HELP! Is this power/maneuver combo OP (over powered)

[GoldenAge]

We were play testing new characters this Tue. night and one of the players unveiled the following attack as the basis of his character...

 

Passing Strike to two targets in same hex, no velocity on attacks.

Two weapon fighting negates -2 overall attack on both prone enemies.

Rapid Autofire skill allows both attacks to unleash an autofire, armor piercing attack.

Both attacks hit all three times (the maximum of the autofire) = 6 hits for 10d6 Armor Piercing in 1 attack against 2 individuals.

 

Questions:

 

Can anyone find anything illegal with this?

Assuming it's legal, would you allow it in your campaign?

 

I haven't often been befuddled in my long career as a HERO System GM, but this one has me stumped. I could sure use some different perspectives.

[GoldenAge]

Should I be looking at this from an Active Point perspective?

[tiger]

I believe there would be modifiers for attacking multiple targets as well, unless it's AOE

[tiger]

very quick review says that multiple attacks is a full phase action and -4 OCV

[Grailknight]

It looks legal but OP at first glance but that's only a best case scenario.

 

In addition to what Tiger has added there is an additional -2 to hit against the secondary target(just like Move-By).  Any miss in the attack sequence causes all the remaining attacks to miss.(so that attack roll needs to be really low). To hit 2 targets 3 times each would require you to beat the first's DCV by 8 and the second's by 10. If the character has the OCV to do this consistently. then yeah it's OP. Somehow I doubt he slipped a 20+ OCV by you though.

 

Also this power costs 21 END to use one-handed and 42 for two even if misses completely. 

 

I'd allow it(with some question about the AP) but I'd be prepared to let him change it later.  I don't think it works the way he thinks it does

[Hyper-Man]

If I remember correctly, Multiple Attack imposes a -2 OCV Penalty for every target after the first. It also normally takes a full Phase and reduces the Attacker to 1/2 DCV.

The OP indicates the character has 2 weapon fighting which deals with some or all of the penalties for using an off-hand for a Multiple Attack.

Auto fire doesn't impose OCV Penalties per se - how many times it hits is dependent on how good their To Hit roll is. Combining Autofire attacks with Multiple Attack does require an additional Skill though.

I see nothing wrong with the combo as long as the special effects make sense and the character pays for all the requisite skills and maneuvers.

For more details on all the possible necessary skills see the first post in this John Wick (Keanu Reeves movie) thread. It includes a character write up with all the relevant skill descriptions for a similar combo on the sheet.

 

Relevant similar abilities:

12    Quick Fire: Autofire (3 shots; +1/4) for up to 60 Active Points of Any Semi-Automatic Weapon of Opportunity, Reduced Endurance (1/2 END; +1/2) (22 Active Points); OIF (Any Semi-Automatic Weapon of Opportunity; -1/2), Concentration (1/2 DCV; -1/4)

[Notes: C.A.R. System (Center Axis Relock). Autofire imposes an additional +5 STR Minimum to any weapon used.  This can be offset by using the Brace Maneuver.]  END = 1

 

0    3)  Multiple Attack (Free Maneuver) (Custom Adder)

[Notes: Multiple Attack requires a Full Phase to use (the Rapid Attack Skill, 6E1 87, reduces this to a Half Phase). Using it reduces the character to ½ DCV. The character’s OCV is affected by the number of targets, the types of attacks used, and other factors (see below).  A character using Multiple Attack has to make a separate Attack Roll for each attack in the sequence. If he misses any of his Attack Rolls, all remaining attacks in that Multiple Attack sequence automatically miss also.  A character making a Multiple Attack must expend END or Charges for each attack made (this includes any that automatically miss because he missed one in the sequence). He may elect to stop the Multiple Attack after any successful attack. This does not retroactively diminish the OCV and DCV penalties for using the Maneuver, but it saves END or Charges.  A character making a Multiple Attack against multiple targets can choose to attack some or all of them more than once, but this of course increases the number of attacks (and thus the OCV penalty suffered; see below). For example, Thunderbird could make a Multiple Attack with his pistol by shooting Lazer once, Mechassassin twice, and Steel Commando once. That’s a total of four attacks, so he suffers a -6 OCV penalty on all the Attack Rolls.]

 

10    4)  Rapid Attack

[Notes: A character with this Combat Skill has a heightened ability to move in combat. He can make a Multiple Attack (6E2 73) as a Half Phase Action, instead of a Full Phase Action. (This includes Multiple Attacks made with the Two-Weapon Fighting Skill.) No roll is required, and all other Multiple Attack penalties and rules apply.]

 

Autofire Skills

[Notes: (List) Using any combination of these maneuvers takes a Half Phase (Rapid Attack) and halves a character’s DCV.]

5    2)  Rapid Autofire

[Notes: A character with this Skill may use Autofire attacks with the Combat Maneuver Multiple Attack (see 6E2 73). He must fire the same number of shots in each burst of Multiple Attack Autofire (i.e., if he fires 3 shots at his first target, he must fire 3 shots at all targets, even if his Autofire could fire up to 5 shots). He suffers Multiple Attack’s cumulative -2 OCV penalty for each burst of Autofire fired after the first, in addition to any standard Autofire penalties.]

 

HM

[tiger]

I think it would be legal, have to ask Mr. Long to be sure, but I do believe the might have been more negative modifiers than what is listed. But in theory I see nothing wrong with it, depend in on the Special Effect of the power.

[GoldenAge]

very quick review says that multiple attacks is a full phase action and -4 OCV

Player also purchased Rapid Attack.

[GoldenAge]

It looks legal but OP at first glance but that's only a best case scenario.

 

In addition to what Tiger has added there is an additional -2 to hit against the secondary target(just like Move-By).  Any miss in the attack sequence causes all the remaining attacks to miss.(so that attack roll needs to be really low). To hit 2 targets 3 times each would require you to beat the first's DCV by 8 and the second's by 10. If the character has the OCV to do this consistently. then yeah it's OP. Somehow I doubt he slipped a 20+ OCV by you though.

 

Also this power costs 21 END to use one-handed and 42 for two even if misses completely. 

 

I'd allow it(with some question about the AP) but I'd be prepared to let him change it later.  I don't think it works the way he thinks it does

Player's OcV is 10 before skill levels (at least 3) and Martial Arts Bonuses.

[Heroic Halfwit]

I think it's legal, but whether to allow it depends rather heavily on the campaign.  10d6 Armor Piercing damage seems like a fricking huge amount to me, but I play much lower powered campaigns (12 normal max 16 DC absolute campaign cap for unique 1-shot per session or less kind of abilities).  As I recall 10d6 AP Autofire 3x is 20 DCs.  Add in the rapid fire and sweep stuff your looking at 30+.

 

In my campaigns this would be totally out of bounds.  But if your campaign is suitably cosmic it might be just fine.  I've tried to make various mathematical solutions to "game balance" but ultimately I find it boils down to "Will allowing this character alienate the other players?"  This attack setup seems like it would absolutely dominate in all combat situations, which can be fine, but you'd need to make sure that the other players get their spotlight time somehow, which might require you to "cheat" against this character by presenting the team with challenges that are not readily resolved by 6x10d6 AP attacks.

[Balabanto]

There's a huge flaw in this. Power Advantages don't add to martial arts dcs unless his STR and all his martial arts dcs are also bought with armor piercing. Any attack he purchased may already be armor piercing, but I suspect he did this with Hand to Hand Attack, which does not figure through. 

 

In other words, the character needs to pay bucket tons of additional points for this maneuver, plus he has to pay for armor piercing on the full value of his martial arts. All of this has to be bought naked. If you have damage caps, it is likely that this exceeds them. 

 

Armor Piercing in Champions Complete costs +1/4. His STR, his Martial Arts, and his Hand to Hand attack all require this advantage. Even if he purchases Rapid Attack, his chances of doing this with Passing Strike against a single target are not good, since he must "Pass" the character again every time he does this. This requires moving an additional six hexes. 

 

Even so, do not forget that a character may now "Guard" his hex against incoming attacks, allowing an attack on the target before this horror goes off. I recommend Martial Throw. 

 

The key point of all this, of course, is that he didn't pay nearly enough points to buy the effect he wants.

[Hyper-Man]

Actually,the rules allow for Damage to be added from STR and Manuevers to HA's with Advantages. The final bonus gets prorated by how many Advantages are on the HA. So in the case of +1/4 Autofire the effective rate is 25 STR providing +4DC (it increases at 4/5 the normal rate). The same ratio gets applied to velocity based maneuver damage as well.

 

HM

[Cantriped]

 

We were play testing new characters this Tue. night and one of the players unveiled the following attack as the basis of his character...

 

...

 

I haven't often been befuddled in my long career as a HERO System GM, but this one has me stumped. I could sure use some different perspectives.

 

 

So if I understand correctly, the Character has (and please correct me if I am wrong):

1.  Rapid Attack (Use Multiple Attack as 1/2 Phase). 10 CP.

2.  Rapid Autofire (Use Autofire w/ Multiple Attack). 5 CP.

3.  Two Weapon Fighting (Negate -2 of Multiple Attack Penalties if Two-Weapon Fighting). 10 CP.

4.  A pair of ~8d6 Armor Piercing, Autofire (3) Hand to Hand weapons (like magic boxing gloves or something?); ~65 to 105 APs (see below) (~45 to 72 CP).

5.  At least 10-20 STR and 12m Running; which combined bring the attack listed above up to 10 or 11d6 depending upon the exact circumstances (see below). ~0 to 10 CP

6.  Passing Strike (STR+(v/10)d6; Full Move). 5 CP.

7.  OCV ~10 to 14. ~40 CP

 

If all of the above is true, than the build is legal with the following caveats related to Autofire:

1. Are they actually wielding a pair of weapons? If not they cannot use Two-Weapon Fighting.

2. Did you waive the +1 Advantage Surcharge for an autofire attack that doesn't apply versus "normal defenses" (see CC 99)? Although Armor Piercing isn't specifically listed, halving the opponents defenses definitely qualifies as not their "normal defenses". If you didn't their STR + Velocity won't add much to damage; since they now need 12.5 APs per +1 DC. Worse however, they may not have paid the appropriate amount for their power.

3. Do their weapons Cost END? If not the value of Autofire doubles, potentially up to +2 1/2 (see above, except 18.75 APs per DC). If they do Cost END, did the player pay the 20 to 33 END which that maneuver costs (depending upon exact circumstances above)? Are you even tracking END? If you weren't before you should now, given what that player has built. Does the character even have enough END to pull that maneuver off? If so, how many times can they do it?

4. Don't forget that if he wants to attack the same foe twice in a Multiple Passing Strike he have to make a full 10m circle around them for each attack beyond the first, regardless of how he builds the attack, or what skills he bought.

 

Having actually played a character who had an Autofire Armor Piercing Attack, I can attest that they can cause lots of problems for you as the GM. You should always be wary of builds like this. However, they aren't actually that "broken", they just require some planning for.

Defenses such as Desolidification, Damage Negation, and Damage Reduction can really take the sting out of this tactic (not to mention plain old Hardened Defenses or High DCV). And they will be less effective against groups of weak spread out enemies than they are against a single powerful foe. In addition, given the OCV range you gave, he won't be getting all 6 shots off all that often, but he will be spending the END for them (if his powers cost END). Meaning its a huge risk to Nova like that in an extended battle, if it doesn't end the fight, the fight might end him.

[GoldenAge]

from Steve:

 

I don’t currently have access to all of my books and materials, which have been packed up as part of my home renovation project, so I reserve the right to edit or change this answer at a future time. 

 

What you’re describing (Passing Strike + Autofire attack) is a Multiple Attack. The rules for Multiple Attack specifically forbid the use of an Autofire attack as part of one unless a character has the Rapid Autofire Skill (6E2 75). So the answer to your first question is No. If the character has Rapid Autofire, then the answer is Yes. Whether he has Two-Weapon Fighting or not doesn’t matter.

[Balabanto]

Actually,the rules allow for Damage to be added from STR and Manuevers to HA's with Advantages. The final bonus gets prorated by how many Advantages are on the HA. So in the case of +1/4 Autofire the effective rate is 25 STR providing +4DC (it increases at 4/5 the normal rate). The same ratio gets applied to velocity based maneuver damage as well.

HM

Page number?

[Hyper-Man]

6e2 page 100

Adding Damage To Attacks With Advantages

[Balabanto]

6e2 is not valid with the use of champions complete.

[Hyper-Man]

6e2 is not valid with the use of champions complete.

 

Good luck proving that.

[Hyper-Man]

double post

Edited October 8, 2016 by Hyper-Man

[Cassandra]

What exactly are you trying to do?  Please describe the action/power you're trying to simulate.

[Heroic Halfwit]

What are the normal levels of pd/ed stun and body in your campaign?  I think many times such an attack would simply put whoever was hit with it this side of Mechanon in the morgue.  But your mileage may differ.

[Christopher R Taylor]

the active point value of a 10d6 Ap attack is pretty huge for many campaigns, so I'd be careful with that, and there are some concerns about the damage total based on advantages added to Strength (as a GM you can easily rule that an armor piercing attack is not normal, so you'd need the added advantage to armor piercing which greatly increases its cost).

[Christopher]

The main problem are the Skills/Talents: Thier effect is not really acounted for in the basic campaign rules.

 

However I apply one basic rule when considering DC/CV caps:
If a character can reliably pull of a certain maneuver, that simply becomes a part of the cap calculation.

 

Martial Arts and CSL are for me simply more limited forms of buying CV and/or Damage directly.

I count Martial Arts as flat +1 OCV, +1 DCV, +2 DC (plus any extra Martial Arts DC bought). While the maneuvers varry, they keep about that line compared to the basic maneuvers.

[Armitage]

6e2 is not valid with the use of champions complete.

 

 

It doesn't spell it out as precisely as 6E, but CC 156 says that the Damage Classes of an attack are the Active Points divided by 5, and any Advantages that directly affect how a target takes damage are factored into the Active Points for that calculation.

 

10d6 Blast.  50 AP.  10 Damage Classes.  1d6 per Damage Class.

10d6 Blast. Armor Piercing (+1/4), Autofire (5 shots; +1/2).  87 AP.  17 Damage Classes.  ~0.6d6 per Damage Class.

 

In the case of the second power, a Maneuver that added +4 DC would add roughly 2 1/2d6.

[Balabanto]

That's how to calculate damage classes, not "advantages add directly to existing powers and abilities." 

 

Read Hand to Hand attack specifically. HA adds to martial maneuvers that do Normal damage, but not other forms of damage. 

 

Now, let's move to Power Modifiers. An independant advantage (Which is what Armor Piercing STR is) is not attached to a specific power. It does not figure through unless he buys it on Hand to Hand attack also. Advantages are MANDATORY. You can't use them partially. So unless the advantage affects everything, he only gets to use Armor Piercing on the points he paid armor piercing for.