Of Rules Changes and AOEs/DFC (or, How to Beat the Brick)

[simplygnome]

Ive seen several posts recently about the abuse of AOE attacks, specifically when used by a large STR brick based character.

 

The problem lies with the Brick either holding his action (confident that he will survive the attack) and then use a one hex aoe (or larger) to pulverize the said attacker, assumed to be a speedster, MA, or other "squishy". Since the "squishy" has already taken an action, they cannot DFC, and the brick can just hold his action indefinately, putting a stalemate on a 1 on 1.

 

One such House Rule solution was this:

 

One other idea is to just slightly change the rules. Say that a character can abort to a defensive action after an attack but it costs him his one lost phase and he is only allowed to do a half phase action on his next move. That will force BCG to use some different tactics as well.

 

I would like to know the thoughts on this idea. I have tried it only once, and the game didn't contain enough combat to really see its effects (also, it was a Heroic game, without many AOEs). Has anyone used this, and has it worked?

 

For any rules lawyers out there....tell me why this would be a BAD idea, because I personally would like to keep this rule as a mainstay in my hero gaming....

[lemming]

Re: Of Rules Changes and AOEs/DFC (or, How to Beat the Brick)

 

We never had a problem with this. Sometimes there was a standoff and the brick had less phases to lose.

 

We had different DFC rules and if the brick was going to be using an area effect, then the squishing made sure to stand in the same hex as a friend.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Of Rules Changes and AOEs/DFC (or, How to Beat the Brick)

 

For any rules lawyers out there....tell me why this would be a BAD idea' date=' because I personally would like to keep this rule as a mainstay in my hero gaming....[/quote']

 

You called?

 

Problems I perceive:

 

1. Book keeping - harder to remember you have a half phase on the phase after next. Things will get forgotten.

 

2. Application - the point of the rule in essence is not the loss of the extra half phase but the fact that you can not abort again until the phase after next. If you can (on your half phase) attack then abort again you are not really losing anything in terms of actions taken that you wouldn't have lost from a normal abort.

 

3. Application 2 - the only people who will do this are speedsters with a substantial speed advantage, so you are increasing the relative value of speed without increasing the cost.

 

4. Application 3 - this is going to substantially reduce the value of AE attacks without decreasing the amount you pay for them.

 

5. Maths - this means you could take 3 half actions in a single phase. Doesn't add up.

 

6. Fairness - You are building a fix for a very specific combat scenario. The speedster is happy, but the brick, who was using perfectly valid and legal tactics, and will now want a fix to the problem: I can never hit the speedster because he can take defensive actions after attacking and he has twice the speed I have so I can never get to him, even when he loses that extra half phase. you'll wind up building specialist tactics for everyone, ascombat manoeuvres, or you'll wind up being unfair to some characters over others. Don't forget the brick paid points to be able to do what he can. Not really fair to just neutralise it.

 

7. Fun - Winning a combat should involve a risk. The speedster wants to remove the risk of facing a brick. That's not going to be enjoyed by anyone for very long.

[MitchellS]

Re: Of Rules Changes and AOEs/DFC (or, How to Beat the Brick)

 

First let me say that I have no problems with bricks or area of effect attacks. After 23 years of gaming it's never been a problem for me, ever.

 

My response was made to the poster because he was having a problem with a player. This player could just as easily have been playing and energy blaster with AoE 1 hex and the problem would still persist. It has nothing to do with bricks. If it were in any game I'd ever played in or GM the "BCG" player would be talked to and told that he is trying to abuse the rules and not playing within the genre. If a player is unwilling to change because the "rules say I can do it" then the GM has the right to change the rules.

 

There's a drawback for speedsters and martial artist with high dexterities who always go first. Going first means you are always left to the mercy of the GM when it comes to AoE attacks, not only from bricks but from anyone. The problem isn't with bricks, the problem is with any character who goes first.

 

I don't believe in changing rules to benefit one archetype over another. I only believe in teaching un-wavering players a lesson. If you have a player who will not listen to calm advise then you can either teach him the lesson or remove him from the game. Most of us don't have such a large pool of Hero players to pick from that we can throw away one or two.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Of Rules Changes and AOEs/DFC (or, How to Beat the Brick)

 

MitchellS hits on the key issue here. Low OCV characters use AoE attacks to counter the advantage high DCV characters otherwise have over them. AoE attacks tend to do lower damage (60 AP = 12d6 EB, 8d6 AoE 1 hex or 6d6 AoE), so they're less useful against characters who protect themselves with DEF rather than DCV.

 

Take away the slow characters' ability to do this, and suddenlt high DCV, high SPD characters move into greater prominence.

 

The game mechanics are, in large part, about balance. Every character has an Achilles' heel - some ability, or combination of abilities, that gets around his strengths to target his deficiencies. Otherwise, we have a character who becomes Deus Ex Machina Man - whatever they do, I will still win. And that's boring.

[Trebuchet]

Re: Of Rules Changes and AOEs/DFC (or, How to Beat the Brick)

 

Since I play exactly such a fast and "squishy" PC (DEX 43, SPD 9, PD 12) in our campaign, I can attest to the fact that sometimes you're just not going to beat the enemy brick. But if the speedster stays out of arm's reach the brick can't beat him either. Either have the speedster Hold until he sees what the brick is up to, or simply ignore the brick and concentrate on other opponents. There's no plausible reason why the speedster has to go after the brick. Let the brick come after the speedster. Or have the speedster take the hit but Roll with the Punch. How confident do you think the brick will be after the squishy little twerp simply shrugs off his anti-speedster AoE attack and counter-attacks next Phase?

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Of Rules Changes and AOEs/DFC (or, How to Beat the Brick)

 

Ive seen several posts recently about the abuse of AOE attacks, specifically when used by a large STR brick based character.

 

The problem lies with the Brick either holding his action (confident that he will survive the attack) and then use a one hex aoe (or larger) to pulverize the said attacker, assumed to be a speedster, MA, or other "squishy". Since the "squishy" has already taken an action, they cannot DFC, and the brick can just hold his action indefinately, putting a stalemate on a 1 on 1.

 

SNIP

 

This isnt a problem, it's a feature IMO.

 

It means that low-speed bricks are still viable characters. Without this perfectly appropriate means of dealing with higher speed but weaker characters, low-speed bricks become pretty pathetically incapable.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Of Rules Changes and AOEs/DFC (or, How to Beat the Brick)

 

Since I play exactly such a fast and "squishy" PC (DEX 43' date=' SPD 9, PD 12) in our campaign, I can attest to the fact that sometimes you're just not going to beat the enemy brick. But if the speedster stays out of arm's reach the brick can't beat him either. Either have the speedster Hold until he sees what the brick is up to, or simply ignore the brick and concentrate on other opponents. There's no plausible reason why the speedster has to go after the brick. Let the brick come after the speedster. Or have the speedster take the hit but Roll with the Punch. How confident do you think the brick will be after the squishy little twerp simply shrugs off his anti-speedster AoE attack and counter-attacks next Phase? [/quote']

 

Just to be fair, though I dont agree with the original posters assertion, Rolling w/ a Punch would require an Abort and thus wouldnt be usable immediately after attacking any more than D4C would be. Also, RwP only works vs HtH attacks. Finally some GM's wouldnt allow a RwP vs a large AoE HtH Attack -- arguably since RwP is an OCV vs OCV test like a block and the attacker isnt actually attacking YOU per se -- he's attacking your hex, RwP isn't really appropriate in that situation. For example, it's difficult to justify RwP vs getting crushed by a large metal shipping container

[Trebuchet]

Re: Of Rules Changes and AOEs/DFC (or, How to Beat the Brick)

 

Just to be fair' date=' though I dont agree with the original posters assertion, Rolling w/ a Punch would require an Abort and thus wouldnt be usable immediately after attacking any more than D4C would be. Also, RwP only works vs HtH attacks. Finally some GM's wouldnt allow a RwP vs a large AoE HtH Attack -- arguably since RwP is an OCV vs OCV test like a block and the attacker isnt actually attacking YOU per se -- he's attacking your hex, RwP isn't really appropriate in that situation. For example, it's difficult to justify RwP vs getting crushed by a large metal shipping container[/quote']I'd allow RwP against this particular sfx for AoE, which was a very large club. It might be a different story against an Energy Blast sfx.

 

I wasn't telling him to do a RwP after he'd executed an attack on the brick with the club; I was suggesting rather he allow the brick to take his shot. Since AoE One Hex is a +½ Advantage, in a typical 60AP game that mean he'll have only an 8d6 attack with that club. If the speedster makes the RwP roll he'll take only 4d6 Stun. Anyone can take a 4d6 hit, especially since I assume the speedster has some inherent defenses.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Of Rules Changes and AOEs/DFC (or, How to Beat the Brick)

 

First let me say that I have no problems with bricks or area of effect attacks. After 23 years of gaming it's never been a problem for me' date=' ever. [/quote']

 

To be honest me neither. I've had situations where the combination of powers has been devastating, but I've never considered it a 'problem'.

 

My response was made to the poster because he was having a problem with a player. This player could just as easily have been playing and energy blaster with AoE 1 hex and the problem would still persist. It has nothing to do with bricks. If it were in any game I'd ever played in or GM the "BCG" player would be talked to and told that he is trying to abuse the rules and not playing within the genre. If a player is unwilling to change because the "rules say I can do it" then the GM has the right to change the rules.

 

I don't think the same thing would really apply to an energy blaster with an AE - he can hit the speedster even at a distance, assuming they are not fighting in an area with excessive cover.

 

There's a drawback for speedsters and martial artist with high dexterities who always go first. Going first means you are always left to the mercy of the GM when it comes to AoE attacks, not only from bricks but from anyone. The problem isn't with bricks, the problem is with any character who goes first.

 

I don't believe in changing rules to benefit one archetype over another. I only believe in teaching un-wavering players a lesson. If you have a player who will not listen to calm advise then you can either teach him the lesson or remove him from the game. Most of us don't have such a large pool of Hero players to pick from that we can throw away one or two.

 

I think the original problem involved an arena combat type scenario: I don't think the BCG was abusing the rules, just adopting a pretty boring style of play (which is arguably worse).

 

You can design pretty much anything with Hero and something I often forget is that the system is designed to be fair on average, but not necessarily on a case by case basis*. Take two characters at random and maybe A will beat B nine out of ten, but against C, B will win and A will be sucking dust.

 

Not all characters are effective against all other characters, nor should they be.

 

In the current instance I think BCG's tactics are reasonably effective against the speedster but they are adopted because nothing else will work. If you say BCG can't for some reason hold his attack until SFF has taken an attack action (assuming he decides to do so), or change the rules so that SFF can avoid BCGs attacks, he is limited to trying to hit someone he can't catch and can't hit if he does catch. SFF has his own problems: he's quicker but will have to limit his attacks to ones that allow him to stay out of range - most likely a move by which probably won't do enough damage to put BCG down, at least not quickly. It is not going to be an interesting contest.

 

In an average 'team' scenario where several characters battle several others chosing the right target or switching targets at appropriate times becomes the deciding factor, which is why team combats are often more interesting.

 

Just because this fight doesn't 'work' does not mean there is anything wrong with the system that needs fixing.

 

Anyway, that's what I think.

 

 

*I can see this getting quoted back at me on other threads.....

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Of Rules Changes and AOEs/DFC (or, How to Beat the Brick)

 

I'd allow RwP against this particular sfx for AoE, which was a very large club. It might be a different story against an Energy Blast sfx.

 

I wasn't telling him to do a RwP after he'd executed an attack on the brick with the club; I was suggesting rather he allow the brick to take his shot. Since AoE One Hex is a +½ Advantage, in a typical 60AP game that mean he'll have only an 8d6 attack with that club. If the speedster makes the RwP roll he'll take only 4d6 Stun. Anyone can take a 4d6 hit, especially since I assume the speedster has some inherent defenses.

 

The issue the OP has is a higher speed character attacking a brick holding an action, where the brick shrugs the higher speed character's attack and then splats the theoretically high-DCV higher speed character with an AoE. His suggested "fix" is to allow charactes to Abort in the same Phase they have attacked.

"One such House Rule solution was this:

Quote:

Originally Posted by MitchellS

One other idea is to just slightly change the rules. Say that a character can abort to a defensive action after an attack but it costs him his one lost phase and he is only allowed to do a half phase action on his next move. That will force BCG to use some different tactics as well.

 

I would like to know the thoughts on this idea. I have tried it only once, and the game didn't contain enough combat to really see its effects (also, it was a Heroic game, without many AOEs). Has anyone used this, and has it worked?

 

For any rules lawyers out there....tell me why this would be a BAD idea, because I personally would like to keep this rule as a mainstay in my hero gaming...."

 

Thus your RwP scenario isnt really relevant to the "issue" at hand, since it doesnt address this opening premise that a House Rule is necessary, or what effects such a House Rule might have on the game.

[Hawksmoor]

Re: Of Rules Changes and AOEs/DFC (or, How to Beat the Brick)

 

One solution we at our gaming table had was to be able to rule that CSL (8 pts all combat) and Overall levels could be used to increase the DCV of a Hex.

 

Seriously though what quick willy character ever stops with in reach (6 or 7 inches) of a Brick? Call it metagaming but Move by is your friend lil under armored one.

 

Hawksmoor

[simplygnome]

Re: Of Rules Changes and AOEs/DFC (or, How to Beat the Brick)

 

Thanks for the all help my "two digit" experienced Heroplayers.

 

Another reason I called to arms is, I have severe favoritism to the best archet...errm...I mean speedsters.

 

I just wanted to see the pros and cons, because AOEs do seem an easy way to put a party on the defensive....then again, it is balance, so that makes sense.

 

Thanks again all.....Too many house rules out there to consider so Im trying to use your help to compensate for my semi-limited play knowledge in Heros!