was curious if any of you had played/are playing this D20 game.
my group has been playing it for a couple of months now. i, personally, cant stand it. it's the first game that my group has ever played that i generally will just sit out of and dink around on the computer or something while they play.
dont get me wrong... it seems like a solid game, and the character creation system is actually pretty cool. the problem that i have with it is that it seems to *make* you powergame.
first time we played, i made a character that could become etheral, ala Shadowcat, and was good with guns.
the rest of my group was a super strong, hulk type guy, and a martial artist with some super strength and insane regen.
the problem: my character did not fit, at all, into the way this game works (and hasnt in a diff campaign we started). For a character to be viable, they pretty much *have* to have the Armor ability (armor = damage reduction). At level one, the rest of my party had a damage reduction of between 40 and 50 per hit. I had 8 hp. Granted, i could shoot 16 times per round (which was also terribly annoying when it came down to rolling), but any villian we had to fight had to have huge armor or the rest of my party would tear through it in a hit or two with their 60+ dmg hits (not blaming the GM on that one).
"Okay", you say... "So its just not a combat character. Get over it and be a team player".
I did... and i pretty much had to stop using my characters abilities.
Example: one of our first big fights was against a giant mobile suit type thing. 100 foot tall war machine. Fight begins, rest of party goes to fighting it. I ask the GM quietly "I could just fly up there, go into the cockpit and shoot this guy in the head, couldnt I?". He got an apprehensive look and nodded 'yes'.
I didnt though, because that would suck for everyone.
Anyways, im just venting a little, and hoping some of you have a different take on the game. My complaint with it is that regardless of the tons and tons of powers that you have to choose from, you pretty much have to make a cookie cutter character for it to work, because the powers just dont stack well in a group setting.
Tell you friends if they want to play Superhero type games, bite the bullet and buy Champions 5.0 from www.herogames.com -- Champs is the most comprehensive and balanced superhero game I've seen. It requires a gm who can put limits on players, but if the GM follows the guidelines in the rulebook they should be mostly ok.
thanks much Tel. looks like it might be a winner (though i personally would very much like to be done with super heroes altogether)...
now if i can get the rest of my group off of that accursed Silver Age.
Slight update, for any of you that might care... group talked me into making a new character that wasnt so "weird".
Was supposed to be a low powered game, which is 80 points (char creation is similar to 2ed Skills and Powers). An hour alone with the book and my thoughts, and a little bitterness over still playing this game... i min/maxed like i never thought i could, and ended up with a normal lil crazy hacker kid (think Ed from Cowboy Beebop) who, using the Item of Power skill, had himself an 80 foot tall mech that couldve crushed the rest of them under its shiny heel.
Shoulda seen the look i got from the GM when i busted that out
im doin my best to point out the flaws in this game... but theyre all Hero fanboys, so they see nothin but the good stuffs.
allwell.... maybe ill make up another character with Universal Control over Life and Death (yeah.... thats in there too )
