Personal Super-Vehicles

[wcw43921]

We've had a couple of threads about team vehicles, and real/almost real vehicles that could serve as super-team transports, but I'm wondering if anyone here has ever got their characters a super-vehicle. I would think that would be on the list of any character who didn't have a major movement power--on the other hand, I can see why most players would be leery of the idea; it's yet another way for the GameMaster to mess with your character--

 

JACK THUNDER: "I enter the Thundermobile's 14-digit security code into my remote, leap through the opening door into the driver's seat, and hit

the ignition switch!"

 

THE GAMEMONSTER--er, MASTER:"The Thundermobile blows up in a ball of fire. Seems there was a bomb linked to the ignition."

 

JACK THUNDER: "What!?! But that's impossible! There are seventeen levels of security! The hood, doors, trunk, and underside are hermetically sealed! Same for the wheel wells! There's no way a saboteur could attach a

bomb!"

 

THE GAMEMASTER (smiling): "He must have rolled his Sabotage roll really well. Let's see--eight dice of Killing damage should do the--"

 

WHAAAPP!!!! The GM is attacked with a Revised 5th Edition. . .

 

Anyway, I just wanted to hear everyone's thoughts on the subject, and whether or not your character has a vehicle, super or otherwise. Thanks.

[Hermit]

Re: Personal Super-Vehicles

 

As a player, I love personal vehicles...

but rarely get them. They just seem to cost too much, at least if I want to keep up with the VIPER air bikes and other organization vehicles. Nothing's sadder than your gadgeteer leaping onto his omni cycle only to have some smuck in green wave good bye and leave you in the dust just because you can't afford as many NC levels.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Personal Super-Vehicles

 

The one time I constructed a personal vehicle for a character the cost got to the point where it was a major power, otherwise the vehicle wasn't much better than "off the rack" ... which is what I got and the GM promptly had me crash in the first session... ah well.

 

I agree with Hermit, in order to get them to "spiffy" level you spend a serious amount of points.

[Iuz the Evil]

Re: Personal Super-Vehicles

 

I completely agree... they're cost prohibitive. I wanted a spiffy transport for my PBEM submission, and realized that I'd have to cut way back on powers or skills in order to afford it ("let's see, you can be super strong or get a really cool motorcycle?!").

 

I'll just have to get by without the wheels...

[Guzalot]

Re: Personal Super-Vehicles

 

I agree with Hermit, the cost is prohibative unless the character is based around the vehicle. I do have one PC in my campaign who is a gadgeteer and uses his personal vehicle all the time until the villains literaly carve him out of it. It's sort of an enclosed air bike and he paid 45 character points for it so it's an integral part of his character concept.

[Hermit]

Re: Personal Super-Vehicles

 

Yeah, and to top it off, unlike most foci, rarely are you going to have your vehicle in almost every scenerio. Your supermobile just isn't going to fit well in the VIPER Nest. Your hover cycle is a little harder to hide or even bring along in your secret ID dining at a resturant with your DNPC, unlike your costume or utility belt.

 

I wonder if a limitation for vehicle use should be constructed.

 

Vehicle Use Chance: Frequent:-Vehicle will be useful and availible in almost every scenerio, even combat situations, with few exceptions (-1/4)

VUC: Occasionally- Vehicle will be useful at least half the time out side of combat situations, perhaps a little less in combat given nature of location(-1/2)

VUC: Rarely- Vehicle is almost never useful in combat situations, and often of limited use outside it (-3/4)

 

Hmm... needs work.

Anyways, each GM would have to decide for him or herself what applied. If rooftop battles are the norm, that ground vehicle might be regulated to getting from here to there, if being transported against your will to the realm of Skarn the shaper sans vehicle is going to happen a lot, take that into account etc.

 

Or maybe DC had it right and we should just change the cost to 1/10 vehicle points instead of 1/5

[Kirby]

Re: Personal Super-Vehicles

 

Or maybe DC had it right and we should just change the cost to 1/10 vehicle points instead of 1/5

I like this idea.

 

I haven't purchased a vehicle in 5E, but back in 4E Champions, I had a character named Caliber who was a weapons specialist and eventually became an anti-VIPER hero. The campaign was set in Tri-City (three cities in New York) where the major US VIPER base was. Anyway, I eventually bought him a vehicle: A Dodge Viper and modified it Champions style by giving it a pop-up chain gun ("Rubber bullets. Honest.") among other weapons, upgraded armor & engines.

 

On one occassion, I was out patrolling in the vehicle and came upon a van transporting VIPER agents. They spotted me, piled back into the van & fled; I pursued. Now in my character's experience all VIPER transports had been armored. And when one of the agents in the van opened up and started firing at me, I fired back... and destroyed the entire vehicle. Apparently, my 5x autofire 8d6 EB (see, rubber bullets) not only pierced the gas tank, but hit some explosives or "something" and the van went up in a fireball. Even though the PC was a former Navy SEAL, his hero ID had never killed before, including his bane of VIPER agents. Here he killed eight.

 

The next day, though, the news was reporting it as a Harbinger of Justice hit and it was entertainingly amazing how big of an drop in crime (and non-existant supercrime) there was for a week.

 

In a Dark Champions game, I had a PC (martial artist - former Navy SEAL, buddy to the above guy) who was working on creating a real-world hovercraft to travel the streets on, since the campaign city bordered one of the Great Lakes that froze during winter time. (At least, I think it was, the game took place in Michigan, but it was nearly 10 years ago.) The GM ended the game before the vehicle was ever built (in other words, I hadn't had my complete design figured out and I didn't spend any points on it).

 

We did have a standard rule across all our campaigns that if you wanted a vehicle to start out with, you paid 10 points for it and then allocated an XP for it until paid off every time XP was awarded. If you wanted a vehicle after you started, you paid 5 XP to begin with, then 4, then 3, then 2, then 1 and continued paying one until it was paid off.

 

Our second option, when it was generally a 'larger than city' feel, was to have a Multipower Pool and you were able to use one vehicle at a time. (A VPP was seen as too cheesey.)

[OddHat]

Re: Personal Super-Vehicles

 

I agree with the general "vehicles are too expensive in Champions" consensus on this thread. If your character is almost purely vehicle based (fights inside a Mecha-suit buit as a vehicle) they work well, and in campaigns where vehicles are free it's (natch) not a problem. Even if an entire group is paying for the vehicle together, it works out well. Still, when the bad guys are not paying for their vehicles or equipment and you are, you're goint to have to cut deeply into your other powers and skills to get something half decent.

 

It can go the other way as well, with vehicle based character getting quite a lot of "free" power from their vehicular pwoer armor, but that strikes me as less of a problem.

[gojira]

Re: Personal Super-Vehicles

 

If I were GM, I'd be willing to let players have almost any sort of vehicle that they could justify, backstory-wise and such. It's such a big part of the genre that I think players should be encouraged to get them.

 

A vehicle could be justified with a Perk: Wealth and a couple of skills, like piloting. You don't have to build it, just buy it.

 

Even average characters could own a van, ultralight, Cessna or sailboat. These items aren't that expensive to buy if you put your mind to it. Maybe even a small helicopter could be justified.

 

Now using your vehicle bought with just Wealth for something besides quick transport and plot device, that's maybe a bit more iffy. Even the X-Men Blackbird was just a way to get from point A to point B. I don't ever remember the thing being armed in any way. Possibly this is why the point cost for building a vehicle is so expensive, to prevent player abuse. If the GM thinks a group or player should have a vehicle, sheesh, just give them one.

[Spence]

Re: Personal Super-Vehicles

 

Most of the vehicles in our games were teams vehicles with all the PC's donating points. I was reading the part in DC where it suggests a safehouse could be bought for 1 point. If it is a DC or other streetlevel games, you might consider a flat cost for the PC to have full time access to a car/vehicle of choice that is not linked to his non-hero ID. The choice being limited to "normal" low to medium cost vehicles.

[Kirby]

Re: Personal Super-Vehicles

 

This thread has entered me thinking about a new character type. A PC with Duplication and each duplicate pays points for the vehicle. The vehicle itself is a cross between a WW2 B-17 Bomber and a Huey Gunship, But with blasters (EB) instead of killing attacks. Perhaps looking like the 4E VIPER Chimera (p.61) but with similar power build to the 5E VIPER Quetzalcoatl Aerial Gunship (p. 126).

 

I know that having say four duplicates pay the cost of a vehicle may seem cheesey, but if it were a 60 point vehicle, they'd each have to pay 15 points.

 

Another thought has occurred to me. Since groups like VIPER practically get their vehicles for free (agents don't spend points on all their stuff), maybe bases could cover the cost of vehicles. That would definitely lower the end cost to the players, especially if it was for vehicles that weren't used often, or just used as a 'from point A to B' method.

[OddHat]

Re: Personal Super-Vehicles

 

Another thought has occurred to me. Since groups like VIPER practically get their vehicles for free (agents don't spend points on all their stuff), maybe bases could cover the cost of vehicles. That would definitely lower the end cost to the players, especially if it was for vehicles that weren't used often, or just used as a 'from point A to B' method.

 

I always allow characters to buy "bases and vehicles" with the same 5 point per doublings. So, if you spend 50 points for a 250 point base, 5 more points will get you a 250 point vehicle. That may be valid within the rules as writtten.

[Hawksmoor]

Re: Personal Super-Vehicles

 

That rule is still in effect.

 

Currently the Damocles Directive has 2 vehicles and a base. I used the doubling rule and the team has two 325 point vehicles, one a large vtol plane and the other an APC/prison van. Now the team has one more member and with his contribution I am adding 2 more vehicles (total of 4) and adding another 25 cp to each vehicle (for a total of 350 points). Which makes sense because the Carrier is supposed to have a working FTL drive added later as the team leaves Earth to investigate the coming Xorn Civil war.

 

Hawksmoor

[Dr. Anomaly]

Re: Personal Super-Vehicles

 

Hang on there a moment, Tex!

 

Isn't the "Duplicate Equipment Rule" intended for pieces of equipment that are duplicates of already-purchased equipment? There's no way I, as a GM, would let Vehicle B -- an entirely different type of vehicle, with the points spent in a completely different fashion -- be defined as a "duplicate" of Vehicle A, just because they have the same point total.

[Supreme Serpent]

Re: Personal Super-Vehicles

 

In my 20+yrs of Champions, I have never actually played a character with a bought personal vehicle. I've written some up, I've had players with them, but I've never had a PC that was actually played with one.

 

I've recently entered a game where I want my character to have a motorcycle. Mainly want it in order to a) get to the scene, make flashy entrances, and c) occaisionally chase escaping bad guys. Trying to write it up as a vehicle was very expensive, and as a temp measure I just bought it as the SFX of some NCM running. Reverse-building the stock motorcycles in the book (5th revised), I can't see how they got the costs they did - either it's wrong, or there's limits, etc. not listed that they applied. For example, the 65/13 street bike (Kawasaki?) seems to come out closer to 18 or 21 real, IIRC.

[Hawksmoor]

Re: Personal Super-Vehicles

 

Hang on there a moment, Tex!

 

Isn't the "Duplicate Equipment Rule" intended for pieces of equipment that are duplicates of already-purchased equipment? There's no way I, as a GM, would let Vehicle B -- an entirely different type of vehicle, with the points spent in a completely different fashion -- be defined as a "duplicate" of Vehicle A, just because they have the same point total.

 

Yet that is precisely what the duplication rule allows for vehicles. 300pt vehicle + 10pts for 4 copies *can* equal according to rules One Car, One Helicopter, One Submarine and One Jet.

 

Page reference is 5ER pg 456 second to last paragraph.

 

Hawksmoor

[Dr. Anomaly]

Re: Personal Super-Vehicles

 

Yet that is precisely what the duplication rule allows for vehicles. 300pt vehicle + 10pts for 4 copies *can* equal according to rules One Car, One Helicopter, One Submarine and One Jet.

 

Page reference is 5ER pg 456 second to last paragraph.

 

Hawksmoor

(blinks)

 

 

(blinks again)

 

[Goes and gets his copy of 5ER]

 

[stares at page]

 

Wow.

 

 

I had no idea that was there!

 

First off...my apologies!

 

Second off...hail, Hawksmoor!

 

Third off...I'm a thinkin' that's gonna be useful, now that I know that's the official stance, so I can safely drop-kick my "I, as a GM," statment above...

[Hawksmoor]

Re: Personal Super-Vehicles

 

(blinks)

 

 

(blinks again)

 

[Goes and gets his copy of 5ER]

 

[stares at page]

 

Wow.

 

 

I had no idea that was there!

 

First off...my apologies!

 

Second off...hail, Hawksmoor!

 

Third off...I'm a thinkin' that's gonna be useful, now that I know that's the official stance, so I can safely drop-kick my "I, as a GM," statment above...

 

 

Afwan.

 

Hawksmoor

[Fox1]

Re: Personal Super-Vehicles

 

I've had vehicles, don't use them for much more than transport because the vehicle combat rules are so boring.

 

But I've never changed the character points for them in any setting. I'd had to agree that they are in general overpriced for what they bring to a character who doesn't always use it in battle.

[Zed-F]

Re: Personal Super-Vehicles

 

I generally don't bother with paying points for vehicles. You want a civilian car or motorcycle, you can get one for free with most concepts. Take a couple points of wealth, and you can replace it fairly easily if it gets broken. Take lots of wealth and you can have civilian jets/helicopters at your disposal.

 

The only time vehicles are worth points in my game are if you actually want to fight using one. In that case you will of course need to spend a fair whack of points. And Oddhat is correct, this can be quite abusive. You need (a) a GM that is willing to experiment or generally runs a looser game, ( clear communication about what's acceptable and what's too munchkiny or otherwise won't fit in the game, © a player that understands his character needs to be capable without the vehicle -- he will not always be in it, and even when he is not all attacks will be stopped by it.

[Brother Jim]

Re: Personal Super-Vehicles

 

played a 4th ed. cyberhero "driver" character that was a VTOL pilot (the vectored thrust kind, not the helicopter kind). i believe it was a 75+75 game and to build the "standard" VTOL "van" that could haul the party cost the character between 30 and 35 character points......it was built to match the sample vehicle in the rulebook....no weapons, very low armor, same speed, etc.

 

it got shot down at the start of the first game with it by a punk with an SMG that barely hit. the character was badly wounded in the crash and abandoned by the rest of the party (he got gakked by the punks).

 

so i rewrote the character as the first characters "successful" cousin (ie: wealthy, with several custom vehicles) that came looking for the people that had killed his cousin. made for some fun roleplaying and made the streets safer

i talked the gm's into letting me build vehicles on 10 to 1, not 5 to 1. and used a multipower to represent the garage o'coolness.

 

made it much better. then the predators and aliens started showing up.

[Kirby]

Re: Personal Super-Vehicles

 

Thinking more about a previous campaign I was in (nearly 10 years ago), the GM who ran the Dark Champions game started the 1/10 cost on vehicles also. This led to the GM who ran the Champions & Golden Age games to change the policy to 1/10 also, which was when Caliber went to purchase his.

 

And as for civilian vehicles (any non-super style), as long as the PC doesn't have Poor or Destitute as a disadvantage, they can feasibly have any real-world vehicle that their salary would allow, but once they want the oil slick, rockets, extra armor or speed, then they need to pay points for it.