12-12-2018, 03:40 PM | #81 |
Join Date: Feb 2016
|
Re: Defensive Auras
Reflexive would allow it to activate defensively while Independent would allow it to act independently.
|
12-12-2018, 04:20 PM | #82 | |
Join Date: Sep 2004
|
Re: Defensive Auras
Quote:
Besides, once you get up to ~200-300% in mods, you've paid for the defense, just in a different way. |
|
12-13-2018, 12:14 PM | #83 | ||||||||
Join Date: Aug 2018
|
Re: Defensive Auras
Quote:
Quote:
Penalties to hit are per the Speed/Range table as usual. Knocking a target away increases the range. If someone shoots at you from 10 yards away and you have an aura which knocks objects within 5 yards with 1-3 HP back 5 yards, I could simply say the bullet goes right back and collides with the gun... But that's brutal so instead, I think you would just add those 5 yards of knockback to the effective distance, so instead it's like they're shooting at a target 15 yards away. Which would you prefer? Quote:
Affliction (Persistent, Area Effect, Advantage: Warp) would warp away any bullets fired into the area (if they fail the HT check), so it would protect people from those bullets. Crushing Attack (Persistent, Area Effect) is simply a variant on that, except instead of warping away bullets, it's knocking them away. Instead of an HT check, it is resisted by having high HP or Resistant to Knockback. The "Aura" approach is just a variation on these where instead of setting up an AE using an Attack maneuver, you set it up by using a Ready to activate your Switchable aura. Quote:
Quote:
Knockback protects against weapons by preventing them from getting close enough to hit. Ammunition are an aspect of weapons. Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
If you read "Aura of Power", it specifies that users can specify either an opt-in system (nothing affected by default) or opt-out (everything affected by default) system. |
||||||||
12-13-2018, 03:23 PM | #84 | ||||||||||||
Join Date: Sep 2004
|
Re: Defensive Auras
Quote:
In any case, knockback doesn't list among its perks that it defends against gunfire pre-emptively.... or at least not in my rule books. Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Last edited by naloth; 12-13-2018 at 03:26 PM. |
||||||||||||
12-13-2018, 11:53 PM | #85 | ||||||||||||
Join Date: Aug 2018
|
Re: Defensive Auras
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
I think what we're looking for is step 2 on Powers 55 "define how the attack delivers its damage" Beams use Innate Attack (Beam), and Powers 66 continues that Gases use Innate Attack (Breath) for Cones, and Liquids can either use IA (Beam) or IA (Breath). Projectiles use Innate Attack (Projectile) and while this covers stuff like fireballs (Burning Attack) it's pretty clear that stuff like Piercing Attack which is "Projectile" is intended to be a physical object. One thing we need to keep in mind about Innate Attacks that leave physical objects behind: there are both upsides and downsides to that. Bullets may be subject to the laws of physics, but they can also get stuck in your opponent and require surgery to remove. Cannonballs that land on/in a boat can eventually make it heavier and sink. The benefit of bullets creating encumbrance/infection comes with the drawback of the bullets being targets themselves, and potential appropriation by the enemy (melt it down and reforge new bullets against you, match the bullet to your gun, etc). Obviously that level of complexity isn't specifically addressed in "Guns as Innate Attacks", because it is rolled into the combination of "Gadget" and "Fast Reload" and the GM is used to fill in the gaps. There are major strategic differences between "I throw a dagger of metal" vs "I throw a dagger of ice" in terms of what Gadgets actually are, and how they are affected by the environment. Those are all aspects of how we define the incoming innate attack, and which of those details should influence the overall modifier costs. Quote:
Quote:
I guess I didn't realize how much less Aura would suffer from the "Costs X" limitations. Come to think of it: "Uncontrollable" isn't "you" triggering the ability either, so maybe Uncontrollable attacks are free, even if that have "Costs Fatigue" or "Costs HP" normally? I'd have to look for more examples of these limits in action to know. Quote:
Page 6 has the "Elemental Storm" meta-enhancement which includes Persistent/Area Effect and could help in understanding how those work: On that turn and on each of his next nine turns (10 seconds total), the Storm blasts everyone (friend or foe) within 16 yards of the spot where he stood.That correctly describes how it should work against people ALREADY in the area. But if you read B111 it elaborates on Persistent's function: remain in place for 10 seconds, continuing to damage (or attack and possibly damage, if taken with Bombardment, p. 111) anyone entering or passing through it"Entering or passing through" has no "so long as they are still in the area by the time the user's turn comes around" dlsclaimer, which means that if they're late arrivals you'd apply damage immediately and then continue to apply damage on their subsequent turns instead of the attacker's. Powers 145 examples of gas attacks make it clear, the attack takes effect immediately against everything in range unless there is an Onset limitation. |
||||||||||||
12-14-2018, 01:04 PM | #86 | |||||||||||
Join Date: Sep 2004
|
Re: Defensive Auras
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
It's also unclear how it would work vs other abilities. Spidey fires a (Bind attack) web ball. How much defense does an innate attack give you from that? How about instead if he uses a (Affliction) blind attack? Does that differ from the crushing web ball fired at you? Are you basing it on the material? Spidey's webs are generally regarded as tough enough to restrain the someone with 10x his ST and hard to destroy. If not material, are you basing it on level? Is it easier to incinerate the gooey Affliction 1 blind than the 3d cr innate attack even if it's the same material? Is it easier to knock back spidey's webs than destroy them? Is it fair that an *attack* costing a fraction of the amount it would take to destroy webs would be cheaper than either the defense to protect you or the ability to counter it as a Power Parry? Perhaps the character buying it should have called it "energy" instead and made it immune. All of these are "game world" effects, but you're trying to infer mechanics from them. Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Liquids could be a beam as well as a laser. There's no physical component required by any particular skill, and it certainly doesn't define an HP for an attack. Beams use Innate Attack (Beam), and Powers 66 continues that Gases use Innate Attack (Breath) for Cones, and Liquids can either use IA (Beam) or IA (Breath). Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Last edited by naloth; 12-14-2018 at 01:08 PM. |
|||||||||||
12-15-2018, 04:24 AM | #87 | |||||||||||||||
Join Date: Aug 2018
|
Re: Defensive Auras
You've already made this confusing comment before. Whether or not Crushing Attack knocks things back has nothing to do with whether or not it has No Wounding and everything to do with whether it has No Knockback or Double Knockback.
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Spidey traditionally uses physical web cartridges (Limited Use - Fast Reload) so like with bullets, this gives GM grounds to declare what the physical aspects (weight, HP) are of the ammo before and after firing that ammo. Quote:
Quote:
To knock something back a yard, you must inflict HP-2 damage to it, which isn't enough to destroy most things. So yes. Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
If I am bowling but the lane is full of plasma, the ball will always hit the pins before burning up? Crushing Attack has a cost :) This is not immunity to bullets, it's more like "increase the effective distance between you and the shooter". If a gun had Max 100 and you were 75 yards away and could bend space to double the distance between you and anyone within 100 yards, you would increase the effective distance to 150 yards and the gun would do no damage. But that wouldn't be "immunity to bullets" because if the gun was fired from 25 yards away, doubling the space would only increase the effective distance to 50 yards, so it would still be within its Max and inflict damage. Knocking something back doesn't nullify its momentum (this is why a Charging Foe can continue to spend MP to re-close distance with you) so it would keep traveling forward. What would stop it is surpassing its Max, because at that point we treat guns as not doing harm. Quote:
limitations Unconscious Only and Uncontrollable until fully paid for." and some advantages available as psi have inherent FP costs, like Warp (Teleportation -10%) [90] which is worth 45 as a potential advantage. One worry I would have with "Uncontrollable doesn't cost FP" interpretation is someone could take "costs 20 FP" on an ability they didn't intend to use, and just rely on the 'free' attacks made by the subconscious against obvious enemies. That's why it might work better if the Unconscious ability could commandeer your FP, but not below 3 FP. That has a side benefit of reducing your FP below 3 making your ability no longer Uncontrollable though, so it's not an ideal solution either. Quote:
Quote:
|
|||||||||||||||
12-15-2018, 12:32 PM | #88 |
Join Date: Nov 2015
|
Re: Defensive Auras
This thread reminds me of an attempt to create a flaming aura some time ago. Started with Aura, realized it didn't do what I expected, began adding modifiers and finally dropped the whole idea and went with a different thing.
I think there is a rule somewhere that, when you create an ability, you use the easiest method. So in the end, you want to deflect bullets? Buy a penalty to attacks against you, or DR. |
12-15-2018, 02:02 PM | #89 |
Join Date: Feb 2016
|
Re: Defensive Auras
The idea was not to deflect bullets (the idea was to create an aura that pushes away attackers and that amplifies punches [aura attack independently of their controller after activation]). The question becomes what occurs to melee weapons and ammunition from attacks that occur after the aura is activated.
For example, an opponent hits the character with the aura active with an aluminum baseball bat. The baseball bat is not destroyed by the aura's attack, but we can either assume that its momentum is reduced by the aura or, after it imparts its momentum to the character, it receives new momentum from the character's aura. In the former case, it would first reduce the damage by its damage and then the difference would be the new momentum (if negative, it would probably act as a new attack reversing the original trajectory). In the latter case, it would probably function as a new attack tangential to the original trajectory. So, a ST 10 character would deal 1d+2 crushing damage with the aluminum baseball bat. The aura effectively deals 20d knockback when struck. In the first interpretation, the aura cancels the attack and strikes the attacker with a 5d+2 crushing attack (capped by the maximum ST of the baseball bat). In the second interpretation, the new attack would be a 5d+2 crushing attack, which would occur randomly against a target away from the original (it might be the attacker, a bystander, or something else). |
12-15-2018, 07:31 PM | #90 | |||
Join Date: Aug 2018
|
Re: Defensive Auras
Quote:
Quote:
When someone hits an aura, it would make sense to apply the aura attack directly to whatever body part hit it (ie a punch burns your hand, a kick burns your foot, a knee burns your leg, an elbow burns your arm, a baseball swing burns your bat) but in the case of AE, B413 says to use B400's Large Area Injury rules unless "only a single body part is contained within the area" Perhaps carrying something or someone makes them a hit location on you and so your torso absorbs damage that might otherwise hit them? Weapons thrown or shot into an AE while the user remains behind clearly are the "single body part" criteria in that case, and would take it all. Quote:
For the standard melee aura, this would happen after it hits you. For an AE aura, it would happen as soon as the bat entered the radius. This is only if it was thrown though... If the bat is wielded by someone with HP or ST higher than the bat (such as someone with ST 11, or ST 8 with Very Fat) then I believe you would use them to resist the knockback instead? The only way I could see the damage something did to you mattering is if you designed DR with Reflexive. If you buy a Crushing Attack then you do that damage to determine knockback regardless of how hard someone hits you. |
|||
Tags |
aura of power, persistent |
|
|