How do you manage "loophole" powers?

[Ninja-Bear]

Echo 3 niner one recommendation for attacks and defense goes as follows: x2 DEF of Ave DC good. I.e. 10 DC = 20 DEF. x2 1/2 DEF is really tough. With the aforementioned then that would be 25 DEF. Weak DEF would be x11/2 DEF I.e. 15. Typically you would see bricks at the x2 1/2 while speedsters and martial artists are x1 1/2

[Grailknight]

For a very general guideline within whatever limits you set: 

 

Weaker combatants should defeat their doppelganger in 3/4 to 1 turn

 

Average fighters should take 1 to 1.5 turns.

 

Tough combat monsters should last 2 to 3 turns(any longer and END becomes a real problem)

 

These will be shorter if OCV dominates and longer if DCV dominates. Do best 2 of 3 to minimize the luck factor.

[pinecone]

One more thing ...I've found that adding the percentage of Damage reduction to the defense works well to "eye ball" values...So in a 12DC game DR x1/2 PDr should have 12 to 15 PD, 12 is Low (so low the char will likely need regen) and 15 is "Brick" style strong, at 20 PD you've kinda hit the limit for a 12Dc game. (42-20x 1/2=10 stun per attack, 10 to 15 per is "normal" )

 

So, 12 Def, is equiv to 18, 15, 22-23, and 20 is about the same as 30. It is weaker against low powered attaks, but much stronger vs high power attacks. I actually like it better, because Agents can ping a few stun off of DR guy, wile they can do nothing vs high def guy. On the other hand, DR guy can take a Haymaker off of Grond, while high Def guy likely takes a nap. (and gets stunned even if he stays awake)

[Christopher R Taylor]

I tend to build my bad guys DCV low unless they are meant to be really hard to hit, because few things suck more than missing in an RPG.  You attack, you miss, your phase is done, now sit and wait for everyone else to do their thing.  Frustrating, even boring if it keeps happening.

[Echo3Niner]

What about party strategy?  Just a question here; again, no offense meant.

 

If we use D&D (since almost everyone knows that - I'm only an 'old school' player though, so we're talking nothing after 2nd ED); there was a strategy to the party.

 

Tanks and range folks take down the enemy mage first, then their cleric.  Enemy fighters and thieves were dealt with by the party's mages and clerics.  This because of the mix of THAC0's, AC's, damage numbers & type thrown (single target vs. area effect), and savings throws.  In most games, "kill the mage first" almost always is the mantra of the PC team (including ED and SR).

 

So, couldn't it be the same in Champions?  The high DCV heroes know to go after the marksmen villains, the hero mentalist goes after their mentalist (cause their the only one with the mental defense to stand up to them), with maybe the support of a stealth hero who tries to sneak up and take down the villain mentalist as well; while the tank holds the other party members attention long enough so that once the villain mentalist is done, the hero mentalist can start picking off the other villains.  All the heroes defend their mentalist and healers at all cost, and target the enemy ones early.  In effect, the villain mentalist becomes the mage.

 

Or, are we saying that in Champions, this type of tactic doesn't work?  If so, couldn't we be making this a self-fulfilling prophesy by making everyone balanced?  If the villains follow the same rules, then no real strategy is needed, cause everyone's about even-up, so just go in and mix it up, hope the dice roll in your favor?

 

If you have players who are mature enough to not exploit the rules, so they make characters that have weaknesses, if the GM does the same with the villains, wouldn't tactics come back into play?

 

Example: my wife's character never misses (OCV of 17, where most villains have a DCV of ~10); so she knows she has to go after the Bad Guy with the crazy high DCV that no one else can hit.  Once the battle starts, and everyone is missing the one villain on the team, the heroes change tactics so my wife's character is on that villain.  Meanwhile, the hero mentalist is helping to shield the heroes, until the villain mentalist is ID'd, then they focus to take that mentalist villain down, perhaps with the support of another stealth character.

 

It seems to me, if we make such a narrow field of numbers, tactics play a much lower part in the game.

 

Typically my Bad Guys in other games are more powerful than the heroes, but usually not as tactically sound; thus, when the heroes win, they feel like they really accomplished something, not just that the dice rolled in their favor that night...

[Greywind]

Honestly? It will depend on the enemy.

 

How well do your heroes know the villains? If they don't know them, how are they going to know which to go after?

[Wyrm Ouroboros]

Echo3Niner, I'm a shadowrunner too, and if you read the main SR boards, you'll recognize me.  So here's the thing.

 

When you were building your SR characters - in whatever edition you were using - did you read the character creation guidelines?  Did you read the part about 'maximum skill level of 6 at game start'?  Or the part in the gear about 'maximum Rating 6, maximum availability 12' - or whatever it happened to be for that edition?  Character generation for Shadowrun has its own power limitations; you're simply so used to them you don't think about them as being there.  If you could, in 5e SR, play a character with a weapon skill, or spellcasting, or summoning of 12, wouldn't you think that'd unbalance the game more than a little?  Of course it would - and that's why the limits are there, to corral all the kiddies into a place where the skill levels are generally the same, or at least have the same upper limit.

 

The HERO system has the same thing.  It's even there, early on in every edition.  In both 5Er and 6E1, it's in the same place: 'Character Conception'.  For 6E, you have 'character types', which is probably where you got your 'Standard Superheroic' 400/75 point value; right below that, you have your 'Character Design Guidelines', which gives you an idea of the 'balance' of skills vs. attributes vs. powers; and on the very next page, you have the Character Ability Guideline Table.  Let me loop that out for you real quick:

 

Character Type: Standard Superheroic

Characteristics: 10-40

SPD: 3-10

CV: 7-13

DC: 6-14

Active Points: 40-80
Skill Points: 25-80
Skill Roll: 11-15-

Def/rDef: 20-25 / 12r-18r

 

 

This is the Standard Superheroic version of 'Maximum skill rating 6 for starting characters'.  'Maximum 80 active points for powers' - or something very near.  What you can do with 80 active points is pretty damn scary; Invisible Power Effects and Damage Over Time have awoken me to entirely new levels of 'Hi There, You're Screwed!!' on Very Few Active Points Indeed.  (30d6 Transform Memory Alteration and 72 Body, both IPF/X, for only 45 AP?  Sign me up!!)

 

But what you must remember is that HERO is a universal system.  It is up to the GM to establish certain baselines of 'actionability'.  In AD&D and in SR, those baseline maximums are written into the game - X at start, then whatever you want to do with your +5/+10/+15 levels, or +25/+100/+2000 karma and whatever-you-get-for-cash.  You can specialize, or whatever - but HERO's nature is that if you want to specialize, you can be Margarita Man, or The Landlord (you own the planet, and everyone on it is your minion), or whatever.

 

For balance in your game, setting some guidelines - especially if you're GMing the system for the first time!! - is vital.  Take it as advice, not as hectoring. 

[Wyrm Ouroboros]

In regards to the 'team tactics', Greywind is absolutely correct.  HERO is, in that regard, a lot more like SR than like AD&D.  While 'geek the mage/mentallist first' is a good idea, which one is the mentallist?  In Shadowrun, can you assense to find out?  In HERO, do you have the skill 'Supervillians' in order to recognize one or more of the opposition?  What if they're new?

 

Tactics rely in many cases less on the opponents and more on your own team.  What are your strengths?  What are your weaknesses?  Do you all go on about the same Phase, so you can double- and triple-team individual members of the opposition?  Can one of your people grab / entangle one target so that the rest can pound them into unconsciousness before jumping onto the next?  Do you have a speedster who can keep most of the opposing team off-balance (Tripped, Stunned, etc. - recovering in some manner) so that the rest of your people can team up on someone?  Do you have a brick that takes a licking and keeps on ticking?  Are all your PCs high-movement characters, able to force the bad guys into a running fight that they can't win?

 

Taking out the mentallist - or any other person with a power that can ignore most defenses - is a wise choice.  But identifying the mentallist can be difficult to start with.  And in a HERO-system campaign, they can be just as tough to hit (or hurt!) as the brick next door.

[Ninja-Bear]

Echo 3 niner  A thought about "balanced" characters. Trust me when I say that just because everyone may start out with the same amount of points and work in the same campaign limits, does not guarantee that each character will be a carbon copy of each other. I've been building  inefficient characters for years! I tried to be a little too realistic instead of being cinematic (or comic book) realistic. But to give you an idea of what a few points can do, the most abusive character I made was Ghost Panther. He could turn desolid and had life support so he didn't need to turn it off! All under 60pts iirc. Remember, its not always the amount of points spent, but where they are spent that can be the greater impact.

[Ninja-Bear]

Oh and Echo3niner if you get a chance look at Hero system genre by genre. There are sample characters that are built on starting points per genre and 5th ed. But I think it will illustrate what I meant by how you spend your points.

[BoloOfEarth]

What about party strategy?  Just a question here; again, no offense meant.

 

(snip)

 

So, couldn't it be the same in Champions?  The high DCV heroes know to go after the marksmen villains, the hero mentalist goes after their mentalist (cause their the only one with the mental defense to stand up to them), with maybe the support of a stealth hero who tries to sneak up and take down the villain mentalist as well; while the tank holds the other party members attention long enough so that once the villain mentalist is done, the hero mentalist can start picking off the other villains.  All the heroes defend their mentalist and healers at all cost, and target the enemy ones early.  In effect, the villain mentalist becomes the mage.

 

Or, are we saying that in Champions, this type of tactic doesn't work?  If so, couldn't we be making this a self-fulfilling prophesy by making everyone balanced?  If the villains follow the same rules, then no real strategy is needed, cause everyone's about even-up, so just go in and mix it up, hope the dice roll in your favor?

 

If you have players who are mature enough to not exploit the rules, so they make characters that have weaknesses, if the GM does the same with the villains, wouldn't tactics come back into play?

 

(snip)

 

It seems to me, if we make such a narrow field of numbers, tactics play a much lower part in the game.

 

Typically my Bad Guys in other games are more powerful than the heroes, but usually not as tactically sound; thus, when the heroes win, they feel like they really accomplished something, not just that the dice rolled in their favor that night...

 

When you're talking about groups of heroes and villains, "balanced" doesn't necessarily mean the heroes and villains are matching in number ranges.  For example, you can pit a group of 10-12 DC, 5-7 CV heroes against a bunch of 8 DC, 4-5 CV agents, plus one mastermind 16 DC, 10 CV villain, and still have an overall balance.  And in that case, I can guarantee the players will pull tactics out of their butts to take down the Big Bad, or to deal with the agents between them and him.

 

Alternately, if you do have the heroes and villains matching in number ranges, choices of specific Powers, Special Effects (triggering Vulnerabilites / Susceptibilities / Limitations on heroes' Powers) or team makeup (all bricks, all speedsters, etc.) could completely unbalance the fight.  My namesake character, Bolo, who was vulnerable to both Fire attacks and Explosions was once taken out in one shot by a singe agent of Firewing.

 

Throw villain personalities into the mix; those can also alter the balance and make the players adjust their tactics, even to the PCs' own disadvantage.  Example:  I have two female players in our group.  I can guarantee that if I throw Bulldozer or some other vocally misogynous villain into a scenario, they will target him even if it makes more sense for them to go after someone else.  A casual killer villain will get more than his fair share of attention, even if he's not all that powerful and isn't key to winning the day.

 

As a GM, I've learned to design teams and plotlines with all of that in mind. 

[Ninja-Bear]

Oh and another thought Echo3niner about guidelines. You mentioned up thread about having mature players not taking advantage with the rules that's great. But how do you expect them to make reasonable characters without letting them know what you consider is reasonable in your game world? Guidelines will aleast give you common ground to work on. Guidelines aren't foolproof but can eliminate some confusion.

[Echo3Niner]

Echo3Niner, I'm a shadowrunner too, and if you read the main SR boards, you'll recognize me.  So here's the thing.

 

When you were building your SR characters - in whatever edition you were using - did you read the character creation guidelines?  Did you read the part about 'maximum skill level of 6 at game start'?  Or the part in the gear about 'maximum Rating 6, maximum availability 12' - or whatever it happened to be for that edition?  Character generation for Shadowrun has its own power limitations; you're simply so used to them you don't think about them as being there.  If you could, in 5e SR, play a character with a weapon skill, or spellcasting, or summoning of 12, wouldn't you think that'd unbalance the game more than a little?  Of course it would - and that's why the limits are there, to corral all the kiddies into a place where the skill levels are generally the same, or at least have the same upper limit.

 

Yes, I get that now, and I'm past it.  I agree that some starting limitations or caps need to be imposed.  What I'm trying to figure out now (being new again to Champions) is WHAT limitations make sense for my team - hence all the questions about types of limitations.

 

 

The HERO system has the same thing.  It's even there, early on in every edition.  In both 5Er and 6E1, it's in the same place: 'Character Conception'.  For 6E, you have 'character types', which is probably where you got your 'Standard Superheroic' 400/75 point value; right below that, you have your 'Character Design Guidelines', which gives you an idea of the 'balance' of skills vs. attributes vs. powers; and on the very next page, you have the Character Ability Guideline Table.  Let me loop that out for you real quick:

 

As I have mentioned, I ONLY HAVE Champions Complete; so as has been noted, CC doesn't have this same level of documented examples of limits/caps.  That is why I asked (and appreciate) the examples from other books and advice based on experience that have been offered.

 

 

For balance in your game, setting some guidelines - especially if you're GMing the system for the first time!! - is vital.  Take it as advice, not as hectoring.  

 

I agree, and I am taking it in the appropriate light.  This is why I'm asking so many (obviously) n00b questions about this, is that I'm trying to figure out what the right limitations/caps will be for my specific group.

 

Oh and another thought Echo3niner about guidelines. You mentioned up thread about having mature players not taking advantage with the rules that's great. But how do you expect them to make reasonable characters without letting them know what you consider is reasonable in your game world? Guidelines will aleast give you common ground to work on. Guidelines aren't foolproof but can eliminate some confusion.

 

 

Again, I agree with the concept of limits; I'm trying now to determine WHAT specific limits I should use for my gaming group, that will still allow for freedom of character design, not make every character seem to almost be the same, and allow my players to still feel it is their strategy that is winning the day, not a lucky die roll.

 

Early in this thread there was a bunch of "how to control munchkins" type discussion.  The point I was making about my players is that they are not munchkins.  I still agree that limits need to be imposed, because as everyone has pointed out and I have freely admitted, my wife made an unbalanced power accidentally.

 

Honestly? It will depend on the enemy.

 

How well do your heroes know the villains? If they don't know them, how are they going to know which to go after?

 

 

So I understand different tactic are needed when it's a boss and his flunkies, as compared to a comparably powered villain team; and I would expect that.  What I am taking away from this logic ("How will you know who is who?"), is that in most of all of your (meaning the broader 'your' as in most of the folks helping me here, not you specifically) combats seem to go very quickly.  An example of this was someone who noted earlier, that most fights only go a turn or two at most.  In my first combat, even with my wife's crazy power, the combat went 3 turns.  I would expect for the next one I'm planning, with a villain team, that it'll go even longer.  Given this amount of time, I expect my players will have time to switch enemies as their tactic respond to which villain is doing what.  Is this a-typical? 

[Greywind]

Pretty standard if the fight goes long enough.

 

"I'm not having much luck against this one!"

 

"Trade up!"

[pinecone]

Yeah, swapping foes is classic comic book.

 

For a "basic" silver to Bronze game, I'd suggest 12DCs, speed from 4 to 6, def 25 max, CV in the 7 to 9 range...levels might jigger that a little, but that should hold together. Most of your energy can be concentrated on "nonstandard" builds, so lots of adds, mental combat, and Drains and the like are the most likely source of "trouble". NNd should be "OK" as long as it fits inside the DC cap, though Autofire can turn just about any add into a suprise super effective power.

 

I suggest that it be decided upfront that any, or all characters can, or will be rebuilt after 3 games or so, that way y'all can see how things look "in play".

 

Super team tactics tend towards more basic strategems....working in buddy teams, using alpha, and beta strikes. Code words to direct action in combat. All classics, and they tend to work.

 

Other "combat rules" I've seen or played. "Dogpile on the mentalist"  "Everybody attack the person with the highest Pres!" (the theory being that is the leader) "Open every combat with a Pres attack. (It can winnow out kidnapped people in costume and the like) These often grow organicly as the supers learn about each others abilitys. (Fastball special)

 

 

P.S. I also suggest minimum of 12 points of Resistant Def for each Hero, to avoid bloodbaths...

[Scott Baker]

So I understand different tactic are needed when it's a boss and his flunkies, as compared to a comparably powered villain team; and I would expect that.  What I am taking away from this logic ("How will you know who is who?"), is that in most of all of your (meaning the broader 'your' as in most of the folks helping me here, not you specifically) combats seem to go very quickly.  An example of this was someone who noted earlier, that most fights only go a turn or two at most.  In my first combat, even with my wife's crazy power, the combat went 3 turns.  I would expect for the next one I'm planning, with a villain team, that it'll go even longer.  Given this amount of time, I expect my players will have time to switch enemies as their tactic respond to which villain is doing what.  Is this a-typical? 

I don't think you can ever say there is a "typical" combat. With all of the different builds for heroes and villains, there are so many ways a combat can go. In fact, I wouldn't be too worried about how everyone else's games run. You should be looking at how your own game flows. Some thoughts:

 

If your combats are running several turns, are they fun and engaging, or is everyone just waiting to get it over with?

 

A single game is only a single data point. You don't have anything else to compare against for your own style of play yet.

 

Multiple factors will affect the length of a combat, including the relative strength of attacks vs. defense, and OCV vs. DCV. Depending on how those compare, SPD can become a major factor. If it takes an average of 4 hits to knock someone out and everyone is SPD 3, the combat will take a lot longer than if everyone is SPD 6, 8, etc.

[Echo3Niner]

I suggest that it be decided upfront that any, or all characters can, or will be rebuilt after 3 games or so, that way y'all can see how things look "in play".

 

I like this idea a lot.

 

If your combats are running several turns, are they fun and engaging, or is everyone just waiting to get it over with?

 

So far, in our one game, everyone enjoyed it.

 

A single game is only a single data point. You don't have anything else to compare against for your own style of play yet.

 

Very true, we are lining up our second game, but as a test game, it get's second (or lower) priority.  Right now, we have our next ED game planned for Saturday, so I'm seeing if we can get Champions test 2 in on Sunday, or if we'll need to wait another week...

[Christopher R Taylor]

Every time I start a new campaign up, I give people the okay to rebuild their character after a session, and tweak it a few times after that.  Not every build works out exactly as planned and sometimes you forget stuff, or decide the idea wasn't what they wanted.  The purpose of a game is for people to have fun, so if it hurts 'continuity' or something that's fine with me, at the beginning.  Once a character is established, that's another matter.  And if they want to abandon a character and start a new one, then they can work out a scenario with me to make the change part of the game (like when the bodyguard character died protecting his PC ward).

[Ninja-Bear]

I do to use the rewrite option. Somethings don't work out in game as well as you thought on paper.

[IndianaJoe3]

Every time I start a new campaign up, I give people the okay to rebuild their character after a session, and tweak it a few times after that.  Not every build works out exactly as planned and sometimes you forget stuff, or decide the idea wasn't what they wanted.  The purpose of a game is for people to have fun, so if it hurts 'continuity' or something that's fine with me, at the beginning.  Once a character is established, that's another matter.  And if they want to abandon a character and start a new one, then they can work out a scenario with me to make the change part of the game (like when the bodyguard character died protecting his PC ward).

 

I'd also allow a player to completely replace a character during the first few sessions. Sometimes a concept just doesn't work, or fit within the developing campaign.

[bigdamnhero]

An example of this was someone who noted earlier, that most fights only go a turn or two at most.

I think that may have been me, but I should've clarified that's more my GMing style, rather than anything inherent to the system itself. I've played plenty of Hero combats that dragged on multiple turns, but I generally try to prevent that in my games. If you've got 2-3 PCs and a roughly equal number of NPCs, and everyone is SPD 3-4, it's not so bad. But if you have 4-6 PCs and an equal number of bad guys, all of whom are SPD 5-7, then a single Turn of combat can take hours. Once in awhile, it's fun to do the Big Grand Melee that goes on forever - we're actually in the middle of one right now that's taking us two evenings to finish - but in general I find they get boring after a couple of hours. It depends on your group and how much roleplaying-vs-combat you like. Also, I run a lot of convention games where you can't afford to let things get bogged down if you want to save some time for plot, and that style carries over somewhat to my home groups.

 

Every time I start a new campaign up, I give people the okay to rebuild their character after a session, and tweak it a few times after that.

Absolutely! Even for experienced players, there are things that look great on paper but don't work so well in actual play.

[Echo3Niner]

So, our ED game ran late into the night on Saturday, so no Champions on Sunday.  We are planning on Champions this coming Saturday afternoon however, as our ED game is now on hold (due to real life scheduling conflicts) until the end of November...  That being the case, we'll likely get several Champions games in over the next several weekends.

 

My next combat test, will be the 5 hero characters; including my wife's de-tuned (4d6) Mental Entangle, and my daughter's ridiculous (320AP/128RP) gate power - vs. - The Fearsome Foursome - kinda themed on an evil version of the Fantastic Four, though their powers are very different.

 

The FF are a 600 point per villain team, so should be a major threat to our heroes.  The team is made up of:

 

Narrai tank; super dense, kenetic absorbtion (Shaw), with long single spikes growing from back of hands (The Maxx): Grogg the Impaler.

Lyrrissi Mentalist; desolidified Enchantress/Hypnotist, with immunities (Malice): Vexx.

Human Speedster; Female (Quicksilver) with a death streak (claw hands like Ripclaw): Wind Shear.

Human Flying, hard to hit energy blaster (light/heat) (Guardian from Alpha Flight, without a suit); Photon.

 

The Narrai and Lyrrissi are alien species from my gameworld.

 

The battle will basically begin as the FF have attempted to grab a scientist (for their mysterious Super-villain boss) at Union Station in Chicago (where our game is based).  The hero team (who work for the FBI) will gate down there and confront them in the Great Hall of the Headhouse.  CPD will have cleared all the civilians they can out, so should be plenty of room and a lot of fun in this makeshift arena...

 

I'm sure I'll be back with plenty of questions after this...

[Echo3Niner]

So, the fight went pretty well.

 

Lowering my wife's mental entangle to 4d6 proved beneficial, as Wind Shear was completely locked down, but Photon escaped it once, and she spent the entire fight keeping him locked up (which I'm OK with).  Though she now has an Enemy, as Photon, who never got to move during the entire fight, HATES her...

 

My daughter's crazy gate power did not prove to be as bad as I had feared, although she's just getting the hang of it.  She has a low OCV (for the group), and the limited combat range helps as well.  She did pull off a pretty cool power stunt; gating Grogg up into the air, letting him fall, then catching him with another gate, and letting him fall, then catching him a final time and letting him hit the ground, in this way he fell more than 60 meters, thus hitting terminal velocity and hitting the ground with a 30d6 impact!  Knocked him out cold, and didn't cause any BODY.  (Using a held action, then her phase, then by the time her last phase came along, he was just about to hit the ground, when she gated him the last time...)

 

The fight was very well balanced, and lasted several hours.  It went about 3 turns in game time.  It would have gone a lot faster in real time, but we were forced to look up a lot of rules as we went, as none of us know them well; but, that'll speed up with time, and is part of the point of this game testing, so all's good.

 

Overall I was pretty happy with it, and think the players were as well, though one didn't get to do much, as he was busy saving the scientist, so we'll have to get him more involved next time.

 

It was a resounding success for the party, and overall a good, fun game.

 

Now, I have to figure out who the FF's supervillain boss is, and figure out how to make the next game more about a long range confrontation with him, over the simple, direct combats they've been so far.

 

At this point, I'm planning on using an army of AKB's (Autonomous Kill Bots - basically drones with limited AI), as the combatants; now I just need to figure out how to integrate the reveal of the supervillain boss into that...

[Critias]

Glad to hear y'all had fun with it.  Much like SR (which I'm also pretty well acquainted with), one thing I think helps with HERO is to maybe not look things up mid-fight unless you really need to -- I prefer to scribble questions down in my GM notes (or have the party bookkeeper do it), handwave an answer for the moment, and keep the dice rolling and adventure moving.  If you're running these specifically as "test sessions," though, I can see why you'd rather hit the brakes and find out the right answer right now. 

 

Also, high-five to your daughter for the awesome usage of a badass teleport/gate ability.  Even if it hadn't come with a tremendous clobbering at the end, just hanging up a bad guy for several actions like that is a good way to get your money's worth (much like using Telekinesis to just lift an enemy brick, and then safely ignore 'em for a while). 

 

On the topic of campaign limitations, what my own home group does is stick by the suggested ones...except.  If someone's hell-bent on being really crazy strong, we let 'em pick that one thing to override the starting limitation over.  If someone really wants to be a one-trick pony with a really strong eyeblast, fine, if they want to really run or fly at ridiculous speed, fine, yadda yadda yadda.  Everyone stays in the mid-range of the campaign limitations, but then is allowed to campaign for their one awesome thing where they can sink a ton of points if they want to.  We've never had a problem with everyone feeling samey-samey, or feeling like a bunch of cardboard cut-outs, or anything like that.  It's what worked for us, at least!

[Enforcer84]

Basically because someone could spend all 400 points on one power.  I have a 26d6 killing attack!

No defenses, Low CV's Guy needs to get lucky to hit. 

Once he blows up a wall on his first miss he becomes the target and is wiped out in the first segment.