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Old 05-22-2012, 09:15 PM   #71
Johnny1A.2
 
Join Date: Feb 2007
Default Re: differing power levels within a party: The Avengers

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Originally Posted by Mister Negative View Post
Tying this back into the original post (not that it was off-topic or anything), you can have highly differing power levels within a party, but you really, really need players who are happy with getting their spotlight moments in different scenes.


Fundamentally, someone like the Black Widow or Hawkeye just isn't going to be as effective in most fights as Cap, Shell-head, Thor, or Hulk. The 'normals' are going to have to be much more defensive, much more selective in their attacks, and are going to have to do ALL they can to minimize their exposure to buckets of dice of damage. One bad defense roll (or one attack that ignores defenses) and the same threat that knocks down Cap will take them out.
You can make a real-life comparison using literal tanks and infantry. Each serves a different purpose, and are often deployed together, but they are not interchangeable.

That said, past a certain level of difference things just start to break down. Teaming almost anybody with silver age Superman was always a stretch, even the skilled writers had a hard time with it, because he was already better than most people even at their specialities. At the height of his character's power, Superman was faster than the Flash, more capable underwater than Aquaman, if he used them effectively his supersenses would make him a more effective detective than Batman, about the only things that he was not (or at least shoudl have been) better at than the other specialists were things like magic.

The only other major DC title players in his league in those days were maybe Green Lantern, or Firestorm, or someone with power on that scale..and even there his superspeed and supersenses, properly used, would be more than enough to tip the scale.

Marvel ran into this problem (infamously) with Jean Grey after she became Phoenix, she was so far out of the scale of the rest of the X-men that it was almost impossible to work with. It was the same problem as with silver Superman, only worse since she was even more powerful than he was.

There are some special cases, of course. Doctor Strange is one of the most powerful comic characters out there, but he's not that hard to match up with others because the nature of his powers makes him oddly human.

(I recall an incident in which some enemies of his, knowing he would have all the supernatural bases covered, and knowing he'd kick their ass in a magical fight, nearly got him by planting a conventional bomb in his house.)
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Old 05-23-2012, 10:55 AM   #72
Not another shrubbery
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Default Re: differing power levels within a party: The Avengers

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Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2 View Post
There are some special cases, of course. Doctor Strange is one of the most powerful comic characters out there, but he's not that hard to match up with others because the nature of his powers makes him oddly human.
Phenomenal COSMIC Powers! weak mortal body!

Heh. I always liked the rough parity between him and Doctor Fate. Strange has the edge in magical ability (MO), but Fate gets the useful bump to his strength and durability from the enchantments on his vestments.
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