Body Slamming A Swarm

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by martinl

... and large area injury, which also seems fair for slams but I'm not sure is RAW.

Did he somehow fill the entire hex(es)? And if the rat swarm was larger than the two hexes he filled, did you remember to reduce the damage by the fractional difference?

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

Did he somehow fill the entire hex(es)? And if the rat swarm was larger than the two hexes he filled, did you remember to reduce the damage by the fractional difference?

GUPS could use a way of indicating attack size that's less granular than single target vs area damage, but a body slam is certainly able to do more than 2 points of damage to a single hex swarm.

[Ultraviolet]

Originally Posted by martinl

Would you folks change anything if Technical Grappling was being used? (We weren't but I'm curious about it.)

Does Technical Grappling need a Lucha supplement?

I shouldn't think so, Slams don't use the CP mechanics. Neither do Shoves IIRC.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Ultraviolet

I shouldn't think so, Slams don't use the CP mechanics. Neither do Shoves IIRC.

Maybe he's referring to page 21 of Technical Grappling's notes for Move and Attack?

If you want to slam or shove someone and then keep moving, you may do so!
For a slam that continues through the target, subtract the damage rolled by the target from any remaining Move.
For a shove, you may continue if you push your opponent out of your path.

Very sensible errata that Cole put in, even though it doesn't actually address Control Points like the page 20 introduction implies with "Some maneuvers require clarification when using CP."

[Donny Brook]

I don't care what kind of target it is, Body Shaming is wrong.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Ultraviolet

I shouldn't think so, Slams don't use the CP mechanics. Neither do Shoves IIRC.

They're both considered striking attacks; technically (SWIDT?) the notes on slams and shoves and moving through someone Plane mentions above should have been excised from the book, as they deal with strikes and not grapples.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by martinl

Last night my luchadora street urchin body slammed a rat swarm in order to do some large area injury. We did not find any body slamming rules in Basic, and were trying for speed, so we went with "Thrust damage +2, large area, based off of wrasslin', counts as an all out attack."

The realistic version of this problem is "bugs on a windshield." How much damage do you do to something like a swarm of wasps by driving a truck through it at speed?

Alternately, how much damage do you do if you fall on top of a swarm of creepy crawlies? (Important if you hope to kill them before they swarm all over you . . .)

As a very rough guess, I'd ignore relative mass of both the swarm and the thing hitting the swarm and just base damage on relative areas of contact.

As long as the falling/moving object is capable of doing enough damage, based on speed alone, to inflict enough damage to automatically disperse a swarm hex, assume that each square yard of surface area in contact eliminates one hex of swarm.

Otherwise, figure total dice of damage for the striking object, divide by square yards of surface area, and apply that many dice of damage per hex of swarm contacted. Maybe have the swarm make a HT roll to just take half damage per hex.