In Force Rules Changes

This section contains the rules changes to V&V 2.1 that I have in place.

Page-Count Experience and The 10 Level Campaign

(Not the name of my Hootie and Blowfish Cover Band) When we started this campaign I went with a deliberately old school experience point system modeled on the Palladium system, with rewards driven by in character action rather than the power of the enemies defeated. This was driven in part by my love of the Pendragon system with players tracking honor rewards in a way that produced a clear character chronicle and the assumption that since this was a PBEM we would have time to do the more complex system. Unfortunately that didn't work - the players can't track their own taggings and actions, and don't have constantly updated character sheets so I was doing all the work and the players saw none of the reward. Worse, I ended up having to reread each adventure chronicle several times in order to find everything and mark them on the chronicle and then again on the character sheets.

Plus, the players didn't need an outside driver to play in character.

It was just so not worth the effort.

Hence the new system: characters advance in level based on the number of pages they're in. I already use Pages to track scenes and events so there you go. The more the character is in the book, the faster they advance.

I'm also adjusting the level curve down to 10 levels rather than the V&V 20, making level changes more significant. This expands training and simplifies the level vs. level table. The effect of levels are as follows

• One basic characteristics below 12 is increased to 12. This cannot be applied to basic characteristics reduced by Weaknesses. Everyone takes super-heroing as a serious business and trains accordingly. This also ties to 4th level being 'professional' at this sort of thing.
• One basic characteristic is increased by 1 point. Without a Heightened Characteristic this caps at 18, with a heightened Characteristic A it caps at 28. Otherwise no cap. Again, this is a serious business, people train.
  • The character can instead opt to add an Interest, a 1 point bonus on saves that work the same way as Professions and Hobbies.
  • The character can instead opt to increase a Knowledge Area (Career, Hobby or Interest) by +1, max of +5
• Character is +1 to hit with an -1 to be hit by all attacks, applied after defenses. This is the level vs. level table condensed. When you're fighting people your own level it balances out, but the after defense bonus to hit is really useful as the PCs start facing less experienced foes (and is a real threat in fighting more experienced ones.)
• Add one Stunt to any of their Powers or make one Invention permanent. Power Stunts take something you used to be able to do with a Save against the power's Basic Characteristic and makes it something you can do automatically. Inventions are external devices useful in adventuring that work for longer than just the one story and can be given to someone else. People can only make Inventions if they have Professions, Hobbies, or Interests that indicate a scientific, technical or magical expertise. These are generally defined in play during the level rather than at level start.
• Finally, at any level change heroes can move their Size up or down by 1, between 2 and 5. Normally this is teenagers gaining height and mass as they grow up, but dieting is also possible.

Levels and Training

Here's the list of what leveling up gets you.

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Saving Throws, Knowledge Areas, and Traits

I'm replacing the existing structure with something clearer:

• A Standard Save is d20 vs. a Basic Characteristic
• A Challenging Save is d20 vs. 3/5ths the Basic Characteristic. This replaces the d% vs. 3x Basic Characteristic that was Inventing %
• A Hard save is d20 vs. 1/5th the Basic Characteristic. This replaces d% vs. the Basic Characteristics that were hard saves in the old system.

The math on this works out being the same as before, but its conceptually easier to keep it as d20s.

We use these Saves in the traditional fashion, where you're rolling to try to get the score or lower. They are used for pretty much anything that isn't a direct attack in combat (and sometimes then too - more on that in a minute).

The target number of the save is increased by one of the characters Knowledge Areas (Career/Hobby/Interest). Since this bonus is applied regardless of the difficulty, Knowledge Areas work best in making Hard saves easier to pull off. If Bubble Boy needs to unravel an alien virus his 13 intelligence gives him a Hard save of 3; add in his Xeno-biology career and the save is a 7 - not great, but much better. If he has to know basic things about Xenoiology his Standard save of 13 is boosted to 17, making it a reliable skill.

Pushing Your Power

Saves are also what you use to stunt or push your powers. Knowledge Areas don't apply to this roll - it's all about the Basic Characteristic - but you can't push a power in combat without tagging one of your Traits. Pushing yourself in combat requires reaching deep into your personality, and therefore you have to justify the power boost by highlighting (via dialogue, monologue or flashback) the trait.

• Stunting a power: finding a new way to use the ability that you haven't already mastered - is a Standard save against the power's connected attribute. Once you've used a stunt you can decide to make it permanent by spending a level training in it. Until you do, you'll need to make the save every time you use it.

• Pushing a power: Using an ability at 5x its normal level takes twice the normal Vitality (minimum 5), and requires a Challenging save if you try to use it in combat.

• Going Full Power: Using your ability at its full power (50x normal power) takes triple the normal vitality (minimum 10) and requires a Hard Save if done in combat, or a Challenging Save outside of combat with any sort of time pressure.

Saves As Part of Attacks

In the interest of rules coherence, Challenging and Hard saves can be integrated into Attacks, as thresholds for what conditions the attack applied to the target. Every attack has an attached Basic Characteristic (basic attacks tie to Agility), and if the unmodified attack roll is...

• ...greater than that Basic Characteristic's Challenging Save, it has the least effect.
• ...equal to or less than the Challenging save but greater than the Hard save, it has the middle effect.
• ...equal to or less than the Hard save it has the greatest effect.

As an example, Metal Lass's unarmed combat using the Forms is linked to her Agility, and has an attack base of 12. Her agility is a 12, so she has a Challenging Save of 8 and a Hard Save of 2. If she attacks unarmed and rolls...

• ...between 09 and 12, she knocks her opponent off balance (or to the ground), doing damage to their Movement score. This is her least effect.
• ...between 03 and 08, she lands a solid blow, doing damage to their Hit Point score. This is her middle effect.
• ...between 01 and 02, she hurls her opponent to the ground, doing damage to _both_ Hit Points and Movement. This is her greatest effect.

(Now, Metal Lass also has two Power Stunts that lets her lower her Heightened Defense to either disorient her opponent or send them flying, but that's not part of the attack roll.)

While this is useful for damaging attacks, this is the primary means of seeing how well a non-damaging attack hits. When Metal Lass tries to use her Magnetic Powers to entangle someone, her attack base is 16 and her Endurance-based power has a Difficult Save of 6 and a Hard Save of 2. If she rolls...

• ...between 07 and 16, the target is Hampered (can't make special attacks, at 1/2 movement). This is her least effect.
• ...between 03 and 06, the target is Stuck (Can't make special attacks, can't move). This is her middle effect.
• ...between 01 and 02, the target is Entangled (All attacks at -4, can't move, has +4 to be hit). This is her greatest effect.

This lets us easily scale up effects that apply conditions, and gives the PCs reasons to try to reach peak efficiency in their Basic Characteristics.

You may have noticed ow this interacts with the defense table - attack rolls that produce the least effect occur with higher dice rolls, and those higher dice rolls are the ones invalidated by the defense table. Defenses cause less accurate, weaker effects to bounce off, but direct, solid hits will still score their effect. That's how the world works.