New Advantage: Disorienting

[bcaplan]

When designing a radiation-based super-being (hero? villain? That would be telling...) for a future Champions game, I came up with the following new Advantage:

 

Disorienting (+.75): The victim is stunned if 2x rolled Stun minus defenses exceeds Con.

 

Intuitively, it's like a Double Knockback advantage, but for stunning.

 

Example: If you roll 20 Stun on a victim with 15 ED and 20 Con, you normally do nothing at all. If the attack were a Disorienting EB, however, the victim would be stunned (40-15=25>20). The victim would not in fact sustain any damage, but he would lose a Phase and have to reactivate non-Persistent powers.

 

Game balance? Compare a regular 12d6 EB (60 AP) to a 7d6 Disorienting EB (61 AP). The regular EB would average 42 Stun, and typically stun any character with ED+Con<42. The Disorienting EB would average 24.5 Stun, but would typically stun any character with ED+Con<49. Seems like a reasonable trade-off. I could even see cutting the price to +.5 - but at least in my game the greater chance to turn off Continuing Charges probably justifies a +.75.

 

Any thoughts?

[Guest daeudi_454]

Re: New Advantage: Disorienting

 

A better phrasing (not expressing an opinion on the cost) would be that the stun counts as double for puproses of STUNNING (like the reverse of Reduced Penetration).

in fact, the cost should prob be the inverse of reduced penetration.

 

Other than that, I love it.

[Lord Mhoram]

Re: New Advantage: Disorienting

 

A better phrasing (not expressing an opinion on the cost) would be that the stun counts as double for puproses of STUNNING (like the reverse of Reduced Penetration).

 

Other than that, I love it.

 

Other than it looks like his example is multiplying the stun, for purposes of stunning, before defence is applied.

 

I also like it.

[Threnody]

Re: New Advantage: Disorienting

 

When designing a radiation-based super-being (hero? villain? That would be telling...) for a future Champions game, I came up with the following new Advantage:

 

Disorienting (+.75): The victim is stunned if 2x rolled Stun minus defenses exceeds Con.

 

Intuitively, it's like a Double Knockback advantage, but for stunning.

 

Example: If you roll 20 Stun on a victim with 15 ED and 20 Con, you normally do nothing at all. If the attack were a Disorienting EB, however, the victim would be stunned (40-15=25>20). The victim would not in fact sustain any damage, but he would lose a Phase and have to reactivate non-Persistent powers.

 

Game balance? Compare a regular 12d6 EB (60 AP) to a 7d6 Disorienting EB (61 AP). The regular EB would average 42 Stun, and typically stun any character with ED+Con<42. The Disorienting EB would average 24.5 Stun, but would typically stun any character with ED+Con<49. Seems like a reasonable trade-off. I could even see cutting the price to +.5 - but at least in my game the greater chance to turn off Continuing Charges probably justifies a +.75.

 

Any thoughts?

The way I figure it is, if you bought a second power just as big as the first, with the Lim "Only Does STUN (-1/2)" you'd get to the same place.

 

So if the cost for the first power is 60, then the second costs 40, the total is 100. 100/60 = 1 2/3, so it's a +2/3 Advantage. That's closer to +3/4 than +1/2, so I'd go with your amount.

[Gary]

Re: New Advantage: Disorienting

 

Might be very dangerous as a slot in a multipower to soften an opponent up before the knockout blow.

 

Also, as with most damage advantages, there's the danger of Advantage Stacking when other Advantages are thrown in. A Disorienting KA with Increased Stun Multiples and Armor Piercing could be horrendous...

[Threnody]

Re: New Advantage: Disorienting

 

Might be very dangerous as a slot in a multipower to soften an opponent up before the knockout blow.

 

Also, as with most damage advantages, there's the danger of Advantage Stacking when other Advantages are thrown in. A Disorienting KA with Increased Stun Multiples and Armor Piercing could be horrendous...

Horrendous to figure the cost, or to be hit by?

 

Or both?

[BNakagawa]

Re: New Advantage: Disorienting

 

as proposed: dangerous, if used in combination with the aforementioned ap, +1 stun mod and also things like area effect, NND and other damage amplifying advantages.

 

A 2d6 KA with +1 stun mod and disorienting effect is particularly nasty (in combination with a fixed 3 stun multiple, generates an average of 56 stun for con stunning purposes)

 

Proposed fix: Just up the damage for stun purposes only. if your base attack is 8d6, buy another 6d6 that stacks that only inflicts stun for the purposes of calculating stun effect. That ought to be a -1 lim or so.

[casualplayer]

Re: New Advantage: Disorienting

 

Shouldn't this be extra DCs Only for Determining Stunning? Or a CON Suppress?

[Sean Waters]

Re: New Advantage: Disorienting

 

Running numbers:

 

1. As proposed: 14d6 attack is 49 stun on average

 

8d6 disorienting attack is the same cost but does 56 stun for stunning purposes.

 

7 points is 14 cps spent on CON.

 

OK.

 

1b)70 cps spent on AP EB = roughly 9 dice, or about 31 stun agains halved defences

 

70 cps spend on AP disorienting EB = roughly 6 dice, or about 42 stun against halved defences

 

OK - advantage stacking makes disorienting potentially nasty - the break point here is around 30 def (not unrealistic for a 14DC game)

 

2. Doubling after defences: not worth it, even at -1/4:

 

70cps = 11 dice disorienting = 8 stun through defences, doubled to 16

 

OR 14d6 = 49 stun, or about 19 through after defences

 

Mind you, make it AP disorienting, and the difference falls to 1 die (9 to 8), so again advantage stacking really helps.

 

What does that tell us?

 

Well, frankly I am not keen on damage adding advantages; use added (limited) dice.

 

One thing that I did think of though, was maybe making this a limitation:, say -1/4, the effect is that the attack never stuns - it disorients; if you get what would have been a 'stun' result, the target can't take actions (move, attack, communicate, find weakness, etc) but doesn't lose DCV and only ever loses the next phase after the disorienting attack, even if they do take damage. 'Only to disorient' would be a -1 or so.

[bcaplan]

Re: New Advantage: Disorienting

 

as proposed: dangerous, if used in combination with the aforementioned ap, +1 stun mod and also things like area effect, NND and other damage amplifying advantages.

 

A 2d6 KA with +1 stun mod and disorienting effect is particularly nasty (in combination with a fixed 3 stun multiple, generates an average of 56 stun for con stunning purposes)

This seems like a reasonable trade-off, actually.

 

Your Disorienting 2d6 KA with +1 Stun mod averages only 7 Body and 28 Stun. At least in super-heroic genres, that means you'll never do any Body, and probably not much Stun either. The only thing the attack has going for it is a very good chance of stunning even a super-heroic target. (A heroic target, in contrast, would be Stunned even without the Disorienting advantage!)

 

A regular 4d6 KA, in contrast, averages 7 more points of Body and 14 extra points of Stun - and it still has a half-decent chance of stunning a super-heroic target.

 

In short, in exchange for 7 points of Body and 14 points of Stun, your chance to stun rises from low-moderate to high. The doesn't seem excessive to me.

[prestidigitator]

Re: New Advantage: Disorienting

 

If I were to use this, I would definitely double the Stun damage after defenses. Otherwise, consider simply a bigger attack with a Does No Body Limitation on half of it.

[BNakagawa]

Re: New Advantage: Disorienting

 

This seems like a reasonable trade-off, actually.

 

Your Disorienting 2d6 KA with +1 Stun mod averages only 7 Body and 28 Stun. At least in super-heroic genres, that means you'll never do any Body, and probably not much Stun either. The only thing the attack has going for it is a very good chance of stunning even a super-heroic target. (A heroic target, in contrast, would be Stunned even without the Disorienting advantage!)

 

A regular 4d6 KA, in contrast, averages 7 more points of Body and 14 extra points of Stun - and it still has a half-decent chance of stunning a super-heroic target.

 

In short, in exchange for 7 points of Body and 14 points of Stun, your chance to stun rises from low-moderate to high. The doesn't seem excessive to me.

 

Just add 15 active points to it (in the form of an area effect 1 hex) and every martial artist in the CKC is now dead meat. Just wait until they attack somebody, nuke them and stun them and have a buddy move through them while they have a 1/2 dcv. Lather, rinse, repeat.

 

Most CKC martial artists aren't afraid of a 5d6 KA, but they're scared ****less of this.

 

second reason why this is a broken advantage (as written)

 

55 active points = 4d6 NND, disorienting. If your target is affected and isn't a brick, he's hosed.

For 10 more active points, you can make it area effect 1 hex and eliminate the martial artist as a competitive character concept from your campaign. awfully viscious for a 65 active point power...

[Lucius]

New Advantage: Disorienting

 

The way I figure it is, if you bought a second power just as big as the first, with the Lim "Only Does STUN (-1/2)" you'd get to the same place.

The way I figure it is, if you bought a second power just as big as the first, with the Lim "Only Does STUN (-1/2)" you'd get to the same place.

 

Not quite the SAME place. You're actually doing more damage that way. The idea is not to do more STUN damage, but to be able to acheive a "stunning" affect AS IF the damge done had exceeded CON, without it having to do so.

 

On the other hand, you could put a limitation on some of the dice of attack of "Does no damage (neither Stun nor Body) but counts for CON stunning" but I think that would be a limitation worth more than -1/2.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

And a disoriented new palindromedary

[Threnody]

Re: New Advantage: Disorienting

 

The way I figure it is' date=' if you bought a second power just as big as the first, with the Lim "Only Does STUN (-1/2)" you'd get to the same place.[/quote']

Not quite the SAME place. You're actually doing more damage that way. The idea is not to do more STUN damage, but to be able to acheive a "stunning" affect AS IF the damge done had exceeded CON, without it having to do so.

 

On the other hand, you could put a limitation on some of the dice of attack of "Does no damage (neither Stun nor Body) but counts for CON stunning" but I think that would be a limitation worth more than -1/2.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

And a disoriented new palindromedary

OK, you're right; I wasn't thinking of all the details. Yeah, bcaplan's idea isn't to do more STUN, but to see if you "popped" the target.

 

OK, call it -1. If you bought one attack for 60 points, and the second the same except "Only to figure if the target got popped (-1)", it'd be 30 points.

(60+30)/60 = 1.5, so looks like a +1/2 Adv. Unless you figure it's plain more powerful than that.

 

Looks like the palindromedary has to take a Phase to recover.

 

 

("Popped" is what my group calls it when the target takes more STUN damage than his CON stat.)

[ideasmith]

Re: New Advantage: Disorienting

 

This would be Flash with Causes Unusual Disability. If, that is, my house rules were in use.

[Threnody]

Re: New Advantage: Disorienting

 

This would be Flash with Causes Unusual Disability. If' date=' that is, my house rules were in use.[/quote']

Hey, sounds interesting. Please tell more! I'd love to hear the details.

[ideasmith]

Re: New Advantage: Disorienting

 

Flash: New modifier: Causes Unusual Disability: Flash with this modifier does not disable senses, instead causing disadvantages for specified duration. Flash with this modifier is applies to Power Defense instead of Flash Defense. With GM's permission, Flash with this modifier may instead add to or provide abilities of appropriate total point cost.

 

Pts. Disads. Multiplier

 

1-5 -1

6-10 -0.5

11-15 -0

16-20 +0.5

21-25 +1

26-30 +1.5

31-35 +2

36-40 +2.5

41-45 +3

46-50 +3.5

[Threnody]

Re: New Advantage: Disorienting

 

Flash: New modifier: Causes Unusual Disability: Flash with this modifier does not disable senses, instead causing disadvantages for specified duration. Flash with this modifier is applies to Power Defense instead of Flash Defense. With GM's permission, Flash with this modifier may instead add to or provide abilities of appropriate total point cost.

 

Pts. Disads. Multiplier

 

1-5 -1

6-10 -0.5

11-15 -0

16-20 +0.5

21-25 +1

26-30 +1.5

31-35 +2

36-40 +2.5

41-45 +3

46-50 +3.5

 

I might've got it all wrong, but are you saying the value of the Lim changes as the (Base???) cost of Flash goes up?

 

Man, that's way too complicated!

[Robyn]

Re: New Advantage: Disorienting

 

I might've got it all wrong' date=' but are you saying the value of the Lim changes as the (Base???) cost of Flash goes up? [/quote']

 

I read that as "the more severe a side effect caused by the Flash, the higher in value this advantage modifier/multiplier to give the Flash this unusual side effect".

[ideasmith]

Re: New Advantage: Disorienting

 

I might've got it all wrong, but are you saying the value of the Lim changes as the (Base???) cost of Flash goes up?

 

Man, that's way too complicated!

 

No, the first column is the points of Disadvantage. You write up the disability caused by the modified Flash as a Disad, and that determines the value of the modifier, and whether it is an Advantage or Limitation.