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Glass cannon syndrome.


Trencher

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5 minutes ago, Ninja-Bear said:

The problem I see is some of the game mechanics. At even 8 PD, you can fall off a 3 story house with little fear of hurting yourself. That might be too cinematic. Batman does worry about falling off a 3 story house.

 

That's fair. I doubt he'd do it casually in a game though.

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8 minutes ago, assault said:

 

He wouldn't have 20 Resistant PD.

 

20 non-resistant PD might mean "he's only wounded", rather than he's taken out when a non-superheroic normal would be.

 

Personally, I would be reluctant to give him 20 PD, but it wouldn't necessarily provide results different from those shown in the source material. And that's what matters as far as I am concerned.

I’ve seen before where people have suggested that Killing attacks (in supers) should be bought as normal dice with AVLD. That way you On average wouldn’t do as much actual Body damage to an unarmored character. Which seems to always happen to the main characters in the source material. 

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Best explaination of characteristics maxima I found is in Robot Warriors. “The Maximum Value listed for the Characteristics means that you can’t normally buy your Characteristics over that number. Now it’s not impossible to exceed the maximum listed score in a Characteristic-but it gets expensive. Two things to note a) this is for a Heroic game b ) Not Impossible. Should just be rare.

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49 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

Hey if you want in your game for ordinary people to have 15 PD, you go right ahead and do that.  But 8 has been the gold standard max for humans, and only someone beyond normal human levels has more than that, in Hero.  Go look at write ups of vehicles, items, and animals, compare your idea of "human" to that.  For example: Rhinoceros as 15 PD.  If you figure any human being is as tough as a Rhino, I really don't know what world you're living in.

 

As for Cyke, he's never portrayed in the comics as being that tough.  Not ever.  20 PD is good enough to shrug off small arms fire.  Has he ever taken a zweihander to the gut and not been cut?  A shot from a .45 and bounced the bullet?  The reason we assign guys like that the stats we do in Champions is exactly what I was saying above: not because it simulates comic book stories, but because he'd get creamed in a Champions battle.

 

Cyclops is plenty tough.  He's way tougher than a stupid rhino.  How many rhinos fight Magneto?

 

You seem to be under the impression that PD and ED have some kind of testable, real world equivalent.  Like a certain material density gives you a certain PD.  There isn't.  While tougher materials can have higher defense, that's not the only thing that can give you more PD.  Cyke's PD isn't a measure of bone density or muscle mass.  He has high PD because he's usually one of the last X-Men standing.  He has a high PD because he just doesn't really get hurt.

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Well I pulled out Champions 3rd ed. The two most “normal” sample characters Crusader and Green Dragon for comparison. Crusader has 15 PD ! Green Dragon has only a mere 10 PD. I also looked at Armildilo but his math seems off. 24 PD listed with an asterisk denoting an OIF but only has 9 points as real cost. I haven’t double checked Blue Jay either as she has also PD bought through OIF. 

8 PD as Gold Standard? In a supers game? I don’t think so.

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Quote

He has high PD because he's usually one of the last X-Men standing.  He has a high PD because he just doesn't really get hurt.

 

Or, its what I pointed out: the comic books specifically do not have these low defense characters get hit much and they avoid damage in the fights, which wold never happen in Champions. Again, what I've pointed out all along.  Champions characters are built differently than in comics and the comics have over the last 20 or 30 years started to reflect that (now everyone wears body armor, for instance).

 

And I notice nobody is talking about Storm...

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5 hours ago, assault said:

 

I'm talking about the NCM Disadvantage, not the NCM heroic-level guideline.

 

I may have missed it, but it doesn't get mentioned in either 6e Vol 1 or Champions Complete.

 

In 5er it's under the Age Disadvantage - which doesn't seem to be in 6e Vol 1 or Champions Complete either. I'll have a look at the errata. EDIT: nope, not there either.

If you were searching for it using the old Normal Characteristic Maxima label, you would not find it because In 6e it's referred to as Characteristic Maxima.  Note that in 6e Characteristic Maxima is an optional rule instead of a Disadvantage (aka Complication) that a character would take.  As an optional rule, it can thus show up in SuperHeroic games despite the fact that 6e RAW indicates it is used primarily in Heroic games.  It's been my experience that most GMs use the suggested stats within the Characteristic Maxima Table on 6e1 p50 as a guideline for what idyllic human maximums tend to be, regardless of Heroic or SuperHeroic campaign level.

 

 

4 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

Well I pulled out Champions 3rd ed. The two most “normal” sample characters Crusader and Green Dragon for comparison. Crusader has 15 PD ! Green Dragon has only a mere 10 PD. I also looked at Armildilo but his math seems off. 24 PD listed with an asterisk denoting an OIF but only has 9 points as real cost. I haven’t double checked Blue Jay either as she has also PD bought through OIF. 

8 PD as Gold Standard? In a supers game? I don’t think so.

See the suggested stats within the Characteristic Maxima Table on 6e1 p50.  I believe this is where the so-called 'gold standard' comes from with regard to 6e games, as even in a SuperHeroic game, the Characteristic Maxima Table suggests reasonable numbers for idyllic human maximums found among normals.

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29 minutes ago, Surrealone said:

If you were searching for it using the old Normal Characteristic Maxima label, you would not find it because In 6e it's referred to as Characteristic Maxima.  Note that in 6e Characteristic Maxima is an optional rule instead of a Disadvantage (aka Complication) that a character would take.  As an optional rule, it can thus show up in SuperHeroic games despite the fact that 6e RAW indicates it is used primarily in Heroic games.  It's been my experience that most GMs use the suggested stats within the Characteristic Maxima Table on 6e1 p50 as a guideline for what idyllic human maximums tend to be, regardless of Heroic or SuperHeroic campaign level.

 

My point is precisely that it's an optional rule instead of a Complication. In fact, the passage on page 50 of 6e1 includes:

"This isn’t a Complication characters can select; it’s simply a campaign “ground rule” that affects everyone in the setting equally."

 

So the notion that some characters should be affected by it and others shouldn't is explicitly deprecated.

 

But since this is HERO, after all... the same page contains the following suggestion/option:

"Lower the Characteristic Maxima breakpoint
selectively by character type, to emphasize
certain archetypes. Choose one Characteristic
that’s important for each character archetype
(for example, in a High Fantasy campaign that
might be EGO for priests, DEX for rogues,
STR for warriors, and INT for wizards). That
archetype can buy that Characteristic up to
20 for the normal cost, but must pay double
at a lower breakpoint (such as 15) for all other
Characteristics. For example, maybe warriors
can buy STR 20, but all other character types
must pay double for each point of STR above
15. This heightens each archetype’s natural
strengths, but may cause difficulties when you
try to create some character concepts."

 

In this case "normal human" would be an archetype. The question would be should it the only one?

In fact, I've been thinking about archetypes (origin types) recently, but not in terms of using characteristic maxima. I don't think they would be useful for what I have been considering. But that's a chain of thought for another thread...

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Surrealone my point about the gold standard was that CT implies that it has always been there in the rules. (At least that’s what I got from him) However I’m pointing out that that wasn’t always the case.  And 5th introduced the benchmark where there is official guidance demarking where normal and superhuman is set.

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Just going to throw this thought out there. Perhaps with Damage Negation in 6th, it could be bought in certain ways which reflect a normal cinematic resilience yet lower certain stats? I.e. perhaps that martial artist is kept at 8 PD but buys 1 level of DN vs Normal PD damage?

 

Side note,  I think most of the villains in CKC were rewritten to have their stats reflect the new benchmarks.  Which actually lowered a bunch of stats.

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Mercenary

 

Male Char Female

15 STR 10

14 DEX 18

15 CON 13

12 BODY 11

13 INT 13

10 EGO 11

15 PRE 15

16 COM 16

5 PD 4

3 ED 4

3 SPD 3

6 REC 5

30 END 26

28 STUN 23

Total Characteristics Cost: 100 Points

 

Cost Skills

8 CSL: Combat +1

3 Concealment 12-

3 Demolitions 12-

2 Navigation [Ground] 12-

3 Stealth 12-

3 Streetwise 12-

3 Tactics 12-

Total Skills Cost: 25 Points

 

Cost Powers

15 Armor +5 rPD +5 rED

45 Multipower (45 Points)

3 u) HA +6d6, HTH Attack (-1/2), No END (+1/2)

4 u) HKA 2d6 [[3d6 [Male] or 2 1/2d6 [Female] w/STR]]

4 u) RKA 2d6, Autofire [2-3 Shots] (+1/4), [32c] (+1/4)

4 u) RKA 2d6, Explosion (+1/2), [16c]

Total Powers Cost: 75 Points

 

Total Cost: 150 Points

 

75+ Disadvantages

5 DF: Uniform (Easily Concealable/Noticed)

10 Hunted: Employer (More Powerful/NCI/Watch) 8-

15 Hunted: Government (More Powerful) 8-

10 PsyL: Fear of Employer (Uncommon/Strong)

15 PsyL: Greedy (Common/Strong)

10 SocL: Secret Identity (Occasionally/Major)

10 SocL: Subject To Orders (Occasionally/Major)

Total Disadvantages Cost: 150 Points

 

 

This is a typical mercenary working for a supervillain or evil organization.  Most superheroes can easily defeat them one on one, but for 25 Points a villain can get four of them.  They are good for distracting superheroes of threatening innocents.

 

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THe game has always shown humans to be within a pretty  narrow range of abilities.  Hero since very early on with books like Danger International has used normal characteristic max.  That shows what humans can ordinarily be and that anything beyond that is -- get this -- super human. 

 

Its just... honestly its bizarre this discussion is even taking place.  The places you go on the internet, when the most blatantly obvious and common sense stuff is challenged just because, I dunno, people feel defensive or something, or just contrary.

 

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55 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

THe game has always shown humans to be within a pretty  narrow range of abilities.  Hero since very early on with books like Danger International has used normal characteristic max.  That shows what humans can ordinarily be and that anything beyond that is -- get this -- super human. 

 

Its just... honestly its bizarre this discussion is even taking place.  The places you go on the internet, when the most blatantly obvious and common sense stuff is challenged just because, I dunno, people feel defensive or something, or just contrary.

 

 

I love Danger International.  The write ups for various character types was very useful.

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DI was great and had many foundational changes incorporated into 4e. However, it did NOT give any definition to supers. That was done first in Champions 4e. What DI did (as well as Espionage and Fantasy Hero 1e) was define the point at which characteristics cost double. This was unfortunately referred to as max when it was nothing of the sorts.

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