How to model SUPER strong and fast characters?

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Aldric

What are the problems exactly ?

I'm curious about this as well. Retreats? Sure, +1 or +3 doesn't seem like much with Parry 30... but when a similarly-skilled foe takes a -40 to skill to drop that to Parry 10, suddenly that +1 or +3 is a big deal. Rapid Strike? Yeah, you can (assuming TbaM/WM, but why wouldn't you buy one of those if you have enough of a budget for +40 DX?) readily attack 13 times in a single second (at -36 to skill), but that's entirely appropriate for over-the-top anime characters (not familiar with Hunter x Hunter, but I know in Rurouni Kenshin the penultimate technique of the titular character's fighting style involves striking the foe 9 times in an instant). Rule of 20? Just give the character an appropriate Dabbler Perk or two and they'll be good to go... or just ignore that for your over-the-top game.

[Cheeseball]

Originally Posted by Varyon

I'm curious about this as well. Retreats? Sure, +1 or +3 doesn't seem like much with Parry 30... but when a similarly-skilled foe takes a -40 to skill to drop that to Parry 10, suddenly that +1 or +3 is a big deal. Rapid Strike? Yeah, you can (assuming TbaM/WM, but why wouldn't you buy one of those if you have enough of a budget for +40 DX?) readily attack 13 times in a single second (at -36 to skill), but that's entirely appropriate for over-the-top anime characters (not familiar with Hunter x Hunter, but I know in Rurouni Kenshin the penultimate technique of the titular character's fighting style involves striking the foe 9 times in an instant). Rule of 20? Just give the character an appropriate Dabbler Perk or two and they'll be good to go... or just ignore that for your over-the-top game.

I would ignore that rule. Always based on the fact that such high scores are typical of anime movies, or superheroes.

Perhaps what he is referring to is that there is not much difference between a superhero with a score of 50 and another with a score of 500, when pitted against an average character? I do not know.

[Gold & Appel Inc]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Rule of 20? Just give the character an appropriate Dabbler Perk or two and they'll be good to go... or just ignore that for your over-the-top game.

IDHMBWM, but IIRC there's a +25% Enhancement in 4e Supers that lets you totally ignore Rule of 20 on some or all of your over-20 DX if you want.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Gold & Appel Inc

IDHMBWM, but IIRC there's a +25% Enhancement in 4e Supers that lets you totally ignore Rule of 20 on some or all of your over-20 DX if you want.

I suspect by the time you reach DX 50, you'd be better off just putting [1] in each skill - DX +30 (No Rule of 20 +25%) [750] is the same cost as DX +30 [600] and [1] in each of 150 DX-based skills. And Dabbler, which lets you functionally put fractional points in a skill (down to [1/8], for -3 relative to putting [1] in), is an even stronger contender. Honestly, I'm not sure Rule of 20 is really ever necessary - going above 20 for anything but ST is explicitly superhuman anyway, and the defaults for 20 are already problematic (you can use Very Hard skills at a professional level without any investment).

[TGLS]

If you have a really over the top DX, would it be better to make a bajillion Rapid Strikes or one really deceptive attack?

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by TGLS

If you have a really over the top DX, would it be better to make a bajillion Rapid Strikes or one really deceptive attack?

Or rather, at what point is it better to fish for criticals rather than making the deceptive attack?


That's an interesting question, from a mathematical perspective.

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by ericthered

Or rather, at what point is it better to fish for criticals rather than making the deceptive attack?

So I did some simulations for a basic case. Both the attacker and the defender have skill 22 and thus parry 14.

In case 1, the attacker does a deceptive attack, reducing things to skill 12 vs. parry 9. This results in an average hit rate of 47.22%.

In case 2, the attacker does a rapid strike, reducing their skill to 16. The defender is assumed to only have one parry. If they score a potential hit, the defender's parry is reduced to 10 regardless of whether they defend. They make at least one hit 60.21% of the time, and an average of 0.6947 hits every time this is attempted.

In case 3, the attacker does a rapid strike, reducing their skill to 16. The defender is assumed to only have at least two parries. They make at least one hit 31.43% of the time, and an average of 0.3441 hits every time this is attempted.

I'd say that this kind of establishes Rapid Strike as preferable to deceptive attack. The pattern seems to hold with other levels of defense, though Rapid Strike becomes even better a choice at lower levels of defense, and the effects of multiple parries seem muted at higher levels of defense.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by TGLS

So I did some simulations for a basic case. Both the attacker and the defender have skill 22 and thus parry 14.

In case 1, the attacker does a deceptive attack, reducing things to skill 12 vs. parry 9. This results in an average hit rate of 47.22%.

In case 2, the attacker does a rapid strike, reducing their skill to 16. The defender is assumed to only have one parry. If they score a potential hit, the defender's parry is reduced to 10 regardless of whether they defend. They make at least one hit 60.21% of the time, and an average of 0.6947 hits every time this is attempted.

In case 3, the attacker does a rapid strike, reducing their skill to 16. The defender is assumed to only have at least two parries. They make at least one hit 31.43% of the time, and an average of 0.3441 hits every time this is attempted.

I'd say that this kind of establishes Rapid Strike as preferable to deceptive attack. The pattern seems to hold with other levels of defense, though Rapid Strike becomes even better a choice at lower levels of defense, and the effects of multiple parries seem muted at higher levels of defense.

does it hold up with fencing weapons with -2 to each parry? What about if their dodge is super high?

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by ericthered

does it hold up with fencing weapons with -2 to each parry? What about if their dodge is super high?

Dodge case would be the same as the multiple parry case (I haven't bothered with more than two rapid strikes, more is pretty over the top anyway). Fencing weapons give deceptive attacks an advantage at parry below 13. It's really dicey around 13; there's marginally better odds (<1%) of connecting for deceptive attack, but chances of multiple hits for the RS. Trained by a Master and Fencing weapon moves the advantage all the way down to parry 11.

[WingedKagouti]

Originally Posted by TGLS

If you have a really over the top DX, would it be better to make a bajillion Rapid Strikes or one really deceptive attack?

Without using optional rules to extend the critical hit target:

If you have effective skill 16, your chance to crit is 9.3%. So if you can make 10 attacks with effective skill 16 (ie. skill 70 without TBaM/WM or 43 with), you have ~36.68% chance to not land a critical hit ie. ~63.32% chance to land at least one critical hit. 20 attacks @ skill 16 (ie. skill 130 or 73) push it to ~85.8% chance to crit at least once.

If the opponent has effective Parry 10 against a single attack, that's a 50% chance they foil the attack.