Is Leaping too Cheap?

[Mestopheles]

Re: Is Leaping too Cheap?

 

Maybe this is a silly question, but I've thought about it before and never had a chance to ask you guys (I'm a 6- month lurker who just created a login to ask a question in the Dark Champions thread)

 

If you have say... 25" of leaping, does that mean if you step off a rooftop and make a controlled fall to the sidewalk you're not subject to falling damage? Assuming you just have strong legs as your SFX I would say yes (and I'm the GM so nyah nyah) but I'm interested to hear if anyone disagrees

[BoneDaddy]

Re: Is Leaping too Cheap?

 

Maybe this is a silly question, but I've thought about it before and never had a chance to ask you guys (I'm a 6- month lurker who just created a login to ask a question in the Dark Champions thread)

 

If you have say... 25" of leaping, does that mean if you step off a rooftop and make a controlled fall to the sidewalk you're not subject to falling damage? Assuming you just have strong legs as your SFX I would say yes (and I'm the GM so nyah nyah) but I'm interested to hear if anyone disagrees

I would say yes, and further I would allow a basic breakfall or acrobatics roll to turn a fall into a jump.

 

Back to the physics issue. Gremlin is a superleaper, with 50" inches total of accurate leaping and X16 NCM. He can jump for just shy of a mile, but it takes him 16 seconds (phases) to do so, at a leisurely 225 MPH. Of course, this requires a tremendous parabolic arc, up for eight dizzying seconds, and back down for eight equally dizzying seconds. He achieves a height of 1024 feet (about 170"), with an initial leaping velocity of 284 miles per hour.

 

So, I would argue that with a NCM, the safe falling distance increases a great deal. Additionally, Gremlin has GREAT shoes.

 

Addendum: I looked in the Ultimate Brick, to see what it had to say about "realistic" leaping. Due to his small size (4 levels of shrinking) and his great strength (40) he must take care when leaping not to hurl himself into low earth orbit.

[Bloodstone]

Re: Is Leaping too Cheap?

 

Additionally' date=' Gremlin has GREAT shoes.[/quote']

 

It's gotta be the shoes.

[Era Scarecrow]

Re: Is Leaping too Cheap?

 

I would say yes, and further I would allow a basic breakfall or acrobatics roll to turn a fall into a jump.

 

Back to the physics issue. Gremlin is a superleaper, with 50" inches total of accurate leaping and X16 NCM. He can jump for just shy of a mile, but it takes him 16 seconds (phases) to do so, at a leisurely 225 MPH. Of course, this requires a tremendous parabolic arc, up for eight dizzying seconds, and back down for eight equally dizzying seconds. He achieves a height of 1024 feet (about 170"), with an initial leaping velocity of 284 miles per hour.

 

So, I would argue that with a NCM, the safe falling distance increases a great deal. Additionally, Gremlin has GREAT shoes.

 

Definately the shoes, or is it the cereal? Does he do wheeties or something?

 

Back to being serious. Those statistics are interesting and incredible for a single leap/bound, at a great velocity. Using a 'full retreat', he could easily do his first movement to get far enough away, and his second movement to jump (Does he get to take recoveries while he's in his 16seconds of movement??). If he successfully uses his acrobatics to turn a fall into a jump, he could easily slip on the empire state building and make a safe landing. This makes me want to build a multipower, but not do something obsurd.

 

From link ->

I know this guy who wanted nothing but 250 point of Superleap. I don't think he acutally got to write it up because the GM wouldn't let him.

 

http://surbrook.devermore.net:16080/herosource/worsthero.html - at the bottom is a link to more resources, and a lot of nice humor stuff

 

Question: I recall in the rulebook you could use the movement to do multiple move-by's; with the exception you could only hit him in the same hex as your first hit, as you were circling him.. which means you could hit him once for every 6 hex's of movement, care to clarify that? Or is it as it sounds?

 

Era

[Sean Waters]

Re: Is Leaping too Cheap?

 

I would say yes, and further I would allow a basic breakfall or acrobatics roll to turn a fall into a jump.

 

Back to the physics issue. Gremlin is a superleaper, with 50" inches total of accurate leaping and X16 NCM. He can jump for just shy of a mile, but it takes him 16 seconds (phases) to do so, at a leisurely 225 MPH. Of course, this requires a tremendous parabolic arc, up for eight dizzying seconds, and back down for eight equally dizzying seconds. He achieves a height of 1024 feet (about 170"), with an initial leaping velocity of 284 miles per hour.

 

So, I would argue that with a NCM, the safe falling distance increases a great deal. Additionally, Gremlin has GREAT shoes.

 

Interesting to compare with flight, for example.

 

50" of flight, and 16x NCM. Cool. You can do 300mph x SPD, or thereabouts.

 

Mind you, you can only accelerate at (COMBAT MOVE)/Phase.

 

So, Phase 1: you are doing 50" per phase, total 50" covered.

 

Phase 2 you are doing 100" per phase, 150 " covered

 

By Phase 5 you will be doing 250" per phase and you will have covered 750".

 

Mind you, in the same time, the 50" x16 NCM character will have covered 800".

 

Actually getting there and stopping is even worse.

 

You can only accelerate for half the journey and then you have to start decelerating. It is going to take the flier 7 phases to actually land on that hex 800" away. The leaper landed 2 phases ago.

 

Sure flight is faster for really long journeys, but leaping gets you there quicker on local routes.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Is Leaping too Cheap?

 

Interesting thought. Explain to me your theory behind this.

 

I didn't figure you could combine two movement powers into one movement -- unless, of course, you were going to half-move using one, then half-move using the other. So, really, you get to move 7" gliding and 1" of flying -- or 8", going by your two movements. 9", if you tack on that extra 1" of Flight.

 

NIMGYD.

 

I'm not aware of anything that prevents you from combining two movement modes as a sort of compound power, so long as it makes sense. The plan here, of course, would be to have the flight, rather than necessarily being used for forward movement, provide at least 1" of upthrust so you never come to ground with your gliding. You probably shouldn't buy the thing linked, I'll conceed that, but you could certainly buy the flight with a 'only for vertical movement' limitation, and that is probably worth -1.

 

So: for 18 real points you can have 4" of flight (up only - 1) and 14" of gliding. OK, so now we are down to 14" but the cost to increase velocity goes up at 1 inch per point. For 30 points you are doing 26" horizontally and you are still able to maintain your vertical component indefinitely and even increase it.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Is Leaping too Cheap?

 

The other giggle here is that you can buy your flight in a MP with leaping with a high non combat multiple.

 

The thing about leaping is that you do all your accelerating and decelerating at the beginning and end, even non combat, so at the end of the first phase you are moving at full noncombat velocity (int he above example (800/5 = 160" per phase).

 

If you want to be rampantly abusive, and I know none of you chaps would, take this for a spin:

 

65 Multipower, 65-point reserve

6u 1) Combat flight: Flight 30", Position Shift (65 Active Points) 6

6u 2) Noncombat Flight: Flight 10", x1,024 Noncombat (65 Active Points) 6

6u 3) Acceleration: Leaping +5" (7" forward, 3 1/2" upward) (x8,192 Noncombat) (65 Active Points) 6

 

Why? Well, the leaping slot allows you to get up to a speed of a little over 7000 mph in a single phase, assuming a SPD of 4. then you switch to slot 2 and you are golden. Similarly, when you want to stop, slot 3 allows a velocity of a little over 7000 mph to be negated in a single phase.

[Bloodstone]

Re: Is Leaping too Cheap?

 

I'm pretty sure Gary asked Steve this one a while back:

 

Leaping follows the same acceleration rules as running and flight.

 

Might not makes physics sense, but it's done that way for balance reasons.

 

EDIT: ok, well he was quoting the FAQ, but it was related... http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22878

 

And of course, with the lower cost of leaping you can more easily afford to advantages that affect Acceleration.

[archermoo]

Re: Is Leaping too Cheap?

 

I'm pretty sure Gary asked Steve this one a while back:

 

Leaping follows the same acceleration rules as running and flight.

 

Might not makes physics sense, but it's done that way for balance reasons.

 

EDIT: ok, well he was quoting the FAQ, but it was related... http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22878

 

And of course, with the lower cost of leaping you can more easily afford to advantages that affect Acceleration.

 

And that is from the 5E rules FAQ, which has been incorporated into the 5ER rules.

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

Re: Is Leaping too Cheap?

 

On a slight tangent, I seem to recall seeing a character sheet once where the character had Leaping, Autofire. How does that work exactly?

[archermoo]

Re: Is Leaping too Cheap?

 

On a slight tangent' date=' I seem to recall seeing a character sheet once where the character had Leaping, Autofire. How does that work exactly?[/quote']

 

It doesn't, according to 5ER p124. Well, not entirely. Autofire when coupled with Usable As An Attack would potentially let you hit multiple people with it in the same attack.

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

Re: Is Leaping too Cheap?

 

It doesn't' date=' according to 5ER p124. Well, not entirely. Autofire when coupled with Usable As An Attack would potentially let you hit multiple people with it in the same attack.[/quote']

Ah, ok. So this is how you'd do the classic pinball attack?

[archermoo]

Re: Is Leaping too Cheap?

 

Ah' date=' ok. So this is how you'd do the classic pinball attack?[/quote']

 

Not sure what the "classic pinball attack" would be.

 

And on further thought, I don't know that I'd generally even allow Leaping to be purchased as Usable As An Attack. Any more than I'd allow Running or Swimming to be bought UAAA. But I suppose there might be circumstances that I would...

[Bloodstone]

Re: Is Leaping too Cheap?

 

There are a couple of ways to do the Pinball style attacks. The Bouncing rules, Trigger for Leaping to let you take a move after you have attacked, Selective AoE Hand Attack, buying limited Flight, etc.

 

I think several of those are in the Leaping section of the Ultimate Speedster.

[Wyrm Ouroboros]

Re: Is Leaping too Cheap?

 

I'm not aware of anything that prevents you from combining two movement modes as a sort of compound power' date=' so long as it makes sense...[/quote']

 

Not disagreeing with you; feel free to use either portion of that compound power all you like. I'm just not going to let you do your Leap-Swimming or your Run-Flying in my game. Pick a movement ability; use it. You're not going to use both at the same time.

 

Your MPow, on the other hand, I'm perfectly happy with.

 

As for the pinball attack, I might permit 'Superleap, Autofire' and let them bounce around the room performing a Multiple Move-By (or Move-Through), using the max inches of Superleap being the most distance they can cover; I think I'd allow 1/2 their max to be the most distance they could cover in one straight leap, though.

[Bloodstone]

Re: Is Leaping too Cheap?

 

Actually, I'm about 99% sure there is a rule forbidding the use of multiple forms of movement as a single action, but I don't have 5ER available for a page reference...

 

Basically, the rule goes that You could Run for a Half Phase and then Leap for a Half phase and thus complete a full phase worth of actions.

 

But you can't Run 2" and then Jump 1" as a half phase and then precede to make an attack as another half phase action.

[casualplayer]

Re: Is Leaping too Cheap?

 

The other giggle here is that you can buy your flight in a MP with leaping with a high non combat multiple.

 

The thing about leaping is that you do all your accelerating and decelerating at the beginning and end, even non combat, so at the end of the first phase you are moving at full noncombat velocity (int he above example (800/5 = 160" per phase).

 

If you want to be rampantly abusive, and I know none of you chaps would, take this for a spin:

 

65 Multipower, 65-point reserve

6u 1) Combat flight: Flight 30", Position Shift (65 Active Points) 6

6u 2) Noncombat Flight: Flight 10", x1,024 Noncombat (65 Active Points) 6

6u 3) Acceleration: Leaping +5" (7" forward, 3 1/2" upward) (x8,192 Noncombat) (65 Active Points) 6

 

Why? Well, the leaping slot allows you to get up to a speed of a little over 7000 mph in a single phase, assuming a SPD of 4. then you switch to slot 2 and you are golden. Similarly, when you want to stop, slot 3 allows a velocity of a little over 7000 mph to be negated in a single phase.

 

Maybe this is why the Greatest American Hero's suit required him to take three steps then leap.

[archermoo]

Re: Is Leaping too Cheap?

 

The other giggle here is that you can buy your flight in a MP with leaping with a high non combat multiple.

 

The thing about leaping is that you do all your accelerating and decelerating at the beginning and end, even non combat, so at the end of the first phase you are moving at full noncombat velocity (int he above example (800/5 = 160" per phase).

 

If you want to be rampantly abusive, and I know none of you chaps would, take this for a spin:

 

65 Multipower, 65-point reserve

6u 1) Combat flight: Flight 30", Position Shift (65 Active Points) 6

6u 2) Noncombat Flight: Flight 10", x1,024 Noncombat (65 Active Points) 6

6u 3) Acceleration: Leaping +5" (7" forward, 3 1/2" upward) (x8,192 Noncombat) (65 Active Points) 6

 

Why? Well, the leaping slot allows you to get up to a speed of a little over 7000 mph in a single phase, assuming a SPD of 4. then you switch to slot 2 and you are golden. Similarly, when you want to stop, slot 3 allows a velocity of a little over 7000 mph to be negated in a single phase.

 

As a note, according to 5ER 122 you cannot switch a Movement Power off or switch to another power in a Multipower until you've decellerated to 0" of velocity in that power.

 

Also of note, while the book doesn't specifically address not being able to combine different movement types, it does specify (5ER p363) that a full move is moving more than 1/2 the points of movement with a particular mode of movement. Which would certainly imply it.

[archermoo]

Re: Is Leaping too Cheap?

 

Not sure what the "classic pinball attack" would be.

 

And on further thought, I don't know that I'd generally even allow Leaping to be purchased as Usable As An Attack. Any more than I'd allow Running or Swimming to be bought UAAA. But I suppose there might be circumstances that I would...

 

Of note here, 5ER p197 specifically states that UAAA cannot be bought with Leaping.

[PhilFleischmann]

Re: Is Leaping too Cheap?

 

If you have say... 25" of leaping' date=' does that mean if you step off a rooftop and make a [b']controlled [/b]fall to the sidewalk you're not subject to falling damage? Assuming you just have strong legs as your SFX I would say yes (and I'm the GM so nyah nyah) but I'm interested to hear if anyone disagrees

I've always allowed this. If your legs are strong enough to get you to the top of the building, they can absorb the same force getting to the bottom. But note that it's you *vertical* leaping distance that matters in this case, so 25" of Leaping means you can make a controlled fall of 12.5" (I'd probably be nice and let you round it up to 13").

[Trebuchet]

Re: Is Leaping too Cheap?

 

I've always allowed this. If your legs are strong enough to get you to the top of the building' date=' they can absorb the same force getting to the bottom. But note that it's you *vertical* leaping distance that matters in this case, so 25" of Leaping means you can make a controlled fall of 12.5" (I'd probably be nice and let you round it up to 13").[/quote']I'd probably require a successful DEX or Acrobatics roll in order to land on your feet as well. If you don't land on your feet, then PD rather than Leaping applies...

[PhilFleischmann]

Re: Is Leaping too Cheap?

 

I'd probably require a successful DEX or Acrobatics roll in order to land on your feet as well. If you don't land on your feet' date=' then PD rather than Leaping applies...[/quote']

Good point. But assuming no adverse conditions, I wouldn't require a roll. "No Adverse Conditions" means: they get to choose the moment of the fall, there are no conditions to hinder their ability to remain upright, they can see the ground approaching and tell when they're going to land. If there are strong winds or poor visibility or they're being shot at or chased, then I would probably require a roll.

 

And I might even allow some of the damage for longer falls to be absorbed, but that would require a roll in almost all cases. For example, if your vertical leap is 10" and you're falling 15", you might be able to reduce the damage to only 5d6 (maybe the roll might be at -1 per additional inch, and I might not allow any defense against that - no amount of hard skin will help against the instant deceleration). One might also be able to aim one's leap to land on something soft(er).

[Trebuchet]

Re: Is Leaping too Cheap?

 

Good point. But assuming no adverse conditions, I wouldn't require a roll. "No Adverse Conditions" means: they get to choose the moment of the fall, there are no conditions to hinder their ability to remain upright, they can see the ground approaching and tell when they're going to land. If there are strong winds or poor visibility or they're being shot at or chased, then I would probably require a roll.

 

And I might even allow some of the damage for longer falls to be absorbed, but that would require a roll in almost all cases. For example, if your vertical leap is 10" and you're falling 15", you might be able to reduce the damage to only 5d6 (maybe the roll might be at -1 per additional inch, and I might not allow any defense against that - no amount of hard skin will help against the instant deceleration). One might also be able to aim one's leap to land on something soft(er).

I'd base it on the circumstances. If they dive out of a 5th story window to avoid a bomb or other attack or are knocked out the window, they'll have to roll. If they're simply jumping off intentionally, I probably wouldn't require a roll unless Unluck or some other factor complicates matters.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Is Leaping too Cheap?

 

I'm pretty sure Gary asked Steve this one a while back:

 

Leaping follows the same acceleration rules as running and flight.

 

Might not makes physics sense, but it's done that way for balance reasons.

 

EDIT: ok, well he was quoting the FAQ, but it was related... http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22878

 

And of course, with the lower cost of leaping you can more easily afford to advantages that affect Acceleration.

 

Thanks for the reference. Steve notes that it si not entirely logical. What he does not note is that it simply doesn't work: try it. Use the example I gave if you like, or make one of your own - noncombat leaping that used 'normal acceleration rules' would not allow you to leap in as outlined int eh rules for leaping. In the example I gave, even if you could stop instantly (and if I understand the FAQ, you can't - you have to decelerate) then you could not leap (assuming 50" leaping and x16 NCM) 800 m in 5 phases, as the rules say you can.

 

I appreciate this is a balance thing, but it just does not add up.

 

Also the rules about having to decelerate to 0" is a balance thing that makes me splinter teeth. If I leap upwards and forwards, that means, even if I'm in the air for a couple of turns, because of NCM, I can't turn on my flight until I land?

 

That is, frankly, barmy. I can say that because it is not September any more.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Is Leaping too Cheap?

 

Not disagreeing with you; feel free to use either portion of that compound power all you like. I'm just not going to let you do your Leap-Swimming or your Run-Flying in my game. Pick a movement ability; use it. You're not going to use both at the same time.

 

Your MPow, on the other hand, I'm perfectly happy with.

 

As for the pinball attack, I might permit 'Superleap, Autofire' and let them bounce around the room performing a Multiple Move-By (or Move-Through), using the max inches of Superleap being the most distance they can cover; I think I'd allow 1/2 their max to be the most distance they could cover in one straight leap, though.

 

 

If you can MPA attacks you can do the same thing with movement powers, as far as I am concerned. You might want to limit the total distance to the maximum of one single move, but in the build I was suggesting (well, the second one) you only use the flight to stay up - the gliding provides the horizontal movement. Sure it would be wrong to say that you run 6" forward then fly 20" forward (assuming they are max, not half moves). I can see that, but if you can use them simultaneously for different things, I say go for it.