"Unbreakable" materials for melee weapons and high ST scores

[Phantasm]

In my GURPS Rifts game, I've got a player who is running a micronized Zentraedi (still SM +1, though) who converted his sheet to GURPS from the Palladium version, and ended up with an ST 50.

So, naturally, the player wants to be able to go toe to toe in melee with some of the Mechanoids that just came through a rift. No sweat, right? But the player wants the Zentraedi to use a vibrosword (in this case, a Thrusting Broadsword with UT's vibroblade enhancement).

Even adjusting the vibrosword for use with an SM +1 character, the MaxST of the sword falls short of 50, being MaxST 42, which means that the Zentron cannot utilize the full ST score, making unarmed combat more effective than a big honkin' sword. (Due to Reasons, the Ultradense option from UT is not normally available.)

But, digging through a few Rifts and other books for inspiration, I came upon a metal from Aliens Unlimited called, IIRC, "Kisentite", an unbreakable metal described as being "obsidian black". First thing I thought was, "Okay, what GURPS material is unbreakable? Oh, orichalcum over in DF1. Hmm...."

Assuming that GURPS's orichalcum and Palladium's kisentite are both meant to be the typical "cannot break no matter how hard you swing the blade" kind of metal, the price cost should be the same.

But does making it unbreakable negate the "MaxST = MinST x 3" rule?

(Note: We're not making the sword as a Gadget, so please don't go that route...)

[weby]

By RAW: No (as in: there is nothing such said anywhere)

But logically: yes.

Another fun way to go is to make the weapon SM +2 because so many comic books have huge weapons and that should fix your ST problem. The character will then just need the big weapon(SM) perk to use such as he has enough ST.

[Nereidalbel]

By RAW? I don't think so. Can you apply Hyper-Dense and Vibroblade on the same weapon? Hyperdense would actually solve your ST issue, to be sure.

[Anaraxes]

logically: {negates the 3x MinST rule}

RAW doesn't say a weapon breaks if you hit while wielding it with more than 3x MinST. In fact, the rule says the limit applies "for damage purposes" -- which is to say not for other rules like breakage. So there's no reason to say an unbreakable weapon should bypass this rule.

So, the rule could well be meant to model the limits you can do while swinging a weapon of a fixed size and mass. The way to get more damage out of a weapon is to increase its mass, thus its MinST, thus its 3x MinSt = MaxST. While you could argue that more ST will move a light weapon faster, thus being able to add more energy to the same weapon, merely having high ST doesn't increase the movement speed of your hands (much less Move or Basic Speed) without bound. That would call for ATR or Enhanced Move or Enhanced Basic Speed or at least DX for fancy sleight of hand. There's still a physical movement speed cap even with high ST, and so the merely strong still have apparently have a RAW cap on both momentum or kinetic energy. So, to increase damage they still have to fall back on using more mass, which is to say higher MinST. If you're strong enough to exceed 3x MinST, scale the weapon up, and it will do more damage (while also being unbreakable thanks to the material).

It could also be intended as a rule to model the effects of overkill for melee. (Overpenetation on B408 applies only to ranged attacks, and only certain damage types at that.) Here, it would be prettier to have a single rule that applied to both ranged and melee attacks as well as all damage types.

[Anthony]

No, the 3x ST rule is not related to breaking the weapon, it's related to limits on the ability of muscle to add energy to an object that's really light relative to ST, and the way you get around it is having a heavier weapon. There are no particular rules for making a weapon generically heavier, other than larger SM, but it won't create any particular problems if you just let people buy higher min ST versions of weapons at increased weight and cost.

[Flyndaran]

On the same page as Vibroblade is Hyperdense Blades. It multiplies weight and Strength requirement by 1.5.
That small of a mass boost isn't much, but increasing the ST requirement will also increase that times 3 max.
It's listed as only TL 11, but as I, and others have posited in past threads, it's probably a bit superscience. That allows its introduction at nearly any TL, not that that matters much for a proper Rifts multi-dimensional setting.

ST 50 SM+1 is the same scaled down as ST 33 SM+0, so the character is already exceeding biological realism.

[Phantasm]

Please note that in the first post I state:

Originally Posted by Phantasm

Due to Reasons, the Ultradense option from UT is not normally available.

Mostly, it's a matter of availability; they're on the lightly settled Atlantic coastline, with very few places capable of crafting such material. Those places that are capable are probably not places the PCs can get to easily.

[mr beer]

My immediate thought was to use an SM+2 sword, post #2 beat me to it.

[starslayer]

At St+1 but St 50 your warrior may benifit from getting a SM+2 vibrio blade and the large weapon perk.

Then he can wield a comically large anime-esque sword and not suffer max damage penalties.

[naloth]

Supers has rules for "big" weapons. Stuff that your ST50 guy might use or simply ways to upscale a sword to SM+1 or +2