Steve Jackson Games Forums - View Single Post - Conditional Injury with Knowing Your Own Strength

Anthony · 08-24-2019, 12:36 PM

The fundamental difficulty with logarithmic damage is that addition and subtraction (i.e. DR and barrier penetration) involves either advanced math or table lookup. If we ignore that problem, you can actually make KYoS work really easily with conditional injury.

First, decide on the scaling you want for damage. There are distinct benefits to either +20ST=x10 damage and +30ST=x10 damage. That just defines a scaling factor. I will say the math is less annoying at +30 = x10, so I'll continue from there.

RT = ST/5 + 2
Thrust Damage: make a ST roll. If you succeed, the WP of your attack is equal to 1/5 your MoS. If you fail, it's -2, or nothing if you fail by more than 10. Note that this will give a range of values. For Swing damage, add +5 to ST. If you have a damage bonus, +1 per die is equal to +3 ST. For weapons with flat adds, that gets into the addition and subtraction situation. For weapons with flat damage, look up their average damage on the WP table, and give them an effective ST of WP*5+10 (for intermediate values, feel free to tweak up or down).

If you aren't dealing with armor, you're done; just plug the WP and RP above into the rest of the rules.

Now, for the addition and subtraction part. This, unfortunately, involves table lookup, but it's the same table as before. You need to start by converting WP to linear damage. To do this, first, when making the WP roll (above) keep track of any leftover (so if you succeed by 2, that's still WP 0, but you have 2 leftover). Your linear damage is equal to the minimum amount given for that WP, plus 10% per point of leftover (drop all fractions). Apply all flat adds and penalties, look up the result on the WP table, and that's your final WP.

You may find it easier to change the WP table so the minimum damage matches the range/speed table -- i.e.

HP 1: WT/RT -2
HP 2: WT/RT 0
HP 3-4: WT/RT 1
HP 5-6: WT/RT 2
HP 7-9: WT/RT 3
HP 10-14: WT/RT 4

You might notice that RT has pretty low resolution on ST. If you're willing to have a larger table, you can adjust the table from +6 = x10 to +30 = x10. In that case, RT=ST+10, WP=MoS, fixed damage weapon effective ST = (average damage WP + 10), and severity is (WP-RT)/5 (apply all severity modifiers after division).

08-24-2019, 12:36 PM	#7
Anthony Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Berkeley, CA	Re: Conditional Injury with Knowing Your Own Strength The fundamental difficulty with logarithmic damage is that addition and subtraction (i.e. DR and barrier penetration) involves either advanced math or table lookup. If we ignore that problem, you can actually make KYoS work really easily with conditional injury. First, decide on the scaling you want for damage. There are distinct benefits to either +20ST=x10 damage and +30ST=x10 damage. That just defines a scaling factor. I will say the math is less annoying at +30 = x10, so I'll continue from there. RT = ST/5 + 2 Thrust Damage: make a ST roll. If you succeed, the WP of your attack is equal to 1/5 your MoS. If you fail, it's -2, or nothing if you fail by more than 10. Note that this will give a range of values. For Swing damage, add +5 to ST. If you have a damage bonus, +1 per die is equal to +3 ST. For weapons with flat adds, that gets into the addition and subtraction situation. For weapons with flat damage, look up their average damage on the WP table, and give them an effective ST of WP*5+10 (for intermediate values, feel free to tweak up or down). If you aren't dealing with armor, you're done; just plug the WP and RP above into the rest of the rules. Now, for the addition and subtraction part. This, unfortunately, involves table lookup, but it's the same table as before. You need to start by converting WP to linear damage. To do this, first, when making the WP roll (above) keep track of any leftover (so if you succeed by 2, that's still WP 0, but you have 2 leftover). Your linear damage is equal to the minimum amount given for that WP, plus 10% per point of leftover (drop all fractions). Apply all flat adds and penalties, look up the result on the WP table, and that's your final WP. You may find it easier to change the WP table so the minimum damage matches the range/speed table -- i.e. HP 1: WT/RT -2 HP 2: WT/RT 0 HP 3-4: WT/RT 1 HP 5-6: WT/RT 2 HP 7-9: WT/RT 3 HP 10-14: WT/RT 4 You might notice that RT has pretty low resolution on ST. If you're willing to have a larger table, you can adjust the table from +6 = x10 to +30 = x10. In that case, RT=ST+10, WP=MoS, fixed damage weapon effective ST = (average damage WP + 10), and severity is (WP-RT)/5 (apply all severity modifiers after division). __________________ My GURPS site and Blog.