Third Edition Renaissance

[Ninja-Bear]

A easy fix for Violet  would be give them x1 1/2 STUN vs PCs.

[Duke Bushido]

When I get home, I'll crack the book and check to see exactly what it was.   I k ow it was over 20, and  ridiculous. 

[assault]

2e Crusader had 26 DEX.

[Ninja-Bear]

1 hour ago, assault said:

2e Crusader had 26 DEX.

I knew he had 26 DEX in the later editions. Frisbee though has a ridicules high DEX, iirc in the 30’s and nothing about her background suggests that she was anything but Normal.

[Ninja-Bear]

FWIW, I substituted UNTILs  Blaster for Vipers. Still both Agents have Find Weakness 11- and 60 ACT pt Powers? I get that they’re “Elite” but they’re still mooks imo.

[Ninja-Bear]

2 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

When I get home, I'll crack the book and check to see exactly what it was.   I k ow it was over 20, and  ridiculous. 

Well it might be chicken and egg thing but if Agents at 14 DEX and +1 Skill level start aiming at you with AF that gets them up to 9 OCV so unless you’re a Brick, you need to avoid being hit. I say chicken and egg cause by even 2e, the agents could be built to give Crusader types a threat.

[Chris Goodwin]

26 in 3e as well.  

 

Thing is, at the time I think a "normal" was someone who wasn't putting on a super suit and fighting crime.  Champions didn't have "normal characteristic maxima".  I don't recall many GMs insisting that because your character didn't have the "super gene" or whatever that he couldn't have 26 DEX. 

[Chris Goodwin]

18 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Somehow, it kind of skips 3e.  It's in Champs III, skips the 3e rules set, and appears again in later editions.  Weird.

 

Yeah, the 3e corebook was the core rulebook, as were the 1e and 2e corebooks. If you wanted the complete Champions experience, it was assumed that you were adding the II and III supplements to whichever corebook you had.  Most of the Skills were in Champions II, and if you wanted Transform, Piercing, Neutralization (Suppress), Healing, etc., you needed III.  

 

All of that is to say that if you want the full "3e experience", then by all means, add the II and III supplements if you want.  

 

(We also didn't have "edition wars" back then that I recall.  I don't think anyone was comparing their particular edition to figure out which one was "right" or anything, so in practice it was effectively "first-gen melange".  Nobody really checked to see that you were doing, for instance, EC or Growth or whatever in accordance with whichever rulebook the GM had.  That also meant that you might see characters in the same Enemies book or adventure module that did EC differently, if you bothered to get out the fine toothed comb and the red pencil.  In my group, most of the GMs had the 2e corebook, while those of us who came along at the tail end of first-gen had the 3e one, yet we were all playing in the same games.)

[assault]

I technically skipped 2e, playing 1e with the changes introduced in Different Worlds #23, effectively updating the game to 2e. I later moved to 3e. My print copy of 2e was given to me by someone later.

 

I used Champions II and III with both 1e+ and 3e.

[Grailknight]

4 hours ago, Chris Goodwin said:

26 in 3e as well.  

 

Thing is, at the time I think a "normal" was someone who wasn't putting on a super suit and fighting crime.  Champions didn't have "normal characteristic maxima".  I don't recall many GMs insisting that because your character didn't have the "super gene" or whatever that he couldn't have 26 DEX. 

 

 The concept of Normal Characteristic Maxima was introduced in Fantasy Hero/Justice Inc/Danger International and didn't exist in the Supers genre until 4th. Even after it was published, the Powers That Be just stuck it on a few power armor write-ups for concept and then crapped all over it with the "Defender Exploit", exempting powers bought through a Focus. I can't recall a single official Champions hero or villain that used it without the exploit.

 

Those high DEX's you see are most likely that character's primary defense mechanism.

[Ninja-Bear]

Trust me if I come across Champions III Supplement (a a fair price and I have money 😁). I’ll pick it up no problem.

[Duke Bushido]

8 hours ago, Chris Goodwin said:

26 in don't recall many GMs insisting that because your character didn't have the "super gene" or whatever that he couldn't have 26 DEX. 

 

Agreed; it was never printed anywhere, and "normal" was assumed to be the straight tens on a blank sheet. 

 

I really believe that NCM was extrapolated from the STR chart, then the idea that normals would be "straight X." 

 

In the last 40 years, I have neither heard and justification for how it came to be nor seen anything that changes my mind that this is how it went down. 

 

1 hour ago, Ninja-Bear said:

Trust me if I come across Champions III Supplement (a a fair price and I have money 😁). I’ll pick it up no problem.

 

How do you feel about a counterfeit C-3?

 

I know a guy that has a couple... 

 

 

[Duke Bushido]

On 6/5/2020 at 12:51 AM, Ninja-Bear said:

. 😁I do wonder if the creators would have given a higher Base points then Players wouldn’t have felt the pressure to squeeze as many points out of their characters.

 

 

 

I missed that the first time through--I mean, I missed addressing it. 

 

I used to wonder that, too, but the reality finally soaked in to me that character creation is, for a lot of us, kind of a solo game in itself.  There will always be those who are just curious to see how far they can get with the points allowed. 

 

At least, that's my suspicion. 

[Ninja-Bear]

46 minutes ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

Agreed; it was never printed anywhere, and "normal" was assumed to be the straight tens on a blank sheet. 

 

I really believe that NCM was extrapolated from the STR chart, then the idea that normals would be "straight X." 

 

In the last 40 years, I have neither heard and justification for how it came to be nor seen anything that changes my mind that this is how it went down. 

 

 

How do you feel about a counterfeit C-3?

 

I know a guy that has a couple... 

 

 

If the rules are the same it doesn’t bother me at all. Well depending what was being charged would be the sticking point. I still need my arm and leg.

[Ninja-Bear]

43 minutes ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

 

 

I missed that the first time through--I mean, I missed addressing it. 

 

I used to wonder that, too, but the reality finally soaked in to me that character creation is, for a lot of us, kind of a solo game in itself.  There will always be those who are just curious to see how far they can get with the points allowed. 

 

At least, that's my suspicion. 

True enough. I find that if I have more points to spend then I worry less about trying to get max results for points spent. Nor am I worried so much with trying to take limitations to eke our more points or being resentful that that person gets more value for points. I think that a bunch of smaller -1/4 limitations wouldn’t have been put on powers if you weren’t worry about points. 

[Chris Goodwin]

41 minutes ago, Duke Bushido said:

Agreed; it was never printed anywhere, and "normal" was assumed to be the straight tens on a blank sheet. 

 

I really believe that NCM was extrapolated from the STR chart, then the idea that normals would be "straight X." 

 

In the last 40 years, I have neither heard and justification for how it came to be nor seen anything that changes my mind that this is how it went down. 

 

"John Q. Normal" (Champions II page 57) predates Espionage.  I'm not sure if that was when they were set for sure, but that section talks a lot about it.

[Ninja-Bear]

In the game design section of 3rd, the authors talk about how if a rule/Power came down to realism or Comic-books, comic-books won out. I’m sure this has been extended to Characteristics too. 

[Ninja-Bear]

Where’s Hugh when you need him? I’m sure he could break down the advantages of DEX 18,23,26 versus other DEX values.  And that feeds back into my point about points, if we didn’t scramble so hard would we have seen a difference in Published Values? Of course we’ll never know. 

[Ninja-Bear]

For Zenith I’ve also looked at 7D6 EB AF 52 pts.

[assault]

8 hours ago, Chris Goodwin said:

 

"John Q. Normal" (Champions II page 57) predates Espionage.  I'm not sure if that was when they were set for sure, but that section talks a lot about it.

 

It also makes it clear that none of it applied to superbeings, especially PCs.

 

The guidelines for PCs were in "The Goodman School Of Cost Effectiveness", by the same author (Steve Peterson).

[dmjalund]

59 minutes ago, assault said:

 

The guidelines for PCs were in "The Goodman School Of Cost Effectiveness", by the same author (Steve Peterson).

But that was more about mini-maxing than concept design

[assault]

To a point. On page 55, it said the following:
"The DEX you want depends on what kind of character you are. Bricks spend a lot of points on STR and defenses, so they don't usually spend many points on DEX...

...

 

Most other characters should consider DEX 23, probably the best all around DEX...
...

 

Beyond 23 gets quite expensive, so normally only people whose main defense is DEX buy DEX 29 or DEX 33..."

 

An unfortunate side effect of this was to institutionalize the notion of the slow, low DEX Brick.

The other relevant material is in the main 2e and 3e rulebooks themselves. (Not in 1e, which was unfortunate.) The "Notes on Playing" section provides guidelines for character characteristics that were in line with the material I mentioned above, without any regard for the supplementary material in Champions II.

To summarize, what became "Normal Characteristics" were explicitly irrelevant to early edition Champions PCs.

[Duke Bushido]

1 hour ago, dmjalund said:

But that was more about mini-maxing than concept design

 

 

Sorry; you cannot add more "Preach, Brother!" today. 

 

I'll have to come back. 

[Ninja-Bear]

2 hours ago, dmjalund said:

But that was more about mini-maxing than concept design

At this level and edition? No, I believe it was more so you could either do more out of the gate (More skills and maybe varied powers) with your design or make your character more effective. My first write up of Zenith left my wanting. I mean a Hero should be able to take a Viper goon? Right? I really held the urge to min-max just so I could get a really good attack. If you look at the notes on playing in 3rd, it has a range and points to get you to 200 pts. Now we’re back to chicken and egg. If you keep in those guidelines then you should have a reasonable character I.e. playable but then how much is lost to concept? But if you stray away from those guidelines for concept, how playable is the character? I think the Goodman rules were so you could have playable (or competitive might be a better word) character and have points to spend to make the character more to concept. Also if you have more effective points spent, you shouldn’t have to take more disadvantages. Though the true min-maxer probably went to the hilt on disadvantages. So I wonder again if they would’ve back then went to 150 base points plus 100 disadvantages as in 5th ed. would we see the same spread of numbers? 

[Duke Bushido]

 

I am not disgreeing with you, Sir. I just wanted to point out that what you describe is the basis of minmaxing.