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Damage Negation fine points


Surrealone

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Per RAW on 6eV1 p183, the very first line of text describing Damage Negation states: "A character with Damage Negation can reduce the damage of attacks made against him."

 

Then, in the fourth paragraph on the same page, we see: "Characters can buy Damage Negation to simulate a special resistance or near-immunity to a specific type of attack. With the GM’s permission, a character can define his Damage Negation as working against a specific group or type of attacks, whether Normal or Resistant, Energy or Physical or Mental."

 

 

Scenario:

Building a character who shield bashes, it makes sense for the character to have acquired a special resistance or near-immunity to the damage he'd normally suffer from Move Bys and Move Throughs when using his shield (i.e. a specific type of attack -- that being damage caused via use of his shield while shield bashing).  Technically, this damage is not from 'attacks made against him', however, it is absolutely a type of damage that a shield bashing character might readily ignore or be immune to per the verbatim text I cited from the 4th paragraph of RAW on the same page (as above), so my hypothetical GM approves it for such use.

 

Question:

Since the character takes a percentage of the damage (1/3 or 1/2, depending on which maneuver) done to his/her attacker, how would Damage Negation work, mechanically, to represent this special resistance/near-immunity?  The die roll is already cast (to do damage to the target) ... and a fraction of it is then taken by the attacker.  Thus, one can't just subtract dice before the roll to apply it to this scenario.

 

Note:

I would personally build such a special resistance or near-immunity using a different power.  However, this is a thought exercise, so I'm not interested in contemplating a different power.  Instead, I'm interested in how the mechanics of this particular power would work when representing the aforementioned special resistance/near-immunity to a specific type of attack (in this case, his own), as that is apparently one of the functions of Damage Negation, per RAW.

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Question:

Since the character takes a percentage of the damage (1/3 or 1/2, depending on which maneuver) done to his/her attacker, how would Damage Negation work, mechanically, to represent this special resistance/near-immunity?  The die roll is already cast (to do damage to the target) ... and a fraction of it is then taken by the attacker.  Thus, one can't just subtract dice before the roll to apply it to this scenario.

Yes you can. You know when the dice are cast that this Power is in play. The dice subtracted by Damage Negation are rolled separately or else are of a different color. Apply the entire roll to the target of the attack, and apply the appropriate fraction of the reduced roll to the attacker.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary says using Damage Reduction instead of Damage Negation would mean taking a fraction of a fraction

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I'm going to argue with Lucius - not because I am convinced he is technically wrong, but because it just sounds wrong.

If you are doing, say, 12d6 with a Move By, you will be taking a third of the damage, so on average 14 STUN and 4 BOD.

 

To avoid this you could use PD or Damage Negation, either of which could have a Limitation -1 for "Only to reduce damage from Move By etc", say.

You could use PD 14, which would let a small amount of damage through on occasion, or PD 20 points, which would almost invariably block the damage (i mean, you'd have to roll above 60 STUN on 12d6, I'm sure it happens sometimes...)

Damage Negation using your approach (which, again, I'm not saying is wrong) would cost 60 points.

That just seems a bit extreme to guarantee avoiding a stratospherically unlikely 4 points of STUN damage (if you used 20 PD and rolled 72 STUN).

 

Here's an alternative approach as a possible house rule - if you are dealing with multiplicative effects on damage (does that happen in any other events apart from Move Bys?) you multiply the DN to get the number of dice you avoid.

 

So, if you were taking 12d6 halved, and had 3 DN you would take 6d6 halved.

 

Does that break the system? Can it be abused? Well, yes, I can imagine someone coming up with the classic Rhino character with 60 STR and Running 40m and +4d6 HtH damage with Move Throughs only, but that's abusive anyway - using DN to block damage is still at least as expensive as using PD.

 

 

My suspicion is that Lucius' interpretation is not strictly in RAW, because I suspect Surrealone* wouldn't have asked otherwise. But I do see where he is coming from, I just prefer my interpretation :- )

Honestly, for this example I would probably use PD anyway, but I'm happy to argue about technicalities.

 

 

* Is that "Surreal One" or "Surre Alone" or "Sur Real One", or none of these?

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Another possible compromise would be to roll the move by/through damage as normal, then roll the negation dice separately and subtract them.

 

So, using doccowie's example of a 12d6 Move By, the attack rolls (on average) 42 STUN and 12 BOD, 1/3 of which is 14 STUN and 4 BOD. The attacker has 2d6 of Damage Negation against incidental damage from velocity-based attacks, so he rolls an average of 7 STUN and 2 BOD, which reduces the incidental damage to 7 STUN and 2 BOD.

 

This will be a bit swingier - the attack could roll poorly and the negation quite well, or vice versa - but it simulates the effects. I've seen some posters suggest this approach in other instances (AoE attacks, for example) or as a general replacement for reducing dice rolled against the character ("oh, wait, did you reduce that for my damage negation?" GM swears and rolls again).

 

I don't like the idea of that 2d6 Negation reducing the damage by first dropping the (average) 12d6 roll to 35 STUN, 10 BOD and then applying the 1/3 incidental fraction - that is denying the player the full benefits of the Negation power. But, as the palindromedary notes, damage reduction would only reduce a fraction of that fraction (which makes it a poor choice as well, IMO).

 

Outside the thought exercise, in a game where 12d6 attacks are the norm, a character worried about a 14 STUN, 4 BOD attack may want to reconsider his defenses. Move Bys can be more significant, though.

 

BTW, I think it is important to assess how other defensive constructs would work in assessing how best to interpret Negation. Lucius and doccowie's interpretations both look reasonable at first blush, until you compare them with spending equal points on PD.

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When I use damage against someone who has damage negation, I just try to remember to roll fewer dice against them.  So if they have 3d6 damage negation against PD and take a 12d6 hit, I roll 9d6 instead.  If I forget, I just subtract the average of 3.5 stun and 1 body away from the total per die of damage negation.

 

In this case, I'd remove the dice of the roll then reduce the roll by the appropriate amount for the maneuver.  No reason to make it complicated, the halving or "thirding" takes place after dice are rolled, and DN reduces the number of dice rolled.

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Just to throw another option out there for those who forget or can't roll fewer/different colored dice, is you can remove dice after the fact by alternating between removing from the top and bottom of the roll.  So, in the case of the 12d6 move through, let's say you rolled 6, 5, 5, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 3, 3, 2, 1 and the attacker has 4 dice of DN.  The defender would take the full 45 stun and 12 Body.  The attacker would remove the 6, one of the 5s, the 2 and the 1 and so would take 31/3 = 10 Stun and 10/3 = 3 Body (as opposed to 15:4).  This does give a slight advantage to having an odd number of DN but that doesn't personally bother me.

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So, in short - two basic options:

 

1) Damage Negation reduces dice rolled, multiplicative effects do not affect this. I would argue this gives an effect similar to deducting PD from damage and then multiplying the result by 1/3. If this is the perfectly reasonable approach you use in your game - don't use DN for this purpose :- )

2) Damage Negation is multiplied to compensate for multiplicative effects. No particular evidence to support this, I just think it reduces the disparity between the effectiveness of DN and PD in this particular case -  you may well see the disparity as a feature, not a bug.

 

And the suggestion re rolling DN and subtracting rather than making it absolute - that neatly fixes the problem of needing to calculate dice and remember before rolling. This is super interesting, against attacks with advantages you just roll fewer dice. It also stops the absolute effect that DN can have.

I really like this idea, but probably wouldn't use it for two reasons, firstly because the absolute immunity to low-ish basic attacks is I think a nice feature of DN. If you're immune to small calibre firearms, you should be immune, darn it!

More importantly...more dice rolling and maths. I'm pretty sure that HERO doesn't need MORE dice rolling and maths.

On the other hand, maybe the reason we all play Hero is because we LIKE dice rolling and maths :- )

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The dice subtracted by Damage Negation are rolled separately or else are of a different color. Apply the entire roll to the target of the attack, and apply the appropriate fraction of the reduced roll to the attacker.

Good option.  I wasn't thinking in these terms because my recent play has been online (where different coloured dice are meaningless, because nothing physical is rolled).  The use of separate rolls addresses the issue in online play, but it isn't strictly RAW.  That said, I think it's a good workaround.

 

 

 

My suspicion is that Lucius' interpretation is not strictly in RAW, because I suspect Surrealone* wouldn't have asked otherwise. But I do see where he is coming from, I just prefer my interpretation :- )

Honestly, for this example I would probably use PD anyway, but I'm happy to argue about technicalities.

 

 

* Is that "Surreal One" or "Surre Alone" or "Sur Real One", or none of these?

Lucius' example isn't strictly RAW.  However, it has the same intended effect, so it's a good workaround.  I simply wasn't thinking in this mindset -- and knew that multiple minds on the problem might suggest multiple workable solutions -- hence the post.

 

​As for my handle, as with all things surreal I feel it's best left open to individual interpretation.

 

 

Another possible compromise would be to roll the move by/through damage as normal, then roll the negation dice separately and subtract them.

...

This will be a bit swingier - the attack could roll poorly and the negation quite well, or vice versa - but it simulates the effects. I've seen some posters suggest this approach in other instances (AoE attacks, for example) or as a general replacement for reducing dice rolled against the character ("oh, wait, did you reduce that for my damage negation?" GM swears and rolls again).

This is also a reasonable compromise, but I wouldn't endorse it, myself, precisely because of the increased swing.

 

 

When I use damage against someone who has damage negation, I just try to remember to roll fewer dice against them.  

 

In this case, I'd remove the dice of the roll then reduce the roll by the appropriate amount for the maneuver.  No reason to make it complicated, the halving or "thirding" takes place after dice are rolled, and DN reduces the number of dice rolled.

Reducing the dice of the roll is how it's supposed to work.  The trouble with removing the dice of the roll and then reducing the roll by the appropriate amount for the maneuver is that the TARGET of the maneuver then gains the benefit of the Damage Negation when s/he should not...

 

 

Just to throw another option out there for those who forget or can't roll fewer/different colored dice, is you can remove dice after the fact by alternating between removing from the top and bottom of the roll.  So, in the case of the 12d6 move through, let's say you rolled 6, 5, 5, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 3, 3, 2, 1 and the attacker has 4 dice of DN.  The defender would take the full 45 stun and 12 Body.  The attacker would remove the 6, one of the 5s, the 2 and the 1 and so would take 31/3 = 10 Stun and 10/3 = 3 Body (as opposed to 15/4).  This does give a slight advantage to having an odd number of DN but that doesn't personally bother me.

This won't work so well in online games where you might roll dice and not be presented with the individual die outcomes (and instead, are provided with only a total for the roll).  Still, it's another reasonable workaround in a face-to-face game that gets the job done despite not being strictly RAW.  It's nice to see options!

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I don't have a problem with the price, and mechanically is has certain advantages which allow it to fill a niche left open by other powers. I like that it can render Margarita-Man style powers ineffective for instance. However I agree it needed a lot more playtesting than I think it got, and clarifications as to how it interacts with other fairly common powers constructs. For example:

What do you do if a character with Damage Negation is also protected by a Barrier?

Is the penetrative damage from a Penetrating Attack Power also negated?

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I'm going to argue with Lucius - not because I am convinced he is technically wrong, but because it just sounds wrong.

 

It kind of does, doesn't it? For reasons Hugh Neilson nicely articulates.

 

I don't like the idea of that 2d6 Negation reducing the damage by first dropping the (average) 12d6 roll to 35 STUN, 10 BOD and then applying the 1/3 incidental fraction - that is denying the player the full benefits of the Negation power.

I actually LIKE Damage Negation as a Power - for one thing it's a way to get that "Incredible Bulk immune to your puny guns!" or "Beware hero, Grendel cannot be harmed by unenchanted mortal weapons!" effect. But there are certain situations where the implementation is awkward.

 

Perhaps one solution here would be to multiply the Damage Negation before applying it, to counter the division when the damage is applied. Thus

 

Otto has 2d6 Damage Negation and does a Move By on Belinda totalling 12d6.

Subtract (3X2d6=6d6) from the 12d6.

Roll 6d6 and divide by 3. Do this damage to Otto.

Roll another 6d6, add it to the first 6d6, and do this damage to Belinda.

 

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary would like to take only a fraction of a fraction of any damage done to it - how about 1/10 of 1%?

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that is denying the player the full benefits of the Negation power.

 

 

I don't see this as a problem.  Its the nature of how Damage Negation as a power works, whether you like it to work that way or not.  Its kind of like how Damage Reduction ignores armor piercing, it just cuts the damage no matter how its dealt, too bad AP boy your power doesn't work as you hoped it would every time.  That's how things work; not every instance gives you exactly the concept and satisfaction you wanted.  

 

I guess if your concept is "immunity" every single time you use DN, you're going to be disappointed, but that's a special effect, not the definition of the power or how it works mechanically.  It reduces dice before the damage reaches you, like DR reduces damage after defenses.  The mechanics are heartless, they care not for your concept.

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I guess if your concept is "immunity" every single time you use DN, you're going to be disappointed, but that's a special effect, not the definition of the power or how it works mechanically.  It reduces dice before the damage reaches you, like DR reduces damage after defenses.  The mechanics are heartless, they care not for your concept.

While true, you do not directly roll dice against the target for incidental moveby or movethrough damage, so what is getting reduced?

 

One approach would be to separate the damage to the target from the damage to the attacker - a great hit on the target does not necessarily mean larger incidental damage. Maybe he checked his opponent into the boards, and his opponent took a head hit. That doesn't mean the attacker also took a head hit. So we could, instead of applying 1/3 (move by), 1/2 (move through; target moved) or full (move through did not move target) damage, roll 1/3, 1/2 or full dsamage against the attacker as well. Now his damage negation reduces those dice and has a much greater impact against incidental damage. As, IMO, it should.

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One approach would be to separate the damage to the target from the damage to the attacker - a great hit on the target does not necessarily mean larger incidental damage. Maybe he checked his opponent into the boards, and his opponent took a head hit. That doesn't mean the attacker also took a head hit. So we could, instead of applying 1/3 (move by), 1/2 (move through; target moved) or full (move through did not move target) damage, roll 1/3, 1/2 or full dsamage against the attacker as well. Now his damage negation reduces those dice and has a much greater impact against incidental damage. As, IMO, it should.

At face value, I really like this approach.  But what keeps sticking in my craw with it ... is the fact that use of this approach could result in a wimp-out roll against the target and a really painful one for the attacker ... or a really painful roll for the attacker and a wimp-out roll for the target.  Fundamentally, neither hypothetical scenario makes a lot of sense given it's the same impact affecting both parties. Thus, I prefer the attacker taking a percentage of the damage done to the target, as I think it is a better simulation of what we'd expect from a single impact affecting both parties.

 

The potential for inexplicable and dramatically inappropriate 'swinginess' (to use your term) just doesn't sit well with me, on this one.  Others might think it just fine, but it's not approach I'd roll with.  (Pun intended.)

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One could also apply "Set Effect" to Damage Negation so that 2d6 Negation for instance would subtract 6 STUN and 2 BOD from the damage.

 

But at that point one might as well use regular Defenses.....

 

Lucius Alexander

 

House of the Palindromedary

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While true, you do not directly roll dice against the target for incidental moveby or movethrough damage, so what is getting reduced?

 

 

The source of the damage doesn't matter to Damage Negation.  Its agnostic with regards to who does it, whether its falling damage, seppuku, move through impact, or a boot to the head.  In this case, the damage being reduced is the damage dealt to the target, which I would reduce by average roll in this case for simplicity's sake.  SuperBob crashes into VillainBob and deals 11d6 PD normal damage.  This does 40 stun and 12 body, great roll!  There's knockback, so SuperBob takes ½ damage, and his 3d6 Damage Negation reduces that.  For the sake of simplicity, we reduce this by (3.5 stun and 1 body) x3, or 10 stun and 3 body, leaving 30 stun and 9 body, halved to SuperBob for 15 stun and 4 body.  Most if not all that should bounce easily.

 

One approach would be to separate the damage to the target from the damage to the attacker

 

 

Its not a bad concept for the reasons you list, but it does add an extra layer of die roling which takes longer, is more complicated, and requires more accounting.  So I wouldn't really use that personally.

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At face value, I really like this approach. But what keeps sticking in my craw with it ... is the fact that use of this approach could result in a wimp-out roll against the target and a really painful one for the attacker ... or a really painful roll for the attacker and a wimp-out roll for the target. Fundamentally, neither hypothetical scenario makes a lot of sense given it's the same impact affecting both parties.

I think it can make a lot of sense. A football player might Tackle really well (or a Hockey player make an excellent check), pounding the opposing player while rolling off for limited damage to himself. Or the defender might twist out of the way, resulting in the attacker slipping past him and crashing into the boards/ground himself, with the attacker ending up hurt worse than the defender.

 

The potential for inexplicable and dramatically inappropriate 'swinginess' (to use your term) just doesn't sit well with me, on this one. Others might think it just fine, but it's not approach I'd roll with. (Pun intended.)

I think the above is not dramatically inappropriate, nor does it violate common sense.

 

The source of the damage doesn't matter to Damage Negation. Its agnostic with regards to who does it, whether its falling damage, seppuku, move through impact, or a boot to the head. In this case, the damage being reduced is the damage dealt to the target, which I would reduce by average roll in this case for simplicity's sake.

You noted earlier that Damage Negation "reduces dice before the damage reaches you". Actually, it reduces damage classes. But in the case of move bys and move through, the damage that reaches the attacker is not rolled on dice. It is computed by way of a fraction. The reason there is an issue is not the source of the damage, but the change in the manner in which that damage is computed.

 

 

 

SuperBob crashes into VillainBob and deals 11d6 PD normal damage. This does 40 stun and 12 body, great roll! There's knockback, so SuperBob takes ½ damage, and his 3d6 Damage Negation reduces that. For the sake of simplicity, we reduce this by (3.5 stun and 1 body) x3, or 10 stun and 3 body, leaving 30 stun and 9 body, halved to SuperBob for 15 stun and 4 body. Most if not all that should bounce easily.

 

I'm fine with that example - but I note the controversy is that those 3d6 of Damage Negation are offsetting the damage caused by 6d6 of the Move Through.

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I think it can make a lot of sense. A football player might Tackle really well (or a Hockey player make an excellent check), pounding the opposing player while rolling off for limited damage to himself. Or the defender might twist out of the way, resulting in the attacker slipping past him and crashing into the boards/ground himself, with the attacker ending up hurt worse than the defender.

 

 

I think the above is not dramatically inappropriate, nor does it violate common sense.

I can absolutely see this ... and I like it. However, I'd much prefer consistency in the outcome ... to represent that football player tackling really well.  Therein lies the issue that I still wrestle with -- it's and inconsistent and unpredictable outcome ... for a power that's actually supposed to be highly predictable in terms of effect (i.e. negate two dice, off the top, before any rolls are made).

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But in the case of move bys and move through, the damage that reaches the attacker is not rolled on dice. It is computed by way of a fraction.

 

 

No, the damage is rolled on the dice, its reduced by a fraction.  Its already been rolled, its just being modified by a separate mechanic.  If someone has damage reduction, that doesn't mean the dice weren't rolled before the reduction.  This is the same deal, as I see it.

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