Random Thought: Splitting Speed

[Utech]

Just took a shower and had a random HERO thought pop into my head.

Would it be at all desirable to split Speed into two parts:
Attack Speed
Defense Speed
Each would cost half of what Speed costs now. On one of your Attack Speed phases, you could perform any attack action. On one of your Defense Speed phases, you could perform any defensive action. Taking an attack action ends the benefits of any defensive action. Movement could be either an attack action or a defensive action.

Or you could split Speed into three parts:
Attack Speed
Defense Speed
Movement Speed
That's as far as I got. I have no idea if there would be any value in this, but I figured I'd throw it out there to the HERO community and see if anybody can make anything of it.:)

A note: I'm well aware that you can already do this with the RAW.

[Roy_The_Ruthles]

Can you take both an attack and a defensive action on the phase where they overlap? That might lead to some problems (such as hold defensive speed to abort when people attack).

[Ockham's Spoon]

Combats would take longer for two reasons. Partly just the added complexity of tracking two SPD for each character. Partly because most people don't use half their SPD for Defensive manuevers IME (speedsters being the possible exception). So now the characters deal damage more slowly since they only have half their SPD to attack with, and because there would be a lot more blocking & dodging so everyone gets hit less frequently (you have those Defensive SPD phases, you might as well use them). Of course most of those Defensive SPD phases would probably be used for movement so as not to waste Attack phases, but even so you can see a dramatic increase in combat time.

[FreeDice]

Speed, while useful and accurate, is already one of the hardest things to introduce new players in HERO to. I think. Adding to that complexity would have to be a topic for the Advanced Advanced Players Guide.

[Fearghus]

I got to say I am not crazy about this either. First off splitting actions essentially doubles your actions since you can't both defend and attack in the same action normally since Block and Dodge are considered attack actions anyway. So if for every action you would get under the normal rules you get one attack and one defense then you are basically turning combat into a long series of attack and block rolls. An attack connecting will have a much harder time hitting since now you won't loose an attack to dodge or block... more or less this move would just serve to not only make combat take longer but slant every attack in favor of the defender.

[Utech]

Interesting thoughts all. Thank you!

Something no one has addressed directly: Would it help some character concepts to buy these Speeds differently? Might some characters be better modeled with a higher Attack Speed than Defense Speed (or vice-versa)?

[Doc Democracy]

There is something in the concept tickling my creative nose but I cannot quite tell you why...will cogitate

Doc

[JmOz]

I would see a greater value on a physical and a mental speed value...but over all I do not think the complication is worth the payoff

[Rapier]

Instead of asking 'can you' (since the obvious answer is 'yes, of course') you should be asking 'why would you' or 'what are you trying to accomplish.' Those questions would be more informative. It's hard to answer 'is this desirable' without having some kind of context to formulate an answer.

For example: The neurons in your brain fire faster than your muscles are able to act. So you feel that mentalists should be able to fire off strictly mental attacks faster than they can move. Would this aspect warrant possibly splitting the SPD Characteristic in my campaign into two separate Characteristics (Mental SPD and Physcial SPD)?

Personally, I don't think the effort involved to adjudicate the issues it would create are going to be worth the effort to actually split the Characteristic. Would this mean that Skills like Deduction, which are entirely mental would happen at the Mental SPD instead of the Physical SPD?

[Fearghus]

I would see a greater value on a physical and a mental speed value...but over all I do not think the complication is worth the payoff

Ditto! I have often lamented why my mentalists have to buy extra speed to keep up with other characters number of attacks. But again... the complicated version of separate actions for Mental and Physical is pretty complicated.

[JmOz]

I have been working on a martial artist (well a bit of a eveything actualy, Martial artist, power armor, Weapon master, patriot) who I just bought all of their movement powers as No non combat, has a speed of 6, so while he is running he is no faster than a speed 3 Running 15 character, but is combat ready the whole time