Re: [HOE] Massive Damage ... lookin for a good discussion ... [PEG] [Hopler]

["Steve Crow" <crow_steve@hotmail.com>]

>Now, in my opinion, this seems...well...wrong.  I thought the original 
>rules
>worked very well and actually gave players a chance at surviving.  With the
>new MD rules, explosions are much more deadly.
>
>So, I ask you, which system do you like and why?
>

The old system.  It is true that the new system is more 
lethal...unfortunately since your players have a limited number of 
grenades/explosives and your NPCs have an infinite number of explosives 
available to them, that means that NPCs end up doing more explosive damage.

Although the new rules do make Nuke much powerful - just what PC Doomsayers 
need...  ;)

***

The main problem is that the new rules are an _extreme_ headache to 
calculate.

Under the old rules it was pretty simple.  Your automaton detonates, anybody 
at ground zero takes (on average) about 63 damage.  Divide by the target's 
size.  That's 10 wounds.  Don't bother rolling hit location for most of 
these.  Figure the Guts are going to take (half of 10) 5 wounds.  Each AV 
reduces that by 1, and each 6 pts. of light armor reduces that by 1 as well 
(roll for 4 and 2 pts. of light armor).  The other five wounds will probably 
"spread out" over the remaining five hit locations and all get negated by 
the AV1 at each location, but roll them if you like (if they have, say, an 
unarmored head and you roll 3 20s, they could be in for some hurting).

Although it's not stated in the rules, if you're dealing with folks in 
multiple blast radii, start at the outer most radius and "roll" inwards.  So 
roll 1d20 for those at that radius and calculate damage as above.  Then roll 
another d20 for those in the next ring and add to the initial roll.  Repeat 
as necessary until you get to ground zero and 6d20 that theoretical average 
of 63 above.

Grand title of die rolls for 6d20 damage for _everyone_ in the blast radius 
- 6.

***

In the new rules - forget it.  First of all, if the various folks in the 
blast have different types of armor on different locations, you're in for 
one massive headache.  Hmmm, I rolled 4 locations for that guy.  He's 
wearing an AV1 Helmet, a duster (for the legs only) and an Infantry 
Battlesuit (AV2).  I roll 4 for the # of locations, and get a Head, a Guts, 
a Left Leg and a Right Leg.  So let's see...I've got to roll 6d12 for the 
head location.  I roll 6d20 for the legs (subtracting 4).  Then I roll 6d10 
for the Guts.  Gee, I just rolled 28 dice (4 d20s for Hit location, 24 dice 
for damage) to figure that out.  Under the old system I only rolled 6.

And that's just for one person. I _suppose_ I could use those same rolls for 
the person two blast radii away, but nah, that doesn't make much sense.  So 
now I roll 1d6-2 locations and get a 6, so _they_ take 4 locations.  This 
person has different armor in different locations, and a forcefield.  So 
let's reroll those 24 dice of (whatever) damage again.  And the 4 dice of 
hit location.  Another 28 dice.

What about the automatons that were probably fighting next to or close to 
our original self-destructing autie (AV3 all locations)?  Well, I roll a 6 
for them too, and end up rolling 6d8 for each location.  That's 40 _more_ 
dice worth of rolling...

The one advantage of rolling all these dice is that the damage tends to 
"average out".  But if you start taking a single roll and applying it to all 
cases where that roll of damage would apply (i.e., I only roll 6d8 once for 
the automaton, and apply the same damage to all 6 fo the locations), this 
means a single roll, if high, can have an even more crippling effect.

In the example above, I just rolled 96 dice for just three "targets" in the 
blast radius.  I proceed to sue Pinnacle for carpal tunnel syndrome.  :)

***

In this theoretical example, the first guy above...he took 39 damage (6d12) 
to the head.  He took 59 damage to _each_ leg.  He took 33 damage to the 
Guts.  (I'm being generous and assume none of the damage rolls aced).  We 
don't want to emphasize damage _too_ much so that everyone takes Brawny, so 
lets figure our target is Size 6.  That means our brainer just took 6-7 
wounds to the head, 10 wounds to _each_ leg, and 5-6 wounds to the gut.  
That's a total of 32 wounds.  Since you can't have more than 10 chips, _if_ 
he had 10 Blue chips (hah!), he would still take 2 wounds.  I forget the 
exact odds, but more likely _if_ he has ten chips at that moment that are 
more "average" (say, 6 white, 3 red, 1 blue), he's going to be able to 
soak...15 wounds out of 32.  That leaves him with 17 wounds to divide among 
four locations.  Hmmm he's going to take at least 5 wounds to one location 
(maiming the leg or killing him outright) and be 1 wound away from 
maiming/death on the other 3 locations.

And the guy was hit on 4 locations - this could have theoretically happened 
even if he was 2 BRs away (if he rolled a 6, - 2 = 4).  So we're not 
necessarily talking ground zero exceptions here.  In fact, if I rolled a 1 
for the guy at ground zero, that person could actually have taken less 
damage then the one 2 BRs away.

And of course, our theoretical waster spent all of his chips just to avoid 
the _first_ explosion.  So under the new system, you can be 2 BRs away, get 
killed or maimed even if you're at optimal 10-chip capacity, and end up with 
spending all of your experience (since Pinnacle's system ties survival to 
experience - the more chips you spend to survive, the less you have for 
experience - so much for "That which does not kill me makes me stronger!"  
:) ).

***

This also means that taking Scrawny is pretty much a death sentence the 
first time you run into an automaton or a Doomsayer or a Doombringer.  :)

***

Chip expenditure - I always allow it because it's just as "realistic" to 
allow chips spent against a hand grenade going off in your face as, say, 
someone firing a pistol at point-black range.  You're either going to 
nitpick each situation (more game time for arguing as your players try to 
find loopholes so they -can_ find ways to spend their chips to avoid damage, 
particularly since we just made massive damage a lot more painful), or just 
allow the chip expenditure regardless.  Pinnacle puts no limit on chip 
expenditure for damage - why should I?

***

Yes, there are ways to get around this.  Always EMP the automatons first 
(and succeed!), hope your Marshal never uses Automatons or green-robe 
Doomsayers or Doombringers with Nuke/ICBM.  Give everyone battlesuits or 
have them play Heavy Cans with Dreadnaught Armor.  But one roll is all it 
takes to fuck over a party pretty regularly.

This is doable, but if Boise Horror is any example, it is _not_ the way 
Pinnacle itself does it.  PC armor is in the low range (rarely better than 
AV2, although factors like Force Field and the Templar gift and other stuff 
can help those particular characters).

***

The old system may have made massive damage somewhat inconsequential, but 
the new system goes _way_ too far in the opposite direction.  Nobody seems 
to have made the (relatively) simple calculations above.

Me, I'd rather err on the player's side.  I've got hundreds of NPCs, they've 
only got one character each.  There are other ways to kill them rather than 
just have them die in a random explosion when they fight an automaton.


---

Steve Crow

"Worm Can Opener Extraordinare"

Check out my website at:  http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/4991/

________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com