I'm not too convinced that Distance Strike can be combined with Vicious Blow or Called Shot or any other combat maneuver or option. Luckily my game is temporarily on hold. What do you guys think? What combinations of combat maneuvers/options can be combined with adept powers?

I would think any that make logical sense together...
Surely not Killing Hands and Missile Mastery...that is just stupid...
But Smashing Blow and Viscious Blow could go well together to take that door out faster.

you can do anything with distance strike that you can do with an unarmed attack. maneuvers, adept powers, whatever.

smashing blow and vicious blow sounds like a good idea, but it actually lowers your effectiveness, game mechanics-wise. i'd really, really, really, really, really like to see some errata that changes that--as well as changing the relationship between vicious blow and killing hands. really, really.

The combination of Distance Strike, Killing Hands, and Silent Delay Damage is viciously evil...

and viciously expensive, to boot.

I would let someone use Distance Strike, which is essentially a ranged version of a punch, with the Blind Fighting, Focus Will, and Focus Strength maneuvers, as well as for making Called Shots. However, the other combat maneuvers don't apply to a ranged attack, so I would disallow them (Some affect reach, which is irrelevant for a ranged attack, or are used to improve defense or position in melee, also irrelevant. And Vicious Blow is used in conjunction with a blunt weapon, so it would not apply to either Distance Strike or Crushing Blow).

Distance Strike does not exist in my games for exactly that reason. It is a Ranged Attack supposedly made with the Adept's magic/ki/mystical energy. In my opinion, Adept Magic should be consistantly internal, limited to affecting their body or aura. If the Adept wants Clout, let him be a Phys-Mage!

vicious blow is not used in conjunction with a blunt weapon, it's used in conjuction with a weapon that does stun damage. distance strike is, barring use in conjunction with killing hands, stun damage, and can therefore be used with vicious blow.

there are some manuevers that can't be effectively used with distance strike--for instance, if a character decides to use Close Combat--but that just means the adept is wasting his time if he attempts it. just like using vicious blow with killing hands (sigh).

you can use vicious blow with a weapon, toturi, if you take an MA that has that manuever and allows weapons--kung fu, for instance. but i don't think you guys have realized the true terror of distance strike:

there is no minimum distance.

So arguably someone could use distance strike at melee range and thus remove an opponent's ability to retaliate... how deliciously evil!

~J

That makes very little sense to me, and I would rule against it in my games. If the victim is within range of retaliation, I'd resolve it as a melee attack with the attacker having a reach equal to his or her magic rating.

Mein gott! That's even worse! I'm just going to be thankful that I have yet to encounter a player who has considered using distance strike at melee ranges.

~J

on a partially related note I have a question/comment about adepts.

Is it my imagination or do they have an unbelievably easy time at destroying Foci of any type and force?

Typical Adept with Killing hands M, and 6 strength+2 improved strength 6 unarmed+2 improved unarmed, and Smashing blow.

Vs Power Foci force 3.

Adept Rolls 8 dice+5 combat pool, against TN 4. Then rolls 8 strength and adds each success as 1 point of strength. He attack the foci with intent to smash it. I'm pretty sure that foci with whatever OR it had would be broken into dust, destroying the Foci.
Foci can't resist or counter attack due to adept not percieving at the time. Mage can't do anything since he wasn't attacked personally.

Adding distance strike to this would mean you can look at someone's gun, wave your hand and it falls to pieces, or am I wrong?

Same would go for most weapons. Just snap them in whoever's hand.


or am I just understanding the adept abilities all wrong?

Be gentle... I'm still learning some of the finer points of various archtypes.

I would say that any character who got in range of a mage carrying damageable foci would have a pretty easy time breaking them if they could grab it or target it effectively (it WOULD be a called shot, don't forget, which generally means less successes at least). The adept just has a better chance of succeeding because of the high power and extra dice. but that's what they pay their points for!

reach equal to magic rating! holy christ, DV8, you can GM my adept any day.

the adept with distance strike would have a much easier time breaking stuff, spotlite, because he doesn't have to worry about his successes being negated by a counterattack. it's that, more than the "i can punch anyone within twenty feet" aspect that makes distance strike so unutterably, profanely powerful.

His method makes a lot more sense than the canonical one, though. At least opponents have a chance to defend themselves. And a simple use of the Close Combat maneuver can negate it's effects.

sense, hell. DV8's method makes distance strike a billion kajillion hozillion fitchillion times more powerful. do you realize that with distance strike and DV8's idea, my character could easily combat up to five other characters at one time, with a base TN 4 on all of them?

As opposed to normal Distance Strike where they don't get a resistance test whatsoever beyond Body?

as opposed to normal distance strike, where at least the TN goes up. targets also get to dodge.

I don't suppose you would like me to remind you that there's Multi-Strike and Whirling.

I'm still confused by your "easily combat five other opponents" comment. Close Combat would completely and utterly annihilate any advantage the adept had due to his "magical reach" with the power. It would be, for all intents and purposes, two wasted power points.

Sure, it has its advantages outside of combatants with Close Combat, but chances are if you're fighting a hoard of opponents who don't have martial arts maneuvers available, and at least one of them doesn't have Close COmbat, chances are also pretty high that they're "nobody" opponents who you could have taken out without the power, too.

Also, since it's only working as Reach, it in no way negates the multiple opponents penalties. And as Toturi pointed out, you can get close to mimicking it with two other maneuvers anyway.

Still beats the uberness that is Distance Strike as written. As it's written, Adepts only need a single skill, crank it up with Improved Ability, and wham, they're a killing machine with no way for opponents to truly defend against them, unlike DV8's method which still allows for counterattacks.

i know all about 'em; they make the reach idea even better.

i miscalculated my TNs above, though. i would only be able to engage 2 opponents at TN 4, without multi-strike or whirling. my char (who has whirling and kick attack) could, however, do a headshot at TN 2 while his opponent faced TN 6; or kick two people in the head at TN 4 each; or punch one guy in the head at TN 4 and hit two other people at TN 3; or engage 8 opponents at TN 4, or 4 opponents at TN 3, or...

edit: bah, you and your 'not calculating TNs while you type your post'. yes, one guy with close combat can make things difficult while that one guy is attacking you. but next action, you can still hop back a meter or two and take away his chance to resist. turning distance strike into a reach modifier is powerful because it gives you more options--it allows you to lower your TNs, while keeping your opponents' the same or even raising them.

mfb:
if anyone had Close Combat, in DV8's house rules, you would be completely fucked, as Close Combat would negate ALL your Reach bonus (from Magic/Kick Attack/or troll like reach).
You just would be submerged by sheer number.
Basically, with DV8's house rule, anyone with the 2 good karma Close Combat technic would dissipate the 2 Magic Points invested in Distance Strike...
Talking about game balance!

BUT, BY CANON, THERE IS NEVER ANYWAY THAT DISTANCE STRIKE SHOULD INVOLVE ANY REACH MODIFIER.

Point.

Counter-attack to a Distance Strike is not possible, because:
1- counter-attacking is representing your capacity to badly block some attack or twist an attacking limb.
2- I remind that counter-attack is not an attack, so you have to wait to get Action Phase to place any attack.
3- You cannot block/twist an "energetic strike", however close and thus it is impossible to Counter-Attack during the Distance Strike adept action phase.

Nobody complains about not counter-attacking bullets (even if there is a spell for it), so let the adepts have some fun for game sake!
Everybody should get his fun, not only spell slingers, gun bunnies or drone packs sheperds.

The concept of the Distance Strike adept with high level unarmed combat skill or of the adept with high level armed combat skill combined with Weapon Focus is not a game breaker: these characters always have to be out of gun/spell/drones range.

If you feel overwhelmed by these characters, outwit them, retreat, take them down from far away! If you are not able to do so, don't whine, just go the "suit" way.

Nobody get his character inside the LOS of a sniper at the ready, and if they do, they shouldn't complain about consequences.
Nobody should go in the killing zone of an armed/unarmed combat adept, and if they do, it's their mistake.

no, you wouldn't be completely screwed. you'd fight normally (ie, no insane reach bonus) against that one guy for one action, and then move back a few meters on your next action and pound him. you'd still have your reach bonus against the rest of the people you're fighting, if you're fighting more than one opponent.

...i just realized, i've been applying the reach bonus only once--that is, dividing it up among the seperate attacks that i'm using as examples. that's not how reach works, though--you get your full reach bonus on every attack you make. which means that a character with Distance Strike and DV8's houserule would be able to engage any and every character within range with called shots at TN 4, without whirling or multi-strike.

if that's not enough to strike this houserule as being too unbelievably powerful to allow, i don't know what will.

Sitting around the community bong thinking about this I realized some way ultra fun things you can do with close combat, and distance strike.

Cyber fangs or horns, No longer have reach penalities!
Close combat gets rid of reach, so now you can bite just as good as a vampire, or headbutt without trouble!.

Now you can also bite out someone's neck at 20 paces! Or if you accidently sneeze too hard you can headbutt someone through the nearest wall.


I think distance strike is way cool anyways it's like anime powers. Punch at a candle across the room and it explodes. Swing your sword and the wind/light blade (however you describe the way you want it to look) generated by it is enough to slice a man in half with. Lots of fun for all.

People who've done that in my games have gotten +2 for using a ranged attack while engaged in melee. I'm fine if you want to use distance strike up close, but I don't think it's all that different than using any other ranged weapon while a Big Motherfucker is breathing down your neck.

Exactly right.

Do you need to wear a Japanese schoolgirl outfit for that? Because I'm having this horrible recurring image of a ten-foot troll in a skirt roaring that line out in falsetto now....

God, I nearly choked on my breakfast on that image.

no. distance strike is only for unarmed attacks--cyberfangs, cyberhorns, and the like all use cyber-implant weaponry.

Because cops, gangers, housewives, and babies fight adepts with Distance Strike all the time.



This either forces NPC metagaming or creates an absurdly powerful physad. I fail to see how that is an improvement over a "free" but dodgeable attack.

~J

Edit: Reading further back, it looks like you're agreeing with me that the houserule is a bad idea. I still say your situation is absurd, though.

I never stated that every opponent would have Close Combat, but there's a good chance that several opponents worth fighting would have it... especially if such a power was even remotely common amongst adepts. It's common enough as it stands for specialists in unarmed combat.

So yes, I don't see what the big deal is in using it. It gives opponents a chance -- even if a remote one -- to protect themselves against such an attack, and it can be rendered null and useless against an opponent who specializes in combating such tactics. Compared to how it is now, where no one stands a chance against it. And yes, you can still dodge against it after the house rule, too. Imagine that.

And yay, you can take down a bunch of nobody opponents without much trouble. Congratulations. You certainly couldn't do that beforehand.

That said, I do agree that (Magic) Reach is a bit extreme, but the idea behind the house rule has a lot of good merit to it.

No one stands a chance? Really, it's about the same as someone with a smartlink and a gun. No one gets to retaliate against an attack with that, either.
(The smartlink being to cancel out the using-a-gun-in-melee penalty)

~J

And, once again, an adept with Distance Strike doesn't have to bother having multiple skills, can use Improved Ability to get an insane ranged combat and melee combat bonus, and can otherwise be wholly unstoppable under the current rules for less than half the cost.

If an adept wants the full advantages of using a gun, he can still pick one up and train in its use just like everyone else. And if he wants to be magically-insane good with it, he can take Improved Ability for that skill, too.

Under the standard rule for the power, an adept would be insane to bother wasting time fighting anyone with a decent to excellent melee combat skill. Simply by taking a step away and using Distance Strike, he totally and completely gets around that combatant's ability to counterstrike. Under DV8's house rule, he still has to take on the opponent, albeit with a nice advantage unless said opponent has Close Combat.

So gosh, yes, screw challenging an adept. Long live the almighty Distance Strike.

what? why the hell would everybody have close combat? is the entire world suddenly going to wake up one morning and say "i'd better learn the close combat manuever, because you just never know when you might run into an adept with the distance strike power!"

doc, the thing is, distance strike is still effective against opponents with close combat--DV8's houserules don't take away the ability to do the usual 'punch them from 20 feet away' routine. and, hell, you could probably sucker most opponents into using another manuever; if the opponent doesn't know you've got distance strike, they're not going to be using close combat on you.

The only advantage one would have over the smartlinked person I mentioned is (if they're both adepts) that the one with Distance Strike will be throwing 12 dice before combat pool instead of 11.
Yeah. So unbalanced.

~J

What the fuck is wrong with you people? What part of " I never stated that every opponent would have Close Combat, but there's a good chance that several opponents worth fighting would have it... especially if such a power was even remotely common amongst adepts. It's common enough as it stands for specialists in unarmed combat." are you just not capable of comprehending?

And no, since DV8's house rule modifiest Distance Strike so that it's only benefit is that it gives you a supernatural Reach, Close Combat works perfectly well against it. Close Combat negates Reach. Period.

If you want to ignore Close Combat in your attempts to argue why it's a broken house rule, feel free to do so. But the entire point of the house rule is that it just changes it to a magical Reach. The power has changed. It's not Distance Strike as written in the book. The change to using an extended Reach means it's exactly that -- extended Reach. If you ignore the entire POINT of what Reach is, then what's the point in even bothering to acknowledge that that's the entire POINT of using it?

indeed. you're overlooking the massive karma cost involved in maintaining your edge in multiple areas, kagetenshi--for a sam, that's not too tough; for an adept, it's hell.

Street Samurai can't get +(Magic) points to their skills, either, nor many of the adept-only powers let alone weapon foci, which more than makes up for that fact. Sammy's excel at being generalists, adepts do not.

yeah, that's what i'm saying. adepts have a harder time keeping up, if they spread themselves out over shooting and melee and whatever else.

since you haven't addressed the disparity between DV8's actual post and your derivation of the rule in that post, i'm just going to assume from here on out that we're arguing about your derivation.

Nothing in this thread so far has made me consider changing my dim view of Distance Strike.