New to Bash... build questions

Post by **BASHMAN** » Tue Aug 09, 2011 12:24 pm

Harrigan wrote:Yeah, might be sacrilegious to say here, but I actually think that M&M gets a whole heck of a lot of things right, especially in terms of the stun rules, hero points, pushing, fatigue, etc. (The d20 is atrocious, but switching that to 2d10 kept me going on the system for years...)

But... yeah, in the interest of speed and straight-up storytelling, I find myself shopping the market for new supers games.

Think I might run an online Bash ION Guard game to really get the feel for the system. Can't tell yet if I'll like the dice mechanic or not, if street-level supers are well modeled, and if I can do without full-on stun rules. Running a game will let me know.

That sounds cool. If it is Play by post or something I would be interested.

Regarding the dice mechaic- be sure to check out the other options in the appendix. Dice pools, fudge dice, playing cards, etc are all alternatives. The chart at the back makes things pretty easy for the default system (Anybody okay with rolling d% and looking at a colorful chart should find it pretty easy with 2d6. Instead of calling them "column shifts" though, they are multiplier Bonuses, Row shifts would be Dice Bonuses).

Regarding Stun- You are right that stun is not an official part of the rules. But people on here have posted their own stun house rules. I think Aslan C did something like that. It would be very easy to add into the game I think. Check out the house rules section of the site (the Laboratory)

Here's how I'd do it. First, I would use the rules for Lethal damage (vs. Stun) in the Iron Age section of Chapter 5. Then I would add a special stunning effect that Stun Damage can have.

Your characters Brawn x10 is his "Stun Threshold". Every increment of this that the ATTACK ROLL exceeded your Defense by (for a stun damage attack) gives you a -1 Dice penalty (cumulative) until the end of your next panel. So a guy with 2 Brawn rolls 21 on Defense. The attacker rolled 65 to hit. The target soaks it all because of his armor and lucky rolls. However, the attack DID hit by over 40 (twice the guy's stun threshold). Even though he soaked the damage, the stunning effect has given him -2 Dice Penalty to all rolls.

Another option is a person who is stunned simply loses their entire next panel (and cannot take interrupt actions until then). However, I think that might be too harsh.

I kinda like the former idea for something for BAM. Maybe we can have an article about people's optional combat rules?

Harrigan · Post by **Harrigan** » Tue Aug 09, 2011 10:17 pm

BASHMAN wrote:The point of designing a character isn't to make the most efficient character- it is to make the character you envision.

Yep, I get that. I've gotten that for years, with a variety of systems -- you can design that way in Hero and M&M and all the rest, but I think the math (whether it's "derived stats" or "trade-offs") is just too juicy a target for some folks to not feel just compelled to min-max. I've been told I'm building PL10 M&M characters "wrong" when the Attack and Damage values don't total 20. Mind boggling.

Anyway. Anxious to see what Bash! can do for me.

Forging ahead.

Harrigan · Post by **Harrigan** » Tue Aug 09, 2011 10:24 pm

...to this post.

BASHMAN wrote:
Harrigan wrote:Think I might run an online Bash ION Guard game to really get the feel for the system. Can't tell yet if I'll like the dice mechanic or not, if street-level supers are well modeled, and if I can do without full-on stun rules. Running a game will let me know.
That sounds cool. If it is Play by post or something I would be interested.

Will keep you posted -- definitely talking about play-by-post, as that's pretty much all the gaming I can fit in these days. (I actually prefer it, now that I've been playing that way for a few years longer than I played face to face. Much deeper stuff, though really it's just a different experience, IMO).

Playing with several ideas now, across both Bash! and ICONS. Considering running a game in each system to see if one grabs me more than the other, since upon reading them, I like both. Bash! feels more grown-up in terms of maturity, but I've always had a soft-spot for Fudge and Fate.

The ideas are:

-The aforementioned ION Guard game
-A teen academy supers game
-A WWII supers game

All of them likely fairly limited in scope, at least to start.

Regarding Stun- You are right that stun is not an official part of the rules. But people on here have posted their own stun house rules. I think Aslan C did something like that. It would be very easy to add into the game I think. Check out the house rules section of the site (the Laboratory)

Will do. I already have some of my own ideas as well...

Here's how I'd do it. First, I would use the rules for Lethal damage (vs. Stun) in the Iron Age section of Chapter 5. Then I would add a special stunning effect that Stun Damage can have.

Read those tonight. Really dig that it takes longer to heal, etc. Nice, simple effect.

Your characters Brawn x10 is his "Stun Threshold". Every increment of this that the ATTACK ROLL exceeded your Defense by (for a stun damage attack) gives you a -1 Dice penalty (cumulative) until the end of your next panel. So a guy with 2 Brawn rolls 21 on Defense. The attacker rolled 65 to hit. The target soaks it all because of his armor and lucky rolls. However, the attack DID hit by over 40 (twice the guy's stun threshold). Even though he soaked the damage, the stunning effect has given him -2 Dice Penalty to all rolls.

Very Marvel Super Heroesy, where you can Stun / Slam someone without actually hurting them.

Another option is a person who is stunned simply loses their entire next panel (and cannot take interrupt actions until then). However, I think that might be too harsh.

That's actually where my brain goes -- I'm after a pretty significant effect, indicating that someone really got floored, not that they're going to have an incrementally harder time of things on the next page. Could use a Hero Die to recover, a la shaking off Stun with a HP in M&M...

Post by **BASHMAN** » Wed Aug 10, 2011 5:24 pm

I would let you shake it off with just a Hero Point myself. A Hero Die would be for an ongoing effect like Daze, Immobilization, etc. Stun (in my view) would last only up to 1 page.

Also, since this is being built as a new combat rule, someone being stunned would happen fairly often- so having it require a Hero Die to snap out of it is a little too harsh IMO.

Post by **BASHMAN** » Wed Aug 10, 2011 5:25 pm

BTW:

-The aforementioned ION Guard game
-A teen academy supers game
-A WWII supers game

I'm down for ANY of these.

Heroglyph · Post by **Heroglyph** » Wed Aug 10, 2011 5:44 pm

I'd be interested as well. I have rarely been able to play in a supers PBeM, but I ran one for over ten years.

Saker · Post by **Saker** » Wed Aug 10, 2011 6:16 pm

Well, if we have to declare interest here. I would certainly apply to play too.

capmarvel · Post by **capmarvel** » Wed Aug 10, 2011 6:37 pm

Count me in as well.

Harrigan · Post by **Harrigan** » Wed Aug 10, 2011 10:02 pm

Fair enough. Not having really played yet, I still need to get a grip on just how powerful hero points should be vs. hero dice and so on.

Speaking of playing, looks like there's a little interest here in a game -- sorry if this isn't the appropriate place to advertise and whatnot, as it wasn't my intention to start recruiting. Good to see people are hungry, though.

I presume there's a better place for that conversation here on the forums somewhere; I'll look and find it. If I'm honest, though, I'd rather run the game in one of my "usual" spots. Are any of you folks members of rpol.net or pbphouse.com?

Leaning towards WWII homefront heroes, but not yet decided...

Harrigan · Post by **Harrigan** » Wed Aug 10, 2011 10:07 pm

Heroglyph wrote:I'd be interested as well. I have rarely been able to play in a supers PBeM, but I ran one for over ten years.

Forgot to ask, Heroglyph -- what game did you run? The homegrown campaign you mentioned that traversed systems as mine has?

Heroglyph · Post by **Heroglyph** » Wed Aug 10, 2011 10:18 pm

Yeah, that's the one. It was called Meta-Earth. I originally started with Champions back in high school, then revived it after college as a PBeM with Marvel SAGA, then after several years switched to M&M. It is pretty much retired now though. Just didn't have the time to put into running a PBeM anymore. But it ran for over 10 years. 20 if you count the high school stuff. Man I am old

Lately, I have been running some Skype session with some old buddies using BASH. It is a new campaign. Low powered superhero stuff with an occult/ supernatural theme. (i.e.Hellboy, Blade, Buffy, Underworld, etc) . It has been going very well.

Heroglyph · Post by **Heroglyph** » Wed Aug 10, 2011 10:47 pm

Just posted some summaries of the supernatural stuff here.

http://bashtalk.org/modules.php?name=Fo ... opic&t=973

bigsteveuk · Post by **bigsteveuk** » Sun Aug 14, 2011 4:39 am

Hi,

If you intend to run a couple of WWII adventures I would be interested depending on what you want as turn around for posts.

Also the advantage of running on here would be the bash dice roller.

Cheers,

Steve