Shrinking and lifting strength

[naloth]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

You cannot carry objects while shrunk unless you have the Can Carry Objects enhancement. If you do have the enhancement, the object shrinks proportionally, meaning that it will not weigh nearly as much as it did. Encumbrance is based on the original weight and on your original BL.

That does not make sense, and the converse would mean that you can't carry objects when you are grown unless you buy a similar enhancement for that. Why couldn't growth guy with ST proportional to his size (ST x height in yards) use it to pick up, carry, or otherwise manipulate objects?

If it was the "default" for a group of various unidentified powers, it would also make the Shadow Form verbiage rather unnecessary rather than a notable exception to how things normally work.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by awesomenessofme1

The description of Shrinking only mentions that it affects height, weight, Move, reach, damage, HP, and DR. Nothing about lifting ability. Of those, you can get modifiers that changes how it affects Move, damage, HP, and DR. Again, nothing about lifting. The only logical interpretation I can pull from that is that not only does Shrinking not affect lifting strength, but you can't even apply a modifier to make it affect it. I've checked Powers, Supers, and both the official and unofficial FAQs, and haven't found anything. Is there a clarification or change somewhere that I haven't found?

The thing is lifting strength can inflict damage and that is changed by the wording of the rule. So does it matter? An ant can lift objects larger than it is, but it can't lift them very far or move them very fast.

[awesomenessofme1]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

The thing is lifting strength can inflict damage and that is changed by the wording of the rule. So does it matter? An ant can lift objects larger than it is, but it can't lift them very far or move them very fast.

How can lifting strength inflict damage?

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by awesomenessofme1

How can lifting strength inflict damage?

Grappling damage.

[Infornific]

It's funny, I always assumed the basic Shrinking Advantage reduced ST but reading it again it doesn't. That said I would assume since HP, damage and move are all reduced unless special enhancements are taken, Lifting ST is reduced as well. ST is broken out into Striking ST, HP and Lifting ST and the first two are explicitly affected by Shrinking. It's a judgment call but I'd say the default should be all ST is reduced without appropriate enhancements. Note that for characters permanently smaller than normal, you just take reduced Size as a feature and buy down ST and Move accordingly which is more evidence that Shrinking should affect all of ST.

I'd also note that the Shrinking power is probably too harsh on Move but that's another discussion.

[transmetahuman]

Originally Posted by Infornific

It's funny, I always assumed the basic Shrinking Advantage reduced ST but reading it again it doesn't. That said I would assume since HP, damage and move are all reduced unless special enhancements are taken, Lifting ST is reduced as well. ST is broken out into Striking ST, HP and Lifting ST and the first two are explicitly affected by Shrinking. It's a judgment call but I'd say the default should be all ST is reduced without appropriate enhancements. Note that for characters permanently smaller than normal, you just take reduced Size as a feature and buy down ST and Move accordingly which is more evidence that Shrinking should affect all of ST.

I'd also note that the Shrinking power is probably too harsh on Move but that's another discussion.

Especially now that 4e has quad strength, which is practically made for size differences of ST being super easy to figure just by keeping the ST/height ratio the same, I can't imagine why they didn't just do that (with a note that damage from guns, IA's, etc. are also reduced).

Also, all that extra ST you paid for for your Growth gets reduced in tandem with your height; why would it suddenly stop doing that when you travel from big to normal to small (switching out your Alternative Ability from Growth to Shrinking)?

If your issue with Move being reduced in ratio to height is because a shrunken character will be very strong for his size, then yeah, I have to agree. I vaguely remember Tbone addressing this for normal sized super strong characters, so you could port that over.

Personally, I think ranges should all be reduced in ratio to height as well. I don't think your tiny gun's bullets would travel as far. Why would your optic blasts suddenly become enormous in relation to your head when you're shrunken? Your spells are affecting things vastly farther away, subjectively, and to me that just seems weird.

[Plane]

I'm thinking maybe to reflect characters who can lift less when they are shrunk, you would buy down their ST and then buy ST and Shrinking as Alternative Abilities?

Since both are leveled there might be some way to scale that somehow.

Shrinking 2 [10] and ST+1 [10] are worth the same, so 1/5 cost for one would be a net cost of [12]

So buying it in 12-point increments probably lets you swap 1 level of ST for 2 levels of shrinking.

Shrinking already reduces HP/damage so buying down HP/damage when shrunk might seem like an unfair exploit if you're doomed in either case anyway

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

If Micro Mary attempted to wrestle anything that massed more than her BL, she would find it impossible, as they would not shrink to her size. She could easily wrestle a mouse though, as it would weigh less than her BL, but she could not wrestle another 50 kg woman. She could grapple her, though it just means that Micro Mary is hitching a ride.

I'm not seeing what prevents tiny things from wrestling large things. Reach is reduced proportionate to height but that bottoms out at Close Combat anyway.

Shrinking 20 (5 micrograms) reduces "damage" proportionate to height. Although Technical Grappling doesn't mention it, given how closely "Control Points" resemble damage I think it would make sense to divide those by whatever you'd divide damage by, unless you took the "Full Damage" enhancement.

Might be interesting to have intermediate versions of that enhancement, like if it's +100% to do /100x100 damage, maybe +50% should let you do x50/100 (half) damage?

I think Mary could wrestle a mouse even if the mouse was less than her basic encumbance, because "Can Carry" seems more about "shrink stuff with me" than be able to interact with that stuff.

IE if micro Mary did not have the +10% enhancement, it just means she can't shrink her clothes, but if she had a 3D printer make her up a tiny set of clothes, she could probably change into them and wear them. But they wouldn't turn giant with her when she switches Shrinking off, so she'd probably need to remove them or they'd tear when she grew.

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

If they are the appropriate scale, you could easily manipulate them. It is just that a 5 microgram woman should not be able to lift and move a 50 kg woman.

The problem is likely that it only specifies "damage" rather than "lifting". Rather than dividing damage directly I'd just divide ST itself. That makes sense since you divide HP too...

One big difference though is that 'full HP' is a lower-cost enhancement (only +30%) compared to 'full damage' so that could take some wiggling.

I'm actually wondering how fractions work here. If you're 1/20 the size then does 10 HP always give you a minimum of 1 HP (round up). I wouldn't mind tracking it to ONE decimal place but even then I'd want to round rather than do two. Given that bodies are destroyed after 11xHP (go to negatieve 10xHP) having less than 0.1 pretty much guarantees 1 dmg nukes you into paste, so it'd be pointless unless you had Injury Tolerance: Damage Reduction or where allowing damage to be done to one decimal place as a house rule too.

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Yes, that is probably because they all have Can Carry Objects. After all, you do not see many fictional examples of characters or entities with Insubstantiality, Invisibility, Permeation, etc. that are running around naked.

I don't know in many cases if it's that they have CCO (in which case you could turn ANYTHING with you) or special costume perks where JUST that costume can go along with them (ie reed richards unstable molecules)

In the case of Sue Storm I'm thinking since she has the ability to turn other stuff invisible (ie random brick walls) that she could actually get by with out it and just target her own clothing w/ Affliction: Invisibiility if needed.