FixThePowerCombatRules/Hardness

Official Rule

These defenses automatically stop attacks whos raw damage is equal to or below the value of an items hardness

NightRain's version

In addition to the ability to stop attacks outright, hardness has the effect of reducing the mimimum damage dealt by an attack by half it's value (to a minimum of 1).

For example, Billy Bob, is wearing hardness 4 plate, and is being beat upon by an essence 4 southern war god. Normally, the war god would do a minimum of 4 damage after soak, due to it's essence, but in this case, it's minimum damage would be reduced by 2 (Half Billy Bob's hardness) to a new minimum damage of 2.

BTS's version

The Hardness mechanic is left as normal. Magical armor-like soak has a Hardness of half its Soak. That means Artifact Armor and the soak from Charms like Donning Spiritual Armor or Glorious Solar Plate grants Hardness, but unless otherwise specified, most soak effects don't. In particular, the stamina-based soak of Exalts, magical stamina boosts, magical soak boosts which don't act like armor (mostly in that they're not ignored when armor is ignored), and non-magical armor of any sort do not grant Hardness.

Myrlan's version

Just add 4 to all the hardness ratings. (Actually, I'd rather redo each of the hardness ratings as well as lunar natural soak, but until I have the time this will have to suffice)

Wordman's version A

(This might not be the best idea, but I thought I'd throw it out there.) Apply hardness after soak. That is, after soak, if you don't have more damage dice to roll than the rating of hardness, you do no damage.

Wordman's version B

(This is a bad idea, but I'll throw it out anyway.) Compare hardness only to the power rating of the weapon being used, not the success of the attack.

Wordman's versionC

(Again, just a random idea.) For a given damage roll, hardness reduces the type of damage for a number of health levels equal to its rating. For example, say an attack against a target with armor with a hardness of 3 succeeds and deals 5 health levels of lethal damage. The 3 hardness converts three of these health levels into bashing damage. Aggravated damage would convert to lethal, bashing to nothing.

Official version

1. DS
2. Fifth
3. BogMod

BTS's version

1. NightRain
2. Miedvied

Wordman's version C

Comments

Now my hardness rules will obviously have the effect of possibly making plate wearing soak machines a problem once more, but I hope that only using half the hardness will fix this problem slightly. And given the choice, I'd rather have soak machines than tissue paper armour. Also, these adjustment have not been playtested, so I don't know how it works out in the long run - NightRain

Gah! No! You're undermining two of the major ideals of Power Combat at once with this- improving the pace of combat (increased minimum damage) and making something OTHER than the heavy armor warrior effective. This is a Bad Idea. Quite apart from that, it introduces /another/ computation/calculation into the equation.

While, I'll grant, Hardness seems like a non-factor at the moment, I think the answer lies more in 'increasing hardness', rather than 'reducing raw damage'. DS

I thought about increasing the hardness, but that basically makes people immune to damage from mortals if they are in heavy armour, however many of them there are. I was trying to aim for something in the middle that allowed for at least the pretense of danger from a flood of mortals. It also allows high essence beings to still fairly well smash through armour with hardness, but not quite as well as armour without it. But as I said, I haven't playtested it yet. It was just a through I had whilst sitting at work, so I thought I'd put it up. - NightRain

I have to agree with DS, the thing lies in increasing hardness more then anything else. Perhaps letting it stack instead. - BogMod

That sounds good in theory, but it doesn't work. Increase it up from 4 by letting it stack or just increasing values, and you end up with a broken situation as well. Lets say you increase it to 5 or 6. Now you're looking at a sitution where an unarmed martial artist, even an exalted one with armour piercing charms simply can't hurt the armour wearer, they can't even ping them. It also makes them immune to extras, and that's something I'd rather not see. The answer is not in increasing hardness... - NightRain

I don't get it, NightRain. With armor-piercing Charms, you pierce the armor -- so the Hardness doesn't count. Consider the 17-point Soak of Orichalcum Superheavy Plate. With my suggestion, that has a Hardness of 8. A mortal swordsman does 6L base, plus extra successes, for a minimum of 7L. If he can hit me, he can often beat my hardness and do ping damage. - BTS

Right you are. I was misreading the definition of raw damage as base damage. With that little misconception cleared up, I have to say I like your version more than mine :) - NightRain