I've been mulling over a superhero campaign since I brought the core book home. My biggest conundrum was, how to handle powers. Skills? Talents? Then I read this from the core book -

The best unique abilities are those that define a physiological element of a species that can't be defined through skills or talents. This includes things like the ability to fly, breathe underwater, .... (Pg. 193)

That sounds like superpowers to me. There's no hard and fast formula for superpowers and their XP cost but there are some very good guide lines given on page, 193. Without worrying to much about the cost I began mentally building different superpowers form comics and movies. This is when it the balance issue reared it's ugly head.

Let's take a character like Colossus from the X-Men. He can put his fist through a car engine, get hit square in the chest by a rocket and not feel a thing. As far as I can tell he is operating on planetary and not personal scale while in armored form. Cyclops could easily take out a vehicle with his optic blasts. Wolverine should heal a crit every round without a roll . Other than placing a hard cap on powers and running a "street level" super powered campaign, how would you handle these obvious balance issues in your game?

Make sure their powers are not a solution to every situation. But also don’t restrict yourself too much, supers are powerful but so are super villains. I think the most important factor is that all the super heroes in a single group are similar in capacity.

I would probably avoid making a huge list too. It’s something that would be much easier to do as a group during session Zero when everyone is making their characters. Every power can be done in different ways, with multiple different mechanics, so finding out what the players want to do then brainstorming what they look like would be much more fun for you and your players.

For example flying could be done so many different ways:

Species Ability: You can fly at personal scale.

Species Ability: You can fly at Vehicle scale with a speed equal to your (insert appropriate characteristic here, Eg; Intellect for Iron Man, Agility for The Flash, Willpower for Magneto)

Talent: You can fly at personal scale.

Talent: you can make giant leaps. Improved: You can fly. Supreme: You can fly at Vehicle scale with speed = characteristic.

Talent(Ranked): You can fly with speed equal to ranks.

Talent: You can Hover. Improved: You can fly. Supreme: You can fly at Vehicle scale.

Skill: You fly with a speed equal to the ranks in this skill, use this skill to make checks in the same way you would make Athletics/Coordination or Piloting checks at personal or vehicle scale to move. Flying with no Threat should not require a check, but in a fight, bad conditions, or when time pressure exits then checks should be made.

Heroic Ability: You can always hover. Basic: When this Ability is activated you can Fly at personal scale. Improved: You can always Fly, when this Ability is active you can fly at Vehicle scale with speed equal to your highest characteristic. Supreme: You can always fly at Vehicle scale.

Magic Spell. Concentrate: Yes. Basic Spell: Average Difficulty to gain the Hover ability. Additional effects: +1D Gain Haste, +1D Can Fly at personal scale. +3 Difficulty can fly at Vehicle scale with speed equal to your rank in Knowledge.

Why handle balance issues at all?

Look, let's face it, superheroes cross a broad range of power levels, from the mundane, street level, RLSH types, to those who are nearly gods (or are indeed deities). Despite this, Hawkeye and Black Widow fight along side Hulk and Thor, Batman and Nightwing team up with Superman and Dr. Fate, and the Elongated Man hangs with Flash. Despite their disparate power levels, all these heroes have something to do because the writers design challenges suitable for each of them.

That's the job of a GM in a superhero campaign. You let the players determine what they want to play - from men of steel to the world's greatest detective, from an unstoppable Amazon with a heart for the world to a crossbow-wielding vigilante - and balance is handled by the challenges you throw against them. Just make sure that the challenges are appropriate for the characters' skills and abilities, and that the Superman of your Justice League doesn't chew up the scenery and hog the limelight.

It takes some skill and some effort, but it can be worth it.

Otherwise, the only option you have is to make sure everyone's super. And when everyone's super, no one will be.

I'm working on running a street level super hero game. My basic idea is the power themselves are treated as skills, while talents are used to flesh them out.

My basic set up examples (Regeneration and Elemental Manipulation) can be found in this thread: https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/272910-super-hero-thinktank/

And my idea for more powerful supers (Super Strength as Vehicle scale Brawn) in this one: https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/274486-what-do-superheroes-look-like/

21 minutes ago, Simon Retold said:

Why handle balance issues at all?

This is pretty much where I'm at. The fact is, the X-Men aren't fighting street thugs and if they had to it wouldn't be much of a contest.

4 minutes ago, glewis2317 said:

This is pretty much where I'm at. The fact is, the X-Men aren't fighting street thugs and if they had to it wouldn't be much of a contest.

When you get around to running said campaign, if you're doing it online, shoot me a PM. The short time we played Star Wars together (over Google Hangouts) told me you were a good GM, and I wouldn't mind playing in another one of your games.

1 minute ago, Simon Retold said:

When you get around to running said campaign, if you're doing it online, shoot me a PM. The short time we played Star Wars together (over Google Hangouts) told me you were a good GM, and I wouldn't mind playing in another one of your games.

Thanks man. I've been trying to keep a home game going but everyone's schedule has been pretty crazy. I may be looking to set something up soon.

I would handle those super effects with story points and triumphs.

Example:

Colussus makes a brawl attack and with his super strength gets a triumph, bye bye car.

Collussus get hit with a rocket to the chest, he has the ability to lower a Crit roll to a 01. Pick the pieces off his chest and walks away.

Cyclops can use his Optic Blast and get triumph, hope the owner had car insurance that covers disintegration.

Wolverine could have an ability by using a story point once per session to recover wound and Crit effects.

Like most comics, these actions are only once per comic, so a once per session ability is totally acceptable.

5 hours ago, Cykes said:

I would handle those super effects with story points and triumphs.

Example:

Colussus makes a brawl attack and with his super strength gets a triumph, bye bye car.

Collussus get hit with a rocket to the chest, he has the ability to lower a Crit roll to a 01. Pick the pieces off his chest and walks away.

Cyclops can use his Optic Blast and get triumph, hope the owner had car insurance that covers disintegration.

Wolverine could have an ability by using a story point once per session to recover wound and Crit effects.

Like most comics, these actions are only once per comic, so a once per session ability is totally acceptable.

I have to disagree with you. The point of it being super is that they can do these things whenever they want. Having read comics since I was six I can tell you there are countless stories where Wolverine is blown to bits several times and heals before the allotted 22 pages of story and art are over. This is why Heroic abilities don't really work for Superpowers.

I think I'm going to put a small group together for Wednesday or Thursday nights to put together a superhero game. If any of you guys are interested in joining let me know.

3 minutes ago, glewis2317 said:

I think I'm going to put a small group together for Wednesday or Thursday nights to put together a superhero game. If any of you guys are interested in joining let me know.

I'm interested. Let me know when you are going to start.

Heroic Abilities do provide a method of progression for super powers though. Most RPG’s are built on the core principle that a character will get more powerful over time. Talents can do exactly the same thing, Skills have a certain progression too. But if you’re creating a superhero character then you need some idea of how you want them to progress.

Heroic Abilities provide a simple structure that you can then use to build a progression path for the character. You decide what the ultimate super power is then work backwards to find the starting point you’re comfortable with.

I think I could make 5 Flight Heroic Abilities that all start and end at different levels of awesome, so creating a codified list of all the super powers would be a lot of work. Using custom Skills and good narrative description would actually be a lot easier.

What do you want from your super powers? is probably the best question to ask. And then what do your players need to be able to engage with the character?

Interested? Definitely! Available? No ?

3 minutes ago, Richardbuxton said:

Heroic Abilities do provide a method of progression for super powers though. Most RPG’s are built on the core principle that a character will get more powerful over time. Talents can do exactly the same thing, Skills have a certain progression too. But if you’re creating a superhero character then you need some idea of how you want them to progress.

Heroic Abilities provide a simple structure that you can then use to build a progression path for the character. You decide what the ultimate super power is then work backwards to find the starting point you’re comfortable with.

I think I could make 5 Flight Heroic Abilities that all start and end at different levels of awesome, so creating a codified list of all the super powers would be a lot of work. Using custom Skills and good narrative description would actually be a lot easier.

What do you want from your super powers? is probably the best question to ask. And then what do your players need to be able to engage with the character?

I can definitely see using creating talents for super powers or using the Heroic Abilities progression method. It's too bad you can't join. If your schedule opens up shoot me a line.

10 minutes ago, Simon Retold said:

I'm interested. Let me know when you are going to start.

We can start this week if you want. Know anyone else interested? I'm thinking 3 to 4 people. It'd be best if they're all familiar with the core rules since we'll probably be cooking up a lot of this stuff on the fly.