Dealing with HD

[Gryphynx]

As a GM who allows optimization of characters, I have a couple of players that have tendencies to min-max their sheets, and noticed that one in particular has no trouble at all getting a ranged attack or a defense to a cost of 1, allowing him to get 10HD for a measly 20 points... 40 points for 10HD in both offense and defense...

We're trying a new House Rule, HD have a maximum width of 2. This means that they're mostly just for automatic-success, and generally won't be bought at more than 2HD. Having multiple HD will work, in that losing an HD or 2 to penalties will still allow you to automatically succeed if you have 3+ or 4+ HD respectively, but less effective than just buying 1WD instead. Good for null powers, or powers that aren't resisted, and even for offensive/defensive powers, since gobbling even a couple of die is useful, and they still work in unison with WD and regular D.

Thoughts before implementation?

This rule will, of course, replace, not stack with, our previous rule that the height of your HD is equal to your Dice Pool (or lower, declared pre-rolling).

[Sobolev]

I will say, Wild Talents is not really a system that lends itself to too much optimization, people need to be reasonable. Case in point, one of the rulebooks has a custom power to put out the sun, from earth, with no chance of failure. It's important to establish a character, then flesh out powers that make sense, if you just start with powers without an idea where you want them to end, it can get silly.

[Gryphynx]

Well, I will do my best to optimize my house rules in a way that lends itself to as much optimization the players want to throw at it. That's kinda the idea of House Rules.

As for a custom power to put out the sun, the Range/Booster levels, and the Radius levels you'd have to reach in order to perform such a feat would make the power astronomically expensive... I'd surely allow it, but who would want to make it? o.O As we've discovered with Telekinesis... to have a really decent "super power", you end up with a base 16/32/64 per Quality, very quickly. The system is mostly sound, it just needs minor refinements, and a 2-width maximum on HDs seems a good start. There's still reason to buy up to 5HD (since HD's are the first to go when penalties apply, or multi-actions are attempted), but they're not as powerful anymore... No 10HD's on character sheets.

And usually, the powergamer types do establish a character first, then optimize the numbers to match that establishment as optimally as possible...