Replacing Attack Weak Spot

[AslanC]

Mr. Jupiter, can I get you to sum this all up into entry style bits please?

I like the Piercing enhancement but it got lost in everything else. For example, how would Piercing work on an Energy Blast (Special Attack) for example, without Attack Weak Point?

[MrJupiter]

Regarding the original thought: I find Attack Weak Spot only too strong if you double damage before applying Soak. We play it that you deduct soak and double remaining damage after that. If you do it like that AWS works just fine in my eyes.

I haven't played enough to truely comment about how Attack Weak Point works in games (I've only ran 3 of them so far and nobody has had that power). That idea does seem like a great idea, though. It gives Armor and high Brawn some value and still gives something for the AWP power!

[MrJupiter]

Mr. Jupiter, can I get you to sum this all up into entry style bits please?

I like the Piercing enhancement but it got lost in everything else. For example, how would Piercing work on an Energy Blast (Special Attack) for example, without Attack Weak Point?

On either Monday or Tuesday I'll get that written up for you.

[AslanC]

I look forward to seeing it sir.

[MrJupiter]

Piercing Attack:

A Piercing Attack is an enhancement that can only be applied to Special Attack, Mind Blast, and Attack Weak Point, making the power a highly focused, precision attack. Such powers cannot have the Burst, Line, Arc, or Cone Area descriptors. By spending Hero Points, any successful attack that fails to beat the target’s Soak, can use the portion of the to-hit roll, which equals or exceeds the target roll, as a damage value to be taken directly off the target’s Hits. The maximum damage that can bypass the opponent’s Soak is capped at 10 points for 1 Hero Point and 20 points for 3 Hero Points.

For example a hero that is able to generate laser beams (Special Attack with the Piercing enhancement) is shooting at a villain and requires a to-hit target number of 21 to beat his opponent’s Defense roll. The hero hits the target with an attack roll of 35 but unfortunately doesn’t roll enough damage to beat the villain’s Soak roll. Normal attack powers would do no damage to the villain but since this hero has the Piercing Attack enhancement, he can opt to spend Hero Points and have the quality of his to-hit roll become damage that comes directly off the target’s Hits (or, in this case, 35 – 21 = 14 points). However, he must decide whether to spend 1 Hero Point, which has a maximum damage cap of 10, or to spend 3 Hero Points and getting to use all 14 points!

How does this sound as an enhancement write-up? I figured that even when used with the Attack Weak Point power (as written), Piercing Attack would give one more option for the player who rolls a successful hit result that is under the +20 threshold that allows double damage.

[Michael]

Another approach to attack weak point would be to gain a +3 DM (instead of double damage) whenever you hit by 20 or more.
That way the character hitting for X2 or X3 DM would often want to have attack weak point more than someone with a X8-X10 DM.

[WaylanderPK]

There's a similar power in Fantasy bash called pierce armour, which if you beat their def roll by 10/20/30 halves the soak from armour (of course in fantasy the armour is usually a dflat number between 10 and 30) - the number depends on the tye of armour light (10) , chainmail(20) and Platemale (30).

I think the power should always work, always do the amount you beat their def by in unsoaked damage. With the defender being able to spend a hero point to not take the damage.

[Morsamare]

Just curious, but if you simply apply what you beat thier defense by in unsoaked damage, aren't you saying that for pretty much 1 pt, you can totally ignore having either brawn or mind for your character?

*, I'd make 1/5/1 characters to use this without a thought. Do a little less damage with agility than brawn, but hey also affects my defense and to hit. That more than renders the others obsolete. Overall

I like the idea Michael had, the x3dm makes it more valuable for trained normals rather than the hidious overpowered bricks. Which I think attack weak point is really the focus for.

[WaylanderPK]

I'd also allow a brick to by 1point immunity, pierce attack. And there's an argument that if you want to get past soak, get more multipliers.