Looking for iconic Crusader and Starburst from BBB

[assault]

I've always tended to use 29 Dex a lot, because it gives a 10 CV. Always nice. I don't always pair it with a high Speed though. 29 Dex and 4 Speed is a nice combination for a brick.

[Enforcer84]

I have to ask, has anyone ran any characters built like this? Did you still get the super hero feeling? It could be one of those things that onnpaper sounds like a good idea but when in play and the dice are rolling, not so much.

for 3 decades

[Scott Baker]

I have to ask, has anyone ran any characters built like this? Did you still get the super hero feeling? It could be one of those things that onnpaper sounds like a good idea but when in play and the dice are rolling, not so much.

That pretty much is the way we played starting back with 1E on into 3E.

[Scott Baker]

The change to baseline Endurance costs (which included the simpler +1/2, +1 Reduced Endurance schema) was probably the single most significant (and most welcome) change made by the 4th ed rules. Everything else ever done to the system is small potatoes by comparison, at least in my view. Any system changes that have since created the need for 400-pt starting superheroes with 28 Dexes and 7 Speeds are highly dubious to me.

A big part of the point inflation from 5E to 6E was to cover the cost of buying the no-longer-figured characteristics.

[Scott Baker]

Slashing the cost of Recovery and Endurance made a huge difference to the speed effect.  Its so cheap to pile up on both stats now that a speed of 7 is no particular problem.

And don't forget the halving of END costs. Between the reduced use of END, being able to buy it cheaper (and recover it cheaper), and the seriously less-expensive Reduced END, that was a major game changer point-wise for many characters.

[Hyper-Man]

...Any system changes that have since created the need for 400-pt starting superheroes with 28 Dexes and 7 Speeds are highly dubious to me.

 

I think the scale of the published character examples are the bigger problem than any of the system changes with 6e (or even 5e for that matter).  Example:  My starting version of The Flash for 6e only has a 27 DEX (for Initiative only, 18 for DEX rolls) and a 6 SPD.

[zslane]

Standard superheroes went from being 250 point characters to 350 point characters with the advent of 5th edition, at least according to published point guidelines. These guidelines establish the expected norms, reflected in villain and other NPC supplements. And these norms are embraced by players, largely out of necessity as GMs pit published villains against them (or build their own villains according to the inflated "official" campaign standards found in the rulebook).

 

I can find no compelling cause for the 100-point(!) jump between 4th and 5th editions; the restructuring of characteristics costs had not yet occurred. But this 100-point inflation simply carried over into the 6th edition, and when coupled with the new costs for things like secondary characteristics, you end up with an additional, nominal increase of 50 points just to maintain feature parity. The result is 400 point "Standard" superheroes in 6e. So you see, from what I can tell, the problem began with 5e and was simply propagated to 6e without much scrutiny or justification.

[Enforcer84]

not sure I see a "problem."  (but then I never have) 

I no longer have my 2nd edition books but I can't recall when I heard about the 250 pt limit. Was it a function of the original game? 

I don't think I recall seeing it until 3rd edition. I thought it was pretty arbitrary then as the villains from 2nd edition were anywhere from 500-700 - Dr Destroyer/Mechanon ish to less than 200, Ultraviolet and Bulldozer IIRC...

 

"embraced by players largely out of necessity" is kind of an odd phrase, I wasn't hugely into the Red October Bulletin Board days, began my community days with the Champions Mailing list and then the discussions were largely how do you mod Marvel or DC characters, and what has Cybergames done to our game!?

 

my campaigns (the ones I ran and the one's I played in) cared very little for point totals or even damage/defense/speed/dex caps. There was never a stat creep or arms race. But we played characters anywhere from 200-600pts to start with. 

 

On the one hand our robot almost killed ultraviolet and on the other hand he himself was almost killed by Neutron...oh and then there was the 375 point game we played in which I forgot to get damage resistance of any kind for Captain Tempest and he nearly lost his leg to a cyber crocodile. But I'm waxing nostalgic.

 

anyway. My point is: Point totals never mattered to us nor did the horribly annoying NCM that got foisted on Champions by the darn 'other Genre' players and their inability to cope with characters who were really good at something.

[Greywind]

The 250 points were there from the start.

 

There was point restructuring with 3rd/4th as all the skills from the various sources were brought into line with each other.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Some stuff did get more expensive, but no, there didn't need to be such a great increase in power over the editions; I suspect - but perhaps am just being unfair - that it is just a preference on the part of Hero writers for more powerful characters that drives it.  Both rebuilds I did here, for example, come in around 300 points and I kept them as exact in build to the 4th edition version as I could.  I think 300 would serve fine for keeping the same power level and point value and suggest that for people who want to make beginning characters.

[Enforcer84]

hehe, in 2nd edition we played 100 base + Whatever Disads you felt comfortable with.

 

I'm trying to remember what skills were available back then:

Acrobatics

Climbing

Combat Skill Levels

Detective Work

Find Weakness

Martial Arts

Stealth

Swinging?

[Grailknight]

The 250 points were there from the start.

 

There was point restructuring with 3rd/4th as all the skills from the various sources were brought into line with each other.

 

The 250 points were not there at the start. It was 100 points plus disadvantages. GM's set the maximum for their campaign.

 

There was no max from a disadvantage category though there were diminishing returns (1st 2 full value, 3-4 1/2 value, 5-6 1/4 value) .

[Enforcer84]

The 250 points were not there at the start. It was 100 points plus disadvantages. GM's set the maximum for their campaign.

 

There was no max from a disadvantage category though there were diminishing returns (1st 2 full value, 3-4 1/2 value, 5-6 1/4 value) .

That's what I was thinking...and Disads you got the first 2 at full points and then they were halved? There weren't limits to defensive categories then. 

 

The aforementioned Robot...Xenonoblaster - guy wanted to build a Robot with 100 STR...got him to 600 pts worth of disadvantages - then remembered the 100 base points and in the spirit of 14 year olds everywhere...he just added 100pts of powers. 

 

His disadvantages should have been crippling but our GM never really read them...good times, good times.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Deduction was in the rules pretty early, and first aid I think, but that could have been from Danger International or Justice Inc.

 

Its been my experience over decades of running Hero games that the lower point value you start with as a character, the tighter the concept and the more room you have to grow.  Plus low powered characters have a wider range of threats to face.  Hawkeye can be harmed by cops.  Thor laughs at them.  There's always a danger that some players will end up all buying the same stuff and characters end up being too similar but a bit of oversight by the GM, a tight character concept, and a desire to keep people's roles distinct can easily limit or eliminate that.

[Hyper-Man]

on the subject of editions...

 

2nd edition was for all intents and purposes just a cleaned up version of 1st edition with errata fixed.  The changes between 5e and 5er probably had a higher page count than the entire text of the 1st or 2nd editions.  3rd edition just combined the additions from the suppliments: Champions II and Champions III*.

 

*These were more like the Advanced Players Guides (6e) or Ultimate X(5e) books of their day. They were NOT new editions of the rules.

[Enforcer84]

Deduction was in the rules pretty early, and first aid I think, but that could have been from Danger International or Justice Inc.

 

Its been my experience over decades of running Hero games that the lower point value you start with as a character, the tighter the concept and the more room you have to grow.  Plus low powered characters have a wider range of threats to face.  Hawkeye can be harmed by cops.  Thor laughs at them.  There's always a danger that some players will end up all buying the same stuff and characters end up being too similar but a bit of oversight by the GM, a tight character concept, and a desire to keep people's roles distinct can easily limit or eliminate that.

maybe. But in my decades of experience, no one in my group wanted to play Hawkeye. Or at least a Hawkeye that found cops a threat. Not that we never played low-power games, we just preferred the Avengers to the Teen Titans. 

 

We had a series of broken concepts - didn't really get going until Champions II and III came out and we got some real potentially disruptive powers to play with - absorption to force field was a favorite for one "Martial Artist." or the mage who had a cosmic, 0 phase variable defense pool. 

 

IIRC our first game consisted of Enforcer (Me) a flight Brick with Adrenaline surges (ripped off Ripper's Strength buffs) so I went from 60 to 100 for 6 rounds a day. Had a lot of defenses and a jet belt like Wonder Man.

 

Xenonoblaster was the aforementioned robot with 100 STR and 700 pts. He would have been imbalanced but the GM and that Player were intellectual rivals at most things and so most of the competition was geared towards eliminating him.

 

Ratman was an anthropomorphic rat with an 80 STR.

 

Syphon had a multipower of drains and transfers. And looked like Captain Caveman.

 

Rising Son was the Martial Artist with the absorption field.

 

we stopped a bankrobbery...by Neutron's group...(Arc, Wyvern, Ankylosaur, Grond was added as were Thunder and Lightning)

 

Xenonoblaster tore the vault out of the building to keep it from them and then KO'd Wyvern and Lightning. Neutron detonated him. Ratman took out Thunder and Arc, Enforcer got jobbed by Grond, Rising Son managed to take out Ankylosaur and Syphon drained Grond into a managable brick but Neutron got away.

 

Aaaand I'm back in Ed's basement.

[Christopher R Taylor]

My favorite two builds that ended up more powerful than I intended was the Variable advantage Hand to hand attack in 4th edition (60 active points, and you can have a whale of an attack with all sorts of interesting advantages) and the recursive aid/absorb.  With part of the points going to "add more points to my absorb/aid" you can have infinite power, over time.

[Enforcer84]

oh yeah we had one of those, too.

 

We also had an FBI trained psychic cat with "Mind Claws."

My brother was unique.

[zslane]

One small issue with higher starting point totals is that you have a greater chance for attack/defense disparity since the range of potential values is greater. With lower point totals, starting attacks and defenses tend to settle towards a median value that makes an attack on the upper end not so devastating against defenses on the lower end. Higher point totals also seem to entice players to create more complex builds with more powers on the sheet, which makes combat take longer (it is an odd phenomenon, but a very real one nonetheless).

 

Full disclosure: I have always found the point system a vital element of the game. I am not likely to find much in common with players who regard the point system as unimportant.

[Scott Baker]

The 250 points were there from the start.

 

There was point restructuring with 3rd/4th as all the skills from the various sources were brought into line with each other.

 

 

The 250 points were not there at the start. It was 100 points plus disadvantages. GM's set the maximum for their campaign.

 

There was no max from a disadvantage category though there were diminishing returns (1st 2 full value, 3-4 1/2 value, 5-6 1/4 value) .

And 1E had 2 sample characters both of which had 100 points in disadvantages. In the first game I played in that was the max allowed (because the GM was going by the examples given), but there was no specific limit set.

 

Edit: And 2E didn't provide any additional rules about max disads, but they did increase the examples to 3 characters, all of which had 100 points in Disadvantages.

Edited October 30, 2014 by Scott Baker

[Scott Baker]

That's what I was thinking...and Disads you got the first 2 at full points and then they were halved? There weren't limits to defensive categories then. 

 

The aforementioned Robot...Xenonoblaster - guy wanted to build a Robot with 100 STR...got him to 600 pts worth of disadvantages - then remembered the 100 base points and in the spirit of 14 year olds everywhere...he just added 100pts of powers. 

 

His disadvantages should have been crippling but our GM never really read them...good times, good times.

First 2 at full points, 2nd 2 at half points, 3rd 2 at quarter points, and anything beyond was specifically listed as zero (0) points.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Yeah I used to just ignore the reducing values to disads, it seemed sort of silly.  I mean... they still are drawbacks even if the character has seven psych lims.  They probably belong in a psych ward, but its not like they don't all present disadvantages to a character.

[Armitage]

Standard superheroes went from being 250 point characters to 350 point characters with the advent of 5th edition, at least according to published point guidelines.

 

 

I had always assumed that the increase in points in 5e was because of a shift in the character design paradigm toward spending more points on skills.

 

e.g.

A 5e plain vanilla VIPER agent has 55 points of skills, compared to 3 points for the same agent in 4e.

[zslane]

Well, when I look in my binder full of old Champions characters, there isn't a single one that would have had any use for 100 extra points in skills. My characters operated in campaigns that resembled the comics, and you don't generally see four-color supers spending panel after panel "making skill rolls". *shrug*

[Ninja-Bear]

I had always assumed that the increase in points in 5e was because of a shift in the character design paradigm toward spending more points on skills.

 

e.g.

A 5e plain vanilla VIPER agent has 55 points of skills, compared to 3 points for the same agent in 4e.

Also some powers went up in cost. Flash costed the same but was roughly cut in half in utility so ineffect that doubled. If your character is always tall or or always have a higher density than normal, you dont buy the power anymore with the always on lim but now have to buy all the relevent goodies by themselves. I.e. I updated Brick and now he is 355 points.