I'm starting to hate THE WITCHER

[Plane]

Originally Posted by hal

2) The Striga's strength is shown only for a short duration - the fight between the Striga and Geralt. So how would it make sense for the Striga's ST (and hence hit points) to switch on during an attack, but not be on during defense against an attack?

sounds like Striking ST

[sjard]

Another for cinematic Double Knockback. Considering the Aard sign is specifically intended for (mostly) non-lethal staggering and knockback it makes sense.

[Christopher R. Rice]

I would actually do something similar to how Incendiary is allowed in multiple levels to buy multiple levels of Double Knockback. So Double Knockback 2 (+40%) causes triple knockback and you'd need Cosmic, Multiple Levels of Double Knockback (+50%). For 3 levels it'd be +100% Cosmic (for quadruple knockback) and for 4 levels it would be +300% Cosmic (for quintuple knockback).

So each die would be Crushing Attack (Cosmic, Multiple Levels of Double Knockback, +50%; Double Knockback 2, +40%; Magic, -10%) [9/level] which would do 3.5 points of crushing damage per hit and 10.5 points of knockback. That's enough to knock back an average ST target back one yard on a average roll.

That's not RAW of course, but I've used it before in a supers campaign and it works fine.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

I would actually do something similar to how Incendiary is allowed in multiple levels to buy multiple levels of Double Knockback. So Double Knockback 2 (+40%) causes triple knockback and you'd need Cosmic, Multiple Levels of Double Knockback (+50%). For 3 levels it'd be +100% Cosmic (for quadruple knockback) and for 4 levels it would be +300% Cosmic (for quintuple knockback).

So each die would be Crushing Attack (Cosmic, Multiple Levels of Double Knockback, +50%; Double Knockback 2, +40%; Magic, -10%) [9/level] which would do 3.5 points of crushing damage per hit and 10.5 points of knockback. That's enough to knock back an average ST target back one yard on a average roll.

That's not RAW of course, but I've used it before in a supers campaign and it works fine.

That markedly overcharges for the effect*. Now that I can check my books, let me revisit my 8x knockback build. So, we start with 2d cr (Double Knockback +20%) [12]. Boosting that to triple knockback would require adding in 1d cr (Double Knockback +20%; No Blunt Trauma -20%; No Wounding -50%) [2.5] - round up to [3]. Quadruple Knockback is instead 2d cr (dkb +20%; nbt -20%; nw -50%) [5], and quintuple is 3d cr (dkb +20%; nbt -20%; nw -50%) [7.5] (round up to [8]). So that's [12] for a 2d attack with double knockback, [15] for a 2d attack with triple knockback, [17] for a 2d attack with quadruple knockback, and [20] for a 2d attack with quintuple knockback. Your suggestion would instead be [12], [19], [26], and [48], respectively.

Of course, that's because of the addition of Cosmic. If you leave that off, and just let the player buy multiple levels of Knockback (+20% per +1 to the multiplier), things are a lot closer - [12], [14], [16], [18] - and you end up with something a lot easier to handle. In fact, I think that's the route I'll be taking going forward, instead of having some of the attack's damage be No Blunt Trauma + No Wounding.

*A caveat - if the Innate Attack has a lot of Enhancements already, and one isn't using multiplicative multipliers, your suggestion can end up cheaper than having some of the damage have nbt+nw, simply because those modifiers fail to shift the value by much. For example, 2d cr (Accurate+3 +15%; Double Knockback +20%; Guided +50%; Increased 1/2D x10 +15%; Increased Range x100 +60%; No Signature +20%; Rapid Fire, RoF 100 +250%) [53] would need 1d cr (Accurate+3 +15%; Double Knockback +20%; Guided +50%; Increased 1/2D x10 +15%; Increased Range x100 +60%; No Signature +20%; Rapid Fire, RoF 100 +250%; Now Blunt Trauma -20%; No Wounding -50%) [46] per additional +1 to the multiplier, while with your suggestion x3 knockback would be [+7], kbx4 would be [+14], and kbx5 would be [+36].

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Varyon

That markedly overcharges for the effect*. Now that I can check my books, let me revisit my 8x knockback build. So, we start with 2d cr (Double Knockback +20%) [12]. Boosting that to triple knockback would require adding in 1d cr (Double Knockback +20%; No Blunt Trauma -20%; No Wounding -50%) [2.5] - round up to [3]. Quadruple Knockback is instead 2d cr (dkb +20%; nbt -20%; nw -50%) [5], and quintuple is 3d cr (dkb +20%; nbt -20%; nw -50%) [7.5] (round up to [8]). So that's [12] for a 2d attack with double knockback, [15] for a 2d attack with triple knockback, [17] for a 2d attack with quadruple knockback, and [20] for a 2d attack with quintuple knockback. Your suggestion would instead be [12], [19], [26], and [48], respectively.

Of course, that's because of the addition of Cosmic. If you leave that off, and just let the player buy multiple levels of Knockback (+20% per +1 to the multiplier), things are a lot closer - [12], [14], [16], [18] - and you end up with something a lot easier to handle. In fact, I think that's the route I'll be taking going forward, instead of having some of the attack's damage be No Blunt Trauma + No Wounding.

*A caveat - if the Innate Attack has a lot of Enhancements already, and one isn't using multiplicative multipliers, your suggestion can end up cheaper than having some of the damage have nbt+nw, simply because those modifiers fail to shift the value by much. For example, 2d cr (Accurate+3 +15%; Double Knockback +20%; Guided +50%; Increased 1/2D x10 +15%; Increased Range x100 +60%; No Signature +20%; Rapid Fire, RoF 100 +250%) [53] would need 1d cr (Accurate+3 +15%; Double Knockback +20%; Guided +50%; Increased 1/2D x10 +15%; Increased Range x100 +60%; No Signature +20%; Rapid Fire, RoF 100 +250%; Now Blunt Trauma -20%; No Wounding -50%) [46] per additional +1 to the multiplier, while with your suggestion x3 knockback would be [+7], kbx4 would be [+14], and kbx5 would be [+36].

That's fine. I don't know if I'd allow multiple levels to be born without Cosmic though. Hmmm

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Boosting that to triple knockback would require adding in 1d cr (Double Knockback +20%; No Blunt Trauma -20%; No Wounding -50%) [2.5] - round up to [3].

You've gotten to -50% here, you can get to a full -80% via B110's -30% for DR multiplier 2.

DR multipliers are a great complement for No Wounding discounts unless you happen to be using that No Wounding attack to carry a Side Effect in which case having some Penetrating Damage that doesn't cause injury has a purpose (penalizing the HT roll)

You can even get -70% for a DR multiplier 10 (a bigger discount than No Wounding -50%) if you wanted to apply further enhancements, though I'm not sure what that would be.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

That's fine. I don't know if I'd allow multiple levels to be born without Cosmic though. Hmmm

I can certainly understand the justification behind wanting Cosmic, but unless you disallow No Wounding attacks with Double Knockback, it's going to seem really weird when the guy with 20d worth of knockback without wounding pays only [25] for it (10d cr with dkb, nbt, nw), while the guy with 4d cr that also deals 20d worth of knockback pays [96] for that (4d cr with quintuple knockback).

Originally Posted by Plane

You've gotten to -50% here, you can get to a full -80% via B110's -30% for DR multiplier 2.

DR multipliers are a great complement for No Wounding discounts unless you happen to be using that No Wounding attack to carry a Side Effect in which case having some Penetrating Damage that doesn't cause injury has a purpose (penalizing the HT roll)

You can even get -70% for a DR multiplier 10 (a bigger discount than No Wounding -50%) if you wanted to apply further enhancements, though I'm not sure what that would be.

A Limitation that fails to actually Limit an Advantage shouldn't be worth points. A knockback-only attack is unaffected by DR, so an armor multiplier isn't valid. Of course, there are some places where the values sort of break down, depending on what Limitations you're taking, as you can have overlapping effects - No Wounding invalidates Armor Divisor unless the former is on a carrier attack (for a Follow-Up, if it has Side Effect/Symptoms, etc), yet the latter can actually give more of a Limitation value - No Wounding -50% means the attack can only knock a foe back and/or cause blunt trauma, while Armor Divisor (0.2) -50% knocks back and deals blunt trauma just as effectively (more effectively in the latter case), and also directly causes wounds on unarmored or lightly-armored foes. I don't really have a solution here - the values for AD seem about right for an attack that's meant to wound, and tossing AD (0.1) -70% on any non-carrier No Wounding attack just feels off... yet AD (0.1) giving more of a discount than No Wounding + No Blunt Trauma (both knockback just as effectively, but the poor armor divisor still wounds unarmored/lightly armored foes and deals full blunt trauma to more heavily-armored ones) seems clearly wrong as well...

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Varyon

A knockback-only attack is unaffected by DR, so an armor multiplier isn't valid.

It is if you buy a Side Effect for it, so you could do some token SE to make it matter.

Also "hurting yourself" applies to ST-based unarmed attacks, so having DR multiplier on your ST-based damage makes it possible to hurt yourself on stuff w/ DR 1 or 2 instead of 3.

Another thing is I think the DR you hit limits the max damage you can take via Hurting Yourself, so DR 1 becoming DR 10 means you can take 10 dmg on a 50dmg punch instead of a max of 1 dmg on a punch of 5+ dmg

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Plane

It is if you buy a Side Effect for it, so you could do some token SE to make it matter.

A No Wounding attack with a Side Effect isn't a knockback-only attack. But, yes, Innate Attack 2d cr (Double Knockback +20%; Side Effect: Stun +50%; Armor Divisor (0.1) -70%; No Blunt Trauma -20%; No Wounding -50%) [3] is clearly better than Innate Attack 2d cr (Double Knockback +20%; No Blunt Trauma -20%; No Wounding -50%) [5] (the former is every bit as effective as the latter at knocking foes back, and also has a chance of stunning unarmored foes), so it costing less is part of the problem I don't have a proper solution to.

Originally Posted by Plane

Also "hurting yourself" applies to ST-based unarmed attacks, so having DR multiplier on your ST-based damage makes it possible to hurt yourself on stuff w/ DR 1 or 2 instead of 3.

Hurting Yourself doesn't apply to Shoves, so there's no reason to assume it would apply even in the extreme edge case of someone using Modifying Unarmed Attacks to make their unarmed attack have No Wounding. Also, DR in Hurting Yourself is being used as a proxy to determine how hard the target is (hence why Tough Skin DR doesn't count) - the fact your attacks have poor performance against armor shouldn't mean said attacks are more likely to harm you, so even with unarmed attacks that don't have No Wounding, you should still only take damage when striking something that actually has DR 3+, not "effective DR 3+ when considering my marshmellow-fists can't get through armor."

[naloth]

Originally Posted by Varyon

A No Wounding attack with a Side Effect isn't a knockback-only attack. But, yes, Innate Attack 2d cr (Double Knockback +20%; Side Effect: Stun +50%; Armor Divisor (0.1) -70%; No Blunt Trauma -20%; No Wounding -50%) [3] is clearly better than Innate Attack 2d cr (Double Knockback +20%; No Blunt Trauma -20%; No Wounding -50%) [5] (the former is every bit as effective as the latter at knocking foes back, and also has a chance of stunning unarmored foes), so it costing less is part of the problem I don't have a proper solution to.

Either Armor Divisor or No Wounding is mispriced. While there is utility in something not doing damage, it seem odd that it's worth less than just multiplying DR before wounding. At the .1 (x10) value they are probably of similar worth, and I'd likely make No Wounding a higher version of AD.