Funny Effects of Geometric Scaling and Hyperbole Powers

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Superfanboy
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Funny Effects of Geometric Scaling and Hyperbole Powers

Post by Superfanboy »

One thing that's always been the funniest to me regarding both comics and super RPG scaling is the complex of abilities that relate to dexterity, Agility, and speed (travel, reflexes, maneuver and fine motor skills). To judge by how a lot of the builds go the person is supposed to, overall, multiple times faster than any human and can run faster than a jet car while turning on a dime, and put together a computer at the same relative speed. Now in real life this would make you deadly and virtually indestructible in hand to hand, pretty dangerous in a gun fight, and if taken beyond a certain point they'd basically have to trick you into walking onto a nuke to win. Speed and coordination represent a massive increase in energy, and make you hit harder with more concentrated energy. If I was trying to fight someone twice as fast as me, on average, it would be virtually impossible to win unless I just shot them by surprise. And if their bodies can take the stress of running at Mach 2, they might just tank the bullet!

Comics have all sorts of weird explanations for these effects, they're not always true acceleration, but a lot of them would still have the same basic effect. It's kind of like being Ryu in MMA, if you can shoot a fireball you basically win.
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catsi563
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Re: Funny Effects of Geometric Scaling and Hyperbole Powers

Post by catsi563 »

the biggest example of that is Super Strength. you see bricks of various sorts towing islands or lifting buildings or massive ships which is an awesome picture to see but reality and physics means the item being lifted would crumble around the person in question or fold or break apart
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Ares
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Re: Funny Effects of Geometric Scaling and Hyperbole Powers

Post by Ares »

Yeah, there's a reason superpowers either have a lot of work put in to explaining why they break physical laws . . . or they just get handwaved away.

Superstrength there's all kinds of things, from the object breaking under it's own weight to the the character sinking into the ground because the weight of the object he's lifting is now being supported by his comparatively tiny feet, how grabbing part of something to lift it would most likely result in just ripping off a chunk of the object, etc. Also how trying to stop something like a moving train or even a car would be impossible due to the low weight-to-mass ratio of the superstrong guy versus the car, truck or train.

There's a reason why comics either tend to just ignore things like this, or have some explanation like the characters have a tactile telekinetic field or can somehow manipulate gravity with their muscles. I've got my own explanation for how it works in my setting, but it's very setting specific.
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Superfanboy
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Re: Funny Effects of Geometric Scaling and Hyperbole Powers

Post by Superfanboy »

Valiant comics tried a little bit by having a super strong girl wear uranium weights so she could get proper leverage and inertia to use her power. But then they had robot destroying karate, which is even worse than unreasonably stable super strength, so whatever.

Realistically super strong and fast people wouldn't be able to do a lot of comic feats but they would basically instantly kill normal people. It would be like fighting a forklift with a 140IQ and the agility of a tiger.
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