[Powers] Making Affliction- and DoT/Cyclic-based characters viable and effective

[cccwebs]

Originally Posted by Molokh

The issue of Toxic attacks is besides the point.

*Vicky puts on the official Keeper Hat.*
ItMH doesn't grant immunity to Toxic attacks. Rather, Toxic Attacks have the innate limitation of not working against many targets, including machines without metabolisms etc.

Actually, Toxic attacks don't normally work on machines because toxic attacks are usually modified with Resistable and Machines have Immunity to Metabolic Hazards. Toxic doesn't say that "it cannot work on machines," it says "It cannot normally affect machines." Then it continues by adding in the usual,but not required, modifiers.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by naloth

How about Affliction 21 (Daze +50%) [75]? That's HT-20 or you stand there like an idiot for minutes equal to the margin of failure

Well, someone with DR significantly over 20 will be immune, and for 75 points I can think of plenty of ways to one-shot someone with a DR of 20 or lower unless they have loads of IT(DR).

[naloth]

Originally Posted by cccwebs

Actually, Toxic attacks don't normally work on machines because toxic attacks are usually modified with Resistable and Machines have Immunity to Metabolic Hazards. Toxic doesn't say that "it cannot work on machines," it says "It cannot normally affect machines." Then it continues by adding in the usual,but not required, modifiers.

That's misleading. It says it normally doesn't work on machines. It also says it may have Resistable and Onset but that's not required. It does not say that having Resistable is why it doesn't normally affect machines.

Toxic does say that it inflicts cellular damage. If you don't have a cellular structure, you're immune. That's why it's costed less than crushing and burning.

[Kuroshima]

Well, in my supers game, one of the characters, inspired on Raziel from Soul Reaver, wields a soul sword, modeled as a melee toxic attack, that can only damage creatures with souls. This means that it affects undeads, spirits (comes with affects insubstantial), as well as living beings, but not machines/objects, or demonologists that have sold their souls to the devil.

I found that Toxic was the most appropriate damage type for this, and didn't use any special modifier to asses this, simply adding some things to the Toxic innate modifier, and removing others. The "wounds" made by this sword appeared as if the flesh that passed under it had gone necrotic.

[cccwebs]

Originally Posted by naloth

That's misleading. It says it normally doesn't work on machines. It also says it may have Resistable and Onset but that's not required. It does not say that having Resistable is why it doesn't normally affect machines.

Toxic does say that it inflicts cellular damage. If you don't have a cellular structure, you're immune. That's why it's costed less than crushing and burning.

Burning attacks can start a fire and crushing attacks can inflict blunt traumt and knockback. That's why they cost more than toxic.

[naloth]

Originally Posted by cccwebs

Burning attacks can start a fire and crushing attacks can inflict blunt traumt and knockback. That's why they cost more than toxic.

That doesn't add up. It implies that Toxic with Incendiary has all the functionality of a Burning attack at a lower cost.

I wouldn't have an issue with Kuroshima's example because while it's not exactly RAW it makes a fair trade-off in potential targets.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by cccwebs

Burning attacks can start a fire and crushing attacks can inflict blunt traumt and knockback. That's why they cost more than toxic.

Among other things.

[cccwebs]

Originally Posted by naloth

That doesn't add up. It implies that Toxic with Incendiary has all the functionality of a Burning attack at a lower cost.

I wouldn't have an issue with Kuroshima's example because while it's not exactly RAW it makes a fair trade-off in potential targets.

Yeah, and pi- modified with incindiary has an even lower cost with the same fire starting effect. Modifiers are fickle, sometimes they can produce the same effect at a lower point cost.

[naloth]

Originally Posted by cccwebs

Yeah, and pi- modified with incindiary has an even lower cost with the same fire starting effect.

There are other disadvantages with pi-.

Modifiers are fickle, sometimes they can produce the same effect at a lower point cost.

Sure, that happens in a point based system.

In this case, however, you are forwarding the notion that Toxic is just generic damage without any additional effects. Coupled with the Incendiary modifier the IA: Burning advantage is completely obsolete. Every single case where IA:Burning might be used Toxic w/Incendiary (under your ruling) is better. Even ignoring the Toxic description that says it damages to biological things, it's a pretty big leap to believe the designers would create such an easy loophole.

[cccwebs]

Originally Posted by naloth

There are other disadvantages with pi-.


Sure, that happens in a point based system.

In this case, however, you are forwarding the notion that Toxic is just generic damage without any additional effects. Coupled with the Incendiary modifier the IA: Burning advantage is completely obsolete. Every single case where IA:Burning might be used Toxic w/Incendiary (under your ruling) is better. Even ignoring the Toxic description that says it damages to biological things, it's a pretty big leap to believe the designers would create such an easy loophole.

Toxic with incindiary would have the same chance to start a fire against anything since, from what I can find, the chance to start a fire is based on the basic damage and not the injury sustained. Heck, pi- with incindiary has the same chance to start a fire, and it's much cheaper. Toxic, unmodified, is a very basic, generic attack. Does the combination make burning attack obsolete? Maybe it does. Maybe we're quibbling over poor choice of words. Toxic states "It cannot normally affect machines." This is different from fatigue which says "cannot affect machines." It's that darned "normally" that, IMO, complicates the matter. This is especially true since the recommended "usual" modifiers for a toxic attack are Cyclic, Onset, and Resistable (a modifier that would exempt machines because the machine meta-trait includes Immunity to Metabolic Hazzards, which would provide the bonus to resist the attack). Who is to say that a toxic attack can't be some form of radiation that damages a machine on the molecular level, but doesn't reduce DR like a corrosive attack?

Usual and normal are pesky. One of the very definitions of normal is - The usual or expected state, form, amount, or degree. It would seem that the RAW is betting on most toxic attacks to be modified in such a way that the normal use would allow something with the machine meta-trait to be immune to the effects.