Throwing enemies... at enemies.

[Rabbitman]

Ok, so I've read a few different things in search of a definitive answer, but unlike other rules this one still has me stumped after reading and re-reading the rulebook and these forums.

A character with high Super-Strength but otherwise no Strength modifier isn't designed for unarmed combat, but with his high Grapple bonus and carrying capacity for throwing, picking up and launching enemies into one another is his go-to move in combat.

I've picked up that the grapple (Standard action) and throw (move action) ruling makes it a full action, throwing an opponent is "treated like normal throwing" which makes it based on weight and carrying capacity (which high super-strength makes increasingly crazy using the progression tables).

The only thing I could find to determine the damage would be to treat the impact as Knockback where "If the obstacle is another character, treat the result as a slam attack (see page 158) doing damage equal to the knockback result to both parties."

But what part of the throwing distance would you use as the "knockback result" to determine the damage value?

I've been making the player roll an Attack roll for the initial grapple and then a ranged attack roll to successfully hit the target enemy with the throw, but I feel like I'm just making rules up at this point and I would really appreciate a clear-cut guide to throwing opponents so I can clear it up.

Thanks!

[Mark Reuter]

To tell you the truth, the easiest way to damage someone is to throw them straight up in the air and let them take falling damage, which is ridiculously damaging according to the RAW.

[Rabbitman]

Super-strength 10 gives an effective strength of 60 for lifting and throwing, 15 is required to make 200lbs a Heavy Load (to throw an average sized man 5 ft) which leaves 45 points of effective strength to increase distance. For every 5 points is one step up the Time and Value Progression table, meaning Super-Strength 10, Strength 10 character can throw a 200lb enemy 5,000ft...

How much damage does that do? Should it be limited in a PL10 game?

[FuzzyBoots]

SK went back and forward on this at least once. In one of his ORQs, he states it as a Move Action. In another, he argues that aimed throws (not just in the general location of a brick wall, mass of enemies, or into the air) should be treated as a Ranged attack and therefore take a Standard action (which means either Extra Effort or waiting another round) in part because it does take more work to throw someone somewhere specific and in part because it's effectively double damage.

[Zao]

Greetings

I think this post have the answer.

[Rabbitman]

Greetings

I think this post have the answer.

SK went back and forward on this at least once. In one of his ORQs, he states it as a Move Action. In another, he argues that aimed throws (not just in the general location of a brick wall, mass of enemies, or into the air) should be treated as a Ranged attack and therefore take a Standard action (which means either Extra Effort or waiting another round) in part because it does take more work to throw someone somewhere specific and in part because it's effectively double damage.

Thanks guys, that is finally a decisive answer, but I might have to ignore it anyway, simply because "unarmed damage" for this character would be +0 to both characters because it doesn't account for Super-Strength, throwing a guy 5,000ft suggests more force than +0 damage!

Any suggestions as to a reasonably balanced way to present it so as not to rip-off any of my players?

[downsizeit]

Creating someone with super-strength and not enhanced strength as well is bad character design. M&M doesn't try to simulate realism, its simulates the comics. Realisticly, anytime Superman punched or threw anyone, they would go splat and he would put holes in people. That doesn't happen in the comics, but he can lift entire islands and asteroids. Its the difference between damaging potential and lifting potential. That is why, if you want to create a super strong character, you need to raise their base strength (or through enhanced strength) for damage purposes and also give them super-strength for greater lifting purposes.

[Rabbitman]

I get what you're saying, and the player knew he was creating a character that could lift huge amounts but didn't throw punches with any extra power, the concept is a partial battlesuit type where the device was designed as an emergency response harness, high ranks of flight and super strength for getting anywhere in the world fast and being able to catch falling planes etc.

The only way the super-strength is helpful in combat is for the huge grapple bonus, which is why he is now grabbing and throwing enemies... and I feel like I need to find a happy medium between +0 damage from Strength bonus and the huge number that would be treating effective lifting strength as a strength bonus (not an option).

EDIT: The difference between "Affects lifting but not punching" and "affects throwing distance but not throwing power" is notable enough for me to bother asking for opinions. I understand that this would be a house-rule, so that's what I'm wanting to discuss.

[downsizeit]

Maybe have him take the strike power (melee damage power) with the throw power feat, but a drawback that it is only used with objects he picks up.

[downsizeit]

Or, I just thought about this, he could take throwing mastery or put throwing mastery in the battlesuit, but don't limit the range to 50 ft

[Rabbitman]

The Throwing Mastery feats to bring the damage up to where he wants it would be good, but I think if I say "if you spend another 10pp you can do 10 damage instead of 0" he'll start just throwing enemies 5,000ft into the air instead, and I think I prefer the throwing them around within the fight tactic rather than death from falling.

If it were knockback damage, 5,000ft is equivalent to 12 damage but from falling, 5,000ft results in 500 damage!

[FuzzyBoots]

I've previously handled throwing damage as being similar to knockback, working on the time-and-measures table. Find what the knockback value for the distance thrown would be and work out the damage from there. This also means that it is possible a character might go through multiple walls if they continue failing their damage saves.

Example:
Bob the Super-Lifter has an effective lifting strength of 40 and is throwing a 100 lb pound object that happens to be Joe "The Toothpick" Mangino in the general direction of a wooden building. That's 500 feet, an effective knockback of 9. Before Joe goes the full 500 feet, he hits the wall, which is toughness 4. Joe rolls against Damage DC 19 (the lesser of knockback and toughness) and the wall rolls against DC 24. It happens to fail badly enough to be disabled and Joe sails through and hits an inch-thick Steel wall with Toughness 10. He rolls against DC 24 (the lesser of the two) and the wall also rolls against DC 24. This time, the wall holds and Joe splats up against it.

You can do the same thing with human targets, using the lesser of their toughness and the knockback result if you would like, with a Stunned result or higher meaning that they don't stop the flying character and indeed might go tumbling with them.

[Rabbitman]

That's pretty much what I was looking for, it's pretty similar to what I house-ruled on the spot in our session the other day (before I went looking for an official answer), thanks.

The player understands the difficulty of balancing the powers and damage results and suchlike, so he's happy to accept whatever I decide, so I'm thinking this might be a good middle ground:

Full action to throw an enemy (Move and Standard)

Add a custom version of the Throwing Mastery feat to the device, something like this:

Throwing Mastery (Limited: Grapple): You have a +2 damage bonus to the throw action of grapples per rank in this feat. Your maximum damage bonus with this feat is limited by power level and cannot exceed your rank in Super-Strength.

And just while I'm house-ruling this sort of thing, based on the distance an average person would take to reach the average terminal velocity of a person, I'm suggesting 500ft as the marker for "top speed" of a fall, and therefore 50 damage as the maximum that can be inflicted by throwing an enemy into the air... assuming they don't leave atmosphere!

Thoughts?

[FuzzyBoots]

And just while I'm house-ruling this sort of thing, based on the distance an average person would take to reach the average terminal velocity of a person, I'm suggesting 500ft as the marker for "top speed" of a fall, and therefore 50 damage as the maximum that can be inflicted by throwing an enemy into the air... assuming they don't leave atmosphere!

Actually, the canonical terminal velocity results are +20 damage, which is more than enough in a PL 10 campaign. I believe 3E dropped it to +16, which is even more reasonable. After all, +16 is along the lines of getting hit point-blank by an artillery shell and most falls don't impart nearly that much damage.

If the tactic of being tossed around happens frequently enough, you might want to houserule in a time spent falling. Canonically the throw is instantaneous, but I've always given them a round of falling time to give a chance for teammates to catch them, for them to HP Slowfall to model them catching on to a convenient flag-pole, etc.

[Rabbitman]

Thanks Fuzzyboots, despite my inability to write gratitude that can't be misread as sarcastic, you've been genuinely helpful once again!