Crashing Through Plate Glass

[Steve]

I'm having a little trouble finding anything on this, so help is appreciated. It's a scene we've all seen in countless movies and TV shows: a character falls, jumps or is thrown through plate glass.

 

How would you handle breaking through plate glass? Would they have a chance to take any damage? Is this discussed somewhere in the rules?

[Cantriped]

When they do it on TV, they use sugar-glass IIRC, and the chances of the character being harmed are slim to none. When I've seen it illustrated in more realistic mediums, the chances of injury as a result of being thrown through glass are actually fairly high.

 

Mechanically the rules would treat being thrown through plate glass they same way it treats being thrown through any other kind of "wall"/barrier. The wall in this case just happens to be transparent and would typically have a much lower BODY score than other walls (although it may still have a reasonable amount of PD). So you would take Normal Damage based on your velocity and the PD+BODY of the plate glass, if you want to make it more deadly (because glass tends to shatter into sharp edges unless specifically designed not to for example), have it cause an equal number of DCs of Killing Damage instead.

[Christopher R Taylor]

It depends on the genre and setting.  In real life if you crash through plate glass, you will get slashed by a hundred shards of glass and possibly end up with some impaling you.  That's going to be real killing damage.

 

But if you're doing it like countless movies where people blast through a window without harm (Beverly Hills Cop, for instance) then its just a humorous event

[Diamond Spear]

When I was six I ran through a sliding glass door at my house. The door shattered into pieces but the sum total of my injuries was a slightly scratched left knee. Now it's possible I just rolled six 6s on my luck dice but that was my experience. It did scare my silly, so there's that.

[Manic Typist]

Put my arm through a glass storm door as a child. 

 

I had about two seconds to see the yellow fat in my arm before the blood came welling up and pouring down everywhere.

 

Big scars.

 

 

You rolled six 6s, friend.

[Cantriped]

*urp... gulp* That was an unpleasant mental image.

[DasBroot]

Accurate, though. Saw the aftermath of nearly the exact same thing in junior high - a guy took a swing at another guy in a fight.  The second guy ducked out of the way and the first guy put his entire arm through a window.  He even ended up with a few cuts on his head pulling himself back through what was left of the window reflexively. His arm was absolutely shredded  even through his jean jacket.

 

I didn't see the punch myself - which I can't complain about - but I heard it and by the time I'd gotten to the hall there were half a dozen guys with their t-shirts off and a pair of teachers applying pressure with everything they had.  The guys scars afterwards were insane.

 

The rules exist for hitting 'spikes' or something on a barrier (like mentioned just convert the damage you would take to killing at the normal rate)... that said: 

 

Glass is serious business.  More serious than its body/pd would indicate by the rules.  I wouldn't treat it as just a barrier, per se - I'd treat it like a trap or damage shield (1d6 killing attack, triggered via movement through the barrier).

[dsatow]

If I were going to do it, treat the breaking glass as an Autofire accurate 1/2d6 RKA with an OCV 3+any unluck rolled.

 

Having said that, I probably wouldn't do it as I've found players and GMs generally would rather run cinematic than realistic.

[Cantriped]

Converting the DCs to Killing alone makes it potentially far more dangerous when you consider that most Normals (like us) don't have any Resistant Defenses. However, if you want to go just a step further you could simply give the effect a few extra DCs, or even double the number of DCs per point of BODY/rPD; such that even a weak pane of glass with 0 BODY & 1 rPD can deal 2 DCs of Killing Damage if you are thrown through it.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Even a little bit of armor will protect you from glass, though, unless its directly stabbing point first into you.  The slashing effect can be pretty well blocked by decent leather armor, let alone anything heavier.  So I wouldn't bump up the damage too much, its just going to slash you up badly without any resistant PD  This may be a good place for reduced penetration; awful on no defenses, not much to some defenses.

[Steve]

If a PC has one level of Combat Luck, I could see them ignoring glass damage. If crashing through glass were set at 1 or 2 DC of Killing damage, Combat Luck would easily soak it, leaving only cosmetic injuries. And if it went up to 3 DC but was Reduced Penetration, that would also work.

[Cantriped]

I suppose that would depend on how much PD your are giving this particular pane of glass. CC doesn't have an entry for the durability of glass, so I would hazard a guess of 3 or 4 PD (and 0 BODY in most cases), just high enough that a wimpy guy can break it with a Haymaker or some velocity. That's enough to do 1d6 (or 1d6+1) Killling even if all we do is convert it to Killing; which is enough damage to pretty seriously mess up a guy with only 8 BODY, but not so much you can't survive it, or negate most of it with some Combat Luck or Medium Armor (at least Brigandine or better).

[Steve]

I just came across a video on YouTube of the world record for running through consecutive sheets of tempered glass (15 of them). The guy was wearing American football gear, and he didn't seem at all hurt by the experience. I'll have to check what football gear gives for PD.

[Tasha]

I suppose that would depend on how much PD your are giving this particular pane of glass. CC doesn't have an entry for the durability of glass, so I would hazard a guess of 3 or 4 PD (and 0 BODY in most cases), just high enough that a wimpy guy can break it with a Haymaker or some velocity. That's enough to do 1d6 (or 1d6+1) Killling even if all we do is convert it to Killing; which is enough damage to pretty seriously mess up a guy with only 8 BODY, but not so much you can't survive it, or negate most of it with some Combat Luck or Medium Armor (at least Brigandine or better).

It has to have a minimum of 1 body to not be broken. I would say that normal window glass in a house is probably ranges from 0-2 def depending on how thick it is. Armored glass like on Glass doors probably have 4 or more def. Glass on skyscrapers are even tougher than that, so if a clumsy exec trips and falls against the glass it won't shatter perhaps def 6-8. Hurricane Glass is stronger still and won't shatter when you drive a 4x4 wood beam into it. That's is probably def 6-8 with 3-4 body.

 

There are also different kinds of glass that break in different ways. Safety Glass ie in Car Side and rear windows, just shatters into a bajillion little glass balls which you would have to be extremely unlucky to be harmed by it shattering. It's designed that way. I personally have been showered with the stuff with zero ill effects .Windshields are different with 1 def and 4 or more body. Because the glass is stuck to plastic that traps the glass shards well when hit.

 

BTW people also use Acrylic plastic as windows and that has different properties. Probably good PD and more body than the glass.

 

So the answers are complicated.

[Cantriped]

It has to have a minimum of 1 body to not be broken.

No it doesn't. Not only can barriers have less than 1 BODY and still survive attacks (assuming they've the Def to soak the damage), but Stone less than 16mm thick and Wood less than 4mm thick has no BODY according to CC 142.

 

But the rest of your points are completely accurate. Plastic still has at least 1 BODY all the way down to 4mm thick. So Windshields should probably have a couple BODY and a decent rPD, since they almost always take a significant beating before failing entirely; and obviously Safety Glass shouldn't be causing Killing Damage because it doesn't break off into knife-like shards like some types of glass do.

[Tasha]

No it doesn't. Not only can barriers have less than 1 BODY and still survive attacks (assuming they've the Def to soak the damage), but Stone less than 16mm thick and Wood less than 4mm thick has no BODY according to CC 142.

 

But the rest of your points are completely accurate. Plastic still has at least 1 BODY all the way down to 4mm thick. So Windshields should probably have a couple BODY and a decent rPD, since they almost always take a significant beating before failing entirely; and obviously Safety Glass shouldn't be causing Killing Damage because it doesn't break off into knife-like shards like some types of glass do.

The tables in CC are incomplete. From 6e2 pg 171

Material or Object     PD     ED     BODY

Glass                       (1)      (1)         1

Glass, reinforced     (2)      (2)         1

Defense in (parentheses) is Normal Defense (i.e., it doesn’t apply against Killing Damage).

---

Clearly Glass has at least 1 body.

0 body = broken. Double base body = destroyed.

---

[6e2 pg 171]

"Broken Machinery

An object that takes more damage than it has

BODY is broken.

----

The text on Zero characteristics and Negative characteristics used to be better IMHO.

[Cantriped]

Not all objects have positive BODY scores. Extremely thin stone and wood walls for example, and Barriers intended to represent 5th edition Force Walls as another example.

What matters is how much Damage the object has taken, not how much it had to start with; which is why a Barrier with 0 BODY doesn't just poof immediately. However, even 1 point of BODY damage exceeds Double the Base BODY of an object with 0 BODY, destroying it (that section) of the Barrier or Wall entirely.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Yeah I can see (and have designed) very thin, weak things with 0 body.  I treat the collapse and holes torn through as damage dealt, and the 0 body just meaning something utterly fragile that the slightest damage destroys.

[dsatow]

Yeah I can see (and have designed) very thin, weak things with 0 body.  I treat the collapse and holes torn through as damage dealt, and the 0 body just meaning something utterly fragile that the slightest damage destroys.

 

Personally, I would see those things as 1 Body and No Defense.  Semantics but there are several minor things in HERO I disagree with.  This one, to me, I think everything should have 1 BODY if it is supposed to be independent of a character or outside force.  Thus light fluffy snow, for example, can have Body and no defense.

[Steve]

The tables in CC are incomplete. From 6e2 pg 171

Material or Object     PD     ED     BODY

Glass                       (1)      (1)         1

Glass, reinforced     (2)      (2)         1

Defense in (parentheses) is Normal Defense (i.e., it doesn’t apply against Killing Damage).

 

Since glass isn't Resistant, I'd be okay with adding the PD and BODY to get 2DC Killing and then making it Reduced Penetration, and then use 3DC Killing for Reinforced Glass, also with Reduced Penetration. Against someone with zero Resistant defense, that would be dangerous, but even one level of Combat Luck would let an otherwise unarmored hero crash through without taking any serious damage.

 

In the case of something like bulletproof glass that has Resistant PD/ED, perhaps the Reduced Penetration could be removed.

[Cantriped]

Personally, I would see those things as 1 Body and No Defense.  Semantics but there are several minor things in HERO I disagree with.  This one, to me, I think everything should have 1 BODY if it is supposed to be independent of a character or outside force.  Thus light fluffy snow, for example, can have Body and no defense.

The reason for objects to be able to have 0 BODY is that an object with even 1 Point of BODY requires a minimum of 2 points of BODY Damage to completely destroy. Having 0 BODY & DEF is the only way to represent objects which can be completely destroyed by a single point of BODY Damage.

I think there was a desire to make sure the rules for Barrier interacted consistently with the rules for objects. Per CC/FHC it is entirely legal to create a lingering Barrier with 0 BODY and no Defenses, some BODY but no Defenses, or 0 BODY and some Defenses (aka Force Wall). As such it stands to reason there should also be rules for objects and obstacles with similar levels of soap-bubble durability (such as rice-paper walls).

[Tasha]

I think that it's you misinterpreting the chart. 6e2's chart shows everything having at least 1 body.

You should ask Steve about what is right, your interpretation or what he wrote in the only version of the rulebook he will answer questions about.

[Cantriped]

See the Object Body Table (6E2 172). Any Nonliving object weighing 800g of less is explicitly listed as having 0 BODY, as does any Complex Object weighing 3.2kg or less. That at least proves that objects were indeed intended to be able to have 0 BODY in 6th edition.

As far as walls are concerned, I'm pretty sure the "---" entries on the Wall Table (of the same page) are intended to convey the same information (although why said tables don't just list a numeric value is confusing). However if it'll make you feel better, feel free to post said question to Steve for your own purposes. As you say, he doesn't answer questions regarding my primary rules reference, so his answers are unlikely to be as relevant to me as they are to you anyway.

[Ninja-Bear]

Can the glass (regular) have fragile from focus put on it?

 

I was surprised myself when I saw at base level that barrier is 0 Body.

[IndianaJoe3]

I was surprised myself when I saw at base level that barrier is 0 Body.

 

I was too. I actually asked Steve if it was a typo. Nope.