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Viperia: Less Pow Than Champions??


Metaphysician

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Rereading VIPER, I noticed that amongst her hunteds, Viperia has Champions: MoPow.

 

On the face of it, this seemed absurd. On further examination, it *still* seemed absurd. Too much of a Strength and Defense advantage, Dex advantage, Speed advantage, ranged area attacks, high Recovery, 1-Hex Accurate punches, flight. . .

 

Thoughts??

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Re: Viperia: Less Pow Than Champions??

 

Sometimes, I have no idea what they're thinking.

 

Of course, we see little blurbs and artwork with the Champions going up against Doc D...the one in which Doc D is teleporting away from Nightchicken and Christina Superheroa makes me wonder why the heck he's running away from those two. If there were such as thing as Casual RKA, he could kill them both without using an action.

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Guest Worldmaker

Re: Viperia: Less Pow Than Champions??

 

I addressed this in my house rules: "In general, a group has more resources than a single person, and is capable of causing more mischief to a character than a single person. Thus, group Hunteds are always considered More Powerful to all but the most world-shaking characters."

 

I wouldn't consider Viperia a world-shaker. Sure, she's uber-powerful, but earth-shaking? No.

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Re: Viperia: Less Pow Than Champions??

 

Um, the best END Drain Witchcraft can haul out is still gonna bounce off Viperia's power defense, vulnerability or not, assuming she can hit in the first place without using her levels.

 

I can understand the idea re: team flexibility as matter of consideration, but it really doesn't seem enough to justify MoPow, especially for a character not especially susceptible to stuff like social tricks.

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Re: Viperia: Less Pow Than Champions??

 

I don't have Viperia's stats handy' date=' but perhaps once I do I'll run a mock combat or two and see how that pans out. I don't have Viperia's stats handy, or else I'd do it now.[/quote']

 

Unless it's an ambush with the whole team played as effectively as possible, I'll bet she kills the bunch of them in under two turns. ;)

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Re: Viperia: Less Pow Than Champions??

 

I don't have Viperia's stats handy' date=' but perhaps once I do I'll run a mock combat or two and see how that pans out. I don't have Viperia's stats handy, or else I'd do it now.[/quote']

 

Now that I have a copy of VIPER, I can run it next weekend if nobody else wants to.

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Re: Viperia: Less Pow Than Champions??

 

Unless it's an ambush with the whole team played as effectively as possible' date=' I'll bet she kills the bunch of them in under two turns. ;)[/quote']

 

I take it that, once I actually see Viperia's stats, I'm going to do a Roger Rabbit take? *eyes bug out, mouth flies open, tongue wraps around head, horn goes AWOOOOGAH*

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Re: Viperia: Less Pow Than Champions??

 

In the Champions genre book Mechanon has the Champions as a Hunted, and I think it's safe to assume that that means the Champions as they're presented in the book, at 350 points each. They're graded As Powerful as Mechanon.

 

This actually makes for an interesting comparison of what really constitutes "power" and "threat level." I doubt that anyone would say that Mechanon is more dangerous in a fight than Viperia, but his schemes are generally more lethal, and he does have considerable personal resources behind him. OTOH Viperia theoretically has VIPER backing her up, vaster than anything Mech could call on. They aren't at her beck and call, but could be expected to support her if needed.

 

Of course, this could just be the result of two different authors' interpretations. ;)

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Re: Viperia: Less Pow Than Champions??

 

I take it that' date=' once I actually see Viperia's stats, I'm going to do a Roger Rabbit take? *eyes bug out, mouth flies open, tongue wraps around head, horn goes AWOOOOGAH*[/quote']

 

Ever see the original Viperia writeup for the 4E VIPER sourcebook? This one is worse.

 

1,359 points worth of worse.

 

(And Roger Rabbit does that whenever he sees a good-looking woman.) :jawdrop:

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Re: Viperia: Less Pow Than Champions??

 

If she were male, caucasion, and good, she'd make a pretty good Superman, and I don't mean "1930's Superman" or "Justice League animated series Superman".

 

Zeropoint

 

Well, her raw STR and total PD and ED are probably a little low for Supes, but considering her entire power set, yeah, pretty much.

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Re: Viperia: Less Pow Than Champions??

 

It would be interesting if folks run a Viperia vs. Champions battle and report on it... like the 'Champions vs. Mechanon' battle reports previously.

 

Yeah, yeah - I *know* it doesn't answer the question of 'More Powerful' - but then, it's not meant to be. Just a different, interesting excercize.

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Re: Viperia: Less Pow Than Champions??

 

I'd assume it doesn't reflect the ability of the Champions to beat her in a fight' date=' but rather their ability to foil her devious schemes - same for Mechanon. This is something that heroes are extremely good at.[/quote']

 

Except that Viperia doesn't do devious schemes. She may be used as part of VIPER's devious schemes, but mostly she rushes straight in and starts kicking butt.

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Re: Viperia: Less Pow Than Champions??

 

Ever see the original Viperia writeup for the 4E VIPER sourcebook? This one is worse.

 

1,359 points worth of worse.

 

(And Roger Rabbit does that whenever he sees a good-looking woman.) :jawdrop:

 

If she's got that many points, she can afford to drop a few on her Comeliness. :) Besides, I'm not going to argue with that ... if she thinks she's pretty, then dammit, she's pretty!

 

But, yeah ... geez ... that's a LOT of points. Does she at least have a crippling weakness?

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Re: Viperia: Less Pow Than Champions??

 

I assume she's intended to be overpowerful' date=' something to haul out when PCs no longer take Viper seriously...(i.e., not intended to be thrown at 350 point heroes, but probably valid for 450 pointers)[/quote']

 

Hmm. I'm not sure where my 4E VIPER book is, but wasn't 4E Viperia rather ... simple-minded? Not stupid as such, but just rather slow on the uptake? Perhaps that's her Achilles Heel?

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Re: Viperia: Less Pow Than Champions??

 

I assume she's intended to be overpowerful' date=' something to haul out when PCs no longer take Viper seriously...(i.e., not intended to be thrown at 350 point heroes, but probably valid for 450 pointers)[/quote']

 

She's described as VIPER's "in case of emergency, break glass". 350 point characters shouldn't come any closer to her than the poster of her on the Nest Leader's office wall, and she shouldn't show up often in higher powered campaigns. VIPER isn't sure how much control they have over her (and Nama isn't telling), so they don't want to bring her into a situation unless there's no other option.

 

As for weaknesses ... Unluck, Vulnerable to magic, tactical abilities limited to "bigger guns hurt more", and if she ever does run out of END she's hosed.

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Re: Viperia: Less Pow Than Champions??

 

Does the hunted take into account that she's wanted and the Champions could call on the National teams for backup to bring her down? I'm pretty sure that if the Champion's found out she was in this certain place helping viper do this really bad thing that they'd get some backup from Primus or UNTIL to take her down. Dunno just throwing an idea out there :)

 

Guess it's all up the writers interpretation in the end.

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