heavy metal damage.

[McAllister]

You're right, I initially thought it was 2mph=1yd/sec, but I got it backwards. 160 mph seems excessive, but the range multiplier for BL/2 is .8, and 100x.8 is clearly 80, and the rules don't make any allowance for projectiles that don't reach their target in one second...

So, if I were better at physics, I would be able to figure out the diameter of a 1000 pound chunk of metal, but I'm not going to bother. The lightest wrecking balls are 1000 pounds. If they're ~6 feet wide, here's how I'd model it:

1. Aim at a target hex, scatter if necessary
2. If the target hex is within 30 yards, it's hit immediately
2a. If the target hex is 31-60 yards, it's hit at the beginning of your next turn
2b. If the target is 61-80 yards, it's hit at the beginning of the turn after that
3. Anyone standing in the target hex takes (80x30/100=) 24d damage (figure the velocity is 60 mph, which is still high, but not crazy; ignore 1/2D because air resistance is not taking a noticeable amount of energy off this dense a projectile)
3a. Anyone standing in a hex adjacent to the target takes, oh, I think 1/3 damage (or 8d) is reasonable, and it's taken to a random location instead of large-area damage (so it could take your arm off but leave you alive).

OP, how's that do it for you?

[McAllister]

Or maybe you should keep 1/2D... I mean, bullets are just as dense as wrecking balls and even more aerodynamic, and 1/2D applies to them, right? At the same time, they go far further than 80 yards. I'm inclined to say that a wrecking ball doesn't lose any damage worth worrying about over 80 yards, but treating the 1/2D as a 3/4D might be a nice compromise.

Sorry, you asked for the RAW answer, but RAW either says 11d or 64d and that the projectile travels 80 yards immediately but will never reach 100, so I was trying to come up with something more helpful.

[vierasmarius]

I think it's problematic to treat the throwing distance as synonymous with throwing velocity. The fact that it reaches its target in one in-game second is a cludge for the sake of simplifying combat. Many long-range firearm shots should also take more than a second to hit, but (unless using an optional rule from Tactical Shooting, pg 32) are treated as at most one second.

Treating these throws as exactly one second doesn't mesh well with the ST damage tables either. It quickly becomes more damaging to throw a mace at someone than to hit them with it. I would recommend working backwards from thrust damage to determine how fast the object must be traveling, but I suspect that's not going to return realistic results, because of how ad-hoc the damage table is. I suspect the only way you're really going to make throws consistent with both the ST-based damage tables and the velocity-based collision rules is to rewrite both of them.

[McAllister]

I agree on all points, vierasmarius. I'm not sure I want to do that rewrite, but later on I'll take a look at the point where throwing a mace becomes more effective than swinging it...

[starslayer]

Originally Posted by vierasmarius

I think it's problematic to treat the throwing distance as synonymous with throwing velocity. The fact that it reaches its target in one in-game second is a cludge for the sake of simplifying combat. Many long-range firearm shots should also take more than a second to hit, but (unless using an optional rule from Tactical Shooting, pg 32) are treated as at most one second.

Treating these throws as exactly one second doesn't mesh well with the ST damage tables either. It quickly becomes more damaging to throw a mace at someone than to hit them with it. I would recommend working backwards from thrust damage to determine how fast the object must be traveling, but I suspect that's not going to return realistic results, because of how ad-hoc the damage table is. I suspect the only way you're really going to make throws consistent with both the ST-based damage tables and the velocity-based collision rules is to rewrite both of them.

You know I never fully thought about this till you mentioned it, but you are exactly right.

The concept of calculating the damage from a thrown/fired object in the same second it left the thowers/firers hand is very obviously a cludge to make range combat not a math nightmare- and I am fine continuing to use it.

However if your thrower can only toss something 80 meters assuming sufficient impulse for a parabolic arc, that is almost >5 seconds of travel time., or <16m/s, or < 60km/hr.

Now being hit by anything large going 60km/hr is going to suck, but I wouldn't say its out of line with 11d of damage, people do routinely survive being hit by cars.

[McAllister]

Originally Posted by starslayer

However if your thrower can only toss something 80 meters assuming sufficient impulse for a parabolic arc, that is almost >5 seconds of travel time., or <16m/s, or < 60km/hr.

I'm curious, how did you make this calculation? One idea I had to reduce the math-nightmare aspect while modelling flight times was to calculate the typical velocity of a rifle bullet, a pistol bullet, an arrow, a fastball, a javelin and a shotput (as an example of generalizable categories), so that any given projectile can be "close enough" to one of those for typical velocity calculations.

[starslayer]

Originally Posted by McAllister

I'm curious, how did you make this calculation? One idea I had to reduce the math-nightmare aspect while modelling flight times was to calculate the typical velocity of a rifle bullet, a pistol bullet, an arrow, a fastball, a javelin and a shotput (as an example of generalizable categories), so that any given projectile can be "close enough" to one of those for typical velocity calculations.

2x the fall time of an object for 1/2 of that distance (so if you throw an object 80 meters on a parabolic arch it will spend half its travel time moving up 40 meters, then the next half of its travel time falling 40 meters)

[Libertine]

New house rule: TK movement is half the will score. That seems to be more in line with the damage of the RAW.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Libertine

New house rule: TK movement is half the will score. That seems to be more in line with the damage of the RAW.

Sorry for being confused, but are you people trying to compare throwing damage (object gets hurled, and then flies along under its own inertia only) vs. weapon slam damage (object is pushed all the way, up to and including the period throughout which it is in contact with the target)?

[McAllister]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Sorry for being confused, but are you people trying to compare throwing damage (object gets hurled, and then flies along under its own inertia only) vs. weapon slam damage (object is pushed all the way, up to and including the period throughout which it is in contact with the target)?

We are trying to compare throwing damage (which is thrust, modified by something between -2/die and +1/die) to slam/collision damage. Slams and collisions are both figured as (HPxvelocity/100)d crushing. In the collision rules it doesn't appear to matter whether something is in the process of accelerating when it impacts something else: only the relative velocity is measured.

I have ST 20. I am impressive, but humanly possible. Using throwing damage, I throw a gada, which weighs 15 pounds. If have Throwing Art at DX+1, this deals thrust +1/die, or 2d+1 (thrust -1/die because it's weight is up to BL/4, +2/die for Throwing Art). I can throw it 40 yards. Does that mean it travels 40 yards/second? That would be problematic, because it's about 80 mph, but it's also the only way for it to hit its target in one turn... this is the part of the question that's really unresolved for me. If you look at the gada as though it were colliding with its target, if it goes 15 yds/sec, it deals 2.25d crushing, which looks a hell of a lot like 2d+1. If it's faster, it deals more damage than throwing rules would indicate: if slower, less.

So, my thinking indicates that throwing a mace becomes more attractive using collision rules than throwing damage if A. you're superhumanly strong, B. you're assuming any projectile travels fast enough to reach its destination in one second, or, of course, both.