Campaign Damage Caps, Code vs. Killing & Pulling a Punch

[Trebuchet]

Re: Campaign Damage Caps, Code vs. Killing & Pulling a Punch

 

I think at one time I experimented with tying damage cap to SPD so that higher-SPD characters would have about the same number of dice of attack in a turn as a lower-speed one. That worked reasonably well, but handicapped the team speedster.

 

ETA: ISTR the rule was (20-SPD) x 5 = Maximum effective points in an attack (disregarding haymakers, martial maneuvers, etc.)

 

We used SPD + Damage Classes <= 20 as a general guideline in our campaign for almost 2 decades and it worked quite well. Haymaker, Pushing, Move Through/By, Levels adding to damage, etc., were ignored for purposes of the formula as they came with inherent penalties; Martial Maneuvers were not. The SPD 4 brick did 16d6, the SPD 9 MA did 10d6, and characters in between those extremes fit in well. Most characters were 18 or 19 on that scale.

 

We've exceeded that number in the past couple years. I think two or maybe three characters have hit 21 or better; the same brick is now SPD 5 and does 17d6, but it's still the general guideline and still good enough to be effective. Our Mentalist theoretically exceeds that with a 95 Point VPP and a SPD 6, but his innate defenses are so low that he almost inevitably has between a third and half of his VPP used to generate a Force Field, giving him much less offensive oomph than appears on paper. To add to that, he is often using a portion of the VPP Mind Linking our team during a fight and/or giving some of them Mental Defense.

 

We're not a group of powergamers, so improvements to attack powersets have tended to broaden them with Advantages and/or more unusual attacks rather than simply increasing the base damage.

[Balabanto]

This is exactly what I'm talking about. I love the silly putty slug. That's hilarious.

 

My players are currently in a situation that's kind of ugly. They followed these magical people to an area 51 type location, and they might lose. If they do lose, I have a plan for what happens. It won't be good for them.

 

The villains are mystic types who have a relationship to one of the heroes, but the villains also ressurrected an old member of the team to fight them. So this is going to be really ugly.

 

They aren't powerful, but they don't need to be. Usually, the shock of fighting someone who used to be on your side is enough to throw people off their game.

[Trebuchet]

Re: Campaign Damage Caps, Code vs. Killing & Pulling a Punch

 

I know the purpose of rigid rule-of-X caps is to make a GM's job of creating challenging conflict easier but an unintended effect of such caps is to create a certain 'vanilla' combat centric power curve across all characters. This tends to take the away some of the 'super' out of superheroes IMO.

 

Anyway, I am hoping to get more folks to chime in with their thoughts on the subject.

Way back in 1992 when we started our MidGuard campaign we started with 12 DC caps as well as limits on total defenses. It wasn't long before we realized that with those caps in place that we had achieved exactly that "vanilla" effect you spoke of. Everyone on the team did 11-12 DC's; the only difference was special effects. It quickly became equally obvious that nobody could really be special or standout because everybody essentially did the same damage, be they MA, EB, or Brick. Yawn.

 

So when we converted the campaign to 5E, we decided to drop the caps and see what happened, and Lo and Behold! The Damage Classes spread from 10 to 14, and several characters lowered defenses proportionately as well. Martial Artists started relying on their higher SPD and DEX and hitting more often, whereas the Bricks were slower but could both dish it out and take it. Right now the spread in our group is 9d6 to 17d6. Obviously this won't work with many groups because powergamers are very far from rare, but if you have the right group it can really resonate. Everyone in our group has a chance to shine, because the powers and abilities are very different. No more vanilla!

 

An often overlooked negative to caps is that once a character hits a cap, even on what he considers his primary schtick, he still has many points to blow (For example a Brick, limited to 60 STR, still has several hundred points remaining), so the obvious way to spend them is to pump up something else until he hits the next cap, then move on to a third, and so on. This eliminates a lot of the "economic" aspects of the point system because if he can't buy what he wants then he'll buy the next-best thing, which often ends up being DEX or some other Characteristic or Power that might not truly fit the concept.

 

I think, if a GM decides caps are truly necessary, then "soft" caps are the way to go: Let characters exceed the set caps, but all points above the cap cost double (or possibly more) just like exceeding Human Characteristic Maxima. That means in a game with a 60 Active Point cap that if BlockMan really wants that 75 STR it costs him 90 points, not 65. It'll make him standout from his teammate StrongGuy's capped 60 STR, but at a significant cost.

[Cassandra]

I think it's very appropriate for Superheroes worthy of their name to "Pull Their Punches" in most if not all combat situation. One advantage the Villain has is that the Hero will being trying not to seriously injure them, while the Villain can hit them as hard as they please, and fight dirty. A Hero with the "Code Of The Hero" will be pulling their punches, and that's what they get the 20 Points for.

[Hyper-Man]

Our groups problem with pulling a punch is that by RAW there is a penalty associated with it. So you try to be heroic and take penalty? I would suggest of just elliminating the penalty altogether that would encourge pulling punches.

 

 

IF they take CvK, THEN it is an expected behavior.

 

And there is a penalty associated with it if they DON'T show restraint: The media would probably jump at the opportunity to be critical of any 'heroes' that maimed and/or killed the bad guys on a regular basis.

 

[bigbywolfe]

Doesn't the book specifically suggest the GM ignore the penalty for pulling a punch if he wants a particularly Silver Age "no one ever gets harmed" type game? Besides that you have other options besides pulling a punch. You can attack at less than full power if you have reason to believe the person can't take a hit from you. You can grab. You can buy a few PSLs or Limited CSLs to offset the penalty. I'm sure there's more I'm not thinking of.

[massey]

Players who are more responsible can be trusted with more power. That's pretty simple. The guy who uses every excuse to bring out his biggest attack versus any villain is not the guy to hand an extra 5D6. Of course, a GM has to run the game appropriately as well. You can't screw over Responsible Guy when he holds back, or else he won't just feel justified in using full power all the time, he will BE justified in using full power.

 

Heroes who hold back should generally know when they don't have to anymore. It shouldn't be "no no, you don't know if the guy with the glowing metal body can take your full 14 dice, you have to hold back to 8..." and then the villain shrugs off the attack and blasts you unconscious. A hero who holds back should still be effective almost all of the time.

 

Edit:

 

Ooh, how about this. For every time in which a hero holds back in a roleplay-appropriate scenario, he earns a hero point. If he trades in 3 hero points, he can use a higher-powered version of his character for one encounter. If he trades in 5 hero points, he can use it for the entire session. So Superman (in this game written up as a 14D6 character) holds back to 10D6, and even pulls his punches (at -2 OCV) when fighting a villain who shouldn't be able to take that level of damage (despite probably having more than 14 PD). As long as he does so for at least a few phases (until he realizes that his opponent is more than meets the eye and has a force field or something), then he gets a hero point. At some point in the campaign, the players' team is being smacked around by a villain group and the world hangs in the balance. Bad tactics and bad dice rolls seem to have doomed the group. So Superman trades in 3 of his 7 accumulated hero points. He makes a short soliloquy, "That's it! I'm tired of holding back and I'm tired of all of you!" He trades in his 390 point Superman with 70 Str, 6 Spd, and 35 Def. He pulls out the 700 point Superman with 110 Str, 35 Dex, 8 Spd and 50 Def. He cleans the villains' clocks (no longer holding back at all), foils their plan, and leaves his teammates in awe. He then returns to his normal power level and makes some humble comment about not being comfortable with that level of power. Of course the GM has final say as to whether the One Shining Moment transformation is roleplay-appropriate at the time.

 

Characters who do not hold back, using full dice against Evil Scientist because they know he's got enough defense to not die, do not gain hero points. In fact if the action is egregious, they may lose any hero points they had.

[Hyper-Man]

Players who are more responsible can be trusted with more power. That's pretty simple. The guy who uses every excuse to bring out his biggest attack versus any villain is not the guy to hand an extra 5D6. Of course, a GM has to run the game appropriately as well. You can't screw over Responsible Guy when he holds back, or else he won't just feel justified in using full power all the time, he will BE justified in using full power.

 

Heroes who hold back should generally know when they don't have to anymore. It shouldn't be "no no, you don't know if the guy with the glowing metal body can take your full 14 dice, you have to hold back to 8..." and then the villain shrugs off the attack and blasts you unconscious. A hero who holds back should still be effective almost all of the time.

 

Edit:

 

Ooh, how about this. For every time in which a hero holds back in a roleplay-appropriate scenario, he earns a hero point. If he trades in 3 hero points, he can use a higher-powered version of his character for one encounter. If he trades in 5 hero points, he can use it for the entire session. So Superman (in this game written up as a 14D6 character) holds back to 10D6, and even pulls his punches (at -2 OCV) when fighting a villain who shouldn't be able to take that level of damage (despite probably having more than 14 PD). As long as he does so for at least a few phases (until he realizes that his opponent is more than meets the eye and has a force field or something), then he gets a hero point. At some point in the campaign, the players' team is being smacked around by a villain group and the world hangs in the balance. Bad tactics and bad dice rolls seem to have doomed the group. So Superman trades in 3 of his 7 accumulated hero points. He makes a short soliloquy, "That's it! I'm tired of holding back and I'm tired of all of you!" He trades in his 390 point Superman with 70 Str, 6 Spd, and 35 Def. He pulls out the 700 point Superman with 110 Str, 35 Dex, 8 Spd and 50 Def. He cleans the villains' clocks (no longer holding back at all), foils their plan, and leaves his teammates in awe. He then returns to his normal power level and makes some humble comment about not being comfortable with that level of power. Of course the GM has final say as to whether the One Shining Moment transformation is roleplay-appropriate at the time.

 

Characters who do not hold back, using full dice against Evil Scientist because they know he's got enough defense to not die, do not gain hero points. In fact if the action is egregious, they may lose any hero points they had.

That's an interesting take on the issue for sure. But It seems like it would be a lot more work in play (creating multiple power levels of your character) and wouldn't necessarily be appropriate for characters that didn't take Code of the Hero/CvK or similar complications.

[Cassandra]

This does bring up an interesting situation. What if you have a group of Superheroes who have a minimum force standard, and a new superhero doesn't play by the same rules? Do the other heroes try to get him to change his ways? What if they continue?

 

Who would you rather be, Superman or Jack Bauer?

[Trebuchet]

This does bring up an interesting situation. What if you have a group of Superheroes who have a minimum force standard, and a new superhero doesn't play by the same rules? Do the other heroes try to get him to change his ways? What if they continue?

 

Who would you rather be, Superman or Jack Bauer?

 

Under the right circumstances, Jack Bauer could accomplish things Superman could not.

 

[Greywind]

Yeah, but Superman is supposed to be a shining example of Good.

[Hyper-Man]

Superman holds himself to higher standards because he is so powerful. The only times that those standards have seemed inconsistent is when he is faced with opponents that are more powerful than he is indivdiually or by way of numbers (other Kryptonians, Doomsday, Darksied, etc...) that he fears are potentially unstoppable by Earth's other heroes if he fails.

[Greywind]

Superman holds himself to higher standards because he is so powerful. The only times that those standards have seemed inconsistent is when he is faced with opponents that are more powerful than he is indivdiually or by way of numbers (other Kryptonians, Doomsday, Darksied, etc...) that he fears are potentially unstoppable by Earth's other heroes if he fails.

He's also a pacifist.

[massey]

I never got the indication Supes was a pacifist. Supes is a country boy, and doesn't see too much wrong with a good old fist fight every now and then. But you don't pick on people, or bully them. And for almost everybody on the planet, if Supes got into a real fist fight, he'd be a bully. So instead he holds back.

[Greywind]

I never got the indication Supes was a pacifist. Supes is a country boy, and doesn't see too much wrong with a good old fist fight every now and then. But you don't pick on people, or bully them. And for almost everybody on the planet, if Supes got into a real fist fight, he'd be a bully. So instead he holds back.

Actually, he said it himself of himself.