House Rule thoughts on high defs vs high tough

[jmucchiello]

It seems to me that having high parry/dodge is less effective in combat on average than having high toughness. I'm not even sure this premise is actually accurate but still I'm considering a solution that might make sense.

The other reason for this rule is it always bugs me that other than a critical on the die roll, the attack roll contributes only success/failure to the flow of combat.

So, after too much preamble. What if degrees of success on the attack roll translated to added effect on the resistance roll. Now, here again, I'm not sure I how much it should add. But the gist here is that if you had, say, 3 degrees of success (rolling 10 or more higher than the defenders defense rank) the effect of your attack would go up by 1. Or perhaps even do it 5s like normal success (I'm not sure if this is too powerful or not):

ATTACK ROLL            EFFECT
failure                failure
1 degree of success    normal effect roll
2 degrees of success   effect roll at +1 effect
3 degrees of success   effect roll at +2 effect
etc                    etc

In the event of an actual critical success, you would apply my effects as normal and then the attacker would still be allowed to do any of the three things you can normally do with a crit roll. It might be worth increasing the cost of Improved Critical in some manner. Maybe 1 PP for 19-20, 3 PP for 18-20, 5 PP for 17-20 and that's it. Nothing beyond 17-20. (I've thought this should be how Impr Crit costs anyway. But the added value of success makes it seem even more important. Or I'm overcompensating?)

I'll probably just try all this in the next PbF game I run here. But I'm curious what others think about this.

[JDRook]

Re: House Rule thoughts on high defs vs high tough

I've been wanting to do something very similar to this for a while, giving +1 effect for Attack bonus checks for each degree beyond the first and maxing out at +5, making it equal to a critical hit. It does add more effectiveness to high-attack PCs, but it would also add it to everyone, particularly when fighting anyone with low-def.

Technically it allows everyone to break PL on a relatively consistent basis; I haven't tested it or crunched the numbers, but I strongly suspect it would make everyone in your setting operate at about +1PL offensively. All attacks would succeed a little more often, making the game potentially feel more action-oriented, or increase the desire for better defenses. Grabs, Trips and Disarms would be more useful. Defense debuffs would be more desirable. All-Out Attack would be more risky, Accurate Attack is kind of a wash.

Multiattack would not change in effectiveness but would feel less powerful, assuming it replaces the houserule and doesn't stack on top of it (which I think is insane).

ImpCrit is dependent on pure die roll and not affected by Attack bonuses, so I see no need to change it because of this, as long as added Effect caps at +5.

Overall, even though it would benefit all PCs to some degree since everyone has the capability to get in some "good if not great" die rolls, Attack-shifted PCs would benefit most, so your Crimefighters, Martial Artists and Weaponmasters would greatly improve. Since Powerhouse-y PCs are already mathematically favoured by the system, this could balance things out a bit, although it would take some testing to see if it goes too far.

[jmucchiello]

Re: House Rule thoughts on high defs vs high tough

Since Powerhouse-y PCs are already mathematically favoured by the system, this could balance things out a bit, although it would take some testing to see if it goes too far.

This was the goal. The system favors high Toughness over high Active Def. Had not thought about Multiattack. Yes, probably need to remove the "single target" version of multiattack. The other versions still make sense.

[DeanH]

Re: House Rule thoughts on high defs vs high tough

High toughness is best against Damage attacks but useless against Affliction and Weaken. You can give more enemies these if you want to balance things out.

[DeanH]

Re: House Rule thoughts on high defs vs high tough

High Toughness is best against Damage but useless against Affliction and Weaken. You can give more enemies these if you want to balance things out.

[FuzzyBoots]

Re: House Rule thoughts on high defs vs high tough

A slightly less severe version I've seen is making critical hits be a factor of three degrees of success. That means high accuracy characters will got them more often, and lower accuracy perhaps not at all. There was also a proposal of "tactical counters" which gave +2 or +5 for future attacks or defense in a given encounter.

[jmucchiello]

Re: House Rule thoughts on high defs vs high tough

High Toughness is best against Damage but useless against Affliction and Weaken. You can give more enemies these if you want to balance things out.

Yes and no. Area afflictions are very common and they affect both high and low def characters equally.

[DeanH]

Re: House Rule thoughts on high defs vs high tough

You get a Dodge against Area afflictions unless they're perception range.

[Bothrops]

Re: House Rule thoughts on high defs vs high tough

Had not thought about Multiattack. Yes, probably need to remove the "single target" version of multiattack. The other versions still make sense.

And that's precisely the reason why I shy way from this kind of extensive "balancing" houserules: They tend to provoke a rat's tail of other complementing houserules, such as your Multiattack example. Another examples could be Impervious (whose value would be further diminished by your houserule), or Immunity 2: critical hits (the latter should logically work against your houserule's precision bonus, and thus rendered more powerful - prompting certain GMs to increase its cost, forcing players to retcon their characters...and so on). See what I mean?
Also, do you think this houserule is really necessary? Why not simply use Power Attack (yields a very similar result)?
Speaking of Power Attack: Accuracy-shifted builds are highly cost-effective. Since high accuracy is dirt-cheap, making a potent-but-expensive attack power (such as Corrosion) bought at a lower rank easily affordable. And then you use Power Attack to simply boost the latter's rank! Remember, Power Attack does not distinguish between simple melee damage (1p/rank) and Corrosion (3p/rank).

[jmucchiello]

Re: House Rule thoughts on high defs vs high tough

And that's precisely the reason why I shy way from this kind of extensive "balancing" houserules: They tend to provoke a rat's tail of other complementing houserules, such as your Multiattack example. Another examples could be Impervious (whose value would be further diminished by your houserule), or Immunity 2: critical hits (the latter should logically work against your houserule's precision bonus, and thus rendered more powerful - prompting certain GMs to increase its cost, forcing players to retcon their characters...and so on). See what I mean?

I see what you're saying and I don't care that one house rule can cause a cascade. The cascade ends at some point. In this specific example, I don't see my rule interacting with immunity to critical hits at all. This would just be "how it works." You can no more be immune to this rule than you can be immune to the incapacitated condition. Second, characters would be built with the rule change known. I would never introduce this to an existing campaign. And who buys Impervious?

Also, do you think this houserule is really necessary? Why not simply use Power Attack (yields a very similar result)?
Speaking of Power Attack: Accuracy-shifted builds are highly cost-effective. Since high accuracy is dirt-cheap, making a potent-but-expensive attack power (such as Corrosion) bought at a lower rank easily affordable. And then you use Power Attack to simply boost the latter's rank! Remember, Power Attack does not distinguish between simple melee damage (1p/rank) and Corrosion (3p/rank).

Power Attack doesn't do what I want at all. In addition to the benefit of evening out high accuracy and high defense, I also want the first die roll just as INTERESTING as the second die roll. The first die roll is pass/fail. The second die roll has degrees of success. Rolling a 7 or 17 sometimes has the same meaning on the first roll. I find that boring.

[jmucchiello]

Re: House Rule thoughts on high defs vs high tough

You get a Dodge against Area afflictions unless they're perception range.

But there's no attack roll. So this rule doesn't interact with area effects.

[DeanH]

Re: House Rule thoughts on high defs vs high tough

But there's no attack roll. So this rule doesn't interact with area effects.

My point was that the advantage of high toughness can be balanced more effectively by the GM giving more enemies affliction and weaken than by the proposed rule.

[jmucchiello]

Re: House Rule thoughts on high defs vs high tough

My point was that the advantage of high toughness can be balanced more effectively by the GM giving more enemies affliction and weaken than by the proposed rule.

Just about all of my villains use afflictions. I still see the imbalance.

[DeanH]

Re: House Rule thoughts on high defs vs high tough

Just about all of my villains use afflictions. I still see the imbalance.

Are their afflictions max power and cumulative? I meant afflictions that can take people out of the fight.

[jmucchiello]

Re: House Rule thoughts on high defs vs high tough

Are their afflictions max power and cumulative? I meant afflictions that can take people out of the fight.

Define max power. Afflictions are limited like any other attack to attack bonus + effect rank <= power level * 2.