Cyber-Knight wrote:For one thing, due to the nature of the weapons.
A vibro-blade is essentially a contained particle-field by some descriptions, in which case the force you swing it with doesn't real matter any more than it would matter when you're firing a particle beam weapon.
Rifts Sourcebook One.
"Of course, M.D. bonuses from power armor, bionics, and robotics is added to the mega-damage total inflicted by M.D.C. weapons like the vibro-weapons and hand to hand combat."
Good point; I agree that with vibro-blades, force does seem to matter beyond a certain point, even though the rule you cited is no longer in use.
The question, then, is how much it matters.
CB1r updated the rule to include a mega-damage PS damage bonus to such attacks, but it's not punch damage, nor is it the normal PS damage bonus.
Which indicates that while force does matter, the authors re-thought how much it would matter after writing SB1.
Then re-thought it again when writing RUE, as the CB1r rule is not included or referred to.
No, you're not.
As I've already demonstrated, the mega-damage inflicted by Supernatural PS is definitely NOT inflicted because the supernatural creature is THAT strong.
Did you miss my example comparing the punch damage from a normal human to the punch damage of a Supernatural creature of equal strength to the human?
I didn't. I just disagreed with it. What you misunderstand is that just because it uses the same number that doesn't indicate that they're on the same level.
If you can lift the same amount as another person, and you can carry the same amount as another person, how are you not at least roughly as strong as that other person?
By adding the term (Supernatural) to it you're indicating that you're using a different scale.
I'm not sure I agree with that, but I'm not sure what you mean.
Saying that they should be the same is like saying a 1d4 SDC weapon is the same as a 1d4 MDC weapon.
That would only be true if 1 point of Supernatural PS equalled 100 points of normal PS.
Personally, that's how I think that things
should be, but they're not.
I will agree that supernatural creatures should be able to lift and carry far more (which is covered in the Supernatural Strength super-power, where they lift/carry 300/500 times their PS in lbs, thus accounting for their much greater strength).
Do you have any reason to logically prefer boosting lift/carry numbers to match the the listed punch damage rather than the other way around?
Because, as pointed out, that someone is not really THAT strong.
Also, because weapons don't necessarily matter with that kind of force. A LAW rocket first at a tank is going to inflict the same damage no matter how much force is behind it, as long as the force is sufficient to trigger detonation.
Talk about your strawmen examples. We're not talking about explosive warheads. We're talking about swords. And
a sword, whether it's a Vibro-Sword, Rune Sword, or Magic Sword WOULD inflict more damage on the target depending on how much force was behind it. A normal human with a 4d6 MD magic sword would not be able to do as much damage as a Gargoyle wielding the same sword.
Got a source for the bolded claim?
Yes.
I'll break it down for you:
-Your argument (that the stronger the wielder of a melee weapon is, the more damage they inflict, assuming that the relative forces in question are roughly equal) is based on the laws of physics.
-Supernatural Strength defies the laws of physics. (RUE, p. 285)
Therefore, the basis for your argument is something that does not apply to Supernatural Strength.
They defy the laws of physics in that their bodies should normally be unable to perform as they do, but that doesn't change that they still interact with the world in the same way.
But they don't. A person who can lift 1,000 lbs can exert a certain amount of force in a punch, according to the laws of physics.
Supernatural creatures inflict hundreds of times more damage, well beyond anything that could be explained by physics.
Hell, just their lack of density would rule out being able to exert that kind of force with sheer physical strength. By all logic, the force of a mega-damage force would propel a normal-weight person, or even a particularly heavy person, backward quite a ways. Or, if the puncher was braced, at the very least, it would drive their legs deep into the ground
The books never say
how Supernatural PS defies the laws of physics, only that it does.
HOW it does is demonstrated by all the differences between supernatural PS and normal PS, including punch damage.
Whether a Gargoyle's physique is capable of exerting that amount of force, the fact is they do, because the target sustains 4d6 MD from his punch.
Agreed.
It's ludicrous to claim that that same Gargoyle would derive no benefit whatsoever from wielding a mega-damage melee weapon of some sort. And given that a few pages after the Gargoyle stats in Triax & the NGR feature a number of non-magical, TECHNOLOGICAL weapons which Gargoyle's wield in combat and which do add their supernatural strength as damage, I'd say my interpretation makes more sense than yours.
You're using rules for specific weapons in an out-dated book to claim that your interpretation makes more sense than mine, when my interpretation includes everything from the RGMG to RUE and other more recent rulings.
Don't get me wrong: in a vacuum of other information, I'd read the stats for the Gargoyle weapons (or xiticix weapons, or mutant bone weapons from Madhaven), and I'd make the same assumption that you have, that this is how it would work for all weapons and all supernatural creatures.
In fact, that's what I did, back in the day.
But we're not IN a vacuum of other information any more. The pattern is clear, and the specific weapons mentioned are the anomaly, not the rule.
And even when it did seem to be the most canon answer, that never made it make any real sense. Because, as mentioned, punch damage and melee weapon damage
never normally stack.
Gargoyles in PFRPG, for example, don't add their punch damage to their SDC weapons.
Weapon damages don't stack like you want. If you tape a dagger (1d6 damage) onto the end of your sword (2d4 damage), that doesn't mean that your weapon now deals the combined damage of both (1d6+2d4 damage).
If you put a dagger (1d6 damage) in the fist (1d4 damage) of a normal person, that doesn't mean that the dagger inflicts 1d6+1d4 damage.
Weapon damage is inclusive of the muscle strength of the wielder, except for the listed PS damage bonuses.
The damages of different muscle-based weapons overlaps; it doesn't stack.
Wow, talk about a viewpoint completely divorced from reality.
Exactly.
Putting one weapon on another weapon and allowing the damage to stack simply doesn't fit with reality.
1) You don't do damage with a sword because it makes you stronger. You do damage with a sword because of the sharp cutting blade. The stronger the force behind the blade, though, the more damage it inflicts. Which is why taping a dagger to the of a sword doesn't inclift more damage, because you're not benefitting from the sword blade.
Actually, it's more than just the blade, it's the leverage. That's one reason why a sword does more damage than a knife. Both are wedges, but swords allow for a better transference of force.
Similarly, a punch inflicts less damage than a club, even though both are blunt weapons. With humans, this is partially due to hardness, but for MDC creatures (or creatures with hard MDC gloves/gauntlets/etc), the hardness isn't an issue. The differences in damage between a club and a fist are due largely to leverage.
But any way you slice it, the muscle power is included in the damage for each weapon. Allowing them to stack would be allowing that muscle power to be counted twice.
2) In Palladium games, while they use a different mechanic (the PS bonus rather than the punch damage), melee weapons STILL BENEFIT FROM P.S. You still inflict more damage the higher your strength is.
And a character with low strength inflicts less than the listed damage.
That's because the listed damage for a weapon includes a range of force behind the weapon, generally that which can be applied by characters with PS 8-15.
Below 8, the character's strength is low enough that the assumption of force needs to be adjusted.
Above 15, the character's strength is high enough that the assumption of force needs to be adjusted.
But note that the damage bonus you describe [i]is exactly the same for supernatural strength as for other kinds of strength."
A character with PS 16 gets a +1 SDC damage bonus.
A character with PS 20 gets a +5 SDC damage bonus.
A character with PS 30 gets a +15 SDC damage bonus.
This is canon.
This is official.
This is how the physics of the world of Rifts actually work.
In order to accept your argument, you have to entirely ignore the rules here, because the rules for PS damage bonus show that the actual physical force that supernatural creatures are capable of is nowhere near enough to inflict the kind of damage that they do with their bodies.
The PS damage bonus is the physics of the game.
The Supernatural Damage Tables are the "defying of physics" that supernatural creatures are allowed.
You lost me there. You're comparing two Cosmo-Knights with weapons that inflict the same damage.
Why wouldn't they inflict the same damage?
Keep in mind, it's been a while since I've read up on Cosmo-Knights....
Why wouldn't they inflict the same damage, indeed. That's the entire point of this.
You have a Cosmo-Knight with PS 51 and a Cosmic Weapon which deals 1d6x10 MD. According to the rules, that Cosmo-Knight CAN stack his supernatural PS damage with his Cosmic Weapon, thus he inflicts 2d6x10 MD with each melee attack.
Like I said, I don't remember everything about Cosmo-Knights.
I'm guessing from this that Cosmic Weapons specify that they can allow punch damage (or PS damage bonus?) to stack with those weapons?
Now take a Cosmo-Knight armed with the Sword of Atlantis, which also does 1d6x10 MD. According to you, that damage shouldn't stack, therefore that Cosmo-Knight would only inflict 1d6x10 MD with each melee attack, despite his supernatural PS behind the attack. So how is it that one could have two Cosmo-Knights with equal strength and wielding weapons which themselves deal equal damage, but the second one only inflicts half as much damage as the first?
Because Cosmic Weapons are specifically created to work in harmony with the Cosmo-Knights, presumably.
That, incidentally, is evidence that the rules as they are now don't reflect how the game began.
Again, when the game of Rifts began, Supernatural PS didn't inflict mega-damage at all.
While it specifically states that the Cosmo-Knight adds his normal hand-to-hand damage to the weapon, it never states that that's some weird exception.
The stating of it IS a statement that it's an exception.
If it were the rule, that rule would be somewhere, and would refer to all weapons in general.