Gary

Re: Attacks OK Defenses No Way?

To the attacker' date=' someone with flexible defence is, at best, someone who is defended against them "perfectly" - in other words, the defender has brick level defences. Since bricks and MA don't get creamed against other bricks, they wouldn't get creamed against someone able to mimic other bricks.[/quote']

 

So your going back to a hard cap on defenses. Gotcha.

 

Yes, the same way that other characters with multiple attacks are paying more than someone who has them in a multipower is paying.

 

At a MUCH reduced level of effectiveness as shown previously.

 

How's that then? Does he have an attack multipower as well?

 

He doeesn't need one since the attacker presumably has a lower defense total if he's spending the same number of points on defense as flex boy.

 

Normal guy with 10d6 Energy Blast spent 50 points; Flex Attack Boy spent 5 points...

 

You yourself admitted that spending 1 or 2 pts in the defensive multipower would make a mentallist or Power Defense attacker useless. Show me how spending 1-2 pts in an attack multipower would make an entire class of defender useless.

 

You said that against someone with multiple attacks flex guy would adopt a balanced slot and be no worse off. If you're saying that flex guy has only spent 30 points for a 20 pt reserve multipower, then he's a lot worse off; his balanced slot, if he has one, is only 10/10. Granted, he's spend 10 points less than someone with a 20/20 "normal" force field, so maybe he could spend that on a more standard 5/5 Force Field that his 10/10 adds to: but that's still defences of 15/15. So he's going to be taking 5 more STUN from either energy or physical attacks from a guy with the appropriate attack multipower; I call that worse off.

 

Your post that I quoted, mentioned a 40 pt multipower with 20 pt slots including PD and ED. It seemed completely pointless and bizarre for a 40 pt reserve and no slots above 20.

 

However, if I were to build the multipower, it would go something like this:

 

35 Multipower reserve

3 u +35 PD

3 u +35 ED

3 u +17/+18 or +18/+17

1 u +15 mental defense

1 u +15 power defense

1 u +15 flash defense

 

That way, I would have either mega physical, energy, or 2 exotic defenses up at the same time. Total cost 47 pts. 7 pts more expensive than your 20/20 FF, but spends 1 end less and has lots more flexibility including the ability to be virtually immune to certain attack types.

 

Of course he gets flexibility, but for that to count he has to be willing to use it. Attack multipowers trump defence multipowers, which was the original point of the thread, was it not?

 

Nope. Even if there's an attack and a defense multipower, the attacker still has to guess how the defender has his defenses allocated. If the attacker has both physical and energy attacks for example, there's still a 50% chance he'll guess wrong unless the defender has a balanced slot up.

 

Are you able to find me an example of a published character that paid double for defences because they were in a power framework? I'm certain I can find examples where they didn't. And yet you insist the rules are on your side?

 

The designers specifically mention that adjusting defenses at full effect was unbalancing. Adding directly to a defense is even more efficient than adjusting it.

 

 

Eh? From a rules perspective, there's no discussion to have. Defence multipowers are legal:

• There's nothing at all in the rules that forbids them. Granted, absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence, but...
  
• Steve Long OKed HyperMan's question, and
  
• As far back as 4th edition (Mystic Masters, The Shields Of Dimitrious) there are published characters that possess such things.

The point of the discussion is not whether such things are legal, but whether they are abusive. Which is a perfectly fine discussion to have, but if your point is to discuss what the rules say then you really need to be lobbying Steve Long, because they'd need to be changed in order to support your position in that case.

 

I can point to what the game designers say about adjusting defenses.

Re: Attacks OK Defenses No Way?

You dohave to abort if EgoMan attacks when you were prepared for Powerman. In my games (maybe not in yours?)' date=' if one team member is having a difficult time against an opponent, it is common for another team member to assist him, or for them to switch opponents. This is the case whether the team in question is the PC's or their adversaries.[/quote']

 

You never ever have one on one matchups in your game? That would make your game virtually unique.

 

 

I think these are key points. In particular, Gary, I would ask whether your concerns are grounded in actual game play experience, where Defense Multipower Man dominated the game, or a hypothetical concern.

 

Actually, VPP man dominated until we shut down that nonsense.

 

While I agree the reserve cost should be 40 points, the total should be increased since the character described lacks the ability you discuss to balance his defenses. I would suggest the cost should be 40 reserve + 8 for 40 PD as a standard slot, +8 for 40 ED as a standard slot, + 6 for +20 of each of Mental, Flash and Power Defense as Ultra slots, for a total of 74 points, to create a reasonable facsimile of "invulnerable to anyone dude".

 

You may want to check your math...

 

 

Even under my example MP above, if that attacker has a physical attack, a mental attack and an adjustment power in his MP, the defender is back to aborting.

 

If the attacker has 3 separate attacks, then he's not the person I've been describing throughout this thread.

 

 

Having the EB option when the opponent has the NND defense adds 12 STUN for 6 points. Adding 9 Stun or 12 Stun for 6 points seems a good deal to me.

 

Stopping 10 pts of attack for 1 pt sounds like a better deal to me.

 

And attack multipowers serve to minimize the number of characters who have only one type of attack. Doesn't a character with only one type of defense get creamed by someone with an attack multipower?

 

Far fewer of those. Just look at CKC and see how many attackers have 1 type of attack vs defenders with a spread of say 15 or more pts between PD and ED.

 

Considering that the "all defenses M" character paid 76 points for a balanced slot of +20 PD/+20 ED, I think the guy who buys a +25 PD/+25 ED/+10 Mental Def/+10 Power Defense/+6 Sight flash Defense Force Field is quite a bit better off against an opponent with multiple attack types.

 

Check the math...

 

They indicate this is the case because defenses in general costs less than attacks in general. This argument is at least as tangential as my statement that virtually evety character, not just those with a single attack type, have an "Achilles' heel" opponent.

 

Yep, so flexible defense is more devastating than flexible attack.

Re: Attacks OK Defenses No Way?

It's multiplied by 10' date=' in fact. But so is anything else.[/quote']

 

Yep. Which means you get the exotic defenses for a pittance.

 

Well, I pointed out last post that bricks and martial artists weren't going to get creamed; with no rebuttal, I assumed you either had abandoned that position or else despaired of thumping it into my thick skull. Looking at this post it seems the rebuttal was merely delayed; my apologies.

 

The title of the thread invites comparisons between defence and attack multipowers; that's all I was doing.

 

Unless the brick or MA has energy attacks or non-physical attacks, they will get creamed.

 

The brick doesn't get creamed unless the defender has more PD than he can hurt. And if a flexible guy is allowed to have more PD than the brick can hurt, so can other characters - the brick has just happened to find himself in a campaign where he can't reliably hurt people.

 

Other characters are paying lots more for that level of PD/ED than flex guy. And again, even if flex guy isn't at 40 PD, he's still doing significantly more damage to the other guy than he's taking.

 

In any case even Ogre has an NND now, so I don't think it's necessarily true that "one attack characters" are all that common.

 

Just look at CKC. There are plenty.

 

Mentallists are indeed shut down by a moderate amount of mental defence (again, in or out of a multipower) as an unfortunate side effect of the generally "all or nothing" nature of their powers. Against a normal guy with 15 MD he's just a cheerleader. Against a flexible multipower guy who has a 15 MD slot active, he's at least opening up a hole for one of his buddies to exploit.

 

Normal guy with 15 MD spent 15 pts. Flex boy spent 1 pt, so it's not much dead weight when he's not facing mental boy. And he's certainly far better off vs someone who spent 0 pts!

 

Err, I would have though that he is indeed worse off.

 

Assume a 40 point multipower with a bunch of 20 DEF slots (one for PD, one for ED, one for MD, one for PD, and one for FD); total cost 50 points. Compare to someone with just a straight 20 PD/20 ED Force Field.

 

If the defender says, "Hmm, that attacker has a multitude of attacks; to be on the safe side, I'll just go with the PD/ED slots" then he's paid 10 points for flexibility that he is now deciding to not use. For 10 points he could instead have bought (say) 1/2 END for his Force Field. So in such a situation he's 2 END per phase worse off.

 

You mean 20 pt multipower with 5 2 pt slots for 30 pts. 10 pts cheaper than the 20/20 FF. In fact, the 20 pt multipower can purchase 1/2 End and still save 5 pts and 1 End per phase!

 

Or, alternatively, if changing defences on the fly was devastating, then there would be equivalent doubling rules for sticking them in power frameworks.

 

Not much difference between adjusting PD upward and having a slot add directly to PD except that it's more efficient the second way.

 

A couple of side notes under adjustment powers that mentioned this thing about defences should be applied elsewhere would support your argument, but in its absence it is difficult to support the position that the rules are on your side (especially given Steve Long's response to Hyperman on page 3).

 

But really, who cares what the rules say? The rules support infinite 0 END Succor and Suppress, and on the day someone pulls that stunt in my campaign, Satan will be ice skating to work...

 

For what it's worth, I am at least somewhat skeptical now that Force Fields with exotic defences are necessarily a good idea.

 

If you don't care about what the rules say, then why are we even having this discussion?

Re: Attacks OK Defenses No Way?

1 point of a MP ultra slot activates 10 active points of power.

 

Claim: defences are 8 times as effective as attacks => 1 point of an MP ultra slot for a defence is 8 times as effective as it would be for an attack => 10 active points of defence are as good as 80 active points of an attack.

 

Since this claim is quite clearly wrong, that's obviously not the claim you're making. Let's try:

 

Claim: defences are 8 times as effective bought in a multipower than they are outside of it.

 

The obvious number to use here is "10 times" not "8 times" since 1 point in an ultra activates 10 active points. However, if you're factoring in the cost of the reserve, it's possible to jig the numbers such that "8 times" is correct - but it seems irrelevant to do so, since defences are get no more or less benefit than attacks (or for that matter movement powers) in a multipower.

 

Now, as you explain below, this wasn't what you were getting at - fair enough (see below) - but where I got my numbers is not difficult to see (if not necessarily germane to your point).

No, the claim was that 1 pt spent on defense is 8 times as effective as 1 pt spent on attack for ego attack or drain.

10 points of mental defence outside a multipower neutralizes 29 pts of ego attack. 10 points of ego attack outside a multipower buys 1d6 ego attack which neutralizes 3.5 pts of mental defence. 29/3.5 = 8 times as effective.

 

This is true whether you're in a multipower or not. The defence did not magically become more effective because it was placed in a multipower.

It's magnified greatly in a multipower.

Who said anything about getting the drop on them?

 

PC A is SPD 6, and has a defensive multipower.

Villain B is SPD 6 and has an attack multipower. I'll even spot PC A extra DEX so he gets to go first. So in phase 2, PC A attacks Villain B, does some STUN but fails to Stun him or knock him out. PC A guesses that Villain B will use his energy attack and sets his multipower to ED. But villain B decides to use his physical attack slot instead. PC A gets creamed.

 

Oops.

 

In the rematch, PC A holds his action to see what attack villain B uses. I'll ignore for the moment that if PC A can tell what attack is being used it is only fair that villain B would be able to tell what defence PC A was using rather than have to guess. Anyway, PC A sees a physical attack coming, and tries to win a DEX roll to get his held action and interrupt so he can get his defence up. He fails.

 

Oops again.

 

Let's pop villain B down to SPD 5. PC A gets an attack in on SPD 2, and sets his slot to physical defence. Then villain A launches a Drain at PC A, who has to either suck it up or else abort his phase 4 to switch the slot. On phase 5 villain A uses the physical attack that PC A is no longer defended against; PC A aborts his phase 6 to switch the slot again.

 

There's no surprise involved. Someone with a defensive multipower is involved in the same guessing game as someone with an attack multipower, but the stakes are much higher. If the attacker guesses wrong ("hmm, I thought that guy was a brick, but my Ego attack just bounced...") he wastes an attack. If the defender guesses wrong, he gets pasted.

You're going with the strawman again. I clearly stated again and again in this thread that people with 1 type of attack get creamed. And for someone like the mentallist or brick, unless he gets the drop on the character before he allocates his defensive points, he gets creamed. If the attacker has multiple types of attacks, then the defender simply switches to a balanced slot and is no worse off.

Well, they think adjustment powers have too great an effect on defences. That philosophy is not borne out anywhere else in the rulebook. It may be that you believe this is inconsistent, or that it is an oversight - both are reasonable positions to hold - but to say that your position is supported by the rulebook is not precisely true.

Shrug. If changing defenses on the fly wasn't devastating, there wouldn't be a 1/2 rule for adjusting defenses. If you don't agree with the designers, that's your perogative, but since the designers explicitly stated that there were game balance problems with adjusting defenses at full effect, I'd say they were on my side.

Re: Attacks OK Defenses No Way?

Defences cost 1/10 as much; attacks cost 1/10 as much. 1 point in a defence is more powerful than 1 point in an attack in or out of a multipower. Multipowers lower the cost of defences by the same amount as they lower attacks.

This is magnified when dealing with multipowers.

Here again, attacks in general require lots of points to be effective, defences don't, in or out of a multipower.

Yep, a relatively low amount of defense points neutralizes a much larger amount of attack points.

8 times as effective as what, exactly? Not 8 times as effective as attacks (unless you're suggesting that +10 Mental Defence is as good as +8d6 Ego Attack). 2 times as effective? +10 PD is not as good as +4d6 EB Physical.

 

8 times as effective as buying them outside the multipower, you mean? I would have thought "10 times as effective" was a more natural number (ignoring the cost of the reserve, which becomes a diminishingly smaller proportion of the cost as you add more slots). But attacks get the same benefit in a multipower.

Just do the math (I'm not sure WHAT the heck you're doing with your numbers). 1 pt in a MP buys +10 mental defense which neutralizes 29 pts of ego attack. 1 pt in a MP buys 1d6 ego attack which neutralizes 3.5 pts of mental defense. 29/3.5 = 8 times as effective.

The ability to never act because he's too busy aborting his actions to activate his highly volatile defences?

Maybe in your world where the villains get the drop on the PCs every single time.

There are two basic arguments here.

 

Firstly, there is the argument that against an attacker with a single form of a attack, a flexible defender will have the means to shut down this attacker. Most "single form attackers" are either brick/martial artists, or mentalists. Assuming the flexible defender is not able to achieve a significantly higher PD than most characters could, the brick or the martial artist is not going to be ineffective (and if they are able to get a much higher PD, then all bets are always going to be off - it is not unreasonable to assume that if a multipower defender is allowed to get a PD of 40, then a non-multipower defender is allowed to get at least that high as well, and "maximum DEF" has a habit of becoming "average" and eventually "minimum" DEF over time). Mentalists are always screwed against someone who has even moderate mental defence - it's an unfortunate consequence of the "all or nothing" nature of their powers, and the reason that most long-term mentalists branch out into at least things like Ego Drains if not exploring the TK route.

 

Secondly, there is the argument that it is allowing a defender to purchase exotic defences much cheaper than normal. Even if you ignore the inherent limitations and contradictions in this (exotic attacks are cheaper by the exact same ratio; exotic defences that need to be switched on and off require you to either guess or abort, and to leave yourself open to others until your next phase, which arguably justifies the cost reduction in the same fashion as not being able to combine a flash, NND, and energy blast justifies the same thing with attacks)... even if one ignores that, how far does one take this argument? It boils down to "it should be hard to make exotic defences cheap", which calls into question whether or not sticking them in a Force Field Elemental Control is OK, or whether sticking limitations on them is acceptable, and so forth. To say that it's wrong to put them in a multipower but OK to put them in an EC is somewhat arbitrary, and is in any case a difference of degree rather than kind.

Actually, the rulebook supports my position. Adjustment powers affecting defenses have 1/2 effect. If you go all the way back to Champions 2 or 3, the philosophy behind this was that adjusting defenses positively or negatively had a much too big of an impact on gameplay. So even the designers think spot defenses are far more powerful than spot attacks when they were designing the game.

Re: Attacks OK Defenses No Way?

"Gobs" more? Hardly.

 

40 PD/40 ED costs 80 points.

 

Multipower "Force Field" 80 pt reserve [80]

40 PD FF [4-u]

40 ED FF [4-u]

...

 

costs 88 points. Granted, he can then proceed to fill it with the rest of the exotic defences at 4 more points per slot, but this is the same as an attack multipower buying extra attacks at a similarly cheap rate.

Reserve cost should be 40 pts. So yeah, 80 pts is "gobs" more than 48 pts plus the added benefit of cheap slots.

If multipower dude is allowed to spend 88+ points on defences I'm not clear why non-multipower dude isn't allowed to spend 80 points on defences and thereby stand up to Brickman and Laserman. You need to have at least three example opponents before multipower dude has any sort of advantage - and even then, he still has to pick and choose.

See above.

If you have a multipower of exotic defences and I have a multipower of exotic attacks, then yes, you must abort every time I attack. The fact that you're expecting it is irrelevant, since I'm switching slots as often as you are (indeed, you're switching because I am).

 

Evidently you feel flexible defence powers are problematic because the possessor can defend himself against a wide variety of opponents. I'm not clear why you don't seem to see that flexible attack powers have a comparable advantage - and yet I haven't noticed blaster types dominating games.

Wrong matchup. I specifically stated throughout this thread that flexible multipower dude crushes opponents with 1 attack form, such as a mentallist or brick. Against an attacker with multiple forms of attack, the defender simply switches to a balanced slot and is no worse off.

Or alternatively: 1 point in a defence multipower buys 10 points of defences (a savings of 10 to 1 over the normal cost). 1 point in an attack multipower buys 10 points of attacks (a savings of 10 to 1 over the normal cost).

You really don't see that 1 pt in a spot defense is more powerful than 1 pt in a spot attack even after that example??????

And attack multipowers do not suffer from any of the problems defence multipowers suffer from:

• Got blindsided? Who cares, your attacks aren't persistent anyway.
  
• Opponent seems to be immune to one of your attacks? Switch to another one when it's your next go. No time wasted there; by definition you never want to attack when it isn't your phase.
  
• And since you can only attack one person at a time it doesn't matter if the attack you choose is useful against person A but not against person B.

If attack multipowers, which have been widely used for years, have not brought the system to its knees despite lacking the inherent limitations of defence multipowers, I don't see that it's at all intuitively obvious that the latter will prove to be destructive.

Attack multipowers generally need lots of points to be effective, and the ability to be flexible generally isn't too devastating since usually the base attack will do some damage anyway. For example, someone with a 60 pt multipower may have a 12d6 attack and a 6d6 nnd. Vs a 30 def target, the 12d6 does 12 net stun and the 6d6 NND does 21, gaining 9 stun on average. Whereas with the spot defense, you don't need a lot of it compared to an attack multipower (1 pt is 8 times as effective in defense vs drains and ego blasts or 2 times as effective vs standard 5 pt/die attacks) and generally ALL of it will be effective in reducing damage. Just take a look at what a 25 pt defense multipower with 2 pt slots will add to a typical character.

Re: Attacks OK Defenses No Way?

Every character has (or should have) an Achilles' heel. A high DCV character is a difficult opponent for characters with lower OCV and no attacks that target areas or ECV. A character with no mental defense is easy prey for a mentalist. That same mentalist has difficulty dealing with a target with mental defense' date=' or an automoton. The high DCV character is ready prey for a character with 1 hex AoE attacks. A character with only one type of attacks is a powerhouse against an opponent who lacks the appropriate defense, and pathetic against someone who has high defenses in that area. A character who can be strongly defended against any one attack form suffers against opponents with multiple attack forms. A large number of soft targets with potent weaponry is much more effective against a character whose powers don't facilitate attacking multiple targets in a single action than against a character with effective area effect attacks. A character with Darkness devestates characters lacking enhanced senses, and an NND is either very powerful or utterly useless.[/quote']

 

Multipower dude doesn't have an Achilles Heel. That's the whole point of the defensive multipower.

 

Yes, there are opponents against which a character with the ability to become nigh invulnerable to a single attack type is extremely powerful. It doesn't make him any more unbeatable than any of the other poor matches described above. And all of these highlight the need for the GM to consider the abilities of his PC's in designing reasonable opposition.

 

There are lots more foes where defensive multipower dude is nigh invulnerable than your typical unbalanced defense dude.

 

Facing a character off, one on one, against an opponent his usual tactics are utterly useless against often makes for a very good story - can our hero get creative, or is he useless against an opponent he can't simply punch out?

 

This statement has nothing to do with defensive multipower dude.

Re: Attacks OK Defenses No Way?

Unless of course he's using a multipower of them as well...

If everyone has the same multipower, then no problem. However, that is not going to be the case.

In precisely the same fashion as anyone else having a 40 defence does.

Not in precisely the same fashion. The person without multipower who has 40 def either spent gobs more points to have 40/40 or he's permanently going to be at a huge disad if he's at 40/15 and gets attacked by the wrong attack. The multipower dude has the best of all worlds, a PD slot, ED slot, and balanced slot. He'll crush both Brickman and Laserman whereas your 40 def person crushes Brickman but gets annihilated by Laserman.

(about the need to abort...)

 

Fair enough; I wouldn't be:

• You have to abort, and you can't always do so.
  
• Having aborted, you've just wasted a phase. So at the very least the attacker has avoided one of your attacks in return for attacking you, and if he rolls well he might even squeeze some damage through. Bonus! If he is as flexible in attack as you are in defence, then you will never be able to attack him (assuming equal SPD) unless you decide to not abort-and-switch-defences... at which point you're going to be taking the brunt of whatever he's throwing at you.
  
• If you're talking a many-on-many match up (not an uncommon situation) then every time you switch defences to avoid A's exotic attack you leave yourself open to B's more mundane attack (or perhaps you leave yourself open to energy while protecting against physical).

Fact of the matter is that barring some sort of house rule there's absolutely nothing illegal about this construct - and it really doesn't seem abusive enough to me to require such a house rule.

You don't have to abort if you're expecting the attack. Do your characters ALWAYS get the drop on the PCs? And if the multipower dude catches Egoman or Powerman by himself, he crushes them for a grand total of 2 pts.

Err, no, the balancing point is that defences are supposed to be cheaper than attacks. Indeed, if the prevalence of exotic attacks was such that defences were no longer cost effective you would probably have to argue for a reduction in their cost.

That's simply an assertion. In actual gameplay, the balancing factor is that characters have to buy up both PD and ED. If there was simply Defense, then it would be too cheap at 1 pt per point.

Then by inference if you don't have defensive multipowers, anyone using an attack multipower is exploiting this ratio in the opposite direction.

 

My first 12d6 Energy Blast costs me 60 points; you can pay 60 * 0.7 = 42 points on defences to counter that. But then my second 12d6 Energy Blast (this one against Physical) costs me only 12 points (change the construct to a 60 point multipower with 2 6 point ultra slots), and yet you'd need another 42 points of defence.

 

If the argument "But you can only use one at a time" is valid for attacks... then why not for defences?

1 pt in the defense multipower gives you +10 mental defense. That counters +29 pts of Ego Attack on average or +14 pts of Mind Control. That same point spent on an attack multipower gets you either +1d6 Ego Attack or +2d6 mind control which counters only 3.5 or 7 pts spent on defense.

If you can't see the massive discrepancy in this, there's no point in further discussing the issue.

Re: [Heresy] Do we need Killing Attacks?

Then if, by default, the powers you paid for through your weapon CAN cut through the side of a tank, and the SFX of your weapon say you CANNOT cut through the side of a tank, you should take a limitation on that power reflecting the fact that it cannot cut through the side of a tank.

 

The value of that limitation depends on how significant that limitation is. The fact that there should be such a limitation is clear from the fact that your mechanical build does not properly emulate the constructed effect without such a limitation. "Real Weapon, -1/4" does it for me.

And then you get the whole host of GM judgement calls in game. It's better to simply have the mechanic where this isn't a problem.

Re: Attacks OK Defenses No Way?

No' date=' I specifically did respond: they're not screwed, just not as flexible (no surprise there). A 12d6 attack is more than capable of hurting someone with 30 DEF. Sure, if they can switch to a 12d6 energy attack and take advantage of much lower DEF they're going to to better - but that doesn't mean that the guy who can't do that is screwed.[/quote']

 

If the attacker is spending the exact same points on multiple defenses, he probably has 22 PD/ED. The defender with his defensive multipower and 12d6 attacks is going to be taking down that attacker much quicker. And that's only if you have a hard cap of 30 on defenses. Many GMs do not. Increase that spot defense to 40 and the 12d6 becomes fairly ineffective.

 

And the other difference is that you have to take a 0 phase action to switch it on, which you don't have to do if you buy it outside the multipower. That, too, is a pretty huge difference: you often don't know you need mental defence until you're the victim of such an attack. You might be able to abort to switch it on, but you're taking a chance.

 

Somehow at a cost of 1 pt for +15 mental defense or +15 power defense, that's a cost I'm willing to live with.

 

Much the same way someone with a sufficiently flexible attack multipower containing Energy Blasts, RKAs, NNDs, Drains, and so forth would do against most defenders.

 

If the attacker type is allowed, I can't see what the problem is with the defender.

 

Again as I've explained before in this thread, 1 pt spent on defense generally counters 1.43 pts spent on offense for regular attacks or 2.86 pts spent on something like ego attack. Conversely, 1 pt spent on attack only counters .7 pts spent on defense or .35 pts if it's an ego attack.

 

The balancing point is that usually you have to purchase multiple defenses to cover your bases. This dynamic becomes completely skewed if you have a defensive multipower.

Re: Attacks OK Defenses No Way?

Some difference, to be sure. That's why, as a GM, I would probably require the Multipower character be less defended overall (or inferior somewhere else) to the fixed 45/5 defense character. But he'd also likely face a lot of opponents who have the ability to mix up their attacks, whether that be single opponents with multiple attack forms, or teams of individuals with different single attack forms.

 

If your game consists primarily of one on one cage matches, maybe this is a problem - or maybe it means offense must be designed to enable the character to attack more than one defense type if he is to be effective.

 

I question whether your concern is more related to the low cost of adding a MP slot than it is with whether those slots are offensive or defensive.

My game consists of one on one matches, many on many matches, one on many matches, etc. In some subset of cases X, the multipower dude is no worse off than a regular defender. In (1-X) cases, he crushes.

I snipped the "only hits 1% vs hits 50%" discussion - sorry. But, just like I would expect that 15 DCV MA to crush that 6 OCV Blaster AND the guy who can have a 45 PD to trash the 50 STR Brick, I would expect they will each face opponents that are not so easy for their particular power set to crush. If I didn't expect that, why would I approve their characters? I don't think that Defensive Multipower is markedly harder to deal with than an Offensive Multipower.

There are a lot more opponents where the multipower defender will crush. Anyone who depends on 1 attack form which is a fairly large chunk of the super population. Much larger than a 6 OCV blaster in a world with 15 DCV martial artists.

Re: [Heresy] Do we need Killing Attacks?

Is it fair that a laser beam can be reflected by a mirror but a bullet can't? I would let Swordsman use his sword as a lever to move a large object with more DEF than thge KA can penetrate' date=' or pry open a drawer without damaging the contents. Lightsaberman can't do those things - his lightsaber isn't corporeal. SFX incorporate numerous small benefits and drawbacks.[/quote']

 

I think there is a big difference between being able to cut through the side of a tank and using your weapon as a crowbar.

Re: Attacks OK Defenses No Way?

Unless he has to keep aborting to optimize his defenses. Yes, "Only One Attack Man" is unable to defeat "Optimized Defense Man" if the latter is prepared. He's also unable to defeat anyone whoi always has the level of defenses against his attack that Optimized Defense Man can muster when prepared.

 

If I would allow a player to have a 5/5 PD/ED and a multipower of +40 PD and +40 ED Force Field, I should be equally willing to allow a character with 45 PD and 5 ED. Both will be tough for a 50 STR Brick to beat.

The person with 45/5 straight can only fight one type of foe. The dude with a multipower would annihilate in a one on one, bricks, martial artists, most weapon masters, many blasters, mentallists, people who depend on power attacks, etc. And with a balanced slot in his multipower like in my example, he'd do just fine vs foes with multiple types of attacks.

Big huge difference between the fixed 45/5 and the multipower.

How do you optimize against an opponent with 2 or more attacks, affecting different defense types? A Martial Artist with a 15 DCV is pretty secure battling an Energy Projector with a 6 OCV. Hopefully, that isn't the only matchup either character will ever see!

I specifically stated throughout this thread that the character would crush anyone who depended on a single attack type (a good chunk of the super population). I'm not sure why you're bringing in someone with 2 attacks vs difference defense types. And what does the 15 DCV MA have to do with what was quoted?

Re: Attacks OK Defenses No Way?

Defenders reliant on only one type of defense are equally screwed vs a multipower with an array of attack types. If I have high normal PD and ED' date=' but my opponent has a multipower with an EB, RKA, Sight Flash, AVLD vs Sight Flash, Ego Attack and STR Drain, I'm just as screwed as the Mentalist going up against a character with a Multipower slot that holds +40 Mental Defense.[/quote']

 

That gets back to the whole Defense trumps Offense factor. If the attacker is using his multipower to attack the defenders weaker defenses, presumably the defender can be fighting back effectively at the same time. If the defender uses his multipower to make himself nigh invulnerable, he can take apart the attacker at his leisure. As I stated before, a character who has a 50% chance to hit his foe but a 1% chance of being hit will do FAR better on average than someone who has a 99% chance to hit his foe and a 50% chance of being hit. It's simply the dynamics of how the game works and how attack interacts with defense.

 

 

 

That attacker gets his extra attacks for 6 points each, assuming no limitations and 13 DC's.

 

Well, defenses are significantly cheaper than attacks because you generally have to purchase multiple types. If you can optimize the defense against a specific attacker, that dynamic breaks down. 1 pt of defense generally blocks 5/3.5 or 1.43 pts of attack for a standard attack, or 2.86 pts of attack for something like ego attack. So points in a spot defense are magnified compared to points in spot attacks.

Re: [Heresy] Do we need Killing Attacks?

Then perhaps they should have a different limitation which encompasses only those parts of "real weapon" that area appropriate (I can't think of any' date=' frankly, for your examples - I think the special things they do are purchased separately with character points - but there may be some). That may be a -0 limitation, like many limitations that don't come up very often and aren't all that significant, but are logical extensions of the SFX of a character's powers.[/quote']

 

That's a pretty significant limitation that isn't as limiting as real weapon. It's not quite fair for Swordsman to not be able to cut a vault door while Lightsaberman can. It's better to treat them the same which my KA structure will.

Re: Attacks OK Defenses No Way?

I'm not clear on why.

 

If the campaign guidelines are (say) 12 DC and 30 DEF, then a multipower such as:

 

Force Field MP, 40pt reserve [40]

40 PD Force Field [8-m]

40 ED Force Field [8-m]

 

is against those guidelines, so that's no problem.

 

On the other hand, if even under the best possible circumstances the guideline is still met (halve the multipower above, and assume 10 PD and 10 ED from other sources), then some guy with a 12d6 Energy Blast and no physical attack isn't exactly screwed - he's just not as well off as if he had physical and energy (or flash and energy, or NND and energy, or whatever). It isn't really surprising that someone with multiple types of attacks is more versatile than someone who isn't.

 

The case where someone throws up something like:

 

Force Field MP, 40pt reserve [40]

20 PD Force Field [4-m]

20 ED Force Field [4-m]

20 Mental Defence Force Field [4-m]

20 Power Defence Force Field [4-m]

20 Flash Defence (sight) Force Field [4-m]

 

doesn't exactly terrify, either. Few attackers will be totally reliant on something defended only by flash or power defence (and if they are, then they are shut down just as handily by anyone with 20 Power/Flash defence "normally" as well). Mentalists might indeed only have Mental Defence defended attacks, but any target with 20 mental defence is hard to hurt if you happen to be one of those mentalists - and this defender has to leave himself open to one of your buddies in order to defend himself against you.

 

I'm sure some sort of abusive constructs can be made with this idea, but I don't think it's innately awful any more than an "all attack" multipower is - less so, because of the timing issue (you'll either be aborting a lot, or else have to take a guess that you'll be wrong about on occasion).

Not all campaigns have hard caps. You haven't really responded to my point that attackers reliant on 1 attack form such as bricks, martial artists, most weapon masters, and many blasters are screwed vs this type of multipower. In fact, it looks like you're agreeing.

The difference between the multipower structure and someone with Power/Flash/Mental defense "normally" is that it costs only 1-4 pts for lots of protection in the multipower vs full price if bought straight. And that's a pretty huge difference. In my sample multipower, it costs only 1 pt to gain 15 pts of mental defense.

Re: Attacks OK Defenses No Way?

Wel, if one character has 36 defenses and a 3d6 attack and the other has 18 defenses and a 6d6 attack, the battle isn't going to end at all...

 

I agree that the implications of high overall defenses are significant. Try making a "well nigh invulnerable" character in Hero. Remember, also, that the concept here is a character who may be able to be invulnerable to one attack type, but not to all attack types at once. Given the prevelance of attack multipowers, I'm not sold on the idea that the defense multipower is likely to make the character nigh invulnerable.

If the attacker has a multipower with both physical and energy attacks, then the defender can't optimize. If the attacker only has 1 type of attack, he's screwed.

Re: Attacks OK Defenses No Way?

While not forbidden by the rules' date=' you can only put these in a mp with special permission from a gm.[/quote']

 

Not if you make them force field slots. Force field is a standard power.

Re: [Heresy] Do we need Killing Attacks?

6 + 6 + 6 = 18 x 1/4 for Hardened = 4. [That's one for you and about a dozen for me in halving defenses vs AP' date= I think!] Mind you, my original Damage Resistance should have cost less to harden too.

I was talking automatons. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Whose concept justifies hardened defenses and whose doesn't also leads to a whole lot of GM judgement calls which opens a whole can of worms.

Yep. But it's the same as who's concept justifies power defense or mental defense as well. And the GM decision is basically made once at chargen rather than time after time during actual gaming situations.

So the latter three should be required to take "real weapon" and the former should not, in order to properly emulate the SFX they have selected, right? We're back to appropriate GM control.

Not really. All of them do things that real life equivalents don't, especially when wielded by their aforementioned characters. They just don't batter down large vault doors.

Re: House rule I'm considering, Hit Location

I think both sides are talking past each other at this point.

A change like this doesn't make abilities that don't take hit locations less valuable in absolute terms, but it does in relative terms.

As an example, suppose we changed the rules so that killing attacks did their regular damage, but normal attacks did 1d6+1 Stun per 5 pts. The KA isn't any less valuable than it was before in absolute terms, but it's less valuable relative to the NA than before.

This proposed HL change adds some amount to the average damage of any attacks that use HL. So attacks that don't use HL aren't any less valuable than before, but are less valuable relative to attacks that do. How much less valuable depends on the average attack level, defense level, OCV, and DCV of the campaign.

Re: Attacks OK Defenses No Way?

This is true to some extent. Of course, Thunderbolt could do knockback into a wall, in which case you'll be wishing that Field had some PD, and Ogre (well, a smarter Ogre...) could rip out a high tension power line to attack you with.

 

And we have no issue with multiple attack MP's, which can swap between various defense types they affect with ease.

Knockback at this level can easily be handled by the base defense. And there isn't always a convenient high tension power line to attack with.

In general, defense trumps offense. For example, a character who has a 50% chance to hit his foe but a 1% chance of being hit will do FAR better on average than someone who has a 99% chance to hit his foe and a 50% chance of being hit. Once you make yourself nigh invulnerable either through defenses or DCV, the battle is pretty much a foregone conclusion.

Re: [Heresy] Do we need Killing Attacks?

And why did the Supers game, in genre, drift away from the low rDEF model of many comic book supers? Because comic book supers don't have to deal with die rolls. The writer decides whether Spiderman gets hit with the buillet, or nimbly avoids it. In game, the dice come up "3", and "no rDEF" Spidey takes 2d6+1 BOD. Realistic? Sure. In genre? Not so much.

 

Tack on a "most serious opponents with a KA have Armor Piercing" model, and Spidey needs hardened defenses as well - those serious opponents will hit on occasion.

Yep

I also find we as a group seem to assume a visible difference between KA's and normal attacks. That visible difference is there when we see a gun or a knife. Is a blast of flame a normal attack, or a killing attack? What about Electro's lightning bolts? These are pretty tough to distinguish visibly, but I think fires and lightning kill people pretty regularly, don't they?

For energy it's tougher and can be simulated either way, but physical KAs generally are quite noticeable.

Two issues here. First, how many targets have defenses of 40+ in a 12DC game? This simply reflects game balance. Second, we need to use some baseline for measurement. The normal attack (being the common one and the "normal" one) tends, rightly or wrongly, to be that base.

Not that many have 34+ either, but you seem to be using that as your threshold against my method.

Part of the problem is that normal defenses apply equally against BOD and STUN. This creates characters invulnerable to BOD damage from normal attacks. Yet the Thing - definitely a high DEF target - has been in battles where he is clearly taking normal damage, and he winds up bloodied, but not KO'd. Assuming he has, say, 25 PD, that means at least a 20d6 attack with a very good roll. 6 rolls of 6 and 19 of 2 should get 49 STUN through, and that only did 1 BOD. If his opponent has enough dice to consistently get a point or two of BOD through, he shouldn't still be standing.

 

Many, perhaps most, comic book characters appear to have considerably more defenses against STUN than against BOD, viewed in Hero terms. This is something the game does not presently simulate, although I suppose one could limit a portion of one's defenses to protect against STUN only. Unfortunately, it's difficult or impossible for hard mechanics to perfectly simulate genre results which arise due to artistic license.

Yep.

Controlling the level of rDEF would have a similar effect with standard KA's.

Nope. Standard KAs still have the high variability in Body damage and the stun lottery.

Assuming we were building to concept before and continue to build to concept now, why would the frequency of killing attacks change between the two systems?

A lot of energy attacks could go either way and would tend to be defined more as EBs if KAs become less effective at stunning foes. As for physical attacks, things like maces might now be defined as NAs instead of KAs like under the current system (to make them competitive with swords).

Putting, say, 3 points into hardening my resistant defenses (only) would mean buying Hardened on 12 points of rDEF (24x 1/2 Dam Res = 12 x 1/4 = 3), so I can harden 6 PD and 6 ED. That will reduce the damage I take from an AP KA by 3, which is doubled after my defenses, so reduces BOD damage by 6 (and STUN by 3) when faced with a KA. Will 3 points of Mental, Flash or Power Defense be that effective at keeping my character alive?

3 pts of Lack of Weakness might. And power, mental, and flash have a whole lot of other beneficial effects. Also, it's probably going to cost more because you can't harden only part of a defense. Also, you have to harden the base PD and ED as well as the damage resistance, so now the cost is 9 pts to harden 6/6.

In the Supers genre, your system not only enhances the value of Hardening defenses which protect against KA BOD, it also encourages far more AP KA's. Both make hardened rDEF far more valuable. As such, there will be greater impetus to purchase it.

 

If the GM then says "no, only one character may have Hardened rDEF", that GM control can keep down the incidence of this ability. If those without hardened rDEF then find themselves at a substantial disadvantage (eg. they take 8 BOD from every hit with an AP killing attack, and they face opponents with AP killing attacks, say, every third or fourth scenario), I suspect the GM will find a backlash, assuming the players did not share the GM's expectation of a highly lethal game.

 

Part of the problem is that an "effective killing attack" should be lethal. Excessive lethality means characters drop like flies. That's not a common style for most genres' campaigns.

It's up to the GM to determine what style his campaign is. If the GM wants KAs to be terrifying, he should limit rDef and hardened. If he wants it to be just another attack option, then he simply doesn't set any limitations on defenses.

Gary, you argue above that effective GM control can easily manage the increased value of hardened defenses if AP KA's are the only way to build an effective KA. If that is the case, why wouldn't GM control such as "you must put a limitation (even a -0 Limitation) on your character point purchased 50 cal, longsword or 2 handed sword so that it cannot chop a vault door to pieces?

That leads to a whole lot of GM judgement calls which opens a whole can of worms. If you declare arbitrarily that a longsword can't damage 16 Def, then how about 15 def, 14 def, etc? And suppose Longswordman's buddy Clawman has the same attack. Is he limited as well? How about their buddy Lightsaberman?

Let's look at some examples. Assume our mercenary mook has 4 PD armor plus 6 normal PD. We'll give him, say, 10 BOD and 25 STUN. This seems like a fair Supers Mook (actually, I think the Armor would normally be higher and the base PD lower, but we've been using 4 rDEF). Let's use a 12DC camiagn norm.

 

10d6 GaryKA hits mook, rolling 35 STUN and 10 BOD. This gets 6 BOD past armor, doubled is 12, mook is dying. He takes 31 STUN, so he's just barely down. When he recovers, he should either flee or get killed by the next hit. Under your logic, he either flees or he feigns unconsciousness until Wolvie leaves, then presumably uses Paramedic to bind his wounds.

12 body in 1 shot is basically death for mooks.

7d6 GaryKA hits mook, rolling 24.5 STUN and 7 BOD. This gets 3 BOD past armor, doubled is 6, mook is bloodied, but not dying. He takes 17 or so STUN, so he's conscious, but probably Stunned. That means Wolvie has to hit him again [one hit was adequate in the comics]. That's another 6 BOD, and another 18 STUN (rounded up this time), so he's now just like the first target. [AP doesn't add a lot in terms of effectiveness dealing with mooks - which we knew]

Actually 5 body past defenses for 10 total body and 24.5 Stun.

4d6 Hero Standard KA hits mook, rolling 14 BOD and 37 STUN (the latter varies widely, but let's assume we've adopted a STUN Multiple smoothing mechanic). This gets 10 BOD past armor; mook is dying. He takes 27 STUN, so he's just barely down. Same logic should apply as with your 10d6 KA.

Same as the others, but a lot more variability. The attack could easily roll 8 body 8 stun, or 20 body 100 stun.

2 1/2d6 Hero Standard AP KA hits mook, rolling 9 BOD and 24 STUN (the latter varies widely, but let's assume we've adopted a STUN Multiple smoothing mechanic). This gets 5 BOD past armor; mook is bloodied. He takes 14 STUN, so he's not even stunned, in all likelihood. He gets hit again, so he's just barely KO'd but at 0 BOD, bleeding to death.

7 Body through defenses and 19 Stun.

The same result in all cases. The only variance is that the AP attacks require two hits in all cases, so if Wolvie has an AP KA, he's likely above the campaign norm. Let's bump him to 75 AP to reflect this.

The AP attack is less effective in general vs low rDef characters.

12d6 GaryKA hits mook, rolling 42 STUN and 12 BOD. This gets 8 BOD past armor, doubled is 16, mook is dying. He takes 40 STUN, so he's KO'd.

 

8 1/2d6 GaryKA hits mook, rolling 30 STUN and 8.5 BOD. This gets 6.5 BOD past armor, doubled is 13, mook is dying. He takes 31 or so STUN, so he's just barely down.

 

5d6 Hero Standard KA hits mook, rolling 17.5 BOD and 47 STUN (the latter varies widely, but let's assume we've adopted a STUN Multiple smoothing mechanic). This gets 13.5 BOD past armor; mook is dying. He takes 37 STUN, so he's KO'd.

 

3d6+1 Hero Standard AP KA hits mook, rolling 11.5 BOD and 31 STUN (the latter varies widely, but let's assume we've adopted a STUN Multiple smoothing mechanic). This gets 9.5 BOD past armor; mook is bloodied, maybe dying. He takes 26 STUN, so he's just barely KO'd.

 

Again, similar results for all four choices.

This time you did halve defenses for AP.

The biggest Hero Mechanics question is how the targets can be so badly wounded they need surgery to survive, but they don't bleed to death in the two minutes max. period they can survive at negative BOD. That's all dramatic license in game or in comic, though.

 

Overall, whether Wolvie has AP or normal KA, and whether we use the standard model or your model, the results on each mook are pretty much unchanged.

Nope, the AP attack does less body to the mook in all cases. In the 75 AP version, there's a reasonable chance that the mook is killed outright with the regular KA. In all cases, there's less time for help to arrive to save the mook for the reguler KA vs the AP KA.

Yes, there is a tradeoff. The longsword hack is as easily managed (or as hard to manage) by a GM as the use of hardened defenses under your KA moddel, or rDEF in general under the current model. In a Heroic game, the LS has the Real Weapon limitation. In a Supers game, don't Supers with swords accomplish feats like this in the comics frequently?

Supers who can do this usually have magic or special weapons such as Wolverine's claws or Black Knight's sword. "Normal" KAs such as Green Arrow's regular arrows, Punisher's guns, or Taskmaster using a sword will never penetrate a vault door.

Hulk vs Wolverine. Wolvie has proven pretty effective at inflicting BOD damage against the Hulk. This comes back to the comment (far) above that part of the problem is defenses that are equally effective against STUN and BOD. Artistic license is also there, of course.

Wolverine seems to have a variable number of levels of AP and Penetrating. It appears the writers roll a D6 and that's how many levels of each advantage he as for any particular issue.

Does any indication of Blood mean BOD damage? 8 bloody scratches from a cat and a normal person needs medical attention to survive? 20 needles (a small number in allergy testing) that draw blood means most patients are dead?

Given the visuals of any typical movie such as Conan, Lord of the Rings, Braveheart, etc, blood most certainly means Body damage.

By the same token, in heroic fiction, it is very common for the hero to be KO'd by a killing attack and left for dead, yet he is alive and later recovers.

He's not merely KO'd, he's taken a lot of body in general He's usually at close to negative his body and often has to be nursed back to health over weeks or months.

The key difference is that the other examples all deliver highter BOD to penetrate defenses. That "hero standard" KA averages 14 BOD, not 10, at 12 DC. It is more effective at removing a force wall or a brick wall which your KA lacks. It has a small advantage against a 12DC entangle, but your KA shares that. A "hero standard" KA also has the Lotto advantage, but that advantage is excessive, at least in games that don't use hit locations. [ASIDE: I find hit locations mitigate the lotto, not so much in changing the odds of a high multiple, but in allowing a multiple for normal attacks as well.]

It's more effective at removing a force wall, but not vs brick walls at 5 Def. Vs a 6 def 6 body entangle, your KA needs to roll 4 above average to take it down with a full phase to spare. My KA needs to roll 2 only above average, which is significantly easier. Vs low def high body objects such as dirt, trees, or airplanes, my KA is much better.

So we already agree that the current system fails to cover the source material perfectly in that the source material seems to include a lot of 0 rDEF characters. We also agree that the system motivates, if not requires, that departure, as no one pays that 0 rDEF character. This has been accepted in the game, as witness abilities like Combat Luck. Why then, would a system like you propose not result in a similar drift towards hardened rDEF? If I only have 6 rDEF, and every BOD from a KA that gets past it will inflict 2 BOD to my character, the cost of hardening it seems pretty cheap compared to the exposure of not hardening it.

 

That's an other metagaming issue, BTW. It seems that most characters with hardened defenses in the source material would be high defense characters, but it's low DEF characters that are most motivated to harden their defenses in the game. This is unrelated to the KA issue, however, even if the motivation is enhanced a bit under your model.

As I stated above, it's up to the GM to determine the tone of his campaign and set attack levels and defenses accordingly.

It's competetive if there are some offsetting advantages. The higher BOD vs Defense enjoyed by all models but yours is an offsetting advantage. The Stun Lotto (if not smoothed) is also an offsetting advantage, but one which poses philosophy issues (ie why is a killing attack made more competitive by allowing it to beat normal attacks at inflicting Stun).

 

We are all biased by our own experiences, of course. In my Supers games, my players have not exploited the Stun Multiple. They generally use killing attacks against inanimate objects and automotons (robots) because they are more effective at inflicting BOD. Under your model, high DEF objects and automotons are better defended against KA's, so this advantage fades.

There are offsetting advantages such as vs entangles and low def high body objects and automatons.

Those lingering effects don't help the already defeated character who inflicted the BOD. They also matter most when further BOD inflicting attacks come up afterwards, and their main effect is putting the target closer to death. Again, we get back to that lethality issue.

Those lingering effects have a great deal of effect. First of all, you can't recover body in a combat without regeneration while you can recover stun. With 1 or 2 recoveries, it may take longer to knock out the target than you think, especially if he has teammates covering him. Secondly, if he faces another combat within the adventure, he's starting off at a significant disadvantage. This may influence a 12 body character who has already taken 6 body whether to proceed or might affect his strategy in his next encounter.

6 less STUN on average with higher average BOD to deal with the inanimate and the chance of greater STUN is competitive. There is a tradeoff - more useful often enough to matter. 8.5 less STUN with no offsetting advantage is not competitive. I don't see "I kill him instead of KO'ing him" or "maybe he'll run away with all that BOD loss" as a significant offsetting advantage. You do. That seems to be the crux of our difference.

Don't forget better vs entangles and vs low def high body items and automatons. And if you inflict body damage, you can skirmish, doing a little damage, retreating, and striking again. If you're only inflicting stun damage, this will never work since all stun will have been recovered by the time you get back.

Gary, I think we're just talking in circles here. I'm going to try to restrict future responses to any new issues.

Ok.

Re: Attacks OK Defenses No Way?

Defensive multipowers or vpps are more of a game problem than attacks when facing 1 foe. Consider the following multipower:

15 Multipower

1u +15 PD FF

1u +15 ED FF

1u +7/8 FF

The same total cost as +9/+9 FF bought straight.

Let's assume the character has 15/15 def base. Against a mix of foes, the character has 22/23. Against Ogre, he has +30/+15. Against Thunderbolt, he has +15/+30. His defense is slightly weaker vs a general foe, but MUCH stronger vs 1 foe.

The example becomes worse if the character starts throwing in 1 pt Power, Mental, and Flash Defense slots that give +15 of the relevant defense.

Re: [Heresy] Do we need Killing Attacks?

By the same logic' date=' if he's going up against someone with a high power KA, presumably he's [b']expecting[/b] there's a good chance he's not coming back. And why would someone who signs up with VIPER ( or Dr. Destroyer) be described as a "rational being".

Let's take a real world example. A soldier in a battle who gets a shrapnel hit that doesn't penetrate his helmet would in game terms be stunned but not necessarily knocked out. What would likely happen is that when he shakes off the effects, he'll stay in the battle and continue fighting. Now if the same solder was shot in the chest for 8 Body damage, even if he's conscious, he's calling for a medic and getting out of the fire zone!

I have no reason to believe that the mook wouldn't have the same thought process.

And, based on your initial comment, not a viable "main attack" in some genres (most notably Supers, where you draw several example Supers from to support your "KA should be AP" assertion.

It's a viable main attack in Fantasy Hero as long as the GM doesn't give all opponents plate armor. Perhaps a knight might carry both a mace and sword like historical knights did, and use the mace vs highly defended targets. In the supers genre, KAs only become less viable unless AP because PCs in a RPG tend to have lots more rDef than characters in the comics. In comics, there's a lot of characters running around with very little in the way of rDef who would rightfully be scared of a KA.

You're not reading my comments, Gary. I'm not saying these don't exist. I am saying they are sufficiently uncommon, and that the advantages of your KA against these targets (mooks and uncommon to rare adversaries) are not sufficient to outweigh their limitations against the more common targets. The targets exceptionally vulnerable to KA's are both uncommon and capable of being defeated by non-KA attacks (albeit, perhaps requiring an extra phase). The targets not exceptionally vulnerable to KA's are pretty much immune to KA's.

I think you're only looking at the supers genre, and only at campaigns that you're familiar with. There are a lot of potential targets where the KA would be more useful. Plus under this approach, overall rDef doesn't have to be as high as the current model.

The normal attack is useful against both types of targets. The KA is utterly useless against one type of target. Hence, the term "overspecialized".

You can use the exact comment for the current structure. The 12d6 normal attack is useless vs targets with 42 def, but the KA is useful vs all types of targets. Therefore the NA is "overspecialized"

I disagree that the KA becomes useless. It merely shifts downward the range of defenses where it would be effective.

AP is the more cost efficient choice under your revised model for a KA and assuming that hardened defenses remain rare. The game has already shown its evolution towards character survivability. What percentage of comic book supers are reasonably described as "bulletproof" in one form or another? What percentage of Hero Games supers emulate this by lacking resistant defenses?

 

A character without resistant defenses is slaughtered by a KA. Thus, over the years, players have made sure their characters have resistant defenses, ultimately evolving to Combat Luck and similar "missed me as a defense, not DCV" powers. If killing attacks were quite rare, or less lethal, rDEF would also have been quite rare. They aren't, so rDEF became a prerequisite for character survival.

 

If AP KA's are the "new world order" - practically every villain with a KA has AP, and inflicts significant BOD damage to targets lacking hardened defenses, as you seem to opine would be the case - then character survivability will force hardened defenses to become more common. Very limited constructs may end up arising - for example, "Hard to Kill - Hardened on 10rPD, only to resist BOD damage from killing attacks" , for example.

 

When AP KA's are rare, demand for hardened defenses to reduce BOD damage from them is low. Under your hypothesis that every Super with a viable KA is AP, characters lacking hardened defenses will have short lifespans. RESULT: Demand for hardened defenses goes up.

Again, it's a matter of GM control. If the GM wants KA to remain terrifying and a viable weapon, then he can simply control the level of PC defenses to more closely model the source material. And the GM can help by sending fewer villains with AP KAs so there's less incentive to buy hardened defenses.

There's a scale between "don't ever want their characters to die" and "don't want a common attack form to be fatal when encountered". Hardening a single point of rPD reduces the BOD taken by an AP KA by 2 under your model. That's a pretty low investment for a pretty high return, especially where your model anticipates AP to be taken on pretty much every high powered KA, so AP KA's will be much more common.

 

Under the current model, Hardening your rDEF reduces damage by 1 BOD per point Hardened and AP KA's are much rarer than they will be under your model.

 

By the same logic that virtually every comic book character with an effective KA must have armor piercing, virtually every comic book character who survives combat with such opponents must have some means of dealing with those AP KA's. The two that spring to mind are hardening their rDEF (which, like AP KA's, is the cost effective approach) and significant regeneration.

You're assuming KAs will be just as common under the new system as under the current system. And just because a character can buy something doesn't mean that he should. Otherwise 1-3 pts of mental, flash, and power defense and lack of weakness would be pretty darn good buys for EVERYONE.

I agree that, under the present model, hardened defenses are pretty rare. So are AP killing attacks. You propose significant change to the present model. By the same logic you espouse above, it seems equally reasonable to state that "If every character with a killing attack has Armor Piercing, that calls into question metagaming and conception issues and perhaps a lack of control by the GM."

If you're complaining about the lack of effectiveness of KA and you're the one who allows every character to purchase hardened, then yes I see a lack of control by the GM.

The "real weapon" limitation works quite nicely in resolving that conundrum, as I believe an earlier poster suggested. As well, shouldn't that .50 cal have "beam weapon", so the best it can do is slowly drill a small hole through the vault door?

Not if someone actually purchases a .50 cal with character points. Or a longsword that's 1.5d6 and 3d6+1 with Str. Because the range of damage is so great, the vault door will eventually be chopped to pieces by the longsword paid with character points. It would happen even quicker if the character purchased a 2 handed sword.

What happens when a human being is hit by the number of .50 cal rounds it would take, in game terms, to get through that vault door? Yet characters in the comics survive hits from characters with KA's that can slice through vault doors (example: several Hellfire Club agents - decidedly mooks - injured by Wolverine in X-Men 133, IIRC, show up some issues later enhanced by cybernetics - they were wounded seriously, but not killed).

That example supports the fact that Wolverine has AP on his KA. If he simply rolled lots of dice rather than reducing the defenses of the target, those mooks would be quite dead.

The simple fact is that most adventure genres ARE NOT realistic in terms of damage inflicted to objects vs damage inflicted to living targets. "realistic" often impairs "playable".

There also has to be an element of believability as well. After all, the game would be quite playable if there were rules that blow guns can penetrate M1 Abrams tanks or if normal humans can leap 100 feet. But that would violate believability. The longsword hacking apart the vault door isn't quite as bad, but it's still pretty unbelievable.

In my eyes, an attack which is incapable of inflicting any harm on a significant proportion of the typical opponents one will face is unlikely to be a viable general purpose attack power. Killing Attacks are, in the course material, viable general purpose attack powers. A KA which is ineffectual at delivering STUN is also not a viable general purpose attack power, unless the game is structured such that killing opponents is a common combat result.

I wouldn't say "incapable of inflicting any harm". The KA still does stun, just less of it than the corresponding NA.

Also, the KA is generally only good in the source material against weakly defended foes. You don't see Hulk, Thing, Invisible Woman, Iron Man, or any other hard targets afraid of guns or a sword. But Storm, Cyclops, Spiderman, Hawkeye, etc go to great lengths not to be hit by sharp pointy objects.

Also at the lower power levels, swords only seem effective when they draw blood as can be seen from countless novels, movies, tv series, comics, etc. You almost never see someone wear down the targets stun and knock them out while not doing body, a result which is quite possible in the current system against a knight wearing plate.

However, the desire to relegate KA's to "does BOD more effectively; delivers STUN much less effectively" is a common one on the boards. To reiterate, achieving this goal in most generes and games will generally mean KA's will not be viable general purpose attack powers.

 

Once we've established we're OK with these not being viable general purpose attack powers, we need a way to make KA's more effective with BOD, and less so with STUN, without making Entangle, Force Wall, Automotons, etc. useless (assuming, again, that we don't want them to be rendered useless). I would note that your approach accomplishes this, in my view.

 

A fairly straightforward means of achieving KA's that are much more effective at inflicting BOD than STUN, and do not relegate Entangles, Force Walls and Automotons to the scrap heap, without creating a brand new KA construct from whole cloth and working through the ripple effects, is to simply require the -2 Stun Mult limitation.

 

Flattening the Stun Multiple curve is another approach. I don't like a 3x Multiple (average STUN matches a normal attack, which is too high). 2x is too low, so that leaves numbers hard to work with in-game. Maybe a multiple of 1,2,3,3,3,4 (same average as the current model, but less variability) might work.

It still leaves a mechanic that's significantly different from everything else in Hero and it still has the extreme volatility in dice rolls.

Not necessarily "equivalent", but also not neutralized. The present KA average is lower than a normal attack, although the Lotto builds it back up. Using a similar average with variability reduced seems a reasonable tradeoff for the enhanced effectiveness against Entangles, etc.

My proposed KA isn't neutralized. It does less stun true, but still does stun unless the target's defenses are extremely high. In fact, it does roughly the same stun as your proposed KA (33.5 at the 60 pt level vs either 30 or 36 under your system). If you're saying that my KA is "neutralized", then you're also saying that your KA is "neutralized" as well.

Gary, I'd classify you as among, if not #1, the most mathematically proficient board members. What does it say about the intuitiveness of your approach that you're making math errors in its application?

I was doing the numbers in my head instead of using a spreadsheet. Mistakes happen.

Also, with the above in mind, how many players are going to wish to play a low DEF character? Such characters typically also have average to low CON and BOD, so the first typical hit likely stuns the character. The second will KO him, and leave him close to death, if not already dead. If both rolls are just a touch above average - well within the realm of statistical probability - he's taken 24 or 26 BOD, and is probably dead. How many low DEF characters will a typical player go through before he decides on a concept that supports higher, and possibly hardened, defenses?

As many players as under the current system. A character with 4-6 rDef faces the exact same thing vs a 4d6 KA, possibly worse since rolling really high is far more likely than rolling really high with 9.5d6. Since some players still play relatively low rDef characters under the current system, there's no reason why they wouldn't under the new one. They may not play a 0 rDef character, but they wouldn't under the current system or your proposed system either.

It's more competitive than I originally believed. Of course, hardened defenses neuters the KA without impacting the normal attack at all, and (as you can see above), I continue to believe that your model, where virtually all significant KA's will need to be AP in order to be competetive, will make "Hardened" the new "Resistant" (ie must be squeezed into most concepts somehow to make them viable). Combat Luck is already hardened, so look for lots more characters with Combat Luck, or some similar construct that only works against KA BOD.

Funny how 30 or 36 stun is considered "competitive" in your eyes, but 33.5 isn't.

The KA will also require 3+ attacks to reduce a typical target to 0 BOD. Now, 3+ attacks to get the target below 0 STUN is also pretty common, but the KA lacks synergy with the more common Stun-inflicting attacks in this regard.

 

Regardless of the anxiety level, most RPG combats end when one target is put down, not when someone flees. How heroic is it to see combats the heroes lose end either in their deaths, or in their fleeing the scene?

Unless Healing or Regeneration is very common, then taking body has effects that linger long after the battle is over. I wouldn't consider a body drain that regenerates per month to be useless, but you wouldn't get many dice at 60 pts.

Various attacks useless against most targets but very effective against certain foes are generally not common main attack forms. In most genres, KA's are common main attack forms. Your approach relegates them to Swiss Army Multipower Slots, to be used on rare occasions, but not commonly.

 

The 1d6-1 (or 1/2) STUN, count BOD a bit higher and charge 5 points per die approach:

 

 

 

It does marginally less STUN, across the board, than a normal attack. It's not utterly useless against certain types of targets, and it doesn't require additional advantages to have some level of effectiveness. It also has the same effectiveness regardless of whether the target's defenses are hardened, so it's less likely to be utterly useless. It's also more effective against most targets that only take BOD. It has, however, accomplished the goal of eliminating the ability of the KA to inflict far more STUN than a normal attack without creating an entirely new construct (although it's pretty close).

6 or 12 less stun is "marginally less stun" but 8.5 less stun makes an attack "neutralized", "useless", or "not competitive". Hmm...

Re: [Heresy] Do we need Killing Attacks?

And I was pointing out that this same relatively common tactic impacts your KA as or more severely.

Nope. If neither stuns for con, then the one that does body is more terrifying.

If played as a lemming, the mook keeps coming as long as he's capable. If played as a reasoning creature, being one hit stunned and reeling should indicate that he's out of his league. Either way, the KA is not significantly superior to the normal attack. Only if I assume that the mook will only be afraid of the KA (and, having 10 DEF, he took 2 BOD from a 12d6 normal attack as well, so both are approaching lethality) does the KA enjoy the superiority you suppose. And what is the hero's objective? Capture for the authorities, make him flee or leave him dead?

If a mook is going after someone with 50-60 pt attacks in the first place, he's probably the minion of someone tougher, and he's probably expecting to take lots of stun if attacked. OTOH, taking 8 body per shot is life threatening and far more terrifying for any rational being no matter how well trained or prepared he is.

To social ramifications, doing 2 BOD probably leaves our Mook with an argument of unnecessary force. 8 BOD clearly does. The same social mores that prevent the KA leaving a trail of dead NPC's prevents using them as a death threat to mooks, doesn't it?

Yep. Which is why someone shouldn't casually throw around KAs unless the genre supports it. But my approach makes KAs absolutely terrifying vs unprotected targets (very realistic), and not so terrifying vs well protected targets (also realistic).

Alll of which are mooks or customized to make the KA superior.

Apparently, you've never had a low rDef villain in your campaign ever.

Batman punches a robot and his hand hurts. Superman punches a robopt and his hand goes straight through. Is Supes using AP STR, or more damage classes? The two are difficult to distinguish as fictional characters traditionally lack character sheets. Wolvie's claws are described in such a way that AP seems a reasonable conclusion, but this is not true for every other character who uses non-mundane KA's in comics history.

Either AP or more DCs allow KAs to penetrate armor. So obviously the comic book characters with KAs who are effective have one or the other. It's just that in a RPG where characters have a budget, the AP is a more cost efficient choice.

Not at all. However, in my games, adjustment, mental, flash and FW powers are less common than KA's, and they tend to leave a cyharacter defeated, not dead. Most gamers (mature ones, at least) are OK with their characters being defeated on occasion, or even with frwquency. "Dead; make a new one" tends to have a much greater negative perception.

If you scale your KAs to the PCs defenses, it's easy to inflict body without killing. Actually easier than with traditional KAs since someone with 10 rDef could easily take 10+ body from a single 4d6 KA. If your players don't ever want their characters to die, then perhaps they shouldn't play RPGs.

In a 12 DC game, 10 hardened rDEF will generally do it. That's not all that high.

In a typical PC party, perhaps 1-2 characters have hardened defenses. If every character has hardened defenses, that calls into question metagaming and conception issues and perhaps a lack of control by the GM.

4d6 Hero KA averages 14 BOD - hostage at -6 BOD (assuming normal standard 8 BOD). 7d6 AP KA your version (12 1/4 DC) does the same 14 BOD. I'd cal that a draw. Now, a 9 1/2d6 KA will get 19 on average, killing the target instantly, so it's a more effective hostage threat, I suppose. Still, Beware the Threatener lacks that ring of Arch-nemesis somehow.

That's what KAs do. In real life, most KAs are of higher DCs than the defenses they face which is why they're effective. If facing defenses higher than their DC, they generally don't do anything, or very little. But in game terms, to be immune to a .50 cal, a vehicle must have 18 rDef. Even a vault door would be shot apart by a .50 cal eventually which would never happen in real life.

Actually, most tear through force walls, entangles and automotons much more effectively than normal attacks, so they pass the "useful" test, but relegate those abilities to the "useless" category since many characters will have these in a MP.

And this tears through low rDef targets. Also, you're the one who stated that "Not every character should have, or need, the proverbial swiss army multipower."

Sure. That works just as well on KA's as currently in the system, especially if coupled with a Stun lotto fixer. Examples abound. A simple one is requiring all KA's take the limitation "-2 Stun Multiple".

A KA with -2 SM would be far worse at inflicting stun at typical targets than my method. That would automatically disqualify it in your eyes because apparently the need to do equivalent stun as a normal attack is your sole criteria for whether a KA is viable.

7d6 AP KA averages a roll of 24.5 Stun and 7 BOD. Should be 10 BOD (I agree I must not have halved the rDEF) 19.5 Stun (after 10 x 1/2 def) plus 5 extra BOD done = 24.5 STUN. I thought it was only the extra BOD that increased STUN, but I may have misread or misremembered. That would enhance the KA in all examples.

You're right, it should be 10 Body and 24.5 Stun. Still a very lethal attack.

I'll take an average of 12 Stun with a high roll doing more, or better still an AP normal attack rolling 28 and inflicting 13 (woopee - one more - but it will shine against someone with uberdefenses of, say, 40/20).

At 30/15 it's relatively close. At 20/10, the AP KA does 4.5 more body and slightly less stun. Taking 4.5 body would tend to scare people more than taking slightly more stun would.

Anyway, based on your 3 examples, the AP KA is quite competitive with a NA.

Assuming the mook would not flee after recovering from being stunned but will flee before dying (ie he's only a KO lemming, not a robot, or zombie, or mind controlled, or "more afraid of his masters than of death" - standard 'mooks are lemming' GM reasoning). BTW, I can question (normally or telepathically) a KO'd mook. I can't question a dead or fled mook.

That's a very good assumption. Someone who takes 8 body in most campaigns would be far more terrified than someone who takes one hard shot but no body. It's not a lemming, but a rational trained soldier. Of course if the GM doesn't give mooks recoveries or has all cowardly mooks who run as soon as hit, then taking body doesn't matter.

Overspecialization tends to uselessness.

Not useless. Highly useful vs certain foes.

One of the more intuitive KA fixes I've seen suggests the following:

 

- KA costs 5 points for 1d6

 

- Add the total on all the dice, and subtract the number of dice rolle. This is the STUN [variant - each die does its roll -1 for Stun, with a minimum 1 per die]

 

- Count BOD as a normal attack, except that rolls of 5 or 6 each count as 2 BOD. [Variant: 1-5 are 1 BOD and 6 is 2 BOD]

 

- BOD is resisted only by resistant defenses. Stun is resisted by all defenses as long as the target has at least 1 rDEF

 

- Subtract 1 extra d6 in determining knockback

 

If I wanted to change KA's, I think I'd take this approach. It dovetails with normal attacks, removes the Stun lotto and leaves average BOD the same as a current KA. I might change Stun to subtract 1 point from the total roll for every 2d6 in the attack, as this would bring average STUN close to the current model.

Using the 10/4, 20/10, and 30/15 targets:

10/4

12d6 KA under this system would do 10 Body 20 or 26 Stun

20/10

12d6 KA does 4 Body 10 or 16 Stun

30/15

12d6 KA does 0 Body 0 or 6 Stun.

I find it very interesting that you spent pages of analysis saying that if an attack does less stun than a NA or if an attack isn't viable as a character's sole attack, that it would be useless. Yet the one method you actually like fails both tests!