"Encounter level"

[Icel]

This may sound a bit of silly, as the D&D connection isn't really necessary, but...

 

How do one balance the "power level" of the party vs. the power level of their enemies?

I guess that a party of 4 75/75 build characters is equal to an enemy company of the same point base, but what if the odds are different?

Like 1 powerful BBEG, many "extras" level footmans and the like.

[BNakagawa]

Re: "Encounter level"

 

the short answer is that there is no convenient way to tune a party's effectiveness level to their enemies. Too many variables, too many unknowns.

 

There are ways to tune the enemies. Until the players have gotten the hang of their characters and the way their abilities interact (or occasionally interfere) with eachother, you'll be better off using low quality grunts that are weakly motivated to let everything sort itself out.

 

Also, I like using mooks and thugs because they allow different characters to shine in different ways. A hardcore combatant can wade into thugs, scattering them like bowling pins. A seductress can flash a little skin and, with a few carefully selected words, get the thugs to fight eachother for her affections.

 

Hard to let different character types to shine if you use one uber villain.

[ghost-angel]

Re: "Encounter level"

 

BNakagawa is correct.

 

But if you're looking for a numbers way to quantify things, combat wise one can look at OCV/DCV/Defenses and Offensive Capability. Comparing those gives you a rough idea of how two characters square off against each other physically.

 

That leaves out a lot of other forms of conflict resolution though.

[Icel]

Re: "Encounter level"

 

Its only valid when compering one-on-one.

But the thing is that there is no way to comper the effectiveness of X party of PCs against X party of badguys.

[Bloodstone]

Re: "Encounter level"

 

Nor can there be any such reliable metric IMO.

 

All the forms and calculation that people try to develop can only give you the roughest of estimates when it comes to a team effectiveness.

 

But only one thing can account for the players: the GM's own good sense.

[Guest TheUnknown]

Re: "Encounter level"

 

It’s good to always know your players and their characters so when you create anything from groups to big time villains you can have yourself a mock battle to see how the out come would be in straight mechanics with out any strategy on either side.

This gives you a good idea of actual effectiveness of both sides and once in play tactics and spontaneous epiphanies can alter the battle but at least it was fair, challenging and balanced!

[Thia Halmades]

Re: "Encounter level"

 

When I first joined this community, I found myself asking the exact same question. So. You've got the Greatest System Ever Built. Why isn't accounting for things that have been learned by the 21st Century? How do I know which mooks to throw where? What separates a Goblin from a Hobgoblin (answer: Not an extra hit die, but I'll get to that). How do I know if a Dragon will be too tough for the party?

 

A year later, there's still a great deal I'm learning about HERO, how it operates, and how to keep it balanced. Tuesday night my party was split up, and one of my PCs was in the office wing of a massive sports complex for the IGPX. The other was staying out of the fight, but helping, by tossing his Change Environment Radio Group, -8 to use. With a 64" radius, IIRC. So I figure I've got some above average, low-sec guards with basic training and stun batons. I give the Baton a +4d6 to HA, and the Guard 15 STR and +2 CSLs for damage, and another +2 CSLs to OCV with the baton. This simulated, to me, on paper (note the comments here) someone who could reasonably walk into a fight and walk out.

 

He hit the party gun-bunny square in the chest for 38 STUN and dropped him like a bad habit. He also dealt 9 BODY or so, which really got Zane's (the character's) attention. And stunned him.

 

So you ask yourself, as a GM - is that normal? The answer: Yes, that can happen. And when it happened, and I looked back at the design, even if I'd rolled on 7d6 well, I still had a chance of putting him on his can. Was 9 excessive? Not really, not when you consider special effects and the guy is a trained combatant who's professionally employed for security. In fact, I thought he did precisely what he should've done. Knocked someone down and left them with a nasty bruise.

 

Here's another point. In one of the texts, the Stun Baton is a modified 8d6 NND. Congratulations - you fall down now. Unfortunately, this also gives rise to a whole bunch of other questions in regards to genre simulation, which I haven't puzzled through myself well enough yet to really be able to express in anything short of a bizaree, bumbled train of spitting conundrums.

 

Short version of my current plight? HERO does not seem to scale properly to the Heroic level in terms of talents. Immortality, Money, Wealth, the ability to breathe underwater (?!) are all so cheap that as Oddhat has pointed out, being rich, immortal and living in a mansion is just shy of 20 points or so. Often as DM the problem of the scale - the question that you've asked - is balancing the whole thing, rather than any sort of swing, first you need to find some equilibrium.

 

So here are some suggestions:

 

- Cap your damage levels to Xd6 killing, which is roughly the same for normal damage. Be advised you run a good chance of stunning/knocking people out as soon as your Normal Damage breaches 6d6 - which it's going to do very, very easily.

 

- You may have some luck with the Hit Location table, since it modifies the total damage output across the board, often to the GMs benefit. Also makes describing the fight much easier.

 

- Start small, or start huge, but start somewhere and sort of roll with it. If you want everyone to do 150 point heroics, by all means - do 150 point heroics, copy their sheets, and buy a copy of Monsters, Minions & Marauders and a copy of Predators for some monster material and go to town. I should also mention the bestiary. The best way to learn balance in this game is to test out the limits of what you can accomplish in a single shot.

[Vondy]

Re: "Encounter level"

 

One thing you can do is run the PCs up against fairly week encounters with increasing difficulty until you find the balance point where they find themselves evenly matched, or outmatched. Its a good way for a GM who doesn't have a feel for the system and what is key to get experience (and that feel) without blowing the PCs to kingdom come out of the starting gate.

[Steve]

Re: "Encounter level"

 

I agree with other posters that it can be difficult to judge relative toughness of a group of NPCs to a group of PCs, but I've found it works reasonably well to look at relative CVs and damage ability vs defenses. Differences of 2 or more in relative CV can go a long way to making a big difference in combat, and setting damage equal to 1.5 DCs per 2 points of defense a character has usually works pretty well for me. I've actually found things scale moderately well even at low levels by following this rule of thumb. YMMV

[Sean Waters]

Re: "Encounter level"

 

The appropriate balancing tool is called a 'GM' who is required to be a sneaky git and change the entire plot seamlessly if he screwed the pooch on 'encounter level'. Such seamless plot changes can involve mystery guests (always have a few up your sleeve, both Hero and Villain), 'I meant for you to be captured', and suddenly deciding to run that odd little scenario when the local god of pottery (or whatever) catches their departing souls and promises to repsore them to life if they'll just do one little task.....

[Shaft]

Re: "Encounter level"

 

Point totals are not the best metric, because a 200 pt combat monster can beat the guy who spends his 350 pts in contacts (on the other hand the guy with contacts can probably call in a favour or 80 to retaliate should he survive).

 

I like to get my players to list their best OCV, their best damage, their best dodge their best block, and their defenses (including resistant ones). I then design my villains relative to those numbers.

 

For an easy fight, they should hit the opponents on 13- or better. Those villains should hit them on 8- or lower. In some cases, the villain might not even be able to hurt them (sometimes it doesn't hurt to throw the players a freebie to remind them of just how awesome they are). It might be better for some sitiations to just declare the fight won immediately rahter than roll it out. The villains' average damage per turn, spread out among the party, should be at most a little higher the heroes' respective RECs.

 

Keep in mind that SPD differences factor in as well as head count. If your players are SPD 6 on average, and they are up against twice the party's number of SPD 3 mooks, the shots fired on each side is even. If there are 4x as many SPD 3 mooks that hit on an 8-, effectively, you have doubled the odds of them hitting by allowing the group as a whole to roll twice as often (one guy who hits on 8- hits 33% of the time; when two guys hit on 8-, odds are ONE of them will hit 66% of the time, which is like having one opponent who hits on 11-)

 

Of course the villain can use tactics, situational bonuses, and other modifiers to improve their odds, but that can change the challenge level. Ganging up on one player might be a good technique too.

 

An even fight should have the parties hitting one another on 10- to 12-. Average damage to STUN per player should be about twice the REC. These fights will be the longest ones.

 

A frustrating fight for players is one where they rarely hit (if they are down to 8- to hit) and get hit frequently (13- or better). On the other hand, this is where the situational modifiers come into play. The right tactics, and modifiers can improve the odds to hit on 8- to 12-, which is really good. Having one player cover another player while the covered player sets and braces can get him a +3 (feel free to have your mooks use this strategy too).

 

The risk to players not being able to hit high DCV opponents is that they get whittled down and their ability to win is diminished (mind you, this is a good way to teach the players a lesson when they get cocky or if the villains have the drop on them; that lesson might be to coordinate better the net time they fface the villain). A tough villain doesn't need to have signifigantly more DCV than the players OCV- what the villain needs is staying power. The players should be looking at combining their attacks using the teamwork skill to overcome the PD/ED and stun the villain so they can follow through with aggresive attacks on areas that have better damage multipliers while the villains' DCV is down.

 

Basically, gauging the "encounter level" comes down to you doing the math to figure out how quickly one side can defeat the other given average to hit rolls and average damage rolls.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: "Encounter level"

 

This document discusses the differences in threat scaling from the EL mindset to the point based HERO System perspective: Opposition Scaling

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: "Encounter level"

 

One thing that helps HERO in this regard, compared to D&D, is the fact that it's far easier in HERO to lose without being dead. You usually get a TPKO (total party knock out) rather than a TPK (total party kill).

 

Unless you're playing a REALLY grim, dark, gritty game, 95% of the combatants are going to run out of STUN before they run out of BODY, both PC and NPC. Unless you REALLY go overboard, and logic should tell you otherwise, you can drop a PC without killing him ... and even if you drop them all, there are usually a variety of reasons why the bad guys (assuming the PCs are good guys) wouldn't finish them off before going about their business.

 

Fantasy: "Leave the bodies here for the vultures ... their maggot-ridden carcasses will serve as a warning to the others."

Modern: "We gotta split ... after all this gunfire, someone's bound to have called the cops!"

Supers: C'mon, it's supers ... that's just not DONE!

Sci-Fi: Uhm, okay, I got nothin' here.

 

And then what do you get? Players motivated for revenge, which means characters motivated to even the score! Your PCs will NEVER work so hard at catching a bad guy after you whup their butts with him.

[buzz]

Re: "Encounter level"

 

I'm really hoping that, someday, a book along the lines of The Ultimate GM will be published that directly addresses this topic with concrete, usable guidelines so that, instead of having to hope one has "a good GM who knows what they're doing," one can instead become a good GM who knows what they're doing.

 

In the meantime, take a look at "The Effectiveness Rating" in Digital HERO #3.

[ghost-angel]

Re: "Encounter level"

 

The problem is ... I don't think there ARE "concrete useable guidelines" for encounter levels in Hero.

 

I could give the exact same combat wombat to two different players and play styles will account for the capabilities of what they can effectively handle more than anything else.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: "Encounter level"

 

The problem is ... I don't think there ARE "concrete useable guidelines" for encounter levels in Hero.

 

I could give the exact same combat wombat to two different players and play styles will account for the capabilities of what they can effectively handle more than anything else.

 

Hero also allows for a wide breadth of capability. In a game where none of the characters have bought Ego above 15 or purchased Mental Defense, a mentalist becomes a terrifying opponent. In a game where the PC's have higher Egos and/or mental defense as a matter of course, not so much, but that group will have their own weak spots.

[buzz]

Re: "Encounter level"

 

The problem is ... I don't think there ARE "concrete useable guidelines" for encounter levels in Hero.

I have to believe that where there is math, there can be analysis. Steve, Darren, et al obviously have written scenarios and NPC books, so I gotta believe that they're basing the challenges they present using some sort of metric, or at least their own expertise. This question comes up enough, and 5ER being totally silent on the issue, that I think it'd behoove them to try and codify/discuss it should there ever be an Ultimate GM type book, or a subsequent edition of HERO.

 

The Effectiveness Rating makes some strides in this area. Just reading it though pointed me to some specifics I hadn't really thought of before. I'd like to see more.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: "Encounter level"

 

Personally, I look at averages. Average SPD, Average damage / effect, Average relevant defense, Average OCV vs DCV, etc.

 

Though random chance, tactics, and good timing will play havok with any attempt to prognosticate, thats going to give a solid ball park idea of what will transpire on average.

 

As the GM, just by playing around with relative averages is going to weigh an encounter towards the easy or hard end of the scale. Throwing in a few wild cards with odd swings or abilities with unusual defenses will keep things lively.

 

Remembering its easier to add than take away will help keep things flowing smoothly.

 

I dunno...it really is more of an art than a science.

[Rapier]

Re: "Encounter level"

 

As others have said, there isn't a good method. Saying that, this is kind of how I judge things.

 

I'm currently sub-GMing when our regular GM can't make it. There are 6 regular players, the GMs NPC-character and a part-time player that can only make it 2 weeks out of 8. So on a regular basis we have 6 players to deal with.

 

- The characters are between 315 and 350 points.

- There are 2 martial artists with OCVs of about 10 (SPD 6) and some decent DEF.

- There is 1 bricky-martial artist with LOTS of DEF (SPD 4 and 6 OCV).

- There is 1 energy projector with a 7 OCV and moderate DEF.

- There is a new character, we haven't actually seen him in combat but he's a robot with some electrical stuff and he can take damage like a crack whore holding back cash.

- Then there's me. I've got a lot of magical effects (mostly movement powers, a little strength and some FF) and a HUGE freakin gun that I can use to great effect at distances we don't even have a hex map big enough to describe.

 

So I need some villains. I like to have at least as many as the number of players. I try to balance the villains and mostly cover the archetypes. I try and avoid pure martial artists, since as a GM I don't need the hassle of keeping track of a changing OCV/DCV. Instead I build a character with some hand attack and a level that is always used in the same place (+OCV with his HA or +DCV). We don't have any mentalists so I avoid them.

 

I usually end up with a couple MA-type characters (as described above), a couple of energy projectors, a brick and a speedster. Sometimes it's 1 MA and 2 bricks, but you get the idea. I try and rougly match the abilities of the players. So some of the villains will have OCV/DCV and DEF in the same rough range as the players. A player MA vs a villain MA usually ends up fairly even. Brick vs Brick is a slugfest.

 

Players are a lot more inventive than I usually get a chance to be (as a GM controlling villains). A player has only their character to worry about, while I have to keep track of all the players, the villains, the story line and timing. Villains usually don't bring their "A Game." To balance the slightly dense villains against the players I usually give the villains a 10 - 20pt boost over the characters. Sometimes if I want to give them a bit of a workout I throw in an extra villain.

 

Once that is all done, I flavour for spice. Want to make this particular encounter a bit harder, boost some DEF and DEX or maybe add another villain. Want to make it a cake-walk? Lower the DEF and DEX or remove a villain.

 

It's a delicate balancing act, and only experience can really help you determine what works. As an exercise in the difference between heroes and villains, have the heroes fight clones of themselves. It's amazing how well they can totally OWN themselves in a fight.

[ghost-angel]

Re: "Encounter level"

 

I have to believe that where there is math' date=' there can be analysis. Steve, Darren, et al obviously have written scenarios and NPC books, so I gotta believe that they're basing the challenges they present using some sort of metric, or at least their own expertise. This question comes up enough, and 5ER being totally silent on the issue, that I think it'd behoove them to try and codify/discuss it should there ever be an [i']Ultimate GM[/i] type book, or a subsequent edition of HERO.

 

The Effectiveness Rating makes some strides in this area. Just reading it though pointed me to some specifics I hadn't really thought of before. I'd like to see more.

 

They also spend a copious amount of word-space in all books telling you how to adjust various NPCs up or down to cope with various PC strengths and weaknesses.

 

Which leads me to believe they have no forumla to guage these kinds of things and are just winging it by going on experience.

 

Point totals are a rought guidelines to go with. But not the best.

[Sean Waters]

Re: "Encounter level"

 

Not quite what you are after, but for a perfectly balanced set of opponents at short notice and for almost no work, here's what I'd do:

 

1. Copy the PC character sheets

 

2. Change the character and power decriptions

 

3. Change or ignore any really unique powers (and there are not that many out there), maybe swap one mode of movement for another, or one attack power for another.

 

4. Start the fight

 

You can't pull it all the time, but I've done it with one group on at least three seperate occasions and noone noticed

 

There is a pretty deep philosophical point in here somewhere. Has anyone seen it lying around?

[Rapier]

Re: "Encounter level"

 

Point totals are a rought guidelines to go with. But not the best.

 

For instance, how would you balance a 20/20 Force Field against Desol or a Penetrating RKA vs an EB?

 

This is why I disdain the "Rules of X."

[buzz]

Re: "Encounter level"

 

Which leads me to believe they have no forumla to guage these kinds of things and are just winging it by going on experience.

I don't see why this would prevent them from putting some of that experience down on paper. The mere fact that they can make evaluations means they can produce guidelines. D&D's CR system is probably even more subjective, but that doesn't stop it from being extremely helpful.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: "Encounter level"

 

I don't see why this would prevent them from putting some of that experience down on paper. The mere fact that they can make evaluations means they can produce guidelines. D&D's CR system is probably even more subjective' date=' but that doesn't stop it from being extremely helpful.[/quote']

 

Actually, I had an excellent understanding of the CR system, and used it quite a bit. Its just as subjective, relative, and dare I say it arbitrary as any other means of judging threat levels. Its only real value is that it was baked into the core system and thus synchs up with the prevalent assumptions of that game system.

 

 

Here's the real truth -- any such mechanic is just a tool, and like all tools its true value is only realized in the hands of someone that knows what they are doing and / or have talent to begin with. A very good tool can compensate for its user's deficiencies, but a true master will always be capable of a much more nuanced and virtuoso performance than a hack with a tool.

[buzz]

Re: "Encounter level"

 

Here's the real truth -- any such mechanic is just a tool' date=' and like all tools its true value is only realized in the hands of someone that knows what they are doing and / or have talent to begin with. A very good tool can compensate for its user's deficiencies, but a true master will always be capable of a much more nuanced and virtuoso performance than a hack with a tool.[/quote']

Well, so what? Are you saying HERO is too good to bother to provide some guidance? That it's only for "true masters"? What the heck is wrong with giving people somewhere to start? How else does a player attain mastery? Ten pages out of 5ER's 592 is all we get?

 

Metaphor: I've been playing guitar for about 20 years. Guitar (i.e., music) is an infinitely more complex, involved, and subjective endeavor than playing HERO. None of this has prevented the existence of lots of great teaching aids. If a book can set me on the path to comping jazz, a book can help people get better at using HERO.

 

Apologies if I sound a little miffed. I just don't buy the idea that gaging NPCs is somehow beyond explanantion.