Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > GURPS

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 12-01-2018, 11:40 PM   #11
Bengt
 
Bengt's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Ronneby, Sweden
Default Re: Strength (ST) in high TL settings - Pricing?

If you don't have powered armour Lifting ST is quite important as many armours are really heavy. Further, when I GM I try to tailor available equipment (weapons vs armour) that one hit kills are rare (as most people don't think that is super fun) so HP are also important. Striking ST can be a bit more niche, it's still plenty useful in settings where unarmoured people have fight in bars or whatever with light or no weapons. Also when you have super science weapons with crazy armour divisors.

Really, I would never even consider GMing a setting where the tech is buy whatever you want in UT. I will think through what is available at all at each TL and what of that is illegal, experimental, whatever, all to make for interesting challenges. So for me ST is fine as written.
Bengt is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-02-2018, 12:28 AM   #12
whswhs
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
Default Re: Strength (ST) in high TL settings - Pricing?

Quote:
Originally Posted by ericthered View Post
That's the strongest and best argument for keeping ST the same so far. I understand that switching up the costs for every trait in every setting could lead to confusion and be a little tiring to keep up with. There is a case to be made there.

I find strength to be the advantage that makes this issue come up the most often. Its also an edge case in almost every situation, as an attribute that doesn't act like any of the other attributes. So I don't feel nearly as bad making it an edge case.
In my current campaign, there's lots and lots of social interaction. There's been trading with people in exotic cultures, and there's now negotiation with the Seafarers' Guild, buying and selling exotic trade goods, buying a house, and one of the characters is even looking for a wife. Influence rolls and other social rolls come up all the time. So would it make sense for me to charge double for Charisma, or Voice, or Status, because those all are really useful?

It's one thing to talk about lowering the cost of ST per level, too, as you've done; that's a design element that could have been chosen differently. But your comparison was a character paying 4 points for Signature Gear and getting ST that exceeds anything an unequipped human could have. Do you want to make ST 25, or 40, or whatever cost 4 character points? If not, you aren't really getting rid of the asymmetry; you may be haggling over the price but you aren't actually making the deal, I think.

(And there is this about that battlesuit: You can walk into a spaceport bar with your natural ST 15 and they'll sell you a drink, but walk in in a battlesuit and the barkeeper is going to be asking his digital assistant to notify the cops. For a lot of activities you can't actually wear the battlesuit. And if it's a war, the other side has battlesuits, too, right?)
__________________
Bill Stoddard

I don't think we're in Oz any more.
whswhs is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-02-2018, 03:50 AM   #13
AlexanderHowl
 
Join Date: Feb 2016
Default Re: Strength (ST) in high TL settings - Pricing?

I think that the problem with ST is that there are no skills based on it. I think a possible fix would be to base Boxing, Brawling, Forced Entry, Lifting, Sumo Wrestling, and Wrestling off ST rather than DX or Will. Neither Arm ST, Lifting ST, or Striking ST would give a bonus to skill, though they would have their normal mechanical benefits.

In the case of Lifting, Sumo Wrestling, and Wrestling, characters would increase their effective Lifting ST when using the skill to (applicable skill plus levels in the Lifting ST advantage) in addition to the normal bonuses. In the case of Boxing, Brawling, and Forced Entry, characters would increase their effective Striking ST when using the skill to (applicable skill plus levels in the Striking ST advantage) in addition to the normal bonuses. Levels in the Arm ST advantage would provide bonuses to Lifting ST or Striking ST under specific circumstances. Characters could take the Attribute Substitution perk to base Lifting off Will rather than ST or any one of the other five skills off DX rather than ST without special justification, though their effective Lifting and Striking ST would not be replaced, only modified by the normal bonuses from skill.
AlexanderHowl is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-02-2018, 06:51 AM   #14
johndallman
Night Watchman
 
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
Default Re: Strength (ST) in high TL settings - Pricing?

Like so many things, "it depends." A lot of GURPS characters have Basic Speed in the 5-7 range, and thus unencumbered Dodge in the 8-11 region, allowing for Combat Reflexes. Losing even one off that Dodge score makes a big difference.

I've played a few TL6 campaigns, where there is no significant armour, but firearms are powerful. Having enough (lifting) ST that the stuff you carry is not reducing your Dodge is thus very important for staying alive if fights break out. Knifing people is also quiet compared to firearms, and ST is valuable for that, too.

At TL8, there is somewhat effective armour against firearms, but it's heavy enough that ST is still valuable for keeping your Dodge working.

In the TL11 space navy game I play, there's lots of good armour. The Marines are the characters most likely to be in powered armour, and they also tend to have above-10 ST as part of being very physical types. It's an image and lifestyle thing. Winning brawls in spaceport bars matters.
johndallman is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-02-2018, 08:50 AM   #15
Polydamas
 
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Central Europe
Default Re: Strength (ST) in high TL settings - Pricing?

Quote:
Originally Posted by OldSam View Post
Hey folks,
certainly most of us know that ST does not scale very well when it comes to higher techlevels. An ancient TL2 warrior obviously gets more out of the points, than the big muscle guy on the TL10 spaceship for instance...

Of course, this kind of balancing always requires some GM decision because it depends a lot on the campaign specifics.

But do we have some kind of formula or table for ST scaling to help a GM with that decision? Giving suggestions which discount for ST could typically be fair at a higher techlevel...?

Maybe I just did not see it, yet... Thanks for any links or own ideas! ;)
Why? At higher tech levels, there is more useful kit to carry. Someone with a pollaxe is not much deadlier than someone with a spear, but someone with a light machinegun, 300 rounds, and a couple of rockets is much more dangerous than someone with a carbine and three magazines. There are reasons why early-21st-century backpackers carry much more than preindustrial counterparts!

It is true across settings that ST is more important for physical, face-to-face adventures than ones at a distance and mental or social challenges. Knowledge skills are less make-or-break in a setting with library cards, and even less in a setting with networked computers.
__________________
"It is easier to banish a habit of thought than a piece of knowledge." H. Beam Piper

This forum got less aggravating when I started using the ignore feature
Polydamas is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-02-2018, 08:55 AM   #16
whswhs
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
Default Re: Strength (ST) in high TL settings - Pricing?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Polydamas View Post
It is true across settings that ST is more important for physical, face-to-face adventures than ones at a distance and mental or social challenges. Knowledge skills are less make-or-break in a setting with library cards, and even less in a setting with networked computers.
That process started with the invention of writing. Before then, if some person didn't know something, there was no way to find it out. . . .
__________________
Bill Stoddard

I don't think we're in Oz any more.
whswhs is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-02-2018, 09:05 AM   #17
Daigoro
 
Daigoro's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Meifumado
Default Re: Strength (ST) in high TL settings - Pricing?

I think the problem is that damage from Striking ST is badly priced against ultra-tech damage (and against Innate Attack, for that matter). Lifting ST is a different question.
__________________
Collaborative Settings:
Cyberpunk: Duopoly Nation
Space Opera: Behind the King's Eclipse
And heaps of forum collabs, 30+ and counting!
Daigoro is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-02-2018, 01:27 PM   #18
naloth
 
Join Date: Sep 2004
Default Re: Strength (ST) in high TL settings - Pricing?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Daigoro View Post
I think the problem is that damage from Striking ST is badly priced against ultra-tech damage (and against Innate Attack, for that matter). Lifting ST is a different question.
I haven't been doing high TL / ultra-tech games, but I'd probably use KYOS (log ST) increase the value of ST rather than decreasing the cost.

That way you could have android Commander Data with Spider-Man level ST for only about 200 points, which also gives him the ability to punch harder than some automatic weapons.
naloth is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-03-2018, 07:56 AM   #19
ericthered
Hero of Democracy
 
ericthered's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: far from the ocean
Default Re: Strength (ST) in high TL settings - Pricing?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bengt View Post
If you don't have powered armour Lifting ST is quite important as many armours are really heavy.

...

Also when you have super science weapons with crazy armour divisors.
This assumes that armor is effective in your current combat paradigm. This tends to not be the case in TL6, and its only partly true at TL8. You acknowledge that high armor divisors change this as well. But its not just super-science that gets the nice divisors. The nasty divisors I've seen in play are on shaped charges, which are not only not super-science, they're contemporary.


Quote:
Really, I would never even consider GMing a setting where the tech is buy whatever you want in UT. I will think through what is available at all at each TL and what of that is illegal, experimental, whatever, all to make for interesting challenges. So for me ST is fine as written.

I completely agree that a GM is under no obligation to use everything in ultra-tech just because they are at TL10. But that doesn't fix the way damage overwhelms most armor and makes a few extra points of ST a lot less relevant, at least not most of the time.


Quote:
Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
In my current campaign, there's lots and lots of social interaction. There's been trading with people in exotic cultures, and there's now negotiation with the Seafarers' Guild, buying and selling exotic trade goods, buying a house, and one of the characters is even looking for a wife. Influence rolls and other social rolls come up all the time. So would it make sense for me to charge double for Charisma, or Voice, or Status, because those all are really useful?

There are a few things that make those two situations different:
First, ST is an attribute, which means that a player can penalize it much more efficiently for points.



I only change point costs if I wish to change how frequently I see players take a trait. I would only charge double for Status if I wanted to keep the PC's social standing low (and I almost never do). I only halve the cost of ST if I want to see players buy it more often (and I almost always do). While halving the cost of a trait is functionally doubling the cost of all others, its not comparable to doubling just a few very useful traits. The difference is in the relative value of edge case traits (for sake of example, detect in the above example).



My last real-time game was a heavily social game in which it was important and occasionally relevant for players to be able to fight (roman city management, where about half of the characters are military elite). I halved the cost of ST, DX, and HT, because I wanted to encourage handsome generals worthy of statues, not frail old statesmen. I basically removed status from character sheets (they didn't have to pay for it, and it only really mattered when dealing with the low-born), and kept the other advantages at normal cost, because I wanted to see them too.


Quote:
It's one thing to talk about lowering the cost of ST per level, too, as you've done; that's a design element that could have been chosen differently. But your comparison was a character paying 4 points for Signature Gear and getting ST that exceeds anything an unequipped human could have. Do you want to make ST 25, or 40, or whatever cost 4 character points? If not, you aren't really getting rid of the asymmetry; you may be haggling over the price but you aren't actually making the deal, I think.

That comment was picking apart the argument that the suit demonstrated the high value of strength in UT. The suit does allow one to leverage high ST effectively, but the user didn't pay [150] points for their ST, they paid the money for the suit and the skill to use it.



I don't think there is a single "correct price" for ST in Ultra-tech, in no small part because Ultra-tech covers so much ground. My normal scheme is paying a small price for racial strength, and an elevated one for individual strength, because having a small edge on your peers is often quite valuable. The racial price is usually based on the gear cost, accessibility perk, and legal immunity.



And they still stick out. In the setting with the tiger people, you have enough tiger people walking around that you can't call the cops on someone for being a tiger-guy, but there is still a wary reaction. (its worse for the shock-troopers)


Quote:
(And there is this about that battlesuit: You can walk into a spaceport bar with your natural ST 15 and they'll sell you a drink, but walk in in a battlesuit and the barkeeper is going to be asking his digital assistant to notify the cops. For a lot of activities you can't actually wear the battlesuit. And if it's a war, the other side has battlesuits, too, right?)

Barfights... I've actually never run a barfight. My adventures rarely end up in bars. The last few times they were, the characters where there on official business, and they were law enforcement, so powersuits would not have been out of the question, had the PC's owned any. I also tend to play ST as being obvious. When a ST 14 PC walks into a room, anyone on the lookout for trouble can see you just had a literal heavy-weight walk into the room.


And yes, If its a war or other conflict where the high power is allowed to come out, either you're fighting asymmetrically (law enforcement is a common situation) or the other guys have it to.



Lastly, exoskeletons are probably a better example than power armor for granting Strength, because 75 DR is better than +15 ST, even with standard prices. ST is also less valuable than DR at protecting against surprise: a guy who wears power pajamas to bed is a lot less vulnerable than a sleeping wookie.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Polydamas View Post
Why? At higher tech levels, there is more useful kit to carry. Someone with a pollaxe is not much deadlier than someone with a spear, but someone with a light machinegun, 300 rounds, and a couple of rockets is much more dangerous than someone with a carbine and three magazines. There are reasons why early-21st-century backpackers carry much more than preindustrial counterparts!


In the real world? sure, I totally agree with you. If both people have equal skill, or close to equal skill, I'd much rather face the guy with the carbine. In gurps? the guy with the rocket probably has 20 or more points less spent on skill or advantages like gunslinger. RPG's favor PC-types, and the guy with the carbine feels more like a PC than a heavy-weapons dude.



Also, if you're on the TL4 battlefield wearing good armor, the guy with the pollaxe is a LOT scarier than the guy with the spear. Not only because his weapon is better against plate, but because armed grappling is very much a thing at that Tech Level, and because he does more damage.

Quote:
Originally Posted by naloth View Post
I haven't been doing high TL / ultra-tech games, but I'd probably use KYOS (log ST) increase the value of ST rather than decreasing the cost.

Its an interesting choice. It lets you lift about the same amount as buying ST at [5], at least for the first two levels (and humans really shouldn't go much beyond that). The HP is inferior to the halved method, but you can argue that they should be, or allow big strong types to buy HP to take them to where they should be ST-wise. Damage wise the lifting factor is what's important, so that's equivalent to charging [5]. Its not a bad way to run things.
__________________
Be helpful, not pedantic

Worlds Beyond Earth -- my blog

Check out the PbP forum! If you don't see a game you'd like, ask me about making one!
ericthered is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 12-03-2018, 12:31 PM   #20
weby
 
weby's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2008
Default Re: Strength (ST) in high TL settings - Pricing?

It depends a lot on the setting, but if using basic GURPS humans in a game with combat, but without super powers then ST is fairly useful in allowing you to buy more HP(the +30% rule).

Further lifting ST component is obviously useful in moving around and not lowering dodge in such settings.

If your setting has everyone in power armor or weapons just vaporize targets on hit then obviously ST is a lot less useful.
__________________
--
GURPS spaceship unofficial errata and thoughts: https://gsuc.roto.nu/
weby is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 07:06 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.