How to?

[Lindharin]

LOL! You slay me man, I love how your mind works

Yeah, I'm a bit of an odd-ball. What can I say, except I really do enjoy creating and optimizing power sets, and will happily help my players fine tune their powers, pointing out the most efficient and effective options we can come up with for building them. I really do find that fun.

Of course, once we've discussed a range of build options for a character, the deciding factor between different options is which is truer to the concept of the character rather than what is "optimized". That's something that is harder to convey here, since I don't always have as good a grasp on someone's character concept in the forum as I would when working one-on-one with a player.

And since you're my GM in the New Centurions game, I should probably mention that my play style is kind of different than my power set building style. When playing in a game, I'm pretty laid back - whatever the GM does is fine with me - and when running a game, I prefer going by the spirit of the rules instead of the letter, and whatever makes for a good story or a fun evening is the deciding factor. So regardless of what I might say in a build thread, I definitely will not be they guy interrupting your cool encounter with a "But the book says..."

[Lindharin]

I think the difficulty lies in the fact that in BASH! it's too easy to get a 5 Brawn, and 5 Brawn is supposed to be Hulk-level strength, like the strongest in the world.

So, when you want to make someone who is "the strongest" it's hard to pull off, at least within the rules.

I agree and disagree at the same time.

It is certainly true that any system with a 5 point scale for super stats is going to have limits on how well it can measure comparative differences.

However, I disagree that Brawn 5 is supposed to be the "strongest in the world". It may represent the Hulk's base strength, but that is far from the strongest in the world. At least back in the 80s, when I was reading a lot of Marvel titles, there were a lot of characters who were in the same strength ball park as the Hulk at his base level of strength. If I recall my Marvel Universe correctly, the Hulk's base strength was rated at about 90 tons, just a hair higher than the Thing (85 tons), and slightly weaker than Thor, Hercules, Juggernaut, Wonder Man, Silver Surfer, some versions of Iron Man, etc. And on a 5 point scale, Brawn 5 would also include all the 75-tonners, including Colossus and a whole bunch of less known bricks (75 tons was a common strength level, IIRC).

EDIT: By the BASH book, 75 tons would probably be Brawn 4, not Brawn 5. For Marvel Universe and the way those characters have been portrayed in other games, I'd argue it should be included in Brawn 5. But that's probably just me... And it doesn't impact the rest of those characters who (I think) were all over the 100 ton mark.

I think Brawn 5 does a good job at simulating characters at that strength range. You can still make finer distinctions with the addition of some Special Attack points - you've got up to 5 more points to help distinguish them, like who is more accurate, or has a more powerful haymaker, etc. Colossus wouldn't have as high of a Special Attack as Hercules or Juggernaut, for example, though Colossus should probably have more Armor than Hercules, etc.

The whole thing about Hulk being the "strongest" is that his base strength wasn't all he had. Depending on who's version of the Hulk you're talking about, he was potentially unlimited in strength if he got mad enough. More practically, even at the most powerful version I ever read about, Thor was still able to stand toe-to-toe against him without being overwhelmed, so I'd say maybe a Cosmic Might of 10 or 15 (so an effective Brawn of 7-8) would do fine for representing a "really * off" Hulk. His theoretical max might be even higher, but as of that time period I had never seen him reach it.

That's just my opinion, though, and of course your mileage will vary.

[BillionSix]

Yeah, but once you get above 5 you get into "cosmic" levels. I remember an old issue of Thor where Hercules was telling a ridiculous story of braggadocio that involved him picking up the island of Manhattan to use as a weapon. It didn't really happen, outside of Hercules' imagination, but that's the level of strength that Cosmic gets into.

The important thing to remember about BASH! is that it doesn't have really defined "stats" so much as "ranges"
Someone with a Brawn of 5 is in that Hulk/Thor/Superman range of strength.
That's not to say you can't boost (not Boost) it with certain powers such as special attacks when mad. But increasing Brawn above 5 isn't something you want to do lightly. It's for Galactus types.

Brian

[Lindharin]

It is true that the max lifting/moving mass for Cosmic Might scales up far faster than I realized. I was basing my mental scale for Cosmic Might mostly on the Archetypes, where the "Cosmic Herald" (aka Silver Surfer) has Cosmic Might 5 (Brawn 6), and IMO a sufficiently * off Hulk is definitely stronger than the Surfer, so Cosmic Might 10 (Brawn 7) seemed reasonable. But I just looked up the lifting guidelines for Cosmic Might and Cosmic Might 10 (Brawn 7) is actually a huge lifting upgrade, letting you move a moon. So, given that...

I guess I'd say that the Hulk has Cosmic Might 5 (Brawn 6) with the Gradual limitation (4 pts), plus his Special Attack has Gradual as well (ala the Behemoth archetype). So he'd be Brawn 5, and his Special Attack grows from 1 to 5 gradually, and then Cosmic Might grows from 1 to 5 gradually, at which point he has effectively Brawn 6 + 5 DM from Special Attack.

EDIT: I'm not entirely happy with that, but until / unless I run a cosmic level game, it doesn't really matter yet.