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Post by feloniousmonk on Mar 7, 2009 20:47:24 GMT -5
So I have read a few more threads now and I am still not understanding the core mechanic of defense. From the standpoint of a game designer this is one of the most important features, because it allows you to measure how powerful attacks are. It is much easier to calibrate attacks by understanding defense than vice verse. Especially in a system which has as many different attacks as MU does.
As I understand defense in most, if not all games, there are too main tactics people use to prevent taking damage. Avoidance and absorption.
There are two main ways to look at avoidance. Total/partial avoidance and Total/no avoidance. The first would be like avoiding a punch all together and taking no damage and avoiding the brunt of the blow but still taking some damage. The second is you avoid all of the damage or none of the damage. Both are functional methods of handling avoidance. I find the second to be easier to balance but slightly less realistic.
This could be explained with agility, speed, reflexes.. all sorts of stuff.
Absorption is effectively damage reduction. You get hit, but a portion of the damage is mitigated by whatever means. Hard skin, armor...
The two main methods of handling this are per attack reduction and total reduction to a max limit.
The first has two options as well, static number reduction and percentage of each hit reduction. A breastplate will absorb all damage up to a limit in which the force of the blow is too strong for the armor to prevent all of it from hitting you. A breastplate will absorb 80% of all damage dealt to you, no matter how big (can be capped if desired).
The second is a shield that will absorb all damage it receives until it breaks.
In terms of MU it could be Damage Reduction, Toughness, and Defense stone reserve pool. I think those are all clear enough to be understood.
So, while I don't have suggestions on how to handle defense at this point this basic understanding of how defense is handled should allow someone to make suggestions that has done more reading that I have at this point. Some basic decisions will go a long way to establishing a base line for defense.
BTW, this goes for physical and mental defenses. Although, I prefer the Total/no evasion method of mental combat. Simplifies matters a great deal to have a single, simple method of establishing mental combat.
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Post by Dionon on Mar 7, 2009 21:32:03 GMT -5
Physical defense in this game is handled on a Total/Partial absorption system... Well I shouldn't say that... It's more avoidance then absorption. But at the same time they are both the same in this game. Stones of Defense are stones of defense. In the end it's description that defines how the damage is avoided.
VJC came up with the Static Defense idea where you have Avoidance counted first, and if that didn't work, you had to contend solely with Absorption. (IE Reflexive Dodge happened, if that was breeched, the full attack went to Toughness) This was disagreed with because if you're leaping out of the way of a gun shot, in a super hero world, you're going to mitigate the damage some...
My suggestion for Defense is more staying with the old way. There was nothing wrong with it unless a GM allowed a player to have a HUGE defense.
Mental Defense is a different story... It's always, and has never changed being All or Nothing and no one has suggested an alternative. The only mitigating thing here is that if you can put enough stones in to break it later, it breaks.
I don't mind the idea of a static defense, then a Reductionary defense... Like DnD's AC and Damage Reduction/Spell Resistance. But it would have to be handled carefully, and with some pretty thick kid's gloves.
You said in your opening post here that you've designed publish worthy Role Playing games... If you can think of a way to keep the feel of the Comic Book alive, and provide a Static Defense and Damage Reductionary defenses, and not have it broken, have at it.
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Post by feloniousmonk on Mar 7, 2009 22:48:21 GMT -5
+Ok, so I guess I would go back to if reflexive dodge was breached then I would say the it should not mitigate damage.
Lets look at it this way. With the stones of effort system, if you have enough stones you succeed. If you dont, you fail. Failing to get out of the way of any attack means you take the damage.
The you completely avoid a bullet vs. you get grazed by the bullet is effectively flavor. Being grazed consistently has negligible effect to a character. Yes, they got hit, but it didn't do any real damage. It is a story telling tool.
so I would say that a static Total/No avoidance system following along the lines of...
(SPD + AGI)/2 + Avoidance Power AN = Static defense Static Defense + Stones spent on active defense = total defense for a panel.
In this example, the avoidance power could be called a many things, effectively, it gives you an always on boost to your defense stones to avoid a hit. If you don't meet or exceed the requirements you fail and take full damage. Damage reduction is then applied and health is lost.
Stones spent on active defense come from the energy pool and require the ability to spend on defense. Close Combat, Ranged Combat, Defensive Stance Power... and have a maximum of AN you can spend.
What this does is gives a player the ability to have: A large static defense in an attempt to avoid ever being hit and thus taking no damage.
Some static defense and some damage reduction to prevent some hits and mitigate the ones they can't avoid entirely.
A large damage reduction meaning that they get hit easily, but most of the time it won't matter.
Each should be playable and each should have its downfalls and advantages.
Avoidance hardly gets hit, but when they do they get hit hard. If they dont have the life to back it up, they might die if they actually get hit. Weak against AOE, under current rules. I think half damage from AOE attacks if avoidance beats the attack, full damage if it fails is a good balance here. Best option for a single opponent, because multiple opponents would quickly drain energy by having to split stones spent on defense.
Combo would allow for players to handle street thugs fairly easily, but also slow down damage taken from more powerful attacks. Best utility option.
Reduction would be more expensive to get to high enough levels to mitigate powerful attacks regularly. Best option for multiple opponents.
Any holes I can't see?
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Post by malice on Mar 8, 2009 2:12:30 GMT -5
The hole I see is that the "partial avoidance" you say is "easier to balance but less realistic" is actually MORE realistic. In fact it's USUALLY the case, so often in fact I'm amazed you said it was less realistic.
Be warned before you continue that I was apparently tired when posting this and therefore fell short of coherence in a few places. Now on to my WALL OF TEXT.
Haven't you ever watched Boxing? Those guys don't dodge that often, they keep their guard up and let their opponent punch their arms. They definitely don't have that much Toughness either, since Toughness in MURPG is hard skin.
Just a few nights ago my sensei was telling me how I could just lower my guard to take a kick to my torso without fully dropping my guard to block it or dodging it and consequently put myself out of the fight (My dodge = stepping back and laughing as they punch and kick the air, but then realizing I have to step back in if I want to hit them and now they're laughing).
Ever heard the expression "roll with the punches"? It's an actual concept in fighting, where you move your body to avoid the worst of a hit and let it hit you in a place and/or in a fashion your body can handle.
Comics show heroes dodging all kinds of stuff because it's dramatic, but if you actual fully dodge in a fight you either remove yourself from contact (You move out of range, or in a ranged fight you take full cover denying yourself a shot) or are extremely acrobatically taxing (Ducking, arching your back backwards, and jumping up in the air all frustrate your coordination and balance).
"Partial Avoidance" is actually the most common and realistic of all three you listed. Full absorption isn't an option for most people, and even most heroes have only low levels of toughness. Full avoidance is Heroic if done on a regular basis, but only super-agile heroes bother with it in the comics. "Partial Avoidance" is also what most of the stones people allocate to defense do - which is anything that stops the damage. It isn't explained each panel because it's too complicated to do so and slows down gameplay.
As for attacks doing full damage if they overcome reflexive dodge, I don't agree with that because if you partially dodge an attack then you partially reduce its effectiveness. You're not completely off thinking it should work like that, but it switches between the too so often and there are so many factors it's simpler just to pick one. I pick partial avoidance that lets reflexive dodge decrease potential damage so that I don't have to worry about balancing dodging an attack against taking it on the chin.
If we do things the way you suggest, we would have to make dodge defenses much cheaper or differentiate more between attack and defense. That's fine if that's what people want in MURPG 2.0, but it's a little more complicated and comes with problems of its own.
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Post by WildKnight on Mar 8, 2009 12:10:46 GMT -5
Bottom line; realism isn't that relevant.
The single largest problem with MURPG 1.0 was that defenses were too numerous and too cheap compared to attacks, and therefore most characters could EASILY ignore the "base" attack of any opponent (i.e. it was quite common to have RD 3 and Toughness 3, for an automatic total of 6 defense, meaning that nobody but The Hulk could throw a big enough punch to harm you without going above their energy reserve... and thats without spending a single stone to your defense. This meant that characters were built to level the playing field by adding as many modifiers as possible to attacks, which caused horrific escalation)
As long as we avoid people being able to put up massive defenses (8+ stones) with little or no effort, I'm happy.
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Post by takewithfood on Mar 8, 2009 19:42:14 GMT -5
I have all of 2 minutes to write a post, so sorry if this doesn't make a ton of sense, no time to edit:
But what about putting Ref. Dodge and Toughness on the same cost schedule? In other words, if you want to buy both Ref. Dodge and Toughness, add up the MNs you want, and add the base cost of +3 CL.
Example: Someone playing Spiderman wants Reflexive Dodge 5 and Toughness 3. Rather than buying them individually (which would cost 9 white and 4 white respectively), they add the MNs together, plus the usual +3 CL. This would cost 20 white.
This basically makes people pay for cost of their total defense modifier. Otherwise it's often too attractive to justify buying a little of both. As WK pointed out, the most cost-effective balance is RD 3 and Tough 3, for a total cost of only 8 white. With the proposed system, it would cost 12 white - the same as someone with Toughness 6 or R Dodge 6.
~TWF
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Post by malice on Mar 8, 2009 20:27:14 GMT -5
I actually thought that was the system you guys were planning to use in MURPG 2.0. Hence all the mention of "generic modifiers". That same system was suggested at least once that I can remember in MURPG 1 some where in the rules boards.
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Post by Neros on Mar 9, 2009 9:24:27 GMT -5
I agree, that the only real problem in the old system with Defense was that you could gain a rather high defense for a low cost.. Letting the two types of defense affect eachother sounds like a very good idea, but Im not sure if i like the system you are propose TwF, its only a little bit, nothing big, so I would love to test it to see how good it will work out.. So if you buy Reflexive Dodge 5 and Toughness 1, it would cost 12w? And if someone would trie and do a touch attack, they would negate the 1 toughness?
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Post by WildKnight on Mar 9, 2009 9:47:44 GMT -5
Even with stacking costs... I'd still like to see the cost comparison between having (just for instance) RD 2, Toughness 2, and Force Field 1 (for 2 additional defense) vs. having an attack that can generate 6 stones and even energy regeneration to repeat that attack every single panel.
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Post by Dionon on Mar 9, 2009 10:01:00 GMT -5
That's a big difference... Let's see... in the proposed system RD 2 + TG 2 = MN 4 + 3 = 7 = 6stones + FF 1 (Classic) = 2 stones = 8 stones TOTAL Old Force Blast 6 = 4 stones CC 6 = 4 stones RC 5 with +1 Gun (2x damage) = 3 stones Fireworks 6 = 6 stones Charge Objects 6 = 15 stones
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Post by malice on Mar 9, 2009 10:01:25 GMT -5
Reflexive Dodge 2 + Toughness 2 = 6 stones to buy it
Force Field 1 =1 stone
The character spends 1 energy to have 5 defense and take the sixth stone of damage to their energy pool.
Another character buys
Close Combat 5 3 white stones
Modifier +3 to Close Combat 4 white stones
For the same cost in character creation stones can generate at LEAST an 8 stone attack, probably close to an 11-stone attack. It won't go much below 11 and it can certainly go well above
But they spend 3 energy to make a 6 stone attack against the defender, who spent 1 energy for 6 defense but loses another energy because their FF takes max damage.
Both those characters paid the same amount in Character Creation stones, and the comparison seems to indicate that attacks will be capable of overcoming defenses but must spend the energy to do so.
Problems with the comparison: Doesn't take touch or area attacks into account. The first character sucks. Although in my opinion if a character buys a lot of varied defensive modifiers and actions, they SHOULD have a high defense and there's nothing imbalanced about it.
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Post by Dionon on Mar 9, 2009 10:21:48 GMT -5
Man... I need to put up a thread to see what's been finalized and what hasn't been... Cause I didn't know we'd finalized anything regarding Force Fields yet... All that was still in the works last time I looked...
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Post by WildKnight on Mar 9, 2009 10:46:05 GMT -5
Its not necessarily a question of balance so much as one of impact.
If you can refute my points about the issues with defense vs. attack in MURPG 1, feel free to show me where I'm wrong.
My experiences as a GM have shown me that defenses (in particular the double defense of Force Fields) quickly outstripped attacks, until players started taking cheese-tastic attack actions (like Phase Attack)
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Post by malice on Mar 9, 2009 10:55:11 GMT -5
Man... I need to put up a thread to see what's been finalized and what hasn't been... Cause I didn't know we'd finalized anything regarding Force Fields yet... All that was still in the works last time I looked... I was just using the latest presentation because it was something I could work with, if I used the old version it wouldn't have made the comparison very different. Its not necessarily a question of balance so much as one of impact. If you can refute my points about the issues with defense vs. attack in MURPG 1, feel free to show me where I'm wrong. My experiences as a GM have shown me that defenses (in particular the double defense of Force Fields) quickly outstripped attacks, until players started taking cheese-tastic attack actions (like Phase Attack) I feel like you mis-interpreted my post or you just want to argue about something. All I meant is there's nothing imbalanced about someone being able to design their character to be good at something. If you make a defensive character, you should be good at defense. If you have a lot more stones than everyone else (Like the Hulk) then you can probably afford to be good at more than one thing. Also I love Phase Attack, but it has nothing to do with it being Cheese-tastic, I saw the Frighteners and I thought it was cool to reach in someone's body and manipulate their vital organs. To balance it against Force Field in MURPG I only allow the Force Field to count half (i.e. the amount of stones in the action box instead of 2x the stones) but the Phase Attacker has to overcome the Force Field with only the stones in his Phase Attack action (to simulate manipulating their form to slide through the Force Field). It works pretty well, especially since a lot of players buy Phase Shift at a Low AN crippling themselves against Force Fields. Shadowkat could do it pretty often if she had Phase Attack, but a lot of players end up with a Phase Shift of 2 + Phase Attack (good ole cost level 7) and can't overcome anyone's Force Field.
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Post by WildKnight on Mar 9, 2009 11:41:15 GMT -5
I've got nothing against Phase Attack EXCEPT that it becomes one of a few good options, and thus gets overused, when defenses run rampant.
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