Breaking large volumes

[Crypt]

A rule issue i actually don't understand =>

 

My Question to Mr Long was =

Let's say a character with no Tunneling power punches a mountain (i suppose DEF 5 BODY 19 per hex (TUB page 110).)

 

Let's say his (monstrous) punch does 43 BODY. (= 19 BODY over the DEF+BODY of the target)

 

Will he :

 

- dig 2 cubic hexes of material (TUB page 105, "if a brick tries to damage a large object...etc") ?

 

or

 

- dig 2^19 cubic hexes of material (H5R page 449, breaking walls, double for each +1 Body over) ?

(2^19 = 524 288 cubic hexes)

 

I guess the H5R version is the good one (?)

Steve's answer was =

The rules on TUB 105 apply. A mountain is not a wall.

if 1DC = 64 joules and +1DC=X2 joules (see John Kim VELOCITY-BASED MOVEMENT FOR THE HERO SYSTEM)

If i make no mistake a 43DC (215 STR !!!) punch would equals 281 474 976 710 656 joules ==> which is equals to 70368 tons of TNT.

(1 ton of TNT = 4*10^9 J.)

Such a powerfull punch would only destroy 2 cubic hexes of stone ?

 

I have a lot of difficulties to believe it

 

 

 

By following the same progression (+1DC=X2 joules) a 5km meteorite ; 216000 km/h ; 5x10^14 kg for an impact of 10^24 joules would approximatively equals DC 74.

With the TUB p105 rule it would only destroy an average of 3.7 cubic hexes of stone... (while this kind of impact is supposed to vaporize billions tons of materials...)

IMHO this rule doesn't work and the wall breaking one might be used instead.

(PS: it would not be better with a Move Through)

 

What is your opinion ? Mine is that a mountain is like a wall (at least for inner consistency ....)

[Sean Waters]

Re: Breaking large volumes

 

The result depends on which version of reality the GM prefers.

 

A mountain may not be a wall , but as Hero declines to say exactly what it means by a wall (I'd suggest 'any solid homogenous structure') then there is no good reason it should not be treated like one. Hero is horribly inconsistent about this sort of thing. The planet Earth is not a wall either, but I've seen 'official' suggestions that the planet (using the 'wall' rules) has around 85 Body.

 

Personally I think we ought to make our minds up how damage works in a more coherent way, but that is a rant I've ranted many a time before and no need to take up your valuable time with it

 

Like I say: pick one and stick with it and you'll be good.

[Crypt]

Re: Breaking large volumes

 

Hero is horribly inconsistent about this sort of thing

 

IMHO an "ultimate" system should be more consistent than that.

 

I hope H6 will solve all of this and stay close to a logarithmic scale*... (before i switch to another system............again......)

 

 

 

* even closer ! Several rules (movements, encumbrance and impacts to name a few) would be much simpler by using a strict log scale (and the log properties !!!)

 

 

Some of the physical parts of the rules have not been worked enough (Throwing distance is another example)

 

 

The result depends on which version of reality the GM prefers

 

yes but what is this kind of reality where 1 ton of TNT and a couple of shovels could almost compete ? (Toon ? )

[Blackberry]

Re: Breaking large volumes

 

The main difference to me is that a wall in general has support on two axes but not on the axis of the attack -- in other words, there is nothing behind the wall to support the resiliency of the wall, so all you need to do is break the wall, and the wall parts obligingly get out of the way, so you now have a hole.

 

In the case of solid stuff like a mountain made of stone, each bit of the outer edge of the mountain has the rest of the mountain supporting behind it, meaning each hex is not treated as an individual vertical barrier to smash through in isolation to all else but rather as a portion of a whole. Secondly, unlike the wall, punching the stone into the mountain just pushes it in, not out of the way, so it forms a wound in the body of the mountain rather than a hole through a hex of stone.

[Crypt]

Re: Breaking large volumes

 

The main difference to me is that a wall in general has support on two axes but not on the axis of the attack [...]

 

H5R page 448 => One of the 2 variables used to determined a wall BODY is his thickness so the "depth axis" is taken into account.

 

 

In the case of solid stuff like a mountain made of stone, each bit of the outer edge of the mountain has the rest of the mountain supporting behind it, meaning each hex is not treated as an individual vertical barrier [...]

 

I've used a DEF 5 BODY 19 per hex (TUB page 110) stats for the "mountain." So it should not be seen as a whole.

 

Seriously, how do you justify that a 215 STR guy only digs such a miserable hole ?

(215 !!!! he could lift 200 giga tons = 10^9 Statues of Liberty = 20 million of Eiffel Towers = 200000 Golden Gate Bridges ... !!! We cannot even imagine how strong such a guy is.)

Don't you think that 2 cubic hexes is ridiculous ?

[Blackberry]

Re: Breaking large volumes

 

H5R page 448 => One of the 2 variables used to determined a wall BODY is his thickness so the "depth axis" is taken into account.

 

Yes, but, depending on its purpose, a wall is intentionally strong vertically, usually incidentally strong horizontally, and relatively fragile laterally. Stress is designed to be dispersed horizontally and vertically, so it is relatively easy to break the wall material's tensile strength laterally, depending on the flexibility of the material.

 

Find a steel door and swing an ice pick at it.

Go to Yosemite and swing the ice pick at El Capitan.

In which case is the ice pick more likely to penetrate all the way through?

In which case is a chunk of stuff likely to come off if the ice pick doesn't penetrate?

 

Long story short: if it really helps, treat the mountain as a wall a few miles thick.

 

And anyway, HERO's partially geometric Strength scale doesn't translate all that well to real works physics. It's a gameplay mechanic so The Hulk doesn't need a STR of 1000.

 

I've used a DEF 5 BODY 19 per hex (TUB page 110) stats for the "mountain." So it should not be seen as a whole.

 

I'm saying that each hex of a mountain is not a separate object. Dirt is treated that way so that a hole can be made, but it's not a hole in the sense that a hole through a wall is -- the dirt is not penetrated or destroyed by punching it, just displaced.

[Crypt]

Re: Breaking large volumes

 

And anyway, HERO's partially geometric Strength scale doesn't translate all that well to real works physics. It's a gameplay mechanic so The Hulk doesn't need a STR of 1000.

 

Because the lifting capacity from STR is logarithmic* even Hulk is a mosquito compared to the 215 STR guy ** (so there is no need to speak about a STR of 1000.)

 

* lifting capacity = 25 X ⁵√(2^STR)

 

** did you forget him ? (200 giga tons...)

Simply drop from, let's say 5m, the weight this guy can lift. The "hole" will be a lot more than 2 cubic hexes (whatever the surface of impact.)

 

 

I'm saying that each hex of a mountain is not a separate object.

When you dig the ground with a shovel do you dig the entire Earth ? (actually yes but i hope you know what i mean...)

IMHO objects should be considered as a whole only when they have vitals parts (beings, machines, etc...)

[Blackberry]

Re: Breaking large volumes

 

Because the lifting capacity from STR is logarithmic* even Hulk is a mosquito compared to the 215 STR guy **

 

* lifting capacity = 25 X ⁵√(2^STR)

 

** did you forget him ? (200 giga tons...)

 

I did not forget it; I'm saying that, once you get beyond about STR 60, comparing the linear increase in damage dice (which is there to make the game playable) with the geometric increase in lifting capacity (which is there to make The Hulk a playable character concept) will only end in tears.

 

It is a game system. It is not a perfect simulation of the real world.

 

I would probably rule it by just saying that he can lift 200 gigatons, so he should do damage like an explosion of 200 gigatons of force -- blow the whole side out of the mountain, if not crumble it entirely. BODY damage is, pardon the pun, immaterial.

 

 

When you dig the ground with a shovel do you dig the entire Earth ?

IMHO objects should be considered as a whole only when they have vitals parts (beings, machines, etc...)

 

Dirt is easily dug not because it has low DEF and BODY but because it is not one object but thousands of tiny objects which are all slightly sticky. If you want to get into the actual materials, then when punching a brick wall, you should figure out the tensile strength of the mortar versus the material strength of the brick, and distribute the pressure appropriately until one fails or it resists the pressure. GURPS can probably do that for you, but HERO does some abstraction for the sake of getting on with the game. It doesn't always coincide perfectly with the real world, but it does a reasonable job of simulating what happens in a superhero comic when someone tries to punch through a wall.

[Crypt]

Re: Breaking large volumes

 

BODY damage is, pardon the pun, immaterial.

 

 

 

I'd like a game able to simulate GODS* as easily as supers as easily as standard humans as easily as small beings.

A game able to handle meteoritic impacts as easily as firearms ballistic.

In a consistent way.

A true generic system.

A game i can inject reality inside without suffering rules limits.

 

Should i sell my HERO books ?

 

What is the game i'm looking for ?

 

Does it exist ?

 

 

* the galactic kind of god who use Cthulhu as a pet.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Breaking large volumes

 

The problem here is, well, first, the question is not so much how much earth should you be able to shift with a punch that has a certain amount of energy as 'What do you think you ought to be able to do with enough strength to vaporise steel?'

 

I mean, you hit a vault door or a mountain with that kind of power and all you are going to manage is burying your arm up to the pit in whatever it is you are punching, you k.now, realistically. Ha. Realistically.

 

So. Compare, for instance, someone with 100 STR. That'll be 20DC of damage.

 

A block of plastic does a 15d6 N EX. Lordy. So is 20d6 1.333 blocks or plastic or is it more? If you wanted to blow out (say) 20 hexes of mountain (5 DEF/19 BODY), would that take 5+(19x20)=385 Body, or about 385d6 damage. That's - well - that's nuts.

 

OK. 100 STR. Lift of 25 kilotons. Let's see. 1 cubic metre of granite wieghs 2750kg, or 2.75 metric tons. Let's see. Nearly 1000 cubic metres. A 2 metre cube is 8 cubic metres. That will be about 125 cubic hexes. Something like that.

 

So. You could lift 125 cubic hexes. The same strength can only break 2 cubic hexes (well, more, a cubic...cube...is more volume than a cubic hex)? Hmm.

 

Of course the problem here comes because lift goes up exponentially which, frankly, in a superhero game, is how it should be. Damage, well who knows? There are any number of references that indicate that damage is exponential, real, official references, but others that suggest it is not. Real, official references.

 

This sort of schizophrenia needs curing. Of course that requires practically a ground up redesign of most of the assumptions we make about the whole system.

 

Never going to happen, is it? We'll just have to hope for sympathetic care in the community.

[Manic Typist]

Re: Breaking large volumes

 

No, you shouldn´t sell them. HERO does a lot of the work for you, but at a certain point you need to step up and fill in the gaps. It´s not a game but a system you use to design a game. The system is set up to allow for changes you might want.

 

Any other system is going to be rife with its own inconsistencies, likely far more and far worse in practical terms than you´ll find in HERO. At a certain point, a lot of the problems discussed on these boards aren´t really problems. They´re nuanced, minute examinations of the sub-atomic workings of the game. This is an important and even fun task... but I believe that a lot of the time I could have gone my entire HERO career without ever having thought about it and still had tons of fun. I do however look forward to the day when I can fully discuss these sorts of things... because that means I´ll have grokked the system!

 

So, use the OTHER rule rather than the one Long suggested. It says it in the book: use whatever rules necessary to have fun!

[Crypt]

Re: Breaking large volumes

 

It´s not a game but a system you use to design a game.

 

well, i like that

[Blackberry]

Re: Breaking large volumes

 

In the game you are trying to create, does a normal stand a chance of "winning" against a god? Defeating in physical combat, a game of riddles, etc.?

 

If not, there us no need for a system that scales to both ends. Just do what Nobilis, Truth & Justice, and Rifts do (am I the first to lump those games together?), and make a normal level and a god level.

 

If a god has a punch that does 15d6 damage, that's on the god scale. Against a normal, it simply kills them outright. Against another god, roll and apply as usual. Likewise, even a normal's killing damage would be barely felt by a being that can summon miracles with but a thought.

 

If the game is to focus on the normals, aren't the gods just plot points, and vice versa?

[PhilFleischmann]

Re: Breaking large volumes

 

if 1DC = 64 joules and +1DC=X2 joules

I think that's the source of your problem right there. The key word being "if." As any logician will tell you, if you start with a premise and reach a contradiction, then your premise is false.

 

You can get yourself into all sorts of confusing and inconsistant scenarios by trying to assign joule values to damage dice. The fact is that in HERO, 1d6 of damage equals 1d6 of damage - and that's it! It doesn't equal any particular amount of energy. 2d6 of damage is twice the amount of damage as 1d6 - and that's it! It isn't any particular proportion more of enery.

[Guest steamteck]

Re: Breaking large volumes

 

The problem here is, well, first, the question is not so much how much earth should you be able to shift with a punch that has a certain amount of energy as 'What do you think you ought to be able to do with enough strength to vaporise steel?'

 

I mean, you hit a vault door or a mountain with that kind of power and all you are going to manage is burying your arm up to the pit in whatever it is you are punching, you k.now, realistically. Ha. Realistically.

 

.

 

 

Rats I was figuring stone to them would be like lose snow to me. I was going to go clear my yard out by punching it.

 

Seriously, Its slow drive strength. Unless he punches at supersonic or relativistic speeds that sort of shockwave doesn't make sense so do whatever feels right. I'd probably give such attacks an explosive advantage myself if i needed to make a distinction.

[prestidigitator]

Re: Breaking large volumes

 

It's more a question of scale than sheer amount of energy in my mind. Things we usually consider "objects" are either functional or they are not. Whole or broken. If I smash half a vehicle, most likely the other half isn't very useful (and in the case of vehicles we have interesting rules for partial destruction before we've done enough damage to "break it" anyway). A normal (non-area) attack can conceivably destroy something like that in one hit.

 

A planet, or a base (consider the Death Star for a moment...), or a mountain, isn't one structure and damaging part of it isn't really going to break its overall, "functionality," if you will. To "destroy" the whole thing you really need to affect many different parts independently, either with many, many different attacks or with an area-of-effect.

 

And then there are things that I find fall somewhere in between. For example: walls. They are usually built as one structure. Mechanically, break one part of it and you might weaken the whole thing. Also, breaking a part of it generally voids the thing's functionality as we usually see it (that being keeping things in/out). But I think in games terms we could probably deal with them either way, within reason. I see the rules for the size of the hole as targetted for the resolution of what can get through the wall. "Okay. I've punched a hole in the wall. I can slip through, but can I drive my BMW in? With or without scratching the paint? Can my friend the giant get his big a** through, or will he get stuck half-way, with all the accompanying hilarity?" In that sense, figuring out how big the hole is makes some sense. But I'm not about to use it to figure out whether even a nuke destroys the whole Great Wall of China (not that it's really one big structure anyway, but assuming it is for purposes of this discussion...).

 

In a mega-powerful game we could either relax some of the realistic common sense, or we could have the characters spend some of those bajillion points to apply an Area of Effect Advantage (or variable Advantage, or build a Multipower...). I prefer the latter solution, but to each his/her own.

[Greywind]

Re: Breaking large volumes

 

It's more a question of scale than sheer amount of energy in my mind. Things we usually consider "objects" are either functional or they are not. Whole or broken. If I smash half a vehicle' date=' most likely the other half isn't very useful (and in the case of vehicles we have interesting rules for partial destruction before we've done enough damage to "break it" anyway). A normal (non-area) attack can conceivably destroy something like that in one hit.[/quote']Not according to the Hulk. Half a car makes a good boxing glove...

[Crypt]

Re: Breaking large volumes

 

In the game you are trying to create, does a normal stand a chance of "winning" against a god? Defeating in physical combat, a game of riddles, etc.?

 

If not, there us no need for a system that scales to both ends.

 

 

if you speak about the link in my signature => this (seed of) system uses the decibel scale (10Log10 ===> Rank = Log10(Value) X 10 ). Its main goal is to be able to simulate anything at any scale. (i wanted something as powerfull as the MEGS but with a lot more granularity. In the other hand HERO has better construction rules than the MEGS. IMHO the grail would be a 100% logarithmic Decibel HERO ......)

So yes, i need a system that scales both ends. I fact there should be no end.

 

 

No, you shouldn´t sell them. HERO does a lot of the work for you, but at a certain point you need to step up and fill in the gaps. It´s not a game but a system you use to design a game. The system is set up to allow for changes you might want.[.........]So, use the OTHER rule rather than the one Long suggested. It says it in the book: use whatever rules necessary to have fun!

 

 

Ok, that's convincing

[Blackberry]

Re: Breaking large volumes

 

if you speak about the link in my signature => this (seed of) system uses the decibel scale (10Log10 ===> Rank = Log10(Value) X 10 ).

 

Forgive me if I have flashbacks to Hybrid.

 

Its main goal is to be able to simulate anything at any scale. (i wanted something as powerfull as the MEGS but with a lot more granularity. In the other hand HERO has better construction rules than the MEGS. IMHO the grail would be a 100% logarithmic Decibel HERO ......)

So yes, i need a system that scales both ends. I fact there should be no end.

 

There are no upper limits in HERO. Nothing is infinite. It's just that rolling 1000d6 may get tedious. You may want to use Standard Effect after about 20 dice.

 

What results do you want the system to give you if I, a flabby computer programmer, go up against Odin in a fist fight? In HERO, if you give me an 8 STR and a 3 PD, and you give Odin a 300 STR and a 100 PD, HERO can support all those numbers just fine, but will it give you the results you want to get?

 

Similarly, what results do you want the system to give you if I go up against Odin in a riddle contest? Should I have a chance of beating him?

[Sean Waters]

Re: Breaking large volumes

 

Personally I do not mind so much if a system uses a straight line progression or an ever steepening curve, but I've read comics where the characters are literal earth-shakers, and I'd like to be able to simulate that without having to roll so many dice it takes half an hour to add up a damage roll. OTOH I don't want Jane Normal to stun Amazia with a lucky punch or pistol shot.

 

I know: I want a lot.

 

Hero is perfectly capable of delivering a lot BUT we need to be more consistent in application. Whether or not it is desirable in any given opinion, the increase in Body and damage for doubling mass (with DI) is related. Hero already makes innumerable assumptions that damage and the ability to resist damage works on an exponential basis.

 

We could go much further, but, to be honest, that way lies only madness. Mind you shying too far away from what is, like it or not, a central tenet of the system is also straying into tin-foil hat territory.

 

Now prestidigitator makes a very good point that you can functionally destroy something (for a given value of 'functionally' without atomising it. A large enough volume of continuing (say 1 turn) 2d6 RKA will functionally destroy the planet Earth, at least for the function of habitability: it will kill almost all the plants, wrech the atmosphere with smoke, kill most of the animals, destroy most of the cities. The planet, however, will be largely untouched by this global firestorm, in terms of functionality as a planet.

 

The assumption that Hero makes is this: over a given DEF, and over a given base Body, +1 Body damage destroys twice as much material. A 5 DEF 19 BODY hex of a mountain is functionally destroyed as a coherent part of the mountain if you deliver 24 Boy damage in one hit. If you deliver 25, you should do 2 hexes of damage. 26 destroys 4, and so on: bingo - instant 'megascaling' - once you reach a threshold level, you can cause massive damage.

 

If we keep that in mind, everything is perfect.

 

No, really. It is.

[Manic Typist]

Re: Breaking large volumes

 

I´m a little more confused now, but we´re approaching the sub-atomic: what schema HERO should (or shouldn´t) use to scale/progress. Linear, exponential.... additive?

[Sean Waters]

Re: Breaking large volumes

 

I´m a little more confused now' date=' but we´re approaching the sub-atomic: what schema HERO should (or shouldn´t) use to scale/progress. Linear, exponential.... additive?[/quote']

 

Hero DOES use an exponential system, just don't tell anyone because it upsets a lot of people.

 

+1 (or +5) = double.

 

When approaching the sub-atomic, I'd be inclined to use EDM.

 

[Manic Typist]

Re: Breaking large volumes

 

But it doesn´t consistently use the sub-atomic....right?

 

Eh, I should probably quit now. I don´t have a headache, and the thread hasn´t drifted TOO far...

[Sean Waters]

Re: Breaking large volumes

 

But it doesn´t consistently use the sub-atomic....right?

 

Eh, I should probably quit now. I don´t have a headache, and the thread hasn´t drifted TOO far...

 

STR and mass sort of work subatomically - STR can certainly go negative, but you are right: at that point, the system breaks down because you can not, for instance, do any damage with a STR of less than zero - there is insufficient differentiation.

 

There is a basic assumption in Hero that the game is humanocentric.

 

The way I would play very small characters who have powers appropriate to their size (as opposed to very small characters that seem to compete on equal terms with much larger characters) is use EDM in a specialized way.

 

Very small characters would effectively work in a world on a different scale. They would be assumed to inhabit 'smallworld', a congruent dimension, with interesting interaction rules. You can perceive 'normalworld' and normalworld can perceive smallworld without extradimensional senses (although you might require telescopic/microscopic senses). Generally smallworld characters can not attack normal world characters unless they buy their attacks as extradimensional. Most normalworld attacks are ineffective against smallworld characters, although there may be some exceptions.

 

A smallworld character is built just like a normalworld character, but they naturally exist on a different dimension. You can travel between normalworld and smallworld using EDM.

 

OK, that is clearly not the system scaling, but there is not a system that does - even DC Heroes which had a wonderful exponential system didn;t really cope with 'negative' size that well (at some point on an exponential scale you are going to pass through zero). Hero can cope - with a little creative thinking - and with the assumption that things that operate on a massively different scale do not really interact.

[prestidigitator]

Re: Breaking large volumes

 

Another way to work the very small is to, instead of reducing actual Str and damage, put Limitations on them. For example, applying some kind of Gradual Effect and/or Extra Time type Limitations might be a good way to simulate very small characters being able to do damage in the long run, but it taking a whole lot of small-scale changes to have a noticeable macroscopic effect.