Highest OCV you'd allow?

[CrosshairCollie]

Pretty much what it says in the title.  If you were running a 'standard', if there is such a thing, 6th Edition 400pt/75 Complication Champions superhero game, what's the highest grand-total OCV (base OCV + levels) you'd permit?

[Sketchpad]

Depends on the concept and the campaign. I've had a campaign where people started with a 10 to 12 OCV, and had others where I capped it at 8 to start.

[Gnome BODY (important!)]

Campaign villain average DCV plus 2.  Hitting on a 13- is as accurate as I want anyone to be. 

PSLs not included in this, unless they're things like Called Shot PSLs that contribute to damage. 

I could be talked into OCV limited to only against villains 2+ points above mean villain DCV. 

[Thumper]

The CHA Max for OCV in my campaign is 9. I base this on the fact that a Noteworthy Normal has a DCV of 3, thus character with a base OCV of 9 will only miss a Notworthy Normal on a roll of 18, which is an automatic miss.  I find that an appropriate benchmark for "the best a person could possibly be without training."

 

The Skill Level Max is 5.  So a character can increase their OCV to 14 with Skill Levels.  A character may have an infinite number of Skill Levels, but cannot add more than +5 to OCV or DCV.  A character with, for example,  +8 Overall CSL could divide the bonus between OCV and DCV as +5/+3, +4/+4, +3/+5, but not as +0/+8, +1/+7, +2/+6, etc.  Combat Skill Levels bought through a Focus or other non-inherent means cannot exceed +5 and do not stack with Combat Skill Levels from other sources.  Instead, the character uses the larger bonus and adds +1 for the first additional source of CSL only.  If Lash Lightning, Space Hero  has the skill +4 OCV with Rifles, an IIF Targeting Computer that provides +3 OCV to all attacks, and is firing an OAF Laser Rifle with a built in +1 OCV,  he would be +5 OCV, not +8. 

 

The OCV bonus from Martial Maneuvers does not count towards the +5 Skill Level cap, because Maneuvers are Skills, not Skill Levels.  Thus a character's maximum possible OCV in my campaign is 17.  This could be accomplished by:

• Having a 9 OCV
• Having +5 Combat Skill Levels
• Having +1 or more Combat Skill Levels from alternate sources (such as a magic weapon)
• Using a Counterstrike, Fast Strike, Legsweep or other +2 OCV Maneuvers

Combat Skill Levels bought at the 3pt level or higher can be used to negate Combat Penalties to OCV, such as the OCV Penalty for a Placed Shot or narrow fighting conditions, and thus does not count towards the +5 maximum.  So a character with a 9 OCV and +13 Combat Skill Levels using a Fast Strike Maneuver could Placed Shot the Head without penalty, and if your DCV is less than 12 you're basically praying he rolls an 18.

 

I'm not too worried about a character who can achieve a 17 OCV, because I'm willing to bet that character can't hit very hard.  If he can both hit hard and never misses, then it's pretty much a guarantee that he's a) slow and b) can't take hit.  Overspecialization is for insects.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Well it depends on the campaign really.  I put an absolute cap on my last game because I didn't want people to get past a certain point (a hard cap, no matter what levels, martial arts, or anything you combined it just couldn't go any higher).  Most games I am pretty lax about it.  There was one character in a game I ran with 12 OCV, using his crossbow.  That was his thing: he never missed (he never did, either).  He was like Bullseye or Hawkeye, he just hit what he aimed at.  But he wasn't the most damaging character in the game, and didn't' have as much flexibility as most others.

[assault]

13.

Usually bought straight, since I discourage the use of skill levels.

 

7-9 is the normal range.

[archer]

It depends heavily on what the person is going to be doing with the OCV. I don't have as much problem with a one-trick-pony character having a high OCV as I would someone with a VPP who could pull out some new nightmare power build each week which would abuse the high OCV in a new and creative way. In 4e, I had an NPC who could autofire and hit any target 4-5 times with a NND attack (total 8-10 dice of damage) unless the target burned his next phase with Dive for Cover, so I have a healthy respect for abusable builds combined with high OCV.

 

And keep in mind that once you start allowing someone to get too far above the average OCV that any characters written with below average DCV start getting out-classed very quickly unless they can take massive amounts of punishment. As a GM, you want to nurture the dreams of those thugs who find a gizmo which might give them a minor power or two and who have the dream of becoming a big-time villain. You don't want some thug to sew a costume, jump out and dramatically announce, "Fear me! I'm the Great and Powerful..." then that's as far as he gets because the hero puts him into the hospital with the first shot every single stinking time. It's things like that which discourage all the other thugs who have delusions of grandeur.

 

I don't remember allowing a character with higher than 13 OCV (including maneuvers) in any edition.

 

I usually encourage 7-9 because that's the sweet point that most written characters over the decades are going for unless that character is supposed to take on a whole team single-handedly.

 

 

[IndianaJoe3]

I like to keep the OCV cap equal to the DCV floor plus 3. This keeps all the combat rolls in the center of the 3d6 bell curve.

[Christopher R Taylor]

As a GM I tend to keep DCV of enemies somewhat lower than most, because missing entirely is a lot more frustrating and annoying to players than hitting and not doing anything.  The former, your phase is done and there's nothing you can do about it, you just missed.  The latter you can formulate a way to do better damage, and come up with tactics to deal with it. And at least you got to do more than roll dice once then your phase is over.

[Zephrosyne]

Well, I don't really believe in "hard caps" per say but I do have very hard "soft caps."  The base CV cap is 13 and up to 8 Combat Skill Levels are possible in my campaigns.  So I guess the total would be 21.  Note this is the absolute highest that any being would possess in any campaign that I would ever run.  I would not let a character start with numbers near this high.

[CrosshairCollie]

Thanks for the insight.  I'm working on a Bullseye-like character (her whole schtick is 'I never miss', well almost never, those pesky 3s), and was curious what an 'obscene OCV' would look like to various people.

[Hugh Neilson]

If you set the OCV cap low enough, players will take mental attacks, accurate attacks, etc. to find other ways to hit.  I agree with Christopher that misses, especially consecutive misses, make players feel ineffective.

[Hugh Neilson]

4 hours ago, CrosshairCollie said:

Thanks for the insight.  I'm working on a Bullseye-like character (her whole schtick is 'I never miss', well almost never, those pesky 3s), and was curious what an 'obscene OCV' would look like to various people.

 

"Naked Advantage:  AoE 1 meter,  Accurate"

[Thumper]

3 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

"Naked Advantage:  AoE 1 hex Selective"

You want Accurate, not Selective.

[Hugh Neilson]

15 minutes ago, Thumper said:

You want Accurate, not Selective.

 

Quite right, and it s/b 1 meter in 6e.

[grandmastergm]

The highest I've seen in my current group is 18 (a speedster).

[Scott Ruggels]

Allowed? give me a good reason.  In general usually 12 (without levels) is about as high as I have seen.

[JCR]

On 8/18/2019 at 12:48 PM, Christopher R Taylor said:

As a GM I tend to keep DCV of enemies somewhat lower than most, because missing entirely is a lot more frustrating and annoying to players than hitting and not doing anything.  The former, your phase is done and there's nothing you can do about it, you just missed.  The latter you can formulate a way to do better damage, and come up with tactics to deal with it. And at least you got to do more than roll dice once then your phase is over.

Honestly I rather miss entirely and know that the enemy is just better at defense than I am at offense atm or that am just getting unlucky w/ my rolls, than to hit, hit, hit, and hit and absolutely feel pathetic because I am just tickling the opponent (no damage/effect). I can always find a way to improve my OCV, but everyone seems to have a cap when it comes to how much points one can sink into a power (including the characters in the books) thus limiting the amount of damage I can do no matter what (the same doesn't apply to defense).

[ScottishFox]

On 8/17/2019 at 12:33 AM, Christopher R Taylor said:

Well it depends on the campaign really.  I put an absolute cap on my last game because I didn't want people to get past a certain point (a hard cap, no matter what levels, martial arts, or anything you combined it just couldn't go any higher).  Most games I am pretty lax about it.  There was one character in a game I ran with 12 OCV, using his crossbow.  That was his thing: he never missed (he never did, either).  He was like Bullseye or Hawkeye, he just hit what he aimed at.  But he wasn't the most damaging character in the game, and didn't' have as much flexibility as most others.

 

I've found keeping a Combat Effectiveness Spreadsheet really helps for this.

 

There are hard caps for each category (OCV, DCV, damage, PD/ED, base stats, etc.) and a total combat effectiveness score that players are limited to.

 

Generally they can max out a couple of areas before they have to start weakening others.  It's not perfect, but it prevents any one hero from having the best offense, defense, highest damage, highest speed and highest variety of attacks by way of ignoring skills entirely and being better at HERO crunch than the other players.

[archer]

14 hours ago, Jayzon said:

Honestly I rather miss entirely and know that the enemy is just better at defense than I am at offense atm or that am just getting unlucky w/ my rolls, than to hit, hit, hit, and hit and absolutely feel pathetic because I am just tickling the opponent (no damage/effect). I can always find a way to improve my OCV, but everyone seems to have a cap when it comes to how much points one can sink into a power (including the characters in the books) thus limiting the amount of damage I can do no matter what (the same doesn't apply to defense).

 

I agree completely.

 

I'm an experienced enough player that if I'm not doing damage when I'm hitting that I'll trip him, drop a building on him, or throw him into a fuel truck (or electric lines) so it's not as big of a feel bad moment to do zero damage. But it's still a bigger feel bad moment (in a superhero game) than missing completely.