Aberrant RPG - Running On Water

[Warren Verona]

Some of you may or may not know, but the home game I run is pretty much a bastardized form of the aberrant world. We are also based in New York and the PCs find themselves having some pretty wild times.

Recently one of the characters found himself being chased by someone with Hypermovement (Flight), not a biggie since the character has Hypermovement (Running) and both had equal dots in thier respective powers.

So they litterally wreaked havoc on the small island in this chase, but the character asked if he could do things that didn't seem convered by the hypermovement power, like run up walls, or run on the side of the building or a wall, and the one that got me was he wanted to run on water.

I'm good at sience... but the math I come up with usually is nowhere near close to what the rules come up with from time to time.

So, how many dots in hypermovement would you think it would take to defy gravity?

Personally I say at least 3 dots in Hypermovement and the "Enhanced Movement" enhancement must be active.

Love to hear what you all think.

[Singularity]

Last summer when I had time for myself (HA!), I ran the calculations to run across water, complete with minimum Dexterity, Mega-Dexterity, Enhanced Movement, and Hypermovement (Running). Unfortunately, this paper seems to have disappeared... buuut, I think I remember the basics.

IIRC, you need a Dexterity of three, a Mega-Dexterity of two, and Enhanced Movement active to pull it off. Hypermovement, on the other hand, was somewhat more simple. Since it gives you a standard speed per dot (barring any Enhanced Movement), I believe you needed just a few dots of the power to pull off the trick. The math isn't too hard once you have the surface tension and how fast the average human needs to be moving to run across the water... from there, it's just a matter of converting from meters per round into kilometers per hour or whatever measurement you used for the necessary speed calculation.

[Zhavric]

Quote:

Originally posted by Revenant:
So, how many dots in hypermovement would you think it would take to defy gravity?

Personally I say at least 3 dots in Hypermovement and the "Enhanced Movement" enhancement must be active.

Love to hear what you all think.

I would buy it as an extra for hypermovement. "Defy Gravity" extra. I'd also be careful with it too. It seems like you're dangerously close to trying to apply physics to Aberrant and that way lies madness...

[Kamilion]

I'm curious if anyone has the background to work up the approximate speeds for the above activities.

I try to keep a dash of physics in my games, just to give them that "real world flavor" without the real world calories, and this info would be useful (especially considering the guy who can fly/run at around Mach 8 in my game).

[Zhavric]

It's a lost cause, hoss. Consider the following:

Let's assume that the speed of sound is a nice even 700 mph (that's not what it is, but it depends on air preasure, altitude, temperature, etc.).

So, mach 8 is 5,600 miles per hour.

5,600 miles per hour is the equivalent of 93 miles per minute or about one and a half miles per second.

And this is why I don't like hypermovement. It's actually a "bundle" of powers. It's the stamina or density decrease to survive moving through the atmosphere at that speed without burning up (friction is a b**ch at that speed). It's the mega-reflexes needed to be able to register what's going on at that speed. It's the momentum control to make sure you don't go squish when you stop.

I suggest you'll be a lot happier without the physics in your game.

[Amped]

It's like that for everything with a super speedster, the only one I've ever heard of them explaining it is Quicksilver, they go so far as to explain that parts of his eye are enhanced to resist it. He's not even all that fast either, he has difficulties breaking the sound barrier.

[Kamilion]

That's why I said a "dash of physics." I operate on the assumption that quantum powers automatically give the ability to survive the direct effects of using those quantum abilities (thus if you can travel at supersonic speeds, you can survive the direct effects of traveling at those speeds... hitting a wall is another matter, of course).

But, since my resident super-speedster doesn't always travel at max velocity (he's not always interested in blowing out every window in 40 or 50 meters or knocking people off their feet) I'm curious what things he can accomplish at certain speeds.

If I can tell him, "Okay, you have to be going at least Mach 2 to run on water, Mach 5 to run horizontally on a wall, Mach 8 to run vertically, and Mach 10 to run on a ceiling," that would be a big help. I can, obviously, just make up the numbers, but I'm curious how accurate they'd be.

[Harold 'Mythic' Anderson]

Okay, so after some creative Googling, I found something approaching numbers to use. Apparently, a normal human would have to be travelling around 110 kmph to run across water. So, let's do some math:

110 kmph is equal to 110,000 meters per hour. That's equal to ~1833.33 meters per minute. Which is also equal to ~30.55 meters per second. Each turn in Aberrant combat is three seconds long, so in the scope of a turn, a nova needs to be moving ~91.67 meters per second. A nova sprints at ([Dexterity + Mega-Dexterity] * 3) + 20 meters per turn. Sooo...

91.67 - 20 = 71.67

71.67 / 3 = ~23.89

Obviously that's not possible. But wait, there's more!

Let's see if we can get these numbers down to something more manageable. With a Mega-Dexterity of one and Enhanced Movement, a nova's sprinting speed (after applying the formula) is doubled. Soooo:

91.67 / 2 = ~45.83

45.83 - 20 = 25.83

25.83 / 3 = ~8.61

Leaving us with Dexterity + Mega-Dexterity = 9... giving us a nova with a Dexterity of five and a Mega-Dexterity of four, which doesn't jive with our Enhanced Movement only doubling the sprinting speed.

So how about a nova with a Mega-Dexterity of two and Enhanced Movement, meaning the nova's sprinting speed would be tripled:

91.67 / 3 = ~30.55

30.55 - 20 = 10.55

10.55 / 3 = ~3.518

Giving us a Dexterity + Mega-Dexterity = 4... and since we need the Mega-Dexterity to be a least two, that means our nova needs only a Dexterity of two and s/he can run across water while Enhanced Movement is active.

Another important thing to note is that a single dot of Hypermovement is rated at 500 kmph outside of combat, hence that's all a nova would need to run across water outside of combat. But, in combat, a nova with Hypermovement only moves at ([Dexterity + Mega-Dexterity] * [3 + {Hypermovement * 3}]) + 20 meters per three seconds. So, working with our math again, we know that the nova needs to move at ~91.67 meters a round to run across water and, every time we run the equation, we'll be working with a value of ~71.67 that will be divided by the 3 + (Hypermovement * 3) to provide us with the value Dexterity + Mega-Dexterity must equal to reach the required speed. So... here's what we've got:

At one dot of Hypermovement, it'll be: 71.67 / 9 = ~7.963

Two dots of Hypermovement it's: 71.67 / 15 = ~4.78

Three dots of Hypermovement: 71.67 / 21 = ~3.41

Four dots of Hypermovement: 71.67 / 27 = ~2.65

And five dots of Hypermovement: 71.67 / 33 = ~2.17

Which gives us a minimum Dexterity + Mega-Dexterity value of:

8 for one dot of Hypermovement (meaning the nova MUST have Mega-Dexterity)

5 for two dots

4 for three dots

And 3 for both four and five dots

Soooo... you guys wanted numbers, there they are. I'm just wishing I had found my old sheet with all of that information.

[David 'Dr. Troll' Smith]

Very good math.

,,

Quote:

Harold 'Mythic' Anderson:

At one dot of Hypermovement, it'll be: 71.67 / 9 = ~7.963

With one dot of M-Dex with EM, that number drops to 4 (so you'd need Dex 3).

[Harold 'Mythic' Anderson]

Quote:

Originally posted by David 'Dr. Troll' Smith:
Very good math.

Quote:

Harold 'Mythic' Anderson:
At one dot of Hypermovement, it'll be: 71.67 / 9 = ~7.963

With one dot of M-Dex with EM, that number drops to 4 (so you'd need Dex 3).

My thanks. But with Enhanced Movement, the numbers get trickier.

Remember, Enhanced Movement multiplies the final number in the equation. So, with one dot of Hypermovement, the equation for sprinting would look like this:

([{Dexterity + Mega-Dexterity} * 9] + 20) * 2 = speed in meters per three seconds

So... ([Dexterity + Mega-Dexterity] * 9) + 20 would only need to equal ~45.83.

45.83 - 20 = 25.83
25.83 / 9 = 2.87

So the Dexterity + Mega-Dexterity would need to be equal to 3. Hence, a nova with a Dexterity of two, a Mega-Dexterity of one, Enhanced Movement, and one dot of Hypermovement would be able to run across water while both the power and enhancement is active during combat. Outside of combat, the nova would only need to activate Hypermovement.


Is it obvious I was a science major before I switched to law?

[Warren Verona]

Heh, I was hoping to avoid math postings, considering my numbers were just about as close as yours were (I was in error, I got 2.46, not 2.87 heh). My players hate my science skillz.

Let's keep in mind however everyone, that bringing physics into this game is an exercise in futility. I do however have to do it sometimes for resons like this, I mean seriously... just cuz a guy has one dot in Hypermovement I'm not about to let him do any physics breaking stunts an stuff, I like to be ready with some facts about requirements.

Oh, an I just knew this thread would drag Amped out of the wood work, the Ya speed freak. =)

[Kamilion]

Only a 110kmph? Wow, that seems... slow. It's not even 70mph. Then again, don't guess I've ever seen a person run that fast, so what do I know.

[Bobson]

Quote:

Originally posted by Kamilion:
Only a 110kmph? Wow, that seems... slow. It's not even 70mph. Then again, don't guess I've ever seen a person run that fast, so what do I know.

World record for sprinting 100m is about 10 seconds. That translates to about 22 MPH in a very short burst. So we're talking about running at three times the world record speed in order to be able to run across water. Compared to other modes of transportation, it may be slow, but it's still really really fast for foot power.

[Sabo]

Quote:

Originally posted by Kamilion:
Only a 110kmph? Wow, that seems... slow. It's not even 70mph. Then again, don't guess I've ever seen a person run that fast, so what do I know.

Though it is close, 110kmph is 68.3508mph more or less.

[Amped]

Quote:

Originally posted by Revenant:

Oh, an I just knew this thread would drag Amped out of the wood work, the Ya speed freak. =)

I don't need to worry about it, Amped can fly dang fast as it is. Though he does run faster since he get's to apply his enhanced movement to it.

[Singularity]

Check the errata: Enhanced Movement works on all forms of movement except instantaneous movement powers (like Teleport and Warp) and movement powers gained from power suites (such as Elemental Mastery).

[Edison]

Oh, well then, I never need to worry about him running on water.

[Sakurako Hino]

Needless to say, even if you can do this neat little trick, it would be smart to say wear a flotation device just in case, and kids... don't try this at home!

Oh, and by the way, Frilled lizards can pull this off, because of their low weight, they do not need much speed. And the thing is, I don't know if after a certain mass, that this feat becomes impossible without having some sort of special enhancement for "walking/running on water".

[Chiteki Hoshiko]

Well, I'd suppose you couldn't really do it if you had Density Increase or something like that. And it's even more useful to have a large surface of contact with the water so that your weight is more spread out.

Uhm, Body modification: Big feet?

[Zac]

All you have to do ist put soap in the water so the surface tension is decreased. that's one nice clean bath!

[El'Jinn Uu]

8 months ago a poster over on the Palladium Books/Heros Unlimited message boards asked this question as well. True it's been asked there alot, but most posters on that site seem to have short memmorys.

Any who, someone replyed with a link to site with an arcive to radio broadcasts (of some sort).

The subject on the broadcast was about a young collage/university professor of physics who wished to get his students more involved in his class, so he started equating subject lessons to comic super powers, and it was a hit.

He later wrote a book on the physics of superpowers.

In it he stated the answer to this very question. In the broadcast that "Yes" the speed needed for an average person to run on a body of water would be close to about 100mph.

I would further that the way catfootednes & Mega-Strength work (Tactile telekinesis according to Wikipedia) that holds matter together would just further increase the over all surface tention even further, making it ever easier to do.