Defensive Luck - Just a Power Gamer's Tool??

[Jayde Tiger]

I'm sorry if this has been already covered, but I need a little clarification here:

 

26pts - Armor (12 PD/12 ED), Hardened (+1/4) (45 Active Points); Limited Power Power loses about a third of its effectiveness (Luck Based or similar disad; -1/2), Nonpersistent (-1/4)

 

31 pts - Force Field (12 PD/12 ED), Hardened (+1/4), Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2), Persistent (+1/2) (54 Active Points); Limited Power Power loses about a third of its effectiveness (Based on Luck or similar disad; -1/2), Nonpersistent (-1/4)

 

24pts - Combat Luck

 

Combat Luck is really confusing me.

Why is it cheaper than Armor with similar limitations?

This led me to try and compare it to Force Field as well. I realise the first two above are likely illegal builds, but I was trying to illustrate a point.

 

All three builds are hardened, all three builds are non-persistant.

 

The -1/2 disadvantage for Based on Luck, and a post in the Rules FAQ have confused me further:

 

It doesn’t work if he’s asleep, unconscious,

 

Isn't that when a character would want to be lucky? Isn't his luck all that would protect him in this case?

 

or deliberately throws himself in the way of an

attack (for example, to save a comrade from injury).

 

This one makes sense because he is actively fighting against his own good luck.

 

Nor does it protect him from damage in most situations

where he deliberately does something he

knows will hurt him (such as performing a Move

By/Through, both of which cause him to take some

of the damage he does to the target).

 

Again he is actively fighting against his own good luck.

 

It won’t apply if the character is Surprised

(see page 380); the GM may require a PER

Roll or other roll to determine if the character perceived

the attack in time to use his Combat Luck.

 

If he is surprised, he is unlucky, and loses the benefit of his armor, but if he sees the attack coming (perceives it in time) he gets "luckier" and can avoid more damage.

 

Because Combat Luck depends on a character’s

ability to dodge, block, or otherwise avoid

damage.

 

Now I'm really confused. Is the character talented at dodging/avoiding damage, or is he lucky. The former suggests control by the character, the latter suggests "fate smiles upon him"

 

if the character knew he was attacking someone with a Damage Shield. But that depends largely on how the GM chooses to interpret the concept of “deliberately†putting one’s self in harm’s way; sometimes it might not be appropriate to apply Combat Luck. If the character didn’t know about the Damage Shield, maybe his Combat Luck would protect him... once.

 

This answer reverses the control vs fate model above. If the character knows about the damage shield, he's hoping his luck will protect him, (he perceived the attack as in the surprise example) and does not benefit from the protection, yet if he doesn't know its there (is surprised by it) he might be protected by his Combat Luck.

 

I guess my feeling is that Combat Luck should simulate "fate smiling on the character" when they should normally be hurt.

 

The way it is written, the character can actively control their own luck and become harder to hit when they know an attack is coming.

 

 

Any comments would be appreciated.

I hope I have been clear in explaining my confusion. Please ask if I have not.

 

 

This all started because a build for an upcoming campaign took defensive maneuvers to reduce or eliminate the chance of surprise, and ended up paying less for their "Armor" than the Brick

 

Would you reduce the amount of the "Based on Luck" modifier, since the Defensive Luck Armor becomes far less limited??

 

Thanks for listening

 

JT

[Bloodstone]

Re: Defensive Luck - Just a Power Gamer's Tool??

 

Why is it cheaper than Armor with similar limitations?

 

Rounding.

 

As a talent, Combat Luck is figured at a flat 6 pts per level, which gets you 3/3.

 

Armor 3/3, with the same advantages and lims as combat luck, also comes out to 6 pts, but that's only cause you round down.

 

Combat Luck is just a catch all term. It does not inherently imply "luck", though that is definitly one possible SFX. It's used to represent the ability that many characters have to be only grazed by a bullet or blade or to just barely roll with apunch in time.

[nexus]

Re: Defensive Luck - Just a Power Gamer's Tool??

 

I like the concept of Combat Luck but I see the problems in it application. One thing I notes is that your luck or excellent dodging skill only work against attacks that do normal or killing damage. You are no harder to hurt with exotic attacks than anyone else, or to hit with Entangles.

[Jayde Tiger]

Re: Defensive Luck - Just a Power Gamer's Tool??

 

I forgot to add:

 

Would you apply the defences to Area Effect Attacks which are normally not dodged?

 

JT

[Guest WhammeWhamme]

Re: Defensive Luck - Just a Power Gamer's Tool??

 

Combat Luck isn't 'I am invulnerable because I have incredible, IMPOSSIBLE luck".

 

That's armour, and armour with no real limitations either.

 

 

Combat Luck is small bits of luck applied while you're fighting. It's how Batman or Daredevil can avoid get splattered despite the law of averages saying that eventually, someone should get a good hit.

 

If they get blindsided, they get hurt, worse than someone who would normally be equally hard to hurt due to invulnerability, because they ARE fragile.

 

It provides defenses without letting them be confident in their invulnerability. (Imagine if it DID always work: you'd then be able to just lie down and take a nap in the middle of a warzone...)

[Trebuchet]

Re: Defensive Luck - Just a Power Gamer's Tool??

 

We regard Combat Luck in our campaign as little more than a shorthand term for conditional defenses to avoid writing an incredibly long and detailed description. Calling it "luck" was perhaps not the best choice of terminology, but the Talent itself is valid and is quite appropriate for almost any genre for the right characters. We also regard Combat Luck as one of the three best innovations of Fifth Edition (the others being the reworking of Change Environment and the introduction of Megascale).

 

Combat Luck doesn't work if you're Stunned, asleep, or unconscious. It doesn't work if you deliberately inflict damage on yourself, such as with a Move By/Through or striking an opponent with a Damage Shield. It doesn't work if you're caught by surprise. If you want defenses that work under any or all of those circumstances, you buy more traditional defenses such as Armor or FF.

[Harlequin]

Re: Defensive Luck - Just a Power Gamer's Tool??

 

"Combat Luck is just a catch all term. It does not inherently imply "luck", though that is definitly one possible SFX. It's used to represent the ability that many characters have to be only grazed by a bullet or blade or to just barely roll with apunch in time."

 

 

Just wondering if it is not meant to imply luck, then why does it have a -1/2 luck based modifier?

[OddHat]

Re: Defensive Luck - Just a Power Gamer's Tool??

 

There are plenty of alternatives if you don't want Combat Luck in your campaign.

 

DCV levels work well.

 

Armor or Damage Reduction with Restrainable, Non-Persistant and Must be Aware of Attack.

 

Armor with the -1/2 "One BODY always gets through" limitation, to simulate characters who can be cut and wounded but are still very hard to seriously injure with a single blow.

 

That said, I haven't found Combat Luck to be unbalanced. If you enforce it's limits, it works just as its meant to, allowing non-invulnerable characters to survive in extreme situations just as they do in comics, action movies, and the pulps.

[Bloodstone]

Re: Defensive Luck - Just a Power Gamer's Tool??

 

Just wondering if it is not meant to imply luck' date=' then why does it have a -1/2 luck based modifier?[/quote']

 

Ultimatly, it's just a term they chose to cover the paragraph worth of situations where the defense does not apply. They could have called it "dodge based", but that might have confused people into thinking the talent only worked with the Dodge maneuver. I suppose "avoidance based" might work...

 

Really though, it's just like Shape Shift does not require any change in shape, Invisibility doesn't necessarily make you non visible and a given Energy Blast need not be made of energy.

[massey]

Re: Defensive Luck - Just a Power Gamer's Tool??

 

Combat luck means that the bad guy shoots at James Bond, and we see sparks fly off the railing he's standing behind. Or sparks fly off the ladder he's climbing up. Or it only nicks him, and it's a small flesh wound.

 

Combat luck represents the fact that we know James Bond isn't going to die. There's no dramatic tension when Bond fights goons. He runs around and mows down russian soldiers all the time. HOWEVER, if one of those soldiers manages to hold a gun to his head (they perform the "cover" maneuver), then Bond has to surrender, because now his combat luck doesn't apply anymore.

[Stormraven]

Re: Defensive Luck - Just a Power Gamer's Tool??

 

Or Wyatt Earp. Now there's a poster child for Combat Luck (or maybe true 'luck-based' armour). Despite the sheer number of shootouts he got into - in one case, a shotgun duel at something like 20 or 30 feet - he never got hit.

[keithcurtis]

Re: Defensive Luck - Just a Power Gamer's Tool??

 

Another name might be "Genre-emulation-defense". The Bond example above is a classic example. I do use Combat Luck in my Savage Earth campaign, with three changes. It is not hardened (AP attacks usually have a specific SFX in Savage Earth, and Combat Luck should not apply). Secondly, it cannot be used against attacks coming from major characters. Mooks cannot easily kill you, but Scorch, Enforcer of Vice-lord Harker, is a threat to be reckoned with. Finally, it does not stack with normal armor. If you are wearing armor, you get the better of the two when facing mooks and monsters, but against named villains, you only get your regular armor.

 

Combat Luck: 4 points for Armor (3 PD/3 ED); Luck Based (-1/2), Does not stack with other armor (-1/2), Nonpersistent (-1/4), Not vs. Name Characters (-1/4)

 

Keith "my 2¢" Curtis

[OddHat]

Re: Defensive Luck - Just a Power Gamer's Tool??

 

For characters that get shot in the shoulder a lot, but never seem to be hit in a vital area, these days I tend to use:

 

16 Tough and Lucky: Armor (10 PD/10 ED), Hardened (+1/4) (37 Active Points); Restrainable (-1/2), One point of BODY always gets through Power loses about a third of its effectiveness (-1/2), Must be aware of attack Power loses about a fourth of its effectiveness (-1/4)

 

or

 

22 Action Hero!: (Total: 40 Active Cost, 22 Real Cost) Energy Damage Reduction, 50% (20 Active Points); Restrainable (-1/2), Must be aware of Attack Power loses about a fourth of its effectiveness (-1/4) (Real Cost: 11) plus Physical Damage Reduction, 50% (20 Active Points); Restrainable (-1/2), Must be aware of Attack Power loses about a fourth of its effectiveness (-1/4) (Real Cost: 11)

 

Both give you a character who's not going to get killed when you (as GM) don't want him to die, but who is still effectively a lucky, combat wise Human rather than an actual bullet proof Super.

 

I do like the name Genre Emulation Defense; repped.

[Zed-F]

Re: Defensive Luck - Just a Power Gamer's Tool??

 

For characters that get shot in the shoulder a lot, but never seem to be hit in a vital area, these days I tend to use:

 

16 Tough and Lucky: Armor (10 PD/10 ED), Hardened (+1/4) (37 Active Points); Restrainable (-1/2), One point of BODY always gets through Power loses about a third of its effectiveness (-1/2), Must be aware of attack Power loses about a fourth of its effectiveness (-1/4)

Flavour the value of those limitations to taste. The '1 BOD always gets through' part seems to be worth about -0 or maybe -1/4 at most to me... though I did notice the 'non-persistent' lim that's normally there on combat luck is missing. I'm not sure that I agree that -1 1/2 in limitations is warranted for the aggregate sum limitation effect they provide. I'd give a -1 for the lot.

 

But that's just me.

[Lucius]

Defensive Luck - Just a Power Gamer's Tool??

 

First, Combat Luck is a bad thing to call it - it's obviously misleading.

 

Calling the limitation "luck based" is worse.

 

I thought it was kind of kludgy when I first saw it, and the last straw was when an answer from Mr. Long in the questions and answers forum verified that, yes, it could make you absolutely immune to blowgun darts.

 

Here's what I use instead:

 

Talent

I'm a Tough Guy

Damage Resistance (5)

Can’t stop first 1 Pt of BOD of a killing attack (- ½)

Real Cost: 3

 

This was actually written for a specific Champions character: If I were going to make it a generally available talent, I might make it more elaborate (limited) and define successive "levels" of it etc.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary observes that, of course, Lucius is also working on completely rewriting Killing Attacks, but that's another thread......

[OddHat]

Re: Defensive Luck - Just a Power Gamer's Tool??

 

Flavour the value of those limitations to taste. The '1 BOD always gets through' part seems to be worth about -0 or maybe -1/4 at most to me... though I did notice the 'non-persistent' lim that's normally there on combat luck is missing. I'm not sure that I agree that -1 1/2 in limitations is warranted for the aggregate sum limitation effect they provide. I'd give a -1 for the lot.

 

But that's just me.

 

Well, tastes are tastes.

 

I think -1/2 for One BODY always gets through is justified myself. Does Not Prevent Penetration is worth -1/4, and One Body is absolutely more limiting. It means that even small caliber weapons, small knives, animal claws, blow-gun darts, and other attacks become deadly rather than just painful, and that bleeding is a real issue (in campaigns where it's in use). Without that limit, 1 pip, 1/2D6 and 1d6 Killing attacks can be more or less ignored; with it, they remain almost as dangerous as they would be to a person with no special defenses.

 

I don't like non-persistant on any power with Restrainable and Must be Aware of Attack. If you're surprised, stunned or unconscious, in my opinion you are already going to lose your Restrainable MBAOA defense, and adding on non-persistant seems redundant.

 

Thus, I see the total limit as worth -1 1/4, not -1 1/2. If you see it as worth only -1, fair enough.

[austenandrews]

Re: Defensive Luck - Just a Power Gamer's Tool??

 

When I was gearing up for a Star Wars game, I tried to figure out how to simulate dozens of laser bolts shot by expert marksmen and somehow the heroes never get hit. I leaned heavily toward some flavor of Desolidification, Must Make Half Move. When you watch adventure films, the heroes rarely get shot unless they stop moving. It's almost axiomatic at this point.

 

Defenses don't work for me in that situation, because the Stun still gets through.

[OddHat]

Re: Defensive Luck - Just a Power Gamer's Tool??

 

When I was gearing up for a Star Wars game, I tried to figure out how to simulate dozens of laser bolts shot by expert marksmen and somehow the heroes never get hit. I leaned heavily toward some flavor of Desolidification, Must Make Half Move. When you watch adventure films, the heroes rarely get shot unless they stop moving. It's almost axiomatic at this point.

 

Defenses don't work for me in that situation, because the Stun still gets through.

 

DCV levels work well for a pure miss. For attacks where significant STUN gets through, I think in terms of near misses, grazes and hits that don't impede the character (see any action movie).

[Vondy]

Re: Defensive Luck - Just a Power Gamer's Tool??

 

First, lets get the mantra out of the way: 'luck' is a misnomer as it is only one possible SFX. It could represent any number of things. In my games it most frequently pops up as an extension of a character's 'wonderous fighting abilities' - something that blends in with their combat skill levels to create a whole package. I don't find it to be problematic, and it provides some concepts (the nimble bard travelling with the walking tank knights) survivability they would not otherwise have access to. Personally, I like it.

[Enforcer84]

Re: Defensive Luck - Just a Power Gamer's Tool??

 

....so saving 2 pts is powergaming?

[OddHat]

Re: Defensive Luck - Just a Power Gamer's Tool??

 

....so saving 2 pts is powergaming?

 

The imbalance caused by that 2 point savings is a threat to the entire HERO system, and to America.

 

Or, I could be thinking about my lunch.

 

Not sure, really.

[Enforcer84]

Re: Defensive Luck - Just a Power Gamer's Tool??

 

The imbalance caused by that 2 point savings is a threat to the entire HERO system, and to America.

 

Or, I could be thinking about my lunch.

 

Not sure, really.

Lunch? Them's fighting words!

[Zed-F]

Re: Defensive Luck - Just a Power Gamer's Tool??

 

See, I think 'Does Not Prevent Penetration' is a -0 SFX consideration, and not worth -1/4.

 

And as for powergaming, well if you start getting lazy and let little things sneak past, they do start to add up after a while. 2 points here and 2 points there, and pretty soon you're talking about some real money. (Wealth: 5 points!)

 

Anyway, if Oddhat's method works for him, all is well. As you say, the difference is not all that large.

[OddHat]

Re: Defensive Luck - Just a Power Gamer's Tool??

 

See, I think 'Does Not Prevent Penetration' is a -0 SFX consideration, and not worth -1/4.

 

The value of a limitation also varies by campaign, something we often need to overlook if we want a system at all.

 

Captain Ironhard has 10 PD/10 ED armor that prevents penetration. He can ignore blowgun darts, poison needles, snake or insect bites, injected drugs, and some vampire bites. Ironhard's fellow adventurer Butch American has 10 PD / 10 ED armor that does not prevent penetration (SFX: years of steroid abuse). He can be affected by all of the above attacks.

 

In a campaign where those attacks rarely or never show up, Does Not Prevent Penetration is absolutely worth -0. In my own Pulp campaign and many of my Supers games, the book value of -1/4 works pretty well.

 

As a side note, if I see a character with "Does Not Prevent Penetration" on his sheet, I consider that a suggestion from the player that the character be subjected to some form of skin piercing attack every so often during the campaign.

[Supreme Serpent]

Re: Defensive Luck - Just a Power Gamer's Tool??

 

When I was gearing up for a Star Wars game, I tried to figure out how to simulate dozens of laser bolts shot by expert marksmen and somehow the heroes never get hit. I leaned heavily toward some flavor of Desolidification, Must Make Half Move. When you watch adventure films, the heroes rarely get shot unless they stop moving. It's almost axiomatic at this point.

 

Defenses don't work for me in that situation, because the Stun still gets through.

 

There was a thread awhile back IIRC on the Hero System Discussion board (or Star Hero) about Stormtrooper marksmanship. One of the interesting options presented was "NPCs always open up with Suppression Fire", so if you got out of the way, you were fine, but if you just stood in the hallway...splat.