[Supers] Marvel Movies Power Level?

[RedMattis]

Originally Posted by JulianLW

I'm NOT really interested in rehashing the argument about stat normalization, since that has already been thoroughly, exhaustively discussed here. None of the Marvel movie heroes live in a world of normal stats.

What kind of DX score does it take to fight - and beat - all those drones over the London Bridge [...]

You literally asked for attribute levels and got answers that attempted to tackle that question. The most literal answer if you want it would be "No level of DX does that". You can have a DX of 1000, but unless you have a other powers/advantages aside from super-high-DX even a 100-point mook can fairly reliably put an axe through the back of your head if he is behind you and you had no vision of him when he started his turn. You need _other_ stuff beyond high attribute levels. In fact, high DX levels in GURPS don't really do much beyond giving you insanely high skill defaults and make your dodge and movement speed very high.

Sufficiently high Attributes isn't an end-all solution in GURPS.

Anyway, leaving attributes aside.

As pointed out by Arcanjo7Sagi the point level is at best a guideline. I could make a 200-point character with Mind Control + Cosmic + stupendously high reliable/power talent can probably take out just about anyone if they get the jump on them. Just as an example. Just have him Mind Control the Hulk, or heck, Thor, if you got 40 levels of reliable then Thor is likely toast too unless you gave him a similarly abstractly high Will or Mind Shield+Cosmic.

What really matters is where you want to place the "bar" for your fights. How much ST/HP/DR does bricks have f.ex.? After all, the Bricks rarely turn each other into a spray of gore despite, at least theoretically having fairly different capabilities. So realistically you need to keep things in some general ballpark if you want to get results that are playable and play out remotely like the movies. Once you know the ballpark it isn't that important how many points you build your characters on, they should be able to interact in fairly meaningful ways.

The ballpark also answers how much dodge or whatever you need to avoid the attack drones. If the drones have Skill-30 and use predictive shots/deceptive attack you'll need more skill than if they just spray blindly with Skill-12.

[Vikingv]

I am going to submit that the point values are quite high. See my notes on creating Superman (3e rules)

Superman analysis, GURPS style
So, all this creating of superheroes had me thinking of the original. How much would he cost, in points, to create?

The answer is not cheap, but it is even more expensive that I first guessed. All calculations herein based on the first two Superman movies starring Christopher Reeves.

He is at least capable of carrying a small ship (in the first movie, after he is hit from behind with the crowbar, he delivers the robbers on ship to the police station). A ST of at least 130, which costs at least 286 pts. IQ and HT should also be high – IQ 17 and HT 15 seem minimums. Leaving DX at 13, total stat costs is 476.

Next is flight and super flight. In the first movie, after stopping the missile over Hackensack he sees the missile in California explode and quickly flies there. Distance is about 2000 miles and he gets there in about one minute. To make this we need a flight speed of at least 58,000. Thirteen levels of super flight covers this, at a total cost of 300. Side note, this speed allows a round trip flight to the moon in four hours.

Next up is invulnerability. The crowbar incident above suggests invulnerability to kinetic attacks, but the fight scenes from the second movie bring the issue into debate. I will settle for DR: 40 for 200 points. What is not in debate is when the Man of Steel first advances on Luthor’s hideout in the first movie, the flamethrowers are completely ineffective. Invulnerability to Fire / Heat attacks is 100 points (or maybe even Invulnerability to Energy attacks, for 150 points).

Breathing in outer space is not an issue. Vacuum support costs 60.
He hears Lex issue his initial challenge on a frequency not hearable by humans. This is radio hearing for fifteen points.

X ray vision is next for consideration. This must be bought as ESP power, clairvoyance ability. A power level of 17 will allow vision up to 15 feet costs 51 points. A skill level of at least 18 is justified, as it does not fail. Twenty skill points, allowing for a first level limitation of does not see thru lead, needs sixteen more points.

Heat vision and freezing breath will be bought as Psychokenesis powers. The cold breath works very fast, demanding a high power level. I will buy level 15, for 180 points. Pyrokenesis and Cryokenesis each have a first level limitation (staring for Pyro, blowing for Cryo) and 16 points each for skill level 18 for both.

Zod and gang blow back oncoming mobs. This is Air power and Wind Jet skill. A power level of at least ten is justified, and a cone enhancement is believable. Power costs is 40, but the skill is physical. Skill level of sixteen costs 40 points, based on the enhancement. .

All the above costs 1500 (or more) and does not cover any skills (he should have several scientific skills as well as reporter skills) nor mundane advantages (Absolute direction, based on all his flying, seems perfectly justifiable).

[Anders]

Originally Posted by Vikingv

I am going to submit that the point values are quite high. See my notes on creating Superman (3e rules).

Superman from the Donner movies?

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by awesomenessofme1

Some movie feats can actually be quantified and translated to GURPS stats.

In the African scenes early in Civil War, Cap does a push-kick on a land-rover-ish looking thing to get it out of his way. It matters some exactly what the vehicle weighed but by the rules on p.353 of Campaigns it has to be within 12x his BL.

Just the first entries I get from Googling "weight land rover" goes from 4000 lbs to well over 5000. Even one of those scrawny 4000 lb Land Rovers requires a ST of 41.

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

In the African scenes early in Civil War, Cap does a push-kick on a land-rover-ish looking thing to get it out of his way. It matters some exactly what the vehicle weighed but by the rules on p.353 of Campaigns it has to be within 12x his BL.

Just the first entries I get from Googling "weight land rover" goes from 4000 lbs to well over 5000. Even one of those scrawny 4000 lb Land Rovers requires a ST of 41.

I would be good with giving movie!Cap some Super ST where he spends some FP to be able to do stunts like that when he needs to but not full-time. Also depends greatly on if the Land Rover was in park/gear or neutral; it's easier to move it when it's in neutral than when the tires are locked and you have to slide it.


(No doubt on set the Land Rover was in neutral and probably hitched to another vehicle ready to move it on command, but that's not what we're supposed to believe.)

[JulianLW]

Originally Posted by RedMattis

You literally asked for attribute levels and got answers that attempted to tackle that question. The most literal answer if you want it would be "No level of DX does that". You can have a DX of 1000, but unless you have a other powers/advantages aside from super-high-DX even a 100-point mook can fairly reliably put an axe through the back of your head if he is behind you and you had no vision of him when he started his turn. You need _other_ stuff beyond high attribute levels. In fact, high DX levels in GURPS don't really do much beyond giving you insanely high skill defaults and make your dodge and movement speed very high.

Yeah, when someone suggests that Spider-Man has DX 14, though, I start to smell agenda - and a turn toward a conversation I'm honestly tired of rereading and wasn't really asking about. I respect the stat normalizers, but I wasn't really asking about how to build Spider-Man as a "normal" kid. I'm interested in the reality that's being represented in those movies.

I'm pretty sure the DX being represented in the recent Spider-Man movies is VERY high, i.e. blowing right past the GURPS "stat normalization" style of game altogether. If you really think the Tom Holland Spider-Man has DX 14, well, then, okay....

But what I'm really trying to ask here is, if the Marvel MCU movies were a GURPS campaign, how many CPs would you give your players to make heroes? When a new hero or villain shows up in the movies (in the game based as closely as possible on those movies), what would your expectation be of the number of CPs she's built on?

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

Also depends greatly on if the Land Rover was in park/gear or neutral; .)

Nope, it went sideways. The wheels didn't roll, they skidded.

If the movie Cap were true to the concept of the comics version he's be no stronger than the human limit. This does not seem to be the case.

[RedMattis]

Originally Posted by JulianLW

Yeah, when someone suggests that Spider-Man has DX 14, though, I start to smell agenda - and a turn toward a conversation I'm honestly tired of rereading and wasn't really asking about. I respect the stat normalizers, but I wasn't really asking about how to build Spider-Man as a "normal" kid. I'm interested in the reality that's being represented in those movies.

I'm pretty sure the DX being represented in the recent Spider-Man movies is VERY high, i.e. blowing right past the GURPS "stat normalization" style of game altogether. If you really think the Tom Holland Spider-Man has DX 14, well, then, okay....

But what I'm really trying to ask here is, if the Marvel MCU movies were a GURPS campaign, how many CPs would you give your players to make heroes? When a new hero or villain shows up in the movies (in the game based as closely as possible on those movies), what would your expectation be of the number of CPs she's built on?

I can't speak for them, but I personally wasn't speaking from a realism perspective. The Super heroes, especially DC Comics, but Marvel as well, are wildly inconsistent about the exact abilities of their heroes.

From a mechanical standpoint it generally works out better to give someone super-powers originating from their incredible dexterity than just giving them a an incredible base-stat. Most of what really high DX does is give a character incredible defaults and make related skills cheap, but you might not want all the dexterous heroes to be a world-class driver, archer, bulky-environment-suit-user. Usually even the super-dexterity-characters like spiderman struggle a little bit with a new skill initially. (Struggle in this case meaning 'only perform like what normal experts do' in this case). Also, having combat skills up in the 30s generally just make the math annoying since everyone will need to constantly feint in order to ever hope landing blows (Parry ends up at 18!). It also has some annoying implications about the setting, if a super-normal archer who used to compete at world-class has Bow-35 (based on calculated difficulty of some stunt they pulled), then presumably the other world-class athletes have their skills around that level. It might be easier to just use cinematic realism rules where shooting a gun out of someone's hand isn't much more difficult than shooting them in the torso (IF you have Heroic Archer), and shooting someone with a bow 'non-lethally' is barely more difficult than doing so lethally (with Heroic Archer, again).

Anyway, for Spiderman you could give him DX-16 to DX-18. Perfect Balance, Danger Sense (obviously), etc. Combat Reflexes, several levels of Enhanced Dodge (he usually dodges, and can get issues facing bricks up close if he needs to parry for whatever reason), Extra Attack, or even Altered Time Rate if you really want him to dance around opponents. You might want to also give him some luck or 'fate' powers so he is still threatened by bullets, but survives scraps with brick-characters.

Speaking of scrappers like Spiderman going up against Bricks, using something like this would work pretty well. http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=161407

As for power-level, I'd probably only use a soft-point level. Perhaps 500 is enough for a super-normal, but someone like Thor needs much more, same with someone like Iron Man if you build his common 'powers' using GURPS Gadgets advantages. The important thing is that the player characters are balanced compared to each other, so my concern as a GM would be mostly if someone is underpowered compared to the party, and if someone has an ability that threatens to shut down the campaign or make things boring. No huge Innate Attacks with Area Effect and the ability to discriminate targets in that AoE. No nigh-unresistable Mind Control. Perhaps Get-out-of-jail-free-cards like Warp should have limitations (like Magical, -10%) that stop them from being perfectly reliable always. Basically go over their character sheets with a big buff-patch & nerf-hammer, and if the party looks like they would work together afterwards and don't feel bothered by Hawkeye ending up 800-points while Thor's build ate up 2000-points as long as they both seem like they'd contribute without overshadowing the party. (Note that Hawkeye likely uses amazing equipment while Thor has everything being advantages and costing a bunch of points)

Edit: though, if you using something like Naloth's strength/innate attack scaling linked above their costs shouldn't deviate quite so much

[Vikingv]

Originally Posted by Anders

Superman from the Donner movies?

I haven't see the Donner movies. As my post says, it was based on the mo0vies starring Christopher Reeves.

[Anders]

Originally Posted by Vikingv

I haven't see the Donner movies. As my post says, it was based on the mo0vies starring Christopher Reeves.

Donner was the director. Sorry for not reading closely.

If I were to stat Batman I would give him 10 levels or so of Serendipity with Wishing (+100%) and say that this represents his planning abilities.