Killing Attack restructure

[Hugh Neilson]

7 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

 

Is that a terrible thing?  It would be for this reason I think it warrants an advantage but you are now in a position where one kind of attack reliably delivers more BODY per DC. 

 

If the only drawback is that it might be another blade for the multipower Swiss army knife then I don't see that as anything different from the current position where a player puts in NND, AP, affect desolid, etc attacks.  It simply provides another option.

 

If it renders Entangles and Barriers generally useless, then I would classify it as "a terrible thing".  If we have to modify Entangles, Barriers, Automatons, vehicles and just normal objects to have higher DEF and BOD so they can compete with KA's, and normal attacks are pretty much useless against them, then we have created a system where any character with no KA has an "off switch" - Entangle or Englobe them and they are helpless, or Summon an automaton and watch them get steamrollered.

 

If we make the KA low enough STUN that it's really not that useful against anything that can be KOd instead of killed, then everyone needs both types of attack to be a viable character.  That's also no better.

 

If we make KA an advantage to get the BOD per DC back under control then we are simply reducing the ratios back to where they should be, and would have been had we not messed with the system to begin with - why make a major change if we're just trying to skew it back to "no real major change"? 

 

Then there's the ripple effects.  For example, if KA is already, say, a +1/2 Advantage on a Normal attack (to get the BOD back in line), an AP KA or a Penetrating KA starts to look like a much better deal - and it will be a better deal than an AP normal attack.  However the model is implemented, I think KA needs to be its own attack power so advantages have the same "declining base dice" slope as other attacks. 

 

Why should KA be an advantage, and not, say, make Drain an advantage - for a +1 Advantage, you can pick what your Blast damages, it works against Power Defense, it does no BOD and it recovers 5 points in PS12 instead of normal recovery.  I guess we could also  reverse engineer it so you can build a Blast that damages STR, is reduced by PD, and the STR recovers whenever the target takes a recovery, at 1 CP per REC.  And before someone says "well, no one is suggesting that", I will note that no one is currently suggesting that specific attack power be converted to an advantage on a normal attack.  But some above are certainly suggesting that at least one attack power be converted to an advantage on a normal attack.  This just extrapolates on that  notion, and is one step closer to a single "Attack" power which is Advantaged and Limited to create the various existing attack powers.

[Doc Democracy]

42 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:

If it renders Entangles and Barriers generally useless, then I would classify it as "a terrible thing". 

 

There is a saying where I grew up, " If my auntie had balls she'd be my uncle".  You say "if" it renders Entangles and Barriers generally useless.  Does it?  Does it do so any more than armour piercing?  Would it not if a hardened Entangle nullified the killing advantage in the same way as it nullifies armour piercing? 

 

Obviously any change has ripple effects.  You argued hard that this would create a major change and then argued against mitigating the change because if it does not change things, why bother.

 

And yes, there are meta rules that could boil the system down to relatively few moving parts but, by that time, it is likely to have become MUCH more abstract and almost narrative.  All that is being suggested is removing a second damage system with different rolls and rules.  This streamlines things and means people have one less "thing" to learn.

 

Doc

[Duke Bushido]

On November 14, 2019 at 10:33 PM, Christopher R Taylor said:

1. Because doing this adds greater granularity and flexibility to builds.  At present a 2d6 KA and a 2d6+1 KA are really almost insignificant in their difference.  But 6 and 7d6 actually are fairly notable.
2. Because the Damage Class table and concept is something even very experienced Hero players struggle with

 

Christopher, I have supported this idea for _years_, as have many others.  When all the buzz was "there's a fifth edition coming!", I never even _questioned_ that KA would be reworked.  Seriously.  I didn't even open the book before buying two copies.

 

For all the tweaks and twists here and there, I was genuinely _shocked_ that KA hadn't been changed.  Strangely enough, most of the stuff that _had_ been changed had been changed specifically to bring it in line with other mechanics (Look at Instant Change, as an easy example), yet Killing Attack had not, even though "Attack Versus Alternate Defense" had existed for a long, _long_ time already.

 

Then there was a revision: no change for KA.  Then a whole new library of rules.  No change for KA.

 

I support the idea for a number of reasons-- likely all of us who do support it have more than one reason, and reasons that are just likely different from each other's reasons.

 

But those two above-- and _especially_ that first one!-- are high on my list.  The whole idea of "Damage Class" seemed incredibly forced from the first time I saw it in print.  Familiarity has not made it less so.

 

You won't get any argument from me; I've tried a couple of things over the years (as I'm sure most others have), but it would be nice to see actually become official.

 

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

If it renders Entangles and Barriers generally useless, then I would classify it as "a terrible thing".

 

I honesty don't see how that's any different than the present system.  I already buy a KA in multipowers just to break out of entangles to simulate someone who can shrug that stuff off easier.  My concern is that it makes KAs excessively lethal, boosting them too much, and adding increased complexity when part of the motivation is to reduce it.

 

Another possible idea is to instead reduce body that normal attacks do.  For example, no 2 Body with any roll, its just 0-1.  You roll a 6, its still 1.  That, plus making KAs do 1-2 body, no 0, shifts things slightly in the direction of killing attacks dealing more body. 

 

CONS:

increases complexity slightly by having two methods of calculating body in an attack

reduces lethality of normal attacks slightly; you can actually beat someone to death with your fists or a club, but this makes that outcome much less likely

You still do slightly less stun with KAs of the same active points ("Damage class") than you do with normal attacks, which might be a feature rather than a bug?

 

PROS:

Increases distinction between KA and normal attacks in a simple manner

Makes normal attacks less accidentally spikey and dangerous in games like Champions where you try not to murder people because the dice went wonky on you

 

Quote

Please elaborate. 

 

I'm not trying to be snarky here, my proposed system also reduces the stun damage of KAs as compared to normal attacks.  But it seems like the only reason your suggestion does so is to make the cost of killing attacks balanced without an advantage, rather than it making any real world or simulated genre sense in any source material.  That's a personal peeve, contrivances just to make something fit a desire effect.  But as I said, its also a concern with what I proposed.

 

I think it would be ideal to make KA's not require an advantage, but I can't think of any way to do so without excessive handwaving and complexity.  The reduced knockback is one area that makes KA's balanced against normal attacks, in superheroic games at least (and that's the main genre where the active cost even matters).  Perhaps more along those lines would be useful; rule effects that make killing attacks limited compared to normal attacks?

 

I should add here that by Hoyle, according to the rules, this construct should cost +1½ which illustrates a bit of a problem with the current AVAD system.  Someone, I do not remember who, suggested a while back that AVAD should have two layers: you can buy it for the stun or the body of an attack, rather than both (so you buy blast AVAD vs Body and the stun works normally against the defenses) and greatly reduce its advantage total. This would create significantly more flexible and interesting builds while negating the "its gonna cost you +1 just to do BOD" rule used right now.

 

But that's another discussion.

 

Quote

Christopher, I have supported this idea for years, as have many others.

 

I think you may have been the original source for the idea, for me at least.  I don't remember as well as I once did.

[Gnome BODY (important!)]

If KAs deal the same STUN as normal attacks but more BODY, they become strictly better attacks.  Using a KA thus becomes an objectively correct decision unless one has a reason to believe the opponent will be in serious danger from this use of a KA and has reason to care about that.  You know, the d6-1 multiplier problem, where supposed heroes were leading with supposedly lethal force. 

 

You say "increased complexity", but I think "If STUN, add # BODY subtract # STUN" is much less complex than "Entirely different rolling system" and on the complexity level of "AP per d6 for basic attack is not multiple of 5". 

[Duke Bushido]

17 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

Practically, if you put no advantage on a KA at all, made it 5 points per 1d6, and set each d6 to do 1 BOD on 1 - 5, 2 on a 6 (rDEF only), and subtracted the number of dice from the total Stun (all DEF counts), I think the two would be more competitive.

 

 

 

 

And to keep things fair, I am also in favor of this.

 

Honestly, I'm in favor of _anything_ that increases granularity at the low (Heroic and Realistic) levels of the system.  Something that makes weapons a bit more distinctive than just "ranged" and "not ranged."

 

[Hugh Neilson]

4 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

There is a saying where I grew up, " If my auntie had balls she'd be my uncle".  You say "if" it renders Entangles and Barriers generally useless.  Does it?  Does it do so any more than armour piercing?  Would it not if a hardened Entangle nullified the killing advantage in the same way as it nullifies armour piercing?

 

Well worth the discussion.  It does, or does not, depending on what we implement.

 

Let's compare to AP.  At present, we could have a 6d6, 6 DEF entangle.  A 12d6 Normal attack averages 12 BOD and breaks it, on average, but an under average roll will not.  A KA (current rules) will average 14, so needs to be a ways below average to fail.  Make that KA average 18 BOD, and the Entangle is shattered.  A 9 1/2d6 AP attack (normal) will average 9.5 BOD vs 3 defense and falls between the present KA and the normal attack, so increasing average KA BOD will make the KA an even better choice when it is already the logical go-to.

 

An Automaton who can stand up to an 18 BOD average attack will shrug off 12 BOD normal attacks.

4 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

Obviously any change has ripple effects.  You argued hard that this would create a major change and then argued against mitigating the change because if it does not change things, why bother.

 

 

I like the increased granularity of 5 points for 1d6.  I don't  think the average damage needs to change.  We can get the same average damage by letting a 1  do 1 BOD (or both 5 and 6 do 2 BOD), and we can lower STUN to compensate with a -1 per 1d6 subtraction to 2.5 average STUN per DC (so 12 DCs average 14 BOD and 30 STUN on average, compared to 14 BOD and 28 STUN on average under 6e).  That approach requires no tinkering with advantages, and a minor tweak to counting normal dice damage.

 

4 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

And yes, there are meta rules that could boil the system down to relatively few moving parts but, by that time, it is likely to have become MUCH more abstract and almost narrative.  All that is being suggested is removing a second damage system with different rolls and rules.  This streamlines things and means people have one less "thing" to learn.

 

We agree we can go too far.  Here, I think "as close as we can be to existing systems, while achieving the desired result" s/b the goal.  Of course, that requires we determine the desired result!

 

4 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

I honesty don't see how that's any different than the present system.  I already buy a KA in multipowers just to break out of entangles to simulate someone who can shrug that stuff off easier.  My concern is that it makes KAs excessively lethal, boosting them too much, and adding increased complexity when part of the motivation is to reduce it.

 

As noted above, making the KA even more superior makes the entangle, automaton, etc. even less competitive.  As you note, there are other reasons not to take that approach anyway.

 

4 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

Another possible idea is to instead reduce body that normal attacks do.  For example, no 2 Body with any roll, its just 0-1.  You roll a 6, its still 1.  That, plus making KAs do 1-2 body, no 0, shifts things slightly in the direction of killing attacks dealing more body. 

 

CONS:

increases complexity slightly by having two methods of calculating body in an attack

reduces lethality of normal attacks slightly; you can actually beat someone to death with your fists or a club, but this makes that outcome much less likely

You still do slightly less stun with KAs of the same active points ("Damage class") than you do with normal attacks, which might be a feature rather than a bug?

 

PROS:

Increases distinction between KA and normal attacks in a simple manner

Makes normal attacks less accidentally spikey and dangerous in games like Champions where you try not to murder people because the dice went wonky on you

 

A bit different from my approach (I would rather not mess with normal attacks, as they work at present and link to the rest of the system already).  My approach shares two cons (no change to normal attacks), but I think it reduces complexity from the current model (slight variation on counting damage versus different damage system entirely), and I view "a bit more BOD and a bit less STUN" as the desired comparability of a KA to a normal attack.

 

We get the distinction desired, and I am OK with normal attacks at their present BOD results, so making them less lethal would not be my goal..

 

I don't find "BOD only reduced by rDEF" a big deal in any genre as the competent combatants have some rDEF.  I believe it is balanced by the lower STUN.  That makes the question whether the STUN is lower by enough to offset the advantages of higher BOD rolled and lower defenses offsetting BOD.  I do not believe AVAD from Normal to rDEF requires +1 to keep doing BOD, but I may be misrecalling.

 

I don't find the Knockback a big deal at all - it can be an advantage or a drawback (the big advantage IMO is not "further away"  but just knocking them prone).  Given KB is an optional rule, it's not a great balancer anyway.

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

I don't find "BOD only reduced by rDEF" a big deal in any genre as the competent combatants have some rDEF.  I believe it is balanced by the lower STUN.  That makes the question whether the STUN is lower by enough to offset the advantages of higher BOD rolled and lower defenses offsetting BOD. 

 

I kind of agree, even before everyone always had rPD it wasn't that significant a deal.  Its worth something, but its not worth a lot.

 

Quote

I do not believe AVAD from Normal to rDEF requires +1 to keep doing BOD, but I may be misrecalling.

 

It does, but even if it didn't "vs resistant PD"isn't worth a +½ advantage anyway

[PhilFleischmann]

10 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

I like the increased granularity of 5 points for 1d6.  I don't  think the average damage needs to change.  We can get the same average damage by letting a 1  do 1 BOD (or both 5 and 6 do 2 BOD), and we can lower STUN to compensate with a -1 per 1d6 subtraction to 2.5 average STUN per DC (so 12 DCs average 14 BOD and 30 STUN on average, compared to 14 BOD and 28 STUN on average under 6e).  That approach requires no tinkering with advantages, and a minor tweak to counting normal dice damage.

This was the method I had suggested many years ago.  -1 STUN per die, and BODY is 0, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2.  Thus, a KA does 17% more BODY and 29% less STUN than a Normal attack.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I think the idea approach is to have as few changes to the rules as possible; changing Normal damage in any way adds complexity and chances rules that have been in place since the first typewritten pages of the rules.  I think it would work but it violates a basic principle I have for rules changing of "if it ain't broken, don't fix it  *COUGHSLOUDLY*Comeliness*COUGH*

 

So the ideal approach is to determine a way to make Killing Attacks not require an advantage, thus streamlining its use, without excessive complexity or breaking any basic principles of the rules.

 

Quote

-1 STUN per die, and BODY is 0, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2.  Thus, a KA does 17% more BODY and 29% less STUN than a Normal attack.

 

This has the bones of what might be a viable approach: reduce its stun and add body, for killing damage.  The way it ignores non resistant defense is offset by the knockback reduction.  However, I would like to emphasize a point I made earlier: Killing attacks should never roll zero body.  Never.  You shouldn't have even the slightest chance, no matter how small, of rolling all your KA dice and getting zero body.  Ever.  The minimum should be 1.

 

And the rule I suggested earlier (+1 body per 3d6 before defenses) gives you closer results to the present KA body range (see charts in post #2) without creating excessive work in determing die results or creating excessively high levels of body damage.  Ideally the body damage output should be no higher than the present KA system.

 

Its difficult to justify logically or in real world examples, but reducing the stun damage done by 1 per d6 is simple enough and would give a fairly balanced result which would make the advantage unnecessary.  Want lots of stun?  do a normal attack. Want them dead?  use a killing attack.

[Gnome BODY (important!)]

I think we're going in circles at this point. 

Suggestions I've seen (though I'm not rereading the thread to check): 

1 - Killing is an Advantage, no other change

2 - Killing changes the BODY counting scheme, possible flat penalty to STUN

3 - Killing provides flat bonus to BODY and flat penalty to STUN

 

Expressed design goals have been (though I'm not rereading the thread to check):

A - Reduce complexity by eliminating the #d6 then *d3 mechanic. 

A' - Reduce complexity by making the DC scaling the same. 

B - Ensure KAs remain threatening. 

B' - But not too threatening, or Entangles etc break. 

C - Ensure KAs cannot roll 0 BODY. 

D - Ensure KAs deal less STUN, so are not a great non-lethal choice like the STUN Lotto days. 

E - Make KAs feel distinct from normal attacks. 

 

1 accomplishes A, B', D (but hey it got us talking about this!)

2 accomplishes A, A', B, B', D, E

3 accomplishes A, A', B, B', C, D with some fuzziness regarding B' since nobody commented on my proposed solution. 

So I think the way forward here is to choose between objectives D and E, then rub 2 or 3 into shape to do what we want. 

Here's an anydice mockup of some of the proposed options in terms of BODY.  I can do STUN mockups trivially if requested. 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Thanks for the summary but I'm pretty sure 3 also makes KA feel different than Normal ones (since you have different body and stun totals, plus the other KA side effects like kb and defenses).

 

I'm not exactly sure how to read the anydice thing though

[Gnome BODY (important!)]

21 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

I'm not exactly sure how to read the anydice thing though

The "#" column is the result, the "%" column is the percentage of the time that result occurs, the bars are a visual representation of the "%" column.  For example, the very first line of the output indicates that a 4d6 KA has a 0.08% chance of dealing 4 BODY. 

But honestly, ignore all that and click the "Graph" button so it's nice and pretty and you don't have to scroll up and down all the time. 

 

23 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

Thanks for the summary but I'm pretty sure 3 also makes KA feel different than Normal ones (since you have different body and stun totals, plus the other KA side effects like kb and defenses).

I personally feel it's less effective at feeling different, but "feeling different" is very solidly a majority opinion matters thing.  I'll happily bow to whatever consensus develops. 

[ScottishFox]

Is the KA vs. Normal Damage really that big of a problem for the players?  For me it's one of the things I really like about HERO - A real split between lethality tiers.  I love that HERO has killing, normal and stun only attack types.

 

If the solution is going to be effective it has to avoid any costly math crunches which shifts the complexity of learning how KAs work to having to learn how the new version of KAs work.

 

I think the simplest way to make this work would be a +0 adder that makes the attack only stopped by resistant defenses.  This, however, forces you into a weird position where you either have an attack mode that is simply better for the same cost KA > Normal.

 

I liked several of the solutions provided, but they all just add more complexity when the primary goal of the change of a decades long feature of HERO was to remove complexity.

*  Make it a +1/4 advantage.  This works for me, but it makes everything harder.  +1 DC for every 6.25 STR instead of 5.  Probably have to modify Haymaker and other DC adding maneuvers as well.  The player will now need a chart.

*  Make it do -1 STUN per die rolled.  I like this a lot, but now it's another math operation and the goal was simpler - not more complex.  In fairness, for non-hit-location attacks this is a tie.

* Adding Killing attacks to normal attacks as Mallet suggested is a creative solution.  I like it, but my players would not.  It's too complicated.

 

My Saturday group is well over a year into playing HERO - every week - and I *still* have to make their character changes / design new spells / etc.

 

Killing attacks were understood by all of my players after just a couple of sessions.

[Gnome BODY (important!)]

32 minutes ago, ScottishFox said:

Killing attacks were understood by all of my players after just a couple of sessions.

This of course will vary by group, but my group meets every other week.  That extra week gap leads to a lot worse retention of information.  My group is also blessed with a constant stream of people hopping in for a session or two and then finding a different game, since we operate out of the central room for an entire gaming organization. 

So my personal view of what constitutes grokability is very heavily slanted towards "One explanation, then done" since I'm not in a situation where my group can afford to have a thing take 2-3 sessions to learn.  That's the average playspan of a quarter of the people in each session! 

 

38 minutes ago, ScottishFox said:

*  Make it do -1 STUN per die rolled.  I like this a lot, but now it's another math operation and the goal was simpler - not more complex.  In fairness, for non-hit-location attacks this is a tie.

I'd argue the main driver of increased execution time will be that you have to sum thrice as many dice and count NDB on them.  My personal experience is that experienced players handle "4d6 for BODY, times d6-1 for STUN" a little faster than "12d6, sum it, count NDB".  We all know all the tricks, but summation just takes time.  And inexperienced players tend to stumble a little over NDB or even forget to count it, but I'm not sure how they handle KAs since we haven't had many newcomers throwing KAs recently. 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

The "#" column is the result, the "%" column is the percentage of the time that result occurs, the bars are a visual representation of the "%" column

 

OK but what do the four choices represent?  Only the first one is clearly one of the options we're discussing.

[Hugh Neilson]

6 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

So the ideal approach is to determine a way to make Killing Attacks not require an advantage, thus streamlining its use, without excessive complexity or breaking any basic principles of the rules.

 

This has the bones of what might be a viable approach: reduce its stun and add body, for killing damage.  The way it ignores non resistant defense is offset by the knockback reduction.  However, I would like to emphasize a point I made earlier: Killing attacks should never roll zero body.  Never.  You shouldn't have even the slightest chance, no matter how small, of rolling all your KA dice and getting zero body.  Ever.  The minimum should be 1.

 

And the rule I suggested earlier (+1 body per 3d6 before defenses) gives you closer results to the present KA body range (see charts in post #2) without creating excessive work in determing die results or creating excessively high levels of body damage.  Ideally the body damage output should be no higher than the present KA system.

 

Its difficult to justify logically or in real world examples, but reducing the stun damage done by 1 per d6 is simple enough and would give a fairly balanced result which would make the advantage unnecessary.  Want lots of stun?  do a normal attack. Want them dead?  use a killing attack.

 

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

I think we're going in circles at this point. 

Suggestions I've seen (though I'm not rereading the thread to check): 

1 - Killing is an Advantage, no other change

2 - Killing changes the BODY counting scheme, possible flat penalty to STUN

3 - Killing provides flat bonus to BODY and flat penalty to STUN

 

Expressed design goals have been (though I'm not rereading the thread to check):

A - Reduce complexity by eliminating the #d6 then *d3 mechanic. 

A' - Reduce complexity by making the DC scaling the same. 

B - Ensure KAs remain threatening. 

B' - But not too threatening, or Entangles etc break. 

C - Ensure KAs cannot roll 0 BODY. 

D - Ensure KAs deal less STUN, so are not a great non-lethal choice like the STUN Lotto days. 

E - Make KAs feel distinct from normal attacks. 

 

1 accomplishes A, B', D (but hey it got us talking about this!)

2 accomplishes A, A', B, B', D, E

3 accomplishes A, A', B, B', C, D with some fuzziness regarding B' since nobody commented on my proposed solution. 

So I think the way forward here is to choose between objectives D and E, then rub 2 or 3 into shape to do what we want. 

Here's an anydice mockup of some of the proposed options in terms of BODY.  I can do STUN mockups trivially if requested. 

 

All #2 is missing is C (KA's should never do 0 BOD).  OK, let's take the easy fix.  Rather than

 

On 11/17/2019 at 1:40 AM, PhilFleischmann said:

 -1 STUN per die, and BODY is 0, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2.  Thus, a KA does 17% more BODY and 29% less STUN than a Normal attack.

 

 -1 STUN per die, and BODY is 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2

 

Average BOD is unchanged and the KA does 1 BOD per DC or slightly more.  It never, never, never, NEVER rolls no BOD.

 

17% more BOD is the same as the current model, where 3 DCs of normal damage average 3 BOD and 3 DCs of KA averages 3.5 BOD.  The maximum is 6 and 6, so this is also unchanged.

 

29% less STUN seems like an OK result.  BOD x 1 - 3 averages 7 per 3 DC vs 10.5, so the reduction is comparable, but a bit more STUN.  Offsetting that, the much greater change of a high result due to greater volatility is gone - no more 3 DCs rolling 18 STUN 1 time in 18 (versus a 1 in 216 chance for a normal attack).  A 12 DC KA does not manage 72 STUN one time in 3,888 versus 1 chance in 2,176,782,336 for a normal attack.  Now, a KA maxes out at 5 STUN per d6, and has the same chance at max stun as a normal attack (very small once high DCs are involved).

 

BOD damage = DCs plus 1 for each 6 rolled.  That does not seem hard to count - easier than "1s are 0 and 5s and 6s are 2" and also easier than "1s are zero and 6s are 2".

 

STUN damage = add up all the dice and subtract # of dice.

 

Or we could tweak it.  What if 6s were ignored for STUN damage?  We already pull the 6s out as doing extra BOD.  Average STUN is still 2.5 per DC.  It does have the somewhat counterintuitive result that high BOD correlates to low STUN, but may be easier for some players to grasp than [**gasp**] subtraction.

 

[PhilFleischmann]

17 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 -1 STUN per die, and BODY is 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2

 

Average BOD is unchanged and the KA does 1 BOD per DC or slightly more.  It never, never, never, NEVER rolls no BOD.

That works, too.  I happen to prefer 0, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2.  Either way, the average BOD is 17% more than a Normal attack.

 

If you want to preserve more of the original swinginess of KAs, you could even do something more extreme, like 0, 0, 1, 2, 2, 2.  Or even 0, 0, 1, 1, 2, 3!

[BNakagawa]

8 minutes ago, PhilFleischmann said:

That works, too.  I happen to prefer 0, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2.  Either way, the average BOD is 17% more than a Normal attack.

 

If you want to preserve more of the original swinginess of KAs, you could even do something more extreme, like 0, 0, 1, 2, 2, 2.  Or even 0, 0, 1, 1, 2, 3!

Is that extreme variability even desired though? Would you consider a power that either delivered maximum or minimum damage on a coin flip to be balanced? 

[Christopher R Taylor]

I'm skeptical that anyone playing Hero is baffled by grade school level subtraction, but people can be funny.

 

I'll be going with the minimum body roll 1, -1 stun model.  Seems like the simplest and most streamlined option.  Least math, most direct, easiest to work with.  I think that's our ideal solution in a nutshell.

 

Now to work on mental powers

[Gnome BODY (important!)]

3 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

Now to work on mental powers

Christopher, no!  You have so much to live for! 

 

4 hours ago, BNakagawa said:

Is that extreme variability even desired though? Would you consider a power that either delivered maximum or minimum damage on a coin flip to be balanced? 

I've argued that it is, and I stand by my statement and reasoning. 

[PhilFleischmann]

4 hours ago, BNakagawa said:

Is that extreme variability even desired though? Would you consider a power that either delivered maximum or minimum damage on a coin flip to be balanced? 

It may be desired by someone who wants greater realism, or a "grittier," more dangerous game.  I think that realistic variability is part of the reason why KA were the way they were in the first place.  IRL, you could be stabbed by a small knife and die instantly, or have a minor wound that heals in a day or two.

 

As to the coin flip minimum/maximum damage power, balanced at what cost?  For what kind of game?  In a typical superheroes game where heroes outright killing villains is frowned upon, then it's probably not the power you want.  But in say a fantasy game, where you'll have to kill monsters with high defenses, such an all-or-nothing power would be quite useful.

 

A lot of it comes down to defense levels.  Against an opponent with high defenses, a lower than average roll may be entirely bounced - so it may as well have been the minimum roll for all the effect it had.  While an average roll does maybe just a little damage.  A very high roll is what you hope for, but is unlikely to happen.  So this coin-flip-min-max power would be very effective in that context.  In a game with lower defenses, it wouldn't be that good, since the effect of a low-to-average roll is still significant enough to be useful, whereas an absolute minimum roll 50% of the time would be dangerously risky.

 

As to the "complexity" of the extra math that may be involved for any of the ideas we've discussed, that can easily be addressed by customizing your dice.  I've done this before with regular RAW rules.  Get some dice with white pips and a red permanent marker.  Color in one of the pips on the 2, 3, 4, and 5 sides, and color in two of the pips on the 6 side.  Then STUN = total of the dice, and BODY = total red pips.  And if you want to use one of these new systems for KAs, you can have some separate "killing damage dice" with the 1 side colored in, or two pips on the 5 side colored in, or whatever.  You could then even reduce the STUN damage to just the white pips on the Killing damage dice.  STUN = white pips, BODY = red pips.  And you'll want to get different color dice for normal and killing damage, obviously.  Say, blue for normal, and black for killing.

 

Or you could just use one set of dice for both, with an extra color (say orange), so for Normal attacks, STUN = total pips, BODY = red pips;  and for Killing, STUN = white pips (or total - # of dice), and BODY = red + orange pips.

 

Flavor to taste.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

IRL, you could be stabbed by a small knife and die instantly, or have a minor wound that heals in a day or two.

 

I always figured that was represented by the die roll: you rolled badly on that hit.

[Gnome BODY (important!)]

23 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 -1 STUN per die, and BODY is 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2

 

Average BOD is unchanged and the KA does 1 BOD per DC or slightly more.  It never, never, never, NEVER rolls no BOD.

It also never rolls less BODY than it has DCs, which I think is swinging way too far in the opposite direction. 

The variability is also very low.  Just 15 rDEF is enough to be pretty much immune to a 12DC KA under that model.  I feel that being able to very confidently say "Oh, 12d6 KA?  I've got 12 rDEF and 15 BODY so I'm totally good for four hits" will make KAs seem very nonthreatening. 

[BNakagawa]

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

 

 

I've argued that it is, and I stand by my statement and reasoning. 

 

The fact that no game designer has ever agreed with your line of reasoning is all the research I need to hold the opposing stance.