Is Find Weakness mispriced?

[Trebuchet]

I was looking at Find Weakness, and it occurs to me odd that it costs the same whether the character with it is hitting for 4 DC's or 14. Since in many ways it is similar to an Advantage on a specific attack, wouldn't it make more sense for FW to use a sliding scale so it gets more expensive as the size of the attack increases? Perhaps a base cost of 1 Point for every Damage Class of the attack(s) it can be used with?

 

Face it, a brick hitting for 15d6 is going to get a lot more mileage out of Find Weakness on his Punch than an MA with Find Weakness on his 8d6 Martial Strike even though both paid the same amount for the Power.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Is Find Weakness mispriced?

 

You'll need to take into account the OCV of the Find Weakness User as well, since it won't help much at all with those 15DCs if you can't hit anything.

[Lucius]

Re: Is Find Weakness mispriced?

 

It depends on the ratio of your damage classes to the usual defenses you'll be meeting.

 

If Find Weakness is the only way you'll usually do damage, it's more valuable to you than to someone with a bigger attack who can expect to do some damage every time. And what of yet a third character whose damage usually exceeds defenses by, say, 20 STUN? According to you his Find Weakness should cost more than the second character's, but how much more utility is he getting?

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Find Palindromedary

[Weldun]

Re: Is Find Weakness mispriced?

 

The relatively low cost of Find Weakness is off-set by the same being true of it's defence. Lack of Weakness is a lot cheaper in the long-run. Similar to the Armour Piercing/Hardening comaprison.

 

And this old stand-by makes justifying at least a little a breeze.

Long Coat: Lack of Weakness (-5), OIF (Long Coat; -½). 3 points.

[OddHat]

Re: Is Find Weakness mispriced?

 

I'd go further and say that there's a case against having Find Weakness, Hit Locations, and Armor Piercing all in the same campaign.

 

Find Weakness conceptually often does almost the same thing as Hit Locations against those targets that have hit locations, hitting a target where he's weakest to get more damage through.

 

Find Weakness is mechanically very similar to Armor Piercing in effect, with a flat cost and a cumulative effect that make it more desirable in higher point campaigns. With an 8d6 EB you're probably better off with AP than 20 points of Find Weakness in most campaigns. With a 20d6 EB you'll probably do better in combat with 50 points of Find Weakness than you would with simple AP.

 

If 6th ever does come out, I'd rather see FW and AP folded together into a single advantage, with FW the talent becoming AP purchased as a naked advantage on X damage classes, with RSR and other advantages and limits to fit.

[Markdoc]

Re: Is Find Weakness mispriced?

 

If 6th ever does come out' date=' I'd rather see FW and AP folded together into a single advantage, with FW the talent becoming AP purchased as a naked advantage on X damage classes, with RSR and other advantages and limits to fit.[/quote']

 

Actually, that's a damn fine idea. Rep pour vous!

 

Basically, Treb is right. I've pondered this myself, but have left it as is, because utility is defined not only by the size of the attack, but also by size of defences: adjusting the price of the talent (particularly on multiple attacks) was simply too complex. At the same time, the talent was occasionally useful enough I did not want to simply drop it.

 

But keeping it as a talent, based on a naked modifier (AP) with an activation roll would work. That means you lose the ability to cut defences to 1/4 or 1/8th, but that might be a feature, not a bug. I was always a bit squeamish about the ability to drop a target's defences (particularly resistant defences) by nearly 90%, and I have seem the results in-game

 

There's two ways to do this:

1. Stay close to the original talent - you get to make your roll, but once you have made it against a target, you keep your AP for the rest of the combat. If you fail your roll you cannot try again on that target. That involves some handwavium, but only a little.

2. Treat it as a normal AP attack: you get to roll for each attack to see if you hit the soft spot. More dice rolling, but straight-rules legal and I kind of like the flavour.

 

It would not be as effective as the current find weakness, but it would be much cheaper at the low end, and more expensive only at the very high end.

 

Me likee.

 

cheers, Mark

[Mister E]

Re: Is Find Weakness mispriced?

 

I've got mixed feelings about FW in general.

 

On the one hand, I don't want to deny my players any added depth of options it could bring; and on the other, it's pretty ridiculous as is. I have a hard time conceptually rationalizing exactly how Find Weakness and Lack of Weakness are supposed to simulated anything workable... and every player that's ever had it in my game has abused it.

 

I think it's broken... but given that everything is 'tool-kit' anyway, I acknowledge any failing it inherently has is pretty much my fault.

 

"Is Find Weakness mispriced?"

 

FW is essentially a "Naked" Power Advantage; based on a unique Skill; bought for a fixed amount; that can be used over and over again to drill DEF into near non-existence. The Character finds a chink in someone's armor, and is now able to nail that chink as easily as if the whole target was composed of that chink. The only thing it simulates to me, is some kind of bizarre transcendent Taoic ability to ignore DEF... which is cool... just unusually strange. Plus, once it's in the game... it adds to the cost and complexity of 'all' defenses (which is a bonus, I guess).

 

Yeah... I'd cost it in proportion to whatever attack I wanted to have it. That goes for Lack of Weakness, too.

[Trebuchet]

Re: Is Find Weakness mispriced?

 

I've always been a bit uncomfortable with Find Weakness, which may explain why I've never built a PC with it. The ability to just keep halving defenses down to negligible just seems too powerful, especially when it's so relatively inexpensive.

 

One of my co-GM's in my Champions campaign has repeatedly suggested that I purchase FW for Zl'f; but I find myself very reluctant to do so. To my mind there's a big difference between doing 8 - 10d6 damage and doing so against halved or quartered defenses. It's only a philosophical difference, but it seems to violate the central concept of the character as someone who is very hard to hit and hits often but not particularly hard. I may do it out of necessity at some point in the future, but not without some serious soul-searching and foot-dragging.

[Markdoc]

Re: Is Find Weakness mispriced?

 

One of my co-GM's in my Champions campaign has repeatedly suggested that I purchase FW for Zl'f; but I find myself very reluctant to do so. To my mind there's a big difference between doing 8 - 10d6 damage and doing so against halved or quartered defenses. It's only a philosophical difference' date=' but it seems to violate the central concept of the character as someone who is very hard to hit and hits often but not particularly hard. I may do it out of necessity at some point in the future, but not without some serious soul-searching and foot-dragging.[/quote']

 

Agreed - I've had one character with a very high level of find weakness (a character with precognitive powers, who knew exactly where to hit for max effect and where to be to never get hit), but aside from her precognitive powers that character was essentially a normal with martial arts, meaning she was maxing out her damage at (IIRC) 6d6 or 2d6 RKA with her gun. That character was built on the assumption that she'd be tackling some pretty icky combat monsters so the relatively low attack was built on the assumption that she would be much slower and weaker than her adversaries - but would be attacking against 1/4 or 1/8th defence most of the time.

 

cheers, Mark

[Vondy]

Re: Is Find Weakness mispriced?

 

Find Weakness is basically unscaled Armor Piercing with an Activation Roll.

 

You're right.

 

I love what Find Weakness is supposed to represent, but its never sat well with me in terms of costing - effectivness ratio.

 

I think the idea (above) of a scaled naked advantage (AP) with RSR and Limited FX to define which attacks you can use it for, while complex, its a sharp construct and admirable in its precision. An excellent alternative.

[Zed-F]

Re: Is Find Weakness mispriced?

 

I've always been a bit uncomfortable with Find Weakness, which may explain why I've never built a PC with it. The ability to just keep halving defenses down to negligible just seems too powerful, especially when it's so relatively inexpensive.

 

One of my co-GM's in my Champions campaign has repeatedly suggested that I purchase FW for Zl'f; but I find myself very reluctant to do so. To my mind there's a big difference between doing 8 - 10d6 damage and doing so against halved or quartered defenses. It's only a philosophical difference, but it seems to violate the central concept of the character as someone who is very hard to hit and hits often but not particularly hard. I may do it out of necessity at some point in the future, but not without some serious soul-searching and foot-dragging.

IIRC, Zl'f has an MP containing advantaged HAs. If she really needs more damage, there are other ways to go than adding Find Weakness. So, go ahead and resist temptation.

 

Advantaged HAs with martial arts DC stacking can already be scary enough if you go with the rules according to Steve. You definitely don't need to add FW to the equation.

[Vondy]

Re: Is Find Weakness mispriced?

 

IIRC, Zl'f has an MP containing advantaged HAs. If she really needs more damage, there are other ways to go than adding Find Weakness. So, go ahead and resist temptation.

 

 

If this is the case, Treb, why not dump an Xd6 HA AP Req. "Relevant Roll" into her MP? You could define the roll as INT, PER, or Tactics without stretching the point, I think. Lack of Weakness could be applied as a penalty to the roll depending on how the chosen roll description and the FX of the LoW work together. If, however, you want the FW for all of your multipower slots, then you could still scale a naked advantage with relevant roll to the MP.

[SCUBA Hero]

Re: Is Find Weakness mispriced?

 

Trebuchet,

 

Two possible alternatives to Find Weakness:

 

1) Tack on more damage dice with the Limitation "Only Works Against Defenses" (tweak value to taste)

 

2) Use the Piercing Advantage from Dark Champions

 

(Essentially two ways of doing the same thing)

[Rapier]

Re: Is Find Weakness mispriced?

 

Find Weakness (I would abbreviate but in my mind FW is Force Wall) scares me.

 

30 pts to Find Weakness with all Attacks on 11-.

30 pts to Find Weakness with a Single Attack on 15-.

 

30 pts to Halve DEF isn't too out of whack. It's the follow throughs that I have to consider.

 

30 pts to Find Weakness with a Single Attack on 15-. So the first attempt is to halve defenses at 15-. The second attempt is to quarter defenses at 13-. The third attempt is to eigth (?) defenses at 11-. This isn't too hard, we are stilling talking about the break-even point. If you get lucky and make another roll at 9- the defenses drop to 1/16.

 

So you've just spent 30 pts to take a Super-Brick with 40 DEF down to 8. You've taken a normal character with 25 DEF down to 3.

 

Yes, LoW is very cheap for the utility. But a character should not purchase LoW JUST because an opponent has Find Weakness. There should still be some kind of SFX for both LoW and Find Weakness. I would probably drop the multiple attempts from the power. A single roll to half defenses.

 

One of my issues with Find Weakness is that it's a unique construct. If you purchase x2 AP you don't 1/4 defenses, you just get around Hardening.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Is Find Weakness mispriced?

 

Just to add some fuel to the fire, is it really appropriate that AP applies to the cost of the attack? maybe both Find Weakness and Armor Piercing should be based on the cost of reducing the target's defenses using a Drain or a Suppress.

 

AP is pretty useless if the average defenses are about 1 per average DC.

[BNakagawa]

Re: Is Find Weakness mispriced?

 

More important than costing the same whether the attacker throws 4 DC or 14 DC, Find Weakness (or as I prefer to call it "Cause Weakness") costs the same whether your target has 4 def or 40 def.

 

It makes me wonder why they kept find weakness and got rid of points of piercing...

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Is Find Weakness mispriced?

 

Repped!

I've argued that case in the past.

Do you allow Find Weakness in games using Hit Locations?

http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18886

 

I'd go further and say that there's a case against having Find Weakness, Hit Locations, and Armor Piercing all in the same campaign.

 

Find Weakness conceptually often does almost the same thing as Hit Locations against those targets that have hit locations, hitting a target where he's weakest to get more damage through.

 

Find Weakness is mechanically very similar to Armor Piercing in effect, with a flat cost and a cumulative effect that make it more desirable in higher point campaigns. With an 8d6 EB you're probably better off with AP than 20 points of Find Weakness in most campaigns. With a 20d6 EB you'll probably do better in combat with 50 points of Find Weakness than you would with simple AP.

 

If 6th ever does come out, I'd rather see FW and AP folded together into a single advantage, with FW the talent becoming AP purchased as a naked advantage on X damage classes, with RSR and other advantages and limits to fit.

[Lucius]

Re: Is Find Weakness mispriced?

 

Not that long ago the subject had come up in a thread, and I asked if anyone had actually had a problem with Find Weakness unbalancing a game. The consensus seemed to be, no. I don't remember anyone reporting any actual problems with it in play.

 

What I think everyone forgets is that, sure, you can hold off and try to make multiple rolls - IF you get to! Not only do you have to stop the first time you miss a roll, you have to hope that while you're trying to Find Weakness two or three times, you don't get your head handed to you by the guy who's using his phases to attack you while you use yours to try to erase part of his defenses.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The Palindromedary buys invisibility to Detect Palindromedary

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Is Find Weakness mispriced?

 

The only time Find Weakness would be imbalancing and/or confusing is if a game also used Hit Locations and a character tries to use both together.

 

The 'original' Find Weakness from 1st Edition Champions was an early version of Targeted Hit Locations. It is virtually impossible to describe a SFX of Find Weakness that doesn't use some form of the word "Targeting" in its description. It is an old holdover that should have gone bye-bye the same way that "Instant Change" did.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Is Find Weakness mispriced?

 

After a few seconds of thought . . .

 

"Gonna Knock You Out!" By taking a phase to wind up the character can hit someone so hard they only get half their defenses against the hit.

 

Find Weakness.

 

But you're right, the majority of FindWeakness uses are some form of targeting thing.

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Is Find Weakness mispriced?

 

After a few seconds of thought . . .

 

"Gonna Knock You Out!" By taking a phase to wind up the character can hit someone so hard they only get half their defenses against the hit.

 

Nice try

 

What does the roll represent though?

 

Without explaining that part your description just sounds like a variation on the Haymaker manuever. Find Weakness is a sense. What exactly IS it sensing if not a specific hit location of sorts.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Is Find Weakness mispriced?

 

it's a sense? Aww jeez... naw. Ya got me. As long as it's a "Sensory Power" (I thought it was just a Special Power) then yeah, it's always gonna be "targeting" something.

 

Ah well.

[Trebuchet]

Re: Is Find Weakness mispriced?

 

IIRC' date=' Zl'f has an MP containing advantaged HAs. If she really needs more damage, there are other ways to go than adding Find Weakness. So, go ahead and resist temptation. [/quote']Yes, but her Advantaged HAs don't add to her MA damage. (That's a Limitation on the Power; not the standard.) It adds only to her 15 STR; so she can do (for example) 7d6 AP or 7d6 PEN or 7d6 1 Hex AoE, etc. (It's a Variable Advantage).

 

Advantaged HAs with martial arts DC stacking can already be scary enough if you go with the rules according to Steve. You definitely don't need to add FW to the equation.

It was pointed out to me today that Find Weakness can make the difference between an MA doing any damage to his opponent whereas the thick will probably leak some through simply due to doing more dice of damage. That seems to mediate some of my concerns over any cost imbalance; although the continued halving aspect still bothers me somewhat. In any case, I don't see a need for it at this point in time. At some time in the future, as our team and opponents get ever tougher, I may reevaluate purchasing Find Weakness for Zl'f.

[OddHat]

Re: Is Find Weakness mispriced?

 

Repped!

I've argued that case in the past.

Do you allow Find Weakness in games using Hit Locations?

http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18886

 

The SFX just overlap too much most of the time. I'd have to look at the character very closely, and I'd probably veto it. That said, I don't use Hit Locations in my default Supers campaign.

[Zed-F]

Re: Is Find Weakness mispriced?

 

Yes, but her Advantaged HAs don't add to her MA damage. (That's a Limitation on the Power; not the standard.) It adds only to her 15 STR; so she can do (for example) 7d6 AP or 7d6 PEN or 7d6 1 Hex AoE, etc. (It's a Variable Advantage).

 

It was pointed out to me today that Find Weakness can make the difference between an MA doing any damage to his opponent whereas the thick will probably leak some through simply due to doing more dice of damage. That seems to mediate some of my concerns over any cost imbalance; although the continued halving aspect still bothers me somewhat. In any case, I don't see a need for it at this point in time. At some time in the future, as our team and opponents get ever tougher, I may reevaluate purchasing Find Weakness for Zl'f.

 

Or you could just partly or completely relax her limitation on her HA power, for minimal if any XP expenditure. Anyway, the choice is yours, of course.