DEX: and the Marvel Universe

[Mister E]

Re: DEX: and the Marvel Universe

 

DISCLOSURE: While we don't all game together anymore before moves and such we all did play in the same long standing game.

What are you refering to' date=' here? [i']Marvel Superheroes[/i]?

[Powerhouse]

Re: DEX: and the Marvel Universe

 

As noted, it really depends on the campaign. Depending on the point level, Cyclops for example could be anywhere from 15 to 23 dex depending on where everyone else is. Captain America anywhere from 20 (maximum human characteristics) to 35.

 

My *personal* take is that the average superhuman who isn't noticably enhanced in terms of agility or speed is 18-23 which covers most characters. "Normal" martial artists are about 26-27 dex and would probably include Wolverine and Batman (the latter I see as being heavily invested in combat and overall levels) though up to 30 for those who are at peak human dexterity (Daredevil, Captain America, and maybe Nightwing).

 

A 30 dex ceiling leaves 33-35 for characters like Beast, Spiderman, and Nightcrawler. As for speedsters, that's really a tough call. I think that many are seen to have higher dex than they truly have due to the lightning reflexes talent and a high speed that lets them abort to dodges. I don't see Quicksilver as being more agile than Spiderman, just able to run and possibly react faster: that's added movement, speed, and lightning reflexes.

[Powerhouse]

Re: DEX: and the Marvel Universe

 

"Because Daredevil would pretty much be human peak agility as well,and unlike Cap, he earned his as opposed to it being handed to him"

 

The origin of their powers doesn't reflect on the value of the stats though.

 

" Go look at some of the things that Daredevil routinley does and tell me he'd not equal to Cap who, for all these protestations of agility,. rarely seems to actually do anything really agile- "

 

I've seen Cap perform tons of shows of agility. That said, Daredevil (especially as Miller wrote/drew him) has a very acrobatic style of combat which is why he could be considered by some to be more agile).

 

"his abilities seem more training and experience(represented as CSLs) than raw dex, while Daredevil is all about the dex. But, that's just my take on the situation.YMMV."

 

I would suggest that both have a ton of CSL's. DD has been shown to be highly trained and always working out to maintain a combat edge. What you might consider would be to give Cap a slightly higher dex (or keep them equal, that's cool) but give DD a higher acrobatic roll and some powers to maintain an exceptional sense of balance.

 

Nightwing and Batman can be seen similarly. I noted earlier that NW *might* be a 30 dex compared to Batman's 26-27 but you could give them the same dex and represent NW's apparent higher agility through a high Acrobatics skill and balance powers.

[Agent X]

Re: DEX: and the Marvel Universe

 

As noted' date=' it really depends on the campaign. Depending on the point level, Cyclops for example could be anywhere from 15 to 23 dex depending on where everyone else is. [b']Captain America anywhere from 20 (maximum human characteristics)[/b] to 35.

I placed in bold the assumption that 20 is the maximum for a human in dexterity because that assumption is wrong. Normal Characteristic Maxima does not define the peak before a characteristic should be defined as superhuman. It defines a threshold for low-power games where a character's stats become so exceptional that they need to pay more points for them. The official benchmarks place superhuman at 31 or more for dexterity. I've quoted from the books before and I can if someone makes me but I really think they should just look up the benchmarks for themselves.

 

21-30 Dexterity is Legendary which is still Human.

31 and up Dexterity is Superhuman.

 

If Beast, Nightcrawler, and Spidey have superhuman dexterities, then they are all at 31 or above.

[sinanju]

Re: DEX: and the Marvel Universe

 

The official benchmarks place superhuman at 31 or more for dexterity. I've quoted from the books before and I can if someone makes me but I really think they should just look up the benchmarks for themselves.

 

21-30 Dexterity is Legendary which is still Human.

31 and up Dexterity is Superhuman.

 

If Beast, Nightcrawler, and Spidey have superhuman dexterities, then they are all at 31 or above.

 

You can quote the books all you like, but I think that putting the breakpoint for "superhuman" at 31 is just silly. That's the sort of thinking that begs for characteristic inflation. As far as I'm concerned (i.e., in any game I ran), the NCM is hard limit. Nobody whose character concept doesn't involve superhuman STR, DEX, INT or whatever can't go above 20 at all.

 

Spider-Man, the epitome of the super-agile character would have a DEX of 33 or so, and everyone else would fall somewhere between 21-32. I've seen too many games where even the player of the big, slow tank of a PC feels like he needs a DEX of 21 or 24 just be marginally acceptable. That's ridiculous.

 

A DEX roll of 15 is more than enough on a 3d6 system. You can add to the character's perceived DEX with missile deflection (dodging) and other powers.

 

All this is IMHO of course.

[Fox1]

Re: DEX: and the Marvel Universe

 

You can quote the books all you like' date=' but I think that putting the breakpoint for "superhuman" at 31 is just silly. That's the sort of thinking that begs for characteristic inflation. [/quote']

 

I agree with you.

 

HERO making that a breakpoint is:

 

a) In keeping in with inflated DEX/SPD values that HERO system has always used from day one. It's their way of pandering to power gaming without making people roll dice to do it.

 

Like everything else, is just a suggestion.

[MitchellS]

Re: DEX: and the Marvel Universe

 

I agree with you.

 

HERO making that a breakpoint is:

 

a) In keeping in with inflated DEX/SPD values that HERO system has always used from day one. It's their way of pandering to power gaming without making people roll dice to do it.

 

Like everything else, is just a suggestion.

Isn't it strange that Champions has used the same characteristic/power scale for nearly 24 years but now, just because some small percentage of people prefer the heroic scale, it's considered power gaming? It's now power gaming. It's playing at the same power level it always has!

 

I always love people who only consider their way of doing it to be the correct way even though the entire Champions' history proves them wrong.

[Enforcer84]

Re: DEX: and the Marvel Universe

 

You can quote the books all you like, but I think that putting the breakpoint for "superhuman" at 31 is just silly. That's the sort of thinking that begs for characteristic inflation. As far as I'm concerned (i.e., in any game I ran), the NCM is hard limit. Nobody whose character concept doesn't involve superhuman STR, DEX, INT or whatever can't go above 20 at all.

 

Spider-Man, the epitome of the super-agile character would have a DEX of 33 or so, and everyone else would fall somewhere between 21-32. I've seen too many games where even the player of the big, slow tank of a PC feels like he needs a DEX of 21 or 24 just be marginally acceptable. That's ridiculous.

 

A DEX roll of 15 is more than enough on a 3d6 system. You can add to the character's perceived DEX with missile deflection (dodging) and other powers.

 

All this is IMHO of course.

Thats' nice I think puting it at 20 is dumb. We don't agree but at least we're thinking!

[Agent X]

Re: DEX: and the Marvel Universe

 

You can quote the books all you like, but I think that putting the breakpoint for "superhuman" at 31 is just silly. That's the sort of thinking that begs for characteristic inflation. As far as I'm concerned (i.e., in any game I ran), the NCM is hard limit. Nobody whose character concept doesn't involve superhuman STR, DEX, INT or whatever can't go above 20 at all.

 

Spider-Man, the epitome of the super-agile character would have a DEX of 33 or so, and everyone else would fall somewhere between 21-32. I've seen too many games where even the player of the big, slow tank of a PC feels like he needs a DEX of 21 or 24 just be marginally acceptable. That's ridiculous.

 

A DEX roll of 15 is more than enough on a 3d6 system. You can add to the character's perceived DEX with missile deflection (dodging) and other powers.

 

All this is IMHO of course.

Characteristic Inflation is short-hand for characteristics higher than one person subjectively feels they should be. So the best DEX human being should have a base 13- compared to a normal's 11-? See, I would call that Characteristic Compression.

 

Saying that Captian America's dexterity is just two measurable steps better on a 3d6 scale than a normal person's dexterity is silly to me.

[Agent X]

Re: DEX: and the Marvel Universe

 

Isn't it strange that Champions has used the same characteristic/power scale for nearly 24 years but now, just because some small percentage of people prefer the heroic scale, it's considered power gaming? It's now power gaming. It's playing at the same power level it always has!

 

I always love people who only consider their way of doing it to be the correct way even though the entire Champions' history proves them wrong.

I don't mind the power-gaming remark. If you're not power gaming with super powered characters what are you doing?

[Guest bblackmoor]

Re: DEX: and the Marvel Universe

 

Looks like I agree with most of the people posting here: mentalists around 20, most brawlers like Captain America in the low twenties, most blasters in the mid to high twenties, with most speedsters and Spider-Man hitting the mid-thirties.

 

I'm kind of curious why so many pegged Silver Surfer so high, though. I used to read his comic, way back when, and he didn't seem all that agile to me. He's powerful, with plenty of levels, but you didn't see him snatching bullets out of the air or anything like that. Is it because of his surfboard? His board can make a jet look like it's standing still, and it can turn on a dime, but that doesn't have anything to do with the Surfer himself.

[Darren Watts]

Re: DEX: and the Marvel Universe

 

We've tried very hard to avoid hard and fast rules for this sort of thing in designing the characters for the Champions Universe, because everybody's standards are different and we don't want to create ammunition for people to argue with their GMs. Nevertheless, I'm sticking my toe into the waters here- this is not "official Hero Canon" by any stretch, just one guy who designs a lot of characters for Hero.

 

That said, I'd put Cap in the high twenties or maybe even a round 30. Similar scores for Daredevil, Shang-Chi, Black Widow, etc- all say 26-29. Beast, Nightcrawler, and other super-agile types go in the low 30s, and Spidey (who seems to me to define high Dex in the MU) in the mid-to-high 30s. In DC, Nightwing gets a 30, Batman high-20s. Depending on which version of Superman we're talking about, he could go anywhere from 18-30.

 

Comparitively in the CU, Nighthawk's a 25, Shugoshin 24, El Picaro 30, Bulletproof 26, Redsnake 26, Black Mask 20. Charm in GC was designed entirely around DEX, and she's a 35- I see her as pretty Spidey-like.

 

I don't give speedsters super-high Dex's as a matter of course, unless they seem particularly agile- Quicksilver would get around a 25 and have Lightning Reflexes to go ahead of everybody, since I don't recall seeing him do a lot of flashy acrobatics or being particularly accurate. I might give a bit more to to other speedy guys who don't seem to crash as much as he does; Flash might get a 29. Kinetic's a 26- that seems to me solidly mid-range for a speedster.

 

The "cosmically-enhanced," mystical or seriously high-end supers, your Silver Surfer for example, might run anywhere from 25 to 33 depending on the effect I was going for. After all, Firewing's a 30, and so is Dr. Destroyer. dw

[Agent X]

Re: DEX: and the Marvel Universe

 

Looks like I agree with most of the people posting here: mentalists around 20, most brawlers like Captain America in the low twenties, most blasters in the mid to high twenties, with most speedsters and Spider-Man hitting the mid-thirties.

 

I'm kind of curious why so many pegged Silver Surfer so high, though. I used to read his comic, way back when, and he didn't seem all that agile to me. He's powerful, with plenty of levels, but you didn't see him snatching bullets out of the air or anything like that. Is it because of his surfboard? His board can make a jet look like it's standing still, and it can turn on a dime, but that doesn't have anything to do with the Surfer himself.

For some reason, if memory serves, Marvel Super Heroes RPG gave him an unearthly agility.

[Guest bblackmoor]

Re: DEX: and the Marvel Universe

 

The official benchmarks place superhuman at 31 or more for dexterity.

 

No offense, but that's just dumb. By any reasonable benchmark, anything past low 20s is superhuman.

[Agent X]

Re: DEX: and the Marvel Universe

 

No offense' date=' but that's just dumb. By any reasonable benchmark, anything past low 20s is superhuman.[/quote'] No offense, but I think saying that Captain America, Daredevil, and Batman only have a 13 or less chance to do something dextrous that a normal person has an 11 or less chance to do is dumb.

 

I also think it is dumb to represent the difference with craploads of skill levels, etc. and pretend that you have somehow changed anything.

[MitchellS]

Re: DEX: and the Marvel Universe

 

We've tried very hard to avoid hard and fast rules for this sort of thing in designing the characters for the Champions Universe, because everybody's standards are different and we don't want to create ammunition for people to argue with their GMs. Nevertheless, I'm sticking my toe into the waters here- this is not "official Hero Canon" by any stretch, just one guy who designs a lot of characters for Hero.

 

That said, I'd put Cap in the high twenties or maybe even a round 30. Similar scores for Daredevil, Shang-Chi, Black Widow, etc- all say 26-29. Beast, Nightcrawler, and other super-agile types go in the low 30s, and Spidey (who seems to me to define high Dex in the MU) in the mid-to-high 30s. In DC, Nightwing gets a 30, Batman high-20s. Depending on which version of Superman we're talking about, he could go anywhere from 18-30.

 

Comparitively in the CU, Nighthawk's a 25, Shugoshin 24, El Picaro 30, Bulletproof 26, Redsnake 26, Black Mask 20. Charm in GC was designed entirely around DEX, and she's a 35- I see her as pretty Spidey-like.

 

I don't give speedsters super-high Dex's as a matter of course, unless they seem particularly agile- Quicksilver would get around a 25 and have Lightning Reflexes to go ahead of everybody, since I don't recall seeing him do a lot of flashy acrobatics or being particularly accurate. I might give a bit more to to other speedy guys who don't seem to crash as much as he does; Flash might get a 29. Kinetic's a 26- that seems to me solidly mid-range for a speedster.

 

The "cosmically-enhanced," mystical or seriously high-end supers, your Silver Surfer for example, might run anywhere from 25 to 33 depending on the effect I was going for. After all, Firewing's a 30, and so is Dr. Destroyer. dw

It's nice to see a post like that Darren. It's nice to see some of the DOJ folks just jump in and chat like the rest of us. You can't wear the official hat all the time.

[Superskrull]

Re: DEX: and the Marvel Universe

 

For some reason' date=' if memory serves, Marvel Super Heroes RPG gave him an unearthly agility.[/quote']

 

This is the same RPG that gives Captain America's indominible willpower as a Psyche ranke of anything from Good to Amazing depending on just which book you look in.

[Guest bblackmoor]

Re: DEX: and the Marvel Universe

 

No offense, but I think saying that Captain America, Daredevil, and Batman only have a 13 or less chance to do something dextrous that a normal person has an 11 or less chance to do is dumb.

 

I also think it is dumb to represent the difference with craploads of skill levels, etc. and pretend that you have somehow changed anything.

 

Then change game systems.

[MitchellS]

Re: DEX: and the Marvel Universe

 

I think the only problem with the CU chart is that there are no Superhuman dexterity characters in the mainstream CU. If no one has above 30 then Superhuman is really a meaningless and confusing category. For that reason alone I would have made the cut-off for Legendary at 25. That way you can see there is something special about the 26+ dexterity characters. Of course I wouldn't mind seeing some over 30 dex characters in the game.

[casualplayer]

Re: DEX: and the Marvel Universe

 

We've tried very hard to avoid hard and fast rules for this sort of thing in designing the characters for the Champions Universe, because everybody's standards are different and we don't want to create ammunition for people to argue with their GMs. Nevertheless, I'm sticking my toe into the waters here- this is not "official Hero Canon" by any stretch, just one guy who designs a lot of characters for Hero.

 

That said, I'd put Cap in the high twenties or maybe even a round 30. Similar scores for Daredevil, Shang-Chi, Black Widow, etc- all say 26-29. Beast, Nightcrawler, and other super-agile types go in the low 30s, and Spidey (who seems to me to define high Dex in the MU) in the mid-to-high 30s. In DC, Nightwing gets a 30, Batman high-20s. Depending on which version of Superman we're talking about, he could go anywhere from 18-30.

 

Comparitively in the CU, Nighthawk's a 25, Shugoshin 24, El Picaro 30, Bulletproof 26, Redsnake 26, Black Mask 20. Charm in GC was designed entirely around DEX, and she's a 35- I see her as pretty Spidey-like.

 

I don't give speedsters super-high Dex's as a matter of course, unless they seem particularly agile- Quicksilver would get around a 25 and have Lightning Reflexes to go ahead of everybody, since I don't recall seeing him do a lot of flashy acrobatics or being particularly accurate. I might give a bit more to to other speedy guys who don't seem to crash as much as he does; Flash might get a 29. Kinetic's a 26- that seems to me solidly mid-range for a speedster.

 

The "cosmically-enhanced," mystical or seriously high-end supers, your Silver Surfer for example, might run anywhere from 25 to 33 depending on the effect I was going for. After all, Firewing's a 30, and so is Dr. Destroyer. dw

 

My design ethos follows this. I could port any of my characters into this environment and run (and be happy.)

 

You gave Nightwing higher DEX than Batman! I have such a man-crush on you!

 

The problem with DEX is it's just too darn good, and cost effective. Why not crank up the DEX value? You get all these other goodies along with the effect you were trying for. The quick fix would have been to wean SPD off the DEX teat, and I was sad that that didn't happen with the Resurrection. Oh, well.

[Fox1]

Re: DEX: and the Marvel Universe

 

Isn't it strange that Champions has used the same characteristic/power scale for nearly 24 years but now' date=' just because some small percentage of people prefer the heroic scale, it's considered power gaming? .[/quote']

 

Champions have been sold to power gamers as part of its market for 24 years now. Why would one expect it to change?

 

Silly is still silly, no matter how long it has been done.

[Superskrull]

Re: DEX: and the Marvel Universe

 

I think the only problem with the CU chart is that there are no Superhuman dexterity characters in the mainstream CU. If no one has above 30 then Superhuman is really a meaningless and confusing category. For that reason alone I would have made the cut-off for Legendary at 25. That way you can see there is something special about the 26+ dexterity characters. Of course I wouldn't mind seeing some over 30 dex characters in the game.

 

Yeah, what we need is Rainbow Archer (35), Pantera (35),Mongoose (33) and the Whip (33) to come back. Oh,and we could kick good ol' Fiacho back up to his 33 Dex glory. Or Thok. I always liked Thok. Superhuman Strength and Dex, bullet-proof and a whopping 8 Body. Good times, man.

[MitchellS]

Re: DEX: and the Marvel Universe

 

Champions have been sold to power gamers as part of its market for 24 years now. Why would one expect it to change?

 

Silly is still silly, no matter how long it has been done.

One has to wonder why someone who disagrees with almost everything in the rules, treats everyone who plays the game differently them himself like crap, and never has anything good to say about the game, company, or fans even bothers to play the game.

[Superskrull]

Re: DEX: and the Marvel Universe

 

One has to wonder why someone who disagrees with almost everything in the rules' date=' treats everyone who plays the game differently them himself like crap, and never has anything good to say about the game, company, or fans even bothers to play the game.[/quote']

 

Who knows. Hopefully he's got it all tweaked out to his personal tastes in his game. I'm just not gonna worry about it, personally.

[shaunclinton]

Re: DEX: and the Marvel Universe

 

Whilst the difference between 11- and 13- might not seem like much, you have to remember that it increases the odds of success by 21.3%, which is fairly substantial.

 

My own opinion is that most normal humans range from 10-20 DEX, but that normals with exceptional training can go as high as 30, even the best athletes might only approach 21 or so... maybe as high as 24, but we all know that no matter how much an athlete trains it doesn't provide him with the same level of DEX that someone like Nightwing has, after all, jumping off of roof-tops is the best form of excercise.

 

If you give Cap a 25 DEX (and I'm not saying I would) then a no modifier DEX roll comes out as succeeding 9 times out of ten, compared to a normal persons 6 times out of ten. That seems not bad to me. It gets better when performing difficult tasks, a -3 modifier means the normal fails 3 times in 4, whilst Cap can still take confidence in his 6 times in 10 record of success.