Weapon and Armor Sizing

[Kirowan]

Are there rules anywhere in the corebook or other books for sizing weapons and armor for creatures larger and smaller than human?

 

Thanks,

 

Nick

[Kirowan]

Re: Weapon and Armor Sizing

 

Anyone?

 

Thanks,

 

Nick

[Fox1]

Re: Weapon and Armor Sizing

 

Anyone?

 

Thanks,

 

Nick

 

 

I take it you're looking for a way of determing damage and defense values along the sizing scale.

 

I don't think the core book has anything on the subject directly, and I only own a few of the supplements. But I'll take a stab at working up some values.

 

I would for example first create my larger/smaller creature. Determine it's BODY, STR and other values. From there you can determine the a weapon damage level that makes some degree of sense.

 

 

Much depends on what you're wanting to represent. You have more freedom if you just what a Giant Weapon to put the hurt on someone than if you're trying to keep things in scale.

 

 

 

Let's do an example of the latter, i.e. we want to scale the weapon such that it's close to the normal version in how dangerous it is to it's own user.

 

 

Normal Sized: Str 12, Body 10, Con 10, Stun 20 man with 1d6+1 Broadsword with STR Min of 12. On average he does 4.5 body or a little less than half his own Body on a strike.

 

 

Double Height Man: Str 27, Body 13, Con 10, Stun 36

 

Note to self: man that's wimpy for a 12' dude. But it's baseline for HERO if you do nothing but grow him

 

With the same weapon, the additional STR takes him up to 2d6+1 or 8 points on average. A little over half his own body.

 

But we're using the same weapon. We don't want that, so...

 

Let's make the Giant Broadsword 2d6+1K and increase it's STR Min from 12 to a 27. It makes sense that if the Big Dude needs +15 Str to carry his own weight, he needs the same to carry his own weapon. With these numbers we keep the same average of 8 body.

 

Let's drop the damage to 2d6K with a STR Min of 27. That's closer to half the owner's body on the average attack.

 

 

So the 12' tall dude's weapon's average in the ballpark of being as dangerous to him as the normal guys broadsword is to the normal guy.

 

The same basic process can be done with Armor.

 

This may be close enough, if one doesn't pull too hard on it.

[NuSoardGraphite]

Re: Weapon and Armor Sizing

 

Hey Kirowan!

 

There is a very easy way to "scale" weapons based on the size of the creature using it.

 

If you look on the Growth Chart on page 118 of the 5th Edition rulesbook, you will see the stats for every doubling of size. There are in-between sizes that aren't shown on the chart, but they are shown on the Vehicular Size chart on page 315.

 

Basically, every 5pts of growth is a new "size class" which changes the listed stats. For every "level" or "size class" (as us Robot Warriors fans like to call it) of Growth, add +1DC to the base damage of the weapon used, when its appropriately sized for them.

 

Thus a character who is 4 meters tall (size class 3 or 2X human size) who has a Two Handed sword (normally 6DC or 2D6K) would do 9DC or 3D6K base damage with the weapon.

 

To determine the STR Min, simply add +5 to the weapons normal STR Min per +1DC. Thus the double-sized Two Handed Sword (normal STR Min 18) has a STR Min of 33!

 

I'm not sure how to "Scale" armor for giant sized creatures. Perhaps a straight conversion of +1DEF per +1 level of Growth would be sufficient (if not, try +2DEF, but that seems a bit much) Encumbrance would be based on the Armor's new weight which would be the weight of the normal armor multiplied by the weight modifier of the level of Growth. (level 1=X2, level 2=X4, Level 3=X8 etc)

[Dust Raven]

Re: Weapon and Armor Sizing

 

Are there rules anywhere in the corebook or other books for sizing weapons and armor for creatures larger and smaller than human?

 

Thanks,

 

Nick

 

Nusoard pretty much does what I'd do. I'd base the difference in damage and STR Min on the difference in size of the character meant to wield the weapon. The same goes for smaller characters (just works in the opposite direction).

 

The trick is deciding on what "size level" the creature meant to use it is. Hero doesn't do size levels very well (though the Bestiary does have a sort of Size Chart for determining the Physical Limitation associated with it). The best it does is list sizes in terms of doubling or halving the standard character size, and that's not always appropriate, especially if the creature in question is 9 feet tall instead of 12 or more.

[NuSoardGraphite]

Re: Weapon and Armor Sizing

 

Nusoard pretty much does what I'd do. I'd base the difference in damage and STR Min on the difference in size of the character meant to wield the weapon. The same goes for smaller characters (just works in the opposite direction).

 

The trick is deciding on what "size level" the creature meant to use it is. Hero doesn't do size levels very well (though the Bestiary does have a sort of Size Chart for determining the Physical Limitation associated with it). The best it does is list sizes in terms of doubling or halving the standard character size, and that's not always appropriate, especially if the creature in question is 9 feet tall instead of 12 or more.

 

Well, the Size chart under the Growth Power isn't very well defined. They should've done it like they did the Vehicular size chart, which includes the "in-between" sizes. 9' tall is 2 levels of Growth (10pts) by that scale.

 

If you have the Ultimate Vehicle, they take the size chart up pretty far....(not quite to planetary scale though)

[Steve Long]

Re: Weapon and Armor Sizing

 

See FH 153 for rules for this re: weapons.

[prestidigitator]

Re: Weapon and Armor Sizing

 

Well, the Size chart under the Growth Power isn't very well defined. They should've done it like they did the Vehicular size chart, which includes the "in-between" sizes. 9' tall is 2 levels of Growth (10pts) by that scale.

 

If you have the Ultimate Vehicle, they take the size chart up pretty far....(not quite to planetary scale though)

Well, I personally like that the Growth chart doesn't tie a level of Growth to a particular height. It means a character can be larger than normal, but doesn't necessarily have to be the exact proportions of your average human. Even the "doubling" in height I tend to take a bit on the lax side. It means you roughly double in each dimension, and are approximately eight times the mass. If you really want an applicable size for each level of Growth, though, you can figure it out quite easily (as I am sure they did with the vehicle chart):

height = 2m x 2^(levels of Growth/3)

This gives a mass of:

mass = 100kg x (height/2m)^3 = 100kg x 2^(levels of Growth)

[NuSoardGraphite]

Re: Weapon and Armor Sizing

 

The vehicle size chart and the Growth chart are exactly the same, except that the Vehicle chart includes the in-between sizes (and has the stats for vehicles instead of characters etc)

[prestidigitator]

Re: Weapon and Armor Sizing

 

The vehicle size chart and the Growth chart are exactly the same' date=' except that the Vehicle chart includes the in-between sizes (and has the stats for vehicles instead of characters etc)[/quote']

Right. And I'd be willing to bet that the powers of two I showed above give sizes that match pretty closely those in-between sizes.... Okay. I might have given the wrong base sizes (2m, 100kg) for a vehicle. I forget whether they are different and how.

[prestidigitator]

Re: Weapon and Armor Sizing

 

BTW, it's just like the "in-between" rows shown for Strength, mass of armor, etc. on other charts. Simple power-of-two relationship....