Durability, Endurance, and the Common Cold

[Angry_Dummy]

I'd like to begin by saying that, while I can visualize the difference in scale between different tiers of power and speed (even 2-C and up, though in a very crude and rudimentary manner), I do not understand the physics and math behind them.

This is why I ask myself questions such as, "How does this site determine or rule the effectiveness of diseases, poisons, acids, and drugs?"

My curiosity on the subject first began when I was wondering whether or not, when imagining how I might write a Dragon Ball fanfic involving a 10-B villain or two that was actually engaging, Goku could be harmed by poisons now that planet-busting feats hardly even tickle him.


What I know, or at least think I know, is that durability measures the ability to take a hit and not disintigrate and endurance instead measures stamina, and that most tough creatures are more capable of the latter than the former, and that examples of the former in both real life and some fiction are vulnerable to illnesses, with whales getting infections, martians dying to the common cold, and the immense Knucker getting killed by a poisoned pie.

Regenerationn either solves, fails to solve, or worsens the problem. Either leprosy isn't a problem for the regenerator, your Regenerationn falters while burned or poisoned like a troll, or your name is Deadpool and you're butt-ugly.

Healing magic or technology handling disease is a power specifically devoted to healing. It doesn't translate into anything else, nor does anything else translate into it.


So, with that said, how would we determine whether or not a character is vulnerable to diseases, poisons, drugs, and acids without anything in the source material explicitly addressing these issues? I need to know if a necromancer could slam the Hulk with hemophilia, or if a muggle could injure a saiyan by mixing concentrated sulphuric acid with highly concentrated hydrogen peroxide and daring him to drink it.

 

[Reppuzan]

Well, I suppose that would depend more on the character's history than anything.

For example, someone from AGK might have City-Block level durability, but even they have to worry about poisons and drugs.

However, someone like Killua Zoldyck has been trained to handle drugs and poisons of all kinds, so it would be safe to say that he'd be immune to pretty much anything that isn't incredibly supernatural (such as the poisons of Toriko's Coco and Akame's One-Hit-Kill Poison)

I don't think durability or stamina can directly translate into drug or poison resistance since it simply works in a manner different from conventional combat.

Of course, as Yamatohime said, significant Regenerationn abilities can easily counter most drugs in works of fiction and can bestow complete immunity in extreme cases (such as Wolverine and Deadpool).

 

[Yamatohime]

I think diseases could be countered with ease via high-low Regenerationn and higher. As for poison and drugs - aside from regenration simple poison resistances should do the work. Acid is probalby durability feat though.

 

[DontTalk]

My opinion:

Acid falls under durability, except otherwise stated.

Illnesses can for the most part be assumed to ignore common durability, I believe.

Poison usually as well, if it is possible to infuse it with proper amounts.

Note however, that many verses using poisons and the like have it so that naturally far stronger characters are not effected.


High-Low Regenerationn usually heals all of them or at least postpones them so much that they become irrelevant to the battle.

 

[Yamatohime]

Well, it's actualy quite simple. After some thought.

Diseases work from inside so durability is useless. One should have immunity (different biology can grant immunity) or resistance to the said disease or simply superior healing factor to counter disease effects.

Poisons and drugs are... Poisons according to Biology books. So poison resistances are good way to counter them. Completely different biology is a good way too. Any Regenerationn could slow down or remove their effects outright.

Acids are simple. They are durability feats since they attack from outside.

 

[Angry_Dummy]

Magella would like to talk with ya'll about this "durability keeps you from dissolving," idea.

Trolls regenerate from all damage, be it slashing, bludgeoning, cold, necrotic, radiant, sonic, or otherwise, unless it's fire or acid, which temporarily renders it momentarily inneffective and is the only way to permanently kill them, the cells having been overrun and ruined by the chemical reaction, forcing the creature to shed the damaged parts which can no-longer function and heal anew.


As for poison resistance, that is a specific note in the story that poison is less likely to work. That's not what I'm looking for. I'm looking for universal signs that we can use to determine resistance, not stated or shown immunities (i.e. a stat that helps determine the ability to survive poisons or illness, not a footnote mentioning that the character spent years developing a resistance to iocane powder). That's what this site is for, right? Determining power that isn't directly stated?

 

[Yamatohime]

Trolls regenerate from all damage, be it slashing, bludgeoning, cold, necrotic, radiant, sonic, or otherwise, unless it's fire or acid, which temporarily renders it momentarily inneffective and is the only way to permanently kill them, the cells having been overrun and ruined by the chemical reaction, forcing the creature to shed the damaged parts which can no-longer function and heal anew.

It just means that trolls have weaknesses to acid damage. If you can dissolve metal brick with acid - it won't dissolve a tank made of the same metal (with the same quantity of acid). The difference - durability.

As for poison resistance, that is a specific note in the story that poison is less likely to work. That's not what I'm looking for. I'm looking for universal signs that we can use to determine resistance, not stated or shown immunities (i.e. a stat that helps determine the ability to survive poisons or illness, not a footnote mentioning that the character spent years developing a resistance to iocane powder). That's what this site is for, right? Determining power that isn't directly stated?

Completely different biology is sure way to be immune to poisons.

 

[Angry_Dummy]

...

I'm not sure if anyone here, myself included, understands how acid works.

Eh...


Thanks for the mention of aberrant biology.

 

[Angry_Dummy]

I dug up an old piece of info from "ThePerpetual" on this topic.

"...Acids, or ones more grounded in real-life chemistry, probably qualify as some degree of molecular hax, though the potency of such an effect might vary."

So we have that.

Durability is not nearly as helpful as some people make it out to be.

 

[DontTalk]

There is some degree of durability equalization usually used, because you would otherwise end up with 30 different AP/durability stats and no two feats would be comparable.

One could also argue that the power the molecules are bound together of people with higher durability should be stronger, and because of that they are less likely to react, but that is over-analysing things.

 

[Angry_Dummy]

There is some degree of durability equalization usually used, because you would otherwise end up with 30 different AP/durability stats and no two feats would be comparable.
One could also argue that the power the molecules are bound together of people with higher durability should be stronger, and because of that they are less likely to react, but that is over-analysing things.

I firmly disagree because I hate it when every single battle is a "Who has the higher number?" game where each character and attack is purely cosmetic, save for a different rating.

This is VS Battles Wiki, not Dragon Ball Z!

We're not creatively sterile and too dumb to figure out whether or not a character's tactics and abilities will allow them to score a victory through an Out-of-the-Box tactic like tickling the hyper-aware foe until they die of asphyxiation, or halting a monster's ability to regenerate by submersing them in acid, are we?

No, we're better than that! We're more creative than that! We're more sadistic than that!


And if we're not, then maybe this site isn't for me.

 

[Reppuzan]

The thing is, we don't exactly know how stuff like hydrochloric acid will interact with characters like... I dunno... Superman. It'll most definitely dissolve human flesh with ease, but a Kryptonian? They've taken attacks that pack enough heat to disintegrate the entire human population. Is a flask of acid really going to do anything to them? I still think it's a case-by-base thing. If the person is a human than yes I suppose acid could do something to them even if they're superhumanly durable (such as the Magellan topic you broughtup). However, you can't exactly expect acid to work against all characters, especially if they have Regenerationn powers.

Virulokinesis (control of viruses and pathogens) is also an iffy power since there's the tedious process of infecting the target with it and even then it's a case by case basis whether or not said pathogen will effect them or not.

So all in all, it's something to consider, but it's hard to make generalizations off of it.

 

[DontTalk]

I am actually a fan of hax myself...

You can of course argue using that in battles if you want, its just that for listing profiles it is rather bad to consider every second ability hax, since it means that freezing, heating, gravitation, EMP, piercing, slicing, lasers, blunt impact, electrocution, pressure, chemical reactions of different kind etc. are all different kinds of durability, since they work different.

 

[Antvasima]

I agree with DontTalk. There are limitations to any system, but we cannot use several different durability statistics for every character. It would be extremely impractical, and near impossible to implement,

 

[Angry_Dummy]

The thing is, we don't exactly know how stuff like hydrochloric acid will interact with characters like... I dunno... Superman. It'll most definitely dissolve human flesh with ease, but a Kryptonian? They've taken attacks that pack enough heat to disintegrate the entire human population. Is a flask of acid really going to do anything to them?

The answer to that question is no, not usually: Kryptonians are surrounded by an electromagnetic forcefield which makes t so that most attacks don't even touch them. Attempting to splash them with acid would be ineffective, as it would just hover slightly above their skin. If the acid were to get through because, say, the Kryptonian hadn't been near a yellow sun in two weeks, then we might see burn marks, granted it was a super acid or a fictional, mad scientist's invention.

Fluoroantimonic acid might get results, but I would best put my money on the Acid Splash, Acid Arrow, Storm of Vengeance, and Cloudkill spells from D&D trying to get in a little damage, as they ignore the field on account of their magical nature and are capable of killing normal creatures incredibly quickly. A brain-stormed piece of material that would work best would be a living, acidic monster created by to be able to injure and ward off a 3-A to possibly 2-C demigod of magic who can blow up the universe during a cosmic temper tantrum. That would be lethal.

I did my research. ^_^

I'm also reminded, strongly, of SCP-682 whenever I hear "Regenerationn means acid is less likely to work," and typically think of him and the trolls as evidence of the opposite, granted total submersion in the case of the former and merely an inability to immediately deal with a splash-wound in the case of the latter.

I mostly threw this idea at the wall to see if we had a set way of dealing with whether or not an indirect method would work or not. Otherwise, if I bring it up in a VS debate, nobody is going to give a damn, and that's not the right way to think about these things.

 

[Yamatohime]

I think it's easier to assume that you need the same amount of acid (if it's real deal) that you need to destroy object with the same durability in the real life. In other words... If character has Building level durability we need Building worth amount of acid to dissolve him/her. Otherwise we all get confused very quickly.

P.S.: If acid is shown to be more potent though... We could probably recalculate it.

 

[Yamatohime]

About acids... I think we can use chemicals reactions to calculate their attack potency (after all those reactions have energy balance too). At least for known acids.

 

[Angry_Dummy]

Hmm... alright, that sounds good.

Now the question I have is whether or not people would face-palm if I wrote a fanfic in which Goku was rendered powerless by a fictional, man-made poison designed to take down people of his super weight...

 

[DontTalk]

Now the question I have is whether or not people would face-palm if I wrote a fanfic in which Goku was rendered powerless by a fictional, man-made poison designed to take down people of his super weight...

Pretty sure there is a comic with a plot like that somwhere. Sounds like Kryptonite basically, just less specific. Gin also had this one poison he thought could kill aizen.

So poisoning OP charcters in one way or the other is something that works I guess. Goku specifically had a heart disease or something at some point, didn't he? So why not.

Just make sure to give it a complicated scientific sounding name...

 

[Azathoth_the_Abyssal_Idiot]

Now the question I have is whether or not people would face-palm if I wrote a fanfic in which Goku was rendered powerless by a fictional, man-made poison designed to take down people of his super weight...

Considering Goku in-canon almost died from a heart disease, I don't think that plot is all too far fetched.

 

[Alexcar3000]

Now the question I have is whether or not people would face-palm if I wrote a fanfic in which Goku was rendered powerless by a fictional, man-made poison designed to take down people of his super weight...

Considering Goku in-canon almost died from a heart disease, I don't think that plot is all too far fetched.

And pre-Super Beerus could not eat a wasabii because it was too spicy for him lol. (actual Beerus is immune to poison tho.)

 

[Ryukama]

Now the question I have is whether or not people would face-palm if I wrote a fanfic in which Goku was rendered powerless by a fictional, man-made poison designed to take down people of his super weight...

Considering Goku in-canon almost died from a heart disease, I don't think that plot is all too far fetched.

Also the fact that spoiler alert:


There is a likely chance Frost poisoned Goku during their match

 

[Angry_Dummy]

@Azzy

@Alex

@Ryukama

Thanks so much, guys! Now I can feel safe about writing this (and have fun seeing what I can do with Goku without his overwhelming power rendering 90% of conventional plots implausible)!

 

[Ryukama]

@Azzy
@Alex

@Ryukama

Thanks so much, guys! Now I can feel safe about writing this (and have fun seeing what I can do with Goku without his overwhelming power rendering 90% of conventional plots implausible)!

No problem man. Glad to help encourage you to write!