Hugh Neilson

This falls into the same category as many other limitations - is it limiting in the context of the specific character in the specific campaign? 

The pricing question is an issue.  Typically, "resistant" has been a +1/2 advantage.  It doesn't seem like this has been re-evaluated with the evolution of killing attacks.  It was +1/2 when nonresistant defenses did not reduce Stun damage from killing attacks, which made nonresistant defenses considerably less valuable.

If anything, the loss of reducing Drains and STUN damage from KAs suggests that nonresistant is more limiting for DN and DR than for normal defenses (ie moving Resistant Protection to PD and ED). It seems like either nonresistant DN and DR should still reduce STUN from KAs (and perhaps all switches between Resistant and Nonresistant should be repriced at -1/4) or nonresistant DN and DR should be a greater limitation than nonresistant defenses.

The -1/2 for "only BOD" or "only STUN" presupposes that reducing each is of equal importance.  Where that supposition is not accurate for the specific campaign or character, I would take issue with the limitation.  In other words, as a GM, if you apply, and I allow, "No BOD" to your Negation or Reduction, then the onus is on me as GM to ensure that the limitation becomes relevant in actual gameplay.  For STUN Only, that means ensuring there are instances where you are at risk of BOD damage not reduced by these defenses. 

If I have two players, one who pays full price for Negation (or Reduction) and one who takes a discount for "STUN only", the first player deserves to see some value for the extra points spent.

On 4/10/2024 at 12:05 PM, unclevlad said:

That's the design paradigm, particularly with STUN only DN.  Figure:  if buying just base defenses, the nonresistant defense is being bought mostly to counter STUN.  What would you rather people buy...15 Armor and 12 PD...or something with STUN only DN?  I suspect you don't see it because we're creatures of habit.  

 

Also note that it's not significantly cheaper.  3 dice of DN is 10 points and counters....10.5 STUN.

 

The combination of Armor and STUN-only DN allows very nicely tailored defenses for any configuration, without spending an arm and a leg, or being totally impervious to normal-attack BODY.  And it needs no house rules.

On 4/10/2024 at 6:36 PM, unclevlad said:

Different color or style.  Just segregate into pools and roll each pool separately, making sure they don't get mixed.  Roll the BODY first, that takes no time to count, then roll the STUN.  Heck, if you want to speed things up, don't even roll the STUN only...just give it 1 BODY per die.  Especially if we're talking higher damage.  Whatever works for your game and group.

I come back to defenses that only block STUN having no real limitation if the character's other defenses are likely to block all the BOD.  If a player insists on point savings from defenses that don't defend against BOD, that suggests that the player expects this to come into play so that his character takes BOD damage.

The pricing of damage negation factors in affecting attacks other than normal and killing attacks. Given it has only been in 6e, maybe the pricing needs fine tuning.  If so, the answer is to fix the pricing, not allow a non-limiting limitation for some uses of the ability.

To the rolls, I would want a mechanism that allows a single roll to avoid slowing the game with extra rolls, so I like Steve's approach that the rolls are made with dice that are differentiated from "does STUN" and "does not do STUN".  If I as GM have to do a lot more work, I'm not likely to allow the construct.

Another approach would be rolling the negation - attacker rolls full damage, defender rolls negation to subtract - but that's also going to slow down the game.

I would not allow a limitation for Stun Only defenses unless the character's other defenses leave BOD damage a reasonable possibility.  I don't see that very often.

As I see complications and limitations as the player's communication of the kind of challenges they want to face, limiting defenses against BOD means that they want BOD damage to come up as a real threat.

Agreed that DR is expensive in a "standard Supers" context.  Move to a "Cosmic" context and it starts looking better - like most fixed cost abilities.

If the average attack caps at 12 DCs, I probably want 15 rDEF to shave off the BOD.  I can then buy +10 PD/ED for 20 (and take 17 from a typical attack).  25% Reduction (nonresistant) means 27 - 7 = 20 from a standard attack.  A bit more damage from normal attacks and killing attacks, and a bit less from AVADs.

If the average attack caps at 24 DCs (obviously a very high-powered game), I might want as much as 30 rDEF to deal with KAs (maybe I can get by with 25).  That leaves 54 STUN from a typical attack, so if I want that down to, say, 24 STUN, I would need another 30/30 defenses for 60 points.  For 60, I could have 50% resistant DR.  Nonresistant would only cost 40.  Either gets me down to 27 STUN from a standard attack, but also halves AVAD (and STUN/BOD drains if we go Resistant - if not, I could buy 20 Power Defense with the extra points).

When the player defines it, the GM should assess how common that is.  The player may either need to define it more broadly or receive lower points.

On 4/3/2024 at 11:55 AM, LoneWolf said:

Don’t get me wrong I am a big fan of damage negation, but it is better at creating a high threshold of damage.  It is great for characters that are immune to damage below a specific point. 

This can be a campaign setting issue rather than character by character. We want characters immune to 8DC normal attacks, but 12DC Supers will sometimes bloody each other? 9 DC Negation and 3 Defenses.  12DC drops to 3d6, which will get a BOD through on an above average roll, and only inflict 8 STUN past defenses on average.

On 4/3/2024 at 11:55 AM, LoneWolf said:

Damage Reduction is better for the character that is not immune but can take a lot of damage and still keep functioning. It really depends on how you want your character to work.

As has been noted, DR is better against above average attacks.  Consider a 12DC game again.  Typical defenses of, say, 25. An average hit does 17 STUN.  Drop defenses to 10 and add on 50% DR.  First, we will see blood - average roll of 42/12 means 2 BOD, halved = 1, past defenses.  STUN 42-10 = 32 = 16 past defenses.  Comparable.

Now toss in Grond doing 18d6.  Defenses mean 63 - 25 = 38 STUN.  63-10=53/2 = 26 STUN. Significant.   But you also take 8/2 = 4 BOD.

At some point for really high power, buying Reduction instead of more defenses makes sense.  If you toss around 20d6 routinely, 25 defenses blocks all BOD.  If we only want about 20 damage from an average hit, you need another 25 Defenses, or 5 defenses and 50% Reduction.

On 4/3/2024 at 5:46 PM, Gauntlet said:

One thing I normally do in my games is reduce the SPEED for characters or villains. I just can't see that person, no matter how trained, have a SPEED higher than 5. I will make villains who are not speedsters or martial artists have a SPEED of 3 or 4 (and even 2 occasionally). I find it rather crazy in those games where the incredibly slow Brick has a SPEED of 6.

This is a historical artifact of not assessing how high Normals went in 1e. If we took every published Super, reduced SPD by 2, DEX by 10 and CV by 3, they would be back in human range for those where SPD/DEX is not a schtick, and still interact with each other in the same manner.  Agents could be toned down a bit and be a greater threat, and a normal cop or soldier coud actually hit many Supers.

Reverse compatibility would be lost if they did that now, though. That could be good for Hero - most other games avoid reverse compatibility between editions  - buy this edition's version of that ability/character instead.

Whenever I see a build like this, I like to remind my players that their choice of limitations and complications are my guides for the types of challenges they want to see in the game.

For example, "Susc: Green Argonite" means that you want to see the occasional scenario where that special element shows up and is used to create a significant challenge for the hero. DNPC means that you want to see scenarios where your character must place himself in a disadvantageous position to help out that DNPC.

The "someone credentialed" mitigates any limitation considerably. If you make it a Limitation, expect situations where those Credentials stop working at the worst possible time.  Maybe Super is Mind Controlled to attack his DNPC - too bad he cannot activate that item to save himself and the innocent bystanders around him.  Or maybe another Argonian will steal the item - poor Cop can't prevent it as he can't activate the item on his own. Perhaps someone with Shape Change on a cellular level can trick that credentialization - and that cop.  What does it take to turn it back off again?

This sounds like players with a very adversarial mindset in Player vs GM mode.

I see all the "it makes PERFECT sense in context of my backstory" arguments.  How does it make sense in the context of "these are the interesting scenarios and stories it might lead to in-game"?

31 minutes ago, BoloOfEarth said:

 yeah.  Wow.

What he said...

On 3/19/2024 at 1:23 PM, Christopher R Taylor said:

If you want to be really technical about it, they should have no hit locations (it doesn't hurt an animated skeleton any more to hit it in the pelvis than the toe)

It doesn't hurt at all. But the skeleton can probably function a lot better with a shattered foot than a shattered spine.

Well, at least they can talk to the invisible character once his presence is known. But the EMTs won't see him lying in the debris.

I don't see an issue with any character that paid for all abilities to be 0 END selling back END. They may regret that should they be attacked by Mental Paralysis, though.

I would ensure that CON rolls are encountered with sufficient frequency and impact to justify a 10 point savings if a character sold back its 10 CON.  This is no different than a 10 point Complication.

Do your teammates have area effect attacks? 

If teammates can't see you, they can't help you.

Unless I misrecall, the CE itself has to be ongoing for the "being stunned" effect to be ongoing.  That's a lot like taking continuous damage.

Note that Martial Arts adds DCs, not dice.  AP AoE on Strength will reduce the dice added with +2 DC.  See 6e v2 starting on page 96.  Page 99 discusses adding damage with maneuvers among other things.

As LL says, read the early stories.  He has trouble with enemies including:

 - an old man with a flying suit;

 - a pudgy scientist with robotic arms;

 - a cowboy, a bulky thug and a midget who knows martial arts.

Just off the top.

If you write Spidey more powerful, some enemies can be scaled up, but others don't make as much sense scaled up to match SuperSpidey.

The defenses are the key, in my view.  If these characters are tossing around, and soaking up, 12 - 18d6 Normal damage routinely, I'd expect that they have defenses in the 30s or higher.  A 15d6 Normal attack averages 52.5 STUN.

Normal defenses of 30 will block all BOD from a terminal velocity fall.  BOD from a 20d6 Normal attack is not going to get past those defenses, so there is nothing to double from a head shot.

Making the doppelgangers identical and then adding all the advantages of automatons means that they are massively more powerful than the heros, especially defensively.  If they are identical copies (not automatons) and can be knocked out, then the heroes will have to knock them out, then carefully and meticulously bypass their defenses to murder the doppelgangers.

Forcing the heroes to demonstrate their heroism by diligently slaughtering their foes seems a little odd.

We had a Supers game with an alternate earth scenario some years back, and realized very early on that we would eventually be fighting ourselves.  By the time that happened, it was a bit of a cakewalk as we knew the best tactics as a team to take down an identical team.

18 hours ago, unclevlad said:

 

You're trying to make a points analysis, rather than a character impact analysis.

 

If this was a PC, getting taken out of the campaign for a month, would you not say this was *incredibly* extreme?

 

How is this any different from being captured, in any meaningful way???  The impact is that the person cannot interact with the world *at all* while this is the case.  So...microverse or a prison cell, who cares?  That's a meaningless distinction.

I dislike viewing this as a "player can just stay home for the next several games as their character is gone" complication. 

18 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

In my opinion points are a player thing.  The character is a construct, the points are about the players engagement with the game world, not the characters.  All those rules and points are, in game, invisible to the character.  None of us can see their character sheet, the PCs are not aware of theirs.

 

So I do absolutely see these things impacting the player.  The character is not impacted by being absent from gameplay for a month or a year, the player is.

 

If I did not want to run the MicroLad scenario, I wouldn't, but I would suspect my players might drive things that way, and it would behoove me to be prepared for that.

 

I don't agree it is the equivalent of being beaten in a fight, it renders the conflict pointless.  The PC is not captured, not imprisoned, not put at a disadvantage to his opponents, he is just not there.

hmmm...What other complication could see a PC captured/mysteriously vanish, and drag in his teammates to investigate and assist?  Is this actually "Hunted: MicroDimension"?  That may be the closest comparable.

1 hour ago, Gauntlet said:

I have a character in my FH game that who has a transformation attack that changes the target down to 1" in size and equivalent characteristics (STR & BODY being the two main ones). If the character fails her magic roll then it turns everyone around her into sub-atomic size (or would it be better to call it sub-dimensional in size), which is setup as AE Extra Dimensional Movement. I would say that if you are stating that something is turning someone so small they are sub-dimensional in size then Extra Dimensional Movement would be the way to go.

 

You could even make it into a sub-adventure where they have to figure out how to grow back so they can come back to the standard size reality. In my game the characters had to team up with the villains in order to figure out how to return their standard sized dimension.

Emphasis added.  Now the issue impacts the team (in all likelihood), rather than splitting one character off from the rest or removing one player from the game for a period of time.  In fiction, switching back and forth from the MicroVerse to the real world, or having a few issues without MicroMan and then a couple focused enytirely on MicroMan is not a big deal.  In game, it's a much bigger deal.

For an NPC, it's much less of an issue - the character just vanishes.  Maybe that's "move on to next scene".  Maybe it's a story hook.  But it's not a "split up the PCs" event.

10 hours ago, Old Man said:

Because labor is only a fraction of total costs.  A pretty small fraction, I might add.

All labour or direct labour?  The ingredients for that burger had to be created and transported, for example. The suppliers have to pay their staff too, and they have to recover those costs.

There is also the simple law of supply and demand.  Throw more money into the economy and people spend more.  They want more.  Unless supply goes up to match demand, prices rise.  That's pretty basic economics.

10 hours ago, Old Man said:

It's not as though the 2-year employees got a pay cut.  I personally don't resent my coworkers for getting raises, I'm not competing with them in a zero sum game.

Why would someone assume additional responsibility for no additional compensation? Shouldn't a more efficient, experienced employee get paid more than a brand-new start who is still learning how to do the job?  Or do you expect 75% of the workforce to all work for minimum wage?

$50 is pretty substantial for an hourly wage in California if https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/Hourly-Rate-Salary--in-California has its numbers close to right, although that seems to exclude salaried employees. Oh, here we go..https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/--in-California still makes $50/hour look pretty spectacular.

1 hour ago, Dr. MID-Nite said:

McD workers in Denmark get paid far more than here and the cost of the menu items isn't significantly higher than here. But then...they actually regulate their corporations there. They raise prices here because they can...not because they have to.

Actually, I was surprised to note that there was no minimum wage in Denmark (linked above). They have powerful labour unions, though.

12 hours ago, TrickstaPriest said:

I'm not sure the math works out -that- well... but I wouldn't mind a breakdown.

 

What I can say that, if you start giving people raises that triple their salary all the way down, that 15% of the cost isn't likely to be more than ~25-30%?  So tripling that salary chunk cost would be an extra +50% (the +200% of 25%).

 

I don't know about you, but I'd be willing to pay an extra +50% for all my services for triple my salary...

If we triple everyone's wages, we triple labour costs.  Delivery of services requires labour.  Manufacturing and shipping of products requires labour.  How do we triple wages, but only see a 50% increase in costs?

How much gets absorbed by other workers?  I recall minimum wage rising way back when I worked at a McDs.  Everyone not already making minimum wage got a raise.  Many 2-year employees lost two years of increments and were now paid the same as new starts.

I find international comparisons have more variables (not that there aren't plenty of variables within countries, especially larger countries with numerous states/provinces).

Interestingly, Denmark has no minimum wage according to https://wageindicator.org/labour-laws/labour-law-around-the-world/minimum-wages-regulations/minimum-wages-regulations-denmark#:~:text=There is no statutory minimum,rates at the industry level.

The Big Mac prices are discussed at https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/big-mac-cost-denmark/ so that's cited.

Beef is also more expensive (not a lot more) in Denmark according to https://www.globalproductprices.com/Denmark/beef_price/.

There's an article at https://jacobin.com/2021/09/denmark-mcdonalds-labor-unions-strikes-wages-benefits on the power of the unions in Denmark.

The US has a lot more McDonalds per capita then Denmark does. I assume that means they are larger, and further apart, than in North America. Maybe not further apart - much higher population density.  I wonder whether they have McDonalds in small towns or just major centers.

Something is more expensive - https://www.mylifeelsewhere.com/cost-of-living/united-states/denmark

More data at https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_countries_result.jsp?country1=United+States&country2=Denmark.  You can compare by city (say San Fran to Copenhagen).

Average salaries, down at the end, are surprising.

In 1968, the California minimum wage rose to $1.65 (https://www.dir.ca.gov/iwc/minimumwagehistory.htm) and a Big Mac cost about 49 cents (https://www.tasteofhome.com/article/what-the-mcdonalds-menu-looked-like-the-year-you-were-born/).

Today, a Big Mac costs $5.11 in California (https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/big-mac-index-by-state).   Minimum wage in California is $16 (from that article above).  Wages haven’t quite kept up with Big Macs.

Would you suggest that tripling the price of beef would not increase the price of a Big Mac?  When the costs rise, it always creates upward pressure on prices.

Obviously, Big Macs are not the only price comparison that would be needed to assess how wages have kept up. McDonalds also has a lot less workers then I remember when I was in high school back in the '80s, although the locations are also smaller.

EDIT: A Big Mac is $3.91 in Mississippi and $3.95 in Arkansas (same state by state page).  Minimum wage is $7.25 and $11 respectively.  Not lockstep (nor would I expect it to be - McDonalds has costs other than low-pay workers), but a pretty strong correlation, I would say.

Because, of course, businesses can just absorb extra costs without passing them on, so prices don't rise when wages rise, and businesses don't cut staff. 

These discussions never seem to include the mix of employees, self-employed persons and unemployed people living below the poverty line (or living wage line).

Looking at likely damage taken and likely damage inflicted still makes sense to me.

The Spellsinger series provides a "not fully controlled and never understood" magic. The main character generally gets a spell effect from the song he chooses, but it's often far from what he expected.

The game problems with magic of this nature have already been drawn out above.  Players like to know what their characters can do, and want some narrative control over the results.  The latter can be implemented if the player exercises some (or full) control over the results of the magic, despite the character being unable to do so, but this will also break that "magic is a mystery" vibe.

A GM would have to think on their feet to have results that vary every time and are fair to the character (neither overpowered nor underpowered). Part of that challenge is that there will be a LOT more spells in-game than need to be in the books. Imagine having to dream up a different result several times in each encounter in a typical fantasy game.  Magic is typically used more sparingly in the source material.  Duke mentions Conan - the wizards he battles aren't blasting off a Lightning Bolt or Magic Missile in response to each of Conan's sword slashes.

How different would this be from the Mutants and Masterminds approach (emulated a bit, I think, in Champions Complete) of providing template characters.

The main difference I perceive would be taking this one step further to package up "upgrades" and "compromises" as pre-fab packages, rather than making the player hunt around for +2d6 Blast or -1 SPD.

I think this would be another example of a "game powered by Hero", as it requires setting campaign defaults, maximums and even minimums (assuming each upgrade and compromise can be taken only once, or only X times).  Games, not just a game design system, are needed to attract new players and GMs.