New Campaign? Super Heroes + 5e

I've been thinking about creating a new campaign that I would DM but I know we have a lot of current campaigns.  From what I know we have:

• Doom
  
• Rifts
  
• Into the Underdark
  
• Draco Wolves
  
• Star Trek
  

There  are at least 2 or 3 more that I don't play in that Stu runs.

The campaign I am thinking about is a blend of Super Hero Rifts and 5e.  5e would be the base mechanics with full progression of the class and all PCs would have super hero or be supernatural in addition.  This system would be fleshed out before we begin and wouldn't be front loaded like most hero or supernatural origins usually are.  Think something along the lines of every 3-5 levels you get access to more of your extra powers.

I'm still in the planning stages for setting but I've always really liked SteamPunk.  I'd be drawing from a lot of the well established settings out there like Studio Ghibli and BioShock.

There would be 20 sessions, leveling between each one unless we can't get through a session in a single day.

Let me know what everyone thinks.

I have a 5E PDF game ruleset called Capes and Crooks. I sent you a link to it. Look it over and see if you want to use that.

Might have guessed that someone else would have thought of that. Taking a look now. At the very least it will give me a framework to add the other powers from Rifts.

So, I'm always up for another chance to play, rather than DM. We do have a lot of different games currently and my preference would be to play in a 4e game but only Ross runs an occasional game using those rules as an off shoot to the 4e Adult beginner series I run.

Quite a few of the series a run a bit infrequently, just a statement, as I do appreciate others taking the initiative to run games.

The capes and crooks 5e rule set is interesting.

What I like:
They have the leveling I was looking for where you get a small number of powers to start and then as you level you get more powerful. You can even swap some of the powers known like retraining in 4e.

They give you carte blanche to change anything and everything thematically as long as it stays the same mechanically. I like that it will let you make whatever you want while keeping most things at the same or similar power level.

Uses the 5e rules so most people already know it.


What could be better:
They say they have millions of combinations but that is kind of a half truth. They basically distilled down a bunch of different heroes to basic roles and homogenized them. They have 10 Alter Egos (Backgrounds), 10 Origins (Races), and 10 Roles (Classes). Then you chose powers but powers are basically just spells so that's like saying there are millions of different wizards out there because everyone can choose different spells.

I think skills won't be used a ton but that can and is a problem in regular 5e already.


What I don't like:
You don't get Signature powers (much more powerful superpowers) until level 11. Seems a bit stingy especially when those powers seem to be character defining since as I noted above there isn't much diversity beyond thematic without the powers.


Notes:
I should be able to modify most things from the Rifts books to be compatible. With the way that they built the Roles you should even be able to choose DND classes and races and not have it hurt balance that much. Both of which would dramatically increase the breadth of concepts you can create. Overall I believe the ruleset as a base could work decently.

Teramotos wrote:So, I'm always up for another chance to play, rather than DM.  We do have a lot of different games currently and my preference would be to play in a 4e game but only Ross runs an occasional game using those rules as an off shoot to the 4e Adult beginner series I run.

Quite a few of the series a run a bit infrequently, just a statement, as I do appreciate others taking the initiative to run games.  

I know we have a lot of different games out there, it's why I wanted to gauge reaction to having yet another. I would be trying to plan out the entire arc before we started so that like a module I have a rough idea of what is going to happen each session. However everyone knows that battle plans don't ever survive first contact so who knows if that will work or not. Another plus is that unlike a traditional DND session loot is almost entirely worthless. Since all powers including gear are part of the character they would be given as part of the story and not because a rat killed a paladin 50 years ago and now you found the vorpal sword. That might make it a bit easier to have moral choices mean something besides get more powerful and hopefully doesn't cause a feeling of lack of progression.

As far as 4e I am not sure the base ruleset there is better or worse than 5e. I like a number of changes they made with the 5e ruleset that they didn't have for 4e like advantage. I also think 4e's best feature was the sheer number of classes they had that felt different from each other. Since we would be crafting all new "classes" here it would take away from that.

I like this new games idea and would be interested.

Ordered my Savage Worlds Superhero Companion book.  It should arrive by this weekend.

If you want a PDF of the book bring a USB Drive next time we play, and I can share it with you.