Super Powers in Fantasy RPGing

[RangerWickett]

Hercules, hero with the strength of a god.

Duncan MacLeod, immortal warrior able to survive anything short of decapitation.

Phage the Untouchable, corrupted villainess from Magic: the Gathering, whose touch means death.

Can you make these characters in D&D? Without resorting to prestige classes, bizarre templates, or playing a monstrous race? Sure, GM Fiat can overcome any qualms about playing such unusual characters, but what's a fair Level Adjustment for having a 40 Strength (about +13, for the record), or being able to kill anything you touch by secreting poison (LA +10 or higher, depending on if they get a save)?

The problem is, while the core D&D rules nicely handle normal humanoids who become powerful through training or learning spells, it doesn't have a good structure for pricing unusual abilities that are effectively superpowers. You could figure out how much the power would cost as a magic item, but again, there's not much to help you convert GP cost into equivalent character level.

Of course, there are one or two products out there that can handle these problems, but before we get into those, I'd like to hear your stories about characters that the rules couldn't really handle, either PCs or NPCs. I'm not necessarily talking about superheroes in the modern sense, though they're welcome. I'm more interested, though, in characters that follow in the fine fantasy tradition of having unusual powers.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

Doesn't the Midnight campaign settting kinda-sorta do this?

 

[Desdichado]

Legendary classes from FFG kinda do this as well. Both by FFG, actually. Weird coincidence.

Or not.

 

[RangerWickett]

Way to reply to a thread there, guys. Ah, nevermind.

 

[Cedric]

Can you make these characters in D&D? Without resorting to prestige classes, bizarre templates, or playing a monstrous race?

Nope...and personally I'd never try too make these characters in D&D. I just don't think it works that well as a game system ... for things like this.

Cedric

 

[BiggusGeekus]

Way to reply to a thread there, guys. Ah, nevermind.

Dude, I'm sorry. I really am. But I DM a more gritty style and as a player the game I'm in is currently 99% core rules.

Look, I'm very interested to see if people have games with powers similar to the ones in "The Adventures of Baron Von Munchausen" .... but I've never played in such a game.

Honestly, I think it is a weakness of the d20 system. Amber let you be one of the strongest/smartest/whateverest but it never caught on. d20 is very, very balanced. You can't play "the strongest man in the world", you have to settle for a +12 inherent STR bonus.

That is both very good and slightly bad. Good in that the player and DM can agree to what abilities do and nobody feels like they are being shafted. Bad in that a certain whimsical feeling is lost.

Just my two cents, of course.

 

[Saeviomagy]

The fact that you asked about 3 demi-questions doesn't really help.

Do you want a discussion on characters from fiction that break the mould?

Do you want a discussion on what LA's are appropriate for such characters?

Or do you want other ways the GM handles these sorts of things?

My suggestions would be to generate some form of feat which allows characters to cast a spell 'at will', without requiring material components or foci. Balancing such a feat is difficult, unless you rule that every character in the campaign has it.

Alternately, you could work it as a built-in magical item. ie - you start the game with a certain amount of XP, and allow characters to produce their own powers based on some balanced magical-item creation scheme. Want cyclops' eye-blast? It's a circlet of blasting with unlimited shots per day. Want duncan mcleod? Actually, he's just a guy with a heap of extra hitpoints and a damage resistance x/slashing (more hitpoints means that killing blow which severs the neck is a long way away). Stat bonuses are easy.

I'd suggest however that characters only get a set amount of xp which they can use on these powers. That way you don't get wildly different power levels occupying the same CR/party level in your game.

 

[Angcuru]

Sum non wallabus.

what does that mean, anyway?

I think what you are looking for in terms of game mechanics is a simple template for a stand-out bad-assness trait.

Hercules - Son of Zeus, strong as all hell...perhaps literally! +whatever to strength, (but take into account that he held up the world to give atlas a break, so that would be a big bonus!) and +1 ECL for every +4 STR(or something similar).

Any highlander/immortal dude - Has base rapid healing/regeneration 1/rnd, DR 1/-. Can only be truly killed by being decapitated (I.E. Critical hit "killing" blow results in actual death.) For every immortal the character kills, the healing rate and DR increase by whatever the slain immortal posessed. so if an immortal with regen4 and DR4 killed an immortal with regen 3 DR 3, he would now have regen7 and DR 7. Immortals don't recieve the effects of the regeneration and DR until the first time they recieve what would have been a fatal blow. At which point they lay on their 'deathbed' for 24 hours and then awaken with the regen and DR traits, wondering "HOW THE HELL AM I STILL ALIVE!?". All immortals are infertile and stop aging once then recieve this first 'fatal' blow. They cannot drown, burn to death, die of poison, ANYTHING. DECAPITATION ONLY! Beware the vorpal sword. Any battle damage that would normally kill them instead renders them unconcious until the regen puts them bac at full health.
I.E.
Guy who just dropped an immortal with his minigun - HAHA, you see that! He dropped like a rock. Stupid idiot waving a sword around like that. hey wait, why's he getting back up....and dusting himself off....?? MOMMY!
ECL = +15

...that poison touch sounds about right.

 

[Enkhidu]

What your looking for is this:

One of my most memorable characters started out as a specialty priest (back in the days of 2nd ed). Over the course of the campaign, he fell from his patron's favor, freed a goddess from a long imprisonment, and became the founder of a new religion. Obviously, he lost most of his priestly powers, going so far as to lose all of his clerical abilities. In return his new goddess gave him the ability to call and shape the raw essence of magic in a physical form.

My DM and I spent weeks figuring out exactly how to model this new power, and ended up creating what amounted to a whole new class - part cleric, part mage, and part something unique. We created solid mechanics from the ground up, modified the spell lists, and revamped the class in toto.

In the end, I had a character that more than anything else bore a striking resemblence to the comic book characters of Green Lantern and Quasar, and outfitted in his armor made of the essence of magic and wielding weapons to match, he became one of more more rewarding and lasting characters.

More what you're looking for, eh?

If you want some more details (mechanics and such) drop me an email. We'll talk.

 

[Tonguez]

At one point I was toying with a Feat based magic system (spells are described as 'Feats of Magic' in the core rules) that basically worked as 1 Feat to get Magery (Magic Aptitude) and then 1 Feat per spell per level (eg a Thrid level spell like Fly would cost 4 Feats = 1 (Magery) + 3 (Spell Level)

Every starting character got 10 Feats which could be used to build a character and all Feats were stackable (oh everyone had HD 6 btw, all Lv1 Class Abilities were Feats and BAb, SAVES and Defense were skills)

Rage(as Lv 1 Barb) would cost 1 Feat

Bulls strength would cost 3 Feats

Poison Touch would cost 5 Feats

Virtual Immortality = um mega DR/decapitation

I suppose using 'straight rules' you could allow characters to 'save' their feats until they have enough to buy the spell-power (so at Lv 3 a character would have 3 feats to get Bulls Strength)