Gun-Toting 101

[Salsa]

Sorry it took me so long to reply.

You can see the feature in Jonah Hex's and Hitman's write-ups. Thanks for all the help. Guess I'll just have to consider it a split attack of a damage 8 effect from any two damage 4 guns held by that character.

As for the extended, I was wondering if he would do that only with his abilities and equipment. And I'm totally ok with that when it regards an NPC. But if a player decides to include that, they can have an entire array of powers (just like deadshot's) and assorted weapons and effectively double all their ranges for a single power point. And one might argue that the power point is included in the powers array, well, it's not and you can actually use that missing power point to give you some other edge. And of course if done more than four times it starts becoming abusive. Especially, when everyone else has to spend that power point with each built power, be it an array, device or equipment. Thus, becoming way more expensive in the end then just getting the separate Feature for 1 point.

In the end, I don't think it will hinder gameplay, I do see the utility of having a modifier reflecting personal ability rather than something imbued in a piece of device/equipment and grant those benefits to whoever decides to pick it up. And after all, there are so many different advantages that give you all sorts of cool abilities, why not this one?

It's a bonus. It says "add X to your effect bonus" rather that say "modify your effect bonus by X". Thus applying it no non muscle-powered equipment is a no-no.


Besides, if you could power attack with a damage 5 assault rifle, why are you using rocket launchers instead of power-attacking the tank?

Because it's just descriptor. And I have seen MANY heroes destroying things that weren't supposed to be destroyed with even "softer" attacks. Take Bullseye for example. What if I had a ranged attack dependent of my inner concentration of the blast (kamehameha/hadouken/etc)? So that would make it different? It could just as well be the same Ranged Damage 4. As I said, I'm considering RAW, the same thing that made me consider that multiple hits were the only thing affecting Impervious. There were no other instances of Impervious exceptions.

Btw I don't remember reading anywhere in the book that bonuses don't stack, except for the regular circumstance modifier shifting between 2 and 5 and for the Protection effect when paired with equipment armor. Same thing goes for the Impervious example. It says "a volley of multiple shots is no more likely to penetrate Impervious Resistance than just one.", instead of saying "a volley of bullets/shurikens/knifes/laser blasts/rocks/etc..."

[Chad Spider]

Reading this is making me consider a house rule that minions can't Power Attack through impervious, instead of focusing on equipment. I don't like the idea of using an ordinary pistol to get through a tank's armor, but I don't like the idea of doing it with a muscle-powered weapon like a sword, either, and I definitely don't like the idea of a minion Power Attacking through a tank without using a weapon at all. If Bullseye or Green Arrow wants to do it, well, they're basically superhuman already.

[ursinethemadbear]

Because when Green Arrow damages a tank, it is because he shot down the barrel of the cannon, and the arrow came out inside the tank and hit a HE tank round and set it off.

The no Power Attack through Impervious for minions is not a bad idea, except that it makes them even less of a threat to certain heroes, basically reducing minions into human shields used to absorb a couple of attacks that could have been directed at the real villian. Which is fine if that is what you want to use them for.

[pawsplay]

I just don't give minions Power Attack, or any other complicated option. I might give Power Attack to a gang of twelve foot tall jotuns, but I certainly wouldn't to the Joker's thugs, no matter how talented.

[Murkglow]

Not that they would really need it. Everyone can already Power Attack for up to +/-2 anyway and your average thug probably doesn't have much more then +2 to hit...

[Chad Spider]

I'm fine with Impervious making people minion-proof, honestly. It's a pretty significant point investment, and if it can't even protect you from hired thugs it's not really worth taking at all.

[Phicksur]

Power Attack with a non-Strength damage attack is, essentially, trying to hit a more vulnerable point on the target to do more damage. This accounts for the increase in the effect and the decrease in the accuracy.

There is no reason why Minions shouldn't be allowed to do this. What? Minions can't aim for the soft parts of targets?

[JetstreamGW]

Power Attack with a non-Strength damage attack is, essentially, trying to hit a more vulnerable point on the target to do more damage. This accounts for the increase in the effect and the decrease in the accuracy.

There is no reason why Minions shouldn't be allowed to do this. What? Minions can't aim for the soft parts of targets?

This here. Aiming for vitals, joints. Smaller target, harder to hit but with a bigger payoff. Anyway, minions die easy. Why weaken em more?

[TwoPointTradeoff]

There's always the Classic, Been-used-since-DCA-was-Released answer that If Minions can Power attack, then a minion with a rocket launcher could force a save and possibly severely damage superman. I don't quite buy into it, but its an argument

[Phicksur]

There's always the Classic, Been-used-since-DCA-was-Released answer that If Minions can Power attack, then a minion with a rocket launcher could force a save and possibly severely damage superman. I don't quite buy into it, but its an argument

1) Let's take a minion who MIGHT have a rocket launcher in their equipment list: the Soldier. Seriously, this is the only minion in my DCA book who has enough equipment points to buy a 27-point rocket launcher.
2) This minion is PL5, but we're ignoring his PL limits because he's trying to go toe-to-toe with Superman. Therefore, without changing any of his other stats, we'll set his PL to that of Superman, PL15.
3) The minion has to beat Superman's initiative, or Supes will drop him in one hit. With a +1 to initiative vs. Superman's +2 initiative bonus, he's got an ok chance, 42.75%.
4) The soldier has a +5 to hit with a rocket launcher. Superman has a 10 Dodge, so the odds of hitting with power attack are 1/20 (i.e. natural 20). Incidentally, a natural 20 is ALSO a critical hit in this case. Sorry Supes!
5) The soldier has a 5% chance of hitting and critting Superman. Assuming going for added effect on the Critical he's got a 20 attack power. Impressive, but as it happens 5% of the time, not really so much so. Superman has a DC35 to resist this miraculous hit.
6) Superman has Ultimate Effort: Toughness, so a hero point means he's in the clear. But wait! We take away ALL Superman's hero points for an arbitrary reason! He can't use Ultimate Toughness!
7) Superman has to actually ROLL for this miraculous hit, and probably wonders where all his hero points went. The odds of rolling high enough to ignore the damage entirely is 20%. He also a 25% of taking just a slight wound (-1 Toughness), a 25% chance of also being dazed, a 25% chance of also being Staggered, and a 5% chance of being incapacitated.
8) So, assuming Superman has no hero points (HAHAHAHAAA, yeah, right), there is a 0.10675% chance of a minion who has any rights to be holding a rocket launcher actually knocking Superman out with it.

0.10675% chance is not statistically significant, given the existence of Hero Points. The minion would be better off putting his money into the lottery.

[Chad Spider]

Would you consider Impervious worth buying for "invulnerable" characters, then? Or would you think things like being bulletproof would be better modeled some other way?

[Phicksur]

Would you consider Impervious worth buying for "invulnerable" characters, then? Or would you think things like being bulletproof would be better modeled some other way?

Impervious is good for reducing bookkeeping of characters, but not so much for 'invulnerable' characters. I do not, however, believe that Impervious Toughness higher than 15 is cost-effective on a character (which makes attacks with ranks <9 ignored). Rather than spending more points on Impervious Toughness, take more Protection ranks and Ultimate Effort: Toughness. One hero point and you can largely ignore any single attack from an opponent of your PL+5. Just keep a lot of hero points on hand if getting into fights against hard-hitters.

Another option, make your Protection part of an array and be able to switch it to boosts to Dodge and/or Parry to make yourself nearly impossible to hit at the cost of your Toughness. If someone tries power-attacking you, make yourself nearly impossible to hit.

Call it Deflective Shield instead of Defensive Shield. Adapt too quickly for your opponents to keep up.

[TwoPointTradeoff]

how would you flavor that protection/dodge&parry array? My inner GM kindof bristles at it. It seems to negate the penalty of doing a tradeoff.

[ursinethemadbear]

how would you flavor that protection/dodge&parry array? My inner GM kindof bristles at it. It seems to negate the penalty of doing a tradeoff.

There is no penalty for doing a trade-off. You can have different trade-offs on defense by using different defensive powers, just like you can on offense by using different attacks.

[Murkglow]

Would you consider Impervious worth buying for "invulnerable" characters, then? Or would you think things like being bulletproof would be better modeled some other way?

Impervious IMO as it is written is not worth buying in any case, whether you allow Power Attack to work for minions or not. For the cost the effect is all but useless on anyon anywhere close to your PL and for people who Impervious would actually work against, your toughness would have to be high enough that the attacks would hardly ever work anyway.

Having a super high toughness already makes you fairly "bulletproof" but if you really wanted more I'd probably do something with Immunity. Immunity to Bullets, perhaps with half effect limit.

how would you flavor that protection/dodge&parry array? My inner GM kindof bristles at it. It seems to negate the penalty of doing a tradeoff.

I'm also not a fan of stat shifting arrays. To me Defensive Attack advantage covers that. Anymore and I have to wonder at the reason behind the changes.