Basic Action Super Heroes!

I ran a test game for BASH SF Thursday night. It went a little bumpy due to not having a book on hand and I don't have the rule down quite yet. I ran a short senario with my son. I used 3 Startroopers regulars DL 7 and a Dark Psi-Destroyer DL 27. I let my son make a Gung-Ho power level hero. I had the Startroopers in the scene 1st and after they were defeated, I had the Psi-Destroyer come in and fight. My son character took care of the Startroopers in a couple of rounds, as he should with minions. The battle with the Psi-Destroyer wasn't quite as epic as I'd hoped. My son's character is a Martial Artist themed character and he had a Agility 4. The Psi-Destryoer had a Agility 2. The Psi-Destroyer never even touched my son's character. One problem was that the dice didn't cooperate with me (the GM) and it is harder to "cheat" when he can see the dice. After reading up on the rules again, I noticed a couple of thing that we did wrong.

1. My son's character has swift strike and we forgot it cost energy.
2. His character was wearing armor and didn't have the powers to go with it, so he should have had a penalty. I couldn't remember if there was one and where to find it.
3. For so reason I was thinking that Mind was used to attack with ranged attacks but Mind is only used to do damage. I should have used Agility to attack.

Is there any thing I could have missed to help make this battle a little more challenging?

Hi,

I don't have BASH SF, but in UE there is the idea of a Variable enhancement that you could put on the Destroyer's attack, letting him shift points between attack and damage multiplier. In-character it's the difference between spraying bursts around hoping that some of them hit or a concentrated attack that'll do high damage only if it lands.

Alternatively, I thought there were rules for minions to help their boss, contributing to his attack/damage. But I just tried to look it up, and didn't see it, so I may be losing it. On the other hand, it makes sense and you could add it as a house rule - something like using the minion gang rules to help the villain's attack. That might only be a good rule if the villain's attack isn't significantly better than the minions'.

Again, in UE (don't know if SF is the same), area burst attacks don't need to roll to-hit, although the target can roll to dodge some/all of the blast. Maybe giving them some sort of grenade or other area attack could help. With a x4 Agility he's likely to be taking no more than half damage, but that may be enough if he's strong on Agility and weak on Soak.

The Dark Psi Destroyer has "Adrenal Control" which can be used to boost his Agility or Brawn whenever he wants (or take a 2nd panel) for 2 Energy. +1 Agility would help his offense and defense.

His Energy Blade technique gives him a base of x3 to hit. If he used Adrenal control to help, it'd be x4. Same goes for his Electrokinesis.

The Dark Psi destroyer also had a x4 defense w/ a +3 dice bonus to his defense rolls. This would give him an average of 40 Defense against most attacks, so it should have been very hard to hit him, even with a x4. If he used Adrenal control to boost Agility, he'd have a x5 w/ +3 Dice bonus, making his defense around 50 each page (depending on how he rolled).

Armor does give penalties if you don't have Armor Familiarity power (See Armor Familiarity). It is -1/-2/-3/-4 for Light, Medium, Heavy, or Power armor.

BASHMAN wrote:The Dark Psi Destroyer has "Adrenal Control" which can be used to boost his Agility or Brawn whenever he wants (or take a 2nd panel) for 2 Energy. +1 Agility would help his offense and defense.

His Energy Blade technique gives him a base of x3 to hit. If he used Adrenal control to help, it'd be x4. Same goes for his Electrokinesis.

The Dark Psi destroyer also had a x4 defense w/ a +3 dice bonus to his defense rolls. This would give him an average of 40 Defense against most attacks, so it should have been very hard to hit him, even with a x4. If he used Adrenal control to boost Agility, he'd have a x5 w/ +3 Dice bonus, making his defense around 50 each page (depending on how he rolled).

Armor does give penalties if you don't have Armor Familiarity power (See Armor Familiarity). It is -1/-2/-3/-4 for Light, Medium, Heavy, or Power armor.

Thanks BASHMAN. I ordered a dead tree version last night, so I can have it on hand.

Just wanted to drop in with a up date but 1st here is my son's character.

Renji Blaze
Brawn 2 Agility 4 Mind 2

Powers
Feint 1pt
Footwork 1pt
Martial Arts 5pts (Catch, Cyclone Kick, Elbow Smash, Jump Kick, Kick, Kippup, Knee Smash, Knife Strike, Martial Block, Punch, Spinning Backfist, Throw)
Swift Strike 2pts

Skills
Athletics +3 / Acrobatics, Streetwise +1/ Gut

Advantage
Blaze of Glory
Disadvantage
Honor Bound

Equipment
Integrated Gun-Vibroblade (Blaster Pistol [+3DM, 10 Range, Burst, Variable 20 Shots]; Vibroblade [+3DM Lethal])

Credits: 2,000

I ran the test battle again. This time it worked out a lot better. I still rolled really bad (1,2 twice). The battle lasted about 5-7 pages. The last round my son's character had 12 hits left and the Psi-Destroyer had 10 hits left. My son's went 1st using Footwork. He transferred all of his Defense to Attack giving him an Agility 8 for the purpose of attacking. and hit the villain with a 88 to hit and a 30DM (Ouch!). I will run a few games before deciding to permanently switch for my Star Wars game.

Wow, sounds like it went well! Also sounds like your son is pretty savvy with his combat tactics! Bravo!

Yeah, he is too smart for his own good. All-in-all we had a great time. I am going to run an adventure when my deadtree version of BASH! SF arrives.

What era? KOTOR? I did something during the Clone Wars with it that was pretty fun. The pregen characters were heavily inspired by KOTOR and Starwars Battlefront.

One of the sample PCs I made was an R2 unit (who was surprisingly useful/competent).

What was funny was at the end, the Sith guy was beaten not by party Jedi, but by the smuggler (the Sith had previously attempted to use the Mind Trick on him, and it failed- but the smuggler pretended to be under his influence, and backstabbed him when he was supposed to be giving him a med-pack).

I have two games going, a Legacy era and a New Jedi Order era.