Murphy's rules: How to survive a fall

[Plane]

This is why you should wear a cape, you set the cape on fire and it gives back-lighting which isn't too blinding and the smoke would go behind you rather than in front of you, especially if you maintain a steady pace forward.

If you're wearing steel plate under the cape you should probably have some kind of fireproof thermal-proof insulater over it so the armor doesn't heat up. This is obviously to avoid the usual shock penalties for losing HP that would normally apply in addition to the -3

[Anders]

You also lose FP to heat.

[Plane]

Doesn't armor DR subtract from 'damage' from Fatigue Attack too though?

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Plane

Doesn't armor DR subtract from 'damage' from Fatigue Attack too though?

Typically, but Anders isn’t referring to a Fatigue Attack, but rather to the fact you lose FP at a rather accelerated rate in a high-temperature environment, and wearing a burning cape is going to increase the temperature in your local area by quite a good deal.

For the original Murphy, if the spike doesn’t survive (and in that circumstance, you’d expect either the armor or spike to fail), you could try to justify the effect by talking about crumple zones and waving your hands around a bit. For water, that’s perfectly fine in a cinematic setting (although it would need to be a silly one for a puddle to suffice), but in a realistic setting above a certain velocity water would probably be treated as a hard rather than soft surface (due to its mostly-incompressible nature) and the diving trick probably wouldn’t work.

[Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2]

Originally Posted by clu2415

There’s the old chestnut that the distraction penalty for being partially on fire is less than the penalty for total darkness. Set your arm on fire and now you can attack better!

Originally Posted by Rupert

The penalty is -3, and especially as a burning arm probably still gives you lighting penalties, and possibly penalties for smoke in your eyes, so that might well not be true. Oh, and these penalties are on top of any you take for the pain from the burning damage. And if all this does add up to less than -10, well that makes sense - you can actually see the target, after all.

I can see that working ...

Subterranean War Chief: "You ran away from the human?! You can see in total darkness! He can't!"

Subterranean Warrior: "And he set himself on fire so he could see to kill us! Ran away? You bet we did! That human's a monster!"

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2

I can see that working ...

Subterranean War Chief: "You ran away from the human?! You can see in total darkness! He can't!"

Subterranean Warrior: "And he set himself on fire so he could see to kill us! Ran away? You bet we did! That human's a monster!"

How much of an Intimidation bonus does that give you?

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

How much of an Intimidation bonus does that give you?

"Setting yourself on fire " is not mentioned specifically but there is a range of +1 to 4 for "strength, bloodthirstiness or supernatural powers". I think this case may have hit the max.

[Rannith]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I'm not sure that would quite qualify as a Murphy's in that most people would want to play that way. It is how it works in fiction, even "realistic" fiction.
(Now I don't have my books at the moment.. but if there's no requirement for water depth based on velocity, that could qualify.)

So if you carry a canteen and squirt it out below you as you fall you will land in water and since depth doesn’t matter so long as you can swim you are ok?

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Rannith

So if you carry a canteen and squirt it out below you as you fall you will land in water and since depth doesn’t matter so long as you can swim you are ok?

Water falls more slowly than people in atmosphere (it has a rather low terminal velocity, which is why we don’t have to take cover in armored bunkers when it rains*), so that would just end up splattering water in your face. If you time it right, you might be able to chuck a bottle/canteen down and create a puddle, but you’d need to do so so close to the surface you wouldn’t have time to switch to a diving position and would still splat.

*Is it possible to have an atmosphere where rain can form and won’t boil off before hitting the ground, but the atmosphere is thin enough for water to have an impressively-high terminal velocity, while having low enough gravity for humans to settle there? Could be an interesting planet. “Quickly, we have to get the shields back up before the rain reaches us, or it’ll punch holes into the hull!”

[cptbutton]

Originally Posted by Rannith

So if you carry a canteen and squirt it out below you as you fall you will land in water and since depth doesn’t matter so long as you can swim you are ok?

Originally Posted by Varyon

Water falls more slowly than people in atmosphere (it has a rather low terminal velocity, which is why we don’t have to take cover in armored bunkers when it rains*), so that would just end up splattering water in your face. If you time it right, you might be able to chuck a bottle/canteen down and create a puddle, but you’d need to do so so close to the surface you wouldn’t have time to switch to a diving position and would still splat.

So you need a really high-end supersoaker and the skill to fire it straight down?