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, only 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 westerns and no-magic historical settings when you want any bullet to have a chance to kill.

 

 

Edited July 7 by Duke Bushido

[Sean Waters]

On 1/17/2024 at 9:24 PM, Hugh Neilson said:

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.

Hi Hugh,

 

I don't disagree, but the issue is that, RAW, whilst Killing attacks rarely win in combat they do have the potential to cause damage that lasts for a long time.  This might not be a bad thing: maybe a group are all on low Body by the end of the campaign arc: they are still at maximum efficiency but they could die in the climactic fight with The Ripper, which is fine for a Superheroic game where Body damage is relatively rare and tends not not be a large total through defences, if you are lucky enough to have the damage spread around and not all concentrated on one unfortunate individual.

 

In Heroic games (even without the optional effects of damage), Body damage is far more common and has the potential for far more devastating effect: a couple of hits from a dagger or shots from even a relatively low powered handgun can kill and Body takes a long time to heal.  This is especially true as resistant defences in heroic games are much lower, if the character has them at all, and often do not cover all locations.

 

Handwaving Body once characters can rest is a good approach and a lot of genre classics allow characters to be battered to pieces but still keep fighting as (or more) effectively than ever: Die Hard, I'm looking at you, and a lot of others.  However, this sort of cheapens both Body and Recovery and, at least to an extent, reduces the perceived peril of the situation: if you are not likely to die and you can get better very quickly, what is there to worry about?

 

I've been playing D&D recently (because that is what most people round here seem to want to play) and it is really noticeable that at first and second level there is a definite feeling you could die but, once you hit third or above, that becomes far less likely because of how the mechanics of the game work and that noticeably affects how people play.

 

When I started thinking about writing the OP I was really planning to have a moan about KAs being all but useless now in superhero games (and they pretty much are in a single fight) but, at least if you follow the rules, and don't have some Deus (quite possibly literally ) Ex Machina, they can bugger up your long term plans.  That seems to be the real issue: Stun goes away almost instantly, Body takes forever and there's nothing between the two except the goodwill of the GM.  Seems like a lacuna that needs filling.

[Hugh Neilson]

This comes down to how lethal we want the game to be.  Over the years, it feels like game design overall has shifted away from lethality.  Players get attached to their characters, so we want risk of loss that does not extend to loss of that character entirely.

How often do you see a PC designed to have low rDEF and slow healing, so that death is a significant risk?

"Loss" becomes about being captured, or the villain escaping, or achieving his nefarious plans, with the heroes returning to fight another day, rather than replacing the heroes with new heroes, or even the entire campaign with a new campaign.

[Sean Waters]

On 7/5/2024 at 3:24 PM, Hugh Neilson said:

This comes down to how lethal we want the game to be.  Over the years, it feels like game design overall has shifted away from lethality.  Players get attached to their characters, so we want risk of loss that does not extend to loss of that character entirely.

How often do you see a PC designed to have low rDEF and slow healing, so that death is a significant risk?

"Loss" becomes about being captured, or the villain escaping, or achieving his nefarious plans, with the heroes returning to fight another day, rather than replacing the heroes with new heroes, or even the entire campaign with a new campaign.

 

I suppose the logical adjunct of that line of thought is that we needn't bother with Body and Body damage at all.  I am not a PC killer when I am running games but I do like them to feel that death is a possibility on occasion.  The real problem to my mind (and I may be wittering on about this elsewhere at length) is that damage is either gone in 60 seconds or tiresomely slow to recover, with nothing really occupying the middle ground.  There's absolutely other things to lose than your life to make things interesting, but if there isn't that sense of deadly peril I think it informs the gameplay and the story flow.  I mean you know that, in most movies you watch, the Hero is not going to die but you still need to feel they might to keep you on the edge of your seat, and there's plenty of examples of series where a main character snuffs it and it works really well.

 

Obviously games are not movies and the scriptwriter has much more control over the characters' fate than a GM or even a player does.  If you're playing an episodic game where it is basically 'monster of the week' you probably don't need to worry about healing and you definitely don't need to worry about Body damage that isn't instantly fatal: even a 'normal basic starting character' has to take 20 Body before dying, so PC death is a real rarity.  However, if you are playing a series of fast-paced interconnected episodes a character could easily be starting the session on just 2 or 3 Body and a single hit will have them bleeding out.  I mean, you can never eliminate that, and shouldn't, in a game where death is possible, but I think you can mitigate it without losing too much perceived peril. 

 

"How often do you see a PC designed to have low rDEF and slow healing, so that death is a significant risk?" - oh, you mean 'Sickbed' Smith?   

[Doc Democracy]

Hmm.  i actually killed a character last night.  Was not playing HERO, it was 2D20 Conan.  I pulled every lever to try and avoid that outcome but due to dice rolls and, more importantly, player decisions, it became almost inevitable that there was going to be one or more player deaths.  My work at that point switched from seeking ti avoid the death but to make it as meaningful as possible and how it might forward the plot for those that survived.

 

It was useful that it came on the denouement of the campaign.  I also put in an option for the player - an easy way out, if they were willing to go against their underlying morality.  The whole campaign was about opposing a dread sorceror who had kidnapped a woman they had orginally been escorting to an arranged marriage.  The players got drawn into opposing the sorceror as they sought to reclaim their charge.  The PC sorceror (he insisted despite my suggestion that sorcerors in Conan die horribly and are rarely PCs) foudn humself in the midst of a very physical conflict, had been injured and likely to be injured again.  He managed to avoid this (though the whole time failing to take good action to take down the enemy) for some time but it was becoming likely that he would recieve a fatal wound.  I had his own demonic patron offer him aid if he would, instead, sacrifice the woman they had been chasing to it rather than allowing her to be sacrificed to the enemy sorceror's patron.

 

I was willing to introduce Deus Ex Machina on the invite of the player to avoid the kill.  That might have resulted in intra-party conflict but, in such heightened situations, I think the drama was warranted. 

 

Turns out the player (and thus the character) was morally sound.  Did not take the easy route to survival, but fell under the onslaught but did so in a way that allowed his companions to escape (another element of Deus Ex Machina, again on the invitation of the players) in the interest of engaging (and heroic) narrative.

 

Doc

[Hugh Neilson]

On 7/10/2024 at 7:10 AM, Sean Waters said:

I suppose the logical adjunct of that line of thought is that we needn't bother with Body and Body damage at all.  I am not a PC killer when I am running games but I do like them to feel that death is a possibility on occasion.  The real problem to my mind (and I may be wittering on about this elsewhere at length) is that damage is either gone in 60 seconds or tiresomely slow to recover, with nothing really occupying the middle ground.  There's absolutely other things to lose than your life to make things interesting, but if there isn't that sense of deadly peril I think it informs the gameplay and the story flow.  I mean you know that, in most movies you watch, the Hero is not going to die but you still need to feel they might to keep you on the edge of your seat, and there's plenty of examples of series where a main character snuffs it and it works really well.

 

It feels like some games are headed to the "no risk of death" model. How fast to D&D characters recover in the latest editions?  D&D for several editions has been largely about taking damage in the encounter, then healing it all back up again before the next encounter, as opposed to the slow attrition model of earlier editions, and most early RPGs (Champions was the first notable exception, at least in the games I played).

When a character dies in fiction, it was a writer decision.  To what extent was the writer the GM versus the player versus the dice? That depends on the game itself. But I do believe that game design has shifted over the years to more detailed characters (more work to create a character) and less lethality (lower likelihood of having to go create a new one).

 

[Sean Waters]

16 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

It feels like some games are headed to the "no risk of death" model. How fast to D&D characters recover in the latest editions?  D&D for several editions has been largely about taking damage in the encounter, then healing it all back up again before the next encounter, as opposed to the slow attrition model of earlier editions, and most early RPGs (Champions was the first notable exception, at least in the games I played).

When a character dies in fiction, it was a writer decision.  To what extent was the writer the GM versus the player versus the dice? That depends on the game itself. But I do believe that game design has shifted over the years to more detailed characters (more work to create a character) and less lethality (lower likelihood of having to go create a new one).

 

 

Healing is quick in D&D, but there's still a real risk of dying in encounters (or at least there is a feeling of real risk), even at higher levels - you get a lot tougher but so do the opponents - and D&D is set in a magical world where we can suspend our disbelief because, well, magic. Anyway after a couple of encounters most of the magic is used up and you can't necessarily nip back to the hostel for a kip, so it becomes about resource management, which can be interesting.  You don't get that in Hero and D&D is a very popular game.

 

Some Hero genres also allow that suspension of disbelief (magic/superscience), but there still needs to be core rules for which exceptions can be created.

 

I agree there is less lethality: D&D evolved from wargames and in the original Traveller you could die during character creation, but the threat needs to remain.  People get excited on roller coasters, not because they actually think they are going to die, but because it feels like they might.

[dmjalund]

2 hours ago, Sean Waters said:

You don't get that in Hero and D&D is a very popular game.

If you have the right mandatory limitations on magic, you still could

[Sean Waters]

1 hour ago, dmjalund said:

If you have the right mandatory limitations on magic, you still could

 

Well, yes, but D&D is a specific genre and Hero is a generic system.  It would be nice to be able to have rules that did not need too much tweaking for genres, my preference being for a default that meant that characters were not likely to die but felt as if they could.  The other element is not having characters out of commission for too long but for them to still feel like there are consequences to combat other than the binary absolutely fine/dead.  Even D&D with all that magic often does not allow the whole party to recover to full health as quickly as absolutely anyone in Hero who has not taken Body.  It may be that we are better off only occupying the middle ground and avoiding the extremes.

[Doc Democracy]

3 minutes ago, Sean Waters said:

Well, yes, but D&D is a specific genre and Hero is a generic system.

 

That might be where a lot of the problems come from.

I reckon I would be open to a HERO book that gave me a specific look at the system, built for a setting which was in the book with two or three adventures.  The game in the book would have been built by system rules and the system decisions made would be a downloadable extra for the gurus among us, but for the newbie, it would be a get to the table today style offering.

 

Obviously, I would download the document, suck air through my teeth, wonder who was responsible and rag on the decisions made, tweak things to my satisfaction and play a non-standard character. But you would not need to.

Some of those games might make D&D style decisions about lethality, others might lean hard on the risk of death and disaster.

 

Doc

[Sean Waters]

On 7/12/2024 at 1:08 PM, Doc Democracy said:

 

That might be where a lot of the problems come from.

I reckon I would be open to a HERO book that gave me a specific look at the system, built for a setting which was in the book with two or three adventures.  The game in the book would have been built by system rules and the system decisions made would be a downloadable extra for the gurus among us, but for the newbie, it would be a get to the table today style offering.

 

Obviously, I would download the document, suck air through my teeth, wonder who was responsible and rag on the decisions made, tweak things to my satisfaction and play a non-standard character. But you would not need to.

Some of those games might make D&D style decisions about lethality, others might lean hard on the risk of death and disaster.

 

Doc

 

 

Indeed: I've often though that the biggest mistake Hero make is putting Character Creation first.  If you know how to play you know how to build a character but if you do not know how to play, you don't and character creation is a steep learning curve.  If we started with the game mechanics (which are pretty straightforward) and provided starter characters and a starter scenario I think the whole thing would feel much more accessible - having played a bit, people would then be able to tweak their characters with confidence or even build then from scratch.