WistfulD

Hello.  Pg. 106 of the 6E Martial Arts guide, "Power Advantages for Martial Maneuvers." lists rules for creating naked advantages for martial maneuvers. While specific to adding the advantage to the maneuver, it implies that martial maneuvers have an effective active point cost that is different from what one buys them for. Does this need to be taken into account at other times? Specifically, what happens when you apply a martial maneuver to a strike which has advantages? It is simple to understand when applying damage classes derived from martial maneuvers to an attack with advantages. Less so with maneuvers such as trip or disarm. If my character uses trip with a weapon with armor piercing, does he have to divide the trip by 1.25 (and since that doesn't make any sense, do the extra active points have to get made up somewhere)? If I've bought Area of Effect for my martial artist's strength as a naked advantage, do I have to buy it for my Disarm Maneuver as well, or are those effectively the same purchase? If I want to use my multi-pool's telekinesis power to trip someone (and my telekinesis is a weapon element for my martial arts), and the power is indirect, do I buy a naked advantage for my trip maneuver, even though the trip isn't indirect except when it is the telekinesis doing the tripping (but of course, the multi-pool can't pay the cost, as it can't purchase naked advantages)?

If there's text in any of the main texts or Martial Arts, you can just point out. Either way, thanks for your time.

Okay, whatever this is, it's about making naked advantages, so I'm not concerned with it for the MP build (it does look like a nice alternative method). Martial arts effect STR normally, and telekinesis is effectively ranged strength (that we're taking the ranged out of, a little silly). So I guess as long as you have a weapon element for the power framework, the martial arts method works. Lucious's looks like it works, although I'd have to go back and look up UaA and position shift and a few things.

Congratulations to him!

Aha! Well, I found out where I was getting the idea! P. 106 of the 6E Martial Arts guide. "Power Advantages for Martial Maneuvers." I'll have to read up on it again to see if it is relevant.

Hey Don, is there any update on this issue?

It would, and I agree with Chris. I think both Movement UAA and the trip martial art are kind of broken (although the trip one is more reasonable, as it means you are dedicating a full attack to simply making someone fall. If there's a way, I'd like 1) a single attack roll from the officer (even an AoE attack). If he hits with one effect, he hits with both. 2) two STR vs. STR rolls to see if each effect occurs. I'm not sure that Hero has that set up (which is reasonable, it is pretty specific).

I'm fine with the posibility of Martial Arts. This is a skilled officer using his predominant nonlethal effect. I'm still wondering about the confluence of martial arts and powers though. Is there anyone who can answer my question about applying AoE to the martial arts. Am I reading something wrong into the effect?

Does the character in question have a Multipower?

 

Should the Power in question be a weapon, or innate, or what?

 

There's a lot I still don't know about the context here.

 

But you are probably right that I shouldn't need Personal Immunity.

 

However, as I understand it, Multiple Attack both takes up a whole phase and halves your DCV. The latter I especially want to avoid.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Implementing a palindromedary tagline

It is a multi-power (so no naked advantage, thanks though, Crusher Bob). 65 Active Point cap. Relevant limitations are cybernetics (effectively real weapon), can't be pushed, RSR, and restrainable (EMP). Key focus is versimilitude. My question at this point is, don't you need to apply the AoE to the martial art effects? I thought I saw rules where various effects of martial arts counted as certain point values for applying advantages.

Thanks, btw.

I'd buy an Area Effect Power like Telekinesis and then buy Martial Arts for which it is the "Weapon Element"

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Martial Arts Usable With Palindromedary

Okay, I've already said that I don't know how to implement this.

I am building a cyborg police officer to challenge my players in our sci-fi campaign. It's smugglers, not killers (the PCs) vs. lawful cops, so it's going to be both sides trying to win without killing. The Cop has a Power framework with a 65 Active Point pool, as well as martial arts focusing on a tonfa/baton. I'm trying to create a 8m cone of gravatic thrust (although I am open to modelling it however it works) that knocks people to the ground and their weapons out of their hands. How would people do this? I thought that martial arts are the best way to emulate disarming, although I don't know if you can make a maneuver with both trip and disarm. You also can apply advantages like AoE to martial arts, but again I'm not clear on how it works. Telekinesis or a high knockback blast can knock people down, but I don't know about disarming. Change environment is a possibility, but we do follow the rule of "use CE only when other powers cannot accomplish what you are trying to acheive."

Any suggestions?

The core rules of shields in 6E2 say you can add the DCV to the OCV for block.

Then I guess we were going btb.

Although, in the spirit of the game, it should say, "the shield also grants a bonus to block attempts of an equal value."

Pretty much! It's a bunch of cool options, and those are things I definitely want - but - calculating DC on the fly sounds like a pain. Our thought was to just pre-calculate the DC for a given attack, so you can just look at what you're adding, instead of trying to remember how many CPs worth of strength go into the formula. 

 

Is that kind of thing just common practice? How do other tables deal with Damage Class? Is it just not that big a deal?

Kind-of. We all prefer to make character sheets on lined paper or word documents rather than cram it onto the tiny hero character sheets, so "HKA 1D+1, 2D+1 w/ str, 3 1/2D haymaker" isn't too much to have written down. Damage classes aren't that complex, they're just kind of a in mid-step during character creation and checking for allowability that translate right back into active points when determining effect. Martial art give you +2 DC? It doesn't cost 10, but it's just like adding 10 AP* to your attack? If your STR exceeds how much you can add to a HKA, it's a issue, but once you've verified that that's not the case, it's just adding straight to the AP*. Once you've read the table on applying DCs to effects with advantages on them (adding your STR to an armor piercing weapon, for instance), it's pretty straightforward.

But I strongly agree with the "any having to calculate things in the middle of a fight is a problem" mentality.

*Excepting rounding concerns.

Sometimes we have shields give bonuses to block maneuvers instead, but otherwise, that's about how we do it.

 I agree. Question about that: can such an attack be Deflected normally? I know my attack is Invisible to Sight, so if the Deflector wasn't able to perceive the incoming attack he'd be in deep doo-doo to try. I'm just meaning legally.

I think indirect and IPE covers this thematically, but can't be deflected is only +1/4 if you're truly concerned about it.

I would say omcv vs. dcv would be the most appropriate. The psion may experience this as a psionic ability, but to the target, it's a normal targetted attack. Plus, I can imagine a clueless security guard opening the lock just as you were about to do it, messing up your effect (the door gets 'abort to dodge' :-P), and that would be a physical world defense.

You don't see a defense because there isn't one listed, you have to define it, just like you do with a NND.

Thank you. That's what I'm looking for. I wanted to be sure that I wasn't misreading it and missing a defense (or just plain misreading it and it really just gave your enemy the option to move, so wasn't really an offensive-able power).

I think I will (like the flying people straight up and dropping them), declare building a power to move people into a harmful situation to be the setup for a linked attack (i.e. I don't care that gravity does the falling attack, you're paying for it with this power, and the whole better fit under our cap). Incidental damage like knockbacking someone off the top of a building is free. Teleporting someone is easy (try to teleport someone inside a solid object? How much damage does it do? you have to pay for that attack), but I'm still not sure with something like tunneling someone straight down (with no passage behind). It's perfectly within cinematic license for a piledriver to pound someone into the ground (say up to the shoulders if this is a cartoon), but it basically means someone is trapped unless they happen to have tunneling themselves. I'm thinking the examples already suggested might be close to the limit of what I'd allow.

I have a player who discovered the usable as attack modifier, and wants to explore the limits of the ability (and my tolerance). One that he discovered was applying it to movement. Am I reading it right that if he successfully hits someone with the attack (which is fairly likely, especially if he makes it AoE as well), that the effected person then has to move as directed, not gets to? It seems like a powerful ability (roll one to-hit and successfully end/delay the fight). I pre-emptively nixed flying people straight up, and then ending the effect as getting a "falling" attack on most opponents fo free, and he's fine with that. I just don't see the defense against this. If you hit, they basically have to leave the battlefield?  Am I missing part of the equation?

I have highly encouraged my players to use Presence attacks.  I am pretty liberal as a GM in applying the increased dice as found on pg 136 in 6th Edition volume 2.  Presence attacks that are simple instructions tend to work the best - players pick up on that pretty quickly.

 

In my fantasy games they have found that if they can single shot kill (or knockout) an opponent that is a great time for a PRE attack "Surrender or die!" and I will give them an additional 7d6 to their PRE.  Most players in my Heroic campaigns have 15 PRE so that is 10d6 PRE which usually results in a PRE attack of ~35 points which is almost always going to be +20 over NPC combatants PRE.

 

Of course the exact same thing can happen to them.  So it all works out.

That's where the problem might be. With the modifiers outstripping the base scores by so much, it's likely that no one is immune unless they are specifically built that way (say, an advantage for an unfeeling undead). That means that whomever can manipulate the situation to invoke one of these +7D6 presence attacks is going to sweep up. That can lead to either a cagy (read, "abusive") player using this to win fights they shouldn't win, or the players complain about being "railroaded" by situations they can't build defenses for.

Bingo.  In any case, the math for AP does not work at +1/2 even if hardened defenses do not come into the picture.

 

 

Actually, I think point #2 is a key reason this is a stop sign ability.  Adding 3 DC's to a 12 DC attack is easily noted as breaching our 12 DC campaign limit.  Independent advantage?  That can go unnoticed a little easier.  If the GM stops and considers it (which the Stop Sign should suggest), it's easy to go back and tell the player he needs to reduce the IA to 12 points, so it covers a 48 AP power and brings it up to 60 AP at maximum.

So, in your mind, it is the Total Cap that is the issue? I can see this being the case, but I like the idea that if you do include it, it might be fine.

As an example not involving flaming swords, someone wanted to make a Bestial Claw spell for his nature mage. That would be HKA 1D6 (15 base), AP (+1/4) for 19 active points. He also wants to add the AP to his 15 STR, so that he doesn't have to divide the 3 DCs by 1.25. The total attack (37.5 AP) is well under the 60 AP cap for our campaign, so it's fine by that matter.

So the power would be: HKA 1D6 (15 base), AP (+1/4) for 19 active points, divided by 2 for gestures, incantations, and RSR, plus AP (+1/4) on 15 STR for 4 active points/2 for 23 Active Points, 11 RP. 1 point fixed slot for 2 END.

He could have just as easily taken +5 STR as part of the power for 5 AP. That would give him 4 DC of Strength, which divided buy 1.25 is 3 DC added to the HKA, or he could have taken one more level of HKA for 6 AP. The difference in active points is negligible, and the difference in points for the fixed slot is nonexistent. In that example I would allow it.

Whack-a-mole battles are only a problem with Body if you have significant amounts of healing or regeneration going on. If the demon summoner is spending his time, points, and energy buffing and healing his summoned demons, he should get the advantage of that investment. If you want to give a demon with regeneration the limitation (does not work when brought below 0 body), that's pretty reasonable too. If no one's going to be healing the demons, having them go poof when they go below 0 body is just a special effect/story short-hand.

Well if AP is that bad then eliminate hardeded and AP.

That is not a horrible idea. I know I read the penetrating adder in the player's handbook I and said, "this is the right way to do armor piercing, but it will never get used because AP exists."

More along the lines of "good point" then "you're right," but neither seem that important to me now. If there's any reason to continue with this thread (itself an open question), we should shift back to how others would do a "enchanted blade" spell? We had some good ideas there before we went off into the weeds.

It disturbs you, that, in his game, the GM can tell you "no"?

That was a poorly worded aside, basically meaning, "yes, I am aware that the GM can always overrule anything that they don't like. That's not the point."

Scott, great, we can't fix anything. Little, if anything has ever been truly changed on an internet forum. A game designer who listens too much to the people on forums in the end trusts too deeply that those people represent the majority of their fan base anyway. I'm not looking for the Scott to answer me directly and say, "yep, you're right." But isn't the very purpose of this forum to discuss what we do and do not like about the way things are in the system?

And you guys are seeing a lot more stress then is there. I tried to make that clear when I said I was displeased, not concerned.

In as simple terms as possible, am am not so much concerned, so much as displeased.

What I am displeased with is thus: There a great big warning around naked advantages. One saying don't put them in power frameworks. Be cautious with them if you use them at all. As big a warnings as possible given that 1) they exist at all, and 2) the GM can always overrule. This desturbs me because:

It is not the naked advantage that is the risk to balance. you can apply 15 pts of armor piercing to something or 15 points of str or DCs to something, and the relative power is about equal. It is the act of being able to apply additional power points to equipment that clearly is the overpowering factor. No wonder things like what Bigbywolfe mentioned or STR or martial arts are indeed so limited.

In that regard, I will likely either scrap the flaming sword spell or find a way to make it less powerful than otherwise it would.  

No, I think everyone is on the same page here.

I suppose in your example, you can simply state that if you buy a flash effect for a sense that may or may not be targetting, you have to buy it up as a targetting sense if you want it to affect the targetting sense. If you only buy it as a non-targetting sense, you will deafen most people with your white-noise bomb, but Daredevil can still "see" just fine.

"If it is enough of an issues for a house rule, it might just be easier to use the full power of the base rule instead."

Full power of what base rule?

And why does your campaign, with a single GM, run into the "many authors" problem, and how is it relevant? If your character consistently uses the same power against reaccuring opponents, they at times ought to be able to plan ahead and take precautions. Why does that not translate into an RPG?

Most GMs won't let you buy a 1d6K attack and add it to the strength of an attack you get from equipment.  If you buy a 1d6K attack you have a 1d6K attack that is independent of any gear you have.  I think that's where part of your confusion is coming from.  Heck, Deadly Blow allows you to add 1d6K to a pre-existing attack but only in limited circumstances.  For 12 points you can apply that to extremely limited circumstances or a single weapon (knives, short swords, long sword would all be separate categories). 

Compared to a 15 point Naked Advantage that can make any attack Armor Piercing, yeah, I see the Naked Advantage as potentially more unbalanced.  

Well, no. The equipment is a good point. You could add a naked advantage to equipment, and you can't add additional HKA to it, but that's specific to equipment, and in my mind, they should then have "!" rules around powers effecting equipment, not around the naked advantage itself.

I guess the place where I'm unhappy is that there isn't a distinction between naked advatages you are applying to stuff you have paid for (such as your str) and things that you haven't (such as weapons).