Aberrant RPG - Most Powerful Characters "Legit" Characters

[Centimane]

I think you're misusing Omnidex and Multitasking. Both of those reduce the penality for multiple actions, in the case of Omnidex it reduces them to zero ("without penality" is how they phrase it). But they're still actions. I don't see any reason they should count as non-actions and stack any more than Multitasking should stack with Quick. If you can do it then he can do it.

. . .*blink*

Waitwaitwait, the claim is Omnidexterity helps in combat to add more attacks? Yeah, uh-huh, not so much. . .

Ok, first things first: "You can use both hands and feet with equal ease. You can also do the same thing with both hands - writing a letter with each, firing a gun with each and so on - without penalty." I'm sorry if you guys don't like these rules, but there they are, so you're going to have to live with them until WW puts out something official that does errata this out. The descrip goes on to say that if you're trying to perform multiple, separate actions then yes, you get hit with the standard modifier to your dice pools. As it stands, I only got this idea from Prof Potts and his interpretation of Omnidexterity and combat.

The second thing is, they're not "non-actions", it's just that they incur no further penalty, so for simplicity's sake they may as well be treated as non-actions for doing the math.

The third thing is that you're still ignoring the fact that both T and Draco have the same Dex pools, but Draco has multiple limbs so he gets a 2 point reduction on his Mult.Action penalties before Multitasking even comes into play, so he can still perform more actions per turn than T can. Meahwhile his Superheavy effectively negates all of T's M.Dex for the purposes of trying to hit Draco (though not for the purposes of trying to dodge draco). T's Melee pool means that he'll average 8.5 successes, but this is reduced to 3.5 with Draco's superheavy. Alternately he can just use all of his M.Dex to offset the penalty, use only his base Dex+Melee, and get an average of 4 successes to hit. This leaves him with, at most, 3 extra successes to apply to damage. Yes, he can reduce Draco's soak by several points, but he's still left doing ping damage most of the time.

Meanwhile, Draco suffers no such problem, so his M.Dex dice are still all there right down to the last action, giving him an average of 4.5 just from the mega-dice. This means that the base of 10[25] is just that, a base. Most of the time he's going to be doing 15[25], and T simply cannot hope to soak all of this up. And since his superior height means that he's going to have to hit mostly at a downward angle - if you want to get all rules-quibbly, Alex - then knockback is only going to knock T hard into the ground. But hey, whatever, the knockback just adds to the damage that T takes from the attack anyway, and he's only going to fly a number of meters, which Draco can close in an instant anyhow.

And in response to "my rules" about Blindfighting, I said that someone who is simply trying to "avoid detection" should get to roll Stealth against a Blindfighter, I didn't say that someone who's actively engaging said blindfighter in combat gets to roll Stealth. Sure T can hit Draco, then immediately turn and try to run at full speed (which isn't exactly a really stealthy thing to do), but he's going to get 100m before Draco's Initiative comes up. 100m is less than 1/3rd of Draco's full movement rate for the turn. T is traveling at 180kph, Draco is traveling at over 388kph. You do the math.

Edited because it occurred to me that T still had all three Quick actions to run with, so he's moving at 180kph, not 120kph. My bad.

[Alex Green]

Ok, first things first: "You can use both hands and feet with equal ease. You can also do the same thing with both hands - writing a letter with each, firing a gun with each and so on - without penalty." I'm sorry if you guys don't like these rules, but there they are, so you're going to have to live with them until WW puts out something official that does errata this out. The descrip goes on to say that if you're trying to perform multiple, separate actions then yes, you get hit with the standard modifier to your dice pools. As it stands, I only got this idea from Prof Potts and his interpretation of Omnidexterity and combat.

There have been times when the Prof has been wrong. I can count them on one hand but still.

The second thing is, they're not "non-actions", it's just that they incur no further penalty...

That's good so far.

, so for simplicity's sake they may as well be treated as non-actions for doing the math.

That's not. Intuitively it makes sense, but the math becomes VERY different.

And yes, I don't know what to do with it (although disallowing it for different actions would work). An effect that gives out a big piece of Temporal Manipulation 5 + Mastery for one point of quantum per turn is so broken even WW couldn't have meant that. Re-reading that enhancement I think the problem is "engaging in combat by throwing a punch" isn't "the same action done with both hands". Firing a gun at the same target yes, punching no.

The third thing is that you're still ignoring the fact that both T and Draco have the same Dex pools, but Draco has multiple limbs so he gets a 2 point reduction on his Mult.Action penalties before Multitasking even comes into play, so he can still perform more actions per turn than T can. Meahwhile his Superheavy effectively negates all of T's M.Dex for the purposes of trying to hit Draco (though not for the purposes of trying to dodge draco). T's Melee pool means that he'll average 8.5 successes, but this is reduced to 3.5 with Draco's superheavy. Alternately he can just use all of his M.Dex to offset the penalty, use only his base Dex+Melee, and get an average of 4 successes to hit. This leaves him with, at most, 3 extra successes to apply to damage. Yes, he can reduce Draco's soak by several points, but he's still left doing ping damage most of the time.

Sure, in a fair fight were both people have access to their q-pools Draco will destroy T, pure and simple.

However T's entire build is to prevent a fair fight.

And since his superior height means that he's going to have to hit mostly at a downward angle - if you want to get all rules-quibbly, Alex - then knockback is only going to knock T hard into the ground. But hey, whatever, the knockback just adds to the damage that T takes from the attack anyway, and he's only going to fly a number of meters, which Draco can close in an instant anyhow.

Yes and no. First this is such a messy subject I'm tempted to skip it. Second a lot of your height is actually "length", and I seem to recall that you get an athletics roll to try to do something with that. Third Draco "closing in an instant" doesn't negate that the round has ended and he got one attack and not 20.

But even with all that, i.e. you having one attack per round with knockback, Draco will win in a somewhat fair fight.

And in response to "my rules" about Blindfighting, I said that someone who is simply trying to "avoid detection" should get to roll Stealth against a Blindfighter, I didn't say that someone who's actively engaging said blindfighter in combat gets to roll Stealth.

I'm having a hard time accepting using Blindfighting to pin-point a sniper. Blindfighting is more a HTH thing, and if someone wants to set up a Sniper nest, even if you know it's somewhere around here, IMHO you still need to roll awareness. Further, that awareness roll is going to be contested by their Stealth roll, and perhaps cover as well.

Mechanically Blindfighting negates blindness/Invisibility, but that's not an issue here. Your problem is you don't know where he is, not that you can't see him (well... that last bit assumes Invis is off).

Sure T can hit Draco, then immediately turn and try to run at full speed (which isn't exactly a really stealthy thing to do), but he's going to get 100m before Draco's Initiative comes up. 100m is less than 1/3rd of Draco's full movement rate for the turn. T is traveling at 120kph, Draco is traveling at over 388kph. You do the math.

It's 200 meters, not 100. Also with Catfooted & enough Dex, a full run *is* a stealthy thing to do. Thing is that 200 meters is a lot. If there's a house or three he can put them between the two of you. Ditto if there's a hill, or a cave, or whatever.

You aren't really in direct open combat until you close, and he's not going to make that easy on you.

[metaphysician]

I always interpreted Omni-Dexterity's 'combat usage' as being pretty straightforward: "No penalty for taking multiple *different* actions". IOW, splitting your attack to both shoot one enemy and punch another would normally involve a penalty, above and beyond the action splitting, because your trying to do two independent things at once. However, it doesn't mitigate the dice pool reduction for splitting your action, because thats a side effect of doing more things in X time than normally possible.

[Alex Green]

Something else I should mention...

My arguments have easy and cheap fixes.

1) Sub in "That Creepy Feeling" for "Blind Fighting" and you have something that lets you pin point snipers.

2) Sub in Quick x2 for OmniDex and Multitasking and you have something that lets you attack, cause knock back, move to where he is, then attack again (and then again).

Do that and we've removed all rules disagreements and you still have a character that crushes T.

[Centimane]

I always interpreted Omni-Dexterity's 'combat usage' as being pretty straightforward: "No penalty for taking multiple *different* actions". IOW, splitting your attack to both shoot one enemy and punch another would normally involve a penalty, above and beyond the action splitting, because your trying to do two independent things at once. However, it doesn't mitigate the dice pool reduction for splitting your action, because thats a side effect of doing more things in X time than normally possible.

Okay first off (and no offense intended by this) but that's just a bizarre interpretation you've got there. It flatly contradicts this: "You can use both hands and feet with equal ease. You can also do the same thing with both hands - writing a letter with each, firing a gun with each and so on - without penalty." Which is a direct quote from pg. 102 of the APG, which then goes on to say "The pnalty for multiple separate actions remains in effect; the nova would need Multitasking to fire a gun with one hand while writing a letter with the other all while using her feet to knit a sweater."

I mean, it's cool if you house-rule it into meaning something else, but the text is explicit and very clear in its intent. So again, I'm sorry if some people don't like these rules, but they are what they are and Draco is still "legit".

However, since I've been such a munchkin for trying to put poor T up against a big, bad wrestler with only half of his NPs in powers ( ::rolleyes **cough**whiners!**cough**), I'll go ahead and play by your rules.

So, Draco no longer has Omnidex, he no longer has Multitasking (or any M.Wits at all), and he no longer has extra limbs (we'll just pretend those big things up on his back are only there for show). So Draco is no longer an 85 point nova, he's now a 78 point nova. What? Still too disadvantagous for T? Oh, I'm sorry, I really am terrible about my power-gaming ( ::rolleyes ). So let's use Alex's scenario from a few posts back to even things up and make them fair for poor, picked-on Totentanz.

Scene 1, Round 0.

When T is 180 meters out (his max Leech range) Draco's Intuition goes off, he raises Armor, Forcefield, Growth, Blindfighting, & Enhanced movement for the scene (total cost = 11), T doesn't bother to attack and moves off. T's stealth is enough to stay hidden.

End of Scene. **Note that I'm still leaving in the part where Draco, for some mysterious reason pays quantum to activate a permanent power. This is not to be spiteful or silly, it's to make a point.**

Scene 2, Round 0.

When T is 180 meters out (his max Leech range) Draco's Intuition goes off, he raises his senses but nothing else.

Scene 2, Round 1.

T leeches him for 9, then moves another 150 meters away (3 actions) for a total 330 meters. Draco pursues and raises the rest of his powers. T is several rounds away, he goes to Stealth again. Draco's pool is empty.

Scene 3, Round 1.

T leeches his Eufiber, Draco burns 2 life levels for 4 quantum and turns on Armor and Hearing. (While Draco is apparently the stupidest nova with an IQ of 180+ in the world, I don't think he's really this stupid, so he'll turn on nothing and wait - even though he's still too stupid to try running away - *sigh* should I maybe blindfold him and tie his arms behind his back too guys?)

Scene 3, Round 2.

T moves off.

Scene 4, T uses Find Weakness to drop Draco's Soak by 5 (using Willpower) to 15. T's attack is 14[10]. This will only take a few rounds. No, it'll take about 1 round. Draco, now that he's actually in combat with T, will burn some HLs, but not to activate powers that won't help him all that much under the circumstances, no this time he'll activate his FF. With 6 regular dice and 5 mega dice he'll get 6.9 successes (which we'll round down to +12 successes cuz lord knows poor T's already at such a disadvantage here!!!!) added to his Q4 so he's now at +16 soak, or 36-T's 6 A.Weak successes, and he's at 30 total.

It doesn't really matter how you want to split up T's actions. Make them all attacks, or split them up between the two (if it's all defenses the why in the hell did he bother engaging Draco in the first place?). But let's say T's feeling vicious and he splits his normal action to the maximum of 5 split actions, plus his 3 Quick actions. Now all of these attacks will likely hit (especially since the first was probably an ambush), so he gets 8 lethal ping die to play with, statistically worked out to 3.2 HLs, putting Draco down 4 HLs total. Unfortunately, Draco has 12 HLs and M.Sta 5 so he probably hasn't really noticed that he's hurt yet.

Now Draco just flat out attacks, he's fighting blind so he's at +2 diff, which he removes by using 2 of his mega-dex. Now, since T really is at such a huge disadvantage with only a measly 179 NPs against Draco's whopping 78, let's assume that his FF roll was good and he spent that WP and his bashing is at 31 and he uses this to soak. Draco's first his will have 4.7 successes or 3 (cuz remember, we're rounding down for big, tough Draco cuz he's such a munchkin) extra damage dice for a total effect of 13[25]. So his first hit does 7 dice of lethal. But wait! T also gets knocked back! Hallelujah, he's saved from big nasty Draco!!!

T's Might total is 18, which is (2x20=40)+(2x3=6)=46 meters (the 20 is the net damage die over T's Might, and the 3 is Draco's successes on the to hit roll). Whew! That was close!

Oh no!! Draco burns another HL, putting him down 5 HLs total, and activates Enh.Move for the turn. This puts his running speed up to 144 meters/action, and 46 is less than half that. Draco runs down the hurtling T and hits him again!!! (oh, the humanity) This time his successes are 4.3, so just 3 extra dice to damage again, and he gets another 7 damage dice, and T flies back another 46 meters.

Now, the first hit was 7 lethal dice, + 24 bashing dice for the first hit, equaling out to 2.8L and 9.6 Bashing. Just in the first hit. The second does exactly the same thing.

Now look, I've handicapped Draco tremendously, despite the fact that he already started out at a disadvantage to T, and T still lost in a straight out fight. And Draco's only at 78NPs right now! If you really, really want I can always just add on another 101 points to his chart and see what happens, but this is already getting more than a little silly.

So while I respect people's right to practice whatever religion they choose to, I'm just not feeling this whole Cult of T thing. Sorry.

So I'm going to have Draco do one quick little victory dance over T's bloody corpse, and then I'm outta here. You guys have fun, now. (Alex, I catch you over at AR or Trans-D. Have fun til then.)

[SkyLion]

OK, because it's messy and not normally meaningful, usually we ignore knockback. But in this case you're hitting T with a M-Str 5, Growth 2, Dragon. I'm pretty sure T's going to go flying on the first hit.

,,

Lethal attacks only do half knockback. Also if he slashes across T its going to knock him down, not back. KNockback is for punching people head on, or vertically down into the ground.

,,

RE: OmniDex. I was clued in to the original discussion wioth Potts and he pointed out that unless you interpret it as he did (the version Cottus is using) then it makes the enhancment effectively worthless.

[Alex Green]

RE: OmniDex. I was clued in to the original discussion wioth Potts and he pointed out that unless you interpret it as he did (the version Cottus is using) then it makes the enhancment effectively worthless.

This sort of thing came up a lot during development of the various e-books. People would propose enhancements that were solutions in search of problems. We have more than a few enhancements out there are worthless in combat, and a few look pretty worthless period.

How many people take Appearance Alteration? Accuracy? Dreadful Mien? Mathematical Savant? Speed Reading? Thunderclap? Fine Manipulation? Tireless? Redirection? I've been doing this for a while and I've never seen anyone use any of these. It's very possible no PC I've every seen has had them. They can't all be winners.

With some of them it's possible to come up with characters that *could* make some use of them, for example using Appearance Alteration to look older in a game that goes on for years where the character doesn't age. But at best these are are very narrow specialist type items.

And having said that, if we must assume that OmniDex has to be useful (and it's q-cost implies it shouldn't be very), there has to be a happy medium between "providing some use" and "providing the functional equiv of very high levels of Temporal Manipulation with Mastery". This enhancement by it's description, q-cost, and examples doesn't hit the radar as something that's supposed to make 40 actions per round possible.

[Alex Green]

Something else I'd better make clear while I'm ranting.

Draco is NOT an extreme version of this problem. This one is broken right out of the box if we allow it to be used like that.

Broken Sample Character: The Flayer can control his hair and attack people with it. Every hair on his head can be individually controlled.

1 NP: Extra Limbs (4000 of them, every hair is alive and can be controlled).

3 NP: +1 M-Dex (Omni-Dex)

And that's pretty much it. Anyone who comes within range of this guy is subjected to 4000 attacks at his strengh, unless they can puny human the entire attack, ping damage alone kills them.

Presumably he spends the rest of his points on stats, M-Str, and Flexibility so he can attack at a longer range. Since he's buildable at Q1 he might as well drop all of his bonus points into initiative.

And before anyone asks, yes, you really can get 4000 extra limbs with 1 nova point. Page 184, "one or more extra limbs".

[Centimane]

Something else I'd better make clear while I'm ranting.

Draco is NOT an extreme version of this problem. This one is broken right out of the box if we allow it to be used like that.

Broken Sample Character: The Flayer can control his hair and attack people with it. Every hair on his head can be individually controlled.

1 NP: Extra Limbs (4000 of them, every hair is alive and can be controlled).

3 NP: +1 M-Dex (Omni-Dex)

And that's pretty much it. Anyone who comes within range of this guy is subjected to 4000 attacks at his strengh, unless they can puny human the entire attack, ping damage alone kills them.

Presumably he spends the rest of his points on stats, M-Str, and Flexibility so he can attack at a longer range. Since he's buildable at Q1 he might as well drop all of his bonus points into initiative.

And before anyone asks, yes, you really can get 4000 extra limbs with 1 nova point. Page 184, "one or more extra limbs".

Actually, I'm glad I decided to take another look in here just to see what was being discussed. Prof Potts also ruled that players needed to pay 1 qp for each limb they purchased for precisely this reason. When I built and submitted Starting-PC Draco, I paid 2 qp for his two extra limbs, not 1. If I had wanted ten extra limbs, then I'd have had to pay 10 points. I had always assumed (before I joined these boards) that you paid 1qp per extra limb, but then I saw that everyone online thought differently. So I PMed Prof about it to see what the deal was for Draco, and he pointed out that he'd had some trouble with people abusing the extra limbs thing in exactly the way you're talking about, so (whether the 1qp buys "x" limbs was correct or not) he made players pay for each individual limb. I already agreed with that, and had already allocated points towards that end, so it was no big deal. Sorry, I probably should have explained that at the beginning.

[Alex Green]

qp? Do you mean you paid 1 quantum point to use them or do you mean you paid 1 nova point?

[metaphysician]

Just reread the Omni-Dexterity writeup, myself, and its kinda like I remembered: the thing is not combat useful, or at least not particularly combat useful. In fact, it *explicitly* says "No, this doesn't give you more attacks or reduce penalties for multiple attacks." The real point of Omni-Dexterity is to cover characters who can basically use any and every limb of their body just as easily as hands ( think the Beast ).

That said, the basic premise here doesn't really need tons of attacks; if the attack in question is a *grapple*, and lands, Totentanz is screwed. What Draco really needs is more Mega Perception. While the combo of a couple of enhancements would help do the job of spotting and targetting Totentanz, at the ranges in question, I do *not* see it being done regularly or at all with just a single dot worth.

Alex Green: Not to claim your argument is meaningless, but I think at least half of the enhancements you list are possessed by at least one PC in Ancient Aberrant. . .

( I know Hermes alone has Mathematical Savant, Speed Reading, and Redirection )

[SkyLion]

I think Cottus meant NP...

[Centimane]

I think Cottus meant NP...

I did. Sorry, just got out of work when I posted that... long day.

[SkyLion]

This enhancement by it's description, q-cost, and examples doesn't hit the radar as something that's supposed to make 40 actions per round possible.

,,

I can see your point but the NP per limb requirment moderates this. The actions all have to be the same (all strikes and all dodges, or some combo if you are taking multiple actions, ie 2 actions, 2 limbs block on one action, and two strike with the second, or whatever).

,,

And for NP's Beast example, Omnidex is still useless...Mega Dex by itslef requires ambidexterity which would apply to any extra limbs, and tendrils and it says you can do stuff with your feet too. Unless Omni-Dex does what we say it does it useless..at least that was Potts argument and Ive learned not to argue with Potts! ::biggrin

,,

Wish he was here though...bet he'ld chime in sumthin' fierce...

[Alex Green]

Unless Omni-Dex does what we say it does it useless..at least that was Potts argument and Ive learned not to argue with Potts! ::biggrin

I'd rather have it be yet another solution in search of a problem than be brutally broken in combat.

I can see your point but the NP per limb requirment moderates this.

Nonsense. Extra limbs is balanced by itself.

3 nova points for Omni-Dex gives me, without ANY thing else, an extra action for no quantum? So if I'm going to throw a punch I can now throw two. That's broken right there although not badly. Let's add more.

5 nova points then buys 5 limbs (-5 to my multiple action penality), and an additional 5 actions (total of 7).

So now I can make two dodges and 7(!) attacks with no penality and no quantum cost at all. For 8 nova points. 3 actions I paid for by accepted normal rules. But now I have an extra 6 actions coming from Omni-Dex which is costing me nothing but the "cost" that they "all have to be the same".

All this goes away if we just assume "HTH attacks" can't be "the same action". Note also we could reverse this and have my 7 "identical" actions be dodges, or blocks.

All this is pretty obnoxious by itself. Where is gets down right insane is if we let the effect multiply in combo with the other enhancements which grant extra actions and *still* call all 7 of those actions a single grouped one. I'll attack another time with "Quick", except that I'm actually attacking another 7 times.

While I'm on the subject, Multitasking can be (but normally isn't) abused by itself. As far as I can tell, Multitasking is supposed to be used for multiple actions done at the same time. Punching someone with the same fist three times is IMHO not "at the same time" and has moved past being a multiple action and into being additional actions. That's why Quick lets you move a second time and M-Tasking doesn't.