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Old 03-04-2017, 05:58 AM   #1
Wavefunction
 
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Default [TG] Trained Strength - Expanded

I've been experimenting with ST for quite some time. One of my goals is to bring the maximum human ST in line with the maximum for other attributes, which, for the sake of argument, I take to be 16. My ideal solution would be to use logarithmic strength, but until I find a better solution for logarithmic damage, that's not an option. So to keep things simple in the meantime, I had the idea of keeping ST roughly as it is*, capping it to 16 and letting Trained ST do the rest.

Trained ST originated in GURPS Technical Grappling, solely for grappling skills, the principle behind it is simple, as your skill gets higher, you get a bonus to strength for tasks related to that skill. Douglas has since made a series of blog posts covering extending Trained ST to striking skills.

However, I think it could be taken further. For example, the Lifting skill could increase your effective ST when performing simple explosive lifts, the Hiking skill could boost ST when carrying a load for an extended period of time, Swimming for, well, swimming with a heavy pack.

What do you think? What skills do you think should provide trained strength, and under what conditions?

*I'm keeping Basic Lift the same, but tweaking the damage progression. It roughly follows the following pattern, thrust damage, starting at ST 10 and ending at ST 20 is, 1d, 1d, 1d+1, 1d+1, 1d+2, 1d+2, 1d+2, 2d-1, 2d-1 2d, 2d. Swing damage is based on thrust damage for 1.5x that ST, rounding down, this means that each level of ST always increases either thrust or swing damage.
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Old 03-04-2017, 12:56 PM   #2
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Default Re: [TG] Trained Strength - Expanded

Quote:
Originally Posted by Wavefunction View Post
I've been experimenting with ST for quite some time. One of my goals is to bring the maximum human ST in line with the maximum for other attributes, which, for the sake of argument, I take to be 16. My ideal solution would be to use logarithmic strength, but until I find a better solution for logarithmic damage, that's not an option.
Have you seen "knowing your own strength"?
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Old 03-05-2017, 03:09 AM   #3
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Default Re: [TG] Trained Strength - Expanded

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Originally Posted by NineDaysDead View Post
Have you seen "knowing your own strength"?
Dammit, forgot to put in the 'I know about KYOS' disclaimer. :)

Yup, I do, but it doesn't address damage in a way I'm happy with, hence why I'm not using it until I find a better solution for damage.
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Old 03-05-2017, 08:08 AM   #4
DouglasCole
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Default Re: [TG] Trained Strength - Expanded

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Originally Posted by Wavefunction View Post
Dammit, forgot to put in the 'I know about KYOS' disclaimer. :)

Yup, I do, but it doesn't address damage in a way I'm happy with, hence why I'm not using it until I find a better solution for damage.
Have you seen - to mine for ideas - the double DR, cubic ST approach on my blog?
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Old 03-05-2017, 10:39 AM   #5
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Default Re: [TG] Trained Strength - Expanded

Quote:
Originally Posted by Wavefunction View Post
I've been experimenting with ST for quite some time. One of my goals is to bring the maximum human ST in line with the maximum for other attributes, which, for the sake of argument, I take to be 16. My ideal solution would be to use logarithmic strength, but until I find a better solution for logarithmic damage, that's not an option. So to keep things simple in the meantime, I had the idea of keeping ST roughly as it is*, capping it to 16 and letting Trained ST do the rest.

Trained ST originated in GURPS Technical Grappling, solely for grappling skills, the principle behind it is simple, as your skill gets higher, you get a bonus to strength for tasks related to that skill. Douglas has since made a series of blog posts covering extending Trained ST to striking skills.

However, I think it could be taken further. For example, the Lifting skill could increase your effective ST when performing simple explosive lifts, the Hiking skill could boost ST when carrying a load for an extended period of time, Swimming for, well, swimming with a heavy pack.

What do you think? What skills do you think should provide trained strength, and under what conditions?
Don't the Basic versions of skills like Boxing, Brawling, Karate, Throwing, and Wrestling already model this by way of the damage and STR-related bonuses characters accrue for high skill? You could probably do similar things for nearly any physical skill: Acrobatics, Bicycling, Climbing, Sports, etc.

16 is an appropriate STR cap. It, combined with a 30% to 40% boost from the Lifting skill, produces lifts in the same ballpark as olympic clean and jerk records.
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Old 03-05-2017, 11:31 AM   #6
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Default Re: [TG] Trained Strength - Expanded

I havn't seen KYOS and I don't know what it is...

but I'm curious; what/where is the argument for capping strength at something under 20?

GURPS is one of the very few games that doesn't under estimate (By A LOT!) the lifting and carrying capacity of humans. As is, GURPS only slightly underestimates the capacity of the average male ST10, and the current records of Olympic lifters, ST20

If that ain't broke, what are we trying to fix?
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Old 03-05-2017, 12:12 PM   #7
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Default Re: [TG] Trained Strength - Expanded

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Originally Posted by onetrikpony View Post
GURPS is one of the very few games that doesn't under estimate (By A LOT!) the lifting and carrying capacity of humans. As is, GURPS only slightly underestimates the capacity of the average male ST10, and the current records of Olympic lifters, ST20

If that ain't broke, what are we trying to fix?
When it comes to Olympic lifters, it is safe to assume that they have a few points in Lifting and are using Extra Effort. Did you factor in that in your lifting calculations?
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Old 03-05-2017, 01:46 PM   #8
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Default Re: [TG] Trained Strength - Expanded

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When it comes to Olympic lifters, it is safe to assume that they have a few points in Lifting and are using Extra Effort. Did you factor in that in your lifting calculations?
Extra effort is an optional rule, and the lifting skill doesn't have any default.
So... given those parameters GURPS lifting and carrying capacity is even lower than it should be to represent an average (10) and maximum (20).

(IMO the lifting skill (+5% / MoS) doesn't represent how badly poor technique hampers your strength at a lift but probably represents real-world situations, outside the gym pretty well.)

Quote:
Originally Posted by dfinlay
There are a few things, but note that the idea isn't just to cap ST at something under 20, it's to make something lower be roughly as good as ST 20 is now and then cap at it:
I definitely agree with that. I also agree with all of the points that followed except for #2. In terms of units of force ft/lbs, Joules human striking power is pretty much in line with hand guns. (according to my research.)

The average karate guy punches with 120-150 ft-lb which is pretty much inline with the muzzle energy you'd get from .22lr handgun. Frank Bruno was measured to land 1400+ Lb*F which extrapolates to 1600 Joules. That's easily the same power as a 10mm cartridge (IIRC. I'll links and pastem below.)

We know that humans are physically capable of producing thrust damage in line with pistol cartridge damage so, to me, it doesn't seem unrealistic that that same power applied to swing damage and a sword kills people outright.

However; Bigger != Faster and a ST20 power lifter can't hit like a ST16 heavyweight. The difference would be skill so I'm fully on board with the skill = power system. (and diametrically opposed to the 2x HP & Dmg system)

I would suggest (as a humble GURPS newb) that Striking Strength be capped at (some point) and skills grant access to surpassing that cap.

Links:
wiki on common handgun cartridge power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muzzle...and_cartridges
Clinical study of concussion in football and boxing
https://assets.documentcloud.org/doc...osergery-X.pdf
An article that references several real studies of boxers none of which I can find now but I recall to be referenced correctly. (will keep looking F'n internet! no body sites anything anymore.)
http://www.connectsavannah.com/savan...nt?oid=2133328
An awesome scan of an ancient magazine article about Rocky Marciano and what he used to do to guys in the ring.
www.kolumbus.fi/Luodes/Rocky1.JPGand www.kolumbus.fi/Luodes/Rocky2.JPG
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Old 03-05-2017, 02:37 PM   #9
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Default Re: [TG] Trained Strength - Expanded

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Originally Posted by onetrikpony View Post
I definitely agree with that. I also agree with all of the points that followed except for #2. In terms of units of force ft/lbs, Joules human striking power is pretty much in line with hand guns. (according to my research.)
This is a pretty good point, but what I meant by that was really that armour penetration was unrealistic for people at ST 20. If you're not using any optional rules such as edge protection, someone with ST 20 can deal 3d+3 damage with a broadsword, which will on average deal 4 cutting damage through heavy plate (as defined in low tech). On a good roll, it can even cut through twice the thickness of heavy plate.

Back on topic, I actually really like the idea of using trained ST to solve some of these problems. It buffs skills relative to attributes, which is always good IMO, makes for more character differentiation in the types of ST people have and allows for people to do impressive feats of ST without needing 20 ST and without changing ST-scaling. That's a lot of pros, but a few cons come to mind as well:

1. You kind of want to make sure that every task you'd want it to has a skill that helps in this way. For instance, what determines whether you take movement penalties for encumbrance? Hiking makes sense for extended treks, but what about in combat - Hiking still? Running? What about dodge penalties for encumbrance? How about ST rolls to resist things like being knocked over by gale force winds? This could get tricky.

2. Paperwork. It seems like this would require a lot of extra bureaucracy. You'd have to be keeping track of encumbrance thresholds for multiple different types of encumbrance and where you are at on each one, every time you want to do a ST-task, you need to decide what the relevant skill is and compute what the relevent ST is and then what the BL/thr/sw (whichever you need) is from that. This seems like it would slow things down a fair bit.

3. It still doesn't do anything about the absurd cost of ST for characters that should have extremely high ST and not because they have absurd levels of skill. Now, I realize this wasn't the goal, but if you're doing something to overhaul ST, it seems like it should be kept in mind.
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Old 03-05-2017, 12:33 PM   #10
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Default Re: [TG] Trained Strength - Expanded

Quote:
Originally Posted by onetrikpony View Post
I havn't seen KYOS and I don't know what it is...

but I'm curious; what/where is the argument for capping strength at something under 20?

GURPS is one of the very few games that doesn't under estimate (By A LOT!) the lifting and carrying capacity of humans. As is, GURPS only slightly underestimates the capacity of the average male ST10, and the current records of Olympic lifters, ST20

If that ain't broke, what are we trying to fix?
There are a few things, but note that the idea isn't just to cap ST at something under 20, it's to make something lower be roughly as good as ST 20 is now and then cap at it:

1. The amount of point investment to get high strength is a hell of a lot higher than it should really cost. It's bad enough at ST 20: it's just not as good as IQ or DX 15 in the vast majority of games, but it's ridiculously bad at beyond-human strength levels. There are a lot of characters (from supers to giants of various sorts) that should have ST in the ballpark of 1000. That costs nearly 10 000 points (albeit with a discount if you're big, but that's an issue for a different set of reasons). There is no way that the utility of 1000 ST is worth its cost.

2. 20 ST gives realistic human lifting capacity, but unrealistically high damage.

3. When trying to create realistic humans, every other attribute should be capped at somewhere around 15 or 16, but not ST. This is not great aesthetically or in terms of simplicity.

4. ST rolls don't work. Because ST works on a different scale than the success system, using ST the way any other attribute or skill in the system works breaks down. Your "top of human capacity" human has an extra +4 on his/her ST rolls relative to a "top of human capacity" character rolling IQ. Much worse, that 1000 ST character mentioned before is rolling against 1000 on his/her ST rolls. No one should ever be rolling against 1000 in GURPS. It just doesn't make sense and the system doesn't work.

KYOS was an article in Pyramid 8-83 that tried to solve these issues by making ST effects exponential (so +10 ST is 10 times stronger). Personally, I think it did a pretty good job and the prices and scores associated with high ST feel right to me, but it definitely did introduce some issues of it's own - most notably that muscle-powered damage is now defined to be exponential, but that's inconsistent with armour rules and firearms. I've never found that to actually be a huge issue in play (it tends to give results that feel close to me anyway) but other people (apparently including OP) have.

Also, note that no possible system is likely to change that "realistic human maximum" attributes give good lifting values for that because that's how you define "realistic human maximum" attributes. They just might change what number that is - KYOS made it 16 to bring it in the ballpark of all the other attributes.
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