The Lady Bat

[BentonGrey]

So guys, I've been thinking a bit about something Wickerman said the other day.  He pointed out that most of the Bat family ends up looking pretty much exactly alike in FF.  I was just wondering how y'all go about differentiating Batgirl from Batman and Robin.  Any ideas?

[wickerman]

I give her less physical strength and damage, but nimble attribute (robin gets this too btw) to make her a bit more agile.  She (and Robin) end up with slightly less accuracy with batarangs to reflect their lesser skills vs Batman.  I also have fewer overall powers for her - she doesn't have access to as many gadgets as Bruce and Dick do.    She has a bit less energy too to reflect less stamina.


Now the above is my Classic (gordon) batgirl.  The new batgirl should have martial arts damage and speed as good as Bruce's.  I still think her gadgets should be limited vs his though.

[bearded]

one thing i do is give batman the trick shot ffx.  i changed the arrows to batarangs of course.  and especially since i can't use trick shot and utility belt at the same time, i give robin the utility belt ffx.  batgirl gets a little bit of both, but only with her powers, not attributes.
batman also gets presence.

[Scorpion13mk2]

A good way I find to differentiate is to give them different gadgets. Batman has demonstrated dozens and dozens of different gadgets, but most hero files are basically batarangs, smoke grenades...the usual stuff. Howabout throwing in some knockout gas bombs? Tear gas spray? Tazer strikes? You could give them nearly any kind of power and it would still be pretty accurate to the characters.

[Xenolith]

I'm changing the scale of my FFvTR/FFX just because of things like this.  I'm going to edit all the objects in FFEdit so they are much heavier.  Then, I can start having different hero files for no-powered and low powered guys that don't all look the same.
Batman would have strength 5, for example, and batgirl strength 4, robin strength 3, etc.  I don't normally play with super-powerful characters, so I'm not going to worry if spider-man has a strength 10 plus heavy lifter.
The main reason I'm doing this is because all my golden age heroes were pretty much exactly the same.  Compared to Superman they are, but compared to one another, I think there should be some variety.

[Trelau]

to differentiate the bat family, i usually do this:
_give combat mastery (the +50% to physical damage) to batman, the lower one (+25%) to robin and nothing to batgirl.
_i give body armor and greater stamina and/or resilient to batman, so that he's the "tank" of the group. i give nimble to the other two, and a passive defense with low chance of evasion to robin (he usually play "tool box" to the group, throwing batarang and dodging attacks from far away)
_i give batgirl the "last resort" attribute or something (the one that triggers an effect when you're close to death...maybe divine intervention) and make her sumon cops to show that in desperate time she will call her dad for back-up
_i give presence and tracking to batman, for the detective and theatrical aspect of the character. i give hot tempered to jason todd as robin(but i hardly play with him) and berserker to jason todd as red hood.
_batman and batgirl are disciplined, while robin (all three of them) are weak minded; it's mostly so that they get enraged easier than the other against taunting enemy.

I think i could go on a little while with those, but another quick point:
_batman has more aggressive attacks: tear gas (mind blank or panick), taser (extreme stasis short range), explosive batarangs
_robin is more "lighthearted" and has disabling attacks: smoke pellet (blind), bat bola, sonic birdarang (mind blank)
_batgirl doesn't have acces to all that gadget stuff (i based her on the TAS version...) and has: curing mental state (so that she can calm robin down), sometimes first aid kit and the police backup mentioned above. To make her special i also give her cops handcuff, wich "exile" the character (to avoid the "strength vs stasis " stuff)

I found that these make them pretty different to play :batman can go head first into a group of goons, robin first annoy them and take them one by one, batgirl try to attract one and ko him then recuperate, then back to the next...or more risky goes head first, reach critic hp and call cops to help, runs away to heal while the cops get decimated and then goes back in.

I hope it was usefull to you Benton (looking for ideas for DCUG hero files?)

[BentonGrey]

Thanks guys!  There are some good suggestions here.  I suppose I should have been clear about the characters I was referring to, but in my mind there aren't really multiple versions.   I was, of course, speaking of Bruce, Dick, and Barbra.  I think, in general, I have an approach that is similar to most of yours when it comes to this trio.  I do like the idea about handcuffs for Babs, though.  I do have her less well equipped, gadget wise, than the other two, and that would help round her character out in a way that makes sense and jives with canon.

Sort of, Trelau, I am reexamining some of my assumptions about the work that I've already finished.  I'm tweaking a few things.

[wickerman]

I like to nuance the powers too.  I think I posted this on another version of the boards a long time ago in relation to Cap america vs Hawkeye in h2h combat.

If - say - you have batgirl at a 3 strength and you also have Bats at a 3 (lots of people do) I have found that you can do more beside combat mastery to set them apart.  It was WAYYY easier in ff1 with more power cost options, but you can still do it.

Say you have a generic punch.

Bats

low magnitude
no energy cost
very fast speed
low stun
low kb


Barb

very low magnitude
low cost
normal speed
no stun
no kb


Bats hits harder and is harder to dodge along with having a chance to stun and knock back a bad guy.  He also punches for free vs low cost for Babs.  Now maybe I lowered Bat girl too much, but you get the idea. 

[herodad1]

i always give my normal fighter types(batman,daredevil,iron fist,ect) strength level 3.i give say the thing strength 8.theres a big gap in strength between batman and the thing.thats why they get 3's.their speed is always higher.fighting speed like punching they get fast.the flash as far as fighting/punch speed is very fast.