Why would you hit somebody with a car?

[slaughterj]

So to summarize, the book already penalizes you action wise (spending the whole turn) to grab and throw the target. The game further penalizes you due to the toughness of the creatures being thrown and the one being thrown at, and the higher the damage roll the the less accurate the attack is going to be! Furthermore, the player, to throw the object a sufficient distance, will need to invest the same amount of points if not more than a blast attack to even be able to effectively grapple and throw the target the required distance.

With all the penalties associated with the attack, your not getting that much effectiveness with the attack to begin with. Its hardly a "free attack" as your going to deal less amount of damage than if you were to just damage the player on that same turn.

What attack penalties are you talking about? And why would you do less than STR damage to the foe being thrown and the foe being struck?

[Entropicurity]

In many cases that's simply not true; if a typical powerhouse picks up and throws a typical energy controller at another brick, he's doing as much damage to them as he would if he'd hit them. He may not succeed at both attacks (but if he succeeds on the first, he's likely doing substantial damage to the energy controller at the least if he's in any environment where there are reinforced concrete walls around). He's not playing double or nothing after all.

And in those cases, an attack like such is no different than a regular blast attack from any other character! Only difference between a regular blast attack and this would bet the fact that your spending the whole turn to do so, that and your spending twice as many power points to achieve that, if not more.

Taken as strike as an equal PL for the Power House would be equivalent to a 1pp/rank Strike Attack, changed to Full Round action and then added an extra for a blast attack.

With a grapple attack, your paying twice the amount as the strike put together above. Alternatively, a character who is a blaster as you say will more times than not invest at least some points in a defensive power. The Energy Controller has a +12 toughness with impervious shield included, and if thrown by an attack they can activate their shield as a free action after being released from the grapple, effectively negating the throw all together. The Mystic even has a +12 Impervious shield, also as a free action.

Unless your putting together a character that has a higher defense than the power house has attack and your toughness is as low as a fraction of the PL where as the Power House has an increased damage, thats the risk you take for taking those said exchanges and you should be expecting such, and as such the costs already have justified these choices.

[UnkindMirror]

The Energy Controller has a +12 toughness with impervious shield included, and if thrown by an attack they can activate their shield as a free action after being released from the grapple, effectively negating the throw all together. The Mystic even has a +12 Impervious shield, also as a free action.

No, they can't. Free Actions are not Reactions, they can only be used on the character's turn.

Though since Force Field is Sustained, there's little reason why they wouldn't have that activated already. Not that it would be of any special use against an attack of the Paragon or Powerhouse, since Impervious only blocks attacks of a rank lesser than its own.
But again, Free Actions are not Reactions.

[Entropicurity]

What attack penalties are you talking about? And why would you do less than STR damage to the foe being thrown and the foe being struck?

When you use an attack that works like knockback as the rules in the book state, you take the Lesser of the Toughness of the obsticle being thrown at (or in the case of a player, their toughness), or the Knockback modifier (Which in the case of the throw, the knockback is the creatures base Strength modifier minus half of the player's toughness modifier). The post I made details this, page numbers included.

[Entropicurity]

No, they can't. Free Actions are not Reactions, they can only be used on the character's turn.

Though since Force Field is Sustained, there's little reason why they wouldn't have that activated already. Not that it would be of any special use against an attack of the Paragon or Powerhouse, since Impervious only blocks attacks of a rank lesser than its own.
But again, Free Actions are not Reactions.

Even if that is indeed the case, you subtract half of their toughness modifier from their strength modifier, and in such cases that damage is negated. And unless the power house or paragon grapples AND damages you, you won't need the concentration check to maintain the power.

[UnkindMirror]

And why would you do less than STR damage to the foe being thrown and the foe being struck?

It might be of use to sift through the ORQ topics on throwing.
In this one, Steve states that he uses full Strength damage for both people involved, the one thrown, and the one the other is thrown at.

It's from Jan 07, 2006. Anyone got something more recent that contradicts this?

[daniel_ream]

Steve also says that the slam option presented by the OP is fine, too, so I don't think that post really qualifies as The Word of God on the subject.

[UnkindMirror]

Steve also says that the slam option presented by the OP is fine, too, so I don't think that post really qualifies as The Word of God on the subject.

Agreed, but neither Strength damage nor Slam damage are reduced by the Knockback modifier, so that might be of interest.

[ShoNuff77]

was I the only one who thought when they read the title of this thread "because if you can dodge a car, you can dodge a ball?"

[Paragon]

In many cases that's simply not true; if a typical powerhouse picks up and throws a typical energy controller at another brick, he's doing as much damage to them as he would if he'd hit them. He may not succeed at both attacks (but if he succeeds on the first, he's likely doing substantial damage to the energy controller at the least if he's in any environment where there are reinforced concrete walls around). He's not playing double or nothing after all.

And in those cases, an attack like such is no different than a regular blast attack from any other character! Only difference between a regular blast attack and this

Except you get to damage both the target and the thrown character; this is not trivial. The only ways to normally do that involve Extras.

would bet the fact that your spending the whole turn to do so, that and your spending twice as many power points to achieve that, if not more.

How are you spending more power points? Because of the Super-Strength? That's serving many other purposes than just allowing you to do this.

[Entropicurity]

Except you get to damage both the target and the thrown character; this is not trivial. The only ways to normally do that involve Extras.

Probably due to the fact that you are being dealt a significant less amount of damage. Sure if your toughness isn't that high you take a lot more damage but thats the trade-off that one would have paid.

How are you spending more power points? Because of the Super-Strength? That's serving many other purposes than just allowing you to do this.

Doing the math I've done in my previous point this seemed to be the case. I could always be wrong though so lets look at it all and see.

Its costs 2pp for every +1 of strength, which gives you one more bonus to Unarmed Damage and Grapple Checks. This is the same as you would be paying for a grapple attack at Range Melee with the Damaging Extra which is same cost. Assuming you want to throw the creature (Assuming a 150lb character to be grappled and thrown) you'd need at least 13 STR to pick up the person and throw them a total of 5 feet. With Strength 30 you can throw 50 feet, which is half the distance of a normal ranged power, which also gets the added benefit of getting aditional knockback.

So the cost seems the same with this. Though the fact that you can use this to move a creature and deal damage to both parties involved seems substantial, but the damage being dealt is minimal with the normal constraints of what is expected at that PL (with taking nothing more than a bruise being the most lethal damage taken). It seems to me that this is like having a strike with a reduced damage modifier to increase the knockback modifier at an equal interval (-1 for every +1 of knockback).

The way I was looking at the attack though, was having a blast attack with the full round modifier, with a reduced range (half the range of a normal attack) and reduced damage, coming out to less than 1pp/rank.

Am I missing something?

- Christopher

[slaughterj]

What attack penalties are you talking about? And why would you do less than STR damage to the foe being thrown and the foe being struck?

When you use an attack that works like knockback as the rules in the book state, you take the Lesser of the Toughness of the obsticle being thrown at (or in the case of a player, their toughness), or the Knockback modifier (Which in the case of the throw, the knockback is the creatures base Strength modifier minus half of the player's toughness modifier). The post I made details this, page numbers included.

Given the quotes above about Steve Kenson using STR against the thrown foe and the foe being hit, versus the mention about Slam, doesn't seem to make your statement a given about damage. Most people probably go with Steve's response. Plus, as noted, half Toughness is just Impervious Toughness, so even under your route, it only gets reduced under certain circumstances.

Finally, think about it just a little bit - if you throw someone generally and they would take STR damage, why would it be switched to the potentially reduced Knockback damage if you throw someone *at* someone else in particular?

[Paragon]

Doing the math I've done in my previous point this seemed to be the case. I could always be wrong though so lets look at it all and see.

Its costs 2pp for every +1 of strength, which gives you one more bonus to Unarmed Damage and Grapple Checks. This is the same as you would be paying for a grapple attack at Range Melee with the Damaging Extra which is same cost.

It also gives you lift, which while not a combat ability per se, is still a value.

So the cost seems the same with this. Though the fact that you can use this to move a creature and deal damage to both parties involved seems substantial, but the damage being dealt is minimal with the normal constraints of what is expected at that PL (with taking nothing more than a bruise being the most lethal damage taken). It seems to me that this is like having a strike with a reduced damage modifier to increase the knockback modifier at an equal interval (-1 for every +1 of knockback).

I'm still not sure why you think the damage is minimal; the damage should be the opposite target's Toughness or your Strength damage, whichever is lower, which in most cases will be approximately the PL of the campaign if using it against fellow supers.

The way I was looking at the attack though, was having a blast attack with the full round modifier, with a reduced range (half the range of a normal attack) and reduced damage, coming out to less than 1pp/rank.

Am I missing something?

- Christopher

Not per se, but the range issue is so trivial in most cases that if you're viewing it as a Flaw, you're almost certainly overvaluing how much it matters. And in most cases where you actually see this (usually in the hands of Powerhouse, Paragon or other similar builds) the range can be substantial since Super-Strength adds to lift and therefor throwing range, even though it has no effect on damage. Naturally Super-Strength has an associated cost too, but since its usually being taken for other reasons, its not a cost that actually effects this as the users would have it anyway. Same with the typical TK/Move Object cases.

[Entropicurity]

I can definitely see why there is so much problem with this though, up till now I've been subtracting toughness from the knockback as a means of including an objects mass/weight for thrown objects. Its not entirely accurate but does the trick for both limiting the damage when more than one object is included. I've just recently got the Pocket Players Guide and have been looking over it, and strangely enough they don't reference knockback damage for throwing characters as improvised weapons.

On the other hand, a character is considered an improvised weapon and as such the throwing distance for the attack roll is one fifth the maximum throwing distance, each increment imposes another -2 penalty, which is something I didn't see before. As such, using the equation I had in my last post, a character would only normally be able to throw another character a distance of only 10 feet per range increment (50 feet being the max distance) which seems like another penalty in my mind, would be like having a drawback of a reverse range increment.

For the most part I haven't had any issues running the grappling mechanic from the first book, and although its not something most players use, its still something I find keeps the game flow going. I just have players keep track of their Knockback modifiers (Half Toughness + Immovable + Size Mod) and their attack bonus (Total Power Rank of their offensive power or base strength modifier) and just apply the modifiers with each attack. Doing this keeps the game pretty smooth for me, and for the most part players haven't had the need to worry to much about it being a game breaker as its not that effective of an attack with the reduced damage, though makes for a fun display of power (Strength Mastermind gets attacked by a mind controlled minion, picks up the minion and throws him at the Telepath!). Thats just been how I've handled it myself, as pointed out Steve might be doing it differently.

All in all though, if the full strength is being used as the attack, I'd agree that it needs some more tweeking by the game developers. Till then though I'll still be using the lesser of knockback or toughness for most attacks used in this fashion, assuming a player would use that mechanic.

[ronyon]

I love Grappling, so I have some links on this :

Bowling For People

Green Gremlin
Hireling
So I just had my game night and a certain thing came up that I need alil help with. The player grabbed his target, grappled with him successfully and was going to throw said target into another target. Now the question is could he do this in one turn and what would the rules be on figuring that out?



Steve Kenson
Mastermind:
Per M&M, page 157: "You can pick up and throw your opponent like an inanimate object. The throw occurs as a move action as part of the grapple."

So, yes, he can do it in one turn. Treat the throw as a ranged attack against the target the character is throwing his grappled foe at. If he hits, do unarmed Strength damage to both targets. If he misses, just do Strength damage to the thrown guy.

http://www.atomicthinktank.com/viewtopic.php?t=21817&highlight=per++157+pick+throw+opponent+inanimate+object+throw+occurs+move+action+part+grapple



Of course Steve love grappling too, and may be bit biased.This link shows him giving yet another boost to Grapple:http://www.atomicthinktank.com/viewtopic.php?t=11892&highlight=pinned