Killing Attack as a special Penetrating Attack

[Grail Quest]

Here is an idea on how to handle Killing Attacks, in a way that is sensitive to being very large relative to the attack, and neither completely vulnerable in an out-of-proportion way, nor completely immune.

 

In this scheme, there is no special way to roll BODY for a Killing Attack. It is just like a Normal Attack, with a +0 advantage "Killing Attack".

 

A Killing Attack is an Advantage that changes the way BODY damage is applied. Because of the commonness of what can qualify as Resistant Defense, this advantage is worth +0.

* A Killing Attack affects only the BODY of damage rolled. STUN damage is calculated normally.

* If (BODY < Resistant Defense), there was no BODY Damage.

* If (BODY – total Defense) is 1+, this is the amount of BODY damage inflicted.

* If (BODY – total Defense) is 0 or less, retain this value. As more damage is taken, use Non-Linear Addition (see below, past the example) to sum damage until it is at least 1 BODY, then apply to the target.

 

E.g. A large ant 5mm long might have a STR of –76. Assuming a powerful bite rated at +2 DC, it has a net –13 DC bite attack, which might be expected to, on average, inflict –13 BODY. Against a typical human with 0 rPD and 2 PD, it will do –15 BODY. It will therefore take an average of 2^(15+1), or 65,536 bites to inflict 1 point of BODY damage on a human. This can be one ant biting repeatedly, or an army of ants swarmed over a target.

 

 

Non-Linear Addition

Where “Non-Linear Addition” is mentioned, it refers to adding based on effect-value rather than absolute value.

Treat the values to be added a points of STR. Combine the lifting amount, and look up the corresponding STR.

 

E.g., 10 STR has a lift of 100 kg. Two robots with 10 STR can lift (100 + 100) or 200 kg, which is 15 STR. Two instances of 10 STR is therefore 15 STR.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Killing Attack as a special Penetrating Attack

 

Overcomplicaterizer? Yes....

 

I like this idea: it appeals to me. I can't see myself using it but I like the idea.

 

Right: you add together lots of little attacks to make (in effect) a big one. From the single ant attacking 64k times I assume that you don't just add attacks inflicted simultaneously.

 

So we need to know how long a 'virtual attack' lasts before the effects fade and you don't add it to subsequent attacks.

 

We need to understand that this does away with invulnerability: hit something enough and you WILL kill it.

 

Can you give me an easy way to record what a 4DC, 8DC, -2 DC and 0DC attack, added together, come to?

[Ockham's Spoon]

Re: Killing Attack as a special Penetrating Attack

 

Conceptually I like the idea of being able to wear someone down with tiny attacks, but I think this method would give me a cerebral hemorrhage if I tried to use it in combat.

 

But to address tiny attacks, I think there are two methods already that would suffice. Taking the example of the ant, if you want to make ants into an attack, you would treat them as a swarm so that the aggregate attack was noticeable (½d6 RKA Reduced Penetration or something). For an attack that would gradually wear the target down, just apply Gradual Effect to give you the proper duration.

 

One question Grail Quest, why just apply this wearing down system to Killing Attacks? Or have I completely missed the point?

 

____________________________________________________________

"I don't want to stop crime. I just want to fight it." - Tick

[Dust Raven]

Re: Killing Attack as a special Penetrating Attack

 

Interesting idea, though it got far too math intensive after the part about turning a normal attacking into killing damage with a +0 Modifier. This is a game played by children, young adults as well as the obsessed comic book action fan computer geek who loves math.

 

I do like the idea of a method of turning a bunch of tiny attacks into a cumulative damage. I'm with Ockham's Spoon with the swarm idea though. A single ant will never (effectively) be able to significenlty damage anything in game regardless of the time. You'd require a swarm of them just to even get close. Might as well just write up the swarm as a signle entity.

 

The only lapse in the rules on this is when you only need a handful of attackers to get enough meaningful damage. If all you need is say, four attacker, then it might be worth the effort to write each up seperately, especially if each has other things they could be doing.

[prestidigitator]

Re: Killing Attack as a special Penetrating Attack

 

Interesting idea, though it got far too math intensive after the part about turning a normal attacking into killing damage with a +0 Modifier. This is a game played by children, young adults as well as the obsessed comic book action fan computer geek who loves math.

 

I do like the idea of a method of turning a bunch of tiny attacks into a cumulative damage. I'm with Ockham's Spoon with the swarm idea though. A single ant will never (effectively) be able to significenlty damage anything in game regardless of the time. You'd require a swarm of them just to even get close. Might as well just write up the swarm as a signle entity.

 

The only lapse in the rules on this is when you only need a handful of attackers to get enough meaningful damage. If all you need is say, four attacker, then it might be worth the effort to write each up seperately, especially if each has other things they could be doing.

Agreed. I like the idea of equating 1 Body damage with 5 Str, then converting back with the combined effect.

 

In some circumstances I can see allowing successive attacks by one or more creatures to add up. I think we could simply forget about this damage either between fights or after enough time has elapsed for the target to heal 1 Body (it shouldn't interfere with the healing of the first 1 Body of actual inflicted damage, though); or whichever comes first. Certainly any application of Body Healing (even if it achieves only 1 Active Point; not normally enough to heal a whole point of Body damage) should negate it.

 

Either way I would likely only apply such a rule in a circumstance where it seemed dramatically important or didn't interfere with normal combat. As GM I'm not going to track this all the time!

[zornwil]

Re: Killing Attack as a special Penetrating Attack

 

Very interesting, inventive. I like it. I woudn't use it, personally, but I do like it.

[Grail Quest]

Re: Killing Attack as a special Penetrating Attack

 

One question Grail Quest, why just apply this wearing down system to Killing Attacks? Or have I completely missed the point?

 

Thank you all for the feedback.

 

I guess one of the assumptions that I forgot to put down is that the way I view BODY versus STUN is that STUN damage is more of trauma than damage to the structure of a creature.

 

Example: Heat versus fire.

If you pass your finger right through a candle flame, you take STUN from the heat and a possible blister. If you left your finger in the fire and it started to burn you for skin damage and skin loss, you took BODY. Maybe a tiny amount that is a fraction of a full point of BODY, but you still took BODY.

 

A Killing Attack is one that harms the structure of the target. A Normal Attack is one that is meant to inflict trauma. If it kills the target (inflicts BODY), this is secondary because of overwhelming force.

 

Now, going back to your question. There's a two-part answer.

Part 1: We already do it. Part 2: Real-world correlation to accumulated minute damage.

 

Part 1: We already do it with STUN, but it is useless to overtly track the values.

 

We apply this to Killing Attacks because the ability to recover BODY is typically very slow. Because it is very slow, there is enough time for the accumulation to possibly make a difference. This is not the case with STUN.

 

Example 2: Applying the system to STUN.

We could apply it to Normal Attacks as well. An example would be a bunch of thugs swarmed all over Hercules and pounding him down--a common scene in the now-cancelled Hercules: the Legendary Journeys.

However, since Normal Attacks inflict trauma, and since just resting recovers from trauma (i.e., what REC and taking a Recovery does), all accumulated fractional amounts of STUN can be considered to be cleared as soon as the character gets a Recovery. That, and combined attacks are already summed by Non-Linear Addition under existing Coordinated Attack rules.

In a sense, we already do it, but handwave the results away as negligible and/or not worthwhile to keep track of.

 

Part 2: There is a "real world" correlation for doing this with BODY (and thus, with KAs).

 

The ant example is pretty extreme. We can scale up to, say, a thug wielding a Swiss Army Kinfe against an average person. Yes, it's dangerous, and if they hit someone in the neck, can be quite quickly fatal. But if the target got stabbed in the thigh or slashed on the shoulder, I don't think it should be rated at 3-4 points of BODY, which would be what it might be after factoring in STR and under the existing all-or-nothing AVLD-like type system.

 

And it should do less to a buffalo or a whale because their sheer size makes them less vulnerable, not the type of defenses they possess. At the same time, a high rPD for these creatures is really not warranted for their skin type, and (IMO) the high rPDs assigned to them right now are an artificial attempt to toughen them because of the inadequate mechanic, and the rPD ratings do not correspond well to the "real world" and will not hold up to scrutiny when compared to what other creatures have in terms of rPD for their skin/defenses.

[Dust Raven]

Re: Killing Attack as a special Penetrating Attack

 

Not to step on your idea Grail, but how about the following:

 

Apply Cumulative to standard attack powers like EB and KAs. The result is similar to what you'd get with a cumulative Suppress or Mental Power. It keeps adding up until you reach the effect you desire (in this case, until BODY exceeds the DEF of the target).

 

This mechanic could have a number of uses, most of them easily abused of course, but one of them would be to simulate the swarm of little guys making a difference when acting together. In the case of the swarm attacking, they would all have identical Powers with this Advantage, and because of identical SFX, the damage of each attack would stack until BODY damage is dealt.

 

Probably won't work quite the way I imagine, but it's an idea I'm more comfortable with. My personal preference is to try out all of the existing rules before adopting a new one.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Killing Attack as a special Penetrating Attack

 

Something of an aside, but I can see this idea working well for coordinated attacks, if applied to the stun (and BODY, for that matter), rather than the mechanic we use at present: it would mean that you could damage something that individually you could not damage BUT if it is something you can damage you don't get the (sometimes) ridiculous proliferation of stun.