Working With RedPen and AP

[Lethosos]

I was wondering about the effects between Reduced Penetration and Armor Piercing. Specifically, I'm working on a character that has Claws (which are normally done with RedPen,) but can add AP to it under certain circumstances. What's the circumstances here? Do AP cancel out RedPen, or is there some funky result?

[Black Rose]

Re: Working With RedPen and AP

 

I was wondering about the effects between Reduced Penetration and Armor Piercing. Specifically' date=' I'm working on a character that has Claws (which are normally done with RedPen,) but can add AP to it under certain circumstances. What's the circumstances here? Do AP cancel out RedPen, or is there some funky result?[/quote']

Okay, I'm going to make some assumptions for sake of agrument.

 

Claws: 1d6+1 HKA (2 1/2d6 w/STR); Reduced Penetration. This really makes the construct Claws: 2x 1/2d6 HKA (1d6+1 w/STR); STUN adds together for simplicity's sake.

 

Now, when you add Armor Piercing, the only thing that changes is what amount of Armor you go up against; it's now cut in half for "both" attacks. It's actually a good build for "sharp but not deep cuts". The only way you might cancel out the RedPen (aside from a construct that pays back the point you got for taking it in the first place) would be to take Penetrating.

 

Though I have to admit I like using a combo of Autofire, Penetrating and RedPen to make a bunch of tiny nigh-unavoidable attacks. Cheddar, but fun.

[Dust Raven]

Re: Working With RedPen and AP

 

The potential headaches of combining Reduced Penetration with either Armor Piercing or Penetraing tend to give me potential headaches.

 

I can't be sure what's legal without checking I book I don't have, so I'll leave that asside for a moment and assume that any combination of these is legal.

 

Reduced Pen basically means that the BODY rolled on the dice is halved, and then applied to the target's DEF twice. I'm not sure where the "cuts the attack in half, each half attack rolled seperately" bit comes from. The way I've always read it is that the BODY rolled is halved, not the dice. Whatever it is, the STUN is unaffected by this Limitation and is applied in whole to the target's DEF.

 

So we put Armor Piercing on it too. So, we take half the BODY and apply it twice to half the target's DEF. This sounds like it cancels out, and you might as well as apply all the BODY to all the target's DEF. Except that you still apply the total STUN versus half the target's DEF.

 

Instead of Armor Piercing, we put Penetrating. So we're cutting the BODY in two and applying each half to the target's DEF. What penetrates? I'd say that part is done normally. If it's a Killing Attack, count the normal damage BODY on the dice, that that's the minimum damage the target takes. Should more BODY get through after all the halving and applying twice, so be it. If it's a normal attack, the fact the attack is Reduced Penetration is irrelevant, since RedPen only affects the BODY, and Pen on a normal attack only affects STUN.

 

Okay... time for some asprin!

[Sean Waters]

Re: Working With RedPen and AP

 

There's no 'cancelling' per se.

 

Taking Black Rose's example you roll 1d6+1 and 1d6+1, and apply each lot of BODY against half the target's defences - you proably still won't get a lot through unless it is a heroic game - in which case that's a pretty chunky attack anyway.

 

Now I'm not sure whether you use one STUN multiplier or roll 2 (if you used hit locations surely both attack halves would have to take the same modifier, which seems to argue towards a single stun multiplier, but ADD the stun together BEFORE applying it to half the target's defences.

 

What you have is a pretty cheap way to knock someone out without killing them: not, to my mind, what claws are all about at all.

[Dust Raven]

Re: Working With RedPen and AP

 

Okay, I just check the rules (5E, not 5ER) and I'm wrong about how the damage is split. It is split before the roll, instead of after, so you are effectively rolling two seperate damage rolls (which seems bonkers to me, but that's the way it works... oh well). Doesn't change much though.

 

I would still do a Penetrating, Reduced Penetrating attack the way I described above though.

 

As for the STUNx, you only roll it once, combining the BODY totals for that purpose.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Working With RedPen and AP

 

..............

 

As for the STUNx, you only roll it once, combining the BODY totals for that purpose.

 

You are quite right: I've read it properly now

[Dust Raven]

Re: Working With RedPen and AP

 

You are quite right: I've read it properly now

 

That makes one of us. I think it's one of the stupidest game mechanics I've heard of. I can't think of a single use for it I couldn't design efficiently some other way.

[Gary]

Re: Working With RedPen and AP

 

Sounds like it's be simpler and more elegant to buy the reduced penetration attack, and then have a Find Weakness on top of it.

 

That should get you the effect you want.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Working With RedPen and AP

 

The other thing is that whilst claws are often done with reduced penetration, there is nothing to say they HAVE to be - it might be better not to bother with the limitation at all - but it depends what you want the attack to do.

 

I've always thought it good for a shotgun blast but now I'm not sure - I always see such a blast as doing quite a bit of KB and red pen effectively halves KB too (making it practically KBless).

 

As with all things Hero, you need to start out where you want to be then work out how to get there

[Lethosos]

Re: Working With RedPen and AP

 

Yep. I'm actually re-thinking the claw build on that character--may be easier to simply say that, for default purposes, he has stubby little claws that don't do much against a block of cheddar cheese. Then he grows the claws themselves, without the RedPen on 'em for better effectiveness.

 

But having this argument helps clarify this particular issue; I see Penetrating needing to cancel RedPen, instead of all this backwards convultions that comes to the same conclusion--Pen + RedPen = Normal attack.

[Zed-F]

Re: Working With RedPen and AP

 

Yeah. I wouldn't allow an attack with Pen and RedPen; makes no sense. How are you going to come up with SFX to justify that?

 

Now AP and RedPen, that I can see (and have chars with.)

[Lethosos]

Re: Working With RedPen and AP

 

The only way you'd justify it if someone had an outside Pen adder that could be added to something else of his that's always RedPen.

 

But I digress--some people have a stange way to show their machoism.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Working With RedPen and AP

 

You'd halve the Defense, and split the Attack.

 

So 2d6 RKA AP, RP vs 12 PD would never get body thru, but vs a 10 PD a 6 on either die will get thru.

 

 

Actually, this does some interesting things with probability. Gary or Dr. Anomaly or some other person with better math than me can correct this, but:

 

2d6 RKA AP, RP vs 10 PD; each die has a 1 in 6 chance of rolling a 6 and doing some BODY, but you have a 1 in 3 chance of rolling a 6 on one or the other die.

 

On an equivalent "straight" 2d6 RKA vs 10 PD you need to roll no lower than a 5 on one die and must roll a 6 on the other, or:

 

5...6

6...5

6...6

 

or 3 different variations of the 36 possible variations (3/36 = 1/12).

 

So basically the 2d6 RKA AP, RP vs 10 PD has a better chance of doing SOME body than a 2d6 RKA vs 10 PD; 1 in 3 instead of 1 in 12.

 

 

Other permutations have an impact of course, but essentially there is a band where a AP RP attack has an advantage.

[Gary]

Re: Working With RedPen and AP

 

You'd halve the Defense, and split the Attack.

 

So 2d6 RKA AP, RP vs 12 PD would never get body thru, but vs a 10 PD a 6 on either die will get thru.

 

 

Actually, this does some interesting things with probability. Gary or Dr. Anomaly or some other person with better math than me can correct this, but:

 

2d6 RKA AP, RP vs 10 PD; each die has a 1 in 6 chance of rolling a 6 and doing some BODY, but you have a 1 in 3 chance of rolling a 6 on one or the other die.

 

On an equivalent "straight" 2d6 RKA vs 10 PD you need to roll no lower than a 5 on one die and must roll a 6 on the other, or:

 

5...6

6...5

6...6

 

or 3 different variations of the 36 possible variations (3/36 = 1/12).

 

So basically the 2d6 RKA AP, RP vs 10 PD has a better chance of doing SOME body than a 2d6 RKA vs 10 PD; 1 in 3 instead of 1 in 12.

 

 

Other permutations have an impact of course, but essentially there is a band where a AP RP attack has an advantage.

 

 

It's actually 11/36 of getting at least 1 Body through with 2 separate 1d6 KAs vs 5 resistant defenses.

 

My thought is that the 2d6 AP RP attack should have an advantage over a straight 2d6 KA. It's 50% higher active points offset by a 20% reduction in price. 36 real points vs 30, and harder to fit into a power framework.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Working With RedPen and AP

 

It's actually 11/36 of getting at least 1 Body through with 2 separate 1d6 KAs vs 5 resistant defenses.

Thanx! But could you show the math? I'd find it educational.

 

My thought is that the 2d6 AP RP attack should have an advantage over a straight 2d6 KA. It's 50% higher active points offset by a 20% reduction in price. 36 real points vs 30, and harder to fit into a power framework.

Agreed.

[Gary]

Re: Working With RedPen and AP

 

Thanx! But could you show the math? I'd find it educational.

 

The chance of NOT getting any Body through is 5/6 per shot. So the chance of not getting any Body through in 2 shots is (5/6)^2 or 25/36. And thus the chance of getting at least 1 Body through is 1-25/36 or 11/36.

 

The average would still be 1/3 Body though, since there is a 1/36 chance of inflicting 2 net Body with a roll of 6,6.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Working With RedPen and AP

 

Hmm....I was looking at as a 1 in 6 chance per die, so 1/6 * 2 = 1/3. What am I missing?

[Gary]

Re: Working With RedPen and AP

 

Hmm....I was looking at as a 1 in 6 chance per die' date=' so 1/6 * 2 = 1/3. What am I missing?[/quote']

 

If you took that reasoning, then 6 attacks would result in 100% chance of doing Body, but we know that's wrong.

 

1/3 would be average damage, which is not the same thing as chance to inflict at least 1 Body. The distribution is:

 

25/36 0 Body done

10/36 1 Body done

1/36 2 Body done

 

Another way of looking at it is that no Body is done if you roll 1-5 on both dice.

 

1,1

1,2

1,3

1,4

1,5

2,1

2,2

2,3

2,4

2,5

3,1

3,2

3,3

3,4

3,5

4,1

4,2

4,3

4,4

4,5

5,1

5,2

5,3

5,4

5,5

 

As you see, there are 25 combinations of 2d6 that result in 0 Body done, out of 36 possible results. And thus the chance of inflicting at least 1 Body is 1-25/36 or 11/36.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Working With RedPen and AP

 

Nice! Thanx for the lesson, thats the new thing I learned today.

 

I should have remembered the all important "Independent series of unrelated events" disclaimer.