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<blockquote data-quote="DanMcS" data-source="post: 2125592" data-attributes="member: 6530">The damage save in mutants and masterminds is wonky.&nbsp; There's four categories of result on a single d20 roll; this gives wildly varying results on your roll, and very narrow ranges for those results.&nbsp; You typically have a 25% chance of taking a hit, a 25% chance of being stunned, and the rest divided up between a knock-out result and being absolutely fine.For instance, if your damage save equals their damage bonus, you get the following results on a d20 roll:1-4: KO5-9: Stunned and take a hit10-14: Take a hit15-20: No damage.What this tends to result in is long combats where characters take either a hit or no damage on an attack, or else spend a hero point to reroll if they got a KO result.&nbsp; Once they are out of hero points, they go down rapidly.The problem here is if a PC is out of hero points, he's really screwed.&nbsp; One bad roll and he's out for a minute.What I'd like to do is increase the damage category width from 5 to 10, like so:Damage Save DC = 20 + damage.If you make the save, no damage.If you fail, you take a hit.If you fail by more than 10, you are stunned and take a hit.If you fail by more than 20, you are unconscious.Comparing equal damage bonuses and save bonuses, a flat d20 roll:1-9: stun+hit.10-19: hit.20: no damage.(You can't be KOed on this hit, you need to roll a -1 on a d20 for that.&nbsp; So until a few rounds of successful damage have passed, the enemy isn't going down.)This makes the &quot;stun+hit&quot; and &quot;hit&quot; results more likely (95% instead of 50%), and the &quot;KO&quot; and &quot;no damage&quot; results much less likely.&nbsp; Combat should become more consistent.&nbsp; Very few hits should result in no damage, which is always frustrating as a player- you finally hit the villain, he rolls high on his damage save, and it was all for naught.&nbsp; But there shouldn't be any one-round KOs (unless your damage is much higher than their save bonus).This takes hero points out of damage saves, where they were needed to cover up the narrow damage categories, and lets them be used for inspiration, extra effort, adding stunts or extras to a power, and all the other cool things they're supposed to be useful for but rarely are because players know they'll need them for damage saves <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

[QUOTE="DanMcS, post: 2125592, member: 6530"] The damage save in mutants and masterminds is wonky. There's four categories of result on a single d20 roll; this gives wildly varying results on your roll, and very narrow ranges for those results. You typically have a 25% chance of taking a hit, a 25% chance of being stunned, and the rest divided up between a knock-out result and being absolutely fine. For instance, if your damage save equals their damage bonus, you get the following results on a d20 roll: 1-4: KO 5-9: Stunned and take a hit 10-14: Take a hit 15-20: No damage. What this tends to result in is long combats where characters take either a hit or no damage on an attack, or else spend a hero point to reroll if they got a KO result. Once they are out of hero points, they go down rapidly. The problem here is if a PC is out of hero points, he's really screwed. One bad roll and he's out for a minute. What I'd like to do is increase the damage category width from 5 to 10, like so: Damage Save DC = 20 + damage. If you make the save, no damage. If you fail, you take a hit. If you fail by more than 10, you are stunned and take a hit. If you fail by more than 20, you are unconscious. Comparing equal damage bonuses and save bonuses, a flat d20 roll: 1-9: stun+hit. 10-19: hit. 20: no damage. (You can't be KOed on this hit, you need to roll a -1 on a d20 for that. So until a few rounds of successful damage have passed, the enemy isn't going down.) This makes the "stun+hit" and "hit" results more likely (95% instead of 50%), and the "KO" and "no damage" results much less likely. Combat should become more consistent. Very few hits should result in no damage, which is always frustrating as a player- you finally hit the villain, he rolls high on his damage save, and it was all for naught. But there shouldn't be any one-round KOs (unless your damage is much higher than their save bonus). This takes hero points out of damage saves, where they were needed to cover up the narrow damage categories, and lets them be used for inspiration, extra effort, adding stunts or extras to a power, and all the other cool things they're supposed to be useful for but rarely are because players know they'll need them for damage saves :) [/QUOTE]

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