Lack of defenses in Godsend Agenda

[arosslaw]

Let me start by saying I liked the first edition and think the new edition is even better. Definitely one of the more interesting takes on the genre out there.

However, I do have some issues with the character write-ups in the book. Maybe I'm missing something, but aside from the Angelos' armor, hardly any of the "gods" included in the book have any defense powers or abilities. A few have Ka Manipulation which they could use to duplicate such, but if taken by surprise nearly all of them can be dropped like a hot potato. Aryan Superior, feared throughout the world, has no defenses other than a high Physique which is fine for hand to hand but, as I understand the rules, does nothing against lethal attacks. Hyperion and most of the others have the same problem.

So am I missing something here or are these just very fragile gods?

Andrew Ross

[Jerry D. Grayson]

Hello Andrew,

The short answer is Yes they are fragile. ;)

Most don’t have force fields or body armor because it doesn’t fit their concept. What a lot of the power players do have is a large amount of Ka energy to negate incoming damage.
An Angelos could for instance shoot Attis with their railgun rifle and kill him with one shot. The only thing stopping Attis from dying is directing Ka and deflecting the bullet off (spending Ka points to negate damage).

I never liked games where everyone and their mother had a force field or body armor on their characters, it just never felt “right”. I guess it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to give the characters armored suites like U.S.E.R.’s super team the Sentinels.

I know that Batman wears a small amount of personal armor to deal with thugs in the street but I’d have a hard time if Batman whipped out his personal shield generator and waltzed into combat with heavy hitters like Despero or Amazo. Batman survives because he’s smart and squirrelly.

I’ve also heard this complaint a lot about super hero role playing games though, which is odd. You never hear about the lack of defensive powers or equipment in other genres with equally powerful characters and offensive weapons. In the Star Wars games that I played in a while back the only person with body armor was the bounty hunter, beyond that the rest of us lived by our wits.


Most characters in games that I’ve run have survived with the philosophy of “don’t get hit” and if you do spend some Ka to negate the damage.
But I can see your point. A lot of the characters are very vulnerable to attack and would die easily. The suggestions I can give you are;
The Extra Body Point advantage.
Spending Ka to negate damage
The Hard to Kill advantage.
A really high dodge skill or Reflex attribute.
Or
By a super defensive power like body armor or force field and describe the special effect as being really lucky or always in the right place at the right time. Just because the power is called force field doesn’t mean it has to be looked at as such. A force field could be a swarm of bugs that protect the character or body armor could be looked at as a very high resistance to kinetic damage, its all in how you look at it.

I hope that some of the above suggestions help or at least answer some of your questions. If not come over Friday and I’ll run a game for you:)

[prophet118]

Let me start by saying I liked the first edition and think the new edition is even better. Definitely one of the more interesting takes on the genre out there.

However, I do have some issues with the character write-ups in the book. Maybe I'm missing something, but aside from the Angelos' armor, hardly any of the "gods" included in the book have any defense powers or abilities. A few have Ka Manipulation which they could use to duplicate such, but if taken by surprise nearly all of them can be dropped like a hot potato. Aryan Superior, feared throughout the world, has no defenses other than a high Physique which is fine for hand to hand but, as I understand the rules, does nothing against lethal attacks. Hyperion and most of the others have the same problem.

So am I missing something here or are these just very fragile gods?

Andrew Ross

this is also something that depends on which you are using, body points, or wounds

see, in body points you dont get a damage resistance roll, with wounds you do, if you want something like we had in star wars d6, use body points, you dont have to worry about altering that part of your style..lol

[prophet118]

i'll toss up the super tanker i made (plus the other characters i made from the con that never was..lol Nova Con... gotta love it)

basically that super tanker is just that, he is however modeled on my own tanker from the game City of Heroes, so he has the Fiery Aura power (Elemental Sheathe) the super strength, i also gave him quite a bit of body armor, basically the character ended up with around 100 body points, 12 levels of body armor, and could hit ya pretty darn hard


now of couirse, i was making these guys as seasoned power level 4 characters, not ground pounding lowbies..anyways, look for the threads soon

[prophet118]

i thought of something else today..

just a random thought

we live in a violent world (the real world)

why dont we all have armor?

after all, in most cases one knife, bullet or whatever could end out lives..

in most cases in just not feasible, cops wear some armor (BP vests, riot outfits etc) the military does, from all time frag vests to new age synthetics..

private police forces tend to wear armor...

but the average beat cop probably doesnt, unless hes working violent crimes, or has reason to beleive they will be in the line of fire...

think back to a few years ago (90's i think) there was a bank robbery in california, the robbers wore armor typical of swat or military sort teams, basically heavy duty stuff here, AND had heavy calibre weapons (hard calibres)

the cops were shooting with 9 mm weapons, barely doing anything to these guys, if i recall correctly a call went out to anyone with high powered weapony, national guards, independant armories, heck probably even hunters and such..

the point is, the cops were not prepared to deal with such heavy armors, now they are of course, but you notice that criminals havent started looking all robocopish huh?

its not always feasible.

im hoping my point wasnt lost in all this rambling.