Ramming Speed vs Throwing Speed with a side order of Log ST

[Mark Skarr]

First of all, let's be clear here. Mjölnir is not a "hammer." It's not even Signature Gear. It's an innate attack for obscene amounts of damage that happens to look like a hammer. (Do not get your effects and your mechanics confused.) Sure, in something that wasn't supers you might build it as an actual hammer, but, in supers, bang-for-your-buck, it's an innate attack.

I see no doubt that Thor would want a VW Minibus over a normal hammer. It's heavier and has a better swing to it. Sure, it's not balanced, but, he'll only need to hit you with it once. Granted, it'll probably only take one hit as well, but, ditto with any weapon that's not Mjölnir.

The problem is that getting in the van and hitting someone with it at top speed is "better" than throwing it at someone faster than it can drive.

[Anthony]

If you want a damage system for Log ST that actually scales intelligibly, try this one:

Make a ST roll, with modifiers. Your damage is based on your margin of success, with a multiplier or divisor. General rule is:

• If you have a multiplier of x1, the ST roll is at +0.
• If you have a divisor, the ST roll is at +10, +5x(range/speed modifier for divisor). Round down (so no point to a divisor above /10).
• If you have a multiplier, the ST roll is at -10, -5x(range/speed modifier for multiplier).
• For objects, find the ST required to lift the object as 1x BL
  • Required ST 6-20 has no divisor (+0 modifier)
  • Required ST 1-5 has a divisor of 2 (+10 modifier). Each additional -5 increases divisor by 1 step on the range/speed chart.
  • Required ST 21-25 has a multiplier of 2 (-10 modifier). Each additional +5 increases multiplier by 1 step on the range/speed chart.
• Thrust attacks apply a -5 to the ST roll, and also count as 5 ST lighter in the calculation above. This is equivalent to shifting by 1 step on the range/speed chart.
• Best results are generally for weapons where required ST to lift is 10-15 lower than actual ST.

Thus, a weapon in the 2.5-6.3 lb range replaces Swing with a ST+10 roll and divides margin of success by 2 (at ST 10, averages 4.5). A light weapon (0.8-2 lb) replaces Swing with a ST+15 roll and divides by 3 (at ST 10, averages 4.5). A very light weapon (0.25-0.63 lb) replaces Swing with a ST+20 roll and divides by 5 (at ST 10, averages 3.5). Note, however, that the lighter weapons will lose less for weak wielders, and the heavier weapons will gain more from strong wielders (also, damage is slightly higher, because normalizing for 3.5 damage at ST 10 produces messy numbers).

In our LogST 35 example, we want a weapon that requires ST 25 to lift (630 lb), and when wielding such a weapon you'd roll at ST-10 and multiply the result by 2 (average result: 29).

If for some reason Atlas the Planet Lifter (ST 239 for BL 1.6e+24 lb) decides to pick up the moon (1.6e+23 lb, required ST 229) and use it as a club, we start with a ST 24 object, and then shift by 41 steps on the range/speed chart, giving a multiplier of 15 million and a ST penalty of -215, so he's rolling against a 24- (average result 13.5) and multiplying by 15 million, for a total of 202 million damage on average.

[Mark Skarr]

No thanks, Anthony. That's wa-ay to unintuitive, and looks like it would increase combat time exponentially. I'm not trying to rebuild the damage system from the ground up, just trying to find a fix for a hole in Log ST.

Edit:
My first-draft, working solution:

Calculate throwing ranges normally (yes, this gives short ranges for massive lifts, I don't like it, but it seems balanced).

Look the distance thrown up on the Size Speed/Range table (for inbetween values, take the smaller value). Apply the Bonus from the SM column as bonus damage per die to the character's Thrust Damage.

The same would work for Slams: Look the speed moved up on the Size Speed/Range table (for inbetween values, take the smaller value). Apply the Bonus from the SM column as bonus damage per die to the character's Thrust Damage.

This would bring the damage values fairly in-line with one-another. Slams would still get their bonus damage for Sumo Wrestling, et al.

Edit 2:
The damage cap is a number of dice equal to the thrown object's/slammer's HP.

[Bruno]

I'm afraid I can't make head or tails of that Anthony, mostly around the "Multiplier" thing.

First, since that's so central a concept, I suggest explaining and defining that before getting into the other points. Otherwise you start out confused and it doesn't really get better.

Second:

Originally Posted by Anthony

For objects, find the ST required to lift the object as 1x BL

• Required ST 6-15 has no divisor (+0 modifier)
• Required ST 1-5 has a divisor of 2 (+10 modifier). Each additional -5 increases divisor by 1 step on the range/speed chart.
• Required ST 16-20 has a multiplier of 2 (-10 modifier). Each additional +5 increases multiplier by 1 step on the range/speed chart.

I don't understand this - can you walk us through an example?

Key questions: "Find the ST required to lift the object as 1xBL" - cryptic. Is this an instruction to take the weight of the object, and look it up in the BL column on the Basic Lift and Encumbrance Table then read off the associated ST? (or obviously do the equivalent calculation)

How can you get a number -5 less than ST 1? The formula will only produce positive numbers.

Why is your center band "10" wide when every other band is 5?

How does your personal ST end up interacting at all with your weapon? Figuring a ST for the weapon without considering your own seems... very Gamma World. Which I'm pretty sure is not the intent, so this is likely my total confusion talking.

EDIT: in fact, the more I read it, the more it looks like using a heavy weapon penalizes your damage significantly, and the optimal configuration is to be high ST and murder people with a goose feather. Which can't be right.

[Mark Skarr]

Originally Posted by Bruno

EDIT: in fact, the more I read it, the more it looks like using a heavy weapon penalizes your damage significantly, and the optimal configuration is to be high ST and murder people with a goose feather. Which can't be right.

Okay, I was thinking that was just me. It did seem that a dagger was far, far more deadly than a broadsword in his system, but, I wasn't going to build it out.

Again, too cumbersome, too unintuitive.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Bruno

I'm afraid I can't make head or tails of that Anthony, mostly around the "Multiplier" thing.

Make a ST roll. If you fail, no damage (you didn't successfully use it as a weapon). Otherwise, damage = (margin of success) * some multiplier or divisor.

Originally Posted by Bruno

Key questions: "Find the ST required to lift the object as 1xBL" - cryptic. Is this an instruction to take the weight of the object, and look it up in the BL column on the Basic Lift and Encumbrance Table then read off the associated ST? (or obviously do the equivalent calculation)

Yes.

Originally Posted by Bruno

How can you get a number -5 less than ST 1? The formula will only produce positive numbers.

Know your own ST scales perfectly well to negative values. A ST of -4 has a BL of 0.5 lb.

Originally Posted by Bruno

Why is your center band "10" wide when every other band is 5?

I actually changed it to 15, and it's mostly because the x1.5 and x2/3 bands are awkward to use so they got rolled into the x1.

Originally Posted by Bruno

How does your personal ST end up interacting at all with your weapon?

You're rolling your ST; the weapon just modifies your ST.

Originally Posted by Bruno

EDIT: in fact, the more I read it, the more it looks like using a heavy weapon penalizes your damage significantly, and the optimal configuration is to be high ST and murder people with a goose feather. Which can't be right.

Heavy weapon gives a large penalty to ST, and a large multiplier on damage. For example, if you have ST 35:
A 0.6 lb weapon means you are rolling ST+20 (55-, expected MoS 44.5) but divide MoS by 5 (expected damage 9)
A 2 lb weapon means you are rolling ST+15 (50-, expected MoS 39.5) but divide MoS by 3 (expected damage 13)
A 6 lb weapon means you are rolling ST+10(45-, expected MoS 34.5) but divide MoS by 2 (expected damage 17)
A 20, 60, or 200 lb weapon means you are rolling ST +0 (35-, expected MoS 24.5) with no multiplier (expected damage 24.5)
A 600 lb weapons means you are rolling ST-10 (25-, expected MoS 14.5) with a x2 multiplier (expected damage 29)
A 2000 lb weapon means you are rolling ST-15 (20-, expected MoS 9.5) with a x3 multiplier (expected damage 28.5)
A 6000 lb weapon means you are rolling ST-20 (15-, expected MoS 4.5) with a x5 multiplier (expected damage 22.5)

[Mark Skarr]

Okay, makes a lot more sense now. Still to cumbersome. But, thank you for the clarification.

It doesn't address why the van does so much more damage in a slam than being thrown for a "ranged slam" though.

[Edges]

One concern I've had with the throwing rules is that they appear to assume that every thrown object reaches its target in exactly one second. It's fine for ordinary values. But like most rules, it gets weird at the extremes.

If you assume it takes a few seconds for the van to reach the other side of the football field, the discrepancy in the OP is softened. You do, of course, get other problems though.

[Mark Skarr]

Like most of the other combat rules, having it take longer than one second increases complexity by orders of magnitude.

Throwing also doesn't have clear rules for "lobbing" something. Making it take longer/go farther by throwing it in an arc.

I'm looking for something that fixes it for supers while not breaking the game outright.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Mark Skarr

It doesn't address why the van does so much more damage in a slam than being thrown for a "ranged slam" though.

That's not really a function of Logarithmic ST; the throwing rules have never been consistent with the collision rules.