VERS:What They Can Do: Difference between revisions

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Now that we have an in depth understanding of who the character is, what they believe, and how they act, all we need to do is assign ranks to the mechanical features of the character. This section of character creation can be a bit more challenging as it involves more math and keeping track of Character Point expenditures. That said, players more used to other roleplaying games may find themselves more at home here.
== Power Source ==
In some genres, like superheroes or fantasy, the character will need to define a Power Source where their abilities, powers, magic, and the like come from. For instance, our paladin character would have a power source of “Divinity” or “Faith” because all of their special abilities would relate to that in some way. This is both a roleplaying aide and a mechanical benefit to the character.
On the roleplaying side it informs how society perceives his gifts and also how he understands them. Thus a character whose abilities come from a deity revered by the local populace would be seen as an exemplar and be much beloved. A character whose abilities came from alien genetic tampering may be seen as unnatural and even hated by certain groups. These characters would also, perhaps, have their own attitudes and notions related to this, such as the paladin being more “holier-than-thou” or perhaps extremely compassionate, depending on the player’s desires, or the character with spliced genes might feel very conscious about their powers and try to hide them.
From a mechanical side, this allows other abilities to target certain types of power sources, such as magic that only affects Negative Energy creatures or weapons that only affect those with mutant DNA. This will be touched on more in the Abilities section, but you can think of power source as similar to an Ability’s Property.
Some common power sources are magic, technology, divinity, training, psychic, alien, mutant, and martial arts.
== Power Level ==
{| class="wikitable" style="float:right; margin-left: 10px;"
! colspan="5" style="text-align: center; font-weight:bold; background-color:#677821; border-width: 0;  color:#ffffff;" | Power Level and Character Creation
|-
| style="text-align: center; font-weight:bold; background-color:#b0c879; border-width: 0" | PL
| style="text-align: center; font-weight:bold; background-color:#b0c879; border-width: 0" | Attribute
| style="text-align: center; font-weight:bold; background-color:#b0c879; border-width: 0" | Skill
| style="text-align: center; font-weight:bold; background-color:#b0c879; border-width: 0" | General
| style="font-weight:bold; background-color:#b0c879;border-width: 0" | Examples
|-
| style="text-align: center;border-width: 0" | 0
| style="text-align: center;border-width: 0" | 5
| style="text-align: center;border-width: 0" | 5
| style="text-align: center;border-width: 0" | 0
| style="border-width: 0" | Typical NPC
|-
| style="text-align: center; background-color:#b0c879;border-width: 0" | 1
| style="text-align: center; background-color:#b0c879;border-width: 0" | 10
| style="text-align: center; background-color:#b0c879;border-width: 0" | 7
| style="text-align: center; background-color:#b0c879;border-width: 0" | 0
| style="background-color:#b0c879;border-width: 0" | Teenage PCs, Adventuring NPCs
|-
| style="text-align: center;border-width: 0" | 2
| style="text-align: center;border-width: 0" | 15
| style="text-align: center;border-width: 0" | 10
| style="text-align: center;border-width: 0" | 5
| style="border-width: 0" | Novice PC
|-
| style="text-align: center; background-color:#b0c879;border-width: 0" | 3
| style="text-align: center; background-color:#b0c879;border-width: 0" | 20
| style="text-align: center; background-color:#b0c879;border-width: 0" | 10
| style="text-align: center; background-color:#b0c879;border-width: 0" | 7
| style="background-color:#b0c879;border-width: 0" | Standard PC, Important NPC
|-
| style="text-align: center;border-width: 0" | 4
| style="text-align: center;border-width: 0" | 25
| style="text-align: center;border-width: 0" | 13
| style="text-align: center;border-width: 0 | 10
| style="border-width: 0;" | Veteran PC, Teen Superhero
|-
| style="text-align: center; background-color:#b0c879;border-width: 0" | 5
| style="text-align: center; background-color:#b0c879;border-width: 0" | 30
| style="text-align: center; background-color:#b0c879;border-width: 0" | 15
| style="text-align: center; background-color:#b0c879;border-width: 0" | 15
| style="background-color:#b0c879;border-width: 0" | Low Level Superhero, Legendary NPC
|-
| style="text-align: center;border-width: 0" | 6
| style="text-align: center;border-width: 0" | 35
| style="text-align: center;border-width: 0" | 20
| style="text-align: center;border-width: 0" | 25
| style="border-width: 0" | Superhero, Mythic NPC
|-
| style="text-align: center; background-color:#b0c879;border-width: 0" | 7
| style="text-align: center; background-color:#b0c879;border-width: 0" | 40
| style="text-align: center; background-color:#b0c879;border-width: 0" | 25
| style="text-align: center; background-color:#b0c879;border-width: 0" | 35
| style="background-color:#b0c879;border-width: 0" | Veteran Superhero
|-
| style="text-align: center;border-width: 0" | 8
| style="text-align: center;border-width: 0" | 45
| style="text-align: center;border-width: 0" | 30
| style="text-align: center;border-width: 0" | 50
|  style="text-align: center;border-width: 0" |
|-
| style="text-align: center; background-color:#b0c879;border-width: 0" | 9
| style="text-align: center; background-color:#b0c879;border-width: 0" | 50
| style="text-align: center; background-color:#b0c879;border-width: 0" | 35
| style="text-align: center; background-color:#b0c879;border-width: 0" | 65
| style="background-color:#b0c879;border-width: 0" |
|-
| style="text-align: center;border-width: 0" | 10
| style="text-align: center;border-width: 0" | 55
| style="text-align: center;border-width: 0" | 40
| style="text-align: center;border-width: 0" | 80
| style="border-width: 0" | Practically a deity
|}
VERS is a free form system, which means that it does not use a class or level structure to build characters. Instead, every player can create exactly the character they want to play. This freedom comes at a price, however, and balancing characters to make sure that no one has a boring mess with no relevant skills or an overpowered, scene stealing munchkin is difficult, especially to inexperienced players and GMs.
To help with this, the GM needs to determine the Power Level of the game she wants to run. Power level is a method of somewhat constraining the experience of the characters so that the GM can more easily tune the opposition to be appropriate to their skill. Unlike levels in some other rpg systems, however, that is all these power levels do, they provide a suggestion of how powerful the character should be.
A character's Attributes and Skills combined should have less than or equal ranks to twice the power level, while Abilities should equal or have fewer ranks than the base power level. In other words, a power level of 3 means that the combined ranks of a skill and its connected attribute should be no more than 6, while an ability for that character should have no more than 3 ranks. These are just guidelines and it is ultimately up to the GM to approve any character build, built to respect power level or not.
Most VERS games start out at a Power Level of 3, but those wishing to make younger characters going on their first adventures should build characters at Power Level 2, while veterans with a long history should build at Power Level 4. In the chart below the columns for "starting ranks" for both attributes and skills are indicating the total number of ranks that can be distributed at that PL at character creation, while general is an amount of CP that can be spent on advantages, and abilities, or even on more ranks of attributes and skills, if desired. Also note that the following chart is for basic games. Some settings, such as a super-heroic setting or high fantasy, which use many more abilities and advantages, may have different guidelines like doubling the general CP.
== Attributes ==
== Skills ==
== Advantages ==
== Abilities ==
== Gear ==

Revision as of 20:21, 20 June 2019

VERS -> Book I - Player Rules -> VERS:What They Can Do

Now that we have an in depth understanding of who the character is, what they believe, and how they act, all we need to do is assign ranks to the mechanical features of the character. This section of character creation can be a bit more challenging as it involves more math and keeping track of Character Point expenditures. That said, players more used to other roleplaying games may find themselves more at home here.

Power Source

In some genres, like superheroes or fantasy, the character will need to define a Power Source where their abilities, powers, magic, and the like come from. For instance, our paladin character would have a power source of “Divinity” or “Faith” because all of their special abilities would relate to that in some way. This is both a roleplaying aide and a mechanical benefit to the character.

On the roleplaying side it informs how society perceives his gifts and also how he understands them. Thus a character whose abilities come from a deity revered by the local populace would be seen as an exemplar and be much beloved. A character whose abilities came from alien genetic tampering may be seen as unnatural and even hated by certain groups. These characters would also, perhaps, have their own attitudes and notions related to this, such as the paladin being more “holier-than-thou” or perhaps extremely compassionate, depending on the player’s desires, or the character with spliced genes might feel very conscious about their powers and try to hide them.

From a mechanical side, this allows other abilities to target certain types of power sources, such as magic that only affects Negative Energy creatures or weapons that only affect those with mutant DNA. This will be touched on more in the Abilities section, but you can think of power source as similar to an Ability’s Property.

Some common power sources are magic, technology, divinity, training, psychic, alien, mutant, and martial arts.

Power Level

Power Level and Character Creation
PL Attribute Skill General Examples
0 5 5 0 Typical NPC
1 10 7 0 Teenage PCs, Adventuring NPCs
2 15 10 5 Novice PC
3 20 10 7 Standard PC, Important NPC
4 25 13 10 Veteran PC, Teen Superhero
5 30 15 15 Low Level Superhero, Legendary NPC
6 35 20 25 Superhero, Mythic NPC
7 40 25 35 Veteran Superhero
8 45 30 50
9 50 35 65
10 55 40 80 Practically a deity

VERS is a free form system, which means that it does not use a class or level structure to build characters. Instead, every player can create exactly the character they want to play. This freedom comes at a price, however, and balancing characters to make sure that no one has a boring mess with no relevant skills or an overpowered, scene stealing munchkin is difficult, especially to inexperienced players and GMs.

To help with this, the GM needs to determine the Power Level of the game she wants to run. Power level is a method of somewhat constraining the experience of the characters so that the GM can more easily tune the opposition to be appropriate to their skill. Unlike levels in some other rpg systems, however, that is all these power levels do, they provide a suggestion of how powerful the character should be.

A character's Attributes and Skills combined should have less than or equal ranks to twice the power level, while Abilities should equal or have fewer ranks than the base power level. In other words, a power level of 3 means that the combined ranks of a skill and its connected attribute should be no more than 6, while an ability for that character should have no more than 3 ranks. These are just guidelines and it is ultimately up to the GM to approve any character build, built to respect power level or not.

Most VERS games start out at a Power Level of 3, but those wishing to make younger characters going on their first adventures should build characters at Power Level 2, while veterans with a long history should build at Power Level 4. In the chart below the columns for "starting ranks" for both attributes and skills are indicating the total number of ranks that can be distributed at that PL at character creation, while general is an amount of CP that can be spent on advantages, and abilities, or even on more ranks of attributes and skills, if desired. Also note that the following chart is for basic games. Some settings, such as a super-heroic setting or high fantasy, which use many more abilities and advantages, may have different guidelines like doubling the general CP.

Attributes

Skills

Advantages

Abilities

Gear