Questions on durability and its practical applications

[Anasurimbor_Kellhus]

I've often wondered. I know what durability means as far as how the forum defines it, but my questions refers more to the practical application of it in specific situations.

For example, a character with a building level durability is said to be capable of withstanding a force that could just about level a building. So in practical terms does that mean that said character can't be killed by

-A sword if the wielder wields it with less force than what is required to level a building?

-A bullet if the force of the bullet is less than what is required to level a building? (a bullet applies force to a much smaller area, I know, but most measurements still don't equal the power equivalent to level a building) Does that mean we're to assume the bullet wouldn't penetrate the body?

 

[Reppuzan]

That's basically it.

If you pitted a Wall level character against someone with Building level durability, a sword would break on contact with the Building level character's skin while bullets would likely just bounce off the way they do off Superman's chest.

If said character tried to punch someone with vastly superior durability, then well... this would happen.

 

[Antvasima]

Yes, however, even in reality it is of course possible to cause much greater amounts of damage by focusing the force of an attack to a very thin area by using a hard object, although not to anywhere near the ridiculous fictional extremes used with characters such as Wolverine.

 

[LordGriffin1000]

Yeah, you should ignore some parts of fiction where strong characters dodge bullets even though it wouldn't do anything. It's basically the writing not caring about consistency.

 

[Anasurimbor_Kellhus]

That's what I thought too, but often I've seen characters with supposedly high durability harmed by something that physics says shouldn't if they indeed have that kind of durability.

I guess the reason I ask is, when faced with such inconsistencies, which feats of durability should then be taken into account when trying to assign someone their durability ratings?

Personally I would go with averages, as in any science of measurements, that is typically what is used to represent something when various situations can result in different values. Except in these type of sites I've seen sometimes extreme situations used as the benchmarks. So I'm still kinda iffy on how all this works.

 

[Antvasima]

We tend to use the higher feats as benchmarks, as long as they do not seem too outlandish, yes. If we went by averages, virtually no Marvel characters would exceed large building level for example.

 

[Anasurimbor_Kellhus]

Interesting,

Allow me to use another example

This Batma is wall level+ , and this calculation states the kind of durability needed (wall level) to survive such a fall.




Is that a reasonable assumption to make or is it considered outlandish?

 

[WeeklyBattles]

iirc Batman is supposed to be upgraded to Building level so yes he'd survive

 

[Reppuzan]

@Anasurimbor

He has better feats than that. Between surviving a land mine at point blank range, the collapse of a building, the collapse of a major Gotham City road on top of him, among other things.

More outlierish than that would be his feat of beating Solomon Grundy single-handedly in hand-to-hand, given that Grundy is usually portrayed as being comparable to the League's heaviest hitters.

 

[Anasurimbor_Kellhus]

Well Scheiße Batman,

Alright then. So far I've learned that you can assign durability based on higher feats/instances, and that just because characters sometimes look weaker than their higher feats, it's no ground for lowering their tiers.

My science background conditioned me to think a certain way, and so far I've had difficulty applying it in most arguments here due to differences in the way assumptions and measurements are made. I needed these kind of conversations to get a sense of what's considered reasonable to assume in this forum.

Thanks to all, will probably ask some more if something else stumps me.

 

[Antvasima]

Okay. No problem. I will close this thread then.