Highest level Champions game you could play?

[Snake Gandhi]

Just curiosity, but after seeing some of the 700-800 point games some folks here play in, and starting one myself, what do you think is the highest point total Champions can go before it becomes unplayable as a superhero game?

 

How high can you push a superhero game? 1200 points? 1500 points? 2000 points?

[Chuckg]

Re: Highest level Champions game you could play?

 

I honestly wouldn't venture to more than vaguely guess, I'd have to experiment to know for sure.

 

Vaguely guessing, however, I'd say that when you start getting to where each individual PC is as buff as Takofanes or Doctor Destroyer, it would take a very unusual game concept and/or very skilled DMs and players to make it work.

 

So, call it 1500-2000 points as a cutoff.

[philnicau]

Re: Highest level Champions game you could play?

 

As an old-school champions player (since 1984) i've found our group has difficulty envisioning characters higher then 300-400 pts, we've tried the Galactic champions level but it didn't suit our gaming style, i suppose because we started on the idea of 100 base+ 120 to 150 pts in disadvs.

[Gummibear]

Re: Highest level Champions game you could play?

 

As an old-school champions player (since 1984) i've found our group has difficulty envisioning characters higher then 300-400 pts' date=' we've tried the Galactic champions level but it didn't suit our gaming style, i suppose because we started on the idea of 100 base+ 120 to 150 pts in disadvs.[/quote']

 

I'm also an old school champs player, still have my black and white book, so I like to start low, say 150 point skilled norms and 30 points of "powers" in my Iron Bay City universe. However keep in mind that after playing for over seven years the average point total is about 700, granted theres a lot of skills there, but the power level is quite high. I bring in NPCs, not always opponents, that are easily in the 1200-1500 point range. Do they have every power under the sun? Nope. Do they know all and see all? Nope. They have real lives and backgrounds, they're just more powerful than your average bear.

 

Work this out-the average character in a hero world is 250 -350 points (150 disad/100-200 base). Any campaign that has these characters in their world will undoubtedly have some very old NPCs running around, say for 5000 years. These characters are constantly doing things in their regular life and almost always attaining xp. Even with an average of 1 xp per year they would be a 5250-5350 character. Though much of this would be skills, a good portion will still be powers. Realistically any Hero games world will have several of these guys/gals running around. Therefore, there will be several more in the 3000-5000 range, and quite a few NPCs in the 1000-3000 range. Its just logical.

[Hermit]

Re: Highest level Champions game you could play?

 

I think at 1550, my head would explode.

 

Then again, as others mentioned, you can spend a LOT of points in bases and vehicles

[Metaphysician]

Re: Highest level Champions game you could play?

 

Depends on what your buying. After all, Arcane is only 1000 something points.

[Chuckg]

Re: Highest level Champions game you could play?

 

Yeah, but you could use Arcane as a teaching tool for "How NOT to build a character".

[ghost-angel]

Re: Highest level Champions game you could play?

 

I would say there is no upper limit, however there is a point you reach where switching to the Amber System would be more productive to the game.

[assault]

Re: Highest level Champions game you could play?

 

I agree with "it depends on what you are buying".

 

If every character starts to look like the Silver Surfer, your campaign is over.

 

By that I mean: high defences against every kind of attack, damage reduction, a honkin' big VPP, cosmic awareness, and all the other stuff that makes a character a big, bland, pointless pile of points.

 

Of course, you _can_ have characters that have all of this stuff in a viable game. As long as they have an "off" switch that allows them to be taken down by less powerful characters they are probably manageable. And, of course, as long as they are not the only type of character in the game.

 

You can spend a lot of points on other stuff, as people have pointed out.

 

One thing I would consider trying would be to limit the expansion of characters' combat abilities. Characters would be allowed to be incredibly versatile, and actually be a lot tougher than starting characters, but they wouldn't be unstoppable, or capable of doing things outside their character conceptions.

 

There are some obvious problems with this. In particular, getting the balance right between characters and normal technology is tricky. Some characters should be able to smash tanks. Some should be able to bounce tank shells off their chests. Some should be able to do both. But all of this involves huge attacks and huge defences, and thus to character bloat and campaign death.

 

Hmm.... what I would consider would be enforcing a requirement for all high-powered characters to have a way to be neutralised. I would also keep a careful eye on ensuring that each character has their own sphere of competence relevant to the others. No character should be totally invulnerable, or omni-competent.

 

The game would still eventually break down, but hopefully later rather than sooner.

[Peregrine]

Re: Highest level Champions game you could play?

 

I honestly wouldn't venture to more than vaguely guess, I'd have to experiment to know for sure.

 

Vaguely guessing, however, I'd say that when you start getting to where each individual PC is as buff as Takofanes or Doctor Destroyer, it would take a very unusual game concept and/or very skilled DMs and players to make it work.

 

So, call it 1500-2000 points as a cutoff.

 

I think our 1000 point V'Hanian Imperial Guard game worked OK... well, the players did fine...

[rjcurrie]

Re: Highest level Champions game you could play?

 

To me, the maximum level that I would be willing to play would depend almost entirely on the GM. If I felt the GM had a strong grasp of the Hero system and the high level superhero genre, I would be willing to try almost anything. In general, I think the success of any Champions game has a lot to do with the quality of the GM.

[Lord Mhoram]

Re: Highest level Champions game you could play?

 

I don't see an upper limit.

Points do not equate power, although many times they do.

 

I've built 750/800 point characters that only have a damage cap of about 15d6, and a defence in the same range... lots of points spent on expensive "color" powers, skills lots of talents... and could easily dump another 1000 points into the character over the years without breaking character concpet.

Then after that point going cosmic would take that much more..... so I don't see a point where point level itself would cut things off... it would just depend on the game - as assault said - if everyone looks like the Surfer it just doesn't work.

[Mike W]

Re: Highest level Champions game you could play?

 

From my experience, it's probably going to start getting dicey(or absurd) at around 650-700 points per character. At least with the scale we're currently using. At that point, I'm running a pretty high end Avengers team, damn near JLA level. That's a hard group to challenge without resorting to Gods and the like. Heck, they're at 500 now and it's starting to get tough. Though part of that is because the game was started as a "street level" game, but obviously, that isn't the case anymore. So I'm trying to preserve some of the "street" feel while using villains like the Mandarin who are anything but.

[Enforcer84]

Re: Highest level Champions game you could play?

 

How many points are you offering? I'll take it.

[Bloodstone]

Re: Highest level Champions game you could play?

 

I don't know. Probably would depend on what kind of caps were put in place in ratio to the total points.

 

Too low and I will just end up being as good as possible at everything and then burn crazy amounts of points on fun stuff like background skills and non combat powers.

 

By contrast, if the total points and the relevant caps are high, I will tend to focus on one gimick and try to be the very best at it that I can be.

[Black Rose]

Re: Highest level Champions game you could play?

 

I think that 250K thread is about my limit.

 

Seriously, while I would love to try out a 700-1000 pt campaign, I think I would be just as frustrated by my inability to fit my concept in the parameters as I was building my Headdliner for Nu Soard's Five Star campaign. I like flavor powers, special effect powers and so on, and I waste points there, because I'd rather look cool doing it, than actually be able to do it. It's a flaw, I know.

[nexus]

Re: Highest level Champions game you could play?

 

From Seeds of Change, I have learned my limit is probably around 700-800 points. I tend to run out of things to buy at that point.

[Gummibear]

Re: Highest level Champions game you could play?

 

I would say there is no upper limit' date=' however there is a point you reach where switching to the Amber System would be more productive to the game.[/quote']

 

 

Heresy I tell you! He speaks of other systems...he must be burned at the stake.

 

A slight aside to my previous post and an agreement with some others: points really don't matter as such. Seriously think about it-does it matter if you are hitting the opponent with 5d6 EB and the opponent has 5 pd armor, or that you are hitting them with 150d6 EB and they have 150 PD armor? The name of the game is story, character interaction and concept. Outside of that the game is a system that provides some ground rules for you to work in.

 

Don't get me wrong-I enjoy a good slugfest as much, if not more, than the next guy. However the thing that will keep a group together and keep the PCs and characters interested is the story. It doesn't matter if you are heaving planets/galaxies at each other or "very small rocks."

[Black Omega]

Re: Highest level Champions game you could play?

 

The game I'm in now is almost to 700 points and chugging along fine. I think 10,000 is a good limit thought.

 

Ok, seriously I still have plenty I want to do with the character. And the character still has weak spots that can be taken advantage of, proven by her being captured in last weeks game. Time to buy up the old mental defense.

[Metaphysician]

Re: Highest level Champions game you could play?

 

Heresy I tell you! He speaks of other systems...he must be burned at the stake.

 

A slight aside to my previous post and an agreement with some others: points really don't matter as such. Seriously think about it-does it matter if you are hitting the opponent with 5d6 EB and the opponent has 5 pd armor, or that you are hitting them with 150d6 EB and they have 150 PD armor? The name of the game is story, character interaction and concept. Outside of that the game is a system that provides some ground rules for you to work in.

 

Don't get me wrong-I enjoy a good slugfest as much, if not more, than the next guy. However the thing that will keep a group together and keep the PCs and characters interested is the story. It doesn't matter if you are heaving planets/galaxies at each other or "very small rocks."

 

This is true only insofar as you don't ever bring in any actual benchmarks. Sure, those combat values might be more or less equivalent against each other. . . but only one of them lets you fry a tank casually.

[Hawksmoor]

Re: Highest level Champions game you could play?

 

I would love to play in a 1000-1500 point game. Currently I have a character in the GGU that clocks in at 502pts. If I had 500 additional points he would so rock.

 

Hawksmoor

[OddHat]

Re: Highest level Champions game you could play?

 

After a really high power level, I'd end up running a game that involved almost no combat. There are only so many mad gods and alien invasion fleets you can drive off by pure force before things get dull.

 

The points it takes to get to this level are variable. I have 350 point characters who can throw 24d6 attacks and survive direct hits by a standard Hero System nuke, and thre is at least one official published 700+ point Hero who would have trouble going up against a well prepared street gang.

[Lumbering Ox]

Re: Highest level Champions game you could play?

 

I think that 250K thread is about my limit.

...

 

It's all fun and games untill someone shows up with a 1 million point character.

 

On a more serious note.

 

1: More points mean normals become less relevant. Pump the points high enough and even energy types and mentalists can laugh off rifle shots unless they totally pro from dover it.

2: The higher the point level, the more dominating one character can be vs another. Low power brick can have a chance of hitting low power dex man but will not flatten most heros even non bricks, however a 2000 point brick would be hard pressed to ever hit a 2000 point dex man, and would flatten say a mentalist with one hit

2a: Yes 5d6 vs ED5 is the same as 150d6 vs 150 ED, however said person might not have 150 PD but even a fantasy hero character would have a 5 pd.

2b: I would guess that a high level caimpaign would see more one shot kills, unless regardless of character concept, every super buys up all the defences.

[Nucleon]

Re: Highest level Champions game you could play?

 

From my experience' date=' it's probably going to start getting dicey(or absurd) at around 650-700 points per character. At least with the scale we're currently using. At that point, I'm running a pretty high end Avengers team, damn near JLA level. That's a hard group to challenge without resorting to Gods and the like. Heck, they're at 500 now and it's starting to get tough. Though part of that is because the game was started as a "street level" game, but obviously, that isn't the case anymore. So I'm trying to preserve some of the "street" feel while using villains like the Mandarin who are anything but.[/quote']

 

As a GM Himself, Nucleon echoes that. He has two rules of thumb about these.

 

First, never wander too far from reality. If you play in a universe where gangsters are at 600 pts, well, a 1000 pts charatcter should be à propos. Else, it is quite tough to provide credible opposition.

 

Second, experience should be harder and harder to get as a character progresses. Let's face it; Handing to a bunch of street gangers their behinds could well be counted as experience for a 250 pts hero, but definitively not for 1000 pts behemoths. With this, it is quite plausible to have a 5000 years-old NPC at 1000 pts, intead of the 10000 pts montruosity he would be if experience keeps the same relativity.

 

Yes, we're quite lonely here, at the top.

 

Now, to directly respond the question, Nucleon would permit a 550 pts campaign, but only with experienced players.

[megaplayboy]

Re: Highest level Champions game you could play?

 

I ran a short-lived campaign recently(short lived because I had to move) which had two sets of parameters for high level PCs: the first was 850 base + 150 in disads, balanced and scaled appropriately, and no particular need to take weaknesses. The second was "1000 or more" base + "200 or more" disads, with the caveat that the PC would have to have at least one "Achilles heel", and more than one as they became ever more powerful. Also, the stats would still have to remain relatively balanced, so that the first type of PCs could have some effect on the 2nd type.

 

this is probably the way the JLA would be written up--Supes and J'onn J'onzz are insanely powerful, but both have a laundry list of vulnerabilities--supes also has some psych lims that limit him, too. Batman is less powerful, but has no glaring weaknesses, aside from being "merely" human.(and the JLA Batgod probably has skads of combat luck to keep him from becoming the Batstain.)

 

Another idea is to have characters who "scale up"--some of the dragonball characters can "boost" themselves to higher and higher levels, but start at a level that's not too insane.

 

As long as the PCs are balanced against each other, the GM is able to challenge them, and the story ideas keep flowing, you can run some pretty "epic" campaigns:)