Glass cannon syndrome.

[Trencher]

Anyone else have trouble with glass cannon syndrome? It seems everywhere I look there are pc's and npc's who would go down if they get stunned for a round twice in a row. In fact the system encourages imo making high dex hard hitting characters or at best an controller of sorts. I kinda miss the human tank arch type who could take a lot of hits, get stunned for a round a couple of times but suddenly get back up if the enemy missed or wiffed an shot.

[Surrealone]

Well, to be fair, a well-rounded team of 6 supers only tends to need 1 solid tank (e.g. Hulk) and 1 off-tank (e.g. Captain America).  The bulk of the rest of the team SHOULD be focused on damage ... and both damage dealers and support types tend to have glass jaws by their very natures.  A good ratio (IMHO) tends to be 3 damage dealers of different disciplines (e.g. martial artist, flying energy projector, and maybe a gun guy?) and one support provider (e.g. buffer/debuffer or perhaps tactical support a la darkness, barriers, etc) ....  or possibly 2 damage dealers and 2 support types if you want more versatility at the expense of longer fights.  However, any way you cut it, that's often 4 squishies in a team of 6.  

 

Note that mentalists can be damage dealers, support, or both -- depending on build.  Also note that when you add one to your team (who is likely a glass jaw much like Professor X), you also invite the GM to join the mentalist arms race, which will likely force more of a support role in order to defend the team from other mentalists.

 

My point is that 2/3 of a well-rounded team tends to be squishy ... and while the off-tank can often soak 2-3 times the hits of the squishies, it won't be able to soak what the real tank can.  Nor should it.

[IndianaJoe3]

I suppose it depends on the players. When I was in an active group. the rule of thumb was that even the DPS had to be able to take an average hit without being stunned, and 3 average hits without being knocked out.

[Surrealone]

Trencher's concern was centered around "pc's and npc's who would go down if they get stunned for a round twice in a row" (to use his words).  In my experience, pretty much only tanks and off-tanks can handle being stunned twice in a row without the third hit doing them in.

[Trencher]

Thanks for replies. Sounds like nobody have any problem with it. To be fair players probably are more focused on pure defense anyway.

[Ninja-Bear]

I’ll echo what Indianjoe said. It depends how you set up the game. And how people spend their points.

[Doc Democracy]

I think the way the game is set up (and the way people play the game), most PCs will be able to take hits (or avoid getting hit often enough to worry about it) as noone wants to be taken out of a fight too easily.  Also, if you set up with damage dealers and damage soakers, the damage dealers are likely to go straight for the opposiing damage dealers and take them out to allow them to focus on the damage soaker.

 

Kind of like how the cavalry battles on the wings of 16th and 17th century battles would take place while infantry blocks held the centre.  Whoever won the cavalry on the wings could then decide the stalemate in the centre.  :-)

 

Doc

[LoneWolf]

Most characters who are stunned twice in a row should go down.  Unless your character has a very low CON getting stunned means he took a hard hit.  There is a balance between getting hit and being able to take damage.  The harder you are to hit the more the hit should affect your character.  A speedster should rarely get hit, but when he does it should be a big deal.  A brick should be hit often, but each hit is less effective vs. him.  Hero system allows you to build a both types of character equally well.  You can also build anything in between.

 

If you are having trouble building a tank you don’t understand the rules, or the GM is probably throwing too powerful of attacks. 

[Tech]

It depends on the players and the campaign. I have a problem with people expecting heroes with certain powers having to be a certain way. That's not the spirit of Champions; if I want to create a mentalist with a 35 PD and 35 ED, I can build it that way. If I want to build a martial artist with a 12 DEX, I can do that. I'm not suggesting those builds but I often bite my tongue when I hear players saying 'such-and-such characters are this way'. It takes away from the creativity allowed to a player.

 

Now, for what Trencher said:

Anyone else have trouble with glass cannon syndrome? It seems everywhere I look there are pc's and npc's who would go down if they get stunned for a round twice in a row. In fact the system encourages imo making high dex hard hitting characters or at best an controller of sorts. I kinda miss the human tank arch type who could take a lot of hits, get stunned for a round a couple of times but suddenly get back up if the enemy missed or wiffed an shot.

 

I'm curious where he sees this happening in what books (it seems everywhere I look etc.). For myself, I've noticed it in a few books such as' Enemies for Hire' and 'Champions Worldwide' to name a couple.

 

Now, if a player builds a character that is easily stunned, but is in concept, I hope the GM provides other means for the character to be important other than just another brawl.

[Surrealone]

That's the beauty of this system: you CAN build that 35 PD/ED mentalist if you want to.  The ability to soak those hits will, of course, come at the cost of superior mental abilities -- because you elected to put the points into physical and energy defenses instead of mental abilities, but you did that presumably to maintain concept, and that's A-OK!

[Christopher R Taylor]

I've noticed that in Champions, characters are much less exaggerated than in the comic books.  You never have someone like Storm or Cyclops who have absolutely zero defenses going out and standing in combat with people that could kill them with a thip.  Usually people build characters with some manner of defenses to keep them going better in combat.

[dsatow]

Though my sample set is very small (mainly because most players prefer 5th than to change over to 6th) and thus can be skewed, I've found that 6th characters can take slightly more stunning hits and stay up longer than 5th.  

 

What I've seen is a bit higher defenses, higher STUN and bigger recoveries.  Note that the CONs I have seen are only down by what would be by about 5 points (18 <- 23).  By decoupling, there is no longer a need of doing a point saving maneuver by buying up CON or STR and those values have gone down to or below the 20pt characteristic max.  Stun, being relatively cheap, has gone up in amounts usually by at least 10 points and recoveries have gone up about by 4.

 

Again, this is mostly anecdotal and not very scientific.

 

[Ninja-Bear]

I too am curious where Trencher saw those PCs/NPCs. Not saying he’s wrong just where?.

[Trencher]

Reading Conquerors killers and crooks it seems to me that most characters rarely have more than twice their con in stun. 

In fantasy hero there was a little bit different where I found a dwarf npc and an ogre who both had more than twice their con in stun value. However it was not that much more.

 

I am not against glass cannon syndrome. I just noticed that the players be they fighters or wizards all tense up every time an enemy get a chance to attack them. 

Also the focus is on getting their con and dex stat up rather than giving their characters any stun value. I understand that from a game play point because players want the most bang for their points. But I expected to see more characters in the source books being more "controllable" with careful strikes but still being a tough guy if you know what I mean. Off course this would mean that combat would take longer as well so..

 

[Ninja-Bear]

I have CKC. I liked reading them and some of the different takes on Classic villains. However I really never paid attention to their stats. Some of the ones I used, I re-wrote stat wise for the game I was running. If I get a chance, I’ll have to look at it. Any particular characters though Trencher that you thought were glass cannons and shouldn’t be?

[Ninja-Bear]

15 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

I've noticed that in Champions, characters are much less exaggerated than in the comic books.  You never have someone like Storm or Cyclops who have absolutely zero defenses going out and standing in combat with people that could kill them with a thip.  Usually people build characters with some manner of defenses to keep them going better in combat.

Well I erroneously built probably a few back in the day. I have “realistic” builds instead of more cinematic/this is a game not a writers fiat build.

[massey]

15 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

I've noticed that in Champions, characters are much less exaggerated than in the comic books.  You never have someone like Storm or Cyclops who have absolutely zero defenses going out and standing in combat with people that could kill them with a thip.  Usually people build characters with some manner of defenses to keep them going better in combat.

 

Who says that Storm and Cyclops have no defenses?  Just because they don't have a defined superpower that protects them, that doesn't mean they've got 5 PD/ED.

[Christopher R Taylor]

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Who says that Storm and Cyclops have no defenses?  Just because they don't have a defined superpower that protects them, that doesn't mean they've got 5 PD/ED.

 

...did you figure I thought they have 0 PD and ED?

[massey]

15 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

...did you figure I thought they have 0 PD and ED?

 

I don't know how you're imagining them.  My versions of Cyclops and Storm have around 20 Def each.  They don't have a force field or anything like that, they've just got high nonresistant PD and ED and then some Combat Luck.

 

[Cassandra]

If it wasn't for the Glass Cannon Syndrome we wouldn't have any CW heroes.

[Christopher R Taylor]

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I don't know how you're imagining them.  My versions of Cyclops and Storm have around 20 Def each. 

 

In the comics, they are defined as having no superhuman defenses whatsoever.  In recent years, they've claimed the unstable molecule costumes are body armor, but in the past, they were just people who never got targeted by anyone that could hurt them seriously, or showed unreasonably high DCV.  There's even a scene in an X-Men comic in the 80s where Storm, who at that point has no powers whatsoever, is standing in front of several other characters when shrapnel spins up and tears the place apart.  Collossus is hurt so badly he's in the hospital, several are killed behind her and STORM LITERALLY TAKES NO DAMAGE.

 

They have maybe 4-8 PD and ED, and that's it.  But they just never got seriously hurt in the comics, because that's how they were written.  In Champions, that wouldn't work.  Which is why you gave them superhuman defenses.

[Tech]

As previously mentioned, two words: Combat Luck.

 

I'm seriously thinking of adding Combat Luck to quite a few of my heroes. It fits so nicely into what comic books show.

[Trencher]

6 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

I have CKC. I liked reading them and some of the different takes on Classic villains. However I really never paid attention to their stats. Some of the ones I used, I re-wrote stat wise for the game I was running. If I get a chance, I’ll have to look at it. Any particular characters though Trencher that you thought were glass cannons and shouldn’t be?

 

Well the thing is that is that I am asking if any other people get the feeling that the characters that would be knocked out by two hits that could stun them, makes them into glass cannons?

 

I dont really see how anyone could deliver a vicious beatdown (hitting their enemy with several stunning blows) and then have the enemy get back up and fight back.

 

Like for instance A hero gets punched again and again and the evil villain lands punch after punch while the hero can barely stand. Then, the villain says "Now I will finish you off, and then I will go kick every puppy in the land" he draws back his foot and lands a kick. But he hits the arm and does not do enough enough damage to stun! So the hero gets a chance to fight back and having plenty of end he screams: "You will NOT punch a single puppy ever AGAIN!" while pushing his str and extra hand attack. Hitting a tremendous blow sending the foul puppy kicker flying and standing up heroically. 

 

I play only sci fi and fantasy with a heaping of martial arts thrown in so its not that noticeable there but I do see the same tendency. 

 

[Cassandra]

This does bring up an interesting observation I've had.

 

Most superheroes in movies and TV depend on not bring hit while in combat.  This is realistic as it's not likely Black Widow isn't going to be able to take a punch from Hulk and not get her hair mussed.  While taking hits from Hydra or SHIELD agents, or Nazi Stormtroopers for that matter, are less about causing damage but making the hero use up END and get distracted so the main villain can blast them.

 

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

Well the thing is that is that I am asking if any other people get the feeling that the characters that would be knocked out by two hits that could stun them, makes them into glass cannons?

 

I don't see that as a glass cannon.  My idea of a glass cannon is someone with tons of offense but they're out of a fight in a single good hit, and always stunned if hit even moderately.  Very normal or slightly higher than normal stats with the biggest attack the game's rules allow.  Cyclops, for instance.  Lots of those guys in comics, all offense, no powers to protect themselves with, maybe some training.