Has there ever been a tabletop game where numbers are kept low, but every unit in the game has a "tier" which grants them a huge edge over anything of a lower tier, such as extra damage or straight-up instantly killing them on-hit? Something that could be compared to trying to kill Mike Tyson with a knife; it's doable but he will 100% rock your shit if he gets a single hit in.
>>98043476Only one I can think of it Mythender, where you are above mortals to the point you kill them as a free action or drive them insane just by being present.
>>98043476Pathfinder 2e adds character's level to all numbers you roll for or against and it means that 5 level of difference is unsurmountable advantage.
>>98043476In my game, damage adds the user's base strength (which is combined physical burst strength, stability, precision, accuracy, supernatural strength) plus the power (an abstraction similar to personal strength)of the "feature" they're using, then altered by a modifier (multiplier) that changes based on contextual factors.Strength and power start small (the lowest being 0.10 and only increasing by 0.05 or even 0.01 increments), and damage versus Health is rounded to the nearest quarter-heart (0.25) while damage versus feature HP is rounded to the nearest half-spade (0.5), so often times, depending on types and chosen defense, actual damage is incredibly low.Average starting Health tends to be 3 to 5 hearts, and most features have 1 to 3 HP depending on what they manifest as.But, there really isn't a hierarchical tier system; superiority is instead manifested through attack types versus feature types. Things like miracles being stronger against undead, dragon's fire being strong against saurian foes, raw arcane power having an edge over material monsters (such as sand monsters or rock golems), and other such interactions. I think this provides incentive for diversity of attack types instead of everyone choosing (or hoping to receive) the [ONE CORRECT OPTION]. And, I like the foes to have a bit more skewed resistances, just to give the party more of a challenge. The saurians, for instance, have a couple immunities and resist everything else except dragon fire, while undead have a good number of resistances and negate dragon fire, so you can't just get away with hyperfocusing everyone on one thing.As far as instant kills go, ehh, I'm not really a fan of those, but scoring a critical hit will either instantly break a feature or, when hitting target's Health, will instantly injure them, or progress an injury to KO instantly.Regular fodder enemies might have no features, or just one or two, by the way. This helps make up for their action economy advantage.
>>98043476Heavy Gear. Except tiers are like Human / Vehicles, with anti-vehicle weapons being imprecise but devastating vs. infantry (instant death). Likewise, most small arm attacks literally can't reach the damage treshold of vehicles (unless very heavy caliber / very precise shot).You also get a similar effect when untrained heroes/troops face well-trained ones. Since HP is not a thing, reliably hitting a target makes a lot of difference.
>>98043476I'm trying to do this with my homebrew, but the only real difference between tiers are their stats. It's all single-digit numbers still, e.g. a commoner might have stats ranging from 1-3 while a heroic character will have 4-6.
>>98043476YeshImagine being a T0 nobody trying to stop a T5. Even facing off against a mere T1 would be nerve-wracking, against a demigod you'd have no hope
