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Velocity Based OCV?


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An interesting situation came up in a game the other day. A player's stunt driver wanted to run down a group of thugs with his car. The speed on his car was over 170 MPH. However, the OCV of his car was only 4. He missed all of them completely. So, he complained that his speed was nearly impossible to dodge. He said that the Velocity-Based DCV chart could easily be used for OCV. Does this make sense?

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I wouldn't give him a bonus to hit (he's lucky at 170mph on presumably a city street that any pothole, curb, or more than 45 degree turn doesn't send him careening into a wall or flipping into an impressive looking series of rolls) - I'd be more likely to assign a penalty to their dive for cover roll.

 

In the end this boils down to being a non-combat movement move through attack - and as my thread the other day showed that was ruled by the community to not be such a great idea (also, by the rules it's OCV 0 for a non combat movement attack power - not the car's 4.  It's just not meant to happen if you play by the book).

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In the end this boils down to being a non-combat movement move through attack - and as my thread the other day showed that was ruled by the community to not be such a great idea (also, by the rules it's OCV 0 for a non combat movement attack power - not the car's 4.  It's just not meant to happen if you play by the book).

Well, I can see that, but I'm saying in real life. If a car is coming at you at 170 MPH, there is little to no chance that you will dodge the car.  I guess this is a one-time thing hopefully. Maybe the DCV penalty (or roll Penalty) will be enough to hit them. 

 

BTW: This was not on a city road, this was in the middle of a highway. 

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Well, I can see that, but I'm saying in real life. If a car is coming at you at 170 MPH, there is little to no chance that you will dodge the car.  I guess this is a one-time thing hopefully. Maybe the DCV penalty (or roll Penalty) will be enough to hit them. 

 

BTW: This was not on a city road, this was in the middle of a highway. 

 

Depends how far away the car is.  In real life, it takes a while for a car to accelerate to 170 mph.  Highways aren't that wide.  I'm Joe Normal, I have no special movement powers, and my Dex isn't that high.  I can still run across a lane of traffic in 2 or 3 seconds and make it off the road before I get hit by an oncoming car.

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Depends how far away the car is.  In real life, it takes a while for a car to accelerate to 170 mph.  Highways aren't that wide.  I'm Joe Normal, I have no special movement powers, and my Dex isn't that high.  I can still run across a lane of traffic in 2 or 3 seconds and make it off the road before I get hit by an oncoming car.

The car was bought with Noncombat Acceleration/Deceleration

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Still, I can get out of the way of a Ferrari if I have warning.  I don't think it's unreasonable at all for somebody to Dive For Cover and get out of the way.  Especially if they can see it coming, meaning more than one phase of driving at them.  A car driving at 200 mph down a highway towards me is only dangerous if I don't have time to react.  So what we're really looking at is a vehicle that catches people by surprise.  To me this means that it either goes from very slow to fast quite quickly, or it comes from around a corner or something and they don't see it.

 

I'm visualizing the vehicle topping a hill or something and the thugs don't have a phase available.  It will cross the intervening distance before they have a chance to take a move action.  Or maybe it rockets from stop to start when they don't have a phase.  I'd treat it as an Area Effect attack and make them Dive For Cover.  I might apply a -1 to their Dex rolls for every full range increment that the vehicle covers in that phase.  4 hexes probably isn't worth anything, but if the vehicle covers 8 hexes, maybe that's a -1.  16 hexes of movement, that's a -2, 32 hexes is -3, 64 is -4, etc.  That's presuming that they have zero notice of the oncoming car until it's trying to ram them.  But if they have a phase available, they can just like walk off the side of the road without any roll.

 

I am having a hard time picturing a guy getting his car up to 170 mph with the thugs not figuring out that he's trying to run them over.

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You can Dodge or Dive for Cover vs a laser cannon. Why would a car be impossible?

 

A car occupies more space ... so you'd have to dive a lot farther to avoid the AoE of one hitting you (especially if it were fishtailing sideways at you?) -- which means a larger negative to the roll than trying to dive out of the way of a laser cannon's one-hex AoE hit.  While not 'impossible', it's certainly 'less probable'.

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I'm another in the camp of 'treat the car as an Area Effect attack'.  Since you can dodge and DfC against any AE attack (even those traveling at the speed of light) I wouldn't impose any extra modifiers on the DfC roll.  You'd just have the standard penalty for the number of hexes dived.

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A car occupies more space ... so you'd have to dive a lot farther to avoid the AoE of one hitting you (especially if it were fishtailing sideways at you?) -- which means a larger negative to the roll than drying to dive out of the way of a laser cannon's one-hex AoE hit.  While not 'impossible', it's certainly 'less probable'.

I've seen a lot of 4 meter and 8 meter radius AoE attacks in Hero games.  An average car length is 4.5 meters, less than a 3 meter radius, so a car definitely does not "occupy more space" than other AoE attacks.  Also, for as fast as a vehicle can travel, cars generally have a Turn Mode on their movement and if going Non-Combat speed are at 0 OCV, so I really don't think it should be harder to get out of the way of a car than say RPG or missile that goes significantly faster, has a much larger AoE, and we don't add additional penalties to avoiding with Dive for Cover.

 

Also, if your player is fishtailing/power sliding to increase the size of his improvised AoE he should probably have to make a Combat Driving roll with a pretty steep penalty considering he's going Non-Combat speed and negating Turn Mode to completely change the orientation of the vehicle.

 

EDIT: Also, while perhaps not appropriate against a car, remember that often improvised AoE attacks can be Dodged, unlike Powers bought with the Advantage.

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I've seen a lot of 4 meter and 8 meter radius AoE attacks in Hero games.  An average car length is 4.5 meters, less than a 3 meter radius, so a car definitely does not "occupy more space" than other AoE attacks.  Also, for as fast as a vehicle can travel, cars generally have a Turn Mode on their movement and if going Non-Combat speed are at 0 OCV, so I really don't think it should be harder to get out of the way of a car than say RPG or missile that goes significantly faster, has a much larger AoE, and we don't add additional penalties to avoiding with Dive for Cover.

Grailknight's comparison involved a car and a laser cannon ... you know, something typically thought of as a beam weapon and something that would, at most, typically target a hex ... not a radius or a cone.  How or why you translated that into 4m, 8m, radius AoE I have no idea ... as it was the laser cannon vs. car comparison to which I was responding.

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Grailknight's comparison involved a car and a laser cannon ... you know, something typically thought of as a beam weapon and something that would, at most, typically target a hex ... not a radius or a cone.  How or why you translated that into 4m, 8m, radius AoE I have no idea ... as it was the laser cannon vs. car comparison to which I was responding.

Many Laser Cannons are NOT beam weapons, that's often the difference between a laser pistol and a cannon in a setting. More importantly, as Grailknight says, you can Dive for Cover against anything, the actual point of the laser comparison, which you ignored entirely.  You honestly think it is harder to leap out of the way of a car going 170 MPH than a laser going near light speed because it's "bigger"?  Because if that's your position I'm not really sure what to say.  I mean, a golf cart is way bigger than a bullet, but I know which one I'd rather be Diving for Cover against.

 

 

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I haven't seen anyone claim it wasn't. 

EDIT: But the rules specifically address Dodging AoEs from improvised weapons.  Like I said before, probably not applicable to a car, but there are ways other than DfC to avoid AoEs depending on the source and SFX of the AoE.

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Here's how I see it:

 

  1. Car is about a hex wide. Give or take. So, the driver of the car is using it to make an AOE attack against a hex.
  2. Figure out what the OCV penalties are for going 170 MPH at non-combat speed. (I dunno. No books in front of me at the moment.)
  3. Are the victims aware of the oncoming car?
  4. If yes, they abort to Dive for Cover. 4a) If they succeed, they don't get hit. Anyone can jump out of a parking space for crying out lout. 4b) If they fail, they go splat.
  5. If not, and the car hit the hex, they go splat.
  6. If the car hits someone at 170 MPH, make a combat driving roll accounting for the blood and gore covering the car's windshield to maintain control of the vehicle.
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I haven't seen anyone claim it wasn't. 

 

EDIT: But the rules specifically address Dodging AoEs from improvised weapons.  Like I said before, probably not applicable to a car, but there are ways other than DfC to avoid AoEs depending on the source and SFX of the AoE.

 

I reread your previous statement in post 14 and realized I misunderstood it. 

 

 

As a note to the conversation in general.

 

I believe dive for cover has an inherent penalty equal to the distance you have to dive /2 in meters. (example diving up to 2 meters is -1 diving up to 4 is -2). Dodge gives a player +3 DCV, but it will not help versus area of effect because a characters DCV is irrelevant.

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Here's how I see it:

 

  1. Car is about a hex wide. Give or take. So, the driver of the car is using it to make an AOE attack against a hex.
  2. Figure out what the OCV penalties are for going 170 MPH at non-combat speed. (I dunno. No books in front of me at the moment.)
  3. Are the victims aware of the oncoming car?
  4. If yes, they abort to Dive for Cover. 4a) If they succeed, they don't get hit. Anyone can jump out of a parking space for crying out lout. 4b) If they fail, they go splat.
  5. If not, and the car hit the hex, they go splat.
  6. If the car hits someone at 170 MPH, make a combat driving roll accounting for the blood and gore covering the car's windshield to maintain control of the vehicle.

 

 

Well said, especially that last part.

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