Thats one nimble little bull

[ghost-angel]

Re: Thats one nimble little bull

 

You can have a shift in how you use the system- but you don't have to make the shift. It's possible to leave things just as they have been.

[tesuji]

Re: Thats one nimble little bull

 

Also frankly if the way "HERo officla builds characters in 6e" is going to be "just like they were built under 5e" then IMo with all the significant differences in system, those characters will be less and less useful for 6e games.

 

Additionally, on the over time thing, when i first started playing champs back in 2e the base speeds were 5 average for supers with 4-6 being the usual range for supers. Defenses were up there more or less where they are now.

 

from 4e to 5e and now from 5e to 6e i haven't seen a significant increase in what characters have in the way of stats. the prices have gone up some but not the values.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Thats one nimble little bull

 

You can have a shift in how you use the system- but you don't have to make the shift. It's possible to leave things just as they have been.

 

 

I think the point is that example characters are the first that most people will see when they are new to the system. I find it astonishing that they were not used to highlight the positive changes that were made in the changing edition. There seems to be little point in making all those changes then carefully not changing anything. Just an opinion, of course, but it seems like a missed opportunity.

[tesuji]

Re: Thats one nimble little bull

 

You can have a shift in how you use the system- but you don't have to make the shift. It's possible to leave things just as they have been.

 

and ignore happily the fact that the reasons for the scores have drastically changed.

 

yes you can do this. depending on your gm threshold for justification of stats.

 

i mean one can provide concept of "slow plodding behemoth" and one can give it speed9 dex 300... if one wants to and the gm can swallow that.

 

one can...

[Susano]

Re: Thats one nimble little bull

 

The only quibble I would have with this is the change over time. I haven't done the studies (as while I've been playing Champions/Hero since 1981 until 5e I never really bought anything but the core rules) but my understanding from people who actually have is that at least published characters haven't really gotten faster and tougher as time has gone by.

 

I might be over-imagining the increases. Although I'm fairly sure 1E Champions characters were somewhat slower than their 5E incarnations (maybe by a few points of DEX, like 20 to 23 or 23 to 26). Of course, characters like Dr. Destroyer and Mechanon have seen vast increases in characteristics, but I think that's to be expected as the scope of the game and the intent of said characters expanded.

[Bloodstone]

Re: Thats one nimble little bull

 

I might be over-imagining the increases. Although I'm fairly sure 1E Champions characters were somewhat slower than their 5E incarnations (maybe by a few points of DEX' date=' like 20 to 23 or 23 to 26). Of course, characters like Dr. Destroyer and Mechanon have seen vast increases in characteristics, but I think that's to be expected as the scope of the game and the intent of said characters expanded.[/quote']

 

Probably depends on who your looking at. I kinda had the opposite impression, myself....

 

A friend showed me Rainbow Archer. She was, if I recall, a "trained human" with a Dex of 35 under 4E. At the time I saw her, CKC had just come out. I don't believe there were ANY official 5E characters with a DEX higher than 30 at that point. In fact, I believe Vector is supposed to be one of the fastest, most agile supers in the CU. We're talking Flash levels of speed, what with his Speed Zone powers. In 5E, he had a DEX of 38.

 

Of course, no idea what the future holds for 6E.

[Susano]

Re: Thats one nimble little bull

 

Probably depends on who your looking at. I kinda had the opposite impression, myself....

 

A friend showed me Rainbow Archer. She was, if I recall, a "trained human" with a Dex of 35 under 4E. At the time I saw her, CKC had just come out. I don't believe there were ANY official 5E characters with a DEX higher than 30 at that point. In fact, I believe Vector is supposed to be one of the fastest, most agile supers in the CU. We're talking Flash levels of speed, what with his Speed Zone powers. In 5E, he had a DEX of 38.

 

Of course, no idea what the future holds for 6E.

 

I think Rainbow Archer was totally off the scale no matter what version of the CU you were dealing with.

[Bloodstone]

Re: Thats one nimble little bull

 

I think Rainbow Archer was totally off the scale no matter what version of the CU you were dealing with.

 

Probably true... but I thought there were several other character in just that book that had DEX's higher than 30... In fact, aren't several of them in Eurostar? (Pentera, the Whip and Bora I think? Someone help me out here!)

[Ice9]

Re: Thats one nimble little bull

 

Having that high a DEX as a standard feature almost seems like a trap for new players though. They see the example characters, they figure their fairly agile hero should have a DEX of 30, and then boom! They just spent 40 points on something they might not even need. If they're not going to get many agility skills, those points are practically wasted.

 

And yes, there's building to concept. But if the bar was set lower, you could build to concept for less points. Given that the scores are relative, inflating them just takes points from everyone.

[Susano]

Re: Thats one nimble little bull

 

Probably true... but I thought there were several other character in just that book that had DEX's higher than 30... In fact' date=' aren't several of them in Eurostar? (Pentera, the Whip and Bora I think? Someone help me out here!)[/quote']

 

Yeah, Eurostar. Uhm... Pantera 33, Fiacho 30, White Flame 30, Le Sone 26, The Whip... 31?, and Durak had a "mere" 23.

[lemming]

Re: Thats one nimble little bull

 

I think Rainbow Archer was totally off the scale no matter what version of the CU you were dealing with.

 

My group had some pretty high dex's and such, but even we pointed at her thinking it was out of line considering the other characters in the CU.

[James Gillen]

Re: Thats one nimble little bull

 

You can have a shift in how you use the system- but you don't have to make the shift. It's possible to leave things just as they have been.

 

For more points.

One friend looking at his copy of the PDF had a Heroic-level character with 18 DEX (high for a Heroic but low-average for a Champions super) and found that getting his OCV and DCV back to where they "should" be would be 30 more points.

 

The new totals only give a Heroic PC 25 more points.

 

JG

[ghost-angel]

Re: Thats one nimble little bull

 

I converted my 18 DEX/4 SPD Star Hero Character from 5E to 6E.

 

Characteristics Point Increase: 24.

 

to you to.

 

The conversation has grown tedious. My first post still holds my thoughts. Sample characters in the core book mean pretty much nothing. It's an idea of how A character can be put together. They aren't some kind of magical definitive build or anything else but an idea. A look. A Helper. It's a non-point.

 

EDIT: Guidelines at best. and Guidelines last for a very short period before you start to adjust to your play style.

[James Gillen]

Re: Thats one nimble little bull

 

EDIT: Guidelines at best. and Guidelines last for a very short period before you start to adjust to your play style.

 

Well, this is where I am now. The question is whether it makes more sense for me to make something that emphasizes the CV stats more (like old-style) or to get something "purpose designed" with low CV, only as much DEX as I need for Agility Skills and enough CSLs with my favorite attacks to make my PC competent.

 

JG

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Thats one nimble little bull

 

Does it explicitly SAY somewhere in the CU materials "We would've preferred to build our Heroes as normals who are only superior in certain limited ways' date=' but found that our system restricted that too much"?[/quote']

 

As I said, I haven't pored over the books. If you've read all the materials, you are way ahead of me. My very simple issue is that if, in the CU, superheroes are all "super in stats and then add super powers", I would think this is something that would be stated. If a typical Superhero is well into Olympic levels of agility, strength, etc., why would the impact of this on the CU not be addressed anywhere? Where are the "non-super powered supers"? All those different bizarre origin types ALL result in both superpowers and superhuman characteristics - no one ever gets one or the other and not both?

 

It seems to me that, if this were conscious design (or even conscious justification of historical design), it would be stated somewhere. Assuming it is not, I think it is simply maintaining the history.

 

The only quibble I would have with this is the change over time. I haven't done the studies (as while I've been playing Champions/Hero since 1981 until 5e I never really bought anything but the core rules) but my understanding from people who actually have is that at least published characters haven't really gotten faster and tougher as time has gone by.

 

I agree - there has been little inflation over time. That is why it would be so difficult to shift the paradigm now - we're all used to Supers with 18 - 35 DEX and 4 - 7 SPD, so we'd have to get used to a new model.

 

I converted my 18 DEX/4 SPD Star Hero Character from 5E to 6E.

 

Characteristics Point Increase: 24.

 

GA, is it possible for you to post the 5e and 6e versions? As indicated on another thread, I'm having a tough time grasping how this could be the case. He must have saved points somewhere. An 18 DEX in 5e cost 24 points, and that 4 SPD would add 12, for a total of 36. In 6e, the DEX costs 16, the SPD costs 20, and +4 to each of OCV and DCV costs 20 each, 40 in aggregate, so that's 76 points, a 40 point increase. What declined to result in only a 24 point increase to the total cost of characteristics?

[ghost-angel]

Re: Thats one nimble little bull

 

And then CON, EGO, BODY, PRE all cost half as much.

 

I did make a mistake in my post however - I had forgotten that I had factored in the 25 Points Bump to the Base Points of the 6E Character before converting.

 

The actual number was 49 points.

 

A couple of other factors did contribute: Skills were more well defined during the conversion, a series of TF and WF Skills nearly doubled in cost, CSLs went up in price too (Large Group vs Tight Group).

 

So apologies on that mistake. Of course, the character has over 100 XP backing them to deal with. I don't know what a conversion would have looked like when they were only a 150 Point starting Character vs a 175 Point 6E Starting Character.

 

I attached 3 Characters - the 5E Version as they played last. The 6E version if I did as straight a conversion as humanly possible. The actual version that will see play.

 

There's a 10 point difference between the two 6E versions.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Thats one nimble little bull

 

Gah! wait... I added wrong again.. stupid points.

 

The Straight Characteristics Block would cost a total of 32 Points Extra.

The Actual Play Block costed 24 Points Extra.

 

The total Character costed 27 Points over the suggested 6E Increase for the Straight Converion, and 17 Points over the suggested for the Actual 6E version.

 

Of course, the skills are perfectly translated because they were defined differently for the 6E reboot; and I lost a contact that was not campaign relevant.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Thats one nimble little bull

 

And then CON' date=' EGO, BODY, PRE all cost half as much.[/quote']

 

10 points CONin 5e cost 20. In 6e, I need to buy 10 CON (10), 2 ED (2), 2 REC (2), 20 END (4) and 5 STUN (2.5), so 20.5 points. CON is very close, as I think I noted above.

 

+3 EGO in 5e cost 6. In 6E, it costs 3, +3 for MOCV, +3 for MDCV = 9.

 

BOD cost 2 in 1e and gave you 1 STUN. Its cost has declined, since 1 BOD costs 1 and 1 STUN costs 0.5.

 

PRE didn't change, so your comment there confuses me.

 

I did make a mistake in my post however - I had forgotten that I had factored in the 25 Points Bump to the Base Points of the 6E Character before converting.

 

The actual number was 49 points.

 

That makes a bit more sense.

 

I'm just wondering what I'm missing - something needs to drop off to cover the increased cost of DEX (including Speed and CV), since it seems to swallow up most/all the extra points. +3 DEX that cost 6 in 5e (9 less 3 for SPD) costs 6 + 5 + 5 now, so that's a 13 point increase for every 3 DEX, before factoring any other changes in.

 

20 DEX was 20 points in 5e (again without Speed) and now costs 20 + 20 + 20 = 60 points, so 40 of a starting Super's 50 points, and 15 more than the starting Heroic character's 25 (but 20 is big for a heroic character).

[lemming]

Re: Thats one nimble little bull

 

Just checked one of my characters since I knew he'd be an extreme case.

 

DEX 53, SPD 12 increase of 150 points to have the same OCV/DCV

 

It would really be campaign derived what we would wind up doing.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Thats one nimble little bull

 

10 points CONin 5e cost 20. In 6e, I need to buy 10 CON (10), 2 ED (2), 2 REC (2), 20 END (4) and 5 STUN (2.5), so 20.5 points. CON is very close, as I think I noted above.

 

+3 EGO in 5e cost 6. In 6E, it costs 3, +3 for MOCV, +3 for MDCV = 9.

 

BOD cost 2 in 1e and gave you 1 STUN. Its cost has declined, since 1 BOD costs 1 and 1 STUN costs 0.5.

 

PRE didn't change, so your comment there confuses me.

 

 

 

That makes a bit more sense.

 

I'm just wondering what I'm missing - something needs to drop off to cover the increased cost of DEX (including Speed and CV), since it seems to swallow up most/all the extra points. +3 DEX that cost 6 in 5e (9 less 3 for SPD) costs 6 + 5 + 5 now, so that's a 13 point increase for every 3 DEX, before factoring any other changes in.

 

20 DEX was 20 points in 5e (again without Speed) and now costs 20 + 20 + 20 = 60 points, so 40 of a starting Super's 50 points, and 15 more than the starting Heroic character's 25 (but 20 is big for a heroic character).

 

PRE... er... I went dumb?

 

I can just send you the spreadsheet again if you'd like.

[archermoo]

Re: Thats one nimble little bull

 

As I said, I haven't pored over the books. If you've read all the materials, you are way ahead of me. My very simple issue is that if, in the CU, superheroes are all "super in stats and then add super powers", I would think this is something that would be stated. If a typical Superhero is well into Olympic levels of agility, strength, etc., why would the impact of this on the CU not be addressed anywhere? Where are the "non-super powered supers"? All those different bizarre origin types ALL result in both superpowers and superhuman characteristics - no one ever gets one or the other and not both?

 

It seems to me that, if this were conscious design (or even conscious justification of historical design), it would be stated somewhere. Assuming it is not, I think it is simply maintaining the history.

 

Let me make sure that I understand correctly. You seem to be saying that if the design philosophy behind the CU were to be that supers are super in general, even if they are exceptional in some specific areas, that they would certainly have explicitly stated that at some point. And that the only reason that they wouldn't have stated a design philosophy is if they really wanted to make supers just plain normal people who are only super powered in a few areas but found that their system wasn't able to do that. Is that correct? Because that seem...unlikely to put it mildly. Particularly considering that Steve is generally unwilling to answer design philosophy questions at all.

 

I think it is much more likely that they designed the characters the way they did because that is the way they wanted to design them. And that they haven't published their character design philosophy because they don't generally publish design philosophy.

 

And I'll also note that there are plenty of characters in the CU that have most if not all of their characteristics in the Legendary or lower range. They do explicitly state that any characteristic that is below the Superhuman range doesn't require a supernatural explanation, although they do note that characteristics don't have to be in the Superhuman range to have a supernatural explanation. In the strict CU a normal person with nothing supernatural about them can have a 30 Dex. Though one more point requires some super explanation. Eh, gotta have the line somewhere I suppose.

 

I agree - there has been little inflation over time. That is why it would be so difficult to shift the paradigm now - we're all used to Supers with 18 - 35 DEX and 4 - 7 SPD' date=' so we'd have to get used to a new model.[/quote']

 

Speak for yourself. I'm not particularly attached to the CU power levels because I've never really used them. SPDs in games I've played tend to stay in the 3-6 range, while DEX's tend to be in the 15-28 range. Though I've played in a few campaigns that have been well above both. I guess I'm even gladder that I never really bothered with the CU.

[Bloodstone]

Re: Thats one nimble little bull

 

Speak for yourself. I'm not particularly attached to the CU power levels because I've never really used them. SPDs in games I've played tend to stay in the 3-6 range' date=' while DEX's tend to be in the 15-28 range. Though I've played in a few campaigns that have been well above both. I guess I'm even gladder that I never really bothered with the CU. [/quote']

 

Well, speaking for myself I've been involved in superheroic games all over the power spectrum. None of them were actually set in the standard CU. But the CU tends to be something of a standard for comparison here on the forums. Not everyone uses it, but it's at least a point of reference we all have access to...

 

So whatever tone the CU sets will have influence on a significant number of players.

[James Gillen]

Re: Thats one nimble little bull

 

Let me make sure that I understand correctly. You seem to be saying that if the design philosophy behind the CU were to be that supers are super in general, even if they are exceptional in some specific areas, that they would certainly have explicitly stated that at some point. And that the only reason that they wouldn't have stated a design philosophy is if they really wanted to make supers just plain normal people who are only super powered in a few areas but found that their system wasn't able to do that. Is that correct? Because that seem...unlikely to put it mildly. Particularly considering that Steve is generally unwilling to answer design philosophy questions at all.

 

I think it is much more likely that they designed the characters the way they did because that is the way they wanted to design them. And that they haven't published their character design philosophy because they don't generally publish design philosophy.

 

And I'll also note that there are plenty of characters in the CU that have most if not all of their characteristics in the Legendary or lower range. They do explicitly state that any characteristic that is below the Superhuman range doesn't require a supernatural explanation, although they do note that characteristics don't have to be in the Superhuman range to have a supernatural explanation. In the strict CU a normal person with nothing supernatural about them can have a 30 Dex. Though one more point requires some super explanation. Eh, gotta have the line somewhere I suppose.

 

 

 

Speak for yourself. I'm not particularly attached to the CU power levels because I've never really used them. SPDs in games I've played tend to stay in the 3-6 range, while DEX's tend to be in the 15-28 range. Though I've played in a few campaigns that have been well above both. I guess I'm even gladder that I never really bothered with the CU.

 

"Design philosophy" is well, design philosophy. And changing the rules has little to do with the published material (except, again, as example). The impression I get is that Steve and the people he got feedback from saw the current system as flawed and saw this approach as a correction. Among other things, the 6E approach allows Adjustment Powers to target the CV stats directly.

 

I'm still not sure I agree with the results, but given that CU (published) characters are, in my opinion, inordinately fond of "cost inefficient" numbers off the breakpoint (like 16 STR or 17 PRE), these characters are not necessarily the best examples of design. They ARE however still models that a new player could use. The question here being that if we're gonna pay more to bring the CV stats up to where they would have been on figured DEX and EGO, why separate them?

 

JG

[Chris Goodwin]

Re: Thats one nimble little bull

 

We have a seriously small sample size so far from which to extrapolate a trend. And, as yet, zero published original (i.e. not converted) characters under 6e.

 

It could very well be that the first crop of published Champions characters end up either as conversions or built to 5e standards. It wouldn't be a terrible surprise to me, though it would be equally unsurprising to see it go the other way, with original builds.

 

I suspect that with original character builds we'll see a lot of stat deflation.

[Bodkins Odds]

Re: Thats one nimble little bull

 

I imagine that the average CV level will go down over time since it's more expensive to buy up to the old levels now.