Freakin' Triggers, how do they work?

[MechaniCat]

So something I've found a little odd is the fact that you can use a Trigger for an attack. As far as I can tell this breaks the rather important rule that your turn ends when you attack. The Example of Riposte in the 6th edition book allows you to make an attack out of turn with no drawback beyond paying the points for it. Can I Trigger an attack with an attack for an infinite loop? Can I trigger additional attacks if I meet a specific criteria such as defeating an enemy with my last attack, similar to cleave from D&D? Does something like Riposte trigger every time even if it triggers more times than I could normally attack within a round? The book implies these possibilities with the Riposte example, but gives no information about how it works.

 

So I pose the question to the community: How do attacks and triggers interact? or more broadly, how do triggers work in the middle of combat?

 

(of course some of these examples are common sense "no that's stupid" stuff, but they are just examples)

[Doc Democracy]

Yeah, you need to police triggers pretty closely.  I am pretty harsh on what I allow in my games.

[Doc Democracy]

My concern is the infinite loop of two swordsmen with ripostes leading to a rapid flurry that end only when one of them is in a bloody pool on the floor....

[massey]

9 minutes ago, Doc Democracy said:

My concern is the infinite loop of two swordsmen with ripostes leading to a rapid flurry that end only when one of them is in a bloody pool on the floor....

 

That would be hilarious.  Hopefully they both end up skewered, and then you don't have to deal with morons with infinite Triggers anymore.

 

The thing with Triggers is that since 5th edition, they can get pretty expensive.  You have to pay extra for them to reset quickly.  I believe the auto-reset level is a +1 Advantage.  On an attack power (which is what most people are concerned about) that means you're paying a huge amount of points to get an attack that gets past defenses.  In a 12D6 game, a guy with a 6D6 infinite Trigger is just gonna blast through his own Endurance, and he's probably not going to hurt anybody with it.

 

Even if you don't enforce any kind of Active Point cap (so he can buy up the dice and get reduced end on it), that's still a huge amount of points that he's got to pay.  He's gonna have to cut points elsewhere to be able to afford it.

[Chris Goodwin]

10 hours ago, Doc Democracy said:

My concern is the infinite loop of two swordsmen with ripostes leading to a rapid flurry that end only when one of them is in a bloody pool on the floor....

 

This sort of thing apparently happens in real life.  I don't have a source, though.

[Gnome BODY (important!)]

9 hours ago, massey said:

The thing with Triggers is that since 5th edition, they can get pretty expensive.  You have to pay extra for them to reset quickly.  I believe the auto-reset level is a +1 Advantage.  On an attack power (which is what most people are concerned about) that means you're paying a huge amount of points to get an attack that gets past defenses.  In a 12D6 game, a guy with a 6D6 infinite Trigger is just gonna blast through his own Endurance, and he's probably not going to hurt anybody with it.

 

Even if you don't enforce any kind of Active Point cap (so he can buy up the dice and get reduced end on it), that's still a huge amount of points that he's got to pay.  He's gonna have to cut points elsewhere to be able to afford it.

The flip side to this is that if the Trigger attack doesn't have to deal with defenses (Ego Attack,Transform, NND, Penetrating...) it can easily become hugely effective.  Blast 1d6, Trigger +1, 0 END, Penetrating x3 is only 20 AP and will instantly end basically any fight before anyone even gets normal actions. 

[dmjalund]

one could houserule a +1 Advantage against those, like some other Advantage i remember

[Gnome BODY (important!)]

20 minutes ago, dmjalund said:

one could houserule a +1 Advantage against those, like some other Advantage i remember

The way I see it, there's non-abusive Trigger constructs that don't need to (or won't function if they) cost more and there's abusive Trigger constructs that shouldn't be permitted. 

A "Blaster Mine" built as Blast 8d6, AP, Trigger can damage people meaningfully in a 60AP game.  +1ing it shoves it down to 4 1/2d6 and makes it unlikely to be cared about. 

My above construct, for contrast, doesn't really care about another +1.  25AP instead of 20AP doesn't compensate for it breaking the game. 

[massey]

On 3/24/2020 at 11:10 PM, Gnome BODY (important!) said:

The way I see it, there's non-abusive Trigger constructs that don't need to (or won't function if they) cost more and there's abusive Trigger constructs that shouldn't be permitted. 

A "Blaster Mine" built as Blast 8d6, AP, Trigger can damage people meaningfully in a 60AP game.  +1ing it shoves it down to 4 1/2d6 and makes it unlikely to be cared about. 

My above construct, for contrast, doesn't really care about another +1.  25AP instead of 20AP doesn't compensate for it breaking the game. 

 

But it's not the Trigger that is making it dangerous.

[Gnome BODY (important!)]

2 minutes ago, massey said:

But it's not the Trigger that is making it dangerous.

I'm not sure what you mean by this, mainly because I don't know what "it" is referring to. 

[Greywind]

Squeeze. Don't pull.

[dmjalund]

7 hours ago, Greywind said:

Squeeze. Don't pull.

I would argue Trigger Discipline, but as Roy Rogers would agree, that would be flogging a dead horse

[Tywyll]

On 3/24/2020 at 11:46 PM, Gnome BODY (important!) said:

The flip side to this is that if the Trigger attack doesn't have to deal with defenses (Ego Attack,Transform, NND, Penetrating...) it can easily become hugely effective.  Blast 1d6, Trigger +1, 0 END, Penetrating x3 is only 20 AP and will instantly end basically any fight before anyone even gets normal actions. 

 

How does that end a fight? At best it causes 2 Body, unless I'm missing something?

[Doc Democracy]

1 minute ago, Tywyll said:

 

How does that end a fight? At best it causes 2 Body, unless I'm missing something?

 

Question is, what do you think trigger is doing in that build?  Immediate reset, immediate fire, immediate reset, etc. That is what I imagine is happening...

[Tywyll]

18 minutes ago, Doc Democracy said:

 

Question is, what do you think trigger is doing in that build?  Immediate reset, immediate fire, immediate reset, etc. That is what I imagine is happening...

 

Without reading how the specific Trigger was defined, it's impossible to say. But unless the trigger is responding to another trigger, I cannot see how a loop would be set up. And if you are worried about loops, you can simply declare that the trigger doesn't respond to a response which seems fairly common sense. Resetting the trigger as a 0 phase action doesn't allow it to respond to the same stimuli twice, at least I wouldn't allow it to.

 

I mean, I wouldn't think it needs to be said, but "The GM can allow characters to set other Triggers multiple times, if desired, or forbid multiple setting if appropriate."  6e1 p.351

[Duke Bushido]

On 3/24/2020 at 9:26 AM, Doc Democracy said:

My concern is the infinite loop of two swordsmen with ripostes leading to a rapid flurry that end only when one of them is in a bloody pool on the floor....

 

 

One could house rule that an attack on a trigger is an automatic abort as well, using up your next Phase and so on and so forth. 

 

It doesn't _prevent_ the infinite loop of trigger-counter trigger-counter trigger ad infinitum, but it puts a heavy in-game penalty on doing so.  For what it's worth, I prefer an in-game penalty over a cost penalty _any day_, as an in-game mechanical penalty is effectively forever (or at least until the build changes), whereas a cost penalty need only be overcome once, and then it doesn't exist anymore. 

 

 

On 3/24/2020 at 11:36 PM, dmjalund said:

one could houserule a +1 Advantage against those, like some other Advantage i remember

 

I have been derdging my memory since you posted this, wondering what it is that are referring to; I have several baskets full of nothing right now. 

 

Can I get a little help? 

 

Thanks!   

 

 

[Doc Democracy]

I fully endorse the fact that triggers can (and should) be well-policed.  My response was pointing out that GB was suggesting it was entirely possible RAW to create a fight ending power on a low number of points by abusing trigger.

 

I do not think ANYONE was suggesting such a construct SHOULD be allowed.

 

Doc

[Tywyll]

1 hour ago, Doc Democracy said:

I fully endorse the fact that triggers can (and should) be well-policed.  My response was pointing out that GB was suggesting it was entirely possible RAW to create a fight ending power on a low number of points by abusing trigger.

 

I do not think ANYONE was suggesting such a construct SHOULD be allowed.

 

Doc

 

Sure, I get that. I just still don't understand how that build is game breaking. You trigger it, it inflicts 0-2 Body, done. Unless you have a way of triggering it multiple times (which the vast majority of characters shouldn't) I don't understand why its so bad? I'm just wondering if I missed something in the build.

[Gnome BODY (important!)]

15 hours ago, Tywyll said:

Sure, I get that. I just still don't understand how that build is game breaking. You trigger it, it inflicts 0-2 Body, done. Unless you have a way of triggering it multiple times (which the vast majority of characters shouldn't) I don't understand why its so bad? I'm just wondering if I missed something in the build.

It activates as an action which takes no time, IE whenever, and resets immediately.  Put a spammable condition (I know I've seen "Mental Command" as a trigger condition in HERO products before) on and you can make an arbitrary quantity of attacks for non-zero STUN anytime you want, even if it's not your DEX or even Phase. 

Fight starts.  Somebody you don't like gets Line of Effect to you.  Spam!  Even if you need a 3 to hit, you will KO them before they can do anything.  Repeat until fight ends or bans occur. 

[Tywyll]

On 3/28/2020 at 5:49 AM, Gnome BODY (important!) said:

It activates as an action which takes no time, IE whenever, and resets immediately.  Put a spammable condition (I know I've seen "Mental Command" as a trigger condition in HERO products before) on and you can make an arbitrary quantity of attacks for non-zero STUN anytime you want, even if it's not your DEX or even Phase. 

Fight starts.  Somebody you don't like gets Line of Effect to you.  Spam!  Even if you need a 3 to hit, you will KO them before they can do anything.  Repeat until fight ends or bans occur. 

Ahhh...I see.

 

No, I'd use a rolled up newspaper on a player who tried that. At best I'd let them activate it on their phase only. The benefit of the free reset is simply they wouldn't need to spend part of a phase to reuse it.

[ScottishFox]

In my Fantasy HERO campaign I limited the Riposte-style instant counter-attacks to once per phase.

 

Even then it is very powerful.  You get to Block AND Attack at the same time.

[Armitage]

The section on resetting Triggers in 6E1 compares an instantly resetting Trigger to a Constant Power, so a resetting attack could be ruled to affect targets in the same way.

[Ninja-Bear]

On 3/31/2020 at 11:26 AM, ScottishFox said:

In my Fantasy HERO campaign I limited the Riposte-style instant counter-attacks to once per phase.

 

Even then it is very powerful.  You get to Block AND Attack at the same time.

I’ve built something like this for Power Blocks. The martial artist blocks so hard that it hurts the attacker. I made the condition though on the active part of the block. So you must win the OCV vs OCV  not the passive DCV part. 
 

Really though Triggers that reset as 0 phase are just Damage shields so use them accordingly.

[Ninja-Bear]

I’m at work but isn’t the Risposte based on a successful block maneuver? Not just using Block maneuver? That makes a difference too. 

[ScottishFox]

22 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

I’m at work but isn’t the Risposte based on a successful block maneuver? Not just using Block maneuver? That makes a difference too. 

 

The player I had with this setup maxed their OCV, had martial block and could reliably block two or three attacks per phase.  That's a lot of damage output while taking 0 in return.