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

[Gold & Appel Inc]

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

So: can we build Banner, with his Hulk form, on 1,000 points?

Why does it matter, if the goal here is to try to represent what we saw on screen, rather than to shoehorn what we saw on screen into a specific, arbitrary budget?

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

With Banner cost + Alternate Form base cost at 230 points, we've got 770 points to spend on the Hulk. Since Alternate Forms are discounted by 10%, the Hulk can be worth 770 / 0.90 = 855 points more than Banner, or 1,055 points.

Unless I am very mistaken, that's not how AF works anymore... His primary form gets the full point budget minus whatever the AF costs him; they don't do the 3e split.

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

This looks very doable if you only care about the 2008 movie and The Avengers. My notes on those movies put The Hulk very close to the top of what Supers defines as I-scale, so let's imagine GURPS: Avengers explicitly limited our heroes to I-scale, and Banner's player decided to go to the very top of that. If the Hulk is SM 1, that's ST 20 (Size, -10%) [90]; ST +10/+100 (Super-Effort, +300%; Size, -10%) [390]; DR 50 (Can't Wear Armor, -40%) [150]; Damage Reduction (10) [150]. 780 points total.

In the 2008 film, he picks up half a cop car (about 1500-1800# if it's a Crown Vic; I forget) with each hand and uses them as cesti against the Abomination. Was he spending 1 FP/round on Super ST in that fight? If you think so, better give him a truly massive FP or ER pool, and/or something like Regeneration (Very Fast) (FP Only +0%, Access: Only While Angry -10%) [90], because otherwise he gasses out way faster than what we observed.

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

Next question: how do you model Thor flying hammer-first into things?

Human Missile Technique based on Aerobatics (4e Supers p 38). If the hammer was pointy he could use the rule in Basic that lets you convert weapon damage to the Slam formula, but since it doesn't have a thrusting form of attack I'd just hand-wave it as the thing that provides the Flight he needs for the maneuver in the first place, or maybe +1 for providing a Striking Surface to the blow if I was feeling generous.

[Kuroshima]

Personally, I would build Iron Man armors as puppet allies with payload, and give Tony Stark Possession (digital, puppet only) This makes the armor HP act as some sort of ablative DR, and models what happens when the armor takes damage while Tony is mostly unharmed.

Both Banner and Stark should have high IQs They seem to do cinematically good hacking of SHIELD'S computers. I say that they have similar IQ, only Banner loses it when Hulking out.IM is probably only on the same point level as the others because he uses the allies+possession trick on the amors. Otherwise, his wealth, IQ, skillsa, status, security clearance, etc etc would make him way more expensive than the rest of the Avengers

[Michael Thayne]

Originally Posted by Gold & Appel Inc

Why does it matter, if the goal here is to try to represent what we saw on screen, rather than to shoehorn what we saw on screen into a specific, arbitrary budget?

I find it interesting, because if you're planning a campaign based on The Avengers, that's a tempting nice round number for the GM to give the PCs as a point budget.

Unless I am very mistaken, that's not how AF works anymore... His primary form gets the full point budget minus whatever the AF costs him; they don't do the 3e split.

Here's 4e B84:

If you have a single Alternate Form, it costs 15 points for a racial
template worth no more than your native racial template. A more powerful
form costs 15 points plus 90% of the difference in cost between your native template and that of your Alternate Form.

Powers makes clear that modifiers only affect the 15 point cost of the basic advantage. So if Banner is a 200 point character, and the Hulk is a 1,055 point character, the difference is 855. 855 * 90% = 769.5, which rounds up to 770. So the cost of the Alternate Form advantage is 15 * (100% + modifiers) +770.

In the 2008 film, he picks up half a cop car (about 1500-1800# if it's a Crown Vic; I forget) with each hand and uses them as cesti against the Abomination. Was he spending 1 FP/round on Super ST in that fight? If you think so, better give him a truly massive FP or ER pool, and/or something like Regeneration (Very Fast) (FP Only +0%, Access: Only While Angry -10%) [90], because otherwise he gasses out way faster than what we observed.

The rules are a little unclear on this, but I don't think merely carrying a weapon in combat with Super-Effort costs 1/FP second. He would have to pay 1 FP/swing he takes at the Abomination, though, which may suggest he needs a higher FP score.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

I
The rules are a little unclear on this, but I don't think merely carrying a weapon in combat with Super-Effort costs 1/FP second.

If his ST without Super-Effort is only 30 his Basic Lift without Super-Effort is 180lbs. That is also the most weight he can carry in one hand wihtout using an action to "set" himself each Turn.

So even if the Hulk only wanted to put half a cop car on each shoulder and walk down the road with it he needs a ST of around 100 (BL2000). At ST30 he can't even lift a whole cop car in 2 hands even with any reasonable amount of "normal" Extra Effort.

I wouldn't try to make any version of the Hulk (except the Bixby/Ferigno TV version) with a base ST of 30. A base ST of 100 is probably a minimum.

A key resource for setting up this kind of thing is the DR and hP of objects table on B.558, You look at that for representaqtive amounts of damage.

For example, if you are looking at a character who could crash through the exterior wall of a typical house (Brick 9") wihtout major effort (where I'd put the movie Hulk) you'll see that he'd have to overcome DR 24 and HP77 all in one blow or 101 pts of damage. Just under 30D or ST290.

Sure you can get more bang for your buck by pumping that up with bonus damage from Forced Entry but the point is that the Hulk can perform such a feat _casually_.

This si the sort of thing that makes people who dislike using large numbers for Supers to talk about genre conventions and the way all Supers live in worlds where inanimate objects are made of styrofoam and they might well have a point but the results are there regardless of source.

Supers do a _lot_ of damage to inanimate objects.

[Gold & Appel Inc]

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

Here's 4e B84:

Powers makes clear that modifiers only affect the 15 point cost of the basic advantage. So if Banner is a 200 point character, and the Hulk is a 1,055 point character, the difference is 855. 855 * 90% = 769.5, which rounds up to 770. So the cost of the Alternate Form advantage is 15 * (100% + modifiers) +770.

This may just be a generous house rule that my group takes for granted, but what's to stop you (GM willing) from calling the Hulk the "native" form and Banner a convenient alt that he doesn't always have access to, game-mechanically?

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

The rules are a little unclear on this, but I don't think merely carrying a weapon in combat with Super-Effort costs 1/FP second. He would have to pay 1 FP/swing he takes at the Abomination, though, which may suggest he needs a higher FP score.

He can't even lift half a Crown Vic 1-handed with ST 30 in 8 seconds, let alone Crouch and 1-second Ready it off the ground like a human would grab a 1# rock and carry it around, and was swinging pretty much every round that he held them regardless. ST 30/120 is a weaksauce Hulk even by the movie standards.

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

This si the sort of thing that makes people who dislike using large numbers for Supers to talk about genre conventions and the way all Supers live in worlds where inanimate objects are made of styrofoam and they might well have a point but the results are there regardless of source.

Supers do a _lot_ of damage to inanimate objects.

Tell me about it. "Oh, he just has high Lifting Skill, Lifting ST and Breaking Blow, clearly!"

Gah!

Comics are never really going to show the serious damage a super should do to a human body because of the gore factor (though they actually gave an idea of it in Invincible, and even there, it's nothing compared to what the damage really should be: Someone who can punch through tank armor should red-mist someone). So they show strength in a variety of ways: What the super can lift, the damage the super does to inanimate objects, and how far the super can knock someone.

If you start looking explicitly at those elements and ignoring the damage, then strength begins to lose all meaning, IMO.

[aesir23]

Originally Posted by Gold & Appel Inc

This may just be a generous house rule that my group takes for granted, but what's to stop you (GM willing) from calling the Hulk the "native" form and Banner a convenient alt that he doesn't always have access to, game-mechanically?

Well, for one thing you wouldn't want this because it's more expensive. You'd have to pay the 1055+15.

[Michael Thayne]

Originally Posted by Gold & Appel Inc

This may just be a generous house rule that my group takes for granted, but what's to stop you (GM willing) from calling the Hulk the "native" form and Banner a convenient alt that he doesn't always have access to, game-mechanically?

Absent a special enhancement on Alternate Form, the native form is the one you revert to when unconscious, including when sleeping, so that matters a lot.

He can't even lift half a Crown Vic 1-handed with ST 30 in 8 seconds, let alone Crouch and 1-second Ready it off the ground like a human would grab a 1# rock and carry it around, and was swinging pretty much every round that he held them regardless. ST 30/120 is a weaksauce Hulk even by the movie standards.

Walking around with a heavy weight only costs 1 FP/minute. And even if you were right, you could make similar arguments even if we gave the Hulk ST 36/1,020. Sure, you could give him ST 50+ without Super-Effort, but that's not the GURPS Supers way of doing things.

[Dragondog]

Originally Posted by Gold & Appel Inc

This may just be a generous house rule that my group takes for granted, but what's to stop you (GM willing) from calling the Hulk the "native" form and Banner a convenient alt that he doesn't always have access to, game-mechanically?

This would be more expensive than the other way around.

[Gold & Appel Inc]

Originally Posted by aesir23

Well, for one thing you wouldn't want this because it's more expensive. You'd have to pay the 1055+15.

Ah, I misread how many points he was giving the Hulk alone, sorry all.

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

Walking around with a heavy weight only costs 1 FP/minute. And even if you were right, you could make similar arguments even if we gave the Hulk ST 36/1,020.

Yes, that's why I advocated a very high base ST or Regenerating FP for the Hulk earlier.

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

Sure, you could give him ST 50+ without Super-Effort, but that's not the GURPS Supers way of doing things.

It is if you want his high-end feats to be consistent. This is like the Colossus / Can't Wear Armor thing: Just because a discounted version is available, does not mean that it is the version that models what you want to model the best.