OOC Discussion/Rules Questions

[Zhym]

I thought about claws, but I have an unnatural aversion to Wolverine knockoffs.

I'm not sure what knacks might fit, though.

[keal]

Cheetahs are also known for their ability to climb pretty quickly when necessary.

I'd say take Climbing and Hand-to-Hand Combat.

But that's just my two cents.

As for Powers, I like the Speed, Super Agility, Stealth, Leaping, etc., stuff. I think it all works, but you have to find what's going to make you happy in the long run.

Also - that brings up a good question. It's rare that superheroes change, but sometimes they discover new powers or their powers "mutate" (for lack of a better word) - so is that possible here? I mean, if he takes something he doesn't like now, is there room for change later? What about the classic comic book ret-con? LOL!

[Keehnelf]

5 experience points will buy you a new power. I'll add a new rule and say that you can trade in an existing power for XP equal to its current level (so starting powers give nothing--you need to have invested in it to "ret-con" later). You can only do this in the business and logistics area, between issues, and the reward isn't so high that it will provide an incentive, but it will ease some of the pain and give you a head-start on a replacement power depending on how high the current is.

[Mister-Kent]

Ooh, "secondary mutations", always a controversial subject in X-Men fandom Heatseeker's going to wake up with diamond skin someday

Actually, I've already thought of ways his powers could eventually branch out, if the story heads that direction. Many possibilities--psychometry, energy senses, more involved tracking stuff...

[Mister-Kent]

Welcome to the game, Kanye/Sentinel!

[Kanye Westeros]

Welcome to the game, Kanye/Sentinel!

Thanks! Even though my dude might seem super destructive, I imagine his fight scenes being more realistic like the iron man movies - punching through walls and shrugging off tank shells like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTqa-NEwUbs (but without repulsors or armor) - rather than something totally crazy like Man of Steel.

My inspiration was 1 part Superman/boy crossed with 1 part weapon X, and mixed with 3 parts captain america.

[Keehnelf]

Answers to your questions:

Invulnerability is just a power that increases Endurance to resist effects--the power level adds extra toughness as it increases. It can affect things other than straight damage attacks, too.

Toughness comes from endurance, and Force is only a measure of how much directed power you can exert or project into the game world. It doesn't matter if the toughness and strength come from the same source--it just affects different attributes. Like you'd have super strength and invulnerability as separate powers, those are two attributes and need to be bought separately. A 9 force to start with is just unthinkably powerful in terms of damage that can be done--it's like Hulk strength. -there is a lot of room for reducing hat to improve endurance if you want to also be very tough.

[Kanye Westeros]

Answers to your questions:

Invulnerability is just a power that increases Endurance to resist effects--the power level adds extra toughness as it increases. It can affect things other than straight damage attacks, too.

Toughness comes from endurance, and Force is only a measure of how much directed power you can exert or project into the game world. It doesn't matter if the toughness and strength come from the same source--it just affects different attributes. Like you'd have super strength and invulnerability as separate powers, those are two attributes and need to be bought separately. A 9 force to start with is just unthinkably powerful in terms of damage that can be done--it's like Hulk strength. -there is a lot of room for reducing hat to improve endurance if you want to also be very tough.

I see, so I guess I'll reduce force to 7 and raise Endurance up to 5.

[Keehnelf]

Cool--make sure to fill in your non-super contact info as well!

[Kanye Westeros]

I actually have a suggestion I wanted to run by you (of course totally cool if you don't want to, this is your game, I just like tinkering )

ABILITIES
What about pairing up abilities?
By that I mean, allowing each PC to choose between one or an other ability when performing an action to represent how they do it.
Some examples of what I mean:

Coordination or Focus
either of these as you describe them would work well for shooting a gun or doing something at range.
- You either have laser focus and ignore everything to concentrate on your target, or
- Your hand-eye coordination is such that you barely had to think about it.

Coordination or Endurance
In a fight, how you defend yourself is very important, but defining defending yourself in melee or ranged combat seems like more of story thing to me.
- Someone like the Hulk relies on being indestructible, it doesn't matter if someone is 1 or 100 feet away.
- Or someone like the flash, who maybe isn't so tough, but he moves quick enough to avoid damage, again, this works either up close or at range.

Reason or Focus
some people are crazy brilliant and instantly pick up on the logic of how things work,
other people have to brute force a problem and take time to figure things out.

Force or Fighting
Hulk doesn't really use fighting techniques, but what he lacks in skill is more than made up for in strength and damage output.
But, Someone like Black Widow doesn't have that kind of strength, but she has years of experience and training allowing her to gain leverage and strike precisely, which balances out her lack of brute strength.

Endurance/Appeal
some people have the personality to sweet talk their way through anything,
others have to depend on looking scary to get their way.

And we could literally come up with a pair for any situation.

So, my idea is to give people the option (chosen at character creation, and maybe changed with xp between issues) of choosing which stat their character uses for something.

Hulk would obviously be:
Force for offense
Endurance for defense

Black Widow would probably have:
Fighting for offense
Coordination for defense
and either coordination or focus for using guns and other spy stuff


POWERS
What if powers didn't add a + to your roll?
What if they changed how you rolled instead, by that I mean using the Advantage rules from D&D 5E.

instead of 2d6 +ability like normal, you roll 3d6 +ability.
If you have advantage, you take the highest 2
If you have a disadvantage, you take the lowest 2

You are usually disadvantaged when using your powers would be dangerous or risky (or whenever the GM says it would be).
You cannot have both advantage and disadvantage on the same roll at the same time, they cancel each other out and you would just roll 2d6 as normal.

So, "If these changes were put in what would be the point to levelling up powers?" you ask. Here's how:

Just like you have certain actions that you consider automatic based on TN, I think every power should have a number of specific things that you can do with that power equal to that power's level+1 that are "auto-success"

A person with telepathy 0 shouldn't have any trouble reading someone's surface thoughts,
or someone with empathy 0 doing the same with emotions.

Someone with teleporting 0 shouldn't ever have to roll just to teleport somewhere nearby (same room, or line of sight out to a few dozen feet for example)

A person with teleporting 2 should probably also be able to easily:
- teleport somewhere nearby, or line of sight
- teleport somewhere "familiar" (somewhere you spend lots of time; like home, or a base, or a friend's house)
- teleport someone you can see anywhere else nearby or in line of sight.

So that gives everyone a reason to want their powers raised, instead of just pumping points into their abilities.

KNACKS
I wouldn't really change how they work, but would also add this:
once per issue you may "spend" one of your knacks to do something story-changing related to that Knack (player and gm should decide exactly what that is.) and then you cannot use that knack for the rest of the issue.

So using your previous example of Reed Richards' Scientific Research, instead of using it as a simple +1 whenever he needs to roll for knowing something, Reed declares that he's going to invent a device that will do whatever to help solve that issue's problem. The device is made, but Reed is now too pre-occupied with it to be able to concentrate on much else.



So, yeah, hope I didn't cross a line or anything.

[Kanye Westeros]

So, I was just messing around a bit tonight, and I figured I'd try my hand at mocking up some portraits of all the characters.

First I did the latest Sentinel:



Then I tried my hand at Heatseeker based on the description in the character thread:



Then I figured why not try making Threshold as well (following as close as I could to the description):



And then once I finished all that, I thought, why not make a group shot? So here's The Vanguard!.


Hope you guys like these!

[Mister-Kent]

That's great! Just how I pictured us

[Keehnelf]

Those portraits look great!

ABILITIES
What about pairing up abilities?
By that I mean, allowing each PC to choose between one or an other ability when performing an action to represent how they do it.
Some examples of what I mean:

Coordination or Focus
either of these as you describe them would work well for shooting a gun or doing something at range.
- You either have laser focus and ignore everything to concentrate on your target, or
- Your hand-eye coordination is such that you barely had to think about it.

Coordination or Endurance
In a fight, how you defend yourself is very important, but defining defending yourself in melee or ranged combat seems like more of story thing to me.
- Someone like the Hulk relies on being indestructible, it doesn't matter if someone is 1 or 100 feet away.
- Or someone like the flash, who maybe isn't so tough, but he moves quick enough to avoid damage, again, this works either up close or at range.

Reason or Focus
some people are crazy brilliant and instantly pick up on the logic of how things work,
other people have to brute force a problem and take time to figure things out.

Force or Fighting
Hulk doesn't really use fighting techniques, but what he lacks in skill is more than made up for in strength and damage output.
But, Someone like Black Widow doesn't have that kind of strength, but she has years of experience and training allowing her to gain leverage and strike precisely, which balances out her lack of brute strength.

Endurance/Appeal
some people have the personality to sweet talk their way through anything,
others have to depend on looking scary to get their way.

With regard to this: basically all of the points you make are tied into Powers, which always use an attribute as defined by the story use. Some have obvious mates that would be used most of the time, but in some cases a totally different attribute would come into play.

For example: the Hulk can choose to just not try to dodge anything and absorb hits with his Endurance at range (including a bonus for his power level in Indestructible), which would be pretty effective and capture what you're talking about. Similarly, the Fighting skill is exactly for what you're talking about with the Flash as well--you add his super speed power level on to his Fighting roll to give him improved chances of being the one to make contact with the enemy and avoid hits. On the flipside, the Hulk is limited in his ability to defeat opponents specifically by his relatively limited Fighting capacity, relying instead on brute strength to create scenarios where that's a non-factor, or relying on his strength and invulnerability to overwhelm his opponent's resistance.

On the other hand, I would advise against some things: Focus is a very bad attribute for a heated combat scenario. I would probably use the higher of the two for, say, a sniping attempt, but in the middle of a heated battle your ability to tune out distractions wouldn't actually be the primary determining factor for whether you can hit or not. We assume that everyone's as comfortable as they want to be in battle since this is a supers game

I like the way you're thinking: but I think it's already built into the system without getting bogged down with which choices and options and abilities are available when and to whom.

[Kanye Westeros]

That totally makes sense, and as I said, I like to tinker.

One thing that occurs to me as a possible issue:
The XP costs for powers vs abilities are a bit skewed. Let me explain.

Raising a power is basically your power's level in XP. (2 for lvl 2, 3 for lvl 3, etc.)
but the cost to raise an ability is always 2xp, no matter how high you raise it.

And as stated the mechanics you've put forward are that every roll is 2d6 + Ability + Power level.

As it stands, there's no real incentive to ever raise a power higher than 2 because your XP will always be better spent on simply raising whichever ability you want to be really good at.

Basically, if I want to crush a car; 2d6 +Force 9 will always be cheaper in XP than 2d6 + Force 6 + Superstrength 3

This creates a compound problem with the likely possibility of runaway TNs:
A.) You'd be stuck throwing bigger and bigger numbers at us just so our big numbers don't make everything trivial. and it becomes a treadmill (2 vs 2 is functionally the same as 200 vs 200)
B.) As the numbers increase heavily, it leads to extreme overspecialization (eg it makes no sense to put your points into anything but whatever your one thing is) which means that you stat your villains really high strength to be any kind of a challenge to the Hulk, meanwhile iron-man and captain america just got pasted instantly for the offense of standing too close to ground zero when hulk and the big bad throw down (which sucks for Cap and Tony's players). and As I said before it just becomes a game of 'numbers go up, just because'.

Possible Solutions:
Equalize the costs between abilities and powers
If you were to make powers costs linear rather than cumulative like abilities are, there wouldn't be an obvious optimal choice (which indirectly punishes the players who made the 'wrong' choice)

Or make abilities cumulative
Which makes it harder to get stronger, and unfairly favors the guy who puts all their character creation points into one or two things (like me) and someone with a more general distribution (I start out really strong, and they have to spend even more points to get as strong during the game.

Equalize the usefulness between abilities and powers
One reason this issue crops up is because abilities and powers are kind of stepping on each other. As I showed above if they both do nothing more than add + to a dice roll, it will always make more sense to buy up the one that's cheaper.

This is why I posted my ideas for changing up how powers work, if they are a different but complimentary mechanic, then you have more weight to the choice between where to spend your xp.

So yeah. That's a lot of words about game mechanics.
In spite of what both my huge posts may look like, I'm not a huge min-maxer, and I do not plan to exploit your game in the slightest.
I just wanted to make you aware of the possible exploit, as well as put forward some ideas that may alleviate what could turn into a headache later.

On a related note: Are we going to re-start the game soonish? I cannot wait to crack some henchmen heads together!

[Keehnelf]

Well, they ARE a complementary mechanic at present, because while you CAN just load every action you take into your one or two attributes that you want to focus on, that REALLY limits your story choices--whereas points in the power make everything you want to do associated with that power more effective, no matter the avenue you take, giving you more options in any given situation provided your power actually has some flexibility in it. Further, attributes have a hard cap of 12 and powers can go infinitely high.

As to the other: I have no problem whatsoever in a situation where Thor and the Hulk batter each other senseless while wrecking tons of huge machines, and another differently-specialized character's only option is to take cover (like, say, Black Widow). That sort of thing happens all the time--when the titans start clobbering, the best option for those who are not titans is to find something useful to do, like save civilians from the collateral damage that is inevitable...

[Kanye Westeros]

Just posting again to say: I am super excited for this game!

[Kanye Westeros]

Just posting again to say: I am super excited for this game!

So I guess the game is dead?

[Keehnelf]

It's on hiatus, like it was when you first posted--I mentioned that I didn't have any short-term plans to get it moving again, and I don't have time right now, unfortunately (too many upheavals everywhere in my life all at once), but it's on the list.

[Kanye Westeros]

Ok. I totally understand real life stuff, hope it all works out.

[Mister-Kent]

I'm totally game for whenever you find the time Hope all goes well with the upheaval!