Aberrant RPG - Multiple Actions!

[metaphysician]

Actually, there is a third option: the writers simply didn't realize that such was a possible, or rather, desirable, tactic.

Sure, it seems unlikely, but then again, so does building characters with extensive sets of powers and mega-atts *that don't synergize at all*.

[BlueNinja]

The by-the-book reading leads to sanity, the not-by-the-book-but-maybe-implied reading leads to insanity. Sanity should be the default.

Are you sure? This is Aberrant, after all. ::laugh

[Centimane]

Are you sure? This is Aberrant, after all. ::laugh

That was actually going to be my counter-argument! ::tongue

Actually, I think I'm about done with this topic. I'm noticing that pretty much everyone agrees that this is one of those "ST's call" kind of things, and that suit me fine. For my part, if I was running a combat-heavy game I'd most likely allow Multitasking+Quickness combos so we could have some truly over the top fight sequences, but if I was running a quieter, more drama or suspense focused game, I'd probably disallow it to keep things simple. I still think the rules, as written, don't make for a very strong case against it, but obviously others see it differently. And that, as they say, is Life.

Moving on.

[SkyLion]

That's why I love you Cottus man! (kid can talk some crazy sense!)

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((And hey, stop looking all jealous...you know I love the rest of y'all too...'cept for Shade...he's my b*&^$!)) ::tongue

[Centimane]

Thanks man. ::biggrin

[SkyLion]

Rise! RISE!!!!

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*ahem*

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Thank you! Now that I have properly performed the necromancy, I thought i should inform you all, that new evidence has come to light, regarding the ability to split Extra actions, as those from Quickness into multiple actions, from a canon source!

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This whole game idea of playing Stalwarts who become Novas and having the Knacks upgrade got me looking. The Stalwart (Nova) Knack Blazing Speed on Page 172, Adventure! says:

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At the beginning of a combat Turn, before the Initiative roll, the player spends an Inspiration point. The Stalwart can take an additional action at the end of the turn, after every other character has taken his normal action. This additional action can be used just like a regular action--split into multiple actions, used to go fully defensive or taken as a single full action. the Stalwart acts at -3 Initiative during this turn.

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Now...does that, or does that not...sound exactly like it would turn into Quickness on the Abby scale...

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I rest my case...

[BlueNinja]

Now...does that, or does that not...sound exactly like it would turn into Quickness on the Abby scale...

There's some difference between the two, actually:

1) You can pick up Quickness multiple times - and though I don't have my book in front of me, I think you could probably buy it two or three times for the same amount of experience as it costs for the Knack. (12 or 16 versus 5 each for Quickness)

2) There's a significant difference in cost. One point of Inspiration is - at best - about the same as dropping 3 QP. Since gaining back Inspiration is significantly harder than regaining QP, I'd say the exchange rate is even worse than that.

3) Adventure! and Aberrant have very different dice pool sizes, not to mention the scale-tipper of Mega-Attribute dice. A Stalwart in A! splitting his actions can and will suffer much larger penalties, with a reduced chance of success, compared to a nova who can (and probably does) have access to Mega-Atts and Multitasking.

4) The Knack allows you to turn that extra action into using other Knacks, something that Quickness doesn't. But it does look like it was written with Quickness in mind.

[SkyLion]

nice try...

but I already said that its the scaled down Adventure level version

If you had to pick the closest Aberrant power or enhancement for that, Id say Qunickness...

[BlueNinja]

nice try...

but I already said that its the scaled down Adventure level version

If you had to pick the closest Aberrant power or enhancement for that, Id say Qunickness...

There are similarities, yes, but the differences are enough that you can't simply exchange one for the other, or even use one as an argument for the other. The cost, especially, makes me think that a non-splittable Quickness is more in line, especially since you can rack those up into multiple full-dice-pool actions for a very cheap cost.

[Alex Green]

This additional action can be used just like a regular action...

So basically it is what Quickness is not (it doesn't use Quickness's rules, it uses Temporal Manipulation's). And if converted into Quickness then it will be one of the few powers where it's given a haircut rather than a promotion. There's a number of reasons for this of course, cost, ability to take the power multiple times, etc.

It's not alone BTW, there are several other A! abilities that also get haircuts when translated into Abby.

1) Sexy would be one (Seductive Looks works on one person at a time and costs quantum).

2) There's a three point knack that translates into Intuition.

3) Brain Skimming translates (I assume) into Lie Detector, and then it's limited to 1 succ and can't go any deeper.

And if my book were here I'd probably find others.

[SkyLion]

My argument has to do with the Intent of the game deveolpers about what can and cannot be done witj extra actions...

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...but apparently some killjoys here just cant seem to see that. Personally I think you are all just afraid...you dont want me to have the character build of infinite action death and destruction!

[Alex Green]

My argument has to do with the Intent of the game deveolpers about what can and cannot be done witj extra actions...,,

...you dont want me to have the character build of infinite action death and destruction!

I find it hard to believe that the first doesn't preclude the 2nd. ::tongue

[SkyLion]

Of course it does, puny human! ::devil

[metaphysician]

Rise from your grave! *cough*

Let me just add that, from personal experience, even without twinks like letting Temp Manip or Quickness actions be split, using Multitasking to split your attack pool is still *hilariously powerful*. In particular, if your fighting a bad guy whose not based around dodging, or just plain doesn't dodge, a full ten-split of a 15 dice attack pool basically translates into ten hits. . . *and ten ping dice of damage*.

Which is to say, if you can do ping at *all* to an opponent, than if you can distract them enough so they don't dodge, you can do around 4-5 levels of damage, per turn. And thats not counting Quickness actions ( which I'd save for defense ) or Temporal Manip actions ( which could make this more like 15 dice of damage, or 7-8 levels damage ).

[Alex Green]

I suspect using the same hand to attack someone 4 times *should* be 4 actions (needing Quick and/or multiple rounds) and not one action split into 4.

[metaphysician]

I can see the argument, but unless you take a hard line that only one attack is possible even with multitasking, it opens up a lot of blurred line questions. Like "is a punch followed by a kick possible? If so, why not a punch, kick, and headbutt? And if thats fine, why not any sequence of different attacks on a single target?"

Given the downsides to such a flurry, doesn't strike me as unbalanced, though. ( you *need* initiative, and you either need to be able to do ping with your basic melee attack or you need to spend a hell of alot of qp )

[Alex Green]

I can see the argument, but unless you take a hard line that only one attack is possible even with multitasking, it opens up a lot of blurred line questions. Like "is a punch followed by a kick possible? If so, why not a punch, kick, and headbutt? And if thats fine, why not any sequence of different attacks on a single target?"

That's the slippery slope arguement. There's a world of difference between (a punch, a kick, and a headbutt) and (20 punches).

Given the downsides to such a flurry, doesn't strike me as unbalanced, though. ( you *need* initiative, and you either need to be able to do ping with your basic melee attack or you need to spend a hell of alot of qp )

There are savagely broken characters that can be created cheaply around this sort of thing. Granted, most people don't go from the nose of the camel in the tent to the entire body of the same, but the potential is there.

Extra actions is an extremely powerful thing in combat combined with anything that lets you do damage (Mega-Strength for example). The system mostly attempts to treat it with the care it deserves (Quick has costs).

For example, a Q1 nova could spend all his bonus points on Init, thus removing the issue of winning initiative. Then he gets M-Str 2 (which pings most anything), and M-Dex 2 (Flexibility), and maybe even Immolate+Agg, and M-Wits (M-tasking) and Extra Limbs (x4) and for 24 nova points he's doing 12 attacks a round. If we wanted to give him 15 points of experience we could shave 9 nova points off this moster and start him with 15, or 10 if we give up the Agg damage. I spent all of 2 minutes building this guy, I'm sure he can be made cheaper and worse.

Unless your soak is above 17 (and there's easy ways to give this guy a much bigger attack and he's got the nova points to throw around), it isn't just ping damage you need to worry about.

It's a serious problem when the other guy doesn't get any sort of dodge against your right fist because he was busy dodging your right fist.

[metaphysician]

Problem is, ruling the other way kind of defeats the purpose of the Multiple Limbs body mod. . .

Also note, aside from full dodge, the other weakness of this tactic is regen; its very easy to regen enough to take this type of attack for several rounds. . . which opens up the option of doing something to the attacker.

That said, I probably wouldn't allow this combo for any kind of a 'brick' character before Q6.

[Alex Green]

IMHO Multi-tasking is designed to reduce die pool penalities, not to provide more actions.

A lot of sanity comes back if you simply aren't allowed to attack with the same limb many times and call it "one action". (And to be fair, most people don't.) At a minimum this forces a lot more effort into creating that monster. Yes, it's still possible with multiple limbs, but even the above character would be "limited" to 6 attacks a round, and presumably he'd suffer somewhat for being a freak of nature. Someone wanting that sort of thing would have to be a lot more obvious about working for it.

Let's pull out Totentanz since he's supposed to be an extreme example. One of the things that is supposed to make him so dangerous is he has all these extra actions per round. He's spent 9 nova points and and spends 3 quantum a turn to have 4 actions a round. But if we allow many actions with multi-tasking (as opposed to one multiple action), then he could have just dropped 3 nova points, and for one quantum a turn he can have 10 attacks, with the 10th attack still rolling 5 mega-dice.

Now maybe that's because he's not built well (although someone put some effort into him), but more likely IMHO it's because the developers never meant for it to work that way.

[metaphysician]

Problem is, most dice pool penalties come from split actions ( in fact, I can't think of any off the top of my head that don't ), so being able to reduce penalties doesn't really mean much if you can't take multiple actions.

That and. . . eh, call it taste, but using the 'number of limbs' limit is too arbitrary for me. Especially given that the number of limbs you have is completely a matter of choice.

If I'm going to be that arbitrary, I'd rather be arbitrary in the "No, I'm not going to approve this tactic for this character" sense.

[Alex Green]

Problem is, most dice pool penalties come from split actions ( in fact, I can't think of any off the top of my head that don't ), so being able to reduce penalties doesn't really mean much if you can't take multiple actions.

I think all the book examples are of people doing things at the same time (it's late so I won't check). Dodge+Attack, Shoot with both hands and dodge, that sort of thing. This is driven home by the fact you only get one movement on your multi-action, as opposed to Quick.

The glaring exception is the "total defensive" move (which has its own rules).

If I'm going to be that arbitrary, I'd rather be arbitrary in the "No, I'm not going to approve this tactic for this character" sense.

That works too.

IMHO a good ST really needs to learn how to say 'no'.

[metaphysician]

I tend to be more flexible in interping split-action, because if nothing else, its legacy from earlier WW games. Often, you *need* to split your action to save dice for dodging. . . but the dodge may not come until well later in the initiative cycle.

( for that matter, its necessary *in Aberrant* a lot of the time, too. . . )

[Alex Green]

. . . but the dodge may not come until well later in the initiative cycle

I thought about including that as a glaring exception, but we could consider the dodge to have occured when the dice were saved. At that point he knows what he's going to do, the dice are saved, the action reserved, basically he's already done it. If he doesn't get attacked then he still effectively dodged considering he had to pay the die penality on his other actions.

[metaphysician]

Except, how can you dodge an attack that hasn't happened yet, or hasn't even been declared yet?

[SkyLion]

My only gripe with the above argument is that while it may be about enforcing game balance, these games are supposed to simulate how these powers might work in real life and real life is neither fair nor balanced in the roleplaying sense. In real life, in combat, speed kills. From an IC perspective you have a character capable of moving at mach speeds (hypermove), and putting together an automobile engine in a minute or less (fast tasks). They *should* be able to pop off like 10, 20 or maybe at the extreme end hundreds of strikes in a second. Somewhere i read about how they have to slow the cameras down for XWF fighters. Heck they had to slow the camera down for Bruce Lee. Of course if we are trying to inject any kind of logic we would also have to say that a mach speed punch should do waaay more damage than the hyperspeed rules allow...

[Gideon]

Of course they have a Mega-Dex enhancement called "Rapid Strike" that simulates a set of multiple strikes in quick succession. Thus arguing towards Alex's analysis.

[SkyLion]

big whoop...even at M dex friggin 5 it only adds + 5 dice to roll...5 strikes in quick succession should do 5x normal damage. Like I said, speed is deadly in combat...adding superstrength to superspeed should IMHO be represented as the threat that it is. But yeah that does get broken for gaming purposes where we can at least attempt to play on a level field...

[Alex Green]

big whoop...even at M dex friggin 5 it only adds + 5 dice to roll...

Exactly.

Like I said, speed is deadly in combat...adding superstrength to superspeed should IMHO be represented as the threat that it is.

It is. If you want to build Superman, give him 4x Quick. If you want the Silver Surfer, buy Temporal Manipulation 4 for him.

The problem isn't that it can't be done, the system is more than able to represent large numbers of attacks.

The problem is people want that power without paying for it.