Not enough rDEF?

[Christougher]

 http://www.herogames.com/forums/topic/88783-balancing-power-levels-defense/ 

This thread in the Hero Discussion forum on defenses gave me a slightly different question.

 

Average defenses are usually suggested in the range of 1.5x to 2.5x the average DCs, with resistant defense about half that.

 

In a Fantasy game in the 50-60 AP / 10-12 DC range, that means the lowest expected rDEF is 7, average is 11, and max is 15.

 

I don't know if Fantasy Hero says anything different, but the base rulebooks list DEF 8 for full plate armor.

 

Does this mean that even the lightest defended monk or mage characters should be in wearing that, and that the tanks need multiple levels of Combat Luck on top of that?

Or is worn armor just a bit light on the Armor DEF value?  Is Combat Luck a more-or-less required power?  Or is there another way to get resistant DEF up to those suggested values?

 

Chris.

[Ndreare]

60 active point is superhero level. My fantasy games do not have tells that lift 100 tons.

 

We use 30 AP as the target and 45 as the maximum.

 

So when scaled to this level it makes a little more sense.

It is very rare that we play 60 AP target for attacks in a fantasy or Sci Fi game.

[Ndreare]

PS: Yes combat luck is common.

Most of the rogues and psionic types will select it.

[GhostDancer]

A level of Combat Luck comes highly recommended for Western Hero, too, though other rDEF is not generally worn, etc.

[Steve]

I think limiting Combat Luck as suggested in the Valdorian Age book is a good idea because it allows warriors some defense if unarmored.

 

Heavy armor and Combat Luck is a pretty powerful combo.

[Christougher]

I think limiting Combat Luck as suggested in the Valdorian Age book is a good idea because it allows warriors some defense if unarmored.

 

Heavy armor and Combat Luck is a pretty powerful combo.

 

I don't have that book, so I don't know what it suggests.

 

Yeah, it's powerful, but on the other hand, it seems that it's almost required to meet the suggested defense levels.  And that I think is a problem.

 

Chris.

[bigbywolfe]

I don't have that book, so I don't know what it suggests.

 

Yeah, it's powerful, but on the other hand, it seems that it's almost required to meet the suggested defense levels.  And that I think is a problem.

 

Chris.

It is only "required to meet the suggested defense levels" if you are using the suggested Superheroic AP level with a fantasy game.  

[Ndreare]

I think what you are missing is that you have artificially increased the offense level of your game above the designed level and are now complaining about a side effect of that choice.

 

Yes if you are playing super heroes then you need to spend more points on defense. But if you are playing in the suggested fantasy levels you will not need to.

[massey]

Yes, your attacks are way higher than normal fantasy levels.  If you want warriors cutting full grown trees down with one swing of their sword, then 60 AP attacks are fine.  But understand that your normal fantasy-level armor will not be sufficient for such a campaign.  With that level of strength you can grab a dragon by the throat and choke it to death.

[Markdoc]

I think what you are missing is that you have artificially increased the offense level of your game above the designed level and are now complaining about a side effect of that choice.

Yes if you are playing super heroes then you need to spend more points on defense. But if you are playing in the suggested fantasy levels you will not need to.

No, not at all. We've routinely gone over 45 AP. Never been a problem, and we have not needed to adjust rDef. There is no "designed level" for hero system, and points caps are a late and entirely optional addition to the system (outside of con.s, I've never played in a game that uses them). What's appropriate is entirely up to the GM and players.

 

Now a game with high AP attacks and low defences may be more lethal, but that's a perfectly valid design choice. I ran two popular campaigns (lasting 2 and 4 years of regular play) where some characters had 3-4d6 HKAs and the PCs spent most of their time in their clothes - no armour at all beyond 1 level of combat luck. In 6 years of playing time we had two PC deaths, so we are not talking an uncontrollable splatterfest.

 

And I've played in games (our Strontium Dogs and Judge Dredd games spring to mind) where 2-3 d6 RKAs were the norm - and so was 2-4 rDef. PC deaths were still pretty uncommon.

 

To answer the original post, the proposed levels of Def shown are for 4-colour supers games, where serious injury almost never happens, and PC deaths are extremely rare. In other words those are guidelines for a very low lethality environment, which is not appropriate for most fantasy games.

 

If you could tell us where you want your own game to sit on a scale from "Masters of the universe" to "Game of thrones" and we can advise on how to set that up.

 

Cheers, Mark

[Ninja-Bear]

I just have to point out that 50-60 pt. Of power is fairly easy to achieve in a fantasy game. A martial artist with 15 STR = 3 DC + sai 3 HA (3DC) + wf. Sai which allows you to buy we. Sai which allows you to add that offensive strike damage = 4DC total 10 DC attack which is equivialent to 50 pts.

 

Its not nessecerly the amount of points spent but how they're spent is what is important.

[mhd]

Now I really want to play a MotU/GoT mashup.

 

One thing that I've noticed in my (rather limited) FH experience is the relative ease of adding damage to killing attacks. Otherwise, things would be rather normal. Wearing down someone wearing proper plate (8 rDEF) would be hard enough, and if you're wearing one yourself, you can focus on defense more, "tanking" the rest.

 

But then you've got a +4DC martial attack, some allover MA damage enhancement and maybe even Deadly Blow on top of that. And whoops, you're cleaving through hardened, layered steel like there's no tomorrow. And it's a bit hard to determine where exactly you've traversed into near-superheroic levels. All those options are "on" by default and can be combined freely, at least without house rules. Which I intend to introduce soon enough, although I'm not quite sure what they'll entail in this regard.

 

Also, there's not a multitude of ready-made defense options. Basically, you've got Combat Luck. Which seems a bit too good for me and often is a bit of a must-have ability (which is always a warning sign in my experience). No trade-off between armored and not, no multiple approaches to this.

Sure, you can do it with powers, but that's true for attack/damage, too.

 

I guess modifiying Combat Luck would be a first step. It not stacking with armor seems a common adjustment. I'm also thinking about turning it into an "all-or-nothing" ability, where it saves you from scratches, but not from a more serious mauling.

 

The ability to better use armor might be worth it. Bonus to rPD if you already have x as much from armor, maybe combined with an associated penalty (to attack/defense/CSL).

[Markdoc]

Before combat luck existed as a listed power, we had been using a variety of versions:

"Ha! you missed me" - +3 rPD armour, only vs attacks that can be dodged (-1/2). This won't help you if you can't dodge (ie: tied up, unaware, etc). It's a classic rogue or martial artist power

"Is that all you've got?" +3 rPD armour, does not stop the first BOD of any attack (-1/2). This decreases damage (but does not prevent some leaking through). This is a classic tough guy power

etc.

 

But one simple house rule: anything with the "Real" limitation does not stack (real armour, real weapons, etc) with powers/spells. And the same powers don't stack. If you have two 8 PD forcefields, you have two 8 PD forcefields, not a 16 PD forcefield, etc. Two shortswords are two 1d6 HKAs, not a 2d6 HKA, etc. Combat luck does not stack with armour.

 

Based on our own experience in multiple FH games, with multiple GMs letting powers and free gear stack is the fast track to a game that gets out of control: it becomes easy to get enough protection to render mundane weapons irrelevant - which means everybody wants magically enhanced weapons ... that in turn render mundane armour irrelevant. Stacking powers simply means that every PC has be magically enhanced for combat, and that means in turn that everyone who isn't decked out like a christmas tree with magical gee-gaws is essentially irrelevant.

 

The way we dealt with people who wanted to enhance the mundane or magical gear they used was simple: you can use Aid (or similar). That's more expensive, which keeps it under control. So for example:

"Wears armour like his own skin".  2d6 AID to armour - std effect 6 points (translates to +4 rPD, 0 END). This costs END to use and more character points than just buying combat luck, but it also makes you - briefly - able to dance in your armour so as to turn blows that might otherwise have penetrated it into glancing hits.

 

With regard to big attacks, it's important to enforce STR mins on weapons, and I highly, highly recommend the now-optional, but previously standard rule about not more than doubling base damage: a character with a great sword can generate a 4d6 HKA (and I had a PC in one game who did just that) but her PC had a) an 18 STR, a decent number of CSLs with sword and c) martial arts. All up, that represents a significant investment in exactly one thing - hitting people with a greatsword. And yes, at that point the PC could mow down armored warriors like wheat before the scythe, but that was his thing, and the "no more than double" rule capped his damage at 4d6 (unless he went the Aid route, which means even more investment). Deadly blow - as it is now built - doesn't alter that.

 

In our experience, the cost required to max out weapon attacks, though low enough to be feasible, is high enough that it's not a no-brainer decision. Which is really, I think, where we want to be.

 

Cheers, Mark

[Tasha]

BTW the Doubling rule is now apart of the "Real Weapon" limitation. So any weapon on the Weapon list automatically cannot be doubled. I kind of like FH 1st edition's Weapon breakage rule DC+50% rDef with 1/2 Str Min in Body. It made people really think twice about how much extra damage they would add to a weapon. I could be misremembering the numbers but I think that was close enough

[Tom Carman]

I just have to point out that 50-60 pt. Of power is fairly easy to achieve in a fantasy game. A martial artist with 15 STR = 3 DC + sai 3 HA (3DC) + wf. Sai which allows you to buy we. Sai which allows you to add that offensive strike damage = 4DC total 10 DC attack which is equivialent to 50 pts.

 

Its not nessecerly the amount of points spent but how they're spent is what is important.

I'm not at all sure about this simple addition construction. HA as a straight add to STR is pretty standard in superheroic games. Fantasy games, on the other hand, usually employ Real Weapons with STR Min. And isn't the damage of martial maneuvers either in place of STR damage or defined in terms of strength? (Things may have changed, and I only have an old edition PDF as ready reference.)

[Old Man]

Now I really want to play a MotU/GoT mashup.

I feel like that would strongly resemble Greek mythology.

 

One thing that I've noticed in my (rather limited) FH experience is the relative ease of adding damage to killing attacks. Otherwise, things would be rather normal. Wearing down someone wearing proper plate (8 rDEF) would be hard enough, and if you're wearing one yourself, you can focus on defense more, "tanking" the rest.

 

...

 

Also, there's not a multitude of ready-made defense options. Basically, you've got Combat Luck. Which seems a bit too good for me and often is a bit of a must-have ability (which is always a warning sign in my experience). No trade-off between armored and not, no multiple approaches to this.

Sure, you can do it with powers, but that's true for attack/damage, too.

 

I guess modifiying Combat Luck would be a first step. It not stacking with armor seems a common adjustment. I'm also thinking about turning it into an "all-or-nothing" ability, where it saves you from scratches, but not from a more serious mauling.

I'm going to have to go back and look at my 6th ed rules. I originally thought that Combat Luck didn't stack with physical armor and couldn't be bought at more than one level.

 

For higher-powered campaigns I'd really be inclined to redefine Combat Luck as damage reduction rather than rPD. I put up with the rPD version because it's simpler, but once your typical DCs are up in the 9-10 range, I'd rather take a percentage off. That helps prevent sudden PC death but still allows for death of 1000 cuts.

 

rPD in general has always been hard to balance in FH, mainly because the rPD values for different types of armor are inflexibly defined. For most of my FH experience, 8 rPD is really high, and half of the hits from 6-7 DC attacks just bounce off. In the OP's campaign, the 3.5d6K hits will do enough to bring that guy down in four hits, and possibly one.

 

For the OP situation, I would probably do three things:

 

One, redefine the typical rPD values for physical armor upwards a bit. Either because there's lots of magical armor floating around or because steel is just harder. Plate would go from 8 to 11, chain to 8, leather to 5, et cetera.

 

Two, likewise improve Combat Luck probably up to the 5-6 rPD range. Like I said, I'm used to Combat Luck not stacking with physical armor, but YMMV.

 

Three, dodge a lot.

[Tasha]

You could do combat luck with Damage Negation. Take a couple DC's away and be good to go. rPD, rED and Damage Reduction tend to scale down better.

[Ninja-Bear]

I'm not at all sure about this simple addition construction. HA as a straight add to STR is pretty standard in superheroic games. Fantasy games, on the other hand, usually employ Real Weapons with STR Min. And isn't the damage of martial maneuvers either in place of STR damage or defined in terms of strength? (Things may have changed, and I only have an old edition PDF as ready reference.)

Here are your answers but inreverse order.  Martial manuevrs add to strength if its unarmed.  If you want to add a weapon's damage to a manuever, then you must buy a (we) weapon element in order to do so.  And in order to buy said element, you need to have the proper weapon familiarity first.  This is available since Ultimate Martial Artist 4th. (and possibly Ninja Hero 4th).

 

As to your first question, you broughtup a very good point.  (And I wondered if anyone would notice.)  I absolutely did not use STR minimum in my calculation above.  And you hit the nail on the head, Usually Fantasy games do use STR Min.  but it isn't absolute.  Thanks for asking for claification and not assuming that what Iposted is wrong because it doesn't follow the suggested rules.

 

I'm trying to be clever and point out how our assumptions can affect a response.  (And yes I can be just as guilty! working on it!)

[Ninja-Bear]

 

 http://www.herogames.com/forums/topic/88783-balancing-power-levels-defense/ 

This thread in the Hero Discussion forum on defenses gave me a slightly different question.

 

Average defenses are usually suggested in the range of 1.5x to 2.5x the average DCs, with resistant defense about half that.

 

In a Fantasy game in the 50-60 AP / 10-12 DC range, that means the lowest expected rDEF is 7, average is 11, and max is 15.

 

I don't know if Fantasy Hero says anything different, but the base rulebooks list DEF 8 for full plate armor.

 

Does this mean that even the lightest defended monk or mage characters should be in wearing that, and that the tanks need multiple levels of Combat Luck on top of that?

Or is worn armor just a bit light on the Armor DEF value?  Is Combat Luck a more-or-less required power?  Or is there another way to get resistant DEF up to those suggested values?

 

Chris.

 

Ndeare I'm honestly befuddled.  How did you get from this post that his characters are going to have super strength?  Now the way he posted it, there is a possibility that Christoughr could have meant it. But being a general staement of 50-60 points it isn't a definite.

[Ndreare]

It was comparative. A 60 AP attack is the same as allowing a 60 strength.

 

Complaining that the fantasy armor as written does not protect you from the AP level of super science lasers and super powers seams way out there. The fantasy armor listed is very well balanced to other technology of its own setting.

But complaints that you have to buy extra defends for characters to survive very high active point attacks seam strange.

 

If I have 60 AP attacks in my game I expect to see defense Abilities that fit. I do not expect the defends designed to resist 30-45 AP attacks being used against them.

[Christougher]

It was comparative. A 60 AP attack is the same as allowing a 60 strength.

 

Complaining that the fantasy armor as written does not protect you from the AP level of super science lasers and super powers seams way out there. The fantasy armor listed is very well balanced to other technology of its own setting.

But complaints that you have to buy extra defends for characters to survive very high active point attacks seam strange.

 

If I have 60 AP attacks in my game I expect to see defense Abilities that fit. I do not expect the defends designed to resist 30-45 AP attacks being used against them.

 

While a dragon might have that 60 STR, a player character isn't going to because that's not part of the genre.  Just because it's equivalent doesn't mean it's correct or allowed.  You seem to be equating Active Point level with a specific genre, which is not the way it works.  What Active Point level would you consider a sci-fi game with lasers and spaceships (mental powers optional)?   Modern day investigation or espionage?  You can play any genre you choose at any power level, that's the beauty of Hero System.

 

And no, Fantasy Armor is not well balanced against Magic, the "technology" of the setting.  Even at your 30-45 Active Point level, a magic spell can give 10 PD/10 ED armor or a 22 PD/22 ED Force Field, which is vastly superior to the book suggested armor.  And I happen to think that mages shouldn't be out-tanking the guys in plate armor, it's severely out of what's considered normal for the genre, and for what I want to see in the game.

 

Your last two sentences are the only ones I agree with.  I want characters to be able to have defenses that stand up to that level of offense.  The book listed defenses don't provide it, so I'm asking for suggestions to improve it.  Denigrating my choice of play style does not provide any useful help.

 

Chris.

[Ndreare]

It looks likeyou understoodmy commentsto be attacking you.

I apologize, I did not intend to attack you indirectly or personally.

[Christougher]

Apology not necessary.  No slight was felt or intended in the other direction.

 

Ninja Bear's quote of the original message just reinforced my feelings that, while I asked one question, most of the thread responses were answering different questions.

 

Chris.

[NuSoardGraphite]

Indeed.

 

In the fantasy hero book, most weapons max out at about 30 active points. a few may exceed that, but not many and not by much.

 

In the same vein, 8rdef plate armor is 24 active points (in 5th, not sure about 6th...i know defenses changed a bit), so the defense is essentially on par with the weapons in the fantasy hero book.

 

If you are allowing the purchase of powers above the 45 active point range, there is going to be balance issues that crop up, unless you adjust the defenses accordingly and by proxy, that requires an adjustment on the characteristic averages that permeate the campaign.

 

A 60 active point norm, while totally doable, creates a setting that looks more like exalted than like lord of the rings. hero has a very well-define scale of power, the only problem is that it is not immetiately noticeable to novice players and even expert players have trouble seeing the scale at times.

[Vondy]

Indeed.

 

In the fantasy hero book, most weapons max out at about 30 active points. a few may exceed that, but not many and not by much.

 

In the same vein, 8rdef plate armor is 24 active points (in 5th, not sure about 6th...i know defenses changed a bit), so the defense is essentially on par with the weapons in the fantasy hero book.

 

If you are allowing the purchase of powers above the 45 active point range, there is going to be balance issues that crop up, unless you adjust the defenses accordingly and by proxy, that requires an adjustment on the characteristic averages that permeate the campaign.

 

A 60 active point norm, while totally doable, creates a setting that looks more like exalted than like lord of the rings. hero has a very well-define scale of power, the only problem is that it is not immetiately noticeable to novice players and even expert players have trouble seeing the scale at times.

 

This is pretty much how I was going to respond. The AP of the attacks the OP describes are higher than any FH game I've played in. Usually, FH attack APs for PCs in games I've played top out in the 30-40 AP range. Dragons, giants, demon lords and the like are genre-appropriate exceptions to the normative attack / defense range -- they are supposed to be 1) scary, and 2) threats to groups of heroes. If the normative attacks in a game go higher, the defenses will have to go higher to compensate. Stacking combat luck on top of armor is probably the simplest way to accomplish the task without breaking the underlying assumptions in the system about armor values, material exponents for body, and the like.