How to Build: Turn Long Block

[TheRealDeal]

Block normally lasts until your next phase, taking a cumulative -2 for each block you make until then. I want a power that does just that, but is a free action and only clears at the end of each Turn not after each phase. So with this power, a defender could Block (free action) any attack that allows a block, each one past the first taking the usual -2, and like with Block once you miss the power ends for that Turn.

 

You could still take other defensive actions with this power in use, thus you could Block with this power and still Block or Dodge with a normal Abort or whatever. This power would be another layer of defense to simulate a defender who always reacts to attacks. All the restrictions of Block apply to this power, except that it does not prevent the use of other defense actions.

 

Anyone have an easy way to make this?

[LordZorinthrox]

I am only properly familiar with 5er, so this may be different in the details for 6th.

 

I would try buying Martial Arts as a Skills power and buy Martial Block (and by the rules, you'll need a few other martial maneuvers to get the minimum 10 points), apply the Duration advantage for Continuous (+1) so you "don't need to make an attack roll for every phase the power is active". That get's you most of what you want, I think, with the added benefit of a better block modifier. As for making it a 0 Phase action...well I don't know, that is some serious power you are talking about. I do not believe there is a specific advantage for that, so you'll probably have to just fudge it and say that making a power 0-Phase would be at least a +2 or +3.

 

Worst case, that is a power that has 50 active points.

 

Did I do that right?

[Lucius]

Working this up in Hero Designer it costs 19 pts

 

Martial Block: 1/2 Phase, +2 OCV, +2 DCV, Block, Abort, Trigger (Activating the Trigger is an Action that takes no time, Trigger requires a Turn or more to reset; +1/4), Constant (+1/2), Uncontrolled (+1/2) (19 Active Points); Costs END To Maintain (Full END Cost; -1/2)

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary and I turned to go along the block

[TheRealDeal]

Working this up in Hero Designer it costs 19 pts

 

Martial Block: 1/2 Phase, +2 OCV, +2 DCV, Block, Abort, Trigger (Activating the Trigger is an Action that takes no time, Trigger requires a Turn or more to reset; +1/4), Constant (+1/2), Uncontrolled (+1/2) (19 Active Points); Costs END To Maintain (Full END Cost; -1/2)

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary and I turned to go along the block

Thanks, this is great Lucius. I would not need Uncontrolled, since I do not want this defender blocking while stunned or whatever, but would instead want Only Costs END to Activate (+1/4). So I would lose the -1/2 END to Maintain. If you could, can you remove Uncontrolled and add in Costs END only to Activate instead and then drop the Full END Cost -1/2 and let me know what you get? I would try to extrapolate, but I cannot figure how the builder got 19 APs with those advantages and such as I only see +1.25 total advantages and I can only get 18 or 21 APs if the base cost was 8 or 9 respectively. Not sure where the 19 comes from.

[Ockham's Spoon]

If you GM isn't happy with the idea of putting Advantages on a Martial Art maneuver (I know that would give me pause), you could get a similar effect like this:

 

Advanced Blocking: +5 DCV, Requires 1/2 Phase action to activate for 1 Turn (-1/4), Requires a successful Block roll to use (-1/2), Must make Block roll with each use (-1/2), -2 to Block roll for each Block performed this turn (-1/2), Jams for the rest of the Turn if a Block roll is failed (-1/4). Active: 25, Real: 8

[Killer Shrike]

Well...I'm known to be a pretty permissive GM, but even I would not allow a player to modify a MA maneuver like this. That's a pretty overpowered ability and cuts the throat of the very similar Deflection which costs 20 points for a NON TRIGGERED ability.

 

Consider using Deflection for this as the base and add the Trigger, Uncontrolled, and a -/+ 0 modifier "HtH Only".

 

I would consider this to be a "STOP SIGN" power as 1) Uncontrolled Deflection is already a "GM's discretion" ability, as are self resetting triggers, and its extending Deflection to cover hand to hand attacks (though personally, I consider the last item to be a non-issue as the ranged nature of Deflection is a purely metagame restriction with no intrinsic purpose).

 

Assuming you allow it at all, this ability should certainly not be discounted. Said another way the goal (at least as a GM) should not be to make this as cheap as possible, but rather to price it appropriately to its effectiveness. When this works it will be an extremely effective form of defense, especially if the character has some other form of mitigation or a high DCV (to mitigate an attack the block misses against, before the trigger resets and the cumulative OCV penalty flushes back to 0 for the next incoming attack).

[TheRealDeal]

Good Advice, thanks. It turns out in this case I am the GM:) My player is playing a defender type (for a heroic game, fantasy hero type, with an anime feel) who has a BAS (Big Ass Shield) and I wanted to let him have a power that lets him always have a chance to block attacks at him. He is only a SPD 3 (as are all the PCs) and already has a limit on 1 of his speeds of "Must be used for Defense". So it is not a high power game. Each PC has some special thing, and his is defense. So I wanted to give him the fun ability to always have a choice to block. Even though this would last the whole Turn, once he misses (and he suffers a cumulative -2 per block) it ends for the Turn. If you think it is too much, I could keep the limit that if he chooses to block with this power he cannot also use another defense that Segment. I was going to allow him to use this and if it failed use one of his actual Phases to abort if he wanted. But perhaps that is a bit much, and I can always add that on later if it seems needed.

 

So given that, I have no problem with allowing him to use it, but just wanted to get feedback on how to build it. I like having the Martial Block enhanced option as a lower point version, and I think the Deflection option is also an idea for a higher point option.

 

Killer Shrike, why would it need to be Uncontrolled? Am I missing something?

[Killer Shrike]

Well...you want this effect to stay on in the segments between the character's phases.

 

The Block maneuver intrinsically does this, of course, but Block isn't really a valid base to be hooking modifiers onto. To mimic this feature of the maneuver in Power form, Uncontrolled is a viable modifier to accomplish that.

 

There are of course other ways to do it, but Uncontrolled is the way described to do this for Deflection in 6e1, so the extrapolation is that it is the appropriate option for a HtH version as well.

 

 

[Lucius]

I used Uncontrolled because this is a "fire and forget" ability - you don't want to have to use actions to maintain it. .

 

There are special rules for applying Advantages and Limitations to Martial Maneuvers, and I don't know all the ins and outs; I pulled it out of Hero Designer and I assume it's legal.

 

Here's another possible build costing 12 pts. It allows blocks against ranged attacks, and requires a half phase to activate. The shield is OIF because I assume it is hard to take it away.

 

Deflection, Time Limit (1 Turn; +1/2) (30 Active Points); No Range (-1/2), OIF (-1/2), Real Armor (-1/4), Only Works Against Very Common attack (Attacks the character can see and conceivably block (i.e. doesn't protect from attacks from rear); -1/4), Required Hands One-Handed (-0)

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary pauses to reflect

 

[Beast]

First figure each poit in a martial maneuver is worth 5 real points

So starting with Martial Block figure on a base power cost of 20pts and work out the cost from there and subtract out the 20 points