synergizing the Supers 122 bullet-catch rules into a soft-cap system?

Plane · 07-13-2021, 10:08 AM

Parrying Bullets opens with talking about an advantatge (Enhanced Time Sense 52) and a skill (Parry Missile Weapons B212)

Then in 4th paragraph it talks about 3 other traits: Basic Speed / Super Throw / Altered Time Rate in regards to "bullet catch"

Just comparing Basic Speed and ATR it's easy to see where the 25/4 and 100/9 pattern comes from: the average human (HT 10 DX 10) has a Basic Speed of 5, so it's 5x for bullets and 20x for rifles. ATR 4 (4 extra maneuvers) is 5 maneuvers per second, while ATR 19 (19 extra maneuvers) is 20 maneuvers per second.

The lack of synergy gives some strange-seeming results though:
1) Basic Speed 1 and ATR 4 (move 5 yards per second) can catch bullets
2) Basic Speed 25 and ATR 0 (move 25 yards per second) can catch bullets
3) Basic Speed 24 and ATR 3 (move 96 yards per second) cannot catch bullets

I realize it's about Basic Speed and not Basic Move, but I think one interesting alternative to this for a synergy system might be to instead look at a collective "Speed per Second" resulting from your Basic Speed multiplied by how many maneuvers per second you experience.

Conversely that would also meaning halving Basic Speed if you had Decreased Time Rate.

How 5 or 9 levels of Super-Throw (S30) relates is a bit less obvious to me. Since each level doubles, you throw 32x (2^5) further with five levels and 512x (2^9) further with nine levels... 32 and 519's relationship to 5x and 20x isn't something that stands out to me.

Ideally though this kind of increase arm speed giving a built in "super-catch" seems like it could also synergize with a "super catch" implicit to a high cumulative basic speed per second from BS / ATR though. I just don't know how to work this one into it...

I'm also wondering if rather than a 'hard cap' cutoff if we could somehow relate this characteristic to a progressive penalty (soft cap) system where eventually the penalties are too big the roll will always fail?

The best guidelines I can think would be using the Hand Catch rules (MA84 gives an option for using it with Parry Missile Weapons) combined with the "Intercepting the Projectile" rules from Pyramid 3/57p29 (in Cole's Dodge This)

If using these rules Enhanced Time Sense is no longer the only way to perceive bullets (a requirement to parry them) and instead it's a +10 or auto-pass of the perception roll you make to see whether you can do a defense...

In that vein I'm wondering what the Parry Missile Weapons skill should be. I was wondering if perhaps a Defensive Technique, similar to how they changed Off-Hand Training from a Technique to a Perk in MA?

The damage issue is also another thing I'm wondering if we can soft-cap... like instead of needing a minimum DR of 2 as B212 specifies (M84 actually overrides that with "regardless of DR" anyway) I was thinking maybe there could be some basic rule about stopping vs deflecting projectiles regarding how much of their damage transfers to the object or body part which intercepts them...

Cole's reworked Hand Catch (TG42 Grabbing Parry) approaches that when talking about swung weapons using "reduce damage by 1 for every point by which the parry is made" which modifies a "half damage to parrying limbs" baseline.

Parry Missile Weapons doesn't get addressed in Technical Grappling though so I don't know how that's meant to work in concert with Hand Catch, since it's "regardless of DR" is definitely cinematic in respect to basic set's "2 DR".

Something like 1 DR should probably matter though, which is why I think Cole's MoS-based damage reduction could reflect that.

DX already contributes to your parry score, so since it also contributes to Basic Speed I don't know if that would be considered double-dipping to have something Basic Speed contributes to (the idea of Product Speed Per Second : Basic Speed times Time Rate) also help to offset parrying penalties...

07-13-2021, 10:08 AM	#1
Plane Join Date: Aug 2018	synergizing the Supers 122 bullet-catch rules into a soft-cap system? Parrying Bullets opens with talking about an advantatge (Enhanced Time Sense 52) and a skill (Parry Missile Weapons B212) Then in 4th paragraph it talks about 3 other traits: Basic Speed / Super Throw / Altered Time Rate in regards to "bullet catch" Just comparing Basic Speed and ATR it's easy to see where the 25/4 and 100/9 pattern comes from: the average human (HT 10 DX 10) has a Basic Speed of 5, so it's 5x for bullets and 20x for rifles. ATR 4 (4 extra maneuvers) is 5 maneuvers per second, while ATR 19 (19 extra maneuvers) is 20 maneuvers per second. The lack of synergy gives some strange-seeming results though: 1) Basic Speed 1 and ATR 4 (move 5 yards per second) can catch bullets 2) Basic Speed 25 and ATR 0 (move 25 yards per second) can catch bullets 3) Basic Speed 24 and ATR 3 (move 96 yards per second) cannot catch bullets I realize it's about Basic Speed and not Basic Move, but I think one interesting alternative to this for a synergy system might be to instead look at a collective "Speed per Second" resulting from your Basic Speed multiplied by how many maneuvers per second you experience. Conversely that would also meaning halving Basic Speed if you had Decreased Time Rate. How 5 or 9 levels of Super-Throw (S30) relates is a bit less obvious to me. Since each level doubles, you throw 32x (2^5) further with five levels and 512x (2^9) further with nine levels... 32 and 519's relationship to 5x and 20x isn't something that stands out to me. Ideally though this kind of increase arm speed giving a built in "super-catch" seems like it could also synergize with a "super catch" implicit to a high cumulative basic speed per second from BS / ATR though. I just don't know how to work this one into it... I'm also wondering if rather than a 'hard cap' cutoff if we could somehow relate this characteristic to a progressive penalty (soft cap) system where eventually the penalties are too big the roll will always fail? The best guidelines I can think would be using the Hand Catch rules (MA84 gives an option for using it with Parry Missile Weapons) combined with the "Intercepting the Projectile" rules from Pyramid 3/57p29 (in Cole's Dodge This) If using these rules Enhanced Time Sense is no longer the only way to perceive bullets (a requirement to parry them) and instead it's a +10 or auto-pass of the perception roll you make to see whether you can do a defense... In that vein I'm wondering what the Parry Missile Weapons skill should be. I was wondering if perhaps a Defensive Technique, similar to how they changed Off-Hand Training from a Technique to a Perk in MA? The damage issue is also another thing I'm wondering if we can soft-cap... like instead of needing a minimum DR of 2 as B212 specifies (M84 actually overrides that with "regardless of DR" anyway) I was thinking maybe there could be some basic rule about stopping vs deflecting projectiles regarding how much of their damage transfers to the object or body part which intercepts them... Cole's reworked Hand Catch (TG42 Grabbing Parry) approaches that when talking about swung weapons using "reduce damage by 1 for every point by which the parry is made" which modifies a "half damage to parrying limbs" baseline. Parry Missile Weapons doesn't get addressed in Technical Grappling though so I don't know how that's meant to work in concert with Hand Catch, since it's "regardless of DR" is definitely cinematic in respect to basic set's "2 DR". Something like 1 DR should probably matter though, which is why I think Cole's MoS-based damage reduction could reflect that. DX already contributes to your parry score, so since it also contributes to Basic Speed I don't know if that would be considered double-dipping to have something Basic Speed contributes to (the idea of Product Speed Per Second : Basic Speed times Time Rate) also help to offset parrying penalties...