Links and Advice

[Ric Conway]

Two things:

 

I need an opinion on the "arms race" of creative players.

 

In a 250 pt. 5th ed.

 

There are Active point and limitation caps in place for a current game (50 pts and -1 respectively). I realize now that I should have imposed a DC limit, 'cause my players LOVE to use levels to turn a respectable 8d6 into say 14, and a fairly low-level DCV of 4 or 5 into 14 (figuring in maneuvers and such).

 

Now, I know that I bear a lot of responsibility for not reigning in players enough, but my fear is that in order to challenge them, at least combat wise, I'm now engaged in an arms race to keep up with a few players in a sizable group who don't seem to possess a sense of scale.

 

So, how have you guys handled this in the past?

 

I want the game to be challenging and engaging for everyone. The story seems to have their interest, but I can see a not too distant time down the road where, in order to reign in my "few", the others will either be forced to join in with behavior I don't want to encourage, or get crushed by vastly over-powered enemies.

 

Thing 2 is much easier. Any good sources or links for giant robots/Mecha?

 

Thanks for your time!

[TheQuestionMan]

Re: Links and Advice

 

Greetings Ric Conway (Any relation to Tim?), I am the Links collector around these parts, but they only exist in the first place because of people more creative than I. The GM and Players Arms Race is always a tough one to rule on. Ensure a Damage Class cap. Allow them to break it by ruling that the DC is the max. Plus "Push" plus "Move By/Through". Anytime the PC's exceed the campaign guideline give the Bad Guys tm. the same defensive advantage.

 

Rename all published Supervillains so the Players are unprepared. Use your GM Screen to Roll and Shout! It is a Game and should be about everypne having fun.

 

 

Champions (Super) Hero Resources

http://herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=31865

 

Battletech/Mechwarrior Hero Resources

http://herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=31861

 

 

Cheers

 

 

QM

[Grailknight]

Re: Links and Advice

 

Talk it out with your players.

 

As GM you are the ultimate authority but not solely responsible for the balance of the campaign.

 

Perhaps the powergamers are'nt completely conscious of the strain they're causing. Most will be willing to reign it in somewhat when you bring it up as a problem for you rather than with them.

 

Maybe the other players don't mind and just want to build their characters in different ways. (Not likely but I have seen it)

 

Throw in some noncombat challenges from time to time.

 

Split the party. Let the combat monsters take on the bosses while the others deal with lieutenants and agents.

 

But above all, communicate.

[psyber624]

Re: Links and Advice

 

To counter DCV's use AOE attacks. They put everyone on the same playing field (DCV 3). Retro-actively fixing DC issues is much tougher, as any design used to counter them will render the other PC's attacks useless (or obviously show bias on your part against the arms race guys).

 

If your non-powergamers aren't complaining much you can give them a chance to shine from time to time by using sfx weaknesses. I.E. if one of the DC culprits is a Fire based attacker, create a fire villain with 75% damage reduction vs fire. It is thematically appropriate and suddenly his 14 DC attack is far weaker than other players 8 DC attacks. You obviously can't do this all the time but it does allow other players a chance to take the spotlight.

 

Of course, like Grailknight said communication is the key here. If it is bothering you please talk to the players about it, explain your concerns to them and see if they are willing to work with you on making some adjustments to come back in line with your campaign goals. If not, anything like the above will likely upset them and lead them to feel "targeted" by you resulting in negative feelings that will ruin a campaign.

 

If worse comes to worse establish new campaign guidelines which your current characters will fit in (This far, and NO MORE) and then allow the rest of the players to build up to that point if they feel they need to in order to stay competitive. You might change "max AP" to Max DC, from any source either before or after maneuver bonuses. (I recommend after, you can argue this may not be fair for maneuvers like Move-By/Move-throughs but then you leave that loophole to be exploited and your power gamer types start buying insanely high movement to take advantage of that.)

 

At the very least take this as a learning experience and remember to take it into account on your next play session.

 

And finally, I really hate to say this, but it is simply the truth that not every player will fit with every GM. If you are the GM you have to decide what works for you, in your world. That is part of your job. If you decide to allow them to continue to do this then you have to accept the responsibility for it and warn the other players what is coming. If you decide that it must be curtailed in some fashion this may lead to difficulties with certain player types, but as the GM don't forget it is your responsibility to make the game as fun as you can for both yourself and your players, and if a few players out of the group are hurting the fun for the whole group you may have to put your foot down. Allowing one or a few players to ruin the game for everyone else is NOT part of the job description.

[Ric Conway]

Re: Links and Advice

 

Thanks for all the valuable advice guys. I really appreciate the discussion! And thanks also to QM for the links!

[Doc Samson]

Re: Links and Advice

 

I am going to risk getting flamed to death and mention Champions the New Millennium (fuzion rules). The best thing imho that appeared in the game was the rule of X. I would have loved to see this become part of character creation instead of a mere suggestion in 6e2. For the reasons mentioned by the OP, APs caps don't do all that much for balancing.

 

My groups typically consist of a mix of RPers and dice rollers. While the dice rollers enjoy RPing even when their characters aren't built for it, my experience has shown me that RPers don't like being second class citizens in combat. For us, imposing a rule of X in character creation solved much (but not all) of this issue. Here is an example rule of X we would use in a typical "50 AP" game.

 

Rule of X = 25

 

This means that a character's total offensive value, or Offensive X = the number of Active Points in the character’s most powerful attack divided by 5 (including all powers that stack with primarily offensive powers such as HA or HKA) + the character’s highest possible OCV with his most powerful attack (including all Combat Skill Levels for OCV and bonuses from Martial Maneuvers) + the character’s SPD = 25

 

The character's total defensive value, or Defensive X = the total Active Points in the character’s most powerful defense divided by 5 (including powers that stack with primarily defensive powers such as Damage Reduction or Damage Negation) + the character’s STUN divided by 10 + the character’s highest possible DCV (including all Combat Skill Levels for DCV and bonuses from Martial Maneuvers) + the character’s SPD = 25

 

Note: Adjustment Powers may not be used to exceed these limits (I can't say I like this house rule but without it a simple STR Aid on the brick can ruin your game. Our support players still make great use of STUN and END Aids).

 

We have tested this system on teams with a "Captain America" and a "Thor" (or Batman and Superman if that's your flavor) and found for the most part it works.

 

For example, in a rule of x = 30 game, our Thor might be something like 60 STR + 3d6 HA (Focus: hammer) + 8 OCV + 2 CSLs + 5 SPD = 30.

Our Cap might look something like 30 STR + 3d6 HA (Focus: Shield) + 4d6 Offensive Strike + 10 OCV + 2 CSLs -2 Offensive Strike + 7 SPD = 30.

Your not going to confuse getting haymakered by Thor with getting hit by Cap but the players will feel they matter equally in combat.

 

I know this doesn't address all aspects of your questions but I hope it helps.

[Kirby]

Re: Links and Advice

 

In addition to the great advice listed above, make sure that if the players can do it, so can the villains. Or at least remind the players of that.

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Links and Advice

 

Campaign Damage Caps, Code vs. Killing & Pulling a Punch