making killing dmg balance with normal dmg

[dugfromthearth]

for my fantasy campaign I don't want killing to be better than normal dmg, just different. And I don't want to have it have an advantage.

 

So I ended up making killing damage and normal damage roll the same way for stun and body. Killing body is only resisted by resistant defenses. Killing stun is the stun rolled minus the body rolled and you get full defense against it. This makes killing attacks much better at doing body but worse for stun.

 

Example: 5d6, 1, 3, 4, 4, 6

Body total is 5, stun total is 18

 

The normal attack does 5 body and 18 stun, resisted by all defenses

 

the killing version does 5 body and 13 stun. The 5 body is resisted by resistant defenses, the 13 stun is resisted by normal defenses.

[Hyper-Man]

Re: making killing dmg balance with normal dmg

 

for my fantasy campaign I don't want killing to be better than normal dmg, just different. And I don't want to have it have an advantage.

 

So I ended up making killing damage and normal damage roll the same way for stun and body. Killing body is only resisted by resistant defenses. Killing stun is the stun rolled minus the body rolled and you get full defense against it. This makes killing attacks much better at doing body but worse for stun.

 

Example: 5d6, 1, 3, 4, 4, 6

Body total is 5, stun total is 18

 

The normal attack does 5 body and 18 stun, resisted by all defenses

 

the killing version does 5 body and 13 stun. The 5 body is resisted by resistant defenses, the 13 stun is resisted by normal defenses.

 

I'm just curious....

Using your house rule what happens if the killing version with listed totals is applied against a target with 3 resistant defenses and normal defenses (including resistant) totalling 13+?

 

How much stun does the target take?

[Lucius]

Re: making killing dmg balance with normal dmg

 

What happens if you use a killing attack against someone with no resistant defenses?

 

By the way, this IS one way to beat the Stun Lotto.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

With a resistant palindromedary

[dugfromthearth]

Re: making killing dmg balance with normal dmg

 

minimum damage is 1 stun per point of body taken (isn't that the standard rule?). So if an attack does 2 body but would do no stun they take 2 stun as well.

 

a killing attack on someone with no resistant defenses - they still get their normal defense against the stun, just nothing versus the body. And they take minimum stun damage as above.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: making killing dmg balance with normal dmg

 

There are lots of threads on modifying KA's. I like the one that rolls 1d6/5 points, with STUN counted as the number on the dice minus 1/die (minimim 1 per die optional) and counts BOD as normal, except both 5's and 6's count 2 BOD (or, alternatively, 1-5 counts as 1 BOD and 6 as 2 BOD). This keeps the everages pretty close to the current model while smoothing the Stun multiple away.

[Alibear]

Re: making killing dmg balance with normal dmg

 

a killing attack on someone with no resistant defenses - they still get their normal defense against the stun

 

You've just removed some of the lethality of killing attacks, right there, why?

[Robyn]

Re: making killing dmg balance with normal dmg

 

You've just removed some of the lethality of killing attacks' date=' right there, why?[/quote']

 

If you're thinking of the ability to get a high roll on your Stun Lotto and kill the other person while they're knocked out, it's far cheaper to simply buy a Stun Drain or NND Stun attack.

[Sean Waters]

Re: making killing dmg balance with normal dmg

 

There is no right answer here, but for a fantasy campaign where you can probably expect reasonably limited defences, you could leave normal and killing attacks wehre they are but only multiply the killing damage by Body through defences, not total body.

 

Killing attacks are still scarier than normal ones because of the enormous variation that you get in both the body and stun totals, but this substantially modifies the effect of the stun lotto, and makes sense - the stun taken is related to the body taken, not the body that bounces off defences.

 

This approach makes no sense for superhero games - in effect it neuters killing attacks as killing damage is a rarity in superhero games, but for a reasonably realistic fantasy game it could be just what you are looking for.

 

Bear in mind that if there is little effective difference between killing and normal attacks, there will be far fewer killing attacks used, which is just not realistic in most settings.

[dugfromthearth]

Re: making killing dmg balance with normal dmg

 

You've just removed some of the lethality of killing attacks' date=' right there, why?[/quote']

 

actually it removed none of the lethality. Stun is not lethal damage, body is.

 

my change makes killing attacks killing attacks. They are used to kill, not to knock unconcious.

 

As noted by others in this thread - in Hero killing attacks are valued primarily for their ability to do stun. This is very strange for a killing attack.

 

With my change killing attacks are superior at killing and inferior at stunning. They are balanced with normal attacks, simply used for a different purpose.

[Sean Waters]

Re: making killing dmg balance with normal dmg

 

actually it removed none of the lethality. Stun is not lethal damage, body is.

 

my change makes killing attacks killing attacks. They are used to kill, not to knock unconcious.

 

As noted by others in this thread - in Hero killing attacks are valued primarily for their ability to do stun. This is very strange for a killing attack.

 

With my change killing attacks are superior at killing and inferior at stunning. They are balanced with normal attacks, simply used for a different purpose.

 

2d6 KA averages 7 BODY

6d6 NA averages 6 BODY

 

Stun averages are meaningless, but Alibear is right, your method reduces the BODY damage a killing attack does.

[dugfromthearth]

Re: making killing dmg balance with normal dmg

 

sorry, I was referring to what he had quoted - which didn't show up in my quote: a killing attack on someone with no resistant defenses - they still get their normal defense against the stun

 

that does not make it any less lethal - it is about the stun.

 

yes the change to how the dice are rolled makes it do less body for a 30pt attack. That is a side effect of making the die rolls be the same and is a rounding issue. It does the same for 5pts and more body for 10 pts. It is not intended, it just using dice to roll gives slightly different averages.

 

5pts = 1pt KA does 1 body

1d6 NA does 1 body

10pts = 1/2 d6 KA does 1.75 body

2d6 NA does 2 body

15pts = 1d6 KA does 3.5 body

3d6 NA does 3 body

[Rapier]

Re: making killing dmg balance with normal dmg

 

As noted by others in this thread - in Hero killing attacks are valued primarily for their ability to do stun. This is very strange for a killing attack.

 

This is an extremely common misconception. SOME people value Killing Attacks for their ability to do high amounts of STUN. The problem with this idea is that it is just as easy to roll a very LOW amount of STUN. This is why it is frequently referred to as a "Stun Lotto." Sometimes you hit it big, and sometimes you go home empty handed.

 

On average, Killing Attacks don't really do much more STUN than normal attacks.

 

I have never, nor has anyone involved in any of my games, ever taken a Killing Attack for the purpose of doing large amounts of STUN. NNDs are cheaper and work a heck of a lot better for that.

[Doc Democracy]

Re: making killing dmg balance with normal dmg

 

2d6 KA averages 7 BODY

6d6 NA averages 6 BODY

 

Stun averages are meaningless, but Alibear is right, your method reduces the BODY damage a killing attack does.

 

I guess to even that up you would have to make 1s equal 1 BODY rather than 0 BODY - that would give an average of 7 BODY to 6 dice.

 

If you wanted to increase the diversity then 1 and 2 could equate to 0 BODY, 5 to 2 BODY and 6 to 3 BODY for the same average of 7 but I expect I'm getting number happy.....

 

 

Doc

[Doc Democracy]

Re: making killing dmg balance with normal dmg

 

On average, Killing Attacks don't really do much more STUN than normal attacks.

 

You are exactly correct. But basing things on averages do not equate to gameplay.

 

To make the example more extreme - VariableGuy has an attack where can do 100 damage but only in one out of overy four hits. Other times he does no damage at all. SteadyMan has a much more reliable attack that does 25 damage every time.

 

Each will do an average of 25 damage but, in a game where defences are 20 and you can expect a fight to go on for more than four hits, VariableGuy will win every time. In that fourth hit he does 80 damage to his target while SteadyMan has only done 20 overall even though he has hit every single time.

 

It isn't the average that makes the killing attack attractive it is the hugely increased chance of one-punching your opponent or stunning him so that everyone can pile in with their big attacks.

 

The variability isn't an issue, the gamblers just sit there waiting for everything to pay off with one big hit - and it works often enough to make it a viable tactic.

 

 

Doc

[schir1964]

Re: making killing dmg balance with normal dmg

 

But basing things on averages do not equate to gameplay...

Ditto.

 

- Christopher Mullins

[Rapier]

Re: making killing dmg balance with normal dmg

 

You are exactly correct. But basing things on averages do not equate to gameplay.

 

To make the example more extreme - VariableGuy has an attack where can do 100 damage but only in one out of overy four hits. Other times he does no damage at all. SteadyMan has a much more reliable attack that does 25 damage every time.

 

Each will do an average of 25 damage but, in a game where defences are 20 and you can expect a fight to go on for more than four hits, VariableGuy will win every time. In that fourth hit he does 80 damage to his target while SteadyMan has only done 20 overall even though he has hit every single time.

 

It isn't the average that makes the killing attack attractive it is the hugely increased chance of one-punching your opponent or stunning him so that everyone can pile in with their big attacks.

 

The variability isn't an issue, the gamblers just sit there waiting for everything to pay off with one big hit - and it works often enough to make it a viable tactic.

 

Except you are oversimplifying. We are not talking about an all or nothing attack where you are guaranteed damage 1/4 of the time. It's a give and take. Sometimes you will roll well and do some nice damage. Sometimes you will roll and do some pretty cruddy damage. It is extremely possible to do both with either an RKA or an EB. The problem is that it is more difficult to get rolls beyond the median/average when you roll more dice.

 

Some sample rolls:

4d6 RKA: 8B/24S, 13B/65S, 16B/64S, 19B/95S, 18B/36S

12d6 EB: 12B/39S, 12B/46S, 13B/42S, 14B/47S, 14B/48S

 

There was some pretty darn good rolls for the RKA (that 19 BODY, 95 STUN has me positively drooling). The RKA has averaged 14.8 BODY and 56.8 STUN. The median is 16 BODY and 64 STUN.

 

The EB rolls are fairly flat with a very small dispersion pattern, which we would expect. The EB has averaged 13 BODY and 44.4 STUN. The median is 13 BODY and 46 STUN.

 

Not that the averages aren't very far off between the two attacks, even though I rolled my ass off with that RKA (2 BODY and 13 STUN).

 

Considering a normal hero that has 25 PD/20 rPD (fairly normal from my experience). From the RKA he would take: 0B/0S, 0B/45S, 0B/44S, 0B/70S, 0B/11S for a grand total of 0 BODY and 180 STUN...and that is with some AWESOME rolls.

 

From the EB he would take 0B/14S, 0B/21S, 0B/17S, 0B/22S, 0B/23S for a grand total of 0 BODY and 97 STUN.

 

The character took no BODY damage at all. However, he took almost twice as much STUN from the RKA as the EB. But look at the rolls. The EB did some STUN with every attack. There was one attack that the RKA did NO damage at all and another that did less STUN than the lowest EB.

 

Is there a widely varying possibility of STUN damage from Killing Attacks? YES! Does the RKA do more damage? Possibly. Partly the difference is the amount of Resistant Defense someone has. It also depends on how well you roll (and I wish I hadn't rolled so well for this example...but that's how it goes, doesn't it?).

 

Which attack would you rather have? Well that depends a lot on your play style. If you are a min-maxing, cheese-eating, fromage-smelling power-gamer then go with the RKA with an Increased STUN Multiple.

 

The main point is that you should never make a choice on what power to take (RKA vs EB) based upon the effects of one over the other (attack X does more STUN). You should make the choice based upon what is correct for the character and the concept of the weapon. If you are going to choose an RKA over an EB because it does more STUN, you are not very imaginative at all. You should be taking a STUN Drain and call it a day. After all, almost NOBODY has Power Defense in any kind of decent amount.

[Doc Democracy]

Re: making killing dmg balance with normal dmg

 

Before I say anything else, let me indicate that I am in 100% agreement with you about the choice of mechanic to reflect the desired SFX expressed by teh player and their description of the power. In my groups I have tended to do much of the design and construction and so have not really had to deal with much overuse of killing attacks for this reason or any other.

 

However....

 

Some sample rolls:

4d6 RKA: 8B/24S, 13B/65S, 16B/64S, 19B/95S, 18B/36S

12d6 EB: 12B/39S, 12B/46S, 13B/42S, 14B/47S, 14B/48S[/Quote]

 

Nice rolls

 

Looking at this - as you point out later - taking 25 defence (20 resistant) - some of the RKAs do no damage at all. However if this was one turn in a game lets take it phase by phase with each charaxcter having 28 CON and 60 STUN.

 

Phase 3 - RKAGuy does nothing and takes a solid hit from EBMan.

Phase 5 - RKAGuy stuns EBMan who would have done damage to RKAGuy if he went first. If he didn't then RKAMan has a vulnerable opponent who will not damage him next time.

Phase 8 - EBMan is stunned and RKAMan's attack stuns him again, though the accumulated damage pushes EBMan to -19 STUN.

 

That is before we got to the drooling damage.

 

EBMan has come nowhere near stunning RKAGuy and will only rarely do so. Three out of the five attacks by RKAGuy result in a stun result on EBMan. It is enough of a lure for the thrillseeker.

 

The character took no BODY damage at all. However, he took almost twice as much STUN from the RKA as the EB. But look at the rolls. The EB did some STUN with every attack. There was one attack that the RKA did NO damage at all and another that did less STUN than the lowest EB.

 

[snip]

 

Which attack would you rather have? Well that depends a lot on your play style. If you are a min-maxing, cheese-eating, fromage-smelling power-gamer then go with the RKA with an Increased STUN Multiple. [/Quote]

 

Tell us what you think Rapier - don't beat about the bush with all of that flowery language!

 

I know plenty of friends who want their attack to be effective and be capable of 'taking out the bad guy'. It can get boring slowly building up the necessary stun to KO the bad guy and it never feels that heroic....whereas one-punching definitely does.

 

 

The main point is that you should never make a choice on what power to take (RKA vs EB) based upon the effects of one over the other (attack X does more STUN). You should make the choice based upon what is correct for the character and the concept of the weapon. If you are going to choose an RKA over an EB because it does more STUN' date=' you are not very imaginative at all. You should be taking a STUN Drain and call it a day. After all, almost NOBODY has Power Defense in any kind of decent amount.[/quote']

 

 

As I said at the start, absolutely. Think about the powers and buy the mechanics that best reflect those. That's the way for a good colour filled game. It does not, however, remove the temptation for those who want their character to be 'effective' as well as colourful.

 

 

Doc

[BNakagawa]

Re: making killing dmg balance with normal dmg

 

 

On average, Killing Attacks don't really do much more STUN than normal attacks.

QUOTE]

 

Not against targets with DEF = 0, anyway.

 

Against targets with higher DEF, YMMV.

 

3d6 eb will average 0 stun vs a target with 18 def.

1d6 ka will average .8 stun vs a target with 18 def.

 

It isn't a ton of damage, but it's more than 0.

 

While you may dismiss the concept of 3 damage classes vs 18 def as an absurd example, consider the same two attacks being thrown at a target with 5 DEF and 13 CON.

 

The 3d6 eb will NEVER stun the target. The 1d6 KA will stun the target roughly 1 shot in 7. Not the greatest odds, but it beats 0.

 

Against 5 def, yes the eb will average better damage over the long haul. Sometimes this is better. Sometimes it isn't. If your foe has his finger on the trigger of a self destruct switch and you have one shot to KO or stun him, then sometimes the KA is your best bet.

[Robyn]

Re: making killing dmg balance with normal dmg

 

If your foe has his finger on the trigger of a self destruct switch and you have one shot to KO or stun him' date=' then sometimes the KA is your best bet.[/quote']

 

Or for fire-and-forget sniper attacks. Make the shot, then pack up and run before they track the bullet to its point of origin: if you hit them, they're dead, and if you missed them, you want it to be an amusing "Was this supposed to hurt me?" rather than an enraging "I'll kill whoever did this!" that leaves your target in the hospital (not out and about for more opportunities to finish them off).

[Lucius]

making killing dmg balance with normal dmg

 

You've just removed some of the lethality of killing attacks' date=' right there, why?[/quote']

 

Possibly to make it more balanced?

 

The main point is that you should never make a choice on what power to take (RKA vs EB) based upon the effects of one over the other (attack X does more STUN).

 

My first question is: Did you say that with a straight face?

 

You should make the choice based upon what is correct for the character and the concept of the weapon.

 

My second is: Does this excuse excessively penalizing or rewarding characters based on what their “concept” allows?

 

 

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary is hiding from the classical musicians.