[Supers] The proper way to build a brick. Share your tricks.

[Sunrunners_Fire]

Two of mine ... (EDIT: Oh, and before I forget ... Can we keep the house-rules to the absolute minimum? Thanks!)

Damage Resistance vs Injury Tolerance: Damage Reduction: (Staying alive, staying alive)

Buying DR is silly. No, really, it is. Don't buy DR unless you want to spend more points for less effect. Consider:

DR 100 [500]
vs
IT:DR /100 (Rounds Down, +50%) [450]

I hit you with 200 damage. You have DR 100. You take 100 injury.
vs
I hit you with 200 damage. You have IT:DR /100 (Rounds Down). You take 2 injury.

Which one do you think is the smart option, hmm? IT:DR simply gets better the higher you take it, so long as you compare it to the equivalent amount of DR. Consider:

DR 10 000 [50 000]
vs
IT:DR /10 000 (Rounds Down, +50%) [900]

ST vs Super-ST vs Crushing Attack: (You spin me right round, baby, right round!)

ST is also silly past ST 14 or so (and you're not a brick if you're that wimpy!). Buy the components up to where you want them. If you simply must buy ST, Super-ST is a better deal than straight ST. Consider:

ST 100 [900] ... gives HP 100, Striking ST 100, Lifting ST 100
vs
Super-ST +10/+100 (Benefits Chokes & Grapples, +50%; Can Purchase Reduced Fatigue Cost, +50%; Reduced Fatigue Cost 1, +20%) [520] and HP +80 [160] ... gives HP 100, Striking ST 100, Lifting ST 100

If you want unarmed damage, buy Crushing Attack instead. Consider:

ST 100 gives you 13d for [900]
vs
Super-ST +10/+100 (as above) gives you 13d for [520]
vs
Crushing Attack (Melee C, 1, -20%) gives you 13d for [52]

Guess which one is the better deal? Heh.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Sunrunners_Fire

Which one do you think is the smart option, hmm? IT:DR simply gets better the higher you take it, so long as you compare it to the equivalent amount of DR.

You probably want enough DR to stop Small Arms at least. That way you can properly bounce bullets and you aren't worried about dart guns with poison.

[Dwarf99]

I thought these "tricks" were SOP

Now throwing 150 points of regen on itdr 100... something has to throw 1000 at you for it to ammount to much.

[Sunrunners_Fire]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

You probably want enough DR to stop Small Arms at least. That way you can properly bounce bullets and you aren't worried about dart guns with poison.

IT:DR (Rounds Down) bounces bullets as well as DR does. Or am I missing something?

As for the poison ... DR 55 (Hardened 1, +20%) [330] would be necessary to stop the TL 9 non-heavy weapons listed in Basic. Much cheaper just to buy Resistant (Very Common; Immunity, x1) [30] for the various things you'd be facing off against. Its' not going to injure you, so you really just need to worry about the resistance checks.

You may also want to consider investing in Radiation Tolerance or the appropriate Resistant to make sure you'll not suffer from the sneaky attacks that use rad damage. Or nuclear bombs. Either/both. (Adding Heals Radiation to your Regeneration is a good idea assuming you don't get yourself flagged as a machine; which is a good idea in and of itself if you expect to be fighting a lot of radiation-using enemies.)

Originally Posted by Dwarf99

I thought these "tricks" were SOP

So did I, but I've mentioned them before and it seemed to surprise some people (then they go back to commenting about the expense of DR and ST) (heh). So I made a thread to see if I've missed any myself.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Sunrunners_Fire

IT:DR (Rounds Down) bounces bullets as well as DR does. Or am I missing something?

I imagine IT:DR (even the cosmic sort) as being the character takes the hit. That's like when Supes gets blasted with a naval gun and gets a nosebleed. If you want to bounce the bullet you need DR, which is probably worth it at those low levels (relatively speaking) if you let it give a bonus to Intimidate and so on.

[Sunrunners_Fire]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

I imagine IT:DR (even the cosmic sort) as being the character takes the hit. That's like when Supes gets blasted with a naval gun and gets a nosebleed. If you want to bounce the bullet you need DR, which is probably worth it at those low levels (relatively speaking) if you let it give a bonus to Intimidate and so on.

Ah. I see how you could read it that way, sure. Grabbing a perk similar to No Visible Damage (but based on having IT:DR rather than Unkillable) would be a better deal for the points, assuming the GM permits the variant perk. Absent the variant perk ... Hmm. Personally, I'd be okay with the scuffing and little cuts and smudges.

Makes you look 'mean' and is more impressive when you hit your AF (Self) (Reciprocal Rest; Non-Reciprocal Damage; Reduced Time 4; Reflexive) to refresh your hit points, fatigue points and appearance while putting any conditions that managed to get through on hold.

[simply Nathan]

Mine,

ST 100 [90]
HP 1,000 [180]
DR(Tough Skin) 100 [300]

570 points because I divided the cost of ST and HP by 10. I don't like the Super Effort rules at all and think just making regular ST a lot cheaper is entirely genre-appropriate.

[vitruvian]

Originally Posted by Sunrunners_Fire

Two of mine ... (EDIT: Oh, and before I forget ... Can we keep the house-rules to the absolute minimum? Thanks!)

Damage Resistance vs Injury Tolerance: Damage Reduction: (Staying alive, staying alive)

Buying DR is silly. No, really, it is. Don't buy DR unless you want to spend more points for less effect. Consider:

DR 100 [500]
vs
IT:DR /100 (Rounds Down, +50%) [450]

I hit you with 200 damage. You have DR 100. You take 100 injury.
vs
I hit you with 200 damage. You have IT:DR /100 (Rounds Down). You take 2 injury.

Which one do you think is the smart option, hmm? IT:DR simply gets better the higher you take it, so long as you compare it to the equivalent amount of DR. Consider:

DR 10 000 [50 000]
vs
IT:DR /10 000 (Rounds Down, +50%) [900]

ST vs Super-ST vs Crushing Attack: (You spin me right round, baby, right round!)

ST is also silly past ST 14 or so (and you're not a brick if you're that wimpy!). Buy the components up to where you want them. If you simply must buy ST, Super-ST is a better deal than straight ST. Consider:

ST 100 [900] ... gives HP 100, Striking ST 100, Lifting ST 100
vs
Super-ST +10/+100 (Benefits Chokes & Grapples, +50%; Can Purchase Reduced Fatigue Cost, +50%; Reduced Fatigue Cost 1, +20%) [520] and HP +80 [160] ... gives HP 100, Striking ST 100, Lifting ST 100

If you want unarmed damage, buy Crushing Attack instead. Consider:

ST 100 gives you 13d for [900]
vs
Super-ST +10/+100 (as above) gives you 13d for [520]
vs
Crushing Attack (Melee C, 1, -20%) gives you 13d for [52]

Guess which one is the better deal? Heh.

Above a certain level, the logarithmic scale for Super-ST makes it a better buy than Crushing Attack, plus you can actually lift heavy things if that's a part of your concept. That's without house rules, of course, and if I recall correctly comes somewhere around the +16/+1,000 level, so we're talking some pretty mighty bricks there.

[vitruvian]

Originally Posted by Sunrunners_Fire

IT:DR (Rounds Down) bounces bullets as well as DR does. Or am I missing something?

Well, they don't actually bounce, so anything that's an affliction that needs to breach skin does. The Cosmic (rounds down) does take care of the getting beaten to death by a mob or by automatic fire problem, though.

Originally Posted by Sunrunners_Fire

As for the poison ... DR 55 (Hardened 1, +20%) [330] would be necessary to stop the TL 9 non-heavy weapons listed in Basic. Much cheaper just to buy Resistant (Very Common; Immunity, x1) [30] for the various things you'd be facing off against. Its' not going to injure you, so you really just need to worry about the resistance checks.

Doesn't work if the concept is a hero who could be affected by certain things if they ever got past the skin, though, and poison darts shouldn't take nearly that much DR to stop. Say DR 10 to 20, and then IT:DR for anything beyond that.

Originally Posted by Sunrunners_Fire

You may also want to consider investing in Radiation Tolerance or the appropriate Resistant to make sure you'll not suffer from the sneaky attacks that use rad damage. Or nuclear bombs. Either/both. (Adding Heals Radiation to your Regeneration is a good idea assuming you don't get yourself flagged as a machine; which is a good idea in and of itself if you expect to be fighting a lot of radiation-using enemies.)



So did I, but I've mentioned them before and it seemed to surprise some people (then they go back to commenting about the expense of DR and ST) (heh). So I made a thread to see if I've missed any myself.

A sneaky means of getting to 'can be knocked out but body is totally impervious to actual injury' (except for weaknesses, of course), is to get Unkillable 2 with the No Obvious Damage Perk, and possibly another custom Perk to say that when reduced to -10 x HP, your body appears to be just your unconscious form rather than a skeleton. Then add Extreme Regeneration, optionally only available when unconscious or reduced to -10 x HP.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Sunrunners_Fire

IT:DR (Rounds Down) bounces bullets as well as DR does. Or am I missing something?

You're missing the effect of automatic weapons on characters that take a point or two of damage per bullet. While Damage Reduction is by far superior for soaking huge attacks, it's way inferior for hordes of mooks armed with automatic weapons.