champions 6th Armor Piercing vs Penetrating

[Gauntlet]

Armor Piercing is a 1/4 advantage, while Penetrating is a 1/2 advantage. Why would Penetrating be considered better, and therefore more expensive, than Armor Piercing.

[Christopher R Taylor]

In my opinion, whatever that's worth, Penetrating is overpriced.

[LoneWolf]

Probably the reason is that penetrating guarantees damage gets through no matter how much defense you have.  This allows low dice attacks to get damage through, especially with an auto fire attack or a continuing attack.  An armor piercing attack halves the defense but if you have a lot of defense you can still end up stopping a lot of the damage.   A low dice penetrating attack can be very effective, where armor piercing usually requires more dice to get the same effect. 

[Gauntlet]

1 hour ago, LoneWolf said:

Probably the reason is that penetrating guarantees damage gets through no matter how much defense you have.  This allows low dice attacks to get damage through, especially with an auto fire attack or a continuing attack.  An armor piercing attack halves the defense but if you have a lot of defense you can still end up stopping a lot of the damage.   A low dice penetrating attack can be very effective, where armor piercing usually requires more dice to get the same effect. 

 

Yes you get a tiny bit of damage to go through while with armor piercing you many times can have a lot of damage get through. That brick with 50 points of defense now has only 25 which means your 12d6 attack that normally would do absolutely no damage now on average is doing 17 points of damage. Value wise you are much more effective going with Armor Piercing. I could see Penetrating going for 1/4, but definitely not 1/2.

[Hugh Neilson]

Honestly, I don't think Penetrating was considered when AP was repriced.  I agree with AP at -1/4.  Pre-6e, AP attacks tended to sit, seldom used, in Swiss Army Multipowers.  High defense characters typically Hardened their defenses, and low defense characters were hit harder by, say, 12d6 normal than 8d6 AP anyway.

 

On the other hand, AP seldom results in BOD damage like Penetrating KAs do.  Maybe the advantage should be higher for KAs/inflicting BOD.

Edited September 19, 2023 by Hugh Neilson

[Duke Bushido]

You can do more damage against 25 DEF with 2d6 Penetrating than you can with 6d6 AP.

 

 

[LoneWolf]

A 12d6 attack is not a low dice attack and putting autofire or damage over time on it will make it a lot more expensive.  

 

Take a 1d6 RKA and apply Penetrating and damage over time with 6 increments that occurs every 4 segments, this costs 60 points.    The character with 30 points of resistant defense will on the average take 6 BODY over a turn and a half.  Now make the 1d6 RKA armor piercing and increase the damage over time to 8 segments this also costs 60 points.   The character with 30 resistant defense will take no BODY and will probably not even take any stun.  A character with only 12 resistant defense will not take any body and may take a few stun.  Even 9 resistant defense will mean you probably don’t take body.  The first power is a lot more effective than the second power.   Penetrating is easier to abuse than armor piercing.  

 

Another thing to consider is that because penetrating is more expensive it will be less common, which means that less characters will have the advantage impenetrable. This means that a well-built penetrating attack will actually be more effective because fewer characters have the defense against it. In a strange way the reason penetrating is more expensive is that it is often less effective.  Penetrating is kind of a corner case that is only useful in certain situations.  By itself it is not worth it, but when combined with something else it can be effective.  
 

Edited September 19, 2023 by LoneWolf

[Christopher R Taylor]

I don't really feel like it but its probably worth doing a number crunch of comparison between normal, AP, and penetrating attacks to see how effective each is across a range of attacks.  For example: 

 

30 points

6d6 attack

4½d6 armor piercing

4d6 penetrating

Then compare to a range of defenses such as low end, same Active Cost, and high end.

 

Saying "penetrating does more damage" is pretty meaningless if the damage is tiny; I mean technically 3 stun is more than 0 but its so little as to not really matter.  Another comparison would be to take penetrating at various advantage levels and see how much difference it really makes.

 

60 points

Penetrating at +½ advantage is 8 stun on average with normal attack, 2.5 body with killing

Penetrating at +¼ advantage is 9 stun on average with normal attack, 3 body with killing

 

that kind of thing.  I am going by instinct here but my guess is that it will be shown that without a lot of other advantages stacked on (some, like autofire being quite expensive due to the +1 advantage adder) its not really a very effective advantage even at +¼.  Which is why you rarely see it actually in any published or private builds, in my observation.

Edited September 19, 2023 by Christopher R Taylor

[Grailknight]

Penetrating costs more because it is more effective at causing BODY damage. It also is a better option for the weapons of agents.

 

Consider this:

Blast 4d6, Auto fire (3 shots; +1/4), Penetrating (+1/2) (40 Active Points); 4 clips of 16 Charges (+1/4)

 

That's the standard blaster I use for most agents. They'll take out an unarmored normal with the Auto fire and will do some damage to all but the toughest supers. Getting swarmed by them is a problem but not an insurmountable one.

[Gauntlet]

20 minutes ago, Grailknight said:

Penetrating costs more because it is more effective at causing BODY damage. It also is a better option for the weapons of agents.

 

Consider this:

Blast 4d6, Auto fire (3 shots; +1/4), Penetrating (+1/2) (40 Active Points); 4 clips of 16 Charges (+1/4)

 

That's the standard blaster I use for most agents. They'll take out an unarmored normal with the Auto fire and will do some damage to all but the toughest supers. Getting swarmed by them is a problem but not an insurmountable one.

 

A blast will only cause STUN damage with penetrating, not BODY damage. It only does BODY when on a Killing Attack which of course would cost 120 points (see below):

 

Killing Attack - Ranged 4d6, Autofire (3 shots; +1/4), Penetrating (+1/2) (120 Active Points); 4 clips of 16 Charges (+1/4)

 

This attack would an average do 4 BODY, but of course it costs 120 points, or 60 if you take the limitation OAF -1. 

Now let's say that you are using Armor Piercing on the same attack rather than Penetrating, it would cost 105 Points (or 52 is you have the OAF -1 Lim). It does an average of 14 BODY and someone with the average Resistant Defense of 15 would be dropped to 8, meaning that the average BODY Damage is 6.

 

Now I am not saying that Penetrating is less than Armor Piercing, just that they are rather similar and should both be the same value of Advantage.

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

I mean... maybe they'll take 12 stun, if the agents hit 3 times, which is vanishingly unlikely?  Or you could just buy an 8d6 blast that will nearly drop a normal one shot and deal some damage to all but the toughest supers and you only have to hit once (without the penalties for multiple hits on an autofire).  I'm not sure I am seeing the benefit here.

 

But again, without a special modifier like autofire, penetrating doesn't really do much.  Even with the full 6d6 possible in 40 active points, its still only 6 stun on average.

 

I think penetration should be ¼ and wasn't adjusted simply because it wasn't considered when 6th edition came out.  Maybe a ½ advantage with area effect, autofire, etc.

Edited September 19, 2023 by Christopher R Taylor

[Tom Cowan]

Here is a nice one for penetration.  How long can you stand that 'imp' that can 'sing' polka music at 150 dB?

Mental Illusions 1d6, Invisible Power Effects (Invisible to Mental Group; +1/4), Penetrating (+1/2), Constant (+1/2), Cumulative (384 points; +2) (21 Active Points)

so evil, and cheep

[Christopher R Taylor]

Don't really need the penetrating though, unless mental defense is somehow common in your campaign.

[Gauntlet]

21 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

Don't really need the penetrating though, unless mental defense is somehow common in your campaign.

 

Plus, Penetrating, and even Armor Piercing, is almost useless on a mental attack. You are much better off just having the extra dice.

[LoneWolf]

You are missing the point about using a lower dice attack.  All your examples start at 60 points before examples.   A 2d6 penetrating RKA with 5 shot auto is 60 active points after the advantages.   Assuming all 5 shots hit that means that 10 BODY gets through.  Compare that to a 2d6+1 armor piercing RKA with 5 shot auto.   Against the character with 30 resistant DEF the first attack the character takes 10 BODY, Against the second one he takes no BODY.  Both attacks cost about the same with the armor piercing actually costing a point more.  Unless the target has very little resistant defense the penetrating attack is usually going to do more body.

 

Penetrating is more useful on killing attacks or other unusual attacks, but is less useful for normal attacks. With normal attacks under 6th edition armor piercing gives better results vs low defenses, but simply buying more dice is often more effective.   Once you get past the defense the raw damage makes up for the extra defense.    

[Grailknight]

1 hour ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

I mean... maybe they'll take 12 stun, if the agents hit 3 times, which is vanishingly unlikely?  Or you could just buy an 8d6 blast that will nearly drop a normal one shot and deal some damage to all but the toughest supers and you only have to hit once (without the penalties for multiple hits on an autofire).  I'm not sure I am seeing the benefit here.

 

But again, without a special modifier like autofire, penetrating doesn't really do much.  Even with the full 6d6 possible in 40 active points, its still only 6 stun on average.

 

I think penetration should be ¼ and wasn't adjusted simply because it wasn't considered when 6th edition came out.  Maybe a ½ advantage with area effect, autofire, etc.

 

If an agent hits an unarmored normal 3 times, then they'll do 14 STUN vs their defenses x3. Any value of PD or ED less than 7 or 8 will take more than that 8d6 Blast on average. I use these in 12 DC campaigns though. They can still affect heroes built for that level and I don't have to have agents running around shooting attacks equivalent to the heroes.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

If an agent hits an unarmored normal 3 times, then they'll do 14 STUN vs their defenses x3

 

Yeah but even against a normal, how likely are they to hit even 2 times?

 

In any case, this doesn't argue for penetration being reasonably priced, just possibly effective with certain combinations.

[Grailknight]

22 minutes ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

Yeah but even against a normal, how likely are they to hit even 2 times?

 

In any case, this doesn't argue for penetration being reasonably priced, just possibly effective with certain combinations.

 

An agent attacking a normal? I expect 2 hits. I'm not sending out Imperial Storm troopers. My villainous agencies follow the Evil Overlord list here. Any combat agent that can't consistently hit a man-sized target at 30 feet shall be used for target practice.

 

And I only need Penetration to be effective at low end of the powers scale. The mission statement for the blaster design team was for a low cost(thus the lower point total) weapon that could be used to capture hostages and still be effective against super opposition with a large numerical advantage. My agents also carry some 3d6 NND gas grenades, 3d6 Flashbangs and some 1 hex area Entangles but nonstandard attacks are more expensive in universe. They can be very effective if they have a large numerical advantage, but their 3 SPD lets the generally 5-6 SPD supers prevail.

Edited September 19, 2023 by Grailknight

[Tom Cowan]

2 hours ago, Gauntlet said:

 

Plus, Penetrating, and even Armor Piercing, is almost useless on a mental attack. You are much better off just having the extra dice.

it is the Penetrating (+1/2), Constant (+1/2), Cumulative (384 points; +2) that make it good.  Hit once out of combat, pay the END for each action for 192 rounds (speed 2 not in combat type speed) or less then 40 mins then let the madness start (well, after a few days with no sleep).  Mental Defense is normally zero or good and Penetrating slips 1 point through even if the hero has 25 MD

[Gauntlet]

28 minutes ago, Tom Cowan said:

it is the Penetrating (+1/2), Constant (+1/2), Cumulative (384 points; +2) that make it good.  Hit once out of combat, pay the END for each action for 192 rounds (speed 2 not in combat type speed) or less then 40 mins then let the madness start (well, after a few days with no sleep).  Mental Defense is normally zero or good and Penetrating slips 1 point through even if the hero has 25 MD

 

You do realize that would take 10 phases to be able to affect a normal person with 6 points of mental defense with the most basic of effects (base EGO). Unless you are a speedster mentalist it will take you about two turns to have an effect. And they will know you are attacking them so they can nail you for a couple of turns before you have any effect. And if they manager to get you to stop your attack for even one phase, perhaps by stunning you or forcing you to take a defensive action, you have to start all over.

 

So, while it might look good on paper, for reality, it is pretty useless.

Edited September 19, 2023 by Gauntlet

[Tom Cowan]

6 minutes ago, Gauntlet said:

 

You do realize that would take 10 phases to be able to affect a normal person with the most basic of effects (base EGO). Unless you are a speedster mentalist it will take you about two turns to have an effect. And they will know you are attacking them so they can nail you for an entire turn before you have any effect. And if they manager to get you to stop your attack for even one phase, perhaps by stunning you or forcing you to take a defensive action, you have to start all over.

 

So, while it might look good on paper, for reality, it is pretty useless.

hmm, that is way you have the IPE - inobvious to target

[Gauntlet]

51 minutes ago, Tom Cowan said:

hmm, that is way you have the IPE - inobvious to target

 

Still, the chances of you getting anything of value before something happens and ends your attack is pretty high, If the mentalist is distracted in any way, or loses sight of the target, plus a number of other things. And that 10 phases were only for the most basic of effects. If you want to have any high range affects you will have to spend two, three, or even four times as long. 

[BoloOfEarth]

4 hours ago, Tom Cowan said:

Here is a nice one for penetration.  How long can you stand that 'imp' that can 'sing' polka music at 150 dB?

Mental Illusions 1d6, Invisible Power Effects (Invisible to Mental Group; +1/4), Penetrating (+1/2), Constant (+1/2), Cumulative (384 points; +2) (21 Active Points)

so evil, and cheep

 

1 hour ago, Tom Cowan said:

it is the Penetrating (+1/2), Constant (+1/2), Cumulative (384 points; +2) that make it good.  Hit once out of combat, pay the END for each action for 192 rounds (speed 2 not in combat type speed) or less then 40 mins then let the madness start (well, after a few days with no sleep).  Mental Defense is normally zero or good and Penetrating slips 1 point through even if the hero has 25 MD

 

What you're basically talking about is Hugh Neilson's infamous Margarita Man.  

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

You are much better off just having the extra dice.

 

Generally I agree, but this is an artifact of DOT: you're way better off with small dice and stacks of advantages than more dice.  More dice makes the cost ramp up astronomically but advantages stack up small on little dice.

[Gauntlet]

Of course if I am worried about the penetrating one dice mental attack I could always purchase the following for 6 points:

 

Mental Defense (1 points total), Impenetrable (+1/4) Cost 1 point

 

plus

 

Mental Defense (5 points total) Cost 5 points