Different aspects of my RPG life have influenced how I play V&V. I normally try to stay close to the rules (even with House Rules) because I enjoy the challenge of squeezing a lot from the very minimal amount of rules this game actually has.

1: Multiple Weaknesses. When I make a character, I try to stay within the 1d6+2 powers and 1 weakness, drop one power, drop another power to get rid of the weakness rule. Sometimes, though, I need a little more power (only for NPC's so far), so I add one more weakness along with each power beyond the sixth. I have also used it when a character only has like 3 powers and a weakness, and needs one more power to be more complete. Nothing Earth-shattering there (and I have snuck it into some of my books).

2: Layered Armor: I read and watch a lot of mecha-based stories. Sometimes a person in an armor suit has a vehicle (like a cool red motorcycle) that transforms into another armor suit that encloses the first suit. I just assign the outer suit an ADR. If an attack goes through the first suit of armor, it hits the ADR of the suit actually worn by the character. It's a little cleaner than just calling it a vehicle and having it stop all attacks until it's destroyed, then having the damage pass through to the occupant. And, since armor takes damage, once the motorcycle/exo-armor takes about 1/4 of it total hits in damage, it stops working (this varies because it could be a "Super-Powered Vehicle").

3: Big machines: I break up really big machines into smaller sub-sections and assign each section a "Hits to Disable/Destroy" value. Not really a house rule per se, since Bill Willingham used it in "Death Duel with the Destroyers". It may work on Big Monsters as well, but I have never tested that.

Now for one I don't use...
See the attached .pdf file (Alabaster Knight mentioned I should have posted the rule here rather than where I did).

It is an alternate to the Free Variant rule for Task and Save Resolution. It is not one I have much use for, but I figure someone out there may find it entertaining. At any rate, it is a slightly different way to address the same need as that addressed by AK's variant rule. It may be better, may not, but it is different. And both are, of course, optional, and more options is usually preferable to fewer options.

Yeah - nothing Earth shattering.

People, this rule was inspired by James Bishop's variant rule for stat saves when a character has really high stat levels.

Now, on the thread for the release of the variant rule, I did a wonderful job of making myself look like a total S.O.B. That is actually okay, because being an S.O.B. is something I do remarkably well. The fact of the matter is, that I think we (all FGU contributors) could do better. I think James can refine his rule, and narrow it somewhat and make it even better than it is. If it were a total piece of poo, I would not expend much energy on it, but I feel it may appeal to a few players, and the reality is, it's there, and it ain't gonna go away - but what it can do is grow.

It sounds a lot like a personal attack on James, but it's not.

Now, why post the rule I posted here? I perceive a few minor problems with the rule that could be fixed. The biggest reason for the rule I posted here is for illustrative purposes.

The variant as it stands can only make tasks more difficult, there is no mention of negative difficulty. In the combat section of V&V, there are modifiers that make hitting the target easier and harder, it seems logical that the variant rule would do the same - and it can, it just needs adjustment. Unfortunately you can't just say "It's an easy save, so it has -1 difficulty"

-1/10 = -10%, which is kind of confusing.

Also in V&V, every roll I can think of is "Roll X or less on 1d20 (or 1d100, or whatever)". The variant goes the other way, <edit>Roll X or less to fail, or roll X or above to succeed</edit> and that may cause some confusion with a few newer players. But by adding "1-" in front of the formula of [difficulty]/[stat], you arrive at a roll X or less target again.

2/10 = 20% chance to fail
1-(2/10) = 80% chance to succeed, which is a small change that brings us back to "V&V standard". It is basically 100% - [% to fail] = % to succeed (1 is the same as 100%).

<edit>But this solution is not quite optimal.</edit>
A few times I tried a save on the variant rule I got my numbers reversed. This is a problem with division. 1/10 is a long way from 10/1. With a multiplier formula, mixing up the numbers no longer causes confusion. 1*10 and 10*1 give us the same product.

For those three reasons, I would recommend altering the formula away from division and towards multiplication of fractions (which every player has done to find his or her character's total hit points).

The rules for saves are pretty explicit in V&V, you always get a 5% chance to fail or succeed. Seems like that was important to the original authors, so I think it should at least be considered for any variant rule. I've stated my reasons for this several times in another thread, so I won't cover it again here. You all know where to look if you need a refresher.

There are other parts of the rule that could be left out of this particular variant and re-presented as separate variant rules later on (making them a bit easier to find for newer players).

Lastly, there is no guide on what constitutes a difficulty of "X". It seems like newer GMs were in mind when the rule was written, so perhaps there should be some guidelines for these new guys to help them figure out what is complexity 5, 10, or 20.

The hope was that James would come to these conclusions on his own. Frankly, I did not want to just spell it out as I have, because now it's not James' idea, I have tainted it.

This is not an attack on James. He's done a boat load of good, solid work, and he's certainly busted his butt for FGU. What this is is an indication <edit> validation </edit>that his goal was spot on, but a few small missteps made an "awesome" solution into a "pretty good solution", and you guys all deserve all the AWESOME we can send your way.

You should also know that even if I thought James' system was perfect, I would point out that I would not use it, and that I thought there were other ways - and indicate my reasons. But I will not tell any of you not to use the variant - as it stands, or as it may be revised. in fact I would say that if it makes your party's gaming better, you should absolutely use it. I'm not telling you that the variant is "stupid", I'm illustrating other ways to look at a particular hurdle or shortcoming in the established rules.

Again, some may see all of this as an attack on James or his work, but it's not. It was an, admittedly, ham-handed attempt to get James to revise the rule into an even better rule - that way it's still totally James', not James and some jerk's. I admit failure on that front. I apologize for the confusion and for some of the drama (but not all of it).

Look at the house rule, keep in mind it is just an illustration. I didn't present it that way, but that's what it is.

This is not the end of the point I am trying to make - that I am hoping someone will come to my intended destination all on their own (read as any FGU contributor but me).

[edited to fix some bad typing and words I forgot to type in]

Completely accurate. Not so much a "House Rule" as "Tribal Knowledge".

I am pondering an tweak to Mr. Willingham's treatment to allow for Giant Monsters. I have thought of just using an expanded size change chart, but when the weight goes up, the AGL mods really turn Gorillasaurus into Slothadon. Without that hit to AGL, it would actually work. So I thought I would try the Doombot rule modified for living creatures - but that's not really in line with the existing rules.

For Kaiju (big monsters) I may just give them the default powers "Heightened Agility B" and "Size change - larger", then fill out a small table for them in a manner similar to animal/plant powers. Once I do that (if it works) BOOM! House rule 3b.

Give the Giant Monsters a body power that compensates for the aglity loss.

No problem.  This is one of the reasons why I love V&V.   The solutions to the problems can be done  very simply.

Body Power:  This being's unique muscular system  compensates for aglity loss due to increased mass.

Done.

John wrote on Mar 2^nd, 2013 at 6:38pm:


This agrees with my first iteration of the power, so I think this may be the way to go.

polarboy wrote on Mar 2^nd, 2013 at 9:41pm:


Gagh! I don't have that one yet (i still only have half of the legacy Adventures) However, having legacy-era precedent is invaluable, and it agrees with John and I.

Now I just need to make up the table similar to "Animal/Plant Powers" .

I am leaning towards making the monster work like a big character rather than the Doombot. I have no problem breaking machines into bite-sized bits, but not big living things.

OOohhhhh.... I had not thought to put Crab-dude in tech armor - but that would be really cool...

That would be kinda cool for Mecha-Gorillasaurus (he has reptile armor). [THE IMAGE IN MY MIND!!!!! I WISH I COULD DRAW!!!!]

It turns out that doing a table for Monsters like a table for "Mammal Powers" does not work. It's a lot better to just pick two or three animal/plant powers and add Size change and the Mutant power. The extended Size Change Table is pretty easy to figure out - I think I took it up to "small planet" sized...

I can post a pdf of the spreadsheet - but I'm not thinking the interest will be overwhelming.

Expanding on my last post, an advantage based on relative size also would have to apply to characters with Size Change/Smaller.

Possible Examples:

A character of standard height would get +2 to hit (and be hit by) a character with Size Change/Smaller, 1-foot scale.

A character with Size Change/Smaller, 3-foot scale would have no combat advantages/disadvantages against a standard-height character, but would gain +1 to hit (and be hit by) a character with Size Change/Smaller, 1-foot scale.

Again, just a thought.

The math turns a little ugly - but see attached for a table on this topic (previous couple of posts by POLARBOY and myself).

It runs afoul of the rules a little, but not too bad. Instead of dividing range by the height factor for normals attacking large or dividing when normal attacks small, you start with the attackers Height Factor, then find the defender's height factor. Where they intersect, you'll find a multiplier. Multiply actual range in inches by the multiplier in the table to get the  Effective range for calculating the range-based to-hit modifiers.

There are a lot of decimals in there, but I didn't want to have a table that was Multiply in on instance and divide in another - it seemed to give it "Heightened Confusion".

Ironnerd wrote on Mar 3^rd, 2013 at 9:01pm:



The ideas I put on the table (responding to Ranger's post) weren't specific to ranged attacks. The advantages would apply at point-blank range and close proximity before the range table would even apply. The idea is that an attacker who is 42 feet tall, and 7 times as wide as a typical adult human might have an easier time hitting a standard-size character and being hit by a standard-size character even when fighting HTH. Again, it's just an idea.

Perhaps the advantage should only work in one direction: smaller characters have an easier time hitting larger opponents, but not necessarily vice versa. I haven't play-tested this in V&V, so all of my notes on this topic are brainstorming ideas at this point.

polarboy wrote on Mar 3^rd, 2013 at 7:23pm:

Actually Cougar and I are testing a similar-ish concept with his character in the Age of Allies campaign. In our case it's not a table top campaign so that changes the priorities a bit.  In my opinion, in a PbEM or PbP campaign you have to find ways to keep all but the most epic battles to 5 turns or less. Size Change, Armor, and Invulnerability all need carefully inspected in order for the character to feel threatened by the villains.

Finally joining in a bit (spent the previous three days at the Emerald City Comicon).

FWIW, I don't feel Ypsilante's criticism/critiques of James' variant save rule was anything personal.  He obviously doesn't care for how it approaches the problem, and to this end I understand.  I will concur that it is both a bit too complex for my tastes, and that I think the "chance of failure" (when we're used to figuring out the "chance of success") is a bit counterintuitive and could be confusing for a new player.

I do think - even though it's just a variant rule (that anyone is free to adopt or not) - that it would have been a wiser approach to have either (a) thrown it out to the contributors/writers or (b) bring it up someplace like here (this website), to "hone it" a bit (iron sharpens iron and all that).

It's not that it's a horrible rule, by any means.  And I as well don't have anything personal against JB/AK (on the contrary, I consider him a friend and think he's contributed immensely to V&V).  It just could use some tweaks/adjustments, to be a better rule that would likely be embraced by the community a bit better.

Re: the Size Change issue: I have often resorted to that "No Agility Modifier" bit before.  One of my main PCs (Crocodile) has that, just to offset a bit of the negative he got from increased weight (Armor A).  One thing I think V&V doesn't/didn't do very well is super large beings.  The vast majority of massive characters have teensy tiny Agility scores.  This means they are really slow, don't have a prayer of hitting anything, and are generally incompetent.  I've used that "Body Power" trick (or something like it) for decades (I didn't remember that it was in "Assassin"; good catch, polarboy!).

As for the new MHG variant, I don't recall that stuff they put as "Old V&V" being shown anywhere in the older stuff, myself.

Majestic wrote on Mar 4^th, 2013 at 6:41pm:


Yeah I concur Maj.  That's why we don't use that variant... it made us scratch our heads too much.

As for MHG... yeah I looked as well in my {admittedly} limited V&V resources and found no such "Old V&V" convention.  Unless they are referring to the...

"CONVENTION: THE POWER ROLL"

In the course of running Villains and Vigilantes {tm} adventures, I have found that I've often needed to determine whether or not a character has been caught by a trap, survived a fall from a great height, noticed some hidden item, or otherwise been successful in performing one task or another.  Sadly, the Villains and Vigilantes {tm} lack guidelines for adjudicating such situations.

To this end, I have developed the "Power Roll". I include it here as you might find it useful in adjudicating the scenarios included herein. The "Power Roll" is a catch·all saving roll that a character must make to succeed in a particularly difficult task.

To successfully make a basic "Power Roll". a character must roll his or her current Power rating or less on 0100. A roll equal to or less than the character's current Power rating indicates that the character has successfully accomplished the task in question. Failure to make this roll indicates that the character has failed in the task. The consequences of success or failure in a given task are left to the Judge to adjudicate.

Especially difficult tasks might require that the player roll some fraction of his Power. such as 1/2 or 1/4. Especially easy feats might be accomplished by rolling as much as twice a character's current Power rating. In any event, a Power Roll result of 01 . 05 always indicates success, while a roll of 96·00 always indicates failure, irregardless of the number actually required.

This system is presented purely as a tool for the Judge's convenience. If it feels good, use it. Otherwise, ignore the rule and use whatever system you choose."
- by PAUL RYAN 0 CONNOR

This Rule convention was in the Pegasus #7 Enemies of Justice.. trio of adventures.  But I'm pretty sure this was not an official rule of "Old V&V". 

I'm pretty sure they must be referring to a house rule... from somewhere.

So there is this...

Partial Cover:
If the target is 1/2 concealed, double the total effective range in inches
If the target is 3/4 concealed, multiply by four
If the target is 1/4 concealed, multiply by 1.5


Just something that was rattling about in my head.

You know, I'm surprised cover's never been addressed before.

Majestic wrote on Oct 15^th, 2013 at 1:33pm:



Well, it sort of is. If the target is 1/2 covered (or more), then a special attack is required (meaning you need to make two successful to hit roll sin order to hit the target) [VVr pg23].
The partial cover rule I posted was mostly a thought exercise. While a bit more accurate, it would bog the game down a bit too much - and it is just a House Rule, not some kind of Alternate or Variant rule.