Schmucks?

[Starlord]

Re: Schmucks?

 

When I say their view is valid, I mean it's cool that they want to have it in their games. As has been stated, however, what makes it into published canon actually matters. If things that turn people off HERO make it into print, less people buy the game, and DOJ risks going the way of it's predecessor.

 

Someone getting fed up with the UberNPC heroes their GM is embarassing them with, OTOH, might just quit.

Hmmm. IMO both these points can be helped by utilizing the Campaign Use section given with every NPC in the CU. Every character comes with ways to empower or depower them. Additionally, your second point can also be a GM problem.

 

DOJ repeatedly harps all over their products that you should play the game at whatever level you're comfortable with, every NPC they give is a guideline/example, not a rule. They might be thought of as 'middle-ground'. They give ways to up the power level of all their 'officially statted'(again, those aren't the only heroes in the CU, y'know fellas, just the only ones completed so far. Some folks talk like this a static universe that will never, ever be added onto....) heroes, for those of you who absolutely must have it.

[Metaphysician]

Re: Schmucks?

 

non-800pt characters who can kick their asses?

Simply ignoring an issue that matters only to a handful of fans who are already so heavily into the setting they'll buy stuff anyway instead of creating Elmonsters?

 

Actually. Know what would be really cool?

 

The Extremes! A team of overall weak characters... with singular mighty powers. (I might just start writing up my vision of these guys shortly... watch this space)

 

The first option is not doable withou incredible munchkinism far out of line with any published material. The second option is *not a solution*, its called "ignoring the problem." It is also called "destroying suspension of disbelief."

[Metaphysician]

Re: Schmucks?

 

Plausablity is worthless. Playability is far more important.

And its difficult to "play" in a setting that has no internal consistency.

 

And 350 points is NOT low powered unless the characters are intentionally designed to be low powered (which you can do with any point value).

 

Okay, the problem with this: if you apply X tricks to make a 350 point character powerful far beyond his point total, *he is still weaker than a 600 point character built to the same standards.*

 

Thus, the characters are still weak guys on the totem pole, *unless you apply a blatant doube standard in their favor, vis a vis the heroic and villainous NPCs.*

[Metaphysician]

Re: Schmucks?

 

I'm not even sure who the New Warriors _are_.

 

That said, 350 is plenty for accurate translations of, say, the X-men.

 

And the X-Men aren't the ones who've stopped Galactus, Dr Doom, Ultron, Loki, Kang, etc. The considerably more powerful Fantastic Four and Avengers did.

[Metaphysician]

Re: Schmucks?

 

You are correct. According to the conversion written by George McDonald Shift X tops at 26d6. I guess that makes Dr.Destroyer Shift Y.

 

And according to an actual look at the *mechanics benchmarks*, 30 DCs is somewhere about Mn. So apparently McDonald decided to just make stuff up.

[Metaphysician]

Re: Schmucks?

 

just curious--is there a middle ground in this debate? Is there an NPC hero point level above 350 that would be somewhat combat effective(without massively tweaked writeups) in teams against the higher level villains in the CU, and still acceptable/tolerable to those who prefer lower-powered play?

 

I think an NPC hero team of 5-8 members, built using the "very high powered superhero" parameters(600 points(plus maybe up to 99xp), 120 AP caps, etc), could provide a reasonable explanation for why the Takofanes and Mechanons of the CU don't just overrun everything. When you don't want them around, just say they're out in space or in another dimension or another mission saving the world or something.

 

Eventually, after several years of gaming, the PC team would be the equal of that team, and be doing the same kind of missions.

 

Nobody gets uptight if they play a certain other game system and occasionally run across a heroic NPC a few levels above them...

 

 

Actually, thats right around the point value we ( the pro powerful NPC heroes ) side was talking about. Usually we say 750 points for convenience, but 700 or so would work too, so long as the characters are built reasonably efficiently.

 

Which means, naturally, that it won't work as a middle ground, though.

[Metaphysician]

Re: Schmucks?

 

X-Men of what era? I submit that you can build most any mid- to high-powered Marvel/DC characters on 350 pts from a 'conceptual' standpoint. However, no way does 350 come close to being able to approximate what most of those heroes have been proven to be able to do say, at least 3-5 times, in the comics.

 

NOTE: I usually completely ignore OHOTMU assertions, they're proven to be WAY off the mark (admittedly so by its own editors), particularly as the power levels increase. Not even close with regards to Class 100 strength characters.

 

Thats another thing: when I ( and many others, probably ) talk about the amount of points needed to do a character ( directly or a good clone ), I am usually not talking about the character *when they started out*. I'm talking about doing the character as he exists today ( or some other good benchmark time, like Morrison run for any JLAer ).

 

Now, if people want to say you can do a given character concept circa their origin on 350 points, than yeah, in most cases, its true.

[Metaphysician]

Re: Schmucks?

 

Champions simulates comics

 

Champions provides game world.

 

Comics Heroes are actually more powerful than the the vilains,

 

Champions heroes are weak any way you wish to describe it.

 

Game setting problem.

 

Not quite. In DC, yeah, thats usually the case. In Marvel, however, the main opponents for the heroes and hero teams are usually more powerful.

 

Think about it:

 

-The Fantastic Four have the likes of Dr Doom and Galactus, nevermind various other alien forces, cosmic entities, and suchlike

 

-The Avengers have Ultron and Kang

 

-Thor has Loki, Mangog, Surtur, and any other mythic entities they care to haul out

 

-Dr Strange tends to oppose elder gods and lovecraftian horrors

 

-The X-Men have Magneto

[Metaphysician]

Re: Schmucks?

 

My suggested middle ground was non-high points high powered heroes. At least that way players can say 'ooh. I wanna build my 350pt hero like THAT!'.

 

Because as a newbie, it _really sucked_ to look at characters built on tons of points and think "ooh, cool". This is why this is important.

 

But then what do your players do with the XP they gain??

 

More importantly, *what did the NPC heroes who have been active for years do with their XP*??

[Metaphysician]

Re: Schmucks?

 

Hmmm. IMO both these points can be helped by utilizing the Campaign Use section given with every NPC in the CU. Every character comes with ways to empower or depower them. Additionally, your second point can also be a GM problem.

 

DOJ repeatedly harps all over their products that you should play the game at whatever level you're comfortable with, every NPC they give is a guideline/example, not a rule. They might be thought of as 'middle-ground'. They give ways to up the power level of all their 'officially statted'(again, those aren't the only heroes in the CU, y'know fellas, just the only ones completed so far. Some folks talk like this a static universe that will never, ever be added onto....) heroes, for those of you who absolutely must have it.

 

The thing is, the power levels given as the default are the "canon" power levels; ie, the ones that are used to determine who is in the default setting.

 

Thus, they are the ones one must use to determine whether the default setting makes sense.

 

Besides, you can't just uppower all the currently published heroes, because then, you will be lacking in any low-powered heroes in the setting.

 

Lastly, yes, they haven't filled in the NPC big heroes yet, but could. However, we *want* them filled in, partly because it reduces GM work, and partly because DoJ is just plain good at character creation, and we want to see the cool epic hero stories.

 

However, it is a point worth fighting over, because until they actually *are* published, they may or may not be. Hence, the debate with those who don't want them.

[Chuckg]

Re: Schmucks?

 

edit: I'm playing one in a city defender team style campaign right now, enjoying it just fine.

 

edit edit: And yes, before someone asks, there are npcs more powerful than us by several leagues floating around in the background somewhere being the reason why Takofanes and co haven't romped all over Earth. It doesn't really matter because they and we operate on a level that doesn't really have anything to do with each other, we not being a team of global superheroes.

 

Folks, for the record, I'm the DM of that game.

 

And hell, there's a 600-point hero in your very own campaign city. Who's also the local Silver Avenger and PRIMUS Base Commander, so he has a buttload of support. /And/ at least one of the players took Professional Rivalry with him.

 

So, Mark, according to the sage pronouncements of many here, you are all doomed to have the DM's Elminster to overshadow you all...

 

... oh, wait. Not only did your team save his ass from getting clocked by a thrown 18-wheeler in the first session, you then proceeded to repeatedly upstage him. By a combo of, you know, the players RP'ing with reasonable common sense, and the DM not being a complete idiot.

 

Theory has met practice. Theory has taken one straight in the ass.

[nexus]

Re: Schmucks?

 

But then what do your players do with the XP they gain??

 

More importantly, *what did the NPC heroes who have been active for years do with their XP*??

 

Not to speak for Whammawhamme, but in practice, I don't give NPCs experience.

[Chuckg]

Re: Schmucks?

 

I think you may have mistaken the number 3 for the number 2. They do look alike.

 

[MitchellS]

Re: Schmucks?

 

And according to an actual look at the *mechanics benchmarks*' date=' 30 DCs is somewhere about Mn. So apparently McDonald decided to just make stuff up.[/quote']

I think you're looking at something you made up yourself. The only benchmark tables we have are in 5E, and they list Very High Powerful heroes in the 14-20d6 range, and Cosmically Powerful in the 14d6+ range. By your definition Thing has a 150 Str (to do 30d6 punches) because he has a Monstrous strength.Perhaps in your games the Things does 30d6 but not in mine or anyone else's I have ever game in over the last 22 years. That's not the way the system is designed to work; and I think George McDonald had a pretty good understanding of how it works.

[BcAugust]

Re: Schmucks?

 

You know, I've gotten to the point where I have to respond. First, some background. I've been playing for only a few months, just recently having gotten a second(350) character, in a city defenders campaign. My other one (Crown Princess Cyrande of Malva) is a New Sentinels member, built on 750.

 

Ok, just to clear up some things, let me say I personally don't care what point total what any of my characters come up to. I'd rather not even bother doing a lot of the mechanics tricks and all that to try and make my character the absolute most effective she could be. Luckly, I don't have to. As far as I'm concerned, more points just means I can build my character to fit my vision of her better, not "Improve her combat capabilities".

 

I'm starting to wonder about some of you. Yeah, I "waste" points. But guess what, it lets my character be a character. On three fifty, Nox isn't as "effective" as you guys think you can make her. But I like her just fine. She doesn't need to be a strong, she's a starting character. She'll grow, and having skills in other areas just makes her interesting.

 

Oh, and on the whole "I want to see effective 350 writeups" ... How is that not taking more control from the GM's hands? Honestly, the writeups are meant so that if the GM wants something more effective, they can approve or disapprove it. And it's much harder for a GM, especially an inexperienced one, to say no to official builds.

[KA.]

Re: Schmucks?

 

Well, as usually happens in threads that go on for any length, I have managed to argue myself back around to the starting point.

 

One thing I must point out, even though I am in the "high power NPC" camp:

WhammeWhamme is not exactly advocating the idea that high power NPC's don't fit in the established game world.

His real point is that the game world did not need to be pushed up in power to begin with.

Not that there was no need for a range of power levels in both PC's and NPC's, but that they did not need to move up the starting level.

 

That still does not mean that you can actually build Dr. Doom as he appears in comics on 250 pts. or 350 pts., but for those of us who have been around a long time, the 500 pt. Dr. Destroyer used to scare the crap out of our 200 pt. PC's. If you are gaming within a created world, rather than attempting to recreate a particular comic, then things really are all relative.

You cannot create Dr. Doom for 350 points, but if your PC's are limited to 200 pts. then you can create someone who is that level of "scary" for 400-500.

 

I am not really switching sides here, it is just that I too, for quite a while, thought that WhammeWhamme was obstinately denying the reality that the current crop of NPC's could not stop the Major Threats. What he really seems to be saying is that there is no real reason for the Major Threats to be as powerful as they are.

 

One bit of perspective I have gained, however. I think things are about as far along the scale as they need to be. Other than normal character growth through XP, I don't think that the power level of NPC's (and PC's for that matter) needs to be ramped up again at any future time. In other words, I don't want 6th Ed. Champions to have starting characters at 450 pts.

Why?

Because I kind of like the SPD chart the way it is.

I am not trying to start some kind of hippie, left wing, Points conservation campaign.

But, at the previous, and even the current, starting levels, not everyone could, or would want to, spend the points for a SPD of 12.

Now I know that there is such a thing as "concept" and "GM control" and all that.

And I do enforce limits in my world.

But eventually it gets to be like being a Multi-Millionaire who gives his teenaged son a $10,000/week allowance, but won't let him buy a sportscar.

It is a lot easier to say no to something when the person doesn't really have the resources to buy it.

As the starting power level creeps up, the starting SPD tends to creep up too.

Eventually you either have a whole bunch of people with SPDs of 8,9,10 or above, and there is less granularity to divide Brick from MA from Speedster.

I don't think there is a major problem now, I am just saying that I hope that starting points don't get jumped up with each new edition, as if this somehow makes it "bigger and better".

 

This too may be part of what WhammeWhamme is so concerned about.

 

KA.

[Kristopher]

Re: Schmucks?

 

And its difficult to "play" in a setting that has no internal consistency.

 

Okay, the problem with this: if you apply X tricks to make a 350 point character powerful far beyond his point total, *he is still weaker than a 600 point character built to the same standards.*

 

Thus, the characters are still weak guys on the totem pole, *unless you apply a blatant doube standard in their favor, vis a vis the heroic and villainous NPCs.*

 

That's something I've been wondering about. What good does it do to implement hyper-"efficient" builds on 350 pt characters, when the same thing can be done with the 1000 pt characters? Don't we end up right back where we started?

[Kristopher]

Re: Schmucks?

 

Personally, I think there's no reason for the megavillains to be as powerful and point-bloated as they are.

 

But now that it's been established that they are that powerful, there's a vacuum in the way of published heroes between the 350-pt suggested PCs and the 1000+ pt megathreats.

 

I am of the opinion that NPC heroes could be published to fill that gap, and not step on the PCs' toes, and not at all detract from the game. There are plenty of other RPGs in which it is openly acknowledged that there are NPC heroes out there who are more powerful than the PCs, and those games don't fail miserably. In the source material, some of the best comics are about characters who aren't in the top tier of uberpowerful heroes. Heck New Mutants wasn't even about the most powerful team in the same frickin county.

 

And there's always the question of what a 350-pt PC really is supposed to be. A standard average hero, or a starting "rookie" hero? And there is a difference.

 

I also hope that we don't see the power levels ratchet up yet again in some future edition of the game. While there was some legitimate need for a slight increase in alloted points because of some of the rules changes, I think it also set a potentially harmful precedent that must be avoided in the future.

[Guest WhammeWhamme]

Re: Schmucks?

 

But then what do your players do with the XP they gain??

 

More importantly, *what did the NPC heroes who have been active for years do with their XP*??

 

Buy minor abilities?

 

Really, at 1 XP/session, unless a given Champions game lasts longer than any game I've observed first hand, no one is going to leave their starting zone. (or buy off more than one disadvantage) (Or have the suggested XP/session levels gone up?)

[Guest WhammeWhamme]

Re: Schmucks?

 

just curious--is there a middle ground in this debate? Is there an NPC hero point level above 350 that would be somewhat combat effective(without massively tweaked writeups) in teams against the higher level villains in the CU, and still acceptable/tolerable to those who prefer lower-powered play?

 

I think an NPC hero team of 5-8 members, built using the "very high powered superhero" parameters(600 points(plus maybe up to 99xp), 120 AP caps, etc), could provide a reasonable explanation for why the Takofanes and Mechanons of the CU don't just overrun everything. When you don't want them around, just say they're out in space or in another dimension or another mission saving the world or something.

 

Eventually, after several years of gaming, the PC team would be the equal of that team, and be doing the same kind of missions.

 

Nobody gets uptight if they play a certain other game system and occasionally run across a heroic NPC a few levels above them...

 

In the certain other system, Characters can generally 'level up' in maybe 6 sessions. In Champions, it takes a bit longer to earn 250 odd XP.

 

That said, a 'how most veteran players would build their characters' NPCs at 450-500 or so would be acceptable.

[Guest WhammeWhamme]

Re: Schmucks?

 

The first option is not doable withou incredible munchkinism far out of line with any published material. The second option is *not a solution*' date=' its called "ignoring the problem." It is also called "destroying suspension of disbelief."[/quote']

 

The second solution notes the complaint, and weighs whether it's worth resolving.

 

Internal Consistency errors, unless blatantly conspicuous, generally don't annoy any but the most intent of fans.

 

The most intent of fans are the people who can be snubbed the most safely.

 

The most important thing is that it be fun to run "out of the box". If it's sensible AFTER all other considerations are taken into account, great.

[Guest WhammeWhamme]

Re: Schmucks?

 

Thats another thing: when I ( and many others, probably ) talk about the amount of points needed to do a character ( directly or a good clone ), I am usually not talking about the character *when they started out*. I'm talking about doing the character as he exists today ( or some other good benchmark time, like Morrison run for any JLAer ).

 

Now, if people want to say you can do a given character concept circa their origin on 350 points, than yeah, in most cases, its true.

 

Origin? I don't even know what most of them were _like_ at origin.

 

350 is the "how they look to the casually interested superhero geek" value needed. (ie with everything that everyone knows about them... or rather, everything _I_ know about them. )

[Pendaran]

Re: Schmucks?

 

disregarding for a moment whether or not you've done some mass survey of all hero games customers and fans to be able to keep going on and on about how you know how those with views that are not your own represent a small handful of fans and that you represent the majority...

 

The standard xp award as recommend hovers between 2-3 points per session. "Usually, a one session adventure is worth about 2 Experience points", with per session awards ontop of that for roleplaying well, being challenged, solving mysteries, and etc.

 

And conisdering you're the one saying that going over 350 point=bad, when going over said points is one of the very things the book outright says you can do with it out of the box when it lists point values for different types of campaigns, some of which, yes, go over 350 points, that's not quite you saying the book is usable "out of the box" is it? That's you saying "the book is fun, out of the box, so long as you never do this, this, this, or this, despite the book saying that you can."

 

And again, Vibora Bay, presumably Hero was being insane there and catering to the whims of a handful of easily ignorable fans, yes?

[zornwil]

Re: Schmucks?

 

just curious--is there a middle ground in this debate? Is there an NPC hero point level above 350 that would be somewhat combat effective(without massively tweaked writeups) in teams against the higher level villains in the CU, and still acceptable/tolerable to those who prefer lower-powered play?

 

I think an NPC hero team of 5-8 members, built using the "very high powered superhero" parameters(600 points(plus maybe up to 99xp), 120 AP caps, etc), could provide a reasonable explanation for why the Takofanes and Mechanons of the CU don't just overrun everything. When you don't want them around, just say they're out in space or in another dimension or another mission saving the world or something.

 

Eventually, after several years of gaming, the PC team would be the equal of that team, and be doing the same kind of missions.

 

Nobody gets uptight if they play a certain other game system and occasionally run across a heroic NPC a few levels above them...

To your point (for which you shall be repped, I just forgot to rep you for your Laden/Arafat comment a few moments ago, both of these being rep-worthy), I don't even get this controversy. Any level of play seems fine to me. And aren't we forgetting what this is...a game that allows people to roleplay heroic fiction (wait, let me say this differently - FICTION)? Isn't that intrinsically fraught with: a) a disconnect with reality; and the incorporation of many, many, many assumptions which color the world such that sopme fantastic things can be made to seem realistic. Yes, verisimilitude is important, but that's a matter of internal consistency in a fictional setting. As such, that can be done at any level and with bad guys who are small-time and cosmic.

[Metaphysician]

Re: Schmucks?

 

Not to speak for Whammawhamme' date=' but in practice, I don't give NPCs experience.[/quote']

 

Page 346, 5th Ed corebook, sidebar, last sentence:

 

"And never forget, villains get experience too. . ."

 

 

The other term for this, would be "flagrant double standard."