Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

[The Main Man]

I recently concocted a character effectiveness rule of thumb and I wanted to share it with my fellow HEROphiles and get some feedback about the idea. It theoretically hits a sweet spot that rests between Rules of X and Effectiveness Ceilings.

 

First, I currently involve several combat-related fields (since that's where "effectiveness" is generally concerned):

• Damage Classes

• Involves all Attack Powers and anything involving dice

• Includes the Armor Piercing, Attack Versus Alternate Defense, Penetrating, and Increased STUN Multiplier Power Advantages

 

• OCV, DCV, OMCV, DMCV

• OCV and OMCV are treated as a single field as are DCV and DMCV

• These include Combat Skill Levels and Martial Maneuver bonuses

• One exception: I subtract 3 from Martial Dodge and Flying Dodge because Dodge gives you +3 DCV for free. The +2 from Martial Dodge and/or +1 from Flying Dodge still count towards this maximum.

 

• Speed

 

• Defense Powers

• Physical, Energy, Mental, Power, and Flash all count towards the same overall total of Defense Active Points

• Defense, Damage Reduction, and Damage Negation also count towards this same maximum

• Allocatable, Hardened, Impenetrable, and Resistant all count towards such Active Points.

• Barrier counts as an altogether separate Power, but it is still limited in the same way.

 

 

So let's say that I run a Champions game and I set my Active Point limit to 100. I may then set this at a "75% Rule." This means that the PC's may have up to 75% of 100 Active Points (i.e. 75 Active Points) in any given field without any issue. If they want more, then they have to allocate their maxima in other fields to raise them in their desired spots.

 

At 75% of 100 Active Points, character may have up to:

• 15 Damage Classes per attack

• 15 OCV/OMCV

• 15 DCV/DMCV

• 7.5 SPD (as you can see, this is an easy decision for reallocation)

• 75 Total Active Points of Physical, Energy, Mental, Power, or Flash Defense, Damage Negation, and/or Damage Reduction

 

An Attack Power, for example, may only have up to 15 Damage classes, but it can still have up to 100 Active Points as a result of Power Adders and Advantages. Basically, the lower the percentage, the more room for Power Advantages and vice versa.

 

But let's say that a player wants his character be a fast and accurate martial arts expert in my Champions game. He feels that he can sacrifice, say, some of his Defenses. So he may do something like this:

• 15 Damage Classes per attack

• 15 OCV/OMCV + 2 Max OCV/OMCV = 17 Max OCV/OMCV

• 15 DCV/DMCV + 2 Max DCV/DMCV = 17 Max DCV/DMCV

• 7.5 SPD - 0.5 = 7.0 SPD

• 75 Total Defense Power Active Points - 15 Active Points = 60 Total Defense Power Active Points

 

If we adjust for equivalent Active Points, that comes out to: 0 + 10 + 10 - 5 - 15 = 0, so the character remains balanced (at least as far as this proposed system is concerned).

 

 

 

I feel like I've gone on long enough though. I'd like some feedback, questions, perceived armor chinks, etc.

[Fireg0lem]

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

 

Why do you count only Armor Piercing, Penetrating, and Increased Stun Multiplier for DCs? Why not just say that the limit is however many DCs?

 

I don't know what you mean by "OCV and OMCV are treated as a single field as are DCV and DMCV

These include Combat Skill Levels and Martial Maneuver bonuses"

 

Do you mean OCV+OMCV = (some number) or max (OCV, OMCV) = some number?

 

How do you count CSLs and Martial Manuever bonuses? Do you count the highest OCV a character can reach, the highest DCV they can reach, and the highest DCs they can reach?

 

How does your system interact with powers like Growth that increase one thing (in this case, DCs) and decrease something else (DCV)?

[The Main Man]

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

 

Why do you count only Armor Piercing' date=' Penetrating, and Increased Stun Multiplier for DCs? Why not just say that the limit is however many DCs?[/quote']

Armor Piercing, Penetrating, and Increased Stun Multiplier all affect how damage is dealt/taken from an Attack Power. I did also forget to add AVAD though, so I'll edit that into the first post.

They are exceptions to other Power Advantages, all of which may still allow an attack to reach the Active Point Maximum.

 

Examples:

100 Active Point max, 75% limit

Legal: Blast 12d6, Armor Piercing (+1/4) -> 75 Active Points (Armor Piercing

Legal: Blast 12d6, Autofire (5 shots; +1/2) -> 90 Active Points (Autofire doesn't affect damage)

Legal: Blast 12d6, Armor Piercing (+1/4), Autofire (3 Shots; +1/4) -> 90 Active Points

Illegal: Blast 12d6, Armor Piercing (+1/4), Autofire (5 Shots; +1/2) -> 105 Active Points (max is 100)

Illegal: Blast 11d6, Armor Piercing (x2; +1/2), Autofire (3 Shots; +1/4) -> 96 Active Points (x2 AP would bring Base Points to 83 AP)

 

I don't know what you mean by "OCV and OMCV are treated as a single field as are DCV and DMCV

These include Combat Skill Levels and Martial Maneuver bonuses"

 

Do you mean OCV+OMCV = (some number) or max (OCV, OMCV) = some number?

 

The latter. They are both offensive, but separate factors. To place them into individual fields would make this system far more easily abused i.e. I don't use Mental Powers, so I'll tank all of my OMCV and DMCV and then max out Damage Classes and Defenses.

 

How do you count CSLs and Martial Manuever bonuses? Do you count the highest OCV a character can reach, the highest DCV they can reach, and the highest DCs they can reach?

 

Yes, the highest that they can generally reach with the like. If you use a Sacrifice Strike (+1 OCV, -2 DCV, +4 DCs), that is a singular attack, so if your maximum DC limit is 15, then you must take those +4 DC's into account.

 

How does your system interact with powers like Growth that increase one thing (in this case, DCs) and decrease something else (DCV)?

Growth doesn't affect DCV in 6e. Your opponents gain OCV bonuses. That said, STR, PD, and ED all go up, and they do count towards maximum Damage Classes and Defenses. Same goes for Density Increase.

[Fireg0lem]

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

 

Okay, so several of these things are problems with your system.

 

You should probably count all DC-increasing advantages, rather than just a small list of them. Otherwise you really, really encourage some power builds over others. The 15 sorta-DC/100 AP cap makes this especially bad with advantage stacking. The big one I see is buying a 10 base DC RKA with Increased Stun Multiplier and AoE One Hex Accurate. By dropping the DC percentage, you can get powers that are actually 20 DCs that your system counts as being lower because they have DC-increasing advantages that you aren't counting.

 

You are right to be counting the larger, rather than the sum; I was just checking there.

 

The way you count CSLs and martial manuevers shafts martial artists, badly. Under your proposed system, a dude with 15 OCV, 15 DCV, and 75 Strength is considered just as good as a guy with 11 OCV, 9 DCV, 55 Strength, Offensive Strike, Defensive Strike, Martial Block, and +2 levels with all combat. However, the first guy is just blatantly better in every way; granted, he spent 37 more points, but he's much more powerful and the martial artist can't spend those 37 points on anything to make up the power gap.

 

Similarly, your system means that Growth is bad - very bad - since the grown character is getting charged for the stuff he gets while grown (the extra STR and defenses), even while not grown, but not getting discounted for the drawbacks at any time.

 

The last problem I see is that you are overcharging on defenses proportionally. Because you count the total AP of all defenses, but the DC of only the best attack, as you scale both percentages up defenses get much worse. You're counting +2 DCs as being worth as much as 10 AP of defenses. Even if you only apply points to PD/ED, that's +7 average damage versus +5 defenses. It gets worse if you factor in attacks with other defenses, like mental powers, drains, flashes, AVADs, etc.

[Fireg0lem]

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

 

Other considerations:

 

*How does Multiform work? Does each form need to meet your % requirements? Can the %s vary between forms?

*Do you care about things like Follower, Duplication, and Summon that let you generate more characters? How do they interact with these limits?

*Anyone with any level of flexibility in what they can do is super shafted by your system. For example, anyone who has a slot in a multipower with extra defenses appears to have to count that towards their total defenses, which essentially means that you never ever do this. You also see this with growth, Lockout power sets, et cetera.

*How do VPPs work with this?

[lapsedgamer]

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

 

I see what Main Man is trying to do, and I actually like it for most builds. As with any attempt to keep the munchkins down and run a balanced game, there are exceptions that will pop up.

 

A character who spends 37 more points on combat abilities should be better at combat than another character who spent fewer points. That makes sense.

However, would I as GM really allow a character to max out that way without some trade offs? Probably not. If I see that the player is trying to build everything right up to the max, I get really suspicious. A starting character really should only be maxed out at one or two things. I also demand some depth from my players. If you build Combat Man and don't spread some points to background skills and secondary abilities, you won't really mesh with a game I run.

 

I have always been of the mind that it's partially the player's responsibility to not break the game. In the same vein, the GM,s responsibility is often to say NO.

 

If it was me:

 

Each form in a Multiform would have to meet campaign guidelines. If you built a form just to break the maximums, I would say nope. You could however use that build to increase your options, as long as you weren't going to steal everyone else's sunshine all the time.

 

Same thing with followers, duplicates, and summoned beings that are slavishly loyal. Don't build a proxy that will bend to your every whim so that he/she/it can break the game for you.

 

You can have flexibility, but you can't build a Swiss Army Knife of Awesomeness. 100 active Points is pretty powerful. If you have a character that can do everything at that level, what are the other characters supposed to do. I'm usually like 75 Active points in one thing, 60 in another one or three and everything else below that.

 

I would look at a character with Growth or some other interesting build on a case by case basis. How often is the character going to be using Growth, etc. If it's another attempt to break the game, then nope.

 

VPP is interesting. What are the restrictions on the VPP? Is it Cosmic? Is it focus based? Case by case, I guess.

[The Main Man]

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

 

*How does Multiform work? Does each form need to meet your % requirements? Can the %s vary between forms?

They must follow, but they may vary/deviate. This is where the allocation of the fields really shows itself off IMO.

 

*Do you care about things like Follower, Duplication, and Summon that let you generate more characters? How do they interact with these limits?

See Multiform.

 

*Anyone with any level of flexibility in what they can do is super shafted by your system. For example, anyone who has a slot in a multipower with extra defenses appears to have to count that towards their total defenses, which essentially means that you never ever do this. You also see this with growth, Lockout power sets, et cetera.

Not exactly. It's no different than if you had a flat Active Point maximum. If, say, 60 was the limit (no percentile), then 60 would be the limit. It shouldn't matter where you get your defenses (for example) from.

 

*How do VPPs work with this?

VPPs may be up to the Active Point max, but no relevant slot may exceed said limits.

 

Example: 120 Active Point Max, 50% (60 Active Points for unadjusted fields)

VPP may be 120 Active Points with a 60 point Pool and a 120 point Control. Any given power within may be 120 Active Points as per the Control cost, but if it falls within the field, then it must obey. If a character bought this but never preallocated to do 24 DC's of damage, then 12 would be their limit. They'd still be allowed to fill the rest up with non-damage relevant Power Advantages and Adders though.

[The Main Man]

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

 

I see what Main Man is trying to do, and I actually like it for most builds. As with any attempt to keep the munchkins down and run a balanced game, there are exceptions that will pop up.

 

A character who spends 37 more points on combat abilities should be better at combat than another character who spent fewer points. That makes sense.

However, would I as GM really allow a character to max out that way without some trade offs? Probably not. If I see that the player is trying to build everything right up to the max, I get really suspicious. A starting character really should only be maxed out at one or two things. I also demand some depth from my players. If you build Combat Man and don't spread some points to background skills and secondary abilities, you won't really mesh with a game I run.

 

I have always been of the mind that it's partially the player's responsibility to not break the game. In the same vein, the GM,s responsibility is often to say NO.

 

If it was me:

 

Each form in a Multiform would have to meet campaign guidelines. If you built a form just to break the maximums, I would say nope. You could however use that build to increase your options, as long as you weren't going to steal everyone else's sunshine all the time.

 

Same thing with followers, duplicates, and summoned beings that are slavishly loyal. Don't build a proxy that will bend to your every whim so that he/she/it can break the game for you.

 

You can have flexibility, but you can't build a Swiss Army Knife of Awesomeness. 100 active Points is pretty powerful. If you have a character that can do everything at that level, what are the other characters supposed to do. I'm usually like 75 Active points in one thing, 60 in another one or three and everything else below that.

 

I would look at a character with Growth or some other interesting build on a case by case basis. How often is the character going to be using Growth, etc. If it's another attempt to break the game, then nope.

 

VPP is interesting. What are the restrictions on the VPP? Is it Cosmic? Is it focus based? Case by case, I guess.

 

Yes, you're getting it. Not that I don't appreciate your questions, Fireg0lem.

 

 

I would probably not recommend this regulation system for newer GM's though, as one has to understand the balance between the Active Point maximum and what percentage to give for the campaign.

 

The larger the percentile, the more that a player has to give up to max out in any of the designated fields. The lower the percentile, the less. 75% gives more stability than 50%, but less variety, as would any other percentage. The lower the percentage, the greater that the Active Point max ought to be, as 50% of 60, for example, is only 30, which isn't great for even a Heroic game.

[The Main Man]

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

 

You should probably count all DC-increasing advantages, rather than just a small list of them. Otherwise you really, really encourage some power builds over others. The 15 sorta-DC/100 AP cap makes this especially bad with advantage stacking. The big one I see is buying a 10 base DC RKA with Increased Stun Multiplier and AoE One Hex Accurate. By dropping the DC percentage, you can get powers that are actually 20 DCs that your system counts as being lower because they have DC-increasing advantages that you aren't counting.

Armor Piercing cuts your opponent's defenses in half, Penetrating can bypass them depending on rolled results, AVAD can bypass them except for small exceptions, and Increased Stun Multiplier, well, increases the Stun Multiplier for Killing Attacks. They all have a tangible effect on your attack's method of dealing damage. I think that this is a difference of philosophy over what constitutes "increasing a Damage Class."

 

The way you count CSLs and martial manuevers shafts martial artists, badly. Under your proposed system, a dude with 15 OCV, 15 DCV, and 75 Strength is considered just as good as a guy with 11 OCV, 9 DCV, 55 Strength, Offensive Strike, Defensive Strike, Martial Block, and +2 levels with all combat. However, the first guy is just blatantly better in every way; granted, he spent 37 more points, but he's much more powerful and the martial artist can't spend those 37 points on anything to make up the power gap.

I think that you just answered you own conundrum - One guy spent 37 fewer points to get to the same place. Maybe I should clarify that in much the same manner that OCV and OMCV do not add up together, neither do individual Martial Maneuvers for this system, since you usually don't simultaneously use any two or more, and even when you do, you use the lesser of the two effects anyways.

 

Similarly, your system means that Growth is bad - very bad - since the grown character is getting charged for the stuff he gets while grown (the extra STR and defenses), even while not grown, but not getting discounted for the drawbacks at any time.

This is similar to your Martial Artist example - Growth Man is probably paying less to get everything. That he has to activate it and spend END to use it is a consequence of that. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

 

The last problem I see is that you are overcharging on defenses proportionally. Because you count the total AP of all defenses, but the DC of only the best attack, as you scale both percentages up defenses get much worse. You're counting +2 DCs as being worth as much as 10 AP of defenses. Even if you only apply points to PD/ED, that's +7 average damage versus +5 defenses. It gets worse if you factor in attacks with other defenses, like mental powers, drains, flashes, AVADs, etc.

Actually, the ideology is so that a player doesn't build an absolutely invincible juggernaut that ramps up every threat level for everyone else. If you want a lot of PD and ED, then you won't be able to have much MD, PowD, or FD. The same goes the other way too.

[prestidigitator]

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

 

Armor Piercing cuts your opponent's defenses in half' date=' Penetrating can bypass them depending on rolled results, AVAD can bypass them except for small exceptions, and Increased Stun Multiplier, well, increases the Stun Multiplier for Killing Attacks. They all have a tangible effect on your attack's method of dealing damage. I think that this is a difference of philosophy over what constitutes "increasing a Damage Class."[/quote']

Yeah. All of those are part of the Damage Classes of your attack power. In other words, you apply those Advantages to the Base Points, and the result divided by 5 will be the number of DCs. Now (in 6E) by definition.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

 

To the issue of Growth, it seems that a player who wants (say) 100 STR can get that by dropping his DCV by 5. If Growth has the same effect (100 STR and a DCV 5 below the maximum), why should it be disallowed when a build that gets the same result without using Growth is permitted? If he's always Grown (and therefore doesn't buy the abilities as Growth), that doesn't make him any less powerful.

[The Main Man]

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

 

Yeah. All of those are part of the Damage Classes of your attack power. In other words' date=' you apply those Advantages to the Base Points, and the result divided by 5 will be the number of DCs. Now (in 6E) by definition.[/quote']

Yes, exactly. I think what Fireg0lem thinks that I'm saying is that a player could do something like this:

 

100 Active Point max, 50% rule

 

RKA 3d6+1, Armor Piercing (+1/4) - 10 Base Damage Classes, but ~13 actual Damage Classes (63 Active Points). The reality is that you could only have RKA 2 1/2d6, Armor Piercing (+1/4) (10 Damage Classes) at the most without reallocation.

[The Main Man]

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

 

To the issue of Growth' date=' it seems that a player who wants (say) 100 STR can get that by dropping his DCV by 5. If Growth has the same effect (100 STR and a DCV 5 below the maximum), why should it be disallowed when a build that gets the same result without using Growth is permitted? If he's always Grown (and therefore doesn't buy the abilities as Growth), that doesn't make him any less powerful.[/quote']

 

Yep, a character can lower things by quite a bit to raise others, but the Active Point limit is still strict, even after reallocation.

[prestidigitator]

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

 

Yes, exactly. I think what Fireg0lem thinks that I'm saying is that a player could do something like this:

 

100 Active Point max, 50% rule

 

RKA 3d6+1, Armor Piercing (+1/4) - 10 Base Damage Classes, but ~13 actual Damage Classes (63 Active Points). The reality is that you could only have RKA 2 1/2d6, Armor Piercing (+1/4) (10 Damage Classes) at the most without reallocation.

Right. Of course, Advantages that don't contribute to how the target takes damage don't affect DCs, so you could have RKA 3d6+1 with Reduced Endurance (+1/2) if you wanted, and that would still fit a 10 DC limit even though it would be 75 Active.

[The Main Man]

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

 

Bingo.

[Fireg0lem]

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

 

No, that's not actually what I'm saying. My point is that there are some advantages that are not listed but that are DC-increasing and should certainly be included. Area of Effect and Damage over Time are the most noticeable ones.

 

The most obvious is: 3d6+1 RKA, +2 Stun Multiplier, Area of Effect One Hex Accurate. This is 75% of the DC limit under this system, but its really a 20 DC power. Anyone who wants to rely on AoEs as their main attack power could even reduce the OCV/OMCV limit and then put that into other stuff.

 

Here's an example of a "4 DC power" under this system.

 

"Everybody Is On Fire Now" Killing Attack - Ranged 1d6, +1 Increased STUN Multiplier (+1/4), Area Of Effect (32m Radius; +1), Selective (+1/4), Damage Over Time, Target's defenses only apply once, Lock out (cannot be applied multiple times) (12 damage increments, damage occurs every Segment, +4) (97 Active Points)

 

Et cetera. I could go on but I think you get the point. There's also stuff like the modifiiers that only apply to adjustment powers et cetera.

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

 

On a broader note, how would this system handle characters built around a significant VPP?

[Fireg0lem]

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

 

I think that you just answered you own conundrum - One guy spent 37 fewer points to get to the same place. Maybe I should clarify that in much the same manner that OCV and OMCV do not add up together, neither do individual Martial Maneuvers for this system, since you usually don't simultaneously use any two or more, and even when you do, you use the lesser of the two effects anyways.

The point is that they're not actually at the same place. One guy spent 37 fewer points to get to a much weaker place, but your system says he is just as good.

 

So how do martial manuevers actually work? I was going with your previous answer, which suggests that his suite of manuevers counts as +2 OCV (the highest among them - from Martial Block), +3 DCV (highest among them from Defensive Strike) and +4 DCs (highest among them from Offensive Strike).

 

This is similar to your Martial Artist example - Growth Man is probably paying less to get everything. That he has to activate it and spend END to use it is a consequence of that. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

Well, actually, you can. Instead of buying Growth, you build your character with Multiform so that you don't get penalized.

 

Actually, the ideology is so that a player doesn't build an absolutely invincible juggernaut that ramps up every threat level for everyone else. If you want a lot of PD and ED, then you won't be able to have much MD, PowD, or FD. The same goes the other way too.

 

That's a good argument for why you have a limit on defenses, not for why the defenses scale more slowly than the attacks.

 

The major problems I see with your system are:

 

1) The DCs thing.

 

2) Your system shafts some concepts very, very hard. Try making a martial artist/brick with a bunch of CSLs and Growth, the compare him to a dude who just buys extra STR and sells back DCV, and has only OCV/DCV rather than CSLs. Note how much drastically weaker the first guy is under your system.

 

The source of these problems is that you're saying that this:

 

75 point multipower

7u 15d6 Energy Blast

7u 30/15r PD, 30/15r ED

 

is just as "strong" as this

 

15d6 Energy Blast

30/15r PD, 30/15r ED.

 

Basically, you are evaluating people based on the best they can do in each area taken seperately, but not considering ongoing tradeoffs. +1 to OCV or DCV is not as good as +1 to OCV and DCV. Or to put it into a comic book metaphor, you're saying Ultraboy is just as powerful as Superman.

[Fireg0lem]

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

 

On a broader note' date=' how would this system handle characters built around a significant VPP?[/quote']

 

If I understand correctly, you set your percentile limits and then your VPP can't violate them. So if you have, say, a 75% DEF limit, and you have 30/15r PD and ED already, you can't put any of the listed defenses in your VPP. Although I guess this isn't really too bad for you, since you can put Barrier into it and use that when you want to abort to a defensive power.

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

 

....

 

Basically, you are evaluating people based on the best they can do in each area taken seperately, but not considering ongoing tradeoffs. +1 to OCV or DCV is not as good as +1 to OCV and DCV. Or to put it into a comic book metaphor, you're saying Ultraboy is just as powerful as Superman.

 

You just hit upon main reason I brought up the VPP question. I've been re-building my starting versions of Superman, Captain Marvel, The Flash and Green Lantern for 6e by using a VPP balanced to effectively allow them to use 2 useful abilities simultaneously (usually a trade-off between movement, defense & attack). If I used the same VPP model as Superman as a starting point*, Ultraboy's VPP would ideally only allow 1 useful ability to be used at a time (still at the same active points as Superman's) and as a result would be cheaper and less powerful. However, as already pointed out, it would appear to get 'graded' the same by this system as presented.

 

* I would also build Ultraboy's versions of Superman's non-VPP abilities with some combination of Lockout and/or Linked.

[prestidigitator]

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

 

No' date=' that's not actually what I'm saying. My point is that there are some advantages that are not listed but that are DC-increasing and should certainly be included. Area of Effect and Damage over Time are the most noticeable ones.[/quote']

 

Area of Effect and Damage Over Time are certainly listed:

 

As noted above' date=' for purposes of calculating the DCs of an Advantaged attack, the GM determines which Advantages “directly affect how the victim takes damage.” Typically the following Advantages qualify, though the final decision is up to the GM: Area Of Effect, Armor Piercing, AVAD, Autofire, Boostable Charges, Constant, Cumulative, Damage Over Time....[/quote']

[Fireg0lem]

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

 

Area of Effect and Damage Over Time are certainly listed:

 

I think we were talking past each other. Main Man's proposed houserules do not count all DC-increasing advantages.

 

"Damage Classes

Involves all Attack Powers and anything involving dice

Includes the Armor Piercing, Attack Versus Alternate Defense, Penetrating, and Increased STUN Multiplier Power Advantages."

 

I am saying that he should change that to "Includes all DC-increasing advantages per 6e2 p. 98"

[The Main Man]

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

 

The point is that they're not actually at the same place. One guy spent 37 fewer points to get to a much weaker place, but your system says he is just as good.

 

So how do martial manuevers actually work? I was going with your previous answer, which suggests that his suite of manuevers counts as +2 OCV (the highest among them - from Martial Block), +3 DCV (highest among them from Defensive Strike) and +4 DCs (highest among them from Offensive Strike).

 

Each Martial Maneuver is a separate entity. That +2 OCV you get from a Fast Strike doesn't add together with your +2 OCV from Martial Block to be +4 OCV. Furthermore, you illustrated a character with 11 OCV being worse than a character with an overall 15 OCV. Of course he's worse - he has an effective 4 less OCV than the other.

 

 

Well, actually, you can. Instead of buying Growth, you build your character with Multiform so that you don't get penalized.

How are you penalized by Growth? Growth costs less than the sum of its parts. I'm still not understanding you here. You seem to think that it's okay for a character to spend less but get more for the same things than someone who spends more on the raw abilities.

 

 

That's a good argument for why you have a limit on defenses, not for why the defenses scale more slowly than the attacks.

I don't think that you understand how Defenses accumulate together within any HERO Character. If I have PD 6, Growth (+3 PD), Resistant Protection (+10 PD) and Density Increase (+5 PD) on the same character, he can have up to 24 PD at a given point. You simply cannot judge them separately, because Defenses pool together. The same goes for Damage Negation and Damage Reduction, which only further bolster your defenses.

 

You want to argue that a character who pays less should be just as good as someone who pays more, but that flies in the face of HERO's core logic. That's trying to have your cake and eat it too.

 

2) Your system shafts some concepts very, very hard. Try making a martial artist/brick with a bunch of CSLs and Growth, the compare him to a dude who just buys extra STR and sells back DCV, and has only OCV/DCV rather than CSLs. Note how much drastically weaker the first guy is under your system.

I would, and he'd have more points to spend on things than Raw Stats Man. That's the price of buying everything raw and not having limitations - you have fewer points to spend. And the point of cheaper abilities is that they are worse off than more expensive abilities.

 

Basically, you are evaluating people based on the best they can do in each area taken seperately, but not considering ongoing tradeoffs. +1 to OCV or DCV is not as good as +1 to OCV and DCV. Or to put it into a comic book metaphor, you're saying Ultraboy is just as powerful as Superman.

...No I'm not. If you have allocatable CSL's that allow you to shift your OCV and DCV, you paid less than someone with raw OCV and DCV. That's the tradeoff. I'm sorry, but you are trying to have your cake and eat it too.

[The Main Man]

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

 

I think we were talking past each other. Main Man's proposed houserules do not count all DC-increasing advantages.

 

"Damage Classes

Involves all Attack Powers and anything involving dice

Includes the Armor Piercing, Attack Versus Alternate Defense, Penetrating, and Increased STUN Multiplier Power Advantages."

 

I am saying that he should change that to "Includes all DC-increasing advantages per 6e2 p. 98"

The key phrase on 6E2 98 is "the GM determines which Advantages “directly affect how the victim takes damage.” " It then proceeds to list off possibly qualified Power Advantages. I have determined for myself, and based on years of HERO experience what constitutes that. Explain how lowering your Active Points to account for Area of Effect raises your Damage Classes. Explain how you do more damage to a single target with it. If anything it would lower it because of Explosion. As I said earlier, we seem to have a difference of opinion on what constitutes a Power Advantage that objectively affects Damage Classes

[The Main Man]

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

 

On a broader note' date=' how would this system handle characters built around a significant VPP?[/quote']

 

A Variable Power Pool, by itself, is not an Attack Power, nor a Defense Power, nor any CHAR. Any slot therein would be. Furthermore, the Control Cost is limited to the maximum Active Points, and the Active Points of the overall VPP would be as well. Last, any slot created within the VPP would have to obey the percentile rule.

 

Let's say that the Active Point maximum is 300 (sounds pretty significant to me ), and there is a 50% rule for the campaign. That means that, without reallocation, your character is limited to 150 Active Points within said fields, but they may still have a 300 Active Point VPP because of previous stated reasons.

 

Let's make it a simple 300 Active Point VPP: 150 Pool, 300 Control (300 Active Points). This one lucks out because the Pool is already half of the Control, which matches the Active Point Max, so it tells you right there how much your stuff can go up to in terms of raw effect.

 

I could buy a 30d6 Blast, a 24d6 Blast, Armor Piercing (+1/4), a 20d6 Blast, Penetrating (+1/2), whatever. Or I could buy Resistant Protection 49 PD/49 ED (assuming you have only 2 PD/2 ED in a 300 Active Point campaign - good luck with that). The fact is that a VPP is not some way to sneak an ultrapowerful attack through these rules (at least not without reallocation, of course).