So, for the setting I am working on, I need to be able to model characters that have supernatural characteristics. Currently the system doesn't meet the need with the current 1-5 Rating scale because you can't really differentiate say a Human's 3 Brawn from a Giant's 3 Brawn and the system isn't built for Characteristic inflation. Even if you gave the Giant a 5 Brawn it wouldn't differentiate from a Human who bought a 5 Brawn. We want a way to represent that some species simply have a supernatural characteristic versus a mortal's while still using the same Rating scale. Does that make sense?

That said, I've looked at the Super-Characteristic section on p251 but we feel that the listed exploding die on a Triumph is rather lackluster especially sue to the rarity of it occurring (29% with 5 dice). Additionally, it seems to more represent Proficiency than Ability. Thus we've been looking at other options. What I'm currently looking at for options are the following, but I'd like to run this by people for thoughts on XP balance.

Option 1) Supernatural Agility (15 XP): Your character adds [1 Boost Die] to any Agility skill check.

Would this need a Strain cost to balance (if so, 1 or 2) or is it still too much even with a cost? The strain cost could represent the focus used to apply the super characteristic?

Or...

Option 2) Supernatural Agility (15 XP): Your character upgrades all Agility skill checks once.

Option 3) Supernatural Agility (15 XP): Your character may suffer a number of strain to upgrade all Agility skill checks by an equal number. Strain suffered this way cannot exceed your Agility Rating.

Thoughts?

The main purpose for the characteristic limit of 5 is preventing unwieldy dice pools, so something that just allows you to pile on boost die is probably not a good idea where your'e talking about rolling 5 levels already. Instead, I'd look towards derived attributes..

So, you want super-hero level brawn? max brawn, then take talents that do things like increase flat damage, increase critical strength on brawl and melee checks, increases wound threshold, etc

7 hours ago, Khaalis said:

So, for the setting I am working on, I need to be able to model characters that have supernatural characteristics. Currently the system doesn't meet the need with the current 1-5 Rating scale because you can't really differentiate say a Human's 3 Brawn from a Giant's 3 Brawn and the system isn't built for Characteristic inflation. Even if you gave the Giant a 5 Brawn it wouldn't differentiate from a Human who bought a 5 Brawn. We want a way to represent that some species simply have a supernatural characteristic versus a mortal's while still using the same Rating scale. Does that make sense?

That said, I've looked at the Super-Characteristic section on p251 but we feel that the listed exploding die on a Triumph is rather lackluster especially sue to the rarity of it occurring (29% with 5 dice). Additionally, it seems to more represent Proficiency than Ability. Thus we've been looking at other options. What I'm currently looking at for options are the following, but I'd like to run this by people for thoughts on XP balance.

Option 1) Supernatural Agility (15 XP): Your character adds [1 Boost Die] to any Agility skill check.

Would this need a Strain cost to balance (if so, 1 or 2) or is it still too much even with a cost? The strain cost could represent the focus used to apply the super characteristic?

Or...

Option 2) Supernatural Agility (15 XP): Your character upgrades all Agility skill checks once.

Option 3) Supernatural Agility (15 XP): Your character may suffer a number of strain to upgrade all Agility skill checks by an equal number. Strain suffered this way cannot exceed your Agility Rating.

Thoughts?

That's not entirely true: you can absolutely differentiate a Giant's Brawn from a Human's Brawn. A Giant is presumably going to be at least Silhouette 2, if not larger. A Human will only ever be Silhouette 1. Right off that bat, you can assume that a Sil 2+ creature with Brawn 3 is going to be able to do things that a Sil 1 creature with the same Brawn could never do. If Wound Thresholds become an issue, use the Silhouette as a multiplicative factor such that Silhouette 2, Brawn 3 confers 6 wounds rather than 3.

I like your options for the Supernatural enhancements to a characteristic, but what separates it from being a Custom Talent? What about the "Super" characteristic rules provided in the Genesys CRB where a character who gets Triumph on roles with their Special characteristic gets to add another Proficiency dice, a la exploding dice mechanics?

hmm ... i do have the same problem of representing high attributes.

from a XP cost factor Talents are "a lot" cheaper to buy than increasing attributes, which makes a case for high attribute scores but unbalances the rest of the system where up/downgrades and boost/setback dice are the norm.

take a look at my post here Expanded Talents Thread boost Characteristics

15 hours ago, sehlura said:

That's not entirely true: you can absolutely differentiate a Giant's Brawn from a Human's Brawn. A Giant is presumably going to be at least Silhouette 2, if not larger. A Human will only ever be Silhouette 1. Right off that bat, you can assume that a Sil 2+ creature with Brawn 3 is going to be able to do things that a Sil 1 creature with the same Brawn could never do. If Wound Thresholds become an issue, use the Silhouette as a multiplicative factor such that Silhouette 2, Brawn 3 confers 6 wounds rather than 3.

I like your options for the Supernatural enhancements to a characteristic, but what separates it from being a Custom Talent? What about the "Super" characteristic rules provided in the Genesys CRB where a character who gets Triumph on roles with their Special characteristic gets to add another Proficiency dice, a la exploding dice mechanics?

The issue is that as far as I can tell, is that nowhere in the system does it state that Silhouette 2 character can do anything with say a Brawn 3 that a Silhouette 1 character can't. The only time Silhouette come into play really is a Silhouette 2 character vs a Silhouette 0 character and that comes into play in to-hit difficulty and things like Knockdown. Thus it requires custom rules to show the difference of a 'super-characteristic' vs. a 'normal characteristic'.

As for the 'Super-Characteristic' section from the book, I already covered this in the OP. Its lackluster at best. You can't really feel 'super' when you only have a small percentage of a chance of it working, not to mention the logic/narrative question of why it keys off of Proficiency dice and not related to Ability dice (which are the dice governed by Characteristics). I get the exploding dice concept, it just doesn't do what I want for a Super-Characteristic. It is after-all just a suggestion for how to represent super-characteristics, not a set-in-stone rule.

6 hours ago, Terefang said:

hmm ... i do have the same problem of representing high attributes.

from a XP cost factor Talents are "a lot" cheaper to buy than increasing attributes, which makes a case for high attribute scores but unbalances the rest of the system where up/downgrades and boost/setback dice are the norm.

take a look at my post here Expanded Talents Thread boost Characteristics

I've seen it. Its a fair idea but doesn't fit what I need., which is something that is a species 'special ability'. The Tier 3 option might work but then again I think it's less useful as the book's suggestion. The book's suggestion at least has a chance to trigger every roll, where as the Talent is Once per Session only which doesn't really feel 'super' to me.

The issue is trying to get an ability that truly feel super, while keeping it within an acceptable XP value so it can be kept balanced with Non-Supers. Currently I am thinking that Option 2 would be the most workable. Then again, I personally don't think adding 1 Boost die is that big a deal considering there are a number of Tier 1 and 2 talents that grant Boost dice to multiple skills. Thus, I'd likely cost it out at 15XP but might balance it by costing 1 Strain to use.

Looking at the odds, 1 Boost die has:

• 33% 1 Success (67% None)
• 33% 1 Advantage; 17% 2 Advantage (50% None)
• 0% Triumph

On the flip-side, upgrading an Ability die to a Proficiency die, gives:

• 50% 1 Success; 17% 2 Successes (33% None)
• 33% 1 Advantage; 17% 2 Advantage (50% None)
• 8% 1 Triumph

So looking at this versus the odds from the Exploding Die option:

• 8% 1 Triumph (with 1 die)
• 15% 1 Triumph (with 2 dice)
• 21% 1 Triumph; 2% 2 Triumph (with 3 dice)
• 26% 1 Triumph; 4% 2 Triumph (with 4 dice)
• 29% 1 Triumph; 5% 2 Triumph (with 5 dice)

Technically the upgraded die is actually better than a boost die as it has a higher chance of +Success and includes a chance to get +Triumph. So with that said I think I am personally leaning toward this:

• Supernatural [ Characteristic ] (15 XP): Your character may spend 1 strain to add 3 to any [ Characteristic ] skill check.

One other option I have been thinking about is:

• Supernatural [Characteristic] (15 XP): Your character may downgrade the difficulty of any [Characteristic] skill check once.

Once per session or scene limitation might also work in this case. If that works thematically.

In my opinion, that would anyway require some kind of balancing mechanic, unless you want it be used all the time. Personally I would use the boost die way, because upgrades are quite powerful. Also, is this meant purely for PCs, or NPCs also. And do you tend to use PCs always roll style, or does NPCs sometimes roll against PC skills? If latter, then you also must think how those powers work when converting to difficulties. This may not be huge problem, but it's best to think about it a bit before you are in situation where you must make decisions fast.

13 minutes ago, kkuja said:

Once per session or scene limitation might also work in this case. If that works thematically.

In my opinion, that would anyway require some kind of balancing mechanic, unless you want it be used all the time. Personally I would use the boost die way, because upgrades are quite powerful. Also, is this meant purely for PCs, or NPCs also. And do you tend to use PCs always roll style, or does NPCs sometimes roll against PC skills? If latter, then you also must think how those powers work when converting to difficulties. This may not be huge problem, but it's best to think about it a bit before you are in situation where you must make decisions fast.

Thematically, once per session doesn't work for what I'm trying to emulate. Once per encounter might work, but is still pretty restrictive. I prefer the cost to be more player oriented, thus Strain. As for the application is for both PCs and NPCs, though there will be a lot more powerful supernatural NPCs. As for rolling, I'm not sure what you mean by converting difficulties in relation to the rolls. Can you clarify?

17 minutes ago, Khaalis said:

Thematically, once per session doesn't work for what I'm trying to emulate. Once per encounter might work, but is still pretty restrictive. I prefer the cost to be more player oriented, thus Strain. As for the application is for both PCs and NPCs, though there will be a lot more powerful supernatural NPCs. As for rolling, I'm not sure what you mean by converting difficulties in relation to the rolls. Can you clarify?

I meant opposed checks (if I remember correctly the name). I.e. opposing character's skill is converted to difficulty for acting character (for example when trying to sneak past a guard). Every ability die to difficulty die, and proficiency die to challenge die (in SW terms, I don't remember if those are different in Genesys, sorry). At least in SW, it wasn't explicitly said how boost dice should handled, but logical way is to convert them to setback dice. I don't meant this is a real problem, just that it's good to use few moments to think how that will work. Will there be any ambiguity how upgrades work and at what part they are applied, etc. More I think about this, less valid concern this seems.

Only exception might be the " Supernatural [Characteristic] (15 XP): Your character may downgrade the difficulty of any [Characteristic] skill check once.", as that might be done with either downgrade to acting character, or upgrade to difficulty. Either would probably work, but IMO it would be good to decide before game starts how that is handled.

Ah yes, opposed checks. I was just running on the assumption that all dice swapped evenly so yes a Boost die attached would swap to a Setback die. So yes ...

Boost dice <-> Setback dice

Ability dice <-> Difficulty dice

Proficiency dice <-> Challenge dice

So in the end, I think I am going to go with this.

Supernatural [ Characteristic ] (15 XP): Your character may spend 1 strain to add 3 to any [ Characteristic ] skill check.

So is this a case of wanting to ensure that certain types of creatures -always- beat baseline humans on certain checks? Like are you have human PCs compete against giants in the Olympics or something? Or is this a matter of combat checks?

This seems like you're thinking way too hard about it. In terms of combat, just inflate the numbers a bit. Give them a high wound threshold and high base damage. If its a matter of skill checks, just give them adversary for opposed checks. And if its really just a case that you want them to succeed on generic athletics tests more than humans, then just cheat and say they succeed the check.

What I think Im going to do is consider brawn more of a physical Prowess (like fighting ability and muscular density/speed).

Then for supernatural and superhuman strengths I will have Talents/Abilities called:

Supernatural Strength, Metahuman Strength and Superhuman Strength which will give higher damage in melee and lifting maximums.

OR

I was thinking of having the human maximum for Brawn set at 3 and use a ladder/chart like this:

BRAWN Level Max weight (Lift/Press) Examples

1 Weak up to 50 lbs children, elderly
2 Average up to 250 lbs average human adult
3 Human Max. up to 250 lbs Olympic athlete, average Orc
4 Supernatural up to 1 Ton Ogre
5 Supernatural up to 5 Tons Troll, Hill Giant
6 Meta-human up to 10 Tons Mountain Giant
7 Meta-human up to 25 Tons Storm Giant
8 Superhuman up to 50 Tons Dragon (average adult)
9 Superhuman up to 100 Tons Dragon (Ancient Wyrm)
10 Superhuman up to 250 Tons Godlike Entities (Cthulhu, Kaiju)

Then increase damages/wound threshold bases on silhouette (maybe multiply x silhouette?)

18 hours ago, Kommissar said:

So is this a case of wanting to ensure that certain types of creatures -always- beat baseline humans on certain checks? Like are you have human PCs compete against giants in the Olympics or something? Or is this a matter of combat checks?

This seems like you're thinking way too hard about it. In terms of combat, just inflate the numbers a bit. Give them a high wound threshold and high base damage. If its a matter of skill checks, just give them adversary for opposed checks. And if its really just a case that you want them to succeed on generic athletics tests more than humans, then just cheat and say they succeed the check.

> "case of wanting to ensure that certain types of creatures -always- beat baseline humans on certain checks"
Basically yes though the way the dice work, it really never makes an "always" situation.

The setting is one where humans are Not the dominant species. The world is filled with and ruled by the supernatural. However, players may be mortal or supernatural species. A party could have say both a human and a giant. I want the system to reflect the difference between the human's Brawn and the giant's Brawn without having to resort to Characteristic Rating inflation. The system is designed to have a cap on Attributes of 5 for players (and even for GMs anything over 5 isn't very encouraged). That said, I personally feel that even if you cap Human Characteristics to 3, that having 1 or 2 more ability dice (characteristics 4 and 5) is enough to truly make the giant feel 'special' from the human.

Also, I feel that the system doesn't really encourage hidden rolls and thus "fudging". If its purely narrative that's one thing but as soon as the dice are involved making the roll 'matter' then you need mechanics that support the narrative. So yes, I am thinking about it a lot. For this setting its an important aspect and I know I'm not alone in the quest for how to make super-characteristics work better than the sample idea given on p251.

Does that make more sense?

15 hours ago, widomknight said:

What I think Im going to do is consider brawn more of a physical Prowess (like fighting ability and muscular density/speed).

Then for supernatural and superhuman strengths I will have Talents/Abilities called:

Supernatural Strength, Metahuman Strength and Superhuman Strength which will give higher damage in melee and lifting maximums.

OR

I was thinking of having the human maximum for Brawn set at 3 and use a ladder/chart like this:

BRAWN Level Max weight (Lift/Press) Examples

1 Weak up to 50 lbs children, elderly
2 Average up to 250 lbs average human adult
3 Human Max. up to 250 lbs Olympic athlete, average Orc
4 Supernatural up to 1 Ton Ogre
5 Supernatural up to 5 Tons Troll, Hill Giant
6 Meta-human up to 10 Tons Mountain Giant
7 Meta-human up to 25 Tons Storm Giant
8 Superhuman up to 50 Tons Dragon (average adult)
9 Superhuman up to 100 Tons Dragon (Ancient Wyrm)
10 Superhuman up to 250 Tons Godlike Entities (Cthulhu, Kaiju)

Then increase damages/wound threshold bases on silhouette (maybe multiply x silhouette?)

I REALLY want to avoid the Characteristic Rating inflation option. Its simply too unruly an option considering the sheer impracticality of 6+ Ability dice. I am however, thinking of capping Characteristic Rating at 3 and allowing only Supernatural Characteristics to attain 4's and 5's. However, as mentioned above, I personally don't see the difference between a 3 and 4 to be "enough" to truly denote a supernatural Characteristics. Thus the option of the Boost die on skill checks.

However, I ALSO have the problem that only two Characteristics are used for Derived Attributes making Brawn and Willpower the most important Characteristics with Brawn being the more important of the 2 really as it governs more. So it makes me want to look at options to show how a supernatural trait is reflected in ways other than just a Boost die or 1 more Ability die. For Brawn, carrying capacity is the obvious option, but then you get into questions about damage and soak. Currently I am thinking about the possibility of making the modifiers incremental. By that I mean that for determining Derived Attributes, a 4 or 5 would be worth more than face value. So a Brawn 3 grants +3 WT and 3 Soak but a 4 might add say +5 WT & 5 Soak (not +4/4) and a 5 might add say +7 WT and 7 Soak (versus +5/5). Not sure about that though as it may be too far, even as a Talent.

Still mulling over a lot of options on how to make this work. In other systems its a lot easier.

Yeah Khaalis Im trying to think of the best way possible. I just thought Id throw out these ideas for the record. That way we can analyze them all.

What if there is a Supernatural Strength ability/talent (like how NPCs get Adversary 1 or 2 )

Supernatural Strength 1 +2 to Wound Threshold/+2 to Damage
Supernatural Strength 2 +4 to Wound Threshold/+4 to Damage
Supernatural Strength 3 +6 to Wound Threshold/+6 to Damage
Supernatural Strength 4 +8 to Wound Threshold/+8 to Damage

Then Silhouette can multiply these to take in account for size.

I'd stick the way the system's Talents work and allow 'superhuman' uses to be demonstrated through situationally specific Talents. If you have 4 ranks of Dodge, you are displaying what would be 'superhuman' Agility, but that doesn't automatically mean you can shoot fantastic as well as win every dance contest you apply to. Same goes for Brawn, I would simply create specific use Talents that demonstrate this, things like Frenzied Attack, Feral Strength, etc. Some of course are in the SW system, but the point is, they tend to focus on a specific effort using the stat as opposed to just a blanket increase on everything.

5 hours ago, Khaalis said:

However, I ALSO have the problem that only two Characteristics are used for Derived Attributes making Brawn and Willpower the most important Characteristics ...

if Genesys were a more unnarrative system, it would have Initiative being Agility+Cunning (representing Awareness/Perception) rather than a Cool or Vigilance check.

also i'm still considering to house rule Brawn into two different Attributes ( Strength/Physique and Stamina/Toughness ), much like it was in Warhammer.

5 hours ago, widomknight said:

Yeah Khaalis Im trying to think of the best way possible. I just thought Id throw out these ideas for the record. That way we can analyze them all.

Understood. They aren't bad ideas, just not what I'd go with. However the scaling carrying capacity is a good idea for supers, the problem just comes in with the dice issue. Maybe carry capacity needs to be separated to a special ability ofor the species?

5 hours ago, 2P51 said:

I'd stick the way the system's Talents work and allow 'superhuman' uses to be demonstrated through situationally specific Talents. If you have 4 ranks of Dodge, you are displaying what would be 'superhuman' Agility, but that doesn't automatically mean you can shoot fantastic as well as win every dance contest you apply to. Same goes for Brawn, I would simply create specific use Talents that demonstrate this, things like Frenzied Attack, Feral Strength, etc. Some of course are in the SW system, but the point is, they tend to focus on a specific effort using the stat as opposed to just a blanket increase on everything.

The problem I have with this route is that it has the same failing as Characteristics do to start with. That being by core RAW, Anyone can take these talents just like anyone can take a 5 characteristic. It makes no sense to me that a human could have a 5 brawn but something like a giant could have lower brawn. Thus you could have a human taking all the 'supernatural' talents but nothing to say the supernatural species has to. Doesn't make sense to me. JMHO

5 hours ago, Terefang said:

if Genesys were a more unnarrative system, it would have Initiative being Agility+Cunning (representing Awareness/Perception) rather than a Cool or Vigilance check.

also i'm still considering to house rule Brawn into two different Attributes ( Strength/Physique and Stamina/Toughness ), much like it was in Warhammer.

Yeah, I have to say that more and more I am seeing the Genesys system as effectively a Core Dice Mechanic and toolbox. Some people are so stuck on RAW that they don't like the idea of changing characteristics, but I'm starting to think the system could be much more finely tuned to settings by just using the core mechanics and then modifying everything else to fit, much like how Cortex works.

I've been looking at using characteristic/skill combos from other systems such as Shadowrun or World of Darkness because I like the logic of their layout better, brawn being a primary example. I too agree it needs to be separated into strength and toughness. I also prefer agility to be split into dexterity and reflexes/reactions. Also as mentioned, I am going to be digging out my Warhammer stuff to look for ideas too.

6 hours ago, widomknight said:

What if there is a Supernatural Strength ability/talent (like how NPCs get Adversary 1 or 2 )

Supernatural Strength 1 +2 to Wound Threshold/+2 to Damage
Supernatural Strength 2 +4 to Wound Threshold/+4 to Damage
Supernatural Strength 3 +6 to Wound Threshold/+6 to Damage
Supernatural Strength 4 +8 to Wound Threshold/+8 to Damage

Then Silhouette can multiply these to take in account for size.

I like this idea. The question then becomes how do you cost them in XP value since XP is the commodity for building archetypes.

Second question is how far you let PCs go up the scale based on those XP values. Currently I'm thinking Supernatural 1 is worth about 10-15 XP? So for PCs (if 10XP) max would really be Supernatural 2. I would also state that Supernatural Characteristics require a minimum rating of 3.

The third question becomes how to cost Silhouette changes against what they offer. Currently I've been toying with S0 as being x0.5, S2 = x1.5, S3 = x2 etc. This should only apply to PCs at size 0 and 2 though.