Lifting water with TK

[blacksmith]

This is one of the things that bugs me with TK in 4ed. When is the two hand metaphore real or when it is subjective.

Can someone have a few things being simply held and not just two?

Take one of the feats of The Great and Powerful Turtle, lifting water to put out a fire. Is the ammount of water one can lift based on their lifting weight or the size of their TK hands.

How do you get smaller TK hands to manipulate smaller objects? HOw do you get more to hold more numbers of objects?

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by blacksmith

Can someone have a few things being simply held and not just two?

If you can balance them, and the total mass is under your weight, I'd allow it. I'd make it clear that you're only "really" lifting the bottom item, though, and everything else is just resting on top of it.

Originally Posted by blacksmith

Take one of the feats of The Great and Powerful Turtle, lifting water to put out a fire. Is the ammount of water one can lift based on their lifting weight or the size of their TK hands.

That's TK with Area Effect, unless he had a container of some sort to lift the water in. If you don't have Area Effect, yeah, it would be limited to your cupped hands.

Originally Posted by blacksmith

How do you get smaller TK hands to manipulate smaller objects?

Now that I check, Micromanipulators and Molecular Manipulators are canonical Accessory perks in Power-Ups 2. So I'd like you take either of those to get TK that can manipulate on the micro scale.

Originally Posted by blacksmith

HOw do you get more to hold more numbers of objects?

Area Effect, if all you want to do is hold and move them together in a mass, or Compartmentalized Mind if you want to move several objects and do different things with them.

[blacksmith]

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

If you can balance them, and the total mass is under your weight, I'd allow it. I'd make it clear that you're only "really" lifting the bottom item, though, and everything else is just resting on top of it.

Why ballance them? How much should extra hands to hold things with TK cost?

That's TK with Area Effect, unless he had a container of some sort to lift the water in. If you don't have Area Effect, yeah, it would be limited to your cupped hands.

So hands limit water, they should then also limit how you can lift other things as well, you would need area effect to lift the battleship he is referenced to lift in a later book as well, as two hand can not support a battleship.

[Harald387]

Originally Posted by blacksmith

Why ballance them? How much should extra hands to hold things with TK cost?

Giving your TK 1 level of Area Effect gives you any number of hands within that hex. I might say that '1 extra hand' is a +10% enhancement per hand, with it upgrading to full '1 hex' at the +50% level. That is:

2 hands: Normal cost
3 hands: +10%
4 hands: +20%
5 hands: +30%
6 hands: +40%
Area Effect 1: +50%

Originally Posted by blacksmith

So hands limit water, they should then also limit how you can lift other things as well, you would need area effect to lift the battleship he is referenced to lift in a later book as well, as two hand can not support a battleship.

That depends on the game world and genre. In some games, an ST 1000 super can indeed lift a battleship with two hands and strength - in those games, TK Strength 1000 should be able to do the same thing. In other games, the battleship would break.

The best way to think of it is 'Normal TK can do anything you could do with that amount of ST and two hands.'

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by blacksmith

Why ballance them?

Because default TK can only carry one object. If you want to carry more than that with the default, the other objects will have to be on top of or within the object you're actually carrying. That's not too hard if you happen to have a flat plate handy to pile things on, but if all you've got is a beachball, you'd best have a good DX if you want to pile a bunch of rocks on it.

Originally Posted by blacksmith

How much should extra hands to hold things with TK cost?

As I said in the other thread, I'd say that "Extra TK Hands" is a +0% modifier on Extra Arms. So each extra hand would cost 10 points.

Originally Posted by blacksmith

So hands limit water, they should then also limit how you can lift other things as well,

Why? The rules say that TK can pick up "any object you have the strength to lift..." (emphasis mine). It doesn't say "any mass you have the strength to lift". In common English, a quantity of liquid water is not generally regarded as an "object".
Basically, my decision tree for what TK can do goes like this:

Are you just trying to move something? 
	If Yes, then, is the item a single object? 
		If yes, then, is the item within the weight your TK can lift?
			If yes, then, you can move the item.
			If no, then you can't move the item.
		If no, then could the items be reasonably carried in a pair of 
		cupped hands, and mass less collectively than what your TK can 
		lift?
			If yes, then you can lift the items.
			If no, then you can't move all the items.
	If no, then could the action you're trying to perform be reasonably 
	done by a pair of hands with your TK's ST?
		If yes, then you can do it.
		If no, then you can't.

The "pair of hands" test, as far as I can tell, only comes into play if the item isn't simply a single object within your weight limit.

[Anaraxes]

you would need area effect to lift the battleship

Yes, if the battleship doesn't have the internal strength to remain intact if you lift just part of it. In real life, I expect that's the case. The designers probably count on a battleship being mostly supported by the water that it's in. In a four-color superhero universe, physics isn't always so tidy. Superman gets away with all sorts of things that aren't really a matter of the force he can apply, but require proper leverage and center of mass and so on, not just "strength".

[Figleaf23]

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

Because default TK can only carry one object.

Two, surely!?

[Figleaf23]

Anyway, here's a related question:

Does the 'pair of hands' have your SM, or the SM appropriate to the TK ST?

[Rocket Man]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

In a four-color superhero universe, physics isn't always so tidy. Superman gets away with all sorts of things that aren't really a matter of the force he can apply, but require proper leverage and center of mass and so on, not just "strength".

Yep. One of the classic examples (for superstrength, not TK) is when the ultra-strong Golden Boy decides to step in front of a speeding car and have it bounce off his chest, "just like Superman." He gets knocked flying because 1) He's not heavier than the car and 2) He's not moving faster than the car. Moral of the story: When using strength or TK, always ask which laws of physics are in effect.

[capnq]

Originally Posted by blacksmith

Take one of the feats of The Great and Powerful Turtle, lifting water to put out a fire. [...] How do you get more to hold more numbers of objects?

When the Turtle tried to deliver some obsolete shells to the Joker Museum, he had to visualize them joined together by a triangular frame to pick them up.

I don't remember whether he had to visualize a bucket to pick up the water.