The Gaming Den

I have a problem. In my pell-mell rush to give characters progressively more extreme powers as they increase in point cost, I've let them become invisible, teleporting assassin-acrobats with superhuman reflexes.

I don't really want to change that, though. What I do want to change is the part where they totally slaughter a supposedly equal force of competent yet ordinary soldiers, without really needing to worry about the soldiers' tactics.

I'm currently considering either drastically raising the price of the high-power characters or providing a bunch of really heavy items for the soldiers to use, but I'm eager for suggestions.

What system?

I'm not entirely sure it's ready enough for me to answer that question.

Foxwarrior wrote:What I do want to change is the part where they totally slaughter a supposedly equal force of competent yet ordinary soldiers, without really needing to worry about the soldiers' tactics.

I don't even know if that's a desirable, let alone possible design goal depending on just how teleporty and fast the elite are. People have described superheroes as being able to do shit like activate or tank city-destroying supervolcanoes and create fuck-off big tsunamis. But how exactly do you outfit and train enough soldiers to stop a hurricane in progress? How much does Section 8 need to increase the power armor budget so that earthquakes don't matter?

Try thinking more like Jason Bourne, Major from Ghost in the Shell, and Corvo from Dishonored.

If you're at that power level then you don't even really need to go the extra mile. Just make the mooks' tactics more competent and increase the availability of mundane force multipliers. You know, stuff like body armor, cover, tear gas, etc..

Hell, we could use a thread that was about nothing but mundane force multipliers for mooks.

Huh, from the description I was expecting The Flash or a Culture Knife-Missile. If it's just Jason Bourne or Major Kusanagi, then yeah, all you need is manpower, body armor, cover, and bigger guns. Look at the assault on Section 8's headquarters at the end of SAC, for example: a single standard army squad challenged Section 8 on their home turf and nearly wiped them out.

Lago PARANOIA wrote: Hell, we could use a thread that was about nothing but mundane force multipliers for mooks.

Agreed. One expansion, though. The interesting part is not historical or near-term future settings, since those are well understood IRL, but fantasy or TTRPG-level science fiction settings.

No, not or, and. They sneak invisibly and very quietly around, stabbing people to death, and when enemies successfully guess their location, they notice the arrows being fired and teleport through the wall. Can a 10th level Wizard do much better?

It sounds like y'all are mostly voting for the Just Raise the Price option.

So... they're killing lots of enemies with a much lower point value than their own individually? Are they not supposed to be?

That's not them vs. an army, that's them vs. a bunch of individuals they have successfully divided off from the main herd. They still run from the army it sounds like, but a few mooks are just a few mooks. I'm not seeing the problem.

The ability for higher level dudes to outclass lower level dudes partially depends on your resolution mechanic. In D&D getting a +20 to a roll means you will always and forever beat the guy with +0. There is nothing the +0 guy can do that will challenge you, so you can act with impunity towards him. In Shadowrun, no matter how many dice you get you can always roll 0 hits, so there is always the possibility of losing to a weaker opponent. This means that iterative probability will eventually bone you if you take on too many mooks.

If you are really unhappy with the players being able to take on infinite mooks you need to make iterative probability bite them in the ass at some point.

If its a homebrew... an option is that you can modify effectiveness of tactics at the mechanical level by altering some of the other attack and defense numbers and whatever -though that has much more complications that just adjusting single abilities. Stealth is more or less useful depending on how easy it is to one-shot-kill a target in a given system, for example. Likewise, modifying the amount of bonus from gang-up attacks or flanking, or forcing defenses to split a defense pool or cost actions, can make being outnumbered more dangerous. Teleport could have various limitations or whatnot applied to it besides a point cost change (takes more actions, need to have viewed location, stat prerequisites).

With invisibility maybe one thing to consider is that D&D 'you must guess the location to shoot arrows at someone' (IIRC) doesn't always make sense given how projectiles can travel in lines. A bow or something that arcs maybe, but a crossbow bolt will travel in a fairly straight line so if someone is standing in a 10-ft-wide corridor, there'd actually be a 50/50 chance of the bolt travelling through the correct square regardless of whether the opponent is 10ft away or 50ft away. (In open spaces I imagine hitting them is trickier, but them teleporting through walls may also be less of a problem).

I have no idea what your system or setting looks like, which is a problem since tactics are mostly about optimizing your actions for your resources and the environment.

So, general advice for a general question:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty-Six_Stratagems

Okay, there are a number of mundane counters to invisibility (flour on the floor, sprinklers, tiny wind chimes, locked doors, unusual senses(dogs, radar, etc)) but the ability to teleport renders most of those ineffective and an invisible teleporter can reset whenever they are detected despite invisibility is found.

That means that mundane defenses are gonna want to go directly from "invisible intruder located" to "establish killzone around invisible intruder" with no in-between steps at all. Counter-tactics will emphasize placement of passive and lethal area denial, such as landmines or more extreme measures like equipping troops with dead-man switch suicide bomber vests.

Alternately, they may develop hard-counters to teleportation, depending on the game world physics. Perhaps X is impossible to teleport through, maybe teleportation requires LoS, maybe wires can be hung to cause anyone teleporting in significant injury, etc.

FOXWARRIOR wrote:Try thinking more like Jason Bourne, Major from Ghost in the Shell, and Corvo from Dishonored.

So, Modern Day Super Spy, Future Cyborg Spy, and Steampunk Shadow Assassin... okay...

If it's a setting with Significant Technological/Magical advances, then you can throw in Portable Devices powered by Arbitrarium that specifically nullify certain tactics. So, things like... Multi-Spectrum Goggles, Chaff or EMP Grenades, Automated Defenses, Motion/Sound Sensors, etc... would take care of Stealth/Invisibility.

As for Teleportation... any number of things can stop that. Line of Sight/Effect restrictions. Certain Materials might stop Teleportation like hitting a brick wall (Lead?) or hurt the Teleporter as they're moving through it (like Subdimensional Flak or something?). Dimensional Anchor effects... Things that redirect or delay Teleportation effects...
Teleportation could be unreliable, placing you in an area as opposed to exactly where you want to be. It could come with a Health Cost. It could stun/daze/slow you afterwards, leaving you momentarily vulnerable.

Regardless, a world with Invisible Warp Commandos is going to have counter measures to Invisible Warp Commandos somewhere. You just need to develop them to allow for Counter-Play.

-e-
KABLACK!!!!!

Off the top of my head...

Equip certain mooks with explosive vests or something similar, on a deadman's switch, so when they die, they explode. Said mooks become essentially un-meleeable, because if you kill them in melee, they blow up and kill you. If reasonably concealed, they come as a deadly surprise, and a warning that 'oops, yeah, they know about us and are pissed'. Afterwards, they'll be a little more cautious in the future, less-inclined towards employing their talents in such a widespread manner, because they know their enemies will deploy appropriate counters.

On one hand:
Why would they then still use or even pay for their powers, if you can hardcounter them just like that?
They paid for the power to be nigh unstopable killing machines.
Taking it away after the fact because they are really effective because you, as a GM/maker of a system did not think things through seems really unfair to me . .

On the other hand:
Traps and AOE Damage.
Minefields that they have to go through, Pressure-Plates and Tripwires/Laser-Light-Systems/Infradead-sensors and people who are scared of the invisible man and decide to fuck the other guys on my side, i am torching that room before whatever is in there can kill me too . .

Furthermore:
If it's modern, then how does the Invisibility and Teleport work?
If it's justified, then Infradead-Goggles can make them visible again.
If it's not Teleport without Error, how do they know where to teleport into the room to not end up in a wall/ceiling/floor?
Or even in other people, worst case, in their own buddies bodies?

Part of the point of the campaign is in fact to find things that I missed while designing the game. I'd definitely prefer to use soft rather than hard counters, so I don't really want to introduce a See Invisibility or Completely Block Teleportation power at all if I can help it.

The game is medieval fantasy. Teleportation and invisibility are magical in nature. When someone tries to teleport into an occupied space, the action is wasted.

Oh, and I suppose I should mention that they can be wearing Seven League Boots, which replace their normal land movements with teleports to the topmost stable surface precisely 7 leagues away.


I discussed this with one of my players, too, and he says I totally just haven't figured out the right strategy yet.

Precisely seven leagues, no more, no less?

[Edit]

Cover every building with a thin layer of spikes that really hurt could work as a deterrent as they have to land on the topmost stable surface.

Or maybe rings of moats around anything actually important.

What are the limitations on the teleporting? If they can teleport once a round indefinitely and within a larger area than the other side can reasonably hold, you are, uh, pretty much fucked.

The most dependable counter to invisibility is total destruction of everything in the building, but if they can manage a reactive teleport that won't work too well.

So yeah, if you want to use soft counters, then you definitely want to deploy opponents that they don't want to fight.

Exploding minions is one possibility. Plague zombies, for instance; you want an effect nasty enough to cause some caution, regardless of engagement method. On the other end of the spectrum, minions with other sensory abilities are also a good choice; guard dogs or something that can smell your PCs, would at least be able to alert the rest, denying surprise with relative consistency, without entirely negating the advantage of invisibility.

That said, you ARE talking about some shenanigans at a higher level then you seem to think. Nightcrawler is a significantly higher-level concept than Jason Bourne. Accordingly, try magical counters. Like a teleport trap, that diverts teleports within a certain range to a secure holding area, well-stocked with guards and traps. It'd make a good defence for a prison or other secure facility that they need to steal something from. They'll know about it in advance, probably, so it won't come as a shock that "we can't retreat for free"... and it's not that they can't teleport, so much as they can only teleport to one place that's going to be well-guarded.

Foxwarrior wrote:When someone tries to teleport into an occupied space, the action is wasted.

In that case, your teleport area denial is a simple as a can of silly string.

fectin wrote:I have no idea what your system or setting looks like, which is a problem since tactics are mostly about optimizing your actions for your resources and the environment.

So, general advice for a general question:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty-Six_Stratagems

If we're going historically... why not go back to Sonshi and Chanakya?

http://www.sonshi.com/learn.html

http://www.indiadivine.org/audarya/hare ... parts.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthashastra

Chanakya I'm not as familiar with, as I am with Sonshi, however they cover things that Sonshi didn't focus on.

Because the 36 stratagems are a lot easier to read?

so in retrospect, they have become Warp-Spiders versus Imperial Guard?