A thought on armour piercing

[Sean Waters]

Armour piercing is an advantage that rarely makes a lot of difference to damage inflicted. Against lightly armoured targets it is pretty pointless, even against heavily armoured targets the gains are minimal, unless the defence levels in your game are far higher than average:

 

12d6 EB v 8d6 APEB

 

Average damage = 42/28

 

Against 28 points of armour, damage transmitted is (42-28)=14 against (28-14)=14

 

So that's about the break point right there, more defence favours AP. Mind you 28 defence is pretty high for a 12DC game, at least the way I tend to play it. It is, by and large, a multipower slot power.

 

It strikes me there may be another way, not necessarily better, just different.

 

1. Buy your attack

2. Apply the Armour Piercing limitation

 

Limitation? Yes: basically what it does is apply half of the DC (round up) to armour piercing and the rest to damage. So, if you have a 12d6 APEB you roll 6d6 and apply that to the defence. If the defence is equalled or exceeded DO NOT apply any excess to stun/body, instread roll the remaining 6d6 and apply it all (stun gets through if the stun totals were exceeded or equalled, Body gets through is the Body totals were exceceded or equalled).

 

I'm thinking about -1/2. Basically if you hit an unarmoured opponent they take 6d6 damage, so the utility is halved, if you hit a heavily armoured opponent they take no damage, and it works out best for the attacker if you hit someone in the mid range, just exceed their armour and apply full remainder damage.

 

I mean, it is just really another tool for the box, but what do you think?

[Zed-F]

Re: A thought on armour piercing

 

I think AP is more useful for powers that already have other advantages on them. For instance a 6d6 AP Explosion is potentially more useful relative to an 8d6 Explosion than a 8d6 AP EB is to a 12d6 EB. Even more so for AoE attacks -- for ranged attacks, adding AP, NND, or some other defense-reducing advantage is often the only way to get an AoE damaging attack to be useful against most metas. Otherwise AoE is purely meant for agent-buster attacks.

 

I also think I'm not really a fan of the limitation described above. It's counter-intuitive. Armour piercing should be an advantage, not a limitation. If it's not enough of an advantage as is, then make it better, don't make it worse. For instance, make AP be worth +3/4 instead of +1 and have it quarter enemy defenses.

[Sean Waters]

Re: A thought on armour piercing

 

OK, you have a point about the increased utility of mixing AP with other advantages, but by the time you get down to a 6d6 attack in a 12DC game, even if it does have AP, it is of very limited use. Tactically you are almost always better off doing a lot of damage to one target than a little to a lot.

 

Maybe the best way to sell this idea was not to compare it to AP as is: this is not a replacement suggestion, but rather a different way of doing something similar.

 

The 'penetration' part of the attack could be as much as you like, so long as it is at least half of the DC and I would have thought that there would be no problem with applying a seperate advantage (say 'explosion') to the damage part only...sort of

 

4d6 RKA attack 60 points

2d6 'penetration' (30)

2d6 'explosion' damage (45)

 

Total =75/1.5=50

 

So what happens here is you use 2d6 killing to penetrate the armour and if you do, a 2d6 killing explosion goes off behind it. (or you could make it a bit cheaper and have 3d6 penetrating and a 1d6 explosion, which would cost (45 +(15x1.5))/1.5=45 points.)

 

Hero doesn't have a mechanic for doing that at present. In fact all it really is is partially limiting and advantaging a power, but it doesn't even really have a mechanic for doing that in this way.

 

Maybe this shouldn't be a new limitation but a new way of applying advs and lims?

[Zed-F]

Re: A thought on armour piercing

 

Well if you want a 2d6K attack followed by a 2d6K explosion, currently you buy the powers separately, link the explosion to the RKA, and then put probably another lim on the explosion to say only if the RKA does at least one body damage, or something similar. Of course the difference here is each power is still applied vs. defenses separately, and so it's not really that effective a construct for two damaging powers; it works better for attacks that go against different defenses (e.g. flash.)

 

Maybe a better way to do that would be to add another +1/2 modifier for the linked limitation (making your usual linked be worth a -0 instead of a -1/2) which stipulates that the two linked attacks have their totals added together for the purpose of defense penetration (if they go against the same defense) and Stunning. I'm not convinced this is really necessary but it could be something to toy around with.

[Cancer]

Re: A thought on armour piercing

 

In my limited experience, AP isn't something that's worth thinking about for human targets, for many of the reasons Sean mentions. OTOH, for fixed inanimate targets (chains, walls, locks, handcuffs, safes), it has more utility.

[prestidigitator]

Re: A thought on armour piercing

 

I have no problem with AP the way it is currently defined. It is an, "interesting," Advantage that gives flavor and diversity. It's true that it only really becomes advantageous in specific circumstances. I think this is actually one of those Advantages that is most interesting in Heroic campaigns, for a change, because you don't have to worry so much about the point cost for weapons, other equipment, and spells. The bigger concern is adding some useful attacks to your toolkit, thereby allowing you to deal effectively with a wider variety of opponents and situations.

 

FYI, Armor Piercing is most, "worth it," when the defense of the target is 1.5-2 times the average damage of the base attack. If the defense is 1-1.5 times the average damage of the base attack, you might as well just be buying extra DCs (unless there are other Advantages involved, as others have said), but in the former range increasing to 1.5 times the DCs will not tend to exceed the value of the defense whereas AP will.

 

EDIT: Note that there is a somewhat subtle effect as well, because adding AP does not narrow the damage distribution of the attack, but increasing the number of DCs will. So if you are counting on rolling above average damage to exceed defenses, AP can be effective in another way, though it is not nearly so pronounced.

[RDU Neil]

Re: A thought on armour piercing

 

Armour piercing is an advantage that rarely makes a lot of difference to damage inflicted. Against lightly armoured targets it is pretty pointless, even against heavily armoured targets the gains are minimal, unless the defence levels in your game are far higher than average:

 

12d6 EB v 8d6 APEB

 

Average damage = 42/28

 

Against 28 points of armour, damage transmitted is (42-28)=14 against (28-14)=14

 

So that's about the break point right there, more defence favours AP. Mind you 28 defence is pretty high for a 12DC game, at least the way I tend to play it. It is, by and large, a multipower slot power.

 

It strikes me there may be another way, not necessarily better, just different.

 

1. Buy your attack

2. Apply the Armour Piercing limitation

 

Limitation? Yes: basically what it does is apply half of the DC (round up) to armour piercing and the rest to damage. So, if you have a 12d6 APEB you roll 6d6 and apply that to the defence. If the defence is equalled or exceeded DO NOT apply any excess to stun/body, instread roll the remaining 6d6 and apply it all (stun gets through if the stun totals were exceeded or equalled, Body gets through is the Body totals were exceceded or equalled).

 

I'm thinking about -1/2. Basically if you hit an unarmoured opponent they take 6d6 damage, so the utility is halved, if you hit a heavily armoured opponent they take no damage, and it works out best for the attacker if you hit someone in the mid range, just exceed their armour and apply full remainder damage.

 

I mean, it is just really another tool for the box, but what do you think?

 

 

It is always interesting when Sean has been drinking... (more than usual).

[BNakagawa]

Re: A thought on armour piercing

 

8d6 AP is the best attack for busting the vanilla (non hardened) force wall, entangle and breakable foci.

 

It's also pretty good at dinging the non hardened automaton.

[Duke Bushido]

Re: A thought on armour piercing

 

And, as stated, it's a nifty 'boost' for attacks that tend to run below average DCs. Though considering the actually cost/ benefit ratio in any capped campaign, I have been inclined in the past to drop the price a bit. With a +1 Advantage, you can double your DCs for the same AP costs. Double DC has much more utility against heavy defenses in general, I would think.

[Helimar]

Re: A thought on armour piercing

 

Maybe I've been drinking too... isn't AP a +1/2 advantage currently? Same as Penetrating, and Pen is FAR more useful against hard targets (high defense, non-hardened). Pen is of course less useful the less defense the target has, but against truly hard stuff, it's a lifesaver, you can eventually nickel and dime the target to death, whereas with AP you might have to hope for a lucky damage roll.

 

Helimar

[Ura-Maru]

Re: A thought on armour piercing

 

That’s the way Gurps does it, right?

 

Actually, what you’re describing is very close to a less clunky, but more ‘diecey’ version of DCs ‘Penetrating’ power.

 

In my experience AP shows up pretty often in big multipowers, (where it’s occasional usefulness is justified by the five or 6 points you have to pay for the slot) and on KAs, which can be effective at considerably below ‘average’ DC values. And because a 2 1/ 2 d6 RKA won’t scare the GM as much as a 4d6 RKA.

 

Generally, though, anyone who has enough actual Defenses that you would really want AP will have them hardened.

 

8d6 AP is the best attack for busting the vanilla (non hardened) force wall, entangle and breakable foci.

 

Except a 2 1 /2 d6 AP Killing Attack, of course. (9 average body, vs 8)

 

---

Penetrating . . . eh. If there’s an award for ‘the hardest special effect to justify, that somehow shows up in every third character’ penetrating is it:

 

“My sword is really really sharp, so it’s Penetrating!”

“Wouldn’t a really sharp sword be a bigger killing attack?”

“No! It’s sharp enough to cut through armor, but not as good on people.’

“But isn’t that what AP is for?”

“No, that actually has to deal with the armor. Mine’s so sharp it cuts right through armor.”

“ . . .and then does a tiny bit of damage?”

“Right. Exactly the special effect that I had in mind. Little anime-cheek scratches, right through the plate mail.”

 

The only two special effects I can think of offhand that actually justify Penetrating are a big heavy mace or flail with enough impact to cause damage, or and a flame or cold attack that can slowly cook you or give you frostbite even if they never reach your skin. And really, both only makes sense in a heroic game where you want to distinguish swords from maces from guns from ice spells. “My mace hits hard enough to transmit impact through armor, but Grond’s fist doesn’t!” doesn’t make a lot of sense.

 

Or maybe a taser punch like thing, where the ‘penetrated’ damage is actually the electrical damage, not physical! That would work . . . though you’d need GM permission to mix special effects like that.

[Vorsch]

Re: A thought on armour piercing

 

In my experience all "realy tough" characters ie the characters who AP would be useful against always have hardened.

[Fitz]

Re: A thought on armour piercing

 

I don't think AP is currently well handled because of the way in which it reduces the target's effective defenses depending on the target, not on the attack. A guy shooting an AP attack at someone with 8 DEF gets to ignore 4 of them; if he shoots the exact same attack at someone with 20 DEF the attack ignores 10. It seems to me that the amount of armour piercing should be a factor of the attack, not the defense it's affecting.

 

The old Piercing advantage used to allow one to disregard a specific amount of DEF, which is OK but I prefer less absolutism when it comes to combat effects to reflect the fluid nature of combat. I like the idea of buying AP dice which have no damage effect except to overcome defences, and which are additional to the base attack.

 

I'd cost them basically as dice of EB that do no STUN and only for the purpose of penetrating DEF, linked to an attack that is limited "Does no BODY if DEF not penetrated by AP dice"

 

Or something like that.

[Duke Bushido]

Re: A thought on armour piercing

 

In my experience all "realy tough" characters ie the characters who AP would be useful against always have hardened.

which is why I get so many 'second characters' from newer players with that +1 AP...... Grrrr......

 

Though Fitz has an interesting idea.

 

(yes, Sean-- I know it's similar to your suggestion, but in this case, I think I prefer what he's done differently )

[RDU Neil]

Re: A thought on armour piercing

 

I don't think AP is currently well handled because of the way in which it reduces the target's effective defenses depending on the target, not on the attack. A guy shooting an AP attack at someone with 8 DEF gets to ignore 4 of them; if he shoots the exact same attack at someone with 20 DEF the attack ignores 10. It seems to me that the amount of armour piercing should be a factor of the attack, not the defense it's affecting.

 

The old Piercing advantage used to allow one to disregard a specific amount of DEF, which is OK but I prefer less absolutism when it comes to combat effects to reflect the fluid nature of combat. I like the idea of buying AP dice which have no damage effect except to overcome defences, and which are additional to the base attack.

 

I'd cost them basically as dice of EB that do no STUN and only for the purpose of penetrating DEF, linked to an attack that is limited "Does no BODY if DEF not penetrated by AP dice"

 

Or something like that.

 

See my house rules as posted in this thread I address this specifically.

[Sean Waters]

Re: A thought on armour piercing

 

It is always interesting when Sean has been drinking... (more than usual).

 

That obvious, huh?

[Markdoc]

Re: A thought on armour piercing

 

Hero doesn't have a mechanic for doing that at present. In fact all it really is is partially limiting and advantaging a power, but it doesn't even really have a mechanic for doing that in this way.

 

Maybe this shouldn't be a new limitation but a new way of applying advs and lims?

 

It's an old way of doing things, in fact - a partially limited power. what i have been doing for many years to make "cut through anything" swords is buy a large RKA and then partially limit it so that most of the damge is "armour-negating"

 

thus: Stonecutter - 4d6 HKA (standard effect -0, only to exceed defence, -1/2) +2d6 HKA (OAF, sword, -1, 2 handed, -1/2, Independant,-2) for 90 active, 17 real. This gives you a weapon that does normal 2 handed sword damage, but basically ignores defences up to 12 DEF (hardened or otherwise), which in a fantasy world lets you slice through normal armour like it wasn't there, or cut stone and metal. But it doesn't let you blow huge holes in things with one attack.

 

There is some debate about the value of the limitation "only to exceed defences" - against a heavily armoured target it's no limitation at all - against lightly armored targets, it's a huge limitation.

 

In games with Active points limits you also have to decide if this a 90 point power, a 30 point power or somewhere in between

 

The linked suggestion falls down simply because you either have to buy the linked attack NND, making it small and expensive, or it goes up against the defence - making it essentially useless, except for special attacks/ special effects (poison on a dart, a flaming sword or similar).

 

cheers, Mark

[Super Squirrel]

Re: A thought on armour piercing

 

Applying AP with the same Active Point reduces the DC in an attack power by 33%. (e.g. 12d6 -> 8d6 or 6d6 -> 4d6)

Applying AP reduces the effective defenses by 50%. (e.g. 20 PDr -> 10 PDr)

 

This shows that it is correct that low defenses targets don't make the cost worth it. But it does, however, make a difference for high defenses. I'll let a mathmatician calculate the formula for that.

[Helimar]

Re: A thought on armour piercing

 

We currently have 3 penetrating attacks in our Fantasy Heroic game, one is a Stiletto, which is low damage, and str can't add to it (1d6 HKA), and the other two are magical spells, one magic missile-type and one that sprays the target with sliver-fine needles of energy (autofire). None of them are high damage.

 

I definitely agree that plain swords should not have Penetrating without some unusual magic on them, a high quality sword that's kept very sharp is just a couple bonus DCs, a magical sword of sharpness might be Armor Piercing, but neither should be Penetrating.

 

Oh, and I agree that I'd like to see a way to do something like this suggestion of Armor Piercing, but the problem is the AP campaign limits, which are almost completely universal. We had a similar problem recently trying to define a Holy Bolt type spell that only does damage to undead, but against them is pretty lethal, the AP limit ended up really chopping that down. The only way we found to ameliorate that is to agree that most undead have a vulnerability to Holy attacks. Instead of making the character pay for it, the undead has it as a disadvantage to balance out the fact they often have a lot of life support, or Automaton powers, or both. Oh, and they have a different "Class of Mind" so that standard charms and such don't work on them, only a Necromancer's controls work, and their controls can't work on anything living

 

Helimar

[Bloodstone]

Re: A thought on armour piercing

 

AP Naked Advantage for the Win!

 

But since most people don't like that, let me add that Armor Piercing has always been a pretty good advantage in my group.

 

That may be because while we have an average DC limit of 12, the AP limit on powers is 75, not 60. So while you can spend 75 points on an energy blast, but you can't normally have a 15d6 blast. So your typical Energy Projector ends up with a 12d6 1/2 END EB as his primary weapon, but probably also has a 9d6 AP EB in his multipower.

 

Against a foe with 15 or so DEF, the 12d6 EB is superior, though only a few very high DCV opponents or normals will have DEF values that low. Against the lower end campaign average of 20 DEF, both attacks are equally good, though of course the AP attack costs more end. Anything higher then 20-21 DEF and the AP attack tends to be your superior option.

 

Course, we do have bricks walking around with 45+ DEF, but those characters are not meant to be brought down by any single opponents using raw physical force. You need team work, tactics, or an ability to exploit their weaknesses.

 

bah! Rambeling again...

[Zed-F]

Re: A thought on armour piercing

 

8d6 AP is the best attack for busting the vanilla (non hardened) force wall, entangle and breakable foci.

 

It's also pretty good at dinging the non hardened automaton.

Actually a Penetrating RKA is much better at taking down non-hardened force walls. One point through is guaranteed, which is sufficient to take down the wall.

[Zed-F]

Re: A thought on armour piercing

 

Penetrating . . . eh. If there’s an award for ‘the hardest special effect to justify, that somehow shows up in every third character’ penetrating is it.

One way I sometimes think of penetrating is as an attack that has enough impact to be able to 'rattle the cage' of anyone it hits, no matter how well-armoured. For instance a 2H hammer will hit with enough force to be able to transmit some of the shock of the attack through the armour to the underlying squishy bits, pretty much no matter how good the armour is. On the other hand, you could easily say that's just a bigger HA as well.

 

It's an old way of doing things, in fact - a partially limited power. what i have been doing for many years to make "cut through anything" swords is buy a large RKA and then partially limit it so that most of the damge is "armour-negating"

I like the construct, though I probably would build your example a bit differently -- spending 17 RP on an item that will at some point get lost permanently is a bit more than I'd like, so I'd probably reduce the bonus anti-armour advantage.

 

One thing I will note: AP is a heck of a lot more useful when you consider maneuvers that add DCs. This includes haymakers, melee and ranged martial arts, velocity-based maneuvers, and especially in the case of the good old HA, Strength. I would in general much rather have a 3d6 HA, AP(+1/2) 0 END(+1/2) martial arts pointy stick than a 4d6 HA, 0 END (+1/2) club for the same 30 AP.

[Blue]

Re: A thought on armour piercing

 

The negligable difference to me has always been on killing attacks. And usually that's so minor you barely notice:

 

I'll use 60 pts of attack and 24 DEF (half of which is resistant). I'll also presume to roll all "4s" on the dices (What I refer to as "high average", which is what I use for evaluating most attacks, as in "what if a slightly above average attack hit):

 

12D6 = 48 STUN, 12 BODY v. 24PD = 24 STUN, 0 BODY

8D6 AP = 36 STUN, 8 BODY v. (24PD/2)= 24 STUN, 0 BODY

4D6K = 48 STUN, 16 BODY v. 24PD,12 rPD = 24 STUN, 3 BODY

2-1/2D6K = 40 STUN, 10 BODY v. (24PD/2,12rPD/2) = 28 STUN, 4 BODY

 

So the guy with the AP killing attack got through one more point of body and 4 more points of STUN.

[prestidigitator]

Re: A thought on armour piercing

 

I'll use 60 pts of attack and 24 DEF (half of which is resistant). I'll also presume to roll all "4s" on the dices (What I refer to as "high average", which is what I use for evaluating most attacks, as in "what if a slightly above average attack hit):

 

12D6 = 48 STUN, 12 BODY v. 24PD = 24 STUN, 0 BODY

8D6 AP = 36 STUN, 8 BODY v. (24PD/2)= 24 STUN, 0 BODY

4D6K = 48 STUN, 16 BODY v. 24PD,12 rPD = 24 STUN, 3 BODY

2-1/2D6K = 40 STUN, 10 BODY v. (24PD/2,12rPD/2) = 28 STUN, 4 BODY

 

So the guy with the AP killing attack got through one more point of body and 4 more points of STUN.

Actually, I think you used a result of '5' on the Stun Multiplier die of the second Killing Attack. Shouldn't it have been 30 Stun, 10 Body, in which case 18 Stun, 4 Body would get through? In any case, like I said above it depends a lot on circumstances. Try comparing your same attacks with 16 rPD/48 PD.

[Shike019]

Re: A thought on armour piercing

 

I apologize, but what are the average defenses in your game. The game I'm in (500 pts. 120 pt min on skills) my martial artist has the second highest defenses (15pd/0rpd,15ed/0red) The "Brick" has 15/15 for both. His newest power brings those numbers up to (not above) 20pd and like 18 ed (don't remember the resistant on either).