[Meta-Tech] Cosmic, Chaining

Kallatari · 06-14-2024, 09:53 AM

I've always modeled these types of attack as a combination of three modifiers:

Area Effect (Varies), Bombardment (varies) and a special variant of Overhead +30%.

Area Effect determines the maximum number of targets; they have to be within the area of effect. A small area effect gives a small number of targets, and a larger one gives potentially more targets.

Bombardment represents the skill you roll to hit everyone within that area. If you want to potentially hit a lot of people, get a good skill. If your chain will only hit a few, get a small skill.

Anyway, the customization of how many people are hit is done by playing with Area Effect and Bombardment.

The variant of Overhead is meant to represent the fact that the attack on any given individual within the area is going to come from a random direction.. sometimes the front, sometimes the side, sometimes from behind, sometimes above or below, etc., depending on who the last person in the chain was and where they were positioned relative to the facing of the next target. That in theory should give modifiers to their defense from no penalty to automatic failure if from behind unless they have Danger Sense. Since calculating the exact trajectory when dealing with anything more than a couple of potential targets is not worth the headaches, I handwave it and just give everyone a -2, which is the same as the penalty for overhead if they weren't looking up. Thus I priced it the same as Overhead, which is +30%.

The attack rolls are made based on bombardment which determines who the chain actually went for, the defense rolls are made, and then you get a list of who was hit. The exact order of the chain is just a special effect.

If you really want "details", pick your method of chaining (e.g., starts at closest person to middle of area, then goes to closest person to that person, and so on, until it goes after everyone in the area) and then assign individual defense penalties based on the facing and direction the attack came from. I think that some get no penalty, some -2, some can't defend sort of balances out... but that slows the process down a lot. Just assigning a -2 lets you deal with a large group quickly). If the more detailed process was mandatory, I'd argue you'd probably want to bump the +30% to +50%, as more people are likely to have worse than -2. It might even be a higher value enhancement (but not as high as +150% which is the value of Surprise Attack, as not everyone in the chain is surprised either).

Anyway, I know this build might not be a "literal" definition of chain attack, which does go from one target to the next, but the final game effects - several people next to each other, but not necessarily everyone, are hit - are the same. And GURPS is usually about the end game results, not the "fluff" or "special effects" you assign to it. So I figured that was good enough for me.

06-14-2024, 09:53 AM	#2
Kallatari Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Ottawa, Canada	Re: [Meta-Tech] Cosmic, Chaining I've always modeled these types of attack as a combination of three modifiers: Area Effect (Varies), Bombardment (varies) and a special variant of Overhead +30%. Area Effect determines the maximum number of targets; they have to be within the area of effect. A small area effect gives a small number of targets, and a larger one gives potentially more targets. Bombardment represents the skill you roll to hit everyone within that area. If you want to potentially hit a lot of people, get a good skill. If your chain will only hit a few, get a small skill. Anyway, the customization of how many people are hit is done by playing with Area Effect and Bombardment. The variant of Overhead is meant to represent the fact that the attack on any given individual within the area is going to come from a random direction.. sometimes the front, sometimes the side, sometimes from behind, sometimes above or below, etc., depending on who the last person in the chain was and where they were positioned relative to the facing of the next target. That in theory should give modifiers to their defense from no penalty to automatic failure if from behind unless they have Danger Sense. Since calculating the exact trajectory when dealing with anything more than a couple of potential targets is not worth the headaches, I handwave it and just give everyone a -2, which is the same as the penalty for overhead if they weren't looking up. Thus I priced it the same as Overhead, which is +30%. The attack rolls are made based on bombardment which determines who the chain actually went for, the defense rolls are made, and then you get a list of who was hit. The exact order of the chain is just a special effect. If you really want "details", pick your method of chaining (e.g., starts at closest person to middle of area, then goes to closest person to that person, and so on, until it goes after everyone in the area) and then assign individual defense penalties based on the facing and direction the attack came from. I think that some get no penalty, some -2, some can't defend sort of balances out... but that slows the process down a lot. Just assigning a -2 lets you deal with a large group quickly). If the more detailed process was mandatory, I'd argue you'd probably want to bump the +30% to +50%, as more people are likely to have worse than -2. It might even be a higher value enhancement (but not as high as +150% which is the value of Surprise Attack, as not everyone in the chain is surprised either). Anyway, I know this build might not be a "literal" definition of chain attack, which does go from one target to the next, but the final game effects - several people next to each other, but not necessarily everyone, are hit - are the same. And GURPS is usually about the end game results, not the "fluff" or "special effects" you assign to it. So I figured that was good enough for me.