SPEED Beyond 12

[BobGreenwade]

Re: SPEED Beyond 12

 

Personally' date=' I've never been in a game that needed to go beyond the normal SPD chart, and only very rarely seen a character above a 7 SPD.[/quote']For me, the only reason to have a SPD above 12 (or, really, above 8 for that matter) is to be able to handle a large group of opponents. Usually we see characters do that by having big defenses, doing lots of damage, applying several Combat Skill Levels, or throwing Area Of Effect attacks, but if you (as GM) don't want the character to have any of those things then high SPD (with either copious END or liberal use of Reduced END) is the next best thing.

[Ockham's Spoon]

Re: SPEED Beyond 12

 

In all my years of gaming I think I have seen maybe 2 characters with a 12 SPD and only one SPD over 12 (it was 15 IIRC, and the character was build for the sole purpose of having bragging rights to a character with a SPD over 12). IME if you want a speedster character to be able to whack a whole bunch of guys really fast, it is much more cost effective (and more true to the source material IMO) to do it with AoE and Autofire type attacks. Having a really high SPD is nice and all, but it is not only really expensive it also tends to be a little frustrating for the other players (Oh, its Speedy Gonzales's turn to act. AGAIN. Didn't he just go? Twice?)

[Doc Democracy]

Re: SPEED Beyond 12

 

Frustration and spotlight hogging were my experiences of speeds in double digits. The players with such characters just seem to go too often if everyone else is not also up there.

 

My games rarely see a spread among the heroes greater than 3 speed and lower than that if the maximum speed is not 8 or 9.

 

 

Doc

[Hyper-Man]

Re: SPEED Beyond 12

 

Having a 12 Speed (or higher) is a brute force method of building a speedster. As others have mentioned, the character will likely end up being a spotlight hog unless all the other characters are also in the 8-10 SPD range. If that is true then it is a very strong argument to just reduce all character SPD's across the board and use some 'shtick preservation' to enforce a lower range. This will free up points for the speedster to actually buy interesting superspeed powers instead of just having extra but ineffectual actions.

[BobGreenwade]

Re: SPEED Beyond 12

 

Frustration and spotlight hogging were my experiences of speeds in double digits. The players with such characters just seem to go too often if everyone else is not also up there.

 

My games rarely see a spread among the heroes greater than 3 speed and lower than that if the maximum speed is not 8 or 9.

 

Having a 12 Speed (or higher) is a brute force method of building a speedster. As others have mentioned' date=' the character will likely end up being a spotlight hog unless all the other characters are also in the 8-10 SPD range. If that is true then it is a very strong argument to just reduce all character SPD's across the board and use some 'shtick preservation' to enforce a lower range. This will free up points for the speedster to actually buy interesting superspeed powers instead of just having extra but ineffectual actions.[/quote']This is precisely the reason that SPD >12 (or even, as I implied earlier, >8) should be reserved for NPCs.

 

OTOH keep in mind that characters with high SPD tend to burn through END like an elected Democrat through tax money, so it sort of balances out.

[lemming]

Re: SPEED Beyond 12

 

Generally, we steered players that took too long per phase away from high speed characters. Cut down on spotlight hogging at least on a per phase deal, but really we did it for quicker combats. If they're going to be a spotlight hog, didn't matter what the speed was as far as I could tell.

 

I can't do it anymore since I haven't played the char in (HF!) 20+ years, but my speed 11 char who could land 7-8 moveby hits per phase at 16d6 or 24d6. Yes, I was rolling dice constantly and keeping track what path he was taking next phase, but not taking any more time than the SPD 7 martial artist did.

[Doc Democracy]

Re: SPEED Beyond 12

 

OTOH keep in mind that characters with high SPD tend to burn through END like an elected Democrat through tax money' date=' so it sort of balances out.[/quote']

 

I found that my SPD 12 character was able to manage that well with one or two well-timed recoveries a turn, if necessary. Was amazing how far a little bit of reduced END and a good idea of when to push and when to recover would go...

 

:-)

 

 

Doc