Are tanks really that tough?

[Christopher R Taylor]

I just... it seems like we're repeating ourselves here.  A lot.

[Greywind]

Too much trying to turn what is supposed to be a game into reality.

[Hyper-Man]

Too much trying to turn what is supposed to be a game into reality.

 

You mean She Hulk wasn't really talking to ME?

 

 

[megaplayboy]

10 seems low, but an Iowa is made of hardened steel while an M1 is made of a classified ceramic/alloy/polymer/graphite layered structure.  An M1 can bounce a hit from its own gun but that same round might go clean through an Iowa.

Well, IIRC the Iowa's gun was rated around 9d6+1 AP Kill Xplosion, which would barely penetrate the frontal armor of an Abrams. While my suspicion is that, IRL, a 1 ton projectile impacting the front of the tank at supersonic speed would turn the Abrams into a 6 million dollar piece of abstract art spread out across a wide area.

[gewing]

10 seems low, but an Iowa is made of hardened steel while an M1 is made of a classified ceramic/alloy/polymer/graphite layered structure.  An M1 can bounce a hit from its own gun but that same round might go clean through an Iowa.

the Average def on an Iowa might be only 10.   The armor is concentrated on the area inclusive of the turrets, the bow and stern are much more lightly protected.    

 

IIRC Nathan Okun wrote some great descriptions of the armor schemes of the different Battleships.  

[procyon]

I like the damage negation idea.

Makes much more sense than raising the armor to levels that survive battleship main guns.

And although the M1's armor hasn't been penetrated in combat - a battleship round would plow right on through.

In fact, I have seen chunks knocked of M1's armor from clipping buildings while driving around a corner.

 

For the tank, damage negation with a limit of 'only vs conventional weapons' would pretty much fit the bill.

Rip it off, blast it with a sci-fi blaster, or peg it with a magic hammer - all bypass the defenses.

But it would still stop a rifle, cannon, missile, etc.

 

And for big objects (like the bridge), I tend to add in a fairly healthy amount of damage reduction (say 75% for GGB) so that you can damage it with a tank round.  You are just going to need a lot of them.

[NuSoardGraphite]

Green Arrow isn't limited to 60 Active Points. Most of his attacks are probably less than that, but classic Silver Age GA has some tricks up his sleeve. Some of his trick arrows are probably very high APs.

Absolutely he is not. I simply use 60 active as an example because thats what a lot of Hero players consider to be a reasonable limit. Its what the game used to suggest as a limit for balanced builds.

 

 

Most of the things you are talking about are "real world" solutions to tanks. You know, if people had superpowers in the real world. And I agree -- there are a lot of ways you could destroy one.

Yes, I suggest real world solutions because thats what we have as a frame of reference. There are a lot of people who dont agree with that reasoning and suggest that younwrite up two versions of everything....a version which performs ass advertised for realistic type campaigns and a version meant to operate in superhero campaigns. I simply disagree with that perspective and it creates dissonance when trying to engage in these discussions.

 

The problem we are running into is that none of that is represented in the game. You just have an absurdly high Def score and lots of Body.

 

"I grab the turret and lift."

"30 Def."

"I kick it the tracks."

"30 Def."

"I bend the barrel back on itself."

"30 Def."

 

The writeup needs changed.

But they probably wont be changed, so you are going to have to come up with your own.

 

Dude, that's what I've been saying this entire time. I don't have to "admit it" to myself when I've been saying throughout the whole thread that I think all the military weapons need altered.

Not just the military weapons. The stats of the published heroes are jacked too. Starting point costs are jacked (they got boosted going from 4th to 5th) benchmarks are kind of jacked to. The entire spectrum needs to be re-balanced, not just the military weapons. Everything.

 

I don't think the Hulk should pay for a special "tankbuster" ability. That's why he has a high STR.

Here is where we disconnect. The very basis of Hero is in simulation. The system was designed to give us multiple means of simulating comic book and heroic action. It shouldnt matter that you have to give The Hulk a special Tank Buster ability....the result is that he can take tanks and bunkers apart effortlessly. 2d6k NND does body (4d6k with STR) mission accomplished. Thats how Hero functions. Its totally okay to do this. There is no right way or wrong way here. Even my railing against the "unbalanced" writeups in the modern sourcebooks is merely a perspective thing based on my own experiences and wont apply to everyone.

 

And whats to stop the GM from ruling that supers can exert their full force against tanks and bunkers as a campaign rule to facilitate a fragile world scenario. In this kind of game, in animate objects automatically take maximum damage from attack, knockback etc, then you have Heroes smashing through walls, knocking down bank vaults and yes, even smashing tanks, with impunity.

 

(That 60 STR brick vs 16 def side armor of the tank does 24 body minus 16 equals 8 body per strike. 3 hits and the tank is at negative body...)

[NuSoardGraphite]

Too much trying to turn what is supposed to be a game into reality.

I have always found that simulating reality (dramatically speaking) for Heroic level play to be far, far easier than balancing the game for superheroic level play.

[NuSoardGraphite]

ever remember something then be completely unable to find it, which makes you think it was not really there?

 

I remember reading something to the effect of the Def and Body of bases and large vehicles such as navel ships represents the damage to disable it by punching through a one hex area, not necessarily the actual damage capacity if to destroy it outright. Because of the aircraft carrier comparison I just tried to find it in the books and completely fail. It makes me wonder if perhaps this is something my mind made up for a house rule. Do any of you know there's actually a rule reflecting that principle.

That used to be in the rules for bases, but I dont know if it was carried over to the 6th edition

[Hugh Neilson]

10 seems low, but an Iowa is made of hardened steel while an M1 is made of a classified ceramic/alloy/polymer/graphite layered structure.  An M1 can bounce a hit from its own gun but that same round might go clean through an Iowa.

In my view, both the attack and defense of conventional military weapons is overstated. Lowering both its attack and defenses (and especially either converting a lot of defense to damage negation or applying a "real weapons get standard effect damage" approach), the tank would still not be damaged by its own main weapon. But it could be damaged by attacks that would reasonably damage it, and not survive a fall from orbit in the absence of GM fiat.

[zslane]

I think the main reason it seems so appealing to write things up twice, once for supers and once for "realistic" campaigns, is because the world of superheroes is so relentlessly ignorant/indifferent of/towards reality that there is substantial dissonance built into the genre before you even begin discussions like this. You simply can't take a realistic world, with all its objects written to perform realistically, and throw superheroes into it and expect the resulting game experience to look and feel like a superhero comic book.

 

So, something has to change. You either drag superheroes into a more realistic form or you recalibrate the world (and the simulation) so it behaves in the ridiculous manner seen in the comics. That's why I feel it is easier to go with the Paper Scenery approach. It's not like only certain superheros can make mincemeat of the world around them; all of them have that potential...it merely comes down to the specific powers they have and how many DCs they can generate. In a sense, it isn't the characters that are unusual--relative to each other they aren't--it is the rest of the physical world that is absurdly weak by comparison.

[Hugh Neilson]

I think the main reason it seems so appealing to write things up twice, once for supers and once for "realistic" campaigns, is because the world of superheroes is so relentlessly ignorant/indifferent of/towards reality that there is substantial dissonance built into the genre before you even begin discussions like this. You simply can't take a realistic world, with all its objects written to perform realistically, and throw superheroes into it and expect the resulting game experience to look and feel like a superhero comic book.

 

So, something has to change. You either drag superheroes into a more realistic form or you recalibrate the world (and the simulation) so it behaves in the ridiculous manner seen in the comics. That's why I feel it is easier to go with the Paper Scenery approach. It's not like only certain superheros can make mincemeat of the world around them; all of them have that potential...it merely comes down to the specific powers they have and how many DCs they can generate. In a sense, it isn't the characters that are unusual--relative to each other they aren't--it is the rest of the physical world that is absurdly weak by comparison.

The insistence that a 30/20 rDEF, and the other inflated stats, are essential to make that Abrams "realistic" puzzles me. How is it "realistic" that the Abrams can be dropped from an airplane (with no parachute), be moderately damaged and enter combat with limited ill effects? How is it "realistic" that two shots from that cannon destroy a large bridge, or a large building? Have we got records of them emerging unscathed after being struck by lightning (or, if you wish to use the optional electricity table, has the Golden Gate bridge never been stuck by lightning, as it can't soak up a 20d6 KA either)? Would one expect an Abrams parked directly beneath a rocket to roll out, relatively unscathed, after it launches, or molton metal to just roll off it? Should it be able to sit unscathed in a blast furnace? Can its front armor stand up, unscathed, to an acetylene or oxy-hydrogen torch used on its front armor for 8 continuous hours? These are the results using the standard 6e Hero write-ups.

 

I'm also unclear why this always comes back to Supers. Science Fiction weapons are also substantially inferior to modern military armaments using the standard Hero write-ups. This doesn't seem consistent with science fiction movies. The Abrams has better defenses than any listed spaceship, and is more durable than small and medium spacecraft according to the Objects tables. It lacks the BOD of a large spaceship, but still has far greater defenses. The tank gun will tear through an 80 BOD (top end) large spacecraft with 5 average hits (and it won't miss the spacecraft, unlike Dodging Doc Destroyer ).

 

The problem is not that Supers stats don't compare to those assigned to the Abrams, and other modern military tech. The problem is that the stats of modern military tech as written are utterly off the charts when compared to anything else in the book.

[Lucius]

 

Do we have a consensus that official Hero high end military hardware, or at least the Abrams tank specifically, is Overstated? (I am sure there is no consensus what to do about it.)

 

Is anyone actually defending the official write up?

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Not the palindromedary

[massey]

Terminal velocity for what?  A 70-ton Abrams will have a higher terminal velocity than a sack of meat.

 

No, it won't.

[L. Marcus]

How not so? A tank weighing a thousand times the average human with a cross-section of approximately thirty times the average human -- of course it'll have a higher terminal velocity.

[Ndreare]

Without sitting down and doing the math, I will go out on a limb and say that the falling tank will generate less wind resistance per kilogram that a flesh and blood human.

 

PS: on a related note, I add the size/mass of a falling object to the damage it takes. After all a spider dropped from an airplane will live, while a human will most likely die from a 30' fall.

 

There is science behind it, but I am too lazy to link things.

[Ndreare]

Do we have a consensus that official Hero high end military hardware, or at least the Abrams tank specifically, is Overstated? (I am sure there is no consensus what to do about it.)Is anyone actually defending the official write up?Lucius AlexanderNot the palindromedary

I think the only consensus we have is that we like to complain. But on that note I definitely agree that the numbers are too high.

 

Unfortunately I never cared that much because we use a large amount of hand waving in our games. So our tank player with a measly 85 Strength was easily able to throw tanks around when defending the earth from invading horrors.

[Hugh Neilson]

Without sitting down and doing the math, I will go out on a limb and say that the falling tank will generate less wind resistance per kilogram that a flesh and blood human.

 

PS: on a related note, I add the size/mass of a falling object to the damage it takes. After all a spider dropped from an airplane will live, while a human will most likely die from a 30' fall.

 

There is science behind it, but I am too lazy to link things.

You covered enough of the science at the top. Density Increase used to increase maximum falling damage (did that go?) for that reason.

[Ndreare]

They do have a toolkitting falling section that basically say if you want realism make falling a killing attack with penetrating. But that does not account for mass at all.

[Spence]

--snip--

Here is where we disconnect. The very basis of Hero is in simulation. The system was designed to give us multiple means of simulating comic book and heroic action. It shouldnt matter that you have to give The Hulk a special Tank Buster ability....the result is that he can take tanks and bunkers apart effortlessly.

 

--snip--

 

Thats how Hero functions. Its totally okay to do this. There is no right way or wrong way here.

 

---snip---

 

That pretty much sums it up.   It is a superhero game.  

 

I think the only consensus we have is that we like to complain. --snip--

 

 

Yep

[Lucius]

No, it won't.

I think NASA disagrees with you.

 

https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/airplane/termv.html

 

I will also note that if terminal velocity were an invariant that was the same for every object in all circumstances, parachutes would not work. In my observation they work just fine.

 

You covered enough of the science at the top. Density Increase used to increase maximum falling damage (did that go?) for that reason.

So I am guilty of overkill here?

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_velocity

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary notes that parachutes, like minds, function best when open

[massey]

5th Ed revised, pg 434 -- Falling and damage from falls.  Max velocity is the same regardless of the weight of the object.

 

In the real world, objects fall at the same speed regardless of weight, if they are in a vacuum.  In an atmosphere, drag affects the speed.  That's why parachutes work.  But a 70 ton tank that has huge flat surfaces is not going to fall all that much faster than a human.  Huge flat surfaces (like the bottom of a tank) slow you down.  That's why wings work.  Who falls faster is going to be determined by the positioning of the human and the tank.  A guy in a dive falls faster than a guy flailing around.  You want to calculate it, you have to determine the positioning of the tank, its drag coefficient, all that good stuff.

 

But in the game we don't use real world physics.

[massey]

I think NASA disagrees with you.

 

 

 

When I play NASA's rpg I'll look into it.

[Lucius]

5th Ed revised, pg 434 -- Falling and damage from falls.  Max velocity is the same regardless of the weight of the object.

 

In the real world, objects fall at the same speed regardless of weight, if they are in a vacuum.  In an atmosphere, drag affects the speed.  That's why parachutes work.  But a 70 ton tank that has huge flat surfaces is not going to fall all that much faster than a human.  Huge flat surfaces (like the bottom of a tank) slow you down.  That's why wings work.  Who falls faster is going to be determined by the positioning of the human and the tank.  A guy in a dive falls faster than a guy flailing around.  You want to calculate it, you have to determine the positioning of the tank, its drag coefficient, all that good stuff.

 

But in the game we don't use real world physics.

I apologize. I still disagree with your position, but your opinion is obviously invested with more knowledge and thought than I had given you credit for.

 

I also apologize for derailing the thread further into this side issue.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary urges that we get to the real issue, that military hardware is overpowered compared to palindromedaries.

[massey]

Not a problem.

 

You know, I had a big response I was typing up, trying to further clarify my position.  But really I think I've said everything I have to say on this topic.  Unless somebody adds something new, I don't have much else.  Sadly there are only like three topics on the board right now that interest me in the slightest, so I guess I've just been stretching this one out.