Killing Damage in 6e

[lensman]

Re: Killing Damage in 6e

 

Has anyone generated a 6ed Hit Location chart? Using the d3 STUNx

[IndianaJoe3]

Re: Killing Damage in 6e

 

The Hit Location Table hasn't changed between editions.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Killing Damage in 6e

 

The Hit Location Table hasn't changed between editions.

 

Which is, IMO, a good thing.

The nerfing of KA's in Standard Superheroic games really, really feels, to me, like a significant step backwards in the Universal Toolkit nature of the system, entrenching Silver Age Cinematic reality as the default "Basic" combat system. Without hit locations, Killing damage weapons no longer seem to have any close parallels, effects'-wise, to their real world counterparts. The benchmarks no longer seem to match experiential data, so Heroic level games that don't use Hit Locations become like Sunday Morning Cartoons or the A Team.

 

I really think 6th tipped the scales too far, but that is admittedly my opinion.

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Killing Damage in 6e

 

On the other hand, no more StunX Lotto. That's a good thing, IMO.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Killing Damage in 6e

 

On the other hand' date=' no more StunX Lotto. That's a good thing, IMO.[/quote']

 

I do realize I was in the minority among posters here in that I never minded the Stun Lotto.

I've always thought the predictability/lack of volatility in Normal Attacks was the real problem.

Multiple dice generate a bell curve. The more dice, the more difficult it is to hit the ends of the curve.

Damage in the Real World is unpredictable.

I've been Impaired and/or Disabled by Body damage from Normal attacks before, none of which would have done so according to the default system. I've also taken Body from (what would be) Killing Attacks, with effects ranging from "I got cut?" (Bad Stun Roll) to "I'ma goin' into shock, now, guys!" and falling over (really high Stun roll) on approximately the same severity of wound.

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Killing Damage in 6e

 

That predictability is why I prefer Normal attacks ... I like being able to think to myself, 'I can expect THIS' to happen, both as a player and DM. It makes it much easier to create balanced battles.

 

As far as 'not like the real world' goes ... that's simply not a priority for me. I don't really want to model the real world in my gaming; I want more cinematic reality, for lack of a better term. I play superheroes and high fantasy or high science-fiction (Star Trek or Star Wars stuff). The more 'realistic' the game world/system is, the less interested I tend to be.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Killing Damage in 6e

 

That predictability is why I prefer Normal attacks ... I like being able to think to myself, 'I can expect THIS' to happen, both as a player and DM. It makes it much easier to create balanced battles.

 

As far as 'not like the real world' goes ... that's simply not a priority for me. I don't really want to model the real world in my gaming; I want more cinematic reality, for lack of a better term. I play superheroes and high fantasy or high science-fiction (Star Trek or Star Wars stuff). The more 'realistic' the game world/system is, the less interested I tend to be.

 

Aye, which is why (before I bailed on the Great Seatac KA Debate) I was pushing for variable levels of Volatility as part of 6th.

Different strokes and all... I don't wanna call anyone's HERO experience "Badwrongfun", but I prefer my toolkits to not have such blatant built in assumptions. Hero has been moving away from such assumptions, slowly but steadily, for decades and I feel that the choice made for KA's in 6th overcorrected and thus established a NEW system based assumption.

 

I don't begrudge anyone their choice to play Silver Age, I just dislike having to retcon the system to do Iron as well.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Killing Damage in 6e

 

Which is, IMO, a good thing.

The nerfing of KA's in Standard Superheroic games really, really feels, to me, like a significant step backwards in the Universal Toolkit nature of the system, entrenching Silver Age Cinematic reality as the default "Basic" combat system. Without hit locations, Killing damage weapons no longer seem to have any close parallels, effects'-wise, to their real world counterparts. The benchmarks no longer seem to match experiential data, so Heroic level games that don't use Hit Locations become like Sunday Morning Cartoons or the A Team.

 

I really think 6th tipped the scales too far, but that is admittedly my opinion.

 

I get the not liking the reduction in Stun - but Damage Class for Damage Class KAs do more damage than NAs, which isn't particularly "Silver Age" to me. How does "they do random amounts of Stun, sometimes massive amounts" more or less Silver Age when the Body Damage they do is unchanged?

 

But then, they've always been sufficiently good at Killing things in every Heroic Game I've played in, with or without the Stun Lotto (however you feel about that, I hated it).

 

[from a decidedly NOT Silver Age gamer]

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Killing Damage in 6e

 

Is it really that difficult a thing to houserule in, though? I use the d3 StunX in my 5e game with no issues, so I can't see why you just opting to use the d6-1 in your 6e games (assuming you play 6e) causing a lot of hoopla.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Killing Damage in 6e

 

Which is, IMO, a good thing.

The nerfing of KA's in Standard Superheroic games really, really feels, to me, like a significant step backwards in the Universal Toolkit nature of the system, entrenching Silver Age Cinematic reality as the default "Basic" combat system.

 

KA's are "nerfed" if one assumes the standard for the game is that character death will be rare, so resistant defenses will be high. In such a game, killing attacks will be nerfed, and rightly so. Their purpose is to kill, not to KO, which is not the desired mechanic in a game where death is to be a rarity. If you want a game where character death is a much more significant threat, restricting resistant defenses to make killing attacks effective works fine. If those 20 - 30 defense Supers are permitted no more than 1/3 of their defenses to be resistant, I suspect you'll find that 4d6 KA is quite effective at delivering lethal damage, as compared to a 12d6 normal attack delivering non-lethal damage.

 

KA's being nerfed in games where killing is rare and difficult seems quite appropriate to the toolbox - they are not an appropriate tool for such a game.

 

Without hit locations' date=' Killing damage weapons no longer seem to have any close parallels, effects'-wise, to their real world counterparts. The benchmarks no longer seem to match experiential data, so Heroic level games that don't use Hit Locations become like Sunday Morning Cartoons or the A Team.[/quote']

 

Emphasis added. If you want more volatility, use the hit location chart. Oddly, while the Stun Multiple has been an issue in Supers games, the Hit Location table seems to have been much less an issue, if at all, in heroic games. I attribute this to two things. First, defenses are typically lower in Heroic games, so damage is getting through. In a Supers game, very high defense targets are often routinely stunned by KA's when a normal attack could not hope to achieve such a result. Same cost for a more effective attack fails my definition of "balance". Second, hit locations also augment normal attacks - a head shot with either KA or Blast is enhanced in effectiveness.

 

The defense of the stun multiple is generally that it averages less STUN per DC, which is true. But how much STUN isn't really the issue - how much STUN gets past defenses matters. If your opponent has 25 defenses, it doesn't matter whether your attack rolls 1 STUN or 25, he's unaffected. So, attacked by a 12d6 normal attack, average 42 STUN, he takes 17 stun per hit. Make that a 4d6 KA, and assume average 14 BOD roll, he will take no STUN 1/3 of the time, then 3, 17, 31 and 45 STUN each 1/6 of the time, for an average of 16 STUN - just 1 STUN less, more BOD damage, and probably stunning the target on 1/3 of hits. The attacks are no longer equivalent in value.

 

I really think 6th tipped the scales too far' date=' but that is admittedly my opinion.[/quote']

 

Other approaches could be taken. We could have moved the KA to, say, 1d6 per 5 points. Add STUN like normal, and subtract 1 for every 2d6 (round up). Add BOD like normal, except a 1 still does 1 BOD. 12d6 averages 36 STUN (old model averaged 37 1/3) and average BOD is 14 (just like the old model). Similar averages, but no more volatility - hit locations could be the same regardless of attack type. And, again, no more KA's selected because they are more effective at Stunning the target and/or getting STUN damage to a high defense target.

[Chris Goodwin]

Re: Killing Damage in 6e

 

Other approaches could be taken. We could have moved the KA to' date=' say, 1d6 per 5 points. Add STUN like normal, and subtract 1 for every 2d6 (round up). Add BOD like normal, except a 1 still does 1 BOD. 12d6 averages 36 STUN (old model averaged 37 1/3) and average BOD is 14 (just like the old model). Similar averages, but no more volatility - hit locations could be the same regardless of attack type. And, again, no more KA's selected because they are more effective at Stunning the target and/or getting STUN damage to a high defense target.[/quote']

 

I recall suggesting something like this in SETAC, and the response was a near-unanimous "Oh hell no!"

 

Every solution that was not "reduce the STUNx to 1d3" was either soundly put down or opened up a large can of worms. There were some doozies, too: reverse the normal and killing mechanics; get rid of the killing mechanic altogether and use normal dice with various mods. I think someone even suggested the I Ching at one point.

 

This was really the least-worst of all solutions and the reason for ghost-angel's signature quote.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Killing Damage in 6e

 

If you want more volatility, use the hit location chart. Oddly, while the Stun Multiple has been an issue in Supers games, the Hit Location table seems to have been much less an issue, if at all, in heroic games. I attribute this to two things. First, defenses are typically lower in Heroic games, so damage is getting through. In a Supers game, very high defense targets are often routinely stunned by KA's when a normal attack could not hope to achieve such a result. Same cost for a more effective attack fails my definition of "balance". Second, hit locations also augment normal attacks - a head shot with either KA or Blast is enhanced in effectiveness.

 

This was the core of my Volatility arguments in the early days of the SEATAC KA debate (before my life imploded and I stopped having the free time to debate game axioms). by adding a multiplicative factor to Normal Damage as well, it increased Normal Damage Volatility to the point where the Stun Lotto was suddenly much lessened.

 

I recall suggesting something like this in SETAC, and the response was a near-unanimous "Oh hell no!"

 

Every solution that was not "reduce the STUNx to 1d3" was either soundly put down or opened up a large can of worms. There were some doozies, too: reverse the normal and killing mechanics; get rid of the killing mechanic altogether and use normal dice with various mods. I think someone even suggested the I Ching at one point.

 

This was really the least-worst of all solutions and the reason for ghost-angel's signature quote.

 

Reverse?

Gods, I hope my proposal wasn't THAT soundly misunderstood.

My suggestion was that Low Volatility games use the Normal mechanics for both types of attacks (with some tweaking like Hugh mentioned to balance effects to taste), and High Volatility games that'd use Killing mechanics, also with adjustments (IIRC, my base idea was to give normal attacks an integral +1 Stun to make up for the "Reduced Penetration" type effect that is the inversion of the Partial AVLD effect you get with KA's.)

 

In any case, I fully understand how this came to be, I was there, too. At least to start

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Killing Damage in 6e

 

That predictability is why I prefer Normal attacks ... I like being able to think to myself, 'I can expect THIS' to happen, both as a player and DM. It makes it much easier to create balanced battles.

 

As far as 'not like the real world' goes ... that's simply not a priority for me. I don't really want to model the real world in my gaming; I want more cinematic reality, for lack of a better term. I play superheroes and high fantasy or high science-fiction (Star Trek or Star Wars stuff). The more 'realistic' the game world/system is, the less interested I tend to be.

 

This is why my core Hero group, way back in the day, settled on pretty much ALWAYS using Hit Locations (even for Supers) and standardized in our heroic games (90% of what we played) using the roll under half/max damage criticals. As 've mentioned before, it alters the way you have to design your campign, but is no less predictable. In fact, it's actualy kinda MORE so, because when looking at averages, KA volatility means you can only sorta-kinda expect an average roll (except in larger sample sizes). whereas designing with max damage in mind gives you solid benchmarks.... if a particular attack will penetrate 4 cm of steel plate in the real world, it becomes easy to reverse engineer from the Def/Body. Crits become "A solid hit that imparts all it's energy" non crits become slightly off target hits.

 

It's a paradigm shift for most HERO players (mainly in the way the design characters) but it works really well to impart that gritty hardcore and potentially fatal game style that you occasional see in games like Morrow Project, Fringeworthy, or Phoenix Command, all of which played better in the Hero System.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Killing Damage in 6e

 

I recall suggesting something like this in SETAC, and the response was a near-unanimous "Oh hell no!"

 

Every solution that was not "reduce the STUNx to 1d3" was either soundly put down or opened up a large can of worms. There were some doozies, too: reverse the normal and killing mechanics; get rid of the killing mechanic altogether and use normal dice with various mods.

 

This was really the least-worst of all solutions and the reason for ghost-angel's signature quote.

 

I agree - there were a variety of different suggestions, and this one works. I think much of the problem in its reception is perception. KA and Normal Attack in Supers were both viable choices because both could be relied on to KO credible opponents. The change to KA relegates it, in a four colour Supers game, to a niche power role. But that is because it's purpose is now clearly to kill, and not to be an effective tool to Stun or KO the target. It is true to its role, and its role has a limited place in four colour Supers.

 

Where we used to choose between KA and Normal attack, I think we now can choose between normal attack and AP attack. The reduction of AP price makes such an attack viable as a Super's primary attack, where they were previously relegated to the Swiss Army Multipower, rarely selected and used.

 

This was the core of my Volatility arguments in the early days of the SEATAC KA debate (before my life imploded and I stopped having the free time to debate game axioms). by adding a multiplicative factor to Normal Damage as well' date=' it increased Normal Damage Volatility to the point where the Stun Lotto was suddenly much lessened.[/quote']

 

Pretty sure we had some discussions about breaking down between Normal and Killing, and Low Volatility/High Volatility as well. I think we discussed high volatility normal attacks having a full 1d6 multiplier, and -1 BOD per 2d6 rolled, so a 12DC High Volatility Normal Attack became 4d6 (average 14-2 = 12) x 1-6 = 12 - 72 STUN with an average BOD roll. Low Volatility KA was described more or less as set out above - 1d6 per DC with higher average BOD and lower average STUN.

 

We also have "no volatility", being standard effect.

 

I think that was workable, and the most "toolkit" of all the approaches, but also the most complex. These options might make good fodder for APG III if such ever comes to pass.

[Chris Goodwin]

Re: Killing Damage in 6e

 

Reverse?

Gods, I hope my proposal wasn't THAT soundly misunderstood.

 

No, that one was mine.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Killing Damage in 6e

 

I think that was workable, and the most "toolkit" of all the approaches, but also the most complex. These options might make good fodder for APG III if such ever comes to pass.

 

I suspect this would fill me with glee.

More Tools for the Toolkit!

(Blood for the Blood God!)

[Beast]

Re: Killing Damage in 6e

 

looking back at this thread I see we might have somebody's sock puppet that got discarded with only 9 posts

I was using sound logic based on the engine being used

 

Hee hee hee... I appreciate your mirth.

 

Also, I encourage you to use sound logic. Your opinions are interesting, but the logic by which you support them is not.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Killing Damage in 6e

 

RE hit locations, a couple of thoughts.

 

As has been pointed out, the hit location crart has not changed, so even though KA's now do 1-3 as a stun multiplier, games with hit locations still do 1-5 as a multiplier.

 

So, for example, if you are using hit locations with a 2d6 killing attack, and you hit someone in the head, you roll 2-12 BODY, then multiply by 5 (it is a head hit) for 10 to 60 BODY, then subtract relevant defences from the Body damage before multiplying the remainder by 2. So against a superhero with 24 PD, all of which is resistant, the bullet bounces off causing no lasting damge, probably not even a scratch, but has a good chance to stun and possibly KO the target. That is a 6DC attack.

 

Scootch that up to a reasonably standard 4d6 KA and you are looking at no Body damage again (the most you can roll on 4d6 being 24, the same as the resistant PD total) but 20 to 120 stun (0 to 96 through defences).

 

The problem with using hit location in superhero games is that:

 

1. no one can realistically afford defences to deal with that kind of damage, and

2. there is then a massive premium on high DCV (the only effective defence) and high OCV (because being ABLE to hit someone in the head reliably will be a far better point spend than increasing your damage capacity)

 

Hero is not like a lot of other games in that we have defences that subtract from damage totals. Hit locations utterly skew the basic mechanics for superhero games. You either have to homogenise all the characters, so that Bricks have as good a CV as Martial Artists and Martial Artists have defences that are as good as a Brick's (which, actually, is what we have with the sample characters in 6e: everyone has 8 CV + 2-4 skill levels and around 20 DEF) - or you abandon the idea of a Brick character being easy to hit but hard to hurt and just go into a CV arms race.

 

Think about it: +8 OCV is only 16 points in skill levels for the one trick pony attack. That effectively doubles your STUN output. That works for normal attacks too but is particularly pronounced for KAs where the volatility (from fewer base dice) means that extreme results are more likely, and KAs using hit locations can substantially execeed the possible STUn of a similar DC normal attack.

 

Combine that with critical hit rules and you get an even more extreme distortion of what makes an effectvie character.

 

On a side point, one of the things that I have never really liked about the critical hit table as presented is that there is a fixed ratio between BODY and STUN. that makes no sense to me and does not do a good job of simulating reality. The only saving grace of the old stun lotto was that you COULD get hit with a near fatal blow but not really notice until you bled out, or get hit with a modest clip to the head that nonetheless KO'd you.

 

These problems are a lot less pronounced in Heroic games because:

1. there is less potential for big CV differences, and

2. there is less variation in defence totals, and no one (well hardly anyone) will have natural resistant defences

 

There seems to me to be a fundamental problem here: you NEED hit locations to make a game properly deadly: a .357 Magnum Colt Python can not one-shot kill a 10 Body normal BUT you run into problems with runaway STUN dmage: STUN maxima are 3x Body totals (5x for KAs with hit locations) and we've just never built characters to take that kind of damage, and if we did, non-critical hits would be trivial to them.

 

It comes back to this for me: 5e KAs (and 6e KAs too, especially if you do use hit locations) are good for two things in superheroic games: trashing entangles and doing lots of STUN. I know we are not supposed to in any way relate the NAME of a power wiith what it does, but killing attacks, certainly in superheroic games, have never been about KILLING.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Killing Damage in 6e

 

8 PSL's to cancel the modifiers for head shots becomes amazingly powerful in a Supers game using head shots. The defensive power of choice becomes "no hit locations"

[Istaran]

Re: Killing Damage in 6e

 

I know head shots with normal attacks are x2 STUN. I don't recall if that is before or after defenses.

If it's after defenses, then 12d6 (normal) is 12-72 STUN, -24 PD = 0-48 STUN, doubled is 0-96. The same max as your 4d6 KA example.

If it's before defenses, then 12d6 (normal)x2 is 24-144 STUN, -24 PD = 0-120 STUN (and none of that is being clipped up to 0).

The 4x and 5x locations do more STUN from normal attacks too.

 

On the other hand your example of all 24 PD being resistant does not ring true to me (at least not typical). Usually at least some PD is non-resistant, which means a high roll on the 4d6 KA could get BODY through, while the normal attack cannot. (And, as mentioned, resistant defenses can be capped if desired to enforce some lethality.)

 

Because the 4x and 5x locations all do double STUN from normal, their inclusion on the hit chart does not restore KAs to the best plan for dealing STUN, and I'm not sure it even gives them greater odd for stunning compared to targetting those locations with normal attacks.

 

4d6 KA vs head (24 rPD) averages 14 BODY, 60 STUN - 24 PD = 0 BODY, 36 STUN.

12d6 n vs head (24 rPD) averages 12 BODY, 42 STUN (x2)

(after defenses) = 36 STUN through defenses

(before defenses) = 60 STUN through defenses

 

(I'm becoming more convinced it is, or should be, doubled after defenses. It also helps keep hand hits from bouncing entirely)

If CON > 35, KA might stun more often since it is more volatile. If CON < 35, normal will stun more often because it is more reliable.

[Greywind]

Re: Killing Damage in 6e

 

As for Killing Attacks being volatile, I look at Wolverine and think, "yep. He's volatile."

[Chris Goodwin]

Re: Killing Damage in 6e

 

It comes back to this for me: 5e KAs (and 6e KAs too' date=' especially if you do use hit locations) are good for two things in superheroic games: trashing entangles and doing lots of STUN. I know we are not supposed to in any way relate the NAME of a power wiith what it does, but killing attacks, certainly in superheroic games, have never been about KILLING.[/quote']

 

...because of five and a half editions of arms race character builds that require you to hit the Stun Lotto jackpot to take them down. Enough defenses to stop the BODY is cheap in a superhero level game, but enough to reliably stop the BODY and STUN is prohibitively expensive. As a result, characters, regardless of concept, are built with enough resistant defenses to block the BODY. In fact, in 1st-3rd edition, for a reasonable amount of points you could, from a Killing Attack, either block most of the STUN but few BODY (low Resistant/high Normal defenses) or most/all of the BODY but still be vulnerable to the Stun Lotto - every point that went into normal defenses was a point that wasn't protecting you from BODY loss, and who wants to lose their character!

 

In 6e, the weight has shifted, but we've still got 30 years of players (the majority still) who haven't unlearned The Old Ways.

 

3rd edition Champions was full of cautions about how only villains should use Killing Attacks, because Heroes Don't Kill. If you were building characters the way the writers expected them to be built, you'd stay away from Killing Attacks because your expected targets would probably die and That Wouldn't Be Heroic.

 

One (unpleasant) way I can see to fix it is to sit down with the players beforehand, make sure they understand what kind of game it's going to be, and be absolutely brutal about kicking out the players who don't want to play in that game, because it only takes one player to screw it up.

[Istaran]

Re: Killing Damage in 6e

 

8 PSL's to cancel the modifiers for head shots becomes amazingly powerful in a Supers game using head shots. The defensive power of choice becomes "no hit locations"

 

I bought this once in a heroic game for a rogue/assassin type character. Everyone else had 2d6 KA or equivalent. I had 1d6KA, x3 autofire, that was always headshots. There was no question that mine was "amazingly powerful".

 

Going from heroic to superheroic, all the numbers scale up. THat 24 rPD super might laugh at my multiple headshot 3 DC attack, but nothing I'm actually going to fight against can shrug off those kinds of blows. (Unless they're automatons that ignore STUN or the like, in which I have the classic rogue's weakness?)

[Sean Waters]

Re: Killing Damage in 6e

 

The problem with both the KA multiplier and the hit location tables is that they do use multipliers, which means you get enormous leaps in the damage. Perhaps we have it all backwards. Perhaps, instead of multiplying damage, the hit location tables should divide defences. That would still give a useful and powerful effect without ending up with silly stun totals.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Killing Damage in 6e

 

I think the problem is that, in Heroic games, you need hit locations to make the game deadly, but in superheroic games, it turns the whole thing into either a lottery or a character creation straight-jacket.