How to deal with OSLs as a power

[Superdragon]

Hello and thanks for your time.

 

I have a question regarding using Overall Skill Levels as a main power for a 350 point character. A form of "Super-Competence" if you will. And I was wondering just how much Levels would be too much, unbalance the character as such?

 

The concept of the character is an everyman, possibly a Competent to Noteworthy Normal, who could flood his body with adrenaline, accessing his super-competence ability, and allowing him to keep up with the more experienced heroes.

 

Any questions you have and I'll try to answer. Any input is appreciated.

[psyber624]

Re: How to deal with OSLs as a power

 

There really isn't an "unbalancing" breakpoint with this, especially if this is his "main power". OSL's are very expensive and highly dependent on having something else to use them with. They help with skill rolls, but you have to have the skills. They help with OCV/DCV and possibly damage, but you have to have a source of "attack" or they do nothing on their own. Even +10 OSL's (which would cost 120 pts) aren't unbalanced since you could get the same benefits much cheaper on any individual ability.

 

The thing to remember is that overall skill levels are +1 OCV (5 pts) OR +1 DCV (5 pts) OR +1/2 DC (2.5 pts) OR +1 to other rolls (varies). And you can do only one of those at a time. Other than the skill roll aspect you could buy all the other abilities for almost the same price as the OSL and get to use them all at once. The only place where Overall skill rolls become "cost effective" is with the use of Skills/characteristic rolls/etc. So if you had a highly skill based character they can be cost effective, but very few "skill rolls" are really unbalancing to a game (unless this is a skills based game, but this is in the "Champions" forum so I believe you intend to play this character in a Supers game where that is not likely to pose a major issue).

 

IF you intend to play a highly skill focused game (super spy or something along those lines) then you need to consider what you would use as the appropriate "range" for skill rolls that people can buy normally. If 13- is what you consider normal, and 18- the limit normally, then look at how many levels he would need to buy on the appropriate skills to reach this point. For instance if he has a bunch of int Skills and a 10 int then 7 OSL's gets him to your "limit" and any more lets him break that (with any INT skills he buys). The same applies to all other skills. Basically he shouldn't be able to buy so many skill levels that he can be a top expert in any skill he gets (and remember this is only for Skill focused campaigns because he would easily overshadow all the other characters. In a normal supers campaign the ability to be Super Skilled can easily be his "niche" and not overshadow everyone else.)

[Hyper-Man]

Re: How to deal with OSLs as a power

 

Please take a look at the Justice League links in my signature. Almost all of my 5th edition versions of the characters have some number of Overall Levels. Several have them built as powers (see Superman, Captain Marvel/SHAZAM!, Flash, Wonder Woman) while others have them as the more 'standard' skills. I limited the non-power based characters like Batman to 2 Overall Levels to begin with. All the power-based uses have at least 3 Overall Levels. This is to take advantage of an overlooked use for them: the ability to complete actions 1 step up the Time Chart*.

 

*Say an action would normally take 5 minutes to complete. Any character can attempt to complete it faster by taking a -3 penalty to the associated skill roll for each step down (-3 for 1 minute, -6 for 1 turn).

[pinecone]

Re: How to deal with OSLs as a power

 

Hello and thanks for your time.

 

I have a question regarding using Overall Skill Levels as a main power for a 350 point character. A form of "Super-Competence" if you will. And I was wondering just how much Levels would be too much, unbalance the character as such?

 

The concept of the character is an everyman, possibly a Competent to Noteworthy Normal, who could flood his body with adrenaline, accessing his super-competence ability, and allowing him to keep up with the more experienced heroes.

 

Any questions you have and I'll try to answer. Any input is appreciated.

 

Based on my own experiance ...nore than 10 gets kinda "iffy" but it kinda depends on what else you purchase...you'll likely need to spend less.

 

So a couple of "Universals" Scentist, say and some basic stuff like universal Jack, add in some MA moves, and you'l likely be at the point limit.....sadly many skills need to be purchased "bare" so that adds a lot of cost...

[Christougher]

Re: How to deal with OSLs as a power

 

Please take a look at the Justice League links in my signature. Almost all of my 5th edition versions of the characters have some number of Overall Levels. Several have them built as powers (see Superman, Captain Marvel/SHAZAM!, Flash, Wonder Woman) while others have them as the more 'standard' skills. I limited the non-power based characters like Batman to 2 Overall Levels to begin with. All the power-based uses have at least 3 Overall Levels. This is to take advantage of an overlooked use for them: the ability to complete actions 1 step up the Time Chart*.

 

*Say an action would normally take 5 minutes to complete. Any character can attempt to complete it faster by taking a -3 penalty to the associated skill roll for each step down (-3 for 1 minute, -6 for 1 turn).

 

In my personal opinion, Batman seems to be the poster child for lots of overall skill levels, much more so than any of the others listed.

 

But more of note to the thread, I'd rate the number of levels the same as you would active points in a power. If you set a power cap at 60 AP, more than 6 Overall Levels would be over that cap.

 

Chris.

[Markdoc]

Re: How to deal with OSLs as a power

 

I GM'ed for a character with 8 overall skill levels: that was her main power. It worked fine. You had a character who most of the time could perform pretty much any skill competently or even heroically, but at the same time, that was her main power: she didn't have the fancy stuff some of the other characters did.

 

cheers, Mark

[Zen Archer]

Re: How to deal with OSLs as a power

 

I played a character sort of like this called Karl the Night Watchman: A 250-point character (no powers) + 10 overall levels. He was a regular guy who was just really, really good at the things he did. He was meant to be a supporting character but the heroes (who had their headquarters in the building where he worked) kept coming to him for help.

 

I had a blast playing him.