[Basic] Advantage of the Week: Innate Attack

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Well, it seems like repricing IA would be the easier of the two options, but what would you suggest? Additionally, should we increase the price of DR to match (maintaining the current ratio that 1d cr is worth the same as general DR 1), or will DR become more affordable relative to IA? I could see IA costing anywhere up to around [20] per 1d cr - roughly comparable to buying Striking ST +7 (Single Attack -60%) [21], which would increase thrusting damage by roughly +1d - but that seems a bit excessive.

I've always thought that decreasing the price of Striking ST would be easier than changing IA. I just don't know the right place to shoot for. Considering that Thrust is 40pts per die and Swing is 20pts (and gets only more expensive at higher ST) with IA having a rough 5pts per die, that would mean for striking ST to be worth it you'd be getting 16+ IA's with ST-Based (or the equivalent with carrying that many weapons) if we treat them as alternative attacks.

Since Single Attack is -60%, then maybe making 2/5 the cost of swing or thrust equal to that of IA could work. Which translates to 25 or 12.5pts per die or roughly 3pts per level of Striking ST.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Well, it seems like repricing IA would be the easier of the two options, but what would you suggest? Additionally, should we increase the price of DR to match (maintaining the current ratio that 1d cr is worth the same as general DR 1), or will DR become more affordable relative to IA? I

DR is one of the things IA is out of whack with. So I don't raise it.

My general guiding principle woudl eb to price things so that buyign different things with Alternate Abilities did nbot produce grossly disproportional results.

For example: Spending 50 pts on TK gets you enough TK to equal the ST of an average man. Buying Innate Attack (Crushing) as an AA gets 10D or take Flight.

You can barely lift yourself with TK and move (probably) at 2 but if you buy Flight as an AA you can fly at 2x your Basic Speed and have 10 pts leftover to juice that higher like another Air Move 5.

Take DR as an AA and you need to add Force field and you're down to DR8 as opsed to that 10D tK blast.

Gurps is full of disproportionate results like this so much so that it'd be a 5e thing to rebalance them all butt hat's what I think is neccesary. I'd be happy with factor of 2x with the more specialized Power being more effective than the more general one but we're not very close to that now.

[AlexanderHowl]

I believe that the reason why DR is 5 CP/level is that limitations can reduce the cost to 1 CP/level pretty quickly. A character with DR 50 (Limited, Piercing Metal, -60%; Semi-Ablative, -20%) [50] can absorb 250 points of damage from firearms. Add Regeneration (Fast) [50] and they can recovery 1 HP and 1 DR a minute, meaning that they only need to go to ground for less than an hour to be back in top fighting form.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

I believe that the reason why DR is 5 CP/level is that limitations can reduce the cost to 1 CP/level pretty quickly. A character with DR 50 (Limited, Piercing Metal, -60%; Semi-Ablative, -20%) [50] can absorb 250 points of damage from firearms. Add Regeneration (Fast) [50] and they can recovery 1 HP and 1 DR a minute, meaning that they only need to go to ground for less than an hour to be back in top fighting form.

I don't think you Regenerate an ablative shield while using an AA for the shield.

There's also no guarantee that while you're throwing TK/Innate Attacks at them they'll be limited to Piercing attacks agaisnt you.

[AlexanderHowl]

My post did not really have anything to do with TK, so the DR is not an AA of anything. Since the vast majority of high damage attacks at TL5+ are piercing metal, it would protect against most non-armor piercing attack. For example, it would offer complete protection against a full clip of a Glock or protect against the average damage of a Barrett .50 using civilian ammo. Of course, the character is vulnerable to melee weapon damage, but that is appropriate for cinematic/powered games.

It is really about appearances. In general, most players are going to assume that a character that can take a .50 to the face without flinching is bad news, and they are unlikely to switch to melee weapons unless they are 100% sure they will work. Anyway, the default TK attack is TK Bullet, which is highly inaccurate at range, so they are highly unlikely to hit anyone further away that 100 yards.

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Since the vast majority of high damage attacks at TL5+ are piercing metal

If that were actually true, I wouldn't give -60% for that limitation. If, say. half of all attacks will end up being piercing metal, I'd make it -20%. And I'd be wondering what campaign would allow this form of DR without Unusual Background. Even if the setting has it as a common attack, that doesn't mean the campaign does. A character with specialized DR that breaks down and can heal makes me think super initially and supers face all sorts of attacks even when guns happen to be common in the setting. All traits have to take into account how the campaign will function, but especially the three attack powers and even moreso IA. I'd say more than any other trait the level matters more than the cost.

[Aldric]

Actually trying to use Innate Attack to build a sword-like arm for my golem project.
Seems quite expensive to buy an attack that does the same damage as a sword (not to mention an AA for thrust damage).

Going for the "ST Based" from powers, you can get away with a single point of damage, which is a lot cheaper.

The build would also have Temporary Disadvantage (One Hand) and Switchable, since the idea is to be able to change the arm to a blade and back, of course in the "ST Based" case this becomes just fluff since it offers pretty much no discount.

[AlexanderHowl]

I almost never use ST-Based because it is almost always cheaper to buy the unmodifed Innate Attack. Anyway, you are also supposed to increase the effective cost of the damage provided by ST by any enhancements (other than ST-Based) to the Innate Attack, which gets annoyingly complex.

[Aldric]

Well, in my case, I want something that works like a sword for a "golem" that currently has ST 15.
A normal sword wielded by such creature would deal about 2d+2 cutting when swung, a lot less if used to thrust of course.
To get an Innate Attack to do that, you have to buy 2,6 dices of cutting innate attack, at 7 per die, by calculator says it's 18.2.
You of course modify that with Melee (C,1) for -20% (if I remember correctly) that comes down to 16 points if I rounded at the right points.
Adding switchable and temporary disadvantage (one hand) to the mix woulnd't change the cost much (down to 14 points I believe)
Which seems rather expensive compared to just wielding a sword (or even getting one as signature gear)

Now, ST Based on such a character (who has of course already spent 50 points on ST) would only cost about 4 points.
1 point of Innate attack (cutting) for 2 CP, +100% ST Based, -20% Melee (C,1), +10% Switchable, -15% TD (One Hand).

Prices might change when you start adding armor divisors or other things like that, but I'm not going that far right now.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Aldric

Actually trying to use Innate Attack to build a sword-like arm for my golem project.
Seems quite expensive to buy an attack that does the same damage as a sword (not to mention an AA for thrust damage).

Going for the "ST Based" from powers, you can get away with a single point of damage, which is a lot cheaper.

The build would also have Temporary Disadvantage (One Hand) and Switchable, since the idea is to be able to change the arm to a blade and back, of course in the "ST Based" case this becomes just fluff since it offers pretty much no discount.

Natural Weapons (Pyramid #3/65) can also work here; compared to a comparable IA with ST-based it typically overcharges (but I'd argue gives a bit more fair of a price), but you don't have to go through the complication of applying any relevant modifiers to the base damage from your ST.

I think Temporary Disadvantage essentially includes Switchable for free, but I'm not certain - it seems odd to need to pay more for, say, Combat Reflexes that results in Bloodlust (15) while in use than for always-on Combat Reflexes, but I could see an interpretation that you are basically using a Temporary Disadvantage to offset the cost of Switchable (at least for traits where you want Switchable, like an arm blade).

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

I almost never use ST-Based because it is almost always cheaper to buy the unmodifed Innate Attack.

Depends on how much damage over ST you want. If you're looking to deal twice your swing damage with the IA, yeah, unmodified is probably the way to go. If you just want a point or two over, as for a sword, ST-based will likely cost less, unless you have a rather low ST or are throwing a high value worth of Enhancements onto the IA.