Balancing damage and defenses

[Steve]

I’ve been looking over possible combinations of PD/ED and Damage Negation (Stun Only) to try and get a balance that allows a possibility of BODY damage without too frequent stunning results.

 

With a 12d6 attack, the average is 12 BODY and 42 STUN.

 

If I give the character 12 PD, they can ignore the average BODY damage but will likely be stunned. Slightly better rolls will start doing BODY damage.

 

Adding 6d6 of Damage Negation (STUN Only), the average STUN damage drops to 21 and BODY remains at 12.

 

If I raise the PD 25% (to 15), BODY damage still remains likely, and the character will take some STUN damage with each hit.

 

A high roll with this setup could yield STUN damage in the thirties and around 18-20 BODY, which would be serious damage.

 

I’m wondering if anyone has a rule of thumb that looks at damage classes, regular defenses and Damage Negation in combo to try and lower the STUN roar a bit while still allowing possible BODY damage.

Edited April 2 by Steve

[unclevlad]

An issue I have with Hero is, there's not much stun-only defense.  There's ways to do it, but they start out expensive.  One of my preferred methods is some Armor, for the BODY, and then Damage Negation, STUN Only;  that's not bad.  Something like 8 armor + 4d6 Negation, STUN only, is 25 points, for 22 total defense.

 

The 2 starter questions:  

--how much BODY defense do I need?  OK, I'm biased as heck here.  It's not 12d6 normal...it's 4d6 killing I want to address.  14 BODY is average, so my target range would be 12-18 resistant, total.  (If you have, say, 3 dice of Negation, I count that as 3 BODY.)  

--stun...how often should I get stunned?  I'm REALLY biased here...because my preference is the more realistic one...just because you go down is a *better* reason to target you...so you don't get back up.  NOT the most common comic trope that a hero that goes down, gets ignored.  So...getting stunned, for me, is VERY, VERY BAD.  

 

So...we start with the damage.  12d6...ok.  What's my CON?  Let's go with 23.  By my lights, a 10% risk of getting stunned is dangerously HIGH.  Anydice.com is a great help here.  On 12d6?  50+ happens 10% of the time.  51+ happens 7.6% of the time, 52+ happens 5.4% of the time.  So for me...I need to block 27 STUN, with my 23 CON...minimum.

We can use other stun frequency numbers easily.  12d6, the damage percentages look like this:

		DEF Needed to avoid STUN
Dice Total T	% chance >=T	CON 18	CON 23
30	98.34	12	7
31	97.46	13	8
32	96.23	14	9
33	94.57	15	10
34	92.4	16	11
35	89.64	17	12
36	86.24	18	13
37	82.17	19	14
38	77.44	20	15
39	72.08	21	16
40	66.19	22	17
41	59.89	23	18
42	53.33	24	19
43	46.67	25	20
44	40.11	26	21
45	33.81	27	22
46	27.92	28	23
47	22.56	29	24
48	17.83	30	25
49	13.76	31	26
50	10.36	32	27
51	7.6	33	28
52	5.43	34	29
53	3.77	35	30

 

And obviously, you can tweak the 2 right hand columns easily, as that defense to avoid being stunned is just Damage - CON.  So if you only want to be stunned by 1/4 of the full-strength strikes...you're looking at 23 total DEF with a 23 CON.

 

The 3rd question is more complex...how many hits can I take?  Note that the 27 total defense vs. STUN there...I'm taking 15 STUN per average attack.  Well, am I easy to hit or hard to hit?  Am I likely to be a focus of multiple attackers, or just 1 or 2?  If we're outnumbered, how many of em will have real, worrisome attacks...if there's 3 grunts on me, but they only have 8d6 attacks, well, they're barely gonna affect me.  Also note that the ease with which you can take an extra recovery is a factor...how easy is that for you?  SPD is an issue, but what, if anything, do you have to drop, since you can't take a recovery if you're spending END.  BUT, note that if you're taking 20 STUN a pop, you're not lasting very long unless you've got a LOT of STUN.  And getting KO'd is extra bad.

 

[LoneWolf]

Normal attacks do a lot more stun than body by their very nature.  If you want to do body, use a killing attack.  In 6th edition they reduced the stun multiple on killing attacks so that they are no longer wild card they used to be.  In 5th edition and below the single most powerful 60-point power was the plain 4d6 RKA.   On a good roll it could take out anything.   Now killing attacks do on the less stun, but more body than a normal attack.  

 

If we use a 4d6 RKA instead of a 12d6 normal attack the average damage is 14 body and 28 stun.  Someone with 12 points of resistant defense is going to take 2 body and 16 stun assuming no other defenses.  If they don’t have any resistant defense, they take 14 body and 16 stun.   

 

If you do want to have a chance of doing body with a normal attack and avoiding being stunned damage reduction might work better than damage negation.  Damage negation is good at stopping x amount of damage, but once you go above its threshold it does nothing.  Damage Reduction on the other hand is actually more effective on high dice attacks.  Stun only damage negation is also going to slow down the game as it will require all attackers to roll and calculate two separate sets of dice.   Stun only damage reduction will be easier to calculate.  
 

Edited April 3 by LoneWolf

[unclevlad]

Damage negation is expensive.  2 dice of negation is 2 BODY (resistant, 3 points) and 5 STUN (can't be more than 5 points, and should likely be less).  But it costs 10.

 

Damage reduction, for what you get, and for how it interacts with other defenses (inefficiently), is hideously expensive.  50% DR is 30 points.  That's 6 dice of negation...21 STUN.  50% DR would only remove 21 STUN when you're taking 42...or the average STUN of a 12d6 attack with NO defenses applied.  You have to have some defense against the BODY of the attack...which would reduce the amount that gets reduced. 

 

Damage reduction makes a lot more sense when:

a)  you're playing 5E.  There's no other way to mitigate the obscene STUN possible with average to above average BODY, and that 4x or 5x STUN...which is quite likely.

b)  you use hit locations.  I abhor them, always have, always will.  Same thing, tho...you have potential 4x and 5x STUN...20% chance of a 4x, 5% chance of a 5x...and you're rolling the capricious killing attack dice.  There's about a 1 in 7 chance that you'll get x2 BODY and x4 or x5 STUN...so if it's 16 BODY rolled, it's 32 BODY...even with 10 resistant, you may be bleeding out...and 64 or 80 STUN.  

 

This is less about protection from being stunned, and more about avoiding being stunned and KO'd into next week.  You're out of the fight altogether, unless someone has Aid or Healing.

 

25% DR is basically worthless.  75% DR is just too freaking expensive, given its substantial mechanical drawback.

 

The point I was making, too:  for scaling how much BODY you have to be concerned with...only KAs matter, unless the GM's promised not to use them, or use them very sparingly, and possibly at lower max DCs.  For STUN, barring my conditions above, you're only worried about normal attacks.  The defense to mitigate the BODY damage from the KAs...not eliminate it but keep it down to manageable levels...will bounce the BODY from a normal attack of the same intensity (DCs).  

 

OK, qualifier...a 4d6 KA's BODY damage curve...first number is that much BODY or more, second is % chance.

14  55.63

15  44.37

16  33.56

17  23.92

18  15.90

19  9.72

 

So it's those 17 and 18...now toss in the 5 or 6 (1/3 of the time) on the stun mult.  51+ STUN is about 8%;  54+ is about 5%.  So...not all that likely, and about comparable with the frequency of that much STUN from a normal 12d6 attack.  So, it's still a consideration.  And, yes, I know...the probability that the KA STUN will be negligible is huge...but that's why PCs don't want to use them, and that's NOT how you measure risk *as* a PC.  It's not the average, it's the uncommon that matters.

[LoneWolf]

I have to disagree with DR 25% being useless.   It is less effective vs low dice attacks, but more effective against high dice attacks.  25% damage reduction and 3 DC’s of damage negation will both mean that a character with it will take a 13d6 attack to stun a character with a 23 CON, given 12 PD.  UP to about 16d6 the results are fairly similar, above 16d6 the damage reduction provides better defense. 

 

If we go up to 50% DR and -6 DC of damage negation the dynamics change.  The Damage Negation provides near absolute protection up to 9d6, but reaches the stun point at 16d6 vs 17d6 for the 50% DR.  Above that point the DR gives much better protection than the DN.

 

[Grailknight]

We had a simple rule: How long does it take to beat your evil twin?

 

1 turn, you may be too damage heavy or defense light.

 

2 turns, just about right.

 

3 or more turns, you may be too defense heavy or attack light.

 

 

[Steve]

Thanks for the chart, LoneWolf. The numbers are interesting.

 

What I started this thread for was to see if there was a way to defend against STUN and BODY that would allow occasional points of BODY to be taken but also be able to soak a lot of STUN yet not be immune to stunning effects. Jutst buying additional points of PD and ED versus STUN only seemed inefficient.

 

Damage Negation was my initial idea for soaking STUN damage, since six dice (STUN only; 20 Real Points, plus also defends against Drains versus STUN) seemed a good level versus 50% Damage Reduction (Resistant but STUN only: 20 Real Points). The ability to be resistant and also resist STUN drains was a nice bonus for Damage Negation. This is also an ability that could scale. If everyone is throwing around 12d6 then six levels of DN would work. If it’s 16d6 then that could be bumped up to 8 levels of DN.

 

I’m trying to find a build guideline to replicate a certain flavor of combat, where BODY damage can happen a little more easily but STUN is held down to allow for combats to go longer.

 

it might be that I will need to combine regular defenses like PD and ED, but also include both DN and DR.

 

 

[unclevlad]

LW:  you're assuming a static level of defenses outside the DR or DN.  If that base defense 12 changes, then the net results change...and if they go *up*, then DR does worse.  That's the root problem with DR;  it does best as a standalone defense, but it's not good enough to *be* a standalone defense.  

 

I don't care about how, with only 12 base defense, 25% DR compares to 3 dice DN.  Why?  Because that's totally unacceptably LOW defense, IMO.  With the DN, you're facing 9d6 with 12 defense.  So, 9d6 > 35 stuns you.  You're stunned 22% of the time.  With the DR, it's

 

(12d6 - 12) * 0.75 > 23

12d6 - 12 > 92/3 --> 31

 

so 12d6 > 43 will stun you.  That's 40% of the time.

 

Those, for me, are both MUCH too high, and I suspect, 40% of the time would be too high for most of us.  Against 12d6, with 3 negation, 14 defense would mean you get stunned on 38+ on 9d6, which is down to 12% of the time.  With the 25% DR, it's 45+ on 12d6, which is still 34%.

 

And we can take it further...by your own chart, the 25% DR draws even with the 3 DN at 15 dice...when you're taking 30 STUN each time.  Your defenses are *insanely* out of whack, IMO.  Against 15d6?  I'd want closer to 20-22 defense...and my DR's effectiveness drops 2-3 points.

 

 

 

[LoneWolf]

If you want to have a chance to do body but limit the amount of stun using a killing attack and limiting resistant defense is probably the best way.  This does assume you are using 6th edition rules and not using the hit locations.  Normal attacks are designed to allow combat to be less lethal.  Trying to make them lethal and limiting the stun is kind of like trying to force a square peg into a round whole.  Instead of trying to figure a way to get normal attacks to act more like killing attack, why not simply change the assumption and have most attacks default to killing attacks.  Martial arts often include a killing strike so make those more common also. 

 

Damage negation is better at lower end of the scale to the point it provides complete immunity to those attacks.  It works really well for simulating something that ignores low level threats and provides some protection vs all attacks.  Damage reduction is just the opposite, it provides marginal benefits vs the low level threat, but significant the higher end.  What it does not do is to increase the dice where the character can ignore the attack.  Since DR does not eliminate damage you could skip the STUN only and allow it to work on BODY.   This could help if you want some BODY to get through, but don’t want things to get too lethal.    

 

By the way in 6th edition resistant DR also reduces AVAD and Drain STUN and BODY.

 

@Unclevlad I based my analysis on the OP. That is why I used only 12 def.   Steve posted in a follow up that he is trying to replicate a specific flavor of combat.  Without knowing the full details of the campaign all we can do is base things on what is posted.  From the sound of it defenses may be capped at a certain point, but that does not mean the GM cannot have an NPC outside of those limits.  

[unclevlad]

It's fine using the 12 DEF, the problem is, you can't keep that assumption forever as the damage scales up.

 

A shorter analysis?  3 dice of negation basically subtracts 10 STUN, for this discussion.  For the 25% reduction to subtract 10 STUN, you have to be taking 40 past the defenses.

 

And in 6E, resistant negation also applies to AVADs, and Drain BODY and STUN...because it's clear, to me, that damage negation is intended to replace damage reduction.  It's more incremental and it's more effective, barring the issues with the stun mults for hit locations or in 5E.  

 

8 hours ago, Steve said:

I’m trying to find a build guideline to replicate a certain flavor of combat, where BODY damage can happen a little more easily but STUN is held down to allow for combats to go longer.

 

it might be that I will need to combine regular defenses like PD and ED, but also include both DN and DR.

 

To do "some BODY, but not too much"...be really careful with the KAs.  The BODY of a normal attack will only rarely be more than 20-25% more than the dice rolled...more than 15 BODY on 12d6 should be uncommon.  (The simplest way to get 15+ BODY is 3+ 6's, and no ones...that's about 20%.)  So, something like 14 BODY defense is probably good enough...against normal attacks.  The problem is, if you have 4d6 killing...that's the *average* BODY.  It'll do 18+ about 16% of the time.  OK, if full-DC KAs are *intended* to be a threat...someone with a big KA like that is a High Priority Target!!!...and it's unusual that this shows up?  Then go with extensive resistant defenses, right around the average KA BODY.  For the rest...STUN-only Negation.  You have good granularity now, you can pick the amount to suit your needs.  It is a bit more awkward, sure, but it isn't hard...with 12d6 and 5 dice negation?  Roll 7 dice, count BODY and STUN;  roll 5 dice, and count the BODY only, which is trivial.  It should SAVE time, as counting the stun on 7 dice should be faster than on 12 dice.  And if you want to simplify it, especially for KA STUN? Just subtract 3.5 STUN per die, rounding in the player's favor.  So 5 dice negation?  Knock off 18 STUN.  Of course, if you have, say, 6 dice of negation?  Then it doesn't matter, it's just 2 dice killing that gets negated.  Simple.

[Grailknight]

10 hours ago, Steve said:

Thanks for the chart, LoneWolf. The numbers are interesting.

 

What I started this thread for was to see if there was a way to defend against STUN and BODY that would allow occasional points of BODY to be taken but also be able to soak a lot of STUN yet not be immune to stunning effects. Jutst buying additional points of PD and ED versus STUN only seemed inefficient.

 

Damage Negation was my initial idea for soaking STUN damage, since six dice (STUN only; 20 Real Points, plus also defends against Drains versus STUN) seemed a good level versus 50% Damage Reduction (Resistant but STUN only: 20 Real Points). The ability to be resistant and also resist STUN drains was a nice bonus for Damage Negation. This is also an ability that could scale. If everyone is throwing around 12d6 then six levels of DN would work. If it’s 16d6 then that could be bumped up to 8 levels of DN.

 

I’m trying to find a build guideline to replicate a certain flavor of combat, where BODY damage can happen a little more easily but STUN is held down to allow for combats to go longer.

 

it might be that I will need to combine regular defenses like PD and ED, but also include both DN and DR.

 

 

 

Adopt the Fusion rules. Add the additional Characteristic of Hit Points which are equal to Stun. Then for every 5 or 10 Stun taken, the character takes 1 HP. When HP reach 0, the character takes 1 Body instead. HP heal at the rate in REC/day. Not immediately life threatening, but a long day of intense battles will wear down anyone and you'll be a few days healing up to full health.

[LoneWolf]

Don’t get me wrong I am a big fan of damage negation, but it is better at creating a high threshold of damage.  It is great for characters that are immune to damage below a specific point.  Damage Reduction is better for the character that is not immune but can take a lot of damage and still keep functioning. It really depends on how you want your character to work.  If you want to be immune completely immune to small arms but take damage vs larger attacks DN works better.  

 

A character with moderate defenses and 50% DR can probably take one hit from DR Destroyer and still be able to stay in the combat.  That same character can be nicked and dimed by enough agents. The character with the same defense and -6 DC of DN will completely ignore the agents, but likely be taken out by the same single hit by DR Destroyer.  Both concepts are equally valid.        

 

If you scale up the defenses the results show similar results.  With 15 defense vs a 12d6 attack 50% DR results in 13.5 points of damage, -6 DC of damage negation results in 6. At 15d6 the DR damage is 18.75, where the DN is 16.5.  At 18d6, the DR damage is 24, and the DN becomes 24.  
  
For the same cost the results of DR and DN are fairy similar
 

[Gauntlet]

I really don't think they are trying to get rid of Damage Reduction and replace it with Damage Negation. That goes against one of the greater strengths of Hero. Having both gives you more options that do work in different ways.

[unclevlad]

1 hour ago, Gauntlet said:

I really don't think they are trying to get rid of Damage Reduction and replace it with Damage Negation. That goes against one of the greater strengths of Hero. Having both gives you more options that do work in different ways.

 

The ONLY time I've considered DR is when I've got points to waste.  It's that bad, mechanically.  And ok, it's more options, but at the cost of system bloat.  I don't think they'll eliminate DR either...but that's because there's extreme inertia to completely remove anything from prior editions.  Tweak?  Sure.  Remove?  Rare...unless it's just too messed up, like Transfer.  DR isn't broken, it's just too rigid and inefficient to be anything but narrow, niche power.

 

1 hour ago, LoneWolf said:

Don’t get me wrong I am a big fan of damage negation, but it is better at creating a high threshold of damage.  It is great for characters that are immune to damage below a specific point.  Damage Reduction is better for the character that is not immune but can take a lot of damage and still keep functioning. It really depends on how you want your character to work.  If you want to be immune completely immune to small arms but take damage vs larger attacks DN works better.  

 

A character with moderate defenses and 50% DR can probably take one hit from DR Destroyer and still be able to stay in the combat.  That same character can be nicked and dimed by enough agents. The character with the same defense and -6 DC of DN will completely ignore the agents, but likely be taken out by the same single hit by DR Destroyer.  Both concepts are equally valid.        

 

If you scale up the defenses the results show similar results.  With 15 defense vs a 12d6 attack 50% DR results in 13.5 points of damage, -6 DC of damage negation results in 6. At 15d6 the DR damage is 18.75, where the DN is 16.5.  At 18d6, the DR damage is 24, and the DN becomes 24.  
  
For the same cost the results of DR and DN are fairy similar
 

 

That's 50% DR.  You're right...that's a viable approach for fringe attacks, particularly for characters with higher DCV and recovery.    But start estimating how many hits the character can take before he drops...against more routine damage.  You're studying only 1 specific aspect...getting stunned...and even at that, your own numbers show that you're only doing better when the attacks are significantly higher than usual.

 

It might be interesting to do a detailed simulation, such as Grail suggested.  A vs. B, where they're basically identical...except that A has reduction, while B has negation at equal points.  Now run the combat, phase by phase.  Let both attack at the same time;  obviously going first would be huge.

 

--each side rolls to hit...11- for both.  Attacks will be equal, and *damage will be rolled.*  For the negation, the dice just get removed before rolling.  

--if a character is stunned, he loses his next phase...so the other guy gets a free attack.

--to throw in as much as possible, we'll include recoveries...both post-12 and, when necessary, after KOs

--the winner is declared when an opponent is KOd...because that means 0 DCV for that phase, and he's taking 2x STUN automatically.  Draws are of course possible, should both be KOd at the same time.

 

I can't think of anything else...?  But I might code this up.  I am a purist, so I'll use a statistically good RNG, if I do, and run at least a few thousand 'combats'.  Can probably parameterize it...base defense, attack strength, REC, even the basic attack roll they both use...as I said, getting hit more often should penalize the DR character, so it's a legit parameter.

EDIT:  oh, there's something.  The fights start on 12, as usual...then let em run 2 full turns after that.  If both are up, call it a draw.  Need a termination condition in any case.  So that means I need to set SPD...that can be another parameter to tweak, altho probably one of the last knobs I'd adjust.

[Gauntlet]

12 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

The ONLY time I've considered DR is when I've got points to waste.  It's that bad, mechanically.  And ok, it's more options, but at the cost of system bloat.  I don't think they'll eliminate DR either...but that's because there's extreme inertia to completely remove anything from prior editions.  Tweak?  Sure.  Remove?  Rare...unless it's just too messed up, like Transfer.  DR isn't broken, it's just too rigid and inefficient to be anything but narrow, niche power.

 

Just can't agree with you. I have used in on several heroes and villains. It automatically takes the load off of the attacks and truly can allow a character to stay in the fight for a long time. Hell, Another nice thing about it is that it is a defense that has no direct attack type to boycott it. Even Damage Negation can be taken away with Reduced Negation. Plus, Damage Negation reduces based on the attack value, should the attack have +1 in advantages then it will take twice as much to reduce each dice. In fact for most heroes I have created I have found DR much more valuable than DN as it is simply straight up defense. And as it does allow some damage to get through always, it does make it so that the character isn't completely unstoppable, but cannot be single shot most of the time.

[LoneWolf]

I created a spreadsheet that you can change the base DEF to compare an equal amount of points in DR vs DN.  

DRvDN.xlsx

[Grailknight]

Damage Reduction lost some of its shine when the STUN Lotto went away. Damage Negation is generally better for a given value of defense until the DC's of incoming attack reach a threshold.

 

1/4 DR = 3d6 DN so DR is better when x-3 DC's of attack gets more than 10 STUN past defenses, 1/2 DR = 6d6 DN so becomes better at 21 STUN past x-6 DC's of attack and 3/4 DR goes against 12d6 DN so you need x-12 DC's of attack achieving 42 STUN past defenses. In most cases straight PD/ED is more effective but if we want to get some STUN past defenses DR will do that at all 3 levels whereas DN may stop some lower attacks completely.

 

I see Lone Wolf has given a spreadsheet while I was slowly typing away.

 

[Steve]

While I appreciate the suggestion of using killing attacks, that’s not quite what I was looking for. That seems more like the comic book The Authority. That’s much darker than I was intending.

 

Consider two Kryptonians fighting. They can do some BODY damage to each other, but a fight takes quite a while as they don’t seem to be stunning each other.

[Gauntlet]

One thing I have noticed was that many players consider the only type of defense being PD, ED, or Power but there is another type of defense that is rather major. This being DCV. Many characters may rely on not getting hit rather than just being able to take the attack. High DCV, along with high DEX rolls for Dive for Cover, can make the character rather tough to beat. Sometime even tougher than that high Brick with High Defenses.

[Grailknight]

29 minutes ago, Steve said:

While I appreciate the suggestion of using killing attacks, that’s not quite what I was looking for. That seems more like the comic book The Authority. That’s much darker than I was intending.

 

Consider two Kryptonians fighting. They can do some BODY damage to each other, but a fight takes quite a while as they don’t seem to be stunning each other.

 

That would be best simulated using the Fusion rules I suggested. Long combats where you take a great deal of STUN but recover drain the hp and eventually result in BODY damage.

 

Another option would be a Penetrating KA that only works with Activation that only works on targets at 33% of their STUN.

[unclevlad]

That DR works against even advantaged damage is a point in its favor...but also, probably an argument for *replacing* it.  Because there is no counter.  The value of its application against AVADs, which I personally REALLY dislike, is gonna depend on how often those attacks get used against the character.  In both cases, tho...the lack of an effective response is also something to avoid.  You make the case...that's why it's pricey.  Note that applying it to a villain is much less of an issue, because the final point total for a villain is more flexible anyway.  

 

Actually...the hole for DR is autofire.  Multiple hits will accumulate fast because each one is doing a decent amount.  If I'm allowed 10d6 AF, and I can get 2 hits, considerably more will get through than if I have simple defenses or damage negation.  Negation applies fully to each round, so it's 7d6 twice...call it 19, with 15 DEF.  OTOH, 15 DEF reduces each 10d6 to 20 STUN...which drops to 15 each.

 

If you're gonna go this way, then 50% DR tends to be the sweet spot, when DR is the anchor of your defenses.  25% is just too low, IMO, and 75% just becomes too expensive.  You need *some* defense even with 75%

 

2 minutes ago, Grailknight said:

1/4 DR = 3d6 DN so DR is better when x-3 DC's of attack gets more than 10 STUN past defenses, 1/2 DR = 6d6 DN so becomes better at 21 STUN past x-6 DC's of attack and 3/4 DR goes against 12d6 DN so you need x-12 DC's of attack achieving 42 STUN past defenses. In most cases straight PD/ED is more effective but if we want to get some STUN past defenses DR will do that at all 3 levels whereas DN may stop some lower attacks completely.

 

 

No, this doesn't work.  The relevant STUN computations are

DR:  0.75 * (Nd6 - DEF)

DN:  (N-3)d6 - DEF

 

Note that this is the STUN you take, so what you want to solve for is N such that DR < DN.

So, 

0.75 * (Nd6 - DEF) < (N-3)d6 - DEF

Nd6 - DEF < 4/3* (N-3)dt - 4/3 DEF --> (4/3N - 4)d6 - 4/3 DEF

Nd6 < (4/3N - 4)d6 - 1/3 DEF

Nd6 < 4/3Nd6 - 4d6 - 1/3 DEF 

4d6 + 1/3 DEF < (1/3N) d6

and finally

12d6 + DEF < Nd6.  

 

So with NO defense, they even out at 12d6.  At 12 DEF, N rises to 15.  At 12 DEF, you'll get 12 STUN past defenses at 7d6.  So with DR, 10d6 - 12 is 23 STUN...so 17-18 gets past. 

 

Or to simplify a bit...DR and DN mean nothing for the first S dice, where S is the dice to saturate your base defenses.  (So S = 4 for 14 DEF, just to keep things neat.)  Then DR < DN when 

0.75 * N < N - 3 --> N <  4/3N -4 --> N > 12  or

0.5 * N < N - 6  --> N < 2N - 12 --> N > 12  or

0.25 * N < N - 12 --> N < 4N - 48 --> N > 16

 

25% DR is only removing the equivalent of 1d6 for every 4 dice of damage...only the dice actually DOING something.  The actual dice of the attack has to be higher, likely notably higher with the stronger DR.

 

And there's the other side here, that these single-point computations don't capture...the average damage.  For this, the base attack is 12d6 and the DEF is 14.  Then for reduction, roll 12d6, and I believe the rounding is correct...it's computed as FLOOR(0.75 * AfterDefs + 0.49).  FLOOR is the largest integer < the number...so FLOOR(0.75 * 17) is 12.75.  +0.49 gets it over 13...so it's 13.  OTOH, FLOOR(0.75*18) is 13.5...+0.49 is still 13.99 and so it's still 13.  

 

The number at the end is the total expectation, for all rolls...it's the average STUN taken.

 

rolled damage	% chance	after defs	after reduct	expectation
27	0.26	13	10	0.026
28	0.41	14	10	0.041
29	0.61	15	11	0.0671
30	0.88	16	12	0.1056
31	1.23	17	13	0.1599
32	1.66	18	13	0.2158
33	2.17	19	14	0.3038
34	2.76	20	15	0.414
35	3.4	21	16	0.544
36	4.07	22	16	0.6512
37	4.73	23	17	0.8041
38	5.35	24	18	0.963
39	5.89	25	19	1.1191
40	6.3	26	19	1.197
41	6.56	27	20	1.312
42	6.65	28	21	1.3965
43	6.56	29	22	1.4432
44	6.3	30	22	1.386
45	5.89	31	23	1.3547
46	5.35	32	24	1.284
47	4.73	33	25	1.1825
48	4.07	34	25	1.0175
49	3.4	35	26	0.884
50	2.76	36	27	0.7452
51	2.17	37	28	0.6076
52	1.66	38	28	0.4648
53	1.23	39	29	0.3567
54	0.88	40	30	0.264
55	0.61	41	31	0.1891
56	0.41	42	31	0.1271
57	0.26	43	32	0.0832
				20.7097

 

 

Now for 3d6 Negation, we do much the same, but I'm only rolling 9d6.  It's simpler now...just subtract the DEF.

 

rolled damage	% chance	after defs	expectation
18	0.23	4	0.0092
19	0.39	5	0.0195
20	0.64	6	0.0384
21	0.98	7	0.0686
22	1.45	8	0.116
23	2.04	9	0.1836
24	2.75	10	0.275
25	3.57	11	0.3927
26	4.44	12	0.5328
27	5.32	13	0.6916
28	6.15	14	0.861
29	6.84	15	1.026
30	7.35	16	1.176
31	7.61	17	1.2937
32	7.61	18	1.3698
33	7.35	19	1.3965
34	6.84	20	1.368
35	6.15	21	1.2915
36	5.32	22	1.1704
37	4.44	23	1.0212
38	3.57	24	0.8568
39	2.75	25	0.6875
40	2.04	26	0.5304
41	1.45	27	0.3915
42	0.98	28	0.2744
43	0.64	29	0.1856
44	0.39	30	0.117
45	0.23	31	0.0713
			17.416

 

 

So, 3 more STUN on average, at the 12d6 level.

 

If you want to play with this, like change the DEF or change the dice...I copied the 2 left hand columns...the roll total and frequency...from AnyDice.  Yeah, I'm skipping some of the VERY low probability cases...but 58+ on 12d6 is about 1/3 of 1%, and 46+ on 9d6 is about 1/4 of 1%.  Same on the other end...26 or less on 12d6 is the same probability as 58 or more.  Tiny.

 

So...first 2 columns are just pasted in from AnyDice's Normal Distribution view, which has the exact distribution of each roll.  After DEF just subtracts the DEF you picked. This is the STUN you take for the negation case;  the dice were already removed.  For the DR, the final STUN is computed using the FLOOR(0.75 * AfterDefs + 0.49), as mentioned above.  Then Expectation is simply the STUN taken * the probability of the roll...and the total expectation, the average damage that will be taken, is the sum of the expectations of all possible cases.

 

Last, you still have to concern yourself with the frequency with which you get stunned.  Assuming 23 CON, it's at 24 net STUN.  That's 46 STUN with the DR, 38 STUN with the DN.  That's 28% vs 12.3%.

 

And sure, if you go up to 15 or 16 dice...the DR will pull even, but you're facing 75 point attacks with about 35 points of defenses *that aren't even efficient*.  That's why it doesn't matter to me...that, in itself, had DARN well be rare, because it's such a gross mismatch.

 

20 minutes ago, Steve said:

While I appreciate the suggestion of using killing attacks, that’s not quite what I was looking for. That seems more like the comic book The Authority. That’s much darker than I was intending.

 

Consider two Kryptonians fighting. They can do some BODY damage to each other, but a fight takes quite a while as they don’t seem to be stunning each other.

 

That's not a good example.  Those are plot device levels.  But to take the points

--they do very little BODY.  

--they also do very little STUN.

 

OK, then

a)  lots of negation, mostly;  a bit of armor, because the negation dice have to be less than the attack dice, so the armor makes up for it so BODY happens on a good roll.

b)  Significant armor, 75% DR.  Because it's not just avoiding getting stunned, you have to consider getting KOd.  At sane power levels, you may only drop the armor a couple points;  you *might* be able to drop the DR to 50%.

c)  Significant armor and STUN-only Negation.  This is the easiest to *tailor* to confidently get to what you want.

 

5 minutes ago, Gauntlet said:

One thing I have noticed was that many players consider the only type of defense being PD, ED, or Power but there is another type of defense that is rather major. This being DCV. Many characters may rely on not getting hit rather than just being able to take the attack. High DCV, along with high DEX rolls for Dive for Cover, can make the character rather tough to beat. Sometime even tougher than that high Brick with High Defenses.

 

Yeah, this is another angle.  More generally, when you don't get hit as often...could be the energy projector at range 6, not just the martial artist with DCV 11.  Here, getting knocked out is much less of a concern;  the defenses want to be tailored to avoid being stunned, mostly.

 

 

 

[Gauntlet]

9 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

Yeah, this is another angle.  More generally, when you don't get hit as often...could be the energy projector at range 6, not just the martial artist with DCV 11.  Here, getting knocked out is much less of a concern;  the defenses want to be tailored to avoid being stunned, mostly.

 

And if you have a higher speed then the opponent who hit you means that in the case they get lucky and stun you probably can recover before they get to attack again.

 

One thing I normally do in my games is reduce the SPEED for characters or villains. I just can't see that person, no matter how trained, have a SPEED higher than 5. I will make villains who are not speedsters or martial artists have a SPEED of 3 or 4 (and even 2 occasionally). I find it rather crazy in those games where the incredibly slow Brick has a SPEED of 6.

[unclevlad]

You don't have any choice.  You automatically lose your next action;  the only thing you can do is recover from getting stunned.  If nothing else, it means you're losing the attack.  Plus, until you can recover from being stunned, you're at 1/2 DCV.  And, at the end of the phase you're stunned, all your Constant powers that aren't persistent *stop*.  Were you flying?  You're falling now.  Bye-bye force field.

 

Yeah, character SPDs are a whole nuther thread.   Probably not even buried that much;  IIRC it wasn't that long ago.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

I just can't see that person, no matter how trained, have a SPEED higher than 5

 

I agree. Given that normal untrained people have a 2 speed, 5 is overwhelming.  4 is very well trained, and 5 is extreme top level human ability.

[Steve]

Another consideration is how high to buy CON. I’ve seen a number of brick types built with a 40 CON. I get that it’s supposed to represent super-health and tough to stun.

 

But if the defenses are constructed right, a high CON seems more of a point sink than might be necessary. A 30 CON on a brick with high enough defenses might be reasonable.

 

Although it’s not RAW legal, I’ve played around with concepts that use the Automaton ability Cannot Be Stunned in various limited fashions instead of buying really high CON.