Are PD and ED far too cheap?

[Crypt]

Re: Are PD and ED far too cheap?

 

Are PD and ED far too cheap?

 

IMHO Armor is too cheap too. One of my players's characters is a magician, if i'd let him build his spells his armor spell could easily make him untouchable. Even worse if i'd let him buy a use on other modifier (it would ruin the campaign.) He has asked for it..... What am i suppose to say to this player ? "In this world everything is possible. With this system too. But i won't let you do that. If you think that's unfair, you're right."

 

The fact that the GM must review any point spent is OK.

But IMHO this is only frustration when dealing with PD/ED/Armor. The problem appears when the GM doesn't allow something not because it would be impossible in his campaign (the only good reason imo) but because the rules are simply not balanced enough.

(3 pt for 2 resistant DEF while 1d6K costs 15 pts....Armor is 3 times cheaper than the Killing attack, i see no fun in that unless i'd like long and boring combats)

[Hierax]

Re: Are PD and ED far too cheap?

 

As a House Rule require a +1 or +2 Advantage on Defence Powers to make them "properly" balance out against offence powers -- great for making them actually fit in MPP/VPP in a fairer and more balanced way.

 

Personally, I think that the cheaper defences metarule is an unnecessary Champions holdover that should be gotten rid of, but superheroics still rule this roost, and YMMV.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Are PD and ED far too cheap?

 

to completely mitigate 3 Damage Classes (1D6) of Killing you need 6 rDEF.

 

that's 9 Points or Armor. That's about 2/3 of the cost of the Attack.

 

Add into the equation that you don't know if you have to counter PD or ED and you have to double your Defensive Costs. That's 18 Character Points to defend against 1D6 Killing, 9PD/9ED.

 

The system is fine.

[Hierax]

Re: Are PD and ED far too cheap?

 

It depends if you look at Maximum or Average Damage.

 

Where the cheap defences are a problem is dealing with AP caps -- e.g, take a 60 Active Point Power (straight up, MPP, VPP, or whatever) what it the biggest Attack and what is the biggest Defence you can put in it and how balanced are they?

[Guest steamteck]

Re: Are PD and ED far too cheap?

 

Also don't forget that stun gets applied .

[ghost-angel]

Re: Are PD and ED far too cheap?

 

Also don't forget that stun gets applied .

 

Ah yes... if you want to completely block 1D6 Killing Attack:

 

6 Points Resistant Defense: 9 Character Points

24 Points Non-Resistant Defense: 24 Character Points

31 Character Points. and that's just PD or ED. Not both.

 

Looks like twice the cost under 5E Rules.

 

Let's use the 6E Rules and say the STUNx is 1d3.

 

6 Points rDEF

12 Points Normal Def

21 Points. And that's just PD or ED. Not both.

 

That completely mitigates a full 1D6 Killing Attack.

 

Assuming you just want to deal with the average of the D6.

 

3 Points rDef. weird number, let's make it 4rDEF. 6 Points

3 Points Normal Def (to get 7 total ~average). 3 Points

9 Points, that's just PD or ED. Not Both.

 

About 2/3 of 15 Points. Double that to get both PD and ED.

 

Yep... system is still fine with regards to Def Cost vs Attack Cost.

[Hierax]

Re: Are PD and ED far too cheap?

 

double to get PD and ED isn't a fair comparison you'd have to compare it to 2 attacks one vs. PD one vs. ED.

[Hierax]

Re: Are PD and ED far too cheap?

 

What about the point of Active Point caps and Defences being over-powered?

 

60 AP cap:

 

4d6 RKA

• Standard Effect = 12 Body, 24 Stun;
  
• Average 14 Body, 28 Stun;
  
• Maximum = 24 Body, 72 Stun.
  

 

vs.

 

40 points of Armor

 

60 points of Forcefield

 

60 points of non-resistant defence

 

or say 20 points of Armor + 30 points of non-resistant PD.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Are PD and ED far too cheap?

 

double to get PD and ED isn't a fair comparison you'd have to compare it to 2 attacks one vs. PD one vs. ED.

 

You miss the point of needing to double up the cost of defenses.

 

It's because you want to protect against all incoming attacks. Unless the GM says something explicit like "all Attacks in this campaign are PD only" then you - the defender - need to purchase defenses against both types.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Are PD and ED far too cheap?

 

IMHO Armor is too cheap too. One of my players's characters is a magician' date=' if i'd let him build his spells his armor spell could easily make him untouchable. Even worse if i'd let him buy a use on other modifier (it would ruin the campaign.) He has asked for it..... What am i suppose to say to this player ? "In this world everything is possible. With this system too. But i won't let you do that. If you think that's unfair, you're right."[/quote']

 

If PD/ED are too cheap, armor and force field will be as well. I don't think they are, but that will be the result.

 

What are you supposed to say to this player? How about:

 

"If Armor spells that can completely negate normal attacks were possible, then logically wizards would have researched spells to bypass that armor, so you'll be spending points on PD and ED Armor spells, and your opponents will be spending points on NND, AVLD and similar attacks which avoid your armor."

 

or

 

"If you can have such a spell, so can your opponents. So if you want an Armor spell that can make you and your allies immune to campaign-standard attacks, consider that your opponents can have the same spells. Since some of your opponents will be more powerful than you, they can have more powerful spells as well. I would rather not have the campaign based around characters who are largely invulnerable to one another's attacks. What does the rest of the group think?"

 

The fact that the GM must review any point spent is OK.

But IMHO this is only frustration when dealing with PD/ED/Armor. The problem appears when the GM doesn't allow something not because it would be impossible in his campaign (the only good reason imo) but because the rules are simply not balanced enough.

(3 pt for 2 resistant DEF while 1d6K costs 15 pts....Armor is 3 times cheaper than the Killing attack, i see no fun in that unless i'd like long and boring combats)

 

IMNSHO, the characters cannot determine the AP of their spells. They can only assess how powerful they are based on their results. This eliminates the problem.

 

To completely negate a 1d6 Killing Attack, which has 15 AP, requires 6 points of Armor (9 points) plus 24 points of PD, for a total of 33 points. Mitigating the average result requires 4 points of armor (average 1d6 roll is 3.5) for 6 points and, say, 12 total PD (4 x 3 point stun multiple), so another 8 points, for a total of 14 points versus the 15 spent on the KA. That seems very similar. And a 5x or 4x multiple still gets STUN through, and 1/3 of attacks will do BOD.

 

Where the cheap defences are a problem is dealing with AP caps -- e.g' date=' take a 60 Active Point Power (straight up, MPP, VPP, or whatever) what it the biggest Attack and what is the biggest Defence you can put in it and how balanced are they?[/quote']

 

OK, I don't think I'm speaking out of school here, so I hope Steve Long will not take offense. Early in my involvement with SETAC, there were a number of comments made about the impact of various potential rules on AP caps. The answer from Steve was, quite simply, that AP caps are not an official rule, so making the rules facilitate them was not on his radar.

 

I am inclined to agree. AP caps, in my experience, commonly rule out interesting effects that have high AP and significant limitations. A defensive power of AP equal to an attack power may well be excessive. Mind you, a 60 AP attack power averages 42 STUN and 12 BOD or 14 BOD and 37.33 STUN. 60 points buys +20 PD/+20 ED Armor, so you're still affected. See discussion below.

 

and that's just PD or ED. Not both.

 

double to get PD and ED isn't a fair comparison you'd have to compare it to 2 attacks one vs. PD one vs. ED.

 

In virtually every game I have played, some opponents have PD attacks and others have ED attacks. If half of your player characters have enough PD to defeat the campaign average DC's, but no or minimal ED, and the other half have enough ED to defeat the campaign average DC's, but no or minimal PD, I can pretty much guarantee they will be destroyed by any group of opponents half of whom have a campaign average attack against PD and half of whom have a campaign average attack against ED.

 

You only need one kind of attack, but long-term survival absolutely requires both kinds of defenses. You only have PD? The Warrior clubs you with a flaming torch. You only have ED? The wizard stabs you with his dagger. And this is assuming your opponent primarily relies on attacks you are well defended against. If the warrior and the wizard switch targets, there's no real battle to speak of.

[prestidigitator]

Re: Are PD and ED far too cheap?

 

You miss the point of needing to double up the cost of defenses.

 

It's because you want to protect against all incoming attacks. Unless the GM says something explicit like "all Attacks in this campaign are PD only" then you - the defender - need to purchase defenses against both types.

 

True, but I think that's going beyond the spirit of the meta-rule. An attack should be more expensive than its corresponding defense, but that doesn't mean a defender wanting to protect against all possible attacks should win the chess game. The purpose of the meta-rule is not to easily allow creation of a near-invulnerable character in my opinion; it's just a small, reasonable, "favor defense over offense," bias in the system.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Are PD and ED far too cheap?

 

True' date=' but I think that's going beyond the spirit of the meta-rule. An attack should be more expensive than its corresponding defense, but that doesn't mean a defender wanting to protect against all possible attacks should win the chess game. The purpose of the meta-rule is not to easily allow creation of a near-invulnerable character in my opinion; it's just a small, reasonable, "favor defense over offense," bias in the system.[/quote']

 

I think it simply acknowledges the fact that you need defense against all types of attacks, but you don't need attacks against all types of defenses.

[Klaus Mogensen]

Re: Are PD and ED far too cheap?

 

True' date=' but I think that's going beyond the spirit of the meta-rule. An attack should be more expensive than its corresponding defense, but that doesn't mean a defender wanting to protect against all possible attacks should win the chess game. The purpose of the meta-rule is not to easily allow creation of a near-invulnerable character in my opinion; it's just a small, reasonable, "favor defense over offense," bias in the system.[/quote']

Would have repped you if I could.

 

- Klaus

[ghost-angel]

Re: Are PD and ED far too cheap?

 

What about the point of Active Point caps and Defences being over-powered?

 

60 AP cap:

 

4d6 RKA

• Standard Effect = 12 Body, 24 Stun;
  
• Average 14 Body, 28 Stun;
  
• Maximum = 24 Body, 72 Stun.
  

 

vs.

 

40 points of Armor

 

60 points of Forcefield

 

60 points of non-resistant defence

 

or say 20 points of Armor + 30 points of non-resistant PD.

 

You know, there is a reason why Defense Caps are listed separately than Active Point Caps. . . . Just sayin'.

[archermoo]

Re: Are PD and ED far too cheap?

 

You know' date=' there is a reason why Defense Caps are listed separately than Active Point Caps. . . . Just sayin'.[/quote']

 

And why both are optional.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Are PD and ED far too cheap?

 

And shouldn't be used to for costing purposes in the first place. So it's a bad argument from the start.

[archermoo]

Re: Are PD and ED far too cheap?

 

And shouldn't be used to for costing purposes in the first place. So it's a bad argument from the start.

 

Yeah, the optional rule shouldn't be driving the design of the core rules. If anything it should be the reverse.

[Hierax]

Re: Are PD and ED far too cheap?

 

You guys have good points that I'm not arguing against.

 

I was just saying from the point of view of AP limits it doesn't work well (specifically where it bothered me was using Frameworks to balance powers).

 

If not looking at it from that POV then I see that it's not a problem particularly if you're using a separate Def cap.

 

Somehow I came to think of AP caps as official (not sure where I got that from though), knowing that they really aren't does help explain things better.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Are PD and ED far too cheap?

 

Yeah, not only are AP Caps not official - but they're a moving target based on Campaign Parameters.

 

When I GM Supers (an exceptionally rare thing) I set a 12 DC/75 AP Limit.

[ajackson]

Re: Are PD and ED far too cheap?

 

You know' date=' there is a reason why Defense Caps are listed separately than Active Point Caps. . . . Just sayin'.[/quote']

Of course, if you merge all your defenses into a single active point cap, the problem is reversed; even if it just applies to PD/ED, a 60 active cap would let you have, say, 25 PD, 25 ED, 10/10 resistant.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Are PD and ED far too cheap?

 

In a 60AP campaign I find that 25 Normal/10 Resistant to actually be dead on norm.

 

25 may even be a bit high as I know some GMs that cap it at 20.

 

Not only is the problem NOT reversed, but you drop into Suggested Levels to boot.

 

amazing that.

 

And again - AP Caps are a bad bad bad way to design a system.

 

Good for Game, Bad for Rules.

[Crypt]

Re: Are PD and ED far too cheap?

 

IMNSHO, the characters cannot determine the AP of their spells. They can only assess how powerful they are based on their results. This eliminates the problem.

 

To the extend it means that rules are useless.

 

All players in all our campaigns, whatever the game, tend to tweak with the systems. That's part of the fun at our table.

It would be a very very weird paradox to forbid that with the ultimate gamer's toolkit.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Are PD and ED far too cheap?

 

not really.

 

the CHARACTERS can't determine Active Points because that's not an In Game Thing.

 

Players, sure. But if part of the fun is letting players tweak and alter things, then it hardly matters.

 

Still - the problem is not the system.

[secretID]

Re: Are PD and ED far too cheap?

 

Okay, let's do that. Let's say we have a DC12 campaign, and use average damage. Average STUN from a Normal attack would then be 42, while average STUN from an EGO attack or STUN Drain would be 21. Given that KAs in 6e have a fixed x2 STUN multiplier, an average DC12 KA will do 28 STUN and 14 BODY. We should set base rDEF at 14 in order to be able to ignore BODY damage (from average attacks, anyway).

 

Let's give the base character the following stats:

STUN 30, CON 16, REC 5, rPD 14, rED 14, MD 0, PowD 0.

 

Character A spends 34 points on increasing defenses:

STUN 30, CON 16, REC 5, rPD 26, rED 26, MD 5, PowD 5

Note that CON+DEF is just enough not to be stunned by the average attacks

 

Character B spends 34 points on increasing STUN/CON/REC, assuming STUN and CON cost 1 and REC costs 2:

STUN 42, CON 28, REC 10, rPD 14, rED 14, MD 0, PowD 0

Again, CON+DEF is just enough not to be stunned by the average attacks

 

Character C spends 34 points on increasing STUN/CON/REC, assuming REC and CON cost 1 and STUN costs ½:

STUN 54, CON 28, REC 15, rPD 14, rED 14, MD 0, PowD 0

Again, CON+DEF is just enough not to be stunned by the average attacks

 

A normal DC12 attack will do 16 STUN through defenses to character A and 28 STUN through defenses to Characters B and C. Given that they get two PS12 recoveries during a fight, A would be knocked out after three hits, B would be knocked out after two hits, and C would be knocked out after three hits.

 

A DC12 EGO Attack or STUN Drain will do 16 STUN through defenses to character A and 21 STUN through defenses to Characters B and C. Given that they get two PS12 recoveries during a fight, A would be knocked out after three hits, B would also be knocked out after three hits, and C would be knocked out after four hits.

 

A DC 12 KA will do 2 STUN through defenses to character A and 14 STUN through defenses to Characters B and C. Given that they get two PS12 recoveries during a fight, A would be knocked out after 20 hits, B would be knocked out after four hits, and C would be knocked out after six hits.

 

B is clearly worse off than A or C versus normal and killing attacks, and no better off versus exotic attacks.

 

A and C seem more equal: They do equally well versus normal attacks, C is slightly better off versus exotic attacks, but much worse off versus killing attacks.

 

Not included in the calculations is that normal attacks that do slightly more than average BODY would do BODY damage to B and C, while even maxed out normal attacks would do no BODY damage to A. All would take equal BODY from above-average KAs.

 

I think this makes a good case for halving the costs of STUN and REC.

 

- Klaus

Good analysis.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Are PD and ED far too cheap?

 

My attitude is this: to build a character you need defence, and stun and an attack.

 

If you put all your eggs in one basket, you'll come a cropper. All stun, you'll go down quickly against most attacks, but last longer against NNDs.

 

All defence and you'll last well against normal attacks but go down quickly against NNDs and the like.

 

All attack and you'd better take down your opponent with the first hit.

 

What matters is the mix. You can argue that defence should be more expensive (or Stun/Body cheaper) but the fact remains that we consistently build characters that work. That may be because we correct for problems almost automatically. Stun probably will be cheaper in 6e as there will be no figured contribution from STR and CON, but that is a factor at present. Most 350 point superheroes have 40-60 Stun just based on figured characteristics, and they last long enough. I wouldn't particularly want to encourage much higher totals with lower cost - in the current set up.

 

What most of these analyses do not account for is that starts off about right (or at least adequate), even before you spend anything on them. PD and ED don't: they will always be increased (or supplemented by other defences). You can not take the characteristics out of that context and still meaningfully compare cost. Such an analysis may well be more meaningful in 6e where we are in a landscape without figured characteristics. We shall see.