Zed-F Posted August 12, 2004 Report Share Posted August 12, 2004 Who has FREd handy and can look up velocity adding to damage for advantaged attacks? In reference to the following question to Steve: http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?goto=newpost&t=20365 I am not sure how Steve came up with the 12d6 AP figure. I specified a character with 15" of velocity and 15 STR, doing a passing attack (IIRC STR+v/5 damage) with a 3d6 AP HA. As far as I am aware, that should total up as follows: 3d6 AP HA = 3d6 AP HA +15 STR = + 3 DCs (advantages aren't counted since we are under double) = 6d6 AP HA Now if we add the passing attack's v/5, we should get either +3DC if the advantage is not counted, or +2 DC if it is. I thought I recalled that the number of inches of movement required to get a DC is multiplied by the advantage amount, which would mean that we get +2 DC from the v/5 component rather than +3, bringing us to 8d6 AP HA. However, maybe that only applies to killing attacks. If so, we should have +3 DC from the passing attack, giving 9d6 AP HA. I have no idea how we got to 12d6 AP HA, unless Steve misread the velocity and used the 30" from the FAQ example. (I guess I should have used the same number!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GorTeX Posted August 13, 2004 Report Share Posted August 13, 2004 Re: Math confusion He mentioned double dipping the strength in his answer..so maybe it was: STR + HA + Passing Attack = STR + HA + (STR + V/5) = 3 + 3 + (3 +3) = 12d6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeddy Posted August 13, 2004 Report Share Posted August 13, 2004 Re: Math confusion The extra 3d6 comes from adding STR damage to the Passing Strike as well as the HA i guess. I personally don't think that's fair or balanced at all. What you've got there is a 90 active point attack for 24 real points. Even adding in the cost of the Running needed to get 15" of velocity (18 points, and not a cost dedicated to this one attack), it's substantially cheaper than any other 12d6 AP attack. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killer Shrike Posted August 13, 2004 Report Share Posted August 13, 2004 Re: Math confusion He mentioned double dipping the strength in his answer..so maybe it was: STR + HA + Passing Attack = STR + HA + (STR + V/5) = 3 + 3 + (3 +3) = 12d6 Thats what it looked like to me to. I posted a similar question but Steve just refered me back to the FAQ. Color me puzzled. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killer Shrike Posted August 13, 2004 Report Share Posted August 13, 2004 Re: Math confusion Steve just clarified this. Wow. This is a big deal; it makes HA's even more huge for Move Thru specialists. If I had only known when playing Hype, everyones most hated Speedster.....oh man, it wouldnt have been pretty Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zed-F Posted August 13, 2004 Author Report Share Posted August 13, 2004 Re: Math confusion Yes, that seems very odd indeed to me. Does that mean you automatically do at least double damage before strength with a weapon-based martial attack, if you purchased the weapon with CP!?! By Steve's logic, we consider the attack and the maneuver separately: Suppose I buy 15 STR and a 2d6 HKA sword (OAF) in a heroic game (the sword is magical so I bought it with CP.) All good so far, together the STR and the HKA total 3d6K which is pretty good for most heroic games. All good so far... except I bought a martial arts package with a weapon element for it. Except when I go to perform the attack using Martial Strike, does that now do HKA + STR + (weapon + 2DC/2) = 2d6K + 1d6K + 2d6+1K = 5d6+1K? That's dragon-slaying territory! Even better, why wouldn't this mean that I automatically do over double STR damage with *any* martial attack? 0d6 HA + 15 STR + Martial Strike (STR + 2 DC) = 3d6+3d6+2d6 = 8d6? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Uh, no thanks. Advantaged HAs are already quite efficient enough, thanks, without adding strength twice. A "ghost strike" 3d6 NND HA (e.g. vs. power defense) is pretty cheap (30AP), fits in a multipower quite nicely, and adds well with even just 15 STR to make a 60 AP attack -- a common damage cap. Adding velocity damage is already enough of a semi-hidden bonus to make the attack very powerful relative to campaign standards, say if you also have some stretching or some shrinking or a fast leap. Consider: 30" leap combined with a v/5 damage (ignoring STR double-application) would result in an extra 3d6 NND damage 6" Stretching adds an extra 2d6 NND velocity damage, and is easily combined with the leap velocity if you've got it Growth momentum might be harder to justify in combination with movement/stretching velocity, but that's ok, 3 levels of shrinking will add 6d6 NND all by itself! It is not at all difficult to get up to an 110-120 AP attack by application of various adders to a simple 3d6 NND attack. None of these adders is that expensive individually, either, and it's pretty easy to justify all of them (other than basic STR) in an appropriate framework. Doubling the STR component for HAs/HKAs when using martial maneuvers or other velocity-based attacks is not consistent with the rest of the rules on how melee attacks work and just takes an attack mode that already must be monitored carefully and makes it really unbalanced, IMHO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killer Shrike Posted August 13, 2004 Report Share Posted August 13, 2004 Re: Math confusion No, I think this is a specific exclusion for velocity based manuevers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zed-F Posted August 13, 2004 Author Report Share Posted August 13, 2004 Re: Math confusion Even as a specific exclusion for velocity-based maneuvers it's still way too strong as written. 120 AP attacks for 15 STR, a 3d6 NND HA, and +6 DC velocity is enough to break most campaigns with any kind of AP cap. Adding STR twice on top of that is overkill, IMHO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killer Shrike Posted August 13, 2004 Report Share Posted August 13, 2004 Re: Math confusion Yeah, it's pretty uber. But on the otherhand, its much more likely that a character attempting to max it out will stagger themselves. Nevertheless, I agree; the two most powerful strikers in our Millennial Men game were Rook and Hype, and both were essentially Move Thru specialists, though of different sorts. Will have to take a very close look at this in days to come. To be fair, Steve does note that some GM's wont allow the double dipping, so at least he's cognizant of it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Liaden Posted August 13, 2004 Report Share Posted August 13, 2004 Re: Math confusion While I'm afraid I don't have the time at the moment to review the math in this case, in general I've found the summary of the rules for adding damage attached below, created by our Talon, to be very helpful in keeping it all straight in my head; particularly his separation of "capped" and "uncapped" damage, i.e. damage that has a maximum and that which doesn't. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Talon Posted August 13, 2004 Report Share Posted August 13, 2004 Re: Math confusion Thanks for the link LL. I'm not sure that my document properly covers this new case, mainly because I think Steve's ruling is messed up (something to talk about at GenCon!). I don't think you should /ever/ add STR twice for maneuver damage, and I don't think there are any rules in FREd which let you. HA damage adds to regular STR damage. Martial (and other) maneuvers add to regular STR damage. They shouldn't add to each other. Period. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I've noticed a couple odd rulings of late (the "all UBO powers cost END automatically" ruling being the other one) which seem to have no basis in FREd whatsoever. I hope that this is an anomaly and not a trend. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zed-F Posted August 13, 2004 Author Report Share Posted August 13, 2004 Re: Math confusion Another case that concerns me is the martial brick who's not necessarily even all that fast but who likes to do the occasional motion-based attack anyway. Supposing he has a nice even 50 STR, he can wind up doing STR + STR + v/5 with a passing attack or STR + STR + 2 DC + v/5 with a charge/slam -- he can do similar damage even with just movethrough and moveby. Suddenly we are talking huge amounts of damage just from running a few inches, and not particularily fast either. Now combine THAT with an advantaged HA and see what you get! EDIT: BTW, kudos on the .doc file, Talon! That looked like a good summary. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Narthon Posted August 15, 2004 Report Share Posted August 15, 2004 Re: Math confusion Ok, I'm probably being stupid, but what is a UBO power? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hyper-Man Posted August 15, 2004 Report Share Posted August 15, 2004 Re: Math confusion Usable By Others Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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