Prescience 2.1

[takewithfood]

Hey gang,

So, this is what I intend to start using in my 2.0 games in place of Prescience. I think there was already a thread about Prescience somewhere in here, so I titled this one 2.1 instead of 2.0.

Anyway, my beef with Prescience has always been that in a play-by-post situation, having the GM reveal NPC stones, then allowing Prescience characters to change their allocations greatly increases the time it takes to resolve a page of combat. I'd like to cut out the extra steps, though this involves narrowing the Modifier's scope to defense only. (Honestly, though, to simulate the offensive capability of being prescient, just buy a regular combat modifier.)

Prescience MN +2 CL
You have a 6th sense that alerts you to danger even when your other senses cannot. When you would ordinarily take damage from a physical attack, subtract up to your MN's worth of damage from your Energy Reserve first. Any stones of damage that remain can be converted to white stones of health lost, as usual.

Additionally, if you also have Reflexive Dodge, your Prescience allows your reflexes to act even when your other five senses fail to trigger them. You can apply a number of your stones of Reflexive Dodge up to Prescience MN towards your defense even when you have absolutely no other warning of the attack.

Example: High up on a rooftop, the Amazing Spider Man watches as Silvio Manfredi holds meeting of underworld sub bosses in an abandoned warehouse across the street. But little does Spider Man know, he is being watched, as well.

A Maggia sniper has managed to spot the meddling wall-crawler and has him in his sights. He is flanking the costumed hero from a safe distance; there is no way he can miss. The GM allocates 5 stones in the sniper's Ranged Combat Action, and factors in 2 more stones from the General Pool for his rifle scope's Targeting for a total of 7 stones of attack. Due to the rifle's high caliber, the sniper also inflicts x2 damage. If he bags the Spider Man, he'll be a made man for sure!

Spider Man is not anticipating an attack and does not have any stones shifted to defense; he will have to rely on his Modifiers to save him. He has Toughness 2, which is a good start, but because the sniper's bullet is traveling faster than the speed of sound and is coming in from behind, the GM rules that Spidey's Reflexive Dodge 3 is useless.

Or it would be, were it not for his trademark Spidey Sense (bought as Prescience 3). The familiar tingling warns our hero of the impending danger, allowing his Reflexive Dodge to kick in. With both his Toughness 2 and Reflexive Dodge 3 working for him, only 2 stones of damage remain. These last two stones come out of his Energy Reserve, as though he had them shifted to defense the whole time.

Miraculously, Spidey ducks just in time to dodge the bullet; it grazes his shoulder, slicing through his uniform but leaving him unharmed. The Maggia sniper has been made alright, but not the way he hoped.

~TWF

[bikermatt]

That's actually a fairly well-done Modifier! It's priced well, though other options should be allowed, as Spidey (and a few others) have a number of improvements and limitations over what's listed. Examples:

Spidey can use his Prescience to attack as well as defend (+1 or +2), letting him use it for "targetting".
Unfortunately, it doesn't work for those he's designated as a "friend" (-1)

Venom is less effective in his use against Spidey (half effect, -1)

I'm sure the Board can think of others, though I don't think they can come up with any quibble with the core design!

[Ziegander]

I agree. That's actually pretty darned good. I like it a lot.

[bikermatt]

Thinking some more about it, I thought of another advantage that wouldn't be easily spotted in the comics, but would be a fair ammount of help. I think Spidey picks it up at some point, and Venom may have started with it.

Effective Resources (+1 CL): You don't waste resources trying to avoid a trivial difference in damage. When damaged, you can decide to spend a point or two less than the maximum, should that not result in an additional stone of damage.

Example: A hero has Prescience 5, and is fighting the Hulk as a distraction tactic. He doesn't have Toughness or Reflexive Dodge, but does have Armor +2, and keeps 3 stones in defense, relying on his Prescience to keep him one step ahead of the blows. The Hulk, however, opens with a flashy 11-stone attack. With Armor 2, Defense 3, and Prescience 5, the attack still gets a stone through. The hero has Effective Resources, though, so he chooses to only use 3 of the 5 stones, taking 3 damage, spending 6 energy and losing 1 stone of health, instead of 8 energy and taking 1 damage (which still means losing 1 stone of health)!

the description is a little clunky and comma-laden, but I think I got the point across ;D

[takewithfood]

Oh, yeah, I sorta intended it to work that way to begin with - I didn't cover it in the example or in the text, though, now that I realize it.

Because otherwise, there may be situations where you'd take the same amount of damage and lose some energy, which is silly. Basically, stones should only come out of your Energy Pool if it would reduce damage. I'll have to toss that line in there somewhere - good catch!

~TWF

[Neros]

Not bad.. I like it rulewise, but I am unsure about the price when compared to the other defensive modifiers.. This is how I read them:
Relfexive Dodge: Falls and bombs/area effect nulifies RD, all which aren't that hard to find (people do however seem to want surprise attacks to do as well, so lets just throw that in as well )..
With this extra modifier for reflexive dodge, you can remove some stones of damage from one of the things that can nulify Reflexive dodge and it will even cost you energy stones to do so..
Question: Hmm, if two people attack spidey and both of them exceed his defense by 4, would he have to pay 8 red stones to avoid their attacks? Or is the extra red stone cost not per attack?

Toughness: Is nulified by touch an things with a high enough armor penetration.. You can nulify Armor penetration for +1 and some extra stones, leaving one "weakness" to nulify it, which can be counted by a little help from *insert movement action*..

Both of them costs +3, but Toughness is much better (in my eyes) since damaging touch attacks are rare (draining touch attacks are even rare and still won't do damage)..

Suggestion: There could also be an option (or make it part of it), to allow characters to protect others with it.. Spiderman have countless of times saved others while he was himself warned of incoming danger... Actually, wolverine have done so aswel a couple times...
Maybe allow the character to spend upto half his modifier number of stones into other peoples defense (or strength to throw them out of harms way in case of a bomb)..

[bikermatt]

The way he phrases it, It's a general extra cost, retroactively adding stones to defense, and it would be just one stone, as each would be over his Presciance of 3.

[takewithfood]

Jun 8, 2010 1:40:59 GMT -5 Neros said:

Question: Hmm, if two people attack spidey and both of them exceed his defense by 4, would he have to pay 8 red stones to avoid their attacks? Or is the extra red stone cost not per attack?

That is a good question that I hadn't thought about. In theory, to really replicate the ability to change the stones you've shifted to defense, you should only have to pay once per panel. Prescience should sorta be like extra stones of Reflexive Dodge that you need to pay for to activate each round - but you only pay for them if you need them.

I'll try to work on the language to sort this out one way or another.

Both of them costs +3, but Toughness is much better (in my eyes) since damaging touch attacks are rare (draining touch attacks are even rare and still won't do damage)..

I've tried to change this with some of the 2.0 rules by adding grappling and Harmful Touch, and including Entangle as a regular Action instead of a house rule. Reflexive Dodge helps against all of those things. Also, it's now more expensive to buy the equivalent of "No Armor Penetration" for toughness, so toughness and armor are more likely to be penetrated than before.

There could also be an option (or make it part of it), to allow characters to protect others with it.. Spiderman have countless of times saved others while he was himself warned of incoming danger... Actually, wolverine have done so aswel a couple times...
Maybe allow the character to spend upto half his modifier number of stones into other peoples defense (or strength to throw them out of harms way in case of a bomb)..

This gets messy because it requires discussion between the GM and player in the middle of the page and that's exactly the thing I'm trying to avoid.

I would like to write a "protecting" rule, though, as this is the sort of thing that happens in comics all the time. It wouldn't even be just for prescient people. I want to emulate that scene in comics and action movies where someone says "I'll cover you!" and stands in the way or puts up suppressive fire while someone else runs to safety.

I've been thinking of one or two things:

1. If you do nothing but shift stones to defense and declare that you're protecting others, anyone who wishes to take shelter behind/near you gains 1/2 your total stones of defense (round down). However, they cannot make attacks while you're protecting them.

2. Same as above, only you get 1/2 your defense and your ward gets your full defense.

3. You can shift stones into someone else's defense as long as they are near-by and remain near-by, or if you are otherwise blocking access/line of sight to them.

It always feels messy and situational, though, so I've never written it up. I just remember reading a comic where X-Force wanted to split up in the middle of a fight, and so Archangel stood in the way and brought his wings up as a shield, deflecting fire while some of his teammates ran away. I thought "You couldn't do that in MURPG" and I wanted to fix that.

~TWF

[Neros]

Jun 11, 2010 8:20:32 GMT -5 takewithfood said:

That is a good question that I hadn't thought about. In theory, to really replicate the ability to change the stones you've shifted to defense, you should only have to pay once per panel. Prescience should sorta be like extra stones of Reflexive Dodge that you need to pay for to activate each round - but you only pay for them if you need them.

I'll try to work on the language to sort this out one way or another.

Sounds good.. I figured it was like that, but I felt I might as well ask the question, since someone surely would read it as "You have to spend stones per attack".. Its better to be clear, than have people play in different ways

Jun 11, 2010 8:20:32 GMT -5 takewithfood said:

I've tried to change this with some of the 2.0 rules by adding grappling and Harmful Touch, and including Entangle as a regular Action instead of a house rule. Reflexive Dodge helps against all of those things. Also, it's now more expensive to buy the equivalent of "No Armor Penetration" for toughness, so toughness and armor are more likely to be penetrated than before.

True.. Toughness is probarbly abit easier to get around now, not to mention there is a greater variation in how "tough" the toughness is

Jun 11, 2010 8:20:32 GMT -5 takewithfood said:

This gets messy because it requires discussion between the GM and player in the middle of the page and that's exactly the thing I'm trying to avoid.

Hehe, and thats easy enough when sitting at a table, however at a Forum its rather.... Troublesome..

Jun 11, 2010 8:20:32 GMT -5 takewithfood said:

1. If you do nothing but shift stones to defense and declare that you're protecting others, anyone who wishes to take shelter behind/near you gains 1/2 your total stones of defense (round down). However, they cannot make attacks while you're protecting them.

2. Same as above, only you get 1/2 your defense and your ward gets your full defense.

3. You can shift stones into someone else's defense as long as they are near-by and remain near-by, or if you are otherwise blocking access/line of sight to them.

I would say number 3 could work.. As I see it, you are protecting someone els, not yourself.. And unless the person doing the attacking splits his stones, has area attack, or does colleteral damage, he is still all in all, attacking the target.. Also, the defender is after all, not defending the person with his body directly, but with his wings, sword, pushing him out of the way, ect.. Unless he has Toughness, but he would still use Close Combat or Acrobatics to get his body into "the right places"

[Roc]

It's been awhile since I've chimed in on 2.0 rules, but this thread caught my eye. I like what you've done with prescience. (At first, I had a whole paragraph with examples on what I thought was a flaw, but I reread and reevaluated, so it was no longer valid!)

In essence, buying prescience simulates not only a hero's ability to 'feel' what's coming, but also simulates their ability to react as well. I was considering how initiative/agility/speed should factor in, but simply buying a higher MN satisfies a more reactive or faster character's ability.


As for the protecting, it seems like a great usage for a Drama Stone since one's character is essentially sacrificing oneself for the safety of another. Though my write-up may have been clunky, the Counter option in the Drama Stones thread could serve better as a Protection method instead.

The hero could spend a Drama Stone to essentially gain a conditional third action slated only for the protection of others for one to three panels.

murpg.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=murpg2&action=display&thread=10638&page=1

[Reaver]

There is one thing not covered here, the fact that not everyone with prescience uses it to go "Oh, SH*T" and shift everything they have into defense, some people with a high initiative will preemptively strike a bad guy that is about to attack a teammate, you couldn't do that with this version.

Edit: It's great for the boards but as for real life play it would help but it leaves out the ability to switch your attack every round.

[takewithfood]

Thanks for the feedback, Roc! I'm glad Prescience seems to sit well with you. I will definitely have to look at the Counter stuff again and think more about protection rules.

As for preemptive strikes, yeah, this rule is meant to only represent the defensive advantage of being prescient. Honestly, all you need for an offensive advantage is a good Generic Modifier. It's impossible to come up with a rule that automates switching Actions, targets, etc. But at least we can automate shifting stones to defense. ^__^

~TWF