The cost of killing damage

[Sean Waters]

Re: The cost of killing damage

 

But' date=' as you point out earlier, there are rarely lightly armored characters encountered, and pretty much never as a credible threat. Given that, why would anyone pay points for an attack which will be useless against credible threats, and take out useless opposition a little faster?[/quote']

 

Well I'd suggest it is because it makes for a more realistic game: in reality, bullets are very dangerous if you don't have body armour.

 

The problem to my mind is we have gone too far the other way - killing attacks are almost impossible to fully defend against, which leads to defence inflation, which leads to slower combats. A more predictable mechanic would actually speed the game up.

[Sean Waters]

Re: The cost of killing damage

 

The problem may be with the way we apply damage. Under the current system, you can't just trade higher Body for lower stun because, in a lot of games, that would simply make the environment more frangible whilst having little effect on characters, as their defences are too high.

 

Mind you, if you did have a more predictable mechanic, as Christopher Mullins pointed out, it would allow you to build characters who were in danger of injury, without being (despite considerable defences) in danger of being one-shotted. The mechanics in the system determine the build of characters, and when we have a wild card mechanic, it substantialy affects the builds. You can't really compare the way we construct characters now, bearing in mind the nature of KAs, with how characters would be built if we used a different mechanic.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: The cost of killing damage

 

The problem may be with the way we apply damage. Under the current system, you can't just trade higher Body for lower stun because, in a lot of games, that would simply make the environment more frangible whilst having little effect on characters, as their defences are too high.

 

Mind you, if you did have a more predictable mechanic, as Christopher Mullins pointed out, it would allow you to build characters who were in danger of injury, without being (despite considerable defences) in danger of being one-shotted. The mechanics in the system determine the build of characters, and when we have a wild card mechanic, it substantialy affects the builds. You can't really compare the way we construct characters now, bearing in mind the nature of KAs, with how characters would be built if we used a different mechanic.

 

Funny how I don't seem to have many problems with this.

I wuvs me my Damage Reduction,

which in fitting with my admittedly high impact preference of play generally gives very satisfactory results.

I find Damage Reduction "feels" better than simply boosting defences, and given both my experiences and what I've seen among Steve's designs, Susano's, Oddhats, and quite a few others, it's the keystone to moderating balance with the current system.

 

Not saying exploring alternate tools isn't a valuable approach. I've always liked Fox1's variant, honestly. It was excellently researched and mimicked real life weapon performance remarkably well for a very gritty realistic game. It's a shame it's not still up... It's the closest thing I've seen in Hero terms to the old Timeline & Tri Tac systems like Morrow Project and Fringeworthy, which were cumbersome and lethal but OH so very accurate if used right. A similar system for Hero would mimic the "play feel" of the earlier systems while still exploiting the best system around

[Kdansky]

Re: The cost of killing damage

 

I ask myself right now: What do I want from a Killing Mechanic? I mean: Having an attack to take out targets without any resistant defenses whatsoever is nearly useless, since all your enemies will have rDef, and that is covered by AVLD and NND very well. So we can go with two things: Either add another AVLD mechanic or do something completely different. I would like to see something like this:

 

Normal Attacks:

- Reliable, small fluctuation (at DC 12+ it could be a bit more than currently, really).

 

KAs

- unrealiable, bigger fluctuation (call it crits if you like), a bit less in average (since critting is an advantage due to stunning and how defenses work linearily)

 

Normal Defenses

- reliable against EBs and against KAs, but do not protect well vs outlier rolls (crits)

 

Resistant defenses

- also reliable, more expensive, and protect well versus outlier rolls or crit.

 

 

Very crude example, I'm not entirely happy with the mechanics, it's really only to show what I mean:

 

PD, ED, EB working like now

 

KA: Like EB, but instead of 12 DC = 12d6, that would be 12d6-12, but for every four, five or six you roll, you get an extra die (full die, no minus 1). You cannot infinite crit (to prevent the current 100+ stun hits), meaning, a 4, 5 or 6 on a bonus die does not give another bonus die. Also makes rolling damage a neat two rolls at max, never more. In the end, your average will be 3.5 * DC * 1.5 (due to 50% chance to get another DC) - DC, equalling 4*DC against unarmored targets, an improvement vs EB, and a lucky rolls are favoured.

 

rDEF: For each n (lets say 3) points of rDef you have, you can prevent one of these bonus rolls. So if you run around with 10 rDef + 10 PD and get hit by a 10 DC KA, you can prevent 3 bonus dice, and the KA will probably roll 12 dice, but subtract 10 points for stun, that's a tiny bit worse than EB ( 12 * 3.5 - 10 < 10* 3.5). But 10 rDef costs you 5 cp more, or 1 DC for the attacker to compensate. The numbers are not far off.

 

Since rDef costs more points, being "very" safe is expensive, and being "rather" safe is cheap. Against turtle opponents with lots of rDEF, EB is better (or rather, a lot cheaper than the defense and a tiny bit better than KA), against pure PD monsters, KA *can* shine.

[Sean Waters]

Re: The cost of killing damage

 

Funny how I don't seem to have many problems with this.

I wuvs me my Damage Reduction,

which in fitting with my admittedly high impact preference of play generally gives very satisfactory results.

I find Damage Reduction "feels" better than simply boosting defences, and given both my experiences and what I've seen among Steve's designs, Susano's, Oddhats, and quite a few others, it's the keystone to moderating balance with the current system.

 

Not saying exploring alternate tools isn't a valuable approach. I've always liked Fox1's variant, honestly. It was excellently researched and mimicked real life weapon performance remarkably well for a very gritty realistic game. It's a shame it's not still up... It's the closest thing I've seen in Hero terms to the old Timeline & Tri Tac systems like Morrow Project and Fringeworthy, which were cumbersome and lethal but OH so very accurate if used right. A similar system for Hero would mimic the "play feel" of the earlier systems while still exploiting the best system around

 

Damage reduction certainly moderates extreme results but I'm not sure it is particularly appropriate for a lot of genres: other than as a fix to the mechanics, what it is actually simulating? What is my street level cop doing with damage reduction?

 

Sure you can build it into bullet proof vests: BPV: 6pd/2ed armour: 12 points (OIF: 8 points) PLUS physical half damage reduction (30 points) only v bullets -1, OIF : 12 points.

 

That's a 20 point (42 active) vest - I'd expect it to be pretty sparky.

 

Look at it this way: if Killing was a +1/2 advantage on normal attacks, but was only stopped by resistant defences, a 6DC normal attack does 21 stun/6 body, an equivalent KA does 14 stun and 4 body. However, if you built defences to reflect that, BPVs would need less defence. A normal with a 3 point BPV would take 1 point of body and 11 stun on average. At most the bullet would do 8 Body, and is not very likely to. You've got a good idea where you have to pitch the defences, which is appropriate: bullet/vest interatcion is consistent.

 

With the current system, even ignoring stun lotto, a 2d6 KA can do 12 Body and high results are not unlikely at all, which leads to an inflation of defences to make BPVs 'realistic'.

 

Not ideal, still not that realistic, but it illustrates the point that the mechanics can effect the build, and that, if your game aim is to simulate a genre, this sort of approach makes it easier.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: The cost of killing damage

 

I think this is the "Chicken and the Egg" paradox.

 

Why do most characters have some resistant defense?

Probably because Killing Attacks are common. Especially in Heroic level games.

 

Definitely. The system makes universal resistant defenses essential, so much so that 5e introduces the Combat Luck ability to explain how people with no resistant defenses nevertheless have resistant defenses.

 

Why are Killing Attacks common?

One reason could be due that normal defenses are high enough to make normal attacks less optimal.

 

A more likely reason would be due the Genre and Type of game that Killing Attacks are easy to obtain by the characters (both Player and NPC).

 

Every game needs to contend with this. Some approach it by making all attacks equal (Villains & Vigilantes "Killing Attacks" just add to to hit and damage rolls; many games have "alive" and "dead" as the only likely combat states for characters). Others use other kludges - DC Heroes required characters to specifically engage in lethal combat, so even gunfire wasn't fatal in most cases. Golden Heroes gave characters both Hits to KO and Hits to Kill, and allowed attacks to have slightly greater damage from one or the other, so killing attacks were marginally more effective at killing and less at achieving a KO.

 

Just as killing attacks are very available in a fantasy game, however, so is armor. Will characters stop wearing it because KA's are ineffective against it? I suspect not!

 

Making a KA useless against most credible opposition is not a better balance - it just changes the imbalance to work against the KA instead of for it. That's not, in my view, an improvement. And it's not genre consistent. Characters like Wolverine (the poster boy for Supers with a killing attack) seem quite effective against high defense characters, not relegated to the sidelines.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: The cost of killing damage

 

Look at it this way: if Killing was a +1/2 advantage on normal attacks' date=' but was only stopped by resistant defences, a 6DC normal attack does 21 stun/6 body, an equivalent KA does 14 stun and 4 body. However, if you built defences to reflect that, BPVs would need less defence. A normal with a 3 point BPV would take 1 point of body and 11 stun on average. At most the bullet would do 8 Body, and is not very likely to. You've got a good idea where you have to pitch the defences, which is appropriate: bullet/vest interatcion is consistent.[/quote']

 

That same BPV now has difficulty stopping BOD from an equivalent punch. Assuming a BPV is easy to access, why should I ever buy a KA? That Plate Armor that prevents a 9 DC sword from killing me (8 rPD seems quite adequate in this regard) allows a normal attack to inflict BOD on average. The KA may get more STUN through, since that STUN is now stopped only by rDEF. It probably has to, since you need those normal defenses to blunt a normal attack's impact. We're back to a KA being less effective at killing, and more effective at a KO against even armoured targets.

 

The same logic of reducing the defense of a BPV applies if we simply change the KA's to roll normal dice. Let the 6 DC handgun roll 6d6, count BOD, 1-5 is 1 and 6 is 2. A BPV with, say, 6 or 7 rDEF will stop the bullet's BOD on an average roll. A normal attack's BOD will also be stopped.

 

By the way, any idea why we assume a BPV adds defenses? My understanding is that it spreads the force of the attack over a larger area, blunting the killing impact. Maybe a BPV should provide Damage Resistance, rather than (or in addition to) rDEF. A frail person in a BPV is still likely to end up with bruised or broken ribs.

[schir1964]

Re: The cost of killing damage

 

What I've always wondered is the following:

 

If the GM wants to build a specific Genre (Heroic) and the Genre has the following criteria (to get a certain game feel):

 

1) Defenses/Armor are not easily obtainable and in some cases are counter productive to certain pursuits.

2) Killing Attacks are easily obtainable since a sharp stick can be used as a small Killing Attack.

3) Characters are given choices of race types with certain inherit Defenses/Armor.

4) Characters are given choices of lifestyle types with certain restrictions.

 

The GM expects there to be variety of characters in play, but I can't fathom why any player would choose to play race that has no inherent defenses or lifestyle that makes wearing Armor or having Defenses counter productive to the lifestyle. Especially when certain Killing Attacks could take them down in one shot and death not long after that.

 

So if the GM expects that in his campaign that 80% of the populace won't have external Armor/Defenses (Resistant Defenses) of any kind, how does he build such a campaign and still include Killing Attacks without them overpowering some of the characters? (Presuming players actually choose characters that can be taken out in one shot)

 

What would your solution be given the criteria above? (Question to any GM)

 

- Christopher Mullins

[Kdansky]

Re: The cost of killing damage

 

As probably stated before, in our last campaign, we had an ugly rDEF inflation. The first character concepts had not a lot of rDEF, but most had Killing Attacks (not because of the mechanics, but because "Sword" and "Sharp Claws" are kinda obvious from an SFX point of view). Most NPCs also used KAs (Weapons) and we very, VERY quickly realized that we needed rDEF. And a lot of it. After about three sessions we redesigned most characters with combat luck (we were new to HS, so redesigning flawed characters was rather common, and even FRED states that one should not be afraid of doing retroactive changes to characters if they unbalance the game. And falling over in segment 12 in nearly every fight is *unbalancing* (that was a baaaad pun)).

So I really cannot answer your question, we couldn't solve the problem at all.

[PhilFleischmann]

Re: The cost of killing damage

 

First of all' date=' you did not answer my question.[/quote']

What question did I not answer?

 

It's obvious that you want a mechanic that is balanced but does more body. That's not the part that I was criticizing. I was asking if there would be resistant defences. In other words, is the body that you are getting from these killing attacks being treated like normal damage body and going against total (or normal, whichever term you'd prefer) defenses?

Yes. And I said that. When I presented the idea, I said these "KAs" would be treated like normal attacks, with no mention of Resistant defenses. Then you asked if they'd work against Normal defenses, and I said "Right." I suppose I could has stated it more explicitly the first time, but I thought it was already clear.

 

I don't want to sound defensive, but this clarification is critical to the point of what I was saying. Honestly, you have seemed to miss the point of what I was trying to say. I admit that I was unclear at best, and I should have simply stated it right out. The point of my example is that under your system, people would rarely, if ever die.

Fair enough. People rarely ever die under the current system too. The point of the exercise I proposed wasn't necessarily to come up with a mechanic that would make death more common, but to come up with a mechanic that would cause more BODY damage than normal attacks, while being balanced with normal attacks.

 

Whoops, I almost forgot. Sorry about changing the 1d6-1 thing. I wasn't sure the best way to approach that, since normal damage doesn't really do things like +1 or -1. I should have gone through again using a different method.

That's alright. Another possibility for these "multiplied normal KAs" when they aren't in multiples of 3 DCs, is to let the last one or two DCs be a normal die, multiplied by 1 or 2, as appropriate. So for example, a 8DC KA would be 2d6 x 3 + 1d6 x 2.

 

I just did this so that we could both agree on the basic premises of my argument before I drew my conclusion, which is that it's hard to kill people.

That's fine. I wasn't making an argument at all, on the ease of killing people or anything else. I was just throwing out a question on the topic of the thread: the imbalance between normal and killing attacks, in some people's opinion. The question was essentially, "How would you change KAs so that they are balanced with NAs?"

 

Let me follow a different tactic. Let's say we are in a campaign that uses this system of determining damage. It's a world where death is a concern, so therefore it is on the lethal side. Let us say that there is a 12 DC cap, whch seems reasonable. YOu are right, 4d6 under your system is more likely to do 18 body than 12D6 normal. However, this damage is not going against resistant defense (as I must assume). So, any PC has to have 36 Total defense to be immune to killing attacks in this world.

Actually, they'd need 24 defense to be immune to the BODY, and 72 to be immune to the STUN, which is the same as they'd need for a maximal normal attack of 12DCs.

 

Now your lethal world is no longer so lethal.

My lethal world? Who are you talking to?

 

I simply threw the idea out there as one which is arguably balanced with normal attacks (the whole point of this thread). I never made any claim that it's the best solution, or even a good solution. What's your solution?

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: The cost of killing damage

 

Damage reduction certainly moderates extreme results but I'm not sure it is particularly appropriate for a lot of genres: other than as a fix to the mechanics' date=' what it is actually simulating? What is my street level cop doing with damage reduction?[/quote']

Being an Action Hero?

Heck, in my games I'd easily allow "Being experienced at getting hurt" for up to 50% Stun only DR.

An awful lot of the 'felt' effect of pain on function is due to surprise and shock. The first time I broke my nose (shield bash to the face) the world went white with pain. Some 12 years later, the 14th time I broke it (elbow strike) I grabbed it, snapped it back in place and kept going. Ask any professional fighter and they'll tell you the same.

In addition, little things like living with severe chronic pain can allow someone to learn how to ignore things that'd make your average person on the street wither up and wish to die.

DR that also works on Body is a bit more of a stretch, but not really. A strong will to live seems to be up there as a common SFX for such a talent, especially among those who subscribe to the idea that the Body stat should be largely a function of size/mass (I'm not one, but I do understand the idea)

 

I prefer my default to be as lethally dangerous and unpredictable as combat is in reality, and then use power and talent constructs to make Characters exceptional, rather than using a cinematic reality" baseline where everyone is hard to kill.

 

I's also one of the cleanest ways, IMHO, to do the "Nigh Invulnerable" hero trick.

 

I have both an advantage and flaw in the fact that I have a lot of experience with fighting and getting hurt. It colors my perceptions quite a bit, I confess.

 

Sure you can build it into bullet proof vests: BPV: 6pd/2ed armour: 12 points (OIF: 8 points) PLUS physical half damage reduction (30 points) only v bullets -1, OIF : 12 points.

 

That's a 20 point (42 active) vest - I'd expect it to be pretty sparky.

 

Look at it this way: if Killing was a +1/2 advantage on normal attacks, but was only stopped by resistant defences, a 6DC normal attack does 21 stun/6 body, an equivalent KA does 14 stun and 4 body. However, if you built defences to reflect that, BPVs would need less defence. A normal with a 3 point BPV would take 1 point of body and 11 stun on average. At most the bullet would do 8 Body, and is not very likely to. You've got a good idea where you have to pitch the defences, which is appropriate: bullet/vest interatcion is consistent.

 

With the current system, even ignoring stun lotto, a 2d6 KA can do 12 Body and high results are not unlikely at all, which leads to an inflation of defences to make BPVs 'realistic'.

 

Not ideal, still not that realistic, but it illustrates the point that the mechanics can effect the build, and that, if your game aim is to simulate a genre, this sort of approach makes it easier.

 

I'm fairly well known (at this point) for disliking the way the bell curve pushes results to the middle for large die attacks, and still in some ways favor the idea of removing the Normal Die mechanic for actual combat damage and using the Killing mechanic for all attacks, with the normal attacks limited to decrease the price to reflect the lesser utility, but I know I'm the odd man out when it comes to such things.

[Sean Waters]

Re: The cost of killing damage

 

Armour is important though, because it DOES stop lethal damage, whetehr it be a BPV rated up to certain ammo types of the old 'field plate' which, at the height of its power, made a knight virtually invulnerable to swords...but not against a clothyard!

 

If damage varies so wildly, armour is difficult to build.

 

Perhaps we ought to do something like splitting damage into penetration and damage dice. If you penetrate the armour then you do the damage dice, which can be as wild and unpredictable as you like. Best of both?

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: The cost of killing damage

 

Armour is important though, because it DOES stop lethal damage, whetehr it be a BPV rated up to certain ammo types of the old 'field plate' which, at the height of its power, made a knight virtually invulnerable to swords...but not against a clothyard!

 

If damage varies so wildly, armour is difficult to build.

 

Perhaps we ought to do something like splitting damage into penetration and damage dice. If you penetrate the armour then you do the damage dice, which can be as wild and unpredictable as you like. Best of both?

I'd be pretty good with that actually, because it's a fine representation of how things tend to work. If I shoot at a plate of 10 gauge steel, my shots are generally gonna either bounce off it or punch right through. Barring hitting existing points of damage, generally the same gun will either penetrate consistently or it won't.

 

This was basically how Fox1's system worked. Didn't even diverge from the normal combat system all that much, but attacks were built MUCH differently. Piercing to reflect hard target penetration ability, smaller dice totals, around half the damage used Standard Effect, while the other half was rolled, adjusted by weapon, etc. Secondary effects from specialized ammo largely reflected as Linked or Triggered carrier attacks (So, say, a Depleted Uranium round might be a small AP KA, with a lot of piercing, and a limited linked attack to reflect the way they go pyrophoric when they hit armor solid enough to slow them down).

 

The builds seemed a little cumbersome at first, but they did an excellent job of modeling the way things work in 'real' modern combat. Don't remember how he handled Melee & archaic weapons, tho.

[Catseye]

Re: The cost of killing damage

 

Well for stunners....

 

I was always partial to the dart gun built as a 3D6 NND KA.

 

I can't really explain it mathematically, it just seemed to me to be the most effective.

 

*shrug*

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: The cost of killing damage

 

Perhaps we ought to do something like splitting damage into penetration and damage dice. If you penetrate the armour then you do the damage dice' date=' which can be as wild and unpredictable as you like. Best of both?[/quote']

 

An interesting idea, but we're now adding an extra roll to each combat strike - roll to hit, then roll to penetrate, then roll for damage.

 

Maybe we could combine the "to hit" and "to penetrate" rolls into a single roll to see whether your attack hit and penerated the target's armor. So one roll to see whether you connect and penetrate the target's armor and, if you do, a second roll for damage. Where have I seen that before?

[Sean Waters]

Re: The cost of killing damage

 

An interesting idea, but we're now adding an extra roll to each combat strike - roll to hit, then roll to penetrate, then roll for damage.

 

Maybe we could combine the "to hit" and "to penetrate" rolls into a single roll to see whether your attack hit and penerated the target's armor. So one roll to see whether you connect and penetrate the target's armor and, if you do, a second roll for damage. Where have I seen that before?

 

Don't know:)

 

I was thinking that you roll (say for a 2d6 KA) penetration dice. Penetration or damage is a -1/2 limitation, so you can get 3d6 for the proce of 2d6, but you have to define what they do: for instance you could ahve a 2d6 penetration/1d6 damage attack. Roll 3d6 for damage (one a different colour). Count the 2d6 against the armour. If it exceeds the armour total, roll the 1d6 for damage and apply stun multiplier. Takes an extra calcualtion step, but should be quick.

[Sean Waters]

Re: The cost of killing damage

 

So, Killing attacks bought as 10 points for 1d6, either penetration of damage. For simplicity (and other reasons ) all but the last die of penetration would be standard effect. So, for 60 points you could buy:

 

1d6 penetration (1d6) and 5d6 damage OR

2d6 penetration (3+1d6) and 4d6 damage OR

3d6 penetration (6+1d6) and 3d6 damage OR

4d6 penetration (9+1d6) and 2d6 damage OR

5d6 penetration (12+1d6) and 1d6 damage.

 

Roll to penetrate. If you exceed resistant defences, apply the damage dice as a normal killing attack, against an unarmoured opponent. If you fail to penetrate, but exceed half the rDEF value, roll the damage dice as a normal attack, which is resisted by normal defences as usual.

 

That might be interesting.