MindWanderer's Character Creation Tips

The Sentinel Comics RPG is focused mainly on theme and storytelling.  Although there are combat abilities, "balance" isn't the focus of its design.  As a result, it's quite possible to create a character who's frustratingly ineffective.

That may not be a priority for you.  Maybe you have a specific concept in mind, or you're trying to duplicate a specific character from popular culture.  Maybe your campaign consists almost entirely of role-playing and narration, and the dice and abilities don't matter very much.  Maybe your campaign isn't about "winning" and "losing" but doing whatever feels appropriate and seeing where that takes you.  If any of that applies to you, this guide isn't going to be of help to you.  But if your idea of having a good time is feeling like every one of your actions is contributing to the party's success in every scene, you may find it helpful.

This guide is in two parts.  The first part, aimed at everyone creating a new character, contains suggestions for what to bear in mind when choosing your powers, qualities, principles, and abilities so that you don't find yourself rolling d4's or taking basic actions all the time.  The second part, aimed at optimizers, is an evaluation of what abilities, and thus which power sources and archetypes, will get you the most bang for your buck.

This is based on pre-release information shared by Greater Than Games.  Specific are subject to change.

Being Useful

When following the character creation instructions, you'll first choose a background, a power source, an archetype, a background, and a retcon, in that order.  This gets you:

1. Background: A principle and usually 2 qualities
2. Power Source: Usually 3 powers
3. Archetype: A principle and usually 3 powers/qualities
4. Personality: One custom quality at d8
5. Retcon: Several options, but the ones that change your powers, qualities, or principles aren't ideal.

Don't feel like you have to be a slave to exactly that order of operations.  Your choices have to be legal at each step but you can feel free to go back and forth and change your selections.  Just make sure that if you make any changes to an earlier step, you make sure all your later choices are still legal.  For instance, you can't make an ability from your power source key off a power you gained from your archetype.  But if you choose Cursed as your power source and then Elemental Manipulator as your archetype, it's fine to go back and swap out one of your other Cursed abilities for Attunement.

Give Yourself Options

If your character concept is simple, it can be tempting to design a character who can be a bit of a one-trick pony.  For instance, you might give a soldier a bunch of athletic power and physical qualities, or a scientist a bunch of intellectual powers and information qualities.

Resist this temptation!  If your character over-specializes in a certain concept, you'll find yourself having lots of options in some situations (and probably just using the stats with the largest die over and over) and completely clueless in other situations.

Instead, look at the other options you have and think about ways your character could show some depth or versatility.  Maybe your soldier is a natural leader (Presence, Leadership) or a wilderness survivor (Awareness, Alertness).  Your scientist could have Gadgets that do any number of other things, and they could have a Mental or Social quality that reflects their personality.  This will give them dice to lean on when they're outside their area of expertise.

Obvious Combinations

For each of your qualities, look at your list of powers and make sure there's at least one power that has an obvious application.  For instance, if you have Banter, and your powers are Strength, Fire, Flight, and Power Suit, it's going to be hard for you to come up with ways to make use of that quality.  Not impossible, but making use of it on the fly in an unexpected situation won't be something that happens very often.  Consider swapping those qualities out, or swapping a power to something that works more easily.

Then, do the same thing with your powers, making sure they each work easily with at least one of your qualities.

This is doubly important for your principles.  For each of your principles, make sure you can imagine several scenarios where you might use that principle, in combination with at least one, preferably more than one, of your powers and qualities.  If you can't, choose a different principle or change your powers and/or qualities.  Remember, it's easier to imagine scenarios that might happen than it is to come up with something to do in an unexpected situation your character might be thrown into.

Default Abilities

The same applies to your abilities.  Each of your action abilities will have either a power or a quality you're required to use with it, but make sure you have an obvious quality (if it uses a power) or power (if it uses a quality) that you could easily pair with it without even thinking about it.  If you have to think carefully about which dice you're going to use every time you use an ability, you may not end up getting full use of them, or at best you'll slow down the game when it comes to your turn.  You don't have to use the same dice every time you use an ability, but it helps if you have a default combination you can fall back on without worrying about it.

Swiss Army Knives

Some powers, qualities, and principles are easy to use in a variety of contexts, and having them means you always have something to fall back on.  Some examples:

Technological powers plus the Technology quality mean you could have a device for almost any situation, especially if you have the Gearhead principle.

Elemental/Energy powers are mostly destructive in their application, but Cold is especially useful because it also allows you to create or manipulate ice, and Electricity can work with electronics (though crudely).  Creativity and Science are especially useful qualities here; they goes well with Materials powers, too.

Intellectual powers (except Presence) can help you do almost anything, because what problem doesn't involve thinking about something?  The tricky part is having qualities appropriate to the situation.

A "Signature Weapon" could be a device that doesn't just kill people.  It could be a magic sword, a modular cannon, or a cosmic artifact that has other capabilities.  Make sure you communicate with your GM about what your signature weapon can and cannot do, so it isn't just an omnipotent Swiss army knife.

Some principles (Energy/Element, Fauna, Flora, Future, Gearhead, Science, Stealth, and Strength) apply basically any time you use the specific power or quality it describes.  If you take one that's tied to a power, try to pick up as many different qualities as possible to use with it, or one or two qualities that apply pretty much all the time.  The reverse is true if you pick up one tied to a quality.

(There are a couple of principles that are thematically connected to other powers or qualities, but their Overcomes don't boil down to "use this whenever you use this die.")

There's one principle that stands out here: Great Power.  If you have several powers with a d10, it's a supremely versatile choice and doesn't require any thought at all.  If you have just one d12 power, treat it like a single-power principle.

Limited Use

On the other hand, some powers are limited in when you can use them, because they work on something in the environment that may not be present or accessible.  If you choose one of these, be aware that it's not always even going to be available, and make sure you have fallback options.  These include Weather, all Materials except Transmutation (especially Toxic), Swimming, Animal Control, Suggestion, and Absorption.

This is also true of many qualities, especially Information and Social qualities.  Sometimes you can use Social qualities on your teammates, but if you're doing that to solve problems, you have an unusual set of problems.  And unless they apply to your own tools (notably Magical Lore and Technology), every Information quality except Science only applies in a context where your area of expertise happens to be either the problem or an available solution.  Sometimes you can make it work anyway, but often you can't.  That's not to say you shouldn't take these unless you know the campaign will make them applicable most of the time, but the more of these you have, the more other high-die qualities you'll want to have as well.

Principles are even more important to consider, since you only get two of them.  A large number of principles only apply under specific conditions (e.g. Exorcism, Space, or Family) which may or may not be common in your campaign.  Talk to your GM about these so you know if they're likely to be completely useless.  Others can be broadly applicable but hard to use often (e.g. Destiny, History, Equality).  In either case, try to choose at least one principle that's going to be useful more often than not.

Being the Best

So, just being generally useful isn't good enough for you?  You want to crack this game wide open?  Read on for tips about the best backgrounds, power sources, archetypes, personalities, abilities, and combinations thereof to give you the most bang for your buck.  Bear in mind that you're deliberately putting character concept second here.  You can still create interesting characters this way, but it'll be hard to make a specific concept while also min-maxing.  You can, of course, take some advice from this section without optimizing whole hog.

Unlike other RPG's, SCRPG doesn't particularly encourage specialization.  While you can construct a party this way (e.g. one single-target damage, one multi-target damage, one booster, one hinderer), it's often even more effective to branch out and take several really good abilities that do different things.  That way, if your best abilities are multi-target attacks and you face one big bad villain, you might also have single-target attacks, boosts, hinders, or defense abilities you can switch to.

Dice

It probably goes without saying that you're going to want to use d10's and d12's as often as possible, but it's a little more complicated than that.  The options that let you get d12's usually penalize you by giving you fewer or smaller dice.  That means that you should only go for d12's when you have a very specific schtick that you can use nearly every time you roll.  If you want versatility, go for d10's.

You pretty much never want to be rolling d6's--they're barely better than the default d4.  However, d6 powers and qualities serve a useful purpose: gaining access to Red abilities.  Several great Red abilities (listed below) don't require you to roll the die associated with the power or quality that gave you access to it.  Try to save your d6's for these.  But you only get to choose two or three Red abilities, so there's a limit on how much use you can get out of this.

Also remember to put as large a die as possible into either an Athletic power or a Mental quality, since those are used to calculate Health.

Abilities

The most important thing you're looking for is abilities that provide the most value possible.  The best abilities are the ones that:

• Let you affect more than two targets or affect a target more than two times
• Let you use a larger-than-normal die
• Are reactions that you can use round after round (although not more than one of these),
• Are constantly-useful innate abilities
• Are the ones that lend themselves to specific interactions.

Noteworthy, common abilities include:

• Use a large die or a combination of dice: These are the most effective abilities at achieving a single task, notably attacking a villain or a large lieutenant, or achieving Overcomes without racking up twists.  Sever Link, Grasping Vines, Natural Weapon, Flurry of Fists, Power Strike, Load, Exploding Ammo, Ricochet, Imbue with Element, Offensive Strike, Damage Spike, Banish, Powerful Blast, Astral Projection, Telepathic Whammy, Gimmick, Surprise Shift, Analyze Weakness, Helpful Invention, Probability Insight
• Attack any number of targets: These are critical for dealing with minions, especially multiple minion groups, and helpful for small-die lieutenants.  Dangerous Explosion, Non-Stop Assault (also Hinders), Blinding Strike (ditto), Danger Zone, Live Dangerously, Energy Jaunt, Field of Energy, Run Down
• Boost or Hinder any number of targets: Fantastic at making your teammates better or your enemies worse.  Can work to effectively augment attacks by hindering minion or lieutenant saves. Area Alteration (uses your Max die), Modification Wave, Mass Modification, Costly Strength (Boost only, uses Max+Mid but hinders yourself with Min), Strange Enhancement (ditto), Alien Boost (ditto), Mass Adjust, Speedy Analysis (boost only but uses Max)
• Boost all Attack or Overcome actions until your next turn: As above, but both more restrictive and potentially more efficient.  Galvanize, Aerial Surveillance, Psychic Coordination
• Create a persistent boost: A boost that lasts for an entire scene, when applied early, will help you do everything better.  Expanded Mind (which uses your Max die and adds an attack), Power from Beyond (ditto), Always Be Prepared (which adds an attack), Growth, Personal Upgrade, Draw Power, Onboard Upgrade, Attune, Sniper Aim, Self-Improvement, Psychic Analysis, Power Up, Helpful Invention
• Attack and ignore penalties, defense and reactions: Many villains have nasty reactions and large defense values that this will bypass.  Be careful with the penalties, though, as a penalty not applied is also not expended.  Use these too often and when you do try to do something else, you'll fail badly.  Precise Shot, Precise Hit, Precise Strike, Unstoppable Charge
• React to when you are attacked: Free actions that either improve your survivability or retaliate, as long as you're drawing attacks.  Reactive Field, Tactical Analysis, Halt, A Plan for Everything, Combat Stance, Untouchable, Smoke Bombs, Barrel Roll, Illusionary Double
• Help your allies outside of your turn: Other free actions, easier to trigger.  Misdirection, Mystic Redirection, Magical Shield, Reach through Veil, Procognitive Alteration, Postcognitive Undestanding, Not Quite Right
• Reroll: Don't underestimate the power of getting a second try to roll well.  Unstable Reaction, Recalculating..., Twist Reality, Psychic Insight, Surprise Results, Analyze Probabilities
• Universally useful innates: Innates that don't have uncommon conditions are always good to have.  Unflagging, Punishment, Damage Reduction, Charged Up, Created Form, Intentionality, Double-Edged Luck, Resilience, Damage Resistant, Armored, Metal Skin
• Protect or heal yourself from self-damage: These are for specific combos, but those combos are powerful, usually dealing a lot of damage.  Immunity, Techno-Absorb, Created Immunity, Attunement, Cosmic Ray Absorption, Energy Immunity, Energy Alignment

Abilities to be avoided are:

• "Perform (specific action).  Also perform (specific other action) with your Min die."  You'll see variants of this ability a lot, and while it's better than the specific basic action, it's not by much.  If you really want to do this, you can take a Risky Action to do it with a minor twist using any combination of actions you want, and not spend an ability slot on it.  It's a poor choice as a Green ability and a horrible choice as a Yellow one.
• "Perform (specific action).  Then remove a penalty on yourself or Recover using your Min die."  This is okay at removing persistent penalties, but those don't happen often and it only applies to yourself.  It's useless at removing normal penalties since they'll be used up on the roll itself.  The healing is miniscule, and healing is a mixed blessing unless you're already solidly in Red.  This usually appears as a Yellow ability, and there are nearly always better choices.

Backgrounds

You're mostly looking at die sizes here, but bear the principles in mind as well, so try to pick a background that gets you access to a principle you want.  Most give you a d10 and a d8 for its qualities, but there's a lot of variety in what dice you get for the powers that you assign to your power source options.

Noteworthy backgrounds include:

• Upper Class (10, d8, d8 powers, but the hard-to-use Responsibility principles)
• Academic (One of three backgrounds that gets you a d12 quality, and no d6's, but one fewer power die)
• Tragic (Two d10 powers)
• Retired (Two d10 qualities and the only background with a d12 power)
• Medical (An extra d6 quality and slightly better power spread than the standard power spread of d10,d8,d6)
• Interstellar (A d12 quality)
• Created (A d12 quality and two d10 powers!)
• Military, Former Villain, and Blank Slate (Slightly better than the standard power spread)

Backgrounds to avoid include:

• Struggling (lots of dice but all d8's and d6's)
• Adventurer, Criminal, and Exile (all d8 powers)
• Otherworldly (Slightly worse than the standard power spread)

Power Sources

Your power source is the toughest choice you need to make, since it determines most of your yellow abilities, possibly a green ability, and the dice you'll use for your archetype that can go to either powers or qualities.  The following is a list of all Power Sources and my ranking of each.

1. Accident (4/5): Area Alteration is a powerful choice that lets you either boost or hinder (chosen when you choose the ability) any number of nearby targets, using your max die, which is pretty great.  You may even want to take it twice, once for boosts and once for hinders.  Reflexive Burst can be pretty random, but if you can finagle things to get consistent use out of it, it's a free mass attack, nothing to sneeze at.  Inflict is awful.  The green Reactions are niche.  Immunity is noteworthy because it negates damage entirely rather than reducing it to zero, so if (and only if) you pick up other abilities that deal irreducible damage to yourself, it's better than the abilities that turn damage into healing instead.  You get only a d12 and a d6 for your Archetype, so you'd better be prepared to specialize.
2. Training (3/5): Always Be Prepared lets you get a persistent boost, plus attack afterwards, which is an excellent ability even though you'll only use it once per scene (unless an enemy cancels the boost).  Reactive Field is free damage.  Flowing Fight, like every mass attack that requires you to use a different boost on each target, is bad--if you have enough boosts to make it worthwhile, you'd be utterly devastating if you used a straight-up mass attack.  Instead of a green ability, you get a d8 quality, which is a terrible trade-off.
3. Genetic (1/5): Just poor all around.  Except for Rally, there are plenty of other choices that do what this does but better.  Rally is a solid mass heal for a green ability, although if you're finding yourself needing to use mass heals frequently, you're in a pretty odd campaign.
4. Experimentation (1/5): Misdirection is nice, and has the odd characteristic of being better the worse the die you put into it is.  Unflagging is handy, making it so you rarely have to put up with being hindered.  Nothing here will define a build but the options are nice to have... except that all the dice it gives you are d8's, so your Archetype choices will be crippled.
5. Mystical (3/5): Sever Link is nice, especially if you have niche principles--an almost unconditional max-die Overcome plus a free boost is something you'll use frequently.  A mass boost/hinder is a potent option as well.  Mystic Redirection is a powerful protective option, as long as you have lots of health or self-healing.  You don't get a green ability, but you get a d10 quality instead, which isn't bad.
6. Nature (2/5): A powerful attack, but you have to boost the enemy, so use with caution--best to use on a minion or to try to one-shot a lieutenant.  The minion is decent, it's average for what a minion-maker gets as a green ability but gets the "autonomous" perk for free.  The boost is weaker than it seems--it only works when you finish off a minion, which is more probable the smaller its die.  The max die green abilities are solid but there are better ways to get them.
7. Relic (3/5): Other than the always-useful free Defens, the yellow abilities are mediocre (although Harvest Life Force can be made better if you pick up an ability from an Archetype that would let this heal you instead).  Punishment can be entertaining for an offensive build.  You get two d10's for dice, which is a nice little perk.  A solid choice if you expect to lean on your archetype abilities all the time.
8. Powered Suit (2/5): All about risk.  You can make a max-die attack and hit two other targets besides, but you could hurt yourself or incur a twist.  You can get a gigantic boost when you take damage from a specific element (the damage becomes a bonus, not just a boost), but only if you're willing to get hurt a lot--you could make one heck of a kamikaze build if you really wanted to but that's probably not the best plan.  The innates are nice but not build-defining.  Gets d10, d6, d6 for dice, not the best spread.
9. Radiation (2/5): Meh.  Gets the powerful "take 1 damage to reroll" ability, but at yellow.  Has a green mass attack but you could hit an ally with it (actually strong if you have a teammate who wants to get hit).  Probably not the best way to go about whatever build you have in mind.
10. Tech Upgrades (1/5): Self-boosting when attacked is nice, though not as nice as defending.  The one reason to take Tech Upgrades is to combo with self-damaging abilities from other sources, and there are other ways to do that.
11. Supernatural (4/5): The abilities are all strong, if not overwhelming--mass healing, mass hindering or boosting (which covers yourself), a persistent self-boost, and a Reaction Defend that works on any ally regardless of their status and moves them besides.  No Green ability.  But the real gem is the dice--two d10's, plus a free d10 to put in any power not on your list.  Supernatural is thus one of only two power sources that lets you choose literally any power, including "Invented Power" (although your specific choice still needs GM approval).
12. Artificial Being (3/5): With only one Active ability, you'll be leaning on your Archetype a lot.  Recalculating... and Multiple Assault are usually Green abilities, but better late than never.  Both Green abilities are solid.  But the main draw is Created Immunity, to use for a self-damaging build, and for that purpose this is an incredible choice.
13. Cursed (5/5): Costly Strength is one of the best abilities in the game--a huge boost for all your allies; even with the self-hinder you'll be handing out +4's more often than not.  And it combos with Extremes, since if you roll a 1 you'll be hindering yourself for 0.  You can also take Attunement to combo with self-damaging abilities.  You also get a d12 to use for your archetype, though you only get two dice instead of three and the other is a d6--double-edged indeed.
14. Alien (3/5): Alien Boost is the same as Costly Strength, and the other yellow abilities are nice, too (a versatile mass heal and a Reaction Defend).  However, instead of a green ability, you get to upgrade a d6 to a d8 or gain a d6 power, which is a poor trade.  Worse, you get only d8's for archetype dice.
15. Genius (4/5): Expanded Mind is a fantastic ability--a Max die persistent boost is great by itself, plus you get a free attack.  A Plan for Everything will go a long way towards keeping you alive and give you free boosts as well.  Overwhelming Vision can be two attacks against the same target, great for whittling down lieutenants or shedding penalties, or it can heal you.  Your compensation for losing your Green ability is a d10 quality, which is a decent trade.  What keeps Genius from being a 5/5 is that you also get d6's instead of d8's for your archetype, and you have a very limited power selection, more restrictive than any other power source.
16. Cosmos (3/5): A mass hinder/boost that can affect yourself is never bad.  Encourage... eh, I'd rather have Galvanize, but it's not horrible.  Instead of a green ability, you can mess with your die values; this is pretty great if you can downgrade a d8 and upgrade a d8 or a d10.  A good choice for a self-damaging build, a mediocre choice for anything else.
17. Extradimensional (2/5): Meh.  Like Cursed, it gets a d12 and a d6 for archetype dice, but unlike Cursed it has no Inherent abilities.  Every ability it gets is matched or surpassed by abilities other power sources or archetypes get, except Bizarre Strike (and unlike Cursed, it has no inherent way to mitigate the penalty).
18. Unknown (3/5): Strange Enhancement is Cursed Strength again, which is great, but nothing else here is so good.  Brainstorm is okay if you must attack.  Volatile Creations makes no sense unless you're a Minion-Maker, because the game doesn't generally involve "destroying" bonuses or penalties, and there aren't really any "other creations" supported by the rules.  Instead of a Green ability, you get a d8 quality, which is again a bad trade-off.  This is a fair choice if you really like Strange Enhancement and want 3 dice for your archetype.
19. Higher Power (2/5): Mass attacks are nice, especially when you add a hinder, but when they also hinder you with the Max, not so much.  Retaliating to specific energy/element damage is generally worse than healing from it.  Attack + ghetto Galvanize isn't horrible but isn't great.  You do get the very nice Twist Reality, though (and the handy Resilience, which you should only take if your archetype also gives you a reaction you'll use every round).
20. The Multiverse (3/5): Power from Beyond is a persistent boost with Max plus a free attack, which is great.  Respond in Kind is just okay--it only works at close range and is only potent if you got hit for a lot.  Dread Pallor is a mass hinder, but (mostly) with Min, not great for a Yellow, although the fact that it uses two dice is handy for eating up penalties on yourself and still dishing them out in kind.  Reality Scorned is a Max and a Mid, which isn't bad against a big target, even though the damage is mediocre.  Instead of a Green abiltiy you get a d6 Power, which isn't a great trade, although since it can be any Power, it can be good for snagging any Innate Red ability you like.

Archetypes

You don't need to worry about dice this time, but your ability choices are even more important.  You also get a principle from your archetype, so that may influence your decision.  Once again, I'll list and rank them all.

1. Speedster (5/5): You like mass damage?  Have mass damage!  As a Green ability, you can attack all enemies with your min and hinder them with your mid--that's a lot of dice you get to apply.  And as a Yellow ability, you can do the reverse, which is even better.  Do this twice in between enemy turns and you'll take out most if not all of the minions in a scene (since their saves will be penalized).  Or you can boost with the Max die as a Green ability and really juice up your attack--plus you might get a free attack if you're lucky.  You can also do a mass boost with the Max die.  Or, against one big foe, attack with the Max and take a chance on doubles--either hope you get them and attack for more, or attack everything and hope you don't.  Every choice is a great one.  You could easily make an entire team of Speedsters and it could be incredibly effective.
2. Shadow (1/5): A Green and a Yellow Reaction Defend, which are effectively mutually exclusive.  Untouchable is probably the better of the two--it's Green and adds an attack, though it uses a smaller die--but the other Yellow ability is terrible.  The other Green abilities can be useful in the right situation but aren't likely to do a lot of good most of the time.  You can turtle reasonably well but these abilities are of little help completing a scene before the tracker runs out.
3. Physical Powerhouse (5/5): Everything here is good.  Damage Resistant requires no explanation, and it's the good version that covers both physical and energy damage, plus you might as well take it as your Yellow ability.  Max die Green attacks are always handy.  Healing yourself when you defeat a minion would be a solid choice on any other ability list, but it's outclassed here (especially since it can't use the same power as your other choices).  But the class acts here are Galvanize--which boosts the two most important actions for up to two whole rounds if you time it right--and Frontline Fighting, which can control the actions of any enemy.  Normally "choose one of the Green abilities as a Yellow" is worse than getting an actual Yellow, but these are so good that it's perfectly fine.
4. Marksman (3/5): A Max+Min persistent boost as Green is amazing, though only if there's one specific target you want to take down; great against a big bad, less great otherwise.  Ignoring penalties, Defend, and Reactions is huge against some villains, but dealing only Mid for damage makes it less helpful--plus you can have an interesting interaction where you keep racking up penalties and never using them up, which means that when you finally use a more powerful ability, it'll fail spectacularly.  Two boosts using Max and Mid can be very good; give them to an ally with a mass attack to take out lots of minions right out of the gate.  Exploding Ammo is iffy; the main reason to get a big die on Overcomes is to avoid having to take twists, and using this just introduces another way to get twists randomly (possibly two of them!).  But Ricochet is, if you're lucky, one of the strongest Yellow attacks in the game.  Ultimately, Marksman makes for competent support but inconsistent offense.
5. Blaster (2/5): A collection of ho-hum abilities.  A Green mass attack, but with Min.  An attack that ignores penalties, Defend, and Reactions, but with Mid.  A good mass Yellow attack, but it deals a lot of irreducible damage to yourself.  The best thing here is a Max die attack with a conditional Mid boost as a rider.  Nothing here is worth writing home about compared to the alternatives.
6. Close Quarters Combatant (1/5): Four choices from a single list, most of which are of the bad Mid+Min variety, or even Min+Min.  Only three are okay: one Max die attack, one Mid attack that ignores Defend and Reactions, and Throw Minion (which is good at wasting minions' boosts, although it's more fun than it is practical).  Nothing here is good.
7. Armored (1/5): You always get the very nice physical+energy damage reduction, but that's about it.  Once again you can get the Mid attack that ignores penalties, Defend, and Reactions.  An absolutely terrible retaliation attack.  And three Mid+Min abilities, although at least one of them is healing, which is hard to come by.  You don't get a Yellow at all; instead you can choose a different power to calculate your Health, which can be a nice perk, but if you're min-maxing it's nothing you couldn't manage another way.
8. Flyer (4/5): Galvanize by another name is a great ability to start off with.  Barrel Roll's usefulness depends on flavor: if you can hover, like a helicopter or a hummingbird, and are always in the air, this is a huge amount of damage reduction, but if you fly like a plane or a falcon and are on the ground a lot, it's less good.  You have a couple of options for rolling your Min die and affecting multiple targets, and an attack that lets you tank a bit for a round can be useful.  The one thing Flyer lacks is a really good Yellow ability, but all of its Greens are solid choices.
9. Elemental Manipulator (4/5): All those power sources I mentioned that would combo well with a self-damaging build?  This is what you're looking for.  External Combustion is huge if hurting yourself is actually a good thing (and strictly superior to Backlash).  The other Greens are pretty bad (why are you using a Green when you're in Red?), and hopefully you took the equivalent of Energy Alignment from a power source, but Damage Spike and Live Dangerously are crazy good.  If you have to take Energy Alignment here, this archetype isn't nearly as attractive, and if you don't take it at all it's flat-out awful.
10. Robot/Cyborg (1/5): There's a persistent self-boost at Green.  Metal Skin is the bad version of damage reduction, only working against physical damage.  Living Arsenal is never going to be better than a Max die attack unless you're the luckiest roller in the world.  The rest is all bad, especially since you have to take one of these as a Yellow.
11. Sorcerer (5/5): Great stuff here!  Two Max die greens, one of which has a random rider.  A handy Green mass attack.  But the real prize is Field of Energy, which is one of the few attacks that can deal Mid damage to any number of targets with no catch.
12. Psychic (5/5): So many choices, and most of them amazing!  You get Galvanize.  You get a reroll.  You get a persistent self-boost that isn't exclusive.  You get reactions that can throw out free Boosts or Hinders, or Defend yourself.  You can create persistent, non-exclusive hinders.  You can Overcome with Max+Min with no downside.  And you get to pick two of these great Yellows!  What's not to love?
13. Transporter (1/5): There's a mass attack with Min.  You can force an opponent to reroll a good attack, but you take 1 more damage so it could wind up being worse for you.  You can tank a bit for a round.  The rest is bad.  It's all mediocre at best and you don't even get a real Yellow.
14. Minion-Maker (N/A): This one's a niche archetype that's hard to evaluate.  You aren't making a Minion-Maker to optimize, you're making a Minion-Maker because you want to make some Minions.  That said, you get a very nice green persistent non-exclusive boost, which you give to allies (but not yourself).  Everything else is minion-specific and can't be compared to other archetypes.  Optimizing Minion-Maker could be a whole guide all by itself.  I will mention that Construction Focus is usually worse than Summoned Allies, not just because 5 d6 minions is usually better than one d8 minion and one d10 minion (and boosts only make the difference more extreme), but because Minion Formation, Swarm Combat, and to a lesser extent Upgrade Minion and Sacrifice are better with more small minions than fewer big ones.
15. Wild Card (5/5): Normally I wouldn't grant a 5/5 for one ability, but Break the 4th is just that good.  Uncheck a checked off collection as a Reaction?  You could use that to choose the result of one die every time you roll.  You could use it to ignore minor twists, which means you could use a Red ability every round.  Or you could use it to basically write the whole darn story yourself.  If that gets nerfed, or you have zero collections, Wild Card is still fairly good: Surprise Results is very good, Gimmick is all right, Danger! is good but risky (though you can always try a reroll), and Imitation and Turn the Tables can be conditionally valuable.
16. Form-Changer (2/5): There are a lot of solid Green "use your Max die" abilities and one great Yellow ability here, but you can't just use them.  You have to switch to the form that has it, first, and that takes an action.  About the most effective thing you could do is switch to Towering Form at the earliest opportunity, but that basically makes you a Speedster with fewer options but better dice.  This archetype is mostly about being thematic.
17. Gadgeteer (4/5): You can hand out persistent+exclusive boosts to your allies, which they'll appreciate, or you can cripple strong enemies with persistent+exclusive hinders.  You can reroll for 1 Health to help those mods count.  Or, if your opponent does the same, you can Turn the Tables on it, which can make it the equivalent of a +6 or +8 mod.  Snap Decision is a bizarrely complex ability: you give yourself a large bonus and then promptly use it up--why not just attack with a larger die?  And Helpful Analysis will get you killed in a hurry, so use it judiciously if at all.
18. Reality Shaper (3/5): Not Quite Right is weak by itself but combos nicely with abilities that care whether you roll doubles--which Reality Shapers can also take.  Or you can hand out persistent penalties, or control the turn order.  However, note that all the Yellow abilties are Reactions, and while they're okay, you can only use one, and they're all either niche or risky.
19. Divided (0/5): You're just not taking Divided if you're optimizing.  Having a civilian form is strictly inferior to just being in your powered form all the time.
20. Modular (1/5): Modular is weird.  It's pretty terrible in Green, since you have to waste an action to switch modes and none of the abilities you get are good (except Improvement, but see below).  In Yellow, you can switch modes for free if you're willing to destroy a bonus you made (bye bye, Improvement), but none of the abilities you get are great except Analysis.  The Red abilities are pretty good but only one is notably better than other Red abilities you might get: Destroyer.  Since Destroyer modifies basic attacks, it's super powerful with other Red abilities that can grant or modify basic attacks, such as Inspiring Totem, Mutable Form, or an ally with Lead By Example.  If you lead with Improvement Mode, then switch to Analysis Mode, you can be a pretty good Overcome engine, but there are other ways to go about that (Psychic, for instance).

Red Abilities

There are a lot of Red abilities, too many to evaluate individually.  Here are some standouts, though:

• Paragon Feat/Canny Awareness: A Max+Min Overcome combined with a mass Boost/Hinder is about as efficient as you can get.  A great way to wrap up a challenge quickly.
• Push Your Limits: You have to worry about burning yourself out, but combined with valuable Reactions it's well worth it.  Defend Reactions are a great choice, as you'll almost always come out ahead.  Otherwise, if you're planning on spamming Reactions, you may want to find a way to heal.  A good use of a d6 power.
• Summoned Allies: Absolutely bonkers.  Unless your opponent has a mass attack and goes before you can, an instant army is always good.  Boosts apply, as always, so that army can be as large as your teammates can help you create.  For extra insanity, apply a mass Boost to the minions as well!  Another neat trick is to combine the Elemental/Energy variant with Improved Immunity or similar abilities and have the minions attack you.  Or create Hinder minions and let loose with a Finishing Blow.
• Give Time: You can hand out extra turns.  Use on your most effective ally, though you'll need to watch their health.
• Reliable Aptitude: Rerolling your Min die for free every time you roll will improve your effectiveness radically.  Just use it for a Power/Quality that your best abilities are based on.
• Field of Hazards: A fat mass Hinder with no range limits will help you in any fight.  And you could get a free mass attack as well!
• Impossible Knowledge: Penalties?  What penalties?  Especially spiffy if you have an ability that hinders yourself.  Another great choice for a d6 power.
• Unload: A huge mass attack, though the risk is non-negligible when you're in Red.  Combine with die-adjustment or self-healing abilities to play it safe.
• Endurance Fighting: Use with mass attacks and watch your enemies struggle to keep up.  Works with all powers and qualities, so you can unlock this with a d6.
• Inspiring Totem: Any basic action any time you take any ability action.  Throw in a basic Attack when you use a powerful single-target attack like Powerful Strike, Take Down, or Unerring Strike to wear down villains in a hurry.  Or if you're lucky, check off two Overcome boxes in a single action (note that Principles are ability actions, not basic actions).  You can use a d6 to unlock this.

Personalities

Most of what a Personality does is determine your Status dice.  Most Personalities are either d6/d8/d10, d10/d8/d6, or d8/d8/d8.  Note that in timed scenes, you'll be in Yellow or Red most of the time, but in untimed, noncombat scenes you'll be in Green most of the time.  I'd personally rather be at my best when the chips are down than when there's no particular pressure, so I like d6/d8/d10 best (plus your Red status die contributes to your Health).  If your campaign is of the relaxed variety where combat is rare and not particularly challenging, d10/d8/d6 might be better--but in that case, why are you reading an optimization guide?

As for the other personalities: Impulsive isn't usually worth it, you're hurting all your rolls in exchange for improving some of your rolls.  Mischievous is only decent if you have no Athletic Powers or Mental Qualities at all.  Take Nurturing or Naive if you plan to take a lot of damage and get into Red quickly--a risky but potentially powerful strategy.

Your Personality is when you assign your invented d8 quality.  Now's your chance to look at all your powers and abilities and make sure they all can be used easily with the qualities you already gave.  If not, invent a new one that can be.  It'll be a d8, but that's better than a d4.

Retcons

Most of the Retcon options are there for if you either did your character creation by the seat of your pants and want to tweak something, or you wanted to create a very specific character concept and couldn't quite do it within the rules.  We're assuming neither is true if you've been optimizing the whole way.  The two good ones are increasing your Red die size or adding an extra Red ability.  You almost always want the Red ability, they're all great, and more options is generally better than a slightly larger die and a couple of Health points.  Only take the larger die if you literally have everything you want already.

Combinations

I won't get into specific ability interactions, we'd be here all day, but here are combinations of Background, Power Source, and Archetype that go well together.

• Tech Upgrades, Artificial Being, Cursed, or Cosmos + Elemental Manipulator:  This lets you unleash a powerful attack and heal yourself at the same time. Artificial Being and Cursed even let you choose Element/Energy types you didn't choose as a Power initially, so you can take it for the Elemental Manipulator archetype.  Accident + Blaster is a strong alternative: Blaster deals itself irreducible damage, but Accident can get immunity to it anyway.
• Tragic + Supernatural: Tragic gets you an Ideals Principle, which Principle of Great Power is, and two d10's for powers.  Supernatural gets you up to three more d10's.  This basically lets you use your Principle for any Overcome you care to make, no questions asked, and a broad selection of powers to boot.
• Academic, Interstellar, Created, or Retired + Accident, Cursed, or Extradimensional: I hear you like big dice!  Choose a power and a quality you can use together to explain the thing you plan do be doing all the time.  You should avoid archetypes that make you choose different powers to use with each of your abilities, namely Blaster, Armored, Sorcerer, and Transporter.

Closing

I hope you enjoyed all that and found it useful.  Feedback and suggestions are gratefully appreciated.  I'll take another look at all this when the finished product comes out.

While reading this, I find myself agreeing with a large number of points. However, I feel like there is a point of clarification that you should make: What is your optimized character aiming to do?

Are you aiming to always have a good dice pool?
Reliably roll high out of whatever dice pool you have?
Take down minions/Lieutenants reliably?
Take down villains reliably?
Make Overcomes without the invocation of twists?

All of those are things that an optimized character could potentially be doing, but you never actually state what this guide considers to be an 'optimized' character. Providing a definition of what the guide considers to be 'optimized' could considerably help the reader, or guide further critique.

Hmm... I'll think about that, but your question seems to be about role specialization, at least in part. And SCRPG doesn't particularly encourage role specialization. It's fine, desirable even, to have several really good abilities that do different things. In a team, roles can be considered, but on an individual level--which is what most people create their characters based on--it doesn't really matter. However, I can comment on that in the guide.

I've enjoyed reading and working with this guide, even if I don't necessarily agree always with the principle of "optimized" as the goal of chargen in this game.

Since I'm in the middle of the project of converting Champions characters over, I told myself that I wasn't going to read the section on, "these are the good and bad choices in each category."  I wanted to translate the characters 1) accurately from their Champions experience and 2) according to the rules as much as possible.  But I gave into temptation. :)  It turned out to be helpful, though: I was able to re-examine certain choices and choose something different that still fit the concept but was better for the character.  

For example, one of the heroes was (basically) an experiment for a sort of Atlantean Weapon X program.  He fled the program, came to the surface and lived as a homeless man until one of the other heroes took him in.  So my initial thought was to make him Struggling, because that description fit best.  But it limited him to only d8 powers, and he is supposed to be the brick of the group.  So you helped me dig deeper and I chose Tragic, which got him the d10 he needed.

(Side note: it's unfortunate that Experimentation is so limited in this game, as that seems to account for a lot of superhero origins.)

MindWanderer, thank you for doing this! It looks great. It reminds me of the "[class] Guides" people create for D&D.

I'm not quite an "optimizer," but I do like to avoid accidentally making combinations of "weak" choices.

This all looks very solid in theory, have you had a chance to play a lot as well?

The Metallian

@drkrash - Optimized isn't the goal per se, but a) many players wish to optimize, and b) there's often more-and-less-optimal builds even within a concept.

I haven't played as many games as I'd like, but a few, none longer than 4 combat scenes, but all with different party compositions, so I've gotten something of a feel for the breadth of things.  I've also listened to all the Sentinels Live content (except the last couple of episodes, since I'm not commuting right now) and read a lot of the feedback of other players.  I've also done a whole lot of character creation with an eye to optimization and theorycrafting.

I'm definitely looking forward to revising this with more experience and more feedback.  But it's a place to start.

I'd like to offer two observations and a new question.

Translating existing characters from another system has been a fun and challenging exercise.  I want to make sure they can do all the things they could do in the old system and I want to follow the rules of this system for chargen and I want the characters not to suck in this system.  I  haven't finished a single one yet that I didn't have to go back and re-arrange things to make them better.

First observation - a very minor one: As a GM, I'm perhaps over-attached to Perception Rolls during a story.  This game is not good for that.  Not only will most characters have no chance to roll a good "Perception Roll," but any excessive Overcome rolls in a story is just going to generate too many Twists.  I'll have to get over this as a GM.

Second observation - Unless you're running a game with all action scenes (which, unfortunately, does seem to be more of the mold for these rules), make sure your character has an Intellectual Power of some sort.  Otherwise, social and knowledge-based Overcome rolls will suffer.

Finally, my new question: any advice on coming up with Custom Qualities? I've generated three so far and I only kind of like one of them.  The intention (it seems) is to make a broadly-applicable Quality that encompasses elements of the character not found in other Qualities or Powers.  For 2 out of the 3, I came up with Qualities that seem like they'd almost never come up.  For the third, I could see him rolling it almost every roll.  Any thoughts on this?

When I'm making a character, I typically figure out something that could be their Roleplay Quality first, and when I come to that step, I either use the original or have a different one that fits even better. My typical test for a Roleplay Quality is: "<Character Name> is <Roleplay Quality>". If the sentence makes sense, then it's usually going to be useful to the character in some way.

It’s this sort of observation that makes me wonder how well the SCRPG is going to perform at running investigations or mysteries, which are a pretty deep area for comics. Fully realizing that the answer in many narrative systems is “Well, just narrate out what you’re doing and how the GM/player reacts”, but that’s not a particularly satisfying answer in how to create that sort of game mechanically.

My experience with the system is limited, but my experience with rpgs surely isn’t, but I’m starting to get the impression that SCRPG will be really novel at fights/action scenes, but somewhat lackluster in scenes that hinge on a ‘slower boil’. I’m eager to be proven wrong on this one.

My current Campaign alternates between daytime investigations and nighttime combat, and I find that Challenges are your friend. Certainly, if you put in Challenges, your players will likely encounter more Twists. Twists though, aren't a bad thing. Twists are meant to help you progress the story beyond just succeeding at your heroic actions.

I don't know that everyone has to have an Intellectual Power, but it does inform the kind of campaign you're going to have to run.  For an investigation scene, you could also use Psychic, Mobility, Self-Control, or Technological powers without going through contortions (with appropriate Qualities, of course).  It's reasonable to tell players in advance what kind of challenges you expect to be running and to create characters who will have something to do in them.

I agree you don't have to have an Intellectual power.  But as I said above, I'm looking over existing characters with skills that they used in the other system, and I realized that I couldn't get those skills to be any good by just rolling a d4, but I also couldn't reasoably force one of their powers to the roll.  Thus, my observation.  I also agree that a game that is not going to  have much social or knowledge-based rolls does not need to worry about this.

catDreaming's experience is helpful; I'll have to remember that an investigation doesn't have to be a more traditional, "come up with a plan and make an appropriate skill roll."  It could instead be much broader like, "Challenge: find information," and the heroes can decide what to do in  more open-ended fashion (and maybe more creatively?)

By "too many Twists," I simply meant that many Overcomes will result in Twists (it seems).  So I think the Overcome rolls should be "larger" in what they are doing than, for example, a series of discreet skill checks in a single scene in a more traditional system.

PlatinumWarlock, we're on the same page, but I really *want* this system to fly, so I'm tilting my head one way or another to try to look at it from an angle that I think looks good! :)

MindWanderer, this is a great thread.

A lot of GM's will advise, "Decide what you want to do, then look at your character sheet and decide what dice to use." I actually think that's terrible advice for SCRPG.  Your character's powers and qualities will necessarily inform your options, and your character's approach.  You wouldn't hand someone Superman, tell them to handle a problem however they want, and then watch them struggle as they try to solve an investigation with diplomacy, knowledge, and stealth.  Their hypothetical player should look at the character sheet, see "X-ray Vision", "Strength," "Speed," "Imposing," "Close Combat," "Alertness," etc. and they're going to look through walls, intimidate thugs, and mangle infrastructure because that's how Superman solves problems.  It's the whole "when the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail" problem, except it's not a problem, it's a feature.

And GM's should bear in mind, their job is to tell a story using the characters they have.  They can tell the players in advance the kind of story they'd like to tell, but after that, they need to work with what they have.  They should either present challenges that can be solved with the skillset of the heroes, or present things in such a way that it's clear they'll need to get help or find an alternate approach.  Superman doesn't investigate crime scenes and Batman doesn't fight space armadas.

And yes, setting challenges as broadly as possible can be tremendously helpful.  Don't tell your players what they need to do, tell them what they need to achieve.  Never tell them what checks they need to make.  In D&D you can say "everyone roll Perception" (or Knowledge, or Insight, or whatever) and either share or withhold information based on the results.  In Sentinels, just put them in the situation, decide on what it takes to move on to the next scene, and let the players do the rest.

I agree in principle with your Superman example.  However, *all rolls* in SCRPG require a "power," and simply not all rolls you want to make can use a power without a lot of bending.

Social rolls remain my go-to example here.  Banter is fairly easy to mix with powers to taunt someone.  But Persuasion? Short of Intellectual Powers or Mental Powers, how does a charismatic or alluring hero persuade people? What do you do when that's both what the player wants to do AND is the character they tried to design?

My question is partially rhetorical; I understand how the rules work.  I'm just saying that the rules are not well-suited to some kinds of scenes.  I have a feeling the designers might say, "Why aren't you just role-playing out a social scene?" But Persuasion is a Quality in the game.

I'm not actually bitching, though I realize it sounds like I am.  I just think this is a particular kind of scene that is not uncommon in most RPGs that it seems this game will struggle with.  At least it's not as bad as Marvel Cortex, where anything that wasn't combat was pretty much ignored by the rules.

(Which I now realize is ironic because I'm the designer of the Fight! RPG.)

There's a lot of ways you can hedge to always have an applicable power, but I think this is the weirdest list I've seen that actually has decent options a lot of the time:
Absorption, Transmutation, Shapeshifting, Intuition, and Agility.
All in all? There's no perfect way to hedge all of your options. I advise my players to figure out what they want to do, and then find the powers and qualities for it. If your powers and qualities line up with your character concept, then you can almost certainly find something to do.

I agree, Powers are the problem with social skills.  Lots of Qualities, but the Powers are a stretch.  If you want to create a "talky" character, there's Presence, Suggestion, and maybe Intuition.  Or a custom Power.  You could shoehorn others in but they'd be conditional and more complex than just "I talk to them."  Banter in particular doesn't mesh well with anything (and there's a whole Principle, Levity, that goes with it).  That's why I have a whole section on making sure you can actually use all your dice one way or another.

That section has been essential to my conversion project.

I've seen a player use Banter fairly often, and it often boils down to making a witty comeback to something the villain is saying. Not to mention, there are people who just do better when they can self narrate what they are doing. Banter is certainly difficult if your foes don't rise to it, but work with the players if they pick Banter. Self Discipline exists for a reason, after all.

What Powers are they using with it, and how?

I've seen it used with Cold, and Duplication mainly. They did pick the Shadow archetype, and Banter often shows up in their Sabotage ability.

The character tends to add on snark or to just banter with foes while fighting.

So they're not using Banter primarily to talk to people, they're using it to add flavor to an action driven by the Power.  That makes more sense.

Yeah, I said above that Banter seems far and away the easiest social quality to use in this system: just use one of your powers and add a line of snark to it and you justify Banter.

But outside of an Action Scene, using Social Qualities for Overcomes requires unusual circumstances, great creativity, a d4, or an Intellectual Power.

(Keep in mind many of us play very differently from each other as you read this, so some GMs might not like this approach as much as others. :-) 

I see a lot of powers that can be useful in social interactions, depending on the situation. The key for me is focusing on the character and being imaginative, but that's usually my preferred style of play. (And I'm not saying anyone else isn't being imaginative -- it's just a different focus in how GMs and players handle situations. ;-) 

Strength and a lot of other powers can be useful if you're trying to impress or intimidate a person. A lot of the Psychic powers could be used in imaginative and fun ways in social interactions. Technological and Materials (and maybe even Elements) powers can be used as communications tools, such as holographicly showing what you're trying to communicate / ask about. Almost any power can be used to just say "I'm going to come up with an example of the situation/information that uses my power in a way to get the information across." Say I'm playing a portal generating hero and I want to ask someone about a facility that we saw. I might just show them a portal high above the location so they can see what we're talking about, we can point out areas we're asking about, etc. 

For me, it's purely what makes sense for the character and how imaginative the player(s) can be. 

And finally, if a character just isn't a social person, maybe it makes sense to just use a d4 for power. That often fits the situation, as we've seen in superhero comics/movies when someone who isn't good at being social tries to convince someone to help them (e.g., Thor talking to Banner in "Thor: Ragnarok"). That can result in some entertaining moments!

(But I also don't worry about if a hero has what they "need" to be "successful". I just want to make sure they feel like the character is a fully-realized person that they understand and will enjoy playing. I'll make sure everyone has opportunities to shine, of course, but there are going to be challenges that some heroes will face that they'll have issues with -- that's also why they're in a team. ;-)

I also think this could be hours of face-to-face conversation and a short block of text is going to be hard to communicate it all, soooo... :-\ Take that for what it's worth. ;-) 

I had someone not realized how Training and Genius are nearly word for word the same until i read this.

Question- is there a build that is truely unplayable or one that you would pay someone not to play?

I was quite active on the old D&D4E forums back in the day and there was a lot of dscussion about when an adventure would have run better with out one character because they did not compensate for the extra monster that showed up to face an extra hero. 

Of course the game play and objectives are diffrent and the people bragging about being a jerk about it were wrong.

I’ve ran a fair bit of the SCRPG now with several groups, and while some characters feel stronger (Tachyon is noticeably able to clean house out of the Starter Kit characters) no one has yet felt like they weren’t contributing.

I would go so far to say that if you had as a hero Captain Generic, and he rolled d8/d8/d8 for every roll and could only take basic actions, he would do ok enough to not feel like a burden.

That said, if the person playing Captain Generic also made poor choices and/or rolled badly you might have an issue. If he chose to spend every turn trying to deck the d10 Lt. only for it to fail each time instead of boosting another hero, attacking a minion, or overcoming a challenge there might be a problem.

I've yet to encounter a combination I'd rather not see play. I actually made a character who often ended up rolling a dice pool of d8/d8/d6 clear through the green and yellow zones, and they still ended up being a boon to the party.

They were a Powered Suit Armored combo, and were excellent at making sure that whoever they fought was going to focus on them, one way or another.

It depends.  The worst you could do is create a character whose principles are so niche they never see use, has only abilities that are barely better than basic actions, and has such a mismatch of powers and qualities that they're rolling d4's and d6's most of the time.  But even then, the only problem is if the adventure is written to be super challenging, or if the player feels like they're being overshadowed by everyone else.

With a die-step system, there's only so much optimization you can do, anyway.  While there's certainly a quantifiable difference between continued rolls of d10s and d12s, the sheer fact that we're dealing with relatively small numbers (less than 15, certainly), means that you're only ever going to get so high.  And, as it seems, the system's pretty well rigged that you're not ever going to have less than d8s in your primary power, and if you do, you're going to be pairing it with a lot of other d8s.  

One thing we should probably also consider is the probabilities involved on mid and min die rolls, when you're throwing variant combos.  I'm sure that the probabilities on a d12-d8-d6 throw will come out a fair bit differently than a d8-d8-d8...

d6/d8/d12 Expected Values:

Min: 2.467 / Mid 4.476 / Max 7.557

d8/d8/d8 Expected Values:

Min: 2.531 / Mid 4.5 / Max 6.469

Maybe not as different as you think!  I actually made a spreadsheet to play around with this stuff; anything calling on your Max die has the widest swing (both in general and as you shift what dice you're using) while your Mid die value stays generally close to the expected value of your mid-sized die, with the main difference being in how tightly bunched up that bell curve actually is.

Interesting!  That definitely changes what sort of mechanical decisions I might make, if it's looking like I'm going to have larger number of "middling" dice (d8s, d10s), rather than a lot of d6s and a d12 or two.  If I have a lot of abilities that hinge on my mid or min die, I might easily look towards buffing up my die pool all around, rather than simply packing on a high die value and hoping for the best.

Hm, that is good to know.  I'd have guessed that d6/d8/10 would be roughly equivalent to d8/d8/d8, but that d6 clearly has an outsized effect on the Min and Mid.  Makes it even more important to avoid them, and d4's even moreso.  Although I'm glad that my instict that Min+Mid was roughly equivalent to Max.

I totally disagree that "there's only so much optimization you can do", though.  Abilities that effect multiple targets are huge, and clearly using a larger die--especially going from Mid to Max when you have a large die or two involved--is significant, especially for Overcome checks.  Action economy is a thing in any game.

Side Note: Mid+Min is often better a little better than Max, but even if it's not, it has a small standard deviation.

Optimization in this game is certainly possible and will certainly have a noticeable, even large, effect on the game, but i do think the effect is less pronounced then in other games.

In dnd, for example, you can have the perfectly optimized wizard that can do combat, deal with traps, deal with social interactions, deal with sneaking, indentify magic items, move the party long distances, see the future, and do all this otherstuff alongside a fighter that decided they wanted to do something cool with some exotic weapon that looked interesting but turned out to just not be that good even though it took all their feats just to wield it and contributes to combat a little bit but not much else.

The gap between a fully optimized character and one that wanted to do a thing because its cool is much less pronounced in SCRPG.
.

I'm not sure that's true.  Some foresight into your die and principle selection can result in a character who can do anything non-combat as well or better than any other member of the group.  Particular combinations of boosts and mass attacks can erase any number of minions smaller than a d10-d12 (assuming they roll well) in the first round or two.  Once you get into Yellow you can get even more ridiculous by combining mass boosts and powerful attacks--enough that even a d12 lieutenant won't withstand more than a couple of rounds, and there are Red synergies that can make a character essentially unkillable.  I haven't gone through all the villain countermeasures that might keep them alive longer, but the ability to build a villain that could withstand that kind of assault would only reinforce the point.

As someone who has gone through the villain countermeasures, the point is that no villain can reliably survive that kind of assault on their own. The point of Sentinels isn't to be a combat simulator; It's to tell a story. And there's nothing less interesting than a hero who can do everything well, barring a complete lack of conflict.

It's not at all good that these combos exist, especially since they're being discovered by players who don't even have the final book yet (and I'm doubting they were caught or corrected by the devs).  This means that GMs need to either have a closer eye on character design or play to a certain playstyle that I don't think the rules are ideally suited for.

Bit of a bummer.  I think I'm OK for now because I'm the GM and I'm converting the characters.  But I lack play experience, so I'm relying on what I'm reading here!

In d20, the difference between your character being amazing in a social situation because you have the right stats and skills and mine being awful means that your character breezes though the scene with no challenge and for me it is literally impossible.

In SCRPG the difference between your character having a near universally usable principle and rolling d12 d10 d8 and taking the Max and me not having a useable quality and rolling a d4 d8 and d8 and taking the mid is that you are more likely to get either no twist or a minor twist and i will likely get a minor twist or a major twist.

In d20 in combat, if your character is great at fighting he might clear out the entire encounter easily while mine might never hit a target or contribute at all.

In SCRPG, your character might use the OP speedster ability to clear everyone out, but my poorly made character will at least be able to contribute to taking out a surviving minion or whittling down the HP of a villain.

I have seen a d20 character do nothing for an entire play session, i can’t imagine the situation where that is the case for SCRPG.

I’m not arguing that you can’t make a character that is much better then another is SCRPG, i am saying there is a bare level of power that even the least optimized character has that means that character is still able to contribute.

Modifiers don't get that extreme in D&D until the highest levels, at which point the discrepancy is greater between spellcasters and non-spellcasters than whatever your modifiers are. And it doesn't make a lot of difference if you reduce a d8 minion to a d6 if the player who goes after you hits every minion in the scene for 9.

Disagree heavily

That the discrepancy in effectiveness between one class in Dnd and another is due to access to different abilities and spells instead of of one just having raw, higher numbers doesn’t mean that discrepancy isn’t there.

And it is there within classes too. If someone makes a standard two handed weapon fighter, and someone else makes one that dual wields a whip and a hand crossbow because they thought being Indiana Jones would be fun they are going to be very different in their effectiveness. Particularly at level one, since the wired build is going to need all kinds of feats before they become remotely effective. I’ve seen it over and over again from a player of mine who always wanted to do whacky builds that will “start to work at level 7”

Now we are gonna reach a point where i agree with you, and where i think GMs need to be willing to be a little firm in SCRPG since players are roleplaying as character with, well, super powers.

Hitting every minion in the scene for nine every turn would indeed be OP. I don’t think its a thing one character can reliably do every turn for a few reasons

First off, Nearby minions doesn’t mean every minion in the scene, it means a group of nearby minions. “I know you can run at mach 7, but you still need to pick if you want to punch every minion on the north side of the park or every minion on the south side of the park. It takes takes enough of your focus to hit just the bad guys with just enough force to not destroy the entire park that you only get one group” This does still mean the speedster is doing much more then the person just hitting one minion, but they aren’t solving the entire scene on their own.

Next Getting up to 9 damage reliably to me means either you are getting other players to boost you, or you are using a red ability. If its other players boosting you, I think thats fine. If two or three players are spending there turns in tandem to delete a group of minions well that is in general what minions are there for.

If its a red ability it means either you are near the end of the scene, you are wracking up twists, or you are using collections. The first two are fine with me, the last one is where the GM needs to be a little firm.

collections require roleplaying to active. “I draw upon the memory of the last time we fought the Duke of Destruction to dredge up the rage to use my red ability without a twist.”

If the player next turn tries to use the exact same justification to do the exact same thing using either a a different collection or the same unticked with Break the Fourth wall the GM can say no, that well of dramatic tension is dry.

All of this is getting far afield though. I largely agree with you. There are power soruces and archytpes that are stronger then others. There are abilities within those that are stronger then others. There are principles that are more easily used then others and there are -certainly- red abilities that are stronger then others. But at the end of the day i could make a party of four characters in Dnd trying to be quirky and do a special thing that wouldn’t be able to clear one of the starting adventuers. I think a party of three or four SCRPG heroes using all of the worst power sources and archtypes would still be able to make it though the starter kit.

The GM shutting off collections is a tough sell, IMO, especially if you consider Break the 4th, which lets you use a Collection every round. I'd be pretty upset if the GM just decided I couldn't use Collections anymore unless I came to with something totally novel every time. Besides, the rulebook says not to be too strict about this.

You can get an average of 9 damage with a Mid and a +3 boost, which isn't hard to get. In my current game, I have a character who gives himself a +3 Persistent as soon as he hits Yellow, then hands out +3-+4 bonuses to the whole team every round.

And yes, it's easy in D&D to create a character who's nonfunctional, so I'll agree that the bottom is lower in D&D than in SCRPG.

I really don't want to nitpick, but you just made several assumptions that I don't believe line up with the majority of situations.

First, Mid die. There are two dice pools in the game that actually have a 6 or better expected value for their mid die on a single unmodified roll: 10/12/12, and 12/12/12.
Second, Max die. There is exactly one dice pool in the game that actually has an expected value of a +3 on their max die from a boost on a single unmodified roll: 12/12/12

Edit: Got a spreadsheet for inherent reroll 1s data

First, Mid die. 8/12/12, 10/10/12, 10/12/12, and 12/12/12 all give mid dice a 6 or better for their expected value. While more plausible, that's still quite difficult.
Second, Max die. You still need a 12/12/12 to have an expected value of a +3 on the max die from a boost.

Edit 2: Got a spreadsheet for reroll reaction data.

First, Mid die. I set the spreadsheet to reroll a pool if the mid die was below average for that dice pool ordinarily. Dice pools with a 6 or better expected value on the mid die were 6/12/12, 8/10/12, 8/12/12. 10/10/10, 10/10/12, 10/12/12, 12/12/12. These are definitely achievable dice pools, but excluding the 10/10/10, you need to have a d12 somewhere in the dice pool.

Second, Max die. I set the spreadsheet to reroll a pool if the max die was below average that dice pool ordinarily. Dice pools with a +3 or better expected value on the max die from a boost were 6/12/12, 8/12/12, 10/12/12, and 12/12/12. In all of these cases, you need at least two d12s in the pool.

Edit 3: Got a spreadsheet for reroll reaction + 'reroll 1s' inherent data

First, Mid die. I set the spreadsheet to reroll a pool if the mid die was below average for that dice pool ordinarily. Dice pools with a 6 or better expected value on the mid was were 6/10/12, 6/12/12, 8/10/10, 8/10/12, 8/12/12, 10/10/10, 10/10/12, 10/12/12, and 12/12/12. Once more, all of these dice pools require a d12 in them, except for 10/10/10.

Second, Max die. I set the spreadsheet to reroll a pool if the max die was below average that dice pool ordinarily. Dice pools with a +3 or better expected value on the max die from a boost were 6/12/12, 8/12/12, 10/12/12, and 12/12/12. In all of these cases, you need at least two d12s in the pool.

---- Summary ----

So, if you take a reaction that let's you reroll your dice pool once, and an inherent ability that grants you a reroll on 1s (that locks you out of more rerolls), you end up with a fairly sizable number of dice pools that can give the Mid die of expected value of 6 or greater. With the optimizations suggested dice wise, I'm sure it's not too difficult to pull that off. You'll still need two d12s for your +3 expected value on the Max though, which is pretty restrictive.

With just the reaction to reroll, your dice pool will need either three d10s, a d10 and a d12, or two d12s depending on what your smallest die is. Getting d12s isn't terribly easy, and getting two in total will definitely restrict your options. Not much worse than with the inherent added in though, you still need two d12s for your +3 expected value off your Max die.

With just a free reroll on 1s, you can't use a d6, and you need either two d10s and a d12 or two d12s depending on what your smallest die is. Getting two d10s and a d12 isn't impossible, but it will definitely restrict your options. Getting two d12s is very restrictive. If you want that reliable +3 expected value of your Max die, you need to grab three d12s along the way. It's possible... But you're options are extremely limited.

With neither, the reaction or the inherent, you need two d12s and a d10. If you want that +3 expected value off of your Max die, then you're grabbing a third d12 along the way. Welcome to very few options, we hope that you enjoy the ride.

I really think that invoking the same bit of back story to do the same red ability every turn is going against the spirit of the collection far more then then the GM saying no if you can’t be creative. Eventually the d6 minions you’re trying to summon in this hour of desperate need without making the proper offering are gonna get wise.

The slack the GM gives the player is in that they don’t need to get the details exactly right of the events they are recalling, not in allowing the death of Uncle Ben to be so tramtic that every action, every battle you recall it to fuel your anger into the same attack. Thats boring.

And its not like such scrutiny makes the ability useless. The reaction still lets you put one of your dice to any facing you want each turn. Thats strong.

I think that's perfectly appropriate as a house rule if you think Break the 4th (or taking a minor twist to use Summoned Allies in general) is OP (which I do), but it's a house rule. The rules as written don't suggest that you should restrict one use of Collections over another that way.

Not even remotely a house rule. The rules as written say that in order for a collection to get rid of a twist it has to make sense in the story. Using the same bit of back story over and over again for the same action does not make sense in a dramatic comic book story.

I would go so far as to say ignoring the limitation on collections completely is the houserule, and that its slightly silly to call something OP while ignoring its built in limitation.

Here's the full text: "You can invoke your collection instead of taking a minor twist, provided you can think of an explanation for how it’s relevant to the situation."

I don't see anything there that suggests that the same collection (remember, you're unchecking it and using the same one again) can't be used to explain the same thing more than once.  "You can't do it because it isn't dramatic enough" is absolutely a house rule, and is a slippery slope IMO.

Then there is this section right after which does suggest putting a limit on use of collections so what Cult of Gloom is saying is not a houserule  

>
> Heroes with a lot of collections can be quite powerful, so issues written to be used by any team of heroes that happen to try them — from street level upstarts to cosmically powerful beings — may limit this power by putting a cap on the number of collections a hero can use to create bonuses. This helps level the playing field, especially when a team has heroes with different levels of experience. If a hero doesn’t have as many collections as the issue’s limit, they gain additional uses equal to the amount they’re missing, leveling the hero playing field.

That has to do with how many collections people in mixed tables have, not whether you can or can't "re-use" collections for the same narrative function.  While I definitely think Cult of Gloom is capturing the spirit of the rules, MindWanderer is correct about the letter of the law.

“I’m using the memory of uncle ben to get super angry to draw on deep reserves i didn’t know i had to use my red ability early with out a twist”

“You’ve already drawn on that reserve five times now in this one fight, its just no longer feasible that burst of raw emotion is keeping you going, what else you got?”

I think we’re just gonna have to agree to disagree here, but again I think its the other way around. Treating collections like they are just spell points to be ticked off is what goes against the rules text, and its what leads to infinite loop problems in a slippery slope.

I will say that, as the GM, its your job to help your players come up with good collection uses and good twists, or nudge them to find a way to make a power or quality fit. But likewise, as players, sometimes it needs to be accepted that a tool won’t fit to every occasion.

It still is directly saying to limit use of collections and so it doesn’t make it a houserule to limit use of them.

This has wandered pretty far from the main point of this thread and may be worthy of its own as a discussion.

FWIW, as a GM, I would not let someone use the same call-back - or even mostly the same call-back - in the same scene.  I don't care if that's called a House Rule or not; it's not happening at my table.

That being said, however, it *really* shouldn't be difficult for a player to come up with another call-back to use another collection.

(And all *that* being said, the collection system breaks at about 6 collections anyway, so either they include some previously-unseen long-term advancement notes or I'll be among those house-ruling the permanent exchange of collections for permanent power-ups.)

It’s specifically saying, “limit this power by putting a cap on the number of collections a hero can use to create bonuses.” Break the 4th allows the player to uncheck a used collection, allowing them to use it again. Its entire purpose is to subvert this limit. Its entire purpose is to use the same collection–the same justification–to avoid a minor twist, change a die value, or add a story element.

That said, I think it’s a terrible ability, not least for the reasons you and Cult of Gloom state. It’s broken and it abuses Collections thematically. But as written I don’t see any reason to disallow it being used this way outside of a house rule.

For some reason I could've sworn Break the 4th said once per session but it doesn't in any older versions I have.  

From what I read in a few points, I think that you could argue using a collection per scene should be limited to different points. Using the uncle Ben thing in scenes back to back would be fine, in one fight I would say it needs to be a different story IMO.

This'll be my last post on the matter. I guess it still just bugs me to call disallowing an action becuase it doesn't make dramatic or logical sense a house rule when the rules state the action can only be taken when it makes sense for the scene and story, To me it feels less like a house rule and more like exactly what the rule says and actually playing the role playing game.

to try and swerve back in the lane-
MindWanderer you said you were not a fan of Action + other Action with Min die but did you rate Attack + Defend with min die a bit higher than the others of that type?

I shouldn't have.  Did that come across somewhere?  Attack is a somewhat more valuable action than boost or hinder, but Defend is somewhat less valuable.  That's better than a basic Attack but it's worse than most other Action abilities.

To follow up that question, what about the instance where it is: Attack with Mid, Defend with Min against all Attacks against you until your next turn?

I didn't say anything about that one.  It's situational, so I didn't feel comfortable making a blanket valuation of it. If a hero can successfully draw a lot of aggro for several enemy attacks, it's fantastic.  Or the hero could end up taking his or her next turn immediately, and it's useless.  It also depends on the GM and the decisions of the enemies--will they attack the defended hero, or attack someone else?  Or take other actions?  Would the heroes benefit if the defense was merely a deterrent?  Too many factors to make a simple statement about.

By that same argument, wouldn't that render it quite difficult to lend an accurate grade to Sabotage from the Shadow Archetype? Certainly, at it's base it functions as a Attack Mid+Hinder Min. However, it has two other modes that can complicate the variables in assessing it. Yet, it recieves no mention in favor of pointing out that Untouchable and Smoke Bombs are mutually exclusive.

Sure.  I didn't call it bad, just mediocre.  I'll agree that "situational" is probably a better word.

I think I've nailed down what parts of the guide principally strike me as flawed. I often design characters from their role in a team first, and then individually second. That leads me to place a greater value on effects that are more situational, as well as for effects that can maximize a build up over time. So I'm likely not the best to give constructive criticism, as much as an alternate view.

in the writ up for Flier archetype.
My best character is a mystic/flier so those sections stuck with me

That's not "Defend with your Min die," it's "Defend against all Attacks against you using your Min die until your next turn."  That's a much more powerful effect than a single-use Defend (albeit one that can target someone other than yourself).

I didn't address team dynamics, true.  Optimizing team composition would be a whole other document that takes a lot of other considerations.  Also it can get truly bonkers if you lean hard into synergies (e.g. mass boosts and mass summons, or abilities that damage allies and allies that absorb the damage).

ahh… Gotcha. since that’s the one on my sheet I forgot others are not so good

Here’s an idea MindWanderer how about I make a new thread reposting Salamander and you (and others) rank and grade my build?
Then others can post to have their builds checked out.
I will wait for a positive reply before I post of course

I'd certainly respond to a "rate my build" thread, but maybe wait a bit longer.  The final PDF's are just over the horizon and I'm hoping there will be changes or clarifications that will affect some of this stuff.

Even if the final PDFs don't contain changes, it's better to wait and make sure that they don't rather than giving well-intentioned but possibly misinformed critique.

Hey Sea-Envy, do you still want to make that thread?

Soon-ish

You can take lead if you want catDreaming

I got the thread started.

i will post my build after a day or two so we can talk about one build at a time

MindWanderer, now with a few months' actual play experience under my belt, I'd love to hear your thoughts on Villain Approaches and Archetypes.  I've learned somewhat the hard way that all combos are not equal and you can design a villain to be what you want them to be and find out in play that they are just killing machines instead of the mid-level "average" villain you intended.  I find this especially to be the case when converting villains from other systems.

You know, just in case you needed a new project. ;)

Honestly, the "balance" in the villain rules is so disappointing that I'm not inclined to try.  It's trivially easy to create a villain that's stupidly broken or one that goes down in a stiff breeze.  I suppose it might be worthwhile to point out villain abilities that singlehandedly make a fight unexpectedly difficult, but that's a very different sort of task than "optimization."  Plus it's always easy to nerf a villain on the fly and simply take an ability away or reduce its effectiveness, if the players are getting wrecked.  GM's never have to follow the rules if they don't want to.

I agree with MindWanderer here.

As an example, giving a villain with the Titan archetype the inherent for damage reduction based on it’s challenge and the reaction to uncheck a box on it’s challenge when attacked with doubles can result in something that the heroes are simply incapable of meaningfully damaging for large portions of the fight.

It’s also very hard to gauge the effectiveness of a villain without playing them. As a more humorous example, I made a villain with no action abilities. The players are terrified of them, because despite the heroes having dealt reasonable damage to it it hasn’t taken the attack action against them.

The villain rules are not intended for balance. They’re intended to make something to fight the heroes on a footing of your choice, with other scene elements interefering in the fight.

As a guy who is used to running more "traditional" supers RPG, that lack of balance or even real transparency before you put the villain on the table is frustrating.

My heroes fighting a team of villains is a common occurrence.  Not having any idea whether it's going to be a blow-through or a 3-hour grind is becoming a pain.  It can't be a scene element "on a footing of my choice" if I can't know how good a villain is beforehand.

I wasn't worried about "optimization."  I just wondered if the more mechanically-minded could even point out "these are the easy approaches/archetypes" and "these are the nightmare approaches/archetypes."

Not really. In general though, if an Approach/Archetype is a suggested pairing, it's likely to be pretty potent.

How do you weigh abilities that are weak on their own but get substantially better when used in combination with other abiltiies?

For a more direct answer to your question, I refer you to Tech Upgrades and Powered Suit power sources. There are two examples there of how MindWanderer rated abilities of the type you are talking about.

If you want my personal answer, which is likely on a 90 degree tangent to MindWanderers reasoning:

You might have read my comments on the Shadow archetype, where in a previous version it's various utility abilities had it rated lower than others because it wasn't good in every situation. What you're describing falls into a similar category, where there are definitely combos. Flexible Stance (exclusively from Close Quarters Combatant) really shines when used in combination with Endurance Fighting, which then chains into Inspiring Totem for a total of 3 Attacks and 3 Hinders. Which is neat. Combo based builds however tend to not be as viable, because you often just do the same thing over and over mechanically.

There's nothing explictly wrong with that, but it has a major weakness. Twists can lay down pretty substantial hinders, lock abilities, or even lock powers and qualities. Losing a Power or Quality in question can lock out one or several abilities on your sheet if you're based on using that one power to it's most, whereas losing a single Inherent ability can be devastating to making a combo work. Hinders can force you to delay entire turns before pulling off a combo.

So when building are Twists something to avoid at all costs or should I be leaning into the system?  For example, if there are Yellow abilities producing persistant bonuses that just better than their Green counterparts is it inadvisaable to plan to dip down into that while still in the green as part of the build design?

Same with the Red abilties you mention, is it worth the minor twist to get those six attacks?

I agree with Cat's basic premise: Combos can be powerful, but you only get so many abilities, so setting them up costs you versatility very easily.  For instance, if you take two Red Inherent or Reaction abilities, on your turn you either use that one Red ability over and over again, or fall back on Yellow ones.

I still disagree with their love of Flexible Stance, though.  Sure, with Inspiring Totem and Endurance Fightning, you can use it to get 2 Min attacks, a Mid attack, and 3 Min hinders.  That's a whole lot of Min dice, though.  When you're in Red, you can be using Yellow or Red abilities, such as Blinding Strike, Supersonic Streak, Heedless Blast, Live Dangerously, Field of Energy, Danger!, Towering Form, or Unload, or at least one of the many abilities that hits more than 2 targets with your Min die.

As for Twists, it's hard to say.  Some GM's are more harsh than others about how they use them.  If you go strictly off the suggestions in the book, they're pretty bad and should generally be avoided.  Unless you're a Wild Card with at least one Collection, of course.  And that Inspiring Totem+Endurance Fighting combo would cost two Twists if used in Yellow.

Since the Flexible Stance rolls are all seperate wouldn't you be able to apply Persistent boosts to each distinct roll, potentially tripling the effectiveness of the bonus?

At what point do the Boosts become more valuable than the die size/position?  How do you factor that into builds?

MindWanderer actually correct me on that recently; It's apparently a somewhat common error.

Bonuses and penalties alike only apply to the 'effect' that they are applied to, and you can't apply them to multiple rolls within the same action. You could apply your persistent bonus to one of the basic actions, but not to both using the Min die. I think you could apply it to the Hinder from Endurance Fighting, since that's the same 'effect', but don't quote me on that.

Additional thoughts on twists to answer LBS’s question…

Different players play different ways. I’ll often go for a minor if it comes up for a roll, but I usually won’t dip into Yellow when the condition is still Green (and if it’s dire, it probably isn’t Green ;-). But other folks love to roll with the twists and come up with all kinds of things. The minors aren’t generally too bad, in my experience and when I’m running a game, and can be well worth it if the end result is positive enough.

It would be a good conversation to have with your GM.

Where is this in the rules (they tend to hide these things)? Under boosts it says that boosts can only be applied once per roll, not once per action and are applied to the effect die. If the Boost is persistent why wouldn’t it apply to every discrete roll as stated in the rules?

Page 22 says that mods only affect one effect die, and it was further clarified on the Letters Page to "each mod affects one specific effect".
In the case of flexible stance+endurance fighting, it would be that each instance of the min die is being used for a different effect (even if it's the same ability using it).

They aren’t separate rolls. You make one roll and both effects get the Min die result.

Yes, a persistent bonus applies to each discrete roll, but no ability lets you make more than one standard roll during your turn (exceptions being things like Wild Card that use dice for other purposes).

I really, really wish that it was stated this way in the rulebook. I argued for it in playtesting and in review repeatedly. As written, you’re absolutely correct–a mod would affect one die and everything that one die applied to. But Christopher issued the ruling Cat quoted on the podcast.

That said, he does make mistakes sometimes–he made a substantial one in the last Live game and had to retract it–and he hasn’t restated this ruling since. So it could conceivably change. I don’t think it will, as it would be OP that way and would interact weirdly with Twists, but it would be RAW.

I thought someone had asked for a clarification on the podcast, but now I can’t find it so I’m probably wrong. :-\

Any idea if someone submitted a letter asking about it? I mean, I’m better MindWanderer that you have, but if more folks do they might answer it? (Or maybe they’re going to wait until the rules are available publicly…)

Got it.  The wording in places is a bit opaque.

Yeah, I submitted that letter! What I said above is based on their answer to it. But this was a long time ago, certainly over a year, and since then I nagged them repeatedly to make that the rule that was actually reflected in the rulebook, but they didn’t. So maybe the official rule changed. Someone could certainly ask again. (Note: I’m over 6 months behind on listening to the podcast now.)

I think I found it in Editor’s Note #40 and here are the WalkingTarget notes

Sounds like there is some conflicting information between the RAW going to publication and a clarification buried in a relatively obscure podcast. 

Is there a FAQ/errata which gathers these clarifications in one place (I would have never found that...lol)?

What would be the balance issues of using the RAW as opposed to the clarification, and vice versa?
 

So continuing this madness...if an attack attacks multiple targets, is it the case that the rules say my +2 persistent bonus applies to the damage of everyone I hit, but the Christopher correction says it affects only one of them?

Or is this different than 2 distinct effects cueing off the same die?

My understanding is you have an action which attacks all targets with a min die you apply your bonus to each target hit.   However, if you additionally had Endurance Fighting that bonus on your min die would not apply to the hinder on each of targets attacked.  

It is different. The Attack against multiple targets is one single effect, being one Attack that just happens to hit multiple targets at the same time.

That's good.  A recent character change was conditioned on creating a persistent boost before an "attacks all" abilty to be a minion-sweeper.

That rule actually is in the book, p. 22:

> If a single modded die affects multiple targets, the modified value of the die affects all of those targets, not just one of them.

When I got the book, and started reading through the Abilities in the various Sources and Archetypes, I was more and more convinced that balance took a back seat to aesthetics and trying to enable specific small-a character archetypes.... it seems like two characters built using the same build option can be quite far apart in efficacy, and some concepts can be fully realized as starting characters while others really can't -- and it's a difference that doesn't seem to come to power level. 

Looking at the sample characters, they seem to have more Powers, Qualities, and/or Abilities than what I'm coming up with, so either I'm screwing something up in the process or there are builds that come up far more effective than the ones I'm working with.

The Abilities also seem to vary quite a bit in their actual effectiveness -- some Sources or Archetypes are loaded with defensive options, others have a single defensive option that's also strictly limited.   Some have multiple Green options, some have none.   Etc. 

It would be interesting to see the steps you're going through to see what might be going on. For example, here are the steps I documented for a character I created. (I keep this log for all my characters so I can look at how I might adjust things with a rebuild, understand any mistakes I made, etc.) Note: Not posting looking for feedback, just to provide an example of how you could share what you're doing. :-) 

• Background: Criminal (d8, d8, d8)

  <ul>
  	<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Criminal Underworld Info – d8</span></span></span></span></span></li>
  	<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Physical Quality of Stealth – d10</span></span></span></span></span></li>
  	<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Expertise Principle of Stealth</span></span></span></span></span></li>
  </ul>
  </li>
  <li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Power Source: Supernatural (d10, d10, d6)</span></span></span></span></span>
  <ul>
  	<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Mobility Power of Teleportation (renamed Portal Generation) – d8</span></span></span></span></span></li>
  	<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Awareness – d8</span></span></span></span></span></li>
  	<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Self-Control Power of Part Detachment (renamed Reaching Through) – d8</span></span></span></span></span></li>
  	<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Power not on list: Agility – d10</span></span></span></span></span></li>
  	<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Yellows</span></span></span></span></span>
  	<ul>
  		<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Mass Modification (renamed Dynamic Repositioning)&nbsp;using Teleportation (Portal Generation)</span></span></span></span></span></li>
  		<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Reach Through Veil (renamed Dodging Portal)</span></span></span></span></span></li>
  	</ul>
  	</li>
  </ul>
  </li>
  <li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Archetype: Transporter (d10, d10)</span></span></span></span></span>
  <ul>
  	<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Mobility: Swap Teleport’s d8 with a d10</span></span></span></span></span></li>
  	<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Mobility Power of Speed – d6</span></span></span></span></span></li>
  	<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Psychic Power of Remote Viewing (renamed Peak Behind the Curtain) – d10</span></span></span></span></span></li>
  	<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Physical Quality of Finesse – d8 (from Teleportation)</span></span></span></span></span></li>
  	<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Greens</span></span></span></span></span>
  	<ul>
  		<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Displacement Assault (renamed Portal Drop) using Teleportation (Portal Generation)</span></span></span></span></span></li>
  		<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Mobile Dodge (renamed Reactive Hop)</span></span></span></span></span></li>
  	</ul>
  	</li>
  	<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Yellow: Mobile Assist (renamed Thinking with Portals) using Teleportation (Portal Generation)</span></span></span></span></span></li>
  	<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Expertise Principle of Speed </span></span></span></span></span></li>
  </ul>
  </li>
  <li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Personality: Impulsive</span></span></span></span></span>
  <ul>
  	<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Quality: Reactive – d8 </span></span></span></span></span></li>
  	<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Upgrade: Teleportation – d12</span></span></span></span></span></li>
  	<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Status dice are d6, d6, d8</span></span></span></span></span></li>
  	<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Out Ability: The hero who goes directly after you may take 1 damage to reroll their dice pool</span></span></span></span></span></li>
  </ul>
  </li>
  <li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Reds: </span></span></span></span></span>
  <ul>
  	<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Push Your Limits (renamed Driven to Protect)</span></span></span></span></span></li>
  	<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Heroic Interruption (renamed Intercepting Portal)</span></span></span></span></span></li>
  </ul>
  </li>
  <li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Retcon</span></span></span></span></span>
  <ul>
  	<li class="gmail-"><span><span><span><span><span>Red: Give Time (renamed Tactical Redeploy) using Teleportation (Portal Generation)</span></span></span></span></span></li>
  </ul>
  </li>
  

This is one of the characters, not in process format -- https://greaterthangames.com/comment/209773#comment-209773.

Different backgrounds often account for the different numbers of qualities, and then the combination of power source and archetype typically determine how many abilities and powers your character will have.

So is there something about Interstellar, Alien, Minion Maker that gives a low number of Powers and Qualities?  

I'm comparing it to the example heroes in the book, and they're all between 8 and 10. 

E:  I figured this out, something I accidentally skipped in trying to match other things up.

"For instance, you can't make an ability from your power source key off a power you gained from your archetype"

Where is that rule in the book?  Or the wording that implies it?

Edit: Sorry, the original was a bit heated of me.

The wording implies it, basically. In the Guided or Constructed methods, you won't have selected any Power or Qualities from an archetype when you are selecting abilities for your Power Source, and thus they are not available options.

OK, I get what he's saying now -- thank you.

In term of playability (in a group), this limitation  makes sure that some of your abilities will be based on 'smaller' power dice, thus encouraging more variety during play.  

Can anyone confirm that you can use a power or quality gained in a previous step fo fuel an ability, so long as it otherwise qualifies?

e.g., If the criteria for an Archetype ability is a power or quality "from the [archetype] list," and you have a power or quality that is on that list, but you "acquired" it in an earlier step, is that a legal choice?

There are cases where this must be true, such as with Strength and Physical Powerhouse. But I don't know if those are exceptional or what.

I believe that it is legal in the general case, but would like to be sure.

The Metallian

As long as the quality or power lines up with what it says you're fine.  You are definitely fine using Strength for an ability under Physical Powerhouse even if you didn't pick it up as part of the Archetype.  

And you could always use your one retcon to change the POWER/QUALITY that an ability uses if you really want an ORIGIN ability to based off a power/quality from your archetype or you RP quality

" And you could always use your one retcon to change the POWER/QUALITY that an ability uses if you really want an ORIGIN ability to based off a power/quality from your archetype or you RP quality."

True. but you would still be on the hook to have had some qualifying power or ability at the time the ability was chosen. And retcons are precious.

The Metallian

I just found this thread, and I wanted to chime in defense of Divided

Divided lets you do a couple unique things:

1. Divided Psyche means you have a civilian form that’s rolling Quality+Quality, and a super form that’s rolling Power+Power. That means your civilian form can focus on social and information qualities for social/investigative purposes, which all pair together pretty easily. And then your heroic form can focus on powers that pair together for action scenes.

2. Personalities. You can get two Personalities. Getting a d10-d8-d6 personality for your civilian form, which is mostly used in social/investigative scenes with green dice maxes that, and a d6-d8-d10 personality for your heroic form which will mostly be used in higher stakes yellow- and red-zone scenes.

As someone that played around with Divided a bit, those are definitely the two potential advantages of it. However, both of those advantages have issues that need to be accounted for.

The first is that you end up with exceptionally focused characters. As a rule, you have a total of 9-10dice: three Qualities (counting your RP quality), three Powers, three from your Archetype, and maybe one other one from an Archetype or Power Source. Split evenly, that’s only 4-5 choices per side, and you’re less likely to have high dice in both areas because you’re less likely to have more than one d10 Quality and more than one d10 Power at the same time.

It is a versatility advantage, but no more so that taking a single d8 Power that’s generally useful in your civilian form.

The second, and larger issue is that it really hurts your Abilities. Your civilian form is probably relying almost entirely on Principles, since most of your Abilities can’t be used without Powers.

The final, and largest issue, is that it either eats an action every fight, or forces you to do something weird at the start of a fight. The biggest problem with Divided is that the various ways of transformation either require a full action, or require a specific condition and also only give you a partial action. With the action economy in Sentinels being so sharply limited, this is a pretty huge deal, and it’s one that the other mode-shifting Archetypes account for but Divided doesn’t.

That’s fair. I made a a sample divided character to see how it worked, and I ended up with plenty of dice, but I think that was partly down to having a dice heavy background and power source.

And even then, I just assumed that the abilities would be for the heroic form only, and that the civilian form would be relying on basic actions only.

I can see it feeling a lot more restricted with a more dice-poor set of backgrounds and power sources.

Just wanted to flag here that Field of Energy specifically says “Attack multiple targets near each other using [power].” That’s a catch. No other “multiple targets” AoE contains that clause and so they are capable of attacking targets that are spread out across the battlefield (within reason) in a way that Field of Energy isn’t.