Marvel Cine Universe levels

[Greywind]

You didn't see Ang Lee's Hulk? He was moving pretty fast at times.

[massey]

It's so hard to really peg heroes in the movies or comics. IMHO the best thing you can do is to fit them into the campaign stats YOU want to run. ie for me, I would put Thor at SPD 4, Iron Man at 5, Hulk at 4, Scarlet Witch at 5, Hawkeye at 5, Cap at  6 and Black Widow at 6, Quicksilver 7. You can fiddle with Dex to make up some of the "Feel" differences ie Cap at Dex 30 and Widow at 28, Thor at Dex 23 and Hulk at Dex 18.  Iron Man, Scarlet Witch at 23 and Hawkeye at 26. Make sure that Cap, Widow, Hawkeye all have a boatload of combat skill levels for their attacks.

 

With that spread of numbers I could drop any Champions Villain into the game without much trouble. I could drop a Champions PC into the Avengers without the existing team members outshining the PC's (Unless that is the feel you want).

 

I would keep Cap at STR 30 and assume that he pushed his Str to do some of the crazier stuff you see in the movies.

 

Yeah, but I don't think the OP was asking for how things work in your campaign.  Now, I don't think your numbers are really that far off from what I would put.  Each of us will judge some of these things differently.  Since this isn't an officially licensed Marvel RPG, there won't be official stats anywhere.  Really, there are several different ways to represent a comic book or movie character in the game.

 

--How would you build X character for your campaign?

--How would you build X character on 250/350/400 points?

--How would you build X character to play in Y universe?

--How would you build X character as they appear in Z source material?

 

I think the OP was asking the last question.  So for that, campaign limits and point values are not really at issue.  We should just try to get them as close to the source material as possible.  Now some things are obviously fairly subjective.  It's hard to figure out what Iron Man's CON score is.  How high is Bruce Banner's INT?  What is Captain America's REC?  And then you've got SPD, which is hard to measure, and COM which is very much a matter of personal preference.  And then you've got preferences in how you want to represent certain things.  Is Iron Man's suit all Armor?  Is it better represented by some Armor and some Force Field?  Is JARVIS a Computer or should it just be subsumed into things like Combat Levels?

 

Ultimately, I try to keep my builds relatively simple.  I once built a Batman that had Spd 4, but he had a bunch of combat levels and maneuvers, as well as Triggered attacks like gas pellets and smoke bombs, and DCV levels if he made an Acrobatics roll when fired upon to represent dodging.  It was a very convoluted character sheet.  And then somebody said "why didn't you just give him a higher Spd?"  Which was basically what I had been trying to do in the first place, indirectly.

 

 

I try to build characters around reasonable background and concept.  Thor, for example, is very well trained in combat and has been for centuries at least - speed 5 in my book.  Captain America is slightly above human possibility, so speed 5.  Hulk is just big and strong and has never demonstrated any particular swiftness in combat: speed 3.  Scarlet Witch is shown doing lots of stuff but her actions are very implausible as described in the scene with Quicksilver, so I figure the speedster is holding back or (more likely) lots of stuff is happening they don't show, like when the camera is on her, he's hitting 3 more guys.  She's not combat trained or specially fast: speed 3-4.  He's very fast, but not insanely so like Flash: maybe speed 6.

 

When I'm trying to directly represent something from a movie or comic, I quit worrying about reasonable background and concept.  I just try to translate what I see onscreen.

 

Cap -- Spd 6 or 7

Iron Man -- Spd 6

Black Widow -- Spd 6

Hulk/Hawkeye/Rhodey/etc -- Spd 5

Samuel L Fury -- Spd 4

 

I haven't given much thought to Thor or Quicksilver.  I'd have to watch them more closely.

 

One thing I like to do (and this is all personal preference) is use the published Champions characters as a guideline for the hard-to-measure stats.  That way people don't ask "why does Batman have a lower SPD than Seeker?"  Everyone has access to those books and so they can then modify new characters as they wish for use in their own games.  That doesn't mean that every comic book brick has a 60 Str.  I try to duplicate their onscreen performance as best I can.  So if Superman has a Str of 200, then that's what I give him.  But for stuff that isn't easy to gauge, it gives a good baseline.

[massey]

 

Black Widow's SPD? That's easy. She's in multiple scenes in the same film where the pacing clearly shows her at least 50% faster in deliberate, individually targeted actions (whether single or multiple targets per se) than Iron Man. Not Tony, but the suit. Sure, it's possible to fudge and suggest her SPD is just a martial artist version of Iron Man's, and MA's are somehow more tactical than Energy Projectors.. but I just don't buy that, and there's zero need for it if Tony is SPD 3 (or at a stretch, 4).

 

How do we know Quicksilver's SPD is really that much higher?

 

Seriously?

 

 

In a fight with the Avengers in close quarters at least a half move apart from each other, he still gets in attack actions as often as each of them that we see. Sure, some of his attacks might be massive AoE Selective, but this is SPDster Speedster.

 

As for Happy Hogan being a SPD 3 agent? I'd argue SPD 1 plucky comedy relief.

 

Really?  I see Quicksilver running around a lot.  But I don't see him "taking an action" much more than the others.  Give him about 40" of movement, Dex 35, and Spd 7 or so, and you're about where you need to be.  He's probably got some levels with sweep, and maybe Passing Strike, and he's covered.

 

And I never got the impression that Natasha is that much faster than other characters.

 

Happy Hogan needs to be at least Spd 3, because we see him beat up one of those paramilitary guys.  The ones Black Widow goes through.  Standard paramilitary tough-guy should be Spd 3.

[Tasha]

Like you can see from this thread. What we "see" on the screen is very subjective. Some people see Spd 12 Quicksilver and some of us see Spd 7-8.

 

My point is that you shouldn't set your powerlevels by what you think you see on the screen or page. You should set your campaign powerlevels FIRST, then set the characters within those limits. First you need to ask yourself "how do I see the characters". Are they the team that the PC's will be aspiring to be with experience, or are they the team that are the same power as the heroes?. 

[Hyper-Man]

I think most of them could be done with 4 Speeds and around 7-8 total CSL's that could be devoted to Multiple Attack (The 6e replacement for Rapid Fire & Sweep) when necessary. Tony could have even more than that available that are built into the Armor's HUD. 

 

In the case of Natasha, I would also give her a variant of the following for her guns:

12    Quick Fire: Autofire (3 shots; +1/4) for up to 60 Active Points of Any Semi-Automatic Weapon of Opportunity, Reduced Endurance (1/2 END; +1/2) (22 Active Points); OIF (Any Semi-Automatic Weapon of Opportunity; -1/2), Concentration (1/2 DCV; -1/4) [Notes: C.A.R. System (Center Axis Relock). Autofire imposes an additional +5 STR Minimum to any weapon used.  This can be offset by using the Brace Maneuver.]  END = 1

 

 

Hi Speeds are really only necessary if the characters are doing a huge amount of reactive defensive stuff (Blocks and Dodges) vs. just picking off targets offensively.

[Comic]

Do I think the standard Champions character would wipe the floor with the standard Avenger?

 

Clearly yes.

 

Avengers aren't Mary Sues.

 

They're built by storytellers telling stories, not players out to take every advantage in combat.

 

As such, Avengers are far better builds for stories, given that the storyteller has to get them all through the story alive -- except when the dramatic death is the point of the story (because let's face it, Quicksilver's player would be whinging and crying foul and rules lawyering all up and down if that happened in game).

 

Is this going to lead me to design my characters for good storytelling over game survivability?

 

Heck no.

 

But it ought.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quicksilver's death was pointless and lame, but Avengers 2 was pretty disappointing all around.

[Hyper-Man]

The more I think about it the more it seems that the 'near' normal human characters like Black Widow, Hawkeye, Iron Man and even Cap are the more complex if not outright expensive characters to build MCU versions of.  Black Widow for instance seems as combat capable as John Wick (from the Keanu Reeves movie) in nearly every way and my Heroic version of that character clocks in @600 points (no points actually spent on gear, just skill with using it).  She just wouldn't need all the points devoted to Hit Location and other uber-realism gun stuff like recoil. 600-700 points is probably a good starting point for Tony as well. Hawkeye is pretty straightforward, just a weapon specialized version of Black Widow with fewer Perks.  Cap is just a matter of getting his characteristics and shield right.  His pure combat skill still seems to be a bit behind Natasha (but he's a quick study). Thor though... I think it would be easy to build him on a 500-600 point budget with plenty of room to spare (most of his skills and reputation seem devoted to places OTHER than Midgard).  His contribution to lifting the floating city is the lone exception to this. I think the semi-official HERO 5e version of HULK from Gametrader Magazine (a promo for the Ang Lee movie version) is spot on @648 points (but that would likely need to increase for a 6e version).

 

re: MCU Thor being bulletproof

Is there any clear evidence of this in the movies?  We see him get stabbed by Loki with a dagger. Was it able to hurt him because it was made of special Asgardian metal or was it Loki's Asgardian STR?  I think the Marvel folks have done a masterful job of avoiding showing him up against normal guys with machine guns to keep us geeks guessing.

[Ninja-Bear]

Let me jump in and stir the pot. Upthread people mentioned published Champions builds as guide posts. As such, there isn't anything wrong using that metric as any other however, people have complained that those builds have been unnessescerly high since their inception. So on the other hand, they may not be a good metric to compare with when looking at translating a movie.

[Ninja-Bear]

I know it was debated before on the forums. I still say that if you peg normal action type-like policemen and army guys at speed 2 with a bit of higher EGO than normal, that would help scale down the rest of the Heroes. This is where some of the bloat lies I believe.

[bubba smith]

I agree, they amped up his strength significantly in the movies.  He's way stronger than he should be, probably because they figured that was cooler.  When I saw him rip the door of a car in the first Cap film I was staring in confusion.  He's not Spider-Man.

it's most likely confusion on the writers part on how the super soldier process works

[massey]

I think they just incorporated aspects of the Ultimates universe, where Cap is stronger, and Nick Fury is Samuel L. Jackson.

[Hugh Neilson]

Agreed that the first step is to establish the baseline. This is true of SPD (assuming we accept "normal person" is SPD 2, and "combat-capable agent is SPD 3", we then look to how often characters act relative to that more than the seconds taken on the screen. If we want the characters to fit a "CU" model, then we also need to build around the notion that SPD 5-6 is typical of Supers in the CU, which means a 4 SPD says "pretty slow for a Super", 6 SPD says "high end of average" and 8 SPD says "WOW even for a Super".

 

However, the same applies to other abilities. How strong is the Hulk? It depends what defenses, etc., we assign to his opponents. The higher we make Iron Man's attacks and defenses in his Hulkbuster armor, the higher the Hulk's attacks and defenses must be, as he is clearly able to fight Iron Man's Hulkbuster armor. Was there anything in the Avengers movies that we would suggest could not happen in a standard Champions game? If not, then the Champions norms seem appropriate. One offs can be dismissed for allowing dramatic sense to rule over game mechanics.

 

Odd builds can be considered too. Thor can lift that whole island? If we don't write that off to dramatic license, maybe he has extra STR only to lift, since he's no more effective at damaging UltronBots than the rest of the team.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I think they just incorporated aspects of the Ultimates universe, where Cap is stronger, and Nick Fury is Samuel L. Jackson. 

Yes, the marvel cinematic universe is based exclusively on the "Ultimate" universe, the one that current editorial and publishing staff came up with and prefer.  I don't know whether Cap is stronger in that setting or not, wouldn't surprise me.  Its the Image generation of gritted tooth comics those guys grew up in.

[Greywind]

Not entirely true. Chris Evans' Captain America has more in common with the 616 Cap than the Ultimates Ass-Cap.

[massey]

Yeah, Ultimates Cap is a prick.  He's basically every bad stereotype of a 1940s guy.  I don't think he would be friends with Falcon, if you know what I mean.

[massey]

Agreed that the first step is to establish the baseline. This is true of SPD (assuming we accept "normal person" is SPD 2, and "combat-capable agent is SPD 3", we then look to how often characters act relative to that more than the seconds taken on the screen. If we want the characters to fit a "CU" model, then we also need to build around the notion that SPD 5-6 is typical of Supers in the CU, which means a 4 SPD says "pretty slow for a Super", 6 SPD says "high end of average" and 8 SPD says "WOW even for a Super".

 

However, the same applies to other abilities. How strong is the Hulk? It depends what defenses, etc., we assign to his opponents. The higher we make Iron Man's attacks and defenses in his Hulkbuster armor, the higher the Hulk's attacks and defenses must be, as he is clearly able to fight Iron Man's Hulkbuster armor. Was there anything in the Avengers movies that we would suggest could not happen in a standard Champions game? If not, then the Champions norms seem appropriate. One offs can be dismissed for allowing dramatic sense to rule over game mechanics.

 

Odd builds can be considered too. Thor can lift that whole island? If we don't write that off to dramatic license, maybe he has extra STR only to lift, since he's no more effective at damaging UltronBots than the rest of the team.

 

My thing about the other abilities is that they're more measurable.  I think most of the characters do a lot more damage than 12D6.  Not all of them, but the big hitters can really churn out the dice.  Whatever benchmark you use needs to be clear to the reader so that they can make whatever adjustments they need for their own campaign.

 

One thing I look at is what effect their attacks have on the scenery.  When watching the clips above, I noticed that Iron Man tends to knock people long distances through the air, and then they smash through brick walls.  He needs somewhere in the range of 15 or 16D6 to do that.  Yeah, he could have 8D6 Double KB, but his attacks also blow stuff up pretty well too, so I don't think it's that.

 

Another thing I do is tone down military armor values.  Iron Man has blown up tanks without problem, but I don't think his tank missile needs to be 12D6 RKA or anything like that.

 

To really get the best representation of the characters that you can, I think you build one guy, and then try and balance everyone else against him.  If that results in something that doesn't match the other movies, you rebalance everybody.  I've done that with characters from the comics, and I end up rewriting everybody like 5 times to get them "right".  Each time they get tweaked a little more.

[Ninja-Bear]

Another thought is that the characters in their individual movies should be bought differently than when they are together in a group.

[massey]

Do I think the standard Champions character would wipe the floor with the standard Avenger?

 

Clearly yes.

 

Avengers aren't Mary Sues.

 

They're built by storytellers telling stories, not players out to take every advantage in combat.

 

As such, Avengers are far better builds for stories, given that the storyteller has to get them all through the story alive -- except when the dramatic death is the point of the story (because let's face it, Quicksilver's player would be whinging and crying foul and rules lawyering all up and down if that happened in game).

 

Is this going to lead me to design my characters for good storytelling over game survivability?

 

Heck no.

 

But it ought.

 

[Comic]

 

 

You tell me.

 

Are PC's in your experience generally more, or less, Marty Stu's than the characters you see on screen?

[Christopher R Taylor]

Yeah, Ultimates Cap is a prick.  He's basically every bad stereotype of a 1940s guy.  I don't think he would be friends with Falcon, if you know what I mean.

Big shock, the new writers cannot comprehend something good or decent coming from the past.

[massey]

You tell me.

 

Are PC's in your experience generally more, or less, Marty Stu's than the characters you see on screen?

 

PCs in our games are usually the stars of the show, of course.  But they very rarely have the ability to do the type of property damage that you see on the screen in The Avengers movies.  I wouldn't want any of my characters to go up against Movie Thor or Hulk.

 

Quicksilver's player decided he wanted to play The Vision instead, halfway through the game.

[bubba smith]

Not entirely true. Chris Evans' Captain America has more in common with the 616 Cap than the Ultimates

the producers must have wanted a composite of the 616 and ultimate versions

[Ninja-Bear]

About combat levels, back in the day, I use to think that beginner, practioner, and master was based on the amount of skills you bought, not the total OCV of a given skill. I.e. master had +4 levels instead of master having a total of 12 OCV. then many years later, you buy levels to put a character at a certain level not plus X levels. So if we peg agents at OCV 6, then we know how much a player needs in DCV to avoid most agent rolls.