How many points for the movie versions of Marvel's super-bricks?

[Michael Thayne]

Edited to add: The title of this post was meant to be "How many points for the movie versions of Marvel's super-bricks. I really do want to keep the focus there.

Original post

It seems to me that one of the biggest hurdles in the "can GURPS do Supers?" question is the pricing of super-strength. But to some extent I worry these discussions all too often get hung up on outlier example's of a hero's feats from the comics ("what about that one time the Hulk held up a building?") It might be more helpful to instead narrowing the focus, and the various Marvel superhero films seem like a good way to do this.

Note that I've seen most of the relevant films, but am just going to be going from memory here. I may spend some time rewatching specific scenes and taking detailed notes later... but if anyone else is inspired to do that first, be my guest!

Spider-Man (Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2, Spider-Man 3, The Amazing Spider-Man): A hard case, because 90% of the time Spider-Man's superstrength could be mistaken for "just enough to give him a bit of an edge in fist fights." Then once per movie, he'll save a large vehicle full of civilians, which implies much greater strength. Ultrapower, anyone? Though Ultrapower leaves you pretty helpless after you use it once, whereas Spidey often has to save some people and then go defeat the villain.

The Hulk (The Incredible Hulk, The Avengers, and if I guess the 2003 movie but I haven't seen it and don't plan to): The Hulk clearly has some pretty impressive defensive abilities. In The Avengers, he takes sustained machine gun fire from a fighter jet and isn't noticeably hurt. DR 100 (Cannot Wear Armor, -40%) is the obvious way to model this, but I wonder if you could get away with Damage Reduction (100) + Unkillable 1 + No Visible Damage might work better (we don't know what continuing to soak up hits over an indefinite period of time would have done, and it's not like the Hulk suddenly breaks when you punch through his outer layer).

As for the Hulk's strength... it might be tempting to just assume he has ST +12/200 or more, but off the top of my head I'm not sure the movies give any clear evidence of that. Did he actually ever take on tanks directly, or just smaller military vehicles? It's also unclear whether he would necessarily need as much Striking ST as Lifting ST.

Colossus (X2, X-Men: The Last Stand): X-Men: The Last Stand gives a nice example of the fastball special (throwing Wolverine at Magneto), which suggests perhaps an ST somewhere in the 30s, with maybe a level or two of Super Throw. I think he showed off an ability to resist small arms fire at some point, if I'm remembering that correctly it suggests something like DR 40, maybe with Cannot Wear Armor + Nonprotective Clothing.

Thor (Thor, The Avengers): Though Thor's level of strength in the comics is officially very high, the movies provide surprisingly little evidence of this (as far as I can recall, anyway). The fights with Iron Man and Captain America in the Avengers suggest he is overall not much more combat-effective than they, regardless of who would win an arm wrestle. Could possibly build Mjolnir as an Innate Attack with the Gadget Limitation and call it a day. Similarly, I don't know if he ever does much in the way of soaking up blows/gunfire/etc.

Iron Man (Iron Man, Iron Man 2, The Avangers): Clearly has a lot of DR. Unlike the Dreadnought template from Supers, may not need Hardened (the Supers template seems designed to resist anti-tank weapons, which I don't think Tony ever does). There are some scenes where the armor is wrecked but Tony comes out okay, which make me wonder about Damage Reduction, but that could be an application of cinematic rules (say, flesh wounds). Can't remember off the top of my head if he does anything particularly impressive strength-wise.

Any others I missed? I deliberately excluded Sabertooth from X-Men, because he's a villain and the GM can build villains on as many points as he likes. :)

[Refplace]

You might find this thread useful.
http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread...=Marvel+reboot

[Gold & Appel Inc]

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

Spider-Man (Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2, Spider-Man 3, The Amazing Spider-Man): A hard case, because 90% of the time Spider-Man's superstrength could be mistaken for "just enough to give him a bit of an edge in fist fights." Then once per movie, he'll save a large vehicle full of civilians, which implies much greater strength. Ultrapower, anyone? Though Ultrapower leaves you pretty helpless after you use it once, whereas Spidey often has to save some people and then go defeat the villain.

I know you're talking about the movies, but since it's never directly addressed there AFAICT: Spidey has consistent superhuman strength in the "lift a city bus" range in the comics; he pulls his blows when he hits most people, to avoid killing them. He casually swats Wolverine across a room in a famous scene that comes up a lot in these sorts of debates, because he knows it won't do anything permanent to him. Also, nitpick: If we're getting into archetypical labels as used in 4e Supers, he is totally a strong Acrobat, not an agile Brick, if you look at overall style.

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

The Hulk (The Incredible Hulk, The Avengers, and if I guess the 2003 movie but I haven't seen it and don't plan to): The Hulk clearly has some pretty impressive defensive abilities. In The Avengers, he takes sustained machine gun fire from a fighter jet and isn't noticeably hurt. DR 100 (Cannot Wear Armor, -40%) is the obvious way to model this, but I wonder if you could get away with Damage Reduction (100) + Unkillable 1 + No Visible Damage might work better (we don't know what continuing to soak up hits over an indefinite period of time would have done, and it's not like the Hulk suddenly breaks when you punch through his outer layer).

I'd go with all of the above. The Hulk totally ignores small arms (lotsa DR) and mostly reacts with annoyance and possibly taking knockback when hit by something bigger (lotsa IT:DR).

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

As for the Hulk's strength... it might be tempting to just assume he has ST +12/200 or more, but off the top of my head I'm not sure the movies give any clear evidence of that. Did he actually ever take on tanks directly, or just smaller military vehicles? It's also unclear whether he would necessarily need as much Striking ST as Lifting ST.

You could probably get away with putting Super-Effort on his Lifting ST only, if you started with a really high base. Maybe some Armor Divisor on his unarmed attacks, to represent that even though he can put a fist through almost anything, it only does so much damage because it's still only so large and can only displace so much mass at a time yadda yadda.

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

Colossus (X2, X-Men: The Last Stand): X-Men: The Last Stand gives a nice example of the fastball special (throwing Wolverine at Magneto), which suggests perhaps an ST somewhere in the 30s, with maybe a level or two of Super Throw. I think he showed off an ability to resist small arms fire at some point, if I'm remembering that correctly it suggests something like DR 40, maybe with Cannot Wear Armor + Nonprotective Clothing.

The only reason Colussus can't wear armor is the Comics Code. He has a large, but normally-shaped, body with proportions that exist among normal humans in his alt form.

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

Thor (Thor, The Avengers): Though Thor's level of strength in the comics is officially very high, the movies provide surprisingly little evidence of this (as far as I can recall, anyway). The fights with Iron Man and Captain America in the Avengers suggest he is overall not much more combat-effective than they, regardless of who would win an arm wrestle. Could possibly build Mjolnir as an Innate Attack with the Gadget Limitation and call it a day. Similarly, I don't know if he ever does much in the way of soaking up blows/gunfire/etc.

Note that Thor was depowered through most of his own movie; he threw Mjolnir straight through a gigantic monster's head in its first (and IMHO only good) fight scene. Also, they drop him out of an airplane in Avengers and it messes up his hair a little.

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

Iron Man (Iron Man, Iron Man 2, The Avangers): Clearly has a lot of DR. Unlike the Dreadnought template from Supers, may not need Hardened (the Supers template seems designed to resist anti-tank weapons, which I don't think Tony ever does). There are some scenes where the armor is wrecked but Tony comes out okay, which make me wonder about Damage Reduction, but that could be an application of cinematic rules (say, flesh wounds). Can't remember off the top of my head if he does anything particularly impressive strength-wise.

Could go either way. Note that vanilla GURPS with no special rules would allow for what we see on screen if they were attacking the suit, which is a valid tactic against the Dreadnought template and anything like it that has less than half the DR on the suit than the guy inside it. On the other hand, many Supers games mandate some level of Damage Reduction for cinematic reasons, whether it fits the character's powers or not (our next Supers game will be doing this), and the Flesh Wounds rule is definitely not out of bounds in a genre where people routinely come back from dead-dead in addition to mostly-dead...

[Michael Thayne]

Originally Posted by Gold & Appel Inc

I know you're talking about the movies, but since it's never directly addressed there AFAICT: Spidey has consistent superhuman strength in the "lift a city bus" range in the comics; he pulls his blows when he hits most people, to avoid killing them. He casually swats Wolverine across a room in a famous scene that comes up a lot in these sorts of debates, because he knows it won't do anything permanent to him. Also, nitpick: If we're getting into archetypical labels as used in 4e Supers, he is totally a strong Acrobat, not an agile Brick, if you look at overall style.

I'm sort of working on the theory here that abilities that are rarely used, for whatever reason, shouldn't be modeled as if they were available all the time. (Even if that's how they supposedly work and the decision not to use them that way is voluntary.) But you inspired me to Google the weight of a fully loaded bus, and I think Lifting ST +11/+150 would suffice for that.

I'd go with all of the above. The Hulk totally ignores small arms (lotsa DR) and mostly reacts with annoyance and possibly taking knockback when hit by something bigger (lotsa IT:DR).

You could probably get away with putting Super-Effort on his Lifting ST only, if you started with a really high base. Maybe some Armor Divisor on his unarmed attacks, to represent that even though he can put a fist through almost anything, it only does so much damage because it's still only so large and can only displace so much mass at a time yadda yadda.

Hmmm... may need to rewatch relevant movie scenes. I like the idea of Armor Divisor on Unarmed Attacks; we have rules for that as of Power-Ups 4 (that don't require using Innate Attack).

The only reason Colussus can't wear armor is the Comics Code. He has a large, but normally-shaped, body with proportions that exist among normal humans in his alt form.

I think the understanding with Supers, especially the Nonprotective Clothing perk, is that Can't Wear Armor is a valid limitation even if you're merely choosing not to wear armor.

Note that Thor was depowered through most of his own movie; he threw Mjolnir straight through a gigantic monster's head in its first (and IMHO only good) fight scene. Also, they drop him out of an airplane in Avengers and it messes up his hair a little.

Throwing the hammer would be covered by Innate Attack. And he survived getting dropped out of the airplane by using the hammer to fly. (IIRC... but was there a rough landing?)

Oh, and I realized who I've forgotten: Ben Grimm. I saw the first FF movie, hated it like everyone else, and didn't see the second one. I don't remember if he ever made particularly good use of his powers in that movie... he ripped a fire hydrant out for some silly "using powers cooperatively" feat to defeat Doom at the end, but that's all I remember.

[Flyndaran]

I actually liked the Fantastic Four movie. I guess I'm no one. :( Sitting in my nowhere land with nobody. At least I'm a Beatles' song.

[Michael Thayne]

Originally Posted by Refplace

You might find this thread useful.
http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread...=Marvel+reboot

I had seen that thread, and it's result where the bricks cost several times as much as everybody else (except for Iron Man, who's all about his Signature Gear) was precisely what I was trying to avoid. But let's provide relevant links anyway:

Spider-Man
Hulk
Iron Man
Thor (part 1, part 2, revised)
The Thing
Namor the Sub-Mariner

[Langy]

Gotta say, that Iron Man write-up ain't right; he bought a Battlesuit from the basic set, then stuck a bunch of extra advantages and DR and such onto it. This is exactly the sort of thing Gadget limitations are for. EDIT: Same with Thor; Mjolnir should be a Gadget, not Signature Gear.

[jeff_wilson]

The movie Asgardians are very different from the comics. The THOR movie seemed to establish much of their strength and toughness comes from the disks they habitually wear. Wearing the disks may not be strictly necessary given their technology, since Thor powers back up as soon as his penance is done, but it seems that when Odin personally strips his disks from him they stop working.

And then, Mjolnir is superpowerful in its own right, even the Hulk can't move it; this may mean that when Thor puts the choke hold on the Hulk with the hammer, it may be part or mostly hammer power rather than Thor's personal strength.

Note: the comics Thor also has a strength-boosting item, a belt, but he seldom uses it, in part because using it for any length of time leaves him exhausted and nearly helpless.

[Gold & Appel Inc]

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

I'm sort of working on the theory here that abilities that are rarely used, for whatever reason, shouldn't be modeled as if they were available all the time. (Even if that's how they supposedly work and the decision not to use them that way is voluntary.) But you inspired me to Google the weight of a fully loaded bus, and I think Lifting ST +11/+150 would suffice for that.

I'm working on the opposing theory that abilities that are rarely used but available all the time should be modeled as if they are available all the time, because otherwise they would be way, way cheaper.

Put another way: What if, instead of lifting the bus to save everybody on it, he had to carry it around on his back for a while? Spiderman can do that, so if I'm building Spiderman I want to include it.

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

Hmmm... may need to rewatch relevant movie scenes. I like the idea of Armor Divisor on Unarmed Attacks; we have rules for that as of Power-Ups 4 (that don't require using Innate Attack).

We've had rules for that as of Powers p 146.

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

I think the understanding with Supers, especially the Nonprotective Clothing perk, is that Can't Wear Armor is a valid limitation even if you're merely choosing not to wear armor.

I dunno, seems like a bad idea to use it here. From a game-mechanical perspective, a GM Pact that amounts to Vow: Can But Won't Wear Armor would only be -10%, not -40%... From a realistic perspective: what if he needs to put on a spacesuit to avoid dying, and the GM doesn't smile on the "unarmored protective clothing is cool" option for that Perk, or only armored spacesuits are available? He dies for a point break that doesn't match the IC special effects of him having a human-shaped body that should be able to wear human things.

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

Throwing the hammer would be covered by Innate Attack. And he survived getting dropped out of the airplane by using the hammer to fly. (IIRC... but was there a rough landing?)

IIRC: They drop him inside a big, tough box that was created to trap (and if necessary, execute) Loki. He busts out of it right before it hits the ground, and hits the ground himself pretty hard but at a more glancing angle. The tone of the scene suggests that hitting the ground head-on while still in the box would be Very Bad For Thor, but no hard figures are given and we don't see that happen.

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

Oh, and I realized who I've forgotten: Ben Grimm. I saw the first FF movie, hated it like everyone else, and didn't see the second one. I don't remember if he ever made particularly good use of his powers in that movie... he ripped a fire hydrant out for some silly "using powers cooperatively" feat to defeat Doom at the end, but that's all I remember.

He flips over a truck by punching down on the front end at one point, IIRC.

[Figleaf23]

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

It seems to me that one of the biggest hurdles in the "can GURPS do Supers?" question is the pricing of super-strength. But to some extent I worry these discussions all too often get hung up on outlier example's of a hero's feats from the comics ("what about that one time the Hulk held up a building?") It might be more helpful to instead narrowing the focus, and the various Marvel superhero films seem like a good way to do this.:)

Not to rain on your parade or object to your project, but the movies are probably less editorially responsible and consistent than the comics, and offer a small pool of incidents to survey.