Rapid Fire Melee Attacks [Powers]

[AlexanderHowl]

By RAW, Melee Attacks cannot have Rapid Fire, but that does not mean that you cannot have Rapid Fire at Melee range. In order to do so, you just need to take Reduced Range 3 (-30%), which reduces your 1/2D range to 1 yard and your Max range to 10 yards, meaning that your full force attacks occur at a 1 yard range while the shockwaves of your attacks can deal 1/2 damage up to 10 yards away. Since they are technically ranged attacks, even though they look like Melee attacks, they can benefit from Rapid Fire (using Karate instead of Innate Attack is really just a special effect at that point). For example:

Crushing Attack 2d (Karate; Cosmic, Ignores DR, +300%; No Signature, +20%; Rapid Fire, 300, Selective Fire, +310%; Reduced Range, /10, -30%; Selective Effect, +20%) [72]. Notes: The character launches a barrage of punches faster than the eye can see, with the shockwaves of their missed attacks only effecting the surroundings if they wish. The shockwaves of the attack pass through any form of DR, meaning that only cosmic protections can prevent a messy death.

So, what do you think? Would you use this spin on the rules to represent Rapid Fire Melee Attacks? How have you been representing Rapid Fire Melee Attacks?

[Aldric]

ATR and Rapid Strikes work just fine, an Innate Attack described as a series of punches, an area attack (emanation or very short range probably) again described as you hitting everyone in the area with an attack.
These are the things that come to mind when I think of multiple melee attacks.

As for your idea.. I wouldn't have added Cosmic to an example ability, what's selective effect for? Oh, and No Signature, but that's just me not liking that modifier unless it's really needed to model an ability

Other than that, it works as much as a ranged attack in melee can work. It's still only 1 attack, with hits depending on margin of success, and it has a strange interaction with parry compared to normal melee attacks.

[AlexanderHowl]

Selective Effect allows you to protect everything around you from your missing attacks with Rapid Fire.

[naloth]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Crushing Attack 2d (Karate; Cosmic, Ignores DR, +300%; No Signature, +20%; Rapid Fire, 300, Selective Fire, +310%; Reduced Range, /10, -30%; Selective Effect, +20%) [72]. Notes: <snip>
So, what do you think? Would you use this spin on the rules to represent Rapid Fire Melee Attacks? How have you been representing Rapid Fire Melee Attacks?

I've done similar things for speedsters that can blanket an area with a lot of punches while running. Usually I keep the max range = 1/2 damage range since melee doesn't have a 1/2 damage range. RoF 300 and Ignores DR are fairly powerful mods to throw around casually and probably aren't justified. Selective Effect to safely "strafe" an area with the RoF seems odd.

This works pretty well for an versatile power blow alternative (Iron Fist?) since you can fine tune the effect and not have to worry about breaking your fist on something hard.

[AlexanderHowl]

The RoF 300 is an extreme that represents the '1000 Punches' or '1000 Kicks' attacks, so less extreme characters will have less extreme capabilities. One thing to consider is that this option is not mutually exclusion with ATR or Extra Attacks. A character with Extra Attack 2 (Multi-attack, +20%; Single skill, Karate, -20%) [50] could attack three times per turn with the RoF 300 attack.

Of course, such an attack would pummel most enemies into dust in one turn (since you are ignoring most DR, only IT:DR would protect you). With a +8 to hit from RoF, a skill 20 character would average 10 hits against the vast majority of opponents, dealing an average of 70 points of damage. IT:DR 10 would reduce that to 7 points of damage, allowing for longer fights.

[naloth]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

The RoF 300 is an extreme that represents the '1000 Punches' or '1000 Kicks' attacks, so less extreme characters will have less extreme capabilities. One thing to consider is that this option is not mutually exclusion with ATR or Extra Attacks. A character with Extra Attack 2 (Multi-attack, +20%; Single skill, Karate, -20%) [50] could attack three times per turn with the RoF 300 attack.

RoF is the rate per turn rather than "attack." Extra Attack wouldn't let you use a ranged attack to get more RoF than it can normally fire per turn. You would need at least to buy two IAs to fire in parallel unless you make this an actual melee attack.

Naturally ATR would give you more turns, but that's part of its expense.

Of course, such an attack would pummel most enemies into dust in one turn (since you are ignoring most DR, only IT:DR would protect you). With a +8 to hit from RoF, a skill 20 character would average 10 hits against the vast majority of opponents, dealing an average of 70 points of damage. IT:DR 10 would reduce that to 7 points of damage, allowing for longer fights.

I don't use RoF higher than 20 or so usually. Isn't there a special rule or was that 3rd?

Anyway, the Selective Effect to ignore collateral damage doesn't make sense to me either. The 290 misses should go somewhere.

[AlexanderHowl]

No, Rate of Fire is per attack, not per turn (Basic, p. 373). Selective Effect for Rapid Fire is RAW (Powers, p. 105).

[naloth]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

No, Rate of Fire is per attack, not per turn (Basic, p. 373). Selective Effect for Rapid Fire is RAW (Powers, p. 105).

http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/faq/FAQ4-3.html#SS3.5.12

3.5.12 Can I exceed the normal RoF of a weapon using Extra Attack?
Provided you took Multi-Strike +20%, possibly:

The GM may rule no or yes depending on the mechanical limits of the weapon. If a weapon has a fixed maximum rate, which no amount of trigger-pulling can raise, the answer is no. However, some semi-automatic weapons (usually RoF 3) can probably be fired more frequently if one can manage six (or more!) trigger-pulls per second. Automatic weapons limited to semi-auto can probably do this too, depending on the mechanism. In fact, some humans do this with revolvers! Check out High-Tech for a Technique that allows one to do it without buying Extra Attack.

Since your RoF represents you already throwing said fists/feet as much as you can to get a +8, it doesn't make sense to suggest you can increase the RoF. If you could have, you should have bought a higher level of RoF.

FWIW, there's a separate line in Powers that also says you can't use a power more than once per turn (to attack then Power Parry), even if you could justify exceeding a semi-automatic's RoF.

Selective Effect is RAW, but it doesn't make any sense for a rapid fire flailing shock wave of death. It would make sense for a speedster selectively punching people, though.

[Aldric]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

The RoF 300 is an extreme that represents the '1000 Punches' or '1000 Kicks' attacks, so less extreme characters will have less extreme capabilities. One thing to consider is that this option is not mutually exclusion with ATR or Extra Attacks. A character with Extra Attack 2 (Multi-attack, +20%; Single skill, Karate, -20%) [50] could attack three times per turn with the RoF 300 attack.

Of course, such an attack would pummel most enemies into dust in one turn (since you are ignoring most DR, only IT:DR would protect you). With a +8 to hit from RoF, a skill 20 character would average 10 hits against the vast majority of opponents, dealing an average of 70 points of damage. IT:DR 10 would reduce that to 7 points of damage, allowing for longer fights.

DR with Cosmic ?

[Plane]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

By RAW, Melee Attacks cannot have Rapid Fire, but that does not mean that you cannot have Rapid Fire at Melee range. In order to do so, you just need to take Reduced Range 3 (-30%), which reduces your 1/2D range to 1 yard and your Max range to 10 yards, meaning that your full force attacks occur at a 1 yard range while the shockwaves of your attacks can deal 1/2 damage up to 10 yards away.

You can make that even more melee-ish by taking the Nuisance Effect of "Range is actually 5 yards" from Psionic Powers 36.

I'm not sure what that would do for 1/2D though...

Do you recall whether or not Jet +0% (also melee-ish) is compatible with Rapid Fire?

Also, since High-Tech basically has rules for getting melee-ish to-hit bonuses with guns used at close range (+4 for all-out determined, +4 for telegraphic) it makes me wonder whether you could use these rules for non-melee innate attacks too...

If you could then would it defeat the purpose of taking Melee-Capable?

In that case if you designed guns as innate attacks then should you be obligated to take melee-capable enhancement for them to reflect the better bonuses that guns get at immediate range?

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Selective Effect, +20%
the shockwaves of their missed attacks only effecting the surroundings if they wish

I know that Selective Effect is based on senses according to PU4 (ie if you specify "exclude my allies" it only excludes allies you actually know are there)

It seems possibly that you might actually miss (or have an attack dodged) without immediately realizing that failure to make contact...

To account for that, maybe something like a Senses roll (or even a Sacrificial Power Dodge) might be appropriate to make last-minute corrections.

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Would you use this spin on the rules to represent Rapid Fire Melee Attacks?

Since it's still ranged, you could only dodge these punches, not parry or block them, so if I was trying to keep on theme, I might also take "Blockable" or "Parryable" limitations on them too.

I'm not sure if you would still do that if you took Jet, anyone know if Jets are blockable/parryable like melee attacks or dodge-only like ranged?

Of course, since you're going into a high-tier territory with that particular ability (ie bypasses DR) then you might want it to be (normally) unparryable/unblockable where only people with Cosmic Parry or Cosmic Block could defend that way.

One other area of difference is that since this is still technically a ranged attack, to get a +3 to dodge they couldn't merely do a retreat, they'd actually have to Dodge and Drop. That's a HUGE advantage IMO since you can force your foes into a less mobile posture (lying down).

Of course... you also have to then deal with the problem that when a foe is lying down, ranged attacks have a penalty to hit them, where AFAIK there isn't a penalty to hit them with melee attacks.

I don't know if there's any way around that... I guess you could also buy Accurate but the bonus to hit is only going to help if you do an Aim first, which you might not be doing if you're trying to brute-force foes with maximum attacks per second.

Note about the -20% version of No Sig, that's gotta mean one of two things:

• 1) it's NEARLY unnoticable... so people would still probably see minor fluctuations in air flow, or hear a tiny sound, equivalent to a blowdart (probably -8 to sense, based on Powers pricing)
  2) it's NORMALLY unnoticable, unless someone can sense some kind of supernatural thing like say, chi flow, in which case it would show up 100% on that.

Originally Posted by naloth

FWIW, there's a separate line in Powers that also says you can't use a power more than once per turn (to attack then Power Parry), even if you could justify exceeding a semi-automatic's RoF.

recall page? That's a pretty big hindrance to someone who might want to use Extra Attack to attack twice with various abilities included under a power.