Brad Thompson wrote:
> That's what I was thinking when I assumed he had a good reason. Since Mr.
> Lizard is defining his own classes anyway (and we know very little about his
> system), it would be hard to accurately guess what he has in mind.
>
My reasoning, and again I emphasize that I'm doing this without benefit
of the SRD or anything other than rumour sites to go on, was as follows:
a)Giving characters a whole pile of powers (enough to mimic a typical
new superhero) at first level didn't make much sense.
b)Characters in comics do gain 'new' powers over time, but not that
often;they tend to just get better at using their powers, learn some new
tricks, or increase their general ability. (i.e, the Thing could lift 5
tons when the FF was first published;now he can lift 75)
c)I wanted a system which could handle the wide range of 'power levels'
seen in comics and related media. Thus, the 'recommended' starting point
would be 10th level;this is targetted at being equal to the Teen Titans
or the X-Men as they were in their earliest issues. 'High Power' would
be 15th level -- this is Avengers/Fantastic Four territory. Beyond
that...shrug. I don't want to think about that dude from
Krypton...(anyone know how D20 Strength scales up? I've heard it's NOT
linear, which is good, but how non-linear is it?)
My thinking, thus, was that each level in a class would allow the
gaining of a small number of powers or feats, and that a lot of those
would be "improvements" which latched onto previously selected powers.
For example, you might gain the power "Offensive Blast" at first level,
then take "Heightened Damage" and "Extended Range" at second and third
level. I have ideas for a limitation/weakness system as well.
One reason I am leaning away from "First level supers pick 10 powers or
feats" is that a lot of characters don't fit comfortably in a single
class. Allowing 10 levels to start with allows characters to have, say,
six levels as a Skilled Hero and four levels as an Empowered Hero, to
model a character with some true 'super' powers (such as inhumanly high
(25+) Dexterity, or limited telepathy) mixed with considerable combat
training and non-power-related feats. (I consider designing a workable
class/level based Supers game to be an interesting challenge...it's not
a genre that lends itself to C/L gaming...)
