When should your RPG be point buy instead of class based?

[hogarth]

In Champions, Rampant's Lion Beam is a Physical Blast linked with a Summons that creates an angry injured lion. That part is easy.

But here's the thing: assuming that you're playing at the level where enemies do have to care about injured lions and can't effortlessly swat them out of their path with a move-through and their casual strength, that's a pretty good power. It's a Blaster character with a built-in area denial, which makes him a Controller. And because he's a Controller, the GM will want to put some pretty harsh limits on what kind of damage the Lion Beam can generate, and what kind of defenses that Rampant is allowed to have (presumably much smaller than if he was a Brick and felt the need to charge into melee himself rather than hanging back and keeping enemies from closing by throwing lions at them).

I have played in many Champions games and no GM has ever used that kind of logic (i.e., what kind of attack you have should limit what kind of defenses you have). The only limits I've ever seen used are global maximums for everyone (e.g. no attacks over 12d6, no PD/ED over 30, no Speed over 8, etc.).

[Josh_Kablack]

I dunno Frank,

Any class-based Supers game would need fairly very broad classes, as it is pretty ambiguous which of your 10 classes a lot of comics characters are would fit into.

Let's take Superman. He's probably a Cape, what with the big red one on his back. But he's also the strongest and most durable member of the Justice League....which would indicate Brick. Yet he also has Heat Vision and Super Breath, which are multiple different types of blasts, the way a Blaster would have. And then there's silliness involving Superspeed and Kryptonian science which could be stretched to make (admittedly weak) arguments for two more classes.

Or let's go Marvel and pick Spider Man. He climbs walls, swings from webs, punches people, entangles foes, makes temporary walls, and has danger sense. I guess that's an edge-case Martial Artist with a bit of controller thrown it, but it could easily be the other way around and I could also see a good argument for Speedster.

I'm not saying that it couldn't be done, and I am damn sure not saying that it wouldn't be trivially easy to do a better class-based Supers game than those that have been done. But I am still wondering if a class-based approach which would require broad and often non-distinct classes would over enough advantages over a point buy system to be worth the design effort.

[Username17]

Let's take Superman.

Superman is the iconic Cape. He's a generalist with flight, speed, strength, toughness, and laser eyebeams from his dip into Bard. He's also simply higher level than the other guys on his team. Or built on more points if you're doing it that way. Superman is in no way difficult to do with a class based game. One of your classes just spits out Superman if you take it to 11. But at the levels you're probably letting people actually play, that class probably lets you play as one of the Power Puff Girls.

There are characters who are hard to do. I mean, the actual authors can't decide what Green Lantern or Martian Manhunter can do, so representing them in a game is always going to be tough. But Superman isn't one of them. He's just in the generalist Cape class, and happens to also be more powerful than other people in his milieu. How much more powerful varies from version to version, but that's another story altogether.

I have played in many Champions games and no GM has ever used that kind of logic (i.e., what kind of attack you have should limit what kind of defenses you have). The only limits I've ever seen used are global maximums for everyone (e.g. no attacks over 12d6, no PD/ED over 30, no Speed over 8, etc.).

Fucking seriously? You've never had a GM who had a problem with you maxing out the CVs, Defenses, Speeds, and Damage outputs at the same time? Really? That's such a weird claim that I can't even decide whether you're just doing your weird contrariness trolling or whether you're actually reporting your own true and very bizarre life story.

-Username17

[angelfromanotherpin]

I have no trouble believing it. I've played Champions with 3 GMs, and only one negotiated DC vs CV tradeoffs and such. The others just looked at the genre-suggested maximums and said if you were inside all of those you were fine. I could easily have missed playing with the negotiator.

[name_here]

I would think that in a point-based system you wouldn't max out all of those simultaneously because you wouldn't have enough points. Granted, I haven't actually played Champions, so I don't know how costs stack up, but I would be extremely confused to learn that you could max out all of those, except possibly if you had no other powers whatsoever. So I would expect the guy with the Lion Beam to have low defense and damage output because Lion Beam is sucking up all of his points.

[DSMatticus]

Neither GURPS nor HERO (Champions) have meaningful point costs. How many points a character is built on tells you almost nothing about their capabilities, not even their raw numbers. Depending on what the caps are/how many points you're working with and how much optimization the other players are doing for their characters, you could probably max them and have the best and most powers in the party.

The points are really just an arbitrary way to tell you when char gen stops. All of the actual balancing is done by having your GM tell you how much blood he will and will not let you squeeze from the stone.

[Lokathor]

I have played in many Champions games and no GM has ever used that kind of logic (i.e., what kind of attack you have should limit what kind of defenses you have). The only limits I've ever seen used are global maximums for everyone (e.g. no attacks over 12d6, no PD/ED over 30, no Speed over 8, etc.).

Fucking seriously? You've never had a GM who had a problem with you maxing out the CVs, Defenses, Speeds, and Damage outputs at the same time? Really? That's such a weird claim that I can't even decide whether you're just doing your weird contrariness trolling or whether you're actually reporting your own true and very bizarre life story.

I made a guy for a Champions game once, and the GM for it similarly just gave a list of numbers to not go above in each category, but no limits of what numbers you could have based on other numbers or anything like that. I think you're the one with the unusual play experience here Frank.

[MGuy]

I have played in many Champions games and no GM has ever used that kind of logic (i.e., what kind of attack you have should limit what kind of defenses you have). The only limits I've ever seen used are global maximums for everyone (e.g. no attacks over 12d6, no PD/ED over 30, no Speed over 8, etc.).

Fucking seriously? You've never had a GM who had a problem with you maxing out the CVs, Defenses, Speeds, and Damage outputs at the same time? Really? That's such a weird claim that I can't even decide whether you're just doing your weird contrariness trolling or whether you're actually reporting your own true and very bizarre life story.

I made a guy for a Champions game once, and the GM for it similarly just gave a list of numbers to not go above in each category, but no limits of what numbers you could have based on other numbers or anything like that. I think you're the one with the unusual play experience here Frank.

Isn't that the same thing? Your GM had a prescribed limit for what your stats could be he just didn't discuss it with you in a way that allowed for any back and forth. It still basically sounds like your GM was basically telling you that the numbers he gave you were the acceptable ones.

[momothefiddler]

Fucking seriously? You've never had a GM who had a problem with you maxing out the CVs, Defenses, Speeds, and Damage outputs at the same time? Really? That's such a weird claim that I can't even decide whether you're just doing your weird contrariness trolling or whether you're actually reporting your own true and very bizarre life story.

-Username17

The only point-buy game I've played where the MC has ever demanded tradeoffs like that is M&M, where it's in the actual rules for power level.

Otherwise, no. There are caps across the table and possibly categorical and/or spot nerfs on powers or concepts, but M&M is the only time I've ever had the option (or requirement) of lowering one cap to raise another, concept-based or not.

[Insomniac]

The 12 classes would probably be what HERO describes as the 12 most common superhero types.

something like...

Brick
Martial Artist
Suit/Power Items Guy
Gadgeteer/Utility Belt Guy
Energy Projector/Blaster
Mentalist/Psionicist/Telekinetic types
Metamorphs/Shapeshifters/Transmuter types
Speedster
Magicians, Mystics and Sorcerer types.
Superheroic Weapon User (Green Arrow types)
Sink/Sapper/Leach/Thief (steals and drains powers from others for powerups)

The Patriotic classification doesn't make sense. For instance, Captain America is just a Martial Artist and a Brick, right? Batman is a Gadgeteer and Martial Artists. Most people won't be exclusively one thing, but a conjunction of them. Iron Man is a Suit/Powered Armor guy but he also has potent blasting making him an Energy Projector.

[ishy]

Are there certain kinds of stories or genre conventions that work better for one vs the other?

It seems like most combat heavy games where characters are expected to have different roles tend to be class based, while games with less emphasis on combat or where combat is not too mechanically complex go towards point buy.

I don't agree with your basic premise. Claiming that Point-buy and class based systems are opposed is a false dichotomy.
Classes basically are point-buy packages.

How broad you want your packages to be; what you want the packages to actually do and what you want to call your packages, depends on a game by game and a case by case basis.

[Username17]

For instance, Captain America is just a Martial Artist and a Brick, right?

Captain America is just a Martial Artist. Most Martial Artists are to some degree or another strong and tough and fast. Captain America simply does not stand out in that company. Bricks are people who bounce bullets off their chest rather than dodge or block them and pick up cars and telephone poles to use as weapons. The upper end of Martial Artists is the version of Wonder Woman where she doesn't fly. The one where she does fly is a Cape.

Gadgeteer/Utility Belt Guy
Superheroic Weapon User (Green Arrow types)

Those are the same character.

-Username17

[CaptPike]

The problem with using current super hero's as examples is that their power levels are all over the place and comic books use plot armor like it is going out of style.
Trying to run an RPG like that would cause nothing but problems.

captain america is weak, and only notable because so few people have powers of any kind that the weakest of them is still awesome.

if you were to build batman and superman batman would be at captain america levels and superman would be at the very top. they should not be in the same game unless one is an NPC.
comic books get away with it because they use plot armor.

[Whipstitch]

Captain America simply does not stand out in that company.
-Username17

Yeah, the key for identifying shticks is that you need to focus on what the character lists as their defining asset when up against the relevant threats. That's because lesser shticks like being an amateur boxer with a decent jaw gets handed out like candy beyond a certain power level. For example, adult Scott Summers is built like a brick shit house and has been in ridiculous number of fights. He could absolutely fight the local bouncer and win without using his mutant powers. But when Sentinels come to town he blasts with his optic blasts because when you read his sheet it has "Blaster" written down on it in ink. That he might be able to hang with a level 1 martial artist in a fist fight is a feature and not a bug because it frankly says very little about what would happen if he tried to punch out Danny Rand.

[hyzmarca]

Captain America is just a Martial Artist. Most Martial Artists are to some degree or another strong and tough and fast. Captain America simply does not stand out in that company. Bricks are people who bounce bullets off their chest rather than dodge or block them and pick up cars and telephone poles to use as weapons. The upper end of Martial Artists is the version of Wonder Woman where she doesn't fly. The one where she does fly is a Cape.

Captain America has an unbreakable Shield made out of a material that nullifies energy directed against it. He's used it to tank full-strength punches from the Hulk.

. But at the levels you're probably letting people actually play, that class probably lets you play as one of the Power Puff Girls.

You're severely underestimating the Powerpuff Girls.

They're not exactly exploding planets with single punches, but they're still beyond the power level where the action is at all comprehensible.

[Orion]

What is the point of "Martial Artist" as a class? If you have soak and dodge as meaningfully distinct mechanics, I can understand needing a defense class that's not Brick, but if you have Speedster then you're taken care of. "Martial Artist" feels like it has the same problem as "Fighter." It's not quite as bad as Fighter, because at least there are a lot of good abilities people will believe are "martial arts," but at the same time, anyone with the good martial arts abilities will shade into a different archetype.
I really don't know anything about Wonder Woman. I had always assumed that she could, if not bounce bullets off her chest, tank a lot of force through raw toughness. I pretty much thought of her as "female Superman" minus flying. Supposing I'm wrong about how much-super toughness I have, doesn't she have some kind of indestructible armband things? If she can block attacks with those, that should function more like a Brick soak than a Dodge anyway.
When I step back from emulating existing characters and think about inventing new martial artists, it seems to me that people who literally do Asian martial arts should be either flying, nuking things with energy blasts, using utility psionics, or have some mystical invulnerability. People who don't do kung fu but are just "good at fighting" should either be gadgeteers, or really low-level Bricks and Speedsters.

EDIT: Captain America's shield does enough crazy shit that if you wanted to avoid making him a Brick you could make him a Gadgeteer. In this case, you'd give him access to other military hardware and you'd give him a training montage where he learned how to hack/disable/repair/jerry-rig modern technology like a proper action hero. Or, if you want him high enough level to be on the Avengers, make some kind of Leader class and put him in there. In the Avengers movie, his contribution to the big set piece was organizing the cops.

EDIT 2: I'll chime in with those saying Frank's experience is atypical. I have seen people in HERO and Champions specify caps on various stats, but not mandate trade-offs between them. That would be pretty obviously be a good idea, but it's also a lot of work, so people don't do it.

[hyzmarca]

What is the point of "Martial Artist" as a class? If you have soak and dodge as meaningfully distinct mechanics, I can understand needing a defense class that's not Brick, but if you have Speedster then you're taken care of. "Martial Artist" feels like it has the same problem as "Fighter." It's not quite as bad as Fighter, because at least there are a lot of good abilities people will believe are "martial arts," but at the same time, anyone with the good martial arts abilities will shade into a different archetype.

Karate Kid is a Martial Artist. He doesn't have any superpowers at all. He's not super strong. He's not super fast. He doesn't have super reflexes. He's just a normal human athlete who is very good at martial arts, and has mastered all of them, even alien ones.

When he and Superboy fight, he wins. Superboy has faster than light reflexes, faster than light speed, and is strong enough to move planets. Karate Kid, who has no superpowers, beats him, because Karate Kid is just that good. There comes a point where pure skill beats superpowers.

[CaptPike]

What is the point of "Martial Artist" as a class? If you have soak and dodge as meaningfully distinct mechanics, I can understand needing a defense class that's not Brick, but if you have Speedster then you're taken care of. "Martial Artist" feels like it has the same problem as "Fighter." It's not quite as bad as Fighter, because at least there are a lot of good abilities people will believe are "martial arts," but at the same time, anyone with the good martial arts abilities will shade into a different archetype.

Karate Kid is a Martial Artist. He doesn't have any superpowers at all. He's not super strong. He's not super fast. He doesn't have super reflexes. He's just a normal human athlete who is very good at martial arts, and has mastered all of them, even alien ones.

When he and Superboy fight, he wins. Superboy has faster than light reflexes, faster than light speed, and is strong enough to move planets. Karate Kid, who has no superpowers, beats him, because Karate Kid is just that good. There comes a point where pure skill beats superpowers.

that is just a case of them forcing things for the plot that do not make sense.

if all you are is a non-powered Martial Artist then you will never win against superman, or anyone who has reflexes fast enough to dodge everything your throw at them, nor if you could hit superman would it matter because you would not be strong enough to do any damage. if you surprised superman you might be able to throw him because his mass is normal, but you could not do so with enough strength to hurt him.

its like in the avenger's movie the only reason captain america was able to do anything in the final battle was because they were fighting someone who was literally insane and told all his forces to converge on the good guys on the ground. if he has used good tactics the best captain america would have been able to do is save people from the buildings.

[Orion]

When he and Superboy fight, he wins. Superboy has faster than light reflexes, faster than light speed, and is strong enough to move planets. Karate Kid, who has no superpowers, beats him, because Karate Kid is just that good. There comes a point where pure skill beats superpowers.

If you insist on making this happen in your RPG, you have two choices. You can give Karate Kid the super speed and super strength mechanics and then handwave the flavor text, or you can write up a "Lucker" character class with some huge pool of fate points they can use to make stupid stuff happen.

[Insomniac]

Gadgeteer/Utility Belt Guy
Superheroic Weapon User (Green Arrow types)

Those are the same character.

-Username17

I think in HERO though that a gadgeteer or utility belt guy is somebody with like a Variable Power Point pool and a work shop and he makes items there. A character like "The Tinker" would be something like that. However, somebody with a special weapon that he can do all sorts of gimmicky things with is more like a Weaponmaster Green Arrow sort. So they kind of mechanically accomplish the same things, the schtick is just different.

The point about Bricks vs. Martial Artists is well taken though. Captain America is a Martial Artist whereas a guy like the Incredible Hulk or The Thing is more of a brick. Hell, the Thing is literally a brick.

[Mistborn]

When he and Superboy fight, he wins. Superboy has faster than light reflexes, faster than light speed, and is strong enough to move planets. Karate Kid, who has no superpowers, beats him, because Karate Kid is just that good. There comes a point where pure skill beats superpowers.

Wow that is asinine. Like I think I lost brain cells for reading this, badass normal fappers shouldn't be allowed to write things.

[Insomniac]

When he and Superboy fight, he wins. Superboy has faster than light reflexes, faster than light speed, and is strong enough to move planets. Karate Kid, who has no superpowers, beats him, because Karate Kid is just that good. There comes a point where pure skill beats superpowers.

Wow that is asinine. Like I think I lost brain cells for reading this, badass normal fappers shouldn't be allowed to write things.

Except the Martial Artist would have good Dodge abilities, good defense, pretty good OCV and DCV, especially in combat, and in combat can trip, grapple on movethroughs, do movethrough attacks, blind and deafen people for good durations in HERO, etc. So "I Know Kung Fu" is a perfectly valid thing in HERO combat. Probably much more so than in 3.5

[hyzmarca]

When he and Superboy fight, he wins. Superboy has faster than light reflexes, faster than light speed, and is strong enough to move planets. Karate Kid, who has no superpowers, beats him, because Karate Kid is just that good. There comes a point where pure skill beats superpowers.

Wow that is asinine. Like I think I lost brain cells for reading this, badass normal fappers shouldn't be allowed to write things.

It was the Silver Age.

[Josh_Kablack]

Yeah, Iron Fist is a Comic Book martial artist. He has high a high attack value, he has a high dodge/evade/touch AC value. He can break cinder blocks with his bare hands, and in combat he can use mumbo-jumbo knowledge of pressure points and joints and weaknesses and such to make those barehanded strikes matter against foes who are outright bulletproof. And his big signature power is a (cool down) supermove where he sets his punch on not just fire, but Iron Fire as he hits you with it.

Out of combat, he also has variously has danger sense, low-level healing abilities and enough meditation / eastern mysticism to be able to pull at the edges of magic plots.




Karnak the Shatterer is another comic book martial artist. He basically has martial arts attacks and mildly superhuman stats. But his big deal is that he can find the weak point in anything. In combat this lets him damage nigh invulnerable opponents and set up team attacks with harder hitters to damage truly invulnerable opponents. Out of combat this lets him pull off all sorts of demolitions and terrain alteration schticks.

[kzt]

The only point-buy game I've played where the MC has ever demanded tradeoffs like that is M&M, where it's in the actual rules for power level.

Otherwise, no. There are caps across the table and possibly categorical and/or spot nerfs on powers or concepts, but M&M is the only time I've ever had the option (or requirement) of lowering one cap to raise another, concept-based or not.

I've always had that kind of negotiation process, at least with successful games. Otherwise any HERO based game explodes. And I've seen that happen too, though it was a fantasy based instead of a supers game where the mage did crazy stuff and even he soon got bored with crushing every threat.

Typically one of the things that champions martial artists have had is the ability to do a LOT of damage because MA damage levels both didn't cost END and were fairly cheap. I ended taking "does no knockback" disad with one character because I got tired of having to full move to get to the dude I hit last action.

Levels are only useful for balance purposes if they are equivalent. Is a L12 mage equal to a L12 monk or fighter?