MH Thaumatology for Dummies?

[ULFGARD]

Originally Posted by Highland_Piper

I think the other problem I'm having is these characters are going from Side kick to Hero and I'm finding it increasingly difficult to get them to the 400 point stage.

I'm about to just throw in the towel and make them remake their characters at 400 points but that would destroy most of the progress they have been making.

Someone should write a Pyramid article for MH about how to go from 150-200 point side kick to full 400 point Hero. Proper point progression and all that.

I am running a MH game that started at 100 points. All of the players were new to GURPS, so creating 400 point, complex characters seemed like it would be completely overwhelming for them. I use a "fate point" pool to keep them alive. They have a maximum of 5 and they get 1 back per session; I also allow them to use 1 CP to purchase 2 fate points. Otherwise, it's 1 to change success / failure by one level, and 2 for 2 levels (so a failure can be bought up to a critical success, or an enemy can be made to miss).

In addition to points at the end of each session (typically 3 - 6, plus a "MVP" point awarded by the players, and a 2 - 5 point award for completing an adventure), I am doing retrospective training montages between adventures. To do this, I make a small "lens" type collection of advantages and skills, giving a few, but not many choices to the players. They just finished their second adventure, so they're due for their second montage. The first was 25 points, which I used to address some holes I could see in their builds and direct them to the path they're most interested in for their characters. Their investigator got some added skills and boosted IQ by a level; the lore-master got some physical boosts, as he was all brains and not much else - not good for the actual fights; the ex-Ranger got Fit and some background skills plus a boost to guns skills; and their thug / melee fighter got attribute, skill, and Talent boosts.

I may go up to 50 for the second montage, depending on what I'm planning and the direction they're hoping to take their characters. The plan is to boost them by 100 - 150 points over the first "season", then have a larger training montage between seasons in order to grant them whatever special abilities they are hoping for (i.e., give them the 200 point upgrades from MH4: Sidekicks). I have considered breaking up those forward looking montages so that they get much better through training during that second season.

That will put them up to 500+ points plus earned experience by the beginning of the second season, which will turn them into full fledged hunters. I expect the players to be familiar with their characters' abilities and the general game mechanics by the time they have that many points.