STR and Damage Shield are too expensive

[CourtFool]

I knew that would get someone's attention.

 

I have seen countless threads stating that X is too cheap or outright broken. To prove a point, the poster will submit an example with a crazy number of levels or a convoluted build. Under the conditions provided, X does appear to buckle. Shortly after the example is presented, another poster will suggest that it is the GM's responsibility to not allow such munchkinism. As a GM, I have often wondered how I am to keep up with every new and ingenious spirit of the rules raping my players present to me. Vetting characters is probably my least favorite responsibility as a GM.

 

There seems to be a common theme in all of the examples presented: extremism. So, should I use this as my lens to hunt for the munchkinism that will ultimately rain ruin upon my campaign? Is there an arbitrary number I could use? Say, more than four levels in Perks, Skills or Talents. More than four different Advantages or Limitations on a Power? Characteristics more than double the campaign baseline?

 

This is not meant as a fix for any of the suspected broken Advantages, Characteristics, Limitations, Perks, Powers, Skills or Talents. Merely a tool to help us overwhelmed GMs recognize stop sign builds on the fly.

[Hyper-Man]

Re: STR and Damage Shield are too expensive

 

Well, a lot of depends on the genre and tone of game you want to run. Generally as far as powers go, anything with more than +2 total Advantages deserves a closer look.

[The Main Man]

Re: STR and Damage Shield are too expensive

 

I agree with Hyper-Man.

 

I also think it is a good idea for the reverse: any power with more than -2 in Limitations also needs a looksie.

[OddHat]

Re: STR and Damage Shield are too expensive

 

For myself:

 

Build: You must have a clearly defined role on the team, you must fill it well, and you must not tread on the other player's schticks. Yes, I see that you've managed to put together a Brick-Energy Projector-Martial Artist-Super Mage-Mentalist-Speedster with enhanced senses and every skill in the game for 350 points; yes, I'm impressed by your build skills; no, you can't play it, as it would leave nothing for any other PC to do.

 

Advantages: If I can't remember all the advantages on your power, no.

 

Limitations: If I can't remember all the limitations on your power, or I can't see how it would actually come up in play, no.

 

A year or two ago I had a 45 year old (+/-) player ask if he could come into the game with a cosmic VPP using the SFX "Magic". The VPP had a base -4 in limits on every spell, including the limitation "No more than four powers at once in VPP". When I explained that this was not an acceptable build for the campaign, and that "No more than 4 powers" in a cosmic VPP wasn't a limitation at all, he decided he didn't want to join the group. I regret not adding a player (who seemed like an OK guy), but I don't regret not approving the build.

[Rapier]

Re: STR and Damage Shield are too expensive

 

There is also nothing wrong with explaining to your players that his character looks ok, but might require adjustments down the road.

 

I've had to make a couple of adjustments to my new campaign as we got playing and I realised that things were not quite working as I had assumed.

 

Regen for instance. We are playing very skill heavy, one-trick-pony, lightly powered Dark Champions. A couple of the players had Regen. It quickly became apparent that the base Regen (Post-12) was WAY too fast. You could go from -9 BODY (the brink of death for a normal person) to full health in 4 minutes. That's pretty darned fast...Dracula and Wolverine fast. It was not quite the feeling I was going for so we changed the time limit to 6 hours.

 

Noone had a problem with the change and understood why I was asking for the change.

 

Characters are not inviolate. There is nothing wrong with asking a player to make a change to their character if a power becomes overwhelming or too powerful for the campaign.

[CourtFool]

Re: STR and Damage Shield are too expensive

 

I am sold on schtick preservation. My problem is that I have never been able to get my players to agree to what their schtick will be before play. Maybe I just need to demand a better, non-character sheet driven, concept before I actually let players crunch numbers.

[Mike W]

Re: STR and Damage Shield are too expensive

 

One thing I've found over the years is to create a set of campaign baselines. Print something up that says, for example, what a typical STR is for a typical type of character - and what the campaing maxes are, using examples. So just off the top of my head with STR(and please, let's not argue over who should be where, it's just an off the top of my head example):

 

Strength Guidelines:

 

10 average human - you

13 tough human - gang leader, beat cop

20 very strong human - Batman

25 max human - Capt. America, olympic weightlifter

30 low powered super - Luke Cage

45 borderline brick - Spiderman

60 typical brick - The Thing

75 among the strongest beings in the universe - Superman, Hulk

 

Normally, I fill every 5 points but I didn't want to overstretch the example.

Giving characters baselines lets them see how tough they already are and makes it easier to convince someone that "You're already above average for most supers in X number of categories, that's enough" Plus, if they can see what the absolute max is, most players won't try to munchkin above that line(or not far). In short, the charts help to establish play balance right away and as long as the campaign maintains that balance, I find that powergaming isn't nearly as common because the characters are already tough enough and the players know where they rank in the world, so to speak. Of course, you'll still probably have to deal with someone occasionally who just has to be the biggest, baddest guy on the block. But nothing can prevent that short of not letting them in the campaign to begin with.

[Mike W]

Re: STR and Damage Shield are too expensive

 

I am sold on schtick preservation. My problem is that I have never been able to get my players to agree to what their schtick will be before play. Maybe I just need to demand a better' date=' non-character sheet driven, concept before I actually let players crunch numbers.[/quote']

 

I usually make my players write up a full character description - background, personality, powers, etc - without using any numbers. Only after they finish that are they allowed to get out a character sheet and start filling in numbers. When you combine the write up with the baseline charts I mentioned in the previous post, I it seems to make things go a lot smoother.

[Shaft]

Re: STR and Damage Shield are too expensive

 

Active Cost is a good way to cap that. If you have a cap of 60 active pts, you can have a straight 60STR/12d6, but if you're limited ot the active cost cap, only 30 active points can have Damage Shield after making it Continuous.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: STR and Damage Shield are too expensive

 

I am sold on schtick preservation. My problem is that I have never been able to get my players to agree to what their schtick will be before play. Maybe I just need to demand a better' date=' non-character sheet driven, concept before I actually let players crunch numbers.[/quote']

 

Well...some genres are more shtick oriented than others. I would say that the more realistic the campaign, the less shtick oriented it is.

 

For supers, I firmly believe that all the best character concepts can be summarized in a sentence and apply that as a measuring stick to new character concepts from players.

 

I also push back on players, working with them and challenging them to develop their character concepts, poking at areas that I think are too vague or don't fit or don't make sense. I put it to players like this -- the concept is theirs and they own it, but the determination of how that concept is implemented is ultimately mine. We can meet in the middle, or I can do the mechanics from the ground up, or they can provide the mechanics and I can tweak out anything that I see fit to, but at some level its always a collaborative process.

 

I see part of my role as the GM as being responsible for making sure new characters fit the setting, but also helping players find a character design they can enjoy within that setting. Some players do not like this, and some even actively resist it. In the end, if a player is unwilling to work with me on their character, they're probably not willing to work with me on making a campaign great either so in a way its also a good way to figure out that someone isnt a good fit.

[Dust Raven]

Re: STR and Damage Shield are too expensive

 

Damn right they're too expensive. STR shouldn't cost more than COM really, probably less. And Damage Shield is just... um...

 

 

I've noticed a lot about how things seem "broken". My car seems "broken" when I drive it down stairs for example. Jumping off the freeway overpass makes several of my bones seem "broken". Does this mean my car and my bones were poorly designed, or need to be "fixed" to make up for this. Perhaps my car should have a fail-safe to avoid stair, maybe there should be some kind safety net to catch me when I jump off an overpass. That way I won't be "broken" anymore.

 

Or maybe I can just stop doing stupid things with my car and my body.

 

I think I'll just pick the easier one... I wonder which one that is...

[Rapier]

Re: STR and Damage Shield are too expensive

 

I think I'll just pick the easier one... I wonder which one that is...

 

The one that involves a nice flavourful cheese. Preferrably something in the cheddar family.

[Captain Obvious]

Re: STR and Damage Shield are too expensive

 

Damn right they're too expensive. STR shouldn't cost more than COM really, probably less. And Damage Shield is just... um...

 

 

I've noticed a lot about how things seem "broken". My car seems "broken" when I drive it down stairs for example. Jumping off the freeway overpass makes several of my bones seem "broken". Does this mean my car and my bones were poorly designed, or need to be "fixed" to make up for this. Perhaps my car should have a fail-safe to avoid stair, maybe there should be some kind safety net to catch me when I jump off an overpass. That way I won't be "broken" anymore.

 

Or maybe I can just stop doing stupid things with my car and my body.

 

I think I'll just pick the easier one... I wonder which one that is...

 

Along similar lines, Invisibility is overpriced. You can be invisible segment after segment, and even a normal human takes essentially no damage. Even making it Usable Against Others (jacking up the cost even further ) adds almost nothing to its effectiveness.

[casualplayer]

Re: STR and Damage Shield are too expensive

 

Written at the top of each character sheet of my old long-running superhero campaign is the archetype that each player wanted. POWERHOUSE, MARTIAL ARTIST, SUPERMAGE. The next game we added SHAPESHIFTER. The next game we added SPEEDSTER. A few weeks later we added MENTALIST and ENERGYBLASTER.

 

No one ever got to hit as hard as the Powerhouse, even though the Supermage could turn into an earth elemental. No one got to hit in combat as often as the Martial Artist, even though the Speedster's DEX was much higher. The Supermage had vast magical powers but stayed away from Telepathy and TK because that was the Mentalist's and Energyblaster's turf.

 

Maybe it was the players. Strictly speaking, the Supermage, Speedster and the Energyblaster all had TK. The Supermage could assume a windform and control breezes, the Speedster had wings of crimson energy that could reach out like the "Phoenix Effect," and the Energyblaster had the classic Fully Invisible, Indirect TK Based on ECV. On paper they would look so similar that some players would howl.

 

On second thought, it was definitely the players. If a player isn't going to play nice to start with, they probably won't later. If they are going to waste your time now, they probably will later. These are the warning signs I would look for, because anything "in game" can always be handled by a radiation accident if it's a gamebreaker.

[Shaft]

Re: STR and Damage Shield are too expensive

 

I've noticed a lot about how things seem "broken". My car seems "broken" when I drive it down stairs for example. Jumping off the freeway overpass makes several of my bones seem "broken". Does this mean my car and my bones were poorly designed, or need to be "fixed" to make up for this. Perhaps my car should have a fail-safe to avoid stair, maybe there should be some kind safety net to catch me when I jump off an overpass. That way I won't be "broken" anymore.

 

Or maybe I can just stop doing stupid things with my car and my body.

 

I think I'll just pick the easier one... I wonder which one that is...

 

Must go spread some rep now so I can thank you for that good laugh I just had.

[Shaft]

Re: STR and Damage Shield are too expensive

 

No one ever got to hit as hard as the Powerhouse, even though the Supermage could turn into an earth elemental. No one got to hit in combat as often as the Martial Artist, even though the Speedster's DEX was much higher. The Supermage had vast magical powers but stayed away from Telepathy and TK because that was the Mentalist's and Energyblaster's turf.

 

I'd like to remind y'all that with an active cap on damage, the rules have a built in edge for Powerhouses. If a Powerhouse has a 60 STR/12d6 punch (because of active cost caps) while the martial artist has a 15 STR, backed up with offensive strike, 3DCs and a OAF HA that adds another 2d6 (for a total of 12d6), the Powerhouse can do 16d6 when he haymakers. The Martial Artist substitutes Haymaker for Offensive Strike and still only does 12d6.

 

Mind you, you can build a Martial Artist without maneuvers and still get him up to 12d6 just with STR & HA, but I digress...

[OddHat]

Re: STR and Damage Shield are too expensive

 

I'd like to remind y'all that with an active cap on damage' date=' the rules have a built in edge for Powerhouses. If a Powerhouse has a 60 STR/12d6 punch (because of active cost caps) while the martial artist has a 15 STR, backed up with offensive strike, 3DCs and a OAF HA that adds another 2d6 (for a total of 12d6), the Powerhouse can do 16d6 when he haymakers. The Martial Artist substitutes Haymaker for Offensive Strike and still only does 12d6.[/quote']

 

Allowing the Martial Artist gets to use the martial MPA rules evens that up again pretty smoothly. The MA gets much improved special attacks phase after phase (Martial Strike + Flash, Killing Attack + Disarm, NND + Grab, far more if the GM allows it), the Brick and Energy Blaster get their massive haymaker attacks at dramatically appropriate times.

 

Then a player comes in with a Martial Brick, and you as GM have no choice but to kill him.

[casualplayer]

Re: STR and Damage Shield are too expensive

 

I'd like to remind y'all that with an active cap on damage, the rules have a built in edge for Powerhouses. If a Powerhouse has a 60 STR/12d6 punch (because of active cost caps) while the martial artist has a 15 STR, backed up with offensive strike, 3DCs and a OAF HA that adds another 2d6 (for a total of 12d6), the Powerhouse can do 16d6 when he haymakers. The Martial Artist substitutes Haymaker for Offensive Strike and still only does 12d6.

 

Mind you, you can build a Martial Artist without maneuvers and still get him up to 12d6 just with STR & HA, but I digress...

 

Actually this was 3rd edition. I told you it was my old game.

 

Besides penalty levels for hit location and all levels into Damage Class smooths things out pretty well also. This MA took out Professor Muerte with one shot to the head, on purpose.

[Shaft]

Re: STR and Damage Shield are too expensive

 

This MA took out Professor Muerte with one shot to the head' date=' on purpose.[/quote']

 

The lesson of Ed Gruberman. He is fortunate. Few novices learn so much of Tae Kwon Leep so soon.

[Hyper-Man]

Re: STR and Damage Shield are too expensive

 

....

 

Then a player comes in with a Martial Brick, and you as GM have no choice but to kill him.

 

But then you couldn't play a character like Titanium Chef.