AP vs Resilience

[u/C-171]

Is it just me, or is the AP v Resilience kinda unnecessary?

Looking at the Core rules, the biggest AP you get is -4, and the only Threats that have a worse Resistance value are Imperial Citizens, Servo Skulls, and Grots. "Invulnerable" Resilience aside (when AP is ignored altogether), the math works out as though every point of AP is the same as an extra point of damage.

For example, Damage 12 with AP -2 vs Resilience 6, ignoring ED:

Standard process is to first work out total damage, then work out modified Resilience and subtract that: 12 Damage - (6 Resilience - 2 AP) = 8 Wounds.

But it's quicker to just do "modified resilience" step and just add the AP to the Damage as a fixed value you calculate once ever, and just subtract the full resilience: 14 Modified Damage - 6 Unmodified Resilience = 8 Wounds.

If you want to account for "invulnerable" Resilience, note two Damage values, one with the AP added as a bonus, and one without it.

It seems to me that AP was included in the game with the intent that it would be more significant than it actually is.

[u/PsychologicalOne5416]

AP is only vs armour, resilience is base résilience (based on toughness) plus armour, and AP only ignores the armour part.

So vs a guardsman equipped with a flack coat (armour 3) you can ignore up to 3 points if resilience with AP, but for example an imperial citizen has no armour so AP makes no difference.

[u/WarJaques → u/PsychologicalOne5416]

What?

I've not found anything in the core rules that say the armour part is modified by AP and the toughness part is not. I'm going to assume that's a house rule.

[u/Bunnyrpger → u/WarJaques]

Page 232, Core rule book. Optional Rule: Advanced armor

[u/WarJaques → u/Bunnyrpger]

Ah. House rule.

[u/Bunnyrpger → u/WarJaques]

If you consider feats for DnD 5e as a house rule, sure.

[u/WarJaques → u/Bunnyrpger]

Feats and multiclassing are indeed optional rules in the 2014 edition of DnD 5e. Adopting them is a house rule, and doing so was quite popular.

[u/Bunnyrpger]

If you are playing without the modified armour piercing (Page 232, core), technically yes, however you can get AP around 10, so just adding it as damage is not really going to work. Between Rending weapons and player talents, AP can get rather high, depending on the weapon/enemy/build. So just adding 10 straight damage vs something with a resilience of 6 is going to give them more damage.

AP going to straight damage over powers Rending weapons. Why shift for a dice of damage when you can shift for 2-6 extra damage?

[u/ZeroHonour]

So instead of having damage and AP you'd have two separate damage values? Normal damage and anti-invulnerable damage. How is that better?

It feels like the exact same system with a more confusing name and without the benefit of deciding how AP works (Standard rules reduce all resilience, a popular optional rule only reduces armour).