Stun house rule

[AslanC]

So after monkeying around with it I now use the following stun rule;

Whenever a player crosses one of 3 plateaus of damage they must make a Stun check.

The plateaus are;

At 75 points of Health remaining the character must make a difficulty 10 Brawn roll. If they fail they are out for 1d6 pages, though they can attempt to wake up before that time is up by making a difficulty 10 Brawn roll with the remaining Pages out as a dice penalty.

Example: Captain Pow get's knocked through a wall and takes 27 points of damage over his soak. He immediately rolls a Brawn check and get's a 3. His Brawn is 2 which means he is out for 1d6 pages. The Narrator rolls and gets a 3. The next page, on his Priority he tries to shake it off and has to make a Brawn check vs 10 with a -3 Dice Penalty. If he doesn't succeed, he can try again next page with a -2, failing that the page after with a -1, failing that he is back up the following page.

At 50 points of Health remaining the Brawn check is vs 20.

At 25 points of Health remaining the Brawn check is vs 30.

We have tested it and it works really really well.

Oh and of course dropping a Hero Die for "Never Say Die!" allows the character to get back into it right away.

[gryfn]

well the effect i see this having is increasing the value of a high brawn
a 1 brawn character might fail the first , and will almost without question fail the second roll . reducing hit points from 100 to 25 or 50
a 2 brawn louses 25 to 50 likely dp
im assuming being helpless for a few turns against an opponent who knows not to stop pounding is a lot like lousing, and hero dice are hard to come by for characters at the power scale

[AslanC]

Sorry but I just don't agree totally with the view. I can see what you mean but;

1] Hero Points should flow like water. This is about the heroes and them doing tremendous things. I give mine out a lot and as a result the heroes try to do things instead of hoarding them like nuts. Now the rate which another referee gives them out is up to him, and certainly there is no "right" amount. For me though, the heroes trying crazy things and desperate moves is what makes it exciting.

2] Player's will lose sometimes, act 2 of most stories involve losing to some degree so that there is an emotional investment in seeing the triumph in the 3rd act.

3] Unless you are running an Iron Age game, it is rare to see a villain in a comic keep pounding on a hero after knocking him out. Most times they move on to another target or turn their back and walk away. What a wonderful time for a resurgence! Just when the villain has gotten overconfident!

4] If you are running a team of heroes, again once taking down one hero, a villain should logically move on to the next target.

5] We have been using this rule now for 4 combats and have had no issues. Thanks to the exploding nature of doubles, at least 3 heroes have made the level 30 save. Most fights they don't get that low anyways.

6] In comics, heroes are constantly being taken out for a page to come back in a surprise strike after being dismissed by the hero. For me, your mileage may vary, the 100 hits and nobody drops until 100 hits have been depleted current system does not model that as well as I would like.

Now again, your mileage may vary and certainly I am not suggesting anyone should use this rule, the BASH combat rules are just fine as is, but for me this just adds a little danger and spice to the game

[BASHMAN]

I bet that Immunity: stun may become a popular power.

[AslanC]

I bet that Immunity: stun may become a popular power.

None of my players have it or asked for it. One did take Immunity: Knockback though.

What I attempted, and feel I have succeeded at creating here is something that models the comics book up-and-downs of a fight, without causing the "death spiral" of penalties, while not allowing for an all-or-nothing hit point combat either.

Barring powers like Immobilize, Daze, etc, all characters go at 100% until they lose all 100 Health.

This just adds a level of danger to it.

Come on? Someone out there must see it? I can't be crazy.... can I?

[gryfn]

well one thing i love about bash is the math is so eloquent
a build 1 agilely 5 character is equal to a build 5 agility 1 character
they have the same chance of both hitting and damaging each other
and a character with two 3,s or a 2 and a 4 have the same overall chance.
what im saying is the values of agility and build are balanced now. And i see adding sun con rolls as breaking that balance .

[AslanC]

I see your point, but if one villain with Immobilize shows up, the most important thing in the game is Brawn.

Brawn also determines Soak, which makes it King as well.

Brawn 1/Agility 5 may hit more often, but Brawn 5/Agility 1 is going to soak that hit up like butter.

I don't see how this is upsetting any balance. Maybe you can show me, since I haven't encountered it yet, and would like to see what I am not seeing.

[AslanC]

None of my players have it or asked for it. One did take Immunity: Knockback though.

Correction; My player took Resistance to Knockback, not Immunity.

I am not sure you could buy Immunity to Knockback, could you? If no then I wouldn't allow Immunity to Stun either.

[gryfn]

ok assuming avg roll of 7
one hits with 7 and soaks with 35
one hits with 35 and soaks with 7

i think the results are equal against each other
now a character with two 3,s
hits with 21 and soaks with 21
notice these all end up being 42

rethinking this a bit you may be right there's no reward for hitting by a lot as there is for damage rolls
math is hard
your right though immobilize needs to be watched.
i think of it mostly as a anti mook power

[Lindharin]

Conceptually, I like the idea, and I don't think it is crazy. Aslan mentioned something like it a while ago, and I liked it then.

Now, with a caveat that I haven't played this, so I may be mistaken, my personal vision of it would be that it would be a minor new mechanic added mostly for flavor / interest, not powerful combat effect. Because of that, the specifics of the implementation sound a bit too harsh for how I'd use it in my game. Having a default 1d6 page duration seems long. In comparison, some powers you've actually paid points for, like Slow, etc. have a duration of 1 page plus one page per 10 extra success. I personally wouldn't go beyond a duration of 1d3 pages, or alternatively, I might go with something like:

At 75 hits, it has a duration of 1 page.
At 50 hits, it has a duration of 2 pages (or a Brawn 20 check to get free after one).
At 25 hits, it has a duration of 3 pages (with a Brawn 30 check to get free after page one, Brawn 20 to get free after page 2).

But if someone wants it to be a major element of the game, then that is a little different.

Does it apply to villains too? It seems like it would make it much tougher for a single arch villain to take on a team of heroes.

[Lindharin]

An alternative approach that might be a bit more random, a bit less predictable, might be to have a stun effect when the attacker rolls doubles on the damage roll, and then have it last 1 panel plus 1 panel per X damage actually inflicted (after soak). For a major influence, make X something like 10 (equivalent to how Slow, etc. works). I'd probably do more like X = 20 or 30, personally.

This avoids one of the minor flaws (IMO) of a threshold-based stun system, where you get hit by a major blow that does 24 hits and aren't stunned, then get hit by a love tap that does 1 hit, which puts you over the threshold, and stuns you.

[BASHMAN]

Lindharin, I like that. Using Doubles on damage to stun. What is cool is you could even Stun someone that you cannot "hurt"! Which I think was possible in FASERIP.

But with doubles being a 1/6 chance, I'd want stuns to be a bit more rare. Maybe if you rolls Doubles on damage and the damage was more than 10xBrawn of the subject, they are stunned...

[AslanC]

They how about this as a comprimisem;

If in one blow, pre-soak, the damage is more than 10xBrawn of the target, there is a Stun potential.

How would we decide the resistance to the Stun and how long should it last?

[AslanC]

What is cool is you could even Stun someone that you cannot "hurt"! Which I think was possible in FASERIP.

It was only if you had Martial Arts D which allowed you to Stun and Slam an opponent without inflicting damage, but only after studying them after 2 rounds.

[Lindharin]

They how about this as a comprimisem;

If in one blow, pre-soak, the damage is more than 10xBrawn of the target, there is a Stun potential.

How would we decide the resistance to the Stun and how long should it last?

Is this with the doubles as trigger? Or any blow that does 10xBrawn pre-soak has some extra stun component?

Since there is already a Brawn component involved that filters out weaker blows, what we're now saying is that despite his/her Brawn the blow was nasty enough to stun (aka Daze?) the target. So maybe treat it like the Daze power. You are already affected by the blow so it is no longer a matter of toughness, but instead it becomes a matter of your will / drive / Mind to shake it off. This avoids the double-dipping of making Brawn your only means of both avoidance and resistance, which means that low Brawn, high Mind characters aren't inherently penalized compared to high Brawn, low Mind characters. One gets dazed more often but can throw it off more easily, the other gets affected less often but has a harder time throwing it off.

If you like that, then it might work like this:

It is triggered by doubles on the damage roll, and requires 10xBrawn pre-soak damage. If stunned, you lose your panel until you roll a 20 mind check (one try per panel). And maybe if you beat the difficulty by 10 or 20 you don't lose your panel?

Just a thought...