Upon Further Review: The Champions

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Upon Further Review: The Champions

 

The Champs are just iconic characters. Ignore them.

 

In my CU game they had mysteriously disappeared right after the game started and no one knows where they went to (except maybe Dr. Silverback, but so far he hasnt made with the details).

 

The PCs, the Millennial Men, started off in the 375 range and over time got into the low to mid 400's. Plus I dont play w/ point caps, so they are all more powerful than the Chumpions.

 

The Champs can stay gone until the campaign is officiall over, and then come back for future games if needed. {shrugs}

[caris]

Re: Upon Further Review: The Champions

 

edit - to remove quote, that I never meant to have in. Danged quick response.

 

 

This is probably more appropriate to the Champions vs. Mechanon thread, but I'll broach it here. I notice that Witchfire gets dismissed a lot in discussing confrontations with Mechanon. While I realize that the size of her VPP makes it pretty much useless for a direct attack on Mechanon, wouldn't her using it in some sort of support stance really alter the odds a lot. Say a Darkness to the Hearing and Radio Sense groups, 1-hex, Usable as an Attack, combined with a spread Flash by Sapphire, could give the other Champions a good chance to hit. Perhaps follow that up with Defender Dispelling Mechanon's flight to get him into range for Ironclad to do a grab?

[zornwil]

Re: Upon Further Review: The Champions

 

So what would you use as a starting character amount Zornwill' date=' I am still muddling my way through and building my setting, [b']Pantheon[/b] and just want to know what veterans have done

Well, to be fair, first, I think most people use the higher Disad scores the books indicate and examples abound here of such being done successfully. And as to Disads and what the values mean, I should point out that the occurrence of a Disad doesn't mean it should be debilitating or even necessarily overtly affecting the character negatively each time it occurs, rather, it simply has an effect of some sort, even if just by way of preparation for later problems or just influencing the actions of the PC. For example, a Hunted may show up in an issue but it may only be in the background, executing a plan and making progress while the PC remains ignorant. At least this is how it is deployed in practice.

 

My objection is that I really see a dichotomy between the requirement that a Disadvantage truly be disadvantageous and this practice, however established by tradition, and however supported by the book's reference to supporting Disad appearances that don't directly affect the character or occur "off-screen". I don't have the book handy and would have to really review the 5th edition comments again, but, that notwithstanding, the basis of my objection is that the level of disadvantageousness is either meaningful as a ruile that can be applied across games or it is not (and as such should be expressed differently than as a rule), and I say this common practice renders the values meaningless/arbitrary and thus negates the rules as such. I say this because most Disads as given in the rules have a parameter referring to their frequency of occurrence as well as severity. If the frequency refers to the number of in-game occurrences at the designated severity, we have a true measure of the Disadvantage, and we should not be violating that with examples such as "well, it came into play as called for, but it didn't 'really matter' this time aside from flavor"; in fact such instances should be on the occassions where the Disad is not called for by frequency but rather happens anyway, with the lack of severity corresponding to the fact this was not a "true" occurrence of the Disad itself.

 

If the frequency refers to the number of in-game occurrences but the severity "floats" with the designated severity occurring only "occasionally" - well, then, how often does the stated severity occur? Without that guideline I suggest the Disad has an undefined effect and thus the value is marginalized.

 

Thus the common practice, however orthodox, is directly at odds with the Disadvantage rules system in my opinion.

 

I think this is particularly true when a Disad is what I feel is "stacked", such as "Psych Lim: Afraid of Water" with "Vulnerability: 2x Damage from Water" and "Social Lim: Doesn't use water". Somewhere in there I think it's wholly inappropriate even if the 3 individually are correct, as the frequency and severity of each then must become additive and in play that's almost impossible on a regular basis. Most often, the maximum severity will top out at some combination of 2 items of simlar SFX (the Psych Lim + the Vulnerability or the Soc Lim + the Vulnerability, but even if all 3 come into play the actual max severity is rarely worse than it would have been with any 2 combined).

 

Anyway, to answer your question directly, with my ongoing current supers campaign, I used 50 at first and went with 60 points as characters were submitted and the game started reaching the "right" level among everyone. That level seems right to me. I'll fully admit to a lot of change with disads in actual play as PCs tend to shape themselves after they start playing. People tend to revise their Disads appropriately or in some cases, as the plots develop, we just acknowledge one Disad ended up being bigger than planned while another smaller.

 

For the heroic-level modern action game I just started, I used 15-35 as the points range for Disads, with the base as 55-75, the PCs having to total out to 90 (e.g., 55+35 or 75+15 or 60+30).