MegaSuperUltra High DEX...with Skill Levels!

[FTJoshua]

Our superheroic campaign has lasted about 15 years all together (with some months and a year here or there off). Having started playing using Champions 3 -- and not reading it correctly -- we ended up with some PC's that are beyond superheroic.

 

Felix, created in about 1989, has a 40 DEX with +7 Combat Skill Levels on his Martial Arts. His highest OCV is 33, which is the highest in the group, but all of the other "old guys" have 29 to 32 for high OCV's. The "younger" PC's have about 24 to 28 as highs.

 

Technically, this isn't a problem, since the GM can just pile on the DEX and CSL's as needed. My problem is that, as I understand the system, those scores are just WAY off the chart.

 

We have discussed ways of bringing these OCV's down to more respectable level. The theory is that the oldest (i.e. most powerful) PC's should generally always be able to hit a human without a problem. That means we only need a 21 OCV.

 

But the campaign has both old and new PC's; how do we lower everyone's OCV fairly, so that the young PC's can still take on a human, but not be so tough as to take on an older PC? The House Rule is a single Young PC shouldn't be able to defeat a single Old PC. But we can't just say, "Okay, everyone take 20 off your DEX!" If we uniformally lower DEX, someone is going to get screwed at the bottom of the totem.

 

Any ideas?

[Captain Obvious]

I would say if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Just because the power levels in the book don't jibe with what you've been playing for years is no reason to go back and totally revamp all the characters.

 

Just be aware that official materials, heck even most unofficial materials, will have characters way lower powered than your campaign and will require considerable beefing up to get them where they need to be.

[CrosshairCollie]

In the past, when new editions of a game have come out, I've resorted to what's called a 'White Event', taken from the short-lived Marvel Comics New Universe titles. Basically, a huge white light in the sky flashed, then people started getting powers.

 

Essentially, call a mass re-write. Leave everybody's overall points/experience the same, and just rebuild them from scratch. This is also handy for things that work differently from one edition to the next (prime example: Summoning with linked Mind Control to Summoning with the various 'friendly' advantages).

[Guest Champsguy]

The power levels in the book aren't even close to the power levels in my group either--we just alter the writeups as we need. Our characters don't have as many combat levels as yours do, but they tend to focus on the "high damage" aspect of Champions. When you've got guys with a 10 Speed that do 30+ dice, the Monster just isn't a threat anymore.

 

Really, it's not a problem for us, so it shouldn't be for you. If you do want to down-power though, you might just want to narrow the gap between PCs. Don't drop everybody's Dex by 20, but if Joe Bob has a Dex that's 10 points higher than the next guy, maybe he should lower that by 5 points or so. Maybe let everyone re-work their characters, keeping their point-totals intact. "Okay, PowerLord, you're 856 points. Rebuild your character from the ground up." I've found that OCV escalation is something that occurs over time--people pick up a 3 point level here, or a 5 point level there. If you rebuild characters from the beginning, they'll settle on a more reasonable OCV level (especially if you go into rebuilding with the knowledge that villains are gonna have lower combat values as well).

 

What to spend the extra points on? Well, one of the players in our game knew exactly what he wanted: he built robot duplicates of himself (just like Superman has).

 

Edit: Oops. Just read Crosshairs Collie's post, and realized that I just said the same thing.

[zornwil]

I felt compelled to chime in on the "don't fix what's not broken" line, I agree. If the only problem is that the scores are "off the chart", don't worry about it. Is there another underlying issue?

[FTJoshua]

Originally posted by zornwil

Is there another underlying issue?

 

No, not really. A year or so ago there was a post here with a link to Normal Characteristic Maximum comparisons, like how a 13 STR would equate in the real world, how a 15 DEX would equate in the real world, etc. In looking at that chart, which made a lot of sense to me, those 35-plus DEXs seemed too potent. And if we shaved them down, there'd be more points for skills, strength, whatever.

 

There's not a lot of contention about it in our group, it was just something that came up that I'd been meaning to throw out to the Herophiles.

[Guest Champsguy]

Originally posted by FTJoshua

No, not really. A year or so ago there was a post here with a link to Normal Characteristic Maximum comparisons, like how a 13 STR would equate in the real world, how a 15 DEX would equate in the real world, etc. In looking at that chart, which made a lot of sense to me, those 35-plus DEXs seemed too potent. And if we shaved them down, there'd be more points for skills, strength, whatever.

 

There's not a lot of contention about it in our group, it was just something that came up that I'd been meaning to throw out to the Herophiles.

 

Well, if you guys are lower on some areas than others (if Dex is the only stat that really went hog-wild), then I think the rewrite would help balance things out. Once our campaign got to a certain level, a really high Dex stopped mattering all that much, because VPPs started cropping up. It didn't matter that your DCV was 20+ when somebody whipped up an Area Effect: One Hex punch.

 

Also, realize that some of those NCM charts (I can't be sure which one you saw) drew a lot of disagreement from people on the board. Just because Joe Blow posts a stat list giving Jet Li an 18 Dex doesn't mean that's the way it is. Personally, I think NCM means the max that you're likely to meet on the street in the real world. Bob, the big guy at the factory, might have a 20 Str. It's not limited to "the strongest guy ever". That means pro atheletes would have Dex scores in the mid-20s, making that 35 Dex much more reasonable.

[Jhamin]

For what it's worth, when we went to 5th Edition in my game I had everyone universally lower their Dex by 6. In our case, the lowest Dex char went from 21 to 15. Most were much higher. Similar issues, but it sounds like we didn't have quite the escalation you do.

 

We did it just because half of us didn't care and the other half felt better about bricks with 12 dex and mutants with 17 rather than the (current) standards of a 10 Int being enough for anybody who'se character isnt' that smart, but if you aren't that nimble you still need to rival the Dex scores of professional atheletes just to land a hit every now and then.

 

It sounds like you have issues in the same area. Basically if you lower everyone's dex a preset amount it will make the folks on the lower end of the scale alot more vulnerable to normals. Alot. If that is a problem, don't do it. If you want your old PCs to remain untouchable you will need to either give them alot of CSLs or just accept that they will get hit from time to time and find other ways to make them invincible.

[Force]

Re: MegaSuperUltra High DEX...with Skill Levels!

 

Originally posted by FTJoshua

Our superheroic campaign has lasted about 15 years all together (with some months and a year here or there off). Having started playing using Champions 3 -- and not reading it correctly -- we ended up with some PC's that are beyond superheroic.

 

Felix, created in about 1989, has a 40 DEX with +7 Combat Skill Levels on his Martial Arts. His highest OCV is 33, which is the highest in the group, but all of the other "old guys" have 29 to 32 for high OCV's. The "younger" PC's have about 24 to 28 as highs.

 

Technically, this isn't a problem, since the GM can just pile on the DEX and CSL's as needed. My problem is that, as I understand the system, those scores are just WAY off the chart.

 

We have discussed ways of bringing these OCV's down to more respectable level. The theory is that the oldest (i.e. most powerful) PC's should generally always be able to hit a human without a problem. That means we only need a 21 OCV.

 

But the campaign has both old and new PC's; how do we lower everyone's OCV fairly, so that the young PC's can still take on a human, but not be so tough as to take on an older PC? The House Rule is a single Young PC shouldn't be able to defeat a single Old PC. But we can't just say, "Okay, everyone take 20 off your DEX!" If we uniformally lower DEX, someone is going to get screwed at the bottom of the totem.

 

Any ideas?

 

How the heck do you get a 33 ocv with a 40 dex and +7 levels?!?!?

 

Base ocv is 13. Where are the other 13 ocv levels coming from?

[FTJoshua]

Sorry, should've posted that.

 

24 OCV base

+

7 CSL = 31 (if all applied to the OCV)

+

2 OCV with Sacrifice Throw

is his best shot.

 

Also, I realize now, we always just assume the DEX/3 plus 11 in our OCV. So I always figure my base is 24 rather than 13+11. Hope that clears it up.

 

Or have I really screwed something up?!?

[lemming]

Originally posted by FTJoshua

Sorry, should've posted that.

 

24 OCV base

+

7 CSL = 31 (if all applied to the OCV)

+

2 OCV with Sacrifice Throw

is his best shot.

 

Also, I realize now, we always just assume the DEX/3 plus 11 in our OCV. So I always figure my base is 24 rather than 13+11. Hope that clears it up.

 

Or have I really screwed something up?!?

The +11 is not part of the OCV it's part of the die roll calculation. Doesn't look like it's hurting anything, just confusing other people on this board

[TheImperialKhan]

Have any of you considered bringing the current campaign to a close and starting fresh with a new one.

 

Stories have a begining, a middle and an end. You seem to have forgotten the end part. I'd advise you to have a big finale to the campaign, one that basically closes up all the dangling plot threads and has the PCs riding off into the sunset so to speak.

 

Then start a new campaign with new characters. Maybe with the same underlaying theme, maybe with a different one. Maybe in the same universe or maybe in a new one.

 

All good things must come to an end after all. But don't sweat it, the new campaign may be even better.