Grab and Throw vs. Acrobatics/Breakfall

[Balabanto]

I ran into a situation tonight that is kind of rules-hedgy.

 

When a super-strong character grabs someone of lesser STR and throws them, what are the possibilities for altering their trajectory? As I see it, there are two possible options.

 

1) No. Absolutely not. The action resolves and a breakfall roll is made at the end of that time. Damage resolution occurs.

 

2) Acrobatics/Breakfall is performed, ending the possibility of arriving at the intended destination and possibly, but not certainly, foiling damage dealt.

 

Here's what's going on in my head. There's two very different play styles at work here, and each changes radically the way that players handle combat.

 

1) In example one, STR is king. Hurling people about like tenpins is highly effective, and gets an accurate result, allowing people to functionally reposition characters on a battlemap. This is nasty, but it's the way that things have pretty much always worked.

 

2) In example two, throwing people is functionally useless, because Breakfall/Acrobatics allows this to essentially be interfered with at will with an abortable, defensive action, but the successful roll allows the character to successfully reposition themselves within the line of effect, bouncing off obstacles, etc.

 

3) How do people keep their actions when being attacked if they're just being repositioned without losing an action to grab and throw, grab and stretch over a building and let go, etc.

 

Is there a happy medium here? What can be done to keep players happy and keep things balanced? I'm curious as to people's thoughts, as there doesn't seem to be anything in-between without making some sort of house rule, which would look something like this.

 

A character performs a grab maneuver with a STR of 50 and hurls another character into a hundred foot tall bowling pin. The target has a breakfall roll of 14-. When the target is thrown, the attacker rolls damage, and counts the body on the dice. This creates a -1 per 2 meters penalty to the breakfall roll/acrobatics roll. for every 2 body rolled. If the roll is successful, an action is aborted, but the character arrives in a location of their choosing within the line of the throwing character. They may not move closer to the throwing character. Failing the adjusted roll means that the character strikes the intended target and takes damage equal to object's PD+BODY  in dice or the Character's STR score, whichever is lesser.

 

 

[Hyper-Man]

6e2 page page 83 has the rules for resisting Throws.

[Comic]

If the throw succeeds and the victim has an action and the appropriate power (flight, swinging, stretching, teleport, tk, barrier, entangle) there might be many options for altering course. Tk, barrier or entangle might allow putting something softer in the path of the throw to bounce off of or break through taking less damage. Stretching or swinging might provide the reach to alter trajectory, as might growth. Teleport could move a person so their landing is somewhere softer.

 

Acrobatics can orient a person so they can use their leaping or breakfall to resist damage when they hit, as could the right adder to some movement powers. I've never regarded breakfall as automatically available just because a character is falling. It's a skill. It's affected by circumstances. You can't use it if you don't know when you'll hit, or if you're spinning out of control, etc.

 

But, yeah, the rules for resisting throws are a pretty good place to start.

[Ninja-Bear]

Balabanto arent you over exaggerating point two? Just because acrobatics and breakfall gives you a chance to foil the throw ddoesn't make strength functionally useless.

[Balabanto]

6e2 page page 83 has the rules for resisting Throws.

 

This is not in Champions Complete at all, which is the only version of the rules that currently exists as far as playtests for published material are concerned.

 

As far as a house rule is concerned, sure, that can still be used, but when I'm running stuff, I'm obliged to use Champions Complete if I'm playtesting material I want to publish. I will use this at home, sure, but if I'm working on stuff, I have to be sure it works within the framework that is CC, not the framework that is Hero 6e1 and 2.

[Comic]

Real World Physic version: the center of mass of an object in midair follows the initial trajectory until a new force interferes. An object in motion will tend to remain in motion. The vectors of gravity plus initial velocity describe a parabola. In some cases, air resistance amounts to a non-negligible effect, so the parabola is truncated toward the end of the arc by a small fraction. This is why we have terminal velocity on falls. If the object is spinning rapidly, spasming, throwing its limbs around, or whatnot, it might affect its orientation, which can be bad (or good) to prepare for impact.

 

Game version: If you have acrobatics, like a cat you can orient your legs to prepare to land and absorb some of the impact to reduce some of the injury. You can also breakfall -- it turns out the human body is remarkably springy if oriented correctly toward the fall and all muscles are used toward reducing the impact in a coordinated, trainable manner. You need the (acrobatic) skill or luck to orient to employ the breakfall. Neither of these skills affects the trajectory of the center of mass. The special effects of breakfall can be anything from going completely limp to punching the ground as you hit so the force of the punch buffers your landing. You can also 'break through' multiple lesser walls/floors/ceilings/whatnot so you take a series of smaller impacts (each closer to what your PD can handle) instead of one big one.

 

Movement or reach powers can affect the trajectory, and velocity, of the center of mass.

 

Absent having actions available and applicable abilities, STR is pretty much useless after the thrower lets you go, unless you're throwing something really heavy to negate your forward momentum.

[Hyper-Man]

This is not in Champions Complete at all, which is the only version of the rules that currently exists as far as playtests for published material are concerned.

 

As far as a house rule is concerned, sure, that can still be used, but when I'm running stuff, I'm obliged to use Champions Complete if I'm playtesting material I want to publish. I will use this at home, sure, but if I'm working on stuff, I have to be sure it works within the framework that is CC, not the framework that is Hero 6e1 and 2.

 

from Champions Complete page 153,

 

MINIMIZING THROW EFFECTS

See Breakfall (page 26) for its effects on Throw. A successful Acrobatics roll at -3 allows the target to keep his feet (but does not prevent damage). A character’s Clinging STR must be overcome before the character can be Thrown. If a character actively uses Flight to resist being Thrown (in the same manner as resisting Knockback), every 1m of Flight subtracts 1d6 of damage; if the damage is reduced to 0d6, the character suffers no effects from the Throw attack.

 

[Hyper-Man]

Also,

 

From Champions Complete page 5,

 

The Champions Complete project began with a clear game plan: to boil down the Sixth Edition HERO System rules engine into a condensed, lean format that retains all the flexibility and power it’s known for, and then slide that engine into the best vehicle around for superhero roleplaying. I think the plan succeeded; now it’s time for the rubber to meet the road.

Fire her up. Kick the tires. Take her for a spin around the block. Then let’s hit the highway and really see what she can do. Atomic batteries to power! Turbines to speed!

Be A Hero!
Derek Hiemforth
July 2012

 

 

Just because a particular rule has not been included word for word from 6e1&2 to CC doesn't mean 6e is off limits as a resource.  That's silly. The 6e books should just be treated like the Advanced Players Guides.

[Balabanto]

Except that new players starting the game won't be purchasing them as they are no longer in print, Hyper-Man. You write for the audience you can target, not for the people who want to search for out of print books on the internet.

 

If old-school players want to use those rules, that's all well and good. But you don't write a product for anything other than the latest version of the game.

 

That being said, the problem that people are having isn't the rules as written. The problem isn't mitigating the damage. The problem is mitigating the distance travelled without buying Clinging or excessive amounts of STR versus the cost of that STR once a character has successfully hit a target.

[Hyper-Man]

Did you miss the part of Flight being usable to resist the distance thrown?  (quoted above from Champions Complete!)

[Balabanto]

No, I did not. Players want to use skills (Acrobatics, Breakfall) to mitigate the distance travelled during a throw attempt. Not the damage, not the prone effect, just the distance travelled.

[Hyper-Man]

So extrapolate.  Acrobatics is basically just a real world instance of a Power Skill like effect being applied to Running and/or Leaping to gain Flight-like effects. 

 

I understand your stated goal of trying to follow RAW specific to CC but expecting to find edge case rulings like this in CC defeats the stated purpose of its publishing.  All the edge cases ARE in 6e 1&2.  If you have a scenario where this type of situation might come up then just provide the specific needed ruling with a nod to the older books.  I don't think the current ownership would mind.

[Greywind]

Then apply the skill where they don't get grabbed in the first place.

[Balabanto]

Oh, I firmly understand that the correct way out of this situation is to use Dodge and describe it as "When they grab me and throw me, I nimbly flip around and land on my feet." But my players aren't as skilled with the rules as I am.

[Comic]

Oh, I firmly understand that the correct way out of this situation is to use Dodge and describe it as "When they grab me and throw me, I nimbly flip around and land on my feet." But my players aren't as skilled with the rules as I am.

 

 

Uh.. what?

 

So.. You're grabbed and thrown, and want to use Dodge after the fact, once the action has been declared and the dice rolled for the grab and throw?

 

Just no.

[IndianaJoe3]

I think the sequence of events has become muddled. The character declares a Dodge, the attack misses, and the player describes the failure as, "He tried to grab and throw me, but I flipped around and landed on my feet, uninjured."

[Comic]

I think the sequence of events has become muddled. The character declares a Dodge, the attack misses, and the player describes the failure as, "He tried to grab and throw me, but I flipped around and landed on my feet, uninjured."

 

Which is still a just no.

 

"He tried to grab and throw me, but I was prepared (or aborted) to Dodge and he never laid a finger on me."

 

I'm fine with that.

 

Manufacturing a power or skill you don't have to simulate a power or skill you could have instead seems wrong, and leads to situations where guy who substitutes Dodge for Flight + Acrobatics is falling out of an aircraft and we wonder why he doesn't just "flip around and land on his feet". Even if it makes you look cooler.

 

I could even go with "He tried to grab and throw me, but I slipped between his fingers, past his hand, hurdled his wrist like a pommel horse and landed on my feet."

 

Unless the dodge failed to prevent the grab, in which case you need Acrobatics, Flight, Swinging, Breakfall, Stretching, Luck, circumstances or some combination of those or other appropriate rescues from the situation.

 

Don't get me wrong, Dodge is great and all. It's just it's not Omnipower.

[Hyper-Man]

...

 

Don't get me wrong, Dodge is great and all. It's just it's not Omnipower.

 

Yeah.  That's been reserved for Flying Dodge.

[Ninja-Bear]

I'm still not sure what Balabantos original issue was?

[Greywind]

The Mighty Balabanto One-Shot

 

It's a collector's item.

[CaptnStrawberry]

Kinda lost by this thread, though it does seem a lot would depend on circumstances.

 

Does Hero consider 6e OOP?  You can get both volumes as .pdfs for $30 in the store right now.

[Balabanto]

The problem is that movement mitigation is a relatively recent concept in RPGs, and Champions is 30 years old. Remember that the players don't want to mitigate the damage, just the location. Personally, I want to tell them "no", but if it's within the rules to do so without purchasing powers, I will allow it.

 

Is it balanced? Maybe. The opportunity for massive tactical failure does exist, especially if you don't have the most movement on the battlefield. Grab, throw, acrobatics, you don't move. You take the damage. Someone else shuffles in and finishes you off because you chose not to move.

[Comic]

Do you apply Knockback Resistance to resist throwing distance?

 

I do, not that it comes up often, and at an inch for inch level (so 5" KBR stops 5" Megascale Throw just as much as it stops any 5" throw).

 

How about you?

[Hyper-Man]

I've been trying to figure out what special effect of Acrobatics/Breakfall could potentially affect the trajectory of the initial throw without the STR of the thrown character coming into play (not just their DEX). 

 

The closest I can imagine is the classic attempt to throw/push someone into a swimming pool and the one thrown/pushed grabs the thrower/pusher and pulls them in along.

[Comic]

I've been trying to figure out what special effect of Acrobatics/Breakfall could potentially affect the trajectory of the initial throw without the STR of the thrown character coming into play (not just their DEX). 

 

The closest I can imagine is the classic attempt to throw/push someone into a swimming pool and the one thrown/pushed grabs the thrower/pusher and pulls them in along.

 

 

I'd say if the person being thrown has a Reversal technique, then Acrobatics, Double Jointed and Contortionist would all help; if it was a "Both Fall" or "You Fall" technique, then Breakfall would figure in too.

 

If the thrower isn't paying close attention and there's something within reach of the throwee (say one of the thrower's fellow villains, or a tree branch), they could certainly use Acrobatics to flip off that and alter their trajectory or add to their STR to resist the throw.