MikeyMitchell

Re: TK + a brick = deadly weapon?

Re: Limits on Killing attacks?

Re: Limits on Killing attacks?

Re: TK + a brick = deadly weapon? Not slow down per se, but the total distance he travels is cut. See Champions p. 153, sidebar.

Re: FYI: why more people aren't playing HERO (rpg.net)

Re: The Truly Evil GM Depends on exactly how "miniature" we're talking about...{grin, duck, run away while performing Dodge maneuver...}

Re: Character Sheets

Re: Limits on Killing attacks?

Re: HELP from Italy!

Re: TK + a brick = deadly weapon? Nope, it is an official rule. See Champions p. 153 sidebar. Increasing density midflight does affect the range / velocity of the throw. So you were right the first time.

Re: Limits on Killing attacks?

Re: TK + a brick = deadly weapon? This isn't really a power; it's a tactic called the "Fastball Special". See the description of how to do this on pp. 153 - 157 of Champions.Basics: Character A throws character B at the target. Character A rolls an attack; if he hits, character B rolls an attack for a Move Through, Move By, or Grab By.So, skill levels for character A might include Ranged Combat, or maybe General Combat. Character B could take levels with HTH combat, or the specific maneuver. Teamwork might apply, at your GM's discretion. Or, you could have the two characters (assuming they work together a lot) buy skill levels specifically with the Fastball Special (again, at your GM's discretion).

Re: FYI: why more people aren't playing HERO (rpg.net)

Re: Limits on Killing attacks?

Re: I love a parade!

Re: Limits on Killing attacks?Everyone is focusing on whether the STUN damage from a KA is comparable to the equivalent normal attack. The spread on the STUN is greater, the possibility of getting a STUN result is higher, and so forth. Unfortunately, there's still more to the story than that.A Killing Attack's BODY damage bypasses nonresistant defenses. I flipped through a couple of the books today, and I noted several characters who have resistant DEF too low to reasonably prevent their being wounded by a 4D6 KA (the 60-point level being discussed). So, I'm going to disagree slightly with one of Hugh's earlier statements that the BODY damage done by a normal attack vs. a KA is a wash against supers.Before I write up the list, though, this is only a sample, and these types of characters are in the minority. Most of the villains in CKC have resistant DEF high enough to reasonably expect to bounce the BODY damage from a 4D6 KA (especially the master villains). However, there are enough of the other type to take notice.I omitted characters such as Cheshire Cat and Shrinker, whose primary defense is an unusually high DCV. I also omitted characters, such as Masquerade and Mirage, who don't get involved in direct combat if they can avoid it. Still, I came up with several villains who could expect to take BODY damage from a 4D6 KA, but not from a 12D6 normal attack:Character...................................DEF/rDEFScorpia........................................14/8Ultrasonique.................................18/10Binder..........................................17/9Radium........................................18/12Blowtorch.....................................18/12Fenris..........................................21/11Herculan......................................21/6Hornet.........................................12/5Riptide.........................................16/6Thorn...........................................16/6What's my point? That you can't just look at the STUN damage. In each of these cases, the villain would expect, on average, to take 0 BODY from a normal attack when the equivalent KA would inflict (sometimes significant) BODY. In fact, except for Scorpia and Hornet, most of these folks would likely never take BODY damage from a 12D6 normal attack. But they could all expect to take BODY from a 4D6 KA, just about every time.It gets worse when you consider that a 4D6 roll has a shallower bell curve than the 12D6 roll. In other words, the 12D6 roll will tend towards the center more than the 4D6 roll - meaning it's less likely to vary a whole lot from its average value of 12 BODY.Okay, so what? Well, "so what" is the difference between a villain with a few bruises and a hospitalized one. Bad PR for the hero, to say the least.I'm not trying to start another argument. The majority of the villains in CKC, and in the other supers books, can reasonably ignore BODY damage from either KAs or normal attacks. So Hugh was right - especially if we're talking about the likes of Grond, Firewing, or Dr. Destroyer - that the difference in BODY is negligible (if even noticed) most of the time. I just don't want all the folks reading this thread (especially the newbies) to think they can safely buy a KA and unleash it on any super-powered target they want.

Re: Limits on Killing attacks?

Re: Limits on Killing attacks?

Re: Limits on Killing attacks?Based on Hugh's suggestion, I ran the average data again, but this time using a 1D6 - 2 STUN multiplier (as if you had taken the -1/4 Limitation). Here are the results:3D6 normal:............................Average.............SDevDEF 0:......................11....................3DEF 10:......................1....................2DEF 20:......................0....................0DEF 30:......................0....................01D6 killing:............................Average.............SDevDEF 0:........................7....................6DEF 10:......................1....................3DEF 20:......................0....................1DEF 30:......................0....................06D6 normal:............................Average.............SDevDEF 0:......................21......................4DEF 10:....................11......................4DEF 20:......................2......................3DEF 30:......................0......................02D6 killing:............................Average.............SDevDEF 0:......................14..................10DEF 10:......................6....................9DEF 20:......................2....................5DEF 30:......................1....................23D6 killing:............................Average.............SDevDEF 0:......................21..................14DEF 10:....................11..................13DEF 20:......................6..................10DEF 30:......................3....................7The KA is still slightly more effective at the upper end, but not significantly so. The top end is reduced by a multiple of (6 * # of dice) in each case. 1D6 maxes out at 24 vs. 30; 2D6 at 48 vs. 60, 3D6 at 72 vs. 90, and so forth. This is still higher than the maximum of the corresponding normal attacks, but it's more manageable.I think this just became the default house rule for my campaign. The standard STUN multiplier for KAs is 1D6-2. Limitations and Advantages start from there. This should help the players out when some enterprising thug with a gun shows up and rolls that lucky 6 on the STUN multiple, too.Minimal adjustment, no significant change in mechanics, blunts the STUN lottery. I like it.

Re: Limits on Killing attacks?Hey, can somebody pass me that plate of crow over there? Yeah, that's right, the big helping. And a fork, too, while you're at it... I just couldn't get this out of my head, so I built a quick little utility today to run the numbers. And, what I got confirms virtually everything Hugh has been saying.I ran all the actual possible results for 1D6, 2D6 and 3D6 KAs, along with all the results for 3D6 and 6D6 normal attacks. (I was going to do 9D6 as well, but when I calculated the algorithm would take about 150 hours to run the 10 million possible combinations, I decided against it.) :)Okay, the results are as follows:3D6 normal (216 possible results, maximum possible damage 18).......................Avg Dam.......SDev of DamageDEF 0:..................11.....................3DEF 10:..................1.....................2DEF 20:..................0.....................0DEF 30:..................0.....................0For the 1D6 KA (36 possible results, maximum possible damage 30).......................Avg Dam.......SDev of DamageDEF 0:....................9.....................7DEF 10:..................3.....................5DEF 20:..................1.....................2DEF 30:..................0.....................0Okay, now we can look at the 6D6 normal attack (46,656 possible results, max damage of 36):.......................Avg Dam........SDev of DamageDEF 0:..................21.....................4DEF 10:.................11.....................4DEF 20:...................2.....................3DEF 30:...................0.....................0And, finally, the 2D6 KA (216 possible results, max damage 60):.......................Avg Dam........SDev of DamageDEF 0:...................19....................13DEF 10:..................10....................12DEF 20:....................5.....................8DEF 30:....................2.....................5So, we can see that, as the DEF value goes up, the damage that is actually inflicted on the character is higher, on average, for the KA than for the corresponding normal attack. Which, to reiterate, confirms what Hugh's been saying. It also confirms my opinion that KAs are undercosted. They bypass normal defenses AND do more damage than the corresponding normal attack (and we won't even talk about increased STUN multiples).The SDev is included to demonstrate that the KA has that much higher degree of variability than the normal attack. Of course, SDev is not entirely a good measure in the case of the KA, because the KA doesn't fall along a nice bell curve (see attached PDF if you're curious). But still, the degree of variability is much higher on the KA. (Much more so than the difference between Standard Effect and rolling normal dice.)However, that variability isn't the reason for the higher average STUN (after defenses) delivered by the KA. That comes from its high end being so much higher than the normal attack, and the fact that it's a flatter curve (i.e. you have a higher chance of hitting the high end with the KA than with the normal attack). For example, you have 1 chance in 216 of getting maximum damage (60 STUN) with the 2D6 KA. However, you only have 1 chance in 46,656 of getting the maximum of 36 STUN with the 6D6 normal attack.Now, to some of Hugh's specific comments: You can't. Happy?But you can tell the difference between a fist and a gun.And the "fragile normal hidden by an illusion" is a good ploy to use against players who are too bloody-minded. With normal or KAs. Although, normally most of my players tend to hit with less-than-maximum attacks the first time out (but they may not do so if they're convinced it's really Grond, and they actually know who that is).As an aside, the police would probably not get too grumpy in that situation, if the characters were able to prove that the illusion tricked them into thinking it was Grond. It's kind of like a cop shooting a kid with a toy gun in a dark alley. Based on how things looked to the cop, he was justified in doing what he did. Where it's fun is in discouraging the players from opening up with both barrels right off the bat.

Re: Limits on Killing attacks? You need to take a statistics class. The average (i.e. arithmetic mean) is not affected by the variation in the dice. It's the total of all results divided by the total number of results. Period. The variance is accounted for by the standard deviation. It's not news. And I'm glad to hear we're not suggesting that rampant use of KAs is a good thing. Play style is one thing, but deliberately using a deadlier attack because you want to hit it lucky is something else.

Re: Limits on Killing attacks? Central to Wolverine's character was his struggle to control his killing nature. It wasn't seen as the "right thing to do"; it was seen as one of his personal demons. So, I'm not arguing it was appropriate.

Re: Superhero ImagesA lot of these images are GREAT! Where can an individual, such as myself, who has all the artistic talent of your average rock, get a utility that might allow me to do something useful?I looked at HeroMachine, and it's okay, but I have a shapeshifting character, a brick who can also manifest tentacles / pseudopods as Extra Limbs. I'd like to incorporate a couple of these into an image and not have it look like my daughter drew it. HeroMachine doesn't appear to allow that. Any suggestions?

Re: Entangle, Desolidification, and the Quest for Truth

Re: Limits on Killing attacks?