Switching from 4e to 6e

[Hugh Neilson]

I'm pretty sure there was an APG section on multiple Armor Piercings (halved, quartered, etc.). Mix with limitations and you have Find Weakness.

[dgulledge]

No, not even close. You would have to have as much "piercing" as they did armor and come up with some sort of RSR on bits of it so that multiple checks would reduce it to 1/2, then 1/4, then 1/8, etc. 

 

That said, I think it is good that Find Weakness is gone. Good riddance.

 

- E

Sorry.  I wasn't terribly clear.  My thinking was that Piercing serves the same purpose as Find Weakness did, more or less.  You're right that it absolutely doesn't behave the same way, especially in the case of multiple Find Weakness rolls.  What it does is provide a mechanism to reduce the effectiveness of an opponent's defenses for the benefit of a specific attack.  The idea, if I may presume for a moment to intuit the intent of the designers of two different editions, is game balance.  You don't want characters with defenses that can never be defeated.  I think Find Weakness was under-priced as a solution in high powered games.  Every point of Piercing will allow you to do one more point each of BODY and STUN, or get one point closer to doing any.  If the attack it's coupled with is a Blast, 1d6 costs 5 points and does an average of 1 BODY and 3.5 STUN.  1 point of Piercing will cost you 2 points and negate a point of defense.  For those 2 points, you get 1 more point of BODY and 1 more point of STUN.  That's still a little under-priced relative to just buying another 1d6 of the attack itself.

 

I had characters with Find Weakness under earlier editions.  It was powerful and I liked it.  I don't disagree with you about being glad to see it go.  The only thing that kept it from being too unbalancing was the fact that it required a roll.

 

Personally, I doubt I'll use Piercing.  With the Armor Piercing advantage and the fact that Piercing is tied to a single attack power, it feels redundant to me.  I assume there's a reason for it to exist separately from Armor Piercing, probably so that it can be more easily purchased than a naked Armor Piercing advantage to be used with any weapon.  As such, it would be an appropriate power for an expert marksman or swordsman.

[Hugh Neilson]

I think piercing exists because it existed in Champions III, then disappeared in later editions, leading to some players wanting it back.  The APG provided an opportunity to make that construct available again, for those who wanted that optional mechanic in their games.

[Amorkca]

I thought Piercing was replaced by Penetrating?

 

A Power with this Advantage automatically does some damage, no matter how strong the target's defences are. The 

character rolls his damage normally and applies them against the target's defences, but no matter how high those defences, the target takes a minimum of 1 point of effect for every 1 "Normal Damage BODY" rolled on the dice.

[Hugh Neilson]

I don't recall the full history, but I'm pretty sure Penetrating and Piercing were both around before 3e. Penetrating was originally envisioned as letting some STUN slip through, not a way to make a KA more likely to do BOD, at least in the games I was in at the time, although a penetrating KA showed up soon enough.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Piercing at least came out in Champions III: for x points, your attack ignored y points of the defense applied to it.  I'm pretty sure penetrating was in Champions III as well.

[Grailknight]

Penetrating was not around until 4th at the earliest. It came in as Piercing's replacement.

[rravenwood]

Penetrating was not around until 4th at the earliest. It came in as Piercing's replacement.

 

Just to keep the record straight, the Advantage "Penetrating Attack" can be found on page 47 of Champions III. 

[Tasha]

I don't recall the full history, but I'm pretty sure Penetrating and Piercing were both around before 3e. Penetrating was originally envisioned as letting some STUN slip through, not a way to make a KA more likely to do BOD, at least in the games I was in at the time, although a penetrating KA showed up soon enough.

Piercing points were introduced in Champions III which was the APC of the era and was Compatable with Champions 1st - 3rd Editions.