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Stabs
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PostSubject: Magic Doping   Magic Doping Icon_minitimeThu Nov 24, 2011 1:48 pm

A little something I've been looking forward to doing is making characters whose magic dedicates itself to superpowers. Believe it or not, I get tired of shotguns, rifles, machineguns and flashbangs myself too. So in that spirit, here's a resource I'd like to bring up for examination.

Anyway, I've been thinking, could magic increase strength, or speed? Before you point it out, yes, I know what strength and speed are, how they involve not just coordination, nerve structure, muscle mass, how the bones have a limit on the stress they can suffer before they give in. Let's consider all the physiologically relevant factors to be simplified, for the sake of getting anywhere today.



I consider the kinetic energy equation widespread enough that we need to take it into account. Everyone here has gotten through high school, right? E=m*v^2. So the energy that a moving object stores by virtue of its speed is directly proportional to its mass, and to the square of its speed. For that reason, I believe speed should be harder to increase than strength (That, and we all know that if someone is just way too fast you might as well throw the towel: you can duck and weave around a boxer who punches for four of you if you've got the skill, but if he's twice as fast as you instead, you can't get skilled enough).

Anyway, if I am to get to the point anywhere today... I wanted your opinions on the following means of attaining superhuman levels of strength and speed.

===

-Assorted Accessories
Anyone ever heard of a girdle of giant strength, or titan's mittens? How about a ring of super-duper strength, come on, that one's easy. Superstrength is not just the realm of Heracles, Samson, Enkidu, and gang. Though to be frank, from a writing perspective it makes more sense to make the character the reason for their own superstrength than to give them an external and fully transferrable reason. Otherwise, you're going to end up with a ring that has more protagonism than your character.

-Being Blessed
Of all the kinds of magic advertised in the wiki, I think thaumaturgy is the one that best accomodates increased speed and strength. After all, they're coming from someone who's probably made of the things they offer. In any case, if you could make a deal with... say, Mennysan, she might be willing to accomodate some of the strength she's not really using right now in exchange for your immortal soul once you die.

-Doing Drugs
I'm sure all of you have seen some TV show where some strange vegetable or concoction provides superhuman abilities to its consumer. Or maybe you've been doing drugs (not cool, man, not cool). The point is, maybe some substances, like ketamin, spinach, or other hard drugs, may be available in Felarya. Of course, we'd be talking about temporary effects- unless we've got Mecha-Popeye with a device continuously pumping spinach compounds into his bloodstream. In any case, we can have magical potions, berserk drugs, and spinach (if you're really hardcore).

-Extreme Espers
Elements are so far the affinities we know and love. But there's nothing to stop you from making a character with a different kind of affinity. Like, for instance, an affinity for the sort of magic we've been talking about. This isn't Naruto, after all, we can have as many elements as we want. In any case, a character with this kind of affinity might manifest superpowers. Spandex and aliases optional. Whether might and speed are different affinities or not will probably be up to individual taste.

===

Now, we can take notice of the fact that there's elori and ascarlin available to multiply any effect up to twentyfold. Since even by the wiki alone, you can do an effect that's 20 times stronger, I suggest we stay conservative and leave the more extreme forms of it (like when Flash called upon the Speed Force) to the audacity of individual writers. I think strength would be fine if we limit the commonly available forms to simply the strength of a 1-ton animal. Like a water buffalo. If you're a 90 kg big guy, that'd be your strength multiplied 12 times over. If we go to x20 times the effect, the strength of a small herd of buffalos, well, you might have enough power to hurt a pred if you've got a correspondingly strong and massive weapon. Then again, that wouldn't be a good idea- most predators weigh far more than 20 tons. According to my calculations, Milly weighs 450 tons. And Crisis might easily be ten times that weight.
Of course, the strength of a water buffalo would be the extreme form before other modifiers. The strength of a brown bear or a tiger might make for interesting cutting points. Or not so much, depends on what you need it for. If you're going to be loading and unloading stuff all day long, well, the stronger you are, the better, but low power variations already make you more serviceable than you could hope to be on your own.

Speed is a much more delicate matter, though: no one's going to outrun a bullet, even at x12 speed- let's not even bother. Handgun bullets usually move at around Mach 1 (can't really move much faster than that: breaking the sound barrier takes a lot of energy), even at 1/12 speed that's 27 metres per second, or 97,2 km/h. No, you really shouldn't measure superspeed by the ability to outrun bullets. They say you don't need to outrun a predator, all you need is to outrun your companions. So let's say you were paired up with Usain Bolt, what would it take for you to outrun him? If you can manage 10 km/h, then you can get away with a mere x3 speed. He can't run at 36 km/h forever, but you might be able to sustain 10 km/h.
But scarlet elves have a x2 speed thing going for them, and that's already extreme, if you put away the numbers and think of what happens when you play a FPS or platformer at 0.5 speed instead. Now imagine the same thing without glitches. You can take a knife to a gunfight: frontal attacks downgrade from suicidal to merely retarded, and it's the gunners that need to be lucky rather than you. I mean... does anyone here know the Tueller standard? If it were 42 feet instead of 21, guns wouldn't be that dangerous.

Aand, last of all, there's super-toughness. It's fun, I mean, if you can stop a VCR flying at you with a chest thrust, we'll all have something to laugh about. Besides, nothing throws a gunner off stride faster than seeing a bullet bounce off somebody. I had been thinking that maybe the basic level would stop less-powerful bullets, making the body tough enough to compare to a much larger animal (like a tiger, brown bear, or water buffalo) and making overpenetrating bullets dangerous instead, and we can leave the part where you catch magnum .44 bullets with your eyelids for the times someone is using both ascarlin and elori on top of a spell with maximum power.
Then again, if we're going to do this last one, we'd better

===

Do you think it'd be fun to see a little more of that kind of violence around here? I mean, it's really simple to understand, takes a little protagonism off guns, encourages the use of other kinds of weapons, adds a little more excitement into the mix, and creates an option you will be familiar with. I'm not so deluded I wouldn't understand concerns that we are all more familiar with the more exaggerated versions, but just like the more exaggerated versions, we all were pointing out the hyperbole flaws and complaining about them ourselves.


Well, seemed like a fairly good point to converse about.
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Malahite
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PostSubject: Re: Magic Doping   Magic Doping Icon_minitimeSat Dec 03, 2011 11:06 am

Stabs wrote:
Anyway, I've been thinking, could magic increase strength, or speed?
If it can increase endurance and body performance for Giant Predators, let alone increase their strength to the degree it's often portrayed (a good deal have strength proportionally comparable / superior to an Orangutan, let alone human), I'd argue quite readily for such boosts.

Stabs wrote:
I consider the kinetic energy equation widespread enough that we need to take it into account. Everyone here has gotten through high school, right? E=m*v^2. So the energy that a moving object stores by virtue of its speed is directly proportional to its mass, and to the square of its speed. For that reason, I believe speed should be harder to increase than strength (That, and we all know that if someone is just way too fast you might as well throw the towel: you can duck and weave around a boxer who punches for four of you if you've got the skill, but if he's twice as fast as you instead, you can't get skilled enough).
I'd argue speed is easier to enchant, but a great deal harder to enchant properly. Much of Super Strength's problems come from material issues, such as having the strength to push something but either being to squishy yourself or on a surface that can't withstand the weight distribution. Super Speed, meanwhile, requires a great deal of perceptive and body changes so you neither tear yourself apart nor wind up stumbling over your own feet every five steps. Yes, strength requires body changes too, but you can wing it with a bunch less necessary changes (ex: You don't need quite as much control as often times you're not using strength enhancements to manipulate fine objects).

Stabs wrote:
-Assorted Accessories
Anyone ever heard of a girdle of giant strength, or titan's mittens? How about a ring of super-duper strength, come on, that one's easy. Superstrength is not just the realm of Heracles, Samson, Enkidu, and gang. Though to be frank, from a writing perspective it makes more sense to make the character the reason for their own superstrength than to give them an external and fully transferrable reason. Otherwise, you're going to end up with a ring that has more protagonism than your character.
To get around the "reason for their own", have them (or someone of their group) have enchanted the item? It's pretty easy to wing why the gear isn't commonplace, just say they need some rare component or the material costs are highly expensive (or it can only be done when a certain moon in a certain condition is in a certain spot in the sky, or so on).

Stabs wrote:
-Being Blessed
Of all the kinds of magic advertised in the wiki, I think thaumaturgy is the one that best accomodates increased speed and strength. After all, they're coming from someone who's probably made of the things they offer. In any case, if you could make a deal with... say, Mennysan, she might be willing to accomodate some of the strength she's not really using right now in exchange for your immortal soul once you die.
I'd figure that, unless it's corrupting the body, intelligence is the easiest to get via Demonic Pacts. That or magical talent in general. Mind, I'm not sure I'd put "Pact with Succubi" under the "Being Blessed" category.

Stabs wrote:
-Doing Drugs
I'm sure all of you have seen some TV show where some strange vegetable or concoction provides superhuman abilities to its consumer. Or maybe you've been doing drugs (not cool, man, not cool). The point is, maybe some substances, like ketamin, spinach, or other hard drugs, may be available in Felarya. Of course, we'd be talking about temporary effects- unless we've got Mecha-Popeye with a device continuously pumping spinach compounds into his bloodstream. In any case, we can have magical potions, berserk drugs, and spinach (if you're really hardcore).
You don't even need specialist / magically potent drugs for this. Regular performance-enhancing drugs could probably do wonders when you factor in Felarya's healing factor (speaking of which, I imagine that addiction of some sort or another is high on Felarya when said drug's unlikely to kill you).

Stabs wrote:
Now, we can take notice of the fact that there's elori and ascarlin available to multiply any effect up to twentyfold.
If you're readily able to access Ascarlin, you're already done with your adventuring days. You're at the "Relax in manor with all the ladies / beefcakes" stage.

Stabs wrote:
I think strength would be fine if we limit the commonly available forms to simply the strength of a 1-ton animal. Like a water buffalo. If you're a 90 kg big guy, that'd be your strength multiplied 12 times over. If we go to x20 times the effect, the strength of a small herd of buffalos, well, you might have enough power to hurt a pred if you've got a correspondingly strong and massive weapon.
If you're looking at x240 strength... you're well beyond the point of "might have enough". x240 strength is at the point that, with some sort of harder-than-flesh gauntlet, you can tear off large chunks of Giant Predator flesh with your bare hands. You wouldn't be able to fight one in a battle of strength (well, unless they were shorter than 80-or-so feet, and even then they have a massive mass advantage), but at that level of strength it doesn't matter since you can potentially throw a cannonball at supersonic speeds.

Stabs wrote:
Speed is a much more delicate matter, though: no one's going to outrun a bullet, even at x12 speed- let's not even bother.
At x12 speed, assuming reaction times to match, you don't need to. You only need to see the aim of the gun, or - if a subsonic munition - hear the crack of the weapon. Average reaction time is about .2 seconds, which with that modification brings it down to... .0167 seconds. With a walking speed of about 15m/s (or faster than Usain Bolt when he's sprinting). Mind, you're not going to be dodging bullets, you'll be dodging something much slower: Giant Predators. In a single second, you can be about 4/5ths a football field distant of your original position via running.

Stabs wrote:
They say you don't need to outrun a predator, all you need is to outrun your companions. So let's say you were paired up with Usain Bolt, what would it take for you to outrun him? If you can manage 10 km/h, then you can get away with a mere x3 speed. He can't run at 36 km/h forever, but you might be able to sustain 10 km/h.
You don't even need to outrun your companions with this sort of speed and reaction time. Even if a Giant Predator is (by some sources) faster than 180mph speeds, they're not going to be traversing the same sort of dense terrain you will be.

Stabs wrote:
You can take a knife to a gunfight: frontal attacks downgrade from suicidal to merely retarded, and it's the gunners that need to be lucky rather than you. I mean... does anyone here know the Tueller standard? If it were 42 feet instead of 21, guns wouldn't be that dangerous.
Guns can still be very dangerous, especially automatic weapons. A group of automatic weapons is still suicidal, too. The advantage is merely that now instead of targeting you, they need to aim where you will be, and since you have an advantage in reaction times you can readily change your direction of flight before they adjust.

Mind, this is excluding the x20. With x20, you're looking at someone walking about 300m/s, or supersonic walking. If reaction times are adjusted as well, you're looking at someone operating in sub-millisecond speeds. You'd pretty much be incapable of interacting with someone not boosted unless capable of consciously shutting off your enhanced speed (Someone's running 22 feet / second, you see them running about one foot every eleven, or it could take about half a perceived minute to finish a stride).

Stabs wrote:
Aand, last of all, there's super-toughness. It's fun, I mean, if you can stop a VCR flying at you with a chest thrust, we'll all have something to laugh about. Besides, nothing throws a gunner off stride faster than seeing a bullet bounce off somebody.
With super toughness, do you mean as in durability or hardness? There's a big difference: A bullet bouncing off your torso means your skin has become extremely dense, whereas being able to ignore the injury is something else entirely (such as temporarily making yourself a magical construct with no "vital" organs or the sort).

Stabs wrote:
I had been thinking that maybe the basic level would stop less-powerful bullets, making the body tough enough to compare to a much larger animal (like a tiger, brown bear, or water buffalo) and making overpenetrating bullets dangerous instead, and we can leave the part where you catch magnum .44 bullets with your eyelids for the times someone is using both ascarlin and elori on top of a spell with maximum power.
Typical armor enchantments tend to be along the lines of steel plate, and I'd argue that's what most people will have for bodily protection. So, with x20, we're looking at... about an inch worth of steel for the face (since such helmets were typically about 1.8-1.9mm thick), and about 3" thick for the thickest parts (about 3.8"). Average might be closer to about 1.5-2" of steel. If your skin is this good, it's going to stop some low caliber bullets, but armor piercing munitions will still hand you your ass. In the very least, it wouldn't be a good idea to let any near your face.

Stabs wrote:
Do you think it'd be fun to see a little more of that kind of violence around here? I mean, it's really simple to understand, takes a little protagonism off guns, encourages the use of other kinds of weapons,
Technically, basic human-sized weaponry already works on a Giant Predator. The issue is in being able to apply it properly, which is a bit difficult since many have a hilarious reach advantage over an individual (You + Sword = maybe 2m reach? Giant + Flicking Finger = Further than that). Heck, a Pike Wall could theoretically work wonders against any Giant Predator that wants to eat not-squished people and doesn't have magical spells such as "Sleep" or "Confusion" (be like trying to reach into a porcupine's back to remove a flea).
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PostSubject: Re: Magic Doping   Magic Doping Icon_minitimeSat Dec 03, 2011 12:22 pm

Malahite wrote:
If it can increase endurance and body performance for Giant Predators, let alone increase their strength to the degree it's often portrayed (a good deal have strength proportionally comparable / superior to an Orangutan, let alone human), I'd argue quite readily for such boosts.
I see. By some sources, yeah, they're stronger than they should, but I'd rather argue this from the perspective of "would it be fun, would it be interesting, to do something like this? Or should we try to stick to guns, tactics, magic, and the stuff we already know how to do?"

Malahite wrote:
To get around the "reason for their own", have them (or someone of their group) have enchanted the item? It's pretty easy to wing why the gear isn't commonplace, just say they need some rare component or the material costs are highly expensive (or it can only be done when a certain moon in a certain condition is in a certain spot in the sky, or so on).
Because thieves. If they take it, you'll have to make it again. There's also a whole univarse [sic] ready to supply Felarya; adding ad hoc rules as to what can be done or when, asking for moons or stuff like that, just doesn't seem right to me. I'd rather make it unnecessary than difficult to make; I mean, how often do you need to move furniture?

Malahite wrote:
You don't even need specialist / magically potent drugs for this. Regular performance-enhancing drugs could probably do wonders when you factor in Felarya's healing factor (speaking of which, I imagine that addiction of some sort or another is high on Felarya when said drug's unlikely to kill you).
Yeah, me too, but it's ugly to portray. I still might- but you know, addictions are worse for me than dude-on-dude vore seems to be for a lot of people. At least that one can't be interpreted as a social commentary. Hopefully.

Malahite wrote:
If you're readily able to access Ascarlin, you're already done with your adventuring days. You're at the "Relax in manor with all the ladies / beefcakes" stage.
Unless it's not your ascarlin. Let's say you just "borrowed" it, or that someone loaned it to you in order to supercharge you. It's not like every grunt in the army owned their own tank, you know... if it's got some use, it's probably going to get used.

Malahite wrote:
If you're looking at x240 strength... you're well beyond the point of "might have enough". x240 strength is at the point that, with some sort of harder-than-flesh gauntlet, you can tear off large chunks of Giant Predator flesh with your bare hands. You wouldn't be able to fight one in a battle of strength (well, unless they were shorter than 80-or-so feet, and even then they have a massive mass advantage), but at that level of strength it doesn't matter since you can potentially throw a cannonball at supersonic speeds.
Ah, no. At x240 strength, speed unaffected, you could at best throw an anvil at the speed of a frisbee, or 240 cannonballs at the speed of a cannonball. Wouldn't be a good idea either way- to use all that force for a cannonball, you'd need some help swinging it, 240 times the length of chain you'd use if you were trying to throw the cannonball with your own strength.

Malahite wrote:
At x12 speed, assuming reaction times to match, you don't need to. You only need to see the aim of the gun, or - if a subsonic munition - hear the crack of the weapon. Average reaction time is about .2 seconds, which with that modification brings it down to... .0167 seconds. With a walking speed of about 15m/s (or faster than Usain Bolt when he's sprinting). Mind, you're not going to be dodging bullets, you'll be dodging something much slower: Giant Predators. In a single second, you can be about 4/5ths a football field distant of your original position via running.
At x12 speed? That came out wrong... let's say "extra speed" is a square root function of the "speed force". You can get an extra x3 speed force on your own, which added to your base x1, nets you a x2 total, and you could get up to x61 speed power, which makes you up to x7,81 times faster than normal. Usain Bolt would be moving at 76,7 metres per second. We mere mortals might reach 40 m/s.
Also, we don't know what we'll be dodging. Giant predators are fun, Malahite, but so are tigers, bears, bandits, guns [I mean, it always comes back to them, right?], sharks, and LE GASP dolphins!

Malahite wrote:
You don't even need to outrun your companions with this sort of speed and reaction time. Even if a Giant Predator is (by some sources) faster than 180mph speeds, they're not going to be traversing the same sort of dense terrain you will be.
According to my calculations you should be multiplying giant predator speed by 4,24, approximately, and that's without even getting unrealistic. They'd still be faster if you are working without ascarlin and elori.

Malahite wrote:
Guns can still be very dangerous, especially automatic weapons. A group of automatic weapons is still suicidal, too. The advantage is merely that now instead of targeting you, they need to aim where you will be, and since you have an advantage in reaction times you can readily change your direction of flight before they adjust.

Mind, this is excluding the x20. With x20, you're looking at someone walking about 300m/s, or supersonic walking. If reaction times are adjusted as well, you're looking at someone operating in sub-millisecond speeds. You'd pretty much be incapable of interacting with someone not boosted unless capable of consciously shutting off your enhanced speed (Someone's running 22 feet / second, you see them running about one foot every eleven, or it could take about half a perceived minute to finish a stride).
Well, how about x2,5 tops without ascarlin and x7,65 top with it? Needs more maths, but seems legit to me. Only a scarlet elf can catch you at the ascarlin point, and they need their own speed-up technique.
I know that stuff moving at 40 m/s (144 km/h) can still be hit: it happens all the time in war, planes and stuff get hit. But if it's too close to you it can run circles around you until it decides to stab you in the neck.

Malahite wrote:
With super toughness, do you mean as in durability or hardness? There's a big difference: A bullet bouncing off your torso means your skin has become extremely dense, whereas being able to ignore the injury is something else entirely (such as temporarily making yourself a magical construct with no "vital" organs or the sort).
I mean hardness, I guess. Yeah, that about dense skin.

Malahite wrote:
Typical armor enchantments tend to be along the lines of steel plate, and I'd argue that's what most people will have for bodily protection. So, with x20, we're looking at... about an inch worth of steel for the face (since such helmets were typically about 1.8-1.9mm thick), and about 3" thick for the thickest parts (about 3.8"). Average might be closer to about 1.5-2" of steel. If your skin is this good, it's going to stop some low caliber bullets, but armor piercing munitions will still hand you your ass. In the very least, it wouldn't be a good idea to let any near your face.
I figured as much. Some weapons overpenentrate a human, but they'd totally rip ye a new one if something slowed them down.

Malahite wrote:
Technically, basic human-sized weaponry already works on a Giant Predator. The issue is in being able to apply it properly, which is a bit difficult since many have a hilarious reach advantage over an individual (You + Sword = maybe 2m reach? Giant + Flicking Finger = Further than that). Heck, a Pike Wall could theoretically work wonders against any Giant Predator that wants to eat not-squished people and doesn't have magical spells such as "Sleep" or "Confusion" (be like trying to reach into a porcupine's back to remove a flea).
Ooon a sidenote, I calculated a giant naga's weight as... well... uh... my most conservative estimates are on the vicinity of 24 ktig (kilotigers) or 4000 tons, 3800 of which are tail; possibly even six times that value, or 144 ktig/24000 tons. If it can smash its tail against the ground, it might be pretty hard to maintain formation afterwards. If it can uproot a tree with it, and you're close to its roots, that's another way to uproot your foot. I'm sure there's gotta be a way being 100 foot tall helps you force people break formation; I'm working on it.
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PostSubject: Re: Magic Doping   Magic Doping Icon_minitimeSat Dec 03, 2011 12:36 pm

Quote :
In any case, if you could make a deal with... say, Mennysan, she might be willing to accomodate some of the strength she's not really using right now in exchange for your immortal soul once you die.

luckily the average person never looks too far into the future I think - at least in felarya- I don't think many people thing about hell.
"Menyssan gets my soul? Sure!"

Menyssan...oh god stabs why suggest that? xP
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Malahite
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PostSubject: Re: Magic Doping   Magic Doping Icon_minitimeSat Dec 03, 2011 3:00 pm

Stabs wrote:
Because thieves.
They aren't exactly going to be easy objects to steal. If you're wearing a Belt of Giant Strength, I don't put too good odds on a Thief snagging it before you backhand their jaw about a dozen meters away from the rest of their body. And no doubt if you have someone in your party who can enchant such a thing, they can enchant some good wards to protect the item as well.

Stabs wrote:
If they take it, you'll have to make it again. There's also a whole univarse [sic] ready to supply Felarya; adding ad hoc rules as to what can be done or when, asking for moons or stuff like that, just doesn't seem right to me. I'd rather make it unnecessary than difficult to make; I mean, how often do you need to move furniture?
Just suggesting it as a way that you could do it without saturating the market. That wouldn't need to be the only way to do so, just one way to do it that they can actually work with (similar to how in TES one common way to enchant gear is through the use of Soul Stones, but it is by no means the only way to get such magical gear).

Stabs wrote:
Unless it's not your ascarlin. Let's say you just "borrowed" it, or that someone loaned it to you in order to supercharge you. It's not like every grunt in the army owned their own tank, you know... if it's got some use, it's probably going to get used.
The thing is, Ascarlin (unless it's been changed recently) is stupidly valuable for even a small amount. Checking the Wiki:

Mineralogy wrote:
Ascarlin, also called dreamstone, is an extremely rare gem, greatly sought in the universe. A single ascarlin is easily worth a dozen times that a diamond of the same size, and empires have waged wars for just a handful of them.


If you have even a small amount of Ascarlin, and can find a buyer, you're set. Diamond can, at times, have a value dozens (if not hundreds) of times that of gold, and ascarlin is that again. Depending on what sort of diamond is being looked at, a single gram of Ascarlin could be equivalent to anywhere between about $3600 and $30,000,000 USD. A single gram. If you move up to a single Troy Ounce, the price goes from a little over $100,000 USD to just shy of $1,000,000,000 USD. While you're technically right in that this won't set you for an infinite life, with frugal spending $1 Billion could last you a very, very long time.

Stabs wrote:
Ah, no. At x240 strength, speed unaffected, you could at best throw an anvil at the speed of a frisbee, or 240 cannonballs at the speed of a cannonball.
Even throwing an Anvil like a frisby would, well, hurt. One thing that is not commonly understood is just because, to scale, a human is the same size as a mouse to you does not mean what's an anvil for them is a feather to you. If someone threw an Anvil like that at a Giant Predator's head, or worse pulled an ACME and dropped one on it, that would hurt. Bad.

Tearing flesh is just a simple fact of the matter that with x240 human strength you're looking at someone who can snap tree limbs like toothpicks. When you have that sort of strength, it doesn't take much besides a good handhold of a Giant Predator to just tug and pull and rip a nasty chunk straight off. Basically imagine it like someone took some very precise tweezers, with a very good grip, tightened said grip as well as they could, then ripped as hard as they could. In the very least, if one makes the mistake of holding you in hand you might be able to tear off one of their finger nails without issue (assuming you don't break the nail instead of tearing it off).

Stabs wrote:
Wouldn't be a good idea either way- to use all that force for a cannonball, you'd need some help swinging it, 240 times the length of chain you'd use if you were trying to throw the cannonball with your own strength.
That would, actually, probably make for a very good "Don't grab me" weapon. Not quite as bad as putting your hand into an industrial fan, but comparable enough.

Malahite wrote:
At x12 speed, assuming reaction times to match, you don't need to. You only need to see the aim of the gun, or - if a subsonic munition - hear the crack of the weapon. Average reaction time is about .2 seconds, which with that modification brings it down to... .0167 seconds. With a walking speed of about 15m/s (or faster than Usain Bolt when he's sprinting). Mind, you're not going to be dodging bullets, you'll be dodging something much slower: Giant Predators. In a single second, you can be about 4/5ths a football field distant of your original position via running.

Stabs wrote:
Also, we don't know what we'll be dodging. Giant predators are fun, Malahite, but so are tigers, bears, bandits, guns [I mean, it always comes back to them, right?], sharks, and LE GASP dolphins!
If you have that sort of reaction time (one in the .02 range or lower), you don't need to worry about having to dodge the smaller creatures (unless it has an almost Roadrunner-style speed). At more than x4 speed you can outrun a Cheetah without issue, and unless Felarya has some exception I'm not aware of we're typically the best at long distance travel / endurance as well. If you're looking at x6 or more speed, you can comfortably jog faster than most terrestrial critters without trouble (mind, swimming's another matter as people swim a great deal slower than they can run in most instances), and for a great deal longer.

Mind, the main advantage of an increased speed is not speed (in itself). For just a very basic example: You're at x7 reaction time, and you stumble into a room with some angry bandits. You're both taken by surprise, you not expecting the bandits to be in that room and the bandits someone to barge in like such. While they're still readying themselves and trying to discern just who broke in, you've done some basic threat evaluation (such as identifying who looks like a mage, who'd be able to react most quickly to you, etcetera). You need the improved speed to make use of this knowledge, but without the increased perception you'd be in the middle of them before realizing "Wait, something's not right here".

Stabs wrote:
According to my calculations you should be multiplying giant predator speed by 4,24, approximately, and that's without even getting unrealistic. They'd still be faster if you are working without ascarlin and elori.
Giant Predator speed scale is something that, as a whole, something that's iffy. You can easily get widely varying numbers with the same basic numbers. Ex: Say a Giant is x10 the size of a human, with the same build otherwise. We know that they have x10 stride distance, that goes without saying. However, how fast do they complete their stride? If at the same rate as a person, then they would be moving x10, easily. But do they take just as long to complete a stride? I mean, that's a lot of stress on your legs, moving that much mass at potentially 150+ miles per hour.

Let's assume their stride goes down to twice as long as a human takes to complete a stride. Now for every two steps the Giant takes, the human took four! But... the Giant is still moving at five times the speed of a person.

Without knowledge of how much time there is between strides and to complete a stride, there's not much you can do to predict Giant speeds. Let alone for some of the more complex locomotions (like with an eight legged spider / dridder, for instance), who don't uniformly scale in leg pattern, speed, etcetera before factoring in Giant size.

Stabs wrote:
Well, how about x2,5 tops without ascarlin and x7,65 top with it?
x7.65 (is that what you meant?) top speed seems a bit odd with 2.5 base, since supposedly Boots of Speed with inlaid Ascarlin would allow the Boots to now run at x10 their normal speed (meaning that an Ascarlin boosted spell would work at about 1/3.5 the speed of an item with the same function / enchantment).

Stabs wrote:
Needs more maths, but seems legit to me. Only a scarlet elf can catch you at the ascarlin point, and they need their own speed-up technique.
Aye. Such Ascarlin-boosted speed is probably reserved for extremely valuable caravans, of course (which, for simplicity's sake, has probably been reduced to a handful of people with Bags of Holding and temporary non-detection spells instead of huge wagons that'll only really gain the benefits on straight paths).

Stabs wrote:
I know that stuff moving at 40 m/s (144 km/h) can still be hit: it happens all the time in war, planes and stuff get hit. But if it's too close to you it can run circles around you until it decides to stab you in the neck.
Hence the leading on bit. Planes can be targeted directly, but often times your goal is not to hit the plane but fill where the plane is going to be with lots of tasty hot lead.



Malahite wrote:
Technically, basic human-sized weaponry already works on a Giant Predator. The issue is in being able to apply it properly, which is a bit difficult since many have a hilarious reach advantage over an individual (You + Sword = maybe 2m reach? Giant + Flicking Finger = Further than that). Heck, a Pike Wall could theoretically work wonders against any Giant Predator that wants to eat not-squished people and doesn't have magical spells such as "Sleep" or "Confusion" (be like trying to reach into a porcupine's back to remove a flea).


Stabs wrote:
Ooon a sidenote, I calculated a giant naga's weight as... well... uh... my most conservative estimates are on the vicinity of 24 ktig (kilotigers) or 4000 tons, 3800 of which are tail;
Sounds about right. My math has about 600 tons for a man-proportioned Predator at 120', and if you cut out the lower torso and use a female build instead of a male it probably drops down 300-400 tons.

Stabs wrote:
possibly even six times that value, or 144 ktig/24000 tons. If it can smash its tail against the ground, it might be pretty hard to maintain formation afterwards.
At the same time, Giant Nagas really don't like having to cross ice. lol!

Mind, I'm not sure how effectively a snake's going to be able to slam their tail on the ground (or at least a significant portion of such). I imagine it'd be a good deal simpler to break a branch off something and sweep the people over with what amounts to the top of a tree.

Stabs wrote:
If it can uproot a tree with it, and you're close to its roots, that's another way to uproot your foot. I'm sure there's gotta be a way being 100 foot tall helps you force people break formation; I'm working on it.
Ayep. There's a slew of advantages and disadvantages for size that're often ignored entirely.
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PostSubject: Re: Magic Doping   Magic Doping Icon_minitimeSat Dec 03, 2011 5:02 pm

Malahite wrote:

Stabs wrote:
Ooon a sidenote, I calculated a giant naga's weight as... well... uh... my most conservative estimates are on the vicinity of 24 ktig (kilotigers) or 4000 tons, 3800 of which are tail;
Sounds about right. My math has about 600 tons for a man-proportioned Predator at 120', and if you cut out the lower torso and use a female build instead of a male it probably drops down 300-400 tons.

I did the math too, ages past. I was uncertain of posting the results because...well honestly speaking, that's REALLY f***ing heavy!

Don't tell Melany you think she's heavy! You might get dangerous(ly) mixed results...
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PostSubject: Re: Magic Doping   Magic Doping Icon_minitimeSat Dec 03, 2011 7:16 pm

Archmage_Bael wrote:
Malahite wrote:

Stabs wrote:
Ooon a sidenote, I calculated a giant naga's weight as... well... uh... my most conservative estimates are on the vicinity of 24 ktig (kilotigers) or 4000 tons, 3800 of which are tail;
Sounds about right. My math has about 600 tons for a man-proportioned Predator at 120', and if you cut out the lower torso and use a female build instead of a male it probably drops down 300-400 tons.

I did the math too, ages past. I was uncertain of posting the results because...well honestly speaking, that's REALLY f***ing heavy!

Don't tell Melany you think she's heavy! You might get dangerous(ly) mixed results...
Well, it helps to keep in mind that said top half is about 54' long, with a 32' shoulder circumference. You could readily stand several elephants on their body (heck, many of them probably have bosoms the size of elephants!).
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PostSubject: Re: Magic Doping   Magic Doping Icon_minitimeSat Dec 03, 2011 7:36 pm

Malahite wrote:
They aren't exactly going to be easy objects to steal. If you're wearing a Belt of Giant Strength, I don't put too good odds on a Thief snagging it before you backhand their jaw about a dozen meters away from the rest of their body. And no doubt if you have someone in your party who can enchant such a thing, they can enchant some good wards to protect the item as well.
I'd say wherever there's a will there's a way [wait 'till Bruno's on the whorehouse and steal his belt of 4 horsepower while he's got his horsey whipped out], but I think it'd be more appropriate to retort there's a reason why I find magic nigh-impossible to adjudicate, Malahite. I was pretty deadbeat when I first got here, but now I'm trying to stop partying so hard. The following is spoilered for possible irrelevance to the topic.
Partying less:

Malahite wrote:
Just suggesting it as a way that you could do it without saturating the market. That wouldn't need to be the only way to do so, just one way to do it that they can actually work with (similar to how in TES one common way to enchant gear is through the use of Soul Stones, but it is by no means the only way to get such magical gear).
I'd sooner go about it by restricting their trade and production. I mean, like they do in Great Britain with firearms.

Malahite wrote:
The thing is, Ascarlin (unless it's been changed recently) is stupidly valuable for even a small amount.
Well, right now, a tiny fragment of ascarlin is worth 50000 skevols. And from what Karbo's accepted in the wiki, 1 skevol is enough to get you a full, hearty, warm lunch. From what Aisu and 13 have told me, lunch costs, as of right now, somewhere between 7 and 10 dollars. So a tiny fragment of ascarlin is worth round half a million dollars.
I don't know how much a piece big enough to enhance your belt would be though. We haven't gotten that far yet.

Malahite wrote:
If you have even a small amount of Ascarlin, and can find a buyer, you're set. Diamond can, at times, have a value dozens (if not hundreds) of times that of gold, and ascarlin is that again. Depending on what sort of diamond is being looked at, a single gram of Ascarlin could be equivalent to anywhere between about $3600 and $30,000,000 USD. A single gram. If you move up to a single Troy Ounce, the price goes from a little over $100,000 USD to just shy of $1,000,000,000 USD. While you're technically right in that this won't set you for an infinite life, with frugal spending $1 Billion could last you a very, very long time.
Malahite wrote:
While you're technically right in that this won't set you for an infinite life,

Err... no, man. That's not what I said. Sure, get your hands on some ascarlin and you're all set, wouldn't argue with that myself, but I'm not arguing about its pricing here, only about its power. If ascarlin is that powerful and that expensive, I figure most people who are actually using it don't own their own ascarlin. They probably have had it issued -coughIsolonfistcough- or on loan. Doesn't really matter either way.

Malahite wrote:
Even throwing an Anvil like a frisby would, well, hurt. One thing that is not commonly understood is just because, to scale, a human is the same size as a mouse to you does not mean what's an anvil for them is a feather to you. If someone threw an Anvil like that at a Giant Predator's head, or worse pulled an ACME and dropped one on it, that would hurt. Bad.
I know it'll hurt if we do the physics, man, I'm studying engineering. Even if 240 people weigh only 20 tons, that kind of strength concentrated in that little area is going to hurt. It'll be, to a predator, like another predator holding a pincer.

In any case, x240 strength does seem fun- though right now this would only happen if we have a guy who's draught elori, otherwise we go down to x120, and if he's using a shard of ascarlin, otherwise we go down to x12, and even then we're expecting a really high-powered version, otherwise we're going to have it even lower than that. Still, at x24 you could drag a car by your teeth (not that you should).

Malahite wrote:
That would, actually, probably make for a very good "Don't grab me" weapon. Not quite as bad as putting your hand into an industrial fan, but comparable enough.
Eh, no, it'd make for a deathtrap. Put a giant finger right next to the guy, where the chain's speed is slowest, and the chain's going to wrap around both of them, carried by the cannonball at the end- which will, by conservation of angular momentum, slap either the giant finger or the wielder's face. I don't know if 240 people working together can snap a chain capable of handling that kind of strain; my best guess is "probably yes, bitch". That doesn't even begin considering what happens if they let it wrap you up and then give it a hard swing, until the cannonball's inertia is, well, subsumed, for lack of a better word

Malahite wrote:
If you have that sort of reaction time (one in the .02 range or lower), you don't need to worry about having to dodge the smaller creatures (unless it has an almost Roadrunner-style speed). At more than x4 speed you can outrun a Cheetah without issue, and unless Felarya has some exception I'm not aware of we're typically the best at long distance travel / endurance as well. If you're looking at x6 or more speed, you can comfortably jog faster than most terrestrial critters without trouble (mind, swimming's another matter as people swim a great deal slower than they can run in most instances), and for a great deal longer.

Mind, the main advantage of an increased speed is not speed (in itself). For just a very basic example: You're at x7 reaction time, and you stumble into a room with some angry bandits. You're both taken by surprise, you not expecting the bandits to be in that room and the bandits someone to barge in like such. While they're still readying themselves and trying to discern just who broke in, you've done some basic threat evaluation (such as identifying who looks like a mage, who'd be able to react most quickly to you, etcetera). You need the improved speed to make use of this knowledge, but without the increased perception you'd be in the middle of them before realizing "Wait, something's not right here".
Reaction time is critical indeed. I wanted both speed and reaction time boosted- that makes everything a lot easier to figure out for a writer. As long as we don't go beyond the speed of sound, gas/suspended particle friction isn't likely to be a problem either.

Malahite wrote:
Giant Predator speed scale is something that, as a whole, something that's iffy.
I'll say! I've been doing the maths.

Malahite wrote:
x7.65 (is that what you meant?) top speed seems a bit odd with 2.5 base, since supposedly Boots of Speed with inlaid Ascarlin would allow the Boots to now run at x10 their normal speed (meaning that an Ascarlin boosted spell would work at about 1/3.5 the speed of an item with the same function / enchantment).
I've been using E=mv^2, so if you magnify the energy 10 times, the speed itself doesn't go up more than a little over 3 times. I mean, do you remember when Raveolution mentioned the Flash and kinetic energy? Raising the energy can be more dangerous if we increase speed than if we increase mass, I mean, when was the last time someone was impaled by a glacier? Someone could bullet through a giant predator if we let speed magnify itself linearly with the power increase, magnifying the energy by squares of that value. That would be gloriously gory, but I'd sooner we didn't go make anything that made killing great predators a no-brainer. I figure x7 reaction time is a fair place to stop, given x240 is like Flash-level speed.
Also, right. The old world. You use dots for decimals, right?

Malahite wrote:
Aye. Such Ascarlin-boosted speed is probably reserved for extremely valuable caravans, of course (which, for simplicity's sake, has probably been reduced to a handful of people with Bags of Holding and temporary non-detection spells instead of huge wagons that'll only really gain the benefits on straight paths).
Yeah, about that, I'm trying to change my point of view as I said, but I do see your point.

Malahite wrote:
Sounds about right. My math has about 600 tons for a man-proportioned Predator at 120', and if you cut out the lower torso and use a female build instead of a male it probably drops down 300-400 tons.
Mine is 440 tons for a full female body, 220 tons if you cut off just under the bunny, and I calculated the giant naga length by first equating the perimeter of their hips or waist to the perimeter of a snake. So for instance, if an anaconda is 30 feet long and 3 inches in perimeter, while Pamela Anderson is 36 inches in hips, if we rescale the anaconda to 36 inches in perimeter, it's going to be 360 feet long. Say Pam is 6 feet tall, we cut off right under her bunny, that adds 3 feet to the Pamela Anaconda. Now, if we made those 3 feet of Pamela grow until they measured 220 tons and figured a similar length of body measured that much, well, 3 feet are 220 tons, 363 feet are 121 times that amount. 26620 tons. A giant Pamela Anaconda would weigh 26620 tons. Halve that if you figure we gotta have only half the Anaconda to be fair, given we have only half of Pamela too. Malika weighs 13420 tons. What a cow.

Malahite wrote:
Ayep. There's a slew of advantages and disadvantages for size that're often ignored entirely.
Working on them myself.
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PostSubject: Re: Magic Doping   Magic Doping Icon_minitimeTue Dec 06, 2011 5:36 am

Quote :
but I'd sooner we didn't go make anything that made killing great predators a no-brainer. I figure x7 reaction time is a fair place to stop, given x240 is like Flash-level speed.

The core issue is they aren't very threatening if you apply physics without any hand waving to make the issue go away.

Quote :
E=mv^2

Your equation is incomplete (unless you've just been saying this for the sake of everyone here that doesn't have the background of a physicist), for kinetic energy you need it to be E=mc^2-m_0c^2 at least, or you need to use the Newtonian approximations for proper results to save yourself from having to deal with the derivation of the relativistic equations.

EDIT: Just re-reading and I keep expecting to notice something I've missed but I keep not seeing anything, if you could explain why you're chosing e=mv^2 instead of E = 0.5mv^2 + mgh or a more complete formula involving differentials that would possibly help me to see what you're doing if you're doing something different to what I am expecting.
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PostSubject: Re: Magic Doping   Magic Doping Icon_minitimeTue Dec 06, 2011 1:06 pm

welcome to the forum, captain.
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PostSubject: Re: Magic Doping   Magic Doping Icon_minitimeTue Dec 06, 2011 2:33 pm

CaptainKing wrote:
The core issue is they aren't very threatening if you apply physics without any hand waving to make the issue go away.
If we don't do any handwaves to make the issue go away, we don't have anything to do with anything outside physics.

CaptainKing wrote:
Your equation is incomplete (unless you've just been saying this for the sake of everyone here that doesn't have the background of a physicist), for kinetic energy you need it to be E=mc^2-m_0c^2 at least, or you need to use the Newtonian approximations for proper results to save yourself from having to deal with the derivation of the relativistic equations.
I'm not a physicist myself; I'm an engineering student. While I know of the deviations at relativistic speeds, I saw no need to go anywhere near them. Even at 30 km/s (Around mach 100), the relative error is below 9*10-9.

CaptainKing wrote:
EDIT: Just re-reading and I keep expecting to notice something I've missed but I keep not seeing anything, if you could explain why you're chosing e=mv^2 instead of E = 0.5mv^2 + mgh or a more complete formula involving differentials that would possibly help me to see what you're doing if you're doing something different to what I am expecting.
Because I'm only considering the energy involved in the direction of movement. The potential energy due to height difference requires two points to evaluate mgh, and there's no material behaving ellastically in the system being studied for the Kx value. You're right I missed the 0.5 though, thanks for that.
On the other hand, what I did with those equations was merely showing that speed and mass affect energy differently; there was no need to go into details.



Word if I may- I've never seen anyone use the potential energy dependency with height and the non-newtonian correction at the same time. There just isn't any situation that could realistically involve both unless you were acellerating in vaccuum towards an object with ideally uniform gravity extending towards infinite. Ideal situations kind of miss the point of the non-newtonian correction.

It looks like you're studying basic physics, I'd say you've been solving wheel on ramp problems, but then I see that relativistic speed deviation. Doesn't really fit: no one I know really uses the relativistic speed deviation, and those who do hardly consider it relevant... I take it you've either taken some advanced courses, or are a fan of the Flash?
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PostSubject: Re: Magic Doping   Magic Doping Icon_minitimeTue Dec 06, 2011 10:39 pm

Quote :
Because I'm only considering the energy involved in the direction of movement. The potential energy due to height difference requires two points to evaluate mgh, and there's no material behaving ellastically in the system being studied for the Kx value. You're right I missed the 0.5 though, thanks for that.
On the other hand, what I did with those equations was merely showing that speed and mass affect energy differently; there was no need to go into details.



Word if I may- I've never seen anyone use the potential energy dependency with height and the non-newtonian correction at the same time. There just isn't any situation that could realistically involve both unless you were acellerating in vaccuum towards an object with ideally uniform gravity extending towards infinite. Ideal situations kind of miss the point of the non-newtonian correction.

I just looked and thought you appeared to be overcomplicating the problem by going for more "accurate" equations than using the very good approximation that is the Newtonian kinetic energy equation. And I figured you would realise that when I gave the total energy you wouldn't need to explain to me why potential energy isn't really relevant in this case.give then I expected to see 0.5mv^2 I just figured that pointing out the missing 1/2 would maybe clear up any potentially "odd" looking values unless you were doing something I really wouldn't expect.


Quote :
It looks like you're studying basic physics, I'd say you've been solving wheel on ramp problems, but then I see that relativistic speed deviation. Doesn't really fit: no one I know really uses the relativistic speed deviation, and those who do hardly consider it relevant... I take it you've either taken some advanced courses.

Well earlier today I was looking at Riemannian geometry. Only involves some tensor calculus. (and is only mostly unnecessary for what I actually wanted to do)


Quote :
If we don't do any handwaves to make the issue go away, we don't have anything to do with anything outside physics.

Physics is everything, didn't they feed you, then drill that into you when you started your course?
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