Initial power level

[SnowDog]

Hi,

As I have mentioned earlier I have extremely limited exposure to d20 system games (in practice). Once my gaming group created a first level party for Conan RPG (by Mongoose) and I couldn't help but notice that it was a bunch of total loosers I don't know if it was due to poor dice rolling on their part for stats or what was the reason. On the other hand I understand that those characters are supposed to get more powerful quite fast.

Now, after this introduction to my question. How good the first level characters in Spycraft are? I mean are they total newbies or does they stand above mooks even at the first level? Further, what kind of power curve there is in Spycraft?

Thanks again!

[Gatac]

Generally speaking, Spycraft characters are quite a bit beefier than standard d20. I believe it was mentioned that a 1st-level Spycraft char will be about as good as a 3rd level char in D&D, and the gap doesn't exactly close as you go up.

Mooks are mooks. Player characters can pretty much own them unless you positively drown them in human waves.

Generally, you should start worrying about raw power at Level 10 and above. It's certainly playable up to 20, but those will be some seriously badass agents.

Gatac

[SnowDog]

Thanks for the answer, Gatac. It's good to know that even first level agents can handle themselves in combat. Actually I am not too worried about how powerful they can get due to our gaming schedule. But it is definitely good to be warned about how powerful they will get.

Now, how competent the first level agents are in other aspects than in combat? For example in Conan RPG 1st level Pirate was not very proficient at handling a boat. In fact I am pretty sure that he would have failed almost all boating checks. What about in Spycraft?

Yes, I could create a character using the pdf that I have but the reason I ask these questions is because you have actually been there and have first hand experience of these things, so please bear with me

Thanks again!

[TheTSKoala]

Snowdog,

In my experience with Spycraft (opposed to D20 Modern & AD&D3.5), characters are quite more.. player friendly and less fragile.  Will a 1st level character be able to pilot a boat through a J turn, while shooting an M60 in his off-hand in the middle of the atlantic while facing the Kraken during a hurricane?  ...No.  However, he'd be able to pilot a boat in a bay or slighly off shore.

Honestly, I haven't ever had a problem with my players dying from bad roll-ups.  Poor choices and bad die rolls in the game, of course, but the point buy system and the Origin system makes sure that you can't have dramatically unbalanced characters, one way or the other.

[SnowDog]

Thanks for the reply TheTSKoala. The main thing is that characters are playable from the first level up. For example in this boating example it is sufficient that someone who should have pretty good backgound on using boats should be able use a watercraft to safely transport rest of the team at least when there are no shooting (or torpedoes). Fancy stunts should be left for later levels, I'm cool with that.

So, it really seems like a good system even for beginning characters...

Thanks again!

[TheTSKoala]

Oh, the simple stuff is simple.  You -CAN- fail, because of a bad die roll, but normally, you won't.  The boys in the Crafty shop made this a really good system like that.  I'm actually eager for FantasyCraft... (Happily, I convinced my players to avoid D&D4 with a passion, instead, we're going with Crafty.)

[SnowDog]

Yeah, well s*it happens sometimes and it is acceptable. But really, this seems player friendly system.

[Crafty_Alex]

No matter what Rolemaster may believe, no one likes constantly rolling characters up. But make no mistake - a small band of minions armed with burst fire capable weapons can quickly clean house on a player group assured of their invulnerability. While Spycraft does lean towards empowered players, we like to empower GCs, too

[TheTSKoala]

..or Underslung grenade launchers...

[MDL]

I don't have the largest experience with the d20 D&D variants, though from what I've seen Spycraft characters are typically more powerful given the same level.

Comparing a first level character to a mook comes in two different categories, in my experience, with Spycraft.  In combat, first level PC's definitely come out far ahead of the mere mook.  Then there's opposed skill checks.  At first level, I found the relative influence of the characters build versus the random variance of the die to be a bit too slanted towards the die.  In other words, opposed skill checks tended to feel more like straight die roll comparisons because of how small the flat 'how competent the character is bonus' is at level  one relative to the 1-20 range of the die roll.  By level three, four at latest, this became a non-issue for me.  No one else in my group really had this complaint however, so take it with a grain of salt.

The NPC creation by stat blocks that can scale against player character level(and number of player characters) generally works well and keeps things balanced overall.  I've seen one instance where a particularly potent, limited to high level PC's feat granted to an NPC(or more accurately, a team of 'special' NPC's) felt a little unbalanced, but there were extenuating circumstances.  Pre-written mod(aka, not tailored for the players involved at all), player characters tended to be non-combat oriented, number of special NPC's involved greater than number of player characters, fight took place in an environment that penalized most forms of combat(except, of course, for the one that the feat in question improves upon).  With non-pre-written mods, or the GC paying attention for unusual outliers(powerful requires level 15 feat on multiple special NPC's versus a bunch of level 5 or 6 PC's...) in pre-written mods, the scaling system does work overall.  It can be broken, but things that break it tend to be obvious.

[ahzad]

Thanks for the answer, Gatac. It's good to know that even first level agents can handle themselves in combat. Actually I am not too worried about how powerful they can get due to our gaming schedule. But it is definitely good to be warned about how powerful they will get.

Now, how competent the first level agents are in other aspects than in combat? For example in Conan RPG 1st level Pirate was not very proficient at handling a boat. In fact I am pretty sure that he would have failed almost all boating checks. What about in Spycraft?

Yes, I could create a character using the pdf that I have but the reason I ask these questions is because you have actually been there and have first hand experience of these things, so please bear with me

Thanks again!

to give you an example the hacker who you would expect to be better than good in computer hacking i've seen this type of character get totally owned in other systems b/c of a bad die roll, and this character is supposed to be one of the l33t of the hacking field, in spycraft this doesn't happen. the hacker in spycraft is L33T, take for example his class ability.
’L337: You’re among the most gifted computer specialists on
the planet. At Level 1, each time you fail a Computers or Falsify
check and don’t suffer an error, you still succeed as long as the
check DC (or your opponent’s check result) is equal to or less than
your class level + 20. If several grades of success are possible, you
achieve only the lowest possible positive result.

all the classes are like this in some regard, they are strong in the area that you would expect them to be in, hacker/computers, scout/his stalking ability, sleuth/his ability to read people, ect.

hope that helps.

[SnowDog]

Thank you all for the great responses! Those really helped me to visualize how the system works for the beginning characters. I am all for that the players should be tactically oriented and not just go in guns blazing so it is good to keep them on their toes but on the other hand give them an edge. It's a fine line, I know but I am sure that it will work out.

Opposed test rolls gave me a bit of a cold sweat but that's okay

All in all I am pretty confident that Spycraft 2.0 will be the product that sells d20 to me (and when Fantasy Craft comes I don't have to go digging for D&D4.0

[TheTSKoala]

*reads D&D 4.0*  Bad Snowdog!  Bad!  *laughs*  Oh.. and vehicle weapons.. just an FYI.. do deadly amounts of damage.  Deadly.

[SnowDog]

Well, I was kidding too I wouln't  go that far as to buy D&D 4.0 Umm... apart from point of interest, that is