@melonhead“It would be irrelevant if I didn't explain in a fashion you haven't actually refuted why I believe its pointless. You just told me 'actually you do need to know all that stuff to fight at such an advanced level.'
Why do you need an advanced knowledge of physics at higher power levels? Characters at this level by their very nature bend and break the laws of physics, they are naturally outside of it. Give me an example of how your advanced knowledge of physics has allowed you to gain a credible advantage in a fight at higher levels?”Well, here’s an example that will give you a clue on what I’m talking about since you cant seem to fathom it for some reason. Here is how I took on someone with almost impenetrable armor with loads of built in defenses that essentially deflected most forms of energy and force. (His armor far more intricate than I described btw)
Most people would say “wow that’s broken” but I figured if I could find away around his proudest defense it would insure me a critical hit. The way my opponent portrayed his character was that of a proud, powerful and arrogant being who wanted to show off how strong his armor was. My character was relatively human and for the most part was at disadvantage. My strategy for tackling his defense was one that required some knowledge of how atoms work. I came up with the idea of powered rounds of a gun that applied the effect of molecular dissipation.
Here is a brief description of Molecular Dissipation. It is the ability to cause solid objects to lose their molecular cohesion by absorbing the energy within their atomic bonds. Thus making objects disappear.
My character didn’t have the ability to do that with his body so I added it to an external force, a projectile.
I knew my opponent did not believe a gun was a threat to him and so I abused it. What this means is when the bullets met his armor instead of being deflected they absorbed the energy within the atomic bonds of whatever they touched which, in this case was his armor. Using logic, no matter how powerful his armor was it did not defend against the absorbing of the energy in atoms. As a result once seemingly invincible armor was now at threat to be penetrated and his character was at risk of taking bullets straight to the body.
The goal was to simply put bullet holes in the target but I needed a little pseudo-science to do so. I used my knowledge to add finesse to what would be the otherwise straight forward tactic.
“How do you determine the skill of two competitors at a level of combat where there is no reasonable way to ground the fight in real world logic? In the real world, people have a set number of limbs, gravity acts upon them, there are only certain moves that work, there is a limited time-frame in which they can act, react, there are restrictions on their sensory capacity. You could reward someone for effectively using cover, for blinding an opponent, for misdirection. There is no way to do these things at a level of power where human physical restrictions are completely non-existent, this is the level of power I refer to as 'shit' for determining skill in combat. Every character at this level can sense actions around them, they use magic rather than physical actions, they are not reliant on restrictive biological sensory capacity, and more importantly, they have a range of magical powers they can pull from that offers them a solution to almost every problem they can encounter with a flick of their wrist.”I assure you all the rules you apply in lower tier fights are the same as high. Here’s what I mean. The simple rules of no Godmoding, Metagaming and Powergaming still apply. Its not like they disappear. You cant control another person character, the amount of damage they take is on them unless you have a logical claim and you cant just overpower and demean others peoples powers because you think you’re “stronger” everything is logic based still. In the case of the armor he couldn’t say his armor would just deflect it because I provided a logical counter which forced him lose faith in his armor and have to evade out of fear of taking lethal blows.
Also in addition knowing everything that’s going to happen is metagaming and will certainly lose you tons of points in a fight via judgment or may get you hit yourself via logic because you have no way to respond. People who ass-pull to a degree aren’t very good and thus lose a lot in these type of fights. It can happen on all levels like I said before.
“It's not just I that do this, if you were to actually look, you'd find a vast number of people are critical of characters at higher power levels when they are made the 'main character' or the 'hero'. The main example, Superman, most people consider his power-set the worst thing about him as a character. There's a good reason why Batman is widely preferred to Superman, and it's not just because he appeals to everyone's inner edge-lord. They like the fact that he is human, and out-thinks his opponents (with a little bit of plot convenience, of course.)
And I agree with them, Batman is the more interesting character because he does have to think his way through problems that Superman can lazer through, punch through, fly through, tank out, freeze, whatever.
Anyway, as I said, my opinion, but not an uncommon one either.”Superman has no personality so of course he’s boring. I prefer Batman was well but that has nothing to do with Clark Kent. With your logic the comic the Infinity Gauntlet would be as uninteresting as it could be, no? It is entirely possible powerful beings can have extensive back stories and lore’s that would be a pleasure to read.(Ex:Darkseid & Dormammu) Also even characters like Galactus, The Living Tribunal and Thanos have losses at the end of the day as well. Strength is not a indicator of less interesting themes.
In addition lets take into account that when Superman fights opponents such as Doomsday, Darkseid and Mongul those tend to be extremely interesting bouts and those beings have vast wells of power. Its because the villians are examples of interesting high powered beings. Lets go back to Darkseid. I find his backstory to be really interesting because he like many rp characters I’ve seen grew to that strength. It was a progress. A lot of these extremely powerful RP characters I’m referring to have become stronger from assets they acquired from thread to thread in one continuing story.
Anyways, I’m about done going back and forth (at least for now). I just wanted to give an alternate view point to the high powered bashing that was going on because I think it would be good if both forms of fighting thrived here. I really mean that. A healthy debate hurts no one at the end of the day.
