Epiphanis Posted June 2, 2012 Report Share Posted June 2, 2012 I've been tinkering with the preparation of a Maptool-based online Champions campaign for over two years now. I've leveraged Maptool's computing abilities to implement some house rules that I like that would be too clunky to adopt in a non-computer-assisted tabletop game. I drafted an explanation of these house rules below. I'd appreciate feedback on them, both on your impressions regarding the rules themselves and the understandability of the text explaining them. Mostly it is the Killing Damage and Critical Hits that I am concerned with; the rest is pretty standard stuff. KILLING DAMAGE. The STUN inflicted by Killing Damage is altered. The default rule is that the STUN loss is equal to the BODY loss x 1d3, creating massive quantum differences based on whether the attacker rolls a 1, 2, or 3. In this campaign, the computer macro calculates STUN loss as a function of 101-300% of the BODY loss on a shallow bell curve averaging 200% [The exact formula is BODY x (100+(d200+d200)/2) x .01, rounded to the nearest integer]. COMBAT MANEUVERS. The campaign uses all the Combat Maneuvers described in 6E2, including all optional ones. It does not use any of the additional maneuvers described in the Advanced Players’ Guides, at least to start. This may change later. KNOCKBACK . Knockback rules are used. HIT LOCATIONS (AND OTHER OPTIONAL DAMAGE EFFECTS). None of the “Optional Effects of Damage” described in 6E2 108- 117 are used except Knockback, which is used. Knockdown, Wounding, Bleeding, and Hit Locations (including Placed Shots, Impairments, etc.) are not employed. In place of the Hit Locations rules, the special house-rule modified Critical Hits rules will be used. CRITICAL HITS. Critical Hits rules similar to those described on 6E2 118 are used, but heavily modified for online play. Critical Hits are based on the attacker’s unmodified attack roll. If this roll on 3d6 comes up an 8 or less, extra damage may be inflicted if the target’s DCV/DMCV is low enough (if the attack roll is less than half what is needed to hit the target’s defensive CV).The extra damage is automatically calculated by the computer as a function of the attack roll and the damage roll (I wrote special macros for this purpose); the lower the attack roll, the more the actual damage roll is improved upon. The extra damage, however, is never better than the maximum damage the attack could have inflicted with a perfect damage roll. [A roll of “8” will improve the roll by 1/6th of the difference between a perfect damage roll and the actual damage roll; a “7” will be 2/6ths of that amount, etc.; a roll of “3” will be 6/6ths of that figure, an amount equal to maximum damage.] Only attacks that inflict Standard Damage or Killing Damage can inflict Critical Hits. For instance, a typical Mind Blast (which inflicts Standard Damage) will be eligible for Critical Hit damage, but Drain STUN or BODY will not. Extra BODY damage due to Critical Hits does not count in determining Knockback (it is deemed precision damage that adds no extra force to the blow). Critical Hits in many ways substitute for Hit Locations. Any effect that would prevent use of Hit Locations will prevent Critical Hits. For instance, if the target has the No Hit Locations power (6E1 272) it will not take the extra damage of a Critical Hit. If the target is subject to any condition that would render it at “½” for Hit Locations (such as being Stunned or Entangled; see the table at 6E2 37) the target will automatically be subject to Critical Hit damage if it is hit at all. Note that the Critical Hit damage is still calculated by the unmodified attack roll, and if that roll is a 9 or higher, no extra damage will occur. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christopher Posted June 2, 2012 Report Share Posted June 2, 2012 Re: Computer-Assisted Online Game House Rules (feedback requested) 1. Good idea. But that spread changes how Killing attacks deal Stun damage. Naturally 100%, 200% and 300% are all equally likely (1 in 3). If you used 100+1d200 isntead you could have the same resuls spread, but it sounds like you want the tendency towards the middle. 2. I don't see why not. 3. pretty much Standart for Superheroic games. 4. again, that is the way most Superheroic games work. 5. If liked D&D's approach to link skill and targets defenses with Critical hit Chance. It's easier to fumble when you are ouclassed. It's harder to crit when you have a hard time hitting at all. A flat roll means Critical Attacks are completely Randomized. More Randomness tends to work against the playercharacters and make Combat seem a lot less intersting (after all you can be critted regardless of relative ability). When the players and GM want that, it is okay of course. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Epiphanis Posted June 2, 2012 Author Report Share Posted June 2, 2012 Re: Computer-Assisted Online Game House Rules (feedback requested) RE: 1 - I've tried both a completely random 101-300% and the bell curve. I think I like the bell curve a little better for Killing Damage, since it shouldn't be about the STUN so much as the BODY. RE: 5 - The system for Criticals, both the version presented in 6E2 and my modification of it here, involve elements of both skill and chance. In both, a Critical can only occur if the attack roll is 8 or less, meaning that regardless of the attacker's skill or defender's helplessness, there cannot be a critical more than about 1/4 of the time. In that 1/4, however, a critical will be dependent upon the ratio the applicable attack and defense CVs have to each other. An unmodified attack roll of 8 will only crit against a very easy-to-to-hit opponent, whereas a roll of 3 will crit against a fairly hard target. I actually find it accomplishes the same overall objectives as the D&D 3.0 approach somewhat more elegantly, in that it doesn't require seperate die rolls. In practice, the difference between the two approaches is that with the Hero System crit approach, at a certain point a very hard target relative to the attacker's skill may become immune to crits (barring DCV-reducing modifiers and certain conditions) whereas in D&D/d20 the target is never completely immune to them even though the odds of the crit happening can be astronomically unlikely. Since you (Christopher) seem to dislike the randomization of combat, the Hero approach should have more appeal to you in this area than the d20 one. I like crits for Hero. The 3d6 bell curve for attack resolution means that modifiers that increase the gap between offensive and defensive CVs to more than 3 become fairly meaningless. If you hit on a 14-, sacrificing other benefits to hit on a 15- becomes stupid. Leaving the optional crit rules out, the Hero system makes up for "overkill" levels of OCV by allowing to trade off excess OCV for Multiple Attacks, or to boost DCV or DCs via various maneuvers or CSL reallocation. But there really isn't that much benefit to making a single perfect shot. Adding crits renders otherwise effectively worthlessly excessive OCV to count towards a "stretch goal" of extra damage on that one shot. The problem is, I felt the default version of the crit rules, in which every crit inflicted maximum possible damage, did in fact make combat too "swingy" and chaotic. Thus, my approach reduces the extra damages to a level that (I hope) is appropriately rewarding without providing an overwhelming advantage to high-OCV characters or making the outcome of combat too dependent upon lucky rolls. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Epiphanis Posted June 2, 2012 Author Report Share Posted June 2, 2012 Re: Computer-Assisted Online Game House Rules (feedback requested) To illustrate, here is a sample of how my crit rule works in practice. The following is a sample of results for a DC 12 Blast fired with a modified OCV of 10: [TABLE] [TR] [TD][/TD] [TD]lib: GM: [/TD] [TD]Test Basic Blast; DC 12 Modified CV: 10, Roll: 7; Attack crits against target 7 or less; hits target 14 or less; misses target 15 or higher. STUN damage: 42 (52 on critical) vs. ED BODY damage: 12 (14 on critical) vs. ED Base Knockback: 6 meters vs. Knockback Resistance. [/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] [TABLE] [TR] [TD][/TD] [TD]lib: GM: [/TD] [TD]Test Basic Blast; DC 12 Modified CV: 10, Roll: 8; Attack crits against target 5 or less; hits target 13 or less; misses target 14 or higher. STUN damage: 50 (54 on critical) vs. ED BODY damage: 13 (14 on critical) vs. ED Base Knockback: 6 meters vs. Knockback Resistance. [/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] [TABLE] [TR] [TD][/TD] [TD]lib: GM: [/TD] [TD]Test Basic Blast; DC 12 Modified CV: 10, Roll: 12; Attack hits target 9 or less; misses target 10 or higher. STUN damage: 50 (50 on critical) vs. ED BODY damage: 15 (15 on critical) vs. ED Base Knockback: 6 meters vs. Knockback Resistance. [/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] [TABLE] [TR] [TD] [/TD] [TD]lib: GM: [/TD] [TD]Test Basic Blast; DC 12 Modified CV: 10, Roll: 11; Attack hits target 10 or less; misses target 11 or higher. STUN damage: 51 (51 on critical) vs. ED BODY damage: 15 (15 on critical) vs. ED Base Knockback: 5 meters vs. Knockback Resistance. [/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] [TABLE] [TR] [TD][/TD] [TD]lib: GM: [/TD] [TD]Test Basic Blast; DC 12 Modified CV: 10, Roll: 4; Attack crits against target 13 or less; hits target 17 or less; misses target 18 or higher. STUN damage: 46 (68 on critical) vs. ED BODY damage: 14 (18 on critical) vs. ED Base Knockback: 6 meters vs. Knockback Resistance. [/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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