Gnome BODY (important!)

The "#" column is the result, the "%" column is the percentage of the time that result occurs, the bars are a visual representation of the "%" column. For example, the very first line of the output indicates that a 4d6 KA has a 0.08% chance of dealing 4 BODY. But honestly, ignore all that and click the "Graph" button so it's nice and pretty and you don't have to scroll up and down all the time. I personally feel it's less effective at feeling different, but "feeling different" is very solidly a majority opinion matters thing. I'll happily bow to whatever consensus develops.

I think we're going in circles at this point. Suggestions I've seen (though I'm not rereading the thread to check): 1 - Killing is an Advantage, no other change 2 - Killing changes the BODY counting scheme, possible flat penalty to STUN 3 - Killing provides flat bonus to BODY and flat penalty to STUN Expressed design goals have been (though I'm not rereading the thread to check): A - Reduce complexity by eliminating the #d6 then *d3 mechanic. A' - Reduce complexity by making the DC scaling the same. B - Ensure KAs remain threatening. B' - But not too threatening, or Entangles etc break. C - Ensure KAs cannot roll 0 BODY. D - Ensure KAs deal less STUN, so are not a great non-lethal choice like the STUN Lotto days. E - Make KAs feel distinct from normal attacks. 1 accomplishes A, B', D (but hey it got us talking about this!) 2 accomplishes A, A', B, B', D, E 3 accomplishes A, A', B, B', C, D with some fuzziness regarding B' since nobody commented on my proposed solution. So I think the way forward here is to choose between objectives D and E, then rub 2 or 3 into shape to do what we want. Here's an anydice mockup of some of the proposed options in terms of BODY. I can do STUN mockups trivially if requested.

You shouldn't have to pay 10 real or 3 real and an HPA every turn to not be subject to inane rules abuse.

If KAs deal the same STUN as normal attacks but more BODY, they become strictly better attacks. Using a KA thus becomes an objectively correct decision unless one has a reason to believe the opponent will be in serious danger from this use of a KA and has reason to care about that. You know, the d6-1 multiplier problem, where supposed heroes were leading with supposedly lethal force. You say "increased complexity", but I think "If STUN, add # BODY subtract # STUN" is much less complex than "Entirely different rolling system" and on the complexity level of "AP per d6 for basic attack is not multiple of 5".

See two posts above yours. Causes problems with Entangles, Foci, Automatons, etc. Unrelated, but I was playing with dice and found that "2s don't count BODY, 5's count 2 BODY, 6's count 3 BODY" turns 12d6 Normal into almost exactly the same curve as 4d6. Not remotely practical, but fun to know.

Good point, scaling could use some work. 1//6 is needed to get the same mean as old KAs, but that makes the distinction pretty marginal. 1//4 with a double STUN penalty might be vaguely right? I'll have to run the numbers tomorrow or Sunday. The big impact will be on how the curves compare. 4d6 is very different from 12d{0,1,1,1,1,2}. E: Maybe just declare the bonus BODY doesn't affect anything not subject to STUN? Thinking "in genre" it doesn't feel like a super-gun should be more destructive than super-strength, just more injurious.

Please elaborate.

I imagine a pistol has a lot more DCs than a fist. Right, so here's my crazy idea. "Any attack which deals both BODY and STUN damage may be designated a Killing Attack as a +0 Adder. As normal for the old style of Killing Attack, BODY damage from a Killing Attack can only be prevented by Resistant defenses and an additional d6 is subtracted from Knockback if Knockback is being used. Additionally, after rolling STUN and calculating BODY, subtract an amount of STUN equal to 1 per 2 dice and add 1 BODY per 3 dice. This conversion of STUN to BODY does not affect the Normal Damage BODY rolled and does not occur against any target incapable of suffering STUN. . Notes: Coupling the Killing Attack Adder with the Does Body Advantage is unadvised, and GM discretion is recommended. GMs should consider altering the scaling of the STUN to BODY conversion to suit their games. A "gritty and lethal" game might add 1 BODY per 2 dice, for example. EDIT: Made bonus BODY damage not apply against any target immune to STUN. DOUBLEEDIT: Changed scaling, reworked wording" Remembering static bonuses and penalties is a lot easier on a player than remembering an entirely different rolling system, and this has the additional advantage of playing exceptionally nice with the DC table.

So I ran some numbers. ASSUMPTION: The "Semi-Penetrating" quality of new KA is blocked by Hardened defenses. If this assumption is incorrect, costs will vary . 75 AP attack. This is 15d6 normal, 5d6 old KA, or 12d6 new KA. Negating the "Semi-Penetrating" quality of new KA costs 3 AP, since 4 points of RDEF must be made Hardened. Damage thresholds are generated with https://anydice.com/program/18987 The table below indicates the AP cost needed to take no BODY from such an attack a given percentage of the time. The "Normal" row indicates the cost of doing so with non-resistant defenses. The "Normal (RDEF)" row indicates the cost of doing so with resistant defenses. AP of defenses required to negate all BODY damage a given percent of the time TYPE 50% 75% 90% 100% Normal 30 AP 32 AP 36 AP 60 AP Normal (RDEF) 45 AP 48 AP 54 AP 90 AP Old KA 51 AP 60 AP 66 AP 90 AP New KA 39 AP 42 AP 48 AP 75 AP Conclusion: If using RDEF to protect from BODY damage, the new KA paradigm means a defender must pay less to be safe a given percentage of the time. Both when comparing normal attacks to new KAs and when comparing old KAs to new KAs.

I didn't realize this was intended to be minimum after Resistant Defenses. How would a defender prevent this "Semi-Penetrating" BODY damage? It makes no sense for Made Of Titanium Man to take damage from some random thug with a knife.

3 - A KA costs more AP than a normal attack. At any given level of AP, a normal attack will thus roll more dice. A KA therefore rolls fewer dice than a normal attack. This is true under both the old and new model, though the new model shrinks the gap. A - Due to 3, an equivalent AP KA deals less raw BODY than a normal attack. So if all of the target's DEF applies against the BODY of both attacks, the KA's lower raw BODY means it deals less BODY. Chronotron comes back in time to kill PhD Student Destroyer before he graduates, becomes Doctor Destroyer, and something something supervillainy. He has a vibroknife and his pneumatic fists, so he can strike Destroyer with a 50AP normal attack or KA. Destroyer has 7 PD, all of which is resistant.  The normal attack will deal over twice the BODY, which is backwards because KAs are supposed to be better at BODY damage. C - An Old KA uses a strict stun multiplier, meaning the raw STUN is 1d3 times the raw BODY. That results in an average BODY:STUN ratio of 1:2. The new KA uses NDB to calculate BODY and raw dice to calculate STUN. That results in an average BODY:STUN ratio of 1:3.5. Meaning that a new KA dealing the same average BODY as an old KA will have dramatically superior STUN output to the old KA. This is very likely to change the tone and flow of combats in KA-centric games.

HERO already has you covered! (FRED pg 411-412) Getting KO'd leaves you at 0 DCV and taking 2x STUN from everything. Being KO'd is much worse because you won't get that Recovery, somebody's going to hit you again and keep you down.

In response to your six points: 1: Partially agreed. This change would move HERO from two damage rolling systems to one, which is great for complexity. It wouldn't help with adding STR to damage though, thanks to that damnable +1/4th mucking up the math. 2: Disagreed, and this is my main objection. It gives a different curve. I feel that the current high variance of current KAs is a major component of their danger. Consider the case of a 2d6 old KA and a 7d6 new KA against PhD Student Destroyer's rPD of 7. Despite both having the same raw average, the old KA averages 50% more BODY despite being 2/3rds the AP. This is precisely because the old KA method is swingier. 3: Complete agreement. But this still leaves KAs rolling fewer dice. 4: Agreement. 5: Complete disagreement. Your statement is factually correct, but dealing with 6.25 AP steps in DC conversion is much worse to do in your head than dealing with 15 AP steps. 6: I don't know what options you're speaking of so I can't reply meaningfully. There's also a few pretty nasty quirks of your system. A - Any target with fully resistant DEF will take more BODY from a non-Killing attack. That's backwards. B - Advantage stacking makes the math go all weird. C - This increases the BODY : STUN ratio of KAs, which may have undesirable effects in KA-centric genres like Fantasy. Will likely depend on table preference. Overall it's a very interesting idea directed at solving a very tricky problem that's plagued HERO for a long time. I'd love to hear how it behaves in playtesting.

One unintuitive aspect of HERO is that 0 isn't down and out like it is in most systems. In HERO, getting somebody to 0 means you can, and have to, hit them to keep them down. Because HERO was built for superheroes, and in superhero fiction people get back up all the time. In your example, if this thug wanted to keep Guppy out of the fight he'd need to put another shot into the poor boy. Or a good swift kick to the ribs if he didn't want to be a murderer. Fundamentally, HERO is built for four-color superheroic action. It can handle gritty lethality, but it doesn't do so as elegantly as it handles what it was built for. Another aspect of HERO is that it just doesn't handle Normals well. You want GURPS for that (or so I'm told, no personal experience with GURPS). Basically any example of a normal guy doing anything is going to have issues in HERO context. The scale just falls apart at the low end.

The book tends to assess some Limitations as pessimistically as possible. [Defense] Only Versus Fire probably is worth around -1/2, if you're wading through the fuel-swamps of Combustrox, hunted by fire-breathing flame-hounds and their draconid masters, and fighting alongside Pyre-Light the Indiscriminate Immolatrix. The tricky part is that you can't whiteroom the value. Being resistant to fire is more valuable in a game where you're fighting Burnanids from Mars and less valuable in a game where you're underwater most of the time. My little heuristic for evaluating Defense limitations is as follows: Start the Limitation at -2. Is the damage type something the character or their allies frequently inflicts on them? For example, a speedster with PD Only Versus Impacts to protect from their move-throughs. If so, +1. Is the damage type something the character's Hunted favors? For example, ED Only Versus Fire when you're hunted by The Human Inferno. If so, dock the Hunted a power bracket. Is the damage type something a major recurring villain favors? For example, PD Only Versus Swords when the party is constantly fighting The Black Night. If so, and this villain has been introduced, +1/4. Is the damage type just exceptionally common, that an entire class of foe would use? For example, PD Only Versus Blunt Impacts (hello there Bricks and Martial Artists) or ED Only Versus Nondescript Blaster Energy (hello there VIPER weapons). If so, +1/4 to +1 depending on frequency. Is the damage type extra uncommon? For example, PD Only Versus Biting, Power Defense Only Versus END Drains, or ED Only Against Gasoline Fires. If so, -1/4 to -1 depending on frequency. Clamp the Limitation to [-3, -1]. Is the damage type something the character is Vulnerable or Susceptible to? If so, and the power doesn't have another mitigating Limitation like Focus, forbid it. Is the damage type something you can't see coming up, but inspires you to make a new villain? If so, make that villain! Is the damage type something you can't see coming up? If so, at least a further -1. If it's really out there, consider making it free.

I'm interested in hearing that response too. It's reasons like that that make me say I'm of the opinion that if END rules are to be changed, then a power that costs END should cost END when it provides benefit. Force Fields costing END when they negate damage, DCV costing END when you get attacked, Regeneration costing END when it restores BODY, Damage Shields costing END when they do damage, etc.

The line of argument is that for many Constant powers, the benefit derived is independent of your SPD. A 20 PD 20 ED Force Field costs 4*SPD END/Turn. But the benefits of that Force Field have nothing to do with your SPD. A SPD 2 character who gets hit six times and a SPD 6 character who gets hit six times have both been hit six times and thus benefited from that Force Field six times. So since the benefits of the Force Field are independent of your SPD, the costs of the Force Field should be independent of your SPD.

Very important related question: Do you actually want to track light radii? If the answer is no, then just assign an arbitrary cost for "Makes light" and call it a day.

There's a massive difference between having some villains escape jail sometimes and having the very first batch of supervillains escape superjail immediately. There's also a massive difference between having some villains try to break out or be broken out while the players oppose them and having some villains escape with nothing the players can do about it. Have villains try to break out other villains, and let your players stop them. Give them a fair chance, but sometimes they'll fail. Still, always have a victory. Maybe the villain gets broken out, but the heroes arrest the villain who organized the attempt to get him free. Maybe the villains get away, but the heroes manage to prove Warden James was corrupt and he goes to jail. Put a new or boring villain on the line and try to get some old favorites out. Have villains work by proxy or run at the drop of a hat. Any villain who fights to the KO is going to jail after one encounter. Crimemind might not be that tough, but first you've got to best his lieutenants, convince one to rat him out, track down his secret lair, and break in to Punch Evil. And of course foil all his plots while you do so. Pyrodozer sets a building on fire, robs it, and runs while the heroes deal with the fire. Miss Zip reacts to getting hit by abandoning her plans, Aborting to a Flying Dodge, telling her goons to buy time, and never looking back. They'll get caught eventually, but it might take a few tries before they get put in the slammer. And of course, Crimemind might recruit them while they're in there and take them with him when Warden James orchestrates his jailbreak. Have villains who recur on their own. CHRONOTRON, menace from the year 2500 is a robot sent from the future to steal durable valuables and hide them, then his mad scientist creator digs them up centuries later. Punch Chronotron and send him to jail, he'll stay there. But another will show up, until the heroes realize what's going on. Then you get a nice final scene where the heroes are fighting to keep Chronotron from blowing up the university while a bunch of academics agree on a time travel research ban. Then, with the stroke of a pen (ideally a scientist PC's pen), Chronotron vanishes in a puff of nonhistory. Until, of course, a PC creates a Time Something and lets the world know, and his press conference is interrupted by reports that a jewelry store has been stolen by CHRONOTRON! E: I forgot: Have successor villains. Doctor Freako is languishing in jail, but his assistant finds his super-serum. Now, Freako II is on the rampage! And then it's the Doctor's son, Freako Jr. Then somebody else gives a weaker version to some goons and you've got the Freaklings. Then Missus Freako laces some food with super-serum during a prison visit and the entire Freako Family breaks out! And so on and so forth. And if you're going the Superheroes way, you have to make sure that players are incentivized and rewarded for playing Heroes. If the Heroic thing to do is to hand villains to the police, then that should also be the sensible and correct thing to do in your game. Jail should work, at least most of the time. The Law should be moral. The Authorities should be trustworthy and upstanding. The right decision might suck for a little while, but should always turn out well in the end. The Hero beats the villain in the end, crime doesn't pay. If the authorities are antagonistic and villains escape trivially, then doing the right thing doesn't make your players feel like Heroes. It makes them feel like Sisyphus.

I was right with you until this. Immediately portraying the authorities as unable to keep captured supervillains captured is a very dangerous move. There's a pretty significant subset of players who will immediately ditch the prospect of handing over villains if jail doesn't keep them in. Be it hidden superdungeons, orbital space prisons, extra-dimensional exile, or summary execution, these players will find their own way to "solve" the problem. Doubly so for any villain who actively threatens innocent lives. And the instant those start failing, more and more extreme measures are going to be taken. And this can be downright toxic to the tone of a game. I've seen superheroes assaulting the police arresting a villain, or once even storming a jail, just to make sure that villain goes somewhere secure. It permanently taints the entire idea of "respectable authority".

I'm sorry, you're right. I was stuck thinking of how I'd implement it. That's easily enough fixed by moving the cost earlier. Pay END when you turn it on, that pays for this entire Turn no matter how much you toggle it. At PS12, if you want it on for the next Turn, pay your END and you can use it as much or as little as you want.

I'm sorry, I'm not understanding. As I see it: If Battered Bob is at negative STUN when PS12 comes around, he has no Constant powers active since he can't have Constant powers active. Therefore he has no END costs to pay at PS12. Therefore he can't take any STUN during PS12. Therefore he'll recover normally. But that's not what you're saying so I'm clearly missing something. Where am I going astray in my logic?

You have your fingers in too many pies. You're trying to be a super-fast ninja and have every imaginable form of super-movement and have multiple self-buff supermodes and have both martial arts and special attack powers and summon magic swords and have super-senses and have a giant pile of skills. You're not going to afford all that. And right now, in trying to do so, you've made a character who can't fight. He hits for 6d6. He can't take a 10d6 hit much less a 12d6 hit. He's got absolutely no place on a 12DC stage. Because he can't afford combat when he's trying to figure out how to put his ten fingers in a dozen pies. I'd strongly recommend you wipe the slate clean. Start by putting him at combat readiness. Then add one thing, say stealth skills since he's a Ninja. Check cost. Add another one thing. Check cost. Once you're low on points, stop. The other things just won't fit.

Constant powers turn off when Stunned or 'KO'ed, don't they? Or did 6e change that?