Does System matter, part IX: Godlike

This is likely the last example in the series of posts translating a single character into a variety of systems, though I expect to do at least one more discussing what I've learned. The character in question – Dr. Zachary Zevon, the Indestructible Man - started in Villains and Vigilantes, and now exists in Silver Age Sentinels, HERO, Marvel Super Heroes, DC Heroes, FUDGE and Truth & Justice. There was an aborted attempt in GURPS and finally, I’m trying to tackle This lat entry covers GODLIKE, Greg Stolze's and Dennis Detwiller's game of supers in WWII. 

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A quick recap: Dr. Z is the Reed Richards analogue in a Fantastic Four style game. His natural abilities include a massive intellect and scientific skill, a powerful presence & sense-of-self, and an ability to analyze his opponents’ fighting style and the scientific basis for their powers. His superhuman ability is an invisible, highly versatile force field. He is renowned as the smartest man on Mars and is a millionaire with access to advanced technology and the Liberty Lair, his team’s base.

Body 3 Coordination 3 Sense 2
Brawl 2 Health 1 Dodge 1
Hyperstats
Miracles
Now, I indicated yesterday that I expected to run into problems in the system, and I did. Two of them to be precise, though one was an error in my favor.
First, the favorable error: the mechanics for character creation in Godlike are totally FUBAR due to one simple, highly exploitable loophole. Your character starts with will points - somewhere from 15 for a really weak talent to 150 for a really strong one (I set Dr. Z's at 85, the same point total as Cien in the rulebook), and you spend those points to buy your hyperstats, hyperskills and miracles. Any points you don't spend are added to your Base Will. Now, once play begins you can opt to spend Base Will to raise any of your Hyperstats, Hyperskills or Miracles AT THE SAME COST AS BUYING THEM ORIGINALLY. Of course, your Base Will regenerates in play. Therefore, there is no practical reason to not buy a minimum functional level in your Talent Abilities in character creation, bank the rest of the points into Base Will and then immediately spend that Base Will to raise your Talent Abilities. You'll start play with the same number of Will Points to spend as you would have the other way, but you'll have a pile more Base Will. The stats above indicate how Dr. Z looks at the start of his first adventure. 15 minutes later he looks like this:
Hyperstats
Miracles
Base Will 32 [currently at 18]
And he'll just get better every session as his Base Will keeps regenerating. It's all rather silly, and I wonder why the rules are written like this.
That out of the way, its on to the reasons why the character doesn't work: he's in an entirely alien environment. In its efforts to keep history more or less on track GODLIKE put in some harsh restrictions in Hyperbrains: Hyperbrains also have hyper-compassion and hyper-empathy, and therefore almost never engage in inventing things that could be used as weapons; they also have huge problems interacting with non-Hyperbrainy people. None of these are true of the standard comics super-genius, nor are they at all indicative of how I see Zach. So while I can toss them aside and make him hyper-brainy, I'm bucking the system to do it.
In addition, the system also blocks hyper-invention. GODLIKE uses the psi-powers crutch excuse for how high tech invention - called Goldberg Science in this setting - operates. The devices are nonsensical and don't represent real science at all, which is totally at odds with how Zach operates. He really is peeling back the frontiers of Science, not just mucking about with ill-defined psychokinesis. It's so out of character that I didn't bother to give him any.
Finally, his force field workable. The game doesn't have a default miracle for this sort of thing, but this looks more or less like the V&V version - it greatly reduces the chance of an attack hitting him rather than trying to count defense against damage. This lets him, in theory, bounce a tank shell or any sort of bullet, but some might get through if they roll really well. The damage mechanic in the game is seriously unforgiving, however, so if his force field slips up he's a red smear. His TK is unreliable at this stage, but will get better; I suspect he'll never have more than 4D in it because I want to keep the weight low, but eventually it will be 4 Wiggle Dice. 
x

Brains 5 Command 4 Cool 3
Base Will 32

Drive 2 Pilot 2 Sight 3
Hearing 2 Education 3 Electronics 2
Mechanics 2 Leadership 2 Inspire 3
Mental Stab. 4

Body +3d No leverage (+2) [4/8/16]
Brains +1WD [2/5/10]

Force Field 1d+2HD Defends, Robust, UOC, Reflexive, Expensive [6/12/24]
This power acts as Goble Dice on any attacks fired through it.
Telekinesis 2d Attacks, Defends, Robust, Useful, Clumsy [4/8/16]



Body +4d No leverage (+2) [4/8/16]
Brains +1WD [2/5/10]

Force Field 1d+ 3HD Defends, Robust, UOC, Reflexive, Expensive [6/12/24]
Telekinesis 3d Attacks, Defends, Robust, Useful, Clumsy [4/8/16]

So how's the fidelity here: Bad, as several key elements just run against the setting rules. This bugs me much less than the problems I have in GURPS or HERO, because GODLIKE is designed for a very specific environment: you're playing Supers in WWII, and not just any WWII, but this specific version with these specific power rules. It's not designed to be customizable to other settings, and I suspect that if you took it out of this one it would fail. Wild Talents, the generic version of this rules set, took years of playtesting (it just came out last year, when GODLIKE appeared in 2001). whswhs tried using these rules for his Ghazi game (the PCs were bearers of one of the 100 names of Allah, fighting off the Crusaders) and he had serious problems not just with the dice curve but with the lack of heavy firepower needed to counteract some of the abilities. The problem here is not that GODLIKE can't handle Dr. Z, but that Dr. Z has no place in GODLIKE. A can't be a standard bearer for systems designed for specific settings and then complain that the specific settings can't handle my ported in character: unlike the others, GODLIKE never claimed it could. 

Expect a wrap up essay in the next day or so. I might still noodle around with getting GURPS to work, but that will be inside the GURPS post and not on the main page. So far it's been an interesting experiment. 

Does System matter part VIII: GURPS

Previously I started a Thought Experiment in supers games, looking at what changes a character goes through when converted from one system to another. This is meant to test the validity of most supers games claims that you can use the system to build “any” character or run “any” kind of game. The character in question – Dr. Zachary Zevon, the Indestructible Man - started in Villains and Vigilantes, and now exists in Silver Age Sentinels, HERO, Marvel Super Heroes, DC Heroes, FUDGE and Truth & Justice. Finally, I’m trying to tackle

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GURPS

A quick recap: Dr. Z is the Reed Richards analogue in a Fantastic Four style game. His natural abilities include a massive intellect and scientific skill, a powerful presence & sense-of-self, and an ability to analyze his opponents’ fighting style and the scientific basis for their powers. His superhuman ability is an invisible, highly versatile force field. He is renowned as the smartest man on Mars and is a millionaire with access to advanced technology and the Liberty Lair, his team’s base.

When I say trying to tackle, I mean it – the system beat me. I just cannot figure out how to do it. I’m not a GURPS player (3 sessions of GURPS Wild Cards game in college), and I don’t own a copy of GURPS Powers. I did act as a playtester on whswhs’s GURPS Supers, but that was for genre issues, not mechanics. And for the life of me I can’t see a way to make a force wall type force field. If I could I’d buy that as a Wildcard Power and have done with the whole problem of powers, since Wildcard Powers are high versatile. Of course, in play I’d have to internalize TONS of GURPS rules to take advantage of it, and I just can’t. I suppose it would be easier if I’d read GURPS at the same age I read HERO, when my younger brain had the time and space for that sort of massive rules crunching, but GURPS is also inherently less logical than HERO when looking at supers. This makes sense, since HERO started out as a super hero emulator while GURPS started out as a reality emulator: you can’t get much more different than that.

That’s not the only problem, of course. First GURPS shares the same issue as HERO in that the real world weapons are so specific and measured against powers. If I want Dr. Z’s force field to be able to reliably stop a sniper rifle bullet (which it should) it needs to have some 50 points of DR, or roughly the same amount at the giant freakin’ robot statted up in the back of the book, and costing an arm and a leg. Actually, it’s 250 points +20% for being a force field = 300 pts. Just for his personal force field. I doubt that this is the way to go, but I don’t see any other option.

Second, I don’t have a frame of reference. It’s not Mr. Stoddard’s fault, but there are no sample characters in the GURPS Supers book. There are templates, but no completed characters for me to measure against. As with HERO there are a whole lot of levers but no good baseline rating for things. We had discussions in the playtest about the need for some sample characters, but it wasn’t part of the outline and therefore wasn’t going in the book. But without them I just can’t get traction. What’s good enough? Is an 18 IQ smart enough to be the smartest man on Mars, or do I need a 20? Or a 22 with the Super Attribute advantage? 20 is human max (in theory), but there are notes from GURPS Gurus that 18 should really be as high as you go. But the Techno template in the book has an IQ 20. If I go with that, there’s another 200 points down, and he now has a set of defaults that make him great in just about any mental skill.

Except for some – Finance doesn’t default to IQ, just to Accounting or Economics, and you can’t double default. So by the book even with no points in it he has a 14- (roughly 90%) in Economic theory and an equally high mastery in Accounting and can audit himself, but can’t actually balance his holding company’s finances unless I spend points in Finance. And if I do, the minimum skill he can have is an 18- on 3d6.

This sort of bizarre hyper specificity runs throughout the text: I obviously need to pick up Innate Attack to cover using his force field as a weapon, but the skill listing insists that I specialize in Beam, Gaze, Breath or Projectile, with precise rules for each on how he has to be facing, how he has to have hands free and so on. However, Dr. Z’s power just doesn’t work that way. Neither do a lot of other characters (where would Adam Warlock’s Soul Gem’s attacks fall? It’s not a gaze, but he doesn’t need his hands free. Do green Lanterns energy blasts not work if his hands are restrained? Not according to the comics, but in GURPS they might well.) I don’t know how to overcome that. Do I just blow off the rules? That sort of defeats the purpose of the experiment.

I find it ironic that the game systems that promise you the most versatility – GURPS and HERO – are the ones that produce the largest fidelity problems. The more the rules are nailed down, the less forgiving they are if you try to deviate from them. I figure I likely could get something to work for Force Field, but it’s not a standard GURPS power and therefore any version would be a wild kludging of mechanics to more or less approximate the effect. 

I have one last entry in the series, at least using the systems I currently own (alas, I no longer have a copy of Enforcers, one of the worst little systems I’ve ever come across). This is GODLIKE, and I expect it to not go well, but for very different reasons. 

Does System matter part VII: Truth & Justice

Last week I started a Thought Experiment in supers games, looking at what changes a character goes through when converted from one system to another. This is meant to test the validity of most supers games claims that you can use the system to build “any” character or run “any” kind of game. The character in question – Dr. Zachary Zevon, the Indestructible Man - started in Villains and Vigilantes, and now exists in Silver Age Sentinels, HERO, Marvel Super Heroes, DC Heroes, FUDGE, and, from the hands of the man with powers, Chad Underkoffler…

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Truth & Justice! (and the crowd goes wild!)

A quick recap: Dr. Z is the Reed Richards analogue in a Fantastic Four style game. His natural abilities include a massive intellect and scientific skill, a powerful presence & sense-of-self, and an ability to analyze his opponents’ fighting style and the scientific basis for their powers. His superhuman ability is an invisible, highly versatile force field. He is renowned as the smartest man on Mars and is a millionaire with access to advanced technology and the Liberty Lair, his team’s base.

chadu’s notes appear afterwards, but I have made some edits to his original (which appears on his LJ)

Dr. Zachary Zevon, the Indestructible Man

Background: Zachary is known as the smartest man on Mars. He's knowledgeable in most fields of science, and an expert in the high energy physics connected with the Philadelphia Experiment and Project Rainbow.

Motivation: Discover, analyze, create -- for and with SCIENCE!

Qualities: Expert [+4] Analysis, Expert [+4] Wealth, Good [+2] Charisma, Good [+2] In Love with teammate Deirdre and Poor [-2] Reputation: Smartest Man on Mars.

Origin: Irradiated by IF energies when an attempt to replicate the teleportational effects of the Philadelphia Experiment, Dr. Zevon, the smartest man on mars, gained his power of indestructible force fields.

Powers: Good [+2] Force Fields, Good [+2] Super-Intelligence, Average [0] Super-Gadgeteering,

Stunts: "Super-Strength" (Average [+2] Force Field Signature, shifting heavy weights, 1 HP), "Super-Punch" (Average [0] Force Field spin off, for blasting with invisible force, 1 HP), “Shield Area” (Poor [-2] to Good [+2] Force Field Signature, 0-2 HP), “Super-Breath” (Average [0] Force Field Spin Off, pushing things away 1 HP). For Zevon's Gadgets see Miscellany below.

Hero Point Pool/Max: 5/10

Uniform: Red slacks & shirt, silver gloves, boots & belt, League emblem (silver liberty bell with red dot in its center and two silver "moons" in "orbit" outside of the bell) on breast; made out of Energy Fabric.

Miscellany: Zevon's Analysis Quality shows his expertise at analyzing scientific theories, technologies, super-powers, and even opponents he has a chance to observe; this allows him to determine their strengths and weaknesses. His love for Deirdre is his secret passion, and can apply to any plan that involves her, action he takes alongside her or to protect her if she’s in trouble. His Reputation is an excellent one, but it means that he has a very public ID and is constantly besieged by those want to claim the title, pestered by those who want his help etc. His Power of Force Fields is effectively another type of Invulnerability (see T&J, p. 43) which he has learned to extend to others or project as physical force. Super-Intelligence means he's knowledgeable in most fields of science, an expert in the high energy physics connected with the Philadelphia Experiment and Project Rainbow; systemically, grants him 2 Upshifts per Scene for mental tasks or conflicts, and 2 "contingency plan" per session. While he can design super-technologies with his Super-Intelligence, it's his Super-Gadgeteering that allows him to actually construct them; furthermore, he gets four Gadgets at character generation.

Zevon's Gadgets include:
* Energy Fabric: A material with an indeterminate IF charge, making it highly resistant to damage, able to adapt to the IF powers of its wearer, and a effective form of insulation. Zevon's uniform is made out of it.

* Nanite Reconstruction Surgical Equipment (NuRSE): When a character is placed inside a NuRSE chamber, he gets +2 to all subsequent healing rolls as per Continuing Danger (see T&J, p. 62).

* League Communicators: Using cutting edge IF technology, League Communicators send messages through parallel dimensions to other communicators. They are not normally affected by distance or obstacles and can’t be traced or intercepted, but they do still suffer from lightspeed limits.

* Personal Environment Generators: A limited gravitic field is used to hold in atmosphere (and the warmth of that atmosphere), providing an unprotected body about 5 minutes life support in hard vacuum. (No combat effects.)

(Gadgets not used from the original V&V write-up: the Artificial Intelligence Emulator design, StrattonTech Scanner, pocket toolkit, and Roberto. The first one I consider as a user of Super-Intelligence to explain Zevon's Expert [+4] Wealth; this is aided by the fact that it seems to have no mechanical effect. The other three are essentially "off the shelf" purchases, which easily fall under Wealth. Roberto could be statted up as a Sidekick, if desired.)

(Since the Liberty Lair is his team's base, it would be handled under the Headquarters rules on T&J, p. 69).

Brian Notes: This looks good. I’d have to trust the GM to let me get away with the various TK stunts, but the design of T&J’s invulnerability (that he can ignore normal scale damage) makes the force field plenty tough. I imagine that an anti-tank weapon would still knock him down with accumulated Failure ranks, but it wouldn’t penetrate the field to cause damage. Chad had designed this power set, more or less, originally, but then recommended pushing for more Force Field and less super-intelligence. I disagree: as a player the force field was neat, but it’s strong enough as written, and he is both the Indestructible Man and the Smartest Man on Mars, and Good Super Intelligence is needed for that.

Most importantly I shifted around his qualities, making his Reputation a Poor [-2] to take advantage of how the T&J rules work: Zach has an excellent, wonderful reputation that causes him no end of complications: his enemies know how to draw him out, his ID is public, and everyone always looks to him and his team to save the world from whatever danger it’s gotten in to this time. This let me move his love for Dierdre into a positive quality. This was important as perhaps my favorite aspect of PDQ is how the first quality reduced by Damage Ranks is the one that generates a story hook – Zach will always take his first damage rank to his love for Deirdre, insuring an endless stream of awkward situations, prying relatives, angst filled moments and other romantic interest aspects in play.

Finally, I gave him some boosts because he isn’t a starting character: an extra quality rank for more Wealth and statted out two more stunts, just to make sure his core force field tricks were accounted for. 

Not surprising, but this is a very clear map over into another highly narrative system. I’m getting the feeling that my largest problems with mapping things over come in games where the damage of firearms is most clearly nailed down against reality and the powers in play, hence the higher costs of being invulnerable. My next step is GURPS unless someone wants to save me. This will likely take a few days, so don’t be surprised by a delay. 

Does System Matter, part VI – FUDGE

Last week I started a Thought Experiment in supers games, looking at what changes a character goes through when converted from one system to another. This is meant to test the validity of most supers games claims that you can use the system to build “any” character or run “any” kind of game. The character in question – Dr. Zachary Zevon, the Indestructible Man - started in Villains and Vigilantes, and now exists in Silver Age Sentinels, HERO, Marvel Super Heroes, DC Heroes and now, thanks to whswhs,

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FUDGE.

A quick recap: Dr. Z is the Reed Richards analogue in a Fantastic Four style game. His natural abilities include a massive intellect and scientific skill, a powerful presence & sense-of-self, and an ability to analyze his opponents’ fighting style and the scientific basis for their powers. His superhuman ability is an invisible, highly versatile force field. He is renowned as the smartest man on Mars and is a millionaire with access to advanced technology and the Liberty Lair, his team’s base.

From Bill Stoddard: “Brian asked people familiar with rules systems to design versions of these characters. I don't have time just now to do a GURPS Supers version. But I also wrote the current FUDGE supers rules. So here's a sketch of Zevon in FUDGE.

Zachary Zevon, The Indestructible Man

Attributes [nine levels: two free levels: six levels from gifts: nine levels from scale: eight levels spent on skills]:

Body: Good
Mind: Legendary 2
Soul: Superb

Skills [thirty-four levels: ten free levels: twenty-four levels from attributes]:

Brawling: Good [base is Body]
Cybernetics: Superb
Experimental Physics: Legendary 2
Force Field Engineering: Superb
Materials Science: Great
Nanotechnology: Great
Theoretical Physics: Great
Weakness Identification: Superb

Gifts [eight gifts: two free gifts: nine gifts from scale: three gifts spent on attributes]:

Force Field (supernormal gift): equivalent to wearing full body armor: +4 to damage capacity: battery option, 25 charges, one charge consumed per attack stopped, can expend multiple charges to stop stronger attacks, up to +8 added damage capacity for all 25 charges: 2 gifts
Force Field Expansion: can extend force field to 1-yard bubble at -4 to damage capacity (stops melee attacks, but a missile attack can shoot through it to hit him): 1 gift
Force Field Manipulation: can use force field for power stunts giving +4 to strength scale: with expenditure of a FUDGE point, can come up with other applications: 1 gift
Invention: can invent advanced state-of-the-art devices: 1 gift
Instant Invention (supernormal gift): can invent new devices during the course of an adventure, with portable tools: invented devices have duration one adventure: 2 gifts
Wealth: millionaire: 1 gift

Scale [total scale 24: 9 scale steps converted to nine gifts and nine attribute levels]:

Scale 15 for force field: additional +15 to damage capacity

Notes: The twenty-four scale steps are my standard quota for "heavy hitter" superheroes, as opposed to streetlevel, who would be built on twelve. A twelve-point version of Zevon would do just fine in a street fight but not on a battlefield. Think of the difference between the Avengers first team (Thor, Iron Man, Ant Man, the Wasp, the Hulk) and second team (Captain America, Hawkeye, Quicksilver, the Scarlet Witch).

I handwaved the various "adventuring gear" items, such as the nanotech healing system and robot butler at team HQ, and the energy cloth costumes and personal communicators. None of those would actually count as "superpowers," in that they're not trademark items for individual heroes. A fussier accounting could try to figure out how to define each of them as a gift—for example, the nanotech healing system would be one supernormal gift for allowing 24 hours healing (one wound level, in a cinematic setting) in one hour; the energy cloth is effectively damage capacity 2 armor with negligible weight and bulk.

The Indestructible Man has +19 to damage capacity with his force field set skintight, for 25 shots; this drops to +15 for 1 yard radius, +13 for 1.5 yards, +11 for 2.25 yards, +9 for 3.3 yards, +7 for 5 yards, and so on. If he takes a really big hit, he can stand one attack at up to +27 damage capacity. We don't really have detailed stats for weapons, but I figure that gets him up to surviving attacks from antitank weapons. Small arms fire hasn't got a chance of hurting him. 

Notes from Brian: This looks like a very solid translation of the character, with minimal loss of fidelity. All the key aspects are clearly listed, with the opening for FUDGE point expenditures to get things like his super-breath tricks. 

With a Legendary 2 Mind and Experimental Physics his lowest possible roll is a Good, which is equivalent to normal people doing pretty well. That feels about right. I’m not familiar enough with FUDGE Supers to comment on the damage mechanics, but I’ll trust Mr. Stoddard when he says that the force field will bounce small arms fire and conceivably withstand an anti-tank weapon– that’s good enough to capture the feel of things (assuming we don’t have a circumstance like DC Heroes where people whose fists are as potent as anti-tank weapons grow on trees). The 25 charges tie nearly with the Power scores and Energy points in the other two games, so Zach can still get tired out or overwhelmed – important things to keep the character from being immune to threats. It’s interesting that HERO and DC Heroes don’t have that, where the threat is not time but people having standard access to amounts of force that would break the wall. The more systems we see him in, the more that distinction becomes clear and changes how he would appear in play. 

As with V&V, all of the gear is just handwaved away – he’s a genius, he invented it, and it’s secondary to the character concept. I still feel that’s the best way to handle it, with second best being SAS’s “spend some points on having general gear”. Thinking it through, this would be much less viable if one of the other PCs had the power of super-senses, in which case Zach’s scanner would have to be considerably less useful than his teammate’s power. HERO tries to make this less of an issue by charging points for the scanner, but I’d still feel bad if my character’s secondary gear stomped all over someone else’s primary power. 

Thanks for the help, Mr. Stoddard. Tomorrow we look at chadu’s Truth & Justice write up. 

Does System Matter Part V: DC Heroes

On Tuesday I started a Thought Experiment in supers games, looking at what changes a character goes through when converted from one system to another. This is meant to test the validity of most supers games claims that you can use the system to build “any” character or run “any” kind of game. The character in question – Dr. Zachary Zevon, the Indestructible Man - started in Villains and Vigilantes, and now exists in Silver Age Sentinels, HERO and Marvel Super Heroes.

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Now we look at DC Heroes (or MEGS)

A quick recap: Dr. Z is the Reed Richards analogue in a Fantastic Four style game. His natural abilities include a massive intellect and scientific skill, a powerful presence & sense-of-self, and an ability to analyze his opponents’ fighting style and the scientific basis for their powers. His superhuman ability is an invisible, highly versatile force field. He is renowned as the smartest man on Mars and is a millionaire with access to advanced technology and the Liberty Lair, his team’s base.

Dr. Z (Cost is 2000 points, or 4x base)

Dex 6        Str 3         Body 4
Int 14        Will 7       Mind 8
Infl 8         Aura8      Spirit 7
Initiative 28        Hero Points 141

Powers Ranks Notes
Force Field 8
Force Shield 8
Force Manipulation 12 -3 Factor Cost: can't give object powers or skills

Skills
Gadgetry 14 -2 Factor Cost, linked to INT
Scientist 14 -2 Factor Cost, linked to INT
Vehicles 6 -2 Factor Cost, linked to DEX; -1 Factor Cost, no water vehicles

Wealth 14

Advantages and Drawbacks
Area Knowledge: New Philadelphia
Connection: High with Norris Industries, Liberty Station, Gaslight
Headquarters: Expansive
Popularity
Genius
Irrational Attraction: Scientific Puzzles, Minor

There were a few problems here. Many were with the system. To start with, DC heroes gives you 450 points to create a character, saying that this will let you build someone on par with a member of the Teen Titans. A quick mathematical calculation of the Teen Titans as presented in the book proved that this was not so – 450 points was not even enough to build Danny Chase, the boy telekinetic who worked with the team for a while. For more powerful characters the system advises you to multiply your starting points, where a x2 or x3 multiple would give you a Justice League International (this was published in 1990, when the JLI was da bomb) level character. Actually, a x2 multiplier gets you in the Titans, and a x3-x4 gets you in the Justice League. But as long as I know this, I’m fine with it – I just wish the authors had done the math themselves and spared me the trouble.

Now here’s where things get freaky: Advantages and Drawbacks are supposed to have their costs multiplied along with you base points. In essence, they represent percentage investments of the characters total points, as they scale up with the heroes power level. This is messy, since all the advantages and drawbacks cost out at multiples of 5. I made a creator fiat and bumped up the starting points 500 and recorded the costs of the advantages as % of point investment. (This is only enough to make Danny Chase if you don’t charge him 3% of his pointes for his listed High level contact with the Teen Titans, which lets him squeak under with 5 points to spare). For example, being Popular now costs Dr. Z 4% of his total points – it would have been 20 points for a x1 character, but as a x4 character it functionally costs 80. This system makes a degree of sense, but some of the advantages rapidly become useless to more powerful characters.

For example, Nightwing has a higher multiple than the 1990’s era Martian Manhunter: Mr. Grayson has tied up 38% of his total points in Advantages (including 3% in his contact with the Titans), so each multiple only nets him 310 points. He has to be a x4 character to afford all his stats and skills. J’onn, in contrast, has a 10% increase in his base points due to his Loss Vulnerability (all powers and physical stats drop to a 2 when in 1 AP of Fire). Mind you, the version of J’onn in this rulebook lacks his Sealed Systems and Bio-Energy Blast (which were either added later or forgotten about during this era), along with the Super-Speed he seems to have picked up of late. Even with those anomalies, I’d be willing to benchmark Martian Manhunter as a more powerful and versatile hero than Nightwing. So clearly, there is something rank in Gotham.

Now here’s the really odd part: a hero’s starting Gadgets are supposed to be purchased as Advantages. So Wonder Woman’s bracelets, with their 30 Body, would cost her 600 points, which, as an Advantage, are 120% of her starting points, putting her into negative territory that no multiple could ever clear her from. With that in mind purchasing starting Gadgets for Zach is a non-starter, though with 141 hero points he could easily buy or build some in play. Assuming one could ever piece together the DC Heroes gadgetry system – it’s better than the first edition version that the Ambush Bug module famously mocked, but it’s not easy.

Once I’ve taken all of this into account Zach’s stats and skills were simple enough. I made him as smart as Lex Luthor and the Chief (the two smartest humans in the DC Universe), but with a lower Science and Gadgetry score to take advantage of the Linking option. His Spiritual Stats are right on line with where his 20 Charisma in V&V should put them – very high, but not human maximum (if you follow the scale, he is one fourth as Influential as the Batman, though the two share the same strength of Aura). The hideous lack of granularity for STR and BODY means that his physical stats are higher than perhaps they ought to be, but low for a super-hero in DC, but his DEX looks right. This system would be a simple enough expansion of the Tri-Stat method were it not for how Strength and Body are on an entirely different scale!

The powers? One word: Oy! And I thought HERO was a pain! But it’s not really; HERO just operates under a different paradigm than I prefer for in game flexibility, so I feel like I’m fighting the system to get a character that can use his powers on the fly. DC Heroes on the other hand, has NO rules for using your powers on the fly, and also has a highly specific powers list. Oh, you can push those powers, or make trick shots with them, but you can’t suddenly use force field to create a temporary vacuum. In HERO I get around this with the Variable Power Pool; in SAS I do it with Dynamic Powers; in V&V it’s Inventing Points or writing a flexible power description. In DC heroes I, er, don’t. That’s because the Force Field power does only one thing – protect his body against attacks. The Force Shield power, which I had hoped would be the same as Force Wall from HERO, is even more specific – it creates a shield that can be interposed, like a Shield spell in D&D that is 4 feet in diameter. I bought it to have an easy way to protect others, but it can’t make a globe around someone. It’s just a 4’ diameter shield, and the rules are specific about how it can be used. Those specific rules are at odds with how Booster Gold, one of the few people in the book with the Force Shield power, uses it in the comics, however. I really wonder how many DC comics Greg Gordon actually read while writing this game, as it lacks the feeling of total immersion in the back-story that Jeff Grubb brought to Marvel Super Heroes.

Anyway, back to Zach. I had to buy Force Manipulation, which is the Green Lantern power. But I couldn’t use that to make a vacuum either, because Air Control is a mental power and Force Manipulation can only duplicate stats, physical powers and skills. He could use it to create a giant blowtorch that would melt a wall because Flame Projection is a physical power, but no messing with the air. This is, however, the only way to build Green Lantern style force walls, so I bought a high amount of it and limited it so he couldn’t duplicate powers and skills. With all 12 points put into the BODY of a creation he has a chance to bounce an air to air missile (damage 13), but it would shatter under a single punch from Wonder Woman (damage 16). Of course, if I go for maximal lifting with this Zach could support 50 tons, which is one hell of a lot more than his 4000 lb limit in V&V! His personal Force Field will stop a machine gun, and since it adds to his Body it equates to making him as tough as his toughest Force Manipulated constructs. 

That done, how well would this work in play? This is really hard to say. I’ve owned the DC Heroes rules since they came out in the 80’s but have played it only a handful of times. I suspect the combination of powers would let me do a lot of the things I liked with the character, even if it would be a stretch on more than one occasion. He’s combat worthy enough, at least to my untrained eye, and I think I have a handle on the Gadgetry rules. If I’m wrong on that score I’ll know soon enough. 

Zach ended up costing more in DC heroes than I thought he would, but that’s the cost of the Intelligence, Gadgetry and Science skills – not to mention having to sink points into 3 stats to capture his powerful mind and 3 more for his high charisma. Still, given the freaky point structure of the game his relative point cost to other characters is hard to measure, as 25% of his points are tied up in Advantages. 

This experiment left me seeing that DC Heroes is a high versatile, powerful game that’s buried under some godawful power mechanics, and perhaps an overly fiddly dice engine. It is designed for a much higher power scale than the other games I’ve reviewed so far and looks like it does a good job of balancing out Batman with Superman in a mechanical and narrative sense. If I were to run something in it I’d use it as an excuse to chuck the entire power listing and start from scratch, adopting the ideas of Scarcity cost and Versatility that I’ve been discussing of late in Alarums & Excursions. 
Scarcity would replace the base cost of the power or skill and would be determined by the player who first built someone with that ability, given them control of how often the power would appear in play. Give something a high scarcity cost and you’ve set a bar on entry for other characters; a low one means that you aren’t staking a claim on this niche (unless you set a low one and then buy 20 ranks of the power, daring people to try and catch you). An entirely new structure of Scarcity costs in the campaign would make the world look like a very different place than the standard comics universes. 
Versatility would take the place of the Factor Cost, a 1-10 ranking by the GM and player about how flexible the power or skill is intended to be in play, setting the groundwork for the gentleman’s agreement that determines how much leeway the character is cut when he tries to use the ability in new ways in play. 

I’m very interested to hear whswhs’s take on these thoughts, since he’s the only person I know who ran a long term DC Heroes game and can tell me how the dice mechanic worked out and whether my fears that profligate hero point spending would seriously skew play are true to life. Tomorrow we tackle the FUDGE write up that Mr. Stoddard wrote for me today, and then Mondat we get to chadu's Truth & Justice version. 

Does System Matter part IV: Marvel Super Heroes

On Tuesday I started a Thought Experiment in supers games, looking at what changes a character goes through when converted from one system to another. This is meant to test the validity of most supers games claims that you can use the system to build “any” character or run “any” kind of game. The character in question – Dr. Zachary Zevon, the Indestructible Man - started in Villains and Vigilantes, and now exists in Silver Age Sentinels, HERO and, as of Today,( Collapse )

Marvel Super Heroes.

A quick recap: Dr. Z is the Reed Richards analogue in a Fantastic Four style game. His natural abilities include a massive intellect and scientific skill, a powerful presence & sense-of-self, and an ability to analyze his opponents’ fighting style and the scientific basis for their powers. His superhuman ability is an invisible, highly versatile force field. He is renowned as the smartest man on Mars and is a millionaire with access to advanced technology and the Liberty Lair, his team’s base.

Dr. Z
Fighting: Good (10)
Agility: Good (10)
Strength: Typical (6)
Endurance: Good (10)
Reason: Amazing (50)
Intuition: Excellent (20)
Psyche: Remarkable (30)

Health: 36
Karma: 100
Resources: Incredible (40)
Popularity: 50

Powers:
Force Fields: Zach can project force fields of Amazing (50) intensity over 1 area, reduced by -1 CS for each extra area it encompasses. These fields are invisible and provide equal protection against physical and energy attacks. Any attack that exceeds the field’s intensity does no damage to those inside, instead causing the field to collapse and forcing Dr. Z to make a Psyche test against the attack’s intensity or fall unconscious. Any attack that exactly equals the field’s intensity forces as a similar Psyche test to avoid Zach being stunned for 1 round and the field losing 1 rank of Intensity during that time. The field drops if Zach is incapacitated.

Zach has mastered the power stunt of using his force field to exert force on objects, mirroring telekinesis. He can create freestanding fields which lift with Good intensity. If he braces the field against the ground or other solid object they are equivalent to Incredible intensity Telekinesis for lifting and general pressure, but their range is limited to two areas and he can’t strike with them. Zach cannot perform fine manipulation with these fields, nor can he lift objects and use them as weapons. He can. However, just hit people with a freestanding field for Good damage, or push them along with Incredible strength.

Zach has experimented with using ‘explosive’ force fields – ones that expand with great rapidity, hurling things with Remarkable force. He has used this as an uncontrolled form of super-leaping by ‘exploding’ a force field under himself, hurling a heavy weight a considerable distance and temporarily dispersing a creature with a sand-based body. He has also theorized that this could be used to rapidly create a partial vacuum around a target, but has not done so yet. Finally, he has single instances of using his force fields to give him Amazing intensity parabolic hearing and Excellent intensity sound generation by “megaphoning” his voice.

Talents:
Zach is an expert in Physics, Computers and Electronics, and a world class inventor (Engineering talent). He also knows Martial Arts D (spend 2 rounds watching opponent to ignore their Body Armor for Slam and Stun effects).

Contacts:
Dr. Z is the leader of the Liberty League and is on excellent terms with the New Philadelphia government. He also has connections with Audrey and Rowan Norris of Norris Industries (a terraforming form) and the Liberty Station orbital science community. His college roommate grew up to be the costumed adventurer Gaslight (Zach designed his energy and gas weapons) and the two are on excellent terms.

OK, another system down. So how well did he translate?
This one was another smooth fit. No surprise, given that the character was based on two characters from the Marvel universe. Stat wise it was a coin toss as to whether both Zach’s Strength and Endurance should be Good or Typical, so I split the difference, pegging the Strength to the relative carrying capacities. The resources and popularity were simply pegged at the same level as Reed Richards as well. The relative rules for inventions are similar to those in V&V – that is to say “If you have intelligence and time, you can try it” – though MSH uses more complicated rules for resources and feat intensity rather than the one use resource of Invention Points. Still, it lets us cover all of his gadgets, vehicles and the teams based with his Amazing reason, some talents and Incredible resources.

The high trust/low granularity of the system makes translations easy – I just write down what the character should be able to do and the mechanics wrap around it easily enough. I have another big advantage in how V&V’s force field rules are so clearly based on Invisible Woman’s powers, which are also the basis for the MSH force fields. The fields are tougher here than they would be in V&V because there is no feedback for anything other than near-penetrations – Marvel just doesn’t have that sort of a resource mechanic, and it would be crazy to have him roll to resist stun every time the field gets hit by an Excellent or better attack. If I really wanted he could lose 1 point of Health per attack repulsed, but that’s not really idea. MSH is the originator of the concept of Power Stunts, so any concerns about the system not letting me be creative (other than the very high 100 point Karma cost per power stunt attempt) are laid to rest. This is the first of the game systems where as a player I have control over the dice outcomes (I could have bought Divine Relationship in SAS, but didn’t bother), and Zach’s high mental and spiritual stats give him an unexpected edge there.

Another advantage is that V&V and Marvel occupy much the same power level (other than V&V’s lower carrying capacities for super-strong heroes). Tomorrow I expect that DC heroes will have problems with Zach being too weak in comparison to the system, and someone like Green Lantern or Wonder Woman would make MSH curl up and play dead. 

With another high fidelity map over, how will this play? I suspect very well. The powers work nicely, the system encourages creativity and there’s little to no concern with real world weapon damage benchmarks to make me worry about the force field strength. Zach still can’t do a lot of damage, but MSH isn’t constructed around combat the way that HERO was (with its rigorous application of attacks against defense) so it’s not as much of an issue. The character was always meant as a versatile high defense, low offence scientist, and that’s what we’ve got. Cambias made a comment off line yesterday that some systems exert their own gravitational pull, trying to mold character design into certain specific shapes. I suspect that MHS does that as much as HERO does, but that Zach already fits into some of MSH’s standard molds so it feels right. 

Inventing was a potential problem in HERO and there’s a neat comparison here. MSH provides very clear guidelines for inventions, so Dr. Z will be able to automatically do certain things but have a poor chance for wild and wacky breakthroughs. V&V lacks any sort of system on this, while SAS and HERO both fall back on point cost for things. In Marvel building a dimensional portal is damn hard and written up as such, while in SAS Dimension Hop is a cheap power but the GM could apply a -10 penalty to Zach’s roll to build a dimension hop device. Or a -1. Or a +5. Whatever he wants. Dimensional Travel is a more expensive power in HERO, but the issue is still the same, and with a 50 point Gadget Pool Zach could easily afford to build one, and the difficulty of the roll is capped at -5 (1/10 the points in the Gadget Pool), with bonuses for extra time – the GM can’t even move to hose him with a high die penalty! Those 50 points are mine and I’ll spend them how I see fit! In any event, it’s interesting to see where the trust issues lie in the games and that MSH, for all its high trust, removes Inventing power from both the GM and the Player and puts it in the system. 

Does System Matter part III: Hero

On Tuesday I started a Thought Experiment in supers games, looking at what changes a character goes through when converted from one system to another. This is meant to test the validity of most supers games claims that you can use the system to build “any” character or run “any” kind of game. The character in question – Dr. Zachary Zevon, the Indestructible Man - started in Villains and Vigilantes, and Yesterday he was translated into Silver Age Sentinels. Today, with the aid of the redoubtable Cambias, we look at him in HERO 

A quick recap: Dr. Z is the Reed Richards analogue in a Fantastic Four style game. His natural abilities include a massive intellect and scientific skill, a powerful presence & sense-of-self, and an ability to analyze his opponents’ fighting style and the scientific basis for their powers. His superhuman ability is an invisible, highly versatile force field. He is renowned as the smartest man on Mars and is a millionaire with access to advanced technology and the Liberty Lair, his team’s base. 

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Notes from Cambias: Okay, Brian: Here's Doctor Z in Hero System. Since I don't have a copy of V&V, I had to kind of guess about some of his attribute levels, but I tried to keep him relatively normal-human in characteristics. The force field powers were a bit of a problem, because the strength level you cited (400 lbs) is much less potent than the "invulnerable" description for the defenses. I tried to strike a middle ground with a Multipower. [BR: I have also alternately included an Element Control] He has a Gadget Pool for handy devices, and the two bits of signature wear (the uniform and super-PDA) aren't in it. He comes out as a "Very High Powered" character. Scaling back his force powers or reducing the value of the group's Base might squeeze him down to "merely" High Powered.

Doctor Z (HERO version)

STR 13 (3 pts)
DEX 17 (21 pts)
CON 13 (6 pts)
BODY 11 (2 pts)
INT 23 (16 pts*)
EGO 14 (8 pts)
PRE 20 (10 pts)
COM 12 (1 pts)
PD 5 (2 pts)
ED 5 (2 pts)
SPD 4 (13 pts)
REC 6 (0 pts)
END 26 (0 pts)
STUN 23 (0 pts)
(attribute cost: 95 pts)

Skills:
Combat Levels: +2 with Force Fields [tight group] 6 pts
Computer Programming 14- (3 pts)
Deduction 14- (3 pts)
Electronics 14- (3 pts)
Inventor 14- (3 pts)
Mechanics 14- (3 pts)
Power – Force Fields: 14- (3 pts)
Science: Physics 14- (2 pts)
Science: Robotics 14- (2 pts)
Science: Biology 14- (2 pts)
Science: Chemistry 14- (2 pts)
Science: Geology 14- (2 pts)
Science: Astronomy 14- (2 pts)
Skill Levels: +2 INT skills (10 pts)
Skill Enhancer – Scientist (3 pts)
Systems Operation: 14- (3 pts)
Transport Familiarity: SF Vehicles (2 pts)
Weaponsmith – energy & chemical 14- (3 pts)
(skill cost: 57 pts)

Perks and Talents:
Base (a one-fifth share of a 500-point base) (20)
Lightning Calculator (3 points)
Money (Wealthy) (6 pts)
Reputation: Heroic Scientist/Adventurer, Worldwide 14- (3 pts)
Speed Reading (4 points)
(perks & talents cost: 36 pts)

Powers:
Endurance Reserve: 170 Endurance, 20 Recovery, Personal Recovery -1/2, fuels Force Field powers. (30 pts)
Element Control – Force Fields: 41 point EC (41) [total cost is 168]
* Force Field: 22 PD, 22 ED, extends to what he’s carrying (10 pts adder), invisible to sight group (+1/2) 82 AP(41 pts)
* Force Wall: 9 PD, 9 ED, +5” length, invisible to sight group (+1/2) 82 AP (41 pts)
* Telekinesis: 38 STR, invisible to sight group (+1/2) 82 AP (41 pts)
OR
Multipower: 108 point pool (108 pts) [total cost is 168]
* Force Field: 30 PD, 30 ED, extends to what he’s carrying (10 pt adder); Invisible to sight group (+1/2) 105 AP (21 pts)
* Force Wall: 12 PD, 12 ED, +5” Length, invisible to sight group (+1/2) 105 AP (21 pts)
* Telekinesis: 40 STR, invisible to sight group (+1/2), 90 AP (18 pts)

Variable Power Pool: Force Fields (can only have force field related powers, -1/2); 15 point force field pool, 5 point control cost (20 pts)
Detect: Power Functionality (5 pt class), Discriminatory, Ranged, Powers must be visibly in use (-1) (7 pts)

Scanner: combines High Range Radio Perception, Infrared Perception, Ultrasonic Perception, and Ultraviolet Perception; all with the Analyze modifier (Obvious Accessible Focus: Scanner) (22 pts)
Uniform: Armor 2 PD 2 ED, plus Safe Environment (extreme cold) (Obvious Inaccessible Focus: Uniform) (5 pts)
Variable Power Pool: Gadgets (can only be changed at the lab, OIF Gadgets); 50-point gadget pool, 10 point control cost (60 points)

(powers cost: 312 points)

Disadvantages:
DNPC: Norris Family: Normal w/ useful skills, group of 2, 8- (-10 pts)
DNPC: Scientists on Liberty Station: Normal w/ useful skills, group of 8, 8- (-20 pts)
Distinctive Feature: Uniform (easily concealable, always noticed) (-10 pts)
Hunted: Various evil geniuses, as powerful, 8-, Public ID (-15 pts)
Normal Characteristic Maxima (-20 pts)
Psychological Limitation: Code vs. Killing (-20 pts)
Psychological Limitation: Loves Silver Dragon (-15)
Psychological Limitation: Patriotic Martian-American (-10 pts)
Psychological Limitation: Scientific Curiosity (-5 pts)
Psychological Limitation: Altruistic do-gooder (-10 pts)
Social Limitation: Public Identity (-20 pts)
Susceptibility: takes 1d6 stun whenever Force Wall breached (-5 pts)

(disadvantages: -150)
(Experience: 15)
Total cost: (93+60+35+312=500; 350+135+15=500)

Now we start to see some of the problems in translation. Here are some changes of note
Dr. Z’s stats are close to what they should be. His INT is a little weak, but the advantage of being able to buy Normal Characteristic Maxima as a disadvantage made the decision to cap it at 23, as I needed the points. In HERO 3E I would have gamed the system more and given him a level of Age, which would bump up his INT max to a 25 and given me 5 more disad points, but 5E makes it clear that Age also carries a general infirmity, which I didn’t want for the character. Ideally I’d have his INT at a 33 – already the system is modifying how the character appears, if not how he plays.

While the stats reflect how Zach looked in V&V and SAS, they are very, very poor stats for a super hero in HERO. His comparatively low DEX works out to a Combat Value of 6, and will hurt him in fights. His 4 speed isn’t a boon either. Both fit the mold of “heroic scientist with a force field power” but in HERO it makes him as fast and agile as a Brick (in the supers gaming sense).

His skills list is much more detailed than it is in either of the other two systems. Two Skill Levels with all INT Skills gets him functionally to where he should be INT wise, with a 90 to 98% chance in his INT based skills. I’m always uncomfortable with these sorts of systems because I can never be sure what the GM will interpret as being needed. I added several skills that Cambias hadn’t included (Transport Familiarity with SF vehicles, Systems Operations, Weaponsmith) because the character should logically be able to do them even if they aren’t key. There are no social skills on the list however, so based on how often the dice come into social interaction Dr. Z could be seriously reduced from his 20 Charisma/11 Soul, even with a 20 Presence. I debated back and forth about adding languages – Zach should be able to speak Mandarin and Cantonese, given that China is the other major power on Mars, and it would just be assumed when it came up in either of the previous two systems, but I was already having serious point issues. Likewise on Area Knowledge – Mars, or Business Management skills.

The Perks and Talents system translated cleanly enough. Cambias added Speed Reader and Lightning Calculator, which are spot on but another point drain that would be handwaved in the previous systems. Money and Reputation ( I do like the 5E Reputation rules – quick and clean) translated over easily, and I wasn’t going to do any calculating on the teams base and vehicles – the 20 point expenditure is good enough to capture it for now.

On to powers. Oh dear God the PAIN!
Cambias had suggested Find Weakness, but that didn’t quite fit how Dr. Z’s weakness detection worked in V&V, so I cobbled together a special Detect w/ Discriminate to indicate his near superhuman ability to figure out what someone’s powers are. He’d need his scanner to really analyze it, but this, plus his high Deduction skill, puts him in position to decipher and trump his opponent’s powers. This is very much something that would have to be run past the GM

His Gadget pool looks incredibly powerful once you put some numbers around it, and his scanner costs a lot more than I thought it would. I would really like to add his Personal Environment Generator as a permanent part of his gear, but for now it can stay as something he routinely makes with his Gadget pool. I have never played HERO with this sort of a pool, so I don’t know how hard this is to manage in play, or if it really is as powerful as it looks.

Of course, not having used a VPP before didn’t stop be from buying two of them! The second is a quickie 15 point pool for Force Field powers that he can with a Power roll and an action. It’s not much, but it does a good enough job capturing the versatility of his force field. Another difficulty I have with HERO is how the same power can be statted out in so many different ways – hence doing his Force Field as both a Multipower and an Element Control. Neither quite captures how I see Force Fields working. In the EC isn’t not strong enough, in the Multipower Dr. Z’s powers are hindered by splitting his concentration, not by having a limited amount of time per round.

TK covers his ability to lift and move things, but it lacks the specificity of the previous systems in dividing things between moving things unsupported and lifting them with a braced force field. Here, the TK is TK, and I can’t come up with a non-clunky way of making it different.

The damage mechanic is also a problem for the Force Field. In the Element Control version most supers attacks in the game will penetrate his Force Wall; they have less of a chance in with the Multipower version, assuming he pumps the power up to its maximum level. In either case, plentiful conventional firearms can breach it with a good roll. I know this is true in V&V as well, but there the guns do less damage, and the caliber doesn’t matter. Here, scaling up of weapons matters and they can do a lot. There is a standard Force Wall limitation for Feedback, but it’s insanely prohibitive against Dr. Z’s Stun score. Hence, the addition of his Susceptibility for a less deadly alternative.

His personal Force Field is highly effective at stopping Body, but not Stun. I’d love it if the GM let me have any damage that got through the stun be “mental feedback” that would be invisible to the attacker, letting him maintain the aura of invulnerability, but I’m not sure if that sort of character handwave would need to be statted out as a new power with a higher point cost. Still, in the Element Control version he can ignore the first 29 Stun from any attack. Of course, this still means that he’d take an average of 6 points per 10d6 attack, dropping him in 4 shots – unless he also as his Force Wall in the way. I’m not sure if I’d be better served without the Force Field and just even more points in Force Wall.

As with Skills, the Disadvantage list is much more detailed than previously. His love for Silver Dragon and Fame are there, as is the “He’s just a normal human” disad that was covered with Less Capable in SAS. After that I had to nail down yet more parts of his psyche on paper to justify point totals, and then add some of the supporting cast as DNPCs. Finally, we add the Hunted by Various Evil Geniuses. Not that it came up in play, but it’s a very Reed Richards/Dr. Quest sort of thing that works for Zach in both his powered and non-powered existence. I don’t need to name or define them, there’s just a bunch of other people gunning for the Smartest Man on Mars title who keep taking aim at Zach. He doesn’t have anyone who rises to the level of Dr. Doom, but this certainly covers The Wizard, the Red Ghost and their ilk. 

Having seen him map over with some hits to his Fidelity, how would it work in play? 

I don’t have a ton of experience with HERO, but I’d have to say “Poorly”. The character costs in at 500 points, which is somewhere between High Powered and Very High Powered, but he doesn’t break out in any of the conventional fashions for those power levels. His Stun score is lousy. His Speed Score is the same as a Brick or a Mook in a game where Speed is a big determining factor in combat effectiveness. His damage Potential is too low to hurt anyone he can hit, and his OCV is too low to hit anyone he can hurt. I might be under-emphasizing the strength of the Gadget pool here in making 50 Active Point weapons against a target’s weak spots, but that’s hard to say. In either event, the Gadget Pool and the Force Field Pool would both take more math than I’d like to have to do in play. 

Damage Delivery in HERO is very different than the other two games: it has a higher potential lethality and relies more on whittling an opponent down. The Force Field power is meant to slow the whittling, but not to stop it all together. That makes the iconic “Indestructible Force Field that Dr. Z had in the other two games hard to manage. Ideally Dr. Z would have a PD and ED equal to the number of dice in the average attack, so it would be a rare shot that would breach the wall. But that gets costly in a High Power game – 12/12 at least, for 70 base points, plus the invisibility = 105 points, which breaks the suggested cap of AP for a power. Interestingly the Force Field powers take up about 40% (actually 43%) of his points here as well. 

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EDIT: How I learned to stop worrying and love the Force Field
Having given it some more thought, I think the best structure for the Force Field is as follows
Endurance Reserve: 170 Endurance, 24 Recovery, Personal Recovery -1/2, fuels Force Field powers. (33 pts) Element Control – Force Fields: 31 point EC (31) [total cost is 162]
* Force Field: 16 PD, 16 ED, extends to carried (10 pts adder), invisible to sight group (+1/2) 63 AP (32 pts)
* Force Wall: 11 PD, 11 ED, +5” length, invisible to sight group (+1/2) 98 AP
* Telekinesis: 28 STR, invisible to sight group (+1/2) 63 AP (32 pts)
Variable Power Pool: Force Fields (can only have force field related powers, -1/2); 15 point force field pool, 5 point control cost (20 pts)
Which frees up 3 points. I'd love to have those 3 points go into extra STUN (Only when Force Field is on -1/2). That would be the best way to capture him taking damage that isn't visible damage. I'm not sure how much a system gaming that is, but if it's allowed I'd buy more of it, possibly downgrading the scanner some to do so - make it a 15 point machine that he has to fiddle with to upgrade, making the STUB purchase 10 points wirht for +15 Force Field Stun.

At this level his Force Field will block all possible body from a 2.5d6 killing attack and his Force Wall will completley stop a 45 caliber machine gun. That handles the conventional "indestructibility" aspect of the character. Any attacks that do penetrate the Force Wall will still face 23/18 pts of defense/resistant defense. That should be good enough, even if it doesn't capture the character's original design. 

The Skill list is longer, but it’s also reductive – in the other systems it’s assumed that Dr. Z can do anything that makes reasonable sense for the character. In HERO if it’s not written down he hasn’t got it. I’d really want to see even more on there – conversation, security systems, other sciences, and so on, but that would price things up even more. The biggest problem remains the way Damage is handled, however, 

I’m interested if anyone has any suggestions on improving the fidelity, because the system still leaves me noticing all the things he Can’t do rather than envisioning the ones he can. I also find it interesting that a character who is of "average" power level in the previous two games is on the High to Very High range in HERO. Why is that?

Does System Matter part II: Tri-Stat

Yesterday I started a Thought Experiment in supers games, looking at what changes a character goes through when converted from one system to another. This is meant to test the validity of most supers games claims that you can use the system to build “any” character or run “any” kind of game. The character in question – Dr. Zachary Zevon, the Indestructible Man - started in Villains and Vigilantes. Now let’s see how he looks in Silver Age Sentinels, the supers version of the Tri-Stat system. 

A quick recap: Dr. Z is the Reed Richards analogue in a Fantastic Four style game. His natural abilities include a massive intellect and scientific skill, a powerful presence & sense-of-self, and an ability to analyze his opponents’ fighting style and the scientific basis for their powers. His superhuman ability is an invisible, highly versatile force field. He is renowned as the smartest man on Mars and is a millionaire with access to advanced technology and the Liberty Lair, his team’s base. 

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Dr Z.
Body: 8
Mind: 14
Soul: 11
Attack Combat Value: 11 , attacks per round =1
Defense Combat Value: 9, defenses per round = 1
Health: 95
Energy : 125

Characteristic Attributes:
Combat Techniques (1): Can Judge opponent’s combat skill and health level.
Defense Mastery (2): gains +2 DCV vs. people he has judged w/ Combat Mastery
Features (1): Rugged appearance
Gadgeteer (5): Can build or modify technology at 30 times normal speed.
Gadgets (5): Has 5 major and 10 minor gadgets.
Skill Group – Science (1): +1 on all rolls related to the sciences
Skill Group – Technical (1): +1 on all rolls related to engineering or technology
Wealth (5): access to 50 Million dollars

Power Attributes:
Dynamic Powers (4): Force field effects, area is 10m, range is 100m, Duration is 1 round, can target 1 person or 50 kg where appropriate.
Force Field (7): Blocks 100 points, defense reduced by 20 points each time it’s penetrated. Air Tight, Regenerates 20 points of defense per Defense action spent. Area is 100m, range is 100m.

Defects:
Famous (-3)
Significant Other (-1) Deirdre/Silver Dragon
Less Capable (-1) Body counts as 5 for Strength purposes
Less Capable (-1) Body counts as 5 for Endurance purposes
Reduction (2): Only gains Defense Mastery against those he has judged with his Combat Technique.
Burns Energy (-3) Zach loses 5 Energy points each time his force field is hit.

The translation is, to my eyes, pretty clean. Here are some changes of note

The SAS mechanic of 2d10 vs. your Stat (or stat + skill) all but requires the character to have good stats to succeed in things, even if the GM is giving copious bonuses to rolls (as the default is “how hard is this for the average super-hero to do?”). That 8 Body is a little higher than I’d like given Dr. Z’s V&V stats, but it does match his 15 Agility, so I pegged it there and gave him two levels of the Less Capable defect to lower his Strength and Endurance. The mechanics easily capture his nearly post-human intellect and his impressive charisma and presence. The averaging of all 3 stats for your base Attack Value makes him remarkably combat savvy, but it fits the character well enough.

His health score appears high, but it’s not far off from his 17 HP and 75 Power in V&V – in both cases he can nearly take the highest level attack in the game without falling over (roughly 100 pts for the default characters in SAS, or a 1d20 Power Blast in V&V). SAS has “Energy Points” as an option that mirrors V&V’s Power, so I included it but only applied it to his Force Field. Everything else his has for power cost in V&V is nickel and dime stuff, so there’s actually a speed of play advantage in SAS. His field can take 25 solid hits before Dr. Z is exhausted, which again matches V&V.

SAS is much more detailed when it comes to powers and skills than V&V is, but the attributes map over well. His inventing is neatly encapsulated in the Gadgeteering and Gadgets attribute, and the Wealth attribute handles his money. I added the one level of Features because Dr. Z was envisioned as looking like Rock Hudson, so making him a little handsome made sense. His Weakness Detection is partially captured by his Mind playing into his Attack Value, but since SAS has the Judge Opponent attribute it made sense to pick it up, and then tie the defensive advantage to it. I prefer SAS’s skill groups to its full bore skill system (even if they are less mechanically efficient) so one level in both Science and Technology captures his V&V Backgrounds of Science & Engineering. There isn’t any real way to map his ability to analyze his opponent’s powers to trump them other than trusting the GM to let such things work, since that’s part of the scientist hero paradigm, but I think his stats well reflect that potential.

His power attributes are also easy enough to translate. I’ve always considered Dynamic Powers to be one of SAS’s best features. Three levels of it let Dr. Z have up to six attributes running at level 1 or up to two running at level 3, as long as he can tie them to his Force Fields. That maps well enough to his tricks in V&V – he can mirror Telekinesis at the 100 Kg range, super strength at the 8 KT range, pick up heightened hearing or environment manipulation or knockback based Special Attacks – and best of all it’s not an awkward, math-intensive arrangement.

His actual Force Field is harder to map because SAS relies on damage resistance rather than V&V’s damage avoidance. Looking through the SAS sample characters I saw that the highest damage attacks were around 100 points, so the force field had to block that much. The SAS mechanic has the force field get weaker each time it’s breached, which, if not the same as V&V, is a pretty clever thing. I just gave Zach the option to regenerate it, though it can still get breached multiple times and battered away. The optional Energy Points rule means that Zach can still get whittled down mentally and exhausted by repeated hits to the field, so that aspect carries over as well.

Dr. Z’s non-power defects are just role-playing aspects in V&V, and they’re a minor part of SAS characters so it’s easy to delineate them. Fame is a freebie in V&V and a defect in SAS. Zach is in love with his teammate Deirdre, which is awkward since she’s only 21 and the daughter of some of his best friends (I told you he was the Reed Richards analogue!), but it’s not so secret or damaging that it reaches the level of being a Skeleton in the Closet. I’ve already discussed his Reduction, Less Capable and Burns Energy defects.

All of this works out to costing 175 points, which according to the rulebook is the boundary point between an average and high powered game. That feels about right for the League’s adventures. I particularly like the clarity in SAS and V&V both where you can strip away Dr. Z’s Powers and see that he is still a formidable adventurer, which was exactly the way I picture him – in SAS he stats out to 102 points that way, or just inside the range of a Lower Powered game. As an note for other point systems, Dr Z’s Force Field powers take up 40% of his available points. 

Having seen how the character can map over with a minimal loss of fidelity, how would it work in play? 

Having run SAS at this power level before, I think it would work pretty well. Dr. Z would be more potent in SAS, but not overwhelmingly so. He would be much more able to ignore or eliminate lesser opposition, since there would be no chance of them penetrating his field the way there is in V&V, but he could still be overwhelmed by masses of opponents. The problem would be an opponent who is meant to be a threat but who can’t reach that 100 point damage threshold – Dr. Z could almost certainly ignore any attempt to do direct damage, turning what was on a paper a credible villain into a minor nuisance or someone whose main threat would be collateral damage on others, which could get dark quickly. Those who can penetrate the 100 point threshold will be major threats, but Dr. Z can likely take 1-3 such hits before being taken out – assuming the GM isn’t using SAS’s busted critical hit system. (But that’s a rant for another time.) He can also deliver more damage in SAS than in V&V, though that can be hard to capture given the differences in how the systems handle damage. 

Depending on the GM, his Dynamic Powers would require more rulebook references than this Force Fields in V&V, but not so much as to be a serious drag on play. On the plus side, the existence of actual mechanics for his force fields versatility puts more control in my hands as a player in case there’s some trust issue with the GM. I generally don’t play with GMs with whom I have trust issues, but everyone might not be as lucky. 

Tomorrow I’ll go easy on myself and map him into the old Marvel Super Heroes rules, and then tackle the nightmare that is DC Heroes.