Figured or Not-Figured, That Is The Question...

[Gauntlet]

Wanted to see what people thought about the idea of utilizing Figured Characteristics (like version 5 and below) and the idea of having No Figured Characteristics (as is the way of version 6).

 

I will have to admit that in the past I have almost always considered with Figured Characteristics to be the best way, but recently I have started to gain more respect of Campaigns that do Not Have Figured Characteristics.

[Stanley Teriaca]

Both have there pros and cons.

 

Figured Characteristics.

Pro List:

*   Less character points to spend.

*   Familiarity.

*   Uniformity.

*   Ease of character building.

Con List:

*   More expensive.

*   Uniformity.

*   Being unable to do certain builds because of complexity.

 

Non-Figured Characteristics.

Pro List:

*   More character points to spend.

*   Characters don't look like cookie cutter supers anymore.

*   Able to do more complex builds easier.

Con List:

*   Confusion.

*   Power Creep.

*   A longing for a time builds were simple and that power creep wasn't happening.

 

There is no 'right' or 'wrong' here. At least, not for individual players or GM. After all, Hero doesn't send a GM Mafia to make sure all groups play using the same edition of the rules and play the same way. Even if they wanted to do that, you think they could afford to do that?

[Gauntlet]

2 hours ago, Stanley Teriaca said:

There is no 'right' or 'wrong' here. At least, not for individual players or GM. After all, Hero doesn't send a GM Mafia to make sure all groups play using the same edition of the rules and play the same way. Even if they wanted to do that, you think they could afford to do that?

 

Shhhhhh, gosh are you crazy, they are everywhere and see and hear everything.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I like aspects of both, the way Steriaca pointed out.  The figured characteristics just feel right, the way it logically would work.  Being more hardy would result in more stun.  Being stronger willed results in better Mental combat values. On the other hand, the hero system concept is to make things as bare bones as possible, and from that you build your custom character.  Having the secondary stats detached from the primary one makes for easier and better customization and eliminates some strange cost issues.

 

Since I write stuff for 6th edition, I have just leaned into the no-figured camp, even if I prefer the feel of the figured camp.  Personally, I find just throwing comeliness out entirely bothers me more than the loss of figured.

[Gauntlet]

1 minute ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

Since I write stuff for 6th edition, I have just leaned into the no-figured camp, even if I prefer the feel of the figured camp.  Personally, I find just throwing comeliness out entirely bothers me more than the loss of figured.

 

I definitely have to agree on both counts here. Though the biggest advantage that I have found that no figured characteristics can do is allowing those odd ball characters can be created. Makes it much easier to have those one-shot wonders, high STR with little Defenses and such. It also in many respects makes it easier to teach new players the game as a characteristic is just a characteristic with no relation to any other. Though I do have to say one of the greatest things about Hero is the fact that in many ways they still support all the versions and the fact that they even still work together.

[Steve]

I was one of those resistant to losing figured characteristics and COM, but I’ve long since come around on it. I’m still not entirely sure on the costing of STUN and END compared to 5th though, but that’s not a major issue.

[Gauntlet]

5 minutes ago, Steve said:

I was one of those resistant to losing figured characteristics and COM, but I’ve long since come around on it. I’m still not entirely sure on the costing of STUN and END compared to 5th though, but that’s not a major issue.

 

Yea, they switched the COM Characteristic to the Talent Striking Appearance, which is pretty much the same but not sure what the point was of switching it from a Characteristic to a Talent.

 

As for STUN and END they went from 1 for 1 to 1 for 2 for STUN and 1 for 2 to 1 for 5 for END.

[LoneWolf]

People think that figured stats are saving you a lot of points, this is mostly an illusion. If you buy all the stats excluding movement up to the normal human max the cost differences is 41 points.  The reason for the differences is because under 6th edition CV’s including MCV’s are considered stats. If we drop the MCV’s to a base of 3 the cost difference drops to 3 points.  If we drop all CVs to 3 the character with figured stats are actually 23 points cheaper.   That shows that the extra cost difference is being caused by the inclusion of CVs in stats.  Other than egoists most characters don’t bother to buy up their MCV’s.  That means for the majority of characters the cost difference is going to be minimal.
   
Figured stats also encourage characters to max bump up STR, DEX and CON.  If you buy 23 for both STR and CON for a 5th edition character I spend 39 points and gain 45 points of figured stats.  This leads to all superhero’s having superhuman STR and CON. This in turn means that bricks need to buy those stats up even higher.  When Human Torch has a 25 STR and CON the Thing needs to go significantly higher to maintain his niche.  

 

Under figured stats having a high DEX is even more important than CON.   If CVs are not stats the only way to increase them is with skill levels, but there are circumstances that do not allow you to apply skill levels, so the ONLY way to increase your base CV is buying up your DEX. DEX also gives you SPD and increases your DEX rolls including skills.  Breaking down what DEX gives you and assuming each point of OCV is equal to 8 points (skill level in all combat), each point of DCV is equal to 5 points (skill level in DCV), each +5 to DEX skills is equal to 5 points and each point of SPD is 10 points.  That means each character point of DEX gets you 1.8444 points of value without factoring in that DEX also allows you to go first. There have been several threads about the benefits of keeping DEX and SPD to reasonable levels, getting rid of figured stats encourages this.   

 

I think getting rid of figured stats was a good idea.  
 

[Stanley Teriaca]

Well, we could prohibit any buying of CV up beyond the starting level and make buying Combat Skill Levels a thing. That wouldn't actually save points, as it would be spent on Combat Skill Levels instead.

[Gauntlet]

Yea, but I like being able to buy up DCV, that way you can make a standard hard to hit character that is hard to hit almost all the time, even when he/she cannot see the attacker. Something that Skill Levels cannot do. 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Yeah I think the cost of REC and END is way off right now, and stun probably as well.  The current cost of endurance and recovery basically negates the significance of END in the game.

[Hugh Neilson]

2 hours ago, Gauntlet said:

 

I definitely have to agree on both counts here. Though the biggest advantage that I have found that no figured characteristics can do is allowing those odd ball characters can be created. Makes it much easier to have those one-shot wonders, high STR with little Defenses and such. It also in many respects makes it easier to teach new players the game as a characteristic is just a characteristic with no relation to any other. Though I do have to say one of the greatest things about Hero is the fact that in many ways they still support all the versions and the fact that they even still work together.

 

The relation of STR to PD always blew the "it's a character guideline" theory for me.  In a game with 60 STR, 30 CON bricks, try getting by with 12 PD and 6 ED!

 

1 hour ago, Gauntlet said:

 

Yea, they switched the COM Characteristic to the Talent Striking Appearance, which is pretty much the same but not sure what the point was of switching it from a Characteristic to a Talent.

 

I am sure. I was initially in favour of maintaining COM, back in the SETAC days. Steve Long had a simple answer. Unlike every other characteristic, COM had no independent purpose. It modified interaction skills from their characteristic of PRE. That made it "not a characteristic", but more a special effect.

 

24 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

Yeah I think the cost of REC and END is way off right now, and stun probably as well.  The current cost of endurance and recovery basically negates the significance of END in the game.

 

Practically, how often did 5e and earlier characters buy STUN, REC or END?  In my experience, if they wanted more of those stats, they bought CON and/or STR. That made it pretty clear that STUN, REC and END were overpriced. The need to limit sellbacks of Figureds made that even more clear.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

 Steve Long had a simple answer. Unlike every other characteristic, COM had no independent purpose.

 

Which is, of course, false.  It had no mechanical combat purpose.  It had significant interaction and roleplay purpose.  No, having a higher Comeliness won't help your super soldier with the tacticool outfit fire his Steyr Aug A3 M1 any better, but if that's all your game is about well more power to you.  I want a game that also has interaction and role playing it it.

 

Quote

Practically, how often did 5e and earlier characters buy STUN, REC or END?  In my experience, if they wanted more of those stats, they bought CON and/or STR. That made it pretty clear that STUN, REC and END were overpriced.

 

And in my experience, people bought up REC, STN and END, so its a push: our subjective limited experiences are irrelevant.  What matters is how it plays out in actual game play and mechanically in the game.   But, let's say that these stats were too expensive, for the sake of argument: is that a reason to make them as cheap as they are now?   The problem isn't that they should have cost less, but now they cost too much less.

 

By making REC and END so cheap, it negates even worrying about those stats.  You can just buy 70 END for the 10 points and never run out in most fights.  And even if you do, the 10 points you put into REC gives you a free 14 back every turn anyway.

Edited August 27 by Christopher R Taylor

[Duke Bushido]

Never went beyond 2e.  I am having some pretty good laughs at hearing people tell us that figured characteristics is more expensive as they play an edition that suggests...,what?  400 points plus a few Disads?

 

It's all good, though.  I am too old to learn new things.  I am just going to quietly enjoy my competent 250 point superheroes....

 

 

 

[Ninja-Bear]

@Stanley Teriaca nice list but I believe Power creep has been happing since the creation of second edition.

[Ninja-Bear]

@LoneWolf price breaks may “encourage” certain builds but ultimately it comes down to players. Why does the Human Torch have 25 STR and 25 CON?  Just for the price breaks? Then that is a player problem not a game problem. 

[Gauntlet]

15 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Never went beyond 2e.  I am having some pretty good laughs at hearing people tell us that figured characteristics is more expensive as they play an edition that suggests...,what?  400 points plus a few Disads?

 

Actually the way they have it setup for 6th Edition you don't really get any points for Complications.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

Just for the price breaks? Then that is a player problem not a game problem.

 

I think that its both because the system is designed to encourage purchases for efficiency.  A good player will care more for accurately representing their character rather than stripping things down to the absolute most ruthlessly efficient, but a game shouldn't reward doing so quite so emphatically.

[LoneWolf]

9 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

@LoneWolf price breaks may “encourage” certain builds but ultimately it comes down to players. Why does the Human Torch have 25 STR and 25 CON?  Just for the price breaks? Then that is a player problem not a game problem. 

 

@Ninja-Bear I am not trying to sound critical or disrespectful. 

 

In the thread titled My Existential crisis about SPD you state that “For the most part I rather like having a more superior character”.  That view is widely held and figured stats encourage it and in a way penalize those that do not agree.  I have no problem with a player wanting this type of character, but having a character that is significantly more powerful in every way should cost more points, not less. 

 

Unless the GM is a completely heavy handed and practically writes up the players characters there is no way for them to reign in the power player.  I don’t know about you, but I would be very unhappy if the GM in a superhero campaign told me to change my concept of the character.  Without figured stats if the player wants a character that is superior to normal in almost everything, he can have it but will have less points to spend on power and skill, not more.  To me that is a good thing and keeps the game balanced.    
 

[Stanley Teriaca]

What is "powerful" depends on the situation and game world. People forget, in a role playing game, there is no "win condition" beyond answering the question "am I having fun".

[Grailknight]

Like many, I initially hated the change to No Figured that happened in 6th, but I've come to accept it. It really is more balanced. But there was an unforeseen and still uncorrected issue that 6th brought about.

 

Figured Characteristics was flawed.  The system didn't require you to buy up STR, DEX, CON and to a lesser extent BODY but not doing so was a clearly suboptimal choice. DEX gave superior OCV/DCV and STR and CON gave more points in PD, ED, REC, END and STUN than they cost. Those things needed to be fixed, and they were.

 

But even that flawed system had some good points. The purchased REC, END and STUN set a baseline for characters of the genres. In most Heroic games, you could get by with using the starting values and you almost never added more than 10 points total. Supers may have required some expenditures, but the STR based characters that benefitted the most spent the least. Many were set for REC, END and STUN at the base figured values. 

 

6th Edition changed that, but did not discuss baselines beyond a poorly referenced chart in the Character Creation book and a Genre-by-Genre section that doesn't give enough examples. This has been a topic for discussion to this day. It's not addressed in most campaign books or in the first or second Player's Handbooks. And it really affects newcomers to the game at its most difficult stage, Character Creation. 

 

So, while No Figured is a better system, its implementation is sorely lacking, to a point that sours many on 6th.

[Ninja-Bear]

I will say that when to comes to seeing what benefit you get from Figured Characteristics, I’m pretty dumb. I just picked Primary stars asI wanted them calculated the Secondary stats then build as concept then perhaps go back and adjust everything as necessary. 

[LoneWolf]

6 minutes ago, Grailknight said:

6th Edition changed that, but did not discuss baselines beyond a poorly referenced chart in the Character Creation book and a Genre-by-Genre section that doesn't give enough examples. This has been a topic for discussion to this day. It's not addressed in most campaign books or in the first or second Player's Handbooks. And it really affects newcomers to the game at its most difficult stage, Character Creation. 

 

So, while No Figured is a better system, its implementation is sorely lacking, to a point that sours many on 6th.

 

This is an excellent point and probably a big reason people prefer figured stats.  I think the reason they did not was because the 6th edition books are massive and they were trying to keep it manageable.  It would have been better to cut something else and put in more guidance on stats.    

[Hugh Neilson]

On 8/26/2024 at 4:29 PM, Christopher R Taylor said:

Which is, of course, false.  It had no mechanical combat purpose.  It had significant interaction and roleplay purpose.  No, having a higher Comeliness won't help your super soldier with the tacticool outfit fire his Steyr Aug A3 M1 any better, but if that's all your game is about well more power to you.  I want a game that also has interaction and role playing it it.

 

Neither will PRE, EGO or INT.  They were retained because they had independent functions.  What did COM do, mechanically, that was unique to COM? Every mechanical use I ever saw modified something governed by PRE.

 

On 8/26/2024 at 4:29 PM, Christopher R Taylor said:

And in my experience, people bought up REC, STN and END, so its a push: our subjective limited experiences are irrelevant.  What matters is how it plays out in actual game play and mechanically in the game.   But, let's say that these stats were too expensive, for the sake of argument: is that a reason to make them as cheap as they are now?   The problem isn't that they should have cost less, but now they cost too much less.

 

By making REC and END so cheap, it negates even worrying about those stats.  You can just buy 70 END for the 10 points and never run out in most fights.  And even if you do, the 10 points you put into REC gives you a free 14 back every turn anyway.

 

Let's assume our hypothetical PC is gasping for END, but has plenty of STUN. Would he buy up END and REC, or buy CON and sell back STUN?  If we start at 25 CON (you needed CON to avoid being stunned - 23 was more common, but 25 is easier math), you already had 50 END. You likely had a 13 or 18 STR, so let's go low and say you had an 8 REC.  For 20 points, you bump CON to 35.  Sell the STUN back and you net a cost of 15 points. Now you have the same 70 END and a 10 REC, plus an extra 2 ED and you are more resistant to being Stunned, and 5 points to spend as you see fit.

 

On 8/27/2024 at 10:06 AM, Gauntlet said:

 

Actually the way they have it setup for 6th Edition you don't really get any points for Complications.

 

Actually, in 6e, not taking the maximum complications reduces your character points. The result is the same as every prior edition.

 

On 8/27/2024 at 5:46 AM, Ninja-Bear said:

@LoneWolf price breaks may “encourage” certain builds but ultimately it comes down to players. Why does the Human Torch have 25 STR and 25 CON?  Just for the price breaks? Then that is a player problem not a game problem. 

 

On 8/27/2024 at 10:13 AM, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

I think that its both because the system is designed to encourage purchases for efficiency.  A good player will care more for accurately representing their character rather than stripping things down to the absolute most ruthlessly efficient, but a game shouldn't reward doing so quite so emphatically.

 

To me, it is the reverse problem.  If the Human Torch should really only have a 13 STR and 13 CON, and as a consequence, has to spend way more on STUN, END and REC to be viable than "The Very Fit Human Torch", we are penalizing the concept.  I guess I will be the android Golden Age Torch instead and justify higher STR and CON with his android body.  Why should the player who builds to concept rather than to efficiency be penalized?

 

A better discussion of character design factoring in expected STUN, END, REC would have been a great addition. Including this discussion in the genre by genre examples (like 1e designed Crusader, Starburst and Ogre) would have been ideal.

 

Edited August 28 by Hugh Neilson

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

What did COM do, mechanically, that was unique to COM? Every mechanical use I ever saw modified something governed by PRE.

 

OK this is a different claim than your previous one, but its pretty easy to answer: what effect does very good looks have that being very intimidating not give you?

 

Quote

Let's assume our hypothetical PC is gasping for END, but has plenty of STUN. Would he buy up END and REC, or buy CON and sell back STUN? 

 

You misunderstand.  At no point did I remotely argue that we should go back to figured characteristics. I simply argued that the change to no figured characteristics undervalued these three stats.  They don't cost enough.  So arguing how you'd do it with figured characteristics is not relevant.