Your "rule of X" type character building guides?

[Supreme Serpent]

Various people have "rule of X" type systems where combo of DCs, OCV, Defenses, etc. are given values and combined can't exceed X.

 

What's yours look like?

[TheQuestionMan]

Re: Your "rule of X" type character building guides?

 

Active Point Totals (Only in Champions games)

 

otherwise...

 

Hand to Hand (or Energy) Attacks with Power Advantages must be bought for full cost of Strength+Martial Arts

 

 

Hmmm...

 

 

QM

[Certified]

Re: Your "rule of X" type character building guides?

 

No hard Rule of X where A + B = C with a Maximum value of C = to X but here are the Starting Character Guidelines for Metahumans Rising (Current Campaign on Hero Central)

 

elow are Campaign Guidelines for Starting Characters

 

This is designed for a standard 350 point game. 200 Base + 150 Disadvantages

 

These caps as listed should help to define the upper limits of the early game and the limitation cap will help slow down escalation issues.

 

That said let me know if you see anything that is still exploitable that you find.

 

Standard Attack: 15d6

 

Killing Attack: 5d6

 

Max PD/ED 35

 

 

With the values set above should a character with a maximum PD/ED be struck with a Maximum attack on average they will suffer 10 points of Stun and 0 Body. An amount of Stun equal to the character's Recovery (REC) stat is automatically regained at the end of each Turn. In addition character may use actions through out the Turn to gain extra Recovery. A character with only base attributes (no increases at all) Has 20 Stun and a Recovery of 4.

 

Max Force Wall 20 (Force wall blocks only Body, if no body gets through all damage is mitigated.)

 

Max Value for Limitations -1 (Depending on the Power explanation and given good cause this may be increased on a one off basis.)

 

Ave Dexterity 12-20 (Above 20 should be defined as part of the character not obligatorily for all characters.)

 

Ave Speed: 4-5 (6 and above should be defined as part of the character not obligatorily for all characters.)

Note: Speed Comparisons, 2 Average Human, 3 Elite Thug/Most Military or Law Enforcement (BMA, CIA, FBI, Police), 4-5 Elite Agent/Elite Military, 5-6 World Class Martial Artist, 7+ Superhuman

 

OCV/DCV: 5-8 (Raw OCV/DCV above 8 and above should be defined as part of the character not obligatorily for all characters.)

 

Note: In addition to the following any characters must still be approved.

[Trebuchet]

Re: Your "rule of X" type character building guides?

 

No hard Rule of X; we do use a guideline of SPD + Damage Classes <= 20 which seems to work reasonably well. We tend to focus more on schtick protection than on dice.

 

We seem have a pretty good spread:

 

Max damage ranges from 10d6 to 16d6 (Haymaker not included)

SPD from 4 to 9

DEX from 18 to 43

PD from 12 to 33

ED from 12 to 32 +25% DR

CON from 18 to 33

[Mike W]

Re: Your "rule of X" type character building guides?

 

Generally, I have a DC cap on attacks, usually around 12 or 14.

 

DEF is based on the other DC cap. Generally, 10 points below the average damage on the DC cap, unless you have a heck of a reason.

 

SPD and CVs (based on DEX) I have a range of 4 from the high to the low. For example, a 3-6 SPD range, and a DEX range of 18-27. Anything outside of that requires a ton of justification as does more than 2 CSLs that apply to the same thing and/or 2 overall levels.

[薔薇語]

Re: Your "rule of X" type character building guides?

 

Normally an active point cap works for us in most issues. Attacks, characteristics, spd all have to fall inside the active point cap. Beyond that it is grey as to what is allowed. Skills try to be capped at genre levels (ie, saviors of the galaxy vs Teen champions). CV likewise. Defense is one of those we simply use reason on to determine if it is acceptable.

 

all in all it is just handled by general rules and the GM makes descretionary calls on most things.

 

La Rose

[Comic]

Re: Your "rule of X" type character building guides?

 

While it isn't formal, I'll generally strongly suggest players avoid any character that is going to die too easily, based on Active Points.

 

Active Point Caps for attack powers. (Generally 60 AP)

 

OCV not capped, but Campaign MAX OCV (PC & NPC) is told to the players.

 

MIN BODY 8.

 

Defenses + BODY must be able to live through two average pushed KA's at Active Point limits (for 60 AP=16 DC's Pushed=5d6+1 KA: 38 BODY & no RDEF, or 19 BODY & no RDEF + Regen/Healing, or any combination where BODY + RDEF exceeds 19) -- OR DCV exceeds Campaign MAX OCV by 5 or more. (Or Desolid, Missile Deflection + HTH DCV, Damage Reduction, etc.)

 

I won't include range modifiers in the DCV element, even for snipers or mentalists, and I'll discourage one-trick ponies who rely on having a single defensive measure that only meets the minimum requirements.

 

GMs can get carried away in the heat of the moment, PCs can miss vital clues to the dangers ahead, and villains are bad, bad people who may sometimes try hard to hurt their enemy without regard for life. Nature and technology sometimes foster accidents and the world is a hazardous place.

[casualplayer]

Re: Your "rule of X" type character building guides?

 

The only thing I like to do hard & fast is cracking eggs. If your players are meta-ing up to the threshold, get new players. Rules of X always seemed to me like the players asking "What can I get away with?"

 

I do let players claim a shtick though and don't allow the other players to encroach. If someone is the team powerhouse he's always going to have the most everyday damage dealing, although the mystic or the technocrat may get to supercede him with a one-shot feature performance. The nimble guy is always going to be the nimble guy, the master blaster the biggest gun, etc. It's theirs until they voluntarily relinquish it.

 

For mathiness, DEF + CON > mook-level weaponry DCs otherwise you just don't feel very super.

[Trebuchet]

Re: Your "rule of X" type character building guides?

 

The only thing I like to do hard & fast is cracking eggs. If your players are meta-ing up to the threshold, get new players. Rules of X always seemed to me like the players asking "What can I get away with?"

 

I do let players claim a shtick though and don't allow the other players to encroach. If someone is the team powerhouse he's always going to have the most everyday damage dealing, although the mystic or the technocrat may get to supercede him with a one-shot feature performance. The nimble guy is always going to be the nimble guy, the master blaster the biggest gun, etc. It's theirs until they voluntarily relinquish it.

 

For mathiness, DEF + CON > mook-level weaponry DCs otherwise you just don't feel very super.

For our group the biggest argument against Rule of X was that it seems to breed a certain sameness between characters. Few Rule of X caps are set so high the character can't hit several of them at once; thus creating an abundance of characters with nearly identical defenses, SPD, DEX, and damage dice. The only difference ends up being schtick and sfx.

 

When we dropped the Rule of X our Champions campaign began with (at the same time we converted to 5E) the result was a greater variance of those capabilities. (Damage Classes were the biggest single change - we went from everyone doing 11d6 or 12d6 to a spread from 10d6 to 15d6 with an average of 12d6.) It was a tremendous improvement and we'd never go back to Rule of X.

[caris]

Re: Your "rule of X" type character building guides?

 

For our group the biggest argument against Rule of X was that it seems to breed a certain sameness between characters. Few Rule of X caps are set so high the character can't hit several of them at once; thus creating an abundance of characters with nearly identical defenses' date=' SPD, DEX, and damage dice. The only difference ends up being [i']schtick[/i] and sfx.

 

When we dropped the Rule of X our Champions campaign began with (at the same time we converted to 5E) the result was a greater variance of those capabilities. (Damage Classes were the biggest single change - we went from everyone doing 11d6 or 12d6 to a spread from 10d6 to 15d6 with an average of 12d6.) It was a tremendous improvement and we'd never go back to Rule of X.

 

As I've said before, it is a matter of using the right tool for the group. Obviously, rule of X's did not work for your group to get the results that were the most fun for your group.

 

On the other hand, I get very frustrated with GMs/groups that focus more on archtypes and/or schtick protection. This of course has as much to do with communication, presentation and personal preferences as anything else. Some of the problems that I've run into (this is not to say that you and your group must have these problem any more than my groups must run into the situation where everyone does 11 to 13D6, because I use some sort of rule of X):

 

Stereotyping/pigeon holing, this by far has been my biggest problem. I come in with one vision of what my character is, and I have a GM trying to force me into their perception of what the archetype "should be". I'm trying to go for a balanced in damage, OCV, DCV, and Def character that stands out by its personality and a couple of quirky powers, but the GM is trying to get it to be a higher damage and higher Def character, because it is that "type" of character.

 

Unclear understanding of what constitutes an appropriate level of power. I tend not to run into this quite as often, but it has happened to me. It can also happen in rule of X situation (Captain Whiffle bat, can connect on anything in the game, but doesn't do enough Damage to actually do anything to any opponent is an example of the rule of X problem). This usually is a communication issue, I bring in a character that I think is a power house, that is still reasonable and it either ends up being the weakest character in the game or blows everything else out of the water in a game imbalancing way. Usually, the second situation is easier for the GM to catch before game play and for me to fix. The first situation can be a lot harder to deal with, the GM may think that I had understood him and was intending to bring in a relatively weak character, so it does not get caught at the GM reveiw stage. I've used all the tricks that I'm comfortable using to get the maximum about of power out of my character, and it is still to weak? How am I supposed to squeeze more power out of my character?

 

"OK, so who is going to play the character?" - This is the archtype/schtick version of the every character is the same problem. It is the one that every group of PCs have the same types of characters in pretty much the same mix. Like the classic D&D party (at least through 2nd) has/had to have a Fighter type (to do the hand to hand fighting), a Theif type (to deal with traps and generally be sneaky), a Magic User type (ranged attack/artillery suppoort), and a Cleric type (Medic). I don't feel like playing any of the available archtypes, but because the group just can't do without it, I have to play one to make everyone else happy. Alternatively, one player holds everything up building a new character, because the group just has to have a mystic or a scientist or a brick or whatever. The GM refuses to create a game that would be fun for a group of all Martial Artists of one flavor or another.

[Pariah]

Re: Your "rule of X" type character building guides?

 

No hard Rule of X; we do use a guideline of SPD + Damage Classes <= 20 which seems to work reasonably well.

 

That sounds like a pretty good rule of thumb for a beginning campaign. (With experience, of course, that number would increase.)

 

As for the group I game with, GMs typically have upper caps on various stats (8 SPD, 15 DC, etc.) to ensure balance between the characters. But they'll/we'll sometimes allow a character to exceed one and only one of these caps. "If you're The Brick, you can have STR higher than 75; The Speedster can have a 9 SPD", and so forth. That allows every character to be really, really good at one thing, moreso that his/her teammates, without completely destroying game balance.

[Bloodstone]

Re: Your "rule of X" type character building guides?

 

No one is allowed to beat my pet NPC's. Ever. Because they're the coolest and bestest characters ever! So there!

[Certified]

Re: Your "rule of X" type character building guides?

 

No one is allowed to beat my pet NPC's. Ever. Because they're the coolest and bestest characters ever! So there!

 

Ah, you take a classic GMing approach.

[Kirby]

Re: Your "rule of X" type character building guides?

 

Various people have "rule of X" type systems where combo of DCs, OCV, Defenses, etc. are given values and combined can't exceed X.

 

What's yours look like?

I've usually just followed the guidelines, but in my most recent campaign I used the following:

 

Add your DC + SPD + Average Def [(PD+ED)/2], + OCV (ECV) + DCV (or ECV, again) + Skill levels. These should equal 60 or less.

 

A more detailed explanation (and reasoning behind the formula) can be found here.

[Bloodstone]

Re: Your "rule of X" type character building guides?

 

Ah' date=' you take a classic GMing approach.[/quote']

 

What makes you say that?

 

:: attempts to hide the "Everything I know about GMing I learned from Ed Greenwood" bumper sticker ::

 

[Trebuchet]

Re: Your "rule of X" type character building guides?

 

Stereotyping/pigeon holing' date=' this by far has been my biggest problem. I come in with one vision of what my character is, and I have a GM trying to force me into their perception of what the archetype "should be". I'm trying to go for a balanced in damage, OCV, DCV, and Def character that stands out by its personality and a couple of quirky powers, but the GM is trying to get it to be a higher damage and higher Def character, because it is that "type" of character.[/quote']Our rule of thumb is that a character belongs to his player and it's not the job of the GMs to dictate character design or archetype. We have veto privileges if we think a character is unbalancing or won't fit within the group, but it's not the GMs' job to shoehorn characters into their own preconceived notions of what a character should be. Nobody has a better idea of how his or character should work than the player who designed and plays him - not to mention that several characters in our group don't fall within the standard archetypes. That does not prevent us, of course, from making suggestions.

[caris]

Re: Your "rule of X" type character building guides?

 

Our rule of thumb is that a character belongs to his player and it's not the job of the GMs to dictate character design or archetype. We have veto privileges if we think a character is unbalancing or won't fit within the group' date=' but it's not the GMs' job to shoehorn characters into their own preconceived notions of what a character should be. Nobody has a better idea of how his or character should work than the player who designed and plays him - not to mention that several characters in our group don't fall within the standard archetypes. That does not prevent us, of course, from making suggestions.[/quote']

 

 

Hey, I figured that your group didn't have the problems that I had, or at least didn't consider them problems if the situations came up in your experiences.

 

Any given tool has potential benefits and potential problems. Just because a situation comes up in a negative way for one group does not mean that it will come up for all groups.

 

Of course, to steal from Thia, if you aren't playing the way I do, you are having wrong bad fun and must convert over to my style immediately.

[Trebuchet]

Re: Your "rule of X" type character building guides?

 

Hey' date=' I figured that your group didn't have the problems that I had, or at least didn't consider them problems if the situations came up in your experiences. [/quote']That's not to say we haven't had any problems; just that they're different problems. Munchkinism isn't an issue in my particular gaming group. But fully half of my group - I'm not one of them - also plays with another group in which munchkinism and power gaming reign supreme. It still sounds like they're generally having fun; although they're not without numerous complaints regarding that other group. That group does use Rule of X and caps; which reduces but doesn't by any means eliminate munchkinism. (For me it's mostly an issue of personalities - there is one player in that other group that I flatly will not game with.)

 

Any given tool has potential benefits and potential problems. Just because a situation comes up in a negative way for one group does not mean that it will come up for all groups.

I totally agree. It's not like I didn't use a Rule of X when I initially started my Champions campaign way back in 1992. By the time we dropped RoX everyone was on the same wavelength on what we wanted to accomplish and so we just didn't need training wheels anymore.

[poptoad]

Re: Your "rule of X" type character building guides?

 

We play without point caps or limitations of any kind.

 

I like playing this way...I think it's the way Champions SHOULD work. What is a "point" if it isn't a unit of balance? If powers and abilities cost the correct number of points, they should be impossible to abuse (ideally.)

 

In practice, this relies on a great GM who discourages (or failing that, punishes) unbalanced characters.

[Trebuchet]

Re: Your "rule of X" type character building guides?

 

We play without point caps or limitations of any kind.

 

I like playing this way...I think it's the way Champions SHOULD work. What is a "point" if it isn't a unit of balance? If powers and abilities cost the correct number of points, they should be impossible to abuse (ideally.)

 

In practice, this relies on a great GM who discourages (or failing that, punishes) unbalanced characters.

We weren't (and aren't) quite that brave; we felt it's still useful to establish a baseline for how powerful the characters should be within rather broad parameters - i.e.; is this the X-Brats, the Avengers, or the Justice League? - so we settled on a guideline of DC + SPD <= 20. There's still plenty of room to maneuver within those guidelines - the Avengers can have both Quicksilver and Iron Man. I know most players would probably rather play Iron Man over Quicksilver; but we figure it's not our place to dictate what kind of character a player brings to the table. Our only absolute restriction was "no sociopathic loners" although aliens were strongly discouraged.

[OzMike]

Re: Your "rule of X" type character building guides?

 

I've explained mine in another thread, but will put it here for completeness:

A rule of X I've used before for a high powered game was:

 

OCV + DCs + Active Defense/5 + Non-dodging DCV + 2*SPD = 60

 

What that means is a 30 DEX character with 6 SPD and no levels could have about 12D6 attacks and 30 PD/ED with 20 rPD/ED.

 

If you wanted to lower the 60 to say 50 then you could have a 23 DEX character with 5 SPD and 2 offensive levels and about 12D6 attacks and 20 PD/ED with 10 rPD/rED.

 

This rule of X worked really well to balance the characters, although one guy did go for a 3 SPD, 15 DEX, 100 STR Brick with no levels (or tricks even) but it was all in good fun. Gave me someone to pound on.

[Lord Mhoram]

Re: Your "rule of X" type character building guides?

 

Our rule of thumb is that a character belongs to his player and it's not the job of the GMs to dictate character design or archetype.

 

Nods.

 

I was over at the Champs online forums and when they were talking about getting rid of archetypes and just letting people buy powers, someone said "Then everyone will be magetanks".

 

My reaction was "Yeah so what?"

 

Aside from context I have no idea what a Magetank may be,never having playing in an MMO in my life. But by context I was thinking - Iron Man, Thor, Superman, Martian Manhunter.... yeah we don't want any of those in our Superhero MMO.

 

I tend to GM the same way. I create the adventures for the party - If they are all stealthy types, I run one way - if they are all energy projectors I run another.

 

As for Rule of X, I generally don't like a hard and fast rule just guidelines, and the method Pariah described is how I do it.

[Trebuchet]

Re: Your "rule of X" type character building guides?

 

Nods.

 

I was over at the Champs online forums and when they were talking about getting rid of archetypes and just letting people buy powers, someone said "Then everyone will be magetanks".

 

My reaction was "Yeah so what?"

 

Aside from context I have no idea what a Magetank may be,never having playing in an MMO in my life. But by context I was thinking - Iron Man, Thor, Superman, Martian Manhunter.... yeah we don't want any of those in our Superhero MMO.

 

I tend to GM the same way. I create the adventures for the party - If they are all stealthy types, I run one way - if they are all energy projectors I run another.

 

As for Rule of X, I generally don't like a hard and fast rule just guidelines, and the method Pariah described is how I do it.

Players "gaming the system" is one of the primary reasons I have little interest in MMOs in general. While it might be possible to build The Ultimate Combat Wombat© in an online game, that's not going to happen in my FTF game and none of our players would even try.

[Bloodstone]

Re: Your "rule of X" type character building guides?

 

Tankmages are characters that can dish out massive amounts of damage and have massive defenses. As such they don't need team mates, since nothing can really hurt them (so no need for buffs or heals) and they can kill anything on their own (so no need for the team mates, especially those that are weaker defense/high damage characters).

 

This tends to be an issue for most MMO's since killing stuff is the basis of the majority of the game play. In a comic or RPG you can balance other characters usefulness by giving them other things to do. In an MMO, Tankmages tend to result in one of two things:

 

1) As more and more people play these unstoppable killing machines, the Devs institute massive changes to the game so that existing content is a challenge to the tankmages. People whine, complain and leave in droves at having been nerfed. The game is no long fun for them.

 

2) Content is rebalanced around the power of the tankmages. Non tankmages can no longer compete and enjoy all the content in the game, forcing characters that were built around less powerful concepts to adapt, reroll or leave.

 

Ultimately, Tankmages tend tp level faster, dmoniate PVP and trivialize PVE content. Assuming they choose to team at all, their mere presence typically makes everyone else in a team environment feel useless. More often than not, they end up being far less social, which statistically speaking tends to diminish their time in the game and thus costs the company money in terms of lost subscriber fees.

 

I can't count the number of times I've seen people play the "uber-class" in an online game and then leave out of boredom, all the while complaining that the game sucks because there was no challenge :/

 

So it's a legitimate fear that free form character design in an MMO tends to be bad news... which is why it's generally avoided.

 

Of course, if it's done RIGHT that wouldn't be a problem, but no one has really hit the sweet spot yet... and it's almost inevitable that if you do, some change down the road will have unexpected ripple effects that will throw everything out of whack again...

[Trebuchet]

Re: Your "rule of X" type character building guides?

 

Tankmages are characters that can dish out massive amounts of damage and have massive defenses. As such they don't need team mates, since nothing can really hurt them (so no need for buffs or heals) and they can kill anything on their own (so no need for the team mates, especially those that are weaker defense/high damage characters).

 

This tends to be an issue for most MMO's since killing stuff is the basis of the majority of the game play. In a comic or RPG you can balance other characters usefulness by giving them other things to do. In an MMO, Tankmages tend to result in one of two things:

 

1) As more and more people play these unstoppable killing machines, the Devs institute massive changes to the game so that existing content is a challenge to the tankmages. People whine, complain and leave in droves at having been nerfed. The game is no long fun for them.

 

2) Content is rebalanced around the power of the tankmages. Non tankmages can no longer compete and enjoy all the content in the game, forcing characters that were built around less powerful concepts to adapt, reroll or leave.

 

Ultimately, Tankmages tend tp level faster, dmoniate PVP and trivialize PVE content. Assuming they choose to team at all, their mere presence typically makes everyone else in a team environment feel useless. More often than not, they end up being far less social, which statistically speaking tends to diminish their time in the game and thus costs the company money in terms of lost subscriber fees.

 

I can't count the number of times I've seen people play the "uber-class" in an online game and then leave out of boredom, all the while complaining that the game sucks because there was no challenge :/

 

So it's a legitimate fear that free form character design in an MMO tends to be bad news... which is why it's generally avoided.

 

Of course, if it's done RIGHT that wouldn't be a problem, but no one has really hit the sweet spot yet... and it's almost inevitable that if you do, some change down the road will have unexpected ripple effects that will throw everything out of whack again...

Thanks for the info. It sounds like everything I feared about MMO supers gaming is pretty much true.