DC Adventures

[Niro]

I have recently gotten the book "DC adventures" and so far I am liking what I have read. Though I have gotten into some problems. Like where do I see how much HP my character has left?

Or just how does combat work.

I hope that someone can help (and I am terribly sorry if it is a newbie question)

[Fhaolan]

I'm kinda surprised nobody's replied to this one yet. :smallsmile:

Disclaimer: I haven't actually played these rules yet. I was going to, but the game folded before it started.

I've read through DC Adventures, and Mutants & Masterminds 3rd edition, and as far as I can tell they really are identical rulesets. They have different sample characters and the like, but the rules themselves are the same. Which is cool, because as suppliments come out with for either game they are, at the moment, fully compatable with each other. The reason I bring this up is because the MM 3rd edition rulebook has a section in the Conflicts rules called 'Damage' that seems to be missing from the DC Adventures book. pg 189 to pg 192 in the MM3e book, which as far as I can tell should be inserted in between pg 172 and pg 173 in the DC Adventures book. This section discusses all about how characters take 'damage' and also includes play-by-play combats showing how the systems work.

I'm reluctant to put the relevant section here, as I'm not sure if that would violate copyright or not. I recommend picking up the MM3ed book anyway, because there may be other sections missing from DC Adventures.

[Sarco_Phage]

I'm reluctant to put the relevant section here, as I'm not sure if that would violate copyright or not. I recommend picking up the MM3ed book anyway, because there may be other sections missing from DC Adventures.

Just paraphrase it, bro. Although, I haven't picked up either M&M 3E or DC Adventures yet. Is it significantly different from 2E? If not, then the damage/toughness save rules work pretty much the same.

[Fhaolan]

Okay, I'll try. Remember that I haven't actually found a group to play this with, so I may be misunderstanding stuff.

This system doesn't have HP as such. Instead what happens is that you accumulate injury conditions like '-1 to toughness saves' and the like. These conditions are as I said, cumulative so if you get three '-1 to toughness saves', you have a total of -3 to toughness saves.

If someone makes a successful attack with a 'damage' effect, the target must make a damage resistance check. Damage is resisted by Toughness, and the check is Toughness vs. Damage Rank + 15. Success means you take no damage. Failure... well failure is where that chart on pg 273 of the DC Adventures book comes in. If you look at it, you can see that it has the Tough vs DR +15 built into it. If you fail by a little bit, it's called a 'first degree of failure' in MM3ed, and you get a -1 penalty to all further damage resistance checks until you recover (healing, or whatever). If you fail by a bit more, it's called a 'second degree of failure', and you get a -1 penalty *and* you get the condition 'dazed' until the end of the turn. If you fail even more, it's called 'third degree of failure' and you get the -1 penalty and you get the condition 'staggered' until you recover. Four degrees of failure, and you're incapacitated.

If you are already staggered, and you get staggered again, you automatically get incapacitated. If you incapacitated, and you fail any other damage resistance check, you get the condition 'dying'. If you are dying and you fail any other damage resistance check, you're dead.

Dazed, staggered, incapacitated, dying, and dead are all conditions and the first four are detailed on pg 19 of the DC Adventures book.

[Sarco_Phage]

Ahh. Off the top of my head, I remember that M&M 2E had the same basic principle involved, except that doing lethal/nonlethal damage was a choice.

It was divided between nonlethal damage and lethal damage with the same tiered conditions.

The caveat was that standard superheroes don't usually go straight for the lethal option unless pressed.

[Fhaolan]

There's a mention of being able to buy non-lethal ammo for weapons in the gear section, but I couldn't find any other reference to non-lethal beyond that. Which makes me think it was something left in from 2nd edition and the editor missed it, or that there *is* supposed to be a lethal/non-lethal thing going on that was the bit that was missed.

[Sarco_Phage]

That's possible. I'll need to pick up a copy of 3E just to check, but getting the 2E books was already a lot of trouble.

[Beleriphon]

There's a mention of being able to buy non-lethal ammo for weapons in the gear section, but I couldn't find any other reference to non-lethal beyond that. Which makes me think it was something left in from 2nd edition and the editor missed it, or that there *is* supposed to be a lethal/non-lethal thing going on that was the bit that was missed.

It's an editorial miss in the equipment chapter. The rules don't differentiate between lethal/non-lethal until you get to the end of the track, at which point you choose whether the guy dies or not.