Armor Piercing on normal attacks: Is it useful?

[Captain Pants]

On a whim, I decided to compare average damages for unmodified normal attacks vs. the same active point attacks with armor piercing. In other words, 60 active points can give you a 12d6 normal attack, or an 8d6 AP attack. Which was better? I was quite surprised at the outcome. This is what I found:

 

AP attacks start doing STUN at earlier point levels, but the benefit is short-lived as the levels go up. It basically introduces a short-lived, bell-curve bump in your damage range… you get a slight gain over what gets past defenses. The gain goes up as active points increase until a point of diminishing returns is reached, and it comes back down. Where the curve is, and how much it’s spread out, depends on your opponent’s DEF and what you roll for damage. With higher rolls, any extra damage from AP is no higher than if you rolled all 3’s, and the “sweet spot†lasts for a much narrower range of points. With lower die rolls, the extra damage from having AP is less, but is spread out over a larger range of point levels.

 

For example, let’s assume an opponent of 35 DEF and rolls of 3 on all dice. An AP attack starts getting damage through at 45 active points, while a normal attack doesn't start getting through until 60 pts. At the peak of its effectiveness, at 65 points, the AP attack does 6 more STUN than its unmodified counterpart. That's right... 6. And if you were to roll all 6's, a normal attack would do 7 more pts than its AP counterpart. BODY is effectively a non-issue -- both attacks don't do any BODY until far later, since the defense is so high. AP attacks do start doing it sooner, with 1 point of BODY at 135 active points… well past most playing levels.

 

As with all bell curves, what goes up must come down. Again taking the example of 35 def, the trend reverses at 70 pts. By the time you get to 85 pts, normal attacks do more damage, and the difference continues to widen as the pts go up. BODY is the same, but the curve is much longer… at 270 active points, ridiculously beyond normal playing levels, normal attacks start doing more BODY.

 

So there you have it... against a DEF 35, with all 3's, you get might get 6 extra STUN, assuming you have exactly the right attack level.

 

AP gets even less effective as the defense goes down – against a def of 20, at its peak, an AP attack does a whopping 4 more STUN… and it’s at 30 pts. Do you know anyone with a 4d6 AP EB? If it’s 40 or above, you’re actually doing less damage than if you just took an 8d6 normal attack. Against a 20 def, normal attacks overtake AP attacks at 55.

 

On the other hand, AP attacks have a clear advantage on BODY at lower levels. AP attacks start doing BODY at 80 pts, and normal attacks don't do more than AP until 160.

 

Following is the difference chart (AP dmg - unmodified dmg) for a 20 DEF and assuming die roll average of 3. Negative numbers indicate a normal attack doing more damage:

 

Act.

pts B S

15 0 0

20 0 0

25 0 0

30 0 2

35 0 4

40 0 1

45 0 1

50 0 1

55 0 -2

60 0 -2

65 0 -2

70 0 -5

75 0 -5

80 1 -5

85 1 -8

90 2 -8

95 3 -8

100 3 -11

105 3 -11

110 3 -11

115 2 -14

120 2 -14

125 2 -14

130 1 -17

135 1 -17

140 1 -17

145 0 -20

150 0 -20

155 0 -20

160 -1 -23

 

- Cap

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Armor Piercing on normal attacks: Is it useful?

 

Interesting analysis, Captain. I've seen others like it before, and your breakdown is essentially correct. I do have to point out, though, that 35 DEF is exceptionally high against a 60 Active Point attack. Given an average STUN on a random Normal Damage dice roll of 3.5, 12d6 will produce 42 STUN on average; only 7 STUN would get through that level of defense, which will make for very long combats.

 

In general I've found that Armor Piercing attacks tend to be more effective against targets with higher defenses, while unmodified attacks do more damage against those with lower defenses. Don't be too quick to dismiss the edge in BODY damage that AP attacks can do, though. Against inanimate objects and barriers, Vehicles or Automatons that's often the only damage that matters, and being able to damage such targets may prove crucial.

[Guest Black Lotus]

Re: Armor Piercing on normal attacks: Is it useful?

 

Also, consider that in each case, you are comparing two Powers that cost 60 Active Points apiece. I HOPE one of them isn't significantly better than the other, for the same cost.

 

And yes, in most games, AP ammo is worse than normal ammo against unarmored folk, and better than normal ammo against armored folk. It's a tradeoff, but it's a good thing it's there, I think.

[MitchellS]

Re: Armor Piercing on normal attacks: Is it useful?

 

As Lord Liaden said the benefit is really only usable against higher defense targets. A 12d6 attack does 42/12 on average. An 8d6 attack does 28/8. At that power level the threshold appears to be 29 defense. A target with 30 or more needs to be hit with armor piercing. A target with 28 or less needs to be hit with a the normal attack.

[Fox1]

Re: Armor Piercing on normal attacks: Is it useful?

 

Something missing in this the loss of knockback damage potential with AP.

 

 

For my part, I almost never build an item with the AP advantage. Instead I use the piercing power from Dark Champions which can be selected in exact degree to represent whatever I'm constructing as opposed to the one-setting effect of AP.

 

I have used it, but only to represent those things which I feel the advantage actually models. Very few non-real world things.

[BNakagawa]

Re: Armor Piercing on normal attacks: Is it useful?

 

8d6 ap eb is a better attack than 12d6 eb when:

 

body matters and your target doesn't have hardened defenses.

 

Examples: knocking down force walls, breaking foci, damaging non hardened vehicles and automata.

 

and when your target has good (over 28) defenses that aren't hardened.

 

and when you're whittling down a really big (bigger than 8/8) entangle

[Trebuchet]

Re: Armor Piercing on normal attacks: Is it useful?

 

I should point out that the average roll per die is 3.5; not 3. This skews your results considerably, although probably not enough to change your conclusion.

 

In a 60 point game, 35 PD or ED is likely to be possessed only by bricks or tough EB's; in other words, exactly the target AP is designed to work against.

[Dust Raven]

Re: Armor Piercing on normal attacks: Is it useful?

 

All of the probabilities change a bit when have more than just the AP Advantage. For example, When you combine AP and autofire, you can get a potentially nasty attack (at the cost of doing KB or affecting a target with extremly high defenses).

 

I do find it reassuring that an 8d6 EB Armor Piercing and a 12d6 EB do about the same average damage against the same average defense suggested for 60 active point attacks though.

[Guest Black Lotus]

Re: Armor Piercing on normal attacks: Is it useful?

 

An alternate way of doing Armor Piercing would be for it to cancel out a set whole number of DEF. That way, it'd be more like real life: able to pierce armor effortlessly up to a certain point, after which it peters out.

 

You are likely thinking, "You must be crazy, dude!" I'm not. Consider: a by-the-book AP bullet will reduce a Defense of 10 to a Defense of 5, and a Defnse of 500 (!) to a defense of 250 (!!!). (Totally unrealistic). However, if you SCALE it, say, AP (flat -15 DEF), the ammo would pierce any armor of up to 15 DEF completely, but would get less and less effective versus heavier armors, though still better than regular ammo (as long as the target is wearing armor of course. Regular ammo works best on naked people).

 

Only problem: that system, if developed, would be more complicated than the "cuts defense in 1/2" one. Opinions, anyone?

[Captain Pants]

Re: Armor Piercing on normal attacks: Is it useful?

 

An alternate way of doing Armor Piercing would be for it to cancel out a set whole number of DEF. That way, it'd be more like real life: able to pierce armor effortlessly up to a certain point, after which it peters out.

 

You are likely thinking, "You must be crazy, dude!" I'm not. Consider: a by-the-book AP bullet will reduce a Defense of 10 to a Defense of 5, and a Defnse of 500 (!) to a defense of 250 (!!!). (Totally unrealistic). However, if you SCALE it, say, AP (flat -15 DEF), the ammo would pierce any armor of up to 15 DEF completely, but would get less and less effective versus heavier armors, though still better than regular ammo (as long as the target is wearing armor of course. Regular ammo works best on naked people).

 

Only problem: that system, if developed, would be more complicated than the "cuts defense in 1/2" one. Opinions, anyone?

 

Isn't that what Piercing is?

 

- Cap

[Hawksmoor]

Re: Armor Piercing on normal attacks: Is it useful?

 

I do find it reassuring that an 8d6 EB Armor Piercing and a 12d6 EB do about the same average damage against the same average defense suggested for 60 active point attacks though.

 

Not to be dense but then what is the point of the advantage?

 

Hawksmoor

[MitchellS]

Re: Armor Piercing on normal attacks: Is it useful?

 

Not to be dense but then what is the point of the advantage?

 

Hawksmoor

The point is that higher-defense characters [30 or more] take more damage from an 8d6 ap attack then they will a 12d6 attack. AP is best used on killing attacks or high defense bricks. It gives some slight advantage.

[MitchellS]

Re: Armor Piercing on normal attacks: Is it useful?

 

Isn't that what Piercing is?

 

- Cap

Piercing is massively cost ineffective. 1 point of piercing is, iirc, 5 points. For the same 5 points you can buy +1d6 eb, which will do 3 more stun. So you can spend 5 points to gain +1 stun and body or you can spend 5 points and gain +3 stun and +1 body.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Armor Piercing on normal attacks: Is it useful?

 

Not to be dense but then what is the point of the advantage?

 

It's a tradeoff. If the target hasd exceptionally high defenses, you'll get more damage through with AP. If their defenses are low, a normal attack works better.

 

Consider the very high DEF 40 villain. 8d6 AP averages 8 Stun, and 12d6 normal averages 2 Stun.If his defenses are 20, AP averages 18 and normal averages 22. At 30 DEF, AP averages 13 and Normal averages 12.

 

The issue becomes one of pricing. What if we made AP +1/4 to answer the concern that it's not effective enough? Now we get 9 1/2d6 AP for 60 points. Against the same defense range, we get:

 

- 40 DEF 13.5 AP; 2 normal

- 30 DEF 18.5 AP; 12 normal

- 20 DEF 23.5 AP; 22 normal

 

At any significant level of defense, a normal attack is inferior, so why would you ever fail to make your attack AP? At DEF 16 or lower, Normal attacks are better, but how many opponents will have defenses that low.

 

There are some advantages (knockback, spreading) to having more dice, so it's not as simple as this makes it out to be, but the advantage of AP kicks in at high defense levels.

[Hawksmoor]

Re: Armor Piercing on normal attacks: Is it useful?

 

I was commenting on DR's being relieved that AP was no great advantage over straight dice. True, they cost the same but Indirect is a great advantage over straight dice and the list goes on. Shouldn't AP have an *advantage* over straight dice?

 

IMX Dice are the way to go. AP is only useful for Killing Attacks where you want to whittle your opposition's resistant defenses down a notch to land that precious body damage.

 

Hawksmoor

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Armor Piercing on normal attacks: Is it useful?

 

I was commenting on DR's being relieved that AP was no great advantage over straight dice. True' date=' they cost the same but Indirect is a great advantage over straight dice and the list goes on. Shouldn't AP have an *advantage* over straight dice? [/quote']

 

It does - it halves defenses. A 12d6 AP attack is clearly superior to a 12d6 non-AP attack.

 

DR's relief seems to me to be that a 60 Active Points Armor Piercing attack is more useful in some cases, and less useful in others, balancing out, than a 60 Active Point normal attack.

 

Just like an 8d6 Indirect (+1/2) attack is way better than a 12d6 attack if there's a force wall between you and your target, but no great shakes if there's a clear field.

[Hawksmoor]

Re: Armor Piercing on normal attacks: Is it useful?

 

But the modifier is called Advantage. It should convey an advantage to the user. AP does scale. It scales along side the use of Defense Powers. If the Defense ups so should the Active Points of the powers being used to oppose them. Don't restrict the debate by keeping the active points of the attack the same while comparing it to escalating defenses.

 

For instance, I am the opposite of DOJ when it comes to fast/long combats. The speed chart is in seconds and I want Heroes and Villians that can toe to toe for minutes if not hours (DOJ wants quick and dirty [not genre] combat). Thus my prefered DC vs DEF mix is 12 DC v 30-35 PD/ED. If I take more than say 10 Stun from the average attack in a game then I am (IMO) taking too much.

 

Thus AP does leak through more damage on me than I normally like. AP is an advantage. If I buy 40-45 Defenses then the value of AP does lessen on a 60 AP power. What should be done instead is that the Active Points of the attacks in the campaign should scale upwards to keep the balance to achieve 7-10 STUN per attack on average.

 

Hawksmoor

[braincraft]

Re: Armor Piercing on normal attacks: Is it useful?

 

A different flavor of AP could be attained by buying extra dice of damage with the disadvantage that the damage rolled on those dice only counts to negate defenses.

[Dust Raven]

Re: Armor Piercing on normal attacks: Is it useful?

 

But the modifier is called Advantage. It should convey an advantage to the user.

It is and it does. Compare an EB 8d6, and an EB 8d6 Armor Piercing. Which is better? Obviously the one with the advantage. My relief comes when you compare two powers with the same active cost. Is there a reason you feel one 60 point power should be noticably more powerful than any other 60 point power?

[Guest Black Lotus]

Re: Armor Piercing on normal attacks: Is it useful?

 

It is and it does. Compare an EB 8d6' date=' and an EB 8d6 Armor Piercing. Which is better? Obviously the one with the advantage. My relief comes when you compare two powers with the same active cost. Is there a reason you feel one 60 point power should be noticably more powerful than any other 60 point power?[/quote']

 

That's what I've been wondering. And even when the powers cost the same amount of Points to build, the regular ammo does the same damage every time, while AP ammo does less damage to unarmored folk than normal ammo, while doing MORE damage to well-armored folk than normal ammo.

 

What's the conundrum here?

[TaxiMan]

Re: Armor Piercing on normal attacks: Is it useful?

 

Forget AP; buy Find Weakness. Same effect but better! You can continue to reduce armor, it applies to multiple attacks, and it might not be considered as part of the attack cost (slipping a little extra under the active point cap).

 

Disadvantage is it takes a phase or more, and doesn't fit the SFX! But what munchkin player cares about SFX? The point is - is it worth the points?