DasBroot

At 100d6 of damage (!), I'm fairly sure both characters involved in this would be reduced to the consistency of Chunky Salsa Dip on impact.

Actually you'd be surprised.  Even if I hadn't broken the damage up using my house rule the villain (PD 50, Body 40, Damage Reduction 50%) would have made it. The hero would have too - PD 35, DR 50%, Body 40..

It's a 14 DC game with armor caps of 35 (so 7 stun gets through per hit on average) but I encourage slapping damage reduction on top of it for tough characters since that 14 DC is routinely broken by 'tough' enemies (16 to 18 not uncommon - this enemy, that they were supposed to use weapon they spent the entire rest of the session acquiring on, had a 24d6 melee attack (it would have dropped to 18 after the Drain, and the rPD would have dropped to 42 - both standard 'boss; numbers).  Even the brick couldn't take that for long at the character caps (18 stun per hit was getting through).  Hence the desperation move that really wasn't called for.

I wouldn't say he takes 100d6. I seem to recall from an earlier version of Champions that you can only take as much damage as the BODY + DEF of an object, in this case, a hex/inch of ground (approx 6 ft). They'd hit, take a lot of damage, and continue on through to the next hex, etc etc, slowly depleting how far they travel. The ground doesn't have 100 body; let's assume 6 feet of it has 13 body and 2 def, so that's 15d6 max (but repeatedly until they stop). This gives the result of a large hole in the ground. This is both dramatic and in the style of a comic book.

I have a house rule similar to that effect but I don't use house rules when asking clarifications on the RAW My house rule gives 'the ground' (or a mountain, etc) 30 body + its material hardness.  I usually use 5 meter 'chunks' to reflect that (even though as written 5 meters thick of dirt has something like 15 body).  They were in a canyon near Stronghold so I used brick for the PD: The character and villain took 35d6, 35d6, and 30d6 to total the 100d6 he should have taken and both survived as a result (well under -100 stun, though) and created a nearly 15 meter deep hole crater.

15d6 is way too low - a vault door would survive an impact of any velocity (dropped 100 meters or hitting the ground at mach 10).  10d6 is even worse.

Page 150: The Grabber can move and bring the victim along, subject to normal rules of transporting other characters. Remember that there are more movement modes than Flight. Some of them cannot be used on other characters unless a Power Advantage is bought. In this case, Flight, I would rule that as long as the character can carry the opponent, that's all that is required.

 

Page 151 states that a Move Through can be performed at Non-Combat speeds, but not at Megascaled or EDM, FTL or Teleportation. The damage is velocity/6 d6.  600/6=100d6. So yeah. 

 

As GM, I would rule that he and the big bad takes the damage. For my own sanity, I'd impose the Standard Effect rule (300 Stun, 100 Body Normal Damage) but if you really want to roll the dice...

 

Hopefully the PC has some sort of Damage Reduction. You could rule that the big bad absorbs some of the damage. BB's PD + BODY maybe. Otherwise that is going to hurt, but not for very long. Such is the cost for heroic sacrifice.

 

That's my $0.02. 

That was exactly how I ruled it in play.  It looked rules accurate but sets a bad precedent in a way - after all, immediately after it happened That Guy  (every group has That Guy) began to ponder the possibilities of using teleport on the power diving hero (who is not That Guy's character, which has never done a heroic thing in its life) at the last second so only the villain splats... weaponizing a desperation move (and obliterating the DC14 cap). 

Falling has a maximum velocity so you will never hit 300d6. If I remember correctly you top out at 30.

Yep. Terminal velocity is 60 m/segment which is that 30d6.  

Well, that was interesting. Guess I've got a two fold question.

A character in my game basically flew straight down at most of his non-combat speed and hit the ground at about mach 1, more or less (the non combat speed he was moving was 600 with a speed of 6).

That's fine. Lots of places in Champions Complete told him he'd be taking 100d6 for doing so since the ground is a cruel, cruel high body mistress.

Thing is he did it to defeat the supervillain who he had grabbed at the time¹

Part one of the question - was I right about the 100d6?

Part two - Can you carry an actively resisting ticked off supervillain at non-combat speeds if they fail to break free (repeatedly)? Control is not an attack action but is it still a half phase action (thus preventing using it with non-combat multipliers)?  Since it's also, technically, how you carry allies as well (they're grabbed but not resisting) that would seem pretty limiting and genre defying (Superman can't carry Lois to Paris in a few minutes for a lunch? A hero can't fly the unconscious supervillain from New York to Stronghold before they wake up?).

Under grab itself the line under grab and movement that seemed to relate most was:

I thoroughly enjoyed the season finale. Like most Supergirl episodes, it had its share of "don't think about it too hard" moments, but for me they were more than overshadowed by strong fight sequences and some genuinely emotional scenes.

 

 

 

Supergirl's Message Of Hope was yeah a little corny, but damn if Melissa Benoist didn't sell it! Maybe it's just cuz I've had a rough couple of weeks IRL and needed a pep talk, but I really felt it.

 

Breaking everyone out of the mind control early on, only to replace it with a different ticking clock was an odd choice narratively, but it did give Kara a chance to say goodbye to everyone, which made for some nice character moments.

 

I like they way they've walked Max Lord back from being a straight-up supervillain and made him a more complex frenemy/occasional ally, but still not exactly a good guy.

 

So in this universe, Kryponians can't survive in deep space? I guess I'm okay with that - and given the show's budget, it's probably not a bad decision. But didn't they use the "Superman can't help because he's off world" excuse just last week?

 

Speaking of Big Red Boots, the season spent a lot of time on whether or not Kara needed Clark's help; so it was nice to end the season with her saving the world while he's sidelined for a change.

 

Lastly: who do we think is in the pod? Thankfully, it looked too small to hold Comet.

 

Not a bad finale for what it was.  Bring on season 2.

Did we just accidentally turned this into the Flash thread?

If only there was a way to move the last half dozen posts intact. Is Simon summoned the same way as Beetlejuice? 

A relatively simple House Rule to play test for feasibility would be to change Bracing for Knockback from a 1/2 Phase to a 0 Phase Maneuver.  Keep the 1/2 DCV Penalty and state that the decision to Brace has to be made before the To Hit Roll.  Then it becomes a relatively persistent effect vs. the expected impact direction.

 

HM

I like it but bracing for KB does very, very little for the average non-brick character.  Against a 'standard' 12 body attack you'd need 25 strength to counter an average knockback roll - and if you fail you're sent the whole 10 meters.  Maybe it's just my games but when it comes to str the characters I see tend to come in a 10 - 15 range or a 50+ range - no in-between.

If you were a 'blaster' type character who wants to routinely resist the average knockback you're definitely better off buying 10 points of KB resistance for 10 points that *will* reduce the distance you move to 2 - 4 m on a bad day than spending 15 - 20 points on strength (or flight, but then you'd have more KB to resist so you'd need more points in flight than if you'd chosen strength) that may or may not fit your character concept and *may* reduce the 10 meters of movement (at the cost of half your DCV).

Summons using Summons is one of the biggest traps there is in the Hero game system - for exactly the reasons you pointed out.  It technically works (I thought there was a sentence about summons not being able to buy summon but I'm unable to find it) but I doubt you'd find a GM around that would vet it.

The road to hell is paved with a Summoned Shield Helicarrier Summoning a dozen dropships that Summon a dozen Agents. 

I hope this is part of the 'plan' and that they somehow sabotaged the transfer - a trojan virus of a sort that will, under a certain condition, transfer all the speed force back to Barry (and neutralize the velocity-9).

If it turns out 'no, really - they hinged everything on the speed dampening bands that other villains have broken out of already and now their backs are against the wall, but don't worry - the heart of a hero and a dues ex machina will save the day!' it will be the first time I've been truly disappointed in the show.  

Heh. Feeling like you ran through a steel wall accidentally  made me laugh.

"Ah! The capes are here! Run, boys!"

*wham*

"Son of a ... ow... what the hell was that? Keep running!"

What about if someone used telekinesis to dump a ton (maybe literally) of sand on her? It's better at putting out fires than water is.

Or someone grappled her using a fire blanket?

If undead like this don't take stun, then nerve strikes are out against them. Too bad.  What are the best ways to disable zombies that characters can use?

Shoot them in the head with a Killing attack.

Use any Penetrating killing attack.

Use Drain liberally.  Draining their Body will kill them the same as anything else.  Draining their running speed is more effective, though - they're already slow so one tap of a 60 AP drain run speed will make them statues. Activate the Mega-Cheese Beam and see if the GM was paying attention and bought Inherent for their "Takes No Stun" power with a drain that targets it - if he didn't they become mortal and all attacks work on them normally. Drain their pathetic Speed.  The list goes on.

The standard ones aren't particularly strong, physically (human max).  An 8 PD Barrier big enough to englobe it will take it out of the campaign forever.  Or simply drop something heavy enough they can't lift on them.

Change Environment to mess up their run speed (again).

So many options depending on genre they're being used in.

The missing complexity table does indeed sound handy for this situation.  If he decides to use that power Surrealone's will be the description I use.  

As for the rest

Entangle is neat but he really wanted to see the effect of people miming their way around a maze trying to get out - as written an entangle would have them standing there until they broke free.  It's definitely a great interpretation for the non-dimensional shifting aspect of the D&D maze spell.

Barrier is too 'real' for the character concept (he's an illusionist).  Even if I let him disregard the stated minimum PD/ED rules for Barrier (I usually do - just can't be 0) it's still something physically there that needs to be dealt with unless he puts a time limit on it or takes dismissable.  

I think at the end of the day once I point out that MOST things he puts in it will simply try and break the walls in frustration if nothing else (and thus get out, perception of it being a real wall or not) he'll probably take it as a 'build a maze for kids on Halloween' kind of power.  His combat images are brutal enough in play (most fights for him start from Invisibility with an all common senses Image of Ironclad (or Doctor Destroyer) entering the room so the enemies waste their first attacks on it. Then the team, holding their actions, strikes.)

'Infant' (from Champions Complete pg 20) and 'toddler' do not mean the same thing, so I'm not sure why you conflated the two terms.  Not to be semantic about it, but the term 'infant' is usually (but not always) applied to a child in its first 12 months of life while 'toddler' is typically (but not always) applied to a child from one to three years of age.  I went with STR 3 for a toddler assuming 2.5-3 years of age.

 

If you want to hang your hat on the 'Average People' table on Champions Complete pg 207, you'll also note that 1 STR for a 'small child' is out of whack compared with every other physical stat ... and that based on what a 1 STR can lift many kids falling in the 'small child' range would not be able to stand up due to an inability to lift their own weight.  I think of a 'small child' as any child under 5-6 years of age for whom abstract thinking has not yet 'turned on' within the brain.  A 6 year old with 1 STR?  I don't think so.  4-5 STR, most likely.

I lumped toddler closer to infant (weak) than to child (challenged) based on what, realistically, a toddler could hope to accomplish.  Child to me (which is a str of 2.5 to 5) would be someone between 5 and 14 years old. Even an average 13 year old would struggle to lift 50 KG so I'd have no problem giving them a 5 - and then it increases rapidly to near 8 between 14 and 18. 

It's all subjective, though.  My 36 year old sister probably has a 5 strength if you go by lifting capacity rules for this sort of thing (lift 110 pounds for a few seconds? Only if she absolutely had to in order to get something off her kids. I used to go to the gym with her and her deadlift was 80 pounds after a few months of me training her.  My wife could do 100.) I guess my muddled point is that if a 3 str toddler lifting 25 kg sounds like crap (and it is) then perhaps reassessing what category a toddler would fall into is prudent.

Still can't throw that 25 KG 4 meters, though, even with the rules as borked as they are.

A toddler probably has a 1 strength, really.  Maybe a 2. Barely able to pick up a gun, sword, or shot put according to the strength chart.  in fact the characteristic benchmark page (pg 20 champions complete) says as much - less than 1/4 the base value (so less than 2.5) for 'infant' which is close enough.

An average adult human has an 8, which lets them lift and stagger a few steps with 165 pounds.  They can throw a pre-teen 2 meters.  Not sure how your super strong str 3 toddler is throwing 25 kg 4 meters - 25 kg is a 0 meter throw for them since you subtract the strength needed to lift the object from the characters strength and figure out the throw from what's left.

(Mind you after 10 strength does get silly in a hurry, with a 'maximum human strength' 20 character able to throw a 330 pound refrigerator something like 24 feet). 

1 - You end up with the body damage being penetrating because it's a killing attack.  Other than the guaranteed 3 stun (for doing 3 body, as Tholomyes pointed out) there's nothing penetrating about the stun damage on a killing attack with the advantage (as GA pointed out).  The paragraph you quoted states as much: killing attacks apply penetrating to body.

2 - If your math is correct then you'll do 9 - 45 stun, but only 9 of it is penetrating.  9 damage a hit guaranteed isn't bad.  You'll do 11 body (not killing) which isn't penetrating in the slightest and will bounce off of anything you'd need to hit with this attack, really.

Not going to touch 3 because honestly I'm not certain that martial maneuvers get special advantages for 'free' or not.  It seems to me like they should be reduced by an advantage applied indirectly to them, just like base strength damage is - so +6 DC bonus becomes +4 DC for a killing attack of 2 and 1/2 D6 or 7d6 hth.  I'm not certain, though.

Well right, you have to wink at some of the physical effects.  The thing with strength is that while it can lift gigantic amounts, it doesn't apply that kind of force.  And an equivalent blast of 12d6 wouldn't move 100 tons, either. 

A 12d6 blast attack against a 100 ton object on the ground, as per the vehicle and base weight table in champions complete, will move it 12 body - 7 rolled = 5 x 2 m - 10 meters KB resistance for its mass.  So on average 0 meters (Huh. Wonder if that was intentional?).  With a roll of 6 instead of 7 as the average it will be 2 meters.  On a higher than average body roll or lower than average KB roll it's certainly not out of the question for said 12d6 blast to, indeed, push that kind of weight - and by extension exert that kind of force.

It's a little crazy.

Ouch.  What did you do to the cost of the double knockback advantage to equalize?  

 

In practice, everything works out fine without needing any doubling or changes.

One of the things the 2m hex did was distort any concept of distance on a hex mat.  Everything was so theoretical that you kind of lost a feel for how long the distances were.  In converting characters I'm continually amazed at the gargantuan distances they were build to move.  30m running is incredible.  If you can run 30 yards in 3 seconds, that's immense.  Pace it out some time, we're talking speeds you'd associate with The Flash.  But that was tossed around pretty regularly on character builds.

 

An average 12 damage class champions attack would average around 10m of knockback.  That's about 32 feet.  Check that out some time in the real world, to see how far people were bouncing around.  And that's on average, like pinballs.  Turn that into 5m and its not so excessive, but someone with double knockback gets a lot more.  More than 10m because of the way it works, the average with a double knockback attack is now 17m.

1 - 30 yards in 3 seconds would barely qualify you for the Olympics 100 meter dash based on speed alone.  Now the fact that a hero can do it basically forever (and casually) is where it gets a little nuts.

2 - To be fair what kinds of forces are involved in the 'average' 12 damage class champions attack?  If you keep things even and equal that '60' active points when applied to strength can lift 100 tons (a blue whale on the strength chart examples).  Thus a 12d6 Blast should also be able to move 100 tons of dead weight.

I would think that any force capable of physically moving a beached blue whale impacting against something human weight would, indeed, move them a hell of a distance (you know, if their body was up to maintaining its form and thus remain somewhat aerodynamic instead of exploding into a fine red mist, which is what would really happen....)

I can try.

 

Sadly this is a S***n C****l show and the winning acts go through to a final where they could then win the chance to perform in front of the Queen.

Also, if there's a dancing dog in the competition all other acts, no matter how talented, are toast.

Nice. That's the only picture in the thread that's even remotely weirded me out. I was truly terrified of dark windows as a child - and honestly I still don't particularly like looking out windows at night (but at least now I can): the residual child-fear tells me that something is definitely looking in....

This compunded by what I call "brick fight" mentality. They expect to exchange and soak a ton of blows, and design to achieve it. As a result, you end up with padded defenses and extra stun that makes blocking, dodging, and setting up a finishing blow is a sub - optimal strategy because, odds are, you won't finish them. You have to keep pounding away to win. In games with lower defenses and stun (heroic games, mostly) I've seen far more tactical thinking than in superheroic games and games with a bunch of damage obviating heroic talents that render you quasi-superheroic).

This, exactly, especially in 400 point superheroic games with caps. The fact is that blocking, dodging, and optional manoeuvres like dive for cover are inferior to just building to take the hit in most situations.  In my own superheroic game the average OCV is 8 to 10 but the average DCV is 3.  They took the 25 to 35 points that they might have sunk into DCV to even it up with OCV and applied it directly to defences not dependant on a fickle dice roll.  

For the first few sessions the bricks would periodically jump in the way of attacks meant for the mentalist but numbers were usually against them and it became a better tactic on their part to convince the player to take a few points of experience earned and throw a Barrier with the telekinetic sfx in her mental power multipool so they could focus on offence.

Captain Harlock (2013) 

Before the movie: "Been meaning to watch this.  I loved the ship design when I was a kid and saw it on TV."

After the movie: "I love that ship design.  ... That is all."

To be fair, though, the movie was a little fuzzy.  I made the mistake of using my "Anime I Haven't Seen Drinking Game" rules and managed to check off (among other things):

Protagonist not the movie title's protagonist? Drink

Gratuitous shower scene? Drink

Antagonist turns out to be protagonist's brother? Drink

Super cool tech used by heroes at start of movie inexplicably doesn't work as well against same enemies next time? Drink

Movie title protagonist does nothing until more than halfway into the movie, does something awesome, and then gets captured? Drink

Super cool tech is now back to being overpowered against same enemies because its the final act? Drink 

Exaggerated or not the Bat Ninja paid points for that second description.  It's a superhuman result for a superhuman perception - not really indicative of being on high alert or paranoid just indicative of being the most perceptive being that has ever walked the earth.

I personally get the idea, but I dislike it. I personally find that it would be much simpler, for me, to half my party's PER roll. Thus, it makes it much harder for The Bat Ninja to notice something and not just notice it automatically. The incredibility of his PER roll counts against penalties, not casual observation. I don't believe that just because you have a high PER means that you notice EVERYTHING, but it does mean you notice a lot. It's like the old phrase "Even the greatest can't do some things". I cannot force myself to give a player everything I am planning for them just because they have a high PER modifier, a high INT modifier, a high Tactics modifier, or even a high Analyze modifier. One more thing. I'm not saying that this idea is bad, per se. I'm just saying I dislike it.

I understand this feeling (and I've felt it before) but since I didn't actively cap perception I went along with it.  Know what happened when they instantly solved all plots the moment they ran across them a few times? They realized they had nobody to blame but themselves for any lack of mystery in the game and lowered their perception.

I like this idea for the low perception people, though - the thought of Joe slowly realizing 'Huh.  Oh.' as the bank clerk keeps gesturing with less and less subtlety is fun.

Like many I think the 'vs' route was just a bad call overall.  Think of all the "World's Finest" stories they could have adapted .... even Public Enemies might have had the tone they want to convey so badly.

I'm just a lucky so-and-so - Duke Ellington