Walking On The Sun

[Hawksmoor]

Re: Walking On The Sun

 

The idea is to make it affordable. Near Invulnerability is a staple of the superheroic genre. It can't be that if the points are set too high, and since 350 is the standard starting point we have to consider the costs as they will impact a 350 pt PC.

 

Hawksmoor

[Sean Waters]

Re: Walking On The Sun

 

 

Down with STUN! (at least for Invulnerable/Immune Characters)

 

Hawksmoor

 

...interesting as I came up with a brand spanking new way to apply damage last weekend that just used BODY damage totals. Basically (normal attacks)you roll the BODY damage, deduct (relevant defence/3) and use the result as a penalty to a CON roll (9+CON/5). If you fail the roll you can suffern stun, impairment, actual damage or unconsciousness. You never have to bother with STUN again. (Killing damage does something similar but you roll against 9+BODY/5 and there's a different results table. I'll let you know how it goes when I get to play test it.

[Misery Lad]

Re: Walking On The Sun

 

All of the input has gotten me thinking about ease of applicability. I've found myself wondering about the most streamlined way of introducing specific defenses into the game, rather than all-encompassing levels of invulnerability, and the thought hit me: What about Megascale?

 

Does anyone think this might help? What if you could effectively Megascale your PD or ED against a specific attack or condition? Say, apply upwardly-scaled Advantages to your ED and, on the first tier, make every 1 real point of your ED actually worth 2 points against heat/fire (and only that)? Second tier, every single real point of your ED is worth 5 points vs. fire. Third tier, 10 pts. vs. fire. Fourth tier, 100 points.

 

I see the four tiers as being all that's necessary, assuming you already have a decent enough ED or PD. The question remains as to the best way to apply Resistant or Hardened to such defenses, but what's the view on the basic idea?

[OddHat]

Re: Walking On The Sun

 

12 levels of full impervious can defend against up to 60 stun [though 40-45 would be average] and is also hardened. 40 rPD won't even defend against an average 12d6 roll and when you buy it hardened costs 75 points.

 

The strength of the power is really for the various special effects invulnerabilites. Impervious to fire would only cost 24 points for that 12 defense, whereas the normal defenses would cost 50.

The idea is to make it affordable. Near Invulnerability is a staple of the superheroic genre. It can't be that if the points are set too high' date=' and since 350 is the standard starting point we have to consider the costs as they will impact a 350 pt PC.[/quote']

 

So you're going straght for dice rather than body totals, and the argument is that expenses are currently too expensive on a 350 point budget, especially defenses against a single SFX?

 

Myself, I don't find them too expensive, but tastes be tastes.

[zornwil]

Re: Walking On The Sun

 

...interesting as I came up with a brand spanking new way to apply damage last weekend that just used BODY damage totals. Basically (normal attacks)you roll the BODY damage' date=' deduct (relevant defence/3) and use the result as a penalty to a CON roll (9+CON/5). If you fail the roll you can suffern stun, impairment, actual damage or unconsciousness. You never have to bother with STUN again. (Killing damage does something similar but you roll against 9+BODY/5 and there's a different results table. I'll let you know how it goes when I get to play test it.[/quote']

That's intrigueing. It reminds me of what I did with Cyber Ninja Pirates - that game doesn't have STUN either. The rules I used:

 

Once the BOD damage is determined, a stun roll is required. A roll of 1d10 is made and if the result is less than the BOD damage taken the character is stunned. A stunned character is in the same position as in HERO, he is at ½ defense bonus and may not take any actions. A character recovers in the first half turn he may act following the damage, not doing anything other than recovering in that first half turn. Even if hit, he still may recover, however he subtracts 3 from all stun rolls while stunned or recovering.

 

When a character recovers from being stunned, he retains a -1 which is applied the next time he has a stun roll in the same combat. This -1 is cumulative after each stunning, thus after a second stun result his next stun roll is at -2. It is known as the Stun Penalty. A simple way to record this is to use a d10 or similar and simply put it to the current Stun Penalty.

 

When/if the result of a stun roll is -5 or worse, the character is Knocked Out. He remains out for the duration of the combat unless revived. To revive a Knocked Out character, see Healing, further below.

[zornwil]

Re: Walking On The Sun

 

All of the input has gotten me thinking about ease of applicability. I've found myself wondering about the most streamlined way of introducing specific defenses into the game, rather than all-encompassing levels of invulnerability, and the thought hit me: What about Megascale?

 

Does anyone think this might help? What if you could effectively Megascale your PD or ED against a specific attack or condition? Say, apply upwardly-scaled Advantages to your ED and, on the first tier, make every 1 real point of your ED actually worth 2 points against heat/fire (and only that)? Second tier, every single real point of your ED is worth 5 points vs. fire. Third tier, 10 pts. vs. fire. Fourth tier, 100 points.

 

I see the four tiers as being all that's necessary, assuming you already have a decent enough ED or PD. The question remains as to the best way to apply Resistant or Hardened to such defenses, but what's the view on the basic idea?

It seems to set a dangerous trend for Megascale to directly affect not just area/scale but actual attack and movement parameters. Not so sure that's a good direction.

[OddHat]

Re: Walking On The Sun

 

That's intrigueing. It reminds me of what I did with Cyber Ninja Pirates - that game doesn't have STUN either. The rules I used:

 

Once the BOD damage is determined, a stun roll is required. A roll of 1d10 is made and if the result is less than the BOD damage taken the character is stunned. A stunned character is in the same position as in HERO, he is at ½ defense bonus and may not take any actions. A character recovers in the first half turn he may act following the damage, not doing anything other than recovering in that first half turn. Even if hit, he still may recover, however he subtracts 3 from all stun rolls while stunned or recovering.

 

When a character recovers from being stunned, he retains a -1 which is applied the next time he has a stun roll in the same combat. This -1 is cumulative after each stunning, thus after a second stun result his next stun roll is at -2. It is known as the Stun Penalty. A simple way to record this is to use a d10 or similar and simply put it to the current Stun Penalty.

 

When/if the result of a stun roll is -5 or worse, the character is Knocked Out. He remains out for the duration of the combat unless revived. To revive a Knocked Out character, see Healing, further below.

 

 

d10? d10?!?

 

Alright, that's just madness.

[zornwil]

Re: Walking On The Sun

 

d10? d10?!?

 

Alright, that's just madness.

 

Well, seriously though, CNPiS is built for a variety of die types.

[Hawksmoor]

Re: Walking On The Sun

 

Other than using the Desolid Kludge or the 100% Damage Reduction Kludge yes.

 

I think that invulnerablilty is a part of a character's ability set. Yet in HERO that simple facet becomes the entire character. see Bulletproof. It is not the body that 'destroys' characters it is the stun. Find a way to remove STUN from the combat equation and invulnerability is accessable.

 

The original point about walking on the sun is one area, walking away from terminal velocity is another. I am gearing towards the latter, with all the attendant effects, like shrugging off mortar rounds as a nuisance. Which I should be able to do, except that pesky stun drops the character before the point can be made.

 

Hawksmoor

[Onyxclaw]

Re: Walking On The Sun

 

Is there any way that we can put limitations on the "takes no stun" that we usually give to automations? Would that even make sense to try to modify. I mean, they suggest not giving it to player characters because it's too powerful. But what if we limit it to takes no stun unless body passes defenses?

 

I dunno, I'm pulling this out my A**

[OddHat]

Re: Walking On The Sun

 

Other than using the Desolid Kludge or the 100% Damage Reduction Kludge yes.

 

I think that invulnerablilty is a part of a character's ability set. Yet in HERO that simple facet becomes the entire character. see Bulletproof. It is not the body that 'destroys' characters it is the stun. Find a way to remove STUN from the combat equation and invulnerability is accessable.

 

The original point about walking on the sun is one area, walking away from terminal velocity is another. I am gearing towards the latter, with all the attendant effects, like shrugging off mortar rounds as a nuisance. Which I should be able to do, except that pesky stun drops the character before the point can be made.

 

Hawksmoor

 

Well, I don't entirely disagree with this. I think that 350 point heroes are underpowered compared to the "real world" dangers of 5th ed. 8d6 double AP RKA mundane weapons make characters ike Gargantua into corpses waiting to happen if they're dumb enough to, comic book style, try to bounce them off their mighty chests. I'd prefer to tone down real world damage or increase the number of points available in my campaigns rather than add a new power.

[zornwil]

Re: Walking On The Sun

 

Is there any way that we can put limitations on the "takes no stun" that we usually give to automations? Would that even make sense to try to modify. I mean, they suggest not giving it to player characters because it's too powerful. But what if we limit it to takes no stun unless body passes defenses?

 

I dunno, I'm pulling this out my A**

I think this came up elsewhere. The question becomes, do all relevant other defenses end up being 3x expense? Though a GM can waive this. I remember seeing this somewehre, can't remember where. It's definitely good to bring up, in theory it should be a balanced/reasonable approach.

[Onyxclaw]

Re: Walking On The Sun

 

I think this came up elsewhere. The question becomes' date=' do all relevant other defenses end up being 3x expense? Though a GM can waive this. I remember seeing this somewehre, can't remember where. It's definitely good to bring up, in theory it should be a balanced/reasonable approach.[/quote']

 

well, I only know that I let NPCs have it if they are supposed to be "invulnerable" to all kinds of attacks...otehrwise I give them the 120 AP 100% resistence, with a sfx limitation.

 

I'll have to look at it more when I get home from work...

[ghost-angel]

Re: Walking On The Sun

 

Waht happens if we force Takes No STUN to be accessible to PCs but only versus a specific FX?

 

Take no STUN vs Fire, vs Ice, vs Poison, etc...

 

at that point they're either buying multiple versions (gets expensive, limiting the PCs to one Immunity SFX if any) or make it advanatges. each additional SFX is a +1/2 Advantage.

 

and even then you still have to get it past the GM.

[Bloodstone]

Re: Walking On The Sun

 

The original point about walking on the sun is one area, walking away from terminal velocity is another.

 

The question here is, do you want to walk away completly unscratched or are you willing to take a recovery in the impact crater before dramatically emerging? Unless you consider skydiving without a parachute fun, how often does this come up? Do you need to be terminal velocity proof all the time, or can you manage pulling it off only occasionaly via power skill rolls, a VPP or a slot in a bricks tricks MP?

 

One Tough Son of a *****: Physical Damage Reduction 75% and +20 PD.

 

That should let a character with 25 PD walk away from terminal velocity without a scratch and it costs, what, 6 points if he has a 60 point Bricks Trick MP? Now if you always want to be able to do that sort of thing, well, then it probably costs you the full 60 points. But that level of always on toughness should take a decent chunk out of a 350pt PC IMO.

[Hawksmoor]

Re: Walking On The Sun

 

The question here is, do you want to walk away completly unscratched or are you willing to take a recovery in the impact crater before dramatically emerging? Unless you consider skydiving without a parachute fun, how often does this come up? Do you need to be terminal velocity proof all the time, or can you manage pulling it off only occasionaly via power skill rolls, a VPP or a slot in a bricks tricks MP?

 

One Tough Son of a *****: Physical Damage Reduction 75% and +20 PD.

 

That should let a character with 25 PD walk away from terminal velocity without a scratch and it costs, what, 6 points if he has a 60 point Bricks Trick MP? Now if you always want to be able to do that sort of thing, well, then it probably costs you the full 60 points. But that level of always on toughness should take a decent chunk out of a 350pt PC IMO.

 

I don't think take a recovery or more to the point take a lot of time waiting to get a recovery (-10 or greater STUN) is acceptable for a character that is supposed to be invulnerable (even on a sliding scale).

 

HERO lacks utterly the concept of "A Fall From This Height Will Only Hurt The Pavement." This comes from the wargame aspect of HERO's origin. We need to divorce HERO from this set of concepts. Damage Mitigation (or Impervious or Self Only Force Wall or whathaveyou) can do this.

 

A mechanic that takes the STUN out of an equation the character is likely to face makes the game more genre. Superman doesn't even blink when automatic weapons fire is aimed at him. Those attacks do stun to him most of the time at 3d6 no hit locations (abeit his 50% DamReduct takes care of a lot of it). The idea is Superman *shouldn't* take *any* stun at all.

 

Damage Mitigation does that!

 

Hawksmoor

[Mister E]

Re: Walking On The Sun

 

Damage Mitigation (or Impervious or Self Only Force Wall or whathaveyou) can do this.

Alright... it's certainly a cool concept. So' date=' okay... here you are with a 125 STR Superman... how much [b']"Intervening Person Defense Barrier"[/b] (the new official name of this power) do you give yourself?

 

And once you've got that... how much do you spend on regular defenses?

 

It would be silly to end up with a Superman, that can't punch himself out with a Called Shot to the Head Haymaker...

 

What about for your average 60 STR brick?

[Hawksmoor]

Re: Walking On The Sun

 

Alright... it's certainly a cool concept. So' date=' okay... here you are with a 125 STR Superman... how much [b']"Intervening Person Defense Barrier"[/b] (the new official name of this power) do you give yourself?

 

And once you've got that... how much do you spend on regular defenses?

 

It would be silly to end up with a Superman, that can't punch himself out with a Called Shot to the Head Haymaker...

 

What about for your average 60 STR brick?

 

For Superman I would give him say 25rPD 25rED Damage Mitigation. Stacked with his PD that puts him at around 50-55 PD total. Remember with my idea Superman ignores Damage that does less than his Damage Mitigation, but once that level is breached the damage from that attack applies normally (as Force Wall does) to the STUN and Body.

 

An average 60 STR Brick would have what ever level his SFX justify and the GM allows. For me it would be around 12rPD 12rED Damage Mitigation allowing the character to ignore utterly 2d6 RKAs or the average roll of a 4d6 RKA yet still be vulnerable to the campaign maximum Energy Blast. (To gain this level of Damage Mitigation would cost 60CP at 5 CP per 2 points of Resistant Damage Mitigation)

 

Hawksmoor

[MitchellS]

Re: Walking On The Sun

 

(To gain this level of Damage Mitigation would cost 60CP at 5 CP per 2 points of Resistant Damage Mitigation)

5 points for 2 is too cheap. That's the same cost as force wall, and fw has several more drawbacks.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Walking On The Sun

 

Is there any way that we can put limitations on the "takes no stun" that we usually give to automations? Would that even make sense to try to modify. I mean, they suggest not giving it to player characters because it's too powerful. But what if we limit it to takes no stun unless body passes defenses?

 

I dunno, I'm pulling this out my A**

 

Because automaton powers are "NPC Only", I think there is a general suspicion the powers may not have been costed all that carefully. However, I would consider allowing them for PC's if they fit (the Robotman character whose body gets destroyed, but never takes any KO damage being one example).

 

The tripling of defense costs becomes an issue, however you could reverse engineer that. Instead of saying "cost of defenses is tripled", say rather that "defenses are reduced to 1/3 normal whenever applied to an attack from which the character takes no Stun".

 

I'd likely modify the baseline to say that "Takes no Stun" is purchased in increments, so "takes no Stun from energy attacks" costs x points, and so does "takes no Stun from Physical attacks". You can then apply limitations to that cost for "fire attacks only", for example.

 

So, let's assume FireLad has 30 ED, 20 reistant and wants to buy "Takes no Stun from fire/heat attacks" Based on my recollection of automaton powers, he probably pays 10 for "takes no STUN from any energy attack (half the 20 I think Takes no Stun costs), applies a -1/2 limitation (by the book - let's not open that can of worms) for "only heat/fire" and pays 7 points. He now has 10 ED (7 resistant) against fire/heat attacks, but only suffers BOD. We make his remaining 10 ED resistant only vs fire/heat, and he pays 3 points for that.

 

From Sean's earlier benchmarks, he's supposed to be immune to an 8d6 KA, so he needs (48-10 =) 38 x 3 = 114 more ED against fire/heat attacks x 1.5 (resistant) = 171/1.5 = 114 real cost. He's paid 124 points for immunity to fire/heat. Reasonable?

 

Expand the concept. We want him to be functionally immune to energy attacks. He starts with the same 30/20 ED as a benchmark. He buys Immune to Stun from Energy for 10 points, makes his remaining 10 ED resistant for 5, and pays 171 for the extra ED discussed above. Immunity to energy costs 186 points over a baseline level of defenses (which is pretty high itself). Add physical invulnerability, and we paid 372 - more than the 350 starting points we have to work with.

 

So this doesn't solve the problem that it is too expensive for starting characters.

 

I think I'm back to the "Damage Reduction extending to 100% for 120" aproach. Still not cheap, but more liveable.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Walking On The Sun

 

5 points for 2 is too cheap. That's the same cost as force wall' date=' and fw has several more drawbacks.[/quote']

 

A Force Wall is also ranged and can protect multiple targets. A Force Wall, no range, self only, feedback is essentially a force field (with some added drawbacks) and costs 1 point for 1 def.

 

Take out Feedback and it's 5 points for 4 DEF. Of course, it still costs END and requires Indirect on all my attack powers. If we double the cost to make it 5 points for 2 DEF, that seems a fair price to pay for 0 END and the bility to attack through it.

 

Conclusion: I'm not so sure that 5 points for 2 DEF is unreasonably cheap.

[MitchellS]

Re: Walking On The Sun

 

A Force Wall is also ranged and can protect multiple targets. A Force Wall, no range, self only, feedback is essentially a force field (with some added drawbacks) and costs 1 point for 1 def.

 

Take out Feedback and it's 5 points for 4 DEF. Of course, it still costs END and requires Indirect on all my attack powers. If we double the cost to make it 5 points for 2 DEF, that seems a fair price to pay for 0 END and the bility to attack through it.

 

Conclusion: I'm not so sure that 5 points for 2 DEF is unreasonably cheap.

It's also visible and only covers 3 sides of the character and goes off if stunned or knocked out. A big difference really.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Walking On The Sun

 

It's also visible and only covers 3 sides of the character and goes off if stunned or knocked out. A big difference really.

 

With -1 in limitations, covering 3 sides goes to covering all sides for 1 point. Not big enough to chase.

 

The other differentiations also exist between Force Field and Armor, which also have identical costs, so I discount these.

 

Now, the questions of whether Force Wall is appropriately priced to begin with, and whether Armor and Force Filed ought to have the same cost is another issue.

 

I'd want to see it in action before concluding whether the sosting is appropriate, whatever level I set it at initially.

[Hawksmoor]

Re: Walking On The Sun

 

5 points for 2 is too cheap. That's the same cost as force wall' date=' and fw has several more drawbacks.[/quote']

 

As I said before it is the difference between Force Field and Armor. They don't cost remotely the same for the utility. Damage Mitigation and Force Wall work similarly. Damage Mitigation costs no END, is self only, persistent, and normally invisible. Force Wall costs END, can be projected at range, is constant and visible. HERO mechanics Facts on the Ground IMO support a 2 for 5 schema.

 

Hawksmoor

[MitchellS]

Re: Walking On The Sun

 

As I said before it is the difference between Force Field and Armor. They don't cost remotely the same for the utility. Damage Mitigation and Force Wall work similarly. Damage Mitigation costs no END, is self only, persistent, and normally invisible. Force Wall costs END, can be projected at range, is constant and visible. HERO mechanics Facts on the Ground IMO support a 2 for 5 schema.

 

Hawksmoor

So you gain 3 advantages [invisible: +1, 0 end: +1/2, pesistent:+1/2] in exchange for no range and self only? Sorry, but that doesn't float. There's nothing wrong with wanting to make it cheap, but that's just too cheap. Good luck with your trials though.