Killing damage and armor

[GeekySpaz]

I am having a great deal of difficulty trying to decide on something with regards to armor and killing attacks. A friend of mine is suggesting that I use the following house rule in my upcoming DC game: apply the body damage of the killing attack normally but when calculating stun take only the body that has penetrated the resistant defense and multiply it by the stun multiplier and then apply the non-resistant defense against the stun. The main problem I have with this is that it makes killing attacks do very little stun.

 

His philosophy makes sense for some types of killing damage. Knives, and other cutting attacks have relatively little force behind them and so it makes sense that if the cutting edge does not penetrate the targets armor that no damage would get through. But for attacks that have a great deal of kinetic energy, such as blunt killing attacks (war hammer, mace [which are considered killing attacks in the weapons tables in the core rulebook]) it makes less sense since even if the armor stops the attack from penetrating the targets armor a substantial portion of the force of the attack will still be felt by the target. Additionally, using my friends rule, when comparing a blunt killing attack to a blunt normal attack the normal attack does much more stun to the target than the killing attack. This last one is what really does not make sense to me.

 

A general problem I am having in DC games (and have discussed on another post) is that attacks against people in armor are doing too much STUN relative to the amount of body they are doing. One of the best solutions I have thought of was to double resistant armor for purposes of applying STUN damage. In this campaign I've put a limit on how high characters may buy their defenses. I don't want to increase the amount of defense available against BODY damage but I don't think defenses are quite high enough against STUN.

 

Any thoughts?

[mikesama]

Re: Killing damage and armor

 

A couple of options that we've either used or tested over the years:

 

1: If you don't penetrate the DEF of the armor it's a flat x2 multiple.

 

2: Set the stun lotto as 2-4 not 1-5.

 

If you are going to use your friend's option I suggest that you don't apply the non resistant defenses at all because they way he has it alot of stun is stopped by the Resistant defenses

[Comic]

Re: Killing damage and armor

 

"Do you recognize this; the stun setting?"

 

"Knowing humans as thou doth, Captain wouldst thou be captured helpless by them?"

 

Meddling with the stun and DEF of KA's generally produces wonky results. You're the GM. If you want KA's to be very lethal, limit persistent damage resistance in your campaign to five points or less, and encourage heroes not to take it at all. Should be a Stop Sign defense, anyway, appropriate to some powered armor concepts and some bricks.

[OctoberRaven]

Re: Killing damage and armor

 

Damage Reduction is a good way to reduce the STUN intake without changing the rules too much.

 

Another method is to make it 1-4 instead of 1-5.

[Edsel]

Re: Killing damage and armor

 

We always complicated matters further. We always use the hit location table for KA so there is no stun lottery. In the case of a KA against armor we use either (1) the normal rule resistant and non-resistant defense subtracts from the STUN or (2) penetrating BODY multiplied by the hit locations STUN multiplier, no defense applies. Whichever option will do the must STUN, that is what we use.

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Killing damage and armor

 

Well, don't forget either that most people do damage wrong.

 

According to the rules (and I had to learn this the hard way myself) when you get tagged with a Killing Attack, even using the Hit Location Table, you deduct all applicable defenses, then apply modifiers. This is why DC suggests that you 'double' the location damages.

 

This way, instead of mucking with STUN (which is never a good idea, btw, but you know, to each their own) you increase the overall damage output without having to modify anything. Additionally, if you don't have the HERO Equipment Guide, please buy it, as it's indispensible and already lists everything that you need in terms of damage & ratios.

 

Also, you can Haymaker attacks, add Damage Class CSLs, use exotic ammunition, and so on and so on. Everything you could possibly want to deal damage is at your fingertips. Honest.

[GeekySpaz]

Re: Killing damage and armor

 

I think I mentioned this above but I wanted to see what people think of the best solution idea I've thought of yet. What if I were to treat all resistant damage as double against stun? I think that this does not change core mechanics much and it reduces stun damage to manageable levels while not raising character's resistance to body damage and thus it does not reduce the lethality of combat.

[Netzilla]

Re: Killing damage and armor

 

I think I mentioned this above but I wanted to see what people think of the best solution idea I've thought of yet. What if I were to treat all resistant damage as double against stun? I think that this does not change core mechanics much and it reduces stun damage to manageable levels while not raising character's resistance to body damage and thus it does not reduce the lethality of combat.

 

I've considered doing things like this on occation. One of the ideas I had for a Fantasy Hero game involved reworking the armor so that rather than it being only resistant DEF, it would be made up of both resistant and normal DEF. Basically, I'd divide the existing DEF by 1/3. I'd subtract that amount (rounded down) from the DEF, and then add that amount (rounded up) as additional normal DEF. So a suit of Plate went from being 8 rDEF to 6 rDEF plus 3 nDEF. This actually made killing attacks slightly more lethal, while providing slightly better defense against STUN damage. This helped avoid the situation of knocking foes out without doing a single point of serious damage. Unfortunately, one of the players in my group hates fantasy and vetoes it every time someone suggests running it so I've never had the chance to playtest this idea.

 

One thing that we do use in high-lethality games, however, is the following Disadvantage that I stole from someone on the old Champions mailing list a while back:

 

Mere Mortal - Physical Limitation: Character takes x2 BODY from any Attack damage that penetrates defense; Frequently (10); Fully (10).

 

This is a mook-only Disadvantage that isn't taken by PCs or important NPCs. We've used this in a couple Dark Champs campaigns and we like how it reflects the genre-trope that important characters are much harder to kill while mooks are frequently taken out in one shot.

 

The other thing we do in almost all our campaigns is that once a mook is dropped below 0 BODY or STUN, they're out of the fight completely (either dead or KOed) with no chance to recover without outside intervention.

[Foxiekins]

Re: Killing damage and armor

 

On occasion, I've played with the notion of eliminating the STUN Lotto by rolling BODY damage for a Killing Attack, and then rolling as many d6s for STUN as the Attack did BODY, before subtracting defenses...

[ghost-angel]

Re: Killing damage and armor

 

We've used a flat x3 STUNx and it works very well.

[CorPse]

Re: Killing damage and armor

 

Any thoughts?

 

I would very respectfully request you use a different font if you're going to leave a long post like this. Comic Sans isn't very readable, especially in an online setting.

 

thanks!

[Wyrm Ouroboros]

Re: Killing damage and armor

 

If a Killing Attack doesn't penetrate their resistant defenses, they get ALL their PD/ED against the stun damage. A hero with 15 rPD and a load of regular PD is going to be generally immune to bullets; usually 12 BODY max, so he gets to use ALL his PD against the STUN damage.

 

'But 12 x (6 - 1 = 5) still equals 60 STUN.' Sure it does, and your 15/30 rPD/PD 20 CON hero is going to take 30 STUN and fall flat on his back. That happens from time to time, unless you're Superman -- who probably has 75% rPD damage reduction anyhow, and would take 30/4 = 7 STUN. Blue Beetle's been shot and knocked flat by a guy with a .45 pistol; etc. etc. Just remember that though DC has a great history of Bad Guys With Mooks, it's mostly essentially street-level people who have said mooks, going against street-level Heros -- like Batman. (Yes, Batman's a street-level character. Fantastic training, always plans 50 steps ahead, as it were, but he's still 'Street'.)

 

Street-level characters should not get hit -- not getting hit is their primary defense. Superman can HAVE the 20/20 Armor and the 75%/75% resistant Damage Reduction; he can get hit all day. That's his shtick -- 30 bad guys shoot 150 bullets at him, and they all hit him. They all bounce, sure, but Supes typically has his CVs in OCV, not DCV.

 

So don't go zany over how much Stun damage gets through. If you're concerned, look at Damage Reduction -- 15 points for 25% reduction. If you want it to be ONLY against Killing Attacks, consider applying a Disad to it, perhaps a -1/2 to -1 -- depends on how frequently your Bad Guys are going to be using killing attacks in your campaign. They're probably only going to be using PD killing attacks, though, so it's really relatively cheap...

[ghost-angel]

Re: Killing damage and armor

 

If a Killing Attack doesn't penetrate their resistant defenses' date=' they get ALL their PD/ED against the stun damage. A hero with 15 rPD and a load of regular PD is going to be generally immune to bullets; usually 12 BODY max, so he gets to use ALL his PD against the STUN damage.[/quote']

 

You get your Non-Resistant PD vs Stun Damage from Killing Attacks regardless of whether or not if it penetrates your Resistant-Defense.

[Wyrm Ouroboros]

Re: Killing damage and armor

 

Mmmm. That in Revised, then? I admittedly only have the Big Black Book, where it states the former.