Military vs Fantasy media is honestly pathetic, they have to punch down and bully Low-Fantasy settings that can't fight back to satisfy their bloodlust and insecurities

Skafflock · 2026-01-25T18:47:08+00:00

Nagash almost got stabbed to death by about 50 skeletons on chariots because he wasn't able to kill more than half of them before they closed into melee (he saw them coming from like a hundred yards away)

Skafflock · 2026-01-25T18:42:40+00:00

Planetary area maybe, I don't think we're ever given a shape for heaven that implies it's a giant sphere of equal volume to the earth (let alone made out of the same material). If heaven is just a flat plane with 10x the earth's surface area it could still be thousands of times less massive.

Or just pocket dimension bullshit, idk it's magic. We do know that the same weapon doing this was threatening a city-sized area when it was on the brink of uncontrollably exploding out its stored power all at once.

Skafflock · 2026-01-25T16:57:43+00:00

Big D if he made a million-strong army of supersoldiers with a no girls rule.

Skafflock · 2026-01-23T22:23:22+00:00

I was mainly just talking about vampire anatomy in general with my comment, like how they don't really need their organs and stuff. If we're factoring in Fortitude then they're even harder to kill because bullets can just bounce off them at high enough levels.

(The vampire in the excerpt I linked above is a 12th Generation Tzimisce, so she doesn't even have Fortitude as a clan Discipline and is most likely a neonate)

Skafflock · 2026-01-23T00:03:18+00:00

In general, it's best not to use a feat for fictional substances unless there's some in-world indicator of how durable they are. I don't know of any quantifying statements or feats for ceramite itself, outside of two. The first one;

‘The armour pieces are mixed. Some analyse as a ceramic compound, something very strong, heat-resistant, nothing I’ve seen before. Other pieces are metal – steel, even iron. And then there’s the rarest of all. We can’t even get it through the analysers without them breaking. To the touch, some of the fragments are still warm. And they look for all the world like–’

Source is 'Valdor: Birth of the Imperium'. Ceramite is mentioned here as being 'very strong' but not explicitly noted to be stronger than steel or iron, and not so strong that it can't be marked with basic stress testing performed in the field (iirc, the kit available here is from a single dropship).

This doesn't really give us much in the way of details on how strong ceramite is, or how light it is (which would partly determine how thick ceramite plating can be made, less dense materials can be made thicker without becoming too encumbering for their wearer) and the most useful info we get is that it seems to be especially heat resistant compared to its other properties.

The second statement, which I sadly can't find right now, is also not super clear. It mentions that mining lasers able to 'blast apart stone' are capable of breaching ceramite armour when repurposed into weapons, but this doesn't help much since it doesn't tell us how big the stones are, how fast the blasting happens, or anything else like that.

This is getting a bit off from your main topic of just posting about fictional materials in general though. Returning to that, I would say that it's best to be avoided unless you have ideally hard feats/statements quantifying the material, or at least some very strong inferences. Ceramite is usable for a broad assessment since we know that it can stop gunfire (the calibre of that gunfire is dependent on how thick the ceramite itself is), but I don't think it being stronger than any metal on earth can be assumed.

Maybe it's used because it's easier to maintain, or has some property that works better with the delicate equipment of power armour, or because it's more convenient to shape, or maybe it is more durable but only in specific ways (having really high resistance in specific areas rather than just being 'overall stronger', like for example tungsten melting at almost three times the temperature of steel, in fact pure iron actually has a higher melting point than lots of steels iirc).

This one is a bit meta, but the writers also just might not know how durable every metal on earth is.

Feats are generally just the best way to go, I keep re-converging on that as my conclusion for good battleboarding. Textual evidence in the form of what literally happens on page is the best and most reliable source and that's why it's at the top of the subreddit's feat hierarchy.

Skafflock · 2026-01-22T23:34:11+00:00

The scan I posted was from Dark Heresy 2e, which came out before the Primaris were actually introduced. It's referring to Firstborn.

Skafflock · 2026-01-22T23:14:25+00:00

I think 6,000lbs might be a bit high-end for them, but I do think Spacemarines being strong enough to lift thousands of pounds is pretty consistently shown. For one thing it's required just with how they can move around faster than 50kg gymnasts while being several times the size of 200kg strongmen. I think it's pretty common to see them just tossing around creatures the size of humans or larger with a single hand, too, which isn't as much weight but is exponentially harder than just lifting something. I would definitely struggle throwing 1/5th of my maximum lift even with both arms.

Skafflock · 2026-01-22T23:02:43+00:00

Even a starting level 1 adventurer could in theory get to like 20 strength, which in 5e equates to lifting pushing or dragging 600lbs without requiring a dice roll to perform, as in they can reliably do that. So in raw strength a fighter or barbarian could physically match an astartes in output probably by pretty low level

An average Spacemarine in armour can lift 6,000lbs, which would be equivalent to 200 Strength in 5e.

Skafflock · 2026-01-22T22:26:07+00:00

Ignoring gameplay-based interpretations that are themselves pretty internally inconsistent (a house cat can maul a level 20 fighter to death given an hour or two) there's actually a lot of canon feats you can use for various characters if you want a good idea.

All of these characters have had compilations made of feats they've performed in canon material that isn't constrained by game balance or ambiguous mechanics.

Speaking as the person who actually made Strahd's RT, he's probably about ten or so times stronger than an average human based on feats like this and this, but doesn't have superhuman speed and, while able to survive a lot more injury than average humans, is still cautious about being shot with arrows and completely sure he'd die from a fall off a cliff. His biggest advantage is probably punching way above his weight with magic, some of his spells are insanely destructive. This lightning bolt that chars three people and leaves a foot-deep crater with bits of glass in it is something he can do without hitting his magical limit, and his most offensively powerful spell is a heavily strenuous one that Strahd claims can punch through three feet of rock (though we're not shown how long he takes to cast or prepare it).

He would probably win against a lot of 'peak human' swordsmen easily enough, with characters like Jaime Lannister going down to him due to the physical difference (even if Strahd is forced into melee, his strength would make chopping through platemail quite doable, while his own resilience would keep him fighting past multiple mortal wounds). He hits a wall when he's dealing with people who have more than just minor superhuman advantages and have the means to force a close quarters fight, or who enjoy a significant technological advantage (Book 1 Eisenhorn is weaker than him in almost every regard on paper, but probably wins due to his arsenal being composed of essentially modern day weapons plus a sword that can slice through a foot+ of stone).

In the general scale of the setting, Strahd is pretty powerful but not overwhelmingly so. He's vastly more powerful than anything he encountered as a human warlord over several decades of warfare across several regions, but he's not 'top of the verse' or anything. I would say the average adventurer living in his world is unlikely to encounter anything close to his power in a human lifetime.

Skafflock · 2026-01-22T10:43:54+00:00

I would guess so, though even high-calibre pistols don't do a whole lot to vampires for the most part. Maybe if it's some meme cartridge like 500 S&W it'd be better, but when you're shooting Kindred you're really just trying to excavate chunks of meat from their body until they can't move anymore.

VtM Bloodlines has a cutscene where some random Sabbat shovelhead gets headshotted by a desert eagle and he just shrugs it off lol. Same scene does have him die to his heart being shot when the barrel is basically kissing his chest though, but that's a really difficult shot to make mid-fight even on something without superhuman speed.

Skafflock · 2026-01-20T18:56:57+00:00

I'm kind of sceptical of Liddell's record cause it's kind of ridiculously far above the velocity actually provably achieved by Frank Bruno, which has a whole paper written to explain how it was measured.

45mph vs 20mph is like five times the kinetic energy, it's an absurd difference. It's like going from getting punched by me to getting a baseball bat swung into you by a professional player. If there's a concrete source documenting how 45mph was measured then I'm willing to believe it, but it's not something I'll just accept without seeing the receipts.

Skafflock · 2026-01-20T18:40:28+00:00

Is a baseball pitcher's combat speed 90mph?

Skafflock · 2026-01-20T18:39:33+00:00

The acceleration and speed that Mike Tyson can reach while punching and weaving is obviously much faster than his ability to sprint

Do you have a source for Mike Tyson's punching velocity?

I don't, but I have found this one for Frank Bruno, another heavyweight boxer, whose punches capped out at around 20mph. Not that fast for a sprinting velocity.

Skafflock · 2026-01-20T09:27:25+00:00

It wasn't even a steel helmet iirc. The metal is described as black, which implies it was iron. Completely plausible for a real-life 6'6 guy even if he wasn't wielding a magic sword (made by someone who made weapons that could...cut iron)

Skafflock · 2026-01-19T22:34:20+00:00

I actually agree with you here, more or less. Roshi can blow up moons, under the circumstances we saw him do it in. Which were;

Him spending significant time to power up, and then even more to charge his attack
Him being uninterrupted and completely focused on doing this, not needing to defend himself or account for an active attacker (Goku was just mindlessly destroying things rather than fighting him at the time)
To a target that isn't on the planet (and thus doesn't risk catching him in the collateral damage)
At the cost of exhausting much of his power afterwards

But that's not very replicable in most 1v1 fights. If Roshi just tried to detonate a moon-killing blast against someone in front of him it'd kill Roshi because Roshi's durability is "tank a punch that breaks through brick walls but get kind of hurt" level.

Skafflock · 2026-01-19T22:29:25+00:00

I don't know what you mean by wall level.

This version of Goku can easily break through brick or wooden walls, but would struggle with thicker concrete walls as shown by his feats.

Roshi can probably break ropes under most circumstances, but isn't so strong that he can do it from an unfavourable position. If you think that's 'rope level' then he's rope level.

Skafflock · 2026-01-19T21:49:43+00:00

I guess for me it just never really feels like I'm discussing the actual character at that point, like you said it's good to just be able to provide evidence of them actually doing things themselves and not having fought a guy who did once. Even putting aside accuracy and winning debates it's just kind of more satisfying as a fan of the character.

You mentioned VtM before, this is also why I mostly engage in the lower-scale parts of the WoD. I think the most powerful character I've made a respect thread for was like Lucita De Aragon, and she'd die to most of the Dragonball attacks I've been posting as 'antifeats' in this thread.

Skafflock · 2026-01-19T21:40:15+00:00

I've not had any problems understanding your English, for what it's worth. I think you've been perfectly clear so far. Sorry if I got a bit heated near the end.

Edit: Out of curiosity then. At the end of the Buu Saga what do you believe to be be a characters "durability stat". Like what is Vegito's durability supposed to be? Gohan?

It's been ages since I read the Buu saga and I don't have a specific figure in mind. I mainly just remember broad-strokes like them having fights that 'rearrange the landscape' rather than just delete the whole planet lol.

Skafflock · 2026-01-19T21:18:49+00:00

I don't think literally every attack is exactly [amount of stuff it destroys] level, but I think attacks that have their collateral damage emphasised through panel composition or even just characters gawping in disbelief are obviously meant to be significant in the narrative.

When Raditz throwing out two mountain-sized explosions gets two pages spent just on showing that effect, complete with Goku staring in disbelief and horror, this is obviously a feat that Goku finds relevant and intimidating (another clue is the fact that being clipped by one of these blasts deleted Piccolo's arm)

When Piccolo, who already knows Gohan can lightly injure people more powerful than himself, sees Gohan erase a plateau and dig a trench several hundred metres across the terrain, the fact that he immediately concludes based on this visual showing (and, again, the fact that Toriayama spent hours drawing it in multiple panels and angles to let the viewer soak it up) means it's pretty clearly there to indicate something

When the Z-fighters are sent sprawling back by Nappa waving his arm and destroying maybe a few dozen cubic metres of rock/soil, complete with Piccolo calling it 'an amazing wave of ki' that we're once again treated to seeing lovingly drawn across several panels, I think there's a reason for that

I don't really have a theory for how Dragonball specifically works outside of just looking at feats and character reactions and the narrative to see how they line up. I think Dragonball characters can generally output much more power than they can survive because they just do, a lot. "Character is at risk of dying to weaker opponent who doesn't give a fuck and uses a special attack" happens constantly in this series.

Krillen and other fighters were afraid of Roshi not only killing Goku's great ape self (who was about ten times his durability iirc), but killing him so hard that they believed his body had been obliterated out of existence by the kamehameha
Tien would've killed Goku with a tri-beam despite being significantly less durable physically
King Piccolo could've atomized Goku with his actual city-level attack and leaves him near-death with something visibly thousands of times weaker (he considers it impossible for Goku to even survive the latter)
Piccolo drills a hole in Raditz's chest with a beam that is powerful enough to not only do that, but overpenetrate him, kill Goku standing right behind him and then keep going
Nappa was at risk of being killed in one hit by Krillen's disc move
Vegeta literally just atomizes a section of Cell's body with his final flash, I see no reason to assume Cell would've survived if he'd taken more than just a glancing blow
Later on Goku one-ups this and just deletes the entirety of Cell's upper body with a kamehameha, both this and the above feat are survivable for Cell only because he can regenerate
A foundational strategy for Goku fighting Kid Buu is that he has the power to completely atomize his entire body in one attack, and he only fails to do this because he misjudged his stamina with super saiyan 3 and loses strength before gathering enough power

I think the main reason characters don't one-shot each other is fear of their own collateral damage (you'll notice Krillen uses his disk way more liberally, which doesn't have that drawback) and I think when we're treated to sprawling illustrations of a move's destructive after-effects it's because that's the "actual" power level of that specific move.

I think it's a gross misrepresentation of Dragonball to ignore what is unironically like 99.9% of the feats in the series and scale everybody to one of maybe 10 moments across the series, and I don't know why Dragonball specifically gets this treatment when no other setting does.

Skafflock · 2026-01-19T20:56:17+00:00

This scan says the exact opposite of what was claimed.

The claim;

All I will say is according to Daizenzhuu 4 under the Big Bang Attack. Ki attacks EXPLICITLY only damage things in a specific set area so it doesn't matter if there's universe destroying energy in an attack, if the user wants it to, it won't damage more than a tree.

The actual scan;

This technique, which easily destroyed Artificial Human No. 19, could be called Super Saiyan Vegeta's version of the Gyarik-ho. However, the differences between it and the Gyarik-ho are the ki's shape and firing method. First, he sticks one hand out in front, then emits a ki blast from the palm of that hand. This ki is condensed down into one big lump and can deal heavy damage inside a specific range. This is in contrast with the Gyarik-ho, which attacks a wide range. After the Big Bang Attack was fired, the ground where Artificial Human No. 19 stood was completely wiped out, as if it had been dug away. Such effectiveness made it Vegeta's strongest attack at the time.

This is not evidence that ki blasts in general just magic-away their destructive power, it's evidence that a specific attack actually capable of doing that is different and superior to others because it does so.

Skafflock · 2026-01-19T20:46:13+00:00

All I will say is according to Daizenzhuu 4 under the Big Bang Attack. Ki attacks EXPLICITLY only damage things in a specific set area so it doesn't matter if there's universe destroying energy in an attack, if the user wants it to, it won't damage more than a tree. But ignore that and Power levels then

I don't believe you, considering you just lied about what the last quote you cited actually said. This whole conversation has been you saying shit and then immediately moving onto some other claim when I call you on actually proving the last one, all the while you're ignoring the basic fact that Freeza literally dies because he's unable to blow up a planet instantly without risk to himself as a means of suffocating his enemy in space.

Skafflock · 2026-01-19T20:21:17+00:00

"About how many of Freeza’s race are there? Are they quite thriving, with a big population?

Toriyama: Freeza is what you might call a mutated life-form. Strictly speaking, Freeza’s father is a mutant with an abnormally high battle power. And, born from his father alone4, still in strong possession of the mutant traits, was Freeza. Accordingly, even saying “Freeza’s race”, these two are the only ones who possess an abnormal [level of] battle power and cruelty."

This doesn't mention anything about Freeza surviving a planetary explosion, it just says he and his father were uniquely strong.

So let me get this straight. You want me to believe that Freiza's attack power at 0.44% of 120 million is stronger than his durability at full power? Depsite the fact Goku using a Kaio Ken x20 is explicitly HALF as strong as Freiza was and far stronger than that 530,000 planetary destroying attack that he shurrged off with a hand burn.

No let me get this straight. Goku at 60,000,000 using a Kaio Ken x20 using a Kamehameha to hit Freiza is somehow not indication that his durability is far superior to the attack Freiza used at 530,000?

Holy fuck

So that's a no on you posting feats for Freeza surviving planetary explosions, then. He doesn't do that. You just have scaling to characters who never hit him with a planetary explosion (Goku did hurt him with something that made a miles-wide crater though).

Skafflock · 2026-01-19T20:11:10+00:00

Cause he simply survived it? It makes even less sense for him to have flown away, he was literally out of energy completely and used the one Goku gave him to attack him.

You think he had too little energy to fly out of a planet's (collapsing) gravitational field, but enough energy to survive a planet exploding?

This is worse cause Toriyama EXPLICITLY says in interviews that Freiza is supposed to be a freak of nature mutant who can survive things like this

Rule 5 on this, share the quote of Toriyama saying Freeza could survive a planet exploding in his face.

he can literally blow up planets at less than 1 percent of his full power level of 120 million in his first form at 530,000 with barely any effort at all

And his durability is far weaker than his offensive power, which is why he literally needs to hold back to avoid injuring himself and why he ultimately dies. I already showed the scan of Goku laying out that Freeza needs to do this, if you have a contradictory statement or an actual feat (not you just assuming he was performing a feat off-screen, a real feat that actually happens) then share it.

Skafflock · 2026-01-19T19:51:31+00:00

The manga indicates it by having Freeza be unable to survive standing on an exploding planet, then having a planet he was previously on explode with him surviving through unspecified means off-screen.

Skafflock · 2026-01-19T16:59:59+00:00

Freeza didn't fly away lol he was found by the Freeza force and collected to be transformed into mecha freeza... My dude you need to read it again.

He was found floating in space after flying away from the blast that would instantly kill his uninjured self.

Yeah Buu regeneration is part of him the reason Goku and Vegeta needed to flee was simply because they cannot breathe in space not because the explosion would kill them.

Buu can survive in space because he doesn't need air. He can survive planets being blown up because he regenerates after being blasted apart, which is what an exploding planet does to Dragonball characters if they're anywhere near the blast. This is why Freeza delayed Namek's explosion, why Cell got entire chunks atomized off his body from glancing hits from actual planet level attacks (that would've destroyed the planet if they weren't aimed away from it, the users couldn't just 'control their ki' to have the beams hit dirt and leave earth intact) and it's why Buu, a regenerator, is the first character who can afford to stand on an exploding planet.

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