[Orlin]

Originally Posted by JCD

There was an exchange I had with the Acolyte (IIRC) in which on the one hand he discussed his rules for making his vessels much tougher then humans...and on the other lamenting how long combat takes in IN. These two points are related. I believe the adjustments you are making will make combat even between Celestials VERY long.

...I didn't really consider how vast the differences were until I did the calculations were until I compared the two "average" Celestials using that variant. Once I realized my initial mistake (which I'll explain below), I discovered that what I had written was not what I wanted to express. I can fix it, but I fear that even if I do, the differences between Celestials and humans would still be vast.

Originally Posted by JCD

Case in point. My Character Curtis, even using the GMG variant for Body, has 28 body. A fist wielded by any but the finest martial artist or inhumanly strongest of Celestials, does on average 1d6-3, 1.5 points of damage. Even assuming a hit every time, that is 14+ rounds of combat. Guns are not much better, averaging 3 body per round for a 9 mm pistol.

First, remember that a hand wielded by the finest martial artist -- one with Fighting/4 -- increases the power of a punch by +1. By the same token, an inhumanly strong Celestial (Strength 10), raises the power to +1 as well (Core Guide, p. 120.) For a starting Celestial, both of these are possible at character creation: they only raise your typical punch to 1d6-1, but it's a start.

A character with a sufficiently high strength and NC such as Claws/3 (+3 Acc, +3 Power) can jack that number up a lot higher.

Consider a Celestial with the following stats: Strength 10, Fighting/4, Numinous Corpus: Claws/3. Let's assume (and it might be an incorrect assumption, but I'm not certain), that a Claw attack is still considered a punch and is thus subject to the standard -3 penalty.

Now, say that this same Celestial throws a punch: 1d6-3 damage, but the -3 is negated by the +3 power due to Claws. Furthermore, a Strength of 10 and a skill of Fighting/4 brings that up to an additional +2. Finally, the combination of Fighting + Strength brings the TN to 14, which spills over into a nasty 1d6+4 damage. A RAW risk attack is still almost a guaranteed success, and brings your damage to 1d6+5!

If we take the average roll as 3, then the average damage is still 7 -- bringing the average combat time between Celestials (using the GMG varient) to 4 rounds, (or 10 rounds, using the RAW.)

Now factor in things like the Song of Thunder and...well, things can get nasty pretty quick.

Originally Posted by JCD

However, I tend to a bit more realism in my games. I am perfectly fine in having Celestials twice as hard to kill as humans. Twice as hard to kill as a CAR? Not so much.

I thought about that. Do you know that in the RAW, the average Celestial, with 36 Hits, is almost twice as difficult to kill as a small car? A combat monster such as the one mentioned above (70 hits) is twice as hard to kill as a pickup truck! Or a HELICOPTER! And that's RAW.

Granted, a Pickup Truck always has protection 3, and a Helicopter/Small Car always has Protection 2, but a Celestial can accomplish that with a Song of Corporeal Form.

Originally Posted by JCD

Doing a little math: So, a 9 force Celestial with Str 6 would add 15 body to a vessel/1 (I am not exactly sure how the rest of your calculations are accomplished)

This is because I misremembered the rules for vessel when I wrote the proposed house rule. I forgot that Celestials HAVE to pay for at least one level of vessel. For some reason I thought that an average Celestial began play with Vessel/0, but still had a body. This is simply not the case.

The rules I were suggesting, then, would be this: a Celestials STR + Forces (average 15) multiplies his body hits by his level in Vessel. This means that the average Celestial (presuming a vessel/3) would have 45 HP. I'll tweak the proposal, but I'm pretty sure your point would still stand.

Originally Posted by JCD

While a Vessel/3 would be 45 body added to the character, while a vessel/6 would add 90 body! It seems you are taking away on the one hand and giving it right back with the other.

I don't allow PC's to take anything higher than vessel 3 because it jacks Hits up too high, but I see your point. If I were to recalculate the proposal, the examples you cited would not be the bonus HP, but the flat HP of the target. Keep in mind, these calculations would be presented BEFORE any levels of toughness were factored in.

Even so, it places a very wide gap between humans and celestials.

Originally Posted by JCD

Frankly, if you want the disparity between the two, why not stay with the original system?

Well, I liked that variant, but I wanted to illustrate a difference of power between vessels and toughness. A human, using the RAW or the GM Guide variant, can effectively replicate levels in Vessel with levels in Toughness. I still believe there should be a way to do that, I just haven't found it.

On a side-note, have you ever felt like guns just don't do enough damage overall? It seems to me that even if an average punch does 1d6-3 damage and a standard 9mm does about 1d6, there's still some kind of missing factor. I've often thought that there should be something inherently special about bullets, because they just don't seem to be lethal enough.

Now, this could be that I'm just not thinking cinematically enough. Instead of saying, for example, that the average bullet always hits on a high CD and shreds through the average target, I could say that even a high CD grazes the target (if the target is a main character) and only scores a powerful blow if it deals enough damage to drop the character in question...but I think that would upset some of my players.

"I rolled a 9! What do you mean I grazed him?"

I think there is a rule somewhere in the core guide that outright states (and I'm paraphrasing) "If you, as a GM, feel that a target could not reasonably survive the attack, the target dies." The trouble is, with really high powered rifles..how do you strike a balance?