D&D 4E 4E d20 Superheroes - I want that too!

[Vigilance]

Class based systems are famously unsuited for supers games, although there is Heros Unlimited if that floats your boat.

No superhero GAMERS are famously unwilling to accept classes their superhero games. Not the same thing.

For example, there are many, many superheroes who fit into a class structure as far as I'm concerned.

For example, looking at DC, it's especially easy. Superman clearly has a class, and supergirl, superboy et al. are clearly in the "Last Scion of Krypton" class at a lower level.

Similarly, you could say Batman is the iconic Dark Knight and that Batman, Nightwing, Robin etc are lower level members of that class.

All speedsters tend to have very similar ability sets, and there seems to be a baseline set of abilities and skills learned by the graduates of Xavier's academy as well.

In short, there's absolutely nothing to suggest that a flexible class based system is less suited for supers than it is for fantasy.

It's just that most fantasy gamers reconciled themselves to the inherent wonkiness in class-based systems long ago, while gamers who eschewed classes saw supers games as their haven.

Most gamers I knew listed no classes as a reason they played Champions. Is that genre? Or is that because Hero was about the only game in town that didn't have classes back then?

Those same gamers listed their reasons for playing Fantasy Hero as no classes too, if that gives you a hint

Chuck

 

[kennew142]

When M&M and True 20 came out, I was fascinated by the simplicity and elegance of the system. We dropped HERO like a hot potato. However, we haven't run any M&M games for a year. The reason why is the damage system. While it looked neat on paper, everyone in my group hated it in practice. Call us old fashioned, but we like rolling damage and subtracting it from hit points.

I was trying to work up a simplified HERO system (using d20 instead of 3d6, fewer ability scores, etc...) with some cool minion rules, but now we're waiting to see if 4e can be used to better effect.

Just because M&M uses a 20 sided die doesn't mean that there isn't room for a 4e based supers game. From what we've seen so far, it would seem that 4e will be a far superior system to 3e. I see no reason why a supers game based on its mechanics wouldn't be better than M&M.

It's my post, of course it's my opinion!

 

[breschau]

Any d20 based supers is going to have a hard time competing with M&M 2E. For example nothing being talked here can't already be done within its rules.

This.

Although, something more than a house rule to limit power use would be nice. Some M&M games I've played in the players do exactly what was described (just blast the hell out of something until it drops, without any creativity or variety).

 

[Lizard]

Just a thought: The mechanic of at wil, encounter and per day powers would be great for a Superhero game because they provide answers for several questions - why doesn't Superman just blast any nonflying villian with his heatvision till he's down? Or freeze them with his coldbreath? Per day powers
What is the limit of Batmans gadgetry? He can use several once per encounter...and so forth.
It's abstract but it sure does fit with the comics.

I agree. 4e strikes me as very well suited to supers. I'm thinking something like:
Paragon -- the embodiment of a cause, ideal, principle, or concept (Captain America): Super Leader

Blaster -- master of energy (Human Torch): Super Controller

Avenger -- focuses on down-n-dirty combat (Wolverine): Super Striker

Tank -- big, strong, can dish it out and take it (Thing): Super Defender

So much of 4e that chafes me WRT fantasy works perfectly for supers, a genre which is never remotely simulationist.

 

[Toben the Many]

Some of the architecture of 4e seems suited to supers, like the tiering system, minions, and dailly, encounter, and at-will powers.

However, I wouldn't want the kind of power accumulation that seems to occur in 4e. As supers get more experience, some of them get more powers. But others just get better at what they do. For example, over the years, certain characters like Spider-Man have gotten a tad more powerful. However, they haven't gotten more powers, they've just gotten better with the skills and powers they already have.

As far as damage systems go, I much prefer the damage system that M&M has to offer. Any hero or villain can get knocked out in one hit. That is totally awesome, and it really fits the super hero genre, where heroes will often inexplicably get k.o.'d by a inferior foe, only to wake up, escape a death-trap, and then beat up the villain in the end.

 

[drjones]

I thought City of Heroes did a fine job of combining 'classes' very similar to 4ed (blaster, tank etc) with 'sources' that defined the type of powers a player had. I don't see why 4e classes combined with Feat chains based on powersources (your blaster takes the 'gadget' source feat at level one, you now can access all blaster feats with the gadget tag. Combine this with fluff changes appropriate 'Your level 1 blast looks like a machine gun').

I do think the math would be different though. it makes a lot of sense that a superhero can be 'defeated' without getting killed or even bleeding much but the amount of abuse you can take and the amount you can dish out is on a different scale than the low level 4ed we have seen.

 

[Set]

The 'Second Wind' mechanic seems like it would do a fair job of replicating some of the cinematic feel of comic-book superhero slugfests.

I'm more inclined to stick with M&M2E right now, but I've always been fickle, and have a half-dozen other rulesets lying around anyway. (With Aberrant, GURPS 3e Supers and Villains& Vigilantes being my 'other favorites.')

 

[arscott]

As far as class-based systems go:

The strictly defined classes of 4e, with it's fairly limited multi-classing is not the way to go here.

But look at City of Heroes. CoH lets players pick an origin (natural, magic, science, mutation, or technology), and an archetype (Blaster, Controller, Defender, Scrapper, or Tanker). That's basically role and power source right there.

So skip the classes entirely. Instead:

Choose a role. This determines your HP and defenses. In addition, it provides you with a basic ability central to that role (marking for defenders, bonus damage for strikers, etc.)

Chose a power source. This determines your trained skills, and provides one or more minor secondary abilities (energy resistance of a chosen type for a science hero, or an attack bonus when using devices for a technology hero.)

Chose abilities. Rather than being divided up by class, as in 4e D&D, there's just one big pool of options that every character selects from. Some of the options might have role or power-source based prerequisites, though.

 

[pawsplay]

See, I think the power tier thing would have to be considered carefully. In my view, Batman and Superman have to be on the same tier. Outside their areas of expertise (street crime versus beating up super-tough guys), they do pretty much the same things; save the world, participate in the JLA, crossover with absolutely everybody, end up in non-canonical stories as Green Lanterns, etc. Plus, in the Silver Age, Batman and Superman often adventured together in the bottled city, where they were both street-level superheroes. Unless you are proposing that lack of a yellow sun causes Superman to lose levels and their related bonuses, it just doesn't work. And the Dark Knight books show us how Batman can take the fight to Superman's level when pressed.

I think Batman's literary powers are very appropriate to epic play: he ALWAYS gets out of things alive; he is practically never surprised; he can perform virtually any task if it needs to be done; he is an expert of dozens of fields, and the world's absolute best detective and toxicologist; he can build technology of astounding power, although he usually builds stuff useful to his role as a masked crimefighter.

To me, the tiers would be more like Mini-Series, Own Series, and They Make Underoos of You.

 

[Andor]

No superhero GAMERS are famously unwilling to accept classes their superhero games. Not the same thing.

For example, there are many, many superheroes who fit into a class structure as far as I'm concerned.

For example, looking at DC, it's especially easy. Superman clearly has a class, and supergirl, superboy et al. are clearly in the "Last Scion of Krypton" class at a lower level.

Similarly, you could say Batman is the iconic Dark Knight and that Batman, Nightwing, Robin etc are lower level members of that class.

All speedsters tend to have very similar ability sets, and there seems to be a baseline set of abilities and skills learned by the graduates of Xavier's academy as well.

In short, there's absolutely nothing to suggest that a flexible class based system is less suited for supers than it is for fantasy.

It's just that most fantasy gamers reconciled themselves to the inherent wonkiness in class-based systems long ago, while gamers who eschewed classes saw supers games as their haven.

Most gamers I knew listed no classes as a reason they played Champions. Is that genre? Or is that because Hero was about the only game in town that didn't have classes back then?

Those same gamers listed their reasons for playing Fantasy Hero as no classes too, if that gives you a hint

Chuck

There are lots of Superhero games out there. Champions, Sentinals, DC, Marvel, Heros unlimited, Gurps, M&M, V&V, and a few other obscure ones.

One of those games uses a class based system. What does that tell you?

It's true that City of Heroes uses a class based system, but of course a server has more limits to what it can portray than the imagination so the designers had little choice, really.

And while I agree that a very playable supers game could be made by "a flexible class based system" once you have enough selections (Role, power source, powers, etc) you're fooling yourself if you really think you've got classes instead of a point based system with the numbers filed off.

Sure you could make a "Costumed Vigilante" class to cover anyone from batman to darkwing duck, so what?

The hero genre includes charaters like Shadowcat, Wolverine, Storm, Superman, John Constantine, Zatana, Dr Fate, Warlock, Havok, The Phantom Stranger.

"Brick" for example is one of the more common archetypes, but they vary all the way from Capt. America who is only slightly above human max, to the Hulk who can chuck a battleship into orbit, to Thor who tacks on a bunch of weather control powers, to Superman who is as strong and tough as anyone, as fast as any speedster, has heat beams and cold breath on par with any blaster, etc. Multiclassed character? Gestalt? DMNPC?

The supers as an RPG subject has a few problems. You to be able to handle a wide variety of power classes, ideally anything from Mystery Men to Supes and Silver Surfer. You also want to be able to handle any number of powers from humans with a gadget or ninja training to single powered characters like Shadowcat or Gambit, characters with a single power they use many ways like Storm or Iceman, to characters like Dr. Strange, Green Lantern, or Silver Surfer who can do practicaly anything.

This kind of flexibility is very hard to achieve. That's no small part of the reason why there are so many supers games. It's even harder if party balance is one of your goals. Classes do very little to aid those goals.