88 replies to this topic

[deojusto]

On another thread we (pseudo and I) somehow ended up discussing whether Batman would qualify for Global or somewhere between street and Global. I think if anything he's above global. I feel argumentative today, so I aim to prove it.

This is the list of bats powers with quotes from DC wiki, and I'll try to be as conservative as possible.

Stats: "His physical attributes exceeded that of any Olympic level athlete that has ever completed."
I'd say superior all around, including strength and body. Mind may be genius level, but like I said, conservatively let's say superior intellect (8 points)

Intomitable Will: ie Iron will "This makes him able to function while tolerating massive amounts of physical pain, and also allows him to resist telepathy or mind control". Lets say standard level to be safe (10 pts)

Detective Superior: Worlds greatest detective, superior (12)

Tactician Superior: The Batman gambit has its own TV tropes page, and there's a reason fanboys argue that he might be able to beat superman with enough prep time. Superior. (16)

Martial Arts: "Wayne is well trained in multiple martial arts" superior (20)

Acrobat: "He is proficient in gymnastics and acrobatics" standard (22)

Weapons master: "Weapons Master: Through his martial arts training, he has become an expert on all melee weapons. Wayne has displayed exceptional sword fighting capability and proficiency with knives, sticks and various other weapons." superior (26)

There, he's broken global without any mention of allies, cars, boats, batarangs, marksmanship equal enough to reliably throw the batarangs, stealth, flight, body armor, environmental awareness, or creation.

(PS, mind is probably supreme anyway)

[Pseudonym]

Eh, the idea is more fitting characters to the FPL template than fitting the FPL template to characters. Still, the idea is super fun, and I find myself toying with it when I'm bored. That said Bats is a character who is pretty unbelievable in terms of how stocked he is. I wouldn't give him acrobat. Sure he's graceful, but that's not his thing at all. All his gadgets can be handled with Superior Creation. That's batarangs, smoke, maybe even the armour if you're willing to stretch the definition. His Stealth is covered in tactician.

Is there any way to fit all of Batman's batstuff into a Global? Well - I can't think of one. But the next step up is Cosmic. That's where Superman and the Silver Surfer level characters dwell. Batman can't be up there without a Superior Tactician + Superior Creation + Combat Supremacy combo.

[deojusto]

He's probably cosmic, he's just not what you'd first think of when you think of cosmic. He's a normal human with a lot of cash and some extreme devotion. That's what makes him cool to me.

Feel free to do others, wolverine, captain planet, dracula, ponies, whatever.

[Landon]

The catch is that the FPL creation system is largely impressionistic. It isn't meant to be a hard, quantifiable example of everything the character in question can do, it's meant to give an impression of their skill set. A character like Batman could easily be represented with just a few points above Street level:

Standard Strength and Body
Superior Agility and Mind (4)
Standard Leaping or Energy Wave Surfing to represent grappling hooks and gliding with his cape and stuff like that (6)
Standard Tac and Martial Arts (10)
Superior Detective (14)
Standard something attack with the Ranged modifier for batarangs (17)

Everything else about Batman is situational. He isn't always the most brilliant tactical mind in the world. That varies from writer to writer. The same goes for his martial prowess. To get to the gist of Batman you don't need both of those skills at Superior. His vehicles are also situation and aren't something that's always at his disposal in every story. Any sort of Iron Will like ability isn't really necessary to capture the essence of his character. Having a Superior Mind trait covers that aspect well enough for how the FPL functions.

Basically, taking the CBUB/comic fan approach to power levels isn't gonna work in the FPL. It wasn't designed with that approach in mind.

[Pseudonym]

Maybe get rid of the standard attack + ranged and add in a Superior Creation just for WayneTech makin' stuff. And maybe Standard Ally for Alfred. Batman embezzling amazing amounts of money to Create things is an essential part of his character and should be represented on his sheet. Also his having a butler confidante.

Should Batman be a street level though? I mean sure, he hasn't got super-powers but still, he's up there swinging with Superman and Wonder Woman. Maybe I don't understand the power levelling system

I call Wolverine next!

I'd put him at Global

Superior Strength, Mind
Supreme Regen
Supreme Slashing Weapon
Supreme Armour
Standard Berserker or Martial Arts or I guess Weapon Master

[deojusto]

Maybe get rid of the standard attack + ranged and add in a Superior Creation just for WayneTech makin' stuff. And maybe Standard Ally for Alfred. Batman embezzling amazing amounts of money to Create things is an essential part of his character and should be represented on his sheet. Also his having a butler confidante.

Should Batman be a street level though? I mean sure, he hasn't got super-powers but still, he's up there swinging with Superman and Wonder Woman. Maybe I don't understand the power levelling system

I call Wolverine next!

I'd put him at Global

Superior Strength, Mind
Supreme Regen
Supreme Slashing Weapon
Supreme Armour
Standard Berserker or Martial Arts or I guess Weapon Master

Superior mind? I followed you on everything else, but he always came off as kind of average joe schmo to me. Superior strength might be a stretch, but only maybe. I'd also tack on hyper senses, and for the last one probably weapons M and not the other two. I might also decrease armor, those bones are near unbreakable but they don't protect him from a vast amount of attacks.

[Pseudonym]

So drop the stats, frees up four points. Give him Standard Hyper Senses and then we've still got two to fill in. Drop armour to superior and then maybe finish with Superior Iron Will? I guess that would make sense.

Superior Iron Will (4)
Superior Armor (4)
Standard Hyper Senses (2)
Supreme Slashing (6)
Supreme Regen (6)
Superior Body (2)

[sirmethos]

Hehe, this brings me back to the debate with Ivan.

I occasionally do this when bored as well, create 2 different versions of a canon character. 1 version where I use all of their powers and capabilities, and 1 version where I fit them to the FPL system.

Going with the first approach, Punisher and Batman are Cosmic, while someone like Silver Surfer is just plain ridiculous and goes way above the FPL system.

On the other hand, going with the second approach, it's quite easy in most cases, to fit the characters to the FPL system(though there are a few cases where I have had difficulty doing so, or even been unable to fit them in their actual ranking).

[Pseudonym]

Eh, it's not that easy. A lot of characters end up pretty weird. like Iron Man has Superior Mind. Superior Flight. Superior/Supreme Creation. And... nothing. He's an underpowered Global character.

[sirmethos]

With Iron Man you can add things for his armor as well.

Supreme or Ultimate Armor for example. A 'weapon' power with Ranged, Multiple, etc. stacked on to it, to signify the Repulsors and various other weapons he has in his armor.

Combat Awareness, for his sensor systems.

Depending on which version of Iron Man, he can, even with fitting him to the system, be either a Street+, a Global or a Cosmic Level character.


Or you could just make Tony Stark, with Superior mind, and Supreme or Ultimate Creation.

[Updatedude]

The catch is that the FPL creation system is largely impressionistic. It isn't meant to be a hard, quantifiable example of everything the character in question can do, it's meant to give an impression of their skill set. A character like Batman could easily be represented with just a few points above Street level:

Standard Strength and Body
Superior Agility and Mind (4)
Standard Leaping or Energy Wave Surfing to represent grappling hooks and gliding with his cape and stuff like that (6)
Standard Tac and Martial Arts (10)
Superior Detective (14)
Standard something attack with the Ranged modifier for batarangs (17)

Everything else about Batman is situational. He isn't always the most brilliant tactical mind in the world. That varies from writer to writer. The same goes for his martial prowess. To get to the gist of Batman you don't need both of those skills at Superior. His vehicles are also situation and aren't something that's always at his disposal in every story. Any sort of Iron Will like ability isn't really necessary to capture the essence of his character. Having a Superior Mind trait covers that aspect well enough for how the FPL functions.

Basically, taking the CBUB/comic fan approach to power levels isn't gonna work in the FPL. It wasn't designed with that approach in mind.

I'd drop all the stats to Standard personally.

Standard Tact and Detec are enough (4)
Standard Energy Wave for his various means of travel, be it grappling hooks or gliding (6)
Standard Vehicle (8)
Standard Martial Arts (10)
Standard (weapon power of some sort) w/ range for all his gadgets (13)
Standard Smokescreen for general stealthiness(15)

If we drop Smokescreen, which would fall under Tact and Detec for using your smarts to be stealthy or to play mind games, we're left with an extra point.

Honestly, that's it, Batman, boiled down. Can he still take on a Cosmic being? YES! Look at all the Batman animations, from B:TAS to B:tB&tB. He never really exhibits anything beyond this. There are plenty of borderline exceptions, but those tend to be moments of suspension of disbelief and of course, variances from writer to writer.

But this is all you need for Batman within the confines of FPL Street. And yeah, this power set up is enough for you to take out Cosmic entities, provided you write it believably.

[Updatedude]

while someone like Silver Surfer is just plain ridiculous and goes way above the FPL system.

Nah, none of his powers would go beyond Supreme.

You'll note that the official power descripts vary significantly. Older descripts tended to be more powerful than newer ones. I'm gonna say this is the result of nerfing. People just inherently limit themselves.

Truth is, Supreme is pretty effin' powerful. Galactus would fall under Supreme for the most part. Quietus was able to conjure up black holes with Supreme. Nowadays, Supreme gravity is barely more powerful than the natural gravitational pull of... MY MOM! But srsly, on the higher end of the spectrum, Supreme would be pushing the laws of physics. It's just that most writers can't effectively write that. That's why Silver Surfer spends all his time bragging about his power cosmic when all he just did was move a rock or something. So we don't encourage them to do so, because the result would suck. On the other hand, if you're good at it, like say, Mediaman was, then go ahead and push things to the limit.

Ultimate is just overkill. Ultimate is Q level omnipotence where you could re-write the laws of physics on a whim.

Again, these are all just the extremes of these powers levels and not recommended if you're a newb or you don't have a character who's good enough to back it up. If your character is genuinely good, I find FPLers will accept 'em even if they're overpowered from a story point of view.

The cool thing with the FPL is that you can totally go the other way. But that's another rant for another time.

[Confession FPT]

I love reading this stuff. Please never stop talking about it. Thank youu.

[sirmethos]

Nah, none of his powers would go beyond Supreme.

You'll note that the official power descripts vary significantly. Older descripts tended to be more powerful than newer ones. I'm gonna say this is the result of nerfing. People just inherently limit themselves.

Truth is, Supreme is pretty effin' powerful. Galactus would fall under Supreme for the most part. Quietus was able to conjure up black holes with Supreme. Nowadays, Supreme gravity is barely more powerful than the natural gravitational pull of... MY MOM! But srsly, on the higher end of the spectrum, Supreme would be pushing the laws of physics. It's just that most writers can't effectively write that. That's why Silver Surfer spends all his time bragging about his power cosmic when all he just did was move a rock or something. So we don't encourage them to do so, because the result would suck. On the other hand, if you're good at it, like say, Mediaman was, then go ahead and push things to the limit.

Ultimate is just overkill. Ultimate is Q level omnipotence where you could re-write the laws of physics on a whim.

Again, these are all just the extremes of these powers levels and not recommended if you're a newb or you don't have a character who's good enough to back it up. If your character is genuinely good, I find FPLers will accept 'em even if they're overpowered from a story point of view.

The cool thing with the FPL is that you can totally go the other way. But that's another rant for another time.

I'm well aware that none of his individual powers go above the FPL system. But if you "fit the FPL system to the character", instead of the other way around, then the character as a whole, with his entire power set, goes beyond the amount of points set for Cosmic level characters.


And yes, I know that's not the idea of the system, but that's the idea of this thread

[Updatedude]

I'm well aware that none of his individual powers go above the FPL system. But if you "fit the FPL system to the character", instead of the other way around, then the character as a whole, with his entire power set, goes beyond the amount of points set for Cosmic level characters.


And yes, I know that's not the idea of the system, but that's the idea of this thread

Nope, don't understand what you're saying. Fit the FPL system to the character? If you mean giving every one of his abilities ever displayed a FPL representation, then even a normal person can't be represented by the FPL. Someone who is a swimmer, is able to run, leap, use computers, think tactically, deduce a situation, eat, knows basic first aid, throw a rock, throw a spear, throw a javelin, swing a stick, swing a sword, drive a car, etc... all these have a FPL representation, but are part of a regular person's skill set/abilities. Most of these would only be standard, but the points would add up to be far beyond cosmic.

However, even if we don't sweat the details, even if we ignore the little things... which means that we only focus on Surfer's beyond human abilities, and none of his powers would go beyond Supreme. And considering the Surfer's limited array of powers, you can probably easily create him within the points provided by Cosmic. I think Cosmic provides the user with 36 points? Since none of the Surfer's powers would go beyond Supreme, that means he could take up to 6 powers.

Supreme Energy Wave (6), Supreme Eldritch Blast w/ range + Supreme Power Manipulation = Power Cosmic (19)... and that's pretty much it. 19 points will net you a Silver Surfer. You'll have to find some way of wasting 5 points just to get him to Global. Maybe Superior Forcefield or Natural Armor, and throw the remaining 1 point to get Area Effect or Super Range or Seeker for the Eldritch Blast.

A one hit wonder like Surfer is pretty easy to do. Since most of what he can do is derived from the Power Cosmic. An all rounder character with a wide array of powers is actually tougher to simulate.

Superman for instance is actually not that easy to simulate without wracking up the points. Even if we just take his basic powers of toughness, strength, speed and flight, that'll probably take a big chunk of points. If we throw in his heat vision, ice breath, x-ray vision, super ventriloquism and so forth, that's when we'll start hitting Cosmic category. Unlike Surfer or even say, the Flash, whose powers are offshoots of a single ability/power, Supes has far too many abilities. Where Supes differs from Batman is that unlike Batman, his "power levels" need to be higher (lower to mid spectrum of Supreme). The REAL problem with Superman isn't that he's got a lot of powers, it's that he has a lot of "effects". If all his powers amounted to "blow stuff up", then it would be easy. The problem is that super breath is normally used as a form of Paralysis/Web Creation, Heat Vision is simple enough, it's just a ranged attack, X-Ray Vision is a Sensory power while Super Ventriloquism is Smokescreen.

On the other hand, if you had an entire team of X-Men, and they consisted of Cyclops, Havok, Banshee, Gambit, Pyro, and Angel; this team of 6 characters can be represented with flight, tactician and an attack power with range. They wouldn't even break "Street".

However, if you had a team that consisted of Beast, Shadowcat, Storm, Emma Frost, Nightcrawler and Wolverine, these 6 characters would easily be Global, perhaps even Cosmic.

[sirmethos]

You don't seem to be understanding it, that much is true.

Take the example of Batman, made earlier in the thread.


If you fit Batman to the FPL system, you could easily make him a Street Level character in FPL. However, if you do it the other way around, and fit the system to Batman(i.e. simply assign the various points, to his various capabilities) then you could easily create him as a Cosmic Level character in the FPL system.

It's the same way with the Silver Surfer. If you fit him to FPL, you can easily create him as a Cosmic or even Global level character. But do it the other way around, and he's above even the Cosmic level points.

Superman would be another example. If you fit him to the FPL system, then he could easily be created as a Global level character. However, if you do it the other way around:

Super Speed - Ultimate
Sonics - Standard
Cold - Supreme
Hyper Senses - Supreme
Tactician - Standard
Flight - Ultimate

That's not even adding his invulnerability, strength, heat vision, regeneration or ability to absorb sunlight and get power from it(that is linked to all his powers, which in the FPL system, as far as I understand it, would result in a Energy Absorption power for each power he has, since the Energy Absorption is only linked to 1 power).


Yes, it's quite possible to create Superman with less points than that, but that wouldn't be the idea of this thread. The idea of the thread is to take the Character, then see how many points they would cost to create them as they are. Not fit them to the FPL system.

The same, to repeat myself, goes for the Silver Surfer. If you shave him down and fit him to the FPL system, it's quite possible to create him as a Global or Cosmic level character. But if you fit the system to the character(as is the idea of the thread) then he ends up with more points than a Cosmic level character.


If I tried to create Shadowcat though, even fitting the system to the character, I wouldn't get much more than a Street level character. Definitely not anywhere near a Cosmic.

[Pseudonym]

On the other hand, if you had an entire team of X-Men, and they consisted of Cyclops, Havok, Banshee, Gambit, Pyro, and Angel; this team of 6 characters can be represented with flight, tactician and an attack power with range. They wouldn't even break "Street".

But would you want to represent that team as just Street Level? I get what you're saying. They got one power each that you would represent by taking one power. Tactician, Eldritch Blast, Sonics, Fire, Flight. But like, you could also mentioned Cyclops's considerable martial arts training etc. And before, you pared batman down to a Street Level Character.

Standard Tact and Detec are enough (4)
Standard Energy Wave for his various means of travel, be it grappling hooks or gliding (6)
Standard Vehicle (8)
Standard Martial Arts (10)
Standard (weapon power of some sort) w/ range for all his gadgets (13)
Standard Smokescreen for general stealthiness(15)

As much as I don't agree with Standard Vehicle (Seriously? The batmobile is standard? It's build like a tank and it's really fast and I think it's got guns on it). I have to ask why you would bring Bats all the way down to Standard level. How do you decide whether a character is worth being Global or not. Because if Batman doesn't fit the criteria for a Global Character, I really can't understand who would.

[Pseudonym]

Also, methos, what you're doing doesn't make much sense. Of course we're trying to fit Famous Characters to the FPL system. Doing the opposite makes no sense. There's no point to it. It's just plain silly. We're trying to build famous characters within the restrictions we've set ourselves here. It's an exercise in creativity, not counting. You see all the interesting ways people can use powers - for instance, using Energy Wave Surfing to represent a grappling hook is really cool.

[sirmethos]

"Also, methos, what you're doing doesn't make much sense. Of course we're trying to fit Famous Characters to the FPL system. Doing the opposite makes no sense."

It makes plenty of sense.

Since we're not actually creating the characters in the FPL character creator, we can take the existing character, and use the FPL system, to set up different ways of 'creating' them.

My point is, that there is no single answer. In fact, several of the higher end characters could easily be 'created' with more points than is given for even a Cosmic character(in the FPL system), while some of those same characters, could just as easily be created as pure Cosmic, or even Global level characters.

You could easily create Superman as a Global level character. But as I showed in my partial example, you could just as easily put him together, without giving him anything he doesn't actually have in the comics, with more points than is allotted for a Cosmic level character.

To use a previous example: A team consisting of Cyclops, Havok, Banshee, Gambit, Pyro and Angel/Archangel, could easily be created as a Street level 'character'. But they could just as easily be created as a Global, and possibly even a Cosmic level character, without going beyond the capabilities of the actual characters.

[Pseudonym]

"But they could just as easily be created as a Global, and possibly even a Cosmic level character, without going beyond the capabilities of the actual characters. "

But not in a way that is meaningful and in keeping with the FPL's paradigm. The idea isn't Represent All the Powers. The idea is Represent a Character through powers. You take the big powers, the iconic ones that make your character who he is. You take the ones that are essential to the understanding of the character.

How the hell would you do Toph? Can you take Magnetism and write that it applies to Earth products? Earthbending, and other elemental powers really aren't represented in the FPL except fire, I guess. Fire's pretty easy.