Someone Please Explain This to Me?

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Someone Please Explain This to Me?

 

Stun Multiplier of 1d6-1 means the multiplier will be 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. You're more likely to get a really low stun mod. then you are to get a really high stun mod. For the body itself, at small numbers of dice, rolls are more erratic. At higher numbers, the bell curve starts to assert itself.

 

In 22 years I have never had any player buy a killing attack because of the theoretical higher potential to get a really large amount of stun. It's not reliable enough to be useful.

 

Everyone'e experience differs in this regard. I've never seen it in practice, but our group tends to take the KA as "intended to do BOD" and rarely uses them on living targets.

 

If the defenses to DC ratio is fairly high, KA's gain a substantial advantage on average damage after defenses. At lower levels, the normal attack becomes more effective at getting STUN past defenses. About 2 - 2.5 defense per DC seems to be the breakpoint.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Someone Please Explain This to Me?

 

To my surprise' date=' so far no one is defending the status quo. However, ghost angel comes closest to doing so. [/quote']

 

If by status quo you mean the rules as written, well, they are hard to defend: almost everyone I know has some way of moderating the silly extremes that can occur. If by status quo, you mean the band, well, they are quite hard to defend too

 

 

 

Whereas I wouldn't call it any of those things. As I've pointed out' date=' I think, it seems to simulate reality quote well. What I strenuously object to is that it gives a player a tremendous advantage that [i']they did not pay for[/i].

 

Oh, and I don't consider Hit Locations off topic in this thread either. I think whether or not they're used, if they can be changed in implementation, etc, has a bearing on the balance (or lack of balance) between Killing and Normal.

 

I saw some other interesting things, but I'm reading and thinking for now.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

And riding a palindromedary

 

20 4d6 EB

13 +4d6 EB 14-

10 +4d6 EB 11-

07 +4d6 EB 8-

 

Total: 50 points

 

Is probably a reasonable approximation of 'reality' where small variations in where you hit can have bit varations in damage (replace the activation rolls with RSRs if you want it skill based), and you pay for what you get, and it has a pretty good chance of killing unarmoured normals. Well, it is a reasonable approximation for a certain value of 'reality' anyway...

 

One problem we have here is that everyone has their own version of reality, so unless we can agree a consensus reality we are probably going to spend a lot of time chasing our tails.

 

So...what do you want a killing attack to accomplish?

 

As for Hit Locations, well, I quite like hit locations but they do not solve the stun and body lotto that KAs generate. They also change gameplay, putting a premium on accurace over raw firepower. Again, that may be accurate, I have no real idea, at least in 'ideal' conditions. In the middle of a firefight I supect most combattants are more interested in staying alive than trying for the headshot.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Someone Please Explain This to Me?

 

It's not worth the time. Legacy of the 6e boards. Once people around these parts decide something is "bad", there's no changing their minds.

 

Stun Multiplier of 1d6-1 means the multiplier will be 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. You're more likely to get a really low stun mod. then you are to get a really high stun mod. For the body itself, at small numbers of dice, rolls are more erratic. At higher numbers, the bell curve starts to assert itself.

 

In 22 years I have never had any player buy a killing attack because of the theoretical higher potential to get a really large amount of stun. It's not reliable enough to be useful.

 

We change our mind...frequently...but some things just are bad.

 

I most often play superhero games, and that is where my main focus lies.

 

On 1d6-1, 3 results 'bounce' stun most of the time: 1,1,2 (you might get a point or two through with a 2).

 

1 result does 'average' damage: 3

 

2 results do significantly better than average damage, and often stun or even KO opponents: 4,5

 

Sure they are unreliable (Why is that a good thing? If it isn't why do we have them?)...although some would have it that such a variation of damage is realistic. Maybe it is against an unarmoured normal, but against someone with a hard flak jacket on it is simply wrong. (If it is only a power that 'works' against a very limited number of targets, why have we got it?)

 

Also the 'Stunned' result if often overlooked by the apologists: it is not simply about damage delivered but more importantly about winning the fight. In a single fight KA can let you down. Over 10 or 20 you'll win - even in a relatively low defence game - more often with a KA than an equivalent DC normal attack.

 

KA also overawes things like Force Wall and Entangle, making equivalent point powers much less valuable, and it means that building someone who is, say, functionally immune to fire becomes horrendously expensive. KA is the enemy of concept.

 

In (mainly) heroic games it is perfectly possible to die from a wound you hardly feel (and whilst that can reflect reality, it doesn't do so 1 in 3 hits).

 

I don't see it (in the RAW form at least) as either balanced or filling a needed niche in the game. Part of that is the way that KAs interact with defences, which also gives bizarre results a lot of the time, but that is part of the KA rule set.

 

No, I don't like KA but that is because I have playtested it over many years and it spoils games more often than it adds to them, and I have good, solid arguments to support my view, most of which are not simply anecdotal (but I have plenty of them too). It is not simply that I think KA is better than NA for the same price, there is much more too it than that.

 

What is KA good for, as it is? What does it do well? Why does it deserve a place in Hero?

[Markdoc]

Re: Someone Please Explain This to Me?

 

In 22 years I have never had any player buy a killing attack because of the theoretical higher potential to get a really large amount of stun. It's not reliable enough to be useful.

 

I'm not really an HKA partisan, so I don't really have a dog in this fight, but I've had many players buy KA's for exactly that reason, and heck, as a player, I've done it myself.

 

For "hard targets" with high defences, a KA is actually a much more reliable way of getting STUN through (about 1 hit in three will generate STUN significantly above the mean for a normal attack of similar cost). One hit in 3 is pretty reliable. If the target has defences approaching the mean of the attacks used - as Hugh points out, around 2.5 to 3 per DC - then KA will, on average, significantly outperform a regular EB and if the DEF/DC ratio is higher than that, a KA will still be effective - if somewhat spottily - whereas regular attacks will be essentially useless.

 

KA's are, in fact, very reliable: you can't predict their Stun Output from attack to attack, but over a single combat, where multiple attacks are thrown, that very rapidly averages out.

 

As I said, I don't really care - my games tend to have low DEF/DC ratios and virtually everyone has KAs anyway. But the math cannot be denied.

 

cheers, Mark

[Kenn]

Re: Someone Please Explain This to Me?

 

The math is such that nearly half the time, the stun generated will be at or below 2.5 x the number of DCs, which means that unless DEFs tend to be particularly low, about half the hits will have no effect.

 

As far as what's "significantly higher" well, that depends a lot on what one considers significant.

 

Here's the break down for 1d6 - 5d6; the first percentage is 0-2 x DC; the second is 2-2.5 x DC; the third is 2.5 - 4 x DC; 4-4.5 x DC the fourth; 4.5 - 5 x DC is the fifth and everything above 5 x DC is the sixth.

 

DC: 3 OR 1D6K ROLLS: 36

19 ROLLS BETWEEN 0 AND 6 IS 52.777% OF 36

0 ROLLS BETWEEN 7 AND 7 IS 0.000% OF 36

8 ROLLS BETWEEN 8 AND 12 IS 22.222% OF 36

0 ROLLS BETWEEN 13 AND 13 IS 0.000% OF 36

2 ROLLS BETWEEN 14 AND 15 IS 5.555% OF 36

7 ROLLS BETWEEN 16 AND 30 IS 19.444% OF 36

 

DC: 6 OR 2D6K ROLLS: 216

97 ROLLS BETWEEN 0 AND 12 IS 44.907% OF 216

12 ROLLS BETWEEN 13 AND 15 IS 5.555% OF 216

46 ROLLS BETWEEN 16 AND 24 IS 21.296% OF 216

8 ROLLS BETWEEN 25 AND 27 IS 3.703% OF 216

14 ROLLS BETWEEN 28 AND 30 IS 6.481% OF 216

39 ROLLS BETWEEN 31 AND 60 IS 18.055% OF 216

 

DC: 9 OR 3D6K ROLLS: 1296

538 ROLLS BETWEEN 0 AND 18 IS 41.512% OF 1296

78 ROLLS BETWEEN 19 AND 22 IS 6.018% OF 1296

308 ROLLS BETWEEN 23 AND 36 IS 23.765% OF 1296

69 ROLLS BETWEEN 37 AND 40 IS 5.324% OF 1296

77 ROLLS BETWEEN 41 AND 45 IS 5.941% OF 1296

226 ROLLS BETWEEN 46 AND 90 IS 17.438% OF 1296

 

DC: 12 OR 4D6K ROLLS: 7776

3113 ROLLS BETWEEN 0 AND 24 IS 40.033% OF 7776

596 ROLLS BETWEEN 25 AND 30 IS 7.664% OF 7776

1726 ROLLS BETWEEN 31 AND 48 IS 22.196% OF 7776

404 ROLLS BETWEEN 49 AND 54 IS 5.195% OF 7776

606 ROLLS BETWEEN 55 AND 60 IS 7.793% OF 7776

1331 ROLLS BETWEEN 61 AND 120 IS 17.116% OF 7776

 

DC: 15 OR 5D6K ROLLS: 46656

18204 ROLLS BETWEEN 0 AND 30 IS 39.017% OF 46656

2925 ROLLS BETWEEN 31 AND 37 IS 6.269% OF 46656

11388 ROLLS BETWEEN 38 AND 60 IS 24.408% OF 46656

2115 ROLLS BETWEEN 61 AND 67 IS 4.533% OF 46656

3387 ROLLS BETWEEN 68 AND 75 IS 7.259% OF 46656

8637 ROLLS BETWEEN 76 AND 150 IS 18.512% OF 46656

 

 

So yes, if you consider above 4 x DC significant, at larger numbers of dice one get a significantly higher amount of stun, in theory, about 1 in 3 shots. And 9 out of 20 times you'll be doing squat. The rest of the time, you'll be doing stun comparable to a normal attack.

 

So in comparison to an average normal attack of the same DCs, you'll do more stun, more often, and you'll do far less stun even more often. I fail to see why this is a problem. A lot of it does still depend on the typical defenses, amounts of stun, and REC rates of the opponents to see how effective favouring Killing Attacks would be, but I'm sure not convinced the mechanic is broken.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Someone Please Explain This to Me?

 

You'll do more stun against those high defense master villain opponents. And when the KA would be less advantageous, you switch your Multipower to a normal attack.

[Guest steamteck]

Re: Someone Please Explain This to Me?

 

You'll do more stun against those high defense master villain opponents. And when the KA would be less advantageous' date=' you switch your Multipower to a normal attack.[/quote']

 

 

Maybe YOU would but for our group they'll bounce most of the time especially if he sends his man eating monster after anyone and they really really need the damage. I still contend the" does almost nothing to the target" factor is way underestimated.

 

Personally I would prefer a straight add to damage rather than a doubling etc for hit locations. Maybe the same scale as skill levels for damage. for example aim for the head at a -4 and get two extra damage classes.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Someone Please Explain This to Me?

 

Maybe YOU would but for our group they'll bounce most of the time especially if he sends his man eating monster after anyone and they really really need the damage. I still contend the" does almost nothing to the target" factor is way underestimated.

 

Let's assume 12DC's, and the man eating monster has, say, 35 defenses - a very well defended target. A 12d6 normal attack will do between 35 and 49 pretty predictably, so it will average 7 STUN per hit. A 4d6 KA will average 14 BOD, so 14, 14, 28, 42, 56, 70 STUN, getting 0,0,0,7,21,35 past defenses. That's an average of 10.5 STUN versus the normal attack's 7, or a 50% improvement. This will be a long fight, so the averages will bear out over the course of the combat.

 

Make it 40 defenses and now the normal attack does 2, and the KA ,0,0,0,2,16,30, averaging 8, so 4x the normal attack.

 

Personally I would prefer a straight add to damage rather than a doubling etc for hit locations. Maybe the same scale as skill levels for damage. for example aim for the head at a -4 and get two extra damage classes.

 

Now this would help hit locations be useful, but not overwhelming, at all levels. This could make them much more viable in Supers gaming, for example, beneficial without being overwhelming. It's also consistent with the change to Haymakers from 4e to 5e. It would dovetail nicely with removal of the Stun multiple entirely.

 

It's so obvious once someone suggests it that I can't understand why it's never been suggested before!

[Netzilla]

Re: Someone Please Explain This to Me?

 

Maybe YOU would but for our group they'll bounce most of the time especially if he sends his man eating monster after anyone and they really really need the damage. I still contend the" does almost nothing to the target" factor is way underestimated.

 

Personally I would prefer a straight add to damage rather than a doubling etc for hit locations. Maybe the same scale as skill levels for damage. for example aim for the head at a -4 and get two extra damage classes.

 

If you don't trust the mathematics, try an experiment:

 

Roll 10 12d6 Normal Attacks against a 40 rDEF target and count the average damage done. Then do the same with 10 4d6 Killing Attacks. See which averages a higher damage total.

 

If we can get 10 people on these boards doing that, we have a sample set of 100 of each roll and can coallate the data to see what that gives us.

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Someone Please Explain This to Me?

 

If you don't trust the mathematics, try an experiment:

 

Roll 10 12d6 Normal Attacks against a 40 rDEF target and count the average damage done. Then do the same with 10 4d6 Killing Attacks. See which averages a higher damage total.

 

If we can get 10 people on these boards doing that, we have a sample set of 100 of each roll and can coallate the data to see what that gives us.

 

        Normal             Killing
     STUN   [color=DimGray] BODY[/color]    [color=DimGray]   BODY   [/color]STUN
01     49      [color=Silver][color=DimGray]14[/color]        [/color][color=DimGray]13      [/color]13
02     49      [color=DimGray]15        16      [/color]32
03     40      [color=DimGray]12        12      [/color]24
04     38      [color=DimGray]11        15      [/color]15
05     39      [color=DimGray]12        14      [/color]14
06     40      [color=DimGray]11        16      [/color]48
07     43      [color=DimGray]13        12      [/color]60
08     48      [color=DimGray]13        14      [/color]14
09     40      [color=DimGray]12        20      [/color]60
10     37      [color=DimGray]10        17      [/color]17

OK. Tried it. I felt as though I had generally thrown well for the normal dice and pretty poorly for the killing. As it turns out, I have done 48 STUN after defences for the killing attack and only 29 for the normal. In two of the killing attacks I have scored 20 STUN after defences which begins to approach a stun result amount of damage. None of the normal attacks would stun a PC with base CON.

 

 

Doc

 

PS: with a base 3x multiplier rather than random 1D6-1 I got 56 after defences - improvement there but only one that was approaching stun values...

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Someone Please Explain This to Me?

 

Normal Killing

STUN BODY BODY STUN

01 49 14 13 13

02 49 15 16 32

03 40 12 12 24

04 38 11 15 15

05 39 12 14 14

06 40 11 16 48

07 43 13 12 60

08 48 13 14 14

09 40 12 20 60

10 37 10 17 17

 

 

Hmm - going to have to learn how to do tables here, huh?

[Netzilla]

Re: Someone Please Explain This to Me?

 

Hmm - going to have to learn how to do tables here' date=' huh?[/quote']

 

Try putting tags around the table (using square brackets).

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Someone Please Explain This to Me?

 

Try putting tags around the table (using square brackets).

 

 

thank you!

[tesuji]

Re: Someone Please Explain This to Me?

 

My issues with KA stem from its ubiquity in HEROdom standard.

 

By making every pea-shooter and pocket knife do "killing damage" by default the mechanics that brings makes for odd designs in some campoaigns.

 

I think actually that for many genre, knives and normal guns ought to be standard damage, so that unarmored supers can work fine. Cyclops and Banshee and others dont get dropped by penny ante normal guys.

 

Now the answer in HEROdom is to concoct many diverse ways to buy "anti-ka defenses" like c ombat luck and such - a mechanical workaround.

 

However to me the better solution is to let most of those "normal day" attacks be built using "normal damage" and you reserve KA for specifically lethal variety -

 

say in a sci-fi game where guns do normal damage but laser swords are KA damage. getting shot hurts but lasers are lethal!!!

 

sure i can build around it using NND does body and so forth...

 

but telling your typical brick that even though he is tough as nails he is at risk from a 22 because it might generate 60 stun and we cap brick defenses at 40... bah.

 

and yeah the whole "its supposed to be generating more body and less stun but the reality is more stun damage" bothers me too.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Someone Please Explain This to Me?

 

At a campaign level - another option is to rule anything built with Real Weapon doesn't work against Supers, or Superes get double defenses against.

 

It's not really a "problem" with the System since how you build a weapon really is a Game Decision.

[Guest steamteck]

Re: Someone Please Explain This to Me?

 

        Normal             Killing
     STUN   [color=DimGray] BODY[/color]    [color=DimGray]   BODY   [/color]STUN
01     42      [color=Silver][color=DimGray]12[/color]        [/color][color=DimGray]11      [/color]11
02     55      [color=DimGray]17        10      10[/color]
03     43      [color=DimGray]12        14      [/color]42
04     34      [color=DimGray]10        07      [/color]21
05     38      [color=DimGray]13        14      [/color]14
06     37      [color=DimGray]11        18      [/color]18
07     45      [color=DimGray]14        15      [/color]30
08     47      [color=DimGray]15        16[/color]      48 
09     47      [color=DimGray]16        13      [/color]52
10     46      [color=DimGray]13        14      [/color]56

 

 

Here you go. I tried it also. The statistics crapped out on me. I just roll poorly for KAs . Karma or something. I really expected my 10 to bear out what should be by the math. Oh well! Small sampling and all that. I don't necessarily mistrust the math. Its those multiple times when it does no damage I think is an equal problem gameplay wise. The KAs did get higher total stun and on a basic CON would have gotten a stun result a couple of times OTOH

 

What do you think about my idea for hit locations? I did post it on the 6th edition boards before they got shut down BTW.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Someone Please Explain This to Me?

 

The laws of probability reset with each instance. Your ten didn't "bear out by the math" because while the math is sound - it's just theory and not practice.

 

Ergo - I haven't had any problems. Despite the math. . .

[Kenn]

Re: Someone Please Explain This to Me?

 

The average stun roll on 1d6 Killing is 9.333333. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something.

 

That's 3.1111 STUN per 1 DC. 0.3889 less then the average stun on 1 DC of normal damage.

 

The volatility of killing attacks means that one MIGHT get the needed higher rolls faster. But that's not reliable.

 

Hugh's example of the 12d6 normal vs 4d6 K is broken because he assumed that the BODY roll was average every time and the STUN was the only part changing. 37.3333 STUN is the average STUN damage for 4d6 Killing. How that would break down over just six rolls is impossible to predict but after an average of 6 hits with the KA vs a 35 DEF monster would be a TOTAL of 14 Stun, where 42 STUN vs 35 DEF 6 times is a total of 42.

 

BODY: 1 STUN MOD: 1 STUN: 1 ROLL: 1 TOTAL: 1

BODY: 1 STUN MOD: 1 STUN: 1 ROLL: 2 TOTAL: 2

BODY: 1 STUN MOD: 2 STUN: 2 ROLL: 3 TOTAL: 4

BODY: 1 STUN MOD: 3 STUN: 3 ROLL: 4 TOTAL: 7

BODY: 1 STUN MOD: 4 STUN: 4 ROLL: 5 TOTAL: 11

BODY: 1 STUN MOD: 5 STUN: 5 ROLL: 6 TOTAL: 16

BODY: 2 STUN MOD: 1 STUN: 2 ROLL: 7 TOTAL: 18

BODY: 2 STUN MOD: 1 STUN: 2 ROLL: 8 TOTAL: 20

BODY: 2 STUN MOD: 2 STUN: 4 ROLL: 9 TOTAL: 24

BODY: 2 STUN MOD: 3 STUN: 6 ROLL: 10 TOTAL: 30

BODY: 2 STUN MOD: 4 STUN: 8 ROLL: 11 TOTAL: 38

BODY: 2 STUN MOD: 5 STUN: 10 ROLL: 12 TOTAL: 48

BODY: 3 STUN MOD: 1 STUN: 3 ROLL: 13 TOTAL: 51

BODY: 3 STUN MOD: 1 STUN: 3 ROLL: 14 TOTAL: 54

BODY: 3 STUN MOD: 2 STUN: 6 ROLL: 15 TOTAL: 60

BODY: 3 STUN MOD: 3 STUN: 9 ROLL: 16 TOTAL: 69

BODY: 3 STUN MOD: 4 STUN: 12 ROLL: 17 TOTAL: 81

BODY: 3 STUN MOD: 5 STUN: 15 ROLL: 18 TOTAL: 96

BODY: 4 STUN MOD: 1 STUN: 4 ROLL: 19 TOTAL: 100

BODY: 4 STUN MOD: 1 STUN: 4 ROLL: 20 TOTAL: 104

BODY: 4 STUN MOD: 2 STUN: 8 ROLL: 21 TOTAL: 112

BODY: 4 STUN MOD: 3 STUN: 12 ROLL: 22 TOTAL: 124

BODY: 4 STUN MOD: 4 STUN: 16 ROLL: 23 TOTAL: 140

BODY: 4 STUN MOD: 5 STUN: 20 ROLL: 24 TOTAL: 160

BODY: 5 STUN MOD: 1 STUN: 5 ROLL: 25 TOTAL: 165

BODY: 5 STUN MOD: 1 STUN: 5 ROLL: 26 TOTAL: 170

BODY: 5 STUN MOD: 2 STUN: 10 ROLL: 27 TOTAL: 180

BODY: 5 STUN MOD: 3 STUN: 15 ROLL: 28 TOTAL: 195

BODY: 5 STUN MOD: 4 STUN: 20 ROLL: 29 TOTAL: 215

BODY: 5 STUN MOD: 5 STUN: 25 ROLL: 30 TOTAL: 240

BODY: 6 STUN MOD: 1 STUN: 6 ROLL: 31 TOTAL: 246

BODY: 6 STUN MOD: 1 STUN: 6 ROLL: 32 TOTAL: 252

BODY: 6 STUN MOD: 2 STUN: 12 ROLL: 33 TOTAL: 264

BODY: 6 STUN MOD: 3 STUN: 18 ROLL: 34 TOTAL: 282

BODY: 6 STUN MOD: 4 STUN: 24 ROLL: 35 TOTAL: 306

BODY: 6 STUN MOD: 5 STUN: 30 ROLL: 36 TOTAL: 336

 

DC: 3 OR 1D6 ROLLS: 36

A TOTAL OF 336 STUN WAS ACHIEVED.

AVERAGE STUN FOR ALL 36 ROLLS IS 9.33

[prestidigitator]

Re: Someone Please Explain This to Me?

 

Personally I would prefer a straight add to damage rather than a doubling etc for hit locations. Maybe the same scale as skill levels for damage. for example aim for the head at a -4 and get two extra damage classes.

 

That is a good one. IMO it'd work well with linear addition (qualitatively) increasing the described effect "exponentially" as well. Often defences are at a level where just adding a couple DCs has a significant effect on the net amount of damage anyway.

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Someone Please Explain This to Me?

 

The average stun roll on 1d6 Killing is 9.333333. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something.

 

Yeah, but the story lies somewhere other than the average. Average means not so much as far as HERO combat is concerned. Damage is lumpy because everything that is less than the defence might as well be zero. Anything above the STUN# is a bonus due to the added effect.

 

So, the big thing about KA with the 1D6-1 is how often you get results that give you STUN# and possibly the average damage that gets through the defence.

 

People have looked at this before and there is a point for every combination of DC and defence where KA begins to average more through defences and stun the opponent more often. Most games play at points where similar DCs of normal and killing ar past the point of parity.

 

Doc

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Someone Please Explain This to Me?

 

What do you think about my idea for hit locations? I did post it on the 6th edition boards before they got shut down BTW.

 

I repped it.

 

I think this is the solution. Martial Arts went from multiples to adders from 3e to 4e. 5e took away the Haymaker multiple and made it an adder. Can we see which way the wind is blowing here?

 

That would leave KA the only multiplier, wouldn't it? We can't have that...

 

So I support the 5 points = 1d6 approach, with consideration of an optional rule in the Advanced Guide for adding volatility to ANY/ALL attacks.

[Kenn]

Re: Someone Please Explain This to Me?

 

Yeah, but the story lies somewhere other than the average. Average means not so much as far as HERO combat is concerned. Damage is lumpy because everything that is less than the defence might as well be zero. Anything above the STUN# is a bonus due to the added effect.

 

So, the big thing about KA with the 1D6-1 is how often you get results that give you STUN# and possibly the average damage that gets through the defence.

 

People have looked at this before and there is a point for every combination of DC and defence where KA begins to average more through defences and stun the opponent more often. Most games play at points where similar DCs of normal and killing ar past the point of parity.

 

Doc

 

I take it that you're referring to that do 3d6 K to 20 DEF will do more than 20 approximately 56% of the time and the average STUN for those 56 times will be about 20.8.

 

And that for 9d6 Normal against that same 20 DEF will do more than 20 98.5% of the time and that the average of those hits is around 11.7.

 

And at that point, out of 100 attempted shots the former should do around 1163 STUN total and the latter will do 1152.

 

So for 9 DC, against 20 DEF, a single shot past that DEF will be a more likely to stun more people, and in a protracted battle, the amount of stun done to the opponent should be close to equal (but favour the Killing Attack.)

 

Of course, that "having 44% of your hits doing no stun at all" tends to skew the effects as well. As do things like normal attacks generally doing more knockback, and, of course, how ofter you're hitting and how often your opponent is hitting you.

 

Which means I'm still not convinced that the killing attack is the better tool, just a different one.

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Someone Please Explain This to Me?

 

What do you think about my idea for hit locations? I did post it on the 6th edition boards before they got shut down BTW.

 

I agree with Hugh, it is good to be bringing the mechanics together and this would be one way.

 

I think when thinking about it, the idea of a killing attack is to kill. Normal attacks rarely do BODY damage. If we are looking for a mechanism then it should be one that reliably delivers BODY damage.

 

What about adding dice to BODY rather than to normal damage?

 

Doc

[Netzilla]

Re: Someone Please Explain This to Me?

 

I take it that you're referring to that do 3d6 K to 20 DEF will do more than 20 approximately 56% of the time and the average STUN for those 56 times will be about 20.8.

 

And that for 9d6 Normal against that same 20 DEF will do more than 20 98.5% of the time and that the average of those hits is around 11.7.

 

And at that point, out of 100 attempted shots the former should do around 1163 STUN total and the latter will do 1152.

 

So for 9 DC, against 20 DEF, a single shot past that DEF will be a more likely to stun more people, and in a protracted battle, the amount of stun done to the opponent should be close to equal (but favour the Killing Attack.)

 

Of course, that "having 44% of your hits doing no stun at all" tends to skew the effects as well. As do things like normal attacks generally doing more knockback, and, of course, how ofter you're hitting and how often your opponent is hitting you.

 

Which means I'm still not convinced that the killing attack is the better tool, just a different one.

 

I'm not sure you're comparing the right numbers. For a 9DC Normal attack against 20 DEF, the average Stun comes out to 11.52 (see attached spreadsheet). For the 9DC Killing, it's 11.57. So, at that level, you're pretty much at a point of pairity. Bring that DEF up to 30, however, and the KA does an average of 6.72 while the normal is at only 2.89 (less than 1/2 the damage).

 

Again, if you don't trust the math, roll 10 9d6 normal attacks against 30 DEF and 10 3d6 kill attacks against the same DEF and see what you actually roll. Feel free to roll Knockback for each and include those numbers to see what impact that might have. I'm betting the Knockback won't generate enough dice to do damage past 30 DEF.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Someone Please Explain This to Me?

 

I agree with Hugh, it is good to be bringing the mechanics together and this would be one way.

 

I think when thinking about it, the idea of a killing attack is to kill. Normal attacks rarely do BODY damage. If we are looking for a mechanism then it should be one that reliably delivers BODY damage.

 

What about adding dice to BODY rather than to normal damage?

 

What if hit locations affected BOD more than STUN for KA's and STUN more than BOD for normal attacks?

 

Let's assume a Chest shot is neutral (no added or reduced DC's), a shot that currently gets a 1x Stun Multiple gets -4 DC, 2x Stun Multiple imposes -2 DC, a 3x gets no change, 4x gets +2 DC and 5x gets +4 DC.

 

What if, for KA's, the modifier is only for BOD (or only half for STUN but full for BOD) and for normal attacks, it's only for STUN (or full for STUN and half for BOD)?