sentry0

Isn't his versatility already reflected by his stats? When he needs to he can generate a high DCV at the expense of his damage He can throw down an impressive 13 dice (or 14) if he has the opportunity He can generate a high OCV if he needs to He can choose to generate some variation of the 3 by picking a maneuver and allocating his level Do you have an alternate way of representing that versatility? I'd love to have your feedback on making the sheet better.

None of this is based on real world, it's a game where you can special effect things to be whatever you and your GM are comfortable with. Mental Defense is power and an exotic defense to boot I personally just don't buy Defender having it given his shtick but I can buy him being a little evasive in mental combat because of his high EGO. There's a huge difference between being strong willed and having the power of mental defense IMO...you could certainly special effect MD as an iron will but again I just don't see it for Defender. If your GM is cool with it then power to you, it wouldn't fly in my game unless I trusted that the player wasn't just being a munchkin. I don't include standard combat or optional maneuvers in the calculation, I'm only concerned with unique abilities across characters. You're getting into tactics which is not the goal of my experiment.

I switched to an alternate browser and did that, no love.

I tweaked a few baseline stats in the spreadsheet: baseline EGO is 13 baseline DMCV is 4 baseline STUN is 40 This puts Witchcraft at +4.8% which still puts her on top of her fellow Champions but much less so than before. In addition to the tweaks to baseline stats I did the following: Fixed some issues with Kinetic's OCV/DCV being a little lower than it should have been Added +16 DCV to Shrinker to give a more accurate representation of what you'll likely see her at in combat Green Dragon is a monster compared to the other characters... Reacts faster then a Kinetic and has the same SPD (Kinetic is a speedster) Can generate high CVs through a combination of MA, CSLs, and high base CVs High damage output potential (potentially as high as Ogre) With how he's built I don't see him ever being within a sane +/- range of the calculation...he's pretty OP compared to any single (non-mentalist) character on that list except for maybe Shrinker. Shrinker now has a +7.6% Rule of X which seems about right for someone swinging around that much raw damage with a massive DCV. Black Harlequin looks like a punk at -5.6% which seems about right

That makes sense to me

Shrinker is an interesting case...like most characters with Shrinking they're effectively unhittable with a standard OCV to DCV roll. It's part if the gimmick if being a shrinker after all. The 18 die attack is extra gimmicky though but w/e. If anything I feel like she's a great example as to why you need to dig deeper behind the numbers as a GM. Part of me is ok with Witchcraft's valuation, she did pay for all those points in CVs etc. She is effectively double dipping in the sense that the majority of characters never spend that many points on CVs and stick to physical CVs by a large margin. Maybe it makes sense to raise the campaign baselines for OMCV/DMCV...it would lower the Rule of X accross the boards for everyone. I'll tinker around with that later and see if I can put something together for mentalist valuations to level the field. Which brings me to your point about Defender and his allocation to MCVs. I personally don't see mental defense on a character like Defender and wouldn't likely let it fly in my game without a believable explanation from the player. Coming from 5th I DO see the rationale for higher MCUs because if his 15 EGO and how ECV used to be calculated. Although his 4 OMCV seems pretty pointless and feels like it would be better spent elsewhere ?

I added in a column for CSL and gave it a weight...for fun I threw in the characters included in Champions Complete and got some surprising (and unsurprising) results. Surprising: Shrinker only came out to +0.6% even with a potential 18d6 attack. Witchcraft came out to +8.8%, the most of all the Champions. Unsurprising: Green Dragon was way over the +5-10% range at +13.5%...his high DEX, Speed, and CVs added up quickly All things considered it seems "good enough" for my personal campaign needs, YMMV. Here's a screengrab

Those are all good points that I have no answer for off the top of my head. Maybe CSLs need to have their own column and weight in the equation. That may make them more manageable and stop them from inflating peoples CVs. Ogre is pretty expensive right now because of them.

I'm attaching a version of the spreadsheet to this post (it's made using LibreOffice). It's reasonably functional for my own needs but far from perfect...if you're interested in playing around with it then go for it and put feedback here or PM me. Buyer Beware: As has been discussed numerous times in this thread already this is not meant as a substitute for a GMs critical analysis of a character; it's an experiment that's attempting to make the rule of X workable. Theory of Operation All campaigns have some notion of baseline stats like DEX, SPD, CVs, etc The spreadsheet takes those baseline statistics as adjustable parameters and assigns a weight to each The Rule of X is the sum of all weights Characters who deviate from the norm are affected like this: Going above the campaign average costs the character proportionally more depending on how much more they exceed the norm Going below the norm discounts the stat for the character in the same manner as going above it does (ie. proportionally) There's a column labelled "+/- %" that tells you how close a character is the campaign Rule of X I recommend trying to keep characters within 5-10% of the Rule of X (leaning more towards 5%) Notes: All input variables (CON, DCV, oAP, etc) assume the highest possible values a character can generate (without pushing) it's not about what a character is likely to be at on any given segment of combat it is about what they could theoretically achieve if they had to put everything into a given task (like hitting a target or evading attacks) CSLs are tricky and I recommend counting them 2x if applicable (Ogre has 3 HTH CSLs that get factored into both his OCV and DCV, for example) Do not factor in standard or optional combat maneuvers into the variables if anyone can perform the maneuver then it's not relevant to the calculation (everyone can Dodge so we don't include that in the DCV entry, for example) Martial Arts are also tricky pick the greatest OCV bonus from your list of offensive maneuvers do the same for DCV except Martial Dodge counts as +2 only (the other +3 everyone has access to via standard Dodge) There are certainly things that require more thought and some things I think will never be achievable. I will state it again, this is not a substitute for a GMs eye...it's meant to be a possible resource for a GM not the sole means by which they judge a characters campaign viability.

Hah...yeah that group is for a campaign one-shot I'm planning on running at a mini-con...they would get stomped by a mentalist for sure. They're not "serious" characters per si they're for a very specific purpose so I skimped in some places and took some liberties with some balance choices (ie. the 17 die attack on the brick). My main goal with them is that they're simple to pick up and use and just fun to play...this mini-con is classically dominated by 5e D&D so I'm assuming the players will not be experienced players...hopefully I'm wrong! I'm also taking the opportunity to switch to 6th so there's a lot of learning and experimentation going on for me right now. I'm using this as an opportunity to question everything I think I know and trying to approach the switch to 6th with equanimity. This is actually where this whole "Rule of X" experiment was birthed from for me. Anyways, I appreciate your feedback on Martial Artists and will have to do some thinking on how to handle it fairly.

Actually, I can't see my like....curious and curiouser

Same issue here...I'll like your previous post.

That's an interesting idea. I'll have to think about that. Thanks!

Changes to the calculation: Did a pass and modified just about all of the weightings I added in stats for psychics The DC and oAP columns are now mutually exclusive...this means characters based on EGO attacks or Drains will be handled consistently Things to do: Possibly do something with dAP involving some sort of derived multiplier from DEF and rDEF Here's a screengrab for those curious to see how this is evolving.

I don't disagree with any of what you're saying and of course there will always be outliers...I'm really just curious if this is at all workable or utter nonsense. Again, there is no replacement for a GMs judgement...I view this as a potential tool to aid the GM not supplant the GMs judgement. I don't think I understand this comment, is this a reference to the tables in the 5th edition core rulebook or something else?

I want to reiterate that in my original post I said that I liked the way it was handled in 5th better than the Rule of X which was essentially campaign norms based on starting point levels. The title of this thread is the "Vagaries of the rule of X" not "I love the rule of x" The point of the exercise for me is to see if I can make a working Rule of X and see how well my first batch of 6th edition characters do. I have been tweaking the weights in my spreadsheet and things are pretty different now both the speedster and brick show up above 10% which I think is fair. The 17 die attack the brick has was questionable when I built him but I figured I would let it slide because it has Extra time and increased endurance costs. Nothing the Rule of X would catch mind you but the new tweaks to weighting call it out pretty clearly as a culprit for his inflated +%. I always pivot damage dice on SPEED and DCV in my games. The lower you go under the average SPEED and the lower your DCV the more defenses and damage I allow you to have, within reason obviously. The inverse is true for characters with high SPEED and DCV. It's simple and part art and part science but it allows for that spread so characters don't feel so homogenized. I don't think I'm unique here either, I learned this from my Champions mentor and I'd wager that others do exactly the same thing. I actually fully agree with you on the notion of the Rule of X being handwavy BS, especially the way it's spelled out in the official rules. I still want to take a run at this and see how far I can take it without needing a degree in Math. I guess I just like a challenge

I was thinking about this little experiment over lunch... Weighting is off in general I think OCV needs to be equal weight to DCV DCs and Speed need an adjustment Velocity needs an increase too...proportional to the DC weight increase Not sure what to do with psychics

VPPs are crazy, I have no idea how to calculate their relative value in this equation I really don't know if this will go anywhere...I'm just spitballing here. If something comes of this thread then cool but nothing ventured nothing gained I say.

I get what you're saying and none of those munchkinized characters would make it past me personally as a GM. People can (and will) game any system devised, the value of the Rule of X for me is as a relatively quick sanity check...the real work would still be done by the GM in terms of campaign viability. Like I said earlier in this thread: there is no substitute for a GMs judgement. Would you let someone into your campaign with a 57 PD/ED? I don't think so. One thing to keep in mind (that I didn't explicitly call out) is the campaign "baseline" stats established on row 3 of the spreadsheet. You could argue that is someone did what you suggested to good old Ogre there would be red flags all over his line item when compared to campaign baseline values. His DEX would be way low, he would have massive defenses and above average damage compared to the campaign averages. That's actually an argument in favor of the Rule of X as it quickly spots deviations from the norms. The end number could be in range of the campaign Rule of X but that character would never pass the sniff test by even a modestly caffeinated GM

I built a spreadsheet last night to calculate the Rule of X based on my previous post, I think it turned out pretty good. Some observations: I ended up weighting SPD and DCV heavily because of the massive impact those stats have on combat I added in CON to factor in how hard it is to stun the character DEX was likewise included to get a sense of initiative I ran 4 fresh characters I'm building for a mini-con through the sheet All the characters were within 10% of the campaign Rule of X It still needs more tweaking I think but I think it's a decent first attempt. Anyone see anything strange or concerning with my approach?

You could try Bluestacks...https://www.bluestacks.com/ I have no idea if it would work though...if you can't find the app in their store you should be able to manually install the APK.

All that makes sense. There's never going to be a substitute for GM eyes on a character. I think any GM and/or player blindly accepting some variation of the Rule of X calculation as proof a character is ready for playtime is going to be in for a bad time. The Rule of X is really this games version of horseshoes (or hand grenades) where close counts but there should be an objective way to say you are completely off target, right? I'm wondering if there isn't a way to come up with a "good enough" calculation that could help get characters in the right general vicinity. I think it makes sense to combine Offensive and Defensive Rules of X into a single monolithic calculation. If you look at the old 5th edition tables they list these as factors for power levels: Characteristics SPD CVs DCs Active Points Skill Points DEF/rDEF This is a good starting point but some are just not important and some need to be broken out into separate variables. Here's what I propose as the main factors in a characters power: SPD * 2 (maybe more) OCV DCV DC of highest attack AP / 5 of greatest attack power (PD + ED) / 2 (rPD + rED) / 2 STUN / 5 AP / 5 of greatest defensive power (including desolidification, deflection, invisibility, etc) Maximum velocity meters / 6 (does not count teleportation) These 10 factors may be the "good enough" variables the monolithic equation needs. Of course it's not perfect, there's a big difference between 60 AP in power defense and 60 AP in Damage Negation those are where the GM needs to intervene and use their own judgement. Their simply is no substitution for human GMs interpretation of a character. Anyways, this is all just me shooting from the hip here...I want to play around with this some more and run some characters through the equation before I come to any conclusions.

I recently bit the bullet and updated from 5th to 6th edition and have found the changes to 6th to be really refreshing and good. In particular, I have really liked how DEX has been decoupled from OCV/DCV...I knew that was a thing but actually sitting down and building a character that didn't have superhuman levels of DEX because their concept didn't call for it was gratifying. The one thing that irks me in 6th is that the rule of x is so vague. I really liked the old tables that existed in 5th edition (page 15 of the core book) that listed the point costs and character abilities guidelines better than the rule of x IMO. However, I think the rule of x has so much potential that I want to use it...I just need a more solid calculation Here's my preliminary thoughts for my rule of x calculations: Offensive Rule of X SPD * 2 (or 3 or higher??? Speed has such a massive impact on combat that I feel it should be weighted) OCV Highest offensive power/attack AP / 5 Defensive Rule of X Highest defensive power AP /5 DCV SPD * 2 (see above) STUN / 5 * (1 + (Damage Reduction percentage / 100)) The math nerd in me says that there are many variables, some that interact with other variables, some variables that should be weighted higher, that someone must have done the math on this. So, does anyone have a really slick rule of x to share or have anything to add to my calculation???

I agree that their needs to be a break before notes, I've added that to my TODO list. I think there is actually a space after the ":" it's just that the font butchers it I'll look into it though and confirm/deny that.

I came here not knowing what I'd find and leave pleasantly satisfied.