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Old 10-19-2018, 05:42 AM   #11
AlexanderHowl
 
Join Date: Feb 2016
Default Re: Vitality Reserve and crippling injury

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Originally Posted by Bruno View Post
Ablative DR + Flexible (-20%) + forcefield (+20%) still costs 2/per. Did you mean Tough Skin (-40%)?
No, DR with Ablative (-80%), Flexible (-20%), and Force Field (+20%) possesses a total modifier of -80%, so it is 1 CP/level.
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Old 10-19-2018, 09:44 AM   #12
Kromm
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Default Re: Vitality Reserve and crippling injury

Vitality Reserve was never intended to be realistic or to behave logically!

It was intended to offer options similar to the many totally cinematic rules that allow spending character points or FP to mitigate injury, but only to specific characters who buy the benefits . . . and it was meant to grow more effective in proportion to points spent, for campaigns where a one-point perk that switches on an option isn't satisfactory. Those decisions were to allow for possibilities such as it being a power for some supers but not others, or for some supers more than for others – or even a special trait for some characters in crossworld settings (e.g., a "toon" in an otherwise realistic world).

As for how it's supposed to work: It's just like DR (Ablative), but it's blown away by injury rather than damage. This has pros and cons, as the FAQ explains.

If someone has VR 10, HP 16 and is hit in the arm by a rifle that does 17 points of penetrating damage, those 17 points blow away the 10 points of VR and inflict an actual 7 HP on the arm. That's not enough to cripple the arm. The second shot could work in one of two ways:
  • If that person is then hit in the same arm with another, identical shot, the second hit does the remaining 2 HP needed to cripple the arm. But as total injury to the arm (7 + 17 = 24 HP) is more than enough to dismember, that arm is mangled. Results: loss of 10 VR, loss of 9 HP, mangled arm.

  • If that person is then hit in the other arm with another, identical shot, the second hit does the 9 HP needed to cripple that arm. Total injury to either arm (7 HP and 17 HP) isn't enough to dismember, though. Results: loss of 10 VR, loss of 16 HP, crippled arm.
This might not be logical, but it is in keeping with the rules of drama: Shooting the heck out of one arm is likely to wreck the arm forever, but it's just the arm that goes; the dramatic focus is on the arm. Shooting two arms is less likely to wreck an arm forever but involves more of the body getting shot up; the dramatic focus is on being shot lots of times in places sufficiently far apart that the comic-book or makeup artist gets to have fun covering more of the victim in blood.
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Old 10-19-2018, 10:36 AM   #13
Erling
 
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Default Re: Vitality Reserve and crippling injury

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Originally Posted by Kromm View Post
[I]As for how it's supposed to work: It's just like DR (Ablative), but it's blown away by injury rather than damage. This has pros and cons, as the FAQ explains.

If someone has VR 10, HP 16 and is hit in the arm by a rifle that does 17 points of penetrating damage, those 17 points blow away the 10 points of VR
Why 10 points instead of 9? As far as I get it, VR is spent instead of HP, and a limb hit could only inflict 9 points of injury, not 10.

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Originally Posted by Kromm View Post
If that person is then hit in the same arm with another, identical shot, the second hit does the remaining 2 HP needed to cripple the arm
Shouldn't it be limited to campaigns where Accumulated Wounds optional rule is on?
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Last edited by Erling; 10-19-2018 at 10:46 AM.
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Old 10-19-2018, 11:04 AM   #14
Kromm
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Default Re: Vitality Reserve and crippling injury

The point is that VR doesn't care about status effects: crippling, knockdown, reduced Move and Dodge, shock, stun, unconsciousness, etc. It soaks injury before those are considered. Only injury remaining after no VR remains is counted as HP and used in formulas like HP/2 or -1×HP.

On the other hand, because VR soaks injury and not damage, wounding modifiers – for damage type, hit location, Vulnerability, anything – do matter.
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Old 10-19-2018, 12:32 PM   #15
Plane
 
Join Date: Aug 2018
Default Re: Vitality Reserve and crippling injury

If it works like Ablative DR, could you buy VR 5 (Legs Only -20%) for 8 points instead of 10, so that it only prevents injuries to the legs but not elsewhere?
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Old 10-20-2018, 02:15 PM   #16
AlexanderHowl
 
Join Date: Feb 2016
Default Re: Vitality Reserve and crippling injury

DR (Ablative, -80%; Flexible, -20%; Force Field, -20%) 10 would be 10 CP, which is the same cost as Vitality Reserve 5 (if I remember correctly). In effect, ADR gives twice the benefit of VR, though it is subject to armor modifiers.
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Old 10-22-2018, 11:43 AM   #17
Plane
 
Join Date: Aug 2018
Default Re: Vitality Reserve and crippling injury

More than being twice the levels, Force Field would also protect your gear, and DR is subtracted from basic damage before wounding multipliers, vitality reserve is subtracted from the injury resulting from the multiplier being applied to the damage.

Flexible also has the issue of Blunt Trauma getting through, and DR designed in a power can do Power Block while I don't know that Vitality Reserve could do that.

I'm not sure how Power Block would work with Ablative DR though. If you make 10 DR temporarily into 20 DR against a 10 damage attack, after the Power Block is done I'm not sure if you'd be down to 0 DR or perhaps 5 DR. A similar dilemma as getting hit with an Armor Divisor (0.5) limited attack.
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