Impervious

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Hardcorhobbs
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Impervious

Post by Hardcorhobbs »

Bob, we noticed a few things playing last night:

1) You are the resident M&M rules expert, so things slowed down while we all re-learned the rules. :P

2) Impervious came up again. Didn't we find somewhere that it should act like damage reduction? I'll check ultimate power tonight and see if it's there, but maybe you remember where we found how its "meant" to work.

3) Indexes FTW!
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EvilGenius
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Post by EvilGenius »

Heh. Sorry that I wasn't available for rules clairification. :)

We did Impervious a few different ways. After playtesting we learned that Impervious does not provide damage reduction.

If the damage rank is lower than your Impervious rank you take no damage from the attack, no save necessary.

If the damage is higher than your Impervious rank, it gets tricky.

The first way we were doing it (which was early in the playtesting I believe) was to use your Impervious rank as damage reduction. So if you had Rank 5 Toughness with the Impervious extra and someone hit you with a rank 8 damaging power you subtracted your Impervious rank from the damage rank (8-5=3) and the remainder was your Toughness save modifier (so you would be making a Toughness save vs DC 15+3=18 and the modifier to your roll would be +5).

However, I think that later on we figured out that you don't use Impervious like damage reduction because that essentially gives you double the bonus for your toughness save. (You subtract 5 from the save DC from Impervious, THEN add 5 to your roll from your Protection rank).

So the way it should work is this:

If the damage is over your Impervious rank you figure the Toughness save DC normally.

So in the above example, you have Protection rank 5 with Impervious. You get blasted by an energy attack with a damage rank of 8. Since the rank of the attack ( 8 ) is higher than the rank of your Impervious extra (5), you ignore the Impervious extra. Therefore the toughness save DC is 23 (base 15 + power rank of 8 ) and the modifier to the players roll is +5 (Protection rank 5).
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Hardcorhobbs
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Post by Hardcorhobbs »

So impervious is like a bar. If your damage modifier is under this defense bar, it deals no damage. But above the bar damage is normal.

So then penetrating just moves the bar down a bit? (Penetrating damage is where I start to get confused as to how the system works.)
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EvilGenius
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Post by EvilGenius »

I think the way it works is that Penetrating damage reduces your Impervious rank.

To continue the above example, you have Protection (Impervious) 5. You get hit with a Blast power, rank 3 with the Penetrating extra.

So you essentially have Impervious rank of 2. Now since your attack is rank 3 it's not ignored by your Impervious. So the damage DC is 15 + 3 = 18 and your save modifier is +5 (for 5 ranks of Protection).

If you got hit with a Blast rank 2 with the Penetrating extra, you still wouldn't take any damage because after reducing the Impervious by 2 ranks you are still comparing a rank 2 damage against a rank 3 impervious.
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NukeHavoc
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Post by NukeHavoc »

I've stickied this thread so we can find it easier until I've got the blog converted to WordPress.

This is what my understanding of Protection (Impervious) was, and we ended up playing it this way last night. I looked through the errata and the Masterminds Manual, and didn't find anything to contradict this.
"Oh, I'm so sorry. Forgive me. I'll try and be a tad more quiet as I desperately struggle to break free -- and save all creation!" -- Doctor Strange
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Jonkga
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Post by Jonkga »

These rule discussions don't really make me want to get back to the superheroics of this game any time soon.
"Here are your waters and your watering place.
Drink and be whole again beyond confusion."
-- "Directive" by Robert Frost
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erilar
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Post by erilar »

This would certainly be the downside of playing multiple systems. We get the variety, but also all the confusion of systems we're not ultra-familiar with. :)
"This enemy you cannot kill. You can only drive it back damaged into the depths, and teach your children to watch the waves for its return." - Quellcrist Falconer
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NukeHavoc
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Post by NukeHavoc »

Jonkga wrote:These rule discussions don't really make me want to get back to the superheroics of this game any time soon.
I can appreciate that; it can be a very crunchy game, and the whole burning hero points for feats/power stunts plays into that (and admittedly, is what I like most about he game).

I think most of last night's confusion can be tied to the fact that we haven't had a real combat in Infinity Storm since November or so; it's been pretty role-playing intensive in your absence.

On the plus side (at least for you) we'll likely wrap up Vol 1. of Infinity Storm this month, and be on to Savage Worlds / Weird Pulp by the time you're back at the table.
"Oh, I'm so sorry. Forgive me. I'll try and be a tad more quiet as I desperately struggle to break free -- and save all creation!" -- Doctor Strange
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