Hardened vs. Indirect

[Thia Halmades]

Hey Steve.

 

We've been struggling pretty mightily with this one. Hardened stops AP, Penetrating & R.Piercing. It also counters Indirect. I got a disconnect when I started putting together various powers. I know that the point of indirect seems to be to side-step defenses, such as Walls and Fields (and I suppose, Armor, to a certain extent). I get that.

 

If the Force Wall is in front of you, and the Indirect Attack comes from above (say, Call Lightning, which comes from above) would the wall ever factor into it? If the section it hits is hardened, that makes sense to me. Could I build a grenade, and make the explosion indirect so it 'goes through Force Fields?' Gah. Maybe you should direct me to a more in depth resource. I've talked about it on the boards but we tend to go in circles.

 

Help?

[Steve Long]

Re: Hardened vs. Indirect

 

No need to worry; this is a simple matter of common sense, not game rules. Whether a Force Wall is Hardened or not, whether an attack is Indirect or not, a Force Wall cannot affect an attack it’s not placed to “intercept.” If a character places a Force Wall in front of himself (not in a sphere around himself, but just a straight Wall in front), then any attack coming from above him isn’t affected by the Wall.

 

If, on the other hand, a Force Wall is placed so that it will “intercept” an attack, an Indirect attack can typically bypass that Force Wall, though of course it depends on how the Indirect attack itself is defined. If a character has an Indirect attack defined as “my Energy Blast always originates 3” in front of me” and the Force Wall in question is 5” in front of him, it’s going to block the Energy Blast normally. However, if the Force Wall is only 2” in front of him, the Indirect EB bypasses it entirely, unless the Force Wall is Hardened.