If I'm ×4 strong and my club is ×4 heavy, do I hit you with ×16 force?

Ulzgoroth · 12-19-2019, 09:15 PM

Hitting with 'force' is pretty shaky physical ground to be starting from. Calculating actual forces involved in an impact depend on body deformation physics and that's going to be pretty gross to work with.

Usually we're more likely to look at energies or cross-sectional energy densities or maybe momentum.

But personally, I'd start by looking at Basic Set p355, throwing.

By the rules there the range you get varies fairly closely with BL/weight * ST. Since BL varies with the square of ST, that means that throwing range varies with the cube of ST for a given weight. (When the weight is close enough to BL, it tails off when it's more than a factor of 4 away.)

Maximum range is proportional to the square of velocity, so when you scale up ST and weight together the implication is that throw velocity goes up proportionate to the scaling factor until the projectile gets too small. That would mean momentum goes up with the square and energy with the cube.

On the other hand, those clubs are much too small compared to BL to match that calculation. For things so light, range more or less just varies linearly with ST. So energy would go up with the square of scaling factor, and momentum with the 1.5 power of it.

12-19-2019, 09:15 PM	#3
Ulzgoroth Join Date: Jul 2008	Re: If I'm ×4 strong and my club is ×4 heavy, do I hit you with ×16 force? Hitting with 'force' is pretty shaky physical ground to be starting from. Calculating actual forces involved in an impact depend on body deformation physics and that's going to be pretty gross to work with. Usually we're more likely to look at energies or cross-sectional energy densities or maybe momentum. But personally, I'd start by looking at Basic Set p355, throwing. By the rules there the range you get varies fairly closely with BL/weight * ST. Since BL varies with the square of ST, that means that throwing range varies with the cube of ST for a given weight. (When the weight is close enough to BL, it tails off when it's more than a factor of 4 away.) Maximum range is proportional to the square of velocity, so when you scale up ST and weight together the implication is that throw velocity goes up proportionate to the scaling factor until the projectile gets too small. That would mean momentum goes up with the square and energy with the cube. On the other hand, those clubs are much too small compared to BL to match that calculation. For things so light, range more or less just varies linearly with ST. So energy would go up with the square of scaling factor, and momentum with the 1.5 power of it. __________________ I don't know any 3e, so there is no chance that I am talking about 3e rules by accident.