Haymaker question...

[Surrealone]

For the sake of simplicity, on Segment 2 our SPD 6 mentalist wants to haymaker his 6d6 Mental Blast which is, of course, Line of Sight.  (The haymaker will add 4 DC's,  resulting in an 8d6 Mental Blast if/when it lands.)  The mentalist declares his intent, pays his 6 END, rolls to hit his target's DMCV, and succeeds.

 

On Segment 3, prior to the landing of the haymaker, the target of our mentalist moves 1m to the right of his position at the time the haymaker commenced ... in order to engage a comrade of our mentalist.  Our mentalist retains Line of Sight.

 

6e2 pg69 states:

"There are several risks to performing a Haymaker. First, the character’s DCV is greatly reduced. Second, if the target moves 1m or more before the Haymaker is used, the character suffers any Knockback, or the character is Stunned or Knocked Out, the Haymaker fails and the character has wasted his Phase. At the GM’s option, other events, such as the character taking a large amount of damage, may also prevent a Haymaker from being used. These rules apply regardless of what type of attack the character Haymakers with."

 

Per the cited RAW, our mentalist's haymaker misses ... despite his Line of Sight Mental Blast not being Area of Effect or location-specific in any way (i.e. he hit the mind, not the space in which it was located).

 

How would you GM-types describe what happened to our mentalist?  I 'grok' the RAW, but I'm having trouble visualizing how something that isn't location-specific (that, in fact, suffers no modification due to range) ... would miss due to a change in location as sleight as 1m.  Thus, I'm looking for your descriptions of what transpired, above, help to wrap my head around how such a miss might be properly described in an actual game.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I'd just rule that haymakers only apply to physical HTH attacks and leave them at that

[massey]

I just let ranged attacks hit anyway, unless the guy can break line of sight.  I think the auto-miss is an artifact of 4th edition haymakers that only worked in HTH.

[aylwin13]

5ER and 6E both specifically state that if the target moves 1m the attack fails. That is for any type of attack.

 

Saying that, I don't see how moving 1m takes a target out of LOS (unless it moves the target behind an obstacle or barrier).

[Surrealone]

I'd just rule that haymakers only apply to physical HTH attacks and leave them at that

You might want to read 6e's rules on Haymakers, again.  You can haymaker drains, mental attacks, heck, even gunfire... with the usual caveat of 'unless the GM says otherwise'.  Limiting that maneuver only to meleers really seems like a nice edge for meleers, don't you think?

 

 

I just let ranged attacks hit anyway, unless the guy can break line of sight.  I think the auto-miss is an artifact of 4th edition haymakers that only worked in HTH.

This is what makes the most dramatic sense to me, too ... but 'rules is rules' as they say (unless the GM rules otherwise, of course).

[Christopher R Taylor]

... with the usual caveat of 'unless the GM says otherwise'.  

 

And there you have it.

 

[Jagged]

The point of the Haymaker is that you are trading accuracy for power. To allow ranged attacks to ignore the move-miss rule seems to be giving an unnecessary advantage imo

[Hugh Neilson]

6e2 pg69 states:

"There are several risks to performing a Haymaker. First, the character’s DCV is greatly reduced. Second, if the target moves 1m or more before the Haymaker is used, the character suffers any Knockback, or the character is Stunned or Knocked Out, the Haymaker fails and the character has wasted his Phase. At the GM’s option, other events, such as the character taking a large amount of damage, may also prevent a Haymaker from being used. These rules apply regardless of what type of attack the character Haymakers with."

 

Per the cited RAW, our mentalist's haymaker misses ... despite his Line of Sight Mental Blast not being Area of Effect or location-specific in any way (i.e. he hit the mind, not the space in which it was located).

 

 

The point of the Haymaker is that you are trading accuracy for power. To allow ranged attacks to ignore the move-miss rule seems to be giving an unnecessary advantage imo

I think the "mental attack" aspect is a red herring. The same example could be just as relevant to a Flame Blast, or a Throwing Star, or even a weapon with Reach or a character with a few meters of Stretching. The question is whether the advantage of Range should provide more flexibility to the Haymaker. Under the RAW, it does not.

 

When the character begins preparing that Haymaker, he focuses on the target at its preset location, winds up and lets loose with an all-out attack at that target. If the target moves, the attacker's focus on that target is disrupted, preventing the attack being successfully launched. You can also look to that massive DCV penalty - it seems like the attacker can't move much, if at all, in the course of firing off that Haymaker, so changing his positioning (even moving his eyes) to retarget ruins the Haymaker.

[bigdamnhero]

I can see the logic for melee attacks, and sort of for ranged attacks. But I agree it makes less sense for LOS mental attacks where range is a complete non-issue. Maybe just give the attacker an OMCV penalty to hit?

[TheDarkness]

I think Jagged and Hugh hit the nail on the head.

 

The issue isn't whether it's ranged or not. And the narrative value of RAW is, imo, on target.(See what I did there?)

 

You are throwing everything you have on this spot. At the last moment, the target moves or is moved from this spot. You miss. Because you put everything into hitting that spot. When choosing the rather huge advantage to your DC, you accept the possibility this could happen, you are, by default, choosing to do a less accurate attack. It's not a matter of, 'normally, I could still hit them'. This is not normally, this is a haymaker, and the very definition of a haymaker is a less accurate attack to try to pulverize.

 

For the mentallist attack, the location and the fact that it's LOS means it is location specific, it is targetted to the area he sees the target being, thus LOS.

[Ninja-Bear]

Why do mental powers get a pass? I woukd think of it (mental blast) like a bullet once you pulk the trigger, its fired, you can't redirect in mid-flight.

[Surrealone]

In post #3 of this thread, massey has suggested that the auto-miss caused by movement of the target is an artifact of 4e haymakers being HTH only.  In post #2 of this thread, Christopher Taylor seems to confirm Massey's suspicion by actually house ruling the current ruleset back to 4e such that haymakers are only HTH in his game.

 

The miss rule associated with a target that moved ... made a lot of sense for a HTH haymaker in 4e, however, it makes almost no sense for a ranged sniper haymakering his shot, who only has to move mere inches to adjust for a very large delta in target position.  Likewise, it makes practically no sense for a LOS-based mental power that hits a mind (regardless of range or range mod).

 

I tend to agree with massey as to why it is what it is, today...

[Lucius]

 

 

How would you GM-types describe what happened to our mentalist?  I 'grok' the RAW, but I'm having trouble visualizing how something that isn't location-specific (that, in fact, suffers no modification due to range) ... would miss due to a change in location as sleight as 1m.  Thus, I'm looking for your descriptions of what transpired, above, help to wrap my head around how such a miss might be properly described in an actual game.

 

What happened to the mentalist? Can we start first by asking, what exactly was the mentalist doing? If I don't yet understand the in game description of "Mental Blast Haymaker" how can I begin to describe what "Mental Blast Haymaker, missing" would be like?

 

I will make a suggestion though. Forget Haymaker a moment. Forget "he moved." How would you describe a Mental Blast failing to hit the target because OMCV failed to overcome DMCV? Is there any reason that description wouldn't work here?

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary became, for a moment, perfectly still, eyes of both heads fixed on the target, slipping into the graminidogenic trance; all the noise and chaotic motion of the battle seemed to vanish in that moment, no longer distinguishable from the internal roar of disruptive mental energy waiting to be unleashed upon the target, THAT target, which had become a kind of fuzzy disk now the only possible object of attention, the glow of a single discrete consciousness experiencing the world from a point in the space time continuum that is right - THERE ------- and then it was gone, tangled somehow in the surrounding environment that the trance had rendered invisible, as the psionic assault dissipated harmlessly. The brief trance faded having lasted but a few seconds, and normal perceptions resumed.

[Surrealone]

What happened to the mentalist? Can we start first by asking, what exactly was the mentalist doing? If I don't yet understand the in game description of "Mental Blast Haymaker" how can I begin to describe what "Mental Blast Haymaker, missing" would be like?

 

I will make a suggestion though. Forget Haymaker a moment. Forget "he moved." How would you describe a Mental Blast failing to hit the target because OMCV failed to overcome DMCV? Is there any reason that description wouldn't work here?

 

A miss is a miss when OMCV fails to hit DMCV.  However, in the case of the haymaker, you typically activate your power (i.e. spend END) and roll to see if you hit ... and it lands at the very end of the next segment.  Your target could, thus, be hit with knockback and be knocked out of the way ... despite a successful hit on his DMCV when you commenced the haymaker. 

 

As for what a Mental Blast Haymaker is ... it's an "all-out attack" (to use RAW's verbiage) that takes some extra time to wind-up.  Much like a pitcher winds up his pitch ... or a HTH guy winds up his punch, a mentalist can wind up his/her mental blast ... and a blaster can wind up his/her blasts or RKA's ... and an adjuster can wind up his/her drains.  Where it gets strange is the rules about the target moving -- especially with mental powers that hit a mind (not a space where a mind happens to be [unless they are AoE]).

 

This, to me, suggests a deficiency in how the various attack types are handled when the target moves in the segment the haymaker is supposed to land ... prior to the haymaker landing.  I'm not saying there should be no penalty for a mentalist; I'm saying the one that's levied on a mentalist makes perfect sense for a HTH character, a bit less for a ranged character, and almost no sense for a mentalist.  I can't think of anything better, but what's there is mechanically ... absurd.  (The mind moved, and your power is LOS-based and you don't suffer range mods, but movement of 1m where you still retained LOS messed it up somehow?  As I said: absurd.)

[Hugh Neilson]

The miss rule associated with a target that moved ... made a lot of sense for a HTH haymaker in 4e, however, it makes almost no sense for a ranged sniper haymakering his shot, who only has to move mere inches to adjust for a very large delta in target position.  Likewise, it makes practically no sense for a LOS-based mental power that hits a mind (regardless of range or range mod).

Emphasis added. He has to move. He has to adjust his shot. And, having committed to the Haymaker, he cannot move to adjust his shot without interrupting the windup of that shot, so the haymaker is spoiled.

 

If it were just a matter of the target still being in range, so a Strike could have been made, or a Haymaker initiated, after the movement, a character with Stretching should be able to, and always have been able to, adjust his targeting so long as the target was still within his Stretching range. But the rules have never permitted this, so there is precedent for a target moving, staying in range of the attack, but still ruining the haymaker, even when a haymaker was possible only for a HTH attack.

 

 

A miss is a miss when OMCV fails to hit DMCV.

This is a cop out. You started asking, conceptually, what happens in game when the target moves, or is moved, to spoil the Haymaker. Lucius asked you, conceptually, what happens in game when the roll to hit OMCV fails to hit the DMCV, as a starting point for what happens to spoil the Haymaker. If you can't conceptualize a miss generally, why would you expect to be able to conceptualize the Haymaker missing specifically?

 

  However, in the case of the haymaker, you typically activate your power (i.e. spend END) and roll to see if you hit on the segment where you commence it ... and then it lands at the very end of the next segment.  Your target could, thus, be hit with knockback and be knocked out of the way ... despite a successful hit on his DMCV when you commenced the haymaker. 

 

As for what a Mental Blast Haymaker is ... it's an "all-out attack" (to use RAW's verbiage) that takes some extra time to wind-up.  Much like a pitcher winds up his pitch ... or a HTH guy winds up his punch, a mentalist can wind up his/her mental blast ... and a blaster can wind up his/her blasts or RKA's ... and an adjuster can wind up his/her drains.  Where it gets strange is the rules about the target moving -- especially with mental powers that hit a mind (not a space where a mind happens to be [unless they are AoE]).

I can conceptualize this just fine. The attacker lines up his shot to strike the defender. He focuses all his energy on winding up that shot, then lets loose. If the target is no longer where he was expecting him to be as he wound up, focusing on that specific target, then that split second of distraction relocating the target is a sufficient distraction that the windup is interrupted, and the attack itself, is wasted.

 

That can be a windup for Ben Grimm's Sunday Punch, Reed Richard's Stretched Strike, the Human Torch's Nova Blast or Professor X's Telepathic Burst. Regardless of the nature of the attack, the momentary distraction of the target no longer being where the attacker was focusing that windup on interrupts the windup the attacker had focused all his energy on, which spoils the attack. The attacker must start again. And he starts again (if he chooses to do so) by initiating a new Haymaker on his next phase.

[Lucius]

A miss is a miss when OMCV fails to hit DMCV.  However, in the case of the haymaker, you typically activate your power (i.e. spend END) and roll to see if you hit on the segment where you commence it ...

You do? Are you sure? I thought the roll to hit came when

 

it lands at the very end of the next segment.

And frankly I don't see any reason to roll to hit until it's actually time to, you know, hit.

 

Your target could, thus, be hit with knockback and be knocked out of the way ... despite a successful hit on his DMCV when you commenced the haymaker. 

 

As for what a Mental Blast Haymaker is ... it's an "all-out attack" (to use RAW's verbiage) that takes some extra time to wind-up.  Much like a pitcher winds up his pitch ... or a HTH guy winds up his punch, a mentalist can wind up his/her mental blast ... and a blaster can wind up his/her blasts or RKA's ... and an adjuster can wind up his/her drains.  Where it gets strange is the rules about the target moving -- especially with mental powers that hit a mind (not a space where a mind happens to be [unless they are AoE]).

To me it seems pretty clear that rules imply that a "mind" is something that does in fact have a specific location in three dimensional space and that whether one uses a Targeting Sense or Mind Scan, targeting a Mental Power requires knowing WHERE the target is relative to the targeter.

 

I think the disconnect you experience comes of having a very different conception of Mental Powers and of how they work than the game itself does.

 

 

This, to me, suggests a deficiency in how the various attack types are handled when the target moves in the segment the haymaker is supposed to land ... prior to the haymaker landing.  I'm not saying there should be no penalty for a mentalist; I'm saying the one that's levied on a mentalist makes perfect sense for a HTH character, a bit less for a ranged character, and almost no sense for a mentalist.  I can't think of anything better, but what's there is mechanically ... absurd.  (The mind moved, and your power is LOS-based and you don't suffer range mods, but movement of 1m where you still retained LOS messed it up somehow?  As I said: absurd.)

If you can't reconcile the rules for Haymaker with how you conceive Mental Powers to work, perhaps the resolution is to rule that Haymaker simply doesn't apply to Mental Powers?

 

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary became, for a moment, perfectly still, eyes of both heads fixed on the target, slipping into the graminidogenic trance; all the noise and chaotic motion of the battle seemed to vanish in that moment, only the target existed, the FOCUS of all attention, and no noise or movement or flash could possibly distract from that target as the mental energies built swiftly towards a crescendo of psycbic violence - only a handful of possible distractions, such as being physically harmed, were not shielded against in the brief trance state - and THAT was one of them! A distraction that could NOT be ignored, by definition, the sudden gross movement of the target itself!

[Surrealone]

You started asking, conceptually, what happens in game when the target moves, or is moved, to spoil the Haymaker {for a mentalist who is LOS-based and hits a mind, not a place where mind is located}.

Red clarification to your statement added by me to make it accurate ... since that was the full context.  And you're right, I did start by asking, "How would you GM-types describe what happened to our mentalist?"

 

So far, not a single person has rendered a GM-like description of what happened to cause the mentalist to miss the mind (not the space) he was targeting.  A few people have agreed there's a problem and indicated how they would house role it (but no description of what happened to our mentalist who missed, per RAW).  One person has completely dodged the issue by going back in time and limiting haymakers to only HTH attacks (without descrption of what happened to our mentalist who missed, per RAW).  Even you haven't bothered to describe what the miss would look like.

 

There's rather a double-standard, I think, when you hold me to my original question but don't hold anyone else (yourself included) to actually answering it. And do note that a response that's a question ... doesn't actually answer the question I asked.

 

 

 

 

To me it seems pretty clear that rules imply that a "mind" is something that does in fact have a specific location in three dimensional space and that whether one uses a Targeting Sense or Mind Scan, targeting a Mental Power requires knowing WHERE the target is relative to the targeter.

 

I think the disconnect you experience comes of having a very different conception of Mental Powers and of how they work than the game itself does.

 

 

If you can't reconcile the rules for Haymaker with how you conceive Mental Powers to work, perhaps the resolution is to rule that Haymaker simply doesn't apply to Mental Powers?

1. Minds in Hero System don't necessarily have specific locations in three dimensional space.  (i.e. Ever hear of a disembodied mind?  The game I'm playing in has a villain that is exactly that...)
2. Mind Scan only reveals precise location with an EGO+20 effect roll, yet a mentalist can establish Telepathy via Mind Scan with an EGO+0 effect roll (which gives general direction only to the mentalist) on Mind Scan ... and can attack with other mental powers with an EGO+10 effect roll (which gives a distance estimate in addition to general direction ... but still not exact location) on Mind Scan. 
3. And then, if you are in a Mind Link with someone, you can attack through against DMCV 0 without having any idea or care where the target is located (unless, of course, you choose to check that out via the Mind Link).

I think this demonstrates that I've got a good handle on Mental Powers and how they work within the game.  I also think this nicely debunks your assertion that a mentalist must know where a target is relative to himself to hit it ... since I provided not one, but two examples where that's just not true.

 

As for the rules for haymaker -- I'm not trying to reconcile them; they are crystal clear --- but they appear to be still written with HTH haymakers in mind and don't make good sense (to me) for mental attacks ... and only seem to make so-so sense for ranged ones, since it's a matter of mere degrees of change in angles to compensate for someone moving ... when at range.

[Lucius]

Red clarification to your statement added by me to make it accurate ... since that was the full context.  And you're right, I did start by asking, "How would you GM-types describe what happened to our mentalist?"

 

So far, not a single person has rendered a GM-like description of what happened to cause the mentalist to miss the mind (not the space) he was targeting.  A few people have agreed there's a problem and indicated how they would house role it (but no description of what happened to our mentalist who missed, per RAW).  One person has completely dodged the issue by going back in time and limiting haymakers to only HTH attacks (without descrption of what happened to our mentalist who missed, per RAW).  Even you haven't bothered to describe what the miss would look like.

Mental Powers are invisible by default. It doesn't look like anything when it hits. It doesn't look like anything when it misses.

 

 

There's rather a double-standard, I think, when you hold me to my original question but don't hold anyone else (yourself included) to actually answering it. And do note that a response that's a question ... doesn't actually answer the question I asked.

And you don't think it's a double standard to ask us to describe for you what the situation you are asking about looks like, when you won't or can't describe what the lead up to that situation looks like?

 

Also, as for the question

"How would you GM-types describe what happened to our mentalist?"

I concede the palindromedary is not much of a "GM type" but it did attempt an answer, twice. See below.

 

 

 Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary became, for a moment, perfectly still, eyes of both heads fixed on the target, slipping into the graminidogenic trance; all the noise and chaotic motion of the battle seemed to vanish in that moment, only the target existed, the FOCUS of all attention, and no noise or movement or flash could possibly distract from that target as the mental energies built swiftly towards a crescendo of psycbic violence - only a handful of possible distractions, such as being physically harmed, were not shielded against in the brief trance state - and THAT was one of them! A distraction that could NOT be ignored, by definition, the sudden gross movement of the target itself!

[Hugh Neilson]

Lucius' interpretation is pretty similar to my own.

 

The "S" in LoS range means SIGHT, remember. You must target the mind of a person you can see. That means the location of the mind is relevant, contrary to your red-fonted denial. Contrast that with a Punch or a Blast, which can be aimed at where you believe a target you cannot see (maybe you hear or smell him) is located. To the extent he is "targeting a mind", he must target it by its location, otherwise Line of Sight would be meaningless to his ability to target and we would need rules for sufficient identification of the specific mind in question to permit it to be targeted.

 

For a normal mental attack, LoS is established, the attack is made and it succeeds or fails instantaneously. There is no opportunity, during the course of the attack, for LoS to be broken. With a Haymaker, the remainder of the initiating segment and the entirety of the following segment (the "windup period") pass before the attack is actually launched. If the target moves, or is moved, a meter or more during that windup period, LoS is lost, at least for a fraction of a second. That is enough, based on RAW, to spoil the attack.

 

What does it look like? It seems like, if your character is the mentalist, the miss looks like the mentalist focusing on a target, concentrating for a second or so, but the target moves, or is moved, and the mentalist then rails to the sky how it is neither fair nor realistic that this movement could disrupt his focus on the target, thereby spoiling his attempt to land a huge synaptic disruption on his intended target. As Lucius notes, it doesn't "look like" anything when the attack is not visible. Like any Hero situation, "what it looks like" depends on the SFX.

 

Lucius and I have both offered in-game conceptual visions for how and why the target's movement disrupted the haymaker. Lucius' reads more like good prose than the typical RPG. You choose not to accept those descriptions, it seems, because you simply don't want there to be a reason the Haymaker should fail if it has a range of LoS. That is not, however, consistent with the maneuver. Your interpretation seems much more consistent with purchasing +4 DCs to your mental attacks, with the limitation "Extra Segment" and some variant of Concentration, since you are looking for an effect that is similar to, but more versatile than, the Haymaker combat maneuver.

 

The Stretching HTH attacker, Blaster or Parasitic Drainer can do the same, if he or she envisions the character being able to land an extra-potent attack without the drawbacks of a Haymaker.

 

Ben Grimm can buy +4d6 Hand Attack, Incantations, if he wants the extra damage of the Haymaker, with no extra time or loss of DCV, every time he shouts "It's Clobbering Time".

 

You are asking the combat maneuver to change to conform to your vision of the character. I suggest that, instead, you should be assessing the appropriate game mechanics to implement your vision of the character. It seems like that is not a free combat maneuver like Haymaker, but a more versatile ability for which you would need to pay character points.

 

And Lucius, it sounds like the Palindromedary deserves a shot at GMing.

 

Surrealone, perhaps you would like to offer a description of what your mentalist does to focus all his mental energies, causing a reduced DCV and a time delay to the end of the next segment, in order to enhance the damage that will be inflicted if his attack hits. If you want to describe your actions strictly in game mechanic terms like "he is haymakering his mental blast", or fleshing that out with RAW descriptions of the haymaker and/or the mental blast, then why would you expect a better definition of what spoils the attack than a similar reading of the game mechanics from the RAW?

[Lucius]

One more insight -

 

"A mind is a thing that does NOT have a specific location in three dimensional space. Mental Powers target a mind, regardless of where the physical body of the character associated with that mind happens to be." is your own house rule - not something that, as far as I have seen, is stated or implied in the Rules as Written.

 

I think the interaction of your house rule and the Rules as Written for Haymakers is not the only, but just possibly the most obvious, of the points of friction you can expect between your house rule and the Rules as Written, because the Rules as Written are written with different assumptions than yours. For example, if Mental Powers really are that abstract that physical location is irrelevant, why does it matter if the Mentalist can percieve their intended target with a physical Targetting Sense? Should Mind Scan be able to detect a character's physical location if it is targetting a mind and a mind doesn't HAVE a physical location?

 

Basically what you are saying is that the Rules as Written, in this specific situation, DO NOT WORK for you. I don't think any possible attempt at "describing what happens" is going to make them work for you. I think you will need to adjust either your assumptions, or the rules; I recommend adjusting the rules, because your assumptions already make sense to you and it's the rules that don't. How far you have to bend the rules depends on what degree of cognitive dissonance you are comfortable with.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary at one end suggests saying that Haymakers just aren't compatible with Mental Powers and at the other suggests thinking of something a potential target could do or have done to them that would be the equivalent of physical movement.

[Lucius]

To the extent he is "targeting a mind", he must target it by its location, otherwise Line of Sight would be meaningless to his ability to target and we would need rules for sufficient identification of the specific mind in question to permit it to be targeted.

Such rules could be devised, I am sure; I would encourage Surrealone to devise them in fact, because

 

 

You are asking the combat maneuver to change to conform to your vision of the character.

It's not just his "vision of the character" it's his vision of how Mental Powers in general work, that is at odds with Rules as Written.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

If the palindromedary were Game Operations Director, every time someone rolls an 18 all the players rotate character sheets to the right. And any character that puts on a pink hat in game becomes an NPC. Still think it's a good idea to let a palindromedary run a game?

[bigdamnhero]

I thought the roll to hit came when [it lands at the very end of the next segment.]

That's the way we've always played it, and the text on 6e2 p68 seems to bear that out: "he doesn’t actually launch the attack until the very end of the next Segment." 6e2 p69 also says you don't pay END until the Segment it lands. Plus, movement aside, there are any number of things that could happen during that extra Segment that change the target's DCV/DMCV. So to me it makes more sense to make all rolls at that time.

 

The "S" in LoS range means SIGHT, remember. You must target the mind of a person you can see. That means the location of the mind is relevant, contrary to your red-fonted denial. Contrast that with a Punch or a Blast, which can be aimed at where you believe a target you cannot see (maybe you hear or smell him) is located.

Actually RAW does allow mental attacks at a reduced OMCV if you know where a target is but don't have LOS, see 6e1 p149.

 

As for the question at hand: I agree with Lucius & Hugh that the target's location isn't completely irrelevant. But it is somewhat less relevant than with physical/energy attacks. Say I'm firing a normal Blast at someone and miss because their DCV is too high - one way to narrate that might well be "the target steps to one side and your attack misses." But you would never describe a Mind Blast miss that way, because DMCV is not tied to physical movement in any way. So in that sense while you have to be able to see the target's location, their physical movement isn't the driving factor with DMCV the way it is with DCV.

 

I can see the target moving maybe making the attack more difficult, maybe -1 OMCV per 1m moved? Or just 1/2 OMCV? But I can't see "I'm completely focused on crushing this guy's brain" being completely disrupted because the target takes one step to the side.

 

Edit: I'd also point out that the whole "I only move on my Phase" thing is a somewhat artificial game construct. In "reality" characters don't stand still for 3 seconds, then suddenly move 12m in 1 second, then stand still for 3 more seconds, etc - they're constantly in motion. (Some are just moving faster than others.)

 

As for why Mental Powers should be treated differently, I'd say: because they have LOS, which is reflected in the cost of the power.

[TheDarkness]

In post #3 of this thread, massey has suggested that the auto-miss caused by movement of the target is an artifact of 4e haymakers being HTH only.  In post #2 of this thread, Christopher Taylor seems to confirm Massey's suspicion by actually house ruling the current ruleset back to 4e such that haymakers are only HTH in his game.

 

The miss rule associated with a target that moved ... made a lot of sense for a HTH haymaker in 4e, however, it makes almost no sense for a ranged sniper haymakering his shot, who only has to move mere inches to adjust for a very large delta in target position.  Likewise, it makes practically no sense for a LOS-based mental power that hits a mind (regardless of range or range mod).

 

I tend to agree with massey as to why it is what it is, today...

I think the thing to keep in mind, is that almost all misses with ranged attacks would be hits with a motion of a few inches. Does it make sense for them to be otherwise?

 

Balance wise, it seems like a bad idea to both allow it for LOS attacks and take away one of the main drawbacks that balance it out. At that point, I'm wondering if one built it as its own power, instead of as a maneuver, how costly it would be. It seems the more appropriate way to build it, anyway. At that point, one does not have to deal with the special haymaker rule at all.

[Lucius]

. At that point, I'm wondering if one built it as its own power, instead of as a maneuver, how costly it would be..

Graminidogenic Trance: (Total: 48 Active Cost, 15 Real Cost) +8 with all Mental Powers (48 Active Points); Limited Power Only to add "Damage Classes" (+2D6 Mental Blast, +4d6 continuing Mental Powers; -1), Extra Time (Extra Segment, -1/2), Instant (-1/2), Concentration (1/2 DCV; -1/4) (Real Cost: 15)

 

Graminidogenic Trance, Specialized: (Total: 8 Active Cost, 2 Real Cost) +8 with a single Mental Power - Mental Blast (8 Active Points); Limited Power Only to add "Damage Classes" (+2D6 Mental Blast, +4d6 continuing Mental Powers; -1), Extra Time (Extra Segment, -1/2), Instant (-1/2), Concentration (1/2 DCV; -1/4) (Real Cost: 2)

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary urges me to make hay while the sun shines

[massey]

So, there are several problems with the RAW, and I think this is one of them.  Some of these are artifacts from earlier versions of the game, where one thing changed and another related rule did not change in response.  Other problems come up as a result of some off-the-cuff ruling by Steve Long or somebody else official that then gets memorialized in a rulebook.  It's a "yeah that sounds right" that then becomes an official rule.

 

The main problem here is the relationship between movement and attacks.  This is shown here with the Haymaker example, but we also see it in the rules for Dive For Cover.

 

The Dive For Cover rules allow you to avoid any attack (not just area effect or explosions) by making a successful Dive For Cover roll.  While it is overall harmful to your DCV in a group fight (where other people can take advantage of you being prone), one on one as long as you can make a Dex roll you can always avoid the attacks of a person with equal Spd or lower.  OCV and DCV no longer apply, attacks just miss you automatically.  This is a problem when people have ranged attacks and mental attacks.  Professor X can't hit me when I fling myself to the ground.

 

Now, it's true that it is perfectly cinematic to have Masked Serial Killer swinging his machete at Teenage Girl, and she dives out of the way and lands on the ground.  Then she has to get up and run and he chases her.  But Dive For Cover is often highly inappropriate in that it presumes that the person firing can't simply adjust their aim.  With DCV you're moving your body around in a "try to make that guy miss" kind of way.  Apparently by flopping to the ground, you can move in a different way that is superior?  It would be one thing if the person dove behind an obstacle that blocked LOS, but DFC doesn't require that.  Just diving is apparently enough.

 

Haymaker has some real problems as well as it relates to movement.  For one, if you're using the rules for Segmented Movement, then Haymakers are just completely useless.  Unless they are immobilized, somebody will always be moving, every phase, no matter what.  You also can't Haymaker somebody sitting on a train.  Even if you're on the train with them.  They're moving, so the Haymaker misses.  This is a problem with the RAW.  As far as a mental attack goes, if they move, I miss even if I have locked on to the character with a Mind Scan.  I can be halfway around the world, but I miss automatically because the guy is riding on a scooter?  There's no way to "lead" my target?

 

The restrictions on Haymaker were a relic of 4th edition, and they were clearly kept in the rules as a way to make people use the maneuver carefully.  Opening fire on somebody with an attack that takes a while to land, when they still have an action coming up next segment isn't a great tactical decision.  In 4th you had to time it so the other guy couldn't just walk away from you.  They kept the same mechanic in 5th and 6th, but the rules about Haymaker itself changed so that the interaction was no longer intuitive.  And that's a problem because it requires mental gymnastics to justify the outcome.

 

I'd suggest a simple change.  If a person's movement or other actions during their phase make the Haymaker attack impossible, then it fails.  This includes moving out of range, moving behind an object, breaking mental contact, etc.  I'd also suggest combining Dodge and Dive For Cover into a single defensive action.  While the rules for the two can remain separate, the character is presumed to perform the one appropriate to the situation.  If Captain Fallout opens fire with an unknown energy blast, the player has no way to know if this is an Area Effect attack or just a regular one.  You could say "I abort to dodge" only to find out that +3 DCV isn't any help against the AE attack.  Instead, the defensive action would be treated as a DFC.  If you declare a DFC, but it's just a regular attack, you'd be treated as dodging instead.  Perhaps there should be a "fall down dodge" for when you really REALLY don't want to get hit.  +5 DCV, character is prone afterwards.

 

Anyway, I think these are things that should probably be cleaned up in the rules to make the game play better.