Hey-ho everyone. Thought I'd toss an actual rules issue onto the list as a
break from all the character postings.
It has always seemed to be that a major problem with MSH was in the area
of defenses. In part this probably flows from some very bad character
write-ups (I'm doing this from memory, btw, so if I'm a bit off my
apologies). We have the Hulk with Monstrous armor, the Thing with Amazing
armor, and then we get Sub-mariner and Thor with Poor or Typical armor.
The problem, I think, lies in the old bugaboo about distinguishing between
killing attacks and normal attacks (to steal some Hero system
terminology). So characters who are not supposed to be as "invulnerable"
as others have low-level or no armor, yet Thor and Subby can go toe-to-toe
with the Hulk for extended periods in the comics, but in the game Hulk
only needs to tag either of them once or twice and that's it, while they
have to pound the Hulk many many times to drop him.
So . . . what to do, what to do? My current houserules take on it is to
provide all characters with basically free armor sort of. Everyone has
"defense" equal to their Strength or Endurance (whichever is higher) at
-1CS. This is applied against all "non-killing attacks" like punches,
falling, getting hit with a bus, etc. This also allows us to better
reflect characters like Spiderman who can take a lot of physical abuse
(and who at times seems to be able to ignore punches from normal people)
but who has no defenses against "killing" attacks like guns or knives.
So, there's issue one.
Issue two: combat, more specifically attack rolls. I'll readily admit that
I prefer systems where the "to hit" value is based on a comparison of the
two combatant's relative abilities. Two Good fighters should have roughly
equal chances of whacking each other, but it seems odd that when the Good
fighter squares off against an Incredible fighter, the Good fighter's
chance to hit is the same (I am ignoring the various defensive options
like dodge and parry since they require actions).
So, house rule #2 around here is that you compare the relative abilites to
get a modifier to the attack roll. For example, Capt. America (Fighting
Incredible - 40) is facing Joe Hydra agent (Fighting Good - 10). This
means that when Cap attacks, he rolls on the Incredible column at +30, and
poor Joe Hydra rolls on the Good column at -30.
This seems to work well because, let's face it, the really good fighters
should be able to mow down hordes of agents, and no agent EVER gets a red
result against Captain America unless Cap is seriously out to lunch.
Comments, suggestions, and ways others have dealt with these issues are
more than welcome.
Andrew Ross
(
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