Doc Democracy

Re: Thrilling Places

Hardcopy

heh! A man of few words.

I have never bought pdf over hardcopy before but, for certain things I can see an advantage to having the text flexible rather than hardbound.

I can also see an advantage of not further contributing to my bulging storage spaces...

Doc

Re: What is STUN?

Mind you' date=' a boxer would be at a substantial disadvantage if they had to have a fight two days running (certainly a professional boxer, going 10 rounds).[/quote']

 

Well, part of that, I think, is simulated by the use of LTE. It takes a long time for the END to come back and a boxer might quickly run into burning STUN rather than END on the second day.

 

I suppose that, to attempt a very realistic feel, you might consider looking at losing CON and STR when LTE begins building up to simulate a lesser ability to do stuff and resist damage and other things.

 

Doc

Re: [Warming Rant] GM feeling uninspired

Sometimes I think that the problem is that we look at gaming and gamers as homogenous groups (one way of doing things).

I find that there are any number of ways that people expect to game.

For many there is a general agreement to get together and play the game. It is nice to go through the motions of putting characters together and explore the adventures prepared by the GM in the presence of munchies and good friends. Very pleasant evenings all round.

For many others there is a real desire to gain more immersion in the game, often requiring real effort to be made to avoid distracting conversations and actions (constantly rolling dice etc). This can be intense and far more rewarding (in gaming terms) than the previous version but more effort and more consistency are required from both players and GMs.

There is a spectrum of gamers between and beyond these situations and when you get a mix of expectations it is possible for frustration to set in on all sides.

The people that want to socialise round an enjoyable game get frustrated with people constantly telling them to shut up and those that want the deeper game experience get frustrated as they are constantly jolted out of character.

If you see a disconnect you can adjust your expectations or adjust your gaming group. Sometimes (if you can find the time) do both: adjust your expectations of one group and relax into a game themed social evening while gathering more like-minded gamers for evenings of more intense roleplay that maximises the work and effort put into the games.

Doc

OK. So I'm going to buy Thrilling Places.

Is it most practical in pdf or hardcopy? I was wondering whether the PDF might better allow for stuff to be printed and incorporated into handouts etc??

Any opinions?

Doc

PS: the fact that buying the pdf would release more money to buy a few penny dreadfuls has nothing to do with it...

Re: Moving out of combat

Hero doesn't hardwire things like attack of opportunity into the game system but allows the Gm to make decisions and provides a range of combat options.

This means that the GM has to think a bit more about combat rather than simply going through the hit, roll damage process.

As Mister E pointed out, your multiple attackers could have been trying to grab the PC, or trip him or they might even have tried to block his movement themselves by moving into his path.

There would be a number of ways to model this if you wanted.

Finally you would also simply be able to apply bonuses to hit chances because he is not focussed on defending himself or turning his back on opponents intent on attacking him.

Doc

Re: Slow recharge rate?

I might simply use a custom limitation (based as suggested on extra time).

12D6 EB, not if fired within the past 6 seconds

Doc

Re: Bringing accuracy into the equation

At present an 8d6 attack will not trouble a 35 pd brick' date=' so the MA needs to throw him off high buildings or apply choke holds or nerve strikes, or some sort of cunning, perhaps involving environmental hazards. To avoid the lucky one-shot, the MA needs to hold actions to roll with punch in case he is hit.[/quote']

 

In the +1D6 for every 1 below the required to hit roll, an 8D6 attack will damage a 35PD brick if CVs are equal and the attacker rolls 8 or less. So a differential of 3 or more brings the damage into the probable category.

 

If we move to 1D6 per 2 below then the differential has to be 5 or 6 difference. Even then it is still difficult for the martial artist to do lasting damage...

 

I'm not sure whether this will cause a cataclysm but it will change the face of the game' date=' both in character design and play.[/quote']

 

I do expect it to change the way characters are designed and the numbers you expect under the current system will change to reflect the new system.

 

It should also mean that you can design human type martial artists with less than superhuman strength that are no worse off than superhuman human martial artists are under the current system.

 

 

Doc

Re: Bringing accuracy into the equation

I'm thinking varying the stat block will also give you some insights' date=' especially from the defender's perspective.[/quote']

 

I hope it will provide from a variety of perspectives. I do expect to have to make adjustments.

 

Actually' date=' a Haymaker doesn't change OCV, but dropping 5 DCV will mean the Haymaker better take him out on the first try. Move Through, however, becomes almost useless, with my lost OCV giving back most of the damage I gained. Cover gets the odd result that I actually will inflict a more glancing blow. Pulling a punch will also reduce damage inflicted.[/quote']

 

The CV differential does work both ways. The martial artist may decide that even with the drop of 5 DCV it is necessary to access the extra damage.

 

Again I think that you are missing the point of the system that is based on standard effect with bonuses etc.

 

If you perform a move through and gain 5D6 damage then your base damage might go from 8D6 to 13D6. That means that a simple hit (rolling what you need to hit) changes the damage from 24 STUN/8 BODY to 39 STUN/13 BODY.

 

The change to the OCV means you might have to roll lower to get that simple hit. Missing the attack roll lowers the standard effect. If you retain the CV by not doing the move through then you might add 5D6 to your damage roll bringing the damage to 41 STUN/13 BODY. That is slightly better but you are now close to maxing out.

 

With the non-move through attack you may score close to max regularly or even max out but you are stuck at that 48 STUN mark. With the move through you may get similar damage but with a good roll you can move that damage beyond the 48 mark (the maximum would now be 78 STUN). That's where the benefit of the move-through would come in. And with this system there is the possibility of achieving that 78 STUN - there is not much chance of it in the standard system.

 

Why can't you grant bonuses to damage for creative moves now?

 

You know I never thought of doing that? I guess when reading this kind of stuiff it is all written in terms of providing bonuses to hit rather than bonuses to damage. Another possibility.

 

That means a much decreased chance of a full miss' date=' of course. Even dropping to 10- means a complete miss is very unlikely. How will that work for, say, Damage Auras which work whenever I hit my target?[/quote']

 

Well, damage auras will be standard effect. It is easier than any other way I have come up with. Damage auras are another power that might be far moer useful against those unhittable martial artists and so might prove worth the extra cost (even with standard effect) of 5th Edition.

 

I think allowing this benefit to some types of attacks and not others skews the field further. AE attacks are already lower damage because they hit easier. This further moves down their damage capacity.

 

It is very much to avoid bureacracy in the gameplay. I couldn't think of any way to very the damage dependent on how well an area effect attack might hit and so standard effect seemed easiest/fairest etc.

 

They will have uses and so I expect them to be used. I just expect their use to be different. If you make fundamental changes to the hit/damage sequence then you have to expect a new balance to be struck. I do expect that.

 

If I have a 12 DC attack' date=' hitting by 3 grants me +3d6, assuming no change to your previous model. There's a big difference between turning my 12d6 Energy Blast into a 15d6 EB, my 6d6 Ego Blast into 9d6 and my 4d6 RKA into 7d6. None of these have maxed out yet.[/quote']

 

Well, I have probably been convinced about the numbers (possibly +1D6 per two under the to hit roll required to match the current CV for damage swap available with skill levels).

 

It does provide access to larger damage numbers. That will have to be taken into account in what I allow in designing the characters from the start.

 

All Hero GMs dictate the average damage they expect in a combat by putting limits on things.

 

I haven't quite decided what I will do with respect to killing attacks. The multiplier was supposed to reflect hitting more vital spots and so I am looking at how I might fold the multiplier into the to hit roll and allow people to roll the BODY dice (the number of dice is lower and so I still expect reasonable variability).

 

Why should Transfers not enjoy the same advantage as other attacks? If I get 50% effect from my EB' date=' Entangle or Flash when I really missed by 3, why should the Transfer get no effect when it misses by 1?[/quote']

 

I will find out. I intend to use it full scale and if a particular kind of attack is more effective simply due to the system then I will scale it back by using standard effect. Simple gameplay considerations rather than pure application of a system.

 

I'd rather gain some aspects of accuracy than none at all.

 

I suspect it will make people think about ensuring their character has such an attack' date=' and is defended against such attacks. The prices haven't changed, so when the powers become more useful, demand for them should rise markedly.[/quote']

 

Good old supply and demand....

 

The tradeoff is that combat now becomes about making someone helpless' date=' at least temporarily. Flash, Darkness, or Entangle will work - and even a glancing blow with a FLash or Entangle will commonly suffice.[/quote']

 

I think that will be a common facet of combat. It will also mean that the response to being flashed might not be to hang sround and hope you get a lucky tag or two in while it wears off. Entangle will be less of an issue as you will not be able to target the character through it.

 

We may get many more entangles bought with the advantage that allows such attacks to take advantage of this system - I might have to increase the cost of that particular advantage....

 

 

Doc

Re: Bringing accuracy into the equation

Gotta tell you' date=' Doc Dem, that I used the Critical Hit = Maximum Damage rule in my games and it worked exactly like you were hoping for.[/quote']

 

Do you mean critical hit (roll a three) or a critical hit (five less than you need to hit)??

Re: Bringing accuracy into the equation

One thought: whilst having improved damage for excellent hits is realistic after a fashion' date=' it makes all characters in Hero more vulnerable: there will not really be any Bricks left, and Damage Reduction will be almost essential for those that do remain. In terms, noone will be able to afford enough defence to guarantee invulnerability from even a low power attack: an 8d6 attack CAN do 48 stun & 16 body f the hit is solid enough....[/quote']

 

If you look at the brick in question who has 35 PD, 70 STUN and 20 REC, it means that the martial artist CAN do 13 STUN each time he hits the brick, at SPD 6 that means the martial artist will take out the brick. If the brick however spends just 10 points more on his PD then the martial artist at most can do 18 STUN per turn to the brick.

 

If CVs are high and damage capacities low then high PDs do provide effective invulnerability and the martial artist will have to look for ways of increasing their ability to do damage - possibly at the risk of allowing the brick to tag him where even a glancing blow might stun them and leave them totally vulnerable.

 

The 15D6 of the brick will do 22 STUN with the slightest of contacts (50% of standard effect). I'm not so sure there is a cataclysm awaiting me or the characters in my game.

 

Doc

Re: Bringing accuracy into the equation

Oh, before I forget, I was wondering if you'd post up the data you collected. How much time did it take, and what other comparisons did you consider?

 

Maybe in a different thread. I'm not trying to challenge you, just understand what the issue really is. I've never played M&M or SAS I can't really guess what those systems do.

 

Thanks.

I fully intend to have a thread discussing the experiment. This was a qualitative comparison rather than a quantitative one. Phil and I wrote a scenario for the rest of our group who rarely play Hero and even more rarely play superhero games. The scenario had four acts to it, the first and final Acts were short and run under M&M, one run under Hero and one run under SAS.

We chose six characters, two from each system and produce versions of them for Millenium Earth (Hero), Freedom Earth (M&M) and Sentinal Earth (SAS).

Hero: Defender and Ironclad

SAS: Mother Raven and Slipstream

M&M: Lux and Sentinel

In each reality the characters had different names, for example, in Freedom Earth (under M&M rules) Defender was known as Protector by the M&M based characters even though the player's notes would show that he still remembered himself as Defender.

We thought that using the same characters under different systems might provide some insight into what each system did best (or better than the others).

We played at a small convention run by my old university gaming club and so we played it 10am to 11pm on the Saturday and 11am to 5pm on the Sunday.

It was a huge scenario and I think Phil and I got more out of it than the players - they looked exhausted by the time we finished!!

My problem is that I came out of it thinking that none of the systems did superheroes very well, M&M didn't sell itself as strongly to me as I thought it might have and SAS came out worst of all (in the group opinion). I think that M&M was best recieved by the group but I think a large proportion of that was the character sheets - as D20 experience the M&M sheet was more familiar and easy to use.

When I polish off the scenario I will post it along with the conversions of each character (dont think copyright would allow for the provision of the originals in each system).

Doc

Re: Bringing accuracy into the equation

In working this through' date=' I would test the rolls againstseveral stat blocks, with each one trading off, say, 1d6 of damage (5 points) and +2/+2 PD/ED (4 points) for +3 DEX. That will give you a sense of how much moe/less valuable DEX becomes.[/quote']

 

Well, I was thinking that I would check how much damage a particular character would take versus my campaign average stat block and how much damage it would deliver based on particular rolls.

 

I want to see whether I get strange skews and whether I can even them out a bit - that should help me devise my Rule of X to meet the new balance points.

 

It does working from your baselines. I did miss the concept that' date=' regardless of how many bonus dice you received, you still capped out at the attack's maximum damage.[/quote']

 

The cap was important as it meant that the little martial artist cannot punch through a vault door regardless of how well he hits it - damage caps out. That again works towards allowing the less than superhuman skills based hero to work in the game.

 

It will certainly focus the game more on enhancing OCV and DCV. No one in their right mind will ever use a Haymaker again' date=' but Martial Arts will become much more popular, especially maneuvers which enhance both OCV and DCV, as these will now enhance damage done and reduce damage taken. [/quote']

 

I think you are looking at different aspects. A martial artist may, if his CV differential is big enough, may look to a haymaker to increase his dmage potential in a way that CV alone will not.

 

I want people to become more creative in combat to get me to provide increases to OCV or reduce opponents DCV. In limited experiments in the past I have seen hints of this. But previous attempts were more bureaucratic.

 

DCV actually becomes less useful, however, as it only reduces damage, rather than avoiding attacks.

 

[snip]

 

I had overlooked this - under your system, at what point is the attack a "miss", rather than a glancing blow? It's likely up there when damage becomes 0% of possible.

 

That point is four more than you need to hit. If you need 11 or less to hit, 14 or less will get you 50% of the standard effect, 15 or more gets you nothing at all.

 

As I said, I may shift the damage down a step so that the base hit is 10 or less rather than 11 or less, thus 13 or less would get you 50% of standard effect while 14 or more would be a complete miss.

 

That seems to prejudice attacks that are 1 hex accurate' date=' in particular, and area effect attacks in general. The character has no chance to vary his damage.[/quote']

 

Though his chance of hitting is much better and those characters that have sacrificed defences and damage capacity for CV will be extremely vulnerable to a poxy standard effect 1 hex accurate attack. I dont think I will see the end of such attacks - they will become a different variable in combat though.

 

You bet! For example' date=' I'd take a lot more attacks with high per d6 point costs. Why get +1d6 on my EB when I can hit by the same amount to get +1d6 on my Armor Piercing Killing Attack, or my Transfer? A DEX to DEX transfer just keeps on giving! [/quote']

 

As I pointed out, it isn't +1D6 of added effect, if you only had 1D6 you will never do more than 6 points of damage. The rationale behind the accuracy effect would indicate that a well placed armour piercing attack should have more effect than a similarly well placed normal attack.

 

Transfers I'll have to look at, I may simply make them standard effect for balance reasons...

 

Darkness with Personal Immunity (or a targetting sense my darkness doesn't cover) and Invisibility are looking like very goood power choices as well.

 

Yup. They will have serious combat consequences and so they should - I never really thought they had the impacts that they should have in combat. I hope that such things will make people think twice on how to tackle such things.

 

An Entangle looks pretty good too' date=' since more dice means less likelihood my target will break out. Flash and high CV looks good too. It's even harder (MUCH even harder) to roll higher than average on attacks that only count BOD. Plus, once you're blind or entangled (ideallly with an entangle that takes no damage from attacks), your CV drops like a stone and I can inflict fulll damage with every hit.[/quote']

 

I thought that was a good point in the system. If you have a helpless opponent then you _know_ you can one punch them...it seems more 'realistic' to my thinking.

 

Doc

Re: Bringing accuracy into the equation

You can kinda acheive what you are after, assuming you have superior speed, with haymakers and the 'Roll with punch' manouvre.

 

and other clever stuff...

Well, all of this is possible and I could build it into every martial arts character that I build or require my players to build it in as well. I wanted to build it into the system.

Will have a look at your numbers - they may prove of interest!

Doc

Re: Bringing accuracy into the equation

I think this will ultimately reduce versatility. Low CV characters probably aren't viable. DEX, already valuable, becomes even more valuable. Area effects and Autofire go away. Higher DC per d6 attacks are to be preferred. I think the cure is worse than the disease.

 

Still, I'll be watching with interest for the playtest results.

They wont be simple. I am looking at a pretty complex rule of X style equation so that if someone does max out their CV their damage and defences will be sufficiently low that even a glancing blow from a low cv, high dice character will hurt or one of those reviled low dice area effects that are a bit too big to dive for cover from, or even simply something that I provide bonuses for clever thinking in combat suddenly brings that huge clunking fist into play.

If the CV is high enough to make the difference you are suggesting then under normal rules they probably aren't going to get tagged either and be similarly invulnerable, though probably less viable as an attacking force.

Doc

Re: Bringing accuracy into the equation

hmmm...double knockback with a high CV that generaly max'es out my BOD might also be worthwhile. The possibilities are endless.

Appreciate the comments - they are helping to work things out in my head. I will comment more detailed later but if the possibilities are endless and help to vary how people in my group have been using the system, thus highlighting its versatility then I'll be happy.

Doc

Re: Bringing accuracy into the equation

So if I buy 35 Defenses' date=' I'm all but invulnerable.[/quote']

 

Which is effectively true in the current system as well versus a 10D6 attack. How often would a 10D6 attack come up with more than 36 STUN?

 

This is the classic Hero version of invulnerability.

 

This reduces the added benefits of DEX' date=' but doesn't eliminate them. [/quote']

 

It also increases the added benefits over my scheme by allowing 3 to get 100% effectiveness where mine would not - a 3 would not be a magical number in my way of doing things.

 

+3 DEX costs 6 points after Speed Rebate' date=' and will get me +1.5 PD, +1.5 ED and an extra 1/2 d6 damage - still cheaper than buying +1.5 PD, ED, exotic defenses and +1/2d6 to all attacks and I get all the other benefits of DEX.[/quote']

 

In the current system +3 DEX, if it causes someone to miss you provides infinite extra defences - they missed. My system extends the chances of being hit while making it the damage less than it would be.

 

It does not increase the amount of damage I can do though the damage I dish out is likely to be more effective.

 

What about AoE attacks?

 

Well, these and autofire I intend to apply standard effect to across the board. They are less interesting damage wise as they are more uniform and have interests in other areas.

 

Mental attacks also become interesting if a hit by a significant margin equates into higher damage.

 

I think that will be the case. I intend to apply it directly as written to mental attacks, this may have interesting consequences on character design as well.

 

Another thought: If the above is for ordinary damage' date=' what happens to dice that cost more than 5 points per die? How does, say, my Transfer, Drain or Flash boost for good rolls or fall short for glancing strikes?[/quote']

 

Again, I intend to apply it directly unless play experience proves otherwise.

 

 

Doc

Re: Bringing accuracy into the equation

To add to Derek's comments, this approach makes DEX much more valuable. For 18 points, you boost your DEX by 9 (DEX costs 27, less 9 that went to SPD). That 18 points buys both +3d6 damage and 50% Damage Reduction.

 

Once you tie damage to level of the "to hit" success, you make CV a much better buy, skewing the playing field to favour high DEX and other high Combat Value characters.

There is, as I indicated, more need for the GM to test the characters for 'balance' as far as this kind of thing goes - I intend to work on the basis of combats where everyone rolls 13,12, 11, 10, 9 and 8 against stock stat blocks as indicators of viability. It is something that I am making more work for the Gm to hopefully intorduce some play variability.

That 18 points does not buy you +3D6 nor does it buy you 50% damage reduction. It potentially goes toward maximising your attack and minimising that of your opponents. you still only have so much in your defence and so much in your attack. A 6D6 attack will never do more than 36 STUN regardless of the disparity in CVs. It might mean that you will do that 36 more often as you hit so well. A 36 PD would provide someone with absolute protection against your attack.

I am hoping this provides another way for players to work theior defences and other things.

When playing a game and the stock 12D6 attack does little damage to an opponent a player has to search for other ways to hurt/limit/suppress that opponent. With this system the little flourishes and combat descriptors that provide OCV bonuses will actually mean that the next attack with the 12D6 has more chance of hurting the opponent, the logic of trying something different will be rewarded by more than a better chance to hit and do no significant damage.

Doc

Re: Bringing accuracy into the equation

How about a simpler system?

 

CV + Dice of Damage = 20 (for example).

 

So, a brick with 60 Str could have a max CV of 8.

 

The martial artist with a 12 CV could do 8D6 max.

 

Add 1D6 per number the roll is made by. Subtract 1D6 per number the roll is missed by.

 

So, the martial artist rolls 11. He hits by 4. He does 8D6+4D6 = 12D6.

 

The brick rolls an 11. He misses by 4. He does 12D6-4D6 = 8D6 damage.

 

The brick does a glancing blow with an 11.

 

The martial artist does a solid shot with an 11.

 

No charts needed. Considerably simpler than the system you proposed. And, the martial artist can get away with lighter defenses.

It is similar to one I was considering but it uses considerably more dice. There is an element of me that loves throwing a mountain of dice but it does take time to count them up, especially with younger players or ones not used to playing Hero. It also has a longer tail of damage that players love to throw (just in case they max out.

I prefer having the four fixed damage counts with bonus dice for good dice rolling on the to hit roll.

Doc

Re: Bringing accuracy into the equation

Or how about this...?

 

A miss is a miss.

 

A critical hit is defined as a hit where you made your Attack Roll by half or more. Critical Hits do 2x damage, up to the maximum possible damage on the dice. So for example, a 10d6 attack with a critical hit would do (10d6)x2, or it would do 60 STUN and 20 BODY, whichever is less.

Tried it - didn't like it. One of my biggest bugbears is that the system as written encourages martial artists to have more defences than the genre would suggest (whether that come from combat luck or anything else).

I wanted to see if I could hard-write something into the system that would allow for the very low defence very high agility character low damage character to compete toe to toe.

A glancing blow occurs when the Attack Roll is made exactly; when the attacker rolls precisely what they needed to roll to hit the defender's DCV... no better, and no worse. In this case, an "Evasion Roll" is made. An Evasion Roll works just like an Attack Roll, except that it's rolled by the defender, and it uses defender's DCV vs. the attacker's OCV.

 

If the Evasion Roll misses, then the defender takes normal damage. If it succeeds exactly or by 1, the attack is reduced by 1 DC. Every additional 1 the Evasion Roll was made by lowers the attack's DC by 1, down to a minimum of half the original DC.

I might have gone for this in the past but it adds to the complexity of combat (and probably to the time involved.

My group (and they may be different from every other group int he world) sees hero combat as quite dice heavy and clunky compared to other systems (and I have some sympathies).

We did a comparison test between Hero, M&M and SAS using a cross dimensional scenario with versions each character in each system. Me and another GM watched the results and even the time taken to count up dice was significant.

As such I wanted to change things - make combat more variable in its results and make explicit differences to the damage that results in changing the chance to hit. In my scheme, if you improve your chance to hit by 4 you can significantly increase your ability to damage your opponent - under normal Hero rules you are only significantly more likely to hit them for roughly the same damage.

Doc

Re: Bringing accuracy into the equation

With this change' date=' characters will effectively be able to buy +1d6 damage for 2 points (by buying a 2-point Combat Skill Level), and able to buy 50% Resistant Damage Reduction against both PD and ED for 15 points (by buying +3 DCV Combat Skill Levels). Is this what you really intend?[/quote']

 

Hmm. Good point. I will have to look at skill levels. It is already possible to translate skill levels into increased damage - will have to calibrate...

Re: Power Build: Re-Pete

I'm working on a character, Re-Pete, who has something like a Duplication Damage Shield, but not quite.

 

When Pete gets knocked unconscious, a "fresh" Pete (a Re-Pete) shows up and the unconscious one disappears. Sort of like a video game character getting a "new life."

 

Apart from that, he's a normal with some minor martial arts and maybe some gear. I don't want him to be horribly expensive.

 

Any suggestions?

Hmm. Lots of good suggestions based round duplication (which provides the exact SFX in the game system.

I was wondering whether you might simply by huge defences that effectively stop all reassonably sized attacks completely. You would record damage as if the character had smaller defences and when his STUN/BODY total drops below zero then the character loses a phase while he 'falls unconscious and respawns'

It means some spurious record keeping but would achieve the same kind of effect....

Doc

Re: Opposing Magic Systems

The main point I'm trying to iron out right now is the two opposing arcane magic schools(as opposed to divine-granted magic)' date=' and how to make them feel different.[/quote']

 

Well, I find that one of the best ways to make things feel different is through gameplay rather than the system.

 

You need to think about how they are presented and how the characters in the game would see them as different and then emphasise that to the players. The actual mechanics could be identical but the fact that Wizards use staves while the channellers use crystals could be a major defining point in game.

 

You may find that when you answer the questions above then you may also have answered the game system questions that you may have - one tends to follow the other...

 

Channelling makes use of the abundant magical energy available Post-Cataclysm' date=' and is much more structured, and seen as more natural by most of the population(those that can tell the difference, at least)[/quote']

 

Where does the power from Wizardry come from? If Channellers power varies from mana spot to mana spot and Wizards dont then you have some differentiation there - including flexibility.

 

So' date=' I'm mostly asking for opinions. Other considerations are the allowance of an Endurance Reserve... maybe dependent on mana level, or maybe dependent on mana level for one type, but not the other. I've also thought about allowing Channellers to ignore modifiers to a spell at the price of Increased Endurance. But would these be too unbalanced? Am I overthinking the problem?[/quote']

 

Endurance reserves and tinkering with that kind of stuff can lead to very distictive in game advantages and disadvantages as can environemntal effects allowing (or making) spells to be more/less effective/powerful depending on the mana levels. (You'll find players become very interested in mana levels if you do this so you'd have to be prepared for them wanting to defer combats etc until they can find places rich or poor in mana).

 

 

Doc

Re: Bringing accuracy into the equation

This system will make for extremely short fights, or extremely high defenses and lightning reflexes. Two characters otherwise evenly matched will "hit" each other 50% of the time, as in regular Hero, but if that hit does maximum damage, whoever goes first is likely to stun his opponent if not knock him unconscious. And if near misses also hit, then bricks will have an advantage on martial artists whose whole schtick is to not be hit. MAs will have to buy up their DCV massively.

 

I think it would be better to define some other point as the Max damage point, with the exact roll needed doing only 10 or 25%.

PS: though short fights are not something that I am advocating against either you understand....

Re: Bringing accuracy into the equation

This system will make for extremely short fights, or extremely high defenses and lightning reflexes. Two characters otherwise evenly matched will "hit" each other 50% of the time, as in regular Hero, but if that hit does maximum damage, whoever goes first is likely to stun his opponent if not knock him unconscious. And if near misses also hit, then bricks will have an advantage on martial artists whose whole schtick is to not be hit. MAs will have to buy up their DCV massively.

 

I think it would be better to define some other point as the Max damage point, with the exact roll needed doing only 10 or 25%.

Not sure if you got it first time. Two evenly matched characters will hit each other 62.5% of the time. If they roll the number they need they will do 50% of maximum damage (standard effect).

Say they are two bricks with 13D6 punches and 25PD.

3 as 11 +8D6 (0.5% of throws)

4 as 11 +7D6 (1.5% of throws)

5 as 11 +6D6 (3.0% of throws)

6 as 11 +5D6 (4.5% of throws)

7 as 11 +4D6 (7.0% of throws)

8 as 11 +3D6 (9.5% of throws)

9 as 11 +2D6 (12.0% of throws)

10 as 11 +1D6 (12.5% of throws)

11 39 STUN, 13 BODY doing 14 STUN

12 35 STUN, 12 BODY doing 10 STUN

13 29 STUN, 9 BODY doing 4 STUN

14 19 STUN, 6 BODY doing no damage

15 or more no damage will be done

The most damage from this would be 39 STUN, 13 BODY plus 8D6 (28 STUN, 8 BODY on average).

Such a fight will not see maximum damage (78 STUN, 26 BODY) unless something happens to remove the CV parity they enjoy.

I was thinking of making the standard effect 10 rather than 11 and so shifting the numbers down one place. 10 is also a nicer number ot use than 11 (IMO )

Doc

Re: Bringing accuracy into the equation

Why not just let the MA use hit locations? Maybe have him pay *10 points to use them in a game that normally does not.

 

* Based on the cost of the Automaton ability to NOT have them.

 

If you want 'near misses' do less damage to the MA why not give him damage reduction vs. Physical HTH attacks plus Requires a Skill Roll and Only vs. Attacks he's aware of? Similar to the way Combat Luck and Roll With The Punch are handled.

Didn't want to do that because it requires player input and adds to the seeming bureacracy of the system as people play it - some martial artists will and others wont and when is a character a martial artist and when is he not?

My system means I have to put a good bit more effort into guaging the effectiveness of particular combinations of stats and powers but it doesn't require a player to know what would make his character more or less genre compatible. I want my game to guide people to the genre appropriate values.

As you say though, it would be possible to do it from a character building perspective - I have just decided to do it from a system gameplay perspective.

Doc