In battles among super-powered characters, collateral damage comes with the territory. Things all around the area get picked up, battered and destroyed. If you’re in New York City, that’s when Damage Control gets called in to help clean things up.

Improvised Weapons

In the middle of a super-powered battle, the combatants often like to pick up anything handy and use it as an improvised weapon to swing or throw at their foes. This can range from a rock all the way up to a truck or bigger, and it can even include other people.

A character can carry anything their own size or smaller on the Objects & Sizes table, and they can also swing or throw it. With a Challenging Melee check, they can lift something one size larger than they normally can, but they cannot carry, swing or throw it.

Certain traits and powers can affect this. For every level a hero has in the Mighty power, for instance, they are treated as one size bigger for these strength-related actions.

The ranges for throwing something—according to the object’s relative size—are listed on the Objects & Sizes table.

When making an attack with an improvised weapon—in either close or ranged combat—it inflicts the attacker’s full damage on the target. On a Fantastic success, double the damage, but the improvised weapon is now effectively destroyed.

The larger an improvised weapon is—relative to its target’s size—the more targets it can be used to attack at once, as shown in the Potential Targets column on the table. The number there is a maximum, and it assumes that all the potential targets are average sized and standing in adjacent spaces—which is rare. It’s up to the Narrator to decide how many targets can actually be affected.

When making an attack against multiple targets, the attacker makes a single attack roll. Each of the targets then compares that against their appropriate defense score.

Larger objects do more damage, as shown in the Damage Multiplier column. Damage multiplier modifiers do not stack with other things that affect damage multiplier modifiers in the same direction.

The Narrator must judge whether something can be picked up as a whole and used as a weapon. Even if a character is big and strong enough to pick up a house, for example, it would likely fall apart in their hands before they could swing it at someone. It’s just not built for throwing at someone.

Example: Spider-Man (Peter Parker) has the power Mighty 1, which allows him to carry things up to one size bigger than him. He picks up a car (which is big sized) and swings it at a bunch of Hydra agents trying to capture him. He can target up to two people at once with the attack, and the Narrator rules that there just happen to be two Hydra agents who are close enough together to be targeted.

Spider-Man’s player makes a Melee action check and rolls 3 5 2, for a total of 10. He adds his Melee of +5 and the attack modifier of +1 to that to raise it to 16.

A Hydra agent’s Melee defense is 11, so Spider-Man hits both of them. His Melee damage is (dMarvel×5)+5. That comes to a total of 30. Each Hydra agent has a Health of 30, so the attack knocks them both out.

The car could give Spider-Man a damage multiplier modifier of +1, but that’s the same as what his power Mighty 1 gives him. Since they don’t stack, we can ignore it.

If Spider-Man threw the car at the same group of targets, his Mighty 1 power would allow him to throw it as if it was his own size. That would make the throwing range 5 spaces. Throwing it at a target within that range would be handled normally. He would have trouble throwing the car from there up to the maximum range of 10 spaces.

Objects & Sizes

Attacking Objects

Sometimes a character wants to attack a thing rather than a person. Ranged attacks against an unmoving object have a target number of 10, modified by the object’s size, relative to the attacker. Close attacks against an unmoving object automatically succeed, but they require a roll anyhow to determine the damage.

If a character attacks an object being used by another character, the target number is the user’s Agility defense—modified by the object’s size. If the attack succeeds, the character holding the object must make an Agility check to hold on to it, using the amount of damage done as the target number.

If the object is a vehicle under the control of a character, the target number is its operator’s Agility defense, modified by the object’s size. If the attack succeeds, the character operating the vehicle must make an Agility check to maintain control, using the amount of damage done as the target number.

Whether or not the object is harmed or destroyed is up to the Narrator. This should depend on the materials the object is made of and its relative complexity. Things that are simple—like a rock—are harder to effectively destroy than something that’s complex—like a smartphone. When in doubt, lean in the direction that’s more fun.

Plowing Through Objects

Sometimes a character gets thrown against, gets knocked into, or rams into something. If that deals enough damage to the object the character hits, they might plow through the object and keep going. All holes made in this way are the same size as the character who makes them. Average-sized characters make average-sized holes, for instance.

See the Plowing Through Things table for how much damage a character needs to make to plow through certain things.

If the damage a character’s impact against an object imparts exceeds that threshold amount, they plow through the obstacle and keep going until they hit an object that stops them—or they run out of steam. They don’t take additional damage from hitting those objects, as that’s part of the Fantastic damage result that caused the knockback already—or the impact from their fall.

Example: Thor (Odinson) punches Wolverine (Logan). He rolls 3 M 6 on his Melee check, giving him a total of 23 against Wolverine’s Melee defense of 17. Wolverine’s reinforced skeleton drops Thor’s damage multiplier to 8, so the damage is (6×8+8=) 56. The Fantastic success doubles the damage, for 112.

The knockback sends Wolverine flying backward (8×5=) 40 spaces, straight into the building 2 spaces behind him. The exterior wall absorbs 40 points of damage, and Wolverine goes sailing through it with 72 more points of damage to inflict on the building. At 5 spaces in, he hits an interior wall—which absorbs 20 points of damage—and goes through that, leaving 52 points of damage. Another 5 spaces in, the same thing happens, dropping the damage to 32 points. One more time, and it drops the damage to 12 points. After another 5 spaces, he strikes a fourth interior wall, but he doesn’t have enough damage to go through it. After being knocked back 22 spaces, he comes to an aching stop.

Plowing Through Things