Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > GURPS

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 08-27-2021, 02:19 PM   #21
Hide
 
Hide's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2016
Default Re: Ability to Shield Allies (Active Defense limitation)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Yako View Post
(...) Ranged attacks can not parry (...) anything you would deem necessary for an extra arm to handle weird angles and positions would by necessity ALSO apply to a natural weapon by default.
To help you understand the idea, this is not a vanilla ranged attack. "Projected" is basically a cosmic modifier to remove the restriction, it changes it so it can parry. It is called "Adding Utility" (power ups 4) and I would say it has the same nature as "force extension". On the other hand, by projecting the weapon where you need it, you don't have to worry about flexibility.
__________________
- 画龍点睛。Hide。
Hide is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-27-2021, 10:36 PM   #22
Plane
 
Join Date: Aug 2018
Default Re: Ability to Shield Allies (Active Defense limitation)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Yako View Post
Okay, let me address the "selecive area issue".

This is I think definitely NOT intended to be how you do this.

The Variant with Forcefield + Area Effect + One Level of Affects Others is meant to give you a discount.
You need ONE level of affects others to affect EVERYONE inside your forcefield, with the DRAWBACK that it shields all of the area inside from everything outside without helping against anything that has managed to penetrate the barrier.
Area Affect attacks have the drawback of affecting enemies and allies alike too.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Yako View Post
The alternative solution here is not to just slap selective area on that for 20% extra.
What you are supposed to do is take Area effect and as many levels of affect others as people you want to cover.
You're describing how it's talked about at the end of P107, but the start of P108 says that's only for movement/transformation stuff.

So it doesn't seem like you would do +50%/ally for DR since it's not movement/transformation.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Yako View Post
Just slapping area effect and selective area on some advantage is I think not a legal way to turn something that usually only affects yourself into a a shared thing, because this is exactly what affects others is there for in the first place.
You do take Affects Others, but P108 says to only take it once ("a flat +50%")

So I think Selective Area should allow you to exclude the DR benefitting certain hexes within your radius, by creating a force field of varying shapes.

This also makes it easy to understand the "impedes movement" aspect.

Selective EFFECT would get sort of complicated though: because then you're designating by something other than hexes (area) and I'm not sure how you could actually do that, except when first choosing whether a force field resists someone entering the field or not. I don't know if "effect" would do anything once someone's already inside the bubble.

Last edited by Plane; 08-27-2021 at 10:39 PM.
Plane is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-28-2021, 02:57 AM   #23
Yako
 
Yako's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: Germany
Default Re: Ability to Shield Allies (Active Defense limitation)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Hide View Post
To help you understand the idea, this is not a vanilla ranged attack. "Projected" is basically a cosmic modifier to remove the restriction, it changes it so it can parry. It is called "Adding Utility" (power ups 4) and I would say it has the same nature as "force extension". On the other hand, by projecting the weapon where you need it, you don't have to worry about flexibility.
That does completely fail to address the issue why, instead of re-purposing an enhancement that, rules as written, does NOT do what you want, you do not simply take the existing enhancement that DOES do exactly what you want, namely extra reach for +50% per level.

Even with projected, ranged, which usually would then be combined with reduced range because you usually do not need to defend at 100 yards, is pretty much getting it for cheap.

I can maybe understand that if you wanted to actually do crazy distances for this, it WOULD be reasonable to not charge for, say +2000% for twenty yards and use some level of cosmic, but for normal ranged, we are talking 2.5 points per increase in the reach you can cover. That is not that unreasonable.

@Plane:

If we want to be very pedantic about "rules as written", maybe reread selective area from basic:

Quote:
Selective Area +20%
You may add this enhancement to
any Area Effect (p. 102) or Cone
(p. 103) attack. It lets you choose
which targets within your area are
actually affected.
This ability is definitely not an attack.
Yes, you can do this for affliction builds.
But with affliction builds, you already have paid for the ability to, barring limitations like costs fatigue, limited use, etc. , afflict as many people as you like. Selective area there is basically just a bit of quality of life to make things more convenient when it comes to quickly getting your affliction on only your allies.

Affects Others ends with:

Quote:
The above version of Affects Others
is for movement abilities (e.g., Flight
and Permeation) and physical transformations (e.g., Growth and
Shrinking). It’s a good way to keep the
PCs together on adventures that
would leave behind those who can’t
fly, shrink, etc. The GM may allow
Affects Others on other traits when it
serves this purpose.
Meaning this is intended for movement and transformation and the GM can use it for other things.


Alternatively, there is the Aura of Power Build.

Active Defense WITHOUT the issue of having to be aware of the attacking coming (your ability automatically tries to actively defend for you) is -20%, so having the user of the affliction being the one who needs to be aware of the attack could be anything from a 0 point feature to a +15% enhancement.

Having a shared penalty for multiple active defenses would have to be some sort of nuisance effect, I think a rather sizable one since it greatly reduces the usefulness of this ability.
You basically loose out on most of the benefit of having it be an affliction that can affect multiple people in the first place.
Alternatively, one can look at accessibility and make a rough judgment of what percentage of cases the ability thus is actually becoming useless that way.
For example, one could assume that with a party of, let us say four people, the attack could be reasonably useful against 8 incoming attacks normally, but with a shared penalty, likely only against 2, which would be 25% of times, which fits neatly, with some leeway for party size, into the 19-31% band for -30%.

Conversely, if one would want an ability that is guaranteed to shield against one attack but only that one, I think it would be fair to go all the way down to -40% as a limitation.
__________________
Please check out my templates for making your own "Cardboard Heroes"!

Custom Cardboard Miniatures
Yako is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-28-2021, 02:40 PM   #24
Hide
 
Hide's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2016
Default Re: Ability to Shield Allies (Active Defense limitation)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Yako View Post
That does completely fail to address the issue why, instead of re-purposing an enhancement that, rules as written, does NOT do what you want, you do not simply take the existing enhancement that DOES do exactly what you want, namely extra reach for +50% per level (...)
Projected is just a beneficial modifier; you should give yourself a chance to understand it better.

Projected practically is the same modifier as “force extension”, but reskinned for the “stretching” advantage. And just as “force extension” was reskinned to allow a ghost-limb-weapon-mount block an attack (without having an actual weapon mounted), Projected has the potential of letting you parry with a projected weapon.

Per pyramid 3/65 Projected can be employed with brawling; brawling is a melee skill and melee skills can parry. When you choose to build a ranged (natural weapon) attack, you give the attack 10x.5/10x1 range (5/10); then you modify the range. If you suggest taking a modifier to reduce the range, you don’t need it.

On the other hand, I picked increased range x10 to give the user 50/100 range (it only costs 1 CP for the build). Increased reach is in the GURPS basic set.
__________________
- 画龍点睛。Hide。
Hide is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 08-28-2021, 04:18 PM   #25
Plane
 
Join Date: Aug 2018
Default Re: Ability to Shield Allies (Active Defense limitation)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Yako View Post
If we want to be very pedantic about "rules as written", maybe reread selective area from basic:

This ability is definitely not an attack.
B102 has the gun icon for Area Effect, which per the blue "Attack Enhancements" box next to it means "intended only for Affliction, Binding, and Innate Attack, and for advantages modified with the Ranged enhancement"

Affects Others by definition involves stripping away the usual restriction for Area Effect, so there's no reason to think other gun-icon things (such as Selective Area) still have that restriction.

Selective Area is intended for anything that has an Area Effect to allow you to shape that area.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Yako View Post
meaning this is intended for movement and transformation and the GM can use it for other things
If a GM wants to ban the cheaper P108 option for Damage Resistance w/ Force Field / Affects Others / Area Effect then I guess they can use the P109 option.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Yako View Post
Active Defense WITHOUT the issue of having to be aware of the attacking coming (your ability automatically tries to actively defend for you) is -20%, so having the user of the affliction being the one who needs to be aware of the attack could be anything from a 0 point feature to a +15% enhancement.
Users of afflictions (or Affects Others advantages) being the ones who roll is the default assumption.

For the recipient to be the roller/controller you need to use "Beneficial Afflictions" which inverts the HT roll to resist (failure above HT = afflicted) to a HT roll to succeed (success below HT = afflicted)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Yako View Post
Having a shared penalty for multiple active defenses would have to be some sort of nuisance effect, I think a rather sizable one since it greatly reduces the usefulness of this ability.
Yeah I wish I could think of a way to code that.

Active Defense is derived from "requires DX roll" in the PU8 writeup under the hood, so maybe something like Aftermath: -1 to DX ?

Only thing is that is meant to last a minimum of 10 minutes, so "Backlash" might work better since you can get over that penalty faster.

Powers has "simultaneous uses" penalties but I don't know if that'd work since it's not exactly the same as "consecutive uses".

"Increased Immunity" can give a penalty lasting an hour but that seems a bit harsh. We need some kind of partial version of that, like instead of -10% for -1 for 1 hour, maybe -1% for -1 for 1 minute?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Yako View Post
Alternatively, one can look at accessibility and make a rough judgment of what percentage of cases the ability thus is actually becoming useless that way.
For example, one could assume that with a party of, let us say four people, the attack could be reasonably useful against 8 incoming attacks normally, but with a shared penalty, likely only against 2, which would be 25% of times, which fits neatly, with some leeway for party size, into the 19-31% band for -30%.
This sort of reminds me of discussions about how to remove the cumulative usage penalty per target for Healing, I think I vaguely remember this being priced at +50% similar to 10 levels of reliable.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Yako View Post
Conversely, if one would want an ability that is guaranteed to shield against one attack but only that one, I think it would be fair to go all the way down to -40% as a limitation.
Only one per how often, per second?

There's acutally precedent for that, you can take the Reduced Duration limitation on abilities with "requires DX roll", reducing 1 minute's use to 1 second's use.

Though I get the impression for attacks/defenses they're considered instant/transient by default...

One would think that activating "requires DX roll" stuff is like a free action and those are normally limited to 1 per second anyway...

and normally you need to use something like a power dodge to activate free actions at times other than the start of your own turn...

but I am probably mixing up "roll to turn your ability on" vs "your ability is on but you roll to see if it worked in that particular moment of need"
Plane is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Tags
active defense, affects others, damage resistance, sacrifical block

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 12:36 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.