Am I doing defence wrong? 2e

[Leyoz]

Hi - we are relatively new to Scion and loving it.

One of the things with combat I've noticed, particularly as we move to Hero level that attack far outstrips defence.

Attack gets skill, weapon enhancement, specialty etc where as defence seems to be topped out at 5 dice. Armour might be 1 or 2 if you stack. Fortune can give another defence.

Have I overlooked something with defence or is that just the system?

[thedonnie]

Nope. You have it right. Attack should always be better than defense in a ttrpg or else combat grinds down to a halt.If the NPC's can't be hurt, then you are just going to sit there as they just beat you down. If you can't be hurt, then there are no real stakes in any given combat. So, you always want to have attack be more than defense in a ttrpg

[Mateus Luz]

Also, to cause “1 hit point of damage” you need to beat defense plus armor, and to increase this damage to “2 hit points” you must have 4 extra successes. Even beating by a reasonable value, there, it will table at least a few hits to put down the player characters.

Notice that antagonists usually have higher defense than this, and they don’t roll that value, so the defense will be 3 (or more according to the archetype).