- I'm thinking of having all ability scores rolled with 1d6 and then boosted purely by buying powers. This is based on a suggestion I got early on, and I think it makes sense to use the spending of XP to make super heroes as opposed to spending both dice and XP. Besides, some heroes have several (or all) heavily boosted ability scores (I'm looking at the big blue boyscout here), which is tougher to duplicate using the current system.
- I think I'm going to divide ability scores and levels into five bands: Normal (1-6), Heroic (7-12), Superhuman (13-18), Epic (19-24) and Cosmic (25-30). Ability bonuses will be +1 per three points of ability (i.e. +0 for a score of 1 or 2, +1 for a score of 3 to 5 etc to +10 at 30) and will only be used for attack and damage bonuses.
- Feats will require you to roll 1d20 and meet or beat a score of 10. You modify this roll by the difference between your ability score or level (depending on what you're doing) and your opponent's. Using this scheme you'll always fail on a natural "1" and always succeed on a natural "20". I think I was worried too much about normal humans getting away with facing down Galactus when nobody is going to play a normal human - oh, maybe a non-powered hero, but still a hero capable of amazing things. For feats that aren't against an opponent, you compare your ability/level against the following scores based on the five bands: Normal 3, Heroic 9, Superhuman 15, Epic 21 and Cosmic 27. I think this might be simpler than the current scheme, although they aren't terribly different from one another.
- For monsters, I think I'm going to refer to Hit Dice as Level for monsters and characters - keeps me from having to explain that they're essentially the same thing. I'm going to include a Physique and Mentality score for them as well for use in feats. The monster stats should thus be: Level, Physique, Mentality, Defense Class, Speed, XP Value and Attacks and Powers.
I think that's it for now. Still trying to find time to play the game with some friends - when I do I'll have some play reports. In the meantime I'm working away at NOD 7 and my Frog God projects. Posts might be a bit more sporadic in February, since most of what I'm writing isn't stuff I can preview on the blog. This week I'm going to try to write up some demon lords - something I want to make a regular feature in NOD, stat out some Hanna Barbera heroes and who knows what else. In the meantime, have fun out there!
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Illustration by Doc Shaner - one of my faves!
Posts
These seem to be sensible ways of handling things. I particularly like the ability scores idea.
ReplyDeleteI'd add that I think the powers that scale with level should be 1/2 level. That 18HD(level) death bot should be doing 9D6 per bolt, not 18D6. That also caps it at 10D6 since max level is 20(?).
ReplyDeleteMaybe iron body should scale, maybe 1/2 per level as well.
Couple other comments:
Your XP advancement table seems really fast! It's not much XP to level.
I'm also confused about how leveling and powers works. When you earn new XP, can you use it to buy new powers or augment your existing ones?
Maybe you could also augment some powers, like say the range of energy weapons (for example) can be increased by spending more XP?
-Darren
I like the idea of half level in dice of damage.
ReplyDeleteYou can spend XP on new powers or on taking a power from single use to limited or limited to permanent, or just add the XP to your total to increase your level.
A few powers have different "intensities" - super speed, for example. Power augments - almost like some of the "metamagic feats" in 3rd edition might be a good supplement to the rules.