Hurting yourself

[Ken Solo]

Is there, or has there ever been a rule in the HERO System about causing yourself damage when you Strike something and do not excede that somethings DEF at all?

The example is a normal punching a brick wall as hard as he can; he does not do enough BODY to harm the brick wall at all, and in the process, he shatters his hand. (ouch!)

This has come up in my game a few times, and most of the older players (people who learned the game elsewhere and only started playing in my game in college) recall the rule, but when a newer guy asked me to show it, I can't find it in 5th ed. OR 4th ed. rules.

Is this just a common house rule?

 

By the way: My use of it is: If the attacker fails to do any damage (including stun if the target has a STUN stat) or knockback, he suffers 1/2 of his damage roll applied to his own defenses.

[Bill_CCHKK]

Re: Hurting yourself

 

I think it needs to depend on the genre. Assuming Champions, no, I would not make a superhero roll to determine if they had broken their hand. It's just not part of the genre.

 

I don't recall this as a rule.

[Tom McCarthy]

I think you need to go back to the original Golden Age Champions for this. It was an effect where you took half damage (maybe even full ? I heard it third hand) if you hit something and didn't do enough BODY to exceed their rPD.

 

It let people break their hands hitting bulletproof heroes of the day.

[Blue]

I've never seen nor implemented one, though it wouldn't be unreasonable for normals, fantasy hero, or champions agent level characters. I've never seen superheroes do much of this in comics.

 

And if I felt so inclined, I'd probably do it as a side effect (applicable to everyone who strikes something bare handed, applying probably half the active points of the strike against the character.

 

But everyone gets hurt pretty well without it already

[Rick]

It's almost more of a schtik or comedic relief. A zero phase SFX of doing no damage. I wouldn't make characters actually take damage but in the most grim of game.

[Lord Liaden]

Originally posted by Tom McCarthy

I think you need to go back to the original Golden Age Champions for this. It was an effect where you took half damage (maybe even full ? I heard it third hand) if you hit something and didn't do enough BODY to exceed their rPD.

 

It let people break their hands hitting bulletproof heroes of the day.

 

I've used that rule from GAC, called "Self-Inflicted Damage," in most of my games, heroic and superheroic, for many years. It doesn't come into play often, but adds some realistic detail and color when it does. Some months ago Alistair Curry (aka "Alibear" here on the boards) made some suggestions regarding Hit Locations that I've since added. It's pretty simple and easy to use, and doesn't require any rewrites to existing Hero characters. Here's the current version (only the part about Hit Locations is not in the original):

 

When a character makes a HTH attack against something with Resistant Defenses (including all hard, rigid objects, and some supers), figure the damage that the attack would do normally. If the attack causes more BODY damage than the Resistant Defense of the target (apply any Advantages such as Armor Piercing normally), the attacker takes no damage. However, if the attacker's BODY damage does not exceed the target's Resistant Defense, the attacker will take STUN and BODY.

 

If the game is using Hit Locations, the attacker takes the full damage from his attack modified by the Hit Location of the body part used to strike the target. If Hit Locations are not used, then the attacker takes half damage as if he had done a Move Through Maneuver. Any of the attacker's Defenses apply to this damage.

 

So, when a character strikes a "soft" target, like normal human flesh, he never takes damage. When striking a hard object like a door, if the character does enough damage to break it (do BODY to it) he takes no damage, but if he can't do BODY, pain and injury may ensue.

 

This is a good rule to explain how trained martial artists can break boards, concrete blocks etc. without breaking their hands. It's also appropriate for that classic "normal human punches supertough hero and draws hand back in pain" scenario.

 

As I said, in my games it doesn't come into play that often. For heroic games it's most often used when someone tries to charge his way through a door, or punch someone in armor. Superheroes rarely need to roll for it in HTH battle because of their high Defenses, and it can easily be ignored in such cases. It might come up in superheroic games for Martial Artists with low Defenses compared to the DC of their attacks, who strike something with Resistant Defenses.

[Ken Solo]

The resistant DEF part seems resonable. I only recall using some variation of this a few times. Once, when one of my players insisted on trying to pound his way through a vault-like door on the rational that eventally he would roll all sixes and break it. Most recently, I was playing (!!) a brick and was having trouble with another players martial artist, so I anounced that I was going to Brace to resist Knockback, and turn my force field on full, and let the Mart hit me, invoking this "rule". (He passed out, marts are notorious for not being able to take what they can dish out) The GM knew exactly what I was talking about, but the other player had never heard of such a thing. (He did concede that it was a dramiticly appropiate solution). Since then I've been trying to determine where I got the idea in the first place.

[Gary]

In a superheroic campaign, I wouldn't use this rule. Or at the very least, I would change it to if the attack didn't do Stun through the target's resistant defenses. Otherwise, it's too cheap for Supers to buy 20 or so pts of resistant defenses, and give themselves a free damage shield vs MAs.

[Lord Liaden]

Originally posted by Gary

In a superheroic campaign, I wouldn't use this rule. Or at the very least, I would change it to if the attack didn't do Stun through the target's resistant defenses. Otherwise, it's too cheap for Supers to buy 20 or so pts of resistant defenses, and give themselves a free damage shield vs MAs.

 

I certainly appreciate you concern, Gary. Of course in the comic books, martial artists are rarely able to duke it out with bricks, but that's one trope that Champions doesn't normally follow.

 

There are several easy ways to make it less of a factor, though. You could rule that if a character has total Defense equal to half of the average damage from his attack, he doesn't have to deal with Self-Inflicted Damage for that attack. You could also say that S-ID doesn't apply to striking living beings, but only inanimate objects (or beings made from recognizably "hard" materials, like metal or stone). You might rule that the DEF of any weapon used to strike with adds to the character's DEF vs. S-ID. Finally, a character could just buy extra padding or armor for his hands, feet, knees or whatever he normally uses to strike with, Limited to just protect those areas. Not expensive and quite common for MAs.

 

But like all optional rules, you should only use it if you think it will enhance your game.

[Farkling]

There's a "taking damage" rule built into Move-By and Move-Through involving the character doing no knockback, or being unable to penetrate the defence of the object.

 

Break out your book.

[Ken Solo]

Naturaly I went to the books first to find my answer. I looked in both 4th and 5th ed rules. However, I was looking under the Damage and Defense section of combat. I didn't think to look under Move through. Move throught may very well be the origin of this idea.

But now that we are on it, I kind of like the mart vs. brick topic. If a mart can't hurt someone with high def., that's why they take those NND nerve strikes, and Martial Throws, to incapacitate a brick.