Is the ICON System too lethal?

[tonyg]

Kith,
I didn't take it as an attack. Just a discussion about RPG mechanics.

Actually the maxed out Boot Hill character doesn't stay the same. The XP awards allow for characters to improve beyond where they start.

As for a character stating with 24s in stats, that's not munchkinism, that's cheating.

Look to me like your biggest complaints are with the concepts of advantages and disadvantages. If your placers have good character concepts these all work themselves out. Most GM/Narrators I know can tell the difference between a good concept that happens to be tough and someone just going for the pluses fairly easily.

[Phantom]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by tonyg:
Phontom,
That's my point.</font>

Oh.



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In the Praetors Name!

[Kith Qel-Droma]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by tonyg:
Actually the maxed out Boot Hill character doesn't stay the same. The XP awards allow for characters to improve beyond where they start.</font>

Oh he doesn't? I will admit you can increase work skills and weapon skills, even attributes, but do you have any idea how much experience it takes to increase these things?

If you start out with a maxed out character in attributes, work skills and weapon skills; here is what it takes to increase these things.

To increase an attribute above 20 takes 1,500 experience points per point.

To increase a weapon skill above 7 takes 500 experience points per point.

To increase a work skill above 20 takes 300 experience per point.

I don't know how much XP you are getting while you play, but I give out XP pretty much by the book (50 for surviving a gunfight, 40 for bringing in a outlaw, 30 for winning a brawl, 20 for thinking of a brillant idea that saves the group or solves the adventure, 10 for using a work skill (only gained once per session) and 5 per real hour we play) and my group barely has changed in 2 real years of playing (a few points here a few there).

Just to point out the munchkin character I provided would of required 16,500 XP to have Strength 24, Coordination 25, Observation 22 and I have heard of GMs who award that kind of XP in their games, over the course of the campaign. If all of that XP alone was earned in gunfights they would of had 330 gunfights.

However it costs less to increase work skills and weapon skills, but the amount of XP to put ANY kind of distance from what you start out at is immence. Just to improve your work skills over 20 (if you start out at 20) is 300 per point. To gain even a few points to boost yourself up will take many game sessions in a well run game (saying "well run" is a rhetorical statement on my part, since what constitutes a well run game to me may not to anyone else).

So while you can improve on beginning skills and even attributes, the XP cost is impossible to gain except by a careless GM who will end up creating munchkin characters. I know I have seen them, where do you think the stats I had came from.

John Wesley Hardin, run for your life!

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"They say the apple doesn't fall far from the tree? That one fell in the next county!"

[Phantom]

I see what you are asking now. Actually I have used both. What I am saying is that anywhere along the generation process you can spend the points on a dev. package or something else an attribute, skill, edge or advantage. Or you can do what we did, the GM can give out a few extra points once the character is complete. We thought the beginning characters were a little "weaker" then the ones in the Adventure in the book, so Our GM "bumped" us up to their level.

It all depends on how you want to run your game.

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In the Praetors Name!

[tonyg]

Kith,

THe same is true for the ICON system. In fact, it is even harder to write up a character with stats relatively as good as a Boot Hill PC, since the base stat is two, and characerter don't get to add anthing to thier rolls to determine initial attributes (as in BH). And with a limited amount od developeent points, high scores in one area wind up costing the character elsewhere. While players can build characters who excel in combat, the experience awards aren't as much as you might think. Characters tend to progress at a slow steady, rate.

Even if players choose to focus on thier combat skills, it's not going to make that big of a difference. Most TREK scenarios don't revolve around combat, and can't be solved by combat. Even when the occasional fight does take place, it is over very quickly.

[Kith Qel-Droma]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by tonyg:
Kith,

THe same is true for the ICON system. In fact, it is even harder to write up a character with stats relatively as good as a Boot Hill PC, since the base stat is two, and characerter don't get to add anthing to thier rolls to determine initial attributes (as in BH). And with a limited amount od developeent points, high scores in one area wind up costing the character elsewhere. While players can build characters who excel in combat, the experience awards aren't as much as you might think. Characters tend to progress at a slow steady, rate.

Even if players choose to focus on thier combat skills, it's not going to make that big of a difference. Most TREK scenarios don't revolve around combat, and can't be solved by combat. Even when the occasional fight does take place, it is over very quickly. </font>

True, and that is the way I kind of like it. In virtually every game I run, characters pretty much get a meager amount of XP. They gain more by being apart of the group and role-palying or progressing the campaign along. The nice thing is my group knows that they need to spred them EP around in my games, so I very rarely have any combat oriented characters unless they are the result of random die rolls, even then the player who rolled him or her up takes great care in keeping the character alive.

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"They say the apple doesn't fall far from the tree? That one fell in the next county!"

[Lt.Khrys Antos]

In all the games I've played, D&D(all editions),LugTrek, Vampires and Heroes, the "Twinkies" usually get bored with their character fast, how much can you kill before it becomes old hat?
My campaigns usually have limited combat, and when it does happen it either is very fast or very long if the PC's really want to do it.
And as for the reality aspect, one of my players is a karate student and is doing his ,"dame deux",don't know how to say it in englich so I wrote it in french. Basically he is beyond normal belts, his next lvl is teaching classes and going to Japan . This guy has defeated guys wayyy bigger than himself during his practice sessions.

In Trek terms, some characters are just good at something, high skill lvls usually decide how long you will last in combat. Being an Andorian or Klingon means you can take the hits,having Unarmed Combat(Mok'Bara) 5(6) with 2 fit means you could do multiple hits, and dodge with your obviously dodge 6 and take down the mean Klingon.
LugTrek is realistic, if you know you are going to meet something which wants to hurt you, why not try avoiding it OR surrender? Avoid the hurt and solve the problem with words.