Kdansky

Re: Balance outside of a Super setting I'm also quite a big cheater, but I go to big lengths to prevent it from happening in the first place. Meaning I try to balance encounters well so I can just go with the rolls, but if I mess up the planning (which for example does very rarely happen in my atHome systems like DSA), I can still change stats on the fly and/or fudge rolls. Dropping everyones CV by 1 or 2 can make a huge difference and it's hardly noticeable. I exspect to do quite a bit of tweaking in the first few battles with new PCs in a not-so-well-known system. I have set up the first 3-5 fights for my next campaign in great detail, and I will try to teach my players the basics there. Few Mooks in the first battle, many mooks in the second one, a fattie in the third, combines mooks and fattie in the fourth and real challenge in the fifth. Just so they learn about how to coordinate attacks vs the fattie, how they can get stunned and should abort vs big guns, how to effectively spread for AoE or use cover vs mook autofire barrage, etc. I also start off with enemies I'm pretty sure are too weak. I can still add something on the fly ("As he reaches less than 10 stun, his Combat Drugs kick in: +10 str, +pd/ed, +20 stun, ...").

Re: The great debate, this time with Java! I mainly wrote that thing to prove once and for all that "occasionally, you get huge amounts of stun damage through defenses" is plain wrong, and I succeded in that. In the given example, 21.3% of all shots that make the attack roll manage to do at least 25 points of stun damage. Not occasionally. All the time, in fact. Def: 18 rDef: 9 CON: 40 DC: 9 KLLING ATTACK StunRule used: 1d6 -1 Hits : 51.3 % hit ratio Stun / hit: 26.7 Stun / atk: 13.7 >Con / atk: 11.0 % Body / atk: 0.9 That means you get a 11% chance to do 40 or more stun to a target with appropiate defenses (DC as resistant, 2x DC as nonresistant), that's pretty much instagib. For 50 stun (that's 68+ rolled) you still have a 5.2% chance. 3d6 is 30 AP (OAF Sword: 15 points) + 15 strength, that's lowpowered heroic.

Re: How Much BODY does a human body have? A human body has one body. That's obvious! Why did nobody think of that before me?

Re: Real point caps? I'm not fond of limits at all and try to avoid wherever possible. AP limits of some variant (DC limits) cannot be ignored, it just does not work. I really don't see how real point limits will enhance my game. They probably don't make it worse if used correctly, but even then they are not better. If you think different, give me a good example/reason.

Re: The great debate, this time with Java! I was actually reluctant to write anything, but since I had already coded it, I wanted to make it public. Do with it what you want I'm basically impressed at how often you can get a Stunned result, I never exspected it to be every fourth hit with a KA, but 0.2% chance with the EB. That is grossly different.

Re: The great debate, this time with Java! I know it's "Stunned", but that is so chaotic with all variations of the word Stun running around rampantly. I wanted to be clear. x2, x2.5 and x3 modifiers coming up. Def: 20 rDef: 10 CON: 25 DC: 9 NORMAL ATTACK: Hits : 98.5 % hit ratio Stun / hit: 11.6 Stun / atk: 11.5 >Con / atk: 0.2 % KLLING ATTACK StunRule used: 1d6 -1 Hits : 51.3 % hit ratio Stun / hit: 25.0 Stun / atk: 12.8 >Con / atk: 21.3 % Body / atk: 0.6 KLLING ATTACK StunRule used: fixed x2 Hits : 50.0 % hit ratio Stun / hit: 5.5 Stun / atk: 2.7 >Con / atk: 0.0 % Body / atk: 1.3 KLLING ATTACK StunRule used: fixed x2.5 Hits : 74.0 % hit ratio Stun / hit: 8.7 Stun / atk: 6.4 >Con / atk: 0.0 % Body / atk: 1.3 KLLING ATTACK StunRule used: fixed x3 Hits : 90.7 % hit ratio Stun / hit: 12.7 Stun / atk: 11.5 >Con / atk: 4.6 % Body / atk: 1.3 First interpretation: Fixed x3 multiplier is even worse for balancing. Now KA is as reliable as EB while being limited AVLD, doing a bit of body in average, having a low, but still 20 times higher chance to Stun and doing about the same stun per attack. Now it's not a *usually* good tradeoff, but rather like comparing 11 dice to 10 dice. It's just better for the same cost. 2.5 gives a good result I think, but it is complicated to calculate freehanded.

The great debate, finally with unrefutable math*. We've always discussed if KAs or Normal Damage is better. Most of the time, the "it's equal" camp refutes the claims that KAs do more stun by stating that one cannot base an assumption on the "compare the most common roll"-math, and that is true. Also, "How much more often" is important, if you state that KAs get more con-stunned results. So, since I was in the mood for some coding, I wrote a small java applet which simulates all rolls for any amount of def and DC. That means, if you want to see the results 10d6 normal damage produces, you get an impressive 6^10 rolls simulated which actually takes a couple seconds Nevertheless, here are some results. Please read my posts from the back of the thread first, I fixed some errors in the code in the meantime and added more data print outs. Def: 20 rDef: 10 CON: 25 DC: 9 NORMAL ATTACK: Hits : 98.5 % hit ratio Stun / hit: 11.6 Stun / atk: 11.5 >Con / atk: 0.2 % KLLING ATTACK 1d6-1: Hits : 51.3 % hit ratio Stun / atk: 12.8 >Con / atk: 21.3 % Body / atk: 0.6 First, the explanation for the output. Hits - This is the amount of attacks in percent that do at least 1 stun of damage after defenses. Stun / atk - How much stun damage does an attack do in average? Note that if you have a 50% hit ratio, that means IF you roll high enough, your average will be twice as much as the 100% hit ratio guy. >Con - Percent of attacks that stun. Body / atk - Average body damage. I don't have a body simulation for normal attacks currently, as that is very complicated and not very interesting. If you assume DC*2 in defenses, you will never get any body through, even on a roll of all sixes (probability of that: 6 to the power of damage classes, zero for anything above four dice, rounding at 0.01%). So, for the obvious things: - EB practically never "misses", meaning you don't get anything past defenses. - KA misses roughly half of all hits, that's quite huge, but it does not matter in the long run (read: five of six attacks). But then: KA actualy does 10% more stun on average then EB vs same defenses and gives you a 1 in 4 chance of actually stunning a character with CON more than DC * 2.5. TLDR: KA outperforms EB by a *vast* amount due to stun lottery, much worse than I thought before. It baffles me that this is not a +1/4 advantage at least. To sum it up: Stun lottery is a huge advantage on part of the attacker. You get a bit of unreliability with it, but in average, you get more damage and a huuuge chance to con-stun. It's like Standard Effect: You *can* have it, but it's worse than rolling nearly all the time. I can more or less produce any result of interest, so if you want something, ask or code yourself, if you want Source for java applet attached. *Assuming my code is correct, bugs are always likely, if you find any, please tell me and add the numbers you used to get them.

Re: Simple questions on AP caps What is the avantage of using damage reduction for villains? It's complicated math and has no purpose! BODY 25 STUN 100 PD 30 ED 30 CON 30 no DR vs BODY 15 STUN 50 PD 30 ED 30 CON 30 DR 50% Exact same outcome, but first fight is easier to calculate (no additional division) and *can* be stunned, which is usually interesting. I have dropped DR from nearly all villains I had because if I spend the points for ED + PD DR at 50% level (resistant), I could just buy twice as much stun (or even con/str, giving points out in return). And that's if you even care for points.

Re: An observation on two systems

Re: New to Champions, is BBB good enough? The biggest differences are Layout and Explanations. It's much easier to find stuff in the new book (except Ablative), and nearly everything is very well explained. Also, there are a lot more (good) examples. Especially if you start out rather fresh, I'd recommend the newer book, because you will spend a lot less time searching for things and trying to figure out how it's meant.

Re: package deal question If there were cake, you would have won it! Repped! By the way: it would be nice to see repped posts directly (the post lists all rep messages + who was it) so we don't write these "I repped you" posts, which are kind of pointless.

You more or less wrote down exactly what's wrong with str at 1:1, why character concepts work less well with it and how abusable the system is. Then you continue with things like "My players don't buy PD, they buy Force fields!" Which is completely pointless. They could instead buy PD (get IPE for free), and well, if they could PD, they could just get strength. Stun is never useless and REC can be sold back if you really want to cut corners. So instead of your Force Field + 2 PD + 10 STR build, you can also have a Force Field (smaller) + 10 PD + 50 STR, without really paying anything more (cost: 40 str; saved points: 12 in PD (yes, we go from 20 to 12 resistant, but that won't kill us); sold back 8 rec for 16 and well, "sadly" 20 stun more. real cost of +40 strength: 12. You can also reduce your Force Field 3 more points (pd ed each), since you get 20 more stun, that lets you take 7 hits in succession with same or better results anyway, meaning, you only pay 6 points for the 40 strength, I guess now you want me to take into account that you need some more resistant defenses... So increase resistant PD somewhere by 4, costing 2. Total cost: 8 for 40 strength, oh, and we pay less end per phase for the field now, we've got more inherent/IPE defenses than before, and a lot more stun. The character got quite a bit of a power boost for 8 points. You can add "my powers make him stronger" to ANY concept, as you can with +CON. You cannot argue "I don't need the PD, I buy Force Field." That's like saying: "I don't need to drink Water! I drink Coke!" Now guess what Coke mostly consists of (except the sugar ). I'm in a hurry, so I will not continue this, but please read my text again, you seem to have missed the point by about 180°, five light-years and seven megabytes.

Re: Problem with force field And again, we have the (american?) discussion if it should be appropriate if some naked skin got visible after two humasn tried TO KILL EACH OTHER. Honestly, if you're concerned about imaginary flesh being shown, I'd be concerned about the morality of killing first. Yes, I'm from europe, how could you tell? You know, sexual intercourse is not evil, even if the church wants you to believe that. Quite the opposite in fact...

Re: Sell me on HERO 5th ed. I've also GMed GURPS (medium sized campaign, medieval world, neither low nor high magic). My gripe: The rules tell me how my world looks like, which spells exist and so on. Also, combats are not really interesting, since the first hit usually decides who wins. For me, GURPS is 99% like D20 and only a tiny bit like HERO. There's nothing HERO cannot do, and unbalances are tiny and/or negligible. GURPS is like D20 with points. They even have classes (or rather: You cannot feasibly be mediocre at casting spells without spending half your points into "can cast spells"). I only miss my Reaction Modifier. That's a great concept (but hey, I model it in hero with presence). Edit: Yes, this is third edition I'm talking about. There's a fourth?

Re: package deal questiom Yes, NCM does not change (anymore). It was like that in BBB (or in GURPS), and results in the D20 "If you want to have high strength, play a half-ogre"-phenomena. Now you just get some of your points assigned for you. So +20 points in strength would result in a strength of 25 (10 from 10 to 20, another 10 for 5 more due to NCM).

Ok, well, if you want to phrase it like that: Yes, you only get negative points, if and only if your PD/STUN/END/REC are already in the "I spent points for it" region. If you want to run around with base values, then you will not get points out of it (well, you still get a huge discount on str due to selling back stun and you still get to keep the others). Now the points comes up: How many character concepts do not cry out for 30+ strength? I would estimate that quite a few concepts can get by with less than 50 strength. But on the other hand: How many characters are playable with less than DC*2 PD, 40-50 END and STUN each, and a rec of about 10 or more? - Those that sell end and rec back to 0 and buy an end reserve. If you sell 50 END for 25 and then buy 250 end for 25, something smells very, very fishy. We probably agree that this is an END Reserve problem (or probably end is too expensive). - Those that don't have armor/pd but instead Damage Reduction. - Automatons who don't need stun. - Characters who don't cope with campaign standards. Your 20 stun, 20 end, 4 rec, 2 pd example. How in hell are you going to play that? And if you buy any sort of PD armor/FF, then you could just buy strength instead and take the free pd, sell the stun and make a good deal. That's about it. Everyone else has use for these stats. Hence I understand them as "I would have bougth these anyway", therefore they are already paid for. It's like saying: "Only people who breathe air get this discount!" Oh and for the EC example: If you go from Flight for 60 + FF for 60 to Flight for 30 + FF for 30 + EC for 30, then you gain points, but you lose power (easier to drain). If you add 50 strength, you gain points, and you gain power (str no figured). That's my gripe there. Things you would buy usually: Potatoes, Milk, Rice, Pasta, Fruits (each 2$, total 10$). Now if you buy the chocolate for 7$, you get a set bonus and Potatoes, Milk, Rice, Pasta and Fruits for 2$ each with it. Buying the chocolate, discarding it and another article is cheaper as buying them normally. You'll never see that anyway. I think we have one other disagreement: I consider Strength a power, you consider it an EC. I'm pretty sure I'm right there

Re: How to build this nice knock-out spell Sean, that one is in the FAQ, but I can't find it right now. What about PRE Attack: Go to sleep!

Re: Discussion on costs of Characteristics No, your example is not negative points. STR: Add 50 str, get 5 negative points. EC (60 base): Add a EC slot, spend 30 points for the slot, save 30 points, get some 60 AP power. MP (60 base): Add a MP slot, spend 6 points for the slot, save 54 points, get some 60 AP Power. Martial Art: To me this looks like you have to spend four points to get this, or am I wrong? So spend 4 points, save 10 points, get some 14 AP power. Plus four is not negative. Skills: Nope, you spend 15 points. Also, you didn't add any new powers, you just added a framework. "Linguist" does not do anything by itself. 50 strength do. Strength is a power (or characteristic), not a framework. An empty MP or EC or VPP does not do anything at all. It just makes whatever you buy inside it cheaper. But you still need to pay something for whatever you buy. Adding more Strength makes the character cheaper. That is wrong. This argument would not hold if adding 50 strength would make the character 1 point more expensive (which would still be ridiculous, I mean: One skill costs as much as 150 str?), but then you could say: "Ok, strength gives a huge discount (98%)." Currently, it does not. Definition of negative points is not: "Add some ability and get point savings, in the result not paying full price for what you added", but it is: Adding an ability (not changing some power from being outside a framework to inside a framework), but really adding a new power, and somehow pay less in total. RL Example: If you go to a supermarket and the chocolate has a 20% discount if you buy it together with the china set, then that's sensible. But if the chocolate gives you a 10$ discount on your overall bill but only costs 9$, then you just pick up a hundred chocolates, add 50$ of other goods and the heckout lady will still hand you another 50$ bill. That's strength.

Re: Non-Combat movement in Combat...keep reading Haha, good read. Half-Move NCM, abort to block, roll against 11 minus opponent's OCV Disaster ensures.

Re: Are Heroic Characteristics Realistic? I vote for the opposites: After having player 75+75 characters for quite some time and then tried some around 300, I suddenly found that balance at 300 was A LOT better than at 150. Many powers are extremly expensive, but uncounterable (invis, desolid, mind anything), at 300, not so much. In any group of 5 characters, there are 1-2 formerly broken powers, but also 2-3 character which *can* counter these (special senses against invis, Affects desolid or Variable Special Effect or some sort of dynamic power (VPP) against the desolid, decent ego/mind defense values against Mind X, etc). At 150 (or less, since we only took 25 psychological and getting 50 nonpsych together can get hard/cheesy for heroics) it was really rock/paper/scissors and some character would completely dominate any scenario, at 300, not so much. Characters don't grow so much in power as they grow in breadth from 150 to 300. Afterwards, I assume this again could change, I have no clue If you find yourself in the "omg, guy X takes over the world and nobody can stop his power?!" situation, increase points. That strangly killed all balance issues in our game. If you do 25+25 and anyone takes invis, he'll be pretty lowpowered but pretty invincible if it works. Take continuing charges for added uglyness, since you probably cannot pay the end for long. Nobody has additional sense, rarely anyone manages to get a decent pre roll, your stats suffer, but not too much (15 str, 14 dex, buy free weapon, 15-20 for basic invis, leaves you with about 3-5 skills.) Put invis into MP and declare "I'm magic guy". Ah yes, and I dislike NCM. It's irrelevant for some, and very limiting for others. Just put str at 2:1 to get rid of that problem

Re: Dispel, not a single power but a single Adv. Dispel, Against any Magical Effect at a time (+0) [or +1/4 if there are other similar things too like "Demon Powers"], only to end continuing effects (-1).

Re: Is this a legal build First build: I'm not sure if it's legal, since using self-built FMove MAs and then adding Trigger is really tricky, but let me check if I'd allow it: - Uses problematic FMove. - Uses problematic Trigger. No. I'd not allow it, but you could go for Desolid + Trigger, that's not so cheap. Smells across the pacific of blue cheese. Second version: Not legal, I think. See Thia.

Re: Discussion on costs of Characteristics Powergirl VAL...CHA...Cost...Total...Roll......Notes 60....STR.....50...60......21-.......HTH Damage 12d6 END [6] 25....CON.....30...25......14- 12....PD......00 05....ED......00 18....REC.....2...18 50....END.....0...50 54....STUN....1...54 EC framework for passive powers like flight and Force Field: 30 EC slot Force Field for 30 points to get to campaign defense levels. MP framework for attack powers: 60 char cost: 50+30+2+1 = 83 power cost: 90+30+ slots Blasterboy VAL...CHA...Cost...Total...Roll......Notes 10....STR.....0...10......11-.......HTH Damage 2d6 END [1] 25....CON.....30...25......14- 12....PD......10 05....ED......00 18....REC.....22...18 50....END.....0...50 54....STUN....26...54 6" Leap, ignored. EC framework for passive powers like flight and Force Field: 30 EC slot Force Field for 30 points to get to campaign defense levels. *possibly some sort of 50-60 AP power to compensate for low strength: x points (probably 30) MP framework for attack powers: 60 *possibly some sort of attack: y points (probably 6) char cost: 88 power cost: 90+30+x+y+ slots Both characters still need to buy about 10 PD and 17 ED, of which 12 each have to be resistant to cope with campaign standards (so "No, These Stats Are Not Wasted"). REC: Both characters have rather high REC, and can sell it for the same price, no difference there (although str is cheaper in END than other things, since you only pay it once per phase, so if you really want to cut corners, powergirl can probably afford lower rec than blasterboy). STUN and END is useful for both (and if both buy a ranged attack, they can both sell some stun since they don't get hit as often). The STR guy obviously got -5 points (NEGATIVE FIVE POINTS!) somewhere, since he is 5 points cheaper, which can be spent in one skill plus one skill level, there you go, negative points. Oh, and he already has bought some sort of 12 DC Attack (for free), whereas Blasterboy needs to spend at least 6 more points on an MP slot (or 30 on an EC slot). So yeah, he somehow magically saved at least 11 points somewhere, and as a bonus, he gets anti-grab, anti-entangle, lift and carry. If that's not negative points, then you're substituting some name for what everyone else calls "negative", as in "minus five/eleven/thirtyfive". ECs MAY give discounts in certain circumstances, and you get some sort of limitation with it (easier to drain, same special effect), STR on the other hand nearly ALWAYS gives you more points than you even spent! Increase STR by 50, and suddenly my character is 5 points cheaper? You'd have to be pretty sleazy to do that with an Elemental Control (any slot you add *costs* positive points, even if it is cheaper than usually). When STR does not give you negative points: - You've already abused the system quite a bit and already sold some secondaries like free END from (too cheap) CON. Two flaws make one good. Not quite a sensible approach to balancing, and shows how bad the "can only sell one figured" fix really is. - Your build is already unoptimized and you sold secondaries which you could use (sell one point of speed and then realize you could sell 10 STUN instead). - You're at campaign max for PD, don't want more REC or STUN and (obviously) your strength is already very high. Meaning: You've already abused STR, it's not that easy anymore. I dare anyone to make Blasterboy cheaper/cleary better than Powerwoman without buying strength. Obviously I reserve the right to re-build powerwoman accordingly, spending as many points as you spent in the process. Since Powerwoman has 5 more points left with the same stats, that will be impossible. And no, you cannot sell ridiculous amounts of secondaries, you have to adhere to campaign limit defenses (or have more). The only thing you could do to make him cheaper than her is to have a huge difference in STUN and REC (PD not so much, he'd have to buy some defenses to compensate, that would not be much cheaper). So if you get an endurance reserve and add some automaton powers to be immune to stun, THEN FINALLY str is not overpriced anymore. Oh, and I wonder where will get something to compensate for not having 60 strength too. I accept *any* power with 50 AP worth. But for anyone else (read: 99% of all characters), strength is negative points.

Re: Not Taking Advantage VA is just too expensive for that it does (I think). I'd rather buy a MP with half a dozen slots. About the same cost, but can be customized and does not destroy my AP limit.

Re: One last hurdle with the Demon Armor A baaaad pun. Dromedary = animal Palindrome = basically something that is mirrored in the middle or has a meaning if read backwards. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palindrome Now look at his avatar