Forums of the Megaverse®

Well, officially, no, but I always thought that was stupid and allowed characters to include PP bonuses.

Incidentally, all superpowers allow the exact same thing with natural energy/projectile blasts. And to have them keep up with firearms, I give them bonuses to strike at certain levels just as with WPs.

well, I also reduced the WP bonus progression to half to compensate - people still get better with experience, but more gradually.

Also, concerning AR, the rule I always use (when I'm not using one of my homebrew armor systems) is unless the attacker specifically tries to target an unarmored portion of the body (called shot), strike bonuses do not count to determine armor penetration.

For example

Man1 with gun (+5 to strike) fires a shot at Man2 with Body Armor (AR 15). Man1 doesn't attempt a called shot (which would probably incur penalties - the degree of which depends on the size of the target) - he just tries to hit Man2.

Man1 rolls a strike - he rolls 12 on a D20 and with his bonus of +5 to strike gets a total of 17.

Man2 fails his dodge roll vs the 17 and gets hit, but because it was a standard shot, only the die roll gets counted to penetrate the armor. 12 doesn't beat an AR 15, so while the bullet hits Man2 - it doesn't penetrate his body armor.

This little house rule actually makes wearing light armor like Flak Jackets (AR 10 to 12) actually mean something.

Generally no, you don't add Physical Prowess strike bonuses to your modern weapon proficiencies. I say generally because that is the general practice of those who play the game.. the rules are not set in stone on this issue, but they imply strongly that modern and ancient weapons are different in this regard.
The philosophy behind it all is that ancient weapons are a natural partnership.. the bow or sword is an extension of the person, but the barking hunk of metal that is the machine gun is an artless tool, never really under the complete control of the person.

Now as for the rules.. if you add the P.P. bonuses to Modern W.P.s unmodified, you are going to unbalance things.. you need to tone them down somewhat. I would suggest you listen to Cardiac, he knows what he is talking about (that rule of not allowing strike bonuses vs A.R. on uncalled shots is brilliant!).

Tell this poor gentleman the truth. You do NOT use P.P. bonuses with modern weapons. That's the rule.

Change it if you like, but according to Palladium, that's the way it goes.

Yup, pairing Heroes Unlimited with Ninjas and Superspies is a very good idea.. they fit like hand to glove.
(ignoring the whole OJ Simpson thing...)

personally I don't understand the concept of overbalancing,.. unless you are talking about making too many rules to counteract everything else

but in my game I use PP/10 as a bonus for ranged weapons.

ZEN wrote:Generally no, you don't add Physical Prowess strike bonuses to your modern weapon proficiencies. I say generally because that is the general practice of those who play the game.. the rules are not set in stone on this issue, but they imply strongly that modern and ancient weapons are different in this regard.
The philosophy behind it all is that ancient weapons are a natural partnership.. the bow or sword is an extension of the person, but the barking hunk of metal that is the machine gun is an artless tool, never really under the complete control of the person.

Now as for the rules.. if you add the P.P. bonuses to Modern W.P.s unmodified, you are going to unbalance things.. you need to tone them down somewhat. I would suggest you listen to Cardiac, he knows what he is talking about (that rule of not allowing strike bonuses vs A.R. on uncalled shots is brilliant!).

I thought that WAS the rule for years.... I always treated it as your straight role was to see if it shot through the AR.


Daniel Stoker

Daniel Stoker wrote:I thought that WAS the rule for years.... I always treated it as your straight role was to see if it shot through the AR.


Daniel Stoker

In my group, we used to believe the straight roll to strike was what determined success of penetrating AR. It just seemed like a better idea to allow for the(sometimes) rather high strike bonuses that can be gained. Therefore, AR actually meant something. But, that allowed for idiots to have the same chance as expert marksmen. Also, with things that have a natural AR, hitting them might be easy, but actually damaging them would be nigh impossible. Someone with APS: Metal would only have a 10% chance, each attack, of being damaged if you do not include bonuses. Hitting an unarmored portion is impossible, because they are entirely metal.

Basically, it's a good idea when applied to dealing with AR from body armors, but not natural AR. Of course, maybe it was assumed within Cardiac's rule that natural AR is treated differently.

Where can we find Cardiac's rule, it sounds cool and workable even ?

Rimmer wrote:Where can we find Cardiac's rule, it sounds cool and workable even ?

Uhm..... It's in this thread...

Sorry, shouda looked Bad Rimmer Bad, bothering nice posters.

So the rule is straight die roll to get past AR, unless called shot, then bonuses to strike count towards getting past AR.