Affliction and Damage Observations

[rstehwien]

First of all I like the new affliction power... resolved many "save or be taken out" effects I saw in 2e when I ran a couple years ago and nicely packaged many other powers. But as I was building out some villains, I realized that their 3rd degree affliction affects would never happened to my players unless: the affliction power had cumulative or progressive extras, the villain was higher PL, the villain made some attack/effect tradeoffs, and/or the targeted PC made some defense tradeoffs that make them weak against the affliction.

Most of my players hit their PL tradeoff limits on all their attacks and defenses and those that don't now are close and plan on getting there with XP. I suspect that most players do this and expect that all are at least close unless they specifically wanted a weakness. So an average resistance roll has a 55% chance to succeed against a equal rank affliction and at worst would fail by 9 and earn a second degree affliction.

Hmm, like that the save or die effect is gone but don't like that the higher level afflictions just won't happen most of the time (unless the conditions I noted above happen).

Then looking at the Damage effect I realized that it is just a specialized Affliction (Dazed, Staggered, Incapacitated) but it has two things going for it that Affliction doesn't - the save is 5 higher and there are 4 degrees of failure with the first (and all later) being the cumulative -1 to future saves. So even up there is only a 30% chance to take the -1 penalty and the same 55% chance to take the "affliction" and the same chances on the first resistance to get a first or second degree status effect with no chance of the third degree... but eventually your resistance is worn down and you will get the third. The dazed goes away next round automatically (affliction requires a save for that), the staggered for damage requires a recovery (which is better than affliction's 2nd degree), and then incapacitated requires a recovery (pretty much the same as affliction).

I like how damage works more than affliction. With damage there is a better chance of progress toward ending the fight but with affliction I can imagine some frustrating rounds of no or little effect while the damage focused person whittles them away and finally scores the win.

I'm going to run RAW for a while, but do have an idea for affliction. Basically I'd model it just like damage where the DC is Rank+15 and add in a cumulative -1 (I'd call it stress) for whatever resistance (will or fortitude) just like the toughness penalty. Some other tweaks would be needed of course. Could even have regen for will or fortitude.... hmm like it but I'll wait for a while to see how affliction plays out.

[Elric]

First of all I like the new affliction power... resolved many "save or be taken out" effects I saw in 2e when I ran a couple years ago and nicely packaged many other powers. But as I was building out some villains, I realized that their 3rd degree affliction affects would never happened to my players unless: the affliction power had cumulative or progressive extras, the villain was higher PL, the villain made some attack/effect tradeoffs, and/or the targeted PC made some defense tradeoffs that make them weak against the affliction.

I agree that Affliction seems a little weaker than Damage when Fort/Will are maxed to PL.

A solution: have typical values for F/W be about PL-2, not PL. More thoughts: viewtopic.php?p=719164#p719164

[rstehwien]

I agree that Affliction seems a little weaker than Damage when Fort/Will are maxed to PL.

A solution: have typical values for F/W be about PL-2, not PL. More thoughts: viewtopic.php?p=719164#p719164

I'd rather keep the attack/effect defense/resistance tradeoffs exactly as they are now; it makes it so easy for me to run the game on the fly (see below). I'd rather have Affliction be more in line with Damage. I'm going to try RAW for a while then try my tweak it turns out to be weak in play. The way damage works appeals to me because it drives someone toward defeat with average rolls. Affliction is very binary and requires some extras (cumulative or progressive) to ever drive equal opponents toward defeat.... and unlike Damage those extras make affliction make big jumps for failure (an equivalent to a -5 on a damage resistance every time you fail.. and don't recover before the next effect).

For on the fly M&M (or DCA) NPC creation I do the following:

• Choose a Power Level (PL)
• Write write down key abilities (stats, skills, powers, feats/advantages)
• All defenses and key abilities are at PL limits. Maybe do some tradeoffs quickly if it matters.

It is very quick and dirty, I flesh them out better after the game if it matters. So here are a few examples:

Dragon PL 12, Flight, Dragonscales, Fiery Breath, Claws, Knowledge Arcane
Golem PL 8 Immune Fortitude, Fists of Iron (+6/+10 atk/dmg), Defense 6, Toughness 10, Power Attack

The PL of the NPC vs PCs gives a good guideline on challenge and general gauge of ability. Notes on what they can do flesh it out a little. Then a full writeup if needed.

[Paragon]

I don't believe the primary purpose of Affliction is to take people down; I suspect, just as in 2e, its big benefit is that the lesser steps are relatively persistent (they'll last more than one round as often as not) and do various things to impair the target. The commonest case with damage is now Dazed, which is only mildly impairing and not persistent.

Note also that there are incentives to trade Defense for Toughness, and its often a successful strategy; there's actually no real parallel strategy that's clearly a winner with Will and Fortitude, barring vagaries of individual campaigns.

[XeviatJAG]

First off, I also noticed the similarity between Affliction and Damage. You may want to keep a "damage track" for each Defense if you go for what you're looking at, but be prepared for players to focus on learning a target's weakest Defense and then power stunt everything so they can attack it.

One thing Affliction has going for it that Damage doesn't is that Affliction has that nifty "Cumulative" extra. With Damage, two Dazes doesn't equal a Staggered, but for a +1/rank extra, Affliction can. This makes Affliction easier to bring to its 3rd step.

An interesting side effect of the Damage nearly equals Affliction observation is that it allows one to alter the afflictions within Damage. It is something I am doing for my games, changing the conditions of damage for different damage types and descriptors.

[rstehwien]

I don't believe the primary purpose of Affliction is to take people down; I suspect, just as in 2e, its big benefit is that the lesser steps are relatively persistent (they'll last more than one round as often as not) and do various things to impair the target. The commonest case with damage is now Dazed, which is only mildly impairing and not persistent.

Many of the 2e afflictions were save or be "taken down" which is why I like the change. My concern is that Damage seems better in some ways. An equal resistance having a consistent 55% chance to ignore an affliction and no chance to ever take the 3rd degree affliction (by itself) seems like damage against an alternate save would be a better choice to "win".

In our first battle I had a villain try a few afflictions but they were ineffective all around while the damage effects showed some effect... possibly just luck. More important will be how it feels in play for the players with affliction effects. Will they decide that Damage is a better way to go since it is more progressive for the same price? I've got as many villains as I want and won't feel bad if they aren't always effective or are more geared toward using affliction to just hinder heroes or aid other villains efforts. But I'll play it as is for a while.

Note also that there are incentives to trade Defense for Toughness, and its often a successful strategy; there's actually no real parallel strategy that's clearly a winner with Will and Fortitude, barring vagaries of individual campaigns.

The Toughness incentive is one of the reasons I capped the tradeoff in 2e and now 3e.

First off, I also noticed the similarity between Affliction and Damage. You may want to keep a "damage track" for each Defense if you go for what you're looking at, but be prepared for players to focus on learning a target's weakest Defense and then power stunt everything so they can attack it.

Already likely to happen with Damage vs an Alternate Resistance. I've got one PC with Mental Blast and another with a close combat soul strike (vs will). So the two of them ganged up on the big bruiser while their bruiser took on the enemy energy controller. Perfectly reasonable thing to do.

I may very well have a damage track for each resistance (I called it stress above because I played some FATE). Going to see how the game plays as is for now.

One thing Affliction has going for it that Damage doesn't is that Affliction has that nifty "Cumulative" extra. With Damage, two Dazes doesn't equal a Staggered, but for a +1/rank extra, Affliction can. This makes Affliction easier to bring to its 3rd step.

Damage is cumulative for a staggered result; two staggered equals incapacitated; and that similarity is another thing that me sit up and notice that Affliction seemed in some ways weaker than Damage. I noted above that the Cumulative extra does give that effect and was one of the few ways I'll see 3rd degree afflictions occur.

An interesting side effect of the Damage nearly equals Affliction observation is that it allows one to alter the afflictions within Damage. It is something I am doing for my games, changing the conditions of damage for different damage types and descriptors.

Indeed it is interesting and one of the reasons that they might become more similar in my game.

[Elric]

I agree that Affliction seems a little weaker than Damage when Fort/Will are maxed to PL.

A solution: have typical values for F/W be about PL-2, not PL. More thoughts: viewtopic.php?p=719164#p719164

I'd rather keep the attack/effect defense/resistance tradeoffs exactly as they are now; it makes it so easy for me to run the game on the fly (see below). I'd rather have Affliction be more in line with Damage.

Easy solution: change DC of Affliction to 12+rank, everything else left the same.

[rstehwien]

I agree that Affliction seems a little weaker than Damage when Fort/Will are maxed to PL.

A solution: have typical values for F/W be about PL-2, not PL. More thoughts: viewtopic.php?p=719164#p719164

I'd rather keep the attack/effect defense/resistance tradeoffs exactly as they are now; it makes it so easy for me to run the game on the fly (see below). I'd rather have Affliction be more in line with Damage.

Easy solution: change DC of Affliction to 12+rank, everything else left the same.

Easy and considered but then it is another type of save instead of either 10 or 15. For now my bad guys might just power attack or do some tradeoffs to make the effects more likely... but then so can Damage. If I feel a need to change things, I'll likely make affliction be more like damage (with a cumulative resistance penalty). But I could be totally wrong and in play Affliction and Damage work out perfectly. My observation was really "my affliction power will rarely hit a 3rd degree unless I take cumulative", "hmm, affliction and damage are really similar. wonder if the differences make affliction weaker for the same price".

Might be that damage and affliction's differences work out just fine. Affliction gets a choice of Will or Fortitude for resistance. While those resistances are in the same ballpark as toughness for all my PCs (and most villains), Damage would have to take an extra to effect Will or Fortitude. Affliction on the other hand needs to take the Cumulative extra to have a similar progression of effect as Damage. In the end their cost comes out the same.

Put that way, they might well be close enough for me as to make no difference despite me liking Damage's cumulative -1 to resistance over how Affliction's Cumulative works. Must see how things work out in play before making changes.

[Kariggi]

The guy with Mind Control in my game has been moaning about this incessantly, he's useless, his power is useless, he can't effect anyone...and he did take cumulative, and progressive.

Now he did take the ability below PL (PL 8 same as Grodd the game is PL 12), so even guys with well below PL will are not being effected with a good roll. He complains mental abilities are too expensive because "who wouldn't take them with ...cumulative, progressive, perception (range)", and that the guys who just do damage are just better than him (of course they are all at PL or PL shifted).

[Murkglow]

Take him aside and explain that if he had the power at PL he would do better. I can't understand why someone would have such an obvious flaw to their power then complain about it... Is there something more to this or does he really just want to complain?

[UnkindMirror]

Agreed, four ranks below PL is a bit low, even with Perception thrown into the mix.

[rstehwien]

The guy with Mind Control in my game has been moaning about this incessantly, he's useless, his power is useless, he can't effect anyone...and he did take cumulative, and progressive.

Now he did take the ability below PL (PL 8 same as Grodd the game is PL 12), so even guys with well below PL will are not being effected with a good roll. He complains mental abilities are too expensive because "who wouldn't take them with ...cumulative, progressive, perception (range)", and that the guys who just do damage are just better than him (of course they are all at PL or PL shifted).

I don't think that many of the iconic characters are written up well for a normal game. Most players will hit the PL limits. The iconics are (in theory) modeled after what they do in the comics and I normally saw heroes shrugging off Grodds mind control. Players on the other hand won't necessarily be happy only mind controlling minions (or only being able to beat up minions as I think some of the writeups are good for).

4 levels under PL is way too low for just about any attack. Someone with a normal Damage effect would find it underpowered as well. Effects with a to-hit roll can often get by with power attack if you made the attack/effect tradeoff in favor of attack but perception and area attacks don't get that as an option.

The mentalist in my game is perfectly happy with her mental blast at PL limit. In fact in 2E it was far too effective so we changed things to add a mental attack roll and carried it over to 3E. In 3E we use Presence as your base mental attack (with advantages and skills like for the other attacks) and it goes against will as the defense. You don't even need to take the Perception extra (only reason is to avoid any range mods and use indirectly through remote sensing). House rule works very well for us as we found the Perception extra with RAW sucked a little fun out of the game.

[Kariggi]

Part of this is an over-diversification issue. (But I see my character with these stats and nothing less - btw gives him a better/closer to PL armed close attack) they are completely uncompromising and blaming the system (.."better change your mind instead").

This is our first go around with M&M character creation. And for me GMing it, maybe I need to throw in some more much lower than PL Will villains (thought the one last week with a will 6 resisted his first attempt and I almost thought he was gonna walk). Maybe more minnions, but when they do crop up, I hear "what's the point of controlling them?".

"It's just d20" so they are hating out the box. I've run almost a dozen sessions and am ready to just walk away from my investment at this point as the beating I'm taking every week hardly seems worth it.

Heck I even offered to just give out more points or up the PL of the game to help support the concept of his design, but got told that would just make everyone better and he would still suck because "mind control is too expensive". I did mention that if it always worked on everyone it would be game breaking, I suggested AE's of it without all the extra's added on so he could afford it at a higher level without chaning anything, but was told it was worthless without the extra's.

This discussion does contain some of that, bearing out his point a little, including the discussion regarding cumulative.

[Murkglow]

As you just mentioned, Mind Control is game ending, even more then other third tier afflictions. If you take one of their main villains with a mind control you remove one powerful enemy from battle entirely (for the most part) and add a powerful ally at the same time. It very well might be the most powerful affliction... That sure as heck seems like it shouldn't work often or should cost a lot.

Honestly I couldn't handle a player who can't understand that. I would probably be much less sympathetic then you seem to be so the player would have probably already walked away from my table.

[Paragon]

I don't believe the primary purpose of Affliction is to take people down; I suspect, just as in 2e, its big benefit is that the lesser steps are relatively persistent (they'll last more than one round as often as not) and do various things to impair the target. The commonest case with damage is now Dazed, which is only mildly impairing and not persistent.

Many of the 2e afflictions were save or be "taken down" which is why I like the

Only Transform and Mind Control. All the rest were matters of degree where the "taken down" part was only present in second or third degrees (Dazzle was all or nothing, but it rarely completely took someone out of the situation, and sometimes had no meaningful effect).