Rules Q: Bruiser's Living Wall reaction

Games Sentinel Comics RPG
#1

Don’t think this has been asked or answered yet. The Bruiser villain archetype has a reaction ability called Living Wall that lets him retarget Attacks onto himself. The ability includes the clause “You may use this reaction any number of times in a round by taking one irreducible damage for each time past the first.”

This prompts a few questions:

  1. Earlier podcasts have established that the hero Red Athletic ability Push Your Limits lets you use any number of reactions per round, but still only once per turn. This shut off a number of reaction combos and makes it impossible to (for ex) Defend more than one target against a multi-target Attack ability. The wording of PYL is very different than Living Wall, but the PYL clarification suggests that a soft rule about “one reaction per turn maximum” exists. So should that semi-rule apply to Living Wall, or could you use it to (say) martyr yourself blocking many, many hits from a multi-target minion sweeper ability from some hero?

  2. The wording on Living Wall makes it clear you can use it many times per round, but it specifically refers to LW only. Does it have to be the only reaction you use in a round?
    2.1) If you have another reaction and use it, can you still use Living Wall later in the round?
    2.1.2) If so, do you treat the first use of LW as the second use of a reaction and therefore paying the damage tax?

#2

Since it’s a villain ability, and villains first and foremost serve as a plot device, I’d say you - the GM creating that villain as part of your story - should be free to rule either way.
I don’t think it will affect balance in a big way, but might result in a slightly different way how that ability comes across narrative-wise.

From my point of view, it is essentially a free ability that trades against hitpoints (which works for free if it happens fit into your regular reaction economy).
Sort of tiptoeing the border between reaction and inherent :slight_smile:

Hope this helps!

#3

It definitely affects balance depending on the answer to Q1.

Combine an Approach damage resistance ability (eg Indomitable’s Unquestionable Might) with the Bruiser archetype’s own Feel No Pain reduction and Living Wall. If LW can be used more than once per turn (unlike Push Your Limits) then you have a villain that can now redirect as many multi-target Attacks as he likes to himself, ignoring between 2-5 points of damage from each hit depending on type and his current status. He’ll lose deal himself 1 irreducible damage for each hit he blocks after the first, but most Green zone hero Attack abilities with multi-targeting use the Min die, as do many Yellow abilities. That makes his damage reduction quick likely to stop most or all of the actual hits he’s taking, effectively trading 1 irreducible damage to (for ex) save every minion under Attack by that sweep ability from degrading or dying. Might even be worth doing if some damage is leaking through and he’s losing a net 2-3 damage per save - Bruiser do like getting hurt, after all.

There’s some counterplay from PCs Boosting their sweepers, but this practically makes that mandatory rather than just nice to have. Can’t afford to leave groups of minions intact for very long, so you have to make that Min die sweep hit hard enough that the LW Bruiser can’t just stop everything for a few rounds for minimal cost.

Q2 is less impactful, but if you can use a different reaction (such as the Relentless Approach’s Twist the Knife) and then start using Living Wall on other turns you could build a Bruiser who can contribute bit of reactionary damage on an ally’s turn, provide LW defensive coverage throughout all the hero turns, and spend his own turn using Grin and Bear It to keep his health capped off for more LW action. None of those would really care much about him being stuck with a smaller status die because he’s not taking much damage. Not the scariest villain ever, but (like any LW Bruiser) a solid team bodyguard.

Knowing what the actual intent of the rules here would be nice. I’m well aware of the fact that I can do anything I like as GM (and frequently do), but presumably this got playtested and I’d much rather use their conclusions and not have to rely on my own campaign to decide what is or isn’t going to be reasonable.

#4

This isn’t correct. They’ve clarified that you can only use one reaction per trigger, but there’s no limit on the number of times per turn you can use it.

That said, since a character can only take one action a round, I don’t think they ever clarified whether a multitarget attack counts as one “trigger” or many.

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#5

This is not quite what I meant to convey, but I’ll admit I am having a specific role for this type of villain in mind which might not be everyone’s.

I’ll try to explain.

The way I see SCRPG played, defeating a villain allows for more facets than just chipping away hitpoints.
Those abilities basically describe, in a game-mechanics way that is slightly more elegant than raw plot armor, that this villain isn’t meant to be defeated in a simple race for dealing the most damage.

In my opinion, there is little to be gained from a ‘balancing’ that makes sure that within that specific setup, the bullheaded approach would still work anyway. It would even sort of reduce the villain’s specific trait to a mere showfront if all that over-resilience were cut down in a meaningful way. In MCU terms, you just can’t bring down Hulk by hitting him even harder. Or Superman, if you prefer.

Instead, I think this villain type should make the heroes think hard about what to do instead.
After we have understood that headbutting with the juggernaut isn’t going to solve our problem, can we somehow disable that ability? Is it relying on something external that we can remove? Can we subdue the villain in a more creative way that doesn’t care for Health or damage immunity?
Basically, don’t try to out-tough the personification of toughness - better to out-smart them.

On a more general note, I’d say it’s the GM’s first responsibility to keep the story running. If you create an invulnerable oppenent that serves the stoy, that’s totally fine! Because you’d certainly have thought about how they can be defeated anyway, and dropped hints about their personal cryptonite all along, right?

#6

Sorry - I just realized I somehow went down the ‘damage reduction’ rabbithole when the original question was about redirecting to yourself. Apologies!

Now, I think rules are a little vague on that topic, but attacks to multiple targets generally seem to be treated as separate instances. If so, each of those would need to be redirected separately.
If that bruiser were to redirect all the attacks that were meant to hit a group of minions to himself (technically taking the original damage multiplied by the original number of targets), at an additional cost of 1 irreducible Dmg per instance, the minion sweeper should bring the Bruiser down rather quickly. If it doesn’t (because of dmg reduction traits), please see my post above :slight_smile:

#7

Do you know what episode it was in? I went hunting before I asked this but was unable to locate it without dedicating hours of my time checking show notes or re-listening to stuff.

I can’t think of a case where some combination of reactions could all trigger in a single turn without the same trigger being involved if multi-target abilities count as a single trigger, but that’s a very big if. For ex, you might easily get Attacked, react to block some of the damage, then slide past a health zone threshold anyway and have one of those “when health zone changes” that you could theoretically use with PYL, but that’s still the result of a single trigger (the Attack) if that’s the exact ruling limiting reaction use, right?

Raises the question of whether the extra Mid die Attack from the villain Group Fighter upgrade would allow a 2nd reaction to it while PYL is active, too. It’s certainly a separate source of damage for a hero with innate damage resistance, and as an extra action it’s probably allowing another reaction if the limit is per-trigger.

This does seem like it could use some clarification on several counts.

#8

https://sentinelswiki.com/index.php?title=Podcasts/Episode_I-37

And related, Podcasts/Episode B-4 - Sentinel Comics Wiki

Welcome to SCRPG.

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#9

Thanks. There’s enough episodes at this point I need to start bookmarking the handful that are actually RPG-relevant just to find everything, even with the wiki.

Guess I can take a break from binge-listening to El Santo movies on youtube while I paint and do something constructive with my ears. :slight_smile:

EDIT: FWIW, the specific answer is around 0:30:00 on this podcast episode The Letters Page: Editor's Note #37 They definitely did not say anything about multi-target effects (although they came so very close) so this looks like something to fix for myself.

EDIT EDIT: Re-listening to The Letters Page: Bullpen #4 I can’t stop laughing at the innocence on display around the 0:35:00 mark. You can tell that’s an older episode from before the game had been out in the wild long enough to get some good destructive testing.

Yes, it’s not uncommon for players have the Red ability Summoned Allies. GTG opted to put it on four(!) different power lists (and then bafflingly left it off Technological, where Robotics lives). Many heroes have it as an option, and after the first time an Overlord villain crushes you with their army players start respecting minions.

Yes, you usually don’t get very many turns in the Red zone (either personal or in the scene) to use it. Which is why you usually see it used with a twist (or a collection to cancel the twist) in the Yellow zone, so the minions can act for a meaningful number of turns and the villains are really forced to dedicate some effort to removing them. Also a popular choice for using the alternate hero point awards to buy it up into the Yellow zone for a session when the story supports it and you have 4HP to spend.

Not the scariest Red ability in the game unto itself, but with the right team synergies it’s a contender for raw mechanical impact. Which is good, because it lets the players get their own back against the Creator/Legion/Overlord/Minion Deployment vehicles the GM uses.

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