Is Speed underpriced?

[bill4747bill]

Hello!

 

Once again I am planning out a Hero campaign for Superheroes, and I need advice/opinions on Speed.

 

It always seems dirt cheap to me, and I hate how every player tends to buy 'more Speed than the character would likely have'

 

I prefer the general flavor of 'normal person has a 2 speed, athletes have a 3, olympic class is a 4, 5+ are Superhuman.'

 

Speed always irritates me.

 

Thanks!

[Derek Hiemforth]

Re: Is Speed underpriced?

 

Speed is very useful, no question about it. But higher SPD also brings downsides (greater END cost, longer time between Post-12 Recoveries, etc.). I think the price of SPD is fine, and personally wouldn't change it.

 

However, if you're the GM, and you don't want the general SPDs to be as high as you're seeing, I'd recommend simply telling the players that their characters need lower SPDs before you'll approve them. Character Points are primarily an accounting mechanism. The main play-balancing factor is the GM; Character Points fill a secondary role in that area at best.

 

If you want to encourage lower SPDs without banning higher SPDs outright, I'd suggest adopting a graduated Characteristic Maxima for SPD only. For example, perhaps going from SPD 2 to SPD 3 costs 10 CP. Going from SPD 3 to SPD 4 costs 20 more CP (30 total). Going from SPD 4 to SPD 5 costs 30 more CP (60 total). Going from SPD 5 to SPD 6 costs 40 more CP (100 total). And so on.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Is Speed underpriced?

 

You may want to talk to your players about expectations and guidelines.

 

If you think that players build characters with "more speed than they would likely have" there may be different expectations and ideas of just how fast some people are.

[Bolon]

Re: Is Speed underpriced?

 

This might be unpopular but what happened to a GM who actually had some balls and set the rules. Why are people relying on the rules? If the GM doesn't want high speeds, why does he accept them? Make the call. I am actually tired of GM who cater to the players to such a level that the game goes amok and the GM's favourites rule-rape to have characters that make all others just "sidekicks". The only reason I play in some games is just to hang with friends since the game has no interest for me.

 

If you have someone buying higher speeds, why not limit it or just add a speed to every bad guy no matter what he/she is? This will make the players realize that game balance is important when one of them throws it off?

 

If everyone buys a high speed, you can easily make it more expensive by throwing in the villain with a speed drain. Drain one or 2 points and the speed drops instantly. It is so nasty for so little.

 

There are combative ways to make speed expensive or there is just being assertive, stand up and state the limits. Either way, it is a game that is a shared pleasure for the GM and players. When one of them is not happy, the game just dies.

[Vanguard]

Re: Is Speed underpriced?

 

Gotta go with Bolon here.

 

I haven't played Champions in a while but I do remember sitting back and telling my GM that I think I'd figured out what our problem with Speed (and Dex) Creep was.

 

Most players, when creating a character, don't ask themsleves "How much faster than a normal human is my character?", the instead ask, "How much faster than a normal Superhero is my character?"

 

So, no, I don't think Speed is too cheap/under-priced. I think players are using the wrong baseline for creating their characters.

[psyber624]

Re: Is Speed underpriced?

 

I will say this, i understand why some GM's cater to their players, it can be hard to get players where you live so some catering might be in order. However, one thing about speed. Speed isn't overpriced, if you remember that it is all RELATIVE. If everyone in the campaign is buying speed up to 6, then that's 60 points spent that don't really help you. (CV and a number of other things all work the same way). Speed is only worth 10 points a pop IF you are the only one spending those 10 points, then its insanely cheap. Otherwise all you really got is more END/STUN issues (as you have longer to wait between free recoveries) and slightly more use out of AID or certain other powers. How many powers actually CARE how many actions you can take in a turn?

 

So if literally everyone is buying their speed way up, don't sweat it. Just bump your villains speed up to match and everything works out fine.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Is Speed underpriced?

 

It always seems dirt cheap to me, and I hate how every player tends to buy 'more Speed than the character would likely have'

 

I prefer the general flavor of 'normal person has a 2 speed, athletes have a 3, olympic class is a 4, 5+ are Superhuman.'

 

Most players' date=' when creating a character, don't ask themsleves "How much faster than a normal [i']human[/i] is my character?", the instead ask, "How much faster than a normal Superhero is my character?"

 

Exactly. Bill, I think your baselines are perfectly reasonable. They would result (IMO) in the occasional slow Brick having a SPD of 2, just like Joe Everyman. The typical Super is a bit better than the man on the street, and would have a 3 SPD. Some Supers are extremely well trained, and would reach the peak human level of a 4 SPD. Truly notable for their SPD, the rare character would have a 5 SPD, maybe even a 6.

 

But that's not how the game evolved. In 1st Ed, the typical Super had a 5 SPD, with the occasional 6 tossed in there. Sometimes, we saw a really slow Brick with a 4 SPD, and the occasional extra-fast character with a 7, maybe even an 8 on very rare occasions.

 

See the pattern? All the published characters have '2 more Speed than the character would likely have'. Most games have followed the published characters as their baseline. I would suggest a discussion with your players. We can stick to the published baselines, in which everyone has SPD a couple of points higher than fits your vision. That means you have to adjust your vision (negative) but can use published characters without alteration (positive). Or we can basically drop everyone's SPD by 2 - that means Pulsar shows up with a 3 SPD, and those really incredible martial artists and speedsters have a 5, maybe the rare exception pushing up to a 6, not just that the players lower the SPD on their characters (which may be the disconnect in their minds). This will fit your vision, but require reworking any published characters.

 

And don't kid yourself that this will be as easy as lopping off 2 SPD and dropping them in. There will be ripple effects on character design. For example, with 2 SPD less, characters recover more often, so REC becomes more valuable, and things like reduced END become less valuable. Flash becomes less valuable, since X segments = less phases under this new model, and adjustment powers fade faster. Other implications will surface through play, if they aren't caught at the outset.

 

The important balance issue is simply that everyone play by the same baselines. [Or not - I had a game where I seriously considered dropping all the Bad Guys' defenses by about 10, and bumping their attacks 3 DC's - the players and the villains would each get about 10 more stun past defenses and combat would be quicker, without changing the relative power of PC's or NCP's overall, although NPC vs NPC would be brutally short combats.]

[Ninja-Bear]

Re: Is Speed underpriced?

 

Tacking onto what Hugh said, to me I think that you should set even trained normals lower to speed 2. I personally think that is why you also see higher speed than one should think. If the average policeman or thug has speed 3, speed 4 only grants an extra phase and if you are playing a martial artist, which usually means that your defense is dodge or blocking, then you want a higher speed so you can abort and later attack before a group of thugs. Also if you have a group of players, then a lower speed isn't as detrimental as a smaller group. I've ran some one on one and the players appreciated the extra phases.

 

People have noted that with a higher speed there is a disadvantage because of the wait till the free recovery. I'd like to point out that if you are significantly higher speed than your opponents, this isn't quite the case becasue you have more phases to act and one of those are taking recoveries.

[Balabanto]

Re: Is Speed underpriced?

 

Tacking onto what Hugh said, to me I think that you should set even trained normals lower to speed 2. I personally think that is why you also see higher speed than one should think. If the average policeman or thug has speed 3, speed 4 only grants an extra phase and if you are playing a martial artist, which usually means that your defense is dodge or blocking, then you want a higher speed so you can abort and later attack before a group of thugs. Also if you have a group of players, then a lower speed isn't as detrimental as a smaller group. I've ran some one on one and the players appreciated the extra phases.

 

People have noted that with a higher speed there is a disadvantage because of the wait till the free recovery. I'd like to point out that if you are significantly higher speed than your opponents, this isn't quite the case becasue you have more phases to act and one of those are taking recoveries.

 

Except that most people don't know how to properly play a martial artist in the first place, and all they do is attack, attack, attack, followed by them getting flattened. The problem with understanding SPD isn't character generation. I've maintained this position for a number of years. The problem is that most people don't make any active attempt to truly understand the combat rules. If you have 3 SPD over the average agent, (6 SPD), you attack on 3 phases where the agents don't go. Half move towards agent, hit agent. Hold action on 4. If shot at, dodge. If not shot at, walk up to agent, punch in face. Phase 6, walk up to agent, punch in face. Lather, rinse, repeat.

 

The other problem is that Speedsters suffer from the illusion that they need a higher SPD than the martial artist does. I receive numerous complaints from players that "Speedsters are broken." The solution is to increase their movement scores without increasing their SPD score. Special effect has nothing to do with the number of actions you get in a turn. Special effect is your superpowers. Should the Speedster have about the same number of actions as a martial artist? Sure. Should he necessarily have more? No.

[NuSoardGraphite]

Re: Is Speed underpriced?

 

Tacking onto what Hugh said' date=' to me I think that you should set even trained normals lower to speed 2. I personally think that is why you also see higher speed than one should think. If the average policeman or thug has speed 3, speed 4 only grants an extra phase and if you are playing a martial artist, which usually means that your defense is dodge or blocking, then you want a higher speed so you can abort and later attack before a group of thugs. Also if you have a group of players, then a lower speed isn't as detrimental as a smaller group. I've ran some one on one and the players appreciated the extra phases.[/quote']

 

I agree that characters speeds are bloated, however I disagree with this assessment to some degree. While I do think the average cop is probably Speed 2, characters who routinely train for combat should probably be rated at Speed 3. They will outperform the average non-combatant almost every time. They train to reduce their reaction time when attacking and defending. That's extra speed in a nutshell. Trained Agents should be a threat to the average citizen (including the beat cop). The fact that they match in Speed to a "slow" super shouldn't be a big deal...these supers have ways of dealing with Agents. Sometimes being able to take out large numbers of agents in a single phase...something Agents can't usually do, so the supers will still outperform the agents, even if there is no speed advantage.

 

In comic books, I have noted that your typical superhero, even if his physical characteristics aren't part of his superpowers, tend to train themselves to the level of Olympic ability or elite combat capability. A good example is the X-men. Most of those characters don't have super powers that enhance their physical capability, yet characters like Storm, Cyclops, Iceman, Kitty Pride etc are excellent hand to hand combatants and have physical ability equal to olympic class athletes. I wouldn't have a problem with writeups of those characters giving them Speed 4. However, there are many Hero groups who would probably rate them higher in Speed (especially Storm and Cyclops) The old-skool version of Psylocke I would rate at Speed 3. It was obvious she wasn't much faster than a normal human. Her entire purpose was to support the team via telepathic communication and mind-reading the opponents and relaying information to the team that they could exploit. She rarely got into battle and when she did, she tended to take out weak-minded opponents pretty easily with Mind-Bullets, but she didn't need a high Speed to accomplish this. I LOVED this version of Psylocke and was highly annoyed when they turned her into super ninja chick just so she could mix it up with the rest of the group. That wasn't the point! (okay, I'm done with that rant now)

 

People have noted that with a higher speed there is a disadvantage because of the wait till the free recovery. I'd like to point out that if you are significantly higher speed than your opponents, this isn't quite the case becasue you have more phases to act and one of those are taking recoveries.

 

Yep. If your character is significantly faster than their opponent, taking one of the characters phases as a recovery isn't out of the question.

[Laundry Knight]

Re: Is Speed underpriced?

 

I'm of the same mindset and had created several NPC heroes and villains, but even though I have established my own world, I would like to use some of the published heroes and villains to make adventure creation simpler for me (my game is intended as a back up for a friend's DnD game), and most of the published characters are faster than the characters I created.

[Greywind]

Re: Is Speed underpriced?

 

In comic books' date=' I have noted that your typical superhero, even if his physical characteristics aren't part of his superpowers, tend to train themselves to the level of Olympic ability or elite combat capability. A good example is the X-men. Most of those characters don't have super powers that enhance their physical capability, yet characters like Storm, Cyclops, Iceman, Kitty Pride etc are excellent hand to hand combatants and have physical ability equal to olympic class athletes. I wouldn't have a problem with writeups of those characters giving them Speed 4. However, there are many Hero groups who would probably rate them higher in Speed (especially Storm and Cyclops) The old-skool version of Psylocke I would rate at Speed 3. It was obvious she wasn't much faster than a normal human. Her entire purpose was to support the team via telepathic communication and mind-reading the opponents and relaying information to the team that they could exploit. She rarely got into battle and when she did, she tended to take out weak-minded opponents pretty easily with Mind-Bullets, but she didn't need a high Speed to accomplish this. I LOVED this version of Psylocke and was highly annoyed when they turned her into super ninja chick just so she could mix it up with the rest of the group. That wasn't the point! (okay, I'm done with that rant now)[/quote']I notice you didn't lump Gambit in there, whose agility is part of his power set.

 

I you think Betsy was just a mentalist I'd suggest you look into the Captain Britain stories before the two of them ever came stateside.

[NuSoardGraphite]

Re: Is Speed underpriced?

 

I notice you didn't lump Gambit in there, whose agility is part of his power set.

 

I you think Betsy was just a mentalist I'd suggest you look into the Captain Britain stories before the two of them ever came stateside.

 

I haven't seen any of those stories. Did she inherit some of her brothers physical ability?

[Ninja-Bear]

Re: Is Speed underpriced?

 

Balabanto- your post did remind me something that Susano has on his website. He mentions that when he adapts older villians and such, the reason that they had a higher speed was that there wasn't as many options to do in a phase as there are now.

[Ninja-Bear]

Re: Is Speed underpriced?

 

I agree that characters speeds are bloated, however I disagree with this assessment to some degree. While I do think the average cop is probably Speed 2, characters who routinely train for combat should probably be rated at Speed 3. They will outperform the average non-combatant almost every time. They train to reduce their reaction time when attacking and defending. That's extra speed in a nutshell.

 

See to me having a higher DEX accomplishes the same thing. ymmv and all that

[griffinman01]

Re: Is Speed underpriced?

 

I don't know exactly how it happened but in every champions campaign we fell into the mold of basic guys (thugs, cops, slow supers) were speed 3, Trained guys (basic supers, SWAT, Elite mercs) were speed 4, Agile guys (spider-man, captain america) were speed 5, and speedsters were speed 6. I've never really had people who got higher than that (with the exception of a speedster hitting 7 speed I think well into the campaign). When dealing with 250 points most people I know never really wanted to blow a large amount of points into it without having some character basis for it. It was generally where the people with 5 speed or so would also have 25-30 dex (ie. Martial artists, agile combatants, etc) so they invested upwards of 70 points to get their character that fast, which was a pretty hefty chunk of their 250 points.

 

Speed is also sort of a relative stat because you only get the benefit of it by having your guys acting more often than your opponents. Otherwise, as many people have mentioned, you burn through your endurance faster since that post 12 recovery is twice as far away. One lazy way to balance it is tune your villains to whatever 'average' speed the PCs have. If everyone has 5-6 and they aren't speedsters, then you might have to put your basic villains up to that level to have them put up a good fight.

 

The other way is to put some kind of cap on their speed, either hard (nobody can purchase more than 5 speed) or soft (using something like Derek Hiemforth said where you scale the cost up the more you purchase) and let people figure out a more realistic number. I put a speed cap in my latest adventure because my last one had every PC with 5 speed, even ones that should have been slower. How I did it was that you could only put up to 15 points into the speed stat with the rest being figured off of your dex. So people with 15-24 dex were capped at 4 speed, 25-34 dex were capped at 5, and 35 dex could buy 6. It worked for my group since most of my players play for a concept rather than raw power. Thankfully nobody tries to break the game during creation by buying 8 speed or something.

 

In any case, as the GM, you can balance it however you want. What I said in the first paragraph is a good starting point and you should assign a speed cap to people based on their character concepts. If someone is playing the Hulk, you shouldn't allow them to be buying 6 speed (I would think 4 would be a solid number for him). So, before your PCs build their heroes, give them some guidelines and then discuss an appropriate speed value for their concepts. As for villains, give them enough to fit their concept as well as put up a good fight.

[Martin2]

Re: Is Speed underpriced?

 

The GM should assign the speed limit and stick to it.

 

I currently have most players at 5 and speedster on 7 (with speedster powers to do faster stuff) for a 400 point game.

 

I would allow the speedster to go a point higher but the others would need a right speed SFX which they don't.

 

The villains are mapped around those speeds.

 

If they want to be all higher the villains will go up so a 400 point villain will start at their average with weaker ones -1 speed and bosses at +1 / +2 / +3. A speedster will be the same speed as their speedster or a bit more if they are good etc.

 

Having players on a lot of different speeds slows down the game flow in combat.

 

So set your rules and break them for only the right reasons.

[NuSoardGraphite]

Re: Is Speed underpriced?

 

This is my superheroic speed breakdown (my average level of play)

 

SPD:2 Average joe

SPD:3 Slow brick, Agents, Soldiers

SPD:4 fast brick, highly skilled yet still mundane Martial Artists, Special Forces and highly trained combatants

SPD:5 fast Martial Artist, slow supersoldier, very agile supers

SPD:6 supernatual martial artist, fast supersoldier, incredibly agile super (night crawler)

SPD:7 blazingly fast supersoldier. Ridiculously agile super (Spiderman) slow speedster.

SPD:8+ Speedster territory sfx may vary, but at this level they are considered a speedster.

[Ice9]

Re: Is Speed underpriced?

 

There's a factor that hasn't been mentioned here which is that while SPD is an in-game stat (albeit a very powerful one) that can balanced by other factors, it also controls how much the actual player will be getting to interact with the game vs waiting for their turn.

 

HERO combat is not fast. It can run at a reasonable speed if the players and GM are all on the ball and make an effort to keep things moving, but there will always be a while between turns. Having a lower SPD means makes that time considerably longer. While you could create a SPD 2 character that was mechanically balanced with a bunch of SPD 6 characters, that character would still not be as fun to play for a lot of people.

 

Someone on this board made the point that SPD could be considered more like screen-time or number of panels than physical speed. And in that context, it makes sense that a "slower" character could have the same or similar SPD. And likewise that mooks generally have low SPD and mega-villains a higher one.

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Is Speed underpriced?

 

This is my superheroic speed breakdown (my average level of play)

 

SPD:2 Average joe

SPD:3 Slow brick, Agents, Soldiers

SPD:4 fast brick, highly skilled yet still mundane Martial Artists, Special Forces and highly trained combatants

SPD:5 fast Martial Artist, slow supersoldier, very agile supers

SPD:6 supernatual martial artist, fast supersoldier, incredibly agile super (night crawler)

SPD:7 blazingly fast supersoldier. Ridiculously agile super (Spiderman) slow speedster.

SPD:8+ Speedster territory sfx may vary, but at this level they are considered a speedster.

 

 

I agree with Ice9 that SPD best represents 'screen time' but a list like this has its place as well. When I worked on my starting version of the Justice League I went with 4 SPD across the board with Flash being the lone exception @6 SPD. I could see some characters increasing this with time but it's a good place to start from imo.

[Ndreare]

Re: Is Speed underpriced?

 

I would suggest watching some UFC fights Boxing or K1 championships.

IMHO you will see speed is a measure of decision and agression. Agresive ad desisive people attack, move whatever it is often. Actual movement, acceleration and stuff is better measured by Combat Value.

Go to a ternament and see someone who hesitates you are seeing someone with a low speed. Experienced combatants tend to act imediatly and agresivly.

 

Of course in our last few games we normalized speed so that undermines my view a bit.

 

PS forgive th spellling this message composed on swype.

[Ninja-Bear]

Re: Is Speed underpriced?

 

Ok side question, when speed comes up, bricks are always supposed to be slow? I thought we are supposed to move away from archeotypes.

[Clonus]

Re: Is Speed underpriced?

 

Ok side question' date=' when speed comes up, bricks are always supposed to be slow? I thought we are supposed to move away from archeotypes.[/quote']

 

I have no idea what gave you that idea. But I will say that when bricks are just as fast as speedsters and martial artists, the result is that speedsters and martial artists look totally pathetic.

[Xavier Onassiss]

Re: Is Speed underpriced?

 

I have no idea what gave you that idea. But I will say that when bricks are just as fast as speedsters and martial artists' date=' the result is that speedsters and martial artists look totally pathetic.[/quote']

 

I have to disagree with this point. Bricks aren't all created equal in terms of Strength, and a Brick with a high Speed is going to have make some trade-offs to avoid running out of End. I used to run a high-Speed Brick-ish character, but his Strength was only 40. Any higher than that, and he'd have been burning up too much End. Also, the points for that extra Speed had to come from somewhere. He also had lower defenses than most Bricks; I thought of him as being sort of like a Martial Artist whose damage derived from a medium-to-high Strength instead of Martial Arts maneuvers.

[Ninja-Bear]

Re: Is Speed underpriced?

 

I have no idea what gave you that idea.

 

Just look upthread and when there is a slow super, its a brick for example. And this isn't the first thread I've seen it on though they had a simular theme with this one.