Question - Dodge can only be purchased as a skill, no Dex bonus added in correct?
Question2 - Toughness can only be modified by your Con, no skill ranks?
Can we streamline it to be one or the other? Either you buy one skill or it’s modified only by the ability? Or does it make more sense that Dodge is counterbalanced by attack (can only buy one point per level) and Toughness can only be modified by your Con?
Crap. There’s the bell. Time for my last class to start soon. I won’t be on tonight because I’ll be at class. But I will be tidying the wiki tomorrow.
OK, it seems that you come to the difficult point of all point-based systems. If you do not add the ability scores to the skills, you come to a point where the ability scores are not relevant (if dex does not add to dodge, what does it do then?).
Ability score bonuses are essentially a point-break anyway. If you have high dex, you save points over the option of putting all the points into skills - if you have enough of dex based skills that is.
I think what could be better is to limit the ability score bonus (affecting many things) with its own limit and the skill ranks with another. Then you add ability score bonus and skill ranks to see the total bonus for the roll (essentially capped at ability bonus cap + skill rank cap). That way, both bonuses are useful. Anyway, there has to be some kind of reason to have ability scores at all.
Question - Dodge can only be purchased as a skill, no Dex bonus added in correct?
Question2 - Toughness can only be modified by your Con, no skill ranks?
Can we streamline it to be one or the other? Either you buy one skill or it’s modified only by the ability? Or does it make more sense that Dodge is counterbalanced by attack (can only buy one point per level) and Toughness can only be modified by your Con?
Crap. There’s the bell. Time for my last class to start soon. I won’t be on tonight because I’ll be at class. But I will be tidying the wiki tomorrow.
You are correct with Dodge.
Toughness can be modified only by Con, but can also be improved with FX and gear (from the Protection FX). I’m strongly considering allowing Toughness to be bought up like any other skill, since the difference point-wise is insignificant. (Note: in M&M, you can’t buy toughness up directly… you need gear or a power to improve your toughness, which serves to reinforce the superheroics of the genre. This is where I took this convention from).
Right now, I’m honestly not sure about whether or not Dodge should be improved by Dexterity. On one hand, I want it to be, but I’m not certain if this will make Dex “too good”. I’m leaning more towards it being fair, though, since Toughness is already modified by Con (and still capped like Toughness at the PL value). Under M&M, Defense wasn’t modified because it cost 2pp/level. Since Dodge only costs 1 cp/level, this concern might vanish. I’d appreciate feedback from the community on that.
Rothe - 04 October 2007 09:37 AM
OK, it seems that you come to the difficult point of all point-based systems. If you do not add the ability scores to the skills, you come to a point where the ability scores are not relevant (if dex does not add to dodge, what does it do then?).
Dex currently adds to Reflex (essentially a slightly-expanded Initiative), as well as “normal” skills Acrobatics, Inflitration, and Vehicles skills.
Ability score bonuses are essentially a point-break anyway. If you have high dex, you save points over the option of putting all the points into skills - if you have enough of dex based skills that is.
I think what could be better is to limit the ability score bonus (affecting many things) with its own limit and the skill ranks with another. Then you add ability score bonus and skill ranks to see the total bonus for the roll (essentially capped at ability bonus cap + skill rank cap). That way, both bonuses are useful. Anyway, there has to be some kind of reason to have ability scores at all.
Ability scores and skill ranks are both already limited with their own seperate caps
I was reading the wiki again and something bothered me.
I read the sneak attack feat and it said something about damage being limited by the campaigns power level. How does this work exactly? There was no damage cap in the table.
One thing about this bothers me, and it is that normally sneak attack should be a way to make the most out of a special (more difficult to achieve) situation. If it is limited by the same cap as normal damage, some characters might not get any benefit at all from it because their damage might be high already in “normal” situation.
JK, can you explain how you handle capped damage bonus?
That means in a PL-6 game, you can’t deal more than +6 damage without trade-offs. This includes feats like Sneak Attack (so no, you can’t use
There are many ways you could go about reaching your damage cap for the level. In a fantasy game, a wizard might meet it with his spells. A warrior might meet it with his huge sword and strength modifier. A thief might meet it with a little dagger and sneak attack ranks. This says a lot about how your character reaches his damage bonus.
In essence, sneak attack is a feat which is derived from the following power:
Damage 2 (Flaws: Limited [Opponents Denied Dodge Bonus to Defense])
If your damage is already at the PL cap without sneak attack, then no, you won’t need the feat. It’s one option for characters to reach PL cap at a reduced cost with the flaw of needing to target unaware opponents.
Remember, try not to think about an effect or feat as a way to “break” the PL limit: the only feats that can do that are the trade-off feats (all-out attack, power attack, defensive attack, etc.). Rather, look at them as ways to reach your PL cap. A roguish character or an assassin might only be effective under specific conditions, needing to maneuver and use teamwork to really hit his PL caps on damage, but that saves him character points to spend elsewhere (in the case of a roguish character, it might mean more points going to skills like Infiltration or the like). The challenge in building a character in this system isn’t, “How high can I get my character’s damage/attack bonus/defense/whatever?”: those super-high numbers can cause problems for GMs who don’t expect it. Rather, the challenge is, “How can I get my character’s damage/attack bonus/defense/whatever up to the cap?” You’ve got a budget in the form of your character points, and making your character work within that budget is honestly a fun character-building exercise.
I completely understand that the aim of capping things is good for game balance.
The thing I am worried about is the cost of getting to a similar damage bonus via two routes and seeing if the sneak attack offers enough of a point break because it is limited in use.
Could you help me understand what it costs in points to get to the damage cap with the following examples.
Assumed power level: 6 (damage cap: 6)
Roguish character having +6 damage (+1 strength, +4 sneak attack, +1 knife)
My understanding is that the total cost is 7 (2 str, 3 sneak att., 2 knife)
Brute character with +6 damage bonus (+3 strenght, +3 battleaxe)
The cost should be about 10.
Now, my doubt is that the brute is getting a much better deal, because strength is useful for more tasks, and his damage bonus is fully useful in more cases than the rogues (also thinking about uncanny dodge being cheap and available). Also, I am assuming that surprise attack has more or less the same conditions as in 3.5E d&d.
Still, now that I did the calculation (if it is correct) I see that there is a bit more of a point break than I initially though, so maybe it is about correct.
Still, I guess a lot of this kind of comparing is necessary to see that the cap can be reached with reasonable balance in point costs.
Anyway, how do you feel about having some kind of feat to overcome uncanny dodge? In d&d it is just based on levels which give you sneak attack vs. levels that give uncanny dodge. In d20A I guess it is more difficult to do some kind of comparative thing (unless it would be sneak attack ranks against uncanny ranks).
I always did like playing rogues… I just hated how easy they were to shut down with a few things.
Could compare ranks in SA vs. ranks in Uncanny Dodge like you say, or your PL+ranks if you wanted to represent higher/lower power NPCs being harder/easier to affect.
In terms of bang for his buck, is the warrior getting a better deal? Maybe. In addition to the extra +2 damage to his melee attacks, the warrior is getting a +2 bonus to his Athletics checks and a +2 bonus to lifting and carrying checks.
But what about the rogue? Realize that his sneak attack damage applies to any attack that he can make. Bow and arrow? Sure. Longsword? Of course. Unarmed*? You bet. And with his extra 2 cp, he could afford to buy a backup weapon or two (like a hand-crossbow [Damage 1 [Extras: Ranged] for 2 ep).
And unlike D&D, it’s actually kind of hard to prevent a determined sneak-attacker from getting sneak attack. Since a character gets two actions, it’s easy to feint and then sneak attack in a single round. And if you’re in a game that has lots of immune to crits enemies (constructs, undead, plants, etc.), the rogue can very easily buy a feat that makes these creatures vulnerable to his sneak attacks again.
Another thing to consider is that if you’re really set on recreating the D&D experience, the rogue might have a trade-off that lowers his attack bonus in exchange for a higher damage. So maybe he only attacks at +5, but his damage can reach +7 (and only when he sneak attacks).
It’s really a matter of deciding what sort of concept you’re looking to create under these rules.
...
Uncanny Dodge is still a sticky spot I’m working on. As it’s written now, it doesn’t protect you against feints: only really being caught flat-footed at the start of combat. Only someone with total concealment against the sense your uncanny dodge is tied to can surprise you. So if you have uncanny dodge (auditory), so long as you can hear the person, they can’t surprise attack you.
To take a superhero example, nobody gets the drop on Spider-Man because his spider-sense protects him. Well, nobody except for Venom, who somehow doesn’t trigger the webslinger’s spider-sense.
*Here’s an unseen benefit: if the rogue and the warrior are both disarmed, the rogue can still attack at +5 damage. The warrior can only attack at +3.
OK, JK you convince me. The point about getting the sneak attack for all weapons and unarmed too is a good one. Although the strenght also applies to most weapons, it still costs double.
To be honest I did not read up on the equipment costs, so I was thinking that character and equipment points were equal.
That is a second point of wonder for me. It seems odd that a strenght 6 character at power level 6 would not benefit from using a battle axe, or any other melee weapon for that matter.
I guess that does not really matter, but the cap concept just messes with me for some reason if even equipment is included.
That is a second point of wonder for me. It seems odd that a strenght 6 character at power level 6 would not benefit from using a battle axe, or any other melee weapon for that matter.
I guess that does not really matter, but the cap concept just messes with me for some reason if even equipment is included.
Another way to think of it is that he just hits so hard, it doesn’t matter what he hits you with. Sure, he can add the slashing descriptor from picking up an axe or a piercing descriptor from using a spear (along with reach), the damage the spear does is just insignificant compared to his sheer muscle power.
It honestly didn’t jive with me at first either, but eventually I got it. +6 damage at PL 6 is the target, and the challenge is in how you reach it. That brute who does +6 damage unarmed? He scoffs at puny weapons. He’s muscle from head to toe, and a weapon is for weaklings. Or he carries a sword around because the slashing descriptor is useful, but if you disarm him, you’ll be surprised to learn that his massive fists hit you so hard that you almost wish he had the sword back!
(My character in our ongoing M&M game is like this. Sure, she has her sword, and it’s useful, since it’s penetrating and boosts her matter-shaping powers. But she can hit just as hard unarmed when she shapes her hands into weapons too. In the end, the damage is the same, and she can’t benefit from the sword’s damage and her shapeshifting at the same time, but the two effects feel different enough to be significant).
It’s a very different way of looking at things than traditional D&D, but if you can get your head around it, it winds up making a different (but no worse) sort of sense.
That’s actually one of the things about the M&M/d20A system I like. No longer is the rogue sidelined to do less damage than the brute. The power just comes from a different tact. A huge basher can clobber you over the head and knock you out, but the little Okinawan guy can also knock you out: his knock-out just comes from the specialty of knowing the exact spot on the base of your neck which he needs to hit.
Exactly. It allows for a group of heroes with wildly different approaches to combat who still come out quite balanced at the end of the day. The mage isn’t going to out-damage everyone by virtue of being the mage, and it’s not a race to see who can make the sickest uber-charger possible. Your warrior is going to heft his battle axe and let loose a mighty warcry, then start cleaving skulls left and right at +6 damage. My mage is going to delve into the darkest secrets of the grand arcanum and ignite the primal essence of fire in his enemies’ souls, burning them for +6 damage. And Bob’s rogue is going to duck and weave, throwing his foe off balance before slipping his dagger right into the other guy’s kidney between the seams of his armor, sneak-attacking for +6 damage.
I’m just getting into reading the actual wiki right now, but I’m wondering how a character like Razor Charlie would be made in this system. He would be a mostly martial type character with damage not dependant on sneaking, but having the ability to sneak somewhat nonetheless. Mostly a very street savvy knife fighter who’s forte lies in the fact that he can have as close to 50 knives in the air at any one time...all flying at your eye.
