Do other Characteristics scale like STR?

[Yamo]

It's pretty clear from the STR Table that effective STR doubles in incriments of 5. 15 STR is twice 10 STR and half of 20 STR, for example.

 

But because there's no INT Table or PRE Table (for example), I'm having trouble determining if this is supposed to hold true for all Characteristics.

 

If I want to be twice as smart as average, do I want to buy a 15 or 20 INT?

 

I hope future editions of HERO will be more clear on this.

[Lord Liaden]

I've seen this question raised on the boards before, and the short answer is that there hasn't been any official quantification of other Characteristics in that way in any HERO book to this point.

 

I have to ask, though: in the real world, how would your measure multiples of Smartness, for example? IQ scores? Processing speed? Memory capacity? Creativity? IQ is the only one of those that pretends to provide a scale ranking, and it's been rather thoroughly discredited as being too tied to class-based assumptions. I couldn't imagine how to measure Charisma in the real world, and Comeliness is a whole 'nother argument in itself.

 

Strength is really the only Characteristic that readily lends itself to a quantification within game terms, since the amount of force a person can exert can be objectively measured and a number assigned to it. Other physical abilities are far more nebulous. It's tempting to raise this question since HERO assigns a numerical value to those abilities for gaming purposes, but trying to figure out how many points it takes to be "twice as smart" is a meta-gaming concept that doesn't have a lot of relevance to reality. If you really want such a measure, you'd probably be as well off assigning a number that seems reasonable to you.

[Yamo]

You don't find it at all troubling that there's no effort to explain, in even very general real world terms, what a (for example) 15 INT actually means? I mean, you wouldn't have to be as concrete as "10 STR = 100kg lifting capacity", but how would I design a character who's just a little brighter than average versus one that's a genius versus one that's a supergenius? What do the numbers MEAN? This is what I'm having trouble with; matching what I'm imagining to the stats.

[Chaosliege]

My super-geniuses always have around a 25 INT. my smarter than average characters are usualy between 13 and 17.

[Lord Liaden]

Ahh, I see what you're getting at: you're looking for the benchmarks as to how characters' abilities compare to each other. Well, that I may be able to help you with.

 

There are a couple of ways to deal with this. One would be to compare the Skill Rolls that characters can have, according to the "Degrees of Skill" sidebars beginning on FREd p. 28. That describes how each level of Skill Roll relates to the character's ability with that Skill, from basic Familiarity up to Incredibly Skilled (20- or more), which is the realm of the superhuman. Of course, a particular Skill Roll can be affected by Levels as well as raw Characteristics, so it's not a perfect method.

 

OTOH, both Champions and Champions Universe lists categories for all Characteristics, going from Weak up to Legendary (the greatest figures from myth or history), and into Superhuman. Champions describes what these categories mean relative to each other. For Intelligence for example, the range is Weak 1-2, Challenged 3-5, Average 6-10, Skilled 11-13, Competent 14-20, Legendary 21-50, and Superhuman 51+.

 

I know that you aren't fond of looking for data in other than the core rulebook, but if you want relative comparisons for Characteristics, that's where you'll find them.

[keithcurtis]

Dang, LL! You are the players' friend!

 

Keith "What HE said" Curtis

[Chaosliege]

The only thing I would change is the superhuman level for INT. I've never made, nor have I ever seen any character with a 51+ INT. And I've seen quite a few that are suposed to be superhumanly inteligent.

[Lord Liaden]

Originally posted by Chaosliege

The only thing I would change is the superhuman level for INT. I've never made, nor have I ever seen any character with a 51+ INT. And I've seen quite a few that are suposed to be superhumanly inteligent.

 

I know where you're coming from. I guess it's a question of whether you define "super-intelligent" as simply being far superior to the human average, or "superhuman" i.e. beyond the achievement of Homo Sapiens without augmentation. HERO seems to take the former view. The only character I've yet seen with an INT of 50 is Teleios, in Champions Universe. His other stats are at the upper limit of Legendary as well, since he's supposed to be "the Perfect Man". The next closest I ever saw was the Ultimate Master Mind (Binder of the Ultimates, accidentally boosted in Enemies Assemble), with a 43 INT.

 

Reed Richards would probably be close to 50, though, and maybe Bruce Wayne.

[keithcurtis]

Originally posted by Chaosliege

The only thing I would change is the superhuman level for INT. I've never made, nor have I ever seen any character with a 51+ INT. And I've seen quite a few that are suposed to be superhumanly inteligent.

 

I have to agree on this one. 51 seems rather excessive. Any 3 point Int skill is automatically 19-. This seems so far beyond the realm of other characters that I couldn't bring myself to allow it for a PC, but would only reserve it for gods.

 

Keith "And only really, really smart gods, at that" Curtis

[Alibear]

Are we sure that Int 51+ is Superhuman and not 31+?

I 'm at work but will ask Fred later.

[Zaratustra]

Well, you could consider that a INT 15 person would get to a solution as smart as two people with INT 10 could if they discussed intelligently, or what an INT 10 person would find if they had twice the time to think and research.

 

I don't know how to apply that to COM, but COM is messy anyway.

[Trebuchet]

Remember that HERO specifies that INT is more a measure of how quickly and accurately a character processes information and not necessarily a measure of "IQ". Hence their example of a Nobel Prize-winning physicist with a 10 INT who works slowly and methodically.

 

I give supergeniuses in my game INT in the upper 20s, and we have a Nobel Prize winning physicist (Bought the Perk "Nobel Prize Winner") on our superhero team with a 28 INT. She also bought a Talent to further represent her intellect, Lightning Calculator. She's our team brick.

[tenebre]

good point.

 

i gow ith 30 being the maximum super genius.

 

anything over that they are so intelligent they become insane.

 

good for super duper villians but not much for anything else.

 

its realli impossible to quanitify intelligence. it is extremely subjective.

[Chaosliege]

Originally posted by Lord Liaden

Reed Richards would probably be close to 50, though, and maybe Bruce Wayne.

 

I don't think I agree with you on Bruce Wayne. He'd be inteligent, but he's no Reed Richards. He has tons of detective skills and levels.

 

But I look at it like this. Reed Richards is considered one of the smartest people on the planet. As smart as Doom. In champions, I think everyone agrees that Destroyer is our version of DOOM, albeit more powerful. So what is Destroyers INT? I don't have CKC, so I don't know, but that would be my basis for 'Super Genius'.

[Monolith]

Originally posted by Chaosliege

So what is Destroyers INT? I don't have CKC, so I don't know, but that would be my basis for 'Super Genius'.

Dr. Destroyer's INT is the same as it was in 4th Edition, but he is not the smartest person in the Champions Universe. Teleios is vastly more intelligent than Dr. D. There might be some Empyreans and other entities which are far more intelligent that Destroyer too, but we are a long way from seeing many of those stats.

[Lord Liaden]

Originally posted by Alibear

Are we sure that Int 51+ is Superhuman and not 31+?

I 'm at work but will ask Fred later.

 

I don't believe those benchmarks are listed in FREd, but yes, INT 51+ is the boundary of "superhuman". Same thing for EGO and PRE, but all the other Primary Char. are at 30+ for superhuman.

 

It's worth noting that in Champions "superhuman" refers to those levels that humans cannot achieve without some extraordinary augmentation. I believe that the high upper levels in those three categories were put in place to allow for those fictional (or perhaps in some cases, historical) individuals with extraordinary insight or perceptiveness, unbreakable will, or incredible ability to sway crowds or intimidate opponents, but who are otherwise human with human limits. Considering all the Normal Characteristic Maxima debates these boards have seen, that was probably a prudent move.

 

I think the upper limits in those three are a little high myself, but it's the sort of thing that's easy to house-rule, so I'm not concerned by it.

[SuperPheemy]

A few statistics

 

O' Lord please let this chart line up correctly...

 

SCORE CHAR Rolls

10 11

15 12

20 13

25 14

30 15

35 16

40 17

45 18

50 19

55 20

60 21

 

As you can see, a characteristic of 25 gives the character a skill roll of 14- without any added skill levels. That means without extensive training, environmental bonuses or penalties, the character will succeed roughly 75% of the time.

 

Pretty good odds, those. I'd go so far as to call that near human maximum in my game. It would represent a character with so much raw talent that a minimal amount of instruction/research would allow them to attempt use of the skill with confidence.

 

When you get to 40, the character can only fail a skill roll on an 18. Again, without extensive training. I'd call this the beginning of the classic "supergenius". Someone who knows pretty much everything about everything.

 

For example, let's look at three characters at three different INT levels.

One is a pretty bright dude who has INT 15. This guy got straight As in school, and is currently pursuing his postgraduate degree in Nuclear Physics. His base INT roll is 12-.

The second is The SUPERBRAIN with INT 30. This is the guy who makes things that break the laws of physics. Power armors, web shooters, robot housemaids, etc... he's pretty much beyond the mental capacity of any "mere" human. His base INT roll is 15-.

The third is among the most brilliant minds in the comic universe with INT 45. We're talking about a mind that understands principles completely foreign to mortals. Sort of like Q from Star Trek, when confronted with a problem, this guy comes up with solutions like "change the gravitational constant of the universe". Someone this smart is difficult to describe in terms we can understand. His base INT roll is 18-

 

All three characters are confronted with a transdimensional alien device that threatens the fabric of reality. Somehow they have to figure out how it works before it does something truly horrific. The GM notes that all three characters have the skills necessary to at least attempt to decipher this thing, but none of them have the specific skill SC: Transdimensional alien reality shifting principles. So, right off the bat, the GM assigns a -5 penalty to figuring out how this thing works AND declares that it will take a week to study this device in enough detail to attempt a skill roll.

 

The pretty bright dude is in trouble right off the bat. He's got a 7- roll, and that's after poking at the thing for a week. Maybe if he took some extra time, like a month or a year, he might increase his chances to 11- (that's around 50/50). To be honest, in order for our pretty bright dude to have a confidence-building chance at tackling this thing, he'd pretty much need to spend a career studying it. Or take enough time for the GM to allow him a +7 Modifier. Even then, there's a pretty good chance he'd still get it wrong.

 

The SUPERBRAIN is in a little better shape. With the penalty applied, he's got an 10- chance of understanding the device in a week. In other words, the SUPERBRAIN is capable of learning in a couple of weeks, what it would take the [/i]pretty bright dude[/i] six months or more.

 

Finally, that which is among the most brilliant minds in the comic universe has a 13- chance to make sense of the alien device in a week. If it so wished, it could take further penalties and try figuring out the device faster. Say, a -2 penalty to attempt a roll after only one day. Thus, learning what takes the SUPERBRAIN two weeks, and a pretty bright dude six months.

[Klytus]

Nicely done, SuperPheemy. That spells things out perfectly.

[Zaratustra]

... and then the most brilliant mind rolls an 18 and the pretty bright dude rolls a 5. Then again, the comparatively dense guy figuring out something the super genius could not is a comic cliche as well.

[Stormraven]

51+?!?!?!?!?!?

 

Obviously, I didn't read CU as well as I'd thought. Glad I read this thread. That means one of my favourite characters may need a re-write, depending on the world.

 

I play a big brain, and I've only ever given him a 38 Int, in part because that's been high, and in part because it doesn't seem to make much sense - even with more points - to spend 20 more points on Int when you can spend it on powers that help define what you can do with that Int.

[SuperPheemy]

*sob*

 

All of that work, and I'm still listed as an "Incompetent Normal". This is starting to wear on my well-armored sense of self-confidence.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: *sob*

 

Originally posted by SuperPheemy

All of that work, and I'm still listed as an "Incompetent Normal". This is starting to wear on my well-armored sense of self-confidence.

 

Take heart, SP: It's the quality of the work that counts, not the quantity.

 

Besides, that designation's just referring to post count. If you haven't posted too much because you actually have a life outside of HERO, that would probably put you ahead of most of us.

[Vondy]

Originally posted by Chaosliege

My super-geniuses always have around a 25 INT. my smarter than average characters are usualy between 13 and 17.

 

You mean, your players use other numbers than 13 and 18 when buying their stats up?

 

Or numbers other than 11, 14, 17, 19 for Dex?

 

What a novel concept.

[Lucius]

Scaling Characteristics

 

Okay, first of all, some characteristics DO scale in a logrythmic fashion like STR.

 

BOD, PD, and ED do, and it should take only a little thought to see why that must be the case. For one thing, there used to be a chart for the BOD of living and unliving things based on mass (I would assume it's still there in HERO5, but my gaming stuff is now unavailable) and the BOD goes up by one for each doubling of mass. Also, if you imagine people hitting something with no DEF whatsoever, you will not that a STR 5 person does on average 1 BOD with a punch, a STR 10 does 2, a STR 15 does 3, etc. So BODy scales in the same way STR does.

 

Again, if something has a DEF of 2, and your STR is 15, you will do on average 1 BOD with a punch. If the DEF is raised to 3, you need to hit with twice the force - a STR of 20 - to do any damage on an average punch.

 

It stands to reason that CON, STUN, and END would scale in a similar way, although that is much less precise. For instance, if 2 END is enough to let a 20 STR hit once, one would think it would be enough END to power a 10 STR for four hits - and that is obviously not the case.

 

Finally, I think INT is a really messed up characteristic in this game. I try to remember that it has nothing to do with IQ or anything else we would usually mean by the word "intelligence" except maybe processing speed.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Inevitable palindromedary