Chain Attacks

[Humabout]

Once upon a time, I priced this out to be +60%. I had reasoning that has since been lost. If ever found, I'll back up my claim with facts....

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by oneofmanynameless

Is there a cannon way of doing this?

Just had a thought, what if you use a variation of Rapid Fire? That effectively gives you extra attacks equal to your margin of success if you hit. You'd have to combine it with Area Effect so that you could hit multiple foes in the area. Think of it as an enhancement version of Bombardment.

Originally Posted by 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!

Thanks. :-)

[aesir23]

Since this can only attack each enemy once, I'd actually build it based on Area Attack, with Selective Area and Limitations to indicate the need for rolls to hit, and the necessity of a previous hit being successful.

However you build it, it should not be more expensive a sufficiently large area attack with selective area, since it's less powerful than that.

[Kallatari]

Personally, I'd build it as Area Effect and Bombardment. The Bombardment limitation requires a hit roll for everyone in the area of effect. You make the rolls, determine who was hit, and then after the fact determine the "line where the attack bounced between targets."

The game mechanics is roll separately for each, but the special effect and in-game description is it bounced between those who were hit.

Edit: If you want a maximum number of targets, then also add an accessibility limitation. I remember there was an older thread on how to calculate that value based on the size of the area effect.

To be precise, this works for instant attacks like chain lightning or a "wandering mend" healing from Star Wars the Old Republic. For a cyclic attack that moves on when the first target dies, I like Ghostdancer's method.

[McAllister]

Area Effect is priced to account for multiplying the impact of the Advantage by the number of targets in the effected area. I personally wouldn't use it, but if you do, the "attacking each target is dependent on hitting the previous one" limitation should compensate for at least 70% of AE's cost.

[oneofmanynameless]

Originally Posted by Kallatari

Personally, I'd build it as Area Effect and Bombardment. The Bombardment limitation requires a hit roll for everyone in the area of effect. You make the rolls, determine who was hit, and then after the fact determine the "line where the attack bounced between targets."

The game mechanics is roll separately for each, but the special effect and in-game description is it bounced between those who were hit.

Edit: If you want a maximum number of targets, then also add an accessibility limitation. I remember there was an older thread on how to calculate that value based on the size of the area effect.

To be precise, this works for instant attacks like chain lightning or a "wandering mend" healing from Star Wars the Old Republic. For a cyclic attack that moves on when the first target dies, I like Ghostdancer's method.

The only thing I don't like about this is that you don't have to successfully hit the first opponent for it to work. But I guess you could build the "chain" component as a followup.

[oneofmanynameless]

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

Just had a thought, what if you use a variation of Rapid Fire? That effectively gives you extra attacks equal to your margin of success if you hit. You'd have to combine it with Area Effect so that you could hit multiple foes in the area. Think of it as an enhancement version of Bombardment.

You know, thinking about rapid fire rules. This might be a variation of Spraying fire. It follows the same rules but with a few exceptions: 1) you can never use more than 1 shot per target (accessibility limitation), 2) shots are not wasted between targets (cosmic enhancement? homing?), 3) skill is based on the ability not yours and range is measured from latest target hit (homing?), 4) you can target enemies in a wider arc then 30 degrees (cosmic?)

Rapid fire for the number of potential hits, homing, and a cosmic enhancement should do the trick.

[AlexanderHowl]

Area Effect (+50%/level) with Delay (+50%), Overhead (+30%), and Selective Area (+20%). The attack 'jumps' to the next legal target after it is done with the first legal target.

For example, you could have Burning Attack 2d (Area Effect 8, 256 yards, +400%; Emanation, -20%; Damage Modifier, Surge, +20%; Delay, Chain Attack, +50%; Overhead, +30%; Selective Area, +20%) [50]. When you want to attack anyone in your area of effect, you designate target order and the lightning bolt jumps from your hand to the first and then subsequent targets. You could just attack one target or thousands of targets, depending on your need.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Area Effect (+50%/level) with Delay (+50%), Overhead (+30%), and Selective Area (+20%). The attack 'jumps' to the next legal target after it is done with the first legal target.

That build should give you a great deal more functionality than a chain attack would - you don't need to roll to hit (unless the GM calls for rolls to hit with Area Effect normally, but you're effectively rolling at a large bonus in that case), targets can only avoid it by getting out of the area of effect (and are penalized to do so, thanks to Overhead), and you could use it on a triggered delay as a trap or similar. Chain attack should be more along the lines of "You hit as with a normal attack, and it's possible for the attack to springboard off your target to hit another one."

I'd say the simplest approach is either a +50% or +100% Enhancement per "jump." I'd lean toward the former. How it interacts with Range is up to the GM, but I'd probably do it as follows: for purposes of Range penalties, the attack originates from the previous victim and uses the attacker's skill, but without any bonuses from Aim or similar; for purposes of 1/2D and Max, add together the ranges of each attack leading up to the target. Characters can opt to purchase Reliable for this attack; the bonus only applies to chains, and cannot exceed the Aiming bonus the original attack received. Characters can also opt to purchase Reduced or Increased Range for the attack; this is at half price, only applies to chains, and for Reduced Range the combination of Chain +50% and Reduced Range cannot be worth less than +10%. If an attack with 2 or more chains (for a total of 3 or more attacks) is unable to revisit previous targets, that's probably a -20% or so Limitation.

As an example, consider a character with Innate Attack Burning 2d (Chain x3 +150%) [25] against 4 foes that are spaced out a bit. She blasts the first foe, who is 4 yards away, at -2 to hit for Range. The attack connects, dealing 2d burn, and she chains the attack to the next foe, who is 3 yards away from the first one; this is at -1 to hit (3 yards away) and a total of 7 yards for purposes of 1/2D and Max. This connects, dealing 2d burn. She then chains this attack to the next foe, who is 20 yards away from the second one; this is at -10 to hit (20 yards away) and a total of 27 yards for purposes of 1/2D and Max, reducing damage to 1d (1/2D is 10 yards). The last target is 80 yards from foe #3, which is too far to hit (total would be 107, but Max is only 100), so she opts to have the attack come back and hit foe #1 (who she had a poor damage result against); he's actually closer to #3 than #2 was, at 17 yards, for another -10 to hit and 1d burn on a successful hit. The character would have been better off going #1, #2, #1, #3 for the order of attacks.

[Sorenant]

Since this thread got necro'd, I'll take the opportunity to ask a few related questions:

About Rapid Fire, Chaining. If I attack someone with effective skill 16, roll a 10, then I can roll again against 6-Range penalty-2 to hit another character? So if there's another enemy just beside (1 yard, I'd roll against 6-0-2=4?

Is is possible to limit Area Effect to affect only a small number of targets? For example, a 4 yards wide attack that can only hit a maximum of 3 targets? In my opinion, this would be akin to Nuisance Effect most of the time, unless the Area Effect is large enough to reliably hit dozens of enemies.