Silver Age Sentinels (Tri-Stat) -- and Streamlining Hero

[Sebastian]

In Champions, a Killing Attack's damage is determined by two rolls, one for Body damage (e.g. 2d6 for an AK-47), and another for the Stun multiplier (1d6-1). A typical attack centers on about 7 points of Body damage, but that single Stun-multiplier die might yield anywhere from 7 to 35 Stun, not clustered around the average of 19. (If the attack actually rolls high on Body and high on the Stun multiplier, the final Stun damage might reach 60!)

A Normal Attack of the same power (6d6), tightly centers on 6 Body and 21 Stun.

A character with 20 points of Armor who cannot take any real (Body) damage from the bullets, and who doesn't even feel a typical hit (19 Stun), might still get hit hard enough to be stunned on a not-improbable roll.

Against a Normal Attack of the same power (e.g. super-kung-fu punch), he take a few points of Stun with each hit.

Killing attacks roll one third as many dice, then roll a single die for a Stun multiplier. This yields wildly random results -- the Stun Lotto.

In Fact, Characters with high defenses have to be more concerned about KA than about normal attack, because a lucky hit can often Stun them, even if the attack has no poosibillity to injure them.
In the end, this and the fact that not all defenses work against KA make them better than normal attacks in almost every case. We used the following fix for our Campaign:
The Stun are only multiplied with the dmg that penetrates defenses. This way a high armor really protects against Killing attacks.

 

[mmadsen]

Re: Streamlining Hero (Recap)

Another example of a simple streamlining measure -- one that sounds oh-so-complicated but isn't -- would be to handle advantages and limitations as base-2 logarithms. What does that mean? A +1 advantage would double price (same as now), and a -1 limitation would halve price (same as now) -- but you could add and subtract your advantages and disadvantages the way every newbie thinks you should be able to.
...
It's a small price to pay for being able to take an existing power, add an advantage or limitation, and not have to "unroll" all the previous math. A book of powers could list each complicated power with dozens of advantages and limitation as having just one final price. Making the whole thing NND (+1) would double that price. Making it all an OAF (-1) would halve that price.

A point I didn't make earlier is that this (power modifiers that don't have to "unroll") meshes particularly well with a system of fewer, broader stats. Most characters can have just one Body stat, for instance, but the few characters who need more Str than Con can still buy more Str than Con; Str can be Body with a limitation.

 

[N Hammer]

I know what you are talking about Drew. I was on the Astro city mailing list when it was in full swing (joined up during the Confessor/Bridwell Invasion arc), but Astro City was coming out *very* sporadically and people were getting kind of snitty about it when Kurt Busiek's Avengers, Iron Man and Thunderbolts titles were coming out like clockwork, while Astro City was going 6 months between issues (well, it went 6 months once).

Kurt posted to the list citing his health issues as the reason for the delays, and everyone was pretty sympathetic. He claimed it was easier for him to get Marvel titles out because they didn't require as much thought as Astro City, but rest assured Astro City was not being cancelled.

When called on that on another list he denied it vehemently, claimng tht he sunk his heart and soul into every title he did, and could be expected to put the same level of care and craft into Iron Man that he put into AC.

It just went on and on and on like this. Busiek's reasons for his actions changed dramatically depending on who he was talking to. The man who was apparently "too sick to get 'his baby' (Astro City) out on time kept adding Marvel titles to his workload...but not spending any less effort on each of them than on AC...but unable to get AC out becaue of the amount fo effort it took.

After awhile I got tired of waiting, and got tired of the bullsh|t.

If Kurt Busike just wanted to coast, and rake in the easy money writitn Marvel titles, then that's fine. The man was sick and needed to kick back a bit. Understood.

The reason I was on the mailing list was to get info about the title from the horse's mouth. If you are going to slack off on a title, say so. Save me the trip to the Comic Shop.

His comments, collected, could be boiled down into this: "I'm too sick to do Astro City, but not too sick to do Thunderbolts, which I assure you takes the exact same amount of effort. I'm also adding Iron Man to my docket, which will take the same amount of effort that I put into everything. Expect the Marvel titles to be out on time. Astro City? We're doing our best, but I'm sick. Aslo I'm adding the Avengers."

Heh, call me a bitch I guess

Kurt Busiak amassed large medical bills because of his sickness...

Astro-City was a creator owned book, that he had to spend some of his own money to start and in the long run it didn't bring in to much money.

He had to work for Marvel full time to get a steady salary so he could pay all his medical bills.

Last I heard his health is all good (at least mostly) and he is getting caught up on his bills and now can take some time away from the guarunteed pay check to write his own book.

 

[N Hammer]

In Champions, a Killing Attack's damage is determined by two rolls, one for Body damage (e.g. 2d6 for an AK-47), and another for the Stun multiplier (1d6-1). A typical attack centers on about 7 points of Body damage, but that single Stun-multiplier die might yield anywhere from 7 to 35 Stun, not clustered around the average of 19. (If the attack actually rolls high on Body and high on the Stun multiplier, the final Stun damage might reach 60!)

A Normal Attack of the same power (6d6), tightly centers on 6 Body and 21 Stun.

A character with 20 points of Armor who cannot take any real (Body) damage from the bullets, and who doesn't even feel a typical hit (19 Stun), might still get hit hard enough to be stunned on a not-improbable roll.

Against a Normal Attack of the same power (e.g. super-kung-fu punch), he take a few points of Stun with each hit.

Killing attacks roll one third as many dice, then roll a single die for a Stun multiplier. This yields wildly random results -- the Stun Lotto.

Many die hard Hero fans do not like the 'stun lotto' and have made house rules to change it....The one I like the best..instead of rolling for stun simply take a x3 on the Body rolled.

 

[mmadsen]

The one I like the best..instead of rolling for stun simply take a x3 on the Body rolled.

I kind of like that. I might also consider Body x 2 plus one point for each Body that gets through. That would make Killing Attacks pretty useless against armored foes. The simple x3 might work well enough though.

 

[N Hammer]

I went to my local gaming store for the regular Champions game I play in, and I decided to spend some time before the game to read some of SAS....It wasn't there..Somebody must have bought it...sh i t...I'll get the store to order another copy.....While I'm a die hard Hero System player, I am all for checking out other systems...

 

[MulhorandSage]

I kind of like that. I might also consider Body x 2 plus one point for each Body that gets through. That would make Killing Attacks pretty useless against armored foes. The simple x3 might work well enough though.

The x3 universal Stun multiple is is one of the two major rule changes I make with my Champs game (the other is the elimination of Elemental Controls). I find it works well.

Scott Bennie

 

[N Hammer]

Not having Elemental Controls SUCK!!!

You just got to be picking on what EC you let the players have..

Used right, EC really help to make a all around good character.

 

[MulhorandSage]

Not having Elemental Controls SUCK!!!

You just got to be picking on what EC you let the players have..

Used right, EC really help to make a all around good character.

I simply started everyone out with more points and restrictions on active point maxima. Everyone made a more rounded character, and I had fewer headaches. It was a win-win situation.

Scott Bennie

 

[Dragonblade]

I'm an old Champions fan and I too had a lot of problems with the slowness of combat. I came up with several fixes and house rules over the years.

First of all, I have made combat much faster by giving everyone an AC equal to 10+DCV and then the attacker rolls d20+OCV to see if they hit.

Because using a d20 results in linear probability instead of a bell curve system, I have found that hits in combat are more common. To remedy this I have given everyone more BODY. I start them off with 20 instead of 10 and also give more STUN. I have halved the cost of STUN.

I also have come up with the optional rule of calculating damage. For killing attacks, I just multiply by 3 or 4 for STUN damage. When doing normal damage I have two alternative systems. In one I roll STUN normally and then divide the result by 3 to determine the amount of BODY done by the attack. This works much faster than counting all the dice to see the BODY done.

To really speed things up, you can also just roll one die and then multiply it by the number of dice you do. Ex. If you have a 8d6 energy blast you roll 1d6x8 to determine STUN damage. This method has some drawbacks though. Its easier to do max damage and having large defenses or STUN becomes very important. Which means that hits doing less damage don't really hurt you. Thus you have the problem of either taking no damage or being taken out in one hit. So I don't use this method very much.

Other ways of speeding up combat include not keeping track of END. Which is not always a very good idea because some high point powers are balanced by the fact that you pay END to use them.

If you don't like the SPD chart you can also make SPD somewhat akin to Palladium's attacks per melee system. So you would roll initiative and then taking turns attacking where 1 SPD=1 attack or action. This method also requires some tweaking to make it work and there is the classic Palladium problem of guys with a low number of attacks running out of actions and basically standing still while they get pummelled by characters with more attacks. But its much faster than keeping track of segments and a SPD chart.

Any thoughts or criticisms of these ideas?