One for the purists

[Sean Waters]

I’ve always thought that falling damage was a bit steep when compared to other sources of damage on Hero. For no good reason it struck me today that there is an error in the falling table that does cause more damage to be done more quickly.

 

Assuming 1 segment is 1 second, and gravity can be approximated at 10m/s/s then you do not fall 10m by the end of the first segment, you fall 5m, which is the average of your initial and final velocities over that second.

 

On the second segment you fall another 15 metres, for a total of 20, and on the third you fall an additional 25 metres for a total of 45.

 

By the end of the 4^th segment you are falling at 35 metres per second and you have fallen 80 metres, as opposed to 40 metres per second and have fallen 100 metres, as the rules state.

 

Does not make a lot of difference, but it could mean you are in the air longer and therefore you might have time to act, or someone might have time to act to save you.

[Ockham's Spoon]

Re: One for the purists

 

Its funny that you say falling damage is a bit steep, because it isn't actually as dangerous as it probably should be. Sudden deceleration is pretty traumatic, and should probably be some kind of NND attack that does BODY, but for the sake of cinematic play we don't usually do that. Still your point is valid, since it is a simple way to dispatch with an enemy by levitating/teleporting/throwing them into the air and letting them drop to the ground. Falling time and injury in comics and movies is so ambiguous that I think the GM would be well within his rights to fudge it in a game if it makes dramatic sense.

[Sean Waters]

Re: One for the purists

 

30d6 , compared to most superheroic damage? What does Superman punch?

[Chris Goodwin]

Re: One for the purists

 

Well, yeah, in accordance with physics you're correct. I suppose if you wanted to create a table or graph to be able to plug in distance and get velocity, and therefore damage, I see no reason why not.

 

The instantaneous velocity of a falling body is the square root of (2 * G * D) where G is the acceleration (10). For a falling distance of 35 meters, velocity would be (square root of 700) 26 m/sec, thus causing 13d6 damage.

 

Time taken to get there is equal to the square root of (2 * D / G). We know the distance (35) and the acceleration (10) so the time taken is (square root of 7) 2.6 seconds, rounds to 3. Sometime during that third Segment is when he hits.

 

I'd say, though, that so as not to have to do square roots during the game () either a table written up beforehand, or using the numbers in the book to be close enough.

 

(We could also work out how much damage the poor sucker takes by working out relative kinetic energy, and figuring delta-vee over time. I wanted to do that for a Car Wars update, but people started talking about demonstrating the concept on me so I wisely backed down...)

[Greywind]

Re: One for the purists

 

30d6 ' date=' compared to most superheroic damage? What does Superman punch?[/quote']

 

Depends on whether you go with the 200 STR or the 250 STR.

[megaplayboy]

Re: One for the purists

 

Under the optional velocity factor rules, terminal velocity falling damage for a 100kg person is 22d6(enough to kill a 10 body, 2pd normal instantly on an average roll). At 60m/sec, a 100kg normal has a kinetic energy of 180 kilojoules. At 10m/second, 5 kilojoules. Hitting the ground at terminal velocity is equivalent to being struck by a 1 ton vehicle moving about 40 miles per hour. If you take it full force, it's generally going to be fatal.

 

Assuming STR lift is representative of lifting an object waist high(about 1 meter), and assuming that a "punch" is harnessing about 1/16 of this potential energy, we can extrapolate a bit. By that logic, it would take roughly a 70 STR to generate the kinetic energy equivalent to a 100kg body travelling at terminal velocity, in a single non-martial punch. So, by that reasoning, 14 or 15d6 would probably be the appropriate damage for a terminal velocity fall--enough to fatally injure the vast majority of humans, and kill outright if converted into killing damage(5d6 kill will do in an 8 body normal instantly, on average).

[Sean Waters]

Re: One for the purists

 

This is a prickly one.

 

Ockham's Spoon mentions that falling should probably by NND, or have an NND component, and it probably should: damage from falling is all about change in momentum and a squishy inside an invulnerable force field is still going to chande momentum pretty sharply when they hit the ground. OTOH a character made entirely of water with no differentiated physiology will take the same amount of momentum based damage but it probably will not bother them.

 

Chris Goodwin and megaplayboy do the maths and point out that falling transfers a lot of energy (or, technically that falling accumulates a lot of kinetic energy pretty quickly and that STOPPING transfers it), but what should cause more damage: a terminal velocity fall or being at ground zero when a litre of nitroglycerine explodes? I imagine both will be normally fatal for a normal human but the latter will probably cause mor actual trauma. In Hero though, the litre of NG does 12d6 damage, normal. A howitzer shell does 15DCs of damage and a 'heavy bomb' does 18DCs.

 

Even with the more generous (to the falling character) alternative falling rules, the damage from a teminal velocity fall is way out of step with other damage sources in Hero. Megaplayboy extrapolates, based on energy, the damage should be 14 to 15 d6, and that seems more resonable although still high compared to other damage sources.

[Sean Waters]

Re: One for the purists

 

Depends on whether you go with the 200 STR or the 250 STR.

 

point...

[Christopher]

Re: One for the purists

 

Regarding the point that "normal humans shoudl die":

10 Body is above average human. That is what PC's start with. Normal humans can easily sell it down to 8 or even 6 without much danger to them. After all they are not inserting themself into life threatheining situations every day.

 

I disagree that Falling damage should be NND. NND makes stuff more compilcated in most situations. I agree that some defense won't protect agaisnt a fall (like a Armor in Heroic games), but overall I would not give a character such a huge penalty just because his defense is based on "Force Field"-SFX and not "Supherthough"-SFX. Apparently that shield allows you to bleed of the force of an impact as well as the one of a strike.

[Greywind]

Re: One for the purists

 

"Normals" through 5r had base stats of 8 and figureds from those numbers.

[Sean Waters]

Re: One for the purists

 

Regarding the point that "normal humans shoudl die":

10 Body is above average human. That is what PC's start with. Normal humans can easily sell it down to 8 or even 6 without much danger to them. After all they are not inserting themself into life threatheining situations every day.

 

I disagree that Falling damage should be NND. NND makes stuff more compilcated in most situations. I agree that some defense won't protect agaisnt a fall (like a Armor in Heroic games), but overall I would not give a character such a huge penalty just because his defense is based on "Force Field"-SFX and not "Supherthough"-SFX. Apparently that shield allows you to bleed of the force of an impact as well as the one of a strike.

 

I would probably allow -1/4, maybe more, on defences that did not protect against 'falling type' damage - which would include any momentum based damage caused by the character suddenly stopping due to impact, which does include KB damage (but would NOT include damage taken because someone else cannons into them).

 

That is quite a good way to define the difference between 'shell' defences and 'tough right through' defences.

[Sean Waters]

Re: One for the purists

 

"Normals" through 5r had base stats of 8 and figureds from those numbers.

 

I would argue that normals can and should have characteristics of 5, (STR, DEX, CON, INT, EGO, PRE and BODY), which gives them a 10- roll for most things and means a full power super-punch will kill outright on an average roll.

 

I know that 8 is the 'traditional' normal characteristic, but it is just fiddly.

[Checkmate]

Re: One for the purists

 

The other thing to remember is that Hero is supposed to simulate Action/Adventure genre. We've all seen the movies where the hero falls off a 5 story building limps for a few steps and then is fine, all because caving in the roof of the van he hit broke his fall. If I were to play a more gritty realistic game, I might make falling more deadly, but under normal circumstances, I think it works all right, if not real world accurate.

[Sean Waters]

Re: One for the purists

 

The other thing to remember is that Hero is supposed to simulate Action/Adventure genre. We've all seen the movies where the hero falls off a 5 story building limps for a few steps and then is fine' date=' all because caving in the roof of the van he hit broke his fall. If I were to play a more gritty realistic game, I might make falling more deadly, but under normal circumstances, I think it works all right, if not real world accurate.[/quote']

 

The trouble is that standard Hero terminal velocity falls do 105 stun and 30 Body on average. 30 body will be a major challenge to a lot of pretty tough superheroes, and 105 stun will KO almost anyone. I'm not saying that the calculations are necessarily wrong, just that it seems disproportional to the rest of the system.

 

Well, not entirely true. If a 'normal automobile' does a 'terminal velocity' (135mph) move through on you at SPD 2*, well...

 

60 m/segment is 360 m per phase is 60d6 plus 5 for STR is 65d6.

 

Good lord. Really? You are better off ramming a tank with a camper van** than firing armour piercing rounds at it?

 

I'm thinking that is off, somewhere. I mean, that is approaching nuclear damage. The whole planet has only got something like 86 Body.

 

 

* Witness the strangeness as a better driver (or at least one with higher SPD) does LESS damage as we use move/phase.

**Yes, yes, I KNOW you could rule that the camper van*** is utterly destroyed before it does anything like that much - not the point.

*** I am also aware that most camper vans are not going to get up to 135mph. Also not the point.

[Ice9]

Re: One for the purists

 

The other thing to remember is that Hero is supposed to simulate Action/Adventure genre. We've all seen the movies where the hero falls off a 5 story building limps for a few steps and then is fine, all because caving in the roof of the van he hit broke his fall. If I were to play a more gritty realistic game, I might make falling more deadly, but under normal circumstances, I think it works all right, if not real world accurate.

Not even just falling - "normal people" in HERO are pretty durable, actually.

 

An average person has 8 BODY. Most pistols do 1d6 or 1d6+1 RKA. So an average person will always survive a shot to most locations (any with x1 BODY or less), without medical help. Even with a shot to the head, they'll survive without medical help more than half the time, and would never be instantly killed. That fits with a number of genres, but if you want a more lethal game, I'd start by cutting BODY in half.