Making Lifting Strength Not Useless

[Angry_Dummy]

I'm trying to figure out why we would even track lifting strength if it will never be used in a discussion.

I've been trying to brainstorm ways of making it useful.

A character could pick up and hurl another one into orbit or somesuch for a BFR victory.

A character could shove a character over to leave them vulnerable to more assault (like this guy.)

A character could crush, squeeze, rip, tear, or otherwise mangle a grabbed character.


Any other things someone could do in combat with lifting strength?

 

[TheMightyRegulator]

Maybe make vs matches where characters try to defeat the others in lifting heavier weights?

 

[Fastsword88]

I previously thought that lifting strength can somehow translate to striking strength. BFRing the foe via knocking him far away or crush/rip/ect is more of a striking strength feat. Lifting strength means stronger muscles and so harder strikes via simple logic, but it seems to be more complicated than that (In real life, a weigh-lifter would lift far more than a skilled martial artist, but his strikes would be weaker).

Lifting strength can also translate to AP in some cases (Example, a guy lifts a mountain and throws at X speeds. This lifting feat will definitely give him a high solid tier, especially if we calc the KE of the feat).

Btw Saitama from OPM showed a smart way of using lifting strength in combat.

 

[Angry_Dummy]

Maybe make vs matches where characters try to defeat the others in lifting heavier weights?

That sounds really dull.

You check a number and see who is higher, or you argue about it until the end of time.

 

[Angry_Dummy]

FS, buddy, striking strength is about speed and mass while lifting strength is, as I understand it, solely strength. Grappling, ripping, squeezing, and tearing are all feats of strength that don't need speed because you aren't colliding a piece of you with their body, but rather pulling them apart.

If the difference between the two is that S-Strength is how much you can damage and L-Strength is "only relevant to lifting and can't be used to affect the foe," then it's worse than Travel Speed and officially the most useless waste of space on a character sheet. It functions on the same logic as the Travel Speed fallacy, and even when it applies, it's still worse because people won't allow you to use it in any way! I would get more mileage out of knowing a character's age than that! At least I can determine if a character that can drain youth would kill him more quickly!

Why can't a character who can lift a bear with one hand tied behind his back pick up his monstrous combatant who weighs half that and chuck him around until he can get him to the nearest trash compactor or minefield? Why can't a superhero solve a problem foe by hurling him into the sun? Why can't a giant octopus suffocate his prey in his crushing coils? Why can't a robot slowly crush an opponent's head in his bare hands like he did with the Hope Diamond when he throws punches like he's in slow-motion?

These are big questions!

 

[Gemmysaur]

It's useful actually, chucking your opponent at the moon is one way to win right?

Or people like Hulk who throws cars or Captain America who has apparently swung a tree.

There are also characters like Leone (AGK) who uses grapples like neckbreaks and stuff.

 

[Angry_Dummy]

Yes, Gemmysaur, you understand the sentiment perfectly, but I don't see people using it, and when such a thing is recommended (like what happened at Pit vs. Kratos when I suggested Pit would grab Kratos while in the Great Sacred Treasure and drop him off in orbit where he can't breathe or move), people get upset and defensive, saying "No, that doesn't work because [insert nonsensical nonsense that basically amounts to 'this site doesn't think about things like that, ever']".

I want to see cruel rogues pin their targets and choke the life out of them with a magic rope, flying bricks grabbing foes and grinding them against the floor as they rocket over the road, or an uppity swordsman get shoved over, body slammed, and then smothered by an amorphous villain made of acid.


Lifting Strength needs more use and consideration in VS matches, and more people need to understand what happens when a person who gets into melee range of a giant are getting into.

They could get mashed into a ball, shoved over and left vulnerable while the foe finds a gap in their armor to ram his blade through and circumvent the durability gap, or thrown around like a ragdoll over and over, unable to get up and strike back as their opposition drags them towards something that can do lasting damage, like a wood chipper, lake they can't breathe in, or portal to Diggle Hell where they'll have to convince Vlad Diggula to let them out instead of shooting nuclear missiles at them or carving holes in them with his rubbery nasal device.


What? You thought I was making that up?


Muscles should not be meaningless. I want to see a juggernaut throw around a smaller foe that should be stronger like a ragdoll because he studied physics and remembered to lift.

 

[Gemmysaur]

~Snip

Yeah, it's lame they don't use it, but to be fair, the characters themselves rarely utilize grapples and throws. It's always the standard punch, kick, slash and energy balls formula.

That's why I like Leone from AGK, she fights pragmatically. She throws grapples around a lot.


Surprise motherlover!

 

[Angry_Dummy]

Beautiful! I love it, and now I want to see more of that character.

I would also like to mention that someone who shoves or throws another character, even if they can withstand the force with no problem, would still be sent flying unless they properly braced themselves and used any required-secondary powers they had to keep themselves there.


Even if you have them, make sure your leverage point does too!

My argument at Pit v. Kratos was that Pit's mech would do this by accident and land Kratos in the exosphere, punching a guy who likely weighs 225-240 lbs. with the force to level a mountain.

And, of course, bloodlust makes everything more fun. When you can use any method you desire to your advantage to win, the possibilities are endless!

 

[Fastsword88]

@Angry Dummy : Maybe the reason why a character won't be able to fluently use his LS against the foe is because his foe is superior to him in, say, AP ? I mean, if I were a fictional character and a foe wants to use LS against me I'll just make use of my superior SS or AP to blow him up or outmuscle him just as he's grabbing me to break free. He wants to throw me into space ? Then I'll do the same with a well-placed kick ! Or, if my durability is good enough, any of his other attempts are gonna fail to scratch me.

But LS is far from being a waste of space in a profile. This is more of an indexing site, analysing LS feats can help in accurately judging a character's tier.

 

[Angry_Dummy]

It's kind of hard to hit someone when you don't have a foundation with which to draw power from because you're being picked off the ground.

A punch or kick gets most of its power from the rest of your body, not just the arm. It flows up your legs, through your chest, and through your arm. It's why boxers move their whole body when they strike. Being falling through the air, lifted off the ground, or underneath a giant who is turning your face into a blood sprinkler with his claws takes away your ability to do that well because you don't have a way to best move your body for maximum carnage, which puts a damper on your ability to fight back.

And it's so easy for any character, regardless of their striking strength, to be put in these positions by muscular foes who can push with even half the force they can. Because most bruisers on this site weigh less than 300 lbs. and their foes can throw around five ton weights like they are air.

There are also the issues of a hyper aggressive battering style getting the attacker into trouble with their more patient goliath foe's careful defense. One miss, and the counter-attack could just end the fight in a slow and painful death. Even the mighty Kirby is not exempt from being Fire Lion's chew toy, as seen in Superstar Ultra.

Attack Power means "How much damage your attacks dish out." It doesn't go into detail as to what those attacks are. They could be a punch, they could be a spell, they could be a gun, they could be psychic powers. Whatever. If it's the former, it's also logged under striking strength. If it's the latter, it's likely not incredibly useful while immobilized or otherwise helpless.

Striking Strength is how hard you can smash people. It "may or may not be dependent on lifting strength," according to the page.

If this character's lifting strength is higher than the other's, then they could win a straight up shoving match, granted they had some way to brace themselves. If they can't fly like Goku or Superman, then they don't have much of a defense when they are easily within their foe's carrying capacity and he's opting to lift them instead. They would have to hope to get in a good strike before then, but they're likely feeling a lot more squishy than normal. This would be the case in match-ups like Pit in the Great Sacred Treasure vs Kratos. even though Kratos has higher striking and lifting strength, he's fighting a giant mech that can pick him up and knock him around at speeds hundreds of times faster than him.

If their striking strength is unrelated to their shoving strength for some reason (an invincible man with no other superpowers strapped dynamite to his limbs, I dunno), then it's the same thing, except the grappler has more options because he's fighting glass cannon.

If durability is high enough that there is absolutely no way for the grappler to win personally, then he could always throw him somewhere else. If that gator exhibit didn't do the job, how about that minefield? Eh, let's chuck him into a nuclear reactor. Black holes? How about a portal to Hell?

If chucking the foe into Hell doesn't work, then you just cut the middleman and smother him with a pillow.





I'm pretty sure that not being able to breathe circumvents durability.

I think a big problem is that nobody really understands how strength works, but they think they do because they can look at a chart with letters and numbers on it and claim that the character's feats don't work because of the score.

Strength is a lot more complicated than hitting and lifting.

 

[ThePerpetual]

I wouldn't exactly say lifting strength is useless, just situational. If someone like, say, Solid Snake can land someone in a grapple and they can't get out in some way, then simply choking them into unconcsiousness is a pretty nifty way to KO. And yeah, BFR through grabbing and throwing someone.

 

[Professor_Voodoo]

Lifting Strength does become an afterthought after a set point imo.

In a battle between say building level fighters, yeah lifting can play a good part.

In a battle between multi galactic threats....not so much.

 

[Angry_Dummy]

I have this image in my head.

A high 3-A character is doing battle with a similarly powerful foe.

He anchors himself in place using his magic, readies himself as the monster charges at him, threatening to end half the universe with its next blow. This demigod then grabs the monster and puts all of his power into an infinitely powerful bully push.

The monster then freaks out as its last living microseconds are spent being ripped apart, sub-atomic particles tearing into shreds, as he turns inside out and has his mass distributed across space and time at the speed of light, thus saving all of existence.

A scientist then asks the demigod to stop telling horrible lies to the children, because he's pretty sure that's not how physics works. The demigod retorts, asking the scientist if he has the power to create and obliterate entire dimensions at a whim, and, after getting the expected response, tells him to shut up and let him tell his epic to the kiddies.


Because that feat has nothing to do with speed, it is not striking strength and therefore must be lifting strength.

 

[ThePerpetual]

"This demigod then grabs the monster and puts all of his power into an infinitely powerful bully push.

The monster then freaks out as its last living microseconds are spent being ripped apart, sub-atomic particles tearing into shreds, as he turns inside out and has his mass distributed across space and time at the speed of light, thus saving all of existence."

That's... not exactly how that works. Having physical strength doesn't really automatically give you molecular hax, otherwise there'd be little point in having durability that high. Either that, or everyone with that sort of durability is wholly immune to that. Also, "infinitely" powerful lifting strength would give someone infinitely powerful striking strength in the first place. An "infinitely strong" push, going by real world physics, still doesn't break light speed, and there are plenty of characters in fiction capable of such speeds without breaking apart into sub-atomic particles, let alone High 3-A ones.

"Because that feat has nothing to do with speed, it is not striking strength and therefore must be lifting strength."

Except it is striking strength, because there is motion (speed) involved. Again, that's not precisely how that works...

Think of Lifting Strength as static, such as sustained tests of strength, and Striking Strength as active, or strength derived from a singular action or motion at any given time. Does that make sense?

 

[Angry_Dummy]

...So does lifting strength translate to durability and endurance, then?

And striking strength to speed and reaction time?


No, that does not make any sense to me. I'm a story-teller, not a mathematician.

It's about tier 5-A that I decide the author doesn't give a damn about physics and so I should probably stop worrying and learn to love the FTL animu prostitutes and galaxy-eating gerbils. Tear a black hole in half, kid! I am officially turning my brain OFF.


The explanation also means that throwing is not lifting strength, but striking strength, which makes no damn sense to me. I'd love to explain why, but I feel like I would be arguing about semantics and not physics anymore, and I'll sound like an insane troll trying to solve the mathematical equation of fish-prime instead of a thinking, reasoning person who is just confused. (e.g. "Does that mean an Olympic hammer thrower is using striking strength?" I'm slowly losing my mind, and I think it might be contagious...)


I'm also highly confused as to why we even HAVE the split in the first place if they are so frequently bundled together! Why not just have "Strength" and "Attack Potency" and have the boxers and wrestlers use the first and have the latter be a catch-all for damage dealing that covers ? There are so many character sheets with unknown lifting strength and incredibly high striking strength that get treated as though they couldn't lift fifty pounds because they've "never lifted" before. I'm sick of it all!

 

[Gemmysaur]

They are split because striking strength can be higher than how its supposed to be given your lifting strength by technique of how one strikes. The vice versa of this is also true via technique as well.

This is very true for the likes of fighters who know how to use the turn of their body to add weight to the punch and armed users like Thor who strikes with Mjolnir in hand.

Attack potency is not simply physical as the likes of Thor whose strongest attacks are magical blasts of energy.

Having unknown lifting strength in their profile is not stupid in any way. It's just that they never showed anything to measure for it. For all we know it could be higher than their striking strength, or lower, or equal.

 

[Yamatohime]

Well, lifting strength can useful if one enemy tries to overpower an another via bodycrush.

 

[Zerzavyx98]

lol I've used this a few times, saying Naruto characters could swing people into outerspace and call it a night

 

[Angry_Dummy]

lol I've used this a few times, saying Naruto characters could swing people into outerspace and call it a night

Yeah, that pretty much summarizes it.

"Yeah, I've got superpowers blessed by the deities, the powers of the cosmos, military grade explodey things, and my momma's best cooking pot, but $%@* you, I don't need it!"

~Fawful's Minion on the Throw ability, Top 30 Copy Abilities

 

[Dekoshu]

His/Her physical strength in lifting should truly count as well, especially if they're going to fight against a genuinely gigantic enemy or giant robots. Or their enemy could create a sphere that is heavier than a large mountain, etc.

 

[Angry_Dummy]

His/Her physical strength in lifting should truly count as well, especially if they're going to fight against a genuinely gigantic enemy or giant robots. Or their enemy could create a sphere that is heavier than a large mountain, etc.

Hmm, now that you mention that, yes, that is a good point!

That would make lifting strength the score you use to determine if a character could deflect, push back, or parry an attack! Nifty!

 

[Dekoshu]

Also, an opponent could use global scale telekinesis or physically lifting a giant object and throw it at their opponent, who could attempt to destroy it or throw it back at them. The reason why striking strength is used far more frequently because under most circumstances, there's nothing notably heavy and/or large to throw stuff at their opponents with or at their opponents in the battlefields.

 

[Angry_Dummy]

Well, there's also the fact that some people tend to automatically stick every single attack they see in the Striking Strength ghetto, and the media is typically more interested in big slams than throwing stones.

The media does not know the power of the suplex!

 

[Dekoshu]

Or, if they see something as big as a planet, and they could throw a planet, would they seriously kill somebody with a planet that was thrown?

 

[Angry_Dummy]

Well, if I got hit by a hunk of material roughly as tough as I am that was as big as I was at high speeds, I think I would be hospitalized, if not bleeding out...

So yes, they could possibly be killed by it.

 

[Professor_Voodoo]

Well this thread might just be the one to make lifting strength worth a crap lol

 

[Yamatohime]

If I can lift something it doesn't mean that I survive impact of that something with reasonable speed.

 

[Angry_Dummy]

I sure hope so.

I also just considered that one might be able to use this stat to (hilariously) bridge the speed gap, granted they're in a tag-team match.





If you land a hit, your target is already disabled by the foe that just slammed into them, so you can feel free to hammer away!

Just pray your teammate isn't dead, or worse, angry at you.

 

[Dekoshu]

OK. Not impressive enough? Then, imagine a being that can make intangible beings and objects of sizes enormously larger than planets and nullify the dangers in regards to them, then lift them and throw them at the world. Lifting Strength isn't so funny anymore, wouldn't it?

 

[Angry_Dummy]

That's a lot of powers (primary, and secondary), but yes, that is absolutely broken.

Still, I'm reminded a lot of Pun-Pun, the kobold who ascended to Tier 0 at level 1 of D&D 3.5 infamy, and the horribly convoluted method of doing so he used.

 

[Dekoshu]

Who was Pun-Pun?

 

[Angry_Dummy]

Who was Pun-Pun?

Well, you asked, and I'll reply

Pun-Pun is a perfectly legal character made using the Dungeons & Dragons system that anyone can play, granted their DM is a clueless, gullible idiot. He was designed by people who make it their hobby to try and make the coolest, most OP characters they can, called Min-Maxers because the Minimize weaknesses and Maximize strengths. In a game where characters start out as tier 10-A and typically end their journeys before they become tier 8-A, we have characters with half as much experience running the gamut between 7-B and 4-A.

But Pun-Pun... hoo boy...

Pun-Pun is like the Mewtwo of Min-Max characters. He straight up evolved into something only a horrible, evil little goblin of a man we call the Munchkin would ever want to play.
This is the full build.

The construction process makes no sense to a Dungeons & Dragons outsider on paper, but I can explain.

By making a bunch of shifty deals with extra-planar monsters until he gets into contact with a special, Vorlon-esque reptile, this lowly lizard man called a kobold gets every ability in the game without even needing to go exploring.

Every. Ability.

EVER.

He gains as much strength as he desires (which can be anywhere between average normal human, equal to the Godzilla-sized Tarrasque, fifty-million times that, or infinite), and can use some feats he gave to himself for free to increase his reaction times, eye-hand coordination, healthiness, durability, intellect, willpower, stamina, perceptiveness, and force of personality and appearance to be just as big as he wants as his strength using the same method.

He can cast every single spell in the game whenever he wants and as often as he wants. These spells can do anything from "Mend a small object" to "Make a wish, and it'll come true."

He has infinite hit points, infinite Regenerationn that works as long as he is conscious, Regenerationn that heals an additional forty damage a turn and works even if he is unconscious and can bring him back from the dead, and all powers he owns that increase in power as his hit points increase are infinitely stronger. He is also immune to all negative effects, which includes and exceeds everything this site considers "hax" and thus makes him impossible to kill. He is immune to any magic attacks he doesn't want to be vulnerable to.

He can reach infinitely far, even into every other plane of existence, moves an infinite number of times in a single, six-second turn where everyone else only gets three actions to spend their time on, is a master of all forms of combat, be it grappling, fencing, boxing, Muay Thai, or scarier fighting styles from other supplementary books, can move about infinitely fast, is immortal, and has infinite ranks of divinity (of which the greatest deities that still give a damn about you have a divine rank of twenty, with the ones barely above that being the gods of other gods!).

Finally, through several methods, he can make up whatever new spells, creatures, and abilities he wants, create them, and give them to himself and others, which can be anything as harmless as "I don't need to breathe," or as devastating as, "I win everything, always, every time, and nobody can stop me, ever, or else the universe will reset itself and I'll still win, throughout all time."


...And, according to the rules of D&D, this is something considered legal and not breaking the rules of the game. And you only need a few splatbooks (read as: "hard cover DLC for tabletop games") to do it!


The good news is that this character was never made with the intention of being played. He was more of a thought-exercise done to see how much of a God-Mode Sue they could make without cheating.

When I was young, I used to write up little stories, and the heroes were always overpowered beyond all belief, but even then, I never had anything like this happen...

Well, now you know.

 

[ThePerpetual]

Aah, the Ballad of Pun-Pun. Truly, a legendary tale to be told.

 

[Dekoshu]

Overpowering beyond all belief? Is that what Pun-Pun actually is? So besides that...so he has ruthless omnipotence?! And thank you for telling me about Pun-Pun.

 

[Angry_Dummy]

Pretty much.

He basically steals the game from the Dungeon Master and never gives it back. Ever.

He solos pretty much every franchise.

 

[Dekoshu]

So, if Lifting Strength can be used in combination with abilities bypassing the dangers and intangibility that otherwise makes it useless, what would happen if the high-level combatants were to create actual Suns, black holes and supergiants, and the largest planets, but they are above four-dimensional beings and able to easily throw them at their targets without problems? Have you wondered what would be the heaviest thing in the universe that would be used to such a devastating effect, their opponents go "I didn't know you could throw those!" as if the opponent thought that's not possible.

 

[Angry_Dummy]

No, I haven't really thought about that.

I was more concerned with characters who were below tier 5.

 

[Dekoshu]

You think for once, somebody like the Hulk would finally fight someone who isn't from his reality or Superman's, and for once, through sheer pleasure, Hulk can finally find a giant nearby thing or object and smash a creature or thing with it.

 

[Dekoshu]

Even better, how about for once, many heavy lifters, who are able to lift planets and objects larger than the usual planets, who also happen to be heavy hitters, would be able to use their actual lifting strength to great use, so they wouldn't be bored with just punching and kicking people while bloodthirsty. Telekinesis would've worked. Making planets lighter, but still lethal to be hit by would've worked. You know. Or making it heavier and allow someone with three-dimensional infinite strength to use it as a weapon?