HA's vs. HKA's

[Snarf]

I'm trying to make some weapons for a campaign I'm working on and I need some help from more experienced players. Basically I'm confused about how HAs and HKAs compare to each other. I haven't done many games with Hero and the ones I have done used only EBs and HAs.

 

Do HAs and HKAs of equal APs have the same power in combat? For instance, would a 3d6 HA weapon be as powerful as a 1d6 HKA weapon in a typical fantasy heroic-level game? If not, how should I balance the two damage types?

[Talon]

HKAs tend to be more powerful, because their BODY damage is only stopped by armor. If most characters wear armor, HAs do slightly more STUN damage -- if the average armor is enough that people aren't taking a lot of BODY, normal attacks will take them down earlier. (For example, a 1d6 HKA does 9.3 STUN on average, while a 3d6 HA does 10.5.)

 

I once used a group of NPCs who all had normal attacks and did notice the STUN difference -- it wasn't unbalancing but it was there.

 

OTOH, if it's a low-armor game, HKAs will be much better as people will be dying left and right.

[Galadorn]

Originally posted by Talon

HKAs tend to be more powerful, because their BODY damage is only stopped by armor. If most characters wear armor, HAs do slightly more STUN damage -- if the average armor is enough that people aren't taking a lot of BODY, normal attacks will take them down earlier. (For example, a 1d6 HKA does 9.3 STUN on average, while a 3d6 HA does 10.5.)

 

I once used a group of NPCs who all had normal attacks and did notice the STUN difference -- it wasn't unbalancing but it was there.

 

OTOH, if it's a low-armor game, HKAs will be much better as people will be dying left and right.

 

I agree with 99% of what was said here. I've played Hero Games for twenty-two years. Well I don't if I would say that HKA's are much "better" in low-armor games, but they are more effective.

[Snarf]

Thanks guys, that made it a lot clearer for me.

 

My intention for the game is to make the armor equal to the average killing damage weapons are doing at any given time, so a little bit of body and quite a bit of stun should be getting through. But a lot of monsters will have no resistant defenses at all, so I guess it'll all cancel out.

[Outsider]

HKAs are also more effective than HAs because their damage is much more variable, at least if you are actually rolling the dice to determine it instead of using standard effect.

 

For example, a 3d6 normal attack has 216 possible results, ranging from 3 to 18, distributed as follows :

 

_3 x

_4 xxx

_5 xxxxxx

_6 xxxxxxxxxx

_7 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

_8 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

_9 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

10 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

11 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

12 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

13 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

14 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

15 xxxxxxxxxx

16 xxxxxx

17 xxx

18 x

 

 

 

A 1d6 killing attack, using a random stun multiplier (1d6-1, 1 minimum) has 36 possible results, distributed as follows :

 

_1 xx

_2 xxx

_3 xxx

_4 xxxx

_5 xxx

_6 xxxx

_8 xx

_9 x

10 xx

12 xxx

15 xx

16 x

18 x

20 xx

24 x

25 x

30 x

 

 

Standardizing the stun die at '3' will result 6 possibilites, with the following distribution :

 

_3 x

_6 x

_9 x

12 x

15 x

18 x

 

 

Comparing the three, you will see that, while the Normal Attack does the same or more damage on average (10.50) than the Killing Attack (9.33 or 10.5), its chances of delivering a crippling blow are much lower. In both cases, the killing attack has a 1/6 chance of delivering 18 stun (or more), as compared to the normal attacks 1/216 chance of doing so.

 

Comparing blows that do 14 or more stun, the normal attack moves up to a ~1/6 chance, but the killing attack then has either a 1/4 chance (random die) or a 1/3 chance (fixed multiple)