Campaign Limitations

[Craenor]

I'm just curious. Assuming a campaign of 350 pt. characters in a modern-ish setting (comparable to a standard Marvel or DC comic)...what kind of campaign limiations do you apply?

 

Active point cost limitation?

 

Speed limitation?

 

Amount of damage dice for an attack?

 

Max defenses?

 

I'm just curious what other people set these levels at...or if they don't use levels at all.

 

Craenor

[TheEmerged]

Re: Campaign Limitations

 

Active point cost limitation? I've instituted a system I call "active point cap" and it's been working rather well. For the players, this means individual powers can exceed 75 active points but frameworks cannot -- and the maximum value of the EC pool is 37 points. It's actually more complicated than this but that's a good simplification of it.

 

Speed limitation? 12 Here I think it's more important to let the players know what the rest of the campaign is like than to enforce numbers. The players know that the average person on the street is a 2, a cop is probably a 3, a special-forces type a 4, and so forth. It helps that the players are experienced enough with the mechanics to understand diminishing returns and such.

 

Amount of damage dice for an attack? Starts with 15d6 given my 75 active point cap -- but in the superheroic genre I don't enforce this too strongly. One of my PC's for example can unleash a 19d6 move-thru unbuffed, 22d6 fully buffed.

 

Max defenses? I'm actually proud of my system here

 

MIN: Build an Energy Blast with +1 in advantages as close to the active cap as possible (7.5d6 at 75pt, 6d6 at 60pt). Multiply that number by 2 and you have the minimum score a PC should have in basic defenses (PD and ED). This comes out 15 for 75pt caps and 12 for 60pt caps.

 

MAX: Build an Energy Blast with no advantages this time (15d6 at 75pt, 12d6 at 60pt). Multiply that by 3 and you have the highest score a PC should have in basic defenses without a Darn Good Reason. This comes out 45 for 75pt caps and 36 for 60 pt caps.

 

AVG/Expected: Build that Energy Blast with a +1/2 advantage this time (10d6 at 75pt, 8d6 at 60pt). Mulitply that by 2.5 and you've got the expected score for basic defenses. This comes out 25 for 75pt caps and 20 for 60pt caps.

 

UNUSUAL (Power and Flash): Take the values for basic defenses and cut it in half. Note that the "minimum" reflects not a score everyone should have but the minimum anyone bothering to buy it should purchase.

 

MENTAL: Since I use MD as an attribute instead of a power my players know that anything with a mind is going to have at least some MD. Use the "Unusual" minimum but the "Basic" Maximum.

 

WHAT THAT MEANS: The stereotypical energy protector (ED higher than PD) under a 75pt cap might be expected to have a 30 ED and 20 PD. ED>45 or PD<15 would require a Darn Good Reasom. If this character wants to buy a Flash s/he should build it knowing anyone that's purchased FD will have 7 or 8 points of it.

[Fenixcrest]

Re: Campaign Limitations

 

I have a 70 Active cap on attack powers and a 60 Active cap on defenses, but I'm liking that rule about how attacks that aren't in frameworks don't need to fall under the cap, Emerged. It would certainly help when you're making that one huge desperation move... or that one huge duplication...

 

As for characteristics, I generally rule that no Characteristic can exceed the number 60. However, I might allow for STR beyond that if it had END limitations or some such. Or I might just say that 60 is the campaign maxima, and beyond that costs double. I dunno. It hasn't come up yet.

 

Normal skills, at least on starting characters, can only have 15 points invested in any given regular skill (background included.) CSL's and PSL's can have no more than 20 points each (per skill, not total). So far, the system works out alright for me.

[Trebuchet]

Re: Campaign Limitations

 

No caps at all. We used to have caps but got rid of them when we upgraded to FREd because they were making everyones attacks too similar (with a 60 AP cap, everyone on the team did 11 or 12d6. Now we do between 10 and 15d6. We currently use a guideline of SPD + DC is less than or equal to 20 which seems to work pretty well. (Only one character breaks this guideline; and that only in theory. He's never exceeded it in actual play. He has a 90 point VPP.) Plus we enforce schtick. Nobody else is as fast and agile as our gymnast/MA; nobody else is as strong and tough as our brick; etc.

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Campaign Limitations

 

I cheat.

 

I'm the only one that anybody in the group considers 'competent' enough to build characters, so everybody just gives me an outline and a background and lets me build their characters for 'em, then we go over them and iron out details from there.

 

So ... they wind up with whatever power level it is I decide to give them.

[Dust Raven]

Re: Campaign Limitations

 

I cheat.

 

I'm the only one that anybody in the group considers 'competent' enough to build characters, so everybody just gives me an outline and a background and lets me build their characters for 'em, then we go over them and iron out details from there.

 

So ... they wind up with whatever power level it is I decide to give them.

That's the default for my game as well, but some of my players are learning...

 

In general, I don't use absolute caps on anything. I have a few suggested averages however. I pretty much say that if you have defenses less than 15 a "big" attack is likely to knock them out in one, maybe two hits, and that they should have their primary attacks at least 8d6 to be even remotely effective against most targets, but more damage will be needed to tackle the highly armored types (such a bricks). There are always exceptoins, such a low defenses but an obsene DEX/DCV, or low damage classes but they are all AVLD or NND.

 

But anything goes. If the character really wants that 20d6 EB, I'll allow it as long as it's in concept, and in the hands of a responsible player (like one that will use those dice for spreading rather than damage).

[TheEmerged]

Re: Campaign Limitations

 

RE: Characteristics. My usual rule for *BASE* characteristics is that you can only add points equal to the active cap to an attrtibute -- so for a 75pt cap the maximum STR score would be 85 (10+75) and the maximum DEX score would be 35 (10+(75/3)).

 

Editted to correct the distinction between base and figured characteristics

[Craenor]

Re: Campaign Limitations

 

Nice answers...thanks for the thoughts. I hope you guys don't mind if I steal some of this.

 

Right now I am using 75 active point cap for most things. But if you are a "one trick pony" you can have 90-100 active points - all things considered.

 

Speed cap is 8, unless that's going to be your Schtick that you are "the speed guy" in which case you can go to 12.

 

I disallow VPP's that are changeable during the adventure unless one of my more experienced players wants to use one. If you let an inexperienced player have one I find that you are asking for a lot problems when they try to figure out what they can do. (if they are really set on this, I'll allow it if they come up with several powers the pool has and write them out).

 

I also keep most of my npc's to these same limitations with the exception of a few key NPC's (big bad guys, etc).

 

Thanks again for the info though...

 

Craenor

[TheEmerged]

Re: Campaign Limitations

 

Nice answers...thanks for the thoughts. I hope you guys don't mind if I steal some of this.

 

You can't steal what is being given away Beware he who would try to control the release of information, for in his heart he thinks himself your master...

[Metaphysician]

Re: Campaign Limitations

 

Campaign limitations?? ROFLMAO!!

 

Well, I guess *technically* we have some kind of limit, but the only practical limit is to keep overlap between characters relatively low. Otherwise, almost anything possible for 750 points is a go.

[zornwil]

Re: Campaign Limitations

 

No caps at all. We used to have caps but got rid of them when we upgraded to FREd because they were making everyones attacks too similar (with a 60 AP cap' date=' everyone on the team did 11 or 12d6. Now we do between 10 and 15d6. We currently use a guideline of [i']SPD + DC is less than or equal to 20[/i] which seems to work pretty well. (Only one character breaks this guideline; and that only in theory. He's never exceeded it in actual play. He has a 90 point VPP.) Plus we enforce schtick. Nobody else is as fast and agile as our gymnast/MA; nobody else is as strong and tough as our brick; etc.

 

Pretty much the same except I never used them, even going back to 2nd (though I can't recall when they were introduced, I believe it was significantly later anyway), for 2 reasons:

- 1, early on, the players and I both were learning so figured it out as we went along

- 2, later on, I felt the same as Treb does now with 5th (not sure what would have prompted the time difference in perceiving that?), seemed that people were too eager to flock to the caps when the discussion came up, so I just stayed away from them

 

Bear in mind I run, as lemming puts it, a balanced unbalanced game and YMMV (and most likely does).