Balance outside of a Super setting

[Catseye]

Okay,

 

SO last night I ran something I've been itchign to try for awhile, my open-genre game.

 

The players enjoyed it.. they asked when we can run again... but as a GM I felt i had a number of problems that I'd like to try to address. Some may just be rustyness with the system and learning the changes from the last time I really did a lot with the system, which was around the second edition of Champions.

 

(1) Balance. This one is plauging me big-time. Maybe it because I played a PC for awhile before judging, but in an old 200 pt super game I didnt have ANY balsace problems really. I simply built approximately equal pt villains, threw them at the heros, and it mostly seemed to "just work."

 

I'm more interested in running Heroic games these days, around 150 pts I think, but Im having a heck of a time with balance. How much PD/ED should charcters running around in such a game have? What scale (number of dice) should attacks be? Since they generally arent paying for attacks out of their own charatcer points, it just seems harder to all balance out.

 

(2) Scale. In the super genre it tends to be small numbers of Heroes v. small numbwrs of villains. My HDTimer plugin handles the round and recovery tracking, but it still seems pretty hard to balance and keep track of these things over large numbers of characters. IS the "overwhelmed by numbers' scenario just not workable in hero?

 

(3) Combats dragging on. This relates to the balance thing. If defenses are too low, its too deadly. if they are too high, combat drags on forever unless I GM-cheat it.

 

Thoughts folks? Im all ears...

[The Monster]

Re: Balance outside of a Super setting

 

Interesting - I've had a much harder time adjusting from low-power, non-super Hero games (starting character 75+75) to Champions, resulting in much the same feelings as you describe going the other way. Problems with balance, problems with numbers, combats dragging on...my Champions fights run waaaaaaay longer than any of my fantasy or pulp fights ever did, even allowing for similar numbers of participants.

 

That said, I'll offer what suggestions I can:

 

Probably the main thing to remember about lower power levels is that smaller differences make a bigger difference. At low levels, a simple +1 to a roll, or a 5-point difference in a a stat, can feel much more important. At the root, it's mathematical: the percentage difference between, say, 15 and 20 (33% bigger!) is much greater than the difference between 50 and 55 (only a 10% difference!). The biggest difference is in SPD.

 

SPD makes all the difference in the world. My low-power campaigns run all PCs at SPD 3, most people at SPD 2, and only specialists or nonhumans at SPD 4 or more. It's very restrictive compared to the 5-10 range of supers, but it's very easy and useful. PCs and important NPCs are thus by definition half again as good as normals at whatever they do (allowing for similar skills), and when the bad-guy ninja suddenly leaps in with an extra action, s/he grabs everyone's attention right away. Again, this starts with simple math (3 is 50% more than 2, yadda, yadda), but it makes an easy way to start balancing encounters: a couple leaders at SPD 3, a bunch of thugs at SPD 2, and you've got a basic bad-guy group.

 

In general, I've just used the standard campaign guidelines from the rulebook as far as active points, defenses, etc. It seems to work well enough, given a review of any special powers by the GM. Of course, most of the PCs I've run are using standard equipment - armor, swords, guns, whatever as appropriate - so those give a fair guideline of the suitable potency of special powers; if a spell punches much harder than a powerfully wielded sword, it requires special examination right there.

 

As far as running large numbers, I've done that to a lesser extent, though PCs are almost always heavily outnumbered in my games. Most of my gangs are thugs, significantly less capable than PCs or special NPCs; so many of their attacks will miss just by the odds. When running them, I don't generally have them be very smart, so I don't have to think too much about what they're doing - usually a simple attack roll is all that's needed. It's the leaders and specials that take a little more thought.

 

For really large groups of thugs, I occasionally roll a bunch of them together and treat it as a single Autofire attack (assuming basic thugs with guns or other simple uniform attacks). If suitable, having them make a Teamwork roll and make a single more-potent attack works as well.

 

Another trick I use for large groups is that not all of them are going to focus on the target all at the same time. Some may be watching flanks, some may be distracted, some may go the wrong way, some will be watching the other exit, etc., etc., depending on their leadership, their training, and the actions of the PCs. I make free use of INT, EGO, and Tactics rolls for groups of NPCs to reflect the confusion of battle. This not only keeps me from always havig to make attack rolls for every single NPC, it also encourages players to do tricky things besides just attack or hide. I don't know if this is a problem in your group, but it's easy to fall into a habit of "I'll shoot" and just roll attack dice.

 

One other thing that I think lower-power heroes do that supers generally don't: use cover! Many, if not most, supers rely on their powers to protect them: high DCV, super armor, force fields, etc. Most low-powered heroes don't really have that option; their best bet is generally to avoid being hit, by hiding behind things or being where the bad guys can't get to them effectively. That can be a very different style of play.

 

A lot depends on what kinds of powers the PC (and their opponents!) have. As I said, most of my games have people with fairly standard equipment and skill sets, not a wide range of weird powers. So it's fairly easy for me to balance, since I can generally rely on people being armed roughly equally and having roughly the same defenses.

 

Anyway, I hope this helps.

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Balance outside of a Super setting

 

(1) Balance. I'm more interested in running Heroic games these days' date=' around 150 pts I think, but Im having a heck of a time with balance. How much PD/ED should charcters running around in such a game have? What scale (number of dice) should attacks be? Since they generally arent paying for attacks out of their own charatcer points, it just seems harder to all balance out.[/quote']

 

In heroic games you really aren't thinking about points (in my experience) you are thinking about the relevant skills and the combat skills. The damage limits etc are seperate from point considerations and almost redundant in the game. (you could do the write-ups champions style with everything paid for and get an eyeball if that is easier for you)

 

(2) Scale. In the super genre it tends to be small numbers of Heroes v. small numbwrs of villains. My HDTimer plugin handles the round and recovery tracking' date=' but it still seems pretty hard to balance and keep track of these things over large numbers of characters. IS the "overwhelmed by numbers' scenario just not workable in hero?[/quote']

 

It is, the problem with HERO is that it provides the detail for one on ones and if you want a different style of fight then you should prepare differently. Set up mook teams as if they were one character and build in the bonuses for multiple attacks on top of the write up for individual mooks - as the PCs take down individuals their CVs get worse and their autofire attacks get fewer shots per burst.

 

Much better way to do large numbers as you need fewer rolls and get to use more narrative for the results of its etc.

 

(3) Combats dragging on. This relates to the balance thing. If defenses are too low' date=' its too deadly. if they are too high, combat drags on forever unless I GM-cheat it.[/quote']

 

This is all about GM preparation. You know what the character attacks and defences are - use the right level, not too high,not too low. If you want the PCs to mow down hordes of mooks then dont bother with much accounting, make them one, two or three shot mooks - keep the defences high so that stray hits by the mooks are not an issue.

 

Other alternatives are providing PCs with narrative style defences (as everyman powers) such as +3rPD - only versus un-named NPCs. Such things can make a difference until the PCs meet the real bad guys where things begin to hurt them. Like Feng Shui - players ears prick up when you refer to an NPC by name.

 

 

There are lots of GM tricks, but as HERO is a toolkit, you often need to come up with them on your own to properly define the game you want to play. It is both a strength and weakness of the system.

 

Doc

[sbarron]

Re: Balance outside of a Super setting

 

If you want the PCs to mow down hordes of mooks then dont bother with much accounting' date=' make them one, two or three shot mooks - keep the defences high so that stray hits by the mooks are not an issue.[/quote']I think a lot of HERO GMs would consider this "GM cheating." But that is only true if you feel the job of the GM is to be the accountant that calculates every stat for every character involved in HERO combat. Personally, I don't think the numbers are important for unimportant characters.

 

Generally, mooks aren't designed to take down the character, regardless of the number of them. So I frequently use Doc's 1 or 2 hit mook system. If, however, I wanted a PC to be taken down by a gang of ninja, I'd pay a little bit closer attention to the numbers, but not that much.

 

Really, this boils down to why you game. It's not necessary for me to build the exactly right ninja for each job. Weak 25 pt mooks with 2 SPDs, 4 DCs, 3 CVs, to get mowed down en masse, vs. 75 pt ninjas, 3 SPDs, 6 DCs, and 5 CVs, 5 of which could take down a PC, vs. 200 pt pirates etc.... The mook, the ninja, and the pirate are all just tools for me to tell a particular story. If the story is that the PCs are badazzes, then they're going to whoop some butt. If the story is for them to lose, then they'll lose. The trick is just making them lose often enough to keep the wins special.

 

Edit...

 

I realize this sounds like big time railroading, but it is hardly that. The PCs still drive the action. I just refuse to leave the story we're collectively trying to tell up to the random whims of the dice gods. So I use liberal GM "cheats," though I like to think of it as making the story more interesting.

[Kdansky]

Re: Balance outside of a Super setting

 

I'm also quite a big cheater, but I go to big lengths to prevent it from happening in the first place. Meaning I try to balance encounters well so I can just go with the rolls, but if I mess up the planning (which for example does very rarely happen in my atHome systems like DSA), I can still change stats on the fly and/or fudge rolls. Dropping everyones CV by 1 or 2 can make a huge difference and it's hardly noticeable. I exspect to do quite a bit of tweaking in the first few battles with new PCs in a not-so-well-known system. I have set up the first 3-5 fights for my next campaign in great detail, and I will try to teach my players the basics there. Few Mooks in the first battle, many mooks in the second one, a fattie in the third, combines mooks and fattie in the fourth and real challenge in the fifth. Just so they learn about how to coordinate attacks vs the fattie, how they can get stunned and should abort vs big guns, how to effectively spread for AoE or use cover vs mook autofire barrage, etc. I also start off with enemies I'm pretty sure are too weak. I can still add something on the fly ("As he reaches less than 10 stun, his Combat Drugs kick in: +10 str, +pd/ed, +20 stun, ...").

[The Monster]

Re: Balance outside of a Super setting

 

I think I cheat (as GM only!) in so many ways I can't count. For mooks, though, my rule of thumb is that is they take more than a couple points of BODY, they quit. Only heroes and special villains have the gumption to keep going while seriously wounded. For some mooks, even being Stunned twice in a row is enough (e.g., most street thugs; elites like SS goons and ninjas are tougher and have to take BODY or be KOed before they quit.)

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Balance outside of a Super setting

 

Judicious use of the Hit Location Table minimizes combat being over "too quickly." You'll find that unless someone gets tagged with an Entangle (0 DCV FTW!) then you're in pretty good shape. I run only Heroic styled games, and I discovered, oddly, that 150 (75+75) was too low to do what I wanted. I'm more comfortable with my players having closer to 200 points at start. For their Fantasy characters, given that these were characters who had already grown from 1st level in d20 to about 10th, the final count was 125+125+20 XP. I'm also a huge proponent of the Dark Champions Resource Pools. This means:

 

Armor is generally purchased and goes in the pool, and sits for my party anywhere from 3 to 8rPD. I use a Non-Stacking rule for armor, otherwise folks tend to be "too tough." The party Caster/Rogue did get tagged with a nasty leg shot that nearly crippled him, but evidently the player had purchased extra running "only to return to starting values" or something, which meant he was still completely mobile.

 

Never seen anything like it. ANYWAY. Using incorrectly run Barghests, the fight went very well. I didn't really have any balance issues. Aside from the absurd 2nd Level spell Scorching Ray (2d6+1 RKA, Fire SFX, Autofire 2). One of the Barghests two both shots to the chest, one for max damage (13 BODY) and one for close to that (9 BODY). He went down in a crumpled heap.

 

Enemy combatants stop at 0 BODY. Period. I don't even really worry about STUN for the most part, other than to determine if they'd been CON STUNed.

 

Lower point starting characters are likely to point their points towards an attack, or attack-based skills. Higher point values mean that the characters have come off much more well rounded.