Titanic Troubles or Combat on a Far Larger Scale

[Nadrakas]

I'm like an infinite number of monkeys.  Occasionally something I say appears to make sense.

 

Sean-You-Are

Are You Sean?

Sean-You-Are

That Sean-You-Are!

That Sean-You-Are!

I do like that Sean-You-Are!

Do you like Blue Monkeys and Spam?

I like them, Sean-You-Are.

I like Blue Monkeys and Spam.

Would you like them here or there?

I would like them here or there.

I would like them everywhere.

I like Blue Monkeys and Spam.

I like them, Sean-You-Are.

Would you like them in a Barrel?

 

 

~ M

[NuSoardGraphite]

What about the Monsters??

Buy Growth.  Use the Vehicular Size Chart as your guideline.

[Nadrakas]

Buy Growth.  Use the Vehicular Size Chart as your guideline.

Fair Enough.  And include Damage Negation...What's fair for the Goose is fair for the Gander, afterall. 

 

 

~ M

[Lucius]

I had this idea that each level of x2 mass comes with a level of Damage Negation

 

 

Best idea in the thread

 

Should be three levels if you do the maths as a doubling of mass = +3 Body, so you need to negate 3 points of Body damage, or 3DC to properly scale the effect of greater size.  Of course it is much cheaper to just buy defences as you do not need to worry about STUN damage for vehicles.

 

Best idea in the thread, improved.

 

And now I improve it further:

At each "level" of size increase, require three levels of Damage Negation, and three levels of Reduced Negation on all attacks. There's your scaling effect and you don't have to have either "megadamage" as such nor roll whole hatfulls of dice.

 

 

edit: Wait, I'm not as clever as I think I am. Each level of size increase isn't three levels of Reduced Negation, it has to be actual added Damage Classes, or the giant robot's fist striking the parked car won't even dent it. You still need hatfulls of dice if Giant attacks Normal. You just won't need them when Giant attacks Giant because each is using Damage Negation to negate a ton of the other's damage.

 

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Sometimes I'm not even as clever as the palindromedary thinks I am

[Merrick]

Perhaps it is just my inexperience with Damage Negation (My players usually don't get access to it without a REALLY good reason), but isn't 40-some-odd ranks of Damage Negation a bit.. excessive?  

 

Perhaps I am misunderstanding the 3-ranks per double mass thing, but with only 18 DCs of normal damage off a punch, it seems like that many ranks of DN wouldn't have anyone doing much of anything.

 

If I misunderstand, please enlighten me!

[Tasha]

How about something really radical.

 

First Pick a scale for the average Jaeger. That will be your hex size. Don't worry about buying extra growth unless a Jaeger or Kaiju is bigger than this size.

 

Buy attacks like you do for Superheroic games ie DC 10-16 or so.

 

Handwave/Houserules

Jaeger/Kaiju attacks vs Normal scale vehicles if "Normal Attacks" vs Nomal scale they do "Killing damage" Convert the dice not the DC. (ie a 14d6 Blast, when used against a normal object does 14d6 Killing), Jaeger/Kaiju Killing attacks do their DC in Killing dice of Damage Armor Piercing to Normal Scale Vehicles/objects/buildings.

Normal Scale weapons: Normal Attacks are halved vs Jaeger/Kaiju, Killing attacks do Normal Damage vs Jaeger/Kaiju.

This allows you to run Kaiju scenarios like a regular Champions game. You rule that stun(and perhaps even body) damage that gets though Jaeger Defenses effects the pilots (Perhaps certain interfaces give extra def vs feedback damage). Also this gives you the whole tree of maneuvers etc without the weirdnesses of Scaling up. No need to buy tons of Growth, stretching, KB resistance etc. You can have very simple writeups that only deal with the basics, Attacks, Defenses, Movement types, etc.

[Lucius]

Best idea in the thread

 

 

Best idea in the thread, improved.

 

And now I improve it further:

At each "level" of size increase, require three levels of Damage Negation, and three levels of Reduced Negation on all attacks. There's your scaling effect and you don't have to have either "megadamage" as such nor roll whole hatfulls of dice.

 

 

edit: Wait, I'm not as clever as I think I am. Each level of size increase isn't three levels of Reduced Negation, it has to be actual added Damage Classes, or the giant robot's fist striking the parked car won't even dent it. You still need hatfulls of dice if Giant attacks Normal. You just won't need them when Giant attacks Giant because each is using Damage Negation to negate a ton of the other's damage.

 

edit again: or you can use Damage Negation and Reduced Negation, but give everyone Vulnerability to attacks from combatants of a larger size class.

 

Attacker is bigger by

2 Size Classes, then X1.5 STUN

3 Size Classes, then X1.5 STUN and BOD

4 Size Classes, then X2 STUN, X1.5 BOD

5 Size Classes, then X2 STUN, X2 BOD

 

If that's not enough devastation in your opinion, you can start adding Susceptibility too - so that no matter what your defenses are, if you get hit by something big enough, you automatically take some damage.

 

 

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Sometimes I'm not even as clever as the palindromedary thinks I am

[Lucius]

Perhaps it is just my inexperience with Damage Negation (My players usually don't get access to it without a REALLY good reason), but isn't 40-some-odd ranks of Damage Negation a bit.. excessive?  

 

Perhaps I am misunderstanding the 3-ranks per double mass thing, but with only 18 DCs of normal damage off a punch, it seems like that many ranks of DN wouldn't have anyone doing much of anything.

 

If I misunderstand, please enlighten me!

 

 

I think one or more of the following assumptions apply:

 

The Damage Negation is Limited to only smaller opponents

Larger opponents get Reduced Negation in step with their own Damage Negation

Larger opponents have attacks so devastatingly huge they just overwhelm the Damage Negation

 

Note, by the way, I wasn't the one who originally proposed "3 levels of Damage Negation per step" and I'm not sure I would have set it so high.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

the palindromedary just wants 100% Damage Reduction

[Merrick]

So, this is my rough second build. I decided to simulate size scaling in the classic method used by too many games to count. An assload of hit points. I'm still moving some points around. I realize it's not capped yet. My control scheme shall be a single pilot linked to a 'living' machine brain through a Synthesis type process. I do intend to give the machine a sort of complication that grows worse based on how many pilots the Mecha has had in the past, as fragments of former pilots are left behind, but the pilot can buy it down through experience or if they've a talent for ignore the white noise in the background.

 

Thoughts or suggestions and any holes that need filling, let me know.

 

Also, if there is a more forum friendly format for posting from HeroDesigner, do let me know >.>

Beta TitanPlayer: Val	Char	Cost90	STR	518	DEX	075	BODY	-2525	PD	-325	ED	-33	SPD	1084m	RUN	-120m	SWIM	-284m	LEAP	0Characteristics Cost: 15Cost	Power100	Combat Systems: Multipower, 100-point reserve5f	1)  Built to Destroy: Hand-To-Hand Attack +12d6, Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2) (90 Active Points); Restrainable (-1/2), Hand-To-Hand Attack (-1/4)10f	2)  Arm-Mounted Chain Swords: Killing Attack - Hand-To-Hand 4d6-1 (8d6+1 w/STR), Armor Piercing (+1/4), Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2) (96 Active Points) [Notes: (x2 number of items)Blades extend from forearms of either arm. x2]5f	3)  Killing Attack - Ranged 7d6-1 (100 Active Points); 8 Charges (-1/2), Restrainable (-1/2) [Notes: (x2 number of items)Shoulder-mounted of StarShooter Plasma Cannons x2]	Colossal Construction, all slots Unified Power (Colossal Construction; -1/4)18	1)  Colossal Size and Weight: Knockback Resistance -22m (22 Active Points); Unified Power (Colossal Construction; -1/4)19	2)  Colossal Extremities : Area Of Effect (4m Radius; +1/4) for up to 90 Active Points of STR, Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2) (33 Active Points); Restrainable (-1/2), Unified Power (Colossal Construction; -1/4)28	3)  Colossal Robotic Muscle Fibers: Leaping +84m (84m forward, 42m upward) (42 Active Points); no Noncombat movement (-1/4), Unified Power (Colossal Construction; -1/4)38	4)  Colossal Limbs: Stretching 63m, Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2) (94 Active Points); Restrainable (-1/2), Always Direct (-1/4), no Noncombat Stretching (-1/4), No Velocity Damage (-1/4), Unified Power (Colossal Construction; -1/4)60	5)  Long Legs: Ground Movement +84m (84m total), No Turn Mode (+1/4) (105 Active Points); Restrainable (-1/2), Unified Power (Colossal Construction; -1/4)60	6)  Colossal Skeletal Structure: +75 BODY (75 Active Points); Unified Power (Colossal Construction; -1/4)75	7)  Titan Armor Plating: Resistant Protection (25 PD/25 ED), Hardened (+1/4) (94 Active Points); Unified Power (Colossal Construction; -1/4)34	Vernier Boosters: Multipower, 84-point reserve,  (84 Active Points); all slots 8 Charges (Recovers Under Limited Circumstances; -3/4), Restrainable (-1/2), Unified Power (Vernier Jets; -1/4) [Notes: Jet vents can be covered, Charges recover while Titan stands completely immobile.]3f	1)  Vernier Speed Boost: Ground Movement 84m (84 Active Points); Instant (-1/2), Restrainable (-1/2), no Noncombat movement (-1/4), Cannot Move Backwards (-1/4), Unified Power (Vernier Jets; -1/4)2f	2)  Controlled Burst Jump: Leaping 84m (42 Active Points); Instant (-1/2), Restrainable (-1/2), no Noncombat movement (-1/4), Unified Power (Vernier Jets; -1/4)13	Vernier Maneuvering : +8 DEX (16 Active Points); Unified Power (Vernier Jets; -1/4)	T.A.C.T.I.S. (Titan Adaptive Combat Tactical Information System), all slots Unified Power (T.A.C.T.I.S. Unit; -1/4)16	1)  T.A.C.T.I.S. Offensive Program: +4 OCV (20 Active Points); Unified Power (T.A.C.T.I.S. Unit; -1/4)16	2)  T.A.C.T.I.S. Defensive Program: +4 DCV (20 Active Points); Unified Power (T.A.C.T.I.S. Unit; -1/4)16	3)  Radar (Radio Group), Increased Arc Of Perception (360 Degrees) (20 Active Points); Unified Power (T.A.C.T.I.S. Unit; -1/4)12	4)  +10 versus Range Modifier for Sight Group (15 Active Points); Unified Power (T.A.C.T.I.S. Unit; -1/4)4	5)  Infrared Perception (Sight Group) (5 Active Points); Unified Power (T.A.C.T.I.S. Unit; -1/4)4	6)  Nightvision (5 Active Points); Unified Power (T.A.C.T.I.S. Unit; -1/4)19	Life Support  (Safe in High Pressure; Safe in High Radiation; Safe in Intense Cold; Safe in Intense Heat; Safe in Low Pressure/Vacuum; Self-Contained Breathing)Powers Cost: 557Total Character Cost: 572Base Points: 600Experience Required: 0Total Experience Available: 0Experience Unspent: 0

[NuSoardGraphite]

Very well done my friend. it looks quite good. i have a few questions/suggestions.

 

1st, the Body score. 75 is a lot. i mean a LOT. i know the body scores of vehicles in HERO look weird when human characters can have up to 20 body. be aware that the supers genre has thrown the perception of where body scores in other genres should be. For a pacific rim type game, the vast majority (99%) of characters body scores should hover in the 8~12 range and other objects will scale accordingly. but Jaegers are supposed to be TOUGH, so a pretty good bonus to body is perfectly reasonable. myself, i would probably give the Jaeger a body of around 40ish.

 

The defense is related to the body score. together these two characteristics form a vehicles toughness. the defense you have is pretty good. it will prevent small arms frolm doing damage at all and heavy weapons will only do moderate amounts of damage.

 

The running score seems high. at non combat movement and speed 3, thats 152kph! (Over 90mph).

 

The damage you have weapons at seems good except maybe the chainsword weapon. i would make that a die or more potent and add penetrating in addition to the armor piercing advantage. that way the chainsword will essentially always do at least some damage.

 

That extra punching damage is.....robust. coupled with the jaeger's str score it would do 30d6n thats quite a bit. the jaeger would be able to routinely do 5 body damage to itself from punches. couple that with a haymaker or martial arts and the damage climbs pretty high.

 

The vernier bonuses are interesting. what is the jaegers movement without activating the vernier?

 

A suggestion for you: consider changing the vernier maneuvering from a DEX bonus to extra movement skill levels (around +4). movement skill levels can be used for a lot of different things. read up about them and i'm sure you'll agree.

 

The T.A.C.T.I.C.S. system you have detailed here is very nice. dont see anything out of sorts in there.

 

I dont see the mind interface system detailed. i would simulate that with additional movement skill levels the pilot can use (and remember that these would be cumulative with any other skill levels you use.)

[PaycheckHero]

Good day, Hero boards!  It's been some time since I've been musing over questions that required community input, but I seem to have stumbled upon one now!

 

I wish I'd stumbled onto this thread earlier, because I've also been thinking about size/scale issues from the opposite direction; I wanted to write up a game with cat PCs and was dismayed to discover hero simply doesn't do it well since there are a lot of other critters of significantly different sizes.  This is the converse of your problem, in that to cats humans are essentially mecha, albeit mecha without resistant defenses, something cats seem to be very well aware of.  (Which brings up one difference: cats and humans can melee without the humans completely dominating as apparently mecha would.  A really good solution should allow both your game and mine gracefully.)

 

I concluded that the hero size system just simply can't do this well; certain things end up the same for all cats, too granular, or scale abysmally.  Take the 6e bestiary writeup for a domestic cat.  They have 1 pip of killing damage, which only gets through because they have no resistant defenses.  So what about a less capable cat?  Either it does the same damage, or it does none at all.  Similarly, cats have 0d6 of STR damage, so they can't go STR on STR with each other.  And if an unusually big tom is stronger, either it isn't modeled in the game or you have a cat that could conceivably win a STR contest with a normal human and has even odds against Aunt May.  In reality all cats should have 0 str damage against humans, but should vary considerably against each other.

 

Apparently hero not only can't do that but, thinking about older editions, *never* did that correctly.  I noticed this back in 4e days and it bothered me then as now when I find something hero does poorly, but I didn't have a solution then.  I have a start on one now that I'd like to make work for mecha, cats, humans shrunk to the size of insects, and so on.  It needs much more thinking and debugging, and since your problem is different in detail than mine it would make for an excellent second test case.  I didn't even think it was ready to bring up on the forum, but since there is so much good thinking in this thread I'll go ahead and post it for critique in a bit.

[PaycheckHero]

Its actually really easy to do, and the "scale" remains reasonable as long as you dont try throwing superheroes into the mix (superheroic characters throw the scale completely off kilter. its the focus on supers that also warps players perception on the proper interactions of scale in the system and makes them think it isnt possible. players need to completely divorce supers from their thoughts when tackling other genres that include scale objects such as mecha, starships etc.

 

I agree with this.  I noticed it in 4e, where being big made you stronger but being small didn't make you weaker (and the size powers were used for inherent size differences as well as dynamic changes).  That and some other asymmetries seem to fit comic book reality, but are weird otherwise.

 

I will go so far as to say that I believe hero has *never* done size well, though this was masked somewhat by the fact that it comes up most often in supers where the rules were tweaked to work OK.  This has bugged me ever since I learned the game, which was just about when 4e came out; it always bugs me when I find something it doesn't do.  I never knew how to fix it before, but I think I do now.

 

When you follow these guidelines, then begin to scale things up, you'll find that the scale works very well, if not perfectly. the biggest key is balancing the damage and defense ratios so everything makes sense. this takes a bit of playtesting but can be achieved.

I look forward to seeing how well you think my forthcoming proposal works.

[PaycheckHero]

I'm telling ya. go with the vehicle size chart rather than what was laid out in the growth power. it has a tendancy to confuse people, whereas the vehicle size chart is structured very nicely including the "in-between" sizes and the suggestion of "1pt of damage negation per level fits perfectly.

 

VEHICULAR SIZE CHART!

 

This makes a LOT of sense.  I'm going to post version 0.1 of my proposal anyway because it demonstrates the basic idea, but I think for v0.2 I'll take this advice and try to base the specific numbers on the vehicle size chart as well as comments on the basic idea.

 

Edit: now that I've gone over it and posted it, it seems that the parts of the chart I actually use have remained invariant between at least 4e and 6e, and between the character and vehicle rules. This is encouraging, since it suggests that that part (really just dealing with damage and CV) has been working better than the other parts and is the most important part to maintain.

[PaycheckHero]

How about something really radical.

 

First Pick a scale for the average Jaeger. That will be your hex size. Don't worry about buying extra growth unless a Jaeger or Kaiju is bigger than this size.

 

...

 

This allows you to run Kaiju scenarios like a regular Champions game.

 

I agree with this, though I handled it rather differently.  I think it's important to be able to write up things at large or small scales with the normal rules.

[PaycheckHero]

After having thought about this fruitlessly off and on since 4e, I think I've finally found a conceptual framework that, while suprising (to me), leads to a workable solution.  Here is the core principle:

 

Scale interactions, not characters.

 

This means that you write up every character (including of course vehicles and any other hero system entity) using the normal rules without reference to their scale.  All quantities on the sheet are assumed to be at the scale of that character, and when they are applied to another character we simply adjust quantities as necessary.  For example, when a human attacks a cat or a mecha the damage is scaled upwards or downwards because that damage as written on the character sheet is assumed to be at the scale of the attacker, and in order to apply it we need to re-scale it to the defender.  It also means that we don't adjust Body, PD, damage, or anything else for large or small scaled characters (even if we would for different sizes at the same scale).

 

Note that this is specifically scale-invariant: a cat and a mecha can both have strength 10 and do 2d6 str damage to another character at their scale.  That's convenient.  The real-world is not scale invariant and actually scales in a *much* more complex fashion (reflexes get faster as the length of nerves shorten, for example, strength scales more slowly than mass), but then it also doesn't permit much of what we put into games.  We need scale invariance to be the default for simplicity and to approximate genres with extremely large or small humanoids, and any other effects are something the GM has to choose based on the dramatic reality of a particular campaign.

 

This also means that there are two overlapping systems in the game: the normal size rules and these scale rules.  That also seems odd, and goes against the hero assumption that it's best to front-load as much as possible to character creation instead of during play, but I hope to convince you that, paradoxically, the dual system works better than a single one.

 

Second core principle:

 

The scale rules are their own rule with it's own mechanics and and are not constructed with existing powers (though the mechanics should resemble them so as to fit seamlessly with the rest of the rules).

 

This also goes against a basic hero idea that the existing powers create a basis for doing anything, but that has not been working well for hero (probably because the powers are specifically fitted to superhero reality, and that's kind of a problem as NuSoardGraphite pointed out).  It also turns out that making it a new rule is actually *much* simpler, and I think Steve Peterson and/or George MacDonald once said that you create a new power when it makes things simpler.

 

OK, here is my first cut at a specific rule based on those principles:

 

Hero Scaling v1.0:

 

We introduce one new quantity, Reference Scale.  Reference scales are logarithmic.  Every point of scale difference corresponds to a doubling or halving of volume (and thus mass for objects of ordinary density), so that three points of scale difference corresponds to a doubling or halving of linear dimensions.  Reference Scale 0 is the standard scale in the rules.

 

Every character is written to a specific Reference Scale; if no Scale is written on the character sheet Scale 0 is assumed.  This is not necessarily the size of the character since all the existing size powers and rules can still be used.  For example, if cats are written to reference scale -5, then the GM could choose to write up all dogs at that scale and use the standard size rules for dogs larger than lapdog sized.  Similarly, a very large or small mecha could use the size rules to adjust their size relative to whatever the GM has set as "mecha scale."

 

Maps also have a Reference Scale, and again Scale 0 is the default unless specified otherwise (in earlier editions this would have been simple to say, since it would mean that 1 hex = 2m at scale 0, 1 hex = 1m at scale -3, and so on).

 

Scale is used as follows:

 

I. Whenever characters of different scales interact with each other, some (but not all) effects get scaled according to the *difference* in Reference Scale.  If N = (attacker scale) - (defender scale), then we have

 

1. +N damage classes (N is a signed quantity, so if the attacker is smaller than the defender this reduces damage in a way that resembles damage negation)

 

2. -2N/3 OCV (so if the attacker is larger it is more difficult to hit).  This may only apply to ranged combat--the rule should be the same as the GM is using for size powers.

 

3. There is NO scaling of Body, Stun, Knockback, or anything else having to do with applying this damage to the defender.  We compute damage normally at the attacker's scale (i.e. as written on the attacker's character sheet), scale the resulting number of damage classes to the defender's scale, and then roll and apply that damage normally at the defender's scale (i.e. as written on the defender's character sheet).

 

However, note that adding DCs will also add knockback, do more body, and vice versa, so that in practice the other things get effectively scaled simply by virtue of the rule.  A small character who takes a -3d6 DC penalty against some large character is effectively taking a KB penalty as well, and also doing less body and stun.  This is like giving the larger character KB resistance and extra body and stun, but it happens automatically by the scaling rules.  This automatic handling of quantities is part of what convinced me I was on to something in scaling interactions during play instead of using the usual Hero front-loading system of putting size differences on a character sheet.

 

4. Other things I missed?

 

These specific numbers could be debated, but they are consistent with long-standing hero practice; as spot checks, I verified that they fit both the 6e vehicle size chart and the 4e size powers.  In 4e we might phrase it as +2N/3 DCV instead, but this is mechanically identical and so is a choice of computational method rather than part of the rule.

 

II. Whenever a character interacts with the map, i.e. with something geometrical, effects are scaled to the difference between the character's reference scale and the map's scale.  If M = (character scale) - (map scale), then we have:

 

1. Reach is multiplied by 2^(N/3), i.e. each three points doubles or halves reach.  This uses the stretching rules, but of course is not actually the stretching power.

 

2. Movement is scaled by the same factor, i.e. each three points doubles or halves the character's movement.  This is a bit like buying more/less movement and a bit like a non-combat multiple, but there is no precise power for this.  You could think of it as "combat multiples" if you like.

 

3. Area effects, explosion, and the like will also have to be scaled, obviously.  This could get complex in certain edge cases and requires further thought.

 

4. It will also interact with Megascale.

 

5. Other things I missed?

 

This is already long, so I'll save further discussion for another message.

[Grailknight]

This looks likes a good start!

[PaycheckHero]

I just realized I didn't state a third important assumption and how it is implemented in my draft rule. The third assumption is this: scales are normally a campaign parameter chosen by the GM, not a character parameter chosen by the player. This is a direct generalization of existing hero rules: the existing rules choose Scale 0 as the single campaign scale and all characters are written up at this reference scale. That is correct for the majority of campaigns (if it weren't, it wouldn't have worked well enough for so long) simply because most campaigns are anthropocentric. Even in supers, the vast majority of characters are human scale or not too different from it, and so work well when written up to reference scale zero.

 

The problem common to both cats and mecha is that campaigns centered on them break that assumption. In a supers game, a mecha or a cat written with the standard rules "work" because most of their interactions are with human-scale objects. Thus, it is convenient to have them written up with reference scale zero. But in the mecha game, while humans are present in game terms they're along for the ride, and the most common scale is "mecha scale." It is no longer convenient to write up the mecha with reference to human scale, because they don't generally do a lot of interaction with humans using the game mechanics ("OK, you squash the human" doesn't need many rules). Similarly, in a game of Cat PCs, most characters are at about a scale of -5 or so, and the GM would define this to be "cat scale." A player might want to play a collie at about size -2, but then again there might also be a fair amount of interaction with rats at scale -6 or mice at even smaller scales.

 

So what I intend is for the GM to choose a small number of scales that will be sufficient for his campaign. For the Cat game, that probably means just scale -5 for PCs and scale 0 for humans and maybe writeups from the bestiary. A 50lb farm dog might be written up with three levels of size against the campaign standard reference scale of -5 rather than at scale -2. Why? Because -5 is about the median and mode for the sizes of things the PCs need to interact with, and this way we often don't even need to use the scale rules. This is yet another difference between using per-character size rules and campaign-wide Reference Scale rules; the scale rules mediate between different uses of the standard rules.

 

Now it isn't *necessary* to do this--you can write everything up at their own natural reference scale, and if your campaign really has a wide range of sizes this might well be the best thing to do. (It might also be the best thing to do in a campaign full of re-scaled animals--giant mice, miniature blue whales, etc.) The system wouldn't be fully general if you couldn't do this, and maybe it will turn out this is the best way to do it. I really don't know yet. I'm just making the point that you don't *have* to do that, and may not want to do so. The scale-invariant scale rules are purposely "flavorless" in that queen bees fighting for control of the hive are going to feel more like mecha fighting (e.g. both average to STR 8-10 at their scale) than you might like. You can still use the non-scale-invariant hero size rules to make big things *feel* different than small things (e.g. the farm dog is a giant compared to the cats), while using two or three campaign standard scale rules to keep the variation under control and prevent small things from being all the same or melee strangely between themselves.

 

IOW: the GM gets to choose, and we'd simply have to learn by experience what the "best practice" is at using the scale rule to customize a particular campaign.

[NuSoardGraphite]

You are definitely on to something here. This is something I believe the system sorely needs. Proper rules for scale would allow for characters from Ant-man and Atom to Gojira vs Jaegers and everything in between. Looks like you have a pretty good start here and is similar to how I would handle things in a game where the scale was normally at something less than the normal (scale "0") but occasionally would interact out of scale (such as the aforementioned cat game)

[PaycheckHero]

Proper rules for scale would allow for characters from Ant-man and Atom to Gojira vs Jaegers and everything in between.

That was my idea. I was dismayed to find something hero simply didn't do workably and it stuck in my craw to fix it ad-hoc on a campaign by campaign basis.

 

Looks like you have a pretty good start here

I hope so, but it needs playtesting. I'd like to know if it's robust enough to be worth writing up in permanent form.

[PaycheckHero]

I thought of another possible use of this type of scaling rule in games that are only played at one scale. I don't actually like the official hero real-world conversions that much for lower-level games, and this was brought home to me reading the writeups in the MHI handbook. There just isn't that much resolution for normals, with strength being possibly the worst in this regard. (6e probably makes this better in that it's now more feasible just to buy the secondaries without increasing your actual lifting ability, but as I haven't played much 6e I don't have detailed thoughts on that.) My games have tended to have the scale altered a bit, not with any kind of system but just by letting players buy stats that are supposed to be stunningly rare. One guy (not my game, but same group) had a 4e knight with a 25 strength, bought double after 20 and all. I know I'm not the only one who does this, since there were questions about the writeups from people who thought Owen should be stronger. The MHI writeups use the conversions exactly as written, but I think they probably don't usualy do so and so were surprised at the results.

 

Now consider that you could run, say, a fantasy or pulp game with ordinary humans but written at a reference scale of -1. That means you have to buy 25 str to have the same lift as 20 at scale 0, and so on. In fact, everything in the rules works just as written, thanks to the scale rules. In fact, you don't need scale, right? Well, true, *except* if you use any published writeups, official or off the web, they will be at scale 0. So you really *do* have two scales in the game if you use those writeups. The old way was to just hack the writeups to whatever power level you wanted them to be at. I'm suggesting that if the scale rule actually works, you simply use them as written and scale the effects up and down when they interact with characters written up at scale -1.

 

Workable? Problems I don't see?

[bigbywolfe]

That doesn't sound like it is changing the scale of the game, it just sounds like you decided to ise the alternate STR Chart from the APG which is specifically suggested for more granular, gritty low powered games.

[PaycheckHero]

That doesn't sound like it is changing the scale of the game, it just sounds like you decided to ise the alternate STR Chart from the APG which is specifically suggested for more granular, gritty low powered games.

I'm really glad you brought that to my attention, I hadn't noticed it. Scale -1 has about the same effect as that chart, though I claim that it *is* rescaling. The alternate STR chart is simply one more ad-hoc rescaling to patch a slight rough spot. We have too many ad-hoc systems associated with size, I'm trying to figure out a way to fix it once and for all in a general way. The very fact that my proposal is close to the alternate str chart is another indication to me that the suggested rule fits in with the rest of the system rather than fighting it. The point was to try to find something that feels natural within the system.

 

That said, it's not quite the same effect. First of all, mechanically it ought to slightly change the DCV penalty breakpoints if other scales are used as well. The rate is -2 DCV (+2 OCV vs in 6e, but it's easier to discuss in the language of the old rule) per three levels, and you can get -1 for a size difference of two. Characters written up against scale -1 rather than scale 0 are halfway to the -1 difference. This may not come up often, but it is there.

 

A different view of the same effect when other scales aren't being used: what this says is that the average humanoid at scale is 62" and 110 lbs rather than 78" and 220 lbs.  Using the average human statistics (from here: http://www.statisticbrain.com/human-body-statistics/) of 69"/64" (male/female) and 195lb/165lb this puts humans toward the upper end of the scale rather than the lower end (and depending on how you build them may shift something like an orc or goblin into the same size range if you'd have built them one size lower before).  A very large human might be able to justify taking a level of hero system size under the standard rules.  That isn't good or bad, it's really just a matter of the dramatic reality you wish to create in your campaign, but it may be a better fit for the many stories of men of mighty stature.  Anthropometry varies over more than a factor of two, but where the breakpoint is will have an effect on what it is reasonable to buy and thus how campaigns feel.

 

And finally, it has a potentially large difference on how you use published characters.  If you use the rules I suggested, escaling effectively makes them all stronger, as they'll do an extra damage class.  This makes it simple to increase human max to 25 and not have to re-write everything else to maintain the same relationships.  The APG rule applied to PCs without rewriting NPCs would be more akin to scaling all NPCs down a level, which is certainly OK (and possibly the intent of the APG) but might not be what the GM wanted.

 

I'm very happy if in the end a standard special case rule just falls out of my general rule, as it suggests the general rule is on the right track.