Standard effect rule vs attacks

[Toadmaster]

I was thinking that if you can buy an attack with the standard effect then it seems fair that you could buy armor with the advantage attacks must use standard effect. Any thoughts?

[austenandrews]

Sorry, I don't follow the logic. Why should Armor have any bearing on how an attack is calculated?

 

-AA

[Simon]

To what purpose?

 

Standard Effect doesn't mean that that much damage gets through the target's defenses....it simply means that, rather than a random roll of the dice to determine the strength of the attack, the attack does a fixed amount of damage each time (slightly less than the average roll of the equivalent number of dice).

[Vondy]

I don't follow the logic on this.

 

Standard effect normalizes random results. You give up some overall effectiveness (.5 per die) for consistent, reliable results. Its considered -0 because its a fair tradeoff, and if your GM is nice, he lets you figure it at 3.5 instead of 3 anyways.

 

Armor, which has a static value, is inherently "standard effect." It seems your desire is to have the armor normalize the effect of the attacks thrown at it, which is not the point of the rule as it currently exists, since your proposed construct effects other people's powers - and depending on the amount of armor it could be regarded as a huge advantage.

 

At the very least you'd have to apply Usable As Attack, but then... how do you use armor as an attack? (other than hitting people with it).

 

This one defies my limited powers of reason.

 

If your desire it to have predictable results in the damage you take (avoiding the occasional high damage hits) then a combination of low level resistant defense and damage reduction creates a relatively managable curve.

 

I myself, due to some math problems my players have, and to speed play, have begun running a "standard effect game," which is working quite well (though I confess that I miss grabbing 26d6 for a haymaking and rolling high...)

[Toadmaster]

The reason would be to have a better idea of what how effective your armor is. By using the avaerage roll instead of a random roll it would be easier to make something "bullet proof" or similar, for example a superdude could buy DEF 13 with a standard effect vs bullets and be pretty secure in the knowledge that normal guns would not do body. While the lack of "high" rolls may be an advantage it also means there will be no "low" rolls so attacks near the limits of the DEF will actually be more effective since the will always be getting decent rolls. I don't see why it would be any more effective than buying an attack with the standard effect?

[Simon]

If what you're looking to do is to have your armor automatically make any attack against it be "standard effect", I would never allow it (personally).

 

You're looking to change the nature of the attack itself. If you want to do that, you shouldn't do it with armor, you should do it (most likely) with an odd sort of Transform Damage Shield, or some such.

 

Armor acts against the damage that hits it. Standard Effect simply "standardizes" the damage of an attack, removing the random component. The two should not be combined.

[Kristopher]

I'd never allow it.

[gewing]

A friend of mine was trying to figure out a method whereby armor would Actually stop attacks, so that guns and other weapons could only penetrate a "realistic" level of armor.

 

Never did come up with a really satisfactory method. Though "real weapon"/"Real Armor" could allow a Referee to say that just because your pick does 4d6AP when the 1/2 ogre swings it, does not mean you can take out an M-60 tand from the front on a slightly better than average hit.

[Toadmaster]

Ok, in 5th attacks are allowed to buy standard effect, it is a 0 cost add / lim. Why is allowing an attack to always be average more balanced than allowing armor to always take average damage?

 

Originally posted by gewing

A friend of mine was trying to figure out a method whereby armor would Actually stop attacks, so that guns and other weapons could only penetrate a "realistic" level of armor.

 

Never did come up with a really satisfactory method. Though "real weapon"/"Real Armor" could allow a Referee to say that just because your pick does 4d6AP when the 1/2 ogre swings it, does not mean you can take out an M-60 tand from the front on a slightly better than average hit.

 

That is actually part of it, the issue of tanks makes the widely random attacks of weapons funky, a .50 cal does 3d6 so can do up to 18 pts of body, while with standard effect 9 DEF would be sufficient to protect from that level of damage. I've been thinking that by making most of a weapons attack SE and 1/4 or 1/3 normal (for some randomness) it would make combat between tanks feel more like armor combat and help deal with the limited range of damage available. Again for example a Sherman may be 5d6RKA and 18 DEF, and a Tiger I 5 1/2d6 20 DEF, by making most of the attack SE you could make the gun 4d6SE and 1d6RKA (13-18 instead of 5-30) and reduce the armor to about 12ish on the Sherman and 4d6SE + 1 1/2d6 (14-21) and 16 DEF or so on theTiger so the Tiger has a much better chance of hurting the Sheran than the Sherman does the Tiger and avoids having to make an Abrams 8d6 with 40 DEF to compare some what realisticaly (the current Abrams would still be about right in this case). Also as you mention it would make it easier to make tanks fully protected from small arms fire, swords etc without having to give even the lightest tanks 18 DEF. I realize that as a GM I can just do this but I was wondering why this option was available for attacks and not defenses.

[Vondy]

Originally posted by Toadmaster

Ok, in 5th attacks are allowed to buy standard effect, it is a 0 cost add / lim. Why is allowing an attack to always be average more balanced than allowing armor to always take average damage?

 

 

Because not all attacks are built with the standard effect rule in mind, and:

 

1) standard effect is less than everage per die

2) some attacks won't ever do damage the character because of flat results (esp. stun)

3) its not how the rule works for obvious reasons

 

If you want to do this (and you're the game master) you should do it the opposite way, which is in no way a stretch of the rule:

 

1) assume all attacks in the game are standard effect, or

2) assume all attacks built with "real weapon" are standard effect

 

The second one addresses your concern more precisely.

[Simon]

Originally posted by Toadmaster

Ok, in 5th attacks are allowed to buy standard effect, it is a 0 cost add / lim. Why is allowing an attack to always be average more balanced than allowing armor to always take average damage?

Because allowing your attack to always be "average" (actually, slightly less than average) is a case of you modifying your own attack. Like my saying that my attack will always cost 2x END to fire off (so I take the Increased END Limitation).

 

Stating that your armor will always take "average damage" is you affecting other's abilities. You are imposing an Adder on others. This would be the same as you imposing any other Adder or Modifier on others: you need to use the appropriate Adjustment Power....you can't "just do it". The same way you can't just say that anyone that attacks you is going to pay 2x END for all of their attacks. No modifier that you place on your own defenses would (or should) have that effect. You need to construct your "defenses" in a completely different way (like making a bizarre form of Damage Shield).

[eepjr24]

I am not going into what I think about the power, but I really dislike when people don't go into possibilities, and just say "I would not allow that". I am going to assume that you want this for up to a 3d6 killing attack (picked from air). I will also assume that you only want to take 1 body from an attack at that level. Personally, I would build it like this:

 

8 PD Armor

+

9 PD Armor, only to reduce incoming "real weapon" gun attacks to standard effect levels (-1/2)

 

It's not cheap, but it should do the job?

 

- Ernie

[Simon]

Frankly, allowing a 3d6 RKA to do damage to a tank with the frequency of rolling a natural 18 is not that extraordinary. You're not necessarily puncturing the tank's armor...you can explain it away as that "lucky shot" that happened to ricochet behind one of the treads and puncture a hydrolic line.

 

If you're adamant about the tank not being able to be affected in any way by a 3d6 RKA, then buy up the tank's DEF to 18.

 

A 3d6 RKA is NOT a handgun. It is substantially more powerful than a .50 cal machine gun (which _can_ damage a tank....not likely and will normally just impact on the armor, but it is possible to damage a tank with one). It's pretty much directly between a .50 cal machine gun and light anti-tank weapon in terms of the damage inflicted. A light anti-tank weapon (a weapon _designed_ to take out a tank) does 4d6 killing damage. A .50 cal does 2d6+1. I don't see a problem with a 3d6 RKA having the possiblity of doing damage to a tank.

 

If you do, then buy up the tank's DEF accordingly.....

 

What you are looking to do with forcing Standard Effect onto attacks that didn't take that as part of their construction is in no way supported by the rules and is contrary to the way things are intended to work. It is also contrary to reality, which would appear to be what you are trying to mimic.

[zornwil]

I think this idea is interesting and has a valid character SFX use. Consider the character whose armor or other defense is wholly uniform and there is no advantage as to where it is tagged OR HOW. It DISTRIBUTES damage evenly across it's skin. So you can't nick it, doing less damage, as it catches complete damage no matter what, but you also gain no advantage with luck or any other condition.

 

However, there is nothing in the game to support it, I agree.

 

I think I would allow it, though, with a +1/4 advantage (it does kill off the upper part of the curve) for a REAL standard effect of 3.5 STUN, 1 BOD per dice. I might also consider a +0 advantage that allows for 4 STUN per dice.

[Toadmaster]

Ok, I understand the effect on anothers power angle, that makes sense in a way to me, so it should be bought as a transfrom power to SE power, clunky but I guess doable (is that really a word) and the use vs real weapon lim seems fair enough (at least it gives me something to base the reasoing on. As far as balance I still don't see the issue but that is ok.

 

BTW the .50 cal does do 3d6, the .30 cal is 2d6+1, there is a misprint in Fred. Anyway I understand where you are coming from with the idea that it is "possible" to damage a tank with a .50 cal but it is very unlikely even the weakest point of the Shermans armor is (the top and bottom) is enough to stop a .50 at point blank range, sure items like antenna, lights etc are susceptable to damage but I'm going to handle that more as a SFX than with penetrating hits. Basically I'm looking for a way to offer more range without massive stat inflation and this seems to be the best way to do it that I've come up with so far, my alternate was to dump the exponential method Hero uses and go with something more linear but a 120d6 tank gun and DEF 500 on the Abrams seems extreme even to me.

[Vondy]

Originally posted by Toadmaster

Ok, I understand the effect on anothers power angle, that makes sense in a way to me, so it should be bought as a transfrom power to SE power, clunky but I guess doable (is that really a word) and the use vs real weapon lim seems fair enough (at least it gives me something to base the reasoing on. As far as balance I still don't see the issue but that is ok.

 

BTW the .50 cal does do 3d6, the .30 cal is 2d6+1, there is a misprint in Fred. Anyway I understand where you are coming from with the idea that it is "possible" to damage a tank with a .50 cal but it is very unlikely even the weakest point of the Shermans armor is (the top and bottom) is enough to stop a .50 at point blank range, sure items like antenna, lights etc are susceptable to damage but I'm going to handle that more as a SFX than with penetrating hits. Basically I'm looking for a way to offer more range without massive stat inflation and this seems to be the best way to do it that I've come up with so far, my alternate was to dump the exponential method Hero uses and go with something more linear but a 120d6 tank gun and DEF 500 on the Abrams seems extreme even to me.

 

It sounds like you are the GM, so I will say this:

 

Why not apply "standard effect" to all weapons built with the "real weapon" limitation? Then you don't need clunky mechanics to do what you want, because the system already provides you with a mechanic to do what you want.

 

That way your .50 will come in at 9 body every time, which can't hurt the tank, but will wipe out a normal with 8 body.

 

I would even consider "average effect (-0)," which would be 3.5 per die (10.5 rounded to 11 every time) as a potential option.

[gewing]

Error, error, error! there was a typo in the 5th edition, a .50 caliber machine gun IS a 3d6K attack. The 2d6+1 is the .50 AE pistol

I really wish the damage scale was less compressed.

 

 

Originally posted by Simon

Frankly, allowing a 3d6 RKA to do damage to a tank with the frequency of rolling a natural 18 is not that extraordinary. You're not necessarily puncturing the tank's armor...you can explain it away as that "lucky shot" that happened to ricochet behind one of the treads and puncture a hydrolic line.

 

If you're adamant about the tank not being able to be affected in any way by a 3d6 RKA, then buy up the tank's DEF to 18.

 

A 3d6 RKA is NOT a handgun. It is substantially more powerful than a .50 cal machine gun (which _can_ damage a tank....not likely and will normally just impact on the armor, but it is possible to damage a tank with one). It's pretty much directly between a .50 cal machine gun and light anti-tank weapon in terms of the damage inflicted. A light anti-tank weapon (a weapon _designed_ to take out a tank) does 4d6 killing damage. A .50 cal does 2d6+1. I don't see a problem with a 3d6 RKA having the possiblity of doing damage to a tank.

 

If you do, then buy up the tank's DEF accordingly.....

 

What you are looking to do with forcing Standard Effect onto attacks that didn't take that as part of their construction is in no way supported by the rules and is contrary to the way things are intended to work. It is also contrary to reality, which would appear to be what you are trying to mimic.

[Toadmaster]

Originally posted by D-Man

It sounds like you are the GM, so I will say this:

 

Why not apply "standard effect" to all weapons built with the "real weapon" limitation? Then you don't need clunky mechanics to do what you want, because the system already provides you with a mechanic to do what you want.

 

That way your .50 will come in at 9 body every time, which can't hurt the tank, but will wipe out a normal with 8 body.

 

I would even consider "average effect (-0)," which would be 3.5 per die (10.5 rounded to 11 every time) as a potential option.

 

I only want this effect against armored vehicles, I like the randomness for living targets. I also see this as useful for fantasy creatures that are particularly tough against normal weapons but who may be more susceptable to certain magic weapons (bought without real weapon) or other unnatural critters. For example a Dragon, two dragons should be able to brawl with each other pretty well but some guys with swords aren't going to be as effective, so again the option is to have massive armor and give dragons massive attacks (so they can hurt each other) or just have "real" weapons do average damage but allow Dragons to have full effect against each other.

 

BTW I like the real weapon idea for this, thanks to one of you (I forgot who suggested it and am to lazy to look it up). The more I think about it the more I like it, it makes real weapon a better lim too, I don't like it generally because it is rather arbitrary but if I allow armor to take SE vs real weapons it should make it work and allows differances in opinion to be handled outside of game time. Now would this actually be worth an advantage or considering the nature of real weapon would you allow it to be free? Not that I care too much as GM (in a pointless world) but for the write up I suppose I should be consistant.

 

Basically I don't want the attacks to be SE all the time just vs certain targets, does this make sense?

[Toadmaster]

Originally posted by gewing

I really wish the damage scale was less compressed.

 

I agree with you 100%, I was playing around with an alternate way of figuring damage using square roots instead of doubling as currently is done, it stayed pretty close up through .50 cal - 20mm but went kinda wild after that. 7.62mm and down stayed almost exactly the same, the medium magnums (.300 winmag etc) through .50 cal added 1 DC, that one DC really allowed alot more variation in the standard calibers. Unfortunately big guns (cannons etc) got rather out of hand, IIRC the 120mm tank gun did 120d6 or so and a 16" gun did something like 500d6, a bit of the scale for your standard HERO game, thats why I've been exploring differant ways to effect armor, this is my latest, for awhile I was fooling around with the old piercing rule from 3rd ed. but that resulted in some strangeness too, although I still like the concept, I'm trying not to get too far from the standard rules for compatability with most HERO games since most of my gaming lately is at Dundracon.

[gewing]

SOmewhere I have your conversion notes. I keep meaniong to play with them and calculate at what range different cartridges lose damage classes so that pistols don't do just as much at 100 yards as at the muzzle...

 

Oh well, maybe when I finish Morrowind.

 

 

 

Originally posted by Toadmaster

I agree with you 100%, I was playing around with an alternate way of figuring damage using square roots instead of doubling as currently is done, it stayed pretty close up through .50 cal - 20mm but went kinda wild after that. 7.62mm and down stayed almost exactly the same, the medium magnums (.300 winmag etc) through .50 cal added 1 DC, that one DC really allowed alot more variation in the standard calibers. Unfortunately big guns (cannons etc) got rather out of hand, IIRC the 120mm tank gun did 120d6 or so and a 16" gun did something like 500d6, a bit of the scale for your standard HERO game, thats why I've been exploring differant ways to effect armor, this is my latest, for awhile I was fooling around with the old piercing rule from 3rd ed. but that resulted in some strangeness too, although I still like the concept, I'm trying not to get too far from the standard rules for compatability with most HERO games since most of my gaming lately is at Dundracon.

[Vondy]

Originally posted by Toadmaster

BTW I like the real weapon idea for this, thanks to one of you (I forgot who suggested it and am to lazy to look it up). The more I think about it the more I like it, it makes real weapon a better lim too, I don't like it generally because it is rather arbitrary but if I allow armor to take SE vs real weapons it should make it work and allows differances in opinion to be handled outside of game time. Now would this actually be worth an advantage or considering the nature of real weapon would you allow it to be free? Not that I care too much as GM (in a pointless world) but for the write up I suppose I should be consistant.

 

Basically I don't want the attacks to be SE all the time just vs certain targets, does this make sense?

 

That was me.

 

I would write the rule this way:

 

Items built with "real weapon" do "standard effect" against targets whose defenses have the custom GM modifier "affects real weapons"

 

Since the idea of "real weapon" is that the GM can rule that the attack doesn't affect certain things, you should be able to assign the custom modifier at +0 with a clear concscience (especially since it has some effect).

 

You are simply designating what the real weapon does and doesn't do standard effect to in advance, which, as you say, can be argued about out of game time.

[Zeropoint]

Damage scales are problematic no matter which way you go. GURPS uses a linear scale, which is great at low levels, but presents two obvious problems.

 

First, (and this is more an aesthetic point) you get tanks with DR 3000 on the front and weapons that do 6d6 x 120 damage, or something like that.

 

Second, when you start dealing with high-powered weapons (like sci-fi stuff), you tend to go directly from "the shot bounces harmlessly off your armor" to "your armor has a hole in the front and a lot of red paste on the inside."

 

The logarithmic scale that Hero uses may not always be realistic, but it has the distinct advantage of making good dramatic sense.

 

The West End Star Wars game had an interesting approach: it broke weapons down into personal, speeder, fighter, and capital classes. The dice spread between heavy and light weapons in each category was about the same, but using a weapon against a lower category gave you a damage bonus and a to-hit penalty, and vice-versa going up the scale.

 

Just some random thoughts on the subject.

 

Zeropoint

[Caveman]

It DISTRIBUTES damage evenly across it's skin. So you can't nick it, doing less damage, as it catches complete damage no matter what, but you also gain no advantage with luck or any other condition.

 

However, there is nothing in the game to support it, I agree.

 

 

Well then, I would think that would be an exception amongst armor types. for this I would use Damage reduction. It works equally against different levels of damage.I don't agree that there is nothing in the game to support it. Hence my mention of damage reduction. And yes, I know it is more expensive. However, doing something like this against characters should be. I do agree with what someone else mentioned. As a GM having all real world weapons use SE would change a few things but I think it might be more realistic.

 

I think I would allow it, though, with a +1/4 advantage (it does kill off the upper part of the curve) for a REAL standard effect of 3.5 STUN, 1 BOD per dice. I might also consider a +0 advantage that allows for 4 STUN per dice.

 

That is a possibility, but I wouldn't do it. I guess we can agree to disagree

[Toadmaster]

Originally posted by Zeropoint

Damage scales are problematic no matter which way you go. GURPS uses a linear scale, which is great at low levels, but presents two obvious problems.

 

First, (and this is more an aesthetic point) you get tanks with DR 3000 on the front and weapons that do 6d6 x 120 damage, or something like that.

 

Second, when you start dealing with high-powered weapons (like sci-fi stuff), you tend to go directly from "the shot bounces harmlessly off your armor" to "your armor has a hole in the front and a lot of red paste on the inside."

 

The logarithmic scale that Hero uses may not always be realistic, but it has the distinct advantage of making good dramatic sense.

 

The West End Star Wars game had an interesting approach: it broke weapons down into personal, speeder, fighter, and capital classes. The dice spread between heavy and light weapons in each category was about the same, but using a weapon against a lower category gave you a damage bonus and a to-hit penalty, and vice-versa going up the scale.

 

Just some random thoughts on the subject.

 

Zeropoint

 

At first I thought a more linear approach would work, it certainly allowed more range, but then little problems popped up like a tank could blow up the Earth with one below average shot, so I started playing with ideas for the effect on armor, one option was to recreate piercing from Champs 3, but this still required large amounts of armor to be taken, then the SE idea struck me, it could almost cut armor in half and be varied depending on how much of the attack is allowed to stay "normal", your description of the Star Wars mechanic is probably the best way to describe the idea I'm going for. Not so much differant damage but differant effect based on the target. I suppose I could always just strip armor combat from Twilight 2000 or a war game but I'm trying to stay within HERO as much as possible.

 

 

Caveman

Damage resistance is after the fact and effects damage that passed DEF, I'm looking for an armor effect to stop damage before any gets through, once it passes the armor it should do full damage, I picture damage resistance as a target that has no real vulnerable points so armor is not as much of a factor, which is why I'm not going that route.

 

 

Thanks to all of you, this has helped me get pointed in the right direction.