Life Support: How much is "Intense"?

[OddHat]

Re: Life Support: How much is "Intense"?

 

From the rules faq, Equipment, weapons:

Q: How does the damage for various types of explosives scale?

 

 

 

A:

 

Dynamite: One stick of dynamite causes a 5d6 Normal Damage Explosion. Each additional stick thereafter adds +1d6 Normal Damage Explosion. Thus, five sticks does 9d6 Normal Damage Explosion, and 20 sticks does 24d6 Normal Damage Explosion.

 

 

 

Nitroglycerine: One liter causes a 12d6 Normal Damage Explosion. Each additional liter adds +2d6 Normal Damage Explosion. Thus, four liters does 18d6 Normal Damage Explosion; 10 liters does 30d6 Normal Damage Explosion.

 

 

 

Gas Tank: Gas tanks are assumed to contain three gallons (12 liters) of fuel and cause a 6d6 Normal Damage Explosion when they go boom. For each additional gallon (4 liters) in the tank, add +1d6 Normal Damage Explosion. Thus, a tank with 8 gallons (32 liters) does 11d6 Normal Damage Explosion; a tank with 12 gallons (36 liters) does 15d6 Normal Damage Explosion.

 

 

 

Plastic Explosives: One block of plastic explosives causes a 15d6 Normal Damage Explosion. Each additional block adds +5d6 Normal Damage Explosion. Thus, three blocks does 25d6 Normal Damage Explosion.

 

So, SuperStrong characters are punching like complete wimps. I may design my next Brick with massive points in MA defined as "Punches Proportionately".

[Sean Waters]

Re: Life Support: How much is "Intense"?

 

Damage is exponential in the Hero system.

 

Having said that....

 

The issue is clouded enormously by the question of DEFENCE and BODY for people and objects.

 

Trebuchet asks the question, quite rightly, 'is a tank round really doing hundreds of thousands of times more damage than a rifle round?'

 

The answer would be YES against a material that converted all energy absorbed into damage, which is why we have those problemati rules about blowing holes in walls.

 

Of course if you are shooting lead bullets at tank armour, 100 000 of them are not going to make the same dent as one tank shell: we have the concept of threshold damages to consider.

 

This, to my mind, and far more than anything else, is what most strongly argues for damage being exponential (and, of course, against it)

 

If you have a FW or a normal wall for that matter with a DEF of 12, no number of 2d6 killing attacks or 12d6 normal attacks are going to hurt you.

 

THIS MEANS THAT DAMAGE IS NOT SIMPLY ACCUMULATIVE - 2x2d6 KA does not equal 4d6 KA where the targetted material has a positive defence

 

Now factor in that we measure damage by BODY: even big objects have a relatively small amount of it, which means that ANY BODY DAMAGE IS SIGNIFICANT. So in order to go from an attack that causes no appreciable damage to one that causes significant damage requires (assuming that the damage is not simply hitting a weak spot or critical system) a significant increase in energy delivered: not simply a small and even linear progression.

 

A second point causes twice as much damage, but then we start getting diminishing returns.

 

As damage that penetrates increases, if damage is exponential, you would expect the devastation to increase significantly as damage through increases: it doesn't, so this, to my mind, argues AGAINST damage being exponential.

 

Some of the Hero systems (damage +1 DC per 2x energy potentially delivered and 'blowing holes through walls, for example) argue for exponential damage. Some systems (damage v BODY being linear, damage adding rules, for example) argue against.

 

Hero does not have a consistent approach, which causes all kinds of confusion. I, personally, would rather think of damage as exponential, hence my comment at the start, bit it is not really, it is a rather odd fusion which, despite its tangled roots, somehow still works

[OddHat]

Re: Life Support: How much is "Intense"?

 

Damage is exponential in the Hero system.

 

Not if you look at the explosives chart in the FAQ. Of course, the chart could just be a bad call.

 

Hero does not have a consistent approach, which causes all kinds of confusion. I, personally, would rather think of damage as exponential, hence my comment at the start, bit it is not really, it is a rather odd fusion which, despite its tangled roots, somehow still works

 

"Should be exponential" does not equal "is exponential", but yes.

 

If it's non-exponential, the whole STR chart ought to be revised with an option for "realistic" campaigns vs "super" campaigns. I may do that anyway.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Life Support: How much is "Intense"?

 

On the original topic, I think that LS is a useful construct: it is shorthand for an awful lot of very complicated rules.

 

Take survival in space: it is cold in the shadow and hot in the glare, there is a vacuum. Humans survive up there with some pretty cunning equipment that nonetheless doesn't provide what you'd call 'defences'...

 

....a spacesuit would probably HELP if you got caught in a housefire, or fell into a vat of superchilled liquid, but it wouldn't save your life for long even though the (theoretical) temperatures it is exposed to in space are higher and lower. the reason being that heat energy can travel in various ways, and the suit provided excellent insulation against radiation, good insulation against conduction and....well, convection is probably not THAT much of an issue here...

 

More so than anything ele you need to apply common sense here - not 'how SHOULD this work in reality, but how should it work in the game. I mean, a space suit, if it can protect against solar IR should probably be pretty excellent against even weapon-grade IR lasers, but that is not how it should work in game. A properly constructed character SHOULD have high defences against the stuff that might get through the LS, but if they don't, that is a failure of the character design rather than the system.

 

Let me take an example: Temporo has an aging ray, built as a 3d6 killing attack - whatever he hits ages and crumbles. He hits Cliff Richard who, as we all know, has LS: Immortal. LOGICALLY the aging ray should have no effect, but it does - it causes 3d6 killing damage.

 

The problem here is that the aging ray SHOULD have been bought as 1d6 KA NND (LS: longevity 3 or more points or non-organic) and does BODY.

 

More of a problem is using a fire attack against someone with LS: Heat. Well first off if you are building The Human Torch, I'd expect you to have LS heat, but also significant defences against heat and similar energies. If those defences are missing, that is your lookout. If the fire attack was built as Heatwave (projects IR radiation causing the target to heat up and catch fire) I'd expect you to now that a reflective surface would reduce its effectiveness and take a limtiation appropriately (LS: Heat or reflective surfaces reduce or prevent damage -1/2).

 

I think that a lot of the problems that arise with LS could be addressed by building characters more carefully, and acknowledging that many opponents will ahve LS - if they do how will that effect your attack?

[atlascott]

I disagree with the superheroic and heroic dichotomy

 

I disagree with the superheroic and heroic dichotomy that is supported by some.

 

The Life Support should apply and cost out exactly the same in either genre.

 

The only difference is--no GM worth his salt is going to allow a "Normal" to buy that sort of thing in a regular heroic campaign. Unless maigc or technology is involved, PC's in a gritty, real world game just aren't going to be able to withstand that sort of thing. In a superheroic game, sure, why not? So, the rule works identically, but as a matter of genre, it should not be allowed for purchase by a normal person, just like a normal person in a realistic campaign could not just buy flight.

 

Further to the example of the evil Thermostat--if his power is defined as "Change Environment: Heat atmosphere to +/- 1000 degrees"--then he will never hurt our hero. If his ability to do the exact same thing is actually an aread effect killing attack witht he specials effect "Im am heating the air all around him to 1000 degrees"--well, thats an attack, and it does damage, period.

[Warp9]

Re: Life Support: How much is "Intense"?

 

So blanket claims that X joules of energy = Yd6 damage simply are not supported by what little internal "logic" the system has. Sometime +1d6 is just +1d6.

X joules of energy = Yd6 damage is exactly what is supported by the current damage of most fire arms, and it is exactly what is supported by the Optional Velocity Damage Table (althought I admit that it is the Optional Velocity Damage Table).

 

 

The simple fact of the matter is that the Hero system's underlying physics is a complete muddle. It's fitted together in a very ad hoc way to represent the physics of fictional stories, not reality. It would need to be reworked from the ground up to actually represent reality; and I doubt the results would be worth the trouble anyway.

Of course it is going to be pretty hard to fully map real world events in a game system; however, I don't think that "ball park" results are too much to ask for. IMO there are some real issues with HERO in the area of exponential vs linear progresssion, but I don't think you'd have to totally redo the system from the ground up in order to fix these problems.

 

Figuring Force and Kinetic Energy is very simple (and these relate to real world physics). And I'd be willing to go with a simplified model which uses these factors in a game. For game purposes, I'd be willing to say that Energy = Damage. It is you who are saying that "Energy = Damage" is NOT good enough.

 

If each 5 STR is doubling effect, then why doesn't each +5 STR double Leaping and Throwing distances? If a normal with 10 STR can jump 2", then why can't a super with 60 STR jump 2048" instead of the mere 12" he does in the system? That's only 10 doublings. After all, energy is energy, right?

I agree totally that the standard rules for movement and velocity are linear.

 

 

Yes, that is one simplistic way of looking at it. Another equally valid conclusionis that each doubling of mass becomes marginally less effective at adding damage. You are assuming that a doubling of energy means a doubling of effective damage. Real world attacks tend to dispute that conclusion. Yes, a modern tank round's impact energy is measured in megajoules of energy. But is it really doing hundreds of thousands of times more damage than a rifle bullet with only a few hundred joules? The amount of damage inflicted on any object struck by an attack is affected by many more factors than mere mass: Velocity, material, construction, shape, and hardness as well as similar questions about the object struck. We don't calculate any of those in Hero.

I'm not sure that I get your argument here.

 

You seem to be basing your conclusion of:

 

"each doubling of mass becomes marginally less effective at adding damage"

 

on the premise that:

 

"The amount of damage inflicted on any object struck by an attack is affected by many more factors than mere mass: Velocity, material, construction, shape, and hardness as well as similar questions about the object struck"

 

This argument presented shows that a heavier object might not do as much damage as a lighter one, due to other relevant factors. However, it does nothing at all to show why just increasing the mass of your projectile would automatically cause these other factors of the attack to decrease. Because, as you say, "We don't calculate any of those in Hero," it seems to me that the logical assumption is to assume they are staying equal.

 

And, if you are willing to assume "all other things being equal" as the mass of the projectile doubles, then it seems that the reasonable conclusion is that the impact would double too.

[Gary]

Re: Life Support: How much is "Intense"?

 

Yes' date=' that is one simplistic way of looking at it. Another equally valid conclusionis that each doubling of mass becomes marginally less effective at adding damage. You are assuming that a doubling of energy means a doubling of effective damage. Real world attacks tend to dispute that conclusion. Yes, a modern tank round's impact energy is measured in megajoules of energy. But is it really doing hundreds of thousands of times more [i']damage[/i] than a rifle bullet with only a few hundred joules? The amount of damage inflicted on any object struck by an attack is affected by many more factors than mere mass: Velocity, material, construction, shape, and hardness as well as similar questions about the object struck. We don't calculate any of those in Hero.

 

If each 5 STR is doubling effect, then why doesn't each +5 STR double Leaping and Throwing distances? If a normal with 10 STR can jump 2", then why can't a super with 60 STR jump 2048" instead of the mere 12" he does in the system? That's only 10 doublings. After all, energy is energy, right?

 

The simple fact of the matter is that the Hero system's underlying physics is a complete muddle. It's fitted together in a very ad hoc way to represent the physics of fictional stories, not reality. It would need to be reworked from the ground up to actually represent reality; and I doubt the results would be worth the trouble anyway. So blanket claims that X joules of energy = Yd6 damage simply are not supported by what little internal "logic" the system has. Sometime +1d6 is just +1d6.

 

 

You're right that the system isn't internally consistent due to game balance issues and the fact that the writers never intended it to be.

 

But I assure you that if a doubled (heavy) weight dropped on me, I'd take double the damage, not +1d6 in real life. If I were wearing some sort of bullet proof vest that would stop bullets but would transmit all the impact damage to me directly, then a .50 cal bullet would do FAR more damage to me than a .45 pistol, which would do FAR more damage to me than a .22 bullet. Far more than what the system's damage progression would suggest.

 

The Leap and Throw is a complete game balance kludge, but if you want a 'real world' explanation, leap depends on not only Str, but also how long your legs are and the material strength of the surface you're leaping off of. Short (man sized) legs simply don't give you time to accelerate yourself the distance you should be able to based on your strength. Someone with 50" legs might realistically be able to jump 2048" with 60 Str if he jumped off an Adamantium surface. And such a character should logically purchase lots of noncombat multiples with leap to fit his character concept.

 

But in the end, it's a game balance issue.

[Gary]

Re: Life Support: How much is "Intense"?

 

Not if you look at the explosives chart in the FAQ. Of course, the chart could just be a bad call.

 

 

 

"Should be exponential" does not equal "is exponential", but yes.

 

If it's non-exponential, the whole STR chart ought to be revised with an option for "realistic" campaigns vs "super" campaigns. I may do that anyway.

 

 

Yeah, the explosion chart is a bad call. A 155 mm tank shell would be about 8d6 killing explosion in Hero terms, or about 24 damage classes plus explosion. And I assure you that a 155 mm tank shell has FAR more explosive power than 20 sticks of dynamite.

[Warp9]

Re: Life Support: How much is "Intense"?

 

Ok, pg 304 of Fred (Don't have revised so it might change things) takes about Wall damage (extrapolating here) where it says that a character that exceeds the walls Body has created a human-sized hole in it and the hole doubles for every +1 Body inflicted over the wall's base body.

 

Page 188 of Ultimate Vehicle says that for large vehicles you might want to consider using appling the rule for damaging walls.

 

Don't have Star Hero so I can't look up the section on "Target: Earth" but i think it says something similar.

 

I'm not sure there's a hard and fast rule that says you MUST do it like this, I just think that it would be more realistic (in some sense). And you really wouldn't be making AoE more powerful just increasing the usefulness of it instead of just using it to hit those pesky speedsters and/or the whole group of agents at once.

I must not be understanding your point here.

 

The rule for making holes in wall would allow a normal (non-area-effect attack) to make a vast hole in a wall just by doing enough BODY.

 

It sounds to me like you are suggesting applying that "wall rule" to vehicles and planets as well, if so then you could still destroy them with a non-AE high-power attack.

 

But again, I am probably misunderstanding you here.

 

As for the "realism" angle, what do you think would happen if you channeled near-infinite energy into a hex of ground? It seems to me that you'd probably get a shock wave which would destroy the planet anyway.

 

IMO having a 200d6 EB destroy a planet is not un-realistic, saying that you can hit a single target with a 200d6 EB and not have an impact on nearby objects IS unrealistic.

[Warp9]

Re: Life Support: How much is "Intense"?

 

From the rules faq, Equipment, weapons:

Q: How does the damage for various types of explosives scale?

 

 

 

A:

 

Dynamite: One stick of dynamite causes a 5d6 Normal Damage Explosion. Each additional stick thereafter adds +1d6 Normal Damage Explosion. Thus, five sticks does 9d6 Normal Damage Explosion, and 20 sticks does 24d6 Normal Damage Explosion.

 

 

 

Nitroglycerine: One liter causes a 12d6 Normal Damage Explosion. Each additional liter adds +2d6 Normal Damage Explosion. Thus, four liters does 18d6 Normal Damage Explosion; 10 liters does 30d6 Normal Damage Explosion.

 

 

 

Gas Tank: Gas tanks are assumed to contain three gallons (12 liters) of fuel and cause a 6d6 Normal Damage Explosion when they go boom. For each additional gallon (4 liters) in the tank, add +1d6 Normal Damage Explosion. Thus, a tank with 8 gallons (32 liters) does 11d6 Normal Damage Explosion; a tank with 12 gallons (36 liters) does 15d6 Normal Damage Explosion.

 

 

 

Plastic Explosives: One block of plastic explosives causes a 15d6 Normal Damage Explosion. Each additional block adds +5d6 Normal Damage Explosion. Thus, three blocks does 25d6 Normal Damage Explosion.

 

So, SuperStrong characters are punching like complete wimps. I may design my next Brick with massive points in MA defined as "Punches Proportionately".

Yep, from now on all my high power characters are going to have to do millions of dice of damage.

[Zeropoint]

Re: Life Support: How much is "Intense"?

 

So, SuperStrong characters are punching like complete wimps. I may design my next Brick with massive points in MA defined as "Punches Proportionately".

 

Actually, I like the fact that lifting capacity is exponential while damage is linear. First and most importantly, it allows characters who can lift prodigous amounts of weight, but do damage that won't reduce other characters to a fine red mist. That was one of the problems with GURPS Supers. From a game balance perspective, HERO's method is much better.

 

Second, the damage from a punch is more a function of the mass and velocity of the arm at contact than of the maximum contractive force of the muscles behind it, so the disparity between lifting capacity and punching damage makes sense. Just because you can lift a thousand tons doesn't necessarily mean you can move your fist fast enough to do 200d6 punching damage

 

Zeropoint

[OddHat]

Re: Life Support: How much is "Intense"?

 

Actually' date=' I [i']like[/i] the fact that lifting capacity is exponential while damage is linear. First and most importantly, it allows characters who can lift prodigous amounts of weight, but do damage that won't reduce other characters to a fine red mist. That was one of the problems with GURPS Supers. From a game balance perspective, HERO's method is much better.

 

This argument holds some appeal for me, but it works better with exponential damage. Further, while it applies in many Superhero settings, it does not apply in some Iron Age games and in non-Super settings that none the less include inhumanly strong creatures (some sci-fi and fantasy). Inhumanly strong beings in those settings should be reducing normals to a fine red mist. There are ways to build the campaign and characters to allow that; one of the key differences between GURPS and HERO is that GURPS accepts that level of deadliness as the default (and there are ways around it in GURPS as well, if a group wants to play Silver Age style GURPS games).

 

Second, the damage from a punch is more a function of the mass and velocity of the arm at contact than of the maximum contractive force of the muscles behind it, so the disparity between lifting capacity and punching damage makes sense. Just because you can lift a thousand tons doesn't necessarily mean you can move your fist fast enough to do 200d6 punching damage

 

This argument will never be settled, but I was never happy with this explanation. There is a problem when you separate the abstract concept of "Strength" from "Mass" and "Reach", but generally speaking a stronger fighter of equal skill and equal mass definitely hits harder.

[Warp9]

Re: Life Support: How much is "Intense"?

 

Second, the damage from a punch is more a function of the mass and velocity of the arm at contact than of the maximum contractive force of the muscles behind it, so the disparity between lifting capacity and punching damage makes sense. Just because you can lift a thousand tons doesn't necessarily mean you can move your fist fast enough to do 200d6 punching damage

 

Force = Mass X Acceleration

 

And from this same formula:

 

Acceleration = Force / Mass

 

The Acceleration of my fist is directly related to the force of my muscles and the mass of my arm.

 

 

 

Also your argument does not explain why throwing a 100 Kton object on somebody's head does not do 2,000,000d6 damage.

[Zeropoint]

Re: Life Support: How much is "Intense"?

 

generally speaking a stronger fighter of equal skill and equal mass definitely hits harder.

 

No one is disputing that. It's a question of how MUCH harder he should hit. And in the real world, there is no convenient "damage" score to measure to get a strength-vs.-damage chart.

 

Warp9, I'm perfectly familiar with Newton's laws of motion, thank you.

 

The Acceleration of my fist is directly related to the force of my muscles and the mass of my arm.

 

Obviously true, but you've neglected a couple of aspects. First, given normal human biology, the only way to increase strength is to increase muscle mass. Thus, both force and mass are greater, and acceleration does not improve as much as it would otherwise.

 

Second, there are definite mechanical limits to how fast muscle tissue can contract, motors can spin, hydraulic pumps move fluid, etc, regardless of how much load is present. If your arm was massless, would you really be able to move it at infinite speed? Consider, too, the forklift: it can lift several tons, but the fork doesn't come up noticeably faster when it's empty.

 

 

Ultimately, this is a game, not reality, and the "proper" relationship between lifting capacity and punching damage is somewhat dependent on setting. Players will have somewhat differing perceptions of reality, different ideas about game balance, and different settings to model. No single set of rules is going to make everyone perfectly happy.

 

Zeropoint

[Warp9]

Re: Life Support: How much is "Intense"?

 

Warp9, I'm perfectly familiar with Newton's laws of motion, thank you.

 

Obviously true, but you've neglected a couple of aspects. First, given normal human biology, the only way to increase strength is to increase muscle mass. Thus, both force and mass are greater, and acceleration does not improve as much as it would otherwise.

Greater Mass can also help with the damage. An arm that is a bigger and heavier weapon does more damage.

 

Second, there are definite mechanical limits to how fast muscle tissue can contract, motors can spin, hydraulic pumps move fluid, etc, regardless of how much load is present.

The specifics such things can be very complex, and are more than I think we need to worry about for a game approximation.

 

I'd just go with :

 

Acceleration = Force / Mass

 

If your arm was massless, would you really be able to move it at infinite speed?

Not infinite; but it would move at the speed of light. And if it had negative mass it would exceed light speed (at least that is the theory behind tacheyons, at least as I understand it).

 

But again, I don't think we need to get too far into things like worrying about the mass of each character's arm.

 

Consider, too, the forklift: it can lift several tons, but the fork doesn't come up noticeably faster when it's empty.

True, but that has to do with the specific limited design of the forklift rather than the laws of physics. IMO a forklift is not a good model for a super-strong character. A character designed like that would not be able to throw anything, no matter how light the object was.

 

Ultimately, this is a game, not reality, and the "proper" relationship between lifting capacity and punching damage is somewhat dependent on setting.

You still would have to deal with the question of what happens when a strong character drops a super-heavy object on a target.

 

Players will have somewhat differing perceptions of reality, different ideas about game balance, and different settings to model. No single set of rules is going to make everyone perfectly happy.

I agree that no game system is perfect, but it is likely that we could come close enough for "ball-park" approximations.

 

Basic Physics is actually pretty simple.

 

If you assume that Energy = Damage, and Strength = Power, then IMO you get a system that works well enough for a game.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Life Support: How much is "Intense"?

 

...................

IMO having a 200d6 EB destroy a planet is not un-realistic, saying that you can hit a single target with a 200d6 EB and not have an impact on nearby objects IS unrealistic.

 

 

Ok, but is this a system problem or a user one?

 

I mean, should you not be building the 200d6 EB (1000 points) as 80d6 EB (AE (radius) plus 40 d6 EB (so it delivers 120d6 to the target and 80d6 to the environment around it?

 

There's nothing wrong with building a 200d6 EB - the 'problem' - as you rightly point out - is justifying having it in that form.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Life Support: How much is "Intense"?

 

Actually' date=' I [i']like[/i] the fact that lifting capacity is exponential while damage is linear. First and most importantly, it allows characters who can lift prodigous amounts of weight, but do damage that won't reduce other characters to a fine red mist. That was one of the problems with GURPS Supers. From a game balance perspective, HERO's method is much better.

 

Second, the damage from a punch is more a function of the mass and velocity of the arm at contact than of the maximum contractive force of the muscles behind it, so the disparity between lifting capacity and punching damage makes sense. Just because you can lift a thousand tons doesn't necessarily mean you can move your fist fast enough to do 200d6 punching damage

 

Zeropoint

 

Yes, but...you SHOULD be able to apply that much crushing force if you got hold of something.

 

You are right about punches - the damage should be a function mainly of monmentum - body mass and how fast you can move your fist - AND the durability of your own flesh - strength in fact plays a relatively minor part.

 

Then again Hero was originally designed to model super-reality. Even the 'Gods' of superherodom don't routinely kick planets out of orbit: there has to be some recognition of game balance, and taking any one view (linear or exponential) to its logical conclusion would make the game unplayable.

 

 

 

(actually, zeropoint, I agree with what you are saying - no idea why that came over so hostile)

[Sean Waters]

Re: Life Support: How much is "Intense"?

 

Here's a formula for you:

 

Real world physics = a great gaming experience*

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*not

[OddHat]

Re: Life Support: How much is "Intense"?

 

Obviously true, but you've neglected a couple of aspects. First, given normal human biology, the only way to increase strength is to increase muscle mass. Thus, both force and mass are greater, and acceleration does not improve as much as it would otherwise.

 

The following has very little to do with the game, but the above is not entirely correct. Strength has a significant neural component. A 220 pound Powerlifter and a 220 pound Bodybuilder may have the same muscle mass (off season), but the Powerlifter will outscore the bodybuilder in every test of absolute strength. However, it gets even further from the way games represent strength, in that the Bodybuilder will out-score the Powerlifter in tests of Strength-Endurance. Olympic Lifters further out perform both Powerlifters and Bodybuilders in tests of explosive strength, but can't match Powerlifters in terms of suspension-strength. Google Mel Sif or Tudor Bompa for citations. All of the above gets greatly simplified when trying to design a game, and it should be.

 

Hpwever, there are many demonstrable cases of men with far lower muscle mass out-performing men with higher muscle-mass in strength contests. There is a correlation between increased muscle mass and increased strength, all else being equal, but at the far end of the bell curve neural factors make a significant difference.

 

Just a quick example:

http://www.usapowerlifting.com/records/national/men-deadlift.htm

 

You will notice that (in this organization) a 114 pound lifter holds a deadlift record of 418 pounds (not actually a great record; the world record is 8 x Bodyweight). Any non-weightlifting 150 pound college student with a bodyfat percentage of 16% or so will have more muscle mass than that 114 pound lifter, but will not be able to match his strength.

 

On the other side, the 114 pound lifter could almost certainly increase his absolute strength by adding 30 pounds of muscle.

[OddHat]

Re: Life Support: How much is "Intense"?

 

Yes, but...you SHOULD be able to apply that much crushing force if you got hold of something.

 

You are right about punches - the damage should be a function mainly of monmentum - body mass and how fast you can move your fist - AND the durability of your own flesh - strength in fact plays a relatively minor part.

 

Explosive Strength has a direct relationship to how fast you can move your fist. That's why good coaches have their boxers and sprinters lift weights.

[Trebuchet]

Re: Life Support: How much is "Intense"?

 

You're right that the system isn't internally consistent due to game balance issues and the fact that the writers never intended it to be.

 

But I assure you that if a doubled (heavy) weight dropped on me, I'd take double the damage, not +1d6 in real life. If I were wearing some sort of bullet proof vest that would stop bullets but would transmit all the impact damage to me directly, then a .50 cal bullet would do FAR more damage to me than a .45 pistol, which would do FAR more damage to me than a .22 bullet. Far more than what the system's damage progression would suggest.

In order to represent firearms to that degree of accuracy you'd need to rework the damage rules in Hero from scratch; and the granularity would have to be far smoother. And the simple fact is that in the real world bullets do not dump all their energy with 100% efficiency. Even the shape and material of the bullets nose can make a significant difference. Armor piercing rounds don't have pointy noses only for ballistic purposes.

 

The Leap and Throw is a complete game balance kludge, but if you want a 'real world' explanation, leap depends on not only Str, but also how long your legs are and the material strength of the surface you're leaping off of. Short (man sized) legs simply don't give you time to accelerate yourself the distance you should be able to based on your strength. Someone with 50" legs might realistically be able to jump 2048" with 60 Str if he jumped off an Adamantium surface. And such a character should logically purchase lots of noncombat multiples with leap to fit his character concept.

But the exact same kinds of issues apply when representing realistic attacks such as explosives. There obviously isn't any more energy in a shaped charge than there is in the explosive used, but that 15-20% of the total energy of a block of C4 used as a shaped charge can blow a nice hole in a piece of armor that the block without the channeling would only smudge.

 

But in the end, it's a game balance issue.

True. But better game balance won't be created by more accurate formulas for weapons. This is a role-playing game, not a tactical wargame. If that's what you want to do, I suggest designing rules so you can use superpowers in Advanced Squad Leader.

[Warp9]

Re: Life Support: How much is "Intense"?

 

Ok, but is this a system problem or a user one?

 

I mean, should you not be building the 200d6 EB (1000 points) as 80d6 EB (AE (radius) plus 40 d6 EB (so it delivers 120d6 to the target and 80d6 to the environment around it?

 

There's nothing wrong with building a 200d6 EB - the 'problem' - as you rightly point out - is justifying having it in that form.

Hmmm. Those are some things to think about

 

It seems like you are saying that it falls upon the person building a character to make sure things are built in a realistic manner, rather than expect the rules to enforce realism directly.

 

I can definitely get behind that idea.

 

But going back to targeting the Planet with a high power (non-AE) EB--where does that fit in to your statement?

[Warp9]

Re: Life Support: How much is "Intense"?

 

You are right about punches - the damage should be a function mainly of monmentum - body mass and how fast you can move your fist - AND the durability of your own flesh - strength in fact plays a relatively minor part.

Let us assume that strengh relates to Force. And let us assume that the relationship betweeen Force and Mass tells us how quickly you can get your hand moving. Then Strength relates directly to the factors of "body mass and how fast you can move your fist." I would aruge that strength plays a big part in damage.

 

Then again Hero was originally designed to model super-reality. Even the 'Gods' of superherodom don't routinely kick planets out of orbit: there has to be some recognition of game balance, and taking any one view (linear or exponential) to its logical conclusion would make the game unplayable.

The part I put in bold confuses me a bit.

[Trebuchet]

Re: Life Support: How much is "Intense"?

 

It seems like you are saying that it falls upon the person building a character to make sure things are built in a realistic manner' date=' rather than expect the rules to enforce realism directly.[/quote']If you really think about it, it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense for a "universal" game system to force realism directly. The system needs to be flexible enough to simulate unreal things such as spandex-clad mutants firing cosmic bolts from their eyes, wizards casting spells to summon supernatural creatures, and singularity-powered starships with warp drives. So it's incumbent upon the people using the system to make their simulations only as realistic as the genre requires.

 

If realism is desired, I'm sure there are systems out there that can simulate real-world weapons and their effects with far more accuracy that Hero ever will. I, however, won't be playing those games myself.

[OddHat]

Re: Life Support: How much is "Intense"?

 

Let us assume that strengh relates to Force. And let us assume that the relationship betweeen Force and Mass tells us how quickly you can get your hand moving. Then Strength relates directly to the factors of "body mass and how fast you can move your fist." I would aruge that strength plays a big part in damage.

 

Every reputable coach, trainer, and Martial Arts sifu or sensei who I've spoken to or whose work I've read accepts that strength plays a role in damage. Skill is a factor as well, but you can only train so far without the strength to perform in your sport.