Is Axe Cop a Low Level Concept?

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Sat Apr 20, 2013 11:18 pm

At his core, Axe Cop is just a cop with a Perfect Axe. Yet he is supposed to hold his own with on a team with Vampire Wizard Ninjas from the Moon. In fact, he's the team leader. Heck, Uni-man's horn gives him Wish at will. That's pretty powerful, especially when he wishes for more horns and can use them all as a single action.

Sure, Axe cop has a database of every badguy, including their location (which is pretty useful) and a monster truck and his flying fire-breathing T-Rex with miniguns for arms probably counts as a special mount, but it still isn't as powerful as a few nineth level spells.

Saxony · Post by **Saxony** » Sat Apr 20, 2013 11:29 pm

You have got to fully explain just what "axe cop" is before you ask questions like that.

Unless you just want a retread of the general discussion about mundane action heros.

Rawbeard · Post by **Rawbeard** » Sat Apr 20, 2013 11:32 pm

He's like Batman in the Justice League. If you think about it, it makes no sense. Axe Cop has the excuse that he never tried in the first place, so... yeah. what ever. But otherwise low level with gear up the arse.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Sat Apr 20, 2013 11:36 pm

Saxony wrote:You have got to fully explain just what "axe cop" is before you ask questions like that.

Unless you just want a retread of the general discussion about mundane action heros.

Google is a thing that exists.

http://axecop.com/

Axe Cop. He's a cop with an axe. He decapitates bad guys all day and all night. He once turned time traveling Abraham Lincoln: Explosion God into a woman so that he could marry her.

Whatever · Post by **Whatever** » Sat Apr 20, 2013 11:40 pm

Axe Cop is not a level-based game, and its action-resolution system is not intended to simulate anything close to reality. So Axe Cop works fine as a character, even (or especially) as the protagonist.

Saxony · Post by **Saxony** » Sat Apr 20, 2013 11:40 pm

Axe Cop. He's a cop with an axe.

If that's all it is, then, yes. Low level in DnD 3.5 terms.

But that should have been obvious to you.

Is there some reason you think Axe Cop might not be low level?

Wrathzog · Post by **Wrathzog** » Sat Apr 20, 2013 11:40 pm

http://axecop.com/index.php/acguest/read/AC_MC2/
http://drmcninja.com/archives/comic/19p4/

Axe Cop is literally written by a child (and is pretty awesome).
As such, Axe Cop is the Highest concept.

Artless · Post by **Artless** » Sat Apr 20, 2013 11:47 pm

Axe cop's capabilities are moved up and down depending on the current situation. If it makes dramatic sense for him to struggle in a given scenario, he will, but in total his ability to handle a situation and achieve the most positive possible result is never in question.

His primary challenge in adventures is not if he will solve a problem, but when and how. As such, I'm not entirely sure his brand of free-associative power scaling is payable at all, let alone being low level.

Would be fine for Munchausen, though, I'd wager.

Mistborn · Post by **Mistborn** » Sun Apr 21, 2013 12:32 am

Artless wrote:Would be fine for Munchausen, though, I'd wager.

Nice to see at least someone learned something for all of the previous threads like this.

So given that hyzmarca can't actually be suggesting Axe Cop is a valid concept in a game other than Munchausen (In fact I refuse to believe otherwise for reasons of mental health and public safety) It's clear that this thread is in fact a cunning ruse and I shall congratulate hyzmarca for being a cunning ruseman. I almost had a rage and started telling people how frozen fast they are.

In deference to the people who don't follow the periodic "high level mundane" flame wars I'll explain what's up.

During these threads sometimes people say that is fine to have a "mundane" character at high levels because, "who needs planeshift just let him cross planar boundaries by literally punching through them", or "who cares that he can't fly he can just ascend to the cloud castle by pulling himself up by his own shoelaces". The response from people who still posses logic and dignity was that that isn't a high level mundane character leveling up his concept, it was swapping out his concept for "is Baron Munchausen". You can't really have Baron Munchausen (or Axe Cop) outside Munchausen in any other game because they live in worlds where casualty and cause and effect do not apply thus you can "level from Conan to Axe Cop" any more than you can "level from Conan to Bugs Bunny".

Any questions?

darkmaster · Post by **darkmaster** » Sun Apr 21, 2013 12:58 am

Um, yes, what exactly is wrong with having a fighter level up to epic level and become something akin to golden age superman who actually jumped so far it was indistinguishable from flying.

Seriously, that's why superman can fly now, he used to actually leap tall buildings and, in fact, entire downtown areas in a single bound.

Mistborn · Post by **Mistborn** » Sun Apr 21, 2013 1:08 am

darkmaster wrote:Um, yes, what exactly is wrong with having a fighter level up to epic level and become something akin to golden age superman who actually jumped so far it was indistinguishable from flying.

Fighters are ordinary humans who do not have superpowers, that's what's wrong with it.

Wrathzog · Post by **Wrathzog** » Sun Apr 21, 2013 1:19 am

because it is completely incomprehensible that a man can do awesome things through clean living, eating right, and training right. In a world with Angels, Devils, Dinosaurs, Vampires, etc.

Mistborn · Post by **Mistborn** » Sun Apr 21, 2013 1:22 am

Wrathzog wrote:because it is completely incomprehensible that a man can do awesome things through clean living, eating right, and training right. In a world with Angels, Devils, Dinosaurs, Vampires, etc.

Yes, at least while still being "mundane".

Foxwarrior · Post by **Foxwarrior** » Sun Apr 21, 2013 1:29 am

Wrathzog wrote:because it is completely incomprehensible that a man can do awesome things through clean living, eating right, and training right. In a world with Angels, Devils, Dinosaurs, Vampires, etc.

The real world contains beings that can accelerate to faster than the speed of sound and land safely again, living off only toxic, volatile fluids, but even so I doubt that you can jump over your house.

darkmaster · Post by **darkmaster** » Sun Apr 21, 2013 1:35 am

I'm not saying they should be mundane, I'm saying the exact opposite. They should totally be fantastical. Just not really magic. I'd totally be fine with a guy actually punching reality so hard that it breaks a hole in the universe, also a thing a version of superman did, or being able to run so fast that they can essentially go anywhere in the world instantly.

These are mechanically indistinguishable from things magicians can do, but the flavor is honestly more important to me in this case.

It makes me think of M&M, yeah more super hero stuff but bear with me here. In M&M there aren't classes as I'm sure most people on the den know. The game is all about packets of abilities that can be given any descriptors you want a rank 10 blast could be shooting lightning from your ass, or it could be throwing a knife so hard it breaks the sound barrier, or punching and making a pressure blast with the wind coming off your hand. The point is you're hitting with approximately the same force as a tank gun but while any of them could be magic, or psychic, or whatever only one really has to be. The other two you could just be really strong or good at hitting things whatever.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Sun Apr 21, 2013 1:38 am

@Mistborn Well, not necessarily.

You could always go the Dragon Ball route, where there's no cap on what the body is capable of.

There's nothing intrinsically special about Krillin. Or Videl. Or any of the aliens in the series--they all do the same stuff, past a certain point.

Well, generally. Namekians regenerate.

So you could have an RPG where the fighters actually do get superpowers. Super-strength, super-speed, super-toughness. And this is just a thing that happens to people who spend their whole lives using their body as hard as they can.

As an 'in b4 2 anime lolol weeaboo', I present the Breche de Roland, the Three Great Strokes, Hercules...well, okay, Hercules is a demigod.

But "really big numbers" superpowers are in the source material. It's a failure of imagination to not include them.

Artless · Post by **Artless** » Sun Apr 21, 2013 1:41 am

For the love of fucking god do not do this again. There was a point this insipid, horseshit ”debate” over a non-issue needed to stop, and we are well past it.

Wrathzog · Post by **Wrathzog** » Sun Apr 21, 2013 1:50 am

-e-
Fuck it, I've had this dumb conversation before and Fuck it.

Also, the thread's broke.

Mistborn · Post by **Mistborn** » Sun Apr 21, 2013 1:52 am

Maxus wrote:You could always go the Dragon Ball route, where there's no cap on what the body is capable of.

There's nothing intrinsically special about Krillin. Or Videl. Or any of the aliens in the series--they all do the same stuff, past a certain point.

Wrong Dragon Ball has "magic", now how you access magic in Dragon Ball is by jogging, lifting weights, and learning martial arts but it's still "magic". Dragon Ball "magic" is eastern style "ki"/"enlightenment" which has been described as letting you shoot lasers since forever. This is incredibly obvious to anyone with a brain.

Artless wrote:For the love of fucking god do not do this again. There was a point this insipid, horseshit ”debate” over a non-issue needed to stop, and we are well past it.

Look closely if you want a picture of the future, imagine the same stupid arguments being raised and refuted-forever.

Foxwarrior · Post by **Foxwarrior** » Sun Apr 21, 2013 2:19 am

That is the most (and only) excellent use of broken quote tags I've ever seen, Whatever.

Good job.

darkmaster · Post by **darkmaster** » Sun Apr 21, 2013 2:22 am

Yeah, what's up with the quote tags on this forum, I've never seen that anywhere else. How does that happen?

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Sun Apr 21, 2013 5:06 am

From what I've read of Axe-Cop, I'm not even sure he counts as a "concept", and that rather makes discussions of "low-level" or not moot.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Apr 21, 2013 5:13 am

Axe Cop works in the Munchhausen game. Also in Toon. Or any other game where "mundanity" isn't an actual thing and "causality" is totally fucking optional. If there is any expectation that a character's available actions follow logically from their abilities in any way, then he'd be fucked. Uniman can fucking do anything, because he can just wish stuff up. But as long as they are playing in a nonsense universe written by a small child, that doesn't make him better than the other characters because everyone can "do anything" because nothing makes any sense.

-Username17

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Sun Apr 21, 2013 2:06 pm

Whatever wrote:Axe Cop is not a level-based game, and its action-resolution system is not intended to simulate anything close to reality.

Exactly. Axe Cop is exactly Magical Tea Party, and MTP doesn't have levels that mean anything.

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Sun Apr 21, 2013 5:16 pm

I think a better question would be "What level is Dr. McNinja?"