Chain Attacks

[oneofmanynameless]

Alright. I've been meditating on this for a long time and I just don't know how to do it. I'm thinking Chain Lightning and similar spells. Basically:

Normal attack. If attack hits target (attack roll is a success and target fails or forgoes active defenses) the attack automatically makes another attack on a (probably) preset skill against another random (or psuedo-random?) nearby enemy. It it lands on that enemy it chains to another. Maybe with a limit on how many enemies it can chain to, maybe without one.

How do you do that? I'm thinking innate attacks and afflictions and the like. I was thinking homing with extra passes, but the extra passes specifically only apply to new targets and only apply if you hit your initial target, instead of miss them.

Is there a cannon way of doing this?

[DouglasCole]

Follow-up attack? Treat as a follow-up, but on a different target. That attack would be separately defined and have its own properties?

[Christopher R. Rice]

So I called this a version of Cosmic combined with Cyclic. See the blog post here for how to implement it.

Cosmic, Wandering Cycles

+50%

If the original target dies, the remaining cycles "jump." Treat this as if you were making a new attack, using your original attack roll (not including the original range penalties), but originating from the afflicted target. The new target suffers the remaining cycles.

[finn]

Sounds like a form of Extra Attack, with limitation of "Only right after a successful attack within the same turn" and "only against a enemy not attacked within this 'chain' "

The first limitation should get progressively larger for the 3rd, 4th, and 5th attack. This is because the 3rd, 4th, and 5th attack each require that each and every attack before them to be successful.

The second limitation should get progressively larger too, as there will be a smaller pool of enemies to choose from as the number of 'chain' increases.

Maybe you could add the two limitation together and call it a -50% limitation for the first Extra Attack (the 2nd attack in the chain), -60% for the second, -70% for the third and so on.

Note that you might need the +20% enhancement to use the same weapon multiple times in the chain. If the Extra Attack can only be used for a specific Innate Attack, that should be a limitation too.

[starslayer]

This is pretty much a stock application of link.

Buy base ability + link +10%
Buy the second 'link' in the chain +link+10%, it only needs range enough to jump to the next target
Buy the third 'link in the chain +link+10%, it only needs range enough to jump to the next target

And so on and so forth.

Its a 0 point feature for the linked abilities to fire in sequence rather than simultaneously and start from the 'end point' of the last one.

You should potentially get some discount for 'can't just hit the same target x times', but no matter what this is pretty expensive.

I'm not sure if this would be a series of attack rolls, or just a single attack roll with whatever attack modifiers carrying along (IE if you did leading the target for -2/-1 each target would be led). To keep things simple I would just use a single roll modifiers/MoS carrying along to each jump.

[McAllister]

Originally Posted by finn

Sounds like a form of Extra Attack, with limitation of "Only right after a successful attack within the same turn" and "only against a enemy not attacked within this 'chain' "

The first limitation should get progressively larger for the 3rd, 4th, and 5th attack. This is because the 3rd, 4th, and 5th attack each require that each and every attack before them to be successful.

The second limitation should get progressively larger too, as there will be a smaller pool of enemies to choose from as the number of 'chain' increases.

Maybe you could add the two limitation together and call it a -50% limitation for the first Extra Attack (the 2nd attack in the chain), -60% for the second, -70% for the third and so on.

Note that you might need the +20% enhancement to use the same weapon multiple times in the chain. If the Extra Attack can only be used for a specific Innate Attack, that should be a limitation too.

I would use this one. It's weird to buy the chain attacks feature as a separate advantage instead of an Enhancement on the IA, but it makes the most sense to me. Here are the modifiers as I see them:

Extra Attack [25/jump]
Multi-Strike [+20%] (so the attacks are with the same weapon)
Measure range from last target [+10%] (which might seem cheap, but keep in mind it could easily be a hindrance)
Only with a specific Innate Attack [-25%] (this is considerably more restrictive than Single Skill from MA: -30% might be warranted)
Only following a successful attack in the same chain [-30% initially, getting steeper from there]
Cannot hit a target that's been hit in the same chain [-10% initially, getting steeper from there]

Optional

Reliable X and Untrainable, where Untrainable sets the skill level to 10 and you add Reliable until it's at the static skill level you want

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by McAllister

I would use this one. It's weird to buy the chain attacks feature as a separate advantage instead of an Enhancement on the IA, but it makes the most sense to me. Here are the modifiers as I see them:

Extra Attack [25/jump]
Multi-Strike [+20%] (so the attacks are with the same weapon)
Measure range from last target [+10%] (which might seem cheap, but keep in mind it could easily be a hindrance)
Only with a specific Innate Attack [-25%] (this is considerably more restrictive than Single Skill from MA: -30% might be warranted)
Only following a successful attack in the same chain [-30% initially, getting steeper from there]
Cannot hit a target that's been hit in the same chain [-10% initially, getting steeper from there]

Optional

Reliable X and Untrainable, where Untrainable sets the skill level to 10 and you add Reliable until it's at the static skill level you want

You might want to add Overhead (Always Surprise, Does Not Bypass Cover, Second and Further Attacks Only) +30%, meaning everyone after the firt target defends at a -2, due to the attack being a bit of a surprise.

[oneofmanynameless]

Alright. I like that option with extra attacks. That works well. But is it really worth that many points? Like... say for a simple basic 5 cp 1d Burning innate attack. Is it worth paying the 17.5 sp for a single additional target compared to rapid fire 1 (+40% for 2 extra cp), or AOE 1 with Selective area and bombardment (+50%, +20%, -5%, for 4 extra cp)?

I guess... is there a way to turn that general thing with extra attack into a modifier so it scales proportional to the attacks damage instead of being independent of it?

[oneofmanynameless]

I also really like the wandering cycles thing, Ghostdancer. That's a really cool way of doing it that works really well for things like the locust swarm you modeled in that article!

[McAllister]

Originally Posted by oneofmanynameless

I guess... is there a way to turn that general thing with extra attack into a modifier so it scales proportional to the attacks damage instead of being independent of it?

On the flip side, if you want to model a railgun that shoots a bullet that seeks additional targets and bounces between them, that's a 15d p+ attack with AD 3, so buying extra attacks for it is something of a bargain.

I agree that "it's wildly inefficient for a low-point Innate Attack to chain from one enemy to another" is a problem, but I'm having trouble thinking of the solution.

Maybe invent a "Max Damage: 1d [-60%]" limitation for the Extra Attacks to make them cheaper. You'd have to come up with your own guidelines for how small a damage cap gave you how many points, but I feel comfortable letting people buy Extra Attacks that have limited damage for fewer points.