So over the years I've run into a few issues where the normal mechanics don't quite make sense. During that time I have been contemplating the best way to resolve those issues. One way I was looking at doing some tweaks is to create 2 new Abilities to the basic character structure. One Primary, Charisma, and one Secondary, Spirit.

Charisma would be an added primary, and a companion of the mental aspects like Reason, Intuition, and Psyche. The write up would be like:

• A measures a character’s force of personality, persuasiveness, personal magnetism, ability to lead, and physical attractiveness
• Used to attempt to influence others
• Used to Bluff, Diplomacy, Disguise, Gather Information, Handle Animal, Intimidate, and Perform FEATs
• Popularity can add modifiers (either positive or negative) to FEAT rolls as determined by Judge
• Used to determine the secondary ability known as Spirit

Spirit would be the mental version of Health. Its write up would be like:

• Used to determine the amount of mental damage the character can absorb before losing consciousness and potentially going insane or catatonic
• Does not have a rank or rank number, but rather is the sum of the rank numbers of the character's Reason, Intuition, Psyche, and Charisma
• Lost through psionic attacks, drugs, and other potentially dangerous mind-threatening situations
• Recovered after damage is taken, 10 turns after damage is inflicted
• Regained through normal healing by the Psyche rank number of points per day
• If reduced to 0, the character is unconscious and may begin to lose Psyche ranks

Karma is still established the same way as it was before (adding up RIP) but now also adds Charisma (C) in that initial starting value.

The first reaction is "Well, this is kinda redundant, isn't?" and on the surface you would be correct. But the these Abilities fleshes out more completely a character and resolves, mechanically, some odd situations. Popularity alone is not going to influence a Contact in a lot of situations. Popularity works great, and still should be used, when dealing with large crowds or NPCs that don't know a character (Popularity relies on the Character's "reputation"). Charisma deals with NPCs and other characters that are either familiar with the Character (not going to fall for the "hype") or on one-to-one situations.

Spirit more address mental attacks and realms of the mind. It separates the Mental state (going insane or catatonic) while physically the body is fine and healthy. It is more of a nuance state especially if you deal with a lot of Telepaths and such in your campaign.

Anyways, these are 2 abilities that I have been thinking about. I've been in development of creating a new Player's and Judge's handbook and have been thinking of adding these Abilities in, so wanted some feedback on the idea.

Just to keep you thinking about a Charisma ability, here is a description chart for the standard ranks:

Feeble: Terribly reticent, uninteresting, or rude
Poor: Something of a bore or makes people mildly uncomfortable
Typical: Capable of polite conversation
Good: Mildly interesting, knows what to say to the right people
Excellent: Interesting, knows what to say to most people
Remarkable: Popular, receives greetings and conversations on the street
Incredible: Immediately likeable by many people, subject of favorable talk
Amazing: Life of the party, able to keep people entertained for hours
Monstrous: Immediately likeable by almost everybody
Unearthly: Renowned for wit, personality, and/or looks


Still working on description breakdown for the MSH-X charts (which add FN, SP, and WN to the standard ranks).

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davidrpaige
So over the years I've run into a few issues where the normal mechanics don't quite make sense. During that time I have been contemplating the best way to resolve those issues. One way I was looking at doing some tweaks is to create 2 new Abilities to the basic character structure. One Primary, Charisma, and one Secondary, Spirit.

Charisma would be an added primary, and a companion of the mental aspects like Reason, Intuition, and Psyche. The write up would be like:

• A measures a character’s force of personality, persuasiveness, personal magnetism, ability to lead, and physical attractiveness
• Used to attempt to influence others
• Used to Bluff, Diplomacy, Disguise, Gather Information, Handle Animal, Intimidate, and Perform FEATs
• Popularity can add modifiers (either positive or negative) to FEAT rolls as determined by Judge
• Used to determine the secondary ability known as Spirit

Spirit would be the mental version of Health. Its write up would be like:

• Used to determine the amount of mental damage the character can absorb before losing consciousness and potentially going insane or catatonic
• Does not have a rank or rank number, but rather is the sum of the rank numbers of the character's Reason, Intuition, Psyche, and Charisma
• Lost through psionic attacks, drugs, and other potentially dangerous mind-threatening situations
• Recovered after damage is taken, 10 turns after damage is inflicted
• Regained through normal healing by the Psyche rank number of points per day
• If reduced to 0, the character is unconscious and may begin to lose Psyche ranks

Karma is still established the same way as it was before (adding up RIP) but now also adds Charisma (C) in that initial starting value.

The first reaction is "Well, this is kinda redundant, isn't?" and on the surface you would be correct. But the these Abilities fleshes out more completely a character and resolves, mechanically, some odd situations. Popularity alone is not going to influence a Contact in a lot of situations. Popularity works great, and still should be used, when dealing with large crowds or NPCs that don't know a character (Popularity relies on the Character's "reputation"). Charisma deals with NPCs and other characters that are either familiar with the Character (not going to fall for the "hype") or on one-to-one situations.

Spirit more address mental attacks and realms of the mind. It separates the Mental state (going insane or catatonic) while physically the body is fine and healthy. It is more of a nuance state especially if you deal with a lot of Telepaths and such in your campaign.

Anyways, these are 2 abilities that I have been thinking about. I've been in development of creating a new Player's and Judge's handbook and have been thinking of adding these Abilities in, so wanted some feedback on the idea.

While I applaud anyone who wants to expand the available play options and choices; You should be aware that a certain Major Tom Sawyer covered this a long time ago in his Ultimate Origins books.

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Necromancer

While I applaud anyone who wants to expand the available play options and choices; You should be aware that a certain Major Tom Sawyer covered this a long time ago in his Ultimate Origins books.

Which ones are his books? I’m not seeing in the Download Netbooks section Ultimate Origins. I would like to read what Sawyer wrote.

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davidrpaige

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Necromancer

While I applaud anyone who wants to expand the available play options and choices; You should be aware that a certain Major Tom Sawyer covered this a long time ago in his Ultimate Origins books.

Which ones are his books? I’m not seeing in the Download Netbooks section Ultimate Origins. I would like to read what Sawyer wrote.

Major Tom Sawyer's works are not featured at CMF. He typically tries to organize his own website.

Gaming Nerds "R" Us

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Necromancer
Major Tom Sawyer's works are not featured at CMF. He typically tries to organize his own website.

Gaming Nerds "R" Us

Looks like that Ultimate Origins book is gone, nothing on that site but some kind of gothic style game. The tone from his last series of posts on this site it feels like he has given the middle finger to FASERIP.

Ok, given that I can’t read about another system, what is the opinion about what I wrote?

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davidrpaige

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Necromancer
Major Tom Sawyer's works are not featured at CMF. He typically tries to organize his own website.

Gaming Nerds "R" Us

Looks like that Ultimate Origins book is gone, nothing on that site but some kind of gothic style game. The tone from his last series of posts on this site it feels like he has given the middle finger to FASERIP.

Ok, given that I can’t read about another system, what is the opinion about what I wrote?

You are mistaken. All of his FASERIP netbooks are there in their own Marvel section. I just checked it.

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Necromancer

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davidrpaige

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Necromancer
Major Tom Sawyer's works are not featured at CMF. He typically tries to organize his own website.

Gaming Nerds "R" Us

Looks like that Ultimate Origins book is gone, nothing on that site but some kind of gothic style game. The tone from his last series of posts on this site it feels like he has given the middle finger to FASERIP.

Ok, given that I can’t read about another system, what is the opinion about what I wrote?

You are mistaken. All of his FASERIP netbooks are there in their own Marvel section. I just checked it. You should look more carefully

I think your ideal of Charisma has already been done by MTS. You are on a similar track, but MTS did the groundwork already for Charisma and Appearance (and a lot more than just that, he technically devoted 2 books and chapters of a 3rd book to the idea). Although, admittedly, his Sexcetera series may not be for everyone, but he did address the idea in the other 4 Origins books.

Health or Karma was already used to track Mental and Spiritual damage previously, adding a secondary ability of "Spirit" does not really change that or enhance it. I can't understand the desire to want to track Mental damage separate from Health, in the Marvel Universe Mental Powers inflict real Physical damage to the body. What happens when Spirit reaches zero? Death? It would be the same effect as using Health to track that Mental damage. A vegetable state? Typically powers that do that target Karma or RIP Abilities. Damage to the Astral form has it's own set of rules to track damage on the Astral Plane. So I guess I don't really see the benefit of yet one more secondary Ability. To quote Dragon Magazine, KISMIF (Keep it simple, make it fun.)

From another thread in the General Discussion category, let me add, never forget the value of the character's Popularity rank.

Maybe a separate Mental Health score so that big dumb brutes can be dispatched more quickly with psi-damage.

Exactly. Most of the Wrecking Crew shouldn't be able to take as much psionic damage as they can under the current rules.

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DorkLord
Exactly. Most of the Wrecking Crew shouldn't be able to take as much psionic damage as they can under the current rules.

I was being facetious with that explanation, not giving a reason that I believe in. The big dumb brutes like the Wrecking Crew can be easily dispatched by telepathic assaults that might stun or otherwise render them unconscious due to low Psyche rank making them more likely to fail such checks. However, damage is damage... even psionic damage is just damage. The difference in psionic damage is that the Wrecking Crew's Asgardian magic-enhanced bodies (which includes their physical brain) has no protection from psionic damage at all, so while they can shrug off a sawed off shotgun blast, a psionic attack will do full damage. But their magically-enhanced forms can still withstand more of it than a normal, unenhanced thug with the same Reason, Intuition, and Psyche ranks.

Well then, I simply disagree with you. I've always disliked the idea of physical health a measure of a character's resistance to psychic damage. If "magic" is your explanation for the Wrecking Crew, what about non magic brutes? Not to mention, why would a powerful psychic like Professor X only have like 20 health vs psychic damage?

In the comics, pionic damage can possibly have 1 or 2 components. Some, like telekinesis, certainly have a physical force to it, while things like Psi-bolts might be solely in the realm of the mind. It all depends on the power, player choice, and Judge decision on what and how the power functions. Some one like Psylock, in her ninja incarnation, seems to be able to switch back and forth (aka different writers) on the physical and pure mental affect.

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What happens when Spirit reaches zero? Death? It would be the same effect as using Health to track that Mental damage. A vegetable state?

The result of reducing a Spirit to zero, in my proposal, is going to depend on the action and intention of the player, the power, and the Judges input...just like physical attacks. In the standard physical combat rules, a character can decide to just hit someone with the intention of just knocking out, not intending to kill. Even though they might make that choice, input from situational circumstance by the Judge might change that. Sometimes, like Wolverine, they just go for blood and zero health is meant to kill. Same thing with psionic attackers. They could be going for a knock out or they could choose to wipe the mind forever, making their victim catatonic.

My main emphasis of having a separate Spirit (Mental health value) is to explain/accommodate the kind of attacks from characters like Proteus (Uncanny X-man v1 119 - 128). Here was a character that destroyed a person's mind and then inhabited the body. The body, until he sucked it dry after he took it over, was unharmed in his psychic assault. Then he took over and replaced the mind in the new body, at that point draining (Health reducing) the body until it was consumed.

The same thing with Amahl Farouk/Shadow King. His attacks were purely in the Astral realm, at least in the early history of the character. No Health, in a physical sense, was lost as the Shadow King attacked.

The question is, how would you deal with a classic Proteus attack in your campaign? Especially if you treat all attacks against the Health total. Does Proteus reduce a character's Health to zero and then the Health reset when/if he takes control?

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DorkLord
Well then, I simply disagree with you. I've always disliked the idea of physical health a measure of a character's resistance to psychic damage. If "magic" is your explanation for the Wrecking Crew, what about non magic brutes? Not to mention, why would a powerful psychic like Professor X only have like 20 health vs psychic damage?

Professor X should have resistance to mental attacks to shield him from psi damage.

Being smart (Reason) should not help you resist psi damage. Neither should heightened awareness (Intuition). The reason I'm fine with psi damage affecting Health based on physical abilities is that the health of one's mind is a physical function because it's tied to the brain, a physical part of the character's body. Psi damage is affecting the synapses in the mind, possibly causing a hemorage or other traumatic damage to the brain.

I believe in a basic mind and body philosophy and don't like separating the two. Psi damage, while fictional and non-real as far as we know, is based on pure force of will causing damage to someone else's mind... or maybe it's a mechanical function, perhaps a device putting out psionic energy that causes a real, physical disruption in someone's brain. I don't think of it like some intangible, undefinable characteristic like "spirit" that needs it's own Health score to see how fast it is worn down. Resisting mental attacks is a function of willpower, so Psyche would be appropriate for effects that might stun or overwhelm with controlling effect, but if someone were forced to make a Kill? check based on a psionic attack, I would still call for it as an Endurance FEAT to resist the physical damage that resulted from the psionic damage.

And that's why Health as a physical reflection works just fine for me even for mental attacks.

While I hadn't thought about adding another stat I had considered using the RIP to represent mental health, a stat to replace using physical health for powers like Lifeform Creation or Artifact Creation. The creation powers were ridiculously nerfed and using up physical health a major problem, so I considered the mental health idea to be where the creation powers gained their 'fuel' rather than depleting physical health. It did however have that disadvantage that there were only 3 stats contributing to it instead of 4 like with Health but at least the hero didn't have to worry about running his health into the ground trying to make a toaster.

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Thrudjelmer
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Being smart (Reason) should not help you resist psi damage. Neither should heightened awareness (Intuition).

Like being agile and having good fighting technique shouldn’t add to your Health?

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davidrpaige

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Thrudjelmer
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Being smart (Reason) should not help you resist psi damage. Neither should heightened awareness (Intuition).

Like being agile and having good fighting technique shouldn’t add to your Health?

I wouldn't say that at all. Clearly you would, and I will disagree with you.

I've been considering splitting the basic Health score between Passive Defense (Fighting+Agility) and, Well, Health. Most attacks allow will reduce Passive Defense first and have more limited effects. In essence they're blocked, dodged, etc at least partially. Once Passive Defense is exhausted things start to reduce Health, potentially have full effects and can kill the character if they are brought to 0 Health.

I prefer Marvel FASERIP's simplified Health system. No need to over-complicate it.

Its a House rule, so a matter of taste. A Charisma attribute is require but could be useful and a separate pools for mental damage don't seem necessary for me. But mileage will vary. The Health mechanic has always been pet peeve I've had with the system (and one of the reason I moved to other system). I don't care for abstracted damage systems and it seems like a simple fix.

I had forgotten to post the Popularity bonus to Charisma table.

So the idea is, you use your charm and wit, represented by your Charisma score, to get contacts and NPCs to do things for you or give you things. Your popularity can add bonuses to that Charisma. The more famous you are, the more it can influence a person. So this is the Popularity shift chart to the Charisma rank:

Popularity Rank / Shift to Charisma
FE / none
PR / none
TY / none
GD / none
EX / +1CS
RM / +1CS
IN / +2CS
AM / +2CS
FN / +3CS
SP / +3CS
MN / +4CS
WN / +5CS
UN / +6CS

The greater the popularity, the more it over-rides one's personality...to an extent. The Judge can determine that an NPC might not know of the "world famous" character and therefore they must rely purely on their Charisma Rank. In past campaigns we would use the Popularity ranks, with no influence of Charisma, when dealing with large crowds of NPCs. Somewhere in the Advance Handbook it gave a great example of this, where a character is shouting at a movie theater crowd to evacuate. In this case, the Popularity of the PC swayed the crowd to listen and pay attention. Examples like this is when Popularity should be played out as it was originally written.

The Judge was, obviously, the final say on what the appropriate Attribute was needed in any given circumstance.

Anyways, that is how we integrated Charisma into our game.

Oh, I would use this if you use the standard ranks:

Popularity Rank / Shift to Charisma
FE / none
PR / none
TY / none
GD / none
EX / +1CS
RM / +1CS
IN / +2CS
AM / +3CS
MN / +4CS
UN / +5CS

So I was just playing around with a character sheet if it incorporated Charisma, Spirit, and Appearance. I edited a character sheet that I actually use, ThatArtGuy's character sheet found in Downloads, and modified it with those stats.

I'm still working with it. I've been toying with starting a new villain campaign here in the DC area. I might introduce the use of Charisma and Spirit in that campaign.

What do you think?

My two cents:

First, your scale is way off. An Unerathly Charisma should be godly, yet from your scale it looks like Kim Kardashian could have an Unearthly Charisma. This means I would get 100 Karma for "defeating" her.

Second, I think it would make more sense, and less work, to use Karma as "spirit". The starting total is already SUM(RIP). Plus, you can use the house rule that this base karma regenerates and is instead a base the character gets at the start of every session ie you could "heal" karma.

I'd rather try to do more with what is already there before adding more.

(and for the record, I also got a ton of static when I propsed adding a Body stat that accounted for the mass of the character)

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barna10
First, your scale is way off. An Unerathly Charisma should be godly, yet from your scale it looks like Kim Kardashian could have an Unearthly Charisma. This means I would get 100 Karma for "defeating" her.

I totally disagree. Kim, at most, would be a RM in the Charisma scale. Some would argue she is a negative UN rank. This would be a case where Popularity rank is much higher then a personality rank is. A MSH Kim Kardashian, she would rely on Popularity rank for either bonuses to Charisma FEATs or just straight up use the Popularity rank for the FEAT roll. The Judge would determine, based on the situation and circumstance, what would be the appropriate roll.

This has been the revised Charisma description table I've been working on, which incorporates the expanded ranks. This also as more description of personality presence. This list is not fully completed as I'm still trying to tweak a few things.

Shift-0: No one remembers you, ever.
Feeble: Terribly reticent, uninteresting, or rude; People act as if you don't exist.
Poor: Something of a bore or makes people mildly uncomfortable; Shy
Typical: Capable of polite conversation; Leaves a basic impression on somebody.
Good: Mildly interesting, knows what to say to the right people; a very amiable person, able to hold and draw the attention of a small gathering.
Excellent: Interesting, knows what to say to most people; Hold and draw the attention of a large crowd.
Remarkable: Popular, receives greetings and conversations on the street; Can change the emotional status of an auditorium sized crowed from dead silence to an electrified frenzy.
Incredible: Immediately likable by many people, subject of favorable talk; Gain loyalty and respect upon appearance.
Amazing: Life of the party, able to keep people entertained for hours; Highly regarded across a state or region.
Fantastic: The character affects the opinions of people across a nation; Can generate a cult following within the region the size of a country.
Spectacular: Alter the opinions of various citizens across the world. The personality is strong enough to attract the attention of leaders of many separate nations.
Monstrous: Immediately likable by almost everybody; Presence that can attract the attention of legendary personas. The character's name is a household word and they will generate myths and legends that will last for centuries.
Wondrous: Gain the respect of legendary figures, such as King Arthur, and sway the opinions of beings of great mystical power. The character can garner the attention of another species.
Unearthly: Renowned for wit and personality; Garner the attention of powerful personages such as demons and devils, and possesses the ability to reason with and possibly alter their thinking or behavior.

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barna10
Second, I think it would make more sense, and less work, to use Karma as "spirit". The starting total is already SUM(RIP). Plus, you can use the house rule that this base karma regenerates and is instead a base the character gets at the start of every session ie you could "heal" karma.

I'd rather try to do more with what is already there before adding more.

I personally think it is less work to just add a line on a character sheet to have mental health score and let Karma be Karma as written. I'm personally not a fan of the regen Karma house rules. Also, in your suggestion, if we use Karma as rank of Mental Health, what you are saying is that when you spend Karma you are mentally weaker, even if only temporary. Let's break down the issue:

Let's say you have Reason GD (10), Intuition GD (10), and Psyche GD (10). That starts you out with 30 Karma points, and in your suggestion, 30 mental health points. Depending on the house rule, your Karma would eventually regenerate back to 30 by Psyche rank (Good). So during the course of an adventure, you spend Karma to influence a FEAT roll. Let's say for this example you spend 15 points, leaving you with 15 points of Karma left. So until Karma starts to regenerate, or you spend more Karma points, you have only 15 points of mental health left? So a pure psionic attack of EX (20) would knock out the character instead of the RM (30) it originally needed? What happens if you spend all of your Karma to get a red result? Are you totally vulnerable to psychic attack?

I find that mechanically complicated and unnecessary. And if you say that you just keep record of the starting Karma level then you are doing what I'm doing of having a Spirit score.

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barna10
(and for the record, I also got a ton of static when I propsed adding a Body stat that accounted for the mass of the character)

Totally unfazed by someone's opinion, good or bad. I don't post things to have my ego stroked, I post things to field test the mantle of the idea. If you feel that Karma rank is sufficient to address some of the situations I've presented, then great. If you like some of the things I've proposed, then great, you have a few more tools to your toolbox.

Can you provide babes to put with your scale?

Also, everything you've started is the positive aspects of Charisma, but what about Hitler and the power to sway mind to do bad things. Where does this fall?

I would still argue the scale is off. I would think an UN cochairman would be something like Lorelei with so much Charisma that you are under her sway.

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barna10
Can you provide babes to put with your scale?

What? I don't understand the question.

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barna10
Also, everything you've started is the positive aspects of Charisma, but what about Hitler and the power to sway mind to do bad things. Where does this fall?

Being persuasive is different then what you do with that persuasion. To take your example, he could be a RM(30) charisma and influences a crowd. It is then up to the character to decide what to do with that influence. In his case he influenced people to do horrible things. He could have used that influence to start an anti-littering campaign, but that is not what he did. There is no need for a "negative Charisma" chart.

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davidrpaige

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barna10
Can you provide babes to put with your scale?

What? I don't understand the question.

What? You can't interpret stupid F$%$^$ phone auto-correct?

That was supposed to be "Can you provide names to put with your scale?"