Ghostlier Movement

Plane · 10-15-2020, 02:01 PM

Perhaps something we could allow is buying "Reliable" for active defenses?

This wouldn't be adding to what the defense roll adds directly.

It'd be like having talent add a bonus to the "requires IQ roll" check you might limit something like "Enhanced Block" with.

Talent adds to "Extra Effort" attempt rolls, so if you wanted to use that approach rather than Feverish Defense, "reliable" (like Talent) could make your EE attempts more successful when wanting to push the envelope beyond your normal non-EE capabilities.

If you normally applies EE just to the defense bonus you got like enhanced block 1 [5] then the penalty would be based on % increase relative to that (ie to double it at -1 per +5% you would be -20) but wanted to use EE based on your overall block (example if you have block 13, that counts as 10 levels of Enhanced Block per PU4p7) then improving to Block 14 would be +10% and only a -2 penalty on the EE roll per the -1/+5% ratio.

To actually get a Reliable/Talent bonus on THAT more generous EE roll would require not just having it on any "enhanced block" you might have, but also your "base block" too, I would think.

Reliable/Talent would also be important if you wanted to get Temporary Enhancements (such as Cosmic: Defensive: counts "No Active Defense" to allow roll) on your defenses. If you didn't have this reliable/talent on all your levels of enhanced block (built-in or additional) then it would only make sense to allow the bonus when temporarily enhancing PARTIAL levels of it.

Another idea might be to allow "Power Block" to temporarily increase your active defense stat. For example, using standardapproach, if I took AOD:Double, if I wanted to use "Power Block" to attempt to double my "Enhanced Block" from 5 levels to 10 levels, with "Block" being my 2nd defense.

If the 1st failed, I wouldn't get any EB (just +0) but if I succeeded, I would get EB+10. Does that seem reasonable?

Extrapolating from that, if you allow a "Power Block" with your ENTIRE block score (example: if you have block 13, that's equivalent to EB10, so "doubling" would improve it to 23 instead of 26, while failed Power Block would lower it to 3, not 0) then to get the benefit of Reliable on that roll would require you to enhanced ALL levels of it, while to get the benefit of Talent on that roll would require you to apply a power modifier (0% or otherwise) to ALL ten levels of block.

It's a pretty niche use (Power Block requiring an active defense makes it utterly worthless if you didn't take All-Out Defense: Double) but I like the idea of how this could perhaps approach in the direction of "no roll required" defenses without technically being that (you still always roll, can always fail).

Another would be to broaden the "double" defense as just operating like a Dual-Weapon Attack rather than exclusively an AOD option: you're -4 to skill (-2 to defend) to both defenses if you specify you want to do a "double-defense technique". That's roughly how it works if you take Double over Determined: trading in a "base" +2 for -2 to both if different.

Since that's non-standard it'd make sense to charge the 'Unusual Technique' perk requiring specification of both defenses and in what order they're made: much like with how you can't just buy up a "rapid strikes in general" technique, but need to specify the attacks/order.

MA80 has other factors which might need to be inverted, like instead of a missed 1st attack causing +3 to defense against 2nd, failure of the 1st defense could cause -3 to 2nd defense ... or instead of +1 to defend against 3rd use of a combination, you're -1 to 3rd use of double defense because your foe is predicting how you'll react and being deceptive-for-free instead of defensive-for-free.

If you did allowed this then a "Power Block Defense" on non-AOD maneuvers would basically be "roll power block at -2, then roll defense it modifies at -2"

Where that might be a bit off is the 2nd -2 might not matter so much if the 1st failed (if you were trying to double all your levels, your defense is down to 3 anyway) and AOD:double doesn't seem to OBLIGATE you to try the 2nd defense, so a way to balance that would be:

1) require AOD:double to specify what the 2nd defense is before the 1st is rolled (ie can't specify Power Block: Enhanced Block then choose to Parry if it fails)
2) since the 1st Power Block is not actually to prevent the attack (just modify the 2nd stat) just treat it like a "fail" where a "pass" does not prevent making the 2nd roll
3) in this context, REQUIRE the 2nd defense to be attempted (can't
4) if the MoF on an active defense roll is enough to cause a critical failure (10+) but it automatically succeeds because 3/4 always succeeds: have the crit fail cancel out the crit suc and it just fails
5) if MoF on an active defense roll is TWICE that to cause crit fail (20+) actually have it count as a crit fail even if it's a 3/4

Application example

1) "I have sword parry 8, I'm buying all 5 levels of above-3 parry with Biokinesis -10%, this lets me power block with it to attempt skill 13 parries!"
2) "I'm taking AOD:double with Powerblock to boost my parry, rather than a Determined Parry, because I think this will give me better than +2!
3) enemy attacks with a -20 Deceptive Attack causing -10 to parry
4) power block fails
5) Parry 3 critically succeeds
6) GM "but wait, your parry wasn't just reduced to 3 from the failed power block, it was reduced to -7 because of the deceptive attack. The 3 you rolled has a margin of failure of 10 points! That's within crit fail margins, so your auto-success on the parry is cancelled out by the crit-fail and is treated like a normal failure. So you don't dodge, and you don't turn your attacker's attack into a crit fail!

Alt:

3b) -40 deceptive attack causes -20 to parry
6b) "it was reduced to -17 because of the DA, your MoF is 20, you not only lose your crit success, but also take a crit fail!"

For comparison: getting +40 accuracy on an innate attack costs +200% as enhancement, halfway between Cheating +100% (no die roll required) and Godlike +300% (no active defense allowed) but given that requires an Aim maneuver it's probably a little more balanced, especially since it's only "no defense on a MoF 20" not "no defense period", so it's mostly useful against foes who have horrible defenses (like 3, in this example) and much less useful against high-defense foes.

10-15-2020, 02:01 PM	#11
Plane Join Date: Aug 2018	Re: Ghostlier Movement Perhaps something we could allow is buying "Reliable" for active defenses? This wouldn't be adding to what the defense roll adds directly. It'd be like having talent add a bonus to the "requires IQ roll" check you might limit something like "Enhanced Block" with. Talent adds to "Extra Effort" attempt rolls, so if you wanted to use that approach rather than Feverish Defense, "reliable" (like Talent) could make your EE attempts more successful when wanting to push the envelope beyond your normal non-EE capabilities. If you normally applies EE just to the defense bonus you got like enhanced block 1 [5] then the penalty would be based on % increase relative to that (ie to double it at -1 per +5% you would be -20) but wanted to use EE based on your overall block (example if you have block 13, that counts as 10 levels of Enhanced Block per PU4p7) then improving to Block 14 would be +10% and only a -2 penalty on the EE roll per the -1/+5% ratio. To actually get a Reliable/Talent bonus on THAT more generous EE roll would require not just having it on any "enhanced block" you might have, but also your "base block" too, I would think. Reliable/Talent would also be important if you wanted to get Temporary Enhancements (such as Cosmic: Defensive: counts "No Active Defense" to allow roll) on your defenses. If you didn't have this reliable/talent on all your levels of enhanced block (built-in or additional) then it would only make sense to allow the bonus when temporarily enhancing PARTIAL levels of it. Another idea might be to allow "Power Block" to temporarily increase your active defense stat. For example, using standardapproach, if I took AOD:Double, if I wanted to use "Power Block" to attempt to double my "Enhanced Block" from 5 levels to 10 levels, with "Block" being my 2nd defense. If the 1st failed, I wouldn't get any EB (just +0) but if I succeeded, I would get EB+10. Does that seem reasonable? Extrapolating from that, if you allow a "Power Block" with your ENTIRE block score (example: if you have block 13, that's equivalent to EB10, so "doubling" would improve it to 23 instead of 26, while failed Power Block would lower it to 3, not 0) then to get the benefit of Reliable on that roll would require you to enhanced ALL levels of it, while to get the benefit of Talent on that roll would require you to apply a power modifier (0% or otherwise) to ALL ten levels of block. It's a pretty niche use (Power Block requiring an active defense makes it utterly worthless if you didn't take All-Out Defense: Double) but I like the idea of how this could perhaps approach in the direction of "no roll required" defenses without technically being that (you still always roll, can always fail). Another would be to broaden the "double" defense as just operating like a Dual-Weapon Attack rather than exclusively an AOD option: you're -4 to skill (-2 to defend) to both defenses if you specify you want to do a "double-defense technique". That's roughly how it works if you take Double over Determined: trading in a "base" +2 for -2 to both if different. Since that's non-standard it'd make sense to charge the 'Unusual Technique' perk requiring specification of both defenses and in what order they're made: much like with how you can't just buy up a "rapid strikes in general" technique, but need to specify the attacks/order. MA80 has other factors which might need to be inverted, like instead of a missed 1st attack causing +3 to defense against 2nd, failure of the 1st defense could cause -3 to 2nd defense ... or instead of +1 to defend against 3rd use of a combination, you're -1 to 3rd use of double defense because your foe is predicting how you'll react and being deceptive-for-free instead of defensive-for-free. If you did allowed this then a "Power Block Defense" on non-AOD maneuvers would basically be "roll power block at -2, then roll defense it modifies at -2" Where that might be a bit off is the 2nd -2 might not matter so much if the 1st failed (if you were trying to double all your levels, your defense is down to 3 anyway) and AOD:double doesn't seem to OBLIGATE you to try the 2nd defense, so a way to balance that would be: 1) require AOD:double to specify what the 2nd defense is before the 1st is rolled (ie can't specify Power Block: Enhanced Block then choose to Parry if it fails) 2) since the 1st Power Block is not actually to prevent the attack (just modify the 2nd stat) just treat it like a "fail" where a "pass" does not prevent making the 2nd roll 3) in this context, REQUIRE the 2nd defense to be attempted (can't 4) if the MoF on an active defense roll is enough to cause a critical failure (10+) but it automatically succeeds because 3/4 always succeeds: have the crit fail cancel out the crit suc and it just fails 5) if MoF on an active defense roll is TWICE that to cause crit fail (20+) actually have it count as a crit fail even if it's a 3/4 Application example 1) "I have sword parry 8, I'm buying all 5 levels of above-3 parry with Biokinesis -10%, this lets me power block with it to attempt skill 13 parries!" 2) "I'm taking AOD:double with Powerblock to boost my parry, rather than a Determined Parry, because I think this will give me better than +2! 3) enemy attacks with a -20 Deceptive Attack causing -10 to parry 4) power block fails 5) Parry 3 critically succeeds 6) GM "but wait, your parry wasn't just reduced to 3 from the failed power block, it was reduced to -7 because of the deceptive attack. The 3 you rolled has a margin of failure of 10 points! That's within crit fail margins, so your auto-success on the parry is cancelled out by the crit-fail and is treated like a normal failure. So you don't dodge, and you don't turn your attacker's attack into a crit fail! Alt: 3b) -40 deceptive attack causes -20 to parry 6b) "it was reduced to -17 because of the DA, your MoF is 20, you not only lose your crit success, but also take a crit fail!" For comparison: getting +40 accuracy on an innate attack costs +200% as enhancement, halfway between Cheating +100% (no die roll required) and Godlike +300% (no active defense allowed) but given that requires an Aim maneuver it's probably a little more balanced, especially since it's only "no defense on a MoF 20" not "no defense period", so it's mostly useful against foes who have horrible defenses (like 3, in this example) and much less useful against high-defense foes.