Chasing Missles (from Superman: The Movie)

[Hyper-Man]

I am curious to find out how all the experienced GM's out there deal with one of the few movement quirks still left in the rules after the advent of the current noncom rules including Megascale.

Question:
How can a speedster of any type (flying or running) built on anything less than 500 points ever hope to actually catch a target moving at what are noncombat speeds for the speedster? (Like Superman chasing the ICBM headed for New Jersey!) HERO rules clearly state that any character moving at noncom has an OCV of 0 that can not be increased by levels or in any other way.

Related Quirk:
Since I can't find any HERO stats for an ICBM let's take a look at something similar: an F-15 from either 5ER or Ultimate Vehicle. It's built with SPD 5 and a base Flight of 35-38" with x8 noncom. Some simple math gives you 38x5/12*4.5=71.25 mph which is probably even low for takeoff and landing speeds. How the heck does a Fighter Pilot ever hit another fighter in a dogfight when travelling at speeds in excess of 400 mph? Obviously, the current HERO rules just don't deal with this arena very well.

Anyway, how do you deal with this type of situation in game? Do you just throw out the book at that point and try to make up a reasonable skill vs. skill mechanic that fits the drama of the story at the time or has anyone given this more serious thought already?

HM

[Mike W]

Well, you can always use the velocity based DCV chart. Once the character "matches speed" which is a standard part of the bit, then whatever he is trying to grab has a base DCV of 1. So it's now a 50-50 roll, which sounds about right to me based on the movies. After all, in the movies, the character often has to try a second or third time to make it. And you could add DCV penalties based on the size of the rocket. This is still legal because you are modifying the DCV of the target, not the OCV of the character doing the grab.

[Hyper-Man]

Well, you can always use the velocity based DCV chart. Once the character "matches speed" which is a standard part of the bit, then whatever he is trying to grab has a base DCV of 1. So it's now a 50-50 roll, which sounds about right to me based on the movies. After all, in the movies, the character often has to try a second or third time to make it. And you could add DCV penalties based on the size of the rocket. This is still legal because you are modifying the DCV of the target, not the OCV of the character doing the grab.

Where are you getting the 1 DCV? The non-velocity based rule states that characters get 1/2 their normal DCV when travelling at non combat speeds. I am aware of the size modifiers option but that still seems like a stretch for some circumstances.

Another related example:
For anybody who owns USPD, take a look at the "Nega-Beam" writeup. It's a very good approximation of Darkseid's attack that is basically a summon homing missle. It has one glaring weakness: A character with just 1" of flight with 1 level of Megascale can outrun it since megascale effectively acts like the noncombat acceleration advantage for free.

HM

[Mike W]

Page 237 of the 5th ed. Hero System book has a Velocity-based DCV table. Note that the surrounding text says that it is relative velocity. It isn't something I would use for character vs. character, but it makes sense to me for a character vs. an object. Technically, if the attacker only "matches speeds"(i.e. is traveling at EXACTLY the same speed as what he is trying to hit) the target gets full DCV, modified by size, while the attacker has a base 0, but if he goes 1" faster, then the target's DCV is 1. This is a rule that clearly needs tweaking but you can go a dozen game sessions and it never comes up, so it's one of those things that you may want to just "tweak" or even make up on the fly.

[Sean Waters]

Page 237 of the 5th ed. Hero System book has a Velocity-based DCV table. Note that the surrounding text says that it is relative velocity. It isn't something I would use for character vs. character, but it makes sense to me for a character vs. an object.

Good question, and the ideal solution, IMO. You might need to make some sort of Power skill roll with flight to match velocities, at which point your relative velocity is zero. In a rather silly way the rules say that the target then gets its normal DCV (whereas if there is a 1" speed difference, the target has a DCV of 1): I'd be inclined to say if the target gets normal DCV, the attacker gets normal OCV OR the attacker (using NCM rules has a zero OCV and the target has a 1 or 0 DCV.

[Beastial]

For anybody who owns USPD, take a look at the "Nega-Beam" writeup. It's a very good approximation of Darkseid's attack that is basically a summon homing missle. It has one glaring weakness: A character with just 1" of flight with 1 level of Megascale can outrun it since megascale effectively acts like the noncombat acceleration advantage for free.
HM

Several problems with the 1" megascale flight evading a combat power:

1) Many campaigns will require a flight cost minimum... so the 1" thing is out.
2) Megaspeed movement without megascale senses can quickly turn into megaspeed stain-on-the-wall. 1000m/phase? How many DC is that? And are you likely to survive it? Ouchy.
3) That big ol' STOP next to megascale encourages GMs to whack things with a "veto" if it smells fishy. 1" megascale smells fishy to me.
4) Megascale movement is assumed to have an acceleration just like regular movement. There's a paragraph or two on it in FRED. The GM could easily state that given the slothful nature of your flight power, it would take you a LONG TIME to accelerate up to full speed... more than enough time for the nega bolt to catch up to you.
5) There is no problem number 5.
6) Okay... so there's no '6' either.

So there's lots of ways for a creative GM to stomp on a "cheat" like that one. You just have to be able to outsmart your players a bit... Doing it in such a way that they don't scream and cry (ie one that fits well into the game universe/rules) is much more likely to prolong your campaign.

A GM that hands down decisions based solely on "I said so" isn't likely to keep his/her/its players in the long term.

[gojira]

Since I can't find any HERO stats for an ICBM let's take a look at something similar: an F-15 from either 5ER or Ultimate Vehicle. It's built with SPD 5 and a base Flight of 35-38" with x8 noncom. Some simple math gives you 38x5/12*4.5=71.25 mph which is probably even low for takeoff and landing speeds. How the heck does a Fighter Pilot ever hit another fighter in a dogfight when travelling at speeds in excess of 400 mph?

Way low. From http://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/f15/ on the F15 fighter:

The Boeing F-15E dual-role fighter is an advanced long-range interdiction fighter and tactical aircraft. The F-15E is the latest version of the Eagle, a Mach 2.5-class twin-engine fighter. More than 1,300 F-15s are in service worldwide with the US Air Force, US Air National Guard and the air forces of Israel, Japan and Saudi Arabia, including over 220 F-15E fighters.

The F15E is equipped with a triple-redundant BAE SYSTEMS Astronics flight control system. Using manual terrain following, navigation is possible over rough terrain at altitudes down to 200ft, at nearly 600 miles per hour, with the pilot following commands from the LANTIRN system. Automatic terrain following is accomplished through the flight control system linked to the LANTIRN navigation pod's terrain-following radar.

And on ballisctic missiles from http://missilethreat.com/overview/physics.html

A warhead’s maximum speed just before reentry is a natural consequence of the range of the missile on which it was launched. The longer the range, the higher the missile must climb to reach it. The higher it climbs, the more time it takes for it to fall to the ground. And the longer time it takes, the more time that gravity has to make it go faster. Since gravity accelerates the warhead downward at 10 meters per second per second, and an intercontinental missile may be falling from an altitude of 1200 to 1600 kilometers, it may attain a speed of between 6 and 8 kilometers per second before it hits the atmosphere. For the same reason, a short-range missile like the Iraqi version of the Scud used in the Gulf War of 1991 reaches only heights of some 160 kilometers and hence arrives at a speed of less than 2 km per second.

That's 2 to 8 km per second.

[Dust Raven]

I am curious to find out how all the experienced GM's out there deal with one of the few movement quirks still left in the rules after the advent of the current noncom rules including Megascale.

Question:
How can a speedster of any type (flying or running) built on anything less than 500 points ever hope to actually catch a target moving at what are noncombat speeds for the speedster? (Like Superman chasing the ICBM headed for New Jersey!) HERO rules clearly state that any character moving at noncom has an OCV of 0 that can not be increased by levels or in any other way.

Related Quirk:
Since I can't find any HERO stats for an ICBM let's take a look at something similar: an F-15 from either 5ER or Ultimate Vehicle. It's built with SPD 5 and a base Flight of 35-38" with x8 noncom. Some simple math gives you 38x5/12*4.5=71.25 mph which is probably even low for takeoff and landing speeds. How the heck does a Fighter Pilot ever hit another fighter in a dogfight when travelling at speeds in excess of 400 mph? Obviously, the current HERO rules just don't deal with this arena very well.

Anyway, how do you deal with this type of situation in game? Do you just throw out the book at that point and try to make up a reasonable skill vs. skill mechanic that fits the drama of the story at the time or has anyone given this more serious thought already?

HM

It's in situations like this where the GM must make a common sense ruling. If they two are moving at the same speed (right along the side of each other), you can just use the rules for attacking as if the two were standing still (using combat movememt values instead of non-combat), taking into account the maneuver used and size modifiers for the size of the target. If the character was moving faster than the missile and couldn't slow down to catch and had to run right into it, I'd probably say he's restricted to using Move By, Grab By or Move Through using the difference in velocities as the modifier (using the normal CV for each, modified by size), or make an attack at range with normal, non-combat movement CV.

[prestidigitator]

Well, the way I would handle it is: Superman uses Non-Combat Velocity to get enough ahead of the missle that he can decelerate to Combat Velocity, where he gets his full OCV. Then he intercepts it. Superman likely has the stats or skill to be able to catch that missle at his full OCV, no matter what stats you want to write up for it, and no matter its velocity! This works because the missile has a long way to go. If they are traveling a short distance, Superman might have a problem (that's when he picks up a freight train, moves at Non-Combat, and uses his 0 OCV to--hopefully--hit the hex containing the missile! ).

Besides, are you so sure all that Flight Superman has is bought with a Non-Combat Multiplier?

[prestidigitator]

That's 2 to 8 km per second.

Interesting. The speed of sound is less than a km per second, and at super-sonic speeds, air resistence (which becomes the pile-up of a sonic wave) tends to make maintaining speed require quite a lot of energy, so I would think that warhead is likely to decelerate quite a bit. I don't see anything about actual velocity after entering the atmosphere. It would be interesting to look up (but I'm too lazy).

[Warp9]

I am curious to find out how all the experienced GM's out there deal with one of the few movement quirks still left in the rules after the advent of the current noncom rules including Megascale.

Question:
How can a speedster of any type (flying or running) built on anything less than 500 points ever hope to actually catch a target moving at what are noncombat speeds for the speedster? (Like Superman chasing the ICBM headed for New Jersey!) HERO rules clearly state that any character moving at noncom has an OCV of 0 that can not be increased by levels or in any other way.

IMO this question is only a part of a more basic question: why can't I build a character who can fly at Mach 4 <b>in combat</b>?

I say that flight speed should be made to follow an exponential scale (and I mean even in-combat flight should follow that scale).

Side note: this statement should apply to all forms of motion.

And I just don't buy the argument that "allowing someone to fly around at Mach 4 in combat is just too radical an ability for HERO to support."

[prestidigitator]

IMO this question is only a part of a more basic question: why can't I build a character who can fly at Mach 4 <b>in combat</b>?

I say that flight speed should be made to follow an exponential scale (and I mean even in-combat flight should follow that scale).

Side note: this statement should apply to all forms of motion.

And I just don't buy the argument that "allowing someone to fly around at Mach 4 in combat is just too radical an ability for HERO to support."

Good point. For space combat, I actually forget the Non-Combat Multiplier, and allow ships to fly at any speed. However, their Combat Velocity does represent their acceleration and the maximum (relative!) velocity at which they can attack with full OCV (though thinking about it now, I believe I would adjust it for distance--this was discussed on another thread--which means you could travel at pretty phenominal speeds in space and still attack effectively, since distances are so large; of course, the Range Penalty also needs tweaking, but you know all that).

As for an exponential increase in velocity in general, I don't know. In part I agree, but I think throwing (and leaping, I suppose) make physical sense given the current definition of Strength. I would hate to screw that up by modifying everything else movement-related in Hero. Also with both air resistance and energy going up with the square of velocity (at non-relativistic speeds), I'm not sure exponential growth is warrented. Now, we could throw all realism out the window for the sake of superhero-like scaling (which is fine by me), but in that case we have a whole host of new problems:

• What about Perception? All of a sudden we can travel at phenominal speeds, but we can't see where we're going and no-one can see us coming. [EDIT: I'm not real happy about this one for Non-Combat Movement currently, BTW.]
• What are we going to do about Heroic games?
• If the characters are all moving at phenominal velocity together, great. But how many comic book combats do you see where one guy is standing still and the other is zooming in from orbit to throw a Move By punch and then disappearing again? If we're going for comic book style play, I'm not sure exponential differences in velocity make sense (and we are making the change for the sake of comic book play, right?).
• (Goes on)

A better solution might be to play with the OCV penalty for moving at Non-Combat Velocities. 1/2 OCV? Hmm. Maybe not harsh enough. 1/2 OCV and using Velocity-Based DCV? Maybe...I just don't know.

[Warp9]

Good point. For space combat, I actually forget the Non-Combat Multiplier, and allow ships to fly at any speed. However, their Combat Velocity does represent their acceleration and the maximum (relative!) velocity at which they can attack with full OCV (though thinking about it now, I believe I would adjust it for distance--this was discussed on another thread--which means you could travel at pretty phenominal speeds in space and still attack effectively, since distances are so large; of course, the Range Penalty also needs tweaking, but you know all that).

As for an exponential increase in velocity in general, I don't know. In part I agree, but I think throwing (and leaping, I suppose) make physical sense given the current definition of Strength. I would hate to screw that up by modifying everything else movement-related in Hero. Also with both air resistance and energy going up with the square of velocity (at non-relativistic speeds), I'm not sure exponential growth is warrented.

Just as the Growth power doesn't actually double your height for every 5 points (it doubles your mass), Flight would not double your speed for every 5 points. Instead it would double in impact-energy for every 5 points. Of course, that would mean that it would be X4 energy for every 10 points which would allow you to double your velocity for every 10 points (10 points = X2 Velocity = X4 energy).

And if you use the optional velocity damage chart you'd actually get a +1 DC for 5 points of flight which would match with everything else.

Now, we could throw all realism out the window for the sake of superhero-like scaling (which is fine by me), but in that case we have a whole host of new problems:

I don't play super-heroic games, but I do think that HERO needs to be flexible for all games.

What about Perception? All of a sudden we can travel at phenominal speeds, but we can't see where we're going and no-one can see us coming. [EDIT: I'm not real happy about this one for Non-Combat Movement currently, BTW.]

Dealing with the perception issue: That is an interesting point. But I'm not sure how relevant it is in an effect based system. Generally if you want "spin off effects" (both positive and negative) you create them with limitations, advantages, disadvantages, or other powers.

Sure it makes sense that if I was flying fast enough you couldn't see me coming. However, it also makes sense that a wind based character could use his TK to move himself around, but he'd still have to buy flight. And if a fast flying character wants to move so fast that he can't be seen, then I suggest buying invisibility.

I'm not going to suddenly state that your character can't breath when flying ultra-fast, and I'm not going to state that he can't see where he is going. If you want to achieve those effects, take limitations or disadvantages.

Side note: IMO the whole "can't see where you are going at high speed" issue came about with the advent of "mega-scale." Characters have always been able to go at increadible velocities (flight anyway) in every edition of HERO I've seen, and it was never suggested as a problem before.

What are we going to do about Heroic games?

If the characters are all moving at phenominal velocity together, great. But how many comic book combats do you see where one guy is standing still and the other is zooming in from orbit to throw a Move By punch and then disappearing again? If we're going for comic book style play, I'm not sure exponential differences in velocity make sense (and we are making the change for the sake of comic book play, right?).

Again, I don't play Super-Heroic games, but I do want HERO to be as flexible as possible.

For example, I believe that there is an Invid in Robotech that can move up to mach 3 and has perfect control of its motion, even at that speed (sounds like combat flight to me).

There are places outside of "superoic" games where ultra-high speed in combat might be good to have.

[TheEmerged]

RE: Grabbing the missile. Let's also not forget that the missile, at least built in the HERO system, is either using Megascale or NonCombatant Multipliers -- and may have a DCV penalty too. Further, at least for the missile from Superman, it filled several hexes and therefore was also easier to hit.

[Hyper-Man]

Page 237 of the 5th ed. Hero System book has a Velocity-based DCV table. Note that the surrounding text says that it is relative velocity. It isn't something I would use for character vs. character, but it makes sense to me for a character vs. an object. Technically, if the attacker only "matches speeds"(i.e. is traveling at EXACTLY the same speed as what he is trying to hit) the target gets full DCV, modified by size, while the attacker has a base 0, but if he goes 1" faster, then the target's DCV is 1. This is a rule that clearly needs tweaking but you can go a dozen game sessions and it never comes up, so it's one of those things that you may want to just "tweak" or even make up on the fly.

Assuming that you are already using the Relative Velocity rules the target still gets a minumum of 1/2 DCV if it is aware of the attacker (which the missle in the movie was since they made a point of mentioning that it was outfitted with the newest anti-avoidance navigation technology.)

HM