Degree of Success Attack System

[kurtoogle]

I really enjoy the M&M Toughness system and the system of degrees of success for skills.

The addition of the degrees of success attack system to your game makes exceptional hits more rewarding, and makes characters with high accuracy but low damage (such as Green Arrow or Batman) a lot more effective.

For every +5 success of an attack over the targets failed defense, the attacker gains a critical hit (which stack with regular critical hits).

Try it out and let me know what you think.

[Murkglow]

Seems like it would get excessive, seeing as how there are a ton of ways to make your attack bonus higher then their defense (Vulnerable/Defenseless conditions, Accurate/All-Out Attack) and make Defenseless/Vulnerable even more of an "you're dead" condition then it already is. Then again maybe that's just me being a stick in the mud but it seems like this would drastically increase the amount of "damage" being done in the game by pretty much everyone.

[kurtoogle]

It is meant for a more realistic and dangerous settings and style of play, where police, criminals, and low PL villains are a serious threat. Using the DSA system works especially well for Noir and War games, or intense settings such as the Watchmen where violence is not gratuitous, and a hero must pick his battles carefully.

[Psistrike]

A more balanced version which BARON uses is +1 DC for every 2 over defense the attack total is.

[Earth-Two_Kenn]

For every +5 success of an attack over the targets failed defense, the attacker gains a critical hit (which stack with regular critical hits).

Umm. Isn't this just giving everyone Multiattack free?

[FuzzyBoots]

Umm. Isn't this just giving everyone Multiattack free?

2E Autofire to be more precise. Elric has statistics on what effect it has on the game.

[Elana]

A different system that I m considering for a while now (haven't tested it yet)

Would be to make the penalty of future toughness saves equal to the number of successes.

So you don't get one hit wonders.

But if you beat your to hit DC by 10 points, a failed toughness check of your opponent would give him -3 to future resists instead of the usual -1

And if you are really that good at hitting your target and have some chance of having an effect, those penalties will add up quickly

[kurtoogle]

Elric is right. It is a lot like the 2e autofire rules, which is fine.
Like most things in M&M however, the system is so generalized that what counts are the effect and the visuals.
As long as the system reflects your intent then you should be happy.
The regular rules are by far superior for a more standard superhero comic-book feel, in which most characters can take a tremendous amount of punishment.

Elena's system of stacking injury conditions with degrees of success is intriguing. I'll have to try it. Having a huge chunk of your toughness evaporate in one shot would do well in a horror or sci-fi game.

I have seen several GM's run DCA with a lowered base for Toughness DC, using 10 + Damage, rather than 15 + damage. This made for much longer fights, where injury "whittling" really counted. It reminded me of old slug-fest and kung-fu movies where the heroes beat on each other all day.

[FuzzyBoots]

I have seen several GM's run DCA with a lowered base for Toughness DC, using 10 + Damage, rather than 15 + damage. This made for much longer fights, where injury "whittling" really counted. It reminded me of old slug-fest and kung-fu movies where the heroes beat on each other all day.

FWIW, confirmation of a supposition of why it's 15+ versus the other saves which essentially does come down to the "whittling" as well as a dose of players getting angry when successfully saving "but not by enough" resulting in injury.

For a "fragile character" world, also consider enforcing an attack/defense tradeoff. I GMed a game involving nominally PL 4 characters who were allow to take up to +4 over PL in conditional bonuses (Sneak Attack, Favored Opponent, etc), which effectively made them PL 6 on offense, but PL 4 on defense, meaning they had to do more strategizing to make sure they could hit their opponents without getting whacked themselves.

[kurtoogle]

Thank you Fuzzy Boots. That is an excellent link for anyone interested in Toughness. Your use of trade-offs is a simple an excellent solution to upping the danger level in a game as well, without altering the rules.
Speaking of which, I was reading your house rules. Did your modifications to grappling rules work well?