Resistance is useless

[Sean Waters]

Right. Normal defences are 1 point per point. Resistant defences are 3 points per 2 points (either bought as ‘Resistant’ for +1/2 or as Resistant Defences).

 

Now, one of the changes in 6e is that normal defences affect the Stun of Killing Attacks whether or not you have resistant defences. Not a change I approve of philosophically, but here is a mathematical reason why:

 

Normal defences cost 1 point per point (for PD and ED). They work against both the Stun and the Body of normal defences.

 

Resistant defences are only useful against Body damage (and the occasional AVAD attack): increasing the cost of the whole defence by +1/2 in fact only changes its ability to deal with Body damage – its interaction with Stun damage remains unchanged (ecept for, as mentioned, the odd AVAD attack).

 

Normal defence interaction with Killing Attacks has always been a bit hinky, but the point is that resistant defences are being bought at a higher than necessary cost: you only in fact need to spend on making the ‘Body’ part of the defence resistant (in most cases).

 

This should mean that Normal Defences Resistant to Killing Body Damage should cost about 5 points for 4 defence (assuming 2 PD = 1 character point toward Stun defence and 2 character points toward Body defence and the ‘Body’ bit is made resistant for +1/2).

 

Of course you can spend +1/2 on the bits that apply to Stun and get protection against AVAD attacks that apply to resistant defences, but I think it should be clear that is about the only reason that you'd want to.

 

I think that it would probably be clearer and more consistent all around if we had a rule change that said that only resistant defences reduced the Stun damage of killing attacks. The trouble with that is that you tend to, if shot, pass out rather than die, or at least you did under 5e and before but with the reduced Stun multiple, that is less of an issue now.

 

Thoughts?

[psyber624]

Re: Resistance is useless

 

If we change that then killing attacks suddenly become much more powerful. Now not only do they reduce your body (possibly killing you) but pretty much ALWAYS stun you. What you actually wind up doing with that change is requiring all characters to buy up huge quantities of BOTH resistant and non-resistant defense. And you basically make Killing Attacks either REALLY good at KOing (if people don't buy up their Resistant Defenses) or REALLY bad at killing (If people buy their resistant defenses to stop the STUN instead of the BODY) which seems to be the wrong way to do things.

 

If you want something like that, instead decouple STUN and BODY altogether. Make Normal Defenses only apply to STUN damage, and Resistant Defenses only apply to BODY damage. Of course Normal attacks are FAR more deadly now, so you are still encouraging people to buy more Resistant Defenses (and being a normal truly sucks, but that's definitely more realistic) which in turn will reduce the damage of Killing Attacks.

 

Of course right now I really don't see how the system is exactly broken. Resistant just means that it stops the BODY from Killing Attacks. +1/2 seems appropriate to me. Stopping BODY is worth more than stopping STUN (STUN heals faster, is usually bought higher,is cheaper per point, and has far lesser consequences to running out in genre). There is also some logic behind it in my head that I am not sure I can express here correctly, but here goes. Making the defense work vs normal AND resistant attacks would make it "doubly effective" (+1 advantage). But it already works vs stun and that doesn't cost any extra, so your only really gaining half the advantage of your "double effectiveness" so +1/2 instead of +1. Does that make sense? (it does to me but I am not sure I am stating it clearly.)

[bluesguy]

Re: Resistance is useless

 

Thank you for this thread because I didn't realize there had been a change to the way Killing Attacks & normal defenses, w/ regards to Stun, work. Although this has no impact on my fantasy campaign - everyone generally has some level of 'armor' on. But it does affect the program I have been working on.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Resistance is useless

 

Thank you for this thread because I didn't realize there had been a change to the way Killing Attacks & normal defenses' date=' w/ regards to Stun, work. Although this has no impact on my fantasy campaign - everyone generally has some level of 'armor' on. But it does affect the program I have been working on.[/quote']

 

Pleasure

[griffinman01]

Re: Resistance is useless

 

I still use 5eR so I had no idea that they changed that little rule. I'm not a fan of the change (it doesn't make sense to me that you'd have any defense against a sword/gun without some kind of armor or thick hide) since I didn't think it was broken in 5e.

 

I kind of like psyber's idea about decoupling stun and body. In all honesty the only way you see body damage as it stands is when it's a killing attack or the attack is disproportionally large to the character (something like 22D6 attacks against 20 def) which isn't the case. You see it all the time in comics where normal, non-killing attacks, do body damage (broken bones, cuts, internal bleeding) but in order to get that effect in Champions you'll generally hit the guy so hard they'll be knocked out and probably half a mile away before they take any real physical damage from the attack. By using the resistant defense versus body, the odds of you seeing some body damage occur in normal fights goes up by a considerable amount.

 

The downside that I see (and as also pointed out by psyber) is that it would also nerf killing attacks to the point of uselessness. Assuming that every d6 of normal damage (5 points does for 1d6) does 1 body then 3d6 would do 3 body, which is roughly the same as 1d6 of killing attack (3.5 on average) for the same price (not including STR bonuses and the like).

 

It's a hard thing to balance out and the only thing I can come up with is doing something similar to automaton defenses where you get 1/3 of your normal defenses to resist the body damage from normal attacks and then any resistant defense is added to it. That or just accept the rule as it is.

[Ndreare]

Re: Resistance is useless

 

I disagree, for game balance issues alone. Of course I generally agree with most of the changes from 5th to 6th.

 

There are examples in real life one could draw on is you cared, for example I work with and have worked with a lot of metal trades workers. I have scene them take physical wounds from 'Killing Attacks' and not even be stunned.

Cases such as knuckle busters, having weld slag burn thru your hand or a piece of sheet metal cut off a finger. Sometimes results in the tough guy not even noticing, especially if he was doing something distracting at the time. But they are still human not superhuman and do not have natural resistance defenses, they simply have high PD/Toughness from years of taking those little injuries that make the new guys whine.

[psyber624]

Re: Resistance is useless

 

I think we might make it work if we removed the stun multiplier from Killing Attacks. Then you don't need huge amounts of resistant protection to prevent a Killing Attack from stunning you, so levels of protection would generally remain the same. Of course this means that you have to buy more non-resistant protection than before so you are still asking the average player to spend more on defenses to achieve the same level of defense.

[Tasha]

Re: Resistance is useless

 

It changed to simplify Killing Attack stun. It was hard getting a noob to understand that as long as they had 1 pip of rDef that they had full def against the stun of a killing attack.

 

Since KA stun has been severely nerfed in Superheroic games, it's not really worth stressing about IMHO. 3x max stun mult vs a Super's defense really means that the days of SuperHeroes using killing attacks has passed. They might pull the KA out to destroy Automatons, but they won't be used against villains. I guess you can still run into heroes who have no rDef after being stunned or KOed, but if they are getting hit with a KA they have bigger problems than STUN loss.

 

Also, I have never been in a Hero System game where the PC's didn't have some rDefenses. Even squishies like Mages would wear 1def armor and/or have Combat Luck (3rDef PD and ED if you can see it coming). So the "You need 1 pip of rDef to use full PD or ED vs STUN" was extremely rare.

 

I would be of the opinion that Killing attacks in Superheroic games are pretty useless. Having rDef in Superheroic games makes the difference between taking body from real weapons like guns and swords and laughing them off. I think that we will probably see the fully resistant Superhero become more rare. We will also probably see Squishy Heroic characters not buy 1pip cheeze armor anymore.

 

Resisting BODY loss from KAs is still HUGE IMHO. of course Your Campaign and experiences may vary from my own.

[psyber624]

Re: Resistance is useless

 

I don't believe KA's will be "going away" in superhero games. First of all stating that they are going away from Superheros seems to assume that your Superheros all have CvK, and while that may be very common it is by no means universal. And KA's are still MUCH MUCH better at killing a target than Normal Damage, and can usually take a target down and out of a fight for good better than Normal Damage. Not to mention the whole villain angle as well. Villains wielding KA's are a much larger threat to your avg hero than Normal Damage (especially as limited as the "Body Healing" options are). And finally some weapons (swords, daggers and the like) really feel like they should be KA's (at least IMO). While you can definitely build them as Normal Damage if you wish it just feels wrong, but I definitely would not want to see them disappear from the game.

[Markdoc]

Re: Resistance is useless

 

I think that it would probably be clearer and more consistent all around if we had a rule change that said that only resistant defences reduced the Stun damage of killing attacks. The trouble with that is that you tend to, if shot, pass out rather than die, or at least you did under 5e and before but with the reduced Stun multiple, that is less of an issue now.

 

Thoughts?

 

I have long been a fan of this approach. It simplifies play, it simplifies the rules, it differentiates between "tough guy with bulletproof vest" (6 rPD/12 PD) and "Guy in Battlesuit" (20rPD) far better than the current rules, and as you note, mathematically it works better.

 

I also suggested a while back that we simplify (and change slightly) the AVAD rules and then simply treat killing vs PD/ED as an AVAD with very common defences. There's a whole chunk of extra text in the AVAD rules that exists because KA works "kind of like AVAD, but not really".

 

cheers, Mark

[Sean Waters]

Re: Resistance is useless

 

I think we need to look at the interaction of Stun and Body and how they apply to defences. Generally the impression I get is that no one is desperately impressed with the 6e change that Killing Attack Stun is stopped by normal PD/ED, even if the target has no resistant defences. It also seems a bit daft to me to use the old 5e rule that even 1 point of resistant defence allows full PD/ED against stun: is it really going to make that much difference to stun if someone is bare chested or has a leather jacket (1rPD) on? That sword/bullet is still going to make a big hole and it is the injury that causes the stun effect.

 

Looking at ‘normal’ level characters, someone without armour might have 6pd. Against a sword that does 2d6 killing, they take (on average) 7 Body and 14 Stun, which, after defences (6e) becomes 7 Body and 8 Stun.

 

Against a 6d6 normal attack they take, on average, 6 Body and 21 Stun which, after defences, is 0 Body and 15 Stun.

 

If they have 5 points of resistant protection as well, against the killing attack they take 2/3, and against the normal attack, they take 0/10.

 

We can draw some conclusions from this: certainly using average figures, the killing attack is still much more deadly but causes less Stun damage than a normal attack of the same DC – even if we ignore the rule that normal defences stop killing Stun.

 

I’m also not convinced that 6DC of normal damage should not cause any more permanent damage than Stun. More of that below.

 

We have kicked this ball in and out of the park a lot, but, check out what happens if ONLY resistant defences stop Stun from Killing attacks:

 

Unarmoured: 7/14, armoured 2/9. You are STILL doing less Stun than normal attacks against the same defences, but the figures seem more reasonable: you are not going to be KOing before killing (or at least horribly messing up), generally speaking.

 

I appreciate that Body damage is, in many ways, far more serious than Stun damage BUT I don’t think you can reasonably balance Stun against Body here. If you are running a game where Body damage is a real possibility (and in most Superhero games, for example, you either very rarely take Body or have a way to recover it quickly – and that is where you usually see the big killing attacks), Body is still going to be a problem: to a large extent the Stun damage is incidental.

 

Still, I believe that ruling that killing Stun is only stopped by resistant defences is not a problem for running the game, and is more logical and structured. The fact that a lot of players had not realised there was a change between 5e and 6e, and the fact that a lot of new players struggle with the rules for defences perhaps suggests that it needs looking at.

 

One option might be to allow resistant defences v Stun or v Body at 1 point per point. You can do that anyway (Normal Defences Resistant +1/2 Only V Stun (or Only v Body) -1/2, so you could build that as a talent without needing any additional rule change.

 

One other issue in this complicated situation is that average figures are not always helpful. Killing attacks are much more volatile than normal attacks because you are rolling smaller numbers of dice, and this has an effect both on Body and Stun: when two volatile numbers are multiplied you get an even more volatile result. I mention this because someone will doubtless do the comparison between average damage through defences and actual damage through defences: KAs still tend to be nastier with the second calculation, and that is where they outstrip normal attacks. On the other hand you CAN have a bad run of damage rolls with KAs, and there is something to be said for the relative predictability of normal attack results.

[psyber624]

Re: Resistance is useless

 

The problem is that in superheroic campaigns that stun multiple is a huge issue. no matter how many dice of KA you have you still have a stun multiple of 1-3 which is HIGHLY variable (33% of the time its a x3). Even with average damage rolls, a 4d6 (the common 60 pt AP cap) KA will 14 Body and 14x Stun Roll Stun. That means that your average hero is going to need Resistant defenses around 10-12 or more for this not to be nearly a 1 shot kill (which is what we have right now based upon the popular theory of 2 DEF per DC, 1/2 resistant). On SM roll 1 you take almost no stun, on a SM roll of 2 you take 28, -10 to 12 is still 16-18, enough to stun most non-bricks. On a 3 you take a whopping 42, same as the average Normal damage, but you only have 10-12 point of protection (in the current Defense Paradigm) meaning 30+ stun, and pretty much anyone is stunned. So your KA's now cause normals to be stunned 66% of the time, Bricks 33% of the time, off of AVERAGE damage rolls. Of course, this will not be acceptable to most gamers, so unless the rules don't allow this your going to see most players beef up their Resistant Protection further than before (to compensate for the increased STUN). This will result in BODY damage from Killing attacks being nearly pointless, as everyone will be protecting themselves from the STUN of killing attacks, not the BODY, so the BODY will never even have a chance. If you don't allow players to beef up their defenses then normal attacks become completely pointless as killing attacks are much better at stunning than normal attacks are (since killing attack stun is only applied to Resistant Defenses).

 

There are a number of ways to fix this issue, like I mentioned earlier. 1. Eliminate the Stun Multiple Roll (KA will ALWAYS do as much Stun as it does body) 2. Make all Normal Attacks Stun only and Killing attacks Body Only (easier to understand, but you could run into issues with destroying objects and the whole "normal attacks can't possibly kill" thing.

 

Personally I don't see a problem with how it works right now. It is slightly harder to understand, but HERO has always been more about balance than ease of play (and this doesn't even come CLOSE to the most difficult thing to understand in HERO.

 

(and frankly Sean saying

no one is desperately impressed

is patently ridiculous. If you want to say many, or most, fine, but saying no one is going to far).

 

Edit: Also, are you wanting Normal damage to ignore Resistant defenses? Or does normal damage still get to apply to the total? If it still applies then the difference between "KA Body only applies to Resistant Defenses" and "KA Damage only applies to Resistant Defenses" is REALLY minor.

[Tasha]

Re: Resistance is useless

 

I think that your math is off a bit. Lets try it my way The forumlas for buying stats are based on my essay. I repeat them below for clarity as to what I am doing and why. This is pretty much how I build characters.

 

The Basic building blocks

DC 12 = 4d6 KA = 14 Body/28stun average (avg Body and x2 stun mult)

Recommended Defenses 24 Def (2x DC)

rDef is 1/2 Def= 14rDef.

Recommended Con based on Avg Normal Attack doing 42 stun = 20 CON (42 Stun - 24Def +2Con)

Recommended Stun 36-54 (2x to 3x avg Stun taken after Defenses)

 

28 Stun -24 Def = 4 Stun taken. 14 Body -14 rDef = 0 Body.

So on an average Roll a Killing attack is Not effective against an average Super (non-Brick)

 

On a Lucky Stun mult roll of x3 does 42 Stun

42 Stun - 24 Def = 18 Stun taken. Again all BODY bounces from 14 def.

 

Better, but you do that amount of stun normally with a Normal Damage Attack (ie Blast).

 

Max Body on KA, x2 Stun Mult

 

48 Stun -24 def = 24 Stun taken, 24 body -14 rDef = 14 BODY taken

 

Very hard hit. Stun taken will Stun Target, setting them up for more damage. Also a 13 BODY hero would be at -1 body and bleeding

Max Body on KA, 3x Stun Mult

 

72 Stun - 24 def = 48 Stun Taken. 24 Body - 14 rDef = 14 BODY taken

 

Fairly Devastating; Target stunned and Probably KOed!

Now if we build old school with rDef = Def or fairly close. The Hero takes little to no body in the last example.

 

 

So there is a reason to keep taking KA's, but the User of the KA is really banking on High Body rolls and High Stun Multipliers, which is not guaranteed at all. Also on an average roll the KA is basically worthless against a Super. It's better to spend that End on firing the Normal Attack. At least there you know that you are doing an average 42 Stun before Defenses. Normal Attacks now max out at the same amount of Stun and Body. The Biggest difference is that for the KA only rDef applies which makes it more likely to do BODY damage on a larger than average roll.

 

I think from an efficient burning of End point of view (assuming that all attacks are using AP/10 Stun and don't have other advantages that change that). Using a Killing Attack vs Using a Normal Attack. I would say that given the chances of actually doing STUN damage to the target one would be best using that Normal Attack till the target is in GM's Option. Using the Killing attack one is either obviously trying to kill the target (doubling their BODY in damage) or wasting End hoping for the Combination of 3x Stun mult and Better than average BODY damage rolled. It sounds like a recipe for frustration to me.

 

Now All of the above only applies when we are talking about Genres that don't use Hit Location. Since Hit Location uses the older 5e range of Stun Multipliers. Attacks using Hit Location are much different and Killing attacks are actually better than Normal Attacks. That's mostly due to how the Hit Location Chart causes Normal Attacks to underperform (ie half the Locations are 1/2 Stun Locs). It's actually important for the balance of Non Supers campaigns to not change the Stun Mults on the Hit Location charts.

 

 

[griffinman01]

Re: Resistance is useless

 

In order to help mediate the complete randomness of STUN coming from KA I've started using a 3x STUN multiplier for all normal KA (if you purchase +1 to it you use 4x and so forth). That's one less die to roll and it keeps it reasonable in both extremes. I hardly ever see killing attacks do less than 10 STUN or more than 30-40 in most cases (this is assuming a 2d6 or 3d6) making it a little more balanced. The reason why I made this change is that I had people hitting 60-70 on STUN from killing attacks and that was stunning people on normal 5e rules. If you try to use the proposed idea of rDef being the only defense on STUN for killing attacks, even 30-40 STUN would probably stun most people. Try getting that same result from an appropriate amount of normal damage (6d6-9d6).

 

I agree that it's odd that 1 point of rDef giving 100% of your PD against the STUN is odd, but I think having STUN from KA going only against rDEF is going to really keep killing attacks from working as intended. For example:

 

You take a 3d6 HKA against a normal super hero who has 12 rDEF. The average BODY from that attack is going to be 10-11 and, assuming you're using my 3x STUN multiplier house rule (which is pretty much the average anyways) you get 30-33 STUN.

 

From that attack the hero takes no BODY and roughly 20 STUN, which would probably stun most heroes built on 250 points. If you up it to 4d6 HKA and say 16 rDEF (to simulate more powerful heroes) the results are about the same (average damage is 14 BODY and 42 STUN resulting in no BODY damage and 26 STUN). The body from this 'killing' attack is negligible compared to the ability for the attack to stun the target. At this point people would probably see Killing attacks as a cheap way to bypass normal defenses (similar to Armor Piercing) so they can stun people easier.

 

Killing attacks are meant to kill and yet using this idea it sounds more like the STUN is the real threat from it. People will buy more rDEF (It's half the cost of regular DEF after all) to try and keep from getting stunned by these killing attacks, further reducing the actual BODY they'd take to the point where they would probably take a Tank shell to the gut without a scratch. At this point they're no longer killing attacks and you pretty much lose anything that would actually deal any BODY damage. This would make the BODY stat worthless because nothing would ever touch it.

[Tasha]

Re: Resistance is useless

 

In order to help mediate the complete randomness of STUN coming from KA I've started using a 3x STUN multiplier for all normal KA (if you purchase +1 to it you use 4x and so forth). That's one less die to roll and it keeps it reasonable in both extremes. I hardly ever see killing attacks do less than 10 STUN or more than 30-40 in most cases (this is assuming a 2d6 or 3d6) making it a little more balanced. The reason why I made this change is that I had people hitting 60-70 on STUN from killing attacks and that was stunning people on normal 5e rules. If you try to use the proposed idea of rDef being the only defense on STUN for killing attacks, even 30-40 STUN would probably stun most people. Try getting that same result from an appropriate amount of normal damage (6d6-9d6).

 

I agree that it's odd that 1 point of rDef giving 100% of your PD against the STUN is odd, but I think having STUN from KA going only against rDEF is going to really keep killing attacks from working as intended. For example:

 

You take a 3d6 HKA against a normal super hero who has 12 rDEF. The average BODY from that attack is going to be 10-11 and, assuming you're using my 3x STUN multiplier house rule (which is pretty much the average anyways) you get 30-33 STUN.

 

From that attack the hero takes no BODY and roughly 20 STUN, which would probably stun most heroes built on 250 points. If you up it to 4d6 HKA and say 16 rDEF (to simulate more powerful heroes) the results are about the same (average damage is 14 BODY and 42 STUN resulting in no BODY damage and 26 STUN). The body from this 'killing' attack is negligible compared to the ability for the attack to stun the target. At this point people would probably see Killing attacks as a cheap way to bypass normal defenses (similar to Armor Piercing) so they can stun people easier.

 

Killing attacks are meant to kill and yet using this idea it sounds more like the STUN is the real threat from it. People will buy more rDEF (It's half the cost of regular DEF after all) to try and keep from getting stunned by these killing attacks, further reducing the actual BODY they'd take to the point where they would probably take a Tank shell to the gut without a scratch. At this point they're no longer killing attacks and you pretty much lose anything that would actually deal any BODY damage. This would make the BODY stat worthless because nothing would ever touch it.

 

In 6e Superheroic games Stun Multipliers are d3 (ie 1/2 d6). The OP was talking about how in 6e one doesn't need any rDef to apply defenses to the Stun component of a Killing attack. That somehow that would make people stop buying rDef for some reason (ie Making it "useless"). The D3 puts KA's in the range of Normal Attacks when it comes to Stun Generated.

 

Yeah, making people buy rDef to resist the Stun of Killing attacks would make Killing Attacks VERY powerful. In superheroic games you would see the PC's start to buy their rDef to equal their normal Def. It would be and annoying change there and only really change the way players would have to build their characters.

 

In Heroic Games (ie Normals). The change would be devastating to game balance. Since rDef runs from 1-8 with average being 3-4 it would make most weapons the equivalent of NND attacks.

 

IMHO the way things are work fine. Changing them is either an annoying nothing change or totally borks game balance. People will continue to buy rDef for the simple reason that Players don't like seeing their PC's Die. That's why there are so many ways to buy rDef in Heroic games.

[Markdoc]

Re: Resistance is useless

 

The problem is that in superheroic campaigns that stun multiple is a huge issue. no matter how many dice of KA you have you still have a stun multiple of 1-3 which is HIGHLY variable (33% of the time its a x3). Even with average damage rolls' date=' a 4d6 (the common 60 pt AP cap) KA will 14 Body and 14x Stun Roll Stun. That means that your average hero is going to need Resistant defenses around 10-12 or more for this not to be nearly a 1 shot kill (which is what we have right now based upon the popular theory of 2 DEF per DC, 1/2 resistant). On SM roll 1 you take almost no stun, on a SM roll of 2 you take 28, -10 to 12 is still 16-18, enough to stun most non-bricks. On a 3 you take a whopping 42, same as the average Normal damage, but you only have 10-12 point of protection (in the current Defense Paradigm) meaning 30+ stun, and pretty much anyone is stunned. So your KA's now cause normals to be stunned 66% of the time, Bricks 33% of the time, off of AVERAGE damage rolls. Of course, this will not be acceptable to most gamers, so unless the rules don't allow this your going to see most players beef up their Resistant Protection further than before (to compensate for the increased STUN). This will result in BODY damage from Killing attacks being nearly pointless, as everyone will be protecting themselves from the STUN of killing attacks, not the BODY, so the BODY will never even have a chance. If you don't allow players to beef up their defenses then normal attacks become completely pointless as killing attacks are much better at stunning than normal attacks are (since killing attack stun is only applied to Resistant Defenses).[/quote']

 

Not true. Even using your own assumptions and numbers above, KA are better at stunning targets with low resistant defences. They'll be worse against armoured targets ... isn't that what we want?

 

Let's run the math, and allow only rDEF to count against killing STUN.

Here's my set up: attacks from 5 to 100 active points, vs Defence at 12, 24, 36 or 48 active points (near enough half, and it makes the math easier ). I'll also run a percentage of rDEF at 0, 25, 50, 75 and 100.

 

Against a target with low overall defences (12 active points):

The KA always averages more BOD, even when all those points are spent on rDEF. On a low STUN Mult, the KA is worse at doing STUN, regardless of how the defences are distributed, except for tiny attacks vs no rDEF. But you won't even stun a granny at that level: we're talking about sneaking 1-4 STUN through.

On an average STUN Mult, the KA is better at putting STUN through vs no rDEF, up to 10 DC, after that it's worse. If the target has 25% rDEF, then small KAs put more stun through but from 5 DC upward, normal attacks are better. At 50% rDEF, normal attacks are almost always better at putting stun through, while at 100% they are always better

On a maximum stun mult. the KA is always better at getting STUN through vs no rDEF or 25% rDEF, marginally better vs 75% rDEF and slightly worse against 100% rdEF

 

If we beef up defences a bit (24 active points):

The results for BOD are similar - the KA remains better at getting BOD through, even against fully resistant defences

With a low STUN Mult, it is almost always worse at doing STUN, except for the case of small KA vs no rDEF or 25% rDEF, where agin, we are talking about 1-6 STUN in total through defences

On an average STUN Mult, it is significantly better for small attacks and marginally better with larger attacks vs no rDEF or 25% rDEF, marginally worse vs 50% rDEF and of course significantly worse vs 100% rDEF

And on a high STUN mult, it's significantly better against the lower rDEF levels and marginally worse vs 100% rDEF

 

I won't bore you with further details, because bumping DEF to 36 or 48 active points changes the floor at which normal attacks start doing damage, but doesn't change the pattern at all.

 

I see this as a bonus, really - killing attacks will be significantly more dangerous than they are now (though less than they were in 5E), but on the whole will still do less STUN than normal attacks.

 

But let's look at your concern:

So your KA's now cause normals to be stunned 66% of the time, Bricks 33% of the time, off of AVERAGE damage rolls.

Ummmm. Yeah. If you hit them with a 4d6 KA. Imagine! If Spidey took a 20 mm high velocity shell from an attack helicopter to the chest, there's a 66% chance that he'd be stunned ... You know, actually, that doesn't sound unreasonable to me.

 

Now you are right, that it'd change gameplay. There would be reason to have a much larger range of defences, and killing attacks would become scarier to people with low levels of resistant defence (though more because of the chance of being stunned than because they were more lethal). Characters with a higher proportion of rDEF would have better defences against killing attacks - at the cost of increased vulnerability to normal attacks (assuming the same total cost of defences) But I'm cool with that: it increases PC variety and the range of viable options - and at a negative cost to game play (ie: decreased complexity).

 

cheers, Mark

 

Edit: though I like even better the idea of making Killing simply an AVAD and simplifying AVAD. That reduces the volatility of killing attacks which, as illustrated by this discussion, is still a problem.

[psyber624]

Re: Resistance is useless

 

First off, Tasha, my numbers were considering Sean's plan of only rDEF applies to KA stun, at that point the stun potential of KA goes through the roof (using current defenses) since with the current recommended paradigm you are cutting your stun defense in half.

 

Markdoc, I don't really understand what you are trying to say. Defenses and Attacks are basically always going to scale, regardless of how you do things. This system allows you to build your characters however you want and VERY few players would keep their defenses the same if you made rDEF required for KA Stun. The simple fact of the matter is that unless you force players to keep their rDEF low they will simply spend most (if not all) of their defense points in rDEF so that KA's don't KO them, unless they are reasonably sure that they will NEVER fight someone with a KA. Otherwise the first guy who brings a KA to the field wins. His attacks will cause BODY damage to them, AND leave them stunned so that his next attack will be almost a guaranteed hit (1/2 DCV) and possibly NO def if your a ForceField user. That's basically a death sentence. And on the flip side unless you forbid your players to purchase KA, they will be so powerful on a point to point basis that everyone will buy them, not to kill people but to stun them.

 

So what I am saying is that the net result of this change, if we don't also change the way STUN is calculated for a KA, is that KAs become LESS effective than they are now because players will buy their rDEF up to block the average STUN damage, which is twice the average BODY damage, meaning you have no chance of ever getting body through. So unless you are saying

Ummmm. Yeah. If you hit them with a 4d6 KA. Imagine! If Spidey took a 20 mm high velocity shell from an attack helicopter to the chest, there's a 66% chance that he'd be stunned ... You know, actually, that doesn't sound unreasonable to me.

means that he should also be Stunned 66% of the time by a 12d6 EB then your not comparing the same factors. (actually, considering KA attacks are about Killing, and Normal damage is about stunning, should it be more often even?). And this isn't Marvel. Who is Spidey (mechanics wise)? Is he a 400 pt character in your world? Because that is what I am basing my numbers on, 400 pt characters, 60 pts AP cap, Average Defenses of 24 (1/2 resistant). Which, by my understanding, is the current "norm" for the average superhero character.

 

Now, part of what you are saying seems to include the idea that this change would also mean that rDEF doesn't add any protection to normal attacks. Which again will simply mean that players will just start spending more on defenses than before.

 

And as far as a 4d6 KA, thats what you get for 60 AP. Same as a 12d6 Normal Damage attack. Since we are talking about balance insinuating that a 4d6 KA is an unreasonable level for comparison is unjustified. Unless you are stating that with the change the cost of KA should go up as well, we need to compare apples to apples, not apples to orange. Stating that a 2-3d6 KA won't be able to do as much STUN as a 12d6 normal attack really has no bearing on the arguement.

[Tasha]

Re: Resistance is useless

 

Psyber, your numbers were clear as mud. Now I understand the point you were making. which was the Point I made in the Post after the one with all of the math (where I replyed to Griffyman).

 

If you make rDef the Only defense against KA stun. Then you put KA's back where they were in 5e Way over powered. A Superheroic Genre Player would do one thing. They would buy rDef up to the same level as their Def (ie rPD and rED are equal to their PD and ED). If the GM had the rule of half PD and ED could be made resistant, you would have the Killing Attacks become the Power of choice. It would be like limiting Def to DC. The PC wouldn't have enough Def to withstand an average attack.

 

ie (Using the same assumptions as above DC 12, Con 22, Stun 36,)

 

With DEF 24, rDef 12, Avg roll body x2 Stun Mult

 

14 Body done, 28 Stun. 2 BODY taken, 14 Stun Taken.

 

Not Horrible, Not Stunned or KOed.

 

Avg Body, x3 Stun mult

 

14 Body done, 36 Stun. 2 BODY taken, 28 Stun Taken

 

Stunned, and can only take one more of those before KO.

------

 

For Heroic Games (using Stun Mult Die)

 

DC 5, Con 13, Stun 25 6Def, 4rDef

 

Avg Roll, x2 Stun mult.

6 Body, 12 Stun . 2 Body Taken 8 Stun taken.

 

Not bad not stunned,

 

Avg Roll x3 Stun Mult.

6 body, 18 Stun , 2 Body Taken, 14 Stun Taken.

 

Stunned, can take one more before KO.

-----

 

IMHO what happens is that by making kStun only go vs rDef you bring back the power of the Stun Lottery. Which is something that Steve engineered out of the system with 6e's new Stun mult Die. In the current system KA's are what you use when trying to Kill your target. It usually feeds a couple of Stun through either though the Stun Mult or by the Minimum Stun rule (Each body taken does a minimum of 1 stun). So we go back to people buying KA's trying to hit the Stun Lottery because face it with Low Def against the Stun, they will do enough stun to make the attack better than a Normal Attack.

 

With that Change the Hit Location chart would have to have stun Mults from x1 to x3, not the current x1 to x5. Which would compress the granularity of the amount of stun done by those attacks. Said Low granularity is a real concern for the Low end Heroic part of the game.

 

Again, the system is not broken. Lets not go fixing something that is actually working as intended.

[Greywind]

Re: Resistance is useless

 

Again' date=' the system is not broken. Lets not go fixing something that is actually working as intended.[/quote']Same could be said pre-6th about KAs.

[Ndreare]

Re: Resistance is useless

 

Same could be said pre-6th about KAs.

 

Previous killing attacks were very broken.

Killing attacks were effectively AVLD without a modifier added. Characters were entered into a stun lottery every time the were attacked by a killing attack and had to hope to come out of it.

 

Even on large dice pools were Body damage normalizes and Stun damage of a normal attack normalizes but the stun damage of a KA was always able on 33% chance to do far more stun.

 

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[Greywind]

Re: Resistance is useless

 

That was a feature. Not a failure.

[Tasha]

Re: Resistance is useless

 

Same could be said pre-6th about KAs.

 

Actually that's not true. There were MANY threads on these boards bemoaning the Stun Lottery and how people mitigate the problems inherent with it. Esp how a DC12 power could do 70 Stun with an average Body roll and a 1 in 6 chance on the Stun Mod.

 

6e Fixed that issue very well.

 

This solution will put us back nearly in the same place we were in 5e and earlier. Where buying KA's in Champs and using them as a Go to power made real sense. The stun lotto would come up enough to make it worth it. I have no desire to go back to those days.

[Greywind]

Re: Resistance is useless

 

Problem was is that the PLAYERS didn't want to end up on the losing end of the STUN Lottery. They didn't have any issues dishing it out.

[Tasha]

Re: Resistance is useless

 

Problem was is that the PLAYERS didn't want to end up on the losing end of the STUN Lottery. They didn't have any issues dishing it out.

 

No the problem was that GM's got sick of Players repeatedly hitting the Stun Lotto screwing up the nights fun by KOing the Big Baddy in a few phases. Most of the griping about KA's were the GM's. Most GM's wouldn't have their NPC's using KA's because they knew it wasn't fun insta-KOing a PC.

[bluesguy]

Re: Resistance is useless

 

In 6e Superheroic games Stun Multipliers are d3 (ie 1/2 d6).

 

Where is that rule at? I don't remember reading it.