Ignoring Armor once and for all.

[Extrarius]

Originally Posted by Anthony

That's a generically true statement; 'Cosmic' is misnamed. It just means 'This power ignores one of the standard limitations of this power'.

Except that "Cosmic: Irresistible Attack" does no such thing - it's apparently nothing but an armor divisor. It doesn't ignore rules any more than "Armor Divisor (2)" does. If you want "Really Cosmic" "Cosmic: Irresistible Attack" you must pay +50% for that separately.

[Mark Skarr]

Originally Posted by Anthony

That's a generically true statement; 'Cosmic' is misnamed. It just means 'This power ignores one of the standard limitations of this power'.

Originally Posted by Extrarius

Except that "Cosmic: Irresistible Attack" does no such thing - it's apparently nothing but an armor divisor. It doesn't ignore rules any more than "Armor Divisor (2)" does. If you want "Really Cosmic" "Cosmic: Irresistible Attack" you must pay +50% for that separately.

Extrarius is spot on. Cosmic: Irresistible Attack does no such thing. It is just Armor Divisor 6. It ignores no special rules. Which is the whole source of the argument. If it's "Cosmic: Irresistible Attack" it should be ignoring a rule, which it doesn't.
It looks to me that the de facto rule is that Cosmic: Irresistible Attack ignores Hardened. And, when you've got ten-thousand screaming GURPS players saying A, and someone says: "Nope, it's B" they get ignored (and not in the "Armor Divisor" sense) by the public at large, regardless of who they are. This undermines the goal which is to allow you to make a character by RAW and sit down at any GURPS table and, baring house rules, your character would be completely legal.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Mark Skarr

It looks to me that the de facto rule is that Cosmic: Irresistible Attack ignores Hardened.

The de facto rule is that most people have never even thought about the interaction, and that in 99% of cases it's totally irrelevant because buying more than Hardened 1 is very rare.

[Mark Skarr]

Originally Posted by Anthony

The de facto rule is that most people have never even thought about the interaction, and that in 99% of cases it's totally irrelevant because buying more than Hardened 1 is very rare.

Quite possibly. However, that still means that the vast majority of people are going to ignore the interaction between Hardened and C:IA, erring in favor of the more expensive enhancement.
I actually see Hardened 2 and 3 a lot, and it's not unusual for me to see (or put) Hardened 5 or 6 on a Brick/Tank. And it only takes 2 levels for it to start being relevant. Since a Cosmic:IA attack isn't going to be very many dice due to the vast amount of points reqiuired for it, it only takes a few points of functional DR to make it irrelevant.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Mark Skarr

Quite possibly. However, that still means that the vast majority of people are going to ignore the interaction between Hardened and C:IA, erring in favor of the more expensive enhancement.

Cosmic is the cheaper option, unless you want the full package, in which case hardened 6 is cheaper (+120%) than hardened 4 + cosmic (+130%). Note that, if Hardened doesn't interact with Cosmic, there's no reason to ever take more than Hardened 4.

[David Johnston]

Originally Posted by DieMunchkin

I have a question, I have a mage in a Supers game who uses Deathtouch (from Magic) as his primary attack. Most of the other PC's have IA's with various levels of Armor Divisor. To compensate, the GM often has bad guys with Hardened defences - no biggy for my character, but since I'm not doing 20d every shot it's not very unbalancing. Does my Deathtouch mage now have to worry about Hardened?

Deathtouch is a Malediction.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by David Johnston

Deathtouch is a Malediction.

No it isn't, it doesn't have a resistance roll. DT looks very much like it should be a Toxic attack, Cosmic (Irresistible Attack) but Kromm at one point said that it actually wasn't. This makes it a GM call.

[Mark Skarr]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Cosmic is the cheaper option, unless you want the full package, in which case hardened 6 is cheaper (+120%) than hardened 4 + cosmic (+130%). Note that, if Hardened doesn't interact with Cosmic, there's no reason to ever take more than Hardened 4.

But, if Hardened does interact with Cosmic, that means it also interacts with Sense-Based and Respiritory as they, quite clearly, Ignore DR. Which is the grounds for Cosmic to interact with it.
And, there used to be weapons in 3e that had an armor divisor of 100, and some that patently ignored DR. Since Characters was one of the first books out, and none of the others had been written yet, it was probably safe to hedge one's bets and assume that those weapons were likely not to change too much.
And, if there are no weapons or abilities that give an armor divisor of 100, why is it a level? Why not have Hardened end at 5 levels, going 2, 3, 5, 10, Ignore and cap it at an easy +100%? +100% is an easy value to deal with, +120% can be cumbersome.

[Mark Skarr]

Originally Posted by Anthony

No it isn't, it doesn't have a resistance roll. DT looks very much like it should be a Toxic attack, Cosmic (Irresistible Attack) but Kromm at one point said that it actually wasn't. This makes it a GM call.

I don't know much about Deathtouch but it could probably be a high-level heart-attack affliction/malediction. After 19 levels it doesn't really matter what they roll to resist (Powers p. 118).

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Mark Skarr

But, if Hardened does interact with Cosmic, that means it also interacts with Sense-Based and Respiritory as they, quite clearly, Ignore DR. Which is the grounds for Cosmic to interact with it.

I'm not defending the logic. I think that Ignores DR should be removed from Cosmic entirely (actually, I don't think the Cosmic enhancement should exist), AP should be expanded to have /100 (+250%) and Ignores DR (+300%), and Hardened should explicitly just reduce AP. I'm just saying that under the RAW, Hardened DR affects Cosmic (Irresistible Attack).