Opinions on the cost of Strength and Speed for superheroic

[bill4747bill]

Hello!

 

I have been reading over the sixth edition rules, and I would greatly appreciate opinions on the cost of Strength and Speed.

 

I feel that Strength should cost 2 points instead of 1 point.

Likewise, I feel Speed should cost 20 points instead of 10 points.

 

Reasoning being: Strength is incredibly handy for lifting/throwing/breaking free/damaging things/people. Strength often allows gigantic attacks from move through; haymaker; etc... Despite the loss of 'free' figured stats, I think Strength at 1 point is too inexpensive.

 

Speed: For what it does, 10 points seems a steal for an extra action.

Also, at 10 points a pop for speed, nearly every player feels forced to break concept and be faster than they should be based on concept. Admit it....everyone has too much speed. I think I am the only player I ever saw make a character with a 2 or 3 speed based on concept.

 

All comments welcome.

[Evil Sonidow]

Re: Opinions on the cost of Strength and Speed for superheroic

 

I don't think any of those are underpriced. You see, most of the time lifting/throwing/breaking free/damaging things/people won't cut it, most of the things you do don't use strength and thus having lots of it won't help.

 

As for speed, it's costy enough, plus it depends on average speed of the group. It's obvious that you're going to be a game breaker if average is 4 and you have 8 (but GMs wouldn't allow such thing, I believe). Besides, just having a high speed doesn't mean you get everything. A high DEX makes you act first, and even if you can act more it's not going to do much good if you constantly act after others and have to mostly react.

[Xavier Onassiss]

Re: Opinions on the cost of Strength and Speed for superheroic

 

I don't think any of those are underpriced. You see, most of the time lifting/throwing/breaking free/damaging things/people won't cut it, most of the things you do don't use strength and thus having lots of it won't help.

 

As for speed, it's costy enough, plus it depends on average speed of the group. It's obvious that you're going to be a game breaker if average is 4 and you have 8 (but GMs wouldn't allow such thing, I believe). Besides, just having a high speed doesn't mean you get everything. A high DEX makes you act first, and even if you can act more it's not going to do much good if you constantly act after others and have to mostly react.

 

That last bit is a very important point, really: Spending lots of points on Speed means more actions but much less points for whatever powers/skills you'll be using on those actions. At some point the trade-off begins to work against the character. Choosing another point of Speed instead of (for example) two five-point combat skill levels can make the difference between five probable hits in a turn vs. six probable misses.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Opinions on the cost of Strength and Speed for superheroic

 

I've mixed feelings on STR. Some days I think it should be 1pt/+1; some days I think it should be 2pts/+1.

 

Speed is fine where it's at. "Built to concept" is such a nebulous idea. Also - If I'm playing Superheroes I want to be Super Fast. Period. But, I also put Flight on all my Superheroes because it's cool.

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Opinions on the cost of Strength and Speed for superheroic

 

I think they're just fine (and I play 5e, where STR also gets you PD, REC, and STUN at 1 point per). I'm not sure any superheroes would qualify for SPD less than 4; even the Hulk and the Thing, two of the bulkiest bricks around, have top-tier human reflexes (which is what SPD generally represents), even if they're only moderately better than normal in the agility department.

[Tasha]

Re: Opinions on the cost of Strength and Speed for superheroic

 

In 5e Str was too cheap. Like CrosshairCollie mentioned, it also gave PD, REC, and STUN on top of 1d6N per 5 str.

 

In 6e it's fine. It gives damage, and allows you to lift heavy stuff. In the great scheme of things the damage is more important than the lifting stuff.

 

I think you will find that people won't stack more any more Str than they need to. If it was such a great deal everyone would spend a bunch of points on it, to the detriment of other stats and powers they should have. Even in 5e you didn't really see that often.

 

SPD, sounds like a super deal at 10 pts per, but it isn't that much of a difference. Yeah, and extra phase is nice to have in a turn, but like others pointed out having 2 OCV or 2 DCV can be much more important. Also 10 points is a major investment esp to a non-superheroic character. Also high SPD characters tend to have more issues with Endurance.

 

IMHO the point costs for both Str and SPD are correct, and do not need to be "fixed".

 

Superheroic games usually have a SPD spread of 4-7 Speed with an average of 5. Hero is a game that relies on the GM to keep everything on an even keel. If everyone is spd 6 and 7, then the GM is probably not being tough enough or they mean for the campaign to be more powerful and you the player misunderstood the power range. I'll bet though it's the GM's fault for not having better character creation guidelines.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Opinions on the cost of Strength and Speed for superheroic

 

Hello!

 

I have been reading over the sixth edition rules, and I would greatly appreciate opinions on the cost of Strength and Speed.

 

I feel that Strength should cost 2 points instead of 1 point.

 

Reasoning being: Strength is incredibly handy for lifting/throwing/breaking free/damaging things/people. Strength often allows gigantic attacks from move through; haymaker; etc... Despite the loss of 'free' figured stats, I think Strength at 1 point is too inexpensive.

 

I find Blast incredibly handy for spreading to hit fast opponents or multiple opponents, attacking at range so I can get up from being prone and still attack, and getting the exact same bonus from haymakers that STR does.

 

Likewise, I feel Speed should cost 20 points instead of 10 points.

Speed: For what it does, 10 points seems a steal for an extra action.

Also, at 10 points a pop for speed, nearly every player feels forced to break concept and be faster than they should be based on concept. Admit it....everyone has too much speed. I think I am the only player I ever saw make a character with a 2 or 3 speed based on concept.

 

That last bit is a very important point' date=' really: Spending lots of points on Speed means more actions but much less points for whatever powers/skills you'll be using on those actions. At some point the trade-off begins to work against the character. Choosing another point of Speed instead of (for example) two five-point combat skill levels can make the difference between five probable hits in a turn vs. six probable misses.[/quote']

 

As well, higher SPD means a need for higher END and higher REC, or buying reduced END.

 

SpeedFlation is another matter. One can certainly establish a game where SPD for Supers ranges from 2 - 5, for example, rather than 4 - 7. Drop every published character by 2 SPD and they will still interact reasonably well. You can also drop the established range of 7 - 12 CV to 3 - 8 and the Supers retain the same odds of hitting one another. And everyone has more points left over for other stuff.

[TheSouljourner]

Re: Opinions on the cost of Strength and Speed for superheroic

 

Speed I can agree is tough to price correctly - its effectiveness is multiplied by the effectiveness of the rest of your character. 5 might be ok for low powered heroic, and 20 might be too cheap for high powered supers. You pretty much have to get the player and GM to agree on a speed that makes sense and isn't unbalancing. The points are just there to appease the other players.

 

Strength I think is fine. It's like a hand to hand attack that has a +1/4 advantage: lets you pick up heavy stuff. No big deal. Picking stuff up is hardly ever game breaking, it's just fun.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Opinions on the cost of Strength and Speed for superheroic

 

High brings up a good point: Higher Speed bringing more actions will also bring up that the character uses more Endurance. Which means they'll sink points into either more Endurance or more Recovery, or both. Or they'll pay more to reduce the Endurance Cost of their abilities - which is an artificial inflation on the cost of Speed by almost forcing a player to address the Endurance usage issue, taking even more points from other abilities.

 

Given that the average cost of a point of Speed is effectively greater than 10. Raising it further will simply make it unfeasible. Probably unfun too.

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Opinions on the cost of Strength and Speed for superheroic

 

You can also just cap it, of course.

[dmjalund]

Re: Opinions on the cost of Strength and Speed for superheroic

 

You can also just cap it' date=' of course.[/quote']That's what BP said

[Fireg0lem]

Re: Opinions on the cost of Strength and Speed for superheroic

 

STR is fine. SPD can be a problem. I honestly recommend just capping SPD (as in, "everyone have SPD X"), or using the Rule of X, until you have developed your game balance senses better for HERO.

[Zephrosyne]

Re: Opinions on the cost of Strength and Speed for superheroic

 

I don't really have a problem with Strength. I do think Speed is underpriced. I apply the Characteristic Maxima to Speed no matter what the campaign. Works out fine.

[Evil Sonidow]

Re: Opinions on the cost of Strength and Speed for superheroic

 

That's a bit harsh. You're no super if you act as fast as normal humans (my humble opinion, no offense meant). I tend to lean towards real cinematic/unrealistic characters, so I'm not so fond of characteristic maximas.

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Opinions on the cost of Strength and Speed for superheroic

 

That's a bit harsh. You're no super if you act as fast as normal humans (my humble opinion' date=' no offense meant). I tend to lean towards real cinematic/unrealistic characters, so I'm not so fond of characteristic maximas.[/quote']

 

From a related thread:

Having a 12 Speed (or higher) is a brute force method of building a speedster. As others have mentioned' date=' the character will likely end up being a spotlight hog unless all the other characters are also in the 8-10 SPD range. If that is true then it is a very strong argument to just reduce all character SPD's across the board and use some 'shtick preservation' to enforce a lower range. This will free up points for the speedster to actually buy interesting superspeed powers instead of just having extra but ineffectual actions.[/quote']

 

Character actions based on SPD in the superhero genre tend to match up to panels in a comic book. "Fast" superheroes (like Flash or Superman) might appear to be doing a lot of things within a panel but usually those things can be represented by abilities other than a higher SPD in HERO.

[Zephrosyne]

Re: Opinions on the cost of Strength and Speed for superheroic

 

That's a bit harsh. You're no super if you act as fast as normal humans (my humble opinion' date=' no offense meant). I tend to lean towards real cinematic/unrealistic characters, so I'm not so fond of characteristic maximas.[/quote']

 

Well, I'm not stopping anyone from being super. If one feels the need for high Speed to be super, one can have it at 25 for all I care j/k. I just don't think it should come cheap and in "my humble opinion," 10 points for Speed is just too cheap. I felt that imposing the Characteristic Maxima on Speed was better, cheaper, and more by the book (there's a rule for it) than what I originally wanted to do.