Killing Damage & the Stun Lottery

[TheRealDeal]

The problem I see with this idea is that is sets up a whole new attack form with its own totally separate defense (resistant in this case). This means if you have only enough rDEF to protect from the RAW KA Body (since you used your non-resistant defense for the STUN) then you suddenly take massive amounts of STUN from KAs since your non-res def no longer helps. It means characters now need to take enough rDEF to reasonably protect from all that KA Stun. But what this does, is make KAs just like normal attacks, in that they now do no Body, since most will buy enough rDEF to keep these KAs from stunning them, but that means no KA Body ever gets through. This totally ruins the point of KAs.

 

They way they work now, only the Body of KAs use a special defense (rDEF) and the Stun still uses the universal defense. This means you can have lower rDEF and thus suffer Body from KA (their whole point) but not worry about being stunned out by them since Stun still works off the universal defense of non-resistant.

 

My idea was to keep the feel of KAs as focused on doing Body, but to deal with the Stun they do by disconnecting it from the universal defense and tying it directly to the Body they end up doing (since Body damage is their whole point). My idea allows rDEF to remain as they are in all the RAW builds (no need to recalc them) and just allows KAs to only consider rDEF, for the Body, then the Stun takes whatever Body gets through and multiplies it by 1d3 for the Stun. Simple, makes KAs still focus on Body, and makes the only defense against them truly be rDEF (as they ignore normal defense) which seems to be the flavor intended. But it does all this without unbalancing the rest of the RAW characters out there already made and without requiring rebuilding and recalculating them.

[Vanguard]

Some people like some randomness in their damage. As happens in the movies, someone shot (mortally) will die later. Why? They've taken damage enough to put them in the negative Body but not enough to knock them out. Having the possibility of rolling a 1 on the Stun Multiplier allows this possibility to happen.

Ya know, I've never thought of it that way before . . .

 

I still don't like the Stun Lotto but your explanation of why it's not a bad thing makes more sense than any I've heard to date.

[Markdoc]

The problem I see with this idea is that is sets up a whole new attack form with its own totally separate defense (resistant in this case). This means if you have only enough rDEF to protect from the RAW KA Body (since you used your non-resistant defense for the STUN) then you suddenly take massive amounts of STUN from KAs since your non-res def no longer helps. It means characters now need to take enough rDEF to reasonably protect from all that KA Stun. But what this does' date=' is make KAs just like normal attacks, in that they now do no Body, since most will buy enough rDEF to keep these KAs from stunning them, but that means no KA Body ever gets through. This totally ruins the point of KAs.[/quote']

 

Actually, it's not as bad as you seem to think - I've run the numbers across a wide range of DEF values with varying percentages of rDEF. In general, if you want to stun somebody, you are usually better off with a normal attack, which generates significantly more STUN to start with.

But let's take the argument in detail.

...since most will buy enough rDEF to keep these KAs from stunning them' date=' but that means no KA Body ever gets through[/quote']

 

But given the way that STUN from killing attacks spike in the current system, a 4d6 KA will relatively frequently generate 54+ stun: do people buy enough DEF to prevent Stunning from a 12 DC KA under the current rules? Answer: no, they do not. Only Bricks routinely approach that level of DEF. Heck, a lot of PCs don't even have enough rDEF to prevent all the BOD that a 12DC killing attack will dish out, and I don't think many people would argue that a 60 active point attack is "over-powered". Indeed, the whole "stun lottery" argument is driven by the fact that killing attacks were (and to some extent, still are) the most effective way to stun high defence targets and that it's really expensive to build a brick who isn't at risk of getting stunned by ordinary gunfire.

 

So why would players suddenly start to design differently from the way they always have in the past? In fact, by lowering the overall BOD output of killing attacks slightly, characters with lower rDEF become more viable. Most non-brick PCs buy enough rDEF to prevent getting smeared by killing attacks - but as noted, it's hard to get enough to protect against stunning.

 

Now you are right that this change does generate a completely new form of attack. Killing as an advantage does work differently from the current KA. But that's intended. Right now, KA does two things: it generates a bit more BOD than regular attacks and (even with a 3x multiplier) it reliably - but intermittently - generates higher STUN output than a normal attack. And it goes partially, but not fully, against a different defence. Killing as an advantage, doesn't do either of those things. Instead, it creates a new kind of attack: one that specifically messes up soft targets. This means that you can generate different kinds of attacks:

1. Normal attacks. Do the most BOD and STUN, but are stopped by most defences. Good for knocking things down and stunning people.

2. Killing attacks. Do less BOD and STUN, but are very effective against unarmoured or lightly armoured targets.

3. Penetrating attacks. Do much less BOD and STUN, but are effective at breaking things, and injuring people (without stunning them)

4. AP attacks. Do less STUN and BOD, but are effective at getting damage through very high defences.

 

They way they work now' date=' only the Body of KAs use a special defense (rDEF) and the Stun still uses the universal defense. This means you can have lower rDEF and thus suffer Body from KA (their whole point) but not worry about being stunned out by them since Stun still works off the universal defense of non-resistant.[/quote']

 

And what this means in practice, is that killing attacks are the preferred approach to targets with low defences .... and also the preferred attack for targets with high defences. I'm not sure that's actually what we want. I know it's not actually what I want. That whole "All attacks work with defences this way, except for this one particular attack that works another way ..." is something I'd like to ditch. The reason the AVAD advantage is such a wall of text is precisely because it needs to weasel around the fact that killing attacks are already a sort-of-but-not-really AVAD.

 

My idea was to keep the feel of KAs as focused on doing Body' date=' but to deal with the Stun they do by disconnecting it from the universal defense and tying it directly to the Body they end up doing (since Body damage is their whole point). My idea allows rDEF to remain as they are in all the RAW builds (no need to recalc them) and just allows KAs to only consider rDEF, for the Body, then the Stun takes whatever Body gets through and multiplies it by 1d3 for the Stun. Simple, makes KAs still focus on Body, and makes the only defense against them truly be rDEF (as they ignore normal defense) which seems to be the flavor intended. But it does all this without unbalancing the rest of the RAW characters out there already made and without requiring rebuilding and recalculating them.[/quote']

 

The problem with your idea is that it likely won't work the way you think it will. Most PC's already buy enough rDEF to bounce most of the BOD from the killing attacks they routinely expect to meet: which makes sense - people don't like getting their PCs killed by some thug with a gat. So in your case, a killing attack which does no BOD does no damage at all. So 7 rDEF renders most handguns entirely useless. 12 rDEF renders almost all small arms entirely useless. These are not outrageous levels of DEF. If anything, this approach would encourage people to buy more rDEF, not less, because for only a small investment, you gain near immunity to killing attacks. Heck, I'd certainly do it. So your approach ensures that killing attacks won't be used to generate BOD - because they won't be much good for anything. I doubt people would bother using them, except in edge cases. It also - by generating a new mechanism - increases complexity. What is the cost of the advantage "Damage calculated off how much BOD goes through"? What happens when you start building killing attacks that work against different defences? etc.

 

I should point out that I don't think it's a bad idea. In some ways it actually models how killing attacks work. Just that it's not likely to work the way you think it would, in-game, and it adds another layer of "special rules just for KA"

 

I think it's also questionable as to whether the point of KAs is to do BOD. That's how we think of them, because the current mechanism makes KA good at doing BOD (as well as STUN). In real life though, many of the things we define as killing attacks are really bad at doing BOD. If you want to break down a door, you're better off with a club than a pistol or a sword, even though a pistol or a sword is clearly more lethal when it comes to squishy targets like people. The simple idea "killing attacks do more damage" doesn't hold up. Now I accept that we're abstracting damage, so I'm not trying to suggest we want to model damage precisely (even if we could). I'm just pointing out that in reality, what we define as killing attacks are typically good at hurting lightly armoured targets, but not great at doing a lot of BOD. We can model that relatively easily.

 

And making killing an advantage would not necessitate rewriting characters wholesale. In fact, virtually no changes would be needed. Every dice of killing attack (current rules) would become 2d6 of blast (killing). You don't need to change DEF at all. The reduced DEF you'd get against STUN is, to a very large extent, compensated for by the fact that STUN damage is reduced compared to KA under the current rules. Right now, each dice of KA generates (on average) 3.5 BOD and 7 STUN, with surges of up to 6 BOD and 18 STUN, about 8% of the time. In contrast, the same cost of "killing blast" would generate (on average) 2 BOD and 7 stun and surges of up to 4 BOD and 11 stun 8% of the time. What that means in practice is that compared to current rules, characters with low rDEF are at less risk of dying, but more risk of being incapacitated. Characters with medium rDEF are at less risk of dying and less risk of being incapacitated, and characters with high rDEF are at much less risk of dying and much less risk of being incapacitated.

 

It still means that killing attacks are dangerous to low rDEF characters: just that the risk is more that they will be incapacitated than killed outright, which is not necessarily a bad thing for cinematic games.

 

cheers, Mark

[bigbywolfe]

The problem I see with this idea is that is sets up a whole new attack form with its own totally separate defense (resistant in this case). This means if you have only enough rDEF to protect from the RAW KA Body (since you used your non-resistant defense for the STUN) then you suddenly take massive amounts of STUN from KAs since your non-res def no longer helps. It means characters now need to take enough rDEF to reasonably protect from all that KA Stun. But what this does' date=' is make KAs just like normal attacks, in that they now do no Body, since most will buy enough rDEF to keep these KAs from stunning them, but that means no KA Body ever gets through. This totally ruins the point of KAs.[/quote']

 

Actually, it's not as bad as you seem to think - I've run the numbers across a wide range of DEF values with varying percentages of rDEF. In general, if you want to stun somebody, you are usually better off with a normal attack, which generates significantly more STUN to start with.

But let's take the argument in detail.

...since most will buy enough rDEF to keep these KAs from stunning them' date=' but that means no KA Body ever gets through[/quote']

 

But given the way that STUN from killing attacks spike in the current system, a 4d6 KA will relatively frequently generate 54+ stun: do people buy enough DEF to prevent Stunning from a 12 DC KA under the current rules? Answer: no, they do not. Only Bricks routinely approach that level of DEF. Heck, a lot of PCs don't even have enough rDEF to prevent all the BOD that a 12DC killing attack will dish out, and I don't think many people would argue that a 60 active point attack is "over-powered". Indeed, the whole "stun lottery" argument is driven by the fact that killing attacks were (and to some extent, still are) the most effective way to stun high defence targets and that it's really expensive to build a brick who isn't at risk of getting stunned by ordinary gunfire.

 

So why would players suddenly start to design differently from the way they always have in the past? In fact, by lowering the overall BOD output of killing attacks slightly, characters with lower rDEF become more viable. Most non-brick PCs buy enough rDEF to prevent getting smeared by killing attacks - but as noted, it's hard to get enough to protect against stunning.

 

Now you are right that this change does generate a completely new form of attack. Killing as an advantage does work differently from the current KA. But that's intended. Right now, KA does two things: it generates a bit more BOD than regular attacks and (even with a 3x multiplier) it reliably - but intermittently - generates higher STUN output than a normal attack. And it goes partially, but not fully, against a different defence. Killing as an advantage, doesn't do either of those things. Instead, it creates a new kind of attack: one that specifically messes up soft targets. This means that you can generate different kinds of attacks:

1. Normal attacks. Do the most BOD and STUN, but are stopped by most defences. Good for knocking things down and stunning people.

2. Killing attacks. Do less BOD and STUN, but are very effective against unarmoured or lightly armoured targets.

3. Penetrating attacks. Do much less BOD and STUN, but are effective at breaking things, and injuring people (without stunning them)

4. AP attacks. Do less STUN and BOD, but are effective at getting damage through very high defences.

 

They way they work now' date=' only the Body of KAs use a special defense (rDEF) and the Stun still uses the universal defense. This means you can have lower rDEF and thus suffer Body from KA (their whole point) but not worry about being stunned out by them since Stun still works off the universal defense of non-resistant.[/quote']

 

And what this means in practice, is that killing attacks are the preferred approach to targets with low defences .... and also the preferred attack for targets with high defences. I'm not sure that's actually what we want. I know it's not actually what I want. That whole "All attacks work with defences this way, except for this one particular attack that works another way ..." is something I'd like to ditch. The reason the AVAD advantage is such a wall of text is precisely because it needs to weasel around the fact that killing attacks are already a sort-of-but-not-really AVAD.

 

My idea was to keep the feel of KAs as focused on doing Body' date=' but to deal with the Stun they do by disconnecting it from the universal defense and tying it directly to the Body they end up doing (since Body damage is their whole point). My idea allows rDEF to remain as they are in all the RAW builds (no need to recalc them) and just allows KAs to only consider rDEF, for the Body, then the Stun takes whatever Body gets through and multiplies it by 1d3 for the Stun. Simple, makes KAs still focus on Body, and makes the only defense against them truly be rDEF (as they ignore normal defense) which seems to be the flavor intended. But it does all this without unbalancing the rest of the RAW characters out there already made and without requiring rebuilding and recalculating them.[/quote']

 

The problem with your idea is that it likely won't work the way you think it will. Most PC's already buy enough rDEF to bounce most of the BOD from the killing attacks they routinely expect to meet: which makes sense - people don't like getting their PCs killed by some thug with a gat. So in your case, a killing attack which does no BOD does no damage at all. So 7 rDEF renders most handguns entirely useless. 12 rDEF renders almost all small arms entirely useless. These are not outrageous levels of DEF. If anything, this approach would encourage people to buy more rDEF, not less, because for only a small investment, you gain near immunity to killing attacks. Heck, I'd certainly do it. So your approach ensures that killing attacks won't be used to generate BOD - because they won't be much good for anything. I doubt people would bother using them, except in edge cases. It also - by generating a new mechanism - increases complexity. What is the cost of the advantage "Damage calculated off how much BOD goes through"? What happens when you start building killing attacks that work against different defences? etc.

 

I should point out that I don't think it's a bad idea. In some ways it actually models how killing attacks work. Just that it's not likely to work the way you think it would, in-game, and it adds another layer of "special rules just for KA"

 

I think it's also questionable as to whether the point of KAs is to do BOD. That's how we think of them, because the current mechanism makes KA good at doing BOD (as well as STUN). In real life though, many of the things we define as killing attacks are really bad at doing BOD. If you want to break down a door, you're better off with a club than a pistol or a sword, even though a pistol or a sword is clearly more lethal when it comes to squishy targets like people. The simple idea "killing attacks do more damage" doesn't hold up. Now I accept that we're abstracting damage, so I'm not trying to suggest we want to model damage precisely (even if we could). I'm just pointing out that in reality, what we define as killing attacks are typically good at hurting lightly armoured targets, but not great at doing a lot of BOD. We can model that relatively easily.

 

And making killing an advantage would not necessitate rewriting characters wholesale. In fact, virtually no changes would be needed. Every dice of killing attack (current rules) would become 2d6 of blast (killing). You don't need to change DEF at all. The reduced DEF you'd get against STUN is, to a very large extent, compensated for by the fact that STUN damage is reduced compared to KA under the current rules. Right now, each dice of KA generates (on average) 3.5 BOD and 7 STUN, with surges of up to 6 BOD and 18 STUN, about 8% of the time. In contrast, the same cost of "killing blast" would generate (on average) 2 BOD and 7 stun and surges of up to 4 BOD and 11 stun 8% of the time. What that means in practice is that compared to current rules, characters with low rDEF are at less risk of dying, but more risk of being incapacitated. Characters with medium rDEF are at less risk of dying and less risk of being incapacitated, and characters with high rDEF are at much less risk of dying and much less risk of being incapacitated.

 

It still means that killing attacks are dangerous to low rDEF characters: just that the risk is more that they will be incapacitated than killed outright, which is not necessarily a bad thing for cinematic games.

 

cheers, Mark

The math has been done in several other threads an the average stun for Killing attacks in 6E is lower than Normal attacks, not higher.

[rstehwien]

I appreciate efforts to reduce the stun lottery as I seemed to be its victim since 1e - my characters usually did well against other supers but out comes an agent with a machine gun and the x5 stun multiples popped up with obscene regularity. With the multiple of 1d6-1, the problem wasn't just that killing attacks did better stun it was the variance of the results. 6e improved things changing the multiple to 1/2d6 but it still comes down to fewer dice rolled makes for higher variance in results.

 

Making killing attacks roll a similar number of dice gives it the same bell curve behavior that normal attacks have. In addition to the AVAD (which I may try) above I've also seen.

"Killing" becomes a +0 Modifier to Energy Blast. Energy Blasts purchased as "Killing" are applied against Resistant defenses and do 1d6 less Knockback.

KA gets 1 BOD from a 1-5 and 2 from a 6 (raising the average BOD back up to where it was for the old system) but subtracts the number of dice from STUN, thus averaging less Stun than a normal attack. That makes it better at killing and poorer at knocking out than a normal attack.

 

What we found in earlier versions that helped was using the hit location chart and just reading the multiplier. Killing attacks still had higher potential for stun (which was annoying). Sadly 6e didn't change the hit location multipliers to match the same range when not using the hit location chart (still goes up to x5). But I've been wondering if rolling 3d6 for the multiplier might help keep the results more predictable. Some table like one of these:

3d6 STUNx

3-7 x1

8-13 x2

14-18 x3

* 16.2% chance of x1 or x3

 

Using 1/2d6 you have a 33% chance of any multiplier. I chose the above because it is close to half that for the two extremes. You can fiddle with the probability of x1 or x3 to fit how you think it should behave. Change to 3-6/15-18 and it is 9.26%, 3-5/16-18 is 4.63%, 3-4/17-18 is 1.85%, and 3/18 is .46%. Could weight it more toward x1 if desired.

 

The able above allows you to use the rules as is but adjust multiplier probabilities I'm leery of allowing increases in stun multiple because I saw numerous people abuse it just to KO people in one shot.

[Trebuchet]

The problem I see with this idea is that is sets up a whole new attack form with its own totally separate defense (resistant in this case). This means if you have only enough rDEF to protect from the RAW KA Body (since you used your non-resistant defense for the STUN) then you suddenly take massive amounts of STUN from KAs since your non-res def no longer helps. It means characters now need to take enough rDEF to reasonably protect from all that KA Stun. But what this does' date=' is make KAs just like normal attacks, in that they now do no Body, since most will buy enough rDEF to keep these KAs from stunning them, but that means no KA Body ever gets through. This totally ruins the point of KAs.[/quote']

 

Actually, it's not as bad as you seem to think - I've run the numbers across a wide range of DEF values with varying percentages of rDEF. In general, if you want to stun somebody, you are usually better off with a normal attack, which generates significantly more STUN to start with.

But let's take the argument in detail.

...since most will buy enough rDEF to keep these KAs from stunning them' date=' but that means no KA Body ever gets through[/quote']

 

But given the way that STUN from killing attacks spike in the current system, a 4d6 KA will relatively frequently generate 54+ stun: do people buy enough DEF to prevent Stunning from a 12 DC KA under the current rules? Answer: no, they do not. Only Bricks routinely approach that level of DEF. Heck, a lot of PCs don't even have enough rDEF to prevent all the BOD that a 12DC killing attack will dish out, and I don't think many people would argue that a 60 active point attack is "over-powered". Indeed, the whole "stun lottery" argument is driven by the fact that killing attacks were (and to some extent, still are) the most effective way to stun high defence targets and that it's really expensive to build a brick who isn't at risk of getting stunned by ordinary gunfire.

 

So why would players suddenly start to design differently from the way they always have in the past? In fact, by lowering the overall BOD output of killing attacks slightly, characters with lower rDEF become more viable. Most non-brick PCs buy enough rDEF to prevent getting smeared by killing attacks - but as noted, it's hard to get enough to protect against stunning.

 

Now you are right that this change does generate a completely new form of attack. Killing as an advantage does work differently from the current KA. But that's intended. Right now, KA does two things: it generates a bit more BOD than regular attacks and (even with a 3x multiplier) it reliably - but intermittently - generates higher STUN output than a normal attack. And it goes partially, but not fully, against a different defence. Killing as an advantage, doesn't do either of those things. Instead, it creates a new kind of attack: one that specifically messes up soft targets. This means that you can generate different kinds of attacks:

1. Normal attacks. Do the most BOD and STUN, but are stopped by most defences. Good for knocking things down and stunning people.

2. Killing attacks. Do less BOD and STUN, but are very effective against unarmoured or lightly armoured targets.

3. Penetrating attacks. Do much less BOD and STUN, but are effective at breaking things, and injuring people (without stunning them)

4. AP attacks. Do less STUN and BOD, but are effective at getting damage through very high defences.

 

They way they work now' date=' only the Body of KAs use a special defense (rDEF) and the Stun still uses the universal defense. This means you can have lower rDEF and thus suffer Body from KA (their whole point) but not worry about being stunned out by them since Stun still works off the universal defense of non-resistant.[/quote']

 

And what this means in practice, is that killing attacks are the preferred approach to targets with low defences .... and also the preferred attack for targets with high defences. I'm not sure that's actually what we want. I know it's not actually what I want. That whole "All attacks work with defences this way, except for this one particular attack that works another way ..." is something I'd like to ditch. The reason the AVAD advantage is such a wall of text is precisely because it needs to weasel around the fact that killing attacks are already a sort-of-but-not-really AVAD.

 

My idea was to keep the feel of KAs as focused on doing Body' date=' but to deal with the Stun they do by disconnecting it from the universal defense and tying it directly to the Body they end up doing (since Body damage is their whole point). My idea allows rDEF to remain as they are in all the RAW builds (no need to recalc them) and just allows KAs to only consider rDEF, for the Body, then the Stun takes whatever Body gets through and multiplies it by 1d3 for the Stun. Simple, makes KAs still focus on Body, and makes the only defense against them truly be rDEF (as they ignore normal defense) which seems to be the flavor intended. But it does all this without unbalancing the rest of the RAW characters out there already made and without requiring rebuilding and recalculating them.[/quote']

 

The problem with your idea is that it likely won't work the way you think it will. Most PC's already buy enough rDEF to bounce most of the BOD from the killing attacks they routinely expect to meet: which makes sense - people don't like getting their PCs killed by some thug with a gat. So in your case, a killing attack which does no BOD does no damage at all. So 7 rDEF renders most handguns entirely useless. 12 rDEF renders almost all small arms entirely useless. These are not outrageous levels of DEF. If anything, this approach would encourage people to buy more rDEF, not less, because for only a small investment, you gain near immunity to killing attacks. Heck, I'd certainly do it. So your approach ensures that killing attacks won't be used to generate BOD - because they won't be much good for anything. I doubt people would bother using them, except in edge cases. It also - by generating a new mechanism - increases complexity. What is the cost of the advantage "Damage calculated off how much BOD goes through"? What happens when you start building killing attacks that work against different defences? etc.

 

I should point out that I don't think it's a bad idea. In some ways it actually models how killing attacks work. Just that it's not likely to work the way you think it would, in-game, and it adds another layer of "special rules just for KA"

 

I think it's also questionable as to whether the point of KAs is to do BOD. That's how we think of them, because the current mechanism makes KA good at doing BOD (as well as STUN). In real life though, many of the things we define as killing attacks are really bad at doing BOD. If you want to break down a door, you're better off with a club than a pistol or a sword, even though a pistol or a sword is clearly more lethal when it comes to squishy targets like people. The simple idea "killing attacks do more damage" doesn't hold up. Now I accept that we're abstracting damage, so I'm not trying to suggest we want to model damage precisely (even if we could). I'm just pointing out that in reality, what we define as killing attacks are typically good at hurting lightly armoured targets, but not great at doing a lot of BOD. We can model that relatively easily.

 

And making killing an advantage would not necessitate rewriting characters wholesale. In fact, virtually no changes would be needed. Every dice of killing attack (current rules) would become 2d6 of blast (killing). You don't need to change DEF at all. The reduced DEF you'd get against STUN is, to a very large extent, compensated for by the fact that STUN damage is reduced compared to KA under the current rules. Right now, each dice of KA generates (on average) 3.5 BOD and 7 STUN, with surges of up to 6 BOD and 18 STUN, about 8% of the time. In contrast, the same cost of "killing blast" would generate (on average) 2 BOD and 7 stun and surges of up to 4 BOD and 11 stun 8% of the time. What that means in practice is that compared to current rules, characters with low rDEF are at less risk of dying, but more risk of being incapacitated. Characters with medium rDEF are at less risk of dying and less risk of being incapacitated, and characters with high rDEF are at much less risk of dying and much less risk of being incapacitated.

 

It still means that killing attacks are dangerous to low rDEF characters: just that the risk is more that they will be incapacitated than killed outright, which is not necessarily a bad thing for cinematic games.

 

cheers, Mark

The math has been done in several other threads an the average stun for Killing attacks in 6E is lower than Normal attacks' date=' not higher.[/quote']

 

That misses the point of our objections entirely. It's not the AVERAGE Stun of KA's which is the issue, it is the extreme variance and much increased possibility for an instant KO which creates the problem. A high Multiple roll results in Stun out of all proportion to the dice rolled. Is it really reasonable for a mook with a .45 pistol (2d6-1) to potentially do 55 Stun with just 3 6's rolled? A character with a 9d6 Normal attack would have to roll ALL 6's to match that; a character rolling average with a Normal attack would need 15.5d6 to match that. That makes KA's disproportionately effective.

 

It is the possibility of a high Stun Multiple which makes Killing Attacks attractive, especially to powergamers.

 

Why not just have Killing Attacks do the rolled damage just like a Normal attack but only apply Resistant defenses? Simpler, and it eliminates the high variability.

[Trebuchet]

Why not simply eliminate the concept of Killing Attacks entirely and simulate the effects of swords, guns, lasers, etc., with Advantages such as Armor Piercing, Penetrating, Semi-Armor Piercing, and AVLD (Does Body)?

[TheRealDeal]

If you want to modify the 1d6/2 multiplier, just use the Body approach to make it still roll 1d6 and quick to resolve. So a roll of 1 = X1, 2-5=X2, 6=X3.

 

I guess as for the rest of the discussion, it comes down to taste. I do not see the need for another type of attack against the physical/energy defenses that just requires you buy a different version of those defenses. This is what the AVAD idea does, and I do not personally like the flavor of it and see it as just redundant. I can see the need for a mind attack (thus vs. Mental Defense) or magic attack (thus vs. Power Defense), but another type of attack vs. the same Physical or Energy defenses but requiring an advantage be put on them (Resistant) just seems redundant and leads to bloat. Why make characters feel obligated to buy now 2 types of PD and ED when the attacks against each one basically have the same feel, since KA using this AVAD approach are no more likely to deal Body than normal attacks are, so there is no flavor difference in them.

 

Furthermore, the lower Body output of the new KA using AVAD means it does less KB and even more already suffers an extra -1d6 of KB since all KAs allow you to roll 1d6 more to resist the KB. It also makes KAs have less range as well, since that is based on Base Points without advantages added, so KAs always have less Base Points in them using this AVAD.

 

If KAs have the flavor that rather than dealing quick to recover from damage only (Stun) like normal attacks deal, with a small chance of doing some lasting Body; they instead deal more lasting Body damage and perhaps less Stun as a result, then it makes sense to me that KAs should have a place in the game as they achieve a different result and thus make a useful addition to your golf bag.

 

If one thinks that it is better for their game to use AVAD, no problem, just be aware of the reduced KB and range that results from this.

[rstehwien]

If you want to modify the 1d6/2 multiplier, just use the Body approach to make it still roll 1d6 and quick to resolve. So a roll of 1 = X1, 2-5=X2, 6=X3.

 

I guess as for the rest of the discussion, it comes down to taste. I do not see the need for another type of attack against the physical/energy defenses that just requires you buy a different version of those defenses. This is what the AVAD idea does, and I do not personally like the flavor of it and see it as just redundant. I can see the need for a mind attack (thus vs. Mental Defense) or magic attack (thus vs. Power Defense), but another type of attack vs. the same Physical or Energy defenses but requiring an advantage be put on them (Resistant) just seems redundant and leads to bloat. Why make characters feel obligated to buy now 2 types of PD and ED when the attacks against each one basically have the same feel, since KA using this AVAD approach are no more likely to deal Body than normal attacks are, so there is no flavor difference in them.

 

Furthermore, the lower Body output of the new KA using AVAD means it does less KB and even more already suffers an extra -1d6 of KB since all KAs allow you to roll 1d6 more to resist the KB. It also makes KAs have less range as well, since that is based on Base Points without advantages added, so KAs always have less Base Points in them using this AVAD.

 

If KAs have the flavor that rather than dealing quick to recover from damage only (Stun) like normal attacks deal, with a small chance of doing some lasting Body; they instead deal more lasting Body damage and perhaps less Stun as a result, then it makes sense to me that KAs should have a place in the game as they achieve a different result and thus make a useful addition to your golf bag.

 

If one thinks that it is better for their game to use AVAD, no problem, just be aware of the reduced KB and range that results from this.

I might use the d6 stun multiplier you suggested, the 3d6 method gives more fine grain control over probability if you want it but d6 is likely fine for my purposes.

 

I really like there being resistant and non-resistant defenses. Killing attacks are more than "do more body but less stun and knock-back than normal attacks", they are intrinsically more lethal because normal people don't have resistant defenses at all. So unless they are in body armor, a tough guy (10 PD, 12 Body) looking at at DC 13 attack (10d6/4d6+1k) normal attack thinks "going to hurt but I'll live" but the killing attack is "this could just kill me". Even a DC 6 (6d6/2d6k) attack is pretty scary. Put on some 6 DEF body armor and the 2d6 doesn't look quite so bad.

 

I've been running/playing Mutants and Masterminds for a while and haven't liked that a normal unarmored person with a good Con/Stamina (depending on version) that provides a Toughness of 4 is equally worried about a Damage 4 Heavy Pistol as they are a Damage 4 punch (which is what someone with a similar "good" Strength would have). I'd like the pistol to be more scary without having to crank up its damage value like I can in Hero.

 

I don't see it as having two different types of resistances for PD and ED. You have PD and ED and none, some, or all of it can be resistant to represent how effective it is vs killing. Different perspective.

 

I also like the stun multiple going before the damage is applied (rather than to the body that gets through) because that bullet proof vest may stop the bullet but you will still feel like you were kicked in the chest. But as you said its a matter of preference and the numbers aren't all that different.

 

For being bullet proof, there is Damage Negation. The power is new to me as I've been away from hero from a while. That is a completely different type of protection (like Damage Reduction) so I can understand not liking that for the added complexity. Someone could have PD/ED, part of it resistant, Damage Negation, and Damage Reduction making it very hard to gauge just how tough they truly are.

[Markdoc]

The problem I see with this idea is that is sets up a whole new attack form with its own totally separate defense (resistant in this case). This means if you have only enough rDEF to protect from the RAW KA Body (since you used your non-resistant defense for the STUN) then you suddenly take massive amounts of STUN from KAs since your non-res def no longer helps. It means characters now need to take enough rDEF to reasonably protect from all that KA Stun. But what this does' date=' is make KAs just like normal attacks, in that they now do no Body, since most will buy enough rDEF to keep these KAs from stunning them, but that means no KA Body ever gets through. This totally ruins the point of KAs.[/quote']

 

Actually, it's not as bad as you seem to think - I've run the numbers across a wide range of DEF values with varying percentages of rDEF. In general, if you want to stun somebody, you are usually better off with a normal attack, which generates significantly more STUN to start with.

But let's take the argument in detail.

...since most will buy enough rDEF to keep these KAs from stunning them' date=' but that means no KA Body ever gets through[/quote']

 

But given the way that STUN from killing attacks spike in the current system, a 4d6 KA will relatively frequently generate 54+ stun: do people buy enough DEF to prevent Stunning from a 12 DC KA under the current rules? Answer: no, they do not. Only Bricks routinely approach that level of DEF. Heck, a lot of PCs don't even have enough rDEF to prevent all the BOD that a 12DC killing attack will dish out, and I don't think many people would argue that a 60 active point attack is "over-powered". Indeed, the whole "stun lottery" argument is driven by the fact that killing attacks were (and to some extent, still are) the most effective way to stun high defence targets and that it's really expensive to build a brick who isn't at risk of getting stunned by ordinary gunfire.

 

So why would players suddenly start to design differently from the way they always have in the past? In fact, by lowering the overall BOD output of killing attacks slightly, characters with lower rDEF become more viable. Most non-brick PCs buy enough rDEF to prevent getting smeared by killing attacks - but as noted, it's hard to get enough to protect against stunning.

 

Now you are right that this change does generate a completely new form of attack. Killing as an advantage does work differently from the current KA. But that's intended. Right now, KA does two things: it generates a bit more BOD than regular attacks and (even with a 3x multiplier) it reliably - but intermittently - generates higher STUN output than a normal attack. And it goes partially, but not fully, against a different defence. Killing as an advantage, doesn't do either of those things. Instead, it creates a new kind of attack: one that specifically messes up soft targets. This means that you can generate different kinds of attacks:

1. Normal attacks. Do the most BOD and STUN, but are stopped by most defences. Good for knocking things down and stunning people.

2. Killing attacks. Do less BOD and STUN, but are very effective against unarmoured or lightly armoured targets.

3. Penetrating attacks. Do much less BOD and STUN, but are effective at breaking things, and injuring people (without stunning them)

4. AP attacks. Do less STUN and BOD, but are effective at getting damage through very high defences.

 

They way they work now' date=' only the Body of KAs use a special defense (rDEF) and the Stun still uses the universal defense. This means you can have lower rDEF and thus suffer Body from KA (their whole point) but not worry about being stunned out by them since Stun still works off the universal defense of non-resistant.[/quote']

 

And what this means in practice, is that killing attacks are the preferred approach to targets with low defences .... and also the preferred attack for targets with high defences. I'm not sure that's actually what we want. I know it's not actually what I want. That whole "All attacks work with defences this way, except for this one particular attack that works another way ..." is something I'd like to ditch. The reason the AVAD advantage is such a wall of text is precisely because it needs to weasel around the fact that killing attacks are already a sort-of-but-not-really AVAD.

 

My idea was to keep the feel of KAs as focused on doing Body' date=' but to deal with the Stun they do by disconnecting it from the universal defense and tying it directly to the Body they end up doing (since Body damage is their whole point). My idea allows rDEF to remain as they are in all the RAW builds (no need to recalc them) and just allows KAs to only consider rDEF, for the Body, then the Stun takes whatever Body gets through and multiplies it by 1d3 for the Stun. Simple, makes KAs still focus on Body, and makes the only defense against them truly be rDEF (as they ignore normal defense) which seems to be the flavor intended. But it does all this without unbalancing the rest of the RAW characters out there already made and without requiring rebuilding and recalculating them.[/quote']

 

The problem with your idea is that it likely won't work the way you think it will. Most PC's already buy enough rDEF to bounce most of the BOD from the killing attacks they routinely expect to meet: which makes sense - people don't like getting their PCs killed by some thug with a gat. So in your case, a killing attack which does no BOD does no damage at all. So 7 rDEF renders most handguns entirely useless. 12 rDEF renders almost all small arms entirely useless. These are not outrageous levels of DEF. If anything, this approach would encourage people to buy more rDEF, not less, because for only a small investment, you gain near immunity to killing attacks. Heck, I'd certainly do it. So your approach ensures that killing attacks won't be used to generate BOD - because they won't be much good for anything. I doubt people would bother using them, except in edge cases. It also - by generating a new mechanism - increases complexity. What is the cost of the advantage "Damage calculated off how much BOD goes through"? What happens when you start building killing attacks that work against different defences? etc.

 

I should point out that I don't think it's a bad idea. In some ways it actually models how killing attacks work. Just that it's not likely to work the way you think it would, in-game, and it adds another layer of "special rules just for KA"

 

I think it's also questionable as to whether the point of KAs is to do BOD. That's how we think of them, because the current mechanism makes KA good at doing BOD (as well as STUN). In real life though, many of the things we define as killing attacks are really bad at doing BOD. If you want to break down a door, you're better off with a club than a pistol or a sword, even though a pistol or a sword is clearly more lethal when it comes to squishy targets like people. The simple idea "killing attacks do more damage" doesn't hold up. Now I accept that we're abstracting damage, so I'm not trying to suggest we want to model damage precisely (even if we could). I'm just pointing out that in reality, what we define as killing attacks are typically good at hurting lightly armoured targets, but not great at doing a lot of BOD. We can model that relatively easily.

 

And making killing an advantage would not necessitate rewriting characters wholesale. In fact, virtually no changes would be needed. Every dice of killing attack (current rules) would become 2d6 of blast (killing). You don't need to change DEF at all. The reduced DEF you'd get against STUN is, to a very large extent, compensated for by the fact that STUN damage is reduced compared to KA under the current rules. Right now, each dice of KA generates (on average) 3.5 BOD and 7 STUN, with surges of up to 6 BOD and 18 STUN, about 8% of the time. In contrast, the same cost of "killing blast" would generate (on average) 2 BOD and 7 stun and surges of up to 4 BOD and 11 stun 8% of the time. What that means in practice is that compared to current rules, characters with low rDEF are at less risk of dying, but more risk of being incapacitated. Characters with medium rDEF are at less risk of dying and less risk of being incapacitated, and characters with high rDEF are at much less risk of dying and much less risk of being incapacitated.

 

It still means that killing attacks are dangerous to low rDEF characters: just that the risk is more that they will be incapacitated than killed outright, which is not necessarily a bad thing for cinematic games.

 

cheers, Mark

You're right - the average stun from a KA *is* lower. But the volatility is so much greater - even at 3x multiple - than a normal attack, that your chance of getting a Stunned result or a KO is very often higher - and that math's been done repeatedly also.

 

Basically, the average STUN output of a normal attack is higher than a KA, but the maximum reliable output is much lower. The actual numbers are in the post above. So under current rules, if your target's defences are low enough that a normal attack is getting a good amount of stun through, there's a pretty good chance that it's a better bet than an equivalent DC killing attack. But if you are only getting a little STUN through or none, with a normal attack then you are much, much better off with a KA, because your upper range is much higher.

 

Does that matter? Well, look at the example I gave above - if you're firing a 12 DC normal attack at guy with 30 DEF, you're going to be routinely leaking 12 STUN through on each hit. With a killing attack, you're not actually going to get any through on an average roll. So the normal attack looks pretty good. But unless the guy has a puny CON, you are never going to stun him. Even if he has a 20 CON, your chance of rolling enough to stun him is about 0.015%, meaning maybe 1 time in 6500. With a 12DC killing attack your average damage is lower - but you'll stun the guy about 8% of the time or about 1 time in 12.

 

That's the Stun lottery in action - except unlike real lotteries, you actually have a pretty good chance of pulling out a winner: because if your target gets stunned and spends a phase at 0 DCV, that's often a fight-ender.

 

cheers, Mark

[Markdoc]

I agree it's a matter of taste. I dislike the fact that as it works now, KA is the go-to tool for stunning tough enemies. I also dislike the fact that it has a game mechanic unlike everything else in the game, but that more philosophical than practical .

But I think it's a matter of perspective: I don't really see that killing attacks should be a way of doing BOD, so much as an attack that should mess up soft targets. If they do that, then they certainly have a role in the toolbox. It's a pretty specialized role, but given that most people don't naturally have rDEF, one with broad applicability.

 

Of course I also like the idea of allowing generally applicable modifiers for "Does more STUN" and "Does more BOD", to allow us to fine-tune attacks even more.

 

cheers, Mark

[bigbywolfe]

I agree it's a matter of taste. I dislike the fact that as it works now, KA is the go-to tool for stunning tough enemies. I also dislike the fact that it has a game mechanic unlike everything else in the game, but that more philosophical than practical .

But I think it's a matter of perspective: I don't really see that killing attacks should be a way of doing BOD, so much as an attack that should mess up soft targets. If they do that, then they certainly have a role in the toolbox. It's a pretty specialized role, but given that most people don't naturally have rDEF, one with broad applicability.

 

Of course I also like the idea of allowing generally applicable modifiers for "Does more STUN" and "Does more BOD", to allow us to fine-tune attacks even more.

 

cheers, Mark

In my experience KAs aren't the go-to tool for stunning enemies in 6E.

 

As to Killing Attacks not being a way to do body, well that's what the majority of people want them for, especially in Heroic level games that involve killing enemies in battle.

[bigbywolfe]

The problem I see with this idea is that is sets up a whole new attack form with its own totally separate defense (resistant in this case). This means if you have only enough rDEF to protect from the RAW KA Body (since you used your non-resistant defense for the STUN) then you suddenly take massive amounts of STUN from KAs since your non-res def no longer helps. It means characters now need to take enough rDEF to reasonably protect from all that KA Stun. But what this does' date=' is make KAs just like normal attacks, in that they now do no Body, since most will buy enough rDEF to keep these KAs from stunning them, but that means no KA Body ever gets through. This totally ruins the point of KAs.[/quote']

 

Actually, it's not as bad as you seem to think - I've run the numbers across a wide range of DEF values with varying percentages of rDEF. In general, if you want to stun somebody, you are usually better off with a normal attack, which generates significantly more STUN to start with.

But let's take the argument in detail.

...since most will buy enough rDEF to keep these KAs from stunning them' date=' but that means no KA Body ever gets through[/quote']

 

But given the way that STUN from killing attacks spike in the current system, a 4d6 KA will relatively frequently generate 54+ stun: do people buy enough DEF to prevent Stunning from a 12 DC KA under the current rules? Answer: no, they do not. Only Bricks routinely approach that level of DEF. Heck, a lot of PCs don't even have enough rDEF to prevent all the BOD that a 12DC killing attack will dish out, and I don't think many people would argue that a 60 active point attack is "over-powered". Indeed, the whole "stun lottery" argument is driven by the fact that killing attacks were (and to some extent, still are) the most effective way to stun high defence targets and that it's really expensive to build a brick who isn't at risk of getting stunned by ordinary gunfire.

 

So why would players suddenly start to design differently from the way they always have in the past? In fact, by lowering the overall BOD output of killing attacks slightly, characters with lower rDEF become more viable. Most non-brick PCs buy enough rDEF to prevent getting smeared by killing attacks - but as noted, it's hard to get enough to protect against stunning.

 

Now you are right that this change does generate a completely new form of attack. Killing as an advantage does work differently from the current KA. But that's intended. Right now, KA does two things: it generates a bit more BOD than regular attacks and (even with a 3x multiplier) it reliably - but intermittently - generates higher STUN output than a normal attack. And it goes partially, but not fully, against a different defence. Killing as an advantage, doesn't do either of those things. Instead, it creates a new kind of attack: one that specifically messes up soft targets. This means that you can generate different kinds of attacks:

1. Normal attacks. Do the most BOD and STUN, but are stopped by most defences. Good for knocking things down and stunning people.

2. Killing attacks. Do less BOD and STUN, but are very effective against unarmoured or lightly armoured targets.

3. Penetrating attacks. Do much less BOD and STUN, but are effective at breaking things, and injuring people (without stunning them)

4. AP attacks. Do less STUN and BOD, but are effective at getting damage through very high defences.

 

They way they work now' date=' only the Body of KAs use a special defense (rDEF) and the Stun still uses the universal defense. This means you can have lower rDEF and thus suffer Body from KA (their whole point) but not worry about being stunned out by them since Stun still works off the universal defense of non-resistant.[/quote']

 

And what this means in practice, is that killing attacks are the preferred approach to targets with low defences .... and also the preferred attack for targets with high defences. I'm not sure that's actually what we want. I know it's not actually what I want. That whole "All attacks work with defences this way, except for this one particular attack that works another way ..." is something I'd like to ditch. The reason the AVAD advantage is such a wall of text is precisely because it needs to weasel around the fact that killing attacks are already a sort-of-but-not-really AVAD.

 

My idea was to keep the feel of KAs as focused on doing Body' date=' but to deal with the Stun they do by disconnecting it from the universal defense and tying it directly to the Body they end up doing (since Body damage is their whole point). My idea allows rDEF to remain as they are in all the RAW builds (no need to recalc them) and just allows KAs to only consider rDEF, for the Body, then the Stun takes whatever Body gets through and multiplies it by 1d3 for the Stun. Simple, makes KAs still focus on Body, and makes the only defense against them truly be rDEF (as they ignore normal defense) which seems to be the flavor intended. But it does all this without unbalancing the rest of the RAW characters out there already made and without requiring rebuilding and recalculating them.[/quote']

 

The problem with your idea is that it likely won't work the way you think it will. Most PC's already buy enough rDEF to bounce most of the BOD from the killing attacks they routinely expect to meet: which makes sense - people don't like getting their PCs killed by some thug with a gat. So in your case, a killing attack which does no BOD does no damage at all. So 7 rDEF renders most handguns entirely useless. 12 rDEF renders almost all small arms entirely useless. These are not outrageous levels of DEF. If anything, this approach would encourage people to buy more rDEF, not less, because for only a small investment, you gain near immunity to killing attacks. Heck, I'd certainly do it. So your approach ensures that killing attacks won't be used to generate BOD - because they won't be much good for anything. I doubt people would bother using them, except in edge cases. It also - by generating a new mechanism - increases complexity. What is the cost of the advantage "Damage calculated off how much BOD goes through"? What happens when you start building killing attacks that work against different defences? etc.

 

I should point out that I don't think it's a bad idea. In some ways it actually models how killing attacks work. Just that it's not likely to work the way you think it would, in-game, and it adds another layer of "special rules just for KA"

 

I think it's also questionable as to whether the point of KAs is to do BOD. That's how we think of them, because the current mechanism makes KA good at doing BOD (as well as STUN). In real life though, many of the things we define as killing attacks are really bad at doing BOD. If you want to break down a door, you're better off with a club than a pistol or a sword, even though a pistol or a sword is clearly more lethal when it comes to squishy targets like people. The simple idea "killing attacks do more damage" doesn't hold up. Now I accept that we're abstracting damage, so I'm not trying to suggest we want to model damage precisely (even if we could). I'm just pointing out that in reality, what we define as killing attacks are typically good at hurting lightly armoured targets, but not great at doing a lot of BOD. We can model that relatively easily.

 

And making killing an advantage would not necessitate rewriting characters wholesale. In fact, virtually no changes would be needed. Every dice of killing attack (current rules) would become 2d6 of blast (killing). You don't need to change DEF at all. The reduced DEF you'd get against STUN is, to a very large extent, compensated for by the fact that STUN damage is reduced compared to KA under the current rules. Right now, each dice of KA generates (on average) 3.5 BOD and 7 STUN, with surges of up to 6 BOD and 18 STUN, about 8% of the time. In contrast, the same cost of "killing blast" would generate (on average) 2 BOD and 7 stun and surges of up to 4 BOD and 11 stun 8% of the time. What that means in practice is that compared to current rules, characters with low rDEF are at less risk of dying, but more risk of being incapacitated. Characters with medium rDEF are at less risk of dying and less risk of being incapacitated, and characters with high rDEF are at much less risk of dying and much less risk of being incapacitated.

 

It still means that killing attacks are dangerous to low rDEF characters: just that the risk is more that they will be incapacitated than killed outright, which is not necessarily a bad thing for cinematic games.

 

cheers, Mark

33 not 55 is the max stun from a 2d6-1k attack Treb (unless you are using Hit locations).

[psyber624]

Personally I like the "Stun Lottery" flavor of Killing Attacks. They are NOT better at stunning most targets (since they do less STUN on average) but are somewhat better at Stunning Hard Targets (tanks and the like with higher Defenses). This gives them another slot other than just being a better way to do Body damage (which they hands down win right now). KA's only start winning the STUN competition at high levels of Defense/DEF+CON but even then while they are MORE likely to generate a Stunned result on a High Def target than a Normal Attack they are by no means TRULY likely to do it so they leave the ability for high DEF characters to still be Stunned on occasion and mean that even High Def characters have something to fear which is a good thing in my opinion. Even then there are many other, better ways to Stun a High Def character if that is your goal so the fact that Killing Attacks are slightly better than Normal attacks at that isn't something that bothers me in the slightest, of course that is just my opinion.

[Lucius]

As long as we're going to dissect Killing Attacks:

 

I didn't really see this until Hugh Neilson pointed it out, but now I can't un-see it.

 

Take two characters, one with a STR of 10 and 50 pts in Killing Attack, one with a STR of 50 and 10 pts in Killing Attack.

 

Both have spent 50 pts.

Both can do a 4d6 Killing Attack.

But one also has all the other benefits of 50 STR.

 

Basically, there's not much reason to buy more than a bare minimum Killing Attack, since investing the same points in STR gets you the same damage, plus extras.

 

 

I'm not sure exactly what should be done, but maybe if Killing were an Advantage or if we simply used Advantages like Penetrating to simulate things like blades and bullets, perhaps melee weapons could be Naked Advantages that applied to STR?

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedry tagline starts here....

 

[Lucius]

Double posting because this is a completely separate point.

 

If one issue people have with Killing is that it's an "orphan mechanic" maybe we can disorphanize it.

 

Establish a modifier that's the opposite of "set effect" and makes a roll more volatile. Applied to 3d6 of Flash for instance it would mean that instead of rolling 3d6 and "counting Body" we would roll 1d6 and read it straight. Or do "Killing Simplified Healing" and roll 1d6 for BOD restored and a multiplier die for STUN. Or instead of 3d6 Drain, do 1d6 times a multiplier.

 

In other words, hire that orphan mechanic and put it to work full time so it can afford to start its own little mechanical family and be a proud parent mechanic instead of a lonely orphan mechanic.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

...and the palindromedary tagline ends here

 

[Markdoc]

Hi Lucius,

 

I'll answer both those posts in one go.

 

First, the "nuclear tip" option. Yes, as it stands, a big STR and a small HKA is the way to go (efficiency-wise). Earlier versions reduced this problem by prorating attacks and adding in extra rules (like" you can't do more than double the KA" etc) That's still an option in 6E, but was dropped as the standard approach, because it was more complicated - and the complications is in part an outgrowth of the fact that we have two different mechanisms in play. Make "killing" an advantage and all those extra rules, and special situations go away.

The difference between the guy who spent 10 points on a killing attack + 50 points on STR vs the guy who spent 50 points on a killing attack and 10 points on STR would not go away, but that's buried deeply in the Hero system: you have the same effect if you had two characters with 10 points on an AP attack + 50 points on STR vs 50 points on an AP attack and 10 points on STR. In this case, the only benefit of "killing as an advantage" is simplified calculations and fewer odd problems with things like skills and DCs. You do get differences once you start to add limitations, etc to the ancillary attack, but at core, an advantage is an advantage.

 

As to the other point, allowing normal attacks to use the killing attack die roll, I've actually considered this in the past (and, of course, done the math ) The simple summary, is that the more volatile approach is almost always better: you'd have to be a mug not to choose it. If it were an option, essentially all attacks would be rolled that way. The reason for this, as Treb pointed out before, is that volatility is good (plus, you'd get more BOD, on average and therefore better KNB, more smashiness, etc). Part of the reason for the superiority of volatile attacks is easy enough to see: you get a better chance at a high effect number. But there's a second part to the equation, which is not so easily seen (and therefore often overlooked): that your effect number (ie: damage) has to cross a certain threshold to mean anything at all. Doing 35 STUN sounds like it's better than 30, right? Except if you are facing off against a foe with 40 defence, 35 is exactly as good as 30: both attacks do nothing. The key point to understand is that it's not how much damage you do: it's how much damage goes over defences.

What that means in actual play terms is that attacks with a higher average and low volatility are good for whacking foes whose defenses you easily penetrate, but fare worse against tougher targets than attacks with lower average damage, but higher volatility. If you graph the outcomes, the differences become instantly obvious, but you can sum up the effect by saying "Attacks with higher averages and lower volatility are good against opponents that you can easily beat".

 

cheers, Mark

[Lucius]

Markdoc: Thanks for the insightful analysis. May I ask, does the strong character's advantage finally go away if the hand to hand killing type power is bought as an Advantage on STR not as an Advantaged attack that STR adds to?

 

 

When I said increased volatility could be an option I didn't mean a "free" option, necessarily. Sure it's better, but my own objection to Killing Attacks under the previous dispensation wasn't that they were better, but that they were better without costing more. On the other hand the value of volatility as an Advantage might be less with, say, Healing, where there are advantages to a high roll but getting through defenses isn't one of them.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary is trying to wrap a head around the concept of a strong guy's advantage going away if you put an advantage on strength...

[Markdoc]

No, it doesn't work out any differently (cost or effectiveness-wise) if the power is bought as an advantage on STR, because the way the system works now, you simply take the cost out of what was paid for STR, so to speak (or for that matter, any other power). Basically, when adding an advantaged power to an unadvantaged power, you prorate the advantages across both. So essentially, if you use the 5E method or the alternate 6E method, you are already adding the advantage to STR This is really only an issue in-game with STR, since typically you don't add other powers together, but in theory you could. It's perfectly legal to buy a partially limited or advantaged power.

 

For example, I've seen powers like 8d6 EB and +8d6 EB only vs undead.

That's pretty straightforward - it's an 8d6 EB normally and 16d6 vs undead.

But what if it was bought as: 8d6 EB and +5d6 AP EB (only vs undead) ?

The standard response is to convert the whole thing into a 10 1/2 d6 AP EB.

That's not perfect, but trying to apply the attack partially against defences is just a nightmare. I know, I've tried

 

As for volatility, you are right: it's only really important when you have to get through defences. If there are no defences, and only the total rolled counts then low rolls balance out high rolls and very low rolls balance out very high rolls. I've just added a quick sketch graph to make the point. This shows the effect of defence on effect. A normal attack with low volatility is shown in blue, and a high volatility attack is shown in red. The area under the graph represents your average damage (DPS, if you want to think of it that way).

I've indicated possible defences with dotted lines - low defences in the upper graph (slightly below average damage for both attacks), higher defences in the lower graph (slightly above average damage for both attacks). Once you take defences into account only the area under the graph and to the right of the dotted line count for damage.

What people tend to think is that the effect of volatility really only matters at the extreme end of the scale. That's not true. As you can see from the graphs, when defences are low, both attacks get a lot of damage through, but the attack with low volatility gets more. But as soon as defences move into the mid to high range, the difference shrinks dramatically - defences don't have to go up very much for the more volatile attack to be more effective. It happens long before the point where the normal attack is struggling to get through defences. It seems counterintuitive, but the math is fairly straightforward. Basically, volatile attacks are simply less sensitive to the amount of defences, and this is true across a broad range.

 

cheers, Mark

[psyber624]

As long as we're going to dissect Killing Attacks:

 

I didn't really see this until Hugh Neilson pointed it out, but now I can't un-see it.

 

Take two characters, one with a STR of 10 and 50 pts in Killing Attack, one with a STR of 50 and 10 pts in Killing Attack.

 

Both have spent 50 pts.

Both can do a 4d6 Killing Attack.

But one also has all the other benefits of 50 STR.

 

Basically, there's not much reason to buy more than a bare minimum Killing Attack, since investing the same points in STR gets you the same damage, plus extras.

 

 

I'm not sure exactly what should be done, but maybe if Killing were an Advantage or if we simply used Advantages like Penetrating to simulate things like blades and bullets, perhaps melee weapons could be Naked Advantages that applied to STR?

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedry tagline starts here....

Which is one of the reasons why the damage doubling suggestion from 6e2 pg 99 exists. If you use that suggested limit then the STR 50 guy only does 1d6+1 KA