Are tanks really that tough?

[procyon]

We used the Enc rules a lot for our one foray into Fantasy Hero.  The 4e rules give the guy with a 10 Str a -5 Dex/DCV and cost +4 End a turn.  Which will wear out the 10 Str/2 Spd/4 Rec 'average person'.  And that was fine for that game.

But making the person spend an extra 2 End pushing to move the same weight works out the same, and Is easier for me to worry about in a superhero type game.

(It also makes it harder for the average folks to get out of Entangles, grabs, handcuffs, etc)

 

And since we play a lower powered game (all but one PC has a Str of 15 or below), it has made a difference in what the 'normal folks' can do to move their Str down to 8.  Not in every game, but often enough to make it worth worrying about for us. It probably also makes a difference that I occasionally run what we call 'one shots' where the players run 'normal folks' involved in a side portion of the story to give the plotline more 'feel' to the players.  So if you are running the technician in the power plant with a Str 8 trying desperately to pull your coworker (who is carrying the cutting torch you need to escape before the place goes up in flames) up the elevator/work shaft before it is to late...while your other Str 8 coworker tries to fight the mind controlled and fit (Str 10) security guard... 

It makes a difference.

It also makes a much more striking contrast to just what the player's normal characters can do and accomplish.

 

But as we have said before, it is all in the game you want to play.  And having 'average' be 8's makes the game work for us.

But a DEF 30 tank wouldn't. 

[NuSoardGraphite]

At the end of the day, this is a game. It is designed to simulate comic books, heroic fantasy, space opera, etc. Those genres don't always mix well with boring real life. The game is not going to be a perfect simulation of all these genres at once. So the question becomes -- what is important to get right?

 

To me, having a perfect representation of my 85 year old grandmother is one of the least important aspects of the game. I'm not really going to be playing that character, ever. The likelihood of a wayward attack striking and killing an elderly bystander is entirely dependent on the needs of the story. In an rpg, bystanders are scenery. It is much more important to the game to get the interaction between the PCs and the active NPCs correct. Granny isn't likely to be making use of things such as OCV, or max lifting capacity, or END. She is there to be threatened.

 

Is it ever important to see how much a STR 10 normal can lift and carry? I don't think I've ever been in a game, Hero system or otherwise, where the exact lifting capacity of an average person ever came up. Not once.

 

This is the exact same problem that has led us to 30 rPD tanks. That problem is that people have found the one thing in the game that they care about more than anything else. And they are so damn determined to make sure this one thing is done just perfect. They are going to flip their lid if a .50 cal machine gun so much as scratches an Abrams, or if a 6 1/2 foot tall thug is given a 25 Str. The problem is that these things are not what the game is about. Getting them right is not the intent. If you are watching a comedy, you care about Will Farrell doing stupid things. You are probably not watching the movie and doing calculations to make sure they got the gas mileage of his car correct.

 

The game rules do not exactly mirror reality, and never have. If that is your standard, you will be sorely disappointed.

Its not about accurately simulating grandma. Its about balancing evetything from the ground up depending on the type of game you are running. When I did it, it was in the context of a space opera game with semi-realistic military battles. After I achieved my balance, I liked the results so much, I tried applying then across all genres and it worked. I determined it was simply a matter of getting the low end right, the scaling accordingly depending on level of power. Then over the years I have noticed most Hero players do it the exact opposite way, yet seem to be running into all sorts of balance issues when they do it. Issues I do not seem to be having.

 

Just an observation.

[Hugh Neilson]

I find "Everyman 8" works pretty well. That sets the base a bit lower so PC's can be a cut above the rest from the start.

 

Truly deficient stats of 3 - 7 can exist (not the crucial stats to simulate in game, so granularity is not really that critical, but for the appropriate characters, a 3 may be right - perhaps DEX for a slow, plodding Zombie, Rock Monster or what have you).

 

That 0 point Everyman can have stats a touch above the norm (10's across the board), or a few higher than standard stats (our high school jock might have a better STR, CON and DEX, but stay at 8's in mental stats). Most will have some skills, at least Familiarities, maybe a Perk or two, with the points saved by their Straight 8's.

 

So an 8 is not sub-par, a 10 is respectable, a 13 pretty impressive, a 15 quite impressive, an 18 exceptional and a 20 is about the _________est person you will ever likely meet. That works for my games where "normal humans" are concerned.

[Hugh Neilson]

I wonder what the typical DEX range of Supers would be today if we had OCV and DCV decoupled from the start. I suspect it would not be close to 23 - that would be the purview of the Supers known for their agility, and investing in a suite of DEX based skills, much like our SuperSmart characters are set apart just fine by INTs in the 20's. Egos seem to fall in that range now.

 

CON is unavoidable due to its impact on being Stunned, but adventuring is probably not a profession for the ill of health. I've run lots of characters with 10 BOD or STR.

 

PRE is a bit of a wild card as no one wants a character consistently cowed into submission, but here again it seems like adventurers aren't likely to be easily intimidated. Mind you, I think the value of EGO and PRE would be better balanced if EGO, not PRE, defended against PRE attacks.

 

SPD? Well these are the decisive characters who face split second life and death decisions routinely, so that's bound to creep up over the norm. Defenses? Well, they are constantly in fights, unlike most people. STUN/REC/END? Seems like those are part of physical fitness, and the adventuring life is tough for a couch potato. CV's? If you're in combat routinely, seems like you would get better than the average guy.

 

Of course, that comes from my view that "highly trained to excel in combat" as an SFX tracks nicely to "higher OCV, DCV and SPD", and if Batman or Captain America can't have CV's of 8-10, there is no way most other characters should either. We could certainly re-set the bar on CV and SPD. There's no reason every Super has to even equal a trained soldier or agent, especially right after his origin, and if we Super dropped CV's by 3 across the board, and cut their SPDs by 2, that's 50 more points to spend on things unique to each Super, while they'd still stack up the same against one another.

 

Drop those Thugs down to a CV of 4, the best trained agents get a 5, and a 3 SPD, and we have Agents of SHIELD (UNTIL) and HYDRA (VIPER) who are impressive in their combat training, matching the average Super and maybe even a bit better than some of the slower ones. It seems much more comic-booky for the fastest heroes to dodge a hail of bullets or blaster bolts, while they just bounce off the defenses of slower, tougher Supers.

[Lucius]

If the character is overpriced obtaining his abilities from Martial Arts and skill levels,

Overpriced....Martial Arts? Seriously? I think Martial Arts is pretty dang cost effective.

 

Fixing the tank to be more consistent with the stats of everything else makes a lot more sense than fixing the stats of everything else to be consistent with the tank.

I have to agree with you here.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Consistent with a palindromedary

[NuSoardGraphite]

Overpriced....Martial Arts? Seriously? I think Martial Arts is pretty dang cost effective.

 

 

I have to agree with you here.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Consistent with a palindromedary

Its not about fixing everything else to be consistent with the tank. Its about starting from the ground up and finding the proper balance instead of starting with something unbalanced (the published materials) and patching them by piecemeal.

[assault]

If Mohammed Ali needs to show up in a time travel adventure, he can have 20 Str and 26 Dex, 5 Spd and 15 PD, and throw a 10D6 offensive strike, because he's "The Greatest".  He can whoop a few Viper agents all by himself, and while he won't beat a PC, he can be respectable enough for the players to have fun with it.

 

Naturally I thought of this.

[Hugh Neilson]

Overpriced....Martial Arts? Seriously? I think Martial Arts is pretty dang cost effective.

I tend to agree here - it's getting "BatCap" with a 4 SPD and 20 DEX to a "standard Supers" competitive level with the combination of MA and skill levels that is historically problematic. Building a Heroic character was never challenging in this regard. They are in a "4 SPD and 20 DEX is pretty amazing" milieu where the martial arts are icing on the cake. They never needed to make up for being denied a 30 - 35 DEX with skill levels.

 

I haven't tried to cost out the "normal human" with 7 OCV and DCV (6e lets them have 8, so they gob a bump already) making up for not being allowed a 10 - 11 CV with skill levels. With the elimination of Bargain Price DEX, I expect 6e has leveled the playing field remarkably. The cost of 35 DEX over 20 was 30 points, since you would have spent 15 on SPD anyway, where in 6e the extra 5 OCV and DCV will cost 50 points.

 

In any case, I should not have included martial arts, as both 20 DEX, 4 SPD BatCap and 35 DEX, 7 SPD BatCap would buy Martial Arts.

 

MA can still get pricy if you want a large variety of maneuvers. I could buy a Multipower of 3 Flex Slots with +20 STR, +4 OCV and +4 DCV for 32 points, get more damage for each OCV or DCV sacrificed, and duplicate most martial maneuvers. My Choke Hold would only get 1d6 NND (but 2 more CV or +10 STR to maintain). My "legsweep" gets no Strike damage. No Killing Strike, Sacrifice Throw, Nerve Strike or Martial Throw.

 

I can equal or better most other martial maneuvers. My "Offensive Strike" gets no DCV bonus, but no OCV penalty. I don't have to pay for weapon elements, and I can enhance moves with no direct martial equivalent (like Move By, Shove or Haymaker). My Martial Dodge gets +7 DCV, etc. Buying all the martial maneuvers from the basic rules except Killing Strike, Martial Throw, Nerve Strike and Sacrifice Throw would have cost 40 points - for that, I could have bumped each slot up one increment better (there's that +1 DCV for my Offensive Strike - and no DCV penalty). So I get the same utility with much greater flexibility.

 

And I didn't limit my Multipower to HTH only, I get lift capacity with my extra STR, etc.

[Ninja-Bear]

Ime the hardest genre to get right is Dark Champions/street level/Super Agents. The difficulty is that these genres flirt with Superheroics while being heroic.

[Ninja-Bear]

Double post-oops

[NuSoardGraphite]

I tend to agree here - it's getting "BatCap" with a 4 SPD and 20 DEX to a "standard Supers" competitive level with the combination of MA and skill levels that is historically problematic. Building a Heroic character was never challenging in this regard. They are in a "4 SPD and 20 DEX is pretty amazing" milieu where the martial arts are icing on the cake. They never needed to make up for being denied a 30 - 35 DEX with skill levels.

 

I haven't tried to cost out the "normal human" with 7 OCV and DCV (6e lets them have 8, so they gob a bump already) making up for not being allowed a 10 - 11 CV with skill levels. With the elimination of Bargain Price DEX, I expect 6e has leveled the playing field remarkably. The cost of 35 DEX over 20 was 30 points, since you would have spent 15 on SPD anyway, where in 6e the extra 5 OCV and DCV will cost 50 points.

 

In any case, I should not have included martial arts, as both 20 DEX, 4 SPD BatCap and 35 DEX, 7 SPD BatCap would buy Martial Arts.

 

MA can still get pricy if you want a large variety of maneuvers. I could buy a Multipower of 3 Flex Slots with +20 STR, +4 OCV and +4 DCV for 32 points, get more damage for each OCV or DCV sacrificed, and duplicate most martial maneuvers. My Choke Hold would only get 1d6 NND (but 2 more CV or +10 STR to maintain). My "legsweep" gets no Strike damage. No Killing Strike, Sacrifice Throw, Nerve Strike or Martial Throw.

 

I can equal or better most other martial maneuvers. My "Offensive Strike" gets no DCV bonus, but no OCV penalty. I don't have to pay for weapon elements, and I can enhance moves with no direct martial equivalent (like Move By, Shove or Haymaker). My Martial Dodge gets +7 DCV, etc. Buying all the martial maneuvers from the basic rules except Killing Strike, Martial Throw, Nerve Strike and Sacrifice Throw would have cost 40 points - for that, I could have bumped each slot up one increment better (there's that +1 DCV for my Offensive Strike - and no DCV penalty). So I get the same utility with much greater flexibility.

 

And I didn't limit my Multipower to HTH only, I get lift capacity with my extra STR, etc.

My solution is to dial other supers back to where BatCap's 4 spd and 20 Dex is competitive. Spidey has Dex 30 and Spd 6. Wolverine has Dex 25 and Spd 5. That makes Cap's Dex 20 and Spd 4 just right by comparison.

[Hugh Neilson]

2

My solution is to dial other supers back to where BatCap's 4 spd and 20 Dex is competitive. Spidey has Dex 30 and Spd 6. Wolverine has Dex 25 and Spd 5. That makes Cap's Dex 20 and Spd 4 just right by comparison.

I've never seen Wolvie as being defined by speed and agility. Maybe a bit above the average Super, but not above the BatCap level. Spidey, of course, is the poster child for agility.

 

But I don't see Spidey acting 50% more often than Cap (and I would not expect that to make them competitive, either). If we assume the traditional CV/DEX link, it only gets worse.

 

Now if we dialed it down so the typical Super DEX/CV/SPD of 23/8/5 were instead just a bit over human average - say 12/4/3 - and put slower Supes at even 8/3/2, we could have Wolvie at 15/6/4, Cap at 18/8/4 and Spidey at 23/7/5 quite nicely (Spidey probably needs some extra DCV, and some of Cap's CV could be flexible from skill levels, but we're getting closer to a model where "normal human" is capable of being competitive).

[zslane]

I'm not sure that's where we want to go with a superhero campaign though, do we? Batman is a Talented Normal with lots of gadgets on hand. He is competitive only because writers make a million implausible exceptions just for him, not because the DC universe is calibrated to make competent normals useful side-by-side with the likes of Superman and Wonder Woman. There are just some character concepts that don't translate directly into a game in which "play balance" is a kind of prime directive, and Batman is one of them. Daredevil would be another if he routinely ran with the Avengers, for instance. But I think Stan Lee realized this and largely avoided such nonsense by giving Daredevil his own "street-level" slice of the Marvel Universe in which to be an effective hero.

[assault]

Daredevil would be another if he routinely ran with the Avengers, for instance. But I think Stan Lee realized this and largely avoided such nonsense by giving Daredevil his own "street-level" slice of the Marvel Universe in which to be an effective hero.

 

Except that Hawkeye and the Black Widow were members of the Avengers.

 

The original X-Men were barely more powerful than normals in most respects. The main thing in their favour was that they were trained. Daredevil, Hawkeye and Black Widow could easily keep up with them.

[zslane]

If writers are careful, they find ways to restrict the heroes who are merely Talented Normals to tasks suited to their abilities. I think Batman has always been given a degree of Plot Immunity that no equivalent Marvel character has ever received. The first time I recall Hawkeye and Widow being treated virtually as equals to the others was in the original Ultimates graphic novel where they were very deliberately upgraded to a level of badassery usually reserved for Batman.

[Old Man]

The original X-Men were barely more powerful than normals in most respects. The main thing in their favour was that they were trained. Daredevil, Hawkeye and Black Widow could easily keep up with them.

 

This.  Cyke, Angel, Beast, and original MG were effectively skilled normals with one power apiece--basically pulp hero level.  They weren't bulletproof or anything.  Even today I wonder how Cyclops hangs with the near-gods that mutantkind eventually became.

[massey]

"Trained normal" is just an origin story for how someone got superpowers.  Batman is no more "realistic" than his buddy Clark.

 

If you're careful you can have Superman and Batman in the same Champions campaign.  Just understand that Supes is going to be basically the top end of the power scale, and let Bats be more cinematic than you normally would.  You don't bring in Darkseid level characters every day to threaten Supes, you use lower powered guys with Kryptonite or magic.  So if Supes throws 25D6 punches, then you bring in Metallo who has a 15D6 "Kryptonite chest laser" that Clark takes double damage from.  It's really powerful, but Batman with his 12D6 Offensive Strike and 20 PD can still dodge it.

[massey]

This.  Cyke, Angel, Beast, and original MG were effectively skilled normals with one power apiece--basically pulp hero level.  They weren't bulletproof or anything.  Even today I wonder how Cyclops hangs with the near-gods that mutantkind eventually became.

 

In the first issues, yes.  A lot of the early Marvel characters could be built on 250 fairly easily.  But that's 1963.  By the time you get to the late 60s and into the 70s, they were significantly more powerful.

[zslane]

Batman is dishing out 12DC strikes and enjoying the benefits of 20PD armor because he is in the Justice League and the writers are forced to make him run with the likes of Superman and Wonder Woman and Green Lantern and The Flash, not because talented normals are able to do that as a matter of course. At some point Batman went from being the World's Greatest Detective fighting street-level crime to being a god gifted with Plot Immunity, at which point any resemblence to Bruce-Wayne-in-a-bat-costume is superficial at best. He may look like golden age Batman, and may still have the same name, but he is most certainly not allowed to function merely as a Talented Normal.

[massey]

Batman is dishing out 12DC strikes and enjoying the benefits of 20PD armor because he is in the Justice League and the writers are forced to make him run with the likes of Superman and Wonder Woman and Green Lantern and The Flash, not because talented normals are able to do that as a matter of course. At some point Batman went from being the World's Greatest Detective fighting street-level crime to being a god gifted with Plot Immunity, at which point any resemblence to Bruce-Wayne-in-a-bat-costume is superficial at best. He may look like golden age Batman, and may still have the same name, but he is most certainly not allowed to function merely as a Talented Normal.

 

Well, this is the cover of the comic that had the first appearance of Batman.

 

 

It has Batman swinging around the city with one arm while holding a struggling man in a headlock with the other.  That's not really possible, certainly not for a "talented normal".

 

 

Here Batman wrestles some sort of panther or something.  Again, not possible for a normal person.

 

 

Here he's balanced on the back of a whale.

[massey]

 

Here Batman casually flings two men off of him.

 

 

Here he sends a guy flying with one punch.

 

 

Here he slams into two guys and knocks them both out.

[massey]

The problem is, you're making the assumption that there is some "true form" or "original concept" that fits your Platonic ideal of who Batman is.  And you believe that that "real version" of Batman was kind of a wuss compared to the current one.  You believe that Batman has somehow been altered or corrupted or something.

 

 

 

When Batman has been choking out lions for 70+ years, it's safe to say that he's always been written powerfully.  I like when he punches out that bull, myself.  The Champions genre books have established for about the last 30 years that a normal human martial artist can do 12D6.  I don't think someone would be wrong in putting Batman there.

 

The fact that you don't necessarily like a lot of the things Batman has done doesn't mean he hasn't done them.  He's been consistently portrayed as an incredibly powerful man.  The Pulp era often portrayed "normal" humans going through extensive training and gaining incredible abilities.  Remember "cover your heart, Indy"?  I mean if you can learn to rip a guy's heart out of his ribcage, that's pretty dang powerful.  Batman comes from that era of fiction.

 

He was never ever ever portrayed realistically.

[Lucius]

Here Batman wrestles some sort of panther or something.  Again, not possible for a normal person.

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Ageing_Farmer_Kills_Leopard_With_Bare_Hands_In_Kenya.html

 

http://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryPorn/comments/1i7poz/carl_akeley_posed_with_the_leopard_he_killed_with/

 

 

Lucius Alexander

 

And an inefficiently built palindromedary with abnormal psychological issues

[NuSoardGraphite]

2

I've never seen Wolvie as being defined by speed and agility. Maybe a bit above the average Super, but not above the BatCap level. Spidey, of course, is the poster child for agility.

On the Marvel Wiki, superhuman speed and reflexes is listed as one of Wolverines powers and it mentions the first time wolvie and spidey battled and spiderman though wolverine was faster than him.

 

But I don't see Spidey acting 50% more often than Cap (and I would not expect that to make them competitive, either). If we assume the traditional CV/DEX link, it only gets worse.

Spiderman generally uses those extra points of speed to dodge. And Cap uses a lot of Block maneuvers so there will be times when Cap and Spidey act in the same phase, akd because he blocked, Cap will get to counterattack, preempting Spideys high Dex. Hero is awesome like that.

 

Now if we dialed it down so the typical Super DEX/CV/SPD of 23/8/5 were instead just a bit over human average - say 12/4/3 - and put slower Supes at even 8/3/2, we could have Wolvie at 15/6/4, Cap at 18/8/4 and Spidey at 23/7/5 quite nicely (Spidey probably needs some extra DCV, and some of Cap's CV could be flexible from skill levels, but we're getting closer to a model where "normal human" is capable of being competitive).

I try to keep my Characteristic scores within certain benchmarks based on the characters position in the hierarchy, then use powers, skill levels and martial arts to fill out th rest if necessary. 10-15 is normal. 16-20 is gifted (most supers whos characteristic is not superhuman fall into this range) 21-25 is exceptional (low end super) 26-30 is superior (normal super) 31-40 is supernal (high end super) 41+ is cosmic. Obviously STR doesnt necessarily folllow these guidelines.

 

Most of the xmen primary characteristics fall into the 16-20 category due to training, unless that characteristic is a part of their power set, like Nightcrawlers Dex or Wolverines Str and Con. For certain, Cyclops Dex is not a part of his powerset and it should remain in the human zone, but he has trained it to the point that it is probably 18-20 range. However he has tons of CSLs with his optic beams, ranged martial arts and a pretty extensive Multipower with a bunch of tricks (auto fire and continuous and armor piercing and AoE cone and double knockback etc)

 

Same goes for Defense. Unlesss the character is known for toughness or unkillability, their defenses will probably range between the 10 and 15 for normal defenses and 8-12 in resistant defenses. Cyclops has a physical defense of 10, an energy defense of 15 and a resistant defense of 12 from his x-suit made of unstable molecules. Goons weilding assault rifles that do 2d6k damage (equivalent to an M4) do an average of 7 body and 21 stun, which does nothing to Cyclops. He is effectively bullet proof. He wades through a hail of gunfire and using his Skill levels and his autofire slot, is able to take out 5 goons in 1 phase with a sweep of his optic beams. Thats pretty much Cyclops in a nutshell, and I didnt have to give him a 25 Dex and a 6 speed to make him perform to his comic book standard.

[massey]

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Ageing_Farmer_Kills_Leopard_With_Bare_Hands_In_Kenya.html

 

http://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryPorn/comments/1i7poz/carl_akeley_posed_with_the_leopard_he_killed_with/

 

 

Lucius Alexander

 

And an inefficiently built palindromedary with abnormal psychological issues

 

Well if you read that first one, he didn't wrestle the thing and get it in a headlock.  When it bit him, he shoved his arm down its throat and it basically choked on him.  Smart move.  The second one is clearly a lot smaller than the thing Batman is fighting.  But that illustrates a good point -- Batman takes something that a normal human was able to do, and he exaggerates it to comic book levels.