Club 400 Mirth

[GhostDancer]

There is a "400" club in pro football, for the elite who can bench press that many pounds. Of course STR 15 is 110% of that. Most real life martial artists can't bench press 400 pounds, let alone 440.

 

I don't consider martial arts being cited in your Background as sufficient to explain world class strength per se, though an internal style is a good start...

 

It would be funny to have a Power Build like this-

 

+15 STR only vs. those with inadequate written explanation of their world class (15+) STR.

 

What would that Limitation be worth in your Hero System game?

[BNakagawa]

Re: Club 400 Mirth

 

A simple workaround is to state that the full lift capacity according to the STR chart is a deadlift, in which you are supposed to use your legs, which have much more power than your arms.

 

So a bench press might be STR -5 or more, depending. I know I can leg press many, many times my bench press limit...

[GhostDancer]

Re: Club 400 Mirth

 

Very fitting.

[GhostDancer]

Re: Club 400 Mirth

 

On the other hand, how easy or difficult it is to Push in your game may be a factor to consider when deciding whether to adjust STR Max.

[Starcloud]

Re: Club 400 Mirth

 

It's generally poor form to post the same thread in several different forums. Pick one and stick to it.

[GhostDancer]

Re: Club 400 Mirth

 

Wilco. It would now be good form for Starcloud to address the thread question.

[Starcloud]

Re: Club 400 Mirth

 

Not an issue. The assumption is it's a deadlift, superhero comics style. Also, I think it's a silly idea to write up a power which is only useful against other players. The limitation wouldn't be worth anything in my campaign because I don't run slapstick and pratfall games.

[fbdaury]

Re: Club 400 Mirth

 

According to Ultimate Brick the bench press amount is 75% of lifting amount, so your Club 400 players would be in the 18 or higher Str range. To deal with Martial artists or others with incredible muscle efficiency- able to hit harder and jump higher than their Str would suggest (and with improved Str rolls), I buy extra Str at 0 end cost with the limitation Does Not Increase Lift amount which I would class as -1/4 or -1/2, depending on how important that extra lift capacity might be. In 5th Ed you could then also add DNAFC for another -1/2 if you don't want the extra figured Characteristics.

[Christopher]

Re: Club 400 Mirth

 

The STR Chart's Lift is of the scale, when used for heroic. there are sugestions on how to make it more realistic in 6E1.

 

Martial Artist don't have lost of STR, they have Martial Manuvers so they don't need that much STR. Martial Arts is just a Limited STR, No End Multipower. i.e. it gives you +20 STR for Escape, Grab and Damage but not for Lifting or anything like that.

[GhostDancer]

Re: Club 400 Mirth

 

Not an issue. The assumption is it's a deadlift' date=' superhero comics style. Also, I think it's a silly idea to write up a power which is only useful against other players. The limitation wouldn't be worth anything in my campaign because I don't run slapstick and pratfall games.[/quote']

 

Sounds good, except for those of us who think even the capacity to deadlift 880 lbs every several seconds for a minute warrants a Background explanation, at the least. why would the Limitation not be useful against NPCs?

[GhostDancer]

Re: Club 400 Mirth

 

According to Ultimate Brick the bench press amount is 75% of lifting amount' date=' so your Club 400 players would be in the 18 or higher Str range. To deal with Martial artists or others with incredible muscle efficiency- able to hit harder and jump higher than their Str would suggest (and with improved Str rolls), I buy extra Str at 0 end cost with the limitation Does Not Increase Lift amount which I would class as -1/4 or -1/2, depending on how important that extra lift capacity might be. In 5th Ed you could then also add DNAFC for another -1/2 if you don't want the extra figured Characteristics.[/quote']

Very useful. Thank you!

[Christopher]

Re: Club 400 Mirth

 

6E1 34 has some guidelines on how to adopt the STR chart to more logical values:

Define what the maximum lifting weight is in your campaign (for non-superpowered humans). That is going to be the lift for STR 30. Scale it down from there (every 5 Points, halve it).

When Bech Press limit is 400 KG, then Lifting Limit is 533,3 KG or (for simplicity) 600 Kg. So the chart would look somwhat like this:

30 - 600 (450 Bench Press)

28 - 450

25 - 300

23 - 225

20 - 150

15 - 75

10 - 37

[RexMundi]

Re: Club 400 Mirth

 

Considering implementing the realistic chart myself. In defense of the MMA guys though, there are LOTS of them, that toss around some serious weight. Even little guys like Matt Hughes, reps around 300-310 on the Bench. Benching a lot though is somewhat frowned upon, tends to leave you in the ring with stiff and or bad shoulders, but there's been guys that have made careers out of the sheer hitting power that evolves out of being able to Bench over 500 with Rep's....

 

I've always looked at it kinda this way. Martial Artist characters that have a High Stat, are of the mold of a Bob Sapp, Tank Abott, Brock Lesnar, Scott Ferrozzo and such. Martial Artists with high Dex and Con layered on top of multiple Damage Class adders, that's your Bruce Lee's, Donnie Yen's, Younger Jackie Chan's, Benny the Jet, even Don Wilson types.....

 

A lot of times in HERO you run into folks that woun't even look at a 15 because they only see, 3d6. If you impart the scale of the world to them with examples they can visualize and concieve of, then it gets a lot easier for them to "get it" and you start getting better explanations and more balanced characters.

 

~Rex

[Christopher]

Re: Club 400 Mirth

 

A lot of times in HERO you run into folks that woun't even look at a 15 because they only see' date=' 3d6.[/quote']

Add offensive Strike and 2 DC's to that and suddenly we have someone that hit's with 9 DC, can Grab or Escape with the equivalent of up to 35 STR but stil only lift 200 Kg. And using all that only costs 1 END per Phase.

[RexMundi]

Re: Club 400 Mirth

 

Very true, but they don't "see" that. Hell's I can think of HERO players that have been playing almost as long as I have, or a good portion of that, that still don't see it. By that time what they see is adding those DC's to the higher STR number.....I've know more then a few players that would laugh themselves off the chair if you suggested a 9DC attack to them that wasn't also packing at leat a full +1 in various advantages....

 

Of course, then you roll in with a sequence attack and kick their guy through the side of a busfor 1/16th the END cost he's burning up, and or even better, the Horde of Ninja's Teamwork Coordinated Attack and leave their guy in a Coma for a month. Not my prefered methodology since I enjoy being able to explain the scale of the working universe in the game system to them, but sometimes, a clobbering with the 2x4 works really well.

 

Then can reign them back to reality, heh. Granted that might get you snarled up in the "I don't play RPG's to be realistic." arguement, but half the fun in HERO is the builds, and anyone can do Loose Mass Carnage. Takes talent to make it feel real though.

 

~Rex

[Christopher]

Re: Club 400 Mirth

 

I have always wondered why every brick I see has 60 STR, while the limit is 40 (and enforced for anything else). Then I realised it was for the damage output. Then I wondered: Why not using the 40 STR and add +4-6d6 HTH Attack to this (costs 20-30 plus a -1/4 Limitation). Or I just use the "Brick Tricks" Martial Arts from HSMA 79 and can do 14 DC with a Bearhug variant.

 

There also in an Option to Place Naked Advantages on Martial Maneuvers (but no Group advantages), but that relies highly on GM Approval.

[RexMundi]

Re: Club 400 Mirth

 

Heh, nearly every main Brick running around as write up's now, is more in the 70 range for STR....the old 12d6 is now 14d6, but with the added granularity in the environment you need the ceiling bump. The single scariest hand to Hand to Hand character I've made in 6e so far, just to see what I can do with it, was sort of a version of Puck from Alpha Flight that rolls with a build set up very much like what you had above, with all the HA stuff being a chained multipower with varying levels of different advantages etc etc .....

 

Mass Carnage incarnate. Sheet scares me so it stays in it's own folder.

 

~Rex

[Bloodstone]

Re: Club 400 Mirth

 

There is a "400" club in pro football' date=' for the elite who can bench press that many pounds. Of course STR 15 is 110% of that. Most real life martial artists can't bench press 400 pounds, let alone 440.[/quote']

 

- Three of my judo coaches, my jujutsu sensei and my wrestling/boxing coach could all bench over 400. I regularly train with/compete against martial artists that can bench 400+ lbs. Most of them are either big men to begin with or somewhat smaller guys that just love hard physical training. So while not exactly common, it's not super rare either.

 

- A 15 STR is a bench press of 330 lbs. Still impressive of course, but very much within the reach of smaller individual such as myself (I was actually about a 13-14 STR when I lifted regularly... and was still making gains when I stopped)

 

- We must remember we are simulating heroic fiction/super heroes. These are generally not average martial artists, but the truly exceptional individuals. There are many martial arts movies that portray outright super human strength with no explanation offered beyond "his Kung Fu is strong".

 

- All that said, I hate that most characters have a STR of 15 or 20 with no concept driven reason what so ever, but I accept it in most cases. It's a combination of mental image, a hold over from the days of figured characteristics and people really seem to prefer to have full dice of damage. Frankly, 15 is probably the most common STR score in one of our supernatural Dark Champions game, where 5 out of 6 character initially had a 15 STR. The brick had a 35 and I eventually bought a 20 for my archer...

[Christopher]

Re: Club 400 Mirth

 

At least an archer needs the STR for his Bow (they do have a rather high STR Minimum in Real life).

[RexMundi]

Re: Club 400 Mirth

 

Not just Heroic Fiction or Super Hero, but Cinematic as well. Still, some realistic Granularity is nice to have. Just about everyone I train with nowadays is in the 350 to 450 bench mark. I've got the weakest Bench at the moment but then I got lazy careful after the last time I had to have a shoulder wired and screwed back together, so slowly getting back up to my best marks again....

 

I don't have an issue with folks wanting a better explanation for a stat, I just ask my players, OK, tell my why you are 2-4 times stronger then a base human being. Not looking for say, an epic response, but what I'm trying to weed out is, "I want a base 4d6 or more" or "Blank Stare" ......so long as there IS an answer, I'm good with it for the most part.

 

So yeah, I gotta side with "Hate that most have it but I tend to Accept it", but, that's why I structured my 6e campaign the way I did. That way, when the 35-40 STR brick rolls in, he truely terrifies. Now to scrape up smart good players for that campaign while I go back to the farm leagues and train all my noobs with unfettered CU stuff to let them get "it" out of their systems, heh.

 

~Rex

[Bloodstone]

Re: Club 400 Mirth

 

At least an archer needs the STR for his Bow (they do have a rather high STR Minimum in Real life).

 

True! Though it really depends on the type of bow and your intentions. My recurves only 45#, but it's primarily for target archery. I can handle more poundage, but I'm not out there shooting at heavily armored opponents.

 

Most guys I know that hunt deer shoot 60#. A few shoot 80#, including a fairly big fellow that bowhunts elk. But they all use compound, which is cheating of course

 

In the comics, Hawkeye and Green Arrow have both stated they shoot 120# bows... and those are self/composite bows so that takes serious muscle... potentially ridiculous amounts of muscle based on the things they do in comics written/drawn by people that don't understand much about archery...

 

(my archer swapped out bows based on the needs of the mission, but had a real preference for traditional bows over compounds)

[GhostDancer]

Re: Club 400 Mirth

 

Thanks, guys, many good answers here and elsewhere, though none with a suggested Limitation value, lol.

 

A couple items relate to this question-

 

1) I did not remember that Club 400 was a bench press reference, not a dead lift reference, til I found sources yesterday. My bad.

 

2) I have an aversion to super strength characters without good reason noted for the super strength, as I've mentioned. Arguable, the reason may be secret, ie Guardian characters from Palladium's Beyond the Supernatural. A notable offender, in my view, is Seeker, the Aussie with 25 STR. The closest we get to an explanation for the high STR is simply that he learned martial arts. Wasn't it Comic Book Martial Arts at that?

[Christopher]

Re: Club 400 Mirth

 

A notable offender' date=' in my view, is Seeker, the Aussie with 25 STR. The closest we get to an explanation for the high STR is simply that he learned martial arts. Wasn't it Comic Book Martial Arts at that?[/quote']

Having high STR, OCV and DCV is actually better than having decent and CSL's or Martial Arts. But also more expensive.

OCV 3, DCV 3, DC 7 and 4 CSL's (or Appropirate Martial Arts) vs OCV 7, DCV 7, DC 9. My bet's are on the later one, but he also paid way more.

 

I even considered a "ultimate Martial Arts Knowledge" (direct knowledge of every martial arts ever concieved in the universe). And it isn't built with Martial Arts, but with (slightly) Limited STR, Normal HTH attack, HTH Killing Attack + whatever else I need to copy every combination possible in HSMA. All in a good, simple Multipower.

[Bloodstone]

Re: Club 400 Mirth

 

1) I did not remember that Club 400 was a bench press reference' date=' not a dead lift reference, til I found sources yesterday. My bad.[/quote']

 

LOL! In HERO, you pretty much have a 400 lb dead lift with a 15 STR (397lbs)

[Enforcer84]

Re: Club 400 Mirth

 

- Three of my judo coaches, my jujutsu sensei and my wrestling/boxing coach could all bench over 400. I regularly train with/compete against martial artists that can bench 400+ lbs. Most of them are either big men to begin with or somewhat smaller guys that just love hard physical training. So while not exactly common, it's not super rare either.

 

- A 15 STR is a bench press of 330 lbs. Still impressive of course, but very much within the reach of smaller individual such as myself (I was actually about a 13-14 STR when I lifted regularly... and was still making gains when I stopped)

 

- We must remember we are simulating heroic fiction/super heroes. These are generally not average martial artists, but the truly exceptional individuals. There are many martial arts movies that portray outright super human strength with no explanation offered beyond "his Kung Fu is strong".

 

- All that said, I hate that most characters have a STR of 15 or 20 with no concept driven reason what so ever, but I accept it in most cases. It's a combination of mental image, a hold over from the days of figured characteristics and people really seem to prefer to have full dice of damage. Frankly, 15 is probably the most common STR score in one of our supernatural Dark Champions game, where 5 out of 6 character initially had a 15 STR. The brick had a 35 and I eventually bought a 20 for my archer...

 

Heathen