Primus

Thanks for making me look it up. So, I can't figure out how to manipulate the quotes, so let me address points in order: I vividly remember reading the parts of All Quiet on the Wesern Front which described dead bodies in WWI that were blown out of their clothes. It's such a strange bizarre detail that it paints a picture in your mind. Also, the testicle injury section in the "dressing room". Well, the argument is that powers are only useful to the character, not the focus. But yes, this is a stretch. For your heroic level space setting: 22nd century Phaser: Multipower 25pt reserve 1) Standard Blast: 1 pip RKA (AOE 1 hex, Autofire 5, x2 Penetrating, 0 END +4) 2) Cutting Beam: 1 pip RKA (Autofire 10, x4 Penetrating, 0 END +4) 3) Wide Field: 1 pip RKA (AOE, Autofire 10, 0 END +4) The Galactic Humanoidist Coalition applied their control of materials on a molecular level to weapons technology early in their expansion. Rather than assaulting the surface of an object with high energy, this new technology "phased" the molecules, weakening the bonds holding the objects together, resulting in the dis-integration of solid objects. For a short period The Coalition's technology provided a dramatic advantage. The more traditional force field and armor of both the Pointy-Eared and Bone-Headed Empires were of no use against this technology. Armor melted away and the forcefield technology of the time experienced enormous stresses when a phasing field was applied. Fortunately for The Coalition: these aggressive empires would have overrun The Coalition were it not for their military superiority. Fortunately for the Empires, the Coalition was not as expansionist. Within a century the evolution of arms and armor had molded the phaser into a more traditional energy projection weapon. As the Empires adapted to the novel technology they found that hardening their force fields and materials against this technique of attack was a relatively simple matter. 23rd Century Ship's Anti-phase System: FF 5/5 (x4 Hardened, 0 END +1.5) 25 pts As these anti-phase systems developed, Feder- oops I mean Coalition weapons technology reasearch gradually increase the energy output of Phasers to compensate. Today there is little difference between Phasers and their Disruptor counterparts. Penetrating is not really an issue, although it does open up another line of exotic attack. You would need an exotic defense to compensate, but that already exists with Flash, Mental, and Power defense. Heck, even ED and PD are two completely separate lines of attack.

Eepjr24: Well, I did say hits. Although I must admit actually it is true: this would be pretty effective against characters that don't buy up BOD. Mostly because the referenced page (266 5er) actually specifically mentions single pip Killing Attacks do 1 BOD, precisely the opposite of what you report ("A 1- point Killing Attack does 1 BODY Penetrating;" column 1 4th paragraph under Penetrating heading). This means up to a +9 in advantages can be applied in a 50 AP setting. I overlooked this (as well as an additional cost for autofire AOE attacks that is only mentioned in the AOE section). 0 END 1 Hex Autofire 5 leaves room for x12 Penetrating, although LOS, Indirect, and IPE should be considered. AOE says directly under the heading "Powers with Area Of Effect affect all targets in an area." (pg. 247 5er, emphasis added). Furthermore, I target a hex with my AOE, not a Focus, therefore no Focus target penalty to OCV. The Focus[es] are just one of the affected targets in the area. Unbreakable Focuses are a little ambiguous in the wording. It is unclear if destroying a power associated with the focus is harmful to the Focus. It may be that reducing the focus to 0 powers or doing DEF x2 doesn't destroy the Focus. In any case, having a limitation that can't be grabbed (because Inaccessible) or attacked (because Unbreakable under a bad interpretation of RAW) doesn't seem too limiting, and therefore should be worthless RAW.

Tasha: Actually, I'm quite impressed with the non-exploitability in the game generally, with AP limits being a great design. Even the Power Frameworks are pretty evenly balanced (despite my eyes bugging out when I first realized what a VPP was, it's actually not that powerful). Focuses and vehicles seem like a glaring exception because of this otherwise good design, and questioning whether there exists some over-looked detail that balances this aspect is only natural. Penetrating actually dramatically reduces my opinion of the power of Focuses, and it was not obvious to me at first. Though, I do still want to address the imbalance of Focuses and Vehicles more fully in its own topic. More generally, why engage in any activity with other people unless they occasionally challenge you in unexpected ways? Playing a game with other people lets you experiment with the reactions of another human mind to your own actions. Will they like my joke? I'd imagine being a famous comedian surrounded by sycophants laughing at everything you say would get old. Will he see my tactic? Is my weakness inobvious or will he figure it out? A human mind is incredibly complex and difficult to predict. Maybe some player does see something in the physics of the game the GM does not. Let them learn from each other. I just think this is a case of someone seeing the game say "You don't have to, but you SHOULD be Ironman," and wondering "Really? I thought this was a superhero game?" I'm currently new so I have to get my 10 posts before I don't have to wait for the once or twice a day Mod approval for my posts, so forgive any delayed response. Relatedly: I want to reply to eepjr24's excellent analysis of my previous response in separate post in order to up my post count. Edit: Or maybe I'm already approved. Anyway, just going to do these two sentences and then do a new post.

This is a little frustrating. TUS = The Ultimate Skill (pg. 301, "5 point skill levels" heading) It is clearly stated INT levels can be allocated to PER rolls. This is in plain English, no interpretation or logical leaps necessary. Obviously the Enhanced Senses entry is not comprehensive in describing the ways a PER roll may be directly modified with character abilities. It is left to the reader, however, to make the logical conclusions that a 2 pt CHAR roll level on PER is possible, and that this 2 pt level is different from a 3 pt +1 to PER Enhanced Sense because Senses are Persistent while Skill Levels must be allocated. Although, TUS does give a hint by using an example either in the CSL section or the regular Skill Levels section saying that you can't walk around with your skill levels permanently allocated, specifically referencing PER (something like "you can't just always have your Overall Skill Levels allocated to PER."). This example is a second case of explicitly referencing skill level allocation to PER rolls in RAW, although here with Overall Levels rather than INT skill levels. Please address these facts when answering the question.

1d6 RKA x4 Penetrating, Autofire 2-3, +2.25 49 Active Points Against normal non-Focus abusing player this is going to do 1 BOD, and would take 10 hits to have ANY effect on the combat effectiveness of even a Normal (in a 6 DEF bullet proof vest). I.e. not practically effective. Against Batmunchkin this can clear out an entire strategic pillar in one hit. One hit will likely either paralyze his movement, neutralize his offensive capabilities, or sunder his armor defenses. It takes out entire Power Frameworks with 1 BOD damage. Mix the multiple for Penetrating with more Autofire or Reduced END depending on how paranoid you are about the GM hardening multiple times. Consider AOE 1 Hex so you ignore the target's DCV (+Autofire= good chance at landing all 3 shots) and more importantly, you strip 1 Power Framework per Focus on the target (and swat the target itself for 1 BOD + 1 STUN). I'd need a rule clarification on whether a full 1d6 would be necessary, or whether a 5-point single pip RKA still does 1 BOD with Penetrating. Even a 10-point d3 would allow up to +4 within 50 Active Points, which could buy Autofire 5, 0 END, & AOE 1 Hex on top of x4 Penetrating.

TUS specifically clarifies that PER can be allocated a 5 point INT skill level. Higher point value levels subsume the abilities of lower value levels, so it is clear that an 8 and 10 point level can be allocated to PER. PER is at least a CHAR roll, so 2 point levels in PER are allowed (though are not persistent). But this still leaves open the question: Can PER be allocated a 3 point skill level? Or for that matter, can CHAR rolls be included in 3 point levels? Edit: with respect to 5er.

I think TUS says disappearing into a crowd is Shadowing skill. Doing something to someone while they aren't paying attention would be Sleight of Hand.

LOS attacks and distance. Maybe add telescopic senses. "Oh, you bought AOE 1 hex so you can ignore my DCV? Ok, now the hex I'm in is effectively DCV 19 cause I'm 1049m away from you," 40 points of telescopic is enough to be able to spot man size targets at comfortably interplanetary scale (terameter). Of course, depending on the relative speeds of light and a mental attack, you may have to lead your target a little more when sniping from your base on Titan. Don't forget to adjust for your target's movement after adjusting for the Earth's rotation and revolution! Edit: 1 billion km not 1 billion m. 1 billion km is a terameter