[Basic] Advantage of the Week: Altered Time Rate

[Mailanka]

ATR turned up in Cherry Blossom Rain, which is hardly surprising as it's exactly the sort of genre you'd expect to see super-speed in. However, it was heavily, heavily modified to make it affordable. Like Extra Attack, I rarely see it taken "vanilla." It's always heavily modified.

[zoncxs]

I have used it several times to make speedsters for supers games. I usually take it as a wildcard power, or modified with maximum duration for a speed burst, or both!

ATR! 5 [2000] = the flash

That gives you 500 points to model with, need to get some where fast? Enhanced move 25, or enhanced move 10 with second nature. Or maybe 20 extra attacks? Mind you this is with also using ATR 5.

[vicky_molokh]

A significant phenomenon related to ATR is that people too often confuse Enhanced Time Sense and Altered Time Rate (and vice-versa). The two are very different traits, providing very different benefits, and the ultimate speedster should take both.

Perhaps we should edit and rename this thread to include discussion of ETS, just like a few other Of The Week threads covered several related subjects?

[The Benj]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

A significant phenomenon related to ATR is that people too often confuse Enhanced Time Sense and Altered Time Rate (and vice-versa). The two are very different traits, providing very different benefits, and the ultimate speedster should take both.

It's not helped by ATR talking about how it affords you as much time to think as your table can abide. This strikes me as a legacy inclusion, from before ETS was a thing.

[Phantasm]

The one time I used ATR, it was for a speedster that ultimately became my build for the X-Men's/Avengers' Quicksilver. It was ATR 2 with the Super-Speed (+20%) modifier, which permits moving even faster out of combat. I also gave him Extra Attack 2 with Multi-Strike, and ETS. Cheaper than the ATR 4-5 builds I've seen with roughly the same number of attacks.

The only other time I've seen ATR used is with someone who wanted to cast more than one spell per turn.

[Mr_Sandman]

I played a GURPS Mage the Ascension character who specialized in Time, and got ATR through magic quite often. That was back in 3rd edition, so I don't remember all the mechanical effects. I probably didn't make the most strategic use of it, but even just having an extra maneuver each turn was pretty powerful.

I made up a speedster character for one of my players for a supers game I ran. He wanted time-stop powers, I explained that GURPS doesn't do absolute effects like time-stop and designed the speedster as the closest alternative. Gave him ATR 4 with costs fatigue and a nuisance effect of extreme hunger, meaning the fatigue could only be regained by eating the equivalent of a full meal.

Since I had been reading the posts on this forum about ATR, and how it doesn't do everything people expect from speedsters, I also gave the character ETS, enhanced dodge, rapid recovery, striking ST (Accessibility, only when using ATR), super jump, super throw, maybe a few other things.

Since the player was new to GURPS, I gave him some basic advice about using the power strategically, like using All Out Attacks and deceptive attacks to get past enemy defenses, then taking all-out defense as his last maneuver to simulate dodging better with his awesome speed, etc.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Mr_Sandman

I made up a speedster character for one of my players for a supers game I ran. He wanted time-stop powers, I explained that GURPS doesn't do absolute effects like time-stop and designed the speedster as the closest alternative.

Time Stop Powers p. 118
However your suggestions were likely better for the game.
Jumper with Time Spanning Powers is another option as well.

[Otaku]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

A significant phenomenon related to ATR is that people too often confuse Enhanced Time Sense and Altered Time Rate (and vice-versa). The two are very different traits, providing very different benefits, and the ultimate speedster should take both.

Perhaps we should edit and rename this thread to include discussion of ETS, just like a few other Of The Week threads covered several related subjects?

I'm open to the idea, but I had planned on covering Combat Reflexes and Enhanced Time Sense together, as Enhanced Time Sense states it includes Combat Reflexes and that you can't take both. I understand not wanting to make it too easy to stack bonuses to Active Defenses, but Combat Reflexes still covers a +1 bonus to Fast Draw Skill, +2 to Fright Checks, "immunity" to freezing up in a surprise situations and fat +6 bonus on IQ rolls to wake up or recover from surprise or mental "stun". Oh, and the +1 initiative to avoid surprise attacks (doubled to +2 if the character with Combat Reflexes is "leading" the party). Adding all that into Enhanced Time Sense seems a bit "odd".

Enhanced Time Sense almost feels like a highly Limited form of Accelerated Time Rare, except for it hand waving any limit on how much time you have to plan. Oh, and I might understand what the writer was going for when describing how Accelerated Time Rate helps with planning; that was why I worded it so carefully in the first paragraph. Of course, now that I think about it if only one party member has Accelerated Time Rate, the benefit is only there for plans involving mostly or just itself. If you've got to communicate significantly with others, it still eats into that time.

[Mr_Sandman]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

In some cases, it may be somewhat unclear how ATR interacts with equipment, and how much given durations depend on standard human speed versus performance versus hardware capabilities. Probably the easiest example is guns. For some guns, the RoF is 1 second of firing at the cyclic rate of the weapon, which means that logically it should be impossible for someone with ATR to fire more than that many rounds total in a second. For others, RoF is a function of how fast a normal person can operate the weapon, so the same limit clearly shouldn't apply...but it might still be physically dubious to unload an entire extended magazine from a handgun in under a second.

Originally Posted by Snaps

My understanding was that by default, anything you carried was under your effect, so if you had ATR 4, and a ROF 3 gun, you could shoot a total of 15 times in 1 second (assuming your gun held that much ammo).

My understanding is that whether ATR affects equipment is a setting choice, or a 0 point feature. I saw a post from Kromm on it once. EDIT: Found the Kromm post http://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.p...0&postcount=32

Originally Posted by Snaps

Do I get all of my actions at the same time? Meaning if I have a Basic Speed of 10, do I get all of my actions before the slow pokes? I generally ruled that they did.

Questions about how many times you could All-Out Attack, Rapid Strike, or use Extra Effort (for things like Heroic Charge, etc.) Came up. Again, I usually put not restrictions on this.

RAW, all the maneuvers happen at once when the character's turn comes around. We tried house-ruling spacing maneuvers out through the initiative, back in 3rd. It seems like it would make more sense, but it takes away some of the options and makes ATR less useful.

By RAW, there aren't limitations on what maneuvers a character with ATR can choose, except Feint, which doesn't work unless it is the only maneuver you take that turn.

Originally Posted by Snaps

I had one player make a slightly odd character. He was a Hengeyokai with 5 tails. Each tail had the ability to cast spells. Also, hunters would hunt his kind for their tails, as you could cut them off and they would enhance your magic. (Allowing you to cast more than once per round). I think he ended up with ATR, for casting only, with each tail being considered a gadget that could be forcibly removed. (And they were, he had all of them cut off at one point by a shaman, who added them to his staff.)

I'm curious, was there a reason you didn't use Compartmentalized Mind for that? The only reason I could think of would be if the tails could throw spells. Even then Compartmentalized Mind and Extra Attack with only for spells limitations would be cheaper.

Originally Posted by Refplace

Time Stop Powers p. 118
However your suggestions were likely better for the game.
Jumper with Time Spanning Powers is another option as well.

I looked at Powers, don't remember now why I didn't like the suggestions for time-stop there. As you said, the speedster fit better in the game anyway.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by McAllister

R do for a race-car driver, and does GURPS have a good way of modelling it?
4. Let's get some modifiers. For every maneuver, I want to know how much a limited version of ATR would cost. Concentrate only? Move only?

Those are pretty bogus. You don't get any benefit for concentrating repeatedly (as opposed to on more than one thing at once), and there is already a specific advantage for multiplying your ability to move, just as there's one for getting multiple attacks, There is a lot of room for accessibility limitations. "Emergencies only", "Only in a gun fight", "Only on amphetamines", "Only after Visualizing". Also temporary disads like Increased Consumption, Reduced Move and Impulsive.