Pulling a Punch & Code vs. Killing

[Ninja-Bear]

1. Should all characters with a CvK be required to use the Pulling a Punch maneuver?

 

2. If not, what additional Psychological Complication would be necessary to require it when there is doubt about an opponents toughness?

I don't think that you should. I read require in your second statement as forced. My wording not yours for clarity. I think that pulling a punch I'd a reasonable option for cvk players. But when it comes to roleplaying, what a character does is ultimately upto the player not mechanics. Now of course if a player takes this cvk and still acts bloodthirsty then its upto the GM to adress the issue. That can be the police arresting saI'd "hero". Iirc DC 4th covers this topic nicely.

[esampson]

I think people are discussing different things.  I don't think Captain Overkill, with his 18D6 EB, should be unloading on Vinnie the Snitch when he tries to sneak out the back of the warehouse.  My reading of the initial question was that you encounter a villain in a costume who you've never seen before.  He's a guy in a green suit with red goggles, and his hands are glowing with yellow energy.  When he sees you, he laughs and points his hand towards you.  Do you, as a character with a code against killing, have to pull your punch when you hit him?

 

I say no.  When someone is displaying powers and/or is choosing to engage in super-level combat, it's a safe assumption that they can take a punch.  In the almost 20 years that I've been playing Champions, I've killed a villain exactly once.  I hit him, his armor failed its 14- activation roll, I rolled great on body and knockback, he slammed into a concrete barrier, his armor failed its activation again, and I rolled great damage again.  Took him to past negative Body in one shot.  Funny thing was, the other player in the game killed another villain, in the same fight, in the same phase, on the same dex.  Villain happened to have a very bad susceptibility and a vulnerability too, and he accidentally triggered them both at once.

 

I think that's a little too meta for me. It's sort of like saying that even though I have a code vs. killing it is ok for me to open up on him with my .357 magnum because even if he is unarmored the most body I will roll on 1 1/2d6 is 9 body so that's ok.

 

Of course that's just my opinion. You are completely entitled to play how you and your GM see fit. As for the GM forcing people to pull punches or roll fewer dice, I'm probably not really in favor of that, either. As a GM what I would probably do is talk to the player and tell them that if they continue to act with what appears to be a reckless disregard toward people's health they will be required to replace the complication with something else and then work out a reasonable replacement.

[massey]

All I'm saying is that the character should normally have an idea of how powerful he is relative to other supers.  You know if your 12D6 EB is likely to kill someone or not.  An obviously normal mook?  Yes, it could be fatal.  The flying guy in spandex?  He'll be fine.  Killing attacks, on the other hand, are designed to kill.  Unless the person has obvious resistant defenses, you shouldn't unload with your 4D6 RKA.

[esampson]

All I'm saying is that the character should normally have an idea of how powerful he is relative to other supers.  You know if your 12D6 EB is likely to kill someone or not.  An obviously normal mook?  Yes, it could be fatal.  The flying guy in spandex?  He'll be fine.  Killing attacks, on the other hand, are designed to kill.  Unless the person has obvious resistant defenses, you shouldn't unload with your 4D6 RKA.

I suppose my question is "why does he know that a flying guy in spandex will be fine?"

 

Sure, if the guy is Uberman, a known villain who bounces bullets off his chest that's one thing, but for all your character knows maybe the guy's whole power is flight. Even if he has other powers there's no immediate reason to believe that he's got defenses higher than a normal human being. There's nothing inherent in the ability to fly and project laser beams from your eyes that means that you can withstand what amounts to a very substantial car crash.

 

The answer is that you know because your GM isn't going to be throwing out a villain with 10 body and 4 points of applicable defense. If your GM did you would probably get angry with them because they somehow 'tricked you' into violating your CvK. You also know that the odds of you rolling 24 body on your attack are practically non-existent.

 

This is 'metagaming'. We all do it now and then, so don't think I'm pointing a finger and screaming 'unclean' at you. I'm just pointing it out so that maybe you might step back and go 'Hmm...good point. Unleashing a 12d6 attack on someone simply because I know he is a supervillain and will almost certainly survive it is in the same category as shooting them with a 1 1/2d6 RKA since I know that they can't be killed by it'.

 

I'm not taking a hardline stand and going to accuse you of 'doing it wrong'. It's a game. As long as you and your friends are having fun that's the thing that really matters. I'm just going to ask 'why did you get 20 points for a complication that seems to have very little effect?' Perhaps for your campaign the complication should be worth fewer points since it is only limiting on the occasions where you are fighting mooks and agents.

 

Again, this isn't saying 'you must play it my way or be declared apostate' or anything like that. All I'm trying to do is provide some food for thought. If it isn't to your liking, feel free to ignore it.

[massey]

I suppose my question is "why does he know that a flying guy in spandex will be fine?"

 

Sure, if the guy is Uberman, a known villain who bounces bullets off his chest that's one thing, but for all your character knows maybe the guy's whole power is flight. Even if he has other powers there's no immediate reason to believe that he's got defenses higher than a normal human being. There's nothing inherent in the ability to fly and project laser beams from your eyes that means that you can withstand what amounts to a very substantial car crash.

 

The answer is that you know because your GM isn't going to be throwing out a villain with 10 body and 4 points of applicable defense. If your GM did you would probably get angry with them because they somehow 'tricked you' into violating your CvK. You also know that the odds of you rolling 24 body on your attack are practically non-existent.

 

This is 'metagaming'. We all do it now and then, so don't think I'm pointing a finger and screaming 'unclean' at you. I'm just pointing it out so that maybe you might step back and go 'Hmm...good point. Unleashing a 12d6 attack on someone simply because I know he is a supervillain and will almost certainly survive it is in the same category as shooting them with a 1 1/2d6 RKA since I know that they can't be killed by it'.

 

I'm not taking a hardline stand and going to accuse you of 'doing it wrong'. It's a game. As long as you and your friends are having fun that's the thing that really matters. I'm just going to ask 'why did you get 20 points for a complication that seems to have very little effect?' Perhaps for your campaign the complication should be worth fewer points since it is only limiting on the occasions where you are fighting mooks and agents.

 

Again, this isn't saying 'you must play it my way or be declared apostate' or anything like that. All I'm trying to do is provide some food for thought. If it isn't to your liking, feel free to ignore it.

 

No, I feel free to shoot the villain because I don't play in a blood-soaked Iron Age game.  It isn't a part of the 4 color genre to have a villain go splut when he gets punched by the hero.  In our campaign world there hasn't ever been a villain who only had flight and eye lasers.  Why would you think someone would develop powers like that?  I wouldn't pull my punch on a 12D6 EB because even when you shoot a Viper agent they don't die.

 

Maybe I'll just take "Code Against Intentionally Killing" instead.

 

But I can turn the argument around.  How do you know that the villain doesn't have a fatal susceptibility to your powers?  Even if you pull your punch so it does 1/2 Body, how do you know he's not sickly with 2 PD and 5 Body, and that you won't roll really well?  That's metagaming.  I mean, in the real world people die from tasers, which are probably like a 4D6 EB.  That guy might have a heart attack if you use your illusion powers on him.  Even once you've shot the villain with low powered attacks and they've harmlessly bounced off of him, how do you know he doesn't have an activation roll on his defenses?

 

The answer?  You're counting on the GM to not screw over your character, and instead to run a game that you want to play.  I don't play games set in the real world, I play games set in a superhero universe.  One where villains don't explode when you hit them.

[Tigereye]

Boy, am I glad I'm in a universe where the GM doesn't require CvK for his heroes. (of course, we're also in a universe that if you kill someone, you could go to prison yourself if it wasn't in self-defense, and registration is more or less mandatory, so...)

[Philip Nicholls]

by taking a code against killing your character has made a choice that he will never use a level of force that could kill an opponent, these no maybes involved, if the Player is not happy with this then they should take it as a limitation/complication.

[massey]

Any force could kill an opponent.  How do you know that Dr Destroyer has 40 defense?  You looked at his character sheet, that's how.  But your character doesn't know that.  He just knows people say he's tough.  He's still a 90 year old man in armor.  How do you know sneaking up behind him and saying "Boo!" won't give him a heart attack?  You don't.

 

But the GM doing that to you is no different than him having some villain who only has 2 PD and 10 Body and has a vulnerability to your character's attacks.  Theoretically possible?  Yes.  Actually going to happen in a game?  No. 

[Greywind]

You don't know that.

 

The power levels in my game are all over the place.

[GhostDancer]

Also see post #14.  I was surprised by the wet paper mooks twice- two different campaigns, same GM.  Part of the problem is said GM never committed same to writing.

[Grailknight]

It's equal parts metagaming, character capabilities  and campaign expectations.

 

Superman and Batman both have 20 pt CVK but their methods are very different.

 

Superman does pull his punch and gives unknown foes first shot. He ramps up the power of his attacks gradually unless innocents are in danger. He can do this because hey Superman. Killing is almost never an option that needs consideration.

 

Batman goes full out and fights dirty. He often leads with attacks that will disable or cripple mooks and has the CIA would get in trouble for some of the torture he uses. He still never kills and will let villains escape to save a mook's life.

 

So, its more about the options the PC has and the degree of danger the PC is in. If your mooks hit as hard as your sidekicks, then they may end up in the hospital.

[MrAgdesh]

Just get rid of the OCV penalty. Or keep it and say that if you make your roll exactly, then you do no damage. You've underestimated your force instead.

[esampson]

No, I feel free to shoot the villain because I don't play in a blood-soaked Iron Age game.  It isn't a part of the 4 color genre to have a villain go splut when he gets punched by the hero.  In our campaign world there hasn't ever been a villain who only had flight and eye lasers.  Why would you think someone would develop powers like that?  I wouldn't pull my punch on a 12D6 EB because even when you shoot a Viper agent they don't die.

 

Maybe I'll just take "Code Against Intentionally Killing" instead.

 

But I can turn the argument around.  How do you know that the villain doesn't have a fatal susceptibility to your powers?  Even if you pull your punch so it does 1/2 Body, how do you know he's not sickly with 2 PD and 5 Body, and that you won't roll really well?  That's metagaming.  I mean, in the real world people die from tasers, which are probably like a 4D6 EB.  That guy might have a heart attack if you use your illusion powers on him.  Even once you've shot the villain with low powered attacks and they've harmlessly bounced off of him, how do you know he doesn't have an activation roll on his defenses?

 

The answer?  You're counting on the GM to not screw over your character, and instead to run a game that you want to play.  I don't play games set in the real world, I play games set in a superhero universe.  One where villains don't explode when you hit them.

Well, I suppose that's fair. You want to use the logic that your hero is well enough versed that they are able to identify that pretty much anyone they are going to be attacking is able to survive a 12d6 attack (even low level thugs would only be reduced to 2 body on average, and in the case of a really bad roll they are merely reduced to negative body but you have turns and turns of time in which to stabilize them) and that even if they have to grab a .357 magnum and shoot someone there's no danger of actually killing them.

 

I can see your point that yes, your character is experienced, yes, they know these things, and yes, the only way you actually would wind up killing someone with such an attack would be to attack someone who is more or less a normal (agents will also fall into this category) and then have an incredibly unlikely series of events (high damage, high knockback into an obstacle and 2 failed armor rolls) or because your GM 'pulls a fast one' and sticks in someone with sub-par defenses (at which point it is the GM's fault for doing so and not your fault).

 

What I can't see, in this case, is how the Code vs. Killing is limiting your character. I suppose it means you can't outright murder someone who has been knocked unconcious so that they won't come back to haunt you in the future but I don't think that counts as a common situation. I'm pretty sure it doesn't count as a total commitment since you don't become "totally useless or completely irrational in the situation" (6e1 pg. 426's wording, not mine).

[massey]

Well, first we don't play 6th edition, and so I'm not really all that up on how Complications are different than Disadvantages.  Our GM uses our disads as story hooks so that he can engage us with the rest of the campaign world.  I understand that it's not the common way that disads are used in Champions games, but I've played characters for dozens of sessions and never had certain things come up.  As I said, the only time I've ever seen a villain die was on that one night where I had complete fluke rolls and the other player just happened to hit a villain with a very specific vulnerability.  And truthfully I think the GM was feeling a little bit of bloodlust that night.

 

We normally use psychological limitations as a good way to define the character's ethics and personality.  They are roleplaying guides as much as anything else.  "In love with Jane" is as much a valid psych lim as "code against killing", and it will pretty much never come up in combat.  But CvK has a lot of applications to a character's behavior beyond making you throw fewer dice.  What do you do with the homicidal villain when you finally subdue him?  You have the chance to end his reign of terror now, no chance for him to escape later on and kill more people.  Do you kill him?  Another villain is getting away.  He's flying away in a helicopter.  It's faster than you.  If you shoot it, the chopper will crash into the canyon below.  Do you risk the villain dying?

[esampson]

Except tha

 

Well, first we don't play 6th edition, and so I'm not really all that up on how Complications are different than Disadvantages.  Our GM uses our disads as story hooks so that he can engage us with the rest of the campaign world.  I understand that it's not the common way that disads are used in Champions games, but I've played characters for dozens of sessions and never had certain things come up.  As I said, the only time I've ever seen a villain die was on that one night where I had complete fluke rolls and the other player just happened to hit a villain with a very specific vulnerability.  And truthfully I think the GM was feeling a little bit of bloodlust that night.

 

We normally use psychological limitations as a good way to define the character's ethics and personality.  They are roleplaying guides as much as anything else.  "In love with Jane" is as much a valid psych lim as "code against killing", and it will pretty much never come up in combat.  But CvK has a lot of applications to a character's behavior beyond making you throw fewer dice.  What do you do with the homicidal villain when you finally subdue him?  You have the chance to end his reign of terror now, no chance for him to escape later on and kill more people.  Do you kill him?  Another villain is getting away.  He's flying away in a helicopter.  It's faster than you.  If you shoot it, the chopper will crash into the canyon below.  Do you risk the villain dying?

Except that just as in your earlier examples a crashing helicopter really has pretty much 0 chance of actually killing a villain. Sure, it might do some damage to them but the odds of it causing actual death are incredible low .

 

The differnce between Complications in 6th and Disadvantages in 5th is largely semantic. The both fill the exact same slot (something that happens to the character as a whole as opposed to functioning on a specific power or ability) and they provide points as opposed to reducing costs (though the wording of the mechanism is different in 6th there is no mathematical difference between 'up to 75 points in Disadvantages' and '75 points in Complications but you may take less which will reduce the total number of points available to your character').

 

I think the main reason we don't see eye to eye is because we don't agree on the function of Disadvantages/Complications. To me the concept boils down to 'does it have a negative impact on the character?' If it does then the character is given more points to compensate for the negative impact (similar to the way that something that has a negative impact on a power makes it less expensive). If it doesn't have a negative impact on the character then it should not be worth any points (this is actually explicited stated in the 6e rules under Complications).

 

So where does 'in love with Jane' fall? Well, it depends. It definitely could be a complication. If Jane is a normal who often gets into the middle of trouble and the character is forced to divert extra time an energy to save her, that's a definite negative effect; most likely DNPC. If Jane is a super powered individual (other PC or NPC) who is capable of holding her own in a fight but my feelings for her will often influence my character actions, causing me to go off mission, leave myself open to attacks from bad guys, or otherwise not function  to the full of my abilities then yes, that to is a definite negative effect; most like a psychological limitation/complication. On the other hand if never (or practically never) negatively impacts me because Jane is my NPC wife who is never really placed in any danger because she remains off screen for any combat scenes or because Jane is a super powered individual and I don't give her any more backup than I would to any of the other PCs then no, to me she doesn't really have any negative impact and shouldn't be worth any points.

 

Does this mean my character can't be 'in love with Jane'? Not at all. He could be deeply and hoplessly in love with her. The GM could use this for all sorts of plot hooks. However, in my opinion, it shouldn't be worth any points in those cases. It is a matter of the character's personality and while Disadvantages/Complications provide some of the most defining aspects of a character's personality they are hardly the only things that define it.

 

Of course this is merely my take on Disadvantages/Complications. You and your GM are entitled to run them however you wish. That difference, though, is probably why we don't see eye to eye on how a character with CvK should react when facing an unknown opponent for the first time.

[GhostDancer]

 

In our (hello, Detroit) superhero universes, our characters believe that a .357 magnum shot to the torso, or being thrown or dropped off a six story building, or other similarly severe trauma will kill most targets most of the time, even though Hero game mechanics RAW indicate otherwise.  

[Greywind]

You never know how the human body will react to shock and trauma.

[Hyper-Man]

In our (hello, Detroit) superhero universes, our characters believe that a .357 magnum shot to the torso, or being thrown or dropped off a six story building, or other similarly severe trauma will kill most targets most of the time, even though Hero game mechanics RAW indicate otherwise.  

 

A .357 is defined as a 1.5d6K meaning an average of 5.5 Body.

A 'normal' NPC with 8 Body will be minutes from death due to blood loss from an average torso hit.

If they get a maximum damage roll (9) combined with a hit to the head or vitals (x2 Body) it would be an instant kill vs. a 'normal'.

That seems pretty deadly to me.

[esampson]

It would only instantly kill them if you were using hit locations. 5.5 body would only be dangerous if you are using Bleeding rules. Most superhero campaigns do not use either of these, and only "Average Person" and worse (small child, senior citizen) have only 8 body. Even low level thugs (Noteworthy Normal) have 10 body, which would make them 'safe to shoot'. Of course your campaign could be one in which most gang members use the Average Person stats and only the leader of the gang counts as a Noteworth Normal (with Skilled Normal and Competent Normal being reserved for especially well trained people such as agents and black op soldiers) but that's not my general experience.

 

This isn't to say that my way is "correct". If I were to be playing in a game with Massey and friends and I started running around screaming at the other characters because they weren't pulling punches and because they were shooting people with large handguns I would be the person in the wrong. I would be refusing to accept what they all choose to view as a standard convention of their game (assuming Massey is an accurate representative of their game) and I would be demanding that they try to change to please me.

 

All I'm really saying is that the way Massey views the issue is not the way I view it (and I'll admit that I feel other people should not view it Massey's way, but then we always feel people should view things the way we view them), but it isn't like this is an international competition where we require absolute standardization so we can effectively compare ourselves to one another. As long as Massey and crew are having fun that's the most important thing.

[drunkonduty]

With things like "In love with Jane" I'm happy as long as it's role-played.

 

Yes, Jane will need to be a character who is on screen for a reasonable amount of time. (Whatever "reasonable" might be.)

 

No, Jane doesn't have to be a distraction in combat or a plot hook or an ersatz DNPC. She can be these things occasionally. VERY occasionally. In fact only if I'm desperate for a plot. I feel that if a player hasn't taken her as a DNPC I should not use her as such.

 

What I would like to see arise form the complication is some sort of conflict. It may be as simple as being in love with Jane conflicting with having secret ID and having to run off to fight bad guys a lot. This leaves Jane wondering where it is you get to all night and whether or not you love her.

 

In short - there's soap opera to be had here. And as far as I'm concerned Super Heroics has soap. I realise others disagree on that point.

[Hugh Neilson]

Let's take a step backwards. What happens when the Hero uses less dice, pulls his punch, etc. and gradually ramps up power as he learns how tough his opponent is?

 

a. Much like the Superman example, he is surprised to find how tough the target is, takes a couple of hits, is placed at a momentary disadvantage, etc. from which he quickly recovers, winning the battle without compromising his ethics. The Hero wins and looks Heroic in the process.

 

b. The OCV penalty or lower damage from reduced dice makes his initial attack miss/ineffective. The advantage to the opponent results in the hero being curbstomped, the villain achieving his goals and the innocent suffering or being killed. The Hero loses and looks like a chump in the process.

 

I suggest that players will be reluctant to attack with less than full force when the game result is b. Every target needs to be attacked for full damage, from initiation of combat, or the heroes lose. Result: Either the players insist full out attacks are not inconsistent with a CvK, or the players refuse to take CvK or similar drawbacks/personalities.

 

Often, the reason players won't play to genre is that the GM is not playing to genre - in genre, the "playing to genre" actions benefit the character, or at least do not penalize him, overall.

[massey]

That's a fantastic point.

 

I've seen too many GMs eager to give players some sort of disadvantage in combat.  In fact, even in this thread, the prevailing tone appeared to be "if the player didn't want to get hurt in combat, he shouldn't have taken this disadvantage".  It doesn't take much to turn the relationship between player and GM into an adversarial one.

 

Superman has the advantage that he is more powerful than most of his foes.  Superman's player can afford to take OCV penalties, punch for fewer dice, pull his punch, etc., because he is more powerful.  This is also a legitimate reason for him to hold back most of the time -- Superman knows that if he hits with full power he has a good chance of putting BODY on his opponent.

 

The average character is not in the same position.  The average player knows that his character is built on 250/350/400, whatever the campaign average is.  And the average player has looked through the books and knows how tough the villains are.  And he knows that if he spends the first turn of combat "feeling out" his opponent, using less dice, that he's going to get beaten into the dirt because Morningstar is going to hit him with a 16D6 thwack.

 

Games aren't played in a vacuum.  Players and GMs bring their history into the game.

[dmjalund]

if you design a character with CVK, you might also include a low power attack with high chances of hitting

[Hyper-Man]

if you design a character with CVK, you might also include a low power attack with high chances of hitting

 

And a GM could also award assigned XP towards PSL's/CSL's only to offset penalties from Pulling a Punch once the Players have succeeded in overcoming the challenge a time or two.

[phoenix240]

The idea of "knowing your opponents can take it" feels meta game to me too. It stems mostly from the idea that Champions is a game, so youc an safely assume that any combats will be "balanced" and lain out according to the game's guidelines to be, well, fair and game like. The Character in the world has less certainty. They might be experienced enough to the general toughness of well known NPCs and essentially how powerful their attacks are (My Starbolts can blow through a reinforced concrete wall) but they don't the dice codes or the exact probabilities or its a "normal" or "killing" attack, generally. But if they're 10d6 in Hero they might blow through a brick wall and only somewhat injure a tough (Def 8) normal. But in the real world if you were wielding a weapon that could shoot a hole in a brick wall you probably wouldn't be using it on people that you weren't at least willing to risk killing or severely injuring.

 

Allot of supers in the source material, despite being costumed adventurers aren't that tough. They're normal, if tough human beings sometimes in lightly armored suits, some times not. They would be killed if hit directly by some of the building smashing attacks they're opponents can dish out. They just aren't due to the writer's authority. But in an rpg its more up in the air. 150 Strength Ubernaught could land a punch on Def 8 Nightstalker and potentially kill him or just severely injure him But generally those two characters won't share the game or at least the same battlefeild in most Champions campaigns. You can "cheat" a bit, give Nightalker higher defenses, extra body, etc to reflect his heroic toughness and cinematic luck but in game these effects aren't visible or enough to count on and if Ubernaught has a Code vs Killing, it seems like he would restrain himself when battle Nightstalker, despite them both being "supers"

 

If the game is such that everything is going to be balanced (Even the geriatric villain Prof Evil Von Feeble is going to have an Emergency Forcefield belt and loudly announce when it activates that it only has a few charges) and since the Hero system rules make it difficult to accidentally kill a balanced opponent at the Superheroic level, CvK seems like it should be worth less, maybe just assumed as role playing fluff in such campaigns. I've considered doing that in my more four color games in the future.

 

Am I making any sense at all?