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zarlor
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Old January 31st, 2017, 07:03 PM
For the SW Supers games I've played and run in it seems that a common theme is often to put the Supers up against a single baddie, but I find that scenario is almost overly sensitive to dice acing like crazy. The best combats tend to be the ones that are a bit more tailored to be team-v-team and that have both weaknesses to certain opponents but are also the bane of other opponents.

Lenny Zimmermann
Metairie, LA, USA

Data files authored (please let me know if you see any issues with any of these if you have/use them):
Official (In the downloader)
50 Fathoms, Deadlands: Hell On Earth, Deadlands: Noir, East Texas University, Necessary Evil (requires Super Powers Companion), Pirates of the Spanish Main, Space 1889 (original file by Erich), Tour of Darkness, Weird War II, Weird Wars: Rome
Coming Eventually
Evernight (LWD has completed their review but I have some fixes to make first... although Pinnacle mentioned this might get an overhaul to SWADE so I may just wait for that first. If you just HAVE to have this now, though, just PM me)
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Paragon
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Old February 2nd, 2017, 03:33 PM
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Originally Posted by Cobalt-Blue View Post
I can see where that will be a problem. I tend to play out my plot-lines with my wife using a game system. I can see her complaining about a character she developed in M&M suddenly being "brittle". The problem I'm having is creating characters that are "broad in power" instead of deep. I'm trying to create an edge that can be purchased to grant extra Super Power points. Haven't quite got the hang of the editor yet. Had to uninstall HL and reinstall it once already because I screwed up the generator. (Somehow I ended up with starting 4 color heroes with 168 points. I'm still not sure how that happened.) The more I kept trying to fix it, the more the starting points climbed.
There's a modifier that will allow you to do something like a Hero Multipower or M&M Array, but if you need something more like a Variable Pool or Variable, you're definitely out of luck.

And the Editor can sometimes be something of a challenge. I've gotten so I'm halfway comfortable with it, but it took some serious practice and doing an entire setting file before I really felt good with it, and then only really with Savage Worlds (though I could probably do most of what I wanted with the M&M files, too).

Just as an aside, I'm another really old superhero system guy.
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Paragon
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Old February 2nd, 2017, 03:40 PM
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Originally Posted by CapedCrusader View Post
As far as damage vs defense in Savage Worlds superheroes, I agree it takes a bit of work to balance. It's not as easy to plot how much defense you need versus how much damage is being dealt. Then you throw in the Heavy Armor rules, and it gets fun. I've played Supers in SW a lot more than I've run it.
We've got a guy in one of my groups that likes to over-analyze everything. He did a work up on exploding dice, and it was his contention that it did not add that much of an advantage. While his numbers are solid (they always are), it doesn't feel like they tell the whole story. It feels like it happens more often than his numbers say, and it certainly produces more of a reaction when it happens (as opposed to rolling more dice). It's just exciting. It makes the GM's job tougher, because of the tendency for characters to get lucky and one-shot your bad guys. I recall being concerned during a Deadlands game about throwing a Werewolf at them when they had a distinct lack of silver weapons, and then the Huckster blew it out of it's socks with a Bolt spell first round.
Also - a word on the term "exploding" that always makes me chuckle. The term from Savage Worlds is "Acing", but I've rarely heard anyone call it that. They always say "explode". The term explode is from 7th Sea. Although, in the Second Edition, they've unfortunately limited when dice can explode rather severely. But that's what everyone says.
Its an old term; I saw it used for open ended dice rolls all the way back in Shadowrun 1e discussions.

In its way, its much like a critical hit system, and relatively few people are used to dealing with relatively rough critical hit systems. In addition, SW has a tool for buffing off the edges of most open ended rolls (bennies) but it makes kind of perverse incentive for using them for other purposes, and of course if the result is extreme, even a bennie won't help.

I suspect your friend did something like look at the statistical average for acing, but didn't consider that for impact on play, its not just that but severity that has an impact. Also with large numbers of dice, how visible it is is rather more likely to occur (with six dice of damage, you should probably see at least one reroll about every other damage roll for example).
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Paragon
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Old February 2nd, 2017, 03:47 PM
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Originally Posted by zarlor View Post
For the SW Supers games I've played and run in it seems that a common theme is often to put the Supers up against a single baddie, but I find that scenario is almost overly sensitive to dice acing like crazy. The best combats tend to be the ones that are a bit more tailored to be team-v-team and that have both weaknesses to certain opponents but are also the bane of other opponents.
Well, SW in general has problems with many-on-one fights--the system is just not kind here, and its really hard to fix without applying special rules.

A lot of superhero games also have particular issues with multiteaming being over-attractive in general; while there's a fine old tradition of superhero-team-up-against-more-powerful-opponent, its far less common to see all the members of a team pick on one member of an opposition team, then move on to the next, but to one degree or another, almost all make that too attractive (some of these are older games--Hero/Champions is just as bad about it as any other game focused on accumulated damage--but they aren't alone or even necessarily worst--the worst example I've seen is actually Supers! RED).
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CapedCrusader
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Old February 2nd, 2017, 03:58 PM
For a Variable Power Pool, take a look at Super Sorcery.

_
Currently In Development: Savage Pathfinder
Future Development: SWADE Super Powers Companion, SWADE Fantasy Companion
_
Currently Running: Savage Unity Inc. (homebrew multiverse theme)
Setting Files Supported: Deadlands: Reloaded, Flash Gordon, Gaslight, Hellfrost, Interface Zero 2.0, Seven Worlds, Slipstream, Solomon Kane
Future Setting Files: Savage Judge Dredd
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Paragon
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Old February 2nd, 2017, 04:20 PM
I suppose there is that, though the rules don't seem to encourage it for general use.
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Cobalt-Blue
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Old February 2nd, 2017, 04:41 PM
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Originally Posted by Paragon View Post
I suppose there is that, though the rules don't seem to encourage it for general use.
I've yet to see a game system that DID encourage it.
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zarlor
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Old February 2nd, 2017, 05:06 PM
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Originally Posted by Paragon View Post
Well, SW in general has problems with many-on-one fights--the system is just not kind here, and its really hard to fix without applying special rules.

A lot of superhero games also have particular issues with multiteaming being over-attractive in general; while there's a fine old tradition of superhero-team-up-against-more-powerful-opponent, its far less common to see all the members of a team pick on one member of an opposition team, then move on to the next, but to one degree or another, almost all make that too attractive (some of these are older games--Hero/Champions is just as bad about it as any other game focused on accumulated damage--but they aren't alone or even necessarily worst--the worst example I've seen is actually Supers! RED).
What I mean, though, is that, despite most of the guys being quire familiar with MMORPG style tactics, the team-v-team combats in SW (at least with Supers) don't often drop down to everyone banging on just one guy and trying to work their way through them. A quick bit of thought on how to counter the strengths and exploit the weaknesses of the heroes will often get players having to think a lot more tactically and spreading out which hero needs to take out which villain (or which villain takes out which villain if you play Necessary Evil. ) And all too often those are really the most fun fights, I find.

Otherwise I don't really have too many issues with SW in many-on-one fights outside of Supers. There are solid ways to to make a fight challenging enough to get the players having to think of a way to deal with a baddie (high parry requires a different tactic than high toughness, for example, and things otherwise invulnerable to all but their particular weakness can be very challenging as well, things like that). And in those few cases where you big-bad woozle does get taken out in one hit I've yet to see a group of players actually complain about that. It may feel a little disappointing as a GM but recognizing that they players feel like "Holy crap, you took it out in one shot!" with high fives all around, that ends up feeling pretty epic in its own right. I think it some ways its something I kind of like about Savage Worlds. It could just be how I approach it, though.

Lenny Zimmermann
Metairie, LA, USA

Data files authored (please let me know if you see any issues with any of these if you have/use them):
Official (In the downloader)
50 Fathoms, Deadlands: Hell On Earth, Deadlands: Noir, East Texas University, Necessary Evil (requires Super Powers Companion), Pirates of the Spanish Main, Space 1889 (original file by Erich), Tour of Darkness, Weird War II, Weird Wars: Rome
Coming Eventually
Evernight (LWD has completed their review but I have some fixes to make first... although Pinnacle mentioned this might get an overhaul to SWADE so I may just wait for that first. If you just HAVE to have this now, though, just PM me)
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SeeleyOne
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Old February 2nd, 2017, 06:31 PM
I have never seen a RPG where many-to-one fights were done well. Even in d20 games the action economy is the main thing. Single bosses get hosed. That is why you add in other things like more enemies, terrain, and other situations that favor the opponents.

Evil wins because good rolls poorly .... or the players are not paying enough attention to the game.
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Paragon
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Old February 3rd, 2017, 07:31 AM
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Originally Posted by Cobalt-Blue View Post
I've yet to see a game system that DID encourage it.
Yeah, but I meant here its pretty much only discussed in the context of what the power is called; with others you at least see discussions of Gadget Pools and other such powers that are limited more conceptually than by what they can specifically do.

Their equivalent is always going to be a construct that needs to be handled with care, on both balance and overhead grounds.
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