How does "Impenetrable" work?

[Sean Waters]

This is probably very straightforward, but I am mixing myself up over it.

Captain Cat has 50 PD and 5 points of Resistant protection. The RP is Impenetrable.

She gets hit with a 10d6 Penetrating normal attack that works against physical defences and the damage roll is 35 Stun and 10 Body.

How much damage does she take?

[Doc Democracy]

I will do the typical bloke thing - I have not read the manual but will make presumptions of how I think it should work given my HERO background.

1 - PD is high enough to block all damage.
2 - the attack is penetrating and so does a minimum of BODY rolled as STUN (so 10)
3 - 5 points of protection are impenetrable thereby reducing the damage to 5 STUN.

You wanna argue about it?


Doc

[JmOz]

I agree

[Sean Waters]

I will do the typical bloke thing - I have not read the manual but will make presumptions of how I think it should work given my HERO background.

1 - PD is high enough to block all damage.
2 - the attack is penetrating and so does a minimum of BODY rolled as STUN (so 10)
3 - 5 points of protection are impenetrable thereby reducing the damage to 5 STUN.

You wanna argue about it?


Doc

No. That makes sense.

[Hugh Neilson]

By the book, or reasonable results? By the book:

Targets with Impenetrable defenses (6E1 147) ignore the effect of Penetrating (though they still suffer the normal damage or effect from the power);

Impenetrable (+¼): A Defense Power with this Advantage is particularly resistant to Penetrating attacks. An attack with Penetrating applies normally against a Hardened defense; the usual “minimum damage” effect is ignored. Characters can buy Impenetrable multiple times to counteract multiple purchases of Penetrating.

Given these statements (and I assume "hardened" should be "impenetrable"), any Impenetrable defense prevents the minimum damage from Penetrating by the RAW.

However, I would prefer the approach that every point of Impenetrable defenses reduces the minimum damage inflicted by a Penetrating attack by 1 point, as well as having its usual effects. This would eliminate the possibility of +1/+1 Impenetrable Resistant Defenses blocking all effects of penetration, and remove any need to require all defenses be purchased with the same advantages. It would also remove the need to require defenses from Density Increase (why not Growth?) be made Impenetrable (or Hardened) if the character's regular defenses have the advantage. See p 189,

[Sean Waters]

Yes...that was what I understood, but, again, that seems to be a legacy from when it was all lumped under 'hardened' (including still calling it that in the text!). It makes much more sense to have the number of impenetrable points actually matter. It also makes good 'system sense': on the above example if you make the 6RP impenetrable you pay a lot less than making all of the 50 pd impenetrable (and you have to make it all or nothing) AND making the 6RP impenetrable is much more advantageous (as it stops penetrating killing attacks).

[Christopher]

I will do the typical bloke thing - I have not read the manual but will make presumptions of how I think it should work given my HERO background.

1 - PD is high enough to block all damage.
2 - the attack is penetrating and so does a minimum of BODY rolled as STUN (so 10)
3 - 5 points of protection are impenetrable thereby reducing the damage to 5 STUN.

You wanna argue about it?


Doc

According to APG II, he would actually take the full damage. A impenetrable defense has no effect unless it's at least as high as the "average body/stun" of the attack. So a 2d6 KA, Penetrating would not be stopped by 6 point of impenetrable defense but by 7 or more.
I think just substracting gives small impenetrable defenses a considerable advantage.

Given these statements (and I assume "hardened" should be "impenetrable"), any Impenetrable defense prevents the minimum damage from Penetrating by the RAW.

Afaik that was corrected in the Erata.

[Hugh Neilson]

According to APG II, he would actually take the full damage. A impenetrable defense has no effect unless it's at least as high as the "average body/stun" of the attack. So a 2d6 KA, Penetrating would not be stopped by 6 point of impenetrable defense but by 7 or more.
I think just substracting gives small impenetrable defenses a considerable advantage.


Afaik that was corrected in the Erata.

Perhaps you could cite your references. Generally, anything in the APG's is an optional rule.

[Kraven Kor]

I kind of assumed that 1 point of Impenetrable defense stopped 1 point of penetrating damage...

If a 6d6 Penetrating Blast does a minimum of 6 BODY and 6 STUN, and you have 5 points of Impenetrable defense against it, then you take 1 BODY 1 STUN minimum (more if the total damage exceeds your total defense by more than that.)

I don't use penetrating much.

[Christopher]

Perhaps you could cite your references. Generally, anything in the APG's is an optional rule.

APG II 46.
It's clearly an "Erata" kind of discussion/explanation. We can propably find a question regarding it in the "Rules question" Forum or it's something he noticed himself.

It clearly adresses the problem that 1 Defense, double impenetrable would stop all penetrating attacks. Using the average body (or avergae normal body for attacks that don't do body) makes certain that there is some scaling between them.
Making them susbtract 1:1 could be an unfair advantage for the defender, as he invested less Active Points (and thus real points) into his defense than the attacker.

[Doc Democracy]

Making them susbtract 1:1 could be an unfair advantage for the defender, as he invested less Active Points (and thus real points) into his defense than the attacker.

I can see where the argument comes from but the original scene was a 10D6 attack rather than 2D6K. As such there was 10 BODY and 5 points impenetrable defence. So that means that the defender has indeed escaped any damage and paid substantially less than the attacker.

That theme runs through HERO as defences are cheaper than attacks.

I think Steve's ruling makes game logic sense without feeling like the right decision. :-)


Doc