cyst13 Posted June 17, 2004 Report Share Posted June 17, 2004 P.77 of The Ultimate Brick describes Super-Strong Senses: "The superhuman nature of the character's muscles and body extends to the small muscles that help his eyes, ears, and other sensory organs work." I find this to be a fascinating revelation. According to the game info, these super-strong ear muscles will give you +2 to hearing perception rolls. I admit, that after a lifetime of rock concerts, my hearing is not what it ought to be. I would love to get into a workout routine that would pump up my ear muscles. I've scanned the bodybuilding magazines, but I haven't found any relevant articles. Can any of you budding anatomists out there enlighten me as to which muscle group do the ear muscles belong? How, exactly, do strong ear muscles help you to hear better? Also, what exercises can I do to pump-up my ear muscles? I've been contemplating attaching little barbells to my ear lobes and doing curls. Think that would help? Also, if someone can explain how super-strong eye muscles improve vision, that'd be great too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blue Posted June 17, 2004 Report Share Posted June 17, 2004 Re: Super-strong ear muscles? I've decided against working out. Instead, if you go to the right salon in Beverly Hills, you can get radioactive spider treatments. I expect not only super strength but a nice sixth sense that nobody even knew spiders had. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lemming Posted June 17, 2004 Report Share Posted June 17, 2004 Re: Super-strong ear muscles? I've decided against working out. Instead' date=' if you go to the right salon in Beverly Hills, you can get radioactive spider treatments. I expect not only super strength but a nice sixth sense that nobody even knew spiders had.[/quote'] Me, I'm going for a nice emerald ring. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BobGreenwade Posted June 17, 2004 Report Share Posted June 17, 2004 Re: Super-strong ear muscles? The eyes are a fairly easy one. As I've grown older, my eye muscles have weakened to the point that I'll soon need bifocals -- I have an increasingly harder time focusing my eyes. With super-strong eye muscles (at least in theory) I could concentrate my vision much more finely. Of course, as Blue alluded, this is "rubber science" -- the whole book is, no less than most other Ultimate books. The ability in question, like most of the "super-strength tricks" in TUB, is based on what super-strong characters in comics and other fiction can do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lightray Posted June 17, 2004 Report Share Posted June 17, 2004 Re: Super-strong ear muscles? Well, let's see. Superstrong eye muscles could pull your poor eyeballs into a more deformed shape, thereby changing where the image is projected on the back of your eyeball, thereby changing the focus. In other words, if you're nearsighted, you squish your eyes until you see clearly. ouch. Superstrong ear muscles could pull your ears into different locations on your scalp. Since your ears need to be a little bit crooked to pick up the sound waves dopplering (or whatever the term is) (this is why no one has both their ears exactly even on their skull, which glasses-wearers know quite well), presumably by having them even more uneven you'd pick up the change in the soundwaves over the distance of your head even better. Superstrong lungs could allow you to inhale a HUUUUGE quantity of air, thereby increasing the likelihood the contaminant you're trying to smell will be present to be detected. Of course, it will also greatly reduce the concentration of that contaminant, so you're less likely to smell it. oops. Superstrong tongue could... wait, I'm not going there. Superstrong skin doesn't seem like it could help your sense of touch -- you'd probably want to be less sensitive so you can actually do all those "watch me crush this coal into a diamond" tricks without them becoming "watch me pass out from the pain of my stupid coal trick" tricks. Any other senses? Sense of balance? Sense of decorum? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Badger Posted June 17, 2004 Report Share Posted June 17, 2004 Re: Super-strong ear muscles? If you want to hear better just get gene-spliced with some bat DNA Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghost-angel Posted June 17, 2004 Report Share Posted June 17, 2004 Re: Super-strong ear muscles? Eye muscles are real ... weak ones let the eye deform and cause sight problems. But do nothing for cataracts. oh well. Ear's don't use muscles to hear really - they do use a sort of rubberband holding a mallet to hit a drum .. ligaments I think, which if super strong/responsive would help with hearing. Bat DNA would theoretically increase your range of hearing, the frequencies you can pick up, but probably not how well you hear them. I could have this all wrong BTW. I need a super strong tongue though........ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lemming Posted June 17, 2004 Report Share Posted June 17, 2004 Re: Super-strong ear muscles? When I first saw this thread I was thinking Dumbo style flight. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BNakagawa Posted June 17, 2004 Report Share Posted June 17, 2004 Re: Super-strong ear muscles? When I first saw the title of this thread, I was thinking Bugs Bunny style articulated ears... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Mad GM Posted June 17, 2004 Report Share Posted June 17, 2004 Re: Super-strong ear muscles? There is a muscle attached somewhere in the inner ear that responds to overly loud noises by stiffening up the whole works, hopefully preventing strain on the stirrups and anvil and eventually the cochlea. Hearing based Flash defense, maybe? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Argus Posted June 17, 2004 Report Share Posted June 17, 2004 Re: Super-strong ear muscles? Also, if someone can explain how super-strong eye muscles improve vision, that'd be great too. Well in truth Strong Eye Muscles would make you more Near Sighted. It is harder for your eyes to see things up close then far away. A. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agemegos Posted June 17, 2004 Report Share Posted June 17, 2004 Re: Super-strong ear muscles? As I've grown older' date=' my eye muscles have weakened to the point that I'll soon need bifocals -- I have an increasingly harder time focusing my eyes. With super-strong eye muscles (at least in theory) I could concentrate my vision much more finely.[/quote'] Actually, no. The issue is not that your eye muscles have got weaker, The issue is that ongoing development processes in your lens have changed the shape of the edge of the lens, so that the attachments of the muscles instead of being nearly perpendicular to the surface are nearly parallel. So tension in the muscles no longer tends to change the shape of your lens. Besides which, even if you were right this would only mean that bricks were immune from presbyopia. It wouldn't mean that they had better vision in low light (that would require a larger pupil or a more senstive retina), better depth of field (which would require a more sensitive retina), better acuity (which would require smaller and closer-packed rod and cone cells, with more neurological 'wiring' to process the output), better resolution (which would require a larger pupi), or better peripheral visionl. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steriaca Posted June 17, 2004 Report Share Posted June 17, 2004 Re: Super-strong ear muscles? I need a super strong tongue though........ With a super strong tongue, you could to the Tao Pao Pao trick of killing someone by punching a hole in there skull with your tongue. That's a Dragon Ball refrence, kiddoes. Now, for the extra dollar, can you tell me WHO he killed with this ability. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lightray Posted June 18, 2004 Report Share Posted June 18, 2004 Re: Super-strong ear muscles? With a super strong tongue' date=' you could to the Tao Pao Pao trick of killing someone by punching a hole in there skull with your tongue.[/quote'] Sheeyah. That's just what any game needs. Strong Guy running around with the power to tongue people to death. GM: Dr. Destroyer is threatening Millennium City! Strong Guy: *sluuuuurp!* Other Players: eew. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steriaca Posted June 18, 2004 Report Share Posted June 18, 2004 Re: Super-strong ear muscles? Sheeyah. That's just what any game needs. Strong Guy running around with the power to tongue people to death. GM: Dr. Destroyer is threatening Millennium City! Strong Guy: *sluuuuurp!* Other Players: eew. Make maters worse, give Strong Guy extra limbs (tongue). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lightray Posted June 18, 2004 Report Share Posted June 18, 2004 Make maters worse' date=' give Strong Guy extra limbs (tongue).[/quote'] Oooh, no. You let him take one super-strong appendage as an Extra Limb and soon enough he'll be wanting to have it for the other one, too. The campaign theme music would have to be changed to porntastic "boom-chikka-wow-wow" stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brandi Posted June 18, 2004 Report Share Posted June 18, 2004 Re: Super-strong ear muscles? The campaign theme music would have to be changed to porntastic "boom-chikka-wow-wow" stuff. Only if you're modeling the character from Soul Vengeance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Mad GM Posted June 18, 2004 Report Share Posted June 18, 2004 Re: Super-strong ear muscles? I ran with a demon character (named Wraith) with an extra-limb and stretching defined as a long slimey tongue. He only had a strength of twenty, but that was enough to, say, lift someone. The problem was he had to do siloliquys with his tongue sticking out: Bad-guy: Holy Mother of Mergatroid! I feel unclean! Wraith: er iv eh heket baf? Bad-guy: What? Wraith: er iv eh HEKET BAF!? Bad-guy: I'll tell you anything! Just put me down! Wraith: ER IV EH HEKET BAF!? We called this "speaking in toungues". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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