Why divide by 5?

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Why divide by 5?

 

The original DC Heroes game had an exponential scale and characteristics (and powers) increased 1 point ata time. It didn't work for me for various reasons but it was a really nice idea very well impliemnted.

 

As to granularity, we don't really have it now for some characteristics, just the illusion of it: there is no practical difference between 15 INT and 16 INT in Hero.

 

Unless you use INT to break DEX ties like I do, but yes I know what you mean and agree. I havent ranted on it lately, but the Primary / Secondary Characteristics is one of the few parts of the system that I would like to see get significantly rearchitected to make every point meaningful, remove point recursions via Figureds, and reduce the amount of sameness seen in many heroic games, but still be scalable to superheroic levels.

 

Its not an easy problem to solve, however, which is probably why it hasnt been solved yet.

[Fedifensor]

Re: Why divide by 5?

 

So' date=' I was thinking, we do this slightly odd thing: combat values are based on CHA/3 and skill values on CHA/5. Why?[/quote']

 

To address the original question of the thread...to create more breakpoints. Right now, Dex has several different breakpoints depending on the level of the campaign (Heroic or Superheroic) and what areas you want to focus on (combat or skills). Viable breakpoints include 11, 13, 14, 17, 18, 20, 23 (the big one), 26, and so on. Switch everything to CHA/5, and the breakpoints drastically reduce (13, 18, 23, 28...). It gives more granularity, especially at the heroic levels where you would only have two breakpoints (13, 18) instead of six (11, 13, 14, 17, 18, 20).

[Warp9]

Re: Why divide by 5?

 

So, I was thinking, we do this slightly odd thing: combat values are based on CHA/3 and skill values on CHA/5. Why?

I kind of like the GURPS 3rd edition method.

 

GURPS runs stats about like Hero (base 10, human max 20), but characteristic rolls in GURPS are not CHA/5, they are just straight-up based on the stat.

 

A DEX of 8 has a DEX roll of 8 or less, a DEX of 12 has a DEX roll of 12 or less.

 

Skills are also directly based on the stats, and there is a much greater range of skill rolls. A 23 or less LockPicking skill would not be unheard of, nor would a -8 penalty for a difficult lock.

[Warp9]

Re: Why divide by 5?

 

I remember reading DC Heroes and thinking that there was something familiar about a structure where every point doubles the ability, and baseline normals had stats of 2. hmmm...if we multiply that by 5, we get a system where base normals have stats of 10 and every 5 points doubles the ability.

 

The mechanics in DC Heroes were somewhat different, however. That daid, I don't thinkl a blast that inficted 1 damage to Superman on one hit removed all the rest of his damage absorbing capacity on the next hit.

 

Mechanically, if the first hit reduced his capacity to absorb damage by 1, it must have reduced it by 50%. Logivcally, the next hit should take out the other 50%, leaving nothing. However, I don't see a system where any two hits that inflict appreciable damage = character down is going to be very playable.

I believe that the DC Heroes rules made it pretty clear that you were not actually reducing the character's ability to absorb damage, instead you were accumulating damage against that character.

 

IMO a better way to look at exponential damage would be as follows:

 

1 hit with a level 10 attack does 10 points of damage.

2 hits with a level 10 attack does 11 points of damage.

4 hits with a level 10 attack does 12 points of damage.

8 hits with a level 10 attack does 13 points of damage.

16 hits with a level 10 attack does 14 points of damage.

1024 hits with a level 10 attack does 20 points of damage.

 

You then compare the damage done so far to the character's total BODY.

 

For example, if my character has a 40 BODY and takes 1024 hits with a level 10 attack, he has taken 20 points of BODY so far, but is still going strong. In such a system, he probably would not have to worry until his damage total got up to around BODY-5, or in this case something like 35 points of damage.

 

 

 

Although what DC Heroes actually did was slightly different. BODY itself acted as a sort of defense (and that value is based your total max BODY regardless of damage you may have currently suffered). Even if the character had no other defenses, a 10 point attack against a 40 BODY would simply do nothing.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Why divide by 5?

 

I remember reading DC Heroes and thinking that there was something familiar about a structure where every point doubles the ability, and baseline normals had stats of 2. hmmm...if we multiply that by 5, we get a system where base normals have stats of 10 and every 5 points doubles the ability.

 

The mechanics in DC Heroes were somewhat different, however. That daid, I don't thinkl a blast that inficted 1 damage to Superman on one hit removed all the rest of his damage absorbing capacity on the next hit.

 

Mechanically, if the first hit reduced his capacity to absorb damage by 1, it must have reduced it by 50%. Logivcally, the next hit should take out the other 50%, leaving nothing. However, I don't see a system where any two hits that inflict appreciable damage = character down is going to be very playable.

 

Like Hero, you mean

 

If you look at the sample superheroic characters in 5ER, and assuming that they are playing in a 12DC game, both EagleEye and Hardpoint would be unconscuious after two average hits, Maelstrom would be on his last couple of points and Taurus would be OK, but very worried about a third hit, which would KO him. (unless they got RECs in, of course)

 

 

 

True. You can force the issue with house rules at the cost of some extra die rolling. I've posted on this before. For INT, I would use the following addendum to the rules:

 

- when you roll an INT roll that fails by 1 (eg. a 13 for INT 13 - 17), subtract your INT from the breakpoint for your roll (you needed a 12-, for which the breakpoint was INT 13). Roll a d6. If the number on the d6 is equal to or less than the difference between your INT and the breakpoint, the roll succeeds.

 

Thus, with a 15 INT, a roll of 13 will succeed 1/3 of the time, and it will succeed half the time with an INT of 16. The point whore with 13 INT never succeeds on a roll of 13.

 

Voila - granularity. Small increases in the likelihod of success for every incemental INT point.

 

You could speed the process up by rolling four dice, one being a different colour and relevant only if you miss the roll by 1.

 

However, this would doubtless make Hero too comoplex for 98% of the population, as it would require subtracting

 

That's very nice. Of course 98% of the population already think Hero is too complex

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Why divide by 5?

 

I believe that the DC Heroes rules made it pretty clear that you were not actually reducing the character's ability to absorb damage, instead you were accumulating damage against that character.

 

IMO a better way to look at exponential damage would be as follows:

 

1 hit with a level 10 attack does 10 points of damage.

2 hits with a level 10 attack does 11 points of damage.

4 hits with a level 10 attack does 12 points of damage.

8 hits with a level 10 attack does 13 points of damage.

16 hits with a level 10 attack does 14 points of damage.

1024 hits with a level 10 attack does 20 points of damage.

 

You then compare the damage done so far to the character's total BODY.

 

For example, if my character has a 40 BODY and takes 1024 hits with a level 10 attack, he has taken 20 points of BODY so far, but is still going strong. In such a system, he probably would not have to worry until his damage total got up to around BODY-5, or in this case something like 35 points of damage.

 

 

 

Although what DC Heroes actually did was slightly different. BODY itself acted as a sort of defense (and that value is based your total max BODY regardless of damage you may have currently suffered). Even if the character had no other defenses, a 10 point attack against a 40 BODY would simply do nothing.

 

But a 41 point atack would so 1 BOD, reducing him to 39. If 40 is twice the BOD of 39, the next attack which inflicts 41, getting 1 past the defensive value of 39, should eliminate all the character's remaining BOD.

 

I don't believe DCH required a total of 549,755,813,889 (2 to the 39th power, plus 1) to take out a character with 40 BOD.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Why divide by 5?

 

The point I was trying to make is that with the proposed CHA/3 system it is not a superheroic environment that yields Chainsaw Juggling for a point... It is DEX of 23. Your proposal of 8+CHA/3 means that anyone with a 23 stat is going to have a 16- on normal skill rolls. In other words, an olympic class athlete learns *any* DEX based skill for one point. Any Mensa level intellect learns any science for 1 point.

 

I agree, based on humans doing it today, that anyone should be able to learn to juggle chainsaws. What I think you'll find though is that nobody learns it in a week.... That's what spending points for more levels in the skill is all about.

 

So back to what I said before... The number you are discussing is just an arbitrary multiplier. What it effectively does is determine how big CHA has to be to make a skill arbitrarily easy. With CHA/5 that number is 33+, with CHA/3 it is 20+ unless you change the starting point for skills. Ignoring your desire to have a simple system where everything uses the same number, what CHA value should make skills trivial?

 

Although virtually any task can default to CHA/5 (or whatever ), the way I run it is by applying a non-proficiency penalty of -3 if the character does not have the particular skill. This means that a 23 DEX (still a pretty remarkable total ESPECIALLY in a heroic game) would give you a 16- roll if you went with CHA/3, BUT, unless you had some sort of skill that allowed you to juggle, you'd be taking a -3 penalty. 13- is pretty good, but risky enough that you wouldn't want to do it to show off, and lose a hand... It also means that spending 3 points on a skill is very worthwhile - each point in effect cancels 1 point of penalty.

 

You are right about the divider being an arbitrary value: well, up to a point.

 

I believe we simply do not make enough of our skill system. The skill modifiers chart in 5ER is a third of a column, with not much expansion text. Picking a lock, a standard lock, for instance, should be a standard enough task for someone with th eskill and the tools in a situation where there is not too much pressure.

 

Add in, for instance, the idea of picking a lock in combat, and you should probably be working at -3 to -5 right off the bat, certainly if you care at all about maintaining any DCV. Ditto something like acrobatics: it is one thing flick flacking across a cushioned mat, it is quite another doing it through a hail of bullets down a cluttered and rubbish strewn alleyway in half light.

 

If we applied realistic penalties to skill rolls then we would need higher skill totals to succeed in the sort of situations that we routinely use skills in at the moment.

 

So, the style of play is a real factor, the level of realism, and that, in turn, is going to have a profound effect on where we should pitch 'average skill values' which will in turn affect the optimal divider for CHA.

[Warp9]

Re: Why divide by 5?

 

I don't believe DCH required a total of 549,755,813,889 (2 to the 39th power, plus 1) to take out a character with 40 BOD.

 

I'll have to hunt up the old rules to be sure, but, if memory serves, a 39 AP power might not do any damage at all to a 40 BODY character.

 

 

But a 41 point atack would so 1 BOD, reducing him to 39. If 40 is twice the BOD of 39, the next attack which inflicts 41, getting 1 past the defensive value of 39, should eliminate all the character's remaining BOD.

 

What they actually did treated BODY as defense (which simulated the exponential part to some extent), and then, after that, did a linear totaling of damage. So BODY acts as a defense an as a measure of how much linear result damage a character could take. Obviously that method was not accurate from an exponential point of view.

 

 

For a strictly accurate method, I'd still go with what I suggested above:

 

1 hit from an L 10 Attack does 10 points of damage

2 hits from an L 10 Attack does 11 points of damage

4 hits from an L 10 Attack does 12 points of damage

1024 hits from an L 10 Attack does 20 points of damage

 

Total up the damage and compare that to the characters BODY total.

 

 

Or you could do a wound system:

 

Compare Attack Power to BODY rating. Attack - BODY

 

Result

-6 or lower = No damage

-5 = superficial wound

-4 = light wound

-3 = moderate wound

-1 = seroius wound

0 = deadly wound

1 = destroyed

2+ = totally annihilated

[Warp9]

Re: Why divide by 5?

 

Actually I need to revise that wound system concept I mentioned above. As written it would allow a character with 2 STR to do a deadly wound to a character with 2 BODY, and that is not a good thing.

 

Anyway, as above, compare Attack Power to BODY rating. Attack - BODY

 

Result

-1 or lower = No damage

0 = superficial wound

1 = light wound

2 = moderate wound

3 = seroius wound

4 = deadly wound

5 = destroyed

6+ = totally annihilated

[Gadodel]

Re: Why divide by 5?

 

So perhaps I should introduce the idea that we divide by pi after all

You would have an excellent start of a HERO Parody, that's for sure!!!

 

[Nekkidcarpenter]

Re: Why divide by 5?

 

To frighten away the weak. You know, those that fear doing just a little bit of math.

 

 

 

Fearful and weak aren't the same thing. I'm desperately afraid of doing math but I will frickin WHIP YOUR ASS!

 

[Maur]

Re: Why divide by 5?

 

Another reason to do both /3 and /5 is that it makes different breakpoints for different things which helps encourage a spread in the characteristics amongst a party. If they are all /5, then you don't need them to be those values to begin with and might as well just reduce the stats to 1/5 their current value.

[Kdansky]

Re: Why divide by 5?

 

Yeah, Maur has a good point. There's already quite a few sweet spots (dex 21 or 16 anyone?), and making everything based on /5 would either make the 13, 18, 23 or 10, 15, 20 (depending on rounding) the soft spots for everything.

 

By the way dividing by Pi is rather pointless since it's only about 5% off from 3. Below 30, you'll get nearly the same results as with /3. e would be the better choice, that's already more than 10% off. Or something even worse like 1.686868...

[Maur]

Re: Why divide by 5?

 

That and since all the numbers in HERO are integers, it doesn't make sense to divide by a real number with a decimal not equal to 0.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Why divide by 5?

 

Well, according to the Old Testament, pi = 3.

 

My preference would be to go for CHA/3 anyway (with CHA/5 being used for skills you've only spent 2 points on). Plenty of sweetspots. Decent variation. Then we can implement the master plan to change the way we decide success with skills to a Hero Combat Stylee: OSV v DSV!

[Maur]

Re: Why divide by 5?

 

Of course moving all this around for just two things also drives factors of the derived characteristics which changes some of the point and game balance.

[Akiva]

Re: Why divide by 5?

 

Well' date=' according to the Old Testament, pi = 3.[/quote']

 

Oy vey.

[Jaxom]

Re: Why divide by 5?

 

Of course moving all this around for just two things also drives factors of the derived characteristics which changes some of the point and game balance.

 

But Sean has already made it clear that simple, consistent math is more important than game balance since right now there is one balance and later there will be a different balance and people will just learn to be happy with it (until Sean comes along and asks why the game is balanced the way it is and we get a whole nother series of posts about why skills are priced the wrong way).

 

I kid, kind of.

 

I think my point about what the game balance is today and what the new game balance will be kinda got glossed over while people were imagine flying chainsaws without questioning how long people work at learning such a trick.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Why divide by 5?

 

But Sean has already made it clear that simple, consistent math is more important than game balance since right now there is one balance and later there will be a different balance and people will just learn to be happy with it (until Sean comes along and asks why the game is balanced the way it is and we get a whole nother series of posts about why skills are priced the wrong way).

 

I kid, kind of.

 

I think my point about what the game balance is today and what the new game balance will be kinda got glossed over while people were imagine flying chainsaws without questioning how long people work at learning such a trick.

 

It is in my job description.

 

I kid, kind of.

 

The thing about whirling chainsaws is they do tend to draw the attention. Game balance is an important consideration, and a change of the sort I'm suggesting would have to be addressed in terms of skill application. I don't think that would be difficult to do though, and I believe the system would be improved thereby.

 

I believe the moon is made of green cheese, and that it is only a matter of time before Ange ditches Brad and they BOTH throw themselves at me (I'll be declining, obviously, I'm happily married ).

[Warp9]

Re: Why divide by 5?

 

I'd go with the no divisions, "every point counts" approach.

[Yansuf]

Re: Why divide by 5?

 

Well' date=' according to the Old Testament, pi = 3. [/quote']

 

That is correct, for a calulation with one significant figure.

[Warp9]

Re: Why divide by 5?

 

Well, according to the Old Testament, pi = 3.

 

That is correct' date=' for a calulation with one significant figure.[/quote']

 

On a much more important note, what does the Old Testament say about pie?

[Sean Waters]

Re: Why divide by 5?

 

On a much more important note' date=' what does the Old Testament say about pie? [/quote']

 

Nothing. I don't believe the word 'pie' appears in either the Old nor New Testaments.

 

Hard to believe, but there you have it. Meals were simple affairs in those days.

[Maur]

Re: Why divide by 5?

 

pie appears in neither as it isn't a word in the languages of the Old or New testament.

[Gadodel]

Re: Why divide by 5?

 

Nothing. I don't believe the word 'pie' appears in either the Old nor New Testaments.

 

Hard to believe, but there you have it. Meals were simple affairs in those days.

It's synonymous with 'bread'...and a certain fellow made a bunch of it, hence his popularity.