Re: [BNW] Goliath vs. Speedster, hope for the speedster?

["Steve Crow" <crow_steve@hotmail.com>]

>::SNIP::
>>So in the fight the Goliath swings at the Speedster, who dodges. The
>>Goliath rolls 5d6 + 5 (str.) +5 (fighting 5) and gets an incredibly
>>average 15.
>>
>>The Speedster dodges: 5d6 + 5 (speedster power) + 5 (dodge) + 3 (his
>>Martial Arts skill) and gets an incredibly average 18.
>
>Sounds good to me. I agree that (barring good rolls) the Goliath should not 
>be able to tag a dodging speedster on the average. Also, the Speedster 
>should stay out of the reach of the Goliath, but that's tactics. Breaking 
>down to just hard numbers, I think you found the fix.
>

Barring the fact that such a fix (i.e., letting the Speedster benefit from 
two different skill levels simultaneously and cumulatively, when he's only 
using Dodge at the moment) doesn't seem to exist in the rules, _why_ do we 
need such a fix?

A Speedster has +100 pace in movement.  He shouldn't be anywhere _near_ a 
Goliath most of the time.  As his first action, he stands 10" away, move in 
10", attacks, moves 10" out.  The Goliath's first action hasn't even came up 
yet, so there's nothing he can do except dodge (yeah, right!).

Now, at this point, the Goliath gets his first action.  Good luck moving 10" 
to catch up to the Speedster (and the Speedster can always tweak his 
move-away distance a bit higher as necessary).  So the Goliath can only hold 
and hope to hit the Speedster as his next action.  This assumes that no one 
else is attacking him, naturally.  If we're really going to compare power 
packages one-on-one for relative strengths, we might as well kill off the 
Genius now.  :)

So as his second action, the Speedster moves 10" in, attacks, and at this 
point the Goliath breaks his hold and tries to make a contested Speed roll 
to see who goes first.  The Goliath, at best, has a 50% chance of winning 
this.

If he loses, the Speedster does his full action (10" in, attacks, 10" out), 
and the Goliath is left standing there having wasted his (probably) one 
action for the turn.

If the Goliath wins, _then_ and only then does the Speedster have to worry 
about dodging.  He then aborts to a dodge action and then, without getting 
the second skill level bonus (he's already getting the Dodge and the 
Speedster bonus) he has a 50% chance of being tagged (Goliath has a base 15, 
Speedster has a base 15 dodge, as per calculations above).

So actually, the Speedster has a pretty good advantage.  His odds of being 
hit _without_ getting both HTH _and_ dodge bonuses, but only the dodge 
bonus, is roughly 25%.  Do folks really think he needs _more_ of a bonus by 
getting HTH bonuses as well when he's not using the skill (having aborted to 
a dodge)?


>--
>GAry m, minor epot
>   aka "Sneezy the Squid"


---

Steve Crow

"Worm Can Opener Extraordinare"

Check out my website at:  http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/4991/

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