Guidelines for guidelines

[Cloppy Clip]

Volume 1 pages 34 and 35 have guidelines for the different levels of power you can find in HERO, but I'm having some problems extending the table and would appreciate some input from the forum, if that's all right.

 

Firstly, the ability guidelines seem quite loose to me, and I'd be interested in tightening them up. My first thought is to tie the rough power level to the expected DC of a standard attack. From there you could derive expected defences, and increased or decreased CV would adjust the damage dealt out or taken accordingly and factored in, along with SPD and everything else. With that said, how many points would you want, thereabouts, for a given DC? I think I've seen it said that 12 DC is standard for a 400-point game, but if you were given a different DC to aim for then how many points would you want to hit that target while also having some wiggle room for your other powers and skills and such?

 

Then, once we've got a point total in mind, how many Matching Complications would seem right for that total? The table on page 34 has complications scaling more slowly than total points, which makes sense, but what's the level that feels right to you? And the same applies to how many points can go into any given complication, although that seems to generally hold at around half the total Matching Complication points.

 

So, in short, what would be a good rough formula to go from DC to Starting Points to Matching Complications?

[LoneWolf]

I am not sure what you are looking to accomplish.  The guidelines are only there for two purposes.  The first is so set the amount of points a character gets to build his character.   The second is to give the GM a rough idea on how to build appropriate NPC’s.  The second thing is just as important as the first.  Most campaigns will have characters from multiple types, especially the one lower on the scale.   

 

Since complications no longer give you points like disadvantages did under older rules, the only real purpose they serve is to ensure a character has some background.  Piling too many complications on a low point character often make them weaker than they should be, so it makes since to limit those on lower point characters.  On the other hand, often the only way to deal with high powered character is through their complications.  The maximum point per complication is to ensure that high point characters don’t put all their eggs in one basket.   

 

The most important part of the guidelines is actually on page 33.  Specifically, the part that says Talk to the GM and learn about the nature and scope of the campaign.  
 

[Doc Democracy]

I can understand where the OP is coming from.  What are the things people are thinking about when setting guidelines for their games.

 

Personally, I am thinking about the kind of fights I want to be in the game.  I like fights to be tense and potentially over very quickly.  I hate fights that drag on over turns and turns. 

 

So.  I look at the kind of damage per turn generated against defences.  Obviously a lot of this stuff relies on averages etc. but it gives an idea of those combats.

 

So, if I know brick style characters have defences of 30, STUN of 60 and REC of 15 and I want a fight potentially over in two turns, opponents need to generate 75 STUN after defences over those two turns.  A SPD 4 brick, that hits 50% of the time, will average 4 hits and so needs to do 49 STUN per hit, or about 15D6 attacks.  A SPD 8 martial artist, hitting 80% of the time, will average about 10 hits over that time, and so needs to do 38 STUN per hit, or about 11D6.

 

The problem is that EVERY character is a moving part with different combat values for offence and defence, so there is a lot of eye-balling and adjusting.  It also assumes everyone stands tie to tie, whaling away until someone falls down,no knock back,  movement, etc.  But it delivers a baseline.  Good rolls or getting a tactical advantage will end fights faster.  Getting matched up against someone more vulnerable to your abilities ends fights faster.  Lots of dashing about, using cover (and other things that make a fight more interesting) etc will make a fight take longer.

 

So, @Cloppy Clip that is how I set up my guidelines,  thinking about what feel I want for the game and matching things to achieve that.  The stuff in the book gives you decent starting points but, IME, no more than that.

 

Doc

[LoneWolf]

A formula that determines the initial points and complications from the average DC is going to be of very little use.  All it does is scale up and down points based on the assumption all campaigns are basically the same.  

 

The problem with a formula like this is that by its nature Hero System can have very different point spread depending on the nature of the campaign.  You can have a campaign where it is mostly combat so skills do not matter that much, but you can also have a campaign where there is more focus on out of combat abilities including skills.  I have played in plenty of games where it is mostly focused on combat, but I have also played in a lot of games that focus on investigation or other non-combat issues.  Sometimes even on a game focused on combat the GM may want to keep the damage at lower level.  

 

A better approach would be to figure out what type of combat you want in your game before doing anything.  Do you want normal weapons to be a threat to the PCs, or do they bounce bullets of their chest?  This will give you an idea of what range of DC you should have in the game.  The next step is to figure out how lethal combat should be and set the guidelines for defenses as appropriate.   Do the same for the aspects of the game including how much out of combat focus there will be.  That will give you an idea of how many points to give the players to build their character.  Then simply use the chart in the book as a base and maybe adjust it a little.  It is a lot of work for the GM as they need to figure out what they want to run before the players start building, but it leads to a better game.  
 

[Duke Bushido]

Well thought out, and welcome back, Doc!

 

I trust your time away served you well!

 

 

 

[Steve]

There’s also growth in power to consider. Are characters fixed in their ability maximums or do those increase with time?

 

It’s easier to plan the campaign if you have fixed maximums as that forces characters to spend points on different things unrelated to combat, like buying skills, bases, vehicles, followers, etc.

[Doc Democracy]

14 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Well thought out, and welcome back, Doc!

 

I trust your time away served you well!

 

 

 

Thanks Duke.

 

I find that 30 years playing this game means this is a community I find hard to leave.  Where else can I talk HERO with any hope other people understand.  😁

 

I strop, flounce off, lurk for a while, then feel the need to comment, resist that until it is just too overwhelming.

 

Doc

[Hugh Neilson]

On 2/4/2023 at 4:13 AM, Doc Democracy said:

I can understand where the OP is coming from.  What are the things people are thinking about when setting guidelines for their games.

 

Personally, I am thinking about the kind of fights I want to be in the game.  I like fights to be tense and potentially over very quickly.  I hate fights that drag on over turns and turns. 

 

So.  I look at the kind of damage per turn generated against defences.  Obviously a lot of this stuff relies on averages etc. but it gives an idea of those combats.

 

So, if I know brick style characters have defences of 30, STUN of 60 and REC of 15 and I want a fight potentially over in two turns, opponents need to generate 75 STUN after defences over those two turns.  A SPD 4 brick, that hits 50% of the time, will average 4 hits and so needs to do 49 STUN per hit, or about 15D6 attacks.  A SPD 8 martial artist, hitting 80% of the time, will average about 10 hits over that time, and so needs to do 38 STUN per hit, or about 11D6.

 

The problem is that EVERY character is a moving part with different combat values for offence and defence, so there is a lot of eye-balling and adjusting.  It also assumes everyone stands tie to tie, whaling away until someone falls down,no knock back,  movement, etc.  But it delivers a baseline.  Good rolls or getting a tactical advantage will end fights faster.  Getting matched up against someone more vulnerable to your abilities ends fights faster.  Lots of dashing about, using cover (and other things that make a fight more interesting) etc will make a fight take longer.

 

So, @Cloppy Clip that is how I set up my guidelines,  thinking about what feel I want for the game and matching things to achieve that.  The stuff in the book gives you decent starting points but, IME, no more than that.

 

Doc

 

This is a key point.  The "Defenses to DC" comparison is important.  If you have a 12 DC game with defenses averaging 35, a typical hit does 7 STUN past defenses. Then we get combat that drags on many turns.  Unlike most games, Hero can be customized to change the length of a typical combat.  If all the PCs have 12 DC, 35 defenses, give the villains 15 DCs and 25 defenses.  Now the average attack is getting 17 past defenses, and combat moves faster.

 

It's easy to overlook how much impact a seemingly minor change in DCV adds up.  If everyone hits on 11-, and one character gets +2 DCV, he's now only hit on 9- that changes from 62.5% of the time to 37.5% of the time, so the average damage taken over time drops 25%.  Reduce his DCV by 2 and now he is hit on a 13-, or 83.8% of the time (so about 20% more average damage taken per turn).

 

Perhaps the best answer is to set averages and limit deviations from that average.  Mutants and Masterminds allows a trade-off between, basically, OCV and Damage; and between DCV and Defenses, with no more than a 2 point shift from the average (so +2 to hit means -2 from "damage"), but their system is d20 so every change of 1 point is 5%.

 

If we start with a baseline OCV and DCV, and assume they are equal, a base of 12 DC and a base of 25 defenses, then we have an average attack hitting 62.5% of the time, rolling 42 STUN and doing 17 past defenses.  We'll assume a norm of 5 SPD. So that's average STUN past defenses of 17 x 62.5% x 5 = 53.125.

 

If we cap OCV at, say, three higher than baseline, that average changes, so we need a drop in DCs to compensate. 

 

11 DCs hitting on 12- will average 50 per turn.  12 will average almost 63, too much! 11 1/2 DC would average 57.4.

11 DCs hitting on 13- will average over 56.5.  10 DCs will only average 41.9. 10 1/2 DC will get us back to just over 50.

10 1/2 DC hitting 14- will average 54.4, and 10 DC will barely top 45.

 

No easy formula, but it seems like +2 OCV equates to -1/2 DC.  Now, what if we lower OCV?

 

Hitting on 10- is 50% - 13 DC will average 51.25

Hitting on 9- is 37.5% - it will take 15 DCs to average 51.56 per turn

Hitting on 8- is 25.93% - even 18 DCs will only average 49.26 per turn

 

But if we let DCs rise that much, that infrequent hit that does land will do a ton of damage; much more likely to STUN the target.

 

All the above really proves to me is that there are no easy formulas.  Maybe we should start with DCVs that are one point higher than OCVs - that would at least start us at a 50% chance to hit. ow our baseline 12DC, 5SPD character averages 42.5 STUN past 25 defenses per turn.  That will mean longer fights, but let's assume we are OK with that.

 

If we move OCV around, what DCs do we need?

 

+1 OCV with 11 DCs will average 42.1875

+2 OCV with 10 DCs will average 37; make it 10.5 DCs and we get 44.44

+3 OCV with 10 DCs will average 41.898

 

-1 OCV will average 38.4375 with 13 DCs or 42.1875 with 13 1/2 DC

-2 OCV needs 16 DCs to creep back up to 40.185

-3 OCV still falls a bit below 40 with 21 DCs (but the less than 1 in 6 hits that land have a really good chance of stunning the opponent).

 

So, again, no easy formulas - and the DC reduction for higher OCV is nowhere near the needed boost if OCV is lowered.

 

And we'd still need a similar analysis for Defenses vs DCV, before we factor in an increased SPD.

 

As Doc notes, there are a lot of moving parts, probably too many for any formula to realistically handle. 

 

 

 

 

[Steve]

In addition to Hugh’s analysis, there are also the defensive powers Damage Negation and Damage Reduction to consider.

 

Damage Negation should probably be limited to a third or a quarter of the DCs being thrown about. If a character has Damage Reduction, the odds of being stunned drop a lot and should be limited as well.

A character with both Damage Negation and Damage Reduction should have a pretty low PD/ED number or they would become functionally invulnerable.

[unclevlad]

With Negation and Reduction, all you need do is to address net average STUN after all factors are taken into account.

Plus, both are VERY expensive, and the combo of Negation and Reduction is *extremely* inefficient.  To illustrate, using 12 DCs.  4 DCs of negation, 50% DR.  12 DCs --> 8, so that's 28 average.  You take 14.  For 50 points in defenses.  Note that 10 DCs of negation would be the same as the DR/DN combo...and would drop you to 2 dice.  You could also buy 12 rPD (18) and 16 PD, for 34 points.  You take 14 average.  DN and DR are principally large-scale STUN reduction mechanisms...but they work somewhat antagonistically.   

 

An issue there is, there's no real risk you'll take BODY, except from a KA...but that's a built-in, major consideration.  The variance is SO high.  If that's a concern, too...tweak the balance.  Say, 16 rPD and 12 PD, that's 36.  Still a LOT less.  What I like to do is buy DN or DR as STUN Only...it's -1/2.  You buy mostly rDef, then the STUN-only DN or DR to cover the balance.  Go to 0 PD;  buy 16 rPD (to mostly cover 4D killing), and 5 DCs physical DN, STUN only.  41 points.  MOST BODY is bounced from a KA;  from 12 dice normal, you take the STUN from 7, so you're in single digits on average.  Manipulate as you see fit to get the balance you want.  16 rPD and 1/2 DR, STUN only, would also be 44 points, and average around 10 STUN through. 

 

Remember:  Reduction is the LAST defense applied, so it only reduces the leftovers.   One has to work this out, but there is an order by how the rules work:

-- Absorption is always first...even if it's not a defense, and if your other defenses would bounce the effect, you still get the benefit.

-- DN

-- 'standard' defenses

-- DR must be last

 

The biggest advantage of DN is completely ignoring lesser attacks.  

The biggest advantage of DR is mitigating the risk of a high damage roll.  This was huge in 5E where the STUN mult on a KA could knock you out for a month.  In 6E, it's less important.  The secondary advantage still applies:  DR applies to an AVAD/NND that does BODY, assuming you buy without the STUN only.

  

[Grailknight]

I don't have anything to add to the damage and CV advice above. It's pretty thoroughly covered.

 

But you do need to also decide how super you want your supers to be.

 

Are the police and petty criminals a threat? Are conventional military forces?

 

If you want them to be, then you may need to stay lower than the 12 DC guideline given here. You can run a perfectly fine Supers campaign with DC's in the 8-10 range and lower CV and Def. That 400 starting points total will go further towards fleshing out characters with skills and side powers also.

[Steve]

2 hours ago, Grailknight said:

I don't have anything to add to the damage and CV advice above. It's pretty thoroughly covered.

 

But you do need to also decide how super you want your supers to be.

 

Are the police and petty criminals a threat? Are conventional military forces?

 

If you want them to be, then you may need to stay lower than the 12 DC guideline given here. You can run a perfectly fine Supers campaign with DC's in the 8-10 range and lower CV and Def. That 400 starting points total will go further towards fleshing out characters with skills and side powers also.

I would also add to this that subtracting a point of SPD from all characters could also help stretch points. So 3 SPD Bricks and 4 SPD Energy Projectors. Agents could be built cheaper too.

[Hugh Neilson]

3 hours ago, Steve said:

I would also add to this that subtracting a point of SPD from all characters could also help stretch points. So 3 SPD Bricks and 4 SPD Energy Projectors. Agents could be built cheaper too.

 

Imagine if 1e had presented Supers that were 2 SPD and 9 DEX lower.  We would have slow Bricks with a DEX 0f 8 - 11 (CV 3-4) and SPD 2.  A typical Super would be DEX 14 - 17 (CV 5 -6) and SPD 3.  Really fast Supers would be DEX 20-21 (CV 7), SPD 4. Supers with DEX 23 - 26 (CV 8 - 9) and SPD 5 would be scarce, and notable for their incredible reflexes and agility.  Going higher would be the Grond equivalent of DEX and SPD.

 

And we would need less END and REC (fewer actions between PS 12) as well as shaving 38 points off the cost of DEX and SPD for other abilities.

 

Agents could be 2 SPD and 11 DEX, with elite agents reaching 14 DEX and 3 SPD.

[LoneWolf]

Reducing the SPD on all characters actually works out really well.  Not only does it save points it make thing like END usage more manageable. This ends up saving even more points because it reduces the need for things like ½ END and buy up your recovery.   It also means the average character is not running faster than Usain Bolt.     

[unclevlad]

To match Bolt, you need a 4 SPD and 16m of Running, so the average character already isn't as fast.  Granted that you could buy a NCM but that approach is even less "average."  

 

SPD is a pain to consider because it's got a direct real-world comparison.  SPD 2 means, for example, a cop firing only once every 6 seconds.  That's target shooting rates, not combat shooting.  OTOH, starting from a lower base SPD means you don't have to shoot SPD through the roof to get the speedster.  

 

We also have to recognize that the absolute SPD difference is less important than the relative SPD difference.  The difference between 2 and 3 is sharper than between 3 and 4, which is sharper than between 4 and 5.  That's the impact of granularity.  We can't help the granularity here;  we can't readily handle semi-continuous action.