Champions design assistance, anyone?

[eyelessgame]

My Champions players have come up with some excellent concepts, but they're not skilled character designers. And we're hitting smack against two different barriers I don't know how to scale

Comments

[anonymous]

You sound like you already know how to solve your problem: tune down everyone slightly so they still have dominance in their area but won't be helpless. Body armor and taser for cyber mage, make the illusionist more limited (60 points of total invisible, uses up mental def + ego of observer in points - I.e. 5 agents but not 10 - their choice who they have to stealth against), and Druid gets natural animal defenses only with regen on shifting shape, so they're not invulnerable against guns (but can't wear armor and shift). Limits make the story interesting while preserving character.

Scissors, paper, rock - make sure they need to swap opponents from the obvious first choices, let the opposition make interesting but flawed choices - technological mind shields to deal with the mind ripper, that make hem traceable by cyber mage, redneck American ninja that sneer at technology and know how to skin a bear but can't believe someone can out stealth them, wanna be goddesses drawing on the video game cultists to give them speed, power and hive minds but can be server crashed once the heroes find out about the game...

Strongly theme the characters so the limits seem natural - the machine sees much, but not all, you can only divert the attention of so many minds, and natural animals have some perks, but gunfire is still rough.

[eyelessgame]

I kind of like this. The cyber mage already has a taser; I need to convince her to use body armor too. (She's also the hardest to buy while staying in the point range, specifically because she has the most backstory and most interesting "world-related" extra powers, like contacts and skills and perks, and they add up to being expensive, and that makes it really hard to afford all the other powers she wants. And then she finds herself helpless a lot because the other two are, comparatively, combat-monsters.)

I like the idea of "mental invisibility" that has to use up points against one's opponents' brains - having 2/3 of all opponents able to see invisible strains credulity. I'll see how he likes the idea - he's no munchkin and is perfectly happy to have the powers adjusted, he just wants to know what they actually are and how they work. :)

The illusionist needs to be toned down another way, too - he also has an ego drain, which is a one-two punch with the rest of his powers that ends up being overpowered (now opponents need see-invisible, mental defense, *and* power defense). I suspect I'll just declare that we dump or limit the ego drain; it's simply too effective a power. He'll just have to use his wizardry (fireballs, anyone?) to be effective against high-ego opponents.

And yes, I overpowered the poor druid's animal forms. I'll cut them down so they're not quite so overwhelming (multiform needs a rewrite badly anyway).

And the illusionist and druid need to have some points sucked away into skills, perks, and contacts.