Killing Me Softly

[Sean Waters]

This is long.  Sorry.  It’s written from the perspective of a Champions type game, but I think the issues have broad applicability, whatever the genre.  I think it would be useful to have more discussion of the thinking behind game mechanics so we’re aware of the issues they can present and how we can use them to heighten playability.

 

I’ve never really been a fan of the Killing Attack mechanic in Hero, even after the 6e changes, but maybe I need to re-evaluate my position.  I decided to run identical characters against each other, but one using a normal attack and one using an equivalent DC KA.  The results were interesting.  I’ll get to them later.

 

I used Hardpoint (high Resistant Defence) and Maelstrom (High Normal Defence) from 6E2 (and 5E) who had three battles each against themselves and I used a generic character with 12/24 Defences and 12/40 Body/Stun who had four battles.  In total that was 25 rounds of combat ranging from a 4 phase battles to a 1 phase KO.  I ignored rolling to hit as the characters were identical and I ignored Stunning (although, as it happened, that would not have affected any of the results) and Knockback.  I assumed combat started on segment 1 so no one got a PS12 recovery, and both participants just used the one attack.

 

The problem, in theory, with KAs mechanically is that they use far fewer dice than Normal Attacks which means much greater variability, in theory.  I say ‘in theory’ because I was overly concerned that you’d get some really big Stun results for KAs, but over 25 phases of combat I got one each of 51, 48, 45 and 42 and the rest of the results were under 30 which does not seem unreasonable.  By comparison the highest 12d6 normal Stun result was 56.

 

The problem, in theory, with the ‘realism’ of KAs is that I’d imagine that having a life-threatening injury would hurt more, but then I suppose it is Heroic to ignore such injuries and soldier on.

 

The problem with KAs in the game is that Body damage takes a long time to recover from and you don’t want characters sitting round in a hospital for most of the game session.  You can give characters higher Resistant Defence (although that is a direct nerf to KAs and makes them pointless – so to speak) or, probably far better, access to Regeneration or Healing.

 

Anyway, those results.  10 battles is not an enormous sample and different builds could have yielded very different results, but I think it is enough to draw some conclusions from.

 

Of the 10 battles, there was one draw (where they knocked each other out simultaneously) and the rest were all wins for the Normal Attack.  In one instance the Normal Attack Character was reduced to negative Body on the last attack and in another the Normal Attack Character was in negative Body on the penultimate attack, but negative Body doesn’t prevent you acting (you just bleed).  That was not the combat with the draw.  In every combat the Normal Attack Character lost Body (final totals were 10, 9, 7, 6, 6, 5, 3, 1, -6, -7) which meant between 2 and 21 Body were lost and in only 3 of the battles the Stun of the Normal Attack character was less than double figures.

 

That means about 9 Body lost on average (8.8 actually) which would take most characters between 2 and 4 weeks to heal (assuming a REC in the 10-20 range) or 1-2 weeks of hospital care.  That’s a long time, and that’s just a one-on-one fight.  Very few of the characters would have survived a second fight without healing first.

 

So, in summary, the biggest problem with Killing Attacks seems to be managing the consequences, which seems like an issue of scenario and character design: the team could have a character with high resistant Defences and/or Regeneration to tackle incoming KAs or access to Healing either through a team member or some other method.

 

There are some rule tweaks you could make to change things though.

 

1.    Track wounds individually.  When you take Body damage, keep a note of how much each lot of Body damage was as well as reducing current Body.  When you heal, each wound heals simultaneously which will (usually) substantially reduce overall healing time.

2.    Body as a buffer.  Body damage is considered to be scrapes and bruises – painful and doesn’t recover as quickly as Stun but not incredibly long lasting.  When you finish a combat and are able to rest for a couple of hours (or whatever period is appropriate in your game) you immediately recover all your Body except any negative Body, which you keep a track of separately.  This negative Body has to heal at the normal rate.  For example, in a combat a 12 Body character is reduced to -3 Body.  After a rest they are back to 9 Body (12-3) and they have to heal that at REC/month.  If they are in another combat and are reduced to -5 body they can recover back to 4 Body (12-3-5) and have to recover 8 Body (or 3 Body and 5 Body if you also use individual wounds) at the normal rate.  Once you get to -Body, you die.

3.    Body as Bruising.  As well as or instead of the above, you can consider each point of Body taken as Bruising.  Until you recover you start every combat with your current Stun reduced by an amount equal to the 2x Body damage you have taken.  You can recover from this Bruising at REC/day (even if you have not fully healed the Body damage, but additional Body damage does add to the Bruising total).

 

There’s obviously lots of ways you can deal with these issues if, indeed, you consider them issues.  What do you do?

 

[unclevlad]

Using 6E's half die for the stun multiplier basically quashed the VERY high STUN potential.  

 

Rolling 12d6, 

48+ STUN:  18%

51+ STUN:  8%

54+ STUN:  2.5%

 

4d6 KA, the high STUN needs a high BODY roll, then a 3 STUN mult (1 in 3).  So, for example, 48 STUN is 1/3 of 16 BODY.

48+ STUN:  11%

51+ STUN:  8%

54+ STUN:  5.3%

57+ STUN:  3.2%

 

The factor is that you've only got the 1 in 3 chance of a 3, on the STUN mult...well, OK, 24 BODY and a 2 STUN mult gives 48 STUN total, but that's minuscule.  For 42 STUN normal, it's 53%.  For 14+ BODY *and* a 3 STUN, it's 19%, factoring in the 21+ BODY with a 2 STUN MULT (adds 1%).

 

So, broadly speaking...

1/3 of the time, a KA will do no, or very little STUN...roll in the lower half for BODY, then 1 or 2 STUN mult.

1/6 of the time, upper half for BODY, but a 1 for STUN...does no STUN.

Roll 15-18 BODY, 30%;  2 STUN mult.  So, +10%

 

So, a full 60% of your attacks will get very little STUN through.  Or, for the exhaustive...this is rounded to the nearest percent of STUN from the attack:

 

P(total stun at least 4) -- 100
P(total stun at least 5) -- 100
P(total stun at least 6) -- 100
P(total stun at least 7) -- 100
P(total stun at least 😎 -- 99
P(total stun at least 9) -- 98
P(total stun at least 10) -- 97
P(total stun at least 11) -- 95
P(total stun at least 12) -- 92
P(total stun at least 13) -- 88
P(total stun at least 14) -- 85
P(total stun at least 15) -- 81
P(total stun at least 16) -- 77
P(total stun at least 17) -- 73
P(total stun at least 18) -- 70
P(total stun at least 19) -- 66
P(total stun at least 20) -- 65
P(total stun at least 21) -- 62
P(total stun at least 22) -- 61
P(total stun at least 23) -- 58
P(total stun at least 24) -- 58
P(total stun at least 26) -- 54
P(total stun at least 27) -- 50
P(total stun at least 28) -- 49
P(total stun at least 30) -- 45
P(total stun at least 32) -- 39
P(total stun at least 33) -- 36
P(total stun at least 34) -- 33
P(total stun at least 36) -- 31
P(total stun at least 38) -- 25
P(total stun at least 39) -- 24
P(total stun at least 40) -- 20
P(total stun at least 42) -- 19
P(total stun at least 44) -- 15
P(total stun at least 45) -- 15
P(total stun at least 46) -- 11
P(total stun at least 48) -- 11
P(total stun at least 51) -- 8
P(total stun at least 54) -- 5
P(total stun at least 57) -- 3
P(total stun at least 60) -- 2
P(total stun at least 63) -- 1
P(total stun at least 66) -- 0
P(total stun at least 69) -- 0
P(total stun at least 72) -- 0
 

Now, for comparison...roll 12d6 1,000,000 times, and I get the following:

 

P(total stun at least 16) -- 100
P(total stun at least 17) -- 100
P(total stun at least 18) -- 100
P(total stun at least 19) -- 100
P(total stun at least 20) -- 100
P(total stun at least 21) -- 100
P(total stun at least 22) -- 100
P(total stun at least 23) -- 100
P(total stun at least 24) -- 100
P(total stun at least 25) -- 100
P(total stun at least 26) -- 100
P(total stun at least 27) -- 100
P(total stun at least 28) -- 99
P(total stun at least 29) -- 99
P(total stun at least 30) -- 98
P(total stun at least 31) -- 97
P(total stun at least 32) -- 96
P(total stun at least 33) -- 95
P(total stun at least 34) -- 92
P(total stun at least 35) -- 90
P(total stun at least 36) -- 86
P(total stun at least 37) -- 82
P(total stun at least 38) -- 77
P(total stun at least 39) -- 72
P(total stun at least 40) -- 66
P(total stun at least 41) -- 60
P(total stun at least 42) -- 53
P(total stun at least 43) -- 47
P(total stun at least 44) -- 40
P(total stun at least 45) -- 34
P(total stun at least 46) -- 28
P(total stun at least 47) -- 23
P(total stun at least 48) -- 18
P(total stun at least 49) -- 14
P(total stun at least 50) -- 10
P(total stun at least 51) -- 8
P(total stun at least 52) -- 5
P(total stun at least 53) -- 4
P(total stun at least 54) -- 3
P(total stun at least 55) -- 2
P(total stun at least 56) -- 1
P(total stun at least 57) -- 1
 

The higher STUN rolls, either way, aren't that different.  The problem is that the LOW!! STUN from the KA is extremely common...and it's extremely RARE for the normal attack.  

 

Looking at your test construction...Hardpoint has very low total defenses, only 20.  OK, he's hard to stun...but he's going down on the 2nd hit from normal attacks over half the time.  Maelstrom will probably not get KO'd by 2 normal energy attacks, at least.  

 

But my problem's the BODY damage.  Part of it is...someone dropped down to 0 BODY or below, should lose considerable effectiveness.  OK, it's heroic/superheroic, so...yeah, valiantly fighting on and all that.  I get it.  But the flip side, to me, is...being that seriously injured *should be something to avoid.*  It should not be considered a normal or routine aspect of the combat style.  And this is where KAs have problems:  because, for the same DCs, the risk of high BODY is SO much higher.  This forces fairly significant investments into resistant defenses, or potentially...forget long recovery times, hello risk of character death.  Note that Maelstrom isn't a "normal defenses" guy...40% of his defenses are *resistant*.  

[Grailknight]

Well, my last campaign was one with all natural powers so this or a similar construct was common.

 

Regeneration (1 BODY per 6 Hours) (6 Active Points); Limited Power- No strenuous activity while healing Power loses about half of its effectiveness (-1) 3 Real points.

 

Most supers with this would be good to go from most battles in a day or two, one week max for really serious injuries.

[Doc Democracy]

I tend to ignore BODY once the current adventure is over.  Start of next adventure, everyone is hale and hearty.

 

BODY damage, as you intimated, should raise the stakes during the adventure and players should be adapting their tactics to ensure their injured comrades are not unduly exposed to further BODY damage.

 

Doc

[Hugh Neilson]

In my view, the change from 5e to 6e achieved the objective of making killing attacks serve that purpose: KILLING, not knocking out, the opponent.  In a four-colour Supers game, this would relegate KAs to a niche power - this is not a genre where killing opponents is a common occurrence. With slightly higher average BOD, the KA may have some utility dealing with automatons, barriers, entangles, etc.

[Tech]

17 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

I tend to ignore BODY once the current adventure is over.  Start of next adventure, everyone is hale and hearty.

 

BODY damage, as you intimated, should raise the stakes during the adventure and players should be adapting their tactics to ensure their injured comrades are not unduly exposed to further BODY damage.

 

Doc

 I do this as well. The character is automatically assumed to have healed from any previous episode injuries. Not once, to my memory, have I ever had someone still injured when another episode started.

[Duke Bushido]

Ditto for me, at least in supers and sci-fi (where medical tech is assumed to be amazing).

 

Honestly, onky in the _grimmest_ of campaigns have I not done that, but realistically,I find using something other than HERO best gives the grim, risk-of-life at every turn feel: probably why I have never abandoned Traveller: it works great for weaterns and no-magic historical settings when you want ant bullet to have a chance to kill.