Flash Step

[Varyon]

So, over in the Fantasy Martial Arts Starting Abilities thread, a tangent came up about Flash Step*, and I had a realization. I've always tried to come up with ways to build it based around Warp, which is supremely frustrating due to all the oddities of that trait... but one of Fred Brackin's comments caused me to think more on the fact that Flash Step is not teleportation, and thus building it based on such is doomed to failure. The important bits of Flash Step are that a) it's a Step, leaving the character able to act immediately after doing it, b) it typically involves a long distance compared to a typical Step, and maybe even to the character's normal movement rate, but outside of extreme circumstances is still on the tactical rather than strategic scale, and finally c) it involves the character functionally vanishing from view - but this aspect isn't 100% reliable.

For the first two parts, we're looking at Enhanced Move: Ground**, modified to only apply to the character's Step distance. Of course, to do that, first we need to make it so it applies to Step in the first place; this typically calls for Second Nature +150%, which is made up of Instantaneous Acceleration (you don't have to run for several seconds to get up to full speed), Perfect Maneuverability (when going faster than your nominal Ground Move, you don't have to deal with things like turn radius and the like), and Retains Speed (you can use your current speed to calculate Step, rather than your nominal movement rate). The first and last are both necessary for our Flash Step, but the middle arguably isn't - there are plenty of cases where Flash Step seems to be limited to moving in a more-or-less straight line (even then the character seems to be able to chance Facing freely at the end of the Step, but Step lets you do that anyway, and I think retaining that is probably fine), so at the base our Flash Step would just use +100% here. Step Only on Basic Move I think typically gets assigned somewhere between -50% and -80%; my honest inclination here is to have it cancel out the +100% of the above. Call it Flash Step +0% - each level of Enhanced Move (Flash Step +0%) doubles your Step (only) and if your resulting Step exceeds your Basic Move (which will occur at Enhanced Move 4 at the latest) you are subject to the High-Speed Movement rules. Improved Flash Step +50% means you aren't subject to High-Speed Movement rules regardless of how much your Step exceeds your Basic Move.

Now we come to the last part, the bit that makes it seem as though it were teleportation - vanishing from plain sight. Invisibility or Obscure doesn't really work here, because the target is possible to see, just difficult. But just giving them Chameleon doesn't really work, because that won't let them actually vanish from sight. So how to do it? Well, Dungeon Fantasy introduced a mechanic called (confusingly) Backstabbing, which allows a sneaky character to vanish at the start of combat (fluffed as "I was already hiding when we started, honest"), and reappear during the actual fight behind the nearest foe. Delvers to Grow (and possibly the DFRPG before it) extended this to allow its use during combat via the Vanishing Act power, allowing you to disappear for a few rounds (with a successful Stealth roll at a penalty) and then reappear behind any foe you could have reached during the time you were missing. It does have the problem that you just need to succeed at the (penalized) Stealth roll to be able to get behind someone for a free sneak attack, but I have ideas on how to fix that.

Vanishing Act requires getting to cover in order to break the foes' line of sight, but what options would allow this from a stand still? A smoke bomb would do a classic "ninja vanish," and Obscure would allow for that (although you'd want it to have Defensive unless you are alright with having your own vision obscured for the first couple of yards of movement, and Stealthy unless you actually do vanish in a puff of smoke)... but how much would be enough to justify being able to use Backstabbing? Would you need a full 10 levels, or would 1 suffice? For that matter, would Chameleon work here - and would you call for 1 level (just enough to break up your profile and make you hard to see), 5 levels (enough for to see -10 when standing still), or 10 levels (enough for -10 to see when moving)? Personally, I'm leaning toward Chameleon 1, in no small part because that means Chameleon 1 [2] + Vanishing Act [8] is worth an even [10]. I think treating it as allowing for instant movement (Vanishing Act normally uses up a turn to get to cover and vanish, rather than letting you immediately Step behind a foe and stab them) but only having the disappearance last for a moment works out to a wash.

We've now got (or at least will once I get some weigh-in's on what the minimum would be for such) a power that lets us use Backstabbing to disappear more-or-less instantly, and one that lets us move a long distance as a Step - and the two combined cover the functionality of the Flash Step. But what if we want a character who can use Flash Step but isn't any good at Stealth? Or just one who is better at Flash Step than his Stealth skill would imply? For the latter, I'm thinking of allowing a Flash Step Technique; it would be Easy and buy off that remaining -5 for [5], but only for Flash Step, not for typical uses of Backstabbing. For the former, perhaps combine that with One Task Wonder? With One Task Wonder letting you roll at DX to use Stealth for Flash Step, then Vanishing Act and the Flash Step Technique getting rid of the penalty, this would allow the character to Flash Step at DX+0 - those who want their Flash Step to be more effective than this at getting past enemy defenses would need to actually invest in Stealth rather than relying on OTW. Does this all sound appropriate?

*While I'm using the term from Bleach, it's something that shows up in a lot of shounen media - the user has a quick burst of movement so fast only exceptional foes can actually track them (thus they functionally disappear), then reappear elsewhere (typically right behind their target) and deliver an attack.

**Characters with Flight or Amphibious (or Aquatic for that matter) would instead use the Flying or Swimming variants. For a character who can use Flash Step in several environments, I'd probably let them take Alternate Abilities (I would do similar for one with normal Enhanced Move in multiple environments).

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Varyon

For the first two parts, we're looking at Enhanced Move: Ground**, modified to only apply to the character's Step distance.

Maybe it's Altered Time Rate (Movement Only -00%). The Limitation value might not be as high as -80% but I could see -50% or maybe a little more. You can also hang things like Costs FP and Recharge to make the user "appear" between Flash Steps. The final total Limitation could be -80% pretty easily.

[Varyon]

I'll note one of my concerns here is that, even with this build, the cost seems rather high. For a character with Move 5, being able to Flash Step (at -5 to Stealth) only 80% as far as they can normally move in a turn* has a cost of [50] at the low end - Enhanced Move (Flash Step) 2 [40] + Chameleon 1 [2] + Vanishing Act [8]. Maybe Flash Step should be a net Limitation? If we think of Step Only as -80% and use Multiplicative Modifiers, we're looking at Enhanced Move (Instantaneous Acceleration +50%; Retains Speed +50%; Step Only -80%) [8]. I'd be more inclined to possibly make Flash Step be -50%, dropping it to [10] per doubling. Does that sound more fair? Maybe just make that its own Advantage, Flash Step [10], with Perfect Maneuverability being a +50% Enhancement?

*Considering you can take a half-level of EM for +50% move, 1/4th level for +25% might be appropriate; that would let you match your actual Move with 2.25 levels and a cost of [45] or [22.5], at least with Move 5.

EDIT: On further thought, I'm actually thinking of making Flash Step [10] (or maybe it should be called Super Step or something, to differentiate it from the metatrait that includes the ability to vanish during it) give you a Step equal to Move/2, then each further level doubles this Step, still with the caveat that if you exceed your Move you are subject to High Speed Movement unless you tack on Perfect Maneuverability +50% (which arguably should only be needed on level 3+).

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Maybe it's Altered Time Rate (Movement Only -00%). The Limitation value might not be as high as -80% but I could see -50% or maybe a little more. You can also hang things like Costs FP and Recharge to make the user "appear" between Flash Steps. The final total Limitation could be -80% pretty easily.

I'm not a fan of using ATR here because, while it's appropriate for some characters who have a Flash Step-like ability, there are also characters who seem to mostly function at the high end of a more-human scale... but can nonetheless use Flash Step to travel a great distance in an instant (but they always slow back down to normal speed to attack). A long Step that lets you momentarily disappear seems like it does that perfectly (for cases where characters are using multiple Flash Steps in close succession, that's where you use the Chambara Movement rules that let you take multiple Steps in a single round).

[sir_pudding]

I wrote this up for a thus far unpublished article, but I think Christopher's version in Monster Hunter Power-Ups 1 is better.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Varyon

A long Step that lets you momentarily disappear seems like it does that perfectly .

I disagree. You're taking characters who can move at blinding speed and then "re-appear" to attack and trying to jam both things into one Step and Attack. This looks like doing things the hard way to me.

Flash Steps don't always set up attacks but when this happens you would seem to have characters doing Step and Do Nothing which is not a thing. If they do nothing other than move during their Flash Step it's just a Move Action and your Power wouldn't work in that situation because they aren't taking a Step.

Uncomplicate things.

[zoncxs]

From what I posted in the other thread:

Pyramid 3/89 and Monster Hunter Power Ups 1 Both have:

Basic Move +10 (Accessibility, Only for determining step length, -60%...) [10/level]

The pyramid article uses it for "Flash Step" and the Monster Hunter one uses it for "Duck and Cover!"

The important part is "Accessibility, Only for determining step length, -60%" is used on Basic Move.

If we only use that, then the cost becomes:

Basic Move +10 (Accessibility, Only for determining step length, -60%) [20/level]

Compared to:

Enhanced Move 1 (Accessibility, Only for determining step length, -60%; Cosmic, +100%) [28/level]

Pretty close in cost, but the enhanced move has the added bonus of increasing the step range faster.


Compare:
A : Basic Move +140 (Accessibility, Only for determining step length, -60%) [280]

B : Enhanced Move 10 (Accessibility, Only for determining step length, -60%; Cosmic, +100%) [280]

Assume BM of 5.

A gives us a Step range of 15 yards.

B gives us a Step range of 512 yards.


In fact, we can see:
Level : Step : Cost

B1 : 1 : 28
B2 : 2 : 56
B3 : 4 : 84
B4 : 8 : 112
B5 : 16 : 140
B6 : 32 : 168
B7 : 64 : 196
B8 : 128 : 224
B9 : 256 : 252
B10 : 512 : 280

and:

A1 : 2 : 20
A2 : 3 : 40
A3 : 4 : 60
A4 : 5 : 80
A5 : 6 : 100
A6 : 7 : 120
A7 : 8 : 140
A8 : 9 : 160
A9 : 10 : 180
A10 : 11 : 200
A11 : 12 : 220
A12 : 13 : 240
A13 : 14 : 260
A14 : 15 : 280

So A is better up to level 5, then switching to B at level 4 is better.

A1 : 2 : 20
A2 : 3 : 40
A3 : 4 : 60
A4 : 5 : 80
A5 : 6 : 100
B4 : 8 : 112
B5 : 16 : 140
B6 : 32 : 168
B7 : 64 : 196
B8 : 128 : 224
B9 : 256 : 252
B10 : 512 : 280

[Mark Skarr]

I created a whole thread on the Warp advantage being awful and rebuilding teleportation as a significantly more useful advantage that is in-line with other movement abilities here.

It seems like my version of teleportation is more what you're looking for.

Hey, you were even in that thread! I thought so.

[Anaraxes]

An old thread (2009) covering Increased Step includes some of the ideas also already in this thread, so I'll link to one post, a Kromm build using the Technique rules and then buying off the Technique penalty for 16 points for a specific skill, or 20 points for any attack.

[monstrous engineer]

I'm with Fred on using ATR and some limitations to bring down the cost. Any movement that takes less time than the blink of an eye (1/10th second) is effectively invisible, so you don't need to tack on any additional stealth or invisibility. For example, a skilled sleight of hand magician can palm a small object so fast that you can miss it even if you know what to look for. Flash step is like sleight of hand, but with your whole body.

In most fiction, flash step type powers don't let you move through walls or leap long distances, those are separate abilities. So, flash step is just like normal movement, but much faster.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

I disagree. You're taking characters who can move at blinding speed and then "re-appear" to attack and trying to jam both things into one Step and Attack. This looks like doing things the hard way to me.

What appears to be the effect in most media is that the character can travel a long distance with what GURPS would call a Step. Unless they are speedsters (in which case, as I noted, ATR is a great fit), such characters also seem to only be able to do this for short spurts, again akin to a Step, and in fact the Chambara Movement rules work well for cases where characters chain Flash Steps together (well, except for the fact that such characters would undoubtedly have TbaM or WM, and thus the Extra Attack one needs to do a lot of them in a round would be typically be a poor choice to pick up; maybe some rules akin to Quick Drawing Bows to be able to turn the extra attacks afforded one by Rapid Strike into Steps, but still require a roll against skill to do it, wouldn't be out of question). I can certainly see ATR (Move Only) potentially working, but I feel ATR is a bit too much to use as a starting point here (it's an advantage that allows for a lot of different ways to use it - and could probably stand to be modified a bit to flow better, as the fact that it functions as multiple back-to-back turns seems not to quite fit how it's typically depicted in fiction).

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Flash Steps don't always set up attacks but when this happens you would seem to have characters doing Step and Do Nothing which is not a thing. If they do nothing other than move during their Flash Step it's just a Move Action and your Power wouldn't work in that situation because they aren't taking a Step.

I mean, in combat they could be doing a Step as part of an Evaluate (if you allow that from a distance, but with characters being able to Flash Step that seems like a good idea) or All Out Defense. Or just use the Chambara Movement rules to take an "Attack" action that consists of a normal Step and then sacrificing their Attack for another Step. Outside of combat (or if sufficiently desperate - or protected - in combat), with the Chambara Movement rules the character could sacrifice their defenses (which don't matter when not in combat) to do three Flash Steps each second - All Out Attack (Double) would allow for a normal Step (in place of half Move, but for someone with Flash Step using that is a better option), then two more by sacrificing the two attacks. Of course, arguably they could just use Committed Attack for that, getting two Steps and then sacrificing the attack for a third (maybe let going All Out give you four Steps?).

Originally Posted by zoncxs

Basic Move +10 (Accessibility, Only for determining step length, -60%...) [10/level]

I'm not a huge fan of that for increased Step distance, and I think it still overcharges when applied to Enhanced Move. Having a longer Step is useful, sure... but I'm not convinced it's worth [20] per +1 (or even [20] per doubling; [10] honestly sounds like a more fair price). I recognize I'm deviating from RAW for this, however.

Originally Posted by Mark Skarr

I created a whole thread on the Warp advantage being awful and rebuilding teleportation as a significantly more useful advantage that is in-line with other movement abilities here.

It seems like my version of teleportation is more what you're looking for.

Hey, you were even in that thread! I thought so.

Oh, hey, would ya look at that? Young Varyon, thinking maybe he'd found a good scaffolding for stuff like this. But you see, he failed to account for one minor little detail - we've got a memory like a sieve. I'll look back through that when I have some time, thanks. I'll note this thread was an off-the-cuff thing that I suddenly thought up when reading through the Martial Arts thread and wanted to write down and discuss.

Originally Posted by monstrous engineer

I'm with Fred on using ATR and some limitations to bring down the cost. Any movement that takes less time than the blink of an eye (1/10th second) is effectively invisible, so you don't need to tack on any additional stealth or invisibility.

So you're suggesting the character take ATR 9 and then only get to turn one of their 10 maneuvers into Movement to count as a Flash Step? Because that's what you'll need for your movement to occur in 1/10th of a second - unless you restrict yourself to Steps, but then you aren't going very far in that 1/10th of a second and still probably need a few levels of ATR to justify it. Also, you'll need to time yourself to only move when everyone watching you happens to blink - good luck with that (to actually move faster than the human eye can track, you need to get your movement done in something like 1/60th of a second, as the eye seems to have a frame rate of roughly 60 frames per second).

Do note that's also ignoring the general GURPS philosophy of You Get What You Pay For. ATR 59+ doesn't come with free Invisibility, it just lets you do 60 Manuevers each time your turn comes around.

Originally Posted by Refplace

Though the Vanish technique would be cheaper but requires a distraction or something for them to look away.

Part of what I'd like to discuss is how to be able to use Vanish (which really is a better name for it than Backstabbing) without needing to duck into some cover or have the targets look away. Flash Step's momentary invisibility needs to work even when the target is looking right at you and you're in a featureless plain (but, again, the target should be capable of seeing you move if they have good enough stats and/or roll well enough). Obviously Obscure 10 would work (it completely blocks the target's sightline), but how much weaker of an effect can do the trick? Can someone with Chameleon 1 [2] attempt to Vanish in plain sight, for example?