Why is Speed so unpopular?

[Shiva13]

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular?

 

Shiva: The way to encourage building to concept is to refrain from punishing some concepts or rewarding others.

 

When it comes to character design, I don't punish any particular character concept. I do, however, believe in strong mechanical regulation of the system by the GM. Because the consequences of not having a firm hand are pretty high.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular?

 

I don't view people altering their character concept to accommodate whatever BS mechanical exploit they come up with after the fact as proper. Concept drives the design of a character sheet. Not the other way around.

 

Having a SPD higher than 4, or (pre 6e) achieving a high CV through high DEX is a “BS mechanical exploit”?

 

Well, then, I'll just have to work out the "BS mechanical exploit" first and then reverse engineer a character concept to fit.

 

Then explain to you how the mechanics evolved organically out of my pristine character concept.

 

I wouldn't accept said character.

 

I require players to give me their character concept first. Before the character sheet is made.

 

However, I will work with the player to create an acceptable character sheet that matches the likes and desires of both the player and GM.

 

Knowing that you will not allow a “highly trained but non-super human” to have a SPD greater than 4 or a DEX greater than 20 makes it pretty easy for me to present a concept which is a highly trained mutant/altered human if I want that higher SPD and DEX.

 

And, just to be clear, as a GM, you will not accept a character presented with concept and character sheet together? “Sorry, because you have already written up the character, you must pick a completely different concept for my game”? That doesn’t seem consistent with working to match the likes and desires of the player..

 

I see nothing wrong with looking at the character sheet and concept, then requiring modifications to match the campaign. For example, the character conceptually seems about average in CV and SPD, but the character sheet shows CV and SPD at the top end of the game. That’s a matter of fixing the sheet to match concept.

 

But if my concept is “top end of the game combat skills” and your answer is “you can’t have a SPD or CV consistent with your concept because I don’t allow non-Supers to have SPD or CV that high” (or “you have to build the character in a much less cost-effective manner because of your concept – someone with a different concept can get the same mechanical results in a point-efficient manner but you can’t”), then I don’t see that as “working with the player”. I see it as simply frustrating the player.

 

Shiva: The way to encourage building to concept is to refrain from punishing some concepts or rewarding others.

 

Exactly.

 

When it comes to character design' date=' I don't punish any particular character concept. I do, however, believe in strong mechanical regulation of the system by the GM. Because the consequences of not having a firm hand are pretty high.[/quote']

 

OK. My concept is a non-Super human being whose great devotion to his cause has resulted in lifelong training. He is among the most combat-capable beings in the game, easily standing toe to toe with Superhumans despite not being superhuman himself. Supers and non-Supers alike are amazed at his reaction time, agility, and combat capability”.

 

How, point-efficiently, will such a character be created to effectively compete with typical CU benchmark characters?

 

Modified slightly, his dedication lead him to seek out a Master of the Mystic Arts, enabling him to obtain a mystical potion and series of rituals which have greatly augmented his reaction time, agility, and combat capability. Exactly the same concept, with a slightly different backstory. Would the character sheet look different?

 

And how would allowing the first concept an identical mechanical build have high consequences for the game? If the character is unbalanced with mystic rituals, how are the exact same mechanics unbalancing without that ritual?

[sinanju]

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular?

 

I wouldn't accept said character.

 

I require players to give me their character concept first. Before the character sheet is made.

 

However, I will work with the player to create an acceptable character sheet that matches the likes and desires of both the player and GM.

 

So I work out the character sheet first, based on the campaign guidelines. Then I reverse engineer the concept.

 

THEN I give you the concept. Wait a few days, then show you the character "I created based on the concept we discussed."

 

Same result in the end. Unless, of course, "work with the player to create an acceptable character sheet that matches the likes and desires of both the player and the GM" translates to "I won't be satisfied until I've piddled in the ice cream sufficiently."

 

I've played with GMs like that. Life is too short.

[casualplayer]

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular?

 

No GM is under any compulsion to allow every character sheet submitted. Ideally the GM does give some guidelines, advance warning and forethought so that the the players don't have to squander their creation effort but still....

 

I once played in a game where no intrinsic energy projectors were allowed. The GM let us know in advance that the government would co-opt any metahumans capable of generating biological energy greater than they took in, and were busy being studied off in some lab somewhere. It made for a oddly but interestingly tweaked superworld. We knew in advance, there were options (energy weapons were commercially available,) and no one showed up to the game with his freshly created Human Torch homage.

 

For my sake, in my games, if you want to be considered an unaltered human you have to take Normal Characteristic Maxima, which I guess is similar to shiva13's SPD4 soft cap. There's lots of work arounds, there's also the pride of excelling even under a handicap and there's lots of stuff in my world that keys both off the presence and absence of NCM. Power Supressors don't work on people "without powers." Medical treatment for normal humans is readily available; medical treatment for non-humans not so much. My prospective players know in advance, they know why and they are expected to understand that if they submit a character that is "just a normal human that got a dragon blood transfusion" that they are playing a normal human that got a dragon blood transfusion and pretty much left normality behind.

 

If the GM lets you create in the blind and seems to be vetoing your character on a whim, then walk. But if the very first thing you attempt to do in their game is try to circumvent communicated restrictions, what else can that GM expect you to continue to do throughout the game?

[sinanju]

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular?

 

Circumventing rule restrictions is one thing. If the GM says "No Speeds above 4," or "No Speeds above 4 unless..." and you try to work around that, yeah, that's a problem. But rejecting a character because the player had the temerity to create the character sheet first, or even worked out the concept and the character sheet at the same time is just silly.

 

I don't always work out the concept first. Sometimes I want to build a character around a particular powerset. Or, I'm not sure a workable powerset I'd be happy playing is POSSIBLE under a given point cap and set of campaign guidelines. So I try to build it first, to see if it's workable. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn't, in which case I'll look at other character concepts. All of which is made more difficult by an arbitrary requirement to submit a character concept first and only then work out the mechanics.

 

I actually like shiva13's SPD cap. If I were to run a game, I'd probably do something similar. I've long thought that SPD in particular, and stats in general, suffered from inflation over the years as published characters and player characters in campaigns struggled to keep up with one another. Dragging stats back down into a more reasonable range for most characters is a good idea. Ditto for the number of disads characters have to take. One of the best things in all of Sixth Edition, in my view, is the drastic way Complication totals were scaled back, so you only take the ones you really want to play, not everything you could think of just to fill a quota. (I can hit a 50-point cap on Psychs very easily, but hate taking Physical Limitations; Accidental Changes, Enraged, Susceptibilities and the like were seldom appropriate the characters I designed. Which meant a ridiculous number of Hunted, Social Limitations, Reps and the like.)

[Shiva13]

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular?

 

CasualPlayer,

 

Thank you for understanding. You hit exactly the points I was trying to express.

 

SPD inflation causes a lot of negative effects. If a player becomes accustomed to that inflation, they most certainly will be jarred when a GM does something about it.

 

However, I have tried to stitch in my "soft ceiling" directly into my campaign ground rules. So that when players come up against them, it is there from the outset. And doesn't feel tacked on mid-campaign. It's a standard that applies across the board, universally. Everybody is expected to abide by it. Including the GM, when opponants are made to challenge the characters.

[JmOz]

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular?

 

Can someone find an old thread called "The great NCM debate" I think I made all the points that need to be made on this subject in it years ago, and now I can't find it...

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular?

 

Can someone find an old thread called "The great NCM debate" I think I made all the points that need to be made on this subject in it years ago' date=' and now I can't find it...[/quote']

 

This search result is the closest I could find:

http://www.herogames.com/forums/search.php?searchid=502426

[Vondy]

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular?

 

The one issue I've seen with representing speedsters entirely via powers instead of Speed is that you get "gaps" where the player didn't anticipate a particular situation, or it's unusual enough that making a power to cover it is unwieldy.

 

For example:

Ok, so you're the Flash. You have SPD 4, but that's ok because you have enough Running and Autofire to blitz through a whole room of mooks. But suddenly, you need to run through a base, quickly entering a number of rooms, hitting commands on the computers inside, and locking the doors behind you. Entirely in-concept for the Flash to do - but your powers won't cover it (this would need either some rather dubious infinite-Triggered TK, or an extremely expensive AoE TK + Clairvoyance thing).

 

Now a GM can handle this, if they're willing to be a little loose with the rules and allow "reasonable" actions with a power skill roll, regardless of the hypothetical active points. But as a player, there's certainly the temptation to take the guaranteed effect which doesn't rely on a generous interpretation.

 

A smaller range of speed scores does not equate to everyone having the same speed. A speedster could still, in theory, have an extra point or two of speed. Another option would be for the GM to allow extra speed "for heroic emergencies only."

 

As noted before, the drama rating based speed system I use is for heroic games.

[casualplayer]

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular?

 

Can someone find an old thread called "The great NCM debate" I think I made all the points that need to be made on this subject in it years ago' date=' and now I can't find it...[/quote']

 

There have been many. I always have to preface my comments with "I don't give a rat's patootie about points as long as everyone is content with their character design and no one feels cheated." The Olympian in my game is built on one hell of a lot more points than the Tae Kwan Do Orphan. The TKD Orphan plows through mooks and The Olympian plows through mountains. Point totals range mightily so that I can emulate the feel of teams with Superman and Batman on them, Thor and Hawkeye.

 

As far as SPD, I'm trying to rein it in also, mostly because I like my heroes to be able to adventure with superagents without the agents having to be 'roided up to implausible levels or the supers having to nursemaid the agents, resenting them for being a liability. I would love to be able to trim 2 points of SPD off the top of every published character and have my players build comparably, something that isn't real easy with players trained to the "SPD 4 is a slow super" mentality. SPD means the option of going more often and going less is a tough sell.

[Shiva13]

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular?

 

The one issue I've seen with representing speedsters entirely via powers instead of Speed is that you get "gaps" where the player didn't anticipate a particular situation, or it's unusual enough that making a power to cover it is unwieldy.

 

For example:

Ok, so you're the Flash. You have SPD 4, but that's ok because you have enough Running and Autofire to blitz through a whole room of mooks. But suddenly, you need to run through a base, quickly entering a number of rooms, hitting commands on the computers inside, and locking the doors behind you. Entirely in-concept for the Flash to do - but your powers won't cover it (this would need either some rather dubious infinite-Triggered TK, or an extremely expensive AoE TK + Clairvoyance thing).

 

Now a GM can handle this, if they're willing to be a little loose with the rules and allow "reasonable" actions with a power skill roll, regardless of the hypothetical active points. But as a player, there's certainly the temptation to take the guaranteed effect which doesn't rely on a generous interpretation.

 

That's actually a gap in the Hero System itself that you have exposed. Not really a SPD issue. It's something the Hero System doesn't really have a practical method of representing.

 

In Mutants & Masterminds, there is a power called Quickness. It allows a character to reduce the amount of time to complete non-combat skill based tasks at a reduced amount of time of completion, depending on their Quickness rank. This allows characters like the Flash, to do things like tearing apart an engine of a moving car in the blink of an eye.

[Ndreare]

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular?

 

For my group it is a matter of complexity and face time.

We play as if every one had a speed of 3. Systems such as charts wheels and tokens have no appeal to us.

However we did use the speed chart for about 12 years before we decided we did not care for it as a whole.

[NuSoardGraphite]

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular?

 

That's actually a gap in the Hero System itself that you have exposed. Not really a SPD issue. It's something the Hero System doesn't really have a practical method of representing.

 

In Mutants & Masterminds, there is a power called Quickness. It allows a character to reduce the amount of time to complete non-combat skill based tasks at a reduced amount of time of completion, depending on their Quickness rank. This allows characters like the Flash, to do things like tearing apart an engine of a moving car in the blink of an eye.

 

This is totally doable in HERO. Actions/skills that have a base time can still be performed in a shorter amount of time for a penalty of -2 (or -1 or -3 or whatever) per step on the Time Chart that a character attempts make it faster. Skill Levels could be purchased that counteract those penalties, and thus allow a character to perform a skill or action much faster than normal.

[Shiva13]

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular?

 

This is totally doable in HERO. Actions/skills that have a base time can still be performed in a shorter amount of time for a penalty of -2 (or -1 or -3 or whatever) per step on the Time Chart that a character attempts make it faster. Skill Levels could be purchased that counteract those penalties' date=' and thus allow a character to perform a skill or action much faster than normal.[/quote']

 

Skill levels that have no effect on combat stats are actually pretty affordable. So this could be incorporated into a Speedster pretty easily as a power.

 

And thank you for helping further support my point. That a speedster on the level of the Flash doesn't need an inflated SPD to be absolutely effective, and fairly represented at at my example SPD of 4.

[Ninja-Bear]

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular?

 

As far as SPD, I'm trying to rein it in also, mostly because I like my heroes to be able to adventure with superagents without the agents having to be 'roided up to implausible levels or the supers having to nursemaid the agents, resenting them for being a liability. I would love to be able to trim 2 points of SPD off the top of every published character and have my players build comparably, something that isn't real easy with players trained to the "SPD 4 is a slow super" mentality. SPD means the option of going more often and going less is a tough sell.

 

On a side note, I for years thought that Martial Artists Strength was too high. I was deadset to reduce all the published characters to a lower Str, and compenstate with an additional DC. The result? I'm too lazy, and learned to live with the published amounts.

[Lucius]

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular?

 

SPD means the option of going more often and going less is a tough sell.

 

Like so much else, I think it's about trust.

 

If the players trust that most supervillains will be built with 4 SPD, and none or almost none with over 6 SPD, hopefully they won't feel a need to have a high SPD just to "keep up."

 

For the record, by the way, I'm inclined to agree with those of you saying SPD, DEX, and STR have been traditionally "inflated" in Hero.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary still wants a SPD of 13 but that's because it's stubborn

 

Lucius Alexander

[Shiva13]

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular?

 

One of the other reasons to advocate lower SPD scores, is the effect it has on END per turn.

 

The higher the SPD score, the more END you spend per turn.

 

So if you artificially inflate SPD, you have to artificially inflate END as well to compensate.

 

Lower SPD scores allow for a greater efficiency in END use. Which also leads to a character being lower point cost overall.

[Greywind]

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular?

 

No, you don't have to "artificially inflate" END. That's part of the cost of doing business.

[sinanju]

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular?

 

Eh. If I run a Champions game again, I may well have "ignore END costs" as a house rule. No power advantages to reduce END cost, no limitations to increase END cost. I think it would be worth it to not have to track END costs in combat.

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular?

 

Combining low SPD and Reduced END allows characters to be setup with a "sustained" level of effort for both combat and non-combat. If they have a few abilities with no Reduced END then they behave like "mini-pushes" with the RAW Push rules at the top end. This kind of setup is more work up front but nearly equivalent to not using END rules (meaning NO Pushing) at all as long as players agree to stay at "sutained" levels of effort for most combats.

 

*Sustained in this context means END cost of average attack, active defense and movement per turn is somewhere between 100%-150% of Recovery.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular?

 

No GM is under any compulsion to allow every character sheet submitted. Ideally the GM does give some guidelines, advance warning and forethought so that the the players don't have to squander their creation effort but still....

 

For my sake, in my games, if you want to be considered an unaltered human you have to take Normal Characteristic Maxima, which I guess is similar to shiva13's SPD4 soft cap. There's lots of work arounds, there's also the pride of excelling even under a handicap and there's lots of stuff in my world that keys both off the presence and absence of NCM.

 

As long as it is clear to the players up front that being a non-powered human means you will be capped at characteristic levels lower than the norm for PC's, and that "normal human characters" in this game, such as Batman, Daredevil, Green Arrow and Captain America, are disadvantaged compared to characters with superpowers, who will be freely allowed to avoid the NCM rules and have standard CU levels of DEX, SPD, CV, etc., then this just becomes a campaign guideline.

 

And Sinanju can freely choose NOT to submit a "normal trained human" concept to be told "Then you're capped at SPD 4, DEX 20 and CV 7 when the rest of the characters, and your typical opponents, will be in the 5 - 7 SPD, DEX 23 - 35, CV 8 - 12 range - and you can't change you concept - that's just being a munchkin". The players can choose whether they wish to play a disadvantaged character. But the GM then has no right to complain that "no one ever plays a skilled normal in my games" - the GM set the campaign ground rules which discouraged that choice.

 

Circumventing rule restrictions is one thing. If the GM says "No Speeds above 4," or "No Speeds above 4 unless..." and you try to work around that, yeah, that's a problem. But rejecting a character because the player had the temerity to create the character sheet first, or even worked out the concept and the character sheet at the same time is just silly.

 

I don't always work out the concept first. Sometimes I want to build a character around a particular powerset. Or, I'm not sure a workable powerset I'd be happy playing is POSSIBLE under a given point cap and set of campaign guidelines. So I try to build it first, to see if it's workable. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn't, in which case I'll look at other character concepts. All of which is made more difficult by an arbitrary requirement to submit a character concept first and only then work out the mechanics.

 

Yup. Sometimes, the concept just doesn't translate well into game mechanics, or fit within a given point constraint. So that concept, in my view, goes back on the shelf, and the player makes a character that works in this game, that he enjoys playing. If the player is then told "nope - you have to stick to that first submitted concept, with all the handicaps I placed on it" and saddles the player with a character he gets no enjoyment from playing, why would the player continue in the game at all? To me, that's no different from the player told "No energy projectors in this game" showing up with his Human Torch homage and refusing to play anything else. The character needs to work in game and be fun for the player.

 

I actually like shiva13's SPD cap. If I were to run a game' date=' I'd probably do something similar. I've long thought that SPD in particular, and stats in general, suffered from inflation over the years as published characters and player characters in campaigns struggled to keep up with one another. Dragging stats back down into a more reasonable range for most characters is a good idea. Ditto for the number of disads characters have to take. One of the best things in all of Sixth Edition, in my view, is the drastic way Complication totals were scaled back, so you only take the ones you really want to play, not everything you could think of just to fill a quota. (I can hit a 50-point cap on Psychs very easily, but hate taking Physical Limitations; Accidental Changes, Enraged, Susceptibilities and the like were seldom appropriate the characters I designed. Which meant a ridiculous number of Hunted, Social Limitations, Reps and the like.)[/quote']

 

I'd have no problem being told my 7 SPD, 35 DEX, 12 CV Captain America/Batman homage doesn't fit the game because SPD's, DEX and CV are much lower than the published norms in this game world. I would, however, be relying on the GM's word that the 4 SPD, 20 DEX, 7 CV "normal human maximum" version is "a super-soldier near or at the top of the class in those attributes", since that is the character concept, just as much as "not superhuman" is. If the typical opponent has SPD 5 or 6, DEX 23 - 29 and CV's of 8 - 10, consistently outshining my character's strengths, based on his concepts, while also possessing those superpowers outside my character's concept, I don't think I'm unreasonable in feeling my concept was not permitted to be viable in this game.

 

There have been many. I always have to preface my comments with "I don't give a rat's patootie about points as long as everyone is content with their character design and no one feels cheated." The Olympian in my game is built on one hell of a lot more points than the Tae Kwan Do Orphan. The TKD Orphan plows through mooks and The Olympian plows through mountains. Point totals range mightily so that I can emulate the feel of teams with Superman and Batman on them' date=' Thor and Hawkeye.[/quote']

 

So why does it matter whether Batman has NCM, if he can have unlimited points to be the 35 DEX, 7 SPD, 12 CV Batman the player envisions, such that he is content with his character design and does not feel cheated?

 

As far as SPD' date=' I'm trying to rein it in also, mostly because I like my heroes to be able to adventure with superagents without the agents having to be 'roided up to implausible levels or the supers having to nursemaid the agents, resenting them for being a liability. I would love to be able to trim 2 points of SPD off the top of every published character and have my players build comparably, something that isn't real easy with players trained to the "SPD 4 is a slow super" mentality. SPD means the option of going more often and going less is a tough sell.[/quote']

 

I'd have no issue dropping everyone's SPD back 2 points. Whether Batman has a 7 SPD, 35 DEX and 12 CV in a game where that's the top of the PC and typical adversary chart, or he has a 4 SPD, 20 DEX and 7 CV in a game where that's the top of the PC and typical adversary chart, he's at the top of the chart, where the player envisions him to be. It's the player told that his Bats must abide by a maximum of 4 SPD, 20 DEX and 7 CV, despite the concept and vision the character be at the top of the chart, only to discover no other PC, and virtually no credible adversary, has under 5 SPD, 23 DEX and 8-9 CV that I see a problem. The GM who decides that the Bricks can have DEX 23, SPD 5 and DCV 8 - 9, but caps Batman, Daredevil, etc. at 4 SPD, 20 DEX and CV 7 has, in my view, made that character concept non-viable, deviating from the source material where these non-Superhumans compete with the Superhumans by being superior, not inferior, in those abilities. So just say up front "in my games, the highly trained normal will not have any abilities equal to, much less superior to, the typical Super, so don't choose that concept unless you're OK with being the underdog."

 

Skill levels that have no effect on combat stats are actually pretty affordable. So this could be incorporated into a Speedster pretty easily as a power.

 

And thank you for helping further support my point. That a speedster on the level of the Flash doesn't need an inflated SPD to be absolutely effective, and fairly represented at at my example SPD of 4.

 

No, he doesn't. But if my concept is "fastest man alive" and you tell me that's a 4 SPD, then I don't expect teammates and adversaries who range from 5 - 7. I expect the rest of the team, and adversaries, will have 2 - 3 SPD (slower than "The Fastest Man Alive"), perhaps the rare 4 SPD (who is actually as fast as the "Fastest Man Alive") and maybe that rare, once or twice in a game, mega-baddie who has a 5 SPD - and is actually FASTER than The Fastest Man Alive!

 

The absolute numbers are much less important than the comparables.

[dmjalund]

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular?

 

If I have NCM based caps. I would say that any Characteristic not actively part of your Shtick, will be capped by NCM. and even then, caps will only shift as far as the Shtick indicated. Say if a person twice as big as normal people (4m, 800kg) I would shift the NCM cap from 20 to 35, but no more. (in a hard/gritty campaign I might only shift it to 30)

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular?

 

If I have NCM based caps. I would say that any Characteristic not actively part of your Shtick' date=' will be capped by NCM. and even then, caps will only shift as far as the Shtick indicated. Say if a person twice as big as normal people (4m, 800kg) I would shift the NCM cap from 20 to 35, but no more. (in a hard/gritty campaign I might only shift it to 30)[/quote']

 

Don't you mean the NCM Penalty?

 

The "default 20 NCM" is just the point at which going beyond costs x2 points. Usually the actual hard "cap" is actually 10 points higher at 30.

[NuSoardGraphite]

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular?

 

I personally prefer a "Hard Cap" of 25. Having a hard cap of 30 makes STR of non-powered characters far too high. STR 25 is a far more realistic cap for campaigns that trend more toward realism. And because STR can't realistically reach a 30, the other characteristics must fall into line with it.

[assault]

Re: Why is Speed so unpopular?

 

There are a couple of other issues that are tied into Speed: Combat Values and defences.

 

It seems to me that SPD caps generally imply CV caps, making it easier for mooks to hit PCs. That in turn has implications for defences. In that kind of environment, characters that aren't "invulnerable" aren't going to be viable.

 

Essentially, that means that aside from the Batman types, a whole host of characters from the source material aren't going to be viable either. Forget most of the X-Men, a good half of the Avengers, the JLA and of course the Legion of Superheroes.

 

Everyone is going to need to be either a brick or a dedicated speedster. Not an ideal situation, IMHO.

 

Incidentally, if having "superpowers" is all that is required for a character to be able to buy characteristics above NCM, it would be tempting to start building "superpowered" versions of characters like Air Wave and the Red Bee. They look like Batman, they work like Batman, but they have the ability to hear and emit radio signals or communicate with and control bees respectively.