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Revised Supers! - NPCs (Including Mooks+) Thread


Everything and anything to do with NPCs goes here.

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"The English language is the product of Norman invaders attempting to pick up Anglo-Saxon women. The resulting language is about as legitimate as the resulting offspring." — From the Internet
9/2/2012, 5:32 pm Link to this post Email AndrewCollas   PM AndrewCollas Blog
 
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Re: Revised Supers! - NPCs (Including Mooks+) Thread


Mooks, Henchmen, and Hazards as Dice Pools:

When I first cracked open Supers! I thought using static numbers for these 3 catagories of challenges was a brilliant idea. Having had chances to fight against and run them, I've now come to conclusion that they would be better off handled as Dice Pools. (I'm going to use the term Mook to cover all three types)

Devil's Advocate (or why I'm wrong):
1) Dice pools make Mooks more abstract; with a fixed ratio of 1:1 you know exactly how many Mooks you're fighting and how many are left.
2) As the Judge, my hand started hurting and I don't want to roll dice.

Why Dice Pools are better:

1) The DP method speeds up combat, especially against things with ratings of 9+ (assuming a Dice Cap of 5d on characters). If you've never experienced a fight against a Mook 15, go try it. It takes WAY too long and doesn't add anything to the narrative imo.

2) Even damaged Mooks are still something of a threat. I've witnessed too many fights where once a Mook was reduced to 2-3 pts, they just ran around doing nothing but taking up a character's defense. Boring for the judge, boring for the Players. At least a 1-2d Mook has a CHANCE.

3) You can actually have fights between Mooks. Really, think about, without coming up with a whole new set of rules, you can't do it with fixed numbered assailants (unless spending each round for ten rounds saying "Mook #1 hits, Mook #1 hits again, Mook #1 hits once again..." is your thing)

4) The DP method allows for Mooks to use Full Attack and Full Defense.

5) "Damnit, I like to roll dice too" - Judge

But how do I determine how many dice a group of Mooks has? Your call, but I generally say 3 Mooks = 1d (adjusted for more/less skilled opponents).

Thoughts?
9/3/2012, 9:57 pm Link to this post Email Dustland   PM Dustland Blog
 
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Re: Revised Supers! - NPCs (Including Mooks+) Thread


Can you show me examples of both please, the old and the new, to highlight why this is a better system?

I need to visualize this.

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"The English language is the product of Norman invaders attempting to pick up Anglo-Saxon women. The resulting language is about as legitimate as the resulting offspring." — From the Internet
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Re: Revised Supers! - NPCs (Including Mooks+) Thread


I have run into some of those same problems, but I too would like to see the details of how you handle the dice pools to improve upon this.
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Re: Revised Supers! - NPCs (Including Mooks+) Thread


quote:

Can you show me examples of both please, the old and the new, to highlight why this is a better system?


This would be a very boring string of dice results. I rolled a battle of Shadowcat from the NPCs in the book vs Mooks 15, and Mooks 5d as two seperate battles where I used the same results for Shadowcat's attacks and defenses each round so there would be some parity in the outcomes.

Overall results:

Mook 15 Fight: 12 rounds to finish the fight, Shadowcat came out the victor. Shadowcat took 2d damage during the entire fight, rounds 2 and 3. After that it was just going through the motions.

Mook 5d fight: 9 rounds to finish the fight, Shadowcat victorious. The feline heroine took 5d damage during the entire fight; all resistances (except Will) were at 1d! She took damage in rounds 1, 2, 3, 4, 6.

What this illustrates is that in battles against Mooks (as written), you have a brief period of time where they are a threat, but eventually its just a matter of wearing them down until they die. It took 9 rounds after Shadowcat took her last die of damage to finish the fight, what a boring scene imo.

It wasn't until round 8 against Mook 5d that Shadowcat got him down to 1d and she'd taken damage two rounds earlier; it only took one more round to finish him off.

So overall it took longer to finish the fight against Mook 15, and Shadowcat took less damage against Mook 15. As far as keeping players and judges interested, the fight against Mook 15 just isn't that exciting outside of the first few rounds, whereas the Mook 5d fight was in question straight through 8 rounds of combat.
9/3/2012, 11:51 pm Link to this post Email Dustland   PM Dustland Blog
 
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Re: Revised Supers! - NPCs (Including Mooks+) Thread


My only worry is this, if she had to go through those mooks to get to the boss, in your hack she is toast cause the boss is going to wipe her out, no?

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"The English language is the product of Norman invaders attempting to pick up Anglo-Saxon women. The resulting language is about as legitimate as the resulting offspring." — From the Internet
9/4/2012, 12:05 am Link to this post Email AndrewCollas   PM AndrewCollas Blog
 
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Re: Revised Supers! - NPCs (Including Mooks+) Thread


quote:

My only worry is this, if she had to go through those mooks to get to the boss, in your hack she is toast cause the boss is going to wipe her out, no?


I don't advocate using Mooks with a dice pool higher than the player's highest dice pool (either offensive or defensive) which is what happened here.

I wanted to save that discussion for another time, but here's my general rule for using dice pools; keep in mind I use dice caps and expect that players will generally be at or near the cap:

Minor threat/challenge: 3d below the dice cap
Average threat/challenge: 2d below the dice cap
Major threat/challenge: 0 or 1d below the dice cape
Threat or challenge that is the focus of the scene: 1d or more ABOVE the dice cap (which is what the above example was, a stand alone scene where our hero stood toe to toe against FIFTEEN armed thugs. I wouldn't expect her to turn around and face a Big Bad Guy the next round)

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Re: Revised Supers! - NPCs (Including Mooks+) Thread


I like your system here, Dustland. I've noticed how long battles can take between heroes and mooks in my game with my kids. I once ran a battle with three heroes and two groups of 15 mooks. It took FOREVER even though the outcome was never really in doubt. I'm going to test your dice pool system the next time we play.
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Re: Revised Supers! - NPCs (Including Mooks+) Thread


Thanks Toric. I strongly encourage everyone to sit down and try a similar battle if you doubt what I'm saying about Mook battles turning into a grind!
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Re: Revised Supers! - NPCs (Including Mooks+) Thread


Dust,

Under your way of handling mooks, it invalidates part of the Area boost, since that covers handling groups of mooks as an option for area.

How do you reconcile that?
9/4/2012, 11:45 pm Link to this post Email urbwar   PM urbwar Blog
 


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