Triad Assassin damage

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Tor
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Triad Assassin damage

Unread post by Tor »

The martial art on the Ninjas & Superspies sourcebook Mystic China page 201 is available to the Jian Shih OCC on page 44, which also appears for NPCs in the Heroes Unlimited sourcebook Century Station on page 163.

It explicitly works with 9mm guns, beginning with 2D6 damage. As the art levels up, it increases the damage per single shot at levels 5 and 9 and 12. Burst damage also experiences some improvements, which is an additional complication I don't want to address yet.

In cases of enchanting weapons where damage is explicitly doubled or tripled (such as some Nightbane spells) this doesn't create any problems for me. The issue is moreso when damage is simply replaced.

For example in Rifts:
*WB16 Federation of Magic page 159 the "Enchant Weapon (minor)" ritual (not sure if there's a major) does a set amount of MD regardless of caliber. This MD just happens to be the same amount/type of dice as the 9mm at 1st level, so would a direct conversion of damage>MD be appropriate? Or would the Triad training not help improve this?
*Mercenaries page 103 allows WI-10 Ramjet rounds to be used for 9mm guns, but it an entirely different amount of dice. Any ideas on how to incorporate it?

The HtH skill doesn't give a damage bonus, but instead replaces it entirely. However it seems like you could approximate it as a bonus by subtracting the 2D6 base from the higher amounts which occur later.

Even that would be a 'damage' bonus (SDC damage by default) not a 'mega damage' bonus, so I don't know if it would benefit the MD you can inflict with guns by enchanting them.

That said, I wonder if it could still benefit people in certain situations. Like if you are using 'Enchant Weapon' on silver bullets then these would get converted to HP against vampires or werewolves so the lack of an MD bonus probably wouldn't matter, right?

Or in the case of Apoks/Inquisitors who can change normal damage into MEGA damage.
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Re: Triad Assassin damage

Unread post by Alrik Vas »

Say the damage increase is it goes from 2d6 to 2d8 (I don't know, just guessing). If it adds a die...just add the same die so you're rolling say 2d4+1d6. No big.

That's the same thing you do for enchant weapon. Just increase the die type.

For a damage bonus, just tac it on the end like any other damage bonus.

Let it work no matter the damage type (SDC or MDC) because it's a nifty trick this art teaches you and it's bloody rifts anyway, magic working with strange techniques yay for days. (Cossak/Cyberknight horsemanship adding mega damage on a charge, anyone?)
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Re: Triad Assassin damage

Unread post by drewkitty ~..~ »

So one of your questions is "Would the damage bonuses that comes with the Triad Assassin Martial Art Form be included into the HP Damage vs Vamps and Were-people?" Simple answer is, Yes.

Another would be "Does the level 15 rifts 'Enchant Weapon (minor)' (ritual) spell double the damage of silver bullets do to vamps and were-people?" Yes.

The crustal question would be"Does the spell double the bonus damage gained from the Triad Assassin MAF?"
The spell only says it doubles the weapon's damage. So for a normal game I would say, No, the MAF bonus damage is lost in translation to rifts for this particular application.

However, if it is one of GT's games or in a Epic/high powered game I would let it slide into play.
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In a NB or N&S/MC game then yes the MAF bonus damage would be doubled vs SN beings and critters.
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Re: Triad Assassin damage

Unread post by Nekira Sudacne »

Tor wrote:The martial art on the Ninjas & Superspies sourcebook Mystic China page 201 is available to the Jian Shih OCC on page 44, which also appears for NPCs in the Heroes Unlimited sourcebook Century Station on page 163.

It explicitly works with 9mm guns, beginning with 2D6 damage. As the art levels up, it increases the damage per single shot at levels 5 and 9 and 12. Burst damage also experiences some improvements, which is an additional complication I don't want to address yet.

In cases of enchanting weapons where damage is explicitly doubled or tripled (such as some Nightbane spells) this doesn't create any problems for me. The issue is moreso when damage is simply replaced.

For example in Rifts:
*WB16 Federation of Magic page 159 the "Enchant Weapon (minor)" ritual (not sure if there's a major) does a set amount of MD regardless of caliber. This MD just happens to be the same amount/type of dice as the 9mm at 1st level, so would a direct conversion of damage>MD be appropriate? Or would the Triad training not help improve this?
*Mercenaries page 103 allows WI-10 Ramjet rounds to be used for 9mm guns, but it an entirely different amount of dice. Any ideas on how to incorporate it?

The HtH skill doesn't give a damage bonus, but instead replaces it entirely. However it seems like you could approximate it as a bonus by subtracting the 2D6 base from the higher amounts which occur later.

Even that would be a 'damage' bonus (SDC damage by default) not a 'mega damage' bonus, so I don't know if it would benefit the MD you can inflict with guns by enchanting them.

That said, I wonder if it could still benefit people in certain situations. Like if you are using 'Enchant Weapon' on silver bullets then these would get converted to HP against vampires or werewolves so the lack of an MD bonus probably wouldn't matter, right?

Or in the case of Apoks/Inquisitors who can change normal damage into MEGA damage.

Having played a gunslinger with Triad Assassin in a Rifts game for several years now, we came up with a whole system to address how to deal with it when she finnally got to the level for the damage bonus. Here's generally what we came up with

1: Enchant Weapon: Minor is a damage replacement. The magic alone is what is causing the damage. So it would not benifit.
1.5: The nightbane version which doubles damage does work, and is what she wound up enchanting her guns with to work in Rifts
2: We concluded that the damage bonus comes from precision. Much like Fencing adds 1d6 to sword damage for precise aiming at Vitals, triad assassin does the same thing. that kind of precision accuracy with explosive rounds is not especially useful, as it explodes when it hits the opponent and thus cannot be precise in where the fragments lodge.
3: it applys to the Nightbane-enchanted gun, because it doubles the base SDC damage, which is what it adds to. TA adds 1d6 to the 9mm's base damage. the ritual then doubles this to MDC.
4: We also ruled it does not apply to 9mm guns that do variant damage unless it's explicity 2d6 or a multiple thereof. For example, before we got the nightbane version of enchantment, she used the naruni "Classic earth series" Glock 9mm light plasma cartidge. The way it worked was because it exactly fit the specifications of Triad Assassin (9mm, 14 round clip) the bonuses would apply, but because the base damage was 3d6, it was not added to
5: Moot. Vampire Kingdoms Revised changed how Silver Bullets work. Silver bullets only do normal damage to vampires and werewolves now, they just DO damage instead of doing nothing.
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