Running through walls

[Crusher Bob]

I was thinking about how to make a character that can 'bulldoze' through the scenery when they move and wondering about the different ways to implement it.

 

Option 1

I believe you can exert your casual str (half your str score) in the course of your normal turn without action or penalty.

 

So, for example, a hero with 60 str would have 30 casual str, and thus isn't really impeded by entangles that have Body + PD of 6 or less, and can easily 'bulldoze' through walls that have (body + PD) of 6 or less.

 

But what about a hero that wants to be able to walk through tougher stuff?

 

Option 2 Perform a move through attack on the wall.

 

This will generally work, but I think you are limited to going through one wall per action?

This does have the advantage of you being able to smash through  walls with any of your forms of movement, for example, jumping or flying.

 

Option 3: Tunneling, usable as running (or leaping, or flight, etc)

 

As far as I know, you have to actually be tunneling through stuff to use tunneling to move, so if you wanted to run on the surface and only use the 'tunneling' to move through some walls in the way, you need to buy it as usable as another form of movement too.

 

This has the odd effect of you being able to plow through several walls, but if there are any people between those walls, you'd have to stop, since you can't tunnel through people.  Or you could try a move through attack on the guy who is suddenly in your way.  But you didn't see him, since he was behind the wall.  I guess the GM can let you just declare a move through attack the moment you run into your first victim. 

 

Option 4. AOE Line attack with linked movement effect

 

You buy an attack with AOE line, no range, and a linked movement effect (teleportation?) that moves you to the end of the line.  This lets you (theoretically) blast through several walls and people and end up and the end of the blast zone.

 

Is teleportation the right effect?  You do technically pass through the space, so if you happened to move through Dr. Lightning's electrical arc, you should suffer the effects.  But using running or flying that's just limited to moving you to end end of the AOE line seems a bit odd.

 

The problem here is that the DC appropriate for an attack may not be enough to get through the scenery.  Isn't tough scenery around PD 15-18?  While standard superhero damage DC is around 10-12, so you might be stopped by the first tough wall you face.

 

Anyone else have any ideas?

[dmjalund]

+STR only for figuring casual STR?

[worldshaking00]

I usually just buy the Brick Trick as Tunnelling, with PD of the wall being somewhere between the character's casual STR and full STR damage classes (e.g. 60 STR normally -> 30 STR casual = 6 DCs so 6 PD [and adjust as much as needed by my GM]).

 

It is an interesting predicament though, about doing the damaging attack if you are smashing through the walls and bulldoze over another (especially while you are blind to the fact of others in the way). The AOE option sounds reasonable to me, as this would drop your dice of damage for the bulldoze down to be more on par with a Move By (saying your GM has a rule of X on damage classes and AOE advantage counts towards DC cap).

 

Now if your special effect of the bulldoze attack was smashing the rubble onto the target rather than just moving over him, a Naked Advantage: Indirect (+1/4: attack originate just outside of the frontal reach of the character) on your DCs of the attack with a limitation of only being usable to simulate tunnelling debris [and thus you'd have to have enough actual tunnelling to complete your movement seeing daylight] might work. Or a triggered AOE: 2 m radius Blast whenever you explode out of the wall like the Kool-aid man.

 

(Oh yeah.)

[Lucius]

Bulldozing: (Total: 34 Active Cost, 11 Real Cost) Tunneling 3m through 10 PD material, Trigger (Activating the Trigger is an Action that takes no time, Trigger resets automatically, immediately after it activates, Character does not control activation of personal Trigger, Misfire; +1/2) (34 Active Points); Side Effects (Side Effect always occurs whenever the character does some specific act, Side Effect affects both character and environment; If hits PD 12+, or another character, roll as Move Through; -1/2), Conditional Power Must be making a Full Move (Tunnelling distance counts off the movement being used; -1/2), Leaves A Trail (-1/4), no Noncombat movement (-1/4), Turn Mode (-1/4), Limited Power No up or down move: only within 45 degrees of horizontal (-1/4) (Real Cost: 11)

 

Trigger: The Tunneling activates when the character, making a Full Move, runs into a non-character obstacle (i.e. wall.)The Trigger resets instantly so you could burst through several barriers in a single move, but the END cost of 3 applies each time (I imagine even the Kool Aid Man would get tired after breaking down several walls in rapid succession.)

Misfire: Hard to tell where you're going when plowing through stuff; might not come out on other side exactly where intended.

 

Side Effect: Take Move Through damage (and DO Move through damage) if running into an unexpected character or into something with a high enough PD to stop the blind charge.

 

Conditional: This Power doesn't let the character run FARTHER. Every meter of solid mass plowed through is at least a meter of Running (or whatever) expended. Can only be used with Full Moves.

 

Limited: I was envisioning using this with Running, so made it horizontal only. If you want a character who can jump straight up and bust through several ceilings to reach a higher floor, get rid of this Limitation.

 

 

edit: if you just want male cattle to take a nap, try

Bull Dozing: (Total: 107 Active Cost, 36 Real Cost) Drain STUN 3d6+1 (standard effect: 10 points), Damage Over Time, Lock out (cannot be applied multiple times) (5-6 damage increments, damage occurs every Minute, +1), Delayed Return Rate (points return at the rate of 5 per 5 Minutes; +1 1/4) (107 Active Points); Limited Power Only on male bovines (-2) (Real Cost: 36)

 

 

 

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary wants know how to buy a "throw someone through the wall" trick.

[Lucius]

+STR only for figuring casual STR?

Might be simplest solution.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Casual palindromedary

[Grailknight]

New combat option, Multiple Move Through.

[Doc Democracy]

I am attracted by the simplicity of the +STR, only for casual STR.

 

My question is, do you envisage him being able to crash through any and every wall? Or do you see a limit? And you see him as smashing through barriers, leaving holes behind him?

 

I see no problem with folk in the way, I would allow you to pass through hexes with non-combatants in them. If you WANT to damage those people then you are indeed talking move-through.

 

 

Doc

[Christopher]

Option1:

Defintely. Also consider that most wall and object durability from 6E2 appear aimed towards a heroic game. Non-renforced walls should be easily broken by a brick(ette).

 

Option 3:

Tunnelng has been used to model "can breakt through walls" brick powers. However keep in mind that you might also need UBO as it will not usually leave a tunnel to be used by others.

 

Option 4:

Another variant would be damage shield.

 

Overall I prefer Option 1 the most. Bricks cannot just blaze through walls if they were designed to hold them off/slow them down. Against those they might need full strenght and actuall actions.

[Scott Baker]

Option 3:

Tunnelng has been used to model "can breakt through walls" brick powers. However keep in mind that you might also need UBO as it will not usually leave a tunnel to be used by others.

 

Tunneling does leave a hole that can be used. The Fill In adder (6E1 310) allows you to fill in behind you.

[Crusher Bob]

I am attracted by the simplicity of the +STR, only for casual STR.

 

My question is, do you envisage him being able to crash through any and every wall? Or do you see a limit? And you see him as smashing through barriers, leaving holes behind him?

 

I see no problem with folk in the way, I would allow you to pass through hexes with non-combatants in them. If you WANT to damage those people then you are indeed talking move-through.

 

 

Doc

 

Looking at some of the stuff in the rule book:

 

 

                PD  Body
Brick Wall       5   3  
Concrete Wall    6   5
Telephone Pole   5   5
Metal Fire door  5   5
Medium Tree      5   8

Vault Door      16  24

Stone Wall 500m 5-6  9

 

It's not the breaking of bank vault doors that I was interested in, but more being able to blast through the walls of all the buildings downtown when there was a fight there.  That seems to require something around DC 10 to DC 15 to go through the not specifically armored scenery.

 

So our causal dozer, able the run straight through a residential area looks something like:

 

Str 60

 

+40 str (Only for figuring casual STR -2?) (40 active points, 13 real points)

 

That gives him a casual STR of 50, but he would probably still have trouble blasting through the heavier construction of the skyscrapers down town.

 

Downtown casual dozer would have to be something like

 

Str 75

 

+75 str (Only for figuring casual STR -2?) (75 active points, 25 real points)

 

This gives downtown dozer DC 15 casual str, enough to go through 500mm of stone and concrete easily.

 

This lets downtown dozer just walk through heavier skyscaper walls, but he's stopped by things like support pillars and vault doors just fine.

 

This does make casual dozers interact with entangles slightly oddly, they don't may not need to even take an action to break out of them.

 

--------------------

 

Tunneling dozer seems to only need to be able to tunnel through DC 6 or so things, and a meter or less of tunneling at the time.

 

--------------------

 

AOE line dozer at DC 10 or 12 works fine in the suburbs, but the downtown version is now throwing a DC 15 AOE effect, which is pretty bad news for regular heroes.  Of course, casual downtown dozer has 75 STR, so he also throws around DC 15 punches, but at least it's limited by his reach and OCV.

[Greywind]

...but half of 60 STR is 55 STR...

[bigbywolfe]

Half of 60 STR lifting capacity is 55.  Half of 60 STR damage or grab or escape ability is 30.  Since we use Damage to, you know, break things, why bring up lifting ability at all?

[Greywind]

Nah, it's just one of those stupid things in the system when half is defined two different ways.

[bigbywolfe]

I've never seen anyone refer to -5 STR as half Str.

 

Every +5 STR doubles your lifting capacity, but no where in the rules is 1/2 STR defined as -5 STR, so there is really no confusion about what was meant.

 

As far as it being a "stupid thing" in the system, Hero is FAR from the only system to have lifting ability raise exponentially instead of linearly.

[Greywind]

I've run into it with players before, which is why i even said anything about it.

[Christopher]

Looking at some of the stuff in the rule book:

                PD  Body
Brick Wall       5   3  
Concrete Wall    6   5
Telephone Pole   5   5
Metal Fire door  5   5
Medium Tree      5   8

Vault Door      16  24

Stone Wall 500m 5-6  9

It's not the breaking of bank vault doors that I was interested in, but more being able to blast through the walls of all the buildings downtown when there was a fight there.  That seems to require something around DC 10 to DC 15 to go through the not specifically armored scenery.

You need to understand one thing:

The Durability values in 6E2 appear to be made for HEROIC games. Where weapons (and thus by extension attacks) don't cost points and have no real AP caps.

You can't use the example weapons in Superheroic games without running into issues. Same is true for the Walls.

 

So your mistake was using a table that is setting specific for a setting it was never intended for.

 

 

In superheroic worlds walls are as tough or fragile as you need them to be/you need them to be for the story.

You need your local superman to be able to survive a point blank nuke? Define the nuke as something around a 20-30d6 Normal Damage Megascaled AoE.

You want 60 STR bricks to go through normal walls with casual STR? Declare normal walls to have 6 or less PD+Body.

[Doc Democracy]

Even were you correct Christopher, it is hardly Bob's fault that he was using a chart in a universal system...

 

:-)

 

I am content to use both weapons and environment information as detailed.  I then use those as the scales against which I build superheroes - that makes more sense to me than constantly changing the values of walls and weapons...

 

Doc

[bigbywolfe]

You need to understand one thing:

The Durability values in 6E2 appear to be made for HEROIC games. Where weapons (and thus by extension attacks) don't cost points and have no real AP caps.

You can't use the example weapons in Superheroic games without running into issues. Same is true for walls.

 

You keep telling new people this like it's an obvious fact, yet many of us use those values in Super Hero games all the time with no problem.

[Lucius]

You need to understand one thing:

The Durability values in 6E2 appear to be made for HEROIC games.

They do? What makes you think so?

 

Even were you correct Christopher, it is hardly Bob's fault that he was using a chart in a universal system...

 

:-)

 

I am content to use both weapons and environment information as detailed.  I then use those as the scales against which I build superheroes - that makes more sense to me than constantly changing the values of walls and weapons...

 

Doc

 

If it were the intention that such values were to differ between superheroic and heroic games, I think the book might have mentioned that and perhaps had separate charts.

 

You keep telling new people this like it's an obvious fact, yet many of us use those values in Super Hero games all the time with no problem.

If anything I see more complaints that "modern day" weapons and equipment and so forth in Hero are "inflated" so as to stack up against superbeings - in my opinion a mistake, one shouldn't beef up a tank so as to take out a superhero, superheroes are SUPPOSED to be able to take on tanks and win.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

On the other hand, I keep mentioning the palindromedary as if it were an obvious thing

[Scott Baker]

You need to understand one thing:

The Durability values in 6E2 appear to be made for HEROIC games. Where weapons (and thus by extension attacks) don't cost points and have no real AP caps.

You can't use the example weapons in Superheroic games without running into issues. Same is true for the Walls.

 

So your mistake was using a table that is setting specific for a setting it was never intended for.

Lets look back to Champions 1E. There was no Heroic level then. There were no free weapons.

 

Brick Wall - 8 BODY (they didn't have PD and BODY back then)

Reinforced Concrete (similar to the concrete wall) - 10 BODY (with a note that very heavy objects may have more BODY)

Bank Vault - 16 BODY (much less than the vault door listed above)

 

So, while there's some variation (and additional items listed in the newer rules), the basic numbers really did come from a Superheroic level.

 

By the way, Home Interior Wall - 5 BODY; Home Exterior Wall - 6 BODY; fairly easy to smash even in 1E.

[Lucius]

Lets look back to Champions 1E. There was no Heroic level then. There were no free weapons.

 

Brick Wall - 8 BODY (they didn't have PD and BODY back then)

Reinforced Concrete (similar to the concrete wall) - 10 BODY (with a note that very heavy objects may have more BODY)

Bank Vault - 16 BODY (much less than the vault door listed above)

 

So, while there's some variation (and additional items listed in the newer rules), the basic numbers really did come from a Superheroic level.

 

By the way, Home Interior Wall - 5 BODY; Home Exterior Wall - 6 BODY; fairly easy to smash even in 1E.

 

I THOUGHT I remembered it that way, but didn't want to go to the trouble of digging out the old book.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Assuming the palindromedary hadn't found and eaten it

[Scott Baker]

2E expanded the list greatly and gave some other variations of the numbers for some materials. Of course that was still prior to any branching off into the "heroic" level genres.

[Christopher]

You keep telling new people this like it's an obvious fact, yet many of us use those values in Super Hero games all the time with no problem.

How often have you actually bothered with wall durability and often did you just said "you can casual through" without even looking it up?

Or do all bricks in your setting buy proper tunneling?

Wich values are you using for out building walls? Bank vault walls & doors? Inner building walls?

 

When you have adapted to an issue, it usually turns into "not a problem". But not everyone knows your adaptions and it is still an issue and it easy to asume "everybody does it like me".

 

 

And this is a know issue with these values for superheroic games, as 6E2 170 explicitly mentions in "TOOlKITTING: MAKING

OBJECTS MORE FRAGIlE" (sic).

If you want the mundane world to be made out of cardbord, you just define the mundane world to be made out of cardboard.

[bigbywolfe]

How often have you actually bothered with wall durability and often did you just said "you can casual through" without even looking it up?

Or do all bricks in your setting buy proper tunneling?

Wich values are you using for out building walls? Bank vault walls & doors? Inner building walls?

 

When you have adapted to an issue, it usually turns into "not a problem". But not everyone knows your adaptions and it is still an issue and it easy to asume "everybody does it like me".

 

 

And this is a know issue with these values for superheroic games, as 6E2 170 explicitly mentions in "TOOlKITTING: MAKING

OBJECTS MORE FRAGIlE" (sic).

If you want the mundane world to be made out of cardbord, you just define the mundane world to be made out of cardboard.

And then all the mundane people can punch and kick through it too.  Great solution.  Now a handgun can punch through a tank, weee!

 

Point is, it is one option, but it isn't THE ONLY OPTION which you keep presenting it as.  Plus you keep justifying your advice with the blatant lie that the defensive values for objects were meant for Heroic level games even though the values were similar in early editions of Champions before is was a generic system that including Heroic level games at all.  You want to offer advice with how you do it?  Awesome, do that.  But stop presenting your advice as the "right way" to deal with a "problem" many of us don't have and stop supporting it with facts you made up.

[Christopher]

And then all the mundane people can punch and kick through it too.  Great solution.  Now a handgun can punch through a tank, weee!

How about you actually read 6E2 170 and then comment on it? Because that answer makes no sense if you did.

 

Plus you keep justifying your advice with the blatant lie that the defensive values for objects were meant for Heroic level games even though the values were similar in early editions of Champions before is was a generic system that including Heroic level games at all.

Defense values without the offense values are pointless. You avoided strictly pointng out that damage ranges were the same in 1E. Wich is odd as it would have totally shut me up.

For me the logical conclusions is that you know it would invalidate your entire argument. If I am wrong, please give me the data that invalidates my points.

If I am right: What are you arguing about exaclty?