Wall Smashing Heroes

A staple of certain cinematic action films, particularly the superheroic type, is the environmental demolition attack. Rather than simply smacking someone round the face, you hurl them bodily into some major piece of infrastructure. What makes this distinct from grittier action is that our super-tough characters don't just crash painfully into the wall - they smash through it. In extreme examples of this trope, caped weirdos fling one another through half a dozen office blocks, leaving the victim briefly discombobulated and the buildings in a state of collapse.

In this clip, for example, Hellboy is smashed into the ground (and later through an assortment of historic artefacts and their displays, a window, and a dumpster) by Samael. Hellboy, being supernaturally durable, is lightly inconvenienced by the experience. The smashees, however, are absolutely wrecked.

I don't claim to be an expert in physics, but I don't think that's how it works. But if it did, how would we do it in a game?

Considering how often cities get absolutely wrecked by battling spandex fans, I don't understand why humanity in these settings hasn't done the logical thing and reverted to a rural existence. One thing about living in Lower Squalling is that gloating aliens virtually never piledrive a parrot-themed vigilante through your kitchen.

Also, it makes very little sense to me that Superman's first move in every fight isn't to relentlessly force the battle into the upper atmosphere, where there not only aren't thousands of people to get collateraly damaged, but also it's much harder to throw you painfully through a building.

GURPS

I start with GURPS, because I think it's the most likely game to have a robust set of mechanics to handle this sort of thing.

In GURPS, collision damage is pretty simple. You both take damage based on the HP of the opposing object and the speed of the collision (there are specific rules for smashing someone into an object as a melee attack, but let's leave those aside). A stone wall a mere 1' thick has 135 HP, plus DR 156 to absorb any damage. Assuming that an airborne Hellboy does not have an Armor Divisor - which is not necessarily a fair assumption, given his nature, but let's go with it - Samael will need to deal 291 damage to smash him through the wall.

Looking at page 431 of the GURPS Basic Set, we see that "An object in a collision inflicts dice of crushing damage equal to (HP x velocity)/100." One die inflicts an average of 3.5 damage, so we'll need 84 dice to break that wall. Reversing the damage formula, HP x Velocity = 8400. This gives a lot of options. If Hellboy has 100 HP, for example - just slightly more than a Brachiosaurus - we only need hurl him at 84 yards per second, or a mere 168mph. Sadly, the speeds in the clip don't seem to get that high...

Anyway! What can we do to try and mimic this sort of "tough enough to break the walls" state?

Damage Resistance with Reflection seems the best option here. The collisions clearly do some damage, so buying DR with Tough Skin seems appropriate - and remember, most of these coves have a basic amount of DR already, which protects them from stabbing, shooting, punching, etc. - we're stacking our Wall Resistance on top of that! Can't Wear Armour is also pretty universal amongst these types. Finally, "environmental collision" is probably a -40% Limited Defence, since it applies to several damage types (though mostly crushihng) but is only a small fraction of the overall hazards our hero faces. Let's throw on a -10% Super modifier, which can easily be swapped out for any other.

That still isn't going to make too much of a dent in that DR 156. What we need here is Armour Divisor, applied specifically to the reflected damage. Can we do that? Well, we are. A divisor by 10 triples the cost of that already +100% Reflection enhancement... but we end up at 14 points per point of DR. It's not awful. Actually, we can probably make this a purely damage-displacing ability, swapping Reflection for a custom "Reflection Only, +0%" enhancement that mirrors some existing options for other powers. This means it doesn't protect us at all, and exists purely to make things smash when we get thrown into them. That's fine; our existing toughness should soak up the impact damage. We do need to drop Tough Skin, since our DR is already not protecting us from damage, overriding the effects of Tough Skin and making it an invalid limitation. Overall, the cost falls to a mere 11 points per point of DR. For a super-powered budget, that's doable.

Using the Brick stats from GURPS Supers, and assuming he's sent flying by a semi-truck travelling at top speed (55 y/s), impact from our anti-materiel Hellboy will do (20 x 55)/100 dice of damage, or 11d, for an average of 38 damage. More importantly, for the damage done to Hellboy:

If the immovable object is hard, use twice the HP of the moving object to calculate damage.

Poor Hellboy is going to take 22d of damage, or 77 points. We'll need a lot of our special DR to absorb that - it'll cost 847 points, in fact. But if we pay for it, Hellboy now deals 77 points of damage to the stone wall, with the wall's DR treated as a mere 16 points. Overall, he does 61 + 38 = 99 points of damage to the stone wall, causing some serious damage, and reflecting what we see in the film. Brick walls are, incidentally, much easier to smash through (a mere 67 HP and DR 16 for a typical wall).

Note that with Multiplicative Modifiers (price up the power with all enhancements, then apply limitation discounts, rather than having them cancel out) this is a vastly more affordable 4 points per point. Still high for a niche ability, mind.

GURPS, mark 2

Another approach, suggested by Roger (thanks!) is to use Create with the Transmutation enhancement to temporarily turn solid materials into something more fragile.

I note that 1 cubic foot of sandstone is 150 lb., limestone is 165 lb., and granite is 175 lb. (according to Rock Valley Natural Stone).

Create allows up to 10 x (level squared) lb. per use, so to transform a single cubic foot of stone, we're looking at Create 4 or 5. In practice, we likely want to affect several cubic feet at a time to model the effects we see in superhero films, so let's assume 10 cubic feet, giving 1650 lb. This requires Create 13. To this, we add Transmutation Only (-100%) and Transmute Stone to Plywood. Transmutation uses the worse value of either the source or the target material - here, we want to turn stone into a much lighter substance, plywood, so that's not a problem.

The effect is incredibly brief - just long enough for the impact to resolve - and it can only be used for the purpose of how collisions work. This suggests Reduced Duration 1/10 (-20%) and Accessibility (Only for collisions, -60%). You can't use it to transform a wall and break through it, or anything utilitarian, only to influence what happens when you smack into a solid object. We also need Reflexive (+40%) to remove the need for concentration and have it take effect instantly.

Create normally affects matter within arm's reach, so let's also add Melee Non-Attack (-30%) to reflect that contact is required. While heroes certainly get winded by the experience, this is covered by the damage from the impact, so let's add Reduced Fatigue Cost 1 (+20%) to remove the need to spend fatigue. Finally, since this is a function of toughness rather than intellect, add Based on ST (+20%) to make the activation roll Strength-based.

For a neat 30 points, we can get Create 15, allowing us to convert up to 13 cu. ft. of granite into plywood for just long enough to smash it apart on collision. We can buy further options, like Transmute Brick to Styrofoam and Transmute Metal to Wax, as alternative abilities costing 6 points each.

GURPS, mark 3

Roger's suggestion pointed me towards another idea: Godlike Control (GURPS Powers, p. 92).

This allows you to manipulate abstract elements and properties, such as Space and Time. Canonical examples include Size (as part of Space), Chemical Processes, and Nuclear Processes.

Since Scale Alteration, the canonical example for Size (a Common subset of Space) affects density, it seems reasonable to affect only density as an Occasional subset. Using the rules for Control Size, Control Density grants an effective armour divisor against the target, and the opposite effect for the target's attacks.

Here, we're looking at Accessibility (Only for collisions, -60%) and Reflexive +(40%) as above. We also want Accessibility (Self Only, -20%), plus Accessibility (Only increase, -20%) since we can't make ourselves less dense to avoid damaging things we get thrown into! Normally Control increases radius with higher levels, but we don't need that, so the second and subsequent levels take Does not increase area of effect, -50% (cribbed from the Nuclear Suppression power). These therefore cost a mere 3 points each.

Using Scale Alteration as our model, every 2 levels of Control Density gives us a level of Armor Divisor and protects with a partial Armor Divisor. Control Density 8 will let us divide any DR by 100, while our own DR is multiplied by 100 (and we're always considered to have DR 1)!

At a mere 27 points, I think this is the most effective option.

GURPS, mark 4

Hopefully my final idea for GURPS is to turn this into an Affliction. Here, we need an Aura to make the attack trigger on impact, coupled with Melee Attack as a built-in requirement. We add a couple of limitations: Environmental Inanimate Objects Only (-60%) and Inadvertent Collisions Only (-60%), since it's not in-genre to use this deliberately to burst through walls. Unfortunately, Afflictions give an HT roll to resist and DR applies as a bonus - not a great option when facing objects with DR 100+!

There are several ways around this, but some (like Sense-Based) aren't appropriate for inanimate objects, and Irresistible Attack (which ignores DR) is too expensive. Malediction is a better option here, bypassing DR and turning the HT roll into a Quick Contest of Will vs. HT. Again, we'll want to add ST-Based (+20%) to reflect the genre mechanics.

So what about effects? Well, the idea here is that the Affliction makes our target fragile, so we want Negated Advantage (DR 50, Margin-Based, +750%) and Negated Advantage (HP 20, Margin-Based, +60%).

Overall, here's what it does: when a pig-faced demon throws you into a stone pillar, the Affliction triggers automatically. You roll a Quick Contest of your ST (probably quite high) vs. the pillar's HT (normally 12). If you win, for each point by which you won, you reduce the pillar's effective DR by 30 and HP by 20. This reduces the amount of damage you take on impact with moveable objects, but not our pillar. However, it does make it easier to smash the pillar - and "If the obstacle is breakable, the moving object cannot inflict or take more damage than the obstacle’s HP + DR", so the more we reduce those, the lower our maximum damage is. For example, assuming ST 17 (pretty low for most heroes of this type), we'd expect to win by 5 on average. We reduce DR and HP by 150 and 100 respectively - enough to negate both for a brick wall or 2" of mild steel, and reducing a 1'-thick stone wall to only DR 6. In all three cases, the object is likely to break apart while we take minimal damage.

This will cost 64 points, though tinkering with the values makes a big difference. If we have higher ST or Super-Effort, we can pay for less DR reduction and rely on the margin of success. For example, if we only reduce DR by 10 and HP by 5 x margin of victory, it costs a mere 31 points.

Pathfinder 1e

This kind of thing is much easier in Pathfinder, because you can easily define it as a feat or class feature.

Shattering Impact

Thanks to your incredible toughness, stone walls and rocky floors are just another way to break a fall.

Prerequisites: Damage reduction, Con 13, Great Fortitude, Toughness.

When you would take falling damage from collision with a solid object, make a Fortitude saving throw with a bonus equal to half the damage rolled. If you exceed the object's break DC, half the damage from the impact is converted to nonlethal damage, and the object takes that amount of damage, in addition to any damage the impact would already cause. Hardness applies as normal.

If you cause enough damage to inflict the broken condition, reduce the lethal damage you take by half. If you destroy the object, halve the initial damage instead; your movement continues, but the impact absorbs 10 feet of movement for every 5 damage originally rolled. In the case of a fall, your effective fall distance is reduced by the same amount.

Greater Shattering Impact

You can survive being thrown through a wall

Prerequisites: Damage reduction, Con 13, Great Fortitude, Shattering Impact, Toughness.

Whenever you successfully absorb collision damage with Shattering Impact, you take only half damage from the impact, and half that damage is converted to nonlethal. If you break the object, that damage is halved again; if you destroy it, you take only the nonlethal damage.

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Any other suggestions?