Healing + Triggered Delay

[Plane]

B105 describes the Delay enhancement

B102 explains gun icon:

only for Affliction, Binding, and Innate Attack, and for advantages modified with the Ranged enhancemen

B59 described Healing

B107 describes Ranged (normally restricted to Healing, Mana Damper, Mana Enhancer, Neutralize, Possession, and Psi Static)

Is there any problem with this, that you could hit someone with a ranged healing "attack" that delayed it's effect (restoring the HP) until a later time? Basically letting you 'pre-buff' allies while they're at full health and waiting to 'trigger' it when they're injured later?

If so, when would be the appropriate time to spend the FP and make the IQ roll? During the attack, or during the activation?

[kirbwarrior]

Since the IQ roll is part of the 'attack' that Ranged gives, you'd have to make it right away. And I'd say the same for costs. But I don't see anything wrong with this build, the upsides of Delay (being able to instantly heal a wound) are pulled down by the downsides (not knowing how much FP you'll want to spend). Considering how easy it is to damage yourself intentionally, it's not to hard to use 'directly' if you don't want the delay. If anything, it might be a little expensive at +50%, especially since it's mostly only useful for HP if it's triggered by damage (which can be countered by restricting it to healing only).

Now, combined with Empathic, you have a very different power which I'm totally on board with. I'd even waive the normal penalties for healing difficult things because they'll be balanced out by not having a clue of what you're going to suddenly receive (or at least make this a +0% option and have it normally have whatever 'cap' of what you'd want to take with requisite penalties on the attack roll).

[Plane]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

Since the IQ roll is part of the 'attack' that Ranged gives, you'd have to make it right away.

Do you recall if "Time Spent" bonuses could be used to get a bonus to that? Like +5 if you take 30 concentrate maneuvers prepping the heal?

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

And I'd say the same for costs.

Guess I'm thinking this would just let you park dozens/hundreds of delayed-heals on allies (or self w/ enhancement)

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

But I don't see anything wrong with this build, the upsides of Delay (being able to instantly heal a wound) are pulled down by the downsides (not knowing how much FP you'll want to spend).

It would definitely be a waste if someone was only wounded for 2 HP (takes only 1 FP to heal) and you have to use up a 10 FP heal (capable of restoring 20 HP) to help them.

To get around that though I could see healers just planting multiple instances of 1 FP and triggering however many it takes to heal them up...

Or if that's too slow (need to emergency heal ally) you could just do 1/2/3 increments of different-powered heals on your ally to use in difference circumstances, depending on how injured you assess them to be.

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

Considering how easy it is to damage yourself intentionally, it's not to hard to use 'directly' if you don't want the delay. If anything, it might be a little expensive at +50%, especially since it's mostly only useful for HP if it's triggered by damage (which can be countered by restricting it to healing only).

I don't know if you could do it like Trigger: Injury, I get the impression that delay+50% would require an action of some sort (like a ready or concentrate) to trigger your attacks. Kind of like Hang Spell or Reflex.

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

Now, combined with Empathic, you have a very different power which I'm totally on board with. I'd even waive the normal penalties for healing difficult things because they'll be balanced out by not having a clue of what you're going to suddenly receive (or at least make this a +0% option and have it normally have whatever 'cap' of what you'd want to take with requisite penalties on the attack roll).

Empathic just seems like a way of converting a variable Costs Fatigue to a variable Costs HP. That's -5% per level, but they had to represent somehow the way it could scale up, I guess. For some reason this reminds me of Margin-Based.

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by Plane

Do you recall if "Time Spent" bonuses could be used to get a bonus to that? Like +5 if you take 30 concentrate maneuvers prepping the heal?

I don't see why not. It makes perfect sense for Healing without Ranged.

Originally Posted by Plane

Guess I'm thinking this would just let you park dozens/hundreds of delayed-heals on allies (or self w/ enhancement)


It would definitely be a waste if someone was only wounded for 2 HP (takes only 1 FP to heal) and you have to use up a 10 FP heal (capable of restoring 20 HP) to help them.

To get around that though I could see healers just planting multiple instances of 1 FP and triggering however many it takes to heal them up...

Or if that's too slow (need to emergency heal ally) you could just do 1/2/3 increments of different-powered heals on your ally to use in difference circumstances, depending on how injured you assess them to be.

The trigger would be the same for all stacks so they'd all go off whatever the trigger is.

Originally Posted by Plane

I don't know if you could do it like Trigger: Injury, I get the impression that delay+50% would require an action of some sort (like a ready or concentrate) to trigger your attacks. Kind of like Hang Spell or Reflex.

Delay seems to allow basically anything to trigger it (notice how just coming within a yard of metal can). And it makes sense for non-healing things, too; An attack that waits for the next attack to actually hit them can be useful for stacking shock penalties, pushing past certain HP thresholds all at once, etc.

Originally Posted by Plane

Empathic just seems like a way of converting a variable Costs Fatigue to a variable Costs HP. That's -5% per level, but they had to represent somehow the way it could scale up, I guess. For some reason this reminds me of Margin-Based.

It's not quite the same because of how much Healing can do; Base healing can heal HP and diseases, enhancements can let it heal FP, afflictions, and more. It's also not quite Costs HP, costs can be affected in odd ways (such as critical failures, very high mana and wild mana, etc).

[Plane]

One big advantage to Delay is the long duration IE "you are my slave for a lifetime because I can instantly kill you" so GMs might want some way to limit that.

One proposal I've seen is to use "Maximum Duration".

I don't like applying that to the base ability because I think that can actually give bigger than 50% discount, meaning it'd be cheaper to take instant attacks and set them off right away than to just shoot someone. Compare that to "takes extra time" for example.

Probably more fare would be to apply that as a limited enhancement to Timed Delay itself, so it will always cost more.

Another might be to assume Triggered Delay loses triggerability after 10 seconds (default duration for advantages with time periods not specified) and required Extended Duration to buy things which are triggerable for longer periods of time.

"Reduced Duration" could then be a limitation (on the enhancement, not base ability) to decrease the default 10 (similar to how you can apply it to Persistent) which eventually has you approach the +10% that "Variable Delay" is worth over "Fixed Delay" if you are able to set it up to 10 seconds.

VD however requires you to choose the fixed duration before firing. "Triggered Delay with max duration" would not.

Variable Delay +20 apparently has unlimited time too (example is given "days") which seems like a problem too.

IMO one way it could work would be to ditch that, instead use base 10 for the +10% then buy Extended Duration to get more freedom for Variable Delay's maximum.

Another interesting thing would be to allow BOTH: if you take Variable Delay and Triggered Delay, then it will go off if EITHER the countdown expires OR you trigger it.

If you want to be able to switch between one or the other before firing that is cheaper, use "Alternative Enhancements".

Fixed Delay being +0% also doesn't make sense because how do limit it? "always buy duration" might fix

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

The trigger would be the same for all stacks so they'd all go off whatever the trigger is.

I think that would depend on the trigger, though? B105 gives "metal object passing within a yard" as one possible example, so I think if that happened just whichever attack's target was approached by metal would go off rather than all of them.

For simplicity I'm just going to use "bomb" as an example, as placing bombs is one alternative (just target a hex) to plant attacks for enemies without needing to hit the enemy ahead of time.

Something like Samus' bombs she uses in Morph Ball mode would probably be a good example of "Fixed Delay". I think by default that's how an attack would manifest, like a ball of energy just sits there waiting to go boom.

If it was a literal physical bomb, that would probably need more complications to reflect how someone might disarm or relocate your bomb before it goes off. I don't think you can disarm or relocate energy bombs like Samus uses, for comparison.

To have others go off when that happens, you might have to set a different condition like "or if a metal object triggers one of the other bombs" which might require buying +50% again (buy multiple levels of enhancement per different trigger option?)

If you did have a condition where none can detonate unless ALL could detonate, that could probably be worth -10% for "All or Nothing" I would guess.

The weakness in a trigger like "radio signal" is that if multiple bombs are in range (and they all rely on the same signal) it would be difficult to have the signal only reach the bomb you intend, since normally I think radios (like sound) just emanate out in all directions...

Any trigger that you could control (for example "if I shine a red laser pointer on it") would require aiming and potentially missing what you're trying to trigger. You could even design another of your innate attacks to function as the trigger.

It's actually super scary if you have something like "trigger: explode when I sent a telepathic command to explode" but that would obviosuly require additional abilities.

You might not be inclined to miss if you had an AE effect to trigger, but the bigger your AE the less control you would have over tightly-placed bombs. So for total control you would need selectivity (to alter how many levels of AE apply) or Selective Area.

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

Delay seems to allow basically anything to trigger it (notice how just coming within a yard of metal can).

It would need to be fixed though, like you couldn't alter it from "bomb explodes if metal is 1 yard off" to "bomb explodes if metal is 2 yards off"...

I could see wanting a char who could customize that though.

I guess the closest thing short of Modular Abilities would be "Variable Enhancement". Then you could change one kind of +50% into a different kind of +50% and choose any reasonable trigger until the sun, but that would cost +500%.

It's strange how they're all worth the same. B106 Homing actually has a variable price depending on the cost of the sensing mechanism your attack uses... might actually make sense to do that for Triggered Delay too?

Like for example if you wante to be triggered by metal then Detect (Metal) cost.

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

And it makes sense for non-healing things, too; An attack that waits for the next attack to actually hit them can be useful for stacking shock penalties, pushing past certain HP thresholds all at once, etc.

I think to pass an HP threshold for crippling (or blunt trauma, or knockback, or major wounds knockdown HT roll) you'd actually need to use teamwork technique from powers? Shock would definitely stack up though.

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by Plane

One big advantage to Delay is the long duration IE "you are my slave for a lifetime because I can instantly kill you" so GMs might want some way to limit that.

Some thoughts;
A) That seems to be a large point of it being +50%
B) The type of attack really matters. A delayed Heart Attack means the target could just go to a hospital. If you don't notice right away and try to activate it, they'll have a heart attack in the one place in the world most suited for stopping it. A huge IA (say, one that does a flat 220 damage) will be enormously more expensive for +50%, likely more expensive than actual Mind Control.
C) Certain 'abilities' require Delay to even work. For instance, if you can make death cookies and put them somewhere, that would be Delay. Considering that you can just bake poisoned cookies, it might even be a little expensive.
D) You must specify a way to neutralize the Delay and work with the GM to do so. A delayed heart attack might be able to be solved with off-the-shelf heart medicine.
E) The attack is only really guaranteed to work on Cowards. Anyone else might just decide to deny you. It's not perfect Mind Control.

Originally Posted by Plane

I think that would depend on the trigger, though? B105 gives "metal object passing within a yard" as one possible example, so I think if that happened just whichever attack's target was approached by metal would go off rather than all of them.

Yes, exactly. If you have one delayed heal on twenty people, then each one would get healed once being triggered by damage. If you have twenty delayed heals on one person, all heals would go off when triggered by damage.

Originally Posted by Plane

I guess the closest thing short of Modular Abilities would be "Variable Enhancement". Then you could change one kind of +50% into a different kind of +50% and choose any reasonable trigger until the sun, but that would cost +500%.

I could see it dropping in price to something like +250% if you can only switch around types of delays. Considering that for +190% you can get No Nuisance Rolls, buy off the daily penalty, and get Reduced Cost 2, it seems perfectly fair. Or just get Reduced Cost 10 +200% and No Daily Penalties +50% for a likely better Healing.

Originally Posted by Plane

It's strange how they're all worth the same.

I think it's because, generally speaking, the easier the trigger the more likely it is to go off when you don't want it to, and the harder the trigger, the less likely you can get it to go off when you want it to.

Originally Posted by Plane

I think to pass an HP threshold for crippling (or blunt trauma, or knockback, or major wounds knockdown HT roll) you'd actually need to use teamwork technique from powers? Shock would definitely stack up though.

The Delay seems to be the teamwork power. You effectively spent +50% to lets your power work alongside a later, unspecified attack. Considering that you can't use the attack directly I'd say it's perfectly fair. You'd have to attack a target twice to do any damage and they still have even just a second to be able to remove the first attack (or you spent points elsewhere to be able to attack twice in one turn easily enough).

[Plane]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

A huge IA (say, one that does a flat 220 damage) will be enormously more expensive for +50%, likely more expensive than actual Mind Control.

True, I think the problem is that you can just layer low damage attacks to add up to a big damage one. As pointed out in khorboth's thread, you can use No Signature to attack with impunity.

Normally with No Sig, someone at least knows they are under attack ("something is hurting me! I just don't know what!") and can do stuff like try to run behind cover in hopes that whoever is attacking them might not be able to continue.

There's no warning at all though if the damage isn't actually doing anyting (yet) which effectively makes it operate like "No active defense +300%".

Perhaps that ought to be mandatory for no-sig delayed attacks?

Or else maybe the victim of a Delayed Attack should show some kind of symptom that they've been attacked, other than feeling damage?

Something like "your body is flashing red!".

I think No Signature is meant to represent "there's no muzzle flash or bang to indicate where the attack came from, who made the attack" but not necessarily "the effect of the attack is undetectable"

People being injured are generally detecting it after all, whether they're lit on fire, knocked back, feeling a light tapping, etc.

Something along those lines ought to accompany something like "a sticky timed grenade has affixed itself to you".

If there isn't something like this then it ignores the "way to neutralize it" requirement that Delay has. You can't reasonable neutralize an attack you don't even KNOW about.

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

C) Certain 'abilities' require Delay to even work. For instance, if you can make death cookies and put them somewhere, that would be Delay. Considering that you can just bake poisoned cookies, it might even be a little expensive.

In this case, the visible effect is "there is something that looks, feels, smells, and tastes like a cookie".

IMO if you had that with the standard built-in range (100 yards) then the effect is something like "there is a BOOM and you see a cookie fling through the air, and it lands on the ground!"

Whereas if someone buys No Signature -25% it's just "a cookie materializes 100 yards away, nobody knows where it came from" but there should still be an actual cookie so people know something weird is going on.

Shooting a cookie onto the ground is targeting a HEX (easier +4) and if the requirement is "someone must eat my cookie but it will ignore DR" (I would price this like scent-based -20% and apply a 'must taste too' limit -20% total -40%, should be cheaper) then you either hope someone picks up your cookie and eats it OR you'd have to target an open mouth instead of the hex which is probably easier than hitting an eye (-9) but harder than hitting a jaw (-6) with the jaw HP providing 'cover DR' if the mouth is closed.

Cookies suddenly appearing in your mouth would be an indicator of something strange. You'd be required to bite down on them, so the countermeasure is "spit them out", don't bite.

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

D) You must specify a way to neutralize the Delay and work with the GM to do so. A delayed heart attack might be able to be solved with off-the-shelf heart medicine.

But you'd need to RP how they actually know what the attack will do, and sneak that medicine without the master becoming aware and triggering it before you could take the pill.

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

E) The attack is only really guaranteed to work on Cowards. Anyone else might just decide to deny you. It's not perfect Mind Control.

I would not limit it to them. B129 "refuse to endanger yourself unless threatened with greater danger!" actually requires threats like these to compel cowards into dangerous situations, whereas non-cowards can be compelled into dangerous situations with motivations other than "avoid danger".

That doesn't mean "confront lesser danger to avoid greater danger" is a motive which doesn't apply to non-cowards.

If anything I think this would motivate anyone except B146 "On the Edge" where failure means you can't back down from confronting life-threatening situations. You get reaction bonuses from "Individuals who value bravery over self-preservation"

B125 gives a bonus to initimidation/interrogation for callous people who use threats/torture. I imagine that would apply to people who regular demonstrated their ability to "trigger death" of people they had planted their triggerable attacks on beforehand.

B202's description of those two gives a "severe threats" bonus to interrogation and a "display of strength of supernatural powers" bonus to intimidation, so what ultimately determines if someone cooperates is their IQ/Will/Fearlessness chain.

Even in the case of "Unfaceable" (won't fail the will check) it should still be possible to intellectually choose to cooperate ("I am not afraid to die, but I value my life")

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

I could see it dropping in price to something like +250% if you can only switch around types of delays.

I forgot: using "Alternative Enhancements" it's 1/5 cost (sort of like +20%) to have two you can switch between, so that might be +60% to specify two triggers.

So you might for example define:
1) trigger 1 is hearing attacker shout "heal one!"
2) trigger 2 is hearing attacker shout "heal two!"

Then you could use the 1st trigger when you plant a 1 FP heal for 2 HP and the 2nd trigger when you plant a 2 FP heal for 4 HP.

the x10 cost (+900%) of "Variable Enhancement" is effectively like taking +20% 5x9=45 times. So if you wanted to define 44 distinct triggers that could be cheaper.

I agree though that if it was limited to JUST programming delays that it should be limited, kind of like how modular abilities is cheaper when it's limited.

The x10 for Variable Enhancement is after all probably based on Cosmic Powers' cost for slots. Although weirdly it doesn't have the 'one second per ability' requirement baked in.

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

Considering that for +190% you can get No Nuisance Rolls, buy off the daily penalty, and get Reduced Cost 2, it seems perfectly fair. Or just get Reduced Cost 10 +200% and No Daily Penalties +50% for a likely better Healing.

I don't know how to fairly compare it to these though: a big advance to delay is you can prep your allies at close range in a safe place, and then not need to go out into danger with them (or use up your attack maneuver to hit them with heal beams) to keep their HP up during deadly battle.

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

I think it's because, generally speaking, the easier the trigger the more likely it is to go off when you don't want it to, and the harder the trigger, the less likely you can get it to go off when you want it to.

I guess the issue is how hard something is compared to player abilities.

"explode when there is an ultrasonic shriek" is for example much easier for a player with Ultrasonic Speech himself, than one who has to rely on coaxing his pet fruitbat to scream instead

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

The Delay seems to be the teamwork power. You effectively spent +50% to lets your power work alongside a later, unspecified attack. Considering that you can't use the attack directly I'd say it's perfectly fair. You'd have to attack a target twice to do any damage and they still have even just a second to be able to remove the first attack (or you spent points elsewhere to be able to attack twice in one turn easily enough).

I wonder how easy the countermeasure needs to be though, and if maybe we should have versatile values depending on that (maybe somehow related to 'can be stolen' gadget limitations?)

For example a delayed burning attack might be:
1) A covers B in liquid gasoline, A must trigger it by using a non-delay burning attack or throw a match at them
2) A teleports a stick of dynamite into B's hands. It is also triggered by a burning attack lighting the fuse

In (1) you would need to go through a complex countermeasure of washing off the gasoline, undressing, etc. (~60 seconds)

In (2) you would just need to throw the stick of dynamite away (1 second)

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by Plane

True, I think the problem is that you can just layer low damage attacks to add up to a big damage one.

That's not an issue from what I can tell. Shooting someone with sticky bombs over and over that they must spend ready maneuvers to remove or explode when they take damage does have a huge cost of time. RoF is more expensive and doesn't have the time constraint. I really want to make that obvious; You are spending multiple actions doing nothing at the moment and waiting for something to activate them later. If that is damage, then no one in the party can damage the target. And nothing is stopping an enemy from running off normally (now, taking advantage of brainless zombies, obsessive minions, slave mentality'd elementals, etc. is fine, their fault for not trying to survive). You are spending +50% on an attack that requires a skill roll to hit, them to fail a defense roll, and for the attack to hit in a place where it can actually be useful multiple times to do something.

Honestly, I find Delay most useful for doing things out of combat with. And that requires correct skill use elsewhere (Stealth comes to mind) to pull this off without issue.

Originally Posted by Plane

If there isn't something like this then it ignores the "way to neutralize it" requirement that Delay has. You can't reasonable neutralize an attack you don't even KNOW about.

I absolutely agree. That would be lumped in with how to remove it. The above sticky bombs would likely feel similar to a No Wounding crushing attack and stick out.

Originally Posted by Plane

But you'd need to RP how they actually know what the attack will do, and sneak that medicine without the master becoming aware and triggering it before you could take the pill.

I was also assuming that;
A) The master told them they are looming a 'do or die' over their head.
B) They can likely feel the curse in some manner.
C) The master didn't take Unusual Background and thus you might be able to research this kind of curse to find out it has such a simple solution.

And you're right, you'd have to RP it! Sounds like a fun session ;)

Originally Posted by Plane

Whereas if someone buys No Signature -25% it's just "a cookie materializes 100 yards away, nobody knows where it came from" but there should still be an actual cookie so people know something weird is going on.

Yes, but the main benefit is being able to make the cookie ahead of time, then carry it around and/or put it with other cookies.

Originally Posted by Plane

if the requirement is "someone must eat my cookie but it will ignore DR" (I would price this like scent-based -20% and apply a 'must taste too' limit -20% total -40%, should be cheaper)

I'd just use Blood Agent. They are putting the attack into their mouth, it's no different than wrapping your lips around a barrel.

Originally Posted by Plane

B202's description of those two gives a "severe threats" bonus to interrogation and a "display of strength of supernatural powers" bonus to intimidation, so what ultimately determines if someone cooperates is their IQ/Will/Fearlessness chain.

Even in the case of "Unfaceable" (won't fail the will check) it should still be possible to intellectually choose to cooperate ("I am not afraid to die, but I value my life")

I agree with all of this. The second part is extremely important; If you aren't succeeding your Intimidation checks, then they are doing what you want out of their own logic and wants instead of out of fear. Tyrants who can't inspire fear never live for long. And dead masters can't trigger death buttons.

Originally Posted by Plane

The x10 for Variable Enhancement is after all probably based on Cosmic Powers' cost for slots. Although weirdly it doesn't have the 'one second per ability' requirement baked in.

Which I am personally glad for, it would be so annoying to do if it did. Modular Abilities are just weirdly built IMHO.

Originally Posted by Plane

I forgot: using "Alternative Enhancements" it's 1/5 cost (sort of like +20%) to have two you can switch between, so that might be +60% to specify two triggers.

But only one of the triggers is 'taking damage' unless you're doing a complicated process of math to get triggers at certain ladders to never lose anything. Which I'm fine with but would likely ask the character to have some math skill to justify it.

Originally Posted by Plane

I don't know how to fairly compare it to these though: a big advance to delay is you can prep your allies at close range in a safe place, and then not need to go out into danger with them (or use up your attack maneuver to hit them with heal beams) to keep their HP up during deadly battle.

Denying the party a unit is never a safe move in RP ;) And if this is an NPC doing it... then cool, the PCs either paid the money to get the NPC to help them or paid points for an Ally/Patron willing to help them in this way instead of in the fray of things.

Originally Posted by Plane

I wonder how easy the countermeasure needs to be though, and if maybe we should have versatile values depending on that (maybe somehow related to 'can be stolen' gadget limitations?)

Cyclic seems to have a good rule of thumb, I'd likely do something similar.