Earth Smashing attacks

[spikevampire]

Hello guys,

I checked on the internet and the diameter of the planet earth seems to be almost 13.000 Km (Rank 21 of length).

According to the rules of thickness and damaging objects the diameter should provide a bonus of 28 to the base toughness of the Stone (5), resulting in a +33 Toughness bonus.

Assuming a routine check to resist the damage, the Earth should be shattered in one blow with a +43 damage right?
DC 15 + 43 = 58
Toughness 10 + 33 = 43 (four degree of failure)

That also imply that people like Galactus should be level 30 or something like this to be able to destroy such planets with easiness.
LV 30 = tradeoffs 20/40 = Damage 40 + critical hit for a defenseless target should do the trick

[Monolith]

Steve Kenson's 3e planet-busting rules can be found here: http://stephen.kenson.home.comcast.net/ ... 6M_3e.html

[Ryan M. Danks]

Steve Kenson's 3e planet-busting rules can be found here: http://stephen.kenson.home.comcast.net/ ... 6M_3e.html

That is awesome! Makes it very easy to create a deathstar .

[Elana]

A normal damage attack that can destroy the planet seems a bit weird.
Considering that if an ant interposes the attack the planet stays unharmed.
Or that if you apply the same damage to a wall you could only destroy a 10' section of it.

And I really see no reason why a whole planet should be more vulnerable to attacks than a wall.

Which of course would mean that you not only have to deal with the toughness, but would also need to apply an area effect that covers the whole territory you want to destroy.

[Monolith]

Not exactly sure how you consider 17 damage to be normal? You're in the nuke damage territory there.

Sometimes we take damage a little too for granted. Burning jet fuel only does 8 damage. Tanks only do 10 damage. Very few natural things get past damage 12. Even tornadoes only do around 4 damage, iirc, and lightning bolts do a random 1-10 damage. Someone doing damage 17 is far from normal.

When we look at damage we just see a dc, but when you put it into context with other things the 12 damage superhero is quite impressive, and those in the 15-20 range are on a godly scale. Heck, John Stewart blew up a planet with his ring.

[spikevampire]

I personally handle the damage very carefully... incredibly powerful heroes has damage from 12 to 15 maximum (which I consider already low cosmic-nuke level).

When destroying objects you should take in account the thickness of the object, but I skip this calculation when the damage effect has an area. In this way since the force isn't applied only in one point of the structure, but It's instead spread equally on every square meter of it, it should take in to account the thickness bonus


Anyway thank you so much for the help with the Kenson's blog! It actually says the same and add the imperviousness which is a classy touch I wasn't considering

thanks as always

[Belial666]

A rank 15 multiattack with the Power Attack and Ultimate Aim advantages costs 32-47 points (depending on it being ranged or not) and is available to PL 10 heroes. Said PL 10 hero uses the Extra Effort for an extra action, spends a HP and Ultimate Aims. Then, using his second action for the same round, he will full power-attack.

The hero's attack roll gets -5 for the PA but +20 for Ultimate Effort. It hits automatically with that +20 total to attack. Base damage 15, +5 for Power Attack, +5 for automatic critical hit, +5 for multiattack, for a total of 30. Toughness DC 45, which most targets (small planets included) will probably fail dismally.

[Batgirl III]

And the GM says, "No."

[xquel]

The hero's attack roll gets -5 for the PA but +20 for Ultimate Effort. It hits automatically with that +20 total to attack. Base damage 15, +5 for Power Attack, +5 for automatic critical hit, +5 for multiattack, for a total of 30. Toughness DC 45, which most targets (small planets included) will probably fail dismally.

Ultimate Aim doesn't threaten a crit. It is NOT a natural 20 on the die. Per RAW anyway. I don't have the rulebook with me, but the rules is under critical hits.

[Batgirl III]

I just have a lot of trouble with the idea that Superman can crack the world.

Based on the Slam Attack maneuver, Kal-El could take a full Move and hit for Damage Effect 16... Following the mat on Steve's Blog let’s assume the Superman is going to take the option of making an attack check, for a critical hit and +5 Damage. Likewise, let’s assume Kal-El goes for a Power Attack for +5 Damage, and some extra effort (for +1 Damage).

That's DC41... based on Steve's numbers, Clark can kill planets.

[Earth-Two_Kenn]

Only if the Earth rolls bad. Like 5 or less on the damage check.

Let's assume Earth has Second Chance(damn near everything).

Let's also assume that most asteroids don't, so that Superman can break up the big oncoming threats, but keeps Earth safe....

[Batgirl III]

My problem isn't with the damage that Superman can do... Superman has a full Move flight speed of Mach 84. That's going to hurt almost anything it impacts. No, my problem is that Steve's numbers severely weaken the Earth!

By my, very rough math, an object roughly Superman's size and as dense as typical stone (he's indestructible, right?) will have an around 2.27 x 10^12 Joules of energy. Roughly equal to 0.54 x 10^-3 MegaTons TNT. There is going to be some atmospheric drag and those numbers assume a vacuum... but, close enough for government work. That is to say, it's nothing as far as the Earth is concerned.

Now, if you're players want to get really devious (or you are a player and really want to irk your GM) then what you need to do is ask "Just how fast is Space Flight 2 anyway?" Have your Green Lantern expy head into high Earth orbit in order to face the alien armada, but bring with him a 15 lbs. bag of kitty litter. Power Stunt an "Affects Others" extra onto your Movement (Space Flight [2]) power... point it at the enemy mothership and let'er rip: a 15 lbs. mass traveling at a velocity of 90% of the speed of light has an impact energy of 195 megatons.

My players and I have a long-standing "gentleman's agreement" not to use relativistic weapons in our roleplaying campaigns... ever since "The Faerûn Incident That We Do Not Discuss™".

[Monolith]

No, my problem is that Steve's numbers severely weaken the Earth!

If you want to accept that premise that people like John Stewart can blow up the planet Xanshi with his power ring then you need to accept two things:

1) Characters like Superman who punch with the force of nuclear explosions aren't weak: anyone doing 17+ damage to injure a planet is using nuclear level force regularly.
2) Planets aren't omnipotent.

I don't much care for that auto-critical rule in 3e but if you want people like Superman to be earth-shakers then you need planets that are shakeable.

[Batgirl III]

Jon Stewart did not blow up Xanshi. No, really. Not is fault. The event itself happened in Cosmic Odyssey Book Two: Disaster, back in... oh, January `89, IIRC.

He is, more or less, responsible for its destruction due to his arrogance at trying to stop the Anti-Life Aspect from doing so single-handed... The Anti-Life Aspect place a bomb at the planet's core. A yellow bomb. If he hadn't sent the Martian Manhunter away, then J'onn could have dealt with them bomb. But the bad guy made it yellow and Jon tried to handle things solo.

The Anti-Life Aspect had already destroyed significant chunks of Xanshi before it detonated the bomb, and since It was the big bad evil guy of the entire Cosmic Odyssey behind the bomb... and he was meant to serve as a challenge to Superman, Batman, the Green Lantern Corps, and the New Gods (both Highfather's crew and Darkseid's). Yeah, I'm pretty comfortable writing off the Anti-Life Aspect as a PLX Plot Device rather than a character.

[Monolith]

Yeah, I'm pretty comfortable writing off the Anti-Life Aspect as a PLX Plot Device rather than a character.

After reading several of your posts I get the idea that you're big into the plx handwaving plot device, but many players prefer tangible over handwaving. There are many people who play in pl15+ cosmic games where destroying moons and eating planets are actual game events rather then plot devices.

The game has to work for all those player types. The plot device that works for you doesn't necessarily work for others; and luckily Steve Kenson was nice enough to give some guidelines for those people.