Passing Strike (martial maneuver) Unbalanced?

[Gary]

Re: Passing Strike (martial maneuver) Unbalanced?

 

You've never had Agent X as a GM' date=' have you? [/quote']

 

Nope. A GM has as many points to throw around as he wants. Against Con-El or a team of Con-Els, I could throw 5 1000 pt characters built with the same tricks, or 5 3000 pt characters if I wanted to. It's a losing game trying to compete directly against the GM.

 

 

Heh heh heh. Our group was sitting around reading the 5th Edition rules when they came out. We figured that if Con-El ever came to a 5th Edition world, he'd just explode.

 

Or you could simply give everyone 750-1000 pts and everything is right in the world again.

 

 

Well, yeah, except that the move-through specialist benefits more from a different construction than the passing strike guy. Instead of him having 45 Str and 15" of movement, he'd be better served by taking a 50 Str and 12" of movement (selling off the one PD and the extra inch of Superleap to make up the costs). That way, he still gets 4D6 damage, but he doesn't need the extra +1 OCV. The characters get different break points.

 

Once you start changing the factors, it becomes a different ballgame. Yeah, Mort can buy up his Str. But so can Pug. It's like someone trying to demonstrate the superiority of a MA DC over Str by saying, "Well, I'll just buy up my Dex and Spd", apparently not realizing that the brick could do the same thing. It's an extraneous factor that shouldn't be looked at when doing a serious analysis.

 

 

Hand Attack (or just plain extra Strength) is gonna be cheaper than movement anyway. And again, it isn't in the interest of Mort to try and get the exact same CVs as Pug.

 

Again, Hand Attack changes the equation a lot. At this point, you're really comparing Hand Attack with move-through, and that's a battle that Hand Attack is gonna win every time.

 

If you would note, I'm only using the extra points that Pug has saved over Mort to purchase HA. I could have also purchased Str after selling off the free Stun and have a even greater advantage, but that's a little cheesy.

 

Remember, these are Pug's bonus points.

[Guest C--]

Re: Passing Strike (martial maneuver) Unbalanced?

 

Nope. A GM has as many points to throw around as he wants. Against Con-El or a team of Con-Els' date=' I could throw 5 1000 pt characters built with the same tricks, or 5 3000 pt characters if I wanted to. It's a losing game trying to compete directly against the GM.[/quote']

 

I was making a mocking comment on Agent X's golden age game from about a year ago. We didn't know we were going to be facing off against the Justice Society of Germany. We got whooped bad.

 

Or you could simply give everyone 750-1000 pts and everything is right in the world again.

 

Well, if you want to go and do that...

 

 

Once you start changing the factors, it becomes a different ballgame. Yeah, Mort can buy up his Str. But so can Pug. It's like someone trying to demonstrate the superiority of a MA DC over Str by saying, "Well, I'll just buy up my Dex and Spd", apparently not realizing that the brick could do the same thing.

 

Yeah, I agree with that, but...

 

It's an extraneous factor that shouldn't be looked at when doing a serious analysis.

 

If you would note, I'm only using the extra points that Pug has saved over Mort to purchase HA. I could have also purchased Str after selling off the free Stun and have a even greater advantage, but that's a little cheesy.

 

Remember, these are Pug's bonus points.

 

Yeah, but if Pug is buying Hand Attack, then Mort won't even bother with buying up more Flight or Superleap. It's cheaper on both of these concepts to just buy up pure Str or Hand Attack and not even worry about the maneuvers. Even my speedster who did Passing Strike on a regular basis got the majority of his damage from Hand Attack defined as "Black Hole Punch" that he'd tack onto his Passing Strike. If you're purposefully building a character for badassitude, he'll have enough movement to get where he's going and then he'll get his real damage from other sources. The v/5 or v/3 damage is just gravy for the true mighty warrior.

 

Oh, and Passing Strike won't add to the Absorbtion that Bouncing Boy has going when he does his move-through.

[Gary]

Re: Passing Strike (martial maneuver) Unbalanced?

 

I was making a mocking comment on Agent X's golden age game from about a year ago. We didn't know we were going to be facing off against the Justice Society of Germany. We got whooped bad.

 

 

Yeah, the difference between a 1000 pt game and a 350 pt game is essentially how much time it takes to count the dice. The GM is going to be throwing equivalent challenges against you regardless of your power level.

 

 

 

Well, if you want to go and do that...

 

 

Yeah, I'm kinda funny that way.

 

I've found that while I can point munch with the best of them, I prefer to simply have everyone have more points when playing in a high powered game. It's more fun than trying to squeeze out every last point I can. YMMV.

 

 

Yeah, I agree with that, but...

 

 

 

Yeah, but if Pug is buying Hand Attack, then Mort won't even bother with buying up more Flight or Superleap. It's cheaper on both of these concepts to just buy up pure Str or Hand Attack and not even worry about the maneuvers. Even my speedster who did Passing Strike on a regular basis got the majority of his damage from Hand Attack defined as "Black Hole Punch" that he'd tack onto his Passing Strike. If you're purposefully building a character for badassitude, he'll have enough movement to get where he's going and then he'll get his real damage from other sources. The v/5 or v/3 damage is just gravy for the true mighty warrior.

 

Oh, and Passing Strike won't add to the Absorbtion that Bouncing Boy has going when he does his move-through.

 

 

Remember, my analysis was only dealing with 15-30" of movement, something that most characters would like to have anyway. I'm not arguing the merits of movements vs HA or Str, I'm merely comparing 1 maneuver to another.

[Guest C--]

Re: Passing Strike (martial maneuver) Unbalanced?

 

Yeah' date=' the difference between a 1000 pt game and a 350 pt game is essentially how much time it takes to count the dice. The GM is going to be throwing equivalent challenges against you regardless of your power level.[/quote']

 

Well, the villains were 1000 points, but the heroes weren't. And they weren't built like Con-El, either. This was really in response to your "the GM doesn't want to murder the PCs" statement.

 

Yeah, I'm kinda funny that way.

 

I've found that while I can point munch with the best of them, I prefer to simply have everyone have more points when playing in a high powered game. It's more fun than trying to squeeze out every last point I can. YMMV.

 

Sometimes it's fun to squeeze out the points. Sometimes its fun to just play a 1000 point game.

 

Remember, my analysis was only dealing with 15-30" of movement, something that most characters would like to have anyway. I'm not arguing the merits of movements vs HA or Str, I'm merely comparing 1 maneuver to another.

 

Right. Passing Strike is going to give you overall better combat values, while move-through is gonna be more damaging. You really do see the benefits of Passing Strike when you try and buy up all the CVs on move-through, but with a properly built character it shouldn't be a big problem.

 

Passing Strike is hella good, but I don't think it's so good as to be a problem with the system.