Strength (ST) in high TL settings - Pricing?

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by ErhnamDJ

Regardless, the result is that players who understand the utility provided by ST will avoid playing strong characters. The trait prices discourage playing Vulcans..

If that's your concern, I prefer a different and more comprehensive fix: When you build your character, you get 100 character points PLUS one racial template. The GM builds the racial templates, so you have protection against abuse. The player is not discouraged from playing a Vulcan who is as strong as a Vulcan—but probably can't play a human who is as strong as a Vulcan.

[newton]

Originally Posted by ErhnamDJ

A TL11 warbot has DR 100.

A hyperdense vibroblade has an armor divisor of (10) and gives 1d+3 damage with a cutting attack.

Someone with ST 14 has a swing damage of 2d.

They deal 3d+6 (10) with their fancy greatsword. So 6.5 gets through the robot's DR if you aren't using any sort of edge protection.

That doesn't seem so bad until you realize the robot has 40 HP, carries enough munitions to win a twentieth-century world war, and is stronger than an elephant. If it grabs you, you're not getting away. Oh yeah, and it also has advanced movement options.

Oh yeah, and the TL11 battlesuits have twice as much DR as the warbots.

I'd stick with ranged weapons.

(I won't mention that I think it's dumb they aren't able to harden any of the armor in Ultra-Tech. Seems like a technology they would have developed, but what do I know. Surely they know all this armor they're making is useless. *shrug*)

I will admit this would be difficult however, the sword user has invested a grand total of 40 points+sword skill into wielding this weapon, and can wear very heavy armor, while a warbot is built with 705 points

[ULFGARD]

Is ST important at higher TLs? As stated multiple times, it really depends on the game in question. As an example, I'm in the process of planning a TL 11 game where the PCs are mercenaries. I'm planning on using modified Action templates and Specialists as guides, and for generating important NPCs.

There are very few true aliens in this setting, and I'm endeavoring to make them as alien as possible. However, as systems were colonized, most colonies created variant genetic templates for their offspring which were optimized for the planet(s) they colonized. So while baseline humans exist, it's going to be assumed that everyone is a variant human.

This means that some templates will have higher ST than others. I'm doing something similar to whswhs: I'm giving points that can be used toward a template, but that will be lost if unused.

Their first mission will be to repossess a blockade runner, which they'll get to keep if they're successful (thus they want to do as little damage to it as possible). So how is this going to look? They first have to [i]find]/i] the ship (and its crew, who have bounties on their heads).

They can't very well wander about in battlesuits (or even cybersuits) while hitting bars, starport offices, etc., nor can they bring their blasters with them. There's a fair likelihood that they will end up in hand-to-hand fights, possibly with light, easily concealed weapons (knives, batons, etc.). ST will matter there.

Also, not every mercenary action is a straight up firefight. That would be boring. An extraction of a kidnapping victim being held in a major city won't allow them the use of most of their high-tech toys. There will be numerous other situations.

That said, if it was going to be 90% battlesuits optional, then ST isn't as valuable. So people won't focus on it as much. It costs 0 points to keep ST in line with a basic template.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Rupert

High ST allows high DR and high Dodge and Move. It allows carrying baggier, nastier weapons. Such a character is harder to put down than weaker characters, and that makes combat balance harder, because a weapon that can threaten the brick turns the nerds into pink mist.

Ok, I see where part of our disconnect is. Your solution to the "fine red mist" problem is to arms control the opposition and encourage PC's to purchase strength. Mine is to invoke the optional wounding rules in high tech page 161.



I'll say though, if the nerd is being shot at you're already in big trouble in my games. The nerd should be in the back, and when shots start being fired, he should hit the ground and provide support that doesn't draw attention to his position. And the nerd character doesn't have a good dodge to rely on in the first place, so he should actually be wearing as tough or tougher armor than everyone else.



The real comparison should be with an agile and accurate gunslinger. These guys are the ones who you worry about getting misted. I find most opponents don't hit them dead on with massive charges. They use volume of fire to lower their effective dodge and off-target explosions to hit them at all. The nimble guy makes up for his lighter weapons by hitting multiple times, hitting weak points, and hitting at greater distances.


That your characters don't buy ST until DX starts to hit diminishing returns says something about its price.

Originally Posted by Kromm

To a great extent it comes down to gaming style!

this really is quite true. The exact game matters a lot more than the Tech Level, even if there are some trends. I wouldn't change ST costs without looking at the campaign first.

Originally Posted by whswhs

If that's your concern, I prefer a different and more comprehensive fix: When you build your character, you get 100 character points PLUS one racial template. The GM builds the racial templates, so you have protection against abuse. The player is not discouraged from playing a Vulcan who is as strong as a Vulcan—but probably can't play a human who is as strong as a Vulcan.

But now, unless humans get a bonus, you are incentivized to not play a human. There are roleplay and perhaps in-game social reasons to play a human, but not a whole lot of them, and those reasons won't be reliable. And sometimes the concept calls for a big guy rather than a vulcan.



Are you really saying there is no situation where you would change the price of ST?

[Plane]

Originally Posted by ErhnamDJ

Kirk and Spock might find themselves in frequent unarmed combat, but that took a lot of effort on the part of the writers to set up

Wasn't that usually because enemies disarmed them first or they got hurt and dropped their weapons?

[ErhnamDJ]

Originally Posted by whswhs

If that's your concern, I prefer a different and more comprehensive fix: When you build your character, you get 100 character points PLUS one racial template.

My concern is that it unduly discourages certain character concepts. Be it a Vulcan, an android, or a bodybuilder.

Giving out free racial templates causes the same problem: it creates unwanted incentives.

If you overcharge for traits, you discourage people from taking them. If you subsidize traits, as you propose, then you encourage people to take them.

I don't want to encourage people to play Vulcans; I neither want to discourage people from playing them.

I want people to be able to play their desired character concept without being incentivized to do otherwise, or being punished for doing so. The only way to achieve this design goal is to price the traits by their perceived utility.

Whenever you price a trait other than by its utility, you are encouraging or discouraging people from playing their desired character concept.

"If the rules didn't discourage me from playing a strong character, I would do so." That's what I want to avoid.

If you charge more for a trait than the relative utility it provides, you discourage people from taking it.

If you charge less for a trait than the relative utility it provides, you encourage people to take it.

If the game is generic and universal, you shouldn't encourage or discourage particular character concepts.

That's the design goal I would have for trait pricing, and the reasoning that would lead me to it.

It is, however, competing with another design goal that seems obvious: the game should be playable.

So it might be the case that sometimes we have to deviate from the first design goal to accommodate the second. I think there are cases where charging the same price for a trait in every game creates situations that are so problematic that we ought to take action and increase the cognitive burden of character creation. Whether that's the case with ST in science-fiction games is debatable. I agree with Kromm that it's only problematic in certain types of science-fiction games, and so would usually stick with the given price. But other traits, such as DR, are so problematic that I believe they require adjustment. The warbot is an unplayable character concept with its three hundred points spent on relatively useless DR.

An amount of DR that's astoundingly useful in a low-tech world is only very marginally useful in an ultra-tech world. I believe this example best illustrates the failure of universal trait pricing.

We do have examples in the game of trait pricing that differs from game to game. Resistant is an example. There are others. So this clearly isn't something the game is unable to handle, or a principle that the designers have rejected.

[ErhnamDJ]

Originally Posted by Plane

Wasn't that usually because enemies disarmed them first or they got hurt and dropped their weapons?

It was. The writers were able to put the characters in whatever contrived situations they dreamed up. A game master in a game isn't so easily able to do the same to their players' characters. They have that pesky agency that characters in fiction lack. Kirk couldn't resist the writer's whims. My players' characters can, however, resist my whims, and so rarely find themselves in naked combat against Gorn or Klingons.

[ErhnamDJ]

Originally Posted by ULFGARD

So while baseline humans exist, it's going to be assumed that everyone is a variant human.

This means that some templates will have higher ST than others. I'm doing something similar to whswhs: I'm giving points that can be used toward a template, but that will be lost if unused.

And if your goal is to discourage playing a normal human, this will achieve that goal.

I don't think the game rules should inadvertently aim toward that, or a similar, goal. In a generic and universal game, players should be able to play the characters they desire, without being tugged to and fro by the trait prices. If I want to play an elf, I shouldn't be discouraged by a sixty-point Unaging advantage. Rather, I should get to play an elf.

That's the sort of game I think GURPS players are interested in. That's the ideal that interested me. I could play whatever I wanted! There wasn't any hidden "and get punished for it" in the game I imagined as Generic and Universal.

None of this is to disparage the game you're running. If that's the game your players want, then great! I'm only using it as an example to illustrate the incentives various pricing schemes create. Whether given incentives are desirable or not depend entirely on the design goal. They're not good or bad on their own, only relative to a given design goal.

[Black Leviathan]

Originally Posted by ericthered

Have you ever in all of your games looked at a character and said "That character's ST is out of control. He's hogging the spot-light

I played a GIANT in GURPS with a ST22. It was insane in a 125pt game. To the point where the rest of my stats were poor and my skills were cute. I couldn't hit often but when I connected I killed big armored foes with one-hit. But that and carrying a lot of gear and making a few big jumps was about all I could do in that game. I was supposed to be silent in most of the RP and couldn't solve non killing, non lifting problems. So I couldn't hot the spotlight for long but I was definitely out of control.

[AlexanderHowl]

Originally Posted by ErhnamDJ

I don't think the game rules should inadvertently aim toward that, or a similar, goal. In a generic and universal game, players should be able to play the characters they desire, without being tugged to and fro by the trait prices. If I want to play an elf, I shouldn't be discouraged by a sixty-point Unaging advantage. Rather, I should get to play an elf.

Unaging is 15 CP in 4e, so that problem has already been solved (it is effectively Immunity to Aging).