How unbalancing would this be...?

[jallen0002]

SPDs above 12.

 

Each SPDs above twelve simply gives you an extra action in the phase approriate added for the SPD.

 

Thus, SPD 13 get two actions in the Appropriate SPD 1 phase. One for the SPD 12 and one for the SPD 1.

 

So SPD 15 would be an extra action 4 8 12.

 

It seems like a decent way to add on, wrapping the SPD around as often as you can spend the points, since in theory in a world of superpowers there are all sorts of effects that could give a character this kind of SPD.

 

 

Now then.. as a specific example of a character this fast: Bullet Time in the Matrix.. everything goes so slow that relative to everyone else you are going FAST).

 

How else might one go about simulating a character that can slow down their perception of reality so that they are quicker relative to others.

 

Anywhu, just a thought.

 

Jeremy

[Steve Long]

Since this is not a question but a discussion topic, I've moved it to the Discussion board so people who are interested can talk about it.

[Vondy]

Personally I'd never allow it. Then again, my games have never seen a speed go higher than 8.

 

Brainstorming...

 

X-Dim Movement (chinsy and lame)

 

Supress (Speed), AE, Personal Immunity

 

PSL's with sweeps that are linked to a multipower of superspeed effects

 

Here's an odd one: duplication (the duplicate has "feedback" because the character takes the damage).

 

Summon "temporal double"

 

I would do it as a VPP and predefine powers that duplicated the various effects you wanted.

 

For attacks AF3 and some skill levels can be... nasty.

[PerennialRook]

Seems like a reasonable extrapolation of the rules to me. It doesn't seem unreasonable to uncap the ceiling on speeds since no other stat has a top end limit.

 

-Preston

[dugfromthearth]

I would not allow it due to problems figuring out when people go. I mean does a spd 15 character go twice first on 12, or first then last?

 

"bullet time" isn't high spd. it is high dexterity.

 

you can't shoot any faster, just more accurately. Dodging bullets is DCV not speed.

[Vondy]

Originally posted by PerennialRook

Seems like a reasonable extrapolation of the rules to me. It doesn't seem unreasonable to uncap the ceiling on speeds since no other stat has a top end limit.

 

-Preston

 

Other stats don't operate on a structured chart without a cap that controls interactions with other characters, either.

[PhilFleischmann]

I actually tried this once!

 

...and it didn't work. This was back in 4th Ed. I created a villain named "Accelerato" (I've gotten better at naming villains since then, too). He had a 24 SPD - that's right, two full-phase actions per segment. He wound up costing about 450 points. He was single-handedly taken down by a ~250-point brick. The problem he had was defense. Sure, he's hard to hit, but one lucky blow and he's on his way out. And think how much END he has to spend! If he uses a force field, he has to spend the END twice every phase! He had to spend so many points on SPD, that he was weak in other areas. Sure, if I had allowed him to be 600 points or so, he'd have been a significant challenge for the 250-point brick. This didn't seem like an adequate solution to me, so I let the villian stay in prison for the rest of the campaign. Remember that he's spending at least 180 points more than average on SPD alone!

[lemming]

Re: I actually tried this once!

 

Originally posted by PhilFleischmann

...and it didn't work.

 

I don't have a problem with it. Just as long the players can play at that speed.

I've never had a PC that fast (Dex 53/Spd 12) was my top end, though. However, I've run villians and other players with PCs that fast. (One game I was playing a Dex 8/Spd 4 brick alongside a Dex 44/Spd 15 MA)

We played it that one's first action happened at Dex, second at 1/2 Dex, third at 1/4, etc...

 

We didn't find it unbalancing as long as it wasn't overused. I think in any one combat, there might be 4 people with 12+ speeds out of 20 characters.

 

Now instead of 12+ Speed, you can do multi-attacks, etc...

[Kristopher]

Personally, I think it's nuts, but it's your game...

[Solomon]

If you're really going to characters SPD 12+, you might as well rework the speed chart. Make it a 30 columns table for instance. That should do the trick, as long as everyone's actions are evenly spaced. So SPD 2 now acts on segments 15 and 30, SPD 3 on 10, 20 end 30 etc.

 

Yet... are you sure a ludicrously high SPD is the best way to portray your speedster?

[jallen0002]

I am not really sure. I was mostly questioning a game effect for a game I am running. I wanted to simulate a character that could slow things down a lot. I am open to any other powers/effects that can simulate what i described.

 

Jeremy

[JmOz]

I would allow it, I would make all the characters in that phase get to go before the second go

[Talon]

As a rule it's very sensible -- I would actually add "half-Segments" to the SPD chart to make it more clear who went when. However, I have a hard time imagining that I would ever allow a >12 SPD character, unless it was a very specialized NPC.

[DoctorItron]

jallen0002, I don't recommend SPD higher than 12. A PC with such a high SPD would monopolize the GM's time. Seems unfair to the SPD 4 bricks and gadgeteers. For playability reasons, no game that I've ever been involved in allowed a PC with a SPD more than 9.

 

As for NPCs, since I cap PC speed at 9, I have enough slack on the existing speed chart to make uber-villain speedsters.

 

If you still feel a need for higher SPD, someone suggested using a modified SPD chart with more segments. That sounds like the best way to do it. Seems like using 24 segments 1a, 1b, 2a, 2b, ... 12a, 12b requires minimal adjustment to flash attacks, haymakers, the extra time limitation, and other time-dependent game mechanics.

 

If 24 segments aren't enough, consider switching to decaf

[DoctorItron]

Originally posted by jallen0002

I am not really sure. I was mostly questioning a game effect for a game I am running. I wanted to simulate a character that could slow things down a lot. I am open to any other powers/effects that can simulate what i described.

 

Jeremy

 

Oops, I saw this after my previous post. You do want it for an NPC. Someone who can slow time. Youch ... this has been discussed before ... Steve Long even wrote up a mega-point timestop power.

 

Drain SPD alone isn't enough to slow time. Things like flashes, healing from drain, falling, etc. wouldn't be affected.

 

If this is a one-time villain or infrequent NPC, you can just sit behind your GM screen and pretend that you worked out all the numbers. Then have the NPC do whatever it is that you want without worrying about the rules.

 

If it's for a frequently-used villain, though, my approach seems unfair to the players, as the villain may be able to whup their butts too offten and too easily. Can you give me a better description of the character concept?

[Gary]

Originally posted by DoctorItron

If you still feel a need for higher SPD, someone suggested using a modified SPD chart with more segments. That sounds like the best way to do it. Seems like using 24 segments 1a, 1b, 2a, 2b, ... 12a, 12b requires minimal adjustment to flash attacks, haymakers, the extra time limitation, and other time-dependent game mechanics.

 

If 24 segments aren't enough, consider switching to decaf

 

It'll require more than "minimal" adjustments to change to a 24 segment turn. 2 possibilities:

 

1) Keep each segment as 1 second and have 24 second turns. This will force the average person to have either 4 base spd, or 12" base running. Post segment 24 changes the number of recoveries taken.

 

2) Each segment becomes 1/2 second. All movements would have to be halved. Falling and velocity damage would have to be changed. You still have the post segment 24 problem.

[McCoy]

Originally posted by jallen0002

I am not really sure. I was mostly questioning a game effect for a game I am running. I wanted to simulate a character that could slow things down a lot. I am open to any other powers/effects that can simulate what i described.

 

Jeremy

"Slow things down a lot" sounds like a Special Effect to me. What do you want this character to do? Dodge bullets? Buy missle deflection. Fight as if his opponents were moving in slow motion? Levels with OCV & DCV. Read Moby Dick in under an hour? Speed reading + photographic memory. Assemble jigsaw puzzles or open a safe by trying every possible combination? Small VPP of minor transformations.

 

Having said that, I have had a few NPC's with speed beyond 12. First was Sabertooth. As the baddest berserker slasher in my campagine, I found the best way to make him challenging was to give him a speed of (PC's highest speed + number of PC's). As I usually have six or less players, this worked as long as no PC had a SPD above 6. Came the day when I had 5 PC's, the fastest of which had a SPD 10. So Sabertooth had a SPD 15. Gave him two lines on the SPD chart, 12 at his DEX, 3 at the bottom (so at 4, 8, & 12 he had a "free" action after the normals). His STR and HKA were already 0 END (it was worth forgoing the Push to simplify bookeeping).

 

Since then I have used SPD beyond 12 a few times, all NPC's, no PC has ever asked for a 13 or greater SPD.

[Kristopher]

I just don't like this idea of SPD scores over 12. At all. It messes with the basic mechanics of the game way too much. There are other ways to make characters devestatingly fast, especially now in FRED with the Rapid Attack options and all the related skills and variants. Autofire hand-to-hand attacks, AoE hand-to-hand attacks, limited range attacks to represent "running over, hitting the guy, and running back impossibly fast." Insanely high SPD scores are just another form of stat-bloat.

 

Maybe this post is pointless, as there seem to be plenty of people who find it reasonable to give multiple published comics characters STR scores of over 100...

[Fitz]

I have no fundamental quibble with the idea of super-duper-ultra-mega-SPD except for this: it makes the game kind of boring for everyone else.

 

I played in a scenario with a guy who built an absolutely awful character called Nexus (hi Mark ) whose only powers were, as far as I can recall, Duplication (12 duplicates) and SPD 12. We spent a lot of time sitting around twiddling our thumbs while he took care of his 144 actions per Turn.

 

Even in our mid-level Fantasy Hero game the difference between the SPD 5 characters and the SPD 2 characters was extreme, in terms of camera time.

[jallen0002]

Character Concept

 

This will be for a very rare NPC.

 

This "ability" is basically this:

 

The character can go slow down his perception of events around him so much that the world basically slows down as much as he wants, at least hundreds of times slower to the point where bullets are slow.

 

He can move at "normal" speeds when in this zone of slowness. Normal for him since he isn't ACTUALLY faster. Relative to a normal human being he is practically a blur when he is dodging bullets or reading a book with his "slow down time" perception cookin.

 

He should be able to do anything and everything this ability gives him. In terms of combat he will not need levels of OCV because he is still normally skilled.. IE: 13 dex. It is just very easy to attack someone at 0 DCV because they are moving almost none. I will obviously have to buy some levels of DCV to represent how fast he moves, but that is in the rare event the PCs manage to get an attack off on him.

 

This basically boils down to some sort of "mega point" time stop power that doesn't actually stop time, but practically does. I really want this NPC to go about a dozen times each phase.

 

This character is not meant to go in and decimate the PCs. He is meant to challenge them. The twist I came up with is that he is practically a "normal" human but he has this power. So he is mostly good at robbing banks, stealing stuff.. and evading PCs. He isn't going to really be much of a physical threat. He is meant to be something fun and different that takes more than a 10d6 triple armor piercing exploding EB to defeat.

 

Jeremy

[Pattern Ghost]

If it takes something as extreme as that to challenge your PCs, I'd love to see what they're capable of.

 

OK, I know you didn't mean it exactly that way. But, do you really need to go beyond 12 SPD? Beyond 10, even? My game has a DEX range of 20 to 33 and a SPD range of 5 to 8. That's five players, three of which have DEX 20, SPD 5. The other two are the team MA and the team speedster. It's really not too hard to challenge this team. I don't think I'd have to go to any extraordinary means to build the bullet time type effect your describing at a challenging level.

 

Buy a high SPD and a big gob of Lightning Reflexes. Buy him a movement multipower that lets him zip around. Buy another MP with various stock speed effects as already mentioned, or as written in some of the published characters. Desolid, with the FX affecting it being area attacks, area effect Hand Attacks, AE TK, missle deflection, skill levels to offset time penalties, speed reading, some small transforms, change environment, etc. Buy tons of DCV levels. Heck, buy tons of hardened armor and KB resistance and call it "Nah-Nah, Ya Missed Me" for SFX. (You could also give that one "all or nothing" so that if an attack penetrates the armor or does KB, it has full effect. Otherwise, a clean miss can be simulated.)

[jallen0002]

Generally I have a couple of "creative" players who manage to eternally find powers and applications of their powers to eternally annoy me.

 

It is fairly low power stuff (200pt super heros), but some of them came up with some rather effective attacks that are pretty devastating to the enemies in the current campaign (so far). They haven''t faced anything as tough or as powerful as themselves yet though

 

Anywhu... I will try building him and play testing him a couple of different ways and see which method has the more appropriate feel

 

Option A.) Is.. lots of speed, lots of DCV/Missile deflection/Running.. no endurance for any of this since none of the powers can "push" etc.

 

Option B.) Is... megapoint timestop power type thing.

 

Jeremy

[Kristopher]

You've got a bunch of overachieving low-powered heroes?

 

Use the Slugfest concept.

 

Slugfest is a quick-brick with 10/10 Resistant PD/ED, 10/10 Hardened Armor, 50% Resistant Damage Reduction (P & E), and P & E Absorbtions that both feed his STUN. He's capable of taking on a whole team on his own, without the crazy SPD scores you're looking at.

[Farkling]

I can think of a lot more interesting effects for the 120 AP it takes to buy that 15 SPD you're talking about. OF course, I have an origianl print of MacDonald's Girl,Gold Watch, and Everything.

 

Area Effect Transforms. Desolid/Invisibility. TK affects Physical World.

 

Indirect RKA (applying velocity to time stopped objects)

EB - Knockback Only (applying velocity to stopped characters)

Flight, Usablea gainst others....

 

Teleport, Safe Blind, Only to areas he could concievably move to during time stop.

 

Teleport, usable against others (x4 mass) - moving objects/characters around during time stop.

(A bunch of objects would be Area Transform)

 

I'll see if I can come up with anything else.

[PhilFleischmann]

Slightly off-topic, but something else I've been toying with that some of you have mentioned is the idea of a longer speed chart, say 24 segments (24 seconds) or even a full minute (five normal turns). This allows for greater granularity in SPD. With a 60-second chart, SPD would indicate the number of actions per minute. Standard SPD scores would have to be multiplied by 5. Base SPD would be 5+DEX/2, so a base character would have a SPD 10 (10 actions per minute, 2 per 12-segment turn). You'd still have "post-12" recoveries every 12 segments. Someone with an "odd" SPD, say 23, would have 4 actions in two of the turns and 5 actions in the other three. He's only slightly faster than someone with a SPD of 22.