Dbz attack

[ashuramarsh]

Hi all, I have design question. I am playing a Nehkojin and I was thinking of dba attacks. How would you design an attack where you hit someone, knock them away, then zip behind them to attack again?

[Hyper-Man]

A Triggered movement ability combined with a Multiple Attack is your best bet.

[Doc Democracy]

You will of course get a lot of suggestions.  My question for you is very mechanical in nature.

 

Do you always want the second attack to hit, if the first one does?  Do you always want the first attack, if successful to move the target?  Do you care if the target takes damage from the movement (a la knockback).  Would the attacker always move, even if the first attack was unsuccessful?

 

The answers to those questions will actually take you to a different mechanical route depending on what you actually want.

 

You also need to think whether what you are actually building is in the spirit of the game you are playing.  From the description, you want an attack action to encompass two attacks and some movement.  Why would anyone ever use anything else if this was possible?? If this manoeuvre is only available to some, then does that put everyone else at a serious disadvantage in a fight?

 

I am building many straw men here!  Give us some more detail and you will likely get more input.

 

 

Doc

[steriaca]

My advice with what I know so far:

 

1 ) Hand-to-hand Attak, trigger (when he wishes and can act normally), and...

 

2 ) Streching, only to strike, trigger (when hand-to-hand attack does knockback to target), linked (to hand-to-hand attack), restrainable, indirect.

 

Special Effect: Strike target, target knocked back, moves behind target and strikes again, then moves back to the starting point.

[Cassandra]

EB Double Knockback with Linked EB Indirect

[steriaca]

What he is looking to simulate is the Dragon Smash attack which Goku does once he learns Instant Transmition.

 

What it is...

1) Goku comes in, usually flying, and launches a person into the air (Double KB HTH Attack)...

2) Using Instant Transmition, teleport next to the person launched and... (Linked Teleport and Flight to the HTH Attack)

3) ...strikes him with another HTH Attack (HTH Attack, linked to Teleport/Flight).

 

Instant Transmition is an unusual teleport, as it is keyed not for normal movement via teleport, but to the chi of others. This, Goku can't teleport into an empty room, and must teleport to a location based on if he reads a person's chi correctly to. It does not fail, can act like EDM, but relies on knowing the target's chi.

[Hyper-Man]

Goku and Vegeta have performed this type of attack during DBZ on Namek vs the forces of Freeza. It's just superspeed*. It does not require instant Transmission although that combo was used by Goku recently during Dragon Ball Super.

 

*Superspeed can be mechnically represented with Teleportation with Must Pass Through Interviening Space.

[dsatow]

Just my $0.02.  As Doc Democracy noted,  there's a lot of ways to skin this.

 

#1) You can do this with a regular strike as long at it does knockback.  You wait till the segment before your next phase and then strike the character upwards so they are up at least 6"/12m.  On your next phase (next segment) you move to where they will be and strike the person in free fall.

 

#2) You treat it as an autofire attack.  The several hits are defined as each separate attack and the final knockback location is the location where they end up.

 

#3) You treat it as a multiple attack.  Again, the several hits are defined as each separate attack and the final knockback location is the location where they end up

[Hyper-Man]

FWIW, creating a version of this very ability is what originally inspired me to join this forum in 2004 and build my 1st 5e superhero (Hyper-Man). I've been learning the rules ever since.

[Doc Democracy]

I think the big point here is the (implied) inability of the opponent to react between the two hits.  To me that puts everything within a single phase action.

 

I think for my games I would look for an autofire - two hits with a triggered movement (only to where target knocked back to by first hit)

 

The autofire itself is only activated if the character reads the target's chi.

 

 The gameplay would be a roll to hit, if successful, a roll to read the chi, if successful the character teleports to where the target is heading (to a maximum of the teleport - so may be risking injury if there is a lot of KB.  :-)

[massey]

There are a lot of ways to do this.  You have to ask yourself what you want to accomplish, in game, and then build to that goal.  Otherwise you may spend waaay too many points for something that isn't necessarily that effective.

 

So, one of the problems you're going to have is that the most obvious way to do what you're talking about is with Triggered attacks and Triggered movement.  That's expensive.  In any normal game with a point limit, that's going to eat up a huge amount of your points if you want the attack to be similar in power level to your normal, non-advantaged attack.  If you normally have a 12D6 punch, now you're having to buy an additional 12D6 punch with Trigger on it (as well as Trigger on some movement) just so you can do this.  That's 75 points, minimum, plus whatever your movement will cost.  Is that really worth it, just for the cool visual?  Do you have an extra 75 points sitting around?  Probably not.  So we want to find a way to simulate that effect without actually having to purchase it.

 

So how can we make it look like you're doing that, and save some points?  How can this be cost effective?  I can think of at least 5 other ways, depending on how comfortable you are with abstracting some of this stuff in the game.  Each has their strengths and weaknesses, and which one you should pick depends on how you see it playing out and what sacrifices you're willing to make (and what the limits are in your campaign).

 

1)  Buy a naked advantage on your attack, Indirect (a few inches of Stretching could also work instead of Indirect).  Put a limitation on it "requires acrobatics roll" or maybe "must still have X amount of movement remaining".  You simply punch your opponent in the back.  This method works like a move in an arcade fighting game.  You do the super move, they take damage, they fall down.  The primary purpose of this is for them to take knockback in a different direction than they would normally take it.  You could combine this with an Autofire attack (or a Rapid Attack) if you really just need that second punch to be more than a visual effect.  The problem with this technique is that you're not actually moving anywhere.  You fly up to the guy, hit him, and he goes flying away in an unexpected direction.  The "zipping around the sky" aspect is just the special effect of the power -- it doesn't really do anything.  It just looks like you teleported behind him and punched him twice, you don't actually move.

 

2)  +4D6 Hand Attack, with limitations.  This is also a pretty basic way to simulate it.  Very video-gamey, like Street Fighter II.  You're hitting him with a powerful move and he takes damage.  Maybe it requires an acrobatics roll, or you have to have a half-move remaining.  The idea is that the "punch in face, fly behind him, punch in back" is all part of a single "attack" in game terms.  One attack roll, one damage roll.  Like the first example, this has the benefit that it's cheap and easy to do.  You could even combine the two together if you wanted.  It has the disadvantage in that it may seem like you're "faking it", because you aren't really moving and hitting him in the back.  You're just saying that you're moving and hitting him in the back.  That's the justification for more damage.

 

3)  Have a Speed and Dex advantage on your opponent.  This is easiest when you hit Spd 7 and above, but you can do it earlier than that.  It's purely a matter of gameplay, it doesn't cost anything.  It can be achieved simply by holding action until the appropriate time.  In DBZ it would be considered "in genre" to let somebody do this.  All you're doing is making sure you're going to act in back to back segments.  So if you're Spd 7, you'll act on segments 6 and 7.  On segment 6, you want to hit the guy and knock him backwards.  On segment 7, you use your movement and get behind him, then hit him again.  You just have to make sure that he doesn't get a phase in between your actions.  This has the advantage in that you're actually doing what the characters appears to be doing on the screen.  It has the disadvantages that basically anybody can do this (a guy with Spd 2 can hold action until segment 11, then act back to back on 11 and 12 as long as he goes first on 12), and that it requires you to know the Spd chart really well and skillfully use it as a player.  You can't hand the character sheet to a new player and have them use the move.  It's also not something that you can write down on the character sheet as a power, it's just a thing you know how to do as a player.  And you have to set it up, so it's not something you can whip out anytime you want it.

 

4)  Multiple move-bys (or multiple passing strikes).  Basically you're just looping around and hitting the character over and over again.  They don't actually fly back and forth when you hit them, they're still in the same spot.  This has the advantage that it's free (provided you have a lot of movement), but again the disadvantage that you have to know how to do it.  And again, the target isn't actually flying around back and forth.

 

5)  Multiple combat maneuvers.  5th edition has some pretty abusive rules for using multiple martial art moves on someone in the same phase.  You can punch them, disarm them, legsweep them, and then put them in a choke hold, all in one move.  We've house-ruled the crap out of this in our games, because it's way too open to abuse.  I don't know about 6th edition.  But in 5th anyway, it's legal to run up to them, use a Passing Throw, then whip around them and use a Passing Strike from the other direction.  A lenient (i.e., stupid) GM might even let you combine the velocity damage.  The problem is this is super nasty and once you've got a character who can do it, there's no reason not to do it every single time you attack.

 

 

So, here's what I'd do if I wanted to give this to a character.  Kind of combine #1 and #2 together.

 

Superspeed assault -- +4D6 Hand Attack (or however much the GM will let you take to hit the absolute dice limit of the campaign -- this is the same bonus a haymaker gets).  Only with passing strike/move-by (-1/2), must have at least half of movement remaining when hit occurs, must finish movement behind opponent's starting position (-1/2), must beat target in Dex roll-off (-1/2), attack must do knockback to opponent (-1/2); plus 3" Stretching, only to hit adjacent target from another direction (-1), only w/ passing strike/move-by (-1/2), must have at least half move remaining (-1/2), must beat target in Dex roll-off (-1/2).

Real cost: 10 points.  Active points: 35.

 

So what would happen is you fly up to them, perform a passing strike, and you have to have at least half your movement remaining when you make contact.  Roll to hit.  Now make a Dex roll vs your opponent.  If you win, you get +4D6 damage, and you hit them in the back (or other unexpected angle).  They go flying a different way than they would normally go.  You can then complete your movement behind where your opponent used to be.  Now, the attack must do knockback to get the extra damage, so I'd roll the 4D6 in a different color in case I crapped out on the knockback and they didn't move.  Theoretically, you could require that the original attack (without the 4D6 bonus) do knockback, but that's a bigger limitation and I don't think it's necessary since we're generalizing all this into a single hit anyway.  Just know that you have to get at least an inch to get the extra damage.  It doesn't seem thematically appropriate to hit the guy with this and have him not move at all.

 

It's good in that you get extra damage, so there's a reason to use it.  It's also fairly cheap.  It doesn't require an overly complex method to use it (no fiddling with the Spd chart or holding phases, or multiple power attacks that GMs hate).  You also move around when you use it, so you'll have a different ending location than where you began.  And your opponent goes flying off in a different direction than you would normally hit him.  It also has a chance of failure so you may not want to just spam it over and over again.

 

It's bad in that your opponent doesn't actually move backwards and then move forwards, and you're only doing one punch.  You've generalized the damage together into one single attack.  I don't think that's really that big a deal though.

[Hyper-Man]

My idea was much simpler.  Just put a Naked trigger on Flight or teleport w/only through intervening. Then choose the number of Multiple Attacks to make to determine the up front penalty.  Each successful hit activates the Trigger and moves the character right behind the target.

[ashuramarsh]

Thanks all, sorry I did not reply earlier. Lots ideas to think about. It's not something I'll be able to use right away in our game, but just a thought. We'll see what the GM let's me get away with.