DC Adventures RPG
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Ares
First Post
I just received the book in question a few days ago from Amazon. I owned 2e and found the new rules to be a pretty good cleanup of the previous edition.
A few quick notes of criticism though: The rules are fine, but some of the stat write-ups are made of nerd-rage bait.
Some examples:
Barry Allen (Silver Age Flash) couldn't fight his way out of a paper bag.
Darkseid and Black Adam are villains of roughly the same caliber (both PL 16).
A few quick notes of criticism though: The rules are fine, but some of the stat write-ups are made of nerd-rage bait.
Some examples:
Barry Allen (Silver Age Flash) couldn't fight his way out of a paper bag.
Darkseid and Black Adam are villains of roughly the same caliber (both PL 16).
Walking Dad
First Post
Could you explain the Barry Allen problem? (Besides, he could just vibrate through the paper bag and power stunt a lightpuch slam.)
And PL 16 for Black Adam isn't that bad if you read 'World Wat III'.
Darkseid on the other hand got pretty much hurt from Superman in various fights and got killed by Batman.
Maybe Darkseid has just more powerful allies and resources.
Black Adam is build with 251 PP, Darkseid with 293.
Prometheus and the Martian Manhunter have both 305 PP.
The builds are more than their PL.
And PL 16 for Black Adam isn't that bad if you read 'World Wat III'.
Darkseid on the other hand got pretty much hurt from Superman in various fights and got killed by Batman.
Maybe Darkseid has just more powerful allies and resources.
Black Adam is build with 251 PP, Darkseid with 293.
Prometheus and the Martian Manhunter have both 305 PP.
The builds are more than their PL.
ValhallaGH
Explorer
Have it: yes.
Converting over to it: yes.
Criticisms:
1) Skills are too expensive. 1 pp for 3 ranks will work well enough, and I won't worry about how this futzes with attack costs and the relative values of various ability scores.
2) Impervious only stops half it's rank. LAME. Now my cool new Penetrating extra doesn't matter (Cheetah, the archetypal Penetrating villain, never gets to use it because nothing in the setting is tough enough to be impervious to her claws). The Catman build can kill Captain Marvel and Superman with a knife thanks to power attack. Now a Heavy Pistol (.44 Magnum) can kill a main battle tank, and a light pistol (9mm parabellum) can kill an APC. LAME.
Impervious instead stops it's rank but the GM keeps a keen eye on how high it is and what that means for his campaign.
Of course, I've got around 30 criticisms of 2e, so that's a major system improvement.
Ares
First Post
And that would miss, as Barry's attack abilities are really low. The only thing that is at his power level is his move object skill.
I have. It was a tie in to 52, the premise of which was that all the big leaguers were gone for a year and the heavy lifting was left to the B listers. That's the whole point of Black Adam getting as far as he did. There were no real A-listers to stop him. In game terms, the book describes those kinds of B-listers as in the low teens. It's not a commentary on how super awesome Adam is, but how crazy unstoppable just a single person at the flying brick level is if there is no-one around (at that level) to stop them.
Darkseid's ability to be fought is a pretty controversial subject among fans, as it contradicts Jack Kirby's original characterization of Darkseid.
That being said, Darkseid is THE villain of the DCU. The villain-buck stops with him. The fact that it takes the DCU's #1 guy to fight him is not evidence for his wussiness, as you seem to imply here. Also, Batman had a god-killing equivalent of Kryptonite in his possession at the time. The way you tell it, it sounds like you think Batman out-kung fu-ed him or something.
Since you missed this, I'll repost:
They aren't equal in terms of point expenditure, they are roughly equal in attack abilities, which is what PL is based off of. In the comics the two have never been peers of each other in any fashion, my point is that Darkseid should be higher, and that this is a position many comic fans would have.
Yeah, I get that. See above.
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Ares
First Post
You get a big ditto from me about Impervious. It just looks like a waste of points. Definitely something to houserule.
Walking Dad
First Post
Ok, I can see the complain about Barry's poor attack bonus, but I never saw him as a great martial artist. I think PL 16 for Black Adam is fine (Martian Manhunter was at WW III. Don't call him a light weight) as I think he is a slice stronger than Captain Marvel or Superman.
Darkseid as PL 16 fits the later incarnations. The Kirby one would be perhaps PL X.
Batman outsmarts, not out-Kung-Fus
About Impervious: I see the need for challenging the players (it is not fun if one of them is nearly immune to any damage, nor is it to fight with a martial artist vs an old rules impervious foe), but it breaks the comic reality quite a bit.
Darkseid as PL 16 fits the later incarnations. The Kirby one would be perhaps PL X.
Batman outsmarts, not out-Kung-Fus
About Impervious: I see the need for challenging the players (it is not fun if one of them is nearly immune to any damage, nor is it to fight with a martial artist vs an old rules impervious foe), but it breaks the comic reality quite a bit.
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Ares
First Post
Three words: Machine-gun Punches.
Fighting doesn't necessarily mean martial artist, it just an abstraction of how likely they are to hit. And a person called "the flash" should be pretty accurate. MM is not a light-weight, but he isn't an A-lister either. Black Adam is roughly equal with Captain Marvel in the comics, and should have good edge on Supes thanks to being magic. Really, he should be 15 or 16. That's not really the issue. The issue is the wussification of Darkseid.
No, it really doesn't, which is why I said those stats are going to cause rampant nerd rage. Go ahead to the DC comic forums and claim that Black Adam and Darksied are combat equals. It'll take a week for you to cool down from the amount of flames you'd receive.
One character is the champion of gods and the other is the god-king of his own pantheon. Even on a conceptual level these two are not peers.
Again, it was how you said it earlier. And in that particular case, Batman didn't outsmart or outfight, but just used what was essentially divine Kryptonite.
Another note on impervious: Magic based attacks ignore Supes impervious toughness, but since impervious stinks it effectively removes a major weakness of the big S and frankly alters his build a little bit.
It's not a real weakness.
ValhallaGH
Explorer
Be that as it may, discussing it doesn't really help the OP much, does it?
If you have to keep on about it, that discussion should probably go somewhere else.
My take on the builds: Meh.
Some of them are pretty great (Aquaman, Black Canary, Black Adam, and the Joker really stand out to me), and some of them are crap (Superman doesn't have Interpose and he's got more Quickness than the Flash!? Darkseid can be killed by a flamethrower!? Wonder Woman can't block assault rifle fire!?), and some are just weird (The Flash is PL 14 when he uses a slam attack, Lex Luthor's battle suit makes him PL 18, and Solomon Grundy is the toughest thing in the setting).
Ares
First Post
So...we can't discuss the builds but you can?
We're discussing the builds since the thread is about our reactions to the quality of the book, and are therefore not a threadjack. But hey, let's leave the modding to the mods, k?
He disagreed with my argument that some of the builds were nerd-rage bait, (a point you apparently agree with) and we were discussing it.To reiterate to the OP: The book is good but as myself and another have pointed out, some of the builds are kind of WTF, as well as Impervious Toughness getting too much of a nerf.
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