- Location
- California
Well, I am glad to read that I was wrong. The quest is a blast, so more years is good.
Lex Sedet In Vertice: A Supervillain in the DCU CK2 quest
- Thread starter King crimson
- Start date
- Superhero
This is a good point. I do the things I do for as I said earlier, becoming able to do more work faster at a set schedule. The thing is that people just want to bump characters as they go along, or at least that's how I feel. And while we're on the topic
@Simon_Jester I get that you may think I'm just trying to go for uber strong waifu, but no. I let the first few times slip past, but it's gone on long enough. I aided in boosting Mari because I found the idea of our secret weapon not being a orbital death laser, or a army of death robots, but what appears to be a normal human woman. It also was to see what the effects of the Tantu totem after having a small host. Even if it only raises her martial by one or two points compared to what it could've raised a weaker version, that's still leaves her beyond the 35 martial cap, rather then letting her max via the totem and sticking at 35. And though I hate to sound like a broken record, but while we're on the topic
@King crimson regarding your fears about portraying Vixen as a lot of us have made her out, don't worry. It's all in good fun, and I don't think any of us-(Looks at Sena) don't think most of us worship the ground she walks on. Write her as you will, the only way I see anyone being angry is if she gets one shot by a mook with a gun, but who knows, maybe the mook rolls 5 100s in a row.
You do realise that no one is arguing to lift that restriction?
And you're also arguing a worst possible scenario where people intentionally push characters to be great at things they shouldn't be which no one has done
Everyone here is sensible enough to recognise that we're better off hiring new heroes than trying to make our current ones good at things they aren't good at
- Location
- Fifth Dimension
That...is fairly nonsensical. Like this is DC where people go from regular joes to gods in a single day/accident. Where people can learn 127 Martial arts in a decade. Where a normal woman can become a super deadly killer that can take out monsters and metahumans in a decade or so.
Where 12 and 14 year olds can take out trained superhumans....just by training.
Like the various examples of people like...Joker, Batman, Cassandra Cain, Lady Shiva, Bronze Tiger, Nightwing, Red Robin, Damien Wayne, Richard Dragon, Connor Hawke, Rose Wilson, Slade Wilson, etc. all getting inhumanly strong in a relatively short time of training makes this kinda not make sense.
The we get to the Dr. Manhattans, the Flashes, Green Lanterns, Vixen herself, and others who gain power within minutes that elevate them crazy high....like this is part of DC's Universe.
It really isn't. This is a basic part of making rules.
Or...and read closely because this is a rare and philosophical thought that is so mindblowing that I fear for everyone's safety who may read it, but maybe...just maybe...I'm speaking for myself.
Wow. I know. Monumental and life changing stuff there.
1. I wasn't aware that Lex had magic, we had Raven, Ivo was alive, we had an awesomely intelligent two headed lion, etc.
In other words, I can't even get a plan to pass. How does this equal more influence than the QM. The one who allows this in the first place and gives exp? Think about it.
2. That might make sense (creating stuff without being rewarded) if the system didn't already exist. It's not like there was nothing in place, I created stuff, and then demanded rewards and exp. It was already put in place by the QM that creating stuff gets exp. So this statement of yours makes no sense.
- Location
- Germany
I massively disagree. Most DC heroes get an initial, hard boost, at least from what I have read. I am primarily a Batman fan, so you might have other sources. But I have not yet seen the people getting a gradual power boost and it sticking. Status Quo, while not God, is certainly an archangel in comic books.
Also, Dr Manhattan is an outside context problem. He was written for Vertigo. And besides - he, too, only got an initial powerboost. Yes, he learnt how to use it better. But he did not become more powerful by a magnitude *after* he had figured out. (Admittedly, he is rather god-like in power.)
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
I still want my orbital death laser though.
Well OK, more seriously. I actually get it, and in itself it didn't weird me out that much. Plus it only involved boosting her Martial by about +10 anyway which is BIG but not outside of the realm of plausible for "this is the gap between someone who is merely strong and someone who has seriousface optimized their abilities."
What surprises me is that Team Sketch didn't go for a similar boost on Dr. Isley next. She's a metahuman and a lot closer to the cap, and it's been strongly implied that she, too, could increase her powers with practice. Most of the arguments that apply to Red Girl also apply to Green Girl.
The 'waifu' thing was admittedly a bit cheap and I apologize; it mainly came from the idea that there are only like 1-3 actually interesting characters in the game who are even worth upgrading, so if you can't be specifically spending all your points on one of them you're just wasting your time accumulating points.
Which, given in reality we have 25 or more hero units and use them all every turn, is, um. Not feeling it myself.
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- Location
- California
If you want to talk point investment, I look at the characters and think to myself: who has a probability of betraying Lex Luthor and changing all of our invested XP against us?
Cassandra, Mercy, Lex, Pamela, and Marie are probably the ones who wouldn't betray Lex if they learned the extent of his projects. Maybe Roxanne, as she only cares about thrills.
The rest have trigger points or significant loyalty issues that make putting points in them a bit risky.
Cassandra, Mercy, Lex, Pamela, and Marie are probably the ones who wouldn't betray Lex if they learned the extent of his projects. Maybe Roxanne, as she only cares about thrills.
The rest have trigger points or significant loyalty issues that make putting points in them a bit risky.
- Location
- Fifth Dimension
Well...
1. Wally West went from sound speed to light speed to speedforce wtf ftl speed. Over time. When going from Kid Flash to Flash.
2. Superman went from like...building ish level without flight to moon level with ftl speed
3. Killer Croc went from moderately strong human with a skin condition to a lizard-like human crocodile with multi-ton strong (arguably 5-10).
4. Harley Quinn got stronger from Ivy's serum
5. Donna Troy went from mid-tier mini-brick to about equal to Wonder Woman herself.
Manhattan went from Silver Surfer-light to stomping everyone. He definitely got stronger recently.
While I mostly agree with you I feel the need to correct you on the idea that Doctor Manhattan started as "Silver Surfer-light"
He was literally made to be a god
- Location
- Fifth Dimension
Maybe, but his original feats were underwhelming. Most people put him around Surfer level. Then he proved recently that nah, he's messing with universes and lives up to the hype.
- Location
- Germany
Okay, most of these are fair points. But:
Wally West and Donna Troy were getting stronger over a longer period of time then, say, 3 months.
Killer Croc got an entire revamp. I doubt this is going to happen in this quest - it would break continuity. But this is just my personal assumption.
Harley Quinn is an extrinsic factor. It would be like Mari getting 35 martial because we researched the Red with an ultracritical.
Superman... you're absolutely right. Superman I cannot argue with.
- Location
- Germany
That's because he was a clockworker. Manhattan's weakness were never his powers - gorram it, he pulls himself together out of *atoms*. In his first outing. And he does it *again*. People who put Manhattan at Silver Surfer level massively underestimate him. Silver Surfer with the full Power Cosmic? Eh. I'd still bet on big Blue.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
(1) and (5) involve child or adolescent metahumans learning how to use their powers, which is something of a one-time boost. Children tend to make gains faster than adults. No one's gonna be surprised if Cassandra gets +5 Diplomacy out of a single action massively critted by her and Lex this turn, but having a single action that doesn't explicitly give her superpowers do the same thing over again when she's an adult with Diplomacy in the teens would probably surprise people.
(2) doesn't really involve Superman getting stronger in character, it's more like Silver Age Superman was always this strong, officially, whereas Golden Age Superman was not. Retconning, not growth.
(3) may be an example of 'retcon' power creep, or it may be explicitly a powerup over time. I'm not sure. It could even be an example of his powers maturing and stabilizing since I gather they're adult-onset.
(4) is a straightforward example of someone getting a dose of a super-soldier serum, which I fully agree is a good reason why in-character someone might get enhanced.
Dr. Manhattan in Watchmen was always a character limited by his motivations, not his powers. He can snap his fingers and create a jillion tons of lithium and rare earth elements if he thinks he wants to, but at another time he doesn't even bother to stop his friend's bullets from killing an innocent pregnant woman because he finds that he does not care (predestination paradox or something).
I honestly haven't read DC Comics lately, but I suspect that Dr. Manhattan becomes a lot more powerful and universe-altering when he feels like becoming such.
Drifting/Falling
- Location
- Maine
- Pronouns
- They/Them/Theirs
Drifting/Falling
Most people thought of her as a hare-brained adrenaline junkie who'd do anything for the thrill. And Roxanne would admit that was... mostly true. She liked to think of herself as a Smarter-Than-Average adrenaline junkie. For one thing, she was aware of the inherent paradox(though she wouldn't use those words) of it all. Every stupid, dangerous thing she did, she did because she knew it was mostly safe. Some folks might think of death as the next great adventure, but it wasn't one she planned on taking anytime soon. No matter what some of her friends thought.
She was going to get out of it, she was going to survive. Everyone else, they made plans and worried, whereas she learned. Some brainiac writer once said 'Genius is the ability to apply what you know'. By that standard, she was the genius of danger. The first thing you learn in stunt school is how to take a fall.
Just not from thirty thousand feet.
No one else trusted this thing. Everyone said it wasn't ready. Hell, even Carol thought it wasn't ready. There were back-ups upon back-ups, sure. There was a helpful little heads up display that was currently blinking like her life depended on it. Which it probably did. She'd broken the rules because she trusted the math.
Thirty seconds ago, she'd pushed it as high it would go. The eggheads always wrote down the limits lower than they actually were. She was pretty sure this was called the Empty Gas Tank Principal. The fuel light on your car goes on when you have fifteen percent left, usually. Eggheads generally aren't as generous, they have a five to ten percent margin of error on things. So if you push it just three or four percent harder than it's supposed to go, you're fine, right? So when everyone told her to slow down, not go so high, she ignored them. The craft should have been able to handle it. Even when it started shaking, she was pretty sure they were okay.
And normally, both she and the craft would have been fine. Except for the ice build-up, which got knocked loose when she decided to do a barrel roll to celebrate. Not an aileron roll, but an actual factual barrel roll, which meant climbing and descending rapidly as well as spinning. The problem with barrel rolls is that they put stress on the wings that you wouldn't normally see. Hell, that's how they were discovered in the first place, when some guy's wings warped.
The pressure on the wings, along with some stray ice getting jammed in the flaps meant she was in a pickle. Which, honestly, was pretty great if anyone asked her. There were back-ups on top of back-ups. Worst case scenario she ejects, right? This just means that she gets her name in the history book. Well, in the training documents, but same thing.
It was the wandering thoughts that alerted her to drop in cabin pressure. She was wearing her mask and everything, but even a flight suit only does so much. 'So that's what that blinking light means!', she thought.
It would have been glorious to limp the million dollar baby home, but the voices in her ear, and even the plane itself, were telling her it was about to come apart.
Normally if you're going to be parachuting from this height, you have to spend half an hour breathing more or less pure oxygen to prevent yourself from getting the bends. She didn't have that luxury. The good news was she had been flying for maybe half that. As she fell, the pressure was going to get more and more intense, and she was going to end up getting one hell of a painful high.
"Carol, I'm sorry, but your baby is shaking apart, the seals ruptured, and I'm starting to get dizzy. I'm going to have to walk back." Roxy said. She didn't wait for a response before starting the ejection procedure. And grabbing the spare parachute.
There were hundreds of little tricks a person like her used to get through the impossible. She knew them all. But right here, right now, all of her knowledge of how to make things safer was failing her. And that was great!
The canopy separated with a bang and woosh, and she couldn't help but giggle. That might be the altitude talking. The Woohoo! as the seat shot away was all her. Ejecting was always such fun. The seat was meant to contain a parachute, and also partly break away once the fuel was spent. In fact, in certain designs one caused the other. When the bottom half dropped away, that released the parachute.
Her fingers ached. Her eyes were screaming behind the visor. And when it was all burnt away, she was still seated. She was having the time of her life, if she was honest. She still had at least three ways of getting out of this. Roxy straightened her legs as best she could, trying to get the seat to fall away. Intellectually, she knew she didn't have to rush. She had about two and half minutes of free fall before she became a pancake. Less if she didn't get into a better position. So, maybe a minute and a half seated like this.
No pressure.
She laughed into the oxygen mask. Already her vision was starting to narrow. That'd clear up as she fell though.
After fifteen seconds she gave up and detached herself from the seat. It took another ten to strap on the back-up. But at least she was able to slow her fall with positioning.
When she was a kid, there was a stunt she always wanted to recreate. It was from this show about a stuntman who saved people. A real hero, he did the dangerous things so no one else had to. The stunt involved an unconscious person being thrown out of a plane and someone diving after them to put a chute on them and pop it for them. It was doable. It was scary as hell.
Right now, she wished he was there to help. One emergency measure failed, and she was feeling the effects of the altitude. That meant she was at risk of misjudging things. Like how much time she had left before she hit the ground. Or how fast she was going. If she went too fast, she was going to rip the chute. It wasn't meant for the stresses that she'd put on it if she pulled it at the last moment.
But if she did hit the ground at a hundred and twenty miles per hour, hell, every second was going to be a blast.
She rotated her body into the proper position, and spread herself out as much as possible to create drag. It was the only way she was going to get through this. No one was going to fly up and save her. There'd be no aliens, no magic spells. It was just her and gravity.
And she knew she was going to win.
She pulled the rip cord.
The world fell away.
Roxy laughed.
She'd beaten Death one more time. She'd beaten her fears. Because she was smarter than anyone gave her credit for. Because she knew how to apply what she knew.
She was still laughing when they found her. But that wasn't a good reason to kiss the rescue party.
Most people thought of her as a hare-brained adrenaline junkie who'd do anything for the thrill. And Roxanne would admit that was... mostly true. She liked to think of herself as a Smarter-Than-Average adrenaline junkie. For one thing, she was aware of the inherent paradox(though she wouldn't use those words) of it all. Every stupid, dangerous thing she did, she did because she knew it was mostly safe. Some folks might think of death as the next great adventure, but it wasn't one she planned on taking anytime soon. No matter what some of her friends thought.
She was going to get out of it, she was going to survive. Everyone else, they made plans and worried, whereas she learned. Some brainiac writer once said 'Genius is the ability to apply what you know'. By that standard, she was the genius of danger. The first thing you learn in stunt school is how to take a fall.
Just not from thirty thousand feet.
No one else trusted this thing. Everyone said it wasn't ready. Hell, even Carol thought it wasn't ready. There were back-ups upon back-ups, sure. There was a helpful little heads up display that was currently blinking like her life depended on it. Which it probably did. She'd broken the rules because she trusted the math.
Thirty seconds ago, she'd pushed it as high it would go. The eggheads always wrote down the limits lower than they actually were. She was pretty sure this was called the Empty Gas Tank Principal. The fuel light on your car goes on when you have fifteen percent left, usually. Eggheads generally aren't as generous, they have a five to ten percent margin of error on things. So if you push it just three or four percent harder than it's supposed to go, you're fine, right? So when everyone told her to slow down, not go so high, she ignored them. The craft should have been able to handle it. Even when it started shaking, she was pretty sure they were okay.
And normally, both she and the craft would have been fine. Except for the ice build-up, which got knocked loose when she decided to do a barrel roll to celebrate. Not an aileron roll, but an actual factual barrel roll, which meant climbing and descending rapidly as well as spinning. The problem with barrel rolls is that they put stress on the wings that you wouldn't normally see. Hell, that's how they were discovered in the first place, when some guy's wings warped.
The pressure on the wings, along with some stray ice getting jammed in the flaps meant she was in a pickle. Which, honestly, was pretty great if anyone asked her. There were back-ups on top of back-ups. Worst case scenario she ejects, right? This just means that she gets her name in the history book. Well, in the training documents, but same thing.
It was the wandering thoughts that alerted her to drop in cabin pressure. She was wearing her mask and everything, but even a flight suit only does so much. 'So that's what that blinking light means!', she thought.
It would have been glorious to limp the million dollar baby home, but the voices in her ear, and even the plane itself, were telling her it was about to come apart.
Normally if you're going to be parachuting from this height, you have to spend half an hour breathing more or less pure oxygen to prevent yourself from getting the bends. She didn't have that luxury. The good news was she had been flying for maybe half that. As she fell, the pressure was going to get more and more intense, and she was going to end up getting one hell of a painful high.
"Carol, I'm sorry, but your baby is shaking apart, the seals ruptured, and I'm starting to get dizzy. I'm going to have to walk back." Roxy said. She didn't wait for a response before starting the ejection procedure. And grabbing the spare parachute.
There were hundreds of little tricks a person like her used to get through the impossible. She knew them all. But right here, right now, all of her knowledge of how to make things safer was failing her. And that was great!
The canopy separated with a bang and woosh, and she couldn't help but giggle. That might be the altitude talking. The Woohoo! as the seat shot away was all her. Ejecting was always such fun. The seat was meant to contain a parachute, and also partly break away once the fuel was spent. In fact, in certain designs one caused the other. When the bottom half dropped away, that released the parachute.
Her fingers ached. Her eyes were screaming behind the visor. And when it was all burnt away, she was still seated. She was having the time of her life, if she was honest. She still had at least three ways of getting out of this. Roxy straightened her legs as best she could, trying to get the seat to fall away. Intellectually, she knew she didn't have to rush. She had about two and half minutes of free fall before she became a pancake. Less if she didn't get into a better position. So, maybe a minute and a half seated like this.
No pressure.
She laughed into the oxygen mask. Already her vision was starting to narrow. That'd clear up as she fell though.
After fifteen seconds she gave up and detached herself from the seat. It took another ten to strap on the back-up. But at least she was able to slow her fall with positioning.
When she was a kid, there was a stunt she always wanted to recreate. It was from this show about a stuntman who saved people. A real hero, he did the dangerous things so no one else had to. The stunt involved an unconscious person being thrown out of a plane and someone diving after them to put a chute on them and pop it for them. It was doable. It was scary as hell.
Right now, she wished he was there to help. One emergency measure failed, and she was feeling the effects of the altitude. That meant she was at risk of misjudging things. Like how much time she had left before she hit the ground. Or how fast she was going. If she went too fast, she was going to rip the chute. It wasn't meant for the stresses that she'd put on it if she pulled it at the last moment.
But if she did hit the ground at a hundred and twenty miles per hour, hell, every second was going to be a blast.
She rotated her body into the proper position, and spread herself out as much as possible to create drag. It was the only way she was going to get through this. No one was going to fly up and save her. There'd be no aliens, no magic spells. It was just her and gravity.
And she knew she was going to win.
She pulled the rip cord.
The world fell away.
Roxy laughed.
She'd beaten Death one more time. She'd beaten her fears. Because she was smarter than anyone gave her credit for. Because she knew how to apply what she knew.
She was still laughing when they found her. But that wasn't a good reason to kiss the rescue party.
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Torgamous
Aspiring Gynoid
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Marie will be a problem if she somehow learns that we let Ivo die. Might become an issue if the dead rise or otherwise become capable of unsolicited communication.
Rebecca was fine sticking a ward on a captive's internal organs to see what happens, and unlike Karl she doesn't have a project that we need to work on to secure her loyalty, so I'd add her to the list. Meena is outright enthusiastic about our shadier stuff and has deserved a Trusted Lieutenant position since day one. Carl seems okay, too, though his daughter could become a point of conflict if she ends up working with the wrong people.
Rose will qualify as soon as we get the ancestral memory issue handled, especially if we encourage her mentor relationship with Mercy.
Katherine might, too. She was cool with launching a private invasion of a Latin American nation for us, so it looks like we got to her before she developed a case of batmorality. I wouldn't commit to trusting her without talking to Pamela about it, but she might not be as heroic as assumed.
- Location
- Fifth Dimension
1 and 5 also happened when they were adults. Adult Wally had to work hard to get to light speed. Then he mastered the speed force went way beyond.
I mean...he explicitly says he can't stop every nuke from the US and Russia if they're launched. That's a pretty big limitation when we're talking DC.
- Location
- Singapore
*cough* Roxy
Torgamous
Aspiring Gynoid
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Her too.
Iirc there was no guarantee that we could have saved Ivo, if it had just been his organs then we have our Intergang captives to transplant from but he had just been at the centre of an antimatter explosion on top of everything else he had going wrong
I would agree that Rebecca deserves our trust, especially since she made deals with demons in the past so there's very little Lex could do to shock her
Karl is pretty reasonable as well as being pretty used to horrible shit so as long as we let him work on his project every now and then I think we can trust him, especially if we start looking into Kobra for him
I would also argue that Carl is pretty trustworthy considering that he doesn't have much of an ego, working with LexCorp presents plenty of challenges for him and you don't last long in his line of work without being able to keep a secret or by having too many scruples
It would also help to encourage her relationship with Cassandra
Katherine strikes me as the type of person that's willing to do less than moral stuff to deal with bad people but would have serious issues with us doing anything to innocent people
So long as we have her doing run of the mill security or going after groups like Intergang or Kobra I don't see us having any trouble with her
Torgamous
Aspiring Gynoid
- Pronouns
- She/Her
His organ failure and being rushed to the hospital caused the explosion. He was not on site when it happened. His death is entirely our decision.
Karl might not be showing signs of overt disloyalty, but he is increasingly unstable and there's no guarantee that perfecting his formula will actually help. I don't think we have to worry about deliberate betrayal, but he could end up trying to commit suicide by Kryptonian or something.
I don't disagree in general, but if you mean having her be Cassandra's Mercy, I figure there's a reason we only have an option to do that with Jinx, likely to do with them being childhood friends instead of just employee and prospective employer.
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Really? Huh, I must've misremembered
While I do think that once Karl finishes his serum he's at risk of becoming suicidal I'm fairly confident that so long as we make sure he gets therapy from a better therapist while giving him something else to focus on, like revenge against Kobra, he'll eventually get better
Plus even if he does commit suicide there's no real reason he would do it via Superman
Oh I agree, though I think getting Jinx to that stage will be a lot of work
King crimson
Confusion Will Be My Epitaph
- Location
- Los Angeles
So I've been reading comments and listening to feedback. I haven't found a solution I like yet (the one I considered the longest increasing the cap to 5000 per turn per person was ultimately discounted for being in effective since it wouldn't actually curb how much stats get raised). The one thing I do kind of want to do is drop the threshold of exp stat boosting down to either 25 or 29 on everyone who is not Lex Luthor. That is the one change that, unless there is a large outcry against it, I will be implementing soon (in a day or so). There might be other measures implemented but if there are I will not be implementing them for at least a week and will probably be gathering player feedback. I'll continue to request that people not donate exp to stats until the changed max donation cap is either implemented or rejected but after that feel free to spend as much as you want on it.
I'd appreciate feedback on the proposed change (lowering the cap of exp spending to 25 or 29) before I make that change.
I appreciate people's contributions to this discussion even if I don't think there has been a perfect solution. I'll be closing the vote at 10 and hopefully updating sometime on Thursday (I also plan to get the Gemworld update up then).
On top of that most of the Characters who you've listed as getting inhumanely strong in a short amount of time kind of don't. Joker's not a super-skilled combatant most of the time (he relies on weapons and gadgets to make up for his lack of martial skill to some extent), Batman trained for around a decade, Cassandra was from birth designed to be made into the ultimate assassin meaning she has at least a decade or more of training and if we count David Cain's prototype attempts we can argue that the refining of Cassandra's skills in combat has been going on since before she was born. Lady Shiva trained since a young age in martial arts giving decades of her life to the study of the skill. Bronze Tiger has been training formally in martial arts since age 13, Richard Dragon spent six years training formally plus an undisclosed amount of time as a thief to get as good as he is, Damien Wayne was trained from birth by some of the world's greatest martial artists, Connor Hawke trained for five years at a monastery, Deathstroke was a decorated military man before getting injected with a superserum that had been worked on for a while. Green Lanterns also rely on a millennia old device that the Guardian of the Universe spent centuries designing, have a library of things to fall back on and get some training on Oa (I imagine three months worth at least) so saying they got their power in an instant is disingenuous since it's like saying someone put into a mech-suit that someone else designed for them to use over the span of a century or so gained power "instantly" the moment they got in and learned how to use it.
The characters who got skilled fast are way outnumbered by the people who spent years if not decades getting as good as they did. So no DC is not a setting in which people get outrageously strong super-fast without any restriction and rapid strength gain is the exception not the rule.
Some of what you are saying is relevant but the examples you picked actually undermined your statement.
I'd appreciate feedback on the proposed change (lowering the cap of exp spending to 25 or 29) before I make that change.
I appreciate people's contributions to this discussion even if I don't think there has been a perfect solution. I'll be closing the vote at 10 and hopefully updating sometime on Thursday (I also plan to get the Gemworld update up then).
This is kind of true. Yes power drift is a thing but it is mostly the result of bad writing. If the story is well written there is next to nothing that say Vixen could do to become stronger than the Anti-Monitor in the span of three months. Granted Anti-Monitor has his stats in the 60+ range and has a shit ton of traits to make him even stronger but there is a need to restrict power growth. Characters grow insanely strong compared to normal humans out of universe when in universe they still hit hard limits.
On top of that most of the Characters who you've listed as getting inhumanely strong in a short amount of time kind of don't. Joker's not a super-skilled combatant most of the time (he relies on weapons and gadgets to make up for his lack of martial skill to some extent), Batman trained for around a decade, Cassandra was from birth designed to be made into the ultimate assassin meaning she has at least a decade or more of training and if we count David Cain's prototype attempts we can argue that the refining of Cassandra's skills in combat has been going on since before she was born. Lady Shiva trained since a young age in martial arts giving decades of her life to the study of the skill. Bronze Tiger has been training formally in martial arts since age 13, Richard Dragon spent six years training formally plus an undisclosed amount of time as a thief to get as good as he is, Damien Wayne was trained from birth by some of the world's greatest martial artists, Connor Hawke trained for five years at a monastery, Deathstroke was a decorated military man before getting injected with a superserum that had been worked on for a while. Green Lanterns also rely on a millennia old device that the Guardian of the Universe spent centuries designing, have a library of things to fall back on and get some training on Oa (I imagine three months worth at least) so saying they got their power in an instant is disingenuous since it's like saying someone put into a mech-suit that someone else designed for them to use over the span of a century or so gained power "instantly" the moment they got in and learned how to use it.
The characters who got skilled fast are way outnumbered by the people who spent years if not decades getting as good as they did. So no DC is not a setting in which people get outrageously strong super-fast without any restriction and rapid strength gain is the exception not the rule.
Some of what you are saying is relevant but the examples you picked actually undermined your statement.
I enjoyed this piece. It's a good character exploration that stays true to the character while exploring a relatively unseen side of them. I think it's fantastic. I don't have a more in depth critique or analysis since I'm pretty busy right now but suffice to say this is a great piece that easily earns 500 exp.
I honestly think this quest will last three years at minimum assuming things keep going the way they are.
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- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Lowering the cap to 29 seems reasonable, though there might be exceptions for metahumans in certain areas.
It occurs to me, though, that if a rate of expenditure cap of 1000 XP per character per month per person is too restrictive, and a cap of 5000 XP per is not restrictive enough, that you might be able to resolve the situation by picking a number in between. Say, 2000 or 2500 or 3000 XP per character per month per person.
I am not opposed, but do not insist on it.
Well... except for freak accidents and experimental techniques that, in-story, we'd have to spend action points on.
It's quite plausible that Roxy would gain several points of Martial in a month or two if we gave her the plant integration formula, which we could... if we wanted to spare an action on it. Which ties into someone's point that we don't invest in enhancement very often.
I think that lowering the stat cap of what can be bought to 25-29 is probably the closest thing to a happy medium we're going to get
That way the people that use spending XP on character stats as motivation for getting work done still have something to work towards and the people that feel like it's weird to suddenly have characters be Justice League tier at a thing or who worry about having characters get stats they're not good with get absurdly boosted don't have to worry as much
Though I will say that ironically that would make boosting any character's stats to the cap easier than it currently is, the exact thing that started this whole debate
It also creates a fair bit of low hanging fruit, for example setting a new limit at 29 puts Meena, Felicity and Rose only 4000, 7000 and 9000 from capping out Learning, Stewardship and Martial respectively
Though perhaps an advantage of our enhancements could be increasing the cap on what can be bought? Rose being a super soldier could have her Martial increased to 35 and her Intrigue maybe a little lower and someone with the language spell could get the same for Diplomacy and Intrigue?
Anyway, those are just my thoughts @King crimson
That way the people that use spending XP on character stats as motivation for getting work done still have something to work towards and the people that feel like it's weird to suddenly have characters be Justice League tier at a thing or who worry about having characters get stats they're not good with get absurdly boosted don't have to worry as much
Though I will say that ironically that would make boosting any character's stats to the cap easier than it currently is, the exact thing that started this whole debate
It also creates a fair bit of low hanging fruit, for example setting a new limit at 29 puts Meena, Felicity and Rose only 4000, 7000 and 9000 from capping out Learning, Stewardship and Martial respectively
Though perhaps an advantage of our enhancements could be increasing the cap on what can be bought? Rose being a super soldier could have her Martial increased to 35 and her Intrigue maybe a little lower and someone with the language spell could get the same for Diplomacy and Intrigue?
Anyway, those are just my thoughts @King crimson
- Location
- Fifth Dimension
Well you may have misread it. I said that some of these people take decades (apparently I was wrong and it was much less) to become superhuman. Just through training. So that list pretty much proves my point. If it only takes 5 years to graduate to superhuman fighter or do impossible things like learn and master 100 martial arts, or when a child can be trained to perfectly read and copy movements and essentially have a superpower...vastly improving your ability in 3 months is not out of the question. Now to address those who fit.
In an instant Joker went from a nobody to...stalemating Batman and beating Cassandra Cain. He has skill and shows it pretty consistently. He's even gotten the better of Deathstroke before.
Lady Shiva was mediocre/decently good. Then David Cain did his stuff, and in a short amount of time she became superhumanly good. Very similar to what's happening in this discussion.
Cassandra Cain yoyo'd her martial ability by first losing body reading and then regaining it. Both in a short amount of time.
And the robins...well if you look at the Batman Year One's and stuff like that...the timeline becomes really short for random children and acrobats to transform into martial monsters.
My main point was that impossible things happen in DC all the time. And getting better at fighting quickly should not be immersion breaking when these superhuman martial artists exist. But there also do exist examples of people getting much stronger in almost no time at all.
Eh, I'm against it. But in some ways, Lex having a higher cap does make sense.