Scale
What
happens when a character punches Triceratops? Takes a swing at a
Skyscraper? What if a character with the same strength Attribute has
the Űberstrength aspect? He can take out a bear with one punch or
lift a helicopter off the ground, but lifting an M1 Abrams tank or an
aircraft carrier is still impossible.
At
times like these, the rules may say an attempt at a task is
successful or something occurs, but determining effects of the
interaction can be tricky, because there is such a massive size
difference between the two object, and the damage system is really
only designed to reflect weapons on the level of a human scale. In
most situations like these, the outcome will be pretty obvious. But
to get an idea of the effect of two bodies of vastly different sizes
interact for purposes of describing it to the players, the following
Scale Tool is provided for a quick and dirty estimations on the fly.
The
scale starts at 0, which represent objects 10 kilograms to 50
kilograms in mass. The next value, Scale 1, represents objects of a
mass on the order of 100 kg, and reflects objects with a mass
anywhere from 50 kilograms to about 500 kilograms. Each increase in
the scale represents a further tenfold increase in the order of
magnitude, with the range of each starting from the maximum mass of
the previous range to the half of the order of magnitude for the next
range. (See the Table Below)
Quick
and Dirty Scale Table
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*TBTM= Too Big to Matter
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Scale
Value
|
Magnitude
|
Range
|
Examples
|
0
|
10 kg |
Up to 50 kg
|
Bunny, coati |
1
|
100 kg |
50 to 500 kg
|
Human, small bear, motorcycle, wolverine, bull shark |
2
|
1,000 kg
= 1 tonne |
500 to 5000 kg
|
A large bear, passenger car, semi-truck cabin, RV, school bus full of nuns, civilian helicopter, hippopotamus, great white shark, small private airplane |
3
|
10,000 kg
= 10 tonnes |
5000 to 50,000 kg
|
A triceratops, M1 Abrams tank, empty big rig with trailer, fighter jet, , elephant, stealth offshore powerboat, standard dump truck, construction equipment, assault helicopter |
4
|
100,000 kg
= 100 tonnes |
50,000 to 500,000 kg
|
A blue whale, huge dinosaur, loaded big rig, loaded C130 Hercules, Boeing 747, Air Force 1 |
5
|
1,000,000 kg
= 1000 tonnes |
500,000 to 5,000,000 kg
|
Titan class dump truck, Eiffel Tower |
6
|
10,000,000 kg
= 10,000 tonnes |
5,000,000 to 50,000,000 kg
|
Iowa class battleship, Brooklyn
Bridge
|
7
|
100,000,000 kg
= 100,000 tonnes |
50,000,000 to 500,000,000 kg
|
Nimitz-class Aircraft Carrier, Loaded Oil tanker, Sears/Willis Tower |
8
|
1,000,000,000 kg = 1,000,000 tonnes |
500,000,000 to 5,000,000 kg
|
Golden Gate Bridge, Burj Khalifa Tower, The Great Pyramid of Giza |
21
|
TBTM* |
TBTM*
|
Moon |
Using the
Scale
To
help determine the effects of two massive objects on one another,
determine the mass of each object and figure out which range it falls
in on the Scaling Table. Unless you have some information in front of
you, in the heat of the game, if you don’t know the exact mass of
an object, compare it to some of the examples given or make a list of
your own and make a quick estimation. Once you have determined the
Scale Values for each of the involved objects, compare the values. If
the interacting objects fall within 1 scale of each other, they have
an effect and damage rules can be used. If not, the larger object
overwhelms the smaller object if the durability in your judgment is
equal.
As
an example, two characters with a Scale Value of 1, Sheriff Blokk and
Jacques the Plucky French Weightlifter, decide to have a contest to
see who is more macho. Both characters possess a STR attribute of +5,
however Blokk has the Űberstrength aspect, which effectively
increases his Scale Value by 1 to 2. They both walk up to a
hippopotamus (Scale 2) and flip a coin to see who gets to punch it in
the nose first. Blokk wins the toss, pops the creature in the nose,
and due to his massive strength, is able to inflict enough damage on
the hippo to force it to cringe in pain and back away from the
lawman. Jacques then steps up and strikes the hippo, however his blow
has no effect due to the fact that they are 2 Scale Values apart. The
director decides that the poor hippopotamus gets a free attack. It
opens its mouth, drives its massive teeth through the Frenchman’s
abdomen, and starts whip him back and forth like a rag doll,
shredding his intestines and breaking all of his vertebrae in the
process.
As
a second example, a player later attaches a remote control to an
empty Boeing 747 (Scale 4) and crashes it into an empty skyscraper
days before its grand reopening because he is annoyed that its new
French owners have renamed it (Scale 7). If the durability of the two
objects were the same, there would be very little if any damage done
to the building. The Director, however, takes into account the speed
and explosive potential of a fuel-filled plane and the relative
vulnerability and fragility of a civilian building to such an
assault, and concludes that the plane crash would definitely damage
the building and depending on a random d20 roll, could result in its
complete destruction. On the other hand, if the airliner had crashed
into a Scale 7 alien building that were fully armored against missile
and kamikaze attacks, the plane would not even make a scratch in the
building.
