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Though I suppose when someone does show up at the table insisting their archer can make 47 attacks their first turn and then 6 attacks each following, purely theoretical turn, you'll at least have a clear picture of what kind of person you're dealing with right off the bat.
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Apr 16, 2015 22:20
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Transient People posted:Apparently the number of prereqs is a big deal to you. Why you chose to bring this up, I'll never know. Was it me? Where did I do that? I did mention the Charm's essence requirement, prereqs, etc, to hypothesize as to why it worked the way it did, but there's only one reason that Foe-Vaulting Method and Sight Without Eyes don't grant extra attacks, and it's the same reason that Harmonious Presence Meditation doesn't grant extra attacks: they don't say that they do in their rules text. I certainly "respect" that you are doubling down w/r/t the "may make an attack" phrasing but I think it's pretty clear at this point that you've got nothing.
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Apr 16, 2015 22:23
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Crion posted:Though I suppose when someone does show up at the table insisting their archer can make 47 attacks their first turn and then 6 attacks each following, purely theoretical turn, you'll at least have a clear picture of what kind of person you're dealing with right off the bat. Considering we have a game where you can show up with a pretty easy and simple build that can deal an average of about 15 levels of hardness ignoring decisive damage regardless of initative turn in, turn out...honestly, this is why I wish the developers weren't keeping the charade of not listening to feedback going. At least we know they're gonna hit some of this for the backer PDF.
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Apr 16, 2015 22:24
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Transient People posted:Considering we have a game where you can show up with a pretty easy and simple build that can deal an average of about 15 levels of hardness ignoring decisive damage regardless of initative turn in, turn out...honestly, this is why I wish the developers weren't keeping the charade of not listening to feedback going. At least we know they're gonna hit some of this for the backer PDF. The thing is, I highly suspect that build is horseshit, too.
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Apr 16, 2015 22:25
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Transient People posted:Considering we have a game where you can show up with a pretty easy and simple build that can deal an average of about 15 levels of hardness ignoring decisive damage regardless of initative turn in, turn out...honestly, this is why I wish the developers weren't keeping the charade of not listening to feedback going. At least we know they're gonna hit some of this for the backer PDF. Have you no shame at all? At all? Someone dealing 15 damage (incidentally, I assume that this is also based on your deliberate misunderstanding of multiple interlocking rules, but we can deal with that later) means we have to even pretend to take someone making 47 attacks seriously? Who did this to you? Why are you even bringing up 4e? What does a different game you aggressively misinterpreted have to do with this one? Do they both deserve it for some reason?
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Apr 16, 2015 22:27
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Crion posted:The thing is, I highly suspect that build is horseshit, too. Fivefold Fury Onslaught + Ferocious Jab? That's it, really. If there's some rule interaction I missed that doesn't make it work the way I think it does, go ahead and point it out.
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Apr 16, 2015 22:27
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Transient People posted:While I agree that using underhanded interpretations is something not worth doing, tabletops are just as much competitive games as they are collaborative, though. Or at least, they can be. My experience is that when the players are willing to take actions at cross-purposes with each other, and the GM is willing to challenge them at every level (not just with interesting encounters, but also with moral dilemmas, by attacking the basic tenets of the PCs' mindsets, by presenting problems with no premade solution and being perfectly willing to let a failure happen if a reasonable solution isn't found), the game benefits from it. Competition pushes people to apply themselves harder. Some people don't like competing at all and this doesn't work for them, but it does for me. And it doesn't mean you have to be dicks to each other, either - if somebody in the group likes optimizing, he should share his knowledge with the others, or show them the game's inner workings. A homebrewer should shoulder the responsibility not just for his own Cool New Stuf but that of other players who lack his knack for mechanics. And so on and so forth with everything else. Do you think this is a mistaken viewpoint to take, particularly in a game where the characters have no obligation to share goals with each other? I think that reinterpreting charms looking for ambiguous wording to bring to the table as New Tech is like the opposite of homebrewing Cool New Stuff. Like, there's a process that works well for this! It's 'hey GM, does this charm let me shoot 47 times?' 'no' 'okay' Charms with secret interpretations aren't Cool New Stuff, they're just ambiguous stuff that you should get the GM to make a ruling on before you buy it. And conflict between PCs is awesome! But trying to win the competition at the table by being Better At The Rules is just boring as gently caress - the rules are a shared abstraction, and winning an IC duel by busting out an ambiguously-worded charm is like the least interesting possible way of resolving that kind of situation.
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Apr 16, 2015 22:33
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I looked at that Charm and it seemed pretty clear what it said to do. Can someone explain the jesuitical interpretation in which it lets you do forty-seven attacks instead? (And why 47 specifically?)
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Apr 16, 2015 22:35
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Finding new rule interactions is pretty much equivalent to making cool stuff to me, if it has any mechanical underpinnings. After all, the source of them (understanding of the system) is one and the same! (Nobody's saying you should save a trick you have in mind until you're already in play though. That's silly. You always run stuff by the rest of the table first!)
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Apr 16, 2015 22:36
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Nessus posted:I looked at that Charm and it seemed pretty clear what it said to do. Can someone explain the jesuitical interpretation in which it lets you do forty-seven attacks instead? (And why 47 specifically?) The argument is over the phrasing "The user may make an attack which" which can be interpreted as either "This applies to the next attack the user was able to make" or "The user gains an attack to use which has the rider from the charm."
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Apr 16, 2015 22:37
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Nessus posted:I looked at that Charm and it seemed pretty clear what it said to do. Can someone explain the jesuitical interpretation in which it lets you do forty-seven attacks instead? (And why 47 specifically?) Can you explain why Foe-Vaulting Method lets you do two attacks? You can't, of course, but if you could you could explain why Sight Without Eyes lets you do forty-seven the same way. Transient People posted:Finding new rule interactions is pretty much equivalent to making cool stuff to me, if it has any mechanical underpinnings. After all, the source of them (understanding of the system) is one and the same! But you haven't found any new rule interactions. Even if you were right, you're not describing anything interacting with anything! It's just "this charm has an effect"!
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Apr 16, 2015 22:39
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theironjef posted:The argument is over the phrasing "The user may make an attack which" which can be interpreted as either "This applies to the next attack the user was able to make" or "The user gains an attack to use which has the rider from the charm." Sidenote and addition to the above: The reason I didn't even bother to dignify Ferrinus' inanity with a response and let him babble on and on about his Hitman: Codename 47 attacks is because Sight Without Eyes has a duration of one tick. Attacks don't have durations, they're Instant. In spite of being dismissive and quick to say I don't get the rules, he doesn't really know how to read. PS: This does incidentally mean that Sight Without Eyes is kind of poorly worded because the rulestext implies it only works for one attack but the duration suggests it works for all the attacks you make on a given tick though. I'm not sure how I'd rule on that if I was STing. Err in the favor of the player by letting all his attack for the tick avoid penalties I guess?
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Apr 16, 2015 22:43
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Ferrinus posted:Can you explain why Foe-Vaulting Method lets you do two attacks? You can't, of course, but if you could you could explain why Sight Without Eyes lets you do forty-seven the same way. theironjef posted:The argument is over the phrasing "The user may make an attack which" which can be interpreted as either "This applies to the next attack the user was able to make" or "The user gains an attack to use which has the rider from the charm."
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Apr 16, 2015 22:43
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Transient People posted:Sidenote and addition to the above: The reason I didn't even bother to dignify Ferrinus' inanity with a response and let him babble on and on about his Hitman: Codename 47 attacks is because Sight Without Eyes has a duration of one tick. Attacks don't have durations, they're Instant. In spite of being dismissive and quick to say I don't get the rules, he doesn't really know how to read. The wording includes the word "an" which is singular. The tick restriction is there to keep you from doing it and then banking the effect for use on a future attack. Nessus posted:While this should have been phrased more specifically, given the rules lawyer tendencies of this hobby, it does seem clear contextually that the intention was the first, not the second. Yeah well. That's why open playtests are such a great idea. Exposinging a game to the forge fires of syntax twisting ultimately makes for a stronger game. Designers should know better by now, there's a reason that only the alpha text for Time Walk said "Opponent loses next turn." theironjef fucked around with this message at 22:49 on Apr 16, 2015 |
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Apr 16, 2015 22:44
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Here is the full text of Foe-Vaulting Method. You be the judge if this grants an extra attack, as opposed to allowing the player to make a surprise attack (which expends their combat action) instead of making a normal attack (which expends their combat action).quote:Foe-Vaulting Method
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Apr 16, 2015 22:48
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theironjef posted:The wording includes the word "an" which is singular. The tick restriction is there to keep you from doing it and then banking the effect for use on a future attack. Pretty reasonable call there. Makes sense to me. This would be solvable by setting it to Instant and making it Supplemental instead, which would remove all ambiguity, but... PS: Hmm. Is there really no :rpgrules: smiley yet? Pity, some kind of nerdy  -alike would be appropriate here.
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Apr 16, 2015 22:48
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Try 
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Apr 16, 2015 22:49
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"But see, Sight Without Eyes lets you make 47 attacks in a round, therefore..." ...Yeah, that works OK. EDIT: I also just now realized Foe-Vaulting Method works at any range. I'm not sure whether the ability to vault over a dude who's one kilometer away from you to blindside him is a bug or feature.
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Apr 16, 2015 22:52
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Transient People posted:Sidenote and addition to the above: The reason I didn't even bother to dignify Ferrinus' inanity with a response and let him babble on and on about his Hitman: Codename 47 attacks is because Sight Without Eyes has a duration of one tick. Attacks don't have durations, they're Instant. In spite of being dismissive and quick to say I don't get the rules, he doesn't really know how to read. The reason you didn't respond with this earlier is because you hadn't thought of it earlier, and indeed literally did believe that Sight Without Eyes allowed you to make as many extra attacks as you had motes. That's why you responded in the affirmative to Roadie. That said, Charms aren't attacks. Just because a Charm has a duration doesn't mean it can't grant you extra attacks. Even if we assumed that the words "may make an attack" actually meant "may make an attack without using her combat action for the turn", we could only conclude for the tick duration that a Solar has to make the charm's bonus attack on the tick that they activated the Charm, rather than banking them somehow. This is mechanically distinct form an identical charm reading "Instant" or "One turn", because for instance if the charm's duration was "One turn" you could activate it before you picked up your bow, then jump into an essence-nullifying antimagic field that drains your mana pool to 0 to pick up your bow, then make your free attack. And yet, this is all vanity, because charms which grant you bonus attacks explicitly say so. This one doesn't, and neither does Sight Without Eyes, so your reading of both charms is straightforwardly and obviously wrong.
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Apr 16, 2015 22:53
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Transient People posted:Fivefold Fury Onslaught + Ferocious Jab? That's it, really. If there's some rule interaction I missed that doesn't make it work the way I think it does, go ahead and point it out. Turn in turn out, so I assume you're using this combo at init 1-6. So using the charm is 11m 1wp, plus any excellencies you use to enhance your attack. Strength or Stamina 5 gives you 6 attacks, so base damage of 1+2+3+4+5+6=21, and you're probably getting 1-2 10s per roll. Call it 1.5, so add another 7.5 damage on top. 28.5 damage dice per round at 0 initiative if you've maxed out strength or stamina and every attack hits. Unfortunately, in order to make the attacks hit you're spending all of your motes, and you better hope they don't have any onslaught negators or else your combo suddenly does 13.5 (still respectable, but probably not worth your entire mote pool). So the combo does mostly what you say, except you can't really use it over and over and expect any sort of decent results. So basically a supernal brawl combat character (5 charm investment for that combo, plus you're going to need Dex and Str/Sta of 5) can, once or twice per combat, inflict a lot of damage against enemies without some of the most basic defensive charms (penalty negators to defense values). Certainly powerful, especially against spirits and other specialized or nonmagical enemies, but hardly going to break the game.
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Apr 16, 2015 22:55
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Those attacks start with 1 die of initiative damage apiece, so it's 27 total dice of decisive damage, assuming they all hit but before you deal with any of the weird quasi-cascading 10s.
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Apr 16, 2015 23:01
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I think you forgot the base damage of the flurry, which makes it hit 30 (and in turn 15 actual levels of damage), but yeah. I wasn't really using this to point out the game is broken beyond repair or anything because a simple penalty negator instantly neuters that combo. I was just taking it as an example of a braindead simple and likely intended charm combo that makes you wonder just how much 'theorycrafting horseshit' is needed to hit a level of explosive power. When something like that is in the game (and one of the charms you have to take to get there is an Onslaught Penalty extender, meaning anybody who survives it without negators is gonna stay at Defense 0 from that point onwards), assuming a charm with like three different qualifiers is meant to have a certain, easily negated effect just because 'it's balanced' is just a little silly. We don't know what the developers' intent is, and we can really only go by the text and it's very ambiguous. Once we can actually ring them up and ask them, stuff like that should become clearer.
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Apr 16, 2015 23:02
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Transient People posted:I think you forgot the base damage of the flurry, which makes it hit 30 (and in turn 15 actual levels of damage), but yeah. I wasn't really using this to point out the game is broken beyond repair or anything because a simple penalty negator instantly neuters that combo. Yes, you were. You brought it to defend an interpretation of a different charm that would allow a character to make as many attacks as they had motes of essence.
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Apr 16, 2015 23:05
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Ferrinus posted:Yes, you were. You brought it to defend an interpretation of a different charm that would allow a character to make as many attacks as they had motes of essence. No, I responded to Roadie before I saw your post and afterward facepalmed and went "you cannot possibly be this much of an idiot..." and decided it was better to leave you be with your lack of reading comprehension. I spoke up when Nessus asked about the source of the argument because I'd rather not see anybody else get confused by your silliness.
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Apr 16, 2015 23:13
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Transient People posted:"But see, Sight Without Eyes lets you make 47 attacks in a round, therefore..." quote:Foe-Vaulting Method
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Apr 16, 2015 23:13
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Crion posted:What? Ah, there it is. I knew it was odd that it seemed to let you do its thing at any range. I missed it because rangebands are mostly capitalized elsewhere (since they're a pretty important game term and all), so my eyes slid over that. Thanks for pointing it out! EDIT: Now I'm kind of wondering if you couldn't use that as the seed of an idea for developing an extension to the Orichalcum Hunting Hawk's evocations though. It's got such a huge mobility and pirouetting focus that it would actually be pretty appropriate. I may have some stuff to homebrew...
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Apr 16, 2015 23:15
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Transient People posted:No, I responded to Roadie before I saw your post and afterward facepalmed and went "you cannot possibly be this much of an idiot..." and decided it was better to leave you be with your lack of reading comprehension. I spoke up when Nessus asked about the source of the argument because I'd rather not see anybody else get confused by your silliness. You were responding to Roadie's post in which he directly quoted me talking about making 47 attacks with an Archery charm, in the affirmative. What's your explanation for why you can't make 47 attacks with Sight Without Eyes? Is it Duration: One Tick? Is that it?
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Apr 16, 2015 23:19
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Ferrinus posted:You were responding to Roadie's post in which he directly quoted me talking about making 47 attacks with an Archery charm, in the affirmative. Yes, that is it. (And now I want to go read the 'how do charms work' section to see if you can overlap charm durations, should you want to do so. Wish I wasn't away from books...that's actually something worth checking, seeing if you can do that without making a charm Stackable.)
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Apr 16, 2015 23:24
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Nessus posted:I looked at that Charm and it seemed pretty clear what it said to do. Can someone explain the jesuitical interpretation in which it lets you do forty-seven attacks instead? (And why 47 specifically?) You're allowed to use as many Charms per turn as you want, as long as they're Instant. Theoretically, you could use the same Charm repeatedly. If we interpret the phrase "may make an Archery attack" to mean that you may make an extra attack without using your combat action, then we can use that Charm 47 times to make 47 attacks in a single turn. Since that's idiotic, we shouldn't consider it a natural reading of the rules. The proper way of reading these charms is that they allow you to make a certain type of attack that follows all the normal rules of combat except for what the Charm specifies. For instance, Sight Without Eyes allows you to make "an Archery attack without penalties for visual conditions". The rules of combat still explicitly say you can make only one attack per turn, and the special attack granted by the Charm is still an attack, and it's not given the ability to override any other rule.. It's just that normally, Archery attacks are sometimes subject to penalties for visual conditions. This charm grants you access to a special Archery attack "without penalties for visual conditions." It's exception based rule design, like in D&D 4e. Now, maybe, saying "The Exalt's next Archery attack after using this Charm may not be subject to penalties for visual conditions." is more clear. Why doesn't it say that? The original phrasing is a Reflexive charm, while my phrasing suggests that it's Supplemental, as it's enhancing an action. Supplemental charms can be stacked while reflexive ones can't, for the simple reason that the special Sight Without Eyes attack is different than, for instance, the Foe-Vaulting Method attack. I suppose if you used both Charms in a turn, you'd have to choose between the penalty-free Archery attack or the surprise attack. Both of those attacks have special properties, but NOT the special property of violating the one-attack-per-round rule. As written, the Charms simply state in natural language what the keywords say in rules language.
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Apr 16, 2015 23:27
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quote:Reflexive—A reflexive Charm creates a reflexive action or enhances a non-dice action, such as You can argue that you can't activate Sight Without Eyes multiple times on one turn...but only if you argue that it is enhancing another action (your attack for the turn), rather than granting an action (an extra attack) in the first place. Granting additional actions, after all, is not stacking -- each individual use of the Charm creates its own action. It is clear, of course, that Sight Without Eyes is MEANT to be an enhancing reflexive action, and that "may make an attack" is not language that in and of itself grants extra actions. Crion fucked around with this message at 23:41 on Apr 16, 2015 |
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Apr 16, 2015 23:27
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Transient People posted:Yes, that is it. Okay, can you cite anything in the rules which makes it clear that non-Instant durations are incompatible with extra attacks? Because I can find no such rules, and in principle see no reason why a Charm like "Until the beginning of your next turn, you can make an attack as soon as Condition X comes to pass" couldn't exist. What about existing Charms with non-Instant durations that grant you free attacks, such as Ready In Eight Directions Stance? Do you mean to tell me that if Sight Without Eyes' duration was Instant you would believe it could be used to launch as many attacks as you have motes of Essence? If you couldn't overlap Charm durations, couldn't you still activate it on tick 47, then on tick 46, then on tick 45... (for those following alone at home, I chose "47" because an Essence 1 Solar has 46 motes to their name) Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 23:36 on Apr 16, 2015 |
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Apr 16, 2015 23:34
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Crion posted:You can argue that you can't stack Sight Without Eyes...but only if you argue that it is enhancing another action (your attack for the turn), rather than granting an action (an extra attack) in the first place. Hmm. So that confirms you couldn't, say, take a Reflexive charm that gave you three floating dice to assign as you saw fit and refresh it before they were all spent. I think, anyway. And probably the same applies to doing it after the charm has expired. That's good to know. It's a funny little edge case I'd never thought about but that might come up in charm design someday. Ferrinus posted:Okay, can you cite anything in the rules which makes it clear that non-Instant durations are incompatible with extra attacks? Because I can find no such rules, and in principle see no reason why a Charm like "Until the beginning of your next turn, you can make an attack as soon as Condition X comes to pass" couldn't exist. What about existing Charms with non-Instant durations that grant you free attacks, such as Ready In Eight Directions Stance? Do you mean to tell me that if Sight Without Eyes' duration was Instant you would believe it could be used to launch as many attacks as you have motes of Essence? If you couldn't overlap Charm durations, couldn't you still activate it on tick 47, then on tick 46, then on tick 45... (for those following alone at home, I chose "47" because an Essence 1 Solar has 46 motes to their name) As Crion thankfully clarified, Ready In Eight Directions can't stack with itself, so when it triggers, the solar counterattacks just keep firing but you couldn't get more than one per hit (though maybe you can chain RIED and Solar Counterattack on the same attack? I'd have to check the wording at home, hopefully there's a clause preventing it). RIED basically generates a 'buff' effect that allows you to make an unlimited number of extra attacks, which lasts until the start of your next turn or whatever the duration is. Sight Without Eyes does likewise, but it only mentions a single attack without a trigger for resolution, unlike RIED. This is a problem because attack order matters - if an attack truly lasts the whole duration of the tick, then it resolves simultaneously with all others, which causes issues with adjudicating the Onslaught Penalty (does it apply the highest one to all of them? None? Resolve in declaration order in spite of special durations?). This would require quite a bit of interpretation, far beyond the norm, so another way to resolve the charm (the path of least resistance) is needed. Which is treating it as a buff on an attack of your choice instead.
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Apr 16, 2015 23:45
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Transient People posted:As Crion thankfully clarified, Ready In Eight Directions can't stack with itself, so when it triggers, the solar counterattacks just keep firing but you couldn't get more than one per hit (though maybe you can chain RIED and Solar Counterattack on the same attack? I'd have to check the wording at home, hopefully there's a clause preventing it). RIED basically generates a 'buff' effect that allows you to make an unlimited number of extra attacks, which lasts until the start of your next turn or whatever the duration is. Sight Without Eyes does likewise, but it only mentions a single attack without a trigger for resolution, unlike RIED. This is a problem because attack order matters - if an attack truly lasts the whole duration of the tick, then it resolves simultaneously with all others, which causes issues with adjudicating the Onslaught Penalty (does it apply the highest one to all of them? None? Resolve in declaration order in spite of special durations?). This would require quite a bit of interpretation, far beyond the norm, so another way to resolve the charm (the path of least resistance) is needed. Which is treating it as a buff on an attack of your choice instead. Okay, so you can't cite anything in the rules which makes non-Instant durations incompatible with bonus attacks. Is there anything else in SWE's text which prevents it from granting bonus attacks? I'm willing to be flexible, here - maybe it just grants one bonus attack. Maybe it just grants one bonus attack per tick of combat, whatever. We can get down to the nitty gritty of 47 bonus attacks versus 9 or 2 or 1 after sussing out this basic point. Can, or cannot, Sight Without Eyes let you make an attack - even one - that does not cost a combat action? Please base your answer on the text of the Charm rather than your own desire to interpret or not interpret things.
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Apr 16, 2015 23:54
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Ferrinus posted:Okay, so you can't cite anything in the rules which makes non-Instant durations incompatible with bonus attacks. Considering I'm AFB, that might be a bit of a problem.  Can you wait a few hours? I want to go over the charm text alongside all the charm rules first. Make sure I know exactly how they work, whether attacks are Instant, and if there is an order of resolution to ticklong effects.
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Apr 16, 2015 23:56
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I don't mind waiting, but I can tell you that you're going to be disappointed. There aren't formal time increments smaller than "tick" and the word "Instant" is only used to describe Charms, not normal actions. Implicitly, there are arbitrarily many Instants in a single Tick because it's frequently true that a character has to entirely resolve one action on their turn before taking another (first roll Athletics to see if you make a jump, then roll Melee to see if you can hit someone, then see how much damage your attack did to check if you can activate One Weapon Two Blows in order to hit them again, etc - hell, we were just talking about Fivefold Fury Onslaught, and that Charm expects you to roll out the damage of each attack before making the next in order to keep track of sorta-exploding 10s), but even if one were to sit down and formalize the Instant as a really-existing unit of OOC time one would not be able to use that Instant, on its own, to determine whether a given Charm-enabled attack cost you your action or not. The primary utility of having a codified Instant would, I think, be ease of tracking anima banner growth. The only actual guide we have to whether an attack costs you your combat action is... the explicit text of the power granting that attack. Whenever an attack is really and truly free, even in cases in which it seems boneheadedly obvious that it should be, such as in the Charm "Solar Counterattack", the text goes out of its way to tell you that the attack doesn't count as your attack for the turn and/or can be made even if you've already attacked. (This latter one is slightly 'worse' than the former one and strikes me as an editorial oversight, but that's another discussion)
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Apr 17, 2015 00:05
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I think if we were hoping the devs were going to accept revisions at this stage increasingly outlandish interpretations of what 'may make an attack' might mean is pretty low on the list. Richard Garfield liked to relate a story about how, early in Magic's development, he had an odd conversation with on of his playtesters. The playtester said, "I love my deck, it has the best card in the game. I always win when I play it." Garfield inquired about the text on the card, and the playtester showed it to him. It said, "Opponent loses next turn." There is a plain English interpretation that allows you to believe that is what the card text says but I find once I start quibbling over the meaning of English words at the gaming table to enforce rulings that don't make the game bugfuck bananas it's probably time to stop playing with that group. Yes, in this case the Charm text could use a revision in much the same way the Magic card in the example could use a revision. I will leave it up to the community as an exercise, as to whether or not this is a worthwhile use of anyone's time.
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Apr 17, 2015 00:16
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That's probably true, yeah. Once I'm done reading the rules I'll go ahead and admit I was mistaken if I can find nothing clarifying things either way, and to be honest, I *would* prefer it if the ground rule wasn't that Foe-Vaulting Method didn't grant an extra attack, mostly because if it actually is supposed to do that it should use clear wording. I just want to brush up on my rules because it'll be helpful when debating charm text. PS: All this reminds me though - if Wise Arrow is supposed to boost your main combat action, does that mean it would just ignore a reflexive attack you made before it? Or would it consume the 'buff' then and there? It looks like you can't use it for more than one shot per tick regardless, but this whole thing has gotten me wondering.
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Apr 17, 2015 00:18
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Transient People posted:That's probably true, yeah. Once I'm done reading the rules I'll go ahead and admit I was mistaken if I can find nothing clarifying things either way, and to be honest, I *would* prefer it if the ground rule wasn't that Foe-Vaulting Method didn't grant an extra attack, mostly because if it actually is supposed to do that it should use clear wording. I just want to brush up on my rules because it'll be helpful when debating charm text. Charm text aside, I think the same way - I think that Foe-Vaulting Method is already worth buying/using on a surprise-focused character if you assume it does nothing but establish surprise reflexively, and if it granted you a free attack on top of that it would probably go from useful to mandatory and have the ultimate effect of A) PCs and NPCs have less freedom in terms of Charm purchases, and B) combat as a whole becomes more explosively swingy and liable to end abruptly, neither of which seems good to me. So, before any actual rules text gets involved, I'm inclined to treat the claim that a low-level Athletics charm gives you a 1/scene bonus attack with extreme suspicion. Past that, the fact remains that the wording used by FVM methods that used by other "your next attack gets some setup-based benefit" Charms, not that used by other "you get a free attack" Charms. 3E's templating is not that good, and I suspect it will never be much better than it is now, but it does make a good attempt to call out when it is that you actually get free turns or don't, and since free turns are such a big deal I'm not willing to assume you ever get one unless you're either told as much explicitly, or the effect of the Charm in question would be so completely useless or stupid relative to its cost otherwise that a free turn is the only way the Charm could possibly have been meant to work. "Blood Without Balance" is a Charm I might be persuaded actually does give you a free turn, for instance, just because of how fiddly and conditional it otherwise is... and even then, it doesn't need one to be functional, so at the end of the day I still wouldn't allow it to produce one. quote:PS: All this reminds me though - if Wise Arrow is supposed to boost your main combat action, does that mean it would just ignore a reflexive attack you made before it? Or would it consume the 'buff' then and there? It looks like you can't use it for more than one shot per tick regardless, but this whole thing has gotten me wondering. Wise Arrow is supplemental, but if you're talking about Sight Without Eyes, I'd assume you'd have to activate it separately for each attack you wanted to make blind. So, if you wanted to use an extra action Charm in a pitch black room, you'd have to pay down SWE's 1m repeatedly. This seems a bit odd to me, and if I was writing the Charm myself I'd have probably just made SWE give you a buff that lasted all tick or, at most, allow you to pay 2m or 3m to make the buff last all tick or all turn, but here we are.
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Apr 17, 2015 00:28
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Is there any value in taking Dodge if you've also taken Brawl/MA/Melee?
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Apr 17, 2015 00:38
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Less so, but it's still justifiable. You roll Dodge to Disengage, there's attacks and effects that can't be Parried, you use Dodge more frequently than Brawl/MA/Melee to resist environmental hazards (though Resistance is probably most common there), you'll have an equal or maybe higher Evasion than Parry if you're using a Heavy weapon rather than a Light or Medium one... Also, Dodge Charms do stuff that defense-oriented Melee/Brawl/MA Charms don't, and there's more of them.
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Apr 17, 2015 00:44
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