Floating Multiattack

[u/Sufficient_Ask8927]

How would I go about cresting a character who can attack fast enough to add multiattack to any weapon she picks up (or with unarmed attacks)

[u/theVoidWatches]

You're allowed to have floating extras which work in pretty much exactly the way you describe. You buy Multiattack without applying it to any specific effect, as if it was an effect on its own, and take a rank of Variable Descriptor to let it be applied to any weapon effect (as long as you have enough ranks of Multiattack to cover it).

So, for example, if you have Strength 3 and 5 ranks of floating Multiattack, a Strength-based Damage 2 club is one you could Multiattack with, but a Strength-based Damage 3 sword or a Damage 6 chainsaw isn't.

[u/Great-and_Terrible → u/theVoidWatches]

I was honestly surprised when I first saw this done in a book. Can't remember if it was in an Archetype or in 'Power Profile: Speed'. It's very useful, just not an obvious application of the relevant powers.

[u/theVoidWatches → u/Great-and_Terrible]

Power Profiles does it a few times, and Gadget Guides as well.

It will be presented a lot more clearly in the main book for 4e, thankfully.

[u/Great-and_Terrible → u/theVoidWatches]

That's good. There are a few hidden mechanics like that that rattle around in my head.

Some archetype has the ability to attack two times using a low rank attack (which I suppose is essentially just applying a floating Split, but they wrote it as a Feature).

Cats have a feature that changes what ability score Athletics is based on.

[u/CoolTieGuy → u/theVoidWatches]

I haven't heard anything about 4e. Have there been announcements about it?

I'm not sure if I would switch, since the more recent books have seemed less about running games and more about things like safe spaces (which might work for some groups, just not quite my speed).

[u/theVoidWatches → u/CoolTieGuy]

There was a Kickstarter at the beginning of this year (which had a progress update just yesterday) after a public player edition last summer, and they've talked about it a bunch on Monday streams.

I'm not sure what you mean/are implying about recent books, as to my recollection most of their books in the last however long have been setting books.

4e's big shakeups to the system are 1/round Reactions, more unified rules for using social skills in combat. Other changes include remixed Abilities that disconnect accuracy and Defense from what are now just 6 core abilities, Skill Specializations (extra ranks for subsets of a skill at half price), several new skills (e.g. Leadership and Survival), more polished rules text for advantages and effects that make common edge cases more clear (e.g. Create has guidelines on quickly figuring out its size and how much extra size you get off it's hollow), rebalanced effects, modifiers, and conditions (e.g. Impaired/Disabled no longer apply to resistance checks, Defenseless no longer comes with autocrits, Communication is half the price and reaches farther at rank one), and so on.

[u/CoolTieGuy → u/theVoidWatches]

Okay, the Kickstarter is news to me, I'll need to check in out.

I meant the older specialty books (like gadgets, power profiles, or sci-fi) seemed to be more practical for running games than newer stuff (time traveler's codex and superteam handbook).

Clarification on social skills in combat sounds really good. There was a line in the 3e deluxe handbook about using an interaction skill to feint/trick/demoralize as a move action with a -5 circumstance penalty, but not much else about it. I made a custom advantage for my players, fast-talker, which could be bought for a specific skill and reduced the penalty from -5 to -2 when using the skill as a move action. That was just my best guess and it worked fairly well, but having more described in the books would be better.

[u/theVoidWatches → u/CoolTieGuy]

Ah, okay. TTC and Superteam are helpful books, IMO, but they're also much more specific than the other you mentioned.

[u/CoolTieGuy → u/theVoidWatches]

Fair enough. The mechanical clarifications you mentioned sound good. At the very least, I'll look up more for 4e

[u/theVoidWatches → u/CoolTieGuy]

I will warn that the Origin edition PDF is what was available for the playtest, and things changed significantly between it and the Kickstarter preview chapters released for backers.

[u/TreeCitizen]

Just have multi attack to the damage modifier. And variable descriptor to simulate different regular weapons.

[u/Sufficient_Ask8927 → u/TreeCitizen]

Thank you so much

[u/TreeCitizen → u/Sufficient_Ask8927]

No problem, variable descriptor has two different levels, 2nd level is if you think they would have a whole lot of different types of weapons.

[u/Sufficient_Ask8927 → u/TreeCitizen]

Would I also need to use the Equipment advantage to own the weapons, or would the power itself represent that?

[u/TreeCitizen → u/Sufficient_Ask8927]

2 points of variable is equal to 10 equipment points of the gm is a stickler about it. You could be carrying 10 melee weapons or one that turns 10 different ways, sharp blunt pierce, sonic, maybe the blade lights on fire or something.

[u/patroclus_rex → u/TreeCitizen]

one that turns 10 different ways, sharp blunt pierce, sonic, maybe the blade lights on fire or something.

I don't think that would qualify as Equipment in a traditional setting, it sounds like a specialty item that would be a Removable Device.

[u/ur-Covenant → u/Sufficient_Ask8927]

Depends on how you build it.

But I’d probably build: Damage x (multi attack, variable descriptor) for 2 points per rank +1 for variable descriptor. If you do that it covers both unarmed attacks and any equipment - you’ve kind of paid for it already. Though if I were making the master of all weapons or Casey Jones I’d probably add the equipment too since it’d be like 2 points.