EGB: Class 13?.

[JA_Slow]

To this day I don’t understand how a ghost whose sole purpose was to steal human eyeballs and store them in its gut was deemed by Egon as a Class 13. Clearly the writer wasn’t familiar with the scale ghosts had been classified in RGB and the movies. If 13 is the ceiling, than Gozer had to have been it with Vigo being no less than a 10. The ghost, Tenebraug, fell pretty short of having demigod like powers.

[fritz]

They really weren’t very consistent, no. In the cartoons, they pretty much just went with a “power scale” type system, as opposed to the system that as far as we know was first seen in the Ghostbusters RPG/Ghostbusters International by West End Games, which seemed to be based more on the entity’s origin and level of impingement into the material plane.

Like a lot of writers–and fans–I like the GBI system better.

As I put it once before:

–Remember that it’s not a power scale. The Class VI seems to be the “odd one out” (but more on that in a moment) but remember, Slimer would be a Class V, Vigo would be a Class IV (I’m just not sure he’s quite enough to be upgraded to Class VII, though if he’d taken over the world he sure would be). Vigo is a lot more powerful than Slimer.

You can actually break down the first six classes into groupings of two:

–Class I and II are indistinct/incomplete. Their prior nature can be difficult to ascertain. You can almost think of them as fractions of Class III-VI ghosts.

–Class III and IV are ghosts of humans. The only real difference is that you know who a Class IV used to be. I admit this seems a bit odd to base the difference on, but knowing a ghost’s pre-death identity means you have access to more information about it, and thus clues on how to deal with it. Again, the power level is meaningless here–it’s easy to imagine a Class III being more powerful than many Class IVs.

–Class V and VI are non-human. V is unidentified, possibly totally extradimensional. VI is the ghost of an identified non-human life form. In some ways, you could say the real “difference” is the same as III and IV–you know what a Class VI used to be, while with V you do not.

–VII of course is the “super” class, Metaspectres, powerful entities usually of extradimensional origin. In a way, it’s a catch-all–Class VIIs could have traits similar to a Class III-VI entity, but in this case it IS a power assessment. An inhuman entity who eats everything and slimes you is a Class V. An inhuman entity that can sneeze and turn Cleveland into charcoal is a Class VII.

[mrmichaelt]

Yeah, it was inconsistent. I don’t think the RGB crew nailed down a specific class system so it varied by story and writers but basically in the movie canon a god like Gozer was a Class 7 whereas in the cartoons, a Class 10. And the Class 11, 12, and 13 were more like rare one-of-a-kind Pokemon, just one entity had that class because of their power set and function.

[South_Suburbs_GBFan]

Think I’ve got the nomenclature ironed out: Class is what they are; level is how powerful they are. Ought levels go counting down (i.e. DEFCON) or counting up?

[fritz]

Another aspect of the GBI RPG was a Power rating, which was independent of Class and did indeed tell you how tough the entity was. Slimer had Power 2, Gozer had Power 12, for example.

You could almost imagine that every time the cartoon said “Class” they really meant “Power” and it would work better. :lol: