Aberrant RPG - Offense/Defense Question

[Cin]

Okay, I have a question. A nova can have several defenses like Force Field +Armor + Invulnerability which ends up giving him a HUGE soak. Well, how do you get through that?

Here’s a extreme example:

Nova A has Stamina 2, Mega Stamina 1 (w/ Resiliency Enhancement), Armor 5 (w/ Superheavy Extra) and Invulnerability 5 (w/ Broad Category: Physical)

Giving him a Lethal Soak of 51 (right?) and it is +5 Difficulty to hit him with the Superheavy Extra on

Nova B has Dex 5, Mega-Dex 5 and Q-bolt 5 (w/ AP extra) with 5 Quantum.

That means his Q-bolt does [10] + 20 dice.(MAX of 30 damage, averaging 18)

He averages 7 successes to hit (that means he is hitting nova A with 1 net success).

So here’s the questions.

Do you figure the AP with gross successes (that would mean –14 to nova A’s soak) or net successes (That means –2 to noav A’s Soak)? Either way nova B can’t hope to do more than 1 point of damage to nova A.

Does the soak reduction from AP get applied to nova A’s Armor AND Invulnerability?

How do you get through noav A’s soak? Can nova B buy another Q-Bolt and link them?

If you link two q-bolts so they fire simultaneously are they still considered separate attacks?

i.e. roll attack for each, roll damage for each, soak gets applied to each.

Or do they combine like the merged extra?

[Sherazahde]

Quote:

Originally posted by Cin:

Does the soak reduction from AP get applied to nova A’s Armor AND Invulnerability?

How do you get through noav A’s soak? Can nova B buy another Q-Bolt and link them?

If you link two q-bolts so they fire simultaneously are they still considered separate attacks?
i.e. roll attack for each, roll damage for each, soak gets applied to each.

Or do they combine like the merged extra?

Well, first off, since Nova A only has Invulnerability to physical attacks, even broad category, the energy attack of the Q-Bolt is going to eat right through it. So you can shave off about 30 levels of soak right there.

Secondly, the Armor Piecing is going to apply ONCE, to the OVERALL soak rating. Depending on how well the Q-Bolt is rolled to hit, that could scarf off quite a bit in the process, leaving a lot of damage to make its way to the Nova.

However, I think you meant Broad Category Energy on the Invulnerability, and yes, THAT is going to be hard to get through. The AP will have (I think) no effect on that at all, only on whatever soak is left, which still leaves 30 auto soaks from the Invulnerability alone.

Off hand learning Disrupt might be better, since it could take down the Invulnerability and/or the Armor with enough successes. But there's not much chance of the Q-Bolt getting through alone, I think.

[Cin]

Q-Bolt can be Physical or energy. For the example, say the q-bolt is physical or the Invul: Borad category is Energy.

Disruptss usually isn't worth it unless you have a realy high Quantum and/or a lot of levels of disrupt.

What about the multiple Q-bolt questions???

[ 09-07-2002: Message edited by: Cin ]

[N News Service]

Cin, for your example, the Superheavy extra, if I remember correctly, counters any attempts at Armor Piercing.

Soak is applied before you role any dice or apply any levels of damage. If an attack is doing 20 levels of bashing damage+ 40 dice of bashing damage and the target has 30 soak the levels are soaked first, then the dice. If there are dice left over, roll for damage.

Armor Piercing's effect is figured on net successes, not gross. If you have a +3 difficulty to hit due to some situation and you role 5 successes, 4 of them are eaten up simply trying to hit. The extras are applied to armor piercing. But, again, in the case of Superheavy the armors soak will be unaffected. The forcefield and Invunerability would still be effected. Invunerability will resist Agg, not Armor Piercing. Armor piercing is applied on once to the soak total, not seperately to each power.

eg. Nova A has Dex 5, MegaDex 5 and QBolt 5 with AP-Lethal and rolls an amazing 14 successes.

Nova B has Armor 5 with Superheavy and MegaStam 5 with Resiliency X2 with a soak of 35/25.

Net successes is 8, so -16 soak but only the soak from Stamina/MegaStamina can be affected so the 10 soak from that disappears. The remaining 15 soak is applied to the Q Bolt.

Now, for seperate Quantum Bolts, each one has to deal with soak on its own and has a seperate damage pool. But remember, if they are linked, they both miss if one misses.

In regards to Disrupt, my favorite. Disrupts dice pool is not Disrupt + Quantum, it is Intelligence + Quantum. Which is why I love Prodigy having it.

[Cin]

Cin, for your example, the Superheavy extra, if I remember correctly, counters any attempts at Armor Piercing.

Superheavy does not counter AP. The Impervious Extra does. The Impervious Extra makes the power immune to AP and allows it to soak Agg. (A REALLY good extra when you looks at all you get. I’d make it two seperat extras, personally)

Soak is applied before you role any dice or apply any levels of damage. If an attack is doing 20 levels of bashing damage+ 40 dice of bashing damage and the target has 30 soak the levels are soaked first, then the dice. If there are dice left over, roll for damage.

I know this.

Armor Piercing's effect is figured on net successes, not gross. If you have a +3 difficulty to hit due to some situation and you role 5 successes, 4 of them are eaten up simply trying to hit.

That is what I figured, but there was apparently some confusion about it.

The extras are applied to armor piercing. But, again, in the case of Superheavy the armors soak will be unaffected.

Impervious ignores AP, not Superheavy. Superheavy just add +4 Bashing/Lethal Soak and +1 Difficult to hit the nova for each point he has in the Armor power.

The forcefield and Invunerability would still be effected. Invunerability will resist Agg, not Armor Piercing.

Invulnerability will not resist Agg unless you have the Impervious extra on it.

Armor piercing is applied on once to the soak total, not seperately to each power.

eg. Nova A has Dex 5, MegaDex 5 and QBolt 5 with AP-Lethal and rolls an amazing 14 successes.

Nova B has Armor 5 with Superheavy and MegaStam 5 with Resiliency X2 with a soak of 35/25.

Net successes is 8, so -16 soak but only the soak from Stamina/MegaStamina can be affected so the 10 soak from that disappears. The remaining 15 soak is applied to the Q Bolt.

That is pretty much what I figured.

Now, for seperate Quantum Bolts, each one has to deal with soak on its own and has a seperate damage pool. But remember, if they are linked, they both miss if one misses.

Linked just means they have to be used at the same time or one has to be used within a certain time limit of the other. It doesn’t say anything about one attack roll for BOTH powers. Not to mention, if it was one attack roll for both, then the effects would prolly be combined (like the Merged extra). According to the book you make a roll for each power that is linked. In fact, if you have the Linked Weakness really high then you even suffer dice penalties to each attack roll or whatever. One step down is that you suffer diec penalties.

,,

In regards to Disrupt, my favorite. Disrupts dice pool is not Disrupt + Quantum, it is Intelligence + Quantum. Which is why I love Prodigy having it.

Actually, according to the Core book, page 190 it is Intelligence + Disrupt, so we were both wrong. That’s what I get for trying to work off the top of my head. Let me add something to the example then….

Nova B has a average Intel (3) with no Mega-Intel and Nova A has a 8+ Willpower and a 6+ Quantum.

Basically Disrupt is only useful if you have a lot of Intel and a good rating on the power. Novas with a higher Quantum rating will almost certainly have a high Willpower too.

I’d still like to know some way to Merge two powers like that. Yeah, I understand that the possible applications are pretty hideous. But I can see no other way to get through Multiple Defensive powers. Keep in mind that I didn’t even toss the Impervious Extra into the example. That would have made Nova A’s defenses AP proof.

Another Question…

Would you allow a nova to take multiple AP or Impervious Extras? Maybe make it a arms race. Additional AP extras would not make you ignore more soak, it would just let you cancel a target’s Impervious extra. Since getting impervious cancels an attack’s AP against that defense, would the attacker be allowed to buy another AP extra to get past the defender’s impervious? Then the defense could do the same and get another Impervious extra. It would still favour the defender since he would have to buy it one less time than the attack.

[N News Service]

Ahg, point and counterpoint.

Okay, wrong about Superheavy, kewl.

Don't have the PG with me so I can't argue linked.

Invunerability does protect against agg. Page 106 in the core, first paragraph.

Disrupt, my bad, listed Quantum when I mean Disrupt. But, Disrupt is resisted by Quantum+Node, not Willpower. Thus the possible resisting dice pool is smaller as Node maxes at 5 and Willpower maxes at 10.

Curious, why would you assume that a high Quantum Nova would have a high Willpower?

As for multiple taking of the Impervious extra, no, as an ST I wouldn't allow it. With the exception of Reduced Cost I don't think any extras can be taken more than once.

[Cin]

Wow, we are just slaughtering the rules. Invulnerability is on 206, not 106. hehe.

Anyways..

Every nova I have ever seen with Q6 or higher is at LEAST 6 Willpower. Usually 8+. I don't assume, it's pretty much fact from what I see. As far as Disrupt, people with a High Quantum also tend to have a high node. So, back to what I was saying, unless you have a good intel and skill, it’s pretty ineffective on somebody with a better (I mean more than 1 point better) Quantum rating.

When you only have like a 3 Intelligence, and no Mega-Intelligece, then it’s very hard to disrupt a Q6 nova. The Q6 nova has at least a Node of 3. So that means 9 dice vs. your 3 Intelligence + power level. Even if you have Disrupt 5, you’d still be rolling your 8 dice vs. his 9 dice.

By the book, you’re right Extras pretty much can only be taken once. But there is also the Golden Rule.

Otherwise it is TOTALLY slanted in the defender’s favour. You can use multiple powers to defend, AND they get to stack, but you cannot stack multiple attack powers.. EVER???

Anybody with answers to the merged and multiple Q-bolts stuff?

[N News Service]

Going to disagree that everything is slanted in the defender's favor. Aberrant is a frightening lethal game. You have a very limited number of health levels and once even a few dice start getting through things start to look bad.

Yes, someone with Armor with Superheavy, Forcefield, Invunerability with the appropriate catagory, lots of MegaStamina w/ResiliencyX2 and Regeneration is pretty tough to kill. But seriously, how many exp does it take to make someone that invunerable? Three shitloads sound about right? You're comparing them to someone with lots of MegaDex and a good QBolt. So, to completely offset one MegaStat and One Quantum Power you are talking about one MegaStat with three enhancements and three Quantum powers.

Fine, the SuperBrick you are talking about is invunerable to the QBolt and other straight out physical powers. What about old fashioned Mental Blast? Domination? There are always ways around a situation.

Now, for Disrupt. You're right. The system is designed that if you don't have a MegaStat backing up a number of powers then they are near useless. Domination, Disorient, Immobilize, etc are all extremely limited if you don't back them up with a MegaStat. That's the game. But one thing to remember, this game isn't just about Novas stomping on other Novas. Some of the above powers, when used against baselines, even without a MegaStat can be pretty darn cool.

[Cin]

I know people can be attacked mentally, but this was a question about physical attacks and defenses. (Not to mention most characters aren't just going to develop a mental blast.)

The levels of mega-stat and powers don't even need to be that high to make somebody insanely tough.

The fact of the matter is that you can stack defensive powers but not offensive powers. Why???

There should be a way to get rhough them without having to get Mastery.

[Jager]

In the end, the Brick has three powers plus a stat fighting your one power. That is why Vietnam does not invade China, if you know what I mean.

Basically, this Brick has your number. Work around him. Sometimes, you just lose if every problem looks like a nail and all you got is one hammer. Some nails will not go down.

Quite frankly, if he bought all these powers, that is 120 xps. You would have spent 115, starting from scratch. Welcome to the arms race.

My suggestions; try for a stunning attack or drug his ass. How long can he hold his breath? Blind him (that makes him easier to hit)? Work around his defenses if you can't go through them.

Best of all, bring some friends to share in the fun.

[Cin]

The point is being missed here. I know he Nova A has several powers that stack to defend him.

It will take several powers to get through all that. I know this. What I want to know is if it is possible to stack powers against him. Like linking several Q-bolts? Merging them?

Heck it is already bad enough that all it takes is one extra (Impervious) to cancel the effects of AP. Not only that, but Impervious lets you soak Agg as well.

[Hugin]

Quote:

Originally posted by Cin:
The point is being missed here. I know he Nova A has several powers that stack to defend him.

It will take several powers to get through all that. I know this. What I want to know is if it is possible to stack powers against him. Like linking several Q-bolts? Merging them?

Heck it is already bad enough that all it takes is one extra (Impervious) to cancel the effects of AP. Not only that, but Impervious lets you soak Agg as well.

Why is that bad enough? What kind of game do you want here? Offense overwhelming defense in all cases?

Point for point offense beats out defense. So, defense has to stack. One dot of Quantum Blast beats out one dot of Armor.

I can see where this is coming from. Your character has a very specific power that she is very good at but has apparently run up against people who brush it off. Thats the game.

Defense stacks but it takes shitloads of experience to get that stacking effect.

I don't think we are missing the point, I just don't agree with your initial complaint, that defense is too effective versus offense.

[Cin]

No. That is not where it is coming from. I was reading the combat section and looking over soak. Then it hit me that you could stack defensive powers. I knew this, but it finally prompted me to something about it.

Do I want offense to overwhelm defense in all cases? Hello no.

Should the offense at least have some way of getting just as bad as the defense? Hell yes.

Look at thw world. It is ALOT easier to destory than it is to build or protect. Just look at the centuries old quest to stop a bullet. Bot it sure it alot easier to make a bullet go through things than it is to make something stop it. And just when you find a way to more or less stop it, a new bullet comes out that is more AP or whatever.

The arms race is ancient and has always favoured the offense.

[N News Service]

And it still does. You have to stack defenses to handle the offense. You have to expend much more effort, much more exp to develop a defensive set to handle the offense.

[Cin]

You are right. To a degree. You can ALWAYS get a bigger gun (figurativly speaking), but in Aberrant you cannot do that unless you get into Mastery.

With just the Impervious Extra defense takes leaps ahead of any attack it might have to repel. Not only does it make you powers soak bonus work against Agg, bit it ALSO negates a whole attack power extra. It ought to be the other way around. It has always been harder to defend.

Besides that though. Yes, the defender has several powers protecting him(armor, invul, FF), so you just have to say, well, he is impossiable to hurt and go home? No. There should be some way to stack offensive powers or something. If the agressor is willing to put in just as much exp into geting through the defender's defenses, then he should be able to do that. With the rules the way they are you can't unless you have Q6 and Mastery. That just doesn't work.

[David 'Dr. Troll' Smith]

1) INV does protect against Agg.

2) I don't see the problem. Offense is already way stronger than defense. Your example brick has two maxed out level 3 defense powers. That is expensive.

This example also pits "Nova with Defending powers against a attack" vs "Nova with that attack". For a less expensive example, try "gas attack" vs "defense vs gas attacks".

3) There is an extra in the PCG which lets you stack offenses.

[Cin]

Quote:

Originally posted by David 'Dr. Troll' Smith:
1) INV does protect against Agg.

2) I don't see the problem. Offense is already way stronger than defense. Your example brick has two maxed out level 3 defense powers. That is expensive.

This example also pits "Nova with Defending powers against a attack" vs "Nova with that attack". For a less expensive example, try "gas attack" vs "defense vs gas attacks".

3) There is an extra in the PCG which lets you stack offenses.

1) Umm.. I now. We already said that.

2) I KNOW there are other way to attack people. Cin has not been as successful and long lived in the game by just brute forcing her way through things with her gun. The point I am trying to make is being missed. I'll see if I can come up with another way of wording it.

3) Umm.. what is it?

Linked? No. Each effect from each power is applied seperately.

Merged? No, that lets you combine your power with somebody else's for a combined effect.

If there si something I missed, then please tell me.

[N News Service]

Alright, what the hell do you want? Look at that first example you gave. The maxed out defensive brick IS STILL TAKING ONE DICE OF DAMAGE EVERY ROUND HE IS HIT. Yes, it will take awhile to hurt him but he is not the invunerable, unstoppable force you are bitching about.

We are NOT MISSING YOUR POINT, we disagree. There is a big difference.

You keep avoiding the factthat your invunrable brick is maxed the hell out and has spent shitloads more in exp than your offensive powers have. You know what? That is how the game was set up. If you don't like it, use one of your house rules.

What do you want, fights that are over in six seconds? Well, the fact is, most of the time with the way the system is set up, that is going to happen because exp for exp it is cheaper to be able to develop ways to do damage than it is to prevent damage. You gave an extreme example and that has an extreme result. The extremes are NOT accurate portrayals of how the game works.

Look through the canon characters. How often do you come across a character with a high soak? Even those characters that *should* have a good soak often do not. Look at Utopias Montoya Bernal, the superstrong hand to hand man of T2M, he has no Armor, no Invunerability, no Force Field and no MegaStamina. His major protection is Bounce which is only good against physical attacks, not energy, Eufibre and the hope that he can split actions and dodge enough. Pursuer, the badass elite has normal soak of 24/15 +his Grav Shield offering a soak of 5 versus physical attacks. Your Nova B example would blow his head clean off. Lotus Infinite has a total soak of 11/9, she has to look out for baselines with guns.

Yes, player characters being the combat twinking little bastards they are will take every possible opportunity to abuse any opportunity. Well, thats their problem, not so much the system.

There isn't a problem.

[Cin]

”Alright, what the hell do you want? Look at that first example you gave. The maxed out defensive brick IS STILL TAKING ONE DICE OF DAMAGE EVERY ROUND HE IS HIT. Yes, it will take awhile to hurt him but he is not the invunerable, unstoppable force you are bitching about.”

First, the “brick” I was talking about if FAR from maxed out. Stam 2 with 1 Mega stam. No Impervious extras on anything and doesn’t even have forcefield. I have never said anything about him being a invulnerable, unstoppable force. Nor have I botched. I have had no reason to till now.

”We are NOT MISSING YOUR POINT, we disagree. There is a big difference.”

Yes. You are missing my point. The whole reason for this was to tap the collective consciousness to see if there is any way anybody has or can thinking of to stack attack powers. Meanwhile, everybody is getting caught up in the technicalities and says there are alternate way to attack. I know this. It’s like somebody asking you if you know how fix a broken radiator so you can move your car and then getting a “well, if you hitch a horse to the front he can pull it.” answer. I.e. not the answer to the question at all.

”You keep avoiding the fact that your invunrable brick is maxed the hell out and has spent shitloads more in exp than your offensive powers have. You know what? That is how the game was set up. If you don't like it, use one of your house rules.”

See my statement regarding this above. Also, that was part of the purpose of this, to see if anybody had any house rules for it or any ideas.

”What do you want, fights that are over in six seconds? Well, the fact is, most of the time with the way the system is set up, that is going to happen because exp for exp it is cheaper to be able to develop ways to do damage than it is to prevent damage. You gave an extreme example and that has an extreme result. The extremes are NOT accurate portrayals of how the game works.”

Yes, exp for exp, attack powers are more damaging. But when both you attack power and the other guys defense power caps out, you can’t get anymore. Meanwhile the other guy can go and buy a whole other power. And when he finishes with that. He can buy ANOTHER power.

The extremes are accurate portrayals of how the game work when your game takes place of many, many years.

Oh, wait. The rules are only supposed to work and be balanced until you get into the extremes. Then they don’t work well anymore. I forgot that first rule of game mechanics.

So Divis Mal doesn't have several defenses at 5 with various levels of mastery on them? Neat.

”Look through the canon characters. How often do you come across a character with a high soak? Even those characters that *should* have a good soak often do not. Look at Utopias Montoya Bernal, the superstrong hand to hand man of T2M, he has no Armor, no Invunerability, no Force Field and no MegaStamina. His major protection is Bounce which is only good against physical attacks, not energy, Eufibre and the hope that he can split actions and dodge enough. Pursuer, the badass elite has normal soak of 24/15 +his Grav Shield offering a soak of 5 versus physical attacks. Your Nova B example would blow his head clean off. Lotus Infinite has a total soak of 11/9, she has to look out for baselines with guns. “

“Yes, player characters being the combat twinking little bastards they are will take every possible opportunity to abuse any opportunity. Well, thats their problem, not so much the system.”

I know this. It is not news to me. It has nothing to do with my question. Nowhere do I name cannon characters and talk about most nova’s soaks. Also, you’ll typcially see a lot more powerful people in the Teragen than in T2M. Nice example to fit your rant though.

”There isn't a problem.”

Actually You BELIEVE there is not a problem is a better statement.

[N News Service]

You're asking for house rules?

What?

You started off this thread by asking how certain aspects of the rules played out. You mention Merge and Link a couple times. You state a couple times that there *should* be a way for offense to stack, but you never ask how other people have handled it in their games, that would have suggested that you were fishing for house rules.

You cite historical precidence that offense should beat defense and imply that a game based in a completely fictional universe where superhuman's desires re-write reality should follow that precidence.

You were arguing that offense *should* beat defense and I was arguing that was not necessarily true.

I mean, you and I both went back and forth citing the rulebooks, often getting them wrong interestingly enough, so how was I or anyone else supposed to garner that you were looking for something outside of the rulebooks?

THAT is the point I've been *missing*?

Good lord.

[Cin]

You're asking for house rules?

What?

You started off this thread by asking how certain aspects of the rules played out. You mention Merge and Link a couple times. You state a couple times that there *should* be a way for offense to stack, but you never ask how other people have handled it in their games, that would have suggested that you were fishing for house rules.

No. I said that was part of it. Yet again, you either are not reading, missing the point, or just trying to find ammo.

You cite historical precidence that offense should beat defense and imply that a game based in a completely fictional universe where superhuman's desires re-write reality should follow that precidence.

Now you’re just grasping at straws. When the game uses THIS world/time period and history as a setting, then yes. Otherwise nobody would every have ANY problem with any rules because it is just game based in a completely fictional universe where superhuman's desires re-write reality.

So if there is a typo in a book released by WW tomorrow saying that the Colt Peacemaker shoots live hippopotami (not bullets as we all know) you and everybody else would just accept it based on the knowledge that the game based in a completely fictional universe. Gimme a break.

You were arguing that offense *should* beat defense and I was arguing that was not necessarily true.

No. I was saying the offense SHOULD BE ABLE to beat defense for roughly the same amount of effort. Yet again, you are not read or missing the point.

I mean, you and I both went back and forth citing the rulebooks, often getting them wrong interestingly enough, so how was I or anyone else supposed to garner that you were looking for something outside of the rulebooks?

I was not. That was a small part of it. I was asking if there was any way to combine attack powers and how to get through layered defenses. I FIGURED that somebody’s house rules would come in somewhere

THAT is the point I've been *missing*?

Good lord.

No. It is not. By this post of yours it is obvious you are still missing it or unwilling to actually READ.

[Sherazahde]

I think stacking the defenses up to such a degree is pretty extreme. I know it's possible by the rules, but I think anyone having that much defense is going to be rare. I think WW built the possibilty of stacked defense in there to deal with how powerful Q-Bolt, and other offensive attacks, are in comparison with standard defenses.

In a certain aspect, the game might have been designed for that reason: the offense of Aberrant is so strong that there had to be way of surviving it, ergo, stacking defenses. But if you could stack offense on top of that, it swings the balance too heavily in favor of offense.

There is no way to perfectly balance the system out. Putting both fields into the extreme, maxing out both sides, one side has to win out. Defense has the advantage, because it technically wins a tie.

So few Novas are going to have that degree of defense. Personally, in my experience, Disrupt has worked even though the die pools don't seem to favor it. One of those weird karmic things. Q6 Novas are going to be hard to disrupt if you're not Q6 yourself: that's one of the dangers of facing a Q6 Nova. They are on a plane entirely beyond the Q5 crew.

I don't have an answer for this problem, myself, except that as an ST it's probably a good idea to prevent your players from stacking defenses to such an insane degree without an incredibly good IC reason for them to have evolved that way.

On the other hand, if you're a player trying to get through the stacked defenses of an NPC...um....I'm sorry. That's sounds very rough. My advice would be to do something rather out-there, like finding a Nova capable of Warp and somehow blowing said NPC through a Warp to Neptune, or something similar.

Late and rambling. Apologies.

[Kirby1024]

OK, so:

Cin: Offensive capabilities don't stack for the very good reason that they are far more powerful that Defensive capabilities. A person with Armour 5 and a person with Quantum Bolt 5 will find that out rather quickly. Depending on the quantum of the opponent, the Q-Bolter will still have at least 7-8 Dice, and (at starting levels) at most 15-20 Dice for damage (ignoring extra successes providing extra damage dice). Stacking helps the defending nova, but it's expensive, and most other defensive powers are either inconsistent with the soak they provide (like Force Field), or are highly focused with what they provide defense against (Invulnerability).

Even worse, It takes much more NP and XP to protect yourself than it does to wipe the opposition out. With a good Dex score, Q-Bolt is still effective at 1 dot, but Armour has it's capabilities reduced significantly at 1 dot. Force Field has the same problem, Invulnerability has it's own problems (like Only being able to defend against one type of attack, unless you're really high-powered...)

Put bluntly, Offense will always nullify defense quite quickly, so the quote "The best defense is a good Offense" is quite appropriate here. You rarely need more than one offensive capability. Even if the Soak sucks up all the Dice (an unlikely prospect, really), Unless you're using the Puny Human Optional rule, and you have double the soak of the damage effect, you've still got one die to roll against them. It's scary exactly how much better Offense is than Defense. Even if you can't beat them straight, there is always another way to stop a nova. (As Pax can attest!)

As for Attacks stacking, as above, no need. If it's essential that you need to (and I cannot possibly forsee a reason why you should), It's probably easier for you to team up with another nova and attempt to pummel him together with the Merged option, or try Maxing out, and aim for the Aggravated Extra. Using the Linked Power weakness to stack powers opens up far too much possibilities. (But then, I'm like that. At the very worst, you could do this for defensive powers as well...) If you need extra power, just pump up your Dex/M-Dex, or something else.

N!NS and Cin: Could you two calm down for a second? To be honest, I don't see either of you paying attention to the other (A classic failure of communication). Take a deep breath, then reread the entire conversation. Then, with a clear head, try again. There's no need to shout

[N News Service]

Cin, I'm tired of this point by point ripping. I actually have been reading your posts. I read them through three times before I posted that last one. We're still on different pages.

I'd like to give this one more shot. How about you post exactly what you want to hear from people. What exactly you are looking for?

I don't enjoy these kind of things devolving into bitchfests. Most discussions on these boards tend to stay above that and personally I am a little ashamed that I helped this one sink to that level.

So, you tell me exactly what you want and if I have anything productive to say I'll pipe in otherwise I'll walk away.

[Sherazahde]

Quote:

Originally posted by Cin:

Another thing. Almost every time I see Invulnerability the nova has the Broad Category Extra. I guess, on a certain level, it is the smart thing to do, but that makes it a Level 3 power (Ick!). Very rarely do I see somebody with “Invulnerability: Fire” or something like that. Also please don’t go quoting canon characters. To me. I am speaking from my experiences.

You're correct about this. I've had two characters with Invulernability, and each time it eventually paid off to either buy it broad category and or increase it later.

The reason, enough, was this: having Invulernability to a single source of damage is a wasted ability. It is so rare to run up against that single source that the power never gets used.

The thing I've also discovered is that if I have a character with broad category: energy, the ST goes out of their way to attack me with physical characters, and vice-versa if I have broad category: physical, so it generally becomes useless anyway. I've never been audacious enough to have a character with two invulernabilities, one to energy and one to physical, but I know if I did the character would either be attacked psychically, or through her quantum, etc.

But that's my experience. I'm certain everyone else has theirs.

[Cin]

That's interesting. In the game I play a few PCs and NPCs have Invulnerability with broad caetgory and it seems to been a great benefit. The ST doesn't make characters to specifically take us out, not to mention IC very few people know exactly what a noav's powers are. Alot of NPCs are either canon characters or some made by various people on the web that they put up for others to use. That way, things are pretty fair.

[Jager]

A bit of history here:

One; a Frenchman named Vauben would disagree with the offense being superior to defense idea. As would a great deal of WWI veterans. All of that is strategic, though.

Okay, the question is; How do you stack offenses, right?

Let's look at this from the recieving end. Do you want to be hit with attacks that stack? Good Lord, you would be atomized by the first blast! Your maximized defender goes bye-bye.

The game is designed so that your PC's are a tad hard to kill. If not, one good blast and its off to your next conscept.

I think your question was why don't attacks stack. The answer is that you play by the same rules as the NPCs and that means that they get to be a little hard to kill as well.

As a HOUSE RULE, I let Analyze Weakness subtract LEVELS of defense instead of one soak per, but then I limit who can have it.

Actually, Armor, Body Armor, and Eufiber are a base difficulty.

ForceFields are base difficulty, but cancel out one success or 2 soak.

Invulnerability is at a +2 Diff., but then it is one level (6 soak) per.

Also, your Stamina + Mega-Stamina soak can not be Analyzed or APed.

You also have to be able to percieve the target and its defense. Either shoot it once to see what happens or have really good Perception + Mega-P. + Awarness (or Intrusion or Medicine).

I am a wacko-nut boy anyway and I probably over-favor Mega-Stats, but that is the way I do it.

Cin, for the majority of history, defense has been favored over the attack. When the attacker gets the advantage, the defenders find new ways to upset them.

The armored horsemen dominated offensive thought in Europe for 1000 years (300 AD ~ 1300 AD). The result was not the destruction of the armored horseman. That came later. The result was castles and siege warfare. The defender didn't 'defeat' the knight, he outlasted him.

Yes, the English longbowmen dominated the French knights in the 100 Years War. Who won. The French. A Longbow could punch through the best armor of the time, but in the end, it did not matter.

It took the advent of the Swiss Confederation and the return of disciplined infantry to Europe to end the knights reign on the battle fields.

Okay, enough dry history.

[Liam VanGilder]

One quick word here. Crush. With node 5 this lets you add 20 levels of damage to a single attack. Combine this with Str 5 and M-Str 5 and you have a base of 45 levels of lethal damage before any dice are rolled. The M-Str is easy enough to get with 2 or 3 levels of Sizemorph: Grow.

Next step, add in claws with the armour piercing or aggravated extra, preferrably AP, to rip through the soak. Now the 10 dice from Dex+Martial arts give a 10d10 (45) damage rating on this attack, plus up to another 5d10 for the claws. That's getting 4-9d10 through the Brick's soak at this point.

Want to take it further? Then add in Analyze Weakness. The main book makes specific reference to using this against another nova's Force Field on a -1 soak per success roll. Interesting to note, this reduction is unaffected by the Impervious extra as it not an AP effect per se. Bear in mind that this is assuming that all of the defenders soak so far is Impervious and not being reduced by the Claws.

As far as Disrupt goes, a power+stat+M-stat combo always has the potential to overwhlem a quantum+background defence. If the defender is Q6+ and the attacker isn't then don't be surprised at who loses that one. After Q6+ them Mastery 1 rapidly makes Disrupt all but impossible to resist. For sheer horror, add a couple of Extra Power extras to the Disrupt and wipe out half of someone's quantum powers in one fell swoop.

As far as I can see, even with defensive stacking, offence is still almost guaranteed to win out. This only really changes after Q6+ when multiple Mastery stacked defensive powers can throw the whole thing off.

[Cin]

Thank you very much for you clear input Sherazahde, Kirby and Liam. Much appricated.

That does bring up a few things though.

Ass soon as the defender ass the Impervious extra think massively slant in his favour. If your opponent has the Impervious Extra (or simply Invulnerability) then AP us useless and upping your damage into the Aggravated range is actually decreasing your chances of harming your opponent.

Another thing. Almost every time I see Invulnerability the nova has the Broad Category Extra. I guess, on a certain level, it is the smart thing to do, but that makes it a Level 3 power (Ick!). Very rarely do I see somebody with “Invulnerability: Fire” or something like that. Also please don’t go quoting canon characters. To me. I am speaking from my experiences.

I know offense tends to get you more “bang for your buck” than defense. This whole topic wa s me playing devils advocate basically. Pointing out something in the rules that I thought was a little off/unfair and seeing what others thought about it.

[Cin]

Everybody wpuld get the same benefit. I know. BUT it would cost A LOT to do, just like everybody keeps saying about the multi-layered defense.

And Jager, you’re talking on a larger scale strategically I’m talking directly.

Armor has always evolved in the attempt to defend against the weapons of the time. But the weapons always get better and it gets harder and harder for armor to keep up and when it does manage to fully protect, it does not get that advantage for long. It is easier to destroy then build/protect.

Thank you very much though. I don’t think you’re going overboard with the Mega-stats

I like you analyze weakness, but it isn't likely that somebody who does not have mega-perception (or s int mega-intelligence) is going to develop it. Where as somebody who alread has a q-bolt or claws can improve it.

[Vile Bill]

Quote:

Originally posted by Jager:
As a HOUSE RULE, I let Analyze Weakness subtract LEVELS of defense instead of one soak per, but then I limit who can have it.
Actually, Armor, Body Armor, and Eufiber are a base difficulty.
ForceFields are base difficulty, but cancel out one success or 2 soak.
Invulnerability is at a +2 Diff., but then it is one level (6 soak) per.
Also, your Stamina + Mega-Stamina soak can not be Analyzed or APed.
You also have to be able to percieve the target and its defense. Either shoot it once to see what happens or have really good Perception + Mega-P. + Awarness (or Intrusion or Medicine).

What happens if the target has multiple forms of defense a la Cin's example? Does the shooter choose which to be probing for weakness? Also, the +4 soak for Superheavy, does that require a seperate success all for itself?

[David 'Dr. Troll' Smith]

Some general comments about all this.

1) Nova A spend 56 experience on the last dot of his two powers. He could used that for Q6 & FF+Mastery. He could also have used that for 5 dots in a mega-stat.

2) If attacks stack, then Nova B can buy one level of Q bolt & one level of Q-Bolt + App. He then does [30]+8d+App, for 5q and 15 points of exp (or 6 to 8 nova points).

3) It isn't unusual to find out that Nova B can't do much against Nova A. (Paper covers Rock). This is one of the reasons why novas like teams.

4) Case in point; In addition to your nova A & nova B, lets add a 30 point character with a little experience: Dr. Troll will do. Everyone does physical bashing damage and rolls exactly average.

A vs. B: 'B' does one die of damage every round and can only do this 10 times before he runs out of juice. 'A' takes 4 levels of damage but still has juice. 'A' wins.

B vs. Dr. T: 'B' will do 22 dice per round. T can't touch B's dodge. 'B' wins.

A vs. Dr. T: T uses a car/truck/building to do an area attack and pins him so he can grab. He will only do one die of damage every round, but he can do that for the next 80 rounds, assuming he doesn't just hold A's head under water/sand. 'A' on the other hand can do nothing to T (puny human). T wins.

[ 09-08-2002: Message edited by: David 'Dr. Troll' Smith ]

[Jager]

As Dr. Troll said.

Not every problem is a nail. Not every solution is a hammer.

There is a realistic reason why novas, despite their massive egos, get allies and form teams (or families or tribes or whatever you want to call them).

By the way, I took a look at the Power Block action. Forget defenses. Use Warp as a block action. It is area effect and it last the round.

[Cin]

::laughs::

I lovve the examples Dr. Troll.

Like I said though.. you are NOT telling me things I don't already know. Cin is a very successful character and does so but not fighting people on thier terms or in way they would expect.. usually.

My question was mechanics. Not alternatives. Thank you for the input though.

[Kirby1024]

You know, I still can't figure out where you're getting the whole Impervious imbalance thing, Cin. Impervious merely counters Armour Piercing, and allows soak of Aggravated. The actual soak levels don't change at all, so Unless you're using Disintegrate, you should be completely fine.

[David 'Dr. Troll' Smith]

Quote:

Originally posted by Jager:
By the way, I took a look at the Power Block action. Forget defenses. Use Warp as a block action. It is area effect and it last the round.

But that still uses up your "only one quantum activation per turn" limit, right? (What is the exact rule for that?) If you use something like FF (FF being a constant power) it doesn't.

[Jager]

Bill, sorry that I missed the question.

If you are aware of the defense, you can apply successes against it. Theoretically, you could negate more than one defense.

Dr. Troll, you are right. Warp cannot be used in a multi-action.

[Vile Bill]

Quote:

Originally posted by Jager:
Bill, sorry that I missed the question.
If you are aware of the defense, you can apply successes against it. Theoretically, you could negate more than one defense.

Dr. Troll, you are right. Warp cannot be used in a multi-action.

So Professor Monkey-for-a-Brain is scoping out that vile perpetrator of pernicious deeds, The Colon. He turns on his "I-know-what-you-got" Vision and see's that the Colon possesses both RectoPlate Armor and Invunerability:Physical due to his super dense Polypedermis. So, checking for weaknesses with his SuperSimianEnhanced noggin the good Professor gets 6 successes on his MegaInt role. So what happens?

a. He can apply six successes to only one of the defenses because he can only scope out one at a time?

or

b. He is checking out the entirety of the Colon (eeewwwwwwwww!) and can thus apply those six successes in equal parts to each of the protections.

or.

c. His successes are against both and each defense loses 6 successes worth of protection.

So, which one applies when Professor Monkey-for-a-Head whips out his AssBlaster and starts a little field study in the fine art of colonoscopy?

You know something? I should be very ashamed of myself right now.

But I'm not.

[Cin]

Quote:

Originally posted by Kirby1024:
You know, I still can't figure out where you're getting the whole Impervious imbalance thing, Cin. Impervious merely counters Armour Piercing, and allows soak of Aggravated. The actual soak levels don't change at all, so Unless you're using Disintegrate, you should be completely fine.

Where am I getting it? Simple. This one enhancement cancels out BOTH of the damage bootsing attack enhancements. IN ADDITION, it allows that same defense to soak Agg now too.

I personally think it should be two seperate Extras, not one.

Now, it also screws you if you have the Aggrivated Extra. The Agg. extra not only reduces your Damage (but it's now Agg.) is ALSo reduces your range (which I don't understand). So If you have a Agg & AP Q-bolt you are totally screwed against somebody with that one extra (impervious) because your feebel Agg damage he can soak with his full soak and you can't even reduce his soak.

The AP extra is something I see along with Agg. extra ALOT to attempt to make up for the loss of damage.

So in short that one defensive extra renders two offense extras. And since extras are "always on" you couldn't even switch back to doing non agg damage (which would be better against somebody with impervious because at least you're doing more damage and so more might get through) if you wanted to.

[Vile Bill]

I think the reduction in range was made to make simply taking Q-Bolt;Agg not such a major improvement over Disintigration.

I'm curious though, with your views as to why you haven't made mention of the Hardbody enhancement? With the way that particular one works I would have thought that you would really hate it.