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To hit, or not to hit, that is the question...


Echo3Niner

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So, I've read in various posts about how people have tried different house rules to address the 11- to hit methodology.  It appears, per many conversations, that the mechanic of 11- is just not very adaptable to various situations, and that if your defense or offense is too high it can seriously unbalance a game.

 

What I'd like to know, is what mechanic modification have you made to address this?

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Never had a problem with it; can't recall coming across this as an issue.

 

In the sense that CV's can be "too extreme", that's dealt with by campaign caps and campaign norms.

 

If you know the PCs are going to be capped at raw CV's of 12 (and the general recommendation is that the villains' caps are one lower than the PC's caps for all except the boss villain), perhaps moderated by allowing higher CV for characters with much lower attack/defense powers (perhaps 1 CV higher cap per 3DCs lower attack, or 1 DCV higher cap per 10 pts lower CON), then the players know if their OCV is six lower than the cap they'll hit only about one time in twenty with a standard targeted attack, and if their DCV is six lower they'll be hit about nineteen times in twenty. That'd be their choice.

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I've used, "token" systems to balance character capabilities. Players can buy up to the campaign baseline freely, and get virtual tokens that let them exceed that in certain areas. From the campaign guidelines:

 

Players receive 5 tokens, each of which may be used to exceed campaign maxima in 1 area (DC, Def, characteristics, CV, SPD). No more than 3 tokens may be used on one area. Each token may be used for:

  • +1 DC (including STR)

  • 2 points defense (3 AP)

  • 1 point of CV

  • +1 SPD for 1 token, +2 SPD for 3 tokens

  • +10 AP of characteristics (except STR, as above)

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I've used, "token" systems to balance character capabilities. Players can buy up to the campaign baseline freely, and get virtual tokens that let them exceed that in certain areas. From the campaign guidelines:

 

That's a good system.  I've always disliked hard caps because it makes character feel too much the same.  If I set an attack cap at 12 DC's (for example) I'll end up with 6 characters with a 12 DC attack.  So the Daredevil clone does as much damage as the Hulk clone; that always felt off to me.  I prefer to work with the player on character creation, ask what type of character they're looking to play, and then set the caps for that character.

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What Comic said. Manage your campaign caps, and work with the players to develop characters within those guidelines.

 

And, just to be clear, this isn't a problem limited to the Hero System. Any system where you roll the dice to hit with an attack will be unbalanced if the bonuses between characters/NPCs/monsters varies too greatly. 

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This isn't so much about xCV caps and game balance.  In some thread there was discussion about "reversing" the 11- concept.  It's more an issue of 11- base giving you only 10 numbers with which to maneuver, so some one had talked about simply making it 11+, which give you theoretically an unlimited number range to work in.

 

I don't remember the details, but that was part of the "why" xCV's had to be managed so carefully, where if you had a broader range, it would be less of an issue.

 

Again, I don't remember the details, hence the thread asking the question.  If no one remembers or knows what I'm talking about, no biggy, just thought I'd ask.

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This isn't so much about xCV caps and game balance.  In some thread there was discussion about "reversing" the 11- concept.  It's more an issue of 11- base giving you only 10 numbers with which to maneuver, so some one had talked about simply making it 11+, which give you theoretically an unlimited number range to work in.

Ah, you are talking about the lack of ganlarity with bonuses/penalties:

Every +2 in D20 means +10% chance of success. With +10 being a sure bet (95%)

Every +1 in Hero too equals +10% chance of success. With +5 becomming a sure bet (95%)

 

That is why I am very skeptical of low point games. You are reducing the bonus/penalty room even more with every point the average campaign CV drops by (be it from caps or plain lack of points).

Perhaps you could increase the free CV everyone get's to mitigate it? That way everyone will be shifted up a notch. It would maintain the balance based on points expended/sold back. But give simply more room to modify downward.

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Ah, you are talking about the lack of ganlarity with bonuses/penalties:

Every +2 in D20 means +10% chance of success. With +10 being a sure bet (95%)

Every +1 in Hero too equals +10% chance of success. With +5 becomming a sure bet (95%)

 

That is why I am very skeptical of low point games. You are reducing the bonus/penalty room even more with every point the average campaign CV drops by (be it from caps or plain lack of points).

Perhaps you could increase the free CV everyone get's to mitigate it? That way everyone will be shifted up a notch. It would maintain the balance based on points expended/sold back. But give simply more room to modify downward.

 

Not quite.

  1. 3d6 is a bell curve, unlike the linear curve from a d20. Going from an 14+ to an 11+ in D&D (15% increase) is less significant than going from 8- to 11- in Hero (25% increase). However, going from a 14- to a 17- in Hero is only a 10% increase (and 15- to 18- is only 5%).
  2. Because Hero combat uses opposed CVs, only the relative difference matters, Giving everybody free CV won't change anything if the rest of the game world changes also.
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Not quite.

  1. 3d6 is a bell curve, unlike the linear curve from a d20. Going from an 14+ to an 11+ in D&D (15% increase) is less significant than going from 8- to 11- in Hero (25% increase). However, going from a 14- to a 17- in Hero is only a 10% increase (and 15- to 18- is only 5%).
  2. Because Hero combat uses opposed CVs, only the relative difference matters, Giving everybody free CV won't change anything if the rest of the game world changes also.

 

1. Except that +1 in hero equals +2 in D&D. So that +3 in Hero would be +6 in D&D, confirming my point ;)

After all my point was that hero is much less granular because of the bell curve (you can't just apply the equivilanet of a D&D +1 bonus or penalty in Hero).

 

2. Of course it does not change the balance between characters. That was the point.

But if nobody can afford more then 4-5 CV, that leavs very little room to differentiate characters.

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I once painstakingly worked out the mathematics of Stun Lotto, comparing like-for-like two characters who were identical in every way except attack, and ran them against each other for various power levels and DEFs.

 

Surprisingly, it turns out that Stun Lotto over the long haul generally loses for all but the lowest CON and DEF over 88% of the time in simulation, whether or not knockback and range mods are included. What makes far more difference is even a single point of CV, or a single consistently useful CV-modifying effect like Flash or Darkness, Invisibility, Stealth or circumstantial bonus.

 

None of these is ultimate guarantees, just edges in the simulations.

 

There's plenty of granularity in the 11- to hit mechanism. Tweek it at will, but generally all that work and time you put into improving it doesn't pay off as well as spending the time playing.

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There are so many tactical options and things to consider here that they're not really countable. I've found that strict combat caps on skill levels help a lot too. The real game-breaker here is if you have caps, you have to cap skill levels, too, because on paper, they add directly to damage. (Which makes them too versatile for the point cost, in my opinion) My players, fortunately, are not combat rules optimizers, or my game would be ruined.

 

It all boils down to this:

 

Make them prone, use skill levels to add damage, knock them out.  I really don't like this, as it's insanely un-superheroic and un-fun. I think that if you take the add to damage off skill levels in superheroic games, the problem will more than likely solve itself.

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There are so many tactical options and things to consider here that they're not really countable. I've found that strict combat caps on skill levels help a lot too. The real game-breaker here is if you have caps, you have to cap skill levels, too, because on paper, they add directly to damage. (Which makes them too versatile for the point cost, in my opinion) My players, fortunately, are not combat rules optimizers, or my game would be ruined.

 

It all boils down to this:

 

Make them prone, use skill levels to add damage, knock them out.  I really don't like this, as it's insanely un-superheroic and un-fun. I think that if you take the add to damage off skill levels in superheroic games, the problem will more than likely solve itself.

 

I count Skill Levels towards CV and damage caps. I also limited characters to no more than two, "stacking" levels, so no adding two levels with martial strike, two with Kung Fu, and two with hand-to-hand combat (6 levels total). It also cuts down on PSL abuse.

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I count Skill Levels towards CV and damage caps. I also limited characters to no more than two, "stacking" levels, so no adding two levels with martial strike, two with Kung Fu, and two with hand-to-hand combat (6 levels total). It also cuts down on PSL abuse.

I agree with counting Skill Levels.

I even go one further and count martial arts as a flat +2 OCV, +2 DCV and +2 DC (plus +1 DC for each extra Martial Arts DC bought).

 

Effectively CSL and Martial Arts are just limited OCV, DCV and DC's. A character with MA but lower base values saves points over a character that just bought the CV and damage.

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