if "toe/"fingers" is Normal-Piercing, how many should be for Large/Huge?

Plane · 10-16-2020, 10:35 AM

B404 says "a toe" or "a few stiffened figures" (I figure that means 1 or 2, toes aren't THAT much wider than fingers) for Lethal Strike

Although this was listed under B403's "Special Unarmed Combat Techniques", MA seems to list it under "Cinematic Techniques" in various forms.

MA72 Lethal Eye-Poke is based on it, and is also listed as cinematic.

MA85 redefines Lethal Strike as a hand technique only, removing "a few" but remaining plural "stiffened fingers" (so probably at least 2) listing "Lethal Kick" above as "a toe or toes".

Instead of the technique listing -1 to damage, it just incorporates that into the base damage of punches/kicks. LK emphasizes that "options" are realistic but "cinematic" to IMPROVE.

Strangely though... as an option which you could add to kicks: you could buy kicking up to DX as a Hard technique (3 points) and apply the -2 option from there. With that in mind, actually allowing someone to buy Lethal Kick up to DX-2 for 3 points isn't really unbalanced at all, it's just allowing it to go further to buy off the -2 which is the problem.

and even then: the technique mastery perk and 4 points could take kicking to DX+4 where you could still apply the -2 option...

For simplicity, it's appealing to think "lethal finger poke" is 2 fingers and "lethal toe poke" is 1 toe. Then I can just think "toes are twice as sturdier so that's why you only need one".

But then it makes me wonder "what if you used more" to get a higher wounding multiplier? This should maybe be even worse at penetrating (your limb force is spread over a wider area) so I could see applying a damage penalty, but then any penetrating damage is possibly better due to the higher multiplier...

P136 mentions "giant hail" as an example of piercing under Weather Control, and giant hailstones can get somewhat fistlike, so maybe it's just a matter of speed that most humans can't use?

I would be worried about this reducing knockback but piercing/impaling doesn't seem to do any based on B378. It would however reduce blunt trauma based on B379 so a different approach to a damage penalty would be to give it a DR multiplier (fractional armor divisor) like hollowpoint bullets enjoy.

Something like "one finger poke" if it were allowed to be small piercing could be assumed to have DRx2, then you could do x4 for 2 fingers, x6 for 3 fingers and x8 for 4 fingers? It doesn't necessarily have to match the %s listed at B110.

That's moreso against places like the torso which take more damage from Large/Huge piercing than Small/Normal piercing. The brain takes 4x from everything (like how Vitals take x3 from any kind of piercing... weird? Feels like maybe the 4x should at least stack w/ piercing multipliers...)

I think even "Huge Piercing" can still target the eye AFAIK, whereas "Crushing" cannot, so whatever is VLP should probably still be narrower than a fist?

That's the strange part because if I just wanted to go up 1 finger per level, that'd be 3 for large and 4 for very large, and a fist is 4 fingers wide... It's like a finger is just too wide to be the degree of distinction between piercing levels.

Also to consider is the x1 crushing wound multiplier per MA72's eye poke...

It's roughly "normal piercing but minimum damage is zero, the enemy can technically Roll With Blow to save their eye, it inflicts Knockback and better Blunt Trauma, and doesn't do reduced damage to Unliving/Homogenous foes"

For that reason I wonder if that really should do crushing at all. I think the intent was to allow damage zero but if we made 1 finger have DRx2 then that would give DR 1 to the attack and prevent 0. That would also cover how DR2 can hurt people (becomes DR4) though maybe not how DR 1 does, so that's still a drawback worth a +1.

In terms of "hurting yourself", I'm thinking maybe we could look like a punch as taking damage only on 5+ because 4 damage can be spread across 2 knuckles and maybe knuckles have DR 2 v crushing? Fingertips would be more fragile but that's just reflected as DR1-2 causing HY, not any extra damage for DR+...

MA71 says thumbs are too short to reach the skull which is kinda weird because thumbs are longer than all 5 toes usually, but I chock that down to "you're not using the full length of a straightened thumb".

Eye-Gouging IMO is probably "60% of the obvious thumb's length (from web to last joint: first phalanx) is flush against the cheekboke maintaining your grapple, 40% (from last joint to fingernail tip: second phalanx) is actually poking the eye". (not considering the metacarpal bone at all, I think we don't tend to think of the metacarpus as digits but instead the 'palm' since they're attached by flesh, no air gaps) If we're just comparing that last joint (2nd phalanx) then yeah it's shorter than the entire big toe.

If we think of eye rake as "just the 3rd phalanxes" then crushing eye-poke is probably "3rd and 2nd" while the lethal/piercing ones would be "the entire first phalanx too, all the way up to the knuckles/metacarpi"

B279 uses muskets 0.75 to 0.90 as pi++ examples... 19.05-22.86mm which I could try to approximate in 'finger sizes' used by ring fittings at https://i.pinimg.com/originals/11/60...a168b15c7e.png

"size 10" is 19.8 so it actually seems like a single finger could be wide enough to emulate the width of a pi++ musket, while "size 14" is >23mm and exceeds even the highest example (maybe at that point it has to be crushing?)

"2 fingers" even at the smallest (size 5) seems like it would be too wide if side-by-side (15.7*2=31.4) to be smaller than Huge Piercing, but that may not mean "side by side" it could mean "stacked atop" to form a narrower entry.

Maybe what degree of piercing is just how deep a finger goes in that case? Wider as it goes deeper would explain how it begins as normal instead of large/huge when initially encountering DR, and if it becomes large/huge by the time the finger is fully inserted into the brain that basically doesn't matter since everything becomes 4x anyway?

That would probably matter when actually calculating damage against a torso though.

Maybe going purely by caliber is misleading though because some of the "width" of pi+/pi++ attacks are due to outward force caused by the high velocity?

B279's "armor piercing, hard core" might actually be considered the baseline "width" guidelines? Normal rounds having "slight expansion" but not to the degree of hollowpoint?

0.75 drops from p++ to pi+ in this case, but .80/0.90 would not and apparently keep their x2 multiplier while still getting the benefit of DRx0.5

Gold & Appel Inc · 10-16-2020, 10:46 AM

I would apply a (0.5) armor divisor to any sort of Pi+ Lethal finger or toe strike rather than a greater than normal direct subtraction of damage, for the wider surface area of a bunch of fingers or toes necessary to achieve Pi+ wounding, and disallow a Pi+ Lethal Kick entirely for anyone who doesn't have Foot Manipulators because a normal foot can't steeple the toes together like that.

Plane · 10-16-2020, 12:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gold & Appel Inc

disallow a Pi+ Lethal Kick entirely for anyone who doesn't have Foot Manipulators because a normal foot can't steeple the toes together like that.

steeple is a good term, glad you introduced it here, I was searching fruitlessly for pics of fingers arranged in a "non-wide" way...

Apparently "pistol steeple" is a term for putting the 2 index fingers of both hands together as Ivanka here and it is known in Japan for launching "kancho" attacks.

Kancho apparently also has some 4-fingered variations (index+middle extended on both hands, only ring/pinky folded) so perhaps there is a special term used for that but I haven't been able to find it... recall Kakashi used that "double diameter" version against both Uzumaki Naruto and Maito Gai.

That certainly seems a lot more of a stable alignment than combining 2 fingers on a single hand, you'd have to do a "crossing" motion like this and even if you aligned the tips, it just naturally widens and they don't reinforce each other the same way due to this requiring adduction out of neutral alignment for both fingers, and also slight flexion/extension out of neutral alignment so they move out of each other's way.

If 1-finger pokes are a variation of punch then pistolsteepled-kancho pokes would probably be a variation on two-handed punch I'm guessing... and this would be narrower than trying to combing 2 fingers on a single hand.

MrFix · 10-16-2020, 12:12 PM

You speak of a technique to increase kicking based on DX. I believe you actually can't do that, since B231 lists Kicking technique as defaulting to Karate or Brawling, not DX.

You can kick with DX-2, but you can't improve it from that without learning a skill that supports the technique. Same with Lethal Strike (Lethal Kick).

AlexanderHowl · 10-16-2020, 02:06 PM

Pretty much. In addition, the reason why the toe/finger is piercing is because it is a smaller striking surface transmitting the majority of the force of a punch or kick. This allows it to target different hit locations. Making the striking surface larger just changes it back to crushing damage, it could not turn it into pi+ or pi++ because there is no gaping channel of exposed and torn flesh left behind by the attack.

Now, you might be able to rationalize using a tiger claw strike or something similar to deal pi+ damage because it would tear the flesh away from the bone, but I would reduce damage by a further -1 and inflict an additional -2 to skill (as well as making it cinematic to improve). So, a ST 12 and DX 12 individual with Karate-14 would deal 1d-2 pi+ damage and use an effective skill of 10 with such a strike and would deal 1d-3 pi+ damage and use an effective skill of 8 with such a kick. They would suffer the same risk of self harm as a lethal kick/strike.

10-16-2020, 10:35 AM	#1
Plane Join Date: Aug 2018	if "toe/"fingers" is Normal-Piercing, how many should be for Large/Huge? B404 says "a toe" or "a few stiffened figures" (I figure that means 1 or 2, toes aren't THAT much wider than fingers) for Lethal Strike Although this was listed under B403's "Special Unarmed Combat Techniques", MA seems to list it under "Cinematic Techniques" in various forms. MA72 Lethal Eye-Poke is based on it, and is also listed as cinematic. MA85 redefines Lethal Strike as a hand technique only, removing "a few" but remaining plural "stiffened fingers" (so probably at least 2) listing "Lethal Kick" above as "a toe or toes". Instead of the technique listing -1 to damage, it just incorporates that into the base damage of punches/kicks. LK emphasizes that "options" are realistic but "cinematic" to IMPROVE. Strangely though... as an option which you could add to kicks: you could buy kicking up to DX as a Hard technique (3 points) and apply the -2 option from there. With that in mind, actually allowing someone to buy Lethal Kick up to DX-2 for 3 points isn't really unbalanced at all, it's just allowing it to go further to buy off the -2 which is the problem. and even then: the technique mastery perk and 4 points could take kicking to DX+4 where you could still apply the -2 option... For simplicity, it's appealing to think "lethal finger poke" is 2 fingers and "lethal toe poke" is 1 toe. Then I can just think "toes are twice as sturdier so that's why you only need one". But then it makes me wonder "what if you used more" to get a higher wounding multiplier? This should maybe be even worse at penetrating (your limb force is spread over a wider area) so I could see applying a damage penalty, but then any penetrating damage is possibly better due to the higher multiplier... P136 mentions "giant hail" as an example of piercing under Weather Control, and giant hailstones can get somewhat fistlike, so maybe it's just a matter of speed that most humans can't use? I would be worried about this reducing knockback but piercing/impaling doesn't seem to do any based on B378. It would however reduce blunt trauma based on B379 so a different approach to a damage penalty would be to give it a DR multiplier (fractional armor divisor) like hollowpoint bullets enjoy. Something like "one finger poke" if it were allowed to be small piercing could be assumed to have DRx2, then you could do x4 for 2 fingers, x6 for 3 fingers and x8 for 4 fingers? It doesn't necessarily have to match the %s listed at B110. That's moreso against places like the torso which take more damage from Large/Huge piercing than Small/Normal piercing. The brain takes 4x from everything (like how Vitals take x3 from any kind of piercing... weird? Feels like maybe the 4x should at least stack w/ piercing multipliers...) I think even "Huge Piercing" can still target the eye AFAIK, whereas "Crushing" cannot, so whatever is VLP should probably still be narrower than a fist? That's the strange part because if I just wanted to go up 1 finger per level, that'd be 3 for large and 4 for very large, and a fist is 4 fingers wide... It's like a finger is just too wide to be the degree of distinction between piercing levels. Also to consider is the x1 crushing wound multiplier per MA72's eye poke... It's roughly "normal piercing but minimum damage is zero, the enemy can technically Roll With Blow to save their eye, it inflicts Knockback and better Blunt Trauma, and doesn't do reduced damage to Unliving/Homogenous foes" For that reason I wonder if that really should do crushing at all. I think the intent was to allow damage zero but if we made 1 finger have DRx2 then that would give DR 1 to the attack and prevent 0. That would also cover how DR2 can hurt people (becomes DR4) though maybe not how DR 1 does, so that's still a drawback worth a +1. In terms of "hurting yourself", I'm thinking maybe we could look like a punch as taking damage only on 5+ because 4 damage can be spread across 2 knuckles and maybe knuckles have DR 2 v crushing? Fingertips would be more fragile but that's just reflected as DR1-2 causing HY, not any extra damage for DR+... MA71 says thumbs are too short to reach the skull which is kinda weird because thumbs are longer than all 5 toes usually, but I chock that down to "you're not using the full length of a straightened thumb". Eye-Gouging IMO is probably "60% of the obvious thumb's length (from web to last joint: first phalanx) is flush against the cheekboke maintaining your grapple, 40% (from last joint to fingernail tip: second phalanx) is actually poking the eye". (not considering the metacarpal bone at all, I think we don't tend to think of the metacarpus as digits but instead the 'palm' since they're attached by flesh, no air gaps) If we're just comparing that last joint (2nd phalanx) then yeah it's shorter than the entire big toe. If we think of eye rake as "just the 3rd phalanxes" then crushing eye-poke is probably "3rd and 2nd" while the lethal/piercing ones would be "the entire first phalanx too, all the way up to the knuckles/metacarpi" B279 uses muskets 0.75 to 0.90 as pi++ examples... 19.05-22.86mm which I could try to approximate in 'finger sizes' used by ring fittings at https://i.pinimg.com/originals/11/60...a168b15c7e.png "size 10" is 19.8 so it actually seems like a single finger could be wide enough to emulate the width of a pi++ musket, while "size 14" is >23mm and exceeds even the highest example (maybe at that point it has to be crushing?) "2 fingers" even at the smallest (size 5) seems like it would be too wide if side-by-side (15.7*2=31.4) to be smaller than Huge Piercing, but that may not mean "side by side" it could mean "stacked atop" to form a narrower entry. Maybe what degree of piercing is just how deep a finger goes in that case? Wider as it goes deeper would explain how it begins as normal instead of large/huge when initially encountering DR, and if it becomes large/huge by the time the finger is fully inserted into the brain that basically doesn't matter since everything becomes 4x anyway? That would probably matter when actually calculating damage against a torso though. Maybe going purely by caliber is misleading though because some of the "width" of pi+/pi++ attacks are due to outward force caused by the high velocity? B279's "armor piercing, hard core" might actually be considered the baseline "width" guidelines? Normal rounds having "slight expansion" but not to the degree of hollowpoint? 0.75 drops from p++ to pi+ in this case, but .80/0.90 would not and apparently keep their x2 multiplier while still getting the benefit of DRx0.5

10-16-2020, 10:46 AM	#2
Gold & Appel Inc Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: One Mile Up	Re: if "toe/"fingers" is Normal-Piercing, how many should be for Large/Huge? I would apply a (0.5) armor divisor to any sort of Pi+ Lethal finger or toe strike rather than a greater than normal direct subtraction of damage, for the wider surface area of a bunch of fingers or toes necessary to achieve Pi+ wounding, and disallow a Pi+ Lethal Kick entirely for anyone who doesn't have Foot Manipulators because a normal foot can't steeple the toes together like that.

10-16-2020, 12:12 PM	#4
MrFix Join Date: Aug 2019	Re: if "toe/"fingers" is Normal-Piercing, how many should be for Large/Huge? You speak of a technique to increase kicking based on DX. I believe you actually can't do that, since B231 lists Kicking technique as defaulting to Karate or Brawling, not DX. You can kick with DX-2, but you can't improve it from that without learning a skill that supports the technique. Same with Lethal Strike (Lethal Kick). __________________ Your level of GURPS proficiency: Pedestrian: 3e vs 4e Proficient: Early 4e vs Late 4e Master: Kromm vs PK GURPS: Shooting things for fun and profit

10-16-2020, 02:06 PM	#5
AlexanderHowl Join Date: Feb 2016	Re: if "toe/"fingers" is Normal-Piercing, how many should be for Large/Huge? Pretty much. In addition, the reason why the toe/finger is piercing is because it is a smaller striking surface transmitting the majority of the force of a punch or kick. This allows it to target different hit locations. Making the striking surface larger just changes it back to crushing damage, it could not turn it into pi+ or pi++ because there is no gaping channel of exposed and torn flesh left behind by the attack. Now, you might be able to rationalize using a tiger claw strike or something similar to deal pi+ damage because it would tear the flesh away from the bone, but I would reduce damage by a further -1 and inflict an additional -2 to skill (as well as making it cinematic to improve). So, a ST 12 and DX 12 individual with Karate-14 would deal 1d-2 pi+ damage and use an effective skill of 10 with such a strike and would deal 1d-3 pi+ damage and use an effective skill of 8 with such a kick. They would suffer the same risk of self harm as a lethal kick/strike.