Fast Healing in Modern Games

[Runesong42]

First of all, YAY for X-Men Legends.

Wolverine continues to be just about everyone's favourite X-Person (mine is Gambit, and even still just a smidge over Wolvie), and it's no surprise that people want to model a combat monster after him. Because that's what he is... he's a COMBAT monster. He's not the first guy you ask to, oh, talk to the press, canvass for donations, or babysit your toddler.

This in mind, so what if your mega-tank of a warrior ends up healed at the end of each fight? That just makes him 'the man' to help out his friends when they're in trouble in combat. Outside of combat, though... is he any good at anything else? If not, then there's where you 'get him'. Just make sure you make other situations where the other characters can show off their stuff.

And, for the record, just because you can blast people with energy, doesn't mean you should. Unless you're evil.

I suffer from the same inspiration bug that your friend does. Anytime I play, watch or read anything interesting, I wind up adding it somehow into my campaign or start an entirely new one. Get him to play Def Jam: Fight For New York and he'll scrap his character for a hand-to-hand monster.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

Well, the character is actually one of the most interesting and useful outside of combat. As an ex-cop and P.I. he usually "hits the streets" to scare up information about what's going down. He's rather effective too (Word on the Street and Hard Eyed). He's a brawler for the most part, and still does a great deal of the melee combat damage. The martial artist is a little behind him on average damage, but has a 24 defense that makes up for it.

I never liked Wolverine. Too much fanboy fanbase. Gambit is my favorite X-Men, if I can be bothered with X-Men at all. It seems nobody can look crossways at Wolverine without drooling on themselves. Even the designers of that game. He brought it over because it was "so cool!" and had a 4-player cooperative aspect (which I thought was a nifty-keen idea). Apparently you have to play the first mission and gain 3 levels with Wolverine before any of the other PCs are unlocked, so Wolverine ends up being 2 levels higher than everyone else. And, having fast healing, is the only X-Man capable of surviving in the game. It rapidly became a game of "Follow wolverine around. Run away while he kills the badguys." Doesn't help that everybody else's stuff costs mana to use. Bah.

Which is EXACTLY the reason why I wanted to balance his PC. While everybody else may love Wolverine, the other people playing certainly don't. Nobody's interested in playing "run away while Long-Arm saves the day!".

Being that he's effective outside of combat (which is my favorite aspect of the PC, frankly) and INSIDE some balance needed to be struck. Besides, I hate PCs who are useless outside of combat. Invariably you end up with one guy tapping his foot whistling to himself every time we try to have a non-combat moment and always trying to role-play getting into a scrap. When your only tool is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. Why I force my players down paths balanced between combat and non-combat specialties; so nobody is bored with ANY part of the game.

--fje

 

[Runesong42]

I never liked Wolverine. Too much fanboy fanbase. Gambit is my favorite X-Men, if I can be bothered with X-Men at all. It seems nobody can look crossways at Wolverine without drooling on themselves. Even the designers of that game. He brought it over because it was "so cool!" and had a 4-player cooperative aspect (which I thought was a nifty-keen idea). Apparently you have to play the first mission and gain 3 levels with Wolverine before any of the other PCs are unlocked, so Wolverine ends up being 2 levels higher than everyone else. And, having fast healing, is the only X-Man capable of surviving in the game. It rapidly became a game of "Follow wolverine around. Run away while he kills the badguys." Doesn't help that everybody else's stuff costs mana to use. Bah.

Heh, you do have a point there. But I'm not a runner. I haven't had the opportunity to play 4p at once, which is sad, because I REALLY REALLY want to. Wolvie can be as many levels higher than everyone else as he wants. All his 'feats' go to upping his h2h and HP anyway.

Being that he's effective outside of combat (which is my favorite aspect of the PC, frankly) and INSIDE some balance needed to be struck. Besides, I hate PCs who are useless outside of combat. Invariably you end up with one guy tapping his foot whistling to himself every time we try to have a non-combat moment and always trying to role-play getting into a scrap. When your only tool is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. Why I force my players down paths balanced between combat and non-combat specialties; so nobody is bored with ANY part of the game.

Again, it looks like the only problem is that you have a problem with his character. I played an adventure where one of my PC's made a similar tank. Picture, if you will, a vampire martial artist, based on the vampire template from d20 Modern core book, and martial arts taken from Blood and Fist. She could pull off a MINIMUM of 8 damage per strike, with an average of around 12. Add in Fast Healing, DR 5/silver, the ability to turn to mist, and the ridiculous bonuses to stats... well, you see my point. She overshadowed every PC in every way. The only way around it, really, was either A) avoid throwing in lots of fights and make the story RP heavy or B) Give her a really REALLY big bad guy to deal with while the others mopped up. I should also add C) Don't be a glory hog; respect the other players and let them share the spotlight. It was frustrating for me to DM this character, and truthfully, I longed for the day the campaign would end and I could retire her. But the character was well-thought out and RP solid, so I really had no major complaints.

I realize I'm rambling...
But in short, don't feel the need to tone down the character. Remember, you can also make your opponents equally as tough, and once your tank is flattened, the rest of the team can chime in and take him down. A good way to do this is also found in d20 Modern - apply weaknesses to the enemies that can be discovered by research etc. For example, have a villain with DR20/Blunt, and a weakness against, say, cold. That'll confuse your brawler (a lot ) and give any cold-using PC's a chance to screw with the Big Bad Guy. For every super-hero, there should be (at least) one super-villain, or an anti-hero. That way, you can change up who fights what and then everyone has fun. Or, throw in a Sentinel.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

Again, it looks like the only problem is that you have a problem with his character. ... But the character was well-thought out and RP solid, so I really had no major complaints.

Guess we just have different styles and different players. The rest of my table would either A) get bored or B) want to change up ALL of the PCs to be battle hounds. One of my major pet peeves is long stretches of table-time where individuals feel useless. None of MY players want to play cheering section for somebody else's PC.

As I said, I didn't have any problems with his character CONCEPT, and to me, that's all that really matters. Part of his concept was, I quote: "Like, the kind of guy that they put five in his chest and dumped him in the bay and he COMES BACK." So as long as he can do that, right? Just trying to keep it fun for everybody.

But in short, don't feel the need to tone down the character. Remember, you can also make your opponents equally as tough, and once your tank is flattened, the rest of the team can chime in and take him down. A good way to do this is also found in d20 Modern - apply weaknesses to the enemies that can be discovered by research etc.

I dunno. I already do part of that. I balance combats to create challenges for his PC (tangoing with the big ugly while Doc creates a gadget to help destroy it, etc) and we work well with weaknesses and research and occult lore (for the occultist) ... problem wasn't that. Problem was, after the first combat, either it was no challenge for his PC to overcome everything, or everybody else got slaughtered, owing mostly to him having 65+ more hit points than anybody else. It was that aspect we decided to change. He still regenerates, he still has a huge con and massive hit points and DR and everything else. He just is as-threatened by multiple combats per day as everybody else in the party, so I don't have to balance later combats with an eye toward not killing everybody else in the party or having all the other players playing cheering section for one PC.

--fje

 

[operations]

Well, good news. Camera turned up.

We're still not sure how it got where it was. It was on the opposite end of the apartment in an (open-topped) box of stuff we never unpacked from a year ago when we moved in.

Perhaps one of the games just moved it to keep it from getting knocked down and damaged during the game day. My players frequently go thru the gaming area before we start and take breakable galsses to the kitchen, etc.