Continuous and Discontiguous Feats Standards Clarification

[Epyriel]

Permission granted by @Antvasima

One of my greatest pet peeves is unwritten rules that are nonetheless binding, so I figured I should make this thread to have 2 topics clarified in writing that I have seen some confusion around in the past.

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1. Continuous Feats: Feats that reflect a continuous release of energy naturally scale higher the longer they go on. So if an attack keeps on going, what is listed as the AP? Currently the seemingly universally applied standard is that any attack lasting longer than 1 second will be capped at that 1 second output to be listed as AP, essentially just using the wattage of the feat instead of the energy (for example: Lawine gradually freezing a lake), and if relevant, listing a specific higher result as 'over time' on top of the normal rating if it takes a particular longer timeframe to achieve a specific notable result (for example: Leviathan’s hydrokinesis over longer fights being able to sink landmasses). This seems fine to me as a standard, it just needs to be written down officially.

Here is my draft (feel free to give input):

Spoiler: DRAFT

For feats that constitute a continuous release of energy lasting longer than a second, the AP value listed shall be taken as their maximum output confined to a single second. Please note that the reverse is not applicable (upscaling characters by using their power instead of their energy when their feats take place in less than a second).

Should a notable feat be accomplished across a timeframe longer than a second (or across an unknown timeframe that could plausibly be over a second) and be deemed relevant enough to be listed on a profile, the AP value for such a feat may be added in addition to their conventional AP as determined by the above standards, but must be clearly marked as “over time”. Such cases may overlap with our standards for Environmental Destruction. Sufficient relevancy for such circumstances shall be determined on a case-by-case basis.
-Attack Potency

(1:0) Agree: DontTalkDT (only for straight AP)
(0:0) Disagree:
(1:0) Neutral: DontTalkDT (ED)

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2. Discontiguous/Volley Feats: Feats that involve multiple components that can be subdivided naturally scale higher the more components are added, so what is listed as the AP? Currently this is listed under a mishmash of different formats, with certain volley attacks like shotgun blasts typically only listing the total, while cannonade barrages like those of Boros’ ship listing both the total and the AP of individual rounds.

There are 3 different ways we can present this on profiles:

Option 1: list only the individual components of an attack for all cases.

This seems to me problematic considering 1) many attacks can be infinitely subdivided if you try hard enough, making the cutoff in some cases feel rather arbitrary, 2) the total yield can be an important piece of information, as whether you can overwhelm something like an energy shield with a particular attack like something that launches a hundred near simultaneous strikes could be the difference between victory and defeat, yet might be misconstrued if only the yield of a single subdivided strike is listed, and 3) the contiguity of an attack makes no difference from a physics perspective for its energy yield, which can have important ramifications on scaling other characters. The more relevant attribute over contiguity for battle-boarding purposes would seem more to be how likely a portion of an attack would be to miss (albeit that doesn’t seem to stop us from listing the total for explosions that are rarely, if ever, going to hit someone for their entire yield).

Option 2: list only the total yield of an attack for all cases.

This may be appropriate for things like shotgun blasts where you can plausibly hit someone with the entire yield with a degree of consistency, although would seem strange for something like the earlier example of Boros’ ship where the vast majority of targets are too small to be hit by more than a single strike at a time. In such cases the yield of a particular subdivision of the attack can be an important piece of information that is being left out.

Option 3: list both the total yield of an attack and the yield of subdivided strikes when relevant (as determined by the metric of if a certain subdivision of discrete component strikes are likely to provide guidance on what portion of an attack shall land).

This seems to me the most sensible option, as it lets us present all possibly relevant information without seeming disingenuous by leaving out an important distinction in either direction.

Here is my draft (feel free to give input):

Spoiler: DRAFT

Feats involving an attack that can be subdivided into multiple constituent simultaneous (or near-simultaneous) strikes are to have both the total and (when relevant) the individual strike yields listed on profiles. Please note that volley attacks lasting longer than a second shall still have their yield capped to the output unleashed during that window in line with the above standard for continuous feats.
-Attack Potency

(0:0) Option 1:
(0:0) Option 2:
(1:0) Option 3: DontTalkDT (for ‘reasonably cumulative’ attacks)
(0:0) Neutral:

 

[DontTalkDT]

For 1. not really sure on "over time" as a standard outside of environmental destruction context. "Over time" would only apply for straight up AP, in my eyes, if over a longer period of time the attack could actually harm a character of the listed durability. I.e. that's for abilties that gradually grow more powerful, rather than for continuous energy beams.

For 2. I believe it's a question of whether the energy is reasonably cumulative. With a shotgun, you can press the barrel to something and it will all hit at the same time and it's essentially one attack. For something like Boros' ship those are separate weapons, which powers you can't really put into a single blow.
Generally, I don't think it's needed to list both. In the Boros' ship case, listing a cumulative value is irrelevant. Meanwhile, in cases where the energy can be pooled, it's usually understood that the AP reflects a full power hit. Like, we wouldn't specify that if Goku shoots one Kamehameha from each hand, each can reasonably only have half of his total output.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

When it comes to over time feats or fractions, policies tend to more complicated when addressing High 3-A and above. Where realistically, lots of them should still be High 3-A and above outright. But fiction can be inconsistent about treating gaps from 3-A to High 3-A or Low 2-C or any wider gaps like 9-A to High 1-B. Lots of verses are just weird when it comes to scaling and feats to where even going from urban tiers to infinite sized multiverse with innumerable/infinite upper dimensional layers is treated as a gap that is undeniably massive but still finite.

 

[Epyriel]

For 2. I believe it's a question of whether the energy is reasonably cumulative. With a shotgun, you can press the barrel to something and it will all hit at the same time and it's essentially one attack. For something like Boros' ship those are separate weapons, which powers you can't really put into a single blow.
Generally, I don't think it's needed to list both. In the Boros' ship case, listing a cumulative value is irrelevant. Meanwhile, in cases where the energy can be pooled, it's usually understood that the AP reflects a full power hit. Like, we wouldn't specify that if Goku shoots one Kamehameha from each hand, each can reasonably only have half of his total output.

I’m not really sure how to list that. Since shotgun blasts can’t really be “pooled” either despite generally being recognizable as a single attack since everything all lands at once. While a broadside from a ship can also land all at once when firing against other vehicles of similar size, yet the constituent shots are fired from independent weapons.

Should it be a matter of only listing totals for single weapons/attackers? Since a shotgun and someone like Goku are ultimately both individual weapons/attackers while something like a ship has multiple weapons.