Star Hero damage too low!

[Gary]

Does anyone else find that the damages in Star Hero are too low? They range from about 3D6 RKA for a low level attack to 10D6 RKA for a high level attack. Contrast this with a .50 cal which does 3D6 RKA, and a 120 mm tank shell which does 8d6 RKA. Granted all the Star Hero weapons have mega range, but the damage is fairly wimpy.

Then again, the Ewoks did crush elite stormtroopers (is that an oxymoron?) with spears and arrows...

[Agent Escafarc]

Not really. Remember that that 10d6 RKA is 64x more powerful than the 8d6 RKA not counting any Advantages.

As a side note there are some more powerful weapons listed in Terran Empire (up to a RKA 25d6 explosion)

[Gary]

Originally posted by Agent Escafarc
Not really. Remember that that 10d6 RKA is 64x more powerful than the 8d6 RKA not counting any Advantages.

As a side note there are some more powerful weapons listed in Terran Empire (up to a RKA 25d6 explosion)

How about a 16" shell, which would be a lot more powerful than 64 times a tank shell. A warship of the 30th century would do less damage than a 20th century battleship?

25D6 sounds a lot more likely for 30th century tech.

Of course, the 30 damage classes of a 30th century warship would merely do the same damage as a terminal velocity fall.

[Monolith]

I do not consider the damage to be wimpy. I consider the damage to be inline with the DEF of whatever it is fighting. Also keep in mind that while the Warship might only have a 10d6 RKA, it is an Armor Piercing 10d6 RKA. So while that Warship does have 65 DEF (with force shields), on average it is going to do 2-3 BODY to itself per hit (plus the fact that the ship's shields are Ablative). So it will take only a few hits before those shields fail completely, but even if they do not fail the ship could stop itself in around 15 hits. And that is not including secondary weapons attacks. I think if two major warships are doing battle against each other, 15 hits is not out of line to take the ship to 0 BODY.

Now I do think there are some flaws, but I do not think it is because of damage. I think some of the ships defenses are too high. The Merchant, for example, has a 27 DEF with its Force Shields. With having only a 3d6 AF RKA, few shots are going to penetrate its own shields. So if two Merchant ships are fighting each other the battle would almost never end. Each ship would have to hope for a lucky roll, first to do more than 15 DEF to get an Ablative check, and then to have the ship actually fail the Ablative roll so as to lose shields.

The Fighter is the poorest designed, but once again not because of damage, but only because its damage is NND (defense being Force Shields). 30 Fighters come up on a Merchant ship and none of their weapons can penetrate the Merchants Force Shield. I would think that Merchant ships should be fairly easy prey for a squadron of Fighters. But once again, this is a DEF issue more than an Damage issue, IMO.

[Gary]

Originally posted by Monolith
I do not consider the damage to be wimpy. I consider the damage to be inline with the DEF of whatever it is fighting. Also keep in mind that while the Warship might only have a 10d6 RKA, it is an Armor Piercing 10d6 RKA. So while that Warship does have 65 DEF (with force shields), on average it is going to do 2-3 BODY to itself per hit (plus the fact that the ship's shields are Ablative). So it will take only a few hits before those shields fail completely, but even if they do not fail the ship could stop itself in around 15 hits. And that is not including secondary weapons attacks. I think if two major warships are doing battle against each other, 15 hits is not out of line to take the ship to 0 BODY.

The warship actually has 75 def. 25 base, 40 force wall, 10 force field. Of course, after the first hit, the force wall will go down and it'll take a minute to erect it again, so a fight between 2 warships would probably take about 1 turn.

However that's not the point. If a Tow missile is 6D6 AP RKA, and a tank shell is 8D6 RKA, a 16" armor piercing shell is probably at least 10D6 AP RKA. That would mean that a 30th century warship and the battleship New Jersey has the same level of attack. Both will destroy a third warship in a equal amount of time! It just doesn't make sense that a 30th century warship has merely the same destructive power as a 20th century warship.

Incidentally, an orbital military base has 10D6 non-AP RKA, and 95 Def including 60 forcewall. It's attack will bounce off the 40 ED forcewall of the warship on average, while the warship's AP attack will knock down the 60 forcewall easily. This means that a single warship is more likely to take out the military base than the base is to take out the warship!

Incidentally, the merchant ship's weapons are just about the same level of power as a .50 cal machine gun. Very wimpy for a space laser.

[Monolith]

Originally posted by Gary
Incidentally, the merchant ship's weapons are just about the same level of power as a .50 cal machine gun. Very wimpy for a space laser.

Well it is just a Merchant Ship. It is not a fighter, and it is not supposed to be a fighting ship. And the .50 cal does 2d6+1, so the Merchant ship's guns are 2 DC better.

I hear what you are saying, but I do not agree with you. I think a 225 Active Point RKA is more than enough power for just about anything. I do not think the game needs 20+d6 RKA attacks to achieve the same purpose. I just think some of the Defenses are listed as being too high.

As far as your Orbital Base example, while it does only have 10d6 AF RKA attacks is its primary weapons (and with all 5 shots hitting in a burst there is a good chance that one will roll higher than 40 to take down the Warship's shields), it also has 8 20d6 RKA MSAE Space Nukes. A couple of shots from that will take out a whole fleet of Warships. So the Orbital Base is not whimpy, IMO.

I do think the damage and defense systems needs to be playtested more though, but I still feel that it is more of a Defense issue than a damage issue. It does not bother me in the slightest that a TOW does 6d6 AP and a Warship's secondary weapons only do 8d6 AP. That 2 extra dice is 7 more BODY on average; and that is quite a bit of extra damage IMO.

[Monolith]

I should point out that there are many more examples of space vehicles in both TUV and TE. Both of those books give a nice rounding out to the overall attack and defense structure of space ships; and both of which were written after Star Hero, and thus have a slightly more evolved feel to them.

[Toadmaster]

Originally posted by Gary
However that's not the point. If a Tow missile is 6D6 AP RKA, and a tank shell is 8D6 RKA, a 16" armor piercing shell is probably at least 10D6 AP RKA. That would mean that a 30th century warship and the battleship New Jersey has the same level of attack. Both will destroy a third warship in a equal amount of time! It just doesn't make sense that a 30th century warship has merely the same destructive power as a 20th century warship.

I don't disagree that some work is needed on the upper end weapons which is one of the reasons I've been trying to build piercing among other things, the differance between a 75mm M3 gun as used on a Sherman tank and a 120mm gun as used on the Abrams are so close together that it is hard to make the Abrams immune to the Sherman without also making it immune to itself. However the idea that a 30th Century warship is related to a 20th Century Warship is not really an apples to apples comparison, a 21st century Warship is not equal in firepower to a 20th Century Battleship in reality either. They were built for entirely differant battlefields.

A major problem when dealing with the high end is that HERO is based around +1DC for each 2x in power, so when you are dealing with pistols (generally 100-1000 Joules) you find a range of 1 pip to 2d6+1, but rifles (typically 1000-15,000 Joules) for the most part sit at 2d6+1 with a few exceptions, by the time you reach cannons you see megajoules of energy differance only getting you a +1DC.

Then you also get into the issue of DEF which works in a similar way, so the problem is actually compounded, its not just DC that is tricky to scale, it has to be added to DEF which is also difficult to scale, and then you throw in Superheros who are suposed to be above all this as well (nothing like arguing "real world" physics with comic book and / or magical physics.

Basically I see your point but don't have a solution at this time.

[Gary]

Originally posted by Monolith
Well it is just a Merchant Ship. It is not a fighter, and it is not supposed to be a fighting ship. And the .50 cal does 2d6+1, so the Merchant ship's guns are 2 DC better.

I hear what you are saying, but I do not agree with you. I think a 225 Active Point RKA is more than enough power for just about anything. I do not think the game needs 20+d6 RKA attacks to achieve the same purpose. I just think some of the Defenses are listed as being too high.

As far as your Orbital Base example, while it does only have 10d6 AF RKA attacks is its primary weapons (and with all 5 shots hitting in a burst there is a good chance that one will roll higher than 40 to take down the Warship's shields), it also has 8 20d6 RKA MSAE Space Nukes. A couple of shots from that will take out a whole fleet of Warships. So the Orbital Base is not whimpy, IMO.

I do think the damage and defense systems needs to be playtested more though, but I still feel that it is more of a Defense issue than a damage issue. It does not bother me in the slightest that a TOW does 6d6 AP and a Warship's secondary weapons only do 8d6 AP. That 2 extra dice is 7 more BODY on average; and that is quite a bit of extra damage IMO.

Actually, the .50 cal does 3D6 according to the FAQ, and it's listed as 3D6 under the M-1 Abrams listing.

The warships have missile deflection, so the nuclear warheads probably won't hit. The warship will still win. Besides which, the warships have nukes as well.

OK, I'm being nitpicky. However, even the secondary weapons on a WW2 battleship, the 5" guns, are quite a bit more powerful than a TOW missile. So if both a 30th century warship and a 20th century battleship took broadsides at the same target, both will destroy that target in the same amount of time. Actually, the 20th century battleship will destroy the target quicker because it has 9 16" guns, and dozens of 3-5" guns. Just doesn't make sense to me.

I think there has to be some separation between 20th and 30th century technology, otherwise it doesn't feel right.

[Monolith]

Originally posted by Gary
Actually, the .50 cal does 3D6 according to the FAQ, and it's listed as 3D6 under the M-1 Abrams listing.

Sorry. I was looking on the list on page 332 of FREd. There the .50 cal is listed as 2d6+1.

The warships have missile deflection, so the nuclear warheads probably won't hit. The warship will still win. Besides which, the warships have nukes as well.

The nukes are Mega-Scale Area Effect. They cannot be Missile Deflected. And that was sort of my whole point. The warship can destroy the base, but the base can destroy the warship just as easily. It's a draw.

OK, I'm being nitpicky. However, even the secondary weapons on a WW2 battleship, the 5" guns, are quite a bit more powerful than a TOW missile. So if both a 30th century warship and a 20th century battleship took broadsides at the same target, both will destroy that target in the same amount of time.

TUV lists the "Mark 5" guns on a Destroyer as doing 8d6 RKA (and it has 2 of them). The fact that a Warship in SH can do 10d6 AP RKA seems like a considerable amount of increase to me. The Warship has 2 extra dice and the Armor Piercing advantage. All things being equal, the Warship blows the battle ship out of the water in a couple of shots.

I am not an expert on weapons, but I can clearly see that it is not in the advantage of the game system to have Warships shooting 20d5 AP RKA. It's time consuming, and also unbalancing when trying to incorporate superhumans who might want to fight those Warships into the mix. My own feeling is that if a Warship did not have 75 DEF, there would be no need for 20d6 attacks.

[Gary]

Originally posted by Monolith

The nukes are Mega-Scale Area Effect. They cannot be Missile Deflected. And that was sort of my whole point. The warship can destroy the base, but the base can destroy the warship just as easily. It's a draw.

The nukes have a physical limitation that they can be missile deflected. Still not a draw.

Originally posted by Monolith

TUV lists the "Mark 5" guns on a Destroyer as doing 8d6 RKA (and it has 2 of them). The fact that a Warship in SH can do 10d6 AP RKA seems like a considerable amount of increase to me. The Warship has 2 extra dice and the Armor Piercing advantage. All things being equal, the Warship blows the battle ship out of the water in a couple of shots.

I'm not talking about firing at each other. If a 30th century warship and a WW2 battleship fired at each other, the warship wins because of higher defenses. I was talking about firing at a third target. The WW2 battleship will take out the third target faster than the 30th century warship.

Originally posted by Monolith

I am not an expert on weapons, but I can clearly see that it is not in the advantage of the game system to have Warships shooting 20d5 AP RKA. It's time consuming, and also unbalancing when trying to incorporate superhumans who might want to fight those Warships into the mix. My own feeling is that if a Warship did not have 75 DEF, there would be no need for 20d6 attacks.

Superhumans shouldn't be fighting toe to toe with a battleship. They should infiltrate and destroy the warship from the inside. The ones who can fight toe to toe should be 1500+ point monstrosities like Mon-El or Superboy. If the warship doesn't have high defenses, then they're in the position that a WW2 battleship could take one out.

[Monolith]

Originally posted by Gary
The nukes have a physical limitation that they can be missile deflected. Still not a draw.

I think that is a design flaw. In the "real world" nuclear missiles do not even hit the ground. They explode before ever touching the surface to get as much area damage as possible. Since the missile which covers such a vast area should explode before contact I would remove that Limitation, and thus we are back to a draw. But even if the Missile is Deflected, the Warship will still be in the Area of Effect.

I'm not talking about firing at each other. If a 30th century warship and a WW2 battleship fired at each other, the warship wins because of higher defenses. I was talking about firing at a third target. The WW2 battleship will take out the third target faster than the 30th century warship.

I fail to see how a Battleship doing 8d6 RKA will destroy a target quicker than a Warship doing 10d6 AP RKA.

Superhumans shouldn't be fighting toe to toe with a battleship. They should infiltrate and destroy the warship from the inside. The ones who can fight toe to toe should be 1500+ point monstrosities like Mon-El or Superboy. If the warship doesn't have high defenses, then they're in the position that a WW2 battleship could take one out.

With a starting point total of 350, I no-longer consider 1,500 point characters to be "monstrosities".

[Game Show Man]

It just doesn't make sense that a 30th century warship has merely the same destructive power as a 20th century warship.

A thought: TE takes place in the 25th through the 27th centuries. The 30th century will be the time of Galactic Federation, which after seeing TE, I am absolutely DROOLING for (which should tell our friends at home how utterly BADASS TE is).

I actually thought the same way you did for a while, that the damage rating for the starship weaponry was too low...until I realized that I was thinking in terms of the normal damage ratings...with blaster pistols dealing on the average 8 or 9d6 worth of normal damage. Sounds silly, right? I wouldn't say that. An 8d6 EB is Damage Class 8. An 8d6 RKA is Damage Class 24.

Consider this: the starship lasers (presumably) have a much higher rate of fire than the 18" guns of, say, the Missouri, the U.S. battleship that the treaty that ended WWII was signed aboard. The 18" guns might have equivalent destructive power, but an Empress-class battleship would still likely atomize Missouri in a massive hurry, simply because their weapons would be able to fire more shots, and in all likelihood, place more of those shots on the target.

The damage ratings are more than accurate, IMHO.

[Gary]

Originally posted by Monolith
I think that is a design flaw. In the "real world" nuclear missiles do not even hit the ground. They explode before ever touching the surface to get as much area damage as possible. Since the missile which covers such a vast area should explode before contact I would remove that Limitation, and thus we are back to a draw. But even if the Missile is Deflected, the Warship will still be in the Area of Effect.

I don't think it'll explode since otherwise the limitation isn't a limitation. I put this question up on the Rules Questions board, so we'll get an official answer soon.

Originally posted by Monolith

I fail to see how a Battleship doing 8d6 RKA will destroy a target quicker than a Warship doing 10d6 AP RKA.

The battleship merely does 8D6 with its 5" guns. With its 16" guns, it's probably going to do at least 10D6. It also has dozens of 3" or lesser guns that probably do 6D6.

Originally posted by Monolith

With a starting point total of 350, I no-longer consider 1,500 point characters to be "monstrosities".

They're still pretty gruesome.

[Gary]

Originally posted by Game Show Man
A thought: TE takes place in the 25th through the 27th centuries. The 30th century will be the time of Galactic Federation, which after seeing TE, I am absolutely DROOLING for (which should tell our friends at home how utterly BADASS TE is).

I actually thought the same way you did for a while, that the damage rating for the starship weaponry was too low...until I realized that I was thinking in terms of the normal damage ratings...with blaster pistols dealing on the average 8 or 9d6 worth of normal damage. Sounds silly, right? I wouldn't say that. An 8d6 EB is Damage Class 8. An 8d6 RKA is Damage Class 24.

Consider this: the starship lasers (presumably) have a much higher rate of fire than the 18" guns of, say, the Missouri, the U.S. battleship that the treaty that ended WWII was signed aboard. The 18" guns might have equivalent destructive power, but an Empress-class battleship would still likely atomize Missouri in a massive hurry, simply because their weapons would be able to fire more shots, and in all likelihood, place more of those shots on the target.

The damage ratings are more than accurate, IMHO.

The Empress wins because it has higher defenses, not because of more damage or better ROF. If both the Empress and Missouri fired upon a third stationary target, the Missouri would probably destroy it quicker because it has 9 16" guns and dozens of 3-5" guns.

I don't think it's too much to expect that the futuristic warship should do more damage as well as better accuracy and rate of fire.

The 20+ D6 values for TE sound better to me.