[MH] Point Inflation

[Andreas]

The Monster Hunters series has 400 point player characters as the default assumption. While 400 points is very high, I can see the appeal in having such extraordinarily powerful characters.

However the enemies in The Enemy makes me wonder if not a large part of the effect of those points is lost in a general inflation of abilities. Take a look at the Cultist (which serves as minions for more powerful enemies and are among the weakest enemies in that book). While they lack in versatility, they have roughly as many points in directly combat applicable traits as the navy SEAL template in Seals in Vietnam!

Why have the players start with characters with that many points if you are just going to scale up the rest of the world to compensate? Does it really feel like you are playing 400 point characters when a cultist has combat capabilities on par with a navy SEAL and a Slow Zombie has Brawling and Wrestling skills of 13? Is there a good reason to make everyone that capable or is it just pointless inflation of numbers?

[McAllister]

Real people are so bad at things that playing them feels bad. Cultists in the source material are competent at combat, if not as much so as the protagonists, so that's how it is in MH. Part of the problem is you're comparing cinematic cultists to real SEALs. SEALs in MH would be also cinematic, and much more competent than cultists. Look at the Gunman sidekick template. Guns 18, which is 3 levels higher than the SEAL template. If a SEAL shows up in MH, I'd start with the Gunman and add about 100 points of hard-as-nails to back it up.

Plus, some of the templates are built around wildcard skills, and it takes a certain number of points to have a wildcard at a satisfying level while also having other competence in other areas.

In short, I don't think it's an issue.

[Kalzazz]

I have never run straight by the book MH, so I can't speak to that

However, things like having higher skills is in and of itself fun. Because you get more things to do, you can do rapid strikes, deceptive attacks, called shots. Fun stuff

Similarly, having enemies that actually have skills high enough to make decent attacks is also fun, because then characters actually can do cool things like dodge, acrobatic dodge, or use acrobatic movement to be harder to hit etc. If enemies most of the time are missing to begin with its not so fun

Finally, the party is supposed to be heroes. Heroes fight credible foes. People who beat up on weaklings are not heroes, they are bullies

[Randyman]

Originally Posted by Andreas

The Monster Hunters series has 400 point player characters as the default assumption. While 400 points is very high, I can see the appeal in having such extraordinarily powerful characters.

However the enemies in The Enemy makes me wonder if not a large part of the effect of those points is lost in a general inflation of abilities. Take a look at the Cultist (which serves as minions for more powerful enemies and are among the weakest enemies in that book). While they lack in versatility, they have roughly as many points in directly combat applicable traits as the navy SEAL template in Seals in Vietnam!

Why have the players start with characters with that many points if you are just going to scale up the rest of the world to compensate? Does it really feel like you are playing 400 point characters when a cultist has combat capabilities on par with a navy SEAL and a Slow Zombie has Brawling and Wrestling skills of 13? Is there a good reason to make everyone that capable or is it just pointless inflation of numbers?

SEALS in Vietnam is a different genre from Monster Hunters. Point totals and trait levels are genre-relative, to model the important capabilities for protagonists and antagonists in the genre, especially relative to "extras" (neither protagonist nor antagonist).

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Kalzazz

Finally, the party is supposed to be heroes. Heroes fight credible foes. People who beat up on weaklings are not heroes, they are bullies

And too the monsters need to be a credible threat to non-heroes. If a typical monster has to be careful not to accidentally pick a victim who is a martial arts hobbyist or happens to be carrying a pistol, and can be easily taken down by any competent local police force, it becomes really hard to explain how they are not already extinct, or why anyone needs to call in specialist monster hunters.

[Gef]

My first thought upon looking at MH was, "My players could build much more effective characters with 400 points! Better give 'em half that." Of course the issue goes away if you make templates a requirement (except for the Experiment, who only keeps up with the others if you let him buy his exotic abilities as alternates).

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by malloyd

And too the monsters need to be a credible threat to non-heroes. If a typical monster has to be careful not to accidentally pick a victim who is a martial arts hobbyist or happens to be carrying a pistol, and can be easily taken down by any competent local police force, it becomes really hard to explain how they are not already extinct, or why anyone needs to call in specialist monster hunters.

Lots of games go too far the other way though. If the world is crawling with superhuman monsters, why aren't humans extinct? Or at least why are all these threats hiding from some weak fragile apes?

[GodBeastX]

The very first paragraph of non-fluff in Chapter 1 answers this question:

Monster hunters must be larger than life! The Basic Set rec-
ommends 300-500 points for “legendary” heroes, so these tem-
plates split the difference at 400 points. The GM can run the
game with fewer points, but doing so may compromise the over-
the-top, cinematic feel of the game – making it less about “mon-
ster hunting” and more about “surviving monster attacks.”

And Monster HUnters 2:

A variant of Cannon Fodder (p. B417) applies to normal
folks. Any human bystanders built on 100 points or less are
considered mooks. If the champion succeeds in a combat roll
against one, don’t bother rolling active defense or damage;
the champion simply does whatever he wants to the mook,
within reason. For example, a warrior who succeeded at a
Brawling roll could knock out a cop automatically . . . for his
own good, hopefully

You're supposed to be Blade or possibly even Hellboy (Vampire and Half-Demon templates?), walking through swathes of overpowered enemies, not too concerned with humans being a threat around you.

When you deal with 400+ characters, you can whip out some truly heinous entities with over the top situations.

You don't scale the rest of the world, you scale your threats! Everyone else is forced to stand back and let you deal with the problems because that's what your points make you good at. When the police show up, they might end up puddles on the ground in their whole department.

[GodBeastX]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Lots of games go too far the other way though. If the world is crawling with superhuman monsters, why aren't humans extinct? Or at least why are all these threats hiding from some weak fragile apes?

That's the trope and genre conventions. Why does R2-D2 Beep Boop when they clearly have the ability to make him talk? Because little droids beep! Why doesn't everyone just get Battlesuits from Iron Man in Marvel? Because that's Iron Man's role. The monsters are hiding out because they are waiting for their story script to be passed to them that says they are all going to hatch their evil schemes in tandem instead of all at once so the heroes can level up and only be challenged enough to keep the fight interesting instead of dead.

But you don't point all that out IC. When someone asks about the elephant in the room you waive a hand and tell them weather balloon. Why don't demons just walk around killing humans out in the open?

Option 1) Because tanks have 1200 DR and 6dx50 (2) pi++ inc depleted uranium main guns for you if those fragile apes get serious?
Option 2) Because even though they are evil, for some reason god lets them only go so far with evil, sort of like the book of Job in the bible? And that's just far enough to let heroes be challenged but not lose?
Option 3) Because humans might discover their weaknesses in time and exploit them on the whole?

etc etc etc...

Why doesn't the rest of the world do the PCs job? Because then the PCs would have nothing to do =)

[Lord Azagthoth]

A monster hunter must begin somewhere or are they trained somewhere else and are only put into the field when they are already legendary heroes?

I understand why the OP think its a point inflation. As a RPGer, you would like to build your character by roleplaying it during the adventurers and fight, explore, puzzle your way until you become a legendary MH.

As with humans having lots of mooks, so can the enemy have lots of mooks.