Maxima and Other Things

[Ninja-Bear]

Oh I’ve considered that Longevity should be free Btw for Concealment thing when I thought about it,  you could change the +2 to proficiency which would be 10- which in essence is +2 more than Everyman of 8-.

[Hugh Neilson]

Like many abilities, Longevity always strikes me as a game element the GM needs to either assess how he will make it worth the points (4 points is more than a skill, so should be a bit more useful) or tell the character he does not need to pay points for this (a la obscure knowledge skills that will not come up in play).

[Hugh Neilson]

On 1/19/2019 at 7:35 AM, Lucius said:

 

First of all: if you're talking about Normal Characteristic Maxima, that is, the idea of charging double cost for anything over a certain limit, this is simply a bad idea and should be abandoned, period. It's a flintmobile.

 

The palindromedary says seriously, though, you're better off ditching Normal Characteristic Maxima. Or you could get that 30 STR Pixie showing up, and it would be perfectly legal.

 

Agree.  Now how do we achieve the OP's goal of "some races have greater potential for high stats"?

 

Well, what are the regular campaign standards/game rules?  If the game rule is that 20 is the cap for characteristics that are not "legendary", and 30 is the cap for "legendary", and we restrict which characters to, say, one Legendary characteristic (at least at start-up), maybe some races can have a second Legendary characteristic, but it's the specific one that race is known for.  Perhaps some races cannot select certain Legendary characteristics.  Maybe, for some, Legendary in a certain stat is 16 - 25 instead of 21 - 30.

 

Maybe Elves can pick two Legendaries, but one must be either DEX or INT, and they cannot choose STR or CON.  Perhaps, if they want CON above 15, it must be a Legendary stat and they can only go to 25.  Put +3 DEX and INT, and -2 CON, into the package, and we have a suggested "typical Elf" with 10s across the board, but 13 DEX and INT and 8 CON.

 

Or just put the + and - in, and these increase or decrease the max "normal" and "legendary" stats for that race.  Maybe some races can pick one stat with +3 and one with -2, while others have a bit more bonus, but in specific stats they cannot change.

 

As for balancing this with other abilities - well, sometimes it's just "feel".  The D&D model has always been "bonus to one stat offset by penalty to another".  In Pathfinder, some races can select any stat with a +2, while others get +2 to 2 stats and -2 to a third.  This achieves the result the OP seems to be looking for - Elves (with an INT and DEX bonus, and a CON penalty) tend to be wizards or archers, with high INT or DEX.

[Hugh Neilson]

16 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

 Btw for Concealment thing when I thought about it,  you could change the +2 to proficiency which would be 10- which in essence is +2 more than Everyman of 8-.

 

Seems reasonable - for 1 point, they can make it the full skill, and they can buy bonuses from there.

[Toxxus]

Very interesting thread.

 

Perhaps one way to avoid the NCM limitations and potentially wasted points in racial packages would be to purchase the higher stats as some sort of Aid.

Ex:  Dexterity of the Elves - Aid DEX 2d6 (fixed at 6pts - 3 DEX), 0 end, persistent, always on.

 

Less sure how I'd write-up the negative modifiers, but possibly a persistent suppress/drain of a fixed amount that you received points back for having.

[Gnome BODY (important!)]

23 minutes ago, Toxxus said:

Very interesting thread.

 

Perhaps one way to avoid the NCM limitations and potentially wasted points in racial packages would be to purchase the higher stats as some sort of Aid.

Ex:  Dexterity of the Elves - Aid DEX 2d6 (fixed at 6pts - 3 DEX), 0 end, persistent, always on.

 

Less sure how I'd write-up the negative modifiers, but possibly a persistent suppress/drain of a fixed amount that you received points back for having.

I can't say I understand the point of an Aid construct. 

If the person wanting to implement racial characteristic shifts is the GM, they can just waggle their hand and announce that yonder pluses be not included for NCM. 

If they're not the GM, I'd expect the GM to ask some very pointed questions about this strange Aid construct and tell the player to just buy the insert-favored-expletive-here stat. 

[Ninja-Bear]

7 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

Seems reasonable - for 1 point, they can make it the full skill, and they can buy bonuses from there.

My initial thought was just to allow the +2 to add to Everyman skill which by RAW is illegal. However, doing it that way nets a 10- anyways so that’s how I came to proficient, which is RAW.

[Ninja-Bear]

I think a better comparison is this: is it fair that a dragon warrior has to pay for his scaly hide when a human just gets the same leather armor for free? I mean rPD is rPD. Or how about even a wizard casting a Burning Hand spell and a warrior gets a sword for free? KA is KA.  

 

So back to Maxima and Templates. 4th ed was harsh and I wouldn’t use it. 5th is fine and so is 6th.  So if you like Maxima then use it.  If I have to pay extra so my human has a strength of a dwarf then so be it. 

 

Onething about this “tax” on abilities, it does cut down on arguments.  I once ran an adventure and my brother (misread his sheet) thought he had a higher DEX than the elves. I let it slide. The Elf players being “racist” said that that isn’t possible. Dwarves shouldn’t be as Dexterous as Elves. I said “He paid the points”. That ended the argument.

 

Scott R. Is I like and see no reason why in 6th you still can’t either give a break on Package Deal or give a Freebie or two by taking a Package Deal.

 

Lucious I remeber the Flintmobile and once it was moving, they didn’t use their feet anymore. Just to stop and start-almost like a bike. ?

Edited January 23, 2019 by Ninja-Bear
Summation

[Ninja-Bear]

If you want to use Maxima then use it. It’s a tool. If you don’t want to then don’t. It’s only a tool.

[Scott Ruggels]

4 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

Scott R. Is I like and see no reason why in 6th you still can’t either give a break on Package Deal or give a Freebie or two by taking a Package Deal.

 

I know nothing of 6th edition and I will need help with the conversions from 4/5th on the book.

[Lucius]

6 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

I think a better comparison is this: is it fair that a dragon warrior has to pay for his scaly hide when a human just gets the same leather armor for free? I mean rPD is rPD. Or how about even a wizard casting a Burning Hand spell and a warrior gets a sword for free? KA is KA.  

.

 

5 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

Onething about this “tax” on abilities, it does cut down on arguments.  I once ran an adventure and my brother (misread his sheet) thought he had a higher DEX than the elves. I let it slide. The Elf players being “racist” said that that isn’t possible. Dwarves shouldn’t be as Dexterous as Elves. I said “He paid the points”. That ended the argument.
 

 

In the case of a Drakine or wizard, what is being paid for is Resistant Protection or a Killing Attack that is harder to break or take away or be caught without. And even at that I am not necessarily averse to the idea of allowing a Limitation like "duplicates common equipment" to cut the price further.

 

As for the "cut down on arguments" bit, I don't see where this exchange would be substantially different if there were no Normal Characteristic Maxima. Either way you have a dextrous Dwarf, objecting Elves, and the statement "He paid the points" ending the argument. The difference would be in how fair a price was paid by the Dwarf.

 

 

5 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

If you want to use Maxima then use it. It’s a tool. If you don’t want to then don’t. It’s only a tool.

 

I have to disagree with this. A tool is something that either enables or renders easier a task. Normal Characteristic Maxima is something that LOOKS like a tool but doesn't actually do anything that could not be as easily done without it.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

And a palindromedary claiming to be a Normal Human

[Christopher]

16 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

I think a better comparison is this: is it fair that a dragon warrior has to pay for his scaly hide when a human just gets the same leather armor for free? I mean rPD is rPD. Or how about even a wizard casting a Burning Hand spell and a warrior gets a sword for free? KA is KA.

Those exampels do not work. Swords and armors can be taken or be illegal in any jurisdiction.

Also unless something odd is going on, that Scaly Skin would add to any worn armor. So not really a good example.

 

10 hours ago, Lucius said:

I have to disagree with this. A tool is something that either enables or renders easier a task. Normal Characteristic Maxima is something that LOOKS like a tool but doesn't actually do anything that could not be as easily done without it.

Campaign limits are a hardcap. NCM is a Softcap.

A softcap can do, what no hard cap could. So it is a tool with additional properties.

[Gnome BODY (important!)]

11 hours ago, Lucius said:

In the case of a Drakine or wizard, what is being paid for is Resistant Protection or a Killing Attack that is harder to break or take away or be caught without. And even at that I am not necessarily averse to the idea of allowing a Limitation like "duplicates common equipment" to cut the price further.

I think I'd suggest buying it as a buyoff of limitations assigned to the corresponding equipment. 

Scaly skin (that doesn't stack with armor) might functionally be armor minus OIF plus Visible plus Always On (-0). 

A claw-growth spell might functionally be a sword minus Real Weapon minus STR Minimum minus OAF plus IAF. 

So on and so on. 

[Ninja-Bear]

Well Lucius I really see don difference  in asking the elf player to pay for UV vision cause he’s an elf and human has to pay more to be strong as a typical dwarf.

 

And I’ll politely disagree with you. Just because you don’t see usefulness of NCM doesn’t mean it’s a useless tool. ?

[Ninja-Bear]

8 hours ago, Christopher said:

Those exampels do not work. Swords and armors can be taken or be illegal in any jurisdiction.

Also unless something odd is going on, that Scaly Skin would add to any worn armor. So not really a good example.

 

Campaign limits are a hardcap. NCM is a Softcap.

A softcap can do, what no hard cap could. So it is a tool with additional properties.

Christopher the dragonkin example was to the response to STR is STR and it should be the same no matter the race. I was just pointing out that mechanically not with any other game elements involved, nobody would question charging a dragonkin rPD and allowing a human the same for free because it’s equiptment.

[Ninja-Bear]

Scott the biggest thing in 4th was that you paid upfront all the cost for increased cha Maxima. So say the the STR was set to 23, you had to pay 6 pts in package deal to have the privilege of being able to go to 23 even if you only wanted say 18 STR. Fifth changed it so you are only paying half that amount upfront. So at the template level you character is at the new racial average. So the above example, your only playing 3 pts.

[shuddemell]

I have to agree with Lucius overall. There really is no benefit to adjusting NCM. While NCM can be used as a way to reign in out of control stats, overall, you should pay for what you get. Yes, some races will cost more than others due to conception, but that is as it should be. It's essentially an accounting trick to use NCM in that, if you use them to full effect you get what you pay for and otherwise you are penalized for "potential". Seems easier just to set campaign guidelines (and enforce them), rather than fiddling with the numbers that, in one way or another will be unfair.

[Duke Bushido]

On January 23, 2019 at 9:12 AM, Hugh Neilson said:

Like many abilities, Longevity always strikes me as a game element the GM needs to either assess how he will make it worth the points (4 points is more than a skill, so should be a bit more useful) or tell the character he does not need to pay points for this (a la obscure knowledge skills that will not come up in play).

 

Agreed whole-heartedly.  In all the years since I started Playing Champions / HERO, I have only had _one_ instance where it had a genuine "this is only possible because the character is immortal" payoff.

 

I had a player with a character who was immortal during a historically-set time period.  The only pay-off was that I let that same player run the same character in a modern campaign back in the late 90s, and a couple of years later, he used that same character (after some mandatory experience point shaving) in an occult western we were doing.

 

So the only payoff he ever got for Life Support: does not age was two campaigns of not having to make a new character.  Fun and all that, but worth it?  Well, only the player can be the judge of that, honestly.

 

It did inspire me, though.  I know handle "immortal" or "Methuselesque" (thank you, DCF, of my old Daredevils-to-Champions-engine conversion campaign for one of the coolest power names _ever_! ) differently.  It costs a bit more, but I now build it as a small skill pool large enough to build any two (simultaneously, I mean; it's not like you're stuck with 2 forever) 8-Knowledge skills, so long as they relate to outdated skills or historical events, people, and places.  I allow Area knowledges as well, but they are also limited to 8-, since "things have changed a lot since the last time I was here."

 

 

Crap.

 

I guess I should have put that in the House Rules section, hunh?

 

Helllooooooo, Double-post!

 

 

[Hugh Neilson]

1 hour ago, shuddemell said:

I have to agree with Lucius overall. There really is no benefit to adjusting NCM. While NCM can be used as a way to reign in out of control stats, overall, you should pay for what you get. Yes, some races will cost more than others due to conception, but that is as it should be. It's essentially an accounting trick to use NCM in that, if you use them to full effect you get what you pay for and otherwise you are penalized for "potential". Seems easier just to set campaign guidelines (and enforce them), rather than fiddling with the numbers that, in one way or another will be unfair.

 

NCM is not, to my mind, a useful construct.  It makes stats more expensive, so it directs players to buy something else instead.  It suggests, but does not enforce, a limit.

 

When a racial package charges points for the potential to have a higher stat, then those points are wasted, as noted above, unless the player buys that higher stat.  So +3 to the NCM limit for a dwarf, for 3 points, seems less likely to result in a typical dwarf having 13 STR, and more likely to result in all PC dwarves having a 23 STR.  If I'm not buying a 23 STR, why play a dwarf and waste those points spend on enhancing his NCM?

 

As to the "soft/hard cap", I would much rather set campaign guidelines (hard or soft), but let the players get what they pay for.  Those guidelines could also be incorporated into races by adjusting the "typical", "heroic" and "legendary" stat range.  Maybe Dwarves get to buy a 25 STR with no explanation beyond being a Dwarf, while others would need a very solid explanation to exceed 20 (and likely would  not get to push another stat above 20 as well).

[Toxxus]

That's a pretty good method, Hugh, and close to what I'm using in my current Fantasy Hero setup.

 

I have a variation of NCM going where players can have all primary stats up to 15 and either two in the 16-20 range or one in the 21-23 range.  I'll slightly move the maximums as they progress in power.

 

The whole group (minus me) is from D&D 5e and they're used to having hard constraints everywhere.  I didn't want to have a bunch of STR 40 fighters with 10 levels in swords so I had to put hard limits in place as well as using the NCM double-cost after 20.

 

I also resurrected a Combat Effectiveness calculator that I vaguely remember from one of the small champions mags.  Can't remember the exact name of the publication but it was 1/2 size and between a comic book and normal book in thickness.

 

Basically it's a quick spreadsheet of everything that is particularly useful in combat (OCV, DCV, max damage class, max PD/ED, max resistant defense, SPD, Levels, etc.) and they are given a hard cap total at each stage of the story.  So far it's working pretty well.

[Christopher]

15 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

NCM is not, to my mind, a useful construct.  It makes stats more expensive, so it directs players to buy something else instead.  It suggests, but does not enforce, a limit. 

That is the definitio nof a Softcap rather then a Hard cap.

 

15 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

As to the "soft/hard cap", I would much rather set campaign guidelines (hard or soft), but let the players get what they pay for.

As a soft cap is by definition not a hard cap, it needs something else to help  enforce it. Something that is severe enough to mater, but not as severe as "can not exceed, ever!"

And increasing the cost past a certain point is the only thing that comes to my mind as well.

 

15 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

Maybe Dwarves get to buy a 25 STR with no explanation beyond being a Dwarf, while others would need a very solid explanation to exceed 20 (and likely would  not get to push another stat above 20 as well).

That is just a hard cap with "GM decision".

 

I play a lot of Paradox games lately. So I do know about the differences between Hard and Soft Caps, how they work, and what their purpose is.

[Hugh Neilson]

23 hours ago, Christopher said:

That is just a hard cap with "GM decision".

 

Similarly, we can have soft caps with "GM Decision".

 

Such as

 

On 1/25/2019 at 8:27 AM, Toxxus said:

I have a variation of NCM going where players can have all primary stats up to 15 and either two in the 16-20 range or one in the 21-23 range.  I'll slightly move the maximums as they progress in power.

 

Why do we need any "NCM Doubles Cost" feature?  A simple campaign rule setting these limits would work fine, in my view.

 

On 1/25/2019 at 8:27 AM, Toxxus said:

I also resurrected a Combat Effectiveness calculator that I vaguely remember from one of the small champions mags.  Can't remember the exact name of the publication but it was 1/2 size and between a comic book and normal book in thickness.

 

Basically it's a quick spreadsheet of everything that is particularly useful in combat (OCV, DCV, max damage class, max PD/ED, max resistant defense, SPD, Levels, etc.) and they are given a hard cap total at each stage of the story.  So far it's working pretty well.

 

Adventurers' Club was the magazine.

 

Setting caps, and even "you can be a bit better here if you are a bit worse there" can work.  Mutants and Masterminds has a tradeoff between, essentially, OCV and Damage, and between DCV and Defenses, which establishes a range.  Their system is all d20 based, so your defense bonus and defenses could be +10/+10, or you could go with +8/+12, or +12/+8, but that's the greatest deviation permitted (one enhanced by 2 in exchange for the other dropping by 2).

 

Not sure exactly how I would match the tradeoff in Hero, which would be OCV and DC, & DCV and defenses.  The spreadsheet effectively sets maximum totals, which can be combined with caps on individual items (eg. this is the maximum OCV, DCs, DCV, Defenses, SPD, etc. but you can't max out every category.  I think I would start with a "campaign average" - maybe that is OCV 6, DCV 6, 6 DCs and 12 defenses, to keep a small pool.  You could, perhaps, have an 8 OCV, but 4 DCs, or 15 Defenses but 5 DCV.  I'm spitballing a tradeoff of 1 CV = 1 DC = 3.5 defenses. 

 

Growing the caps as they gain experience would work well to replicate a "zero to hero" feel.  The other question to address is how fast the cap grows - I think you want them to earn more xp than they can spend to simply reach the new cap, so they can gain new abilities as well as bulk up the old ones.  If you wanted to move up by the change in the cap in all regards, perhaps that should take up half of your xp, with the other half being used to expand the character's versatility.

 

None of this requires or, in my view, is enhanced by "to exceed this level, you have to pay double".  That's just a surcharge to make your character unbalanced.

[Toxxus]

7 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

Adventurers' Club was the magazine.

 

Not sure exactly how I would match the tradeoff in Hero, which would be OCV and DC, & DCV and defenses.  The spreadsheet effectively sets maximum totals, which can be combined with caps on individual items (eg. this is the maximum OCV, DCs, DCV, Defenses, SPD, etc. but you can't max out every category.  I think I would start with a "campaign average" - maybe that is OCV 6, DCV 6, 6 DCs and 12 defenses, to keep a small pool.  You could, perhaps, have an 8 OCV, but 4 DCs, or 15 Defenses but 5 DCV.  I'm spitballing a tradeoff of 1 CV = 1 DC = 3.5 defenses. 

 

Adventurer's Club!  Ah, I miss those.

 

I added several items to the list beyond the RAW stats to get a more overall combat effectiveness.  If you have hard CCs (Entangle, Mind Control, Mental Illusions) that raises your value a few points.  If you have soft CCs (flash, darkness, invisibility) that raises your combat value a few points.  There are several items on the list, but it allows the CC heavy characters to be good in combat - but not as good as the ones without those modifiers.  It's a balancing act and so far it's resulted in several very unique play styles.

 

 

[Christopher]

11 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

Why do we need any "NCM Doubles Cost" feature?  A simple campaign rule setting these limits would work fine, in my view.

I need at least as much planning security during character creation as NCM gives me.

[Lucius]

9 hours ago, Christopher said:

I need at least as much planning security during character creation as NCM gives me.

 

In what way does Normal Characteristic Maxima give you "planning security?"

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary wonders if we should post a guard while making plans.....