The Blast element says it may have the secondary effect to "shatter, knock over, shred, or otherwise sweep away" anything with less structure then it's Force.

I can't find the specific section, but I believe I remember it being stated that when force is needed for a magical effect on a critter, to use the creature's magic in place of force.

If this is so, does that make a case for an Adept with Elemental Strike [Blast], and magic 6 to break moderately durable items (like ballistic glass- structure 5) very easily, even if his actual damage is 1-2P (1-3 strength and the required Killing hands power), and few unarmed combat dice?

I'm sure this also applies to the knock down of Blast and Water effects, that in the case of an eleental strike or attack of these elements, the magic rating of the creature would be added to the damage, since an actual "force" for the effect is not present.

In the case of elemental unarmed attack, I always imagined the base DV (pre hits, called shots, etc), as being the force. Though I don't have a citation of that being RAW, and it seems like your reading would be right.

Careful, because his reading is wrong. By RAW, adept powers don't have force. They occasionally have a rating, but not a force, which technically means that the blast elements listed effect does nothing for an adept.

Of course, feel free to talk to your GM about it.

Which is the entire reason for my understanding problem. It would be nice to have something about this mentioned in an errata (maybe the Germans have it?), since Blast, and Water would be cool to have for the Elemental Strike power, but at the basic, have no advantage over any other element type.

You have to houserule it, there is no other way.

Yes they do. Fire is -1/2 AP plus Fire Protection, Cold is -1/2 AP plus Insulation, ect; but Blast is simply -1/2 AP. I think Water allows Chemical Protection (AFB), but if it doesn't it has the same edge.

I would allow Blast -1/2 AP + Gel Packs or something similar.

My House Rule is : an object with a structure rating less than the DV of an adept (for exemple a bike) will be swept away. For barriers, Armor/2 is enought to shatter many things

Interesting question for me: what is the structure rating of a human?

A human has Body, not Structure.

They don´t have a structure rating acc. to RAW, but if glass, wood etc. has one, i think "biological mass" should have one too. If a tree gets shredded, a human body should be blown into dust if you take the same attack as a basis.

But they don't. Only barriers do. Until you make a wall out of flesh, and then the wall would get a Structure. People simply never do, it's the mechanic. Technically, even vehicles don't have structure, unless it's a wall made of junk cars. It's all very philosophical. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

vehicles do have a structure and an armor rating, structure is like the body for drone, vehicles and barriers.

in my mind i see the blast effect like this

In most cases, bodies are also easier to hurt, although vehicle's, not so much.

In this case, I think it might make sense for Blast element effects to be able to break armour, especially if the GM is using the armour reduction rules, but most ways to do that are less-then-smooth.

For reference, one consideration I had (I use the armour reduction rules-seems to give the players something to worry about) is as follows:

Blast/acid damage: This damage will break/corrode armour when it is used. The armour
makes a test against the force (or base damage), and reduces the value by the number of hits the
armour makes. This modified value is reduced from the armour, in addition to the effects of
damage>armour, if applicable. This This only reduces from the impact armour's full value,
however, if the Impact armour is reduced to 0, the armour falls apart.

Thoughts?

Vehicles have Body. Barriers have Structure.

Shame an impact like that would ruin the car in real life.

Indeed. VERY philosophical.^^ I was asking because my char. took a 14P elemental wind attack during the Kowloon Massacre and if i would have ruled it, i would have blown the char into pieces. If a wall can´t stand, a mere mortal shouldn´t be able too.

I tend to agree. Just out of curiosity, what damage did you actually take (after the DR test) and how many boxes did he have?

The fact is that the world of SR(4) cares about animacy. Animate objects are different from barriers, fundamentally. There are rules for shooting through barriers, and for making hole 'areas' in them; there are zero rules for shooting through people, nor for making hole 'areas' in them. Vehicles have a special rule about lending their armor to passengers, but you can't make hole 'areas' in them. Etc. It really is philosophical.

This is, unfortunitely, true. And they make sense, most of the time, as a way of explaining things. When it comes down to it, though, sometimes you want to make a hole in a vehicle, or shoot someone hiding behind a troll. It would be nice to have more then a penaltyto attack/bonus to dodge in those cases.

I took the complete 14 damage and have, i think, 10 boxes. So it was 4 points of overflow damage. The GM saved me with an very wide interpretation of the overflow damage rules and an NPC that put an traumapatch on me basically within 3 seconds after i hit the ground.

And yes, elemental attack of a force 9 spirit that managed to get 7 successes sucks....a lot. If you then f***ck up your dodge-test, it sucks even more.

Yes, yes it does. Be happy that wasn't my campaign. You would have survived (probably had to burn edge) and I would have saddled you with a lot of problems, like a couple missing limbs, collapsed lung, and maybe a reduced attribute. And that's before any problems healing.

This is why a person potentially suffers Knockdown.
A person can brace for impact, or fall in a controlled way. A wall can just break down.

The Human Body is often more resilient than a more rigid object. Of course, it is generally only a matter of a very small degree. However, that falls into a discussion about character death. If the Rigid Structure cannot resist the effect and is destroyed, and you attempt to apply that to the squishy metahuman, is that fun? That is why they are treated differently. It is often not a lot of fun to be told... "Heh, you see a great white light, make a new character." Falls into the realm of Fiat. Let them try to soak that damage. They may still die, but they may not, and that is often more palatable to players. Of course, there are instances where Fiat has its place. *shrug*

I agree, HunterHerne. It's a game system that isn't a full simulation (surprise (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) ). In those special cases, you have to house rule or at least GM-fiat. You could *make* a Body=>Structure rule, and then deal with the consequences of that. It's just not in the RAW.