Trebuchet

Excellent question, Trebuchet (do you mind if I call you Tre for short?)

 

I prefer 250 points for 3 reasons.

 

One, I'm a traditionalist, having started with Champions way back in the First Edition.

Me too, I started playing Champions in 1993, but I still prefer 350 points. IME 250 point characters are almost purely combat-oriented whereas 350 point characters tend to be more fleshed out. I don't have any problem with 250 point original characters in a campaign (we run a 250-point "street level" game in our bigger universe); but most iconic comic-book characters would be well above that.

Second, with the 5th Edition a 250 Points Character is built on 150 Point base, with 100 Points of disadvantages. The fewer disadvantages the better as far as I'm concerned, and a 250 Points character can hold their own against a 350 Points character because of the extra disadvantages they have to carry.

As a GM I don't view Disadvantages as problematical, but as providing plot hooks for the characters. Rising above Disadvantages gives a character a way to be truly heroic.

Third, I enjoy the challenge of creating Iconic characters on a lower level. One of the reasons I've created Characteristic Templates for all Archtypes and Levels of Comic Book characters is to balance the various characters. A 250 Points Batman would be able to fight a 250 Points Superman much better then higher level versions of the same characters.

Power levels are as much part of a character's concept as their origin, schtick, or powers. Changing them to hit an arbitrary point limit is tampering with them at a very fundamental level. A 250 point so-called "Silver Age Superman" is no longer even remotely the iconic Superman you purport to be building; it's just something you've named Superman. Personally, I feel that is highly disrespectful to the original character. It's not an homage; it's a parody.

JMO. YMMV.

Cassandra, I'm curious as to why you selected 250 points for your Champions baseline instead of 5E's "Standard" level of 350 points for supers? What do you see as the advantages your campaign derives from that limit? I could see the upside if you're running a low-powered street-level Champions campaign, but the fact you've been trying to build iconic characters like Superman on 250 points suggests that's not the case.

Myself, I like the 350 points much better because I think it produces more well-rounded characters. My experience with 250 point supers from 2E through 4E was that the characters tended to be almost purely combat-oriented, whereas with 350 to start they ended up just as combat capable but also had far more non-combat skills; which provided far more plot hooks for me as a GM.

This is not intended as criticism; I'm just curious as to your reasoning.

Question. Should Kryptonite be a Susceptibility, or a Vulnerability?

 

If it's a susceptibility then you have to get Regeneration otherwise Superman's could end up nearly dead for a long time.

IIRC in the Silver Age Kryptonite had harmful effects on Superman but none on humans, so that would make it a Susceptibility by default.

In all honesty, given the frequency with which he runs into Kryptonite, I think you could easily justify it being both a Susceptibility and a Vulnerability. After all, a Kryptonite bullet or Kryptonite laser would still harm a human just like more conventional ones; they would just do more damage to Superman.

I've seen people argue the same thing applied to Iron Man though, yet you are fine with that build. Where is the line drawn? Where you say it is?

 

Personally I don't like the Multiform build. I would never use it and probably wouldn't allow it in most games. But it might be fine for some campaigns and moreover it is certainly fine for a simple thought exercise building characters.

 

By your arguments Hyper-Man's build of Superman with a VPP of Kryptonian powers would also be "wrong" because he can't access every single power at the same time.

 

Can you list a single instance of Superman his full travel speed, full strength, his energy projection, and full defenses at the exact same time?

Since Superman's defenses never change, they wouldn't be in any VPP or change in a Multiform anyway. Most of what she's trying to do could be handled with a Multipower or possibly a couple of them. As to Superman using "all of his powers at once", can you cite a single instance where what he was doing couldn't have been modeled with an EC?

Iron Man certainly has two or more "forms": Tony Stark and Iron Man (the number of distinct Iron Man forms - Space, Underwater, Hulkbuster, Stealth, Silver Sphinx, Mk. VII, etc. - would change over time) but there is a clear distinction between his human form and the suits of armor he puts on. Kal-El does not change forms, he has precisely the same powers as Clark Kent as he does as Superman (unless one counts his sometimes-invulnerable costume, which Clark wears under his street clothes anyway).

Hugo Danner didn't have Kryptonian parents. He had a regular father who gave him some super-treatments.

 

The idea of a guy who is super-strong and invulnerable isn't exactly new. It's true that Superman was probably inspired by Gladiator a bit, but he's not a ripoff.

Oh, come on! Hugo Danner's scientist father gave him powers with a serum. Kal-El's scientist father game him powers by sending him to another planet. Their powers were identical. Gladiator was published in 1930; Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel read it in 1932 . He and co-creator Joe Schuster began developing Superman in 1934. The difference is that Superman, having a regular comic, evolved new powers over time. Hugo Danner, being pretty much limited to one novel, didn't.

Blatant ripoffs were notorious in the old pulp novels and comics. Admittedly the early Superman comics had other influences, most obviously Doc Savage (another offspring of a scientist father), including plots all but stolen from Doc Savage stories. Even Batman has more than a few elements of Doc Savage and Zorro. I've got no problem with any of that; I see it as cross-pollinization. I borrow scenarios and characters from comics and books for our pulp and superhero campaigns all the time; I love doing "classic" tropes. I'm just willing to acknowledge the geneology.

I am very interested in Cassandra's builds. She does some really inventive things with the rules.

 

Hero System was built to emulate Superheroes from the Marvel Universe. Where Supers tend to for the most part be a lot more human and less godlike. We really start to push the envelope when we start to build the God like supers of the DCU. Some DCU heroes are easy to build in Champions and those tend to be the characters that would fit right into the MU. DCU characters are IMHO way too powerful to ever feel right built on a feeble 250points (heck or even 500 5e points). They are just not that kind of character.

Silver Age Superman (IOW, the Really Stupid Era Superman) was the most idiotically overpowered version; and consistently so poorly written that the writers in that era should have all been drawn and quartered. (31 flavors of Kryptonite! Being turned to straw! Blowing out suns with his freeze breath! Seriously!?) He would not only be essentially impossible to build in a point-based system like Hero, but even if it were attempted it would require thousands or tens of thousands of points.

You could make a reasonable Golden Age Superman (1938 to about 1950) with 250 points, but I think it would make more sense and be truer to the source material to start with the standard 350 points of 5E or 400 of 6E.

The key is a 50 Points VPP, Cosmic (+2), Multiform Only (-1) 87 Points

The 50 Point CPP Cosmic I can buy as a valid build; I just can't grasp the use of Multiform.

Your argument seems way too close for comfort to "this is the right or only way to do X".

No, not really. But while there is no "right" way to build almost any power, there are certainly "wrong" ways. A classic character like Superman being built with Multiform falls squarely into that category. That's not to say some other original character with a set of Superman-like powers might not be viably built with Multiform; just that Superman, with all of his powers always functional, cannot be.

Don't get me wrong, I am sure with a great group and an awesome GM it can work just fine. And there are many other things to do other than damage in a fight as you point out. I just don't feel that a 9d6 attack would be worth the points in a game with attacks running up to 17 dice all things being equal. They just wouldn't be useful enough to justify the cost is all I am saying.

 

And then on the flip side without caps how do you reign in someone who just wants to dump all their points into one mega attack? If you limit them as a GM then you actually DO have some sort of a cap in mind, your just not spelling it out to your players as such. If not then hopefully you are lucky enough to have a group of players that don't get into the power game at all.

Well, I'm not going to claim we are a typical group because we certainly are not. We have eight players in our group and every one of them also GM's. This means nobody gets isolated behind a GM screen permanently and forgets what it's like to be a player; and conversely every player knows how disruptive an unbalanced power can be. We self-limit because we want to keep the ratios in line. We have, in fact, continually pushed our brick's player to increase her STR and defenses because she is supposed to be that tough; just as I have deliberately kept my MA's attacks and defenses very low (her defenses are just over a third of the brick's). What we have done, in essence, is create - with deliberate aforethought - an Avenger-like spread of power levels and made it work in a Champions campaign for over 20 years, but the only way we could make that work was to dump the formal caps. Lower damage characters compensate with more SPD; and so for years our only "Rule of X" (which is more like a guideline anyway) has been very simple: Damage Classes + Speed <= 20. That's been exceeded now, but not until about 2 or 3 years ago; and I think only 3 characters have exceeded it, by only 1 or 2 points. (My PC Sil'f is one of them, but she is the most experienced member of the team and her standard 9d6 attack with her SPD of 9 exceeds it only if she uses her +1/2 Advantaged attacks, which burn too much END for her to use throughout any battle.)

A 9d6 attack, IME, is really not all that weak in a game which averages 13d6 attacks. An average roll does 31.5 points of STUN, which will hurt almost any non-brick, and good rolls - or adding +1/2 Advantages such as AP or PEN - can do even better. Would that hurt our team's brick? Not in the least. But then I don't expect Captain America, Hawkeye, or the Black Widow could actually hurt Thor or the Hulk either. Annoy, yes. Actually inflict significant injury, no.

I often feel that there's an inherent need amongst many players to maximize defenses. A conscious or unconscious desire to play it safe' date=' to put themselves in the character's shoes perhaps, or to identify with them, and to want them to have the best protection that points will buy. Especially in a situation where you have a feel for what the worst they might encounter is. If you know most enemies are going to have 12DC attacks, then 24 resistant defense is enough to ensure that normal (not AP) attacks can't ever do BODY damage - which is a nice place to be if you're trying to keep your character alive. Add in the defense-like nature of things like a high CON or STUN, and Bricks are probably the most prone to this sort of defense focus.[/quote']

 

It has long been the consensus among the eight players in our campaign that the true role of bricks is "damage sponge" rather than "heavy hitter." Sure, most bricks are also heavy hitters, but it is their inherent toughness that truly defines a brick.

The problem I have with that is that even without caps the range from non-effective to effective to super effective is actually quite narrow in the HERO System and the difference of a few dice can really shift things. For instance in a "standard" campaign (what I have seen from here so far) with 12d6 being the standard cap 9d6 attacks (without mitigating advantages like NND or AP) are barely able to affect most people. On the other hand 15d6 is almost a guaranteed Stunned result on anything that has a chance of being stunned at 12d6. Every die of damage adds 3.5 pts of damage to the average roll and because of the way defenses and stunning work in this system each additional die is more effective than the last meaning without a system in place which increases the cost of additional dice of damage the "effective" range of attacks is actually quite narrow.

There is some truth to this, but it obfuscates the fact that there are many more ways to be "effective" in combat than just delivering a lot of damage and/or Stunning or KO'ing the opponent. People focus too much on blasting and not enough on being useful. A lower-damage character can block to protect teammates or civilians, they can throw opponents to the ground to set them up for the heavy hitters, they can leak just enough STUN through to prevent the opponent from getting his Recovery, they can figure out how to steal or disable the Evil McGuffin, they can engage the mooks who are slowing down the team's heavy hitters. As a rule of thumb low damage characters compensate for doing less damage per Phase by having more Phases to act, unusual powers, and/or by being ignored by the Big Bad because "they're harmless." Anyone think Black Widow or Captain America were "ineffective" in The Avengers movie? Should players only want to run Iron Man, Thor, or Hulk wannabes?

I've been playing the "low-damage" character in our campaign, Sil'f, for nearly 21 years, and I can guarantee nobody in our gaming group would even remotely categorize Sil'f as ineffective. On more than one occasion she's been the only team member still standing during a fight, including a notable one against Eurostar about 10 years ago which we discussed on this forum.

As I noted above, our team's damage spread goes from 9d6 to 17d6 (with an average of about 13d6) and yet everyone seems to have plenty of fun. And that's the whole point of the exercise, isn't it?

I want to add one more thing.

 

For the record, I find the Multiform approach distasteful. But I'll defend the right to allow it as hard as one of my own builds only because I may find a square hole for that square peg to fit into at some point in the future.

It's distasteful for a totally valid reason: It's a bogus way to build most characters. Multiform makes perfect sense if you're building Iron Man's various unique sets of armor or Bruce Banner/The Incredible Hulk. But it is absurd to consider it a way to model Superman, a character who only changes his clothes but always has all of his powers. It's as absurd as building Victory Man as a character with a 300 point "Transform (Major) Foe to Defeated Foe" power. Wouldn't be a very interesting fight now, would it?

The Hero system allows players to do almost anything, but just because it can be done doesn't mean it should be done. Sometimes the player has to exercise a bit of restraint; and if he doesn't then his GM has to. Players and GM's both need to keep in mind that this is a system designed to allow interactive storytelling. If it isn't going to provide an interesting game session, why bother playing at all?

Originally posted by Hyper-Man:

 

Can you please cite a source (any edition) supporting this?

 

A general tenent of the rules is that the mechanics are sfx neutral. The classic argument is one Steve often uses in interviews: Hero Powers(mechanics) don't have a Lightning Bolt power, instead they have (Energy)Blast or Killing Attack(Ranged) that a player can then flavor to match the effect he wants a Lightning Bolt to have. Frameworks and tweener power/frameworks like Duplication and Multiform follow the same tenant.

You've drawn exactly the wrong conclusion from Steve's example. True, the Hero System doesn't have a "Lightning Bolt" power; the character does. Voltage Man can use any of several game system mechanics to model his "Lightning Bolt" (EB or RKA or Flash or some other way) but the point is that he has it. That's why 5ER has an entire page on SFX (p. 96) and another (p. 97) on "Reasoning from Effect" to show the intent behind working backwards from the desired special effect. That's why Step 1 on page 97 is "Decide what sort of power you want to create by choosing the power's special effect." The player isn't supposed to say "I want my new character to have a 4d6 RKA!" as he begins creating his character; he's supposed to go "I want my character to shoot laser beams out of his eyes!" Nor are Powers supposed to be "sfx neutral"; the pluses and minuses of each unique sfx are simply supposed to balance out in play over the long term. The SFX are what ultimately define the power, not it's build.

SFX are supposed to be considered first, not last.

Powers in HERO are not saddled to special effect. If Multiform is good enough for Iron-Man then it's good enough for Superman. And aren't Iron-Man's abilities just a tech (sfx) version of Superman's? There is nothing wrong mechanically with using a Multiform approach to simulate Superman's abilities. It just seems like an overly complicated one (and I'm an expert on complicated!) that would require maintaining & updating multiple character sheets when spending XP.

I beg to differ. The Hero system is explicitly tied to sfx; the rules clearly state that sfx are supposed to trump mere system mechanics. Yes, one could legally build a Multiform version of Superman which included "Heat Vision Superman" and "X-Ray Vision Superman" and "Freeze Breath Superman" and "Faster Than Light Superman" and "Planet Moving Superman" and "Time Traveling Superman" and "Utterly Invulnerable Superman" and "Immovable Object Superman" and a veritable host of Multiforms, but it would be violating a prime system metarule.

It would be just as valid to build Silver Age Superman as a human-sized Vehicle for a sentient race of Kryptonian DNA-equivalent molecules. If each crewman donates one point towards the "team vehicle" then Superman could be built with millions or even billions of points.

I don't think Superman ever challenged God' date=' and got blasted off the side of a mountain for it.[/quote']

 

That goes to hubris and temperament, not powerset.

 

I think the protagonist in Gladiator got a much more raw deal than Kal-El so far as his parental units - both Kryptonian and human.

I've been thinking about that. It also violates my own goal of creating characters with a 60 Active Point Max in powers.

 

However, a multiform doesn't mean someone has to become a Dragon, or a Hulk. I've used it with Tony Stark to give him more versions of his Armor.

 

With Superman it is him changing from Standard Superman to Faster Then a Speeding Bullet Superman, and then to Power Powerful Then A Locomotive Superman.

 

Work in progress.

Superman changing from Standard Superman to Faster Then a Speeding Bullet Superman and then to More Powerful Then A Locomotive Superman is just XP. Look at the earliest versions of Superman - he didn't fly; he jumped. He was bulletproof, and mostly fought corrupt officials and mobsters, not supervillains.

Superman is, BTW, an outright ripoff of a character from a book called Gladiator. I doubt it's still in print, but I read it online years ago. All the early Superman's creators did was change his origin and add a costume. The powers are totally identical.

The key is a 50 Points VPP' date=' Cosmic (+2), Multiform Only (-1) 87 Points[/quote']

 

How do you justify a Multiform given that Superman certainly doesn't have anything even vaguely resembling alternate forms? He has exactly the same powers as Clark Kent as he does as Superman.

Also' date=' there are real examples of foreign nationals being members of the U.S. military. One of my Coast Guard shipmates was an Aussie.[/quote']

 

My best friend's dad was Welsh and joined the US Army to gain his US citizenship; he ended up with a 20 year career in the Army.

NP. I'm not particularly known for my tact. I just wish he'd have taken it in the spirit in which it was intended instead of running off in a huff. You really can learn useful things here if you take the time to listen.

Maybe "Clark Kent" is' date=' but Superman is a self-avowed Krytonian.[/quote']

 

This being the USA, Clark Kent is as American as any other immigrant child legally adopted by an American family and is good to go as long as he doesn't run for president.

bigbywolfe, before you accuse me of "putting words in his mouth" perhaps you ought to read limaxophobic's actual quote in Post #7.1: "I don't really care for running or playing 'stories' ".

As to being "rude" to him, I beg to differ. He asked for input on how to address an issue he had as a GM and I gave it to him straight, like I would to any adult. I've been playing Champions for 30 years and running a single campaign for 20 of those years; I'd like to think I've picked up a few solid approaches by now. He asked what I presumed was a serious question and I gave him a serious answer; only to have him categorically reject all of the suggestions that were given by a number of members with more experience. Now that's rude.

If this modest criticism makes him think this board is too hostile then he's got no business being a GM.

What is it about Fanfiction.net that they think it's a good idea to center all story text instead of the standard left justification that western peoples have been using for 1500 years? I find it makes reading stories there very difficult.

I've bookmarked your story and I'll try to read it soon.

If we go by the general guidelines that I have seen in these forums quite frequently two bricks slugging it out would definitely be able to KO each other. Published materials may differ somewhat but it is hard to determine because they don't seem to subscribe to any specific "basis" or powerlevel but bounce around quite a bit (not a complaint, just a comment. A GM can always adjust a published character to be appropriate to his/her campaign).

 

But for an example lets take a look at the Brick from the Champions: Ironclad. For reference here are his stats (from CC).

 

STR 60, DEX 18, CON 30, OCV 7, DCV 6, SPD 5, PD 25/23r, ED 25/23r, REC 20, END 60, BODY 15, STUN 60, 4 CSL's w/HTH

 

Attacks:

Normal: 12d6 HTH(STR Punch)

Sword: 4d6 HKA (after STR)

 

Note that I only included the combat specific stats here.

 

Against himself he does a respectable average of 17 stun with a normal punch, 24 if he puts all his CSL's into damage. He has 5 phases a turn and would likely land about half the blows he threw (depending of course on what his clone did) so he would average SOMEWHERE around 40-50 STUN Damage a turn. He recovers 20 of that, but only has 60 STUN so it would probably take around 2-3 turns for one of the combatants to get laid out. His HKA would be a complete waste of time however because his Resistant Defenses are so high, but he is still capable of being knocked out, although stunned is rather unlikely (a Haymaker is far to unlikely to land against himself in a 1 on 1 fight and so would be a VERY bad tactical choice).

I would only observe that IME Ironclad is also a fairly puny brick defense-wise - almost what we'd call a "demi-brick. In the 30 years I've been playing Champions I've seen plenty of MAs with PD and ED in the 23 range. We didn't usually consider someone a "true" brick until both his PD/ED and CON were in the upper end of the 20s or low 30's and/or he slapped on some Damage Reduction. His STUN is good, as is his REC, but he definitely suffers from low defenses.

Of course one thing to note is that this is one of the VERY few published Heroes out there. There are TONS of villains, but in most cases villains are designed to go up against a TEAM of heroes and so likely need higher defenses to keep them in a fight longer. If the team can take out Grond or the like in one hit then there isn't much of a challenge there.

 

As far as the general guidelines I have seen around here Bricks are usually not any more damaging than any other archetype (esp if there are power level caps) 14d6 EB's are about as common and 70 STR bricks. The difference is that Bricks rely on being able to take hits (and don't worry much about DCV therefore) while Energy Projectors rely on DCV + Range Mod and Speedsters/MA rely on DCV + Aborting to stay standing in a fight. The only MAJOR difference I have seen is that bricks tend to be very hard to do BODY damage to compared to the others, but again that is likely because they will be getting hit by KA's a lot more often than other archetypes and so any BODY they did take could quickly become a problem.

On this I agree 100%. While in our campaign our brick comfortably rules the roost damage-wise with 17d6 (85 STR), her defenses against ED attacks is actually slightly lower (31/28r) than our primary Energy Projector, and the EB is our second most powerful on the attack. But the EB falls vastly short in the CON and STUN departments.

Your observation of the result of damage caps mirrors our experience precisely. When we started our MidGuard campaign in 1992 we imposed caps (12 DC) and every single PC did 11 or 12 DC's. When we relaxed them with the release of 5E the damage range spread from 10 to 15 DC's. Currently it's from 9d6 (The 9d6 character can also apply AP or PEN advantages to the 9d6 by burning triple the usual END, so the effective low end is probably around 11DC.) to 17d6. Everybody seems happier with this spread.

I my mind choosing to hinder ones self in a challenge is a form of mockery so see what you are describing as a very powerful presence attack

Certainly it is a type of mockery, but I can't see how it is a Presence attack since it has no effect on the opponent (besides possibly pissing him off).

I've never particularly liked any of the stock HD Export formats, although the old Champions Two Column was decent. For many years now I've either just played my characters directly off HD3 or used a character sheet I designed in MS Word solely for my primary character.