Do you have Active Point Limits?

[Guyon]

First and foremost, please no flames, insults, or rude replies. thanks

 

Our group had gotten into a huge discussion of why or whether to use active point limits. Before I add anything what is your opinion and reasoning behind it?

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Do you have Active Point Limits?

 

I don't have Active Points limits, but for beginning characters I do impose Damage Class (and DEX, SPD, and Defense) limits, though those only apply at creation. After that, if the player really just wants to jack up his power level, he can. Will tend to make things more difficult on his teammates, though.

 

I don't care for AP limits as opposed to DC limits because it's entirely possible for a high Active point attack to have low DCs in some cases. It's also a holdover from 4th Edition, where Hand-to-Hand Attack was 3pts per 1d6 (rather than 5pts with a 1/2 limit), and thus 60 Active Points of HA was 20d6.

[Derek Hiemforth]

Re: Do you have Active Point Limits?

 

I generally don't use "limits." I use "guidelines." Why? Because not everything over some given Active Point total is necessarily abusive or powerful, and not everything under some given Active Point total is necessarily reasonable or play-balanced. A guideline that tells players what ballpark they should generally be shooting for is useful, but hard "limits" are counterproductive, IMO.

 

Also, Active Points aren't always a reliable barometer for a Power's effectiveness. For example, 500PD/500ED Armor would be 1500 Active Points. And it would remain 1500 Active Points even if it also had Limitations that it only worked against one person in the universe, and even then only activated on an 8-.

 

Active Point limits are no substitute for thoughtful, careful GMs and players who want to cooperate in creating a fun game for everyone.

[OddHat]

Re: Do you have Active Point Limits?

 

I compare incoming characters to the other PCs, and to the NPCs I plan to use that are actually statted out. I try to discourage builds I see as unnecesarily complex or overpowered. I especially discourage any limits I don't see coming up in play.

 

That said, I don't use a hard limit on active points.

[Blue Jogger]

Re: Do you have Active Point Limits?

 

Ok, yes, we have active point limits.

 

Opinion: It shouldn't be necessary, but with our group, it is.

 

Rationale: Every player wants to make a difference in the game. To that end, if the active points became too far apart then the Mighty Maxx beats up the supervillian while Steady Suzie's attacks are just less effective.

 

The other reason is consider two powers: 1) 2D6 RKA and 2) 2D6 RKA, Area Effect: Accurate. 30 active points vs. 45 active points. If there is no limit, I would strongly consider using #2 over #1 since it is alot easier to hit a hex, than a supervillian (usually). It there is an active point limit of 45 active points, then I have to consider 3D6 RKA over using #2 (or maybe I have a multipower). If the active point limit is 30 active point (do people actual play this low outside of Fantasy Hero?) then I can't use #2 and I have to decide between #1 or a 1D6 RKA, Area Effect:Accurate, 3 Shot Autofire (also a nice choice).

 

 

Although, I would love to hear counter arguements.

[Phil]

Re: Do you have Active Point Limits?

 

Something I was just thinking about today was having a 'Balance Points' factor, which is mid-way between Active Points and Real Cost. Just strikes me that if a power has 80 Active points but -4 worth of disadvantages it is so much less imbalancing that it perhaps ought to be allowed.

 

Admittedly, GM monitoring can pick most of these things up, but I like to have underpinning rules that allow some objective evaluation in advance.

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Do you have Active Point Limits?

 

AP limits are one of the things that drive me mad in games. GMs who strictly enforce them frustrate creativity as a player can easily produce a very colour rich power that has hugely limited play value and breaches the AP limits.

 

I would look at the power, consider its value to the character and the game and whether it stepped on anyone else's toes. If it was evocative and not unbalancing (my decision not a set of numbers on the page) then I would allow it with the proviso that we re-visit the power after it has seen play and discuss its balance again.

 

 

Doc

[Phil]

Re: Do you have Active Point Limits?

 

AP limits are one of the things that drive me mad in games. GMs who strictly enforce them frustrate creativity as a player can easily produce a very colour rich power that has hugely limited play value and breaches the AP limits.

Doc

 

Hehe, that's a relief, because in those M&M=>HERO conversions I've been looking at, I've got a few powers flying off into the 70-80 APs

 

(including Flight - goddamn, it's been so long since I made a HERO character, I'd forgotten flying fast was that expensive!)

[Fitz]

Re: Do you have Active Point Limits?

 

Not for my current campaign, but that's because it's a High Fantasy campaign in which (surviving) characters can expect to achieve god-like levels of power, eventually. My last campaign was a lot grittier, and had limits on just about everything: characteristics, skill levels, power levels, the whole nine yards* -- stretchable limits, but expensive as hell to do so.

 

* Where did that expression come from? The whole nine yards of what?

[Alibear]

Re: Do you have Active Point Limits?

 

With mega movement flying fast is reasonably priced.

 

I have guidelines, ususally 65-75 point attack powers but if a player had a good argument for having more I might allow it.

 

One player wanted an experimantal one off rocket to supplement his 60 point MP.

 

He bought it as a 20d6 EB, 1c, OIF, act 14-, it would detonate before it launched doing a 6d6HKA if he failed his roll..

[Alibear]

Re: Do you have Active Point Limits?

 

* Where did that expression come from? The whole nine yards of what?

 

American football thing. Last play (from 4) and you still have 9 yards (from 10) to find or the ball turns over to the opposition.

[Phil]

Re: Do you have Active Point Limits?

 

American football thing. Last play (from 4) and you still have 9 yards (from 10) to find or the ball turns over to the opposition.

 

That was my assumption, but a quick Google quickly reveals this to be one of those phrases of unknown origin, possibly related to tailoring, concrete or machine-guns!

 

Know there's a character concept for ya

[Alibear]

Re: Do you have Active Point Limits?

 

Shows what I know..

 

Must remember to keep my mouth shut.

[Guyon]

Re: Do you have Active Point Limits?

 

Some of our players Active Points are getting very high. I was worried that it may break the game. That said, the players argue that they can not build the super heroes that they want to play.

 

Though in comics books Johnny Storm can fly though the sun and have a nova blast, Dr. Strange's seemingly unlimited Magic, Green Lantern's Ring, Not to mention Batman, Superman, Thor, or the Hulk.

 

I have seen a lot of negative comments on having too high of Active Points, but players in my games are trying to build their dream heroes. I am not sure how it will go as Active Points soar, but at this point everyone is having fun, so I guess that is the most important thing. :-)

[Guyon]

Re: Do you have Active Point Limits?

 

Talk all you want Alibear that is how we lean.

 

I heard a story where the Whole Nine Yards was referred to a battle like kilt that was used. It was a thick wool and was used as an armored kilt, as a small tent on cold nights, and I forget the other uses. But it's length was nine yards. Although as Phil pointed out it is clearly "one of those phrases of unknown origin".

[Alibear]

Re: Do you have Active Point Limits?

 

Is the cloth for a proper kilt nine yards long me wonders...

[Trebuchet]

Re: Do you have Active Point Limits?

 

We dumped Active Point caps several years ago; and only for the better. It allows a lot more flexibility in character design; and characters still have to be vetted past the GMs anyway. Nowadays we use a guideline of SPD + Damage Classes <= 20 , and we're just now considering raising the number as our characters get more XP. However, since most of our players are spending XP on new Skills or more character flexibility rather than higher damage, it hasn't been a big priority.

[Bloodstone]

Re: Do you have Active Point Limits?

 

I've dealt with active point caps in some of the games I've been in, but they usually aren't hard caps. More of a guidline to help set the tone of the campaign. Same with DC, DEF and CV averages/caps.

 

I tend to find that most GM's can't reliably run games over a certain point level. That level varies from GM to GM, but once it goes outside of their comfort zone the game goes to ****. Active Points are only a small part of the issue really. It's ultimatly all a sense of scale.

 

Some GM's can write a pretty good street level campaign that would be a challenge for Dardevil or Batman. Others can manage something that would be a great fit for the Fantastic Four or many incarnations of the X-Men or Avengers. I've seen precious few GM's that can sustain an entire campaign full of 1500+ point JLAers or Heralds of Galactus.

 

A lot of extremely high level super hero stories only work because the heroes are idiots or the writer has plenty of plot devices to throw around. As such, they don't always make the best basis for a cooperative game experience between players and GM.

[OddHat]

Re: Do you have Active Point Limits?

 

I was reading a few JSA TPBs recently, based on the recomendations I'd been hearing for them, and they were good books.

 

One had a combat where Doctor Fate, the Spectre, Zatara, Merlin, and Sargon the Sorcerer all together were smashed down almost casually by a group of not otherwise very impressive cultist goons. Later the entire JSA (including characters like the Green Lantern, Flash and Wonder Woman) is barely a match for a single mega-villain foe.

 

I guess the point of this rambling is that, in the source material itself, the fight scenes serve the story. So long as you remember that when GMing, and build villains (and the world) and set up fight scenes accordingly, active points become less of an issue.

[Edsel]

Re: Do you have Active Point Limits?

 

Any time I have run a Champions game I have imposed a range in which I expect the active points of powers to fall. With few exceptions every character's powers are at the upper limit. In a way I guess that counts as having an active point limit.

[Roy_The_Ruthles]

Re: Do you have Active Point Limits?

 

I've heard nine yards to either be the lenght of an ammo belt on a plane of some sort from world war two, or to be the amount of canvas in a sail (ie. running with the full nine yards out)

 

And generally we have AP suggestions and DC caps plus OCV+DCV caps

[Kabluey]

Re: Do you have Active Point Limits?

 

For me, the answer is: It depends. My first Champions game about two years ago, I used AP limits. I ended up begin very unhappy with that and going to Damage Class limits. This included Advantages as specified on p. 404 in 5ER, so - referring to an earlier poster's example - 2d6KA and 2d6KA AoE would not be the same DC. I coupled this with some other limits (e.g., defenses, SPD, OCV/DCV), and this worked fairly well.

 

In my current Star Hero campaign, I have no AP limits, but then there's almost nothing a character takes in the way of powers, and equipment is already built for them, so there's no real need. I have one guy that has some implants, but I evaluated this based on effect not on AP.

 

For my Fantasy Hero campaign, I am using AP limits sort of. Spells are rated in levels and the level is determined by the AP of the spell. But all spells start at 1st level and advance through higher levels; there's no set spell list per level like there is in D&D or similar sorts of systems. And I provide the list of 1st level spells. So I have control over what initial spells are introduced, though players have flexibility in terms of advancing spells to higher levels. So there's no absolute limit in AP's, but you can't advance a spell more than one level at a time, which equates to 10 AP's.

[Lucius]

Re: Do you have Active Point Limits?

 

As I recall, "The whole nine yards" is a phrase that can't be documented in English until fairly recently - making some of the proposed origins seem unlikely, and making the one about concrete seem possible. Supposedly, the largest cement mixers hold about nine cubic yards; I heard that shortly after they came into common use, safety regulations forbidding that many cubic yards of cement to be mixed at once came into vogue. "Going the whole nine yards" meant breaking rules to get the job done quickly - thus, "going all out."

 

I dislike active point limits, personally, but on the contrary I do approve of setting up some kind of guidelines, especially for where combat powers are supposed to fall. But I think measuring things like Damage Classes works better for that. For example, I have heard the complaint that when active point caps are in place, it's impossible to build an effective Damage Shield; it can't penetrate defenses set for the campaign averages unless it goes over the active point limit. To take an example from my own recent experience, I wanted to play a character who had a teleportation power with "global reach;" even with Megascale, I couldn't do that without breaking the active point limit. But is a global teleport any more unbalancing than one that can carry me across most of North America? It would not have made the character any more effective in combat. It was a specifically non-combat power, in fact.

 

On the other hand, I'll admit that just looking at total dice of effect doesn't work either; a 4d6 No Normal Defense attack is obviously more effective than a normal 4d6 attack. For that matter, it can be more effective than an 8d6 attack of identical active points!

 

Sometimes it's also a question of how powers work together; a high PD, a little Armor, a small Force Field, so far not totalling more than the campaign's upper PD limit - then add on an Aid that happens to effect the Armor AND Force Field, and 50% Damage Reduction...maybe no one power exceeds active points or any other limit, but the character can still become a juggernaut.

 

I think the way active points limits are usually used is as guidelines, not hard limits; and I think that's the best way to use them. A Game Operations Director should be wary of very high active point powers, but willing to judge each on a case by case basis. A player should be aware of what active point total is going to trigger an especially close look at the power, and should also have an idea of just what he needs in the way of attacks and defenses to be effective, and keep in mind that effective does not mean "overwhelming."

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary is sleeping at one end

[John Desmarais]

Re: Do you have Active Point Limits?

 

First and foremost, please no flames, insults, or rude replies. thanks

 

Our group had gotten into a huge discussion of why or whether to use active point limits. Before I add anything what is your opinion and reasoning behind it?

 

I typically dislike setting hard active point limits. Past experience has shown me that if you set hard limits my players tend to build their characters with their primary powers right at the limit - which creates a certain feeling of homogenized sameness to the characters.

 

Instead I like to have the players work around suggested averages: For a standard Champions game, 60 points would be my suggested active point average. Can you build a power higher than that? Sure, but if it's a primary power for the character I expect to see the other primary powers lowers than 60 active.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Do you have Active Point Limits?

 

We use Active Points as a bench mark and guideline.

 

If you know that the majority of attacks are going to be 60 Active Points, a few going up to 75 and only a handful going above then you have some design guidelines. It lets build Mr Wall more easily when you know if you want to stop 90% of the stuff out there and you know that 90% with be up to X Active Points your concept will fit better.

 

It's a help, but not a rule.