Defences against the stun of KAs

[Paragon]

Re: Defences against the stun of KAs

 

As a note, this is somewhat misleading. Of course the amount of Stun of a KA is determined before defenses are applied to it. It has to be. There isn't anything to apply the defenses to until then. Just as you

 

 

I don't think its misleading, its just a statement of fact; as you note, its a necessity as long as killing stun is a multiplier, as otherwise you have nothing to base it on. But it still has the effect that the locational multipliers produce vastly different results for killing or normal damage based on the defense of the target; there's no overwhelming reason why the normal damage had to be multiplied after the defenses that I can see. If that was the case they'd be pretty close to equivelent under hit locations.

[archermoo]

Re: Defences against the stun of KAs

 

I don't think its misleading' date=' its just a statement of fact; as you note, its a necessity as long as killing stun is a multiplier, as otherwise you have nothing to base it on. But it still has the effect that the locational multipliers produce vastly different results for killing or normal damage based on the defense of the target; there's no overwhelming reason why the normal damage had to be multiplied after the defenses that I can see. If that was the case they'd be pretty close to equivelent under hit locations.[/quote']

 

Of course they produce vastly different results. They are doing very different things, by different methods. One is determining the base STUN generated by an attack, one is modifying the STUN already generated for an attack.

[Paragon]

Re: Defences against the stun of KAs

 

Of course they produce vastly different results. They are doing very different things' date=' by different methods. One is determining the base STUN generated by an attack, one is modifying the STUN already generated for an attack.[/quote']

 

I don't see it as vastly different things; in the end, they're attacks delivering damage to the target, and the fact one tends to deliver more stun to the target than the other while costing the same doesn't seem a virtue (and frankly, if I was going to expect stun to transfer through armor better with either a sword or a club of otherwise comparable magnitude, it'd be the club).

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Defences against the stun of KAs

 

Yup. I never said that defenses were the only matter complicating the math. Just that it isn't as straightforward as some people seem to believe.

 

I'll also note that while a 1d6 KA has a 1 in 36 chance of doing maximum damage, it also has a 1 in 18 chance of doing minimum damage.

 

If the damage rolled is not greater than the target's defenses, it makes no difference whether you rolled exactly those defenses or minimum damage.

 

Simplistically, let's assume a 12DC game with average defenses of 25. Would you prefer to do 42 damage every hit, consistently, or alternate between 2 and 62? The average damage is 10 points less for the latter approach. However, after two hits, the first has inflicted 34 damage. The second has inflicted 37 damage (marginally more despite a considerably lower average). Further, the opponent whose CON falls between 17 and 36 was not stunned by the first attacker, and was by the second attacker.

 

Volatility does pay off over time.

 

The problem with the current system in hit locations is while its not as severe as the die roll on gusting (because the high multiple locations are relatively low occurance), it still ends up meaning that killing attacks are much better against significant defenses because its way too easy for a normal attack even in a high multiple location to either flat out bounce or do minimal damage, since its damage is multiplied afterwards and killing attack before. The only time normal dice come out better is against low multiple locations where this features is a small benefit, but since that usually means its the difference between no stun and a pretty small amount of stun, its just less noticeable than the inverse.

 

Mind you, if you use it in settings where damage tends to outreach defenses noticeably, its probably not an effect that's going to be very visible since most damage gets a fair bit through anyway, and in those cases the effect isn't very pronounced and probably pretty much trivial.

 

This is also an issue. Even if we set the stun multiple at 3 (assume we always hit the chest - this is the multiple the hit locations trend to), a 12DC normal attack has a 1 in 2.176 billion chance of coming up 72. A 12 DC killing attack has a 1 in 1,296 chance of coming up with a 24 and doing 72.

 

There are 24 possibilities for a roll of 3 6's on those 4 dice (1 chance in 54), which will range from 19 to 24 BOD and 57 - 72 STUN. There are a lot of other combinations which can roll 19+. How often do you roll 57+ on 12d6?

[archermoo]

Re: Defences against the stun of KAs

 

I don't see it as vastly different things; in the end' date=' they're attacks delivering damage to the target, and the fact one tends to deliver more stun to the target than the other while costing the same doesn't seem a virtue (and frankly, if I was going to expect stun to transfer through armor better with either a sword or a club of otherwise comparable magnitude, it'd be the club).[/quote']

 

You don't see determining a base value as different than modifying an existing one? Then I guess we don't have much of a common ground to discuss this issue over.

[BNakagawa]

Re: Defences against the stun of KAs

 

not only does a base KA inflict more damage through defenses against meaningful opponents than a EB, there are further elements that make them superior stun generators.

 

+1/4 advantage = + 1 stun multiple.

 

funny, the EB (or normal attack) has no such advantage. One would think that it would, but it doesn't.

 

Curious that an attack that isn't intended to generate stun has such an advantage. Curiouser still that it's so cheap.

 

In heroic games, you can use 2 levels to increase the stun multiple.

 

Depending on how many DC you're throwing, you might be better off using those two levels to increase your attack by one DC. But, once you're throwing more than 4 DC, you're probably better off increasing your stun multiple. (assuming you're not trying to break a focus, entangle, force wall, or other target that doesn't take stun)

 

I've been in Fantasy Hero games where I saw 4d6 KAs thrown. Ouch.

 

In such a game, 2 levels yield, effectively +14 stun on the average. If you were using a normal attack, they would yield +3.5 stun on the average, or 25% as much effect.

[Kdansky]

Re: Defences against the stun of KAs

 

If you look at the numbers in my old thread (page 5 of this thread for link) you will see that hit locations don't change the facts much (a bit, yes), they are extremly similar in effect to rolling 1d6-1 for stun modifier. So the "using hit locations makes the problem go away" is purely anecdotal, or rather, an urban myth, so to speak.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Defences against the stun of KAs

 

In heroic games' date=' you can use 2 levels to increase the stun multiple.[/quote']

 

In what version of the rules? My 5er provides for skill levels adding DC's, not stun multiples, on page 53.

[Tonio]

Re: Defences against the stun of KAs

 

You don't see determining a base value as different than modifying an existing one? Then I guess we don't have much of a common ground to discuss this issue over.

 

This is misleading... in both instances you're applying a multiplier to a value to determine the total STUN inflicted. You can think of it as "KA's normal multiplier is 1d6-1, NA's is 1... hit locations replace the normal multiplier with another one". You can think of KA's as doing a "base" STUN equal to the BODY done, which then gets multiplied by the STUN multiplier, rather than doing a base STUN equal to the BODY done multiplied by the STUN multiplier. Mathematically, they're the same thing. Using that point of view, the only conceptual difference between KA STUN multiplier and NA STUNx when using hit locations is whether they're applied before or after defenses.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Defences against the stun of KAs

 

Extreme results are not good for what is, after all, a game. Hero doesn't really pretend to be a simulation of reality, and, it seems to me, we already get pretty significant variations in damage on a random basis from rolls to hit: either you do or you don't. People seem OK about that though. That is probably because they can build a character to deal with a hit, if that is what they want.

 

That is probably the point, by and large, I can't build a character who doesn't have to worry about killing attacks too much without spending a ridiculous number of points. It is not just whether a killing attack is points effective (or over effective) it is also, very much, about the cost of insuring against them.

 

Whenever you play in a Hero game, the chances are that there are very many more oppoenents than there are PCs, and for exactly the same reason that critical hits, despite many people liking them, work very much against PCs, killing attacks have the same effect: it si very difficult for a small group to deal with the big hits: KOing one PC at or near the start of the fight changes everything, KOing one villain at or near the start of a fight makes little difference, unless it is the BigBad, in which case the whole thing is an anti-climax, which is worse.

[Kdansky]

Re: Defences against the stun of KAs

 

Exactly. The point is less the points (yay for puns). It's "which gives me a good story when I play the game." The random KOs happening from good rolls of stun modifiers are nearly always detrimental to the game.

 

- PC gets KOd early: Very bad, due to unexpected TPK risk and boredom for the particular player.

- Random Thug bites it: Irrelevant.

- BBEG gets slaughtered segment 12 (lucky hit, 20 on my 4 1/2 d6 HKA, x5 stun, resulting in (holy cow!) 100 stun pre defenses, after I subtract the BBEG evil defenses of 35 (ludicrous in a 60 Ap game), he still takes 65, is definitely stunned and probably even KO'd). Sure, I can add 50% DR to his defenses, but that is not a solution, that is a band-aid. I could also just give him 100 CON. Bandaid!

- PC consistently rolling horrible 1's and getting nearly killed by mooks. Also not good for fun.

[SteveZilla]

Re: Defences against the stun of KAs

 

I have been convinced that Killing Attacks (and possibly Resistant Defenses) need reworking. They are too voilatile IMO -- primarily the STUN from them. Violatile BODY results are 1) easier to deal with, 2) within the same range of BODY from an equal Normal Attack, and 3) "In Concept" for most F/X of Lethal-type attacks IMO.

 

The final straw for me was when I looked not just at the average damage for two 3DC attacks, but their min and max results, and the odds of the max results as well:

 

3DC NA ~ 0/3/6 BODY, 3/10.5/18 STUN (Odds of Max Roll: 1:216)

3DC KA ~ 1/3.5/6 BODY, 1/9.3/30 STUN (Odds of Max Roll: 1:36)

 

Statisticly speaking, the KA will produce it's max result 6 times by the time the NA produces it's max result (which is also less than the KA max result) a single time.

 

So, how do I fix Killing Attacks in my game (and possibly Resistant Defenses)?

1. Use a different d6 for the Multiple (like 2/2/2/3/3/3 for the faces), and no subtraction?

2. Roll two additional dice for each KA die to determine the total (of all dice) STUN?

3. Remove KA's entirely, replacing them with an Advantage on either EB or HA, called Lethal(+1/4 ~ +1/2)?

 

Would any of these changes (of all, I'd guess the last to be most likely) necessitate changing that the STUN is stopped by Resistant Defense + Non-Resistant Defense to just being stopped by the Resistant Defense?

 

Would adoping a Lethal(+?) Advantage to replace KAs require us to examine things like Armor Piercing (possibly) and Penetrating (most likely)?

 

What's going on over in the 6ED discussion about KAs?

[Paragon]

Re: Defences against the stun of KAs

 

You don't see determining a base value as different than modifying an existing one? Then I guess we don't have much of a common ground to discuss this issue over.

 

I'm not concerned about process; I'm concerned about results. The result is that defenses preturb one far more than the other. Since its only the process that does this, I see no particular benefit to it. There's no easy way to fix it at the KA end (as you note, there's got to be an upfront multiplier there or they're useless against defenses) but there's no reason once you did that you had to multiply the normal damage after defenses; it might have been mroe desireable to do so, but if so, it would have been more desireable to put a flat multiplier on KA and then multiply _that_ again after defenses.

 

I'm just not seeing much of any virtue to the current split method, and I don't even recall hearing an argument for one; the only one I can even think of is an argument that normal damage should be worse against armor and the like, and I'd be interested to hear why someone thinks so if that was their argument (since I think, if anything, the opposite is generally more true).

[archermoo]

Re: Defences against the stun of KAs

 

This is misleading... in both instances you're applying a multiplier to a value to determine the total STUN inflicted. You can think of it as "KA's normal multiplier is 1d6-1' date=' NA's is 1... hit locations replace the normal multiplier with another one". You can think of KA's as doing a "base" STUN equal to the BODY done, which then gets multiplied by the STUN multiplier, rather than doing a base STUN equal to the BODY done multiplied by the STUN multiplier. Mathematically, they're the same thing. Using that point of view, the only conceptual difference between KA STUN multiplier and NA STUNx when using hit locations is whether they're applied before or after defenses.[/quote']

 

No, I'd say your assessment is the one that is misleading. Hit locations do not modify the amount of STUN that a KA can do. They have the same range whether you are using the hit location chart or not. The chart is simply used to determine what the base STUN of the attack is rather than using 1d6-1. Normal attacks on the other hand have their available damage range modified by using the chart. The chart isn't used to determine how much base STUN a normal attack does. However it does determine how much the target takes after defenses are taken into account.

 

As I have said, they are two totally different processes. That they are handled differently makes perfect sense, as there isn't any reason that they should be handled the same. And as a note, I'm not addressing whether or not the multiple for Normal attacks should be before or after defenses. I'm just saying that the fact that the chart is used to determine the base STUN damage of a Killing Attack isn't a good argument for how Normal Attacks are modified by the hit location chart.

[Kdansky]

Re: Defences against the stun of KAs

 

My "fix" for KA would just be: Make it a Normal Attack, but handle it like AVLD. After all, that is what it is. Yes, values have to be reevalueated (no pun intended this time around).

[Guest steamteck]

Re: Defences against the stun of KAs

 

My "fix" for KA would just be: Make it a Normal Attack' date=' but handle it like AVLD. After all, that is what it is. Yes, values have to be reevalueated (no pun intended this time around).[/quote']

 

 

Sounds like a reasonable solution. Kind of like that idea. seems simpler and more elegant than the present system.

[SteveZilla]

Re: Defences against the stun of KAs

 

Doing that would mean that KAs would have more DCs per d6 than normal attacks (when broken down into single dice). Not really an objection, primarily just an observation.