Questions about Innate Attack (Wall)

[Varyon]

Apologies for the necro, but I've been thinking of Walls recently (thanks to the recent thread about making temporary shelters using Powers), and wanted to revisit this.

Originally Posted by Varyon

Height was answered by Bruno in the other thread, and is indeed 4 yards. The +30% version is stuck with walls that are 1 yard thick per 1d and always 4 yards tall (for taller walls, build on top of the initial one), but I think I'll allow the +60% one to be arbitrarily thin, allowing them to be spread out. When doing so, you need to adjust DR and HP linearly.

Thickness: Thinking on it further, I think when creating the power, you should set the thickness, choosing one of three options (a further +30% Enhancement lets you set the thickness upon creating the Wall). The default is to have a full yard of thickness, taking up an entire hex. You can also go with half-thickness - this allows a character to be in the same hex as the Wall (but only if approaching from a specific direction, defined when you form the Wall), but is a bit cramped if doing so - -2 to most DX checks, and optionally a DX roll (probably net DX+2 - it would be DX+4, but that -2 reduces it) if attacking, using an Active Defense, or similar while in the same hex as a sharp wall (one made with a cutting or impaling attack). Failure on that DX roll means taking some amount of cutting or impaling damage from bumping into the Wall - perhaps thr/2, using the character's own ST. The last option is to be arbitrarily thin - such a Wall essentially only exists at the barrier between adjacent hexes, preventing one from crossing between the hexes but function not actually taking up space. Roughly speaking, walls that are 2 feet thick or thicker should count as taking up a full hex, walls that are between 2 feet and 1 foot thick should count as taking up half a hex, and walls that are thinner than a foot thick should count as being arbitrarily thin - hereafter just called "thin."

The above is meant for rigid walls, but permeable ones could be given the same treatment. Half-hex permeable walls use the same "cramped" rules as a rigid, sharp wall, but failure on the DX check to avoid bumping into the wall simply does the ability's damage; a character can opt to avoid the DX penalty (and roll) by allowing the wall to damage them normally (useful if you've got sufficient DR, IT:DR, and/or Regeneration to negate the attack).

Spreading Out; Bulking Up: I think being able to spread out to cover a larger area by reducing DR and HP by an appropriate factor (half DR and HP to cover twice as many hexes) is balanced; note doubling your number of Wall Units (to steal a useful term from Kelly Pedersen; hereafter abbreviated WU) makes a full-hex wall take up half a hex or a half-hex wall only take up the border, and tripling WU's makes any Wall only take up the border (border-thickness walls just stay border-thickness).

But... what about doing this in reverse? Could you have two half-hex WU's take up a full hex (meaning an attack has to get through both to cross the hex), or any number of border-thickness WU's fill up a hex? Honestly, I feel this wouldn't really break anything. Note, however, that if you're using Wall multiple times to create such layered defenses, each is assessed separately, not all together - if you stack 3 WU's that each have DR 6 and HP 1, doing it as part of one use of Wall results in a DR 18, HP 3 Wall, while creating three such Walls with separate Maneuvers just creates 3 Walls that each have DR 6 and HP 1. (EDIT: I've changed my mind - Bulking Up is no longer an option, you need to pay for the maximum Cover DR each WU can provide; you can layer WU's during a single use of Wall, but this just creates multiple Walls, it doesn't combine their DR and HP).

In either case, you must set any thinning out/bulking up upon creating the ability if you have Wall +30%, but can change this upon use if you have Wall +60%.

Orientation: On a related note, something I didn't properly address in the thread was the idea of laying a Wall on its side, so that each WU is 4 yards wide but only 1 yard tall. Honestly, I think this is acceptable - you get to cover more distance, but the Wall is much easier to bypass (by simply jumping over it) and only gives partial cover, unless you stack units (which I'd allow even for permeable Walls - you could use 2 WU's to create a wall of fire that is 4 yards long and 2 yards tall). For the +30% version of Wall, you must set the orientation of each Wall Unit when designing the power; for the +60% version, you can set this upon actually creating the Wall.

Related to this, what happens if you try to get through a WU through the thickest part (an attack from above/below for one oriented normally, an attack from the narrow side for one laying on its side)? My inclination is to treat the Wall as having 4x as much DR (and granting 4x as much Cover DR). This isn't quite accurate for thinner Walls, but is probably more fair and gameable (although given a thinner Wall can be avoided more readily, perhaps it would be fine to use its effective DR/inch).

Originally Posted by Varyon

For shells, I'm going to stick with my hex-based approach. Optionally, when filling in the empty slot on top, you don't need to build an entire second level for the wall - you may instead have each "roof hex" take up two hexes worth of wall, which covers both that section and the connections to the other sections.

Roofs: This wasn't thought out properly - using up two WU's per roof hex would be more expensive than just stacking WU's on the perimeter for any shell that wasn't rather small; the two WU's per roof hex is more for when creating a shell that covers a single hex. Rather, it should be that every 6 WU's you "skip" by curving things a bit costs 1 WU. Note such roofs are probably most efficiently created by orienting the involved WU's on their sides.

Originally Posted by Varyon

A Wall that is able to manifest underground (but note this doesn't damage anything down there, and things return to normal once the Wall expires or is destroyed) needs an Enhancement, Underground +50%.

Giving it further thought, honestly I think Underground isn't really any more useful than Underwater, so +20% is probably fair.

Originally Posted by Varyon

For climbing, you may set a modifier between -4 and +4 as a Feature. If you can choose the modifier when you create the wall, that's a +20% Enhancement. The GM may allow for greater penalties or bonuses - +5% per additional -1 (maximum +30% for -10), +10% for +5 total, +20% for +6 total, or +30% to require no roll (Wall functionally has a built-in ladder). Climbing a sharp wall requires a Climbing roll every second or suffer thr/2 (use climber's HP as ST, damage cannot exceed nominal damage for Innate Attack) cutting damage to the arms. This can be avoided by going at half speed, or by wearing sufficient protection to avoid damage.

As you can probably just create a Wall beneath you or whoever is trying to climb something to raise them up, and an easily-climbable Wall isn't great for defense, making a Wall easier to climb is probably alright as a Feature, even up to the level of having a built-in ladder (heck, treating it as having stairs is probably fine). +5% per additional -1 beyond the free -4 is probably fine, though.

[BREAK FOR CHARACTER LIMIT]