A Suggestion to Fix a few Dangerous Advantages

[zornwil]

Problem statement: Autofire is treated with special rules for stacking. We also know some Advantages are way more dangerous as stacked. We also know that this complicaton of adding special rules for each new dangerous Advantage is very bad business in a game which should be streamlined and consistent - not a sort of RPG version of "spaghetti code"!

Solution?

I am starting to formulate that perhaps we should focus on a rule to convert some Advs to Adders which are then multiplied; I think this may allow us to wipe away some of the "special" rules for Autofire AND possibly identify and treat similarly a few other dangerous Advantages that are really dangerous to stack. I we could isolate a few Advantages which "fundamentally" alter balance, those could be made into Adders. Why does this matter? Because you then scale a lot differently. Let's take Autofire...

Autofire: +2 Adder for max 2-3 shots; +4 Adder for 5 shots; +4 Adder for each 2x max. This means the following comparison for an NND or AoE Autofire (the big red flag things):

EB (NND or AoE) Autofire 5 shots d6 - New Way with Adders - Old Way with Advantages and Special Rules
1d6 - 18 AP - 17 AP
6d6 - 108 AP - 105 AP
12d6 - 216 AP - 210 AP
20d6 - 360 AP - 350 AP

This looks good, but take a look for when we stack more - let's make it NND AoE Autofire 5 shots!

EB NND AoE Autofire 5 shots d6 - New Way with Adders - Old Way with Advantages and Special Rules
1d6 - 27 AP - 22 AP
6d6 - 162 AP - 135 AP
12d6 - 324 AP - 270 AP
20d6 - 540 AP - 450 AP

Is this good? I don't know. I don't mind it, I think it works pretty well.

I think a "short list" for these Adders would be Autofire, Does Body, and Penetrating.

I am wondering what others think? And I invite more analysis, of course.

[Gary]

The Adders approach would run into problems with high base cost attacks such as Ego Blast or Transform because the Adder would represent a lower percentage of the attack's base cost.

[zornwil]

The Adders approach would run into problems with high base cost attacks such as Ego Blast or Transform because the Adder would represent a lower percentage of the attack's base cost.

Spoilsport.

Seriously, thanks. I knew I was rushing...

...so could we do it as +4 per base DC (for the +1/2 versions of these, +2 for +1/4)? I can't get wrapped up in this now, I really should do other things, so I'll leave this suggestion for anyone to comment. I know it automatically doesn't cover non-DC powers, but not sure how applicable that will be to this category of "Dangerous Advantages"?

[prestidigitator]

Spoilsport.

Seriously, thanks. I knew I was rushing...

...so could we do it as +4 per base DC (for the +1/2 versions of these, +2 for +1/4)? I can't get wrapped up in this now, I really should do other things, so I'll leave this suggestion for anyone to comment. I know it automatically doesn't cover non-DC powers, but not sure how applicable that will be to this category of "Dangerous Advantages"?

The problem is, Adders are added once; they don't scale with the size of the Power. If you add them on a per-DC basis, you are really just back to an Advantage, but now a whole new type of Advantage that multiplies instead of adding to other Advantages. We are back to my approach of multiplicative Advantages, but only for a few exceptions. Why not just do it with all Advantages? I see what you meant about End Cost, etc., in the other thread, but I think the problem can be handled by keeping CP cost and End Cost separate and applying Advantages (and Limitations?) to it in parallel (though possibly in a different manner) to applying it to the cost of the Power.

As far as converting from existing Advantage and Limitation values, I think it would have to be done carefully, but you could probably work out a table of old additive modifier values to new multiplier values.

[zornwil]

The problem is, Adders are added once; they don't scale with the size of the Power. If you add them on a per-DC basis, you are really just back to an Advantage, but now a whole new type of Advantage that multiplies instead of adding to other Advantages. We are back to my approach of multiplicative Advantages, but only for a few exceptions. Why not just do it with all Advantages? I see what you meant about End Cost, etc., in the other thread, but I think the problem can be handled by keeping CP cost and End Cost separate and applying Advantages (and Limitations?) to it in parallel (though possibly in a different manner) to applying it to the cost of the Power.

As far as converting from existing Advantage and Limitation values, I think it would have to be done carefully, but you could probably work out a table of old additive modifier values to new multiplier values.

The reason not to do it with all is that it will really scale up all costs, not just costs related to certain more aggressive Advantages. As I stated above, I do want it to scale with the power, but the multiplicative effect is not in the current system's strict 1/4 granularity. This scale is different, and curved differently.

I really don't have the faith you do that you can get close enough to the current costs in general with the large majority of Advantage/Limitation combos your way. And if we can't, we just run aground of years of play balance for most combinations and it won't get respected or practically adopted. We'll be under siege and it will cave in like a mini-Fuzion catastrophe.

And of course, this is important for us to decide, prestidigitator, because after all, you know we run HERO Games...

[prestidigitator]

The reason not to do it with all is that it will really scale up all costs, not just costs related to certain more aggressive Advantages. As I stated above, I do want it to scale with the power, but the multiplicative effect is not in the current system's strict 1/4 granularity. This scale is different, and curved differently.

I really don't have the faith you do that you can get close enough to the current costs in general with the large majority of Advantage/Limitation combos your way. And if we can't, we just run aground of years of play balance for most combinations and it won't get respected or practically adopted. We'll be under siege and it will cave in like a mini-Fuzion catastrophe.

And of course, this is important for us to decide, prestidigitator, because after all, you know we run HERO Games...

Well, your problem is essentially an aesthetic one, as you are uncomfortable with the complications of adding additional cost to certain Advantages when specific circumstances arise. I can certainly empathize, but I would tend to place less importance on finding an immediate solution.

So the question is, how to simplify the matter? We could separate those, "dangerous," Advantages, but then we are essentially increasing their cost when any other Advantages are included (for example: Variable Advantege, Based on ECV, AP, Adjustment Powers that work on multiple Powers--at once or not--Does Body, Increased Range, No Range Penalty, etc.). Are you sure this is what we want? Will we need to re-adjust costs for your proposal too?

Maybe we should just make a flat increase to the cost of these dangerous Advantages right off the bat; give them the worst case cost, or some middle cost based on how likely they are to be combined as we fear. You can't argue that that won't be simple.

[Sean Waters]

Some combinations are deadlier than others: autofire doesn't become a particular problem, whatever advantages it has, unless you add area effect, so you are hitting with a lot of the shots. So how about IF AE is applied to AUTOFIRE, 5 shots costs +1.5 (+1 for 2/3 shots) and each doubling of the number of shots costs +1.

That should do it. At least it will make huge doublings prohibitively expensive, and frankly that is where the problem usually lies.

Of course you can still ensure a lot of hits with OCV levels for that attack, but that'll have to be dealt with by vigilance.

[zornwil]

Well, your problem is essentially an aesthetic one, as you are uncomfortable with the complications of adding additional cost to certain Advantages when specific circumstances arise. I can certainly empathize, but I would tend to place less importance on finding an immediate solution.

So the question is, how to simplify the matter? We could separate those, "dangerous," Advantages, but then we are essentially increasing their cost when any other Advantages are included (for example: Variable Advantege, Based on ECV, AP, Adjustment Powers that work on multiple Powers--at once or not--Does Body, Increased Range, No Range Penalty, etc.). Are you sure this is what we want? Will we need to re-adjust costs for your proposal too?

Maybe we should just make a flat increase to the cost of these dangerous Advantages right off the bat; give them the worst case cost, or some middle cost based on how likely they are to be combined as we fear. You can't argue that that won't be simple.

I'd like to find some way that fixes stacking in a more consistent manner. As to Sean's post, I'd like to avoid having specialized rules per Advantage for this purpose, and I think we're headed there as Autofire is already an example and there are other combos clearly popping up as "obviously" problematic (meaning that we can see them as being as problematic as Autofire in certain combinations). I'd like to find some sort of easier mechanism to either treat all Advantages the same way for costing, possibly with a different method, recosting, or some additional parameter that works for all Advantages, or possibly just treat the short list of problematic Advantages in an isolated but identical manner.

But I don't see a good solution. I think that Advantage stacking in general is a bit of an issue, but I admit fully it's less one than a few specific Advantages when stacked with others. I was/am hoping that there's some way that we can find general issues with Advantage stacking and treat all with some reasonable fashion.

I think this is somewhat important as I see more Advantages coming into effect and more importantly this is a toolkit so the system ought to better inform us as to the methodology than simply giving out a few specific prohibitions here and there in specialized cases. At least at the point where we are now seeing a bit of a trend.

[prestidigitator]

I may just have it! Let us define two kinds of Advantage: a Basic Advantage and a Modifying Advantage. A Basic Advantage is one that can be used to build an Attack Power out of d6s (I won't say DCs quite yet), and determines the Base Cost of the Power given its Raw Points. A Modifying Advantage is one that may be applied with normal Advantages in order to determine Active Points given Base Cost. And finally Limitations (as we all know) determine Real Cost given Active Points. So we now have:

    Base Cost =    (Raw Points) * (1 + Basic Advantages)         [ <- per d6 ]
Active Points =     (Base Cost) * (1 + Modifying Advantages)
    Real Cost = (Active Points) / (1 + [Modifying] Limitations)

To build an Attack Power (the existing ones), take the basic cost of 3 Raw Points for one d6 and apply some of the following Basic Advantages:

• Strength Adds Damage (+3/4)
• Ranged (+3/4 as a Basic Advantage)
• Normal Attack: 1d6 -> 1 DC (+0)
• Killing Attack: 1d6 -> 3 DCs (+13/4 = +3.25)
• ... (stuff for others, like Ego Attack?)

If we attempt to buy some existing Attack Powers given this framework, we can get:

• 1d6 HA = 1d6 [3 Raw]; NA (+0); Strength Applies (+3/4) [5 Base]
• 1d6 EB = 1d6 [3 Raw]; NA (+0); Ranged (+3/4) [5 Base]
• 1d6 HKA = 1d6 [3 Raw]; KA (+13/4); Strength Applies (+3/4) [15 Base]
• 1d6 RKA = 1d6 [3 Raw]; KA (+13/4); Ranged (+3/4) [15 Base]

This is just a first attempt. There may be holes (HA works slightly differently, now doesn't it; grrrr...).

So, perhaps we can suggest that Autofire become purely a Basic Advantage that applies to Raw Points like this, and is used to define another whole dimension of Powers....

[zornwil]

I'll have to look at this more later, kinda busy now, but very nice work regardless of where the analysis goes. It says I must spread rep around before giving to prestidigitator, though.

[Warp9]

Problem statement: Autofire is treated with special rules for stacking. We also know some Advantages are way more dangerous as stacked. We also know that this complicaton of adding special rules for each new dangerous Advantage is very bad business in a game which should be streamlined and consistent - not a sort of RPG version of "spaghetti code"!

Solution?

I am starting to formulate that perhaps we should focus on a rule to convert some Advs to Adders which are then multiplied; I think this may allow us to wipe away some of the "special" rules for Autofire AND possibly identify and treat similarly a few other dangerous Advantages that are really dangerous to stack. I we could isolate a few Advantages which "fundamentally" alter balance, those could be made into Adders. Why does this matter? Because you then scale a lot differently. Let's take Autofire...

Autofire: +2 Adder for max 2-3 shots; +4 Adder for 5 shots; +4 Adder for each 2x max. This means the following comparison for an NND or AoE Autofire (the big red flag things):

EB (NND or AoE) Autofire 5 shots d6 - New Way with Adders - Old Way with Advantages and Special Rules
1d6 - 18 AP - 17 AP
6d6 - 108 AP - 105 AP
12d6 - 216 AP - 210 AP
20d6 - 360 AP - 350 AP

This looks good, but take a look for when we stack more - let's make it NND AoE Autofire 5 shots!

EB NND AoE Autofire 5 shots d6 - New Way with Adders - Old Way with Advantages and Special Rules
1d6 - 27 AP - 22 AP
6d6 - 162 AP - 135 AP
12d6 - 324 AP - 270 AP
20d6 - 540 AP - 450 AP

Is this good? I don't know. I don't mind it, I think it works pretty well.

I think a "short list" for these Adders would be Autofire, Does Body, and Penetrating.

I am wondering what others think? And I invite more analysis, of course.

My take is a bit different. Your suggestions will make things better, but IMO they only mask the real problem underneath.

The concept of HERO's non-linear progression has been discussed many times in the past. And, at least IMO, that is a core feature of the game.

If things followed a purely linear pattern, then 20d6 would represent a 10 fold increase in power from 2d6. And we could also make autofire follow the same linear pattern 2d6 X 10 auto fire could simply cost 10X as much as 2d6. That would be a simple linear balance.

However, some things do not follow a linear pattern, increasing the number of shots of autofire is one of those things. You can keep doubling the number of shots for each linear increase in points, but this is not a problem in itself IMO.

The problem is that HERO is not consistent about exponential progression: for example, Damage accumulates in a linear pattern.


The damage is not so much a problem when defenses apply. Against most targets in a SuperHero game, One Million X 2d6 will have no effect at all, so a 22d6 EB is actually infinitely more effective than 2d6 EB (against those targets). But as soon as you go to an NND style of attack, then 2d6 EB X 10 is the same as 20d6. And if you also find a method to ensure that most of the attacks hit, then you have a real problem. The NND damage actually doubles as you double the number of shots, which means that you can double your damage for a linear increase in points.



For a solution, I would suggest that damage not accumulate in a linear pattern.


If you assume that Damage classes follow an exponential pattern:

A 60 DC NND attack should fully destroy a battleship size object .

However 30 hits with a 2 DC NND attack should NOT fully destroy a battleship sized object, it would take 8 of those kind of attacks to even kill an average 8 BODY person (take him to -8 BODY).


And with non-linear damage accululation, 100 hits with a 2 DC NND attack, doesn't compare with 1 hit by a 22 DC NND attack. A single 22 DC attack should be worth One Million 2 DC attacks.

[Sean Waters]

I may just have it! Let us define two kinds of Advantage: a Basic Advantage and a Modifying Advantage. A Basic Advantage is one that can be used to build an Attack Power out of d6s (I won't say DCs quite yet), and determines the Base Cost of the Power given its Raw Points. A Modifying Advantage is one that may be applied with normal Advantages in order to determine Active Points given Base Cost. And finally Limitations (as we all know) determine Real Cost given Active Points. So we now have:

    Base Cost =    (Raw Points) * (1 + Basic Advantages)         [ <- per d6 ]
Active Points =     (Base Cost) * (1 + Modifying Advantages)
    Real Cost = (Active Points) / (1 + [Modifying] Limitations)

To build an Attack Power (the existing ones), take the basic cost of 3 Raw Points for one d6 and apply some of the following Basic Advantages:

• Strength Adds Damage (+3/4)
• Ranged (+3/4 as a Basic Advantage)
• Normal Attack: 1d6 -> 1 DC (+0)
• Killing Attack: 1d6 -> 3 DCs (+13/4 = +3.25)
• ... (stuff for others, like Ego Attack?)

If we attempt to buy some existing Attack Powers given this framework, we can get:

• 1d6 HA = 1d6 [3 Raw]; NA (+0); Strength Applies (+3/4) [5 Base]
• 1d6 EB = 1d6 [3 Raw]; NA (+0); Ranged (+3/4) [5 Base]
• 1d6 HKA = 1d6 [3 Raw]; KA (+13/4); Strength Applies (+3/4) [15 Base]
• 1d6 RKA = 1d6 [3 Raw]; KA (+13/4); Ranged (+3/4) [15 Base]

This is just a first attempt. There may be holes (HA works slightly differently, now doesn't it; grrrr...).

So, perhaps we can suggest that Autofire become purely a Basic Advantage that applies to Raw Points like this, and is used to define another whole dimension of Powers....

...erm...

If autofire is a basic advantage, an autofire ranged killing attack will cost 16 points (3 raw points and 5.5 worth of advantage), so an area effect autofire ranged killing attack would cost 32 points under your system as opposed to 52 under the present system. Kewl. Blood everywhere...

Am I doing something wrong?

[Sean Waters]

The damage is not so much a problem when defenses apply. Against most targets in a SuperHero game, One Million X 2d6 will have no effect at all, so a 22d6 EB is actually infinitely more effective than 2d6 EB (against those targets). But as soon as you go to an NND style of attack, then 2d6 EB X 10 is the same as 20d6. And if you also find a method to ensure that most of the attacks hit, then you have a real problem. The NND damage actually doubles as you double the number of shots, which means that you can double your damage for a linear increase in points.



For a solution, I would suggest that damage not accumulate in a linear pattern.


If you assume that Damage classes follow an exponential pattern:

A 60 DC NND attack should fully destroy a battleship size object .

However 30 hits with a 2 DC NND attack should NOT fully destroy a battleship sized object, it would take 8 of those kind of attacks to even kill an average 8 BODY person (take him to -8 BODY).


And with non-linear damage accululation, 100 hits with a 2 DC NND attack, doesn't compare with 1 hit by a 22 DC NND attack. A single 22 DC attack should be worth One Million 2 DC attacks.

Very good points (although the 1million x 2d6 EB would be a bitch for KB!).

Not easy to manage a properly exponential progression as you'd have to work it out ad hoc. Also it isn't just NNDs - KAs work the same way against targets with no resistant defences.

2 hits would add 1DC, 4 would add 2, 8 would add 3 and so on. Mind you that would then make autofire far too expensive: it would be far cheaper to just buy one big attack, if you wanted to cause damage. However, lots of smaller attacks are pretty useful against lots of opponents, but still nowhere near as useful as, e.g. an area effect attack.

NOW, Autofire 20 will only ever hit a single target with a few shots (assuming an opponent of similar DCV to your OCV, i.e. you hit on 11-, 5 shots is the maximum you can hit with even if you roll a 3. EVEN if you are OCV 100 and your opponent is DCV 0 you can only hit with 8 shots). In fact AUTOFIRE 20 is pointless for pretty much anything unless coupled with area effect (radius) of sufficient size to have the target overlapped even if the shot misses. Why not simply ban that combination? Job done.

[Warp9]

Very good points (although the 1million x 2d6 EB would be a bitch for KB!).

Knockback and velocity are other places where HERO gets mixed up between linear and exponential progression

1,000,000" of KB shouldn't be a problem for a truely exponential system.

As soon as a system tries to mix these 2 scales of progression problems are created.

Not easy to manage a properly exponential progression as you'd have to work it out ad hoc. Also it isn't just NNDs - KAs work the same way against targets with no resistant defences.

You are correct.

NND are just one example of the problem. Any case where you don't have to deal with the targets defenses will follow the same problems as I outlined in my previous example.

2 hits would add 1DC, 4 would add 2, 8 would add 3 and so on. Mind you that would then make autofire far too expensive: it would be far cheaper to just buy one big attack, if you wanted to cause damage. However, lots of smaller attacks are pretty useful against lots of opponents, but still nowhere near as useful as, e.g. an area effect attack.

Then you can get rid of auto-fire and handle the situation with "spreading." You could drill the target with the whole burst (for maximum damage), or spread the shots around. Attacks with recoil could be bought with mandatory spreading.

After all, a laser beam is just 1 photon with a trillion shot autofire factor.

NOW, Autofire 20 will only ever hit a single target with a few shots (assuming an opponent of similar DCV to your OCV, i.e. you hit on 11-, 5 shots is the maximum you can hit with even if you roll a 3. EVEN if you are OCV 100 and your opponent is DCV 0 you can only hit with 8 shots). In fact AUTOFIRE 20 is pointless for pretty much anything unless coupled with area effect (radius) of sufficient size to have the target overlapped even if the shot misses. Why not simply ban that combination? Job done.

What if you have a concept that involves such a thing? (auto-fire vortex grenade launcher)

I am very much against outright banning anything unless there are other ways to accomplish that effect.

IMO HERO should be flexible enough to handle as many concepts as possible.

[Sean Waters]

Knockback and velocity are other places where HERO gets mixed up between linear and exponential progression

1,000,000" of KB shouldn't be a problem for a truely exponential system.

As soon as a system tries to mix these 2 scales of progression problems are created.

You nailed that...

Then you can get rid of auto-fire and handle the situation with "spreading." You could drill the target with the whole burst (for maximum damage), or spread the shots around. Attacks with recoil could be bought with mandatory spreading.

After all, a laser beam is just 1 photon with a trillion shot autofire factor.

Nice example.

What if you have a concept that involves such a thing? (auto-fire vortex grenade launcher)

I am very much against outright banning anything unless there are other ways to accomplish that effect.

IMO HERO should be flexible enough to handle as many concepts as possible.

Perhaps we should have an enhanced form of the limitation 'reduced penetration' instead of autofire? That way you can define the maximum effect the 'power' and then break it up into smaller chunks?

There ARE other ways to do it: lots of grenades going off together could be a 5d6 one hex AE with activation rolls for each target on each 1d6. Same effect, far more scaleable mechanics, but far more rolls.

I'd originally suggested that as IMO the only real problem with autofire was it being combined with AE attacks that you shouldn't ban it, but simply increase the cost of that particular combination.

They are the problem though: autofire is only a real killer if it can't miss. That is what any fix would realistically have to address.