Charging damage and Falling damage.

Doing a few searches, I noticed that gamers much more experienced with running the game than myself are also mystified by the rules for these two situations.

Charging damage: The way it is written seems to state that Captain America, charging at the maximum of +3CS to endurance from 10 areas away, as an example, would inflict Monstrous damage (RM Endurance +3CS) + 10x2 for a total of 95 points of damage?! So, basically, unless you have Unearthly Body Armor/Resistance...Captain America will inflict damage on you. Am I reading all this correctly? Could a charging Cap really damage materials of less than Unearthly material strength, in addition?

The rules say that the "current" Endurance is used for damage inflicted if it's higher than Body Armor, Cap has no Body Armor, so I'm assuming that the +3CS to hit are also used to damage in this example. That's what it seems to be saying. However, in some examples in the searches I did, some of you guys where using base Endurance plus the listed 2 points per area moved as the rule. This makes more sense, but still seems like a lot of damage for Cap to inflict; that would still be 50 points of damage, or the equivalent of a punch by someone with Amazing strength.

Falling: The way I read the example, She-Hulk takes no damage from the 33floor fall because her Incredible Body Armor is greater than the Excellent sidewalk (Handled like a slugfest against someone with Excellent strength: they never do damage to She-Hulk.)

But what if the hero has no body armor or has a body armor of a lesser rank than the material strength of the ground? In the same example, what if the material strength of the road, for some reason, was Amazing instead of Excellent? How much damage would She-Hulk take? Since I'm already unclear on the Charging rules, this is doubly confusing.

Also, could someone explain to me exactly what would happen to a typical human with no powers (24 Health, no body armor) who fell from the 33 story building and hit the Excellent material strength sidewalk?

I'm looking for the absolute simplest way to resolve both these situations. Simplified house rules welcome!

Personally, I think both the Charging rules and the Falling rules are wack.

Charging damage should not be based on how much distance you cover, but how fast you are traveling. If I lumber along at 5 mph and ram into you, it won't matter whether I've been lumbering 20 feet or 200.

The same applies to Falling. I don't care how tough you are. If you are falling from terminal velocity, you're gonna go splat when you hit the pavement, unless you're totally indestructible. It's all about speed. This is why falling into a pool of water is just as fatal as falling onto the pavement when you're traveling fast enough.

The rules are fairly simple, if poorly stated in the rule book, and perhpas not all that logical in osme regards.

Charging; your base is the attacker's Endurance or Armour, whichever is greater. Additional damage is confered by either speed or distance travelled, at 2 points/area.

The rulebook is unclear as whether bonus damage is awarded based on velocity or distance. However, awarding additional damage based on distance travelled in the round makes no sense, so I've always erred on the part of logic and assigned bonus damage based on velocity at the point of impact. Example: Rhino only moves through 1 complete area in his charge, but is moving at a rate of 3 areas/round at the point of impact. Thus he does 2x3 = +6 damage.

As for the CS conferrred by charging, these are strictly for the purposes of hitting and are not applied to the damage. Moreover, they are illogical in their proper application as a to-hit bonus. Afterall, the further you see something coming from, the longer you hav to get out of the way.

Falling; basically this functions as a charge with the material strength of the surface fallen on acting as body armour. So, if one falls onto an Excellent strength surface, up to an Excellent amount of damage will be reflected back on the charger.

Eg. Joe Blow with his Typical Endurance falls from the 10th story of a building, hitting the ground at a velocity of 10 areas/round. He causes Ty (6) + (2x10) = 26 points of damage to the surface and has 20 points reflected back on him.

Now, let's say Mr. Blow is fairly average, except that maybe he is naturally agile and coordianted. So, his stats are F- Pr, A - Gd, S - Pr, E - Ty and his Health is 24.

So, he takes a mere 20 points of damage from his 100' fall onto ashphalt or cement or whatever. The ground is likely cracked and broken. Joe on the otherhand takes a bit of punishment, but in the end gets up, brushes himself off and carries on with his day.

Heck, even if Joe fell onto solid adamantium he still would only take 26 damage... which is enough to leave him laying there, but just barely.

The system Marvel has for determining Falling damage is just WRONG.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/15/2006 09:09AM by Powersurge.

Ok, thanks. Charging damage being base endurance + distance x2 at least makes sense. The way the book words it seems to say that damage is also equal to modified endurance, which was my main point of confusion.

A few questions:

1. Why would Joe only take 26 points of damage from hitting an adamantium surface? Isn't the weakest form of adamantium of Unearthly material strength? Wouldn't he take 100 points of damage?

2. The Player's Book says that if the damage is not absorbed, like in the case of She-Hulk, the falling character takes damage equal to the fall. So, going by this rule, would this mean that a 33 story/area fall would inflict 66 points of damage (2x33, as the charging rule)alone, or 66 points of damge plus damage from the material strength surface?

This is what I'm thinking about doing: for charging, I'll keep the +1-3CS to Endurance to hit, but limit damage inflicted to the attackers base strength +1CS. I don't see non-super strong characters inflicting superhuman levels of damage just because they're charging. I also use strength because some characters, like Storm and Magneto, have very high Endurances, and in my opinion, shouldn't be able to inflict such damage being that they don't possess superhuman strength or durability.

For falling damage I will say that damage = number of floors/areas fallen x2 + material strength of the surface hit.

So, in the 33 floor Baxter building example, and using my rule for charging, She-Hulk will inflict Unearthly damage (Monstrous +1CS)on the Excellent sidewalk, causing it to break and give. Since the material is weaker than her body armor, she does not get damage from the sidewalk, however, she would still take damage from the fall. So that total would be 66 points 33 floors x2) damage, which after being subtracted from her Incredible body armor, means that she would still suffer 26 points of damage from the fall. I think this makes more sense. The speed and velocity of such a massive fall (around 500 feet) has to acount for something. It also allows for the fall and the material strength of the surface to do damage (total of 86 points of damage in this case) and easily kill most humans, as such fall would.

I might go one further and state that if the falling character does not posses body resistance/armor of some type, and even if they are not reduced to 0 Health by the fall (Cap and Daredevil wouldn't be, for instance.), they would have to make a Red Endurance feat or be dropped immediately to 0 Health so the death and dying rules can potentially kick in.

Opinions?

Robert Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> 1. Why would Joe only take 26 points of damage
> from hitting an adamantium surface? Isn't the
> weakest form of adamantium of Unearthly material
> strength? Wouldn't he take 100 points of damage?
>

He would only take 26 points of damage, because that is the amount of "energy" he built up during his fall. The surface of impact has no "energy"... it is just more resilient or less.

Now, if Joe had somehow built up 60 or 80 or even 100 points of falling "energy", ie. damage, the adamantium surface would enable that damage to be reflected, whereas lesser materials wouldn't. So, material strength of the impact surface represents the max. damage that can be reflected back... under existing rules.

> 2. The Player's Book says that if the damage is
> not absorbed, like in the case of She-Hulk, the
> falling character takes damage equal to the fall.
> So, going by this rule, would this mean that a 33
> story/area fall would inflict 66 points of damage
> (2x33, as the charging rule)alone, or 66 points of
> damge plus damage from the material strength
> surface?
>

More-or-less, save that in this instance the rules specifically, errr, specifcy velocity over distance. A person falls at 3areas/round the first round, 6 on the second, 10 on the third and hit terminal velocity on the fourth at 20 areas/round.

So, if by some miracle the pavement had of survived She-Hulk's devastating impact, she would take the Ex. material strength (which held solid) + 2x20 points of damage, ie. 60 points.

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"You just decided *all by yourselves* that you are the Earth's protectors. And that you, and *only* you, not your teammates or family, are trustworthy enough to include in the process..."

T'Challa, The New Avengers: Illuminati 1

Ok. Those rules still don't work for me, particularly the falling on adamantium thing. Hardness accounts for a lot, after all. Going by that, it wouldn't matter if you hit anything from RM to whatever material strength. Normal humans should never survive such falls, even in a relatively simple game system like MSH. Even in the comics characters die from things like that.

Do you see any problems with me using the house rules I mentioned above? I'm not saying that they are perfect, but I feel that they make more logical sense as to what might actually happen in those situations.

I was wondering if anyone saw this weeks Justice League Unlimited, the "Destroyer". It was an outstanding episode. The thing that caught my attention was that they showed the full scope of Supermans abilities. There have been many threads dedicated to this topic before but the episode clearly shows Superman going toe to toe with Darkseid and besting him. If anyone saw this episode please give me your take any his stats and abilities as I will post mine at a later time.

Umm, wrong thread?

Robert, If I can be honest: You have some great ideas, including one I would adopt for my campaign. Plus a couple that don't seem to make too much sense.
I'll start with the bad news.
If I fell out of bed (don't laugh; I've done it) I fall about three feet. If I fell on cement, yes, it would hurt more than carpeted wood. BUT, I'm guessing if I had Adamantium floors, I wouldn't take 100 points of damage. Or even 50. So yes, hardness matters, but like Powersurge said, not as much as speed.

By the way, the way I understand it, Mr. Joe Blow would take 40 points of damage from hitting the cement according to the book, at least. Speed= 10 areas per round for 20 points of damage, and cement for 20 points of damage. 40.

Robert Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Ok, thanks. Charging damage being base endurance +
> distance x2 at least makes sense.

DANGER, ROBERT! Powersurge did not say distance x 2, he said SPEED x2. There is a difference, right?

Here's where you get brilliant:

>
> For falling damage I will say that damage = number
> of floors/areas fallen x2 + material strength of
> the surface hit.
>
> So, in the 33 floor Baxter building example, and
> using my rule for charging, She-Hulk will inflict
> Unearthly damage (Monstrous +1CS)on the Excellent
> sidewalk, causing it to break and give. Since the
> material is weaker than her body armor, she does
> not get damage from the sidewalk, however, she
> would still take damage from the fall. So that
> total would be 66 points 33 floors x2) damage,
> which after being subtracted from her Incredible
> body armor, means that she would still suffer 26
> points of damage from the fall. I think this makes
> more sense. The speed and velocity of such a
> massive fall (around 500 feet) has to acount for
> something. It also allows for the fall and the
> material strength of the surface to do damage
> (total of 86 points of damage in this case) and
> easily kill most humans, as such fall would.

OK, ROBERT, THAT'S GOOD STUFF. THIS NEXT PART?
ME NO LIKEY. No reason. Just don't like it. :)


> I might go one further and state that if the
> falling character does not posses body
> resistance/armor of some type, and even if they
> are not reduced to 0 Health by the fall (Cap and
> Daredevil wouldn't be, for instance.), they would
> have to make a Red Endurance feat or be dropped
> immediately to 0 Health so the death and dying
> rules can potentially kick in.
>
> Opinions?

Well, I guess I did have opinions. I hope you take them in the spirit they are meant: Sharing, honesty and fun. I like all the thought people have put into a problem that has nagged at me, too.

"My parents went to The Secret Wars Battleworld and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt..."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/15/2006 10:32PM by Mark.

Sorry, duplicate post to the last post. Go Marvel! And Auntie!

"My parents went to The Secret Wars Battleworld and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt..."



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/15/2006 10:33PM by Mark.

Mark Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> By the way, the way I understand it, Mr. Joe Blow
> would take 40 points of damage from hitting the
> cement according to the book, at least. Speed= 10
> areas per round for 20 points of damage, and
> cement for 20 points of damage. 40.
>

Yeah, I noticed something to that effect yesterday (for the first time) as I answered one of Robert's post's.

However, looking at the rule again today, it is not all that clear. At a couple of different points it states that one should treat the fall as a charge treating the impact-surface's material strength as body armour.

So, if Joe Blow charges into She-Hulk from 1 area, he WON'T take Incredible damage from She-Hulk's armour. He will take, at most, the force he generated in the charge, ie. Typical + (2x1) = 8, with She-Hulk's armour acting as a damage cap. Thus, he would take no more than Incredible... if he could somehow generate that much force in his charge.

I don't see why falling onto concrete for instance should operate any differently. The fall generates the force, the material one falls on to merely reflects that force back to greater or lesser degrees. If the surfaces gives, it reflects lesser amounts of damage, if it is unyielding it reflects greater amounts.

Hmmm. Maybe it is clear, and it's just too early. Any and either way, much of what Joe Blow takes depends on whether the cement surivives his impact or shatters into nice "cushy" rubble.

Here is a house rule for charging... if the defender is succesfully slammed in a charge attack, the attacker has no (or half?) damage reflected back. Alternately, if the defender is NOT slammed, the attacker (beyond suffering possible reflection damage) is stopped dead at the point of impact, and must build up speed again over subsequent rounds.

------------------------------------------------
Powersurge (history, pics) [www.classicmarvel.com]

------------------------------------------------
Morningstar (campaign journal) [www.classicmarvel.com]

------------------------------------------------

"You just decided *all by yourselves* that you are the Earth's protectors. And that you, and *only* you, not your teammates or family, are trustworthy enough to include in the process..."

T'Challa, The New Avengers: Illuminati 1