Drain of Resistant PD (or ED) -- is this a thing?

[Thump92]

I know you can use Drain vs. a lot of defensive characteristics, like regular PD and ED, even DCV or ODCV.  How about resistant PD? I don't see the option in the drop down for Drain in Hero Designer, and I don't see anything in my sourcebooks yet saying yea or nay. My Google-fu wasn't turning up anything definite about this particular aspect of Drain/Suppress, either.

 

 

[Ninja-Bear]

Now I know you can. It’s listed in HSMA. 

[Sveta8]

As a target? It can be done.
Why is it not seen? Well, this is conjecture on my part, but that would be due to efficiency.

PD and ED and DCV are all Defensive Characteristics. What that means for Adjustment powers like Drain is that they are twice as hard to effect. (6e1, 141) So what does that mean? Well, if you are trying to drain a Resistant PD, that's clocking in at an active point of 1.5 per point. So you need to drain 3 Active Points to drain 1 Resistant PD. Considering that one can expect to roll 3.5 on a d6, you are essentially getting 1 rPD per 1 Dice.

So that's a cost of 10 Points to on average, remove 1 point of rPD/ED. For DCV it's worse. You need to drain 10 points to remove 1 DCV. So, An average of 3 dice, or 30pt for 1 DCV removed. And that is all presuming you are okay with the points coming back at the end of the round

[Thump92]

Sorry, HSMA? (Martial Arts supplement?)

 

Thanks for your replies. I couldn't find any reason you couldn't, but it's been a very long time since I've played or GMd the game. I've already discovered a lot of rules I thought I knew, but did not. 

[Lee]

Yes, HSMA = Hero System Martial Arts.

[Ninja-Bear]

17 hours ago, Thump92 said:

Sorry, HSMA? (Martial Arts supplement?)

 

Thanks for your replies. I couldn't find any reason you couldn't, but it's been a very long time since I've played or GMd the game. I've already discovered a lot of rules I thought I knew, but did not. 

No problem, I’ve should’ve just wrote that out. Now how to get it to work on Hero Designer? Not sure.

[Ninja-Bear]

@Thump92 my bad. In my third brain confused lack of sleep, I confused Drain with Dispel. Dispel is how the Armor Shredding strike is written up. Though I can’t see why you can’t still do Drain vs rPD though. It might be like Backlash where it’s designed for one thing but comes in handy for another.

Oh and easiest way to change it in Hero Designer is to highlight Cha window and backspace to clear the characteristic then type in Resistant PD or rPD. It will show.

[Thump92]

1 hour ago, Ninja-Bear said:

Oh and easiest way to change it in Hero Designer is to highlight Cha window and backspace to clear the characteristic then type in Resistant PD or rPD. It will show.

 

Thanks!

[unclevlad]

In HD, Drain just shows the characteristics because everyone has those.  However, that field is editable;  you can enter anything you want.

 

BUT, remember it has to be specific.  The advantage Resistant, applied to your normal PD, is different from Resistant Protection's PD, for this purpose.  There's a quite recent thread on this;  and IIRC you also can't target the rPD alone in the Resistant Protection because the PD isn't separate from the ED.

 

When you combine that with the 1/2 effect on a defense power...yeah, the system is discouraging this VERY strongly.

[Thump92]

19 hours ago, unclevlad said:

In HD, Drain just shows the characteristics because everyone has those.  However, that field is editable;  you can enter anything you want.

 

BUT, remember it has to be specific.  The advantage Resistant, applied to your normal PD, is different from Resistant Protection's PD, for this purpose.  There's a quite recent thread on this;  and IIRC you also can't target the rPD alone in the Resistant Protection because the PD isn't separate from the ED.

 

When you combine that with the 1/2 effect on a defense power...yeah, the system is discouraging this VERY strongly.

 

Thanks. I have a player who wants to Drain(Suppress) rPD. I'll have to hunt for this recent thread, methinks, and clarify "which resistant PD" the Suppress will affect.

[Ninja-Bear]

2 hours ago, Thump92 said:

 

Thanks. I have a player who wants to Drain(Suppress) rPD. I'll have to hunt for this recent thread, methinks, and clarify "which resistant PD" the Suppress will affect.

I’d be more interested in what is the sfx. If you can Suppress say scaly hide the it shouldn’t matter if the rPD is from the Resistant Advantage or Power Resistant Protection. 

[unclevlad]

6 minutes ago, Ninja-Bear said:

I’d be more interested in what is the sfx. If you can Suppress say scaly hide the it shouldn’t matter if the rPD is from the Resistant Advantage or Power Resistant Protection. 

 

This is overplaying the SFX, IMO, especially given that it's explicitly stated to NOT do that.  See p. 196 under PD, ED.  It also runs afoul on the Resistant Def side, because it partitions something that can't be partitioned...the rPD versus the rED (and whatever else was bought that way).  If you buy Variable Special Effects, I could see allowing suppressing one or the other *except* that you're still breaking the Resistant Protection into chunks that aren't normally allowed.  

The rules are clearly intended to be VERY narrow when it comes to adjustment powers.

[Ninja-Bear]

29 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

 

This is overplaying the SFX, IMO, especially given that it's explicitly stated to NOT do that.  See p. 196 under PD, ED.  It also runs afoul on the Resistant Def side, because it partitions something that can't be partitioned...the rPD versus the rED (and whatever else was bought that way).  If you buy Variable Special Effects, I could see allowing suppressing one or the other *except* that you're still breaking the Resistant Protection into chunks that aren't normally allowed.  

The rules are clearly intended to be VERY narrow when it comes to adjustment powers.

And I’ll disagree because mechanically they are the same. Resistant (advantage) only makes your existing PD (and or ED) Resistant. Resistant Protection adds to your existing PD/ED.  When a character gets hit by a Killing attack one does distinguish where the resistance comes from only does it apply to PD or ED.

[unclevlad]

No, but Drain absolutely calls out that they ARE different for Drain purposes.  SFX should not trump explicit rules without good reason.

If the SFX are such that they only work against some forms of rPD, AND there is little or no limitation asserted...then I might allow the complementary expansion.  If there's a big limitation?  No.  You got the price break, you don't get to expand it.  Conversely, if you want to buy Expanded Effect, sure, I'd allow that.  

[Ninja-Bear]

@unclevlad well if you add Expanded Class that should then take care of it.

7 hours ago, unclevlad said:

No, but Drain absolutely calls out that they ARE different for Drain purposes.  SFX should not trump explicit rules without good reason..  

Never said sfx trumps. What I said is mechanically they’re the same. 

[Hugh Neilson]

At a minimum, I'd allow an "expanded effect" adjustment power to affect all forms of rPD (or rED, or PD, or ED, or both).  Further, I would consider treating rPD and rED as buying Characteristics as a Power.  I'd also consider the ability to drain only the "Resistant" advantage, where the power only makes the target less resistant to killing attack damage.

 

This is purely mechanical.  The ability still needs to be appropriate for the game in question.  But the mechanic itself should be possible,

 

HISTORY LESSON:

 

Back in 1e, resistant defenses could be Damage Resistance at a flat cost to make half or all defenses resistant; Armor at 5 points per 3 rDEF (IIRC) and Force Field which was 1 rPD or rED for 1 point, but cost END by default.  Oh, and adjustment powers (the few there were) only worked on Characteristics - that changed in 2e.

 

By 4e, we had evolved to Resistant being a +1/2 advantage on Defenses, Armor with a cost of 3 points per 2 rDEF and Force Field which was 1 rPD or rED for 1 point, but cost END by default.

 

6e finally combined Armor and Force Field into Resistant Protection - if you want it to cost END, take a limitation.

 

The evolution flows, edition by edition, towards just buying PD and ED as a power, with a Resistant advantage.