Physical Invulnerability

[Pope Mega Force]

I'm kinda curious. What does everyone thing Physical Invulnerability encompasses. Obviously, someone with a regular gun can't do squat. But what about drowning? In space? In the middle of a nuclear explosion or just a regular explosion?

[malice]

Drowning and in space are not encompassed, you'll want self-contained lifeform for those. Nuclear explosion is an energy attack, and you're not going to make it.

[WildKnight]

In terms of the MURPG, physical means stuff that kills or harms primarily by impact/contact, as opposed to exposure. Basically, you can survive standing on one planet when another planet collides into it, but you can't survive the vacuum created afterward

[thanos]

Being at or relatively near the center of a Nuke is definitely energy, via explosion/radiation. Being out farther, say at the .5 mile range the initial damage is going to be concusive and thus physical and survivable. Staying within the radiation range of the blast for any length of time without some kind of protection is going to deep fry ones insides via energy and thus not survivable in the long term without some kind of major medical/magical/mutant healing or Healing Factors.

[malice]

Btw, it's worth noting that you'd need both energy and physical invulnerability to comfortably survive any nuclear explosions. A toughness of 10 No AP or 2x with self contained life form might do it, but toughness only counts as energy defense some of the time, and fallout would play hell with you.

[Scriptus]

wildknight said:

In terms of the MURPG, physical means stuff that kills or harms primarily by impact/contact, as opposed to exposure. Basically, you can survive standing on one planet when another planet collides into it, but you can't survive the vacuum created afterward

Although if you had an air supply a person with physical invulnerability could survive the vaccuum of space. (ie. it wouldn't pull his body apart) the real danger here is the lack of oxygen. So this person would probably survive for a few minutes with out oxygen but what a terrible way to die.

[WildKnight]

You forget cold. "Cold" is an energy type in MURPG, and you freeze to death pretty quickly in space.

[Scriptus]

I'm not sure what I think about cold being a type of energy. If anything it's a lack of energy. I know that ice/cold can be an element for a mastery (pg 46) but I don't recall where the books call it a type of energy. Could you let me know?

There are a lot of things that don't fit neatly into one of the four major categories of invulnerability. A great example of this is the nuclear blast or any bomb for that matter. They combine phyiscal and energy based attacks. In my opinion it's like so many other things in murpg. It's up to the GM that you're playing with how your invulnerability will work in any given situation.

[Brainstem]

I don't know, to me Physical Invulnerability seems like it should cover some minor elements of energy as well. For example, I can't see a person with Physical Invulnerability walking through a sheet of fire and being hurt by it, despite fire being counted as energy under MURPG rules.

[malice]

Physical Invulnerability doesn't make a lot of sense because what would make a person physically resistant also would make them energy resistant (in fact most phyical attacks can be illustrated in terms of energy), so it's extremely important to either be imaginative or be apathetic when working with the invulderabilities. I frequently compare physical invulnderability to intangibility. So a person made out of steam for example would never have a problem with being shot, however they would most certainly have a problem with fire, because it would force them to expand further and eventually nothing more than humidity. Beyond that though you have to refer to that apathy or imagination I recommended...

Also Scriptus, your citing page 46 confused me, and I believe it's just a typo, because that's the page w/close and ranged combat. On page 43 they list energy types (cold is in there) and on page 54-5 they discuss masteries. Like I said I assume 46 was a typo and you've already looked in one if not both of the two places I just listed. I agree that cold is the absence of energy, but an absence is just as frequently harmful as a abundance. One solution is to say that while cold is not energy per se, it is a damaging absence of a nourishing and necessary energy type. I'm not suggesting this is a perfect solution because it's mostly a lot of B.S., but I think this could work as an explanation the GM gives his players, which is all we have to try for.

[Kaimontfendo]

Personally, I kinda think of physical immunity as being similar to what Hydro-Man has. Because he exists as fluid, no physical means of damaging him are effective. You can punch him, hack at him with a katana, blast him with a shotgun, or even drop him off a building. But he won't take lasting damage from any of it. (Of course, the similarity falls apart when you consider that he can be defeated by mixing him with sand or powdered cement. Arguably, these could be considered "Chemical" rather than "Physical" but that's another topic.) Now, if you bombard him with mircowave radiation, electricity, or thermal extremes, he's toast. (Well, actually I guess he'd be water vapor, but still...)

I'd say that cold IS NOT energy, because it cannot be absorbed. Sure, it's listed as an element, but so is acid. Acid is clearly physical, or technically chemical. Although I don't quite like it, I think I'd say cold is neither physical nor energy, and since it's clearly not magic or mental, it isn't covered by any of the major invulnerabilities.

But maybe that's just me.

[malice]

Can't be absorbed? I know it's fudging realism but I always let it be absorbed. Just as a balance issue you can't pick and choose. Believe me, it'll get out of hand if you do (I was the guy who wasn't allowed to absorb something, and while I didn't get furious or anything, it certainly shook my frame of reference, and my anxiety slowed down the game).

Btw, the "Area Affect and Force Field equal to stones placed in mastery" advantage from the Spidey book is completely broken with Mastery of Cold.

[Kaimontfendo]

I've got too much of that scientist stuff going on. But since cold is a lowered level of thermal energy, how on earth 616 can it be absorbed? For that matter, how does a person spend energy, to drain thermal energy from an area, without absorbing the energy into themself?

So, cold as an energy type is just a tad to confusing for me to work with. With a little thought, I hope to build a character who has "Mastery of Thermal Energy" allowing them to raise or lower temperatures, and all that good stuff. It'll take some work.

[malice]

You could say that the energy one absorbs from a cold attack isn't the actual cold but rather the energy that was originally required to propel and bind the cold attack.

Still B.S. I'll admit, but my only intention was to keep one mastery from requiring an "Extraordinary Power" +2 or +3 because it gets to ignore even more types of defenses than it did before.

[WildKnight]

Honestly... you can argue whether cold is energy or not all day. The system clearly says it is. Its listed as an "element"... your Force Blast can use "cold" as its type. To me its very clear that the system intends physical to mean things that damage by impact, and energy to mean just about everything else (except, of course, for mental and magical attacks... which brings up an interesting point... magical "fire" and its affects on those immune to fire...)