Super fantasy Heroes

[unsanemaker]

Originally Posted by Nosforontu

I realize that just trying to show you some of the abuses the house rules are potentially going to create in the character design process. Its going to be really hard not to play a god with those house rules though. You have the point budget/house rules to be godlike at anything you want to do. The first thing I would do is talk with the GM and try to talk him into using the regular cost for Gurps advantages so the campaign doesnt break before it begins.

After that I would talk to him about what kind of damage levels and defense levels he wants to see in the game based on what he sees as the games benchmarks.

The first thing we need to look at is common thug/henchmen weapons. A thug with a pistol does about 2d6 damage (average damage 7), SMG is going to between 2d6 to 3d6 per hit with multiple hits (average Damage 7 to 10.5) Shot Guns usually do 5d6 with slugs (Average Damage 17.5). Rifles tend to start at 5d and work their way up to 7d6 damage ( Average Damage (24.5). While a dfended bases Machine Gun turrets will do up to 24d6 (Average Damage 84). Their are heavier weapons potentialy in play like Tank Guns or Anti Tank weapons but the cost of DR to protect yourself from such threats is prohibitive compared to other ways to protect yourself (truthfully even armoring up against Heavy Machine Guns is rarely cost effective). When figuring defense its not a horrible idea to decide what weapons you want to be simply immune to thanks to DR (probably at least pistols). What weapons you wont be hurt by on average (say shot guns or assault rifles), and what weapons you need to not get hit by (Heavy Machine Guns).

Once you and the GM figure which benchmarks you are going to use for weapons/armor it will give you an idea of where you need to peg your own damage output. If the average threat is a mugger in an alley way with a Leather Jacket (DR 1) and a baseball bat (say 2d6) you dont need a 20d6 attack that will over kill him by a significant margin. On the other hand if you are going to be assaulting Hydra bases filled with HMGs and Tanks a 20d6 attack even if it ignores the tanks DR completely thanks to enhancements might not be enough to stop it in one hit. Different enhancements are built to take care of different potential enemy defenses.

High Rate of Fire and Area of Effect attacks are a good choice for characters going up against enemies with abnormally high Active Defenses (Dodge Scores in the 15+ range are a real possibility for characters at your point total).

Area of Effect attacks and High levels of rapid damage cycles, and high levelsof rapid fire are murderous against characters who rely on Diffuseh to survive hits. Most of the above is also really good against targets that simply prefer to regenerate damage away like Wolverine.

High levels of Innate Attack Damage, Levels of Armor pierecing, are what you are going to need to punch through heavy DR levels.

I see. Well, it's four others besides me but I guess even if it is full cost for powers and 2 points per level up i can see how easy it would be to become god like even if I set 300 aside for powers. I really don't want to break his game at the beginning.

[Nereidalbel]

Originally Posted by unsanemaker

I see. Well, it's four others besides me but I guess even if it is full cost for powers and 2 points per level up i can see how easy it would be to become god like even if I set 300 aside for powers. I really don't want to break his game at the beginning.

Then spend your budget on powers at 1 level, then slowly level up as you earn points. That gives you a large toolkit, but relatively low power.

[Nosforontu]

Originally Posted by unsanemaker

I see. Well, it's four others besides me but I guess even if it is full cost for powers and 2 points per level up i can see how easy it would be to become god like even if I set 300 aside for powers. I really don't want to break his game at the beginning.

The first thing you need to do is talk to the GM and figure out what comic book/movie type world he is using for his inspiration. You especially need to know if he is building NPCs with similar budgets and house rules. Figure out if you need to build for a street level type game where you need enough defenses to deal with shot guns fired by skill 12 thugs or if your oppenents are Godlings lobbing 100d6 attacks filled with expensive enhancements lobbed by guys with skills in the low 40s (largely making active defense irrelevent most times)

Second talk to the other players so that each of you is building powers to roughly the same scale as the campaign description. You dont want to be the guy who shows up with a shot gun in a game of Thermo Nuclear War [Supers Edition]. You want player damage out put and defense levels to be appropriate for the setting. Normally I would say for a 750-900 point supers game that means probably a heavily tweaked 3-5d6 attack or a lot less Enhanced 10-20d6 attack (for the parties heavy hitters). Plus enough points left over to survive the other sides supers.

With the price to level up abilities being so low though and with players not having any experience with the system and the GM being somewhat weak as a GM I expect to see a much wider range of power levels. Honestly I also expect the GM without strong player input either being overwhelmed by the players power levels not matching his percieved setting or killing them accidentally with a 100d6 attack that only costs 205+ points to build with these house rules.

Third set your expectations on being roughly Superman in power level you
have the point budget to normally be an X Man with points left over but with the house rule you are the Incredible Hulk, Dark Phoenix, Superman etc. Make sure you have story hooks that don't care how powerful superman is he is still going to work at the daily planet, he is still going to get reamed by his editor. He is still going to be to shy to date Louis Lane and he still going to hang out with Jimmy Olsen.

[unsanemaker]

Originally Posted by Nosforontu

The first thing you need to do is talk to the GM and figure out what comic book/movie type world he is using for his inspiration. You especially need to know if he is building NPCs with similar budgets and house rules. Figure out if you need to build for a street level type game where you need enough defenses to deal with shot guns fired by skill 12 thugs or if your oppenents are Godlings lobbing 100d6 attacks filled with expensive enhancements lobbed by guys with skills in the low 40s (largely making active defense irrelevent most times)

Second talk to the other players so that each of you is building powers to roughly the same scale as the campaign description. You dont want to be the guy who shows up with a shot gun in a game of Thermo Nuclear War [Supers Edition]. You want player damage out put and defense levels to be appropriate for the setting. Normally I would say for a 750-900 point supers game that means probably a heavily tweaked 3-5d6 attack or a lot less Enhanced 10-20d6 attack (for the parties heavy hitters). Plus enough points left over to survive the other sides supers.

With the price to level up abilities being so low though and with players not having any experience with the system and the GM being somewhat weak as a GM I expect to see a much wider range of power levels. Honestly I also expect the GM without strong player input either being overwhelmed by the players power levels not matching his percieved setting or killing them accidentally with a 100d6 attack that only costs 205+ points to build with these house rules.

Third set your expectations on being roughly Superman in power level you
have the point budget to normally be an X Man with points left over but with the house rule you are the Incredible Hulk, Dark Phoenix, Superman etc. Make sure you have story hooks that don't care how powerful superman is he is still going to work at the daily planet, he is still going to get reamed by his editor. He is still going to be to shy to date Louis Lane and he still going to hang out with Jimmy Olsen.

He won't tell us. It's kind of our rule of thumb to never give hints as to what would be happening.

[Nosforontu]

Originally Posted by unsanemaker

He won't tell us. It's kind of our rule of thumb to never give hints as to what would be happening.

Thats going to be... problematic in this case since supers really does cover the gamut from Batman level threats such as the Riddler a perfectly normal human being who tells you when and where he is going to commit a crime ahead of time to Dark Phoenix a woman capable of consuming Suns as a food source.

You are going to have to use your best judgement then on what kind of npcs the gm is likely to use as his inspiration and build your attacks/defenses and utilities around what you think he might lob your way.