Questions about Innate Attack (Wall)

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by naloth

Piercing is defined by its wounding effects. If you're taking "no wounding" on the ability such that the wound multiplier will never make a difference, then it's not really a piercing attack. The justification you've used has nothing to do with why this would make sense as a base for an ability.

I think there are RAW examples of attacks that do Small Piercing damage but have No Wounding, for the purpose of creating a carrier attack for a Follow-Up. Personally, I don't like that, as it feels like a cop-out - attacks with No Wounding should generally use a base cost of [5], with their damage type as a special effect. It may be appropriate to make an exception for Innate Attacks with Side Effects and Symptoms, however, at least if the former is using Injury instead of Damage to determine the penalty (and you allow the latter at all).

Originally Posted by naloth

Describe the ability you're trying to create, not the game mechanics you're trying to ramrod together. I really don't see a Wall/Side Effect IA that makes since. As a linked ability, ok, but not on the same IA.

I could potentially see a rigid Wall with a Side Effect - say, a wall of icy spears that can (cinematically/supernaturally) freeze the target (so Side Effect: Fragile (Brittle) and maybe some more effects), or (for a No Wounding example) a "soft" force field that can shock a target (Side Effect: Stunning). Even using pi- to represent something like tiny needles, I don't see it working with No Wounding for a rigid Wall, however.

Originally Posted by Plane

Ah okay I think I get it now, wasn't processing the sentence before. Per B408 it seems like the wall HP is being treated as "flesh" though, since it's not 1/2 HP like unliving or 1/4 HP like homogenous has for cover DR.

Yes, this is why I've opted to quadruple the HP of rigid Walls - it lets them function like Homogenous structures, and also creates a DR vs HP exchange that makes some sense to engage in.

Originally Posted by Plane

Ought to be, but since it is a major component of the base Innate Attack ability, there isn't any way to avoid that for walls.

"No way to avoid" doesn't mean you have to exploit it by getting your Wall at nearly half price by making it pi-.

Originally Posted by Plane

Or to cause collision damage if they can't avoid them.

That is a use, yes, but as I mentioned later, it's a rather niche application. Part of why I'm kind of OK with the high price for cutting and impaling Walls is that I expect a player who opts for one to intend to frequently use it for its collision damage (by throwing it in the path of fast-moving foes).

Originally Posted by Plane

I guess the question is: what is the cap on the collision damage that rigid walls can actually cause compared to their permeable form?

See B431 -"If the obstacle is breakable, the moving object cannot inflict or take more damage than the obstacle’s HP + DR." Homogenous objects really should use 1/4th HP, however, to be consistent with its Cover DR, and so a pillow doesn't deal more damage than a locomotive of the same mass (the example used on B430, although they got the relationship backwards there - sure, they note a pillow should indeed do less damage than a locomotive, but seeing as a Pillow is Homogenous and a locomotive is Unliving, the pillow would actually deal more damage).

Regardless, this works out to mean the maximum damage a Wall can deal in a collision is equal to the average damage of the Innate Attack it was built off of.

Originally Posted by Plane

It's a good all-around approach, stuff like 2d-6 would still cause a problem.

2d-6 is less than 1d. Honestly, if you're subtracting more points than you have dice, that's going to throw the average off. Personally, I don't think I'd allow going beyond -1 (with the exception of 1d) for the modifier - generally speaking, the pattern should go nd, nd+1, nd+2, (n+1)d-1, (n+1)d, etc.

[naloth]

Originally Posted by Varyon

I think there are RAW examples of attacks that do Small Piercing damage but have No Wounding, for the purpose of creating a carrier attack for a Follow-Up. Personally, I don't like that, as it feels like a cop-out - attacks with No Wounding should generally use a base cost of [5], with their damage type as a special effect. It may be appropriate to make an exception for Innate Attacks with Side Effects and Symptoms, however, at least if the former is using Injury instead of Damage to determine the penalty (and you allow the latter at all).

Agreed.

I could potentially see a rigid Wall with a Side Effect - say, a wall of icy spears that can (cinematically/supernaturally) freeze the target (so Side Effect: Fragile (Brittle) and maybe some more effects), or (for a No Wounding example) a "soft" force field that can shock a target (Side Effect: Stunning).

I can't really understand the reasoning that the freezing or stunning effect of a rigid wall would depend on how hard I slam into it. For a rigid wall it should be a linked ability. It only makes sense for a permeable (damaging) wall since that wall does its own damage.

Even using pi- to represent something like tiny needles, I don't see it working with No Wounding for a rigid Wall, however.

Agreed. No wounding shouldn't be a limitation since it doesn't really do anything.

That is a use, yes, but as I mentioned later, it's a rather niche application. Part of why I'm kind of OK with the high price for cutting and impaling Walls is that I expect a player who opts for one to intend to frequently use it for its collision damage (by throwing it in the path of fast-moving foes).

Even with speedsters running around there just weren't that many characters that couldn't stop if a wall was thrown up in front of them. It's definitely a niche case. You'd be better off buying an alternate attack you can use directly instead of paying the price for cutting or impaling.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by naloth

I can't really understand the reasoning that the freezing or stunning effect of a rigid wall would depend on how hard I slam into it. For a rigid wall it should be a linked ability. It only makes sense for a permeable (damaging) wall since that wall does its own damage.

The idea I had for the freezing spikes was that the deeper the spikes penetrate (due to you impaling yourself upon them), the more surface area in contact with you, and thus the easier to are to freeze. The shocking force field would be similar - the further you get into the field (due to high Slam damage), the more of it is in contact with you (or, alternatively, the stronger the stunning portion is, if it's not constant over the depth of the force field), and thus the more likely you are to end up stunned.

Certainly, a Linked ability would also make sense above.

Originally Posted by naloth

Agreed. No wounding shouldn't be a limitation since it doesn't really do anything.

Well, it doesn't do nothing - it means foes can Slam into it with impunity, which also means it's hard to keep speedsters from just running through it. It's just that the aspect of the Wall it limits is a fairly small part of the Wall's utility.

Originally Posted by naloth

Even with speedsters running around there just weren't that many characters that couldn't stop if a wall was thrown up in front of them. It's definitely a niche case. You'd be better off buying an alternate attack you can use directly instead of paying the price for cutting or impaling.

A lot can depend on the campaign, of course, but you do make an excellent point that an AA would typically be a better choice there.

[naloth]

Originally Posted by Varyon

The idea I had for the freezing spikes was that the deeper the spikes penetrate (due to you impaling yourself upon them), the more surface area in contact with you, and thus the easier to are to freeze. The shocking force field would be similar - the further you get into the field (due to high Slam damage), the more of it is in contact with you (or, alternatively, the stronger the stunning portion is, if it's not constant over the depth of the force field), and thus the more likely you are to end up stunned.

Aside from both being a real stretch, the wall itself still has very little to do with how freezing/stunning it would be in both cases. Wound modifiers (should but) aren't taken into account and the force/damage is generated by person attacking the wall at whatever level they want.

Well, it doesn't do nothing - it means foes can Slam into it with impunity, which also means it's hard to keep speedsters from just running through it. It's just that the aspect of the Wall it limits is a fairly small part of the Wall's utility.

I've been playing Supers for 30+ years, and this must be the niche case of niches because it hasn't really come up. Besides, speedsters that make a habit of slamming into things at high speed will have defenses to avoid being turned into red mist.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by naloth

Aside from both being a real stretch, the wall itself still has very little to do with how freezing/stunning it would be in both cases. Wound modifiers (should but) aren't taken into account and the force/damage is generated by person attacking the wall at whatever level they want.

To me, it makes about the same amount of sense as any Side Effect. The fact the motive force is from the target slamming into it on their own instead of the user shooting an icy spear or whatever at the target is the only difference. Of course, I'm also fine with the idea that a magical flaming spear is more likely to set a target aflame if it hits the Vitals - Side Effect is more about making magical/narrative sense than actual physics-based sense.

Personally, I do (intend to) use Injury rather than Penetrating Damage to determine the penalty for the Side Effect. In fact, I favor using percentage of HP rather than a flat "-1 per 2 damage" - a character with HP 20 takes a -1 per 4 HP of Injury (or what the Injury should have been, if the ability has No Wounding), while one with HP 5 takes -1 per 1 HP of Injury. But that's a tangent for another thread.

Originally Posted by naloth

I've been playing Supers for 30+ years, and this must be the niche case of niches because it hasn't really come up. Besides, speedsters that make a habit of slamming into things at high speed will have defenses to avoid being turned into red mist.

Fair enough. I was thinking more along the lines of speedsters who don't make a habit of Slamming into things - a No Wounding Wall opens that option up to them. Walls that deal cut/imp might also bypass the defenses of a Slam-inclined speedster as well, if the speedster is reliant on DR or IT:DR that is Limited to only work against crushing (-40% to cost) or even only against crushing collisions (as a subset of the above, -60% to cost). I suspect the Bouncing Enhancement for Super Jump (which can be used to make a pretty devastating Slam-heavy speedster) also doesn't work for bouncing off sharp surfaces, but that would be a GM call.
EDIT: Of course, if this is something that is unlikely to ever come up, I could indeed see justification for making No Wounding a +0% modifier for Walls - you lose the "speedster go splat" niche application but gain the "falling person doesn't go splat" niche application (summon a No Wounding Wall beneath a falling person; if it is strong enough they don't break through it, it will arrest their fall safely).

Given the Wall can't cause more damage than the average of the damage the character paid for (and then converted into a rigid Wall), of course, your suggestion of an Alternate Attack for those cases is probably more economical.

[naloth]

Originally Posted by Varyon

To me, it makes about the same amount of sense as any Side Effect. The fact the motive force is from the target slamming into it on their own instead of the user shooting an icy spear or whatever at the target is the only difference. Of course, I'm also fine with the idea that a magical flaming spear is more likely to set a target aflame if it hits the Vitals - Side Effect is more about making magical/narrative sense than actual physics-based sense.

While there is a certain amount of cinematic liberty with any game ability, my general guidelines are:

Linked Ability: the intensity isn't related to how well the attack does. Example: a freezing wall that stuns or paralyzes upon any touch.

Side Effect: the intensity of the side effect is directly related to how well the attack does. Example: an electrical attack that damages and stuns based on how damaging it is.

Personally, I do (intend to) use Injury rather than Penetrating Damage to determine the penalty for the Side Effect.

I have moved to this as well. IME, it's a great idea since the difference between most Innate Attacks is the wounding modifier.

In fact, I favor using percentage of HP rather than a flat "-1 per 2 damage" - a character with HP 20 takes a -1 per 4 HP of Injury (or what the Injury should have been, if the ability has No Wounding), while one with HP 5 takes -1 per 1 HP of Injury. But that's a tangent for another thread.

Offhand, I wouldn't want to mess with this. I add SM to all resistance rolls making big things harder to afflict and smaller things easier to afflict. It helps even out that 0 point feature a bit more (since otherwise positive SM is basically all negative).

EDIT: Of course, if this is something that is unlikely to ever come up, I could indeed see justification for making No Wounding a +0% modifier for Walls - you lose the "speedster go splat" niche application but gain the "falling person doesn't go splat" niche application (summon a No Wounding Wall beneath a falling person; if it is strong enough they don't break through it, it will arrest their fall safely).

Yea, I'm leaning towards making it a 0% because safely catching falling fliers, stopping falls, interposing in a fight, and stopping runaway vehicles seems like more of a bonus than trying to trick a speedster.

[Varyon]

Thread Necromancy Part II: Electric Boogaloo!

A bit of discussion with Nedorus via PM has brought up some more Wall options I want to jot down so I don't forget them.

Alternate Scaling: Rather than getting three Wall Units per nominal yard of radius, it was suggested to have it scale such that you get a number of Wall Units equal to the radius squared - so 4 at radius 2 (AE1), 16 at radius 4 (AE2), 64 at radius 8 (AE3), etc. This means you'll typically have a lot more Wall to work with than the default (unless you only had a radius 2 Wall, in which case you're two Wall Units shy), but then that also means you don't have to give up proportionally more and more area as you have a larger area effect, as the number of Wall Units is scaling to same way the area is, with the square of the radius (roughly, anyway; using hexes means area doesn't quite scale with the square of the radius, but close enough).

Power Parry: It's always seemed like a projectile should potentially be affected by a Permeable Wall; the PM suggested letting such Walls do a Power Parry, with a success resulting in the Wall rolling damage and subtracting this from the attack's damage. This seems an elegant solution to me. Note this does mean Permeable Walls can potentially protect just as well as Rigid Walls against projectiles (as the average damage is equal to a Rigid Wall's Cover DR). Think of it as Rigid Walls getting No Roll Required for their Power Parry, in exchange for becoming vulnerable to being destroyed (with a slew of side effects associated with being a rigid wall, like characters being unable to walk through them without destroying them first).

Obscuring Vision: That PM brought up something I don't recall ever showing up in this thread - B109 actually states that at least Permeable Walls impeded vision, although it doesn't say by how much (and doesn't explicitly extend this to Rigid Walls, but the implication is certainly there). But I determined if you treat that as completely blocking vision, you can get something very close to Obscure 10 at only around 1/10th the cost (with a 1 point No Wounding Permeable Wall). But if you instead required around 10 damage for that -10, you get rather close to the [20] of Obscure 10. So, I'd say it's a -1 to Vision per point of damage; you can either go with average damage here, or you could even roll - once per use, once per second, or even each time someone tries to see past the Wall - to represent a variable obscuring effect (like flickering flames). You can forgo or reduce this effect as a Feature when designing the Wall; being able to vary it is probably worth +10% or so (but for a powerful Wall, you probably shouldn't apply the Enhancement to more than 3d of it). Enhancements for Obscure are available at 1/5th normal cost (but Stealthy requires you to also buy Sneak Attack at full cost, unless the Wall is No Wounding + No Blunt Trauma + No Knockback; also, as above, you probably shouldn't buy it for more than 3d of the damage). By default this only blocks visible light; buy Extended (again, at 1/5th cost) to cover Infrared and/or Ultraviolet.

[Nedorus]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Alternate Scaling: Rather than getting three Wall Units per nominal yard of radius, it was suggested to have it scale such that you get a number of Wall Units equal to the radius squared - so 4 at radius 2 (AE1), 16 at radius 4 (AE2), 64 at radius 8 (AE3), etc.

I actually decided to use 3 square yards (1x3) per radius squared. I get this from the area of a circle: pi x r^2 with pi being approximately 3 this results in 3x r^2 or exactly what I use for the surface area of the wall.

For me walls have "no thickness" so why would they not have the same area as an equivalent area effect? Just my thinking here.

Originally Posted by Varyon

Power Parry: It's always seemed like a projectile should potentially be affected by a Permeable Wall; the PM suggested letting such Walls do a Power Parry, with a success resulting in the Wall rolling damage and subtracting this from the attack's damage. This seems an elegant solution to me. Note this does mean Permeable Walls can potentially protect just as well as Rigid Walls against projectiles (as the average damage is equal to a Rigid Wall's Cover DR). Think of it as Rigid Walls getting No Roll Required for their Power Parry, in exchange for becoming vulnerable to being destroyed (with a slew of side effects associated with being a rigid wall, like characters being unable to walk through them without destroying them first).

I found this:

Originally Posted by P168 Power Parry

If the parrying ability has Wall, subtract its DR

So walls are explicitly meant to be able to do this (provided you are using this rule at all in your campaign).

With all the restrictions on Power Defenses (like being only able to do one per turn) I think this is really not a very unbalanced feature and have included it in my "house ruling" for both *permeable* and *rigid* walls.

Originally Posted by Varyon

Obscuring Vision: That PM brought up something I don't recall ever showing up in this thread - B109 actually states that at least Permeable Walls impeded vision, although it doesn't say by how much (and doesn't explicitly extend this to Rigid Walls, but the implication is certainly there). But I determined if you treat that as completely blocking vision, you can get something very close to Obscure 10 at only around 1/10th the cost (with a 1 point No Wounding Permeable Wall). But if you instead required around 10 damage for that -10, you get rather close to the [20] of Obscure 10. So, I'd say it's a -1 to Vision per point of damage; you can either go with average damage here, or you could even roll - once per use, once per second, or even each time someone tries to see past the Wall - to represent a variable obscuring effect (like flickering flames). You can forgo or reduce this effect as a Feature when designing the Wall; being able to vary it is probably worth +10% or so (but for a powerful Wall, you probably shouldn't apply the Enhancement to more than 3d of it). Enhancements for Obscure are available at 1/5th normal cost (but Stealthy requires you to also buy Sneak Attack at full cost, unless the Wall is No Wounding + No Blunt Trauma + No Knockback; also, as above, you probably shouldn't buy it for more than 3d of the damage). By default this only blocks visible light; buy Extended (again, at 1/5th cost) to cover Infrared and/or Ultraviolet.

I have preliminarily decided to go for -2 per damage die. I'm not so much a fan of many die rolls
(~_^)
So a 5d wall would be like "Obscure (vision) 10" as in totally blocking sight. A 1d wall would be like Obscure 2...
Note that I think that having "impede vision" for *permeable* walls but not for *rigid*, balances out the fact, that my *rigid* walls use Power Parry and Overpenetration and thus potentially apply their DR twice to an attack at or through them.
[EDIT]
Also the effect of a wall impeding vision through it is different from Obscure where it is unclear (to me at least) whether the penalty applies for perceiving "through" as well as into/out of the area.
[/EDIT]
I like the "Extended (Infrared/Ultravision)" idea and will include that in my house rules.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Nedorus

For me walls have "no thickness" so why would they not have the same area as an equivalent area effect? Just my thinking here.

I treat Walls as having a full hex of thickness (unless modified as described in this thread), but I think I understand your rationale here. I feel keeping the Walls as 4 yards tall and then using radius squared for the number of hexes works out fine, however.

Originally Posted by Nedorus

With all the restrictions on Power Defenses (like being only able to do one per turn) I think this is really not a very unbalanced feature and have included it in my "house ruling" for both *permeable* and *rigid* walls.

The "one per turn" rule I think is about the character actively using their powers; the idea for Walls doing it seems more passive. But keeping in mind that normally you only get one attempt per round, I may have Walls Parry at -3 (basically, they get no +3, it's just Skill/2).

Originally Posted by Nedorus

I have preliminarily decided to go for -2 per damage die. I'm not so much a fan of many die rolls

I'll note the dice rolls are simply an option if you want them - just going with average damage should work fine. But if you want to do it as -2 per die (I'd suggest -3 for 1d+2, -5 for 2d+2, and so forth), that also works. Also, it occurs to me that 1/5th cost for the Obscure Enhancements is too low - rather, they should probably be full price. With my suggestion of -1 per point of damage, enough damage on your Wall to give -10 has a base cost of [15], while with your suggestion of -2 per die of damage, the base cost jumps to [25]. Both are close to the base cost of [20] for Obscure 10, so it may be more appropriate to simply have such Enhancements be at full cost (if you want soundproofed walls or similar, buy the appropriate Obscure at 1/5th price and Link it to the Wall). A better - but decidedly non-RAW - way to do it is treat the character as though they have the appropriate Obscure without actually paying for it, then apply the Enhancement to that - so any Obscure modifier tossed onto your Wall actually uses a base cost of [2] multiplied by the Vision penalty.