Impervious vs Penetrating, Incurable vs Persistant.

Penetrating (Extra) vs Impervious (extra)
Incurable (power feat) vs Persistant (power feat)

So these two powers kind of make me laugh.

For one, I've never seen somoene take healing WITHOUT persistant, and I've never seen anyone take INCURABLE.


On top of that, I've rarely seen anyone take PENETRATING despite seeing people take IMPERVIOUS.

I'll tell you why: They're a waste of points!
Let's start with Incurable and Persistant

Incurable stops the damage from being healed through normal means. It's a power feat- which means if I'm ever battling a healer and it's relevant, I can use extra effort to gain the feat as needed. The enemy, on the other hand, can use extra effort when he heals anyway- so why bother to worry about it? This was obviously a design flaw with little thought given.

If it were me, I'd require that persistant be an extra only gainable through hero points to add dramateic tension when incurable comes up- and make incurable only takeable with power points, not with extra effort.


PENETRATING vs IMPERVIOUS

Here's another odd combo. Impervious only works when purchased in advance. First, it only blocks attacks LESS than the power level. All things being equal- you'll probably have an attack at the same level as the protection. Even if you don't. you can boost your attack damage with tradeoffs, extra effort, team attacks, power attack, and similar means- without reverting to penetrating?

But what if PENTRATING is the only way? Penetrating only reduces the impervious, so even if you have it, it might not be enough. But even if it is- you can just extra effort, take an alternate power with penetrating, add an equal value flaw (like distracting or something) and be ready to go.

The ease of getting penetrating makes impervious useless.

This can be avoided by not allowing alternate powers though extra effort, though nothing bypasses the point that impervious is usually fairly easy to get around. Given the fact that enemies will usually be of higher PL than the party- impervious is useless when a PC takes it (most of the time).

Besides, impervious can be gotten around other ways- perhaps with nullify, drain, or by boosting penetrate into your powers.

It's one of the things that has no easy answer- except perhaps to just ignore these powers. It's not a problem, so you need not worry about it, but more of a warning when making characters.