AP/RP power templates

[Robyn]

One of the obstacles I've been contemplating on my way to statting out all of the Druid's powers (aside from the whole "not owning a 5ER book" thing) is power levels. How to make the characters most accessible to players and GM's when the "average attack" may differ from campaign to campaign, and different point caps may be in place at different levels depending on (type of) power, and individual players may have different wishes for which areas of the character they would want to be strong/weak.

 

I can work out the Advantages and Limitations, those would be constant, but it at first seemed I can't work out the point levels since those would vary. I then thought that if a "base power increment" were established - for, say, half a die of whatever power, or a single point - this could be multiplied as the player/GM scaled up the strength.

 

Any thoughts on how this would work out? Has anyone done something like this before?

[gojira]

Re: AP/RP power templates

 

Yeah, quite a few people have developed various formulas for figuring power levels. I'm sure you'll get quite a few ideas momentarily.

 

I'd like to add "me too" to this thread. That is, I think some way of indicating power level / danger level would be a good idea. This is the one area where I think simplistic games like DnD have an edge on Hero System. It's really easy to look in an index, pick out all the 5th level monsters, then check through them to see which ones would be good to toss at the players. I wish Hero had a similar grouping system.

 

I guess one way to do it might be to group all adversaries by campaign type like PCs. For example, Superheroic vs Heroic level campaigns.

 

Then rate each adversary from one to five stars. A five star Superheroic villian would be a really tough mega-villian, who never the less could be taken down by a good team of super heroes. A one star Superheroic viliian would be pretty weak, with only one defense or attack that made him competant at the superheroic level. Etc.

 

Or something along those lines.

[ghost-angel]

Re: AP/RP power templates

 

Generally, a 60 Active Point Power will be comparible to any other 60 AP Power. However... that's not always true:

The Needle: RKA, 1 Pip, NND, Does Body. 15Active Points, and will almost always do damage.

 

Of the many many ways to compare power levels:

CV/SPD levels (how often you can attack and how often you can hit/evade)

Damage Classes (raw damage)

Active Points (an standard benchmark)

Base Points / Active Points (a 60 AP attack may not be comparable to another 60AP Attack if one does less damage but has more advantages that don't add to the damage factor (Variable SFX being an example).

 

One such thought is limiting people to 60 Base Points of a Power (Energy Blast for example), but allow Advantages to take it to 75 Active Points. You're effectively capped at 12 Damage Classes, but can add Advantages without sacraficing raw damage. Not always appropriate and may require more scrutinty. Good for advanced players.

 

 

there are a lot of ways to compare power levels. The biggest thing is to make sure everyone is using the same benchmark and you're generally going to be OK I've found.

[Ndreare]

Re: AP/RP power templates

 

I would suggest spending the three dolor’s to buy a copy of Digital Hero #3 and using the E.R. System presented in there. They also a have an excel spread sheet you can use to do all the math but you will need to spend the three dolor’s to understand all the context.

 

Different people use different limits but I would suggest the following.

 

Gritty Heroic = 60-70

Heroic = 80

Special Agent (Bond) = 90

Super heroic = 100

Cosmic = 110-120

I have not seen any games use over 110 but they could be out there.

 

For almost all of my fantasy game I use the 80 limit. However every one has a preference.

 

I have seen simple formulas like rule of X and stuff like that but they always break down. I would also suggest using the GM fiat system, were evaluation of a character is used based on arbitrary “Feelingsâ€.

[gojira]

Re: AP/RP power templates

 

Base Points / Active Points

 

This one here is kinda interesting, just because it's so simple. If you took a ratio like 100 * AP / BP for each character campaign type, you'd get a rating of roughly 10 to 70 for each character.

 

Hmm, Sidekick also talks about Skill-based characters, Powers-based (and equipment-based) characters and Characteristic-based characters. I wonder if this fits in here somehow...

[ghost-angel]

Re: AP/RP power templates

 

This one here is kinda interesting, just because it's so simple. If you took a ratio like 100 * AP / BP for each character campaign type, you'd get a rating of roughly 10 to 70 for each character.

 

Hmm, Sidekick also talks about Skill-based characters, Powers-based (and equipment-based) characters and Characteristic-based characters. I wonder if this fits in here somehow...

A ratio would also work, but is a bit more complicated.

 

I was thinking more along the lines of:

Base Points - is the points in a Power before any Advantages or Limitations. For instance, the Base Points of a 12D6 Energy Blast is 60, the Base Points of a 8D6 Energy Blast, Explosion is 40.

Active Points are just that, the AP of the Power. In the above examples the AP are both 60.

 

If you put on a Base Point limit of 60 Points you know you can't exceed 12 Damage Classes. If you make the Active Point limit 75 then someone can have Reduced END: 1/2 on their 12D6 EB. Or some other +1/4 Advantage, or they can reduce the damage for more Advantages.

 

It's an option to try out at least.

[gojira]

Re: AP/RP power templates

 

Oh, you meant base points on the power. I thought you meant overall points on the character.

 

Like a 350 pt character with a 60 point power cap has a ratio of 100 * 60 / 350 = 17. Which is about "average" I guess.

[Ndreare]

Re: AP/RP power templates

 

Oh, you meant base points on the power. I thought you meant overall points on the character.

 

Like a 350 pt character with a 60 point power cap has a ratio of 100 * 60 / 350 = 17. Which is about "average" I guess.

 

This is what I thought he was saying also.

[ghost-angel]

Re: AP/RP power templates

 

Sorry 'bout that. My bad completely for not being clear enough.

[Mike W]

Re: AP/RP power templates

 

One of the obstacles I've been contemplating on my way to statting out all of the Druid's powers (aside from the whole "not owning a 5ER book" thing) is power levels. How to make the characters most accessible to players and GM's when the "average attack" may differ from campaign to campaign, and different point caps may be in place at different levels depending on (type of) power, and individual players may have different wishes for which areas of the character they would want to be strong/weak.

 

I can work out the Advantages and Limitations, those would be constant, but it at first seemed I can't work out the point levels since those would vary. I then thought that if a "base power increment" were established - for, say, half a die of whatever power, or a single point - this could be multiplied as the player/GM scaled up the strength.

 

Any thoughts on how this would work out? Has anyone done something like this before?

 

My experience is that powers with Advantages like AP are fairly rare. You can get by with raw dice an overwhelming majority of the time if you keep the power levels balanced properly. When you do use Advantages, figure out the number of Active Points that affect the damage the attack does(in other words, throw out Advantages like 0 END that don't affect the actual damage) and then convert it to DCs so an 8D6 AP = 12D6 normal attack. It isn't perfect, but it's the best you can do in my experience. But keep an eye on how many people have the proper defense. Things like AP can get out of hand quickly if no one has hardened DEF.

 

Then apply the "rule of four" which means keep everything within 4 steps. So attacks generally range from say 9-12DC, SPD range is 4-7(or 3-6). For DEF, figure 4 points to one "step")(since 4 points generally blocks one DC of damage). So that puts DEF at 20-32 for our example(basically you want each hit to do around 12pts of damage). CVs also need a range of 4, so DEX range becomes 20-29. It should be a rare character that falls outside of that range because an advantage of even two "steps" is significant. Also, try to prevent having many characters that are on the high end of everything. If a guy has a 7 SPD and 29 DEX, he should have around 9-10DCs and low 20s DEF to balance.

[radioKAOS]

Re: AP/RP power templates

 

I found this interesting, and I belive there is a threa around here somewhere with this link and other options...

[Hyper-Man]

Re: AP/RP power templates

 

Generally, a 60 Active Point Power will be comparible to any other 60 AP Power. However... that's not always true:

The Needle: RKA, 1 Pip, NND, Does Body. 15Active Points, and will almost always do damage.

 

Of the many many ways to compare power levels:

CV/SPD levels (how often you can attack and how often you can hit/evade)

Damage Classes (raw damage)

Active Points (an standard benchmark)

Base Points / Active Points (a 60 AP attack may not be comparable to another 60AP Attack if one does less damage but has more advantages that don't add to the damage factor (Variable SFX being an example).

 

One such thought is limiting people to 60 Base Points of a Power (Energy Blast for example), but allow Advantages to take it to 75 Active Points. You're effectively capped at 12 Damage Classes, but can add Advantages without sacraficing raw damage. Not always appropriate and may require more scrutinty. Good for advanced players.

 

 

there are a lot of ways to compare power levels. The biggest thing is to make sure everyone is using the same benchmark and you're generally going to be OK I've found.

 

This is the one we use in my current weekly game. Allows for attack multipowers that include 10d6 EB's with +1/2 Advantages like AP or Explosion at full END (7) AND 12d6 EB's with Reduced END (3).

 

It allows for creative builds that aren't outclassed by the average defenses in the game.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: AP/RP power templates

 

Robyn, I'm not certain from your description whether you're looking for an actual chart/formula/etc. that balances Active/Real Point costs for character abilities at various power levels (which some of my predecessors seem to assume); or if you just want standards that make it easy for players to choose the powers they want based on the campaign.

 

If it's the latter, the UNTIL Super Powers Database and USPD II might be helpful. Not only do they contain pregenerated Power builds covering a host of concepts and SFX, but each build includes options for stronger and weaker versions, as well as versions using different Modifiers, all with the Active and Real Point costs already calculated. The two Fantasy HERO Grimoires use the same format for fantasy spells.

 

To see if this sort of thing would help you, you can look up the numerous examples on the Online USPD.

[Robyn]

Re: AP/RP power templates

 

If it's the latter' date=' the [i']UNTIL Super Powers Database[/i] and USPD II might be helpful. Not only do they contain pregenerated Power builds covering a host of concepts and SFX, but each build includes options for stronger and weaker versions, as well as versions using different Modifiers, all with the Active and Real Point costs already calculated.

 

That's along the lines of what I was looking for, yes.

 

Looking at the Options section under Freeze Flesh, I'd basically be looking at a single set of Advantages and Limitations with no variation; and I'd cost out the AP and RP for 1/2d6 (possibly the END too), then indicate the multiplier for each 1/2d6 increment. Players (and GM's) could look separately at the highest permissible AP (for Active Point caps), desirable range for Real cost, and then play around in there based on how strong they wanted that power to be, relative to any others. The GM could look at not having the PC outshine others in their area of specialty, the PC could look at things like "Well, I wanted my Entangle to be more powerful than my RKA so I would find it more effective and use it more often." and "I wanted the regular attack to allow me to make full use of my Strength." (for personal preference), and the END cost could be useful to know if the multiplier was very high.