How Much BODY does a human body have?

[Static UK]

I hope this isn't too weird a question but... How Much BODY does a human body have?

If a charcater has 10 BODY, he falls unconscious at 0 BODY, and eventually dies at -10 BODY. If someone wanted to get rid of the body by use of a disintagrator gun, acid, or whatever, how much BODY needs to be done to disintegrate/ disolve the body?

Thank you.

[Shaft]

I would build a disintergration attack as a Major Transformation attack: transform matter into nothing, so you just need to do more damage than 2x his BODY.

[Lord Liaden]

To some extent I would chalk this up to the Special Effects of whatever method you use. Dead is dead as far as the character is concerned, and apart from organ harvesting, some forensic evidence, and the occasional necromancy, the details aren't essential to quantify IMHO.

If you did want to quantify them, though, I would consider reducing the corpse to negative its starting BODY, x2, to be sufficient to completely disintegrate/dissolve it.

[Static UK]

To some extent I would chalk this up to the Special Effects of whatever method you use. Dead is dead as far as the character is concerned, and apart from organ harvesting, some forensic evidence, and the occasional necromancy, the details aren't essential to quantify IMHO.

If you did want to quantify them, though, I would consider reducing the corpse to negative its starting BODY, x2, to be sufficient to completely disintegrate/dissolve it.

Forgive me, I'm not sure if I've understood correctly, but are you suggesting that a character with 10 BODY when dead at -10 BODY needs to reach -20 BODY to become dissolved?

I was wondering if it should be a flat additional 10 BODY to dissolve. Why should someone who is slightly fitter/ more healthy take more BODY to dissolve? I'm talking about (relatively) normal humans/ heroes here not strangely formed mutants/ aliens.

[rjcurrie]

I think Static UK's question was actually about the corpse left behind once a character was dead.

I'd treat the corpse as an object that has the same BODY as the living being and has separate PD and ED instead of DEF. Assuming the special effect of the attack was something that would destroy the corpse, it would say it was destroyed when it hit BODY 0.

As an alternative, if you know that some of the dead character's BODY was from "will to live", you may want to reduce the BODY of the corpse.

[Lord Liaden]

Forgive me, I'm not sure if I've understood correctly, but are you suggesting that a character with 10 BODY when dead at -10 BODY needs to reach -20 BODY to become dissolved?

Yes, that's it. Sorry I wasn't clearer.


I was wondering if it should be a flat additional 10 BODY to dissolve. Why should someone who is slightly fitter/ more healthy take more BODY to dissolve? I'm talking about (relatively) normal humans/ heroes here not strangely formed mutants/ aliens.

Well, BODY is a somewhat abstract concept which can subsume several factors. It's not just a matter of someone being fitter; more BODY can literally be someone with a bigger body, e.g. the average man versus the average woman, or a bodybuilder versus a marathon runner. OTOH a smaller person may indeed have as much BODY as a larger person due to overall fitness, denser muscle mass, good genetics etc.

However, once you start to weigh the various abstract concepts it becomes much harder to answer your "How much damage do I have to do?" question in a way that's applicable in game without subjective assessments by the GM, which would problematize any objective standard anyway. What I suggested was just one shorthand method which is consistent with the (admittedly simplified) game-mechanical way to determine point of death. If another standard makes sense to you, by all means you should use it. :)

[Chris Goodwin]

If you look on the object BODY table, a 100kg object has 10 BODY. Now, it's a good bet that in the process of getting that way, a dead body has lost some bits. You kinda have to figure out how many kg of bits are left, and go from there.

[Killer Shrike]

If you mean in general, the rules don't specify. If you you want to declare a universal "nothing left but empty boots" stage for your own games you can; just settle on what makes sense for the feel you want.

If you mean as the SFX of a particular attack then not leaving a corpse behind sounds like an effect to be modeled. As someone else mentioned Major Transform Person into Disintegrated Person is the way to go. All or nothing, have to get double the targets normal BODY all in one go. If successful, poof, no more person and no messy remains left behind. There are other ways, but they get pretty marginal.

[GamePhil]

If you mean as the SFX of a particular attack then not leaving a corpse behind sounds like an effect to be modeled. As someone else mentioned Major Transform Person into Disintegrated Person is the way to go. All or nothing, have to get double the targets normal BODY all in one go. If successful, poof, no more person and no messy remains left behind. There are other ways, but they get pretty marginal.

Well, the rules specify that you can't use Transform to turn a living person into a dead person, so turning a living person into a disintegrated person is also marginal unless you mean it to be in combination with an attack that can actually kill them or for disintegrating the corpse after it's been killed.

Nevertheless, the way I would do it as long as I didn't mind there being reversal criteria for vaporized people.

[Outsider]

If you look on the object BODY table, a 100kg object has 10 BODY. Now, it's a good bet that in the process of getting that way, a dead body has lost some bits. You kinda have to figure out how many kg of bits are left, and go from there.

Actually, a 100 kg object's BODY varies depending on the nature of the object.

Living/Vehicle : 10
Unliving : 7
Complex : 5

So once a person is dead, their BODY should become 7, if they are 100 kg.

[Killer Shrike]

Well, the rules specify that you can't use Transform to turn a living person into a dead person, so turning a living person into a disintegrated person is also marginal unless you mean it to be in combination with an attack that can actually kill them or for disintegrating the corpse after it's been killed.

Nevertheless, the way I would do it as long as I didn't mind there being reversal criteria for vaporized people.

The rules also mention, or at least used to, that the cost of Major Transform is based on Killing Damage with the rationale that if you're going to kill them anyway you might as well do something creative instead.

{shrugs} YMMV

[braincraft]

If you look on the object BODY table, a 100kg object has 10 BODY. Now, it's a good bet that in the process of getting that way, a dead body has lost some bits. You kinda have to figure out how many kg of bits are left, and go from there.

Unless that body got dead from a poison or heart attack or magic soul-rending spell.

[GamePhil]

The rules also mention, or at least used to, that the cost of Major Transform is based on Killing Damage with the rationale that if you're going to kill them anyway you might as well do something creative instead.

{shrugs} YMMV

Yup, which is why I basically agree with you on how to do it. I've had characters with similar Powers before, and don't find it detracts anything from the game, but it is technically against the official rules.

[Alibear]

he falls unconscious at 0 BODY

Thank you.


Eh? How long have you been away? You fall unconcious at -10 stun.

[NuSoardGraphite]

I hope this isn't too weird a question but... How Much BODY does a human body have?

If a charcater has 10 BODY, he falls unconscious at 0 BODY, and eventually dies at -10 BODY. If someone wanted to get rid of the body by use of a disintagrator gun, acid, or whatever, how much BODY needs to be done to disintegrate/ disolve the body?

Thank you.


IMO, to completely "disintigrate" they body, the attack would have to be capable of doing the original Body of the person (when they were alive) in a single attack, or do continuous Body damage (which represents slowly eating away at the remains) or be built as a Transformation attack and change the corpse into something else (air?)

[archermoo]

Eh? How long have you been away? You fall unconcious at -10 stun.

Actually you fall semiconscious when your STUN hits 0. You are still potentially dimly aware of your surroundings, and might even still be standing. The book describes it as being more of a deep stun. At -11 or less you are truly unconscious, unaware of your surroundings. In either state your OCV, DCV and ECV are reduced to 0.

[Sean Waters]

Body is an interesting measure, left, I like to think, deliberately vague. If you think about it, the amount of damage something can take before being destroyed is going to depend to a huge degree on what is causing the damage: you could probably do hundreds of points of BODY to a piece of rope with a hammer and it is still recogniseably a piece of rope, even if it is functionally useless. Set light to it, however, and it is effectively destroyed with much less damage.

Arguably that is more of a function of defences than BODY, but, like I said, it is a matter for sfx more than anything else.

As to the OP question, human bodies are notoriously difficult to comlpetely destroy, but I'd prpbably base the ability to completely destroy something on sfx as much as anything. If you want to build a disintegrator gun, no matter how you build it, if you do BODYx2 damage to the target, then it is dead. One GM maight decide you then need to do additional damage to get rid of the remains, another might decide that the corpus is then disintegrated. I'd generally go for the latter: If I've kileld someone with a disintegrator gun, doing, even for an average starting character, 20 Body past defences, I don't want to waste time having to destroy the remains - they are gone - I've done enough damage to destroy an F15 Eagle, for goodness sakes.

Personally I like to do disintegrators with Body Drain (bear in mind that once someone is dead the Body damage no longer fades). That is just personal preference though.

One caveat: some cunning individuals like disintegrator guns on the basis that they prevent certain powers, noteably resurrection regeneration, from working; not necessarily - disintegration might not stop a vampire from re-forming itself, for instance - disintegration is no more - or less - uselful than any other sfx.

[Alibear]

Actually you fall semiconscious when your STUN hits 0. You are still potentially dimly aware of your surroundings, and might even still be standing. The book describes it as being more of a deep stun. At -11 or less you are truly unconscious, unaware of your surroundings. In either state your OCV, DCV and ECV are reduced to 0.

David (Static) didn't mention semi-conscious, he said unconscious; so I corrected that. I don't know why you corrected me when you later went on to state what I originally said.

Colour me confused. :confused: ??

[archermoo]

David (Static) didn't mention semi-conscious, he said unconscious; so I corrected that. I don't know why you corrected me when you later went on to state what I originally said.

Colour me confused. :confused: ??

Well, for one thing your number was off. You go full unconscious at -11, not -10. At -10 you are still semi-conscious.

Of course, all of that is beside the point that it is STUN that determines whether you go unconscious in the first place, rather than BODY as Static UK initially stated. :)

[Vondy]

Once the character is dead I would adjudicate what happens to the body via special effects and common sense. I don't feel its something that needs to be modelled. "We drop it in a vat of hydrochloric acid," or "I fry it with my plasma blast until its reduced to smoking ash and human residue" are fairly straightforward and probably don't need numbers attached. Just decide if its possible and how long it takes and call it a day.

[Alibear]

Well, for one thing your number was off. You go full unconscious at -11, not -10.

Fair point, well made.

[Kdansky]

A human body has one body. That's obvious!


Why did nobody think of that before me? :D

[Static UK]

A human body has one body. That's obvious!


Why did nobody think of that before me? :D

AAaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Static UK]

David (Static) didn't mention semi-conscious, he said unconscious; so I corrected that. I don't know why you corrected me when you later went on to state what I originally said.

Colour me confused. :confused: ??

Naughty Alibear! I know about the STUN- semi/un/conscious thingy. My query was regarding BODY.

Am I correct in believing that a character falls unconscious when it reaches 0 BODY (the rulebook just says you begin to die, I assume you are not still up and about at 0 or negative BODY) although I have, for dramatic effect, allowed a charcter to crawl off to do some last heroic deed (ie, pressing the button that saves everyone else) before falling unconscious in the past.

[Static UK]

Actually, a 100 kg object's BODY varies depending on the nature of the object.

Living/Vehicle : 10
Unliving : 7
Complex : 5

So once a person is dead, their BODY should become 7, if they are 100 kg.

Hummm. I'd just assumed this refered to inanimate objects (pg 449 H5rev), never thought that it could apply to corpses? However I think it sounds a little too simplistic, especially for super corpses! I think I'll use that for normals though.

Thanks.

[Static UK]

Clarification: The original question was about dissintegrating/ disolving corpses, not the effects of dissintegration on living things. The reason being I am creating a henchman for a nasty villain that 'cleans-up' after his boss. He basically destroys/ dissintegrates any corpses left using a nasty TK ability (needs concentration at 0 DCV & throughout use of the power) that only works on inanimate things (ie, not usable against living targets), corpses are inanimate. I was wondering about how much BODY a corpse would have because this would add a time constraint on the ability to dissintegrate a corpse, and may lead to the henchman being caught in the act by someone due to the full concentration required (ie, the more body a particular corpse has the longer it takes to dissingegrate it).

I'm tempted to go with the corpse having as much BODY as the victim had whwn alive (with some variance depending upon the source of that BODY, ie BODY through willpower doesn't count etc.)

Thanks for your help, and some interesting ideas. Any more?

[Sean Waters]

Clarification: The original question was about dissintegrating/ disolving corpses, not the effects of dissintegration on living things. The reason being I am creating a henchman for a nasty villain that 'cleans-up' after his boss. He basically destroys/ dissintegrates any corpses left using a nasty TK ability (needs concentration at 0 DCV & throughout use of the power) that only works on inanimate things (ie, not usable against living targets), corpses are inanimate. I was wondering about how much BODY a corpse would have because this would add a time constraint on the ability to dissintegrate a corpse, and may lead to the henchman being caught in the act by someone due to the full concentration required (ie, the more body a particular corpse has the longer it takes to dissingegrate it).

I'm tempted to go with the corpse having as much BODY as the victim had when alive (with some variance depending upon the source of that BODY, ie BODY through willpower doesn't count etc.)

Thanks for your help, and some interesting ideas. Any more?

Go with 7 Body, then a 2d6 Body drain or KA will handily 'dissolve/disintegrate' any remains on an average roll'. In fact, I'd probably allow a lesser attack to dot he job, using a variation of the 'coup de grace' rules.

Or, for 11 points, something like:

Killing Attack - Ranged 1 point, Uncontrolled (+1/2), Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2), Continuous (+1), Penetrating (x3; +1 1/2) (22 Active Points); Limited Power: only to destroy corpses Power loses about half of its effectiveness (-1)

or (for 20 points and assuming it is just for destroying the inanimate)

Major Transform 1 point (Corpse into component chemicals, Who the hell knows?), Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2), Uncontrolled (+1/2), Penetrating (x2; +1), Continuous (+1) (20 Active Points)

That way the actually Body doesn't really matter - somewhere between 7 and 14 phases and the corpse is just a pile of component chemicals (depending on the process used).

Moreover the decay is interruptible (if you know how) because 'uncontrolled' needs some way to turn it off - that will depend on the particular sfx.

If they are just normals then you would not even need the 'penetrating'.

[Alibear]

Am I correct in believing that a character falls unconscious when it reaches 0 BODY (the rulebook just says you begin to die, I assume you are not still up and about at 0 or negative BODY) although I have, for dramatic effect, allowed a charcter to crawl off to do some last heroic deed (ie, pressing the button that saves everyone else) before falling unconscious in the past.

No, that was my point, David, Body and Stun are separate. You can bleed to death and still be conscious and active. You keep fighting till you either die or lose consciousness. Most people would stop and try and stop the bleeding but I wouldn't force that on heroic PC's.

Stun regulates consciousness and body regulates life.

[BobGreenwade]

To some extent I would chalk this up to the Special Effects of whatever method you use. Dead is dead as far as the character is concerned, and apart from organ harvesting, some forensic evidence, and the occasional necromancy, the details aren't essential to quantify IMHO.

If you did want to quantify them, though, I would consider reducing the corpse to negative its starting BODY, x2, to be sufficient to completely disintegrate/dissolve it.


Forgive me, I'm not sure if I've understood correctly, but are you suggesting that a character with 10 BODY when dead at -10 BODY needs to reach -20 BODY to become dissolved?

I was wondering if it should be a flat additional 10 BODY to dissolve. Why should someone who is slightly fitter/ more healthy take more BODY to dissolve? I'm talking about (relatively) normal humans/ heroes here not strangely formed mutants/ aliens.This was kind of my idea when I wrote for TUV (and edited somewhat by Steve; see page 188):

A Vehicle reduced to 0 BODY cannot move or function, but is not yet fully destroyed -- it can be repaired. A Vehicle reduced to negative its own BODY is destroyed ("totaled"), and cannot be repaired. However, at the GM's option, characters can salvage a few parts or some scrap metal. A Vehicle reduced to negative twice its BODY (for example, -20 for a Vehicle with 10 BODY) is smashed into so many little pieces it lacks any salvage value.Originally I wanted to include a brief note suggesting that the GM could apply a similar rule to characters, but Steve quite reasonably vetoed it as not being really germane to the book's topic. However, the idea stands: you could rule that -(2X BODY) leaves nothing behind. Or, if it makes you feel more comfortable, you could say that -(2X BODY) leaves too little to resurrect or provide organ transplants, while -(3X BODY) is what's needed for total obliteration.

[TSandman]

One must remember that Death is not the destruction of the Body, but only the end of the biochemical processes.

If you do enough damage to the "body" via poison, mental jackammering or chainsaws, you come to a point where those processes cannot self-sustain and stops, rendering the actual character "dead".

There IS physical evidence left behind tho, its condition depending on the SFX...

To leave "No evidence behind", one way you could be going is that you'd need only to render the target to -10 BODY if the attacks is targeting it's low level integrity (Disintegrator Gun, Strong Acid, Digestive Juices, Using TK to pry molecules apart, etc), -20 BODY if it's using more "normal" methods of killing (Gunning like mad to reduce the corps to pulp, slice it "Butcher Style" with a sword, Burn to ashes with Fire...

As for the less "physically interacting ways" of Poison, mind-destroying satellites etc, you'd still have a body with near perfect Integrity on your hands...

I remember a session in another system-game I've played a gadgeteer, I disposed of a corpse using strong bio-eating acids and a good old top-loading washer :)

[archermoo]

Naughty Alibear! I know about the STUN- semi/un/conscious thingy. My query was regarding BODY.

Am I correct in believing that a character falls unconscious when it reaches 0 BODY (the rulebook just says you begin to die, I assume you are not still up and about at 0 or negative BODY) although I have, for dramatic effect, allowed a charcter to crawl off to do some last heroic deed (ie, pressing the button that saves everyone else) before falling unconscious in the past.

As Alibear noted, STUN and BODY are unrelated. There is no amount of BODY loss that will cause you to lose consciousness. If you lose enough obviously you'll die, but just from BODY loss you'll never go unconscious. In one high lethality game I regularly had a character operating at as much as -12 or -15 BODY (he had a BODY of 18).

We also played that not only did you have to take 1 STUN for every 1 BODY you took, but that you could never have less STUN damage on you than BODY damage. So for a character with enough BODY and/or little enough STUN you could be in a coma. I.e. have so much body on you that you couldn't be conscious. :)

[Alcamtar]

There is no amount of BODY loss that will cause you to lose consciousness. If you lose enough obviously you'll die, but just from BODY loss you'll never go unconscious.

So... "dead but conscious"... that could lead to some interesting play! :think: :D

[archermoo]

So... "dead but conscious"... that could lead to some interesting play! :think: :D

Yeah, but under most circumstances your are MUCH more likely to take STUN damage than BODY. So even if your STUN is a lot higher than your BODY, you'll still probably get KO'd before dying.

Probably. :)

[braincraft]

Yeah, but under most circumstances your are MUCH more likely to take STUN damage than BODY. So even if your STUN is a lot higher than your BODY, you'll still probably get KO'd before dying.

Probably. :)

But it's (usually) a lot easier to recover from STUN than from BODY. And if you have nonresistant Damage Reduction, the gap gets pretty close.

[Kdansky]

But it's (usually) a lot easier to recover from STUN than from BODY. And if you have nonresistant Damage Reduction, the gap gets pretty close.

That's quite a few "ifs" you are sporting there.

If you don't have nonresistant Damage reduction (note that resistant or none at all don't help much, and I exspect resistant to be the norm, because DR is mainly good against KA lotto, purely as "take some more hits" defenses, it's too expensive compared to plain PD/ED (or armor or whatever version you want)).

If nobody in your party has Healing. Rare occurence in any fantasy game, still not a terribly uncommon spell in supers games.

If you don't have regeneration for 8 points. Rare in fantasy, but extremly common in supers games. And those that don't sport it usually have very high resistant defenses (20/20 FF comes to mind, that holds off 4d6 KAs easily).

But getting stunned first is GOOD in hero. I really like it that I can risk to take some players down as a GM without spoiling the fun. Sure, sometimes someone really dies, but usually, some of them only go KO (and the others either run (+carry friends) or win). It was terribly annoying to me in GURPS that I had the GMing choice of either killing off a party member every second battle or making the battles totally trivial.

[archermoo]

But it's (usually) a lot easier to recover from STUN than from BODY.

Very true, which is the basic reason that it is possible at all to die before going unconscious. It is still for the most part VERY rare. BANG you're dead isn't particularly easy in HERO. BANG you're unconscious and are going to die real soon without help is much easier. Which is oddly enough pretty much how the real world works too. :)


And if you have nonresistant Damage Reduction, the gap gets pretty close.

Hasn't been my experience.