Ultimo

I've gone back to the Stalker, I'm finding the Scrapper just too squishy, and honestly not versatile enough.

As I say, there are a couple of changes they could make right off I'd get behind. First, add damage to knockback. More knock means more damage. Second, the first three powers should be: Punch (replaces Jab, which is nearly useless anyway), same as we have now. Haymaker, much like Cross Punch, a small cone AOE. Hurl, much as it is now, but has a small AOE for normal damage (it's a big slab, and can hit multiple targets if they're close together), and a diminishing AOE around that (flying debris). Maybe another power whose purpose is entirely to do knockback, to simulate grabbing and throwing an enemy, or swatting him away. I'd rename Rage, and call it "Gloves Off," or something like that. While it's active, knockback becomes unresistable, even by AVs and the like. Strong characters should be able to move even the heaviest, strongest characters. Beyond that... Well, I'm just kind of spitballing.

Oh, I agree. Depending on how they handle adding damage to knockback, that alone might be enough to make the anemic damage better, and reduce reliance on Rage. My main thrust is that the main thing we see strong characters doing is MOVING things (or stopping things from moving). Anyone can punch, but lifting heavy things is kind of the point of strength. It doesn't have to be a lot. One thing about fights with super strong characters is the collateral damage. Just adding some of this to the set might do wonders as well (presentation is half the battle). Add a little screen shake, some cracks in the ground and dust and debris flying around. Move Hurl down so it's available earlier, and make it a small AOE. You're right, knockback is reviled today, but that's because the cost of it (ie. spreading enemies out) is greater than the benefit of it (a brief soft control). If it did some decent damage too, that might be enough to make it useful. Notice, this would also add a bit of extra damage to powers that are designed specifically for knocks (eg. Force Bolt), which I don't think would be unwelcome. I'll also point out that there are enhancers that allow you to change knockback to knockDOWN. Maybe that would make the change palatable. I'd replace Jab, and give the set a power specifically designed to knock foes flying. Not much damage, but massive knockback, like Force Bolt. I'd make two basic punches, one single target, one AOE, like Cross Punch. Then Hurl. I'd have Rage near the end of the set, and call it something else, since not every super strong character is a rage-monster. Maybe instead of adding a ton of damage, it could boost secondary effects and reduce endurance costs. I mean, we see tanky characters in the comics getting knocked around all the time, but never in this game. If Rage made knock effects irresistable, you could find a super strong character could be knocking down otherwise unknockable characters... which would be appropriate because the character is STRONG. Anyway, it's not that it's in ineffective set for me, it's the presentation more than anything.

I've LONG suggested Super Strength could use a bit of love. I mean, it's the single most iconic power of ANY comic character. You can even go back to ancient mythology, where vast strength was a power of many great heroes (eg. Herakles). One thing I'd like to see them do is add some damage to knockback. They could then pair this up with Super Strength doing lots OF knockback. I know, people don't like it, but it's kind of the thing great strength is about... lifting and moving heavy objects. To represent this, I'd also move Hurl so it's acquired MUCH sooner. Another thing is that the set currently relies far too much on one or two powers. Without Rage running, the set is very underwhelming, and apart from KO Blow, the damage is pretty mediocre. Another thought I had is that perhaps Super Strength could be altered to be ALL AOE. That is, every attack is spread across all targets in range. If you're fighting a big group of minions, your damage would be spread to each one equally. If you're fighting ONE enemy, he'd take ALL the damage. It would also be useful for Tankers that way, as it would spread threat to all the enemies it's hitting. Whatever the case may be, I'd like to see it tweaked to be more in line with the source material.

Utility Belt pool? Ya, I'd been planning for Weapon Mastery, I was just unsure whether to go Scrapper or Stalker. The original design was the Stalker, but I noticed he has to take out every foe one at a time, and that's kind of tedious, especially on teams. So, I thought about making him a Scrapper. I thought the Scrapper would be sturdier, but I'm not experiencing that, and Mids seems to bear that out. So, I'm still torn.

So, I've been wrestling with a choice, and I wondered what people thought. I've created a character based on Batman, but I'm not certain whether to go with the Stalker or the Scrapper. In either case, he'd be Martial Arts and Ninjitsu, but each has different strengths and weaknesses. The Stalker, for example, lacks almost all AOE. What do you guys think? Which one better represents Batman? Which one performs better? Any thoughts are welcome.

I once created a character called "Musk" whose power was to emit pheromones for various effects including mind control, stunning and weakening enemies. My thinking is Radiation Emission and some sort of power set allowing mind control... perhaps Dark Blast... so a Defender/Corruptor.

Quite so! This is why I made the Angel a Tanker. Back in the day, when the X-Men fought their enemies, Angel's task was to get the attention of the enemy and avoid their attacks while the rest of the team engaged. To me, that's a Tanker. I make most of my speedsters that way too, their job is to harass and occupy the enemy while the team takes them down.

So, lately I've been tinkering with characters, making a bunch of new ones based on the X-Men. Some are pretty obvious, but some are a problem... what AT and powers should they have?! So, I thought I'd come here, and have a little fun discussing what ATs and powers we think the X-Men might have. Now, I'm not as familiar with the newer X-Men. Really, I kind of lost track around the time Longshot joined the team and they were operating out of Australia... so I'll just go as far as that. Here's my list: Professor X - Dominator (Mind Control/Psionic Assault) Cyclops - Blaster (Energy Blast/Martial Combat) (yes, I know it doesn't come from his eyes, but we live in hope of new animations) Iceman - Dominator (Ice Control/Icy Assault) Beast - Brute (Martial Arts/Willpower) Angel - Tanker (Super Reflexes/Street Justice) Marvel Girl - Controller (Mind Control/Force Fields)???? Not sure about this one. Havok - Blaster (Sonic Blast/Sonic Manipulation) (he SHOULD be energy blast, but the Sonic effects work for him) Polaris - Controller (Gravity Control/Force Fields) Nightcrawler - Stalker (Martial Arts/Super Reflexes) Wolverine - Brute (Claws/Regeneration) Banshee - Blaster (Sonic Blast/Sonic Manipulation) Storm - Corruptor (Electric Blast/Storm Summoning) Sunfire - Sentinel (Fire Blast/Fire Armour) Colossus - Tanker (Invulnerability/Super Strength) Thunderbird - Scrapper (Street Justice/Willpower) Kitty Pryde - ???? (????/????) NO idea what to do with Kitty! Rogue - ???? (????/????) Probably super strength and invulnerability for the Ms. Marvel powers... but the drain? Psylocke - Scrapper (Psionic Melee/Ninjitsu) Gambit - Blaster? (Fire Blast?/Martial Combat?) Hard to know what to do here, there's no ranged class with a staff. Longshot - Tanker? (Super Reflexes/Martial Arts) Super Reflexes to mimic his "luck" power? I could go into greater detail on my reasoning, but I'm interested to see what you guys think. How would you create the X-Men?

I agree, and I'm not saying they shouldn't be a threat. I'm saying they're overtuned. How hard should they hit? It's hard to say. I'd have to run some tests and see, but I'd start from potentially 50% at most, and work up or down from there, until it seems balanced overall. I mean, it's got to work for all the ATs. But you guys are right, I'm working from a relatively small sample, and AE isn't the same animal. I think I'll try running it again on a few other ATs and see how it feels.

This might be so... but this isn't the only time I've seen this sort of thing. I've struggled a LOT to make decent enemies for my AE missions, and this is the root problem. If I make the enemies durable enough (ie. EB/AV) to have a good fight, they do WAY too much damage to have a good fight. Granted, I haven't encountered many AVs in general, as most of my characters are still in their 20s. But, for all that, my position remains the same. Enemies shouldn't be able to do 100% (or 99.99999%) of a character's health in one attack.

I agree. I understand how it IS, I'm suggesting that it shouldn't BE this way. When I used the Enemies books in Champions, I had to reduce the damage the enemies could do because it made it impossible to fight them. That's what I'm seeing here. The players I had complained that they wanted to fight Doctor Destroyer, at one point. So, I illustrated out he'd been designed. I'll digress a moment to explain how old Champions worked. Characters rolled 6 sided dice for everything. To hit a target, you rolled 3d6 (three six sided dice). There was a bit of math, but generally the average to hit value was 11 or less on three six sided dice. When you hit a target, you rolled damage. The average attack for heroes (at least to start) was around 10-12d6. That is, roll 10 6 sided dice and add up the numbers. on average, you could expect around 35 damage from 10d6. This was STUN damage, which would knock you out. Ranged Killing Attacks worked the same way, but did BODY damage, which was lethal. The average hero would have around 40-50 stun and perhaps 20 body. Doctor Destroyer had a 7d6 RKA. This attack had no range penalties, and he could fire it off indirectly. It had a range of around 1 mile. He also had multiple combat levels to improve his chance to hit, and his Speed was so high that he would act around 3 times before any player would be able to. So, they boarded their ship, and when they were within a mile, he hit it with the equivalent of a tactical nuke. He couldn't miss because of his combat levels, and did so much damage the players couldn't possibly survive. If by some miracle one of them did, he would just target and kill them on his next action. There's no fun there. His damage and abilities were SO far beyond those of the players that it made him useless. I was forced to rebuild the character so they could actually fight him... that meant reducing his DAMAGE, more than anything else. As long as the players were still standing, they could ACT, which was WAY more fun for them. I made him so he still hit HARD, but not SO hard they players couldn't withstand getting hit a couple of times. That's what I'd like to see here. The AVs and even EBs hit too hard. There's just no way for many characters to withstand it. I mean, you're GOING to get hit sometimes. This is especially so now that there's a streakbreaker for NPC attacks. But, I don't see anyone in agreement with me, really. No matter, I don't expect they would change anything anyway.

Yes, the first hit left me with one health. It's essentially the same thing.

I was proactive. I had as much defense as I could get. Regardless, he defeated me in one attack. I don't care if I had NO defense, he shouldn't be able to defeat me in one shot. To me, that's the bad design. I'm not saying it wasn't working as designed/intended. I'm saying that design/intention is bad. Again, you're welcome to disagree with me, it's just my opinion.

I still don't think people are understanding me. I'm not saying my Defender should have been able to tank. That's not his role, that's not what he's built for. However, I also don't think it should be possible for a character to be defeated instantly with no opportunity to react to it. Refer back to my explanation about GMing Champions. It's a poor design if the enemy is able to defeat ANY player character instantly. Will designing an enemy that way make it harder for that enemy to defeat tanks? Of course, but that's why they're TANKS, and they pay for that durability by sacrificing other abilities. I was still in the teleport animation as I said I was. When I said I would teleport in and initiate an attack, that was the PLAN, as I'd been doing throughout the mission. In this case, I didn't have a chance to do it. But again, this specific example isn't the point, it's an example of a general principle. I get that you disagree with me, but that's fine. We can agree to disagree.

Well... yes and no. It's true that the conditions were unusual, but the experience isn't all that unusual, nor does it invalidate my point. I couldn't have moved away. I couldn't use an inspiration. The others couldn't do any healing, there was no TIME. The strategy is one we'd been using throughout the TF (since our Tanker quit). I was still in the teleport animation, then was in the knockdown animation, and then was dead. I had no opportunity to do ANYTHING. He didn't pound on me, he attacked me ONCE and did all my health. Yes, it left 1 hit point, but the effect is the same. As I said, I don't see what more I could have done. The character was running as many defensive powers as was available to him AND supplemented that with inspirations. Even if he had done the 3000 damage you say is more typical, he STILL would have oneshotted me THREE TIMES OVER. That's a lot of overkill. Even if I swallowed a whole tray of orange inspirations, I doubt it would have made a difference. Perhaps I'm not being clear. The issue is that there's no FUN if there's nothing to do. There's no DRAMA if the fight is over instantly. The fun, the drama, the story, is found in the interaction, the back and forth. When Worf fought Gowron, it went back and forth. Each one had the advantage at different points in the fight. Same with Obi-Wan and Vader. Same with Luke and Vader (both times). As far as gameplay is concerned, I don't think it's appropriate or fun for any enemy to be able to instantly defeat a player. But, I feel I'm repeating myself, so I'll let the matter rest. Again, I appreciate the thoughts and insight.

You guys are obviously WAY beyond me as far as the nuts and bolts go... so I'll provide what info I can. I didn't set up the TF, it was a fellow who was doing it for the first time. It's entirely possible he had bad settings. I know for certain, for example, that he had disabled temp powers. When my character was attacked, he was as defensive as I could make him. He was running Combat Jumping, Hover, Maneuvers, Weave, Tough, Steamy Mist and Hurricane, and I'd fired off three medium purples before teleporting in. All are fully slotted with SOs (I tend to emphasize survivability on my characters). After I was hit, I checked the combat log. It said he had a 5% chance to hit, and rolled 3.3. Later, when Countess Crey did the same, it said she had a 7.5% chance to hit and rolled a 3.3. I thought it interesting they were the same number... but other attacks that hit me were not, though all were less than 3. However, all this is a bit beside the point. The main issue I have is that this enemy was able to do enough damage to instantly defeat me, and there isn't ANYTHING I could do about it. When there's nothing the player can do to avoid defeat, there's no game to play, if you take my meaning. Years ago, I used to GM a Champions pen and paper game, and I found I couldn't use any of the various villains in the Villains books, and it was usually because of this exact problem. They were SO overpowered, and capable of SO much damage all at once, that it was impossible to use them as presented in the books without instantly overwhelming the players. That was no fun for anyone, and ruined any kind of dramatic storytelling. So, I went through and revamped them all a bit, reducing their damage output to be similar to what the players were themselves capable of, and increased the total Stun (health) of the main bad guys, so they could stand up to the heroes for a while. This made ALL the difference. You don't want enemies that can oneshot the heroes, because it ruins the drama, ruins the fun. The exception is that it's PART of the story... for example, there's some objective that's boosting the bad guy's power. If you destroy it, he returns to normal... and in such cases, the heroes need to be able to reliably avoid those oneshot attacks. Anything else means there's no game involved. Give the enemy an "I win" button, and there's no point in trying. I don't know if I'm being clear here... I hope you guys understand my point. And, I really appreciate the deeper dive into the mechanics. You guys rock.

I'm finding I'm not all that impressed with the Staff Fighting set. It's not so much the effect of the powers as the ANIMATIONS. They look pretty silly, and the staff looks absurd too, more like a Titan weapon. Come to think of it... maybe THAT is an alternative option... Titan Weapon instead of Staff?

Some good info here, things I wasn't aware of. All I can tell you is what the combat log said, and it said he had a 5.5% chance to hit. Maybe the combat log doesn't take some of these things into account? Either way, my character has just over 1000 health. Even if his attack does 3000 at most, that's STILL three times my maximum health. He does that, there's no way for me to do anything to defend against it. There's no game. I stand by that assertion, that enemies shouldn't be doing SO much damage that you can't stand getting hit even once. My TANKERS would have a hard time withstanding 3000 damage, and would have NO chance of surviving anything like 11k. It remains an issue on the AE too, as it's nearly impossible to make characters who are survivable enough to put up a fight without also being so absurdly damaging that there's no way for the player to put up a fight. But, I've said my bit. I appreciate the thoughtful responses.

I went with the Brute, Staff/Dark. I'll give him Sorcery but I'll have to consider the Epic pools, there's nothing psychic for Brutes.

So, today I did the Manticore task force with a nice group of folks. We went through it pretty well, as having three Storm Defenders (myself included) made the enemies unable to hit us reliably. Very handy. Eventually we came to the final battle, and we started with Hopkins, who is an AV. My usual strategy is to teleport in next to the enemy, Hurricane running, and cast something to attack with, like Freezing Rain. If they're near a corner, I'll position myself so Gale can blow them there, and Hurricane can keep them there. Knowing an AV has very extreme damage, I popped three medium purples before beaming in. He attacked me ONCE and did about 11k damage. I have about 1k health. He did enough damage to oneshot me 11 times over, in one attack. Of course, his next attack did another 800 damage, and I was toast. He had a 5% chance to hit, he hit me twice before I could even react. I rezzed, recovered and toggled up, and he hit again for around 3000 damage. Oneshotted again. Three attacks three hits, 5% chance each time. What luck, you might say. I say EVERY attack I endured in this fight between him and Countess Crey, once she appeared, hit me. They NEVER missed, and almost every attack was enough to oneshot me. So this brings me to the point of my post. Enemy damage at higher ranks (EB and AV) are WAY, WAY, WAY excessive. If there is no way for the player to survive an attack, there's no game. Enemies should never do enough damage to oneshot ANY character, unless it's a telegraphed attack that can be avoided or otherwise mitigated. In the example above, there was nothing I could do to survive the attack. I put as much defense and resistance on the character as I could. Reduced his tohit as much as was possible. I even used Inspirations to make myself as protected as was possible... but it made no difference. Nothing I could do would have allowed me to do anything about that attack... so there was no GAME to play. I said the same thing back in live days, and I've said it here before in reference to my AE characters. It's nearly impossible to make a villain durable enough to challenge many players, especially groups of players, who isn't going to instantly wipe out half the team with one attack. That's a problem I would like to see addressed.

Actually, I'm astonished I didn't think about Sorcery... for a SORCERER. /SmackOnHead.

No, that definitely helps, but that doesn't become available until near the end of the character's progress. I'll pick something from that for certain, but I'm not sure what to do in the meantime.

So, I'm trying to decide how to make a character, but it's a character with a particular theme. He's based on the Sorceror from my Warhammer 40k Chaos Marine army. When I made him in an AE mission, I gave him Staff Fighting and Psychic Blast. Of course, there's no such combination possible for player archetypes... so I'm kind of stuck on what AT and power sets I should give him. My first thought is that he really should have the Staff Fighting set, which limits him to melee archetypes... Scrapper, Brute, Tanker... so I'm not sure it's viable to give him that. I'd prefer to have it, but if someone has an alternative suggestion, I'm open to considering it. Psychic Blast is his "Chaos Sorceror" power, so he needs SOMETHING, though it doesn't necessarily HAVE to be this. Again, I'm open to suggestions. Any thoughts?

Is it possible to change the size of the entry room? The two by two room just doesn't work for me, because you can't center a doorway to the next section. On a related point, is there a way to make a wall with a door in it that you can pass through? I don't care if the door opens or closes, I just want it to block off the corridor and have a more normal sized doorway. Perhaps some kind of panel or something?