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Silver Age Sentinels (Tri-Stat) -- and Streamlining Hero
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<blockquote data-quote="mmadsen" data-source="post: 328442" data-attributes="member: 1645"><p>I didn't want to turn this into a Champions-versus-SAS thread, but do have a few points I'd like to make about Champions. As I said in my initial post, "Champions had many great ideas, but few of them required the kind of complexity the system's known for." I have a few fixes I'd hoped to see in Fifth Edition. (Note: I haven't studied Fifth Edition.) Deriving these fixes might not seem simple, but the end-user doesn't have to follow the derivation; it's the end result that's simple.</p><p></p><p>Champions' stats -- and its figured stats in particular -- are needlessly complicated. As I said before, "And who's the genius who thought we should round stat values for bonuses? So every character is full of stats like 13, 18, 23, etc. Ugh." Changing the rounding rules, a trivial change, would lead to efficient characters having nice, round stats: 10, 15, 20, etc., not 8, 13, 18, etc.</p><p></p><p>Many of the figured characteristics are stat/5, but some aren't:</p><p></p><p>PD = Str/5</p><p>ED = Con/5</p><p>Spd = 1 + Dex/10</p><p>Rec = Str/5 + Con/5</p><p>End = 2 x Con</p><p>Stun = Body + Str/2 + Con/2</p><p></p><p>OCV = Dex/3</p><p>DCV = Dex/3</p><p>ECV = Ego/3</p><p></p><p>(Also, skills use stat/5 for bonuses.)</p><p></p><p>If we change those to use stat/5 in all cases, we don't even need any stats beyond 5, 10, 15, 20, etc. For instance:</p><p></p><p>PD = Str/5</p><p>ED = Con/5</p><p>Spd = Dex/5</p><p>Rec = Str/5 + Con/5</p><p>End = 2 x Con = 10 x Con/5</p><p>Stun = Body + Str/2 + Con/2 (OK, this one needs some work...)</p><p></p><p>OCV = Dex/5</p><p>DCV = Dex/5</p><p>ECV = Ego/5</p><p></p><p>Moving Spd from 1 + Dex/10 to Dex/5 keeps the norm at 2, and can keep the "human max" at 4. Dropping OCV and DCV to Dex/5 puts them in line with Dex-based skills, and doesn't change the game in any material way; it just makes Dex a wee bit less of an uber-stat (perhaps offsetting any higher Spd stats).</p><p></p><p>(Aside: Champions' Spd stat has always been too granular at the low end for such an all-important value. Going from 2 (human normal) to 4 (human max) doubles your combat effectiveness. If you're already at "human max", it's still awfully tempting to spend another 10 points (out of 250) to go from 4 to 5 (or even 6) for another 25% to 50% increase in attacks (and moves) per turn.) </p><p></p><p>Once we've established that we only need stats that are multiples of 5, we can divide those original stat values by 5, making them the same as the figured stats we'd like to get to; we can eliminate the arithmetic. </p><p></p><p>We could have Str, Dex, Con, etc. scores of 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. instead of 5, 10, 15, 20 -- or 3, 8, 13, 18. And figured stats might look like:</p><p></p><p>PD = Str</p><p>ED = Con</p><p>Spd = Dex</p><p>Rec = Str + Con</p><p>End = 10 x Con</p><p>Stun = 5 x Body + 5 x Str/2 + 5 x Con/2 (OK, this one needs some work...)</p><p></p><p>OCV = Dex</p><p>DCV = Dex</p><p>ECV = Ego</p><p></p><p>Then, if we decide to subsume multiple related stats under one heading (more like Tri-Stat, but not so extreme), we might get something like:</p><p></p><p>Body -- Str, Con, Body; separate Super-Strength power for pure lifting and punching</p><p>Dex -- Dex</p><p>Mind -- Int</p><p>Soul -- Ego, Pre; separate Attractive talent for comeliness, Intimidation skill for Presence Attacks</p><p></p><p>PD = Body </p><p>ED = Body </p><p>Spd = Dex</p><p>Rec = 2 x Body </p><p>End = 10 x Body </p><p>Stun = 10 x Body </p><p></p><p>OCV = Dex</p><p>DCV = Dex</p><p>ECV = Soul</p><p></p><p>If my explanation wasn't too convoluted, I hope you can see that we could have a much simpler Champions stat system, one a bit like Tri-Stat (without going "too far"), that changes almost nothing about the underlying system.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="mmadsen, post: 328442, member: 1645"] I didn't want to turn this into a Champions-versus-SAS thread, but do have a few points I'd like to make about Champions. As I said in my initial post, "Champions had many great ideas, but few of them required the kind of complexity the system's known for." I have a few fixes I'd hoped to see in Fifth Edition. (Note: I haven't studied Fifth Edition.) Deriving these fixes might not seem simple, but the end-user doesn't have to follow the derivation; it's the end result that's simple. Champions' stats -- and its figured stats in particular -- are needlessly complicated. As I said before, "And who's the genius who thought we should round stat values for bonuses? So every character is full of stats like 13, 18, 23, etc. Ugh." Changing the rounding rules, a trivial change, would lead to efficient characters having nice, round stats: 10, 15, 20, etc., not 8, 13, 18, etc. Many of the figured characteristics are stat/5, but some aren't: PD = Str/5 ED = Con/5 Spd = 1 + Dex/10 Rec = Str/5 + Con/5 End = 2 x Con Stun = Body + Str/2 + Con/2 OCV = Dex/3 DCV = Dex/3 ECV = Ego/3 (Also, skills use stat/5 for bonuses.) If we change those to use stat/5 in all cases, we don't even need any stats beyond 5, 10, 15, 20, etc. For instance: PD = Str/5 ED = Con/5 Spd = Dex/5 Rec = Str/5 + Con/5 End = 2 x Con = 10 x Con/5 Stun = Body + Str/2 + Con/2 (OK, this one needs some work...) OCV = Dex/5 DCV = Dex/5 ECV = Ego/5 Moving Spd from 1 + Dex/10 to Dex/5 keeps the norm at 2, and can keep the "human max" at 4. Dropping OCV and DCV to Dex/5 puts them in line with Dex-based skills, and doesn't change the game in any material way; it just makes Dex a wee bit less of an uber-stat (perhaps offsetting any higher Spd stats). (Aside: Champions' Spd stat has always been too granular at the low end for such an all-important value. Going from 2 (human normal) to 4 (human max) doubles your combat effectiveness. If you're already at "human max", it's still awfully tempting to spend another 10 points (out of 250) to go from 4 to 5 (or even 6) for another 25% to 50% increase in attacks (and moves) per turn.) Once we've established that we only need stats that are multiples of 5, we can divide those original stat values by 5, making them the same as the figured stats we'd like to get to; we can eliminate the arithmetic. We could have Str, Dex, Con, etc. scores of 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. instead of 5, 10, 15, 20 -- or 3, 8, 13, 18. And figured stats might look like: PD = Str ED = Con Spd = Dex Rec = Str + Con End = 10 x Con Stun = 5 x Body + 5 x Str/2 + 5 x Con/2 (OK, this one needs some work...) OCV = Dex DCV = Dex ECV = Ego Then, if we decide to subsume multiple related stats under one heading (more like Tri-Stat, but not so extreme), we might get something like: Body -- Str, Con, Body; separate Super-Strength power for pure lifting and punching Dex -- Dex Mind -- Int Soul -- Ego, Pre; separate Attractive talent for comeliness, Intimidation skill for Presence Attacks PD = Body ED = Body Spd = Dex Rec = 2 x Body End = 10 x Body Stun = 10 x Body OCV = Dex DCV = Dex ECV = Soul If my explanation wasn't too convoluted, I hope you can see that we could have a much simpler Champions stat system, one a bit like Tri-Stat (without going "too far"), that changes almost nothing about the underlying system. [/QUOTE]
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