MrHappyNZ
Topic Author
Posts: 10
Joined: Fri 06 Feb 2026, 07:18

Scaling off?

Tue 31 Mar 2026, 13:04

In the comics and cartoon Omni man is meant to require multiple quantum bombs to take him out, but rules as written an assault rifle two successes for the double damage can inflict 2pts of damage after armour.

So from what I can see, anyone with 10 Health and minimal armour can tank a single success nuke. But Omni-man and the Immortal can both tank a two success nuke, they’re not healthy but still standing. And then with regeneration be full health again soon after.

But.

A platoon of soldiers (30 men or three 10-man mobs) with assault rifles can probably do enough damage in one round to drop them. Approx 3x3 6-die attacks. If not the first round, definitely the second and even the big hitters can probably only take one mob out a turn. Throw in some heavier weapons like a machine gun or rocket launcher and it gets worse.

Am I missing something?
 
User avatar
Magnanimous
Posts: 33
Joined: Mon 29 Sep 2025, 13:57

Re: Scaling off?

Fri 03 Apr 2026, 23:50

You’re not missing something trivial — you’ve actually spotted a real tension in the system between: Single high-damage events (nukes, “quantum bombs”) and many small attacks (mobs with rifles). This comes up a lot in dice-pool systems, and the answer sits in how the game expects you to treat scale, stacking, and narrative weight.

What’s Going On Mechanically

1. The “many small attacks beat one big attack” effect

What you’ve noticed is mathematically correct: A single nuke = one attack roll, a platoon = multiple independent attack rolls.

In dice systems, multiple rolls are almost always more reliable than one big roll

So:

1 nuke might hit hard, might underperform
9 rifle attacks statistically very consistent damage output

That’s not a bug — it’s a core probability reality


2. Double damage (2 successes) is the real culprit

Your key observation: > “2 successes → double damage → rifles can chip through armour

This creates a situation where: Even low-damage weapons can spike above armour and with enough attacks, those spikes stack fast.

So yes : a mob can “death by a thousand cuts” even a Viltrumite-tier character

3. Why nukes feel underwhelming. Because: a nuke is still just one resolution instance and it doesn’t inherently ignore armour, auto-hit or apply multiple damage instances.

So paradoxically a nuke is less reliable than 30 rifles firing at once.

What You’re Probably Missing (System Intent) is that the system is quietly assuming three things that aren’t explicit enough:

A. Scale is not just “damage numbers”

Characters like Omni-Man are meant to exist at a different scale: bullets shouldn’t meaningfully threaten them, not because of HP — but because of interaction rules. If you run the rules as written, flat, scale collapses

B. Mobs are abstracted, not literal. A 10-man mob is not 10 perfectly coordinated kill shots. In fiction soldiers miss, shots glance,target moves at super-speed, but with the rules as written every mob attack is fully resolved and optimal. This overstates their effectiveness dramatically.

C. High-end durability assumes mitigation beyond HP. Omni-Man surviving nukes implies damage reduction beyond armour, resistance to certain damage types, or limits on what can meaningfully harm him, but the rules reduces everything to > Damage vs Armour vs HP

The Core Problem: the system treats all damage sources as equivalent resolution events, when the fiction requires hierarchy.



Practical Fixes (RAW-compatible interpretations)

If you want to stay close to the rules but fix the issue, here are the cleanest interpretations:



1. Cap mob effectiveness vs superhuman targets. Interpret mobs as: Providing one attack with a bonus, not multiple full attacks, or limit “Only one mob can effectively engage a single target per round”. This prevents stacking 9+ attacks into one character

2. Enforce minimum damage thresholds. For high-tier characters: If damage ≤ armour then there's no effect at all. No chip damage unless it meaningfully exceeds armour. This stops rifles from nibbling gods to death.


3. Treat nukes as multi-instance damage. Instead of 1 attack roll, run as multiple damage pulses (blast + heat + radiation). This restores their intended weight

4. Add “scale immunity” (very important)

For characters like Omni-Man: attacks below X damage rank cannot harm the character.

This is extremely common in supers systems. Suddenly rifles become irrelevant, heavy weapons matter
* Nukes = serious threat


5. Regeneration timing matters

You said: “They recover soon after”

Key question: Is regen instant, per round, or post-scene?

If it’s post-scene then mobs can drop them. If it;s per round then mobs struggle. This alone changes the outcome dramatically


Final Insight

What you’ve discovered is actually a classic design gap: The system models realism (many guns = deadly) better than superhero fiction (invulnerability tiers).

So RAW: Soldiers win (eventually)

But intended fiction: Omni-Man shrugs them off like insects

Bottom Line

You’re absolutely right: Yes — mobs can overwhelm even top-tier characters

The missing piece is damage scale separation, not more HP.


Hope this helps and I hope this gets changed. So far none of my suggestions have been taken on board, which is a real shame since the game is currently unfinished.
 
User avatar
Argonaught
Posts: 6
Joined: Sat 04 Apr 2026, 01:21

Re: Scaling off?

Sat 04 Apr 2026, 01:45


Am I missing something?
You're both missing some things, yes.

The example is assuming that Omni-Man is helplessly standing there taking the concentrated fire by the minions, and that he would let the minions even exist after his turn in the round. He's got his actions plus the Quickness power. He could pretty easily dodge any typical minion attacks (and not get hit at all in the first place since any successes he rolls wipes off their successes). So even if three groups attacked, he could use both his actions to dodge to eliminate two of the groups even hitting him, and he could use Quickness to negate the third minion group. Even if he wants to actually use his actions to go on the offensive in a round where he gets a lower initiative card, he can get to them and attack with a slugfest attack of 10 dice (very likely success plus Double Damage, even if the minions dodge), and a slugfest damage of 8. If he uses Quickness, he's taking out two of the three groups in one turn and they'll never be able to attack him again.

Omni-Man (and the other Viltrumites, Battle Beast, etc.) would also be okay against a nuclear missile, but it would give them more trouble than the minions since the 12 Damage listed doesn't give an attack roll. That would conceivably be a computer-assisted targeting system with 10+ dice. Not impossible to dodge, but much harder.

To sum up, there's more to how the game plays than "stand there and let these soldiers take you down." For the really powerful characters, they're still going to be unbothered by normal soldiers, but feel a little more pressure against a nuke.

I've played several sessions with my group at this point (as a player and as a GM), and the game really has a nice feel to it, especially when it comes to scale. It made our group's players feel like superheroes while still having the possibility of feeling threatened by bigger threats.
 
User avatar
Magnanimous
Posts: 33
Joined: Mon 29 Sep 2025, 13:57

Re: Scaling off?

Sat 04 Apr 2026, 12:11


Am I missing something?
You're both missing some things, yes.

The example is assuming that Omni-Man is helplessly standing there taking the concentrated fire by the minions, and that he would let the minions even exist after his turn in the round. He's got his actions plus the Quickness power. He could pretty easily dodge any typical minion attacks (and not get hit at all in the first place since any successes he rolls wipes off their successes). So even if three groups attacked, he could use both his actions to dodge to eliminate two of the groups even hitting him, and he could use Quickness to negate the third minion group. Even if he wants to actually use his actions to go on the offensive in a round where he gets a lower initiative card, he can get to them and attack with a slugfest attack of 10 dice (very likely success plus Double Damage, even if the minions dodge), and a slugfest damage of 8. If he uses Quickness, he's taking out two of the three groups in one turn and they'll never be able to attack him again.

Omni-Man (and the other Viltrumites, Battle Beast, etc.) would also be okay against a nuclear missile, but it would give them more trouble than the minions since the 12 Damage listed doesn't give an attack roll. That would conceivably be a computer-assisted targeting system with 10+ dice. Not impossible to dodge, but much harder.

To sum up, there's more to how the game plays than "stand there and let these soldiers take you down." For the really powerful characters, they're still going to be unbothered by normal soldiers, but feel a little more pressure against a nuke.

I've played several sessions with my group at this point (as a player and as a GM), and the game really has a nice feel to it, especially when it comes to scale. It made our group's players feel like superheroes while still having the possibility of feeling threatened by bigger threats.

That’s a solid breakdown of how action economy and Quickness protect Omni-Man in play, and I agree that he shouldn’t just stand there eating attacks.
But I think the underlying issue still stands: if, for any reason, multiple attacks do land (bad rolls, surprise, split attention), the system allows low power weapons to damage powerful characters. That means survivability is coming from not getting hit rather than not being hurt, which feels off for characters who can survive nukes.

So while the game plays fine most of the time, it’s relying on actions economy to simulate durability rather than having a hard scale separation between rifles and Viltrumites.
 
User avatar
Argonaught
Posts: 6
Joined: Sat 04 Apr 2026, 01:21

Re: Scaling off?

Sat 04 Apr 2026, 18:20

Sure, they could still "hurt" these characters, but I think you're really overplaying the possibility. Rolling enough successes to take out Omni-Man to be able to apply Double Damage that much is going to be really rare with "normal" soldiers.

It's also a game and not the comic fiction. If Superman was actually done in a game, he would never be hurt with anything other than Kryptonite. In all the Marvel games over the years, characters can get hurt that maybe seem like they shouldn't with an extremely lucky roll or two. But players want to be able to play the characters, so any game needs to pull things into some kind of framework. For a superhero game to get the "feel" right, it becomes more art than science at some point.

And that's what I'm saying here - this game feels like it's done that better than any others I've played, at least in the last few decades.

Having said all that, I will also say that one of the rules in the game that can completely "fix" the firearms versus uber-powerful characters as is would be on page 81 - "The GM has final say on what stunts can be used for." If a regular soldier is firing against Omni-Man or another Viltrumite, the GM can simply say that the Double Damage stunt isn't applicable in that situation - and then the gun couldn't pierce the armor at all. This one important rule allows for a lot of flexibility for groups that want to really tie into whatever the comic book realities are.
 
User avatar
Magnanimous
Posts: 33
Joined: Mon 29 Sep 2025, 13:57

Re: Scaling off?

Sat 04 Apr 2026, 23:10

That’s fair, and I think that’s a good way to frame it.

I agree the game is clearly aiming for feel over strict simulation, and from what you’re saying (and your table experience), it sounds like it delivers that really well in practice.

I guess my angle is just that the bulletproof aspect of characters like Omni-Man ends up being supported by how the game is run (actions, dodging, GM calls) rather than being completely locked in mechanically — but as you say, that flexibility is probably intentional to keep the game playable.

That said, most other supers RPGs tend to handle this with a built-in threshold — where attacks below a certain level simply can’t penetrate armour at all, regardless of rolls. So the scale difference is enforced directly in the mechanics rather than via rulings.
 
MrHappyNZ
Topic Author
Posts: 10
Joined: Fri 06 Feb 2026, 07:18

Re: Scaling off?

Sun 05 Apr 2026, 01:32


Am I missing something?
You're both missing some things, yes.

The example is assuming that Omni-Man is helplessly standing there taking the concentrated fire by the minions, and that he would let the minions even exist after his turn in the round. He's got his actions plus the Quickness power. He could pretty easily dodge any typical minion attacks (and not get hit at all in the first place since any successes he rolls wipes off their successes). So even if three groups attacked, he could use both his actions to dodge to eliminate two of the groups even hitting him, and he could use Quickness to negate the third minion group. Even if he wants to actually use his actions to go on the offensive in a round where he gets a lower initiative card, he can get to them and attack with a slugfest attack of 10 dice (very likely success plus Double Damage, even if the minions dodge), and a slugfest damage of 8. If he uses Quickness, he's taking out two of the three groups in one turn and they'll never be able to attack him again.

Omni-Man (and the other Viltrumites, Battle Beast, etc.) would also be okay against a nuclear missile, but it would give them more trouble than the minions since the 12 Damage listed doesn't give an attack roll. That would conceivably be a computer-assisted targeting system with 10+ dice. Not impossible to dodge, but much harder.

To sum up, there's more to how the game plays than "stand there and let these soldiers take you down." For the really powerful characters, they're still going to be unbothered by normal soldiers, but feel a little more pressure against a nuke.

I've played several sessions with my group at this point (as a player and as a GM), and the game really has a nice feel to it, especially when it comes to scale. It made our group's players feel like superheroes while still having the possibility of feeling threatened by bigger threats.



Agreed, my initial assumption was that the example character could potentially take out a squad a turn (assuming 5 damage base), but even with dodges the single character can at most dodge two attacks a turn an still attack (Full + Quick + Quickness). And while the example character won't be standing there, neither will the attackers so they both even out.


But I do quite like Magnanimous idea:
4. Add “scale immunity” (very important)
I had initially though of housing ruling Armour powers increasing by +2 per level than +1, as that would appear to start providing enough armor to ignore lower attacks but not significanly affect single big hits.

But would probably lean more towards his suggection:
2. Enforce minimum damage thresholds. For high-tier characters: If damage ≤ armour then there's no effect at all. No chip damage unless it meaningfully exceeds armour. This stops rifles from nibbling gods to death.


I'm definately looking forward to running a campaign, it feels alomost like FAESERIP lite with more straight forward rolling, and I say that in a good way.
 
MrHappyNZ
Topic Author
Posts: 10
Joined: Fri 06 Feb 2026, 07:18

Re: Scaling off?

Sun 05 Apr 2026, 01:36

That’s fair, and I think that’s a good way to frame it.

I agree the game is clearly aiming for feel over strict simulation, and from what you’re saying (and your table experience), it sounds like it delivers that really well in practice.

I guess my angle is just that the bulletproof aspect of characters like Omni-Man ends up being supported by how the game is run (actions, dodging, GM calls) rather than being completely locked in mechanically — but as you say, that flexibility is probably intentional to keep the game playable.

That said, most other supers RPGs tend to handle this with a built-in threshold — where attacks below a certain level simply can’t penetrate armour at all, regardless of rolls. So the scale difference is enforced directly in the mechanics rather than via rulings.

100% agree.

I think I view it from a comics and Marvel SH/FASERIP type mechanic, where if you don't exceed the threshold you can't hurt them. But like Argonaught mentioned, you could just say the double damage stunt doesn't work.
 
User avatar
Magnanimous
Posts: 33
Joined: Mon 29 Sep 2025, 13:57

Re: Scaling off?

Sun 05 Apr 2026, 10:34

Right now, the issue comes from Double Damage applying before armour, which lets low-tier weapons get past protection they arguably shouldn’t be able to affect at all.

A simple adjustment could be:

Double Damage: The damage from your attack is doubled, after any reduction for Armor.

Why this works:
  • It preserves the stunt, but stops low-damage attacks from bypassing high armour through lucky rolls.
  • It keeps meaningful counters in place — Piercing Strike and Find Weakness still allow you to bypass or reduce armour when appropriate.
  • Other stunts remain unaffected, so the system’s flexibility is intact.

It feels like this keeps the game’s intended flow, but adds a more consistent sense of scale — where something like rifles can’t meaningfully threaten characters who are supposed to be effectively bulletproof.
 
Fred
Posts: 29
Joined: Fri 26 Sep 2025, 15:27

Re: Scaling off?

Sun 05 Apr 2026, 17:03

There's an easier fix, if this is a problem for you. Just state that damage from regular gear – i.e., not based on superpowers – cannot employ Double Damage if its basic damage wouldn't have hurt the target.

So, anyone with even basic Protection (Armor 2) would be immune from weapons that did 2 damage or less (submachineguns, shotguns, pistols, blunt and sharp melee weapons, etc.).

To reinforce the superiority of supers (hehe), you could also say that this rule only applies to superpowered armor. So kevlar vests and the like would not offer this automatic protection.

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 6 guests