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Old 06-06-2017, 04:31 AM   #21
Grayscale
 
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Default Re: Combining GURPS and Hackmaster combat system?

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Originally Posted by tbone View Post
Also, referencing a separate reply of yours: Note that the system specifically yields higher Recovery for swings than for thrusts. That's for pretty much any weapon, swords included, not just polearms and the like. I think that's in line with the effects you're looking for.
It is, agreed.

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Not sure what you mean by wanting "more inter-spaced attacks". Do you mean more seconds between melee attacks for a typical fighter?
Correct. Again, I'm just eye balling it really, but for some reason I think that a dagger or similar should have Weapon Speed of 1 or 2, a short sword 3 or 4, for a ST of 10. Which raises another concern (that is far down the line in terms of things I have to workout): would I cap weapon speed to 1 and be done with it (I want to say yes)? Or should I allow negative weapon speeds, that somehow translate to more than 1 attack per turn? I think I wouldn't like to.


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I'm also not sure what you mean by "your recovery divided by half ST". The Recovery stat in GLAIVE is intended to be – it has to be – divided by strength to be of use. I guess I'm misunderstanding something.
It went over my head, despite being very clearly labeled so, that GLAIVE was made with 3e in mind. I was making an attempt at simplifying your Wield ST, Combat ST and Effective ST back into one single attribute (correct me if I'm wrong, I admit I didn't read GLAIVE in much depth as it deserves.

As I said, I though I could just use your recovery values as they are (from the sample table) and work them through some 4e character value to get a weapon speed that seems "right". It seems that this is not the case then?


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Originally Posted by borithan View Post
That is what I understood as well, that like d&d it is dealing with "effective" attacks, not individual blows (and compared to old d&d's minute per turn actually positively blazing action).
I think you're quite correct. The system tries to pose under realism, but I believe it's really just another form of abstraction. To be fair though, so is GURPS, at least when it comes to melee weapons and crossbows, IMO. A halberd attacking every other second seems far fetched to me, as does a crossbow shooting every 5. It doesn't bother me, intrinsically, just pointing it out.


Here's a little table that I put up in a couple minutes to summarize the basics of how I think it could work: https://1drv.ms/x/s!AmLagTm32rl2gb1M5kjRZ7LSF-2tXg

Also, if it seems that this is doable, I might try and do a combat example like this (though maybe even this one might suffice) to show up what I intend: https://www.kenzerco.com/hackmaster/...at_Example.pdf

Last edited by Grayscale; 06-06-2017 at 10:02 AM. Reason: Added info
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Old 06-06-2017, 11:09 AM   #22
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Default Re: Combining GURPS and Hackmaster combat system?

HackMaster Basic Free edition is missing some of the dials you find in the HackMaster PHB, but the speed works fine in the Count system.

HackMaster speed is closer to an MMO thinking than round-by-round thinking. In an MMO, you are doing stuff while you wait for your effective attack to recharge. If you're playing a fighter who uses longswords or other weapons that are reasonably speedy, you'll attack pretty often if you buy specialization and talents for speed and just level up. Fighters attack faster with everything than other PCs--only fighters and their ilk improve speed by leveling. Thieves with daggers can dual-wield for offense and defense and get cheap improvements on speed.

A thief wielding two daggers offensively is going to attack quickly at the expense of defense.

While the count system can make it so everyone is pondering small units of time in HackMaster or Aces & Eights, if there's no one attacking your character directly and the GM allows it, just take all that movement you want and jump out the count. GMs should be like a good auctioneer, speeding up and slowly down how quickly they call the count to keep the action moving. If everyone's 100 feet away and wants to close, I just find out how far they want to move and up the count. If there's a time-crucial attempt like doing a Stop Hit to destroy a potion held in a hand, then I'll move slower so the PC can time it.

On that note, for those having issues with the Count, here's a clear electronic counter that looks cool and has been used at conventions:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/5349059...?ref=related-1

Again, I think the two combat systems can be combined, but GURPS even allows you multiple attacks in a second and is a 3d6 base as opposed to a 1d20 base. You're going to get something that works, but which isn't going to achieve complete conversion success.

That's why I prefer to borrow non-combat mechanics and ideas from one game and apply it to the other. Your mileage may vary.
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Old 06-06-2017, 11:55 AM   #23
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Default Re: Combining GURPS and Hackmaster combat system?

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Originally Posted by baakyocalder View Post
While the count system can make it so everyone is pondering small units of time in HackMaster or Aces & Eights, if there's no one attacking your character directly and the GM allows it, just take all that movement you want and jump out the count. GMs should be like a good auctioneer, speeding up and slowly down how quickly they call the count to keep the action moving. If everyone's 100 feet away and wants to close, I just find out how far they want to move and up the count. If there's a time-crucial attempt like doing a Stop Hit to destroy a potion held in a hand, then I'll move slower so the PC can time it.
Agreed. It should be speed up on the counts where nobody has/desires an action. I think I can make it work smoothly at the table.

Also, nice find on the counter!
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Old 06-06-2017, 03:58 PM   #24
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Default Re: Combining GURPS and Hackmaster combat system?

GURPS is my favorite overall game system. HackMaster and Aces & Eights are #4 and #3 (2 editions) and #2, so I follow them all.

The counter I linked is made by Jolly Blackburn, the creator of Knights of the Dinner Table and one of the authors of HackMaster and Aces & Eights. Jolly has used it for large tables at conventions.

In any game where tactics and timing matter, it helps to have some kind of marking system to keep track of who is attacking.

Oh, and if you're trying to work the GURPS special strikes to HackMaster, a lot of specialization and the Precision Aiming (missile weapons) or Precision Combatant can simulate called shots. GURPS has far more martial arts moves, but that's because it fits the GURPS milieu better. For anyone wanting the basic rundown of HackMaster, HackMaster Basic Free is like GURPS Lite; it will give you many hours of fun for free and if you want more options then you already know the basic system and can buy the rules you need.
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Old 06-08-2017, 12:05 AM   #25
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Default Re: Combining GURPS and Hackmaster combat system?

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Originally Posted by Exallted View Post
Again, I'm just eye balling it really, but for some reason I think that a dagger or similar should have Weapon Speed of 1 or 2, a short sword 3 or 4, for a ST of 10. Which raises another concern (that is far down the line in terms of things I have to workout): would I cap weapon speed to 1 and be done with it (I want to say yes)? Or should I allow negative weapon speeds, that somehow translate to more than 1 attack per turn? I think I wouldn't like to.
Unless I'm misunderstanding the meaning you give to the numbers, I assume these numbers are linear with respect to time: that dagger with Weapon Speed of 2 can attack twice as often as that shortsword with speed of 4 (with those speeds probably representing "every 2 seconds" and "every 4 seconds", respectively).

If so, a speed faster than 1 wouldn't be 0 or negative; it'd be 0.7 or 0.5 or whatever. A speed of 0 or lower wouldn't be possible.

How to play speeds with a decimal point of precision? Well, you'd have to start using a "count up" in increments of 0.1. It can be done, of course... but by that point, it's starting to sound like an odd game. : )

I'd be wary of allowing too big a spread among those weapon speeds to begin with. Part of the reason can be put down to physics: Sure, the 1-lb. weapon should move faster than the 6-lb. weapon, but not to the tune of attacking 6 times as often! The wielder's arm strength isn't just pushing the weapon mass; it's pushing weapon mass + some effective measure of arm mass, and (6 lb. + effective arm mass) isn't 6 times as heavy as (1 lb. + effective arm mass). On top of that, a combat attack typically won't mean standing stock-still and moving arms alone, like a boxer at his punching bag; it'll mean moving feet and the whole body for better positioning, however long that takes – and switching from a 6-lb. to a 1-lb. weapon would make hardly any difference in that time.

Another part of the reason, IMO, is player psychology. For a lot of combat-loving gamers, attacking as often as humanly possible is really important; "missing out" on an attack while others hack away can just seem unbearable. I think some players will view even a modest speed penalty for that 6-lb. weapon as some horrible Molasses Time hell. : )

All probably obvious stuff to you or anyone reading this, but in short: IMO, any fancy-pants speed system should probably stick to pretty modest relative differences in melee attack speeds, which is both a) realistically justifiable, and b) plenty of difference in terms of players' perception.


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Originally Posted by Exallted View Post
It went over my head, despite being very clearly labeled so, that GLAIVE was made with 3e in mind. I was making an attempt at simplifying your Wield ST, Combat ST and Effective ST back into one single attribute (correct me if I'm wrong, I admit I didn't read GLAIVE in much depth as it deserves.
Let me make clear: I didn't suggest any needlessly complex use of multiple ST stats. If you want to derive some measure of melee attack speed, there should be just one ST stat that you compare to the corresponding "how heavy and unwieldy the weapon is" stat, as you suggest.

The concept is simple. GLAIVE's attack time rule, in a nutshell, is just this: What's the effective mass to be moved? And what's your effective power for moving it? The ratio of that effective mass to effective power yields the time an attack takes (i.e., its "slowness").

The question, then, becomes what measures to use for that effective mass and that effective power.

The easiest answer for the former is some measure that's linear in weapon mass in lbs. There, that's a good measure of effective mass for thrusts. For swings, you'll want to multiply it somehow for length, and again somehow for unbalance (effectively building moment of inertia into the measure). There, a measure of effective mass for swings.

For effective power... well, ST seems the easy answer, but be careful. GURPS 4e ST doesn't linearly map to ability to move mass; Basic Lift does. So, use Basic Lift together with the above measure of effective mass. OR, use regular ST, and use a measure of effective mass that's based on the square root of weapon mass in lbs. Either way should work.

Finally, note that the power available to the wielder isn't fixed; it can change with something as simple as using two hands instead of one. So you'll want to modify effective power by some appropriate amount for factors like that.

And there you go: You take some measure of effective weapon mass, divide it by some appropriate measure of effective power to move the mass, and you have a result you can tie to "time it takes to attack".

I hope that makes sense. Anything in GLAIVE that looks like a further complication probably isn't. "Combat ST" and "Load ST" aren't further complications; they were just my attempt to create "ST" and "Basic Lift" before GURPS had those. (Doing any fancy stuff involving ST was often just a mess in 3e.) Similarly, "Effective ST" just means "the ST stat after any needed modification for things like number of hands". "Wield ST", too, isn't something new; it's just GURPS' Min ST, given a calculation and a rename. (Whatever you call it, that's a measure of whether you can use a weapon at all, a different matter from how fast you are with the weapon.)


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Originally Posted by Exallted View Post
As I said, I though I could just use your recovery values as they are (from the sample table) and work them through some 4e character value to get a weapon speed that seems "right". It seems that this is not the case then?
Sorry, I'm not sure exactly what you mean, but for 4e I'd rework the Recovery stats with new formulas. Namely, pare down the factors that boost Swing Recovery for length and unbalance; gotta speed up those axes and halberds for 4e.

Also, for 4e, I think I'd ditch the use of a Recovery that's linear with lbs., and, as noted above, make it map to the square root of lbs. Yes, "square root" makes some people cringe, but we're talking a one-time calculation of a speed factor for weapon tables, not calculation of roots during play. The upside is that you can then use plain ST for all purposes: figuring damage from ST, comparing ST to Min ST (or Wield ST or whatever you call it) to make sure the character can use the weapon, and dividing Recovery by ST to get some measure of time required. Basic Lift can keep completely out of weapon performance. (The wee downside to the method: the Recovery stat for many weapons will appear as figures with decimals, not neat integers.)


Anyway. To bring this back to Hackmaster + GURPS:

You don't have to do any of the above. You could just give GURPS weapons arbitrary "this is how many seconds it takes" speed factors, like (Basic) Hackmaster.

Or to get fancier, set some arbitrary speed factors as above, but then divide by, or otherwise adjust by, GURPS ST.

Or to get fanciest, calculate some speed factor (like GLAIVE), then divide that by, or otherwise adjust by, GURPS ST.

If you create something good, let's see a notice on the forum here!
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Old 06-08-2017, 12:59 AM   #26
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Default Re: Combining GURPS and Hackmaster combat system?

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That said, I can see that in play, things won't be as silly as they sound above.
Remember that Hackmaster is primarily a parody of roleplaying games. The purported designer, Gary Jackson, is a fictional amalgam of Gary Gygax and Steve Jackson, and it's origin is as the game they play in Knights of the Dinner Table. It is supposed to be silly (in a weirdly detail obsessed way).
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Old 06-08-2017, 04:38 AM   #27
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Default Re: Combining GURPS and Hackmaster combat system?

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Or to get fanciest, calculate some speed factor (like GLAIVE), then divide that by, or otherwise adjust by, GURPS ST.
Just a quick reply before I leave home (I'll reply in full when I get back), but thank you! You pretty much gave me all the info needed, I believe. When I first started I was inclined to assign an arbitrary "recovery" for all weapons, but this approach seems much more elegant.

I have started a spreadsheet that calculates the square roots of weapon weight (so far from 1 to 13, the heaviest there seems to be on Basic), but couldn't come up with how to mathematically work those numbers with ST - none of the approaches I took seemed to consistent/satisfactory results across ST 1 to 18 (my arbitrary "sweet spot" remains a short sword used by a ST 10 character = attacking every 3 or 4 seconds). Will report when I have done some more work.
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Old 06-08-2017, 09:07 AM   #28
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Default Re: Combining GURPS and Hackmaster combat system?

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Originally Posted by sir_pudding View Post
Remember that Hackmaster is primarily a parody of roleplaying games. The purported designer, Gary Jackson, is a fictional amalgam of Gary Gygax and Steve Jackson, and it's origin is as the game they play in Knights of the Dinner Table. It is supposed to be silly (in a weirdly detail obsessed way).
That pedigree is barely noticeable in the current "fifth" edition. It's the KODT's "HackMaster" about as much as Aces & Eights is CattlePunk.
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Old 06-08-2017, 09:16 AM   #29
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Default Re: Combining GURPS and Hackmaster combat system?

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That pedigree is barely noticeable in the current "fifth" edition. It's the KODT's "HackMaster" about as much as Aces & Eights is CattlePunk.
The last edition I saw still claimed to be the work of Gary Jackson and still had art by Blackburn. No idea what edition that was.

I found Aces and Eights to be unplayable, personally and extremely oddly organized besides. Which is sad because there was a lot to want to like about it but I couldn't even get past character creation.

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Old 06-08-2017, 09:22 AM   #30
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Default Re: Combining GURPS and Hackmaster combat system?

The issue I have with such schemes is that attacks flying fast on a second scale is pretty realistic (over short bursts, but there are other schemes to introduce realistic lulls, such as Last Gasp). Watch some HEMA sparring or freeplay and you'll see even polearms are surprisingly quick when handled well.

If you slow down attacks to one every few seconds, it breaks my immersion due to my familiarity with actual combat (familiarity, not experience or skill). If you break turns down into fractional seconds, everything becomes tick-tick-tick in a way I suspect would become unplayable. How do you handle movement when a turn is a tenth of a second?
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