Fantasy Hero lethality

[Dauntless]

A part of the lethality problem with melee combat is that once an attacker hits, it's an all or nothing thing. The Attacker makes his roll, and if he hits he rolls for damage.

 

In the real world, when someone attempts a block or dodge, sometimes they are not 100% successful, but it wasn't a 100% failure either. Either they partially deflected the blow, or changed the hit location (the swing aimed at the head hits the defneding arm instead...or for a dodge, it grazes his ribs, etc). There's really no "rolling with the punch" or "grazing hits" effect in the Hero System. In real martial arts, if someone blocks and "misses" it's not like he totally missed the attacking limb or weapon...he just didn't deflect it enough.

 

I've tinkered with the idea of having contested combat rolls. Each person in combat rolls the dice adding their OCV and DCV respectively and adding any modifiers. Whoever rolls higher wins, but if the attacker wins, the greater his margin of success the more damage he does up to the maximum amount he's allowed. In rule terms it could be if they rolled evenly, the defender takes 1/4th the damage, if the roll succeeds by 1, the defender takes 1/2 the damage, if the roll succeeds by 2, the defender takes 3/4 the damage, and if the roll is 3 or more, the defender takes full damage. This makes combat drag out much more, but it also means that Endurance is the deciding factor....a very realistic effect.

 

I've never liked the fact that you can roll a 4 in the Hero system, and then roll the worst possible effect for damage. How well you hit, and how much damage you do are intimately related.

 

-Edit-

BTW, this is why 2-handed weapons were more powerful since they are harder to block or parry. On the other hand, 2 handed weapons are slower, and in a realistic campaign should take some kind of SPD modifier to account for trying to recover the weapon between blows.

[Old Man]

Originally posted by Dauntless

I've never liked the fact that you can roll a 4 in the Hero system, and then roll the worst possible effect for damage. How well you hit, and how much damage you do are intimately related.

 

*cough*criticalhits*cough*

[slaughterj]

Originally posted by Old Man

*cough*criticalhits*cough*

 

Hey Old Man, you might want to get that cough checked out

[Nuke]

One thing I always liked to do in Fantasy Hero is ignore the "lifting" amount numbers provided in the main rulebook for how much a character can lift, and use an alternate system? We have begun to find in general that the exponential raise of things in Hero works nightmares in Fantasy (but wonderfully in Champions). So, we are trying out a "linear" replacement.

 

Currently, a 15 STR is twice as strong as a 10, 20 STR is 4 times as strong as a 10, a 25 is 8 times as strong, etc... Replace this with 2, 3, 4, 5, ... Now, suddenly a 20 STR person is 3 times as strong, a 25 STR person is 4 times as strong, etc... Keep the damage rules in place, but suddenly you don't have 20 STR character's able to lift a half a ton. Granted, they can skill lift 660lbs, and that ain't shabby, but you'll find that the weight lifting charts quickly become bounded. You also don't have troubles with giants being able to lift hundreds of tons, which just doesn't make sense.

 

Likewise, it helps with avoiding overpowered "army buster" fireball spells by slapping on the "1/4 doubles the area effect" four times to get 16 times the area. By using the above linear rule, the fireball with four "increased area effect" advantages would be x5 area, something far more bounded.

 

Just a suggestion, each GM should handle this in their own way. As for being DnD like, equipment costs should always be adjusted to the gold system in your campaign. Don't just say, "We use DnD equipment costs", be balanced on them. Make your full plate cost 2000gp and watch it become more rare.

 

Nuke

[5 Sided D6]

I never thought of Fantasy hero as being non-lethal(or not so lethal). Between getting to add DC's once over the weapons Str min, Combat Manuevers and Combat skill levels being able to add to damage(even with the rule of a max of 2x DC) you can easily get to 3d6 - 4d6 KA.

 

A plate mail wearing person with that Rdef of 8 is still going to take Body alot of times(3d6=3-18 Body, Avg of 10.5) and thats not including if you use the hit location rules where some do 1 1/2 to 2x damage.

[Toadmaster]

Originally posted by Nuke

One thing I always liked to do in Fantasy Hero is ignore the "lifting" amount numbers provided in the main rulebook for how much a character can lift, and use an alternate system? We have begun to find in general that the exponential raise of things in Hero works nightmares in Fantasy (but wonderfully in Champions). So, we are trying out a "linear" replacement.

 

Currently, a 15 STR is twice as strong as a 10, 20 STR is 4 times as strong as a 10, a 25 is 8 times as strong, etc... Replace this with 2, 3, 4, 5, ... Now, suddenly a 20 STR person is 3 times as strong, a 25 STR person is 4 times as strong, etc... Keep the damage rules in place, but suddenly you don't have 20 STR character's able to lift a half a ton. Granted, they can skill lift 660lbs, and that ain't shabby, but you'll find that the weight lifting charts quickly become bounded. You also don't have troubles with giants being able to lift hundreds of tons, which just doesn't make sense.

Nuke

 

I agree the STR table is not so great for Heroic games, I find even with Champions that the 2x every 5pts is high. I was looking into a doubling at every 10 pts, but I like your idea too. That is one thing I wish had been addressed in 5th ed, what works in Champions may not work so well for less spandex clad action.

[Old Man]

Originally posted by slaughterj

Hey Old Man, you might want to get that cough checked out

 

Yeah, it's probably SARS. Or dengue fever, or west nile virus, or anthrax. Maybe all four. Good thing I spent 4 points on extra life...

 

I have to say that 3d6-4d6 HKA is much higher, in my experience, than I am used to seeing. But we did always play under some fairly arbitrary limits for STR and levels. Increasing the cost of STR would help with that, but then that's a whole other thread.

[GamePhil]

Originally posted by Old Man

I have to say that 3d6-4d6 HKA is much higher, in my experience, than I am used to seeing. But we did always play under some fairly arbitrary limits for STR and levels.

 

Hey, it's much higher than I'm used to seeing, and I'm one of the ones that suggested the possibility. Just pointing out how deadly the system can be if you use all the rules: I personally don't like my players having to re-write characters each month. But, such is the price of realism, and enough people actually enjoy building new characters with new stories and tragic ends and such that I wouldn't stand in the way.

[Talon]

There are plenty of ways in the new Fantasy Hero to increase damage levels if you want high lethality and high DEF.

 

There are a few feat--er, Talents which raise a character's damage (basically, HKA bought as "weapon of opportunity). These raise /base/ damage...so add in CSLs and Martial Maneuvers and you can get way up there very quickly.

 

Somebody with Deadly Attack (I think that's the name), a moderate STR and a few levels could easily be doing 3d6 without trying hard.

 

In any FH game, the GM has to consider the average armor values vs. the damage-causing elements he's willing to allow. I tend to run games where heavy armor is rare at best, and so I don't allow most things that increase damage.

[Nightshade]

Use a military pick, bec de corbin, or similar armor piercing attack. In large scale battles with heavily armored opponents, the strategy would be to knock the guy down, then get the big AP attack out (there is a scene of this happening in the movie Excalibur).

 

This is also why the Bec de Corbin was created. It was literally the first "can opener." Pull out a 1 1/2 d6 AP HKA and watch the knights blanch...

 

I have found that my combats tend to be too bloody. Almost every combat ends with seriously wounded characters. That has been my experience.

 

Nightshade

[tesuji]

In the three different Fh games i ran using FH 4th rules, 90% of the fatalities came after the target was knocked out due to loss of stun and was CDGed while laying unconscious.

 

IIRC, there is a mention in the HERO5 core rules about possibly dropping stun in fantasy to avoid the super-hero-esque knockouts.

[Nightshade]

I don't think that I have had that same experience. As I stated before, my combats usually end up with many very wounded PC's and dead NPC's.

 

I would also disagree with the "superhero" nature of being knocked unconscience. That is a fact of reality that people get knocked out, stunned, and generally battered around well before they are killed. Again, if someone was in heavy armor, they frequently were knocked out before they near death. Not in a game, in real life.

 

If you were in a major fight, if someone fell down and wasn't moving, you moved on. You rarely had time to worry about whether they were really dead or not.

 

If this is a frequent occurance, perhaps it has more to do with the stun lotto for killing attacks. I would suggest using the hit location chart for this instead. My experience is that that cuts down on the extremes for stun damage.

 

Nightshade

[slaughterj]

Lethality (at least among NPCs/mooks) has been high in the FH games I've run/played in, esp. since they usually are light armor situations. Sure, many situations might be where someone hits a mook in the unprotected head with a 2D6K attack, rolling average, and thus doing 7 BODY before x2 multiplier, final result of 14 BODY and 35 STUN, and consequently they are technically k.o.'d before actually dead, but for my games, the above result is plenty dead for mooks, without worrying about using impairing/disabling rules, etc.

[Alibear]

I totally agree. The goon might not be flatlined yet, but nobody is going to worry about himcoming back either.

[Talon]

FH also has the critical hits rule (same as UMA, if I recall it correctly) as an optional rule.

[tesuji]

[/b]

 

Originally posted by Nightshade

I don't think that I have had that same experience. As I stated before, my combats usually end up with many very wounded PC's and dead NPC's.

I ended up with a good number of wounds but rarely anyone dead or dying on their own.

Originally posted by Nightshade

I would also disagree with the "superhero" nature of being knocked unconscience. That is a fact of reality that people get knocked out, stunned, and generally battered around well before they are killed. Again, if someone was in heavy armor, they frequently were knocked out before they near death. Not in a game, in real life.

I do not run reailty games. I tend to run fantasy games, superhero games, scifi games and even some spy games, tho often they are merged in with one of the above.

 

In the books, comics and novels of those four genres... superheroes is the only one where it is COMMON for the enemy to be KOed (exception, the infrequent minion to be interrogated).

 

In fantasy, spy and scifi books, novels, and movies i am aware of the typical effect (by a large preponderance) is once the enemy goes down, he is "dead" or at least dying. At that point no further care needs to be taken.

 

The "walk around the eneies CDGing the enemies quickly so they do not get bacl up within a few minutes or maybe even seconds" was all too common in my FH games. (In supers it was tie them up.) I have so rarely seen time spent on such acyivites in the books, movies and novels of these genres.

 

However, if i ever do get round to running a game which tries to represent reality to that degree and which does not try to emulate the genres of fantasy, scifi, supers, or such, its good to know HERO system covers that.

Originally posted by Nightshade

If you were in a major fight, if someone fell down and wasn't moving, you moved on. You rarely had time to worry about whether they were really dead or not.

Ok, yet in HERO instead the "best course" typically is to hit them one more time, or else there is a good likelihood they will just get back up in a few seconds, so maybe the reality side isn't covered that well after all.

Originally posted by Nightshade

If this is a frequent occurance, perhaps it has more to do with the stun lotto for killing attacks. I would suggest using the hit location chart for this instead.

I alwats used hit locations for my fantasy games. i think it may have even exacerbated the issue.

Originally posted by Nightshade

My experience is that that cuts down on the extremes for stun damage.

 

in my experience it tends to stack the heros attacks into the chest or mid-range targets producing most typically a 3-1 ratio between stun and body damage done. After you apply a limited amount of armor, that ratio quickly dropped to around 4-1. (Remember that armor comes off KA body but the stunx is figured based on full body before defense. So a 7 body attack against 3 DEF with 3 PD results in a chest wound causing 4 body and 15 stun.)

 

Extremely few of my NPCs, and iirc few of the FH sample characters at 150 pts, had that ration of stun vs body, and so they typically ran out of stun before running out of body.

 

Interestingly enough, the issue of too frequent KO follow by CDG was significant enough or notable enough that Long even made mention of it in HERO5 BBB, citing it as an example of a benefit of ingoring stun entirely for a campaign in HERO5 254 sidebar item 7.

 

"Doe some genres, such as fantasy, you can ignore stun damage altogether without negatively affecting the game. this also saves the characters from having to engage in the highly unheroic act of administering CDG to every unconscious opponent when the fight ends."

 

I would hope that, since your game does not turn out that way, that you passed on your experience and how to's to Steve so he could revise this for fantasy hero.

[JMHammer]

Knockout = Death

 

Interestingly, most people who are bludgeoned into unconsciousness do not simply wake up a few seconds or a few minutes later, shake it off, and go back to running a marathon. Most things that cause involuntary unconsciousness, such as anesthesia or head trauma, take a person to just a whisker away from death, permanent coma, or serious brain damage. And sometimes not even a whisker.

 

When someone is "knocked out" in the Hero System, unless they're in one of the "deep sleep" levels of knockout, they're probably not completely out. It would depend on the special effect of the attack, I suppose... Even FREd says something to the effect that someone in the lowest-level of knockout can perceive what's going on but can't effectively act in any way. So I don't necessarily see a second shot to an enemy who's knocked out at one of the first two levels to be necessarily unheroic, any more than hitting an enemy who's stunned. The visual effect is that the enemy is reeling from the last blow, or you can see he's shaking off whatever effect had been done to him, and you're giving him a final, finishing blow to put him out.

 

It can be quite uncool to have your heroes in a fantasy milieu walking about the aftermath of a battle administering final strokes. However, in historical period battles, that's pretty much what happened. And if your heroes are fighting "inhuman" enemies like goblins, demons, created or summoned critters, etc. it's probably not out of context or character for them to do so. Other humans or some other ensouled, sentient beings might give them a bit of pause, but that's part of the roleplaying: Are they cold-blooded killers or will they allow those who have fought against them and failed some chance at life?

 

John H

[AnotherSkip]

Tesuji, thise seems to be one of those cases wherein the Gm (our favorite person to point to ) just needs to let the recoveries slide for the mooks.

 

of the last twelve battles I was in 11 of those were against Zombi/Skeletons (no stun there!!!!!!) and they kinda sucked. Most of the time the NPC's were kicking the arse of the badguys (40 out of a 46 man unit were NPC'S) while we were barely denting them. If it had been humans we were goingin up against the battles would have been about the same but we would have been actually hurting them.

 

The only exception to the Zombi Munching battles was a pack of archers who would run (ride actually ) away at top speed (including an aid plus using their riding skills to urge their mounts on to greater speeds)anytime we got within 12". they had PSL's to get their no penalty range up to 32". They were a pain in the arse untill we snuck up on them in the dark and shot them/slit their throats in bed.

 

 

does after the combat CDG occur in fantasy books?

 

Yes,

 

see the Mallorean by david eddings the Seeress of Kell has a really good description.

 

and Daviod eddings actually thinks about it. I could also see Silk doing a bit of Skullduggery behind everyone elses back while no one was looking............

[Old Man]

Re: Knockout = Death

 

Originally posted by JMHammer

Most things that cause involuntary unconsciousness, such as anesthesia or head trauma, take a person to just a whisker away from death, permanent coma, or serious brain damage. And sometimes not even a whisker.

 

Indeed. By definition a concussion is brain damage--even a light concussion results in imbalance, blurry vision, and headaches for at least a day; I've seen people who had severe concussions who didn't recover for months, and arguably were permanently altered.

 

I have been choked into unconsciousness before (under controlled circumstances), and even with the total absence of head trauma it was incredibly disorienting. I lost all sense of time--I was out for maybe twenty seconds, but it felt like half an hour; it took about thirty seconds after that for me to figure out where I was and another thirty after that to remember what happened. Most FH combats don't last that long.

 

In our games it was typical for unnamed enemies to go down if they suffered an impairing wound or go more than negative REC stun. Bosses, however, got all their recoveries and were often motivated enough to keep fighting even with severed limbs.

[AnotherSkip]

Personally I like to think of the penalties for negative stun as akin to the

Knockdown test from Earthdawn. More or less in HERO you get mentally knocked on your rump from getting slapped around.

 

Essentially there are multible numbers of ways to take minor combat effects.

 

some of the breakpoints may not be perfectly balanced, and the combat does not allways flow as it should.

 

Perhaps part of the problems is one of difference between the Hero, and the mook. mooks are not nearly so motivated as a hero, heck a the few times i have gotten whupped there were points it took me a while to get the motivation to come back to the battle.

 

Perhaps a mook even if he is "unstunned" could be waiting a chance to flee from the battle with his life intact rather than face death. Perhaps a Gm should consider this before the first game so as to remove the temptation of the player to deal with every fallen foe and move on.

[AnotherSkip]

We are Heroes , Do we Truly need to Kill?

[tesuji]

[/b]

 

Originally posted by AnotherSkip

Tesuji, thise seems to be one of those cases wherein the Gm (our favorite person to point to ) just needs to let the recoveries slide for the mooks.

Here we are both in agreement, and there seem to be others who have posted such as well. The answer, it seems, is to not use the rules and system and fiat for better results.

 

However, sometimes i like to have the system actually work and produce the results i want for the genre , as opposed to just deciding to use the system anyway and then fiat it when it doesn't.

 

So i did some work a ways back. i did not like the suggested remove stun idea since it courses thru so much of the system underpinnings.

 

As an alternative, when i was working on stats for my fourth FH game, i decided to adjust the character stun-body rations, to try and make "out of body" be reached about the same time as "out of stun" in order to make the ratio of KO vs dying to be about 50%.

 

The rule i have figured was to have base stun = .5str+.5con+2xbody as the starting fig. i was also going to make stun bought individually cost on 1/2 pt per. This would make a character with say 15's in body, con and syt start the game with 45 stun (3xhis body) and be able to buy more stun cheaply, so the 4x level would be easily attainable. Naturally, tough fighter types would likely want to go even higher. (it was my hope that the increased stun would also help reing in the fantasy EB Ko as well and make alternative attacks more attractive.)

 

In theory and some small experimentation this seemed to address some of the hero fantasy translation issues. unfortunately the game never materialized so i did not get a chance to test it fully.

Originally posted by AnotherSkip

 

 

does after the combat CDG occur in fantasy books?

 

Yes,

 

Obviously they do. However, in my experience and my reading, they are very rare. Only a couple fantasy novels i have read have bothered with the subject. The vast majority do not. Even Steve long noted that for fantasy genre this might not be apropos in HERO5.

 

Certainly, if the game you are running is intended to represent this, then the current system rule of KO most enemies then slit their unconscious throats is fine and should work well for you. I just find there to be more games than that one type that i wish to run... matter of fact, i dont find that type particularly beneficial to the game as, to my eyes at least, it limits some of the more "traditional" character types.

 

YMMV

[Hierax]

Changing to Maintain the 3:1 Ratio of STUN to BODY

 

tesuji wrote:

The rule i have figured was to have base stun = .5str+.5con+2xbody as the starting fig. i was also going to make stun bought individually cost on 1/2 pt per. This would make a character with say 15's in body, con and syt start the game with 45 stun (3xhis body)

I like the idea of changing things to maintain the 3:1 Ratio of STUN to BODY.

 

Makes sense since attacks typically do 3x the STUN that they do BODY. And the system by giving only ~2x STUN is effectively favouring K/O over kill (maybe yet another lingering Champions bias)

 

If you are going to change it, then why not get rid of those annoying fractions in figuring instead of just increasing the BODY factor of STUN?

 

e.g., STUN = STR + CON + BODY

 

Or how about STUN = CON + EGO + BODY? CON is how tough you are so it makes sense to resist damage more than STR does (IMO, STR inflicts damage and CON resists it), and replace the STR factor with EGO as Willpower could be argued to make more sense to resist damage. Besides, reducing the influence of STR on figured characteristics fixes some of the reasons to make STR cost 2 points.

 

Just presenting some slight variations that came to mind while reading this.

[GamePhil]

Originally posted by tesuji

Here we are both in agreement, and there seem to be others who have posted such as well. The answer, it seems, is to not use the rules and system and fiat for better results.

[/b]

 

There's no need to ignore or even change the rules to get this. Just add to the Thug Package Deal the following Disadvantage:

 

Physical Limitation: GM's Option At 0 Stun, Frequent, Greatly Impairing, 15 points

 

Make this part of any Package Deal (Commoner, Minor Monster) where it is appropriate.

 

Of course, just because there's no "need" doesn't mean there's not a "desire".

[tesuji]

writing out the "dont use the rules" part doesn't make it any less not using the rules. :-)

 

For instance, if i decided i wanted negative 5 body to be dead, i could either not use the book rule and do my own or i could try to pretend i am using the book rules and then claim i have an area triggered worldwide area transform of 100d6 that kicks in whenever someone reachs -5 body to turn dieing to dead (or maybe that could be an invisible rka NND does body) and then claim that BY THE RULES -5 body is dead... i reckon.

 

it seems simpler to just admit... i did not like the way the rules worker so i changed it.