Odd Defense construct

[CTaylor]

I haven't used this nor am I thinking of it as an actual house rule, but that heading seemed the closest to what I had in mind.

 

What if you built defenses to work like attacks instead of static amounts? In other words, you bought dice of defense and applied the result to the attacks rather than a predetermined, set, and reliable amount of defense. It could look something like this:

 

DEFENSE

Cost: 3 points per D6

When the attack hits a character, they roll their defensive dice to see how much they are protected. The dice are counted as a normal attack, rendering stun and body, and that is how much of each damage from the given attack the defense protects. This defense ordinarily would protect against both killing and normal attacks, but only against one defense: PD or ED, for example.

Modifers:

Unusual defense (for example flash defense or power defense): -1/4

Resistant Only (only count the body): -1 1/2

 

Force field would take limitations so it would not be persistent, cost END, and was visible. Power defense would be an unusual, single defense.

 

For a 60 active point campaign, that gives you 20D6 against one attack (PD) which makes you virtually immune to the given damage on average - but then, a 60 point PD-only force field vs only PD would have virtually the same result. GMs would have to keep an eye on the DEFENSE power to make sure it was not bought over the campaign limits. It would cost 60 points for 10D6 against both PD and ED, but that gives you an average 35 for both, and a potential 60.

 

I don't know why anyone would do this or what use it would be for a character build but it would make combat a bit more interesting, sometimes you'd roll low and get lousy defenses. Sometimes you'd roll high and be practically invulnerable.

[Mr. Gridlock]

Re: Odd Defense construct

 

Well, it doesn't simulate comics very well, given that most characters who can bounce bullets, can pretty much do it consistently.

[Lord Mhoram]

Re: Odd Defense construct

 

And you could call it "soak".

[CTaylor]

Re: Odd Defense construct

 

Yeah, comic book abilities seem very static and consistent (unless they are specifically and deliberately stated to be random and unreliable). I don't know how much use this would be but it certainly would be interesting if nothing else.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Odd Defense construct

 

And you could call it "soak".

 

You could call ME "soak".

 

Hey, you wouldn't necessarily be wrong...

[Sean Waters]

Re: Odd Defense construct

 

I haven't used this nor am I thinking of it as an actual house rule, but that heading seemed the closest to what I had in mind.

 

What if you built defenses to work like attacks instead of static amounts? In other words, you bought dice of defense and applied the result to the attacks rather than a predetermined, set, and reliable amount of defense. It could look something like this:

 

DEFENSE

Cost: 3 points per D6

When the attack hits a character, they roll their defensive dice to see how much they are protected. The dice are counted as a normal attack, rendering stun and body, and that is how much of each damage from the given attack the defense protects. This defense ordinarily would protect against both killing and normal attacks, but only against one defense: PD or ED, for example.

Modifers:

Unusual defense (for example flash defense or power defense): -1/4

Resistant Only (only count the body): -1 1/2

 

Force field would take limitations so it would not be persistent, cost END, and was visible. Power defense would be an unusual, single defense.

 

For a 60 active point campaign, that gives you 20D6 against one attack (PD) which makes you virtually immune to the given damage on average - but then, a 60 point PD-only force field vs only PD would have virtually the same result. GMs would have to keep an eye on the DEFENSE power to make sure it was not bought over the campaign limits. It would cost 60 points for 10D6 against both PD and ED, but that gives you an average 35 for both, and a potential 60.

 

I don't know why anyone would do this or what use it would be for a character build but it would make combat a bit more interesting, sometimes you'd roll low and get lousy defenses. Sometimes you'd roll high and be practically invulnerable.

 

We've been lied to for years: defences ar NOT cheaper than attacks, we just spend less on them, or have to worry about this physical/energy thing.

 

DEFENCE: 5 points per 1d6, and I'll vote for you

[braincraft]

Re: Odd Defense construct

 

I actually like this. Besides, you could always just use Standard Effect if you're worried about Bulletproof Dude getting punked by Derringer Lad.

[CTaylor]

Re: Odd Defense construct

 

Well the reason I went with 3 points per D6 is that 5 points would actually make it vastly expensive to protect yourself against both energy and physical attacks to any reliable degree. Far more than the present rules give us. Sure, you could buy a really cheap force field (costs END, not persistent, visible) but then you can buy a really cheap 1 defense force field now, as I pointed out.

[BNakagawa]

Re: Odd Defense construct

 

People complain about hero system combat taking too long.

 

This slows down the game.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Odd Defense construct

 

Well the reason I went with 3 points per D6 is that 5 points would actually make it vastly expensive to protect yourself against both energy and physical attacks to any reliable degree. Far more than the present rules give us. Sure' date=' you could buy a really cheap force field (costs END, not persistent, visible) but then you can buy a really cheap 1 defense force field now, as I pointed out.[/quote']

 

Not sure I entirely agree:

 

12d6 EB Physical or Energy, 42 Stun, 12 Body

 

20/20 Armour: 22/0 through defences

 

cf:

 

(5/1d6) 6d6 Physical, 6d6 Energy 'soak': 21/6 through defences

 

OR

 

(3/1d6) 10d6 Physical, 10d6 Energy 'soak': 7/2 through defences

[Sean Waters]

Re: Odd Defense construct

 

People complain about hero system combat taking too long.

 

This slows down the game.

 

Aye, but you could just do this: 'soak' is not rolled: the DC simply reduces the number of dice you roll. Result!

[CTaylor]

Re: Odd Defense construct

 

Armor probably is the most accurate comparison, since the default DEFENSE build costs no END. However, the writeup I did presumed it only protected against one defense (PD or ED) so with those points you'd have 40 PD armor and take only 2 stun from a physical attack.

 

The reason I broke it up into single defenses was so that the cost would be closer to present levels and you could more easily build it as alternate defenses such as ego, power, and flash defense.

 

Now if only I could think of a way to build power defense so that protecting yourself from being turned into a newt didn't also make you protected from poison, disease, radiation, and having your soul sapped and losing EGO.

 

And yeah, this would slow things down some but the damage class reduction idea is intriguing....

[Beast]

Re: Odd Defense construct

 

I like the counter dice you have a 12d6 attack vs a 9d6 def

so you roll 3 dice and take that damage

but you lose body effect

how would you damage things

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Odd Defense construct

 

Aye' date=' but you could just do this: 'soak' is not rolled: the DC simply reduces the number of dice you roll. Result![/quote']

 

Agreed in spirit on the counter dice at 5 points per d6 vs Normal damage. However, Penetrating / Hardened would have to have specific language around how it works in this case though, and what about vs Killing attacks?

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Odd Defense construct

 

I haven't used this nor am I thinking of it as an actual house rule, but that heading seemed the closest to what I had in mind.

 

What if you built defenses to work like attacks instead of static amounts? In other words, you bought dice of defense and applied the result to the attacks rather than a predetermined, set, and reliable amount of defense. It could look something like this:

 

DEFENSE

Cost: 3 points per D6

When the attack hits a character, they roll their defensive dice to see how much they are protected. The dice are counted as a normal attack, rendering stun and body, and that is how much of each damage from the given attack the defense protects. This defense ordinarily would protect against both killing and normal attacks, but only against one defense: PD or ED, for example.

Modifers:

Unusual defense (for example flash defense or power defense): -1/4

Resistant Only (only count the body): -1 1/2

 

Force field would take limitations so it would not be persistent, cost END, and was visible. Power defense would be an unusual, single defense.

 

For a 60 active point campaign, that gives you 20D6 against one attack (PD) which makes you virtually immune to the given damage on average - but then, a 60 point PD-only force field vs only PD would have virtually the same result. GMs would have to keep an eye on the DEFENSE power to make sure it was not bought over the campaign limits. It would cost 60 points for 10D6 against both PD and ED, but that gives you an average 35 for both, and a potential 60.

 

I don't know why anyone would do this or what use it would be for a character build but it would make combat a bit more interesting, sometimes you'd roll low and get lousy defenses. Sometimes you'd roll high and be practically invulnerable.

 

Absorption As A Defense is a close parallel to this and bears scrutiny as an example. Basically this would be the same as Absorption As A Defense without the adjustment aspects of Absorption, but no cap.

[BNakagawa]

Re: Odd Defense construct

 

Aye' date=' but you could just do this: 'soak' is not rolled: the DC simply reduces the number of dice you roll. Result![/quote']

 

Net result: 9d6 EB has 0 chance of affecting 9d6 (or greater) soak.

[CTaylor]

Re: Odd Defense construct

 

Yeah that's the problem with the direct reduction, it makes you effectively invulnerable to anything equal to or lower than the "soak" effect. That's a bit too absolute for hero usually.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Odd Defense construct

 

Agreed in spirit on the counter dice at 5 points per d6 vs Normal damage. However' date=' Penetrating / Hardened would have to have specific language around how it works in this case though, and what about vs Killing attacks?[/quote']

 

Good points. Off the top of my head, I'd assume penetrating works as normal: for a 8d6 penetrating EB, 8 Stun get through before you even bother with defences unless they are hardened. If you had 6d6 hardened defence/soak against a 8d6 penetrating EB, well, at present you'd just ignore the penetrating as it faces a hardened defence but, alternatively you yould treat the defence dice as a subtractor: at least 2 stun gets through automatically (8-6), unless you have any other hardened defences.

 

Armor piercing couls also work as expected: halve the number of Defence/soak dice unless they are hardened.

 

KAs are problematic: on the one hand 1DC of KA doe not cost any more than 1DC of normal attack, so the defence cost should not change (which would mean that defence/soak works against normal AND killing attacks) OTOH resistant defences cost 1.5 times normal defences so you could make defence/soak resistant with a +1/2 advantage. I'd probably go with the latter approach as it is more in keeping with current dicta.

 

EDIT: in the light of further thinking on this one, the cost (to be comparable to existing defences) should probably INCLUDE resistant defences, then 9d6 EB against 9d6 defence/soak would be equivalent to 30 points of armour: net result is about the same as 9d6 average damage is 30.5 stun/9 Body and, to be honest, you are rarely going to buy resistant defences up as high as 30.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Odd Defense construct

 

Net result: 9d6 EB has 0 chance of affecting 9d6 (or greater) soak.

 

Well, yes, but then again you would have spent 45 points on your defence/soak: 9d6 is almost never going to get up to that level anyway, so I don;t see that as unrealistic (I'm assuming 5 points per 1d6).

 

Realistically in a 9d6 game I'd expect defences in the region of 18 points of pd/ed, which would be about 3 1/2d6 defence/soak, meaning you'd be rolling 5 1/2d6 on a 9d6 attack, taking about 19 stun and 5 Body, compared to about 12 or 13 stun and 0 Body with normal defences.

 

This option is not a particularly great defence but what it does do it reduce the number of dice you have to roll in combat, which you may or may not like as an option, and tends to mitigate Stun far more than Body, which is interesting. If you allow other defences too then the Body effect would probably not be much of an issue.

 

Thinking about it, perhaps the 5 points/1d6 SHOULD be considered resistant as a basic form and you can make it non-resistant with a -1/2 limitation. That makes it more comparable to standard defence costs.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Odd Defense construct

 

Yeah that's the problem with the direct reduction' date=' it makes you effectively invulnerable to anything equal to or lower than the "soak" effect. That's a bit too absolute for hero usually.[/quote']

 

No more invulnerable than spending a lot on defences would anyway.

[Mr. Gridlock]

Re: Odd Defense construct

 

Aye' date=' but you could just do this: 'soak' is not rolled: the DC simply reduces the number of dice you roll. Result![/quote']

 

Now THAT is what I'm talking about!

[CTaylor]

Re: Odd Defense construct

 

Thinking about it, perhaps the 5 points/1d6 SHOULD be considered resistant as a basic form and you can make it non-resistant with a -1/2 limitation. That makes it more comparable to standard defence costs.

 

Only if you get both PD and ED with that cost. Then how much is it to just get one defense?

[schir1964]

Re: Odd Defense construct

 

Thought you might find this thread interesting.

 

[thread=55685]Thread[/thread]

 

- Christopher Mullins

[CTaylor]

Re: Odd Defense construct

 

That is a very similar concept, almost identical actually. Great minds and all that, I guess.

[Mr. Gridlock]

Re: Odd Defense construct

 

I think the free super RPG "Power Heroes" used a d6 pool vs. d6 pool mechanic. But I like Sean's idea: defensive dice cancel out attack dice.

 

Much less rolling and you can have true invulnerability! Yes!