Question about Inhuman Strength

[Belial666]

Do note that parrying with weapons does not only mean blocking the enemy weapon. It can mean a small redirection enough to foul his aim. It may also mean press against his weapon so that you move out of the way or even take advantage of that extra momentum in your own attack. Direct blocking, while the most often used parrying technique, is neither the smartest thing to do nor the most effective. It is simply the least complicated and thus easiest to learn.

[ways and means]

Do note that parrying with weapons does not only mean blocking the enemy weapon. It can mean a small redirection enough to foul his aim. It may also mean press against his weapon so that you move out of the way or even take advantage of that extra momentum in your own attack. Direct blocking, while the most often used parrying technique, is neither the smartest thing to do nor the most effective. It is simply the least complicated and thus easiest to learn.

While this may matter at inhuman levels of strength when you get beyond this that argument ceases to have any real importance at supernatural strength you have the same force as a speeding car in your attacks (perhaps a slight exaggeration)  and at mythic strength you have the same force as a speeding truck. Now I ask you this how exactly would you parry a blade moving with the same force as a speeding car (we are probably talking about a blade moving way in access of over 100 miles an hour hear) the momentum alone would be hard to divert at human levels of strength. It is actually the speed boost that super strength implies for weapons that makes me think that the might bonus should add to weapons roll, faster attacks are both harder to dodge and too parry.

[zenten]

While this may matter at inhuman levels of strength when you get beyond this that argument ceases to have any real importance at supernatural strength you have the same force as a speeding car in your attacks (perhaps a slight exaggeration)  and at mythic strength you have the same force as a speeding truck. Now I ask you this how exactly would you parry a blade moving with the same force as a speeding car (we are probably talking about a blade moving way in access of over 100 miles an hour hear) the momentum alone would be hard to divert at human levels of strength. It is actually the speed boost that super strength implies for weapons that makes me think that the might bonus should add to weapons roll, faster attacks are both harder to dodge and too parry.

Why are you assuming they would move faster?  Really strong people don't move weapons faster than those that aren't as strong (as long as the weapon isn't too heavy for someone).  And the force of a punch isn't dependant on it moving faster either.

[ways and means]

The stronger you are the easier you can move something heavy, the lighter the weapon the faster it can be moved, greater strength makes things relatively lighter and there for easier to move at a greater speed. The extra damage from strength powers from melee weapons has to come from the blades force and if we assume the weapon is the same weapon rating before and after introduction of strength powers that means you have the same leverage, blade sharpness and blade weight then the biggest variable left to account for the damage increase is blade momentum. Then again for a fighter I would be perfectly happy if all of the fighting skills modified blades or fist, because a fighter who is both stronger (might) more fleet of foot (athletics) and has more stamina (endurance) should me more effective than someone who is slower, weaker and has less stamina even if they have the same level of skill with a blade or their hands that is just me, I also like the fact that if you allow might to modify melee then a massively strong opponent might be as big a threat as they are in the novels and might even be able to compete with a well speced evocator .

[Sanctaphrax]

1. I maintain that a massively strong character can compete with an evoker. Maybe the evoker is stronger, but not by a lot.

2. I also maintain that skills take physical capability into account.

3. Logically, Strength kinda has to make a sword swing faster unless you twist the physics a bit.

This is because a stronger character can by definition exert more kinetic energy. Kinetic energy comes from a mixture of speed and mass. And Strength doesn't make you heavier, does it?

But it often seems, from the way it is depicted, that magical strength is accompanied by some kind of phantom mass.

So yeah. Whatever.

[Belial666]

Go ahead. Tell the gal with the powers below that she ain't as good in combat as a wizard. I triple-dog-dare ya. She can "only" beat a half dozen Blampires at a time into a bloody pulp. And given statistically even rolls, you're gonna have to blast her with ten Power 8 Control 8 evocations before she goes down, while she's hitting you with weapon 6 attack +6 blows. Maybe, if you're an extremely focused evoker, you can take her on in a fair fight. But it could go both ways.

[-2] Inhuman Strength
[-2] Supernatural Toughness with +2 catch
[-1] Evasion: use Athletics for defense against magic and energy attacks
[-1] Monk AC: when unarmored and unencumbered, +2 to your Dodge trapping
[+1] Human Form modifying
[-2] Inhuman Speed
[-1] Flight (glowy aura instead of wings)
[-1] Gauntlets of Talos (IoP)
 . . It is What It is: heavy meteoric iron spiked gauntlets. w2 for fists
 . . Olympic Might: raise strength by 1 rank (normal to inhuman, or inhuman to supernatural, or supernatural to mythic)
 . . True Aim

[ways and means]

Comparable refresh Non-Optomised Evocator Build

Pyromancy [-2]
Ritual Enchanted Items [-2]
5 Refinement [-5]

Ends up with 10 accuracy, 8 power fire castor with 10 strength block enchanted item 8 times a session , who rolling equal with your character will take her out in four turns with consequences  (considering your defense is 8 so he cause 8 stress each turn given equal numbers) in none if which you will hit him because his defense beats your attack by 4 shifts.

Anyone using an optomised Psychomancy wizard build could take her out in one or two hits without much problem.

[Belial666]

This is a fairly optimized evocator build as it is the maximum power/control one can have at submerged sans Lawbreakers (IoP or no IoP, you can't have higher focus than +5). But your assessment of the results is flawed. Here's how my run of the combat ended up;

Round 1:
a) Awesome Gal activates inhuman speed as a supplemental (if she hasn't already) then aims as a normal action
b) Evocator hits Awesome Gal for 8 stress.
Round 2:
a) Awesome Gal, seeing she's facing a big wizardly type and needs to neutralize him fast, smashes the evocator's staff using her huge bonus for smashing things! She rolls at +6 for supernatural strength, +4 for her normal strength, +2 for aiming, maybe +2 for a fate point if she doesn't roll well enough. She smashes the staff even through the evocator's puny block!
b) Evocator shoots his now control-5 evocation and misses.
Round 3:
a) Awesome Gal lifts off the ground and acheives "perfect balance" in thin air.
b) Evocator uses his FP and a good roll for a +9 attack +8 power and Awesome Gal tags "perfect balance" to raise her defense to +10. Odds are she avoids it but at worst she takes a mild consequence.
Round 4:
a) Seeing she's a bit hurt, Awesome Gal uses her speed's free move (plus supplementals if required) to position herself in the desired location (and readies to use that speed again - but the Evocator doesn't know that)
b) Evocator "focuses" so he gets a bonus to control so he can use more power on his next spell.
Round 5:
a) Awesome Gal just sits there, waiting for the next attack (still readying)
c) Evocator rolls well, tags Awesome Gal's consequence and his "focused" aspect to nova at Control 11 Power 13 (mild mental and 2 backlash taken). Awesome Gal uses her readied action to superspeed-move around a building corner, behind a tree or other cover that can take the hit instead of her (having positioned herself right after she was hurt and expecting a nova). With 7 zones movement she could even move out of the evocator's sight completely. Thus she dodges the nova.

In your assessment, you missed a few things;

1) Once they have the initiative, a highly mobile enemy can always ready to avoid enemy attacks from a single opponent. Unless the fight is in some featureless plane, they can also always disengage after they've dealt some damage, wait a few mins for stress recovery then come back in for round two with that damage still there. Said damage includes resources the wizard cannot recover such as uses/day for his enchanted items. I decided not to go this tactical approach because a) it is highly annoying and takes forever to run and b) the speedster pretty much wins outright.

2) Big magic items give a bonus to others noticing them equal to their bonus. So a lore of +3 trying to sense a +5 item rolls at Legendary ( +8 ), pretty much always succeeding. Also, an item with 5 focus slots is staff-sized and thus physically obvious.

3) Strength powers DO give big bonuses to attacking objects with Might. Foci and enchanted items are objects so a superstrong character can easily smash a wizard's focus and enchanted items. But that's not the only way. Awesome Gal could have broken the floor under the wizard's feet, using Might with the breaking bonus as a maneuver to trip him if they were on normal ground, as an attack if they were on a building/bridge/high place and he could fall through the hole. She could have dropped the roof on him or a car (or other heavy weight), making a block with her strength power bonus by burying him under the weight.

4) Suppose the Evocator won the fight. He still would not do so easily. But casters are at their absolute strongest vs single enemies in short combats. If he and Awesome Gal both had to fight a large number of enemies such as a dozen ghouls, gruffs, elves and the like, chances are he'd die messily while she'd wipe the floor with them.



As you can see, strength and speed are just as useful as major evocation talents. They might be of less utility than thaumaturgy, but give a guy with supernatural strength a couple of minutes and he can still bring down the Empire State Building.

[ways and means]

I see it more likely that in the first round the wizards puts a lot of stress or consequences into his ring of fire block on athletics and movement say 12 or 14, he then moves one zone away as a supplemental action away, he then extends the spell which means that until you beat the athletics block (usually with athletics or endurance as it does not restrict the might skill) you have an effective athletics of mediocre which actually ends up being a block against attack because you can't get to him and use the opportunity for incineration when your strongest defense has been nullified.

[ways and means]

Though I have to admit that a melee build can compare with a evocation build but only when using the sacred guardian ability, which I actually find to be more useful for a melee build than mythic strength and only for 1 refresh (+4 to attack rolls are killer), though that build is only really good when combined with a high discipline/conviction and a stunt to boost defense against mental attacks or a power that lets your recover mental stress (blood drinker).

[Richard_Chilton]

Left out one thing in the combat...

The wizard draws a magic circle - and supernatural girl can't cross it.

Richard

[Sanctaphrax]

Magic circles only work against certain types of character. There is no indication that the girl in question here belongs to one of those types.

I don't like Sacred Guardian.

I could say a lot about the example, but I'll restrain myself. I just want to point out a couple of things:

-Enchanted items are not part of Evocation, and as such are not really relevant to the comparison I was making.
-ways and means has an odd definition of non-optimized.
-Evokers are usually rather fragile, which means that Speed and Strength together can be a huge problem for them.

[Becq]

Comparable refresh Non-Optomised Evocator Build

Pyromancy [-2]
Ritual Enchanted Items [-2]
5 Refinement [-5]

Ends up with 10 accuracy, 8 power fire castor with 10 strength block enchanted item 8 times a session , who rolling equal with your character will take her out in four turns with consequences  (considering your defense is 8 so he cause 8 stress each turn given equal numbers) in none if which you will hit him because his defense beats your attack by 4 shifts.

Anyone using an optomised Psychomancy wizard build could take her out in one or two hits without much problem.

Are you using a custom template?  I don't see how you get 10 accuracy without specializations from those retirements, and a Focused Practitioner (Pyromancy) can't have them.

[Belial666]

1) You cannot make a block against defense rolls. You may trick people into not making defense rolls but actually preventing them from doing so is not allowed. So even if you block her athletics, she still gets her normal defense - though she doesn't have to (see below)

2) A ring of fire blocking athletics won't stop a superman equivalent. She could fly over it (moving straight up instead of through). And if it's a dome of fire, she could still smash through the ground under it. An effective might of +10 is no trifling ability; someone could walk through any barriers sort of fortified vault doors without even having to roll to break them.

3) Suppose your big trap somehow works; she now can't follow you. What prevents her from breaking the floor and lifting up a couple huge pieces into a makeshift barrier from your magic until your entrapment spell ends? (using Might to make a block. Got the idea from what Superman does in the last superman animation episode to stop Darkseid's Omega Beams. Really good animation BTW)

4) A magic circle? Seriously? Against someone that can pick up a very real truck and whack you with it while your own attack method is based on magic?

5) There is no way to tell someone is ridiculously strong, fast and tough before you see them using that supernatural power unless they belong to a specific race you know of. Wizards on the other hand - especially those using big foci - are immediately recognizable. So the wizard cannot know the blonde, blue-eyed 5-ft-tall girl can punch through tank armor or dodge bullets or that she is even non-mortal (she might not be - a young scion, changeling or faerie knight might count as human for Lawbreaking if they are mortal). Is he going to go nova the first round of combat against every single opponent? OTOH, the schoolgirl from Krypton will know what the spellcaster is and isn't going to have any Lawbreaking-related ramifications to consider before attacking.

6) Yes, I could definitely add Blood-Drinker and Feeding Dependency: Blood, plus a Sacred Guardian equivalent instead of Wings into this build. But I was not going for brokenness - just a fairly strong build.




In general, Strength powers have a crapload of uses beyond adding stress. They can be used in attacks, blocks and maneuvers at their full (and significant) bonus if you are creative. I'd made a post a few months back when a Strength vs Speed powers topic came up. I'd started writing good uses for Strength bonuses in all kinds of situations and I stopped when I lost count at about three dozen. The asnwer to "strength powers are weak" is "start being creative".

[The Mighty Buzzard]

3. Logically, Strength kinda has to make a sword swing faster unless you twist the physics a bit.

Not necessarily.  You've got to take into account the effort put into swinging through the target rather than at it.  The instant contact is made, all the kinetic energy in the attack is transfered but you put more into it via continued muscle contraction.  Yeah, I know it's pedantic but sometimes I just can't resist.