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Denisty Increase Pricing (6e)


Hugh Neilson

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Back in the day, I exploited DI several times when I would play in pick up games; it was a cheesy way to make a even-more-cost-effective brick. A couple / few levels of DI were cheap, offered some KB, tended to slide under GM's damage cap radars as they often forgot to factor in the extra strength from when DI was on, was beneficial if an enemy tried to pick me up, and the extra weight was still manageable.

 

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In the Making Large Character's sidebar of 6e vol 1, there is an explicit discussion regarding the costing of Growth.

 

The cost of Growth is approximated by
applying the Limitations Costs Endurance (-½),
Linked (-0)
, Side Effects (acquires a Physical
Complication that makes him easier to hit
and to perceive, and makes it harder for him
to exist in the normal-sized world; -½)
, and
Unified Power (-¼) to the abilities listed in each
Size Template.

 

Growth, Shrinking, and DI are all very similar in design, so I don't think its a stretch to assume that this basic rules template is where Steve's head was at when pricing DI.

 

Now, personally, I would say that the SE impact of growth is twice as impactful as that of DI as you get both bigger and heavier (or as the rules treat it, the easier to hit and perceive portion of the SE is not applicable), so for DI call the SE lim -1/4 vs -1/2. Unified Power puts it over the top for a full -1 lim.

 

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So by my math, in 6e terms, DI should cost 4.5 points per level (9 points of stats, Costs END -1/2, and a mild -1/4 lim for the density increase weight issues, -1/4 for Unified); rounded in the character's favor to 4 points.

 

In the interests of ease of memory and consistency, I personally would have just left it at 5 points per level were I writing the rulebook. But I can live with it at 4 / level.

 

Compared to buying the elements of the power directly / individually, every two levels of DI shaves 1 point. At low levels of play, this might matter. At say 150 points, buying 4 levels of DI and saving 2 points to buy something else with is attractive. At higher levels of play the mild point shaving is a drop in the well and not worth fussing over IMO.

 

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47 minutes ago, Killer Shrike said:

 

One of my players wanted to make a super with shrinking and DI back in 5e, so we worked up White Dwarf, who got more compact as he shrank. He'd then superleap around at microsize, colliding with things like a hyperdense bullet. Interesting character, but a pain in the ass to deal with as the GM due to having to make snap judgments regarding the effect of such a small and hyperdense object on everything else in the game.

 

The narrative intent / concept of the character was clear, but in a simulationist model like the HERO System, the overhead just wasn't worth the effort for us and the character was retired after a few sessions.

 

Yeah, this is where differing interpretations of SFX vs. mechanics vs. in-play-limitations (like property damage) really can break Hero. You could say it is simulationist, but you need to agree what you are simulating. If it is "Bronze Age Supers" then 95% of White Dwarf's impact on the game is surface level 'crash boom bang" as he smashes up the place, no worse than any other super.

 

BUT... if what you are trying to simulate is "realistic effects of super powers on a world like ours" then you get serious headaches. Why is White Dwarf having such overt impact on the environment... but Burning Man doesn't? Do I have to now buy all energy blasts and flame based powers with extra limitations "Sets shit on fire randomly" in order to properly simulate such powers? Now it isn't just White Dwarf who is the problem, but every single PC needs to rebuild their characters, detailing out the likely destructive side-effects of their powers. Why should White Dwarf get all the fun?

 

The fact that Density Increase has an "sfx/environmental" effect built into the power is a major part of the issue. +20 Strength 14- is mechanical.  +20 Strength and stuff gets broken is a judgment call. Hero has always struggled when it put purely mechanical builds and advantages and limitations on equal footing with sfx/environment/play effects.

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1 hour ago, RDU Neil said:

 

Yeah, this is where differing interpretations of SFX vs. mechanics vs. in-play-limitations (like property damage) really can break Hero. You could say it is simulationist, but you need to agree what you are simulating. If it is "Bronze Age Supers" then 95% of White Dwarf's impact on the game is surface level 'crash boom bang" as he smashes up the place, no worse than any other super.

 

BUT... if what you are trying to simulate is "realistic effects of super powers on a world like ours" then you get serious headaches. Why is White Dwarf having such overt impact on the environment... but Burning Man doesn't? Do I have to now buy all energy blasts and flame based powers with extra limitations "Sets shit on fire randomly" in order to properly simulate such powers? Now it isn't just White Dwarf who is the problem, but every single PC needs to rebuild their characters, detailing out the likely destructive side-effects of their powers. Why should White Dwarf get all the fun?

 

The fact that Density Increase has an "sfx/environmental" effect built into the power is a major part of the issue. +20 Strength 14- is mechanical.  +20 Strength and stuff gets broken is a judgment call. Hero has always struggled when it put purely mechanical builds and advantages and limitations on equal footing with sfx/environment/play effects.

 

Indeed. The main issue for DI Man or Growth Man vs Burning Man is that Burning Man's powers are likely bought using fundamental mechanics like "do damage at range" i.e. EB or RKA, while DI and Growth are really what we would now today call compound powers, but they are provided as custom powers for legacy reasons. 

 

Also, size and physicality were obviously on Steve's minds when he did 6e; he fixed the very old problem of having to buy permanent levels of Growth, Shrinking, or DI for characters that are always bigger, smaller, or heavier, and he added five pages to the appendix to talk about mass and size templates, and considerations for large / small / heavy characters. 

 

The truth is, going back into earlier editions, the HERO System dealt with these concerns as an afterthought, applying powers to address the idea of bigger, smaller, heavier...showing its superhero roots where characters like ant-man and wasp are staples of the genre. Growing and shrinking things were a staple of scifi going back into the 50's...From the perspective of a golden / silver age superhero game it makes a certain kind of sense to solve these concepts in this way. But as the HERO System turned into more of a universal simulationist game engine with a "cinematic reality" baseline, basic things like physical size, mass, etc, should have been re-couched as fundamental concepts that other rules such as size alteration powers are built upon. 

 

Its a legacy issue. I think Steve did a pretty good job of attempting to bug fix it in 6e with a rules patch. Like most bug fixes it is not perfect, but the alternative is to make significant changes to the underlying game to incorporate physical sizing into the baseline mechanics of the game and then re-express powers that interact therein. And it's a slippery slope. Once you start trying to simulate things at that level you get into other issues.

 

For instance, where in the rules does it state as a fundamental assumption that all characters must breath oxygen to live? To the best of my knowledge, it doesn't. However, there's many mentions of breathing in the Desolid power, very significantly Life Support, guidelines on underwater adventuring, obliquely in the rules for Recovery (which is actually the part that matters), and so on. Oxygen gets mentioned in conjunction with fire powers as examples of ways to deal with that particular SFX. And so on. But there is no fundamental assertion of, hey, the rules want to simulate the reality that carbon based lifeforms generally need to breath some kind of gaseous medium or else die after some period of time, we have an assumption that this is by default what we humans who play this game breath in the real world, and various other rules may interact with or alter this fundamental assertion in various ways. As it stands, it requires the GM to read between the lines and / or apply common sense and understand the unspoken intent to make sense of the various places in the rules where it starts talking about "suffocation" or "no need to breath" or "shadow cat rip off characters can't breath while hiding in a wall and will have to come out for air" and so on. 

 

The rules as written have a lot of unspoken assumptions of this nature, in some places encrusted with various rules barnacles that have been grafted on over the editions to model some concept or other. It may or may not be a problem to a given individual based upon where they sit between wanting to perfectly simulate reality on one end, vs wanting to run a collaborative social game with a small group of people with the shared purpose of having fun playing make believe together on the other.

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On ‎9‎/‎10‎/‎2018 at 4:17 PM, Killer Shrike said:

The truth is, going back into earlier editions, the HERO System dealt with these concerns as an afterthought, applying powers to address the idea of bigger, smaller, heavier...showing its superhero roots where characters like ant-man and wasp are staples of the genre. Growing and shrinking things were a staple of scifi going back into the 50's...From the perspective of a golden / silver age superhero game it makes a certain kind of sense to solve these concepts in this way. But as the HERO System turned into more of a universal simulationist game engine with a "cinematic reality" baseline, basic things like physical size, mass, etc, should have been re-couched as fundamental concepts that other rules such as size alteration powers are built upon. 

 

Yes, yes, yes. I believe you were part of these discussion back in the early 2000's, right? Lots of talk about what Hero is built to do, vs. what it isn't. The core assumption of a "human like game world" at its core, even though it claimed a neutrality, the rules clearly indicated otherwise.

 

It is an interesting proposition for the boards... "Can you do a supers RPG that actually takes size/mass/scale into account in any realistic way? Would that break the general feel of supers? Can Hero be rewritten with size/mass/scale being a fundamental part of the mechanics and still be Hero? It certainly would NOT be "Champions" in any classic sense... but is there a "Cinematic Reality Hero" that could possibly exist with such mechanics?"

 

 

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1 hour ago, RDU Neil said:

 

It is an interesting proposition for the boards... "Can you do a supers RPG that actually takes size/mass/scale into account in any realistic way? Would that break the general feel of supers? Can Hero be rewritten with size/mass/scale being a fundamental part of the mechanics and still be Hero? It certainly would NOT be "Champions" in any classic sense... but is there a "Cinematic Reality Hero" that could possibly exist with such mechanics?"

I think it is probably possible to do.... but I don't see the gain. I am not sure there is a large population of people who would want to play in that genre?

 

- E

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1 hour ago, eepjr24 said:

I think it is probably possible to do.... but I don't see the gain. I am not sure there is a large population of people who would want to play in that genre?

 

- E

 

I would. Hands down, it is what I've always wanted. I like the Heroic level of Hero best, but I have enjoyed the level of cohesive and consistent play that Hero has allowed to be applied to supers. If we had some integrated size/mass/scale rules that enhanced that even further... I'd play that to death.

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It might not be particularly hard to do.

 

Hero System has a whole section for physical problems;  they're called Complications.  Deconstruct the "package powers" ...especially DI.  If you want the characteristics, buy them.  If you want the Complication, take it.  Just don't mix them together.  Growth suggests the notion of "complications as powers" and the DCV and perception penalties are simple physical complications.  

 

Pre-loading a limitation into the base cost of a power has very screwy effects.  The obvious:  it makes any further limitations more effective.  +10 STR, costs END, concentration to activate...10 points with -3/4 knocks down to 6.  +10 STR costing 7 because the costs END is already included, then with concentration to activate, knocks down to 5.  It also plays havoc with active points, which is important in VPPs and multipowers.

 

Heck, Growth has the size templates with specific powers, and with a physical complication.  6E1 443.  Shrinking's on 444.  Use things like the extra KB as part of the mechanical interpretation of the Phys Complication.  

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Anything can be modeled in a formal system with enough effort. Physics is the model dominantly used to describe our own reality. So, if one were to want more exactitude around matter, motion, and energy in a game system presumably one would start with physics. Physics has means to measure mass, physical dimensions, thrust, velocity, etc. Of course, doing physics at the gaming table is somewhat impractical, but a simplified approximation could be achieved. Many video games are constructed on a "physics engine" of some form, for instance. It would be a large effort, but certainly possible. 

 

For anything other than hard sci-fi, quantum mechanics would be unnecessary to delve into, leaving classical physics. That's still a very big ask.

 

Simplifying further, you'd want a way to describe objects (or bodies as early physics tended to refer to them) and the motive forces necessary to cause them to move around which gets you into thermodynamics at the very least, which would also require you to define the space in which they move and how they move through it which gets you into calculus, answer questions regarding relative density, what occurs upon collision of two or more objects, which gets you into material science and chemistry...and so on. If you want to describe complex objects beyond abstract geometry you get into topology; if these objects represent living creatures as we understand the term today you'd have to drag in sufficient biology to describe them. If some of those biological objects have the ability to shoot lazers from their eyes...well crap, that requires us to step out of the established understood norms of biological entities and get creative with some theoreticals.

 

If you wanted to build a game system to deal with a large variety of height, weight, and density, you'd first have to have a formal definition of solids, liquids, and gasses.

 

You'd have to decide if all extreme abilities must have an explanation that is at least theoretically possible according to modern science, or if you are allowing the more superheroic elements of super-science and "rule of cool" or fantastical elements such as "magic" to just be asserted in contravention of physics.  

 

If you are asserting real world physics then you are going to have to observe things like the square cube law and the conservation of mass...and every other law of conservation for that matter. But just staying focused on the Body Alteration powers for now, mass must be decided upon first. Mass is measured in kilograms. In a point buy system, you'd presumably make character's buy their mass in kg. Next, you would determine the unit of force necessary to move 1 kg of solid mass some distance. Assuming were leaning on physics and not inventing new terms, you could lean on Newton's Second Law. 1 Newton (N) of force is sufficient to move 1kg 1 meter per second squared, in the abstract. If you use 1 meter hexes and change all movement to be per-Segment (which is 1 second) vs per-Phase, that sync's up well enough. If you are including earth-like gravity into the mix then you'd need to account for a little less than 10N/kg in additional F to overcome gravity; in space or a different planet different values may hold. This is all classical mechanics, mind you.

 

In such a model you would redefine "strength" as the ability to generate some value of Newtons, and when a person or thing moved themselves around they would be applying their N to themselves (potentially with additional N from an external source). When you calculate things like punching stuff or lifting stuff its all done using Newtons of force and calculating from there. Similarly, attacks and collisions can all be reduced to elastic or inelastic collisions. Energy would be rated in presumably Joules for simplicity, and thus if you bought an energy blast you'd really be buying the ability to generate a certain # of joules. For full grit realism, you'd have to also contend with torque (think billiard ball like angular displacement vs straight line displacement). 

 

And so on.

 

A useful foil to going down a path like this would be to recall the Principia Mathematica, specifically Bertrand Russel and Alfred Whitehead's laborious attempt to describe a complete axiomatic system for all of mathematics. It famously required several hundred pages of proof before stating 1+1 = 2. As exceptions continued to occur, the mathematicians responded by adding another layer of abstraction to create a container around the problematic exceptions in which those exceptions could exist without paradox or conflict with other parts of the formal system. This went on for a number of years and seems Quixotic in hindsight. But at the time it was fully and passionately believed by most STEM type folks that everything was completely explainable and that trying to arrive at a complete and consistent proof for all of mathematics was noble work and a solvable problem. Hilbert had proposed that it should be so, and thus it should be so. Eventually Kurt Gödel came along and proved that it isn't possible; all such attempts will eventually produce a system that is incomplete or inconsistent.

 

I used to be very eager for simulation in roleplaying games, and the generally workable model offered by the Hero System to simulate some kind of semi-realistic outcomes is why I used the system so heavily for so long. In the end, I've come around the other way. Games of make believe can just be make believe; storytelling can be based on verisimilitude vs mechanics. It's why I've increasingly shifted towards looser narrative game systems. Some rules are good to avoid the classic problem of games of make believe ("Bang! I shot you, you're dead!"; "Nuh uh! You missed!"), but for me as soon as the rules start getting in the way of having fun they've exceeded their mandate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Killer Shrike said:

I used to be very eager for simulation in roleplaying games, and the generally workable model offered by the Hero System to simulate some kind of semi-realistic outcomes is why I used the system so heavily for so long. In the end, I've come around the other way. Games of make believe can just be make believe; storytelling can be based on verisimilitude vs mechanics. It's why I've increasingly shifted towards looser narrative game systems. Some rules are good to avoid the classic problem of games of make believe ("Bang! I shot you, you're dead!"; "Nuh uh! You missed!"), but for me as soon as the rules start getting in the way of having fun they've exceeded their mandate.

 

Totally, agree, which is why I asked the question about 'Would it be possible to work Mass/Size/Scale into Hero?" and basically still be a game. If it becomes a matter of mathematical realism simulation... that isn't what I'm after. Right now, Hero basically resolves all interactions between objects into Normal or Killing Damage vs. relevant defenses. Cool... that is a nice simplification without writing Principia: Son of Origins of Principia! Is it possible to have size and mass and scale be variables of the basic "damage vs. defenses?"

 

I don't know. Probably not, and still be playable... but I wonder. Some arbitrary scales set (Factor 0 is standard, man sized, baseline Hero... Factor 1 and up are getting bigger... Factor -1 and down getting smaller. Damage has a Factor... lower Factor attack vs higher factor defenses and targets will quickly be negligible. Higher factor attacks vs. lower factor defenses and targets will quickly become overwhelming. It could work, but costing out having higher Factor powers or being Factor 1 character in a Factor 0 world... eh... I don't know, but I've had this idea rattling around in my head for a long time, but I can't figure out how to make it work. I think it does become a baseline element of the system, and then figure out what downstream effects their are. It would essentially be some kind of arbitrary exponential system, instead of (or layered below) Hero's linear system. (the idea being the Growth/Shrinking/Density Increase are essentially "factor changing" powers).

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Scale systems can work as long as everyone agrees to ignore how illogical they are (as they are generally based upon arbitrary divisions), and how problematic they tend to be in play (at the very least, they are divisive unless all parties involved are operating at the same scale). You see this in effect in mecha games, and space games (where the scale of a starship vs the scale of people is problematic), and so on. You see it in the Hero System as well with "mega-scale" movement which was added to address the sheer cost of movement over large distances (and FTL before that), in campaigns where the Speed Force or a similar alternate action resolution subsystem outside of normal game time is allowed, and even with something as simple as the Mind Scan power which arbitrarily defines its own distance of effect.

 

Most scaling systems are essentially a formalized hand wavium, attempting to work around a fundamental flaw in a game's foundation by tacking on things on top of a base that was not originally designed to operate at a larger scale. It can work as a shared compromise, but things get weird around the cusps between scales. If say a size category of "normal", "big", "bigger", "biggerest!" is in effect with formal definition for the floor and ceiling of each scale, and the differences in scale are meaningful (have game mechanics associated with them) vs just descriptive, then it gets very silly when dealing with someone who is -1 increment below the ceiling of one category and someone who is at the floor of the category above it.

 

In the Hero System specifically, what's odd about trying to assign height and weight game mechanics impact is that it runs counter to the idea of separating SFX and effect. In a pure Hero abstraction, larger or smaller size and / or and / or greater or lesser weight and / or greater or lesser density should just be SFX. If a character buys the effect of greater Strength as a Power and their justification is "i grow really big, like Giant Man", then the size and presumably extra mass and thus increased weight involved should just be SFX for that Strength.

 

But we run into a problem.

 

Strength itself is (partially) defined as the effect of being able to lift weight. So, it's therefore necessary to define what everything weighs.

 

Increasing one's own weight could be construed as having a game benefit in that it means other characters (vehicles, etc) must have a higher strength characteristic to lift or throw you. That has a combat application. It can also be problematic because in some cases it's a disadvantage in that you may want to be carried, whether by a vehicle such as a car, or a floor. A potential systemic paradox occurs, in that in the Hero System things that are beneficial are supposed to cost points, and things that are detrimental are supposed to reduce point costs. The "solution" in the current era is to apply a Physical Complication embedded in a Limitation and call it close enough. There's also related systemic issues in that the definition of the Strength effect states that lifting force doubles every 5 points of effect; cost is linear, effect is a multiple...that's exponential. As Growth gives increased Strength at predictable increments, a person that's twice as big is something like eight times as strong which is absurd even if one ignores the square cube law.

 

And so on. 

 

The real issue, IMO, is that the growth and shrinking powers were included early on to model Ant-Man / Giant-Man and similar characters which occur pretty frequently in comics, particularly earlier comics. That then became the "way" to model all characters of larger or smaller size, in a game that's supposed to be modeling "cinematic reality". But supersize and shrinking are not realistic, at all, not even vaguely; such concepts are not truly appropriate to "cinematic reality"...they are a step a bit beyond that towards fantasy / science fantasy. Using the rules concepts for a fantastical ability as the basis to model a fundamental concept found in actual reality was an error if a desire towards some kind of realism was intended.

 

To fix it, systemically, you would first have to delete the strength weight lifting table altogether.

 

I know that a lot of people really like it, but it is a sacred cow of an earlier era of game design. Other stats are not rated in this way. Every 5 points of DEX is not twice as dexterous as the step before itself, every 5 points of EGO is not twice as stubborn or whatever.

 

Instead of rating how much weight can be lifted in real terms such as pounds or tons, lifting resolutions would be resolved either by a skill modifier based on difficulty (my preference), or as a level of effect chart similar to Presence Attacks (I wouldn't care for it, but there is a precedent). The Hoist skill in Ultimate Skill could be re-purposed as a core everyman skill and rewritten a bit to interact with strength resolution as 3d6 roll under. This also has the advantage of working better across different genres, as the definition of "difficult" or "easy" can be interpreted by a GM relative to the tone and genre of their game. It also better models reality in that when a person is operating at the edge of their lifting strength in reality they may or may not be able to lift it, might suffer penalties for being tired or not having leverage, may fumble, etc. 

 

An example chart of suggested difficulty modifiers could be provided as guide, potentially even one for "heroic" and a different one for "superheroic". As a secondary benefit, this could help solve some of the Strength bloat issue found in supers where you need a 60-70 Strength to lift what the chart says a character like the Hulk should be able to lift which leads to all sorts of secondary wtf's. 

 

As soon as Strength lifting effect is no longer measured in weight but rather as offering a better 3d6 roll, you no longer have to care about weight systemically, it just becomes SFX interpretation. You no longer need a backassward Side Effect to apply a temporary Physical Limitation on Growth or DI. You no longer have to quantify exact weights for either; you can instead phrase it in terms of difficulty to move or lift in the form of 3d6 roll penalties or just leave it to sheer SFX in the same way that so many other powers do. 

 

The ripple effect on other mechanics affected by legacy Strength issues would need to be worked through if lifting effect were redefined in this way. I'm pretty confident in the aftermath each mechanic affected would either be functionally the same or better (systemically speaking).

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51 minutes ago, Killer Shrike said:

To fix it, systemically, you would first have to delete the strength weight lifting table altogether.

 

Yes, and again, I think you were part of these conversations over a decade ago, where I argued that "lift" was never mechanical and purely SFX, and could easily be changed to whatever you wanted for your particular game. That seemed heresy to some, but it is true. Lift is purely subjective imaginary reality. 100 STR mechanically is 20d6 and 29- STR roll (right?). Lift, the very idea that there is stuff to be lifted and characters have an understood capacity to lift (and there is gravity to be lifted, against, etc.) is all SFX of the game world... not a mechanic of the system.

 

I'm totally fine with removing Lift as some kind of "set thing" in Hero... as I've modified the Lift chart already for my game (It stops doubling in lift after 50 STR and becomes linearly 1 ton per pt of STR for lift... so 100 STR lifts 100 tons.)  That in NO WAY affects how STR interacts mechanically, but changes the SFX of "how much can you lift" only.

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I honestly don't remember what I was doing last month, so while it is plausible that I did participate in a discussion a decade ago around this topic, sadly I no longer recall. Hopefully I said interesting things and was less of an ass than usual. ?

 

If you are comfortable, as you've said, with eliminating the lifting facet of strength, then your desire to solve for sizing in the Hero System is fulfilled. 

 

Each of the Body Alteration powers can be gotten rid of entirely and the idea of Body Alteration becomes SFX in the same way that having a "body" as such is cosmetic and therefore SFX. If you want to retain the idea of BA powers for retro compatibility issues or ease of use, they can be re-expressed by removing the no-longer-relevant physical size / density aspects. 

 

Problem solved?

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Quick side point about STR.  If you want any kind of realism at all, STR can probably be stopped or slowed WAY before 50.  That's 25 tons.  Like the argument about modeling on Atom, Ant Man, and Giant Man, uber-STR is modeled on Superman lifting an entire (big) plane.  Uhhh...problems.  How much force are Superman's hands exerting on the metal skin?  Or the "pick up and throw a building"...the building material at the point of contact will fail under the stress WAY before that.  Not to mention maintaining grip.  Even something like a car...grab it by the bumper, the bumper probably just rips off.  

 

Realistically the doubling every time is fairly ludicrous from the get-go.  They just did it, IMO, because all the major models were the uber-cinematic mega-STR "freaks" like Hulk, Thing, and Superman.  Trying to price this level at anything close to sane, would be hugely expensive, or create something too complex.  

GURPS has a lifting STR, that's basically proportional to STR ^2.  (Basic Lift, the amount you can lift, in pounds,  in 1 hand in 1 second...that is, a simple basic action...is STR^2 / 5.  Max lift is both hands, and 4 seconds.  It's 8x basic lift.  These basically translate to a Haymaker.)  I like that approach for street level stuff.  STR 10 GURPS can struggle with 160 pounds, but it's taking all they've got.  STR 20 can lift 640.  World-class lifters can go higher but not that much, so the scale works fairly well so far.  It breaks down if you want serious STR, because STR 40 is only 2500 pounds.  That's not even "lift a small car" level.  BUT, if you want to keep a more realistic game...I think it's worth considering.  

 

EDIT:  that said, I do like abstracting lifting STR as a roll, just because trying to estimate weight, or force needed to accomplish something, is unreasonable for most GMs.

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