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Old 11-07-2013, 09:50 AM   #1
GodBeastX
 
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Default ST Based Breath Weapon Damage

I've been trying to figure out the proper way to do this since I was designing a set of dragons.

I remember in 3E dragons had ST based damage to their breath which seemed to become just a hard damage in 4E cuz of innate attack.

What I'd like to see if the modifiers you'd use on an innate attack to make it do ST-based damage instead. I saw Powers has it for melee, would ranged just be that with another 20% modifier or something for range?
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Old 11-07-2013, 10:22 AM   #2
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Default Re: ST Based Breath Weapon Damage

The ST-Based enhancement is expanded upon greatly in Power-Ups 4. There it specifies that it can only be used for muscle-powered attacks, so no Cones or Jets allowed. The +100% version can be used for ranged attacks (bows and the like), and there's a new +30% version with additional limitation suitable for a melee weapon.

For a muscle-powered breath weapon you'd need Cosmic +50% to bypass the inherent limitations of ST-Based. Personally, I'd just build the dragons with a normal Innate Attack, and a Taboo Trait (Breath Weapon damage cannot exceed ST/5 dice, for example.) The power of their breath attack isn't really provided by their muscles, it's just limited by their mass, which ST is a proxy for.
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Old 11-07-2013, 10:25 AM   #3
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Default Re: ST Based Breath Weapon Damage

You can solve some of this problem by taking innate attack as an alternate ability on striking ST -- it's not formally ST-based but has similar effects.
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Old 11-07-2013, 10:37 AM   #4
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Default Re: ST Based Breath Weapon Damage

It's explicitly outlawed on all obvious paths except for the one where the cost depends on the amount of damage added. If you're the GM, just do it and say it costs so many dice of damage (perhaps two). But the system thought anything like that was abusive. They may or may not have a point.

If you're not the GM, just do the math or get someone else to: this way is mined, and you won't make much headway.
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Old 11-07-2013, 10:46 AM   #5
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Default Re: ST Based Breath Weapon Damage

Quote:
Originally Posted by vierasmarius View Post
The power of their breath attack isn't really provided by their muscles, it's just limited by their mass, which ST is a proxy for.
If you've ever seen Flight of Dragons, you might disagree. It can be argued it's a blowing action and directly related to the diaphragm of said dragon. Making it thrust related makes a great deal of sense to me. It'd also easily scale for dragon sizes and be something a said dragon can scale up based on their stats.

I'd argue it'd take fatigue to use though, since you are using your breath to blow out whatever element (Fire) you are using.

Anyway that sounds muscle powered to me.
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Old 11-07-2013, 10:47 AM   #6
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Default Re: ST Based Breath Weapon Damage

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0j0Bjy6hFc

The scene in which I am speaking of.
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Old 11-07-2013, 10:58 AM   #7
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Default Re: ST Based Breath Weapon Damage

Quote:
Originally Posted by GodBeastX View Post
If you've ever seen Flight of Dragons, you might disagree. It can be argued it's a blowing action and directly related to the diaphragm of said dragon. Making it thrust related makes a great deal of sense to me. It'd also easily scale for dragon sizes and be something a said dragon can scale up based on their stats.

I'd argue it'd take fatigue to use though, since you are using your breath to blow out whatever element (Fire) you are using.

Anyway that sounds muscle powered to me.
The range might be based on ST, but the damage is related only to the energy of the flame itself. The ST-based enhancement has no bearing on range anyways, only damage. Now, if it was a jet of air or water that did knockback only you might have an argument.
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Old 11-07-2013, 11:00 AM   #8
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Default Re: ST Based Breath Weapon Damage

I'm not so certain on that.

Where's all the thermodynamics professors when I need one? If the inhale of the air is relative to the strength of the muscles containing the gasses, then it's expunged, does the rate of the air passing over something change how much heat transfers?
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Old 11-07-2013, 11:06 AM   #9
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Default Re: ST Based Breath Weapon Damage

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Originally Posted by GodBeastX View Post
I'm not so certain on that.

Where's all the thermodynamics professors when I need one? If the inhale of the air is relative to the strength of the muscles containing the gasses, then it's expunged, does the rate of the air passing over something change how much heat transfers?
Lung power has nearly nothing to do with overall muscle power. If anything, you would want to give your dragons over-sized or extra sets of lungs.
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Old 11-07-2013, 11:09 AM   #10
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Default Re: ST Based Breath Weapon Damage

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Originally Posted by Nereidalbel View Post
Lung power has nearly nothing to do with overall muscle power. If anything, you would want to give your dragons over-sized or extra sets of lungs.
That's assuming that they are essentially four legged Humans, right? If their anatomy is different, then it could very well be.

Then you could also add a Ready Requirement to the ability because the dragon has to pull in mass amounts of air before expelling it.
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