Wuxia style game and Killing Attacks

[Ninja-Bear]

Hello Y’all,

 

I’ve been lately playing mini scenarios with my older son. He  is using Yueng Li from genre by genre. And well the crux of the problem is if you watch a bunch of King Fu flicks almost no one wears armor and a lot have killing weapons. So if the Hero has no resistant defenses then even a modest 1D6 KA is bad as the Hero takes all of it. I’m thinking though that Heroes and named Villains might roll KAs as Normal AVADs instead as rolling Body is going to lower for average rolls.

 

So any thoughts on this?

[Tjack]

   I’m more into the Bruce Lee/Jackie Chan stuff than the hardcore Shaw Brothers but it always looked to me that they must have had some way of soaking up the damage.  Possibly something like D&D’s Mage Armor or a low level force field based on Chi.

   I’m imagining something like “the Glow” from The Last Dragon (Bruce Leroy has “moves”.)
  Good luck and have fun.

[dialNforNinja]

You can also define the Defense as being just that good at dodging and rolling with strikes to minimize the effect, or something along those lines. It would qualify for the Restrainable limitation, but the hero dancing around strikes unless he's trapped, when suddenly a couple of mooks or one lieutenant with a normal weapon is a threat he has to bend to until he can escape, is entirely in-genre.

[Greywind]

Combat Luck

[Ninja-Bear]

1 hour ago, Greywind said:

Combat Luck

Should’ve mentioned that naturally this was the first thing I thought of.  And the last game I tried something whereas the player gets free rPD-Body only, based on DCV  of the maneuver. I.e Martial Strike grants 2 rPD, Dodge (Everyman) grants +3 and Block (Everyman) +0.  I didn’t get a long enough sample to get a good feel for it.

[Thia Halmades]

I understand the problem. The answer is, “stop thinking of it in terms of armor.”

 

Instead, think of it as a power, then define its rules and its application. For Persona, I wrote Combat Luck as: 3 rPD/3 rED, Does Not Stack (-1/2), Character Must be Aware of Attack (-1/4). What that means is that if you put on actual armor, your Combat Luck gets replaced, and of course because you’re made of bloody, bloody flesh, if you don’t see the spear, you can’t dodge/deflect/miraculously survive the spear.

 

So let’s go back to your concept, where everyone was Kung-Fu fighting. And let’s stay with weapons being stabby and lethal. Now, how good are you? You’re really good. You have [campaign limit] of rPD, Only While Kung-Fu Fighting (-1/2). Or, Must Be Aware (-1/2), Must be Armed (-1/4), because in these settings a stool qualifies as a weapon, #becausejackiechandidit. This means you retain the dramatic horror of people leaping from rooftops and stabbing folks in the back, catching them off guard, or more importantly, watching as some poor nameless NPC gets the knife and suddenly the players turn around and they are now fully aware and ready to fight.

[Ninja-Bear]

@Tjack, I’m purposely keeping it to Shaw brothers ‘60’s -‘70’s cheesy special effects type Wuxia. Iow, the Heroes can Super leap to the top of the wall but can’t use their sword to touch water and leap to the top.

[Ninja-Bear]

@Thia Halmades, one thing I don’t want to do is to make Iron Shirt technique lackluster by having everyone else having something similar.

[Ninja-Bear]

Also @Thia Halmades, by going AVAD route, I think it might even out the Stun Lottery of Kling Attacks.

[Thia Halmades]

@Ninja-Bear Remember, there are a lot of ways in HERO to mitigate damage, from being a dodge tank (DCV? Have some) to aggressive use of the Counter Martial Art maneuver. It’s down to what you want to represent and the level you want it; I would start doing some number crunching and come up with a sliding scale — how much DCV you’re comfortable with vs. how much straight damage mitigation you’re comfortable with. You could also build a force field, call it “blinding hands,” must be aware of attack, etc., but it could easily simulate that level of defense.

 

Another thing I did in Persona was add a new abort maneuver, Soak. Abort to Soak: Raise a specific defense value by 1.5 for the duration. It functions like any abort, but the player has to identify which defense value they’re using. 

 

What I’m saying is, Wuxia is all about doing nutty things for the sake of cinema, so craft powers that are cinematic in nature. Another great point of reference is the (...utterly superb, GOTY worthy) NIOH 2. I’m 400 hours or so into that game and not bored of it. 10 weapons currently, lots of unique attacks that HERO can handle very well.

[Ninja-Bear]

@Thia Halmadesoh yeah Hero has a lot of ways. The problem of Artful Dodger is that if you get hit then you take damage and in this case Killing Damage that isn’t mitigated  can be nasty.  I’m also pondering Damage Negation too.  I trying to look for ways to Balance of taking Body cause that isn’t bad in and of itself to taking Overwhelming Body in one hit.

[Thia Halmades]

Another option is allowing for “speed healing” in limited circumstances, an idea I’d toyed with but not committed to. In dramatic cinema, the protagonist takes “hospitalization levels” of damage ... and uh... keeps going. Limping in one scene, running full tilt in the next. This is usually attributed to STUN (or in Palladium, SDC).

 

Okay, what if it’s not? What if instead the hero (and all heroes, as applicable) have a power called “From the Brink. Regeneration, (Only up to 1/3rd total BODY, Trigger: only activates when BODY drops below 1/4 (-1), Extra Time,), and if you want to make certain people are being cautious instead of dancing on that katana’s edge, Charges (1-3; Charges restore after a long rest). This is the only way I can actually explain John Wick, and it’s an explanation I actually rather liked, just as I mentioned, haven’t implemented, but I think it captures the genre well.

[Thia Halmades]

@Ninja-Bear Remember, there are a lot of ways in HERO to mitigate damage, from being a dodge tank (DCV? Have some) to aggressive use of the Counter Martial Art maneuver. It’s down to what you want to represent and the level you want it; I would start doing some number crunching and come up with a sliding scale. 

 

Another thing I did in Persona was add a new abort maneuver, Soak. Abort to Soak: Raise a specific defense value by 1.5 for the duration. It functions like any abort, but the player has to identify which defense value they’re using.