Area Effect & Foci

[Tech]

A player in the campaign asked, "Does an area effect attack also hit any accessible foci that the target may be holding, such as a sword or blaster?" What about Inaccessible foci?

[Ninja-Bear]

That’s a good question.  I think that it would still depend on sfx but yes it should affect Foci. And what ever you decide, it should be consistent with the game.

[archer]

As a rule of thumb, I'd say it hits accessible foci but not inaccessible (unless I'm needing something specific to happen for story purposes).

 

And I treat most agent and super's OAF weaponry as indestructible unless it's specifically experimental or temperamental. (You can put a gun through a lot of abuse and it still be able to fire, even if it loses resale value and/or needs to get a broken stock replaced. And I have a hard time thinking that an evil organization would spend the money to equip agents with weapons that fall apart the first time they're hit with an attack from an opponent.)

 

2 cents

[LoneWolf]

The rules state that a focus that provides defenses to a character is automatically hit by any attack the hits the character or that hits the area where the character is standing for area of effect attacks.  Beyond that it is unclear.  But that does set a precedent that some foci can be affected by area of effect attacks.  

 

To me this is going to depend on the special effect.   For example I could see that the focus of someone running away from a flame thrower (area of effect cone) might not get hit by the flames.   
But that same focus of the person running towards the flame thrower may be hit.  

 

For most focus it is not really that big of a deal.  Unbreakable foci are unlikely to be broken.  Most other foci have decent defense especially if they are defined as durable.  Fragile foci or those of very cheap powers are the only ones that really in danger.  
 

[Asperion]

I have always gone on the ROT that each person/item gets its own def against any AOE attack.  To make things easier, l only make one roll for the attack, then make a determination based upon the qualities of stated items.  If item is highly common or unbreakable,  then it most likely will not break for some reason. Experimental technology is more likely to fail since it is not as tested.