Dragonfly's House Rules: NEW POWER: HEIGHTENED!

[Dragonfly]

Howdy folks!

I've been mulling over a few house rules, and thought I would post them here to get the benefit of you all as a collective sounding board.

The first of these is...

Higher Costs for Stats

It seems to me that Stats are under-priced, at least if you compare them with certain powers.

Each rank of Brawn has three effects: +1 Damage, +1 Soak, and the ability to lift weight. There are, arguably, other minor things it does, like affect jumping distance, but we can probably fold those aspects of the Stat into the ability to lift weights.

Each rank of Agility has five effects, which include: +1 Defense, +1 to Hit, +1 to Priority, Skills (both acquisition and performance), and running speed.

Each rank of Mind has four effects, including: +1 Damage with ranged attacks, +1 Mental Defense, Skills (both acquisition and performance), and Awareness.

If you consider powers like Special Attack and Armor, Damage, Soak, and To Hit are effects worth 1 Character Point each. The Deflect and Danger Sense powers suggest that Defense is also (or almost, at least) worth 1 Character Point per multiplier. The other effects granted by Stats are probably not worth 1 point each individually, but they might in aggregate. Using this rationale, I’m thinking that the following cost scheme makes more sense:

Brawn: Damage, Soak, and Strength Effects (lifting weights, jumping distance, resist knockback, etc.) = 3 pts.

Agility: Defense, To Hit, Agility Effects (priority, skills, running speed) = 3 pts.

Mind: Damage, Mental Defense/Resistance, Mind Effects (awareness, skills) = 3 pts.

Why do this? I’m not a stickler for point balance, as too many years of playing Champions made me grow tired of the need to make sure that every point was accounted for. That being said, I’m a big fan of using Boost to restrict the effects of Stats, and I started to realize that this was too ineffective cost wise for my players. Why buy Boost 1 (Agility, Only to Hit with Ranged Attacks), when it’s more cost effective to simply raise the Agility up a rank, whether or not it fits the character concept? The honorable answer, of course, is about character concept, but then I feel like a heel for penalizing players who want to be true to their vision for the character.

Raising the cost of Stats to 3 wouldn’t be perfect, but I suspect that it would bring things appreciably closer to point equity – enough to make it seem fair enough in most instances.

What do you think? Is my reasoning off on this? Would such a change throw off the entire system? What other modifications would need to be made to make this house rule work? I can think of a few (such as the cost of Boost, starting points, and a few others), but I’m sure I’m not seeing something.

Best,

Dragonfly

[Lindharin]

Hi,

I haven't really given this much thought, so I'll let it percolate.

Have you gone through the archetypes in the Bash book and repriced them using the new stat costs? How did they come out?

On a tangent, I did play with a house rule where I used four stats instead of three, basically splitting Mind up into two stats representing intellect and willpower/spirit/etc. The relevant piece for this thread was that I ended up feeling like it really threw off point costs. This type of change means you need to give more starting points, so maybe Street Level is 30 instead of 25, or whatever. But that means that characters who are not very stat-oriented get a bunch of "extra" points, while other characters find themselves needing to spend more points on stats and effectively lose out on powers. At the end of the day, for me personally, it seemed to introduce less balance, and more hassle, than it was worth.

I don't know if you'll feel that way with your change, but it's something to keep in mind.

[Dragonfly]

Hey Lindharin!

Fancy meeting you here!

Have you gone through the archetypes in the Bash book and repriced them using the new stat costs? How did they come out?

Good suggestion! I just did. The Mystery Men category comes in 5-7 points more expensive.

Street Level characters vary more widely, coming in 5-10 points more expensive. In both cases the most common additional cost is 6 points.

World Class has the same spread as Street Level (5-10), but the most common additional cost is 9 points.

Cosmic characters are 5-13 points more expensive, with the most common additional cost being 12 points.

If I were to implement this house rule I'd probably give all Campaign Scales 10 additional points to play with.

BTW, I was interested to read your report regarding the use of the 4th Stat. I too experimented with that (splitting Mind into Smarts and Heart). The costs worked out okay for us, but I quickly switched back just because splitting Mind seemed to dilute its effectiveness. I just didn't seem worth the cost anymore. I'm still considering it, because I feel like Mind encompasses too much, but I'm working through some alternate solutions to that problem which I'll share in a later post.

Best,

Dragonfly

[BASHMAN]

Instead of 3pts per level have you considered a sliding scale? How about this:

Stat/Cost
1 = 1pt
2 = 3pts
3 = 6pts
4 = 10pts
5 = 15pts

This would make stats more expensive for High stats, and a bit less expensive for low stats, with a 3 costing the same as it did before.

[Dragonfly]

Howdy BASHMAN!

Thanks for chiming in on this. That's an interesting option, but it doesn't really address my concerns. What I'm trying to do is bring the cost of Stats in line with the benefits they offer. If Brawn 1 grants a +1 to Damage, a +1 to Soak, and an assortment of other minor benefits (that together might be worth 1 pt.), then it should probably cost 3 points, not 2 points. That would make the cost of Brawn consistent (or more consistent) with the cost of powers like Special Attack and Armor, for instance. Right now characters are getting a point break on game effects just because they are buying those effects bundled under the category of Stat (or at least that's the theory I'm toying with at the moment).

A sliding scale would only make matters worse, to some extent. Characters would be paying too little for the effects at the lower levels and way too much at the higher levels. All that would do is penalize players for having higher Stats, which is not advisable in a supers game (IMO).

Still, I'm wondering if changing the cost of Stats from 2 to 3 would break anything in the system. I don't think so at first glance, but I'm still looking.

Best,

Dragonfly

[Lindharin]

Street Level characters vary more widely, coming in 5-10 points more expensive. In both cases the most common additional cost is 6 points.

World Class has the same spread as Street Level (5-10), but the most common additional cost is 9 points.

If I were to implement this house rule I'd probably give all Campaign Scales 10 additional points to play with.

I think one of the things that might help me think about the ramifications is to look at what this would mean for the outliers. Lets look at the characters who need 5 or 6 pts to make up the difference, and the characters who need 9 or 10.

Let's say you bump the cost of stats to 3, and give 10 points to everyone. The characters who need 10 points just to pay the new cost for their current stats gain nothing, right? They have the same stats they do now. But the characters who only need to pay 5 pts to make up the new stat cost in effect now have 5 extra points that they didn't have before, points that would go for increasing their powers (or adding more stats).

So, one question to ask is whether the characters who get a net +5 points need those points to be balanced with the characters who don't. Are they characters who need a boost? If so, then maybe going to 3 pts/stat is a good thing. If not, that is an argument against the change.

Do you remember which characters came in 5 points more expensive, and which came in 10?

[Lindharin]

Actually, I just looked at the archetypes really quickly, and it is easy to do the list:

Code: Select all

Street-Level characters who need 5 or 6 pts to pay for current stats, so gain a net +4/5:

Archer
Blaster
Chameleon
Giant
Living Elemental (Water)
Mentalist
Stretcher
Weapon Master
Weather Controller

Street-Level characters who need 9 or 10 pts to pay for current stats, so gain a net +0/1:

Animal Genius

Code: Select all

World-class characters who need 5 or 6 pts to pay for current stats, so gain a net +4/5:

Light Master
Living Elemental (Flame)
Stellar Sentinel

World-class characters who need 9 or 10 pts to pay for current stats, so gain a net +0/1:

Amazon
Avenging Spirit
Champion of Justice
Mass Shifting Construct
Power Armor

[Lindharin]

Street-level is harder to look at, since there is only one outlier on the high end. But does the Animal Genius deserve to stay effectively the same when almost all other Street-Level characters get a net +4 or 5 pts. to spend on new stuff? When it comes to combat balance, he's low-to-mid at best. For general utility, he's a bit better, but he doesn't have many available points/powers for swapping around with Gadgeteer.

World-class is probably a more interesting case to examine, since the number of outliers is a bit more balanced. What do you think? Are the first three underpowered compared to their stat-heavy competitors?

I've got to head to bed. I'll look them over and post my thoughts tomorrow...

[Dragonfly]

Hi Lindharin,

Hmm...I just took a quick glance at the archetypes. The World-Class folks DO look a bit unbalanced to me. That is, the bottom three do look a bit weaker in comparison to those at the top of the list. I know that the Living Elemental got her keester handed to her by one of my characters, who is scaled at Street Level. That aside, I normally do see these things better in play, but it appears to me that the Soaks and Defenses at the top are somewhat better than those at the bottom. I'll have to look more closely to make certain.

The Animal Genius isn't a slouch in combat! You're right - he isn't the best, but his x5 Defense will keep him from getting hit most of the time, and his x3 Soak will keep him in the game long enough. He only does one multiplier less in damage than the Champion of Justice. He also has Super Speed, which can give him an extra attack per panel, no? Personally, I think his Mind is a point too high. I know he is supposed to be an homage to Hank McCoy, but a Mind 4? I think he could do with a Mind 3 and still be true to the source material. That would give him 3 more points to play with.

In short, I'm not yet seeing how the increase in cost unbalances anything.

One last thought: this is a useful exercise, but only to seeing how it upsets the status quo. I'm not sure that we should use the archetypes as an absolute measure of what is balanced, because (being created with the rules as is) they merely serve to codify any potential imbalance that exists within the system.

What do you think?

Best,

Dragonfly

[Lindharin]

In short, I'm not yet seeing how the increase in cost unbalances anything.

Cool, that's a good thing for your house rule.

Hmm...I just took a quick glance at the archetypes. The World-Class folks DO look a bit unbalanced to me. That is, the bottom three do look a bit weaker in comparison to those at the top of the list.

I know that the Living Elemental got her keester handed to her by one of my characters, who is scaled at Street Level.

Forgive me for going off on a tangent, but it's one I find interesting. The Bash archetypes have a certain balance point, a "sweet spot" that they seem to be built towards with regards to combat effectiveness. It is almost like the Power Level caps in Mutants and Masterminds, where your attack and damage can't average more than X, and your defense and soak can't average more than X either.

In both games, theoretically buying attack and damage are roughly equivalent in value, and defense and soak are roughly equivalent in value. For Bash, I add up their multipliers in attack + damage to give a sort of benchmark for their offensive power, and I add up their multipliers in defense + soak for the defensive benchmark.

When I did that for Street Level and World Class archetypes, I found that they were surprisingly even. The majority of archetypes have offensive and defensive totals in the 8-10 range, with some having lower defenses but higher offenses (like the blaster and stellar sentinel). For example, the Street Level Brick archetype has an attack+damage=9 and defense+soak=9, while the World Class Power Armor has an attack+damage=10 and defense+soak=8. The Amazon has attack+damage=9 (or about 10 with sword) and defense+soak=9. The Champion of Justice only has an attack+defense=8 but has an unusually high defense+soak=11 (plus some immunities).

The primary difference between the street-level and world-class archetypes isn't their combat power, but their breadth/flexibility. The world-class folks have points to spread around and get more variety than the street-class. So it doesn't surprise me that a Street-Class character could win a battle against a World-Class character, especially if the added flexibility of the second guy isn't particularly relevant against the former.

The Living Elemental (Flame) is one of the weaker defensive characters, and his extra flexibility is mostly dedicated to alternate forms of fire attacks which may or may not be effective against any given foe.

And being somewhat based on the Human Torch, who gets beat on by heralds of Galactus and doesn't seem to get particularly hurt by it, I think he needs at least +2 more soak, minimum.

One last thought: this is a useful exercise, but only to seeing how it upsets the status quo. I'm not sure that we should use the archetypes as an absolute measure of what is balanced, because (being created with the rules as is) they merely serve to codify any potential imbalance that exists within the system

I disagree here, but am late getting back to work - my tangent took more time than I thought. So more later tonight...

[Dragonfly]

Hi Lindharin,

Forgive me for going off on a tangent, but it's one I find interesting. The Bash archetypes have a certain balance point, a "sweet spot" that they seem to be built towards with regards to combat effectiveness. It is almost like the Power Level caps in Mutants and Masterminds, where your attack and damage can't average more than X, and your defense and soak can't average more than X either.

That IS an interesting observation. I wonder if that was done on purpose, or if it just happens to work out that way. I can see the utility of such a guideline, but I've never been fond of power level caps in M&M or The Rule of X in Champions, only because such guidelines are often taken too rigidly for my tastes, and start to inform decisions about values more than character concept. Many M&M players, for instance, think it foolish for someone to make characters that don't max out on their offensive or defensive potential. This tends to bug me a little, but I can understand how it's helpful for preventing too much system abuse (as well as to give newbies some parameters to work from). Still, it is interesting and, as is always the case with your insights, useful.

Best,

Dragonfly

[BASHMAN]

Yeah- I never liked caps either because they tend to operate more as a "minimum" rather than a "maximum".

"What! You don't have your OCV and DCV maxed out? Your character's worthless!"

[Lindharin]

I agree 100% that caps can be very limiting, and can easily cause more harm than good when applied as such, especially if they set an unneeded expectation. And I don't consider the "sweet spot" in Bash that I mentioned to be a cap, certainly not in the way that M&M has. Among other things there is enough variation within the archetypes (a range of 7-11 is pretty wide on that scale, after all) and enough exceptions (like the defensive total for the blaster and fire elemental among others) that make it clear these characters are not built to a formula, unlike the vast majority of M&M characters I've seen (and made!).

I just think it is cool and helpful to realize that there is a certain degree of balance in the game. And I like the fact that the Bash archetypes set an expectation that a street-level character can compete on a relatively even playing field with a world-class character. They can legitimately have equivalent combat scores. The world-class character gets extra points which means extra flexibility, but not significantly greater attack/damage or defense/soak. And if you put them in a campaign together with a world-class campaign point budget, then the street-level character gets a bunch of hero points to provide a different type of flexibility. In my (admittedly limited) experience so far, it seems like Bash is one of the best games I've seen for supporting mixed point-cost characters in the same campaign.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand:

One last thought: this is a useful exercise, but only to seeing how it upsets the status quo. I'm not sure that we should use the archetypes as an absolute measure of what is balanced, because (being created with the rules as is) they merely serve to codify any potential imbalance that exists within the system.

I think I disagree with this point, unless I'm misunderstanding it.

I think the Bash archetypes are a very comprehensive selection of common/important characters in comics. Whatever your rules, you need to be able to model those character archetypes, right?

So whether stats cost 2 pts or 3 pts, you should be able to build an Amazon, a Power Armor guy, a Stellar Sentinel, etc. When looking at any house rule, there are two subjective elements at that point:

1. Given the new rule, would you rebuild any of the archetypes, or are the stat and power choices still the appropriate ones?

2. If some characters gain new benefits while others do not, are the characters who gain new abilities the ones who need them?

In this case, the only rule change we're talking about is raising the cost of stats, and the only people who benefit from the new +10 bonus points at character creation will be the people with low stats who now get extra points to spend, or the people with high stats who "trade them in" for comparatively lower cost choices like boost or other powers. Yes / No?

Going through the world-class characters I listed above, here are my views. Yours will naturally be different, and I'm not trying to argue mine are right or better, just setting down where I'm coming from when I am considering the house rule.

* Amazon - stat choices seem appropriate to me, would keep them the same under the new costs.
* Avenging Spirit - I'm less familiar with the archetype, brawn and agility seem fine, not sure whether Mind 3 is appropriate or not. If not, it could be lower with a cheaper boost to help his powers that rely on Mind. He might get 1 or 2 points back being rebuilt under the new rules.
* Champion of Justice - Seems fine. Admittedly in some periods the character its based on might have a higher Mind, but I think this fits the dominant version I'm familiar with from the last few decades.
* Light Master - Seems fine. Again, you can argue about Mind, but the characters I'm familiar with from this type of archetype all seem to be scientist types so it is appropriate.
* Living Elemental of Flame - This is one where Mind could easily be lower, with boost making up for it with powers. It's a low stat character to begin with and could be lower still, so would have at least +5 new points to play with.
* Mass Shifting Construct - Stats seem fine to me.
* Power Armor - Stats seem fine to me.
* Stellar Sentinel - Stats seem fine to me.

So for the most part I'd make the same stat choices regardless of whether they cost 2 or 3 points, with a few possible exceptions noted above where I'd lower the Mind and use Boost if needed for their powers.

That means for me, the primary balance question about the house rule will come down to whether the people who don't rely on high stats need extra points to bring them up to par.

I do think the Living Elemental (Fire) needs a buff to her defense or soak. I'd like to see Boost Agility 1 (while flying) plus some more armor while flaming. Whether the points for that come from changing the cost of stats or redistributing some of her powers, either would work.

The Light Master seems pretty solid to me. Reasonable defenses, reasonable offense, and some of the most useful utility powers: Illusion, TK, Force Field, multiple modes of movement powers, etc. I don't see this character suffering much because of low stats.

The Stellar Sentinel also doesn't seem to suffer in comparison to the stat-heavy characters. His default defenses are low, somewhat offset with Force Field and Omnipotence since they can be boosted when needed. On the other hand he's got maybe the best offense, and probably the best utility, of any archetype (at least that I am remembering right now).

Your mileage will vary, so I am definitely not saying this is somehow definitive or right or anything like that, just that it is my evaluation of those archetypes.

[Dragonfly]

"What! You don't have your OCV and DCV maxed out? Your character's worthless!"

LOL! You just took me back to some heated on-line discussions from years back!

[Dragonfly]

In my (admittedly limited) experience so far, it seems like Bash is one of the best games I've seen for supporting mixed point-cost characters in the same campaign.

In MY relatively limited experience so far, I would tend to agree.

I think I disagree with this point, unless I'm misunderstanding it.

I think the Bash archetypes are a very comprehensive selection of common/important characters in comics. Whatever your rules, you need to be able to model those character archetypes, right?

Yes, I would agree with this. I certainly wouldn't want to change the rules to make it prohibitive to make these characters. I just meant that whether or not the Cyclops homage got a few extra points than the Beast homage shouldn't determine whether or not a house rule is good for the system.

So whether stats cost 2 pts or 3 pts, you should be able to build an Amazon, a Power Armor guy, a Stellar Sentinel, etc. When looking at any house rule, there are two subjective elements at that point:

1. Given the new rule, would you rebuild any of the archetypes, or are the stat and power choices still the appropriate ones?

2. If some characters gain new benefits while others do not, are the characters who gain new abilities the ones who need them?

Hmmm...this is where we might have different design philosophies. The archetype is the archetype. It should cost as much as it needs to in order to model what it does in the comics. The final cost is somewhat unimportant, as far as I'm concerned. It's kind of weird, for instance, that the Human Flame homage costs 15 points more than the Thing and Mister Fantastic homages. Johnny Storm is "World-Class" as opposed to Street Level, simply because his effects cost more to model in BASH, not because he is the most powerful member of the FF.

To BASHMAN's great credit, he didn't seem to worry too much about * the characters into particular power levels. He just built them and let them fall where they may - or at least that's the impression I get. Another testament to that is the fact that the World-Class examples are all over the place. They range from 35 points to 44 points. Street Level characters also vary, from 23 points to 28 points. So - just because the house rule would bring the Animal Genius up to 38 points doesn't mean that the Blaster automatically gets a bunch of points to play with. I'd keep the archetypes where they are in terms of stats, unless I felt that there was something deficient or inaccurate conceptually. I recommended lowering the Animal Genius' Mind, not because I was trying to get him more points, but because I think a 4 is too high. That's this particular comic geek's judgement, however, and like you say - that is neither right nor wrong. For the most part I think BASHMAN's interpretations of these archetypes are VERY well done, and I wouldn't change 90% of what's there - regardless of the house rule. The only thing that would change are the costs.

In this case, the only rule change we're talking about is raising the cost of stats, and the only people who benefit from the new +10 bonus points at character creation will be the people with low stats who now get extra points to spend, or the people with high stats who "trade them in" for comparatively lower cost choices like boost or other powers. Yes / No?

Yes, for now. The cost of Boost should probably change as well. I was thinking that there could be two levels of boost - broad and narrow. A narrow Boost (only to hit with X attack) would still cost 1 point, as it effectively grants one Agility effect, but there could be a broader Agility Boost that granted +1 to Hit and a +1 to Priority, but not to Defense, for example. That wold cost 2 points. I'm still thinking about this though, so yeah - we are just talking about that one change.

* Amazon - stat choices seem appropriate to me, would keep them the same under the new costs.

I agree!

* Avenging Spirit - I'm less familiar with the archetype, brawn and agility seem fine, not sure whether Mind 3 is appropriate or not. If not, it could be lower with a cheaper boost to help his powers that rely on Mind. He might get 1 or 2 points back being rebuilt under the new rules.

I'd keep the Mind 3, I think.

* Champion of Justice - Seems fine. Admittedly in some periods the character its based on might have a higher Mind, but I think this fits the dominant version I'm familiar with from the last few decades.

I agree, although I prefer him with a higher Mind. I'm also not comfortable with him doing a mere x5 with a punch. I think he needs a Special Attack.

* Light Master - Seems fine. Again, you can argue about Mind, but the characters I'm familiar with from this type of archetype all seem to be scientist types so it is appropriate.

I'd probably lower the Mind on this one.

* Living Elemental of Flame - This is one where Mind could easily be lower, with boost making up for it with powers. It's a low stat character to begin with and could be lower still, so would have at least +5 new points to play with.

I could see these changes.

* Mass Shifting Construct - Stats seem fine to me.

Me too.

* Power Armor - Stats seem fine to me.

Me too.

* Stellar Sentinel - Stats seem fine to me.

Me too.

So for the most part I'd make the same stat choices regardless of whether they cost 2 or 3 points, with a few possible exceptions noted above where I'd lower the Mind and use Boost if needed for their powers.

That means for me, the primary balance question about the house rule will come down to whether the people who don't rely on high stats need extra points to bring them up to par.

I do think the Living Elemental (Fire) needs a buff to her defense or soak. I'd like to see Boost Agility 1 (while flying) plus some more armor while flaming. Whether the points for that come from changing the cost of stats or redistributing some of her powers, either would work.

The Light Master seems pretty solid to me. Reasonable defenses, reasonable offense, and some of the most useful utility powers: Illusion, TK, Force Field, multiple modes of movement powers, etc. I don't see this character suffering much because of low stats.

The Stellar Sentinel also doesn't seem to suffer in comparison to the stat-heavy characters. His default defenses are low, somewhat offset with Force Field and Omnipotence since they can be boosted when needed. On the other hand he's got maybe the best offense, and probably the best utility, of any archetype (at least that I am remembering right now).

I agree with you on most of this. Again, I'm just less concerned about who gets how many points extra - at least when it comes to these archetypes, which are really homages of existing characters. How would these affect actual play in a homegrown campaign? Do players play archetypes? I guess they do, sort of, but the choices they'll make about their characters will be somewhat different. It's probably okay if their Animal Genius can't afford that Mind 4, because they are not actually playig Hank McCoy. What matters to me at that point is that PCs get what they pay for (to a certain degree), regardless of whether it's a Stat or a power. I don't want to reward a character in terms of combat effectiveness just because his or her concept is Stat heavy. They shouldn't get a cost break for the effects they are buying, and I suspect that 3 pts. for Stats will make things more equitable, without sacrificing the system's ability to model the genre AND without making the game as complicated as those other systems.

Still, I hear the spirit of your questining here, and I know it's in service of preserving what's best and most fun about BASH. I haven't made up my mind about the house rule yet, but your insights and probing questions are really helpful to me as I try to make up my mind.

Thanks!

Dragonfly