Steve Jackson Games Forums - View Single Post - Knowing your own strength's Striking Strength

Ottriman · 10-21-2018, 09:28 AM

I myself have also tweaked hp and damage scaling from logarithmic strength. The basic way to fix it is to have hp and damage scale up in a logarithmic manner that is less than BL.

Below is a copy/pasted explanation of how I do it from my homebrew file I give my new players.

"ST (Strength)

We use logarithmic strength as defined under Know Your Own Strength (Alternate GURPS 4) with the following tweaks:

1. HP scales differently, roughly so that it scales with the square root of the adjusted BL. This means a pattern of roughly x3 for +10 ST and x10 for +20 and x30 for +30 etc. etc.

This means 2 hp per ST past 10 up to 20, 6 per ST up to 29 with 30 setting it at 100 and then repeating with an extra zero at the end.

At below 10 ST things diverge quite heavily, with roughly -0,7 hp per ST below 10 all the way to 3 at ST 0. If needed to go lower then HP should be 1 by ST -10, 0,3 by -20 etc etc.

Fractional hp rules should only really come into play if extremely small creatures feature heavily. Treat them as if they had whole integer hp of some variety but multiply injury to them appropriately to compensate. For example a hp 0,1 creature could be treated as a 10 hp creature that suffers 100 times the injury.

2. As above but for damage scaling. Keep damage scaling in the ST 10-20 range the same. For ST above 20, keep adding fro thrust as per usual up until ST 23 and for swing keep adding as per usual until ST 21. Past these values check for the value with the same last digit in the 11-20 range and multiply by 3 for 10 over, by 10 for 20 ST over, by 30 for 30 ST over etc etc.

For ST below 10, Reduce it to 1d-3/1d-2 at ST 7-9. Below 7 you find the ST in the 10-16 range with the same last digit and divide the damage value there by 3. For example ST 0 would do (1d-2/1d) / 3, rounding down. Rounding may be skipped when combat is between enemies with fractional hp."

This should produce the following thrust/swing damages at ST 21-40

ST 21: 3d+1/4d-1
ST 22: 3d+2/4d+2
ST 23: 4d-1/5d+1
ST 24: 4d+2/6d
ST 25: 5d+1/7d-1
ST 26: 6d/7d+2
ST 27: 7d-1/8d+1
ST 28: 7d+2/9d
ST 29: 8d+1/10d-1
ST 30: 9d/(5d+1)x2
ST 31: 10d-1 / 6dx2
ST 32: (5d+1)x2 / 5dx3
ST 33: 6dx2 / 6dx3
ST 34: 5dx3 / 5dx4
ST 35: 6dx3 / 6dx4
ST 36: 5dx4 / 5dx5
ST 37: 6dx4 / 7dx4
ST 38: 5dx5 / 6dx5
ST 39: 7dx4 / 4dx8
ST 40: 6dx5 / 5dx7

I did some rounding to the nearest nice multiplier for damage past a certain point because keeping track of small plusses or minuses to the roll was no longer super relevant at those damage levels.

Hope this scaling solves your issue as well.

10-21-2018, 09:28 AM	#3
Ottriman Join Date: Apr 2015	Re: Knowing your own strength's Striking Strength I myself have also tweaked hp and damage scaling from logarithmic strength. The basic way to fix it is to have hp and damage scale up in a logarithmic manner that is less than BL. Below is a copy/pasted explanation of how I do it from my homebrew file I give my new players. "ST (Strength) We use logarithmic strength as defined under Know Your Own Strength (Alternate GURPS 4) with the following tweaks: 1. HP scales differently, roughly so that it scales with the square root of the adjusted BL. This means a pattern of roughly x3 for +10 ST and x10 for +20 and x30 for +30 etc. etc. This means 2 hp per ST past 10 up to 20, 6 per ST up to 29 with 30 setting it at 100 and then repeating with an extra zero at the end. At below 10 ST things diverge quite heavily, with roughly -0,7 hp per ST below 10 all the way to 3 at ST 0. If needed to go lower then HP should be 1 by ST -10, 0,3 by -20 etc etc. Fractional hp rules should only really come into play if extremely small creatures feature heavily. Treat them as if they had whole integer hp of some variety but multiply injury to them appropriately to compensate. For example a hp 0,1 creature could be treated as a 10 hp creature that suffers 100 times the injury. 2. As above but for damage scaling. Keep damage scaling in the ST 10-20 range the same. For ST above 20, keep adding fro thrust as per usual up until ST 23 and for swing keep adding as per usual until ST 21. Past these values check for the value with the same last digit in the 11-20 range and multiply by 3 for 10 over, by 10 for 20 ST over, by 30 for 30 ST over etc etc. For ST below 10, Reduce it to 1d-3/1d-2 at ST 7-9. Below 7 you find the ST in the 10-16 range with the same last digit and divide the damage value there by 3. For example ST 0 would do (1d-2/1d) / 3, rounding down. Rounding may be skipped when combat is between enemies with fractional hp." This should produce the following thrust/swing damages at ST 21-40 ST 21: 3d+1/4d-1 ST 22: 3d+2/4d+2 ST 23: 4d-1/5d+1 ST 24: 4d+2/6d ST 25: 5d+1/7d-1 ST 26: 6d/7d+2 ST 27: 7d-1/8d+1 ST 28: 7d+2/9d ST 29: 8d+1/10d-1 ST 30: 9d/(5d+1)x2 ST 31: 10d-1 / 6dx2 ST 32: (5d+1)x2 / 5dx3 ST 33: 6dx2 / 6dx3 ST 34: 5dx3 / 5dx4 ST 35: 6dx3 / 6dx4 ST 36: 5dx4 / 5dx5 ST 37: 6dx4 / 7dx4 ST 38: 5dx5 / 6dx5 ST 39: 7dx4 / 4dx8 ST 40: 6dx5 / 5dx7 I did some rounding to the nearest nice multiplier for damage past a certain point because keeping track of small plusses or minuses to the roll was no longer super relevant at those damage levels. Hope this scaling solves your issue as well.