Hey, so we'll use this thread for general discussion about game; whether it is about the rules, house rules, the world or whatever.  Questions specific to the action at hand should still go in the appropriate chapter OOC thread.  This one is for more general stuff.

Since we're finally getting into some combat after years in RL, I think it best to go over some of the house rules we're using for combat:

Power Level - still affects your regular maximums (attack, defensive, toughness, damage, etc.).  Situational modifiers WILL allow you to exceed this though, up to a maximum of +2 over the power level limit).

Attack Rolls - still done in the normal fashion, but your margin of success will translate into a damage bonus; +1 for every 2 you exceed the target's defenses.  Critical hit no longer exist though; if you roll a 20 it just gives you a greater chance at a higher damage bonus.  Weapons with increased crit range will retain the +5dmg for every point spent ONLY when a natural 20 is rolled.

Damage saves - With the much greater damage potential due to Attack Roll Margin of Success the base DC's to save for damage will be reduced as follows:
Toughness Save = 10 base DC + Dmg Modifier
Powers Save = 5 base DC + Dmg Modifier
Basically each base DC was reduced by 5.  Impervious Toughness is applied before the damage modifier due to attack roll is added. This makes Impervious Toughness a bit more intense, since it can cancel attacks that are not of sufficient strength irregardless of how well they hit. Example; you can go up and critically punch a tank, but it will not make any difference as the tank will have a greater Impervious Toughness than your regular human fist can deliver.  Hellfire missiles on the other hand just need to hit, as they do much more damage than most tank's Impervious Toughness rating.

That's all I have for now, but will keep adding stuff as I think of it.
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:46, Wed 13 Nov 2013.

And if you have larger critical ranges than just 20, those natural rolls also give the bonus that a natural 20 gives, correct?

Thanks, yeah, it's been a long time since I read the rule books, and my brain is having some leagake, so it's good to have the basics explained here again, well, and the modifications.

I've revised the margin of success factor for damage; after checking some math given the PL we are at a simple lucky roll could take any of you out for good due to the massive possible damage bonuses version your Toughness.  So it will be a +1 dmg for every 2 points over the DC.

Increased crit range will allow for that old +5 dmg when a natural 20 is rolled; basically it is like adding a feat that gives you the chance to still crit with that weapon/attack.

Isn't +1 damage per 2 you exceed it by the same as what you said above?

I think the book that introduced the concept had +1 per 5 you exceed by?
This message was last edited by the player at 16:28, Wed 13 Nov 2013.

Nope; Masterminds Manual page 106 under Margin of Success states to add the difference between the attack roll and the defense DC and add it to the dmg DC.  Again this would not be such a big issue at PL 10 since you would expect peoples' Attack/Defense/Toughness ratings to be around 10, so you would not have such a massive luck factor.  When you are looking at people with average scores around 5/6 then a roll of 15 instead of 5 is a big deal.

I think another rule we will put in is that Margin of Success can no more than double the damage bonus of the attack, including situational modifiers.  So if your attack has +6dmg, even if you rolled 14 over the defense DC with your attack you would only be doing +12dmg. The constrains things to the power level a bit more.

Without some limits we could have some runaway damage levels, which affect you as PCs more than NPCs, since more no-name NPCs are either up or down.

If we need to make further adjustments we can, but this is potentially the first real combat we've had so we'll see how it goes.

For example, Vanyra's attack in this case had a total damage bonus of +20, so the target DC to save vs. Toughness would have been 30 at +1/1 rate! Whereas it was brought down to 23 at the 1/2rate (+6 base and +7mos).  So it would have taken a fantastic toughness save to avoid getting pummelled. Even with the cap at 12 Lasrane would have been knocked unconscious with his roll.

Heh, sounds good.

How would the cap affect criticals then?  I remember that they received a pretty good damage bonus right?  (Especially important since Vanyra's weapon has an 18-20 critical, which she would have gotten if she had been going to really hurt the guy)

Remember that there are NO CRITS anymore, per se. Having thought about the impact of the MoS damage system I think the best route to take is that the increased crit range on weapons will give you a higher damage cap instead of giving you a damage bonus.

For each level it will increase your base damage cap by 2 (before MoS), so your ultimate damage cap for that weapon would be increased by 4 for each level after MoS.  This has the effect of giving low damage weapons the chance to do wicked damage in the right hands; much like a rapier or Vanyra's weapon.

So Vanyra has a base of +3dmg with her Culay, which would normally limit her to a +6 damage cap.  But since it has 2 levels of increased crit range it would act as a +7 dmg weapon for purposes of determining damage cap, so a max bonus of +14.

Special attacks/feat bonuses count towards the base attack damage as usual, and the crit range bonus would be applied on top of them to the max damage bonus allowed by PL.

The crit range bonus is a unique item-only type feat so it takes some special consideration.

The Power Extra Autofire is another case that needs to be addressed.  Since it also relies on MoS of the attack roll we will count the Autofire bonus damage on TOP of the regular MoS damage.  Therefore, the extra will still work as it normally does, and since Autofire damage does not count against PL limit it would still prove to be useful.