Arcane Combat Value

[Duke Bushido]

18 hours ago, zslane said:

 

Sure I can. But if you're aiming your magic at a target, then as Phil says, OCV would still be involved. If the only answer to the question of what ACV represents is "it's magic," then it isn't needed; the existing CVs in the game will do just fine. In order to justify an entirely new CV 

 

I see.  Thank you. 

 

I mentioned earlier in this thread that I have done this akternative CV a few times before.  I will also say that it's a lot easier to do 6e-style-- credit where it's due and all that (though I do miss the nuanced feel of deriving from character aspects). 

 

The whole reason I did this initially was for a voodoo doll.  The hounjin wasn't throwing the doll at anyone.  He didn't even have to know or even be aware of the target or his location. 

 

All he had to know was how to manipulate magic such that it did the work for him. 

 

Thats where it started; it grew from there, tweaked and re-tweaked, and I almost got precisely what I wanted, but the "campaign" was really only a shirt story, planned and concluded in a half-dozen sessions. 

 

The principle might apply to Jotaro's Stand as well, if you didn't want a summon/Mind Control Summoned combo. 

 

The closest I got was deciding to allow "Magic CV" to target other CV, :

 

You can certainly dodge a Fireball and can willpower your way out of a Domination, after all. and that was a bit more problematic, as there were costing issues as I was using derivations from Characteristics.  As I noted, it would have been mechanically easier in 6e, where any CV has the same cost.

 

I don't know if that helps or not, but it's the reason I still tinker with it. 

[Ninja-Bear]

I forgot to mention in my post though that to much of my own annoyance, there are concepts that I won’t accept though logically I should. For example, I don’t like sci fi in fantasy but fantasy in sci fi-probably only Star Wars, no problem. 

[Duke Bushido]

7 hours ago, Gnome BODY (important!) said:

I think the (well, a) reason for the dissent on the subject of having an Arcane CV is a gap in narrative understanding. 

 

 

I don't know where you found that bottle of Extremely Rational pills, but how about sharing some of them with the rest of us?   

 

Duke 

[Chris Goodwin]

9 hours ago, PhilFleischmann said:

+3 OCV with Fireball Spell, OAF Expendable (possibly difficult to obtain): a hair from the target's head (or presumably a similar bit of the target's body, in case he's bald, or is of a species that doesn't have hair)

 

Season to taste.

 

In that case, why do we bother with Mental Combat Value at all?  We could just have everyone buy OCV and DCV, with "only vs." or "not vs." Mental Powers, as appropriate. 

 

OCV and DCV represent nothing more than a character's ability to fight in the physical realm: weapons, fists, non-Mental Powers.  MCV represents a character's ability to fight with and against Mental Powers.  Arcane Combat Value should therefore represent a character's ability to fight with and against magic.

 

We don't tie OCV and DCV to DEX in 6th edition, and we don't tie MCV to EGO.  We can now apply whatever special effects to those that we want, and the GM will accept.  My fighter type can have high DEX and high OCV, or high STR, moderate to low DEX, and high OCV.  We can likewise have characters with high EGO and unmodified or reduced OMCV and DMCV, or low EGO and high MCV.  

 

What does ACV represent?  A character's ability to fight with and against magic, nothing more and nothing less.

[PhilFleischmann]

3 hours ago, Chris Goodwin said:

In that case, why do we bother with Mental Combat Value at all?

For mental powers.  Is a fireball a mental power?  It a hair from a person's head a mind?  It's fine if that's the way you want to run your game.  And it's also fine if you want all mental powers to use normal OCV and DCV.  And instead of my suggested +OCV Based on Contagion, you could also make the fireball Based on MCV, which would also be a valid build.  It would seem a bit unusual to me, but if it works for your game, fine.  And like I said before, I wouldn't even object to playing in such a game.

 

3 hours ago, Chris Goodwin said:

OCV and DCV represent nothing more than a character's ability to fight in the physical realm: weapons, fists, non-Mental Powers.  MCV represents a character's ability to fight with and against Mental Powers.  Arcane Combat Value should therefore represent a character's ability to fight with and against magic.

OK, so the dragon's breath might miss the guy with high DCV, but the magic fireball will likely hit him because of his low ACV?  If the magic spell creates something in the physical realm (such as fire) to damage a target, is it magic, or something in the physical realm?  What about a telekinetic spell that picks up a nearby rock and hurls it at the target?  Is that magic, or in the physical realm?  Why does a character use DCV against a rock thrown by an arm, but ACV against a rock thrown by TK?

 

In most of the source material I'm familiar with, a wand is aimed similarly to a gun - the straight line of the wand can be extended in a straight line toward the target, the straight line of the gun barrel can be extended in a straight line toward the target.  And the character's OCV determines how accurately he can aim.  If ACV means nothing more than "It's magic" then it seems a bit arbitrary.  What counts as magic and what doesn't?  But as long as you can work out the answer to that question, it's perfectly fine to use in your game.

 

However, if we're specifically talking about targeting throw Contagion, or other similar principles (Sympathy, etc.), then yes, that might warrant a separate CV.  But it might not apply to all magical effects, and maybe shouldn't be called "Arcane Combat Value".  Maybe it's Contagion Combat Value, but that's not a very good name, and it should probably be broader than that, like "Voodoo Combat Value" or whatever you call that particular style/school of magic.  Thaumaturgical Combat Value?  TCV?  That works.

 

But if you can use your thaumaturgy to telekinetically pick up rocks and throw them at opponents, that seems more like a thaumaturgical connection to the rocks, rather than to the target.  So maybe this particular spell should use OCV/DCV.  Or if you have a spell that can be used "plain" or thaumaturgically, then it works with OCV/DCV, but if you have a hair from the target's head, then you can use TCV - which presumably is an advantage, because your TCV might be higher than your OCV, and your target's TCV is likely lower than his DCV.

 

And likewise, a character (likely someone with some magical nature, if not an actual spellcaster) can have a higher than average DTCV.  This can represent his inherent uniqueness, that he metaphysically "divorces" himself from the hair you plucked from his head.  There may be various "magical" creatures, fey, for example, that might have very high DTCV, while having relatively low OTCV, or perhaps no actual spells at all.

[zslane]

On 12/4/2019 at 10:35 AM, Chris Goodwin said:

To whom do I need to justify it?

 

Justify in a design sense. When doing game design, a proposed mechanic needs to be justified on a design necessity basis. Every addition or change should pass a pretty rigorous test for soundness and necessity. That's all I meant.

 

As for sympathetic magic (Duke's example), I don't feel there is a CV-vs-CV combat roll involved in the first place. The vodoo doll is manipulated/damaged and the target feels it. Even if you had an ACV stat for the voodoo priest, there is no equivalent CV on the target that makes any sense to oppose it. There is no "to hit" involved here. An entirely different approach (other than Combat Rolls) is necessary for that, IMO.

 

This really feels like a larger subject: how to use the Hero System to represent magic systems. I don't object on principle to some new stat like ACV so long as it solves a problem that existing stats and powers don't already handle. So far I haven't heard of an example where that's the case.

[PhilFleischmann]

One thing that might be useful here, but doesn't exist (yet) in HERO AFAIK, is an advantage "Does not require a hit roll, automatically hits".  As long as I have this hair from your head, my spell will always hit you - no Dodge, no Dive for Cover, no range modifier, no concealment, etc.  The closest thing we have to that is One Hex Accurate + No Range Modifier, which allows you to target a DCV 3 hex instead of a character that may have higher DCV and be dodging or whatever.  But even that is subject to possible circumstance modifiers, such as low visibility or obstacles.

 

And with the general principle of HERO, there then needs to be some kind of special defense against this "NNDCV".  If you don't allow a OTCV and DTCV, then there should be some other means of protection from thaumaturgical forces.

[zslane]

If the effects of sympathetic magic can occur over any distance, and affect the target regardless of where they are, then we're essentially talking about Indirect NND attacks (the defense being having a protective charm/ward or something) with an AOE the size of the planet and Selective Target(s). A Voodoo Skill Roll could be used in place of an attack roll since hitting the adjacent hex is trivial, but casting the spell might not be (as reflected by the Voodoo Skill Roll). But wouldn't such spells be prohibitively expensive? I suppose, but either there would have to be enough in-concept Limitations to make the costs "reasonable", or we must concede that sympathetic magic on this scale is overpowering, or at the very least, is on the order of Plot Device magic, and shouldn't be in the hands of PCs (NPC villains maybe, but not PCs).

[Duke Bushido]

8 hours ago, zslane said:

 

Justify in a design sense. When doing game design, a proposed mechanic needs to be justified on a design necessity basis. Every addition or change should pass a pretty rigorous test for soundness and necessity. That's all I meant.

 

As for sympathetic magic (Duke's example), I don't feel there is a CV-vs-CV combat roll involved in the first place. The vodoo doll is manipulated/damaged and the target feels it. Even if you had an ACV stat for the voodoo priest, there is no equivalent CV on the target that makes any sense to oppose it.

 

Therein lies probably the only real drawback to divorcing CV from Characteristics:

 

When I began tinkering with this, I was (and I think we all know this, but just in case: still am) working with older editions; I was building experimental builds derived from Primary Characteristics.  By default, everyone had a defen--well, you use a term well-established in this thread so that we may stay clear, _everyone_ had an ACV, and didn't have to decide to buy it or not.  Today, of course, adding additional CVs-- while perfectly fine in my book, requires that everyone must either buy an entirely new defensive one-of-those or just get flat-out bagged every time someone else used something requiring that particular CV.  Minor quibble, but it _is_ there.

 

To be honest, I rather liked the flavor that this gave in as much as some people were just naturally a little harder or a little easier to affect with magic.

 

 

8 hours ago, zslane said:

This really feels like a larger subject: how to use the Hero System to represent magic systems.

 

It would be nice to return to a time when they didn't feel like super powers where everyone had the same limitations and special effects; yes.  And of course, working up how the combat could be handled.

 

 

8 hours ago, zslane said:

so long as it solves a problem that existing stats and powers don't already handle. So far I haven't heard of an example where that's the case.

 

I felt like that about ECV for _years_.  Particularly when so many "mental powers" worked on O/D CV: "I use a mental blast!".  Energy blast.  "I use my telekinesis to punch him."  A large number of "mental powers" are SFX for O/DCV based attacks.  Sure, there are some-- "mental paralysis" for example-- that are "of the mind."  At the end of the day, you are using Entangle, and paying for Advantage "versus Alternate CV."

 

 

But I also recall all the things Champions was hailed for when it first came out:  defenses that subtracted from damage!  Real crippling damage and minor, pain-inducing Stun-type damage!  Defenses did not affect the odds of being hit!  (i.e., no THAC0).  Separate combat methodologies that allow wheelchair bound octogenarian mentalists (looking at you, Doctor Arcane!) to stand their ground against super-athletes (Captain America).

 

Looking at this, I, like you, have little issue with the idea that hundred-and-eight year old wizard _should_ be effective as a well-practiced wizard, and have no qualms with a magic-based combat value or system of some sort.  What's the point of eighty years of studying the arcane arts if you still have to fist fight  a twenty-year old viking?

 

 

[zslane]

16 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

What's the point of eighty years of studying the arcane arts if you still have to fist fight  a twenty-year old viking?

 

Presumably all those years of study give the old wizard access to spells/attacks (Fireball, Lightning Bolt, Summon Stone Golem, Charm Viking, whatever) that viking warriors do not have. They don't need a special stat added to them that other characters don't have (or, rather, don't have points spent in) to make them different, special, or equally effective. They merely need access to the powers (spells) that others don't get.

[Duke Bushido]

Yes; precisely. 

 

Yet using the same CV value, in addition to feeling like those games with THAC0 or DEX against DEX or any other "swords, guns, bare knuckles, hand grenades, mental blast, magi missiles don't matter, roll X to hit or y to not get hit. 

 

Unless you are arguing that divorcing CV from DEX makes ECV equally superfluous, in which case I can see a point. 

[zslane]

I am arguing that if neither DEX- nor EGO-based CVs make sense for an "arcane contest" because such contests don't involve physical dexterity or mental acuity, then a CV-vs-CV mechanic is probably not called for at all. Something more along the lines of a contest between Arcane Skill Rolls makes more sense, because the vague, handwavey nature of "arcane clashes of metaphysical blah-blah-blah" don't map to anything more elaborate than a simple Skill Roll.

 

As a general rule of thumb, I feel that the application/modification of the Hero System shouldn't be made more complicated than it absolutely has to be, especially when there is no clear in-play benefit to doing so (i.e., it doesn't help more accurately simulate the phenomenon in question).

[Duke Bushido]

Ah;

 

I think I see the problem.  I am not certain, but let's look at it like this:

 

Fireballs can be dodged; dodging is an O/DCV thing. 

 

A cannon of Mentally Paralyzing energy is fired like a gun; this is an O/DCV thing. 

 

What I am putting forward is the question as to why we limit these interactions in this way.  A power bother with Based on ECV is targeted with and avoided by ECV.  Why?  Does the fireball attack entirely within the brain of the opponent?  If course not.  We've all seen Firestarter, I'm sure.  Her mentally-generated Pyrokinetic attacks could be dodged (though they were AoE, so good luck!) physically. 

 

So why not allowing magic welders a uniquely "magic derived" attack Stat? 

 

Yes; this wild have been easier before seoerarion if everything, when even Joe Anybody would have a base amount for free for those things that were defended against by some innate magic ability / resistance (like voodoo dolls). 

 

Other than a willingness to accept that there might be a source of power that is neither directly from muscle or psionic ability, what's wrong with it? 

 

I am not certain it is, but I hope that's a bit more clear. 

[steriaca]

AOCV seems to be a nice idea for a magic heavy campaign. Starts at 0 value, targets ADCV normally, BUT GMs can require a buying of Alternative Combat Value to it (AOCV vs DCV or MDCV, depending on the target). In fact, it shouldn't be defaulted to AOCV, but required to buy for spells. It becomes a mandatory Advantage for Spells.

[PhilFleischmann]

Let's back up a bit.  What is the whole Attack roll mechanism for in HERO?  It's to decide whether an attack hits, for those attack forms that have a chance of missing.  We know from real life that bullets, fists, arrows, swords, knives, thrown rocks, baseball bats, etc., don't always hit their targets.  And when we imagine magic/sci-fi elements also being used as attack forms, we assume that they don't always hit their targets either.  And we observe from real life that the chance of hitting a target depends on the ability of the attacker to aim his attack accurately, as well as the difficulty the defender is to hit, taking into account many factors, such as size, speed of movement, dodging, visibility, etc.  So for HERO, we have two values you reflect this:  OCV and DCV.  And these govern all attacks, determining the probability of hitting... unless...

 

...we decide that there are some types of attacks that are targeted in a fundamentally different way.  All these real-world attacks we're familiar with are physically targeted in a way we call "aiming".  But what if some other attack form doesn't use physical aiming?  It seems to me that there are three possibilities:  Either (1) these attacks always hit their target, or (2) all targets are equally easy to hit, but different characters have different levels of accuracy with these attack forms, or (3) characters with these attack forms may have different levels of accuracy, and targets are not necessarily all equally easy to hit.  And we need to make this decision for each different type of targeting method we want to include in the game.

 

For Mental Powers, HERO has decided on option 3 - so there is a separate CV called MCV (or ECV) and we further divide this into OMCV and DMCV.  But HERO didn't have to come to that decision, and if you don't like it, you're free to change it for your games.  You can say that mental attacks always hit the target mind (option 1) - which kind of makes sense.  If you're thinking about someone's mind, you don't "miss" and wind up thinking about the space one foot to the left of his head, or about the mind of someone standing nearby, or whatever.  Or you could choose option 2, and say that mental attacks use an attack roll based on the attacker's MCV, against a defending target of 3 "DCV" - all minds are equally accessible to mental attacks.

 

There are (at least) three considerations to take into account when deciding which of the three options to use for a given targeting form:  Realism - Does it make sense for these attacks to miss sometimes, or should they always hit?  Game Balance - If Mental powers always hit, then they probably need to cost more than they currently do, and will this cause non-mentallists to become obsolete?  And Game Rules Structure - Which of the three options makes for the best default form of the power?  Then we can apply Advantages and Limitations to modify it.  Like if you want a mentalist with an attack so powerful that it does indeed always hit.  Or even attacks which are physically aimed and use OCV/DCV by default could be modified to automatically hit, with a sufficiently-costed Advantage, and thematic justification.

 

IMO, the targeting of Mental Powers does indeed feel realistically different than physical aiming.  And I find that the MCV system (or subsystem) works well.

 

Thaumaturgical targeting - through the magic principles of contagion and sympathy, IMO, feels fundamentally different from both physical aiming, and mental "aiming".  Now it could be an automatic hit (option 1) as long as there are sufficient restrictions on it so that it doesn't dominate the game (unless you specifically want an all-thaumaturge game).  Like needing a hair from the target's head, or some similar inconvenient form of preparation.  If you come across a giant and he starts attacking you immediately, he's not going to politely bend down and let you pluck a hair.  Likewise, if you encounter a dragon, and you have some "mystic clay" with you, it's probably going to take at least five minutes minimum to make a voodoo doll that actually resembles the dragon enough for your attack spell to work.  And the dragon is not likely to give you those five minutes.  So with those kinds of restrictions, automatic hits might work.  However, it might me more interesting and "realistic" to use option 2 - reflecting the your voodoo doll constructing skill, for example.  And even option 3 - the full-on TCV (OTCV/DTCV) to reflect that some creatures that are simply more or less susceptible to sympathetic magic, for various reasons.

 

And there might yet be another form of targeting that is fundamentally different from all of the above (CV, MCV, TCV), but I can't think of any at the moment.

 

But there is one other attack form that applies even in the real world:  poison.  If the target's food/drink is poisoned, then no attack roll is required.  It automatically has its effect if the poison is consumed. And the same would presumably be true of fantasy potions and similar substances.

 

And of course note that throwing a pill into someone's drink from across the room is physical aiming - OCV vs the DCV of the cup's opening.  There is no "PCV" required here.

 

However (again), if we really wanted to, we could break down the existing CV's even further, for example by having an ROCV and a HOCV, for Ranged and Hand-to-Hand attacks.  After all, just because you're very accurate with your fist doesn't mean you're as accurate with a thrown rock, or vice-versa.  But we probably would all agree that this would add too much complication to the system.  So all physical aiming is represented in OCV, regardless of whether it's ranged or hand-to-hand.

[Duke Bushido]

Great.

 

Now I gotta go find me a dragon hair.....

 

 

 

 

But there is one other attack form that applies even in the real world:  poison.  If the target's food/drink is poisoned, then no attack roll is required.  It automatically has its effect if the poison is consumed. And the same would presumably be true of fantasy potions and similar substances.

 

And of course note that throwing a pill into someone's drink from across the room is physical aiming - OCV vs the DCV of the cup's opening.  There is no "PCV" required here.

 

However (again), if we really wanted to, we could break down the existing CV's even further, for example by having an ROCV and a HOCV, for Ranged and Hand-to-Hand attacks.  After all, just because you're very accurate with your fist doesn't mean you're as accurate with a thrown rock, or vice-versa.  But we probably would all agree that this would add too much complication to the system.  So all physical aiming is represented in OCV, regardless of whether it's ranged or hand-to-hand.

 

 

(For humor purposes only)

 

We could make poison require an attack roll against Constitutional CV.

 

 

As for ranged versus throwing, we already sort of do that very thing.  We just kill it "skill levels" only for x type attack.  Honestly, there's a lot of things like this that I hadn't really considered until _after_ the divorcing of CV from parent characteristics.  It actually makes splitting into "ranged" and "melee" and "HTH" seem more... _right_....  

 

 

However, we have the Skill Levels for that, and I suppose I can live with that.  

 

 

 

[zslane]

On 12/7/2019 at 2:20 PM, Duke Bushido said:

Her mentally-generated Pyrokinetic attacks could be dodged

Yes, because in Hero System terms, her attacks were plain old Energy Blasts. Being "generated by her mind" was simply a special effect. It had no bearing on which core mechanic to use in hitting or damaging the target.

 

Most magic systems in which attack spells hit targets and do damage are straight up OCV/DCV attacks, with "magic" merely being the special effect (and maybe/probably imposing appropriate Limitations like Concentration or Gestures on the attacker). They don't involve a fundamentally different combat mechanic or some new character stat that is being asked to do what OCV/ECV is already doing. And while I'm sure there are forms of magic which do not obey conventional combat mechanics (sympathetic magic perhaps being a good example), I'm not convinced that creating some new flavor of CV is necessary. Again, I'd have to read a more in-depth description of the magic system in question, including a thorough explanation of how it "works" in the game world, before really deciding how to best advise modeling its combat-oriented spells.

[Chris Goodwin]

On 12/6/2019 at 11:02 AM, zslane said:

 

Justify in a design sense. When doing game design, a proposed mechanic needs to be justified on a design necessity basis. Every addition or change should pass a pretty rigorous test for soundness and necessity. That's all I meant.

 

That's fair.  I usually say "Does it pay for itself?"  Meaning, does whatever the proposal is, provide more fun value than it costs in whatever fiddliness is involved in switching to it from the original rule.  

 

Combat Value is pretty modular.  We already know how it generally works.  If we're adding a new one, or changing the definitions of one of the current ones, all we really have to do is make sure players have the information up front so they can design their characters accordingly.  Using MCV as a Mystical Combat Value, and suggesting or requiring that wizard characters buy all of their attacks based on it, to me is a minimal change.  Adding a separate Combat Value (Arcane) with its own cost and separate defensive value is only slightly less minimal, and again as long as the GM is up front with the players about it I don't see it as being that costly in terms of paying for itself.  Probably even less costly in 1st-5th editions, as it's easy enough to set Offensive ACV at INT/3 and Defensive ACV at EGO/3, or just use Defensive ECV. 

 

I wouldn't balk at requiring a separate Advantage for casters to let their spells use OACV vs. DACV or DECV, or to use OMCV vs. DMCV.  6th edition gives us guidance in Alternate Combat Value ("ACV," heh) for doing just that.  OCV vs. DMCV, OMCV vs. DCV, OMCV vs. DMCV, any of those can be done.  

[PhilFleischmann]

HERO sets the implied value of Mental powers (working with MCV) as a +1 Advantage - in other words, double the value of a normal Blast that uses OCV/DCV.  And for that, in addition do going against rarer defensive stats, you also get Line-of-Sight range, but you lose the ability to do BODY damage.

 

If we are to add another CV, that is intended to be even rarer - even less commonly defended against, such powers might then be costed at the equivalent of a +2 Advantage, or triple the cost of a regular Blast, or perhaps even more.

 

In the case of Thaumaturgical Combat Value, and powers that would use it, this tripling of cost might not be necessary, because instead there are severe restrictions on using it.  If you don't have a "hair from the target's head" or whatever, you can't use it, and you're left with using regular attacks with regular OCV/DCV.  You could have it as an optional (naked?) advantage on a regular attack power "You can use TCV if you have an appropriate Thaumaturgical focus to use".  Which is sort of like my initial suggestion "+X OCV with this power, Only if you have a hair from the target's head".  The "+X OCV Only If" method is simpler, but it has the thematically inconsistent disadvantage that it still target's the defender's DCV - which is still modified by Dodge and other maneuvers and modifiers.

 

If TCV is added to a FH campaign, you might think that all players will then immediately want and need to buy up their DTCV and whatever defenses may apply.  But this is not necessarily the case.  Thaumaturgy is rare and difficult, and complete strangers and enemies are highly unlikely to have access to the hairs on your head.  And likewise, PC Thaumaturgists are not likely to have hairs from the heads of all the enemies they're going to encounter. 

[pawsplay]

If a fireball truly requires no physical aim or gesture by the mage, but can be dodged, it's just OMCV versus DCV, which is a by-the-book advantage.  Any spell aimed that way is based on concentration or mystic strength or spiritual blessings and so forth. Whereas a conventional OCV v. DCV spell conjures an actual object or quantity of energy that is aimed no differently than a gun or a guided rocket.