Are Hero characters too rugged?

[OddHat]

Re: Are Hero characters too rugged?

 

So why does PD protect you? Armor as a power could have been removed three editions ago - it's just PD/ED + Damage Resistance.

 

I agree with Nexus - this is part of the restrictions imposed by "real armor", but has nothing to do with the Armor power. I could buy Armor as turning my body (brain included) to steel, a high level of resilience, or a squishy body with no real organs to injure, among dozens or hundreds of other SFX.

 

This reminds me of the scene in one of the Ultimate books where Ultimate Colossus is downed by a poke to the eye, because "realistically" eyes made of Living Steel wouldn't be able to see.

 

A man who transforms into living steel, with super strength, and the author and target audience both think biology even gets a seat at the table.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Are Hero characters too rugged?

 

So why does PD protect you? Armor as a power could have been removed three editions ago - it's just PD/ED + Damage Resistance.

 

I agree with Nexus - this is part of the restrictions imposed by "real armor", but has nothing to do with the Armor power. I could buy Armor as turning my body (brain included) to steel, a high level of resilience, or a squishy body with no real organs to injure, among dozens or hundreds of other SFX.

 

Logically we can see the difference with a little thought experiment:

 

Get inside a steel ball that weighs 100kg, and have a 200 KG steel ball droppen on YOUR steel ball from 50 metres in the air. If YOUR ball does not break then you get away with nothing more than a headache from all the noise. there has been no change in your momentum.

 

Now, have YOUR ball dropped on the other one from 50 metres in height.

 

This time you'll be lucky to survive because you are experiencing a sudden and massive change in momentum when you hit.

 

The same applies, pretty much, with defences, from, say, an armoured suit. If you are squishy inside then it is not going to offer a great deal of protection from a fall. Even if your defences are natural, if your internal organs are not also armoured, then it will HURT.

 

We can address this in the game in two ways (well, two ways I want to talk about here - there are more).

 

We can EITHER build every character more accurately to reflect whether they are tough all the way through or just on the outside OR we can change ther falling rules so that part of the falling damage is NND (Does BODY).

 

The latter would be a far less disruptive change. Of course, it would also lead most players to define their defences in a way that meant they had to worry less about falling damage, so we would not really end up in a different place to the one we are in at the moment.

 

Funny old game.

[eternal_sage]

Re: Are Hero characters too rugged?

 

well, most of my players have actual armor...as in a suit. even my supers are more low key (because they are mutants, not superman) so most of them have normal characteristics, plus superpowers, and those are only sometimes armor based. every one has a team uniform that acts as armor hence the differentiation. my players and i have found it to work well (since the average super still has around a hex of leaping, which reduces fall damage somewhat) and it makes mundane things like plane crashes and large trucks on the highway still threatening to them.

 

and yes, i agree that it is a part of real armor, and all the uniforms have this lim, as well as OIHID, and OIF.

 

again, my players like this, and it gives them that feeling of "oh shit! we're ambushed at the supermarket" which we enjoy. plus it makes a colossus type character even more valuble. we're all primarily x-men fans, and so that feeling is important to the games we play. just my 2 coppers.

[BNakagawa]

Re: Are Hero characters too rugged?

 

The lethality of getting run over by a tank is relative to the type of ground underneath you.

 

On pavement or other hard surfaces, goodbye. On soft turf, snow or mud, maybe not. Tank treads are designed to distribute the tank's admittedly enormous weight over a large surface area, enabling them to get through terrain that would bog down a regular wheeled vehicle.

 

Still not something you want to subject yourself to, though.

 

Bu high end heroic characters can take quite a beating. It's one of the elements that led to the writeups of military weapons being able to wipe out superheroes.

[archermoo]

Re: Are Hero characters too rugged?

 

Its a valid point but I will point out that a PD of 12 is in the Legendary range of attributes so games where it comes up have probably left "realistic" behind. I think Hero players do tend to become a little jaded to what high attributes mean over time because they come common in superheroic games. Most people have a PD of 1-2. A tank treed rolling over the their head will will kill them instanty 10 body x2 20-2 18 takes them negative 10 Body. *squish* Same thing happens if you give them a generous PD of up to 4.

 

Just as a note, 10 Body to the head would result in (10-PD) * 2, not (10 * 2) - PD. So 10 Body would just kill a normal (10-2) * 2=16. Body multipliers for hit locations are applied after defenses, not before. As are Normal Stun multipliers. The only hit location related thing done before defenses is Killing Stunx, and that is just because that is how you find out the base Stun of the attack.

[CaptD]

Re: Are Hero characters too rugged?

 

You can implement the injury, impairing rules and that would take care of your concerns I think. Also the Bleeding Rules. Hit locations are good too. I will use these for heroic, not as much for super heroic.

[archermoo]

Re: Are Hero characters too rugged?

 

You can implement the injury' date=' impairing rules and that would take care of your concerns I think. Also the Bleeding Rules. Hit locations are good too. I will use these for heroic, not as much for super heroic.[/quote']

 

I pretty much always use the hit location rules for all killing attacks, regardless of genre or power levels.

[BNakagawa]

Re: Are Hero characters too rugged?

 

I pretty much always use the hit location rules for all killing attacks' date=' regardless of genre or power levels.[/quote']

 

hit locations make standard, low DCV bricks pretty unplayable in champions.

[incrdbil]

Re: Are Hero characters too rugged?

 

 

Reality is the boring stuff most of us do every day. I am sure there are some champ number crunchers out there who could closely simulate the real levels of effect of fight damage to a PC but I probably would not want to play in their game.

 

Repped.

[nexus]

Re: Are Hero characters too rugged?

 

Just as a note' date=' 10 Body to the head would result in (10-PD) * 2, not (10 * 2) - PD. So 10 Body would just kill a normal (10-2) * 2=16. Body multipliers for hit locations are applied after defenses, not before. As are Normal Stun multipliers. The only hit location related thing done before defenses is Killing Stunx, and that is just because that is how you find out the base Stun of the attack.[/quote']

 

Spat that out too fast that should have been 12-2 PD*2 or. 20 body on average on 12d6.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Are Hero characters too rugged?

 

well, most of my players have actual armor...as in a suit. even my supers are more low key (because they are mutants, not superman) so most of them have normal characteristics, plus superpowers, and those are only sometimes armor based. every one has a team uniform that acts as armor hence the differentiation. my players and i have found it to work well (since the average super still has around a hex of leaping, which reduces fall damage somewhat) and it makes mundane things like plane crashes and large trucks on the highway still threatening to them.

 

and yes, i agree that it is a part of real armor, and all the uniforms have this lim, as well as OIHID, and OIF.

 

Fair enough. Some SuperDefense powers might also have the -0 limitation "Not vs falling damage". Some years back, when Superpatriot (now USAgent) replaced Captain America, Cap got a vibranium shield. At one point, falling from a plane, he strapped the shield to his feet and landed on it. Vibranium absorbs vibration and momentum, so he took no damage. IOW, the defeses were usable against falling damage. He noted that his old shield could not have done this. I wouldn't call Cap's shield "real", but it obviously had one small component of the "real" limitation. Probably a -1/12 limitation, but we don't scale that small, so -0.

[archermoo]

Re: Are Hero characters too rugged?

 

hit locations make standard' date=' low DCV bricks pretty unplayable in champions.[/quote']

 

That has not been my experience.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Are Hero characters too rugged?

 

That has not been my experience.

 

Low DCV Brick with, say, 7 DCV vs 35 DEX martial artist with combat levels. Why should the MA ever take a straight shot when he can take a head shot and do double damage every time? Assuming MA can get a 15 DCV with his levels, he hits 62.5% of the time for double damage. He may have a 12 DCV, instead of a 15, so he's hit on a 6- instead of a 3.

 

Now give the poor Brick growth...but at least his head's out of the MA's reach now!

[BNakagawa]

Re: Are Hero characters too rugged?

 

Low DCV Brick with, say, 7 DCV vs 35 DEX martial artist with combat levels. Why should the MA ever take a straight shot when he can take a head shot and do double damage every time? Assuming MA can get a 15 DCV with his levels, he hits 62.5% of the time for double damage. He may have a 12 DCV, instead of a 15, so he's hit on a 6- instead of a 3.

 

Now give the poor Brick growth...but at least his head's out of the MA's reach now!

 

Uh, he said he used hit locations for killing attacks.

 

Which means:

 

He's coming right at us!

(X5 STUN MOD for headshots.)

 

goodnight brick.

[eternal_sage]

Re: Are Hero characters too rugged?

 

well...yea. he got shot in the face...

 

he should have dove for cover or dodged or something... not stand there and take it like a chump. i know if someone is shooting at MY head, i'm GTFO, at least out of line of fire.

 

personally, i say gun to the face = dead. unless you are Colossus. then it should still hurt like a mother.

 

although, does anyone know exactly what Vitals are? this has confused me for sometime now. is it like Heart/Lungs, or Jugular, or is it pretty much anywhere that is usually one shot kill?

 

anyway, gun to vitals also = dead (unless he's wearing armor, of course, because, you know, thats what its there for and all)

[Comic]

Re: Are Hero characters too rugged?

 

Too rugged would be something like "+20 COM, only after 2 Turns of Combat, five minutes of intense exertion, or taking BODY in Combat, special effect sweat and pheremones."

 

OTOH, depending on how CCA you are.. it might be not rugged enough.

[OddHat]

Re: Are Hero characters too rugged?

 

personally, i say gun to the face = dead. unless you are Colossus. then it should still hurt like a mother.

Large numbers of real world humans survive gunshot wounds to the face and head, let alone comic book superheroes. There's a case to be made for "gritty" damage, and groovy for you if it's your pref, but it's worth considering the space between "gritty" and "instant PC kill".

[eternal_sage]

Re: Are Hero characters too rugged?

 

that is true. my group likes a grittier game, in general, even our supers are less super. i just think sfx based rulings could take care of alot of these problems with characters being to hardy. but i'm a big proponent of the sfx idea, and tend to use rationality over rules usually but thats just me and my group.

 

we used to play diceless message board stuff, so usually dice only get used for combat, and everything else is just compare and contrast kind of stuff. more drama, less polyhedrals, same fun for us.

[Markdoc]

Re: Are Hero characters too rugged?

 

We can EITHER build every character more accurately to reflect whether they are tough all the way through or just on the outside OR we can change ther falling rules so that part of the falling damage is NND (Does BODY).

 

Another - not quite so drastic alternative - which makes falling a bit scary, but doesn't mean you take BOD from falling off your chair - is simply to add one point of penetrating to every dice of falling (a house rule from my game).

 

That way, short falls rarely inflict damage even on unprotected folx, whereas longer falls almost always do, and very long falls are usually fatal.

 

cheers, Mark

[Markdoc]

Re: Are Hero characters too rugged?

 

Large numbers of real world humans survive gunshot wounds to the face and head' date=' let alone comic book superheroes. [/quote']

 

Holds up hand.

 

Took a shot from only a few feet away that went right through my skull. I ended up with a big hole covered by a steel plate in my head for a while and several years of nasty migraines (still have a dent there and a scar), but not only did I survive, but I was back on my feet and functioning essentially normally in less than a minute.

 

I can personally testify that being shot in the head does not always instantly kill or disable you. I didn't even get medical care until more than a hour later and the bullet wasn't removed until that evening - maybe 6 hours later.

 

cheers, Mark

[nexus]

Re: Are Hero characters too rugged?

 

Maybe treat damage from long falls as Killing Damage? "Normals" and people in the standard armor would be badly hurt if not killed and even lightly protected could be banged up.

[Guest steamteck]

Re: Are Hero characters too rugged?

 

Why not just use the alternate falling damage rules ,mass+ ( velocity X2) ,they seem to work pretty well for my heroic games.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Are Hero characters too rugged?

 

Uh, he said he used hit locations for killing attacks.

 

Which means:

 

He's coming right at us!

(X5 STUN MOD for headshots.)

 

goodnight brick.

 

I agree with the Goodnight Brick, and that is the concern - if the game allows for a wide CV spread, called shots are clearly the only way to go for a high OCV character.

 

I can interpret the "hit locations for KA's" comment in a few ways:

 

(a) "I use hit locations for killing attacks, with all the hit location rules, but not for normal attacks." To me, that's irrational. I can shoot him in the head, but not punch him in the head? If I switch my MultiLaser from EB to RKA, only now can I target his head? A key reason I find hit locations balance out the Stun Lotto is that normal attacks also get a "stun lotto" in the form of higher damage for hitting key areas.

 

( "I use hit locations." That's rational, but creates the significant high OCV advantage. Character A buys +8 PSL's to offset hit location penalties (what's that, 12 points? Call it 24 for illustrative purposes). Character B buys +5d6 damage for 25 points. Assuming we start with a 60 AP baseline, would you rather do 12d6 with double damage [average of 84 stun], or 17d6 [average of 59.5 stun]? Or 7d6 with double damage [average 49 stun] vs 12d6 [average 42 stun]? And I think the cost of those PSL's is a lot less than 24 points.

 

© "I use hit locations only to determine the Stun Multiple." That's not really hit locations, in my view. It's just a different means of rolling the Stun Multiple. This can work fine in a Supers game since it only changes the Stun Multiple frequencies, and doesn't provide any archetype with an advantage or disadvantage.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Are Hero characters too rugged?

 

he should have dove for cover or dodged or something... not stand there and take it like a chump. i know if someone is shooting at MY head' date=' i'm GTFO, at least out of line of fire.[/quote']

 

So now the Brick's choices are "get hit in the head and go down" or "use all your phases diving for cover or dodging". Either way, the MA owns the Brick. Just keep taking head shots until you get lucky enough to land a head shot anyway - if he dodges, it only reduces me from an 11- (62.5% chance to hit) to an 8- (37.5% chance to hit). If he Dives for Cover, he's used his phase, can't do it again, and is prone. If it's one on one combat, I just need to wait until he blows his DEX roll or my higher SPD gives me an extra phase. If it's team combat, one of my teammates can do a head shot against half his DCV.

 

Of course, the bad guys should be doing the same thing, so once all the Bricks are laid out, the MA's/gunbunnies, whatever other high OCV high DCV archetypes can have the real combat.

 

So, who wants to play a Brick under those conditions?

[eternal_sage]

Re: Are Hero characters too rugged?

 

i played a brick in those conditions. my character Tachyon (bit of a misnomer, as his powers were radioactive, not light, and deinately not time, but what ever) was a flying brick martial artist with a few blaster levels. not to fast (SPD 4 at best, probably SPD 3), a 40 STR, a 7 base CV, and a 13- AR on his radiation powers. fine for most supers games, but my GM (and this is my fault*, and a whole other story) decided to do away with the AP caps in the charts, and instead based AP cap on (CP+XP) with some funky little formula, which basically put us at least one step above our normal place in the chart. and i'm low level by that chart to begin with.

 

but i push through.

 

anyway, we are fighting a bunch of AAL (baddy group in our world) goons armed with guns. i take several shots from there expert gunmen, get knocked out of the air by a sniper, and still manage to kill the last one before slipping into a coma (was burning STUN for END at this time, and taking massive BODY damage) but i made it, and saved my unconscious teammates to boot. and yes, i had to be smart about my actions, go for cover, etc, because i was out classed, but they were out smarted. and that was Vincent's finest day. he also got the nickname "bullet magnet" after that, and news broadcasts in the city declared i had a new power that allowed me to absorb tons of ammo...lol.

 

and to MarkDoc: i'm glad you lived! yes, i know that it is possible for people to live after such events, but they are uncommon. which is why i think the hit location table is spot on, and use it every time we play.

 

and no, the shot to head = dead thing is a bit much, but i only aim at such locations if the players start it . we've only used that rule once anyway, and it was a gritty Punisher type game set in Chicago in the 20's (Pulp era, Iron Age mentallity) because of the setting. my main point is that GM rulings take alot of strain out of the search for realism, although i have not had to make to many such calls in HERO.

 

* its my fault, because this was the 2nd HERO game we'd ever played, and the 1st was a disaster, because i was a pompous ass, and thought that i knew more than the book did about what the book said. so i didn't use guidelines at all. nightmare. i had teens with 9d6 RKAs. terrible idea. so the 2nd game, i tell Dennis, the GM to use the tables. of course, he liked the ability to have a 9d6 RKA as a teen (when he was a player) so only used part of the table. we have since stopped being stupid, and use guidelines in our games. YAY!