D&D 5E What is balance to you, and why do you care (or don't)?

[Micah Sweet]

If it's a guy in a suit of armor then it will be an attack roll - Superman's not just going to be able to sidle up to him and rip his armor apart, he'll have to make an attack, which represents the ability of the person being attacked to avoid the attack.


And now you've violated the genre horribly. Because Batman always wins in the comics - there isn't a foe you can put him up against where he won't be able to hold his ground and win.

The man killed Darkseid once. That's why in an M&M game his power level is equal to Superman's - because he's that good. If you don't want to play in the genre of superheroes I get it, not everyone does, but powering down Batman because you don't like the implications of him and Superman being peers means dialing back the power level knob on his character sheet. If you have two characters who are at the same power level they're both going to be able to take on the same threats.


The way to balance it the way you want would be to reduce Batman's power level. Which I object to because it's clear in the comics that he and Superman are at the same level and in a combat between the two of them it's a coin toss as to who wins (or more accurately - the winner is whoever's book the fight appears in). That's the "realism" that a comic book game needs to be able to emulate, and M&M does it quite well.

Modern comics has deified Batman beyond comprehension. He should never be fighting the same foes as Superman, because Superman is a nearly invulnerable alien powerhouse and Batman is a very smart and athletic human with a lot of cash. They're both great, but they should both stay in their lane where the battlefield is concerned.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Anyone is not there, your character is. Depending on build, there could be bespoke ways, but why there necessarily needs to be? Open your mount, say things! You're contributing, why there needs to be something more?

Because then being a "Fighter" means nothing.

Being a "Fighter" instead of a "Wizard" or a "Rogue" or a "Ranger" or whatever else is literally choosing to not get things, as opposed to getting things.

 

[Jer]

Modern comics has deified Batman beyond comprehension. He should never be fighting the same foes as Superman, because Superman is a nearly invulnerable alien powerhouse and Batman is a very smart and athletic human with a lot of cash. They're both great, but they should both stay in their lane where the battlefield is concerned.

If by "modern comics" you mean "comics published since 1941" World's Finest Comics - Wikipedia then I suppose.

Batman has always been at Superman's level except for a relatively brief span of revisionist time after Frank Miller wrote the (IMO wrong-headed) Batman Year One (about a decade). Prior to that Batman and Superman were peers and there wasn't an issue with it because the DC Universe is an absurd place where weird stuff happens and if a dude is going to dress up like a bat to fight criminals then he better be able to go toe-to-toe with the average supercriminal or else he's not going to last very long.

ETA: Also Miller knew this because the scene in The Dark Knight Returns where Batman kicks Superman's rear end doesn't make any sense at all if at some level Batman and Superman aren't peers. If Batman of that book were the Batman he wrote in Year One Superman would have pounded him flat and the story would have ended right there.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It probably is not wise for me to continue to comment on game I'm not familiar with, but yeah, it doesn't seem like the sort of game I would like. And whilst I have read a bunch of superhero comics, they've been mostly Marvel, and not that much recently. And indeed, superhero genre often is too silly for my liking. With DC in particular the capabilities of the characters seem to be basically random. For example there is no bloody way a normal human would be able to harm a Kryptonian that can withstand a nuke. It is jarring enough in a comic or a movie, but in game where the players try to immerse it is unbearable to me if they actually do not have good grasp of the actual capabilities of their character.

Marvel was always better at that than DC, but they've gotten worse in recent years.

 

[Lanefan]

How would your 9's react to being nerfed? I don't think mine would appreciate it.

They probably wouldn't; and ideally I'd have seen the problem coming and done the nerfing well ahead of time. Once something enters play, it sets a precedent that I-as-DM am pretty much stuck with; with the rare exception that where something is truly broken the players will IME usually agree to scale it back somehow.

 

[Micah Sweet]

until magic, red light, or a green stone stop him... or just you know a multi millionar villian (I mean lex not bruce here)

Lex uses all those things to Superman. That's...how he does it directly.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Anyone is not there, your character is. Depending on build, there could be bespoke ways, but why there necessarily needs to be? Open your mount, say things! You're contributing, why there needs to be something more?

I do feel the intense desire to call, "class features or it didn't happen" gets to be a bit much.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Because then being a "Fighter" means nothing.

Being a "Fighter" instead of a "Wizard" or a "Rogue" or a "Ranger" or whatever else is literally choosing to not get things, as opposed to getting things.

In certain context yes. But you still have the same basic tools than everyone and can still contribute.

And I'm not against buffing martials, I'm quite in favour of it, but this is not about that. It is about everyone not being good at everything, it is about the characters being allowed to have different niches and areas of expertise. And by necessity that means that some things are not in your area of expertise and you have to fall back to the basic tools shared by everyone.

 

[Medic]

Barely - Superman is a 15, Batman is a 12. Those are close enough to be in the same combat, and close enough that Batman could beat Superman in an unfair fight.

Batman and Supergirl are at the same PL.

This is a little disingenuous. Effects in M&M vary so widely that any two given characters will be incredibly diverse in their capabilities regardless of how many points were sunk into them. A PL 10 star-devouring combat monster can easily compete against or sometimes even surpass a generalist character of PL 15 in a fight, even one biased in the favor of the latter.

 

[Jer]

This is a little disingenuous. Effects in M&M vary so widely that any two given characters will be incredibly diverse in their capabilities regardless of how many points were sunk into them. A PL 10 star-devouring combat monster can easily compete against or sometimes even surpass a generalist character of PL 15 in a fight, even one biased in the favor of the latter.

I think you just made the same point I was trying to make?