Area of Effect Defense ?

[Echo3Niner]

I didn't mean to hijack this thread; I have started another about my displacer/prism/warp power question: here.

 

Please return to the OP's original programing...

 

Edited January 9, 2022 by Echo3Niner
Adding additional thoughts

[Basic204]

Someone on the discord suggested I just build it using damage negation. 

[Duke Bushido]

5 hours ago, Echo3Niner said:

I didn't mean to hijack this thread; I have started another about my displacer/prism/warp power question: here.

 

Please return to the OP's original programing...

 

Oh, _that_ explains it!

 

I kept getting quote notifications and I would check in here and decide that my phone and I had gone crazy....

 

 

[Ninja-Bear]

9 hours ago, Basic204 said:

Someone on the discord suggested I just build it using damage negation. 

That would work too if you accept the concept that if hit high enough you could still take a little damage. I see nothing wrong.

[Sketchpad]

On 1/9/2022 at 8:17 PM, Basic204 said:

Someone on the discord suggested I just build it using damage negation. 

 

I was just thinking that today. Maybe something like:

 

Evasion: -XDC Damage Negation (AoE Powers), Requires an Acrobatics Roll. 

[Ninja-Bear]

2 hours ago, Sketchpad said:

 

I was just thinking that today. Maybe something like:

 

Evasion: -XDC Damage Negation (AoE Powers), Requires an Acrobatics Roll. 

I think DN is a cool new power that’s been under utilized.

[Sketchpad]

6 minutes ago, Ninja-Bear said:

I think DN is a cool new power that’s been under utilized.

 

100% Agreed.

[Hugh Neilson]

On 1/21/2022 at 5:15 PM, Ninja-Bear said:

I think DN is a cool new power that’s been under utilized.

 

Supers never bleed.

 

Imagine a Supers game where, instead of the usual 12 DCs, 20 - 25 PD/ED, defenses are 5 - 8, but you buy 6 DCs of Damage Negation.

 

12d6 averages 42 STUN, 12 BOD, or 22 -27 STUN past defenses and no BOD.  NEW MODEL 12d6 rolls 6d6, which averages 13 - 16 STUN past defenses, but will generally also sometimes slip in a bit of BOD damage.

Maybe we go with a model like defenses of 3 - 6 with 8 DCs of Damage Negation.

 

12d6 rolls 4d6, which averages 8 - 12 STUN past defenses, occasionally sneaking some BOD in.

 

The big change would be those high DC attackers - the UberVillain with 14d6 or 16d6 is now doing real BOD damage with every hit. Suddenly, the risk is not just a KO, but death.

 

For standard four-colour, even well into bronze age, defenses work fine.  If we want a more iron-agy, death is a real possibility, DR works better.

 

As the above indicates, the tradeoff is also less STUN damage past defenses, unless we make the game very bloody.

[Ninja-Bear]

3 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

Supers never bleed.

 

Imagine a Supers game where, instead of the usual 12 DCs, 20 - 25 PD/ED, defenses are 5 - 8, but you buy 6 DCs of Damage Negation.

 

12d6 averages 42 STUN, 12 BOD, or 22 -27 STUN past defenses and no BOD.  NEW MODEL 12d6 rolls 6d6, which averages 13 - 16 STUN past defenses, but will generally also sometimes slip in a bit of BOD damage.

Maybe we go with a model like defenses of 3 - 6 with 8 DCs of Damage Negation.

 

12d6 rolls 4d6, which averages 8 - 12 STUN past defenses, occasionally sneaking some BOD in.

 

The big change would be those high DC attackers - the UberVillain with 14d6 or 16d6 is now doing real BOD damage with every hit. Suddenly, the risk is not just a KO, but death.

 

For standard four-colour, even well into bronze age, defenses work fine.  If we want a more iron-agy, death is a real possibility, DR works better.

 

As the above indicates, the tradeoff is also less STUN damage past defenses, unless we make the game very bloody.

Or we can look at some of the new Powers and see if can or should use them.  Perhaps they work better perhaps they don’t.  And personally I found uses for DN in a Champions game.

[Hugh Neilson]

There are certainly other applications for DN.  Expanding it as a primary means of defense to make BOD damage more likely is just another possible dial setting.

[Echo3Niner]

On 1/23/2022 at 10:31 AM, Hugh Neilson said:

 

Supers never bleed.

 

Have you ever read a Wolverine or (Frank Miller) Dare Devil comic (among a gazillion others)?

[Hugh Neilson]

4 hours ago, Echo3Niner said:

 

Have you ever read a Wolverine or (Frank Miller) Dare Devil comic (among a gazillion others)?

You are contradicting me with the exact point of my comment.  Build a Daredevil or Wolverine in a standard Hero game, without making Bleeding a special effect of "near-instantaneous wound closure" or some such - that is, a Supers character who will commonly get hit and take BOD damage from campaign-standard attacks, and will be viable in-game.

 

Characters like Daredevil in a standard Supers game either have armoured costumes (as took place on the NetFlix series) or combat luck.  Dark Champions was one attempt to lower the defenses and DCs to get a DD-level game where Supers took BOD, but we didn't see DD in the Avengers in either of those.

 

Damage Negation seems like a means of better simulating this, not just for Daredevil, but for the Thing (I am thinking back to his beatings by Gladiator and the Champion which left him hospitalized - how would that happen to a typical Champions Brick?  Damage Negation makes the character more invulnerable to attacks below his power level, but makes the BOD damage of attacks above his power level considerably more meaningful.  A Thing in a 12DC  game will have 60 STR, and maybe 30 defenses.  A 12 DC attack will put a bit of STUN through, but no BOD.   Make it 15d6, and he takes more  stun.  No BOD.  Crank it up to 20d6.  He takes massive STUN.  Still no BOD.

 

Now, consider if he started with 6 DC of Damage Negation.  12d6, reduced to 6d6, will roll an average of 21 STUN, so he buys 10 defenses as well.  Average 11 STUN past defenses - close enough to 12 - and BOD dam,age will pretty much never happen from a 12 DC attack.

 

Crank that up to 15d6.  9d6 beating 10 BOD is much more likely.  THat 20d6 powerhouse will average 4 BOD past defenses from one hit. That hospital is now much more plausible.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I think Damage Negation needs considerable tweaking and work, but it is a concept that is useful in some circumstances.  Its more useful than Damage Reduction because you can get useful effect for much fewer points.

[Hugh Neilson]

Damage Reduction suffers the same issue as all fixed-cost powers.  Too expensive for low-point games, but if you ran a higher point game, probably universal.  It would have to be VERY high average damage for DR to become cost-effective, though.

 

In a 12 DC game, with 25 average defenses, I take an average of 17 STUN from a typical hit.  Buying half damage reduction (30) and 8 defenses carries a net cost of 4 - 13 depending on whether those extra 17 defenses would have been resistant.

 

Crank the damage up to 24 DC with 65 average defenses, average 19 STUN per hit, and I can buy half DR and 45 defenses, so even if I would have made all 20 extra defenses resistant, I still only break even.  If I would not have made any of the extra 20 defenses resistant, I suppose the DR does not need to be resistant either, but I still only break even.

 

I'm better defended against big attacks, but large numbers of small attacks are more dangerous.

[Duke Bushido]

Here's a weird angle I have played with a couple of times now and thought I'd share.

 

Okay-- we know I'm a crap strategist and tactician.  Fortunately, RPGs exist, so I could ease my way gracefully away from Starfleet Battles and Block Mania into something that gave me a fighting chance. 

 

The upshot of that is that most of my characters-- NPCs and the rare (nowadays) PCs-- have powers and skills that are purchased first and foremost to the concept of the character and almost never tailored specifically for advantage: part of the fun for me is learning how to take the concept and use it advantageously. 

 

All that being said-- I have very recently come to replace some extremely old builds with DN instead of a particular amount of DEF that "cannot be lowered."  

 

Okay: the standard human has a 2 PD, meaning that you should be able to 1/2 die slap him all day long.  You should be able to pinch and poke and he's fine.   However, we can _all_ voluntarily lower that-- and sometimes we are caught unawares with it lower than we think-- and not be too terribly fine with it-- particularly the pinching and poking.

 

I have a small handful of characters-- typically bricks-- who have such high defenses and pain thresholds that not only do they shrug off minor annoyances like getting it with a brick, but they are quite likely to not even notice it ("must do STUN damage to distract character," etc).  The rock-covered guy from Fantastic Four-- imagine trying to give him a flu shot!

 

 

I have of late come to play around with a small amount of DN, and am finding it to actually work out almost perfectly without having to add a bunch of odd disclaimers and one-off builds for a tiny portion of some other defense.

 

 

Just thought I'd throw that out there.

 

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Damage Reduction is more a concept build power than a reliable defense.  Its great for bad guys that just about everyone can hurt, but take forever to drop.  Or the creature that is almost immune to fire.  As a defense its of questionable value for the cost in most games.  Almost all powers in the game were designed for a 60 active point/12d6 blast type of game and some of them aren't quite as valid or useful at other power levels.

 

But ... making a 25% Damage Reduction ED spell (only vs magic) isn't crazy expensive and can be the difference between life and death in a heroic game.  So you have to look at it less as a standard defense than a "buff" or situational thing.

[Hugh Neilson]

Damage Reduction is also much more valuable if you have high STUN.  50% PD and ED Damage Reduction is not a lot different than doubling your STUN (drawback - odd attacks; added benefit - less likely to be stunned).

[Echo3Niner]

On 1/30/2022 at 10:30 AM, Hugh Neilson said:

You are contradicting me with the exact point of my comment.

 

Nope, I was just being a sarcastic jerk...  My attempt at humor.

[Hugh Neilson]

On 2/3/2022 at 9:30 AM, Echo3Niner said:

 

Nope, I was just being a sarcastic jerk...  My attempt at humor.

That's all right then...carry on!

 

[I resemble that remark...]