Combination Attack Techniques: Ready Maneuvers

[Pseudonym]

An idea occurred to me. I was wondering if it would make sense to use a combination attack from martial arts as the basis for costing out an advantage or power-up that allows people to use weapons that have many ready maneuvers between uses.

Some examples:
Combination(Reload(Musket), Reload(Musket), Reload (Musket)) to reload three times faster than normal. (I get there are perks to do the same)

Combination(Swing(Axe)/Torso, Retrieve(Axe)/Torso) to attack with a pick, and attempt to pull it out in the same turn.

Combination(Whip/Whatever, Ready, Ready) to be able to use a long whip each turn.

First off, would this even make sense? Secondly, if the first is a yes, a lot of the ready maneuvers I would like to do in a single turn have no dice roll, so it feels like you almost have to pay the full price of the technique at once, kind of all or nothing. Is there a workaround that would seem fair that would allow a player to invest a point at a time?

In regards to number two, I think, taking the whip example, it'd be better to represent the combination technique as an advantage that would cost the same amount of points as the completely paid for version of the technique, and then put a cosmic +50% modifier (any hit location).

Does this sound like a mockery of the raw? Does it sound workable?

[Gnomasz]

Well, you have the precedent of Quick-Shooting Bows, which is a specific ready and an attack. I guess you could read it as a Combination. So I guess go ahead, but the Ready also requires a skill roll at −6 (if the task doesn't normally require a roll, it's the weapon skill, just like with the quick drawing).

[Bruno]

That's exactly the approach I used (particularly modeled on the Fast Firing stunt for bows). Note that you can't buy off the penalty for fast readying/fast firing a bow directly - you buy Weapon Master or Heroic Archer. It's not a Combination Attack because Ready maneuvers are not a kind of attack.

[Pseudonym]

Originally Posted by Bruno

That's exactly the approach I used (particularly modeled on the Fast Firing stunt for bows). Note that you can't buy off the penalty for fast readying/fast firing a bow directly - you buy Weapon Master or Heroic Archer. It's not a Combination Attack because Ready maneuvers are not a kind of attack.

This also sounds like a good idea. I'm kinda on a personal quest to make a build that can be dangerous with whips (why? Because I can! Also, Castlevania, but the Vampire Killer is some weird hybrid of Whip, Kusari, Flail, and h*cka magics) And that might be a good place to start as well.

[Varyon]

Ready is a Maneuver, not an attack, so by RAW Combinations aren't going to work there. That said, as others have noted we have at least some precedent in Quick-Shooting. That functionally allows you to do a Ready as an attack, but it requires a roll against skill to do it (so Ready and Attack is a 2-attack Rapid Strike, at -6 each). You'd have to determine which skill is appropriate - for the musket, if using normal musket reload time I'd allow you to roll against Guns, but if you've already reduced timing using Fast-Draw (Ammo), I'd probably require your rolls be against that (of course, I'm inclined to get rid of the Fast-Draw skill and make it a Technique, but that's a different story). The pick example is going to be a bit nasty - you take a -6 on your attack, then have to make another roll at -6 to try to pull the weapon out, and on a success there you have to make the normal ST roll.

At least the Belmonts have Weapon Master (Whips), so their Attack-Ready-Ready Combination is only at -6...

[Pseudonym]

I put together my thoughts and some of the information from this thread, and I composed this post.

http://pseudoboo.blogspot.com/2016/0...gineering.html

Do the resulting point values sound appropriate?

[Christopher R. Rice]

That's pretty clever, Pseudonym - I approve. :-)

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Pseudonym

Do the resulting point values sound appropriate?

One data point you appear to be missing is GURPS Martial Arts, which is where Quick-Shooting Bows first appeared. That gives us the -6 per roll (Heroic Archer halves this penalty), and can be used as precedent to allow Ready to be an Attack (using a straight skill roll) rather than, well, a Ready maneuver, so we shouldn't need that instance of Cosmic.

With that in mind, in a cinematic campaign, simply replacing Ready with an Attack but requiring a roll should be available. This means you could pull it off at full skill with an appropriate Extra Attack or with All Out Attack (Double), could draw a weapon with one hand and attack with the other as a Dual Weapon Attack at -4/-4, or Ready and Attack (or Attack and Ready) as a Rapid Strike at -6/-6 (or -3/-3 with an appropriate Advantage). If your attack goes after a specific hit location, that's simply a Combination - your axe swing to the Vitals is going to cost [9] ([4] for the first +1, [5] to buy off the remaining -5). Something involving nothing but Readies doesn't need to worry about hit location at all, so just pay the normal cost - your Frantic Reload* is going to cost [15].

Now, getting rid of the need for a specific hit location is a bit dicier. With a typical Combination, getting rid of the need for a specific hit location is equivalent to grabbing Extra Attack (Single Skill -20%, Multistrike +20%) [25], so a mere +50% - boosting cost to [14] - is clearly insufficient. However, so long as you've only got one attack involved amongst, perhaps, a multitude of Readies, it really isn't abusive. In fact, the DF Power Up implies you can actually get away with not having any degree of Cosmic for buying off the penalty - it doesn't treat it as a Combination at all! Still, I'd say that +50% is fair, with bows being treated as a special case.

With that in mind, you can "upgrade" any Combination that has only one Attack with the rest as Readies for +50%. A strike-anywhere version of the pick swing is going to cost [14], and your whip attack is going to cost [23].

Note in all these cases, the price is going to be reduced if you have an Advantage like Weapon Master that decreases your Rapid Strike penalties. Apply a -3 per additional attack to the base price, and recalculate from there. So the pick swing is [6] with a specific hit location, [9] without one; the whip attack has a new base cost of [9], so it's [14] for the strike-anywhere version; and finally a Gunslinger can pick up Frantic Reload for only [9].

*Note Frantic Reload may well be worthwhile for a character who already has Fast-Draw and the Quick Reload Perk. For example, a cinematic rifleman using a muzzleloading flintlock could take his reload time from the default of 60 seconds all the way down to about 5 seconds - 30 seconds by using paper cartridge, 20 seconds for Fast Draw, 15 seconds for Quick Reload, and with 3 Readies per second, that's 5 seconds total.

[Pseudonym]

Originally Posted by Varyon

You said a lot here, but I think it's pointless to repeat it all if I am replying almost immediately after.

Ah, those are interesting thoughts. I've updated the post with a paragraph explaining the bit on Martial Arts, I added costs for Weapon Master users in the worked examples, and I discussed in the closing paragraph the possibility of waiving the 50% for allowing readies in a combo.

Originally Posted by Ghostdancer

That's pretty clever, Pseudonym - I approve. :-)

Thanks! It's mostly because I was able to bounce some ideas off of the smart people here though!

[evileeyore]

Ooh, very nice. I'd like to see a Pyramid article on this, maybe with expansion on using other "non-attack" maneuvers in Combinations?