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Dog of Lysdexics
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Melbourne FL, Formerly Wellington NZ
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Re: Melee Weapons and RoF
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Originally Posted by N.H.Alicia
I had a specific special attack that required a melee weapon in mind. A flurry of attacks, represented by Rapid Fire. No maneuvers - this advantage is itself a special technique, so you can't add all-out attack on top of it.
I was considering adding All-Out as a disadvantage, because this combo attack seemed to be mutually exclusive with defense - the user must devote their entire round to it.
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Here's is some posts that might clarify things for you from When Mêlée Attacks need Rapid Fire...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kromm
In melee combat, the initial roll to hit is strictly to bring your weapon into contact with the target. If the real-world weapon is one that delivers multiple prongs, jolts, etc., then these repeated interactions with the target don't qualify for multiple hits per attack (like rapid fire) in the GURPS sense. Instead, one of these two situations applies: - If the repeated effects would accumulate directly, and no form of subtractive protection -- such as DR -- would apply to each "hit" individually, then the weapon simply gets more effect: more dice, a higher level of Affliction, etc. Variability in the number of "hits" is reflected in the random roll for effects; that is, the higher the damage roll, or the poorer the victim's resistance roll (leading to a longer duration for Affliction effects), the more hits occurred.
- If the repeated "hits" would individually encounter subtractive protection such as DR, then the weapon still gets more dice, a higher level of Affliction, or whatever, but it also gets an armor divisor less than one. For instance, the stun gun on p. B271 does HT-3(0.5) aff instead of HT aff multiple times. In Martial Arts, a trident will get +1 damage relative to a spear but have an armor divisor of (0.5). The random roll for effect still account for variability in the number of "hits."
This is deliberately abstract. It saves time by minimizing the number of die rolls. The only time one cares about separate rolls for effects for each interaction is in one of these situations: - A high rate of fire actually improves the odds of striking at all, and a miss with some of those shots could strike other targets, as with rapid fire for ranged weapons. This is untrue for virtually all melee weapons . . . a Taser's multiple zaps don't improve the odds of putting the thing in contact with the target in the first place (nor are they intended to -- the goal of the pulsing is to induce EMD), and a trident's bulky head actually makes landing a hit harder (although it also makes dodging harder, which is why it's useful against swift-moving fish), and in either case, you cannot strike multiple targets.
- The attacker can apply separate combat options (hit location, Deceptive Attack, etc.) to each interaction and the defender must take distinct active defenses against those blows, as with a Rapid Strike or an Extra Attack in melee. You could certainly do this with a Taser or a trident, but this would have nothing to do with how it operates -- you could also do this with a knife or a halberd.
It comes down to recognizing that real-world effects do not always correspond one-to-one with game effects. In fact a significant number of real-world effects are abstracted in GURPS, often by rolling once at a modifier to cover multiple attempts or a longer period of time, by letting a variable roll for effect represent a spectrum of scenarios, or by having the action itself represent an entire complex body of possibilities that aren't broken down further. |
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kromm
Because to be effective, multiple punches normally require a significant investment in such things as the Dual-Weapon Attack technique, the Extra Attack advantage, and the Trained by a Master advantage and/or high levels of unarmed striking skill (to make Rapid Strike viable). These have significant costs far above that of simply slapping the Rapid Fire enhancement on thrust damage, even at human-scale ST. Part of the reason for these costs is that unarmed punches, unlike Innate Attacks, are subject to multiple, cumulative damage bonuses for brass knuckles and All-Out Attack (Strong) (which have no point cost), and high striking skills (already paid for to get the ability to hit). Part of the reason has to do with melee attacks benefiting from Feint and Deceptive Attack, and never suffering range penalties.
It really isn't hard to munchkin a character who pays all of 10 points for 1d thrust with RoF 70 and 4 points for Brawling at DX+2. He then proceeds to claim +6 to hit for his RoF, make a Deceptive Attack at mere DX level to give -4 to defenses, and -- unless his DX is poor, which is unlikely for any martial-artist or speedster build -- score perhaps four or five hits. His opponent defends once vs. a rapid-fire attack, at -4 for Deceptive Attack, and probably won't make his defense by enough to avoid all the hits. The attacker's damage is 1d thrust, -1 (punch), +1 (brawling), +1 (brass knuckles) = 1d+1, several times. A pure brawler with 16 (not 10 + 4 = 14) points in Brawling has DX+5 level and can try a Rapid Strike for just two attacks at DX-1 level, with no defense penalty and no stipulation that his defender roll a single defense at a large margin. That just doesn't stack up.
And you'll note that I didn't get into running along a line of 10 foes and punching each one seven times, which makes Rapid Fire on ST even more over-the-top next to honest points in skill.
Comparing this to ranged combat is apples to oranges. Yes, it's quite possible to get ranged attacks with high RoF for cheap. On the other hand, they don't get damage bonuses for anything, their accuracy ablates rapidly with distance, and they can't exploit useful combat options to reduce target defenses. Moreover, things like RoF 70 blasts are going to be subject to whatever "arms control" rules the GM uses for extreme-RoF weapons such as miniguns (see p. 138 of Powers), while melee attacks are not.
I'm not sure why people want to make speedsters cheap. In the comics, they are near the top of the power pyramid, rivalled only by the very toughest bricks, psis, and do-anything "wizards." If you want a speedster who can attack lots of foes, then I'd suggest starting at 750 points and spending most of that on DX 15 [100], HT 13 [30], Basic Speed 10 [60], Basic Move 20 [50], Altered Time Rate 4 [400], Enhanced Move 3 (Ground) [60], and Extra Attack 2 [50]. Such a speedster could take five Move maneuvers in a row to run at an effective 1,600 mph (Mach 2.1) . . . or four All-Out Attack (Double) maneuvers, each allowing 10 yards of movement and giving four attacks, followed by an Attack, allowing a step of 2 and three attacks, for a total of 19 attacks on foes spread over 42 yards. With a few disads to pay for skills, he could easily get Karate-18 and make all of these Deceptive Attacks for bonus damage. If attacking means more than running, shift the mix to get more Extra Attacks.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by roguebfl
So you would not built Ramna's blazing firsts, or Chun-Li's Rapid kick (both of which are animated as multiple attacks all blurred together due to speed)
As IA (+ ST Based + Rapid Fire - melee) ? [I'm not expected the attack to be cheap, simply replicated]
Mind you both are from over the top Martial arts settings.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Kromm
An over-the-top campaign is where you least want to have to use margin-counting, make separate damage rolls, etc. If "blurring it all together" works well enough for the setting creator, then I think it's good enough for an RPG. Just call it one attack, and come up with a clever description that says the damage is caused by lots of blows, a vibrating fist, whatever. Obsessing on the physics-and-engineering definition of how it might work is counterproductive. In a cinematic game, the results are all that matters. In both of your examples, the results are that the punch and kick in question hurt more than an ordinary punch and kick.
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Last edited by roguebfl; 12-07-2017 at 06:04 PM.
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11-21-2017, 03:01 PM
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