The Ten Things I Love About 6e and the Ten Things I hate about 6e

[Balabanto]

Okay. Here we go. These are my ten favorites and ten stinkers. Your mileage may vary.

 

We'll do the Ten Things I Love First.

 

10) Density Increase and Does Not Provide Defense! This is the single best power mod out of all of them. It makes it far easier to run a game where defenses are capped and not break the system into chutney. More important than this is that it's simple and self explanatory.

 

9) Invisible Power Effects Reworking: This I love too. It's not the granularity of it that makes it feel better, it's that you can have special effect based invisibility to things that is genre driven. If you really want to have a power that isn't visible to people, but is visible to animals, you can, and it's not hard.

 

8) Danger Sense requires an additional modifier for use with attacks you can't actually see. I love this to death. I think it's wonderful.

 

7) Change Environment Temperature Levels are now a straight number rather than an environmental nightmare where the GM sits there and says "Living in a Dangerous World Damage Time." This is great. One man's firepit is now another man's volcano. As it should be.

 

6) Automaton Powers got their own section in the Powers Section. This may seem kind of nitpicky, but they were so hard to find before, and now that they're easy to locate, hopefully players will understand why I generally restrict their use.

 

5) The New Darkness Rules cheer me up greatly. I like the extra qualifiers that make sure people aren't buying "Area Effect" on Darkness and the like.

 

4) Granular Entangle Makes Other Special Effects Possible. I really like this in terms of what I can do with it, and it doesn't feel or seem cheesy when I think about it's applications.

 

3) Healing is a separate power with limited usefulness. I like this much better than the way it used to work.

 

2) Regeneration is back. Oh, my happiness here cannot be contained. It is a fountain of reciprocity, a joy among joys, but I get ahead of myself.

 

#1) (Drumroll Please) Killing Attack has a d3 Stun Multiplier. I don't think there's a single thing I love more about 6th edition than this.

 

 

And now, the downside

 

10) I really don't like Armor Piercing at a +1/4 Advantage. I think that's too cheap for what it grants. The problem with this comes in when I looked at Resistant Protection and saw the fact that stopping Armor Piercing with Hardened is useless. That's right. It's totally and utterly useless. If I have 20 points of Resistant Protection or more, I don't care about armor piercing and buying Hardened. I would rather buy Impenetrable on my defenses if I have to choose between them. So what do I do about Armor Piercing? I buy STUN. That's right. I do nothing other than jack my STUN through the roof, especially in low powered games. If I have more than 40 points worth of Resistant defenses that come from anything, I don't care about anything except my stun total, because those 15-20 points that I just threw into Hardened reward me with 30-40 STUN. That's a much better tradeoff. Now, Hardened is still better if I can't justify the STUN, but nonetheless, mechanically, this leaves a sour taste in my mouth. STUN may be "Considered" a defense, but it shouldn't actually BE a defense.

 

9) Uncontrolled, Constant, and Variable Power Pool: This is more powerful than ever before, because getting your defensive powers to sit there and leave your VPP is cheaper than ever. I don't think VPPs really needed to be any more powerful than they already were. They're the most powerful construct in the game. Changing your pool doesn't matter if you pump in the END first, and END is now so cheap, that your VPP is a virtual bastion of endless defense generation.

 

8) Vulnerability Stacking: I think this may well be the worst change to the system overall. Who wants to sit there while running a game and multiply Damage by 2.25, or, worse, if someone has a tripartate 1.5x Vulnerability, 3.375? It's actually possible to take 8x damage from a single attack. Plus, it excessively rewards Variable Power Pool characters, (See Above) who don't need to be more powerful than they already are. The most powerful construct in the game should not also have the ability to activate multiple vulnerabilities at once. It's too convenient.

 

7) Tunnelling is inconsistent with other movement powers, and creates confusion. Usable as Other Modes of Movement makes Tunnelling a nightmare. This advantage is necessary, but pretty much, everyone's going to wind up buying other movement powers separately if they have Tunnelling, regardless of their special effect. (Whirlwind Drill Man, for instance)

 

6) Shrinking is 6 points per level? Say it ain't so! +12 DCV for 36 points is outrageous. Who cares about area effects? There's nothing to prevent shrinkers from being any less well defended than a standard character.

 

5) Flash Defense: It should cost only +1/4 Advantage for every additional sense your Flash Defense protects you against. Armored Helmets with Life Support Systems are stupidly expensive in Hero, and the fact that you can get tons of flash against secondary senses for very little points is counterintuitive to the attack/defense rules. Flash is one power. All Flash Defense should be one power, but if you have to buy Flash Defense against every sense separately, it becomes ridiculously expensive for no good reason. As a subset of this...

 

Needing to purchase Resistant for Special Defenses. This is just cruel and unusual punishment. These attacks are so rare that requiring people to buy this for a +1/2 advantage is actually mean. On the oft chance that someone uses an attack like this against a specialized defense, the specialized defense should protect against it for free. I know people here think I'm a pretty mean GM sometimes, but even I, in the eyes of those who think I am heartless, wouldn't do this to my players. It's just cold blooded.

 

4) Drain. Removing Transfer from the game and making it a separate Aid is counterintuitive and adds more dice rolling, which really wasn't necessary. Power isn't conserved here. I could drain 4 and get 23 on the 4d6 AID roll. That doesn't seem to make much sense. Couldn't we just have a +1/2 advantage called Transfer which does the same thing? Also, the numbers on attacking defenses don't quite balance out against the fact that Drain is now a ranged power. I stuffed in a house rule that makes it cost +1/4 to do this. That's a little fairer, and now 60 points of drain drains about the same amount of END, STUN, and REC it used to and still has Range, which is better than it was. One of my players, upon reading the Drain rules, considered removing every single drain from his character's sheet.

 

3) Megascale isn't More Expensive: I really thought this was too cheap for what it did, and it still is. Megascale can turn carefully orchestrated time limit plots into hamburger with the blink of an eye. Yes, there's a reason there's a stop sign next to it, but for Price vs. Result, you are getting way more than what you pay for. The problem isn't the COMBAT usage of megascale. It's the NONCOMBAT usage of Megascale. Travel Times are cut to virtually nothing, which means that any plot the GM has that involves a ritual at time X or a specific action at time Y not only can, but will be interrupted long before it ever gets a chance to start. I'm not happy with an advantage in common use that eliminates all challenges in the way and forces every bad guy on Earth to plan for "What if so and so shows up?" When a PC has a megascale power, just like when an NPC does, the NPC's plan for when that character arrives if they have a reputation or have been around a long time. If a power forces every character in the world to be redesigned or have to take extra time to deal with anyone who has it, it is broken. (Once again, the 4e character creation checklist)

 

2) Focus still doesn't acknowledge that Powered Armor is effectively a separate, similar limitation with an advantage and a disadvantage. The advantage is that most of your powers come from the focus, the Disadvantage being that every attack that hits you, not just your focus when it's specifically targeted, needs to be applied against your resistant defense to see if your armor loses a power. That's just common sense.

 

1) Barrier. I have spoken with at least five other gamemasters about this. They told me Barrier is completely and unequivocably broken. Regardless of being able to go desolid through a barrier, for a mere-smear 60 points, you can totally isolate characters and pick them off one at a time. Who cares how much DEF the Barrier has? Just buy 20 meters so you can encircle an opponent, and buy scads of BODY. The character will never get out without specialized powers devoted to doing so (Teleport, Desolid, Tunnelling 1" through DEF 23) while his comrades gang up on his allies and he beats on a wall, waiting for the time when he can actually do something. It's ten times more powerful than an equivalent amount of Entangle. Or, alternatively, if the GM wants to be a jerk (Which I don't recommend), the villains can put their OWN MENTALIST inside one of these things and just renew it every time someone knocks it down. This is better than PD, ED, special defenses, or any special effect you can name. All you have to do is make sure your group's own AOE attacks don't catch the Barrier.

 

Those are my thoughts. Your mileage may vary.

[mattingly]

Re: The Ten Things I Love About 6e and the Ten Things I hate about 6e

 

10) I really don't like Armor Piercing at a +1/4 Advantage.

You can easily adapt costs for your own game. Many groups do not have a problem with it.

 

8) Vulnerability Stacking: ...if someone has a tripartate 1.5x Vulnerability, 3.375?

So, if the attack did 35 STUN before, you can quickly figure out that each 1.5x did an extra 18 STUN, so take 35, take an extra 18, another extra 18, and yet another 18.

 

7) Tunnelling is inconsistent with other movement powers, and creates confusion. Usable as Other Modes of Movement makes Tunnelling a nightmare.

Using the philosophy that if there are two ways to build an effect, the more expensive one is likely the correct way, just declare that any construct with the Usable As Movement Advantage must use the most expensive form of movement as its base. Just like you probably wouldn't want to allow +40 Leaping, Usable as Running, since it's far cheaper than actually buying that much running straight. An advantage should generally not make a power (+40 Running) cheaper than buying it without.

 

6) Shrinking is 6 points per level? Say it ain't so! +12 DCV for 36 points is outrageous.

With DCV as its own CHA now, you could easily buy +12 DCV; Costs END for 40 points. If you assume that Shrinking also includes some drawbacks like Extra KB, that could explain it. Or else just take the whole Size Template and put a Costs END on it.

 

5) Flash Defense: Flash is one power. All Flash Defense should be one power, but if you have to buy Flash Defense against every sense separately, it becomes ridiculously expensive for no good reason.

But Blast is just one power, and you'd have to buy PD and ED separately to defend against each type. How is Flash different?

 

1) Barrier. ...for a mere-smear 60 points, you can totally isolate characters and pick them off one at a time.

Only if you can attack through the Barrier, right? Which is an Advantage either on the Barrier (Transparent) or your attack (Indirect). So instead of 43 BODY for your 20m Barrier, you end up with 23 for a One-Way Transparent Barrier to a single type of attack.

[bigbywolfe]

Re: The Ten Things I Love About 6e and the Ten Things I hate about 6e

 

7) Tunnelling is inconsistent with other movement powers, and creates confusion. Usable as Other Modes of Movement makes Tunnelling a nightmare. This advantage is necessary, but pretty much, everyone's going to wind up buying other movement powers separately if they have Tunnelling, regardless of their special effect. (Whirlwind Drill Man, for instance)

 

Using the philosophy that if there are two ways to build an effect, the more expensive one is likely the correct way, just declare that any construct with the Usable As Movement Advantage must use the most expensive form of movement as its base. Just like you probably wouldn't want to allow +40 Leaping, Usable as Running, since it's far cheaper than actually buying that much running straight. An advantage should generally not make a power (+40 Running) cheaper than buying it without.

 

That was already the rule in 5ER. Usable as Another Form of Movement (or whatever the actual name of the advantage was) had to be applied to the more expensive of the two forms of movement. You couldn’t buy Gliding, Usable as Flight, for example. Did they actually drop this stipulation from 6E or are you both just overlooking it?

[ghost-angel]

Re: The Ten Things I Love About 6e and the Ten Things I hate about 6e

 

No - no they didn't.

 

6E1 p158 - apply "Usable As Second Mode Of Movement" to the more expensive of the two Movement Powers.

[Balabanto]

Re: The Ten Things I Love About 6e and the Ten Things I hate about 6e

 

The Barrier vs. Mentalist doesn't matter because Mind Scan exists. Just establish a lock and hide in your barrier. Who cares if it isn't transparent? Technically, you can also Hide the mentalist in a building, etc, but all you're really doing is trading time for attack actions instead of movement actions. And attack actions have the benefit of ending your action. "I half move to X. Do I see the mentalist? If so, I shoot him."

 

Vs.

 

I attack the barrier. Your action ends. Now you get shot four times. Out of combat.

 

Unless someone bought "Safe Blind" on their teleport, which isn't valid for every special effect, you just stopped teleporting into the barrier to deal with the mentalist, and unless the person in question can also see in the dark, the Mentalist is better defended than he would be out in the open.

 

Vulnerability: They don't add. They multiply. 35+18+18+18=89. 35 x1.5x1.5x1.5=118. That's a 21 point difference, or two recovery categories. Not that most people in the game I run would be spitting up in deep negatives from the 89, but the 118 places people firmly in the location of deep optionland, where you awaken at the GM's sufferance.

 

I completely understand the Tunnelling Argument. However, I did not say that the argument was simple or easy for new players to understand, nor did I say that it's uniqueness was bad in terms of how it works. I only said it was confusing and counterintutive to the way other movement powers work.

 

As for shrinking, virtual invisibility (-12 to Perception Rolls), is not worth 5 points. Remember, the average person has an 11- for a perception roll. Their perception roll to see this individual is -1. Roll a 3 or else. This has always been my problem with Shrinking and why I heavily limit it's use. Stealth is an everyman skill at 8-. Even if your shrinker doesn't have stealth, 3 points will get them a DEX roll. So without any stealth roll, you're looking at around a 20-. With it, you're looking at around a 25-. (Assuming a 14- roll) Even in high powered games, this many bonuses to PER rolls for an average character is a stretch. I haven't played in a high powered game EVER (And I do play in one, as I have for 21 years) where someone had +15 to Perception Rolls, and that's a huge defense vs. attack ratio, effectively just to be able to see someone.30- 45 points to for a 50 percent chance to counter a 36 point power doesn't seem right to me. Defense Maneuver IV will stop being clobbered at 2x stun, but justifying Defense Maneuver IV is harder than justifying 12d6 of Blast. Even with a house rule that all Shrinking gains the Perceivable limitation for no points whatsoever, the benefits of massive amounts of DCV are radical, especially now that there are cover rules on top of it. (If I had an 11th thing I loved, it would be that.)

 

Flash is different because of it's applicability: The defense should cost less than the attack, but commonality also has to be taken into account. To have 15 points of Sight Flash defense vs. all sense groups costs like 60 points, BUT...secondary flashes cost 3 points per die and can generate considerably more effect than the base sight flash, but are also much harder to resist,.because not only does the flash have more dice, but the defense costs the same amount of points. That's counterintuitive, because less common attacks that deliver more dice punch should not be more difficult to defend against. Flash Defense is 1 point for 1 point. So stopping Sight Flash, which costs 5 points per die, costs about 12 points if you want to stop Joe Sight Flash. But, stopping Joe Smell flash costs 20. (Assuming 60 points of power is thrown) The defense is too expensive for the frequency of use and the number of dice it generates with a comparatively rare effect. Because Flash is specialized, the defenses for Flash have become overspecialized. There's no reason that a helmet that stops sight, sound, and smell flash should cost that many points if you bought Life Support. As far as most players who complained to me about this are concerned, if you have LS, Self Contained Breathing, your Smell Flash Defense should be 1000+, because there's no reason why anything smell oriented would pass into your life support system. I understand the nature of your argument, but PD and ED have separate entries. Flash Defense is one entry. That's the basis of my argument, and that's the way I think it should work.

 

Power Defense is One for One. Mental Defense is One for One. Flash Defense was originally balanced on the same scale, but got diversified. We don't have Right Brain Mental Defense, Left Brain Mental Defense, Medulla Oblongata Mental Defense, and Pineal Gland mental defense. We don't have Psychic Power Defense, Mutant Power Defense, Radioactive Accident Power Defense, and Magic Power Defense. Therefore, Flash Defense needs a boost, or it's a ripoff.

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: The Ten Things I Love About 6e and the Ten Things I hate about 6e

 

Vulnerability: They don't add. They multiply. 35+18+18+18=89. 35 x1.5x1.5x1.5=118. That's a 21 point difference' date=' or two recovery categories. Not that most people in the game I run would be spitting up in deep negatives from the 89, but the 118 places people firmly in the location of deep optionland, where you awaken at the GM's sufferance.[/quote']

 

If someone has three different Vulnerabilities that can overlap, he should be expecting to take a major hit if he strays into a Perfect Storm of SFX. My namesake character, Bolo, was Vulnerable to Fire attacks and Explosions. I got KO'd by an agent of Firewing. One. Shot. One. Agent.

 

Your VPP worries also assume the character's Vulnerability is known. If it's an uncommon attack, at the 1.5x level, that may not be readily apparent. If they're common attacks, well, that's the risk the character takes to get the extra points.

 

And frankly, someone running around with a lot of Vulnerabilities, even a bunch of 1.5x Uncommon ones, is probably being a bit of a Munchkin and deserves to be in GM-La-La-Land once in a while.

[Balabanto]

Re: The Ten Things I Love About 6e and the Ten Things I hate about 6e

 

I understand your argument, but the point of mine is a little different. I don't believe that magic fire should be any different from a flamethrower. Magic fire shouldn't be magic and fire, it should be "I use magic to create fire." If I shoot someone with magic, that should be it's own energy type. I shouldn't reap rewards for buying a power with TWO special effects for free. I don't believe that using an assembly line to make oatmeal creates "Technological Oatmeal." You use technology to create oatmeal. It's just oatmeal.

 

You use magic to create fire. You use technology to create oatmeal. That makes a lot more sense.

 

A character shouldn't be vulnerable to Technology and Oatmeal and take both. Granted, a character being vulnerable to Oatmeal is STUPID, but why is magically created grain and water any different from technologically crafted grain and water. Oatmeal is oatmeal. Fire is Fire.

 

And two of the most common PC types are "The Gadgeteer" and "The Mage", which are, not coincidentally, two of the most powerful types in the game and have Variable Power Pools that can generate, with a little smarts, exactly what's needed fairly frequently.

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: The Ten Things I Love About 6e and the Ten Things I hate about 6e

 

I've always looked at a "power base" (Technology, Mutation, etc.) as different from a power's SFX. In fact, I have a house-rule that Advantages or Limitations dealing with a power base -- e.g. Affects All Technological -- are double the amount they would be for an SFX. So Drain vs. All Mutant Powers becomes hellaciously expensive -- as it should be -- by having a +4 Advantage.

 

Magic, to me, isn't a SFX but instead a power base. It can be used to create nearly any SFX, so IMO a Vulnerability to Magic Attacks would be at least Common, if not Very Common. And if you take that Complication, you should understand the implications -- that it might open you up to stacked Vulnerabilities.

 

I understand this isn't RAW, but that's how I look at it. YMMV.

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: The Ten Things I Love About 6e and the Ten Things I hate about 6e

 

I should add that I don't take credit for "power base" vs. "special effect." I heard it from someone else, but I don't remember who it was.

[sbarron]

Re: The Ten Things I Love About 6e and the Ten Things I hate about 6e

 

It's the NONCOMBAT usage of Megascale. Travel Times are cut to virtually nothing' date=' which means that any plot the GM has that involves a ritual at time X or a specific action at time Y not only can, but will be interrupted long before it ever gets a chance to start. I'm not happy with an advantage in common use that eliminates all challenges in the way and forces every bad guy on Earth to plan for "What if so and so shows up?"[/quote']Any plot like that would require that the PC know the specific time and location of the event. And since the GM has control of when PCs get both of those pieces of info, I don't see this as a problem. In fact, I'd argue it only creates better scenarios for the PCs, because the drama of learning the specific time and place, and then actually intervening, can be pushed off much closer to the event itself.

[Balabanto]

Re: The Ten Things I Love About 6e and the Ten Things I hate about 6e

 

Where I come from, sbarron, that's called "Railroading." My players don't like being Railroaded.

[sbarron]

Re: The Ten Things I Love About 6e and the Ten Things I hate about 6e

 

Where I come from' date=' sbarron, that's called "Railroading." My players don't like being Railroaded.[/quote']Where I'm from that's called good storytelling. I think we just view the game a little differently.

[NestorDRod]

Re: The Ten Things I Love About 6e and the Ten Things I hate about 6e

 

Where I come from' date=' sbarron, that's called "Railroading." My players don't like being Railroaded.[/quote']

 

Where I come from that's called "Pacing" and, IMO, is a more critical aspect of running a game than the much bally-hooed, over-emphasized concept of "Game Balance."

 

But, as has become a common theme in these discussions, it's your game. YMMV and all that.

[Netzilla]

Re: The Ten Things I Love About 6e and the Ten Things I hate about 6e

 

Where I come from' date=' sbarron, that's called "Railroading." My players don't like being Railroaded.[/quote']

 

Do your PCs get perfect information all the time then? Has no informant ever lied to them or misled them? I'm not saying these kinds of things should happen all the time, but they are valid ways of obscuring knowledge will prevent your feared scenario of

 

any plot the GM has that involves a ritual at time X or a specific action at time Y not only can, but will be interrupted long before it ever gets a chance to start

I really don't think those ideas qualify as "railroading" either.

 

You also assume that the megascaled movement can overcome any obstacles placed between the PCs and the event location. If the opposition is known to be able to travel quickly, anyone doing anything nefarious is going to use other means to delay the heroes (traps, minions, false leads, etc).

[Balabanto]

Re: The Ten Things I Love About 6e and the Ten Things I hate about 6e

 

When an NPC lies to someone, the PC's get a roll to see through it, the same way that it always works. If they make the roll, they know he's lying.

 

In general, the difference between a PC and an NPC in my game is that the PC's are played by players. I don't like the idea that there's this PC T-shirt that immediately identifies player characters and gives them all kinds of special privilages.

[Arkham]

Re: The Ten Things I Love About 6e and the Ten Things I hate about 6e

 

When an NPC lies to someone, the PC's get a roll to see through it, the same way that it always works. If they make the roll, they know he's lying.

 

In general, the difference between a PC and an NPC in my game is that the PC's are played by players. I don't like the idea that there's this PC T-shirt that immediately identifies player characters and gives them all kinds of special privilages.

 

Really? What do they roll? And do they have to ask for a roll if they don't believe them, or do you tell the players whenever the NPCs lie by asking them to roll. And then what if the NPC is misinformed, then the PCs still get misinformed and no one is lying.

 

My person preferences are, a) Allow the PCs to show up early and disrupt the event. They are supposed to be Super, damnit. =-D

or The event is in 5 minutes half way across the world. Hope you have enough megascale to get there in time...

[Netzilla]

Re: The Ten Things I Love About 6e and the Ten Things I hate about 6e

 

When an NPC lies to someone' date=' the PC's get a roll to see through it, the same way that it always works. If they make the roll, they know he's lying. [/quote']

 

Knowing someone is lying and knowing what the truth is are not the same thing. Just because you know minion X is lying about the location of the Evil Overlord's planned ritual doesn't suddenly mean the PCs know where that ritual is. Also, the minion can be telling the truth and be simply misinformed. As per my earlier example, the Evil Overlord could be deliberately planting erroneous and conflicting information among his minions in order to get the heroes to run around in circles or walk into a trap. It's simply one more obstacle to overcome and hardly counts as "railroading". There's always more than distance and travel time that can potentially make PCs late to the party.

[NestorDRod]

Re: The Ten Things I Love About 6e and the Ten Things I hate about 6e

 

When an NPC lies to someone, the PC's get a roll to see through it, the same way that it always works. If they make the roll, they know he's lying.

 

In general, the difference between a PC and an NPC in my game is that the PC's are played by players. I don't like the idea that there's this PC T-shirt that immediately identifies player characters and gives them all kinds of special privilages.

 

An interesting approach.

 

I, on the other hand, view PCs as standing out of the crowd by their very nature; they are the HEROES of the adventure, after all.

 

Does this mean that everything is handed to them in a silver platter? No. But it does mean that they get more attention from the winds of Fate (both good and bad) than the average man-on-the-steet.

 

So, if it would be heroic (and make the story more exciting and fun) to have them arrive at the scene in just the nick of time, well, that's exactly what happens, regardless of what the clock says or what method of transportation they used to get there.

 

Which do you think the players will find more appealing?

 

"You arrive at the abandoned temple. The torches throw fitful flashes of light against the stones, illuminating the cultists as they gather around the altar and the bound girl lying on it, obviously in the last steps of completing the ritual. Roll for initiative."

 

Or...

 

"You arrive at the abandoned temple. Guttering torches throw shadows over the dismembered remains of the cultists' sacrifice. Too bad, I guess you just didn't get there in time. Maybe next time you'll choose a faster plane."

 

[ghost-angel]

Re: The Ten Things I Love About 6e and the Ten Things I hate about 6e

 

There's all kinds of ways to mitigate Megascale movement.

 

Mulitple contacts, runaround by the contacts (no, this guy had the info, not me... no that guy...), just plain not finding the right person in time.... allowing it in only smaller increments even.

 

Just because your PC can get from NYC to SF in 15 minutes doesn't mean the guy they really really need to talk to isn't on a plane - that won't land for four hours. Fat lot of good moving fast does for that.

 

But whatever.

[Zephrosyne]

Re: The Ten Things I Love About 6e and the Ten Things I hate about 6e

 

Not to hijack the original poster's thread but I am curious about something. Why was the Stun Multiplier for killing damage attacks changed to 1/2d6? Is there anyone who was in on the SETAC discussions willing to weigh in? Me personally, I always used a straight "times 3" just to avoid another die roll. Just wondering is all.

[ghost-angel]

Re: The Ten Things I Love About 6e and the Ten Things I hate about 6e

 

I could probably give a long winded explanation - but I'll just give the end results.

 

Damage Class to Damage Class, with the Stun Multiple at 1D3 the Killing Attack will do more Body and less Stun than a Normal Attack. There's even a pattern to it, more or less.

 

Beyond that... I'm gonna take Steve's tack and not discuss too much about game design philosophy. I just did spreadsheets. Lots of them. And learned to hate Killing Attacks.

[Yansuf]

Re: The Ten Things I Love About 6e and the Ten Things I hate about 6e

 

I understand your argument, but the point of mine is a little different. I don't believe that magic fire should be any different from a flamethrower. Magic fire shouldn't be magic and fire, it should be "I use magic to create fire." If I shoot someone with magic, that should be it's own energy type. I shouldn't reap rewards for buying a power with TWO special effects for free. I don't believe that using an assembly line to make oatmeal creates "Technological Oatmeal." You use technology to create oatmeal. It's just oatmeal.

 

You use magic to create fire. You use technology to create oatmeal. That makes a lot more sense.

 

A character shouldn't be vulnerable to Technology and Oatmeal and take both. Granted, a character being vulnerable to Oatmeal is STUPID, but why is magically created grain and water any different from technologically crafted grain and water. Oatmeal is oatmeal. Fire is Fire.

 

I agree completely.

[Arkham]

Re: The Ten Things I Love About 6e and the Ten Things I hate about 6e

 

I agree completely.

 

And that's also what Variable Special Effects is for, "Magic _and_ Fire +1/4". They did keep Variable Special Effect in 6e, didn't they?

[ghost-angel]

Re: The Ten Things I Love About 6e and the Ten Things I hate about 6e

 

Yes, but Variable SFX let's you Switch SFX around, not have two at once.

 

There's no real mechanism in the Core Rules for Multiple SFX beyond being able to choose them.

 

How a Game treats SFX is largely up to the group; a spell that creates fire could be one of the following: Magic; Fire; Magic and Fire; Magical Fire. All depending on how the group is treating things.

 

The Ultimate Energy Projector has an Advantage for having Multiple SFX on one Power in it, should a group decide that it's worth more to do so. Most don't.

 

The whole complaint is a complete non-issue as far as I'm concerned. But then, so are most of Balabanto's complaints IMO.

[Metaphysician]

Re: The Ten Things I Love About 6e and the Ten Things I hate about 6e

 

I could probably give a long winded explanation - but I'll just give the end results.

 

Damage Class to Damage Class, with the Stun Multiple at 1D3 the Killing Attack will do more Body and less Stun than a Normal Attack. There's even a pattern to it, more or less.

 

Beyond that... I'm gonna take Steve's tack and not discuss too much about game design philosophy. I just did spreadsheets. Lots of them. And learned to hate Killing Attacks.

 

My own explanation ( and why I like the new stun multiplier system, even though I generally don't plan to touch 6e with a ten foot pole ): standard deviation.

 

The old 1d6-1 system gave roughly twice the spread the new 1d3 system does, which translated into a much higher likelihood of rolling ridiculously high stun totals. After all, with a killing attack, all you needed was for one die to turn up 6, and you'd explode your roll.

 

Example: 12d6 normal vs 4d6 killing. Under old rules and new, the 12d6 averages Body 12, Stun 42. Under the old rules, the killing attack averaged Body 14, Stun 38-40. *However*, if the multiplier rolled 6, than it came out Body 14, Stun *70*. This is only slightly below the maximum possible stun result on the 12d6, 72. . . and that requires rolling twelve 6s at once, as opposed to a single six.

 

In addition, compare the theoretical maximums of both: 12d6 maxes at 24 Body, 72 Stun. The killing attack, under the old system, maxes at 24 Body, *120* Stun. And that only requires rolling five 6s, which is unlikely. . . but astronomically more likely than rolling twelve of them.

 

The new system isn't perfect, it means KAs now do significantly less stun than before, even on average. But, thats a worthwhile tradeoff, given when people want to do stun, they should be using normal attacks anyway. Also, since under the new system, Body damage *inflicted* also takes off an equal amount of Stun as bonus, killing attacks that actually *hurt* still do about the same total Stun. You just can't KO Dr Destroyer with a 20mm shell to the head, that bounces off harmlessly, but still inflicts excessive Stun.