Confused about multiple power attacks

[Vestnik]

I've been meaning to ask this for awhile.

 

Perhaps it's been changed in the revised edition, but by my understanding in 5th edition if a character makes an MPA, all of the attacks involved use the same role, using the modifiers to OCV etc. of the lowest-OCV etc. attack, and thus all hit or none hit. Is this right? It doesn't make sense conceptually. Especially if one of the attacks is an Area Effect attack.

 

Please tell me I'm wrong; then we can all go on to arguing about whether Strength is overpriced.

 

Thanks!

[GAZZA]

Re: Confued about multiple power attacks

 

I've been meaning to ask this for awhile.

 

Perhaps it's been changed in the revised edition, but by my understanding in 5th edition if a character makes an MPA, all of the attacks involved use the same role, using the modifiers to OCV etc. of the lowest-OCV etc. attack, and thus all hit or none hit. Is this right? It doesn't make sense conceptually. Especially if one of the attacks is an Area Effect attack.

 

Please tell me I'm wrong; then we can all go on to arguing about whether Strength is overpriced.

 

Thanks!

No, that looks right. The Area Effect option is specifically addressed (if you combine an AE and a non-AE attack, you have to hit their actual DCV instead of the hex). Rule of thumb is much as you suggest: they all hit (or all miss) according to whatever the hardest roll would be (considering DCV, CV modifiers, and so forth). Only restriction is that you can't combine ranged and HTH attacks (you can, for example, combine an Ego Attack and an Energy Blast; I presume you would use the better of the target's DCV and ECV and the worst of your OCV and ECV to determine success).

 

It does get a bit weird and it does sometimes lead to inappropriate results, but thanks to the prevalence of all-ultra slot attack Multipowers I find it tends to be mostly HTH attacks where they don't tend to be quite as strange (although I've had someone with multi-slot Multipowers combine, say, a Flash and an Energy Blast, but that's pretty straightforward).

[Vestnik]

Re: Confued about multiple power attacks

 

No, that looks right. The Area Effect option is specifically addressed (if you combine an AE and a non-AE attack, you have to hit their actual DCV instead of the hex). Rule of thumb is much as you suggest: they all hit (or all miss) according to whatever the hardest roll would be (considering DCV, CV modifiers, and so forth). Only restriction is that you can't combine ranged and HTH attacks (you can, for example, combine an Ego Attack and an Energy Blast; I presume you would use the better of the target's DCV and ECV and the worst of your OCV and ECV to determine success).

 

It does get a bit weird and it does sometimes lead to inappropriate results, but thanks to the prevalence of all-ultra slot attack Multipowers I find it tends to be mostly HTH attacks where they don't tend to be quite as strange (although I've had someone with multi-slot Multipowers combine, say, a Flash and an Energy Blast, but that's pretty straightforward).

 

Thanks.

 

So if a battleship uses its 20-odd cannons in a single barrage, they all either hit or miss?

 

I do not like this.

[GAZZA]

Re: Confued about multiple power attacks

 

Thanks.

 

So if a battleship uses its 20-odd cannons in a single barrage, they all either hit or miss?

 

I do not like this.

Well, you don't have to model a battleship's cannons that way.

 

Let's say the battleship has 5 cannons. There's nothing stopping you from building the cannons like this:

 

Multipower "5 cannons", 135 point reserve [135 Active/135 Real]

4d6 RKA, Autofire 5 shots (+1/2) plus 9 combat levels [13-u]

4d6 RKA, AE: Radius Selective (+1 1/4), maximum of 5 targets (-1) [7-u]

 

You can fire all 5 cannons at the same target (slot 1; from 1 to 5 might hit, and you'll be fairly accurate) or at 5 different targets (slot 2).

 

Or you can assume that you have 5 different gunners manning one cannon each (which is a more realistic scenario), and then there's no multiple power attack going on.

[Vestnik]

Re: Confued about multiple power attacks

 

Well' date=' you don't [b']have[/b] to model a battleship's cannons that way.

Or you can assume that you have 5 different gunners manning one cannon each (which is a more realistic scenario), and then there's no multiple power attack going on.

 

Doean't the Ultimate Vehicle specifically mention MPAs as the way to do this?

 

I shall look when I get home.

[Lord Mhoram]

Re: Confued about multiple power attacks

 

Doean't the Ultimate Vehicle specifically mention MPAs as the way to do this?

 

I shall look when I get home.

 

The pertinent text

Makign attack and damage rolls for every weapon a vehicle fires in a Phase can become time consuming and tedius. To keep combat moving quickly and smoothly, the GM might instead want to consider all of a Vehicle's weapons fired at a single target as one multiple power attack.

 

Bold mine. That is the only index reference to MPAs in TUV. So it is a optional choice to speed up combat.

[SCUBA Hero]

Re: Confued about multiple power attacks

 

Only restriction is that you can't combine ranged and HTH attacks (you can' date=' for example, combine an Ego Attack and an Energy Blast; I presume you would use the better of the target's DCV and ECV and the worst of your OCV and ECV to determine success).[/quote']5ER, page 358: "Second, he can only make one Attack Roll. It must be the same type of Attack Roll; a characer can't use a power requiring a DEX-based Attack Roll toegher with one requiring an ECV Attack Roll, except with the GM's permission."

 

If the GM gave permission, I think the worst of the OCV/DCV and OECV/DECV matchups would be used - but I have been wrong before on those type of assumptions.

[GAZZA]

Re: Confused about multiple power attacks

 

Good catch; missed that bit. Kind of silly to allow ECV + OCV based attacks anyway, most of the time.

[SableWyvern]

Re: Confused about multiple power attacks

 

I can't see that changing from a single roll to seperate rolls for each attack is going to upset the game at all, if that's your preferred method (assuming, of course, that you maintain the rules for applying the worst OCV to all attacks).

 

It simply means that you move from extreme results (all hits, all misses) to a more consistently average result. Over the course of play, the average result will be basically identical.

 

Edit: allowing AoE attacks to be rolled as normal AoE attacks will improve the efficacy of multiple power attacks, however.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Confused about multiple power attacks

 

I can't see that changing from a single roll to seperate rolls for each attack is going to upset the game at all, if that's your preferred method (assuming, of course, that you maintain the rules for applying the worst OCV to all attacks).

 

It simply means that you move from extreme results (all hits, all misses) to a more consistently average result. Over the course of play, the average result will be basically identical.

 

Edit: allowing AoE attacks to be rolled as normal AoE attacks will improve the efficacy of multiple power attacks, however.

 

If I were inclined to make a change, I think it would be "roll once and determine whether each attack hit or missed based on that roll. Levels that cannot apply with all the attacks don't apply with any of them."

 

If you then fired off an AoE and a non-AoE attack, needing a 16- to hit with the AoE and a 10- to hit with the non-AoE, and you roll a 12, the non-AoE atack misseds and the AoE goes off in the desired hex. The same logic could apply to a mental and a physical attack.

 

Rolling separately for each doesn't generally seem reasonable. When LaserLad fires off a massive bolt of power combining his Flash, his EB and his AVLD DazzlerBurst in one mighty beam of light energy, having the EB and Flash miss the target, but the AVLD connect, does not make sense conceptually - the entire beam will either hit, or it will miss.

[SableWyvern]

Re: Confused about multiple power attacks

 

Well, it depends very much on what the multiple power attack represents. Firing a weapon from each hand, in conjunction with your eyebeams, is a different beast to a single attack with multiple effects.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Confused about multiple power attacks

 

Well' date=' it depends very much on what the multiple power attack represents. Firing a weapon from each hand, in conjunction with your eyebeams, is a different beast to a single attack with multiple effects.[/quote']

 

So reason from the SFX and determine whether to use one roll or multriple rolls on that basis.

[Metaphysician]

Re: Confued about multiple power attacks

 

Well' date=' you don't [b']have[/b] to model a battleship's cannons that way.

 

Let's say the battleship has 5 cannons. There's nothing stopping you from building the cannons like this:

 

Multipower "5 cannons", 135 point reserve [135 Active/135 Real]

4d6 RKA, Autofire 5 shots (+1/2) plus 9 combat levels [13-u]

4d6 RKA, AE: Radius Selective (+1 1/4), maximum of 5 targets (-1) [7-u]

 

You can fire all 5 cannons at the same target (slot 1; from 1 to 5 might hit, and you'll be fairly accurate) or at 5 different targets (slot 2).

 

Or you can assume that you have 5 different gunners manning one cannon each (which is a more realistic scenario), and then there's no multiple power attack going on.

 

Actually, there is: battleship cannons aren't 4d6 RKA.

[SableWyvern]

Re: Confused about multiple power attacks

 

So reason from the SFX and determine whether to use one roll or multriple rolls on that basis.

I wasn't trying to argue that one system or the the other is superior, or that the system as it stands is flawed.

 

My points were simply that:

 

1. Neither method is more or less powerful than the other.

 

2. As you mention, certain effects appear to be better modelled one way, others another.