Planning a DBZ campaign and I'd like another (few) sets of eyes

[Blackhawk748]

Just as the title says im planning a DBZ game and ill be using this game (http://thecreamgames.tumblr.com/) to play it, but the mechanics arent super important here.

In short its an alternate timeline for DBZ so as to allow the PCs (and me) more freedom. This is what i want some more eyes on, as id like to cut down on narrative fiat.

The timeline stays largely the same till a few years before the Saiyan Saga (Age 758 if you care about specifics). The big change is that several thousand Saiyans where not on planet Vegeta when Freeza blew it up and Vegeta discovers them at this time. This is actually Cooler's doing as he makes sure Vegeta gets a mission to destroy the planet the Saiyans are one, knowing that he won't. This will force his brother to go and clean up his mess. Obviously this plan backfires.

When Vegeta, Nappa and Raditz discover a planet full of Saiyans, the Saiyans make Vegeta their king and his first order is for them to leave, so when Freeza shows up the planet is empty. They head to the outer rim of the galaxy where Vegeta and the Saiyans begin to consolidate power in an alliance with other aliens in order to bring Freeza down. To facilitate this they send out scouting teams of Saiyans to find others of their kind and any aliens that may be of help. This is how they find Earth.

Raditz, who is now leading his own Squadron of other Low Class Warriors, Trash Squadron, discovers Earth by detecting Goku's Saiyan Pod's homing beacon. They land and the meeting goes much better than in the Prime Timeline, as Goku doesnt really like the sound of this Freeza guy. While Goku doesnt agree to go with Raditz, he does accidentally let slip about the Dragon Balls, which Raditz informs Vegeta about. The King heads to Earth with a small fleet of transport ships with the intent to purchase the right to use the Dragon Balls. (This Vegeta is a much better Diplomat) Sadly Freeza also found out through methods unknown and also headed for Earth.

Once Vegeta gets to Earth he discovers that noone owns the Dragon Balls and that the Z Warriors seem perfectly happy to help him find them, which they do in short order. Once the Dragon Balls are gathered he makes his wish, to return all the Saiyans Freeza killed when he destroyed planet Vegeta to life. (Kami informed the Z Fighters that this would bring the Saiyans back to life where they died so Vegeta has a bunch of ships in position to pick them up) As Shenron is granting this wish (its a lot of people, so it takes a little bit) he is blasted by a massive energy wave as Freeza and his minions descend on Earth.

Vegeta sounds the retreat and starts getting people into the various transports, filling them to capacity. Goku, being Goku, stays and tries to hold Freeza off while the others make a run for it. It goes about as well as you'd expect it to, only really working because Freeza is having to much fun toying with him. At about this point Dr Gero, in a shiny new Android body, releases his partially finished Androids to try and buy him time to get the hell off of Earth. While 17 and 18 arent as powerful as they are in the Prime Timeline, they easily blitz past the Ginyu Force and convince an only partially finished 16 to come with them, abandoning Android 19 and Gero to fight Freeza. While they both make a good accounting of themselves, but their unfinished nature combined with an unforeseen flaw in the fact that there is a hard cap to how much energy they can absorb Freeza kills them both while in his third form.

After this Freeza learns of the Namekian Dragon Balls and with noone there to oppose him, he gets his wish for immortality, though not in the way he wanted. While he will not die of natural causes (old age or disease for example) he can still be killed. Once it became clear that he would kill them after getting his wish the Namekians used the next wish to teleport to another planet in Alliance territory. Sadly the trip was to much for Guru who died before he could pass on his powers, and so the Namekian Dragon Balls died.

We now skip forward 15 years. The Alliance is in a brutal ongoing war with the PTO and is holding its own partially because Freeza doesnt take them seriously and that his Empire is under attack by Emperor Slug, who's second in command is Turles. The Alliance has been attacked by the Demon Empire and is now in a two front war.

The Alliance has access to the Earth Dragon Balls, as Kami and Piccolo have fused and they passed on control of the Dragon Balls to Dende. Gohan leads Z Squadron (Videl, Krillin, Tien and Yamcha), Android 18 leads the Android Squadron (17 and 16) and they all serve under Division Commander Hercule Satan. Nappa and Raditz are leading their own Squadrons, Crusher Squadron and Trash Squadron respectively) and they serve under Division Commander Bardock. Both Bardock and Hercule serve under a pterodactyl type alien named General Bellum. This is the Army that the PCs will serve in as a Squad of Elites

The PCs will be a Squad of Elites and most of the characters from the show will be in Ace Squadrons or sometimes even higher than that. Basically its a military campaign where they punch stuff and shoot lasers out of their hands.

Also if i could get some ideas for enemy themes and possibly attack names that would be sweet.

[Kallimakus]

My biggest question is actually on power levels, since the story outlined seems to imply that many characters seem to be getting a lot more powerful than they were at the time for, well, some reason.
The growth of most characters were only triggered by the arrival of Raditz and the impending threat of the Saiyans.
Unless people were born a lot more powerful, Vegeta remains weaker than Zarbon and Dodoria, who in turn remain weaker than Ginyu force, who in turn are far below Freeza in terms of power. Goku and the other earthlings are laughably behind. Also, without Goku dying, he would never learn Kaioken, which allowed him to keep up with Vegeta, Ginyu force and Freeza. (Vegeta lost to Freeza's final form easily, while Goku at 20 times his normal power was maybe halfway to beating said form)

Battle power in general
Dr. Gero and his androids. I think he only stepped up their power after the Saiyan attacks
Why is Bardock a factor? I think he was weaker than Vegeta coming to Earth (and thus no longer qualifying as 'elite' among new sayians).
Why is Hercule a factor? His greatest fame came after saving the Earth from Cell (an event that doesn't occur in this timeline). Before that, he was an acclaimed martial artist solely because Z-fighters stopped going to tournaments.
The obligatory 'where's Broly in this?' Presumably he would still survive the destruction of sayians (not to mention being strong enough to face off against any of these factions without issue)

That kind of reminds me of how the movies might be shoehorned into the continuity, but I digress.

What I perceive to be the main plot points of the background are:
Saiyans have an off-world colony that, along with Vegeta, Nappa and Raditz escapes destruction, and end up working for Freeza.
Vegeta and the rest are sent to wipe out said saiyans, but betray Freeza instead. They take the Saiyans along and disappear.
Things on Earth progress as they did, until Raditz shows up.
Raditz's motivation (and thus actions) have changed. He is no longer looking for the 4th remaining Saiyan, but for his lost rubbish brother. I would say that, like in Prime timeline, he has no need for troops, as he is more than powerful enough to defeat all powers on Earth without issues (he's wrong, but still).
Goku and Raditz might reunite under more pleasant circumstances. They both have things to teach the other. Earthlings can sense and lower/increase their power levels, whereas Raditz can fight on a level beyond that of anyone on Earth. Due to this (and Raditz being, well, Goku's brother) and Saiyans being more civilized here, they could get their training on. They get Bulma/Dr Briefs to build them the gravity training room to enhance their training.
It could be at this stage that Freeza learns of the dragonballs, much like he did in Prime timeline (eavesdropping the Saiyan transmissions). He's a busy man however, and has other things to do at the moment. Someone realizes this, and the Z-fighters get their training redoubled.

Vegeta arrives, discovering that the Z-fighters are a lot stronger than they were in the initial timeline. The Dragon Balls are gathered and Saiyans wished to life. Now you suggest Freeza arrives here, but this is still quite early (in my opinion) for anyone to be able to challenge him at all. (Vegeta's baseline at Saiyan Saga in Prime timeline is 18 000, whereas Freeza's first form is 530 000, so even allowing for some growth, they would offer little challenge.) In addition, the Saiyans might have been a prime reason for Dr. Gero to step up the power of his androids.
My suggestion is to put off Freeza's attack by a while. This would both enable Gero to make his androids more powerful, and for Saiyans and Z-fighters to get stronger.
Another option could be for Freeza to attack, and that the defenders make use of the Hyperbolic Time Chamber to get a training boost. (I would still do this when Freeza attacks, mind you). Going by your timeline, Goku (now rivalling the weaker Ginyu's in power) makes a stand to try and delay Freeza while others train to stand up to him. Another factor might be the Great Ape form, provided that 1) Moon exists; 2) Super Saiyan forms are still off limits at this stage.
(I'll assume #2 to be true since we've seen Super Saiyan trumps Freeza. That, or the baseline is so much weaker, either or.)
Also, out of curiosity, what level of power would be entailed? Are the players to be roughly on par with Ginyu Force (best group under Freeza), or above, or below?

Pardon for the rambling post, I was distracted a lot.

[Blackhawk748]

Its fine, its why i posted in the first place. I also realize that i forgot to mention the rankings, which may clear some of this up. Elite is no longer the top of the food chain for troops, that would be Aces. Elites are like what Vegeta and Co. where, soldiers above the baseline but not on par with the big guns like the Ginyu force.

Bardock is a factor as his power level was around 10k at the time of his death which puts him at around Nappa tier, so he isnt a pushover and he had probably the most experience out of all the Saiyans at the time because he never stopped fighting. Hercule is there because that dude is just so freaking charismatic, Vegeta realized that he was good for the Earthlings morale. As such his command staff makes most of the decisions and he just gives motivational speeches.

Vegeta is about where he was when he landed on Namek, as hes been doing a lot of fighting during this time. That mixed with the fact that he has no qualms about asking for help means he and his royal guard could take on Zarbon or Dodoria. The Earthlings don't catapult up the power ladder until they leave Earth, and they've had 15 years to power up, and they've shown they can do a lot in that time.

[Kane0]

Sounds fun, please tell me you're gonna do a campaign log.

[Blackhawk748]

Sounds fun, please tell me you're gonna do a campaign log.

I might as me and another player did for our last one. Sadly that campaign died do to real life scheduling issues.

[Psyren]

Bardock is a factor as his power level was around 10k at the time of his death which puts him at around Nappa tier, so he isnt a pushover and he had probably the most experience out of all the Saiyans at the time because he never stopped fighting.

Didn't he also get transported to the past, become a Super Saiyan, kill Chilled, and become the source of the Super Saiyajin prophecy that was passed down through Frieza's line?

[Blackhawk748]

Didn't he also get transported to the past, become a Super Saiyan, kill Chilled, and become the source of the Super Saiyajin prophecy that was passed down through Frieza's line?


Ah Yes, that bloody time shenanigans. (https://youtu.be/tkplPbd2f60?t=36s) Im not including that cuz it would be odd. Plus unleasheing the genie that is Super Saiyan would screw the power level even harder.


Anyway i forgot to mention that the Saiyans have advanced in other forms in place of Super Saiyan. These are all derived from the Oozaru form and as such requires that a Saiyan have their tail, though they dont need Blutz Waves.They are, in ascending order:

Neo Oozaru: Forearms are covered in fur, canines are very pronounced, eyes are red. Slight increase in strength and toughness. While it doesnt posses the Oozaru's raw strength and toughness, you aren't any bigger than a normal Saiyan, so you dont turn into a massive target or get slower.

Ascended Oozaru: Fur covers the Saiyan's entire arms are fur covered, canines are less pronounced, but still more than usual, the schlera of the eyes are just red now. This form is a bit more powerful than x20 Kaioken but not as strong as Super Saiyan.

True Oozaru: It looks like Super Saiyan 4, not gonna lie. The Saiyan now has access to all of the strength and toughness of an Oozaru, but in a smaller more convenient package. This form is about as powerful as Super Saiyan 2

King Oozaru: Looks like a white furred and silver haired version of True Oozaru form, they now have all the power of a Golden Oozaru, about on par with Super Saiyan 3.

Mechanically speaking these forms give Strength and Toughness boosts instead of Super Saiyans Strength and Ki bonuses. However they dont break even on the number of dice until True Oozaru. Their benefit is that they dont have a Ki Drain every turn and as such its easier to remain in them, you just have to have your tail.

In any event all Saiyan Aces can use Neo Oozaru and a very few can use Ascended. King Vegeta can use Ascended Oozaru and he knows he could beat first form Freeza with it, hes just concerned about the other forms, which is why he hasnt fought Freeza himself.

[KillianHawkeye]

A minor continuity glitch: I'm pretty sure the original (pre-Dende) Shenlong can't bring someone back from the dead if they died more than a year ago. Otherwise, Goku would probably have wished Grandpa Gohan back to life.

[Blackhawk748]

A minor continuity glitch: I'm pretty sure the original (pre-Dende) Shenlong can't bring someone back from the dead if they died more than a year ago. Otherwise, Goku would probably have wished Grandpa Gohan back to life.

See, it says that on the wiki but i have no idea where anyone gets it from cuz i dont remember hearing that in Dragonball or in DBZ anywhere. In any event im pretty sure Grandpa Gohan didnt want to come back as he seemed fairly content dead.

[Fri]

Honestly, I say don't mind continuity much and knock yourself out. That's the fun of alternate history stuff. The only thing made me wonder was indeed the power level, like raditz' invasion was really the catalyst of the jump of power level and before that freeza could sneeze and kill the whole z-fighter in the same, but power level is always insane anyway. If you take it less definite/reduce a couple of zeroes/make them less important like how it should be, it should be fine.

Also do you know that there's actually a galactic police organization? They know about freeza's organization, but can't do anything about it because it's just too powerful. There's a toriyama manga about one that got stranded on earth, where at the end of the series the twist is, he's supposed to prevent goku from landing on earth.

Also I like the idea that eventhough earthling is really, really, _really_ weak, earth's strength isn't in birthing/training strong fighters. It's technology. Seriously, the Androids are stronger than anything before buu, capsule corps could easily reverse engineer scouters, armors, advanced space ship, etc.

[KillianHawkeye]

See, it says that on the wiki but i have no idea where anyone gets it from cuz i dont remember hearing that in Dragonball or in DBZ anywhere. In any event im pretty sure Grandpa Gohan didnt want to come back as he seemed fairly content dead.

Well, you made me dig out my old paperbacks. :smallamused:

It's mentioned when Super Saiyan Goku is fighting Freeza during the conversation between Kami and King Kai about using the Earth's Dragon Balls. King Kai asks if they can be used to bring more than one person back to life, and Kami responds that they can bring back as many people as they want as long as they can be grouped in some way. As an example, Kami uses a hypothetical wish of bringing back everyone who was killed by Vegeta and Nappa, but states that the wish "would be limited to those who died in the past year." This is what gives King Kai the idea to wish everyone who was killed by Freeza and his men back to life.

Immediately following this, however, are Yamcha and Tien being totally okay with waiting another year to be revived. As this appears to be the only time a one year limit is ever mentioned, the Internet consensus seems to be that it only applies when wishing back a very large number of people and that reviving a single person has no time limit as long as the person didn't die of natural causes. Unfortunately, the situation you're suggesting, using the Dragon Balls to bring back all the Saiyans killed when Freeza wiped out their planet, is exactly the kind of wish that we've been told the limit applies to. So.....

As an aside, I don't remember any time that the Earth's Dragon Balls actually were used to bring someone back to life who'd been dead for over a year. The little Indian kid's dad, the one's killed during Piccolo Daimao's reign of terror, Goku, the people Freeza and his minions killed, and any times they might have wished victims back during the Cell and Buu sagas... those were all less than a year. Unless I'm forgetting something, that's it.

I guess I gotta re-read Dragon Ball now that I got my old issues out of storage, so that's cool! :smallbiggrin:

[Durkoala]

I might be completely wrong, but I think the Earth Dragonballs have a time limit but can revive as many people within that limit as you wish, while the Namek Dragonballs don't have such a limit, but can revive only one person at a time. After Freeza's death, the Earth Dragonballs were upgraded to be able to have two wishes and the the Namek ones to be able to revive many people, but I don't recall anything about extending the time limit.

It's been a long time since I saw Dragonball, so take this with a pinch of salt. :smalltongue:

[Callos_DeTerran]

\Also I like the idea that eventhough earthling is really, really, _really_ weak, earth's strength isn't in birthing/training strong fighters. It's technology. Seriously, the Androids are stronger than anything before buu, capsule corps could easily reverse engineer scouters, armors, advanced space ship, etc.

Right?! Its so weird to think that Dr. Gero, who has no idea what happened on Namek and only ever saw Vegeta when he came to earth, was able to create Androids that would have stomped the universe's most powerful tyrant with laughable ease.

On note of different timelines, I think the one I think is the coolest is an offhand mention from a Time Patroller in Xenoverse 1. The timeline he protects (set in the DB era) is one where King Piccolo forcibly fused with Kami to become the Nameless Namekian once more and raised an army of demons to conquer the world. The only real challenge that was poised to them was the Red Ribbon Army and their Androids which started a war between the two sides. Then, when things didn't seem capable of getting any worse, Babidi and his forces show up trying to awaken Majin Buu.

I mean...it just sounds so awesome!

EDIT: As advice for the DM though, ignore official power levels entirely. If you want to gauge how strong a character is, compare them to a canon character at an equivalent point in time because as Toriyama himself says 'power levels are meaningless'. They're literally created just so the heroes of the story can prove that there's more to judge a fighter on than just their power level, only very naive people in a Dragon Ball game should take power level as anything beyond a broad indicator of ability.

[Blackhawk748]

Well that would be why i didnt know that as i've never read much Dragonball Z, i just watched it. In any event ill just ignore that, as it doesnt seem super huge or anything.

And ya, im aware Power Levels are junk, except for fun.

[Kane0]

Obligatory mention: If you haven't already witnessed DBZ abridged on youtube then you are missing out.

[Blackhawk748]

Obligatory mention: If you haven't already witnessed DBZ abridged on youtube then you are missing out.

Considering i am trying to figure out how to properly fit in an Advanced Geometry scene, i can safely say that i've seen it. And love it.

[CharonsHelper]

Frankly - if you want a more open story - I'd suggest going back to the world of Dragonball rather than DBZ. There was just a whole lot more openness, and people and/or non-people were always coming out of the woodwork to be new threats. Plus strategy/tactics actually mattered rather than "My Power is higher than your Power = autowin". Heck - that was back when mundane weapons such as guns/missiles were an actual threat and having a sword/staff was an advantage. (Not a huge threat - but still a threat.)