Touch-By

[Duane From RI]

How do members of this forum adjudicate a Touch-By. By Touch-By I mean a maneuver where a character runs by one or more opponents and touches them to deliver a No Range attack (or perhaps use a damage shield against them).

In previous Rules posts to Steve Long I have discovered that you can do a Move-By so long as you use at least 1 point of STR. That's certainly not enough to add even a half-die of damage, but there is still velocity/10 to consider. A Touch-By using 20 meters of Flight is going to do 2d6 to the foe and 33% of that to the attacker.

How about everyone out there? Is it proper that you have to have a chance to take a little STUN from a Touch-By or do most of you hand-wave this? What if your No Range attack is meant to be entangling or transforming and not meant to do damage (maybe you want to fly-by a Shelby Cobra and entangle it without scratching the paint)?

 

NOTE: Caroll Shelby recently passed away so he is still on my mind. Love the Cobra.

[Christopher]

Re: Touch-By

 

Generally when it has no Range (at all) it should be handeled as a HTH attack - it activates enemies damage shields.

In order to not activate damage shields or hurt yourself by move-by's.

 

I however also considerd to use a different appraoche to the "move by" and "move through":

Instead of Damage, it gives you 0 END STR based on velcoity and you can combine it with any half phase maneuver. It's easier than to make extra Grab-by, Move (attack) by and other-by rules.

But I don't see a problem with RAW in your example. The weakest armored source Villain I know of is Green Dragon with a PD of 10 - still enough to stop 2d6. And the attacker (at tops; 1:36 chance) recieves 4 STUN before defenses. This is not going to hurt at all.

 

And normal humans have Running 12 (+1d6) with 2 PD. So the attacker won't take damage and the victim might take 4 (and no body). That sounds about what a Slap-in-face should do (unless it is a Superstrenght slap).

[Duane From RI]

Re: Touch-By

 

I like the idea of loosening the Move-By rules to allow an action. Consider a character based on Bullwinkle Moose. He really needs to conjure a rabbit, a lion is nipping at his heels. He wants to move as far away from the lion as possible and lo and behold there is a hat 6m that-way. I like the idea of Bullwinkle running past the hat and pulling a rabbit (or another lion) out of it and then continuing another 6m.

Maybe the rabbit runs of in another direction and the lion is distracted. Maybe another lion gets pulled and the two male lions fight. Endless possibilities, but they are impossible without the GM easing up on the Move-By rules.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Touch-By

 

I like the idea of loosening the Move-By rules to allow an action. Consider a character based on Bullwinkle Moose. He really needs to conjure a rabbit, a lion is nipping at his heels. He wants to move as far away from the lion as possible and lo and behold there is a hat 6m that-way. I like the idea of Bullwinkle running past the hat and pulling a rabbit (or another lion) out of it and then continuing another 6m.

Maybe the rabbit runs of in another direction and the lion is distracted. Maybe another lion gets pulled and the two male lions fight. Endless possibilities, but they are impossible without the GM easing up on the Move-By rules.

 

You can do that with a Grab-By ( 6.2.67 ) if the rabbit is in the hat: run past and grab it and throw it perpendicular to your direction of travel.

[Christopher]

Re: Touch-By

 

I like the idea of loosening the Move-By rules to allow an action. Consider a character based on Bullwinkle Moose. He really needs to conjure a rabbit, a lion is nipping at his heels. He wants to move as far away from the lion as possible and lo and behold there is a hat 6m that-way. I like the idea of Bullwinkle running past the hat and pulling a rabbit (or another lion) out of it and then continuing another 6m.

Maybe the rabbit runs of in another direction and the lion is distracted. Maybe another lion gets pulled and the two male lions fight. Endless possibilities, but they are impossible without the GM easing up on the Move-By rules.

The problem with that is that you have no penalty for the Move-by-hatpull. You could ignore the -2 OCV of the Move-by part.

 

Grab has -1 OCV, -2 DCV

Move-by has -2 OCV, -2 DCV

Grab by has: -3 OCV, -4 DCV

 

Interestingly for Grab by you don't take Damage based on your own velocity. So that implies that non-damaging maneuvers with a Move-by you also take no damage as well.

Of course your example is a damage shield - for that a casual touch might not be enough and you have to actually connect with some more force.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Touch-By

 

The problem with that is that you have no penalty for the Move-by-hatpull. You could ignore the -2 OCV of the Move-by part.

 

Grab has -1 OCV, -2 DCV

Move-by has -2 OCV, -2 DCV

Grab by has: -3 OCV, -4 DCV

 

Interestingly for Grab by you don't take Damage based on your own velocity. So that implies that non-damaging maneuvers with a Move-by you also take no damage as well.

Of course your example is a damage shield - for that a casual touch might not be enough and you have to actually connect with some more force.

 

 

Well... I think it says no more than using a grab-by, with those penalties, you do not take damage, rather than necessarily throwing the gates any wider. If you want to make multiple touch attacks without moving, you need to use the multiple attack rules, which do impose penalties, so presumably, if it were allowed, there wold be even bigger penalties if you DID move.

[Duane From RI]

Re: Touch-By

 

In Bullwinkles case, the rabbit isn't really in the hat. Nothing is in the hat. He pulls an animal out via cartoon magic. I imagine the Bullwinkle power as a Variable Power Pool, only for the power Summon (-1), Character Has No Choice Regarding How Powers Change (-1/2), Requires Hat of Opportunity (-1/2), Half Phase to change (+1/2), No skill roll to change (+1).

My thought is that Bullwinkle decides to pull a rabbit from the hat, he has to push up the fur on his right arm to show nothing up his sleeve. We'll go with a Half Phase action for that.

So in this situation Bullwinkle needs to run 6m to the hat, push up his "sleeve", activate the Summon and then continue 6m to get away from both what was chasing him plus what he conjured.

[Christopher]

Re: Touch-By

 

In Bullwinkles case, the rabbit isn't really in the hat. Nothing is in the hat. He pulls an animal out via cartoon magic. I imagine the Bullwinkle power as a Variable Power Pool, only for the power Summon (-1), Character Has No Choice Regarding How Powers Change (-1/2), Requires Hat of Opportunity (-1/2), Half Phase to change (+1/2), No skill roll to change (+1).

My thought is that Bullwinkle decides to pull a rabbit from the hat, he has to push up the fur on his right arm to show nothing up his sleeve. We'll go with a Half Phase action for that.

So in this situation Bullwinkle needs to run 6m to the hat, push up his "sleeve", activate the Summon and then continue 6m to get away from both what was chasing him plus what he conjured.

That is exaclty one situation where I see a problem when using "Hat grab by". The OCV penalty is simply ignored. And while there is no Attack Roll that would makes sense, there should be some other roll that suffers the penalty instead.

[Duane From RI]

Re: Touch-By

 

That is exaclty one situation where I see a problem when using "Hat grab by". The OCV penalty is simply ignored. And while there is no Attack Roll that would makes sense' date=' there should be some other roll that suffers the penalty instead.[/quote']

 

I see your point. We are talking something that violates the rules. Let's take a simpler more obvious example: Jotnar wants to run 6m out a door onto the street and then activate his Growth (Zero phase) and continue running 6m. This is completely against the rules as stated 6E1 156.

BUT...

Here is a conundrum. Those same rules on 6E1 156 allows Bald Faced Hornet to to run 6m to a gym window with human legs, once at the window shrink and after shrinking fly out the window on wings that are only available while shrunk.

[Christopher]

Re: Touch-By

 

I see your point. We are talking something that violates the rules. Let's take a simpler more obvious example: Jotnar wants to run 6m out a door onto the street and then activate his Growth (Zero phase) and continue running 6m. This is completely against the rules as stated 6E1 156.

BUT...

Here is a conundrum. Those same rules on 6E1 156 allows Bald Faced Hornet to to run 6m to a gym window with human legs, once at the window shrink and after shrinking fly out the window on wings that are only available while shrunk.

I can't find the rules that forbid that. I see nowhere that Growht can only be activate while at 0 Velocity and nothing says that you can't move a half move at your increased Running after growth.

[Duane From RI]

Re: Touch-By

 

Christopher - you are right. I totally misread 6E 156. Thanks for pointing that out!

The restriction on 6E 156 is you can't split a half move.

[Duane From RI]

Re: Touch-By

 

Actually I found it -

6E1 156 "However, since his Teleportation Half Move consists of any Teleportation up to 20m, his first 10m Teleportation is a

Half Move — if he wants to Teleport back to his starting location, that requires another Half Move (i.e., what he wants to do counts as a Full Move)."

6E2 24 "It takes a Full Phase Action to make a Full Move; a character who has made a Full Move can’t perform any other Action in that Phase."

6E2 24 "A character who’s made a Half Move can perform another Half Phase Action in that Phase (including making a Half Move with

some other mode of movement, if desired)."