Feature-level Innate Attack

[Michael Thayne]

According to the rules for Innate Attack, a 1d-3 attack is 0.1 dice of damage. But what about a 1d-4 or 1d-5 attack? I think it might be fair to make the latter at least a 0-point feature. That would enable things like a "speed power" that makes its users skin crackle with sparks every time its used, with the crackling effect built as Burning Attack 1d-5 (Aura; Melee Attack, Reach C) [0] and the power modifier to be "Link, only when your skin is crackling with sparks, -10%". Thoughts?

[Plane]

Having a 1d-3 Corrosion Attack is treated as a 0pt feature for starfish (pg 29 of Toolkit 2 - races) because they lack a biting survace.

0.1 dice of Corrosion Attack (10/lvl) is a perk while 0.7 dice of Crushing Attack (5/lvl) is 3.5 character points so it's kind of a net loss... although I guess once we apply the -35% melee(cannot parry) 65% of 3.5 is 2.275 so that'd only round up to 3 pts (2pt diff) and maybe even less if we apply a logical consideration for biting like "No Knockback": 1.575 rounds up to 2, so you're trading a 2pt advantage for a perk.

Why that's fair I think is because having an entirely new form of damage (non-crushing) is more useful than having yet another way to do crushing damage.

That's also why I don't lament the loss of bites carrying grapples while starfish corrosion presumably doesn't (or does it?)

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

According to the rules for Innate Attack, a 1d-3 attack is 0.1 dice of damage. But what about a 1d-4 or 1d-5 attack?

I think maybe how many -0.3 dice per -1 basic damage should be limited to for crushing and dice-1 for non-crushing.

If we do allow additional -1 it should probably have diminishing returns since you can't go below 0 (for crushing) or 1 (other types) regardless of penalties.

Here's a starting point, for example, moving in the right direction:

If it's "cost x 0.7" for -1 to 1d (10pts) then the next -1 to 1d-1 (7pts) to reach 1d-2 could instead of being another full -3 pts (4pts) be instead 7*0.7=4.9 points (round up to 5).

The next -1 (to 1d-3) could be 4.9*0.7=3.43 points (round up to 4)
the next -1 (to 1d-4) could be 3.43*0.7=2.401 points (round up to 3)
the next -1 (to 1d-5) could be 2.401*0.7=1.6807 points (round up to 2)

Paying 2 points instead of 10 is 0.2 dice, which is still less than the 0.25 dice you're supposed to charge for a 1-damage attack.

For non-crushing attacks, a 1-damage attack is effectively what you're getting with a 1d-5 attack because you get a 1 on a 6, and the results of -4 to 0 round up to 1 damage anyway. I'm thinking 1d-5 ought to just be off-limits and you just pay the 0.25 for 1 damage instead.

It only produces something unique for crushing which is "1 damage 1/6 of the time, 0 damage 5/6 of the time".

I think maybe for that you could instead design a 0.25 crushing attack and just apply Accessibility 16% to it (-35% according to PU8p4) to keep the ban on 1d-5 consistent.

1d-4 on crushing attacks is still probably overpriced compared to 1d-4 on non-crushing attacks because you only inflict basic damage 1/3 the time instead of 100% of the time.

Would be much simpler if we just never allowed penalties that created 0s, or didn't have the minimum 1 for the non-crushing.

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

I think it might be fair to make the latter at least a 0-point feature. That would enable things like a "speed power" that makes its users skin crackle with sparks every time its used, with the crackling effect built as Burning Attack 1d-5 (Aura; Melee Attack, Reach C) [0] and the power modifier to be "Link, only when your skin is crackling with sparks, -10%". Thoughts?

Burning Attack 1d-5 is going to inflict a minimum of 1 basic damage 100% of the time.

Burning Attack 1d-4 experiences no difference between rolling anything other than a 6 (2dmg) and 1-5 (1dmg)

I don't really understand what you mean by Link -10% here. Auras are flipped on and off as free actions.

If you want to have an aura that you can only switch on while moving at high speeds you probably want P99's "only while moving" limitations (3 variants)

If I were to give them unique names I'd hazard "only while stepping", "only while jogging" and "only while sprinting" perhaps.

To have auras which ALWAYS come on when you move at high speeds, I guess that's kind of like "always on" except it's not ALWAYS on, just when it fits other criteria required for it to be on.

That's a bit of a cheat/crock but it seems to be allowed for stuff like Invisibility (only while insubstantial) with Insubstantiality, instead of taking Link+10% on both w/ +10% switchable on invisibility. They're not 100% identical of course: if invisibility in neutralized you can still turn insubstantial in the non-link version, where I think if you have +10% version of Link either ability getting neutralized means you can't use the non-neutralized one either.

[Michael Thayne]

Now I'm realizing I totally forgot how minuses to damage work. Hmmm. Maybe I should have given "Innate Attack 1 (Unreliable X)" as my example.