Getting thrown by a giant robot......

[slade2501]

So , it happened. A player in a NG v-10 super robot managed to roll high, and caught a ground opponent. He then says to me, "Hey, I'm gonna throe this guy like a football!" and I go "uh, I'm not sure I have a rule for that."

Math Time.

the average human can throw a ball 50 ft, up to 60 mph. So I figure that a robot 4 times the height of an average man, that can carry 4 tons could throw a 200 pound human about 200 ft at around 70 mph (he flew two seconds before hitting heavy trees).

They all the players asked, "How much did that hurt him?"

And I figured, the trooper got rag dolled into heavy woods at 70 miles per hour, with no protection besides his environmental body armor. The armor took a little damage. the meat sack inside took a lot of damage. Easily this had to be some major body trauma or even lethal impact damage. Spine or head injury. Internal damage and or bleeding. Limb dislocation. the list goes on.

I told the players "Yeah he's not getting up."

[Orin J.]

i've always operated under the logic that EBA has a lot of features to reduce impacts, since otherwise railguns would spaltter the people inside like squeezing a packet of catsup half the time. that's still probably enough of a blow he needed medical attention though, and i'm pretty sure conventional wisdom holds "if you've got a busted arm and he's got a giant robot, you don't get up for more".

[Mack]

Sounds like you handled it just fine, especially if that 'human football' was just a throwaway minion and not an important NPC or character.

This is one where you could get wrapped around the axle digging through some formulas just to come up with a similar solution. On RUE p356 there are some rules for falling while wearing armor that you could adapt, but I doubt it's worth the effort.

[Warshield73]

i've always operated under the logic that EBA has a lot of features to reduce impacts, since otherwise railguns would spaltter the people inside like squeezing a packet of catsup half the time. that's still probably enough of a blow he needed medical attention though, and i'm pretty sure conventional wisdom holds "if you've got a busted arm and he's got a giant robot, you don't get up for more".

There are rules for this somewhere, I have been house ruling this for so long I forget where, but when an SDC person in MDC armor takes SDC damage from an MDC hit is actually easy. But, your situation of what amounts to SDC damage inside MDC armor from what is actually SDC structures (trees) and then a fall.

When a giant vehicle or creature throws a PC/NPC in EBA against something I have it cost two attacks (1 is wind up, 2 is throw) the target may be able to attack them between the windup and throw, and I base the damage on regular punch. Throw them against a tree maybe a quarter damage, throw them against an MDC wall 10 feet away full damage with the appropriate amount of SDC damage taken in the armor. In this case though the fall is the big damage.

Sounds like you handled it just fine, especially if that 'human football' was just a throwaway minion and not an important NPC or character.

This is one where you could get wrapped around the axle digging through some formulas just to come up with a similar solution. On RUE p356 there are some rules for falling while wearing armor that you could adapt, but I doubt it's worth the effort.

I agree, it is more important to keep the combat flowing and move the story along but if the player is going to do this a lot, or if you might do it to a player, you may want some rules for it to maintain consistency.

[guardiandashi]

So , it happened. A player in a NG v-10 super robot managed to roll high, and caught a ground opponent. He then says to me, "Hey, I'm gonna throe this guy like a football!" and I go "uh, I'm not sure I have a rule for that."

Math Time.

the average human can throw a ball 50 ft, up to 60 mph. So I figure that a robot 4 times the height of an average man, that can carry 4 tons could throw a 200 pound human about 200 ft at around 70 mph (he flew two seconds before hitting heavy trees).

They all the players asked, "How much did that hurt him?"

And I figured, the trooper got rag dolled into heavy woods at 70 miles per hour, with no protection besides his environmental body armor. The armor took a little damage. the meat sack inside took a lot of damage. Easily this had to be some major body trauma or even lethal impact damage. Spine or head injury. Internal damage and or bleeding. Limb dislocation. the list goes on.

I told the players "Yeah he's not getting up."

That was a reasonable outcome, although I would say that the human football would likely only be stunned not killed.
there are rules for taking damage through mdc armor, I want to say its in sourcebook 1? I think its lumped in with the optional knockdown rules. basically I would argue that the person and his armor "effectively takes punch damage" as if the robot had punched them, they also take sdc bleedthrough damage equivalent SDC damage to the MDC damage the armor took (from the impact) and I would have them make a PE check (coma/death) to remain conscious, if they succeed they only loose 1-2 actions to get back up. if they fail they are stunned for 1d4 melees, if they critically fail they are out for minutes instead.

[ShadowLogan]

That was a reasonable outcome, although I would say that the human football would likely only be stunned not killed.
there are rules for taking damage through mdc armor, I want to say its in sourcebook 1? I think its lumped in with the optional knockdown rules. basically I would argue that the person and his armor "effectively takes punch damage" as if the robot had punched them, they also take sdc bleedthrough damage equivalent SDC damage to the MDC damage the armor took (from the impact) and I would have them make a PE check (coma/death) to remain conscious, if they succeed they only loose 1-2 actions to get back up. if they fail they are stunned for 1d4 melees, if they critically fail they are out for minutes instead.

RUE pg 355-6

... So I figure that a robot 4 times the height of an average man, that can carry 4 tons could throw a 200 pound human about 200 ft at around 70 mph (he flew two seconds before hitting heavy trees)....

RUE pg328 under WP Targeting. It doesn't really address the toss human by a BFR, but it says 3ft/0.9m per Robotic PS point with a limit of 1/2 the carrying weight. The NG-V10 has a Robotic (?) PS of 40 per SB1o (pg53, sorry don't have a more up-to-date listing).

Distance=3ft*40 PS = 120ft
Weight Limit (per RUE lift/carry) = 40 x 100 = 4000lbs, so it can toss 2000lbs the previous mentioned distance.
Speed = 120ft/2sec flight time = 60ft/sec (or ~40mph, though if tossed balletically the trajectory would have the guy covering more distance which I am not accounting for)

Damage can depend on a variety of things and how one wants to quantify the damage type (is it strictly falling, collision) and what rules one uses. Though I agree the guy isn't getting up anytime soon.

[Fenris2020]

I always have fun with Robotic and Supernatural strength-type things throwing, Rugby-kicking, playing make-a-wish and so on with NPCs and PCs.
Some things are covered by knock-down and falling damage, other things I had to modify or make up in a logical manner.

[Killer Cyborg]

So , it happened. A player in a NG v-10 super robot managed to roll high, and caught a ground opponent. He then says to me, "Hey, I'm gonna throe this guy like a football!" and I go "uh, I'm not sure I have a rule for that."

Math Time.

the average human can throw a ball 50 ft, up to 60 mph. So I figure that a robot 4 times the height of an average man, that can carry 4 tons could throw a 200 pound human about 200 ft at around 70 mph (he flew two seconds before hitting heavy trees).

They all the players asked, "How much did that hurt him?"

And I figured, the trooper got rag dolled into heavy woods at 70 miles per hour, with no protection besides his environmental body armor. The armor took a little damage. the meat sack inside took a lot of damage. Easily this had to be some major body trauma or even lethal impact damage. Spine or head injury. Internal damage and or bleeding. Limb dislocation. the list goes on.

I told the players "Yeah he's not getting up."

You do a disservice to MDC armor, I'm afraid!


Under the original rules (RMB 12) a high-speed crash while wearing MDC armor inflicts 1d4 SDC/HP per ever 10 mph over 30 mph.
So if a squishie guy in EBA gets thrown against a MDC wall at 70mph, he'd only take 4d4 SDC damage, for an average of 10 SDC.
Half damage if he Rolls With Impact successfully.
Even if the guy's a completely average guy with all attributes 10, he'd start with 10 SDC and 13.5 HP.
In order to kill a guy that way, you'd have to roll a Crit on the attack AND roll at least 12 damage before it doubles.
But even if you rolled max damage (16 SDC) and a Crit, that'd be 32 SDC total, which would drop down to 16 SDC if he rolled with impact.

Under RUE rules (pp. 355-356)... well, first power creep kicks in by making the ENTIRE concept of suffering any SDC damage while wearing MDC body armor (not counting specific direct-to-HP/SDC spells/powers/etc.) an OPTIONAL rule. So while using the new rules would be technically canon, it's something that a GM would have to opt into; the default would be 0 damage.
And if you use the newer optional rules, the already-low damage is dropped even lower than it was, down to 1d4 SDC/HP for ever 20 mph above 50 mph.
So a 70 mph crash would result in... 1d4 SDC damage to somebody in EBA.
Roll With Impact for half damage.

This is the thing about Rifts; the power level is insane, and it's supposed to be.

[taalismn]

So don't write off that tossed-aside mook just yet...he might come back to shoot you in the back(thus, forcing the PCs to question: "Is this story really about us? What if it's somebody else's come-back-from-certain-death-and0take-revenge/justice story and WE'RE the bad guys?")