Freezing and Temperature Feats Continued Again

[DarkDragonMedeus]

Continued from here or saved here.

It has been agreed universally by staff that freezing and heating feats will continue to be treated interchangeably since it's the exact same feat but in the opposite direction. But there are other users who want to continue derailing that topic much further so it's agreed to drop topic at least for this thread and that it be taken up to message walls for any further issues and that it's not going to be revised no matter what.

However, the primary topic here is heat Vs blunt force trauma. There are conflicting arguments on all sides, and it is indeed a case by case scenario. And even some of the individual sides have arguing different reasons all over the place. It would be best to keep the thread smooth even if the directions are all over the place.

Some of the primary questions are regarding the usage or absent explanations on using the same power source such as Ki, Chakra, Magic, The Force, Psynergy, Ether, ect. Often times in fiction, there are plenty of characters who use a supernatural power source for all of their abilities, including all elemental manipulations and melee/telekinesis attacks. If the verse does explain and treat all of these interchangeably, it seems mostly agreed they should scale. Especially if two or more characters are canonically stated to be equal in every way despite different fighting styles of fire/ice mage vs physical brawler.

And there's also plenty of verses that don't mention power sources. Those are the ones more case by case. Our system is currently simplified as most fictional verses use a simplified system. However, not all supernatural power sources are static with physical stats. Characters like Doctor Strange and Elsa are glass cannons, Doctor Fate and Merric do have magic scaling to durability via trading blows with other mages, but fight using magic and never physically. So while not glass cannons, they lack striking strength. And lastly, characters like Isaac, and Cloud Strife do have all their supernatural powers scale to physical stats due to everything being Psynergy or Limit Breaks respectively.

Supernatural powers or same power source aside, there are plenty of debates for how durability and temperature resistance work. Heating and Cooling are both often heavily AP based due to it being energy. But it's energy that works differently than blunt force trauma and agreed it's not always linear. Plenty of objects and vehicles can withstand up to Tier 8 levels of extreme temperatures without melting, but those same objects can get easily wrecked by Wall level punches and fragmentation weapons. While at the same time, plenty of characters a Country level but are hurt by City levels of heat. For reference, surviving the sun's core is considered an 8-A heat resistance feat for human sized characters, but it's treated as extremely impressive or rare even in a verse full of Universal characters. Obviously, stuff like planet level characters dying from house fire should be disregarded as PIS unless heat happens to be said character's kryptonite/weakness. But there is indeed some distinction between blunt durability and elemental resistances.

I'll see more inputs before making a voting list.

Note: This is a staff thread.

 

[Ricsi-viragosi]

I am agreeing that same source stuff should scale, and if magic and physical attacks are interchangeable then it can scale most of the time.

For the durability thing... I think it's rather clear that AP and heat. Electricity is energy based, we still agree that powah won't let you not get tased, and AP won't let you ignore heat the same way. The only argument against this I have seen is making a dozen different dura types but... we do already, and it never got too complicated. Heat, electricity, radiation, etc. are resisted via resistance, and it's as simple as that.

 

[KLOL506]

Following for now.

 

[KLOL506]

I am agreeing that same source stuff should scale, and if magic and physical attacks are interchangeable then it can scale most of the time.
For the durability thing... I think it's rather clear that AP and heat. Electricity is energy based, we still agree that powah won't let you not get tased, and AP won't let you ignore heat the same way. The only argument against this I have seen is making a dozen different dura types but... we do already, and it never got too complicated. Heat, electricity, radiation, etc. are resisted via resistance, and it's as simple as that.

Only because we don't deal with area of effect and pressure and other factors I'm clearly not smart enough to speak about.

 

[KLOL506]

Also I don't think we necessarily separate electric attacks, like in the case of Metal Gear characters like Volgin. Radiation is basically non-existent in the AP/dura section AFAIK and to my knowledge Heat and Ice-based attacks qualify for some degree of separation if there is shown to be any.

 

[DontTalkDT]

Why are we continuing this during the forum move?

 

[KLOL506]

Ant and DDM thought it to be a good idea and that they also elected to use web archive to save it.

Or to use the Firefox feature to save threads in a PDF.

 

[DontTalkDT]

Ah-ha. Ok.

So how much of a tier difference between heat durability and blunt durability would we even consider without further evidence?

We consider shockwave vs piercing resistance as around the same tier and that potentially has a rather large gap. Given friction and heat produced in compression and stuff tanking a physical attack would require tanking heat energy of some fraction of it as well.

 

[Ricsi-viragosi]

We consider shockwave vs piercing resistance as around the same tier and that potentially has a rather large gap. Given friction and heat produced in compression and stuff tanking a physical attack would require tanking heat energy of some fraction of it as well.

I don't think we assume friction and AP to scale. Most because friction relies on speed (and we don't scale AP to speed), and also because tier 6 punches don't heat up the surroundings most of the time.

 

[DontTalkDT]

It ain't just friction, though. It's also stuff like strong impacts producing lots of heat due to various mechanisms. Plenty examples in fiction of physical attacks seemingly vaporizing targets.

 

[AKM sama]

I just wanted to clarify my stance here. I basically found myself agreeing with Bambu's and DontTalk's initial points. I don't think we need all profiles to have different durability ratings for different forms of energy, of which most of them would be unknown in any case.

No need of over-complicating a simple system (where the measuring stick is joules) that has been in use for years, works fine, and is widely used across almost all debating platforms on the internet. I think this should be case-by-case and only be applied for characters who blatantly show such distinction between physical force and heat energy, like endeavor and other glass canons like firebenders and such, and minor cases can be added to P&A section and high resistances, which we already do. Rest all profiles should stay the same, no need to break a working system imo.

In the last thread, I didn't comment because of limited responses left but I mostly agreed with the "yay" side.

 

[Jaakubb]

I'd just like to note that tanking heat and tanking electricity are two entirely different things. Electricity has two things that harm a character that I can think of: electrical energy that messes with the nerve signals across your body (resulting in heart attacks for example, and has little to do with durability, technically hax) and a fraction of the electrical energy being converted into thermal energy.

Now many characters are resistant to the first because their nervous systems are entirely different from humans. However, the second one has a lot to do with durability. A small fraction of electrical energy that passes through an object gets converted into thermal energy. However, with heat attacks, all of the energy is already thermal energy. You simply cannot conflate the two.

 

[Dargoo_Faust]

AKM appears to agree with DontTalk that we shouldn't over-complicate the system with 20 different durability ratings as opposed to a simplified system.

No offense, but whoever here thinks that "20 different durability ratings" is actually what is being proposed here either didn't read the thread or is being willingly oblivious, or both.

Also, yes, why are we continuing this during the forum move. Come on, guys.

 

[KLOL506]

Ant and DDM thought it to be a good idea and that they also elected to use web archive to save it.
Or to use the Firefox feature to save threads in a PDF.

In case anyone wants to know why this thread was made, granted I'd rather wait myself but eh.

 

[Dargoo_Faust]

I'd perfer having threads available via our website instead of a saved PDF, personally.

 

[Antvasima]

I suppose that this could wait until after the forum move, yes. The Wayback Machine/Internet Archive backups are convenient, but not a proper replacement for actual forum threads.

 

[Agnaa]

It got continued during the forum move because a few relatively low-importance things were asked, but we were running out of posts.

I'd rather we didn't actually continue much of a serious back-and-forth.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

I agree that I also preferred to wait for after the Forum move, but the previous thread still kind of kept getting constantly bombarded.

Anyway, Dargoo I think only wants to propose two different types. One for blunt force trauma and the other for like elemental/temperature attacks in general; heat, cold, electricity, ect. He said he's fine with heating/cooling being the same thing but it's heat Vs force is the focus.

Anyway, I also mostly agree with AKM Sama as well, but I'll explain other details. But I'm going to say that "Tanking attacks that are mostly heat/radiation" also has stuff like inverse square law to consider and this calculator is the real method to calculate durability via withstanding extreme heat.

But I'm really tired ATM, so I'll explain again later.

 

[Dargoo_Faust]

I agree that I also preferred to wait for after the Forum move, but the previous thread still kind of kept getting constantly bombarded.

The best way to accomplish this is to stop bombarding it, namely.

(EDIT): This isn't directed at you specifically, it's mostly just the people frequenting this thread in general, myself included.

 

[KLOL506]

I agree that I also preferred to wait for after the Forum move, but the previous thread still kind of kept getting constantly bombarded.
Anyway, Dargoo I think only wants to propose two different types. One for blunt force trauma and the other for like elemental/temperature attacks in general; heat, cold, electricity, ect. He said he's fine with heating/cooling being the same thing but it's heat Vs force is the focus.

Anyway, I also mostly agree with AKM Sama as well, but I'll explain other details. But I'm going to say that "Tanking attacks that are mostly heat/radiation" also has stuff like inverse square law to consider and this calculator is the real method to calculate durability via withstanding extreme heat.

But I'm really tired ATM, so I'll explain again later.

Spino says conductivity would affect all heat feats including explosions and fireblasts but with no way to figure out the percentage of an explosion's heat and how hot it is combined with DT's reasonings I believe that calculator would only work for stuff that are just pure heat and not even a shred of force with it.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

We use it as a reason for why gas explosions aren't Tier 8 feats but rather simply '''Wall level''' feats for instance.

 

[KLOL506]

Provided gas explosions don't show overpressure, yeah, but when they do (As in, destruction of objects like concrete and steel like conventional explosions), we resort to the good old explosion radius calc.

With conductivity tho, all heat feats potentially including massive explosions, supernovae, planet razing and whatnot get butchered to Tier 8 leaving us with no way to figure out what to do with that heat.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

I mean, nuclear explosions definitely still have blunt force trauma. But Surviving certain plasma cannons or an ultra violet radiation wave is only impressive if the specific temperature is high enough and not so much the AoE. Like a plasma cannon meant to vaporize giant bodies of biomass is impressive, but without specific details, a robotic drone doesn't need to be that durable to survive it since simply being a small target or having a higher melting point temperature compared to a biological target is more than enough.

 

[KLOL506]

Yeah those are different cases since there's no force involved, which is why I said it would work only for feats that are only based on heat alone and don't have any force accompanying it. Like being burned in a fire, nothing's physically pushing you there like a punch does.

If it shows signs of stuff like being physically pushed back or shows signs of overpressure, then that's a different story.

 

[KLOL506]

Anyway, I'mma side with DT and AKM on this one but regardless of whether the shared power source thing goes through or not, axing temperature feats as AP/Dura is an absolute no-no.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

I do agree that axing them completely is a hard no, and we've been over that in massive detail.

 

[Jaakubb]

But Surviving certain plasma cannons or an ultra violet radiation wave is only impressive if the specific temperature is high enough and not so much the AoE. Like a plasma cannon meant to vaporize giant bodies of biomass is impressive, but without specific details, a robotic drone doesn't need to be that durable to survive it since simply being a small target or having a higher melting point temperature compared to a biological target is more than enough.

But thermal energy doesn't just flow through targets without affecting them in the same way that electrical energy does. I think thermal energy attack tanking should be calced in the same way as explosions: with the inverse square law. Tanking a heat attack that can expand and take out a large portion of biomass point blank should be treated in the same way as tanking an explosion point blank. Of course we should still account for the character being really small and not tanking much of the energy though.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

Only if the thermal energy is equal to the force. If it's 99.9% thermal energy and 0.1% force for example, it's the force that's calculated normally, but the heat still spreads. Heat rises and kind of ignores gravity; which inverse square law heavily gravity dependent. Which is why explosions that happen on 0 G enviroments are uncalculatable by over-pressure/explosion yield. The method you're thinking off isn't too far off from gas explosions. There's a reason a multi megaton battery isn't like trillions of degrees Celsius before detonation.

Radiation and chemical energy from gas ignition actually does phase around targets similar to lightning.

 

[KLOL506]

I mean, surface area is used in inverse square law when it comes to explosions but mostly if the character is a certain distance away and not tanking it right in their face. In that case they'd take the full brunt of the yield.

 

[Jaakubb]

Since when is the inverse square law affected by gravity? It's the other way around: gravity (among other things) is affected by the inverse square law. The inverse square law is just based on geometry. And the reason why explosions don't have blast waves at 0G is because there's no air to propagate the blast. Bombs (or at least nuclear bombs) would still release energy in space when detonated.

I don't know about gas but I'm pretty sure that thermal energy in general doesn't automatically just pass through targets. Electricity can pass through an object with only a fraction of the energy being converted into thermal energy (that's how it actually damages an object) but with heat attacks all of the energy is already thermal energy.

Yes, heat does rise but it still obeys the inverse square law. The heat rising won't play too much of a factor. If you watch a nuclear bomb detonate it makes a fireball and then the thermal energy rises a few seconds later.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

And explosion needs to fight against the gravity to reach the blast radius. Which is why all explosion calculations calculated using blast radius get multiplied by X^2 with X being the locations gravity divided by Earth's gravity.

Most thermal energy does phase through; chemical energy, electricity, gas ignition, radiation, ect. Just not the solid chucks of the detonated grenade or nuke. But gas and plasma does phase around your body. Unless the heat was solid, it does phase. It doesn't go from 6 billion degrees to 6000 degrees via gravity, a lot of plasma cannons simply aren't beyond the thousands of degrees unless explicitly stated.

Not talking about "Nuclear Bombs" I'm talking about stuff like plasma/radiation cannons that only have like Tier 9 levels of force but tier 8 levels of heat. Then it's a Tier 9 feat at minimum, but it's only a Tier 8 durability feat if the target is big enough for the blast.

 

[Jaakubb]

Since when does it phase through? It only phases through an object as much as normal kinetic energy would. I don't remember seeing anything about that anywhere at all. And I think it's obvious that at least electricity would phase through objects at a higher rate than thermal energy.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

Electricity is plasma, fire is plasma, chunks of a grenade, nuke, or meteor are still solid. Plus, thermal energy itself isn't matter. It's simply stored in matter. Thermal energy is the passive movement flow of the particles and not the velocity of the body being used as a tackle. And Particles aren't exactly tangible when moving fast like that of plasma or gas either. There's a reason diving in the center of the sun is 8-A as opposed to the High 6-A per second being produced at the core.

Also, stuff like glass and water also both have more heat capacity and glass is much harder to melt than solid steel is. But it's not like shattering glass is harder to do than denting steel. Hence why there's a difference as Ugarik laid out on another thread.

 

[Jaakubb]

Kinetic energy is also "simply stored in matter." What even is your point? This makes no sense. Plasma and particles are all matter which can interact with other matter.

 

[Jaakubb]

That's not the reason why. When you're in the center of the Sun you eventually reach a point where your body is the same temperature as the surroundings, which is equilibrium. This is never assumed to happen with heat feats.

Thermal energy is the passive movement flow of the particles and not the velocity of the body being used as a tackle.

OK so what? It can still damage objects by melting vaporizing and more.

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

It still often requires a lot more energy to melt objects than it does smash them via physical force. Plenty of glass windows are have '''Street level''' flamethrowers do nothing to them where as a '''Street level''' punch shatters it with ease.

 

[Jaakubb]

That is true. But thermal energy is no where near analogous to electrical energy. And we can still calc thermal "explosions" with the inverse square law.

Also with the inverse square law, why do we square X?

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

Thermal blasts still don't have epic center changing the output of the blast that much; we still compare the body surface area to the blast surface area unless there's proof the body actually absorbs it all. But there would be no visual blast if that was the case regarding heat waves. Also, Ultra violet waves do very much phase through glass.

And it's because velocity is squared. It requires X time more velocity to reach a certain blast radius as it normally would on Earth. Which having X times more velocity would make it X^2 times more energy. Also, a planet with the same volume but X times more G's also as X^2 times the GBE on average.

 

[The_real_cal_howard]

Energy is energy, people.

 

[Spinosaurus75DinosaurFan]

That's not the reason why. When you're in the center of the Sun you eventually reach a point where your body is the same temperature as the surroundings, which is equilibrium. This is never assumed to happen with heat feats.

I agree with Jaakubb on this. This is the reason why surviving being in the core of the Sun is only 8-A, but for some reason we don't consider that for other feats.