Opening a chink in Opponents Armour

[BhelliomRahl]

I have a player in my game who wants to build a power to reduce an opponent's Damage Negation.

 

Description: Thrust a knife into the targets armour and create an opening to attack in.

Concept Build: Drain (Suppress) 3d6 - Limitation. RSR - Knife Trick; Pay Endurance Each Phase to Maintain (-1/2); OAF (Knife; -1); Defence Drained Only in Hit Location Hit (-1/4); No Range.

 

Another option is to use the 5th Edition power: Find Weakness. What would be the procedure for updating it for 6th Edition?

 

Any suggestions or alternative builds would be appreciated.

 

 

[Lucius]

You normally build armor as Damage Negation?

 

Lucius Alexander

 

I normally put palindromedaries in my taglines

[Greywind]

Use a can opener?

[BhelliomRahl]

Using the term armour as a general term for defensive abilities. I use damage negation to build supernatural defences; A gargoyles stone body, a vampire ability to shrug of damage, etc.

 

I am probably going to tell him no to the power because its a magical quality and does not have a chinks in, however I wanted to work out the build.

 

What I was more interested in was converting Find Weakness to 6th Edition and what ramifications it would have on the system.

[Christougher]

Why not just use an Armor Piercing build?

[Christopher]

Generally Armors are build as "Resistant Defenses".

Note that "Defenses, Resistant (+1/2)" is a totally seperate power for Drain Purposes (It is drained as PD/ED). Near as I can tell the books use "Resistant Defenses" for worn armor, "Defenses, Resistant (+1/2)" for tough skin (inlcuding superman style bulletproofness).

 

When you say "opening chink on opponents armor" I would thus think opening a chink in a worn armor. Not the magical skin of a gargolye. The general problem with using drain for "strip armor" builds is that Drain Fades. While this may make sense for some supernatural Skin (if the enemy has sueprior healing powers), it never really makes sense for worn armor.

 

As the change is instant but lasting, Transform might be a better approach. 2nd Level of Transform (what's it called again?) could take off a lot of Active Points.

Alternatively it could apply a lasting "Does not cover hit location X" Limitation.

I am not certain if you could re-use the same Transform to take away more AP/Apply more limitation. But you could always use a 3rd or 4th level Transform, wich would be able to strip the full armor.

[NuSoardGraphite]

I have a player in my game who wants to build a power to reduce an opponent's Damage Negation.

 

Description: Thrust a knife into the targets armour and create an opening to attack in.

Concept Build: Drain (Suppress) 3d6 - Limitation. RSR - Knife Trick; Pay Endurance Each Phase to Maintain (-1/2); OAF (Knife; -1); Defence Drained Only in Hit Location Hit (-1/4); No Range.

 

Another option is to use the 5th Edition power: Find Weakness. What would be the procedure for updating it for 6th Edition?

 

Any suggestions or alternative builds would be appreciated.

 

 

The Drain build is fine. I would probably make the "Defense Drained only in Location hit" at least a -1/2 rather than a -1/4 (unless that is a precedent set in a Hero supplement?) because that's a pretty big limitation on a power meant to affect the entirety of a target.

 

Bringing back Find Weakness is pretty simple. It's a Naked Advantage Armor Piercing Advantage applied to specific attacks (+0) a group of attacks (+1/2 to +1) or any attack (+2) with the limitations Requires Skill Roll (-1/2) and possibly OAF. Similar effects can be generated using the Penetrating and Piercing advantages, or combinations thereof.

[bigbywolfe]

Or you can simply port Find Weakness directly into your 6E game. Read the Power's description in 5E and see if the price seems reasonable.

[BhelliomRahl]

I just realised the easiest method to reduce the effect of Damage Negation is to by the Adder Reduced Negation. (6E1 p.144) which reduces Damage Negation by 1DC for 2 Character Points. I could build this as a Naked Adder for the specific weapon.

 

Piercing: Can it be applied to Damage Negation or Reduction. Although Reduced Negation is Piercing for Damage Negation. Does Damage Reduction have a parallel method of negating it or is it the only defence which cannot be reduced or bypassed?

[psyber624]

APG 1 offers the "Irreducible" advantage for +1/4 which does that (pg 87). Its one of those "buried in the text" advantages that is considered "GM Option".

 

Also, when you ask about Piercing do you mean Armor Piercing (the advantage) or Piercing (the power from APG). Irreducible is the equivalent to Armor Piercing for Damage Reduction. Due to the way Piercing (the power) is priced I doubt there is any way to cobble that up for Damage Reduction, and Reduced Negation is cheaper than Piercing anyway.

[Doc Democracy]

When there is a great need to reduce the impact of defences but they all have different power bases that the best way is to buy more attack powers limited with 'only to overcome defences'.

[Beast]

write up a multipower of various attack modes

4d6 hka

2d6 hka counter 6d6 damage negation

3d6-1 x2 AP

3d6-1 Pen

 

Character needs to figure which attack works best for which foe

[Platinu]

There's an optional rule in one of the Advanced Player Guides that allow for the Armor Piercing advantage to stack with itself. Your player could buy that with the limitation 'Only 1 Armor Piercing effect per successful attack'. So if he bought 'Armor Piercing' 5 times, instead of each attack cutting the target's defenses to 1/5 normal right out of the gate, he would have to successfully hit his target 5 times in order to get the full 'bang' for the advantage he bought. He could even get it cheaper by requiring a skill roll per successful attack and get a custom skill and call it 'Find Weakness' and buy it to the level he wanted it to work at.

[psyber624]

There's an optional rule in one of the Advanced Player Guides that allow for the Armor Piercing advantage to stack with itself. Your player could buy that with the limitation 'Only 1 Armor Piercing effect per successful attack'. So if he bought 'Armor Piercing' 5 times, instead of each attack cutting the target's defenses to 1/5 normal right out of the gate, he would have to successfully hit his target 5 times in order to get the full 'bang' for the advantage he bought. He could even get it cheaper by requiring a skill roll per successful attack and get a custom skill and call it 'Find Weakness' and buy it to the level he wanted it to work at.

Note that for that option the APG recommends doubling the cost for each successive level of AP (+1/4 for 1/2 Def, +1/2 (+3/4 total) for 1/4 Def, +1 (+1 3/4 total) for 1/8 Def, +2 (+3 3/4 total) for 1/16 Def, so 5 levels of armor piercing gets really expensive really fast and honestly NND quickly becomes a cheaper method for ignoring Armor after 1/4 Def (each successive layer removes much less def, but costs much more).

[Sean Waters]

I would do what Doc Democracy suggested:

 

Dagger 1d6 HKA

+1d6 HKA (only to overcome/negate armour standard effect: 3 points) requires a hit each turn, no effect on first hit -1

 

That way you stab someone 'normally' and if you keep the pressure on (i.e. you hit each turn) you ignore 3 points of armour (or 1-6 if you do not want to use standard effect) for attacks subsequent to the first one.  It is simple and cheap and easy to administer in game.

 

For Heroic games, where armour values are not too high, this will work well.  Where armour values are higher, you will get more use out of a limited form of Armour piercing as variously suggested above or, come to think of it, AVAD.

[BhelliomRahl]

I like that idea of increase damage limited to bypass armour.  I will put some of these ideas forward to my group.

[psyber624]

Careful with the concept of limited damage "to bypass armor" That sounds good on paper but actually isn't a limitation at all. ALL damage is designed to bypass armor. If the damage is bypassing armor then it is adding THAT EXACT AMOUNT to the amount of damage actually done by the power so in effect all you have actually done is bought a 2nd d6 of damage and set it to SER (which should be worth no limitation).

 

You need a different limitation such as "Only vs. Heavily Armored Targets" or "Only vs Rigid Armor" or the like for there to actually be any limiting value to the limitation.

[Sean Waters]

Careful with the concept of limited damage "to bypass armor" That sounds good on paper but actually isn't a limitation at all. ALL damage is designed to bypass armor. If the damage is bypassing armor then it is adding THAT EXACT AMOUNT to the amount of damage actually done by the power so in effect all you have actually done is bought a 2nd d6 of damage and set it to SER (which should be worth no limitation).

 

You need a different limitation such as "Only vs. Heavily Armored Targets" or "Only vs Rigid Armor" or the like for there to actually be any limiting value to the limitation.

 

True, but you will note that the -1 limitation I suggested does not make it a limitation beyond 'requires a hit each turn -1/2 and extra phase -1/2'.  Built that way you are not actually getting a cost break, assuming that all opponents are likely to have at least 3 points of rPD.

[psyber624]

Yeah, wasn't talking about your build but about the concept in general (in response to BR's post about thinking about it).

[Chris Goodwin]

Careful with the concept of limited damage "to bypass armor" That sounds good on paper but actually isn't a limitation at all. ALL damage is designed to bypass armor. 

 

Some damage is designed to inflict damage.  Kinda circular, I know, but... 

 

2d6 KA along with +5 only to bypass armor: the +5 reduces the targeted armor by 5, but doesn't otherwise add to the amount the target takes.  If your 2d6 roll is a 2, and the target has up to 5 armor, he still takes 2 BODY.  

 

You could conversely do something like 2d6 KA, along with +5 only to inflict damage ("does not bypass armor").  If the target has less armor than the 2d6 roll, he takes no damage.  

 

It is, I'm pretty sure, a legitimate Limitation that's been around for a long time.  I know, not every GM approves every build, but it's there as a starting point.

[psyber624]

That concept is actually a power build in APG, the Piercing Power, it is a stopsign power that costs 2 pts to remove a point of Normal Defense, 3 pts to remove a point of any other Defense (each bought separately). At that price it is actually MORE expensive than the amount of damage you could get for the same price (on average) and yet is STILL considered to be a Stop Sign power by the game designers.

 

So personally I think a "Only to bypass armor" limitation would be worth -0 in most cases. If I expected the player to frequently come into contact with someone with NO armor then MAYBE -1/4, but the thing is that limitation is only limiting when the target has LESS armor than the amount rolled on the dice. In EVERY situation where the target has more armor it is the exact same end result as just adding more dice of damage.

 

Say your target has 20 PD.

 

12d6 will, on average, do 42 points of damage getting 22 points past defenses.

 

9d6 + 3d6 "Only to bypass armor" will do exactly 22 points past defenses on average ( 31.5 average damage roll, 10.5 average "damage reduction" leaving 9.5 defense resulting in 22 points past defense).

 

 

So unless your player is buying huge chunks of "Piercing" dice and very few actual damage dice, or you are regularly having him go up against unarmored opponents, the two builds have identical results and therefore would not qualify for a limitation. That is the type of thing I am saying you have to be wary of.

[Sean Waters]

Some damage is designed to inflict damage.  Kinda circular, I know, but... 

 

2d6 KA along with +5 only to bypass armor: the +5 reduces the targeted armor by 5, but doesn't otherwise add to the amount the target takes.  If your 2d6 roll is a 2, and the target has up to 5 armor, he still takes 2 BODY.  

 

You could conversely do something like 2d6 KA, along with +5 only to inflict damage ("does not bypass armor").  If the target has less armor than the 2d6 roll, he takes no damage.  

 

It is, I'm pretty sure, a legitimate Limitation that's been around for a long time.  I know, not every GM approves every build, but it's there as a starting point.

 

 

Complete aside, but I don't think you can get 5 points of standard effect: +1d6 = 3 and +1 or +1/2d6 =1: there is not a 1DC = 1 Body SE rule as there arguably should be.  Easy to rule round but puzzling why there is a need to.

[Sean Waters]

Not every target will have resistant defences and not every target that does will have as much as you have.

 

Example:

 

1d6 KA with 1d6 'only to bypass resistant defence'

 

The target has 4 rPD and an additional 4 PD.

 

Fist 1d6 is a 3 with a x2 multiplier, same for the second.

 

So...if it was a single attack we would be looking at 6 Body, 12 Stun.  You would get 2 Body, 4 Stun as a final damage result.

 

The 3 Body reduces the rPD by 3 and negates the PD from armour, so final damage is 2 Body and 8 stun (your normal PD is not resistant so it does not get negated).

 

Sometimes defences will be much higher and so there really is no disadvantage in having the limitation, but sometimes they will be lower and the negation of rPD does not help at all.  It seems to me that, if you defined the limitation as 'only vs worm armour' that would be OK - it would not work against natural armour which (for purposes of this discussion) has fewer weak spots, or at least less accessible ones, and not everyone wears armour: it is worth a limitation.  Maybe -1/2.  This will depend on the campaign and is quite subjective.

 

The other thing I toyed with was splitting damage into defence penetration and trauma, perhaps charging 3 or 4 points per 'DC' of each (you can also retain normal damage dice).  Easily abused in a multipower, but the ability to be abused is not a bar to sensible use.  'Trauma' dice would have no effect at all unless the defences were completely circumvented.  Quite good for bullet proof vests and such: if you get penetration at all it is probably as bad as not wearing it at all.

[Chris Goodwin]

Complete aside, but I don't think you can get 5 points of standard effect: +1d6 = 3 and +1 or +1/2d6 =1: there is not a 1DC = 1 Body SE rule as there arguably should be.  Easy to rule round but puzzling why there is a need to.

 

Sorry, my own mental shorthand/house rule.  Standard Effect for Killing Attacks: 1 DC = 1 BODY.  

[Sean Waters]

Sorry, my own mental shorthand/house rule.  Standard Effect for Killing Attacks: 1 DC = 1 BODY.  

 

Makes perfect sense