differing power levels within a party: The Avengers

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Sindri

I didn't say they were the same thing. Builds with extra actions are among the scariest.

Not in my experience. The usual need to have a Full Action to do multiple attacks greatly limited multiple attack builds. Even my ultra-Dex Rogue with a Wand of Greater Invisibility and Combat Reflexes got to pull off his special shtick _once_.

I alwasy found it a more reliable payoff to make my melee Combat Monsters out of Barbarians or Large-sized characters who did their damage with a single big attack they could use after a Move Action.

[Sindri]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Not in my experience. The usual need to have a Full Action to do multiple attacks greatly limited multiple attack builds. Even my ultra-Dex Rogue with a Wand of Greater Invisibility and Combat Reflexes got to pull off his special shtick _once_.

I alwasy found it a more reliable payoff to make my melee Combat Monsters out of Barbarians or Large-sized characters who did their damage with a single big attack they could use after a Move Action.

If you haven't found a way to guarantee at least one full attack a round with a melee guy your build isn't "among the scariest"

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Sindri

If you haven't found a way to guarantee at least one full attack a round with a melee guy your build isn't "among the scariest"

Okay, share. How do you make the bad giys come to you so you can do Full Attacks every round?.

[ErhnamDJ]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Okay, share. How do you make the bad giys come to you so you can do Full Attacks every round?.

You don't. You get the Pounce ability from somewhere. There's maybe fifteen or twenty ways to get it. I don't remember. I seem to recall the easiest being an alternate class feature for barbarians from... Complete Champion (I think it was called Lion Totem), in which they trade their fast movement for it. It's usually combined with the Whirling Frenzy variant. I would always go with either dwarf or orc on top of those. You get two attacks at first level, making full attacks each round. Make sure you take the Extra Rage feat.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Not in my experience. The usual need to have a Full Action to do multiple attacks greatly limited multiple attack builds.

By late 3.5e there were a number of methods that allowed a full attack charge. The lion totem barbarian from complete champion (full attack on a charge) being probably the easiest. You can also take a few levels of psionic warrior, or some higher level tome of battle abilities, or use various magic items for a swift action move.

[Sindri]

Originally Posted by ErhnamDJ

You don't. You get the Pounce ability from somewhere. There's maybe fifteen or twenty ways to get it. I don't remember. I seem to recall the easiest being an alternate class feature for barbarians from... Complete Champion (I think it was called Lion Totem), in which they trade their fast movement for it. It's usually combined with the Whirling Frenzy variant. I would always go with either dwarf or orc on top of those. You get two attacks at first level, making full attacks each round. Make sure you take the Extra Rage feat.

The ultimate example of pouncing is the shadowpouncing prestige classes which allowed three full attacks every round when combined with the right teleportation abilities. Combined with methods to get additional attacks or additional actions to pounce more you could get truly impressive numbers of attacks. And it's stylish.

This is tangential to the thread topic though.

[ak_aramis]

Originally Posted by whswhs

There are actually two issues getting mixed up here.

On one hand, La Gata was not particularly a high-end speedster. I didn't even give her Altered Time Rate! I cited her mainly to make the point that for ordinary purposes, incredibly high defenses = near invulnerability. I believe Marvel did a similar scene with the Hulk trying to punch out Spider-man, long, long ago. Of course, if one punch landed, he could change his name to Spider-jam. . . .

On the other hand, my experience over a lot of supers campaigns in different systems has been that their abilities are one of the big wins. There are ways to mitigate this, either by not letting them buy exponentially increasing numbers of actions, or by not being physically realistic about the consequences of those actions. And a lot of rules systems do that. But that still makes a high-end speedster amazingly capable. Or such has been my experience.

Bill Stoddard

Or, as with Champions, not linking movement to multiple actions nor directly to defense. (it does, however, give indirect defense.) And while dex DOES add to both actions (the "Speed" attribute) and defenses (pre-6th), it doesn't do so quickly.

Spidey, in Champions terms, has high dex and lots of DCV levels, but is only around Speed 5... above normal humans, but not getting a lot of actions. He routinely fails to beat out 3-4 mooks at once, but if he can keep them to 1-2 at a time, has no problem dropping them. And most of his speed is his amazing dexterity (I can see Spidey being Dex 40, some 90 active points), and thus Speed 5 on default, and DCV 13. He's also got some great movement powers, bought on the cheap with high NCMs...

Flash isn't even THAT high... sure, he can move - but his Speed score in champions would be about a 3. Many supers can do more than he can in a given block of time, but few can get from A to B as fast. He's got a wicked high combat move, and an much nastier NCM than spidey - you won't hit him if he's moving flat out, due to the Velocity based DCV, even tho' he loses his personal DCV for Non-Combat Movement.

[ErhnamDJ]

Thinking on the original question more, I realized that I--and probably most of us here--have quite a lot of experience with this sort of thing. In Dungeons & Dragons.

High level characters there are superheroes. And a high level wizard is very much more powerful than a high level fighter or thief.

[digoraccoon]

In my experience, non-super powered heroes can keep up with the team when they invest in a good mix of skills and equipment, then play the fight intelligently.

To my understanding, Black Widow could be knocked out with one blow from a super, but that is if the super could land a blow when she's invested a lot in dodge and parry techniques.
Better example perhaps: the animated Batman/Superman crossover (The World's Finest I think?) where Superman goes to punch Batman and Batman side-steps the blow and then uses martial arts to throw Superman to the floor, using Superman's own strength and momentum against him.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by digoraccoon

In my experience, non-super powered heroes can keep up with the team when they invest in a good mix of skills and equipment, then play the fight intelligently.

To my understanding, Black Widow could be knocked out with one blow from a super, but that is if the super could land a blow when she's invested a lot in dodge and parry techniques.
Better example perhaps: the animated Batman/Superman crossover (The World's Finest I think?) where Superman goes to punch Batman and Batman side-steps the blow and then uses martial arts to throw Superman to the floor, using Superman's own strength and momentum against him.

Given the difference in raw power, Bats couldn't throw Supes. But the Bat is smart and thinks like the villains rather than the heros. Thus he always has their back. A strong team is a group were everybody brings something to the table, and everybody respects the others and their gifts.