If you pay momentum for penetration on a hit that has spread do the subsequent hits gain it or do they get calculated separately, like the damage? Ie you have to buy penetration for each hit?
E.g. if you hit a phaser blast with spread and do 8 damage including 2 Effect to a ship with resistance 5 you purchase penetration on the first hit with momentum, and activate the spread function would the second hit have no impact or would it do 2 damage?
Two things, one, in the above example, the damage from the Spread attack (with Penetration) would only do 1 point of damage. (Half of 8 is 4, against Resistance of 3 after the Penetration adjustment.) Second thing, I believe with the wording for Spread in the core book the Penetration spend has to be purchased again for the spread attack. (Which is possible, since it is a repeatable spend option.) “This additional hit is resolved separately, and each hit against the target is reduced by Resistance, reduces Shields, and potentially causes Breaches, individually.”
However, your GM might rule it as being covered. It all depends on the GM.
Sorry the example should have been 2 effect.
That blurb I know, trying to understand the RAW or RAI.
Personally, I don’t believe in RAW and RAI. It’s what’s written, and how the GM interprets it. That’s it. It specifically says that you half the damage, and the second hit is reduced by Resistance, Shields and causes breaches individually, which means that in effect it counts as a separate hit in those regards, which would include momentum spends.
With two effects in the above example, then yes, if you spent a second momentum for penetration it would do 2 points of damage.
To quote @Modiphius-Nathan directly from this Reddit post
Piercing applies to both (because both come from the same damage roll).
Now this specifically refers to the Piercing Effect, however if it is true for that, I personally do not see why it would not apply to purchased Penetration.
Penetration does apply to damage inflicted by Spread hits.
This is Rules as Intended (I can state that with authority, as they’re my rules and my intentions), and it’s also the simplest way to resolve the whole thing - anything which temporarily modifies the Resistance of the target applies for the duration of the attack, even to secondary hits from Spread or the Devastating Attack Momentum Spend.
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I was hoping that it would simply from the player’s perspective. That could cost a lot of momentum if they had to keep paying for it every single time, but with the wording in the core book it seems open to interpretation.
Thank you @Modiphius-Nathan and @StephenBirks for the clarification on that, it will help me out once my group starts playing.
Thank you for clarifying that Nathan!
I guess the follow up question would be does it break through 2 points of resistance or just one?
For Penetration it is 2 per point of Momentum. The spread damage would ignore the same amount.
That’s what I’d think, but hoping for confirmation that that is accurate.
Pay 2 Momentum, subtract 4 of the enemy’s Resistance. It says it in the core book under momentum spends that each point of momentum lets you reduce it by 2, and it is a repeatable momentum spend.
Yes, spend your momentum for an additional 2 off of their resistance. ~Rubs hands together~ Yes, yes… Spend your momentum so that you have none left for the important rolls without giving me more threat! MWahahahahahah…
Sorry, practicing my Evil Gamemaster role…
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You know, I’ve seen plenty of players shy away from giving Threat when the Momentum pool is low/empty as they are scared of giving the GM more power. I do not see it that way. As a player in one game and a GM in another, I have come to realise that ensuring the GM has threat to play with is a good thing. It adds drama and tension to scenes without the feeling that the GM is contriving difficult situations for the hell of it.
Momentum is better, but Threat is not bad.
Also, my advice, the Evil GM role is better when you act friendly and remind them of their options, which or course also includes adding to Threat.
It is accurate.
There’s a balance to strike. The GM wants the players to be wary of Threat, but not terrified of it. They need to be able to see that it’s sometimes necessary, and to take advantage of it when they need to, but not to go overboard.
But then, my GMing style is, and has long been, based on Gozer from Ghostbusters: my players always get to choose the form of their destruction.
Ha! I like that… “State Puff Marshmellow Man? Who thought of that?!”
I’ve only attempted GMing a few times, and the couple of times I tried with my new group, one of the other guys wanted to run something else fairly quickly. I’m afraid part of that may have been my lack of experience, part may have been my attempt of running a story that I didn’t really have a good handle on.
As for threat, if I know a few of my fellow gamers as well as I think… I have a feeling I may be looking for ways to get rid of my threat… LOL One player may have the mindset of ‘Meh, it’s fine, just momentum with a different name.’ or ‘Go ahead, do your worst GM. I can take it.’
Ok, maybe I am a bad GM, but my advice:
Don’t play against the PC. You, as GM, are the biggest roleplayer around the table. The PC play their chars, and maybe from time to time a supporting chars. But you as GM play a whole universe! You are an Orion slave trader, a Klingon commander, Q and a mysterious space anomaly, and all this in just one session!
If a particular fight is to easy, the NPC just managed a call for help, and players know, that better equipped reinforcement is on the way. A fight is to heavy, hey the bad guys always need prisoners, or just forget to activate a particular system.
If a rule just feels not right, ignore it for the moment. If the player use all their Momentum to blow up a Klingon spaceship, it’s ok for me. Because I knew, this wasn’t the last Klingon they meet, and his house may want to get revenge.
But this is just my opinion.
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My biggest problem is trying to think of something to come up with off the top of my head, or like I said earlier, not having a good grip on the story I read and prepared. This game, though? I’ve been working on a campaign for Star Trek on and off for at least the last year, and was originally planning on starting them using the Last Unicorn Games version before switching over to STA once I got the books. (I got the core book already and we haven’t even finished our current game.)
I have close to 40 characters and ships made, 10 adventures/scenarios from the Living Campaign and other resources for STA, and that’s not even counting the basic story line that I have been working on for the last year.
I will be very disappointed if my group tries to switch to a different game within 3 sessions, and probably won’t try running anything for them ever again.
That risk always exist! We loved to play Battlelords of the 23rd Century, but then half of the players don’t want to play it anymore. I still posses somewhere my created campaign: it span 3 galaxies, over 25 complete developed systems, 4 Megacorporations just created for this campaign (complete with Security, R&D, PR and Black Op divisions) and the players don’t want it anymore!
Yes, it is a possibility, and at the same time, if it becomes a trend whenever one particular person attempts to GM, then there is an issue. So far with this group I have attempted to GM 3 times, and each time within 2 to 3 sessions one of the guys in particular wants to run a different game and talks the others into switching.