WhiteShark

2 hours ago, sentry0 said:

Equipment bought off the shelf can be whatever it needs to be point-wise. It's ok if there's some scary stuff NPCs can use against the players.  Are you allowing players to buy equipment off the shelf or asking them to pay points for them?  That can have a pretty dramatic effect on your style of game and building.  If I was a player and playing in a game where equipment can be bought and is equal to or more powerful than the PCs, then chances are you will see me gravitate towards equipment use and powers that enhance or aid me in other ways (Naked advantages, requiring a weapon to activate a power, etc).

At the start it was by points, but that will likely change as they acquire new stuff in game. I'm not 100% sure how I will handle that transition, but that's neither here nor there.

1 hour ago, sentry0 said:

I don't actually remember, it's been 5 years, but I think it gets its own entry because they are so versatile, able to apply to OCV/DCV or DC.

Yeah, that makes sense, but I'm still not clear on whether I should also be adding that value to OCV/DCV/DC. If I'm not adding it in those places, maybe it should be given a higher weight, perhaps matching the CV weights. CSL has the drawback of only applying to certain attacks but can also be flexibly allocated, unlike the others. I'm thinking the following:

• heigher weight for CSL (possibly 3 to match the CVs or 2~2.5 to account for its limitations)
• DON'T add it to OCV/DCV
• DO account for it in maximum DC

Sound good?

Also, the DEF value already includes rDEF, right? I'm assuming I don't need to add them together to find the real Normal Defense. If I do need to sum them, then the stuff below is probably all wrong, but that seems unlikely.

I've changed no formulas in this version. I added a minor clarification on the dAP line about including expenditures on DEF. More importantly, I added a calculator to the right on the top row. It shows average STUN, BODY, hits to KO, and hits to Dying for both Normal and Killing damage. I'd be pleased if you took a look at the numbers there and gave me your thoughts on what ratios of DC, STUN/BODY, and DEF/rDEF would produce the desired average hits to KO/Dying while best matching the power level. Under the current numbers, it seems Normal STUN is vastly more efficacious than Killing BODY. I'm thinking BODY should be tweaked down to a baseline of 10, among other things.

rule_of_x r2.xlsx

3 hours ago, sentry0 said:

I would love to work more with you on this.  Perhaps we could modify the Spreadsheets and add tabs for each point level?  What do you think?

That sounds great. I am pleased that you're still interested in this even five years after uploading. Good idea about the tabs.

4 hours ago, sentry0 said:

I'm not sure what you mean by it slips in and out of Low and Standard supers.

These are the averages from the table on 6E1.35 followed by the same on your spreadsheet (unrounded for clarity):

300 points: CON/DEX 20, SPD 5.5, CV 8.5, DC 9, DEF 13.5, rDEF 8
400 points: CON/DEX 25, SPD 6.5, CV 10, DC 10, DEF 22.5, rDEF 15
spreadsheet: CON/DEX 20, SPD 5, CV 8, DC 12, DEF 24, rDEF 17

You can see how the values range from matching low-end 300 point book averages to exceeding even the 400 point book averages.

3 hours ago, sentry0 said:

I dropped the DCs so much because it keeps things fairly in line with the types of equipment you will find in those campaigns.  This keeps the players' power in check a bit by keeping their damage output relatively close to the types of equipment you will find in the books. 

Hm, this is a bit tricky. You're right that the book weaponry generally has lower DCs than what I proposed; at the same time, the book weaponry (both sci-fi and modern) also tend to have mods that result in oAPs much higher than what you proposed. For example, the Gauss Rifle "only" does 2d6 Killing Damage (6 DC), but it has Autofire 5 and Armor Piercing and apparently totals to 71 oAP (67 when I recreated it myself, but I might have done something wrong). Likewise the around-225-point creatures tended to have DCs that were pretty high, many of them at least 10, though there were a few that all but ignored offensive stats, such as the Flesh Golem.

I think we need to at least raise the oAP baseline. Consider the Modern Assault Rifles table on p78 in the Equipment Guide. These are typical military weapons and, aside from one outlier, they're all in the sixties or higher. If we assume that those mods are worth their points, then it should follow that raw DC without those mods should be of equal value, so it would then also make sense to raise the DC baseline. That would mean that it would be easier to get away with doing more raw DC with a power than using a weapon, but again, assuming that Autofire etc. are worth the points, that should be of roughly equivalent value.

Another balancing factor is that if a PC does spend a bunch of points to do more DC than a piece of equipment, that's a lot fewer points he has to spend on other useful stuff. /shrug

4 hours ago, sentry0 said:

3-4 hits from relatively equal-powered creatures should be enough to down the character seems reasonable to me, adjust as you feel fit.

The baselines proposed in the 225 point revision create a pretty different dynamic than the one in the original 400 point sheet. In the original sheet, the average STUN for a Normal Damage attack is 18 after DEF, which means an average of 2.2 hits to KO. WIth the proposed baseline changes in the 225 version, the average STUN is 8 and the average hits to KO is 3.75. Personally I prefer the ratio on your original sheet: I think on average it should take, at most, three hits to down someone. Consequently, I think it were best if we adjusted the DC baseline upwards as per above, and if not, at least lower the DEF baseline.

Fiddling around on the spreadsheet, I found that a baseline of 10 DC and 22 DEF produces an average STUN of 13 and 2.3 hits to KO. I adjusted rDEF slightly, too.

4 hours ago, sentry0 said:

I just ballparked the dAP column. 

I had another question in regards to both this and CSL. When you calculate dAP, are you including purchases of DEF/rDEF, or is this purely for other defensive powers? Likewise, with CSL, are you adding it to OCV and DCV for the purposes of obtaining their maxima, or does it only apply in its own column?

Finally, I was wondering about the absence of BODY from the spreadsheet. My military game has much in the way of Killing Damage and Armor Piercing, so in some situations it seems like BODY may be more relevant than STUN. Do you think it ought be included?

---

By the way, I noticed that you poked around with Mizuki's stats a little. She's a boundary-pushing glass cannon build; not sure yet how it will go in game. I see now that reducing her OMCV to 0 was a mistake. I saw a creature in the Bestiary that had 0 OMCV so I thought it permissible, but foolish me didn't realize that was only because it was a zombie...

rule_of_x 225-r3.xlsx

It's complicated, but I'm running a military sci-fi game at 225 points for the main characters and a still undecided lesser amount for companions/allied side characters. My questions are:

• How to calculate baselines for a given point value
• For what point value your baselines were calculated
  • The baselines seem to vary between the numbers 6E1.35 gives for Low-Powered Superheroics (300 points) and Standard Superheroics (400 points).
• What rules/assumptions undergird your calculations
  • For example, it looks like it takes about three Normal Damage hits (after reduction from DEF) to break through the baseline STUN on your original sheet. Should I take that as a standard around which to recalculate?

By referencing the Character Ablity Guidelines Table, tweaking downward, and comparing to 225 point creatures from the Bestiary, I've arrived at some baselines for 225 point characters. Attached is the edited spreadsheet. I'm curious what you think. I was especially uncertain about the recalculated DEF/rDEF baselines; at first I based them on the aforementioned Guidelines Table, but that seemed low, so instead I made them proportional to the (slightly) lower DC baseline.

rule_of_x 225 ー.xlsx

Do you have any tips or guidelines for deciding the baselines? Should I just average the ranges given on the Character Ability Guidelines Table (6E1 35) for the campaign's power level?