The great debate, this time with Java!

[Sean Waters]

Re: The great debate, this time with Java!

 

The problem with bullets is the interaction with defences. If a bullet actually gets INTO someone, fine, Stun could be anywhere on the map as, probably, could Body.

 

However if a bullet bounces off then it simply is not going to KO you half the time: if it is not doing Body, then it should be doing massively reduced stun. You might well feel it, it might well hurt, but it simply is not going to hurt as much as a bullet bouncing round inside you, not by a very long chalk.

 

The problem, it seems to me, is not necessarily the system, but how we build bullet based weapons. We probably ought to have a limtiation like this: Stun halved if no Body penetrates defences (-1/2 to -1, depending on campaign).

 

Knives and slashing weapons, which do damage almost exclusively by cutting and not impact should have an even higher limitation.

 

That solves it.

[Kdansky]

Re: The great debate, this time with Java!

 

Ok, things I'm going to change for v3:

- change hit to plink > easy

- remove dmg/hit > very easy

- add "stun only from body vs defenses"

> low priority as I don't see the use, but I will do it at some point. should be very easy, but adds complexity in code at a bad place. Need to re-layout my classes first.

 

- add hit location table

> definitely coming.

 

 

Thanks for the props, I appreciate the encouragement/feeback a lot

[GamePhil]

Re: The great debate, this time with Java!

 

I've always been partial to DCV levels with the special effect Tough.

 

A perfectly good way to do things that, like Missile Deflection, runs into a bit of trouble when someone throws a grenade at you.

[GamePhil]

Re: The great debate, this time with Java!

 

But they do less. Maybe you can clarify your objection?

 

Merely that I was only talking about the Knockback with that comment, not trying to refute your whole line of thinking. I do not believe that the KNB is important enough to a discussion of the relative power levels of KA's vs. NA's that doing more than that should be necessary, especially since until excessive levels of damage it is clearly true that EBs do a little more.

 

Mind, that doesn't mean I agree in any way with the idea that long term effects of the wonky Killing Attacks should be ignored, but I wasn't actually arguing that until you brought it up.

[GamePhil]

Re: The great debate, this time with Java!

 

If his opponent has a Force Wall, I'll be happy to take that bet.

The previously Stunned opponent?

 

Let's poke some more holes in this example. First, it's 27.5 active points, which means firing five shots costs 10 END. Second, just because you fire five shots does not mean you are going to hit with five. In fact, you are pretty much not going to. Third, there is a far greater likelihood not a single shot will even do 1 STUN to the opponent, even if all hit.

 

Interesting math. First, it's 60 AP, so that's 30 END. 27.5 AP would still be 15 END. Are you saying that the +10 Stun Multiple doesn't cost END? That would be interesting. I should probably buy the END cost down, but let's leave that aside for the moment.

 

I think I have a good chance of hitting with all 5 against my Villain Brick target, with his 18 DEX and no Levels that can be applied because he's Stunned. But even if it's only 3 or four, I'm pretty safe, because...

 

Why on Earth would I not likely do even 1 Stun to that target? The attack does from 10-90 Stun per hit, and on average does 42.

 

According to the guidelines in the rulebook, r PD 10/nPD 20 is normal, which means even even on a very powerful hit, you are talking about 30 STUN or so against a tough opponent. Hence my comment about +5 CON and SPD... with just a slight statistical edge, the chances of taking someone out rapidly vanishes.

 

Are you talking about a total of 30 Defense, or a total of 20? How many dice are you talking about throwing?

 

Assuming a 30 total and 9 DCs, we're looking at a clear win for the KA. The EB will reliably do 1-2 stun per shot, so it will take about 20 hits to bring a 30 Stun target down. In that amount of time, it is pretty likely that either a high Body, high Stun Multiple, or both will come up on that Killing Attack.

 

Assuming 20 total and 9 DCs , we're looking at a possible victory for the EB, sure. Three shots should take down the 30 Stun target. One lucky roll, though, and EB man is toast, and it doesn't have to be all that lucky.

 

Which, ultimately, works in some games. Like I said, don't really care to see it changed, so I'm not going to argue much about it any longer.

[Kdansky]

Ah, I forgot! having Knockback too would be nice, that's also coming at some time, but also not terribly high priority. You can just go with averages there for the moment, that is good enough. There is no stunned or defenses there, so it's very close to the average anyway.

 

I might also add autofire, if you ask me nicely That's certainly doable.

 

I cleaned up the code quite a bit. Pro: It's way more clearer and streamlined and redundancy was killed. Con: It's only readable to people who know a bit on Objective Oriented programming, as I'm now using inheritance and an interface. I would have liked to use multiple inheritance (that would have been extremly clean), but then I had to switch languages as Java does not support that. I might change the output at some point so it can be webstarted. Let me also add a compiled version for people wanting to play around.

Cleaned up (version 2.6): OUTDATED! http://rapidshare.com/files/91719855/KAvsN_by_kdansky_v2.6.zip.html

 

Next thing: compiled version

 

Def: 20 rDef: 10 CON: 25 DC: 9

NORMAL ATTACK . Stun Rule: normal damage
Plinks : 1.48 % plink ratio
Stun / atk: 11.51
Con< / atk: 0.23 %
Body / atk: 0.0

KILLING ATTACK . Stun Rule: 1d6 -1
Plinks : 55.67 % plink ratio
Stun / atk: 12.52
Con< / atk: 20.36 %
Body / atk: 1.45

KILLING ATTACK . Stun Rule: fixed x2
Plinks : 50.0 % plink ratio
Stun / atk: 2.91
Con< / atk: 0.0 %
Body / atk: 1.45

KILLING ATTACK . Stun Rule: fixed x2.5
Plinks : 25.92 % plink ratio
Stun / atk: 6.86
Con< / atk: 0.0 %
Body / atk: 1.45

KILLING ATTACK . Stun Rule: fixed x3
Plinks : 9.25 % plink ratio
Stun / atk: 11.89
Con< / atk: 4.62 %
Body / atk: 1.45

New layout!

 

Collection from post from below:

I am proud to present: The standalone .jar file. If you have a java runtime v5 on your system installed (HD needs it too, afaik), then you can run this file by double clicking. I do not take responsibility if your system dies Source and javadoc (tiny) is included in the file, you can unpack it with any decent unpack tool (izarc or stuffit), or with eclipse or emacs or whatever you are using.

 

OUTDATED! http://rapidshare.com/files/91726906/KvsN_by_kdansky_v2.7.jar.html

 

I will now go and do hit locations.

[Kdansky]

Re: The great debate, this time with Java!

 

Sorry for the multiposts

 

HIT LOCATIONS!

 

Note: only for stun, I have not yet bothered to implement the body too, as this is after defenses and requires extra work and I don't care so much about it.

 

Also: I fixed another big mistake (how could I be so stupid?!) which eliminated some common rolls from the killing attacks by overwriting them with end-of-the-spectrum rolls, but the effect was minor. Stunned is now about 15% less often (relatively, so from 20% we come to 17%), which is a difference, although not an argument breaker. In exchange we got some more reliability, because the low values were also deleted

 

NORMAL ATTACK . Stun Rule: normal damage
Plinks : 1.48 % plink ratio
Stun / atk: 11.51
Con< / atk: 0.23 %
Body / atk: 0.0

KILLING ATTACK . Stun Rule: 1d6 -1
Plinks : 44.29 % plink ratio
Stun / atk: 11.57
Con< / atk: 17.43 %
Body / atk: 1.45

KILLING ATTACK . Stun Rule: fixed x2
Plinks : 50.0 % plink ratio
Stun / atk: 2.91
Con< / atk: 0.0 %
Body / atk: 1.45

KILLING ATTACK . Stun Rule: fixed x3
Plinks : 9.25 % plink ratio
Stun / atk: 11.89
Con< / atk: 4.62 %
Body / atk: 1.45

KILLING ATTACK . Stun Rule: hit locations
Plinks : 26.44 % plink ratio
Stun / atk: 11.46
Con< / atk: 12.57 %
Body / atk: 1.45 (probably wrong)

 

source, jar file and everything, disclaimers as above:

http://rapidshare.com/files/91736004/NvsK_kdansky_v3.jar.html

 

First take on hit locations: 30% less Stunned, 50% less plinks, average hit about the same. The parameters are slightly different, but the problem is absolutely the same. Now I have to implement normal damage for hit locations, so we have a fair comparison. That will have to wait a couple hours, I'm meeting my girl now. Happy discussion.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: The great debate, this time with Java!

 

The problem with bullets is the interaction with defences. If a bullet actually gets INTO someone, fine, Stun could be anywhere on the map as, probably, could Body.

 

However if a bullet bounces off then it simply is not going to KO you half the time: if it is not doing Body, then it should be doing massively reduced stun. You might well feel it, it might well hurt, but it simply is not going to hurt as much as a bullet bouncing round inside you, not by a very long chalk.

 

My understanding is that a person wearing a bullet proof vest, when struck by a bullet that does not penetrate, is still often knocked back, bruised and/or stunned. Sounds like STUN damage is still getting through.

 

I think your idea of limitations to model the exact effect desired makes a lot of sense. Another approach would be to buy your KA with a 1x Stun Multiple limitation, and link it to an NND that only works if BOD gets through from the KA.

[Comic]

Re: The great debate, this time with Java!

 

Next level of complicating the code I propose, if you want a nice meaty project: Two coded characters, identical, in DEF/rDEF, CON, END, Stun, Body, REC score, OCV, DCV and SPD; assume equal DEX, no KBR; give one an RKA, the other an EB at the same DC level.

 

For simplicity, leave out anything that would complicate the simulation more than the minimum necessary.

 

Let them shoot it out, figuring out knockback, DCV changes, END costs, Recoveries.

 

Tally wins and losses based on GM's discretion level of knockout, or death. (The winner being the one who isn't knocked out/dead... ).

 

It's what I did way back when. While there are some values KA dominates, overall I found EB won. But that was then. Maybe your simulation will provide better info.

 

Anything that's a statistic may be persuasive, but simulation is slightly moreso. OTOH, simulations require just as much interpretation as statistics.

[Paragon]

Re: The great debate, this time with Java!

 

Once you get away from suppers defenses and CON/STN go way down, so a normal attack probably is pretty consistent an KOing people, and KAs better at killing them (as it should be). A low-dice KA, like 1d+1 or 1 1/2d (like a handgun) against a normal could do as little as 2 BOD and 2 STN - and will do less than 10 STN more than a third of the time. A comparable 5dN attack will pretty consistently do 17 STN or so, that'll Stun a normal person with room to spare, and do 3 BOD to him. Two hits are a virtually gauranteed KO, and 4 puts the beat-down in fatal territory. Though, of course, if you push resistant defenses to better than the DCs of the attack, and total defense to double that, you're back to the same effects you see in Kdansky's analysis. If you want guns (or swords) to kill people, though, you won't do that.

 

 

This still ignores the fact that a 1d6+1 KA will do 20-25 stun about one time in six unless you're using hit locations, where its 4d6 equivelent will do so immensely more rarely, and it has a maximum stun far higher than the normal attack can get. As I said, its not the routine result that's the issue, but the gusting, and the gusting actually becomes more pronounced as the die size of a killing attack goes down, as the base dice variance increases considerably over that of a typical superpowered one (where 3 or 4D6 killing attacks at least tend to flatten out the base Body the stun is multiplied by a bit). The net result is that if you're going to outright KO a lot of characters with one shot, or stun them at all, a killing attack is far more likely to do it. The fact it'll also frequently do less stun doesn't seem to counterweight that to me.

 

 

 

And, yes, hit locations go a ways towards resolving it for non-supers genres. They reduce the 'stun gusting' of KAs, and introduce some to normal attacks.

 

I completely agree there; I've not had a lot of issues with stun from killing attacks using the hit location chart. Its the linearity of the stun die roll that's the main culprit (though the smaller number of dice involved in heroic games still produce some aberrations compared to normal dice, its usually fairly tolerable by itself).

[Paragon]

Re: The great debate, this time with Java!

 

That's a values statement. Unfortunately' date=' in HERO, we have to accept a certain level of consistency. It may simply be that a lot of comic book characters we wouldn't think of as Very Powerful simply are, and that comic book martial arts DCs tend to be very high. I know that unarmored supers definitely don't like to get shot by guns. I don't find this issue convincing as a problem in genre emulation. It seems to me to be purely a pet peeve from a gaming standpoint.[/quote']

 

I kind of think its both, unless your premise is that all gun and blade type damage in comics is of lower DCs than most normal type damage you see, and I think that's reaching to justify the mechanic, honestly.

[archermoo]

Re: The great debate, this time with Java!

 

But there's no good way to address it, unless you suddenly attach "only versus killing stun" to a bunch of PD on every superhero with a defensive power.

 

Honestly, the frequency of gusting looks wrong even away from superheroes; there's still something wrong when guns KO people more consistently than a blunt object of similar power. If you're using the hit location system it isn't too bad because the high stun swing results aren't that common, but 1 in 6?

 

Actually it is very easy to deal with. If you as a Ref want Superheroes to be for the most part immune to normal guns, you put an extra limitation on any gun that takes the "Real Weapon" limitation: If it does no BODY, it does no STUN. Or to make it more geared to Supers being immune, if the target has more rDef than the attack can do in Body, it does no STUN.

 

Since the issue is the genre convention that Supers should be able to bounce normal bullets, even though other lower energy attacks will potentially hurt them, the solution isn't to rebalance the entire game so those high energy attacks do less damage. It is to change the way the campaign rules are structured so that those specific attacks are artificially weakened, just like they are in some of the source material. That isn't the way Hero has done it in the CU because that isn't the take Steve and Darren have on the issue from what I can tell. But it certainly is one that can be easily added into the system if a Ref wants to.

[archermoo]

Re: The great debate, this time with Java!

 

I completely agree there; I've not had a lot of issues with stun from killing attacks using the hit location chart. Its the linearity of the stun die roll that's the main culprit (though the smaller number of dice involved in heroic games still produce some aberrations compared to normal dice' date=' its usually fairly tolerable by itself).[/quote']

 

One of the reasons that I don't generally comment on KA vs NA threads is that I've been using the Hit Location chart for determining the StunX of Killing Attacks pretty much since it came out. In all genres. It seems to work quite well.

[archermoo]

Re: The great debate, this time with Java!

 

Also: I fixed another big mistake (how could I be so stupid?!) which eliminated some common rolls from the killing attacks by overwriting them with end-of-the-spectrum rolls, but the effect was minor. Stunned is now about 15% less often (relatively, so from 20% we come to 17%), which is a difference, although not an argument breaker. In exchange we got some more reliability, because the low values were also deleted

 

Looks like this fixed the issue, as your numbers pretty much match those that I came up with by hand.

[Kdansky]

Re: The great debate, this time with Java!

 

I am working up to the Shoot-Out Scenario. I've already got a simulation for attack rolls, I have one for damage, and at some point I can put them together to generate a "EB wins vs KA x% of the time" result. I might need to simplify slightly and I will need to do some pretty heavy calculation to prevent calculating the same case twice (but still counting it twice) or else this program will never finish. But first, I want to complete the current things and get rid of bugs.

 

Hit locations: As you can see, hit locations only reduce the problem slightly and are actually a lot worse than a fixed stun multiplier (of 2.5 or 2) to get rid of stun lottery. See these numbers: Hit Locations are not (significantly) better. Stop believing in prejudice!

KILLING ATTACK . Stun Rule: 1d6 -1
Plinks : 44.29 % plink ratio
Stun / atk: 11.57
Con< / atk: 17.43 %
Body / atk: 1.45

KILLING ATTACK . Stun Rule: hit locations
Plinks : 26.44 % plink ratio
Stun / atk: 11.46
Con< / atk: 12.57 %
Body / atk: 1.45 (probably wrong)

Average stun goes from 11.57 to 11.46, that's about 1% difference, quite irrelevant.

Average chance to stun goes from 17.43% to 12.57%. Arguably, that's about one third decrease, but it's still fifty times better (instead of 80) than the 0.2% the EB has. Yes, you alleviate the problem, but No, it does not make a real difference. I will now code the stunX hit location for EB part, hold on twenty minutes. I'm drunk, might be difficult That *might* make the difference we hope for.

[Paragon]

Re: The great debate, this time with Java!

 

Actually it is very easy to deal with. If you as a Ref want Superheroes to be for the most part immune to normal guns, you put an extra limitation on any gun that takes the "Real Weapon" limitation: If it does no BODY, it does no STUN. Or to make it more geared to Supers being immune, if the target has more rDef than the attack can do in Body, it does no STUN.

 

 

The problem is that you don't necessarily want them immune to them; you just don't want them to be the weapon of choice against them. The fact they often are is entirely an artifact of the stun lottery.

 

 

Since the issue is the genre convention that Supers should be able to bounce normal bullets, even though other lower energy attacks will potentially hurt them, the solution isn't to rebalance the entire game so those high energy attacks do less damage. It is to change the way the campaign rules are

 

As I said, you don't need them to do less damage, per se; most Champions characters are built so a 2d6 KA isn't too much a threat to them on Body. Its only the fact that about one in six rolls does 35 stun that suddenly makes it a superior choice against them compared to any other 6DC effect (note that this is somewhat damning with faint praise with a weapon that low, but the effect gets much more pronounced when looking at something like a heavy machine gun at 3d6KA compared to a 10D6 lightning blast).

[Paragon]

Re: The great debate, this time with Java!

 

One of the reasons that I don't generally comment on KA vs NA threads is that I've been using the Hit Location chart for determining the StunX of Killing Attacks pretty much since it came out. In all genres. It seems to work quite well.

 

I've seen that as a solution used by others; my own take is that there's a bit more mechanical overhead on bothering with the hit location chart just for that purpose, but YMMV.

[archermoo]

Re: The great debate, this time with Java!

 

I've seen that as a solution used by others; my own take is that there's a bit more mechanical overhead on bothering with the hit location chart just for that purpose' date=' but YMMV.[/quote']

 

Oh, my use of the Hit Location chart had nothing to do with "balancing" KAs. It was because I like using it.

[Paragon]

Re: The great debate, this time with Java!

 

Oh' date=' my use of the Hit Location chart had nothing to do with "balancing" KAs. It was because I like using it. [/quote']

 

Well, I do have to note if you've been using it almost from the getgo, you'd never have likely noticed a problem in the first place; with it in place the advantages to KAs against high defense characters become pretty subtle.

[archermoo]

Re: The great debate, this time with Java!

 

Well' date=' I do have to note if you've been using it almost from the getgo, you'd never have likely noticed a problem in the first place; with it in place the advantages to KAs against high defense characters become pretty subtle.[/quote']

 

And in fact, as I've said on many occasions, I've never noticed that KAs were a problem. Then again I've never really noticed them being a problem even when I've played in games that didn't use the Hit Location chart.

 

*shrug*

[Silbeg]

Re: The great debate, this time with Java!

 

As I said then...I don't see the problem being with KA's for being too variable... I see the problem with Normal Attacks because there are too many dice...it tends to average out the bell curve and remove most of the potential high and low rolls, making them far too predictable

 

I find this rather humorous, given that is exactly why I would say normal attacks are "better" - the fact that they are more predictable. Personally, I would rather be sure in the idea that my 9d6 normal attack vs 25 DEF will be doing about 7-8 STUN per attack, rather than on average my 3d6 killing attack doing 1 stun per attack (10.5 * 2.5 = 26.25).

 

As a player, this gives me the confidence that I will eventually be able to wear the target down. As a GM, it means that a lucky blow won't take out the hero, and there is also enough to fear when not getting the lucky blow.

[Opal]

- add "stun only from body vs defenses"

> low priority as I don't see the use, but I will do it at some point. should be very easy, but adds complexity in code at a bad place.

Now that I think about it, if BOD/att is 1.45, then STN/att will be 3.87 - but I'd be very curious what the Stun% would be. Stunning is certainly still possible on a good BOD roll (at least 16 on 3d, which does happen).

 

Another thing that would be interesting would be to see the Normal Attack with hit locations.

 

 

Since the issue is the genre convention that Supers should be able to bounce normal bullets' date=' even though other lower energy attacks will potentially hurt them, the solution isn't to rebalance the entire game so those high energy attacks do less damage. [/quote']I'm not sure what you mean by 'lower energy.' The energy imparted to the bullet fired by a large caliber handgun is comparable to the energy involved in a solid punch. A punch from even a very strong man does 3 or 4d N. A big handgun is statted and 5 or 6 DCs - often with a 1d6 STNx making it as much as 45 Apts. Seems to me that KAs are the lower energy attacks, for the DCs - they also do less knockback, which furthers that interperetation. They're just attacks that are particularly good at disrupting the bodies of living things. The difference between a bullet and a punch, of course, is that the energy of the punch is imparted to the target over a fist-sized area, and the target is accellerated a bit, while the energy of a bullet is imparted at a bullet-sized point, and mostly goes into carving a wound channel.

 

When the bullet fails to penetrate it's target, it's effects become more like those of a punch.

 

Reducing the effectiveness of KAs at imparting STN on a high-DEF target isn't re-balancing the game so that higher energy attacks do less damage - it's re-balancing the game so that lower-energy, specialized attacks do less damage when thier speciality doesn't come into play. It also makes the Normal and Killing attacks better balanced for thier cost.

 

It's prettymuch a win-win proposition.

[Silbeg]

Re: The great debate, this time with Java!

 

Depends on how good you are at math' date=' I suppose.[/quote']

 

And math is not one of the standard VIPER skills.

[Paragon]

Re: The great debate, this time with Java!

 

And in fact, as I've said on many occasions, I've never noticed that KAs were a problem. Then again I've never really noticed them being a problem even when I've played in games that didn't use the Hit Location chart.

 

*shrug*

 

If you haven't watched people fishing for it as a GM, and your GMs didn't have the habit, I doubt it'd be particularly noticeable, either.

 

Out of curiosity, in your own game do you also use the normal dice stun multiples from the hit location chart? If so, that'd probably tend to color your view of it too, as it ups the variance in stun over the routine somewhat, too.

[Opal]

Re: The great debate, this time with Java!

 

I have to admit, I haven't seen the KA problem as much as I expect to. Part of that, of course, is that I run more than I play, and I use a KA variant. When I play, I occassionally gaurd against it, too, pulling tricks with DR or whatever to minimize the impact of the STN LOTTO on my character.

 

Statistically, though, you should have 'invulnerable' characters falling to pathetically low-DC KAs rather a lot. Even when there isn't a variant or a specific 'invulnerability' build involved, though, I still haven't seen that a lot. Often, it's hand waving, the GM "doesn't bother" to roll the machine gun fire pelting the brick, because it's not meant to be a challenge, or Heros are discouraged from using KAs, or the game uses hit locations - or the guy who insists on playing the STN LOTTO loses a few times in a row, is soundly mocked, and gives up on it.