Can Worldbeaters beat the military?

[Kintara]

I donno, I just think the military is a damn unwieldy God Hammer to me. It's no Mjollnir.

[Chuckg]

Feh, allow the players to save at least a /little/ face. At least give them the consolation of knowing that it took an army to kill them.

[Gary]

Originally posted by Chuckg

Feh, allow the players to save at least a /little/ face. At least give them the consolation of knowing that it took an army to kill them.

 

I still think a bunch of ghosts from the Bestiary is going to wipe out any size military unit sent against them.

[Chuckg]

Although the military isn't /always/ the God Hammer in my games, admitted. Sometimes the major mega-villains go /after/ them.

 

And sometimes, they're both victim /and/ God Hammer on the same day.

 

 

I once ran a one-shot that had the Champions -- this was in 4e -- trying to stop Mechanon. They were at a Navy base for some PR function when, lo and behold, Mechanon arrived going "I'm gonna go hijack those nuclear missiles from that submarine over there."

 

The Marine guard detachment at the docks didn't have any weapons heavier than an M-60 machine gun, so Mechanon walked right through them, going zappity zap zap. Casualties galore. Then our heroes responded, and...

 

... well, Mechanon kicked their ass. A combination of bad tactics and bad die rolls. In short order, only Seeker was left standing, and, well, there wasn't much Seeker could do except to keep Martial Throwing Mechanon so that Mechanon had to waste Half Phases getting back up instead of proceeding on towards the submarine.

 

So I then had to bail them out by saying "Well, at least your great heroism -- especially yours Seeker... has bought enough time for the reinforcements to arrive!"...

 

... specifically, a pair of A-6's out of the nearest naval air station. When what was left of the Marines started shining ground laser designators at him, Mechanon decided that he really didn't want to play "Catch the 2000-lb smart bomb" and left.

 

And so the forces of Good saved the day... even if they needed help. And that's how the military was both victim and God Hammer on the same day.

[Lord Liaden]

Seeker was the last one standing?!?!

 

What reversed parallel universe was this?!

 

[Chuckg]

Seeker was the last one standing because I RP'ed Mechanon as having enough brains to concentrate his first shots on the people who actually /could/ damage him. That plus the fact that Obsidian forgot that Mechanon has enough STR to do a Grab and Throw on him that would send him to the middle of the harbor... (edit, just remembered)

 

And between the fact that Obsidian has always-on Density Increase and no Life Support, Defender had to go save him from drowning. Which left it up to Quantum, Solitaire, and Seeker (Jaguar wasn't there).

 

By the time Defender and Obsidian got back, Quantum and Solitaire weren't standing. And Mechanon blasted Defender out of the sky before he'd finished getting Obsidian safely back to land... so when Obsidian crawled out from the bay, it was just Obsidian and Seeker.

 

And then it was just Seeker.

 

When you're the armor-plated killer robot from Hell, the martial artist is usually the lowest threat priority.

[Gary]

Originally posted by Chuckg

Seeker was the last one standing because I RP'ed Mechanon as having enough brains to concentrate his first shots on the people who actually /could/ damage him. That plus the fact that Obsidian forgot that Mechanon has enough STR to do a Grab and Throw on him that would send him to the middle of the harbor... by the time he was able to get back, the fight was over.

 

When you're the armor-plated killer robot from Hell, the martial artist is usually the lowest threat priority.

 

Didn't 4th edition Mechanon have a killing explosion attack that would've nuked Seeker?

[Chuckg]

Originally posted by Gary

Didn't 4th edition Mechanon have a killing explosion attack that would've nuked Seeker?

 

Yes, and when he used it (edit) the first time, Seeker had to dive for cover... right off the pier and into the water. (Deliberate player's choice... and a smart move, too.) Took him 2 Phases to swim back and climb out. That was the span of time it took him to trash Solitaire and Quantum... as I said, bad die rolls.

[Gary]

Originally posted by Chuckg

Yes, and when he used it, Seeker had to dive for cover... right off the pier and into the water. (Deliberate player's choice... and a smart move, too.) Took him 2 Phases to swim back and climb out. That was the span of time it took him to trash Solitaire and Quantum... as I said, bad die rolls.

 

Ok, I can buy that. It's just that your original post said that Seeker had to "keep Martial Throwing Mechanon so that Mechanon had to waste Half Phases getting back up". This implied that Seeker was able to do it more than once.

[Chuckg]

Actually, he was.

 

The 'dive for cover' happened early on... Seeker really didn't have much of a chance to do anything but distract Mechanon until the other Champions were down, and then he was desperate enough to actually try closing.

 

When Seeker was alone, he Martial Threw Mechanon... and Mechanon got back up and tried to kill Seeker and missed. (Mechanon blew his Enraged.)

 

Next Phase they both have, happens again. This time, Mechanon just fires his Explosion KA...

 

... and Seeker's player has Seeker Dive for Cover behind Mechanon. (Addendum -- IIRC, the player defined it as "waiting until Mechanon levels his arm to fire, forward acrobatic ninja flip over his head just as the beam goes off, down behind". That was *very* in-genre.)

 

Using Mechanon's robotic form as cover from his own Explosion was so cool that i let the player have the point.

 

He managed to martial throw Mechanon one more time, and then I pulled out the save.

[Gary]

Ok, that was cool role playing. I could see rewarding the player for that maneuver.

[Chuckg]

Yeah, the guy playing Seeker that day was the only player I had who knew WTF he was doing. The rest were clueless, and went down like tackle dummies.

[Guest Champsguy]

Originally posted by Chuckg

That's the rules for damaging /walls/.

 

The rules for blowing up planets are on pg. 197 of Star HERO.

 

 

BTW, they calculate that it take around a 51d6 RKA to blow up the Earth with an average damage roll. That's the Death Star's superlaser, not a nuke.

 

Edit -- not to mention the rule that Area of Effect/Explosions on the surface of a planet destroy only the surface of the planet. To blow up a planet, the weapon must either a) have an Area of Effect large enough to encompass most of the planet, or penetrate to the core.

 

But the Earth is just one big, thick wall.

 

I don't have Star Hero. Don't want it. Reading the 5th Edition rule book, I can blow up the Earth with a much smaller attack than that.

 

First, let's take a wall, the thickness of the Earth. That's about 40,000 kilometers (exact math isn't gonna be too important, because the doublings will take care of it). One meter of stone is 11 Body. 2 meters of stone is 13 Body. The Body of the wall goes up by +2 every time you double it. For enough doublings to reach a one kilometer wall, you'd need 8 doublings past 2 meters. That's an additional 16 Body (total Body = 29 + 5 Def). To increase it to 1,000 km is 10 doublings, or +20 Body. That's a total of 49 Body + 5 Def. Now we need enough doublings to reach 40,000 kilometers. 5 doublings gives us about 32,000 km, and 6 doublings gives us about 64,000 km. We'll go for 5 1/2 doublings. So that's +11 Body more. That gives us 60 Body + 5 Def, to blast through a 40,000 kilometer wall made of stone.

 

Now that we're through, we need doublings to increase the size of the hole. So we need 23 (or 24) additional doublings to increase the size of said hole so that it makes a hole the size of the Earth. Each of these doublings, however, only needs +1 Body. So that means we need 84 Body + 5 Def, so 89 total Body to destroy the Earth. 51D6 killing attack be damned, a 90 Body shot will vape the planet.

 

What do you need to make a 90 Body attack? Well, a 25D6 killing attack will do it nicely. Will a 20D6 RKA blow up the Earth? Maybe not, but you'd better not roll well on that thing.

[Chuckg]

> I don't have Star Hero. Don't want it. [snip]

 

Right, so your complaints about how broken the rules are only work if you selectively ignore the rules.

 

*shakes head*

 

Why the hell are you even bothering?

[Guest Champsguy]

Originally posted by Chuckg

> I don't have Star Hero. Don't want it. [snip]

 

Right, so your complaints about how broken the rules are only work if you selectively ignore the rules.

 

*shakes head*

 

Why the hell are you even bothering?

 

Star Hero is a genre book, not a rule book. They do the math for you (often badly). I know how to run a space game. I know how to run a fantasy game. The Hero 5th Edition rule book is the game system. Everything else is setting-specific.

[Gary]

Champsguy, you're just getting silly now. A 21 str man who uses a greataxe and haymakers will do 4d6 HKA. Vs dirt that's 0 def and 10 body per hex, that's 4 excess body per hit, or 16 hexes excavated per shot. And if he rolls pretty well but not extraordinary, he might roll 18 body which means 256 hexes of dirt excavated.

 

Just because you can do really silly things with the game system doesn't mean that you should rest the centerpiece of your argument on it.

[megaplayboy]

Originally posted by Champsguy

But the Earth is just one big, thick wall.

 

I don't have Star Hero. Don't want it. Reading the 5th Edition rule book, I can blow up the Earth with a much smaller attack than that.

 

First, let's take a wall, the thickness of the Earth. That's about 40,000 kilometers (exact math isn't gonna be too important, because the doublings will take care of it). One meter of stone is 11 Body. 2 meters of stone is 13 Body. The Body of the wall goes up by +2 every time you double it. For enough doublings to reach a one kilometer wall, you'd need 8 doublings past 2 meters. That's an additional 16 Body (total Body = 29 + 5 Def). To increase it to 1,000 km is 10 doublings, or +20 Body. That's a total of 49 Body + 5 Def. Now we need enough doublings to reach 40,000 kilometers. 5 doublings gives us about 32,000 km, and 6 doublings gives us about 64,000 km. We'll go for 5 1/2 doublings. So that's +11 Body more. That gives us 60 Body + 5 Def, to blast through a 40,000 kilometer wall made of stone.

 

Now that we're through, we need doublings to increase the size of the hole. So we need 23 (or 24) additional doublings to increase the size of said hole so that it makes a hole the size of the Earth. Each of these doublings, however, only needs +1 Body. So that means we need 84 Body + 5 Def, so 89 total Body to destroy the Earth. 51D6 killing attack be damned, a 90 Body shot will vape the planet.

 

What do you need to make a 90 Body attack? Well, a 25D6 killing attack will do it nicely. Will a 20D6 RKA blow up the Earth? Maybe not, but you'd better not roll well on that thing.

 

Nooo, you will reduce the Earth to rubble, but to vaporize an object, generally speaking, you have to do double its BODY.

[Lord Liaden]

Originally posted by Gary

Champsguy, you're just getting silly now. A 21 str man who uses a greataxe and haymakers will do 4d6 HKA. Vs dirt that's 0 def and 10 body per hex, that's 4 excess body per hit, or 16 hexes excavated per shot. And if he rolls pretty well but not extraordinary, he might roll 18 body which means 256 hexes of dirt excavated.

 

Just because you can do really silly things with the game system doesn't mean that you should rest the centerpiece of your argument on it.

 

Hey, son, you're talking to the Munchkin King. Twisting the rules to get the most for the least is a creative challenge for him.

[Guest Champsguy]

Originally posted by megaplayboy

Nooo, you will reduce the Earth to rubble, but to vaporize an object, generally speaking, you have to do double its BODY.

 

Nope, 'cause I'm not destroying it. I'm blowing an Earth-sized hole in it.

[Chuckg]

> Star Hero is a genre book, not a rule book. They do the

> math for you (often badly). I know how to run a space

> game. I know how to run a fantasy game.

 

You know how to completely deliberately avoid any semblance of common sense or game balance whatsoever, and then you know how to blame the game designer for your own aberrations.

 

IOW, you don't know anything useful.

[Guest Champsguy]

Originally posted by Gary

Champsguy, you're just getting silly now. A 21 str man who uses a greataxe and haymakers will do 4d6 HKA. Vs dirt that's 0 def and 10 body per hex, that's 4 excess body per hit, or 16 hexes excavated per shot. And if he rolls pretty well but not extraordinary, he might roll 18 body which means 256 hexes of dirt excavated.

 

Just because you can do really silly things with the game system doesn't mean that you should rest the centerpiece of your argument on it.

 

Well, making dirt 10 Body per hex was a retarded move by somebody. In 4th Edition, it was 16 Body per hex. That's much more difficult to get the same kind of results. But as I said, there are lots of dumb things in 5th Edition. One is the writeups for military weaponry.

 

And by the way, that math I just did isn't new. That particular bit of reasoning has been on the board for years, and was once considered the most accurate way to blow up the planet. Of course, that was back before 5th Edition. I'm not sure how many old posters remember those discussions. Sadly, it seems that every single topic on this board (with the exception of Seeker vs Nighthawk) is just a re-hash of old stuff.

[megaplayboy]

Originally posted by Champsguy

Nope, 'cause I'm not destroying it. I'm blowing an Earth-sized hole in it.

 

which is exactly what they say in Star Hero--Except you have to attack the whole area of the planet. Your RKA will never be an area effect attack--it will blow a big hole, but it's not going to work the way you say it will. Otherwise, we'd have all kinds of problems, like being able to target the Earth with a 4d6 RKA and blow it up in a few minutes.(well, I got more body through the "Earth wall" , just a dozen more blasts and it's all gone)

[Gary]

Originally posted by Champsguy

Well, making dirt 10 Body per hex was a retarded move by somebody. In 4th Edition, it was 16 Body per hex. That's much more difficult to get the same kind of results. But as I said, there are lots of dumb things in 5th Edition. One is the writeups for military weaponry.

 

And by the way, that math I just did isn't new. That particular bit of reasoning has been on the board for years, and was once considered the most accurate way to blow up the planet. Of course, that was back before 5th Edition. I'm not sure how many old posters remember those discussions. Sadly, it seems that every single topic on this board (with the exception of Seeker vs Nighthawk) is just a re-hash of old stuff.

 

You can use the same reasoning with a brick wall (5 def 3 body). A bodybuilder with a greataxe haymakering would do 6 excess body or 64 hexes worth of brick wall taken out on average per hit. An above average roll might be 1024 hexes. I don't think it's too likely that a man with an axe can take out entire apartment complexes per hit.

 

Examples such as this is why we have the Real Weapon limitation, and why a DU shell isn't going to take out an entire building, or a greataxe take out an apartment complex per hit.

[Guest Champsguy]

Originally posted by Chuckg

> Star Hero is a genre book, not a rule book. They do the

> math for you (often badly). I know how to run a space

> game. I know how to run a fantasy game.

 

You know how to completely deliberately avoid any semblance of common sense or game balance whatsoever, and then you know how to blame the game designer for your own aberrations.

 

IOW, you don't know anything useful.

 

This is the same game designer who doesn't follow his own rules when constructing characters in official supplements. Before you jump down my throat again, I ask you to answer me a small question. What does Dr Destroyer's Lack of Weakness apply to? Is it his normal PD? Is it his resistant PD? His special defenses? Look at the rules for Lack of Weakness and then look at Destroyer's writeup. Look at anybody's writeup. I'd really like to know your thoughts.

 

Common sense? Game balance? A 20D6 RKA nuclear weapon isn't game balanced. At least its better than his 4th Edition writeup for a nuke. I know what nukes do when the blow up (two of my best friends shoot those suckers off/work on them for the Navy). I know that their writeup doesn't simulate that. Just because I followed the math that he provided and got an answer that doesn't jibe with what's in Star Hero doesn't make me aberrant. It means that he doesn't follow his own rules.

[Guest Champsguy]

Originally posted by megaplayboy

which is exactly what they say in Star Hero--Except you have to attack the whole area of the planet. Your RKA will never be an area effect attack--it will blow a big hole, but it's not going to work the way you say it will. Otherwise, we'd have all kinds of problems, like being able to target the Earth with a 4d6 RKA and blow it up in a few minutes.(well, I got more body through the "Earth wall" , just a dozen more blasts and it's all gone)

 

Nuh-uh. A 4D6 RKA won't do diddly. Doing 90 Body to the Earth isn't a big deal. You've got to do 90 Body in one shot. One single attack has to do that much damage. Not autofire, not rapid-fire. One big attack.

 

If you shoot a hundred 4D6 RKAs at the Earth, then you'll have 100 less than hex-sized holes. Yes, that'll make life tough for everyone in that neighborhood, but it won't blow up the planet. Even a 10D6 RKA will just do 35 Body on average. That'll blow up a neighborhood real good, but won't do anywhere near Earth-level damage.