Reasonable limits in your games

[CorpCommander]

I've been running a Fantasy game using Hero since this summer. I've heard of people putting limits on powers and such and didn't give it much thought. Well, I am now at the point where I have to start looking at it again as I have one character with too much armor and another character with a 4d6 RKA. While it hasn't totally unbalanced the game, it has made it so that I have to come up with some pretty darn ferocious beasties.

 

For a 75+75 point game what caps do you put?

I've heard 10pts def max and 60pts in any power or attack. Is this reasonable? Do you ever let charactes exceed this and when?

 

Any advice greatly appreciated

[Monolith]

In a 75+75 game I would probably go 12 DEF and 60 AP, though due to STUN Multiples a 4d6 KA can have severe consequences. I might even limit KA to 50 AP.

[Gary]

Originally posted by Monolith

In a 75+75 game I would probably go 12 DEF and 60 AP, though due to STUN Multiples a 4d6 KA can have severe consequences. I might even limit KA to 50 AP.

 

Actually when defenses are only 12, normal attacks are far better than killing attacks in terms of average net stun and probability of stunning the target. 4d6 KA is only better than 12d6 N if you want to inflict body to the target.

[Monolith]

Originally posted by Gary

Actually when defenses are only 12, normal attacks are far better than killing attacks in terms of average net stun and probability of stunning the target. 4d6 KA is only better than 12d6 N if you want to inflict body to the target.

I guess what I was trying to say was that it is fairly common to roll x4 and x5 hit location modifiers in Heroic Level games, and due to the nature of how Stun damage is handled between Killing and Normal damage with Hit Location a 3d6+1 KA to the head will do as much damage as a 12d6 EB to the same location, assuming 20 combined defenses.

 

3d6+1, on average, does 12 BODY and 60 STUN to head. -20 DEF is 40 STUN taken.

12d6, on average, does 42 STUN -20 DEF = 22x2=44 STUN.

 

To my mind that makes them about even attacks.

[Gary]

Originally posted by Monolith

I guess what I was trying to say was that it is fairly common to roll x4 and x5 hit location modifiers in Heroic Level games, and due to the nature of how Stun damage is handled between Killing and Normal damage with Hit Location a 3d6+1 KA to the head will do as much damage as a 12d6 EB to the same location, assuming 20 combined defenses.

 

3d6+1, on average, does 12 BODY and 60 STUN to head. -20 DEF is 40 STUN taken.

12d6, on average, does 42 STUN -20 DEF = 22x2=44 STUN.

 

To my mind that makes them about even attacks.

 

I thought we were talking about 12 def not 20?

 

Anyway, head shots are uncommon, less than 5% of the time unless you deliberately target it. If you average out all hit locations including the X1 and X2 locations, a 12d6 normal attack is far better than a 3d6+1 KA even with 20 def.

[Vondy]

Originally posted by Gary

I thought we were talking about 12 def not 20?

 

Anyway, head shots are uncommon, less than 5% of the time unless you deliberately target it. If you average out all hit locations including the X1 and X2 locations, a 12d6 normal attack is far better than a 3d6+1 KA even with 20 def.

 

I think he meant 12 resistant

 

For my (fantasy) games I use 12 R DEF as an upper limit guideline, which comes out at 20 TOT DEF for a practical upper limit.

 

As for attacks: I generally run around a 50 AP limit, but I also run a low fantasy game where magic is fairly uncommon, and tends towards subtler effects. With extra strength and maneuvers its not uncommon for warriors to average out around 3d6+1.

[Fitz]

Head hits aren't all that common, but for some reason about one hit in three in my FH campaign hits one of the characters in the groin. Sorry, "vitals".

 

I can't explain it, I've tried changing dice but no matter what I do I keep slamming them right in the swimsuit area. It's got to the stage now where one of them has gone out and bought himself an armoured codpiece -- his only armoured location, I might add.

[bjbrown]

I'd recommend that a Standard Hero campaign (75 + 75) would use the guidelines on page 15 of Hero System Fifth Edition. (Though the characters in my game started at roughly 75 + 50, after conversion from an AD&D game, and through xp are now at something like 125 + 50, I generally still go by the guidelines on page 15 for a Standard Hero power level.)

[jallen0002]

Originally posted by Fitz

Head hits aren't all that common, but for some reason about one hit in three in my FH campaign hits one of the characters in the groin. Sorry, "vitals".

 

I can't explain it, I've tried changing dice but no matter what I do I keep slamming them right in the swimsuit area. It's got to the stage now where one of them has gone out and bought himself an armoured codpiece -- his only armoured location, I might add.

Another good question along with this thread is where do you stop skill levels. For example in a 75+75 game you can have 50 points in physical characteristics, drop 36 points in 12 levels of OCV with Melee Weapons, take some simple martial arts with Melee weapons along with Two Weapon Fighting and you have a character who can reliably pull off called shots to the head with a martial arts attack of some sort almost garaunteeing CON STUN on a target, even one with heavier duty armor.

 

 

Example: Ginsar the living ginsu places a called shot to the orc's head. He hits the orc and rolls his 3D6-1 damage. He rolls average and only gets 10 points of damage. This is a head shot, which means 50 STUN from one attack. The orc's rPD is 6 and standard PD is 5. That means the orc takes 39 stun. The body is DMG-rPD * BODYx.. which is 10 - 6 * 2, or 8.

 

Unless this orc was real healhty he was just CON stunned. Eight of those attacks per round. If the opponent is tougher to hit just settle on disarming and called shots to the chest or upper body. Its deadly effective in most cases

 

I have seen characters like this with a 4 speed sucesfully kill 4-5 orcs in one turn, even when the orcs are making a concerted effort to kill the PC

 

It is plain and simple nasty yet completely rules legal and representative of a character that basically has practiced with Melee weapons so much that he is freakishly accurate with them.

 

Jeremy

[johnflang]

In our fantasy campaign limits are normally 8-12 resistant defenses. 60 AP on spells. No combination of skill levels can give you more than 5 levels OCV or add 5 to a skill unless in game you meet a master who teaches you to get above that level.

[lemming]

Originally posted by jallen0002

Another good question along with this thread is where do you stop skill levels.

A friend had a max OCV limit in his game based on experience. He just dealt with raw CV without weapon adds. Got us to beef our levels into full combat levels. I think we had topped out around 20 OCV with 250 experience, but it has been a few years.

[Monolith]

Originally posted by Gary

I thought we were talking about 12 def not 20?

Sorry, as D-Man pointed out, I was referring to 12 rDEF and the 8 DEF allowed due to NCM.

 

Anyway, head shots are uncommon, less than 5% of the time unless you deliberately target it. If you average out all hit locations including the X1 and X2 locations, a 12d6 normal attack is far better than a 3d6+1 KA even with 20 def.

I have found, at least in the games that I play, the that Head and Vitals shots come up far more often then one would imagine within the course of a game. When the do come up the STUN Lotto effect makes a huge difference, especially when dealing with how damage is applied differently between the two attacks.

[CrosshairCollie]

Last time I ran FH, I didn't worry about it much. I looked at it this way ... it's my job to challenge the players and their characters. If their characters keep steadily rising in power, so will the opposition, to keep things challenging (I apply the same theory when I run D&D, so I don't care if people powergame). The tougher you get, the tougher they get.

[Gary]

Originally posted by Monolith

I have found, at least in the games that I play, the that Head and Vitals shots come up far more often then one would imagine within the course of a game. When the do come up the STUN Lotto effect makes a huge difference, especially when dealing with how damage is applied differently between the two attacks.

 

X5 stun multiple 10/216

X4 stun multiple 46/216

X3 stun multiple 79/216

X2 stun multiple 67/216

X1 stun multiple 14/216

 

X4 or X5 stun multiple only occurs 26% of the time. Far more common would be X2 or X3 stun multiple. In a normal campaign where the laws of probability are followed, normal attacks are far better than killing attacks when low defenses are in effect.

[BNakagawa]

your statistics assume nobody ever aims for a high yield target.

 

Of course, NO PC would EVER do such a dastardly thing...

 

 

...the very thought.

 

(or fudges die rolls)

[Gary]

Originally posted by BNakagawa

your statistics assume nobody ever aims for a high yield target.

 

Of course, NO PC would EVER do such a dastardly thing...

 

I still can't see it coming up often enough to matter. Even if it did, normal attacks have hit locations as well. And the X2 stun for head shots and X1.5 stun for vitals and stomach shots compare favorably with killing attacks.

 

For example, a 12d6 normal to the head will average 84 stun. To the stomach and vitals, it will average 63 stun. A 4d6 KA will average 70 stun to the head, and 56 stun to the stomach and vitals.

 

Originally posted by BNakagawa

...the very thought.

 

(or fudges die rolls)

 

With fudged dice, pretty much any attack is good.

[zornwil]

Re: Reasonable limits in your games

 

Originally posted by CorpCommander

I've been running a Fantasy game using Hero since this summer. I've heard of people putting limits on powers and such and didn't give it much thought. Well, I am now at the point where I have to start looking at it again as I have one character with too much armor and another character with a 4d6 RKA. While it hasn't totally unbalanced the game, it has made it so that I have to come up with some pretty darn ferocious beasties.

 

For a 75+75 point game what caps do you put?

I've heard 10pts def max and 60pts in any power or attack. Is this reasonable? Do you ever let charactes exceed this and when?

 

Any advice greatly appreciated

 

My rule of thumb is not to do points caps but to examine the characters and powers carefully. If you have 75+75 characters, a 4d6 RKA is a lot of points, 4/5 of his base cost. He is either really weak defensively or in SPD or ability to hit. Assuming those aren't balancing his offensive power, I'd look at that power itself. I would guess that if he isn't weak enough in other areas, his RKA must be limited unduly, and I'd dig into that. If it still weren't working, I suppose I'd start to go towards caps. But I don't have any experience in GMing that low a game in HERO, so that's the extent of my advice and I don't know what caps work best.