Code vs Killing, in your group?

[Oneway]

how does this disad play out in your games?

 

my take on CvK has always been along the lines of avoiding making an attack that looks likely to do body to my target.

i.e. i would not use a 10D6 normal attack vs a "normal"

sure i'm only likely to do 8 body to him, so i "know" i wont kill him with a single blast, but i feel this would go against the spirit of the Code.

 

i am curious to hear other's PoV on this one.

 

 

a note to my players, while you are sparking this post, you are not the cause of it.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Code vs Killing, in your group?

 

My take is you won't use lethal force if you can at all avoid it... lethal being something that could put a serious hurting on someone (doing half their body or more...)

[teh bunneh]

Re: Code vs Killing, in your group?

 

Yup, my interpretation is similar to yours. Depending on the severity of the psych lim, my characters will also often attempt to prevent others from using their biggest and/or deadliest attacks against those who look like they can't take it (usually along the lines of an in-character "No, don't use your Ultra-blast! You'll kill him!").

[Zed-F]

Re: Code vs Killing, in your group?

 

Against normals, the usual rule in 4-colour games is to pull one's punches, and/or have an option for a non-lethal attack. Some GMs waive the -OCV penalty for pulling punches in 4-colour games to encourage this. Personally I think any character with CvK should have at least one non-lethal option. An entangle is a good choice since normals have a hard time coming up with lots of STR, and it doesn't do any STUN damage whatsoever. (Some GMs will rule that even doing sufficient STUN damage to norms will kill them or make them go into a coma.)

[TheTemplar]

Re: Code vs Killing, in your group?

 

It's expected in my group that all PC's have a Psych Lim related to killing - either a Common/ Total CvK or a Common/ Strong Aversion to Killing, where the PC wouldn't kill unless absolutely necessary (like to save a bunch of innocents in impending danger or something, or if NOT killing would conflict w/ a stronger Psych Lim in a given situation.) Even if PC's DON'T have a Psych Lim related to killing, the players know that they are still expected to play as if they do due to the conventions of the genre my campaign is set in (that being Champions w/ a strong Silver Age tone, but set in the modern day - like Justice League, for instance.)

 

All that said, what does it mean? We take it as a character w/ CvK won't deliberately perform a potentially lethal action against any other character - be it a KA or not. Our brick w/ CvK wouldn't do a full move-through on a VIPER agent, or even on a super who didn't look like they could take that much damage, or hadn't already demonstrated the ability to withstand a lot of punishment. Our Mystic w/ a RP'ed Aversion to Killing wouldn't use his potentially lethal Lightning Strike RKA against a target not strong enough to be sure to survive it unless no other option remained.

 

Likewise, if a CvK PC's actions accidentally cause the death of another character (which happened a few sessions ago in our campaign) then it's going to haunt him/her for a while. In our case, the player himself imposed his own lims on himself related to the use of that power again, adding an Activation Roll to it to determine whether he had overcome his uncertainty about using the power again. An accidental death would probably haunt an AvK PC too, but would probably just be RP'ed as opposed to something that actually translated into game terms, and the effect probably wouldn't linger as long either. The AvK character realizes that however unpleasant it may be, the reality is that sometimes lethal force is the only viable option, and that when you're throwing around superpowers the magnitude of most superheroes, the eventual death of someone is inevitable.

[Oneway]

Re: Code vs Killing, in your group?

 

i think what i am really aiming at here is the "numbers" behind the attack.

 

as i would have a hard time being believing that someone w/ a CvK would whip out a 4DC pistol (9mm) and shoot someone w/ no armour "because they know they can only do up to 7 body, so their target wont die from it"

 

in the same tone, using a 10DC attack against a normal would seem to be even more serious.

 

maybe it is enough to say "you would not use an attack which could kill with max damage (even if very unlikely, ie a normal 10D6 doing 20 body), w/o fighting your Psych Lim"

[input.jack]

Re: Code vs Killing, in your group?

 

I generally agree with whats been said here. However, even someone like Revenant, who absolutely will not kill, is not adverse to putting some Body (1-3 points or so) on someone if theyve got it coming. By hitting them. Hard.

 

He would never intentionally maim or cripple someone, but occasionally a broken leg or dislocated shoulder acts as a learning tool for those who would prey upon the innocent.

 

So long as he only puts a body or three on people, its considered to fall within his CVK.

[TheTemplar]

Re: Code vs Killing, in your group?

 

Ah. Depends on the situation then, in that case. If we're talking about totally unarmored thug/ bank robber types, then I think anything over 4-5d6 N isn't necessary. I figure most normals have a natural PD/ED of 2-5 & will be able to take the 18 STUN & 5 BODY (on average) that a 20-25 STR punch (or whatever) would cause, and yet still be bruised & KO'ed or at the very least stunned by the attack. Maybe a broken limb at the worst, but nothing life threatening.

 

Now, a VIPER agent wearing full BCU's (particularly at the elite level) is a different fish altogether. I'm pretty confident they can take a 8-10d6 N attack (no advantages) w/out losing any body. Maybe on an EXCEPTIONAL roll I might break a nose or partially fracture a radius or ulna. But for the most part, they can take that much.

[Greywind]

Re: Code vs Killing, in your group?

 

Too much metagame thinking. You don't shoot a person unless you plan to put them down. This is why cops don't shoot unless they feel they, or another are in danger (ideally speaking).

 

As far as in game goes, if you don't have a strict "non-lethal" option, start small and ramp up the power over time.

 

Keep in mind that the "average normal" actually starts at 8 in his stats and not the standard 10.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Code vs Killing, in your group?

 

If you're looking for hard numbers, once a character looks like they might start to inflict 4+ Body on a Normal I figure in game that looks to be close to lethal to them.

 

On supers, possibly looking to inflict 5-6+ Body might cause them to hesitate.

 

Unless it can be proven they can soak up a bit of damage, in which case I'd have the character start to slowly increase the lethality of the attack until it looks effective without looking lethal....

[TheTemplar]

Re: Code vs Killing, in your group?

 

Yeah, I think Greywind and ghost-angel are right on about starting low and gradually increasing the power of the attack against an unknown lightweight antagonist. You want to end whatever threat the perp is posing, obviously, but if we're talking a 4-color CvK super, you don't want to resort to brutality (or the appearance of it.) But, if your character knows what they're up against, then I think it's ok to use however much force is necessary for a non-lethal takedown. Personally, I don't think it's necessarily metagame if the character has had run ins with a particular gang or agency and is familiar with what sort of gear they have, or can tell from looking at them that they're armored enough to shrug off the minimum attack the PC can do, so they better kick it up a notch.

[John Desmarais]

Re: Code vs Killing, in your group?

 

how does this disad play out in your games?

 

my take on CvK has always been along the lines of avoiding making an attack that looks likely to do body to my target.

i.e. i would not use a 10D6 normal attack vs a "normal"

sure i'm only likely to do 8 body to him, so i "know" i wont kill him with a single blast, but i feel this would go against the spirit of the Code.

 

i am curious to hear other's PoV on this one.

 

 

a note to my players, while you are sparking this post, you are not the cause of it.

 

If it's a big-point disad (ie. Strong or Total commitment) than I read it as "won't make an attack that reasonably be considered deadly". A 10d6 attack vs. a normal, while it probably won't kill him in a single shot, could very easily drop them into "bleeding to death" (I usually use the Bleeding rules) and would not be done by someone with a CAK.

[Lumbering Ox]

Re: Code vs Killing, in your group?

 

Of course such a disad would be very different for a person with normal attacks then someone with say a stun only or non damage attacks.

 

Do stun only/entage and the like characters still get full points even though they can still attack anyone at full strength?

[Trebuchet]

Re: Code vs Killing, in your group?

 

We tend to view anything of about 7d6 or better as dangerous to normals. (My Dark Champions character Justicar found that out when he zapped a gang kid with an 8d6 EB and hospitalized the kid for 2 weeks.) Of course, most of our team has little if any objection to inflicting broken bones on thugs and the like, but we will go out of our way to avoid killing. Once when we were attacked in the Congo by a HIND attack helicopter crewed by government soldiers, our primary concern was not how to take out the chopper but how to avoid killing the crew when we shot it down. (We ended up smoking the helicopter's engines so it crashed in a river, then rescuing the crew before they drowned or were eaten by crocs.) We figured having to explain to their bosses how they lost one of the Congolese governments only three attack helicopters trying to kill some "UN human rights observers" would be punishment enough.)

 

Every active member of MidGuard has a CvK; and we expect each player to roleplay that PsychLim appropriately rather than it falling upon the GMs to enforce it. And if someone's PsychLim was tripped and a PC looked like they were going to kill, then another PC would be certain to intervene. If the player fails to do it, then we'll look at consequences for his PC, but it's never been a problem in our group.

[Haerandir]

Re: Code vs Killing, in your group?

 

Of course such a disad would be very different for a person with normal attacks then someone with say a stun only or non damage attacks.

 

Do stun only/entage and the like characters still get full points even though they can still attack anyone at full strength?

 

I'd say yes, though they might qualify for lesser frequency value (Uncommon, instead of Common). It's possible to kill someone with a carelessly-used 'non-lethal' power, after all, and they still won't push someone down the stairs.

 

I'd say that someone who ONLY has 'non-lethal' attacks, apart from their normal-human STR, would probably qualify for a lesser frequency. Someone who just happens to have an entangle and a Stun-only EB in their Multipower, along with the 10d6 Autofire EB and the 3d6+1 RKA wouldn't.

[Lethosos]

Re: Code vs Killing, in your group?

 

Another good question regarding CvK is how they are applied to animal supers. Specifically, do their instincts movitate them, or do they strive for higher inteligence?

 

Dinosaur has yet to ge into a serious "Reculant To Kill" situation, but I see him as a "survival-minded" individual. (Granted, if your powers came from mimicing aspects of millenia-dead animals, then you'd be serious about survival. ) I'm actually looking forward to the clash between him and the humans with their CvKs on the team.

[AliceTheOwl]

Re: Code vs Killing, in your group?

 

I'd say it depends on the particular game, really. It's been a while since I've played any Champions, but the last character with a CvK that I played had a pretty powerful killing attack. It was a last resort, when the other attacks weren't getting through, and involved her getting up close and personal. (As opposed to the other, normal attacks, which were ranged.) She never killed anyone and, in fact, never even came close. She actually used all of her powers at half effectiveness for the first couple of games, as she figured out the lethality involved in what she could do.

 

Firing a gun at an unarmed, unarmored target would go against any CvK in any game I've played, and, were I the GM of that situation, I'd make the character roll EGO to see if he could overcome his CvK. The only exception I can think of to that situation is a world where everyone and anyone could be a deadly threat. This must have been established up-front.

 

But if the world has been established to intermingle supers and normals, and the person being fired upon is a normal, a shot with a pistol, technically deadly or not, is not cool.

 

But aren't there degrees of CvK? A character with Paramedics who beats the snot out of someone who's a threat, to patch him up once he's in custody, makes perfect sense, provided the CvK isn't Total.

[Trebuchet]

Re: Code vs Killing, in your group?

 

But if the world has been established to intermingle supers and normals' date=' and the person being fired upon is a normal, a shot with a pistol, technically deadly or not, is not cool.[/quote']Yes, and a superhero who is immune to ordinary bullets should have little justification for claiming he was responding towards "deadly force" from some gang member with a .38 Special revolver with super-deadly force like a 3d6 RKA. What is deadly is and always will be relative in a supers game.

 

But aren't there degrees of CvK? A character with Paramedics who beats the snot out of someone who's a threat, to patch him up once he's in custody, makes perfect sense, provided the CvK isn't Total.

Well, most PCs even with CvK don't have "Code vs Pummeling." I've seen it run that way, but it's pretty rare and really should be bought more along the lines of Code vs Violence.

 

In our MidGuard campaign, our team's mentalist Prodigy (run by Mentor) has Total CvK. OTOH, he has literally gone into the minds of bad guys and essentially psionically lobotomized out the desire to do evil deeds, which much of MidGuard regards as morally little different from outright murder but which Prodigy plausibly views as a more civilized option to execution (And given his backstory, it makes complete sense.). So it's an area which can be quite fuzzy even in a four-color game like ours.

[Wanderer]

Re: Code vs Killing, in your group?

 

We typically don't do hardcore four-color stuff, but "realistic" postmodern a la Ultimates, Supreme Power, and Authority, so the hallmark of an (anti-)heroic superpowered character is not having CvK or being law-abiding, but unwillingness to harm "innocents" and uninvolved civilians, avoiding gratuitous violence and abuse of powers, and/or having some general sense of honor/decency/mercy, following the "laws of war" and somesuch. So the typical "heroic" Psych Lims are stuff like Honorable, Dedicated to Justice, and Protect the Innocents, not CvK. Some characters may have a limited form of Reluctance to Kill if the background calls for it, but it's a personal quirk like being vegetarian or gay, not a defining prerequisite, and being a pacifist in a war or espionage story gets no special slack.

 

If and when we do four-color stuff, characters may have a limited (non Total) CvK, and expect it not to be challenged all the time. However, when I do get to GM, players are kindly requested to avoid doing some kinds of PCs, such as fundamentalist zealots or pacifists with Total CvK. I really can't stand either in RL (I'm deeply persuaded that unwillingness to take a life even to protect many others is moral cowardice), so I can give no garantee that the impersonal forces of the setting universe won't mercilessly abuse and put any such character out of his misery at the first available occasion for some mysterious reason

[bwdemon]

Re: Code vs Killing, in your group?

 

Along these lines, it'd be interesting to see how a CvK group would handle a "Mr. Glass" style opponent. If you know full well that any hit against the character will cause BODY, and likely death, what do you do?

 

0 PD/ED, 1-5 BODY, SUSC to energy attacks & toxins, SUSC to sensory overload, VULN to physical/energy 2x BODY... more as needed, but that should give an idea of the character

 

Make the character a mentalist "main villain" type and see what happens. The one loophole would be mental attacks, of course, but anything else would have a strong chance of hurting him too badly or would be pointless. Sufficient mental defense would be a necessity and appropriate to the character, since he isn't likely to have too much in the way of STUN or CON.

 

I'll have to use this sometime...

 

On another note, I'm with the "start weak and increase/decrease as needed" crowd, planning to cause no BODY damage to the opponent. I also see the validity of a "so long as they aren't dead" interpretation, but I don't think I'd award full points for that as a GM.

[levi]

Re: Code vs Killing, in your group?

 

I agree with most of what has come before. I have noticed in our games that the PCs rarely if ever pull punches against known supervillains. They might pull punches against agents and thugs, but if Ankylosaur shows up (no matter what power level the PCs are) he can expect to get levelled with a full power shot. Basically, the mentality seems to be that he is a supervillain and as such the gloves are off automatically. We have never really penalized anyone for it or played up the fact that many gadget-using villains have been knocked into comas. Is this isolated to our games?

[TheTemplar]

Re: Code vs Killing, in your group?

 

I don't think it's uncommon at all, Levi. I think players sorta naturally assume that Superhuman criminals are inherently more durable than normal thugs, henchmen and lackeys. And, to a point, they're right to do so. Most superhuman heroes, even the lightweights like speedsters and mentalists, are still tougher than normal police officers or whatever.

With the exception of our 90 STR Brick, most of the players in our group don't pull punches against any superhuman villains. They just haven't seen reason to. They can hit a lightweight supervillain w/ their full power shot (most have at least a 12d6 attack, some upwards of 15d6) and see no visible effects of any BODY damage. On RARE occasion, one might roll enough sixes to do 1 or 2 BODY on a 15-18 PD/ED supervillain (most non-bricks are in the 15-24 range in our campaign) but that's about the equivalent of a nosebleed or a black eye and, unless they're fighting Hemophilio or the above mentioned Mr. Glass (who needs a good beating so that he'll stop screwing up my Royals... but that's a rant for another day,) isn't really a potentially fatal scenario.

[AliceTheOwl]

Re: Code vs Killing, in your group?

 

Well' date=' most PCs even with CvK don't have "Code vs Pummeling." I've seen it run that way, but it's pretty rare and really should be bought more along the lines of Code vs Violence.[/quote']

True.

 

I have a character in Josh's Valdorian Age with a partial CvK. Her main weapon is a big freakin' axe. How we handle that is that she doesn't attack unarmored and unarmed opponents, and has to be shown lethal force before she responds in kind. There have been several times when she's used the side of the axe instead of the blade to pummel opponents rather than kill, and she does hesitate in combat if her opponent does.

 

She also has some skill levels in Healing, and is quite likely to patch an opponent up so he doesn't bleed to death, even if he was trying to kill her.

 

So mostly, that's what I was talking about - that killing attacks and CvK (depending on degree) aren't necessarily mutually exclusive.

[Haerandir]

Re: Code vs Killing, in your group?

 

Like Levi & Templar, my group tends to assume someone who puts on a costume and goes out to commit crimes is expecting to get hit with 10+ DC attacks. And, usually, we're right. However, a couple of times on these boards, I've told the story of how my speedster character, who was a Buddhist with a Total CvK, made that assumption and was proved disastrously wrong. Since then, I've tried to be a little more cautious, though I realized I was starting to get complacent again about a year ago, when I found myself leading off fights against unknown villains with pushed EBs. Gotta keep an eye on that.

[Cancer]

Re: Code vs Killing, in your group?

 

Our group doesn't have a real problem with CvK, though I do personally (I the player have "Vengeful" as a psych disad ). As a group, we have such a fine assortment of ineffective attacks that keeping non-supers alive hasn't been a problem.

 

There've been a couple of situations that have led me to think about lethal and trans-lethal attacks. Once, the villain supermentalist could (and did) animate KO'ed mooks so they got up and attacked the PCs again. Since we had no Entangles in the group (except an Ego Entangle which is ineffective against a mentalist), about the only thing I could think of to do was kill, decapitate, and disarticulate the corpses (it was not clear at the time that the animation ability was limited to alive but KO'ed individuals). We didn't act on that suggestion; the villains were in the process of departing with what they had come to take. That trick hasn't surfaced again, but among the things I'm saving XP for is the crowd-control AoE low-power Entangle that's worthless against supers so that the bodies stay down.

 

The other case was when I decided it was appropriate, CvK Total or not, to load up the 3.5d6 AP RKA (antivehicle rocket) and start preparing a called head shot against the monster brick who'd just TRM'ed one of the PCs (negative 30 BOD). At that point, serious lethality had been demonstrated, and there was nothing else the character had that seemed likely even to slow him down.