Power/Strength Tiers

[RedMattis]

Originally Posted by naloth

This isn't correct. By default KYOS reprices striking ST to 1/lvl so 85 points would give you Striking ST 95 (Thr 24d+2? I usually don't have or need anything that high in my games. Superman tops out at ST 60-80 depending on the version.).

I meant cost using vanilla Striking-ST, since I didn't know about the details of the Pyramid Article. It seems it came to a similar conclusion as I did though.

...however.

Striking ST 100 [100 points] would give you 25d.
Innate Attack (Impaling) (Melee 1-4, -15%) 25 [170 points] would also give you 25d imp.

Innate Attack (Impaling) is nearly twice as expensive, but actually less versatile. The machines and the undead might resist Impaling damage. If you face a werewolf you can't just make your Innate Attack "be" silver, or "be" wood against a Vampire f.ex. Vanilla Innate Attacks are also more obvious (unless they have low/no signature) than some muscle-powered weapons, or just plain hitting someone with your fists. Meanwhile the Strength character can pick up a spear, a sword, a big rock, or whatever he needs given that he can make it available to him.

So in conclusion...

I think I agree with you. [2 points/level] is more reasonable.

It also avoids the issue of the "Material Artist" deciding he want to be a ST 10 guy with 50 levels of Striking-ST. For, uh, 10d+1 of damage, which would make him punch out Dragons while the ST 15 Barbarian and the Guy with Weapon Master wonders what the heck they paid 50 points for.

With that said, the increase in damage remains mostly linear, so it still makes sense to combine the Striking-ST [2 points/level] with Immense Power. Though doing so with the Lifting-ST would of course be pointless since that one is already logarithmic. Might make sense to put the Immense Power-cost at a slightly lower base when the total trait no longer includes Lifting ST.

[RedMattis]

Revised for use with Knowing Your Strength.

Immense Power [Variable/level]
You have a great amount of power and durability. This advantage is especially suitable for supers and keeping them on a relatively level plane or making them easy to grade their physical performance in a conflict at a glance.

For each level in this advantage multiply member of a list of chosen attributes or advantages by a value. To find the multiplier value go to Speed Range table and read down the Linear column starting at 1.5. E.g. Level 1 is x1.5; Level 2 is x2.0; Level 3 is x3.0; level 4 is x5.0x; etc.

The traits which Immense Power can affect are: Striking-ST, Hit Points, Binding, Damage Resistance, Innate Attack, Leech, Payload, Telekinesis.

To find the cost take the most expensive per-level advantage from the above list and multiply it by one of the following:
`x5` If Immense Power only affects that exact advantages, f.ex. a specific Innate Attack.
`x6` If Immense Power affects all the above advantages.

F.ex. The Superhero Brick buys Immense Power 6. His most expensive "power" is Damage Resistance (Hardened 2, +40%) 12 [84 points]. The per-level cost of his Damage Resistance is [7 points/level], so he pays (7*6) [42 points/level] for Immense Power. Since Brick took 6 level of Immense Power that means he pays [294 points] in total for this advantage. Looking at the speed-range table we can see that Brick gets a multiplier of x10 for all the above advantages. This among other things will raise his effective DR to 120 (12*10).

Limitations:
Limited Scope: Your Immense Power only affects a a number of closely related expressions of powers: e.g. anything related to having a powerful body (ST, DR; Innate-attack requiring an object throwing an object to propel, etc.); anything related to psychokinesis (DR: force-field, Telekinesis, pyrokinetic innate attacks, ...), etc. -10%

[AlexanderHowl]

I really do not think that effectively reducing the cost of ST, Innate Attacks, etc. will do anything other than shatter game balance. Anyway, it leaves the characters surprisingly fragile while reducing their overall CP value. It is not going to prevent a villain from using Affliction (HT; Advantage (Alternate Form [Tree]), +150%; Cosmic, Irresistible Attack, +300%; Extended Duration, Permanent, +150%; Malediction 3, +200%) [90] to transform the character into a tree and chop them down for firewood.

[RedMattis]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

I really do not think that effectively reducing the cost of ST, Innate Attacks, etc. will do anything other than shatter game balance. Anyway, it leaves the characters surprisingly fragile while reducing their overall CP value. It is not going to prevent a villain from using Affliction (HT; Advantage (Alternate Form [Tree]), +150%; Cosmic, Irresistible Attack, +300%; Extended Duration, Permanent, +150%; Malediction 3, +200%) [90] to transform the character into a tree and chop them down for firewood.

They can just have a high HT and resist the transformation from that abillity. Irresistible Attack doesn't remove the HT roll on an affliction, nothing does.

Besides, if it is a Villain then they are an NPC and their abillities don't follow any rules. I could just as well say that they have a cosmic power which makes it so if anyone in the universe says the word "acorn" they permanently and irreversibly get turned into a 5-foot swole squirrel. What does the abillity cost? Eh. Is it RAW legal? Sure it is, NPCs can do anything the GM wants them to.

That short rant aside, my goal is certainly not to shatter game-balance, in fact the goal is to avoid shattering it. Linear powers will typically end up significantly behind scaling ones. Compare someone who has stacked [800 points] of DR and ST to an 'incorporeal' 'unkillable 3' dude who just floats around mass-mind-controlling the biggest enemy goons to do his bidding. While both characters can be shut down, the mass-mind-controlling dude is much more powerful if thrust into a random situation since his abilities scale with how powerful his enemies are (unless they have Mind-Shield!) without actually costing more. Heck, ST & DR boy probably doesn't have Mind-Shield or anything to affect the insubstantial, so in a hypothetical PvP match there is no doubt who would win.

Improving the scaling won't fix that, but it will even things out at least a bit so 1000-point Superman at least got something for his 1000 points of DR/ST/Flight-speed. And doesn't just get laughed out by 1000-point Batman who probably had points over to buy bat-anti-mindcontrol toothpaste after he bought enough levels of Wealth to just buyout Lex Luthor.

[Say, it isn't that bad!]

Originally Posted by RedMattis

I haven't bought that article, I've mostly read about it on the forum and saw people called it a bit... incomplete? I gather the vanilla version doesn't increase strength terribly much though.

KYOS puts ST, swing/thrust damage, and HP on a logarithmic scale, where +6 ST is x4 basic lift, and +10 ST is x10 basic lift. This also has the side-effects, as logarithmic swing/thrust damage and HP are not how vanilla works.

The table I provided should map swing damage and HP based on the cube root of basic lift - unfortunately, it does so incorrectly, based on a scale where +6 ST is x10 basic lift. A correction is coming shortly.

Edit: The table has been corrected. Please check http://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.p...97&postcount=6 again if you have not already.

Originally Posted by RedMattis

85 points (Striking-ST 27) for a 26d6 of damage sounds a bit cheap. But then again I have no idea why getting 26d6 of striking damage in vanilla rules costs 1100 points(!) (Striking-ST 220) while a spammable ranged innate attack crushing of 26d6 costs a mere 130.

The table correction should make the costs much more reasonable.

Originally Posted by RedMattis

Is strength just really questionably priced compared to innate attacks? (especially when not factoring weapons)

In a word? Yes. While it's true that ST has more general utility than an innate attack, ST still doesn't have enough utility for its price. Compare it to various other generalist abilities you can get that cost [100] or more points, and it quickly starts looking... lacking.

[bobbyraw]

You should look at naloth's swork here; http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=161407

It uses logarithmic ST, damage and DR, and really makes brick-type heroes more point-competitive.

[RedMattis]

Originally Posted by bobbyraw

You should look at naloth's swork here; http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=161407

It uses logarithmic ST, damage and DR, and really makes brick-type heroes more point-competitive.

I really like the work Naloth does there, but I think that solution is best suited for the typical cinnematic Supers and cinnematic modern/sci-fi campaigns where cyborg martial artists can kick war robots to pieces.

Where I would use the (revised) Immense Power is for any thriller, horror, dark supers, or realistic fantasy settings. In the types of situations you DO want the werewolf to literally tear a human into halves, or supers turn people into paste if they don't pull their punches.

Though, to be clear, I would use the Know Your Strength rules for ST regardless. Those rules just bring ST in line with Innate Attack, etc., while Immense Power is intended to make it a bit more interesting Innate Attack/DR/Etc. in a setting where you could instead spend 500 points on being insubstantial and just possess/mind control people with some blinged out mentalist powers.