Melee Attacks and Rate of Fire

[Anthony]

For something with a lot of attacks, the Rapid Fire rules seem a lot more straightforward (and much faster) to use than the Extra Attack and Rapid Strike rules -- a hydra with a dozen heads or a Hekatonkheir with a hundred arms is likely to be an obnoxious amount of die rolling, and either it can't hurt anyone, or it obliterates people in one attack. Treating it as a single attack with RoF 12 (or 100) is much simpler.

So, is there any way of doing this? RAW doesn't allow Rapid Fire along with Melee Attack or Jet, and while you can make it a fake melee attack by making it blockable, parryable, and short range, you still wind up needing to make ranged attack moves rather than melee attack moves.

[vierasmarius]

Personally, I think it would be fine. I'd go so far as to allow Rapid-Fire Melee techniques in a cinematic setting (anime are full of characters who deliver a blinding flurry of dozens or hundreds of blows as one discrete attack). I don't think it would present balance issues, though I'd be curious to hear from the experts in this regard.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by vierasmarius

Personally, I think it would be fine.

Well, yeah, you can just say "You may apply rapid fire to melee attacks". You might want to restrict it slightly, something like "if you make multiple attacks, divide your rate of fire by the number of attacks".

[Dinadon]

Originally Posted by Anthony

-- a hydra with a dozen heads or a Hekatonkheir with a hundred arms is likely to be an obnoxious amount of die rolling, and either it can't hurt anyone, or it obliterates people in one attack.

This statement has nothing to do with number of attacks. If an attack can't hurt anyone, increase its damage, if it obliterates everyone reduce damage. If it will obliterate some and not hurt others (and that isn't the intent) then trade damage for armor divisor. Anyway, a large number of attacks that each do 1-2 points of injury easily adds up.

So, is there any way of doing this? RAW doesn't allow Rapid Fire along with Melee Attack or Jet, and while you can make it a fake melee attack by making it blockable, parryable, and short range, you still wind up needing to make ranged attack moves rather than melee attack moves.

The best example would be the Hundred-Handed Strike from Pyramid #3/61: Way of the Warrior. It uses Cosmic +100% to get round the rule, and if you're generally wanting to get around forbidden combinations you should look at Power Ups 4: Enhancements as that goes quite in depth on how to use Cosmic enhancements.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Dinadon

The best example would be the Hundred-Handed Strike from Pyramid #3/61: Way of the Warrior. It uses Cosmic +100% to get round the rule, and if you're generally wanting to get around forbidden combinations you should look at Power Ups 4: Enhancements as that goes quite in depth on how to use Cosmic enhancements.

Hundred-Handed Strike is probably the best published example. Do note that being a GURPS Dungeon Fantasy ability, it's a set piece that comes without general design rules or much in the way of "under the hood" advice. Cosmic, +100% is just a starting point. It's probably unwise to allow Rapid Fire on a melee attack without significant drawbacks on use. That ability stacks up All-Out, -25%; Costs Fatigue, 1 FP, -5%; Costs Hit Points, 1 HP, -10%; and Limited Use, 1/day, -40%. Those limitations make the move risky, exhausting, and rarely used. A fuller set of guidelines might require similar limitations – especially ones that require prep or cooldown – to maintain control over excessive RoF.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Kromm

It's probably unwise to allow Rapid Fire on a melee attack without significant drawbacks on use.

Why? It does give an option to all-out attack for +4 instead of +1, and the ability to rapid strike, but both effects have enough incidental drawbacks that it doesn't seem like a big deal, and rapid fire is fairly expensive to start with.

[Kuroshima]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Hundred-Handed Strike is probably the best published example. Do note that being a GURPS Dungeon Fantasy ability, it's a set piece that comes without general design rules or much in the way of "under the hood" advice. Cosmic, +100% is just a starting point. It's probably unwise to allow Rapid Fire on a melee attack without significant drawbacks on use. That ability stacks up All-Out, -25%; Costs Fatigue, 1 FP, -5%; Costs Hit Points, 1 HP, -10%; and Limited Use, 1/day, -40%. Those limitations make the move risky, exhausting, and rarely used. A fuller set of guidelines might require similar limitations – especially ones that require prep or cooldown – to maintain control over excessive RoF.

I did publish (and so I assume you gave it a look, even if it maybe was post-publication - PK certainly did when he edited the article) an Imbuement Skill to sort of get RoF with melee weapons, Multistrike, (In Mystic Power-Ups, in Pyramid #3/60: Dungeon Fantasy III, p. 23). I did, however, load it with significant drawbacks too, though in my case, they were different: You don't get much in the way of rate of fire and each attack does a lot less damage. The intent is that unless you're VERY skilled (where you can either avoid the damage penalty or get a decent amount of hits) you trade having to deal with DR twice for doing follow-up damage (from Elemental Soul Imbuements or follow-up giving imbuements) twice.