Turn of Combat Reformulated - Velocity
It's been a long time that I've been wanting to change the "turn" in RPGs to better reflect the realism of different speeds. For example, the Flash doest do 1 attack, let his enemy also attack once and then launches 1 billion attacks before next turn.
So, it has been many years I've been wanting to introduce a measure of "Velocity", which hasnt been easy at all. Here's how Im building it, along with a few considerations: Altered Time Rate = 100/10 = 10CP / +/- 1
Striking ST = 5CP/lvl
2 × (DX for Combat) - GURPS Power Ups 9 - Alternate Attributes
Final Cost of Velocity: +/- 60CP/lvl (63, rounded to 60 for simplicity) +/- 0.6 CP per 0.01 Velocity (yes, you keep and use all fractions) Velocity = (Per + 4×DX)/5 Per Contribution: 12 CP/lvl DX Contribution: 48CP/lvl OR Velocity = (Per + DX)/2 Per Contribution: 30CP/lvl DX Contribution: 30CP/lvl OR Velocity = (2×Per + 3×DX)/5 Per Contribution: 24CP/lvl DX Contribution: 36CP/lvl
Increasing Per or DX by those huge amount however may not be the best option. Therefore it may be best to modify this to reduce the impacts of attributes (therefore the costs). Therefore: Velocity = 5 + (Per + 4×DX)/10 Per Contribution: 6CP/lvl DX Contribution: 24CP/lvl OR Velocity = 5 + (Per + DX)/4 Per Contribution: 15CP/lvl DX Contribution: 15CP/lvl OR Velocity = 5 + (2×Per + 3×DX)/10 Per Contribution: 12/lvl DX Contribution: 18/lvl
That however still do not seem to suffice, due to the high prices that this would bring to the Attributes, therefore it's interesting to reduce it even further: Velocity = 8 + (Per + 4×DX)/25 Per Contribution: 2.4CP/lvl DX Contribution: 9.6CP/lvl OR Velocity = 8 + (Per + DX)/10 Per Contribution: 6CP/lvl DX Contribution: 6CP/lvl OR Velocity = 8 + (2×Per + 3×DX)/25 Per Contribution: 4.8CP/lvl DX Contribution: 7.2CP/lvl
Now those values are more manageable; considering that DX earns a discount of -5 (bellow), it's interesting to keep DX as the main contributor, and we can round values for commodity, therefore the math for Velocity and the increased costs of attributes would be (already with the -5 discount for DX) Velocity = 8 + (Per + 4×DX)/25 Per: extra +2/lvl (New cost Per: +/- 7/lvl) DX: extra +5/lvl (New Cost DX: +/- 25/lvl) OR Velocity = 8 + (2×Per + 3×DX)/25 Per: extra +5/lvl (New cost Per: +/- 10/lvl) DX: extra +2/lvl (New Cost DX: +/- 22/lvl) For this to work better, it would be ideal to separate IQ from Per, reducing the price of IQ from 20 to 15, otherwise the increased price of Per would add to IQ too. If you dont wanna deal with that, there's the option of using only DX, therefore: Velocity = 8 + DX/5 DX Contribution: 12CP/lvl DX: extra +7/lvl (New Cost DX: +/- 27/lvl) Basic Speed and Basic Moviment Reformulated So, with Velocity we just ditch Basic Speed altogheter, which inherits some discounts, and also comes the need to reformulate Basic Move. Therefore: Basic Speed (no Basic Move) 15CP/lvl = (DX + HT)/4 DX Contribution: 3.75CP/lvl HT Contribution: 3.75CP/lvl Basic Move (Regular) = (HT + DX)/4 (drop fractions) +/- 5/lvl HT Contribution: 1.25CP/lvl DX Contribution: 1.25CP/lvl Basic Move (Reformulated) = HT/2 (dont drop fractions) +/- 5/lvl HT Contribution: 2.5CP/lvl
Without Basic Speed, this means that DX and HT get 3.75 points cheaper. With Basic Move no longer having DX, it means that DX gets a further discount of 1.25, for a total of 5 points cheaper. HT however being the only controller for Basic Move gets 1.25CP more expensive, but with the discount from B.Speed gives a total discount of 2.5CP. Therefore: DX: -5CP HT: -2.5CP Now, since HT is too good and already too cheap, but also for simplicity sake, instead of applying the -2 discount to HT, we'll apply it to DX, which will already be too expensive and will have the benefit of rounding it up nicely. Therefore: Velocity = 8 + (2×Per + 3×DX)/25 Per: extra +5/lvl (New cost Per: +/- 10/lvl) DX: extra +0/lvl (New Cost DX: +/- 20/lvl) OR Velocity = 8 + DX/5 DX Contribution: 12CP/lvl DX: extra +5/lvl (New Cost DX: +/- 25/lvl)
Dodge/Initiative - either:
Depending on either or not you use Per for Velocity. After all of that fuzz, we get the following list for the times of a normal punch: V1 = 10/1 = 10s V2 = 10/2 = 5s V3 = 10/3 = 3.33s V4 = 10/4 = 2.5 V5 = 10/5 = 2s V6 = 10/6 = 1.67s V7 = 10/7 = 1.43s V8 = 10/8 = 1.25s V9 = 10/9 = 1.11s V10 = 10/10 = 1s V11 = 10/11 = 0.91s V12 = 10/12 = 0.83s V13 = 10/13 = 0.77s V14 = 10/14 = 0.71s V15 = 10/15 = 0.67s V16 = 10/16 = 0.63s V17 = 10/17 = 0.59s V18 = 10/18 = 0.56s V19 = 10/19 = 0.53s V20 = 10/20 = 0.50s V21 = 10/21 = 0.476s V22 = 10/22 = 0.455s V23 = 10/23 = 0.435s V24 = 10/24 = 0.417s V25 = 10/25 = 0.400s V26 = 10/26 = 0.385s V27 = 10/27 = 0.370s V28 = 10/28 = 0.357s V29 = 10/29 = 0.345s V30 = 10/30 = 0.333s ... V40 = 10/40 = 0.250s ... V50 = 10/50 = 0.200s ... V60 = 10/60 = 0.167s ... V70 = 10/70 = 0.143s ... V80 = 10/80 = 0.125s ... V90 = 10/90 = 0.111s ... V100 = 10/100 = 0.100s ... V200 = 10/200 = 0.050s ... V300 = 10/300 = 0.033s ... V400 = 10/400 = 0.025s ... V500 = 10/500 = 0.020s ... V600 = 10/600 = 0.0167s ... V700 = 10/700 = 0.0143s ... V800 = 10/800 = 0.0125s ... V900 = 10/900 = 0.0111s ... V1000 = 10/1000 = 0.0100s V = 10/Vx Altered Time Rate doubles the rating of Velocity - ie someone with Velocity 10 and Super Speed 1 would have a final Velocity of 20, while someone with V20 and SS1 would have a final V40. Likewise, Enhanced Move doubles the final mobility I'll still think on Maneuvers - for example, a quick punch could increase V by 20%, a slow powerful punch decrease it by 20% and pulling a trigger could be x5 or x10 the V (I'll research what's the max human capacity of pulling a trigger in a second) Summary: each point of Velocity (V) above 10 reduces the time required for all actions, gives a +1 bonus to ALL active defenses (Dodge, Parry, Block) and inflicts a penalty of -1 to ALL active defenses of your adversaries. Costs: +/- 60CP/lvl (max +3 for humans) |
Re: Turn of Combat Reformulated - Velocity
Ok, so we got the costs, but how exactly would that work in combat?
Well, the first obvious answer is that Velocity will determine Active Defenses. Each point above/bellow the human average will grant +/- 1 to ALL active defenses, while imposing a penalty of +/- 1 to the active defenses of the adversary - therefore, it's the same as imposing a penalty equivalent to the difference of Velocity between the two, since the adversary will also be gaining/losing bonuses to his own active defenses. Example: V 12 vs V 11 V 12: active defenses +2, adversary active defenses -2 V 11: active defenses +1, adversary active defenses -1 V 12: if Dodge 8, final Dodge = 8 +2 -1 = 9 V 10: if Dodge 8, final Dodge = 8 +1 -2 = 7 This is realistic, giving faster fighters better reflexes and making them harder to predict. Does that mean that it's basically impossible to defend or hit a super speedster with V1000? YES! Absolutely! A Speedster with V1000 acts once every 0.01 seconds! This mean that such a super takes 100 regular actions in a single second! You SHOULDNT be able to even see his movements, let alone be able to react to those! Now comes the harder part, because the purpose of all that math is to allow a compreensive set of actions; for example, if a nornal human (V10) is (trying to) fight a Speedster with V1000, the Speedster should hit 50 times, the normal human would finish his one action, and then the Speedster would launch another 50 attacks and only then would a new turn begin, in that exact sequence. Now, in order to simulate that, here's what we are gonna do: Take the Reaction Time (RT) of each person involved in the action. Reaction Time is always 1/V. Example
Now we find the Least Common Multiple (LCM) in order to place all of those under the same divisor: LCM 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 = 60.060 And now we apply that to all the fractions:
We can just simply eliminate the divisors for all now:
This gives the amount of "ticks" that each of this fighters take to complete a single, regular action; therefore, the faster the fighter, in less ticks he completes his actions, therefore the lower this number, the better To know what amount of "ticks" correspond to 1 second, use the "control" parameter of an average human of V10, in this case: V10 = 1/10 = 6.006/60.060 = 6.006 ticks/second. Now comes the action sequence; "Fighter E" goes first with 4.004 ticks, followed by "Fighter D" with 4.290 and so forth. Now gets the sequence of actions. For a quick table between "Fighter E" and "Fighter A to compare how would that play out, and the table of 1 second "turns": Fighter E
Fighter A
Ticks per Second
Now, we those tables it gets easy to determine the order of actions of each fighter: Fe(4.004), Fa(5.460), 1s(6.006) Fe(8.008), Fa(10.920), Fe (12.012), 2s(12.012) Fe(16.016), Fa(16.380), 3s(18.018) Fe(20.020), Fa(21.840), Fe(24.024), 4s(24.024) Fa(27.300), Fe(28.028), 5s(30.030) Fe(32.032), Fa(32.760), Fe(36.036), 6s(36.036) Fa(38.220), Fe(40.040), 7s(42.042) Fa(43.680), Fe(44.044), Fe(48.048), 8s(48.048) So, to make a clean table, the order of actions would be as follow: Actions per Second
Meaning that in this small interval of 8 seconds, Fighter E will have acted a total of 12 times, while fighter A will only have acted 8 times. Now, obviously all this math is impractical to be done with paper and pen in the middle of play, hence my problem. A friend of mine said he's willing to make an app for that, so the idea is that you just place each person's Velocity and the app gives you the final actions per second table, but I dont know if he'll do it. This can also be done on Excel I suppose. Im trying to learn how to make an app, but I dont know if I can do it. Anybody would be willing to land a hand? It's for a good cause... |
Re: Turn of Combat Reformulated - Velocity
So... is the idea here to basically break up the turn into shorter time periods, with characters who operate at super speeds being able to take their "turn" multiple times in a single second, possibly with what they do on their turn influencing how long it takes before they get another (so if you punch - or do a thrust attack - your next action becomes available sooner than if you took a swing)?
I've explored the idea before, and it honestly ends up too complicated to honestly use in play, even with a spreadsheet program to keep track of things (also, it typically requires a spreadsheet program to keep track of things). But you can see some of my previous attempts here and here. Humorously, I still have an almost-complete third version that's a bit more simplified (actually, a lot more, enough it might even be usable at the table), based on my Combat Posture system (specifically, using the Maneuver Points there), in limbo on my blog (but only the part I can access - I never published it). I got stuck trying to work out how to properly handle rapid fire weapons (the bane of any such system) and never resolved it, so it's been there for a few years now, honestly, and probably isn't going anywhere anytime soon... |
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An app would be the easiest, and you would only need to push a button to show the results, a spreedsheet would be kinda polluted but still manageable. Take a look at my previous post, I had reserved it to edit with all the math needed, the work is all there and the only part a little harder is to actually make the damn sheet. After it's done thou you just place the Velocities and (hopefully if it's everything right) it already gives you all the action orders and even the modified active defenses for everybody Just check me second post in this thread |
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Ideally, this would all be invisible to users, you would just place your Velocity, than there would be a buttom for each different action - so for instance, if a Swing gives +10% in speed (meaning it's slower), my example above would go from 4.004 to 4404.4 ticks for the next action, which the program would calculate automatically, adding that value for the next roll of action of the player or NPC; if it's a Rapid Fire, the player will just press the "Rapid Fire" buttom and his tick count will be added by the system on rounds of 400,4 each (meaning the player would should 10 times before any other act). The only problem I always had is that I dont know programming :) |
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I think Altered Time Rate is the official GURPS trait for characters like the Flash. No comment on the virtues of it or any other rules (I have never used it).
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With Altered Time Rate, the Flash does a single action, then Batman throws a single Batrang, and the Flash does 99.999.999.999 actions afterwards. Also, unless you also buy ungodly amounts of Enhanced Defenses, you can have Altered Time Rate 5000 that you'll be just as easily to hit as the next guy, and you need ungodly amounts of combat skills to mimic being easy to target a "slow moving" (from your perspective) target, in order to take insane levels of Deceptive Attack, tanking insane levels of skill penalty to nullify the active defenses of your adversaries. That's not exactly how it goes. The way I built it, you'll actually have an easier time hitting and avoid being hit the faster you are, like a real Speedster. But that not for Speedsters only, even small changes within human ramge would have an impact. And you can buy the trait in the order of 0.01 apiece; for example, having Velocity 11,24 is slighthly faster than 11,07, and it would be calculated at full by the program (just as an example, Velocity 11,24 would be 1 action every 0.890seconds whike V 11,07 would be 1 action every 0.903, a difference of 0.013 seconds more or less. Now compare those to V 11 full, which is 1 action every 0.909 seconds, and you can note the tiny differences between each fighter) |
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The first issue I have with Velocity is that the game slows down to a glacial pace if the velocities are too disparate. If you were to insist on resolving each of Flash's 500,000,000 actions first, the Batman's player is going to be waiting 13 years to declare his action (assuming you can resolve 1 action every second and don't do anything else for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week). If you're not going to resolve things action by action, then Velocity isn't needed and whatever you're using for a more rapid solution is the solution you're looking for.
For Velocities where the differential is 2:1 or less, a difference of exactly 2:1 is easily resolved as 1 level of Altered Time Rate. For a ratio less than that, it seems that Initiative by Speed should be an adequate solution. Granted nobody gets an extra action in, eventually, but at GURPS resolution, it seems like much work for little gain. Taking longer with a swing action than a thrust action is perhaps more easily dealt with as a house rule that penalizes speed when swinging as opposed to thrusting, say something like "declare your attack as a swing at your usual place in Initiative, but roll for success at Speed-0.5 in the Initiative list (roll a die to resolve order if you're tied with anyone at that Speed)." |
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The shooter rolls a single time, unless he's also a Superspeedster, in which case he could actually adapt to each single shot; the bullets however will be shot individually. The weapon itself would have it's own "Velocity", based on the RoF: for example, a gun with RoF 10 on full automatic, would be counted as "Velocity 100", meaning that each fire will be shoot in 0.1 seconds. If a char has V200, he can (easily) dodge the first bullet and cover the distance to the shooter in order to catch him just in time for the second bullet to get out. Also, someone with V200 and a mere HT10 would be moving at 20×5 = 100 yards/s (roughly 100m/s), which means roughly 205miles/hour or roughly 360km/h. That's just 7.5 times slower than averages bullets themselves, and faster than Formula1 cars at top speed. If the shooter aint a Speedster himself, he simply cannot adapt - and if he is, he would be better served throwing knives. (Now that I think about it, I probably should add Striking ST and remove Enhanced Move, since Altered Time Rate will already cover that). Now, for normal humans (up to Velocity 15 at most), this doesnt mean much, except a Dodge penalty/bonus to hit the target; since ALL bullets will land before any single other action, the Dodge difference will be all that matters. For Speedsters, this might mean get 1, 2 or maybe 1/2 actions between bullets or some combination of that (1/2 action would mean 1 action for every 2 bullets for instance). |
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ATR is very powerful, more so when turned into a Wildcard power. Supers 4e page 41. That is what I always use for my speedsters. At low levels you got streel level speedsters. At high levels you get The Flash, higher still is Sonic The Hedgehog. |
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The thing about that extra level of detail is that it also encompass how it becomes easier for a faster mover to hit a slower target - like for example anybody can always hit a turtle - and how it's harder for a slower mover to hit a faster target. This new trait plays good both for insane differences as for small ones; for example, a V14 vs V12, both within human scope, would nevertheless present a significant difference when they fight, with the V12 guy suffering both -2 to his own dodge and facing a +2 higher dodge from his adversary. I'll add Striking ST, since someone with V14 obviously punches harder than a V12 due to the speed of the impact alone. Also, Velocites bellow 2:1 - in the human case, between 10 and 20 - means that a person CAN act faster than once a second - just not every second. At V15 for example (the normal human max), you act at 2/3 of a second - this means that every 2 second, you have 3 "turns". This cant be represented by by Altered Time Rate - and yet a skilled martial artist would be poorly served by being denied that advantage. |
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B = 3 C = 1 D = 0 Assuming that is also the initiative order. then the order is: A,B,C,A,B,A,B,A,A,A,B,C,D |
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You start choosing Maneuvers when your turn begins. Then you play out the effects of those Maneuvers in one block and you remain in the status (AoA, AoD, etc) of your last maneuver until your next Turn begins with another round of Maneuver choices. After you've played out the effects of your last Maneuver the Turn of the next player in the initiative order begins and so on. If you want to break up the effects of ATR to deny the possessor one of its' most important benefits......well, it's _your_ game but you're way out in House Rules land. |
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As an hypothetical example: assume we have 2 fighters, the first that has a tick account (after all the math done by the app) of 300, and the second with a tick of 200. So, obviously the one with 200 ticks will act 1.5 faster. So let's see: A 200 ticks (starts 1st action) B 300 ticks (starts 1st action) A 400 (concludes 1st action and starts 2sd) A 600 (concludes 2sd ction, starts 3rd), B 600 (concludes 1st action, starts 2sd) This means that, at 400 ticks, Fighter A can actually "interrupt" the Fighter B action midway (with a knockback from a punch, for instance), BEFORE Fighter B have actually had time to conclude it. Imagine me or yourself fighting Bruce Lee. We start a good punch on his face when BAM! We dont even finish the movement of our arms because he hit us in the face and we lose our balance, tripping behind. Our arm never even got near his face. It would play just like I described for the example above - which would be EXACTLY a fight between a V10 average human and a V15 human max, the V15 would hit us once (lets assume he misses this time, just so we a chance), we start our movement towards his face, but midway to reach it, the Martial Artist hit us again BEFORE we reach his face (and probably knocking us down with a broken jaw) |
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In this, initiative will only count towards the very start of combat, and only for surprise; at every full reaction-time, the surprised person gets to roll IQ normally to "snap out" of it. So, someone that has V20 and acts once every 0.5 seconds, would get 2 attempts to snap out of surprise per second. Someone with V1000 would get 100! And probably would murder any of the attackers that "surprised" him before they could even pull a trigger (for example, if it took him 20 rolls to recover from surprise, he would still have a good 0.8 seconds left to act - enough to act 80 times lol).
When combat begins, it's like a "mini-surprise": everybody rolls, the lower initiative starts; let us give an example: Fighter A - 500 ticks; critical success on initiative, acts first Fighter B - 200 ticks; not so good in the initiative roll So, the first one to act due to initiative, starts his action IMMEDIATLY; all others can only start acting AFTER a FULL tick account. So: Tick 0: A starts first action Tick 200: B starts first action Tick 400: B finishes first action, starts second Tick 500: only now A concludes his first action (assuming he wasnt interrupted) and starts his second. This means that a Speedster much faster than the adversary can "catch up" even if he failed initially to "begin hostilities". This would be the case of one of us seeing Bruce Lee on the streets and trying to test our luck, out of the blue; even thou we began the action, he probably would hit us before we even managed to conclude our pathetic attempt |
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For super fast actors, it doesnt change much: someone with V20 will act first, then also act another time while someone with V10 will only act after those 2. This gets interesting however when considering someone with ATR 0.2 against someone with ATR 0.45 thou. And this works equally way for Superspeed just as much as it works for just slightly faster/slower speeds, so it doesnt just go for sonic vs the turtle, but it actually serves well for the "Great White Dragon" vs "The Fury of the East" in a martial arts tournament. |
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Since he gets 1 billion actions before his adversaries, that in game mechanics terms would mean he gets a critical failure along those. Lets forget those absurdly high numbers thou, because either with RAW ATR or my "Velocity", the amount of CPs to reach such ridiculous amounts would make a God look like a noob. The Flash for example moves at light speed (even faster), that would require 60 MILLIONS of levels of ATR, or 60 BILLIONS of char points. So lets forget that absurdity for a while. |
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A = 5 B = 3 C = 1 D = 0 A,A,A,A,A,A,B,B,B,B,C,C,D If they Also have ETS, I would house rule what I did in the original post. |
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So, I was also thinking, maybe this could use the "Super Effort +400%" Enhancement to kind of allow Speedsters in Supers games... It gets a little cheaper than ATR and with more stuff to it
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Also, even treating his punches as innate attacks dont account for his capability to run several times around the world in a mere second, or when in such a comics panel he finish 5000 task at the "same time" in a mere moment |
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It's just simple ATR |
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Running around the world or stacking up 5000 bricks is something that is not central to a Flash-like character's concept and indeed is little more than a cherry on top of that concept. It shouldn't cost thousands of pts and it doesn't need to be done in millisecond by millisecond detail. |
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If we're felling funny, considering HT 20 and DX 20 (Basic Move 10), I'll round yards for meters (each yard is 0.91 something meters) as per Gurps recommendations, and the light speed being (more or less) 300 millions of meters per second, that means that the Flash would need 30 millions of levels for Enhanced Move alone, which would cost 600 millions of CP alone. Now, the modified non combat ATR would cost (more than) 200 CP per level. So, maybe you dont want him to build castles at light speed (althought he does), so maybe "just" 100.000 non combat actions per turn would do the trick; that alone would be another 20 millions CP. And now you finally add your innate attack on top of it, which granted, would pale in insignificance to the above costs. The Flash is completely broken and not replicable in a balanced way for a Gurps game, unless the game is set in players with absurdly different CP levels; the Flash is even more broken than Superman, and there's very few "people" in either Marvel or DC comics that would cost more than him. Edit: I didnt even considered a few other of his absurdities, like moving so fast that he can vibrate his molecules fast enough to allow him to go over walls (that one is way cheaper than any of the above thou, "only" 80 CP for Insubstantiality), running so fast that he actually goes ABOVE the speed of light and thus he can basically freely travel in time (again, much cheaper than the above) and being able to cross dimensions (like the "Speed Force Realm") and alternate realities, and even being faster than teleportation across the entire UNIVERSE, some other nonsense. The Reverse Flash, in one story, took a bullet in his BRAIN, from one side to the other, by the "Batman" - it wasnt Bruce thou, it's an alternate reality upon which Bruce Wayne was killed by an unkown criminal in the alley instead of his parents, so his father became the "Batman", but a brutal executioner of criminals (and Bruce's mother became The Joker). Anyway, after taking a bullet in the head, the Reversed Flash managed to remain alive just by "slowing time", so the micro seconds it would take any normal human to shut down and die by taking a bullet in the head, he managed to "multiply" by an undefined amount of time. And many many other examples of absurd |
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The Flash (Power only) ATR! 10 [4000] Enhanced Move (Second Nature) 20 [1000] He can run at 57,671,680 yards a second, or 117,964,800 mph (11 turns running at 5,242,880 yards per maneuver). If he needs to REALLY run, ATR! gives him 1000pts to use how ever he can explain. Thats another 20 levels of EM. Speed then becomes 5,497,558,138,880 per second. 18337.88 times faster than the speed of light! And that is assuming a BM of 5! Each level of ATR! gives another 100pts AND another maneuver. All that for 5000pts to start. No where near a billion. |
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The result is 10,000 pts which is a lot but more than 3 orders of magnitude less than the answer you got. The Enhancement from Supers is called simply "Super-Speed" and costs +20% and if we gave this to our Flash-y character it would let him go from (say)ATR 20 for 20x the number of combat Maneuvers to the number in the Speed/Range Table for a x5000 multiplier for non-combat activities. This is another 2400 pts but actually lets us take about 5 levels off the Enhanced Move. So we're in the low tens of thousands of pt rather than millions or billions. .....and once I take enough time to think it over 20 x2 x25 is only 1000 rather than 10,000. So we're in the mid-thousands rather than millions or billiopns |
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That's what you get when you try to get from the memory advantages that you never actually used before. Now, every level of Enhanced Move actually doubles all those before? It's an exponential advantage thus? I guess that's why I mistook it in my head, I dont remember any other advantage that is like that, with multiplicative levels rather than additive |
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Re: Turn of Combat Reformulated - Velocity
I've taken a long time to comment on this, because it seems incredibly complicated and hard to understand. It seems as if you're trying to introduce a new stat to take the place of Basic Speed. I'm not seeing what function that new stat performs that isn't already covered by Basic Speed, but it seems to me that what you describe has some problems:
* When you say that Velocity 10 equates to Altered Time Rate 1, that seems to point to the idea that +1 to Velocity gives you an additional 1/10 action. But what is a tenth of an action? I don't see how that would have any relevance in combat. If the one-tenth actions are supposed to add up over the span of many terms, that's a lot of extra bookkeeping; if they just get dropped, they don't seem to be worth anything. * If you are assuming actual increased speed as part of velocity, you're overlooking one important implication of speed: kinetic energy. If your fist is moving faster it inflicts more damage. If you suppose that a normal person inflicts on the order of 1d, then +1 damage on top of 1d would be on top of 3.5, which would be +(2/7)d, which would be 1.29x kinetic energy; +2 would be 1.57x; +3 would be 1.86x; +1d would be 2x. Velocity 11 would give you 1.21x kinetic energy, Velocity 12 would give you 1.44x, Velocity 13 would give you 1.69x, and Velocity 14 would give you 1.96x; rounding down, I would say that Velocity 12 gave you 1d+1, Velocity 13 gave you 1d+2, and Velocity 15 gave you 2d+1. |
Re: Turn of Combat Reformulated - Velocity
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+1 Velocity would indeed be 1/10 of ATR; yes, a fight between someone with V10 and V11 would indeed be a close call, however the V11 would eventually act over the course of 10 seconds a total of 11 times, while the V10 only 10 times. It's going to be a small difference, but that small difference - 1 action every second vs 1 action every 0.91 seconds - but that small difference can in fact be the difference between life and death (and in truth, +/-1 Velocity has a huge impact). It garantees that the faster fighter will have a privileged sequence of actions before the slower one. There's more that it does than just that thou - the full meta-trait describes all that each round Velocity value does. It gives a bonus of +1 to all active defenses per +1 (above 10) of Velocity, and applies -1 to the active defenses of the adversaries. And it does one more thing... Quote:
That's the reason why this ended up being so expensive, it's because it has a segmented ATR - for 10 points per lvl, it has increased defenses, which ended up being the most expensive part, 30 points/level, it has the "Deceptive Attack" sort of meta trait, which is more of a "DX applied to combat only", which would in theory be 9 CP/level; deceptive attacks give a -2 to skill to inflict a -1 to the active defenses of the oponent, so each lvl of Velocity has 2 levels of that "Combat Only DX", for 18 points/lvl, so that can be converted into a -1 to the adversaries active defenses, and it also have Striking ST for 5 points/level. The total would be 63, but I rounded to 60, particularly because the "Combat Only DX" is being used exclusively to deliver Deceptive attacks, thus the character wouldnt be able to enjoy any other benefits (in fact, that discount may even be bigger than that). So, in truth, the most expensive parts of it all aint even the ATR part; the ATR is in fact the least expensive one. |
Re: Turn of Combat Reformulated - Velocity
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Suppose that X and Y are fighting, and X has Velocity 10, and Y has Velocity 9. Velocity 9 gives one action per 1.11 seconds. Second 1: X acts; Y does not. Second 2: Y acts at .11 seconds; X acts at end. Second 3: Y acts at .22 seconds; X acts at end. Second 4: Y acts at .33 seconds; X acts at end. ... and so on, till second 11, when Y acts at .99 seconds and X at the end—or when you round Y up, and X and Y act simultaneously? It seems as if you are going to be doing a lot of bookkeeping to keep track of who acts when. There's a reason that RPGs other than GURPS split combat into discrete rounds/turns (for example, Champions has a 12-second span of time, in which Speed 1 lets you act on phase 7, Speed 2 on phases 6 and 12, Speed 3 on phases 4, 8, and 12, and so on). It seems as if you would be adding a lot to the GM's load. It also seems as if, in every second after the first, the slower fighter actually acts before the faster one. Or do you want to segment combat into, say, centiseconds, and count off: .01, .02, .03, .04, .05, ... ? |
Re: Turn of Combat Reformulated - Velocity
A method I've seen in a small number of games (mostly not RPGs, though classic Feng Shui had a variant on it) is by having a fairly high granularity initiative track, and every time you take an action you move your counter forward by the cost of the action; once the timer reaches your counter, you're free to take another action (video games may use something similar to this, where taking an action puts you on an animation lockout, but they usually also don't have instant activation). This allows you to do a number of things that are quite hard to do in a one action per turn system -- not only does it let you have characters at different speeds, it lets you have characters have different speeds when taking different actions -- but it's significantly harder to use than regular round robin initiative.
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Re: Turn of Combat Reformulated - Velocity
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Re: Turn of Combat Reformulated - Velocity
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The way Feng Shui worked was a more pure, though. The way it worked was: You rolled initiative -- generally 1d6+stat, where stat probably ranged from 5-10 (this is not ideal). People acted in order from highest initiative to lowest, and every time you took an action you reduced your initiative by the cost of that action (so you acted multiple times per turn). It generally took 3 initiative to make an attack, though certain special abilities changed that, and you could reduce that to 2 by taking a -2 penalty, 1 by taking a -5 penalty (die rolling was 2d6, both exploding, one positive, one negative, so -5 was a lot). You could also aim (spend 1-3 initiative to get +1-3 on an attack). There were other specialized actions with different cost; usually particularly fast activation abilities cost 1. The target could also spend 1 point of initiative (even if their action wasn't up yet) to get a bonus to defense; this was generally worth it in one on one, but ate up all your actions if multiple mooks were attacking you. It was a system with a fair number of flaws, but it also had some interesting ideas. |
Re: Turn of Combat Reformulated - Velocity
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I think I remember a supers game that worked this way too but the name escapes me at the moment. The really similar thing I know of is Chivalry & Sorcery from version 3 onward. You calculate your "Action Points" and then start spending APs to perform actions until you run out of APs. |
Re: Turn of Combat Reformulated - Velocity
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So, all you would have to do would be to select over the screen the maneuver you'll execute - or use a ranged weapon, whatever, and those options would show in a single screen. You press, and the system tells which one goes next. This would also open up the possibility to have a new trait for weapons, some sort of "Speed Modifier" or whatever. As for "after acting twice in a single second, the slower guy will always act first", that's not a problem because there wouldnt really be a "turn" of combat" just sequence of actions, and there would not be a division of time; each part takes as long as it takes to do their thing. Keeping track of the seconds would just be for having a notion of how long the battle takes, but it truly would no longer have any influence. Granted, 99.99% of humans will still be very very close to the 1 second mark, and Velocities of 11.23 vs 10.52 are entirely possible. Division of time is not necessary, the system will calculate it all and just return the sequence. Im building a sheet to use as a basis for an app, and even that would be enough, but the commodity of not having to constantly change entries on a google sheet or excel table would greatly improve it's use. Now, I do have a problem of time, like I always do I've involved myself in some 20 different RPG personal projects, Im trying to develop my personal taste shamans, Im working on a final set of Alternate Attributes that pleases me, I still need to finish my adaptation of Wraith the Oblivion for Gurps but for some reason I developed "writters block", and every time I look at that I get sick and dont wanna do it, but I have to, and now Im also devoting my energies to create yet another sheet for Realm Management, with greatly expanded rules from the Gurps supplement, which I intend to put to full use on my next Fantasy game, and that's the project that is my focus right now. I wasnt even thinking about Velocity, that was a project of mine from years ago, which a friend of mine ressurected asking me to explain it a little because he just remembered, and he wanted to do something similar. And my brain is obscessive, when I begin something I cant get it off my brain, which is why Im hear, and I gotta say, Im glad I did it because it's been an improvement from previous attempts. But I cant get my Realm Management out of my head; my spreedshets are almost done, Im fine tuning the details and I'll do some play tests; after that I'll see if my friend (who is in Asia right now, all the way across half of the globe) can help me breath life to those two ideas. I just hope we can do it |
Re: Turn of Combat Reformulated - Velocity
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There were some severe limits thou; first of all, you play as the Scion of a God, and yes you can become a God yourself (maybe, someday). Who knows, maybe even dethroning Zeus. Anyway, the thing is, the powers on that are absolutely world shaking - just imagine playing like a literal God and exchanging punches with Chronos or Fenrir or Mikakaboshi or helping Ra keep Apophis at bay. Anyway, this means that very, very fast, you get to become so fast as to have all of your actions to cost just a single tick, after which there's no more progression and frankly, everybody from Demi-God to above simply break the system by always acting on every single tick. That idea thou gave me the idea "what if the Wheel was bigger? Oh, I know, if I can make a Least Common Multiple, I could create a wheel any size I'd like, because now all fractions would matter |
Re: Turn of Combat Reformulated - Velocity
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I think the purest example of what I'm thinking of is the board game Red November (FFG actually has the rules up on the web). |
Re: Turn of Combat Reformulated - Velocity
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Meanwhile the second place guy in the initiative order declres his action whihc happens after the relevant number of AP have been counted off. So the first attack happens at 22 and at 21 the leader can declare another action. If you're attacked and want to do an active defense your declared actions take a 2 AP penalty. |
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