It's not exactly scary math. Well, unless you count adding independent probabilities. I couldn't find a clean explanation of how to do that (and spent an hour thinking that having 50% chance of mook 1 hitting and a 50% chance of mook 2 hitting gives a 50% chance of being hit, before writing it out, realising that it's 75% after all) so ended up begging an astrophysicist for help.
The rest is just light calculus and stats, and since it's on actual data (and that data is punctuated, rather than continuous), it's all sums and averages of real numbers, rather than on curves. So the calculus and stats help in knowing what to do, but I don't actually have to, e.g. find the normal distribution with integral 1 between -inf and inf, peaking at pool / 2, with a deviation d.
Anyway, static defence. After running nine fight scenarios, it's one of my two favorites. The other is that you get a defence pool (e.g. wits + dex, dex + athletics, dex + martial arts) that you automatically roll every attack, losing two dice each time.
The main difference is that the latter is one more roll / attack, but means that the crazy-skilled person can still be winged by the mook. Depending on desired style and feel, static defence can make a character nigh-invulnerable unless they're attacked multiple times. But that's a 'feel' thing: Should Li Mu Bai be able to deflect Jen's attacks effortlessly while giving a speech, or should he be forced to concentrate and feel like he's in imminent danger?
Either one provides the same benefit to a less-skilled character: They can act without abandoning self-preservation.
However, I definitely feel that taking multiple actions should remove any automatic defence. Otherwise, you run into the scenario where Sandeep attacks three times per round (relying on the knowledge that this improves his chance of hitting dramatically, while only having a slight impact on his damage/attack) and is still able to defend himself quite effectively.
Again, it's an effect on the feel of the game: permitting both makes combat monkeys (e.g. me or Sandeep) have a huge bonus compared to even skilled non-specialists. Three attacks are so dramatically better than one (without even getting into spending resources on improving the attacks) that it's worth going all-out every round rather than that being a tradeoff.
This meshes well with having a defence pool, though, and less well with static defence. A possible way to make it workable with static defence would be to halve your defence rating if you take multiple actions, which makes it a potentially plausible tradeoff.
Well, that was why in NWoD they stopped people from doing multiple actions and gave chance dies. You may be skilled, both in attack and defencse, but the mooks still have a 10% chance to ding you, no matter how kickass you are. And your extra skill mainly translates to MAYBE killing or knocking unconscious the dude who's trying to hit you, not doing that to 3 dudes surrounding you.
I agree that halving the defence might be a suitable idea to allow multiple attacks, but if you have a better initiative, you go all out, do multiple actions and whack most of the guys surrounding you. So it just means you push for better initiatives to hopefully beat everyone else.
It's definitely tricky any way it's sliced. I definitely have more opinions than answers.
A lot of this hinges on an attack being one blow as well. Where, in our cases, our primary weapon can, essentially, be considered a fully-automatic spread. But that's a material advantage that helps distinguish us from more primitive peoples.
The other bit is what level of 'cinematic' is wanted. Adventure! appears to be 'slightly-above-normal people with superscience' which means that, in its power level, the Green Hornet and Kato should have a rough fight against 10 thugs.
I see us as being somewhere between pulp heroes and extraordinary humans with our game. So it may make more sense, rather than extensive rules-tweaking, to patch a few holes and make up the difference between player characters and random humans by judicious application of technology and perks.
I think one possible option would be to be able to spend enhancement pool at a 1:1 ratio for attributes. (At character creation, it was 1:2) As well, possibly use enhancement pool for 3 levels in a skill (not 3 additional levels; you spend one point and get 3 levels, making it less cost-effective to up a trained skill and useless if you have 3 levels or more.)
Normal folks People can be skilled, but can't do things that strain credulity
Split pools for attack/defence
Combat is risky and most people don't have the wherewithal to do lots of things at once.
Weapons deal a flat amount of damage when they hit.
One bullet and you're incapacitated, two and you're dead. Make a new character and don't get into fights.
Equipment is limited to what you can reasonably buy IRL.
Disadvantages: Not a heroic system. Combat is going to result in frequent character deaths and even wounded characters are going to spend weeks and months recuperating.
Pulp heroes People can be skilled to the level of incredibility, but can't do the impossible.
The Green Hornet and Kato, The Shadow, The Phantom
Split pools for attack/defence
Combat is still risky. Pulp heroes who fight should be expected to have 6 dice or more. (Somewhere between trained and 'ninja'.
Weapons have a die pool that you add to your attack successes.
This means that a horde of thugs will beat up the heroes enough to leave them bloodied and their shirts torn, but it's going to take more than a few cuts to drop them.
Equipment is generally limited to real-world availability, though characters can create and acquire things that stretch plausibility if it's within their gimmick.
Disadvantages: Non-combat oriented heroes are going to spend any fight scene either avoiding the fight or getting hurt.
Extraordinary humans Most people are regular, protagonists and major antagonists have skill and equipment that lets them do the impossible.
The Watchmen (excluding Dr. Manhattan), Green Arrow, The Batman in Batman Begins
Defence ratings or depleting automatic defence pools
Characters are assumed to be competent and cool-headed in a fight. With defence ratings, you say that there are reasonably circumstances where one character just can't hit another. With defence pools, there's always a chance, but skilled combatants are unlikely to get hit.
Weapons deal a damage value plus your successes on the attack roll
This does result in weapons doing more damage than in previous systems. However, your chance of being hit is lower, as is the average number of successes when you are hit.
Equipment includes comprehensible sci-fi, but little 'magic'. Characters can't create magical equipment.
Disadvantages: This starts stretching the dice pool system. It's not actually possible to create 'ordinary' characters as protagonists anymore. 4-die thugs are ninjas, rather than mooks, and attributes/skills need to cap out at about 3 for anyone not on the same power level as the characters. This also skews what difficulties mean, and makes it nearly impossible to have a contested roll between an ordinary person and a protagonist.
Superhumans There is no upper limit to the characters' power levels.
Superman, Batman in general, Dr. Manhattan, Reed Richards
Defence ratings or slowly depleting automatic defence pools
It's hard to land a solid hit on an opponent.
Roll weapon damage plus successes to determine damage.
Weapons do relatively little damage; characters can get hit many times before being seriously injured.
Any equipment, from a personal fortress in a volcano to a space ship to a death ray is plausible.
Disadvantages: You lose the ability to represent 'ordinary' people within the system. If 5 is super-strength, letting Thor and the Hulk have 7 or 8, then you're likely to have to give normal people ones in most stats to fit them into the system.
The rest is just light calculus and stats, and since it's on actual data (and that data is punctuated, rather than continuous), it's all sums and averages of real numbers, rather than on curves. So the calculus and stats help in knowing what to do, but I don't actually have to, e.g. find the normal distribution with integral 1 between -inf and inf, peaking at pool / 2, with a deviation d.
Anyway, static defence. After running nine fight scenarios, it's one of my two favorites. The other is that you get a defence pool (e.g. wits + dex, dex + athletics, dex + martial arts) that you automatically roll every attack, losing two dice each time.
The main difference is that the latter is one more roll / attack, but means that the crazy-skilled person can still be winged by the mook. Depending on desired style and feel, static defence can make a character nigh-invulnerable unless they're attacked multiple times. But that's a 'feel' thing: Should Li Mu Bai be able to deflect Jen's attacks effortlessly while giving a speech, or should he be forced to concentrate and feel like he's in imminent danger?
Either one provides the same benefit to a less-skilled character: They can act without abandoning self-preservation.
However, I definitely feel that taking multiple actions should remove any automatic defence. Otherwise, you run into the scenario where Sandeep attacks three times per round (relying on the knowledge that this improves his chance of hitting dramatically, while only having a slight impact on his damage/attack) and is still able to defend himself quite effectively.
Again, it's an effect on the feel of the game: permitting both makes combat monkeys (e.g. me or Sandeep) have a huge bonus compared to even skilled non-specialists. Three attacks are so dramatically better than one (without even getting into spending resources on improving the attacks) that it's worth going all-out every round rather than that being a tradeoff.
This meshes well with having a defence pool, though, and less well with static defence. A possible way to make it workable with static defence would be to halve your defence rating if you take multiple actions, which makes it a potentially plausible tradeoff.
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I agree that halving the defence might be a suitable idea to allow multiple attacks, but if you have a better initiative, you go all out, do multiple actions and whack most of the guys surrounding you. So it just means you push for better initiatives to hopefully beat everyone else.
It's tricky.
Reply
It's definitely tricky any way it's sliced. I definitely have more opinions than answers.
A lot of this hinges on an attack being one blow as well. Where, in our cases, our primary weapon can, essentially, be considered a fully-automatic spread. But that's a material advantage that helps distinguish us from more primitive peoples.
The other bit is what level of 'cinematic' is wanted. Adventure! appears to be 'slightly-above-normal people with superscience' which means that, in its power level, the Green Hornet and Kato should have a rough fight against 10 thugs.
I see us as being somewhere between pulp heroes and extraordinary
humans with our game. So it may make more sense, rather than
extensive rules-tweaking, to patch a few holes and make up the
difference between player characters and random humans by judicious
application of technology and perks.
I think one possible option would be to be able to spend enhancement pool at a 1:1 ratio for attributes. (At character creation, it was 1:2) As well, possibly use enhancement pool for 3 levels in a skill (not 3 additional levels; you spend one point and get 3 levels, making it less cost-effective to up a trained skill and useless if you have 3 levels or more.)
Reply
Normal folks
People can be skilled, but can't do things that strain credulity
Combat is risky and most people don't have the wherewithal to do
lots of things at once.
One bullet and you're incapacitated, two and you're dead. Make
a new character and don't get into fights.
Disadvantages: Not a heroic system. Combat is going to
result in frequent character deaths and even wounded characters are
going to spend weeks and months recuperating.
Pulp heroes
People can be skilled to the level of incredibility, but can't do
the impossible.
The Green Hornet and Kato, The Shadow, The Phantom
Combat is still risky. Pulp heroes who fight should be expected
to have 6 dice or more. (Somewhere between trained and 'ninja'.
successes.
This means that a horde of thugs will beat up the heroes enough
to leave them bloodied and their shirts torn, but it's going to
take more than a few cuts to drop them.
though characters can create and acquire things that stretch
plausibility if it's within their gimmick.
Disadvantages: Non-combat oriented heroes are going to
spend any fight scene either avoiding the fight or getting hurt.
Extraordinary humans
Most people are regular, protagonists and major antagonists have
skill and equipment that lets them do the impossible.
The Watchmen (excluding Dr. Manhattan), Green Arrow, The Batman
in Batman Begins
Characters are assumed to be competent and cool-headed in a
fight. With defence ratings, you say that there are reasonably
circumstances where one character just can't hit another. With
defence pools, there's always a chance, but skilled combatants
are unlikely to get hit.
roll
This does result in weapons doing more damage than in previous
systems. However, your chance of being hit is lower, as is the
average number of successes when you are hit.
Characters can't create magical equipment.
Disadvantages: This starts stretching the dice pool
system. It's not actually possible to create 'ordinary' characters
as protagonists anymore. 4-die thugs are ninjas, rather than
mooks, and attributes/skills need to cap out at about 3 for anyone
not on the same power level as the characters. This also skews
what difficulties mean, and makes it nearly impossible to have a
contested roll between an ordinary person and a protagonist.
Superhumans
There is no upper limit to the characters' power levels.
Superman, Batman in general, Dr. Manhattan, Reed Richards
pools
It's hard to land a solid hit on an opponent.
Weapons do relatively little damage; characters can get hit many
times before being seriously injured.
space ship to a death ray is plausible.
Disadvantages: You lose the ability to represent
'ordinary' people within the system. If 5 is super-strength,
letting Thor and the Hulk have 7 or 8, then you're likely to have
to give normal people ones in most stats to fit them into the
system.
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