Hitting 'Til It Hurts

[Sean Waters]

Re: Hitting 'Til It Hurts

 

To summarise the issues:

1. IF you are going to do this, then it is probably sensible to use a the move through rules as a base. You take half the damage of a strike to whatever you struck with (before defences), or, if the attack does no KB or Knockdown, you take full damage.

2. Hands do take half damage, but only after all the calculations are done. To use Kraven Kor's example: You do a 8d6 Offensive Strike Punch, hit, and deal 28 STUN / 8 BODY; if do no KB or Knockdown, you take 28/8, apply your 6pd (22/2) and halve that. You take 11/1. That is an ouch. Mind you a headbutt would have done you 44/4, which is a bit extreme. If you DO KN/KD, then you take 14/4, apply defences (8/0) and then apply location modifiers. That would mean that you are taking damage every time you hit something at full damage, using those figures.

3. It does not make sense for all defences to do this sort of damage: some defences are squidgy rather than hard.

4. Seems like too much trouble to me. If I wanted SOMETHING like this, I would probably create a house rule that you take full damage if you fail to damage the thing you are hitting at all, or that you take full damage if you miss by 3 or more. Something like that.

 

Anyone read Brit?

[NuSoardGraphite]

Re: Hitting 'Til It Hurts

 

Or as the result of a critical failure. You fail to do any damage to your target AND you roll the damage vs your own hand (or whatever limb you used to hit with). Don't critically fail while headbutting!

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Hitting 'Til It Hurts

 

I think Reed and Blob are both very good examples for Physical Damage Reduction or Damage Negation respecitively.

 

So we are now establishing that defenses must be based on hardness, while negation and reduction should be flexibility? My recollection is that every edition of Hero indicates SFX are divorced from mechanics.

 

Let's look at a common Hero example - Wolverine, who heals so quickly that we buy him Resistant Defenses defined as healing the damage as fast as he takes it. Let's ditch that adamantium skeleton for simplicity, and ask whether you should break your hand when he heals the damage from your punch instantaneously.

 

It seems to me the property of damaging your attacker when he hits you is specific to certain SFX, which sounds a lot like an ability the character should purchase as a function of his defenses.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Hitting 'Til It Hurts

 

Or as the result of a critical failure. You fail to do any damage to your target AND you roll the damage vs your own hand (or whatever limb you used to hit with). Don't critically fail while headbutting!

 

Sure - if you use critical failures with a "determined when rolled" effect, this seems like a possibility against an appropriate opponent.

[Beast]

Re: Hitting 'Til It Hurts

 

where not boxing gloves invent just to protect the hands from punching somebody in the forehead(or they use their forehead as an attack to disable a foes hand)

I would go with applying damage to a hand hitting a target that is really a hard surface like a forehead or a door or wall(use a feint to sucker a foe in to hitting something that might hurt his/her hand)

 

Hits to the body have enough flesh to spread out the trama to a hand

[Bolon]

Re: Hitting 'Til It Hurts

 

The rules handle it very well. You take the attack. Treat it like a move-through and if no knockback. Look at the amount of body and half that for the attacker. Can his PD for normal or rPD for killing stop the damage or not? There was the list on the def and body of common objects and we used that when people tried foolish things like this. We also had a house rule to let them know their character would know the chance of damage for hitting metal objects. You would need training and would know that some things would require weapons and such. Some did it and others would decide differently depending on their characters for good role-playing over good roll-playing.

[Christopher]

Re: Hitting 'Til It Hurts

 

So we are now establishing that defenses must be based on hardness' date=' while negation and reduction should be flexibility? My recollection is that every edition of Hero indicates SFX are divorced from mechanics.[/quote']

But here we talk about a mechanical effect, so it could be that some elements don't work towars this (like I said not to apply non-Resistant defenses).

 

Regardign Wolverine, I would keep the Adamantium Skeleton in the calculation: No, you don't break your hand because he regenerates. You break your hand because you hit an adamantium plate.

[bigbywolfe]

Re: Hitting 'Til It Hurts

 

But here we talk about a mechanical effect, so it could be that some elements don't work towars this (like I said not to apply non-Resistant defenses).

 

Regardign Wolverine, I would keep the Adamantium Skeleton in the calculation: No, you don't break your hand because he regenerates. You break your hand because you hit an adamantium plate.

Not if you punch him in the stomach...

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Hitting 'Til It Hurts

 

But here we talk about a mechanical effect, so it could be that some elements don't work towars this (like I said not to apply non-Resistant defenses).

 

Regardign Wolverine, I would keep the Adamantium Skeleton in the calculation: No, you don't break your hand because he regenerates. You break your hand because you hit an adamantium plate.

 

I posited a Wolverine clone lacking an adamantium skeleton (or Wolverine at the periods in his timeline when he lacks adamantium in his bones). The Adamantium Skeleton would be reasonable justification for Wolverine buying a damage aura. It does not mean he should get such a damage aura at no point cost because his player was creative in his backstory.

 

Your special effects justify the purchase of mechanical abilities. They do not grant significant mechanical abilities at no point cost.

[Christopher]

Re: Hitting 'Til It Hurts

 

I posited a Wolverine clone lacking an adamantium skeleton (or Wolverine at the periods in his timeline when he lacks adamantium in his bones). The Adamantium Skeleton would be reasonable justification for Wolverine buying a damage aura. It does not mean he should get such a damage aura at no point cost because his player was creative in his backstory.

 

Your special effects justify the purchase of mechanical abilities. They do not grant significant mechanical abilities at no point cost.

We are talking about a Game where taking damage from hitting something hard is the rule. Because this thread was made for such a discussion.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Hitting 'Til It Hurts

 

We are talking about a Game where taking damage from hitting something hard is the rule. Because this thread was made for such a discussion.

 

I know that in general we don't take this kind of thing into consideration' date=' but [i']if[/i] you decided to run a realistic game where punching an object / person always ran the risk of damage to the punching hand, how would you design that house rule?

 

Would you rule that a certain percentage of the damage done (both STUN and BODY) to the target always gets taken by the punching hand, up to the limit of breaking that hand if it takes 1/3 or more of the character's total BODY (or if the hand gets Impaired/Disabled)? Would you reflect a portion of the damage blocked by the target's PD back on him in that same way? Would you use the Wounded rules in the above scenarios? Would you only apply this rule if the target had resistant PD.

 

I ask mainly because I was thinking of hand to hand combat between a human and my revamp of a Dalek, and thinking about how much punching a metal character with a human hand would hurt, realistically.

 

It also reminds me of the early Superman/Spider-Man crossover where Spidey nearly broke his hands trying to kidney punch the Man of Steel.

 

I realize that one of the published books (I think Champions Powers) had a Power that did this, but I'm thinking more along the lines of a general rule than a Power bought with points.

 

We are discussing, from the original post reprinted above, the possible approaches to such a rule, and considerations in putting it into place. We are also discussing what constitutes a "hard object". Do we differentiate between metal-enhanced bones and normal bones? Those are also pretty hard. We are also talking about what SFX should result in such damage being a possibility (where the "Defense of regenerating very quickly" question originates, for example) and the equity in giving some characters a free damage shield due to the SFX of their defenses when other characters who buy exactly the same defenses get no such freebie, and no comparable benefit.

 

From the original post, I would maintain that, for characters, there should be a point cost to having a body which inflicts damage on those in physical combat with him, whether that be because the attacker's hand smashes into a very hard, unyielding surface, or because the hand passes right through into some damaging substance, or for whatever reason the character causes damage to those who attack him.

 

I find a default rule tough to implement due to the variety of SFX for defensive and non-defensive powers. One would think punching a rigid metal shield would have an equivalent chance of inflicting damage on the attacker. However, Hero defines shields as providing a DCV bonus. Will we also add automatic damage where a thrown punch is blocked by a shield (ie misses due to the extra DCV)? If not, why not? The same question of "realism" exists. Why will bullets not deflect off the target, potentially injuring nearby allies? This has the same "realism".

 

Ultimately, I suggest we return to the Hero presumption that making an attack does not cause damage to the attacker, unless the defender has paid points for that effect. And a character whose tough hide leads to the vision that a punch hurts the attacker's hand would be justified in paying those points.

[bigbywolfe]

Re: Hitting 'Til It Hurts

 

We are talking about a Game where taking damage from hitting something hard is the rule. Because this thread was made for such a discussion.

Right. And we're pointing out that whether something is hard or not is an issue of SFX and in a game where you pay for all abilities (such as most Super games) certain SFX shouldn't get huge bonuses for free. In a heroic level game with mostly normal "human" characters and free equipment that is defined by the GM it may be a more viable house rule but for Superheroes it borders on giving certain character concepts a free Damage Shield.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Hitting 'Til It Hurts

 

You do all realise how much this is going to slow the game down, don't you? I mean, I like a technical discussion, but I would never actually use a system where you had to work out if you had hurt yourself every time you hit something.

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Hitting 'Til It Hurts

 

*********BREAKING NEWS****************BREAKING NEWS********************

 

Sean Waters stops a conversation to discuss practicalities of suggestion!

 

*********BREAKING NEWS****************BREAKING NEWS********************

[Sean Waters]

Re: Hitting 'Til It Hurts

 

*********BREAKING NEWS****************BREAKING NEWS********************

 

Sean Waters stops a conversation to discuss practicalities of suggestion!

 

*********BREAKING NEWS****************BREAKING NEWS********************

 

Har-har-har.

 

Hardy-ha.

 

Ha.

 

[Ninja-Bear]

Re: Hitting 'Til It Hurts

 

Instead of the move-thru with no knockback and half for limbs, wouldn't be eaiser to consider the disabling rules and if you punch (or whatever) with something hard then it does it does an automatic disabling attack to the limb? Here you double the body to see if the attack either impaires or disable and the limb is considered 1/3 of the total body of the character.

[Ninja-Bear]

Re: Hitting 'Til It Hurts

 

We are discussing, from the original post reprinted above, the possible approaches to such a rule, and considerations in putting it into place. We are also discussing what constitutes a "hard object". Do we differentiate between metal-enhanced bones and normal bones? Those are also pretty hard. We are also talking about what SFX should result in such damage being a possibility (where the "Defense of regenerating very quickly" question originates, for example) and the equity in giving some characters a free damage shield due to the SFX of their defenses when other characters who buy exactly the same defenses get no such freebie, and no comparable benefit.

 

From the original post, I would maintain that, for characters, there should be a point cost to having a body which inflicts damage on those in physical combat with him, whether that be because the attacker's hand smashes into a very hard, unyielding surface, or because the hand passes right through into some damaging substance, or for whatever reason the character causes damage to those who attack him.

 

I find a default rule tough to implement due to the variety of SFX for defensive and non-defensive powers. One would think punching a rigid metal shield would have an equivalent chance of inflicting damage on the attacker. However, Hero defines shields as providing a DCV bonus. Will we also add automatic damage where a thrown punch is blocked by a shield (ie misses due to the extra DCV)? If not, why not? The same question of "realism" exists. Why will bullets not deflect off the target, potentially injuring nearby allies? This has the same "realism".

 

Ultimately, I suggest we return to the Hero presumption that making an attack does not cause damage to the attacker, unless the defender has paid points for that effect. And a character whose tough hide leads to the vision that a punch hurts the attacker's hand would be justified in paying those points.

 

Have you not seen the advice on changing mechanics of a game to fit the genre better. Example, for a Dragonball Z type game, it is recommended to throw out the +1D6 to Knockback for martial arts. All characters roll a straight 2D6 (unless flying which would be 1D6). Another suggestion for more bloody (heroic) combat such as some ninjas and samurai movies change the limb modifier to be more servere such as limbs are x1 , chest is x2 and head is x4 or just double damage. Hero system has always recognized that because it is a universal system, the rules may have to be tweaked to for a certain genre to run as visioned. I don't see a problem with this in the right game, same thing would happen to the sword when tried to cut the Dalek, it would shatter. (that real weapon lim. is nasty). Besides we all know that the best way to defeat the Daleks are stairs! ....Oh, darn they fixed that problem.

[Ninja-Bear]

Re: Hitting 'Til It Hurts

 

Not if you punch him in the stomach...

 

Ever hit a heavy bag wrong? It wouldn't be your knuckles hurting, but having your wrist bent at a wrong angle hurts! Beast mentioned why boxers wear gloves and he is right, the glove is to protect the knuckles, the wrapping done before the glove is put on is to protect the wrist.

[bigbywolfe]

Re: Hitting 'Til It Hurts

 

My response you quote was to a poster that said Wolverine's defenses would count as hard because of his metal skeleton. In other words he gets a free advantage for choosing that SFX. I never implied that it wasn't possible to hurt yourself hitting someone in a soft spot, that just wasn't in the scope of the conversation at the moment or the post I was responding to.I notice in your comment to Hugh you give a lot of examples that change the system across the board for all characters when he and I have been responding to people who have suggested certain SFX would get the effect being discussed and others wouldn't. You're not comparing apples to apples IMHO.

[Ninja-Bear]

Re: Hitting 'Til It Hurts

 

My response you quote was to a poster that said Wolverine's defenses would count as hard because of his metal skeleton. In other words he gets a free advantage for choosing that SFX. I never implied that it wasn't possible to hurt yourself hitting someone in a soft spot' date=' that just wasn't in the scope of the conversation at the moment or the post I was responding to.I notice in your comment to Hugh you give a lot of examples that change the system across the board for all characters when he and I have been responding to people who have suggested certain SFX would get the effect being discussed and others wouldn't. You're not comparing apples to apples IMHO.[/quote']

 

Sorry, I could have read something wrong and went off a tangent. My apologies.

[bigbywolfe]

Re: Hitting 'Til It Hurts

 

No apology needed. Those of us who became focused on SFX in a superhero specific setting are probably the ones on a tangent

[Ninja-Bear]

Re: Hitting 'Til It Hurts

 

Thanks and about the punching bag, I just wanted to point out that there are different ways which you can hurt yourself, especially not trained. Btw, some people prefer the palm-heel strike over a punch because they feel its safer on the hand.