V&V and 13th Age

V&V Combat

Giving thought to modifying the V&V combat system to make use of some 13th age mechanics.

Things about V&V that are classic/that I like and want to keep

• 1: the dice rolls are all low better, 1 is the best roll, modifiers effect your target number and not the die.
  • This is super useful in 13th age, where the number on the d20 drives the mechanic.

• 2: The attack vs. defense chart. I love how it contains super hero physics, and sticks with the idea of changing the target number rather than applying bonuses.
  • I do need to update it a bit to make the ‘attack types’ more transparent; there are issues currently where Ice Powers is statted both as blasts of cold and masses of ice, which interact with defenses in very different ways.
  • I also need to update how unarmed melee combat works on the chart.
  • Any complaints about the time spent on the chart in combat can be discarded because it’s a PBEM and we have tons of time.

• 3: I love some parts of the HP and Power Score dynamic (how Power so effectively models slowing down when it comes to being able to roll with damage or set up evasions; how rolling with damage increases your effective toughness against attacks you can see coming).
  • The system desperately needs to introduce character asymmetry, because the rules are too onerous to track for every mook in a mass battle, and sometimes even for the individual villains.

• 4: V&V has, to me, just the right grounding in realism. Your attributes drive the effectiveness of your powers; your carrying capacity factors in your weight and endurance and there's a clear point where you stop being 'human'. Likewise your movement rate breaks out into real world numbers. All of it, especially moment, is a little granular, but most of it works.

Things about V&V that are obsolete and need to change

• 1: Movement so math intensive no one uses it as written – it’s completely math driven and is a third resource pool that refreshes per round, but the pool size is huge and few powers pull from it in an explicit way. I don't know if it was meant to be map tactical, but..
  • Taken in those terms it might be salvageable, but a lot more powers need to run off of it.
  • I need to separate the 'non-attack effects in combat' from 'how fast can you move out of combat' before anything can work off of it.

• 2: there are no good midway rules for stunning someone; In fact, there are no good Condition rules at all
  • The only entangle roles are in ice Powers and they are clumsy
  • The mind control and emotion control effects are super expensive in play, devastating to combat and boring for players.
  • The stunning effects don't have enough granulation - Devitalization of Power Score has too many spill over effects, stun or paralysis have too low a chance to 'wake up'.

• 3: The damage and accuracy for HTH combat is skewed and I need a way to balance out the options of “I suck in a fight”, “I’m a good fighter as backup to my powers”, and “conventional combat is my offense”.
  • I know this needs a change in accuracy, but possibly also damage. HTH damage in V&V scales up in a way that other powers don't, in part because it is balanced by the low chance to hit. But that means either you have PCs who are bored with very seldom hitting or super-strength skilled fighters are optimized. Now, that latter does capture the comics, but....

Proposed Changes

Things I want to incorporate that I think combined to give me a single explicable base mechanic.

(first, I'm likely going to change the term Power Points to Vitality Points - this makes sense with Devitalization Ray and also is less confusing with heroes having Powers)

1: having the roll on the d20 influence the effect of the attack. I think this would solve several issues in standard V&V and open up some new possibilities

• The 'ultimate' defenses that drop attack numbers of a 0 make perfect sense in comics terms but are problematic in play because of the 'roll of 1 always hits' rule. Including a new rule for those defenses where a sufficiently low attack roll has a lesser effect (damaging vitality or movement rather than HP) feels like a good middle ground - a sufficiently low roll will damage the Vitality Points of an intangible person, or the movement points of someone in a force field as they are thrown backwards.
• It lets you set up expertise shticks for martial artists and other attacks that have several different ways of doing thing. If the attack a strike or a throw? does it manage both? some quick color where the player has to think of the clever things they want their PC to be able to do just once and not have to develop new color every time.
• Likewise it prevents the 'perfect attack' combination, where, say, Metal Lass always wants to try to entangle people with her metal because it's the most efficient it's also the most boring in an action beat sense. If the Entangle function only works on odd rolls and on even rolls she instead does damage with the metal that keeps the option alive but not overwhelming.
• It opens things up for the "I suck at melee option", where untrained melee people only do HP with an odd roll and do something else on an even roll. Not nothing, but not everything either. For some reason I really like this to differentiate combat training from untrained flailing in ways other than damage bonuses. Including this lets me boost the base attack for conventional weapons to a 10, but it's deeply hampered by defenses _and_ for untrained people it only hits half the time.
• Eliminate the level vs. level table by instead putting in broad combat experience bands, where if the combatants are in uneven bands the superior one can shift the die roll 1 point, giving them a lot of control over the effects of the combat without dominating.

2: Introducing a sub attribute of each o the big 5 SEAIC that would be 1/3rd (round down) of the attribute. Chaning some things from a d% to a d20 possible number opens up some new ideas.

• Attack rolls under the sub-attribute could get an additional effect - with her 12 Agility Metal Lass could use the Forms to get an extra effect on an unarmed attack roll of 4 or less. With her 24 Agility Diskette would get an extra effect on a roll of 8 or less.
• Detection rolls shift to d20 vs. Intelligence, with additional information found on a roll under the sub-attribute. Some Ht. Senses bonuses might apply to both. Mr. Music has a 10 Intelligence and will Detect concealed things on a d20 roll of 10 or less, and carefully hidden things on a 3 or less. But if the detection has to do with hearing emotion he has a +4, which means he detects concealed on a 14 or less, or carefully hidden on a 7 or less.
• If I wanted to, I could have two different data points people could get on a skill or detection check - odd rolls get one, even rolls get another, rolls of 1 get both - to mitigate the problem of multiple characters making the background/history/lore check. Now theres a chance of some hidden data and a likelihood that they split the data to intodcues some space for conversation and ambiguity.
• Invention rolls likewise work well in the new model: Make a basic invention is a d20 vs. intelligence, while complex inventions and super hero level breakthroughs require getting at or under the sub stat. Future Boy has a 33 Intelligence, which means he makes basic inventions with no chance of failure (though on a 20 there are some side effects) and can make breakthrough on a roll of 11 or less.

3: Update the combat chart so that attacks are at a 10 or a 15 base (with the new rules above for inferior combatants doing lesser effects on conventional attacks)