Talk of plot immunity is a little misleading - every main character in a serial fiction has plot immunity on some level.
The point of discussion was the "normal in the world of supers" debate which directly relates to Fighters in D&D. The problem there is that the normal's plot immunity has to be really fucking obvious. But yeah, that Darkseid example was weak, Prak. Darkseid even specified he didn't want to kill Batman.
Prak wrote:Batman CLEARLY has superpowers
So, we are agreed that Fighters need obviously reality-defying powers to compete at high levels. Why are you bawwing at Frank pointing out normal people can't compete? Pick a position and stick to it. Either Batman is as Super as everyone else, or he isn't and he needs special treamtent to get by.
FrankTrollman wrote:And that is why Batman and Xander and Detective Donald Schanke, and any of those other characters are shitty RPG fodder. They are literally unplayable in an actual game, because the entire reason they are able to continue having adventures is that they are not subject to actual chance at any point.
They're only unplayable if combat is based on HERO/M&M/licensed RPG-style strict simulation of superheroic combat. Nobody really has a problem with Batman not ever getting hit full on by a thrown car and dying instantly, as long as there's a reasonable risk that Batman can be defeated by a thrown car. This doesn't even rupture people's idea of "badass normal" even though normal people do not deal well with combat that involves throwing cars.
It's not acceptable to write a "badass normal" concept for the JLA that is not At Least This Tough To Ride, but Batman is an excellent example of a non-"super" character who still has the tools to not die instantly when the JLA goes to play with Darkseid or Mongul or something, since he's got Stealthy and Dodgy and Exotic Martial Arts and Unlimited Resources and Sudden Revelation. He's not going to last the longest in a straight-up fight (that's the advantage of having bulletproof skin, etc.), but nobody seems to mind that he loses his fight to Darkseid by being casually backhanded instead of exploding into a shower of gore.
There ARE superhero team members who tag along despite having no business being on their teams (Green Arrow, for example), but Batman is not an example.
Sashi wrote:If you scale Batman up to be as strong as Superman when he's fighting Justice League baddies then he's superman level strong and is definitely NOT a "normal" anymore.
*a-hem*
Prak_Anima wrote:Yeah, but Batman as an example of the badass normal trope has so much traction that if the comics actually explicitly say he has powers, people will baw. Despite the fact that they've been implying he's super special for decades.
I mean, seriously, he has Superhuman intellect to begin with.
Then he uses this intellect to be a gadgeteer, put together crazy complicated schemes and gambits, that work nigh-flawlessly, and learn pretty much anything he needs to know in about a week.
He's also used this super-intellect to learn I don't know how many forms of martial arts, and several only tangentially related fields of science (biology, chemistry, physics, genetics, robotics, quantum physics, medicine, etc.)
But go further, and he's learned things that, in any other character, would be considered superpowers, like meditation and focus to the point that he can slow his heart to appear dead, he can do psychic battle with sorcerers and hypnotists, he's implanted hypnotic triggers in himself (meaning he's actually managed to HYPNOTIZE HIMSELF), Create a mental barrier against psychic influence and all kinds of other crazy crap.
His willpower is so strong, and he's so creative, that if he's ever given a power ring, he's pretty much the most dangerous being in existence.
Batman CLEARLY has superpowers. But they're not "Fly, laser beams, and super strength" powers.
emphasis added.
... and? The point is that Batman has superpowers that are wrapped in fluff that makes him a "normal". When the Nuke goes off it rolls its attack roll against Superman's toughness and possibly deals a little bit of damage, and Supes survives the blast by just standing there and being Superman. But because Batman was exactly as far from the nuke when it went off, so the choice is to just let Batman vaporize or he activates his "pull lead-lined refrigerator out of ass" power, the nuke rolls its attack vs the fridge (which is as tough as Superman) and survives.
The problem is that people literally want RPG Batman to have a "pull lead-lined fridge out of ass" power that lets him participate in Justice League battles rather than build a batman with superhuman toughness that is then described as him narrowly avoiding getting smeared across the desert by the nuke through pulling a lead-lined fridge out of his ass.
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Here are two Superman villains and Batman is able to handle both of them. I wasn't able to find a clip where Darkseid is able to land a hit on Batman, but it could be that they save Darkseid for Superman only, since he's supposed to be the strongest hero, otherwise they would have villain decay. Superman is also never able to completely defeat Darkseid in any particular encounter, this has to happen or else his caché as a villain would be destroyed. So maybe Batman is only in the league of a Wonder Woman or a Captain Atom, that's still the big leagues.
Batman IS a superhero. His superpower is that he is SMARTER than everybody.
This has been covered extensively in the comics. Batman KNOWS the secret identies of all the other super heros. Batmans villians don't have "secret identities" because he would figure those out to.
Batman's power is that he is the greatest detective ever. As in all of the universe and beyond.
Thus Batman has exactly what high level fighters don't:
A way to contribute when not throwing punches. When batman and Superman team up Batman is able to figure out Lex Luthers evil plans before batman can change out of his reporters outfit.
Also, it helps that batman is such an uber ninja that only people who can play punchout with superman can really out fight him.
However, batman is not a "normal" when he enters the expanded DC universe. In the expanded DC universe he is the greatest genius evar and that is his power.
So when an alien lands on Earth, DCAU Batman just calls in orbital fire support from the Justice League Orbital HQ (which he pretty much financed entirely on his own).
Think about it guys. He built a space station that can house hundreds of people (and pay for the mook crews), equipped it with an orbital weapon that the US government hasn't even developed.
Compare that to the ISS, which is still barely operation with a dozen guys onboard.
Again, it pretty much boils down to the specific interpretation of Batman. DCAU Batman varies in power level greatly. In the Batman animated series, his standard enemy is a mook with a Tommy gun that he can take on HTH. By the time he gets to Justice League (and JLU), he's packing orbital weaponry that even the US military doesn't have. That's a pretty huge leap in power, and very much the equivalent of having an artifact sword.
Yeah, but Batman as an example of the badass normal trope has so much traction that if the comics actually explicitly say he has powers, people will baw. Despite the fact that they've been implying he's super special for decades.
Once, Luthor de-aged Batman until he was ten years old. He explicitly lost all his experience and training, and he still one-kick KO'd a bear; not out of desperation to save a life, but with a smile on his face to prove his identity.
There's nothing normal about that, is what I'm saying.
We are having a debate about whether or not Batman has superpowers - and this is a good thing because it means that there is flavor text for a "normal," "reality-based" character that could be applied to a fighter in D&D.
The problem is that there is a class of roleplayers who want to have fighters, but can't come up with good reasons why jump will allow a high-level fighter to fly. That's magic and therefore the flavor of being a fighty, non-magical person is totally lost.
But Batman crosses the line. He clearly is capable of things beyond the limits of normal people, yet he doesn't seem to lose the entire flavor of being a non-magical badass.
Writing up Batman is exactly what you want to do. Nail the flavor text for his abilities, while keep the mechanical effects that are awesome, and you'll totally be able to please the peeps who want a non-magical fighter.
We are having a debate about whether or not Batman has superpowers - and this is a good thing because it means that there is flavor text for a "normal," "reality-based" character that could be applied to a fighter in D&D.
The problem is that there is a class of roleplayers who want to have fighters, but can't come up with good reasons why jump will allow a high-level fighter to fly. That's magic and therefore the flavor of being a fighty, non-magical person is totally lost.
But Batman crosses the line. He clearly is capable of things beyond the limits of normal people, yet he doesn't seem to lose the entire flavor of being a non-magical badass.
Writing up Batman is exactly what you want to do. Nail the flavor text for his abilities, while keep the mechanical effects that are awesome, and you'll totally be able to please the peeps who want a non-magical fighter.
But that just goes back to Fighters using gear instead of latent abilities. Batman doesn't use the jump skill to fly, he uses a Bat-jet or his hang-glider-cape. Like that vs. Amazo fight that was posted earlier, his super-special kung-fu did jack shit, it was all explosive batarangs, grapple hooks, and plastique. Sure he's super intelligent, but for all intents and purposes Batman is an artificer with the Improved-Unarmed Strike feat. Oh, and I guess he gets to add Intelligence to AC for some reason.
The fight vs. Solomon Grundy is even more bullshit, since he literally has a special ability that says when he "dies" he's actually faking it, and then another one that forces his enemies to try and check under his mask (setting off some bullshit that turns the fight in his favor) before confirming he's dead with a few more rounds of bullets/twisting off his head.
Because if you give the fighter an ability that says he can move from his current space to a space within his normal move speed ignoring all terrain, obstacles, and even line of effect people cry and say that because it's hard for them to imagine how the Fighter is getting from point A to point B while ignoring line of effect that he shouldn't have that ability and should instead be taken out of every fight (no save) by a wall of stone/iron/force unless he carves off a piece of a wizard and asks it pretty pretty please to let him teleport.
Ganbare Gincun wrote:Why can't we make fighters like superheros or characters from anime, again?
Yeah I actually love that idea, I was just pointing out that Batman is a horrible example of this because he uses gear, not special mountain top training (I don't read the comics because I'm too po', so I'm just limiting myself to the examples in this thread).
Samurai Jack is probably the best example and I'd totally drop a clip of the Jump Good episode because it's awesome. He doesn't use gear, he's a just a badass dude wandering around in a kimono and geta and sure, he has a magic sword but the only thing magical about it is that it doesn't break and can hurt Aku level demons. Jumping so good he can practically fly? That's all in the calves.
souran wrote:A way to contribute when not throwing punches. When batman and Superman team up Batman is able to figure out Lex Luthers evil plans before Superman can change out of his reporters outfit.
Fixed. Also, this.
And the reason this doesn't work as a solution in D&D is because the Smart Guy is supposed to be the supernatural guy (where in DC expanded it's often the other way around). In D&D magic is the science, and the world's greatest detective would probably pick up a divination spell or two.
Add to that the fact that "normal" technology is a lot more effective in the modern day setting than in the medieval setting of D&D, and making a mere badass normal competitive with powerful wizards can be a tricky endeavor. Not entirely beyond doing, however.
As long as magic is as fast, versatile, efficient, cheap, powerful, and utterly without consequences as it is in 3.5e D&D though, it's not gonna happen without some serious doing. If it's gonna happen at all. If you want to have badass normals being relevant, you can't have the spell of ultimate doom be a swift action afterthought. But that's not the ONLY way you can include spellcasting of the scale that can blow up castle walls (or just teleporting inside. Or animate the wall as a colossus) in your RPG.
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Ganbare Gincun wrote:Why can't we make fighters like superheros or characters from anime, again?
Why are you such a fucking weeaboo, Gincun? Keep that shit out of the game, this is HARD FANTASY, not a Sailor Moon / DBZ tentacle-rape fest.
Josh Kablack wrote:Your freedom to make rulings up on the fly is in direct conflict with my freedom to interact with an internally consistent narrative. Your freedom to run/play a game without needing to understand a complex rule system is in direct conflict with my freedom to play a character whose abilities and flaws function as I intended within that ruleset. Your freedom to add and change rules in the middle of the game is in direct conflict with my ability to understand that rules system before I decided whether or not to join your game.
In short, your entire post is dismissive of not merely my intelligence, but my agency. And I don't mean agency as a player within one of your games, I mean my agency as a person. You do not want me to be informed when I make the fundamental decisions of deciding whether to join your game or buying your rules system.
Ganbare Gincun wrote:Why can't we make fighters like superheros or characters from anime, again?
Why are you such a fucking weeaboo, Gincun? Keep that shit out of the game, this is HARD FANTASY, not a Sailor Moon / DBZ tentacle-rape fest.
There is a part of it that is hard. It is currently sodomizing you for daring to play a beatstick.
A Wizard's staff has a knob at the end, indeed.
Draco_Argentum wrote:
Mister_Sinister wrote:Clearly, your cock is part of the big barrel the server's busy sucking on.
Can someone tell it to stop using its teeth please?
Juton wrote:Damn, I thought [Pathfailure] accidentally created a feat worth taking, my mistake.
Koumei wrote:Shad, please just punch yourself in the face until you are too dizzy to type. I would greatly appreciate that.
Kaelik wrote:No, bad liar. Stop lying.
Standard Paizil Fare/Fail (SPF) Type I - doing exactly the opposite of what they said they would do.
Standard Paizil Fare/Fail (SPF) Type II - change for the sake of change.
Standard Paizil Fare/Fail (SPF) Type III - the illusion of change.
FrankTrollman wrote:And that is why Batman and Xander and Detective Donald Schanke, and any of those other characters are shitty RPG fodder. They are literally unplayable in an actual game, because the entire reason they are able to continue having adventures is that they are not subject to actual chance at any point.
They're only unplayable if combat is based on HERO/M&M/licensed RPG-style strict simulation of superheroic combat. Nobody really has a problem with Batman not ever getting hit full on by a thrown car and dying instantly, as long as there's a reasonable risk that Batman can be defeated by a thrown car. This doesn't even rupture people's idea of "badass normal" even though normal people do not deal well with combat that involves throwing cars.
It's not acceptable to write a "badass normal" concept for the JLA that is not At Least This Tough To Ride, but Batman is an excellent example of a non-"super" character who still has the tools to not die instantly when the JLA goes to play with Darkseid or Mongul or something, since he's got Stealthy and Dodgy and Exotic Martial Arts and Unlimited Resources and Sudden Revelation.
Frank's not saying it's impossible to write a game that allows the Bronze Age Batman and Flash to work together, say (even though Bronze Age Batman's main powers include "throw batarang" and Bronze Age Flash's powers include "travel through time"). It would just make a shitty game, that's all.
Any RPG where the Riddler and Amazo both make challenging adversaries for Batman is equivalent to playing Magical Tea Party (i.e. just writing plain ol' fiction without any pesky rules or logic to get in the way).
The weirdest thing, to me, is that if you do things like give Batman his regular toughness, and then add his Detective skill to make his toughness equal to Superman, with the caveat "damage reduced by the Detective skill added to toughness is a representation of Batman's analytical mind keeping him out of harms way" people cry and yell "versimilitude" and want some ability that lets him add his Detective skill to his dodge value, when all that really does is make it so it takes longer for a lucky thrown car to grease him.
People literally will not let you do the reasonable thing to get a badass normal into the game because it hurts their head having to use their imagination.
Well, I know I am usually outclassed in actual rules knowledge, but isn't Batman's "toughness" reflected in his AC and hit points? Aren't HP still a quasi-mystical reflection of how hard you are to kill?
Ganbare Gincun wrote:Why can't we make fighters like superheros or characters from anime, again?
Why are you such a fucking weeaboo, Gincun? Keep that shit out of the game, this is HARD FANTASY, not a Sailor Moon / DBZ tentacle-rape fest.
Well, if we're gonna do it like that, can my Fighter at least have access to some kind of Porter prestige class that allows him to carry more items then his strength would normally allow, and maybe a bonus to Will saves? I'd like to at least be *slightly* more useful then the party's beasts of burden.
The point is that if you have The Hulk and The Thing fighting each other, they are literally throwing out attacks that would instantly jelly The Punisher, who can be killed by a dude with a switchblade and can't carry a gun big enough to make The Hulk notice he exists, much less care.
Now, if we look at the people that The Thing usually pals around with, we see that he totally works with people on his own power level:
A dude The Hulk can't hurt because he's super stretchy
A chick The Hulk can't hurt because she's invisible (and, later, because she has indestructible force fields)
A dude The Hulk can't hurt because he's made of fire.
People seem to be totally fine with Johnny Storm taking a Buick to the sternum and surviving because his flames reduced the damage by melting it away. And they're even fine with it being represented as DR that's only active when he's on fire. People are also fine with a building falling on Reed Richards and him absorbing most of the damage by turning to putty and deforming around the bricks. Or Sue Storm having magical reactive force field damage reduction.
They're also fine with Dr. Doom or Iron Man being way durable because of Magic Science Armor.
The one thing people are not okay with is The Punisher having an ability that says "when The Hulk throws a car at him it actually just clips him and the damage is reduced or else he's a grease stain" despite the fact that that's exactly what happens in the comics every time, and despite the fact that it's totally mechanically feasible to do that, and despite the fact that no matter how good you make someone at dodging, unless it actually does make them literally impossible to get hit (which is in itself a superpower) dice luck will totally kill them by the fourth combat. People want to make weak characters who can get greased by accident and have a bullshit easter egg feature of "The GM promises that The Hulk will pull his punches or choose not to attack you plus there will always be a dumptruck you can crash into him or a magic science anti-Hulk gun or something so you can actually participate."
K wrote:The only model that hasn't met huge resistance has always been the magic item model. So, no one minds if you have Boots of Leaping, but doing it under your own power is always right out except for a few concepts like Monks.
Which makes the attitude so many of the people on this board take towards magic items doubly curious ... they have so much disrespect for the general population's taste.
It's like they think that if only they see their beautiful designed systems they will change their minds completely ... no they fucking won't, they/me are philistines.
sadly it's true. Some/most will like the revisions to classes that allow them to participate on the same level as a beholder/their wizard buddy, but then you show them feats and talk to them about edge, and their eyes, at best, immediately gloss over.
Cuz apparently I gotta break this down for you dense motherfuckers- I'm trans feminine nonbinary. My pronouns are they/them.
Winnah wrote:No, No. 'Prak' is actually a Thri Kreen impersonating a human and roleplaying himself as a D&D character. All hail our hidden insect overlords.
FrankTrollman wrote:In Soviet Russia, cosmic horror is the default state.
You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.
K wrote:The only model that hasn't met huge resistance has always been the magic item model. So, no one minds if you have Boots of Leaping, but doing it under your own power is always right out except for a few concepts like Monks.
Which makes the attitude so many of the people on this board take towards magic items doubly curious ... they have so much disrespect for the general population's taste.
It's like they think that if only they see their beautiful designed systems they will change their minds completely ... no they fucking won't, they/me are philistines.
The problems with the magic item route are numerous. A brief rundown of them would include:
In D&D land, Iron Man doesn't make power armor, Magneto does. So if you make Power Armor very necessary, it's pretty hard to make that not be just one more way Magneto waves his dick at Tony Stark.
The same people who bitch about Fighters doing interesting things under their own power also bitch about "high magic settings" and wank to magic items being "special" and shit - which all just boils down to these people refusing to give Fighters even those magic items that the game says they are supposed to get.
Even if you accept the premise that players who play "normals" want to play Green Lantern when they get to the Justice League power level, the fact is that it is very plausible that the player will end up with Thor's Hammer, Rocket Red's Suit, or Brainiac's Belt instead of a Green Power Ring. Even if they wanted to be Green Lantern, does that necessarily mean they would be content playing Booster Gold or Blue Beetle?
