Topic: Adrenal Speed Skill

[markc]

 I have been thinking about Adrenal Speed [AS] after having my nose in the Combat Companion and the Martial Arts Companion. Do you think that the skill is valide as it is writen in the rule books? By this I mean I am having trouble wraping my mind around a skill like AD that can be used with any weapon or hand to hand attack. Do you think it should be tied to one group of weapons? Or single weapons? Or have the skill be tied to a martial art or weapon art? Or maybe have a rule that says if you have X ranks in a weapon you can take the AD skill because you have learned a lot and made it possible?

Any thoughts?

MDC

[Ecthelion]

You seem to think the skill improper. Could you tell why? AS can be quite powerful if a character has high skill (>=~80) in it, but did you have issues with it?

[Arioch]

Are you talking of Adrenal Speed or Adrenal Defense (AD)? 
For Adrenal Speed I see no problem, but AD is replaced by a combat option of the CC. Note that if you use CC these skills should be removed from your skill list:

Combat Manuevers
- 2 Weapon Fighting
- Weapon Style
- Reverse Stroke

MA Combat Manuevers
- Martial Arts Style

Special Attacks
- Brawling
- Disarm (Armed/Unarmed)
- Feint (if you're using EA8)
- Racial Attacks

Special Defenses
- Adrenal Defense

Weapon Skills
- All

[vroomfogle]

I found Adrenal Speed too powerful so have changed it to be a variable effect:

Blunder (Spectacular Failure) - Stunned d5 rounds
Absolute Failure - Stunned 1 rnd
Failure - Slowed to 75% for 1 round
Partial Success (76+) and up - Amount less 75 is the % action gained for the round.   So a roll of 100 means 125% action, an Absolute Success (176) gives 200% action.   

This way most rolls will give a moderate increase in speed, 125% - 175% which is helpful but not as game-breaking as before.   I also like the variable element as it's more fun and adds the possibility of very high rolls and thus surpassing the 200% mark.    As an aside I have also added a rule for Haste spells that gives stress critical after being hasted for more then a few rounds per day.

I've likewise adjusted all other Adrenals to have variable effects as well.


As far as Adrenal Defense goes I think it should absolutely be tied to a specific type of attack/style.    Defensive maneuvers are learned in conjunction with the combat style in my opinion.

[markc]

 No I do not mind Adrenal Defense [AD] as I lump it in with martial art styles or weapon styles. So a player cannot just learn AD they have to take a style that I as the GM have created or one I create with thier help.
 I was talking about AS as IMO the skill right now just does not make a lot os sense to me. It is a very broad skill allowing extra action no matter what weapon or hand to hand skill you have. I have thought about puting a limit on it as I have above with AD or allowing the players to learn AS for each weapon category as well as the skills MA strikes, MA sweeps, boxing, wrestling etc. Or to not allow AS skill to be learned until the PC has a skill of at least 80 in the attack skill. IMO this prevents a case in which a character learns the skill while teaching himself to use the weapon. In my game basicly almost all teachers of weapon skills or hand to hand arts are teaching the PC a style, even if it is just a basic style. This is close to the changes in the CC but not exzactly.

MDC 

[Rasyr-Mjolnir]

Adrenal Speed is meant to increase a character's overall speed, allowing them to perform more actions per round.

One thing to remember though is that the original version of the skill was designed for use with the original initiative/tactical system. Even when that system changed for RMSS/FRP, the skill still remained the same.

In RMC, the skill still remains the same, but that is because ICE did not decide to change the tactical/initiative system until after Character Law had been released.

Personally, I think that the simplest method to handle it would be, IF the maneuver roll is successful, then the character gains x% activity, where x = total maneuver roll - 100. Thus, if a 175 is the total for the maneuver, then the character gains +75% activity to use for the round.

The problem with requiring it to be learned for each weapon group is that you are then tying the maneuver specifically, directly, and only to attacks, and not other potential actions.

Now, putting limitations on the skill such as no heavy armor, that I could see quite easily, as the armor slows you down.

[markc]

Rasyr,
 My idea to tie it to weapon skills was in attempt to inject a little more realism into my game. I can see why you would say tieing it to a wepon skill would/might limit to attacks [that was one my thoughts at the begining] but I was more trying to think about a PC needs to have a specific level of training to know how to maneuver to gain more action in a time segment. That level of training could come from spending some time learning a weapon or they could benifit from a more experienced teacher. So by puting a number of ranks limit or a number that thier skill bonus has to be higher than I buil in an experience factor to learn the AS skill. Also after they have attained the combat experience then they could apply the skill to more then thier attacks.

 Another thought would be to limit the skill to just attacks and have another skill that spplied to movement or other actions. This would make the skill less powerful and allow for non-attack based useage only.

Thanks
MDC   

[Arioch]

No I do not mind Adrenal Defense [AD] as I lump it in with martial art styles or weapon styles. So a player cannot just learn AD they have to take a style that I as the GM have created or one I create with thier help.

Ah, sorry I got confused by the AD reference in your post 

Another thought would be to limit the skill to just attacks and have another skill that spplied to movement or other actions. This would make the skill less powerful and allow for non-attack based useage only.

I think that this would be a better idea, this way you'll have the ability to make additional attacks linked to your number of style ranks (with the Additional Attacks style option) and Adrenal Speed would still be useful for other actions.

[Rasyr-Mjolnir]

Another thought would be to limit the skill to just attacks and have another skill that spplied to movement or other actions. This would make the skill less powerful and allow for non-attack based useage only.

Combat Companion includes an option that allows for a style to gain multiple attacks in a given round.

[markc]

Another thought would be to limit the skill to just attacks and have another skill that spplied to movement or other actions. This would make the skill less powerful and allow for non-attack based useage only.

Combat Companion includes an option that allows for a style to gain multiple attacks in a given round.

 I do remember that and I was trying to talk about the fact that CC give some rules for multiple attacks without giveing the info away from the book. I also have been thinking on the rule for multiple attacks in the CC and I liek  it a lot and I will be puting it into my RMSS and SM:P game.

 A little bit of a jump here but with missile wepons, firearms and energy weapons how would you deal with multiple attacks?

MDC

[Rasyr-Mjolnir]

with missile weapons, you have 2 actions -- shoot and reload, so it is unlikely to get 2 attacks in a single round.

for more modern and futuristic weapons, it would have to depend on how the rules handle them

[Arioch]

I do remember that and I was trying to talk about the fact that CC give some rules for multiple attacks without giveing the info away from the book. I also have been thinking on the rule for multiple attacks in the CC and I liek  it a lot and I will be puting it into my RMSS and SM:P game.

Mixing adrenal speed and the additional attacks option in RMSS could make bring some unbalance in the game. Using both a level 10 fighter could make something like 9 attacks each round (3 per phase) so, depending on the power level of the game, as you said it could be a good idea to limit the usefulness of adrenal speed somehow... but I cannot think a good good way to do it 

[Ecthelion]

OTOH, in a scenario where spells like Haste or Speed offer the same possibility for as many as 9 attacks, and they do this with a higher chance of success and possibly for more than one round, I can't see that AS is unbalanced - at least not alone. So you'd have to remove AS as well as spells that bring the same benefit if you want to prohibit such feats as 9 attacks per round.