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Nintendogeek01
2018-07-16, 12:38 AM
Last week's conversation on Advantages was a little sparse but there's no surprise there, on the whole advantages work well; that said the discussion both her and on GitP produced some interesting ideas so I'll still call it productive! Now let's move on to defenses!

Well okay this one I expect to be a bit sparse too as there's simply quite little to talk about. Everyone needs defenses, the fewer times you're hit the fewer times you need to roll your saving throws, the more times you're hit the more you need to fall back on your saving throws to carry you through those hits. It's a balancing act and most players will shift toward one end of the spectrum depending on their concept; either that or keep their defenses square in the middle. Even players who aren't hardcore min-maxers skew towards filling out their defenses, usually only leaving a few things not quite maxed out (but close) if they're going for the 'improving as a combatant angle' or something similar.

Parry
This is for avoiding close attacks. The higher your parry, the less likely you are to be hit by close-attacks. Parry is limited by your toughness, and vice-versa. It is my understanding that back in 2nd ed. that this was simply called 'defense' and worked against both ranged and close attacks, something I can see 'some' merit with and were I playing 2nd ed. I would not protest, but I find myself kinda liking the specialization here. Now I have seen, and do understand, the contention of splitting parry and dodge being disadvantageous to characters who are shifted to their active defenses as it costs them two points to be just as adept at avoiding blows as toughness shifted characters are at taking them. Still I have seen some people express the opinion of liking the split of specializing in one over the other.
Proposed Changes: Well... okay I'm going to propose this more for discussion rather than me advocating it, because honestly my preference isn't particularly skewed one way on this; make it so parry is the only active defense stat, working for both ranged and close attacks. This could eliminate the problem for having to buy two active defenses just to be as good at avoiding attacks, however one potential problem I see with this... well I'll discuss it down in the proposed changes for Dodge.

Dodge
Parry's counterpart for avoiding ranged attacks, like parry it also is limited by toughness and vice-versa. Dodge also pulls double-duty as a saving throw against effects that are avoided by a character's quick reflexes (such as certain afflictions and grabs) and most commonly for reducing area effects to half-effect. Given how effective area effects can be against PC groups this means dodge will see a lot of use; not for outright negating the effects mind but for keeping them from being worse than they could be. The avoiding area effects aspect also gets some bolstering via advantages by giving the defender a circumstance bonus on the initial dodge check.
Proposed Changes: Again, more for discussion and less for advocating on my part due to not feeling strongly one way or the other; let parry take the ranged attack aspect and let dodge simply be a saving throw rather than both that and an active defense. My main concern with this change is how do we make power level reign it in? Do we continue to balance it against toughness or by some other means?

Toughness
If you haven't rolled this one you haven't played M&M for very long at all. If you get blasted by lasers, punched in the face, suplexed through five stories of a building, caught in an explosion, run over by your neighbor, etc. then you need to roll toughness to see how well you take the hit, taking a cumulative penalty on each failed saving throw until you fail by four degrees and take a nap; said saving throw's DC is equal to 15 + rank of the effect that smacked you upside the head. Toughness is limited by the greater of dodge or parry and vice-versa. It's also unique in that unlike the other defenses toughness must be bought through other means and can't be bought directly. Although...
Proposed Changes: Let toughness be bought directly, defensive roll is kind of weak mechanically for natural toughness, and there's no reason why one can't flavor naturally bought toughness as tanking hits or rolling with them anyways depending on the flavor of the character.

Fortitude
The saving throw for afflictions typically aimed at targeting you physically (diseases, poisons, weakening effects, etc.). Unlike with toughness saves, the things fortitude saves against are set at a DC of 10 + rank of the effect trying to cramp your style, on the other hand though it only takes three degrees of failure on the save to get taken out of the fight in the case of afflictions as opposed to toughness' four degrees. For other powers resisted by fortitude the consequences of failure are a bit more nuanced so we won't go into that just yet. Your ranks in fortitude are limited by Will and vice versa.
Proposed changes: None. This defense works as intended from where I'm sitting.

Will
The saving throw for afflictions typically aimed at targeting you mentally or spiritually (psychic attacks, attacks aimed at your soul, your emotions, etc.). Unlike with toughness saves, the things will saves against are set at a DC of 10 + rank of the effect trying to give you a migrane, on the other hand though it only takes three degrees of failure on the save to get taken out of the fight in the case of afflictions as opposed to toughness' four degrees. Okay yeah not much I can say about Will that I haven't said about fortitude. It's ranks are limited by fortitude and vice versa.
Proposed changes: None. This defense works as intended from where I'm sitting.

Not as much to cover as previous topics but defenses are an important part of the system and need coverage all the same. As always, when discussing anything please keep in mind...
Keep the discussion focused on what aspect we are covering this week, namely defenses. You may use other aspects they affect or are affected by but ultimately the discussion this week is about advantages.
Criticizing ideas is constructive, criticizing people is insulting, Don't make things or take things personal when discussing items.
Naturally respect other rules on the forums.

So ladies, gents, and all others; Discuss away!

Nintendogeek01
2018-07-16, 12:40 AM
Missed out on the rest of the discussions so far? The links below take you to the other discussions both here and on Ronin Army.



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Ronin Army
Giant in the Playground


Abilities
Ronin Army Abilities (https://roninarmy.com/threads/7615-Mutants-amp-Masterminds-3rd-Edition-Revised-Week-1-Abilities)
GitP Abilities (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?561619-Mutants-amp-Masterminds-3rd-Edition-Revised-Week-1-Abilities)


Skills
Ronin Army Skills (https://roninarmy.com/threads/7636-Mutants-amp-Masterminds-3rd-Edition-Revised-Week-2-Skills)
GitP Skills (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?562231-Mutants-amp-Masterminds-3rd-Edition-Revised-Week-2-Skills)


Advantages
Ronin Army Advantages (https://roninarmy.com/threads/7682-Mutants-amp-Masterminds-3rd-Edition-Revised-Week-3-Advantages)
GitP Advantages (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?563318-Mutants-amp-Masterminds-3rd-Edition-Revised-Week-3-Advantages)


Defenses
Ronin Army Defenses (https://roninarmy.com/threads/7695-Mutants-amp-Masterminds-3rd-Edition-Revised-Week-4-Defenses)
GitP Defenses (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?563934-Mutants-amp-Masterminds-3rd-Edition-Revised-Week-4-Defenses)


Powers
Ronin Army Powers (https://roninarmy.com/threads/7740-Mutants-amp-Masterminds-3rd-Edition-Revised-Week-5-Powers)
GitP Powers (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?565245-Mutants-amp-Masterminds-3rd-Edition-Revised-Week-5-Powers)


Other
Ronin Army System (https://roninarmy.com/threads/7777-Mutants-amp-Masterminds-3rd-Edition-Revised-Final-Topic-System)
GitP System (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?566524-Mutants-amp-Masterminds-3rd-Edition-Revised-Final-Topic-System)

noob
2018-07-16, 10:57 AM
I guess Powers will be the hard part.
Oh and does power include the generic modifiers such as reactive?

Quellian-dyrae
2018-07-16, 12:49 PM
Consolidating Dodge and Parry into one defense is good. Helps Defense-shifted characters, and frankly gives everyone a few more points to play with, which is nice. If you really want to specialize, you can still purchase Defense Limited to Close/Ranged attacks.

Alternately, just halving the cost of Dodge and Parry works equally well.

Letting Toughness be purchased directly is also good. I mean, it's not like it's skin off anyone's teeth to just buy Stamina, but still.

Fort and Will are definitely fine. In my guide, I noted that in terms of Defense vs. Toughness, the metagame plays a uniquely important role in determining which is good:

Low-op game where there aren't really many Linked attacks, people rarely make any effort to target weaknesses: Toughness wins hands-down. Statistically, higher Resistance is superior to higher Defense.

Mid-op game where people still don't target weaknesses, but you generally have more Linked attacks and broader types of attacks: It's pretty give-or-take. Defense-shifting may be more expensive and less effective compared to Toughness-resisted attacks, but if your high Defense keeps a Linked Fortitude or Will off you, it's saving you from making two saves, one of which may be average (or even poor, if you shifted that one out).

High-op game where pretty much everyone can be expected to be able to target multiple saves, and choose which they target strategically: balanced defenses are where it's at, any shift you make is just a weakness enemies can exploit without giving you a Hero Point. Interpose becomes absolutely critical to make shifts worthwhile.

One of the most important changes that could be made to defenses, is my opinion, is doing away with the persistent communal metagame idea that having your defenses at PL is even vaguely related to min-maxing in any way. It simply...isn't. Attack/defense caps are the vast majority of what PL does. It's no more min-maxing to put your stats at PL than it is to play a 10th level fighter in a D&D game where the DM calls for 10th level characters. Could you play an 8th level fighter? Sure. Is there anything wrong with that? Of course not, if that's what you want to do (although it may make it slightly more difficult on your DM to balance encounters). But taking the full benefits of the level the GM assigns for the game is nowhere even close to min-maxing or power gaming. I honestly don't understand where that connection even came from, let alone how it got to be so pervasive.

(To be very clear, I have nothing against taking below-PL defenses if that is the best way to represent the character you want to play. What baffles me is the idea that hitting your caps is somehow min-maxing in even the slightest.)

I think any discussion about defenses would be incomplete without a review of Alternate Defense. The M&M rules seem to operate on the assumption that changing Damage to Will is +1/rank, but changing Affliction to Dodge is +0/rank. This is...almost as ludicrous as saying the Only While Singing Loudly counts as a Limit.

Thing is, while Damage defaults to Toughness and Affliction/Weaken default to Fortitude or Will...frankly all of those things are balanced against each other. Damage...technically has a higher DC, but it also has weaker individual results. However, it's stickier and stacks better. Affliction will have the biggest impacts, but in most cases, the shortest-lasting ones. I'd...say it's also the hardest to heal, but honestly the rules for healing Afflictions are so all over the place that I can't really make that point confidently. Weaken is probably the weakest of the three, although weakening defenses can be quite potent and stack well.

Likewise, Toughness, Fortitude, and Will are all the main resistances. And while Fortitude and Will trade off against each other, neither trade against Toughness. You can shift Toughness without impacting your Fortitude or Will at all (sort of; technically, in a high-op game anyway, any Toughness shift ends up bad as soon as the enemy discovers it, because they can just Power Attack for the difference, negating the basic effect but resulting in an inflated DC for other resistances).

Now, attacks resisted by Dodge are another matter entirely. They're fully traded against Toughness. Dodge-resisted Damage (lightsabers!) makes the people who are supposed to be really tough feel like chumps. Even things like Snares and Grabs (less so the latter, but not everyone who's really tough is also really strong) still do it, only slightly less egregiously. And this is before getting into the fact that Dodge can be sacrificed by All Out Attack, utterly crippled by Vulnerable (an easy condition to inflict), and tanked straight to 0 by Defenseless. It is a stupidly superior defense to target by pretty much every metric.

My minimal house rules in this area are that Toughness/Fort/Will can always be swapped for each other at +0/rank except when on-the-fly (i.e. through a Power Stunt, Variable power, etc), in which case they're +1 because presumably you're targeting a weakness. Alternate Resistance (Dodge) is always +1/rank. Further, any attack resisted by Dodge or Parry has the following nerfs: You can use either Dodge or Parry for it, Defensive Roll adds to the check up to a max total equal to your Toughness, active defense modifiers don't apply to the resistance check (good or bad, but there's more bad ones), and they don't benefit from Power Attack.

What I wound up doing for my current set of house rules was revising the defense system extensively. I consolidated them to Reflex, Toughness, Fortitude, and Will. All of them can be used as both active and passive defenses. No attack effect has any default defense/resistance (although like basic physical attacks are still Reflex/Toughness); you just choose which each attack power targets as suits that specific attack. You can trade all defenses off against each other (max PL + 5 for any given defense) but significant combatants (so, PCs and most non-Minion enemies or significant allies) get four free bonus points that they can assign to their defenses, which don't count against the tradeoff limit but do count against the individual PL+5 limit. All together, it means you can specialize a bit without tanking any specific defense, but the assumption that people will be targeting a variety of defenses is more thoroughly baked in.

Also, Linked attacks I have always rolling one resistance check, even if they target different saves. This is another significant factor for the current system; Linked effects with different saves are substantially more powerful than Linked effects that use the same save. It would not be a bad compromise house rule to say that when you Link attacks together, they default to the same save, and then you can use Alternate Resistance to change them at +1/rank.

JoeJ
2018-07-16, 01:06 PM
Proposed Changes: Let toughness be bought directly, defensive roll is kind of weak mechanically for natural toughness, and there's no reason why one can't flavor naturally bought toughness as tanking hits or rolling with them anyways depending on the flavor of the character.

That change wouldn't hurt anything, but is it really needed when you can buy Protection for the same price?

Quellian-dyrae
2018-07-16, 01:10 PM
Thing about Protection is it gives you a significant weakness (you lose it if Nullified; not as bad as Defensive Roll, but non-trivial), but no discount for it. It's not terrible, but it matters. And heaven help you if you make it Sustained.

Nintendogeek01
2018-07-16, 01:14 PM
I haven't finished reading through Quellian's entire post so I'll get back to his but we do need a reply to this one.


That change wouldn't hurt anything, but is it really needed when you can buy Protection for the same price?
Yes. Yes it is. As I mentioned when we were discussing skills, the powered options and mundane options must be available to players to choose from. If someone wants to make powered armor or have their toughness be the result of a sustained forcefield then they should have the option via the protection power. But if someone wants to be naturally tough or able to roll with the punch then let them buy toughness to represent the mundane options.

Powers also have some... let's say inherent weaknesses which QD brings up; those flaws are very seldom exploitable (unless your GM is particularly sadistic) so they aren't worth a point discount, but the option to have toughness through a means that avoids those weaknesses should also be available.

Nintendogeek01
2018-07-16, 09:54 PM
One of the most important changes that could be made to defenses, is my opinion, is doing away with the persistent communal metagame idea that having your defenses at PL is even vaguely related to min-maxing in any way. It simply...isn't. Attack/defense caps are the vast majority of what PL does. It's no more min-maxing to put your stats at PL than it is to play a 10th level fighter in a D&D game where the DM calls for 10th level characters. Could you play an 8th level fighter? Sure. Is there anything wrong with that? Of course not, if that's what you want to do (although it may make it slightly more difficult on your DM to balance encounters). But taking the full benefits of the level the GM assigns for the game is nowhere even close to min-maxing or power gaming. I honestly don't understand where that connection even came from, let alone how it got to be so pervasive.

(To be very clear, I have nothing against taking below-PL defenses if that is the best way to represent the character you want to play. What baffles me is the idea that hitting your caps is somehow min-maxing in even the slightest.)
I did not mean to imply meeting caps was a bad thing, and I am sorry if that was the impression that came across, just an observation of the attitude of players I've seen personally. The only times I've noted people have a particular problem with defenses being capped is in games that imply that the heroes are rookies on some level. But as for the metagame itself really not much these can do to address that directly; metagames are built up over a period of time after all.


I think any discussion about defenses would be incomplete without a review of Alternate Defense. The M&M rules seem to operate on the assumption that changing Damage to Will is +1/rank, but changing Affliction to Dodge is +0/rank. This is...almost as ludicrous as saying the Only While Singing Loudly counts as a Limit.

Thing is, while Damage defaults to Toughness and Affliction/Weaken default to Fortitude or Will...frankly all of those things are balanced against each other. Damage...technically has a higher DC, but it also has weaker individual results. However, it's stickier and stacks better. Affliction will have the biggest impacts, but in most cases, the shortest-lasting ones. I'd...say it's also the hardest to heal, but honestly the rules for healing Afflictions are so all over the place that I can't really make that point confidently. Weaken is probably the weakest of the three, although weakening defenses can be quite potent and stack well.

Likewise, Toughness, Fortitude, and Will are all the main resistances. And while Fortitude and Will trade off against each other, neither trade against Toughness. You can shift Toughness without impacting your Fortitude or Will at all (sort of; technically, in a high-op game anyway, any Toughness shift ends up bad as soon as the enemy discovers it, because they can just Power Attack for the difference, negating the basic effect but resulting in an inflated DC for other resistances).

Now, attacks resisted by Dodge are another matter entirely. They're fully traded against Toughness. Dodge-resisted Damage (lightsabers!) makes the people who are supposed to be really tough feel like chumps. Even things like Snares and Grabs (less so the latter, but not everyone who's really tough is also really strong) still do it, only slightly less egregiously. And this is before getting into the fact that Dodge can be sacrificed by All Out Attack, utterly crippled by Vulnerable (an easy condition to inflict), and tanked straight to 0 by Defenseless. It is a stupidly superior defense to target by pretty much every metric.

My minimal house rules in this area are that Toughness/Fort/Will can always be swapped for each other at +0/rank except when on-the-fly (i.e. through a Power Stunt, Variable power, etc), in which case they're +1 because presumably you're targeting a weakness. Alternate Resistance (Dodge) is always +1/rank. Further, any attack resisted by Dodge or Parry has the following nerfs: You can use either Dodge or Parry for it, Defensive Roll adds to the check up to a max total equal to your Toughness, active defense modifiers don't apply to the resistance check (good or bad, but there's more bad ones), and they don't benefit from Power Attack.
For the most part I agree with how M&M sees alternate defenses, but having said that perhaps if the paradigm shifts a bit you might be more inclined to agree?

FuzzyBoots on Ronin Army offered a solution to my previous conundrum of how we make dodge limited by power level if we were to make it only a saving throw and not an active defense. His suggestion was that the revised Dodge, Fortitude, and Will be limited to power level x3. I in turn propose that in addition to that, no single saving throw may be higher than 1.5x power-level (not that I would recommend such extremes but that's another matter). Lastly, alternate defense will only legally be able to target the four saving throws and not the active defense stat. Given the widened potential for highs and lows among those three defenses, perhaps then the increased cost would make more sense to you?

Quellian-dyrae
2018-07-16, 10:40 PM
I did not mean to imply meeting caps was a bad thing, and I am sorry if that was the impression that came across, just an observation of the attitude of players I've seen personally. The only times I've noted people have a particular problem with defenses being capped is in games that imply that the heroes are rookies on some level. But as for the metagame itself really not much these can do to address that directly; metagames are built up over a period of time after all.

Nah you didn't really, it's just something I've seen a fair few times before and it baffles me every time.


For the most part I agree with how M&M sees alternate defenses, but having said that perhaps if the paradigm shifts a bit you might be more inclined to agree?

FuzzyBoots on Ronin Army offered a solution to my previous conundrum of how we make dodge limited by power level if we were to make it only a saving throw and not an active defense. His suggestion was that the revised Dodge, Fortitude, and Will be limited to power level x3. I in turn propose that in addition to that, no single saving throw may be higher than 1.5x power-level (not that I would recommend such extremes but that's another matter). Lastly, alternate defense will only legally be able to target the four saving throws and not the active defense stat. Given the widened potential for highs and lows among those three defenses, perhaps then the increased cost would make more sense to you?

So what you're basically saying is, Parry is active defense, Toughness is Damage resistance, Dodge halves Area and resists Grabs, Fortitude/Will are Affliction/Weaken resistance.

Parry trades against Toughness, Dodge/Fortitude/Will all trade against each other.

You can Alternate Resistance Dodge, Fortitude, and Will against each other for +0. Swapping them for Toughness is +1/rank. Swapping Toughness for them...would need to be defined. My guess would be +0 if an attack roll is required for the power, +1/rank if not (because then those powers would be super-effective against Parry-shifted characters).

That sounds solid. It gets rid of the worst of the issues. Means you can't "double-dip" against Toughness with Dodge-resisted attacks and admittedly making any Toughness trade into +1/rank does at least mitigate the ease of circumventing Toughness and just Power Attacking. Shifting Toughness makes you strong against Damage, weak against targeted special attacks and Alternate Resistance. Shifting Parry makes your strong against targeted special attacks and Alternate Resistance, a bit weaker against regular damage, and weak against Area or Perception Damage. So it should overall roughly balance the superiority of Resistance to Defense for purposes of the Toughness/Parry shift. Dodge/Fort/Will can be traded freely so it's just luck of the draw/whim of the GM. You still have the fact that if people are actively trying to target weaknesses, any shift is a bad thing, but that's just kinda how it goes.

Draz74
2018-07-18, 05:43 PM
I honestly don't understand where that connection even came from, let alone how it got to be so pervasive.

Well, I assume it came from the way that most sample builds (including the Character Archetypes) don't meet their Defense Power Level caps.

But despite its clear origins, it's kind of silly that they built sample builds that way, and I see nothing min-maxy about hitting your PL caps for defenses. When my builds don't hit their PL limits, it's usually by only a point or so, and it's purposely to give them a flavorful weakness.

Grod_The_Giant
2018-07-20, 10:53 AM
FuzzyBoots on Ronin Army offered a solution to my previous conundrum of how we make dodge limited by power level if we were to make it only a saving throw and not an active defense. His suggestion was that the revised Dodge, Fortitude, and Will be limited to power level x3. I in turn propose that in addition to that, no single saving throw may be higher than 1.5x power-level (not that I would recommend such extremes but that's another matter). Lastly, alternate defense will only legally be able to target the four saving throws and not the active defense stat. Given the widened potential for highs and lows among those three defenses, perhaps then the increased cost would make more sense to you?
I've been running this way for years (calling the revised stat "evade"); it works wonderfully, especially for players used to D&D's "AC, Fort, Ref, and Will" setup. 99.9% of the time your Dodge and Parry stats will be identical anyway, because they're both trading off with the same value. Area effects are pretty common reasons to roll Dodge, and there are plenty of Afflictions that can make use of it as well.

Not sure what you mean about alternate defense?

Nintendogeek01
2018-07-20, 10:56 AM
Not sure what you mean about alternate defense?
The power extra, the one that lets you choose to target, for example, fortitude instead of toughness on a damage effect.

On another note it's good to hear that there's some positive precedent for this.

Grod_The_Giant
2018-07-20, 12:59 PM
The power extra, the one that lets you choose to target, for example, fortitude instead of toughness on a damage effect.

On another note it's good to hear that there's some positive precedent for this.
I meant "why wouldn't you let a power target the unified defense stat?" We can expect that they'd all be roughly equal, after all.

One additional point about defenses and damage: I've introduced M&M to a lot of people, and had to do the whole "teaching the game while also running it" bit practically every campaign. And every time, getting people used to how Damage works has been, by far, the most difficult part. At this point, my preferred approach is to shift as much of that complexity onto the GM as possible.

The best way to do that I've come up with involves reversing things when the players are attacking-- instead of the npc rolling Toughness against power rank+15, the player rolls damage against Toughness+5. When they GET attacked, they roll Toughness normally. That way, no matter what direction the attack goes, it's still "player rolls a die/GM says what happens."

Nintendogeek01
2018-07-20, 01:13 PM
I meant "why wouldn't you let a power target the unified defense stat?" We can expect that they'd all be roughly equal, after all.
Because it's an active defense and not a saving throw, the fact that the player has to roll a saving throw at all means the active defense has already been beaten/bypassed. If an attack's saving throw is dependent on avoiding blows then that's where the dodge/reflex saving throws comes in to indicate going from "keeping my guard up," to "Oh snap! I better move!"

Nintendogeek01
2018-07-30, 05:31 PM
The powers topic is up! (Link in the second post). Ronin Army's already taking off with the discussion.

Draz74
2018-08-01, 08:54 AM
Just a thought I just had, if you're re-writing the system: Rather than making Defensive Roll cost less than other forms of Toughness, you could leave its cost the same, but give it some of the benefits of being an Active Defense.

Not sure which ones would be good but not overpowered ... or how to prevent everyone from taking just one rank of Defensive Roll to capitalize on this.