Brainstorming DEFENSE

[LucasC]

They have 6 career levels, so they're capped at 6, not 5. Their total attack pools are:

7, 7, 7, 6, 6, 6, 5

Of course none of them get to actually roll higher than 6 dice. The 7s are derived from 3-4 Ability + 1-2 Skill + 1 HQ weapon + 1 battlesuit targeting

The 5 is from a character that is the least combat oriented. He's their pilot and gets: 3 AGI + 1 skill + 1 HQ gun

 

[Morrus]

Interesting. A much tighter range of attack pools than they would have DEFENSE pools were that the rule. I wonder if that's simply a reflection of the fact that they didn't design their characters with a defense pool in mind.

 

[LucasC]

The attack pools are tightly grouped only because of the new dice pool limit. That changed caused them to diversify more, and stack less attack. Prior to that, they were all over the board.

 

[Morrus]

That presents high ones, not low ones. The defense equivalents have a lot of very low ones. A cap wouldn't increase those.

It occurs to me that hq weapons don't have a corresponding spot in defense, so there's probably on average an extra d6 there. The 3-4 attribute and 1-2 skill are just as obtainable as for attack.

Hmmm. Defensive equipment. Other than a shield, that's an issue. Armor, which is what you think of when you say 'defensive equipment' gives SOAK, not DEFENSE.

I wonder if a "level based" bonus would work. Treat total career grades as a pool which kinda just reflects heroism and protagonist agency. So those guys with 6 grades add 3d6. And it caps at the 6d6 just like attacks.

The worry there is, of course, that everybody will have gradesd6 (in your case 6d6) to both attack and defense, and if everybody has the same, the value serves no purpose.

 

[LucasC]

The value could serve a purpose though couldn't it?

The continual increase in both DEFENSE and ATTACK would mean a few thing:

1. Over time, characters become appreciably more powerful than lower level characters (whether this is good or bad is a diff. question)
2. Equal level characters retain the same likelihood of success as they progress - so a level 1 guy shooting at a level 1 guy might have a 50/50 chance. A level 8 guy shooting at a level 8 guy has the same 50/50 chance. Then you can use tactics to improve from there.

As a side note, likely because of frequent changes, none of my players have made any real attempt to stack DEFENSE which could account for the low scores.

 

[Morrus]

The value could serve a purpose though couldn't it?

The continual increase in both DEFENSE and ATTACK would mean a few thing:

1. Over time, characters become appreciably more powerful than lower level characters (whether this is good or bad is a diff. question)
2. Equal level characters retain the same likelihood of success as they progress - so a level 1 guy shooting at a level 1 guy might have a 50/50 chance. A level 8 guy shooting at a level 8 guy has the same 50/50 chance. Then you can use tactics to improve from there.

Sure. What I meant was that if there was no difference in attack or defense values between any two level 8 characters, you may as well just have one stat: level. If they're all rolling 8d6 attack vs 8d6 defense, there's nothing that distinguishes the characters from each other.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Totally left field.. how about combining offense and defence into a 'combat' pool that can split up into pools for attack {To hit}, dodge {DEF}, and block {SOAK}. Tradition caps the max you can put into each part of the pool. Hardy would add to soak, as would barbarian traditions, etc. or just raise the tradition cap.

MQ weapons add to attack, MQ armor can be designed to add to either dodge or soak {or a mix}, shields can only be used for blocking.

At the start of each turn, the character splits their combat pool into three parts {or less}. Attacks have to beat the average of your DEF dice {or you could burn an attack dice to counter-roll as an all-out dodge}. SOAK dice get ablated off as damage is applied.


Most of my players prefered to stack SOAK as the bad guys would hit 30% of the time but one two hits would take a character out. The defences ranged from 10 to 24... and that was before the mage would do a mass ability boost that add +5 to everyones defences, and then mass mage armor to grant everyone +8 SOAK


On topic'ish... anything wrong with MQ armor granting a bonus to DEF instead of increasing the bonus to SOAK? Its not that MQ plate armor is thicker.. its shaped to better deflect and protect.

 

[Tashtego]

Or you could make DEFENCE equal to the attack dice pool (or some relation thereof) and just roll it each round.

 

[Pixel]

How lethal do you want the game to be? I think that's the question we should ask here. Is the thought of combat alone supposed to make players shake their legs, or should they be able to go into combat guns blazing, and expect to come out on top? a middle field?

 

[Pixel]

what do you think about base 10 (which I think is the DC to hit anything at a distance that doesn't try to move) and then + agi + acrobatics?

examples:

• My current character would be: Android scout, 1500 xp spent, AGI 8, def 18, with medium shield 22, HQ Kevlar vest for 7 SOAK.
  
• Home brewed race (Link) battlepsych, 1000 xp spent, AGI 3, Def 13, scalemail for 7 SOAK
  
• Large android star marine, 0 xp spent, AGI 4, -2 def for size, -4 for heavy armor, def 8, battlesuit + size + armor android exploit for 20 SOAK.
  
• Felan bounty hunter, 0 xp spent, AGI 5, acrobatics 1, def 16, HQ synthetic weave for 6 SOAK
  

Then do the same for mental def, but with WIL and concentration or so

Also possible to set default def a bit lower, like 5-8 or so for easier to hit characters