Aberrant: Defense and Quantum Deflection?

[Vjornin]

On indirect damage.

If the character has environmental armour, how do you apply it?
I think that hard armor would soak injuries.
But, what does soft armor do?

I know that environmental 2 armor reduces the DR. But, how do you use the 0,1 options?

[Florin]

I don't see a 0 option in the power tags in Aberrant, but the 1 point version just straight up neutralizes the listed problems with a Continuous (minutes) tag (or worse.)

[econclark]

The 0-point option is from Aeon (it is for a single threat). The one point option to me seems to apply armor to any indirect damage with continuous (minutes) or less. As a side note, not really sure where Quantum Aura would fall here as it is only on contact....but it may be considered continuous (rounds), but I could also see the argument for continuous (Minutes), maybe it also depends how much or how frequently the one in question is exposed (if they only hit the Quantum Aura once per minute, their Environmental 1 tag works, any more than that it is overloaded and doesn't work). and then Environmental 2 works as 1, but also reduces the damage rating by 4 for a single environmental effect.

Still, if you know your enemy (or your enemy knows you (directive, proteus, etc.) it is a pretty certain that they would take appropriate defensive measures (particularly when they are so easy to come by.

[Eternl Knight]

Not really. Indirect damage works very different from regular attacks, it has no scale basically, but at same time can cause a lot of damage all the way around.

Yes, I get all that, but having no Scale makes it difficult to make Quantum Aura anything but a "touch attack against living targets" when we're playing a game that otherwise lets us punch through walls, melt through iron bars, etc.

Take Quantum Attack for instance. Because it has a Scale, I know whether or not using it on a door, or wall, or tank is going to have an effect or whether it's going to leave a char mark but not much else. Quantum Aura doesn't have that clarity because it causes "Injury Conditions", which really only apply to PC's & NPC's. Injury Conditions are basically "hit points for living beings" but we're playing super-heroes & super-villians whose touch can melt flesh from bones and/or shred bricks & mortar into sand - the use of Scale very often comes into play against the environment.

And we have to remember, Quantum Aura is (RAW) not just heat, cold, radiation, etc. It gives an example of it being "orbiting shrapnel", so it's worth knowing whether it it going to just abrade the paint off a door or whether it shreds the entire wall into saw-dust when the nova touches it.

That said...

I personaly cosider the DR as the scale of an indirect damage...

...this is cleaner than my solution and I think I'll adopt it. It parallels the Quantum Attack Scale rules and will help flesh out the difference between someone who has flame licking off them compared to Johnny Storm's aura going "full nova".

[Mateus Luz]

The thing with indirect damage is that most of them are not related to any kind of scale and resisting it will be more related to certain resistances than scale per se. For example, an explosion will cause damage to anything that is at its range proprtionally to its size, an ant will be equally damaged as a person if they are both in the same range (and entirely inside the range), because its the shockwave that damage (considering its not a frag or whatever). The only exception to this is if the explosion is too small to cover the entire target (a granade cant destroy a house because the explosion dont cover the entire house). That apply to most of the field conditions and indirect damage.

In the case of Quantum Aura, it would damage ANYTHING on range, not just what is same scale or what ever. To damage bigger things you must cover it entirely in your AoE, otherwize its not going to damage it properly. Johnny Storm going full nova is increasing the range of his power AND the temperature, so he is going to damage bigger things and cause more damage to whatever is in his range.

I dont do the calculations to see if its covering or not, to be fair, what I do is narrate it the way it would look like in the comics, so, if AoE covers 3 range bands, anything that fits in it will be affected, and anything that is too big to fit will be affected but not damaged. A granade explode over a table will damage the table but not the room, because the room is too big, while a missile will damage the entire house, even if both have the same DR.

[Eternl Knight]

The thing with indirect damage is that most of them are not related to any kind of scale and resisting it will be more related to certain resistances than scale per se.

That's exactly the point though. Pretty much everything else in the game has a Scale component that comes into play (especially in Aberrant). Indirect Damage, rules-as-written, does indeed inflict "Injury Conditions" regardless of Scale, but that really doesn't make sense and is (in my opinion) a hole in the system that can be fixed easily by allowing said Indirect Damage to have a Scale.

Yes, Quantum Aura (as written) will inflict Injury Conditions to anyone in range, but when it comes to general damage to non-living scenery and props - that's not mentioned at all. We're left, as Storyguides, to fill in the gaps ourselves and I think that Scale helps with that. A lot.

The Johnny Storm example was just a throwaway you seem to be missing the point with. Ignore named comic heroes for the moment. Let's take two unnamed novas - one with the power to be covered in flames (Quantum Aura 1, inflicting 1 Injury Condition through Indirect Contact damage) and another who can turn themselves into actual Lava (Quantum Aura 5, inflicting 5 Injury Conditions through Indirect Contact damage). The rules tell us what will happen when someone who can take Injury Conditions touches them. It doesn't tell us what will happen when they touch non-living obstacles.

Using your house-rule (which I quite like by the way) we CAN get a narrative Scale for the damage inflicted to things that don't have Injury Conditions. Let's remove range and all other considerations from the example to make my point. Take a locked door (i.e. something without Injury Conditions) and the two novas above wanting to get through it using their damaging "aura" (Indirect Contact damage as inflicted by Quantum Aura).

Both the flame-guy and lava-guy could damage a (Scale 1) wooden door, with the flame guy taking a few minutes perhaps to get through (Scale 1 Durability vs Scale 1 Damage) and the lava-guy pretty much walking through the door (Scale 1 Durability vs Scale 5 Damage). On the other hand, a reinforced steel door would be impervious to flame-guy (Scale 5 Durability vs Scale 1 Damage) but the lava-guy has the ability to slowly melt their way through (Scale 5 Durability vs Scale 5 Damage) like the flame-guy could the wooden door.

Without Scale, it becomes a hand-wave as to whether Quantum Aura 5 damages a Scale 5 Durability reinforced steel door. With Scale, we've already covered it in the rules for narrative applications of Scale. The only "special rule" (i.e. "house rule") required is to ensure Quantum Aura has a Scale (as with every other damaging Quantum Power). DR = Scale is great for this.

[Florin]

Technically, durability Scale doesn't apply to indirect damage, since indirect damage doesn't buy the Inflict Injury stunt, which is what durability Scale increases the cost of.

[Mateus Luz]

Technically, durability Scale doesn't apply to indirect damage, since indirect damage doesn't buy the Inflict Injury stunt, which is what durability Scale increases the cost of.

Even if scale apply to the defense and not soft armor, indirect damage has no attack roll, so it would ignore it too.

[Eternl Knight]

Technically, durability Scale doesn't apply to indirect damage, since indirect damage doesn't buy the Inflict Injury stunt, which is what durability Scale increases the cost of.

Even if scale apply to the defense and not soft armor, indirect damage has no attack roll, so it would ignore it too.

I know, and I'm saying that's a bit of a hole in the system.

Quantum Aura is the right power to represent someone wreathing themselves in flames and damaging stuff on touch. However, rules-as-written, being made out of lava and frying a person to a crisp on touch when they touch you does what to a wooden door, a car door, a reinforced steel vault door, etc? As you said, technically speaking, the power applies Indirect Damage represented as Injury Conditions. The door has no Injury Conditions to mark off but it's counter intuitive to believe the doors cannot be affected by something that burns living targets into ash. It's also counter-intuitive for both an average house door and a reinforced steel door to be equally damaged / damageable.

Giving the Damage Rating a Scale, for narrative purposes, gives a Storyguide a good rule of thumb for the power to work logically without being broken. Against living opponents (or at least ones with Injury Conditions to target) it works as it always has. Against obstacles, the house rule grants the power a narrative utility beyond combat.

[Florin]

I don't think it's a hole. I think it's supposed to be that way. 1 tag gets you immunity to any breath-related indirect damage, and a second tag gives you 4 points of damage rating reduction (which will protect you from all but the worst versions of a source) to another source of indirect damage. Or you can buy 3 dots of Mega-Stamina and Adaptation to become effectively immune to all Environmental indirect damage. Either way, they've built in a way to avoid some indirect damage without making it useless.

As for what sources of indirect damage do to things other than characters, you have a few options, either just make an SG call (which can be fine or bad at various tables,) you could call for a power stunt if the player is trying to use their power to burn through a vault door or something which would let you treat the QAura as a QAttack which lets you bring Scale into play, and/or you can use the collateral pool to simulate the random destruction a burning person causes.

[Eternl Knight]

I don't think it's a hole. I think it's supposed to be that way. 1 tag gets you immunity to any breath-related indirect damage, and a second tag gives you 4 points of damage rating reduction (which will protect you from all but the worst versions of a source) to another source of indirect damage. Or you can buy 3 dots of Mega-Stamina and Adaptation to become effectively immune to all Environmental indirect damage. Either way, they've built in a way to avoid some indirect damage without making it useless.

I get that. Those are all covered by being a valid target if "Injury Conditions". You can take Injury Conditions from the power , you have ways of mitigating that through other powers. That is "living obstacle as target". I'm talking about "non-living obstacle as target". That is flat out not covered by the power.

Whether or not they designed the hole in or simply didn't think to cover it, it is still a hole, because every other power that can inflict injuries on living targets can also inflict damage to non-living targets. I'm not arguing whether it's intended or not, because frankly that's not important. What's important is that the power representing "wreathed in a damaging aura" straight up only deals with living targets.defendents when that's not how (all) damaging auras work for super heroes/villains.

As for what sources of indirect damage do to things other than characters, you have a few options, either just make an SG call (which can be fine or bad at various tables,) you could call for a power stunt if the player is trying to use their power to burn through a vault door or something which would let you treat the QAura as a QAttack which lets you bring Scale into play, and/or you can use the collateral pool to simulate the random destruction a burning person causes.

Or I could use the Damage Rating as a Scale guide for the damage it inflicts. An "SG call" or "house rule" that could also carry over to general Indirect Damage applications. Does the DR1 kitchen fire burn down the kitchen door if not dealt with? Yes, Scale 1 Indirect Damage vs Scale 1 Durability. Does it burn down the panic room door? No, Scale 1 Indirect Damage vs Scale 5 Durability. It has applicability beyond just Quantum Aura. It's just discussion of QAura is how we got to the house rule being mentioned.

[Florin]

I get that. Those are all covered by being a valid target if "Injury Conditions". You can take Injury Conditions from the power , you have ways of mitigating that through other powers. That is "living obstacle as target". I'm talking about "non-living obstacle as target". That is flat out not covered by the power.

Whether or not they designed the hole in or simply didn't think to cover it, it is still a hole, because every other power that can inflict injuries on living targets can also inflict damage to non-living targets. I'm not arguing whether it's intended or not, because frankly that's not important. What's important is that the power representing "wreathed in a damaging aura" straight up only deals with living targets.defendents when that's not how (all) damaging auras work for super heroes/villains.

But how often does how much a character's damaging aura come up in a game in a way which can't be covered by a power stunt (intentionally using your power in a focused way to destroy something) or the collateral pool (the casual damage you do just by having the aura up) come up in a game? Although you have a system in mind, run with it. I'm just pointing out there are tools already in the book if you want to use them.

[Mateus Luz]

Agree with Florin. The way it works dont require any interaction with scale and it works fine.

Different ratings would cover the difference between the fiery boy and the magma boy, the first would take a few rounds to bun through a door and the second would make it instantly. A door may not have a injury box, actually antagonists dont have injury boxes, but a GM would give Health boxes to whatever need to be damaged, like any anthagonists.

The rules are symple and flexible enough to be used in any way you want with little to no effort, that is the main point of StoryPath.

[Eternl Knight]

Guess this is just one of those things where we're not going to find our way to agreement. And that's OK.

I personally like how Scale works for pretty much everything else and don't see the harm in having DR & Scale being equal, and see some cases that have to be hand-waved without it, at least for narrative purposes. You guys feel it's not needed because power stunts exist. Power stunts are basically SG fiat with some dice thrown in - so not really different to a "house rule" when you think about it. 😉

[Florin]

Guess this is just one of those things where we're not going to find our way to agreement. And that's OK.

It is totally fine. Like I said, if you like your system, run with it.

You guys feel it's not needed because power stunts exist. Power stunts are basically SG fiat with some dice thrown in - so not really different to a "house rule" when you think about it. 😉

They aren't, though. The third paragraph under Power Stunts (p. 205) gives you a system for doing it. In the case of Quantum Aura, you'd roll Quantum + Quantum Aura (since it doesn't have a roll normally) and then use the successes from that to buy dots of Quantum Attack to use for that power stunt.

For example, if you have Q3 and QAura 3, you'd spend 1 Quantum point, roll 6 dice, get 3 successes on average, and you would then use those 3 successes to use 3 dots of Quantum Attack. That gives you a power Scale 3 attack with 3 dots worth of tags to use to burn through a vault door. No SG fiat involved at all.