[Basic] Advantage of the Week: Innate Attack

[RedMattis]

I personally house-rule that Side Effect and the No Wounding limitation are compatible. You simply count the 'not-injury' separately (which you have to do anyway since only injury that originated from an attack with side-effect actually activates the thresholds iirc.).

I think it is a much cleaner way to handle afflictions. Throw on resistible as well if you want a save-or-die situation (or save-or-be-mildly-inconvenienced or whatever your affliction does).

The only time anyone uses offensive Afflictions is either level 1 + Malediction, or on the opposite end a heavily limited version which super-reliably stuns enemies with a high level.

[AlexanderHowl]

Well, that depends. Side Effect cannot be combined with penetration modifiers other than Armor Divisor, so that eliminates Blood Agent, Contact Agent, Follow UP, Malediction, Respiratory Agent, etc. If you want a gas attack that causes Incapacitation, you need to use Afflictions (Symptoms do not allow for Incapacitation). For example, a basic sleep gas attack pretty much has to be an Affliction.

Now, you could have a sleeping melee attack as Crushing 2d (Armor Divisor, /10, +200%; Damage Modifier, No Wounding, -50%; Melee Attack, C, -30%; Side Effect, Sleep, +200%) [43]. Alternatively, you could have Affliction (HT; Area Affect, 2 yards, +50%; Emenation, -20%; Incapacitation, Sleep, +150%; Respiratory Agent, +50%; Selective Area, +20%) [35]. It just depends on how you want to do things.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

If that were actually true, I wouldn't give -60% for that limitation. .

Before I posted to complain of that I went to look at the examples given in Characters and sadly, "piercing metal" is there.

It shouldn't be. Non-metallic Piercing attacks are pretty much limited to comic books and even most of those might actually be Impaling.

I wouldn't give any discount for the "metal" part of "Piercing metal".

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by RedMattis

I personally house-rule that Side Effect and the No Wounding limitation are compatible. You simply count the 'not-injury' separately (which you have to do anyway since only injury that originated from an attack with side-effect actually activates the thresholds iirc.).

I think it is a much cleaner way to handle afflictions. Throw on resistible as well if you want a save-or-die situation (or save-or-be-mildly-inconvenienced or whatever your affliction does).

The only time anyone uses offensive Afflictions is either level 1 + Malediction, or on the opposite end a heavily limited version which super-reliably stuns enemies with a high level.

I think you've confused Side Effect and Symptoms, here. Side Effect doesn't accumulate, and already includes a roll to resist - you roll against HT at -1 per 2 full points of penetrating damage. Symptoms is the one that accumulates, and once you pass some threshold (1/3, 1/2, or 2/3 HP), the effect goes into play without a resistance roll.

But, yeah, that (allowing for Symptoms with No Wounding) is a houserule I like as well.

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Side Effect cannot be combined with penetration modifiers other than Armor Divisor, so that eliminates Blood Agent, Contact Agent, Follow UP, Malediction, Respiratory Agent, etc. If you want a gas attack that causes Incapacitation, you need to use Afflictions (Symptoms do not allow for Incapacitation). For example, a basic sleep gas attack pretty much has to be an Affliction.

Now, you could have a sleeping melee attack as Crushing 2d (Armor Divisor, /10, +200%; Damage Modifier, No Wounding, -50%; Melee Attack, C, -30%; Side Effect, Sleep, +200%) [43]. Alternatively, you could have Affliction (HT; Area Affect, 2 yards, +50%; Emenation, -20%; Incapacitation, Sleep, +150%; Respiratory Agent, +50%; Selective Area, +20%) [35]. It just depends on how you want to do things.

Innate Attack 1d+1 tox (Area Effect +50%; Cosmic: Irresistible Attack +300%; Selective Area +20%; Side Effect: Sleep +200%; Emanation -20%; No Wounding -50%) [31.2] costs less than your Affliction build, isn't negated by Sealed and the like, and calls for a roll against between HT+0 (a roll of 1) and HT-3 (a roll of 6) as opposed to always HT+0 to resist. It does rely on Cosmic, but if we restrict it to AD (10) for +200%, we could boost to 2d-1 tox (Area Effect +50%; Armor Divisor 10 +200%; Selective Area +20%; Side Effect: Sleep +200%; Emanation -20%; No Wounding -50%) [34], letting it work on average against foes with up to DR 60. Honestly, I'm not certain why Side Effect isn't compatible with penetration modifiers other than armor divisor, it seems like an arbitrary limitation that forces you to pay more for less effective abilities (as Affliction + Respiratory Agent vs Side Effect + Irresistible Attack demonstrates).


For those who would like to continue the discussion on repricing Innate Attack, I started a thread for that tangent here.

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

I almost never use ST-Based because it is almost always cheaper to buy the unmodifed Innate Attack. Anyway, you are also supposed to increase the effective cost of the damage provided by ST by any enhancements (other than ST-Based) to the Innate Attack, which gets annoyingly complex.

From what I've seen, ST-Based is best for attacks that are basically just supplements to your ST, not far-reaching above. Which is also exactly why that (absolutely annoying) rule exists. It wouldn't be a problem if you aren't buying sw+1 attacks.

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Before I posted to complain of that I went to look at the examples given in Characters and sadly, "piercing metal" is there.

It shouldn't be. Non-metallic Piercing attacks are pretty much limited to comic books and even most of those might actually be Impaling.

I wouldn't give any discount for the "metal" part of "Piercing metal".

Piercing Metal makes perfect sense in a vacuum. Limited Defenses is implying that all damage types are equally relevant for its examples. Piercing and metal weren't always the same weapon, it's only once guns were introduced that it became effectively the same thing (are you really going to worry much about non-piercing metal or nonmetal piercing?). However, at the end of TL8 we can see that changing up with projectiles changing and in Ultra Tech we could easily see piercing and metal falling out of favor.

As another example, -20% for "Psionics Only" could work in some modern campaigns but in others it's likely not even worth -80%. And on the flipside, it's been pointed out before that you can reverse the limitations for "not blank" at a cost of -15%, -10%, -5%, -1%/quirk, but obviously "Not against Psionic Attacks" isn't worth -15% in many campaigns and "Not against Piercing Metal" is terribly priced at -5% in modern campaigns.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

other times I want to emulate something that is mechanically an attack but not necessarily 'from you' (such as summoning a meteorite

With matter-based attacks like meteorites in mind ("I'm gonna sink your indestructible battleship not with holes, but with the 50lb meteors weighing it down so it can't float anymore!") one way to make Innate Attack a lot more expensive is to require it be taken with complementary "Create" ability from Powers 92.

There seems like there's 2 ways you could do that:

1) keep it Melee-reach and allow it to function as the ammo for "requires reload" innate attacks
2) take the Ranged+40% enhancement (with whatever modifiers match it to your Innate Attack) combined with Link+10% on both: Innate Attack representing the force by which your create matter arrives on-target

At bare minimum (P93: "specific item") you're looking at a tacked-on cost of base 5 points which I think could help deal with the "I'm doing 0.25 dice to get a 1dmg IA perk" exploit.

You also need to spend 1 CP on a "Creation Pool" allowing you to create 10% of Starting Wealth worth of matter permanently, which can be a LOT if the matter you're creating is something cheap/heavy like "pebbles" rather than "gold nuggets" (or ton of gold v ton of sand per example)

It doesn't seem clear if "Stabilize Created Matter" or "Reclaim Created Matter" are meant to be Free Actions or maybe require more time.

Given that you can trade 1 CP for 25 energy using Impulse Buys, I kinda like the idea of allowing you to invest 25 FP for a similar effect. But maybe in smaller increments: dividing by 5 gives us 5 FP per 2% of Starting Wealth, for example. Reduced Fatigue Cost shouldn't be an option to avoid that though.

You could require this even for impermanent attacks (temporary meteors) when you're not using Creation Pools, and if you want your projectiles to be fast-vanishing you could probably take "reduced duration 1/10" on create so they vanish 1 second after they hit.

That'd give you a -20% discount reducing 5 points to 4 points. One level of create gives you 10lbs of solids...

I'm guessing we probably can't get general ideas on how much "per shot" ammo should be as it relates to dice of damage... B275 uses 0.1 arrows for different types of bows with different damage bonuses to thrust which in turn do varying dice based on ST bow's rated for, as example... and B276 crossbow bolts are 60% of the weight yet better damage...

B276 prices both at $2/each though... I guess the balancing factor (if comparing bow/cross) as as innate attack would be crossbows' lower RoF. As for "Short Bow" vs "Regular Bow" (as they both weigh 2 pounds) I guess aside from being double the cost, Regular has higher Bulk and ST reqs.

weight/bulk/ST issues are stuff I don't think we've seen incorporated into pricing Innate Attacks, unlike ROF which can sort of be approximated with some combo of Takes Extra Time and Requires Reload

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by Plane

With matter-based attacks like meteorites in mind ("I'm gonna sink your indestructible battleship not with holes, but with the 50lb meteors weighing it down so it can't float anymore!") one way to make Innate Attack a lot more expensive is to require it be taken with complementary "Create" ability from Powers 92.

It's not a bad idea. Even the smaller Lingering Effect can go the distance. In fact I've done that before, all damage spells had Area Effect and Lingering Effect. CP-wise even 1d attacks are expensive, but it very much separated wizards from mundane when it came to how they fight.

On that note, in game costs matter a ton. You could even require ammo in whatever sense the attacker needs. FP costs are common and are honestly overkill in keeping a mage in check.

Originally Posted by Plane

You also need to spend 1 CP on a "Creation Pool"

"Need" is a strong word and the Creation Pool is very much a hacked on rule. Either the meteors don't have a cost that matters (50lbs of something cheap and not something anyone worries about getting) or it does (space matter!) and I find Wealth to be the better option.

And wizards inherently being rich seems pretty common, especially when it comes to healing and creation. A wizard that drops 50lbs meteors with enough skill to peg a human in the chest could easily get a job making walls at the very worst.