Advantaged HKA and pro-rating STR

[Lord Liaden]

Greetings, Steve. Thanks again for answering our questions; and my apologies if this is spelled out somewhere in the rule books, and I just can't find it. 😔

 

When pro-rating the STR used to increase the Damage Class of an Advantaged HKA, does one factor in only the Advantages on the HKA that themselves affect its Damage Class, e.g. Armor Piercing? Or do all Advantages on the HKA apply?

 

I know what the Fifth Edition rules said about that (all of them but Reduced Endurance), but I wanted to be certain of the rule under Sixth Edition.

[Steve Long]

Yes, the 6E rules talk about that on 6E2 97-98 and 100-102. Do you think I left out some text from 5E that makes this question unclear in 6E?

 

Addendum:

After talking with LL, I think I see the source of the problem, so let me expand and clarify. 6E2 102 has a section on adding STR to Advantages HAs/HKAs, with an example. After that example should be this text:

 

"For purposes of using this rule with melee weapons, ignore the Reduced Endurance Advantage (which all melee weapons must have). STR adds to a weapon with Reduced Endurance as if the weapon were un-Advantaged (or only has whatever other Advantages are applied)."

 

That's the same text that appears in 5ER. I don't recall what was going through my head ten years ago when I wrote 6E (ten years!), but my guess is that as I was re-organizing and rewriting the text, I simply forgot it. It was certainly never my intent to require characters to have to account for Reduced Endurance (since all melee weapons must have it); it was just an oversight. Mea and/or culpa.

 

Addendum #2:

Per my ongoing discussion with LL, there still seems to be some confusion on this issue, so I want to post again in an effort to make things clear:  under the 6E rules, when a character determines how much damage he adds to an Advantaged attack with STR, Maneuvers, velocity, or any other appropriate source, he only has to consider the Advantages that directly affect how the target takes damage, as discussed on 6E2 97. He doesn’t have to account for Reduced Endurance, Indirect, Personal Immunity, or other Advantages that don’t affect how the target takes damage. To put it another way, when determining how much STR, velocity, Maneuvers, CSLs, or the like add to an Advantaged attack, a character does not have to take into account any Advantages that do not directly affect how the target takes damage.

 

As usual, this is all subject to the GM’s oversight. If he wants characters to take all Advantages into account when adding damage, that’s within his awe-inspiring powers.

 

Furthermore, I gather from LL that his question may have risen in the context of questions about how Hero Designer functions. I normally pay no attention to HD issues (for a whole variety of good reasons), but in this case I will leave my bunker for a second and say that if it’s easier for Dan Simon to program HD to account for all Advantages, that’s OK with me. Going through the entire book and trying to figure out which Advantages to consider and which to ignore sounds like a lot more work than anyone should have to take on. ::ducks back into bunker::