NND vs Barrier

[GAZZA]

There are a couple of constructs in Champions Powers 6e that use something similar to:

 

Blast 6d6, NND, defence is rPD defined as force field or a PD Barrier ...

 

I confess to being highly skeptical this is allowed. A Barrier is basically a wall, right? You can't fire NNDs through a wall unless you have some level of Indirect, and if you do have some level of Indirect, then you're already past the wall and nobody would get any protection from it.

 

LOS powers might be exceptions - you can certainly Mental Blast someone behind a sheet of glass - but surely you can't fire an NND through a barrier without Indirect?

[rjcurrie]

Re: NND vs Barrier

 

What stops it? The wall has no defense against the NND.

[GAZZA]

Re: NND vs Barrier

 

Let me put it this way - to rule it the way you suggest, NND always comes with free Indirect. Does that seem right to you? Normally, if there is a wall (even a window, which is a transparent wall) between you and the target, your attack must bust through the wall in order to reach the target. But since an NND does no body (usually, and in this case), an NND cannot break through a wall.

[rjcurrie]

Re: NND vs Barrier

 

Perhaps.

 

So, rule with common sense as a GM. That's the answer to most questions like this. It's simple enough to say that all NNDs are stopped by "walls" with a PD.

[GAZZA]

Re: NND vs Barrier

 

Well, that's my point. If that's the case, then it's not really part of the NND description. To list is as a valid defence means that it normally wouldn't be. I mean, that's like saying:

 

Blast 6d6, NND (defence is not having STUN)

 

is valid. Listing PD Barrier as one of the defences implies that normally PD Barriers are NOT defences against NNDs - and if that's true, then it's coming as a surprise to me.

[Sean Waters]

Re: NND vs Barrier

 

Yes the wall stops the NND, and here's why: the NND hits the wall first, and affects it. Most NNDs do not do BODY so have no effect on the wall, but if you fired a NND Does BODY at someone behind a sheet of reinforced glass, would you have any problems at all ruling that the NND shatter the glass?

 

A barrier is just a wall, once created. A wall stops a NND. 'Stopped by walls/barriers' is therefore not a valid exception condition for an All or Nothing NND.

 

That's my opinion, anyway.

[Ninja-Bear]

Re: NND vs Barrier

 

Gazza by definition, when you buy NND, it does automatically bypass all defences. Hence the term No Normal Defence.

Now I am not suggesting that all NND should bypass a wall, it of course depends on the special efffect of the power your defining as NND. For example, there are some types of radiation which courses through the earth all the time (the proper name escapes me at the moment, I'll say neutrinos for ease of use.) Does it make sense that if I build a power with special effect that walls automatically affect it? On the other hand, if I build an NND attack as a eye poke, should I have to make sure the GM knows that a wall, or even a force field stops it? On a side note though, what defence should stop an eye poke has caused some disagreements. Hopefully this helps.

 

Just reread your original post, and I think I might have misunderstood your question. If I did, my bad.

[GAZZA]

Re: NND vs Barrier

 

No Normal Defence means, specifically, that the normal defence that stops the attack doesn't work. Thus, Blast normally is defended by ED (or PD); NND means that ED is no defence. However, a Barrier that has 8 ED will stop any normal blast that fails to roll at least 8 BODY; I submit that this is not a "normal" defence, and is not what NND is intended to bypass.

 

The radiation example you provide should have the Indirect advantage to bypass walls. I don't believe it should get it for free.

 

Let me put it another way. NND is a specific all or nothing limit for an AVLD defence. An NND where the defence is Power Defence, say, is not as good as an AVLD with the defence Power Defence (and doesn't cost as much). Are you suggesting that Blast AVLD (Power Defence) should go through a wall as well (assuming that the wall has no power defence)? If so, do Drains normally go through walls? Is the Indirect advantage useless for adjustment powers?

 

I believe that barriers stop all non-LOS powers with very few exceptions; the exceptions are almost always spelled out in the power (Telekinesis is one, the Indirect advantage is another). I do not believe that NND is intended to give a free Indirect.

[prestidigitator]

Re: NND vs Barrier

 

Walls and Barriers have at least 1 Body. Unless a NND does Body and can reduce it to 0, or the Barrier is transparent to the appropriate type of attack (physical/energy), the NND can't get through it. It's not the Barrier's PD/ED or other type of Defense that stops the NND, it's the Barrier's Body.

[Ockham's Spoon]

Re: NND vs Barrier

 

Since I haven't actually read the example power in question, let me ask this: does it say the defense is a "PD Barrier" or a "PD barrier"? Is it specifically referring to the power Barrier?

 

Also, what is the sfx? For instance if it is an AoE NND with a gas sfx, I would expect it to flow around objects so you would get hit even if crouching behind cover. But if the sfx is a flash-bang grenade, cover might very well protect you.

 

So not to be snarky* but is this really an issue or am I just not seeing the full picture here?

 

 

*(Forgive me but I talk to too many customers in my line of work where the first question is often something like "Did you plug it in?")

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: NND vs Barrier

 

In general, I say that NNDs to not penetrate Force Walls (or Barriers as you youngsters call 'em). I might allow specific special effect combinations to bypass this, depending on the situation.

[Chris Goodwin]

Re: NND vs Barrier

 

Look at it this way. If you had NND, the defense is Being Made Of Figgy Pudding, Does BODY, and that attack hit a PD Barrier, the NND would affect the Barrier (assuming the Barrier is not Wall Of Figgy Pudding). Same with an ordinary wooden wall. It wouldn't "stop" it per se; it would do its BODY to the Barrier, and whether that went through to anyone on the other side would depend on the amount of BODY done by the attack and the amount of BODY the Barrier or wall has. With NND, defense is PD Barrier, the Power would neither affect nor go through the Barrier, even if it Does BODY.

[prestidigitator]

Re: NND vs Barrier

 

I'd think all kinds of constructs would be possible. You could have a NND that's Indirect enough to get through most Barriers, but if the defense is still being protected by a Barrier that provides Mental Defense or something, it still won't get through that one (or at least it won't affect the things on the other side unless there's something getting in the way of their taking advantage of the Barrier's Mental Defense). It might be hard to think of SFX for all such mechanics, but certainly they should be possible and even simple if you do run into a concept that calls for it.

[dsatow]

Re: NND vs Barrier

 

just tossing in my $0.02.

 

First lets look at blast against a person with a barrier up. The blast hits the barrier does damage. If the damage exceeds the defense, the barrier goes down and whats left hits the target. Ex: a hammer against the Invisible Woman's Force Wall.

 

Next is a NND blast against a person with a barrier up. The blast hits the barrier and tries to do damage. Since the blast does no body, the barrier stays up even if it doesn't have the defense. Unless the GM rules otherwise, and personally I wouldn't, the NND doesn't pierce the barrier. Ex: a tranq dart against the Invisible Woman's Force Wall.

 

Next is a NND does Body blast against a person with a barrier up. The blast hits the barrier and tries to do damage. Since the blast does body, the barrier takes damage if it doesn't have the defense. If the barrier has no body, it barrier breaks and the rest of the blast goes against the target. Ex: a cosmic radiation beam against the Invisible Woman's Force Wall.

 

Next is a NND with indirect blast against a person with a barrier up. The blast bypasses the barrier and attacks the target. The barrier stays up to protect the target against other attacks but not against this particular attack.

Ex: Invisible Woman's Force Wall is up the mutant gates a tranq dart inside her force wall.

 

One of the issues that seems to be perplexing people is the assumption that NND (or as its known in 6e AVAD all or nothing) gives other benefits such as indirect, area of effect, etc. It does not. Simply changing the defense of the NND to make it indirect does not make it indirect. There is a common saying that a limitation which isn't limiting is not worth anything. Well, conversely, an advantage which does more than it should costs more.

 

Of course, your GM can ignore anything, its their game. If they want, say knockback to do knockback, the more bounce to them. But by rules definition, NND does not automatically give indirect.

 

As far as the Champions 6E write up, if the NND is blocked by PD force walls or force fields, then its block regardless of the level of defense of the wall. This means, entangles, energy only barriers, do not stop the NND.

[GAZZA]

Re: NND vs Barrier

 

Since I haven't actually read the example power in question' date=' let me ask this: does it say the defense is a "PD Barrier" or a "PD barrier"? Is it specifically referring to the [i']power[/i] Barrier?

The latter.

 

Also, what is the sfx?

The specific one I quoted was telekinetically crushing the air out of someone's lungs, but there are a few examples of it.

 

For instance if it is an AoE NND with a gas sfx, I would expect it to flow around objects so you would get hit even if crouching behind cover. But if the sfx is a flash-bang grenade, cover might very well protect you.

If you'd let an AE non-NND do that, and I can certainly see an argument to do so, fair enough. AE changes the picture somewhat; in a sense all AE attacks are slightly indirect.

 

 

 

So not to be snarky* but is this really an issue or am I just not seeing the full picture here?

 

 

*(Forgive me but I talk to too many customers in my line of work where the first question is often something like "Did you plug it in?")

[GAZZA]

Re: NND vs Barrier

 

Look at it this way. If you had NND' date=' the defense is Being Made Of Figgy Pudding, Does BODY, and that attack hit a PD Barrier, the NND would affect the Barrier (assuming the Barrier is not Wall Of Figgy Pudding). Same with an ordinary wooden wall. It wouldn't "stop" it per se; it would do its BODY to the Barrier, and whether that went through to anyone on the other side would depend on the amount of BODY done by the attack and the amount of BODY the Barrier or wall has.[/quote']

Yes, agreed.

 

With NND, defense is PD Barrier, the Power would neither affect nor go through the Barrier, even if it Does BODY.

That's an interesting take on it, and I would certainly concede that an NND that does BODY might be able to select barriers as a reasonably common defence.

[GAZZA]

Re: NND vs Barrier

 

I'd think all kinds of constructs would be possible. You could have a NND that's Indirect enough to get through most Barriers' date=' but if the defense is still being protected by a Barrier that provides Mental Defense or something, it still won't get through that one (or at least it won't affect the things on the other side unless there's something getting in the way of their taking advantage of the Barrier's Mental Defense). It might be hard to think of SFX for all such mechanics, but certainly they should be possible and even simple if you [i']do[/i] run into a concept that calls for it.

Possible, sure, but not free. If you want the psychokinetic power to squeeze the air out of someone's lungs, with the only proviso is that you can see them, then you ought to buy at least LOS on the NND. If you want some sort of meson based NND ray that can go through any intervening barriers, then you ought to buy Indirect for it.

[GAZZA]

Re: NND vs Barrier

 

just tossing in my $0.02.

 

First lets look at blast against a person with a barrier up. The blast hits the barrier does damage. If the damage exceeds the defense, the barrier goes down and whats left hits the target. Ex: a hammer against the Invisible Woman's Force Wall.

 

Next is a NND blast against a person with a barrier up. The blast hits the barrier and tries to do damage. Since the blast does no body, the barrier stays up even if it doesn't have the defense. Unless the GM rules otherwise, and personally I wouldn't, the NND doesn't pierce the barrier. Ex: a tranq dart against the Invisible Woman's Force Wall.

 

Next is a NND does Body blast against a person with a barrier up. The blast hits the barrier and tries to do damage. Since the blast does body, the barrier takes damage if it doesn't have the defense. If the barrier has no body, it barrier breaks and the rest of the blast goes against the target. Ex: a cosmic radiation beam against the Invisible Woman's Force Wall.

 

Next is a NND with indirect blast against a person with a barrier up. The blast bypasses the barrier and attacks the target. The barrier stays up to protect the target against other attacks but not against this particular attack.

Ex: Invisible Woman's Force Wall is up the mutant gates a tranq dart inside her force wall.

 

One of the issues that seems to be perplexing people is the assumption that NND (or as its known in 6e AVAD all or nothing) gives other benefits such as indirect, area of effect, etc. It does not. Simply changing the defense of the NND to make it indirect does not make it indirect. There is a common saying that a limitation which isn't limiting is not worth anything. Well, conversely, an advantage which does more than it should costs more.

 

Of course, your GM can ignore anything, its their game. If they want, say knockback to do knockback, the more bounce to them. But by rules definition, NND does not automatically give indirect.

Yep, this is pretty much the only conclusion that makes sense to me - IOW, Champions Powers contains yet another mistake (incidentally I've stopped counting the number of times it lists Deflection to stop incoming attacks at the user - I am getting a nasty suspicion this book was simply copy-pasted from a 5th edition version).

 

As far as the Champions 6E write up, if the NND is blocked by PD force walls or force fields, then its block regardless of the level of defense of the wall. This means, entangles, energy only barriers, do not stop the NND.

I do not see that your conclusion follows from the premise.

 

Assuming that an Entangle isn't transparent to physical, then even a 1PD/1BODY entangle should serve to stop any (non-BODY inflicting) NNDs that are doing physical damage, in exactly the same way that a wall would.

 

Likewise, an energy only barrier (by which I presume you mean it has 0 PD) would still stop such an NND. Consider if it was, say, 0 PD/10 ED/10 BODY. According to 6e1pp171, if you punch such a barrier with 40 STR and do, say, 8 BODY and 28 STUN, you do not penetrate the barrier. You reduce it to only 2 BODY, but you don't get through - that 28 STUN goes nowhere. Now consider if that had been an NND it would have done 0 BODY, and could therefore never penetrate it. Of course if by "energy only Barrier" you mean that it has the limitation "Only works versus energy (-1)" on it, then yes, such a barrier is similar to a Transparent Entangle.

[dsatow]

Re: NND vs Barrier

 

I do not see that your conclusion follows from the premise.

 

Assuming that an Entangle isn't transparent to physical, then even a 1PD/1BODY entangle should serve to stop any (non-BODY inflicting) NNDs that are doing physical damage, in exactly the same way that a wall would.

 

Likewise, an energy only barrier (by which I presume you mean it has 0 PD) would still stop such an NND. Consider if it was, say, 0 PD/10 ED/10 BODY. According to 6e1pp171, if you punch such a barrier with 40 STR and do, say, 8 BODY and 28 STUN, you do not penetrate the barrier. You reduce it to only 2 BODY, but you don't get through - that 28 STUN goes nowhere. Now consider if that had been an NND it would have done 0 BODY, and could therefore never penetrate it. Of course if by "energy only Barrier" you mean that it has the limitation "Only works versus energy (-1)" on it, then yes, such a barrier is similar to a Transparent Entangle.

 

It would depend on the description of power itself as to why the PD barrier is considered a defense. If the NND is supposed to describe a remote barrier not in physical contact with the target, then an entangle on the target would not provide sufficient defense. An example might be a Kinetic Energy attack which vibrates solid objects but actually has no physical form. Having no PD and just body, the barrier could vibrate transmitting the attack to the other side. Again, the GM would make the call based on the special effect its trying to create.

[GAZZA]

Re: NND vs Barrier

 

It would depend on the description of power itself as to why the PD barrier is considered a defense. If the NND is supposed to describe a remote barrier not in physical contact with the target' date=' then an entangle on the target would not provide sufficient defense. An example might be a Kinetic Energy attack which vibrates solid objects but actually has no physical form. Having no PD and just body, the barrier could vibrate transmitting the attack to the other side. Again, the GM would make the call based on the special effect its trying to create.[/quote']

This is an interesting case.

 

In most senses, Barrier is what Force Wall used to be. However, Force Wall had an advantage "transparent" that you could use to make it transparent to physical attacks; there does not seem to be an equivalent for Barrier. There is "only works vs X" as a limitation, but it is a limitation only on the defences so that wouldn't work (it doesn't limit the BODY of the Barrier). The Transparent advantage for Barrier does something different - it makes it one way transparent. I suppose you could use that, but you really want two way transparent; I'd say in the new regime that's probably only worth +1/4.

[ghost-angel]

Re: NND vs Barrier

 

I would put Two-Way Transparent as +0 at best, since it means you can be attacked as well as attack. That seems a wash to me, since the primary purpose of One-Way Transparent is to attack through your own Barrier without needing Indirect on your Attack Powers.

 

As for the chosen defense, in my opinion it's a way of trying to replace the old Force Field Power from previous editions with a Mechanic and not just a Special Effect of "force field" - a poor one IMO.

[GAZZA]

Re: NND vs Barrier

 

Yeah, it really comes down to whether you think a 0PD 5ED 5BODY Barrier (for example) should take an advantage to be transparent to physical attacks. By default, they're not, but you could reasonably argue that the advantage of being transparent (it doesn't lose BODY from physical attacks) is balanced by the disadvantage (it can't stop physical attacks). The only real reason I suggested +1/4 is because 5e considered it worth a full +1/2 for such transparency.

[ghost-angel]

Re: NND vs Barrier

 

Yeah, but I think 5E had most of it's Advantages priced too high - Damage Shield, Armor Piercing, AVLD, and Continuous being the biggest offenders for most situations. One Way Transparent was definitely priced too high. So there's that possible difference of opinion.

[Sean Waters]

Re: NND vs Barrier

 

I'm surprised there has been so much debate over this: NND just changes what works as a defence, nothing else. If an NND hits you and you have the defence, no effect. If it hits you and you don't have the defence, full effect. In neither case does the NND carry on through you and hit the guy behind you. Exactly the same if it hits a (small 'b') barrier - the barrier is affected or not - it is not ignored.

 

Ignoring barriers is what Indirect is for. NND does not come with 'can shoot through walls' for free.

 

Now Force Walls and 0 Body Barriers are ONLY defence, so it might seem logical that they are ignored. It is not though. NND ignores the personal defences of what it hits, not necessarily of what it is aimed at. Ignoring something that is, in effect 'all defence' seems to be what NND does, but the Force Wall or Barrier STILL acts like a normal wall. If the NND 'does Body' then it can break the FW/Barrier and carry on with whatever it has left. If not, it simply stops.

 

'Stopped by pd barriers' is potentially OK for a Does Body NND - it would not allow you to bring down the prison walls and so does limit the power - but the NND also has to include some sort of personal element (in this case, it does - force fields, so that is OK).

[GAZZA]

Re: NND vs Barrier

 

I stopped being surprised when I discovered that "Change Environment Special Effects A for X points should automatically be better than Change Environment Special Effects B for X/3 points, even if they are both mechanically identical" was seriously proposed on one of my earlier threads. I found it pays not to make assumptions.