Damage Saving

[battles.14]

I hope this question hasn't been asked already, but I'm really confused about how damage and damage saving works. Two of my friends and I all created PL10 characters, and we were just battling against each other to try out some combat. My friend and I both have +10 weapons (which we assume to be fairly standard), and our Defenses are both 20. While hitting is 50-50 (makes sense) every time we get hit, it's a DC 25 to avoid damage (15+10, for each weapon). With our Damage Saves of +3 and +4, it's impossible each time to avoid any damage, and we just have to hope that we don't roll enough to go right to unconscious or dying. This (1) makes combat seem really dumb and short and (2) makes Amazing Save almost necessary, because any weapon over +8 would be impossible to damage save against. My friend thinks the core book has a typo and it's 5+attack, but I don't know. Is there something I'm missing here?

[Steve Kenson]

Your problem is a Damage save of +3 or +4 against +10 damage is pretty unbalanced. Damage saves are set up so when save bonus and damage bonus are evenly matched there's a roughly equal chance of no damage, a hit, a stun, or a knockout. As damage increases over save bonus, the chances of a knockout go up while the chances of the lesser effects go down (eventually dropping to 0).

So the system is having the effect it's supposed to have: characters with insuffient defenses get taken out quickly.