Integrating "normal" things into a "Super" world

[Lord Liaden]

Hey, gang. I debated whether to post this topic on the Hero System Discussion forum, but decided that the issues in question were more pertinent to players of Champions.

 

Recently I've noticed a renewal of discussion about a subject which keeps cropping up here time and again: a perceived disparity between the stat standards of most of the published Hero Games superheroes and villains, and the stats for many of the published weapons and vehicles which have appeared in HG's non-Champions books. There appear to be quite a few Champions gamers who feel that, by the standards of mainstream four-color comics, even some of the most powerful Champs heroes and villains are not as durable under fire from various guns, or as capable of destruction when pitted against modern armored vehicles, as corresponding comics characters. To be fair, many other fans of the game have expressed that they are comfortable with and like the relative power balance of existing writeups, considering it more realistic. It's not my intention to assert that either viewpoint is right or wrong. Every gamer has the right to expect the kind of play experience that they're comfortable with and enjoy. In fact HERO is dedicated to being tailorable to a wide range of expectations as to how a game world should work.

 

For that very reason it's fair for some people to want to play Champions superheroes as more powerful than things from the real world that surround them. While they could certainly simply increase the Character Point totals, Damage Classes etc. of the heroes and villains in their campaigns, Hero Games has now published many examples of super characters, powers, tech and the like to make it easy for players to start running games without having to create everything themselves. HG has also published many writeups of weapons and vehicles for their "heroic" game lines, and it would also be fair to want to use those writeups without having to heavily modify the "super" or "normal" stuff to make them more compatible.

 

I personally am of the camp that would prefer relatively greater power for Hero supers. Over the years since Fifth Edition came out I've developed a few house rules to enhance the effectiveness of supers against things from the mundane world. My goal has always been to work as much as possible from existing mechanical precedents in the system, and to require little to no change to existing writeups. I've posted some of these rules to the boards piecemeal in the past, often getting useful feedback on them; but I thought that putting them all here might make not only a useful reference, but a starting point for discussion of other approaches to this issue. So while I'm offering my own take, I would welcome input from other interested HEROphiles.

 

However, I do request that people refrain from debating whether or not supers vs normals is an issue that needs to be addressed on this thread. I'm afraid that that would detract from the usefulness of the thread to people who do consider it a problem.

 

So, let me first outline my own rule adjustments.

 

 

Super Defenses. One complaint I often read is that Champs supers are too vulnerable to damage from normal weapons. Even some of the more powerful supers can be brought down by massed automatic weapons fire, especially with a few lucky Stun Multiplier rolls. To deal with this I make use of the Real Weapon Limitation, which incorporates the notion that there may be some restrictions as to what such a weapon can be expected to damage despite what the dice roll says; and which virtually all real-world weapons published in Fifth Edition Hero books are built with. In the case of such weapons I compare the damage potential of the attack to the Defense of the target. If the attack with Real Weapon would normally be incapable of doing Body damage to the target past Defenses with a Standard Effect roll, then the attack is treated as though it had the Reduced Penetration Limitation vs that target. If the attack is incapable of doing Body damage with its maximum roll, then the target takes no Stun or Knockback from that attack, no matter what amount is rolled on the dice. Note that this does not apply to any Defense that is built with the "Real Armor" Limitation, nor to most buildings or vehicles; those are affected by Real Weapons normally. (See Super Attacks below.)

 

I've found that this rule makes for much more "four color" fights against normal thugs with guns, and allows even standard supers to withstand more powerful military-grade weapons. It also provides an explanation for why all those super-agencies like VIPER and UNTIL arm their agents with "supertech" blasters rather than standard firearms, which usually aren't built with Real Weapon; they're more effective against super opposition.

 

 

Super Attacks. Another common complaint deals with the reverse scenario, that super attack powers are not as effective as they should be against objects from the real world, especially modern armored vehicles. To deal with this I rule that if an attack that's built without Real Weapon (like that of most supers) is used against an inanimate object like a wall or a vehicle, or any personal Defense built with the Limitation "Real Armor", and the attack would normally do Body damage to the target past applicable Defenses with its largest roll, then the Defense of the target is halved vs that attack, as though the attack were Armor Piercing against it. This effect doesn't apply to inanimate objects made of campaign-defined "super materials," e.g. adamantium, inertron, questionite etc. Moreover, such materials/objects would be treated as having "Super Defenses" vs attacks with the Real Weapon Limitation. This rule also adds to the four-colorness of super combat, especially the classic "supers vs tanks" scenario.

 

 

Notes: I don't change the Limitation value of Real Weapon or Real Armor in my campaigns, because IMO when you add up how and when the drawbacks occur it's not significantly more limiting than -1/4. Naturally YMMV. You can of course make the damage result what you prefer if the Armor Piercing/ Reduced Penetration analogy doesn't work for you, like doubling or halving damage; but the key for me is the Real Weapon/ Real Armor dynamic, which makes for a consistent "four-colorizing" mechanic without having to change how all the other "normal" stuff works in the game.

 

It may be that a GM would prefer that building or vehicle materials which are more resistant to Super Attacks not be defined simply by GM fiat. Additionally, some PCs might want a Base or Vehicle that's more durable than the products of common technology. What I've found to be the simplest adjustment is to add a Physical Limitation, which I call Real Object, to the sheet for a base or vehicle. For most four-color supers campaigns I assess this as Infrequently, Greatly Impairing (10 points), but you may assess it higher or lower for your own campaign. This can be a default Limitation for all real-world constructs, in addition to any Lims for published base and vehicle writeups. Constructing a "super" vehicle or base would mean simply leaving off that Limitation.

 

When considering how much Body damage an attack does compared to a target's Defense, I always use the Base Damage rather than any additions from Maneuvers such as Haymaker, Move By and Move Through. That includes bonuses from Martial Maneuvers; only Strength and extra Damage Classes count toward Base Damage from Martial Arts. I consider this to be a useful balance to the point efficiency of buying Martial Maneuvers compared to buying more Strength or an Attack Power - the latter two are more effective for smashing stuff.

 

OTOH the Armor Piercing Advantage would be factored in when determining whether an attack would be capable of doing Body damage to a target, either for a Real Weapon against Super Defenses, or for a Super Attack against inanimate objects. In the former case the Defense of the target would be reduced by one-half as normal for AP attacks (barring Hardened Defenses, of course), before comparing it to the Body damage rolled. For the latter case the Defense of the object would also be reduced by one-half as normal; if the attack could then do Body damage to the object with a maximum roll, the object's Defense is reduced to one-quarter vs that attack.

 

IMO a Super Killing Attack with the Advantage Penetrating should not factor in that Advantage against an inanimate object. It already automatically does Body Damage against unhardened Defenses. However, I must admit that I've never used a Penetrating Killing Attack with Real Weapon in my games - there are few existing HERO writeups for such things, far fewer than for those with Armor Piercing - so I haven't yet worked out how to deal with them.

 

 

Normal People: Many HEROphiles have observed that even normal human beings are very tough to kill in HERO System. They can take a lot of damage before expiring, and achieving an "instant kill" with even large weapon attacks requires bringing them to negative their starting Body, which can be difficult. Some people find that to be distractingly unrealistic. The optional Hit Location rules help greatly with this, but many superheroic campaigns do not use Hit Locations, and they also tend to slow down play by adding another step to the combat sequence. The approach I've taken is twofold.

 

First, I devised an Instant Kill House Rule. If a character takes an amount of Body damage, after subtracting Defenses and accounting for Hit Locations (if used), equal to his starting Body score, from a single attack (including Coordinated attacks), the character may die immediately from the shock. For most supers games and more cinematic heroic games, I allow the character to make a Constitution roll to avoid this effect, but when you want greater lethality you can simply forego that roll.

 

I've found that using this rule makes large attacks much more "realistically" dangerous to normal humans; however, the CON Roll version scales well for PCs and notable NPCs, who usually have higher CON stats than normal people (making it easier for them to make their roll), and higher Defense and Body stats (so they usually don't have to roll at all). If you find it exciting for even your superhero PCs to deal with the possibility of instant death from massive trauma (such as a terminal-velocity fall), this rule would add that. In that case you might want to make a qualitative distinction between supers and normal people, that normals don't get a CON Roll.

 

However, as I mentioned earlier, some GMs are not comfortable with arbitrarily making such a distinction. In that case I recommend subsuming my Instant Kill rule into a general Physical Limitation, which I call Mere Mortal (Infrequent, Greatly Impairing; 10 Points). A Mere Mortal is essentially a heroic-campaign character in a superheroic world. Rules and standards from heroic-level campaigns apply to a character with the Mere Mortal Lim. These need not include, or only include Instant Kill. The GM could rule that attacks by such characters do Knockdown rather than Knockback; that their bare-handed attacks suffer the same restrictions as described above for weapons with the Real Weapon Limitation; that their END use for Strength or attempts to Push follow heroic instead of superheroic rules; and so on. Adding this Limitation grounds normal people firmly within the constraints of a more realistic world, while freeing characters without it to achieve four-color exploits.

 

 

Summary: The suggestions I've outlined above would require at most minimal additions to any existing HERO writeup, making it easy to integrate any of the published Fifth Edition materials into high-powered superhero games. In practice I've found these rules to be easy to use; all you need to keep in mind are the Standard Effect and maximum Body damage totals for any attack, and the starting Body total for characters, and you can immediately tell whether any of these rules apply to a particular target.

 

So, this is how I've dealt with integrating normal things into a super world. I'd welcome any comments, questions, requests for clarification or points of dispute. I would also be interested in exchanging and discussing ideas that any of you may have come up with for handling this situation. If you think the whole topic is a non-issue, though, I'd appreciate it if you could refrain from expressing that here.

[Lucius]

Re: Integrating "normal" things into a "Super" world

 

Well reasoned. Thanks for posting it.

 

Wish I had something nearly as intelligent to add.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

I can add a palindromedary....

[Chris Goodwin]

Re: Integrating "normal" things into a "Super" world

 

Desire to rep = yes

 

Ability to rep = no

 

D'oh!

[Trebuchet]

Re: Integrating "normal" things into a "Super" world

 

Desire to rep = yes

 

Ability to rep = no

 

D'oh!

I got him. It was certainly well deserved.

[MitchellS]

Re: Integrating "normal" things into a "Super" world

 

I don't have time to do a lot of typing, so I'll keep mine short.

 

Super Defense: My house rule was that any weapon which had the "real weapon" limitation did 2x for the stun multiplier. Super-weapons did 4x. That usually meant that small caliber weapons bounced against most resistant supers.

 

Super Attacks: My usual house rule was that attacks did max body against inanimate objects. So if you have 12d6 you always do 24 body against a wall, vehicle, etc. That was never a perfect rule but it kept me from needing to rewrite everything [i only needed to rewrite somethings].

 

Normal People: My house rule for normals was that every attack against them was a killing attack, and it did hit location. So if you shoot a normal with 12d6 it's like a 4d6 RKA against them, and you get the body x multiplier. [oops! Forgot to add "over 6d6"]

 

Normal Supers: When I was playing Champions I also had a rule that all non-resistant defense only gave half bonus against the body of an attack. So Seeker with his 15 pd only had an 8 pd against the body damage of a normal attack. So if someone hit Seeker with 12d6 he'd take 4 body if he didn't choose to roll with the blow. That helped deal with the problem of why Obsidian can easily punch through a brick wall but can't put a bruise on Seeker.

[Trebuchet]

Re: Integrating "normal" things into a "Super" world

 

Normal People: My house rule for normals was that every attack against them was a killing attack' date=' and it did hit location. So if you shoot a normal with 12d6 it's like a 4d6 RKA against them, and you get the body x multiplier.[/quote']That seems unnecessarily bloodthirsty. Given that Normals have only 8 BODY on average, a 12d6 normal attack will put them well into the dying zone. Barring immediate medical attention (like within 30 seconds) they're going to die from Bleeding anyway. There's no need to convert what is already potentially lethal into assuredly lethal.

 

Philosophically, I agree supers should have a chance of killing normals if they go all out. A 12d6 punch or EB will practically destroy a car; it damn sure ought to be (and is!) potentially lethal to an ordinary human being. In fact, I've had combats in my campaign between supers where the characters (good guys and bad guys both) were pulling their punches or using less-than-full-power on energy blasts to avoid accidentally killing or seriously injuring their opponents.

[MitchellS]

Re: Integrating "normal" things into a "Super" world

 

Well first, you missed the edit. Second, while many normals do have 8 body, many more have 10-15, and several have defense in the 3-6 range. Also, your 8 body normal would take 72 seconds to die, not 30.

 

Overall the point is to make someone with a 12d6+ attack feel as though they have real power. As I said above, if Obsidian can easily punch through a brick wall it shouldn't be harder to punch through a person. It all depends on where you put the realism factor. Beyond that, that point of the rule was to induce the characters to start pulling their punches around normals instead of just uncorking.

[Trebuchet]

Re: Integrating "normal" things into a "Super" world

 

Well first' date=' you missed the edit. Second, while many normals do have 8 body, many more have 10-15, and several have defense in the 3-6 range.[/quote']I would argue that when a "normal" gets into the 10 - 15 BODY, 3 - 6 PD range they are no longer truly "Normals" but have passed at least into the Heroic levels. I've seen plenty of supers with BODY in the 10 - 15 range.

 

Also, your 8 body normal would take 72 seconds to die, not 30.

Granted. But then, how often is competent medical assistance going to arrive in 72 seconds or less unless all your battles take place in a hospital emergency room? In our campaign our Paramedic/Surgeon is also our most powerful Energy Blaster; he often can't take time during a fight to apply medical treatment.

 

Overall the point is to make someone with a 12d6+ attack feel as though they have real power. As I said above, if Obsidian can easily punch through a brick wall it shouldn't be harder to punch through a person. It all depends on where you put the realism factor. Beyond that, that point of the rule was to induce the characters to start pulling their punches against normals instead of just uncorking.

I agree this is a worthy goal, but in most games I've seen it's unnecessary. Even in my Dark Champions game when my PC Justicar unloaded his full 8d6 EB on a 16-year-old gang member who'd pulled a knife on him and hospitalized the kid he felt obligated to go to the hospital and use his Healing on the little creep. Lesson learned; and the next buy with XP was a "Does No BODY" attack.

[Fedifensor]

Re: Integrating "normal" things into a "Super" world

 

Super Attacks. Another common complaint deals with the reverse scenario' date=' that super attack powers are not as effective as they should be against objects from the real world, especially modern armored vehicles. To deal with this I rule that if an attack that's built without Real Weapon (like that of most supers) is used against an inanimate object like a wall or a vehicle, or any personal Defense built with the Limitation "Real Armor", and the attack would normally do Body damage to the target past applicable Defenses with its largest roll, then the Defense of the target is halved vs that attack, as though the attack were Armor Piercing against it. [/quote']

Does this also applies versus knockback damage done to a wall by a super? If Super-guy knocks Villainesque back 13" into a Def 8, Body 4 wall, does Villainesque take 12d6 knockback damage (from Def+Body of the wall) before passing through, or 8d6 (Body + 1/2 Def)?

[MitchellS]

Re: Integrating "normal" things into a "Super" world

 

I would argue that when a "normal" gets into the 10 - 15 BODY, 3 - 6 PD range they are no longer truly "Normals" but have passed at least into the Heroic levels. I've seen plenty of supers with BODY in the 10 - 15 range.

 

 

Granted. But then, how often is competent medical assistance going to arrive in 72 seconds or less unless all your battles take place in a hospital emergency room? In our campaign our Paramedic/Surgeon is also our most powerful Energy Blaster; he often can't take time during a fight to apply medical treatment.

 

I agree this is a worthy goal, but in most games I've seen it's unnecessary. Even in my Dark Champions game when my PC Justicar unloaded his full 8d6 EB on a 16-year-old gang member who'd pulled a knife on him and hospitalized the kid he felt obligated to go to the hospital and use his Healing on the little creep. Lesson learned; and the next buy with XP was a "Does No BODY" attack.

I guess the point I'm not clearly making is that there should be an aura of power associated with someone doing 10d6+. Unfortunately the difference between normal and killing damage tends to erase that aura. I tend to believe that someone who can walk around juggling 50 tons can easily punch the head off a normal. The way the rules are designed disagrees with me.

 

The intent isn't to go around killing normals, but the intent is also to not make it impossible for characters to do so if they want to. I believe Spider-man could kill someone with a full-strength punch. His 9d6 wouldn't even put a normal into negative body but a 3d6 killing attack probably would.

[Trebuchet]

Re: Integrating "normal" things into a "Super" world

 

Since normals have killed each other in fistfights I'd say that's undoubtedly correct. To me that suggests less that attacks are too feeble but that in Hero average people are too tough. But then, this isn't supposed to be a simulation: It's a game designed to recreate the heroics we see in fiction and film.

[MitchellS]

Re: Integrating "normal" things into a "Super" world

 

To me that suggests less that attacks are too feeble but that in Hero average people are too tough.

And one of the ways you make people less tough is to make the attacks more effective without needing to double the character's damage.

 

But then, this isn't supposed to be a simulation: It's a game designed to recreate the heroics we see in fiction and film.

That's where I think you're wrong [and basically why this thread was created]. Champions doesn't give character the feeling of being powerful or heroic. Everything around the characters is designed to make players feel weak. Ripper [100 str] is one of the strongest supers in the CU but it would still take him 3 phases to rip open a vault door [assuming average rolls]. That's the type of thing you'd expect to see Colossus do in a panel and Hulk or Superman not even give a thought to while doing it [it's almost a casual action to them]. My 350 point Colossus clone has no chance of bypassing the 16 defense.

 

In the CU there are only a handful of heroes who do more than 14d6 [19d6 being the most]. When the CU's toughest heroes can't even act like those in the comics what chance does your character have? I prefer to rescale the game so that someone doing 12d6 feels powerful and effective. I do that by tweaking the rules I feel take away from that. Of course now that I play M&M I don't have that problem.

[Trebuchet]

Re: Integrating "normal" things into a "Super" world

 

That's a flaw with imposing damage caps and wishing to avoid character inflation, not with the game system itself. Few people would view The Hulk or Colossus as starting 350 point characters. If you want characters on the level of Thor or Iron Man, you should IMO be prepared to spend 750 - 1000+ CP and raise or eliminate damage caps so you can get into the 20d6+ damage range. I'd much prefer this approach as it reduces granularity. Spider-Man doesn't tear open bank vaults; his strengths (if you'll pardon the pun) lie elsewhere.

 

In the comics, the vast majority of characters can't tear open a bank vault or smash a tank. I can't see anything inherently wrong with most Champions characters being unable to either. Those that can are (and should be) noteworthy.

[MitchellS]

Re: Integrating "normal" things into a "Super" world

 

Few people would view The Hulk or Colossus as starting 350 point characters.

Most builds I've seen for Colossus put his strength around 70; and Darren's "official" write up for the Hulk also gave him a 70. It'd require a 75 and a push to even do 1 body to a vault door.

 

If you want characters on the level of Thor or Iron Man, you should IMO be prepared to spend 750 - 1000+ CP and raise or eliminate damage caps so you can get into the 20d6+ damage range. I'd much prefer this approach as it reduces granularity.

This's the point where I disagree. First we shouldn't confuse point totals with damage output. Second, there aren't any heroes in print who bear out this statement. 90% of the CU's heroes have damage under 14d6. The toughest only does 19d6 with martial arts. There are no published examples of these 20d6+ heroes who can rip open a bank vault [heck, even Galactic Champions Rampart would need to hit a vault twice to get it open ]. Saying it's required is an artificial inflation induced by players because 12-16d6 heroes are so inferior within the game environment.

 

Spider-Man doesn't tear open bank vaults; his strengths (if you'll pardon the pun) lie elsewhere.

Doc Oct does. Do you believe he's doing 20d6+ when Spider-man is only doing 9d6?

 

In the comics, the vast majority of characters can't tear open a bank vault or smash a tank. I can't see anything inherently wrong with most Champions characters being unable to either. Those that can are (and should be) noteworthy.

The question really becomes how many comic book characters do you believe could blow or rip open a safe if they needed to? Cyclops? Marvel Girl? Colossus? Havok? Human Torch? Thing? She-Hulk? Are they all doing 30d6 in the game? Are 15d6 characters really that inferior? And if they are, why are almost all the write ups in the game for characters doing 10-15d6?

[Fedifensor]

Re: Integrating "normal" things into a "Super" world

 

That's where I think you're wrong [and basically why this thread was created]. Champions doesn't give character the feeling of being powerful or heroic. Everything around the characters is designed to make players feel weak. Ripper [100 str] is one of the strongest supers in the CU but it would still take him 3 phases to rip open a vault door [assuming average rolls]. That's the type of thing you'd expect to see Colossus do in a panel and Hulk or Superman not even give a thought to while doing it [it's almost a casual action to them]. My 350 point Colossus clone has no chance of bypassing the 16 defense.

 

But if you use Lord Liaden's house rule in the post that started this thread, your Colossus clone has that chance (especially with a Haymaker). So, I take it you endorse Lord Liaden's method?

 

As for killing normals, I run a lower lethality game, where people are hospitalized rather than killed (most of the time). So the current rules work just fine for that. With Martial Maneuvers or a 15+ Strength, it's quite possible for a street tough to do BODY damage to the average guy on the street (who only has 2 PD/2 ED).

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Integrating "normal" things into a "Super" world

 

Does this also applies versus knockback damage done to a wall by a super? If Super-guy knocks Villainesque back 13" into a Def 8' date=' Body 4 wall, does Villainesque take 12d6 knockback damage (from Def+Body of the wall) before passing through, or 8d6 (Body + 1/2 Def)?[/quote']

 

Good question. In my games it would be the former. I consider Knockback Damage as a consequence of a super-class attack to be part of that attack, and thus to operate according to "super" standards. The same standards would apply to real-world objects used as thrown missiles. The spirit of these rules is to enhance the effectiveness of supers relative to the mundane world, not diminish it relative to each other, so any points of interpretation should be viewed from that perspective.

 

This is another reason why I wanted to post this topic - questions from you guys help me a lot in clarifying my system.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Integrating "normal" things into a "Super" world

 

I completely understand what MitchellS is trying to achieve with his approach. The issue of superhumans doing the kind of lethal Body damage to normal people that one would expect from someone of such exceptional power is what I was addressing with my Instant Kill rule. I admit that I was trying to keep the "larger than life" spirit of Champions, in which the heroes (and villains) have every chance to keep fighting up to the brink of death, while still allowing for ready slaughter of the merely human when desired.

 

If you look at the sample character sheets for normal people on 5ER pp. 344-45, you'll notice that an Average Person has 8 Body and 2 PD. A single blow from a super doing 10d6 damage will on average do 8 Body to that person after subtracting Defense, enough to terminate him immediately using my rule. The character sheets run up to the Competent Normal (representing a well-trained human combatant) with 10 Body and 5 PD. At that level a Haymakered 10d6 attack has a fair probability of killing even such a person with a single shot, and 11d6+ would only need an average roll with a Haymaker. For me this is sufficient level of lethal threat to induce the proper respect and fear of the superhumanly powerful among normal people, while still letting superheroes of comparable power level duke it out with each other without constantly worrying over being one-shotted into the afterlife.

 

This is also one of the reasons why I like the distinction between Normal Damage and Killing Damage when applied to battles between superhumans; the latter is supposed to be geared to taking life, and IMO should be qualitatively different. However, when you consider the stats of normal people and compare them to the Damage Classes that most superhumans throw around, there's not much difference in the damage they take between Normal and Killing Attacks.

 

I should clarify that I'm one of those HERO gamers who holds that Stun damage can subsume things like bruises, cuts and other minor injuries that don't contribute to the chance of character death, and so don't have to be represented by actual loss of Body. Others may prefer that such things reflect diminishing the Body score, and so a system like MitchellS's might feel more appropriate to them. And that's fair.

[Fedifensor]

Re: Integrating "normal" things into a "Super" world

 

Good question. In my games it would be the former. I consider Knockback Damage as a consequence of a super-class attack to be part of that attack' date=' and thus to operate according to "super" standards. The same standards would apply to real-world objects used as thrown missiles. The spirit of these rules is to enhance the effectiveness of supers relative to the mundane world, not diminish it relative to each other, so any points of interpretation should be viewed from that perspective.[/quote']

 

However, the downside of this is you lose the classic comic bit of blasting someone through walls. Maybe you could have the super take damage as normal, but count the wall as half DEF for purposes of blowing through the wall. So, in my example above, if Villainesque is standing next to an 8 DEF, 4 BODY wall and gets knocked back 13", she takes 12d6 damage from the wall but continues through and goes 5". The downside of this is that Double Knockback attacks become pretty deadly in the right environment.

[MitchellS]

Re: Integrating "normal" things into a "Super" world

 

But if you use Lord Liaden's house rule in the post that started this thread' date=' your Colossus clone has that chance (especially with a Haymaker). So, I take it you endorse Lord Liaden's method?[/quote']

I actually use my own house rule posted above. My Colossus would do 30 body without a haymaker and be able to tare it off. But my point was that Champions doesn't use my, or Lord Liaden's, house rule. Within the Hero rules a 70 str Colossus would need to do 5 haymakers on that door.

 

I don't believe the Hero scale fits within the comic book genre. In the comics a master villain like Gravitar would turn her full intensity gravity control on a tank and crush it into the ground. In the game the best she can hope to do is flip it over [since her best attack can't hurt it]. Do you believe Magneto couldn't crush a tank? I honestly refuse to believe that every comic book character is twice as powerful as the toughest champions characters, and that's why they can tare vault doors off.

[MitchellS]

Re: Integrating "normal" things into a "Super" world

 

I should clarify that I'm one of those HERO gamers who holds that Stun damage can subsume things like bruises' date=' cuts and other minor injuries that don't contribute to the chance of character death, and so don't have to be represented by actual loss of Body. Others may prefer that such things reflect diminishing the Body score, and so a system like MitchellS's might feel more appropriate to them. And that's fair. [/quote']

For the most part I agree with that. Minor injuries don't need to be actual body damage. But honestly, if Grond uncorked on Nighthawk in the comics wouldn't you expect Nighthawk to be dead?

[Vestnik]

Re: Integrating "normal" things into a "Super" world

 

I think part of this problem is that the system isn't set up so that Bricks will pulverize, say, Martial Artists, which they WOULD do in "real life" and DON'T do in the comics. In a "realistic" world, if the Hulk punched Spider-Man, Spider-Man would be a bloody mess (has the Hulk ever managed to hit Spidey?)

[Fedifensor]

Re: Integrating "normal" things into a "Super" world

 

For the most part I agree with that. Minor injuries don't need to be actual body damage. But honestly' date=' if Grond uncorked on Nighthawk in the comics wouldn't you expect Nighthawk to be dead? [/quote']

In the comics? No. Nighthawk has body armor. Also, he would twist his body at the last second so what would kill a normal human would hurt him bady but leave him alive. I'm not talking about needing to "Roll With the Punch"...it's just standard comic book rationalization for why the martial artist isn't dead the first time someone lands a blow on him.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Integrating "normal" things into a "Super" world

 

However' date=' the downside of this is you lose the classic comic bit of blasting someone through walls. Maybe you could have the super take damage as normal, but count the wall as half DEF for purposes of blowing through the wall. So, in my example above, if Villainesque is standing next to an 8 DEF, 4 BODY wall and gets knocked back 13", she takes 12d6 damage from the wall but continues through and goes 5". The downside of this is that Double Knockback attacks become pretty deadly in the right environment.[/quote']

 

You've underlined the pros and cons of such a change quite well. I think the examples in The Ultimate Brick of applying MegaScale to Knockback are supposed to allow for "blasting" someone through a wall so that they keep on going a great distance, without actually increasing the damage that they do.

[MitchellS]

Re: Integrating "normal" things into a "Super" world

 

In the comics? No. Nighthawk has body armor. Also' date=' he would twist his body at the last second so what would kill a normal human would hurt him bady but leave him alive. I'm not talking about needing to "Roll With the Punch"...it's just standard comic book rationalization for why the martial artist isn't dead the first time someone lands a blow on him.[/quote']

And what's the rationale if Nighthawk is unconscious when he gets hit?

[MitchellS]

Re: Integrating "normal" things into a "Super" world

 

I think part of this problem is that the system isn't set up so that Bricks will pulverize' date=' say, Martial Artists, which they WOULD do in "real life" and DON'T do in the comics. In a "realistic" world, if the Hulk punched Spider-Man, Spider-Man would be a bloody mess (has the Hulk ever managed to hit Spidey?)[/quote']

In the comics they don't get hit. In the game they do.