Disadvantage for having only 1 Powerset?

[Johnny Awesome]

I consider Wolverine to be the gold standard when it comes to combat in this game, especially when he is Solo.

He can effortlessly get:

Solo D10, Distinction D8, Enhanced Reflexes D8, Adamantium Claws D10, and Combat Master (either D10 or 2D8).

This puts him at 3D10 + 2D8 or 2D10 + 4D8 or (my favorite) 1D12 + 4D8 with Focus.

Everyone else in the game is less than that I think, unless they can use a situation specific SFX like Area Attack.

I consider a good dice pool to be 2D10 + 2D8 or 1D10 + 4D8.

It's true that 1-Power Set heroes are at a disadvantage here, as their 5th die is usually only available under restricted circumstances.

With that being said, is there a major difference between rolling 4 dice and 5 dice? I'm not sure as I haven't played the game enough, but my gut tells me that it's significant. Sure, you'll grow the Doom Pool more but you'll get more PP as well, and the extra effect die and reaction counter-attacks you will get will be pretty lethal.

Going from 5 to 6 dice is less significant, as is every die increase thereafter.

[figurefour]

It's true that 1-Power Set heroes are at a disadvantage here, as their 5th die is usually only available under restricted circumstances.

Well, Wolverine's "5th die" is only available under restricted circumstances. You know, when he's clawing people.

It's just that people expect Wolverine to be clawing people all the time.

With that being said, is there a major difference between rolling 4 dice and 5 dice?

I don't think it's big enough to make the game unfun for the person who's rolling 4 dice. Especially since how many dice they'll roll is always circumstantial.

That's why I think the "5 dice with 1 or 2 d10+" guideline is useful. That's what you need to be "the best there is at what you do", and it's important to understand what your character does and how well they do it when you're building a character.

[Lindharin]

Even if you are in the upper atmosphere that's a heck of a drop, and how do you narrate that? An attack from the doom pool?

I was thinking about this the other day, and my conclusion / self-revelation was that this is a prime example of how this game is different than most of the more simulation-based superhero games I've seen. In most traditional games, something like a fall from a high altitude has an objective mechanical representation, specifically it has a mechanical threat (damage rating, or whatever) that needs to range from doing nothing to killing a character, depending on how severe the condition (a 10' fall vs terminal velocity, or whatever). This is in-grained in me from my earliest days in D&D and reinforced by almost every game since.

But in MHRP, a fall (and many other environmental dangers) becomes a narrative threat, not a mechanical threat. Unless the watcher and the player agree that the character is going to die (for dramatic reasons or whatever), you should assume the character survives just like he would survive in a comic. You aren't rolling to see how much damage he takes from the fall itself; the fall is just a narrative threat to motivate an action (or reaction). You don't need an objective, consistent "damage rating" for a lethal fall like that, because the genre / game assumption is that it will never happen. Instead it is up to the player (with help from the rest of the table if appropriate) to come up with a solution that avoids the lethal impact. The question then becomes what crazy creative idea do you come up with to justify surviving, and just how well do you succeed; not if you succeed, but rather how well.

Say Captain America is thrown off the top of the Empire State Building by a bad guy. Narratively, he will not survive if he just falls and hits the ground like any normal guy, so that isn't going to happen. Maybe Cap angles himself to fall along the building and slow his descent, or lands on a balcony 2 floors down instead of falling the full distance, or he lands on his super-impact-absorbing shield which protects him from the impact of the fall (he actually did that in a 20-story fall in a West Coast Avengers once). Regardless of which narrative explanation for his survival you use, you assume he at least does it well enough to survive, and change the question to be "how much did you get hurt in the process?" That can be answered by a roll against the doom pool, or a villain's dice pool if there was some reason to use it instead. If Cap wins his roll against the doom pool, that means he succeeded so well he wasn't stressed by it, but if he fails then he takes some stress.

The interesting thing (to me) about that is the narrative justification for your survival should change from character to character. If the Thing gets thrown off the Empire State Building, he could just say "what a revoltin' development" and wait until he hits the ground, because he doesn't need any other justification to survive than his godlike durability. So if both Cap and Thing were thrown off in the same round by the same attack, they will have dramatically different narratives about how they survive the fall, but mechanically they both just make an action roll (or reaction, depending on how you set it up) to see how stressed they were as a result of their own solution to situation.

[figurefour]

Imagining the scene in Breakout where Sentry takes Carnage out into space and rips him in half. What if he did this to another player that could not stand the vacuum? Is this a complication, stress? Both?

I'd say this is an example of taking a character out. You couldn't narrate such an action until you inflict stress or a complication that's stepped up over a d12. Then you can throw the guy into space all you want.

UNLESS that person has space flight, in which case, being launched into orbit is a mild complication, or just a venue change.

I guess it amounts to a sort of "plot immunity". You're not allowed to just remove a character from a fight until you're allowed to remove them from a fight.

[dgh1973]

Agreed, it all comes down to an artful watcher/player. Will take some practice for everyone at the table, assuming they have a history with traditional mechanic replication games.

I think this applies to the topic at hand to. If a player has a single power set and no "multi-power" styled SFX added, they can still have a blast and create some cool narrative effects with sorcery, control or transmutation powers.

[EldritchFire]

To further what Lindharin said, many movies have the protagonist grabbing banners, window cleaner platforms, flagpoles, balconies, etc to slow their fall enough to not die. There is a narrative justification for practically anything!

-EF

[N01H3r3]

I consider Wolverine to be the gold standard when it comes to combat in this game, especially when he is Solo.

Well, he is the best there is at what he does.

As I've said before with regard to power sets, part of the matter depends on character concept. Some characters - like Wolverine - have two power sets that synch together well in particular circumstances. Other two-set characters may have sets that serve two different purposes, which gives them versatility (a wider conceptual range of powers) at the cost of focus (it's harder to justify dice from both pools if their concepts don't overlap).

[jaif]

Imagining the scene in Breakout where Sentry takes Carnage out into space and rips him in half. What if he did this to another player that could not stand the vacuum?

A mind-controlled Sentry announces that he's going to grab Daredevil and toss him into space. Daredevil reacts with reflexes and acrobatics and what-not to avoid this fate.

DD wins - he escapes, no harm done.
Sentry wins, d4-d12 - Sentry grabs DD, flies up, but DD twists and escapes (billy club to eye?) and falls to the ground, taking the effect die in stress.
Sentry wins, d12+ (stepped-up) - Sentry launches DD into space.

Is DD dead? Probably depends on your group.

[jaif]

This puts him at 3D10 + 2D8 or 2D10 + 4D8 or (my favorite) 1D12 + 4D8 with Focus.

<Cap fan here>

d10 team + d8 distinction + d8 reflexes + d12 durability + d10 combat master

This puts his reaction at d12+2d10+2d8.

</Cap>

-Jeff

[Shingen]

Even if you are in the upper atmosphere that's a heck of a drop, and how do you narrate that? An attack from the doom pool?

I was thinking about this the other day, and my conclusion / self-revelation was that this is a prime example of how this game is different than most of the more simulation-based superhero games I've seen. In most traditional games, something like a fall from a high altitude has an objective mechanical representation, specifically it has a mechanical threat (damage rating, or whatever) that needs to range from doing nothing to killing a character, depending on how severe the condition (a 10' fall vs terminal velocity, or whatever). This is in-grained in me from my earliest days in D&D and reinforced by almost every game since.

But in MHRP, a fall (and many other environmental dangers) becomes a narrative threat, not a mechanical threat. Unless the watcher and the player agree that the character is going to die (for dramatic reasons or whatever), you should assume the character survives just like he would survive in a comic. You aren't rolling to see how much damage he takes from the fall itself; the fall is just a narrative threat to motivate an action (or reaction). You don't need an objective, consistent "damage rating" for a lethal fall like that, because the genre / game assumption is that it will never happen. Instead it is up to the player (with help from the rest of the table if appropriate) to come up with a solution that avoids the lethal impact. The question then becomes what crazy creative idea do you come up with to justify surviving, and just how well do you succeed; not if you succeed, but rather how well.

+1, put very well.