From: davis@cwis.unomaha.edu (James J Davis)
Subject: Re: Yet more killing attacks
Keywords: champions
Organization: University of Nebraska at Omaha
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 11:04:07 GMT



Marc states that he had at least two different rules regarding the effects
of various defenses on killing attacks.  This has been mentioned before, and
I've been satisfied that the clearly correct version is that you roll the
BODY, roll the multiplier, and multiply, THEN you take out defenses.  So
STUN done is based on amount rolled, not penetrating.

I don't know what the 'lack of restraint' problem is here.  The campaign
is high powered.  Where is the problem?  If Steve had a 3d6 killing attack
and the sidekick had a 1d6 autofire, AP, +1 STUN multiplier attack, would
'restraint' been mentioned as an issue?  And, to my experience, killing
attacks are a problem if they are anywhere close to same DC as normal
attacks.  So they are a problem whether 'restraint' is used or not.  Please,
let's confine to the issue here: are Killing Attack multipliers a good or
bad idea?

'REALITY' of high (linear) variance of killing attacks is arguable, at best.
Despite two posts trying to argue that it's more realistic to have very high
(x1d6-1) variability in a killing attack, I remain unconvinced.  First, it
is too often forgotten that by simply rolling 1/3 the dice of a normal attack,
the killing attack gains more variability.  Also, the arguements never
included something very important: comparison to a normal attack.  A normal
attack has varying effects just like a killing attack depending on where you
hit the opponent, which is no suprise to anyone.  So Marc's arguement about
'hit locations' doesn't do it for me.  Kromm mentions that a graze from a
bullet (Killing Attack) vs a direct can cause great variance.  Well, does
not the same hold true for a punch?  Sure it does.  Avoiding the energy of
the attack is (almost) always a good idea.  Kromm states that killing attacks
have 'dozens of uncontrollable variables'.  Well, normal attacks have a lot
of variables, too.  How many *more* does a killing attack have over a normal
attack?  Not enough to warrent slapping a linear curve on a already higher
variance (due to rolling less dice) attack.  (Oh, BTW, Kromm's example from
the 'Journal of Trauma' is invalid in this arguement, since it was clearly
a discussion of the variance of BODY.  Never did he mention STUN in that
little stint.)

Now, let's be straight here.  First, I *observe* that killing attacks have
way too much variance.  So does a lot of other people.  And, fix it, I've
incorporated different ideas, one of which includes the straight x3.  And,
I've witnessed the results.  Game works better, and I hardly see how 'realism'
was effected.  And, this is no short test, but *years* of play.  The inhereint
variability of rolling less dice in a killing attack is quite enough.

And 'reality' is over-rated anyway.

Two of the interesting solutions to the problem came from the observation
that the higher BODY and ability to go through normal defenses made the killing
attack still superior to the normal attack of equal cost when you use the x3
multiplier.  So, killing attacks are still the thing to have.  I have used
two solutions successfully:

(1) Killing attacks become no knockback automatically, and do x3 STUN.  Now
normal attacks have a place, doing knockback.  Killing attacks would do equal
STUN, more BODY, and go through normal defenses.  However, if they want to
do knockback, it will cost +1/4.

(2) Killing attacks have a multiplier of 2 or 3, depending on the die roll.
(Roll a '2 or lower' on 1d6, and the multiplier is 2.  '3 or higher' gives
it a multipier of x3, for 33% chance of getting only x2.)  This lowered STUN
ability compensates for the higher BODY and ability to shred those without
resistant defenses.  And, a incredible amount of STUN variance is not created.

-james
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc