Flying into walls

[bc.robert]

Hey there, I don't normally post but have read the boards for awhile and had an interesting question arise in the game I GM for.

I have a character who has a flight ability and he wants to also go through walls. Since his strength isn't great enough to go through them as quickly as he wanted he decided he wants to take Tunneling Usable as a Second Mode of Transportation on his Flight. I know as the GM for the game the final decision of whether he is allowed to take this or make him take some other power like Tunneling separately. I was just wondering how much PD/ED or def for 5th edition he would be able to go through or would you allow him to go through.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Flying into walls

 

I would convert it to an equal amount of Active Points of Tunneling.

 

6" of Flight would be 12 Active Points, thus getting them 2" throigh 2DEF.

 

Another way to do this is to treat the movement as a Move Through on the Wall using the Flight Velocity as Damage; and buy some Defenses as "Only When Breaking Through Walls" -1 or so.

[Susano]

Re: Flying into walls

 

I would convert it to an equal amount of Active Points of Tunneling.

 

6" of Flight would be 12 Active Points, thus getting them 2" throigh 2DEF.

 

Another way to do this is to treat the movement as a Move Through on the Wall using the Flight Velocity as Damage; and buy some Defenses as "Only When Breaking Through Walls" -1 or so.

 

You could also toss in some dice of Hand Attack with "Only For Wall Busting" (-1) to make it a little easier to blast through barriers.

[bc.robert]

Re: Flying into walls

 

Converting active points from flight to the defense it can go through is what I was thinking of doing also glad I wasn't the only one who thought that way and is probably the way I am going to go. The main reason for asking is this is the first time I have had a character want that advantage on a power and was unsure how it translated to something more complicated then Flight with Gliding or Swimming as second mode of transportation. Thanks again guys .

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Flying into walls

 

How about Desolidification?

[Sean Waters]

Re: Flying into walls

 

What sort of wall?

 

Most walls are going to be 5-7 DEF and maybe 9 points of Body per man-sized hole in a half metre thick wall: that is 14-16 Body. If you want to go through twice the thickness of wall, that just requires another couple fo points of Body (although going through two setarate walls requires twice the amount of Body). Bear in mind you can do multiple move throughs so long as you succeed in getting through the first wall you'll get through them all.

 

In practice if you can do 15 Body with your move through you can fly through walls (assuming you can take 1/2 x 15d6 damage several times).

 

I do not know what STR this character has, but I guess from your post it is lowish: 20 points? That is 4d6 contribution to damage so you need 11 more. That is a lot of move: 66 m of flight would do it, but, well, that IS a lot. The solution I would probably go for has been suggested: a few dice of HtH linked to flight and only for bashing through walls. Call it some sort of battering ram field he generates. 5 dice of that would not cost you too much (only for flying through walls? At least -1, maybe -2) and would reduce the flight speed needed to about 36m: practically dawdling!

 

Alternatively, if you want to buy flight (alternative mode: tunelling) you have to be a BIT careful as there is a slightly different cost basis. Personally I'd allow you to use 'alternative mode' for the movement and buy the PD you can get through separately: so 15-16 PD is an additional 30-32 points.

 

Interesting aside - just noticed that mental and mineral walls are now harder to Energy Blast through than they are to Physical Blast through. I quite like that, I think.

[bc.robert]

Re: Flying into walls

 

The character has 20 strength and 60m of flying he is extremely fast in the air. The problem with a H2H attack is that the person wants to do a half move through the wall and then make an attack. If he was to use the attack method he would break the wall for sure but then be stuck having to wait for his next phase to attack which he really doesn't want to do. Desolidification might work but I believe he wanted to tunnel so other people can follow him, now that I am thinking of this I am not sure if Tunneling naturally makes a hole for others to follow through or it fills in inherently (don't have book or pdfs available right now). The problem is really coming from the issue I should have stated in the original post that he wants to bust through most walls with a half move then make a seperate attack. Hence the original idea of using second mode of transportation. If there is another way to simulate this that you guys can think of I am open to suggestions just not sure how to simulate this or if you guys think this is a potentially unbalancing move I would love to hear why you think so.

[Susano]

Re: Flying into walls

 

The character has 20 strength and 60m of flying he is extremely fast in the air. The problem with a H2H attack is that the person wants to do a half move through the wall and then make an attack. If he was to use the attack method he would break the wall for sure but then be stuck having to wait for his next phase to attack which he really doesn't want to do. Desolidification might work but I believe he wanted to tunnel so other people can follow him' date=' now that I am thinking of this I am not sure if Tunneling naturally makes a hole for others to follow through or it fills in inherently (don't have book or pdfs available right now). The problem is really coming from the issue I should have stated in the original post that he wants to bust through most walls with a half move then make a seperate attack. Hence the original idea of using second mode of transportation. If there is another way to simulate this that you guys can think of I am open to suggestions just not sure how to simulate this or if you guys think this is a potentially unbalancing move I would love to hear why you think so.[/quote']

 

The problem here is that simply Half-Moving through the wall requires a Move Through, which requires an Attack Roll, which ends your Phase. So no Half Move through a wall and then attack. You could so something akin to the Super Strength Smash Through, which is Tunneling (it leaves an open hole by default). However, this would be combining movement forms so the GM's going to need to be okay with going from Flight to Tunneling to an attack (I think 6E mentions this, however.)

 

One way to build it is to have your Tunneling Linked to your Flight and set off with a Trigger (encounters a wall). Make it 2-4m and up to 15 DEF and you can blast through most anything. Oh, and no need to worry about that pesky 1/2 move nonsense.

[bigbywolfe]

Re: Flying into walls

 

Susano for the WIN!

 

Seriously though, the linked/triggered Tunneling is brilliant. It might cost a bit more, but it saves you from wasting half your phase and seems fairly RAW as well.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Flying into walls

 

If you know the target is there - and presumably you at least suspect it if you are moving through a wall to get them - you can do a multiple move through, with a full move: no problem.

 

I'd build from a (slightly) more realistic PoV though:

 

40 Blast 8d6, Area Of Effect (1m Cone Explosion; +¼), Reduced Endurance (0 END; +½), Trigger (Activating the Trigger requires a Zero Phase Action, Trigger resets automatically, immediately after it activates; Move through on a wall; +¾) (100 Active Points); Limited Power Power loses about half of its effectiveness (Oly when doing a successful move through on a wall; -1), No Range (-½)

26 Blast 8d6, Reduced Endurance (0 END; +½), Trigger (Activating the Trigger requires a Zero Phase Action, Trigger resets automatically, immediately after it activates; Only for flying through walls; +¾) (90 Active Points); Limited Power Power loses almost all of its effectiveness (Only for flying through walls; -2), No Range (-½)

 

SO: 8d6 cone EB to anyone standing on the other side of the wall, and 16d6 to blast through: all it requires is flying at a wall. If it goes then you get an unmitigated move through at what was beyond (which also takes the 8d6 explosion - flying bricks HURT)

[phookz]

Re: Flying into walls

 

I like Sean's idea of the AOE cone for the wall debris as a weapon. Just keep in mind that the typical walls are nowhere near as tough as previously mentioned. According to 6E2 p171, a Brick Wall has 5 PD and 3 BODY, and a reinforced concrete wall is 8 PD and 5 BODY. So you can probably lower the DC a bit and still expect to get through. With 20 STR and 60m of Flight, assuming max velocity you have 14d6 without adding any powers at all, more than enough for most non-reinforced walls and should see you through the reinforced ones most of the time as well.

 

One nice thing about Sean's build is it doesn't do any damage to the attacker like Move Through, and you don't need your max movement to get through most walls. The downside is you won't be able to add that additional damage to the user on the other side either.

 

Another thought would be additional PD just for Move Through's on Walls.

[prestidigitator]

Re: Flying into walls

 

Hmm. I guess breaking through a wall could be the equivalent of doing Knockback to a normal target for the purpose of how much damage the attacker takes. In that case, I'm with the multiple Move Through approach unless you really want to define a separate power. So one thing you might want is some extra limited PD for absorbing two lots of the portion of the Move Through damage that gets applied to yourself.

[EverKnight]

Re: Flying into walls

 

The character has 20 strength and 60m of flying he is extremely fast in the air. The problem with a H2H attack is that the person wants to do a half move through the wall and then make an attack. If he was to use the attack method he would break the wall for sure but then be stuck having to wait for his next phase to attack which he really doesn't want to do. Desolidification might work but I believe he wanted to tunnel so other people can follow him' date=' now that I am thinking of this I am not sure if Tunneling naturally makes a hole for others to follow through or it fills in inherently (don't have book or pdfs available right now). The problem is really coming from the issue I should have stated in the original post that he wants to bust through most walls with a half move then make a seperate attack. Hence the original idea of using second mode of transportation. If there is another way to simulate this that you guys can think of I am open to suggestions just not sure how to simulate this or if you guys think this is a potentially unbalancing move I would love to hear why you think so.[/quote']

 

If the idea is just that he wants to attack before the enemy then another option is to look at presence attacks. Bursting through a wall to surprise the enemy has got to be worth a few extra dice so there is a chance the enemy will hesitate before acting. That should give the character another full phase to act as well as allowing his team mates to pile in uninterrupted.

[phookz]

Re: Flying into walls

 

Good call - I like that idea EverKnight.

 

Here's another thought; buy STR with a limitation only for casual STR against walls & doors, link it to the flight (you'll get 1/4 less limitation because the STR will probably be greater than the flight):

 

31 I laugh at your puny walls: +100 STR (100 Active Points); Limited Power Power loses almost all of its effectiveness (Only for casual STR vs walls & doors; -2), Linked (Flight; -1/4)

 

With this power you'll have an additional 50 STR to add to the base STR (20 was it?) for bursting through the wall. You can burst through the wall and still attack; you're not using an attack action to do it. I'm not sure about the value of the limitation, but I think it's about right; you can't do much with this STR at all. The Linked limitation means it's proportional to the flight (6E1 p159), so you can't fly really slowly at the wall and blast through it, but I think that's a good thing.

 

It's fairly expensive, but it is giving you the ability to burst through a wall like it wasn't there without using an attack; that seems like it should be worth something.

[bigbywolfe]

Re: Flying into walls

 

I like that, but would have to think about allowing someone to have Casual STR higher than their actual STR dor any reason. Yes the limitation make it very specific, but for some reason it's just not clicking with me. I'll think on it more.