From: PCHEM14@Zeus.unomaha.edu (FALL88)
Subject: Re: Gurps Supers is still broken : was Re: Best Super system
Organization: University of Nebraska at Omaha
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1992 23:21:38 GMT
X-News-Reader: VMS NEWS 1.11

dfrancis@tronsbox.xei.com writes:

> In article <1992Aug12.044335.17088@news.unomaha.edu> PCHEM14@Zeus.unomaha.edu (FALL88) writes:
> |All this says is that the enemies always bring enough force to win, so long
> |as they are the ones with the initiave.  They don't have any limits, like
> |manpower, weapons, etc, do they?  Or, they don't have any genre oriented
> 
> 	If you can't bring enough firepower to win, why are you going?

Allow me to repeat myself.  You can't get the firepower, or are hoping
to avoid the heros, not ambush them.  Or, since you don't have thier
stat forms, you did think you brought enough.  Or, you have no choice.
You have a chance at dealing with them, you take all you got and go
for it now while you have the manpower/weapons.

> |psych crocks, like megalomania or overconfidance.  Or that they don't have
> |perfect data about how tough the heros are, like the heros are openly 
> |advertising what calibre round it takes to penetrate thier hide and whatnot.
>
> 	See above -- if you don't know what you're doing, then why are you
> doing it?

Megalomaniacs and overconfidant individuals may well know what they are doing,
but have a tendancy to underestimate thier opposition.  That is why they are
disadvantages.  (Well, overconfidant at least.)  You seem to assume that the
GMs have all the knowledge of the GM.  At least 9 times out of 10 they don't.
Why bother playing if the GM plays against you like this?

> | 
> |And you don't understand post-12 recoveries.  First, you are not guarenteed
> 
> 	I understand them perfectly; I ran Champions from the time it came out
> to the release of SuperWorld as a stand-alone game.
> 
> |one.  Second, it doesn't magically make you concious.  Or even close.  Keep
> |in mind most people have REC less than 10.  And, considering that you were
> 
> 	I have NEVER seen a super with less than 10 REC.  And it will indeed
> bring you back to consciousness if you were knocked out by less than your
> REC.

If you want, I'll write a *long* list of all the printed superheros/villians
with REC of 10-.  There are lots.  And if you are at -21 or worse, fairly
possible in a x2 STUN ambush, then it is not at all uncommon.  A 12d6 EB is
suddenly doing 84! STUN.  So, your 10 REC only makes you concious if you were
in the 'concious but still aware of the world' zone.  (0 to -10).  To run
a 84 STUN blast against even a tough individual (30 PD, 33 CON, 60 STUN) will
put him to 6 STUN left, stunned and knocked down.  And he is *tough* at these
value.  A more average individual (24 PD, 23 CON, 40 STUN) will be reduced
to -20 STUN.  He just barely gets his post-12, if at all (variance will 
determine), and is going to lay there for several phases, because he is
still stunned too...

> |speaking of x2 STUN shots, you are probably still stunned.  So you lose your
> |action.  And if you were knocked out, then you are down (1/2 DCV) and are 
> 
> 	Wonderful.  You should still be unconscious, though.

Should be?  You know something I don't, like how superpowers interact with
super defenses?  My point is that you don't.  And, seeing as the average
250 pt character is busy sleeping from but a single hit (and most of mine
don't stack up to average) I don't think it is as far off as you want to
proport.  Only a *very* though brick (I based his STUN on 55 STR, 15 BOD,
33 CON, 30 PD/ED) was even left concious at all.  (6 STUN left!)  If you
want a full-blown suprise, it's over pretty quick.

> |left with very little END anyway.  No, logic and experience dictates that
> |this isn't any real problem.
> 
> 	The recovery rules are quite possibly the single most brain-damaged
> section of the Hero system.  Even in the sourcebook section, Allston
> recommends that the GM stop giving unconscious characters their recoveries
> once one side or the other has attained the upper hand in the battle.

As much as they are 'brain damaged' they are servicing an important part of
the genre again.  One you don't like, but that heros have the ability to
get up.  With a big attack, you can virtually steal that from them, as I
noted.  The GM just moderates the attack.  Or the recoveries, which when
you take from the heros you have to be gentle about doing so.  How about:

The villians fire on the heros.  All but the Thing is ko'd, he is stunned.
They will take 2-3 recoveries to come concious each.  Next phase, the villians,
now outnumbering the mightly thing, all fire on him at once (he just recovered
being stunned and didn't act).  With this, the mighty Thing goes down.  The GM,
telling the players that a recovery would just end up with thier characters
getting shot while down, tells them it's dramatically effective for this not to
happen as the villians have the situation more than well in hand.  And thus the
Heros are defeated, even if it didn't happen in a split second...

Sound like a comic-book ambush?  And did we really commit some henious crime
by not letting the Heros have the recoveries once Thing was down?  Anyone 
getting to (0 to -10) STUN will be noticed as semi-concious and just shot
again anyway, and to this they will not recover anytime soon, even Thing.
The players, realizing this, will not feel cheated that they couldn't be
blasted again.

> |Why not bring stun weapons? Maybe they aren't available, effective or relaible.
> |Especially in GURPS, where an assualt rifle does 7d+1, making it usually pretty
> |irrelevant to even roll damage against an unarmored for, you're going to do his
> |HT in damage every time.
> 
> 	Tear gas is pretty easy to come up with, and the percentage of supers
> that still need to breathe is simply astounding.  Villains with access to
> TL/8 stuff (gadgeteers, or anyone in my campaign) can whip out CHEM rounds,
> shock rods and tanglers.

Tear gas isn't going to work to well against fast moving supers.  They can
exit the area too quickly, some of them before the gas even leaves the hex
of the cannister.  The others are fine and dandy, I suppose, for a TL 8
world.  Some people have it, some don't, which is my point that the villians
might not always have such items.

> |Why not slit thier throats when unconcious?  Maybe the villians would like to 
> |do a genre oriented thing, like torture their hated enemies in a deathtrap.  Or
> |maybe the villians have some sense of honor about killing helpless opponents.
> |Also very genre.
> 
> 	Like I said in the first place, if you are going to crock it, who cares
> what the rules say?  I don't observe "genre" conventions, period.  If I was
> going to hit everyone with these bizarre pyschological restrictions, I'd run
> TOON.

Fine.  Don't play the genre.  Go to killing all downed opponents and get treated
in a like manner.  Ever heard the ugly stories about people who have killed cops
and the treatment they recieved when captured, or how they were 'killed during
escape' and other things like that?  Maybe the villians would like to be 'clean'
becuase they know they may well be captured themselves.  Or maybe they are just
more intelligent than that, and realize that there are better things to do than
kill heros, like manipulate heros in ways that they find beneficial.  Super-
powers don't grow on trees.  Even without 'genre' conventions, there are good
reasons why everyone isn't killing everyone.

But past that, I cannot really do much.  Even with stun rules, the variation
in dice against such a small value (HT) makes the combat flow very strangely.
(plink, plink, *whang*, thud...)  I find the wider range of ablative defense 
(Hero STUN to GURPS HT) a little more useful when dealing with so many dice
in each attack.  (Which can be both in the double digits of dice...)

And Guns, still a problem, follow the STUN rules?  I'd have to check, it was
my impression they didn't, making a human normal weapon pretty scary.

-james
Xref: sparky rec.games.frp.misc:4188 rec.games.board:7993