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Old 01-24-2019, 11:19 AM   #1
deathbyflossing
 
Join Date: Mar 2016
Default [weapons] giant tungsten warhammer

So. Thought experiment.

A cubic foot of tungsten weighs 1200 pounds. Let us imagine two such cubes. One we will saw in half so that it becomes a pair of pyramids, which we then stick on the other cube to form a nice hammerhead. A 2400 pound hammerhead. That’s 1.2 tons. Since I don’t know how malleable tungsten is, let’s say the hammerhead is magic and won’t deform on impact. We attach this monstrosity to the end of a 6 foot haft which is magically able to bear both its weight and the stress of impact without damage. For clarity’s sake, this superhammer has a 1.2 ton weight being concentrated to a point by a pyramidal striking surface.

My question is, what the heck are the stats for this monster? Because I can’t find rules that let you create anything even close to this ridiculous.
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Old 01-24-2019, 11:32 AM   #2
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Default Re: [weapons] giant tungsten warhammer

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Originally Posted by deathbyflossing View Post
So. Thought experiment.

A cubic foot of tungsten weighs 1200 pounds. Let us imagine two such cubes. One we will saw in half so that it becomes a pair of pyramids, which we then stick on the other cube to form a nice hammerhead. A 2400 pound hammerhead. That’s 1.2 tons. Since I don’t know how malleable tungsten is, let’s say the hammerhead is magic and won’t deform on impact. We attach this monstrosity to the end of a 6 foot haft which is magically able to bear both its weight and the stress of impact without damage. For clarity’s sake, this superhammer has a 1.2 ton weight being concentrated to a point by a pyramidal striking surface.

My question is, what the heck are the stats for this monster? Because I can’t find rules that let you create anything even close to this ridiculous.
There might be something about it in Chapter 7 of GURPS Supers. I remember writing about hitting people with lampposts and cars and such.
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Old 01-24-2019, 12:31 PM   #3
Anaraxes
 
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Default Re: [weapons] giant tungsten warhammer

Strength-base melee weapons do damage based on the ST of their wielder, not because of their own mass. (If you want to drop the hammer on someone, literally, then you could use the collisions; it's just a weight.) Weapons have a minST rating (shown as "ST" in the equipment tables), and the ST you can actually use to inflict damage with that weapon is capped at 3x minST. So, the point of a gigantic, massive, weapon is to really raise the "maxST" you can effectively apply with it (also raising the minST).

There's a chart in the "Big Weapons" section of Supers that shows stats for large "staff-like" and "maul-like" weapons. This sounds maul-like. The maximum value in that chart is a 432-lb version, minST 76, damage sw+24. To reach 2400 lbs, that table would need two or three more rows. There's probably a formula somewhere, but since I'm too lazy to look those up or reverse engineer it, it looks like minST moves up by about 1.45 per row (or 2.1 = minST 160) for another two. Weight doesn't look as consistent, but it's roughly a factor of around 2 per row, so that minST would be for weapons between 1728 and 3456 lbs. +8 dmg per row, so sw+40 (at minST 160, that's 19d+40, or 30d+1 if you apply adds-to-dice).

Last edited by Anaraxes; 01-24-2019 at 02:15 PM.
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Old 01-24-2019, 12:34 PM   #4
deathbyflossing
 
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Default Re: [weapons] giant tungsten warhammer

Perfect, thanks Anaraxes! That’s exactly what I was Lookingg for!
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Old 01-24-2019, 01:48 PM   #5
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Default Re: [weapons] giant tungsten warhammer

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Originally Posted by Anaraxes View Post
Strength-base melee weapons do damage based on the ST of their wielder, not because of their own mass.
I think someone once said somewhere (like back in the late 90's) that ST required is roughly based on BL equalling the weight of the weapon? With two-handed weapons being 1.5 times BL?
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Old 01-24-2019, 02:29 PM   #6
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Default Re: [weapons] giant tungsten warhammer

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Originally Posted by evileeyore View Post
I think someone once said somewhere (like back in the late 90's) that ST required is roughly based on BL equalling the weight of the weapon? With two-handed weapons being 1.5 times BL?
That really would not work. It would let a ST 10 human, with BL 20 lbs., wield a 20-lb. sword one-handed.
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Old 01-24-2019, 05:44 PM   #7
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Default Re: [weapons] giant tungsten warhammer

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Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
That really would not work. It would let a ST 10 human, with BL 20 lbs., wield a 20-lb. sword one-handed.
Well, if you look at just the weapons in Basic.

It's roughly:
ST: 1h/2h max wt.
6: 1/-
8: 2/4
10: 3/6
11: 5/8
12: 6/10
13: -/12


And if you then say max wt. of a weapon for a ST is BL/5. Then if you squint your eyes a bit, then it roughly matches. But not really.
But I think it's fair to say the weapons ST-requirement for the realistic weapons are eyeballed and fitted to match what makes sense. And not by a formula.
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Old 01-27-2019, 10:41 AM   #8
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Default Re: [weapons] giant tungsten warhammer

A campaign I once ran had supers using massive weapons. I used a fairly quick and dirty method of multiplying minST and damage adds by the square root of the weight multiple.

The hammer in question is 200 times the weight of the maul listed in GURPS Characters. The square root of 200 is 14.14. So, using this rule, the hammer would do sw+56 and minST would be 184.

YMMV
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Old 01-27-2019, 04:18 PM   #9
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Default Re: [weapons] giant tungsten warhammer

Realistically You would not only need enormous Strength to wield such a weapon but also equally impressive inertia , or you're just swinging yourself about a nearly stationary piece of art deco combat kitch .
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