An attack that negates any triggered effect it would normally set off: cost-effective or an absolute fantasy?

[Ragitsu]

Would it be possible to build an attack (as a power unto itself) or an ability attached to any "mundane" attack (such as using straight OCV with a plain-jane cavalry saber or glaive) that doesn't set off any effects which require a "must be attacked" trigger? A character could strike with impunity and not worry about, say, a foe's reactive fire shield flaring up in retaliation or a toxic mist as part of a battlesuit's defensive subsystems being automatically pumped out.

[Christopher R Taylor]

That's going to be expensive to buy, usually involving a dispel that goes off first, to negate the triggered/damage shield effect. 

 

At least some triggers require the character be able to perceive the attack, so a build of invisible might work for those.

 

Transform of course works but its going to be very expensive and have a longer-term effect than you mean.

 

Desolidification (only to make you immune to the triggered effect) and affects solid on the attack would probably do what you want, but be very expensive.

[Ragitsu]

The Dispel appears to be the solution which most closely resembles what I have in mind. Whatever the relevant ability is, it has to function in tandem with the attack on the turn it is made. Can you link such a Dispel (presumably a kind of Variable Power that covers any Dispel you need, so that you are covered whether your foe's defensive trait is biological, magical, technological, etc) to the attack so that it works its mojo the instant before the blow lands?

[Hyper-Man]

Trigger depends on the senses of the owner. I would explore limited IPE.

[Surrealone]

Another way to go might be Desolidification with a limitation that it's only for the purpose of avoiding triggers (a fairly hefty limitation, I'd think) ... combined with an attack built with the Affects Real World advantage.  (Note that Steve Long's Gun Fu book has an example of this sort of limited Desolidification.  His example was limited to only avoid suppression fire, for which he gave a -2 limitation value.)  

I think a lot of it really depends on the types of triggers you want to avoid.  My suggestion works great for trip wires that require contact, IR sensors based on heat (since you're effectively not there) ... but not so well against triggers based on sight, breathing, movement, and the like (since a desolid individual must still breathe, can still be seen moving, etc).  By comparison, Hyper-Man's suggested approach will cover the sorts of things my suggested approach will not.
 

[DasBroot]

52 minutes ago, Ragitsu said:

The Dispel appears to be the solution which most closely resembles what I have in mind. Whatever the relevant ability is, it has to function in tandem with the attack on the turn it is made. Can you link such a Dispel (presumably a kind of Variable Power that covers any Dispel you need, so that you are covered whether your foe's defensive trait is biological, magical, technological, etc) to the attack so that it works its mojo the instant before the blow lands?

 

Technically you're linking the attack to the dispel since the dispel fires first.

 

In either case another alternative to linking is using the COmbined Attack action.  This lets you set up the proper Dispel without having to link the attack to a specific dispel (or having to link ANY attack at all thus allowing you to use any of your attacks instead).

 

How  you would know what Dispel to use is another question.  Some sort of Detect Damage Shield or Detect Trigger (or both) power with discriminatory as a sense would be the easiest (and kind of metagame-y) solution, i suppose.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I think you can just build it as dispel xd6 (any one triggered power) and it will "detect" and act on the power automatically.

[DasBroot]

You definitely don't need to be aware of the effect in order to affect it with Dispel, true, but throwing a Dispel as part of a Combine Attack at every foe you meet just in case is a waste of endurance/charges and action economy.  

[dsatow]

4 hours ago, DasBroot said:

You definitely don't need to be aware of the effect in order to affect it with Dispel, true, but throwing a Dispel as part of a Combine Attack at every foe you meet just in case is a waste of endurance/charges and action economy.  

 

Not to mention that dispel dispels one specific power.  It will cost a lot to include all attack powers.

[Lucius]

6 hours ago, DasBroot said:

 

 

How  you would know what Dispel to use is another question.  Some sort of Detect Damage Shield or Detect Trigger (or both) power with discriminatory as a sense would be the easiest (and kind of metagame-y) solution, i suppose.

 

Danger Sense with Discriminatory

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary proposes a Limitation, only for Damage Shields or Triggers

[IndianaJoe3]

Damage Negation vs, "contact" effects should work. Not cheap, though.

[dsatow]

Here's a question I have for the OP: What is the special effect for this?  Why does the character have the ability?

 

While I am not against the idea, it seems like a very metagame effect rather than a special effect.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I could see it as a magical effect: strike without reaction.  Or a martial arts trick, where you never trigger a riposte

[dsatow]

I can see a maneuver where you don't trigger a riposte though it would only work on a power and not the martial maneuver.  I'm not quite sold on "its magic"* as an explanation.  The OP never states the special effect only the game effect they want to create.

 

 

* I actually hate that reason.  Its used a lot by players who despite it not fitting their character concept want a power for a metagame effect.

[Ragitsu]

1 hour ago, dsatow said:

I can see a maneuver where you don't trigger a riposte though it would only work on a power and not the martial maneuver.  I'm not quite sold on "its magic"* as an explanation.  The OP never states the special effect only the game effect they want to create.

 

 

* I actually hate that reason.  Its used a lot by players who despite it not fitting their character concept want a power for a metagame effect.

 

The special effect is solidly supernatural. For that reason, it is effective against all triggers.

[SteveZilla]

Is a Trigger presumed to be an infallible 'Detect' (barring builds specifically designed to circumvent/nullify it)?

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

Is a Trigger presumed to be an infallible 'Detect' (barring builds specifically designed to circumvent/nullify it)?

 

In the trigger writeup of 6th edition

 

Quote

The circumstance that activates a Triggered power must be easily verifiable, and cannot depend on any Senses the character does not possess — characters cannot use Trigger as a cheap way to detect phenomena they could not ordinarily perceive.

 

So triggers don't really act like a detect, but rather a perfect perception roll by the character's senses.

[mrinku]

One refinement to this sort of thing can be to buy the reactive power through a computer or AI (which can be a non-technological analogue, of course). That can allow the effect of a "guardian angel" that can detect and react to attacks that the character cannot. You could also run it as a Dispel using the held action vs attack action rule for that power, run by the "computer" using its own actions. 

[Maccabe]

Could you do some sort of Force Field , probably with power defense etc, that triggers only when an opponent's power is triggered???

 

[mrinku]

A passive defence that's only triggered when attacked is basically a normal passive defence. -0 modifier IMHO. The forcefield only being up when taking  actual damage might be worth a limitation, though, if it wouldn't protect vs NNDs or other powers that use that effect as a condition.

 

But I realise I've somehow turned to OP's question around into a defence thing. They want an offence thing. Sorry.

[Doc Democracy]

I am definitely in the camp that this depends very solidly on the perception aspect of things.  I was immediately thinking of invisible effects as that would mean that the attack would not be perceived.

 

My problem is the the OP is looking for an absolute effect in a system almost designed to ensure absolutes do not occur.

 

So, for the purpose of a riposte, the trigger might be someone attacking.  The trigger might be someone doing damage to someone, something.  IPE works for the first but not the second.  The trigger would 'notice' damage as that would not be invisible to the person damaged (and thus the trigger).

 

I was therefore thinking, what about Darkness (all sense groups), only versus triggers?

 

That would effectively make it impossible for the trigger to notice anything while the darkness is in place.  The tricky thing here would be that the darkness would have to be targeted at the thing/person targeted by the power, that should be easier fro some things than others.  It would essentially mean that any attack was supplemented by a very small area effect darkness to all sense groups targetted on triggers.  Someone might want to stat that up but I do not think it would be horrendously expensive for the effect provided...

 

Doc