Obviously this is always going to be a matter of taste but from actually trying to do things like this myself[1] I would describe it as a single manouvre - note that it is in fact a single (rather advanced and probably tricky) swing of the weapon. It takes a lot less time to do it than to describe it!
When analysed too much any decently competent combat manouvre (including martial arts, boxing etc) can be made to seem to be several actions going on at once. I personally do not find such analysis helpful either to the game mechanics or to the flow of the narrative.
(We aren't in BRP anymore,
> Dorothy). While they could be performed at roughly the same time
(multiple
> attack penalties notwithstanding), the benefits of weapon destroyer
feat
> still doesn't count when smashing the shield and decapitating the
lunar
> IMO.
Removing the threat of the attacking weapon leaves the Humakti free
to continue the swing in a way that would normally leave him open,
thus he can use his Great Blow without worrying about being skewered
by the other swordsman. The Great Blow adds weight to his shield
shattering and a shattered shield is of course less use in blocking
his subsequent Deep Cut. Etc. Each feat is giving him an additional
advantage that makes the next one a bit easier - hence it makes
narrative sense to allow the cumulative augment IMO.
>And so forth for the other feats. I
> don't have a problem with one or two feats being piled on this way,
> I just think that allowing all active feats to count is wrong.
>
This is certainly an extreme example and I doubt if I'll see anything like this in play for a long long time (if ever). I have no objection to the idea of an arbitrary limit but I've never seen the need for such a limit myself and some of the suggestions I've seen (only one per affinity for example) seem over-restrictive to me.
> >Quite how anyone
> >ever has the time for that many augments is another matter
entirely,
> >anyone damn fool enough to give the Humakti this much time for his
> >augmenting ritual deserves the death they will surely receive.
>
> The time required is only eight rounds. I'm sure many Humakti
> could find this amount of time to prepare before combat at least
> some of the time. Do their opponents still deserve death?
>
Most Humakti do not have these very high levels of affinity nor are most Humakti devotees. Anyone allowing themselves to be ambushed by such a Humakti who has had this much time to prepare is very likely going to die, the Humakti clearly has such a huge tactical advantage that they have effectively won the contest before their opponent knew it was happening.
If I needed to know how much augmentation ambushers could use I would probably perform a contested ambush vs spot ambush test and the level of success by the ambushers would determine. Perhaps on a Complete Victory I'd let them power up to this extent, usually they would have to be doing it during the contest and that's an awful lot of turns to be losing AP without fighting back.
[1] Needless to say I was never anything like as good as the Humakti of this example and had I attempted a manouvre such as this I would probably have just sprained a wrist (at best). However the bogstandard 'push shield/drop to one knee/slice low and followthrough upwards' manouve our group all used in sword and shield fighting would seem no less complex when written up yet can be executed in a single rapid motion once you have learned to coordinate it all. Claiming such a manouvre to be multiple attacks would gain nothing but derision from my group.
-- Nic
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