@Thunderbolt: You're right, and to a degree - especially as long as people are willing to have only their players know things their characters don't - I'm cool with all sorts of discussion.

And I think the opportunity for discussions of things like tactics is great, provided we wait a little bit (in game) 'til our characters know each other a bit more.  Even in comics the characters often have a bit of confusion and hesitation when they first go into battle together; they're not instantly a finely honed machine with all of the comics and tactical lore that we all have (thus instantly understanding what a "Fastball Special" is, for instance).

@TB: a dozen Indy players and GMs
- check Dawn of the Devil for Slaughter-droids 

Hypothetical: TB vs Guardian given average dice rolling
- if you think Guardians are a walk, I believe you are potentially over-estimating TB and underestimating Guardians
- Magnetic Blast, yes he is likely to hit but with a 1d10 he'd better going with Lightning Control for an average of 10 hp/attack.
- Their 2d8 (+3 damage) strength would have good chance of breaking any magnetic control leaving them free to fire their weapons.
- if he is throwing something magnetically his base to hit is 2 (it would be 5 but in this case Robotic Body works in the Guardian's favor as a defense against HtH) for a thrown an object. So even with potential bonuses TB hits with a 10 at best and that assumes Dom doesn't apply a negative Velocity modifier.
- Guardians have 1/4 their potential hit points (I think because Bill W. is just that nice a guy ) but even with 38 and over 85 Power points to "roll with" damage they would take a little while to whittle down.
- TB's armor is ablative (and effective less than 50% to start) and with 16hp and 63 Power, I don't believe would have the edge in a battle of attrition with the Guardians, unless they all had Power Blast. Amusing enough Flame Power is their best attack against the Magnetic guy.
- Only Level 3 still gives them an edge against TB's Level 2 (-2 to hit for TB on the attack chart, so make that an 8 at best to hit with a thrown object)

Against one Guardian, TB is about on even odds. All hypothetical of course, given average dice rolls.

Just trying to point out you might be absolutely right and Dom might make these guys the cake walk you seem to be expecting, but even something simple as a Guardian can be a bear to bring down.

Well, not saying they are a push over just that they are not going to be a major battle...  their numbers will make them at least a fight.

Uhm.. I'm not sure you understand the combat chart the way I read it... maybe I'm not understanding how the chart is supposed to work but here is my understanding...

First your assuming I'd be hitting them with objects I carry with me or just striking them with raw magnetic bast force... LOL! No, TB would be picking them up and wielding them as weapons AND parry objects for my evasion... they weight 650lbs that's a nice wreaking ball weight for his purposes and a good shield for defenses.

Yes, this goes off the HTH chart but their weight 650lbs gives a +2 bonus to hit with them when using them as weapons for a HTH hit of 10- for Thunderbolt. -2 level, +2 Accuracy, +4 Heightened Expertise, +2 Weight Bonus.

Also you keep mentioning a velocity penalty what it says it this...
"If the attacker moved in the same phase as the attack (but prior to it sequentially) add the number of inches that he moved to the effective range of his attack for the purposes of this modification."

Other than that there is no speed/velocity penalty I can find in the system rules I have.
If TB does not fly over 2 to 13" inches there is no velocity penalty.  I say 2 to 13 as the range of his offensive powers are different from each other.

Now, one could make a case that opponent movement should also be taken into account... but the Guardian Bots would have the same problems with range of attack powers as well.  If the Guardian bots move too far and they are out of range for any attacks they might want to use.  In fact - the Guardian A. & B. Apocalypse Bots have NO ranged attacks anyways and MUST close to HTH range to be effective at all!

Also, there are as far as I can find no acceleration rules... so with TB's capacity of 1,700lbs of metal he can instantly apply any remaining capacity left 10 to 1 as velocity in inches.  Yes, this is throwing them about but I do not have to release them when I throw them as long as they do not get thrown out of the range of his magnetic powers reach.  If I slam them into each other every point of damage I inflict is a 1" of knockback... minus their basic hits which are 13.  I'd have to hit them pretty hard to make them move even one 1".  So with velocity and weight that's 2d8+1 per hit assuming I do not Multi-Attack as after I have locked on to a metallic object I remain locked onto it for 16 turns and any additional manipulation is only just movement... not actions.

You mention they could break the magnetic grip with strength... uhm.. how?  There is no provision under Magnetic Powers or Telekinesis for countering a successful hit.  It is not resisted with strength only their weight matters. 

Now playing devil's advocate... if TB dragged them across the ground while he was slamming them into each other they could technically reduce his inches of applied velocity with their ground movement in inches... but I think it more likely TB would have at least one of them flying about like a dirty rag doll.  Their ground movement would not available in the air - they really have no way to resist being tossed about.

Now that does bring us to the 6 Guardian - Elite Cadre Apocalypse Bots.  They can fly and as such could reasonably resist being thrown about by countering any applied velocity with their own inches of flight movement.  But they do not have all three attack powers!  They have one... either Flame Blast, Power Blast or Vibratory Powers.  Since there are 6 of them I'd assume they're two of each attack form.

First off these are 6 lieutenant-class Henchman... and far from a fair fight to pit one hero against ALL of them at once.  In the module they are the toughest of all the Gauradian Bots and there are no other forces at the Doctor's command... so by definition they are lieutenant/henchmen - which is beyond the scope of my original post that we are facing minion-mooks not lieutenant/henchmen. 

But I'll humor this for the sake of analysis. 

You are correct their best attack is Flame Blast against TB.  I assume as both TB and the Elite cadre have high enough Agility to get two actions they will both be evading.  As I know that outnumbered that is what TB would do and it does not behoove the Elites not to try to minimize the damage he will inflict upon them. 

So the Elite's best chance to hit TB will be with accuracy and level adjustment applied to Flame Power is a 12- {all modifiers added} for 1d12+3 damage versus TB Magnetic Powers... his best defense in this case.  Above average odds.  +2 level, -6 evasion, +3 Accuracy.

TB on the other hand his best would be with Lighting Control at a 13- {all modifiers added} for 2d8+1 damage versus the Elite's Robotic Body their only defense.  A little better above average odds.  -2 level, -8 evasion, +2 Accuracy, +4 Heightened Expertise.

Yes, TB would be wise to change tactics against the Elites as their hit points and power points being a difficult obstacle to overcome.  Even rolling with the blow he can only reduce their damage by 6 but they can versus his inflicted damage reduce for 8.  Though I think the average on 2d8 is better - the Elites make up for it in damage bonus of +3.

But against the minion Guardians that can't fly... which was what I was really talking about TB would lift them with Magnetic Control and slam them into each other from a altitude in flight of likely 10 or so inches - well out of hand to hand reach.  They DO NOT have any attack powers.  Even if they did have Flame Power he could easily pick one of them up and parry with him to block the incoming blasts as they have no flight to counter his applied manipulation...
Parrying with one of them is a -5 parry factor for their weight of 650lbs giving TB a -11 modifier to their attacks with...well anything while he is evading.  So Flame Powers attacks drop to a 7- and a total of 20 points damage parried per hit!
+1Damage mod, +2 Accuracy, +4 Heightened Expertise, +13 {basic hits} Structural points. 
Good luck with that.

This is ALL assuming TB doesn't just take electrical control over a couple of them and or with electrical control just shut off their weapons systems... they only have one and its obviously in their hands!  He could do the same to their flight systems or even their normal sensory systems... they unfortunately do not have any additional enhanced senses… not that TB would know that but if he just decided, "lets shut off their optical cameras...~", {'opps!'} fights practically over at that point!  Yes, it could b a opposed fight for control but its STILL only movement for him to slam them about on each other inflicting damage while they try to fight his control.

I'm not saying TB is unbeatable...  just... "You don't send robots to fight Magneto...!"

If I am misunderstanding how the combat system works please someone point it out!  I'm about to start running a V&V game and don't want to goof the first fight! LOL!

There IS however something that confuses me about the Guardian Bot write-ups.
Under  their stats are these values Direct Damage: +14, Other Damage: +7, % to hit w/Devices: +14%, Hit Bonuses: +15, Hit Dice: 3, and To hit Modifier: -5%... WTF?  What does that all mean?  Is it a dual-stating for another game system or something?  Cause none of that appears in V&V... as far as I can tell!

In the end my point is just this - Robotic foes of minion stature are not a major threat to any reasonable team of heroes... they are supposed to vanquish them.  It furthers the plot.

Ranger wrote on Oct 26^th, 2012 at 3:31pm:


Too true!  That works as well.. and is a staple of superhero Comics!  That's one way to get to the bottom of a mystery.. well after escaping the inevitable "Death-Trap"..lol!

Ah.. didn't think about the original V&V system.  Never seen anything other than the Revised Edition booklet I have...

Ouch!  Thats like Awesome!  He may not be Magneto {lift Golden Gate Bridge, EMP the entire Earth...stuff like that...}, but I sure wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of his power!

No worries Dom, just pulling on Superman's cape a bit  I imagine my own exhaustion will recover about  ... February   

I'll post an update sometime tomorrow evening gents.

Rampart go bam ... BamBam ... bam 

Everyone but Diesel has an updated post. His last statement mentioned 'lighting up'. One could assume his flamethrower is now at full throttle 

Ready when you are.

This should help while away the time - a Google Doc version of the Empire City Sourcebook.

Enjoy!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qts3kw9XDD9OaviugCGF2iuUGNxkFbnjYBrntYcTi9Y/...

You are welcome, just a little formatting on all work Dom did putting it together.

Hammer wrote on Jan 10^th, 2013 at 12:30am:


Uhm... are we posting our next actions?  I don't think we've heard from dom the results of our previous actions yet nor the Robots reacted to our actions.  If I'm wrong I'll post my actions for this round... need to know if I inflicted damage on the Robot 1 & 8.  I don't want to smack them again if they have been hurt.  Plus, I think Power Chord is trying to open Robot 1 who Thunderbolt is currently use to hammer Robot 8 with.

I was trying to open the robot PowerChord had cast Hold on... I hope...

No worries Dom, I haven't been able to get things together since before the holidays... hopefully things will get back to normal soon!

What Ranger said! 

Okay, I know this is WAY late, and I've taken forever to get to these.

But I've finally gotten back to working on the coloring and other art for the counters for the three who need them.

Realize that this photo doesn't give that good of an idea of the final product.  There's some glare and such that won't be there (hopefully) once it's finished.  And you can't see all of the shiny, metallic colors I used for Machinist.

Machinist is done.

For Thunderbolt, two questions:

1) Is there a color for the part around his eyes?  White? Maroon?

2) The cape isn't listed.  Do you want to go with white for it?

I colored in the ears with his skin color, as it appears they aren't covered.

On Skyhawk, do you want me to color the bulk of the costume (that is currently white) with black?  It would still have darker parts (the parts that are currently shown in black will be inked darker than the black I would color it with).

Great coloring job, Majestic!