Anyway, I ran my first "experimental" session last night to familiarize myself and my future players w/ the rules. I BS'ed an adventure 30 min. in advance and put them through a quick character creation. While playing, a few questions came up.

(1) It seems very difficult to take out mooks sometimes. Even at a passive dodge of only 8 my PCs were having trouble getting a 5 outcome with AVs around 13 and 14 with their respective skills. Is it common for mook battles to last so long or are my PCs just rolling badly? Is there an easier way to take out mooks?

(2) Combat oriented stunts. If someone's performing a stunt w/ an attack in it, how is damage to mooks or even named characters handled? Is it up to the GM to determine how the stunt affects the character?

Any advice on this or any other GM tips would be helpful.

13 is on the low end for combat skills for PCs. Even so, they should succeed in taking out a mook with a Dodge of 8 if they roll a 0 or higher. I think the chance of that is 21/36, 58%. If they're trying something wacky like trying to take two mooks out at once, the chance will become pretty small. Not recommended.

What sort of a stunt do you mean? You never need to determine damage for mooks - either they're taken out, or they're not (either hit but not hard enough to take them out, or missed altogether).

However, if the stunt is something along the lines of 'I shoot out the supports for the gallery the mooks are on' then you probably have to figure it differently. If it's some sort of indirect attack then you assign an appropriate difficulty (I'd say something like 16 for the stunt above- depending on how you envisage the gallery). On a success the mooks fall and are probably out of the picture (circumventing the usual Outcome of 5 or more rule- because the stunt has a greater difficulty).

If you mix actions (like an acrobatic stunt that ends with an attack) then assign an AV penalty and a difficulty for the acrobatics, then use the same player roll to work out what bits work.

So, a character is leaping from one suspended walkway to another. Halfway he wants to slice up a mook hanging on a rope, and when he lands he wants to trip a named bad guy. The GM call an AV penalty of 5, and calls the jump a difficulty of 10. The player rolls 12. The GM says he jumps, hits the mook (target 8) but not by enough to kill him, lands safely (because the jump was a success) but doesn't get a good enough roll to even hit the named bad guy, let alone trip him.

That's how I run it anyway. I'd say the golden rule is only have thep layer make one roll, then work out which bits of the stunt work.

>> (1) It's difficult to take out mooks sometimes. Even at a passive dodge of only 8 my PCs were having trouble ... with AVs around 14. Is there an easier way to take out mooks?

I've had this issue before, too. I agree with Cam's response; a 14 is on the low side, even for new 'fighter' types. You don't say what archetypes were being played, but Killers, Martial Artists, Ex Sp. Forces, etc. should have better combat stats than that. (Heck, our Chinese Gardener has a Martial Arts of 17!) Maybe the players should consider re-allocating their combat Skill level allowances?

Of course, the simplest solution is just make your mooks easier, if you want. Give them all a Dodge of 6, instead of 8. (Two points can be an important difference in combat.) If the players [or you] are getting frustrated, it's time to fudge the rules. Remember: Mooks are made to be squashed.

>> (2) If someone's performing a stunt w/ an attack, how is damage to mooks or even named characters handled? Is it up to the GM to determine how the stunt affects the character?

Per the rules, most common stunts carry a -1 or -2 penalty to the attacker's AV. This will of course affect the Outcome as well, which determines how much damage to Named GMCs you do, or whether an Unnamed GMC is taken out. [Damage is handled the same with or without a stunt involved, it's just a matter of that small modifier for stunts.]

Yes, the GM can make up what happens when a stunt succeeds (or fails).
Now, personally, I am lenient with stunts. If a player does something worthy, I'll just think up a result on the fly. For example, instead of shooting five separate mooks standing together under a chandelier, one of the PCs does a stunt to shoot the support to the chandelier. Let's say she makes the roll to hit the support, BUT doesn't get the "5" Outcome needed to take down a mook permanently. I'll still have the stunt work, because it was clever, but maybe the falling chandelier just traps or stuns the Mooks for a few shots, delaying their next actions? Still rewards the player, but follows the spirit of the rules.

>> Queex wrote:
>>I'd say the golden rule is only have the player make one roll, then work out which bits of the stunt work.
>> ...a character is leaping from one walkway to another. Halfway he wants to slice a mook on a rope, and when he lands he wants to trip a named bad guy. The GM call an AV penalty of 5, and calls the jump a difficulty of 10. The player rolls 12. The GM says he jumps, hits the mook (target 8) but not by enough to kill him, lands safely (because the jump was a success) but doesn't get a good enough roll to even hit the named bad guy, let alone trip him.

I'm a bit more anal retentive, so I would break this down into a few rolls instead of one.

Using the above example, the PC could jump as 10 Difficulty. [That'd be roll #1]

Slicing the mook mid-jump would be an attack roll, with a stunt penalty of, say, -1. [Roll #2.]

I would most likely make the trip attempt upon landing something that occured in the PCs next shot, but let's say we add it to this action; I would impose a -3 penalty to the trip attack (-2 because it's another stunt, and -1 b/c the PC's now targetting two people in one attack declaration, the mook and the bad guy) [Roll #3].

So we'd end up in the same place, but with three rolls instead of one. This way, there'd be no guesswork as to which actions succeeded and which failed. Takes a few more seconds for the player to roll results, but no big deal (players like rolling dice anyway!)

I mean, lets say a Killer wants to raise his initial AV of 15 to 16. He then needs that many points to do so. The book recommends an average of 3 XP points per session unless something spectacular happens or the character is attuned to a FS site. Without any FS sites that would take 4 sessions, and at a rate of only one session a week that's a lot of time for a PC to wait just to improve their AV by one point. You and everyone else who gave me advice (which was good) must all have long-running campaigns going or quite a few FS sites for your groups.

16 - Old Master
15 - Killer, Martial Artist, Sorcerer, Supernatural Creature
14 - EX-SF, Karate Cop, Maverick Cop, Ninja

My copy of the book says that "Characters should almost always get at least 3 experience points. If players show up, have a good time, and contribute to everyone else's good time, they get the 3 points." If they're screwups, maybe you should give them less. But also, if they do better than average, you can give 'em more.

I think that increasing your combat AV by a point is about equivalent in power to going up a level. If you have a 1 point advantage over an opponent (a named character, that is) in combat, you have a good edge. Two points is REALLY good - the chance of them rolling +2 on their dice, to hit you, is only 10/36. So I wouldn't want to see characters' combat AVs just racing up there.

But if you don't think the XP awards are generous enough, change them! We're doing that in the Silver Age Sentinels game I'm currently in.

As far as progression, my group actually isn't attuned to *any* sites right now. But I'm pretty lenient with the XP after each game simply because we don't get to play that often at all (few times a year). So I don't mind giving out a few extra xp so it won't take my guys six years of real time to raise their characters' favorite skills. While the book says 3xp per session, I have no problem with 5-6 points per game, without attunement. (It'd be different if we played weekly or even monthly.)

I understand what you're saying about Feng Shui characters seeming to progress very slowly. The most obvious answer, of course, is to give out more experience points per session to suit your own game.

The reason that advancement seems to take so long is because the experience point system isn't designed to encourage the raising of Action Values higher and higher so much as it encourages the seeking out of new schticks. Character types already begin with their key skills at pretty good levels, as you know. The notion, then, is that characters will expand horizontally rather vertically, if you will. That is, they will gain more schticks that help them to grow as a character rather than gaining higher and higher skills, which entrench them within their gimmick.

The idea, I think, is that it's more exciting to be able to attempt new things than it is to be sure that your old tricks are going to go off without a hitch. Hitches are dramatic. We want the hitches. :-)

This is a great point to discuss, though, so keep your eyes peeled at the Atlas Games website for a new Feng Shui feature. (This is the first hint I've been able to give out about it!)

word,
Will Hindmarch
Feng Shui Line Developer
Atlas Games

Another alternative I came up with is that you cannot raise a skill past 15 without first defeating someone with at least AV you want to buy first. Good for conjuring plot. The details of how you need to defeat them vary depending on the skill. So, for a Martial Arts increase would have to defeat (but not necessarily kill) them in single combat. To beef up Creature Powers you have to be the only Supernatural in the room whenthe big guy dies (shades of Highlander, anyone?). A Techie might have to build the best combat robot in a competition in order to get more Fix-it. And so on.