[Writeups.org] [3E] Old West guns, Gamble, Pit Bulls

[pawsplay]

On reflection, I decided SM actually works rather well. It allows her to reliably produce chemical inventions that have modest point totals, which is the desired functionality, rather than being unreliable (no Advantage) or capable of masterstrokes of invention (Ultimate Effort). It fits in well with the idea she is a chemical expert.

She can do that just by taking 10 though - the SM Advantage is there for stressful situations that normally forbid doing that.

This might be your intent, of course - you may remember an old discussion about Jack "Hacker" Marshall having SM because he can do complex computer science work under massive stress and after three days without sleeping without apparent penalties.

It's a plausile extrapolation of her abilities, but since it's not demonstrated on-panel, I think I'll be conservative and strip it for now.

Summary and refinement of previous discussion.

Intellect
The core of Intellect is skill use.

(Snip for brevity).

I just have minor notes to add, really.

- Take the two highest INT-based skills. INT-based skills are: Detective, Gadgetry, Medicine, Military Science (but only if it includes subskills other than Camouflage, Danger Recognition, and Tracking), and Scientist. Average them. If the character has only one INT-based skill, average that skill and INT-2. If they have no INT-based skills, just use INT-2.

I can see the potential for distortion due to some Subskills - same reasoning as to why you excluded several Military Science Subskills. These are cases that happen somewhat often :
Detective - Legwork and Police procedure both are social skills, and low-Intellect socially adept characters can have them at high levels

Those should be excluded.

Medicine - First Aid is very common (especially for military and police characters) and might induce data bias

It is common, but I'm pretty sure every time it's called out, the character in question is probably going to be presented as smarter. Plenty of skilled normals in the minion writeups section of the book have Intellect 1 anyway.

Military science strikes me as so-so except for Cryptography and maybe Demolitions. At least it's a shorter list.

For the default score I'd strongly suggest WIL -2 rather than INT, given how modern DCH stats are done.

That might help with the cosmetic angle, but on the other hand, detracts from the untrained APs of skills relationship. It occurs to me that it probably wouldn't hurt the scale to use the two best of INT -2, WIL -2, or INT-based skills (excluding the ones mentioned above). Hwever, that does mean the return of the revenge of INT/WILL. I'm trying to think of how many entries would actually be improved by including WIL as well. Most outsized WILL characters are also skilled, with the exception of the vintage Green Lantern writeups (which are obviously not helpful in this case).

Kitty and Beast both have INT equal to or higher than their WIL. Mister Fantastic has a high WIL, but his skill ratings are higher; ditto for Hacker. It might help Spider-Man hit a solid Intellect 4 instead of 3 to 4 (he currently has a gisted 6). I'd probably round Spiderman up anyway, so....

[Ghostwise]

Hwever, that does mean the return of the revenge of INT/WILL.

Think about a character with bestial senses and aggression - that's straight high INT (high Perception, high Initiative), but the character is unlikely to have a high DCA Intellect (unless the paradox is part of the character concept, of course).

With a high WIL you don't have the problem, unless it's an old entry where WIL is treated as 'willpower'.

[Ghostwise]

This guy is a complete jobber and card-carrying glass cannon, came up with a hit of the Random button, and since we already got DCA stats for his DC-side homonyms... The texts of his writeups.org entry just got redone for style and clarity.

He fought Thor (Eric Masterson) and was a member of Justine Hammer's Masters of Evil and, uh, that's it.

----------------------------

Shatterfist
Marvel Universe

Biography, characterisation, pictures, power description and the like at writeups.org



Abilities
Strength 01, Stamina 02, Agility 02, Dexterity 01, Fighting 05, Intellect -1, Awareness 00, Presence 00

Averaged PL 6.4

Devices
Power Gloves • 11 points (Removable) • Descriptor: Technology
- Enhanced Strength 12 (Limited 1 - to his hands, and thus chiefly useful for punching, gripping, crushing)
- Close attack 1

Combat Advantages
Close Attack 1, Ranged attack 1

Other Advantages
None demonstrated

Skills
Athletics 2 (+3), Close combat (Unarmed) 1 (+7), Expertise (Lowlife criminal) 4 (+3), Perception 2 (+3), Ranged combat (Fireams) 1 (+3), Vehicles 3 (+4) (Limited 2 to Common Land vehicles)

Offense
Initiative +2
Unarmed +7, Close, Damage 1
Power gloves +8, Close, Damage 13

Defense
Dodge 7, Parry 9
Toughness 4/2*, Fortitude 6, Will 1
*Without Defensive Roll bonus

Complications
Obsession Shatterfist might get in trouble because he's busy boasting rather than taking action



Power levels
Trade-off areas. Attack & Effect PL 11, Dodge/Toughness PL 6, Parry/Toughness PL 7, Fort & Will PL 4
Point total 53 Abilities 20, Defences 14, Skills 6, Powers 0, Devices 11, Advantages 2. Equiv. PL 4.

[Ares]

Marvel and DC have always been on completely different scales of power.

For example, official sources site Superman as being able to lift 100,000 tons. Thor can only lift 100 tons (200 tons while wearing his belt of strength).

Completely. Different. Scales.

That's . . . never really been true for the most part. The Class system of Marvel was a great way to determine where someone was in the pecking order, but as a literal measure of tonnage it was pretty broken, and very infrequently used. We've seen Thor in the comics lift things that weighted thousands, millions or even billions of tons.

Basically, when the Marvel Handbooks came out there was some lipservice paid to it in the comics, but for the most part we still got to see Thor do things like lift the Midgard serpent, the Hulk lift a 4 billion ton mountain, the Thing wield gigantic objects that weighted hundreds of tons, etc.

Heck, even movie Thing, who is weaker than comics Thing, has supported the weight of the London Eye, which weights nearly 2,000 tons.

So yeah, barring Pre-Crisis planet moving powerlevels, Marvel and DC have been pretty comparable in terms of power and strength.

[Jabroniville]

The problem with the Class system was that Mark Gruenwald was the only person who wanted to uphold it . Every other write just chose to exert their personal writer-freedom over things and make the hero lift whatever they need to to make the story work.

I think DC in general has much stronger heroes though- in "The Technis Imperative" Titans/JLA crossover, a small handful of heroes pushed THE MOON away from the Earth (with Kyle Rayner wrapping his green energy around half, and Wonder Woman... unleashing her invisible ship in an amophorous blob around the other half), against the pull of a super-giant robot collective. Kind of puts the huge "Hercules drags Manhattan on a chain" feat into perspective.

[pawsplay]

Hwever, that does mean the return of the revenge of INT/WILL.

Think about a character with bestial senses and aggression - that's straight high INT (high Perception, high Initiative), but the character is unlikely to have a high DCA Intellect (unless the paradox is part of the character concept, of course).

With a high WIL you don't have the problem, unless it's an old entry where WIL is treated as 'willpower'.

That actually reminds me one note/comment that is missing from my draft. If the character has no Intellect-based skills at all, you can always lower Intellect to whatever you want. For truly bestial characters and the slow of mind (Shape fits in this category).

Hmm, I'm thinking, and it seems to me that between DCH 2e and 3e, highly perceptive characters were more likely to be WILL heavy. I may be somewhat behind the tmies in thinking that an "untamed manbeast" type would be along the lines of INT:3, WIL: 5, with Sharp Eye and Lightning Reflexes, rather than INT: 7 or whatever. But even accepting usage may have shifted that much, INT isn't a perfect match for the man-beast construct itself; slapping INT: 7 on a real monster causes a groaning effect as the system struggles to accomodate man-beast having a reasonable shot at doing some pretty awesome untrained INT-based skill uses on a natural 15. Unless I'm just completely missing the boast, cunning man-beasts should have a balanced advancement of INT/WILL, currently baked into our Perception conversions.

[Ghostwise]

I may be somewhat behind the tmies in thinking that an "untamed manbeast" type would be along the lines of INT:3, WIL: 5, with Sharp Eye and Lightning Reflexes, rather than INT: 7 or whatever.

Quick answer due to lack of time this evening - the current brief ishere.

[pawsplay]

I may be somewhat behind the tmies in thinking that an "untamed manbeast" type would be along the lines of INT:3, WIL: 5, with Sharp Eye and Lightning Reflexes, rather than INT: 7 or whatever.

Quick answer due to lack of time this evening - the current brief ishere.

Ok. I could quibble with some of the side comments (for instance, I wouldn't be inclined to link Scientist with WIL or MIN because I'm an AV purist) but I think I get it. So returning to DCA-land....

I think two highest of INT-based skills, INT-2, and WIL-2 is the best approach.
- It preserves the link between untrained APs and unskilled skill use in DCA
- Intellect in DCA seems to include some constructs of both INT (mental quickness and agility) and WIL (deductive power)
- Using the higher stat will give us a wider range for minor characters with values in the 5 to 7 APs range and avoid simply duplicating the Awareness estimate.
- In the case of high INT, low WIL characters with no INT-based skills, it will flatten their estimate, consistent with the points you have raised.
- Reality check: the inclusion of WIL will probably not affect the majority of writeups. Of the notable writeups I reviewed quickly, I only saw it make a difference for Spiderman, and then only in nudging the estimate to a higher and probably better value.
- Notes need to be made about older Green Lantern and mentalist writeups, and utterly non-intellectual characters.

I'll dash out a revised version based on the above for your consideration.

[pawsplay]

Intellect
The core of Intellect is skill use. In DCH, INT is the link attribute for mental skills. INT also governs untrained use of skills. Intellect has an identical role in DCA. Intellect is otherwise a cosmetic ability (much like Fighting). From a characterization standpoint, Intellect includes characteristics of both INT (mental quickness and agility) and WIL (deductive and analytical ability). However, the strongest relationship is with intellectual skills, especially technological skills. To generate an Intellect estimate, find the two highest of: one or more appropriate INT-based skills, INT -2, and WIL -2.
- INT-based skills are: Detective (but only if it includes subskills other than Legwork and Police Procedure), Gadgetry, Medicine, Military Science (but only if it includes subskills other than Camouflage, Danger Recognition, and Tracking), and Scientist.
- Some older write-ups of Green Lanterns and characters with mental powers may have WIL scores based on a different sense of “willpower.” Try using revised version of the character, or simply exclude WIL from the equation.
- Average the two scores. Use the following chart to generate an estimate:

Code: Select all

APs Possible Intellect
0 or less
        0 (or less, conceivably)
1-2     1
3-4     2
5-6     3
7       4
8       5
9       6
10      7
11-12 8 (Batman)
13      9
14     10
15-16  11 (Lex Luthor)
17-18  12
19-20  13 (Brainiac 5)

- IMPORTANT NOTE: If a character has no Intellect-based skills whatsoever, and could generally be considered non-intellectual, feel free to assign a lower score, even a much lower one. 0 could be considered unexceptional, even a little dull or brutish; -1 is below the level of functioning of most adults, even unexceptional ones; -2 (or lower) is a child-like intellect or equivalent to a sophisticated social animal like a dolphin.
- Less important note: characters with one or no INT-based skills but with the Scholar advantage in an intellectual area of study may be underestimated by this method. Consider adding one 1 rank of Intellect.

[Ghostwise]

I'll dash out a revised version based on the above for your consideration.

I've just realised that Lady Shiva officially is higher PL than Mon-El. Give me a day so I can recover from this shock.

[pawsplay]

I'll dash out a revised version based on the above for your consideration.

I've just realised that Lady Shiva officially is higher PL than Mon-El. Give me a day so I can recover from this shock.

Unarmed +8, Close Damage 18.... what? Virtually any version of Robin can land a blow better than the Daxamite. I call shenanigans. But he's probably statcloned from Superman, with a stylishly understated +10.

[Ghostwise]

Unarmed +8, Close Damage 18.... what? Virtually any version of Robin can land a blow better than the Daxamite. I call shenanigans. But he's probably statcloned from Superman, with a stylishly understated +10.

It's somewhere in the OMACS II design notes, but then these notes read roughly like Dr. Mordin Solus after three strong coffees.

I think that we have a double squish caused by Batman being a balanced PL12 (and thus a titan striding the Earth well above other street-level characters) and Superman being PL15 (which means that once he has his Strength score, there's no room left). Given the key benchmark roles of these folks, Batman's opponents end with colossal PLs (Shiva and Ra's at 14) whereas Superman-types end with depressed scores.

(Oh, and the Penguin is one PL higher than Nightwing, presumably so he has some chance to hit Batman).

Which generally means that the scale we use ends up markedly out of synch with GR's when it comes to these important characters. Which ain't what I wanted, dangit.

[pawsplay]

DCA Superman would be DEX: 6 in DC Heroes.

[Ares]

The problem with the Class system was that Mark Gruenwald was the only person who wanted to uphold it . Every other write just chose to exert their personal writer-freedom over things and make the hero lift whatever they need to to make the story work.

I think DC in general has much stronger heroes though- in "The Technis Imperative" Titans/JLA crossover, a small handful of heroes pushed THE MOON away from the Earth (with Kyle Rayner wrapping his green energy around half, and Wonder Woman... unleashing her invisible ship in an amophorous blob around the other half), against the pull of a super-giant robot collective. Kind of puts the huge "Hercules drags Manhattan on a chain" feat into perspective.

Well, there was an issue of the Justice League where Superman, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern managed to pull the moon out of orbit by themselves. At the same time, we've also seen comics where Gladiator claimed to be able to move moon sized masses on his own, and Beta Ray Bill and Stardust have destroyed planets in their battles. Thor has at least one showing where he dragged the Midgard Serpent off of Earth, and that thing was at least the size of the Moon.

That's all high-end stuff tho, and I wouldn't really have a hard time seeing Thor, the Hulk, Hercules, Beta Ray Bill, the Silver Surfer, Gladiator or any other of Marvel's high end strongmen matching any of the DC heroes high end feats, with the exception of things that require flight, as half of the Marvel strongmen can't fly the way most of DC's can.

[Ghostwise]

DCA Superman would be DEX: 6 in DC Heroes.

It might not be a bad assessment of his defensive abilities when he just bounces it off his chest, but I can't think of too many versions of Supes who were noticeable slower and less accurate than most two-fisted brawling champ action heroes.