Warp9

Originally posted by Kristopher

Now you're just confused.

Then please enlighten me.

Quote #1 by Kristopher

The idea that there is a simple, direct, and strict power to damage relationship of any kind in HERO is laughable.

Isn't the above a statement about in-game mechanics?

Quote #2 by Kristopher

3d6 really is 3 times as expensive and 3 times as powerful as 1d6.

Isn't this also a statement about in-game mechanics?

So I don't understand what you were saying with the following quote:

Quote #3 by Kristopher

As I've already said, that was meant in a strictly in-game, mechanical sense.

I still don't see how what you've said can be anything but a contradiction.

Please explain yourself so that people with my limited intelligence can understand you.

Originally posted by Trebuchet

It's just not as cut and dried in the real world as you seem to think.

I'd like to see you back that up with more than something that you saw in a show somewhere.

You'll have to give me some lessons in Physics and Mathematics.

And maybe I'll have to get my money back for all the math and engineering classes I took in college.

BTW--a small 5mm projectile travelling at 1 million fps would burn up in the Earth's atmosphere very quickly--a side-effect of it's tremendous KE interacting with the air particles.

Originally posted by Trebuchet

If kinetic energy translated directly into damage on an exponential scale then the military would have developed 5mm antitank rounds travelling 1000000 fps rather than wasting their time with clunky 120mm shells in tanks.

I don't believe that we have the technology to produce something like a shell that could travel at 1 million fps--if you have evidence that we can, then I'd like to see it.

And you are confusing the exponential scale of Hero (which would generate an exponential amount of KE as the DCs go higher and higher) with the nature of KE itself.

The KE value does go up as a square of velocity, but that has nothing to do with the exponential scale of Hero.

30 squared = 900 (the scale of Kinetic Energy to Velocity)

2 to the power of 30 = 1 Billion. (the exponential scale of Hero)

Originally posted by Trebuchet

I was specifically addressing both living and unliving ("Without such a real world scale to measure life and/or physical toughness...'). However, we have no real world way to know exactly how much damage a non-living structure will take to destroy either. That level of knowledge requires either having been the one who created that structure or destroying it in order to analyse it in such detail.

Why do you assume that things have to be super exact--isn't a general estimate good enough for a game?

Are you saying that physics can't even give a general estimate of the general effect that a projectile of a specific mass, moving at a specific speed, will have on a given wall? Or do you think that I must have created the wall before I could give even a general estimate?

If physics can come up with general estimates about such things, then isn't that good enough for rating damage in a game?

And if you think that there are no real world measures of physical toughness, then you are mistaken. Engineers have many measures of the amount of abuse that a given object can stand up to--and IMO an engineer needs to measure with far more exacting standards than a generic game.

I have heard a number of you guys go on and on about how damage is soooooo complex that there can be no easy way to correlate any measurable factor to Hero damage.

Apparently, if we try to use any given factor (such as kinetic energy) to relate to damage we'll come up with results which just won't work. Apparently the results would be too outrageous even for a generic game.

If this is true, why does KE used on an exponential scale match up to the fire arms chart so well?

Can it be that damage in a generic game like Hero is not so complex after all?

And again if no factor can be matched to damage in Hero, why does KE on an exponential scale work so well? Is it all a big coincidence? ---maybe its a conspiracy?

Originally posted by Trebuchet

While engineers may speak of joules and megajoules of energy to represent kinetic energy, there is no corresponding number for physicians to rate "life energy." ("Quick, Nurse Johnson! Call the Crash Team! He's down to only 21% of his BODY!") Heck, we can't even really define life, much less quantify it. (Are viruses alive?) Without such a real world scale to measure life and/or physical toughness, trying to determine the real world equivalents of damage is utterly pointless. And that brings us back to HERO. In HERO, 3d6 is 3X as much as 1d6 just as 3d6 is 1/3 of 9d6 within the game system. These numbers are relative within that system, not logarithmic. Saying it is anything else is ultimately pointless. It's a nice academic exercise, but nothing more. We have to use self-reference within the game because that's the only scale we have to work with that supplies numbers for damage, resistance to damage, and surviving that damage.

You seem to be making the assumption that we are talking about damage being applied to a living person. Or are you saying that damage can only be applied to living objects? (I hope not)

How do you know that we aren't talking about damage to a wall, or a lump of rock?

Originally posted by Kristopher

As I've already said, that was meant in a strictly in-game, mechanical sense.

 

All I care about is whether 3d6 RKA sufficiently translates the real-world lethality of a .50BMG into game-mechanics lethality.

The only problem is that, in both quotes, you were referring to "in-game mechanics."

Quote #1: "The idea that there is a simple, direct, and strict power to damage relationship of any kind in HERO is laughable. "

Your saying this quote is NOT about "in-game mechanics?" How can relationships between power and damage in HERO _not_ be about game mechanics?

Or are you saying that your other quote is not about "in-game mechanics?"

Quote #1Originally posted by Kristopher

The idea that there is a simple, direct, and strict power to damage relationship of any kind in HERO is laughable.

Quote #2 Originally posted by Kristopher

3d6 really is 3 times as expensive and 3 times as powerful as 1d6.

You're saying that Quote #2 is not a statement of a 'power to damage' relationship?

Originally posted by Kristopher

3d6 really is 3 times as expensive and 3 times as powerful as 1d6. The minimum, average, and maximum damage are all three times greater. The relationship between Active Point cost and each of those numbers is linear, as well.

Originally posted by Kristopher

Irrelevent.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

That's a good attempt at a save! I guess I can't get a simple answer to a simple question.

But I'll explain to you why you can't answer my question. . . .

If you say

"Yes, a .50 Cal HMG _is_ 3 X as powerful as a 1d6 RKA pistol"

you'll risk sounding crazy.

And if you say

"No, a .50 Cal HMG is NOT 3 X as powerful as a 1d6 RKA pistol"

then you'll be accepting that the Hero weapon stats, as written, do not support a linear power to damage ratio.

Hey, please tell me if I'm wrong (and, of course, why I'm wrong).

Originally posted by Kristopher

You're missing the point. Real life damage and lethality are far more complicated than damage, def, and BODY. So much more complicated, in fact, that you're not going to get the kind of clean and simple corelation between KE and dice of damage.

We're not talking about the way an attack has effect on a specific target--which might get complicated--depending on the target.

We're not talking about a target of any sort here, just the attack itself. We're talking about the general rating of an attack. Specifically we are looking at rating the attack's raw ability to do damage in a general way to all sorts of objects (people, cars, rocks, etc. . . ).

Please state your reasons against using KE as an indicator of raw ability to do damage. Please show some example cases where kinetic energy just wouldn't be good enough (even for a game) to estimate general potential ability to do damage.

And now I have a specific question for you.

Do you really think that a .50 Cal HMG is 3 X as powerful as a 1d6 RKA pistol? (yes or no)

Originally posted by Kristopher

KE is a **factor**, but it's not the only factor by any stretch. KE is only part of what determines the degree of damage done to, well, a chunk of rock. Angle matters, material composition matters, shape and structure matter, etc, etc, etc.

You're missing something there--all those other factors you mentioned relate to (and change with) each specific target. They have nothing to do with the actual attack rating itself. So please list some factors that aren't relative to a specific target.

Originally posted by Kristopher

Thank you, again, D-Man. Sincerely. That's a better answer than I was going to provide.

I'm not sure that D-man's post supports the views you've been arguing for.

What D-man said supports the idea of abstract exponential damage, and contradicts the idea of a linear relationship between power and DCs.

He makes the point very clearly that a .50 BMG (at 3d6 RKA) is NOT 3 times as powerful as a 1d6 RKA. Yet he has no difficulty with using 3d6K as an abstraction to represent the 15700 Joules of an HMG.

from D-man's Post

.50 BMG Average @ point blank: 15700 Joules

.22PST Average @ point blank: 248 Joules

 

Yeah, that's three times more powerful (not).

You, on the other hand, have been saying that 3d6 IS 3 times as powerful as 1d6--that is the point I'm arguing about.

Based on your statement (that 3d6 IS 3 times as powerful as 1d6) you have two choices: you can argue that an HMG is actually 3 times as powerful as a pistol, or you can re-write the rules so that a HMG no longer does 3d6 (maybe you could re-write it so that the HMG does 60d6 K damage).

IMO you would be better off accepting the idea that 3d6 K is an exponential abstraction that represents weapons of a massive power level (like an HMG). Rather than continuing to hold to the idea of a one-to-one correlation between the Body rolled on the dice and the actual power of the attack.

Originally posted by Kristopher

I seem to recall being the one to point out that a .50BMG has woefully underpowered in FRED, having not seen the errata that changed it. 3d6 is *closer* to acurate.

 

Anyway, IMO, trying to equate DCs to KE is rather pointless. 3d6 really is 3 times as expensive and 3 times as powerful as 1d6. The minimum, average, and maximum damage are all three times greater. The relationship between Active Point cost and each of those numbers is linear, as well. For KAs, every 15 points gets you 1 min, 3.5 average, and 6 max BODY on the damage roll.

 

Where things get complicated is here: how is a certain number of dice / amount of damage likely to interact with the typical levels of defenses, STUN, and BODY in a particular campaign. 3d6 RKA is brutal in most heroic campaigns, but many supers aren't going to be that frightened by it.

 

What matters most isn't "What's the KE I'm trying to represent with this power/weapon?" It's, "How lethal / effective is this supposed to be?" One of the reasons bullets are so deadly is that they deliver their KE (and momentum) in a particularly damaging manner. But, I suspect you know that, given the post I'm responding to.

From a physics standpoint, are you arguing that the effect that a bullet has when hitting a chunk of rock is not related to its KE? What is your basis for this assumption?

If you don't equate DCs to kinetic energy, what objective standard to you use for translating a real world weapon into Hero terms? How do you determine "how lethal / effective is this supposed to be?"

You have stated that "3d6 really is 3 times as expensive and 3 times as powerful as 1d6." That being the case, do you think that a .50 Cal HMG really is 3 times as powerful as a .22 pistol? If not, how much damage should it do?

Originally posted by D-Man

Just as a point of order:

 

From a real world perspective an exponential doubling of kinetic energy doesn't necessarily translate to a exponential doubling of damage. There are numerous factors that go into determining the lethality of a wound and kinetic energy is only one of them. As such, using the damage classes of an attack to determine relative kinetic energy is a flawed paradigm.

 

In ballistics we have four basic wound factors:

 

Permanent Cavity (Bullet Size)

Temporary Cavity (Stretching from Kinetic Transfer)

Blood Loss (Placement)

Nevous System Damage (Placement)

 

Permanent cavity damage, blood loss, and nervous system damage can all be increased based on various sizes and innovations related to the bullet in question. For instance, a .45 Golden Sabre round will create a bigger cavity, has a greater chance of inducing blood loss and disrupting nervous function, that a .45 hardball round.

 

Increased kinetic energy does impact temporary cavity, and can, with larger rounds, kill with hydrostatic shock, but in regards to bullets -- size does matter. As does sophistication: a .50 BMG round won't do as much damage to a target as a .50 BMG APEX round will do.

 

The attempt to use DC's to extrapolate kinetic force makes more sense when relating to muscle powered weapons, but there you don't have the issue of temporary cavity. You just have the force of the swing. There are still issues to address in this context, such weapon concept [blade versus bludgeon] and size [claymore versus dirk], which will effect wound size and type.

 

The only place kinetic force truly equates to DCs is brute superstrength.

Now I would agree that damage on the human body is a complex thing, and I also would agree that there are many ways to measure such damage. However, Hero is a generic system. Body, and Defense, and damage apply to everything in the game Universe. Human bodies, machines, lumps of rock, aliens, and living-metal-mutants, all take damage in basically the same way. Is this absolutely realistic--maybe not--but that is the way a generic game system functions.

From a Physics Text

The ability to do work is defined as "energy" and the ability of a particle to do work by virtue of its motion is defined as "kinetic energy".

 

To me, the ability of a particle to do "work" on a target object is probably the best general definition of its ability to do damage. Kinetic energy, by its definition, fits that bill.

Originally posted by Killer Shrike

Here's a little Photoshop magic, using a Terran Marine toy as the base.

Hey I like it--that's 3D modeling the easy way!

Do you mind if I create a model based on that?

Originally posted by Arthur

The system DOES reflect it, based on each +1 DC being x2 KE (and therefore, twice as powerful).

 

A mathematical model (which this RPG is, like it or not) does not necessarily have to be based on linear math. Math is just a set of rules for manipulating symbols.

 

GURPS uses plain arithmetic: twice as much as 6d is 12d. Take a look at the explosive rules in High-Tech.

 

Hero uses exponents: +1 (or possibly +2) DC is twice as much damage. It is not as clear, since the STR chart and firearm damage imply +1 DC, while the Explosives rules imply +2 DC. However, the fact that it IS exponential when relating game results to real world effects is (or should be) indisputable.

 

Neither way is right or wrong - it is simply two different operational assumptions.

1) My reply was to Trebuchet not to you, I was only referencing your post.

2) I have ALWAYS been saying that 3d6RKA _is_ 64 times more powerful than a 1d6 RKA.

3) when I said: "The HMG *is* 64 times as powerful as a pistol (based on kinetic energy), if the system doesn't reflect this, it just means that the system isn't perfect." I was only acknowledging the fact that, sometimes during game play, 3d6K does not seem 64 times more powerful than 1d6K.

Originally posted by Kristopher

Lethality has to come into the equation.

 

Is a 3d6 RKA rifle 64 times more lethal than a 2d6 RKA rifle?

 

Is a 9d6 punch from a super 64 times more lethal than a 6d6 punch?

First of all, every DC doubles--so in the examples you gave we'd be talking about a factor of 8 (not 64).

Second of all, 2d6RKA and 3d6RKA are both equally lethal to a mouse

Originally posted by Kristopher

You assume that 64 x KE = 64 x more lethal.

 

That's not necessarily true.

I don't believe that I ever said that it was 64 X more lethal, just that it was 64 X more powerful.

Originally posted by Trebuchet

Let's look at this logically, and with the obvious caveat that we're dealing with a game system and not the real world, so I'll argue from a system perspective rather than a real world one. Simply put, the results within the game system do not support exponential increases in damage per d6. Based on exponential increase, 10d6 is 512 times as much damage as 1d6 and 15d6 is 16384 times as much damage as 1d6. Are these numbers supported by results in the game world? Absolutely not. Can anyone honestly show me an example in Hero where 15d6 bounces off an object but 16d6 completely destroy it, as would be the case with a 16d6 attack 32768 times as powerful as 1d6? Do you really think 30d6 is 536,870,912 times as much energy as 1d6?

 

You have asserted that, although 30d6 is supposedly 500 million times as powerful as 1d6, it just doesn't play out that way in the game (and therefore it must not be 500 million times as powerful).

In some cases, you're right. However, in some cases it does play out that way.

Imagine two characters shooting at a 12 Def 5 Body Object. The first character has a 30d6 EB and the second character has a 1d6 EB.

I ask you: how many times will the guy with the 1d6 EB have to shoot at the object to match the damage done to the object by one shot from the 30d6?

According to the system, the 1d6 could not do as much damage to the object with a 500 million shots as one shot of 30d6 would do.

In fact, even if the guy with the 1d6 EB took 9,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999 shots, he would still not do as much as one 30d6 shot.

You simply can't do damage to a 12 Def Object with a 1d6 EB, no matter how many times you shoot it.

So I would argue that, in some ways a 30d6 plays out as even more than 500 million times as powerful as 1d6.

Just because you can find a few examples where the game system doesn't seem to back up exponential damage does not prove anything. I can find many examples where the system does back up exponential damage.

Originally posted by Trebuchet

Let's look at this logically, and with the obvious caveat that we're dealing with a game system and not the real world, so I'll argue from a system perspective rather than a real world one. Simply put, the results within the game system do not support exponential increases in damage per d6. Based on exponential increase, 10d6 is 512 times as much damage as 1d6 and 15d6 is 16384 times as much damage as 1d6. Are these numbers supported by results in the game world? Absolutely not. Can anyone honestly show me an example in Hero where 15d6 bounces off an object but 16d6 completely destroy it, as would be the case with a 16d6 attack 32768 times as powerful as 1d6? Do you really think 30d6 is 536,870,912 times as much energy as 1d6?

 

Does each +1 of PD or ED make someone twice as tough in game terms, therefore making someone with 25 PD 3275.8 times as difficult to hurt as a character with 10 PD? Is a character with 30 PD (Over 500 million times as tough as 1 PD if figured exponentially) really 320 times more difficult to injure than one with a 25 PD? Of course not. The game mechanics do not reflect any such disparity in difficulty to injure another character. 30 PD is tougher than 25 PD and way tougher than 10 PD, but the corresponding toughness is not exponential.

 

And of course extra BODY would also apply: Each +1 BODY should make something twice as difficult to destroy if damage is exponential, but does anyone here think a character with 10 BODY is only half as difficult to mortally wound as one with 11 BODY? As someone pointed out above, 15d6 can't even be guaranteed to kill a normal. A martial artist hitting for 10d6 is not hitting for 1/32 as much damage as the team brick with 15d6. It just doesn't work out that way in the game.

 

Therefore it stands to reason, based on the way the Hero system works within the game itself, that each d6 is only an undefined but incremental amount of additional damage, not twice as much. Exponential looks good at first glance, but not when you actually do the numbers. The damage/defense scale may not be arithmetic either, but perhaps logarithmic or some other method of scaling. But one thing it is clearly is not is exponential.

I have two different replies to your post. I cover the first in this post and the second in my next post.

This line of discussion started when you replied to Arthur's Post. However, instead of arguing with it, now it seems like you've simply re-stated his original message, only you've added one leap of logic.

Arthur's original quote

However, the geometric damage scale of Hero DOES cause some odd effects, but you have to extend the analysis a bit.

 

Our Hero has 14 BODY. Assume Killing Damage and no resistant defenses. You shoot OH with a 1d KA. It takes four shots to put him at 0 BODY, and four more (a total of eight) to kill him.

 

"That's too many shots!" we cry. Let's use a weapon that does eight times as much damage! However, 8x as much damage from the characters' POV is only 2d or twice as much in points of damage due to the exponential nature of the system.

 

Our Hero is put to zero BODY by two shots, and killed outright by four shots (he's having a rough day). Eight times as much KE, but it takes only half as many shots.

 

You can do a similar analysis of points of BODY, making certain assumptions (IIRC, +2 BODY = x2 mass) and show that also gives counter-intuitive results.

 

Is Hero broken this way? Yes. Is there any game system that doesn't have similar problems? Not that I've ever found.

 

Unlike Arthur, you assume that because .50 Cal HMG (3d6 K damage or 9DCs) doesn't play out in the game as 64 times more powerful than a pistol (with 1d6 K damage--or 3 DCs), that it therefore must _not_ be 64 times more powerful. I don't agree with that assumption.

The problem is that the HMG *is* 64 times as powerful as a pistol (based on kinetic energy), if the system doesn't reflect this, it just means that the system isn't perfect.

Originally posted by Trebuchet

You are correct, however the assertation that each +1 BODY damage to an object doubles the size of the hole applies only to walls. That is a significant fact when we are being told by some that xd6 will destroy the Earth because of the doubling effect. If Earth has 11700+ BODY, it will take that many d6's to destroy it. Equally obviously if each d6 makes the hole twice as big it will take far fewer d6 to vaporize our poor planet.

Based on its mass, Earth should have no more than 100 BODY. And 200 Body would destroy it.

Originally posted by Trebuchet

I believe you are incorrect in this assertation. Nowhere in HERO does it say that +1 BODY damage doubles the size of a hole in all objects. This rule specifically applies to walls only (5th Edition, page 304). In no way is the Earth similar to a wall in configuration. Walls are thin objects with a thin cross-section, the Earth is an oblate spheroid with a substantially different cross section. ( | vs. O )

 

Can you provide the data on how you arrived at a number of 200d6 destroying Earth? Earth's total volume is 10^21 * 1.1m³, so how many doublings does it take with each cubic game inch taking 8 cubic meters? By my calculations (Admittedly possibly incorrect; math is not my strongest suit) that gives Earth 137,000,000 cubic game inches, of which the square root of is 11726.0394. So wouldn't that mean it would take over 11,000d6 to destroy the Earth?

 

Under "Breaking Things" FREd (page 303) it says: "an object's body depends on it's total mass, each doubling of mass is +1 BODY." My specific assertion in the case of the Earth's BODY rating (and its ability to be destroyed) was based on this fact--and had nothing to do with "walls."

Originally posted by Trebuchet

You are basing your argument on a false premise; which is that the Strength Charts support your theory. In point of fact they neither confirm nor deny it.

While I agree that there are some strong arguments to make for damage being linear, there are other reasons than the Strength Chart to lead one to the conclusion that damage is exponential.

1) Mass is exponential with regard to Body--every doubling of mass adds 1 body. Also Every +1 body will double the size of a hole made in an object.

Fact: each DC of normal damage will, on average, do +1 Body.

And thus a 25d6 EB will make a hole (on average) 32 times larger than a 20d6 EB. Or a 25d6 EB will (on average) cut through 32 times as much material with each shot.

The mathematics of +1 Body per each doubling of mass means that a 200d6 EB can destroy the Earth, that being the case, it is hard to argue that damage is _not_ exponential.

2) The Kinetic Energy of the fire arm table supports the logic that +1 DC = twice the energy. (.50 HMG = 3d6K)

3) The standard system for determining velocity damage is linear. However, starting on page 292 of FREd there is an optional Velocity damage table that turns velocity damage from a linear pattern to a exponential pattern based on kinetic energy. KE = 1/2 Mass X (velocity^2), thus every time you double in speed you get 4 times the KE, thus +2 Velocity Factor, and thus +2 DC (at least for most cases).

Right at the beginning of the optional velocity damage section, it says that this new optional system is "useful for gamers who (a) would prefer a more realistic system for determining velocity damage. . ." Why would the new system be more realistic, if damage were meant to be linear? On page 292, it is indicated that the normal system of linear velocity damage is in place for reasons of simplicity rather than realism.

Again, I still agree that there are arguments to be made in favor of linear damage. But I feel that there are many reasons, other than the Strength Chart, for arguing that damage is exponential.

Originally posted by Starsong 2002

nice work Warp !

Thank you, I'm glad that you like my stuff.

Originally posted by Starsong 2002

i would like to know what you used

The software that I'm using is something new. In fact, I'm actually Beta-Testing it now--but it should be available for full release very soon. The full release price should be somewhere between $40 and $100. If you're interested, I will keep you informed of progress on that front.

I'm fairly pleased with how the software is working (even in beta-mode), and it seems that other people like the results too.

You seem to be doing very well with the software that you have. But, if you (or others) should be interested in the testing process, let me know, more testers may be needed. (The Beta-version may have more bugs in it, but it is free.)

Originally posted by Starsong 2002

i love to see art other than mine as it gives me new prespectives on what i do wrong or maybe a driffrent way to look at something

I also like to see what other people are doing with their art. And your work is always of excellent quality. I'm looking forward to seeing more of your stuff soon.