Enhancement Variable - swap between 2 uses

[dugfromthearth]

not sure how to put this. Variable lets you move points between enhancements and other effects of a power. Because to hit is not an enhancement, it only lets you swap to hit with Special Attack.

I'm thinking of an enhancement that lets you swap between 2 effects - specifically damage and to hit in this case.

So "martial arts" could be bought as this enhancement so you could vary your "punch" to swap to hit and damage.

I.E. you have Brawn 3 and Agility 3. A punch is x3 to hit, x3 damage. For 1 pt you can vary that as you like, so a haymaker is x1 to hit, x5 dmg, a jab is x5 to hit x1 damage, or whatever.

Or you could buy this enhancement to your "punch" for to hit and defense. With agility 3 you could have defensive attack that was x2 to hit but x4 defense, or an aggressive attack that was x4 to hit and x2 defense.

[BeardedDork]

Variable: Instead of buying this power with a specified range,
area, hit, damage, etc, you have a pool of points to utilize this
power, and determine these variables each time you use it.

That's exactly what variable does, as written.

[drkrash]

I think dug is suggesting adding Variable to a stat like Brawn and/or creating a way that doesn't require a Special Attack first (which adds a variable figure to an invariable base).

There is a character who does this in Megapolis by using Shapeshift. I thought that was very cool and I plan to steal it for a similar character.

[BASHMAN]

Well I have a solution for that. In the next printing Special Attack, Push, and various other attack powers are allowed to be bought at "Level 0". This is so you can say just use your stats as the base, and any points are added as Range, Area, etc. You obviously would have to put at least 1 point into the power for somethinng else, though.

So you could take a power called "Combat Styles" and have it be "Special Attack 0 [Variable]" 1pt. You could then swap between your Hit and Damage multiplier. So if you have Brawn 3 Agility 2, and you are doing a punch, you could do a "Jab x3 Hit, x2 Dmg" or "Haymaker: x1 Hit, x4 Dmg" etc.

Since you have no levels in the power, you cannot swap around any range or area (you'd need at least 1 level for that).

[drkrash]

This is interesting. In principle, I like it very much. I'm concerned that, as Variable is so useful already, there is going to be a LOT of characters that have this ability for one point.

For example, for 1 point, any brick can undermine the very benefit the weak, bouncy character has in defense. (Granted, the core rules for Wrestling already allow this, but that has a few other permutations to it).

Likewise, an agile character can get a weaker but more generally useful form of Attack Weak Point for 1 point and no expenditure of Hero Points by dumping his massive attack into damage against slow guys.

And if this ability extends to switching between Agility and Mind for ranged characters, then I really can't see why any reasonable character would not take this, and even the standard "it's not in concept" wouldn't apply to any reasonably trained or experienced superbeing.

Am I missing something?

[dugfromthearth]

what you are missing is that you can do this now with special attack - just not stats

Brawn 1, Agility 1 - Special Attack 5 with variable
vs Brawn 4, Agility 3

With special attack you can switch the points between to hit and damage, with the stats you cannot

This is the only case I know of where stats are less flexible than a power - when usually the powers are basically a limited form of a stat.

[drkrash]

No, this is only half the answer. Just because you can duplicate the same situation with certain sets of stats doesn't make them equivalent.

If I have a 3/3 brawler, and I give him Special Attack 1 variable or HTH Technique 1 variable, he will still always be a minimum of x3 attack and damage.

But with this option, Brawn and Agility now have almost nothing to do with a character's combat ability. For some, that's a good thing, but I'm not sure it flexes the system in a good way.

Even if we take Mind and Agility out of it and focus on Brawn and Agility, for one point, no one needs to live with their stat-based liabilities in combat. Have a lumbering Brawn 5, Agility 1 hulk? He's really only inaccurate against guys who are hard to hurt, in which case, a 1 Agility is probably enough to do the job anyway. Have a bouncy Brawn 1, Agility 4 acrobat? He’s suddenly lethal against anyone not as fast as him. Minions become even easier to fight. Regardless of your stats, tune your Agility to minimum needed to hit and then put the rest in damage so you’re promised a knockout. In particular, those low Brawn fighter types don’t need to worry about taking minions out in a single hit. Combined with the domino rule, and minions are practically worthless.

I don’t think the game is terminally broken with the addition of this rule, but I do think it changes the dynamics of combat much more significantly than it seems at first.

[Benji]

I don’t think the game is terminally broken with the addition of this rule, but I do think it changes the dynamics of combat much more significantly than it seems at first.

I also have some reservations about this.

I guess you could force a limitation of some sort into the mix. Say Immobile, if the acrobat wants trade off their agility for brawn, or Concentration for the tank because they are really fighting out of their comfort zone.

Or perhaps variable attacks could have other, specific limitations. I suppose this is one of those gray areas where the discretion of the GM is needed.

So "martial arts" could be bought as this enhancement so you could vary your "punch" to swap to hit and damage.

Perhaps limiting this ability to one point could be an option. This would make it tempting for a brawler, but not a game breaker for other characters.

Well I have a solution for that. In the next printing Special Attack, Push, and various other attack powers are allowed to be bought at "Level 0". This is so you can say just use your stats as the base, and any points are added as Range, Area, etc. You obviously would have to put at least 1 point into the power for somethinng else, though.

I wonder if Special Attack is a candidate for some fleshing out or a bit more hands-on examples, perhaps in a BAM special?

[dugfromthearth]

No, this is only half the answer. Just because you can duplicate the same situation with certain sets of stats doesn't make them equivalent.

If I have a 3/3 brawler, and I give him Special Attack 1 variable or HTH Technique 1 variable, he will still always be a minimum of x3 attack and damage.

But with this option, Brawn and Agility now have almost nothing to do with a character's combat ability. For some, that's a good thing, but I'm not sure it flexes the system in a good way.

brawn is dmg and soak
agility is to hit and defense

so the brawn guy who uses this to switch dmg for to hit still has his high soak and low defense

instead of a brawn 3, agility 3 character I could buy them as brawn 1, agility 1, then get boost 4 variable, twice, and use it for:
+4 brawn for damage, +4 brawn for soak,
or +2 brawn for damage, +2 agility to hit, +2 brawn dmg, +2 agility defense
etc

so this can be done now, it's just by using a power instead of a straight stat.

[drkrash]

Yeah, but your version means the guy is not super strong outside of combat and can only move 3 squares per action. Those are important tradeoffs.

If you wanted to divorce stats and combat altogether, you could just make stats cost 1 point each, have no effect on combat, and then make people pay 1 point each for "combat ability" and split that between attack and damage and defense and soak.

But I would hate that.

Heavily moderated by the GM, I think BASHMAN's idea is helpful to some concepts, especially characters who are especially skilled in combat. But ultimately I think it creates more new problems than the few that it solves (which didn't really need fixing anyway).

[BASHMAN]

Seeing your example of the 3/3 Brawler, I do see the point of your reservations. I didn't spell that build option using Special Attack 0 [Variable] in the book- so I would probably let that be a Narrator's call to house rule if they want to allow it.

Thinking about it, technically I was wrong- you probably cannot take Variable on a Level 0 power- since Variable allows you to spend the levels in the power at will- but having no levels would obviously preclude that. My bad guys.

[BeardedDork]

I may be incredibly dense here, it's happened before, but I don't see how this is not identical to variable as it is written or similar enough to shape shift as to be the same power. I don't understand what you are trying to do.

[drkrash]

It seems to be moot now, but:

Variable as it is written allows you to change around the points in a power. So a Special Attack could modify attack and damage, but your base attack and damage (from Agility and Brawn or Mind as appropriate) cannot be changed around. The proposed rule would allow you to buy Special Attack 0 Variable, in theory to move around your base stats for attack and damage.

Shapeshift can do this (I'm pretty sure; I haven't read it recently), but at least this costs you 4 points, which is enough of an investment that it doesn't seem like the right choice for every character (I'm always thrilled to see how far 4 points goes in BASH, coming from HERO!).

[BASHMAN]

Yeah, Shape-Shift handles stat swapping. I think 3pt power would be fine for simply the ability to swap stats (without actually changing forms or able to gain powers)