Reply To: Nightfall Games announce The Terminator RPG

[limburger 21709xp 0]

@wfgdrmr yeah, that is what I expected a developer to say ….

However while it does create elites that can rip through everything there is little difference in character stats at either end of the scale. And *that* is IMHO not fun, because it effectively means that every human on the entire planet has the same 1-1 statline.

In D20 systems the range for stats is 3 – 18 which is a rather big range compared to the 1-3 range that S5S has.
Add levels into this and you can create a varied population from level 0 farmers up to level 9 kings without even needing to dip into the godlike powers beyond that.

Claiming ‘downtime’ as a barrier is a bit silly, because instead of going from 3 to 4 in a single session you could do it in 14 with a mere ‘day’ of downtime between missions. Never mind that downtime means nothing to npc’s

Yes … min/maxing can be defeated by placing the characters in a situation where none of their high level stats/skills matter, but that is a good way to piss off your players unless handled with care. A good GM should have seen that sort of thing coming and taken steps to talk to their players before placing them in such a situation.

All of this can work for SLA, because as you’ve said that is what the system was designed for.

Terminator as a setting is a different beast.
You don’t need stats for the terminators in the ‘past’ because they are impossible to damage with vast majority of weapons that the characters have access to (unless they grab a rocket launcher from the Army surplus store … ;)). So all you need to tell them is how they die …

The ‘future’ versions may need some stats, but at that point they’re closer to zombies in threat level. All you need to worry about is running out of ammo before you’re overwhelmed.

That is … assuming the players are only ever going to be humans and that playing a Termintor is not an option.