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Message: <blockquote data-quote="HeapThaumaturgist" data-source="post: 1752877" data-attributes="member: 12332">Well, we did notice that the Archetypes were put together rather shoddily for what they'd be facing, in terms of combat. ... Other than Minotaur, that is.The big difference comes in that the high DMG Save PC was designed FOR soaking those saves time after time.  The archetypes with armor, however, were not.   For the Brick, those DC 25 saves, at +15, are a 50/50 proposition, and the worst he can do is Disabled, but he'll burn a HP to reroll.  The Protection PCs DEPEND on that Armor.  +15 is greater than 1/2 of that roll.  I.E. the majority of the "chance" involved for that PC is removed by the +15 adjustment largely dominating the roll.  The ONLY 50/50 situaiton he meets is a DC 25 save, which is max power ranks at his PL (Blasts, etc).For an Armor PC, the DMG Save, for Cyclone and Inferno, is +2.  They depend on that armor stopping ALL attacks that hit home.  Why?  Because +2 is a far lower percentage of that d20 roll, making the ROLL far more important than for the DMG Save guy.  For the Armor PC, things that force a Damage Save are often going to be that 1 point over +10 from PBS or, say, a super fist/feat, etc.  The DCs are going to be 16+ for his ROLL.  The average ROLL is 10.  10 + 2 = 12, which is less than 16.  The average save that PC MAKES (not the average attack he encounters, mind you) he is going to fail. Statistically and mathematically I'm sure this all works out fine and dandy.  At the table what it turns into is:  The first damage save of the game you make, you fail.  The second, you fail.  And you keep failing.  Because having to make a damage save is BAD for that PC.  Beyond mathmatics, it becomes a problem for the player, who feels ineffective ... like a "bubble".  Once the bubble pops, the game is over.  If you can broach the armor, at all, he'll more than likley fail his save.On the surface, when I just looked at the system and when everybody looked at the characters, what we saw is what the rules presented:  This character is a melee bruiser.  This character is a ranged bruiser.  This PC makes his DMG saves quite often, this PC makes fewer DMG saves overall.  At the table what we saw was:  Minotaur missed 2 of 10 damage saves, to little effect.  Cyclone missed 2 of 3 damage saves, to disastrous effect.  The player wasn't expecting that to happen.This is how I see it:  The sliding scale on damage is, really, very small.  The difference between Hit and Stunned is 5 points.  The difference between Hit and Disabled is 10 points.   The bonuses being bandied about are +10-+15.  The difference between Hit and Stunned disappears in 5 points.  So that 3-5 point difference between Bruiser's Total Effective Save and Armor's Total Effective Save is, essentially, the difference between taking a hit and getting stunned and going down the next round.  When you only make 3-4 saves in a game, getting stunned and/or disabled more often than not is ... disheartening.If I'd have realized that was the case, did some more math with the numbers, I would have been better prepared for it, and could have prepared my players as well.  As it was, they saw two characters that should be roughly equal at something in any other D20 game, and when it came down to dirty dice, one guy walked away while the other found himself face-planting in a Volkswagen, every time.  Armor should have had more stunts ... mental blast or dazzle, etc ... to make himself more TACTICAL.  As it was presented, really, Cyclone should fly about and BLAST things while Minotaur should walk about and PUNCH things ... when it came down to it, Cyclone was alot less good at what he was presented to be doing than Minotaur was.--fje</blockquote>

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