Exponential VS Linear ?

[Warp9]

Re: Exponential VS Linear ?

 

As far as game play is concerned, there really isn't that much of a problem, no matter how you look at the system...

 

That said, the exponential aspect of the game works really well, and I like it. But the game has left many unanswered questions. For instance:

 

If the quality of STR doubles every 5 points. And we use that as a model for ever other stat, (except for BODY, which doubles every 1 point), consider the significance of that on the INT attribute. If we were to universally assume that the average INT of humans is 8... unless I'm mistaken, that would equate to an I.Q. of 100. From that, it's simple enough to come to the conclusion that an INT of 13 (8+5) equates to an I.Q. of 200.

 

Now, in the real world, an I.Q. of 200 is fairly significant. But in checking out my new copy of Dark Champions, I note that the Army Ranger Package Deal states it requires characters to have a 13 INT in order to qualify for the package. Okay, I don't want to be insulting to anyone who's served in the Army Rangers, but I've met a dozen or so, and being a genius is definately not a requirement.

Yes those are some interesting points

 

 

 

As far as Casual STR is concerned, I think modifying it as a house rule, might be an exciting solution. Would you say that applying only half your strength constitutes casual application of strength? In that case, anything you do at -5 your STR would be an effortless action. I could probably be persuaded to go with "one-quarter" strength, and -10 STR, instead. Especially considered that one-quarter seems a lot more casual than one-half.

That approach seems reasonable to me.

 

As far as 200 sticks of Dynamite blowing up the Earth is concerned... This is broken. For ever +1d6 of damage, the amount of dymamite should rightly be doubled, (unless there is some sort of synergistic property of dynamite, I am unfamiliar with). This could just as easily be corrected with a house ruling.

I can agree with the idea of bringing explosive damage into line with other sorts of damage.

[Warp9]

Re: Exponential VS Linear ?

 

As I said, I know places where the system is broke. I don't go to those places.

It seems to me that the system does have a problem here, and thus it might be a good idea to think about "fixing it."

Edit: in this case however the system isn't as broke as it looks.

You'll have to go a bit deeper into that point. . . .

[Mister E]

Re: Exponential VS Linear ?

 

Check out "Targer: Earth!' date='" on page 197 of [u']Star Hero[/u].

To paraphrase:

 

The Earth appears to be, "a little too easy to destroy." This section comes up with two possible solutions, that basically involve GM fiat:

 

1) Consider most attacks to have the Beam Limitation when used against the Earth, to simulate the fact that they only puncture relatively small holes in the planet, that don't have the potectial to endanger its structural integrity.

 

2) Usume that surface AoE/Explosion attacks, "take the path of least resistance and conform to the planet's surface (otherwise, nuclear test explosions might have cracked "the" Earth open!). Thus, only weapons specifically designed to effect huge swaths of a planet at once, or to burrow deep within it before taking effect, have a serious change of destroying it."

 

Also, as far as the 86 BODY of the Earth... this assumes quite a bit, appearantly. (, mostly, that the Earth is made of stone [19 BODY, 5 DEF]) For GM's that wish to more accurately represent the Earth's BODY, and such, they are encouraged to re-calculate, the Earth, and "account for the molten and solid metals at the Earth's core". Now, I haven't tried to figure this out yet, (and I would dig it if someone would do it for me, and save me the trouble), but IMO, this also doesn't take into consideration all of the other forces involved in keeping the Earth together... primarily gravity (which I could see being built as some kind of cosmic level Power Defense/Force Field/ or some such thing).

 

The following is a brainstorming excersize...

 

When you start thinking of something the size of the Earth as a single, targetable, object... you are stepping into a whole new level of reality. It's not necessary, but using the Beam Limitation, as an example, you chould perhaps come up with a few "stop-sign" Power Advantages to simulate the Earth's defenses, and the attacks required to damage it. Likewise, you could think of the Earth on a macro-cosmic scale, in comparison with people, and have it exist on another dimension, size-wise. You could even say that the Earth is Desolid to all normal attacks, except those specifically bought with the Affects Desolid: "Planetary Threat" Advantage.

 

I am just spit-balling... an official ruling would really solve everything, and I think "Target: Earth!" on page 197 of Star Hero, is all we are going to get. Maybe the Ultimate Brick has something in it. I've only glanced through it, so far, in the store.

[Onyxclaw]

Re: Exponential VS Linear ?

 

Where do you go from there? I don't see how one could lift less than 0 pounds.

 

I ment the negative strength in herosystem and it having a corrolation. So really in hero system "10" doesn't mean the same thing as 10 on the linear or exponential scale.

 

But eh

[Fox1]

Re: Exponential VS Linear ?

 

It seems to me that the system does have a problem here, and thus it might be a good idea to think about "fixing it."

 

You'll have to go a bit deeper into that point. . . .

 

 

A mach 3 move-through adds a lot of dice, however remember that the object doing the move-through is also taking damage- and once it's destroyed it's ability to inflect further damage is done.

 

I.E. the ability to do damage by a move-through has the same upper cap that the ability to do damage with a thrown object does.

 

Thus, tossing my version of Juggernaut into the earth at whatever ever huge speed desired (make it .5 lightspeed if you wish) has a max damage value of around 80 body- at which point poor Juggie is dead.

 

As for the damage done to the earth at that point: the rules are clear- It takes 16 body for the first hex of ground, plus 1 hex in a line thereafter for each additional body.

 

That only gets him 80*2 (He did KNB to the earth and takes 1/2 damage)-16 or 144" into the ground. Not even a 1000' deep.

 

Still stupid, but the earth is in no danger.

 

 

 

It seems to me that the system does have a problem here, and thus it might be a good idea to think about "fixing it."

 

The system has a huge number of problems whenever you approach extreme values. Like all RPGs it was designed around a center.

 

No playable change you're going to make is going to resolve that issue. It will just move the problems to new locations.

[Warp9]

Re: Exponential VS Linear ?

 

No playable change you're going to make is going to resolve that issue. It will just move the problems to new locations.

Please back up this assertion

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Exponential VS Linear ?

 

If we were to universally assume that the average INT of humans is 8... unless I'm mistaken' date=' that would equate to an I.Q. of 100. From that, it's simple enough to come to the conclusion that an INT of 13 ([i']8+5[/i]) equates to an I.Q. of 200.

 

Exceptb that IQ is not, itself, linear.

 

An IQ tells you what your score is on a particular intelligencetest, compared to your age-group. The test has a mean score of 100 points and a standard deviation of 15 points. What does this standard deviation mean? It means that 68 percent of tha population score an IQ within the interval 85-115. And that 95 percent of the population scores within the interval 70-130. (We won't show the calculations for the interval-values to avoid difficult calculations.)

 

Some examples:

What does it mean when your IQ is 100? That means that half of the population scores higher than you. The other half scores lower than you.

And what does it mean when you have an IQ of 130? That means that 97,5 percent of your agegroup scores lower than you. Only 2,5 percent scores higher.

 

 

An easy way to interpret an IQ is to use the following rules:

A score that is no more than one standarddeviation (=15) away from 100, can be interpreted as a normal score.

A score that is between one and two standarddeviations away from 100 can be interpreted as low (70-85) or high (115-130).

A score that is more than two standarddeviations away from 100, can be interpreted as very low (lower than 70) or very high (higher than 130).

 

Part of the problem, however, is that the system requires a doubling of the stat (ie +5) to have any significant impact on values derived from that stat. I don't see a lot of ways around that, however. I suppose we could make all the stats +1 for every 3 points, or 2 points, or 1 point, and roll more than the current 3d6 for task resolution, but I don't see a problem big enough to warrant such an extreme solution..

 

 

To your comments on stat inflation, this problem started in the very first Champions rulebook when every Super had a DEX of 18+. If the sample characters in the first books had taken (for the sake of illustration) 10 points off the DEX of every character, we would have had a Brick with DEX 8, some characters with DEX 10 and 13, maybe a couple of 20's and perhaps a 23 or two. DEX would be lower across the board, martial artists with a 25 or 26 DEX would be awe-inspiring, DEX skills would be lower overall and we would have a range of DEX for supers beginning at lower extremes (a 5 would be viable - we see the occasional 15 now). And the spread between CV's would be unchanged.

 

Similarly with Con, although here stunning enters into the picture. But one would expect Supers to be in good physical shape, as they "engage in regular strenuous exercise". Of course, if the STUN rull had been "damage exceeds CON by more than 10", then everyone's CON could fall of 10 points as well.

 

Unfortunately, "average DEX of 23" is too ingrained on the SuperPsyche to change it now. Plus, where would we put those extra points?

[Roy_The_Ruthles]

Re: Exponential VS Linear ?

 

If the quality of STR doubles every 5 points. And we use that as a model for ever other stat' date=' (except for BODY, which doubles every 1 point), consider the significance of that on the INT attribute. If we were to universally assume that the average INT of humans is 8... unless I'm mistaken, that would equate to an I.Q. of 100. From that, it's simple enough to come to the conclusion that an INT of 13 ([i']8+5[/i]) equates to an I.Q. of 200.

 

Now, in the real world, an I.Q. of 200 is fairly significant.QUOTE]

 

That's true, but what does I.Q. measure? since modern socity has no *firm* definition of intelligence, it's really hard to measure it isn't it? IQ measures how good you are at IQ tests.

[Roy_The_Ruthles]

Re: Exponential VS Linear ?

 

To stop at 0 is a personal choice, rather than a limit of the STR progression itself.

 

 

I don't follow this, assuming a direct linear coorelation to STR value and STR lift we have

 

10 STR = 100 kg lift

9 STR = 90 kg lift

8 STR = 80 kg lift

. . .

3 STR = 30 kg lift

2 STR = 20 kg lift

1 STR = 10 kg lift

0 STR = 0 kg lift

Where do you go from there? I don't see how one could lift less than 0 pounds.

 

 

 

When dealing with an exponential/logarithmic curve, there is no reason not to go below 0, in fact 0 is the most logical standard average (rather than 10).

 

Although I admit that going from D&D to a game where that average is 0 would probably throw a great number of people.

 

The problem with your statement, is that lift is not linear to str. It's exponential, specifically 25*2^(str/5)

 

this means someone with a str of 0 can lift 25kg, because 2^0=1 (a fact learned in many elementary schools), and it's impossible to lift nothing, (w/o being desolid etc) because you'll always have a positive though tiny number.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Exponential VS Linear ?

 

A mach 3 move-through adds a lot of dice, however remember that the object doing the move-through is also taking damage- and once it's destroyed it's ability to inflect further damage is done.

 

I.E. the ability to do damage by a move-through has the same upper cap that the ability to do damage with a thrown object does.

 

Thus, tossing my version of Juggernaut into the earth at whatever ever huge speed desired (make it .5 lightspeed if you wish) has a max damage value of around 80 body- at which point poor Juggie is dead.

 

As for the damage done to the earth at that point: the rules are clear- It takes 16 body for the first hex of ground, plus 1 hex in a line thereafter for each additional body.

 

That only gets him 80*2 (He did KNB to the earth and takes 1/2 damage)-16 or 144" into the ground. Not even a 1000' deep.

 

Still stupid, but the earth is in no danger.

 

 

 

 

 

The system has a huge number of problems whenever you approach extreme values. Like all RPGs it was designed around a center.

 

No playable change you're going to make is going to resolve that issue. It will just move the problems to new locations.

 

Part of the problem with Exponential damage is simply that there is no way to scale it currently. And blowing up the Earth is unfortunately a poor example, because as we've seen, ad naseum, in previous threads, there are at least 3 completely legal, by the rules, ways to interpret the damage absorbtion ability of the planet. By the hex, by thickness, and by mass. Optimally, any solution to the problem would address this and find a way to (ideally) reconcile the three without radical systemic changes.

The more I ponder a unified vehicle system and the various genres involved, the more I realize that the best solution to the problem may very well to incorporate a scaling system in some regard (similar to the scale modifiers in the Mass Combat rules) so that there is a way to quantify the diferenece between being hit with an move by from an 80 str human sized foe and a move by from a kilometer long 80 STR star destroyer.

 

Some other quirks of the Semi Linear/ Semi Exponential nature of HERO that we currently face. X2 mass = +1 body = X2 KE. Right? OK... So that would imply that if a particular mass was hit by an appropriate amount of KE in an attack, it would take body. So far so good. sacles consistantly for ONE attack. to keep with the nature of the system, we'd pretty much have to change all damage to a system similar to Multifire from DC... Each additional attack that breaches defences should logically do around +1 body damage to the target. You can get more complex with the math, but that's essentially the short form.

 

Similar topics....

Explosives. 1 stick of Dynamite does 5d6 normal damage. presumeably this number was reached either through writers fiat or the KE calculations. each additional stick does +1d6 damage. A cubic hex of rock has 5 Def and 19 Body. The Earth, using the Body from Mass table, as pointed out, has 86 Body. A noraml human has 8 Body and 2 PD/ED. These facts of the rules cause quite a few raised eyebrows when taken together.

 

Normal guy the construction worker doesn't have to really fear a point blank explosion from a single stick of dynamite. He can sit of top of it and the injuries he takes will be healed in a few weeks. It'd take, on average, 6 sticks of dynamite to put him in critical condition.

unfortunately for him, he's blasting on a job site. He needs to work with a LOT more dynamite to get that hunk of roack out of his way. 20 sticks, on average, to break up that hex of rock. Increase that to 39 sticks to render it unto dust (twice the BODY of the target)

Now...if he wanted to blow up the planet, he'd have to plant a charge of only 87 sticks. If he used the 200 his foreman reccomended, he'd vaporize this Big spinning ball of dirt with body to spare.

now heres the odd bit. If there were 86 guys just like him, anywhere around the globe, each of whom was willing to take a month's work of workers comp time for their injuries, they could all blow 2 sticks of dynamite each. Each normal guy would take about 4 body damage, assuming no protective gear or heavy clothing. Maybe they all are in swimsuits. So they're hurt, with a few broken limbs among the lot of them (only takes 3 body for one of these guys to get a break) If the GM is using hit locations for explosions like DC reccomends, then a few may be in critical from Head or vitals damage.

 

But it doesn't really ,matter, bevcause the cumulative effect of these 86 6d6 Explosion EB's is that the planet cracks wide open.

 

Like I said, blowing uip the Earth is NOT a good example, and we have serious scale issues.

 

just a little practical excercise to show the problems with the admixture of Exponential and Linear effects, without GM intervention and using straight out of the books numbers.

[Guest Black Lotus]

Re: Exponential VS Linear ?

 

The more you try to think things into a solid and perfect system, the worse your brain will hurt, and nothing will end up getting accomplished. No roleplaying system can ever woirk 100% perfectly and smoothly.

 

I wenbt through this with Velocity, Acceleration and Deceleration yesterday and today. Now that I've accepted it for what it is, I feel much better.

[Mister E]

Re: Exponential VS Linear ?

 

I.E. the ability to do damage by a move-through has the same upper cap that the ability to do damage with a thrown object does.

 

Thus, tossing my version of Juggernaut into the earth at whatever ever huge speed desired (make it .5 lightspeed if you wish) has a max damage value of around 80 body- at which point poor Juggie is dead.

 

As for the damage done to the earth at that point: the rules are clear- It takes 16 body for the first hex of ground, plus 1 hex in a line thereafter for each additional body.

 

That only gets him 80*2 (He did KNB to the earth and takes 1/2 damage)-16 or 144" into the ground. Not even a 1000' deep.

 

Still stupid, but the earth is in no danger.

Imagining Juggernaut doing Knockback on the Earth, is funny.

 

Imagining him at dead at the bottom of a 144 hex deep crater, is even funnier.

 

My two questions would be...

 

1) how big of a meteor would it take to wipe out the dinosaurs...

 

2) and how big of a meteor would it take to wipe out Earth Mk. I, which existed before our current Earth Mk. II, and whose destruction created our huge moon?

 

Both of these are basically super-fast Move-Throughs by large objects with huge amounts of BODY... but really, they are more like Alteration Powers... Change Environment, or Transform, for instance.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Exponential VS Linear ?

 

Imagining Juggernaut doing Knockback on the Earth, is funny.

 

Imagining him at dead at the bottom of a 144 hex deep crater, is even funnier.

 

My two questions would be...

 

1) how big of a meteor would it take to wipe out the dinosaurs...

 

2) and how big of a meteor would it take to wipe out Earth Mk. I, which existed before our current Earth Mk. II, and whose destruction created our huge moon?

 

Both of these are basically super-fast Move-Throughs by large objects with huge amounts of BODY... but really, they are more like Alteration Powers... Change Environment, or Transform, for instance.

 

 

Answer....

Under the current system, there is no such thing. There is currently no model for secondary effects of energy transference. The only ways an asteriod strike would destroy the dinosaurs would be if the asteroid move through either...

A) Destroyed the entire planet

or

was written up by the cosmic GM to have a linked effect like you mentioned.

[Fox1]

Re: Exponential VS Linear ?

 

Part of the problem with Exponential damage is simply that there is no way to scale it currently. And blowing up the Earth is unfortunately a poor example' date=' because as we've seen, [i']ad naseum[/i], in previous threads, there are at least 3 completely legal, by the rules, ways to interpret the damage absorbtion ability of the planet. By the hex, by thickness, and by mass.

 

Again, the rules are not as bad as one makes it out to be. The three different methods are nothing more than genre and SPX selections.

 

 

The default seems to be by hex, and that one makes the most sense in many ways as it enforces a simple truth- you can't damage what you can't reach.

 

A standard attack effects a single target. A single target is 1 hex in size. The rule for an additional hex is to account for blow through.

 

Area effect attacks can only effect things within their area. Period. The 200 sticks can at best affect things out to 199". Within that radius it will be affect by object requiring it to blow through.

 

 

The wall is a special case to allow for a classic comic event, i.e. knocking down walls. When suited to genre and SPX, use it. When not, don't.

 

Same with treating the earth as a single target instead of a collection of hexes. When suited to genre and SPX, use it. When not, don't.

 

 

It will still produce stupid results, but it's not as bad as people like to make it out to be. It's really rather simple and very easy.

[Roy_The_Ruthles]

Re: Exponential VS Linear ?

 

Answer....

Under the current system, there is no such thing. There is currently no model for secondary effects of energy transference. The only ways an asteriod strike would destroy the dinosaurs would be if the asteroid move through either...

A) Destroyed the entire planet

or

was written up by the cosmic GM to have a linked effect like you mentioned.

 

so if an asteriod killed the dinosaurs, it's proof of god? or steven long?

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Exponential VS Linear ?

 

so if an asteriod killed the dinosaurs' date=' it's proof of god? or steven long?[/quote']

The Dinosaur Killer effect was a GM handwave because he wanted to keep using all the maps he'd made up for his campaign world

 

Or the mucking big asteriod made a Power skill roll to perform a Power Stunt and converted the damage to a Megascale AoE.

Or maybe a megascale Dispel Body, gradual effect.

[Mister E]

Re: Exponential VS Linear ?

 

The Dinosaur Killer effect was a GM handwave because he wanted to keep using all the maps he'd made up for his campaign world

 

Or the mucking big asteriod made a Power skill roll to perform a Power Stunt and converted the damage to a Megascale AoE.

Or maybe a megascale Dispel Body, gradual effect.

"What's that astroid doing, up there?"

 

"I think it's Analyzing the Earth's combat style."

 

"Oh. What's it doing now?

 

"Finding Weakness."

 

"Damn."

[Mister E]

Re: Exponential VS Linear ?

 

Exceptb that IQ is not' date=' itself, linear.[/quote']I don't believe that I was implying that it was linear. Thanks for the clairification, however.

 

The reason I made the leap that a 200 IQ is twice the intellegence of 100 IQ, is because of the fact that a person's mental age is supposed to be twice their actual age, at that level.

To your comments on stat inflation, this problem started in the very first Champions rulebook when every Super had a DEX of 18+. If the sample characters in the first books had taken (for the sake of illustration) 10 points off the DEX of every character, we would have had a Brick with DEX 8, some characters with DEX 10 and 13, maybe a couple of 20's and perhaps a 23 or two. DEX would be lower across the board, martial artists with a 25 or 26 DEX would be awe-inspiring, DEX skills would be lower overall and we would have a range of DEX for supers beginning at lower extremes (a 5 would be viable - we see the occasional 15 now). And the spread between CV's would be unchanged.

 

Similarly with Con, although here stunning enters into the picture. But one would expect Supers to be in good physical shape, as they "engage in regular strenuous exercise". Of course, if the STUN rull had been "damage exceeds CON by more than 10", then everyone's CON could fall of 10 points as well.

 

Unfortunately, "average DEX of 23" is too ingrained on the SuperPsyche to change it now. Plus, where would we put those extra points?

This has cost me a lot of time (as I put the effort into analysing the character write-ups, to try to determine what constituted a ballanced PC), and is the reason I consider all of the villains in the game's suppliments, to be unplayable as they stand. My players are largely unaware of these lame system-wide design flaws, because I don't bother using the Champions Universe as a setting, even though it would make thinks a lot easier to do so. It's my guess, that a lot of Champions books published by DOJ don't get sold because people are off-put by this problem.

 

I'm done...

 

So, yeah! "Linear vs. Exponential"... hmm... interesting topic. What's the problem again? Ah, yes. Well, for those that want to use house rules to fix the problems, lets come up with a list. So, what's on the list?

[Roy_The_Ruthles]

Re: Exponential VS Linear ?

 

The reason I made the leap that a 200 IQ is twice the intellegence of 100 IQ' date=' is because of the fact that a person's mental age is supposed to be twice their actual age, at that level.[/quote']

 

While that was what the IQ test was orignially used for, it only works up to about age 10-12, because does a 30 year old that is as smart as a 60 year old have an IQ of 200?

 

most PCs are adults (at least above age 12), so IQ is rather pointless

[Warp9]

Re: Exponential VS Linear ?

 

The problem with your statement, is that lift is not linear to str. It's exponential, specifically 25*2^(str/5)

 

this means someone with a str of 0 can lift 25kg, because 2^0=1 (a fact learned in many elementary schools), and it's impossible to lift nothing, (w/o being desolid etc) because you'll always have a positive though tiny number.

 

I believe that you are misunderstanding the context of the quote.

 

The discussion is not about what Hero does do (which follows an exponential lift pattern). We were talking about the difference between Linear and Exponential scales.

 

And you'll see in the quote, I acknowledge the fact that negatives on an exponential scale are valid.

 

But if we were dealing with a linear scale negatives would not be valid.

 

Here is the discussion in context:

 

Buy I'd also add that, while a linear scale may allow for more variation at higher levels, the exponential allows for more variation at lower power levels.

 

If you've got a linear scale where 10 STR is average, then there are only 9 points left to cover the entire range of "less than average STR" (from weak people, to mice, to ants).

 

 

Linear can go below zero, in which case there are plenty more (although odd to me) levels

 

I don't follow this, assuming a direct linear coorelation to STR value and STR lift we have

 

10 STR = 100 kg lift

9 STR = 90 kg lift

8 STR = 80 kg lift

. . .

3 STR = 30 kg lift

2 STR = 20 kg lift

1 STR = 10 kg lift

0 STR = 0 kg lift

Where do you go from there? I don't see how one could lift less than 0 pounds.

 

 

When dealing with an exponential/logarithmic curve, there is no reason not to go below 0, in fact 0 is the most logical standard average (rather than 10).

 

[Warp9]

Re: Exponential VS Linear ?

 

Part of the problem with Exponential damage is simply that there is no way to scale it currently. And blowing up the Earth is unfortunately a poor example, because as we've seen, ad naseum, in previous threads, there are at least 3 completely legal, by the rules, ways to interpret the damage absorbtion ability of the planet. By the hex, by thickness, and by mass. Optimally, any solution to the problem would address this and find a way to (ideally) reconcile the three without radical systemic changes.

I agree that there should be one system for going about attacking the planet.

 

I actually think that there is only one way to rate the Earth as a whole. Now that does not mean that you can't attack a tiny part of the Earth (which could be done hex-by-hex). Basically I think the difference is like attacking a door on an aircraft carrrier vs attacking the aircraft carrier as a whole--both are valid options, but the process is not identical.

 

And IMO the Earth is not very "wall-like" so I would not go by its thickness.

 

If you are attacking the planet as a whole, then the rules for assigning BODY to objects should be used (+1 BODY per X2 mass is the way to go).

 

The more I ponder a unified vehicle system and the various genres involved, the more I realize that the best solution to the problem may very well to incorporate a scaling system in some regard (similar to the scale modifiers in the Mass Combat rules) so that there is a way to quantify the diferenece between being hit with an move by from an 80 str human sized foe and a move by from a kilometer long 80 STR star destroyer.

It might not be bad to add a factor which controls how focused the power of an attack is.

[Warp9]

Re: Exponential VS Linear ?

 

The more you try to think things into a solid and perfect system, the worse your brain will hurt, and nothing will end up getting accomplished. No roleplaying system can ever woirk 100% perfectly and smoothly.

 

I wenbt through this with Velocity, Acceleration and Deceleration yesterday and today. Now that I've accepted it for what it is, I feel much better.

There may not be "perfect" but there is "better" and "worse."

 

Let us be clear, these results we are talking about are not the unavoidable consiquences of having characters with fantastic abilities (like flying at Mach 3).

 

The only reason that you run into a Mach 3 character destroying the Earth is because you are mixing a linear scale with an exponential scale.

 

And if you look at the optional velocity table (which works on an exponential basis), you will not get those crazy results.

 

And if you alter the progression of exponsives so that is follows an exponential pattern, you will not have 200 sticks of dynamite blowing up the Earth. By the time you get enough dynamite to blow up the Earth with an exponential pattern, you'd actually have enough to realistically blow up the Earth (or close to it).

[Warp9]

Re: Exponential VS Linear ?

 

Again, the rules are not as bad as one makes it out to be. The three different methods are nothing more than genre and SPX selections.

 

 

The default seems to be by hex, and that one makes the most sense in many ways as it enforces a simple truth- you can't damage what you can't reach.

 

A standard attack effects a single target. A single target is 1 hex in size. The rule for an additional hex is to account for blow through.

 

Area effect attacks can only effect things within their area. Period. The 200 sticks can at best affect things out to 199". Within that radius it will be affect by object requiring it to blow through.

So characters with enough growth become immune to normal attacks, and many Area Effect attacks?

 

Or are you saying that I can blast a character who is 10 times as large as the Earth with my EB, but have no chance of hurting the much smaller planet, because I can't deal with a target which is more than 1 hex in size?

 

The wall is a special case to allow for a classic comic event, i.e. knocking down walls. When suited to genre and SPX, use it. When not, don't.

 

Same with treating the earth as a single target instead of a collection of hexes. When suited to genre and SPX, use it. When not, don't.

 

 

It will still produce stupid results, but it's not as bad as people like to make it out to be. It's really rather simple and very easy.

The whole "change everything based on genre and SPX" doesn't work for me. I expect more from my game system.

[Roy_The_Ruthles]

Re: Exponential VS Linear ?

 

sorry, i must not have understood what you were trying to express

[Warp9]

Re: Exponential VS Linear ?

 

sorry' date=' i must not have understood what you were trying to express[/quote']

No problem.