A Thread For Random RPG Musings

[Hugh Neilson]

5 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

Ok, I just rolled a battle of a Super versus two thugs. I reduced  the Normal dice to 6D6 since I knew the thugs were 4 PD.  I rolled great and did 4 Body to the first thug. Here’s the thing, I was setting this battle in Classic Silver Age. I did a whopping amount of Body by accident. This doesn’t sit right with me. (My buddy who taught me never worried about this.) I’m thinking for a Genre rule the Hero shouldn’t have to worry about this.

 

I've seen some genre recommendations to  make Pulling your Punch a +0/+0 maneuver so the BOD is always halved, should the PC wish to halve it.

[Doc Democracy]

In a Silver Age game, I would have few qualms about removing BODY as a stat and using the BODY damage on dice purely as points of knockback.

 

Doc

[Duke Bushido]

7 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

In a Silver Age game, I would have few qualms about removing BODY as a stat and using the BODY damage on dice purely as points of knockback.

 

Doc

 

Now _that's_ a heck of an idea!

 

Thanks!

 

 

[Ninja-Bear]

I just found it…odd that the mechanics didn’t support the genre as is. I thought Champions by default was Silver Age. No wonder why “Normal” (Hero and Villains) had a high PD and ED.

[assault]

Given when it was published, Bronze Age is the default.

New X-Men, New Teen Titans, Avengers...

[Ninja-Bear]

12 hours ago, assault said:

Given when it was published, Bronze Age is the default.

New X-Men, New Teen Titans, Avengers...

I can accept that. Is Bronze Age that deadly?

Edited August 12 by Ninja-Bear

[Doc Democracy]

29 minutes ago, Ninja-Bear said:

I can accept that. Is Bronze Age that deadly?

Deaths happen and there is a bit more "realism" than in Silver Age.  So, yes.

 

Not quite graphic novel deadly though.

[Cygnia]

That's what Dark Champions is for...

[Cygnia]

 

[Cygnia]

[Cygnia]

Spoiler

 

[tkdguy]

 

[Hugh Neilson]

On 8/12/2024 at 5:27 AM, Ninja-Bear said:

I can accept that. Is Bronze Age that deadly?

 

The real issue is that many supers are normal humans with no special defenses, and just rarely get hit.  A character with 5 PD and 4 ED, none resistant, will eventually get hit by a big attack.  By 4e or so, we got plot armor - ummm...I mean combat luck - to deal with the issue.  Prior to that, our group tended towards damage reduction that required the character be conscious and mobile.

[Ragitsu]

The following stat block was included in three introductory box sets for the second edition of AD&D, spanning 1994 to 1996 ->

 

Spoiler

 

 

I don't know what I find more amusing: the fact that no damage range is listed for the breath weapon (it is simply "The acid kills whatever it touches.") or that the breath weapon is summarized as an instant-death attack yet numbers were provided for both claws and a bite. At low levels, one claw swipe will kill most PCs and two will kill the hardiest of Warriors; a single bite is a one-hit-kill barring the luckiest of HP rolls and highest of Constitutions on a Warrior such as a Fighter, Ranger or Paladin. With a THAC0 of 2, the dragon will only miss on a Critical Failure.

 

"Whatever the dragon attacks, it kills." would have been a more efficient description .

 

Edited August 16 by Ragitsu

[Ninja-Bear]

Yesterday I had another interesting situation of assumptions. My brother ran us through a simple One-shot. The scenario involved an Undead Giant Shark. (We are in a ship). Now when the captain hollers for bludgeoning weapons, I thought to myself, that’s odd? So I didn’t get to understand that it was a Zombie Shark until my cleric laid Cause Wounds in it. My brother assumed that when the captain hollard bludgeoning weapons I , as a cleric would know that it was a zombified creature. Now he never asked for a Perception role and to be fair I never asked for one.  I did tell my brother that I thought that I should’ve recognized it as an undead with Passive Perception. No one is really in the wrong here. It’s funny to me though how people just make assumptions in the game. This though reinforces to me that I have been giving information for “free- no roll necessary” aka “your character would know this” is a great GM tip. Not sure why so felt guilty about this before. 

[Ninja-Bear]

On 8/16/2024 at 3:07 PM, Hugh Neilson said:

 

The real issue is that many supers are normal humans with no special defenses, and just rarely get hit.  A character with 5 PD and 4 ED, none resistant, will eventually get hit by a big attack.  By 4e or so, we got plot armor - ummm...I mean combat luck - to deal with the issue.  Prior to that, our group tended towards damage reduction that required the character be conscious and mobile.

No, the real issue is that the mechanics don’t match up with genre conventions. I pulled a stock suggested Skilled Normal for a Thug and he was taking Body Damage. I never seen Batman break a bone in the Batman:TAS nor elongated Man when he punched thugs.

[Hugh Neilson]

53 minutes ago, Ninja-Bear said:

No, the real issue is that the mechanics don’t match up with genre conventions. I pulled a stock suggested Skilled Normal for a Thug and he was taking Body Damage. I never seen Batman break a bone in the Batman:TAS nor elongated Man when he punched thugs.

Allowing automatic "pulling their punch" coupled with players not defaulting to maximum DC attacks would go a long way to addressing that issue.  I can accept that Bats leaves behind some bruised and battered thugs, maybe even with some fractures, possibly worse if he shows no restraint. Paraphrasing, there are seven ways to take  him down.  Three will be fatal.  Three will leave no long-term damage.  I choose the seventh.  He's young. He'll walk again...eventually."  That Batman has little, if any, restraint.

Bump a Thug's PD up to 4 and an 8d6 Punch will average no BOD if we allow automatic (no CV penalty) pulling a punch and the heroes do so. That averages 28 STUN, 24 past defenses, so one hit to STUN, 2 to KO, on average. For street level Supers, that seems pretty reasonable to me.

 

That 4 PD thug is also immune to BOD damage from a 2d6 (normal STR with no maneuver bonuses) punch, pulled or not. The mechanics would be just as unrealistic if street thugs took no BOD damage from an average 8 - 12 DC hit.

Edited August 18 by Hugh Neilson

[Cygnia]

[Ragitsu]

RPG wisdom #877285: Strange women in pools, you can trust; frail old men in abandoned subterranean structures should merit a degree of caution.

[Hugh Neilson]

4 hours ago, Ragitsu said:

RPG wisdom #877285: Strange women in pools, you can trust; frail old men in abandoned subterranean structures should merit a degree of caution.

Are you listening, Billy Batson?

[Rich McGee]

On 8/18/2024 at 9:21 AM, Ninja-Bear said:

Now when the captain hollers for bludgeoning weapons, I thought to myself, that’s odd?

I don't get it myself.  By the description this was some kind of WotC-era D&D-based game, yeah?  Blunt weapons are for skeletons, and if it was skeletal it should have been obvious (and raise some questions about how it's staying afloat).  Zombies aren't notably affected by different weapon types.

[Ninja-Bear]

7 hours ago, Rich McGee said:

I don't get it myself.  By the description this was some kind of WotC-era D&D-based game, yeah?  Blunt weapons are for skeletons, and if it was skeletal it should have been obvious (and raise some questions about how it's staying afloat).  Zombies aren't notably affected by different weapon types.

Well, this shark does have a vulnerability to bludgeoning weapons. In fifth though I think the tag of the weapon is interesting used. The description doesn’t matter until it does. Iow, it’s normal damage unless you are Resistant or Vulnerable to the weapon tag then it matters.  

[Rich McGee]

1 hour ago, Ninja-Bear said:

Well, this shark does have a vulnerability to bludgeoning weapons. In fifth though I think the tag of the weapon is interesting used. The description doesn’t matter until it does. Iow, it’s normal damage unless you are Resistant or Vulnerable to the weapon tag then it matters.  

I still don't understand why your character should have been cued in to "bludgeoning = undead" here.  Or has that become some kind of commonplace weakness for zombies of all stripes the way edged and piercing weapons have always sucked against skeletons?  And if so, why?  Crushing a zombie skull to destroy the brain seems no more effective than chopping through a rotting neck - although on a shark just finding a "neck" might be tricky. 

[Ninja-Bear]

1 hour ago, Rich McGee said:

I still don't understand why your character should have been cued in to "bludgeoning = undead" here.  Or has that become some kind of commonplace weakness for zombies of all stripes the way edged and piercing weapons have always sucked against skeletons?  And if so, why?  Crushing a zombie skull to destroy the brain seems no more effective than chopping through a rotting neck - although on a shark just finding a "neck" might be tricky. 

Not common placed. Although the DM when creating or modifying monsters are encouraged to grab abilities from other monsters and tack them on or cut them off as desired. I did look-zombies don’t have as a default vulnerability to Bludgeoning weapons. I did talk to my brother and when he read the one shot more in depth, if the shark got on the ship then it was supposed to spew out five skeletons. I think that is what the cue for bludgeoning was for. But hey, if the DM was going to give vulnerability to the shark (and we barely survived) I ain’t going to question it! 😃

[Rich McGee]

6 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

I did talk to my brother and when he read the one shot more in depth, if the shark got on the ship then it was supposed to spew out five skeletons. I think that is what the cue for bludgeoning was for.

Oh, now I get it.  Sure, if the captain's used to being boarded by zombie sharks full of skeletons then it all makes sense.

 

And people say comics are weird.