The Main Man

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles Perhaps. I'd probably try that for a Heroic campaign when one comes along. I don't think that that alternate reasoning would sway Fireg0lem either though, even if it's almost the same thing, just more arbitrary.

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles I just want something sensible and not obnoxious. I often give slight leeway with Active Points (like 1-3 AP), depending upon the power in question.

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles 60 AP, 75%. Be sure to give both characters their due. And keep in mind that we obviously disagree upon which Power Advantages increase Damage Classes. I'd also be interested in seeing how you can make two different characters optimized to the exactly same limits, but one is objectively better. Without getting absurd and sophistic of course.

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles *Pause* I think this is another fundamental misunderstanding. Field allocation is done before one truly makes their character. It sets their limits and does not fluctuate in game play. Your example would be grossly inefficient if the character allocated to 100%, but oddly creative in some ways if at only 50%. Furthermore, allocation deals less with shifting percentiles than with shifting the original results. This is the same case as Martial Maneuvers - an inactive slot is an irrelevant slot in the heat of the moment.

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles Perhaps. I'll try to make a couple up in the next few days as examples. Don't expect anything extreme though, because common sense is key in this system as it should be in any other. Please enlighten me, because this percentile method objectively has absolutely nothing to do with concepts. Again enlighten me, because your DOT build didn't convince me. For one thing, you compared 97 Active Points as better than 20. For another, you still haven't demonstrated/explained how anything besides my listed Advantages affects damage.

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles Again you miss the point - the key word in that example was extreme. You pointed out the inherent weakness in such an approach while entirely missing that it leaving the character vulnerable to other damage is the point of the Defense pooling. It quite seriously is not a bug, but a feature because it can make PC's consider niches amongst themselves.

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles I think I figured out where I lost ya on one aspect. When you allocate at character creation, that does not necessarily indicate a static aspect of the character. If at 100 AP, 75%, you set your Defenses at the base 75 AP, it doesn't matter how you get there. One character may have static defenses (e.g. 25 rPD/ 25 rED), while another does not (Growth, nonpersistent Defenses, Density Increase, Multiform, some combination, etc). The point is what their maximum was predetermined to be. They can have the same limits (assuming identical allocation), but one saved points at the cost of less stability. They otherwise may both have the same general defenses, even if one doesn't start play at full defenses. IOW, if my character generally starts play at 5 PD / 5 ED, but can erect a 20 PD / 20 ED force field, then I wouldn't allocate until I only have 10 AP of Defense, I'd allocate to account for the other 60 AP, for a total of 70 AP of defense.

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles Dude A spends 15 CP on STR, 5 CP on CON, 5 CP on PRE, 3 CP on PD, 3 CP on ED, 3 CP on BODY, 3 CP on STUN, 1 CP on Stretching, 12 CP on Running, 6 CP on Knockback Resistance, and takes a Complication that accounts for being Large. He spent 56 CP to be Large. He is always Large and cannot do anything about it. Character B buys one level of Growth for 25 CP to get everything that Character A bought, but his requires acivation. That's the tradeoff for spending less for the same. They are otherwise equal in every regard (assuming they bought nothing else), but Character B has 26 more points to spend, giving him the chance for an edge against Character A. But those are not things that any cap system should need to account for. Let's go extremes for a moment: 100 AP, 50% rule. Dude A has a 20d6 Blast (vs. ED) while Dude B has 100 ED. Dude A would only do 20 STUN if he so much as critically hit Dude B. The thing is, he paid 5 CP to be able to do up to 6 STUN damage, so every Blast die has that slight 20% advantage against every equivalent 5 CP of Defenses. But that's extreme in both directions.

Re: DCV Drain Oh, okay, yes. That is true. I have to admit that I've never really had the courage to make a character who does that much though. Oh... when a new game comes along, maybe...

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles Because that's patently false. I simply don't see where you're right about this at any point. 1 OCV = 1 OCV, 1 DC = 1 DC, 1 SPD = 1 SPD. If you spend 5 points on 1 OCV, someone else may spend the same 5 points for a Sacrifice Strike and get +1 OCV, -2 DCV, and +4 DC's. How is the latter a bad purchase by comparison? You keep inferring that it is, but you haven't demonstrated it.

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles How about we do? Why bring this up if you won't argue it? Your example is flawed from the start. We don't know the Active Point limits, nor what the percentiles were in the first place, or what their other fields are. Dude A has 20 DC's against Dude B's 98 Active Points of Defense Powers, but Dude B has 10 DC's against Dude A's 60 Active Points of Defense Powers. You never stated their SPD's, OCV's, or DCV's, and those could be very important, because what if Dude B is more than capable Multiple Attacking Dude A because of an outrageous OCV vs. DCV disparity, just for example? Please explain to me how each of those advantages affects the way that your example deals damage, and then I'll explain where I disagree.

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles The key phrase on 6E2 98 is "the GM determines which Advantages “directly affect how the victim takes damage.” " It then proceeds to list off possibly qualified Power Advantages. I have determined for myself, and based on years of HERO experience what constitutes that. Explain how lowering your Active Points to account for Area of Effect raises your Damage Classes. Explain how you do more damage to a single target with it. If anything it would lower it because of Explosion. As I said earlier, we seem to have a difference of opinion on what constitutes a Power Advantage that objectively affects Damage Classes

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles Each Martial Maneuver is a separate entity. That +2 OCV you get from a Fast Strike doesn't add together with your +2 OCV from Martial Block to be +4 OCV. Furthermore, you illustrated a character with 11 OCV being worse than a character with an overall 15 OCV. Of course he's worse - he has an effective 4 less OCV than the other. How are you penalized by Growth? Growth costs less than the sum of its parts. I'm still not understanding you here. You seem to think that it's okay for a character to spend less but get more for the same things than someone who spends more on the raw abilities. I don't think that you understand how Defenses accumulate together within any HERO Character. If I have PD 6, Growth (+3 PD), Resistant Protection (+10 PD) and Density Increase (+5 PD) on the same character, he can have up to 24 PD at a given point. You simply cannot judge them separately, because Defenses pool together. The same goes for Damage Negation and Damage Reduction, which only further bolster your defenses. You want to argue that a character who pays less should be just as good as someone who pays more, but that flies in the face of HERO's core logic. That's trying to have your cake and eat it too. I would, and he'd have more points to spend on things than Raw Stats Man. That's the price of buying everything raw and not having limitations - you have fewer points to spend. And the point of cheaper abilities is that they are worse off than more expensive abilities. ...No I'm not. If you have allocatable CSL's that allow you to shift your OCV and DCV, you paid less than someone with raw OCV and DCV. That's the tradeoff. I'm sorry, but you are trying to have your cake and eat it too.

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles Bingo.

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles

Re: Is 6th Edtion worth the money?

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles Armor Piercing cuts your opponent's defenses in half, Penetrating can bypass them depending on rolled results, AVAD can bypass them except for small exceptions, and Increased Stun Multiplier, well, increases the Stun Multiplier for Killing Attacks. They all have a tangible effect on your attack's method of dealing damage. I think that this is a difference of philosophy over what constitutes "increasing a Damage Class." I think that you just answered you own conundrum - One guy spent 37 fewer points to get to the same place. Maybe I should clarify that in much the same manner that OCV and OMCV do not add up together, neither do individual Martial Maneuvers for this system, since you usually don't simultaneously use any two or more, and even when you do, you use the lesser of the two effects anyways. This is similar to your Martial Artist example - Growth Man is probably paying less to get everything. That he has to activate it and spend END to use it is a consequence of that. You can't have your cake and eat it too. Actually, the ideology is so that a player doesn't build an absolutely invincible juggernaut that ramps up every threat level for everyone else. If you want a lot of PD and ED, then you won't be able to have much MD, PowD, or FD. The same goes the other way too.

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles Yes, you're getting it. Not that I don't appreciate your questions, Fireg0lem. I would probably not recommend this regulation system for newer GM's though, as one has to understand the balance between the Active Point maximum and what percentage to give for the campaign. The larger the percentile, the more that a player has to give up to max out in any of the designated fields. The lower the percentile, the less. 75% gives more stability than 50%, but less variety, as would any other percentage. The lower the percentage, the greater that the Active Point max ought to be, as 50% of 60, for example, is only 30, which isn't great for even a Heroic game.

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles They must follow, but they may vary/deviate. This is where the allocation of the fields really shows itself off IMO. See Multiform. Not exactly. It's no different than if you had a flat Active Point maximum. If, say, 60 was the limit (no percentile), then 60 would be the limit. It shouldn't matter where you get your defenses (for example) from. VPPs may be up to the Active Point max, but no relevant slot may exceed said limits. Example: 120 Active Point Max, 50% (60 Active Points for unadjusted fields) VPP may be 120 Active Points with a 60 point Pool and a 120 point Control. Any given power within may be 120 Active Points as per the Control cost, but if it falls within the field, then it must obey. If a character bought this but never preallocated to do 24 DC's of damage, then 12 would be their limit. They'd still be allowed to fill the rest up with non-damage relevant Power Advantages and Adders though.

Re: Effectiveness Based on Percentiles The latter. They are both offensive, but separate factors. To place them into individual fields would make this system far more easily abused i.e. I don't use Mental Powers, so I'll tank all of my OMCV and DMCV and then max out Damage Classes and Defenses. Yes, the highest that they can generally reach with the like. If you use a Sacrifice Strike (+1 OCV, -2 DCV, +4 DCs), that is a singular attack, so if your maximum DC limit is 15, then you must take those +4 DC's into account. Growth doesn't affect DCV in 6e. Your opponents gain OCV bonuses. That said, STR, PD, and ED all go up, and they do count towards maximum Damage Classes and Defenses. Same goes for Density Increase.