Niles

Re: Skills? How many points are normal?

Depending on the concept' date=' I would and have allowed this. Heck, I've played this in my attempts to make a characters who are burger flippers in their day to day jobs but too new to the hero scene to have a lot of Knowledge skills about villains and such. I try to get them growing fast, as they soon decide not just to be better heroes, but that they want more out of their lives when out of costume too. It can be interesting and usually does lead to them getting more skills as time passes.[/quote']

Oh indeed, a character with few skills at the start of the game is likely to be an inexperienced hero, whose development is best reflected by adding skills with experience. But those heroes exist.

Re: Skills? How many points are normal?

Wow. Our play experience is VERY different. I have never' date=' ever in my 15 years of playing Hero EVER seen a list like that. Never, and I've played in a number of games where there were skill requirements.[/quote']

I exagurated for effect, but I have on this board.

 

Repeatedly.

Re: Skills? How many points are normal?

Not remotely. The Skills are still persuant to GM permission' date=' and most likely limited to a base roll.[/quote']

Where else is a ten year old going to spend a GM mandated 35-70 points on skills? Not all character concepts call for alot of points of skills, you have conceeded this in the specific but still you endorse a minimum skill expenditure, so high it closes of many character concepts, and forces others to buy skills far out of concept, or to buy huge lists of KS's or SS's that between them rightly are one or two skills at most.

 

Whenever I see characters made for campaigns with a minimum ependiture on skills I see stupidity such as this:

KS:the martial world

KS:famous martial artists

KS:noteworthy martial artists

KS:interesting martial artists

KS:martial arts history

KS:history of martial arts

etc.

Re: Skills? How many points are normal?

I suppose I should amend my statement to "I don't read comic books anymore." Which is why I am of the opinion the writing sucks' date=' because I believe it does.[/quote']

I owe you an apology, I am sorry.

 

I had misinterpreted your statement as an expression of pride in ignorance, an attitude I detest.

Re: Skills? How many points are normal?

I don't read comic books.

I don't want to be rude, but if you are, as you claim, ignorant of the source material how can we give your opinions any weight? And why if you don't have interest in the genre are you even posting on this specific board?

Re: Skills? How many points are normal?

So yeah - 0 pts of skills with no obvious adventuring application. Everything else should come to (IMO) 10-20% of the character at least.

Re: Skills? How many points are normal?

I'm pretty sure I could pass that challenge for Superman or Thing. At least, as they are now. Not so sure about them at the very beginning of their publication history though.

 

Out of curiosity, who were the other people on your list?

This is not to say mutant kids or radiation infused janitors are invalid concepts or anything. But I would personally be frustrated if I couldn't contribute anything to the team except ammusing roleplaying and combat. YMMV

Re: Skills? How many points are normal?

I'm not trying to be a jerk here, you did better than the most of the people on the old thread. But...

The Thing shouldn't be hard: ex-gang member/football star/Army Air Force (or was it Marine?) pilot. The latter apparently involving both "test pilot" and "combat pilot" roles. Let's see: Streetwise' date=' AK: Yancy Street neighbourhood, Combat Pilot, PS: Test Pilot, TF: Sundry planes, parachutes etc, plus whatever other training you feel like giving him. Survival training? KS: Commies/Nazis/Baddies. KS: US military. Etc.[/quote']The chalenge was prompted by someone declaring that all characters needed at least 10 points of background skills of no obvious adventuring application. I didn't count the skills needed to fly the team vehicle, and probably wouldnt have counted most of the military skills, if anyone had brought them up.

 

Likewise' date=' Reed Richards: Serious scientist guy and OSS veteran (spy). Everything you can eat, plus Commando Training![/quote'] Yeah, Reed has a hella lot of skills, I never wanted to claim nobody broad swaths of skills, just that it wasn't nessecary for superheros to have broad swaths of skills. Johnny was on the list, and Sue certainly could have been.

Superman: Knows about Krypton' date=' space/aliens, Smallville, and either farming or small town shopkeeping. Can speak Kryptonese. There's ten. He would have had all of this stuff by the time he went to Metropolis. Oh yes, and Robot Engineering, since he built his Superboy robots as a kid![/quote']It's much harder if you assume the post-crisis superman.

 

Flash (Barry Allen): Police scientist. Is an actual cop' date=' as well as a scientist, although I wouldn't give him a lot of "street" stuff. A couple of KS's, Forensics, and a science skill or two should do, but that's 10 points there. (Breakfall would be nice too, but that's not really background!) That's ignoring what he knew about Earth-2 from reading comics about it as a kid![/quote'] Not on the list, Barry's highest skill would be SS: physics, and you could make a good arguement he used it as the control skill on his VPP.

 

Green Lantern (Hal Jordan): a fairly tight squeeze here. He's a test pilot. He might have been ex-military' date=' although I'm not sure if that was stated. He certainly knows a few things about aeronautics. I'd have to scratch around to be certain of an undeniable ten points. He didn't orginally know much about the Green Lantern Corps, the Guardians and so on. He had some contacts, though.[/quote'] People scratched around alot on every Hero they tried, and I had to disqualify a number of skills as redundancies, exagerations (Ben Grimm plays cards for relaxation, but that doesn't mean he has the gambling skill.) or as everyman skill people wanted to pay for even though they were getting them free(PS:My Job is an everyman skill people).

 

I've followed their early Silver Age continuities if any of these statements seem confusing. Obviously a bunch of these things weren't established until after the character first appeared' date=' so you could happily ignore them in a "First Issue" version of the character.[/quote']And why shouldn't we assume a first issue aproach for starting characters?

Re: Skills? How many points are normal?

I hope this is humor

 

Speaking personally, were I to ever GM a game where a player gave me a Character with 6 points in Skills (that's 2 skills) I would send them back.

 

But everyone's game is different.

Last time this came up I challanged anyone on the thread to come up with 10 points of background skills Inargueably possesed by any of 5-8 (mostly) prominent comic book superheros, after much brainstorming they got close but failed for the Thing and Superman, and failed utterly everywhere else.

My last Champions Character was a 14 year old kid newly recruited into an X-men like mutant team. Are you going to tell me that he needed more points in skills than an average citizen has in total to reflect his knowledge and expertice?

Re: Skills? How many points are normal?

For many Character Concepts 0-6 points is more than sufficient. Don't let anyone tell you any differently. Also remember your everyman skills.

Re: Firewing vs. Gravitar?

Don't confuse "munchkin" with "powerful." That would be ludicrous: causing laughter with the absurd. Menton is powerful' date=' Gravitar is both.[/quote']

 

You have this exactly backwards, Gravitar is powerful, and Menton is Munchkin.

 

If Menton wants you dead, you die; unless you have fairly high level of Hardened Resistant mental defense. Yeah that's something you ought to just assume you need.

 

Gravitar is merely built to take on groups of weaker foes without using the tired default tactic of pick a guy, hammer him into GM's option, repeat. Destroyer by contrast is built to take on huge single opponents, he wins against groups merely by virtue of power, he performs much better against powerful foes than Gravitar does. I don't like his build, it feels like a reasonable villain with all the active points arbitrarily doubled.

 

Gravitar is markedly less munchkin than 4th. Ed. Eurostar. (hello, our CVs average about 3-4 points above other villians of our point value, and we all have more speed than our concepts realy justify)

Re: Batman vs Midnighter

Aside from Midnighter's super abilities' date=' isn't this match basically like Kasparov vs. Deep Blue?[/quote']

 

For a computer playing grandmaster level chess is signifigantly easier than bipedal locomotion.

Re: Batman vs Midnighter

As for this matchup' date=' Midnighter does NOT fight like a person, he fights like a computer. There should be no body language cues besides those physics dictates[/quote']

Most of any skilled fighter's body language cues are dictated by physics. As for the supposed utility of his tactical computer, interpreting sensory inputs and manuvering a body in a physics ruled 3 dimensional space are things computers are really bad at. Midnighter always benifitted from a large dollop of writers wank. he's dangerous but he's nowhere near invincible.

 

That said he is still stronger and tougher than Batman, that was enough for Bane the first time.

Re: Economics 101: Character Building in a Point-Based System

We don't see more 45 Dex Bricks because the GMs blanche when someone builds a non "archetype" character. All Bricks are slow. It's not just a good idea' date=' it's the law [/quote']

 

No, in the Comics almost all Bricks are Fast.

 

Lets look at some classic comic book Bricks

 

Captain Marvel: Fast enough to pluck bullets out of the air with the Speed of Hermes

Wonder Woman:Fast enough to pluck bullets out of the air with the Speed of Hermes

Supeman: Fast enough to pluck bullets out of the air.

The Hulk: Fast enough to pluck bullets out of the air. his foes are often shown thinking " how can anything that big move so fast?" in their last moment of consiousness

 

Beginning to see a pattern?

Re: Normals w/Abilities vs Supers [Offshoot of CSL vs MA]

I think that Normal Charicteristic Maxima should be removed from the game as a disadvantage. I have no objection to it appearing as a suggested campiagn rule for heroic level games, but as a disadvantage it's a crock.

Either a Character is going to be built without signifigantly violating the Maxima anyway in which case "a disadvantage which is not a disadvantage is not worth points," or they aren't going to buy it unless forced by the GM.

Re: Practical Costuming (not quite a WWYCD)

Yeah' date=' I know, the excuse for traditional heroic is that it allows "ease of motion", but it's also a bit impractical at times. Really, unless you [i']want[/i] the world to know all about your undies, does it make sense for a flying character to wear a miniskirt (I am looking at you, Supergirl)? Not to mention Powergirl's amazing "cleavage window"!

Power Girl's "cleavage window" serves the valuable purpose of keeping artists from drawing her costume as if it were body paint.

Re: What I learned playing a blaster!

No Range Modifier is a very nice advantage.

Almost always more expensive than a sufficiency of penalty skill levels though.

Re: The things I learned playing a ninja!

Never make the mistake of thinking you can whip a pure martial artist in a "fair" fight - He'll hand you your head.

Unless you are also a pure martial artist, in which case stop calling yourself a ninja.

(I'm talking to you Seeeker)

Re: Difficulty reaching Super-Hero status

I'd remove the limitations on your dex and speed. I don't see how the armor as you described it makes the wearer more agile.

1 more point of int actualy saves you points.

I'd consider scaling up the pilot to a more heroic stature generally, if you want to emphase the limits of the armor. also you'll probablly have more fun if the GM puts you in a situation where you don't have access to the suit

Knockback resistance is in theme and with your low speed you don't want to waste actions getting up. (oh wait you already have that)

extra running in a wheeled mode (say kneel down and have wheels on your knees and toes) to be able to chase down hoodlums in their getaway cars.

maybe some kind of multi-use launchable grapnel on a retractable cable?

Re: Creating the Silver Age Team

Doesn't the team need a Rick Jones/Snapper Carr type as a DNPC?

Re: Power Build: Super Archery

You can't make a Multiple Power attack with multiple slots in the same Multipower.

 

You can get a similar effect with a Compound Power in one of the MP Slots.

Is that a 5eR change? In 5th you certainly can.

Re: House Rule: Banning Multipowers & Elemental Controls?

The same GM who requires 10 points be spent on background skills will need to define what they are. I ocnsider Deduction a stretch in that regard, as well, however.

 

PS: Reporter; PS: Writer; AK: Metropolis and KS: Krypton would fill 10 points with 2 on CHAR rolls and 2 at 11-. That seems easy.

You are buying the same PS twice and I don't think of Superman as being much more knowledgable about Metropolis than the average long time resident. Which leaves you with KS: Krypton. I'll add Conversation as a possibitity. between Conversation and Deduction you don't need to raise your PS to be a good reporter.

What you appear to be missing here is that Everyman skills are meant to provide a character with all the skills they need to be a productive member of society.

Re: House Rule: Banning Multipowers & Elemental Controls?

IMO, the 8- Everyman skills are insufficient for something that someone actually does as their job, if they're any good at it.

Everyman PS isn't 8-.

Re: House Rule: Banning Multipowers & Elemental Controls?

He's presumably making them 3 point skills' date=' not 8- Everyman familiarities.[/quote']

Probably for deduction, almost certainly not for the others. leaving him with 9 points of background skills if the GM accepts that Deduction counts. And Deduction is as much a background skill as teamwork.

 

Ben has been established as a fighter jet pilot' date=' as well as the pilot of Reed's experimental spacecraft. He also played football, so could have some professional skills there.[/quote']

Asking someone to buy a PS for collegette football is stealing points from your players.

Re: House Rule: Banning Multipowers & Elemental Controls?

Going with the ones I'm more familiar with, and not spending much thought:

 

Superman:

 

PS: Reporter

AK: Metropolis

KS: Krypton

Deduction

Disguise (and not just the glasses either)

3 of the 5 skills you listed are everyman skills, this doesn't reach 10 points

The Thing:

 

various transport familiarities (probably at least 10pts in today's system)

Combat Pilot

Gambling (Card Games)

PS: Pilot

AK: New York City

Navigation: Air

Ben Plays cards for relaxation but I've never thought of him as a Card Sharp. Combat Piloting and Navigation for the Team Vehicle aren't really backgound skills, the TFs total 4 points at most and you included 2 everyman skills.

Human Torch:

 

Mechanics

TF: Ground-based Racing vehicles

Combat Driver

Navigation: Air