In Force Rules Changes
This section contains the rules changes to V&V 2.1 that I have in place.
Page-Count Experience and The 10 Level Campaign
(Not the name of my Hootie and Blowfish Cover Band) When we started this campaign I went with a deliberately old school experience point system modeled on the Palladium system, with rewards driven by in character action rather than the power of the enemies defeated. This was driven in part by my love of the Pendragon system with players tracking honor rewards in a way that produced a clear character chronicle and the assumption that since this was a PBEM we would have time to do the more complex system. Unfortunately that didn't work - the players can't track their own taggings and actions, and don't have constantly updated character sheets so I was doing all the work and the players saw none of the reward. Worse, I ended up having to reread each adventure chronicle several times in order to find everything and mark them on the chronicle and then again on the character sheets.
Plus, the players didn't need an outside driver to play in character.
It was just so not worth the effort.
Hence the new system: characters advance in level based on the number of pages they're in. I already use Pages to track scenes and events so there you go. The more the character is in the book, the faster they advance.
I'm also adjusting the level curve down to 10 levels rather than the V&V 20, making level changes more significant. This expands training and simplifies the level vs. level table. The effect of levels are as follows
- One basic characteristics below 12 is increased to 12. This cannot be applied to basic characteristics reduced by Weaknesses. Everyone takes super-heroing as a serious business and trains accordingly. This also ties to 4th level being 'professional' at this sort of thing.
- One basic characteristic is increased by 1 point. Without a Heightened Characteristic this caps at 18, with a heightened Characteristic A it caps at 28. Otherwise no cap. Again, this is a serious business, people train.
- The character can instead opt to add an Interest, a 1 point bonus on saves that work the same way as Professions and Hobbies.
- The character can instead opt to increase a Knowledge Area (Career, Hobby or Interest) by +1, max of +5
- Character is +1 to hit with an -1 to be hit by all attacks, applied after defenses. This is the level vs. level table condensed. When you're fighting people your own level it balances out, but the after defense bonus to hit is really useful as the PCs start facing less experienced foes (and is a real threat in fighting more experienced ones.)
- Add one Stunt to any of their Powers or make one Invention permanent. Power Stunts take something you used to be able to do with a Save against the power's Basic Characteristic and makes it something you can do automatically. Inventions are external devices useful in adventuring that work for longer than just the one story and can be given to someone else. People can only make Inventions if they have Professions, Hobbies, or Interests that indicate a scientific, technical or magical expertise. These are generally defined in play during the level rather than at level start.
- Finally, at any level change heroes can move their Size up or down by 1, between 2 and 5. Normally this is teenagers gaining height and mass as they grow up, but dieting is also possible.
Levels and Training
Here's the list of what leveling up gets you.
Other Mechanical Changes
1 Character Rules
1.1 Power and Level
1.1.1 Power: This 1-5 number indicates your raw power on the scale of super-humany-ness. Normal humans (even highly trained soldiers or top of the line Mooks) are Power 1 - as are, for this game, Substitute Heroes. Anyone who has committed to being a super-hero or super-villain is 2. Really powerful super-beings (including high power PCs) are 3. Hyper-Entities like Negative Man are 4. Cosmic-Entities are 5. This multiple is applied to Hit Points, Vitality, Movement and is the number of dice rolled for damage.
1.1.2 "Level: This remains an indicator of your experience as a super-human. It improves based on your page count (the more often you appear , the faster you level up). Each increase in level allows for training in Attributes or Backgrounds and opens up more space for Power Stunts.
In addition, the difference between your level and your opponent’s level is applied after target calculation: If you need a Superior Success (call it 3 or less) hit someone who is 2 levels lower than you, you now need a 5 or less. If they are two levels higher than you, you need a 1. This shows how combat experience can mitigate defenses. "
1.2 Attributes and Backgrounds
1.2.1 Fighting and Psyche: These two new attributes are the average of your physical stats and mental stats, respectively. They replace the Attack Bases from the combat chart and the Accuracy Modifier to determine the characters base chance to hit in combat.
1.2.2 All Attributes are listed as their Success Targets. "Partial" is what you are used to with the 3-18 range plus bonuses. Full is 3/5ths that, Superior is 1/5th that and Critical is 1/20th of that (so you need to roll a 1 unless your Partial is over 30), Total means rolling a 0 or under, and requires Boosting. This puts all the old 'Save' types on the d20 range and gives us clear success levels.
1.2.3 Backgrounds are player-defined and provide bonuses applied to the attribute _before_ target calculation (as opposed to Level, which is applied _after_). They aren't used in combat except in Power Stunts. Your higher background starts at +5, your lower at +3. These can and do easily get over 20, meaning you can always have a Partial success on your Background checks.
1.2.3.1 Note that some Abilities will also add bonuses to Backgrounds. Mr. Music has Harmony Monk as his primary background (+5), but the Heightened Expertise aspect of his Music of the Spheres Ability adds +4 for a total of +9. This means Charisma tests with his Harmony Monk background happen on a 24 or less on d20.
1.3 Traits, Connections and Home/Family
1.3.1 Traits are player defined personality aspects. You can, via roleplaying and a request, choose to draw on a Trait to _Either_ reroll a test (in or out of combat) _or_ BOOST the success level of that test by 1. You can only draw on each trait once per story, and only one trait per 8 pages of story. You must provide a role-playing justification for drawing on the Trait.
1.3.2 Connections are essentially 'Traits as People or Organizations'. The same rules apply in being able to Reroll or Boost any test where you can call on your connection. This is especially helpful in cases where you lack the skill at all, but the connection can always get you to a Partial success. You can draw on a connection once per story.
1.3.3 Home/Family are another flavor of connection. They may be actual people - Mr. Music could call on his parents or other members of his birth cohort - or things about their world or culture - Bubble Boy knows a lot about Tellag, fighting monsters and survival, but isn't especially close to his family - depending on how you phrase it. Again, once per story can be used to Reroll or Boost a test.
1.3.4 Overlapping means it is possible to draw on more than one of these on a single test, though role playing and presentation is required for each use. Yes, if you justify how your connection and family background tie in with all 3 traits you can get 5 Boosts from Failure to Total Success.
2 Ability Rules
2.1 Attack, Movement, and Vitality
2.1.1 Abilities sometimes require an Attack to do something. Normally this is, well, attacking, but it can also be anything that requires a same degree of character focus and carries the same degree of narrative weight. When you take an Action it's generally to Attack and Move, so powers that cost an Attack to turn on or maintain require/deserve similar amounts of spotlight time
2.1.1.1 The best examples of this are Bubble Boy's full power field (which is so powerful that letting him use it more freely would damage play) or Metal Lass's needing to spend some time taking control of a hunk of metal before she can start manipulating it.
2.1.2 Other aspects of Abilities have a formal Movement cost to activate. This indicates that the power needs concentration and ability to move, but doesn't require personal energy nor carries a lot of narrative weight. These formalized movement costs are more common now that Movement is a resource pool.
2.1.2.1 If you have a Movement cost that you can't pay (because you have 0 Movement left), often you can instead pay it with Vitality. This is you straining to accomplish something when you're already maxed out on your concentration and short-term energy. Since Movement refreshes between turns and Vitality only refreshes after combat, this is a significant penalty.
2.1.2.2 Good examples of this are the Movement costs Metal Lass has for manipulating her controlled metal, or the Movement cost for Diskette in setting up teleportational warps.
2.1.3 Finally, many Abilities have a Vitality cost, which means they cost real energy to use. Since Vitality determines how well you can roll with attacks, how well you can evade, and only refreshes between fights you have to balance Vitality spends for Abilities with what else you want to accomplish.
2.1.3.1 As a framework, Abilities that give you a long-term advantage (taking control of or changing something or someone) cost more Vitality than those that don't. As such Mr. Music's Music of the Spheres and Miss Anima's Image Animation have a whopping Vitality Cost of 8, while Superboy's Heat Vision is only 2.
2.1.3.2 Yes, this does mean I've updated some Vitality costs on your Abilities to factor in Movement costs. Everything is a balance between Attack, Vitality, and Movement to catch the 'feel' of the powers.
2.2 Damage and Conditions
2.2.1 Damage: Abilities have damage dice of d6 to d12. For context, non-super-strong people have unarmed combat damage dice from 1 pt. to d4, and Diskette, Metal Lass & Future Boy have sword, unarmed and staff damage dice at d6, respectively. The die type is multiplied by your Power to determine damage done.
2.2.1.1 The degree of success determines what pool - Movement, Hit Points or Vitality - takes that damage. Most conventional attacks do Movement damage on a Partial success, HP damage on a Full success, HP and Movement damage on a Superior success and maximum damage to both on a Critical. Energy generation Abilities will do HP of damage even on a partial success and can be very dangerous.
2.2.1.1.1 This keeps the old system difference between Power Blast and Lightning Control that hit on a 15-16, and attacks that hit on 8-10. Power Blasts, like Lash's force whips, are just hella effective)
2.2.1.2 If ALL the Ability does is Movement damage, it gains one extra die at Full success and higher. This is because abilities that only do Movement damage will carry conditions that kick in only once the target is a 0 Movement for that turn, the extra die is needed to balance frequency of the fun effects.
2.2.2 Conditions are attack outcomes that don't reduce any of your resource pools. They are clustered in four groups (Vitality, Movement, Fighting, Psyche), and ranked by how they compare against dice codes (d4-d12). Generally, more successful hits produce more effective Conditions, but not always.
2.2.2.1 The Saves required to shake off a condition are Partial Success if it was generated by someone with Lower Power, Full by someone with equal power or Superior for more powerful people (generally),
2.2.2.2 In practice, this means Conditions, especially Movement conditions which require whacking your target down to 0 Movement before the good ones kick in, are _great_ for mook clearing - they have lower Movement so the Conditions kick in faster, and they have a low chance to escape.
2.3 Alternate Movement Abilities
2.3.1 Normally, running around the battlefield, even if you aren't attacking, has a Movement cost. Usually ad hoc, based on what you're describing. 1 point of Movement is roughly 2 meters. If you have a super-movement ability, you no longer get more Movement, but each point of Movement is more effective.
2.3.1.1 The multiple is based on the attribute it's linked to, not your Power (higher Power characters already have more movement, don't be cheesy). Usually the multiple is 1+ the attribute divided by 5, rounded. Miss Anima's Slan speed bursts are 4x speed, Superboy's flight is 8x.
2.3.1.1 The Legion Flight Packs allow for Flight (already a bonus!) at x2 movement. Eventually they'll reach x3
2.3.2 Teleportation works differently - Diskette spends 1 Movement to set up a warp and 1 to step through it, no matter how far away that is. This means her movement is _currently_ 18 times more effective if she's speed creating warps at max range and running through them, and gets faster as she gets higher ranges.
2.4 Pushing Your Abilities
2.4.1 The super-Abilities listed on your sheet are your everyday in combat use (or high-tension moments, for which the game uses the term 'Ah, I'm Extremely Excited!' [AIEE!]) . You're stressed, having to process multiple inputs, and can't totally focus. So what's listed is hardly your peak. Outside of combat, multiply all Ability numbers by one half your connected Attribute, boost the save required by one level (Full to Superior) or add another die to your damage.
2.4.1.1 We're no longer tracking Vitality scores outside of combat, but if you're entering combat from a scene where you've been using your Super-Abilities at their full level, you start the fight Winded.
2.4.1.2 Examples: Bubble Boy's full power field is space worthy for 72 minutes outside of combat. Diskette's warps can reach 432m. Metal Lass can control 7.2 tons of metal. Mr. Music can manipulate everyone in 225m. Miss Anima's creations can do up to 3d8 damage.
2.4.1.3 "You can Push your Abilities to this higher level in AIEE! by 1) scoring a Full success on your connected attribute 2) Spending double normal Vitality (minimum of +5) 3) Being Hampered and Winded until your next action 4) Spend your entire action. If you miss the roll you can use the ability as normal (with standard Vitality cost), but it still takes your action and you're Hampered & Winded"
2.4.2 "In extremis, you can push your Abilities past even those levels, multiplying your Ability by TWICE your connected attribute, adding 3 dice of damage or boosting the save required by 3. This requires a 1) Superior success on the connected attribute, 2) Spend triple normal Vitality (minimum of +10), 3) Being Disoriented until you save against that effect. 4) Spend your entire action If you use this out of combat you are Tired for the remainder of the scene."
2.4.3 Pushing abilities is heavily based on character conception. Miss Anima can't push her Slan Physiology because it's designed to be short term, natural ability. When Diskette pushes her warp generation I multiply the AREA of the aperture, because not being able to create huge warps just yet is part of her power concept (she can push to a 1.7m disk or full power to a 3.5m one).
2.5 Connected Attributes
2.5.1 I've discussed these a little earlier, and nothings changing from the last round of rules, but to reiterate, ever Ability has a single connected Attribute that drives the power. The easiest way to get better with an Ability is to improve the Attribute it is linked to.
3 Combat Changes
3.1 Initiative
the same as before: Agility +3 +1/2 Level is your first action. Basic Initiative Interval is 15, so if your Imitative is higher than 15 you go 15 phases after that (16 and 1, or in Diskette's Case, 30 and 15).
3.2 Combat Chart
3.2.1 This has been reworked to account for Fighting, Psyche and the new Success Levels.
3.2.1.1 Defense Types are now defined by the Ability rationale: Diskette no longer has a Stretching Defense but a Force (Parry) defense, as does Metal Lass, as that defense covers "stick a solid thing between you and your opponent".
3.2.1.2 Likewise, Attack Types are driven by Rationale, with Conventional Attacks being the ones that are absolutely the worst against defenses, because that's how comics work.
3.2.1.3 These rules do make it possible to say things like "Robot Boy is Invulnerable" because your average Mook has their chance to= hit with Conventional attacks 80%, he's likely to ignore damage from car crashes and falls, and it takes extraordinary circumstances for him to be hurt by an environmental effect. He may not have the Invulnerability power the way Superboy does, but it will do for the layman.
3.2.2 Cross references on the chart now show the minimum success level needed to hit. This means lower levels of success do nothing, while that level or higher have their full effect. It takes an accurate, solid hit to damage you, and your faith in your defenses means you don't have to scramble around as much. 3.2.3 There are some Abilities (such as Metal Lass's 'Forms') that Reduce an attacks success on an Even roll. It won't effect most Critical hits (which are an Odd roll of 1 in 99% of cases), but it reduces 50% of other attacks to being less damaging. Against such defenses Partial successes with Even die rolls are failures.
3.3 Evasions:
3.3.1 As before, these take an action and give you a reduced chance to be hit equal to 1/10th your current Vitality. In this system it means that number is added to the natural die roll before we compare for success. It's a GREAT way to avoid critical hits, but it's hell on your action economy.
3.3.2 You can chrome Evasion however you like - dodging, bracing yourself, or even just your defenses being really effective this round - so it better fits your Abilities.
3.4 Rolling with Attacks
3.4.1 As per usual, you can reduce the HP of damage from any attack you're aware of by shifting them to Vitality. You can, if you feel it's a worthwhile trade, shift Movement damage to Vitality.
3.5 Level vs. level
3.5.1 As mentioned above, the difference between your level and your targets level is applied to rolls to hit. This is usually a minor change, but if, say, Metal Lass (level 3) tried to solo fight Pirate King (level 9), the difference in their experience will seriously change the battle.
3.5.2 The important thing about Level vs. Level modification is it occurs separate from target calculation: like Evasions this is essentially modifying the rolled die rather than the target numbers.
3.6 Boosting and Reducing
3.6.1 Just to put this in one place, a Boost is when an Ability or Condition improves the success by 1 level. A Reduction is when an Ability or Condition reduces the success level by 1.
3.6.2 This doesn't have to be for combat power. Miss Anima's Slan Physiology gives her a 1 level Boost on sprinting and jumping movement. This makes even a Partial failure a success, and allows for Total successes if she rolls what would be a Critical and it gets boosted.
3.6.2.1 Miss Anima's Super-Ability is in some ways better and in some ways worse than Diskette's training of Ht. Agility A + Ht. Expertise + Sword-Dancer background that gives her a 33 for Partial Success on Sword-Dancer checks. Diskette scores a Full success on a 20 or less, a Superior on a 7 and a Critical on a 2. Miss Anima scores a Partial Success on a 20, a Full on a 14, a Superior on an 8, a Critical on a 3 and can get a Total success and do things it's just impossible for Wynathians -no matter how highly trained - to do on a 1.
3.7 Even Dice Rolls
3.7.1 One of the big things being stolen from 13th Age, we have a lot of focus on the single d20 roll, mostly around the various success levels. We also pay attention to whether the die roll is Even, as there are some parts of Conditions or supplemental aspects of Abilities that apply 50% of the time.
3.7.2 Most often this is Boosting or Reducing the success level of a test or attack on an Even roll. As stated earlier, Reductions are seldom going to effect Critical hits, which most often occur on a roll of 1.
3.8 Recovery & Unconsciousness
3.8.1 There used to be a lot of tedious rules for Recovery of HP and Vitality, which are being streamlined.
3.8.2 All Movement is recovered between turns… UNLESS you were reduced to below 0 in Movement. In that case you may have picked up a condition that will require you to Save before recovering movement. If you miss the Save, you remain at 0 movement for the next turn.
3.8.3 All Vitality is recovered between fights. This make it clear why it's always better to roll with damage! Rather than track Vitality outside a fight, if you've been using your Abilities at high level in advance of the fight you may start the Fight Winded or Tired, and require a between turns Save for adrenaline to get you up to full speed.
3.8.4 Hit Points are recovered between stories or when it makes sense that the characters have had a period of recuperation. Most in-story recuperation will restore 1/2 lost HP. Physical Heath is intended as a story-long diminishing resource.
3.8.5 Every time you take HP of damage there is a 1% chance per HP taken that you get the Unconscious condition, with the usual rules to recover from that.
3.9 Special Attacks and Multiple Attacks
3.9.1 Special Attacks to target an opponent's head, weapon, etc. still require two rolls to hit, and if both hit we apply a Fighting condition based on the better roll. This can be ad hoc, but a Superior hit with a called shot to the head will Stun the opponent as a baseline.
3.9.2 Multiple attacks will follow the usual rules (roll for each one, all of them have to hit for any to hit) and just apply the success level rolled for each attack to the target it was rolled against, with a 2 point Vitality cost per target after the first. You can only attack each target once.
Yes, this means Diskette, Future Boy and other people with 20+ Fighting can do a lot of mook sweeping if they're willing to spend the Vitality. Welcome to comic books."
