Captain America Falling

[Randyman]

Originally Posted by lachimba

Fair enough.

Not sure about modelling BW. She doesnt do anything that requires more than just good combat skills and high St and Dex in Iron Man 2. I would have to think about whether she needed wild card skills for Avengers either or just luck and a whole bunch of cinematic rules.

We might end up finding out she has a knock off of the super soldier serum (as Fury might too) as we discover more of the back story. I dont think so though.

That aside yeah if you want to do Cap with the super stats and more reasonable skills levels and your super normals (Hawkeye too) with wildcard skills that seems good at keeping their niches seperate.

Which is surprisingly reminiscent of Monster Hunters... and from that source, I'd model BW as a Sleuth, adding Fist! (from Pyramid 3/31) and Move! (from Supers). Cap, OTOH, I'd use the Man Plus template from Supers, because that template was modeled after Cap to begin with. :)

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Infornific

The problem is that implies a ST 10 character can pick up 160 lbs and hold it over his heads with arms at full extension for some time with little visible effort. .

It doesn't just imply the part about the lifting. That's what the rules say. The "some time" and "visible effort" are not quite so certain.

The 3 showgirls probably weigh no more than 320lbs put together. I suppose it's the motorcycle that's the bigger factor.

Anyway, it's not a grossly impossible feat for ST20 under the rules.

[Phantasm]

We're shown him carrying the motorcycle and three showgirls. What we're not shown is him lifting the cycle while they're on it. (The balance of the girls on the bike is the biggest obstacle, I think.)

It's quite possible - and I've seen this done in stage productions - that the bike was laid out on a raised platform, the girls got on it, then Cap got under it and lifted the bike from what would be neck- or head-high, rather than lifting from the ground.

He casually carries them around, but not at any kind of speed faster than a walk, so I'm going to guess the whole thing put him at close to medium encumbrance. That rather than the dead lift is probably a better approximation for reverse calculating his ST from his BL.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by tbrock1031

He casually carries them around, but not at any kind of speed faster than a walk, so I'm going to guess the whole thing put him at close to medium encumbrance. That rather than the dead lift is probably a better approximation for reverse calculating his ST from his BL.

Medium encumbrance is pretty impressive, in that you can run at 60% of your full speed and still do Acrobatics at -2 to skill.

Medium encumbrance is a normal human in armour and with weapons, i.e. a fighting load. Heavy encumbrance is a normal human with a fighting load and a backpack.

Anything that you can only walk around with, not perform impressive athletics while carrying, is at least Heavy encumbrance and possibly Extra Heavy.

If he was super casual about it, it might warrant Heavy encumbrance, i.e. that his Basic Lift is 1/6th of the total weight he was carrying. I very much doubt that he was at Medium, which would imply that his Basic Lift was 1/3rd of the weight.

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Medium encumbrance is pretty impressive, in that you can run at 60% of your full speed and still do Acrobatics at -2 to skill.

Medium encumbrance is a normal human in armour and with weapons, i.e. a fighting load. Heavy encumbrance is a normal human with a fighting load and a backpack.

Anything that you can only walk around with, not perform impressive athletics while carrying, is at least Heavy encumbrance and possibly Extra Heavy.

If he was super casual about it, it might warrant Heavy encumbrance, i.e. that his Basic Lift is 1/6th of the total weight he was carrying. I very much doubt that he was at Medium, which would imply that his Basic Lift was 1/3rd of the weight.

I'm not sure if it was "super-casual" about it, though the lack of impressive athletics and increased speed was likely in part due to not wanting to hurt the showgirls he was carrying. Movie!Cap is, after all, "just a kid from Brooklyn" who just wants to help people, not harm them. Still, it seemed fairly easy for him to pull off; he was showing off his strength, not his acrobatics (that was likely part of the rest of the show).

Since he only walked while carrying the setup, it's quite possible he was at Very Heavy encumbrance, though that doesn't leave him with an ST that would be "superhuman".

If we call the whole setup about 860 lbs (three 110 lb showgirls and a 530 lb motorcycle, probably a 1940*-ish Harley Davidson or Indian):

Setup as Light Encumbrance: BL 430 lbs, ST 46.37
Setup as Medium Encumbrance: BL 286.67 lbs, ST 37.86
Setup as Heavy Encumbrance: BL 143.33 lbs, ST 26.77
Setup as Very Heavy Encumbrance: BL 86 lbs, ST 20.74

Looking at these numbers, I'd say that Medium or Heavy would be the benchmark, depending on how easily you'd want him to lift/carry an object of similar weight where his passenger's safety isn't a concern.



* Pretty sure the movie used a Harley-Davidson WL/WLA (which entered production in '40) or an Indian 841 (production started in '42). I'm going to ASSume the movie happened mostly in '42 or '43; the US entered the war late in '41, and it seemed as though the US had been in the war for several months if not a year by the time Steve tried to enlist for the 7th time.

[Otaku]

Originally Posted by Not another shrubbery

Heh... "Idiot Ball" :) I had not heard that trope before. I see Wiki attributes it to Herman's Head which I only have a vague memory of as being unwatchable. Batroc sure came off as comic relief in a lot of his appearances (the ones I recall), but you'd have to respect the abilities of someone who could hang with CA for any amount of time.

TV Tropes and GURPS go so well together. The Idiot Ball may not be the best fit, but one of the reasons I would like more comic book (and similar fiction) writers to familiarize themselves with a system like GURPS (an idea I know baffles some people) is because too often, I encounter a story that only works because the writer never thought of a certain use for an ability... a use which someone who had the ability would likely have thought of by the time of the story and (even worse) the audience probably hit upon pretty quick.

B (and lower) list supers get hit with it a lot, while A-Listers get the Smart Ball counterpart or face foes holding the Idiot Ball so that whatever they do is presenting as "cunning" or "brilliant". Combat usage for non-combat powers and "civilian" usage of combat powers are the two best examples, in addition to points serving as a decent (but certainly not infallible) rule of thumb for value, as well as how GURPS presents something reminding us "You get what you pay for." If you can justify a "power" granting you a specific effect, you pay for that Advantage (possibly with Link or as an Alternate Ability, but you still pay for it) instead of getting it "free". You know, like Wolverine and all the abilities extrapolated from his "Healing Factor".

The upside is that with the length of history of most characters, coupled with the internet and its proliferation of fan work, you can almost always find the full spectrum of treatments for a character if you look for it. So even if [insert character] is the perfect example of "good concept, bad execution", you can find the appropriate counter-example somewhere. This even applies to A-listers; you can tell when Cap is "just" a super soldier, when when he's a super spec ops soldier with a lifetime of experience.

[dcarson]

Nothing we see says that the motorcycle engine wasn't silver painted balsa either. Never saw it drive out on stage. Can probably shave 100 pounds off the weight if it only has to hold the girls and not really work.

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by dcarson

Nothing we see says that the motorcycle engine wasn't silver painted balsa either. Never saw it drive out on stage. Can probably shave 100 pounds off the weight if it only has to hold the girls and not really work.

Rogers, as square* a joe as you're ever likely to meet, probably wouldn't do that though.

In the older sense of "honest", though the more modern pejorative meaning applies as well.

[Infornific]

Originally Posted by Randyman

Which is surprisingly reminiscent of Monster Hunters... and from that source, I'd model BW as a Sleuth, adding Fist! (from Pyramid 3/31) and Move! (from Supers). Cap, OTOH, I'd use the Man Plus template from Supers, because that template was modeled after Cap to begin with. :)

I didn't know MH had a Sleuth template. How useful is Monster Hunters to a Supers campaign? Assuming you're not that into the monster hunter concept?

[Randyman]

Originally Posted by Infornific

I didn't know MH had a Sleuth template. How useful is Monster Hunters to a Supers campaign? Assuming you're not that into the monster hunter concept?

For what some might call lower-powered or street-level Supers, I'd recommend it. It doesn't cover every type of iconic character in that sub-genre of supers (see here for a Green Arrow/Hawkeye type), and it is is definitely aimed at a team setup (heavy niche protection). On the plus side, MH4 starts with templates at half the cost of MH1's, (200 pts vs. 400 pts) as sidekicks, then provides upgrade options to use those 200 pt templates as the basis for a full 400 pt character, introducing a *lot* of variety.

Some of the templates, etc. are definitely monster hunting/urban fantasy inclined (obviously), but I think the MH series is definitely worth mining for a suitably scaled supers game.