Pricing Unlimited Strength But The Oil Tanker Collapses In On Itself

[Minuteman37]

Ok so in a super's game I'm wanting to allow a player to have truly unlimited strength, but without all the built in secondary powers that a comic book character like superman has that allows him to lift an Oil tanker without it collapsing in on itself.

My gurps gut is telling me to price it the same as the strength nessissery to lift the heaviest thing he could actually lift and that would have any chance of the party just happening upon so no ultra dense theoretical materal at the center of a sun or anything.


Is there a way to figure this out or would we just need to ball park it?

[NineDaysDead]

Originally Posted by Minuteman37

Ok so in a super's game I'm wanting to allow a player to have truly unlimited strength, but without all the built in secondary powers that a comic book character like superman has that allows him to lift an Oil tanker without it collapsing in on itself.

My gurps gut is telling me to price it the same as the strength nessissery to lift the heaviest thing he could actually lift and that would have any chance of the party just happening upon so no ultra dense theoretical materal at the center of a sun or anything.


Is there a way to figure this out or would we just need to ball park it?

Strength includes:
Striking ST: How much damage can this guy do?

Lifting ST: Your logic to price it the same as the strength needed to lift the heaviest thing he could actually lift and that would have any chance of the party just happening upon seems reasonable. However if he's got unlimited ST he'll need to have enough so that he's always at "No Encumbrance"

HP: How many HP does he have?

[Refplace]

Normal ST works that way by default its realistic not physics breaking.
For feats like that I usually go with TK, though I would be happy with a+50% Cosmic on regular ST.

[Minuteman37]

Originally Posted by NineDaysDead

Strength includes:
Striking ST: How much damage can this guy do?

Lifting ST: Your logic to price it the same as the strength needed to lift the heaviest thing he could actually lift and that would have any chance of the party just happening upon seems reasonable. However if he's got unlimited ST he'll need to have enough so that he's always at "No Encumbrance"

HP: How many HP does he have?

Striking Strength: enough strength to punch clean through the toughest materal somewhat likely to be encountered at TL8, we'll just say a foot of it, he's penetration will be limited by the length of his arms.

Encumbrance: Well I guess we'd do the same, what's the maximum you can just pile on someone ans they could still move with it on? Because of the shape of the human body I imagine what you could just stick on him would be far less then what he could lift so I'd consider it negligible.

Hit points: I'd just scale those off of weight.

Damage resistance: he probably has this too aren't there rules in Martial Arts for punching so hard you hurt yourself? He'll have enough DR to provent that.

[whswhs]

It might be worth looking at the "Ultrapower" trait in GURPS Supers for the cases where the character does lift something transcending realistic strength limits—and destroys it, presumably. Buy the maximum strength he can use without exceeding the strength of materials, and then use Ultrapower after that. . . .

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by Minuteman37

Is there a way to figure this out or would we just need to ball park it?

What's the largest solid block of mild steel that he could lift without the pressure or the area of his hands exceeding in the strength of steel? My hands are about 0.017 m² each. 0.034 m² total. The strength of mild steel is 250 MPa. 8.5 MN. About 956 US tons.

Okay, what's the heaviest weight he could support without his feet pulverising standard-mix concrete? My feet are about 0.026 m² each. 0.052 m² total. The compressive strength of standard-mix concrete is 20–35 MPa (depending on the aggregate and the curing). 1.0–1.8 MN. 114–200 US tons.

[Nereidalbel]

I'd just slap Super Effort on Lifting St, then add Cosmic (+50%) to allow buying 1 level of Reduced Fatigue on it. Give him as many levels as he wants, and make any required rolls for structural integrity on anything he picks up that isn't homogeneous, as well as for sinking into the ground.

[AlexanderHowl]

The problem is not whether he has enough ST but whether the object he is manhandling can withstand the force involved. Using the oil tanker example, it reality, Superman should not be capable of lifting it regardless of ST because the steel that makes up its structure is not strong enough to support its entire weight where he is pushing. He will either push through the hull of the oil tanker or, if he is trying to lift from the keel, snap the oil tanker in half.

One way to model a super-lift capable of lifting an oil tanker without snapping it in half though would be to have TK (Reduced Range 3, -30%). Since an oil tanker weighs around 500 million pounds, you would need TK 50,000. It is actually cheaper just to buy Regeneration (Rapid; FP only) than the Cosmic and Reduced FP combo for Super Effort past a certain level.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Since an oil tanker weighs around 500 million pounds, you would need TK 50,000.

Though in this sort of game, you'd probably also use Super-Effort -- so TK 26/50,000.

[Bruno]

Super ST is only appropriate if the character tires VERY RAPIDLY outside of their "nearly mortal" range of effort. Superman tends to fly around carrying ridiculous objects like buses and ships, rather than sweating, grunting, and putting it back down again after 15 seconds puffing for breath.

There's always Regeneration(FP; only to recover from Super Effort) but IMO you're getting perverse with builds like that. The rule is A B C (Accurate, Basic, Cheap), not Cheap Accurate Basic.

For Superman-type characters who are supposed to actually work like Superman, oodles and oodles of ST is more Accurate, and more Basic too. It's useful to combine with Super Effort though - ST 250 or whatever with 12-15 levels of Super Effort is, I think, more dialed in.

It conveniently comes with more HP too, which has good synergies with IT:DR for your typical flying brick.