Silver Age Sentinels (Tri-Stat) -- and Streamlining Hero
- Thread starter mmadsen
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mmadsen said:
Elemental controls add a cost-effective means for building that character concept. You've made a lot of good points so far in this thread, but on this particular subject you're not thinking things through.
EC"s are necessary so that a character with versatile abilities like "fire control" and "weather control" will be able to remain on the same power level as other types of character--such as bricks or martial artist--that don't have a broad spectrum of powers to purchase. Watch how quickly spending 50 points on an Energy and 50 points on Force Field and 50 points on flight adds up.
Giving out more points doesn't eliminate the need for a power framework. Without a power framework, some characters will simply be unable to keep up with others, regardless of how many points the GM gives out.
Right, but 50 points on Str, 50 points on Armor, and 50 points on Running and Super Leap adds up to the same problem. It's not an issue of "elemental" powers (that fit into Hero's elemental control framework) versus other character concepts; it's an issue of linear point costs and not-at-all-linear benefits from powers. We want a broad spectrum of powers to cost less than a single super-mega-uber-death-beam -- especially in a game system like Hero, where doubling the size of an attack more than doubles the damage it delivers (far more than doubles, in fact).
In particular, we want a broad spectrum of attacks to cost just slightly more than one narrow attack option; specialization should be no great bargain. (In contrast, we probably want a broad spectrum of defenses to cost more than immunity to a narrow subset of attacks; we want everyone to have a weakness.)
True, but I think we need to integrate such power frameworks more elegantly into the base system. From what I've been reading, Mutants & Masterminds keeps d20's notion of levels for largely the reasons we've discussed; it works as a cap on power levels. None of your powers can have more levels than your character level. This works like the power pool of an elemental control, multipower, or variable power pool, only it's much cleaner.
mmadsen said:
There's a major difference there though. The 50 points spent on Strength boosted the brick's defenses (PD, ED, and STN) as well as granting extra movement by increasing your leaping distance. He's getting more bang for his buck. Super-strength is its own little power framework.
If by "size" you area of effect, then that's pretty relative to the number of foes you're and their defenses. If you're fighting 2 guys with 35 points of Energy Defense each, then a 10d6 10'r blast won't be as effective as a single 20d6 blast. OTOH, if it's 35 guys with 2 pts of Energy Defense each, then the area attack is obviously better.
There's been a lot of focus on number-crunching in this thread--the complexity of Hero System combat, the imbalances of various point cost structures. Personally, I think a superhero RPG should spend some time considering how a group of characters mesh together, rather than obsessing on designing a single complete, every-power-you-want character and pitting against another complete, every-power-you-want character. Some thought needs to be given to, for example, what a martial artist's role in the group is as opposed to what a brick's role is.
My problem with Hero is that I see a lot more homogenity than diversity within a group of PC's. I'm sure I'm not the only guy who's wound up in a group where every character had at least 50 points of STR and didn't need to breathe. Nothing more boring than a group where everybody has about the same amount of defense, the same movement rate, and attacks that all do about the same amount of damage. The thing is, Hero System genuinely encourages this kind of ubiquitous approach to character design. There's not a lot of room for the speedster with weak offensive capability but a lot of mobility. Not in a group where everybody's spent 50 points on Flight or Running in addition to the points they've dumped into super-strength and Energy Blast.
Sounds like I definitely need to check our Mutants & Masterminds. I hear it's open gaming content, meaning that one could design supplemental content if they wished. Sweet.
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Cyragnome
First Post
Not to take this thread on a different tangent, but Felon I honestly haven't seen this before in my 18 years of playing HERO. We've always had diversity in the group, either I've been lucky in picking players and GMs, or something else. We've always had a Brick, Martial Artist, Energy Projector, Toolbox and a bit more rarely Ego-ist in our groups.
As for your point to Mmadsen, I do agree with you, EC, IMO help push players into really thinking about unifying their powers, or theme-ifying, or what have you. It gives them additional incentive, as well. Honestly, anyone who's played HERO knows Bricks are incredibly cost effective, for the points you laid out above concerning STR. Multipowers and EC's help balance that out a bit.
But again, that's just my opinion, and I've seen lots of others on the HERO board.
Victim
First Post
Not requiring some kind of theme for Multipowers is probably a problem with HERO.
Multi A, 60 point reserve
6u-12d6 EB
6u-4d6 RKA
6u- 8d6 EB Explosion
6u- 6d6 EB 5 shot Autofire
Our character can use lots of fire attacks. He's got 2 powerful blasts of fire, one killing - which is probably more appropriate for fire, but since it's supers game, he has the normal since you aren't supposed to kill everything. He can throw an AE fireball or swarms of little firebolts. The cost is 84 points.
Or you can have a multipower with an EB, +30" running for bursts of super speed, 60 points of strength with no figured, Telepathy, and say Healing for the same cost. If you can add any cool power for a mere 6 points, then there's not a good incentive not too. Of course, buying STR in a multipower isn't as cost effective since you lose the figured stats.
One thing about 5th ed is that it reccomends low defense values, at least compared to the guidelines for attack DCs. DCs are supposed to be from 6-14 - I've commonly seen 12 DCs or 60 AP as a common limit or guideline at the HERO boards - while the defense guideline is 20, with 10 resistant. All values are for "Standard" supers, aka 350 points. With 20 def, even an 8d6 attack will sneak some stun through and 12d6 shot will KO in 2 hits.
I also think that teamwork is very important. With Sweeps and Rapid Fire, it's easy to pound on someone with a low DCV. Using things like Flash, or Entagles that take no damage to cripple someone's DCV, and then having a partner drill them with a quick barrage of attacks seem like a very effective move, but requires different builds. The entangle would be pretty expensive, and the character would probably require a high speed and dex for shooting first, while the hammer probably needs rapid attack, high movement, good attacks and moderate CV. While nothing prevents a character from being able to do both, it would get expensive, and 2 people would be able to pull it off in the same segement or on back to back ones, so it's better split up.
Multi A, 60 point reserve
6u-12d6 EB
6u-4d6 RKA
6u- 8d6 EB Explosion
6u- 6d6 EB 5 shot Autofire
Our character can use lots of fire attacks. He's got 2 powerful blasts of fire, one killing - which is probably more appropriate for fire, but since it's supers game, he has the normal since you aren't supposed to kill everything. He can throw an AE fireball or swarms of little firebolts. The cost is 84 points.
Or you can have a multipower with an EB, +30" running for bursts of super speed, 60 points of strength with no figured, Telepathy, and say Healing for the same cost. If you can add any cool power for a mere 6 points, then there's not a good incentive not too. Of course, buying STR in a multipower isn't as cost effective since you lose the figured stats.
One thing about 5th ed is that it reccomends low defense values, at least compared to the guidelines for attack DCs. DCs are supposed to be from 6-14 - I've commonly seen 12 DCs or 60 AP as a common limit or guideline at the HERO boards - while the defense guideline is 20, with 10 resistant. All values are for "Standard" supers, aka 350 points. With 20 def, even an 8d6 attack will sneak some stun through and 12d6 shot will KO in 2 hits.
I also think that teamwork is very important. With Sweeps and Rapid Fire, it's easy to pound on someone with a low DCV. Using things like Flash, or Entagles that take no damage to cripple someone's DCV, and then having a partner drill them with a quick barrage of attacks seem like a very effective move, but requires different builds. The entangle would be pretty expensive, and the character would probably require a high speed and dex for shooting first, while the hammer probably needs rapid attack, high movement, good attacks and moderate CV. While nothing prevents a character from being able to do both, it would get expensive, and 2 people would be able to pull it off in the same segement or on back to back ones, so it's better split up.
Eosin the Red
First Post
On the homogenity issue:
I expect that the villians exhibit the same 'most effective' concept. Why build a speedster, when the GM does not have villians with less than 35 PD?
If people start building look-a-likes - start hitting where it hurts. No character built with points can have everything. Bust out the 9-10 speed, 35 dex, 'flying' martial arts, villian - he will be the lord of twinking.
If all of the PCs are semi-brick-EP-speedsters, throw some Hulk/Grond clones at them - 3 clones for each 4 PCs.
If games are structured so that different abilities work better on different game days and the road to medicority stinks, players will diversify. In high powered games this can work well, street level hero makes it much harder.
But like D&D some people will always play the fighter or the mage, no matter how much the party wants them to play something else.
[EDIT: sometimes I wonder if my fingers mean to make me look like a moron? I don't need the help ]
I expect that the villians exhibit the same 'most effective' concept. Why build a speedster, when the GM does not have villians with less than 35 PD?
If people start building look-a-likes - start hitting where it hurts. No character built with points can have everything. Bust out the 9-10 speed, 35 dex, 'flying' martial arts, villian - he will be the lord of twinking.
If all of the PCs are semi-brick-EP-speedsters, throw some Hulk/Grond clones at them - 3 clones for each 4 PCs.
If games are structured so that different abilities work better on different game days and the road to medicority stinks, players will diversify. In high powered games this can work well, street level hero makes it much harder.
But like D&D some people will always play the fighter or the mage, no matter how much the party wants them to play something else.
[EDIT: sometimes I wonder if my fingers mean to make me look like a moron? I don't need the help ]
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