After Running DCA for a year, what I would do differently

[KnightErrantJR]

Just wrapped up my DC Adventure game that ran for a year, and from a strictly rules based point of view, I came up with a few things I would do differently were I to do this again.

1. I would definitely go with the alternate 2pp/rank Impervious allows you to ignore up to it's ranks rule. Impervious almost never came up the whole year, even with some of bigger PL guys that the PCs were fighting as a solo threat.

2. I would limit regeneration and immortality both to the same limit as Luck, i.e. 1/2 the current power level of the campaign. I don't really want them to be more expensive or to eat up more of my player's points, I just don't want them to have to be knocked out in one shot to injure them or to sit up from being dead as a move action.

3. I would definitely implement the optional rule from the GM's Guide for having minions "interpose" for their boss unless the PCs have ricochet or something similar. Lots of most of the PCs would rush the baddie while the weakest combat PC would mop up the minions.

4. When I actually want minions to be a threat and not a speed bump or a shield, I would definitely look at using slightly modified rules for the mass combat Forces from the GM's Guide. Even throwing a dozen guys into one "Force" means that they are going to potentially get in a few good hits on the PCs.

5. Really, really have to remember to give solo bad guys more area attacks, especially when it makes sense. I forgot to do this through a whole fight with Darkseid, when power stunting his Omega Beams into an area attack would have been pretty scary for the heroes.

6. Area attacks? Instead of having the victims roll two checks against the area attack, I'd have the person making the area attack roll 1d20+area attack ranks to determine if that is higher than the Reflex defense to begin with. I kept forgetting the first check and my players always wanted to roll something for an area attack, so I think I'd embrace it.

That's the main stuff I can think of off the cuff. Lots of fun, but after a year, it's easy to see where I'd do some fine tuning.

[Saltcrow]

mhm, hope you don't mind my opinions on your houserules. Too good an opportunity to brainstorm

1. I would definitely go with the alternate 2pp/rank Impervious allows you to ignore up to it's ranks rule. Impervious almost never came up the whole year, even with some of bigger PL guys that the PCs were fighting as a solo threat.

I'm rather partial to the new alternative option presented in the Armor Powers Profile, where resisting against any effect rank lower than your Impervious, you get to reduce any degree of failure by one (0 degrees failure = 1 degree of success). It would have to be limited to PL of the campaign but I found it quite a nice compromise between the vanilla 3e Impervious and the much tougher 2e Impervious.

2. I would limit regeneration and immortality both to the same limit as Luck, i.e. 1/2 the current power level of the campaign. I don't really want them to be more expensive or to eat up more of my player's points, I just don't want them to have to be knocked out in one shot to injure them or to sit up from being dead as a move action.

Oh most certainly. I'm not a big fan of high-regen characters because of their deceptive bulk. I prefer increments of 1 rank (once every 5 rounds), 3 ranks (once every 3 rounds) up to 5 ranks (once every other round), with 10 ranks of regen reserved only for the ones with 'sources' flaw.

4. When I actually want minions to be a threat and not a speed bump or a shield, I would definitely look at using slightly modified rules for the mass combat Forces from the GM's Guide. Even throwing a dozen guys into one "Force" means that they are going to potentially get in a few good hits on the PCs.

Yeah, gotta love that Mass Combat rule. Strength in numbers, strength in numbers.

5. Really, really have to remember to give solo bad guys more area attacks, especially when it makes sense. I forgot to do this through a whole fight with Darkseid, when power stunting his Omega Beams into an area attack would have been pretty scary for the heroes.

Yeah XD Area attacks also give characters with different tradeoffs get the time to shine/show off!

6. Area attacks? Instead of having the victims roll two checks against the area attack, I'd have the person making the area attack roll 1d20+area attack ranks to determine if that is higher than the Reflex defense to begin with. I kept forgetting the first check and my players always wanted to roll something for an area attack, so I think I'd embrace it.

hmmm, sounds interesting. Let me know how it works out

[KnightErrantJR]

I think the main reason I favor the "old school" approach to Impervious is that it makes Penetrating more attractive, it makes some characters work more logically, and it means that power attacks have to be attempted by someone that might conceivably be in striking distance of the character's impervious ranks to actually harm them.

Another thing that is interesting about changing the area effect rules to "actor rolls" is that it does make the artillery rules from the GMG work, and can even account for some characters that had extras on area effect powers that shouldn't work. Not sure if I would allow the later, but it is food for thought.

[Unbeliever]

I don't like the Armor Powers suggestion b/c it just doesn't match with what Impervious toughness was supposed to simulate. Impervious was invented, I contend, to capture something that exists in the comics -- characters who are simply immune, unfazed, and casual about a certain level of attacks. No amount of assault rifles are going to faze Black Adam. All of Bialya or any other African/Somalia expy can unload on him, and he's not going to be harmed.

If that's a problem mechanics-wise, and I personally have never found it to be much of one and we use a 2E version of it, then I'd institute a limit or get rid of it. But, a half version of it doesn't seem to serve any conceptual purpose -- it just gives some characters a bit of a toughness bump.

There are a few things I'd certainly have done better for DCA. One big thing is just to give the game more polish, cleaning up the Vehicle rules and things like that.

I kind of like your alternate rule for Area Attacks. It makes things more similar across the board.

[Jameson]

4. When I actually want minions to be a threat and not a speed bump or a shield, I would definitely look at using slightly modified rules for the mass combat Forces from the GM's Guide. Even throwing a dozen guys into one "Force" means that they are going to potentially get in a few good hits on the PCs.

In addition to using higher PL minions I have also started to use "Minion+" rules. Minion+ minions have the following minor changes.
1) On their first failed save minion+ suffer the next to worst effect, e.g. staggared against Damage, or 2nd degree for Affliction (unless its a limited degree Affliction). On the 2nd failed save they are dead. This does 2 things: A) It make them a lot harder to kill (relative to the norm) and B) Makes Takedown a little less powerful against minions.

and 2) They can score critical hits. It's a minor thing, but it makes a difference when they come up.

[Sid]

3. I would definitely implement the optional rule from the GM's Guide for having minions "interpose" for their boss unless the PCs have ricochet or something similar. Lots of most of the PCs would rush the baddie while the weakest combat PC would mop up the minions.

I definitely agree with this. I found that my players with movement abilities would just ignore minions altogether, just fly/leap/teleport/whatever right over them and go right for the main bad guys. I guess upping the PL of the minions would partially solve the problem as they'd ignore them at their own risk, but that doesn't feel very "comicbook" like.

On a semi-related note, I will also limit movement powers going forward. Movement powers in general can be a pain in the butt if you have a player who is analytical and knows the rules very well. In comics/movies/animation heros constantly "forget" to use their powers when it suits the writer, but players are the writer in this case (at least partially), so they never forget. You end up starting to concoct all sorts of strange scenarios just to deal with it which feels awkward.

[Paragon]

One problem with shifting Area Attack targeting to an attacker-active roll is it supercharges one use of a hero point, since he'll most likely hit every target in the area after that. That also makes them much stronger in effect under some circumstances.

[Foreshadow]

I don't like the Armor Powers suggestion b/c it just doesn't match with what Impervious toughness was supposed to simulate. Impervious was invented, I contend, to capture something that exists in the comics -- characters who are simply immune, unfazed, and casual about a certain level of attacks. No amount of assault rifles are going to faze Black Adam. All of Bialya or any other African/Somalia expy can unload on him, and he's not going to be harmed.

If that's a problem mechanics-wise, and I personally have never found it to be much of one and we use a 2E version of it, then I'd institute a limit or get rid of it. But, a half version of it doesn't seem to serve any conceptual purpose -- it just gives some characters a bit of a toughness bump.

There are a few things I'd certainly have done better for DCA. One big thing is just to give the game more polish, cleaning up the Vehicle rules and things like that.

I kind of like your alternate rule for Area Attacks. It makes things more similar across the board.

Part of the problem is not Impervious but rather how Steve designed the base damage for weapons. he just chose that a sword adds +3, or that an assault rifle does 5 damage, but we know those are base damages and add to strength or with guns you can add Power Attack. One probably is Power Attack working the way it does.

You can gain +2 or +5 and add to that +5 damage assault rifle, and if your Impervious 18 you won't ignore the attack, its all or none. The power attack rule should read that if the base damage would normally be blocked by Impervious then the whole attack is blocked. This way you are not using Power attack to overcome the threshold, but rather if the attack does normally have an impact it can do extra impact.

Say you have an Assault Rifle, normally Impervious 18 as written in 3e would block that (anything rank 9 or below would be blocked and means most normal weapons other than Tank blasts). You can power attack all the live long day and you won't get through, BUT if you had Impervious 10 and it blocks up to damage 5 or below you would be blocked but a damage 6 attack or greater base attack which is most heavy weapons like Mounted Machine Guns, all would force a save. Assault rifles with power attack = no effect, Mounted anti-vehicle machine guns damage 7 base let's say, would force a save and then power attack bonus would kick in and could deal out a greater effect if allowed.

The issue is allowing power attack to increase the chance to do an effect rather than only allowing it to increase an effect if allowed. In this way Power Attack functions much like Autofire damage which is ignored if the base damage is blocked.

[Foreshadow]

3. I would definitely implement the optional rule from the GM's Guide for having minions "interpose" for their boss unless the PCs have ricochet or something similar. Lots of most of the PCs would rush the baddie while the weakest combat PC would mop up the minions.

I definitely agree with this. I found that my players with movement abilities would just ignore minions altogether, just fly/leap/teleport/whatever right over them and go right for the main bad guys. I guess upping the PL of the minions would partially solve the problem as they'd ignore them at their own risk, but that doesn't feel very "comicbook" like.

On a semi-related note, I will also limit movement powers going forward. Movement powers in general can be a pain in the butt if you have a player who is analytical and knows the rules very well. In comics/movies/animation heros constantly "forget" to use their powers when it suits the writer, but players are the writer in this case (at least partially), so they never forget. You end up starting to concoct all sorts of strange scenarios just to deal with it which feels awkward.

You should force the genre of comics on that player. The 'forget' to use it and you hand them a hero point when you know they could simply teleport in, take an action, and problem solved, but instead choose to go through the front door. Hero point and force them to deal with it. The writer/player chooses to be like a real comic writer and forget.

[Foreshadow]

One problem with shifting Area Attack targeting to an attacker-active roll is it supercharges one use of a hero point, since he'll most likely hit every target in the area after that. That also makes them much stronger in effect under some circumstances.

then don't allow a hero point to be used with area attacks.

[Paragon]

One problem with shifting Area Attack targeting to an attacker-active roll is it supercharges one use of a hero point, since he'll most likely hit every target in the area after that. That also makes them much stronger in effect under some circumstances.

then don't allow a hero point to be used with area attacks.

At which point you had to make a special rule just to allow area attacks to work that way. So why do it?'

(And honestly, it still makes it stronger, as you can no longer spend a hero point on the other end. Just less so).