100 hits, Soak, Armor, etc...

[kevperrine]

I've just found BASH! in the last few months. With that I've only played/Narrated 3-4 game sessions so far. My biggest question (in limited play) is:

What do people (that have played multiple times or have a good theory) think of the fact that PCs and many primary Super Villains have the ability to Dodge the attack, then Soak the attack (often subtracting lots with Armor, etc...), then also 100 Hits to "go through".


I've learned (quickly) that "minions" cannot be or should not be ONLY just the random thugs and ninjas, they can/should (must?) also be many of the "lower teir" super villains. Because if you have a team of Super Villains (like say the Sinister Six) ... if they ALL have 100 hits and all their individual Dodge/Soak then the "slog" of battle becomes a long long issue.

Am I missing something?

So... my solution for this is to say that some of the Super Villains on the team are in the roles of lesser characters and have been designated 20-80 Hit minions. Super Villains like "the Vulture" or "Mysterio" from the Sinister Six example might have 40-60 Hits, while "the Sandman" and "Doc Ock" might have 80-100...

I have come to this conclusion BECAUSE in our battles it seems like their have only been 1-2 "big" hits. With most averaging in the 40-60 Damage range, then subtracting Soak resulting in 5-10 Hits only.


Am I missing something?
Am I doing something wrong?
Or does it seem like 100 Hits + the chance to Dodge and then Soak away all the damage is high for a "team" of character (villains or heroes)?

Alternatively... I would ask - is this on purpose? Is this to "push" the effort to use other powers to restrain or some other way of stopping the battle?



Thanks for your thoughts!
-kev-

[BASHMAN]

Am I missing something?

Yes.
1. Teamwork really makes a difference. Heroes can do team-up actions- and those are EXTREMELY powerful when done right. You get to use whoever has the best stat combined with whoever has the best power, combined with a Hero die to pull off that attack. That's HUGE. So someone w/ a Brawn of 2 has Unobtanium Claws that give him +5DM special attack. He is picked up by Brawn 5 Guy, who throws him. Here they combine Brawn 5 Guy's stat w/ Claw Man's power for x10 Dmg. And they get a Hero Die to resolve either the Hit or Damage roll (or they could use it for a power stunt, etc instead).

2. USE your Hero Dice. Damage rolls are a good time to do this. If you have attack weak point, and roll a 10 or better on your attack roll- USE IT.

3. Timing. Btw- don't forget the rule of Transparency. The players GET TO SEE the bad guy's roll before they decide to use a Hero Die, or spend points. So if the Villain rolled a 100 Soak, and you rolled 50 damage... you may not want to use that Hero Die after all. Wait for the time when the bad-guy rolls low.

4. The other thing- and I cannot stress this enough- you don't always "win" by taking the villain down to 0 Hits. This isn't D&D. Some guys you fight MIGHT be invincible. The solution isn't to slog longer- it's to fight smarter. If you get the sandman inside a force-field, and he cannot get out (well, when he gets out he finds himself in a slightly larger force field), you beat him. If you have a character immobilized an they have no hope of escape, you beat them.

In another supers game (which will remain unnamed) I had once frozen a villain in a block of ice, which he had no hope of escape from. Other players started DIGGING HIM OUT so they could beat him down to zero HP. I was thinking "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" he's down, move onto the next guy, sheesh.

You might be able to trick a villain into defeating themself (the classic dodging as they knock the last support beam away in time to see the roof collapse on them).

[BASHMAN]

Also, I forgot- Called Shots for Damage (+10 Result bonus to Dmg if you hit by 10. If you are way faster than the bad guy, why WOULDN'T you do this?

[BeardedDork]

It's better not to use teams of villains except very rarely, after all this seen rarely in comic books, better is a combination of a single villain and multiple minions.

If you have a team of four 40 point heroes, versus a team of four 40 point villains, 1) this fight will last forever, 2) If the heroes win it will likely be only by winning on ties, which again goes to making the fight last all night.

Also consider the motivations of your villains, everybody wants or needs something, and evil does not mean friendly to other evil. Why would multiple villains team up unless absolutely needed to accomplish their heist, minions are functionally disposable (though they too should have some plausible reason for doing what they are doing, greed most often) and don't require a full share of the loot as far as a villain is likely concerned, where as multiple villains will be very concerned with how the spoils should be divided each will likely be certain that they should receive the lions share.

Multiple Villains strain suspension of disbelief very rapidly.

[urbwar]

When I ran my one game, I worried about this as well. Since I had a group of villains, I felt that a battle between both groups together would last forever. So I split the bad guys up, and certain villains were encountered at certain times. They never faced more than 1-2 of them at a time (there were 6 heroes in the group). Until they got into using team work, taking down 1 villain wasn't easy.

Once they figured out that working together made things easier, they started taking down the villains faster. It made the fights much more interesting too. It also helped me learn a few things about designing characters (as my AP pointed out)

The bottom line is that there is no "I" in team. If you're a team, work together. You see it all the time in comics, especially with groups like FF or X-Men (who were designed as teams from the start).

[MrJupiter]

Great discussion.

[jakspade]

I could suggest that you might handle it a couple of ways, and these are just suggestions...

1) Many games (Torg for example) divides their encounters up into standard and dramatic types. The Standard encounter is one where the heroes have the advantage, so there will be more minions lieutenants and less main villains. You could then set your hits and soaks lower to give the heroes an advantage. The heroes are basically looking for clues to the main villain's plot, and encounter resistance from the lieutenants. (edit: forgot about Dramatic encounters) The Dramatic encounters are scenes where the villains clearly have the advantage, and the hits/soaks can be set higher to add pressure to the heroes.

2) Many MMORPG type games divide their villain groups into Bosses, Lieutenants an Minions. The number of lieutenants and minions are usually based on the number of heroes, perhaps one lieutenant per hero (or two heroes), and groups of minions based on the group of heroes. The main boss(es) would have the standard number of hits, where as the rest would be reduced. If the boss is encountered with his lieutenants, the fight wouldn't be as tough as if they were all standard villains, which (a) gives the Narrator a chance to use teamwork tactics with the villains and (b) still gives the heroes a chance at success.

Well, that's my .02 dollars...
jak

[BASHMAN]

The "Dramatic Encounter" would be when the Villain spends a Villain Die to do a Monoglogue

[Nestor]

The classic Hong Kong Action Theater RPG, Feng Shui, separated NPC opponents into two types, Named and Unnamed.

Unnamed NPCs were basically the faceless mooks you see in any action flick whose only job is to attack the heroes in waves and get mowed down.

In combat, you didn't keep track of hit points for them. All a PC had to do was have the combat roll result be high enough (five above the target number, IIRC). The PC could then select whether he knocked the mook or out or actually sent him off to his minionly reward.

I've used a similar system in other games to deal with situations where the PCs face off against an army of henchmen/ faceless minions.

[Lindharin]

Another thing is how you rule the Pushing Yourself options. Based on the sidebar about Transparency that Bashman mentioned earlier in the thread, we also assume the rolls are made before the player has to decide whether to Push (page 26). My players will wait for a good roll (or a bad roll by the villain) then Push themselves. They may take 10 to 40+ hits themselves, but they'll suddenly have an extra 1 to 4+ levels in any power, which for attacks means x1 to x4+ on their damage.

We find combats end up being VERY strongly influenced by timing with this approach, and it works well for us. There are normally a few pages of back and forth combat, whittling away a bit, and then the dice come up favorably for someone (a great PC roll, or horrible NPC roll), and they push to severely affect that target. And I do the same for the villains, so it works both ways. It has a very comic book feel.

And yes, we've had a few encounters where the PCs did more hits to themselves this way than the villains managed to inflict, yet it still felt appropriate and fun.

[kevperrine]

I've learned (quickly) that "minions" cannot be or should not be ONLY just the random thugs and ninjas, they can/should (must?) also be many of the "lower teir" super villains. Because if you have a team of Super Villains (like say the Sinister Six) ... if they ALL have 100 hits and all their individual Dodge/Soak then the "slog" of battle becomes a long long issue.

Am I missing something?

So... my solution for this is to say that some of the Super Villains on the team are in the roles of lesser characters and have been designated 20-80 Hit minions. Super Villains like "the Vulture" or "Mysterio" from the Sinister Six example might have 40-60 Hits, while "the Sandman" and "Doc Ock" might have 80-100...

I have come to this conclusion BECAUSE in our battles it seems like their have only been 1-2 "big" hits. With most averaging in the 40-60 Damage range, then subtracting Soak resulting in 5-10 Hits only.

On this point I originally asked about... Is this something that is a "good" option for the Narrator to do?

One of my players (in the game I tried this with) who is VERY familiar with the rules was surprised (shocked) when a punch by one of the PC Heroes did only 60 pts. of actual damage ... and I described the villain going DOWN.

He was surprised because I never described that villain as a "minion" type. And in fact, the villain was NOT a "minion" but rather a lesser villain on the team of villains. For which I set the "leader" of the Villain team at 100 Hits, then tiered down the second "level" of Villain on the team to 80 Hits, then to 60 Hits, then the "normal" minions at Minion Hits levels. (and all but the true Minions had the ability to "Monologue" to raise their Hits)

Is this a bad method?

Is there a repercussion I'm not (yet) seeing for the game balance?


-kev-

[BASHMAN]

No, you can do this as a house rule, and there should be no problems with it. Just remember the transparency rule, too