Another Impervious Question:

[gamemaster72]

Ok, so I'm looking at the Impervious Modifier, and it says:

"A defense with this modifier is highly resistant. Any effect with a resistance difficulty modifier equal to or less than half the Impervious rank (rounded up) has no effect." (italics mine)

Then, later it says:

"Impervious is primarily intended for Toughness resistance checks, to handle characters immune to certain thresholds of damage, but it can be applied to other defenses with the GM's permission, to reflect characters with certain reliable capabilities in terms of resisting particular effects or hazards." (Again, italics mine)

So does having Impervious on Willpower protect from any effect that is resisted with a Willpower check, or just one effect (usually damage)? And what if I have Weakness effect that has uses a Toughness save? Does Impervious protect against that?

[Murkglow]

Anything of the proper type. Impervious Will would be good against both a Mental Blast (Damage), a Mind Control (Affliction), or a Metal Drain (Weaken). I believe "particular" in that second quote is meant to refer to a particular resist (such as Toughness/Will/Fort). At least that's how I see it.

[JDRook]

Keep in mind that the default half-rank effect of 3e Impervious would mean that an Impervious Will of 10* would only effect Will-resisted attack of rank 5 or less, so it's not going to come up very often.

*Incidentally, in both the DCA H&V books, Impervious Will is only assigned to Saturn Girl, The Brain, and the Marvel Family, including Black Adam, and they are all Imp Will 10, not one more or less.

[baixiwei]

I am inclined to stick with the 2e version of impervious, bur limit it to PL. The new version seems so weak that I don't know why anyone would ever take it. Anyone else feel the same?

[kenseido]

I know a lot of people that do use the 2E version of Impervious, also double the cost to keep it balance by 3E standards.

[baixiwei]

Could you say more about this? (Why the costs maybe should be doubled for 3e if using the 2e definition?)

[JDRook]

Could you say more about this? (Why the costs maybe should be doubled for 3e if using the 2e definition?)

2e Impervious was a ranked extra on Toughness that allowed you to essentially ignore any Toughness-resisted effect less than your Impervious rank for only 1p/rank. This was okay for low-rank attacks (you could easily be "bulletproof" when the average bullet only does Damage 5 for 5p) but can be a problem when Impervious is bought to PL or higher. So for only 11 points (and sufficient toughness) a PL10 PC could ignore all balanced or attack-shifted effects. Being even further Toughness-shifted meant you could ignore almost all but the highest ranks of damage for only a few points more. The concept, of course, isn't all bad; it fits many powerhouse type character and should encourage some strategy on the part of opponents, but it did seem like a lot of benefit for relatively few points.

3e Impervious attempted to avoid this by making Impervious essentially half as effective for the same cost. This would still allow something like a balanced PL 10 Paragon to be bulletproof as described above (Impervious 10 for 10p to block rank 5 effects), but since Impervious is tied to Toughness, a Powerhouse could effectively never be immune to PL rank attacks (even Toughness shifted to Impervious Toughness 15 would only stop rank 8 effects).

The change drew complaints, as changes always do. Builds that had been nigh-invulnerable could now start taking bruises from attacks that couldn't touch them before. On the other hand, this also allowed for faster-paced combat and more utility for attack-shifted characters. It really depends on your playstyle which works better for you.

Using 2e style Impervious and doubling the cost is a reasonable middle-ground for these two options. It allows Impervious to block damage rank-for-rank up to Toughness, which works for exceedingly tough character concepts, but now the higher cost means the character will have less utility, so the player needs to find the balance they want.

[Bombaatu]

I personally prefer the option where attacks ranks equal to or less than the Impervious level ar rolled as if a Hero Point was used: rolls less than 11 have 10 added to them. For this usage, Penetrating reduces the effective rank of Impervious vs that attack.

[gamemaster72]

I like the options presented in the Armor Power Profile and I plan to use a modified version of the last option. Characters with Impervious still ignore any effect at 1/2 their Impervious rank (rounded up). But they also get a +5 to the save on any effect over that, up to their Impervious rank.

As per RAW, Penetrating attacks overcome Imperviouse resistance to a degree. If the attacker has Penetrating ranks = less than 1/2 than the defender's Impervious ranks, the Impervious character receives a +2 to their toughness save. If the Penetrating rank equals or exceeds 1/2 of the defender's impervious ranks, the defender receives no bonus to their toughness save.

If the defender would normally have ignored the damage rank, the attacker may use ranks of Penetrating as damage rank. But If the defender would normally get a +5 bonus to his toughness, the attacker uses their full damage rank.

EDIT: After further thought, I realized that an easier way to explain Penetrating would be:

If you have a Penetrating attack, compare your full damage rank to the Impervious Rank. If your Penetrating rank = ½ of your target’s Impervious Rank or greater, use your full Damage as the Effect Rank. Otherwise, apply your Penetrating Rank.

If your Penetrating rank = less than ½ of the defender’s Impervious rank, they receive a +2 to their resistance check. If it's equal or greater, the defender has no toughness bonus.

[HustlerOne]

I am inclined to stick with the 2e version of impervious, bur limit it to PL. The new version seems so weak that I don't know why anyone would ever take it. Anyone else feel the same?

I certainly feel the same. I just don't see Superman being hurt by someone like Batman at all (unless Batman has power armor or kryptonite). Remember General Zod and his pals from the superman movie? The U.S army bravely threw everything at the Kryptonian criminals and did almost no damage. That's what I would use impervious for.

As the 3E rules stand you really can't replicate that cool battle at that small town. I think someone else mentioned that a few thugs armed with bats with some lucky dice roll could actually harm the man of steel. That doesn't feel right at all.

I know that the battlesuit power profile tried to fix it. I don't know how it works in gameplay but looks like it might work.

[JDRook]

I am inclined to stick with the 2e version of impervious, bur limit it to PL. The new version seems so weak that I don't know why anyone would ever take it. Anyone else feel the same?

Like Bombaatu, I actually prefer the "Hero Point Reroll" Impervious option, but I don't think the 3e Impervious is as useless as everyone claims. I ran the numbers and broke down how high your toughness and impervious would have to be to never take damage from a particular effect rank (barring critical failure effect and GM Fiats) using each Impervious ruleset. Check them over here.

Remember General Zod and his pals from the superman movie? The U.S army bravely threw everything at the Kryptonian criminals and did almost no damage. That's what I would use impervious for.
As the 3E rules stand you really can't replicate that cool battle at that small town. I think someone else mentioned that a few thugs armed with bats with some lucky dice roll could actually harm the man of steel. That doesn't feel right at all.

Even using the base 3e impervious, Zod and the other Kryptonians can simply ignore any Toughness resisted effect at rank 9 or less (Non is good to 10). I wouldn't expect conventional military hardware operated by minion characters to be able to do much more than that consistently, considering the stats on weapons puts assault rifles at rank 5 and ordnance topping out at 10.

[JetstreamGW]

I think you might be leaving power attack out of that calculus, Rook.

[JDRook]

Power attack is the biggest issue with overcoming Impervious, but it's not a factor in this instance. For this example I specifically identified the military as minions. Out of all the published DC minion archetypes, only one has the Power Attack advantage (Brute Demon). Also, all of the heavy weapons are Area effect and can't use Power Attack. The free PA maneuver could be used by an elite soldier with an assault rifle to push his damage to rank 7 damage, tops. That soldier isn't going to have hero points, critical hits or cool Advantages unless he's important to the story (ie not a minion).

So conventional military with background minion characters could only damage Kryptonians with heavy weapons (except Non) and take a bruise due to low rolls 30% of the time, during which time they blow up those heavy weapons with their heat vision or blow them away with super-breath.

Still doesn't sound unworkable to me.

[gamemaster72]

The reason why I don't like the standard 3E rules is that it gives Batman or Green Arrow a %30 chance of affecting Superman with Batarangs and Arrows when they Power Attack. (5% Dazed chance + Cumulative penalty and 25% chance of just a -1 cumulative penalty). With each cumulative penalty that they score, it increases Superman's susceptability to these attacks by %5.

Conversely, the reason I don't like the hero point re-roll rule is, because Superman always has a roll of at least 11, that gives Braniac only a 5% chance to affect him (and that's only if he power attacks). I think Braniac is a bit stronger than that!

While it's a little more complex than I would like (especially after factoring in Penetrating) the rule I've adapted to offers a happy medium, giving Batman and Green Arrow a 5% chance to affect Superman with Power Attack, and Braniac a 20% chance to damage Superman (30% with Power Attack). Those odds, I can deal with.

[gamemaster72]

Ok, I went a little crazy with this idea:

The reason I originally added in the ability to use the Full Effect Rank, (as opposed to just always limiting Penetrating Attack Effects to Penetrating Ranks) is that there also seemed to be times when it would actually be in the character's favor NOT to have Penetrating (like a character with 6 damage and 3 penetrating, would obviously be better off using his full 6 damage against his opponent, rather than just using his 3 penetrating rank.

I realized that people could just purchase 1 point of penetrating to get around the +5 bonus to their opponent's toughness, so I added the +2 to Toughness rule. The theory was that there would be more of a reason to purchase higher levels of Penetrating. But then I came to the realization that for Players to purchase additional levels of Penetrating just to get around the defender's +2 bonus to Resistance checks doesn't seem to make much sense. So, I added the +5 bonus back in, even in Penetrating attacks where the Impervious rank is significantly higher than the Penetrating Damage rank.

Here's what I came up with:



I may or may not use this. (I may just opt for the simpler Penetrating ranks reduces Impervious ranks). Besides being a bit more crunchy than I'd like, my real concern is whether or not anyone sees any imbalance in using such a system. Feedback?