champions 6th Armor Piercing vs Penetrating

[Gauntlet]

12 hours ago, pawsplay said:

I'd rather get rid of Penetrating and keep AP. AP allows attacks to rationalize enemy's defenses without creating huge kill numbers. It's indispensable for characters like Wolverine, who can harm very hard targets but isn't going to cut a tank in half with claws that short. Whereas I could live without Penetrating:

 

Bees! 1d6 RKA NND, defense is environmentally sealed armor or immune to bees

 

Penetrating is in many examples used as, okay, this really CAN cut through anything, and I think it's the wrong Advantage for that. Penetrating should really only be for attacks that can seep through incompletely sealed defenses; it does full damage against lesser defended foes but still always does something without Impenetrable defenses. It's a very specific behavior, which in most cases could be adequately modeled by combining an attack with a Linked NND attack for the splatter/leakage/swarming damage.

 

Not quite sure that Penetrating is so much better than Armor Piercing. I have seen it a lot of times where Armor Piercing fully takes the target out as it allows a ton of damage to go through, while Penetrating, even with high dice attacks really doesn't do much. Being hit with a 5d6 RKA that is Armor Piercing many times can take you directly out of the combat while Penetrating only means that you will take a minimum of 5 BODY, while is not good, it does mean you are still in the fight.

[LoneWolf]

Why do we need to eliminate either of them?  There is nothing wrong with having more options, both advantages have their place.  The whole point of the Hero System is that you can build any power you want.  Some attacks are better built as AP others may work better as PEN. 

 

 

As to the cost difference AP attacks are more useful on higher dice attacks, where PEN works well on low dice attacks. Putting AP on a low dice attack gives you less bang for the buck then PEN as the target with decent DEF can still often bounce the attack.  PEN on the other hand becomes less effective at higher dice.   

[pawsplay]

2 hours ago, Gauntlet said:

 

Not quite sure that Penetrating is so much better than Armor Piercing. I have seen it a lot of times where Armor Piercing fully takes the target out as it allows a ton of damage to go through, while Penetrating, even with high dice attacks really doesn't do much. Being hit with a 5d6 RKA that is Armor Piercing many times can take you directly out of the combat while Penetrating only means that you will take a minimum of 5 BODY, while is not good, it does mean you are still in the fight.

 

I'm not saying it's advantageous. Rather that it's ability to absolutely overcome defenses is appealing to some people when trying to model certain highly powerful attacks, and the fact it is not always advantageous causes the resulting construction to look and  play weird. It's like, hi, I'm wearing a spacesuit, so I'm less vulnerable to adamantium claws.

[Gauntlet]

2 hours ago, LoneWolf said:

Why do we need to eliminate either of them?  There is nothing wrong with having more options, both advantages have their place.  The whole point of the Hero System is that you can build any power you want.  Some attacks are better built as AP others may work better as PEN. 

 

 

As to the cost difference AP attacks are more useful on higher dice attacks, where PEN works well on low dice attacks. Putting AP on a low dice attack gives you less bang for the buck then PEN as the target with decent DEF can still often bounce the attack.  PEN on the other hand becomes less effective at higher dice.   

 

You definitely have this one right on.

[Gauntlet]

4 hours ago, pawsplay said:

 

I'm not saying it's advantageous. Rather that it's ability to absolutely overcome defenses is appealing to some people when trying to model certain highly powerful attacks, and the fact it is not always advantageous causes the resulting construction to look and  play weird. It's like, hi, I'm wearing a spacesuit, so I'm less vulnerable to adamantium claws.

 

Okay, so it looks like we are all on the same page. My big thing is that I don't believe that Penetrating should be a higher advantage than Armor Piercing. I think that both should be 1/2. I am not sure why they would put Armor Piercing at 1/4 while Penetrating is still 1/2. 

[LoneWolf]

One reason is that with an AP attack you can still bounce the damage even without hardened defenses.  A PEN attack on the other hand always gets some damage through.   A 1d6 AP RKA will still do no BODY 5/6 of the time vs DEF 9.  A 1d6 PEN RKA will do at least 1 point of BODY 5/6 of the time vs a DEF 30.  

Edited December 7, 2023 by LoneWolf

[Gauntlet]

15 minutes ago, LoneWolf said:

One reason is that with an AP attack you can still bounce the damage even without hardened defenses.  A PEN attack on the other hand always gets some damage through.   A 1d6 AP RKA will still do no BODY 5/6 of the time vs DEF 9.  A 1d6 PEN RKA will do at least 1 point of BODY 5/6 of the time vs a DEF 30.  

 

Yes, but normally Hero will set it up so that the defense is less than the offense, but now they have both hardened and Armor Piercing as the same advantage. 

[LoneWolf]

With an AP attack you don’t absolutely need hardened to avoid the damage.  If I have a character with high defense I can bounce the AP attack.   A character with 30 resistant defense that is not hardened will take absolutely no BODY from a 2 1/2D6 AP KA.  That same character will take 2 BODY on the average from a 2d6 PEN killing attack.  I roll 12 for the BODY the minimum BODY become 4.   The only way to avoid the minimum BODY is with impenetrable (or Damage Negation).  I could have a character with 300 points of DEF and they still take the minimum damage.   To avoid the average damage from the 2 1/2D6 AP KA I only need 18 points of DEF.   Your normal defenses are a partial defense against an AP attack.   

 

PEN is actually much more efficient at getting damage through high defense especially on lower dice attacks.  If it was the same cost as AP (+1/4) it would too effective and would become the default.    
 

[Gauntlet]

I don't think that Penetrating should be reduced to a 1/4 Advantage, I think that Armor Piercing should be increased as a 1/2 Advantage. They may be different in what they can do and when they are at the most advantageous, but they still have about the same value. I don't see Armor Piercing being only half as valuable as Penetrating.

[LoneWolf]

I have to disagree with that.  If you compare 3 attacks of the same points, one with no advantage, one with AP, and the last with PEN you see that each one actually has a sweet spot.  The attack with no advantage does better vs a target with no, or little DEF, the AP does better vs a target with moderate to good defenses, and the PEN does better vs high defenses.   On a 60pt power the straight KA does more damage to targets with 4 or less resistant defense, The AP does better on targets to targets with 6 -16 defense, and the  PEN does better with anything with 18 or above.  On a 30 point attack the straight KA again does better on up to 4 DEF, the AP on up to 8 DEF, and the PEN on above 8.   These numbers are based on the current values.

 

If we change the value to make AP more expensive it reduces the dice on the power so the numbers change.  On the 60 point power the straight KA is more efficient for targets up to 10 DEF, the AP is more efficient at 12 DEF, and the PEN is more efficient at 14 DEF.  On the 30 points the straight KA is more efficient at up to 4 DEF, the AP technically is more efficient at 6, and the PEN at 8 or above.   The difference at 6 DEF on the 30 point power is 1.5 points to 1 point, so really it is not.  

 

 Below is some charts showing the numbers.

[Gauntlet]

What you have above does not in any way state that Armor Piercing should be less expensive than Penetrating. Plus you are also not counting the STUN damage taken by the attack in which Armor Piercing assists the attack overwhelmingly more than Penetrating. Based on the entire picture they should cost the same, both should be a 1/2 Advantage. Add that to the fact that it normally has been standard to have attacks cost more than defenses, then it definitely can be said that you should not have Armor Piercing be the same advantage as Hardened.

[LoneWolf]

In 6^th edition they nerfed the stun multiple for KA so the stun is a lot less than it used to be.   That means the amount of stun getting through is less on all killing attacks.  If AP is a +1/4 advantage your straight killing attack is more efficient in getting stun through until the target has moderate defenses.  Up to 8 DEF the 4d6 KA does more stun than the 3d6+1 AP KA.  At 10 DEF they are equal, and after that the stun of the AP does slightly more damage than the straight KA.  IF AP is a +1/2 advantage the straight KA gets more stun through until 22 DEF.  Even after that the amount of extra stun getting through on the AP attack is not that significant.  

 

The Penetrating KA is still getting BODY through on every hit. That is something that very few characters can ignore.    That alone makes PEN worth more on a killing attack.  

[Gauntlet]

Yes, but Armor Piercing attacks don't just have to be Killing Attack. Normal attacks can be Armor Piercing as well, which still reduced the target's defenses for both STUN and BODY. Penetrating attacks only do a bonus of BODY for Killing Attacks and only a bonus of STUN for Normal Attacks.

 

And yes, I have had plenty of character ignore Penetrating attacks feeling that they were not that much of a problem. In fact, most players I have had in any of my games have felt that Armor Piercing was more of a threat then Penetrating, yourself included.