Making sense of jet and jet-like spells
 

I've been going through all the spells that do direct damage, and reading the jet and jet-like spells has only brought up more questions than I started with.

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Lets start with Flame Jet, which is the simplest example, though still not simple.

You use DX-4 or Innate Attack to hit, though it doesn't specify which specalization, we can work out that it's Innate Attack (Jet). You cast the spell, and on your following turn you have a big flaming sword of some indeterminate length. You can then whack someone with it, and if you want it to last longer you can pay to maintain it for subsequent rounds. Working that out took some searching, as I initially thought that you could attack with Jets on the same round they were cast. After all, the duration is only 1 second, but I found some posts on the matter that helped explain things.

But while I could answer that question for myself, I could not find an answer for what happens to characters with ATR or Great Haste.

In combat my character is under the effects of Great Haste whenever I can manage it, which means he's acting twice every turn. Now lets say I start a turn by casting Flame Jet. I now have a Flame Jet in one hand, and a spare action which I use to attack with it. Now I'm on my next turn which is when non-Hasted characters would normally get their first attack with the Jet. Again, I attack with the Flame Jet. Now depending on how long each action is, that's probably be the end of the jet. I finished casting in the middle of my first turn, so it ends one second later in the end of my following turn. Though I could also see people who interpret the jet to last until the end of the second turn, allowing for three total strikes with the jet.

Does it make sense for a character with extra actions to get extra attacks without paying extra maintinence periods on Flame Jet? Is it balanced? I would be inclined to say that a straight reading of the rules allows it. After all, ATR is about the perception of time, not the actual passage of it so 1 second is still 1 second. I'd also say that it's probably balanced. ATR/Great Haste let you do everything twice as much, so I think it makes sense that's true for uses of Flame Jet as well. Though I'd interpret it to allow two swings rather than three.

I still take some issue with not being able to attack with the jet in the round it's cast, after all you've got the jet and it's pointing somewhere. But fine, if that's how the spell works then it's how it works.

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Next is Breathe Fire. A Kromm post here: http://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.p...29&postcount=9 cleared up some questions I had about just how and when you can attack with it, though again it seems weird that you can't attack with it in the same round it's cast. Again you've got a jet of flame going somewhere, and spellcasting already assumes some sort of gesture so it would seem sensible to have those gestures include pointing the jet at whatever it is you want to be on fire.

There's also this line "Caster rolls to hit against DX-2 or Innate Attack skill. This counts as an action;" Counts as an action? Why 'counts as'? Isn't it already an action, a Concentrate action? And why is the to-hit DX-2 and not DX-4?

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Acid Jet at first seems like a copy of Flame Jet, so much that I was going to ignore it. But then I noticed that it does 1 less damage than it's comparable missie spell, Acid Ball. Flame Jet and Fireball do the same amount of damage, so why should Acid Jet do less? Yes, it mentions that face hits might blind due to the acid effects on B428, but surely Acid Ball should do the exact same thing?

Acid Jet does have the knockback effects from Snow Jet, but that hardly seems to justify a -1 per die penalty in damage. Particularly since that reduced damage is only going to make that knockback less useful. With that damage profile you need to put 4FP into the spell to get enough average damage to push even an ST 10 character back a single space.

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Steam Jet at least seems to deserve it's damage penalty. The knockback remains largely pointless, but the blinding effect on a spell that isn't already dealing corrosion damage, combined with the bonus damage against fire and ice creatures makes this a solid choice. It wouldn't be my main jet spell, but it's niche effects are significant enough to warrant learning this in settings where such creatures exist.

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Further trouble comes when you look at their breath equivilents, Breathe Steam and Spit Acid. Unlike Breathe Fire which uses the weird "counts as an action" language, these two instead have the line "Caster rolls to hit against DX-2 or Innate Attack skill (p. B201). This counts as an attack". Again, it mentions the to-hit being DX-2, but I already brought that up above. The main issue at hand is "This counts as an attack". Does that mean that unlike normal Jets, and indeed Breathe Fire, that these spells do in fact deal their damage on the round you cast them? If not, then what does "counts as an attack" mean or refer to? It also makes me wonder if "counts as an action" on Breathe Fire was meant to read "counts as an attack".

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And then there's Icy Breath. Is it a jet, a jet-like, or something completely different? This one also uses the "counts as an attack" language, though this one is DX-4 instead of DX-2. It's also not clear what the range is. I think you're supposed to assume it behaves like a jet, with it being a melee weapon with reach equivlient to the cost of the spell, but that's far from clear.

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And then there's Lighting Stare. Like Icy Breath it uses DX-4, though it doesn't have "counts as attack" or "counts as action", but it does have double range for some reason. It also doesn't say that it has the lighting damage effects from the Lighting spell, though many of the Lighting spells are unclear about which ones have or don't have the side effects.

The other oddity with Lighting Stare is that unlike all other jet spells which do the same damage as their equivilent missile spell, Lighting Stare does 1 more damage. Is this because the lighting effects don't apply to Stare?

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As I've been typing this out I've been trying to summarize all this general confusion into a specific list of questions, but that hasn't been easy. So instead I'll lay out how I think things should be based on a slightly open minded interpretation of RAW and you guys can tell me what you think. Hopefully Kromm will see this and he'll be able to give a clear answer.

Flame Jet (and all other actual Jets) allows for an attack on the following turn, matching the general consensus around Jet spells. ATR/Great Haste also works like I describe above, where it allows you to pack extra attacks into the duration. ATR 1/Great Haste gets you two attacks instead of one, while further levels of ATR would add further attacks.

Acid Jet would do full 1d instead of 1d-1, which probably means that Flame Jet deserves to do 1d6+1 damage. Otherwise it would work as described.

Steam Jet requires no modification.

Breathe Fire, and Spit Acid would get their damage updated to follow the changes to Flame/Acid Jet.

Icy Breath would be a jet-like, with the same sort of FP-based reach, etc.

Everything that says it hits at DX-2 would be ignored unless someone can come up with a good explination for this one. It isn't even consistient among the breath/gaze jet-likes. It's all just Innate Attack (Jet/Gaze/Breath) now and the DX-4 is inferred from the default.

Spit Acid, Icy Breath, and Breathe Steam would all attack on the same round they finish casting based on the "This counts as an attack" wording.

Lightning Stare would also attack on the same round it finishes casting. It lacks the "This counts as an attack" wording, but in every other way fits in the category with the breath-based jets. The double range seems weird, but it's a specific enough addition that I can only assume there's some reason for it so it stays. Lighting Stare would also get the lighting based side effects you see on the spell Lighting. Otherwise it makes no sense for the damage to penalized. (In fact all the Lighting spells should get the side-effect, but that's a little outside the scope)

Breathe Fire would also attack on the same round it finishes casting, contrary to the linked Kromm post, on the basis that "counts as an action" is a weird line to include and it maybe sorta means "This counts as an attack" if you spell the word "attack" really wrong. Also it fits in the category with the others, so it should probably have the same effects.

For casters with sub-20 skill these jet-like spells remain contingencies to be used when your hands arn't free. For casters with skill 20+, they become limited instant-damage spells that are used mostly by spell-swords or by mages who somehow find themselves in melee range.

This does somewhat break the "cast then attack" flow that most of Magic follows, but there are already exceptions to that. Dehydrate, Frostbite, and Explode being good examples, and where those require resistance rolls, these require attack rolls and allow for active defences. I also don't think it's a necessary balancing feature of Magic, at least in melee range where non-magical characters can already deal damage every round, though they obviously don't need to spend FP to do it.

Re: Making sense of jet and jet-like spells
 

Nope, the length is very precisely determined as being 1 hex per energy you put into the Spell. This is figured before you get your discount for knowing the Spell as skill-15.

So you take your Concentrate on your Turn and get your Jet. Your Turn then ends witht that Concentrate. Attacking with the Jet requires an Attack Action which is separate from the Concentrate.

So when Aldehar the Incendiary (back when he was fresh out of magic school) wants to bbq some orcs he Concentrates when he first sees the orcs casting as the orcs are charging. He's casting at 1FP but because he's skill-15 that gets discounted to 0. The next turn he can Attack the orcs and he puts his 1 hex Jet on the end of his 2 hex Staff and only comes within 3 hexes of the orcs i.e. he's behind Nyx the Barbarian. He's not spending any energy to keep the Jet going so he can last many Turns which is probably something the orcs can't say.

If you're more familiar with That Other Game think of a 1 energy Jet or Ball Spell being the equivalent of one of those "cantrips" that their casters can produce without limit. Put more energy in and you get the effects of a higher level Spell but you'l run out of energy fairly soon.

Re: Making sense of jet and jet-like spells
 

I meant more that the jet's length varied and that it wasn't important for the example.

Re: Making sense of jet and jet-like spells
 

Some of your confusion, I think, comes from some assumptions that are understandable considering the usual way games are designed. Let's start with this one:

GURPS doesn't have rounds. There's a sequence in which characters take individual turns, around and around. But there's not a higher-layer structure called a "round" that spans some set of those turns. There's not a special "Start of Round Phase" in which some things are tracked and events happen, or an "End of Round Phase" which makes clocks tick. There are just turns.

Thus, there's no 1-second-long round length. The time is approximate as well, but that notional 1 second is the length of time from the start of one character's turn to the start of that same characters next turn. Two characters have turns that overlap slightly, with different start points.

So, second hair to split, simply because the jargon might make the point clear:

- ATR isn't about perception. (There's a different advantage, Enhanced Time Sense, that's just about perception, the universe around you "looking slow" even though you're not "moving fast".)

- "Maneuver" is the key word here. That's the thing you choose to describe what you're doing during your turn -- Attack, Move, All-out Defense, etc.

- Most characters get one Maneuver during their turn. But "turn" is not synonymous with "Maneuver". It's possible to have more Maneuvers during one turn.

- ATR is an Advantage that gives you an extra Maneuver per turn. (It might just as well be called "Extra Maneuver".) So, you might Move for your first Maneuver during your turn, and then for your second Maneuver during that same turn, choose Attack. Or, say, Attack and then All-out Defense, so the AoD persists through all the other turns until the start of your next turn.

- The notional time from start-of-turn to start-of-turn is still 1 second, so ATR really does mean you're moving twice as fast, if you choose Move twice. It's not just perception; you're accomplishing twice as much physical activity as the next guy. (Still, ATR is not a complete Flash-like speedster package. Emulating that kind of speed takes a number of other Advantages.)

- There's yet another Advantage called Extra Attack. This one doesn't give you another Maneuver. It adds one attack to the number of attacks you could make during whatever Maneuver you chose, if that Maneuver allows attacks in the first place.

- ATR and Extra Attack multiply. EA 1 means you can make two attacks if you choose an Attack Manever. ATR means you can choose two Maneuvers per turn. If you choose two Attack Maneuvers, then it's (base attack + EA attack) + (base attack + EA attack) = 4 attacks total.

- Casting a spell is the Concentrate Maneuver

- So, with ATR, you can Concentrate, then Attack with your Flame Jet, in the same turn. (Notionally one second by the time you're done, which is to say the start of your next turn; there's not a global clock that you have to wait out before you can attack.)

- As long as I'm dragging in yet other Advantages, see Compartmentalized Mind. We could call this one "Extra Maneuver (Mental Only)". It works like ATR, except that your choices are more limited. It would suit this case, those, since you could (CM) Concentrate=cast and (normal) Attack, for the same net effect as having ATR. Also, multiple levels of CM do allow spells to be cast by "parallel processing". CM 1 plus a base Concentrate would let you cast a "2 second" spell in 1 turn. (CM 59 would let you cast a 1-minute spell in one second.)

When trying to sort out the mechanics, it's really less about time or turns than it is about counting Maneuvers. If you're trying to relate combat to external time, then you measure from start-of-turn to the next for the same character.

With all that under our belt, the Great Haste questions should be clear. Great Haste adds one level of ATR, so the character can do whatever ATR 1 would let them do, and nothing extra or different. They're the same thing. Casting Great Haste on someone with ATR 10 means they have ATR 11 (not ATR 20), so it's not a straight multiplier on actions accomplished.

The last point is that GURPS is not written with the attitude adopted by a number of other games, that the rules are meant to be interpreted literally and mechanically, while any quirks or ways to stack something until the system breaks that you find are intentional meta-tactics meant to be exploited. (Good-on-yer!) The rules are meant to be interpreted by consenting adults working together to have fun. If something seems broken, then it's either a problem in understanding the intent, or -- you know -- just a broken rule. It's not a designed loophole that's supposed to be there if only you follow the text literally.

So, despite my being picky about the jargon above, I'm not trying to give you the impression that there's this precise sequence you have to follow. I'm just using the terminology hopefully for one benefit of jargon, to make understanding the intent more clear.

Re: Making sense of jet and jet-like spells
 

Actually, there is a 1 second long turn length, Basic 324 makes that explicit.

And Altered Time Rate is about perception, the first sentence in the advantage's description says as much.

Reading what you wrote, I'm still not sure what your position on Flame Jet and ATR is, but my point in regards to turns being 1 second and ATR being about perception is this: ATR is not making time pass more quickly for you, as in, if you have some effect that lasts 10 seconds it's 10 seconds from the perspective of the outside world even if the character experiences 20 subjective seconds in that time. Characters with ATR don't age at double the rate, for example.

And if all that is true, and Flame Jet has a 1 second duration, then it follows that characters who can act twice as fast can get two swings out of Flame Jet where an ordinary character would have only one. And ATR 2 would let you swing three times, ATR 3 would give four swings, and so on.

Re: Making sense of jet and jet-like spells
 

All Turns are approximately 1 second long and while Player A, Player B and Player C all have these 1 second Turns they are never the same second.

So if player A ios first in the Turn order he declares his Maneuver (and without ATR he gets only 1) and he is then carrying out that Maneuver for the approximate 1 second. So if he chose All-Out Attack there is 1 second where he can not take Active Defenses.

Player B then begins his Turn and it overlaps with Player A's and Player B can take an Attack Maneuver and attack A and A can not respond with an Active Defense until he's come to the end of his Turn which will happen with the begining of his _next_ Turn.

Now with the 1st level of ATR you can take 2 Maneuvers during your Turn. These could be a Concentrate (say to cast Flame Jet) and an Attack (to Attack with the Jet). If you cast the Jet on a previous Turn you can use your 2 Maneuvers to Attack twice. you'l only pay maintenance once on the Jet because it goes by Turns rather than Maneuvers.

However, "perception" will have nothing to do with it. Sometimes Gurps Powers ahve Flavor text that doesn't mean anything. Find the spcific rules information in the text and go with that. Don't try and create interpretations to jibe with the flavor text. It's the rules you have to follow and not the flavor..

Re: Making sense of jet and jet-like spells
 

Which is just the lite rules for combat. The detailed rules on B.363 includes a more detailed definition of a turn, which is what most people go off of. And to emphasise the original post, there is no Round grouping the Turns. The slowest person doesn't somehow have less than a second to do things against some artificial limit. They have a second to do something before they can do something else.

I forget where I saw it (likely a Kromm post), but ATR can instead affect the subjective time for no change in cost. Of course, this would affect every buff and debuff a character receives. (And isn't really relevant to Great Haste.)

But yes, spell durations as time is deliberate and do work that way.

Re: Making sense of jet and jet-like spells
 

I'll be pedantic here, ATR does have perception grade effects. There are a number of things that you receive no penalty for even though you technically rush. It's just that ETS has the more natural ones for acts fast, including the all-important act first.

Re: Making sense of jet and jet-like spells
 

Is that not the scenario I outline?


I'm not creating anything, Flame Jet says it lasts a second, ATR/Great Haste let you pack more actions into that second. My point about perception is intended to head off the counter-point that ATR might make the duration pass more quickly. It doesn't, and this is the case whether you ignore the "flavour text" or not.

Re: Making sense of jet and jet-like spells
 

Note that by changing "round" to "turn," you have objected to something that was not said. The point is that there are no "rounds." Individuals take turns taking (usually single) maneuvers. These do not exist inside any globally-existing timekeeping unit.