Common 6E House Rules

[Fearghus]

Re: Common 6E House Rules

 

I do not have 6E yet so this might have changed... but in 5ER I always use a house rule for movement. you can not move farther than twice your non-combat movement rate in a single round.

 

The reason for this is simple. I had a player create a character that was basically a speedster... he only had a move of 6 (12 Non-combat) but had bought 8 attacks. Well when it came to a foot chase in one game he was able to move faster than the character that had bought his movement up. It just didn't seem right to me that buying extra actions made you run faster. This way Bruce Lee can run up to you and punch you 20 times (spent points on actions), but he is still not going to be able to run faster than Jessy Owens (spent points on movement).

[Derek Hiemforth]

Re: Common 6E House Rules

 

I do not have 6E yet so this might have changed... but in 5ER I always use a house rule for movement. you can not move farther than twice your non-combat movement rate in a single round.

 

The reason for this is simple. I had a player create a character that was basically a speedster... he only had a move of 6 (12 Non-combat) but had bought 8 attacks.

Hmm. If you conceptualize of Speed as "attacks," then I see why this might seem odd to you. But technically, Speed isn't just attacks... it's actions in general. You do everything more often when your SPD goes up, including moving more often.

 

Personally, if I wanted a game where Bruce Lee could attack 20 times in short order but still not outrun Jesse Owens, I'd probably encourage people to keep their "real" SPD fairly low, and buy extra SPD with the Limitation "Only To Attack," rather than overhauling the whole Movement system...

[BobGreenwade]

Re: Common 6E House Rules

 

Any specific reason for this?

The "Great COM Debate" aside' date=' I have at least two NPC villains with appearance-based powers that, at least IMO, are simply better represented if COM is a Characteristic (such as with Mental Powers Based On COM, and Skills that are more easily run if directly based on COM rather than on PRE with a [i']Striking Appearance[/i] Modifier). The reason I'm only "strongly considering" it rather than just doing it is that these villains are of secondary significance rather than part of major plotlines.

[Lucius]

Re: Common 6E House Rules

 

Can't say they're 6E exactly, but some proposed rules ideas I had:

 

Clone the Protects Carried adder from 5E Forcefield to Invisibility, Desolid, Shrinking, and possibly Growth.

 

New Advantage: Improved Range Mod(+1/4) The normal -2 penalty per range increment is halved to -1 per range increment.

New Limitation: Worse Range Mod(-1/4) Reverse of the advantage, range penalties are -3 (or -4) per range increment.

 

Those sound like good ideas, especially the Adder.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

House of the Palindromedary

[Greywind]

Re: Common 6E House Rules

 

I do not have 6E yet so this might have changed... but in 5ER I always use a house rule for movement. you can not move farther than twice your non-combat movement rate in a single round.

 

The reason for this is simple. I had a player create a character that was basically a speedster... he only had a move of 6 (12 Non-combat) but had bought 8 attacks. Well when it came to a foot chase in one game he was able to move faster than the character that had bought his movement up. It just didn't seem right to me that buying extra actions made you run faster. This way Bruce Lee can run up to you and punch you 20 times (spent points on actions), but he is still not going to be able to run faster than Jessy Owens (spent points on movement).

Do what Derek said or tack on Autofire to the attack, which better simulates Bruce Lee and jeet kun do.

[The Main Man]

Re: Common 6E House Rules

 

*cracks knuckles* (no, really)

 

Here's a diddy that I'm grandfathering in from 5e:

 

Normally a character is completely knocked out when they reach -11 STUN or less.

Between -1 and -20 STUN they may take Recoveries every Phase until they are at 0 STUN or more.

Every -10 STUN below that point moves their ability to Recover one step down the Time Chart.

 

 

Here comes CON to save the day!

A character is now completely knocked out when they reach the negative end of their CON -1 or less i.e. -CON - 1.

At that point they may take Recoveries every Phase until they are at 0 STUN or more.

Every -10 STUN below that point moves their ability to Recover one step down the Time Chart.

 

Example: John Q has 10 CON, so he is completely knocked out at (CON -10-1= -11) -11 STUN or less.

Between -1 and -20 STUN he may take a Recovery every Phase until he is at 0 STUN or more.

His ability to Recover goes one step down the Time Chart for every additional -10 STUN he is at (-21-30 = every Turn , -31-40 = every Minute, -41-50 = every 5 Minutes, etc)

 

Example: Bloodfang the Dread Beast of Dragon Mountain has 25 CON, so he is completely knocked out at (CON 25-1 = -26) -26 STUN or less.

Between -1 and -26 Bloodfang may take a Recovery every Phase until he is at 0 STUN or more.

His ability to Recover goes one step down the Time Chart for every additional -10 STUN that he has lost (-26-35 = every Turn, -36-45 = every Minute, -46-55 = every 5 Minutes, etc)

[Derek Hiemforth]

Re: Common 6E House Rules

 

Thought of another house rule I usually use...

 

When Holding An Action, if you're holding in anticipation of a specific event (a DEX value, or waiting for something to happen), then when that event comes around, you automatically get to go first with your Held Action. You only have to win a DEX Roll if you were holding "generically" and just waiting to see what happened.

[The Main Man]

Re: Common 6E House Rules

 

If a character has a Martial Arts maneuver that includes the Full Move element, and that maneuver can be Aborted to (such as a Flying Dodge), then if they use it via Aborting, they get only the CVs associated with the maneuver... they do not get to make a full move. (I interpret the Full Move element as meaning that the maneuver can be performed in the same Phase as a Full Move, assuming the move is otherwise legal. I don't view the move as being "included" in the maneuver itself.)

 

I do this too. I cannot be too sure, but I may have gotten it from you from some other thread.

 

I'm at least really sure that I got the idea from these boards when discussion came up over how broken Flying Dodge potentially was.

[The Main Man]

Re: Common 6E House Rules

 

Thought of another house rule I usually use...

 

When Holding An Action, if you're holding in anticipation of a specific event (a DEX value, or waiting for something to happen), then when that event comes around, you automatically get to go first with your Held Action. You only have to win a DEX Roll if you were holding "generically" and just waiting to see what happened.

 

I do this too for the simplicity.

[Lucius]

Re: Common 6E House Rules

 

I do not have 6E yet so this might have changed... but in 5ER I always use a house rule for movement. you can not move farther than twice your non-combat movement rate in a single round.

 

The reason for this is simple. I had a player create a character that was basically a speedster... he only had a move of 6 (12 Non-combat) but had bought 8 attacks. Well when it came to a foot chase in one game he was able to move faster than the character that had bought his movement up. It just didn't seem right to me that buying extra actions made you run faster. This way Bruce Lee can run up to you and punch you 20 times (spent points on actions), but he is still not going to be able to run faster than Jessy Owens (spent points on movement).

 

 

Which is why I normally buy SPD UP and Running DOWN, to simulate characters with normal or near normal ground speed but multiple actions.

 

When your player defined himself as a "Speedster" and bought up something called "Speed" in the game he was probably fully expecting to be able to run fast. I wouldn't blame him a bit if he felt cheated by your decision. That extra movement was part of what he was paying for in buying SPD up.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary agrees that Bruce Lee should not necessarily outrun Jesse Owens, which is why if you've built him so that he does, you've built him wrong.

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Common 6E House Rules

 

A character is now completely knocked out when they reach the negative end of their CON -1 or less i.e. -CON - 1.

At that point they may take Recoveries every Phase until they are at 0 STUN or more.

Every -10 STUN below that point moves their ability to Recover one step down the Time Chart.

 

I have tended to use increments of BODY rather than 10 STUN to take people down the recovery levels. That means that big bruiser bricks have even more incentive to buy up their BODY - it gets them back into the fight faster after they have gone down.

 

Doc

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Common 6E House Rules

 

Here comes CON to save the day!

A character is now completely knocked out when they reach the negative end of their CON -1 or less i.e. -CON - 1.

At that point they may take Recoveries every Phase until they are at 0 STUN or more.

Every -10 STUN below that point moves their ability to Recover one step down the Time Chart.

 

Example: John Q has 10 CON, so he is completely knocked out at (CON -10-1= -11) -11 STUN or less.

Between -1 and -20 STUN he may take a Recovery every Phase until he is at 0 STUN or more.

His ability to Recover goes one step down the Time Chart for every additional -10 STUN he is at (-21-30 = every Turn , -31-40 = every Minute, -41-50 = every 5 Minutes, etc)

 

Example: Bloodfang the Dread Beast of Dragon Mountain has 25 CON, so he is completely knocked out at (CON 25-1 = -26) -26 STUN or less.

Between -1 and -26 Bloodfang may take a Recovery every Phase until he is at 0 STUN or more.

His ability to Recover goes one step down the Time Chart for every additional -10 STUN that he has lost (-26-35 = every Turn, -36-45 = every Minute, -46-55 = every 5 Minutes, etc)

 

I have tended to use increments of BODY rather than 10 STUN to take people down the recovery levels. That means that big bruiser bricks have even more incentive to buy up their BODY - it gets them back into the fight faster after they have gone down.

 

There'sa definite tradeoff here. On the one hand, being out of the fight can be quite frustrating for the player, especially if he gets KO'd early on. However, on the other hand, a wider ability to recover quickly means longer combats. As well, it means more incentive to "hit him when he's down" so he won't keep recovering, which never seems alll that heroic. There needs to be a point at which the character is defeated if combat is ever going to end.

[Chimera 12]

Re: Common 6E House Rules

 

While it currently looks unlikely that I'll be running any campaigns in the immediate or even mid-term future, my inner math geek inspired me to consider the following house rule:

 

When calculating a Combat Value, any halving or "setting to 0" applies to the total of base CV and any applicable positive modifiers; however, any penalties in effect are still subtracted in full.

 

Net result, the logic behind the calculation makes more intuitive sense to me -- something about the notion that, for example, being surprised should somehow partially cancel out the defense penalty I get from attempting a Haymaker has felt wonky to me for years at least, although it's been long enough since I even thought much about Hero that the memory took some time to come back to the fore -- but combat values will end up lower than they would be by the canon rules from time to time, and the fact that sometimes a situation will outright nullify, say, the +3 to hit that a character would otherwise have with pistols may not sit equally well with all players.

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Common 6E House Rules

 

There'sa definite tradeoff here. On the one hand' date=' being out of the fight can be quite frustrating for the player, especially if he gets KO'd early on. However, on the other hand, a wider ability to recover quickly means longer combats. As well, it means more incentive to "hit him when he's down" so he won't keep recovering, which never seems alll that heroic. There needs to be a point at which the character is defeated if combat is ever going to end.[/quote']

 

Yup. I'm inclined to rule that anyone who crosses two boundaries in one hit is at GM discretion...that means one big hit is more effective than lots of little ones but for big bruisers that hit needs to be that bit more...

[The Main Man]

Re: Common 6E House Rules

 

There'sa definite tradeoff here. On the one hand' date=' being out of the fight can be quite frustrating for the player, especially if he gets KO'd early on. However, on the other hand, a wider ability to recover quickly means longer combats. As well, it means more incentive to "hit him when he's down" so he won't keep recovering, which never seems alll that heroic. There needs to be a point at which the character is defeated if combat is ever going to end.[/quote']

 

I take a player-centric view on it, but I do see your point.

[BlackSword]

Re: Common 6E House Rules

 

There'sa definite tradeoff here. On the one hand' date=' being out of the fight can be quite frustrating for the player, especially if he gets KO'd early on. However, on the other hand, a wider ability to recover quickly means longer combats. As well, it means more incentive to "hit him when he's down" so he won't keep recovering, which never seems alll that heroic. There needs to be a point at which the character is defeated if combat is ever going to end.[/quote']

Typically when I run the vast majority of villains have no recovery, once they hit zero stun they are unconscious. When I am using villains with recovery (typically only 'named' NPCs) I tend to decrease their recovery every turn, once they are below -10 Stun they also get no recovery. I make it clear that between 0 and -10 they are not 'down' but are punch drunk, so they can give a final knockout punch, but does not require a team curb stomping of an opponent.

[Fearghus]

Re: Common 6E House Rules

 

Typically when I run the vast majority of villains have no recovery' date=' once they hit zero stun they are unconscious.[/quote']

 

I tend to do this as well. I figure (especially with your common thugs) that even if they do recover after having been knocked out they sort of come to their senses and say something like "I'm not getting paid enough for this." and run off. In fantasy games where players want loot I guess I would have to work it a little differently.

[The Main Man]

Re: Common 6E House Rules

 

Typically when I run the vast majority of villains have no recovery' date=' once they hit zero stun they are unconscious. When I am using villains with recovery (typically only 'named' NPCs) I tend to decrease their recovery every turn, once they are below -10 Stun they also get no recovery. I make it clear that between 0 and -10 they are not 'down' but are punch drunk, so they can give a final knockout punch, but does not require a team curb stomping of an opponent.[/quote']

 

Yeah, I still use "Minion Combat" with any bad guy who doesn't have a figurative name tag.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Common 6E House Rules

 

Typically when I run the vast majority of villains have no recovery' date=' once they hit zero stun they are unconscious. When I am using villains with recovery (typically only 'named' NPCs) I tend to decrease their recovery every turn, once they are below -10 Stun they also get no recovery. I make it clear that between 0 and -10 they are not 'down' but are punch drunk, so they can give a final knockout punch, but does not require a team curb stomping of an opponent.[/quote']

 

I think the "staggered but not down" interpretation of -1 to -10 STUN helps a lot in that regard. Especially since, as a "knocked out" target, all hits do doubte STUN, that final hit should take the target down for the count.

 

I'm reluctant to ignore REC - why buy it if they don't get to use it? But I do follow Fearghus' approach - not everyone is going to fight until they can fight no more. If the battle turns against them, most villains will look for an escape before they're KO'd, and slinking away after recovering from a KO is even more likely.

 

I tend to do this as well. I figure (especially with your common thugs) that even if they do recover after having been knocked out they sort of come to their senses and say something like "I'm not getting paid enough for this." and run off. In fantasy games where players want loot I guess I would have to work it a little differently.

[dmjalund]

Re: Common 6E House Rules

 

some may decide it would be wiser to play possum

[The Main Man]

Re: Common 6E House Rules

 

Just for clarification, my house rule means that you are in the same hazy, barely conscious state as you normally are from -1-10 STUN as long as you are within range of the negative end of your CON.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Common 6E House Rules

 

some may decide it would be wiser to play possum

 

True. However, having established the rule that -1 to -10 means "dazed but not down", the target struck with an attack reducing him to -3 STUN is still standing (absent knockbackor knockdown). It's a lot tougher to fool an opponent when you only fall prone in your phase. And, as you are knocked out, you can't abort to fall down.

[BlackSword]

Re: Common 6E House Rules

 

I'm reluctant to ignore REC - why buy it if they don't get to use it? But I do follow Fearghus' approach - not everyone is going to fight until they can fight no more. If the battle turns against them' date=' most villains will look for an escape before they're KO'd, and slinking away after recovering from a KO is even more likely.[/quote']

Difference in philosophy. I typically don't build my villains like a character. I pick out the powers and basic values I want and notate them in a small stat block. This way I can list multiple villains on a single sheet of paper and don't have to keep shuffling between NPCs to find the villain I need. During the course of combat I usually tweak the villains a bit. My games tend to be very organic, so I like the flexibility.

[dmjalund]

Re: Common 6E House Rules

 

True. However' date=' having established the rule that -1 to -10 means "dazed but not down", the target struck with an attack reducing him to -3 STUN is still standing (absent knockbackor knockdown). It's a lot tougher to fool an opponent when you only fall prone in your phase. And, as you are knocked out, you can't abort to fall down.[/quote']I was more thinking about individuals who regain consciousness and decide not to advertise the fact

[Marcus Impudite]

Re: Common 6E House Rules

 

The "Great COM Debate" aside' date=' I have at least two NPC villains with appearance-based powers that, at least IMO, are simply better represented if COM is a Characteristic (such as with Mental Powers Based On COM, and Skills that are more easily run if directly based on COM rather than on PRE with a [i']Striking Appearance[/i] Modifier). The reason I'm only "strongly considering" it rather than just doing it is that these villains are of secondary significance rather than part of major plotlines.

 

repped.

 

Yeah, if I ever do pick up 6th Ed (and that's a big if), the first order of business for me will be to reinstall the Comeliness Characteristic and toss the GURPSish Striking Appearance Talent into rubbish bin where it belongs. Have I mentioned I love that Based On COM article of yours?