Reverse Missiles as a standalone power... how would you model it?
 

I'm thinking about getting away from Magic and just modeling various spells as advantages instead, but Reverse Missiles, a rather common defensive spell in my campaign, is a tricky one for me. Any input?

Sorry if this has been covered before, or elsewhere.

Re: Reverse Missiles as a standalone power... how would you model it?
 

I'd think about DR with Reflective and a limitation "Only vs Missiles", which is probably only worth -20%, considering how broad the definition of "Missiles" is for that spell.

Yes, this means it's not absolute, unlike the spell, but that's one of the significant differences between the Powers system and the Magic system.

Re: Reverse Missiles as a standalone power... how would you model it?
 

I'm not thinking of what it might be, but a limitation that might be "nice" for this would be one that made it all-or-nothing. If the missile inflicts up to the DR's capacity it is reflected. Otherwise it goes through normally. This would be a good way to not have to explain why and how an arrow hurt both the Reverse Missile protected character and the archer. It would also make the spell more customizable. At first the mage might only be able to reflect some thrown objects and maybe some long-ranged arrows, but as their "skill" improves they could begin turning more arrows and eventually heavier artillery.

Re: Reverse Missiles as a standalone power... how would you model it?
 

Affliction with
Aura, Area Effect, Accessibility (ranged attacks only), Advantage: Warp (only turns the target around).

Be sure to take lots of levels to prevent the missile from making its HT roll. Alternatively, make it a Based on DX or IQ or Will, for inanimate objects have IQ/DX/Will/Per of 0.

Re: Reverse Missiles as a standalone power... how would you model it?
 

Control (Kinetic Energy, Common?) with at least 20 levels... Set up a "reflector" wall and all kinetic energy can be reversed in orientation as it passes through. ~ 200 points (Only Missiles -20%, Only to set orientation to away -10%, 4 Fatigue/Min of Use -20%) unless you get creative on limitations.

Edit: Upon reflection (no pun intended), it seem that rather taking "only missiles" as a limitation it would be better to alter the category from Common to an Occasional. This makes it 15/lvl instead (which comes out to almost the same point value, but allows more in limitations).

Re: Reverse Missiles as a standalone power... how would you model it?
 

You mean a limitation on the Reflection enhancement, yes? Makes sense to me, although a general limitation of that kind could be quite useful for DR - for some kinds of force-field.

I'm sort of amblivient on what to price it - with only DR 1, that's a huge limitation, but with DR 50 there's not much that can go through it... I suppose if you get hit with something that can do 51 damage, instead of being almost immune you explode in a pink mist.

It's like the usual DR-vs-high-damage-weapons problem, only much much worse.

Re: Reverse Missiles as a standalone power... how would you model it?
 

Well, I was thinking about putting the limitation on the DR rather than just the Reflection modifier. But you're right that could cause some dramatically binary effects. Either way.

Re: Reverse Missiles as a standalone power... how would you model it?
 

FWIW, I agree that this is *the* way to build this power. I'd give -40% for "Only vs. Missiles", however. It is very broad, but it is clearly a subset of "Ranged Attacks", which is -20%.

As for the all-or-nothing limitation (on either the reflection or the DR itself), I would price it as an accessibility. I wouldn't use a fixed value for this -- the effectiveness of all-or-nothing DR is dependent upon the usual damage amounts found in the campaign and the amount of DR you purchase.

In effect, the accessibility is not "Only versus attacks that don't exceed DR" (which IMO is impossible to put a fair price on) but rather, "Only versus attacks doing X damage or less" where X is coincidentally equal to the amount of DR you have.

Something like this:
DR 20 (Limited: vs. Missiles, -40%; Reflective, +100%; Accessibility, Only versus attacks doing 20 damage or less, -5%) [155] or [110] w/Multiplicative Modifiers

DR 10 (Limited: vs. Missiles, -40%; Reflective, +100%; Accessibility, Only versus attacks doing 10 damage or less, -15%) [73] or [45] w/Multiplicative Modifiers

Re: Reverse Missiles as a standalone power... how would you model it?
 

If 'Cannot Wear Armor' doesn't change its percentile value regardless of the amount of wearable armor available (and the maximum DR you can have, because your DR is all you've got now), why should 'All or nothing' change its percentile value depending on the amount of DR it comes with?

Re: Reverse Missiles as a standalone power... how would you model it?
 

I'm not seeing what one has to do with another, Molokh.

Cannot wear Armor says: "I'll forego the protection I can get as gear."

All-or-Nothing says: "This power is only effective versus the x% of attacks that do the least amount of damage."

I really don't see any common ground there at all.

Re: Reverse Missiles as a standalone power... how would you model it?
 

As DR approaches infinity, CWA becomes irrelevant. As DR approaches infinity, AoN becomes irrelevant. As DR approaches zero, CWA becomes an infinitely bad limitation (it just prohibits wearing armor). As DR approaches zero, AoN becomes an infinitely bad limitation (it makes the DR's usefulness approach zero for a full set of attacks).

Re: Reverse Missiles as a standalone power... how would you model it?
 

That sounds more like an argument for the pricing scheme I'm suggesting than against it.

Re: Reverse Missiles as a standalone power... how would you model it?
 

Except that, because CWA doesn't change value (whether it should or not), then AoN shouldn't change value either. It's entirely possible that both should do so, but currently CWA doesn't.

Re: Reverse Missiles as a standalone power... how would you model it?
 

I'm using a canonical precedent to prove my point. If two modifiers behave in a similar way depending on the progression of some other value, then their price should be modified by the same (or similar) function of said value. Since CWA is cost-static, the precedent dictates that so should be AoN.

Re: Reverse Missiles as a standalone power... how would you model it?
 

But they don't behave in a similar way. Not at all.

"Cannot wear armor" is functionally like a temporary disad. When using your DR (assuming that it is switchable), you lack the ability to do something that ordinary people can do.

"Only against attacks doing less than x points of damage" is functionally like an accessibility. Your power works only against a certain percentage of attacks that you will encounter in the campaign.

They aren't remotely the same thing. Besides, I know you've read the threads on "Cannot wear armor" -- its intended as a balance mechanism, and even Kromm acknowledges that it isn't an ideal construction.

Are you *really* trying to assert that the following two limitations should carry the same modifer?

1) "Only against attacks doing less than 5 points of damage."
2) "Only against attacks doing less than 100 points of damage."

Re: Reverse Missiles as a standalone power... how would you model it?
 

CWA is NOT a TD, for two reasons. First, there is no corresponding CWA Disadvantage, and the limitation is not limited to giving back 40*.8 points (like a TD would be). Second, as a balance mechanism, it merely indicates 'non-stackability' of natural and unnatural DR: with a mere Perk you get to wear whatever armor you like, as long as your DRs don't stack. I'm sure you also agree that no longer being able to increase DR by one, and no longer being able to increase it by 100 are just as different in terms of opportunities lost.

Re: Reverse Missiles as a standalone power... how would you model it?
 

I said it was "functionally like" a temp disad.

...because it would be a massive point crock for people not intending to wear armor...

...because the value of a CWA disad would be genre-dependent -- depending upon how much DR was available as gear.

Neither of these changes the fact that CWA is functionally equivalent to a temporary disadvantage. Sorry.

Good point. That's *another* way in which it would CWA differs from what I've proposed. Thanks!

Yes, I agree completely. We're saddled with an imperfect solution for CWA because a perfect solution would be complex, cumbersome, and difficult to munchkin proof. I don't see that as a good reason that we always have to use imperfect values on limitations for DR.

You have yet to indicate why you think that DR X (Accessibility, Only protects versus attacks doing Y damage or less) is an innappropriate use of an accessibility, and shouldn't be priced according to how common attacks doing Y damage or less are in the campaign. Those are the only relevant questions.

Re: Reverse Missiles as a standalone power... how would you model it?
 

In a way, AoN is the opposite of Flexible in many aspects.

All Or Nothing: bleeds 100% of damage if D>DR.
Flexible: bleeds 20% of (crushing) damage if D<DR.

Allow me to elaborate:

First, I will confess that Flexible DR is not effective against Arm Locks and the like. However, since this property works independently of the DR value, we can disregard it. I also fully understand that Flexible DR has weakness only against damage types with certain 'blunt trauma' properties. Thus, we will assume that we're dealing with Crushing damage, and that the non-flexible and/or AoN DR is limited to only protect against crushing damage, to avoid side arguments.

Now, onward with the interesting stuff.

• DR 1 through 4 with flexible is no worse against a punch in the chest, whether with ST1 or ST100. Limitation Value? -20%.
• DR 5 with flexible lets through 1 point of damage, if and only if damage is >4 and <=DR=5. Limitation Value? -20%.
• DR 10 w/ flexible lets through 20% of damage, if and only if damage is >4 and <=DR=10. Limitation Value? -20%.
• DR 100 w/flexible lets through 20% of damage, if and only if damage is >4 and <=DR=100. Limitation Value? -20%.
• DR 1000 w/flexible lets through 20% of damage, if and only if damage is >4 and <=DR=1000. What's worse, it is no more useful against punches for up to 100 points of damage than DR of merely 100. Limitation Value? -20%.

As you can see, there is no correlation between how much of a damage spectrum triggers a 'bleed' an the limitation value.

Likewise, DR 8 with AoN is no better than DR 1 with AoN against an attack doing 10 points of damage. But this is just the case with Flexible, reversed, i.e. where 'bleedings' occurs on a damage no less than, instead of between.

Once again, the RAW creates a precedent.

Re: Reverse Missiles as a standalone power... how would you model it?
 

Huh? AoN is the opposite of Flexible and should therefore be priced the same?

I must reiterate:
You have yet to indicate why you think that DR X (Accessibility, Only protects versus attacks doing Y damage or less) is an innappropriate use of an accessibility, and shouldn't be priced according to how common attacks doing Y damage or less are in the campaign. Those are the only relevant questions.

Re: Reverse Missiles as a standalone power... how would you model it?
 

Because I already pointed out a case which shows that 'Only vs. damage in a specified range' does not change if the range is tied to the level of DR.

Re: Reverse Missiles as a standalone power... how would you model it?
 

Which is still the opposite of what I'm doing. I'm very, very specifically not associating the damage threshold with the level of DR -- I'm choosing a specific value for the threshold, that may or may not be equal to the level of DR. Note the text you just quoted: I list the DR value as X and the damage threshold as Y. In a setting where there were an appreciable number of attacks with armor divisor(2), for instance, it would be necessary to choose Y as 2*X. It would also be perfectly valid to choose some value for Y that was less than X, but it would only really be effective against attacks with reduced penetration.

In other words, I specifically built the power the way that I would so that it wouldn't be "tied" to the amount of DR. It's a perfectly valid accessibility.

Re: Reverse Missiles as a standalone power... how would you model it?
 

But Flexibility's threshold is directly linked to the DR level. So is the AoN trait's threshold. They're not arbitrary. They are proportional to the DR level, in both cases. Also, the very presence of armor divisors makes the specifying the threshold as arbitrary a scary idea, because then it wouldn't be affected by armor divisors.

By your logic, it is perfectly valid to make a Flexible-like limitation, which gives a 20% damage 'bleed' if the damage falls at [X..Y], with X>4 and Y<DR. But that's munchit.

There's no point in trying to untie the damage range from DR if the only logical case is where it is tied.

Heck, if you add in stuff like (Semi-)Ablative DR, you'll see why you'll need to tie these two anyway!

Re: Reverse Missiles as a standalone power... how would you model it?
 

Sure they are. I've indicated valid reasons to choose values for the threshold that are distinct from the level of DR, and those values have an impact on the performance of the trait.

The DR would still be affected by the armor divisor in any case. I'm not really sure what you're on about here.

Show me how that's built from the specific limitation I've proposed.

...so its a good thing I took the time to show the other cases.

No, semi-ablative seems to me to be a good reason *not* to tie them.

Look, we're going in circles here. I'm not getting anything from your posts other than:

"Sometimes DR is limited in fashion X, therefore it must only be limited in that fashion."

That would possibly be valid if what I proposed was closely mirrored by one of the existing limitations -- but its not. Applying a threshold "Only against attacks smaller than X," where X can be equal to or greater than my DR* level isn't really like anything, but it works very well as an accessibility, IMO.

If you disagree, I can't really do much about it. I've made all the relevant points that I know how to make. You seem hung up on calling it "all-or-nothing," but building it as all-or-nothing was what I was trying to avoid, because that's a pricing nightmare.

If you have specific questions to pose, I'll respond, but otherwise I've said really all that needs to be said. It's how I would build the power requested by the OP. YMMV.

*It could also be less than my DR, but that would be of limited utility.