Brainstorming DEFENSE

[Morrus]

This is just a general discussion thread, not an announcement or anything.

@LucasC expressed doubts about the latest DEFENSE formulation, so I'm opening this up to ideas - just in case someone sees something I don't. Things we need to be aware of:

1) I don't want everybody to be averaged so much that all the characters are the same as each other

2) There are concerns that wide ranging DEFENSE scores makes it hard to find appropriate challenges

3) I want some critters to be basically too tough for beginning characters to handle, and their DEFENSE to reflect that

4) I want SOAK to be a viable alternative choice to DEFENSE; some folks get hit more, but they can take more

5) It's important not to make a single attribute King Attribute; AGI is already important
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That said, here are factor which do, or have, played into DEFENSE:

SIZE - big things are easy to hit, small things are hard to hit; conversely big things have more SOAK

AGILITY - agile things can dodge well, clumsy things cannot

PROTECTION - shields, deflection abilities, plus some spells make it harder to hit somebody
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DEFENSE in that list is very much a "to hit" as opposed to a "to damage"; and SOAK reflects how hard it is to damage someone once they're hit.

Using just AGI historically weighted that attribute far too highly, making it the only one anybody ever stacked. That's why additional attributes were brought into it. That's why attacks aren't opposed attacks vs AGI (or a flat expression of AGI).

So, currently, it's (AGI dice + END dice) x 3; you can add a skill dice to that (e.g. acrobatics). It's a bit messy and slightly unclear. If it were simply a directly opposed check (vs AGI to hit) then you could express it as AGI dice + SKILL dice + Equipment dice as normal. For example, 3d6 AGI + 1d6 acrobatics + 1d6 shield = 5d6 (or a flat average of x4, to make 20). That makes AGI the king of all attributes, though.

An alternative method might be to base it initially on size. How hard something is to hit is simply an expression of how big it is. Its agility would then be a modifier to that. For example, start with a base of 10 for medium and +/4 per size:

Tiny	18
Small	14
Medium	10
Large	6
Enormous	2
Gigantic+	0?

You run out of space at the bottom quickly like that. To that we could add AGI (and so an inanimate object would simply use those values). I guess skill ranks would be added directly in that scale. So a human with 6 AGI and 2 acrobatics would have a DEFENSE of 18. That gives Batman (say, 12 AGI, 5 ranks acrobatics?) a DEFENSE of 27, and t-rex a DEFENSE of 4.

Anything larger than medium, realistically, is going to be hit every time in that model, unless it bizarrely has a really high AGI. Then again, wouldn't you expect it to be?

I used 4 instead of 3.5 throughout this post. That gives the defender a tiny edge.

That's all just random thoughts, though. Mainly typing as I think. Maybe MENTAL DEFENSE would be related to sentience in the same way that DEFENSE is related to size, and then modified by WIL. Sentient is the most vulnerable with a base of 10, super-sentient and semi-sentient have a base of 14 and non-sentient is immune.

Some maths:

Suppose we want Mr. Average to have a 50% chance of hitting himself. He has AGI 4, is size Medium, STR 4, and let's give him one useful skill rank in acrobatics and one in swords.

Offensively he's attacking with STR 4, swords 1 = 3d6. Average roll is 3 x 3.5 = 10.5.

So we want his own DEFENSE to be 10.5. That gives him a 50% chance of hitting himself. Let's call it 11. Using AGI 4, size M, 1 skill rank, how do we get to 11? We could say:

1) AGI 4, being average, is no modifier; SIZE M = 10; +1 skill = 11.

or we could say:

2 ) AGI 4 is worth 2d6, and his 1 skill rank is worth 1d6, and size M is no modifier. That makes 3d6. Same as his attack roll, same average result.

In this we're only using AGI, of course. We're basically using AGI as an opposed check vs. an attack. It feels nice and symmetrical, granted, but the goal of the game isn't pleasing aesthetic symmetry, it's playability. And that's making AGI the super-attribute again.

We could offset that a little by building some natural SOAK into END. Kinda like WFRP's toughness, I guess. That makes END important, too. And we can make ranged attacks always INT, not AGI. Physical attacks can be STR or AGI.

So where does that leave us?

One proposal that logically comes from all that (and I'm not saying it's a good one, just that it's what I arrived at while typing this) is as follows:

- All attacks are opposed rolls against a single attribute (usually AGI or WIL, but could be END for poison, etc.)
- One skill dice pool can be added to a defending attribute just like one can be added to an attacking dice pool
- Both are limited to career grade total as size of dice pool
- The defending values are precalculated as averages rather than rolled live for speed of play
- Size is a +/4 per category above or below Medium
- Your END is your natural SOAK (too much? instead of size? size correlates to END a lot anyway)
- Ranged attacks are always INT
- Melee attacks are STR or AGI
- Magic/psionic attacks are MAG or PSI

I haven't thought through all the ramifications of this. It's likely it's extremely broken! But any suggestion is welcome. This is just a random brainstorming session!

 

[SKid4]

I have some ideas on this.

1) Add a new attribute for projectile attacks (i.e., bows and guns). Thrown attacks are fine as is, but projectile attacks are basically on the same level as magic. The new attribute would act like magic. This is a clunky method.

1a) Defense against projectile attacks is based on Speed.

2) You have a choice of which attribute to defend with: any physical attribute can be used for Physical Defense and any mental attribute can be used for Mental Defense. Physical size provides a modifier to Physical Defense and mental size provides a modifier to Mental Defense (e.g., a hive mind provides additional mental defense based on its population, or a deity can shield its faithful based on “divine rank”). Add a fatigue mechanic based on frequency of use. Favoring Agility eventually drops its effectiveness, and then you should switch to Strength or Endurance for Physical Defense.

2a) Have fatigue be influenced by attacks, too. Attacking with Agility will impair your ability to defend with Agility.

2b) This method was inspired by Supers Revised (one combat use of an attribute per round, any attribute can be used to defend, and damage reduces defenses).

3) Penalize prolongued combats. Perhaps combat becomes a special form of countdown. I like this aspect of 13th Age.

Hopefully this helps.

 

[Morrus]

I think that if you can choose one of three attributes, most characters are going to end up with very similar scores. They'll choose the highest, and most people will have at least one of them on the top tier of the attribute range for their stage of advancement.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Since this is a brainstorm

Def = sum of the die values for 6 of the characters attributes
- reduces reliance on a given stat, minimal change to rule-set, and promoted generalist over focused character builds

Size: already affects def and soak in a way that makes sense, but is linked to medium characters being the default. Why not adjust based on size difference with the attacker gaining -2 to hit and +1d6 to damage for each size larger the attacker is than the target, and +2 to hit and -1d6 to damage for each size smaller than the attacker.

Soak: I already have trouble with high values of soak. I think soak should be just armor/magic and there needs to be a way to bypass.

Projectile attacks: I think having these based on Wil would be nice. That is what I did in CP2020 {well, COOL actually, but different system}

I do like Skid4's idea of fatigue, but so far combats have tended to be very short.. so I don't think that would be a valid addition here.

 

[LucasC]

Just thinking out loud -

I would not start with deciding how to calculate DEFENSE, but rather lay out some goals.

For instance, how often should a starting schmuck succeed in shooting his opponent? Personally, I'd use a 5d6 pool to calculate this. A PC is always going to be superior to your "average" joe and it's PCs active in this game, not average Joes.

If we assume you want a normal PC shooting at a normal villain to hit 50% of the time, that means the target DEFENSE should be around 17/18 right? They can push their chance to hit up by using tactics, or the enemy can push it down with defensives tactics.

Then, you have to assume each time the PCs go up a level they'll layer on another 1d6. I think this can easily be accomplished from levels 6-10. So every level you need to push the assumed armor up 3.5.

Then, if you want SOAK to be an alternative, it needs to reduce DEFENSE.

So, lets consider HEALTH. Most guns seem to do 2d6 damage. If people have a 4 END and 4 WIL they'll end up with 16 hit points. That's basically 2 shots to kill the guy (actually it's a little over 2 but I suck at math).

If we just go with 2 for now, and compare that with our attack chance, we see we'll need to shoot at this guy 4 times to kill him (50% hit, 2 shots to kill).

So, toss in SOAK and now I want the same 4 shots to kill the guy, but each one needs to do less damage. So I need the guy to be killed in either 3 or 4 shots. I'll go with 3, so there's still a chance to miss. If you take away 3 DEFENSE, pushing it to 15, I think that pushes the hit chance to around 75%. Then, add 2 SOAK and it will take 3 solid hits to kill him.

That means that adding 2 SOAK needs to reduce DEFENSE by about 3. At least at level 1.

With all that in mind, I'd start setting target numbers, and then use them to figure out how to get people to them.

 

[Morrus]

Yeah, that's largely the approach I usually take - in fact it's how the initial DEFENSE values (from like 8 months ago) were formed. Very simple methods like 10 + AGI very easily approximate that starting value with little other adjustment needed, giving a range of 13 - 17 or so. That heavily emphasizes AGI, though (in fact, I think you were fairly vocal about de-emphasizing AGI in the early stages).

That doesn't scale, though. Attributes don't scale along with attack values because of the sliding scale. I said "scale" a lot of times. So using flat attribute values on one side of the equation with sliding scale dice pools on the other results in things like a attribute of 50 not even vaguely able to hit a DC (or DEFENSE) of 50. Using the size of the dice pool instead matches the two evenly.

 

[LucasC]

Yah, in the start almost everything you did in combat in NEW was AGI related. =) I think you've fixed that.

One thing to emphasize from the above post though, my players do not see SOAK as an alternative to DEFENSE. They see it as supplemental.

 

[Morrus]

One thing to emphasize from the above post though, my players do not see SOAK as an alternative to DEFENSE. They see it as supplemental.

How greedy of them!

 

[SKid4]

Is it "bad" if everyone favors Agility?

Maybe this is just a clash of playstyles.

 

[Morrus]

Is it "bad" if everyone favors Agility?

Maybe this is just a clash of playstyles.

It makes for a lot of very similar characters. There's nothing wrong with choosing to all make similar characters, but having the system pretty much require you to isn't much fun!