Extra CON, only to avoid becoming Stunned?

[Lucius]

 

Unstoppable:  (Total: 15 Active Cost, 8 Real Cost) Cannot Be Stunned (15 Active Points); Costs Endurance (Only Costs END to Activate; -1/4), Conditional Power Not vs Impairing or Disabling wounds (-1/4), 1 Recoverable Continuing Charge lasting 5 Minutes (-1/4) (Real Cost: 8  )

 

Lucius Alexander

 

A palindromedary at rest cannot be stopped

 

[Gnome BODY (important!)]

1 hour ago, Lucius said:

Unstoppable:  (Total: 15 Active Cost, 8 Real Cost) Cannot Be Stunned (15 Active Points); Costs Endurance (Only Costs END to Activate; -1/4), Conditional Power Not vs Impairing or Disabling wounds (-1/4), 1 Recoverable Continuing Charge lasting 5 Minutes (-1/4) (Real Cost: 8  )

Were you at my table, you'd have to justify why paying 1 END is worth a -1/4 discount and why it only lasting 300 Segments is worth a -1/4 discount.  And why it somehow only lasts 5 minutes.  And why you should be allowed to have an absolute effect, for that matter. 

[Hugh Neilson]

13 hours ago, massey said:

In the days of figured characteristics, there could at least be some justification to go higher.  These days there's no point to go beyond the amount of Stun you expect to take in a single hit.

 

In the days of Figured Characteristics the cost of those characteristics gained from +10 CON exceeded the 20 point cost of +10 CON.  2 ED (2 points) + 2 REC (4 points) +5 STUN (5 points) + 20 END (10 points) = 21 points of Figured for investing 20 points.  Resistance to Stunning was an added bonus.

 

Some of that came from Figured being overpriced, but some resulted because CON was discount priced when you incorporated the Figured's.

 

However, in 6e, CON is basically a character tax.  You have to buy enough to avoid being Stunned by an average, or slightly above average, hit in the game.

 

Of course, the same could be said of CVs, defenses, STUN and many other attributes - as the campaign  norm gets higher, you have to buy these up to stay competitive.

[Tech]

On 1/2/2020 at 5:57 PM, massey said:

In the days of figured characteristics, there could at least be some justification to go higher.  These days there's no point to go beyond the amount of Stun you expect to take in a single hit.

 

Can't totally agree with this, especially since I have supervillains who use Con Drain on the heroes, as well as what I previously stated. Everyone's campaign is different from another (not to mention which edition they use.)

[Gnome BODY (important!)]

2 minutes ago, Tech said:

Can't totally agree with this, especially since I have supervillains who use Con Drain on the heroes, as well as what I previously stated. Everyone's campaign is different from another (not to mention which edition they use.)

Why would a hero want to buy a CON "buffer" to resist Drain instead of Power Defense? 

[Ninja-Bear]

1 minute ago, Gnome BODY (important!) said:

Why would a hero want to buy a CON "buffer" to resist Drain instead of Power Defense? 

Maybe because it may not fit their character’s conception .

[Tech]

Due to character concept, not everyone should have Power Defense.

 

Ninja-Bear beat me to it.

[Gnome BODY (important!)]

18 minutes ago, Tech said:

Due to character concept, not everyone should have Power Defense.

 

Ninja-Bear beat me to it.

As one would expect from somebody who goes by "Ninja-Bear". 

[Matt the Bruins]

Where'd my pic-a-nic basket go?!?

[SteveZilla]

On 12/31/2019 at 12:40 PM, dsatow said:

Personally, I would just buy damage reduction stun only (-1/2).  The cost increase would be countered by the extra benefits.

Though one would have to buy it three times to avoid having any "holes" in the coverage - one for PD, one for ED, and one for Mental, correct?

[SteveZilla]

On 1/1/2020 at 9:18 AM, massey said:

 

... particularly with Change Environment now having an adder that automatically stuns people, regardless of Con score.

 

Wait, what?  0.o

[SteveZilla]

On 1/1/2020 at 2:24 PM, Gnome BODY (important!) said:

I went over this before, but keep in mind that 5 CON currently gets you +5 to your Stunning threshold and +1 to all CON rolls.  A CON roll skill level is 2 points, so if you accept that as a valid pricing (depends overwhelmingly on the frequency of CON rolls, as I've said there's none in my game) then 15 points of Stun threshold is 25 Stun threshold.  If you could buy +25 CON only to prevent Stunning, that'd generally be as good as Can't be Stunned. 

I think the real issue is that CON rolls don't happen often in some genres so 2/5ths of the theoretical value of CON is wasted.  If CON were 1/2 point per, it'd be a lot more practical compared to just trying to get Can't Be Stunned past your GM. 

 

I thought a Skill Level that applied to "All CHAR-based Rolls" like all DEX-based Rolls was 5 points?

[Lee]

1 hour ago, SteveZilla said:

On 1/1/2020 at 9:18 AM, massey said:

 

... particularly with Change Environment now having an adder that automatically stuns people, regardless of Con score.

 

Wait, what?  0.o

 

I believe massey is referring to the APG 1 p 83 "Change Environment: Stunning". But note that it is a "stop sign" power.

[Gnome BODY (important!)]

8 hours ago, SteveZilla said:

 

I thought a Skill Level that applied to "All CHAR-based Rolls" like all DEX-based Rolls was 5 points?

No, there's also a 2-point Skill Level for a Characteristic Roll.  Not anything based off that Characteristic's roll, just raw rolls of that Characteristic.  For example, +2 with Dexterity Rolls would make the character better at winning initiative ties, but not better at Breakfall or Acrobatics. 

[Oruncrest]

On 1/28/2020 at 6:00 AM, SteveZilla said:

 

Wait, what?  0.o

 

 Massey misspoke. A CON Roll is made to determine if the target is stunned.

 

HERO System Advanced Player’s Guide, pg 83:

Quote

When used, this form of Change Environment Stuns the target, subjecting him to all the effects described on 6E2 104 (except for the loss of STUN; his STUN total isn’t reduced). The Stunned effect lasts as long as the Change Environment is maintained. 
However, when affected the victim gets to make a CON Roll immediately, and if the  roll succeeds the attack has no effect on him. If the roll fails, he gets to make an additional CON Roll every Phase he’s affected at a cumulative +1 (so +1 on his second roll, +2 on his third, and so on). As soon as any roll succeeds, the power immediately stops affecting him and he has his full Phase in which to act. To affect him further, the character using the Change Environment has to use an Attack Action and successfully attack him again. 
To counteract the CON Roll, a character buying Change Environment (Stun) can include penalties to CON Rolls as an additional combat modifier.

 

[Sean Waters]

I'm a fan of granularity.  And, you know, doing things in a cock-eyed manner.

 

Maybe we could consider, instead of extra CON you buy extra PD, something like:

 

I'm still standing: +5 PD (Only to avoid being stunned)

 

Now obviously this only applies to normal physical damage (although you could buy resistant defence or defence against other damage types).  It would not reduce the STUN damage you take and it would only really matter if you took damage over CON but less than CON+5, so the limitation depends on how often that would happen.  I'm thinking at least -1, and I might give you -2.  Judgement call and makes no actual difference on 5 points to final cost.  It means you can take a punch but you can still be taken down by taser.

 

Compared to the calculation that GB(i) did as the first response (i.e. -3/4), that sounds about right and is probably a more socially acceptable way of doing it.  I think we can probably all agree that CON is overpriced.

 

 

[SteveZilla]

On 2/3/2020 at 3:54 AM, Sean Waters said:

I'm a fan of granularity.  And, you know, doing things in a cock-eyed manner.

 

Maybe we could consider, instead of extra CON you buy extra PD, something like:

 

I'm still standing: +5 PD (Only to avoid being stunned)

 

Now obviously this only applies to normal physical damage (although you could buy resistant defence or defence against other damage types).  It would not reduce the STUN damage you take and it would only really matter if you took damage over CON but less than CON+5, so the limitation depends on how often that would happen.  I'm thinking at least -1, and I might give you -2.  Judgement call and makes no actual difference on 5 points to final cost.  It means you can take a punch but you can still be taken down by taser.

 

Compared to the calculation that GB(i) did as the first response (i.e. -3/4), that sounds about right and is probably a more socially acceptable way of doing it.  I think we can probably all agree that CON is overpriced.

 

 

 

Though for 'complete' coverage the character would need this (and be resistant) for PD, ED, and Power Defense at a minimum IMO.  I would think the more streamlined way would be to use extra CON, as no matter what defense it goes through (Blast, AVAD - Sight Group Flash Def), or even no defense with NNDs, because CON is the single deciding factor - the "point of convergence"?

[PhilFleischmann]

I think his point was that he wants more granularity - not complete coverage.  If you want a character that's especially difficult to stun with physical attacks, but not with energy attacks, et al.

 

The limitation on CON for "Only to Avoid Being Stunned", I would put at -1/4 at most (and more likely -0, but that's just me).

But the limitation on PD for "Only to Avoid Being Stunned", should be quite a bit higher.  -1 at the very least, and probably more like -2.

[Duke Bushido]

On February 3, 2020 at 4:54 AM, Sean Waters said:

I'm still standing: +5 PD (Only to avoid being stunned)

 

 

I've been avoiding this thread like it was a public toilet seat (no; nothing wrong with this thread; I just wanted to make it clear how much emphasis I put on avoiding it   ), but I've always enjoyed Sean's insights and ideas, so I wandered over to check it out.  I was tickled to find the above build.

 

For what it's worth, I use this build _a lot_ in Heroic level stuff-- bears in Western games; similar monsters in Fantasy, and in one instance, I allowed a pulp character who was a washed out contender for a shot at pro boxing (the mob got to him) to simulate his "iron jaw"-- his ability to take a punch and keep going.  Yes; he took the normal damage; it just didn't phase him much.  That character ( Henry "the Locomotive" Whitmarsh) was nowhere near the problem I thought he would be, in spite of already having the highest PD in the party.  He could be Stunned, but it usually involved the use of tools....     So anyone looking for feedback on that:  it works _great_, and even if it goes over the campaign cap (by about three points for total PD, but since it didn't actually reduce damage, I figured I'd let it slide _if_ it wasn't a problem), it's not as worrisome as it sounds.  It actually adds an interesting angle, at least in Henry's case, as quite often the one guy left to save the party....  isn't really the brightest....

 

Anyway, back on track:  since it didn't affect his overall vulnerability to damage, it was ultimately a non-issue.  Admittedly, there were those occasions where, for plot reasons, you really needed him to go down, at least for a moment, and that was...   difficult....  

 

 

It was toward the end of that campaign that we added "Stun Defense" to the roster of Base-Zero Characteristics  (CON, only to prevent Stunning.  Remember: older editions: we still use figureds).  The change was primarily for pricing, as it gave us a nice one-for-one price that I was happier with.

 

The original pricing I used was -1, but as I only ever allowed it for one player character, then found something a bit "cleaner," I never really pursued it much (it's not like I was actually keeping track of points costs on bears and beasts, after all.    )