No Damage Knockback

[Gnome BODY (important!)]

2 hours ago, dsatow said:

That doesn't apply to what I was noting which was to use Leaping Usable against another as effectively a type of throw.  When using the leaping power to represent being thrown back, Leaping normally leaves the user standing at the end.  So I was asking if this mattered to the person who was designing this version of the power.

 

Using martial arts is fine and I'd prefer this, but some people want to make sure that what they do isn't stopped by a high breakfall roll or some such.

Sure it applies.  Execute a "Target Falls" maneuver with the Leaping UAA.  The maneuver knocks the target prone, the Leaping hurls the target into the distance.  The end result is that the target has been thrown a distance and lands prone. 

[dsatow]

3 hours ago, Gnome BODY (important!) said:

Sure it applies.  Execute a "Target Falls" maneuver with the Leaping UAA.  The maneuver knocks the target prone, the Leaping hurls the target into the distance.  The end result is that the target has been thrown a distance and lands prone. 

 

Unless you are saying, fudge the rules or GM's fiat.  It doesn't apply, as neither leaping nor UAA has a Target Falls Adder nor is there a target falls advantage.  If you are going with fudging the rules or go GM fiat, it really doesn't matter and should be just discussed with the GM.

 

Technically, you could do a multiple attack but that severely affects the attacker's CVs.  You could do  a combined attack, but since the attacker wanted a ranged attack, you could not do a martial throw (HTH) with a ranged leaping UAA. 

 

Finally, there is a way to do this by the RaW.  You buy the ranged leaping UAA and then a ranged martial art trip with it.  If you buy the standard ranged trip,  it's -1/-1 and v/5 damage.  If you buy the offensive ranged trip, it's +1/-1 and STR+v/10 damage. 

 

Another way, which is broken is to link a change environment to it and force them to make a Dex roll to remain standing up.  This was used in some write up for a villain or a power example.  I say its broken because to have an effect which Stuns those in it is 30 points while dropping people to the ground is almost as effective (dropping people to half DCV) and is free.

 

However, IIRC, the OP wanted to do no damage and possibly as an area effect.  If its an area effect, you would have to do a multiple attack with the CV penalties as you can not do a combined attack against more than a single target.  The trips do damage based on velocity so even if you pull all the strike damage, technically, then movement will do damage.

 

In any case, my original question was if dropping them to the ground mattered.  If it didn't, then none of this really matters to the build.  

 

 

[Gnome BODY (important!)]

I'm very amused that you're accusing me of rules-fudgery and then repeating my solution as the RaW approach. 

[dsatow]

2 hours ago, Gnome BODY (important!) said:

I'm very amused that you're accusing me of rules-fudgery and then repeating my solution as the RaW approach. 

 

Nope, it just sounded from your post that you just add "target falls" to an existing power.  Its a bit more complicated than that.

[Duke Bushido]

12 hours ago, dsatow said:

 

Nope, it just sounded from your post that you just add "target falls" to an existing power.  Its a bit more complicated than that.

 

 

But it doesn't have to be.  Hell, it shouldn't be; that's just more of the issue I have with the Holy Martial Arts.

 

At some point, it was decided to just add "can be Haymakered" to every damned thing under the freakin' sun.  No one batted an eye (Not even me.  My eyes just popped out, rolled around in the cat box for a while, then popped back in, grinding all that deep into the sockets and coordinating muscles resulting in infections, fevers, pains and twitches that persist to this day).

 

At some earlier point, someone decided "hey, why don't we buy a couple of Skill Levels, assign them to OCV, but _only_ if they promise to agree to accept a DCV penalty as well, and wrap all that up with "only while doing this one particular trick."  Then we make them buy bonuses to OCV over and over and over, but each cluster only works with _one_ particular maneuver!  In this way, we can encourage them to buy like a total of +12 to OCV, but they can't use more than three or four of them at once, _ever_!"  Not only did no one bat an eye at that, they formed a deity-accursed CULT around the idea!

 

Someone _just decided_ that there should only be two levels of Reduced Endurance: half and zero.  Complaints only from me, so essentially: no one cared.

 

Someone just decided that it was reasonable and balanced to create a power that let you increase powers _ad infinitum_.   That ended up on every single character sheet representing mainstream published characters.  At one time we just did "well they've been around since 1936, so they've got a substantial Hero Bonus..."  No we just slap Aid on it: it's fast, cheap, and since it can make Superman, it's clearly effective.

 

Someone "just decided" that we can leave a big puddle of unassigned build points on a character sheet and for the _meager_ expense of a +1/4 Advantage, reassign them over and over and over, essentially reinventing the character at will, on a whim, completely on the fly.  People _loved_ it.

 

At one time the guy who _wrote the freakin' game_ demonstrated that Shape Shift was pure SFX, but someone _just decided_ it needed a three-column power all it's own that has yet to be as actually effective in play.  People cheered.

 

Someone _just decided_ to put trip and shove on a piece of paper, and suddenly it's legal to both of those things without having to put on pajamas and circle each other making chicken noises for five minutes first.   "Oh, finally!" gasped the people (who, apparently, had spent the previous thirty-odd years being unable to do either of those things.  Granted, it was probably easier to keep your whites their whitest in a combat situation where no one could lose their balance, though I guess we're going to have to start buying more acrobatics and break fall now that every old lady with a cane can _finally_ hook an ankle with it).

 

Someone decided to just stick some bonus damage onto size powers in the form of Growth Momentum, which means someone just decided that they should just stick the SFX onto the power, leaving you no other option for SFX (which is a symptom of an entirely different problem that's been creeping and growing as get more and more rules, but this is already longer than I had ever intended it to be).  Then it was decided back out, then I discovered it decided back in _and_ out as 6e contains what I assume is an accidentally-forgotten reference to Growth Momentum _again_.

 

Every damned change in this game comes from someone deciding to "just stick this here," and the bulk of the "is this fair" comments on this very board discuss value for something both in terms of cost and utility and what should and should not be bundled in and what should and should not be separate elements.

 

The fact is that the Dogma of Martial Arts rapes this particular canine over and over again by willfully ignoring what the individual components actually are and refusing to accept that there are other-- perhaps more effective; perhaps not, but certainly more in-line with the rest of the rules-- methods of achieving the same things.

 

So here is what I think we can all agree on:

 

Steve Peterson was not an infallible god.

 

Bruce Harlick was not an infallible god.

 

Aaron Allston (RIP) was not an infallible god.

 

Steve Long is not an infallible god.

 

They have infallibility in common.  They have two other things in common:  their names on rules books, and the good sense to include in those rules permission-- insistence, even-- that we ignore bad calls or change the rules and situations.  That does several things:

 

1) it demonstrates an understanding that there might be problems with the rules that these authors did not foresee or that did not come out in their own play testing.

 

2) totally invalidates any notion that the rules as written are an absolute authority or are even the best way to do anything, even within the confines of the game itself.

 

3) makes every single decision GB(i), Dsatow (apologies if I misspelled that; I'm on a phone, and attempting to scroll up will erase the last twenty minutes of screen tapping.     ), Duke, Liaden, Hugh, Doc, Chris, or _anyone_ else will ever consider absolute "Rules as Written" because the compulsion to individually make sensible changes to the rules is _written in the rules_.  There's not even a way to talk around that: it also makes them "rules as published," "rules as conceptualized," "rules as the Great (your favorite author here) intended."

 

 

So there are two ways to think about this:

 

1) either every single edition is completely compatible with all editions before and after and those small differences that do exist are merely optional ways to achieve something, or

 

2) each subsequent edition totally invalidates the edition before that.

 

Now generally we agree that there is more backwards and forward compatibility in each edition of Champions / HERO than any other game ever published.  I accept that a small percentage may instantly change their minds simply to prevent having to accept any of what I just said, and that's fine.   However, the APGs seem to whole-heartedly support via their content the idea that optional rules-- _hundreds of them...   _ are perfectly okay, and via their existence seem to support that idea that you pretty much reach deep up your butt and pull out anything you want that works better than the rules you're looking at and call it an optional rule then run with it.  The author's own recurring comments that he should prepare a _third_ collection of optional rules seems to support that even with the current 1820 pages, the rules are a bit weak and could use some punching up.

 

All that said, option 2 isn't valid.  It isn't valid because each edition of this game- all the way back to 1e, has published more and more additional rules in supplemental materials, and has specifically stated that the rules should be changed as suits your needs, meaning that _all_ rules, and _all_ rules changes made by anyone for any reason, _are_ RAW for every single edition, right up to and including the next one.

 

 

[dmjalund]

I, however am an infallible god!

[Duke Bushido]

2 hours ago, dmjalund said:

I, however am an infallible god!

 

There is no doubt. 

 

We can tell because of the way your colors cycle.      

[dsatow]

There is a good point to what you said Duke Bushido.  A game should have it rules changed to suit the game master and the campaign.  And those changes as I have noted are all well and good and should be discussed between the GM and the players.  People do specialized formats of critical hits, penalties on skills, light, etc. 

 

None of that is wrong, but its not a commonality. 

 

The one commonality is the rules as written.  If you go to a HERO game on the West coast, then to a game on the East coast, and then in middle America, the only commonality is the rules as written in the book(s).  If you ask how to build something using the rules, then I will point out if something isn't in the rules.  It isn't that it isn't playable.  It isn't that its not GM OK'd.  Its just not how the rules are written to accept it.  This isn't about whether you like the rule(s) or how the power plays, at least not in this particular thread.  God knows, I've suggested tons of changes to the rules on this board.  Its not that the writers/creators of the game created a perfect game.  They are human and a "utopia game system" for everyone doesn't exist in real life.  The original poster asked about how to do something in the rules, so it doesn't help if you say just "change the system".  We don't know the GM/players.  We don't now the rule changes they will accept or play by.  We can only know the initial rules they have read or can reference.