Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

[The Main Man]

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

 

If I understand correctly' date=' 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.[/quote']

 

The key here is that you bought defenses outside of the VPP, so that's stuff that you don't have to account for with your VPP.

[Fireg0lem]

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

 

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.

 

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.

 

 

OK, first, you missed the point of my attack/defense scaling argument, and no, I do in fact understand how HERO defenses stack.

 

Let's pretend exotic attacks/defenses don't matter much. If they do matter much, my point is strengthened, but lets not get into that.

 

Let's compare a straightforward dude with 100% attack, 50% defense, and a dude with 50% attack, 100% defense. Let's assume also that rDEF is going to be 15 for everyone; if you want people to scale rDEF up proportionally then again my point is strengthened.

 

Dude A has a 20d6 attack, and 25/15r defenses. Dude B has a 10d6 attack, and 50/15r defenses. If dude A attacks dude B, and dude B attacks dude A, one would expect the extra defenses and extra attacks to "cancel" so that its a fair fight. But this actually isn't the case - Dude A is very likely to stomp all over dude B's face, because every hit he makes will on average do 20 stun past Dude B's defenses, whereas Dude B is going to average only 10 stun past dude A's defenses.

 

Second, do you really, honestly think this attack should count as 4 DCs?

 

"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)

 

In my experience as a GM, this attack is in fact a 19 DC attack, and should be balanced based on being 19 DCs, not 4.

[Fireg0lem]

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

 

Finally, I think you should give some thought to what you actually want this system to accomplish that character points do not do for you. You are saying that the fact that your system says that 2 characters are both at the campaign maximum power when one of them is clearly much less good at combat than the other is that the first character spent less points. So why bother with this percentile system? If the idea that one character might spend more CP on combat and thus be more effective at combat and less effective at other stuff than another character doesn't bother you, then what is the percentile system doing for your game?

 

Or, here's another way of thinking about it. Player A and Player B are both wanting to play in your game. Player A wants to play a straightforward superman ripoff whose fighting skills come from being super-strong and super-fast, but has no combat training or martial arts skill. So he is going to invest some amount of points in combat ability, and its going into Strength and CVs. Player B wants to play Kung Fu Giant who can grow to super-size and is a kung fu master. He's going to invest points in combat ability and they're going to be in a combination of Martial Arts, Growth and, CSLs.

 

Your system says to Player A, hey, you can't be too good at combat or you'll make the game less fun for everyone else. If you are better than [this much] you need to cut it down. Your system says to player B the exact same thing, but the bar is set drastically lower for him. Player A can spend as many points as Player B on combat ability, or he can spend more points, but Player B has a much lower cap, and for no really good reason.

 

Now, suppose Player A and B both spend the maximum your system allows them to on combat abilities. Player A will have spent more and be better at combat than player B. Player B then says to you that he wants to spend as many points on combat as Player A and as a result be as good at combat as player A. Your system doesn't allow him to, because of the character concept he chose. Why?

[The Main Man]

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

 

OK' date=' first, you missed the point of my attack/defense scaling argument, and no, I do in fact understand how HERO defenses stack.[/quote']

If I missed it, then what was the point? Enlighten me and the rest of the class.

 

Let's pretend exotic attacks/defenses don't matter much. If they do matter much, my point is strengthened, but lets not get into that.

How about we do? Why bring this up if you won't argue it?

 

Let's compare a straightforward dude with 100% attack, 50% defense, and a dude with 50% attack, 100% defense. Let's assume also that rDEF is going to be 15 for everyone; if you want people to scale rDEF up proportionally then again my point is strengthened.

 

Dude A has a 20d6 attack, and 25/15r defenses. Dude B has a 10d6 attack, and 50/15r defenses. If dude A attacks dude B, and dude B attacks dude A, one would expect the extra defenses and extra attacks to "cancel" so that its a fair fight. But this actually isn't the case - Dude A is very likely to stomp all over dude B's face, because every hit he makes will on average do 20 stun past Dude B's defenses, whereas Dude B is going to average only 10 stun past dude A's defenses.

Your example is flawed from the start. We don't know the Active Point limits, nor what the percentiles were in the first place, or what their other fields are.

Dude A has 20 DC's against Dude B's 98 Active Points of Defense Powers, but Dude B has 10 DC's against Dude A's 60 Active Points of Defense Powers.

You never stated their SPD's, OCV's, or DCV's, and those could be very important, because what if Dude B is more than capable Multiple Attacking Dude A because of an outrageous OCV vs. DCV disparity, just for example?

 

Second, do you really, honestly think this attack should count as 4 DCs?

 

"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)

 

In my experience as a GM, this attack is in fact a 19 DC attack, and should be balanced based on being 19 DCs, not 4.

Please explain to me how each of those advantages affects the way that your example deals damage, and then I'll explain where I disagree.

[The Main Man]

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

 

Finally' date=' I think you should give some thought to what you actually want this system to accomplish that character points do not do for you. You are saying that the fact that your system says that 2 characters are both at the campaign maximum power when one of them is clearly much less good at combat than the other is that the first character spent less points. So why bother with this percentile system? If the idea that one character might spend more CP on combat and thus be more effective at combat and less effective at other stuff than another character doesn't bother you, then what is the percentile system doing for your game?[/quote']

Character points are a factor, but Damage Classes, Defenses, OCV, DCV, and SPD are very tangible factors that function the same way regardless of how they are purchased. According to you, it seems that it's A-okay for a Standard Superheroic character to spend all 400 Character Points in an RKA 26 1/2d6.

 

Or, here's another way of thinking about it. Player A and Player B are both wanting to play in your game. Player A wants to play a straightforward superman ripoff whose fighting skills come from being super-strong and super-fast, but has no combat training or martial arts skill. So he is going to invest some amount of points in combat ability, and its going into Strength and CVs. Player B wants to play Kung Fu Giant who can grow to super-size and is a kung fu master. He's going to invest points in combat ability and they're going to be in a combination of Martial Arts, Growth and, CSLs.

 

Your system says to Player A, hey, you can't be too good at combat or you'll make the game less fun for everyone else. If you are better than [this much] you need to cut it down. Your system says to player B the exact same thing, but the bar is set drastically lower for him. Player A can spend as many points as Player B on combat ability, or he can spend more points, but Player B has a much lower cap, and for no really good reason.

 

Now, suppose Player A and B both spend the maximum your system allows them to on combat abilities. Player A will have spent more and be better at combat than player B. Player B then says to you that he wants to spend as many points on combat as Player A and as a result be as good at combat as player A. Your system doesn't allow him to, because of the character concept he chose. Why?

Because that's patently false. I simply don't see where you're right about this at any point. 1 OCV = 1 OCV, 1 DC = 1 DC, 1 SPD = 1 SPD. If you spend 5 points on 1 OCV, someone else may spend the same 5 points for a Sacrifice Strike and get +1 OCV, -2 DCV, and +4 DC's. How is the latter a bad purchase by comparison? You keep inferring that it is, but you haven't demonstrated it.

[Fireg0lem]

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

 

If I missed it, then what was the point? Enlighten me and the rest of the class.

That's what I'm doing below with Dude A and Dude B.

 

How about we do? Why bring this up if you won't argue it?

Because my argument is perfectly good without it. Clearly, if you want people to have PD/ED while also maintaining a proportionately small amount of Power Defense, Mental Defense, Flash Defense, and whatnot, then defenses have to be spread thinner so grow and shrink even more slowly than attacks.

 

Your example is flawed from the start. We don't know the Active Point limits, nor what the percentiles were in the first place, or what their other fields are.

Dude A has 20 DC's against Dude B's 98 Active Points of Defense Powers, but Dude B has 10 DC's against Dude A's 60 Active Points of Defense Powers.

You never stated their SPD's, OCV's, or DCV's, and those could be very important, because what if Dude B is more than capable Multiple Attacking Dude A because of an outrageous OCV vs. DCV disparity, just for example?

I'm using the 100 and 75% from your initial example (but there's a math error, see below). Because my point is solely about how DCs and Defense interact, I'm assuming that they otherwise have equivalent abilities and capabilities.

 

I did however make a math error, my apologies. Dude A should have 50 AP in defenses, which unfortunately doesn't split up nicely - let's go with 14 resistant (42 points for 14/14 Res. Prot.) and 4 more nonresistant (4 PD, 4 ED) for 18/14r. Dude B should have 100 AP in defenses. He spends the extra 50 points on +25 PD and ED (nonresistant) over Dude A for 43/14r in both. The problem remains, though. Dude A's attacks do 27 past Dude B's defenses, and Dude B's attacks do only 17 past Dude A's defenses.

 

Please explain to me how each of those advantages affects the way that your example deals damage, and then I'll explain where I disagree.

 

I'm not making a semantic argument about what counts as a DC in some platonic sense. I'm talking about how equivalent effectiveness. I would seriously consider playing a character who relied primarily on that DOT as an attack power. I would not seriously consider playing a character who relied primarily 4d6 blast as an attack power (both of these in a game with 100 AP and 75%). Would you?

[Fireg0lem]

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

 

Character points are a factor, but Damage Classes, Defenses, OCV, DCV, and SPD are very tangible factors that function the same way regardless of how they are purchased. According to you, it seems that it's A-okay for a Standard Superheroic character to spend all 400 Character Points in an RKA 26 1/2d6.

No, I think the idea of a cap system is a good one - I'm trying to point out the flaws in yours.

 

Because that's patently false. I simply don't see where you're right about this at any point. 1 OCV = 1 OCV, 1 DC = 1 DC, 1 SPD = 1 SPD. If you spend 5 points on 1 OCV, someone else may spend the same 5 points for a Sacrifice Strike and get +1 OCV, -2 DCV, and +4 DC's. How is the latter a bad purchase by comparison? You keep inferring that it is, but you haven't demonstrated it.

 

It's actually not a problem in your system to have one martial art manuever. The problem comes when you have several that do different things because of how it affects the caps. If you have, say, +4 CSLs with all combat, Sacrifice Strike, Martial Block, and Defensive Strike, your system counts that as 6 OCV, 7 DCV, and 4 DCs towards the caps - it says a martial artist who made those purchases is as good at fighting as a guy who just bought +6 OCV, +7 DCV, and +4 DCs straight up. What I am saying is the second guy spent more and got more, and the system should reflect that. A typical character with martial arts (among other abilities that have similar issues) simply is not permitted to invest as many points in combat effectiveness as some other characters.

 

What you are saying is that it's A-Okay for some standard superheroic characters to invest up to 350 points in pure combat abilities, but other types of characters are only allowed to invest up to 300 points in pure combat abilities, then they hit your cap, even though they are in every way less good at fighting than the first guy.

[The Main Man]

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

 

Dude A spends 15 CP on STR, 5 CP on CON, 5 CP on PRE, 3 CP on PD, 3 CP on ED, 3 CP on BODY, 3 CP on STUN, 1 CP on Stretching, 12 CP on Running, 6 CP on Knockback Resistance, and takes a Complication that accounts for being Large. He spent 56 CP to be Large. He is always Large and cannot do anything about it.

 

Character B buys one level of Growth for 25 CP to get everything that Character A bought, but his requires acivation. That's the tradeoff for spending less for the same. They are otherwise equal in every regard (assuming they bought nothing else), but Character B has 26 more points to spend, giving him the chance for an edge against Character A. But those are not things that any cap system should need to account for.

 

Let's go extremes for a moment: 100 AP, 50% rule. Dude A has a 20d6 Blast (vs. ED) while Dude B has 100 ED. Dude A would only do 20 STUN if he so much as critically hit Dude B. The thing is, he paid 5 CP to be able to do up to 6 STUN damage, so every Blast die has that slight 20% advantage against every equivalent 5 CP of Defenses. But that's extreme in both directions.

[The Main Man]

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

 

I think I figured out where I lost ya on one aspect. When you allocate at character creation, that does not necessarily indicate a static aspect of the character.

 

If at 100 AP, 75%, you set your Defenses at the base 75 AP, it doesn't matter how you get there. One character may have static defenses (e.g. 25 rPD/ 25 rED), while another does not (Growth, nonpersistent Defenses, Density Increase, Multiform, some combination, etc). The point is what their maximum was predetermined to be. They can have the same limits (assuming identical allocation), but one saved points at the cost of less stability. They otherwise may both have the same general defenses, even if one doesn't start play at full defenses.

 

IOW, if my character generally starts play at 5 PD / 5 ED, but can erect a 20 PD / 20 ED force field, then I wouldn't allocate until I only have 10 AP of Defense, I'd allocate to account for the other 60 AP, for a total of 70 AP of defense.

[Fireg0lem]

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

 

Dude A spends 15 CP on STR, 5 CP on CON, 5 CP on PRE, 3 CP on PD, 3 CP on ED, 3 CP on BODY, 3 CP on STUN, 1 CP on Stretching, 12 CP on Running, 6 CP on Knockback Resistance, and takes a Complication that accounts for being Large. He spent 56 CP to be Large. He is always Large and cannot do anything about it.

 

Character B buys one level of Growth for 25 CP to get everything that Character A bought, but his requires acivation. That's the tradeoff for spending less for the same. They are otherwise equal in every regard (assuming they bought nothing else), but Character B has 26 more points to spend, giving him the chance for an edge against Character A. But those are not things that any cap system should need to account for.

Ah, but suppose Character A, instead of taking a complication, just sells back 2 levels of DCV. Now, when grown, Character B has the same stats as Dude A does. But Character B, under your system, is considered to have 2 more DCV than character A, because when not grown his DCV is 2 higher, even though when grown he doesn't have that. So character A has less character points left, but he has more room under your cap system to buy something like more damage classes, or more SPD - things that character B cannot do.

 

Let's go extremes for a moment: 100 AP, 50% rule. Dude A has a 20d6 Blast (vs. ED) while Dude B has 100 ED. Dude A would only do 20 STUN if he so much as critically hit Dude B. The thing is, he paid 5 CP to be able to do up to 6 STUN damage, so every Blast die has that slight 20% advantage against every equivalent 5 CP of Defenses. But that's extreme in both directions.

Sure, but Dude B is only good against ED damage. He has nothing at all against PD damage. It only costs a few points for Dude A to also have a Blast vs. PD by using a multipower. Or an Energy Killing Attack. Or any of several other attacks against which Dude B has no defense. And if you want to compare apples to apples, with this nonresistant ED only nonsense, then dude A would have 50 ED vs. Dude B's 10d6 Blast (vs. ED), so even on maximum damage that's only 10 STUN - still half as much.

 

When your example to show that your system works fine is a character with 100 ED and no other defenses, you should reevaluate things.

[Fireg0lem]

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

 

I think I figured out where I lost ya on one aspect. When you allocate at character creation, that does not necessarily indicate a static aspect of the character.

 

If at 100 AP, 75%, you set your Defenses at the base 75 AP, it doesn't matter how you get there. One character may have static defenses (e.g. 25 rPD/ 25 rED), while another does not (Growth, nonpersistent Defenses, Density Increase, Multiform, some combination, etc). The point is what their maximum was predetermined to be. They can have the same limits (assuming identical allocation), but one saved points at the cost of less stability. They otherwise may both have the same general defenses, even if one doesn't start play at full defenses.

 

IOW, if my character generally starts play at 5 PD / 5 ED, but can erect a 20 PD / 20 ED force field, then I wouldn't allocate until I only have 10 AP of Defense, I'd allocate to account for the other 60 AP, for a total of 70 AP of defense.

 

Right. So like, a guy who can either have 25/25 Resistant Protection, or can have 37 PD and 38 ED, but can't do both at the same time, is OK.

 

The problem is characters who are flexible in that they can add to one field and subtract from another field. Here's the essence of the problem:

 

Dude A has a 10d6 Energy Blast, and a 2-slot multipower with 50 PD (one slot) and 50 ED (other slot). This means he's at 50% on both DC and Defenses (I'm assuming no other attacks or defenses for both people).

Dude B has 50 PD, and a 2-slot multipower with 10d6 Blast (one slot) and 50 ED (other slot). He's at 50% on DC and 100% on Defenses.

 

Why is there this discrepancy? Both of them have 2 choices for what they can do that add up to 100 Active Points of stuff. They both paid the exact same amount of character points for their abilities. Why does your system say Dude B is WAY more effective?

[Fireg0lem]

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

 

Question: perhaps seeing actual characters would be more helpful? I have two problems with your system. My first is that you can have an issue where for concept reasons, you have two different characters who are both at the maximum effectiveness cap, one of whom has spent way fewer points on combat abilities and is way less effective at combat. This is potentially a problem, because while you could say they have more points left over to buy other stuff, they can't buy stuff that makes them significantly better at fighting and they may want to be just as good at fighting as the other guy. To put it another way - I believe you would like it to be the case that two characters, both of whom are at the maximum effectiveness caps, should be about equally good at fighting. I can give an example that shows this is not true.

 

The second is that the way you are calculating DCs is borked, and I can pretty easily make you a horribly broken character to highlight that if you would like to see.

[prestidigitator]

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

 

I guess my overall impression is that this is much like other methods people try to use to limit overeffectiveness, so...sure. However, I don't, myself, see much need for both DC/Defense limits and Active Point limits. If you've limited the level of DCs and Defense, you've pretty much taken care of the problem because if players add on a bunch of extra Advantages that don't have direct effect on the power of their attack (e.g. Reduced Endurance Cost), they're just going to have to wind up paying that many extra character points for the ability, and/or piling on Limitations that serve to balance the effectiveness of the power. That plus a GM willing to exercise common sense and reasonableness and say, "no" when it is appropriate, and I think you're good.

 

I guess in essence what I would do is forget the percent and just go with the 15 DC, 15 CV, 7.5 Speed, and 75 total points of Defense, with a note for the trade-off allowance.

[The Main Man]

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

 

Ah' date=' but suppose Character A, instead of taking a complication, just sells back 2 levels of DCV. Now, when grown, Character B has the same stats as Dude A does. But Character B, under your system, is considered to have 2 more DCV than character A, because when not grown his DCV is 2 higher, even though when grown he doesn't have that. So character A has less [i']character points[/i] left, but he has more room under your cap system to buy something like more damage classes, or more SPD - things that character B cannot do.

Except that Character B will have an easier time hitting Character A because he sold himself down to 1 DCV. Growth only levels the playing field at that point, and a Complication won't equate to the cost of -2 DCV.

 

Sure, but Dude B is only good against ED damage. He has nothing at all against PD damage. It only costs a few points for Dude A to also have a Blast vs. PD by using a multipower. Or an Energy Killing Attack. Or any of several other attacks against which Dude B has no defense. And if you want to compare apples to apples, with this nonresistant ED only nonsense, then dude A would have 50 ED vs. Dude B's 10d6 Blast (vs. ED), so even on maximum damage that's only 10 STUN - still half as much.

 

When your example to show that your system works fine is a character with 100 ED and no other defenses, you should reevaluate things.

Again you miss the point - the key word in that example was extreme. You pointed out the inherent weakness in such an approach while entirely missing that it leaving the character vulnerable to other damage is the point of the Defense pooling. It quite seriously is not a bug, but a feature because it can make PC's consider niches amongst themselves.

[The Main Man]

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

 

Question: perhaps seeing actual characters would be more helpful?

Perhaps. I'll try to make a couple up in the next few days as examples. Don't expect anything extreme though, because common sense is key in this system as it should be in any other.

 

I have two problems with your system. My first is that you can have an issue where for concept reasons, you have two different characters who are both at the maximum effectiveness cap, one of whom has spent way fewer points on combat abilities and is way less effective at combat. This is potentially a problem, because while you could say they have more points left over to buy other stuff, they can't buy stuff that makes them significantly better at fighting and they may want to be just as good at fighting as the other guy. To put it another way - I believe you would like it to be the case that two characters, both of whom are at the maximum effectiveness caps, should be about equally good at fighting. I can give an example that shows this is not true.

Please enlighten me, because this percentile method objectively has absolutely nothing to do with concepts.

 

The second is that the way you are calculating DCs is borked, and I can pretty easily make you a horribly broken character to highlight that if you would like to see.

Again enlighten me, because your DOT build didn't convince me. For one thing, you compared 97 Active Points as better than 20. For another, you still haven't demonstrated/explained how anything besides my listed Advantages affects damage.

[Fireg0lem]

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

 

Perhaps. I'll try to make a couple up in the next few days as examples. Don't expect anything extreme though, because common sense is key in this system as it should be in any other.

 

The issue is that as it stands, I don't think your system is any better than just common sense on its own. How about two example characters, both at the limits of your effectiveness system, one of which is clearly far, far better at combat than the other?

 

What point totals, AP limits, and percents should I use?

[Fireg0lem]

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

 

Ah' date=' but suppose Character A, instead of taking a complication, just sells back 2 levels of DCV. Now, when grown, Character B has the same stats as Dude A does. But Character B, under your system, is considered to have 2 more DCV than character A, because when not grown his DCV is 2 higher, even though when grown he doesn't have that. So character A has less [i']character points[/i] left, but he has more room under your cap system to buy something like more damage classes, or more SPD - things that character B cannot do.

Except that Character B will have an easier time hitting Character A because he sold himself down to 1 DCV. Growth only levels the playing field at that point, and a Complication won't equate to the cost of -2 DCV.

[\QUOTE]

I think this is really best illustrated with an example character.

 

 

Again you miss the point - the key word in that example was extreme. You pointed out the inherent weakness in such an approach while entirely missing that it leaving the character vulnerable to other damage is the point of the Defense pooling. It quite seriously is not a bug, but a feature because it can make PC's consider niches amongst themselves.

 

It might be a feature rather than a bug, but the feature has nothing to do with defense pooling and everything to do with "all other things being equal, you're better off sacrificing Defense for DCs."

[The Main Man]

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

 

Right. So like' date=' a guy who can either have 25/25 Resistant Protection, or can have 37 PD and 38 ED, but can't do both at the same time, is OK. [/quote']

A classic Mystic trend such as that is perfectly allowable under this method. Power Frameworks to the rescue!

 

The problem is characters who are flexible in that they can add to one field and subtract from another field. Here's the essence of the problem:

 

Dude A has a 10d6 Energy Blast, and a 2-slot multipower with 50 PD (one slot) and 50 ED (other slot). This means he's at 50% on both DC and Defenses (I'm assuming no other attacks or defenses for both people).

*Pause*

I think this is another fundamental misunderstanding. Field allocation is done before one truly makes their character. It sets their limits and does not fluctuate in game play. Your example would be grossly inefficient if the character allocated to 100%, but oddly creative in some ways if at only 50%. Furthermore, allocation deals less with shifting percentiles than with shifting the original results.

Dude B has 50 PD, and a 2-slot multipower with 10d6 Blast (one slot) and 50 ED (other slot). He's at 50% on DC and 100% on Defenses.

 

Why is there this discrepancy? Both of them have 2 choices for what they can do that add up to 100 Active Points of stuff. They both paid the exact same amount of character points for their abilities. Why does your system say Dude B is WAY more effective?

This is the same case as Martial Maneuvers - an inactive slot is an irrelevant slot in the heat of the moment.

[The Main Man]

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

 

It might be a feature rather than a bug' date=' but the feature has nothing to do with defense pooling and everything to do with "all other things being equal, you're better off sacrificing Defense for DCs."[/quote']

Every attack is an island. Every Defense of kin is united. To say nothing of throwing Damage Reduction and Damage Negation into the mix. I know I'd shut down a player if they wanted 60 AP of DR, 60 AP of DN, and 60 AP of Defense all at once in a 60 AP game.

[The Main Man]

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

 

The issue is that as it stands' date=' I don't think your system is any better than just common sense on its own.[/quote']

And behold, I even said "rule of thumb" in the first post.

 

How about two example characters, both at the limits of your effectiveness system, one of which is clearly far, far better at combat than the other?

 

What point totals, AP limits, and percents should I use?

60 AP, 75%. Be sure to give both characters their due. And keep in mind that we obviously disagree upon which Power Advantages increase Damage Classes.

 

I'd also be interested in seeing how you can make two different characters optimized to the exactly same limits, but one is objectively better. Without getting absurd and sophistic of course.

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

 

...Without getting absurd and sophistic of course.

 

That's a very subjective qualifier.

 

The idea of hard active point caps and trying to define them to the nth degree can seem a bit absurd as well.

[The Main Man]

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

 

60 AP' date=' 75%. [/quote']

Oh, forgot to say: 300 Base Points, 60 Matching Complications.

[The Main Man]

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

 

That's a very subjective qualifier.

 

The idea of hard active point caps and trying to define them to the nth degree can seem a bit absurd as well.

I just want something sensible and not obnoxious.

 

I often give slight leeway with Active Points (like 1-3 AP), depending upon the power in question.

[The Main Man]

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

 

I guess my overall impression is that this is much like other methods people try to use to limit overeffectiveness' date=' so...sure. However, I don't, myself, see much need for both DC/Defense limits and Active Point limits. If you've limited the level of DCs and Defense, you've pretty much taken care of the problem because if players add on a bunch of extra Advantages that don't have direct effect on the power of their attack (e.g. [i']Reduced Endurance Cost[/i]), they're just going to have to wind up paying that many extra character points for the ability, and/or piling on Limitations that serve to balance the effectiveness of the power. That plus a GM willing to exercise common sense and reasonableness and say, "no" when it is appropriate, and I think you're good.

 

I guess in essence what I would do is forget the percent and just go with the 15 DC, 15 CV, 7.5 Speed, and 75 total points of Defense, with a note for the trade-off allowance.

Perhaps. I'd probably try that for a Heroic campaign when one comes along. I don't think that that alternate reasoning would sway Fireg0lem either though, even if it's almost the same thing, just more arbitrary.

[prestidigitator]

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

 

Perhaps. I'd probably try that for a Heroic campaign when one comes along. I don't think that that alternate reasoning would sway Fireg0lem either though' date=' even if it's almost the same thing, just more arbitrary.[/quote']

Well, no such method for balancing is going to be suited for everybody. I don't know if I'd use it myself for that matter, though it's probably worth playing around with a bit if I ever actualy run an applicable campaign again. However, even if it's not ideal for everyone, it's almost certainly better than nothing. And if it keeps you actively thinking about balancing things and keeping an eye on character abilities, I see it as a positive thing. Just don't succumb to the temptation to use it as a crutch and set things in concrete. There are always exceptions and corner cases.