Durzan Malakim

This premise reminds me of Brandon Sanderson's The Reckoners series. In that series, there's a reason power corrupts most people. Certainly you have an opportunity to create a common origin story or perhaps have players explain why they weren't corrupted. I'd also expect this multiverse to have a lot prejudice against powered-people since they are mostly villains behaving badly. I suspect there would be a strong selective-pressure for invulnerability or a high-villain mortality rate in the beginning.

Here today, retconned tomorrow.

Since Mechanon is working through catspaws, I'd suggest he provides his dupes a new augmented-reality/virtual-reality item that explodes in popularity. The device can be anything, but if you're looking for ideas I suggest the Wingman glasses from the novel After On. They are basically just a Google Glass upgrade linked to an AI. The dupes believe the glasses slowly brainwash and make their wearers more compliant, which they can do, but Mechanon would obviously have the override codes to transform people into full on borg-cyber-zombies. Who doesn't love a good old-fashioned zombie apocalypse?

I suggest making him a Catalonian pigment scientist who dabbles in day trading because no one expects the Spanish ink position.

Our group faced a variation of this scenario where a V'hanian starship lost power above the Bay Area. Our solution was for our wizard Hexen to aid my Force Field controller Valiant. With boosted strength I was able to divert the falling ship into the Pacific Ocean. Of course we then had to contend with the resulting tidal wave. Some teamwork and a boosted force wall allowed us to create a counter wave and save the Bay Area. Now we have to deal with the salvaged alien technology and keep it from falling into the wrong hands, although the wrong hands may actually be our own given how often hijinks ensue around us.

As a possible additional rule if the idea of Killing Attack having a chance to generate 0 Body is a bug is to set a minimum Body possible say 1/3 DC class so a 6 DC Killing attack has minimum 2 Body (like its 2d6 RAW version). Its adds a bit more math (and its division...) but dividing by 3 is usually fairly easy and it only comes up once,. 

The chances of rolling 2 or less BODY with a 6d6 attack is around 0.36%, which is approximately 4 times in a thousand rolls. Against targets with resistant defenses there is no effective difference between 2 BODY and 0 BODY. Against unprotected targets you could just hand-wave/role-play it as a "1 in a million" chance of being grazed by a bullet instead of being damaged.

Oh, I thought the intent was to allow Killing Attack score Body totals lower than their Damage Class unlike the house rule I originally suggested.

This particular effect requires having a die roll that produces 0 BODY. It's what I modeled for Nolgroth. It also makes the average damage match standard Killing Attacks, but you're still unlikely to roll either extremely high or extremely low. It's still possible but much more rare.

Deadlier is a bit hyped, no? The mean changes from 7 to 8 comparing 6 damage classes... :-)

 

Maximum damage is 12 BODY for both, which occurs once in every 36 rolls for 2D6 and about once in every 800 rolls for the 6D6 version. This gap increases as damage classes do.

 

I could make a case for the current version being deadlier more often by more reliably delivering maximum damage.

 

The new version does however more reliably deliver BODY...which, to me, is the point of a killing attack.

 

Doc

I stand corrected. You're only slightly deadlier on average. :-)

Actually, being consistently limited to average damage may mean you never overcome someone's defenses to do BODY damage. It will depend on your campaign norms for defense. For example, if your campaign norm was 10 resistant defense, then you'd only exceed that defense around 1% of the time compared to 16% of the time for a normal Killing Attack. If that's what you're going for, then mission accomplished.

Forgive the stupid question, but must it be a middle number?

It does if you want to allow rolls that produce low STUN and high BODY. You calculate STUN from the number on the die so higher number is higher STUN. That pretty much means you have to choose 3 to 5. If you don't care about low STUN and high BODY, pick any number you want.

I prefer not to have the 0 as then there is a guaranteed 1 BODY per dice.

 

Doc

Understood. Just be aware that using this method makes killing attacks deadlier on average because your minimum damage is now the number of dice you roll. If you want the average damage to match a standard Killing Attack you need a 0 BODY value.

Stick your hand in the bag, shake hands with your future self taking something out!

Narrative determinism demands that your future self warn you of a future event in the most cryptic way possible.

"Don't eat the apple!"

The one thing that I don't like is the fact that high BODY always comes with high STUN, something that is not 'always' true and was a nice feature of the RAW killing attack. It would not change the damage profile to say 1s and 6s generated 2 BODY while everything else generated 1.

 

Thus an extreme roll of 6 1s on 6d6 would give you 6 STUN and 12 BODY. :-)

 

 

Doc

To preserve the distribution listed earlier, you need to assign the 0 BODY result to another die value such as:

• Die value 1 does 2 BODY
• Die value 2 does 1 BODY
• Die value 3 does 0 BODY
• Die value 4 does 1 BODY
• Die value 5 does 1 BODY
• Die value 6 does 2 BODY

Pick your least favorite middle number and make it a non-contributor.

I'm hoping for an Origin, myself. 

That's just what a superhero with a Secret Identity would say to make us believe he doesn't already have powers. That's right, I'm (Hunted) Watching you, sir.

I don't think I've seen anyone ask or answer what happens to the Penetrating Advantage when some type of 'normal' dice killing variant is being used.

 

Anyone have an answer?

 

HM

Since each Killing Attack die is normally 3 DCs, I'd suggest one of these methods, which have increasing variance and complexity:

• No Variance Penetrating: Total DCs / 3 = Penetrating Damage
• Some Variance Penetrating: [Total DCs / 3] + [Count the number of ones and sixes in roll. Subtract one if there are more ones. Add one if there are more sixes] = Penetrating Damage
• More Variance Penetrating: [Total DCs / 3] + [Count the number of ones / 3, round result, and subtract this from total] and [Count the number of sixes / 3, round result, and add this to the total]. = Penetrating Damage

If you want more variance than that, revert to standard Killing Attack and Penetrating mechanics.

Actually change the formula to 1=0, 2-4=1, & 5-6=2 and you have a sharper curve with low probability of either extreme but still a possibility.

Here's the curve with the updated formula of 1=0, 2-4=1, and 5-6=2. I also added a normal attack for comparison.

Here is some additional data on averages and variance. 

• 6DCs
  • 2d6 Killing Attack averages 7 BODY and there are 5 values within one standard deviation (2.42): 5 to 9 BODY.
  • 6d6 Alt-Killing Attack averages 7 BODY and there are 5 values within one standard deviation (1.68): 5 to 9 BODY. 
  • 6d6 Normal Attack averages 6 BODY and there are 3 values within one standard deviation (1.41): 5 to 7 BODY.
• 15DCs
  • 5d6 Killing Attack averages 17.5 BODY and there are 8 values within one standard deviation (3.82): 14 to 21 BODY.
  • 15d6 Alt-Killing Attack averages 17.5 BODY and there are 6 values within one standard deviation (2.66): 15 to 20 BODY.
  • 15d6 Normal Attack averages 15 BODY and there are 5 values within one standard deviation (2.24): 13 to 17 BODY.
• 21DCs
  • 7d6 Killing Attack averages 24.5 BODY and there are 10 values within one standard deviation (4.52): 20 to 29 BODY.
  • 21d6 Alt-Killing Attack averages 24.5 BODY and there are 8 values within one standard deviation (3.15): 21 to 28 BODY.
  • 21d6 Normal Attack averages 21 BODY and there are 6 values within one standard deviation (2.65): 22 to 27 BODY.

No matter which Killing Attack method you use, the averages will be the same. The only thing that changes is the variance. A standard Killing Attack damage roll provides more variance and will produce maximum or minimum rolls more frequently (within your lifetime). An Alternate Killing Attack damage roll greatly reduces variance. You'll effectively never roll minimum or maximum damage, and instead most rolls will stay close to the average. 

Whether you consider these results a bug or a feature depends on your risk-to-reward preferences. If you want to roll really big and really small numbers stick with the standard Killing Attack damage. If you prefer consistently rolling damage near the average, use the alternate Killing attack roll.

This rule significantly changes the average BODY damage done per hit. There's a 79% chance of doing 7 to 9 BODY, which is almost indistinguishable from doing (standard effect +1) per die. There is no chance of doing less than 6 BODY, and there is less than a 2% chance of doing 11 to 12 BODY.

See: http://anydice.com/program/c9e5 to compare a standard 2d6 killing attack to your 6d-alternate-killing-attack.

I agree that @Lucius has the coolest approach to building a bag of holding using a power. Who doesn't love a time-travel-wormhole/TARDIS? If you go this route you can play around with seeming paradoxes such as being able to withdraw items you don't remember putting in. Do you eventually travel to the past and put items in the bag? Perhaps you can withdraw any item someone else has put in provided you can think about it with sufficient detail. Who knows what could come out of that bag because its time has come.

You might also consider modeling the bag as a perk using the vehicle and base rules. This has the advantage that in heroic campaigns you could buy the bag with money rather than spend character points. Since the game effects are holding your stuff and giving it back to you when you ask for it, the only characteristics you need are STR for carrying capacity and INT to understand what you ask for. Typically a bag of holding is an unbreakable magic item, but you can provide BODY and defenses if you want to make it breakable.

None of these builds address some of the more useful qualities of a traditional bag of holding:

• Objects in the bag don't interact with one another. For example, you can put a cask of gunpowder in first and then put in a lit torch without physics and chemistry producing a contents-destroying boom.
• You don't have to search for the items you want to withdraw. You just think about the item and you get it. Granted this is usually also hand-waved for normal non-magical backpacks, but it is undeniably convenient to never have to waste an action looking for what you need.
• Objects may not age or decay. This quality is usually up to the GM discretion. Some GMs rule that items in the bag are outside of time and space and some don't.
• It could be used as the world's best prison/entangle. Put an enemy in bag  and voila problem solved.

I believe real-world military tactics should have already answered this question for you as part of training soldiers on "what to do when someone is shooting at you." I'm not a veteran myself so this information is purely based on what I could find from sites talking about firefights and tactics. In general, I believe you want to:

• Minimize the target area you present to attackers. Going prone can do that but is not a guarantee as the real-world data provided by @rravenwood indicates. In game terms, I think it is appropriate to double-dip and apply both range modifiers and hit-location modifiers from a high shot when the attacker is trying to hit a smaller target at range.
• Find soft cover that offers concealment from attackers. Ideally you'd want total concealment because your cover isn't going to offer any protection. In game terms, you can use the normal concealment rules or hit location rules, but any hits will do full damage.
• Find hard cover that offers protection from attackers. You get concealment and armor at the expense of mobility and possibly field of fire.
• Neutralize your attacker before they can neutralize you. The best defense is a good offense.

FYI: Here's an interesting resource for firefight dynamics for military science fiction. This information makes me wonder why there aren't OCV penalties for run-and-gun:

A moving person is a very bad shot in the real world and professionals know it is a waste of ammo to move and shoot at the same time. Standing and shooting are less accurate than laying down and shooting.

I would first suggest deciding whether you want to run this as a combat or not. If yes, then I suggest you consider the audience an opponent who can only be targeted by presence attacks. To win, you have to both defeat your wrestling opponent and also impress the audience by doing the most total presence "damage" during the bout. I would penalize the presence attack of anyone trying to defeat an opponent with obvious powers or non-grapple-based-martial-arts because, "that's just not wrassling!"  Although nothing says the heroes have to play heroes while they're in the ring. There's a long tradition of professional wrestling villains who don't play by the rules. You may also consider adding a presence bonus whenever the characters ham up their performance and make appropriate monologues. Perhaps even give them free recoveries every time they meet some presence damage threshold like every 50 points to represent feeding off the crowd. This should quickly encourage players to maximize their presence attack each phase.

If you don't want to run this as a combat you could just make opposed PRE attacks with bonuses for having appropriate skills, maneuvers, and powers.

My reading of the Target Effect rules is that you know the quality of the effect not its quantity. So its obvious that an attack damages the target, that an aid boosts the target's power, and that an entangle restrains the target. It may not be obvious how much damage the target took, how many points of aid the target received, or how strong an entangle is without some basis of comparison or complementary skill to provide that information. So trained soldiers and police officers would probably know "that was a .45 caliber pistol" versus an unskilled person who might just know "that was a gun."

Here's what the rules say.

6E1 p125: From "What's perceived"

 

However, unless the GM rules otherwise, a character who can perceive a Power can determine the following about it: [...] 

• the Target Effect: the effect of the Power on the target (e.g., it’s injuring him, it’s supposed to injure him but isn’t having much effect, it’s turning him into a frog, it’s weakening him...)

6E1 p126 from "Obviousness"

 

Adjustment Powers: Adjustment Powers are Obvious.

6E1 p388 from "Invisible power effects"

 

Applying Invisible Power Effects to a Power conceals the Activity, Source, Path, Target, Special Effects, and Intensity of a Power (see 6E1 125). It does not conceal the Target Effect or the Source Effect (if any).

The combination of these rules means that if you perceive an Aid power in use, you're always going to know it's aiding/boosting the target in some way, even if someone paid for Invisible power effects. I don't think Target effects have their own special effects by default. You could argue that making target effects perceivable is a limitation or an advantage though. For example, a blast that leaves a glowing aura around its target might be advantageous in some cases or limiting in others.

@PhantomGM2602, Amazon lists the author as Jack Fariolo. Thanks for the recommendation.

Sounds like the consensus is to use the Autofire advantage as the game effect and two-weapon-fighting as the special effect. Of course, I expect there'll be a differing opinion in 3... 2... 

This is one of those cases where the special effect (disintegration of incoming projectiles) distorts what the actual game effect is. Personally, I'd model this power as either resistant protection or damage negation and describe the special effect as a disintegration field. If you want to add gaps in the protection, add them as limitations. If you want to cause damage to people and things that enter the field, add the advantages to make it a damage shield. Things to consider:

• Does this only provide physical protection? If yes, just buy resistant physical protection.
• Does the field have any of these limitations? If yes, add a limited power limitation.
  • Only versus projectiles
  • Only versus inanimate objects
  • Only versus ranged attacks

FYI: In the real world, the energy required to utterly destroy a projectile before it can pass through a small space is immense and typically has its own side effects such as fusion-level-temperatures or black-hole-level-gravitation. For example, when a meteor enters the Earth's atmosphere you get a fireball (bolide). You wouldn't want to be anywhere near one of those as both the heat and concussion would ruin your day. So while the atmosphere does indeed disintegrate most meteors, there are side effects to that protection. Since I think you're going for the protection more than the side-effects, I'd suggest keeping it simple and select a protection power.