Death & Maneuvers

[Adinecia]

Greetings,

 

I have a question and i hope the brilliant minds here can help me pop the question marks hovering over my head.

 

I want to run a campaign (hero 6th edition) with a more positive feel to it. Its a pirate-era like setting, think "One Piece" ish (anime).

Adventure, Fun, Fantasy, Magic and so on. But i want to avoid Killing / Death when it comes to combat. So i came up with the option of allowing more BODY than usuall. This to make Char's and or NPC's go KO instead of dying.

 

But then comes the problem, maneuvers with the disable property... With the higher amount of BODY it could be almost impossible to disable someones limb.

 

Anyone have any ideas on how i should tackle this "avoid Killing / Death" thing i want to do and still have maneuvers such as Disable not be harder to use?!

 

Kind Regards,

 

 

Adi

[Sean Waters]

Re: Death & Maneuvers

 

You could buy the extra Body with a limitation (perhaps -1/2, to make it worthwhile) "Does not affect disabling/impairing". In addition you limit the amount of 'normal' Body a character can buy.

 

That way you might have a character who buys Body up to 12, and then buys an additional 10 Body at -1/2 as above. That way the character is Body 12 for the purpose of damaging limbs etc, but Body 22 for 'Body damage'.

[Adinecia]

Re: Death & Maneuvers

 

Aaaaah, that is indeed a good one.

 

Thanks Sean, i'll give it a go.

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Death & Maneuvers

 

There is the alternative of having death in game terms simply mean out of action for a long time. Normally if you get to negative your BODY you are dead. For player characters this might simply mean very seriously injured. It might mean that the other players have to do something unusual, such as seek out a real surgeon or a voodoo practitioner to get their man up and running again. It might mean fighting through to the spring of eternal youth on a remote island somewhere in the bermuda triangle. It might be something as 'simple' as doing a favour for Davy Jones.

 

It is for you as GM to decide what different game mechanic destinations actually mean. It depends on how supernatural you are happy with. I could see the 'dead' character in some games accompany the group as a ghost, or a disembodied voice, or reincarnated as a parrot until the quest is done.

 

If it is a game standard, then you simply impose that, adding bureaucracy to a game like HERO is never a great idea, it is already at the high end of bureaucracy as it is...

 

 

Doc

[Lucius]

Re: Death & Maneuvers

 

Eliminate Killing Attacks. Swords and guns and so forth do Normal damage.

 

Eliminate bleeding. A character at 0 BOD or below is either unconscious or too wounded to continue, but does not continue to lose BOD.

 

It will still be possible to die, such as if someone keeps beating on an unconscious person until they're dead, but it will be very unlikely to kill anyone unless someone is trying very hard to do so.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Immortal palindromedary

[Sean Waters]

Re: Death & Maneuvers

 

In fact all it might take is a change to the rule that you 'deteriorate' once you are at or below 0 Body. If you get rid of that (and if you are not using bleeding rules) then the only characters likely to actually die are the ones that the GM decides to actually kill. 0 Body (or less) would mean 'out of action' but not dead. You would still want to avoid getting intot hat state because you might be out of action for some time, but at least you are still in the game, and characters are unlikely to accidentally kill NPCs, unless they are dishing out enormous quantities of damage. Even for an NPC with 8 Body, the characters need to dish out 16 Body to actually kill them, which is a lot; even if they have already been reduced to 1 Body, then it will take a 9 Body hit through defences to kill them, and you might encourage PCs to reduce ther damage output against already beaten up opponents.

 

PCs are in an even better position - they are unlikely to have less than 10 Body and so, even if they are at 1 Body, it will take an 11 Body attack to kill them outright.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Death & Maneuvers

 

Eliminate Killing Attacks. Swords and guns and so forth do Normal damage.

 

Eliminate bleeding. A character at 0 BOD or below is either unconscious or too wounded to continue, but does not continue to lose BOD.

 

It will still be possible to die, such as if someone keeps beating on an unconscious person until they're dead, but it will be very unlikely to kill anyone unless someone is trying very hard to do so.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Immortal palindromedary

 

A problem with eliminating killing attacks is that it will be very difficult to do enough damage to anything other than a mook to cause impairing and disabling injuries. If you do a DC conversion for most firearms you are unlikely to get much above 6DCs, and that is probably not going to be enough to do any significant Body damage at all. It also means that a character with 10 STR using a Haymaker (or offensive strike if they have martial arts) is doing as much damage as most firearms. I mean, you may think that is a good thing, but it is something to be aware of: firearms will become a lot less fearsome unless you up the damage class - which is more work.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Death & Maneuvers

 

Aaaaah, that is indeed a good one.

 

Thanks Sean, i'll give it a go.

 

You'll get lots of useful suggestions - the only problem is deciding which one or ones to go with

[Christopher]

Re: Death & Maneuvers

 

Eliminate Killing Attacks. Swords and guns and so forth do Normal damage.

 

Eliminate bleeding. A character at 0 BOD or below is either unconscious or too wounded to continue, but does not continue to lose BOD.

 

It will still be possible to die, such as if someone keeps beating on an unconscious person until they're dead, but it will be very unlikely to kill anyone unless someone is trying very hard to do so.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Immortal palindromedary

For most part this is how I would go for superheros as well. It's simply in the genre convention. This also means you should not use powers like "Takes no STUN" for Zombies/Robots of coruse.

I also consider increasing the Body done normal Damage. Right now the average is 1 Body per DC (as opposed to 3.5 Body per 3 DC vs. less defenses for Killing damage). Increase it to 1.5 Body average or slightly more and things might be easier (1 = 0 Body. 2-3 = 1 Body. 4-5 = 2 Body. 6=3 Body).

 

A problem with eliminating killing attacks is that it will be very difficult to do enough damage to anything other than a mook to cause impairing and disabling injuries. If you do a DC conversion for most firearms you are unlikely to get much above 6DCs' date=' and that is probably not going to be enough to do any significant Body damage at all. It also means that a character with 10 STR using a Haymaker (or offensive strike if they have martial arts) is doing as much damage as most firearms. I mean, you may think that is a good thing, but it is something to be aware of: firearms will become a lot less fearsome unless you up the damage class - which is more work.[/quote']

The Firearm does 6 DC at range.

The haymakered 10 STR punch does 6 DC in HTH, with a extra Phase for the target to abort, and big OCV/DCV penalties.

And a haymakerd gun does 10 DC.

 

Unless you have superstrenght (like the heroes) guns never go out of fashion.

[Adinecia]

Re: Death & Maneuvers

 

You'll get lots of useful suggestions - the only problem is deciding which one or ones to go with

 

 

Ahahaha, yeah i noticed.

I must say though i like the 0 Body (out of action) thing.

 

Thanks for the tips everyone, i appreciate it.

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Death & Maneuvers

 

The easiest way to avoid high PC lethality is to have minimums for defenses and prohibit, or at least CLOSELY monitor, killing attacks. If each PC has at least 15 PD, and attacks range around 10d6, the probability of taking BODY damage is minimal.

 

Alternately, just change the rules for death. At negative BODY, you aren't dead, you're just really, really badly messed up and will take a long time to recover ... say, halve the victim's REC for the purpose of long-term recovery. The only way you die, for PCs, is if you decide that your character died instead of getting a head-to-toe body cast. For NPCs, of course, they die if the GM decides they do.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Death & Maneuvers

 

Along the lines of what CrosshairCollie said, just alter the Dead point.

 

Negative Body = incapacitated (you recover normally, but can't do anything until you've reached at least 0 Body.)

Negative 2x Body = Dead

 

It should only apply to PCs and Major NPCs - minor NPCs and mooks should follow standard rules.

[Lucius]

Re: Death & Maneuvers

 

A problem with eliminating killing attacks is that it will be very difficult to do enough damage to anything other than a mook to cause impairing and disabling injuries. If you do a DC conversion for most firearms you are unlikely to get much above 6DCs' date=' and that is probably not going to be enough to do any significant Body damage at all. It also means that a character with 10 STR using a Haymaker (or offensive strike if they have martial arts) is doing as much damage as most firearms. I mean, you may think that is a good thing, but it is something to be aware of: firearms will become a lot less fearsome unless you up the damage class - which is more work.[/quote']

 

If the campaign tone is "characters rarely, or even never,die" then I think it's appropriate for firearms to be less fearsome.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary invoes the Zornwil Effect

[Sean Waters]

Re: Death & Maneuvers

 

If the campaign tone is "characters rarely, or even never,die" then I think it's appropriate for firearms to be less fearsome.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary invoes the Zornwil Effect

 

True, although I think guns, even if they do not usually kill in a particular genre, are relatively fearsome; if someone is shot they are usually incapacitated if they are anything other than main protagonists. Main protagonists who are shot get a bloody shoulder and some grimacing for a while and then, when they get into a fight with a major villain they get hit in the shoulder, look like they are going to pass out and then come back twice as strong. Bloody narrative structure.

 

Unless you are using hit locations and bleeding rules, it is pretty difficult to accidentally kill someone in Hero, even with killing attacks. A 3d6 KA can't kill someone with 10 Body outright without optional rules, even with a maximum roll. Even an average roll 5d6 KA won't kill a normal outright, and that is the sort of attack powerful superheroes have to face.

[Ninja-Bear]

Re: Death & Maneuvers

 

You could buy the extra Body with a limitation (perhaps -1/2, to make it worthwhile) "Does not affect disabling/impairing". In addition you limit the amount of 'normal' Body a character can buy.

 

That way you might have a character who buys Body up to 12, and then buys an additional 10 Body at -1/2 as above. That way the character is Body 12 for the purpose of damaging limbs etc, but Body 22 for 'Body damage'.

 

Or you can buy extra levels of damage only versus disabling.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Death & Maneuvers

 

KISS Principal

 

Change the fraction for Disabling and Impairing wounds so they occur with a much less lethal wound. If you double the average BOD, then halve the amount required to Disable or Impair, frequency of these effects stays the same while death is much less likely.

[NuSoardGraphite]

Re: Death & Maneuvers

 

I would simply not use Impairing/Disabling/Bleeding rules (with the exception of maneuvers built specifically to disable). I would rule that a character dies only after reaching negative Body (a body 10 character dies at -10 Body) and would not count Bleeding at zero or less Body. You'll be surprised how long a Body 15 character lasts using this method.

[Ravor]

Re: Death & Maneuvers

 

Personally if the goal is to simply not kill important NPCs/PCs, then give them the power "Plot Immunity" (Regeneration 1/Day --Resurection Only) for 8 points.

 

 

 

Dyng is still something that you'd want to avoid as it means your character is out of play for a bit but you don't have to worry about killing off PCs or NPCs except when the drama/plot calls for it. And best of all, I'd say that it's actually the way that most DMs play their campaigns anyways, this just lets the rules cut both ways.