Damage Negation!

[Vondy]

Re: Damage Negation!

 

The problem is remembering that negation' date=' or applying it if that Telepathy was an Area Effect attack (or spread to hit multiple targets), or was also Cumulative with another advantage or two, making 1 DC not equal 1d6.[/quote']

 

1 DC with advantages is still 1 DC. An 8d6 AP attack is still 8 DC. It may punch like a 12 DC attack, but its not one.

 

Reducing it before the roll is the rule. The difficult part is to include certain advantages (Autofire' date=' Amor Piercing) in the DC calculation.[/quote']

 

Since when do advantages alter the Damage Classes of an attack? They alter active points. The affect effectiveness. They do not alter the base damage classes.

 

As such, they shouldn't really be a consideration in how Damage Negation is calculated vis-a-vis Damage Classes.

 

It may be a design consideration for Game Masters in terms of game-balance, but in terms of actual run-time damage calculation advantages are a non-sequitur.

[Vondy]

Re: Damage Negation!

 

The other issue' date=' I believe, was not wanting the PC's to know the target had damage negation, when telling them to roll 6 less dice is a pretty clear tipoff.[/font']

The only issue with this method is the potential for revealing the defense mechanic of the target to the players (not unlike how certain Combat Value calculation methods can reveal a target's DCV). Mature gaming groups shouldn't have a problem with this though (IF they are able to keep player knowledge separate from character knowledge).

 

This is a game-mastering style issue rather than a mechanical issue, IMO.

 

I've never sweated a little meta-gaming knowledge falling into player hands.

 

They are either going to be good role players, or they aren't.

 

And if they are creative they can come up with an in-game explanation for it - source materials have many "hmm... he's super-resistant to X" moments.

 

I've also been at it long enough to adjust my tactics - rather than builds - if they "play meta" as it were.

[Christopher]

Re: Damage Negation!

 

Since when do advantages alter the Damage Classes of an attack? They alter active points. The affect effectiveness. They do not alter the base damage classes.

Since its written in the Book?

 

It's clearly stated that a Attack with Advantages that affect Damage calculation has a different Damage Class/Die Ratio.

Mental Blast costs 10/d6. Without advantages Damage Classes are AP/5. So a 6d6 Mental Blast is a 12 DC attack.

A 6d6 Blast, 2x penetrating (+1) is also clearly a 12 DC attack

A 4d6 KA is als a 12 DC attack.

A 6d6 Blast with 0 END (+1/2) and Affects Desolidified(all SFX; +1/2) however is still only a 6 DC attack.

 

And since "Damage Negation" Negates Damage Classes and not dies, you have to take the ratio between Damage Classes and Dies into account. The same way you have to take it ito account when the attack is Haymakered.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Damage Negation!

 

DN is NOT good at 'invulnerability', as you are likely to be less vulnerable to most common attacks if you just spend the points on normal defences. What it is good at is covering a broad spectrum of damage, including advantaged attacks and 'damaging drains' (i.e. drains against Stun and Body). It is a one stop shop to address the ubiquitous Hero problem that you can always come up with some build of attack that gets around defences and gets stuck in a framework that means that you have an attack that can affect anything - somewhere (and you can even with DN, because you can buy an attack with reduced negation, which kind of makes the exercise pointless).

 

DN is particularly bad at stopping BODY damage.

[Christopher]

Re: Damage Negation!

 

DN is particularly bad at stopping BODY damage.

Should not be a big problems, as Immunity is mostly interesting for Superheroic games in wich high body count is not to target.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Damage Negation!

 

1 DC with advantages is still 1 DC. An 8d6 AP attack is still 8 DC. It may punch like a 12 DC attack, but its not one.

 

Since when do advantages alter the Damage Classes of an attack? They alter active points. The affect effectiveness. They do not alter the base damage classes.

 

Advantages definitely do increase DC's by the book, as Christopher notes above, although only some advantages are counted. See 6eVol2, p 97, for both a discussion of which advantages impact DC and for the chart converting damage classes for an advantaged attack. As AP is now a +1/4 advantage, 9 1/2d6 AP is a 12 DC attack. If used against a target with 4 levels of Damage Negation, that leaves 8 DC, or 6d6 of AP damage (although I'd probably give this 6d6 + 1, as I use a more granular approach).

 

I'm virtually certain this was also the case in 5e, and I'm pretty sure it was in 4e, but I'd be less surprised to be proven wrong there.

 

As such, they shouldn't really be a consideration in how Damage Negation is calculated vis-a-vis Damage Classes.

 

It may be a design consideration for Game Masters in terms of game-balance, but in terms of actual run-time damage calculation advantages are a non-sequitur.

 

"Should" is a subjective term. I'd say Damage Negation gains a significant boost if advantaged powers are reduced at the same 1d6 (for normal damage) applicable for non-advantaged powers. Under your model, Damage Negation is a lot more effective against, say, a Penetrating Blast, or an AVAD Blast that Does BOD, than it is against a standard Blast.

 

This may not be a big deal in your games - IIRC, you run Heroic, so there may not be a lot of advantaged attacks, and those that are out there may be gear-based, so not paid for in points.

 

DN is NOT good at 'invulnerability', as you are likely to be less vulnerable to most common attacks if you just spend the points on normal defences. What it is good at is covering a broad spectrum of damage, including advantaged attacks and 'damaging drains' (i.e. drains against Stun and Body). It is a one stop shop to address the ubiquitous Hero problem that you can always come up with some build of attack that gets around defences and gets stuck in a framework that means that you have an attack that can affect anything - somewhere (and you can even with DN, because you can buy an attack with reduced negation, which kind of makes the exercise pointless).

 

DN is particularly bad at stopping BODY damage.

 

Actually, what DN would have been really good at in 5e and prior editions is nerfing the Stun Multiple, but that got reduced in 6e anyway. Might be nice in a game using hit locations to know that your 6 DC's of Negation will eliminate 2d6 of Gunfire and drop 2d6 + 1 to 1 - 5 STUN, where 12 rDEF + 12 normal defenses (for the same 30 points) would leave the potential for 30 Stun (on a head shot that rolls 12 BOD) from the same 6 DC's, and 26d+1 could blast 35 STUN through (both before defenses, of course).

 

I agree DN is less effective against BOD than normal defenses on a point for point basis, as it reduces damage classes. In fact, I think that makes it an excellent tool for certain games. How often will a Brick take BOD damage when slugged by an equal STR Brick in a typical Supers game? Probably never. However, if we mandate that, in this game, defenses will be purchased primarily as Damage Negation, not as PD/ED/RDef, then we can get a result where attacks can do a bit of BOD.

 

As an example, let's assume a standard Super Attack is 12d6, and standard/Brick Defenses are 25/30, so an average attack gets 17/12 STUN and no BOD - ever - through to the target.

 

Now let's shake up the ground rules. Standard Super defenses are, say, 6. A standard Super would also have 6 DC's or Damage Negation, and a Brick might have 7. Now that 12d6 attack gets reduced to 6d6/5d6, against 6 defenses, so 15 STUN and 0 BOD on a typical hit, and the Brick takes 11.5 STUN and 0 BOD. But an above average hit will get BOD through to the standard Super, and a bit more above average bloodies even the Brick.

 

If you want a Supers game where the combatants don't just catch their breath after a heated combat and they're fully charged again, maybe reducing use of Defenses and increasing use of Negation as a campaign standard is the way to go.

 

IOW, a tool for the toolkit to achieve a result we previously couldn't get, or at least not very easily.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Damage Negation!

 

This is a game-mastering style issue rather than a mechanical issue, IMO.

 

I've never sweated a little meta-gaming knowledge falling into player hands.

 

They are either going to be good role players, or they aren't.

 

And if they are creative they can come up with an in-game explanation for it - source materials have many "hmm... he's super-resistant to X" moments.

 

I've also been at it long enough to adjust my tactics - rather than builds - if they "play meta" as it were.

 

Absolutely a question of style - but if you don't tell the players "he has 30 Defenses", or "he has 50% Damage Reduction", instead saying "it bounces off his steely hide" or "he doesn't seem too bothered by that attack", giving the players the precise level of Damage Negation is a change to the game. I can definitely see games where this is an irrelevancy, and others where it is a matter of some significance.

[Christopher]

Re: Damage Negation!

 

Absolutely a question of style - but if you don't tell the players "he has 30 Defenses"' date=' or "he has 50% Damage Reduction", instead saying "it bounces off his steely hide" or "he doesn't seem too bothered by that attack", giving the players the precise level of Damage Negation is a change to the game. I can definitely see games where this is an irrelevancy, and others where it is a matter of some significance.[/quote']

Damage Negation is special in the part that it is applied before the roll is made, so the best would be for the player to know it.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Damage Negation!

 

Damage Negation is special in the part that it is applied before the roll is made' date=' so the best would be for the player to know it.[/quote']

 

For simplicity, the mechanics definitely suggest telling the player. However, if you play on the assumption the characters don't know the opponents' stats, and thus the players don't get that info, this creates an issue for damage negation. I do agree with the point Vondy alludes to - it is more an issue in an adversarial game (player vs GM) than a game with mature players who segregate character knowledge from player metagame knowledge. That said, immersion is easier for many when the mechanics fade to the backdrop and aren't thrown in the players' faces.

[Martin2]

Re: Damage Negation!

 

Instead of telling your players that a villain has DN you could say that all dice are thrown where the GM can see them for that villain (or get them to shout the dice out in order) and then just take a high or low dice from the seen dice (random dice for odd). Do this for random villains who do not have DN to keep the players guessing . Follow it up discriptions of if they think it was reduced by defences etc.

[dmjalund]

Re: Damage Negation!

 

or you could have each die be a diffrent color, and the GM secretly determines before the roll, which dice are going to be ignored

[kjandreano]

Re: Damage Negation!

 

or you could have each die be a diffrent color' date=' and the GM secretly determines before the roll, which dice are going to be ignored[/quote']

 

I think they'd catch one pretty quickly (my players would). I just want a variant game mechanic where the DN effect is applied after the damage is rolled, as opposed to before (by reducing the number of dice/DC). This would make it easier (for me anyway) to run in game play (and not telegraph things to players, etc).

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Damage Negation!

 

I think they'd catch one pretty quickly (my players would). I just want a variant game mechanic where the DN effect is applied after the damage is rolled' date=' as opposed to before (by reducing the number of dice/DC). This would make it easier (for me anyway) to run in game play (and not telegraph things to players, etc).[/quote']

 

I'd either roll the dice for Negation, and subtract that Stun and BOD from the attack (ie if the character has 4 DC's Negation, roll 4d6 and deduct the Stun and BOD from the attacker's Stun and BOD) or just subtract a percentage of the damage done by the attacker based on the Negation (4DC's negated of a 12DC attack is 1/3).

[Enforcer84]

Re: Damage Negation!

 

I may be doing it wrong' date=' but I just subtract the Damage Negation dice from the attack [i']before the roll[/i].

 

Ergo, a mentalist with 14d6 Telepathy targeting a character with Mental Wards -8DC would only roll 6d6.

 

It makes calculations easy as pie.

 

That's what I have done too.

[taenia]

Re: Damage Negation!

 

Damage Negation represents one of the three steps to defenses, with DN - Regular Defenses - Damage Reduction.

 

Consider a 6d6 Attack vs. 30 points of Def.

 

Damage Negation = 0

Regular Defenses (say 20rPd) 1 Stun No body

Damage Reduction 10 stun, 3 body

 

Against a 12d6 attack

Damage Negation 21 stun, 6 body

Regular Defenses 22 Stun, 0 body

Damage Reduction 21 stun, 6 body

 

Against an 18d6 attack

Damage Negation 42 stun, 12 body

Regular Defenses 43 Stun, 0 body

Damage Reduction 31 stun, 9 body

 

Now comparing these, DN only offers a real advantage when dealing with attack that would modify the defense, otherwise you take a lot more body, for a single stun difference. Vs. NND, AVLD or other attacks that ignore or modify a defense it may provide a bigger benefit.

 

Damage Reduction on the other hand really only seems useful at the high level damage, and assuming you have enough other defense to protect against the body damage. Also with similar advantages to DN with regarding to ignoring some or all of your regular defenses.

 

This is how I use them in my campaigns:

 

Trying to represent invulnerability vs. low level damage, for example A Werewolf that is immune to almost everything that isn't silver, imagine 6 DC of DN in a fantasy campaign. In a campaign where the max DC of attacks is limited (like no more than 14 dice) you can create "invulnerability" by using DN.

 

Trying to represent a superheroic system where people get hit for lots of damage but no one ends up in the ER for a couple of weeks, use normal defenses

 

Want to represent ability to take a lot of punishment at the very high levels, combine DR with some normal defenses.

 

The use of DN in damage limited campaigns can allow certain character types to be invulnerable without some really out there methods of creation.

[Vondy]

Re: Damage Negation!

 

Since its written in the Book?

 

And since "Damage Negation" Negates Damage Classes and not dies, you have to take the ratio between Damage Classes and Dies into account. The same way you have to take it ito account when the attack is Haymakered.

 

Yet another reason for me to reconsider 6e. It may be great gaming science, but its horrible gaming art.

 

It looks good, but is less playable that earlier editions.

 

Advantages definitely do increase DC's by the book, as Christopher notes above, although only some advantages are counted. See 6eVol2, p 97, for both a discussion of which advantages impact DC and for the chart converting damage classes for an advantaged attack. As AP is now a +1/4 advantage, 9 1/2d6 AP is a 12 DC attack. If used against a target with 4 levels of Damage Negation, that leaves 8 DC, or 6d6 of AP damage (although I'd probably give this 6d6 + 1, as I use a more granular approach).

 

I'm virtually certain this was also the case in 5e, and I'm pretty sure it was in 4e, but I'd be less surprised to be proven wrong there.

 

This concept flows from Steve's attempt to clear up the 5e damage calculation mess in 6e.

 

It was never explicitly discussed in 5e so whether that was the case is a question of interpretation.

 

However, I'm just going to out and out say it: this is a ridiculously complex and work-intensive method.

 

Its also completely unnecessary and a touch counter-intuitive.

 

The more I see of 6e the less I wonder why Hero has a hard time attracting new players.

[Vondy]

Re: Damage Negation!

 

This may not be a big deal in your games - IIRC' date=' you run Heroic, so there may not be a lot of advantaged attacks....[/quote']

 

An interesting assumption, but one that may not bear fruit.

 

Its counter-intuitive and work-intensive mechanics like these that make me avoid power-centered games like the plague in the first place.

 

I ran supers regularly in the 4e era, but that all ended when 5e came out.

 

Also, I still don't see it as being that big an issue insofar as its clearly marked as a "stop sign" power.

 

I'd far rather have to adjudicate a balance issue at design time than deal with recalculating for every attack at run-time.

 

I simply won't be using Damage Negation. Not because of balance issues, but because of work issues.

 

I'm not supposed to work for the game - the game is supposed to work for me.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Damage Negation!

 

Actually, what DN would have been really good at in 5e and prior editions is nerfing the Stun Multiple, but that got reduced in 6e anyway. Might be nice in a game using hit locations to know that your 6 DC's of Negation will eliminate 2d6 of Gunfire and drop 2d6 + 1 to 1 - 5 STUN, where 12 rDEF + 12 normal defenses (for the same 30 points) would leave the potential for 30 Stun (on a head shot that rolls 12 BOD) from the same 6 DC's, and 26d+1 could blast 35 STUN through (both before defenses, of course).

 

 

Absolutely, and I recall a discussion about creating a power like DN precisely for that reason.

 

I also agree that DN can be used to flavour a campaign where you want supers to take Body damage sometimes. It is good at 'invulnerability to small attacks', meaning you probably do not even need to bother with rolls for a lot of mooks' attacks, but still allows some Body through with super-attacks (and you can turn how much pretty well).

 

Hugh makes an excellent point about simply being aware of what you are doing when building campaign guidelines.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Damage Negation!

 

I'd either roll the dice for Negation' date=' and subtract that Stun and BOD from the attack (ie if the character has 4 DC's Negation, roll 4d6 and deduct the Stun and BOD from the attacker's Stun and BOD) or just subtract a percentage of the damage done by the attacker based on the Negation (4DC's negated of a 12DC attack is 1/3).[/quote']

 

That works perfectly on average but underplays the main advantage of DN, or one of them, which is moderating freakishly high damage rolls.

 

Personally I do not mind if players know that an opponent has DN, from the mechanics. Mind you I have excellent players who would not dream of taking advantage of such unearned knowledge.

[Christopher]

Re: Damage Negation!

 

However, I'm just going to out and out say it: this is a ridiculously complex and work-intensive method.

 

Its also completely unnecessary and a touch counter-intuitive.

 

The more I see of 6e the less I wonder why Hero has a hard time attracting new players.

The system for Damage Negation is the same as Adding DC (with a Haymaker or CSL, for example). Both are examples where you add damage and can't really pre-calculate it (as you can do with STR adding to HA/KA).

 

You need to figure out how DC's translate to dies on the fly (or where wise enough to write that down in advance). The rest is just looking into the tables in the book.

[NuSoardGraphite]

Re: Damage Negation!

 

I can't find it in the books' date=' right now, but my notes say that [u']Reduced Negation[/u] ("RN"), added to an attack, reduces the effectiveness of Damage Negation by 1 DC for 2 character points.

 

It stands to reason that if DN [a counter-measure] is in the game, RN [a counter-counter-measure] ought to be, too.

 

So if you hate doing math, put a ton of RN on all your attacks, I guess. =P

 

[edit]:

 

Would be good for building "Cosmic Bullets" that treat Kryptonians the same way they treat everything else... by putting bullet holes in them.

 

I use the same concept with No Damage Reduction. Applied to an attack, it can reduce/negate level of Damage Reduction applied to the attack. I use it to simulate stuff like Death Rays, Disintegration guns etc.

[Christopher]

Re: Damage Negation!

 

"Reducend Negation" can be found in the general Rules for Attack Powers, 6E1 144.

 

Penetrating is (in a way) a form of "Reduced DR", as DR can't affect the minimum damage.

APG I 87 has a Advantage called "irreductible"(+1/4) that completely negates any DR. But this is a GM Option.

[Vondy]

Re: Damage Negation!

 

The system for Damage Negation is the same as Adding DC (with a Haymaker or CSL' date=' for example). Both are examples where you add damage and can't really pre-calculate it (as you can do with STR adding to HA/KA).[/quote']

 

Which doesn't make it any less cumbersome.

[Christopher]

Re: Damage Negation!

 

Which doesn't make it any less cumbersome.

Then you definition of cumbersome is "anything I might have to look at a table for".

 

It's nothing else:

Figure out wich advantages count for DC calculation (AP, Penetrating and Autofire are on that list. Same are AVAD/NND; Mental Blast has a +1 as Part of it's cost; it's very intuitive).

Cross reference Dice number/Advantage in the book table to find out how many DC that are.

Add or susbtract the DC's from Maneuvers/DN.

Find out how many dice that is with the current advantage.

 

If you want to do it really fast, could just go and count the rows down/up.

[NuSoardGraphite]

Re: Damage Negation!

 

"Reducend Negation" can be found in the general Rules for Attack Powers, 6E1 144.

 

Penetrating is (in a way) a form of "Reduced DR", as DR can't affect the minimum damage.

APG I 87 has a Advantage called "irreductible"(+1/4) that completely negates any DR. But this is a GM Option.

 

Ah. Haven't gotten that far in the APG yet. Nice. I originally had "NDR" at +1/2 (I think +1/4 is too little) but I decided later to have it staged. +1/4 for -25%, +1/2 for -50% and +1 for -75%.