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Old 12-19-2020, 02:12 PM   #21
Fred Brackin
 
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: High Pain Threshold and Supernatural Durability

Belisarius MacArthur was basically a professional duellist and his ability to avoid attacks (both Parry and Dodge) was very high but he had HPT because it was one of those obvious things to genetically engineer into a race of Space Barbarians. He had Alcohol Tolerance and No Hangover too.
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Old 12-19-2020, 03:42 PM   #22
Otaku
 
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: High Pain Threshold and Supernatural Durability

Hmm... clearly, it is one of those YMMV things, and perhaps my cohorts and I were the odd ones. I'm mentally grappling with two opposing concepts:
  1. GMs being too hard on players
  2. GMs being too easy on players

I also consider a Dodge of 16 at least bordering on superhuman. Not really an argument against the suggested character designs, just explaining why they weren't typical of our games. Plus, we were playing under 3e rules; under 4e, with Deceptive Attacks, I'd feel much less secure unless I had two of:
  • High Active Defense
  • High Damage Resistance
  • High Pain Threshold

I thought about listing "High HP" as well, but the issue isn't how quickly one dies, but how useless a character may be from Shock Penalties over the next turn. I'll have to remember to re-evaluate how I handle combat. This isn't the only area where I think my approach is lacking. ;)
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Old 12-19-2020, 05:35 PM   #23
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: High Pain Threshold and Supernatural Durability

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Originally Posted by Otaku View Post
Hmm... clearly, it is one of those YMMV things, and perhaps my cohorts and I were the odd ones. I'm mentally grappling with two opposing concepts:
  1. GMs being too hard on players
  2. GMs being too easy on players

I also consider a Dodge of 16 at least bordering on superhuman...
Ah you are in my world now.

Yes high dodge can solve many a problem. Until it fails. Hence my tag line 'finding neo'.

Dodge 16+ is good against single attacks but when attacks like high ROF come into play then the Dodge 16+ crumbles.

In hand to hand the attack can use the deceptive attack trade, every 2pts under skill equates to a -1 on active defences. That is a skill 20 attacker can sacrifice 6pts of attack to give -3 active defences. It is possible this attack had an Extra Attack or can raise the relative skill to give more modifiers to an active defence.
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Old 12-19-2020, 06:01 PM   #24
whswhs
 
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: High Pain Threshold and Supernatural Durability

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I also consider a Dodge of 16 at least bordering on superhuman.
Yes, it was. La Gata Encantada was definitely superhuman. I built her as a speedster, but more in the Spider-man idiom than in the Flash idiom.
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Old 12-19-2020, 07:47 PM   #25
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: High Pain Threshold and Supernatural Durability

This is an advantage that in 4e is much less relevant.

4e caps shock penalty and made stunning on major sounds and crippling a HT save rather than automatic. And 4e HPT adds a bonus to the HT save rather than removes it entirely.

I took this advantage all the time in 3e, but in 4e only if I'm forced to by Template
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Old 12-19-2020, 07:56 PM   #26
Otaku
 
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: High Pain Threshold and Supernatural Durability

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This is an advantage that in 4e is much less relevant.

4e caps shock penalty and made stunning on major sounds and crippling a HT save rather than automatic. And 4e HPT adds a bonus to the HT save rather than removes it entirely.

I took this advantage all the time in 3e, but in 4e only if I'm forced to by Template
Thank you!

I know it is quite foolish of me, but this is one of my "Otaku forgot that 4e is not 3e." instances. All of the things that make me think High Pain Threshold is important for most combat types are tied to 3e experiences... but for some reason, I was only dimly aware that could be an issue.

Well, some of it is still about the "balance" in challenging the players, as smurf further addresses. If a PC has Dodge 16, am I being too generous if I rarely (or never) challenge it, or am I supposed to challenge it some of the time, especially when it suits the story.
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Old 12-19-2020, 09:09 PM   #27
Kalzazz
 
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: High Pain Threshold and Supernatural Durability

If a PC has active defenses 16 of course I'm going to give them the Oppurtunity to be awesome and dodge a lot of stuff but I'm also going to roll out foes who can try to hit them

Foes slinging deceptive attacks or automatic weapons etc
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Old 12-19-2020, 10:36 PM   #28
AlexanderHowl
 
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: High Pain Threshold and Supernatural Durability

I usually have high defense characters facing highly skilled enemies with builds like Staff-20, Technique Mastery (Spin Attack), and Spin Attack-24. Unless the high defense character has a correspondingly high combat skill, they are likely going to be hit with a very large defensive penalty, so they cannot just depend on high defense to survive combat.
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Old 12-21-2020, 06:44 AM   #29
RedMattis
 
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: High Pain Threshold and Supernatural Durability

Prevention is better than cure and all that, but unless you have advantages which let you dodge attacks you aren't aware of dodge along won't be perfect. And then there is AoE attacks...
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Old 12-21-2020, 06:53 AM   #30
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Default Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week: High Pain Threshold and Supernatural Durability

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Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
Yes, it was. La Gata Encantada was definitely superhuman. I built her as a speedster, but more in the Spider-man idiom than in the Flash idiom.
How did you handle critical hits? IIRC, you don't get to dodge them.
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