10-03-2020, 03:00 PM | #1 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and some other bits.
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Nerfing Dual-Weapon Attack and maybe Rapid Strike.
Recent discussion on the forums about Dual-Weapon Attacks made me consider a house rule to make them a bit less effective and more realistic. Basically, they would get -1 damage per die for muscle-powered attacks. This obviously makes them less useful, which I think is fair since they are currently pretty good, especially compared to Extra Attack.
It also seems to make sense that someone striking two blows wouldn't be able to put as much force into each one as someone just striking one. Either you are striking with just your arms as you bring your weapons together onto two sides of the target, or you are putting your whole body into it but spreading the impact over two points. Either way, it seems like you would get maybe half the kinetic energy in each hit, which equates to about 70% of the damage (if damage scales roughly with the square root of kinetic energy, which I believe firearm damage sort of implies) and 1d-1 is very roughly 70% of 1d on average. But should this apply to other methods of getting more attacks? For Extra Attack, I'd say obviously not; it's either a cinematic ability (so realism doesn't matter) or a function of physiology (which presumably compensates for the inherent loss of power). Either way, you're paying plenty of points for it, so game balance suggests you should get the most favourable rule. For Rapid Strike, it is less obvious. In terms of realism, it doesn't seem like moving your weapon quicker would do less damage. If anything, I'd expect the opposite. But maybe the quick blows have less force behind them because you are optimising for being able to recover rather than commit to the hit? In terms of balance, I think it should probably be hit with any nerf that affects DWA, since the two options are fairly balanced against each other. The extra penalty for RS seems like a reasonable trade for not needing a second weapon. Combinations are expensive and restrictive compared to buying up DWA, but they aren't cinematic and the difference is only a couple of points. I'm inclined to say RS should get the -1 damage per die. All-Out Attack (Double) is even more unclear to me. I think the arguments for Rapid Strike mostly apply. Notably, All-Out Attack (Strong) combined with Rapid Strike seems like it should do more damage than All-Out Attack (Double) since you are getting a -6 penalty to hit for the former but still making the same number of attacks. Balance-wise, I find that AOA(D) tends to be the 'better' option for AOA most of the time. On the one hand, it makes the other two options more competitive, but on the other, it makes the already bad AOA even worse. Overall, I think for the sake of consistency I'm leaning towards giving it the penalty. What does everyone think? Is this house-rule fair? |
10-03-2020, 04:01 PM | #2 |
Join Date: Aug 2019
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Re: Nerfing Dual-Weapon Attack and maybe Rapid Strike.
If a person can put all of his body into a two-handed weapon strike, why can't the same person achieve the same effect by just striking with two weapons instead of holding onto one?
Don't think of DWA as some 'additional attack', think of it as what it says on the tin, making an attack with TWO weapons. You position your body and give momentum to both strikes. For Rapid Strike, note the word rapid, the user is simply that fast to execute proper strike twice within a second. On topic of nerf, the main question is, why? Both DWA and Rapid Strike are heavily penalized for untrained use and take a lot of points to remove the penalty from them, as well as possibly getting expensive advantages like Trained By A Master. Kromm said that a person with DWA is usually simply the more point-expensive character, and thus he paid for the advantage he gained with points. He didn't just randomly one day decide to DWA because he felt like it, the advantage it gave him was purchased as fairly as one buys Combat Reflexes or extra HP. Nerfing DWA/Rapid Strike is just making that the character doesn't get what he paid for, and that's a huge no no no. To repeat the question, why? What're you trying to achieve by imposing such nerf upon DWA/Rapid Strike? And no, just because people talk about it, it doesn't mean it's broken.
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10-03-2020, 04:40 PM | #3 | |||||
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and some other bits.
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Re: Nerfing Dual-Weapon Attack and maybe Rapid Strike.
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Because I think it's overpowered compared to other options and not realistic. I started thinking about it because people were saying similar things and I found that having thought about it, that was my conclusion too. |
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10-03-2020, 05:12 PM | #4 | ||
Join Date: Aug 2019
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Re: Nerfing Dual-Weapon Attack and maybe Rapid Strike.
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And he can choose to do it when he's skilled enough to do it, hence the -6 penalty. Either way, DWA is a cinematic technique and Combinations are the non-cinematic way to reduce the penalty for Rapid Strike and Dual-Weapon Attack. Comparing them to cinematic DWA is a questionable thing at best. And that is not exactly how momentum works, you don't miraculously lose power just because you connect with an enemy with more points than one. GURPS does not reduce your falling damage if you decide to fall flat, as opposed to landing on a limb or something, no reason for it to reduce it if you slam into enemy with two weapons instead of one. Take boxing for example Quote:
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Your level of GURPS proficiency: Pedestrian: 3e vs 4e Proficient: Early 4e vs Late 4e Master: Kromm vs PK GURPS: Shooting things for fun and profit Last edited by MrFix; 10-03-2020 at 05:17 PM. |
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10-03-2020, 05:13 PM | #5 |
Join Date: Jul 2009
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Re: Nerfing Dual-Weapon Attack and maybe Rapid Strike.
I don't think a character is actually spending their entire combat round just putting energy directly into their attack, so I don't view DWA/RS as dividing up their energy. Rather, they're moving more efficiently to avoid wasted time, and possibly using momentum or recoil or something from their first attack to boost their second.
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10-03-2020, 06:25 PM | #6 | |
Join Date: Aug 2014
Location: Snoopy's basement
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Re: Nerfing Dual-Weapon Attack and maybe Rapid Strike.
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10-03-2020, 06:40 PM | #7 | ||
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and some other bits.
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Re: Nerfing Dual-Weapon Attack and maybe Rapid Strike.
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I believe that most boxers consider jabs to be relatively 'weak' punches which don't have the effect a more committed blow would. As I understand it (not being a boxer) if you want to beat someone unconscious in a fist-fight you rely on jabs to wear down your opponent's defences (in GURPS terms, force them to use up their best active defences), confuse them (cause shock penalties, allowing you to lower your defences for aggressive or all-out attacks), and set yourself up for more powerful strikes when the opportunity arises. That is perfectly consistent with jabs doing less damage than other punches. |
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10-03-2020, 07:46 PM | #8 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Wellington, NZ
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Re: Nerfing Dual-Weapon Attack and maybe Rapid Strike.
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Also a single two-handed weapon is cheaper than two one-handed weapons of the same type. Enchanting it is also cheaper, and as enchantments are often very expensive this is a big deal in games where they're available.
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Rupert Boleyn "A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history." |
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10-03-2020, 11:47 PM | #9 |
Join Date: Feb 2016
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Re: Nerfing Dual-Weapon Attack and maybe Rapid Strike.
I think that people are underestimating the speed of a melee attack. Let us consider a basic punch. The average male human has a 1.2 meter extension plus retraction, meaning that is the total distance traveled by a basic punch. A trained martial is capable of a punch velocity of 24 m/s, meaning that their punches take 0.05s to complete. A DWA (Punch) or Rapid Strike (Punch) would only take 0.1s to complete (assuming that the DWA is not simultaneous), so there is no physical reason why each punch cannot be full powered.
Now, more powerful strikes will be slower because they benefit from rotation of the body (speed is being sacrificed for the purpose of putting more mass behind the punch). A Committed Attack (Strong; Punch) will involve the entire upper-body while an AOA (Strong; Punch) will involve the entire body. In general, a speed of (1 + Reach) × 0.05s is probably not unreasonable for a weapon thrust (+1 to the base formula for a swing), with a Committed Attack (Strong) adding +1 to the base formula and a AOA (Strong) adding +2 to the base formula. So a halbard swing at Reach 3 using an AOA (Strong) should probably take 0.35s. |
10-04-2020, 12:59 AM | #10 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Wellington, NZ
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Re: Nerfing Dual-Weapon Attack and maybe Rapid Strike.
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Your general point still stands, though.
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Rupert Boleyn "A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history." |
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dual-weapon attack, extra attack, house rules |
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