Targeted Areas

Rystil Arden said:

It's the wording of the "Under the Hood: Immunity" and the phrasing of the text, plus the use of the word 'Immune'. Admittedly, it does not directly say either way, but it doesn't make any sense. Otherwise you're telling me that a Mindless Construct that's immune to Will Saves will not be immune to a Will Save (Half) Area Mind Blast (an Area Blast with the Extra where you swap the Reflex Save for a Will Save).

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Sure it would (be immune), since Mind Blast has a save of Will, not Damage, and so it would be immune to all Mind Blasts (which, by definition, are resisted by Will, not Damage).

Rystil Arden said:

I'm pretty certain that there is no such thing as Immunity Toughness.

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You'd be quite right, since the Immunity power specifically lists ways to be immune to Damage effects (the big 40 point Immune to all nonlethal physical damage, or immune to all lethal physical damage, or immune to all nonlethal energy damage, or immune to all lethal energy damage).

Rystil Arden said:

Also, what about a killer rapid disease that rips you up from the inside out? It's built from an Area Blast (Fort instead of Reflex for Half) with the Contagious Extra, the Poison Extra, and the Secondary Effect (another Blast) Extra. Shouldn't creatures with no biology who are immune to all Fortitude Saves be immune to the disease?

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Yes, but in the above case, it should be a Fort save for the "damage" part, too (since things with the Poison extra must have a Fort save if it doesn't already). (And what's the "Secondary Effect" Extra? If you mean a Linked Effect, I'm 99% certain you can't have the same effect Linked to itself, since you can only link powers of different types, and the Poison extra already gives a sort of "secondary effect" component anyway.)

Yes, but in the above case, it should be a Fort save for the "damage" part, too (since things with the Poison extra must have a Fort save if it doesn't already). (And what's the "Secondary Effect" Extra? If you mean a Linked Effect, I'm 99% certain you can't have the same effect Linked to itself, since you can only link powers of different types, and the Poison extra already gives a sort of "secondary effect" component anyway.)

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Ah, in my example, it doesn't have the Disease extra because the effect is instant, not daily. I think Secondary Effect may be in UP--it does something else on the next round.

Sure it would (be immune), since Mind Blast has a save of Will, not Damage, and so it would be immune to all Mind Blasts (which, by definition, are resisted by Will, not Damage).

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Not Mental Blast the power--this is built using Blast. It still has a Toughness save.

You'd be quite right, since the Immunity power specifically lists ways to be immune to Damage effects (the big 40 point Immune to all nonlethal physical damage, or immune to all lethal physical damage, or immune to all nonlethal energy damage, or immune to all lethal energy damage).

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Indeed, though that doesn't cover all damage types of course. And since there is no Immune Toughness, how else are you going to be immune to something like the disease in my example? I mean, you could buy Immunity to Disease separately and on top of Immunity to Fort saves, but that seems silly (indeed, you yourself told me not to buy Life Support on top of Immune to Fort).

Rystil Arden said:

Ah, in my example, it doesn't have the Disease extra because the effect is instant, not daily. I think Secondary Effect may be in UP--it does something else on the next round.

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You're right, your "Killer Disease" doesn't have the Disease extra... but you do list it as having the Poison extra, and both need their effects to be Fort saves.

Rystil Arden said:

Not Mental Blast the power--this is built using Blast. It still has a Toughness save.

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Then don't call it a Mind Blast And since it is still a regular Damage save, the construct, mindless or no, would be affected.

Something I did mean to mention earlier, though, is that I'm 99.9% certain you can't change the initial Reflex save part of an Area effect to another save with the Alternate Save extra. I mean, it just doesn't make sense, for one thing, and for another, strictly speaking Alternate Save applies to the save of an effect, but the Area component of an Area effect is not itself an effect.

Rystil Arden said:

Indeed, though that doesn't cover all damage types of course. And since there is no Immune Toughness, how else are you going to be immune to something like the disease in my example? I mean, you could buy Immunity to Disease separately and on top of Immunity to Fort saves, but that seems silly (indeed, you yourself told me not to buy Life Support on top of Immune to Fort).

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Indeed I did, because Immune (Fort effects) covers most everything under Immune (Life Support) (and a few things that aren't). I.e., you don't need Imunty 9 (life support) if you already have Immunity 30 (Fort effects), just like you don't need Immunity 1 (cold) if you already have Immunity 5 (cold damage), and you don't need either of those if you have Immunity 10 (cold effects).

For your disease/poison example, though, a simple Immunity (disease or poison) might do, if it has the Disease or Poison extras. I say "might" because, while those extras say it makes an effect work like a disease or toxin, and that the Healing power can counter them, it says nothing about whether or not the Medicine skill helps or the 1-point level of Immunity to disease or poison helps.

Something I did mean to mention earlier, though, is that I'm 99.9% certain you can't change the initial Reflex save part of an Area effect to another save with the Alternate Save extra. I mean, it just doesn't make sense, for one thing, and for another, strictly speaking Alternate Save applies to the save of an effect, but the Area component of an Area effect is not itself an effect.

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Well in that case, the only thing you're worried about here is the Area Extra and how it overlaps with effects that require Reflex saves and Immunity to Reflex Saves. Even if you definitvely decided that Immune: Reflex was not enough, then Immune: Reflex + Evasionx1 would trivially be sufficient, so it isn't like it's at all difficult to fix. Considering that you paid 30 for Immunity already, I see no reason to force you to go out and buy the last 1 point for Evasion. That said, while Immune: Fort and Will are easy for me to consider, I would have a harder time understanding why a hero was Immune Reflex (does he have infinitely fast reflexes? Then why can't he just Dodge all attacks requiring Defense also).

Rystil Arden said:

That said, while Immune: Fort and Will are easy for me to consider, I would have a harder time understanding why a hero was Immune Reflex (does he have infinitely fast reflexes? Then why can't he just Dodge all attacks requiring Defense also).

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Yeah, that's probably why I've never seen any character built with Immunity (REF effects)
Have seen a few with Impervious Reflex saves, though (which'd work like Impervious Damage or Will saves).

And back to the original topic, I vote YES on allowing Targeted Areas.

An interesting heads-up:

Regardless of what you think about the averages, the real trouble with targeted areas is that you only roll once for everything. They had a similar rules in Star Wars Saga Edition (and when I say similar, I mean they had exactly the same rule) for all area effects, and it turned out to be so broken that they were forced to immediately errata, the main reason was the issue of Natural 20 (and for M&M, this can be exacerbated with Improved Critical on the Targeted Area attack). Critting one guy is fun. Critting everyone is not at all fun. This all-or-nothing problem can be eliminated by having separate rolls for each target in the targeted area, just like you would normally have one Reflex save each.

Of course, with 2 YES, 1 NO, and one illegal vote, we don't need to worry about that yet.

Rystil Arden said:

Regardless of what you think about the averages, the real trouble with targeted areas is that you only roll once for everything. They had a similar rules in Star Wars Saga Edition (and when I say similar, I mean they had exactly the same rule) for all area effects, and it turned out to be so broken that they were forced to immediately errata, the main reason was the issue of Natural 20 (and for M&M, this can be exacerbated with Improved Critical on the Targeted Area attack). Critting one guy is fun. Critting everyone is not at all fun. This all-or-nothing problem can be eliminated by having separate rolls for each target in the targeted area, just like you would normally have one Reflex save each.

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Whirlwind Attack has the exact same "issue," though, and AFAIK no one's said it's terribly broken.

And, on the flip side, rolls of 1 -- missing one guy is no fun, and missing everyone is even less fun.

That being said, I'm okay with LS having Targeted Area be either a one-roll thing, or a one-roll-for-each-target thing.

Rystil Arden said:

Regardless of what you think about the averages, the real trouble with targeted areas is that you only roll once for everything. This all-or-nothing problem can be eliminated by having separate rolls for each target in the targeted area, just like you would normally have one Reflex save each.

Of course, with 2 YES, 1 NO, and one illegal vote, we don't need to worry about that yet.

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The above ties in very well with my thinking. If you are in a real bind surrounded by enemies you can go for a targeted area attack, and if you roll a 20 stun everyone.

Unfortunatly I don't think that seperate attack rolls works either because then you are letting the averages work for you, I have 10 valid targets so I am reasonably likely to critical at least one of them.

This is a great shame because I think Targeted area is a great way of moddeling a speedster who runs around in a circle slapping everyone he passes, among other things.

Hand of Vecna said:

And, on the flip side, rolls of 1 -- missing one guy is no fun, and missing everyone is even less fun.

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Exactly. It is all or nothing, and that is no fun either way.

(I don't think it is horribly broken mind just maybe slightly unbalanced with normal area attack)