Hammer wrote on Sep 30
th, 2009 at 7:48pm:
We are struggling with that too. In my son's campaign, his brother has gravity control and magnetics. We are going through the Dawn of DNA and just fought Mongo, using tossing him up in the air, and just letting him fall, he was doing like 20+damage/attack, without rolling a die. We used the falling rules, he would make him weightless until he went out of his range, 17" and then let him fall. Damage was equal to the ((square root of his basic hits * inches fallen) - his basic hits)/ his ht adjustment for growth. Is that the formula you guys use, or how else could it work. The cool thing is gravity control doesn't get tougher with experience like Magnetics, but he has used it to make things light, and lift them, he hasn't tried throwing them yet... he's also made a couple of the PCs light so a flying PC could tow them around. Cool power...
Yes, it is a cool (and versatile) power; honestly it's one of the most powerful in the whole game, when used effectively.
Just to give an example (with Mongo), let's suppose a PC has a Strength of 12 (just above average).
Mongo falling normally is just as you said. He weighs 5400 lbs, which means that he has 108 BH. If he went up to 13" high (because 12" up in the PC's range) and then fell, he would take:
Damage = √ object's BH x number of " fallen this turn
Damage = 10.39 (√ of 108) x 13
Damage = 135
Now imagine that said PC (with a S of 12) kept control of that character and
increased Mongo's weight by a factor of +12!
Suddenly Mongo weighs 64,800, has 1,296 BH, and he's taking 432 points of damage! If his Invulnerability was gone that turn, he's splattered and most definitely dead!
If the PC has a 17 S like your son, and even if you make him fall at 17", your damage is still going to be 177 (and 728 if he increases his weight by 17!).
You can see how quickly (and easily) Gravity can be a killer, even in a game where it's normally
VERY hard to kill someone (where Aunt May would often not be killed by a small nuclear bomb blowing up in her face!)