Quote:
Originally Posted by Tomsdad
I addressed that context, you said "functionally the same for damage", I pointed out that there is 4x difference in average damage within that range.
But yes I did broaden it out from that, sorry :-)!
EDIT: unless you were talking about changing the ST/damage progression and narrowing the stat range, but why would you do both? (and I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone here suggesting doing so?)
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I'll go over the steps of the cycle:
- ST 13+ penetrates armour too easily? Let's change that.
- Okay, now ST13 is not really different from ST10, despite costing a whopping [30] to get.
Past this point, there isn't a 4× difference in damage values between ST10 and 13.
- Now we need to cheapen ST because it's no longer worth the point cost.
- After that, actually high ST (e.g. 20+) becomes affordable, but is no longer as impressive as it used to be.
This is of secondary concern. But then:
- You now run into the stat normalisation cult problem, namely that if you still enforce attributes to be in the 8-13 range, you've now made all fighters functionally the same in terms of damage. And in RPGs, it's not a good thing when everyone's the same.
Unless you expand the ST range into something like 5-40, you'll get stuck with having
less damage variation than GURPS already had. With a flattened damage curve, even retaining the literal 'up to 20' range would give less variation than GURPS already had.
And if we fix the above, we effectively get back to the old situation but with different ST numbers. If we don't fix it, we're stuck with the problem above.