Haymaker question...

[Grailknight]

I'll give a simpler but sure to be less popular explanation for why it affects everything: game balance.

 

Remember that Haymaker used to be a HTH exclusive for a 50% STR boost. It heavily favored martials but had a definite and long standing presence in genre. It made common and game sense for it to auto-miss if the target moved.

 

Now it is +4 DC's to any attack power and the auto-miss has to be retained to keep it fair to martials.

[dsatow]

Just commenting from a question I asked Steve Long a long time ago about Haymakers and mental attacks.  The question went something like this.

 

If I have a mentalist who haymaker's a mind scan and the target is in a moving elevator of a building, what happens?

 

The response was that as written the haymaker was broken even though the mentalist is scanning the building as the target is in a moving elevator and has moved out of the 1m space.  But the GM can unilaterally rule otherwise.

[Surrealone]

 

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

Invisible by default?  Not fully ... and thus, not to someone with Mental Awareness or Detects associated with mental powers -- which most mentalists tend to have.  So what does someone with the appropriate sense perceive?

 

 

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?

No one asked me to do so, did they?  I'll be happy to describe it (despite you still not having asked):  The mentalist gathers the full weight of his will and puts it behind his Mental Blast to slam his intended target with an all attack using Mental Blast.  (There, that's your haymaker.)  His target gets KB'd 1m from its original position as the mentalist is hurling the mental blast with every ounce of his ego.  What does someone with Mental Awareness perceive?  Where does the attack (whose roll to hit would have succeeded ... had the target not moved) ... go ... as observed by a third party with the appropriate sense?  Describe it please.

 

 

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.

Ahh, no -- no house rules here, sir because I don't GM, I merely play.  Thus, I'm asking a hypothetical about something I stumbled across while reading 6e Haymaker rules ... to take the pulse of how GMs would describe the miss of a mind being haymakered ... due to the target moving prior to the haymaker landing.

​I truly got curious while reading some rules late over the weekend and thinking through potential uses with a mentalist.  That is all...

 

Ok, enough digression on my part; getting back on topic -- what massey said in post #25 of this thread (http://www.herogames.com/forums/topic/94966-haymaker-question/page-2?do=findComment&comment=2571053) enunciated sums up how I'm feeling about Haymaker so much better than I could have said it.  And I hadn't even considered Dive For Cover.  Reflecting on his points, I think massey's absolutely right that Dive For Cover is or has the same sort of locational artifacts as Haymaker.

[bigdamnhero]

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.

That's basically the way I handle it.

[Hugh Neilson]

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.

A single step to the side doesn't really prevent a punch from landing either. A meter is a pretty fair distance.

 

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.

So why not any power that has the LoS advantage being able to Haymaker even if the target moves? And why is it so much more difficult to re-target a flame blast, or a ray gun, or even a Stretching punch, if the target moves a meter or two?

 

Invisible by default?  Not fully ... and thus, not to someone with Mental Awareness or Detects associated with mental powers -- which most mentalists tend to have.  So what does someone with the appropriate sense perceive?

To define that, I suggest we need to first define what he perceives when your Mentalist makes a normal Mental Blast that hits, one that misses and a Haymakered mental blast that hits, and one which misses. We can then define what happens differently when the target moves, disrupting the Haymaker before it can be launched. 

 

No one asked me to do so, did they?  I'll be happy to describe it (despite you still not having asked):  The mentalist gathers the full weight of his will and puts it behind his Mental Blast to slam his intended target with an all attack using Mental Blast.  (There, that's your haymaker.)  His target gets KB'd 1m from its original position as the mentalist is hurling the mental blast with every ounce of his ego.  What does someone with Mental Awareness perceive?  Where does the attack (whose roll to hit would have succeeded ... had the target not moved) ... go ... as observed by a third party with the appropriate sense?  Describe it please.

I think several of us have asked and you have never answered. You are not answering it now. What does the fellow with Mental Awareness perceive when your mentalist "gathers the full weight of his will and puts it behind his Mental Blast to slam his intended target with an all attack using Mental Blast"? When the target is knocked back, that same character with Mental Awareness perceives the distraction of losing LoS contact with the target for a split second as he is knocked back distracting him from "gathering the full weight of his will" before he can "slam his intended target with an all attack using Mental Blast" and senses the power he was building up dissipate.

 

I'd change the rules for DFC before I would change the rules for a Haymaker. And I would scrap the "you cannot Haymaker unless the DCV penalty would be meaningful" rule before I would alter either of those other rules.

[Netzilla]

As Hugh, Lucious and others have intimated, all of this really hinges on how you envision mental powers working for a given campaign.  It's not the same from one setting to another (WH40K's the Warp vs the Force vs Marvel's Astral Plane and so on).   Once you've got that worked out, you can work out how hits and misses for mental attacks appear in general.  From there you can try to extrapolate to haymakers.

 

For example, with WH40K, all mental powers are focused through the warp, an alternate plane of psychic energy.  That plane has a general correspondence with our physical reality such that changing locations in the warp will change your location in our physical reality when you return to it.  It's not a one-to-one relationship, but there is some level of correspondence.  Of course, that also varies based upon the tides and flows of warp stuff.  So, someone shifting position in real space ends up shifting their psychic presence in the warp.  That makes it pretty easy to envision why the haymaker misses.

 

Marvel's astral plane has some similar characteristics as there seems to be some correspondence between locations in the physical and astral realities (though Marvel's psychic realm is much more stable and less scary than WH40K's).  So, the same explanation still works.

 

With the Force, it's a little trickier as we don't really have an alternate plane of existence (I've never seen evidence that the Force travels via hyperspace or the like).  We have seen that Luke, Vader and Leia are all capable of communicating (and for L and V, detecting) each other over significant distances.  Presumably some degree of Mind Scan is involved.  The fact that the various characters are on separate space ships traveling at (presumably) high velocities  doesn't seem to have a bearing on this.  As a result, it seems that there's a 'campaign rule' in effect that eliminates relative motion as a factor when it comes to mental powers.  In such a campaign, I would rule that Haymakers don't apply to mental powers and possibly set up a different 'Mental Haymaker' that was either a power to be bought for points or a separate maneuver with different penalties that make more sense given the nature of the setting.

 

As I recall, the Champions Universe astral plane is roughly similar to the Marvel model and so, presumably, the same rules would apply.

[JohnnyAppleseed098]

Side Note: I see LOS as a problem in A LOT of circumstances in games that I have run or played in. This is why I almost never use LOS powers.  

 

I can't really say anything that hasn't already been said, but I do agree with Surrealone here. The very idea that a mental attack should miss because a target moves 1m of space is ludicrous. Chances are that a heat seeking missile doesn't lose a hit because of a target moving one meter, so mental attacks work the same way. As described, mental attacks "lock on" to a mind after gaining LOS. I agree that moving does cause some problems, and should cause the attack to miss if the power has Concentration, but it shouldn't cost a mentalist a hit for "dancing around the attack". 

 

To fix this, I purpose that one should use the idea mental attacks must establish LOS to target a mind. Instead of moving, you could say that a Mental Haymaker misses if the target prevents LOS, like putting up a barrier or having another target stand in the way. This is reasonable enough to avoid a Haymaker but also sensible with the idea of Mental Attacks. 

[Lucius]

No one asked me to do so, did they?

As a matter of fact, we did.

 

 

Ahh, no -- no house rules here, sir because I don't GM, I merely play.  Thus, I'm asking a hypothetical about something I stumbled across while reading 6e Haymaker rules ... to take the pulse of how GMs would describe the miss of a mind being haymakered ... due to the target moving prior to the haymaker landing.

It doesn't matter if you want to call it a "house rule" or not. It's an assumption personal to yourself that stands in contradiction to the assumptions the system makes about how Mental Powers work. Your assumption isn't "wrong" but neither is the system wrong for using a different assumption.

 

If you want to write up rules that more closely match your own ideas I encourage you to do so. Hero System is all about tinkering and customizing things.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary buys Mental Blast with STR Min and gets to add STR to a Mental Blast attack.

[bigdamnhero]

A single step to the side doesn't really prevent a punch from landing either. A meter is a pretty fair distance.

For a regular punch, no. But if I'm going for the Big Wind-Up, then I can see being thrown off by the target shifting. Think of it in terms of the movement required to adjust fire. If someone is right in front of my and moves 1m to my right, I have to change the angle of my punch by ~45 degrees. That's not impossible, but it's significant. If they're say 20m away and move 1m to the right, I have to angle my arm/gun/whatever a few degrees to the side.* Far less significant, but if I'm really focused on that one spot, I can see where it might throw my aim off. (Realistically, I could probably still take a "normal" shot even if the Haymaker is disrupted, but mechanically I don't like that solution.)

 

But with a mental attack, what? I have to tilt my brain a couple degrees to the right? What does that even mean? If the target is clearly still visible, then I don't see why such a short distance would completely spoil the shot, any more than would normal ducking & weaving (aka DCV), or even Dodging or DFC-ing.

 

* I don't feel like doing the math right now.

 

So why not any power that has the LoS advantage being able to Haymaker even if the target moves?

Yeah, I think that probably does make sense for most LOS powers, depending on sfx.

 

If we wanted to let characters try to adjust their Haymakers based on a target's movement, you could do something like:

• HtH Attack: Attacker is at 1/2 OCV
• Ranged Attack: Attacker takes a -2 OCV per 1m Target moves
• LOS Attack: Attacker takes a -1 OCV per 1m Target moves

That way if the target makes a full/half move, the OCV penalties will quickly make the shot untenable, but a minor adjustment of 1-2m is still doable.

 

I agree that moving does cause some problems, and should cause the attack to miss if the power has Concentration, but it shouldn't cost a mentalist a hit for "dancing around the attack".

Hmm..but doesn't a Haymaker effectively require concentration? It doesn't have the Limitation per se, but isn't it kindof the same idea?

[TheDarkness]

One thing I'm going to point out here is that the first two ways boxers learn to not get hit is one single, small, shuffling step to either side or diagonally forward to either side, followed by learning slips. You absolutely DO NOT slip if the step makes the strike miss. A good boxer will avoid like the plague moving a meter away from their opponent unless they themselves are in a tough spot and want to reset. They train all the time to make it miss by the minimum possible, and they succeed in doing so far more than they fail, though failure, in that context, may mean that they lose the match, which does not change the fact that most of the time, they are not taking most head hits that are thrown, and the primary means if footwork, the secondary means is slipping and blocks, tertiary is bobbing.

 

I am not familiar with any martial arts that don't train defense by seeking slight motions to make a punch miss. Some train bridge and clinch a lot more, but still train this. Fighters famous for being able to hit at odd angles are not the norm, and are the only ones who are particularly successful at hitting a target that has moved off of the line of attack with effect. I could totally see this being modelled as a special thing for a special character, most can't do it and do even their base damage, much less more than their base, because you line yourself up to do your strong attack at its strongest angle, if the target moves, the new angle will not provide as much power as your base attack, if we were trying to be realistic.

 

Narratively, the assumption I've always made is that any movement between the declaration of the haymaker and the execution is considered to take part, at least in part, at the moment the attack is fired off. I agree this is a result of the movement rules not reflecting how the rule in play narrates the action. But, if one accepts that, one accepts that that is exactly the circumstances in which a target you are focused on ends up being a target you miss.

 

I actually think that, even more than this being a remnant of the movement or the different editions, this is a remnant of combat manuevers being essentially a separate game construct that is heavily interacting with the construct of builds and the third construct of skills, and the strain of that. By having maneuvers and their cost structure and balance structure grandfathered in, one ends up in some odd places that normal builds don't suffer from.

 

I think the difficulty is that one definitely does need to establish what qualifies as a lock on a mental target, and what makes one miss such a lock. One could certainly argue that movement shouldn't, I won't dispute that argument, but at that point, what should? If your side rallies, is your sudden change in mental state something that could constitute a miss? What constitutes the cause of a mental 'miss'?

 

Further, why use haymaker rules for this at all? A haymaker is an all or nothing done with the limitation that it has less accuracy and higher change of failing due to change in conditions, which is pretty consistent with real haymakers, they are very prone to failure due to movement on the opponent's part. Why use this construct for anything that isn't described by that?

 

Lastly, if one really wants to use it, balance is important to the other character's builds, and this is a pretty big giveaway. It seems sensible to at least consider some sort of condition that equates to absolute failure beyond merely penalizing the roll, or else one should change the haymaker rule for everyone(which I don't think is advisable).

 

Oh, it hadn't even occured to me. This(if they move, then it's a miss) is an absolute effect. Is there a single absolute effect in Hero that ISN'T problematic? It seems like the few of them that exist either create weird exceptions that can't be exceptions, or create problems where builds doing similar things swallow points like there's no tomorrow. I mean, in this case, yes, haymaker is free to everyone, but the guy who has blast and a punch has twice the effective points in it, and the buy who has a punch and a LOS attack has a far superior version of it, and thus more than twice the effective points, which seems off.

[mallet]

There is a precedent in the rules for an attacker using Mental Powers to have problems with LOS, outside of the target being behind cover, etc... As per 6th Ed. volume 1:

 

In some cases the GM may require a character to make an appropriate PER Roll or EGO Roll (perhaps with a modifier, usually a bonus of +3 or more) to make sure he has sufficient LOS to use a Mental Power. If he fails the roll, either no LOS exists, or the level of recognizability is “fuzzy.” In the latter case, the GM might consider imposing the Range Modifier on the mental attack, to simulate the difficulty the character has “locking on” to the target.

 

 

Unfortunately it doesn't go on to give examples of when this particular rule might be used. 

 

But it does imply that LOS can be fuzzy in some circumstances and still needs to "lock on" to a target. So maybe when a character is using a mental attack with Haymaker the target does become "fuzzy" enough that if he moves the attacker is no longer "locked on", and the attack will miss. 

 

This topic also makes me wonder what DMCV actually is. Mental Defence is fairly easy to describe, it is having a strong or tough mind that can take punishment/damage and is able to fend off attempts to control it, but what is DMCV actually.

 

 Is it having a "fuzzy" mind, making it harder for an attacker to target? Is it having some sort of mental power to "dodge" part of his mind from an attack? Is it just training to trick an incoming mental attack to somehow miss? Is it instantaneous, unconscious, mental battle between both parties that takes place at the speed of thought and that results in an attack hitting or missing? Much like the way one combat phase is sometimes described as being a series of attacks and parries with the final result of a major "hit" doing damage, or a "miss", meaning all the attacks and parries missed? 

 

Deciding on how DMCV works, might shed some light on how a mental haymaker might work and why the target moving may effect that, LOS or not. 

[Ninja-Bear]

Could it be that when a target is caused to move that his mind has a different mental activity that can be the cause for the miss?

[Doc Democracy]

I do love it when we begin to argue realistic for things that we are making up, especially when the things we are making up can have no relation to anything we currently know and perceive.

 

Ninja Bear asked what would tilting his mind even be like. We cant know. Someone has to make it up.

 

What does building up your will mean? We cant know. Someone has to make it up.

 

If someone moves and spoils the haymaker, what does that look like? We cant know, someone has to make it up.

 

:-) See the trend here.

 

I admit that I am a very gamist gamer, I play a game rather than look too hard to simulate things or to tell a great story. That is my group, so it is possibly easier for me to accept a game rule for game purposes. However, I do like things to make sense.

 

It was a surprise to me when Haymaker became a broadly available manoeuvre. I could not really imagine a haymakered pistol shot or a haymakered mental blast. However, I could see the game reasons for it. I began to exercise my imagination and see the alternate ways I could use to explain the added damage taken for the downside of lowered DCV, longer time and easily spoiled execution.

 

In this case, I see the game requires that an attack is made as a result of aim being locked-on. That is usually instantaneous and used in that moment. The lock-on is usually through normal targetting senses and can be through other means and there is always a work-around if you want to spend the points.

 

The point of haymaker is that you are focussing your attack in a very obvious manner, one in which others can take advantage of you and effectively walk-away from. It is an attack you would only use when your opponent is unaware, stunned or does not care about your upcoming attack. In the case of mental attacks, to someone with the right senses, you might see a build up of psychic energy focussing on a particular mind, it is highly focussed and the mentalist is not really paying attention to much except the attack. Then his target moves, physically. The carefully built up energies begin to dissipate and vanish as the mentalist finds it impossible to contain the energies and re-focus them at the same time...the haymaker fails.

[Lucius]

Hmm..but doesn't a Haymaker effectively require concentration? It doesn't have the Limitation per se, but isn't it kindof the same idea?

Yes.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary thinks we should concentrate on that

[Ninja-Bear]

I think mental energy is similuar radio energy. Have you ever tried to tune in the radio on a bad station in a car? It goes in and out same as a hymakered mental blast.

[Hugh Neilson]

Side Note: I see LOS as a problem in A LOT of circumstances in games that I have run or played in. This is why I almost never use LOS powers.  

 

I can't really say anything that hasn't already been said, but I do agree with Surrealone here. The very idea that a mental attack should miss because a target moves 1m of space is ludicrous. Chances are that a heat seeking missile doesn't lose a hit because of a target moving one meter, so mental attacks work the same way. As described, mental attacks "lock on" to a mind after gaining LOS. I agree that moving does cause some problems, and should cause the attack to miss if the power has Concentration, but it shouldn't cost a mentalist a hit for "dancing around the attack". 

 

To fix this, I purpose that one should use the idea mental attacks must establish LOS to target a mind. Instead of moving, you could say that a Mental Haymaker misses if the target prevents LOS, like putting up a barrier or having another target stand in the way. This is reasonable enough to avoid a Haymaker but also sensible with the idea of Mental Attacks.

Why should a mental attack differ from any other LoS attack in this regard? Extrapolating further, why should a normal ranged attack miss due to 1 meter of movement? That heat seeking missile presumably has range modifiers as distance makes the heat more difficult to detect, so it's probably not LoS.

 

For a regular punch, no. But if I'm going for the Big Wind-Up, then I can see being thrown off by the target shifting. Think of it in terms of the movement required to adjust fire. If someone is right in front of my and moves 1m to my right, I have to change the angle of my punch by ~45 degrees. That's not impossible, but it's significant. If they're say 20m away and move 1m to the right, I have to angle my arm/gun/whatever a few degrees to the side.* Far less significant, but if I'm really focused on that one spot, I can see where it might throw my aim off. (Realistically, I could probably still take a "normal" shot even if the Haymaker is disrupted, but mechanically I don't like that solution.)

 

But with a mental attack, what? I have to tilt my brain a couple degrees to the right? What does that even mean? If the target is clearly still visible, then I don't see why such a short distance would completely spoil the shot, any more than would normal ducking & weaving (aka DCV), or even Dodging or DFC-ing.

How about the need to adjust your field of vision to maintain that focused LoS? I am sitting at a computer with multiple monitors. If I want to read the one to the immediate left or right of the one I am typing on now, I move my eyes and tilt my head slightly, focusing on that monitor and losing my focus on this one. They are much less than a meter apart. I read them using LoS, don't I?

 

 

If we wanted to let characters try to adjust their Haymakers based on a target's movement, you could do something like:

Sure, we could change the rules. But Surrealone is still asking "why does movement matter at all", so your solution does not match his vision.

 

Then there is the game balance question of whether Haymakers should be easier (or more difficult) for ranged attackers, and for LoS powers. Note that, if our attacker has a 10 OCV, he's better off than the gunslinger if the target moves more than 5 meters, and better off than the mentalist if the target moves more than 10 meters (assuming he has the reach to complete the attack at all, of course).

 

I agree that the Haymaker is a variant of Concentration. It requires a windup over time, and reduces DCV. Surrealone's description of "gathering will" sounds a lot like concentration to me. 

 

One thing I'm going to point out here is that the first two ways boxers learn to not get hit is one single, small, shuffling step to either side or diagonally forward to either side, followed by learning slips. You absolutely DO NOT slip if the step makes the strike miss. A good boxer will avoid like the plague moving a meter away from their opponent unless they themselves are in a tough spot and want to reset. They train all the time to make it miss by the minimum possible, and they succeed in doing so far more than they fail, though failure, in that context, may mean that they lose the match, which does not change the fact that most of the time, they are not taking most head hits that are thrown, and the primary means if footwork, the secondary means is slipping and blocks, tertiary is bobbing.

This sounds quite a bit like DCV to me. The Haymaker still has to hit the target's DCV, even if he does not move.

 

What constitutes the cause of a mental 'miss'?

Therein definitely lies the problem. Can I throw off your Mental Haymaker by thinking pure, or impure, thoughts?

 

Further, why use haymaker rules for this at all? A haymaker is an all or nothing done with the limitation that it has less accuracy and higher change of failing due to change in conditions, which is pretty consistent with real haymakers, they are very prone to failure due to movement on the opponent's part. Why use this construct for anything that isn't described by that?

BINGO - if your vision of the attack under contemplation is not one that would be spoiled by the target moving, then Haymaker is not the correct mechanic. Just like an attack which unerringly strikes anyone the target can see needs LoS, not just a description that it can hit anyone the target can see.

[Hugh Neilson]

Maybe the real answer is to have separate combat maneuvers for HTH, Ranged, LoS and Mental attacks reflecting the diverse nature of each one. But then, which one does my Mental Power based on CON, or my Pheremone-based mind control, use? The SFX are at least as important as the game mechanic.

 

Maybe if I the player cannot describe what happens when my character is attempting a haymaker with the power I envision them having, then my character is not able to use the Haymaker maneuver with that power. That's not likely worth even a -1/4 limitation, but if there are enough maneuvers the power can't be used with, that might merit a small limitation.

[bigdamnhero]

How about the need to adjust your field of vision to maintain that focused LoS? I am sitting at a computer with multiple monitors. If I want to read the one to the immediate left or right of the one I am typing on now, I move my eyes and tilt my head slightly, focusing on that monitor and losing my focus on this one. They are much less than a meter apart. I read them using LoS, don't I?.

Sure, but the monitors are (I assume) right in front of you. It's not the distance per se, it's the angle. Step back 10m and now the monitors are only ~5 degrees apart, and it's pretty easy to keep them both in your field of vision.

[TheDarkness]

It just seems to me that a 'mental haymaker' is a mental attack pushed. The reason an actual haymaker tends to miss is because it's a bit more flailing than other strikes. While I've seen 'mental flailing' before, I don't think it has a place in mental combat, but rules.

[Hugh Neilson]

Sure - but it is not as easy to focus on both of them at the same time.

 

There are buildings outside my window, and three in my field of vision in one direction have company names and logos on them. I can keep all three logos in my field of vison, but I can only focus on one of those three company logos at a time. If we accept that this focus is needed for a Haymaker (a normal attack would not be spoiled by the target moving), then we have the same net result.

[Surrealone]

Maybe the real answer is to have separate combat maneuvers for HTH, Ranged, LoS and Mental attacks reflecting the diverse nature of each one.

The Ultimate Mentalist got into this, a bit, with optional mental combat maneuvers.  They were, however, largely intended for mentalist vs. mentalist combat ... as well as non-mentalist vs mentalist combat in worlds where psionics were prevalent.  (I point this out to underscore that they weren't well-suited for more generalized use -- and didn't cover ground we're covering here, such as haymakering a mental power or diving for cover to avoid an AoE mental power when LOS isn't being broken.)

 

Sadly, I think adding more maneuvers (i.e. separate ones for different combat types) would just add complexity ... that likely wouldn't be used by the masses.  To wit, I've played in a lot of games, and not once have I seen the optional mental combat maneuvers adopted ... not even in games where mental combat was fairly common.  My best guess as to why is because those maneuvers introduced what the GMs felt was an unnecessary level of complexity.

 

I do, however, think that haymaker (and dive for cover) can be effectively house-ruled to account for non-physical attacks ... but that it requires a bit more thought than 'no haymakering of unusual attacks'. (At which point you might as well run 4e, since that shifts balance back to HTH combat since they can get an added 4DCs from a maneuver that no one else can -- which translates to free CP for melee.)

 

The most promising house rule I've read in this thread suggests application of negatives to the roll to hit .... if the target of a ranged or mental haymaker moves ... rather than an automatic miss.  The penalty should likely be stiff ... but if that's the approach one would consider taking for ranged and mental attacks, I'm forced to ask why it's not equally valid for melee/HTH attacks.  Such a uniform adjustment (for HTH, ranged, and mental attacks RE haymakers) would actually get rid of the remnant/artifact from early rule sets ... and lend itself much better, conceptually, to a much broader range of attack types, yes?

[Hugh Neilson]

At which point you might as well run 4e, since that shifts balance back to HTH combat since they can get an added 4DCs from a maneuver that no one else can -- which translates to free CP for melee.

I rarely see Haymaker used, due to its drawbacks. I wonder what it would cost to build with the Martial Arts rules in UMA. The Offensive Strike (-2 OCV, +1 DCV, +4 DC)costs points. I recall a maneuver which instead provided +1 OCV, -2 DCV, +4 DC which had the same cost. Losing 1 OCV, 3 DCV and adding that extra segment seems like it would markedly lower the cost of the maneuver - to 1 point, likely only because the minimum cost of any ability is 1 point. So not really a freebie.+

 

If Haymaker were much more common, and such an advantage, wouldn't making it even more versatile award a huge advantage to ranged combatants and/or mentalists?

 

I don't have a problem with "in winding up the Haymaker, you are so focused on the target that, if the target moves a meter or more, your focus is lost and the attack fails".

 

Would your model also allow the attacker to be moved and still get the Haymaker (albeit at a penalty) as well? The present model provides a high reward (an extra 4 DC, which probably all adds to the effect since you would likely get past defenses with base DCs) for a high risk (a significant DCV penalty and a real risk the attack will not be successfully made). That risk is already mitigated for ranged attackers, who can begin their attack well out of HTH range for the target. The Mentalist also gets the advantage that, since mental attacks are imperceptible to most characters, few can even tell he is winding up for a Haymaker. From a game balance perspective, why should they get further risk mitigation? Maybe that's the "free character points".

[massey]

If you don't see haymakers very often, then perhaps you aren't the best judge to know if they're a problem or not.

 

I see them used all the time, at least once per session if there's heavy combat. They really aren't a problem. In fact, other than a new player using the maneuver and mis-timing it, I've never seen a haymaker miss due to someone moving before it lands. So it's really more of an academic issue to me. You just have to time your haymaker when the other guy doesn't have a phase.

 

This really goes to two things that I find ridiculous -- diving for cover from a non-area attack, and someone who is using a segmented method of movement. You shouldn't dive for cover vs a punch, it breaks the verisimilitude of the game. And some guy in a car going 5 mph through a parking lot shouldn't be immune to haymaker just because his car is moving.

[Netzilla]

If you don't see haymakers very often, then perhaps you aren't the best judge to know if they're a problem or not.

 

I see them used all the time, at least once per session if there's heavy combat. They really aren't a problem. In fact, other than a new player using the maneuver and mis-timing it, I've never seen a haymaker miss due to someone moving before it lands. So it's really more of an academic issue to me. You just have to time your haymaker when the other guy doesn't have a phase.

Eh, I see them miss frequently usually because the target would rather abort than be hit by the haymaker.

 

This really goes to two things that I find ridiculous -- diving for cover from a non-area attack,

Don't see why diving out of the way shouldn't work vs a melee attack.

 

and someone who is using a segmented method of movement. You shouldn't dive for cover vs a punch, it breaks the verisimilitude of the game. And some guy in a car going 5 mph through a parking lot shouldn't be immune to haymaker just because his car is moving.

That's because the rules really aren't set up for segmented movement. That, plus the fact that I find them to be a PITA, means I don't ever use them.

[Surrealone]

 

I rarely see Haymaker used, due to its drawbacks. I wonder what it would cost to build with the Martial Arts rules in UMA. The Offensive Strike (-2 OCV, +1 DCV, +4 DC)costs points. I recall a maneuver which instead provided +1 OCV, -2 DCV, +4 DC which had the same cost. Losing 1 OCV, 3 DCV and adding that extra segment seems like it would markedly lower the cost of the maneuver - to 1 point, likely only because the minimum cost of any ability is 1 point. So not really a freebie.+

If Haymaker were much more common, and such an advantage, wouldn't making it even more versatile award a huge advantage to ranged combatants and/or mentalists?

I don't have a problem with "in winding up the Haymaker, you are so focused on the target that, if the target moves a meter or more, your focus is lost and the attack fails".

Would your model also allow the attacker to be moved and still get the Haymaker (albeit at a penalty) as well? The present model provides a high reward (an extra 4 DC, which probably all adds to the effect since you would likely get past defenses with base DCs) for a high risk (a significant DCV penalty and a real risk the attack will not be successfully made). That risk is already mitigated for ranged attackers, who can begin their attack well out of HTH range for the target. The Mentalist also gets the advantage that, since mental attacks are imperceptible to most characters, few can even tell he is winding up for a Haymaker. From a game balance perspective, why should they get further risk mitigation? Maybe that's the "free character points".

I personally believe the frequency of haymakers is genre- and power-level-dependent.  I don't see them often in 200pt games.  I also don't see them often in fantasy or sci-fi games.  I see them VERY often in 400+ point, four-colour superheroic type games.

 

I don't conceptually have a problem with "in winding up the Haymaker, you are so focused on the target that, if the target moves a meter or more, your focus is lost and the attack fails" -- either.  What troubles me is that it just doesn't make a lot of sense for ranged characters who only have to adjust inches to compensate for 10's of meters of movement in the target ... and it makes even less sense for mentalists ... where range and distance and movement is completely irrelevant to LOS-based powers and Mind Scan.  (How does a haymakered Mind Scan work?!  I'm not going there.)

 

The suggested house rules to allow the to-hit roll to take place at a penalty if the target moves seems like it addresses the above.  Logically, I believe the OCV penalty on the attacker using the haymaker should scale with the distance moved (perhaps like the dive for cover penalty does?) ... but be stiffer than the dive for cover penalty.  -1 OCV per 2m moved seems WAY too light, to me, for a starting point on the haymaker.  I would think It starts at -4 for the first 1m the target moves ... and grow by -1 per each additional meter the target moves.  That ramps up very quickly... and makes sense for all attack types (HTH, ranged, and Mental).  Unlike range- and mental- based characters, HTH types have to worry about the target moving out of range of the haymaker -- but that's not something specific to haymaker, as it's inherent with all HTH attacks ... so I don't think it is due any special consideration when discussing haymaker.  (Or if it is, then it's due that special consideration with all other HTH attacks, too.)

 

Ranged attackers and mentalists still suffer the DCV penalty from performing a haymaker ... just as HTH characters do.  With that in mind, they may not be open to a counter-hit by their target, but they certainly have reduced DCV to all other attacks and, thus, they suffer the same disadvantage as a HTH character.  If you're trying to suggest range somehow mitigates a DCV penalty, I don't think that's a haymaker discussion because it's not specific to haymaker; that's a broader topic of all ranged combat and what can be done with it that can't be done in HTH.  Likewise, if you're trying to suggest that LOS powers typically not being visible to non-mentalists somehow negates the DCV penalty that a haymakering mentalist suffers, I think it's not a haymaker discussion and is, instead, a broader topic about the tactical advantages of LOS-based powers that are only visible to one sense group ... especially since the mentalist DOES suffer the same DCV penalty while haymakering that a ranged and a HTH character would suffer.
 

 

 

 

I see them used all the time, at least once per session if there's heavy combat. They really aren't a problem. In fact, other than a new player using the maneuver and mis-timing it, I've never seen a haymaker miss due to someone moving before it lands. So it's really more of an academic issue to me. You just have to time your haymaker when the other guy doesn't have a phase.

In games I've played where haymakers are common, I've seen the character without a phase who is the target of a haymaker:

1. teleported out of the way by a comrade of his
2. knocked a short distance (1") out of the way due to KB from a nearby explosion
3. Carried out of the way by a comrade doing a move-by on her to get her out of the way  (i.e. the move-by would do far less than the incoming haymaker -- think dive for cover where someone is knocked out of the way of a bus by a comrade and you have the right cinematic effect in mind)

So, it's not quite so academic as simply timing it when the target doesn't have a phase (and can't abort to a dive for cover).  That said, your point is certainly valid (and one with which I agree), since tactical timing of a haymaker is important.  I guess I'm trying to say that while it's important, it's not everything ... and not nearly the whole story ... since the target can still move (i.e. be moved) out of the way, even without an action or the ability to abort.

 

 

 

 

Eh, I see them miss frequently usually because the target would rather abort than be hit by the haymaker.

 

Don't see why diving out of the way shouldn't work vs a melee attack.

Yup, I see this a lot, too (misses due to aborts).  But I'd call that mis-timing on the part of the person doing the haymaker, because you really want to land it on a segment where the target can't take an action OR abort.  But, as above, they can still be moved out of the way...

 

And dive for covers are absolutely viable for getting out of the required range of HTH attacks.  (It's rather tough against opponents with stretching, though. )