[Supers] How to: Flying Brick Dive-Bomb?

[Phantasm]

Here's the scenario:
Flying Brick (built on a not-DCU-Amazon-really! package) has ST 32/250, DX 16; DR 150, Air Move 16/192 w/ Instant Acceleration and Complete Maneuverability; Speed 8.00 w/ ETS, Trained By a Master, Flight 16, Judo 18, and Karate 18. Going up against a ground-based target w/ no ETS.

Round 1: Brick grabs Target, Target fails to Dodge. Target struggles to break free but can't.
Round 2: Brick Judo Throws Target face-first into the dirt. Target fails HT roll and is Stunned.
Round 3: Brick launches self as high into the air as possible. Target shakes off Stun and begins a Change Posture to stand up from being prone, shifting to crawling in the process.
Round 4: Brick slams down on Target full force. Ouch.

By my calculations, Brick is doing 26d+51 cr with a Super ST punch before the dive bomb is taken into account. How much extra damage would she do with a dive bomb of close to two football fields distance in one second?


On a slightly related note, since the character in question is going all '90s, how would putting inch-long spikes on the knuckles alter the damage? +1 for a fist load only, +1/die, or a change to cut or imp?

[mlangsdorf]

Slam damage is ST*Velocity/100 dice, so [32*192/100] is 61d (average 213 points). If she performs an all-out attack (Strong), she adds +1 per die, for 61d+61 (average 274 points).

If you use the alternate slam damage rules from DFRPG, she does 3d-2, +11 per die, for a piddling 3d+31. DFRPG slam rules work well for human sized objects moving at human speeds, and poorly at the extremes.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

Slam damage is ST*Velocity/100 dice, so [32*192/100] is 61d (average 213 points).

Ahhh... no. It's HP*V/100.


Granted, presumably the Character's HP are a minimum of 32, but they could be much higher

[mlangsdorf]

Right. I assumed 32 HP (and then labeled it ST instead of HP) because that's how super-strength usually works, but it could be more.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Fanny

Seems like it's a 'higher of the two' situation.

It isn't... and specifically Supers calls out that HP derived from ST that has a Power Modifier should be ignored. HP in this calculation are an approximation of mass, thus a 'Power Modified' high ST Super 'has less mass' than a big beefy 'naturally' high ST slammer (like say an elephant or an Apatosaurus).

DFRPG switched to using thrust damage for simplicity of calculations.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Fanny

Page 25, I see what you mean. I always figured more HP meant more mass and if it didn't make you bigger it still made you denser and still heavier. That you would select ablative DR to get low-mass characters.

There are some cases where power-modified ST should probably increase this though. The Incredible Hulk for example, gets bigger when he gets angry, even though his strength is probably "gamma super power" or something.

Since it says "normally doesn’t" the Hulk would just not be normal.

Well, the Hulk would also be a full 4-Color Super (right alongside the smaller and less massive, but almost just as strong, Thor, Iron Man, etc) and thus should be played under 4-Color rules.

[Phantasm]

Hulk is an unusual case, and varies quite a lot by creative team, not just the artist but also the writer (depending on whether he's got a childlike, normal human, or Banner-level intelligence at the time).

The one time I recall him getting bigger as he got angrier (outside of the 2008 movie), Hulk and Banner had been separated into two entities, Hulk was little more than a mindless rage-beast (moreso than usual!), and it took three entire teams of Avengers - East Coast, West Coast, and Reservists - to take him down, There, however he was getting bigger because he was basically losing his density due to the separation (Banner was also dying in the same manner). so he wasn't exactly getting stronger (if anything, near the end of the fight he was actually getting weaker, despite being about 12 to 15 feet in height at the time). Still, that's more of a plot-dependent one-time case than a standard for him.



Anyway, would Brick's DR be modified in any way in the dive-bomb? It's a genre convention that the dive-bomber comes away from that move unharmed, but the slam rules say that both parties take damage. I don't think her DR 150 (which is normal DR for a Class 50 - 2-handed lift of 50 tons - brick) is gonna be enough to handle the 61d+61 of the slam. (I've also given her IT:DR /20, so that'll help somewhat.) I just don't want her immune to super-powered hits that aren't this trick, though.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

Anyway, would Brick's DR be modified in any way in the dive-bomb? It's a genre convention that the dive-bomber comes away from that move unharmed, but the slam rules say that both parties take damage. I don't think her DR 150 (which is normal DR for a Class 50 - 2-handed lift of 50 tons - brick) is gonna be enough to handle the 61d+61 of the slam. (I've also given her IT:DR /20, so that'll help somewhat.) I just don't want her immune to super-powered hits that aren't this trick, though.

I use IT/DRonly when making a Slam type maneuver for that.

[Bruno]

Having collision-only DR or IT:DR is totally a thing you can do. Speedsters and super-bricks are in fact the classic use-cases for this.

If you really want to, you could refine it even further to "Only vs collisions I initate" but for bricks it makes sense to also resist being hit, having buildings fall on them, and suchlike.

You can also try to use a power defense stunt to further increase your DR against the collision, but that's less reliable (or if it's reliable, you'd be doing it all the time against big hitters anyways).

[Phantasm]

I just calculated a similar stunt for my speedster (Post-Crisis!Wally West expy); his full comat speed Move and Attack slam (Move 720, essentially the "Mach 2 punch" that Arrowverse!Barry Allen is fond of) at 15 HP (though only ST 13) came out to 108d.

I'm starting to worry that I'm making these folks too powerful as adversaries for the otherwise I-scale game I'm planning. Everything else about these opponents is built by much the same rules as the PCs.