Constriction

[Doc Democracy]

Hmmm. I have a player with a reptilian character who wants something different for his constriction power.

 

I am thinking of riffing a bit on the cumulative advantage.

 

My thought is that he has 40 STR. That is 8D6.

 

If he has grabbed someone then he enables a cumulative effect on his STR.

 

Each phase where he maintains his hold he can constrict rather than do damage - first phase he rolls 8D6 as normal. That damage will be done at some point.

 

Each subsequent phase that he manages to maintain the hold he can re-roll any of the dice of that first 8D6 to extend STUN damage (but not BODY).

 

After any re-roll he can do the damage currently indicated. If he fails to maintain the hold then the original damage is inflicted as the hold is lost.

 

My thoughts are that the character holds on a couple of extra phases to maximise damage up to a maximum of 48 STUN.

 

It would be a cool way to keep the characters total damage capacity lower yet allow him a way to damage those characters whose defences would otherwise be too high to effectively damage. he pays for that by having to spend a long time maintaining a hold and building it up.

 

Am not sure what to charge for the constriction advantage. Thoughts??

 

 

Doc

[Grailknight]

Look into using Damage over Time. You can make a constant damage attack that will eventually wear down the trapped targets defenses and define breaking free as the stop condition.

[Hyper-Man]

I would also suggest creating a custom Martial Arts package with the Martial Grab and Crush Maneuvers.

You could also include a NND attack based on not allowing the victim to inhale to breath (just like constrictor snakes).

[phoenix240]

You could let the player buy the Cumulative Advantage on their strength as a Naked Advantage with Limitations (Must Grab, etc)?

[Christopher]

That sounds like you want NND. Or jsut a really powerfull version of Chocke Hold. The best way to overcome powerfull defenses is to not run head first into it.

 

Some ways:

Constriction:

Naked Advantage: NND (Chockehold and Constriction defenses; +1) for up to 60 STR, Only as Attack Action while Grabbing

 

If he already has a Power Framework and 20 STR, just add this slot:

+40 STR, NND (+1), Only as Attack Action while Grabbing

 

 

If you want it to be an Autoamtic Effect, whenever he holds someone, look at this from HSMA 127:

Sleeper Hold: Blast 4d6, NND (defense is rigid Resistant PD on neck; +0), Area Of Effect (personal Surface — Damage Shield; +¼), Constant (+½) (35 Active Points); No Range (-½), Only Works On Targets Whose Heads Are Grabbed (-½)

 

Martial Arts is a tricky case. All NND's in MA ignore the normal Strenght, so unless he has a "Constrictor Arts Martial Arts" with lots of extra Martial Arts DC already it would be ineffective. HSMA has something fitting under "Elasticombat" (a form of Martial Arts for Stretching Supers):

Wraparound  5 CP  -1OCV  -1DCV  Grab Four Limbs,+10 STR for holding on
Wraparound Choke  4CP  -2OCV  +0DCV  Grab One Limb; 2d6 NND(2)

Add a 3rd Maneuver that fits the whole "Snake Themed" Fightign style and you can add Martial Arts DC to get up the effective strenght exerted.

[Lucius]

Another option is a Cumulative Drain vs Defenses, Limited to only let the STUN from this particular attack through.

 

But the idea of a Custom Advantage looks good to me too. Just not sure how to price it either, unless by comparing it to Cumulative.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Cumulative Palindromedary

[psyber624]

That advantage seems to work somewhat similarly to what Aid/Healing/Cumulative already does. The problem tho is that unless this is a Constant power already you are requiring your player to constantly give up his attack phases to try for "a little more damage". Unless his 8d6 is his best power and defenses on his target are higher than 30ish he would probably be better making a separate attack each phase than he would trying to increase the damage that his current attack is doing. And with what you stated he only ever gets to actually DO his damage one time, no matter how long it takes him to reach his desired damage level.

 

I would probably simulate this as an Aid: Boost Str, Constant, Increased Maximum, (Possibly triggered to eliminate the attack phase requirement)  only while grabbing, only for squeeze/grab, Costs Endurance to Maintain.

 

This would allow him to Squeeze, phase after phase, with his damage getting higher and higher the more phases he squeezed. It would also make his grab harder and harder to escape (as his STR for the STR Roll is increasing). This allows him to A. Keep doing damage every phase and B. Eventually get enough damage through to worry High Def targets.

 

 

As far as the pricing goes for your custom advantage I would probably say around +1/2, but it would GREATLY depend upon your campaign world. That power is really only effective against low Strength (so they don't break out quickly) high Def targets and in most campaigns those would be fairly rare (high STR tends to go along with high DEF). The other use of that power is that vs low Def targets he can increase the chance of Stunning them, but he would probably be better off just squeezing them normally and going for a KO unless your average Stun is really high. (having them grabbed is already fairly effective at taking them out of action, which is what Stunning does).

[Doc Democracy]

Thanks for the feedback lads.

 

Cumulative was indeed the inspiration for this.  It is slightly different and I think that the player gets a feeling of seeing the damage grow towards a maximum.

 

It is a way of keeping overall dice down and maximising the damage from those dice.

 

Doc

[Ockham's Spoon]

Haven't constriction attacks been built with the naked advantage Penetrating on STR in various published HERO books?  Not perhaps the flavor you had in mind, but it works well enough so I throw it out there for sake of completeness.

[Doc Democracy]

always good to cross the i's and dot the t's

 

[Christopher]

Your original idea seems like a Varaiton on Cumulative, with following exceptions:

- The player can fire the attack at any time. Normally Cumulative must have a set "target effect" (not more then maximum effect) and the power won't work until the full effect is reached with cumulatve rolls.

- This advantage is allowed for Stun/Body dealing powers (normal Cumulative is not, as Damage already is cumulative).

- The enemy can allways strip anything but the initial roll by breaking the hold

 

Result:

There is a high chance to reach 48 Stun (14D6 deals 48 Stun on average; 12D6 deal 41) with two-three rolls, unless the foe can break the hold.

That also means there is quite a chance to stun the enemy when the power takes effect, even bricks.

While it is high damage (14d6 average), it is barely above what plain 12d6 deals on average. And 2-3 rolls of 12d6 should get more past defenses.

This all only works while he hold the target, wich penalises his defenses and migt result in allies having to use attacks that don' affect him (no AoE for example. There might be a penalty for "shooting into grapple without hitting ally").

 

Proposed Alternaives so far:

Skipping defenses entirely, via NND or Penetrating. Either applied to STR or a HTH-Attack, via Naked Advantage or +STR/HTH in a Framework slot.

Or even by using Martial Arts Maneuver with NND and a lot of Martial Arts Dice.

 

Using "Damage of Time" with "Defense only apply once", using "break hold" as way to stop the DoT.

 

Using just high STR Crush maneuvers.

 

Drain vs Defenses, Only affects Stun calculation.

 

 

Anybody got another idea?

[Sean Waters]

I know you want to keep the dice down, but why not just add extra dice (doh - I see why that might not be attractive) of HtH damage that can only be used after the grab has been maintained for a certain time, and cap the total damage at 48 stun/12 body?  I know it is not quite what you were after but it does work and is a pretty clean build both in terms of power construction and administration.

 

+2d6 HtH damage (extra time: extra segment, character may take no other actions, requires a grab) PLUS

+2d6 HtH damage (extra time: extra phase, character may take no other actions, requires a grab) PLUS

+2d6 HtH damage (extra time: extra turn, character may take no other actions, requires a grab)

 

That ups damage to 14 dice (I know, i'm ignoring what you said) which averages 49 stun/14 body if you maintain the grab for a turn before crushing (that is why you add the 'character can take no other actions' bit to the extra time).