A funny thing happened on the way to the Joust . . .

[Mark Caliber]

Okay, so the GM is getting ready for the big Jousting tourney and as the local rules lawyer/Co-GM, I decided to ready the most relevant stats that we would require or would most likely encounter.

Having already played a GIII** Knight in shining armor, I know a thing or two about jousting and lance play in GIII. I also come to the project with some of those same assumptions and expectations.

Now I have to ask, whose idea was it to nerf horses? And Lances?

Currently in GIVE* horses have a max speed of about half of what real life horses do. THAT and their Strength has been knocked down by about half. The cool thing is that the calculations for calculating damage in GIVE are much much easier but the results are disappointing.

Please note that in the lance rules that a tourney lance is designed to break if it exceeds 15 points of damage, ergo limiting tourney damage to a max of 15 points. (Makes sense and this was the same limit in GIII IIRC.)

BUT if you run the calculations you will quickly find that 90% of the horses will yield a max damage of 1d+3, and if you have a truly gifted AND swift horse, then you can manage a 2d+3 for damage.

Max damage for a traditional horse becomes 9 and for a Superb horse is 15 points of damage.

As you can see, it is now IMPOSSIBLE for a tourney lance to be broken.

So. Has this issue been addressed by the Powers that be? Yet? (Please note that I did perform a search on the relevant topics and failed to find a solution.)


* <b>G</b>UPRS <b>IV</b>th <b>E</b>dition, because Roman numerals a chic and having a gnarly acronym to toss around is spiffy.

** GIII <b>G</b>URPS <b>III</b>rd Edition. It's a slightly better acronym that GIIIE. And not to be confused with the clearly inferior 'other' gaming system.

[talonthehand]

Originally Posted by Mark Caliber

Okay, so the GM is getting ready for the big Jousting tourney and as the local rules lawyer/Co-GM, I decided to ready the most relevant stats that we would require or would most likely encounter.

Having already played a GIII** Knight in shining armor, I know a thing or two about jousting and lance play in GIII. I also come to the project with some of those same assumptions and expectations.

Now I have to ask, whose idea was it to nerf horses? And Lances?

Currently in GIVE* horses have a max speed of about half of what real life horses do. THAT and their Strength has been knocked down by about half. The cool thing is that the calculations for calculating damage in GIVE are much much easier but the results are disappointing.

Please note that in the lance rules that a tourney lance is designed to break if it exceeds 15 points of damage, ergo limiting tourney damage to a max of 15 points. (Makes sense and this was the same limit in GIII IIRC.)

BUT if you run the calculations you will quickly find that 90% of the horses will yield a max damage of 1d+3, and if you have a truly gifted AND swift horse, then you can manage a 2d+3 for damage.

Max damage for a traditional horse becomes 9 and for a Superb horse is 15 points of damage.

As you can see, it is now IMPOSSIBLE for a tourney lance to be broken.

So. Has this issue been addressed by the Powers that be? Yet? (Please note that I did perform a search on the relevant topics and failed to find a solution.)



* <b>G</b>UPRS <b>IV</b>th <b>E</b>dition, because Roman numerals a chic and having a gnarly acronym to toss around is spiffy.

** GIII <b>G</b>URPS <b>III</b>rd Edition. It's a slightly better acronym that GIIIE. And not to be confused with the clearly inferior 'other' gaming system.

I worked it out with the cavalry horse on GURPS Basic 459. I think you might have forgotten about the Enhanced Move 1, because I have the damage done going at a full tilt as 3d + 3.

[Edit] The enhanced move makes the top ground speed 16 yps, which comes out to 32.7 mph, compared to Secretariat's 37.5 mph (admittedly, that's an average time over an hour and a half). Though I'm a bit tired and listening to two friends argue behind me, so I might have done that math wrong.

[MIB 1473]

Originally Posted by talonthehand

The enhanced move makes the top ground speed 16 yps, which comes out to 32.7 mph, compared to Secretariat's 37.5 mph (admittedly, that's an average time over an hour and a half). Though I'm a bit tired and listening to two friends argue behind me, so I might have done that math wrong.

This is correct -- mph is about twice yps. The speed should decrease a bit with the horse's encumbrance, though.

[talonthehand]

Originally Posted by MIB 1473

This is correct -- mph is about twice yps. The speed should decrease a bit with the horse's encumbrance, though.

Nah, I know I got that part right, I mostly wasn't sure about converting a 2:24 mile and a half to miles per hour.

[MIB 1473]

Originally Posted by talonthehand

Nah, I know I got that part right, I mostly wasn't sure about converting a 2:24 mile and a half to miles per hour.

That's the easy part. :) 2:24 is 2.4 minutes, or 1.6 minutes per mile, which is 37.5 mph.

[Kromm]

Yeah, you left out the Enhanced Move. A warhorse has ST/HP 24, BL 115, Move 7, and Enhanced Move 1 (Ground Speed 14). With a 150-lb. man in 50-60 lbs. of armor and weapons, it should be at Light encumbrance, giving Move 11. This makes slam damage (24×11)/100 = 2.64d. I'll grant that the mounted combat rules say to round down (so 2d) while the slam rules round up (to 3d). It's perhaps fairest not to round at all (and use 2d+2). Then add the +3 for a lance. Depending on how you feel about rounding, that's 2d+3, 2d+5, or 3d+3. I don't think it's really gimped . . .

[RapGangsta_G]

Isnt the speed of both horses added in a joust? Because of their relative velocity, the point of an lance pointed from an Move 11 Horse pointed on a rider on an another Move 11 horse charging at each other, has a relative velocity of Move 22, to the knight on the Horse its pointed to.

[Mark Caliber]

Okay, that's reasonable. I did overlook the "Enhanced Move" advantage which would double our mount's speed and reflect the GURPS horses closer to reality.

As for rounding, I'll have to take that up with the GM. I for one would certainly go for a "round normally" procedure.

I guess that will have to do.

As a point of nostalgia, I remember the GIII horse, severely weighted with armor doing a nice 5d+1 dmg at full tilt.

Now that's a lance that could realistically put some hurt on a Dragon!

Okay, thanks for your help everyone! You are still all the best!

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by RapGangsta_G

Isnt the speed of both horses added in a joust? Because of their relative velocity, the point of an lance pointed from an Move 11 Horse pointed on a rider on an another Move 11 horse charging at each other, has a relative velocity of Move 22, to the knight on the Horse its pointed to.

This is how it works in any slam situation, yes. You'd use (24 × 22)/100 = 5.28d, which would round to 5d (and is in fact almost exactly 5d+1 if you don't round), and then add the +3 to that. Tilting at stationary objects means less damage.