Rant? Speed in Hero

[Nekkidcarpenter]

I was helping someone make a character for the Champions campaign I'm starting and I had what seemed like my millionth discussion about this apparently controversial topic.

 

Me: Speed 6 huh? That seems high. What's your character origin again?

 

Player: I'm a scientist that got hit by a bolt of lightning.

 

Me: And you've done a lot of fighting in your life? You realize that Speed is basically a combat stat.

 

Player: Well, 6 Speed is easy to keep track of.

 

Me:

 

 

Ok, I started playing Hero games with guys who listened to character concept first and then built characters based on that instead of on what was most efficient. And that led to this interpretation of the Speed chart.

 

 

You are not a quick thinker or a good combatant. You react slowly in pressure situations. You are Speed 1.

 

You are a typical person. You react at normal speeds in pressure situation. You are Speed 2.

 

You have been in many fights. You have been trained to think more clearly and act more efficiently in tense situations. Perhaps you are a police officer or fireman. You are Speed 3.

 

You have received extensive combat training. You may be a black belt or a member of a elite fighting unit. You are Speed 4.

 

You make those pathetic Rangers and Seals look like lardasses. You can outthink and move faster than Tito Ortiz. You are John Rambo. You are Speed 5.

 

Normal people can barely see you move in a fight. They sure as hell can't keep up with you. You are Morpheus or Trinity IN The Matrix. You are Speed 6.

 

Trained agents can't keep track of you. You are at least partially made of energy. You are an Agent in The Matrix. You are Speed 7.

 

Faster than that. 8+.

 

 

This is based on the premise that NCM is Speed 4, and on the overall Hero principle of 5 active points doubles a power. If players and GM's follow these guidelines it will be easier to compare characters across all genres. Yes, superheroes are faster and more competent than normals, but having 60 strength is not actually a justification for being able to act more often in combat than a Navy Seal.

[Toadmaster]

Re: Rant? Speed in Hero

 

The problem with speed is largely GM control. In a game where the GM strictly limits speed allowing only an occasional high speed character it doesn't matter, but try playing a speed 2 or 3 character in a game where all the other players are speed 4 and you will get sucked into the Speed vortex.

 

I had an anti-terrorist character years ago (Danger International) Speed 3, no problems until I took him to Dundra Con and got into a game rescuing POW's, most of the other players came from the same GM's game, the "slow" characters were Speed 4, and there was even a "rich guy" who was speed 5. Needless to say I had a pretty boring time even the cannon fodder was as fast or faster than me. In my game at home all the PC's were 3's except for a martial artist type who was 4.

 

I agree with your "chart" BTW, unfortunately not everyone uses it.

[Edsel]

Re: Rant? Speed in Hero

 

I'd say that your definition of SPD 2-4 will get few arguments from most people. Speeds beyond 4 vary by campaign. In my groups Champions campaigns your definitions of Speeds 5-7 are pretty much in line with our own. Most of our super heroes were speed 5 or 6. Stereotypical strong slow bricks were usually SPD 4 and hot shot super martial artists might exceed SPD 6. In our Marvel comics conversions I believe that Spider Man is a speed 8 and so is Beast of the X-Men. Captain America is SPD 7 but then he is peak human and about the most experienced hand-to-hand combatant / martial artist in that universe. You don't see speeds higher than 7 or 8 unless you are a speedster with a good rational.

[SableWyvern]

Re: Rant? Speed in Hero

 

As a relative newcomer to HERO, with no in-game experience under my belt, my understanding is that relating your Speed to some fixed standard is less important (by a long way) than relating it to campaign standards.

 

If you're playing Joe Normal With Nifty Gadgets, in a game where everyone else is in the Speed 6-9 range, then picking Speed 2 or 3 is rarely going to work out well, even if that's where your character should fit on the chart.

 

In my own game (very high-powered fantasy), I'm planning to use the following standard:

 

Speed 2: Undermook, Peasant, Utter-Noncombatant

Speed 3: Slow Hero, Typical Mook

Speed 4: Typical Hero

Speed 5: Especially Fast Hero

Speed 6: Insanely Fast

 

With PCs and 95% of their adversaries falling into the 3-5 range.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Rant? Speed in Hero

 

First, Speed is a relative stat. The spread and levels relate to your teammates and enemies, the slow guy is the lowest Speed, the fast guy the highest Speed. Whether that's 5 at the low end, or 3.

 

Second - Speed 1 is not allowed, should never be taken. But putting it in a bench mark can't hurt.

 

Third - Speed is not necessarily a "combat" stat. Speed is how many actions you can perform in a 12 second period. You can be a quick thinker, quick reactor and have absolutely no combat training at all.

 

I think your benchmark rating is, to put it bluntly, simple minded and wrong.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Rant? Speed in Hero

 

As an example of Speed having nothing to do with combat training.

 

The speedster in our Supers group is a pacifist basically, was a college student (we think, she attends classes, its the enrollment status that's in question), who never got into a fight in her life. She's Speed 8, fastest in the group by a long shot.

 

The whole idea that you have to relate your Speed to how good you are in a fight really really bothers me.

[SableWyvern]

Re: Rant? Speed in Hero

 

The whole idea that you have to relate your Speed to how good you are in a fight really really bothers me.

 

Everything else you've said pretty much agrees with my understanding of how Speed works in HERO.

 

However, I think that Speed is certainly -- to some degree, at least -- a reflection of the ability to make decisions in a tactical envirionment. How many things you can do in a fixed amount of time, under combat stress, is directly related to how you process information and make instictive decisions -- which is a learned ability.

 

Realistically, a Speedster who can't handle combat pressure would do things quickly -- but only once he worked out what it was he wanted to do.

 

Taken in that vein, I think it's entirely appropriate to relate Speed to combat ability, to an extent. OTOH, of course, the ability to make informed decisions in combat doesn't necessarily mean you act on those decisions with skill. And, there are other, equally legitimate, ways of looking at Speed which can completely ignore the points I've just raised.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Rant? Speed in Hero

 

Everything else you've said pretty much agrees with my understanding of how Speed works in HERO.

 

However, I think that Speed is certainly -- to some degree, at least -- a reflection of the ability to make decisions in a tactical envirionment. How many things you can do in a fixed amount of time, under combat stress, is directly related to how you process information and make instictive decisions -- which is a learned ability.

 

Realistically, a Speedster who can't handle combat pressure would do things quickly -- but only once he worked out what it was he wanted to do.

 

Taken in that vein, I think it's entirely appropriate to relate Speed to combat ability, to an extent. OTOH, of course, the ability to make informed decisions in combat doesn't necessarily mean you act on those decisions with skill. And, there are other, equally legitimate, ways of looking at Speed which can completely ignore the points I've just raised.

 

Hmmm... no still bothers me a great deal.

 

Speed is how many actions you can make.

 

It says nothing about the tactical soundness of those actions

It says nothing about your ability to hit an opponent

It says nothing about your ability to properly take in information

It says nothing about your ability to intelligently act on the information you do take in

 

All Speed does is say "I act."

The higher your speed the more you act. I've seen plenty of people act very quickly, and very stupidly in high stress situations.

 

Consider: Combat Time is not always about fighting an opponent. Combat Time can be used in any high tension situation, like say, you need to get past some noncombat obstacles (locked doors, fallen debries) and stop some device. You have 1 Turn.

 

The quick thinker knows exactly how to 1) Pick the lock, 2) Vault the lockers that fell over, 3) Disarm the bomb. But wait - he has no "combat experience" so the GM told him he had to have a low Speed.

[SableWyvern]

Re: Rant? Speed in Hero

 

Like I said, "And, there are other, equally legitimate, ways of looking at Speed which can completely ignore the points I've just raised."

 

Personally, my experience of inexperienced people thrown into high-stress situations involving combat or requiring leadership is that they are more likely to freeze up than anything else. YMMV.

[Outsider]

Re: Rant? Speed in Hero

 

How good one is in a fight is pretty much the only thing that SPD matters for. What else does speed actually DO in the game? Out of combat the only difference it makes is determining how fast someone can cover distance, and that really becomes more about END/REC and what adders/advantages are on one's movement power. It would be pretty silly (I think) to claim that, of two otherwise identical auto mechanics, the one who is speed 4 fixes cars twice as fast as the one who is speed 2, for example.

 

Now, if SPD can be a matter of how quick one thinks (I've always been open to this idea!) in addition to pure reflexes, how about we figure it based on INT and EGO also? Maybe SPD = 1+ ((INT+2*EGO+3*DEX)/60)?

[Comic]

Re: Rant? Speed in Hero

 

SPD (for the sake of keeping the characteristic separated from 'speed') can be a lot of different things.

 

There is no pretending it doesn't have a dramatic impact on combat, one way or another.

 

Groups and GMs in my experience tend to like if all members have SPD in a close spread. In combats where a team has, for example, a pair of SPD 8+ heroes, a pair of SPD 4-5's, and a pair of SPD 2-3's, in general, everyone is unhappy. Low SPD characters lose the ability to help determine the outcome of the situation. High SPD characters feel unsupported. Moderate SPD characters almost get to contribute only to have their thunder stolen.

 

SPD is also DISAD power in combat. Not only do you act on your phase, but so do most of your Disadvantages and limitations. Berserk? Enraged? Combat-impacting psych lim? Unluck? If you have slightly frustrating disads at normal SPD, you can have disads that harm your group greatly when multiplied by high SPD, especially harming those of lower SPD.

 

And where you're low SPD, your Disads cease to have positive flavor effects (CvK guy with SPD 2 is going to be left standing over a lot of bodies from Enraged KA guy with SPD 8). You lose the ability to interact and can only react. Which is not a positive dynamic for a team.

 

So I'm in favor of fudging SPD to make the team work better, especially given that SPD is so expensive to increase using XP to improve team mechanics isn't often practical. I call this type of SPD the product of teamwork and team support, where working together enables the lower SPD characters to act effectively more often.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Rant? Speed in Hero

 

How good one is in a fight is pretty much the only thing that SPD matters for. What else does speed actually DO in the game? Out of combat the only difference it makes is determining how fast someone can cover distance, and that really becomes more about END/REC and what adders/advantages are on one's movement power. It would be pretty silly (I think) to claim that, of two otherwise identical auto mechanics, the one who is speed 4 fixes cars twice as fast as the one who is speed 2, for example.

 

Now, if SPD can be a matter of how quick one thinks (I've always been open to this idea!) in addition to pure reflexes, how about we figure it based on INT and EGO also? Maybe SPD = 1+ ((INT+2*EGO+3*DEX)/60)?

 

DEX is your combat ability (OCV/DCV)

INT is your quick thinking ability.

SPD is how often you act - nothing more, nothing less.

[Trebuchet]

Re: Rant? Speed in Hero

 

I find myself agreeing with ghost-angel on this one. I have never seen a SPD 3 super, although I'm sure they're out there. Even the "slow" brick in our Champions game is a SPD 4, although she is a quick witted woman with superhuman STR and DEX.

 

SPD 1 is perfectly appropriate for persons prone to panic or to freezing up in crisis situations.

 

I'd rate elite troops with combat experience like SEALS and agents as SPD 4 without any qualms.

 

SPD 5 is for normal top-notch martial artists and the like.

 

And SPD 6 works for Batman or Captain America. Anything beyond that moves into superhuman ranges.

[Balabanto]

Re: Rant? Speed in Hero

 

In my game it works like this:

 

2 Normal

 

3 Generic Agent, Trained Commando

 

4 Elite Agent, Elite Commando, Slow Super

 

5 Average Super, Best of the Best Commando

 

6 Super Speed, Super Reflexes, The Best Combat Computers on Earth

 

7 Master Villain/Giant Monster (If Necessary)

 

NOTHING IN THE GAME EXCEPT ONE TIME TRAVELLING/CONTROLLING VILLAIN has a SPD of 8.

 

You may ask...why? Because once PC's have SPDs of 8 and other PC's have SPDs of 4, it becomes "I act, the rest of the PC's chew gum and take a leak." They lose interest in the combat. It becomes not fun for other players.

[Chris Goodwin]

Re: Rant? Speed in Hero

 

There's a legacy of characters with SPDs in the 4-7 range who started out as scientists, archaeologists, housewives, etc. You'd see characters like energy projectors and mentalists from the same period with STR in the 20-30 range. I think that the rationale was that superheroes by their nature are "better" than the average scientist or housewife, and therefore deserve to have better stats.

 

That's the theory, at least, and why I don't blink at superheroes with hgiher stats, even when concept would call for otherwise.

[Toadmaster]

Re: Rant? Speed in Hero

 

DEX is your combat ability (OCV/DCV)

INT is your quick thinking ability.

SPD is how often you act - nothing more, nothing less.

 

Sorry I have to disagree with this. I am pretty much in complete agreement with the original post.

 

Speed is a combination of quickness of movement as well as thought.

 

INT is more of a knowledge (IQ) vs quickness of thought, although I have toyed with the idea if factoring INT into the SPD equation but you don't neccessarily need to be highly intelligent to be a good fighter (at least within most genres) while you don't see a lot of good clumsy fighters.

 

If you are a speed 3 you can still do continous actions (suppressive fire, cover etc), you need a high speed to change your actions frequently.

 

 

I see no justification for a fast scientist, unless there is something else behind that. The "Flash" can be built with high movement powers or high speed or a combination of both. A mostly non-combatant "Flash" should be built the first way unless they are so inhumanly fast that their committee discussion is faster than most peoples quick action.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Rant? Speed in Hero

 

There's a legacy of characters with SPDs in the 4-7 range who started out as scientists, archaeologists, housewives, etc. You'd see characters like energy projectors and mentalists from the same period with STR in the 20-30 range. I think that the rationale was that superheroes by their nature are "better" than the average scientist or housewife, and therefore deserve to have better stats.

 

That's the theory, at least, and why I don't blink at superheroes with hgiher stats, even when concept would call for otherwise.

 

Thisis simply an area of ingrained stat inflation. If 1e had started with the premise that normal people, agents and slower Supers had a SPD of 2, the typical Super had a SPD of 3 and a typical MA/Speedster had a SPD of 4, we would all have saved some points on SPD, and more on END and reduced END.

 

But it didn't. Agents got SPD 3, slow Bricks got SPD 4 (occasionally, I see a 3 SPD super, but his "slowness" ends up part of his concept), typical Supers SPD 5, fatsre Supers SPD 6 and extra-fast MA's and Speedsters SPD 7. It's tough to claw it back down now. DEX has the same issue.

[Trebuchet]

Re: Rant? Speed in Hero

 

Speed is a combination of quickness of movement as well as thought.

Yes, but its game effect is still how often you act. It doesn't matter whether it's quickness of thought or quickness of movement or some combination thereof - SPD is still a only method for determining how often a character acts within a 12 second Turn.

 

It seems perfectly logical to me that if real "normal" humans like elite soldiers and top-notch martial artists can achieve Speeds of 4 or 5 with training and experience, then it's just as plausible that actual superhumans with training and experience can achieve even higher scores. They are, after all, by definition superior to ordinary humans.

 

Whether it is unbalancing to put such spreads of SPD into a campaign is an entirely different issue. We have not found that to be the case in our campaign. YMMV.

[Nekkidcarpenter]

Re: Rant? Speed in Hero

 

As an example of Speed having nothing to do with combat training.

 

The speedster in our Supers group is a pacifist basically, was a college student (we think, she attends classes, its the enrollment status that's in question), who never got into a fight in her life. She's Speed 8, fastest in the group by a long shot.

 

The whole idea that you have to relate your Speed to how good you are in a fight really really bothers me.

 

 

Umm, if it bothers you then maybe you're playing the wrong game because that is EXACTLY what Speed does in Hero. There are ways to buy powers that let you accomplish noncombat things faster than normal, but buying up your Speed plain and simply makes you faster in a fight.

 

If you think about it, you'll see that keeping Speeds in a narrow group based around NCM is the way comics deal with Speed as well.

 

A Big Splash page with a whole group of AIM guys firing at Spidey. Over the course of a turn while the agents are firing at him, how many different actions does he take relative to thiers? Yes, he attacks several of them, but is he performing a Sweep or is he actually devoting phases to each guy? More importantly, can he attack with his swingline, move across the room, open a door, walk inside, sit at a computer, make a Computer roll, go back outside, web some guys, move up the side of the building out of sight on a balcony, check his blackberry, etc. while the goons have only fired once? It's pretty rare in comics to see characters that you can verifiably say have more than a point of Speed over someone else. Even Megavillains don't literally run rings around normals, or if they do its usually a special effect of high Dex rather than ridiculously high Speed.

 

So look again at the chart. Decide each character's ability to deal with high pressure situations relative to the baseline (Speed 2). Then everyone in the game chops their Speed back to a sane level and saves 20 points. Then they no longer need a ridiculous End Reserve and they save 10 more points, and another 10 points off their Rec and End.

 

And pretty soon they have enough points saved up to buy up their Speed.

[Trebuchet]

Re: Rant? Speed in Hero

 

Thisis simply an area of ingrained stat inflation. If 1e had started with the premise that normal people, agents and slower Supers had a SPD of 2, the typical Super had a SPD of 3 and a typical MA/Speedster had a SPD of 4, we would all have saved some points on SPD, and more on END and reduced END.

 

But it didn't. Agents got SPD 3, slow Bricks got SPD 4 (occasionally, I see a 3 SPD super, but his "slowness" ends up part of his concept), typical Supers SPD 5, faster Supers SPD 6 and extra-fast MA's and Speedsters SPD 7. It's tough to claw it back down now. DEX has the same issue.

I totally disagree. What you think would have been better introduces too much granularity IMO. It makes it too hard to define which is faster - Spider-Man or Nightcrawler. I wouldn't have minded more low-SPD "official" characters as examples, but I see no reason to impose a cap At least if a character devotes 40 points to increase SPD he's paying a significant portion of his total CP for it. If everyone capped at 4 or 5 all you'd see is higher defenses or bigger attacks with the extra points.

 

Our campaign has held with an average SPD of 5 for many years now.

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Rant? Speed in Hero

 

I tend to interpret SPD as incorporating reflexes, which is why they get so many actions to dodge or dive for cover or whathaveyou. This is also why speedster characters, who traditionally have excellent reflexes anyway, have high SPDs.

[Checkmate]

Re: Rant? Speed in Hero

 

I totally disagree. What you think would have been better introduces too much granularity IMO. It makes it too hard to define which is faster - Spider-Man or Nightcrawler.

Exactly the opposite is true. If the "Normals" have normal speed, that leaves you MORE room at the top not less. If you start Batman at a 7 SPD, we can reason Nightcrawler is faster than Batman, that has him at 8. Spiderman is faster than Nightcrawler, so he's a 9. We get to 12 very quickly. If Batman's a 4 or 5 Nightcrawler is a 5 or 6, Spiderman is a 6 or 7 and we still have room for Quicksliver, Superman, and the Flash.

Our campaign has held with an average SPD of 5 for many years now.

And ours held for years giving Batman a 4 SPD, what exactly does that prove?

[Trebuchet]

Re: Rant? Speed in Hero

 

Exactly the opposite is true. If the "Normals" have normal speed' date=' that leaves you MORE room at the top not less. If you start Batman at a 7 SPD, we can reason Nightcrawler is faster than Batman, that has him at 8. Spiderman is faster than Nightcrawler, so he's a 9. We get to 12 very quickly. If Batman's a 4 or 5 Nightcrawler is a 5 or 6, Spiderman is a 6 or 7 and we still have room for Quicksliver, Superman, and the Flash.[/quote']That's assuming anyone would give Batman a SPD 7 in the first place. I'd give him a 5, or 6 max.

 

Most player characters fall into the middle ranges of the SPD bell curve: 4 thru 7. That leaves us three positions below and still gives us 5 positions above for those fast characters. I would not give any Marvel character a SPD 12 (Quicksilver probably would get a 10.) and in DC only the Flash would rate 12. The current version of Superman I would give a 6. He simply gets very high movement inches and a fairly good DEX to accomplish most of his supposed high-SPD tricks.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Rant? Speed in Hero

 

Umm' date=' if it bothers you then maybe you're playing the wrong game because that is EXACTLY what Speed does in Hero.[/quote']

 

No, I'm just glad I'm not at your table.

 

So look again at the chart. Decide each character's ability to deal with high pressure situations relative to the baseline (Speed 2). Then everyone in the game chops their Speed back to a sane level and saves 20 points. Then they no longer need a ridiculous End Reserve and they save 10 more points, and another 10 points off their Rec and End.

 

And pretty soon they have enough points saved up to buy up their Speed.

 

Emphasis mine.

 

You take a look at your first post - you said Speed directly correlated to "Combat Experience" not "Combat Potential" or "Ability to act under stress" or anything else.

 

Now, I in Superheroic games I think a SPD Spread from 4-6 is good, with maybe one person going to 7-8. My current Supers team is Two SPD 4, Two SPD 5, One SPD 8, works just fine.

 

In Heroic games a SPD spread from 3-4 with very few going to 5-6 has worked well.

 

And I don't even try and attempt to emulate source material in game. That's a futile effort at best, complete, total and absolute disaster at worst. And I don't read comics either.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Rant? Speed in Hero

 

I was helping someone make a character for the Champions campaign I'm starting and I had what seemed like my millionth discussion about this apparently controversial topic.

 

Me: Speed 6 huh? That seems high. What's your character origin again?

 

Player: I'm a scientist that got hit by a bolt of lightning.

 

Me: And you've done a lot of fighting in your life? You realize that Speed is basically a combat stat.

 

Player: Well, 6 Speed is easy to keep track of.

 

Emphasis Mine, in what way is fighting the only way to have a quick reaction time.

 

I know several Paramedics who are extremely quick thinkers and take action before most people even know what's up. Two of them have never been in a fight.

 

So again - Speed is how often you act in a 12 Second Turn. How and why you have such a high reaction time may or may not have anything to do with "combat experience"

 

Struck By Lightning: accelerated nervous system, no combat experience but your body moves as you think.

 

Paramedics or other medical training only: You assess a situation and choose a course of action very quickly, because people might die if you don't.

 

Cosmic Monkey: suckers are just plain fast man, even as little babies!

 

 

gimme a minute, I'll find a dozen more examples I can put a High SPD Characteristic into and still not have been in any fights to get it.

 

Now do you see my problem with your statement?