Irreducible attacks

[Ockham's Spoon]

In Hero to make an attack more effective, one might use Armor Piercing, Penetrating, or AVAD. There are appropriate defenses (Hardened, etc.) and you can get into a bit of an arms race with APx3 vs. Hardenedx2 and whatnot. 6e also introduced Damage Negation, which can be countered with Negation Reduction.

 

The one defense that seems untouchable is Damage Reduction. The only way to get around it is just to have lots of DCs in your attack, which might exceed Active point caps and such. So I was thinking how one would make an attack Irreducible, that is, unaffected by Damage Reduction, and I have a couple of ideas.

 

First, with Variable Special Effects, you could switch an attack from Energy to Physical (say Freezeray's attack goes from Arctic Chill to Ice Chunks) so if an opponent has Energy DR but not Physical DR you could get around it. So with that analogy it seems reasonable for a +¼ Advantage you could make an attack Irreducible.

 

Or perhaps for each +¼ advantage you would reduce DR by 15 Active points, e.g. with a +½ Advantage you would cut a 75% DR to 25%. I am assuming Resistant DR here since bypassing normal DR is easy enough with a regular Killing Attack. I am not sure that is really worth the extra advantage, but I can see an argument for it.

 

My other thought was to pattern it after Negation Reduction and make it an adder. For each 6 points you can reduce DR by 15 Active points (just like 6 points of Negation Reduction would eliminate 15 points of Damage Negation); e.g. for 12 points you cut 75% DR to 25% DR.

 

In either case the defender could use the Difficult to Dispel advantage to stymie Irreducible.

 

I am thinking Irreducible would be nice for some cosmic/mystic attacks, certain Wuxia martial arts techniques, or dragon-slaying arrow type attacks. So what does Herodom think? Good or bad idea, and what is the best implementation of it?

[pinecone]

Re: Irreducible attacks

 

In Hero to make an attack more effective, one might use Armor Piercing, Penetrating, or AVAD. There are appropriate defenses (Hardened, etc.) and you can get into a bit of an arms race with APx3 vs. Hardenedx2 and whatnot. 6e also introduced Damage Negation, which can be countered with Negation Reduction.

 

The one defense that seems untouchable is Damage Reduction. The only way to get around it is just to have lots of DCs in your attack, which might exceed Active point caps and such. So I was thinking how one would make an attack Irreducible, that is, unaffected by Damage Reduction, and I have a couple of ideas.

 

First, with Variable Special Effects, you could switch an attack from Energy to Physical (say Freezeray's attack goes from Arctic Chill to Ice Chunks) so if an opponent has Energy DR but not Physical DR you could get around it. So with that analogy it seems reasonable for a +¼ Advantage you could make an attack Irreducible.

 

Or perhaps for each +¼ advantage you would reduce DR by 15 Active points, e.g. with a +½ Advantage you would cut a 75% DR to 25%. I am assuming Resistant DR here since bypassing normal DR is easy enough with a regular Killing Attack. I am not sure that is really worth the extra advantage, but I can see an argument for it.

 

My other thought was to pattern it after Negation Reduction and make it an adder. For each 6 points you can reduce DR by 15 Active points (just like 6 points of Negation Reduction would eliminate 15 points of Damage Negation); e.g. for 12 points you cut 75% DR to 25% DR.

 

In either case the defender could use the Difficult to Dispel advantage to stymie Irreducible.

 

I am thinking Irreducible would be nice for some cosmic/mystic attacks, certain Wuxia martial arts techniques, or dragon-slaying arrow type attacks. So what does Herodom think? Good or bad idea, and what is the best implementation of it?

Or +X damage, only vs Dam reduction: in equal proportion? Not so broken...+12D6 only to cancel Damage reduction subtractions....?

[Lucius]

Re: Irreducible attacks

 

I'm not sure I ever posted it, but I dreamed up such an idea many years ago, to go along with 100% Damage Reduction.

 

However, I don't have any playtesting experiences to report.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Irreducible palindromedary

[psyber624]

Re: Irreducible attacks

 

There are plenty of ways to get around damage reduction of one form or another, either by sfx (damage reduction only applies to a particular effect, etc) or more dice of damage (only applies to damage reduction) or any other adder designed to "add" damage, or just some "custom advantage" Can't be reduced by Damage Reduction (+1/2)

 

But by and large Damage Reduction is an NPC power, so getting a GM to allow you to bypass their reduction is going to be tricky

[NuSoardGraphite]

Re: Irreducible attacks

 

I have a custom Advantage for this I like to call No Damage Reduction which means Damage Reduction doesn't appy to the attack, or is reduced by the amount purchased. +1/4 for -25%, +1/2 for -50% and +1 for -75%. I have playtested it, and it works nicely.

[Nolgroth]

Re: Irreducible attacks

 

Penetrating also applies versus Damage Reduction, or rather Damage Reduction does not reduce the minimum amount of damage from a Penetrating attack. I am guessing that the actual effect this has is minimal though.

 

In regards to an Advantage on attacks that allows them to remove some or all of the Damage Reduction a character has, will there then be a way for characters with Damage Reduction to have a counter Advantage. It potentially creates the same "arms race" as Armor Piercing vs Hardened, but that option should be available.

 

In the end, I would not incorporate such a rule. Damage Reduction is a great tool for me, as a GM, to make a tough solo opponent. If the DR was taken away, then my solo brutes would become mincemeat due to their low overall defenses. I usually already have a SFX counter built in for clever/resourceful players to take advantage of. That is usually sufficient.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Irreducible attacks

 

Damage reduction is a pretty expensive defence (arguably it is not a defence at all but a multiplier for CON, BODY and STUN), and the effect is usually not immense compared to actually purchasing defences UNLESS the attack is massive, then it comes into its own.

 

The really big advantage of DR is that it works against almost everything, even NND type attacks (perhaps more evidence of it being a multiplier rather than a defence per se?).

 

I would not be particularly inclined to make an attack 'irreducible' because there are already too many ways you can fill up multipower slots with different attacks to work around any defence. If I was going to do it I would not use a custom advantage, I would probably do it with extra dice (Only v DR), because that way it will be bloody difficult to stick it in a framework.

[Ockham's Spoon]

Re: Irreducible attacks

 

The general idea that Damage Reduction is an NPC power that probably shouldn't be circumvented in the first place would have been my take on an Irreducible advantage prior to 6e coming out, but two things brought this thread about in my mind.

 

First, Damage Negation and Negation Reduction brought into mind the attack/defense-enhanced attack/enhanced defense structure of all the other defensive powers. For the sake of symmetry Irreducible would be nice, even if it were rarely used (which seems to be the general opinion) for obsessive-compulsives like myself. Not really a compelling argument though.

 

Second was the publication of Bloodsucker's Revenge, which is full of 6e vampires, many of which have Damage Reduction. That takes DR from the occasional super-tough master villain and makes it potentially widespread. If I am running a vampire hunter game (and I just started one), the characters are going to want some kind of highly effective attack against their primary foes.

 

So maybe the follow-up question is how common is DR in your games? Because if it only pops up for Godzilla or Dr. Destroyer then there isn't a lot of point for something like Irreducible. But if half the opponents have it that changes the calculus.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Irreducible attacks

 

I have not seen Bloodsucker's Revenge, but I would expect (hope) that there is a limitation on the DR so that it does not work against wooden stakes and holy weapons.

 

I do not use DR that much myself because, generally, it is not a very efficient point spend generally, as a defence, but I use it, often in limited form, when someone is supposed to be very resistant to, say, fire, because it works no matter how the attack is built, which is the 'feature' from my point of view.

[pinecone]

Re: Irreducible attacks

 

The general idea that Damage Reduction is an NPC power that probably shouldn't be circumvented in the first place would have been my take on an Irreducible advantage prior to 6e coming out, but two things brought this thread about in my mind.

 

First, Damage Negation and Negation Reduction brought into mind the attack/defense-enhanced attack/enhanced defense structure of all the other defensive powers. For the sake of symmetry Irreducible would be nice, even if it were rarely used (which seems to be the general opinion) for obsessive-compulsives like myself. Not really a compelling argument though.

 

Second was the publication of Bloodsucker's Revenge, which is full of 6e vampires, many of which have Damage Reduction. That takes DR from the occasional super-tough master villain and makes it potentially widespread. If I am running a vampire hunter game (and I just started one), the characters are going to want some kind of highly effective attack against their primary foes.

 

So maybe the follow-up question is how common is DR in your games? Because if it only pops up for Godzilla or Dr. Destroyer then there isn't a lot of point for something like Irreducible. But if half the opponents have it that changes the calculus.

I dunno...I buy DR for Vamps as "Not vs..." you know Fire, Silver, Wood...it seems to get the job done with no work from the Playas...("How do you know Hes the Boss Vamp?" "Look at that HAT!")

[psyber624]

Re: Irreducible attacks

 

Damage Reduction isnt necessarily RESTRICTED to NPC's (any more than any power is really) but the general mechanical function of damage reduction is that it is the only one of the defense constructs that allows a player to take SOME damage from most attacks while still reducing over all damage.

 

Increasing PD/ED defense can easily render some attacks completely incapable of damage. As can Damage Negation (which is really just reverse PD/ED in a sense). Damage Reduction, on the other hand, works by percentages, so that ANY attack that can beat the PD will still be able to do damage, but the amount of damage is greatly reduced.

 

The best construct for this is for Main, or Very Powerful NPC's who you want to go up against a team of players all on their own. That is they will be subject to many more "attacks" in a turn than they can dish out. Without this power you would have to take really high amounts of stun and body, or boost other defenses to the point that many PC's attacks would be totally worthless if you want your Master Villain to stand a chance against a group of foes with any chance of downing him.

 

Basically 50% damage reduction, for instance, means that it requires 2 heros to do the same damage to him in a round as a normal NPC, 75% needs 4 heros to do the same.

 

 

This being said there is no reason that an Irreducible advantage couldn't have been included in 6e. except for one thing that comes to mind... how would you "price" such an advantage? You would probably need an increasing advantage modifier to allow it to penetrate different levels of DR, but thats simply not cost effective. Even at +1/4 to eliminate 25% of DR, your loosing 20% effectiveness in the power (due to the cost of the Irreducible), to allow it to do 25% more damage to people who have DR....... see the issue there? you gain VERY little against the DR'd guy, but loose 4x that much against everyone else....

 

I guess what that means is that you need a custom adder, not a custom advantage.... (similar to how it works with DN), I guess with that in mind you could apply a cost structure similar to DN, meaning that you would pay around 1/2 the cost of the DR you want to be able to ignore... but again, are you getting a good value for your points? would you be better off spending those points on more damage? Especially since those points spent on more damage would affect ALL foes, not just the DR guy. (Note that for this I am assuming that you include the cost of Irreducible in the active point calculations for Max Attacks in your campaign, if not its less of a pricing issue, and more of an issue that your likely to have EVERYONE buying Irreducible on their attacks since it will be a cheap "addon" for damage attacks, which basically defeats the purpose of even buying DR)

 

Of course the final consideration here is that unlike all the other similar modifiers, there is no "War of Escalation" here. You cant buy DR to counteract Irreducible, so your letting Irreducible completely negate DR... not sure how that affects balance if at all, but I thought I would bring it up.

 

 

Sorry if this post is a bit rambly, i was actually trying out my game designer hat and putting all my thoughts out as I had them....

[Sean Waters]

Re: Irreducible attacks

 

One might argue that, if DR is, in the main, a GM tool to prevent players simply stunning a master villain with a coordinated attack then spending the rest of the turn tea-bagging him, the last thing you want to do is provide tools for the players to do just that. All you'd wind up with is the GM building the master villain without DR but with lots more CON, REC, STUN and BODY.

 

Another issue is SFX: how do you explain what is going on? If a character has DR (Energy) because they are from the Plane of Fire (as opposed to a plane on fire), or because they are made of energy resistant materials, it is difficulty to conceive of the SFX of an attack (if you could ignore the DR with an adder or modifier) that would effectively work against either of the defence SFX. DR only works as a defence in the sense that you take less damage (reads that again - yes, that is what I meant), but it does it by reducing the proportion of damage you take. Mechanically there is no problem with coming up with a way to ignore DR, but I can't see how it would work 'logically' in the context of a game.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Irreducible attacks

 

To expand on a theme I've espoused before, what DR is is a way of making certain characteristics cheaper. I have not done the calculation for 6e...let's see...

 

1/2 DR (Physical and Energy and Mental) costs 60 points. Assuming that most (super) characters have 45 STUN, 23 CON and 10 REC, buying those characteristics again costs 56 points (I've ignored Body as normal defences make taking Body less likely*). DR is a discounting system, and it is a fixed cost discounting system. Once your campaign base characteristics get much higher than the ones I have suggested, you'd be mad not to buy it.

 

Buying DR across the board would be the equivalent of handing in a character sheet with 90 Stun and 20 REC and 46 CON and 30 Body. It would certainly raise eyebrows.

 

What DR is quite good for is making you resistant to certain things (like Fire!) without getting very messy on buying limited extra Stun and REC and such (only v fire).

 

I'm not really making a point here, I'm just making points.

 

*Add in Body 15 and the cost goes up to 71, but then having 1/3 DR (resistant) across Physical and Energy - Mental rarely does Body - would cost 80 points.

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Irreducible attacks

 

This looks like a solution in search of a problem.

[Ockham's Spoon]

Re: Irreducible attacks

 

This looks like a solution in search of a problem.

 

I would have been inclined to agree with you before reading Bloodsuckers' Revenge. As I noted above, for a vampire hunter campaign where most of your foes have DR (and as written with no limitations BTW), players are naturally going to want some way to counter-act that. I am not convinced that Irreducible is the best way to do that, which is one reason I started this thread to get a little feedback. My other option is to tweak the vampire write-ups so there is some way around the DR, because I don't really want them that tough for this campaign.

 

Sean makes a good point that if you just want tough, you could buy up their attributes to compensate and reserve DR for cases of near-immunity. Of course Damage Negation is nice for immunity too and you can get around that. But when dealing with immunity, the whole point of Negation Reduction or Irreducible would be that such an attack is outside of the norm and it should make players take pause (fire so intense it can hurt the Human Torch!?! Something really bad is going on here...) And I am fine with that, but the whole vampires thing isn't about immunity which puts it in a different light.

[psyber624]

Re: Irreducible attacks

 

I would also say this Spoon, take a look at the vampire writeup as a whole, what do their NON-DR defenses look like? are they REALLY that resistant to damage? I don't have the supplement personally, but if they have REALLY low PD/ED (resistant or otherwise) then DR is just working to give them normal defenses... and i could see a designer building a monster like that because of the different way it works (PD/ED subtract from damage, they are incredibly effective against weak attacks, less effective against powerful attacks. DR is equally effective against ANY level of attack.) IMHO DR is a great defense idea for several monster types (esp undead) because then you don't give them any "armor" per se (they don't wear body armor and their skin is just as easy to puncture as a normal humans would be) but they just seem to be less affected by any damage they take.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Irreducible attacks

 

DR falls into the category of fixed price powers in Hero that often cause some balance issues. For example, 50% DR in a 100 point game where the average DC is 6 would probably not be unbalancing but is prohibitively expensive. In a 700 point game where the average DC is 19, you'd be crazy not to spend the points on it, it is a complete steal.

 

There is no easy way around that (you could have some variable cost based on character or campaign totals - messy) but I'm just pointing this out as it is somewhat relevant to the question of how you address the issue of 'neutralising' DR*.

 

In practice DR is not going to be bought by PCs in low power games, because they can not afford it, except in very limited forms which are unlikely to be a recurring problem. The 'break point' for making DR worthwhilse is around the 400 point 12-14 DC game. You can't be exact, but it is around there. Much above that, DR is cheap, relatively.

 

So, with that as our starting point, let us look at options and numbers.

 

1. An advantage

+1/4 removes 25% DR

+1/2 removes 50% DR

+3/4 removes 75% DR

 

On a 60 point power you get 48/40/35 (generously) to spend on the actual attack or 9 1/2d6, 8d6, 7d6. Whether it is worth it will depend on normal defences: assuming (say) 15/10/5, you get Damage through Defences, before and after the DR is removed of:

25%/15 - 20/18 - not worth it

50%/10 - 16/18 - worth it

75%/5 - 9/19 - well worth it

 

That is quite interesting, BUT it also makes a LOT of assumptions, so read it as you will. Bear in mind that the 'arms race' Ockham's Spoon mentions is biased towards the attacker who can make far better use of slots in MPs to bypass defences.

 

Bear in mind also, this is probably not the build you will be seeing: we need to consider advantage stacking. A 60 point power made NND gets you 6 dice. A 60 point power made NND and removing 75% DR gets you 4 dice. Your 6 dice would do 21 damage reduced by 3/4 to 5. Your 4 dice go straight through and do 14. Even if that is your only NND (as it should be!) you are losing 7 damage to gain 9 when the opponent is DR'd.

 

2. Adders

Sounds like a good idea, but will run into fixed cost break problems like DR itself: there will be a point where you'd be mad not to have an adder to negate DR, which means no one buys DR, which means that there's not much point in buying an attack to negate it, so you just destabilise the system, and make DR a choice people make less often. You may consider that a good thing.

 

 

 

 

*I maintain it is unnecessary, but I'm perfectly happy to discuss 'what if...' **

 

** Another point about being able to neutralise DR, is that DR is sometimes bought by players and teh players have to be sweet with their guaranteed 'resistance' not working. ***

 

*** ...and, while I'm at it, if it is a problem with the way that GMs are building villains, perhaps the way around it is to talk to the GM. When I build a solo villain who can take on a party I usually build in some sort of vulnerability so that the players employing thought can get bonuses. A vulnerability (2x damge) to wooden stakes easily compensates for 1/2 DR.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Irreducible attacks

 

I would also say this Spoon' date=' take a look at the vampire writeup as a whole, what do their NON-DR defenses look like? are they REALLY that resistant to damage? I don't have the supplement personally, but if they have REALLY low PD/ED (resistant or otherwise) then DR is just working to give them normal defenses... and i could see a designer building a monster like that because of the different way it works (PD/ED subtract from damage, they are incredibly effective against weak attacks, less effective against powerful attacks. DR is equally effective against ANY level of attack.) IMHO DR is a great defense idea for several monster types (esp undead) because then you don't give them any "armor" per se (they don't wear body armor and their skin is just as easy to puncture as a normal humans would be) but they just seem to be less affected by any damage they take.[/quote']

 

That is how I tend to use it when I do: anyone can hurt them, but it takes a lot to stop them. I will point out again that increased characteristics do that too, and, potentially, at a far more 'honest' cost and certainly at a more 'tunable' level.

 

One thing that DR is good for too is 'Wolverine Regeneration'. Wolverine takes a lot of damage, and most of it seems to actually cause injury, but he keeps on coming. moreover, because he is actually only taking a proportion of the damage through defences, the practical effec of REC and Regeneration are enhanced.

 

You can build Wolverine other ways, but DR is a very convenient shorthand. Sometimes I like it, sometimes I don't: what can I tell you?

[Ockham's Spoon]

Re: Irreducible attacks

 

I would also say this Spoon' date=' take a look at the vampire writeup as a whole, what do their NON-DR defenses look like? are they REALLY that resistant to damage? I don't have the supplement personally, but if they have REALLY low PD/ED (resistant or otherwise) then DR is just working to give them normal defenses... and i could see a designer building a monster like that because of the different way it works (PD/ED subtract from damage, they are incredibly effective against weak attacks, less effective against powerful attacks. DR is equally effective against ANY level of attack.) IMHO DR is a great defense idea for several monster types (esp undead) because then you don't give them any "armor" per se (they don't wear body armor and their skin is just as easy to puncture as a normal humans would be) but they just seem to be less affected by any damage they take.[/quote']

 

This is a good point, because the rPD/rED is fairly low overall so this may be exactly how the build is meant to work. I'm not sure why that did not occur to me, but thanks for pointing it out.

[Ockham's Spoon]

Re: Irreducible attacks

 

That is how I tend to use it when I do: anyone can hurt them, but it takes a lot to stop them. I will point out again that increased characteristics do that too, and, potentially, at a far more 'honest' cost and certainly at a more 'tunable' level.

 

One thing that DR is good for too is 'Wolverine Regeneration'. Wolverine takes a lot of damage, and most of it seems to actually cause injury, but he keeps on coming. moreover, because he is actually only taking a proportion of the damage through defences, the practical effec of REC and Regeneration are enhanced.

 

You can build Wolverine other ways, but DR is a very convenient shorthand. Sometimes I like it, sometimes I don't: what can I tell you?

 

That is a good Wolverine build. It also has the advantage that it doesn't raise eyebrows quite as much as a really high STUN, BODY, and REC would, even if the effect is similar.

[pinecone]

Re: Irreducible attacks

 

I would have been inclined to agree with you before reading Bloodsuckers' Revenge. As I noted above, for a vampire hunter campaign where most of your foes have DR (and as written with no limitations BTW), players are naturally going to want some way to counter-act that. I am not convinced that Irreducible is the best way to do that, which is one reason I started this thread to get a little feedback. My other option is to tweak the vampire write-ups so there is some way around the DR, because I don't really want them that tough for this campaign.

 

Sean makes a good point that if you just want tough, you could buy up their attributes to compensate and reserve DR for cases of near-immunity. Of course Damage Negation is nice for immunity too and you can get around that. But when dealing with immunity, the whole point of Negation Reduction or Irreducible would be that such an attack is outside of the norm and it should make players take pause (fire so intense it can hurt the Human Torch!?! Something really bad is going on here...) And I am fine with that, but the whole vampires thing isn't about immunity which puts it in a different light.

 

Vampire slayer's charm Dispell: DR XD6...? Only vs?....Dunno...it sounds like solving a bad write up...wouldn't changing the write up be easier? Like "Holy aveging heros ignore supernatural DR"....Done!...?

[psyber624]

Re: Irreducible attacks

 

I would say be careful calling something a "bad write up" until you have tried it out a few times. Sometimes the intent may get lost in the mechanics and what looks bad might actually work quite well in play.

 

Just saying that as a general thought, some appearances can be deceiving.

 

That being said, nothing wrong with changing something to suit your play style

[Sean Waters]

Re: Irreducible attacks

 

I would say be careful calling something a "bad write up" until you have tried it out a few times. Sometimes the intent may get lost in the mechanics and what looks bad might actually work quite well in play.

 

Just saying that as a general thought, some appearances can be deceiving.

 

That being said, nothing wrong with changing something to suit your play style

 

 

Very true. More than once I've grumbled through running a character someone else has written until I see what it can actually do if played as intended. Of course I've also had the situation occur where all my fears have been realised, and it really is a bad write up