Last things first, since I open all the threads that need my attention before I answer any of them, the loading time does not make that much difference. I spend more time reading and writing responses than waiting for the Internet.
Since the time-consuming part is sorting through the messages and figuring out how to respond, it goes faster if discrete ideas are in discrete threads--I don't have to organize single posts covering a dozen different topics. Of course, it goes even faster if there aren't as many questions/subjects broached, but the point of having me here is to answer questions, so there's no sense in not asking them. It's just faster if they're separated from each other.
The strength check system usually works in a seat-of-the-pants best guess by the referee. There's a chart on page 405 and again on page 443 which is the outworking of a formula described on page 404. For any stated strength there is a maximum encumbrance, which is the amount it is assumed you can lift and carry automatically, albeit with difficulty. Anything up to twice that can be lifted on a simple strength check, and anything up to twice again that can be lifted on a difficult check. For the 3@10 the rule is specifically stated that a difficult check will successfully lift up to seven thousand six hundred eighty pounds (and you've only got one chance in thirty of failing that check), and that for each doubling of the maximum weight the character suffers +1 on the die, but that on a roll of 1 (11 calculated) any weight can be lifted. Skills enhance strength abilities above that.
It is within the referee's discretion to give a character a similar bonus, within what the referee thinks reasonable, especially if the character has a 3@ strength. That is, if a character had a 3@1 strength his difficult check would allow him to lift up to five thousand nine hundred fifty-two pounds on any roll not greater than (d30+10=)30. Particularly if this is happening in a superhero or magical fantasy world, I would allow twice that weight on any roll not greater than (d30+10+1=)30, and allow him to keep doubling on greater penalties--but I would not apply the "any weight on a one" rule, which I think is reserved for the 3@10 strength. For a character with less strength, I would probably consider allowing some doublings of the maximum weight lifted on a penalty--but with a caveat. It is pretty much given that if you do not have a 3@10 attribute and you roll a 40, that's the attribute equivalent of a botch; in strength, you probably pulled a muscle or otherwise injured yourself (can anyone spell hernia?). If you are attempting to exceed the maximum weight for a difficult check, I would impose the penalty, base my decision on my assessment of how strong the adrenaline rush would be in this circumstance (and thus how many doublings of the maximum weight I would allow) and rather strictly enforce and maybe increase the botch outcome. I note as I type this that since the penalty is a die addition, each doubling increases the chance that the calculated roll will be at least 40, so that's already inherent in the system (clever of me, in retrospect, and probably part of why I did it at the time).
I might have given you a single difficult strength check to attempt to break your handcuffs. I might have penalized it. I probably would have decided that you caused yourself significant pain if you failed (and maybe even if you succeeded), but only considered serious injury if you botched. If you had a 2@ strength, I would certainly have allowed the check, probably without penalty. (The difference is whether I think the force required falls in the category of the weight that can be lifted at that strength.)
Did I cover everything?
--M. J. Young
OK MJ, so it seems my attempt to save you time would actually cost you time. No problem.
Hey, at least I admit it when I realize I'm wrong. You have to give me that much credit!!!!
On the other hand, Thor also has a 3@10 strength (the avatar of the god; I don't know about the Marvel Comics version), and yet it is said that few other gods can lift his hammer. That's because Thor also has a 3@10 skill at lifting, which combined with his 3@10 strength and high bod bias gives him a 100% chance of lifting objects within certain parameters.
If I may, boss: Thor does indeed have 3@10 Strength, 3@10 Lifting, but the rest of your example is somewhat erroneous. In the actual mythology, there is nothing that prevents others from using his hammer. It is, on at least one occasion, stolen from him, and even the hated Jotun have no trouble lifting it, carrying it, and so on.
In the Marvel Comics version, people other than Thor cannot lift it, not because it's heavy, but because it actively resists anyone who is not worthy to wield it. Wonder Woman, for instance, can wield it as easily as does Thor himself, while the Hulk - for all his "I juggle tanks" strength - could lift it only a matter of inches, and that was considered an unprecedented success.
On the other hand, one thing I've seen done in D&D and other things, but not had occasion to see in MultiVerser yet, is scale. Does being big affect your ability to lift, to damage, and so on? Do elephants and the like have Strength on the same scale? Vehicles? Giant mecha? Or, on a smaller scale, does a large, ogre-sized thing like Doomsday have any bonuses over a human-sized thing like Superman?
Yeah, ya know, I was wondering about that too, Osevens. Ants, for instance, have 3@10 strength. They can lift 50 times their own body weight. ("Well, anyone can lift 50 times an ant's weight har har har") But can YOU lift 50 times YOUR body weight?
However, because of their size, it would probably be something like 0@1 strength.
I mean microgram for microgram, I think they're the single strongest animal on earth, but their tiny size would make them weak, compared to most other animals.
The strength scale is in theory fixed, such that if a man and an elephant have the same strength score they have the same strength.
It is a recognized problem with the system, particularly since it means that if you have creatures with 3@ strengths they ought to be able to improve those strengths with training. Fortuitously, there are no living creatures which might have 3@ strengths which also have the intelligence to develop and follow strength training programs, so I think the danger minimal.
--M. J. Young
But there are creatures with 3@ strength docile enough to be trained by someone who has the wits but lacks the strength, no?
Maybe.
Remember, a training program for a 3@ strength has to be triple tripled, and must pack all that work into a relatively short period of time to be effective. That means the trainer is going to have to drive the beast rather hard--and even a docile beast is likely to kick against the goads if pushed hard enough. On the other hand, if the beast is so docile that you can push it that hard to make it that strong, the fact that it has a 3@ strength is not going to turn it into a combat monster no matter what else you do, pretty much.
--M. J. Young
I saw a side by side comparison of the strengths of various animals up against the record strengths of humans. Pound for pound, an elephant is actually weaker than a human. I don't remember the exact numbers, but the human record was 4 times the lifter's body weight of about 500 pounds. The elephant's record, while a considerably larger amount of weight, was only about 1 1/2 times the elephant's body weight. (Of course, it was only using its trunk to lift the weight....)
The one that got me is that a flea can jump 10 inches. (So, anyone can jump 10 inches!!) It works out to something like 250 times the flea's body length. That would be like a human who was 5 feet tall jumping 1,250 feet.
MJ - That's what mind control is for.
A1Nut - Yeah, I saw that. It was like literally being able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.
Yeah, and that's something that really bugs me about Atheists. We have an animal that can jump the equivalent of a quarter mile, and people still insist that there is no God.....
And Osevens. We were both talking about scale. You went to the large side, I went to the small side.
Two posts
I need to correct something I said earlier. The elephant only used its trunk AND TUSKS to lift the weight. It was still a great deal more than what the human ultimately lifted, but by scale, a much smaller amount.
But ya know what else though? I'd like to see which one of them could carry it longer....
Which one could carry their maximum weight longer? Any distance, any speed, so long as it is off the ground. And of course, to keep it fair, the human can't use any kind of mechanical advantages. The elephant doesn't know how to use wheels, pulleys, levers, etc, after all. My money would be on the elephant in a heartbeat.
And here's something to think about. If a flea can jump 1,250 feet, what would happen if it kicked you? If you were lucky, it would probably throw you about 800 feet. What happens to your opponent if you kick them? Is that anywhere close to what the flea can do to you? I'd say our ONLY advantage over these insects is that we ARE bigger than they are.
Three posts
And did you know that ants are actually incredibly intelligent? They are the only other species of animal ON EARTH besides humans that go into battle in lines and formations.
Now I'm thinking about a giant insect world. A few months ago, I would have started a new thread and rambled for several hours. I still need to finish DayWalkers!!!!! See? Therapy's Working!!!!!!
Just a nudge, in case anyone's taken inspiration. A world that evolved (cough cough) where ants were the dominant species. Not humanoid ants, not the giant ants of the B Movie genre. Ants that would be, on scale, the size of humans.
A1Nut - An atheist would argue that today's fleas can jump a quarter of a flea mile because the fleas that couldn't died out, and only the quarter-mile fleas lived to breed.
I agree with you on the flea thing. A flea the size of a man would be scary. Personally, I'd be trying to figure out how to put a saddle on it.
And... an ant world? Really?
I'm not saying it's a terrible idea, it just seems more like a stall world than somewhere I'd want to leave anyone for a long time. Ants don't exactly communicate with anything that isn't another ant, after all, so I don't see a Verser getting swept up in an ant war (the Black Army vs the Redshells, perhaps?). At best I could see a momentary look of confusion, followed by, "Good Gods that's a lot of ants..." *chomp* Next Verse. And chomped by ants is one of those ways I really hope I never Verse Out.
Osevens, regarding putting a saddle on a flea. Think about it. How long does it take a flea to cover that 10 inch distance when it jumps? A man-sized flea would be covering the quarter mile distance in the exact same amount of time!! How fast would it be going? I'd be surprised if it wasn't moving at supersonic speeds at that point.
You must admit, that would be one hell of a mount.
Flea jousting, anyone?
You must admit, that would be one hell of a mount.
Yeah, no joke. All I gotta say is your saddle better have some SERIOUS shock absorbers. A parachute and an ejection seat probably wouldn't be a bad idea either. The flea can survive the impact, can you????
Two posts.
Just for the fun of it, I decided to figure out how fast it would be moving. I don't imagine it would take more than about 1/10th of a second for the flea to jump 10 inches. (If anyone has or can find more accurate data, feel free to let me know.) That means that it would be going 2.5 miles a second, 150 miles a minute, 9,000 miles an hour. The speed of sound is 767 miles per hour at sea level. That works out to MACH 11.73. We have SPACESHIPS that can't go that fast!!!!! God made an animal that could jump a quarter of a mile at almost MACH 12!!!!!!!!!!!! And people say there is no God!!!!!!!
Three Posts, and it's the last
I was also wondering about how much the ant would weigh if it was the size of a human. Osevens and I did some research on it, and we found out something interesting.
For the scale of the ant to be the size of the person, the size to weight ratio would make it an ant that was 6 feet long, and probably weighing several metric tonnes!!! It wouldn't be able to walk!!!! The only reason the ant's body works at all is BECAUSE of it's small size. However, that means that, to an ant, it DOES weigh several metric tonnes, and is in fact lifting 50 times that weight.*
*I've seen anywhere from 20 times to 50 times as the estimate. I've heard 50 times from the largest variety of sources, so its the one I use.
Four Posts, however, it's been 16 hours since the last.
I asked a friend of mine about fleas jumping. He said that if it were true that the flea got to scale MACH 12 at the large speed, then you would still hear little sonic booms every time a normal flea jumped. He couldn't explain why, because his phone battery was dying, but he said that "Speed is not exponential." As his only explanation. Does anyone know what he was talking about?
Multiple posts (I'm doing therapy, I said "Within Reason" Within Reason used to mean 24 posts in a row. This has to be an improvement)
MJ, what you said about the incredible pool table shot? Think about it!!! God disguised the single most versatile and useful medication known to man in a way that would ensure that it would be distributed to the Masses. I mean come on MJ!!! Throw the anti-drug remarks away and think about the facts!!!!!! As a Christian, and as a believer in science, you have to admit that this is completely possible.
Did you know that nutmeg (yes, nutmeg!!) can give you a high very similar to marijuana??? Taken in large doses, it causes a very similar kind of high. (I've tried it) It's also available in every single grocery store in the country!!!! Why isn't nutmeg illegal? Maybe because it has almost no medical value?????? Tell me that God couldn't have set it up exactly that way??????????????
I mean this is The Ultimate "What If?" Factor!!!! The entire point of the Multiverse!!!! God could have set it up from the beginning of time that the single most useful medicine would also be the absolutely most popular recreational drug!!! I mean there could be some low-grade psychotics who are doing exactly the same kind of therapy that I am doing, and they don't even realize it!!!!! They just like the feeling of being high, and so medicate a mental illness that they don't even know they have!!!!!! I mean come on MJ!!! God created Manna, right? They ate those for 40 years in the desert. Show me where it records anyone complaining about that!!!! It was food from God!!!! It was better than anything they had ever tasted!!!! They didn't complain about it!!!!! Is it so unreasonable that marijuana is the modern day equivalent of Manna? The medicine that cures just about anything, and by its very nature, ALSO very popular among recreational users, thus ensuring its widespread use!!!!!!
John, get yourself a blog or something.
You've turned a thread about realistic game mechanics into a call for legalization of an illegal substance, and a rant against anyone who disagrees with you.
Nutmeg is legal because it has been used in cooking for centuries. Marijuana has not been. Incidentally, nutmeg overdoses are fatal, and there is a very thin line between the effective dose and the fatal dose. You are fortunate to be alive.
--M. J. Young