[SUPERS] What did not age so well...

[sir_pudding]

Maybe not Adam Smasher, fairly sure he walks through steel security doors at some point in 2077.

[DangerousThing]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

They also do huge amounts of damage to the scenery, crashing through multiple feet of reinforced concrete. A RoboCop-level full cyborg is usually stopped by anything more than interior walls.

I wouldn't think of RoboCop as a brick. He would probably survive being thrown a wall and is resistant to gunfire. He definitely has much more than 3 DR.

The OP's "brick" could be killed with a single shot from a Saturday night special. I think the bare minimum requirements for a brick should be bouncing bullets. Rocky skin is optional.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by DangerousThing

The OP's "brick" could be killed with a single shot from a Saturday night special. I think the bare minimum requirements for a brick should be bouncing bullets. Rocky skin is optional.

I wouldn't say that it's sufficient, though. Consider the Fantastic Four: bullets don't hurt the Human Torch, because he melts them, or Mr. Fantastic, because his elasticity makes them bounce off, and once the Invisible Girl acquired her force field powers, they didn't hurt her either. But the only one I would call a "brick" is the Thing, because of his immense strength.

Being able to deal with gunfire is more or less a basic requirement for standard supers, no matter what their powers are. It doesn't seem to be a special trait of bricks.

On the other hand, streetlevel supers may not be bulletproof. But I might accept a character "with the strength of ten/ordinary men" as a brick in that genre.

[dataweaver]

Bear in mind that T.K. said that he plans to start small and ramp up over the campaign. At the start, a “brick” won't even be bulletproof; he'll be more Captain America than Superman. But as the campaign progresses, he'll become more Superman than Captain America. I wouldn't worry about his notion of “brick” not conforming to yours at the start of the campaign.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

Bear in mind that T.K. said that he plans to start small and ramp up over the campaign. At the start, a “brick” won't even be bulletproof; he'll be more Captain America than Superman. But as the campaign progresses, he'll become more Superman than Captain America. I wouldn't worry about his notion of “brick” not conforming to yours at the start of the campaign.

Thank you. That's a sound point, and one I would have liked to make, but I couldn't figure out how to say it so clearly.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

Bear in mind that T.K. said that he plans to start small and ramp up over the campaign. .

I find that level of power increase improbable but I was more concerned with an apparent lack of understanding of the imbalance between power of Innate Attacks and other Powers v. purchased equipment. A starting "street samurai" can have hundreds of pts worth of Equipment if he had to buy it with cp rather than $.

[dataweaver]

Agreed. Rather than needing to make powers more expensive, the greater concern is with the point economy resulting in powers not being an attractive option in the first place. There really aren't that many solutions to this, though: you could charge points for the gear, or you could reduce the point cost of the powers to something that's at least theoretically competitive with the equipment: perhaps use the “trading points for cash” option or maybe the “signature gear” Advantage to get a sense for what a reasonable point cost for a power would be.

[dataweaver]

Originally Posted by T.K.

Concern1 > ST - Scaling of Lift and Damage is off and falls off compared to powers stuff, like Innate Attack.

Improvement1 > Is KYOS still the "betterest" switch to go for? Other option would be to just leave it "as is" and curate accessability enforcing "role protection". Pros/Cons?

This should be fine. But I'd abandon the SM-based cost discount on ST for large characters; it's the because the large lifting capacities that such characters are supposed to have would be far too expensive under the rules as written; but KYOS addresses that more directly and more effectively.

Originally Posted by T.K.

C2 > IQ (and probably DX) are too good.

I2 > Brake Per and Wil from IQ. Probably will leave DX as is.

As others have said, get your hands on PU9:AA if you plan on messing with the attributes; it will help you catch important edge cases.

Originally Posted by T.K.

C3 > Injure Tolerance, Regeneration, RD - Could break things in combat.

I3 > My current thinking is "Role-enforced limits", with Unusual Backgrounds to cover ups and downs, like "UA:Brick" allowing X more DR from campaign base, requesting more levels along campaign development to also unlock new limits and possibilities. Thoughts?

As Fred pointed out, this is a non-issue. If anything, the original isn't the defenses being too easy to come by; Its with the attacks being too cheap relative to the defenses.

Originally Posted by T.K.

C4 > Weapons/Equipment (TL9 up to start of TL10) cost in relation to Powers, so that they keep being comparable-ish for the "first half of the campaign". Should it cost character points, money in-game, both, Advantages...?

I4 > So far, for campaign beginning/first arc, thinking of going with equipment found in Cyberpunk/UltraTech up to start of TL10, that can be purchased/accessed in-game, as expected, and stuff like Richness-level advantages could be fair game and eventually when game scale starts to pickup, switch that into gadgets and mechanical -10% or whatever style of powers.

The first requirement I'd put in place would be that nobody is allowed to buy adventuring equipment with Wealth. I might even download Wealth entirely, as they throw a major monkey wrench into any attempt to put powers and gear on anything resembling even footing. Poverty is probably okay; just bear in mind that the points you get for it will at least partially be eaten up compensating for your lack of access to a basic loadout.

If you do allow Wealth, place restrictions on how money beyond the Campaign Starting Cash can be spent; or use a variant rule that breaks Wealth up into parts, and don't let the players buy the part that gives them a great deal of liquidity: put it into stuff that gives them a high standard oof living, and/or for social engineering. Let the players know that you're not even going to attempt to be realistic about this: even if the narrative says that they should theoretically be able to sell of their house and use the proceeds to purchase an arsenal, actually allowing that would mean that a player would have to be stupid not to do that.