Bricks and Weightlessness

[Ghost Archer]

I rarely ask questions about rules or their interpretations as I’ll do things the way I want anyway but this is an interesting tactic I recently conceived. It may not be original but I’ve never seen it before. In a new off-shoot of my long running campaign, I’ve decided to play something totally out of character for me, a brick. Meanwhile, there is another player that has a character that controls gravity including that most interesting power found in the USPDB, Gravity Cancellation. From what I can see this power effectively makes the target weightless, right? My brick has come up with an idea. I know, I know, a stretch for a brick . . .but . . . what if Nat, my brick, grabbed a thug type and then had Wren, the Gravity Mistress, hit ‘em with said Gravity Cancellation?

 

1: How far can a brick with say, 100 STR, throw the now weightless thug?

 

2: What is the “Extra Strength†for throwing a weightless object?

 

3: How much velocity would the thug have at the point of release?

 

4: How much damage would the thug take upon meeting the ground at the far end?

 

5: What if Nat threw the thug into something solid and very close, like the face of El Capitan, what would be the damage? 20d6 from normal STR or Whatever d6 from “Extra Strength�

 

Thanks in advance for input.

 

PS: I still have problems with a 100 STR brick only being able to throw a football (-25 STR to lift) a mere 50†(100 meters, a measly 108 yards or so) in a standing throw. He can lift a BATTLESHIP but only throw 100 yards? *grumble, grumble*

[BenKimball]

No change in initial acceleration or speed. Remember that F=ma, and neither F (derived from the strength of your brick) nor m (the mass of the weightless character) has changed.

 

However, in the absence of any downward force, the thrown object won't stop until air resistance reduces his speed to zero. It seems quite plausible to me that without the downward force of gravity, air resistance alone might not suffice to stop a thrown character from leaving Earth.

 

Of course, I wouldn't allow this to work in *my* campaign. =)

 

Cheers,

Ben

[zornwil]

I suppose the main question is (and sorry, don't have USPD in front of me, it's at home and I'm at work) when does the Gravity Cancel stop working?

 

I'd go with a couple ways to handle this (and sorry in advance for not directly answering your questions but I think this gets there)

 

- call weightless "10 pounds" in a super-heroic game for the purposes of throwing and such - otherwise it's just going to get crazily abusive

 

- also consider where/how the Gravity Cancel stops working - if the person leaves the field of it, their increased weight should affect what happens whenever it kicks in (ouch! they're going to fall from a tall distance!); I wouldn't get physics-crazy/accurate on it, I'd just make a genre-accurate ruling on this

 

If the characters keep doing this though and seem to have the capability to pull it off too much of the time, it may make sense for them to buy a power that requires them both and the setup and basically does a teleport (megascaled if you really want this weightless thing to go flying) fairly cheaply (there would be significant limitations). I just think it could end up being too strong a tactic, but of course that also depends on how likely they are to strike and how much coordination it requires that they can perform, so it may not require creating a new power either.

[Asperion]

Re: Bricks and Weightlessness

 

1: How far can a brick with say, 100 STR, throw the now weightless thug?

 

If you will recall, the throwing rules work off the concept of mass, not weight. The mass of said thug will remain constant regardless of the alterations in gravitational pull that is called weight. Thug will always possess 100 kg mass regardless of it is on Earth where Thug weighs 220 pounds or 36.6 pounds on Luna.

 

2: What is the “Extra Strength†for throwing a weightless object?

 

To determine this refer to the Throwing table in the book and find the difference in mass between the thug and max throwing amount for Brick's strength.

 

Hope that these suggestions help you in working the finer points of your now weightless brick.

 

Just my $0.02

[Magmarock]

...

 

Wouldnt it be like throwing a feather? I mean if something has no weight to it, it wouldn't go very far, I think. And it wouldn't fall either, just kinda float there.

[McCoy]

"An object in motion will remain in motion unless acted upon by an outside force." In free fall, a thrown object will travel until it hit something, no matter how far that is. Likewise an object with its gravity canceled. Keep in mind it will not follow the curvature of the Earth, but travel a tangent to it. So I would rule that a Brick with 100 STR could easily throw a human-mass beyond the atmosphere.

[CrosshairCollie]

I haven't seen the Gravity Cancel power, but what's it got for range/area? Gravity would reassert itself as soon as the target was out of range of the power (unless it's some uncontrolled thing).

[Ghost Archer]

The power does have a range of about 280" so at that point gravity will reassert itself. Maybe up to that point the distance thrown is ignored, then once gravity takes over, figure the mass vs STR out. Now, if my little Gravity Queen *ducks the assorted flying objects* were to make the power Continuous and maybe 0 END...look, a new planet.

[Zed-F]

Re: ...

 

Originally posted by Magmarock

Wouldnt it be like throwing a feather? I mean if something has no weight to it, it wouldn't go very far, I think. And it wouldn't fall either, just kinda float there.

 

A feather floats because its air resistance is comparable to the force gravity exerts on it. Put a feather in space and throw it and it will go just as fast as a pebble would. Fire a feather from a gun, and it will emerge with the same velocity as anything else; it will just slow down faster and deviate from its original trajectory more because of the extra air resistance and the tumbling it causes.

 

A thug doesn't have a very large air resistance relative to the force exerted by a 100 STR throw.

[Magmarock]

Thugthrower!

 

A new villain brick!

 

Just very difficult to recruit all the new "ammo"... word gets out quick, you know.

[Broblawsky]

A new villain brick!

 

Just very difficult to recruit all the new "ammo"... word gets out quick, you know.

 

Heh...that reminds me of one of the villains from the anime Trigun. Basically, a giantess who used her sons (wrapped in battleship armor, basically) as living projectiles...once thrown, they would run back to her. Kinda funny, but you could steal it pretty easy.

 

Incidentally, how is this Gravity Cancellation power built?

[J4y]

If you will recall, the throwing rules work off the concept of mass, not weight.

 

Mmm, other way around isn't it? The throwing tables assume earth gravity and atmosphere. No gravity and you could throw something practically any distance and hence wouldn't need a table. 4ED mentions weight anyway.

[Ghost Archer]

Gravity Cancellation is 8" Flight, Usable As An Attack.

 

*covers himself with anti-Steve armor and dares to quote*

 

". . . power allows the character to cancel the effects of gravity and move him around at will . . . "

 

I am going purely on the Special Effects of the power rather than a strict definition of rules as I am not sure how the mechanic would work.

 

Originally posted by zornwil

- call weightless "10 pounds" in a super-heroic game for the purposes of throwing and such - otherwise it's just going to get crazily abusive

 

Now why would you call weightless "10 pounds"? Why not go all the way down the table to .8 kg and -25 STR?

 

Oh, anyone gonna talk about the 100 STR Brick that can lift a battleship but only throw a football 108 yards? Steve once told me more or less 'that's the way it is' but of all the rules in HERO, this one is the only one that bothers me. One of those niggling, annoying things you can't let go.

[Dr. Anomaly]

Originally posted by Ghost Archer

Oh, anyone gonna talk about the 100 STR Brick that can lift a battleship but only throw a football 108 yards? Steve once told me more or less 'that's the way it is' but of all the rules in HERO, this one is the only one that bothers me. One of those niggling, annoying things you can't let go.

That bothered me, too, so this is how I did it:

 

For a character with superhuman strength (IMC that means above 25 STR), first figure out how much "excess" strength they have for the throw.

 

In the case of a 100 STR brick and a football, that'd be about 125 excess.

 

As long as they still have excess STR (i.e. a positive number), they can remove 5 points of "excess" STR from the value used for the throw to get a x2 "distance" modifier (like a Non-Combat Modifier for Movement Powers).

 

Suppose our brick removed 25 "excess" STR from throwing the football; now you'd figure how far he'd throw it using the remaining 100 "excess" STR, then apply a x32 distance modifier to that value.

 

This lets the really high-end bricks do things they SHOULD be able to do, like throwing things "a country mile" or, in the case of small things, into orbit.

 

These days, I would probably add that a brick would have to make a Power Skill check to properly pull it off, with a -1 penalty to the roll for every 5 points of "excess" STR he was attempting to convert into extra distance (or maybe -1 for every 10 points of excess).

 

This has worked well for me; opinions?

[Fur Face]

Why Throw?

 

Dude, if said thug is made lighter than air, sooner or later he will be in outer space, so no throwing is necessary. Now, you could always wait until the thug is 1,000 feet up and turn gravity back on ...

[Magmarock]

...

 

Well, I was taking into account the atmospheric conditions and the weightlessness, when I mentioned the "throwing a feather" bit. But in outer space, I can see it wouldn't be different from throwing a rock.

 

By the way, there is gravity in space, it's just very subtle. If there wasn't any, we'd have no moon and we wouldn't be circling the sun...

[Dr. Anomaly]

Quite right. Despite the popularization of the terms, objects in orbit (like, say, astronauts in the Space Shuttle) are neither weightless nor in a zero-gravity environment. It is more correctly termed a 'microgravity environment.'

[Argus]

Re: Bricks and Weightlessness

 

Originally posted by Ghost Archer

I rarely ask questions about rules or their interpretations as I’ll do things the way I want anyway but this is an interesting tactic I recently conceived. It may not be original but I’ve never seen it before. In a new off-shoot of my long running campaign, I’ve decided to play something totally out of character for me, a brick. Meanwhile, there is another player that has a character that controls gravity including that most interesting power found in the USPDB, Gravity Cancellation. From what I can see this power effectively makes the target weightless, right? My brick has come up with an idea. I know, I know, a stretch for a brick . . .but . . . what if Nat, my brick, grabbed a thug type and then had Wren, the Gravity Mistress, hit ‘em with said Gravity Cancellation?

 

1: How far can a brick with say, 100 STR, throw the now weightless thug?

 

2: What is the “Extra Strength†for throwing a weightless object?

 

3: How much velocity would the thug have at the point of release?

 

4: How much damage would the thug take upon meeting the ground at the far end?

 

5: What if Nat threw the thug into something solid and very close, like the face of El Capitan, what would be the damage? 20d6 from normal STR or Whatever d6 from “Extra Strength�

 

Thanks in advance for input.

 

PS: I still have problems with a 100 STR brick only being able to throw a football (-25 STR to lift) a mere 50†(100 meters, a measly 108 yards or so) in a standing throw. He can lift a BATTLESHIP but only throw 100 yards? *grumble, grumble*

 

Why this will not work.

 

Take a feather, which is almost weightless.

Now throw it.

Did it really go anywhere?

 

To throw something it needs some mass.

 

A.

[Guest WhammeWhamme]

Re: Re: Bricks and Weightlessness

 

Originally posted by Argus

Why this will not work.

 

Take a feather, which is almost weightless.

Now throw it.

Did it really go anywhere?

 

To throw something it needs some mass.

 

A.

 

As posted above, weightless and massless are not the same thing.

 

Take a rock inside a space station. Throw it.

 

*That's* this effect.

[zornwil]

I picked 10 pounds only because I wasn't looking at the chart frankly, but also because I personally don't like this gravity/STR combo flinging characters too too far. To each his own though, mainly, I feel that in ANY game it would be problematic to allow the brick to fling the villain into outer space, thus I feel some arbitrary "weight" should be used.

 

As a practical suggestion regarding the limited throwing abilities of HERO (which I think are tied somewhat to my concerns, not having characters flung too far away), I like Dr. Anomaly's thoughts.

[Benzini]

Reply

 

1: How far can a brick with say, 100 STR, throw the now weightless thug?

what is duration/range of weightlessness? At the end of duration/range add however many inches to trajectory as nessessary, otherwise apply full strength when he hits something----radioactive meteorite, cosmic belt, passing plane...

 

2: What is the “Extra Strength†for throwing a weightless object?

no free ride.....apply full str damage, that's it. (100)

 

3: How much velocity would the thug have at the point of release?

my best offer: 30", as fast as you can fall

 

4: How much damage would the thug take upon meeting the ground at the far end?

30d6

 

5: What if Nat threw the thug into something solid and very close, like the face of El Capitan, what would be the damage? 20d6 from normal STR or Whatever d6 from “Extra Strength�

no extra STR----100STR/20d6, or falling at fatal velocity, as above, 30d6

 

 

These answers are what I did in MY game, and are only my answer.

:D

[Argus]

Re: Re: Re: Bricks and Weightlessness

 

Originally posted by WhammeWhamme

As posted above, weightless and massless are not the same thing.

 

Take a rock inside a space station. Throw it.

 

*That's* this effect.

Even in a space station a rock has weight. (less then on earth but still some.)

 

Take a hand full of air and throw it. How far did it go?

 

A.

[McCoy]

Argus, you're wrong. You are confusing weight and mass. The terms may be used interchangeably in a 1 G field, but they are not the same. Do a web search and you can find a site explaining the difference.

 

The power described cancels weight, but leaves mass, and therefore inertia, unchanged.

[Zed-F]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Bricks and Weightlessness

 

Originally posted by Argus

Even in a space station a rock has weight. (less then on earth but still some.)

 

Take a hand full of air and throw it. How far did it go?

 

A.

 

This is silly. The limiting factor is resistance, not mass, or weight. Weight is simply the amount of force gravity exerts on an object. On earth, gravity imparts an acceleration of 9.8 m/s^2. The amount of downward force (i.e. weight) an object has is therefore equal to its mass multiplied by 9.8m/s^2.

 

When you throw something, you exert a force on it for the duration of the throwing motion. Force is measured in kgm/s^2. You could think of an object of having extra "weight" as you are throwing it equal to the amount of force with which you throw it, it just wouldn't (usually) be downward "weight." Thus, how much acceleration you impart on something is directly dependent on how much it masses, and on how hard you throw. Once your throwing motion is complete, the object will have a velocity based on how much acceleration you gave it. This is basic physics.

 

The reason why we can't throw very light but not dense objects as far as we can throw a similar mass pebble is not weight; they both mass the same so we impart equal acceleration on them when we throw them. Rather, the reason is air resistance.

 

Take that handful of air and throw it. Its weight is still the same as any other bit of air, giving it an acceleration of 9.8m/s^2 downward. Is that relevant? No, not really, since what's stopping the handful of air from taking off like a speeding bullet is that the air particles impact other air particles of similar mass and transfer their energy to those other particles, and so on. An object that has less surface area relative to its mass will impact fewer air particles as it travels through the air, and therefore lose kinetic energy less quickly as it travels.

 

Suppose you enclose the handful of air in a massless force field so it remains coherent, then throw it. On earth, it will not go far, because it will still have a large amount of air resistance, i.e. it's still no more dense than the air around it, so it transfers most of its kinetic energy to the air it's passing through as it travels. In space, it will go a long ways, as there is nothing to stop it.

 

Throwing air in space without a force field is pointless because internal particle collisions within the air mass will break it up, sending particles in all directions. That's dispersion, a topic for another day.

[Zed-F]

Re: Bricks and Weightlessness

 

Originally posted by Ghost Archer

PS: I still have problems with a 100 STR brick only being able to throw a football (-25 STR to lift) a mere 50†(100 meters, a measly 108 yards or so) in a standing throw. He can lift a BATTLESHIP but only throw 100 yards? *grumble, grumble*

 

BTW, here's a way you can rationalize this. There is a limit to the amount of velocity you can put on an object -- you can't make it go any faster than you can physically move your arm. Thus, while your 100 STR character can pick up a regular football a lot more easily than a dwarf-star-alloy football, he really can't make full use of his strength when throwing it; once you've accelerated it to the speed you can swing your arm around and snap your wrist, that's pretty much all the force you can give it. Someone with the strength to pick up a dwarf-star-alloy football can perhaps accelerate it to about the same speed as a regular football, if he has the strength to make his arm move at full speed while holding it.

 

Of course, this neglects the fact that a dwarf-star-alloy football would be impacted a lot less than a regular football by air resistance, and would have a lot more KE to lose to begin with. Really, you should be able to throw it *farther* than a regular football, assuming you have the strength to throw it in the first place. But, if we assume that air resistance has a negligible impact on most thrown objects, then the existing throwing rules are perhaps not totally out to lunch.