Conditional Injury with Knowing Your Own Strength

[Anthony]

The easiest option is to rate DR in RT, just like health (call it AT), and then use that:

• WP = AT: roll 1d6. On 1-3, the attack bounces. On 4-6, reduce WP by the roll.
• WP = AT+1: reduce WP by 3
• WP = AT+2: reduce WP by 2
• WP = AT+3-4: reduce WP by 1
• WP = AT+5: WP is not modified

[Raekai]

Originally Posted by Anthony

The easiest option is to rate DR in RT, just like health (call it AT), and then use that:

• WP = AT: roll 1d6. On 1-3, the attack bounces. On 4-6, reduce WP by the roll.
• WP = AT+1: reduce WP by 3
• WP = AT+2: reduce WP by 2
• WP = AT+3-4: reduce WP by 1
• WP = AT+5: WP is not modified

Of course! And that looks familiar too!

Originally Posted by RyanW

I was looking at this and thinking about completely revamping the damage system using it.

1. You never roll damage. Instead, attacks (and ST) have a Wound Potential. On a successful attack, roll 1d. On a 1-2, subtract 1 from Wound Potential. On a 5-6, add 1 to Wound Potential. (Or use a Fudge/Fate die, if you prefer).
2. DR is replaced by Protection. This is the (adjusted) Wound Potential that can be completely stopped.
3. When Wound Potential exceeds Protection by three or less, the Wound Potential is reduced:
   • Exceeded by 1: Reduce by three.
   • Exceeded by 2: Reduce by two.
   • Exceeded by 3: Reduce by one.
   • Exceeded by 4+: Not reduced.
   • Where multiple sources of Protection apply, apply the reduction for each in turn and check the remaining against the next source of Protection (you might find this rule cumbersome in games where layered armor is common).
4. Apply the rules from Conditional Injury normally starting at Injury and Severity.

If you favor protection over damage, you could reduce Wound Potential by 1 if it exceeds by 3 or 4 instead of just 3. It could round either way.

(Also, did you know the forum allows nested lists? I didn't, but I thought I'd give it a try).

And here I am just trying to put the pieces together. Okay, let me try this out and make sure I'm doing it right.

DR 7 is AT 2. And a 4d-1 attack averages 13 damage, which is WP 4. That's WP = AT + 2. This reduces the WP by 2, which means the WP is 2. WP 2 is ~2d-1, which is perfect.

DR 7 is AT 2. And a 4d+2 attack averages 16 damage, which is WP 5. That's WP = AT + 3. This reduces the WP by 1, which means the WP is 4. WP 4 is ~3d+1, but shouldn't it be closer to WP 3, which is ~2d+1, because 4d+2 - 2d is 2d+2? Is this a matter of resolution? Or am I thinking about this the wrong way?

DR 7 is AT 2. And a 6d+1 attack averages 22 damage, which is WP 7. That's WP = AT + 5. There's no WP reduction, but it feels like WP should be 5, which is ~4d+1. Again, am I thinking about this the wrong way?

Because it feels like it should be WP - AT, which would "fix" the "issues" I'm seeing above. If I'm wrong, that's fine, but I'm just confused about the math, which is also fine because it's not my strongest suit.

On another note, to increase resolution, couldn't WP, RT, etc. be multiplied by 3, then the resulting number is divided by 3 for Severity? The Robustness Threshold Table and the Wound Potential Table wouldn't look like the Size and Speed/Range Table anymore (though, it would obviously still correspond), but it would mean that WP = damage, RT = HP, AT = DR, etc., which would be nice and clean. Having division by 3 (before modifying Severity) wouldn't be hard to do on the fly.

EDIT: No, no. I see how my DR and damage stuff breaks, so I guess I just don't understand the math. I'll make another attempt later.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Raekai

Is this a matter of resolution?

Yes. In the end, the +6/x10 scale is low resolution.

If you want better resolution, you're going to wind up with some fairly large tables. The simplest in play is probably to have per-character tables, this will add time to character creation but doesn't slow play down. A fairly simple version of that is know your own damage.

[dataweaver]

For fine-grained exponential scales, I like 24 steps:

+0=x1.00; +1=x1.10; +2=x1.21; +3=x1.33
+4=x1.47; +5=x1.62; +6=x1.78; +7=x1.96
+8=x2.15; +9=x2.37; +10=x2.61; +11=x2.87
+12=x3.16; +13=x3.48; +14=x3.83; +15=x4.22
+16=x4.64; +17=x5.11; +18=x5.62; +19=x6.19
+20=x6.81; +21=x7.50; +22=x8.25; +23=x9.09
+24=x10

+0 and +24 are exact; everything else is rounded off to two places. There's approximately a 10% increase with each step. And you can interpolate between them with negligible lots of accuracy: half a step between +0 and +1 is close enough to x1.05 that you can ignore the error; likewise with a tenth of a step and x1.01.

[Raekai]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

For fine-grained exponential scales, I like 24 steps:

+0=x1.00; +1=x1.10; +2=x1.21; +3=x1.33
+4=x1.47; +5=x1.62; +6=x1.78; +7=x1.96
+8=x2.15; +9=x2.37; +10=x2.61; +11=x2.87
+12=x3.16; +13=x3.48; +14=x3.83; +15=x4.22
+16=x4.64; +17=x5.11; +18=x5.62; +19=x6.19
+20=x6.81; +21=x7.50; +22=x8.25; +23=x9.09
+24=x10

+0 and +24 are exact; everything else is rounded off to two places. There's approximately a 10% increase with each step. And you can interpolate between them with negligible lots of accuracy: half a step between +0 and +1 is close enough to x1.05 that you can ignore the error; likewise with a tenth of a step and x1.01.

It's pretty neat how that works out!

Originally Posted by Anthony

Yes. In the end, the +6/x10 scale is low resolution.

If you want better resolution, you're going to wind up with some fairly large tables. The simplest in play is probably to have per-character tables, this will add time to character creation but doesn't slow play down. A fairly simple version of that is know your own damage.

Your Know Your Own Damage is awesome. Thank you for putting the work in!

So, do DR and damage have to be converted first? As I've mentioned, DR is obviously way too high when being used with KYOS on its own, so it makes sense to convert it to damage, find the ST, plug that into the KYOS formula, then take the average damage for the new ST to find the DR. So, do I have to convert it to KYOS and then plug it into Know Your Own Damage? Or is that meant for taking standard DR directly?

Also, would you say your Wound Threshold Tables would be compatible with Conditional Effects Table from Conditional Injury? As in, your WT 1–3 are equivalent to Severity -5 to -3 in terms of using CI's minor wounds, idea, etc. It maps well. The only thing that seems missing is a difference between Scratch and None in your table and maybe Total Destruction or some other step.

Overall, the better resolution is great! And I like the idea of having per-character tables—I use spreadsheets for characters anyway.

I'll try to whip up some examples tonight just to make sure I have a grasp on this.

Originally Posted by Know Your Own Damage

(if combined with KYoS, it works out to damage being proportional to the 1/3 power of energy)

Furthermore, this is the thing that I really have a question about. Does this matter? Is it more or less realistic if damage is proportional to different powers of energy? Or is it just a matter of scaling? This is why I always pushed for ×10 = +10—because KYOS does it. If Basic Lift follows that scale, should damage follow it too? Or does it matter at all? That's a big part of where I keep getting hung up in trying to understand this.

[dataweaver]

Basic Set has Swing damage increasing at roughly +1 per +1 ST, starting at ST 10 (and damage 3.5); but Basic Lift increases with the square of ST. That is, once you get to a sufficiently high ST that the 6.5-point discrepancy between ST and damage is moot, doubling your ST doubles your damage, while doubling your ST quadruples your Basic Lift. Thrusting damage is roughly half as fast as Swinging damage; but that still leaves it leveling out toward “double ST is double damage”. At lower levels, it goes faster than that; but I think it briefly peaks at the same rate as ST vs. BL (ST14≈√2·ST10, but does 2d damage instead of 1d damage at ST 10) and falls off fairly quickly on either side.

What that says to me is that damage really ought to take more steps to double than BL does. If it takes ten steps to get an order of magnitude increase, it ought to take closer to 20 steps for damage to do likewise.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Raekai

Is it more or less realistic if damage is proportional to different powers of energy?

Realistically, if you increase the scale of an attack in all dimensions, its penetration is multiplied by the scale, and its energy is multiplied by the cube of the scale factor. There are, however, a vast number of exceptions, as typically attacks are not identical other than scale, so this is a very crude approximation. On the reverse side of things, armor thickness probably scales with the 1/3 power of mass, and energy to destroy something should be pretty close to linear in mass.

Originally Posted by Raekai

If Basic Lift follows that scale, should damage follow it too?

Probably not. Tissue destruction will be pretty close to linear, but tissue destruction isn't a very good estimate of true lethality (the way KYoD works, each wound level is twice as significant as the last, so x10 energy is about x4 cumulative damage). However, a significant part of the reason I used x10 = +30 is simpler math.

[Raekai]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

Basic Set has Swing damage increasing at roughly +1 per +1 ST, starting at ST 10 (and damage 3.5); but Basic Lift increases with the square of ST. That is, once you get to a sufficiently high ST that the 6.5-point discrepancy between ST and damage is moot, doubling your ST doubles your damage, while doubling your ST quadruples your Basic Lift. Thrusting damage is roughly half as fast as Swinging damage; but that still leaves it leveling out toward “double ST is double damage”. At lower levels, it goes faster than that; but I think it briefly peaks at the same rate as ST vs. BL (ST14≈√2·ST10, but does 2d damage instead of 1d damage at ST 10) and falls off fairly quickly on either side.

What that says to me is that damage really ought to take more steps to double than BL does. If it takes ten steps to get an order of magnitude increase, it ought to take closer to 20 steps for damage to do likewise.

So, theoretically, something like ×10 is +20 would be ideal in that case? Am I understanding this right?

Originally Posted by Anthony

Realistically, if you increase the scale of an attack in all dimensions, its penetration is multiplied by the scale, and its energy is multiplied by the cube of the scale factor. There are, however, a vast number of exceptions, as typically attacks are not identical other than scale, so this is a very crude approximation. On the reverse side of things, armor thickness probably scales with the 1/3 power of mass, and energy to destroy something should be pretty close to linear in mass.

Probably not. Tissue destruction will be pretty close to linear, but tissue destruction isn't a very good estimate of true lethality (the way KYoD works, each wound level is twice as significant as the last, so x10 energy is about x4 cumulative damage). However, a significant part of the reason I used x10 = +30 is simpler math.

Oh, wow. I'm definitely going to have to trust you on that one. As much as I love them, my formal learning in math and physics stopped after my freshman year of college. In line with my question above, though, you mentioned that ×10 is +20 would also have benefits, right? I'm assuming that it would just mean that (most of) your numbers would have to be cut in half, losing some resolution. Though, again, if that's the case, couldn't one divide by 2 (or whatever the number is) before applying Severity (or Wound Threshold) modifiers? That way there's only one instance of rounding—at the end—which helps preserve some of the resolution.

I really am trying to put forth a good effort to understand this stuff. Again, a bit later on when I really have time to sit down, I'll have to work out some KYOD examples just to make sure I even know how to use this properly.

Also, just to make sure it doesn't get missed...

Originally Posted by Raekai

So, do DR and damage have to be converted first? As I've mentioned, DR is obviously way too high when being used with KYOS on its own, so it makes sense to convert it to damage, find the ST, plug that into the KYOS formula, then take the average damage for the new ST to find the DR. So, do I have to convert it to KYOS and then plug it into Know Your Own Damage? Or is that meant for taking standard DR directly?

I figure that it's the latter and that standard values (as opposed to values converted through the KYOStrength formula) are used for KYODamage.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Raekai

I figure that it's the latter and that standard values (as opposed to values converted through the KYOStrength formula) are used for KYODamage.

KYoD uses its own conversion table that's listed on the page.

[Raekai]

Originally Posted by Anthony

KYoD uses its own conversion table that's listed on the page.

Of course! I just mean that the input is standard damage not KYOS damage, right? I figured as much (otherwise, I'm sure it would be specified), but I just wanted to make sure. But my question is actually answered right there in the text:

Originally Posted by Knowing Your Own Damage

This is used to convert GURPS damage (linear in penetration) to logarithmic damage.

I just happened to miss that the first couple of times. My bad!

So, I have two remaining questions (for now...):

1. How do I make it work with ×10 is +20?. Again, if my intuitions are correct, I figure that would mean halving all numbers before applying Severity (or Wound Threshold) modifiers.
2. Would you say your Wound Threshold Tables would be compatible with Conditional Effects Table from Conditional Injury? As in, your WT 1–3 are equivalent to Severity -5 to -3 in terms of using CI's minor wounds, idea, etc. It maps well. The only thing that seems missing is a difference between Scratch and None in your table and maybe Total Destruction or some other step.