Quote:
Originally Posted by JoelSammallahti
I'd go considerably lower on the budget. Mulder and Scully don't strike me as action heroes on par with John McClane or Snake Plisskin: they're just competent people. I'd make regular FBI special agents on 75 points or so, and 150 should be plenty for X-Files heroes. They get outmaneuvered, tricked, and beaten up, after all, and don't manage to catch their guy (or monster) every time.
Remember that skill 12 is a typical professional, and 14 is really quite impressive, so that's the range in which the PCs' main skills should predominantly be found. For example, if a PC modeled on Scully has IQ 12 [40], Diagnosis 14 [12], and ~10 points in other medical skills, that's perfectly sufficient for handling all the medical clue-hunting business. And if she gets into a shootout, DX 11 [20] and Guns (Pistol) 13 [4] gives her a huge advantage against some random street thugs with DX 10 and 1 point at best in Guns (Pistol) - most realistic criminals blast away at a DX-4 default.
Don't go overboard with the opposition or the penalties, and the PCs won't need to be Batman to overcome them. (Monster Hunters is kind of a bad reference point here: it suffers from a case of enemy inflation in order to challenge the larger-than-life heroes, so even ordinary human bad guys are pretty terrifying. Monster Hunters PCs are supposed to regularly mow down critters that X-Files would treat as practically unbeatable horrors.)
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I fully do agree. David Duchovny once said that Fox Mulder was the worst FBI agent he ever saw: years of investigations and never the least tangible proof. Of course, it was a joke. But JoelSammallahti is still right: Mulder and Scully are just competent characters. When they face dangerous foe, they do what real FBI agents do: they call for help.