Not sure if anyone else has posted something like this, but here goes:

Characters with super strength can often shrug off impact damage (punches, force blasts, explosions, etc.) In BtB MSH, there is no real provision for this. Thor is stuck with Ex protection even though he can easily shrug off a blow from someone like Spider-Man.

I would say that super strength grants a character a -2CS protection against impact damage Only. Thor's UN Strength would grant him the equivalent of AM protection. For edged, piercing or energy damage, the protection would be at another -2CS, or RM. This would explain why Thor can go toe-to-toe with the Hulk over an extended time, but still be brought down by the Crusader's sword.

This protection does Not stack with other body armor, unless the armor is powered. The Hulk's strength would grant him AM impact protection, but his green skin gives him MN protection; only the MN applies.

Thoughts?

 I've always thought that you sort of need enhanced resistance to damage to simply use superhuman strength to a certain degree. Your skin would get torn up just using your strength, like ripping open a steel door for instance. But this is a slippery slope. Once you start thinking along those lines, those lines being "how would this really work in real life", you'll find yourself tinkering and rewriting so many rules it becomes apparent that you probably want to play a different game system altogether. That was my personal experience anyway. So I just stick to rewriting what seems to be flat-out "oops" mistakes or complete oversights. Something like seeing Thor only has Excellent Resistance to punches but he blows off Spider-man's Incredible punches? Just give Thor higher Resistance. If you look at this site's Thor write-up ( [www.classicmarvelforever.com] ) you'll see it's been upgraded to Excellent True Invulnerability, which is much more bad ass.

  Also, you can always interpret those situations as the defending character successfully pulling off a Blocking FEAT. Blocking uses Strength and a Yellow success would grant the equivalent of what you mention: reducing the damage by an amount equal to Strength -2CS.

paladinm Just trying to understand, Are you saying that the defense is passive/ always on? or declared?

I just use the "Block" rules in the APB. I have never felt a need to change them.

I would say it's always on.. and again, it's only for blunt/ impact damage. Edged protection would be a further -2CS.

Thor with EX protection is crazy.. Cap would have the potential of hurting Thor, and that would never happen.

I see this as kind of a bonus power for someone who has super strength. It just makes sense, at least to me.

Each to their own is what I say. but there is the provision as stated by another forum member in this thread that you can use block to this degree.


Here is the blocking rule.

Block is a defensive ability that uses the Strength ability to lessen the damage of physical attacks, which include Grappling, Slugfest, Edged and Blunt Throwing attacks, Force attacks (but not Shooting and Energy attacks) and Wrestling (but not Charging). The Block move is an attempt to meet force with force, and use the individual's Strength as a form of Body Armor against a specific attack.

The character using a block may take no other action, but may shield others behind him. Normal Body Armor, but not Force Fields, still apply to defense.

The character using the block maneuver does not attack but counts his Strength as Body Armor, provided the force can be physically resisted (use common sense here -- a fire cannot be blocked, but a pillar of ice can).

Roll on the Universal Table against Strength to determine the effects. The notation -6CS, -4 CS, -2 CS, and +1CS indicates the level of Body Armor gained taken from the Strength of the character.
Example:A character with an Amazing Strength wishes to block a punch thrown by an opponent with Monstrous Strength (Fighting ability is used to hit, but Block has no effect on this). The character gets a green FEAT, -4 CS, which provides him with equivalent Body Armor of Good. The character takes 65 points damage. If the hero had made a red FEATroll, the character would have totally blocked the attack (Monstrous Body Armor against Monstrous damage attack)

Thus this would explain why Thor can block an attack against spiderman

I always figured that a super strong person's enhanced durability was reflected in their correpsondingly advanced Health score. Thor for example has 320 Health and an Endurance of Unearthly making him exceptional durable with or without "body armour".

As it is most of the veterans around here disagree with the notion that Thor has only Excellent Body Armour. Some up this stat to a higher power rank, or more accurately IMO make it Excellent True Invulnerability, ie. -5 CS to all incoming damage. The T.I. option better reflects Thor's ability to get hurt, but still keep going toe-to-toe, even with the Hulk, for a very long time.

paladinm Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I would say it's always on.. and again, it's only
> for blunt/ impact damage. Edged protection would
> be a further -2CS.
>
> Thor with EX protection is crazy.. Cap would have
> the potential of hurting Thor, and that would
> never happen.
>
> I see this as kind of a bonus power for someone
> who has super strength. It just makes sense, at
> least to me.

But guys with Phantastic or Amazing strength, like the Wrecking Crew or Mister Hyde, should be able to hurt Thor...

rastafa Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> paladinm Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > I would say it's always on.. and again, it's
> only
> > for blunt/ impact damage. Edged protection
> would
> > be a further -2CS.
> >
> > Thor with EX protection is crazy.. Cap would
> have
> > the potential of hurting Thor, and that would
> > never happen.
> >
> > I see this as kind of a bonus power for someone
> > who has super strength. It just makes sense,
> at
> > least to me.
>
> But guys with Phantastic or Amazing strength, like
> the Wrecking Crew or Mister Hyde, should be able
> to hurt Thor...

Not really, they're quite inferior to him. Of course Thor probably should be considered to have Excellent TI rather than just Excellent BR, at least it'd both have stronger opponents harm him but not enough to really give them a chance (which someone like Wrecker shouldn't have any real hope of winning a fight with Thor).

Yes, they are inferior and I agree that Wrecker shouldn't have any chance to win a fight against Thor. I just said they should be able to hurt him, not to win.

The Wrecking Crew and Hyde, along with Tiger Shark and Goliath, beat up Hercules when he was drugged.

And in a later story, the Wrecking Crew alone beat up Hercules who had lost self-confidence (of course Herc regained it at some point and finally won the fight, but he was nevertheless beaten up for several panels). So some damage should be inflicted by these guys against the likes of Thor and Herc. But I agree that their chances of winning are probably worse than Toad's chances of beating Wolverine.

Quote
paladinm
Not sure if anyone else has posted something like this, but here goes:

Characters with super strength can often shrug off impact damage (punches, force blasts, explosions, etc.) In BtB MSH, there is no real provision for this. Thor is stuck with Ex protection even though he can easily shrug off a blow from someone like Spider-Man.

I would say that super strength grants a character a -2CS protection against impact damage Only. Thor's UN Strength would grant him the equivalent of AM protection. For edged, piercing or energy damage, the protection would be at another -2CS, or RM. This would explain why Thor can go toe-to-toe with the Hulk over an extended time, but still be brought down by the Crusader's sword.

This protection does Not stack with other body armor, unless the armor is powered. The Hulk's strength would grant him AM impact protection, but his green skin gives him MN protection; only the MN applies.

Thoughts?

You make a really good point. However, I've always thought that everyone should get at least one fifth of their strength as a physical defense against blunted physical attacks if they didn't have as much body armor or invulnerability. They would get that much impact protection as well. In other words, Spider-Man would have 8 points of defense and impact protection from his Incredible-40 strength against non-lethal physical attacks. The reason being, there have been times when Spider-Man has shrugged off punches from normal people.

Someone like Ox of the Enforcers who has no body armor would get 6 points against blunted physical attacks due to his Remarkable-30 strength. Even the average person would get 1 point of defense against blunted physical attacks while stronger people would have more.

What I've written wouldn't do much for Thor, but that's just what I was thinking.

This is an old thread, but it's always bugged me that Herc and Thor had such low armour tanks. I'd say the block maneuver helps but it sucks that the move cancels any effective offence. So Thor and Herc can defend with Unearthly Strenght easily, but they have to stand still and just take punches with no counterattack.

Quote
Giledhel
This is an old thread, but it's always bugged me that Herc and Thor had such low armour tanks. I'd say the block maneuver helps but it sucks that the move cancels any effective offence. So Thor and Herc can defend with Unearthly Strenght easily, but they have to stand still and just take punches with no counterattack.

It was a deficiency in the old write-ups that they gave them BR ranks that were insufficient to explain there extreme durability and ability to deal and take blows for hours on end. Probably because the people modeling them were afraid to give them the proper ranks because it would just make them even more difficult for someone to play in game without overshadowing others.

Thor has been fired on by a jet aircraft's guns and he claimed that the large calibre bullets raised welts upon his skin. Seems like Excellent is maybe a rank low... at least Remarkable. Hercules has likewise withstood gunfire (machine guns at the hands of the Amazons, and Deadpool once put a pair of pistols point blank to Herc's eyes and fired with no effect other than irritating the Olympian. At least Remarkable for him, as well... possibly Incredible.

Excellent is definitely too low.

For that matter, Namor and Namorita (and presumably Namora) have Good rank body armor due to their resistance to the crushing ocean depths they can comfortably dwell in. However, I remember an old issue of Namor when he was running Oracle Inc or whatever his business was, and Namorita came to his rescue when Namor was captured by the albino named Headhunter who seemingly kept the heads of her victims mounted on a wall (bodies were intact and behind the wall, kept alive so she could question them for financial gain)... Anyhow, Namorita took a burst of machine gun fire to her chest and all it did was leave her in the embarrassing position of having to hold up her costume to preserve her modesty. Good rank might be too low for the Sub-Mariner family.

Quote
Thrudjelmer
Thor has been fired on by a jet aircraft's guns and he claimed that the large calibre bullets raised welts upon his skin. Seems like Excellent is maybe a rank low... at least Remarkable. Hercules has likewise withstood gunfire (machine guns at the hands of the Amazons, and Deadpool once put a pair of pistols point blank to Herc's eyes and fired with no effect other than irritating the Olympian. At least Remarkable for him, as well... possibly Incredible.

Excellent is definitely too low.

I think Incredible vs shooting/energy/edged and Monstrous vs Blunt works well for both characters. Both can take a physical hit far better than a blast from what I've read.

City of Heroes handled physical damage by splitting it into two categories... smashing and lethal. This idea would work well for a number of heroes, such as Wonder Woman who can trade blows with heavy hitters and tough it out, but has to resort to using her bracelets to deflect bullets. She obviously has a higher resistance to smashing damage but little to none against lethal (shooting & edged) damage.

Quote
paladinm
Not sure if anyone else has posted something like this, but here goes:

Characters with super strength can often shrug off impact damage (punches, force blasts, explosions, etc.) In BtB MSH, there is no real provision for this. Thor is stuck with Ex protection even though he can easily shrug off a blow from someone like Spider-Man.

I would say that super strength grants a character a -2CS protection against impact damage Only. Thor's UN Strength would grant him the equivalent of AM protection. For edged, piercing or energy damage, the protection would be at another -2CS, or RM. This would explain why Thor can go toe-to-toe with the Hulk over an extended time, but still be brought down by the Crusader's sword.

This protection does Not stack with other body armor, unless the armor is powered. The Hulk's strength would grant him AM impact protection, but his green skin gives him MN protection; only the MN applies.

Thoughts?

Anyone who has played Thor knows he takes damage too easily for a tank character. I think his body armor is Remarkable, not Excellent.

I'm okay with the Hulk's body armor being Amazing, but not above that. He does have healing powers too.

I also think that hero's like Colossus and the Thing ( Say Metal and Granite ) should get bonuses. Punch them and you'd better have protection or you'll get hurt! Objects who strike them should break if the material is less than the rank of their natural body armor as well.

Quote
Taarna
Anyone who has played Thor knows he takes damage too easily for a tank character. I think his body armor is Remarkable, not Excellent.

I'm okay with the Hulk's body armor being Amazing, but not above that. He does have healing powers too.

I also think that hero's like Colossus and the Thing ( Say Metal and Granite ) should get bonuses. Punch them and you'd better have protection or you'll get hurt! Objects who strike them should break if the material is less than the rank of their natural body armor as well.

Thor routinely faces foes who can deal out at least Unearthly damage, yet seems to withstand more than 4 or 5 hits before being on death's door in the comics. An Unearthly punch should not in my opinion be dealing 22% of his health (this is the case if he has Remarkable body armor).