Reskinning Killing Attacks

[Christopher R Taylor]

OK this discussion has happened a few times on this site and to my great regret I do not recall the first person who brought up the idea, but I credit them completely, if anonymously.

 

The idea is to take killing attack out of the realm of using a different die roll and turning it into a specialized normal attack.  So, instead of rolling d6+1 for a 4 damage class killing attack, you roll 4d6.  The stun and body are applied as normal to defenses, but the dice used are the same.  So you roll it as if its a normal attack, but if they have no resistant defenses the body goes through completely, but the stun is defended as normal (taking at least one stun per body that you suffer).

 

The reasoning behind this has several advantages:

 

1) It simplifies Hero combat by using only one basic damage resolution technique

2) It eliminates the often baffling "Damage class" notation

3) It gives killing attacks a better curve and more dice to roll which is always more satisfying.  Rolling 2d6 for an attack just gives you lousy randomization and feels weak.

4) It removes the stun multiplier/stun lotto entirely

 

Now that's all to its advantage and I think its a lot.  So much so that I am planning on implementing it for my Players/DM books for Jolrhos Fantasy Hero.  However, that said, there are a couple of little things that need to be cleared up and I'm hoping to lean on better minds here than my own to work this out.  I've crunched and run long lists of stats (you can find some of the results elsewhere on this board, somewhere) and they work pretty well.

 

The main problems as I see them (other than rewriting monsters, weapons, and spells) are these:

 

A: Technically, a killing attack has an edge on normal attacks. Because the killing requires resistant defenses to block killing body damage, that makes it better than the basic normal attack.  This woudn't be a problem except the cost for a damage class of KA is the same as a damage class of Normal damage right now.  That would seem to make them just port right across: 10 damage classes is 10 damage classes, that 3d6+1 attack now is 10d6 killing. But that makes 10 d6 of killing have a quasi AVAD effect on the body, which is more powerful for the same cost and dice as normal.  How do we fix this without monkeying with cost and dice, complicating matters again?

B:  Knockback is typically lower on a killing attack than a normal attack (you roll 3d6 and subtract that from the body instead of 2).  But with this system the body damage isn't any higher or more pronounced, so should that be adjusted?  There's nothing innate about a killing attack that should lower its knockback, logically -- that would depend heavily on the special effect.

C: Increased Stun Multiple is a bit of a puzzler, should it be dropped as a mechanic entirely?  Personally I like it as a system for differentiating types of attacks: this one just hurts more.  Maybe this could be worked into the way the cost is balanced (maybe killing attacks do less stun than normal attacks, making up for their body AVAD, and you buy this to make it normal?)

D: Hit Location Tables need adjusting, and perhaps multipliers aren't the way to go any longer for body and stun adjustments by location?

E: Adding strength to killing attacks, should that be default or require an advantage?  If the damage is the same as normal, then being able to stack strength on top seems like a bit of a bonus, but then you can do that with normal attacks too.

 

Anyway if possible I'd love to see this puzzled out here with the Hero brains we have available.  If we can make this work I think it would be a big breakthrough in Hero Gaming.

[Doc Democracy]

I think the first question to ask is not the dice mechanism but what role you want killing attacks to accomplish.  What is their role mechanically?

 

I think the original role was to cause BODY damage, possibly more focussed on inanimate objects like walls and robots than people, though the name does not imply this...

 

 I am not sure there is a need for an attack that kills more easily, that inflicts increased amounts of BODY damage to characters as an inherent ability, such things can be accomplished by other means.

 

Your suggestion accepts the need for a killing attack but I question even that.  Should we have a more efficient way of inflicting BODY, possibly for busting people out if jails and entangles?  Very possibly, but could that be through applying advantages or manoeuvres to existing damage? I think so.

 

I will apply myself to your question but I ask you to take a step back and ask yourself whether you actually need a killing attack at all?

 

Doc

[Ninja-Bear]

Doc I know I’ve wondered about a reskinned Killing Attack. The purpose for me would be for Suoerheroes. 1) Unfied  mechanics  2) Having a “deadly” attack in super heroes but not too deadly. Especially in 6th now where 1D6 Killing can be jacked up to 4D6 Killing easily. And of course you have to try to balance defenses then. Any ways, I would like a way to have Killing attacks defined as  normal attacks with advantages.

[Christopher R Taylor]

There is significantly greater logical and real world support for the concept of lethal vs non lethal attacks than there is physical vs energy attacks.  Could we just assume this system is useful and work from there to answer the questions instead of arguing the whole concept?

[Sean Waters]

I agree that the KA mechanism is not ideal but why have STUN defended as 'normal'?

 

Balance?

 

How about we just say Killing is a +1/2 advantage and is only defended against by resistant defences?

 

Heroic: 6-8 PD, no resistant

6d6 punch does 21 Stun and 6 Body ( in practice no Body against another hero, probably, and maybe 13-15 Stun in a heroic game)

4d6 Kill attack does 14 Stun and 4 Body on average and it all goes through unless you have resistant defences (probably not in a heroic game unless you are suited up).

 

Seems easy.

 

In a superheroic game with much more resistant defence then KAs will be much less useful, which is why bullets bounce off Superman, even the first version.

 

Superheroic 20 PD 10 resistant

12d6 EB does 42 stun and 12 Body (or maybe 22 Stun in a superheroic game)

8d6 KA does maybe 18 Stun and usually no Body, but may get the odd point through on a good roll, unless the target has lots of extra Resistant defence.

 

Making KA an advantage also creates advantage synergies so you CAN make Wolverine type claws, at least sort of: 6d6 AP KA (61 points) gets 16 Stun and 1 Body through 10 rPD.

[Sean Waters]

DELETED

[Doc Democracy]

2 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

There is significantly greater logical and real world support for the concept of lethal vs non lethal attacks than there is physical vs energy attacks.  Could we just assume this system is useful and work from there to answer the questions instead of arguing the whole concept?

 

I guess I will bow out.  I think that it is a mistake to tinker round the edges without considering the broader picture.  I dont think that normal versus killing damage is equivalent to lethal versus non-lethal.

 

I would actually prefer to break the whole thing down to examine how to tailor attacks to manage STUN versus BODY damage which really would map to lethal versus non-lethal.

 

Anyway.  Good luck.

[LoneWolf]

Having killing attack damage dice changes the dynamics is a lot of ways.  While rolling a large number of dice seems to be more satisfying it actually has a huge drawback.  Once you get past a certain number of dice the laws of average take over and the damage is pretty much the same.   People look at a10d6 attack and think I can do 60 points of STUN and 20 BODY.  In reality you are going to do 35 pts of stun and 10 body.  You might get some variation but not a whole lot.  Chances are you are never going to do over 40 stun, but probably also never do less than 30.  The body will be around the number of dice you roll, again with some variation, but not much.

 

A standard killing attack is a wild card.  If you are using 5th edition rules, or 6th edition with hit location a killing attack is a wild card.  The lower number of dice allow for a lot more variation in damage.  If I am rolling 3d6+1 the chance of getting maximum damage is a lot higher than if I am rolling 10d6.  The down side is I will also have a greater chance of rolling crap for damage.  This makes for a more exciting game.

 

If hit locations or the old stun multiplier rules are being used, it is even more pronounced.  I have seen many a villain, and a few heroes go down to a lucky shot with a killing attack.  This rarely happens with normal attacks. 

 

This would make the game a lot more boring especially for a Fantasy Hero game. 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

How about we just say Killing is a +1/2 advantage and is only defended against by resistant defences?

 

My concern is that you've made Killing a different cost structure per damage class than normal, which complicates matters.  And if its built as a straight AVAD technically it does no body damage and has to have the "does body" +1 advantage making it pretty much junk.  I don't mind the concept of requiring resistant defenses to defend against the stun of a KA but it causes balancing issues elsewhere.

[Sean Waters]

3 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

My concern is that you've made Killing a different cost structure per damage class than normal, which complicates matters.  And if its built as a straight AVAD technically it does no body damage and has to have the "does body" +1 advantage making it pretty much junk.  I don't mind the concept of requiring resistant defenses to defend against the stun of a KA but it causes balancing issues elsewhere.

 

It uses the existing mechanics and an advantage which is hardly complicating matters, it gets rid of a legacy mechanic and replaces it with something that works.  It is not AVAD, it is a different advantage entirely.  The cost of 1d6 of damage remains the same, you then add an advantage so that is not a different cost structure any more than any advantage is.

 

Even though, in heroic games, few characters will actually have resistant defences, in other genres they almost always will.  In heroic genres, KAs should be scary.

 

This idea balances for cost too, so there is that.  It is consistent with the existing system (resistant defences being a +1/2 advantage on normal defences, in effect).

 

The other way to do the same would be to make a KA cost 15 points per 2d6 but that feels messy and has cost implications of its own.

 

As for add STR: fine, but you have to buy the same advantages for the STR, or pro rate the added damage.

 

The big problem is that the cost of damage is wrong.  It should be 3 1/3 points per DC plus advantages (like 'range' and 'can add STR'), or the cost of STR is wrong and should be, well, more, or broken down into individual cost units (lift/throw/direct apply).

[Sean Waters]

Ultimately it comes down to why you are doing this: if you want more 'realistic' guns then you can do that with character creation guidelines, no need for a new mechanic.  The best reason to change things is to increase consistency.

[Watchman Mk. IV]

Did something change since 4e?  KA's were effectively +2 advantages (15 pts. per D6).

[Hugh Neilson]

Actually, AVAD indicates that converting to “RDef” makes it work like a KA does now – BOD resistant by rDEF and STUN by all DEF.  That would mean a +1/2 advantage on a Blast would make it roll BOD that is defended only by rDEF and STUN defended by all DEF. 

 

That’s sub-optimal for your purposes, because you want (as I understand it) a “1d6 costs 5 points” KA that counts BOD and STUN normally, and does BOD defended only by resistant defenses.  Fair enough – but that means something else has to give, in order to offset the +1/2 advantage above (assuming, of course, that we accept +1/2 to be the appropriate advantage).

 

So how do we want to limit KAs? 

 

The existing KA averages less STUN, and does less Knockback. 

 

Doing no Knockback is a -1/4 limitation, and we still want some knockback, or so I assume.  Limited Powers that do no STUN get a -3/4 limitation.  Reduced Penetration does normal STUN, but effectively doubles defenses against BOD.  What if we apply a variant of Reduced Penetration and halve the STUN for purposes of penetrating defenses?  To simplify in play, perhaps KAs subtract rDEF from BOD damage, and double all defenses from STUN damage.

 

So, if our Fantasy Hero does 6DC, a normal attack will inflict an average of 21 STUN (less all defenses) and 6 BOD (less all defenses).  A Killing Attack will also average 21 STUN and 6 BOD, but the BOD will be reduced only by resistant defenses, where the STUN will be reduced by twice all defenses.

 

So, looking in the back of 6e V2, Darien the  Bold (in his Chain Mail) will take no BOD from either attack, and no STUN from the KA, but will take 9 STUN from the normal attack. 

 

Belakar will take 5 BOD and 13 STUN from the KA, and 2 BOD and 17 STUN from the Normal Attack,

 

Armor is going to remove the threat of a KA pretty rapidly.

 

As an alternative, maybe only rDEF is doubled against the STUN of a KA.  That armor will still blunt the KA quite a bit, but it will pass more STUN through.  Or maybe it just means a KA needs a good hit location to be really effective against standard armor.

 

Or maybe you’d rather a method that does not monkey so much with defenses as with the damage roll.  What about the following:

 

• In counting damage for a KA:

  • a 6 is 2 BOD and a 1 – 5 are 1 BOD (or a 5-6 is 2 BOD, 2 – 4 is 1 BOD and1 is 0 BOD).  This restores the average to 3.5 BOD per 3 DCs.

  • Add the dice for total STUN, then subtract the number of dice (or subtract 1 from each die with a minimum of 1, but that’s more cumbersome).

  • This will average the same BOD as the usual KA, and a bit more stun than a 2x average multiple (or a bit less than the old 2 2/3 average of 1d6-1 x 7 BOD).

 

Result:  No change to 6d6 normal.  6d6 KA will average 7 BOD and 15 STUN.

 

Applied against defenses, the normal attack gets 9 STUN through to Darien (no BOD).  The KA gets 1 BOD past his chain mail, and 3 STUN past his total defenses.  Belakar takes 2 BOD, 17 STUN from the normal attack, or 6 BOD, 11 STUN from the KA.  Just like before, having no or negligible rDEF means killing attacks are deadly.

 

On the broader scale, hit locations applying the same multiples for normal and Killing will still leave plenty of volatility if you apply them before defenses.  A head shot on Darien will average (7x2 = 14 – 6 = 8 BOD, and [15 x 2 = 30 – 12 =] 18 STUN, or [6 x 2 = 12 – 12 =] 0 BOD and [21 x 2 = 42 – 12 =] 30 STUN. 

 

Belakar is looking at 12 BOD past his 1 rDEF and 26 STUN past his 4 PD, or 8 BOD and 38 STUN from a normal attack.

 

Or multiply KA BOD after defenses and STUN before to get 2 BOD, 18 STUN from the KA on Darien (12 BOD, 26 STUN on Belakar) from that KA, and no BOD, 19 STUN (4 BOD and 34 STUN for Belakar) subtracting defenses from Normal damage, then doubling the results.

 

Or, with reduced volatility, subtract defenses before all hit location multiples and the KA inflicts 6 STUN on Darien and 22 STUN on Belakar, so Normal attacks are always better at STUN and worse at BOD.

 

I think always “subtract defenses, then multiply” works pretty well for these Fantasy characters, or maybe “always subtract defenses, then multiply” for BOD and “always multiply, then subtract defenses” for STUN to have more volatile STUN results (and more common STUNNING and KO from good hit locations), or always multiply first, then subtract defenses, for BOD if you want more lethality.

 

Lots of options – tailor them to the feel you want.  And don’t be afraid to make KAs the best choice if that fits the feel – non-lethal attacks tend to be a poor choice in most Fantasy games anyway.  You’re modifying the rules for a Fantasy game, right?

 

Oh, increased Stun Multiple.  I'm inclined to just ditch it, but what if +1/4 added 1 STUN per d6?  At +1, that 6 DC killing attack is 3d6, average 3.5 BOD , and 3d6 + 9 (the first one counters the subtraction) = 19.5 average STUN.  And you could let normal attacks do the same thing. 3d6 averages 3 BOD and 3d6 + 12 = 22.5 average STUN.

[dsatow]

I don't know what this may add to the discussion or not but I just did this in my campaign.  In my case, its a champions campaign and the villains using it were agents.  The "reskinned killing attacks" also had penetrating and does Body.  Now since penetrating works differently with the blast mechanic than the killing dice mechanic, the hero isn't in threat of death, just being knocked out from "venom" bullets.

 

I also mentioned the idea of having attack vs resistant for +1/2 before 6th ed. in the forums.  I wasn't the only one who thought up this idea but to be honest, I like the concept Steve had of AVAD better for 6th than a +1/2 adv killing damage.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I'll run the numbers again but it turns out in my experience with the math that ¼ is a better advantage, because of how the cost and dice break down.

[Hyper-Man]

I have always liked that the real world weapon builds have always had damage ranges that matched up rather well with the variable dice side # method used by D&D and therefore is a great way to use heroic rule settings like Fantasy HERO and Danger International to teach the basic combat mechanism of HERO to players that have only played that other system without worrying about the powers system.

[Christopher R Taylor]

OK now bear with me, I'm going to lay some tables and data on you.  This isn't exactly my strong point* so while I'm confident the data here is accurate (its pretty simple and I used a calculator), if you find some mathematical errors, it wouldn't exactly astound me.  I'll do it in several posts, or it will be one too-huge post.  I looked at this from 1-20 damage classes, which is pretty much anybody's normal campaign range.

 

Table A: this shows the present situation with damage by damage class for both killing and normal attacks, showing the cost and average effect of both stun and body.  I used the "die and a half" method rather than "die minus 1" for in between ranges on killing attacks.

 

 

Analysis: damage between killing and normal is very close, with a slight edge for normal damage per damage class.  As you can see the stun averages of normal attacks are slightly higher than killing (in most damage classes) and the body minimum of killing slightly higher, but the average is very close to being the same (until high damage classes, it is identical). 

 

So, while they are very similar, killing is very slightly lower in effect for stun and slightly higher potential body (because it can't roll as low) for the same cost.  In fact, some damage class ranges, the killing does less body damage (although using the d-1 method probably would fix this effect; for example 2 damage classes would be d-1 for a 1-5 range of body (average 2.5) as compared to the 0-4 for normal).  But doing so ramps up the stun considerably on these damage classes (stun 1-15 (average 8?)) which sort of overweights killing damage every 3 damage classes.

 

However, killing attacks ignore non-resistant defenses, which is technically a +½ advantage (plus "does body" ?).  And the analysis seems to suggest that ignoring non-resistant defenses is not worth much, its only a very slight difference in effect per damage class with the killing being very slightly disadvantaged.  In other words: based on over 30 years of Hero gaming, killing attacks aren't worth a lot in terms of an advantage.

 

More on that in the next posts.

 

*For example, how do you do the average of stun on a killing attack?  I did the median of the stun range, because the calculation is a bit confusing to me: do I calculate the average stun from the average body rolled?  Or just take the middle of the curve for the stun dice?

[Christopher R Taylor]

OK moving to the next chart.  Chart B is a comparison between two different calculations.

Method 1 is built using a +¼ advantage on a Normal Attack to generate a killing version: requires resistant defenses to protect against, etc. 

Method 2 is built using a +½ advantage on a Normal Attack

 

This is compared to the base cost and damage class as well, showing the active cost of each method per die:

 

 

As you can see, the cost ramps up the more dice you have (as would be expected), especially with the +½ method.  To show how this looks more directly compared to normal damage, next post has the final chart.

[Christopher R Taylor]

OK final post with the analysis and charts.  This one compares each previous method in chart B showing how the dice that each method results in compares to the original damage of a normal attack

 

 

Now, as you can see, there's a fair discrepency between Method One and normal damage, one that continues to become more and more pronounced as you go up in dice.  Looking at Chart A, you can see that a 6d6 normal attack (6-36 stun (20 average); 0-12 body (6 average)) turns into a 5d6 (5-30/17 and 0-10/5) attack with the first method and a 4d6 (4-24/14 and 0-8/4) attack with the second method.  A 6 damage class attack is pretty big in Fantasy Hero, that's a Greatsword.  But as you go higher, it gets worse and worse.  At 20 damage classes, yo have a 16d6 and a 13½d6 attack, respectively.

 

Now, the +¼ method isn't as big a discrepancy, and even at high levels it is not enormously off until you get into the cosmic superhero power levels.  But its still off; a 12d6 attack becomes 9½d6 and I think every experienced player here knows the difference those 2½d6 make.

 

I'd argue that in no way is ignoring non-resistant defenses worth a +½ advantage, especially when you look at the numbers for the current system.  It basically guts killing attacks, rendering them incredibly weak.  Ignoring non-resistant defenses for both body and stun like 5th and earlier editions still isn't good enough an advantage, particularly with how common resistant defenses are.  My argument is, based on this information that at most +¼ is the method to use, and that may even be too penalizing.

[Hugh Neilson]

It's difficult to build in the volatility of the KA.

 

If one has a 6d6 normal attack, it will hone in pretty close on that 21 average STUN roll.  In a game based around 6 DC attacks, characters will probably have DEF + CON in the range of 25 or so, such that it will take a really unusual 6d6 roll to STUN them.

 

But a 2d6 KA?  Even ignoring the volatility of the 2d6 roll and assuming an average roll of 7, the target will be stunned 1 time in 3.  Sure, half the time the attack will have no or negligible effect, but a 1 in 3 change, instead of a real longshot, to STUN is pretty valuable.

 

That advantage is offset somewhat by using hit locations, as normal attacks can also benefit from a bit of added volatility.

 

As for the advantage of only being resisted by rDEF, the near-universality of rDEF means it's not that advantageous.  This is a chicken & egg question, though - if KA's were priced higher, would they be as common?  If KAs were less common, or less effective, or both, would as many people invest in rDEF?  That would make the KA more advantageous.  As Hero has evolved, I would agree that there is little advantage to only rDEF defending against a KA.

 

It took six Editions to figure out Armor Piercing was overpriced at +1/2. 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Well and if you look over the decades of history of KAs in Hero, the damage is pretty close to the same across the board -- with KA's getting that bonus to body damage unless your target has resistant defenses.  And this was true back when a lot of characters had none, just as today when just about everyone has a few points of combat luck. 

 

I don't want to do a conversion to a different idea that results in weakening killing attacks because that would shift the game significantly, particularly in heroic settings.  Now your pistol does less damage but, is more reliable?  Doesn't seem like a good direction to go.

[Ninja-Bear]

For me, I am looking for a less volatile Killing attack for superheroic purposes.

[dsatow]

One of the things that sometimes skip people's mind is just because 99% of bullets are designed to be killing attacks, a bullet is only a special effect.  If you want to call a 12d6 blast a bullet, it's a bullet.  Game mechanic wise, it will generally do a lot less body and more knockback and stun on average, but the special effect is totally under your control (assuming the special effect is not banned like say PPGs in a Fantasy game).

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Shifting killing attacks to normal damage definitely reduces volatility and gives a more smooth curve.  And or most players in my experience rolling more dice feels better, it just feels like you're doing more when you roll 4d6 instead of d6+1.

 

I am reluctantly leaning toward going with +¼ as the advantage, but its going to make killing attacks weaker.  To help compensate, I think I'll go back to the "must have resistant defenses to protect against stun" although its not a very significant difference.

 

As for knockback, its got to just go to the way normal damage is handled, but I'm looking closely at the hit location table.  Its probably worth doing a number crunch comparing the results from killing attacks per location and normal attacks to see what happens when you shift over.

[Christopher R Taylor]

OK I did another table but its really huge so I'd either have to put a gigantic picture up (obnoxious) or make the numbers too teeny to read (also obnoxious) even with only 10 damage classes crunched out, so I guess I can make it available to people to get from me if they really want to see it. 

 

The long and short of it:

Normal attacks do slightly more body on average, and about the same stun.  For example here's just 3 damage classes for comparison:

 

 

What I did is instead of listing every location I broke down the locations by modifier, and there are only 7 different types of damage modifiers, spread across the various locations (several areas duplicate like 9-11 (shoulder-chest) and 6 and 18 (hands and feet).

 

As you can see, in the main hit location areas (shoulders-chest) the x1 body x3 stun location for killing ends up with slightly higher body and notably higher stun than killing attacks provide.  Across the board the stun and body a normal attack provides is generally equal or higher than a killing attack using hit locations.  In fact, the only place normal attacks are lower is on places like upper/lower arm and lower leg (row 2 in the stun/body mod rankings) which provides slightly higher stun but identical body maximum.  Killing will tend to average more but not always and in some locations the difference is very pronounced such as the stomach and vitals areas (x1½ normal stun gives pretty big numbers).

 

So overall it looks like shifting the damage over from killing to normal, in a game that uses hit locations, renders pretty close to the same kind of results.  My assumption is that all attacks would use the same modifiers, eliminating the "Killing stun" column entirely and just using normal stun as just plan Stun.  This combined with a +¼ advantage would give you slightly lower body and stun from killing attacks, but defenses would not work the same.  

 

Since body is multiplied after defenses, and defenses are going to be lower for killing attacks on most heroic targets, you'll end up with a pretty significant effect, even with the dice lowered by the advantage.