Armor Piercing Rounding .5 up or Down?

[Hierax]

Hi, Steve!

I Just wanted to check something with you to be sure that I've been doing it the right official orthodox way ...

How do you round of the rDEF reduction of attacks with the Armor Piercing Advantage (or Semi-Armor Piercing) when they come to .5 for the odd-numbered rDEFs (1,3,5,etc.)?

My assumption is that it rounds in the favour of the character who paid the points for the AP (or SAP) Advantage.

If so, it would seem to match up with the logic that an Advantaged attack should be worth more than a non-Advantaged attack (i.e., an AP Attack should get through 1 rPD Armor when a non-AP Attack wouldn't) because it costs more points and an Advantage that isn't an Advantage isn't an Advantage.

E.G., a Pick (HKA d6+1 AP) Maximum BODY Damage vs. various rDEFs

rDEF: Maximum BODY Damage (reason)
0: 7 BODY (no armor, so no reduction)
1: 7 or 6? (1 armor, so -0.5 rPD = 0 or 1? rPD)
2: 6 (2 armor, so -1 rPD = 1 rPD)
3: 6 or 5? (3 armor, so -1.5 rPD = 1 or 2? rPD)
4: 5 (4 armor, so -2 rPD = 2 rPD)
5: 5 or 4? (5 armor, so -2.5 rPD = 2 or 3? rPD)
6: 4 (6 armor, so -3 rPD = 3 rPD)
7: 4 or 3? (7 armor, so -3.5 rPD = 3 or 4? rPD)
8: 3 (8 armor, so -4 rPD = 4 rPD)
9: 3 or 2? (9 armor, so -4.5 rPD = 4 or 5? rPD)
10: 2 (10 armor, so -5 rPD = 5 rPD)
11: 2 or 1 (11 armor, so -5.5 rPD = 5 or 6? rPD)
12: 1 (12 armor, so -6 rPD = 6 rPD)
13: 1 or 0 (13 armor, so -6.5 rPD = 7 or 8? rPD)
14: 0 (14 armor, so -7 rPD = 7 rPD)

In this example, a Pick pays a hefty +1/2 Advantage to get past armor or about 10 extra Active Points, which could have bought about 3 points of Piercing that would cut right through 3rDEF armor so it should at least cut through the 1 rDEF as if it wasn't there (by my interpretation of the Advantage isn't an Advantage logic above).

Likewise for an Attack that was Semi-Armor Piercing vs. rDEFs that aren't multiples of 4.

I looked through the FAQs and searched this forum but didn't see that this had been asked/answered before. What is the correct way to round these non fractional divisions of rDEF when applying the Armor Piercing or Semi-Armor Piercing Advantages?

THANKS!

Jason

[Steve Long]

The rule is that you round in favor of the character subject to the rounding — in this case, the character with the defense. That's the best way to be consistent and fair about it; the rule is not "always round in the way that's best for the PCs." For example, if a character with 9 points of defense is hit with an Armor Piercing attack, he has 5 defense to apply against that attack.