Super Strength Alternative?

[naloth]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

By the definitions of Supers, a 500 CP character should not take out a tank (that is a d-scale or c-scale type hero activity). Spiderman should not try to take out tanks, that is more Thor or Hulk territory.

For the same PV, you can have a talented mind controller that takes over the tank, an Affliction that does something nasty to it, or an innate attack with the right modifiers to swiss cheese it.

GURPS places a disproportionate cost on what you can do with high ST, even before you get to really high ST. The diminishing returns on carrying, damage, and item use happen start at about 20ish.

That's one reason why I like switching to logST (KYOS). Damage increases at every level, high lift is very affordable, and those that can lift cars don't red mist normals. I've been even using for fantasy and other games.

I price Lifting ST at 6/lvl and Striking ST at 2/lvl, though, rather than the 7/1 that KYOS uses.

[David Johansen]

I've been thinking one point per point over 20 would be a clean solution.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Originally Posted by David Johansen

I've been thinking one point per point over 20 would be a clean solution.

I sort of wonder if you couldn't create a new cheap Advantage called "Ridiculous Strength" that just set your Basic Lift to various levels above whatever was deemed the human max. Like, Level 1 would be whatever the necessary Basic Lift is to lift the average car. And GMs could just set the levels however they wanted to tailor Ridiculous Strength works in their setting.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by David Johansen

I've been thinking one point per point over 20 would be a clean solution.

The main problem with ST is that it can be used to power up heavily advantaged attacks. Consider +8 striking ST[40]:

• If all you do is untrained punching of people, that gives you +1d (Melee C) damage, worth [4].
• If you're doing it with martial arts, it gives you +1d+2, worth [6].
• If you're doing it with a sword, it gives you +2d cut, worth [14].
• If you're doing it with a sword and weapon master, it gives you +2d+4 cut, worth [22]
• If you're doing it with a hyperdense vibrokatana, it gives you +2d(10) cut, worth [42]
• If you're doing it with a hyperdense vibrokatana and weapon master, it gives you +2d+4 cut, worth [66]
• Oh, and did we forget power attack?

One fix would be to do what Champions does and reduce the effectiveness of ST based on the attack it's applied to, but that tends to be a hassle in play.

[naloth]

Originally Posted by Anthony

The main problem with ST is that it can be used to power up heavily advantaged attacks. Consider +8 striking ST[40]:
<snip>
One fix would be to do what Champions does and reduce the effectiveness of ST based on the attack it's applied to, but that tends to be a hassle in play.

All of that heavily depends on other rules (availability of exotic weaponry, not being charged for adding modifiers to ST, being allowed to convert bonuses to dice before assessing other bonuses, etc) and dismisses what you can do with 40 points in other abilities (such as a pretty nasty innate attack). Points are only useful as a benchmark relative to what else you can do with them.

The biggest problem with reducing the cost is other benefits that ST provides. Grappling & HP. Those benefits are worth far more than 2 points per level.

[Decadence]

Wow these are all excellent views and points. I appreciate all of the tips and hints y'all have given me. I am attempting to run a modern day themed urban fantasy setting. Not really so much D&D style, but more or less Supernatural in nature, Vampires, Werewolves. Demons etc. For the most part I figured just slapping in a few templates and adjusting them accordingly. Though a few potential entities or characters might really be capable of pushing larger than life. Which I am honestly okay with, anything is possible. I will look into some of the sources provided to me. And I welcome more thoughts or ideas on the topic. Super-Effort is good don't get me wrong. I suppose the god-like strength could work too, just nerf it to the desired level.

[Gef]

Originally Posted by Decadence

Wow these are all excellent views and points. I appreciate all of the tips and hints y'all have given me. I am attempting to run a modern day themed urban fantasy setting. Not really so much D&D style, but more or less Supernatural in nature, Vampires, Werewolves. Demons etc.

I see problems with super-high ST, but I think the rules as written are fine in the human range and a bit beyond. If vampires and werewolves top out around ST 35, you probably don't need any house rules. Remember, that's the strength of 10 ordinary men (as measured by Basic Lift, and assuming ordinar men have ST 11). -GEF

[David Johansen]

40 points of Innate Attack gives you 8d damage. That out weights 10 points of Strength causing 1d more damage by a long shot.

The reality is that a 4001 ST is negligible improvement relative to a 4000 ST.

[Infornific]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Enhanced Move doubles your Basic Move. I would be tempted to have Enhanced ST double your Basic Lift, which would multiply your ST x 1.4, approximately (two levels of Enhanced ST would double your ST).

I'd recommend not increasing your HP as part of this. Moving fast boosts your collision damage, but doesn't give you more HP to help survive it.

For what it's worth, Enhanced Move merely doubles sprint, not all of Move. A strong argument has been made that a +150% Enhancement is necessary to make it an Advantage that simply doubles Basic Move. That's a cost of 50 points. That suggests a cost of 200 for a comparable Advantage to double ST (for all purposes) or 100/level if you want to go with a GURPS scale where every six levels is a multiple of ten (like the Speed/Size/Range table.)

(Brief digression on how I got 200. Default Move is 5 and Move costs 5 per level so doubling the default Move (5 to 10) would cost 25 points. For ST, default is 10 and double that is 20 which would cost 100 points or four times default Move. That suggests if an advantage that flatly doubles base Move costs 50 points, one for Strength would cost 200 points.)

The drawback is that the Advantage would only become cost effective for base ST 20+. I'm the person who came up with the pricing scheme TBone mentioned (essentially half that or 50 points/level) but that was intended to meld smoothly with the cost of buying ST. It may be a little too cheap.

Note that the existing Super Effort enhancement and Injury Tolerance (Damage Reduction) from GURPS Supers are essentially another way to buy external ST and HP that increase at an exponential rate for a linear price. IT(DR) effectively roughly doubles HP for 50/level. Likewise, the Super Effort enhancement on ST effectively lets you double External ST for very 80 points spent, after a large initial buy in. So if you want to create a ST multiplying Advantage based on that pricing scheme:

+1 Striking ST (+400% Super Effort, +50% Cosmic no fatigue cost) [27.5]
+1 Striking ST (+400% Super Effort, +50% Cosmic no fatigue cost) [16.5]
1 level IT (DR) (using implied cost scheme from GURPS Supers) [25]

That adds up to 69 points. Round it to 70/level and you've got a pricing scheme similar to GURPS Supers. Remember that it takes 2 levels to double ST.

To keep Innate Attack competitive you'll probably want a similar Advantage. I would price it to be the same as the cost for multiplying Striking ST.

[Infornific]

Originally Posted by naloth

For the same PV, you can have a talented mind controller that takes over the tank, an Affliction that does something nasty to it, or an innate attack with the right modifiers to swiss cheese it.

GURPS places a disproportionate cost on what you can do with high ST, even before you get to really high ST. The diminishing returns on carrying, damage, and item use happen start at about 20ish.

That's one reason why I like switching to logST (KYOS). Damage increases at every level, high lift is very affordable, and those that can lift cars don't red mist normals. I've been even using for fantasy and other games.

I price Lifting ST at 6/lvl and Striking ST at 2/lvl, though, rather than the 7/1 that KYOS uses.

ST doesn't really work one the same scale as Afflictions or mind control. Yes, you can mind control the crew of a tank (or a Death Star) but the same thing applies to Influence skills. I'd also note that you can but Immunity to Psionics for a mere 30 points. You could also just as easily argue that a mind controller isn't that powerful because anyone could just sneak up and bash him.

Innate attack is a different matter. You can theoretically wring full value out of Striking ST but that depends not just on picking boosting Advantages but doing things like buying custom made super heavy armor and weapons which don't really fit most genres with enhanced ST.

I personally don't care for KYOS because to make it work properly you need to rework damage and damage resistance to reflect that you can meaningfully have negative ST among other problems. You'll wind up with something like the damage system from the Fudge rpg which isn't wrong but is pretty far afield.