Post by tomasina on Sept 29, 2005 11:15:17 GMT -5
The following is a compilation of questions that have been asked regarding the Spider-Man's Guide to New York project. This list will continue to grow as additional questions are posted.
- When will the project be completed?
It's hard to pin down a date, since our volunteers are not getting paid. But rest assured, everyone is working hard, and we have had many new talented volunteers sign up lately to help.
The book is now coming together at a faster pace and we will continue to keep everyone updated on progress. It's not far away from being released.
We will keep you updated... or you can always hit the site ozbot.typepad.com/spideyguide/ for more information.
Update: The project is now complete and all sections are available for download at the official site. Enjoy! - What format will the final deliverable be in?
The finished deliverable as multiple .PDF deliverable available for download. To download the various sections, simply visit the project website at (ozbot.typepad.com/spideyguide/). - Will there be any indepth discusson on Venom and/or the the symbiotes.
While we do discuss modified stats for Venom in the Gamesmaster Section, and we have included Carnage in the character profiles, (along with a new action to reflect his unique abilities) we really haven't delved into that topic specifically.
However, we understand the functioning of the symbiot costume to be an example of Transform Self. While it's true that the Venom symbiot is independently intelligent from it's host, it does not have an S.I. value,
which is a requirement for Powered Armor. (Compare Venom's intelligence to Iron Man and Doctor Doom's Intelligence/S.I.) - I kind of figured you’d use this guide as an opportunity to correct some of the mistakes in the original book. Classic Spider-Man is a class ten (6 in this game system) but he’s still only about half that strong in this game (5). Additionally the Spider-Men who are listed as 6s seem like they ought to have higher stats (the new OHotMU says that after Disassembled: Changes he’s a class 15, thus making him a 7 in the game).
Additionally his Cosmic Spidey stats seem awful low for someone who’s made guys like Magneto, Graviton, Goliath (Erik Josten is a greatly underrated powerhouse), and the Tri-Sentinel seem weak in comparison.
As far as correcting "mistakes" we're being careful not to do that for a couple of reasons. Primarily, we want to be faithful to the MURPG system, and once we get into trying to correct stats that have already been printed, then we have to revise other characters (i.e. if we increase Spider-Man's strength, then he becomes stronger than the Green Goblin, and they are supposed to be about equal). Many of the fans prefer to see new content, not a revisionist rendition of the old system. (With that said, we HAVE provided comments on making modifications to Venom's stats, because we felt he was seriously underpowered.)
Spider-Man's original stats, however, are close to where they should be, especially when comparing him to other characters that are listed in the books; We've found during our own character research that, while the charts provided by the original MURPG teams serve as a useful reference, they are just guidelines, many of the characters are given stats according how they balance against each other and their limits and capabilities do not necessarily reflect the the information listed in the charts. We've followed the same pattern when building our new characters as well.
Now let's take a closer look at those specific write-ups you mentioned:
The New Spider-Man: Spider-Man's old max was 10 tons, now it is 15; As you are probably aware, in this game system, the original creators intended that with each point (or level), there would be an approximate doubling of power. Since the weight he could lift was raised by only half of his original max, we felt that giving him 1 full point of strength would be fair. But 2 would have been definite overkill. Incidently, our source (The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, Spider-Man 2004) rated his new strength at 4, the same number as what he had before the change.
Cosmic Spider-Man: Keep in mind too that while at first glance his stats may seem low, he can use his mastery of Cosmic Energy as Strength, Agility, or Speed at 8, essentially giving him an 8 in any of these abilities. This is the same way that the Collector is profiled in the Avengers Book. Cosmic Spider-Man's durability is a whopping 7 (Higher than Thor's!), AND he has an enhanced healing factor which not only makes him virtually tireless, but gives him the ability to heal damage like Wolverine in combat! Keep in mind all of this affects his ability to "trounce his enemies." Here's some ideas:
Let's say Spidey uses his Mastery of Cosmic Energy to increase his strength to 8. He can now place 2 stones into close combat + his normal agility of 6 + 8 strength for a total of a 16 stone attack. He can keep this up for a while too, due to his healing factor and high durability. Or he can spend 8 stones and blast his opponent with a cosmic blast at x2 damage; He can do that indefinitely because this requires less energy than he normally recovers every turn. Even when he starts taking damage, he also heals 1 stone of damage per 2 turns, so chances are he'll continue to have a high energy recovery rate for the duration of the battle.
Those features alone make Cosmic Spidey a power house! But he also retains his old reflective dodge, making him hard to hit AND +6 web shooters, which gives him an additional high attack option for minimal effort.
Of course, if you still feel that these or any of the characters that you encounter in our books, we, like the original writers of MURPG, encourage you to customize them according to your own needs and preferences. - Why did you leave the Ultimate Green Goblin and Hobgoblin from the Goblin Legacy? Ultimate Spiderman was included in the previous Spiderman Variant-Chart, so shouldn't the Ultimate Green Goblin and Hobgoblin been included as well?
The Goblin Legacy focused on the history of the Green Goblin in the mainstream comic continuity; whereas the Spider-Man chart profiled alternate versions of Spider-Man. So while Ultimate Spidey did fit into the theme of the Spider-Man variant stats. Ultimate Green Goblin did not fit into the theme of the Goblin Legacy section. - Are we going to get to see the Slingers? They seemed fairly important.
Sorry, they will not be included. You are right, they would have been perfect for the book, though I'm personally not familiar with the characters. What I know is limited to the information in the Encyclopedia. Unfortunately, those versions only include Spider-Man's statistics.