Imperivous as minimum save?

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

In a recent OOC discussion thread the issue of Impervious came up again this time relating to Power Attack making it easy to bypass. With some thinking I eventually came up with this:

I think the real problem is that Impervious bypasses the Toughness save system instead of working with it. A better solution would be to have Impervious + [some number] be the minimum amount by which the bearer passes any Toughness save even if their roll would normally make it worse. Now it's no longer a game of "+1 Tag". Penetrating would then lower the minimum save, making it so that a few low ranks don't completely negate the power but also encouraging high ranks to get in full hits.

If we set it at "15 + Impervious" that means the character will automatically pass any save of +10 or less, equivalent to Impervious 10 under the 2e system. But now +11-+14 results in, at worst, a Bruise, +15-+20 at worst Stunned+Bruised, etc.

"15 + (Impervious/2)" makes it equal to the 3e system. Up to +5 bonus: invincible. +5-+10: max One Degree.

Of course this may make Impervious too good in that it "locks in" a minimum die roll. I did just come up with the idea after a couple seconds thought and I'm no numbers genius. Still, as I said in the quote above, it does eliminate the "+1, now it's useless" problem. Also it kind of makes more sense to me this way.

I'm hoping someone can tell me a way to make this viable without making it too complicated.

[Scholz2]

I am not sure I understood you example. What I thought you were describing was sort of like using a Hero Point to reroll (add 10 if less than 10). On that account impervious would mean something like. Roll a d20, and take either that number, OR, your Ranks of Impervious, whichever is higher.
I kind of like that idea., although I haven't worked out the details.
Suppose I have 10 ranks of Impervious and 10 Toughness. That means, on Toughness Rolls, I can't roll less than 10+10 or 20. If the DC is 25, the worst I can get is Bruised plus Staggered.
If I get hit by a Rank 5 attack (DC20). I automatically save (assuming I am not bruised).
That would be a different dynamic certainly. You could conceivably wear down an impervious opponent with some bigger attacks, then hit them with weaker ones.

If i had Impervious 15 and 15 Toughness and was attacked by PL 10, not even a critical hit could damage me.
I think if you made Impervious cost 2pts per rank that might be worth it. Not quite as good as immunity, but certainly difficult to overcome.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Actually it's not "Toughness + Impervious" = minimum save, it's "[base number that I have yet to determine, probably either 10 or 15] + Impervious" = minimum save.

If I get hit by a Rank 5 attack (DC20). I automatically save (assuming I am not bruised).
That would be a different dynamic certainly. You could conceivably wear down an impervious opponent with some bigger attacks, then hit them with weaker ones.

Except you do make a good point that if it's "Toughness + Impervious" then the number goes down. I hadn't considered that.

If i had Impervious 15 and 15 Toughness and was attacked by PL 10, not even a critical hit could damage me.
I think if you made Impervious cost 2pts per rank that might be worth it. Not quite as good as immunity, but certainly difficult to overcome.

I also think it could be kept under control by limiting how much Impervious is allowed in the campaign.

One variant thought I had was that the "minimum save" feature wouldn't be automatic: the player or the GM has to choose to either use it or risk a die roll that could go lower. So just to use a base of 10 + 5 Impervious that would mean (I'm using 2e, can't do 3e in my head at the moment):
* Lower than +5 damage bonus: Always choose minimum roll.
* +6-+10 damage bonus: Might be worth taking a -1 to not roll poorly and be Stunned, unless I've got a lot of -1s and want to avoid another.
* +11-+15 damage bonus: Minimum I'm Stunned, but I can Hero Point that away. Or I can hope for a lucky roll, but risk being Staggered or maybe worse.

[HappyDaze]

A simple alternative is to have the Impervious rank be the minimum that the Toughness bonus can be reduced to regardless of how many "-1" results the character has suffered. This does mean that a character with an Impervious rank equal to Toughness is effectively immune to "-1" results entirely.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

That sounds like too much: I think the Toughness system is predicated on -1s.

Plus how would that work with Penetrating?

[HappyDaze]

That sounds like too much: I think the Toughness system is predicated on -1s.

Plus how would that work with Penetrating?

Penetrating allows an attack to inflict -1's on an Impervious target, up to a maximum times equal to the Penetrating rank. Only Penetrating attacks can benefit from these -1's, and only up to their own Penetrating rank.

Example: Brick has Toughness 16 and Impervious Toughness 16. Normally, he can not suffer -1's to his Toughness save from Damage. If Stiletto has a Penetrating Damage 10 attack, he can inflict up to ten -1's on Brick, and this attack can benefit from up to ten -1s inflicted by his own or others' Penetrating attacks.

If Stiletto has inflicted eight -1's on Brick and Pinprick goes to use his Penetrating Damage 6 attack, then six of the -1's apply to the save (limited by Pinprick's rank) and Pinprick can not inflict any further -1's on Brick since the most a Penetrating Damage 6 effect can accumulate is six -1's.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Sounds like a lot of book-keeping and extra rules to keep track of.

Also it sounds like it discourages low damage attacks even more because there will be times when you can't -1 someone to death.

[HappyDaze]

Sounds like a lot of book-keeping and extra rules to keep track of.

Also it sounds like it discourages low damage attacks even more because there will be times when you can't -1 someone to death.

The bookeeping isn't really so much (and the extra rule is only for Penetrating, putting the weight of mastering that rule on those that use Penetrating), and as for the latter, I consider it a good thing that you can't wear down high levels of Impervious Toughness with numerous weaker attacks. I'd encourage other ways of attacking such characters rather than trying to batter through their chosen defense.

[HappyDaze]

For the really simple version of my idea, continue with the value of Impervious being the minimum that -1's from a Damage effect can reduce the save bonus. As before, if the Impervious value equals the save then -1's can not accumulate (unless the Impervious power is nullified).

As an option for weakening this one a bit: Impervious should be limited to the lower of the associate save or the PL (a PL 12 character with Toughness 17 could not have more than Impervious Toughness 12).

There are still numerous ways to take down such characters, including critical hits (I do not allow Immunity to critical hits) and power attack, both of which together can produce as much as a +10 to the effective save DC. Beyond that, go around the Impervious Toughness if you can't get through it.

Rewrite Penetrating completely. Penetrating will now be for bypassing Immunity with the selected effect. A Penetrating Damage 8 effect with a fire descriptor will bypass Immunity (fire damage). A Damage 12 (Penetrating 4) effect with a fire descriptor will inflict damage equivalent to a rank 4 attack against someone with Immunity (fire damage). This allows for things like flames hot enough to burn the Human Torch, but should not be used to bypass assumed immunities (Penetrating Mind Control used against a mindless construct or other object - like a tree).

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Ah, I think I was misinterpreting how yours worked.

Let me see if I have it straight:
If you have Impervious 12 the lowest you can have you Toughness reduced is to +12.
If you have Impervious 6 the lowest it can be reduced to is +6.
Etc.

I'm still not sure about it: things get swingy because you'd always still be rolling Toughness. The book and my version eliminate the swing of rolling a die.

Also I'm not so sure about very low ranks: how often does Toughness get reduced more than, maybe, -5 before a save is tanked?

[HappyDaze]

Low ranks of Impervious have always been useless, so that's nothing new.

The bright side of this aproach is that while someone with Impervious Toughness 18 always has to roll, even against a Damage 1 effect, they will always have a +18 bonus and can ignore -1's making them invulnerable to weak attacks (which is the main thrust of Impervious). Beyond that, this version of Impervious scales cleanly (no halving) and is also useful even against other powerful attackers by preventing the accumulation of -1's; there is simply no reason to race to get up to the breaking point where Impervious becomes useless as is seen in so many other versions.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Low ranks of Impervious have always been useless, so that's nothing new.

I was kind of hoping to change that.

...this version of Impervious scales cleanly (no halving)...

So did 2e's version.

...there is simply no reason to race to get up to the breaking point where Impervious becomes useless as is seen in so many other versions.

I'm just a little worried it changes the way the system is intended to work in a way in a way that has unforeseen consequences. Have you tried this version out in play?

For my personal use I'm not quite ready to design something that removes the "wearing down" aspect of the system.

[HappyDaze]

The "wearing down" bit only happens with Damage. There are many other effects that dispense with it entirely, so losing it isn't really that big of a deal for me.

I have used it for several one shot games and it worked out well. Tough guys were very tough, but they could still dropped with critical hits and/or power attack (or with effects that bypass Toughness).

My home version of Penetrating has long been the counter for Immunity rather than Impervious.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

It certainly does encourage non-damaging tactics. Problem for me is I'm punch-happy.

I do like the "Penetrates Immunity" variant, though I think it would have to be based on descriptors: if you are immune to fire because you are fire I'd prefer a use of Variable Descriptor or some other "switch up how my fire works" to get past it rather than just being "too much to handle".

[Rev. Pee Kitty]

Personally, I like the idea of Impervious letting the character ignore "nuisance damage," but I think it's far too overpriced for what it does. Basically, anyone with All-Out Attack or Power Attack can get around Impervious pretty easily.

So I think in my games I'm going to use the same rules, but make it an explicit "Flat +1 per rank" extra that ignores Damage of its rank or less, and can only be bought to half the ranks in Defense (rounded up). So if you have Toughness 11, you can add up to Impervious 6 for 6 extra points, which lets you ignore Damage 6 attacks or lower. (In practice, this just means I'm halving the cost of Impervious.)

Because none of my players even considered taking Impervious with its current cost, after they did the math and figured out what it actually got them.