Rules puzzle: Extra Attack and readying

[Ciaran]

I guess I'll be the guy who's not too polite to say it: you're blaming the rules for a combination of poor character design and an obstreperous GM who refuses to allow you a little adjustment on the fly in a friggin' Supers game.

[Kromm]

Being able to ready anything, for any reason, as essentially a free action on your turn is "broken" because it works around a lot of bad consequences and failure results -- notably weapons unreadied by critical failure, disarming, or simple use (offset by have large damage, often big reach, and a better ability to mash other weapons). It comes close to immunity to disarming, and makes it very hard to pull the fighter's teeth, so to speak. The ability to ready lots of small throwing weapons is almost a postscript next to that . . . as I said to Bill, I'd make that and only that free for anyone who can make a DX-6 roll.

My beef is mainly with PCs who can do things like swing a halberd and Ready immediately, or always recover instantly when their sword is unreadied by a disarm attempt or a critical failure, or pull out and shoot a loaded crossbow or an antitank rocket every second. Things like halberds, disarms, and slow-to-load missile weapons are balanced -- both pro and con -- on the premise that there's no workaround for the built-in consequences. If you introduce a workaround without a second thought in order to allow a PC to ready and toss light weapons, then you're potentially throwing many rules out of whack for most other purposes merely to enable something better handled through the Fast-Draw skill.

Multiple attacks are surprisingly not that big a deal. Everybody likes to fuss about them, but in this game system, multiple defenses are "free" -- everybody can block/parry once per hand, and dodge infinite times -- and a single target can even retreat for +1/+3 to all those rolls. Multiple attacks are, for the most part, a marginal odds increase of landing a blow, or a way to spread mediocre odds of a hit over several targets. Also, the rules have intrinsic support for multiple attacks, whereas they don't support "instant Ready anything" abilities, so less breaks when you hand out an extra shot in combat.

Anecdotally, I've seen more PCs influenced more adversely in combat by being without a weapon, or caught mid-reload, than by not having another attack. It's pretty clear to me that being temporarily paused between shots is a more limiting effect than having fewer shots. At this point in my current game, every PC is good enough to use Rapid Strike, quick-shooting, etc., to attack more, yet most don't bother, because one Aimed shot or Deceptive Attack is worth two or three bad attacks. However, the need to ready hard-hitting weapons like over-strength crossbows, and requirement to spend a couple of seconds getting a shield out after shooting a bow, are still major tactical considerations that influence the way entire battles are fought.

As I said, I'm not against allowing an extra Ready, but I think it's a potent advantage if it has no restrictions on the type of Ready or the skills/weapons involved, and if it requires no die roll.

[Icelander]

I've often wondered why there was no option for an All-out Ready. It seems intuitive to me that if someone was not keeping up a full and unpenalised defence, he could perform his Ready action faster.

All-Out Ready would allow either two Ready manuevers in a round or a Ready and an Attack. This could allow fighters without Fast-Draw to attack in the same second as they draw their weapon, at the cost of having no defences.

What balance issues do people see with it? How would it measure against other AoA options?

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Icelander

I've often wondered why there was no option for an All-out Ready. It seems intuitive to me that if someone was not keeping up a full and unpenalised defence, he could perform his Ready action faster.

All-Out Ready would allow either two Ready manuevers in a round or a Ready and an Attack. This could allow fighters without Fast-Draw to attack in the same second as they draw their weapon, at the cost of having no defences.

What balance issues do people see with it? How would it measure against other AoA options?

How is the characters move affected? I would personally vote for "One Step" - The idea of someone able to move half move while struggling with a heavy crossbow makes my brainmeats hurt.

[Mark Skarr]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Things like halberds, disarms, and slow-to-load missile weapons are balanced -- both pro and con -- on the premise that there's no workaround for the built-in consequences.

There we go. There's the disconnect between our two visions. Now I get where you're coming from.

These situations come up very rarely in my games where Extra Attack is used. In my "realistic" games they come up plenty of times, but since EA isn't allowed, it's never been an issue (except for the IOU game which involved such skills as Speed-Load (Rocket Launcher) and Fast Draw (Foxhole) and had the Create Cover spell). I've never seen this ability get abused, but I can now see where Kromm's issue comes from.

Originally Posted by Kromm

Multiple attacks are surprisingly not that big a deal.

I'm with you on that. That's, honestly, one of the main reasons for why I allowed the immediate ready/attack. It just wasn't that big a deal. Now that I understand where you're coming from I can see why you think it's a big deal, and you're probably right. I've just never seen it as such.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Ciaran

I guess I'll be the guy who's not too polite to say it: you're blaming the rules for a combination of poor character design and an obstreperous GM who refuses to allow you a little adjustment on the fly in a friggin' Supers game.

Blame? What comment of mine on this expressed blame? I've been saying "I'm not sure this does what I'm looking for." Your one sentence just quoted seems to me to hold more blame than the entirety of my comments in this thread.

Poor character design? What, do you always figure out everything your character will need to have to be effective in a campaign, in advance of ever playing in the campaign? I'm afraid my precognition wasn't working that day. So sue me.

Obstreperous GM? Well, you know, I started having my character throw rocks, and then steel balls, and I figured out that she could be outrageously effective if she learned to Fast-Draw them. So I asked if she could, and he said she would need to practice. She can't just spend an eep on it, because it has no default, and we follow the convention that you have to use a skill successfully at default to justify spending an eep to buy it.

So I realized that there was a problem with that, and I came here and explained what I was trying to do. And I think a reasonable solution has been proposed: If she can make a Ready maneuver with each hand at the same time, she can then throw two rocks every other second, which is the same average rate she'd been throwing at. And unless I'm misunderstanding how that works, it shouldn't be impossible for her to Ready rocks with both hands—or even very difficult, with DX 19 and Ambidexterity.

And it gets her from the standard 3 rocks in 6 seconds to 6 rocks in 6 seconds, which is consistent with her performance in previous sessions, whereas retrofitting Fast-Draw would imply that she had been throwing 12 rocks in 6 seconds. I'm not a big fan of retcons. I'd rather save the appearances.

Bill Stoddard

[Ciaran]

Precognition? No. Planning ahead? Yes. So maybe I'd sue you for that.

And I guess I remain puzzled by the reluctance to retcon in um, a Supers game. Personally I find a torturous attempt at a rules workaround more distasteful than a quintessentially in-genre redefinition of a character's powers, but YGMV.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Bruno

How is the characters move affected? I would personally vote for "One Step" - The idea of someone able to move half move while struggling with a heavy crossbow makes my brainmeats hurt.

Step sounds good to me.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Ciaran

Precognition? No. Planning ahead? Yes. So maybe I'd sue you for that.

I don't approach games in the spirit of "analyze every possible combination of rules and traits, figure out which ones are most effective, and make sure to use those." I'm a "let's try this and see how it work" player. Which I think is a perfectly legitimate play style. I built La Gata Encantada to be fun, and by and large she has been. And despite being badly designed, at least by your standards, she has been outrageously effective in combat, giving me the interesting new experience of playing the combat monster.

The analytical thinking I did while building her was not along the lines of "how do I pick traits that will give the optimal results in combat?" It was "how do I pick traits that reflect a coherent theme?" So I gave her Skinny and Increased Consumption and Minor Addiction: Chocolate because of the metabolic effects of her powers, for example.

And when I realized that I was having problems with applying the rules correctly, I came to a place where I knew there were people who could do that, and show me how things actually worked. Which, by and large, most of them have done. And I figure that sort of mutual aid between people with different cognitive styles and levels of understanding is part of what these fora are supposed to be used for.

And if you've got a problem with any of that, sod off.

Bill Stoddard

[Ciaran]

Look, if my pointing out the silliness of this whole thing has gotten under your skin Bill, too bad. But do try and keep a lid on it ok? Telling people to sod off on the internet doesn't make you particularly brave or witty, or in any way improve your case in the eyes of those to whom "give me a rules work around, no not THAT one" seems childish.