Qelan

Re: Character Effectiveness

This is my approach: Relevance and Reliability

Very nice article!

Re: The Most Powerful Laxative Known To Man

This is one of the meanest power concepts I have encountered to date.

I think change environment with a variable combat effect of lower OCV or DEX rolls, actually just about any negative stat modifier could be justifiably based on the description of cramping and err… having leakage… Man, this is a really terrible thing to do too someone. Is this a NPC or Player idea?

Ok, I want to use this against some players now.

Re: Character Effectiveness

I've been toying with the idea of largely ignoring points as a measure of effectiveness and not replacing it with anything. Although it is not particularly helpful here, The Eyeball is often the most effective way of measuring a character.

 

If you want to rate combat effectiveness you need to take into consideration CV, DCs of damage, SPD and DEF (and probably loads of other stuff), but of course a character can be very effective without ever getting into combat

The eyeball guide line is how most people I know measure the effectiveness of character but with a point based game system and the mathematical effects

of advantages and limitations the real points spent on a character should give a good idea how effective a character is compared to others.

Of course character design plays a large roll as well as some abilities are just too expensive (i.e. Life Support) therefore using a factor that’s applied to the RP cost vs each

ability could rectify the problem. Character Design will be much harder to quantify mathematically but with so many pre-generated ones to sample from it should be possible.

Re: Character Effectiveness

Remember to include a player effectiveness multiplier at the end.

 

Seriously.

 

You can hand the EXACT same character to two different players, and depending on the players' skills one will regularly be more effective than the other.

It is true that a skilled player makes a difference but my objective is to create a rating system that will measure the abstract concept of game effectiveness.

By polling the game community I hope to generate a semi-accurate system that should be less bias then one generated from my own opinions.

Re: Character Effectiveness

"Factors" are always going to be influenced by GM preference and the Game World so attempting to come up with generic factors is, to be blunt and a bit punny, pointless.

 

You've actually given a prime example of this by rating Comliness at .01, you might has just as well rated it at .02 and been done with it.

 

5 points in comliness represents +2 to a complimentary roll that is effective ~ 50% of the time on all social skills, so it averages +1 with all social skills with a -1 limitation (Normally 2.5 points) but also carries the possibility of great or lesser effect (cost unknown but value determined by player preference. Certainly could be as great as a +1 Advantage). So would you also consider 5 Point Skill levels w/ Social Skills to carry a factor of .01, or would they carry the .5 you outlined for skills?

Actually, I should not have given it a .01 it should really be 1.0. I assigned it that value because the stat should have more social modification as PRE is defined or should just be another aspect of PRE stat. But, by my own definition of effectiveness it should be rated 1.0

So, yes, I agree with you

Lately I have been entertaining the idea of coming up with second effectiveness rating system. I dug up the first EF system and noticed quite a few things I don’t agree with and after awhile I realized I might want to start from scratch.

After some thought I asked myself, why in a point based game system would I need an EF system?

A 350pt character should be more effective then a 250pt one.

A power that’s 75AP should be more effective then a 60AP one.

But, a 75AP power with limitations should be less effective then a 75AP power with fewer limitations.

At this point I realized that the real point cost should factor into evaluating the effectiveness more than or almost as much as the AP of a power.

After further examination I concluded,

The main reason an EF rating is wanted is because I or maybe some of you disagree with the point cost of some powers.

The evidence is pretty obvious when you compare 2 character built with the same amount of points but somehow one comes out way more effective, oh, maybe I should have defined what I see as effective before I started this. When I say effective I don’t mean just combat I also mean having influence in a game world out of combat also. Powers that affect the flow of a story and control its directions could be more effective then a 10d6RKA (hehe).

So, after this conclusion I want to start coming up with factors for all the powers and characteristics separately, and maybe skills on a whole. Then use the factor against the real points spent on each item, add the totals together to get what I would call an effectiveness rating. The factors should be how we evaluate each item as a percentile.

For example I would rate comeliness as 1% effective so I would give it a .01 factor vs the real points (RP) spent

Life Support .5 factor

Most Skills .5 factor

Powers in a framework need some conideration

So now the work begins. If I am off base on any of my observations I would appreciate any clarification anyone would like to add.

Re: Brooklyn Rage!

I stopped using absorption and just purchased extra stats or powers with limitations to simulate the effect of absorption. It was much cleaner and the results predictable pertaining to campaign limits. Everyone was much happier after that.

Re: Switching Places

Alrighty, I've got a poser for you guys, not quite sure on how to go about this one.

 

Okay, so the idea behind the power is that its a defensive teleportation ability that allows you to switch places with someone that is about to get hit. So that in an instant you are standing where your ally was and your ally is now where you were, and as a result you are the target for whatever attack was about to hit them. I figure this power needs the ability to Abort to suddenly do this. I'm not overly clear on teleportation so I figured I'd toss it up on the forum.

 

- revxopher

From the description of the power it sounds like an attack must be launched. If it is an attack then you can not abort to it so to use it defensively you will need a held action to launch it. Teleport UAA w/ triggered Teleport seems to perform the task with these constraints imposed on the design.

Oh, dont forget to add limited range on the UAA power to match the triggered teleport.

Re: Machine Class of Minds

Next we should discuss letting players take the Machine Class of mind...

The more this topic is analyzed I start seeing the merit of your statement.

Mind Powers – Machine Class of Minds does seem to require a bit of handwavium or logic leaps but in the end as long as you end up with a definable power that performs with repeatable and consistent results then that’s all that really matters. But then that’s the real trick in character design.

Re: Personal Sacrifice

Build a Power or Power Framework that is only usable every 5 mins. Once active it can be accessed for 60 seconds without penalty.

The Penalty; Lose a percentage of STUN or BODY or both each time power is activated.

Maybe lose END also or all 3 stats.

Re: Machine Class of Minds

Very intersting stuff. So, this should mean only electrically powered machine class of minds would be a limitation, might be only worth +0 or +1/4 but it would be a limitation?

Re: Switching Places

Teleport UAA, and a Triggered Teleport that moved your character in place.

You would need a held action so you could use it to abort someone’s attack in motion before it connected to your target.

End result, you get hit instead of target and the enemy loses his attack on you.

I am having a bit of trouble coming up with some real world examples of equipment that would be affected by Mind Powers – Machine Class of Minds.

Computers would be obvious, most vehicles have computers in them so you could communicate and or control some vehicles in a limited fashion (turn on/off, read log, input error codes, etc…) after these examples my brain starts to smoke.

Hmm, BTW, to input an error code into computer would that be mental illusions or mind control? I assume mental illusion but I could be wrong.

Any assistance would be appreciated.

Re: Beastboy

I know you were looking for a simple way to do BB but as someone mentioned earlier you might want to use a build like this;

Shapechange( animal forms)

Armor, Life Support, Movement MultiPower, Clinging, Extra Limb, all powers var. FX and powers based on ShapeChanging

Growth/Shrinking Multipower

+STR based on Growth

+DEX based on less Growth

Maybe some stretching or some skills based on ShapeChanging. The Armor will be subject to GM judgment limitation but doesn’t have to represent a realistic toughness of normal animals. (gee, his hide is like tank armor)

If this is a new player I would most likely not give him the full character sheet but more of a cheat sheet for his character and let the GM hold the full sheet for the actual values needed.

Re: Game Mechanics

Well, memory is usually an INT roll, isn't it? How about

 

Change Environment, -1 to INT rolls [1" radius], -25 to INT rolls [75] 80 points; 0 END [+1/2], Persistent [+1/2] AP 160, no range [-1/2], Always On [-1/2], Self Only [only affects rolls to remember character; -1/2], not while in character's presence [-1/2] Real Cost 64 points

I like this idea maybe more then the invisibility, instead of a -20 INT roll I would go with a -3 (if it was an NPC) because this would make it easier to have dialogue about the memory thief that is terrorizing the team.

I think this character could fairly easily be simulated with "functional invisibility". That is, when he doesn't want to be noticed, he's "invisible" to organic senses. This means that things like tripwires, door sensors, cameras, etc. might be able to "detect" him, depending on how you want it to work. The special effects aren't that he's invisible, but observers are forgetting every moment that they just saw the guy.

This makes a good case how invisibility could simulate the effect…err, in other words I agree with you.

Several good points throught the thread

Re: Can you look this character over

It is and it isn't. First off the actual amount of damage you do in terms of stun is not necessarily any higher than what you would do with any other attack which start with bigger numbers but are reduced by defences. That means that, for a character, they are not necessarily taking down the opposition any faster than their team mates (although they do more permanent damage) and the 'not v force fields' thing does gives a lot of in-game GM discretion to limiting the power.

 

If the team have a healer then this does make for an interesting and scary villain - they will not be used to taking Body damage.

 

The use of HtH Attack is a bit unbalancing because of the way it deals with advantages (commuting them to STR for free), and you could easily build it as a no range EB, so you won't get STR added at all, if you feel the total is too gross. Probably not a bad way to model a light sabre.

Yea, the scary part is getting the advantages on str for free. I have to admit I have used it myself (yea, usually on +1d6HA) but generally not adding more than +1/2 worth of advantages. I hoped lightning wouldn't strike me down when the character saved if I restrained myself

Any chance of seeing a graphic compilation of characters/NPCs art? Maybe even some dialogue and/or action scenes? Oh, and make it like 500 pages, yea, 500… that’s good.

Re: Game Mechanics

If there were a Memory Group, would Darkness (Memory Group) make you (temporarily) forget *everything*? After all, it completely blocks that "Group".

 

If that worked it would really produce some interesting effects and dialogue after you turn it off.

Re: Ankylosaur is up

From the venerable Champions 2:

 

Thank you, Its been so long since I seen that. I wonder if I can find any of my old champions materials? Maybe at my parents house somewhere

Re: Beastboy

Well the concept was to build BB so that a new player' date=' read 10-15 YO could play him. Shapechangers can be a bear [/quote']

 

Don’t give up hope yet. Sometimes I find that new players have a better grasp with RPGs because they don’t limit their imaginations with "the rules".

 

Just explain to the new player that he can shapchange to any animal form but you control his character sheet. So, if he needs super str he might change to an elephant or great ape. You can then explain to him that the elephant maybe able to absorb more damage then the ape but the ape is more mobile. Soon he will start coming up with some of their own interesting choices.

 

Sometimes for new players I make a separate character sheet that only list the titles of their powers or active powers without any math or numbers. Sometimes they will add short explanations.

Re: Can you look this character over

 

Hand-To-Hand Attack +4d6, No Normal Defense (Force Fields (sfx); +1), Does BODY (+1) (60 Active Points); OAF (-1), Hand-To-Hand Attack (-1/2), Required Hands Two-Handed (-1/2)

 

I once put that same idea down in a HDC file for a character then after looking at it for a min I deleted the idea. It's one of the scariest thoughts I have ever had... It's just nasty

Re: Game Mechanics

There's no such thing as a "Memory Group" unless the GM specifically creates it in his game. And also gives everybody a Memory Sense as well, I guess.

Why couldn’t memory be a sense? What is memory and how does it work? Can you buy invisibility to unusual sense groups or specific detect powers? Anyway, as you were saying, it really depends on the GM running the game.

Re: PRE Attacks

I agree with The Rose, It is like an alternate form of experience that I feel will help add to the immersion of the campaign. I am getting a lot of good ideas from this thread. Thanks for all the input.

Re: THE BOOK OF THE DESTROYER: What Do *You* Want To See?

I take it this also means we won't have Marksman lighting a match on his armor and calling him "Al".

That would be awsome, or have Mechassasin doing the deed as his last act of life. If I beg would they put that scene in the book?

Re: THE BOOK OF THE DESTROYER: What Do *You* Want To See?

Based on the description of the technology D. Destroyer uses I imagine even when he is not wearing his formal costume (I am pretty sure its just for a psychological advantage) most of his normal clothing would include the bulk of his powers.

Now and then I imagine scenarios with Destroyer interacting with the populace incognito for some inscrutable reason. What I would like to see is “your” image of a stately elderly gentleman, possibly some definable reasons he would interact personally, and should he have any of his powers without his costume?