Do you buy Resistant alternate defenses?

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Do you buy Resistant alternate defenses?

 

I think Flash Defense tends to propagate like suntans. If Flash's aren't common, neither will the defense.

[Matt the Bruins]

Re: Do you buy Resistant alternate defenses?

 

I've bought Resistant for about half of one character's Mental Defense to represent active reinforcement of psychic defenses rather than just strong will and resilience. But I avoided doing so for other exotic defenses. I figure if published stats for gods and a freakin' King of Edom don't make use of Resistant Power Defense, I'll neither need nor be able to justify it for one of my characters.

[Vondy]

Re: Do you buy Resistant alternate defenses?

 

I prefer to run my games in such a manner that resistant oddball defenses are not required.

[megaplayboy]

Re: Do you buy Resistant alternate defenses?

 

For +3 in total advantage, you can have an armor-piercing RKA vs. mental defense, targeting DMCV instead of DCV, and doing BODY. 40 active points gets you 1/2 d6, 60 gets you 1d6, 80 gets you 1d+1. A haymakered attack would push it up to 1.5d6. Against 10 points or less of mental defense, you've got a decent chance of getting body through, and against targets without mental defense, you can do 20 body in 4-5 attacks. That seems pretty effective to me. At Menton levels of ability(120-150 active points), a GM can probably handwave an attack that kills normals "with but a thought". Requiring resistant mental, power or flash defense would really annoy players and would add little to game balance.

[Vondy]

Re: Do you buy Resistant alternate defenses?

 

I've got a Locked in "figureds" player in the semi regular 6e campaign I'm doing....saving up for the next Hero Book by putting a dollar in the Jar every time I have to say "What Part, of There are no more Figured Characteristics do you not understand?"

 

~Rex

 

Just tell them, if they're that attached to figured characteristics, to purchase the values of the former figured characteristics to what they would have been under the old regime. After a few builds I'm certain the player will decide its not the best approach and move on.

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Do you buy Resistant alternate defenses?

 

For +3 in total advantage' date=' you can have an armor-piercing RKA vs. mental defense, targeting DMCV instead of DCV, and doing BODY. 40 active points gets you 1/2 d6, 60 gets you 1d6, 80 gets you 1d+1. A haymakered attack would push it up to 1.5d6. Against 10 points or less of mental defense, you've got a decent chance of getting body through, and against targets without mental defense, you can do 20 body in 4-5 attacks. That seems pretty effective to me. At Menton levels of ability(120-150 active points), a GM can probably handwave an attack that kills normals "with but a thought". Requiring resistant mental, power or flash defense would really annoy players and would add little to game balance.[/quote']

 

At that point, though, you'll probably get more mileage out of an 8 to 10d6 RKA. Just saying.

 

I've only known or heard of one gaming group that ever made resistant 'spot defenses' an issue, and that was just because they were such ludicrous optimizers that the DM didn't have a lot of choice. One of their characters was a 250 point 4e character capable of knocking out the high-end version of Dr. Destroyer in a single phase.

[megaplayboy]

Re: Do you buy Resistant alternate defenses?

 

At that point, though, you'll probably get more mileage out of an 8 to 10d6 RKA. Just saying.

 

I've only known or heard of one gaming group that ever made resistant 'spot defenses' an issue, and that was just because they were such ludicrous optimizers that the DM didn't have a lot of choice. One of their characters was a 250 point 4e character capable of knocking out the high-end version of Dr. Destroyer in a single phase.

 

Well, in 4E, Autofire 20(+2.5 because of the other advantages), Penetrating x 2, AE-1 hex, 5d6 would be 125 active points. If you put it into a gun with 250 rounds and a 14- activation roll, you could knock out Dr. D. with a good roll in one phase(his damage reduction wouldn't apply against the 5 stun per hit), and it'd only cost you 60 real points. Of course, it's precisely the kind of munchkinny thing that gave Champs a bad rep in some circles for a long time, particularly at cons, in my experience.

[ShadowEater]

Re: Do you buy Resistant alternate defenses?

 

We have had Resistant Power Defenses be an explicit campaign issue in our fantasy campaign... but that was just part of the magic system (normal magic: Power Defense, 'high' magic: Resistant Power Defense). Not something I'd expect to crop up in most games, nor something I would build around unless told about it during character building that it might come up.

[randian]

Re: Do you buy Resistant alternate defenses?

 

Well' date=' in 4E, Autofire 20(+2.5 because of the other advantages), Penetrating x 2, AE-1 hex, 5d6 would be 125 active points. If you put it into a gun with 250 rounds and a 14- activation roll, you could knock out Dr. D. with a good roll in one phase(his damage reduction wouldn't apply against the 5 stun per hit), and it'd only cost you 60 real points. Of course, it's precisely the kind of munchkinny thing that gave Champs a bad rep in some circles for a long time, particularly at cons, in my experience.[/quote']

To hit all 20 times you'd have to have about a 40 OCV. That's as much of an issue as the attack itself. This got worse by the huge powerup Penetrating got (not being affected by Damage Reduction), and by the bifurcation of Impenetrable from Hardened in 5E onward which encourages rock/paper/scissors one-upmanship.