My thoughts on Combat Luck

[WillS]

After reading JamesG's recent question about Combat Luck and Steve Long's answer, I was curious on what you all thought about it.

I see combat luck applicable to a character with little or no armor. Combat Luck is the reason that Batman, Daredevil, ect., are able to remarkably not get hit by bullets. Luke Sywalker had Combat Luck, no Stormtrooper was able to hit him.

I would do combat luck differently than the book does, here's my idea:

The character would buy as much hardend armor as he wanted, this reprisents how potentially lucky he could be The armor would be bought with the lim 'must make a luck roll to activate'. (The book covers this, I don't know the page off hand but it's under the section that covers 'Lucky Shot'). I figure that the character could decide how many dice of luck he'd need to 'activate' the armor. I would do 2 levels of luck needed on 3 dice of luck culmative. (Basically if I roll 12 or better on three dice, my 'luck' would activate. That's a little less than half the time). I'd also make the armor alblative, this reprisents the more you push your luck the less you can depend on it. And of course the armor couldn't be used to help against knockback damage, throwing yourself in front of a bullet, being squeezed, and all that other fun stuff that JamesG asked about in his question.

Now obviously the character would have to buy luck to make this work. But what about characters with unluck or characters that just dont wan't to buy luck? I'd allow players to buy luck with the lim 'only usable for the Combat Luck activation'. That way the luck isn't a reprisentation of how lucky the character is, but rather how lucky he is in combat.

The only real problem I see with this system is that this combat luck wouldn't be usable vs. double armor piercing attacks, and I don't think it's really cost effective to buy it as double hardend. Also since the special effect of this armor is "wow how lucky, that shot missed me" there should be some NNDs that logically should miss but wont. I guess you can't have everything.

Now the other was to do this might be buying supress vs. OCV with an area effect, with the advantage of 'only vs. attacks aimed at you'.

Lasty, I guess you could just buy missile deflection with the special effect of "It works because I'm just that lucky".

CHEERS!

-Will

[Arthur]

Combat Luck is a great idea. However, its execution is a little weird. Why would a larger attack be more likely to hit?

 

The cleanest way is to just buy extra DCV.

 

Here's an interesting thought: buy it as Damage Reduction with a special activation roll: roll 5d and multiply the number of sixes by 25. Apply that much percentage of Damage Reduction (I'd let it go to 100 - rolling that many sixes is going to be rare). You can play around with the number of dice you roll:

 

3d: 10 points

 

4d: 20 points

 

5d: 40 points

 

However, that approach has the same problem of larger attacks tending to get through.

 

Just throwing out ideas.

[JohnTaber]

Hi Gents,

 

This was a topic of discussion last night at my Champs campaign. One of the PC has Combat Luck the main bad guy had a Penetrating attack. We were not happy with how Combat Luck was defined and worked for Champs. Saying that I think as written the power might be better for Heroic level PC.

 

If I was gonna rewrite it for Champs I would go with the Damage Reduction route I think or simply DCV with a limitation that it can't be used if the target is unconcious or surprised as per Combat Luck.

 

I dunno...

[keithcurtis]

Originally posted by Arthur

Combat Luck is a great idea. However, its execution is a little weird. Why would a larger attack be more likely to hit?

 

I think the idea is that you just don't get hurt as badly by things that would kill other folks, not htat you get hit less often.

 

Keith "How many times can that bullet graze my scalp?" Curtis

[JmOz]

I agree with Keith,

 

Think of it this way, In Star Wars we see storm troopers die from any stray blaster bolt, leia on the other hand takes it in the shoulder and yet still fights on, she has combat luck, they don't

[JohnTaber]

Hi JmOz,

 

Why Hardened then? Why does Leia's toughness mean she can avoid AP or Penetrating effects? I think that is my problem with it...

[JamesG]

Originally posted by JohnTaber

Why Hardened then? Why does Leia's toughness mean she can avoid AP or Penetrating effects? I think that is my problem with it...

 

I don't think Leia's Combat Luck means that she is particularly tough. With Combat Luck, she gets hit in the shoulder. Without it, she'd get hit square in the chest. And a shot that would hit her in the shoulder normally, misses entirely due to her combat luck. That's the main reason it is Hardened, it is reducing damage by making the shots hit less vulnerable areas (or missing entirely) and that effect should be maintained whether or not the attack is AP or not.

[nblade]

Originally posted by JohnTaber

Hi JmOz,

 

Why Hardened then? Why does Leia's toughness mean she can avoid AP or Penetrating effects? I think that is my problem with it...

 

Well if that's your only issue with, then I think you should just rebuild it without the Hardened. It would be a pt or two cheaper I'm sure.

 

Of course with AP attacks only the CL Def is not halved, regular defenese are still halved unless they also are hardened. As for Penatrating, I'd follow the Rules FAQ idea of if the pentrating attack does more body then the defenses that are hardened, then those defenses are ignored. At least I think that's a sugguestion.

[Wormhole]

Luke Sywalker had Combat Luck, no Stormtrooper was able to hit him.

I thought it was just because the Stormtroopers really sucked at marksmanship, the whole "Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy" thing.

[keithcurtis]

You've all got it wrong. Stormtroopers are not characters. They are SFX manifestations of the Emperor's Presence Attacks.

Think about it. They never (well almost never) hit or hurt anyone, but they do cause them to hesitate run away or obey commands.

 

Keith "similar to guns in the A-Team" Curtis

[tesuji]

I never liked combat luck or any of the other excuses for buying armor.

 

It always boiled down to this for me...

 

Armor/PD/ED etc defenses are cheaper and more efficient opurchases than the other forms of defense, like DRed and DCV. They provide the most typical "block to a point" defenses which means you don't suffer from the thousand paper cuts and all in all these are more preferable to most players. (also lets remember the no defense stun killing thingy.)

 

Some character concepts don't lend themselves to these defenses mechanics.

 

So, we invent combat luck and pretend like the actual way the mechanics works... the brick-o-protection making more powerful attacks more likely to get lucky?? A 22 caliber is useless but a 45 is better even if fired by the same joe or even if the larger is fired by a worse shot?

 

I prefer much more using DRed or DCV to actually make these "traits" behave in practice differently than the "i have tough skin" thingy.

 

Lucky and tough skinn are two different FX and should not reasonably have the same effects mechanically. The fact that one is typically cheaper and better long term is not a reason to hand wave the FX/mechs differences in favor of "playing the system"... its at best a reason to check the cost-2-effectiveness properties of the defenses.

 

But thats probably just me...

[Old Man]

So you're more in favor of the Damage Reduction, Non-Persistant, Based On Luck route?

 

That kind of makes sense...

[Old Man]

Damage Reduction 25% PD / 25% ED (30)

nonpersistent (-1/4), luck based (-1/2) --> 17 real points. Penetrating still gets through, but I can live with that.

[Old Man]

Might even be worth putting Only vs BODY (-1/2). Good guys get stunned and knocked out all the time, but they rarely die outright.

[JamesG]

Originally posted by Wormhole

I thought it was just because the Stormtroopers really sucked at marksmanship, the whole "Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy" thing.

 

Ah, don't you remember Obi-Wan's comment in A New Hope when he and Luke found the wreckage of the Jawa Sandcrawler? Luke thought it was the work of the Sandpeople, but Obi-Wan pointed out how the treads had been shot out and said something like "Such markmanship could only be the work of Imperial Stormtroopers".

 

Now since the main characters consistently avoided being hit by Stormtroopers for the rest of the series, either Obi-Wan was lying/exaggerating (and after the whooper of "Vader killed your father" who knows) or our heroes had scads of Combat Luck.

[JamesG]

While I understand tesuji's argument that from a purist viewpoint, something like Combat Luck should not be simulated with 'armor'. But I can live with it, because I think the alternatives are worse.

 

Buying up DCV to REALLY high levels (with almost no other defense) leads to an all or nothing situation. Almost nothing hurts you at all, until you finally do get hit, and then you are hurt REAL bad (or maybe dead).

 

And using DR, again with little other defenses, means just about everything hurts you, at least a little. And without Regen or something you'll soon be whittled down and eliminated (AKA death from a thousand paper cuts).

 

Neither situation strikes me as particularly satisfying from a gaming perspective.

[JamesG]

For those curious about my question to Steve Long that inspired WillS to start this thread, here it is:

http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1863

 

Our gaming group had a rather heated debate on whether or not Combat Luck should apply in the “questionable†situations I listed. Some thought it always should, some thought never, and others thought it should only if the player could come up with a good and original explanation for why it would.

 

After more thought I proposed my Combat Luck Compromise. (still under review)

 

First of all I want to reiterate that I understand, and to large extent agree, with the idea that “logically†Combat Luck should usually NOT apply to such things as ‘squeezing’ damage, falling damage, etc.

 

My counterargument is that if we strictly enforce this bit of logic, Combat Luck would no longer be cost effective compared to other forms of defense, which is bad from a game balance standpoint. That is not to say that it would be useless or never taken, but that it would be a ‘weak sister’ to other defenses, such as OIF armor.

 

But perhaps the idea that Combat Luck would pretty much apply to all damage except in the case of a PC purposely putting himself in harm’s way goes too far in the other direction.

 

So I propose a middle ground, compromise solution. For the obvious situations, like avoiding regular combat damage, Combat Luck works automatically (assuming the character was not surprised or something). And it never works when the PC purposely puts himself in harm’s way.

 

So far, by the book. Now for those “questionable†situations (KB, falling, squeezing, etc damage), instead of ruling a flat “it works†or “it doesn’t workâ€, how about making it an Activation Roll. This will avoid many arguments on whether or not it “should†work in a given situation. Note the limitation value for an Activation Roll of 14- is –1/2, and the value of the “Luck Based†limitation in Combat Luck is also –1/2. Originally I was thinking that Combat Luck’s ‘activation roll’ should also be 14-, but I’m now thinking 13- would be better, since there are more situations where it always works than those where it never works.

 

Also a player may attempt to give a creative and/or colorful description of how his Combat Luck works in an unusual situation. Since this adds to the fun of the game for everyone, the GM may waive or give a bonus to the Activation Roll if he feels the justification was entertaining enough to warrant it. If not, or if the player just doesn’t feel like coming up with an explanation, the regular 13- Activation Roll applies.

 

Does this seem balanced?

[Doug Limmer]

This is not exactly on-topic, but I feel compelled to point it out ...

Originally posted by JamesG

Obi-Wan pointed out how the treads had been shot out and said something like "Such markmanship could only be the work of Imperial Stormtroopers".

The actual quote (according to http://vision.cs.qc.edu/daniel/sw_quot.html) is

And these blast points - too accurate for Sandpeople. Only Imperial Stormtroopers are so precise.

For those of you who know the difference, Obi-Wan said "precise", not "accurate".

[Trebuchet]

Steve Long also ruled in another thread when I asked that Combat Luck does not apply versus damage from the character with it deliberately exposing himself to harm. Examples were Move Throughs/Bys and Damage Shields. (50% of my character's total defenses of 12 PD/ED are Combat Luck.) In the campaign we have also decided this applies equally to squeezing damage in some circumstances. It is very important to remember the Luck-based aspect of Combat Luck.

 

Get thrown off a four story building? Combat Luck means you landed on a car roof (which collapses and reduces your damage) rather than on the concrete pavement. It does not mean you can do Move Throughs casually unless you have other more conventional defenses. My character's largest attack can do 13d6 (Move Through at full 30" speed), but if she fails to do Knock Back to her target she will knocked herself unconscious (-10 STUN with an average die roll. Even if she does do KB, she is in serious danger of Stunning herself due to her mere 6 PD and 18 CON.

 

For obvious reasons Move Throughs are not part of her normal combat repertoire.

[JamesG]

Originally posted by Doug Limmer

For those of you who know the difference, Obi-Wan said "precise", not "accurate".

 

Go back and look at the quote. He said BOTH precise and accurate.

[Spyritwind]

Combat luck should be damage reduction instead so you don't have to worry about issue's like this. Being much more expensive people don't want to purchase it this way though.