A seed

[Sean Waters]

Had a nasty moment earlier today when I realised I was having trouble modelling an acid attack: basically you spray caustic fluid at an opponent and it causes chemical burns once it ges through any defence it can penetrate.

 

I've mugged up something now but it looks a tad unstable, and I was wondering how Herodom Assembled (or at least that sector wandering idly through this particular thread) might go about producing such a thing.

 

Any ideas?

 

For assistance (or hinderance) I'd made the following assumptions:

 

Acid would (generally) not penetrate physical defences defined as being made of energy, depending on sfx, as, by and large, acid doesn't eat force fields.

 

A hit would start off by eating the outer layers, and so would not hurt at all (might smell a bit) if thrown at (say) metal armour built as a focus (or even natural defences, depending on sfx), but would start chewing through those defences unless they were defined as chemically resistant, until it found something that did make you scream underneath.

 

The damage acid causes probably takes several phases, and further damage can be halted by the removal of any remaining acid. Probably.

 

I don't mind what power is used to simulate the damage, but it is a damaging power: bells and whistles like COM drains and blindness can await a more XP solvent moment.

 

I am perfectly willing to be persuaded that some or all of my assumptions are silly.

 

Cheers!

[Zed-F]

Re: A seed

 

Why wouldn't an acid be able to get through an energy force field? It depends on what energy the forcefield is made of, what the acid is, what the solvent for the acid is, how permeable the forcefield is to fluid, how forcefully the jet is sprayed, whether it's a small concentrated attack or a larger more dilute attack, etc.

 

I'd have no problem with writing up a straight EB and calling it SFX: Acid spray. Generally speaking I'd be fine with a MP of different acid attacks. Especially if we're talking about different acids in use for each slot.

[feralucce]

Re: A seed

 

It seems to me...that "realistically speaking" that acid would not be able to get through energy... because it works by decoupling the bonds between ...molecules... without molecules, it has nothing to work on

 

Just my two cents worth

[CourtFool]

Re: A seed

 

What I see…something that causes damage so BODY Drain, HKA, RKA or Transform. Take your pick. Does not penetrate energy type defenses…just tack on a Limitation. Does not cause damage until it eats through defenses…just tack on another Limitation. This could be more complicated if you really want to model the reduction of defenses too; an Armor Drain or somesuch. Halted by the removal of the acid…yet again another Limitation.

 

This is obviously not the only way to do it. I am just saying, why make something more complicated than it really needs to be.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: A seed

 

Gradual Effect on a KA would be my approach, with modifiers to taste.

With a Gradual Effect attack, the defences can eventually get overwhelmed and stop working, which has the right "feel", IMO.

 

I cooked up a new Advantage, Scour, for my old Star Hero game to represent attacks like this that damage defences as well as the target, but it was pretty soundly greeted with a resounding *meh* when I posted it before.

[Sean Waters]

Re: A seed

 

The way I had it figured was that, unless the attack actually managed to do some Body damage it was unlikely to do any damage at all: chemical burns destroy flesh, and that is what hurts. Proved to be a bit of a problem, you know, actually managing to make it effective, within those limits.

[Sean Waters]

Re: A seed

 

Gradual Effect on a KA would be my approach, with modifiers to taste.

With a Gradual Effect attack, the defences can eventually get overwhelmed and stop working, which has the right "feel", IMO.

 

I cooked up a new Advantage, Scour, for my old Star Hero game to represent attacks like this that damage defences as well as the target, but it was pretty soundly greeted with a resounding *meh* when I posted it before.

 

Point me to the scouring!

[Sean Waters]

Re: A seed

 

It seems to me...that "realistically speaking" that acid would not be able to get through energy... because it works by decoupling the bonds between ...molecules... without molecules, it has nothing to work on

 

Just my two cents worth

 

That's what I thought too, but permeability to liquid is a consideration. I mean stuff does get through force fields (air, obviously...). I suppose if your force field stops you getting wet when it rains, you're safe from acid attacks.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: A seed

 

Point me to the scouring!

 

Thread link New Advantage: Scour

 

Edit: Wow, that thread is Ug-leeee (my typing & formatting used to SUCK!), but with some positive notes scattered throughout.

 

Given a quick re-read of what folk said, I'd probably stick with my initial mechanical structure:

Read the "Body" of the KA dice in the same fashion as with Penetrating, and remove that much DEF. But I would be inclined to raise the cost to +1 and consider a power with Scour to "not apply to normal defences" for purposes of Autofire (adding an extra +1 to the cost of the Autofire)

[Manic Typist]

Re: A seed

 

What exactly does Cumulative do again? I'm sick, and not up to actually looking it up myself....

 

 

Ok, fine, I will. I love that book anyway.

 

Ok, yeah, definately. You should take a look at Cumulative. In my eyes, it looks entirely appropriate for what you want. But hey, I wear contacts, so....

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: A seed

 

What exactly does Cumulative do again? I'm sick, and not up to actually looking it up myself....

 

 

Ok, fine, I will. I love that book anyway.

 

Ok, yeah, definately. You should take a look at Cumulative. In my eyes, it looks entirely appropriate for what you want. But hey, I wear contacts, so....

 

I tend to agree, but unless there is a rules addendum somewhere I've missed, Cumulative can't be used with "simple" attack powers like RKA.

 

It's one of those things I'd love to see expanded, myself. I personally don't see why you could Coordinate a bunch of disparate attacks and have the Stun add together for purposes of acheiving a Stunned result, but you can't advantage an autofire EB to do the same thing.

[PhilFleischmann]

Re: A seed

 

Continuous Uncontrolled can also do the trick.

 

Add on whatever limitations are necessary for "Not through these particular types of acid-stopping barriers and defenses."

 

And if you want, a Drain of whatever appropriate Defenses it eats through, maybe with a nice long return rate.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: A seed

 

Given a quick re-read of what folk said, I'd probably stick with my initial mechanical structure:

Read the "Body" of the KA dice in the same fashion as with Penetrating, and remove that much DEF. But I would be inclined to raise the cost to +1 and consider a power with Scour to "not apply to normal defences" for purposes of Autofire (adding an extra +1 to the cost of the Autofire)

 

And if you want' date=' a Drain of whatever appropriate Defenses it eats through, maybe with a nice long return rate.[/quote']

 

I think there's little difference between a Linked Drain, as Phil suggests, and the Scour concept. As such, I'd go with the Drain rather than create a new mechanic.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: A seed

 

I think there's little difference between a Linked Drain' date=' as Phil suggests, and the Scour concept. As such, I'd go with the Drain rather than create a new mechanic.[/quote']

 

As I said on the Scour thread, I have issues with Draining Defences to simulate damaging them.

 

I wasn't neccesarily saying that Scour is the end all be all, but it worked well for me for many, many years. If I was to use it in a modern reincarnation, I'd rule that a defence subject to Scour with the "real" limitation is damaged until repair or replacement is possible, and those without the "real" limit repair when dramatically appropriate, usually implying a return to base or a Power Skill application (such as Gadgeteering)

 

Drain mechanically has NO way of "permenantly" (subject to repairs) affecting something. I can kinda handwave it with things that grow back, but when it comes to damaging defences there is this weird logical gap... Do you simply boost the Fade rate to obscene levels (which effectively overcosts the Drain versus the utility), or do you otherwise ignore the inconsistancies and leave the fade rade at a reasonable scale? IMO, the only ways to do it "right" are either complicated Uncontrolled Persistant Suppress constructs, Transformation attacks, or presuming and exploiting applications of the Focus damage rules.

 

But I've been down this road before.

 

Use it if you like, if not, smeg off and don't complain to me about it.

 

After re-reading the old thread I have NO desire to light that fire up again, the same reason why I never bothered fixing up the idea and reposting it.

 

I'm sick of it.

[PhilFleischmann]

Re: A seed

 

Drain mechanically has NO way of "permenantly" (subject to repairs) affecting something. I can kinda handwave it with things that grow back' date=' but when it comes to damaging defences there is this weird logical gap... Do you simply boost the Fade rate to obscene levels (which effectively overcosts the Drain versus the utility), or do you otherwise ignore the inconsistancies and leave the fade rade at a reasonable scale? IMO, the only ways to do it "right" are either complicated Uncontrolled Persistant Suppress constructs, Transformation attacks, or presuming and exploiting applications of the Focus damage rules.[/quote']

I have no problem with the Scour idea, and I'm not trying to argue with you. I just think the Drain problems that you've pointed out are easily solved:

 

For +3.25, the points return at 5/century - longer than the armor's owner will likely be alive. Is this excessive? Yes. Because even if you're immortal, you're not going to wait around for hundreds of year for your armor to "grow back." You're going to throw away the damaged armor, and get some new armor. So all you really need to do is buy down the return rate to the point where it's silly to wait for the armor to "repair itself". How long is that, really? 5/month would be a +2 Advantage. 5/day would be +1.5. How long do you need the character to be essentially out of commission (without his armor)? If it doesn't have any game effect beyond that, then don't bother buying it further.

 

You can also do it with Suppress - which could be interpreted as making a small hole in the armor so the acid can do its damage to the soft bits underneath, but not so large a hole as to render the armor reduced in the long term. And then the little holes can be repaired "off camera" back at HQ.

 

You could also do it with Dispel - the armor is useless until it can be "restarted," whatever that entails, based on SFX. Maybe the acid seeps through cracks. The armor "goes away" for just long enough for the acid to do its thing.

[Doc Democracy]

Re: A seed

 

My thought would have been to have an attack which provided continuous uncontrolled damage and a continuous uncontrolled transform which both fed from the same END pool and were mutually exclusive.

 

The damage attack - choose what you want but my choice would be NND, Does BODY - the defence would be non-activated defences. So the NND would not trouble anyone with non-activated defences while the transform would be working to transform defences into activated defences (burning holes through it). The transform would be all or nothing and could be reversed with some time in a workshop being repaired.

 

 

That seems like it fits the bill. No damage until the armour is 'holed' or already comes with gaps, continuous damage thereafter until the acid runs out.

 

 

Doc

[Sean Waters]

Re: A seed

 

First off I wouldn't imagine that most acid attacks would cover the target sufficiently to remove all defences: probably just the defences against the acid, or any specifically targetted at where the acid hit.

 

You can go with a drain that only removes the defences for the purposes of this particular attack, but that is expensive for what you are doing.

 

The transform idea looks good, but would be difficult to make work: a target with 5 rDEF and 20 BODY would be as hard to affect as a target with 25 rDEF and 20 Body, and you still end up with the 'all affected' problem.

 

I wound up with this compromise:

 

1d6 RKA (no effect on chemically resistant defences or energy based physical defences) (Any stun damage only applies if Body damage caused -1/2)

PLUS

1d6 RKA NND Does BODY (defence is chemically resistant defences or energy based physical defences)

 

-0 Damage applies on phase following attack (neither gradual effect nor extra time work well enough here to give a limtiation)

-1/2 If acid removed, damage does not occur

 

Basically against unarmoured opponents, or lightly armoured ones, it causes more damage, but it even eats through heavily armoured opponents defences. There's no scaling, of course, which is a problem, but at least the power has a reasonable AP cap. Could add a custom lim: 1/2 damage if rDEF over 15, I suppose, but I'm not really inclined to. It feels roughly right.

 

The NND Does Body thing is how the book does chemicals. Go Steve!

[Doc Democracy]

Re: A seed

 

The transform idea looks good' date=' but would be difficult to make work: a target with 5 rDEF and 20 BODY would be as hard to affect as a target with 25 rDEF and 20 Body, and you still end up with the 'all affected' problem.[/quote']

 

Well, if the armour was natural then I'd be happy enough with that difficulty applying. If it was a focus, like worn armour the BODY would depend on the focus being attacked, no? At least that would be a logical argument to make and heavier armour would be more difficult to affect than light armour.

 

The all affected problem isn't too bad is it, when you are talking an activation roll. Doesn't matter whether you hit the gap in heavy armour or light armour, a gap is a gap...

 

Doc

[Sean Waters]

Re: A seed

 

Well, if the armour was natural then I'd be happy enough with that difficulty applying. If it was a focus, like worn armour the BODY would depend on the focus being attacked, no? At least that would be a logical argument to make and heavier armour would be more difficult to affect than light armour.

 

The all affected problem isn't too bad is it, when you are talking an activation roll. Doesn't matter whether you hit the gap in heavy armour or light armour, a gap is a gap...

 

Doc

 

...focii don't actually have Body, but if they did then it would probably be based on active points, so a 15/15 armour suit would be 45 active points and a 5/5 armoured flight suit (with 20" of flight) would be 55 points....

[Doc Democracy]

Re: A seed

 

...focii don't actually have Body' date=' but if they did then it would probably be based on active points, so a 15/15 armour suit would be 45 active points and a 5/5 armoured flight suit (with 20" of flight) would be 55 points....[/quote']

 

If there is all the circuitry for the flight etc then that would provide protection for the armour wearer and teh transform would make the flight activated as weel - to indicate the damage caused.

 

I still like the idea!

 

 

Doc

[pinecone]

Re: A seed

 

I've always built Acid as RKA, Pen, Continues, Charge of 1 turn or so...if it splashes a Foci,it burns the Foci, if theres some left, it burns you....put in a Lim: Not vs acid proof -1/4 (stuff like say porcelin,or....Force feilds?) and call it a day.....

[CUnknown]

Re: A seed

 

I would do an NND RKA (Does Body), with the defense being Immunity to Acid, or Chemical Resistant defenses, or Force Fields, or whatever. Also, throw on gradual effect like AmadanNaBriona suggested.

[Manic Typist]

Re: A seed

 

Delayed Effect? It takes a couple of phases for the attack to actually cause damage... allowing the person to attempt to negate it by removing the clothes.

[Sean Waters]

Re: A seed

 

Delayed Effect? It takes a couple of phases for the attack to actually cause damage... allowing the person to attempt to negate it by removing the clothes.

 

...yeah, I can see where this one is going....