At what point does a character become unrecognizable due to XP?

[Trebuchet]

Re: At what point does a character become unrecognizable due to XP?

 

Hmmm...places to grow.

 

I think becoming the backup stealth character is a logical place for her to grow into, as you've said.

 

I suppose there's always more DEX One more and your CV goes up!

 

Lemming suggested PRE defense, but I'd be more inclined to buy up her Ego, representing increasing self-confidence and strength of will. Since PRE attacks go against the greater of Ego and PRE, this will also make her more resistant to PRE attacks.

 

You could grow the Multipower pool to permit simultaneous use of a movement and an attack power. That would also make room for potential higher active point abilities which require full focus of her attention. Maybe a "superdodge" type desolid (still affected by AE and explosions, and any attacks she doesn't perceive) that precludes attacking?

 

Looking at her skills, maybe she can grow in her private life beyond Executive Assistant and become more of a corporate manager/owner. There's great justification for some Wealth, Contacts, Favours, etc. Not sure if you want to grow in that direction, though. It would be a logical outgrowth of her "overachiever" personality to get competetive with her teammate rather than staying his executive assistant.

 

Did I miss Speed Reading in those talents? That would make a nice lead-in to Cramming ("Never heard of it, but give me a library and half an hour"). A variant of Universal Translator to reflect studing dozens of languages (ilimited to real world languages she could have come in contact with, for example) could make sense. Being deeply religious, what about some knowledge in that area? Perhaps a lay minister?

 

Damage Shield to reflect a riposte? Her reflexes are so good she can strike a target as he draws back from hitting her. Maybe a -1/4 limitation for "non-selective" (ie she still has to make a roll to hit, but she gets the shot without using an action)?

 

More END or REC? You'd likely have identified this as a problem by now if it was.

Increasing PRE and EGO are both on her shopping list. I want to get both up to 15 for starters; then I'll probably increase her PRE a bit more beyond that.

 

Other Characteristics which will likely be increased include increasing CON to 19; REC to 13 or 14; END to 38 and STUN to 30. (Buying one more point of CON accomplishes most of these.) Her defenses will probably go up slightly, but that will be from another level of Combat Luck. Another level of Damage Class for her martial arts is probable as is a few more Weapon Elements & Weapon Familiarity (Swords are next on her list).

 

I'm actually fairly content with her MP; although a couple more slots have some appeal. I've already discussed a "super-Dodge" (Desolidification with Limitations) or ""super-Roll with the Punch" (25% Damage Reduction with RSR maybe) with Mentor and he's amenable to the idea. I'm unlikely to take both, but more likely to consider them one and the same effect. Right now I'm leaning towards the Damage Reduction variant (Must be aware of attack, blah, blah...). One thing I don't want her to do is become too tough to take down if she gets hit; her main defense is that she's very hard to hit when she's trying not to be. (14 DCV +5 for Martial Dodge +2 for Overall Levels = 21 DCV!)

 

While she's unlikely to get competitive with Cyberknight on that level, I could see her taking Business Admin courses to get more effective. She bought Bureaucratics simply to be better at her civilian job. She's already effectively team's leader since Cyberknight is semi-retired; and she's not going to take on a job that interferes with her abilities to function as Zl'f. Executive assistant doesn't really quite describe her current position; it's really more of a "girl Friday/troubleshooter." It's really more of a mid-level managerial position with the head honcho's authority behind her. She's not just taking dictation or typing letters (although she is the fastest typist anyone has ever seen.)

 

Speed Reading has some attraction, as does Linguist. I'm assured by people who speak several languages that the more you know the easier new ones become to learn.

 

Rather than growing her MP Pool to permit simultaneous use of a movement and an attack power, what I'd more likely do is make several of the slots Standard rather than Ultra to increase her flexibility in combat.

 

Thanks for the ideas. Heck, with all the good stuff I've (unintentionally) got out of this thread I think Zl'f will be in play for many years to come. It'll be interesting to see what the 500 point version of her looks like. Maybe I'll archive a copy of her as she is now so I can compare them in five years.

[Starwolf]

Re: At what point does a character become unrecognizable due to XP?

 

This has been a problem that has even plagued the genre in print as well as in gaming. The original Superman could "Leap" tall buildings in a single bound, was "faster" than a speeding bullit, and more "powerful" than a locomotive. Years later he could fly through the heart of a star, withstand nuclear blasts, fly fast enough to travel the through time, and push planets out of their orbit. I think that this propensity to slowly grow a hero until he or she is nigh unrecognizable in their original conception is the reason for things like the secret wars from Marvel.

 

In the game context, it is a hard judgement call as to when a character begins to "go over the top" and I think that this level depends on the original character conception.

[Dr. Anomaly]

Re: At what point does a character become unrecognizable due to XP?

 

I don't think there's any way to draw a hard-and-fast line and say "beyond this point the character is no longer the original concept." To me, that sort of thing is much more a gut feeling as the player. If I sit down to play the character and find myself thinking about them as a stranger, then I know that point's been reached.

 

Trying to find that point ahead of time, so it can be avoided, is the real trick, isn't it?

 

Every character needs room to grow, and not necessarily in raw power. Adding on new abilities is a good place to go, but not if they violate the original character concept. Part of avoiding that is to make sure that each new ability added fits the special effects paradigm you'v already laid out. If you ever feel you're stretching to justify an ability under a given special effect, it's probably time to reconsider. One way to get a check on that is to talk over a new ability with another player or your GM, and explain how the ability works given the character's known special effects. If they nod and say "Yeah, that makes sense," then you're probably okay. If they furrow their brow and start off with "Umm..." then you're probably close to breaking your character concept.

 

There are other ways to grow other than just new abilities or skills, too. For example: new contacts. Followers. Or what about a base and/or vehicles? I don't know if the team has those, has to pay for them, or what. Perhaps, for example, her Russian contact could be used as a reason to set the team up with an experimental Russian jet...especially if the cash-strapped government can get a bit of money out of it. Things like that. Your character pays the points, everybody benefits.

[Trebuchet]

Re: At what point does a character become unrecognizable due to XP?

 

I don't think there's any way to draw a hard-and-fast line and say "beyond this point the character is no longer the original concept." To me, that sort of thing is much more a gut feeling as the player. If I sit down to play the character and find myself thinking about them as a stranger, then I know that point's been reached.

 

Trying to find that point ahead of time, so it can be avoided, is the real trick, isn't it?

 

Every character needs room to grow, and not necessarily in raw power. Adding on new abilities is a good place to go, but not if they violate the original character concept. Part of avoiding that is to make sure that each new ability added fits the special effects paradigm you'v already laid out. If you ever feel you're stretching to justify an ability under a given special effect, it's probably time to reconsider. One way to get a check on that is to talk over a new ability with another player or your GM, and explain how the ability works given the character's known special effects. If they nod and say "Yeah, that makes sense," then you're probably okay. If they furrow their brow and start off with "Umm..." then you're probably close to breaking your character concept.

I always bounce new Powers and Skill ideas for Zl'f off Blackjack and Mentor. We require any XP expenditures in our campaign to be approved by at least two and preferably all three of our regular GMs, but I'd solicit their advice anyway because I value their opinions highly. And more than once they've talked me out of doing something with Zl'f that seemed like a good idea at first but less so upon further reflection.

 

Although Mentor and I largely co-created our game universe, the quality of Blackjack's input since he first joined our campaign two years ago has been remarkable. We all have slightly different views on how things should work in the campaign and discuss things several times a week, and a bit of give and take on all of our parts has resulted in an extremely smooth integration between the three of us and a very smoothly running campaign. It's been the best multi-GM collaboration I've ever seen or even heard of in almost 28 years of playing RPGs.

[zornwil]

Re: At what point does a character become unrecognizable due to XP?

 

As a long-standing well known member of the world's premeir superteam, having fought world-class menaces repeatedly, higher PRE and EGO would seem natural.

 

"Extra Limbs" defined as moving so fast able to do things with two hands it would normally require 4 to do, able to keep multiple objects up at once (high-speed super-juggling).

 

An extra 30 or so Stun never hurt anyone. Still just as easy to hurt and be stunned, but hard to keep down.

 

Maybe work on her team-player aspect a bit, with something like "Instinctive Blocking" - gives adjacent teammates +2 DCV as she reflexively blocks attacks, pulls teammates out of the way, etc, never losing stride.

 

Some computer-based super-skills as she learns more. Having a good hacker on the team can help. She could run "overwatch" for Cloud Dragon sneaking in somewhere.

 

Maybe she's more of a "pixie" than even she thinks? Perhaps her vulnerability to desolidified objects hints at her partially other-dimensional nature...

No insult intended to your suggestions (they're great!), but I think these speak to how the original character concept can become unrecognizeable. Now a real pixie, now X-Dim, now living in Faerie, now Goddess of Faerie, and so on.

 

I'm not criticizing this. In fact, I think it goes to the heart of Trebuchet's question. Life is like this. To some people, we become unrecognizable depending on our growth in a particular sphere of activity, though, normally, our personalities might be recognizable once reacquainted. It's okay that this happens, it's even "realistic".

 

However, of course, many people in life don't change much. HERO, though, like most RPGs, rewards characters and indirectly players with this XP growth idea, essentially a rule that "dictates" that characters will evolve and change. It simply is a suggestion that anyone who is some exceptional hero will grow and change quickly. As someone later pointed out in this thread that happens in fction as well, so HERO does well to represent this.

 

But some concepts are geared around very particular classes of villains or types of crime, and growing at least in power beyond a certain point can destroy these dynamics. For example, many have been understandably upset at Batman-as-uber-hero concepts because they basically toss out the very human nature of his war on crime and the limitations of him as a person. In these cases, I'd say a character needs to develop along "softer" lines if the idea is to retain those sorts of dynamics, so Favors, Contacts, Perks, new "soft" skills (Basketweaving, Tiddlywinks, both from cases worked on) become important. In the end, some power levels can't be reconciled with upward growth. The necessary consequence is for the group to work out whether they want to "work around" this or the player to either retire his character or simply enjoy letting his character be under-powered.

 

Those are my initial thoughts, anyway.