Who actually uses the multiplicative Modifiers from Powers?

[Yako]

Originally Posted by Langy

There actually aren't any rules which say you can't have both Area Effect and Rapid Fire on the same attack, as far as I can remember. In fact, some RAW weapons effectively have both - for example, the rapid-fire grenade launchers in Ultra-Tech.

Okay, that would work, but you cannot have emanation and rapid fire like MUNCHKIN has if I remember correctly.

Lastly, I think that a rapid fire grenade launcher would NOT be modelled with the standard rapid fire rules, I mean, with explosives, you don't really have the effect of added accuracy because SOME of them at least should hit, even if they don't hit you, the blast will likely hit affect you anyway, unless perhaps we talk about a really big spread.
I'd model that kind of weapon as an area effect (or explosion) with big damage and an armour divisor limitation to reflect that your armor protects you from each blast and to correctly make it less effective than just one huge explosion.

Anyway, is anyone here seriously not of the opinion that rapid fire is broken?
especially if you put it next to cyclic?
Which is basically the same effect of having an attack hit many times instead of delivering just one big chunk of damage?

[Langy]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

I can't think of any grenades that use Area Effect instead of just being explosive.

Good point. I forgot that Explosive is a different advantage from Area Effect rather than a subset of Area Effect.

Still, the point remains. Explosives still do damage to an area and they still can be rapid-fired.

Yako: You seem to be forgetting that Rapid Fire sucks in a major way unless you automatically hit with every shot. Remember that you'll usually miss with 80+% of your bullets due to the crappy Rapid Fire rules.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Langy

crappy Rapid Fire rules.

So crappy they accurately represent almost every realistic combat situation involving real rapid fire weapons.

[Yako]

Originally Posted by Langy

Yako: You seem to be forgetting that Rapid Fire sucks in a major way unless you automatically hit with every shot. Remember that you'll usually miss with 80+% of your bullets due to the crappy Rapid Fire rules.

Okay, let us look at this:

(we shall assume the default case of no extra recoil)

1. For +70% you get rapid fire with up to 7 shots which nets you an automatic +1 to hit.
This means you will deal two hits of your attack instead of one if you would have hit with your attack at all.
For +100%, this will increase to two extra hits, up to +5 for 150% (and why exactly does rapid fire costs as enhancement scale so poorly with the hit boni?), +6 for 200%, +7 for 250% and +8 for 300%.

2. On the other hand, a non resistable cyclic attack gets +100% for each one second cycle, +50% for every ten second cycle.

Thus, even if we ignore the fact that rapid fire starts with a much better point to extra hit rate, we trade 10 second cycles which ave, as their only benefit, that they can only be healed once the attack is stopped against extra hits which occur at once (and thus cannot be in any fashion stopped which would not also have prevented the cyclic attack from making the first hit) and have the potential to be even more if you make a good hit roll.
ah, and of course thde fact that the only defence relevant against ranged attack, dodging gets a sizeable penalty for rapid fire attacks...

I don't see the crappyness, I get the best of either extra attacks OR added accuracy with the only downside that it is not what you'd want to use when any of your friends are in the area...
Yes, once you reach high rates of fire, you WILL miss with most bullets, as I think is realistic, but in return, you pay hardly anything at all for a single bullet once you hit those rates where this is a problem.
I think paying 40% for a possible second attack is not all too broken, even though it tops buying an attack twice as strong with a bad armor divisor and bad accuracy, but once you hit rates of fire above five you get that one extra hit and practically one more for each point of margin of success.

With cyclic, you pay for each extra hit AND it is basically as much as your ability already costs unless you are willing to go for the higher time intervals which make the ability pretty much useless in combat though.
So, while cyclic can work okay WITH rapid fire, it is rather poor on its own when compared to it's munchkiny cousin.

Unless you force recoil on a rapid fire attack, it is beyond broken.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Yako

Thus, even if we ignore the fact that rapid fire starts with a much better point to extra hit rate, we trade 10 second cycles which ave, as their only benefit, that they can only be healed once the attack is stopped

Each of those cycles continues to ignore DR, cannot be dodged, doesn't expose the attacker (in fact will continue even after the attacker is disabled), and so on. Fright Checks against rapid fire usually get the +5 for combat, against Cyclic attacks continuing after the fights over, they shouldn't. They aren't remotely comparable effects in practice.

[Yako]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Each of those cycles continues to ignore DR...

...if it is combined with a penetration modifier which does so.
Yes, cyclic follow-up is a bargain, but other than that, same cost to have that effect as with rapid fire.

Cannot be dodged?
You can dodge the initial attack same as with rapid fire.
Oh, wait, tell you a lie, with rapid fire, you have to dodge really, reaaaaallly well if you want to dodge all of them, so, yeah, it is effectively more the other way around.

Well, yes, that last one is pretty much the only real use of cyclic, an attack which slowly kills you.
But then again, inflicting the same damage in one instant is usually more effective and should cost more than inflicting the same damage over a long time where, yes, it can be cancelled out with the right methods, like, extinguishing a flame or taking an antidote.
Umh, yeah, fright checks...
The point is, with a rapid fire attack, fright checks might no longer be anything to worry about anyway...

Let's see, we can have an attack with three extra cycles of 1 second each or six cycles of ten seconds for +300%...
...or we can have, what, 300 extra shots with rapid fire?
Tell me, which attack would you buy?

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Yako

Let's see, we can have an attack with three extra cycles of 1 second each or six cycles of ten seconds for +300%...
...or we can have, what, 300 extra shots with rapid fire?
Tell me, which attack would you buy?

300 extra shots of rapid fire, of which about 280-290 will miss. The Rapid Fire rules make every very high ROF weapon into the worst controlled Tommy gun ever.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Yako

Do you think Multiplicative Modifiers deserve to become the standard rule?

Honestly, I think the "standard" rule probably should be giving no official costs for Enhancements and Limitations at all. Of course that would require the GM to actually think about the cost each time anybody wanted to use one of them - but you are supposed to do that anyway right?

The exact mathematical scheme used when *not* doing that really doesn't matter much. Both are built around the false assumption that the same modification is in some way of equal value regardless of what is being modified. That is a handy way of vastly shortening the list of advantages or the descriptive text needed for each one, but comes at a huge cost of making it look like the enhancements and limitations are available for anything, and somehow "balanced" at the given costs for all those applications. No matter what system you use, it is going to generate some ridiculous results as long as the modifier costs are not functions of exactly which power and what other modifiers are also being applied.

[Yako]

with +1% for each extra shot, yeah, big deal if 290 miss, you'd get 9 hits extra compared to those measly cycles and the extra benefit of potentially hitting other enemies as well as the fact that it get close to impossible to dodge them all - while a simple dodge completely protects you from a follow up.

High rate of fire weapons are a big bargain!

It is not important that most of those attacks miss, that is already included in the cost!
Moreso, they get really useful if you attack a wide area instead of a single opponent.
Best of all, you don't have to wait until your opponent gets the damage, it is all at once.

Umh, where do you get this strange perception from that a high rate of fire is not cost efficient?
Granted, you can do some nasty stuff with a big attack with a armor pentration limitation as well, but that does not have the benefit of being extremely hard to dodge, attacking a whole area potentially or doing absurdly much damage on a low roll.
rate of fire has an absurdly high synergy effect with a good skill accuracy.

The exact mathematical scheme used when *not* doing that really doesn't matter much. Both are built around the false assumption that the same modification is in some way of equal value regardless of what is being modified. That is a handy way of vastly shortening the list of advantages or the descriptive text needed for each one, but comes at a huge cost of making it look like the enhancements and limitations are available for anything, and somehow "balanced" at the given costs for all those applications. No matter what system you use, it is going to generate some ridiculous results as long as the modifier costs are not functions of exactly which power and what other modifiers are also being applied.

Agreed partly, I think that many modifiers, especially stuff like costs fatigue need to be adjusted to allow different pricing schemes for categories of advanatges.
Any ability which is either of potential combat use or otherwise useful often simply is affected very differently by limited use, costs fatigue and similar.

Well, the rules do take this into account with some abilities, but it should be improved on for others.

Still, I think if you go so far as abolish fixed limitation costs, you have to do the same with advantages and then you end up at the point were the whole point buy system gets obsolete.
Rules Zero is fun, but, well, you need the right people to do it with and it often ends up in arguments about what a character can do.

[Darekun]

Originally Posted by Yako

Well, both MUNCHKIN and the ability you mentioned use a modifer I never would allow in the RAW form: Rapid Fire.

I haven't found it to be a problem in pure form; however, it is a large enhancement, and therefore too cheap on an "enhancement ability". I also added it just because it was another large enhancement.

My current group has one munchkin; but he knows I look right for abilities with multiple large enhancements or many enhancements, so in a recent mini-campaign, he gave his character(a Nanoha-derived magical girl) an attack with Rapid Fire(and some small change mods). He seemed to think it was going to be munchkinly powerful. Turned out he would've done better to spend +20% to let her use the old "flamer autofire" rules.

Originally Posted by Yako

With ignores DR i see much less of a problem, ignoring DR is only very marginally useful on small attacks, otherwise just stacking up damage often trumps it anyway.

Interesting, I've found Ignores DR to be more useful on small attacks than on large attacks. Theoretically, because of the way DR works in GURPS, Ignores DR should be much flatter, something like proportional to the DR you're likely to face, not proportional to the attack. In practice, DOT-and-hide is quite useful, which means it's undercosted by additive in conjunction with Cyclic, at least.

Originally Posted by Yako

And isn't MUNCHKIN against the rules anyway, I mean, it combines area attack with rapid fire after all

So far as I know, the closest it comes to breaking the rules is using a Cosmic, which is generally a red-flag family of enhancements. Area Effect should probably change the cost schedule of Rapid Fire, similar to how Selective Area should change the cost schedule of Area Effect, but it's not too bad with multiplicative.

Originally Posted by Yako

which by god doesn't make sense at all.

It makes a lot of sense to me, but I came to GURPS from Shadowrun, where house full-auto grenade launchers were a standard mod on anything that accepted underbarrel accessories(although they were never particularly effective), so I can see how I'd be biased…

Originally Posted by Yako

No, I think the cost spiral upwards by completely multiplicative modifiers is a bit too crass...

I've used it for years without that happening. I use the same point-total guidelines with additive and multiplicative, and I specifically look for whether an ability comes out about the same or quite different.

The only real difference is on abilities built particularly efficiently or inefficiently by additive — that is, it fixes munches and anti-munches. Now, experienced GURPS players tend to automatically build things somewhat efficient by GURPS rules, so if "everybody's munching a little" costs will spiral upwards. But experienced Shadowrun players don't do that.

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

I can't think of any grenades that use Area Effect instead of just being explosive.

Trivially, gas grenades. There's also Strobe and Warbler, and a number of the TL^ warheads.

Originally Posted by Yako

Lastly, I think that a rapid fire grenade launcher would NOT be modelled with the standard rapid fire rules, I mean, with explosives, you don't really have the effect of added accuracy because SOME of them at least should hit, even if they don't hit you, the blast will likely hit affect you anyway, unless perhaps we talk about a really big spread.

You have to use the scatter rules, too, but that's true of semi-auto grenade launchers. I don't think it actually says how scatter interacts with autofire, but if you treat Rcl as a penalty to-hit for each shot after the first, the results make perfect sense.

Originally Posted by Yako

Anyway, is anyone here seriously not of the opinion that rapid fire is broken?
especially if you put it next to cyclic?

Combining it additively with any large enhancement is broken, because additive is broken. Use it alone or combine it multiplicatively with Cyclic, and it's fine.