks through. If the attack can at least theoretically do BODY, then the STUN Lottery works as normal. That way if a brick has 20 Resistant PD he simply doesn't need to worry about 3d6 or smaller Killing Atacks. To me that's a better representation of the comic book genre.

[Agent X]

Personally, I'm gutting Viper and Until of high point agents. I don't even have Until but I'm assuming it's guilty of the same crap. Agents are there to wade through. They are decoration in a mainstream comic book.

[JmOz]

Agreed, to a degree,

 

I think the standard agent should be a wuss, I usualy just say one hit one falls...

[Metaphysician]

If your characters can take a nuke, they *are* powerful. There is no mincing with that fact.

 

And yes, 350 points *isn't* powerful. Its roughly the level of the New Mutants or early Teen Titans. You shouldn't expect it to be something more. If you wanna play high powered, than play 500 or 750 points.

 

I also love how *some* people seem to believe that no such thing as a Powerful or Highly Powerful Heroic Normal in any world that has spandex. . .

[Supreme Serpent]

Re: "Standard" Power Level -- Not So Super?

 

Originally posted by innominatus

By "benchmark displays", I mean the sort of things that you see all the time in comic books and movies that make you stop and say, "Whoa, that guy is bad-ass!" Things like walking through a hail of gunfire completely unscathed, or picking up a car and throwing it a country mile, or breaking the sound barrier, or surviving a nuclear explosion. It wouldn't be unreasonable to expect the absolute most powerful beings in the Champions Universe to be able to perform such feats, and the rules provide ways to build such capabilities. But just how many of the published characters can actually pull off these stunts? Grond and Ripper, the two strongest characters in CU, are lucky to fling a Yugo a mere 100 meters with a running start. Thanks to the ol' "STUN Lotto", even Doctor Destroyer can't completely disregard a Navy SEAL team armed with M-16's and the Teamwork skill. Defender's maximum sustainable flight speed is a "breakneck" 63 MPH. Put the Champions Universe's best and brightest at Ground Zero and what do you get? Either they walk away without a scratch (assuming they have Desolidification), or they'll suffer at least an Impairing amount of BODY damage (in the case of Doctor Destroyer, assuming average damage and that he's just using his standard defenses) and probably be at Death's door knocking loudly (in the case of a so-called juggernaut like Grond).

 

I'm curious: have many of you out there experienced this seeming "disconnect" with the genre when using the published villains and NPC's? Do you find you have to re-tool the bad guys substantially to get that authentic "world-beater" feel to your master villains? Do you play at the "standard" power level, or do you give your players the extra points necessary to let them accomplish truly SUPERhuman feats? I'd be interested to hear from players and GM's as to what power constructs and gimmicks they've come up with to more adequately simulate the genre.

 

First off, let me add the disclaimer that I'm still using 4th ed, not FRED.

 

We normally don't go for the super-cosmic level characters like Supes, etc. and don't really expect them to be that tough. Most of our games start out in the 250-350pt range.

 

Part of the solutions in my mind come from seperating combat sessions, complete with speed charts, calculations, etc. from storytelling. Both have their place. When the heroes are in a fight and shoot a villain, they should measure their half move, roll to hit, roll damage, calculate effect, pay end, etc. Out of combat, whatever "fits" genre and helps the story move along should be used. Moving through the halls of the VIPER base with no opposition, blasting doors down as they go, am I going to make the heroes roll damage each time? No - I'm not going to worry about it until it's important. Do I want Superdude to be able to throw the car clear of the crowd before it explodes? If so, and he's a brick, he can manage it. Or Forcefield-Man's forcewall manages to contain the blast - no rolls needed. I try not to put the characters into situations that are clearly not capable of handling, and don't sweat the small stuff. Team of heroes runs into pack of thugs/agents - no need to roll it out unless it's supposed to be an important encounter. Wrap it up, and move on to more important things.

 

Rules-wise, I've done or am doing a few things. For movement, I allow faster than sound flight bought like FTL for those super-fast flyers, etc. For the bulletproof effect, I've been planning on adding mods in, similar to Lord Liaden's. In my version, if your appropriate resistant def is at least twice the body rolled on the killing attack, you take no stun either. So, 24rPD is effectively bulletproof vs most small arms, and bigger attacks will need cleaner hits to affect you.

[JmOz]

Originally posted by Metaphysician

If your characters can take a nuke, they *are* powerful. There is no mincing with that fact.

 

And yes, 350 points *isn't* powerful. Its roughly the level of the New Mutants or early Teen Titans. You shouldn't expect it to be something more. If you wanna play high powered, than play 500 or 750 points.

 

I also love how *some* people seem to believe that no such thing as a Powerful or Highly Powerful Heroic Normal in any world that has spandex. . .

 

I don't know, 250 seems more in line with early New Mutants or Titans, 350 seems more like Later New Mutants/X-Force or New Teen Titans (Probably excluding Raven and Kid Flash)

[GestaltBennie]

Originally posted by Agent X

Personally, I'm gutting Viper and Until of high point agents. I don't even have Until but I'm assuming it's guilty of the same crap. Agents are there to wade through. They are decoration in a mainstream comic book.

 

Guys, they're really not as a big a difference as you think.

 

Since we're talking about what Coils of the Serpent calls "one hit mooks", let's look at the basic VIPER mook in 4th edition and 5th in key stats:

 

4th edition

DEX 14

CON 13

EGO 10

PD 9

ED 6

SPD 3

STUN 25

OCV 5

DCV 5

Best Damage 9d6 w/Find Weakness (average 31 STUN)

 

5th edition

DEX 14 (no change)

CON 13 (no change)

EGO 10 (no change)

PD 10 (+1)

ED 10 (+4)

SPD 3 (no change)

STUN 30 (+5_

OCV 7 (with levels) (+2 change)

DCV 5 (no change)

Best Damage 8d6 (average 28 STUN)

 

The 5th edition baseline agent will hit more often, doing *lower* amounts of damage. They're slightly less likely to get KOed in one shot: anaverage 10d6 attack will KO a 4th edition agent, and only stuns a 5th edition agent, while an average 12d6 attack KOs both. That's not using the recommended quick rules introduced in the tactics section of CotS (under which they're they're both designated one hit mooks which means they both go down with a successful hit regardless of damage).

 

Guys, stop having "point panic" reactions and take a closer look at the stats that matter in a fight. The VIPER 5th edition baseline agent is much more rounded in terms of skills, more capable in non-combat situations, and have more realistic and versatile equipment lists - hat's where the points went. But the differences in actual combat capbility are minor. In both editions, you can custoimize agents and make elite agents who aren't as trivial, and those *can* be pricy. Even so, you have to get up to Superhuman Combat Specialists before you have agents who are seriously buff enough to pose a threat to most supers in anything other than groups in 5th edition. And having "the specialized elite agent" swho shos up as a more serious threat to the heroes is a common comic book trope; usually they provide a threat until the heroes figure out his gimmick and learn to neutralize it, and in my experience, generally your average PC team follows the same pattern (albeit with a little more whining :-))

 

A fight against a basic squad of VIPER agents shouldn't play out much differently in 5th eition than it did in 4th. Where the agents do differ is in modularity; you can have specialized agent teams hich pose more of a threat to the Heroes in 5th. VIPER' can escalate in 5th edition to a frighteningly higher level. But if the GM's is throwing sorcerer Drayshas armed with railguns against your heroes so often that you're no longer seeing the basic greens, you need to sit down with him and tell .him to bring things down a little. But even that's not too much different than it was in 4th edition, where you could find yourself in serious hurt if one too many VIPER vehicles showed up. on the battlefield.

 

Scott Bennie

[Monolith]

Power level is all relative to the write of a comic book character. In some issues Superman can take a nuke, in others it all but kills him. So who's to say which written version is correct? Can Grond survive a 20d6 RKA nuke (write-up from Star Hero)? No, but he's not designed to withstand it. Perhaps you are putting more design consideration into Grond than the authors are? Grond is not supposed to be "Mr. Invulnerable." He's supposed to be the mindless raging beast. Ripper, on the other hand, assuming the armor activates would only take 12 BODY from that 20d6 RKA on average. He'd be knocked out (just as superman was in Darknight) and recovering but it wouldn't kill him.

 

Part of the problem that many people might be having is that we just haven't seen any really tough heroes for CU yet. We've seen the tough villains but no heroes to stand up to them. The "bad-asses" are out there though.

 

And I don't see any "disconnect." If you have a problem with the STUN lotto then just say all "real" weapons do a maximum of x3 STUN multiplier. I personally like the randomness of the combat system. I never liked games which did fixed damage with an attack. I never liked games with absolutes. The randomness has made for hundreds of interesting table situations. Laughing when Mega-Brick rolls the 6 ones and a total of 31 STUN on his 15d6 attack. It's also great to remember when he rolled 74 STUN. The randomness makes the recollection. There would be nothing interesting for me to remember if Mega-Brick always did 45 STUN with each attack.

 

As far as your Superman/car example, As others have stated, I too just consider this to be casual STR, which for Supes in my game is around a 58. Can a 58 STR stop a car going 10 MPH? Without a doubt.

 

As far as tricks, I have allowed bricks to use a mega-throw with a power skill roll. Basically the mega-throw is one level of Mega-Scale on the brick's STR to determine extended range for throws. So if the brick can throw someone 10" in the game he can throw them up to 10 km with the mega-throw.

[Monolith]

Originally posted by Metaphysician

And yes, 350 points *isn't* powerful. Its roughly the level of the New Mutants or early Teen Titans. You shouldn't expect it to be something more. If you wanna play high powered, than play 500 or 750 points.

I think I could build all the Giant-Size X-Men (the most popular team of all time) with the exception of Wolverine (and possibly even Wolverine as he was introduced at that time) for around 350 points.

 

I certainly don't think 350 point characters are weak. It wasn't that long ago we were playing with 250 point characters. Granted a 350 point character isn't a member of the JLA but he's not a New Muntant or Teen Titan either, IMO.

[Trebuchet]

Let's not lose sight of the obvious fact that 250 or 350 point characters are not powerful in terms of comic book characters. Nor is Superman a 350 point character (No creditable version I've seen of Supes was less than 1000 points). 350 points is average. Heck, I've seen realistic builds of Navy SEALs that topped 200 points.

 

350 points is plenty powerful against normals, agents, and most supervillains. You can easily build Spiderman for 350 points, or any of the X-Men except Phoenix. Total character points are not as important as relative power.

 

If you think about it, even in the comics given enough time the military could take down most heroes or villains. The primary advantage paranormals have is that they are so mobile that they're long gone by the time military hardware can be deployed. Sure an M1A2 Abrams tank can probably take out Dr. Destroyer with a solid hit. But how many hours or days will it take to get the tank there? And what are the odds Dr. D is still going to be in town when the Air Force's C5 Galaxy lands at the local airport to deliver the tank? Would the military really fire a cruise missile against Mechanon when Mechanon is striding through the middle of downtown Chicago?

[Agent X]

Originally posted by GestaltBennie

Guys, they're really not as a big a difference as you think.

 

Since we're talking about what Coils of the Serpent calls "one hit mooks", let's look at the basic VIPER mook in 4th edition and 5th in key stats:

 

4th edition

DEX 14

CON 13

EGO 10

PD 9

ED 6

SPD 3

STUN 25

OCV 5

DCV 5

Best Damage 9d6 w/Find Weakness (average 31 STUN)

 

5th edition

DEX 14 (no change)

CON 13 (no change)

EGO 10 (no change)

PD 10 (+1)

ED 10 (+4)

SPD 3 (no change)

STUN 30 (+5_

OCV 7 (with levels) (+2 change)

DCV 5 (no change)

Best Damage 8d6 (average 28 STUN)

 

The 5th edition baseline agent will hit more often, doing *lower* amounts of damage. They're slightly less likely to get KOed in one shot: anaverage 10d6 attack will KO a 4th edition agent, and only stuns a 5th edition agent, while an average 12d6 attack KOs both. That's not using the recommended quick rules introduced in the tactics section of CotS (under which they're they're both designated one hit mooks which means they both go down with a successful hit regardless of damage).

 

Guys, stop having "point panic" reactions and take a closer look at the stats that matter in a fight. The VIPER 5th edition baseline agent is much more rounded in terms of skills, more capable in non-combat situations, and have more realistic and versatile equipment lists - hat's where the points went. But the differences in actual combat capbility are minor. In both editions, you can custoimize agents and make elite agents who aren't as trivial, and those *can* be pricy. Even so, you have to get up to Superhuman Combat Specialists before you have agents who are seriously buff enough to pose a threat to most supers in anything other than groups in 5th edition. And having "the specialized elite agent" swho shos up as a more serious threat to the heroes is a common comic book trope; usually they provide a threat until the heroes figure out his gimmick and learn to neutralize it, and in my experience, generally your average PC team follows the same pattern (albeit with a little more whining :-))

 

A fight against a basic squad of VIPER agents shouldn't play out much differently in 5th eition than it did in 4th. Where the agents do differ is in modularity; you can have specialized agent teams hich pose more of a threat to the Heroes in 5th. VIPER' can escalate in 5th edition to a frighteningly higher level. But if the GM's is throwing sorcerer Drayshas armed with railguns against your heroes so often that you're no longer seeing the basic greens, you need to sit down with him and tell .him to bring things down a little. But even that's not too much different than it was in 4th edition, where you could find yourself in serious hurt if one too many VIPER vehicles showed up. on the battlefield.

 

Scott Bennie

I don't think they are that different. I gutted 4th edition agents too.

 

I'm guessing by what you've authored that your tastes are different than mine. I really don't like the idea of 5 agents taking down supers. It's not what I read in comics and I like to simulate, to the best of my ability, what I like in comics. I bought Viper for the characters and for some ideas about gadgets. I'm not using the organization.

 

Organizations are very convenient. The provide the referee with an instant hierarchical set of stories that can be inserted into the campaign and villains that can reappear. I understand why they are popular in games. I just don't think the way organizations are being used in Champions is the way they are used in Comics and I'm not beholden to a CU philosophy. I think there are too many Hero/Champions gaming conventions that folks have bought into. Omnipresent organizations with tons of cool tech and numbers that make you wonder why they don't just take over or why you need superheroes, biases based on min/maxing that become "tradition" like buying some stats up like Con but keeping other stats lower like Bod, the mistaken assumption that NCM means 21s in stats are superhuman, the weird notion that playing high point games is immature or pointless, or the ever-present fear among so many Hero players of characters mixing with a great variety of damage classes or speed or combat values are all examples of things that I just don't buy into.

[Metaphysician]

Okay, some of the New Mutants may be lower level than 350. OTOH, the more experienced and powerful ones, like Magma and Magik, would be at least that, maybe more.

 

And I stick with my assessment of the Teen Titans, though perhaps I should have specified Wolfman/Perez New Teen Titans.

 

As for powerful heroes, yeah, it'd be nice to see the stats for some of them. We've got three that are 600+ points, but there ought to be at least a couple canon 700-800 point heroes. Meteorman III *should* have been in the first group at least. . . *grumblegrumble*

[Trebuchet]

Originally posted by Agent X

II really don't like the idea of 5 agents taking down supers. It's not what I read in comics and I like to simulate, to the best of my ability, what I like in comics. I bought Viper for the characters and for some ideas about gadgets.

I don't like a group of five agents taking down supers either, but it's reasonable (and feasible) for 5 agents to occasionally take out a hero. Granted they are largely backdrop in most comics, but if there is no chance for them to ever knock down a hero then there's no point in having them at all. Once you reach that point, then your heroes should never again need to stop a bank robbery or rescue hostages, because it's not challenging enough. Personally, I like the contact and contrast with normal humans a lot in Champions. In my mind Batman and Spiderman are in many ways more heroic than Superman, but also much more human. Bullets will hurt them, and do. Superman could walk through WWII like it's a gentle summer rain. Ho hum. Heroism comes from knowing you can get hurt and still doing it. What's brave about doing something that can't get you hurt? Superman's true heroism springs not from his physical courage but from his moral courage; his insistence on always doing the right thing no matter what.

 

I like occasional run-ins with agents, if only because it's great fun to smash mooks in wholesale lots and because also it's a good reminder to the players of just how capable their PCs are compared to the average cop or soldier. Nothing makes you feel better when you run a super-martial artist and take down an entire Asian street gang singlehanded in 12 seconds, despite the fact that in adventure fiction every Chinese busboy and bicycle courier is a black belt in Kung Fu. (The real life Chinese hero Wong Ki-Ying supposedly singlehandedly took down 38 gang members with a wooden staff in one fight on the Shanghai docks in the 1850s.)

[Lord Liaden]

I'm Back (long post)

 

These are the optional rules that I've developed for high-powered Champions campaigns, to better reflect what I see as being appropriate actions and outcomes for that level of superheroic gaming which are not as well supported by the standard rules. My design philosophy is that these rule variants should not change how a character is written up, but only how some mechanics are applied; that they not substantially change how supers interact with each other in normal combat situations per standard 5E rules; and that even though they're intended to give high-powered supers a "boost," that these rules should be applicable to characters of all levels in such a campaign, or have justifiable reasons why they only apply in some cases. Some of these rules I've been using in my games for a long time, while others are still in the "playtest" stage. I've posted a few on other threads, but this is pretty much the complete list of applicable rule variants to date. (I'm always ready to evaluate more, though.)

 

Pushing. One of the easiest ways to enhance a character's power is to allow casual use of the standard Pushing rules; the character can Push his Powers or Strength by up to 10 Active Points whenever he feels like it, assuming he's willing to pay the extra END. This is something I'm uncomfortable with myself - I prefer Pushing to be an exceptional circumstance, and require even superheroic characters to make an EGO roll to do a standard Push - but it's easy to apply.

 

5E, like its predecessor, says that larger Pushes are possible under extraordinary circumstances, but leaves those circumstances for the GM to define. I've worked out a system allowing for larger Pushes based on rolling against EGO, and adapting suggestions for superheroic Pushing from the third edition of Champions. For every 1 that a character exceeds his EGO roll by, he can Push for an additional 5 Active Points at the cost of 1 END per AP. To keep this mechanic from being too easily abused, or useless when a hero really needs it, I apply situational modifiers to the EGO roll. Attempting to Push to perform a simple or routine task with nothing major at stake would be a -5 penalty to the roll; at the opposite end of the spectrum, actions with the fate of the world at stake would garner a +5 bonus. Actions that work with or against a character's Psych Lims are worth a bonus or penalty depending on the severity of the Limitation: +/-1 for Moderate, +/-2 for Strong, +/-3 for Total. I also apply some of the Situational Modifiers listed for Presence Attacks, +/-1 for each die of effect that would be added or subtracted under those circumstances. I also normally assess an additional -2 penalty for Pushing any mental powers (not just those designated "Mental Powers," but any with a "mental" s/fx) since mentalists usually buy higher Egos than other characters, and would gain an unfair advantage through this system otherwise.

 

Heroes who fail their EGO roll don't get to try again until the situation changes in such a way as to justify an additional bonus modifier to the roll, similar to failed Skill use.

 

I've found this system to work pretty well in actual play - useful but not unbalancing.

 

 

Haymaker. I've been experimenting with using the increased damage structure for Haymakers under the 4E rules for attacks that can be Haymakered under 5E, allowing characters to potentially do more damage with them. For those unfamiliar with this old maneuver, rather than capping damage for a Haymaker at +4 Damage Classes, the earlier version multiplied the damage rolled by x1.5, although only for Haymakers from Strength. Although I don't think it was ever spelled out in the rulebook, most GMs would prorate the damage for Advantages, unlike the current Haymaker. Up to DC 8 the 5E version of Haymaker is equal or better, but beyond that the 4E version does more damage unless the attack is heavily Advantaged.

 

The bonus damage increases geometrically with the base damage of an attack; the bigger the attack the larger the increased damage. For games using the guidelines for Standard Superheroes the changes are not substantial - e.g Damage Class 12 attacks go from DC 16 under 5E Haymakers to DC 18 this way - but when you have to do BODY damage to a structure, vehicle, automaton or Focus, the difference may be crucial. Attacks by very powerful characters gain increasingly greater benefits under this variant Haymaker: at DC 18 (where most of the CU "heavyweights" seem to start), the DC goes from 22 to 27. So this Haymaker scales to more powerful characters who might be expected to take on military forces like tanks, or even starships.

 

I've started letting my players choose which type of Haymaker a given attack will use at the time they build it for their characters, depending on which rule allows for the greatest damage. The inherent restrictions on Haymaker have meant little change to combats between supers; it's intended to be most effective against stationary objects, or tough but slow-reacting targets like tanks. It definitely helps to have a character attempting a Haymaker with a Ranged attack make some show of preparing himself to unleash it (like the fighters in Dragonball Z for ex), so that defenders have warning to prepare to counter it.

 

Here on the boards, Metaphysician suggested putting a cap on the maximum Haymaker damage equal to the largest possible roll on the base attack. I like this because it makes the Haymaker no more inherently powerful than the base attack, but greatly increases the chance of reaching maximum or close to maximum damage. It also eliminates the risk of opponents with huge attacks (like Dr. Destroyer) doing truly insane damage with a Haymaker on an exceptional die roll.

 

As a side note, I've also played with some of the visuals of Haymakers to apply them to effects not normally associated with the Haymaker mechanic. For example, the "Haymakered yank" for peeling the hatches off armored vehicles or ripping the doors out of bank vaults: the superstrong character gets a good grip, braces him/herself, and then pulls back suddenly and sharply.

 

These rules are still being playtested.

 

Instant Kills. Some GMs (myself included) are annoyed by the ability of Hero System characters to survive damage that by rights would be expected to kill them instantly in the real world, because of the "negative BODY" rule. It's a very good rule for heroes as it allows them to endure great injury, carry on bravely while bleeding to death etc. It can stretch credulity when dealing with the common man on the street, though, and can lead to odd situations when villainous opponents attempt to, for example, threaten hostages - players may risk the hostage being hurt assuming they'll be able to save him before he dies.

 

While some GMs would be content to handwave all this for dramatic purposes, others try to create "instant kill" rules to deal with this situation. I wanted one that could be applied to any character, but make for much less risk for superheroes than for normals. I decided that if a character takes BODY damage equal to their starting Body from a single attack, he would have to roll against Constitution or die immediately.

 

For mooks, crowds of innocent bystanders, and others whose survival isn't crucial to a scenario, and whose deaths demonstrate a villain's lethality, it's simpler to just assume that they all fail their CON roll. Superheroes with their higher Constitutions will have a much better chance of survival, even if they take that much BODY, and with their higher Body totals will often not need to roll at all.

 

I don't bring this rule into play often, but there are situations where it makes game and dramatic sense, especially in high-powered campaigns. The more powerful the attacks used by characters, the more you would expect them to be instantly lethal to normal humans.

 

Throwing. The standard Throwing rules work excellently for normal humans, but of course don't allow for the epic distances that some comic book characters can hurl objects. The two most common approaches to dealing with this are to change the basic Throwing rules, or define a Power build that will allow for extremely long throws. The problem with allowing any super-strong character to perform such throws is that it gives them even greater tactical benefits from their STR, which is already a very good buy for what you get. It's conceivable for a brick character to hurl an opponent so far from the field of battle that they can't get back until the fight is over, or to throw a foe straight up and let them fall back at terminal velocity. Also, not all superstrong comic characters demonstrate the skill and coordination for really long throws, any more than they can all make prodigious leaps. For these reasons I prefer to custom build an appropriate Power for extra cost in Character Points, with restrictions to keep it from being unbalancing the game (although there is an exception which I'll get to a little later).

 

My preferred construct is Leaping Usable As An Attack, with a Noncombat Multiplier for distance. The NCM would mean that the character would be in the air for an extended period before landing, allowing them to act to stop themselves or another character to try to intercept them before they hit the ground. The ways I use to defeat this attack are if the target can break a Grab by the attacker using his STR against the attacker's STR, or if the object to be thrown is too heavy for the attacker to lift. Other Limitations could be applied as desired.

 

Another possibility would be to apply a MegaScale Advantage to a character's Strength, turning each hex he can normally throw an object on the Throwing Table into a Megahex. Because MegaScale isn't supposed to work over standard distances, this would make Strength useless in most other ways unless MegaScale is bought as a Naked Advantage or part of Variable Advantages. One difference between this approach over Leaping UAA is that distance scales to the extra STR the character can apply, rather than being a set amount however heavy the object; some may find that more logical. OTOH making the distance Megadistance means that the victim traverses it virtually instantaeously, which may not only seem less "realistic" but neutralizes any attempt to intercept the victim.

 

All that being said, I personally find the standard throwing distances still a bit low for superstrong characters. I ended up adapting a modified version of the throwing chart from Third Edition Champions: for every 5 points of extra Strength a super has, he can throw an object 10" with a running throw, 5" with a standing throw, or 2" with a prone throw. So, let's say Grond with STR 90 grabs a human-sized target (+80 extra STR) and hurls him with a running throw. By the standard rules he could fling the hapless dude a maximum of 64" or 128 meters. With the modified Throwing rules said dude would sale up to 160" or 320 meters; still not epic, but much more respectable. I've found in playtest that increasing the distance this way in a combat situation rarely has much influence on the ebb and flow of battle.

 

For my 5E games I've established a cutoff point for using the "super" throwing table at greater than STR 40, on the grounds that 40 is the maximum that a normal human could Push his Strength to (according to the official guidelines for human characteristic limits), so anything beyond that is truly superhuman.

 

Real Weapon. Part of the description of this Limitation says that it can include restrictions on what the weapon can damage no matter how good the damage roll is, like using a dagger to cut through a stone wall. The precise restriction is left up to the GM, though. For my games I defined the restriction in such a way as to allow for some common comic-book feats by supers when faced with assaults by modern technology, which is often depicted as being ineffective against them.

 

As many Champions players know, even characters with powerful Defenses can sometimes be affected by mere handguns which happen to make a great STUN damage roll. Massed automatic weapons fire can even bring such a hero down. Standard Effect for damage helps, but once the troops start bringing up man-portable heavy weapons like Stingers or LAW, even that rule is often not enough to save supers from humiliating defeat. It begs the question of why superheroes would even be needed if modern military have this capacity, or why supervillain agencies equip their troops with high-tech blasters when common assault rifles are as effective or moreso.

 

Virtually all of the modern weapons written up in FREd or for the vehicles in The Ultimate Vehicle have taken the "Real Weapon" Limitation. For my games I've defined that Lim as meaning, among other things, that if a weapon can't do any BODY damage to a target with its largest attack roll, no STUN damage gets through to the target either, no matter how large the STUN total. For example, a character with 12 or more Resistant Physical Defense can walk through a hail of bullets (usually 2D6 RKA or less) completely unharmed, a common feat for comic book bricks. Once you get into Mechanon's range of Defense (30 or more), even Stingers and LAW would do little. (I do retain Knockback for such weapons, though, since it's in-genre and I just think it looks cool.) Because "street level" heroes typically have lower DEF, especially Resistant DEF, normal guns usually still affect them normally, which is also in genre.

 

I count the Armor Piercing Advantage for purposes of determining whether a given weapon could do BODY to a particular target, but not Piercing, and no Piercing damage is taken in this case. I've found this Limitation to work really well for characters who are supposed to be able to laugh at non-superpowered or -specially equipped opposition.

 

Self-Inflicted Damage. This is a rule largely taken from the original (pre-4th Edition) Golden Age of Champions campaign sourcebook, with some updating suggested by Alistair Curry (aka "Alibear" here on the boards). It's intended to reflect injury that normal people often experience when forcefully striking very hard objects like walls, armor plating, or the super-hard skin of some superheroes. It also helps explain how trained martial artists can shatter things like boards and concrete blocks without shattering their hands instead. While this effect can be simulated by adding a Damage Shield (Viperia in the new VIPER sourcebook has one for this purpose), it doesn't make a lot of sense to add that to all the real-world items that this effect might apply to.

 

The rule is: When a character attacks something with Resistant Defenses (which all hard, rigid objects in HERO have, as well as some superhumans), figure the damage that the attack would do normally. If the attack causes more BODY than the total Resistant Defense of the target (apply any Advantages such as Armor Piercing normally), the attacker takes no damage. However, if the character does not exceed the target's Resistant Defense, the attacker will take STUN and BODY,subtracting the characters own Defenses. If using Hit Locations, the character takes full damage modified for the Hit Location used to attack (hand, head, etc.) If not using Hit Locations the attacker takes half damage as if having performed a Move Through on the target.

 

So, when trying to break an object, if the character is able to do BODY to it (i.e. break it) with their blow, it doesn't hurt them. If they can't do any BODY to it, they injure themselves in the process. Although I tend to use this rule for any genre of game, it works well for the classic "normal person punches invulnerable hero and draws hand back in pain" scenario. In practice it rarely comes into play except with characters whose attacks are very large compared to their Defenses, such as some martial artists. Two bricks tussling with each other probably never need to account for it. When it is appropriate to apply it, though, it helps emphasize the difference between human and superhuman.

[Lord Liaden]

Originally posted by innominatus

I appreicate the kind words, Liaden. Although for future reference? It's a "helluva thing" (killing a man, that is), not "an awesome thing"....

 

 

 

I'll take your word for it, and I appreciate the correction.

[Guest Champsguy]

Lord Liaden, I use the throwing chart from Fuzion. It allows much greater distances at the really high levels, without making things too unbalancing on the low end.

[Agent X]

Originally posted by Trebuchet

I don't like a group of five agents taking down supers either, but it's reasonable (and feasible) for 5 agents to occasionally take out a hero. Granted they are largely backdrop in most comics, but if there is no chance for them to ever knock down a hero then there's no point in having them at all. Once you reach that point, then your heroes should never again need to stop a bank robbery or rescue hostages, because it's not challenging enough. Personally, I like the contact and contrast with normal humans a lot in Champions. In my mind Batman and Spiderman are in many ways more heroic than Superman, but also much more human. Bullets will hurt them, and do. Superman could walk through WWII like it's a gentle summer rain. Ho hum. Heroism comes from knowing you can get hurt and still doing it. What's brave about doing something that can't get you hurt? Superman's true heroism springs not from his physical courage but from his moral courage; his insistence on always doing the right thing no matter what.

 

I like occasional run-ins with agents, if only because it's great fun to smash mooks in wholesale lots and because also it's a good reminder to the players of just how capable their PCs are compared to the average cop or soldier. Nothing makes you feel better when you run a super-martial artist and take down an entire Asian street gang singlehanded in 12 seconds, despite the fact that in adventure fiction every Chinese busboy and bicycle courier is a black belt in Kung Fu. (The real life Chinese hero Wong Ki-Ying supposedly singlehandedly took down 38 gang members with a wooden staff in one fight on the Shanghai docks in the 1850s.)

Superman is just as much a hero because he does have his life threatened by doing the good thing and still does the good thing. It's just not as common for it to come up.

 

I don't play lots of high point games but I don't design my universe to preclude it either. That's all I'm saying.

 

I don't have a problem with encounters with agents. I have a problem with agents walking around with 14d6 EBs strapped on. In my mind, agents pose the greatest threat to heroes by springing traps on them, using resources that are not "carry on" It's okay for heroes to be blind-sided by agents and captured once in a while but, should the hero notice the trap, it should be reasonably easy for the hero to overcome. If you've got 5 special agents running around with as much or more firepower up against a hero, I think you've missed the point. And I really think the approach to organizations in the published materials encourage the use of Viper agents as hero-busters.

 

Gamers talk about it on the forums and explain how the heroes would much rather face a team of supervillains than a squad of Viper agents. To me, that's telling. Why? Because that has been my experience among Champions gamers around the Oklahoma City area as well. There are a lot of GMs who love to set around and play Mission Impossible with their agents taking out Heroes because they can rationalize these agents ambushing the heroes with lots of support and all the goodies in the Viper book.

 

One of my biggest complaints with the agents approach is that it's just not as personal. Joe Bob Agent 41303, just doesn't get the blood pumping to duke it out with like Spiderman fighting his archrival, Green Goblin.

[Lord Liaden]

Originally posted by Champsguy

Lord Liaden, I use the throwing chart from Fuzion. It allows much greater distances at the really high levels, without making things too unbalancing on the low end.

 

I have that from Second Edition C:NM, but I never quite figured out how to make it conform to the HERO STR Characteristic scale. It also seemed rather "ungrainy" to me - big jumps without a lot in between.

 

Can you suggest how to convert it to HERO System, or point me somewhere that might have more details?

[Killer Shrike]

Originally posted by Agent X

I think there are too many Hero/Champions gaming conventions that folks have bought into. Omnipresent organizations with tons of cool tech and numbers that make you wonder why they don't just take over or why you need superheroes, biases based on min/maxing that become "tradition" like buying some stats up like Con but keeping other stats lower like Bod, the mistaken assumption that NCM means 21s in stats are superhuman, the weird notion that playing high point games is immature or pointless, or the ever-present fear among so many Hero players of characters mixing with a great variety of damage classes or speed or combat values are all examples of things that I just don't buy into.

 

I agree completely with this part.

 

 

As far as agents go, I dont have any problems w/ elite agents if they serve a purpose as I dont think it should take a "named" villain to threaten the PCs, but they should be elite, as in the connotative meaning of elite = few. If there are relatively many "elite" agents, then they arent really elite, they are baseline.

 

Im more prone, when using agents, to have a serious threat be a gaggle of mooks lead by a super-elite agent and maybe 2 elite agents in "non-com" type roles, a kesser threat being a smaller force composed of about half as many mooks and 1 elite agent leader.

 

A real crack team might be a crew of 5 to 10 or so of the "elites" lead by a "super-elite", and such a team should be occasional. When such a team shows up the players shouldnt say "These guys again? Yawn; we fought them yesterday", because such teams are used uniformly. They should say "OH $#&^!!! What did we do to deserve these guys?", and start sweating knowing that they can win but that it will require concentration and teamwork.

 

IMO of course, Others MMV

[Trebuchet]

I'm just playing Devil's Advocate here, Doug. I don't use VIPER or VIPER knockoffs in my campaign either for some of the same reasons you list. I will use agents, but generally the organizations they represent are relatively small and based out of a particular location. I threw neo-Nazis at my team in Vienna, mostly because everyone loves beating up Nazis. While they had some high-tech gear (mostly mech-like vehicles), most of their troops were only as well equipped and trained as an average soldier. The mechs did pretty well, although our team smashed them in the end. The company of neo-Nazi troops were stomped by one member of MidGuard.

 

In real life if an organization like VIPER existed there could only be two possible outcomes:

 

1) They're so powerful they'd take over a country and operate from there in relative security. If buffoons like Saddam Hussein and Mohammar Quaddafi can take over countries, how much easier would it be for the Supreme Serpent? Think about it: Saddam was the local version of Al Capone; a mere gangland thug.

 

2) They'd be so dangerous the world's superpowers would come after them with a vengeance. Cold War politics meant Russia and the US (and perhaps China) couldn't agree on much of anything. But VIPER would be a threat to even those nations. With Americans and Russians actively cooperating, how long do you think VIPER would survive as an organization? The Mafia survives mostly by being below the radar. If they started wasting government officials and attacking SAC bases they'd come to a grisly end very quickly.

 

Somebody on the "Worldbeaters" thread had a bizarre scenario with the Ultimates easily smashing a military force sent after them. But in real life the military wouldn't send in tanks and other obvious and slow-moving equipment against supervillains. Their opening move would have been dropping a 15000 pound "daisy cutter" bomb targetted on Binder's picnic basket. Most of the Ultimates would be dead without ever knowing they were under attack. Attack helicopters or F-15Es with 2000 pound bombs would finish off the one or two survivors. Eurostar wouldn't fare any better.

 

The only thing that would keep supervillains alive, just as it does bin Laden, is hiding. Once anyone got good intel on a villain team's whereabouts, the fight would be brief. The same would apply to agent groups like VIPER.