Another try at piercing

[Toadmaster]

Ok, on the old boards I was trying to find a way to make piercing (old power from Champs 3, each level reduced 1 point of defense)

 

RKA 1DC = 5 pts

Limitations only vs DEF Body -3/4 (using no stun for comparison which is also -3/4)

Standard effect +0 (this keeps each level to 1 pip instead of rolling)

 

Total cost 2.8 round up to 3, so 3 pts per level which is the same cost as Piercing vs resistant defense in C3.

 

 

Any unforseen problems with this attempt?

[Gary]

Re: Another try at piercing

 

Originally posted by Toadmaster

Ok, on the old boards I was trying to find a way to make piercing (old power from Champs 3, each level reduced 1 point of defense)

 

RKA 1DC = 5 pts

Limitations only vs DEF Body -3/4 (using no stun for comparison which is also -3/4)

Standard effect +0 (this keeps each level to 1 pip instead of rolling)

 

Total cost 2.8 round up to 3, so 3 pts per level which is the same cost as Piercing vs resistant defense in C3.

 

 

Any unforseen problems with this attempt?

 

You need to add no knockback (-1/4). I don't agree with a (-3/4) value to only counter defenses. It's a (-1/4) at best, since there will only be a very few situations where it's actually limiting (vs targets with no resistent defenses).

 

Thus it would be 3.3 pts per level, rounded to 3.

[GradonSilverton]

Ok, on the old boards I was trying to find a way to make piercing (old power from Champs 3, each level reduced 1 point of defense)

 

RKA 1DC = 5 pts

Limitations only vs DEF Body -3/4 (using no stun for comparison which is also -3/4)

Standard effect +0 (this keeps each level to 1 pip instead of rolling)

 

Total cost 2.8 round up to 3, so 3 pts per level which is the same cost as Piercing vs resistant defense in C3.

 

 

Any unforseen problems with this attempt?

 

The Defense would have to be Ablative in nature (5th, p.77). This allows the defense to be "shot off little by little by attacks". If you want to rule, I'd make the attack be Penetrating with a limiter of "Only to damage defenses" at a -1/4 on the penetrating....

 

This means that even if enough doesn't exist to effect the power via the Ablative rules, 1 point of Body Min is done...

[Toadmaster]

I figured only vs DEF is at least as limiting as no stun since DEF takes no stun then by default the attack causes no stun. Either way it rounds to 3 so -1/4 could work.

 

I guess this could be done to whittle down armor but I intend it to be linked to an attack so the effect is not long lasting more of a limited AP.

[tesuji]

so, if i read this right...

 

in a 12dc game with 20/10 defenses...

 

i could buy 4d6 rka and do an average of 4 body thru and something like 22 stun thru.

 

i could buy a 2d6K with 10 piercing and get an average of 7 body thru and something like 19 stun thru since he had no resistant defenses after piercing and thus takes full stun.

 

That doesn't look balanced to me.

 

Unless you spend a lot of time throwing big killing attacks at nearly undefended targets, piercing looks like just an advantageous purchase.

 

If your campaign does feature a lot of high power killing attacks thrown at low defense targets, it seems like a waste of time to take piercing... i mean... aren't they dieing fast enough already?

[Toadmaster]

And this is differant from AP how? AP would take off 10 points of DEF for 15 points, "piercing" does it for 30, larger attacks just increase the cost ineffectiveness.

 

It also does no body or stun so it is next to useless against unarmored targets, only striping away some non resistant defense which doesn't apply to KA's anyway.

 

I am trying to build "piercing" as a smaller version of AP for a specific purpose, to allow more variety between weapons. So a .44 Magnum would be a 2d6 RKA and a 5.56mm Assault rifle would have 2d6 RKA and 2 levels of piercing. Against an unarmored target they are basically identical but when armor gets involved the rifle is more effective than the .44 which is how it should be. When I get to Tank guns it becomes even more useful and hopefully will allow some variation without making them instant death to everything around them.

 

Basically what I am looking for is if this "looks" legal, I am planning it to be under GM control so a magnifying glass, stop sign or Dirty Harry pointing a BFG at me saying "think about it punk" doesn't concern me, just does it violate any existing rules.

[tesuji]

How is this different from Ap? Its simply better.

 

12 dc ap rka is 2.5d6 which would get about 4 body thru (as opposed to your piercing's 7) and about the same amount of stun.

 

same price, similar stun, +75% more body thru.

 

same price.

 

how is your piercing different than ap, you ask?

 

Its better.

 

***********

 

it is legal for the gm to assign any value he wants for his campaign's custom limitations, so any price you want to place on piercing is legal.

 

thats a no brainer.

 

piercing is legal at 1 per level, 3 per level or 234000 oer level.

 

legal is easy if thats all you are after.

 

balanced, fair, reasonable.... these are tougher.

 

currently by the numbers, at 3 per, piercing doesn't seem to meet any of these.

 

If your plan is to add it regardless and then try and manage the issues with campaign controls, then rock and roll.

 

but if thats your goal, there was no need for the math.

 

you wanted it to match the 3e cost, you assigned the lim values based on that gaol and achieved the results.

 

mission accomplished.

[BNakagawa]

The fundamental difference is that the effect of AP is in direct proportion to the size of the defense it is being thrown against.

 

The numerical effect of piercing is constant, but in reality it is in inverse proportion to the defense it is thrown against.

 

In essence, if you throw enough piercing at a small enough defense, then the attack it's stacked with becomes NND. AP never accomplishes this, no matter how many levels of AP or find weakness you have, the target's defense can never go below 1.

[Toadmaster]

Ok, first of all I'm not trying to be difficult, I'm trying to build "piercing" within the 5th guidelines, if I just wanted to fake it I'd just use piercing and all the old DI weapon rules that I like better and be done with it. What I was trying to say is that I don't care if the power should have a stop sign, it probably should. But I am trying to build it within the rules so as not to raise eyebrows to much if encountered at a neutral location such as a con. The intent is not so much to have it be 3 points as to have it be somewhat acceptable to the world outside, if I can keep it the same price it saves me the trouble of recalculating some figures.

 

So KA, -1/4 (-1/2?) only vs Def (no stun, no body), -1/4 no knockback, -0 standard effect

 

Look about right?

 

 

As far as it being better than AP

I still don't follow your math for it being better. If I have a character with a 2d6AP RKA (45 points) and a character with a 2d6 RKA linked to 10pts of "piercing" (60 pts). Using both to attack a target with 20 def, the effect is the same, a 2d6 RKA against 10 pts of def, except the attack using "Piercing" costs more. I understand that against a target with less def, the "piercing" gets an advantage as it strips away more than 1/2 the armor but going the otherway AP gets the advantage and costs 1/2 as much. So against 10 pts of def the AP attack still faces 5 pts while the "piercing" attack has none, but against 30 points of rdef the AP attack faces 15 pts and the "piercing" attack faces 20. How is that unbalanced unless you are playing in a game where all have 20 pts or less def which would be a case of limiting how much one could take.

 

I think perhaps we are each making assumptions on how it works that the other is not. I am assuming it only effects def once whether resistant or not, not slicing off 10 points from each. I am also assuming Hardend would have the same effect on "piercing" as it does on AP which is to cancel it unless bought to work against hardend armor.

 

I do appreciate the assistance hope I didn't give the impression I didn't.

[Lord Liaden]

So, you would like to build the effect of Piercing in such a way as to not disturb too many players from other games, or require too many character rewrites. Is that the essence of your concern?

 

I don't know if this would be what you were looking for, but back in Adventurers Club #20, Steve Perrin in his "GM's Discretion" column proposed a variant on the Armor Piercing Advantage. Steve suggested that this form or Armor Piercing subtract the amount of Body rolled on the attack from a character's Defenses before he takes damage from it. Double AP would double the amount of Defense ignored based on the die roll.

 

While this approach would not be applicable point by point as with the old Piercing Power, it would scale to the size of the attack it's applied to, and the change would be easy for new users to deal with since it uses the standard Modifier structure.

 

Hope that's of some use to you.

[tesuji]

[/b]

 

Originally posted by Toadmaster

But I am trying to build it within the rules so as not to raise eyebrows to much if encountered at a neutral location such as a con. The intent is not so much to have it be 3 points as to have it be somewhat acceptable to the world outside, if I can keep it the same price it saves me the trouble of recalculating some figures.

i have seen more than a few cases where, when "figuring new powers" that involve custom lims a preconceived notion of where it should point out colors the pricing given to those lims.

 

Originally posted by Toadmaster

So KA, -1/4 (-1/2?) only vs Def (no stun, no body), -1/4 no knockback, -0 standard effect

 

Look about right?

**IF** you buy that only countering defense is a viable limitation and not just an FX, then yes.

 

While some things can be shown to be a deficit in some cases, that does not mean they rise to the level of "limitation."

 

How many attacks that matter IN GAME will be suffering reduced effect for piercing vs how many will be better off?

 

The "drawback" of "doesn't do as much against inadequately defended foes" is not much of a counter balance for "does better in most other cases."

 

Most of any attack, against foes that matter or against foes with defenses to stand up to the attack at all, do nothing more than bounce off the defense AND get the last bit of the attack thru.

 

Originally posted by Toadmaster

 

As far as it being better than AP

I still don't follow your math for it being better. If I have a character with a 2d6AP RKA (45 points) and a character with a 2d6 RKA linked to 10pts of "piercing" (60 pts). Using both to attack a target with 20 def, the effect is the same, a 2d6 RKA against 10 pts of def, except the attack using "Piercing" costs more.

are you talking 20 RESISTANT defense? if so your numbers are based on a lot more than normal defensive levels. 20/10r is normal.

 

10 peircing reduces the resistant defense to 0... which means the remaining 2d6 rka goes against NO DEFENSE. Remember, without resistant defense you fo not get to keep the remaining non-resistant defense around against stun.

 

your Ap shot ends up going against, assuming 20/10r... 5 vs the body and 10 vs the stun, while your piercing attack goes straight thru.

 

Originally posted by Toadmaster

 

I think perhaps we are each making assumptions on how it works that the other is not. I am assuming it only effects def once whether resistant or not, not slicing off 10 points from each. I am also assuming Hardend would have the same effect on "piercing" as it does on AP which is to cancel it unless bought to work against hardend armor.

The assumption i am making, which may be incorrect, from previous piercing threads is the following...

 

if the piercing reduces the target's resistant defenses to 0, then the target is treated as having "no resistant defense" for purposes of the rule which disallws PD/ED against the stun of killing attacks if you have 0 resistant defense.

 

IS THIS HOW YOU SEE IT?

 

If not, then your piercing is different from the others I have seen discussed.

 

If so, and you have repeatedly left this out of your analysis for these posts, i would ask "why?"

 

regardless...

 

keep in mind that "stun only" for Ebs is (was?) considered a -0 limitation because it prevents killing. The fact that a piercing RKA will be LESS LETHAL against low defense targets is not just a flaw but also an advantage.

 

If i have a 4d6 rka and a target with unknown defenses, I have to worry about my shot killing him outright. If i have 2d6K with 10 piercing, i have no such worries (assume superhero game.) i could use less than 4d6K but then if he has full defenses, i waste a shot. With piercing, I can blaze away at full strength regardless.

 

One could think of piercing as a safety shot that still works against tough foes.

 

I do not see piercing as enough of a "flaw" to earn another -1/4.

 

*****************

 

The following assumes that piercing does NOT trigger in the "no res def = no def vs stun" rule as i assumed aboive.

 

IMO, it should be represented by -1/4 Does not KB and -0 piercing only on the dice in question that brings it out to 4 per DC. the loss in damage against unshielded enemies is offset by the reduction in chance of inadvertantly killing unshielded targets, like say the bystanders after you miss the badguy.

 

if you are playing in a campaign where killing undefended targets is GOOD, then it might well be worth -1/4 or more.

 

****************

 

IF as i mention above, piercing WOULD trigger the "no res def" clause, then it is probably an advantage. No amount of MORE D6 KILLING DICE or any amount of AP can ever prevent the use of some defense against the stun, while piercing could. Combined with the "sagety" listed above, this is better than a typical attack or even an AP attack.

 

 

 

 

[Toadmaster]

I'll look into the limited AP, I don't think it will work in this case but I might find a use for it elsewhere.

 

 

Yes I'm one of those who looks for the effect, I don't generally try to munchkinise rules and often miss the potential for abuses, this also makes me a sucker for point stretchers and rules lawyers (I generally get about 200 points of effectiveness out of 250 points).

 

Thank you that is a very good explaination and I can see where a number of issues come up, the first is Supers vs Heroic gaming. My intent is for firearms in heroic games so death of the target is not an issue, if the trigger is pulled in a case that death is not an acceptable outcome a crime has still been committed (attempted murder) so the safety issue really doesn't apply, in a Supers game where such attacks can be thrown about without repercussion unless a death occured I can see how it could be an advantage. As far as the rdef vs nrdef I was going on the assumption that since there had been rdef the attack would still treat the target as having rdef, it is still based on a KA and just removing def before the main attack, not eliminating it like a transformation power.

 

Also the levels we are talking about are well out of the scale I intend to use it, for an attack to have 10 levels I'm looking at a 120mm tank gun doing 6d6 RKA, a 2d6 RKA would have 3 levels at best.

 

I still don't see the problem with the lim as I took no stun -3/4 right out of the book as a basis and further limited it and reduced the amount of the lim. Now if you have a problem with the value of the no stun lim then I can see why you wouldn't accept only vs def as a lim.

 

Other powers I have tried on the old board to replicate Piercing had flaws due to them violating the written rules (drain and suppress were earlier attempts but the rules specifically state that vs defences they go last which defeats the point of the power). I think this looks like the best way to handle the power but I can see the potential for abuse, 3 or 4 pts depending on the view of the value of the only vs def lim, since its heroic and points are not paid by the character the actual cost really doesn't matter to much so I can live with that.

 

Thanks for the help, hope I didn't cause you a case of apoplexy (WHY DOESN"T THIS GUY GET IT!!!!!!! bonk bonk bonk)

 

 

[tesuji]

Originally posted by Toadmaster

I

I still don't see the problem with the lim as I took no stun -3/4 right out of the book as a basis and further limited it and reduced the amount of the lim. Now if you have a problem with the value of the no stun lim then I can see why you wouldn't accept only vs def as a lim.

 

I dont have a problem with the book's version of does no stun. However, your piercing is not "does no stun" or even close.

 

When a 10d6 eb hits a 20 defense guy and the frst 20 points of stun damage is blocked, that is NOT the same as taking "does no stun" on the first 6d6.

 

most of the damage, stun and body, of attacks is blocked by defenses and does no damage. Thats the nature of the system's representation of defenses, not a case for a limitation. "does no damage until defenses are breached" is not a limitation, its a mechanic.

 

Anyway, for my games, "only serves to lower defenses" would be either a -0 FX thing or an advantage, for the reasons already stated.

 

Your games are probably radically different from mine and hence the different interpretations. In a super game, the notion of reducing the cost of your powers as drastically as applying -3/4 or even -1/2 on the first half of an attack (say the first 6d6 on your 12d6 EB) because they only count for beating defense would be absurd. The savings vastly outweigh the gloss in effectiveness. In an Heroic game where defenses were much much lower and where the res def clause were not triggered, its a different story.

 

As a suggestion however, it seems to me that the preponderance of games and rules typically discussed are super-heroic in nature. It might save some confusion if you mention the "heroic, low defenses" campaign setting when you bring up house rules.

 

As stated multiple posts ago, legal is easy. What you propose is every bit as legal as any custom lim.

 

enjoy your games.

[Tom McCarthy]

In my campaign (superheroic), it's roughly as efficient as armour piercing to buy piercing as:

 

3.5 pts Cancels 1 rPD and 1 PD

 

With 60 AP attacks and 24 PD, 12 rPD defences,

 

4D6 KA averages 14 BODY, 42 STUN, or 2 BODY and 18 STUN after defences.

2.5D6 KA AP averages 9 BODY, 27 STUN or 3 BODY and 15 STUN after defences.

3D6 KA + 4 levels piercing averages 11 BODY, 32 STUN or 3 BODY and 16 STUN after defences.

 

If I wanted it only to strip resistant defences, it would lend itself to even more BODY and less STUN, but then you might as well but Penetrating.

[BNakagawa]

Originally posted by Tom McCarthy

In my campaign (superheroic), it's roughly as efficient as armour piercing to buy piercing as:

 

3.5 pts Cancels 1 rPD and 1 PD

 

With 60 AP attacks and 24 PD, 12 rPD defences,

 

4D6 KA averages 14 BODY, 42 STUN, or 2 BODY and 18 STUN after defences.

2.5D6 KA AP averages 9 BODY, 27 STUN or 3 BODY and 15 STUN after defences.

3D6 KA + 4 levels piercing averages 11 BODY, 32 STUN or 3 BODY and 16 STUN after defences.

 

If I wanted it only to strip resistant defences, it would lend itself to even more BODY and less STUN, but then you might as well but Penetrating.

 

Are you quite sure about your numbers? I'm not sure your math is correct. Stun multiples don't typically average out to 3 (unless this is some house rule) and 3d6 KA with 4 levele of piercing against 12rDef shouldn't be getting 11 body through. (not on the average, anyway)

[Toadmaster]

Originally posted by tesuji

I dont have a problem with the book's version of does no stun. However, your piercing is not "does no stun" or even close.

 

When a 10d6 eb hits a 20 defense guy and the frst 20 points of stun damage is blocked, that is NOT the same as taking "does no stun" on the first 6d6.

 

most of the damage, stun and body, of attacks is blocked by defenses and does no damage. Thats the nature of the system's representation of defenses, not a case for a limitation. "does no damage until defenses are breached" is not a limitation, its a mechanic.

 

 

As a suggestion however, it seems to me that the preponderance of games and rules typically discussed are super-heroic in nature. It might save some confusion if you mention the "heroic, low defenses" campaign setting when you bring up house rules.

 

As stated multiple posts ago, legal is easy. What you propose is every bit as legal as any custom lim.

 

enjoy your games.

 

Ok, I see the differance, no stun on the whole attack is a lim, but no stun on the part of the attack which probably wouldn't do any stun anyway isn't because in that case its not really much of a disadvantage. That makes sense to me, I also see how much the intended setting must be considered when looking at the value of limitations, I've generally considered a lim to be of equal value regardless of the genre, I see this is not the case.

 

I tend to have a hard time when soliciting advice on rules because the Champions players generally seem to be the most fluent in the situational / point value questions. I'm guessing because in that genre weird manipulations of the powers system is so common, but I tend to wind up spending alot of time getting them past the fact I'm not playing in a superheroic setting. If I state up front that I'm not playng a Supers game I find I get fewer responses from those same people that tend to eventually be so helpful, perhaps because they don't feel they would be much help, I don't know. I guess I need to find a way of putting my disclaimer up front that I welcome the view point of Supers players while making it clear I'm not in a supers game. When possible I prefer to use the rules when possible as opposed to a house rule, it takes some work but in the end I have found somebody usually finds a way to do it for me.

 

Anyway thanks for your patience.

 

Tom, I don't really understand how you built your version of "piercing" it looks like you just assigned a cost to an effect, or am I missing how you did it?

 

 

Thanks to all who have replied.