champions 6th Armor Piercing vs Penetrating

[Gauntlet]

1 minute ago, Grailknight said:

 

Well, that's 37 DC if Penetrating is a +1/4 advantage and 45 DC if it is +1/2. The only genre I've seen that I might place at that level is anime akin to DBZ.

 

And yes, you want Penetrating to be a +1/2 advantage on killing damage at the low end of the power scale. Entangles give you some DEF against AP attacks but they are transparent to Penetrating. Barriers generally fall faster also. Since AP is only 1/2 the cost on Penetrating it, Hardened is slightly more than twice as common as Impenetrable. I like the balance but YMMV.

 

Just because something is more common does not mean that it is more valuable. If you though that way then:

 

Assuming Attack Advantage one is used 999 times out of 1000

Assuming Attack Advantage two is used 1 time out of 1000.

This would make it:

Defense Advantage for Attack Advantage One should be +1/4 (or 1 point per defense point)

While Defense Advantage for Attack Advantage Two should be +249-1/4 (or 249 points per defense point)

 

Wouldn't this be fair considering how unlikely it is to be attacked by attack advantage Two?

 

No, it wouldn't. Both Armor Piercing and Penetrating have about the same effectiveness, so there for their respective advantages should be the same. How often they are utilized should not be even taken into account as that can change a lot based on the game. It is effectiveness that should determine the level of advantage.

[Grailknight]

24 minutes ago, Gauntlet said:

 

Just because something is more common does not mean that it is more valuable. If you though that way then:

 

Assuming Attack Advantage one is used 999 times out of 1000

Assuming Attack Advantage two is used 1 time out of 1000.

This would make it:

Defense Advantage for Attack Advantage One should be +1/4 (or 1 point per defense point)

While Defense Advantage for Attack Advantage Two should be +249-1/4 (or 249 points per defense point)

 

Wouldn't this be fair considering how unlikely it is to be attacked by attack advantage Two?

 

No, it wouldn't. Both Armor Piercing and Penetrating have about the same effectiveness, so there for their respective advantages should be the same. How often they are utilized should not be even taken into account as that can change a lot based on the game. It is effectiveness that should determine the level of advantage.

 

I think you've misinterpreted my post.

 

My reasons for the pricing AP and Penetrating differently have nothing do with frequency of use. Penetrating KA's are better at consistently doing BODY damage. They break Barriers better and ignore the DEF an entangled target gets from Entangle. That's why I agreed with Christopher R Taylor it should have one price for normal damage and a greater price for killing.

 

My only mention of frequency was to the defenses for these powers and how it related to their different costs.

[Gauntlet]

1 hour ago, Grailknight said:

 

I think you've misinterpreted my post.

 

My reasons for the pricing AP and Penetrating differently have nothing do with frequency of use. Penetrating KA's are better at consistently doing BODY damage. They break Barriers better and ignore the DEF an entangled target gets from Entangle. That's why I agreed with Christopher R Taylor it should have one price for normal damage and a greater price for killing.

 

My only mention of frequency was to the defenses for these powers and how it related to their different costs.

 

Not really, in some cases it does but in other, Armor Piercing does more damage. Complete Campaign wise they are pretty much the same. One thing to also note considering Armor Piercing is that it add to both the BODY and the STUN damage. Many times with an AP attack it is much easier to be stunned. With a Penetrating attack it does not add to the chance to be stunned at all. You will probably argue that Penetrating does BODY so it can kill you. I have seen in many games, if you are stunned you are knocked out or dead the next phase, so the odds of death are pretty much the same for each one.

[unclevlad]

Hmm.  10 DCs (so 8d6 with AP).  Let's go with 20 Con and 25 defense.

 

Normal attack averages 35, target takes 10.  From target's perspective, stunned about 3% of the time.  

AP averages 28, versus 13 defense, so target takes 15.  Needs 34 STUN rolled to stun the target...that's 18%.

 

Hmm.  12 DCs...which means 9 AP, I suspect, for most.  I hate half dice for normal damage.  23 CON, 30 defense.

Normal attack averages 12 past defenses, and stunned also around 3%.

AP averages 31 vs. 15, so...16 past defenses.  Need 40 to stun...about 6%.  And this is with a slightly lower DC rating overall.

 

So he's got a point.  Even if you go with higher defenses, halving that defense is huge.  The better you are...the more effective the AP is.  

 

If you're concerned about this, then you want to look at *some* of your defense being hardened.  Particularly at higher levels.

 

Note that I'm considering only AP normal.  AP killing...I have a principle.  Killing attacks are just that...deadly.  AP killing attacks are *lethal.*  Someone using something that looks like an AP killing attack becomes a High Priority Threat, if a villain, and more severe counters are acceptable.  A hero should almost never use an AP killing attack, IMO...not against even typical supervillains.  Yeah, I strongly prefer that heroes try hard not to kill, if there's any choice.  

 

EDIT:  another aspect.  If a normal-damage attack with AP is gonna do BODY, generally, it won't be much.  That's good...make the PCs sweat.  But an AP Killing attack risks potentially doing a LOT of BODY...the variance is just that high.  That might be more than sweating....

[Gauntlet]

I would have to say that if you do feel that Penetrating should be 1/4 Advantage for Normal Attacks and 1/2 Advantage for Killing Attacks, then you probably will want to do the same for Armor Piercing as well.

[Hugh Neilson]

18 hours ago, Tom Cowan said:

Well, even a 10d Penetrating killing attack's max Penetrating BODY is 20.  At that point the max 60 BODY of the killing attack would likely be deadly too. (Got 40r def to lower the body to 20?)

Penetrating attacks are normally for low and slow, not one and done. 

 

If we are playing in a campaign where 37 DC attacks are the norm, then I probably would have well over 40 rDEF.  Even 60 rDEF is only 2 points per DC.  In a 12 DC game, 20 - 25 rDEF is not uncommon. You're tripling that 12 DCs.  Make that more like 60 - 75 defenses, 40 - 50 resistant, which is a bit light (37 DCs more than triples 12, but not by much), and we're back to "that 12 1/2d6 KA needs a super-high roll to do BOD but Penetratig gets 10 BOD through at a time, on average".

 

A lot depends on how common accelerated healing is.  If you take huge STUN and are KOd, next combat you will virtually always be fully recovered.  If you get knocked down below 0 BOD, how long will that take to heal?

 

17 hours ago, Grailknight said:

Barriers generally fall faster also.

 

All we need is 1 BOD through to drop a classic force wall barrier or break a focus. 

 

A lot depends on the game, of course.  If you are playing in a game where rDEF is constrained so that, typically, a KA will get 1 BOD per die past defenses, Penetrating isn't very useful.  But in a 12 DC game, for example, that's 10 rDEF. Most characters I see for 12 DC games have a lot more than 10 rDEF.  At 15 rDEF, a 4d6 KA still has a shot at getting some BOD past on a high roll, but it won't do so consistently.  The penetrating attack will trickle a little BOD through on each hit. At +1/2, we get 2 1/2d6 for 60 AP/12 DCs so 2.5 BOD on average.  AP at +1/4 leaves a 3d6 KA (3d6+1 if we get a bit over 60 AP), which will get 3-4 BOD past that 15 rDEF, doing better than the Penetrating HKA.

 

Higher defenses will block more of the AP attack.  They won't block more of the penetrating attack.  Average defenses make a lot of difference to the comparison.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Penetrating does different stuff than armor piercing, plus more people buy hardened than impenetrable. As Hugh points out, armor piercing can be mitigated by defenses, but penetrating requires a special advantage.

 

Back when the same advantage did for both, it was different but now there's a more uncommon defense that makes penetration even more effective.  Against normal attacks, the stun that gets through is rarely significant (a 9d6 attack means at least 9 stun gets through, which isn't going to stun anyone).  But killing attacks, even 1 body per 15 points is doing long-term damage even through the best defenses available.

[Hugh Neilson]

 

Back when Penetrating first came out, I was making an alien CatMan warrior.  He was agile, had claws, etc.  He came in under-budget, so I thought "let's give him a sidearm".  That will give him something he can do if he's too far away to close in and attack. 

 

I wanted it to be different, so I built the Needler.  A small RKA, with that new Penetrating attack and Autofire.

 

Yeah, the Autofire @Duke Bushido still uses - 10 shots, bundled with a +4 OCV.  On a character with 33 DEX.  And every hit got 1 BOD through unless the target had hardened defenses.

 

That sidearm got rewritten pretty quickly after its first couple of uses!

[Duke Bushido]

14 minutes ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

Yeah, the Autofire @Duke Bushido still uses - 10 shots, bundled with a +4 OCV.  On a character with 33 DEX.  And every hit got 1 BOD through unless the target had hardened defenses.

 

 

 

Yep!

 

Very few combinations make a GM's eyes bug out like that one does. 

 

Strangely, they don't often notice Drain: Recovery until their tough guy has to run away in a hurry. 

 

 

 

[Tom Cowan]

21 hours ago, Grailknight said:

 

Well, that's 37 DC if Penetrating is a +1/4 advantage and 45 DC if it is +1/2. The only genre I've seen that I might place at that level is anime akin to DBZ.

 

And yes, you want Penetrating to be a +1/2 advantage on killing damage at the low end of the power scale. Entangles give you some DEF against AP attacks but they are transparent to Penetrating. Barriers generally fall faster also. Since AP is only 1/2 the cost on Penetrating, Hardened is slightly more than twice as common as Impenetrable. I like the balance but YMMV.

 

And there our experiences differ. I've seen STUN from AP and rarely BODY. Penetrating KA's have been the cause of far more BODY damage over that same span.

It is the one shot 'oh cr@p, that was a good roll' with AP attacks that I have seen kill (one a low body power armor guy, two flyers (one got stunned flying fast in a forest with TK shield that dropped when STUNNED the other got knocked out at over the speed of sound and 10 km up chasing a running bad guy) maybe it is the flying? move through earth is painful) but people see the 'death by Penetrating' well before it will kill (2 last hit, 2 this hit, 2 next hit, I can take 6 more hits, new plan, drop the Tim). 

Not sure why Entangle would not stop a Penetrating attack, the base 1 PD/1 ED Entangle gets 1d6 body that you have to get through,

Edited September 30, 2023 by Tom Cowan

[Grailknight]

1 hour ago, Tom Cowan said:

It is the one shot 'oh cr@p, that was a good roll' with AP attacks that I have seen kill (one a low body power armor guy, two flyers (one got stunned flying fast in a forest with TK shield that dropped when STUNNED the other got knocked out at over the speed of sound and 10 km up chasing a running bad guy) maybe it is the flying? move through earth is painful) but people see the 'death by Penetrating' well before it will kill (2 last hit, 2 this hit, 2 next hit, I can take 6 more hits, new plan, drop the Tim). 

Not sure why Entangle would not stop a Penetrating attack, the base 1 PD/1 ED Entangle gets 1d6 body that you have to get through,

 

What DC levels and velocities are we talking about in these cases? I can see the how it could happen in the first case but the second baffles me. Your defenses last until the end of the segment when stunned so the crash shouldn't be fatal unless you are moving at NCM speeds (which I wouldn't allow or attempt in a forest) and didn't strike something until the next segment. In scenario 3, you're again moving at NCM speeds and hitting each other is ... challenging. Also, unless you were descending at speed, it takes 45 seconds to fall 10 km. You'd have to have been knocked out to -21 or more to not get a recovery. I'm not saying these things are impossible because I know the game is played and not scripted but I don't think that AP was the direct cause of the deaths in the second and third cases.

Edited September 30, 2023 by Grailknight

[dmjalund]

i don't understand why they made Hardened and Impenetrable different advantages

[Tom Cowan]

31 minutes ago, Grailknight said:

 

What DC levels and velocities are we talking about in these cases? I can see the how it could happen in the first case but the second baffles me. Your defenses last until the end of the segment when stunned so the crash shouldn't be fatal unless you are moving at NCM speeds (which I wouldn't allow or attempt in a forest) and didn't strike something until the next segment. In scenario 3, you're again moving at NCM speeds and hitting each other is ... challenging. Also, unless you were descending at speed, it takes 45 seconds to fall 10 km. You'd have to have been knocked out to -21 or more to not get a recovery. I'm not saying these things are impossible because I know the game is played and not scripted but I don't think that AP was the direct cause of the deaths in the second and third cases.

yeah, it was the more STUN damage then then you would like lot of 6s and a bit of STUN lotto.

who puts a 103 year old normal in new power armor? 

note the 2nd player had a TK MP with the shield Costs Endurance (-1/2), Instant (-1/2)  and Flight 30-40m?, No Turn Mode (+1/4), Combat Acceleration/Deceleration (+1/4) no Noncombat movement (-1/4)

3rd one the player was burning stun to push his move so low on stun and was hit by the grav tank's cannon (the 6 of us had stopped the bad guy's plan, trashed his war bots and the bad guy was booking it even if my PC was down and the brick was 1-2 hit from a KO to, so our only fast flyer/blaster chased... all the rest of us had a WTF are you thinking. RIP the Grand Sky Knight)

[Grailknight]

9 minutes ago, Tom Cowan said:

yeah, it was the more STUN damage then then you would like lot of 6s and a bit of STUN lotto.

who puts a 103 year old normal in new power armor? 

note the 2nd player had a TK MP with the shield Costs Endurance (-1/2), Instant (-1/2)  and Flight 30-40m?, No Turn Mode (+1/4), Combat Acceleration/Deceleration (+1/4) no Noncombat movement (-1/4)

3rd one the player was burning stun to push his move so low on stun and was hit by the grav tank's cannon (the 6 of us had stopped the bad guy's plan, trashed his war bots and the bad guy was booking it even if my PC was down and the brick was 1-2 hit from a KO to, so our only fast flyer/blaster chased... all the rest of us had a WTF are you thinking. RIP the Grand Sky Knight)

 

 I've had experience with that third one, the Ahab complex. A character who does not have Psych Limitations to mandate this decides "I'm not letting this guy escape." even though they are the only member of the team that can keep up and has to pursue the literally demonic serial killer into tunnels where their team comms don't work when all the other players are shouting after her in game that this is a terrible idea. Even after I told her as GM that this won't end well, she persisted. But she was a good sport about it and admitted that it was really stupid next session before she began a new character. Still friends, 30 years later.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

i don't understand why they made Hardened and Impenetrable different advantages

 

I am not sure.  Its possible that hardened had become the catch-all bonus defense and it was covering too much ground? They split out several things from what hard defenses used to do in 6th edition, adding to the list and expense of making a character more invulnerable.

 

But what it did is make penetration much more useful as an advantage because seriously, who takes impenetrable?

[unclevlad]

Well, if you wanna cheese...you only need 1 point of your defense to be impenetrable, to stop Penetrating flat.  Yeah, OK, 6E has a rule that you can't have "partially impenetrable"...but you can buy multiple defense powers, so that comment is pretty much meaningless.  Just buy layered defenses...perhaps a tough physique (so it gets Always On), and something like a force field (perhaps Resistant Prot, Costs END only to activate.)  

 

Also of note:  both damage negation and damage reduction aren't (heavily) reduced by AP.  With Negation, yeah, you need to adjust for an advantaged attack, but you only lose 1 die in 5.  It doesn't work well when most of your defenses are based on negation...but again, layer those defenses.  Get enough rDef, then buy your negation as STUN only.

[unclevlad]

22 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

Back when Penetrating first came out, I was making an alien CatMan warrior.  He was agile, had claws, etc.  He came in under-budget, so I thought "let's give him a sidearm".  That will give him something he can do if he's too far away to close in and attack. 

 

I wanted it to be different, so I built the Needler.  A small RKA, with that new Penetrating attack and Autofire.

 

Yeah, the Autofire @Duke Bushido still uses - 10 shots, bundled with a +4 OCV.  On a character with 33 DEX.  And every hit got 1 BOD through unless the target had hardened defenses.

 

That sidearm got rewritten pretty quickly after its first couple of uses!

 

Well, as a side aspect here...with Autofire, attacks that aren't applied against normal defenses incur an additional +1.  Similariy, if  "the GM believes a Power with Autofire would be extremely useful or likely to unbalance the game at its normal cost."  Penetrating isn't listed, but it does require an unusual defense, at least in part...and a penetrating killing attack will at least skew the game.

 

So there seems to be pretty solid justification for adding that +1.  You still have to be wary about putting massive advantages on a relatively small power...and I assume the language about 1 pip killing attacks on 6E1 342 is erroneous.  With the +1, then a 10-shot autofire is +1 for the shots, +1 for unusual defenses, and +1/2 for the penetrating...so 15 points for 1d6 K --> 52 points.  Hopefully that would, in itself, make one pause before using it....

[Hugh Neilson]

I referenced the old 2e character as an example - Autofire has changed considerably since then.

While I disagree with "1 pip penetrating KA means 1 BOD penetrates", it has been a consistent ruling.  One I would not follow in my own games, though.

[Duke Bushido]

2 hours ago, unclevlad said:

 

 

So there seems to be pretty solid justification for adding that +1.  You still have to be wary about putting massive advantages on a relatively small power...and I assume the language about 1 pip killing attacks on 6E1 342 is erroneous.  With the +1, then a 10-shot autofire is +1 for the shots, +1 for unusual defenses, and +1/2 for the penetrating...so 15 points for 1d6 K --> 52 points.  Hopefully that would, in itself, make one pause before using it....

 

 

Nah.  Not when 60 points buys "only" 12 DC of some other attack.  With a few skill levels, I can reasonably expect six hits, or six points of BODY to get through with each attack.  Even soaking through all 10 happens with some consistency: I can prepare a shot (set / brace, etc) and try to edge things in my favor (opponent distracted, etc) for a few other favorable modifiers on top of my skill levels.

 

12 DCs of KA is going to average 14 or so BODY, after defenses, what gets through?  The potential to do more is there, but consistently getting 6 to 10 BODY through defenses is nowwhere near as likely, and regualr attacks?  No comparison.  For 52 points, it's quite the bargain for a kill-oriented villain.

[unclevlad]

Multiple hits is +1 hit per 2 points your attack roll betters the base hit.  6 hits means your OCV is 10 higher than their DCV.

 

I suppose this is for a villain, so being very narrowly specialized for one thing is...possible.... 

 

But that, to me, just screams buying the impenetrable...on a 3/3 OIF Armor, if I must.

[Gauntlet]

On 9/30/2023 at 9:58 AM, Christopher R Taylor said:

Penetrating does different stuff than armor piercing, plus more people buy hardened than impenetrable. As Hugh points out, armor piercing can be mitigated by defenses, but penetrating requires a special advantage.

 

Back when the same advantage did for both, it was different but now there's a more uncommon defense that makes penetration even more effective.  Against normal attacks, the stun that gets through is rarely significant (a 9d6 attack means at least 9 stun gets through, which isn't going to stun anyone).  But killing attacks, even 1 body per 15 points is doing long-term damage even through the best defenses available.

 

Just because someone doesn't purchase the advantage on their armor it does not mean that the attack advantage should cost more. All in all, ignoring defenses (which have nothing to do with the value of the advantage anyway) both Armor Piercing and Penetrating have about the exact same chance of increasing the value of the attack. This means that they should cost the same. If you feel that the attack advantage for Penetrating should be 1/2 rather than 1/4 then you need to do the exact same thing with Armor Piercing.

[Hugh Neilson]

When AP dropped from +1/2 to +1/4, I recall being initially surprised (it's been +1/2 forever; no real push to change it).  Then I assessed its use in my games - it was seldom taken, pretty much only as a Multipower slot that rarely, if ever, got used.  +1/4 made it workable.  I apply it to Supers Claws as an alternative to the now much more niche KA.

 

I have not seen much use of Penetrating in games either, except for that occasional "get BOD through" KA. That seems to support the CP economics of reducing the advantage to +1/4 much like AP. Should it be higher for a KA?  Maybe.  Or maybe when we are playing a 4-colour, low-lethality game, we should just reject Penetrating KAs outright.

 

I would also consider making Impenetrable defenses block 1 point of Penetrating damage per point of Impenetrable defenses to mitigate (a bit, at least) unclevlad's exploit.

 

Or I might just have a discussion with my players.  If minor Impenetrable defenses are OK for the players, they are OK for the villains.  So do we want to disallow that "get out of penetrating free" (in which case the points are likely wasted - why have Penetrating attacks if they are just disregarded?); do we want to disallow Penetrating (either in  general or only on KAs); do we want some other fix?

 

The game would not collapse if we removed Penetrating and Impenetrable entirely - most games would likely not even notice.

Edited October 2, 2023 by Hugh Neilson

[BoloOfEarth]

On 9/30/2023 at 3:00 AM, Gauntlet said:

I would have to say that if you do feel that Penetrating should be 1/4 Advantage for Normal Attacks and 1/2 Advantage for Killing Attacks, then you probably will want to do the same for Armor Piercing as well.

 

I rather like this idea.  

 

4 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

I would also consider making Impenetrable defenses block 1 point of Penetrating damage per point of Impenetrable defenses to mitigate (a bit, at least) unclevlad's exploit.

 

Or I might just have a discussion with my players.  If minor Impenetrable defenses are OK for the players, they are OK for the villains.  So do we want to disallow that "get out of penetrating free" (in which case the points are likely wasted - why have Penetrating attacks if they are just disregarded?); do we want to disallow Penetrating (either in  general or only on KAs); do we want some other fix?

 

I also rather like the idea of making Impenetrable defenses block 1 point of Penetrating damager per point of Impenetrable defense.  Not very fond of the "all-or-nothingness" of Impenetrable.

 

I already had discussions with my players about use/abuse of various game elements.  If they come up with a concept or power writeup that bends the rules, but doesn't outright break them, I point out that I'll allow it if they're aware that at some point, villains will do likewise.  Over half the time, they decide they don't want to face that possibility and back off.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Armor Piercing tests out well at ¼ for both killing and normal attacks, but penetration is different sort of beast.  Since it shifts from doing stun to doing body with KA, then that's a different mechanic entirely.

 

I should add: armor piercing can be reduced or negated in its effectiveness by buying more defenses -- something that's always useful for every character.  Even if the attacks aren't armor piercing, you're better off with higher defenses against nearly ANY attack.

 

But penetrating ignores defenses, forcing you to buy an unusual advantage for your defenses, one which rarely comes up.  You can go for most of a campaign without meeting penetrating attacks.  That means you spent precious points on something that is almost never of use, essentially throwing them away on something like PS: Underwater basketweaving.  That makes penetration a different species than Armor Piercing.

Since it will on average deal less damage than an AP attack, then it is not worth more than armor piercing, except in my opinion with killing attacks.

 

Quote

I also rather like the idea of making Impenetrable defenses block 1 point of Penetrating damager per point of Impenetrable defense.  Not very fond of the "all-or-nothingness" of Impenetrable.

 

It never came up in a game, but that's how I always figured it worked anyway.

Edited October 2, 2023 by Christopher R Taylor

[unclevlad]

I'd have no problem just ditching Penetrating and Impenetrable.  As it is now, there's a serious issue with how many different defense types, or qualifiers, you need, for higher levels.  And, yes, I'd definitely agree that each point of Impen should only remove 1 point of Penetrating damage...unless you take it that Penetrating is a limited form of NND.  That's essentially what RAW implies.

 

3 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

I should add: armor piercing can be reduced or negated in its effectiveness by buying more defenses -- something that's always useful for every character.  Even if the attacks aren't armor piercing, you're better off with higher defenses against nearly ANY attack.

 

But that is VERY expensive, and you're going to reach a point of ignoring everything that doesn't have AP.  To be reasonably safe against a 5d6 KA...17-18 BODY on average.  23+ is 10% of the time.  So...perhaps 22.  Against a 4d6 AP, average is 14...you take 3 against an average roll.  19+ is 10% of the time...so you need *36* rDEF to get it down, if nothing is hardened.  And go the other way.  How much will the Hardened cost?  You need to Harden 2 points of the rDef for each BODY you want to block from the AP attack.

 

For normal damage?  15d6 normal...the 10% level is 61.  If I assume a 23 CON, then I need 38 defense.  12d6 AP, average is 42, 10% level is 50.  My defenses have to stop 27...so I need 54 total DEF with no Hardened.  Or, if I Harden...I need to harden 16 of that 38.  16 hardened, 22 not...the 22 -> 11, so I have a net 27.  Also note:  I pretty much have to harden the rDef to account for possible AP killing attacks.  16 Resistant is 24, so hardening forces me to spend another 6...on each...whereas there's no price difference between the 12d6 AP or 15d6 normal, or their killing equivalents.

 

I'll grant that I'm using big attacks, but I wanted to keep direct equivalence.  For 10d6, the 10% level would be 43;  with a 23 CON, that'd be 20 DEF.  8d6, the 10% level is 35, and you need 24 DEF.  Same nominal DCs, but the AP forces more defense.  

 

This does point out that having more CON helps...against getting stunned.  Not against getting knocked out, as more damage gets through.  

 

AP has a massively horrible design feature, in the absence of Hardened:  the better defenses the target has, the MORE effective AP becomes at removing them.  This is backwards.  It's a lesson from 3.0 D&D with Harm.  Miss the save against Harm...you're left with 1d4 hit points.  It doesn't matter whether you had 40 or 400.  This is just wrong;  it's penalizing an asset.  That's why 3.5 made a big change, so it's just doing flat damage.  LOTS of damage...but it's not based on the target's capacity any more.

 

Let's do a bit of math.  To start:  for each d6 of damage we expect, we'll have 2 DEF.  So, against N dice, we need 2N DEF. Against AP, keeping the DCs the same...we're at 0.8 dice...but the DEF is now N.  If we harden, we still need to make 20% of our defenses hardened.  That's to stay *even*.  Or if we're going with 2.5 DEF per d6, it's just that much worse.  It's hard to give a uniform DEF to Dice ratio, because CON comes into play, but this hopefully gets the idea across.

 

Heck, note that 12d6 vs. 8d6 AP...make AP +1/2 again.  12d6 10% level is 50, so, 28 DEF.    8d6, the 10% level is 35...against our 14 defense, now, with the 23 CON...it's almost a *wash*.  That's pricing AP at +1/2.