Damage Class and Balance

[Duane From RI]

In people's opinion, is a compound attack made of a 7DC attack and a 5DC attack on balance with a 12DC attack?

Please opine given the following caveat: All forms of defense are about equally prevalent including Deflections, DCV boosts and Power Defense.

[Ice9]

Re: Damage Class and Balance

 

Assuming that the attack is one that a reasonably common defense applies to (not NND or Entangle for instance), then no, I would say that the compound attack is somewhat weaker. How much weaker depends on the exact attack, and whether the multiple effects it accomplishes are synergistic.

 

For instance, Drain Running and a Double Knockback Blast - fairly synergistic, could put some foes into an awkward position they need several phases to move out of.

An electricity Blast and a fire Blast - not synergistic, you're basically just doubling their effective defenses.

 

Attacks like Entangle that always have some effect if they hit are an exception to this. For instance a freezing Ice Bolt (Blast + small Entangle) is a valid trade-off with a pure Blast.

[BNakagawa]

Re: Damage Class and Balance

 

Yes. Or No. More detail needed before a more detailed and relevant answer can be provided.

[Kraven Kor]

Re: Damage Class and Balance

 

Two Attacks means target applies their defense twice - once to each attack.

 

So, generally speaking, 2x 6 DC attacks will do less damage than 1x 12 DC attack.

 

As Ice9 stated (busy, busy, busy!), this is not always the case, as it does depend on the nature of the attacks / powers in question.

[Utech]

Re: Damage Class and Balance

 

In people's opinion' date=' is a compound attack made of a 7DC attack and a 5DC attack on balance with a 12DC attack?[/quote']

On balance? No. In general, the 12DC attack will do more damage to more targets. Because the compound attack may be quite a bit more helpful in certain situations, however, it sure does pay to have 'em both.

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Damage Class and Balance

 

What the others said...

 

Putting some numbers to bog standard attacks. If defences are set at 20, a 12D6 attack will do 42 STUN on average - 22 through defences. The 7D6 attack will do 4.5 through defences and the 5D6 attack none at all.

 

Obviously with smaller DC attacks you tend to use advantages such as NND (no normal defence) or different attacks such as Ego Attack. Defences here are lower or not present. A 7DC NND will do about 12 STUN or none at all. A 5 DC NND will do 9 STUN or none at all.

 

Doc

[Kraven Kor]

Re: Damage Class and Balance

 

Balance is usually about Active Points, not DC's.

 

Although not always - like Autofire. Autofire is great against mooks, but not so much against the BBEG - as it does less damage per shot, it might be mostly useless against a high defense target. Conversely, NND is sometimes way more powerful than the number of dice suggest.

 

But generally Active Points is where you balance things.

[bobooton]

Re: Damage Class and Balance

 

In people's opinion, is a compound attack made of a 7DC attack and a 5DC attack on balance with a 12DC attack?

Please opine given the following caveat: All forms of defense are about equally prevalent including Deflections, DCV boosts and Power Defense.

 

Generally, the 12DC attack should be more effective by virtue of the stun-to-defense ratio alone. That said, the real answer is absolutely dependent on what the attacks in question are and the average levels of those defenses mentioned above.

[Mickael]

Re: Damage Class and Balance

 

So, are two powers built with the same amount of AP balanced if one is doing normal damage (like a blast) and the other is a killing attack ?

I'm learning the rules, and I haven't played yet, so I was wondering about the effectiveness of killing attacks instead of normal attacks...

[Kraven Kor]

Re: Damage Class and Balance

 

More or less.

 

I do my math wrong / different, but:

 

A 60 AP attack can be a 12d6 Normal attack, or a 4d6 Killing attack.

 

A 12d6 Normal attack, if "all threes", would be 36 stun, 12 body. A 4d6 KA would be 12 body, and 36 stun if you rolled 3x stun multiplier.

 

A 60 AP Drain would be 6d6, or 18 STUN drained on all threes, which would be about the same "standard effect" as an NND Normal Attack (NND being a +1 Advantage.)

 

This is the beauty of HERO.

[Escafarc]

Re: Damage Class and Balance

 

A 60 AP Drain would be 6d6, or 18 STUN drained on all threes, which would be about the same "standard effect" as an NND Normal Attack (NND being a +1 Advantage.)

 

 

I don't have books with me but I think STUN is considered a "Defense" Power when using an Adjustment Power so the above should be 9 STUN drained.

[Chimera 12]

Re: Damage Class and Balance

 

I don't have books with me but I think STUN is considered a "Defense" Power when using an Adjustment Power so the above should be 9 STUN drained.

 

That's correct (6E1 141).

 

Also, the 4d6 killing attack in Kraven's example would on an "all 3s" roll only cause 24 STUN, not 36. Using the 6E rules with their 1/2d6 STUN multiplier for killing attacks, 3 halved and rounded up comes out to 2, and if we assume a 3 on the die in the 1d6-1 roll from earlier editions...the result is actually the same. And this is, I think, balanced against the 36 from the equivalent normal attack -- after all, the killing attack has an easier time doing BODY to a target because it ignores nonresistant defenses for that purpose. The increased chance of getting little or no more than the minimum STUN past defenses as well (here, nonresistant defenses apply even vs. KAs, something that's potentially easy to miss) is exactly how it pays for that.

[Kraven Kor]

Re: Damage Class and Balance

 

Sorry, everything I say is 5E, not 6E, and I generally use the "standard effect" of x3 Stun on KA's.

[dmjalund]

Re: Damage Class and Balance

 

I was thinking of buying an Adjustment Power half of which only affects Defensive powers

 

e.g. 3d6 Drain + 3d6 Drain only vs Defensive powers

 

what kind of limitation would 'only affects Defensive powers' be?

[Escafarc]

Re: Damage Class and Balance

 

I was thinking of buying an Adjustment Power half of which only affects Defensive powers

 

e.g. 3d6 Drain + 3d6 Drain only vs Defensive powers

 

what kind of limitation would 'only affects Defensive powers' be?

 

The default for Drain is one single power or characteristic which has to be defined when you buy the Drain so to effect any "Defensive" Power would be an Advantage not a Limitation.

[dmjalund]

Re: Damage Class and Balance

 

not if your going against special effect (like Drain vs Fire powers)

[Escafarc]

Re: Damage Class and Balance

 

not if your going against special effect (like Drain vs Fire powers)

 

Drain vs Fire Powers one at a time would be a +1/2 Advantage(6E1 pg 142) if you wanted to limited to just Fire Defensive Powers I would lower by -1/4 to +1/4.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Damage Class and Balance

 

I don't have books with me but I think STUN is considered a "Defense" Power when using an Adjustment Power so the above should be 9 STUN drained.

 

STUN also costs 1/2 point, so the Drain would be 18 STUN.

 

Prior to 6e, STUN cost 1 point but was not a defense power.

[Kraven Kor]

Re: Damage Class and Balance

 

I was right! I love being right!

[Chimera 12]

Re: Damage Class and Balance

 

STUN also costs 1/2 point, so the Drain would be 18 STUN.

 

Prior to 6e, STUN cost 1 point but was not a defense power.

 

Yeah, that. Goes to show what can happen when you try to address two things in one post and focus so much on the one that you don't pay quite enough attention to the other.

 

So, yeah. A STUN Drain that comes up 18 on the dice technically gets its effect halved, so it only drains 9 points. But those are character points...and since one of those buys you 2 STUN, it does in fact result in 18 STUN being drained after all.

 

(Strictly speaking the Hero rounding rules result in odd-numbered rolls being 'rounded up' to the next highest even amount of STUN drained, I think, but if it comes up often enough then for ease of play it's probably okay to handwave that and just drain STUN on a one-for-one basis. Unless you have one of those players who have to squeeze every last bit of effect out of a power, I guess... )

[Chimera 12]

Re: Damage Class and Balance

 

Sorry' date=' everything I say is 5E, not 6E, and I generally use the "standard effect" of x3 Stun on KA's.[/quote']

 

You may want to be careful with that. Here's why:

 

The average roll on 1d6 is 3.5. This means that the average normal damage die will do 1 BODY and 3.5 STUN. It also means that the average killing damage die will do 3.5 BODY while only costing as much as three average normal dice that only do 3.

 

So, 3d6N (=3 DC) will do, on average, 3 BODY and 3 * 3.5 = 10.5 STUN.

 

1d6K (=3 DC again) will on average cause 3.5 BODY and, using your standard effect rule, 3.5 * 3 = 10.5 STUN as well.

 

In other words, this setup does in fact make killing attacks more powerful than normal ones -- for the same point cost, they inflict on average the same basic STUN damage, a bit more raw BODY, and they still ignore nonresistant defenses vs. that same BODY part of the damage. So unless you're specifically worried about killing your targets (and the superhero genre, where that would apply the most, probably offers plausible special effect excuses to just go all the way to STUN Only attacks to avoid that), killing attacks are the way to go...

[dmjalund]

Re: Damage Class and Balance

 

I think its logically risky to mix Standard affect with averages

[Chimera 12]

Re: Damage Class and Balance

 

I think its logically risky to mix Standard affect with averages

 

Elaborate, please? I for one am honestly not sure what you're actually trying to say by that.

[dmjalund]

Re: Damage Class and Balance

 

when you use averages you get 3.5, if you use standard effect, you get 3 (at least with normal damage)

[Ockham's Spoon]

Re: Damage Class and Balance

 

While I agree with most of what has been said, I interpreted the initial post a bit differently.

 

If you are talking a 7DC attack and a 5DC attack bought as say, a 35 STR with a +5d6 HA club, then the net result is 12d6, which is no different from a damage standpoint than the brick with a 60 STR. What is different is how the powers are purchased. In most cases I would say that stacking attacks is more cost effective, especially if part of that stack is from Martial Arts or a Multipower. Often, however, part of the stack is bought through a focus, so there are limitations. Also stacked attacks usually provide a bit less flexibility (e.g. a 60 STR can be used for lifting too; a 12d6 Blast can be spread more easily, etc.). The nice part is that you can have two totally different character concepts and still keep both heroes at close to the same DC level for the sake of balance.