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Old 11-07-2014, 09:35 AM   #51
Sindri
 
Join Date: Nov 2011
Default Re: Balancing High Size Modifier

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Originally Posted by Varyon View Post
I've updated and cleaned up my mass and volume system. I'll take some of the lessons from there to tackle SM.
Thanks for that.

It occurs to me, shouldn't volume be useful for grappling? Simply having larger hands seems like it should realistically necessitate purchase of increased grappling ability.
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Old 11-07-2014, 10:18 AM   #52
Varyon
 
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Default Re: Balancing High Size Modifier

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Originally Posted by ErhnamDJ View Post
I did a blog post on this a while back. Maybe some of those things I'm counting as worth -1 are actually features, but the big ones look like actual advantages/disadvantages.
I meant the overall effect is a Feature. My analysis can be found here (the values in that post from my mass and volume system are outdated; the third paragraph is what I'm referring to). All the positives and negatives for each of SM+1 and SM-1 appear to work out to around [0] for each. In the case of your analysis, if we get rid of the +1 to Move and the consumption effects (both of which should be done on a case-by-case basis; note even if we don't get rid of these two, your number cancel out), then your analysis and mine work out to essentially the same thing - SM is a feature, except for its effect on the cost/weight of gear.

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Originally Posted by Sindri View Post
It occurs to me, shouldn't volume be useful for grappling? Simply having larger hands seems like it should realistically necessitate purchase of increased grappling ability.
This is true, but beneath the resolution of the system - you get a +1 to grappling for every SM you are larger than your target, so any volume effect below that of a full +1 to SM has no effect. Large Hands - like Born Biter - might be legitimate as a Feature or Perk.
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Old 11-07-2014, 10:36 AM   #53
Anthony
 
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Default Re: Balancing High Size Modifier

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Originally Posted by Tomsdad View Post
Surely that's factor of the 12" object having more HP than the 6" one?
No, HP cover the fact that you need to make a hole 12" deep.
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Old 11-08-2014, 02:33 AM   #54
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Default Re: Balancing High Size Modifier

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Originally Posted by Anthony View Post
No, HP cover the fact that you need to make a hole 12" deep.
How is that relevant to the point about adjusting wounding mods for larger targets?

Increased HP means you need to do inflict more damage to leave a more massive target as damaged as less massive one.

The target having more HP (mass) and getting the reduce damage mod, is double dipping?

Incidentally tying HP just depth of wound brings us into (over)penetration, which is would mean objects with a a large disparity in their dimensions would have to have there HP over penetration threshold recalculated depending on the angle of attack.

That gets complicated (think about the different effects of shooting a 32" x 4" x 8" through different facings).
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Old 11-08-2014, 03:31 AM   #55
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Default Re: Balancing High Size Modifier

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Originally Posted by Sindri View Post

A SM +1 ST 20 character gains back 10 points for his investment in strength. Depending on the percentage of encumbrance devoted to gear and what encumbrance level you want to be at you may or may not be able to pay for the increased encumbrance with that. Aside from being a weird way to balance things the strength discount is supposed to pay for other disadvantages in positive SM so spending a lot of it fixing encumbrance isn't good.
No I was talking about carrying the extra encumbrance, Increases St gives Increase BL, which more that compensates for the extra weight of kit.

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I interpret that as being the technical rules which puts me in SM +1 like I said in the OP. It's pretty common to fudge things and pretend that humans aren't taller than 6' for the purposes of SM though.
I agree, my point being no rule is ever going to fit exactly, a certain amount of interpretation is going to required. Ultimately it's about looking at individual rule in context, and Extra SM need to be looked at in the wider context of leveraging higher ST's. As does the points cost of the disadvantages that come with it.

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Originally Posted by Sindri View Post
It doesn't matter how flexible it is because that is taken into account with the point cost. It doesn't matter that it is synergistic because negative SM is also synergistic and gurps assumes a certain level of minmaxing to begin with.
Which seems to me to be explain why it's a zero point net wash?

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Originally Posted by Sindri View Post
Unusual background is bad. It's only legitimate when it indicates abilities that do things like punch above their weight because no one expects them.
Not sure that's the RAW definition of UB. either way decribing it as bad because it dons't fit how you veiw points to work in GURPS isn't very compelling.


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Originally Posted by Sindri View Post
Yes in this instance. That stronger characters are capable of leveraging those talents into other effects is what the point cost represents. People who have spent points in other areas can leverage those things into money. The discount of ST is a balancing mechanism for SM being overcosted. It's supposed to end up giving the same level of generalized power.
Yes, that's right.



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Originally Posted by Sindri View Post
They do not have the same issues since they do not interact with the SM ST discount.
which if anything make increases any issues (by removing the SM St discount from the equation)

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Originally Posted by Sindri View Post
I am not arguing with that level of specificity. Those 10 points are part of the positive SM trait's advantages.
But your arguing it's not enough, though?


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Originally Posted by Sindri View Post
Game design deals with this level of impossibility on a regular basis and manages to function.
Not really because SM is pretty unique in that is based on trade of simultanious good effects and bad effects, and those good and bad effects can be effected in different ways at the same time in different settings (hence the ww2 paratrooper vs conan reference). The former is jumping out of planes and being shot, the latter is frequently wrestling things.


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In practice a great deal of topics rarely get anywhere because the people who do think it's a problem spent most of their time arguing with people who don't instead of coming up with solutions that would, whether in general a good idea or not, satisfy their frustrations with the rules.
True, but to assume there is (or isn't) a problem is not great way to go about solving it, you risk ending up with a solution looking for a problem


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Originally Posted by Sindri View Post
Sure it's easy to snap decide no there. But the incentive structure here is incentivizing the players to come up with characters who weigh as little as possible and repeatedly asking and answering about progressively heavier weights is not a useful methodology.
well my methodology here is basically does it past the wiff test for munchkinism, but that just part of the general underpinning of all games all the time.



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Originally Posted by Sindri View Post
At which point you are defacto saying that armour weight scales by volume instead of mass. So why not say that?
Are you familar with the rules I'm talking about? divide Character weight by 150 and x power 2/3.

Now yes that obviously assumes a mass/surface area ratio of a human body, so yes if I had to deal with lead people I'd have to adjust that initial 150


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Originally Posted by Sindri View Post
SM is not volume.
To certain extent it is, hence the rules about adjusting SM by the different dimensional ratios.

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Originally Posted by Sindri View Post
Because it is unavoidable. Either you do it beforehand, you do it upon being queried by players or the players do it for you and throw away some efficacy in order to not be jerks.
I guess I'd just view that as being part and parcel of the usual character making process which involves my input, which would be happening anyway. TBH I'd only see it being problem if it was truly an egregious imbalance (and even then stats often work in conjunction with other things which can be used to limit issues)


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They have paid to remove the downsides of "having to wear armour" not "having to wear armour and also getting to sink this stat that means nothing for me". It's like having a "I can use magic stat" and letting people who can in no way interact with that stat buy it down. It's problematic.
Sorry what do you mean here. Someone made out of lead would (in my campaign) need to pay points for the DR, thus they would have paid points for having DR. Those who aren't made out of lead don't have top buy anything down here, and are in now way disadvantaged in comparison to those who are made out of lead?

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Originally Posted by Sindri View Post
All else equal someone who hasn't got -1 to be hit is missing out compared to someone who hasn't. Which means that if that trait is not costed as an advantage it must either be balanced in and of itself or the other person must have a net advantage of their own.

And yes pricing absolute points values are hard. Game design is hard. No disrespect to the authors of gurps but they are mortals just as you and I and they had to price absolute points values in wildly different situations and the resultant game system hasn't totally flipped out. It's hard and it's possible and making something better is good even if you can't make it perfect.
Hmm I think think the problem here is you looking at a net balance of several different things (and as above the impact of each will be magnified or mitigated at different times in different ways) so to roll all that together and get a single value is very difficult.

maybe go with what Varyon has done and individually price each effect and sum them. (at least that way you can individual assess how relevant each one is to your campaign and thus each one's value can be adjusted accordingly)



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Originally Posted by Sindri View Post
Well certainly. I don't need rules to tell me that a normal human can't psychically explode the sun even if they try really hard. That isn't comparable however to rules saying "pick a value for this trait" and offering no guidelines for off limit values for normal humans.
Given your example was someone weight 1lb, I think we're getting quite comparable.

If nothing else there's always the unspoken "....if the GM agrees with it" after that.




Right OK I think we can go on doing line by line, but ultimately I think we're not going to reach agreement here. (although individually assess each benefit and cost might get us there).

I do think that the Sm is as net benefit/cost is so dependent on a combination of so many things that adjudicating it for cost is not worth the effort. I also think you and i view CP slightly differently. I'm always viewing each one as part of the whole package, and tend not to view than in isolation. I very much look for how advantages etc work in a synergistic manner, value adding (or not) to each other.


Take the classic example, combat reflexes is worth more in an SAS build, than it is in a wheelchair bound lawyer build.

anyway

Cheers

TD
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Old 11-08-2014, 08:33 AM   #56
Sindri
 
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Default Re: Balancing High Size Modifier

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Originally Posted by Tomsdad View Post
No I was talking about carrying the extra encumbrance, Increases St gives Increase BL, which more that compensates for the extra weight of kit.
However positive SM doesn't give you increased strength, it only gives you the points it discounts from that strength back.

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Originally Posted by Tomsdad View Post
I agree, my point being no rule is ever going to fit exactly, a certain amount of interpretation is going to required. Ultimately it's about looking at individual rule in context, and Extra SM need to be looked at in the wider context of leveraging higher ST's. As does the points cost of the disadvantages that come with it.
Oh sure, my comments about people slightly above 6' in height being SM +1 are tongue firmly in cheek. I do think that the rules consider a 7' for a human shaped creature to be good enough. And the higher ST discount is certainly supposed to be part of the balance of positive SMs.

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Originally Posted by Tomsdad View Post
Which seems to me to be explain why it's a zero point net wash?
I do think that the synergy of ST is about equal for positive and negative SM. That doesn't mean that SM on the whole is a feature.

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Originally Posted by Tomsdad View Post
Not sure that's the RAW definition of UB. either way decribing it as bad because it dons't fit how you veiw points to work in GURPS isn't very compelling.
Well I'm not trying to compel people : ). Seriously though my view does have some textual support, with things like the description of UB starting on 184 of Powers but I'll easily admit that gurps 4e has a somewhat conflicted view on what the proper use of unusual background is.

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Originally Posted by Tomsdad View Post
which if anything make increases any issues (by removing the SM St discount from the equation)
I don't see how this is. A ST 7 individual suffers some disadvantages compared to a ST 10 human. They are reimbursed by the negative cost of ST 7. This cost doesn't seem bad to me.

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Originally Posted by Tomsdad View Post
But your arguing it's not enough, though?
All of positive SM's advantages put together compared to all of it's disadvantages put together do not, in my opinion, balance out in general.

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Originally Posted by Tomsdad View Post
Not really because SM is pretty unique in that is based on trade of simultanious good effects and bad effects, and those good and bad effects can be effected in different ways at the same time in different settings (hence the ww2 paratrooper vs conan reference). The former is jumping out of planes and being shot, the latter is frequently wrestling things.
It's not unique at all. Any feature that actually has a game impact, of which we have a good amount, involves this trade off.


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Originally Posted by Tomsdad View Post
True, but to assume there is (or isn't) a problem is not great way to go about solving it, you risk ending up with a solution looking for a problem
If the solution is a good or bad addition to the game that will produce valuable data through playtest to add to the discussion of it's usefulness. If it's unnecessary but not bad then it solves the problem of the gm disliking an aspect of the rules. If someone is going to add a house rules for something no matter what it's better if their house rules ends up being better due to discussion with similarly committed people.

Certainly not all threads for examining house rules should work this way, I've done a few spitballing threads myself, but there is a validity in coming up with a solution having assumed a problem is legitimate.

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Originally Posted by Tomsdad View Post
well my methodology here is basically does it past the wiff test for munchkinism, but that just part of the general underpinning of all games all the time.
This is one of those things that has an impact beyond things that actually have a whiff of munchkinism though. 1 pound is simply an exaggeration to demonstrate a point. The problem still exists at other levels. There's gonna be a weight for a character's stats that is considered by the gm to be possible but definitely on the low end. For every character to end up with weight at that relative point is suboptimal as is the gm putting his foot down on one character after getting tired of a stream of thin characters.

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Originally Posted by Tomsdad View Post
Are you familar with the rules I'm talking about? divide Character weight by 150 and x power 2/3.

Now yes that obviously assumes a mass/surface area ratio of a human body, so yes if I had to deal with lead people I'd have to adjust that initial 150
I've probably read them, but no nothing is coming to mind.

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Originally Posted by Tomsdad View Post
To certain extent it is, hence the rules about adjusting SM by the different dimensional ratios.
A very vague extent.

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Originally Posted by Tomsdad View Post
I guess I'd just view that as being part and parcel of the usual character making process which involves my input, which would be happening anyway. TBH I'd only see it being problem if it was truly an egregious imbalance (and even then stats often work in conjunction with other things which can be used to limit issues)
Personally I don't function well in character creation if I can't go off and come up with stuff. Even if I'm in the same room it's a pain for both of us for me to keep querying them with speculative questions on various rules most of which won't be relevant for the character I end up making. Thus I prefer character creation rules that as much as possible function with a gm personally steering them.

It's also important for rules to as much as we can make them incentivize people to not be a jerk instead of incentivizing them to be jerks and hoping that they resist the incentive and aren't displeased by ending up with a lower powered character.

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Originally Posted by Tomsdad View Post
Sorry what do you mean here. Someone made out of lead would (in my campaign) need to pay points for the DR, thus they would have paid points for having DR. Those who aren't made out of lead don't have top buy anything down here, and are in now way disadvantaged in comparison to those who are made out of lead?
Let us assume that DR is balanced. Let us further make the assumption that a leadperson's DR is actually good enough and that the character won't obviously slap on a suit of armour on top and that DR remains balanced in that circumstance. The leadperson's DR is buying him reliability for his DR up to the point where he could just buy a suit of armour that equals it and actual DR thereafter. It is not balanced with the assumption that he is buying that and the privilege of buying down a stat that so far appears to mostly serve as a determiner of how heavy your armour is. This is like the advice Thaumatology gives against letting mundane characters buy down a magic stat if there isn't anything they can do with it.

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Originally Posted by Tomsdad View Post
Hmm I think think the problem here is you looking at a net balance of several different things (and as above the impact of each will be magnified or mitigated at different times in different ways) so to roll all that together and get a single value is very difficult.

maybe go with what Varyon has done and individually price each effect and sum them. (at least that way you can individual assess how relevant each one is to your campaign and thus each one's value can be adjusted accordingly)
Oh absolutely. The first step in balancing a trait (aside from "going to the forums") is to maximally atomize it. Even only a sketch of atomization will make everything vastly easier.

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Originally Posted by Tomsdad View Post
Given your example was someone weight 1lb, I think we're getting quite comparable.

If nothing else there's always the unspoken "....if the GM agrees with it" after that.
I could do an entire game based on "....if the GM agrees with it" instead of rules and I have and I don't want to do that here. Rules are there to be reliable minions not creatures that constantly require your attention anyway, There is a difference between "can I do this thing?" "no" and "you get to choose a weight" "1 pound!" "no".

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Take the classic example, combat reflexes is worth more in an SAS build, than it is in a wheelchair bound lawyer build.
Sure, but it has a price despite that.

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Cheers
Cheers.
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Old 11-08-2014, 09:19 AM   #57
Ulzgoroth
 
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Default Re: Balancing High Size Modifier

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Originally Posted by Tomsdad View Post
How is that relevant to the point about adjusting wounding mods for larger targets?

Increased HP means you need to do inflict more damage to leave a more massive target as damaged as less massive one.

The target having more HP (mass) and getting the reduce damage mod, is double dipping?
It's not automatically double dipping when you get two modifiers in the same direction.

Suppose a projectile of a particular size with damage = HP: that is, one that fully penetrates the subject. On a larger subject with proportionately more HP, the amount of body in the wound track will be the same per HP as on a human-size target, since HP scales with linear proportion. But the fraction of the body in the wound track will be vastly less, because the volume of the body goes as the cube!

Without injury tolerance for size, a 20mm wound track means the same amount of hurt to a tyrannosaur as it does to a human, even though the 20mm shell in proportion to the dinosaur is more like a .22 bullet.
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Incidentally tying HP just depth of wound brings us into (over)penetration, which is would mean objects with a a large disparity in their dimensions would have to have there HP over penetration threshold recalculated depending on the angle of attack.
HP is already tied to depth of wound in RAW.

Which goes on to not make the adjustment you refer to, because simplification happens.
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Old 11-08-2014, 09:55 AM   #58
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Default Re: Balancing High Size Modifier

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Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth View Post
It's not automatically double dipping when you get two modifiers in the same direction.
Not automatically no, but it is here.

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Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth View Post
Suppose a projectile of a particular size with damage = HP: that is, one that fully penetrates the subject. On a larger subject with proportionately more HP, the amount of body in the wound track will be the same per HP as on a human-size target, since HP scales with linear proportion. But the fraction of the body in the wound track will be vastly less, because the volume of the body goes as the cube!
That's OK because so does HP (in theory , we now the Human HP scale is wonky, but it's true for objects). You adjustment for differing sizes in all done through HP.

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Without injury tolerance for size, a 20mm wound track means the same amount of hurt to a tyrannosaur as it does to a human, even though the 20mm shell in proportion to the dinosaur is more like a .22 bullet.
No it wouldn't because the proportional damage (as in to total HP and thus over all effect on the target) of the amount of damage wouldn't be the same.

Say the Human is has 10 HP and the t-rex has 100 HP the .22 does 2 damage and the 20mm does 20 damage

the .22 vs. the human removes 20% of HPs

the .22 vs. the T-rex removes 2% of HPs

the 20mm vs. the human removes 200% of hit points (over penetration depending*)

the 20mm vs. the T-rex removes 20% of HPs

Amount of damage here means over all effect on target (ie to total HP) not just in terms of damage rolled.

So while 20mm is to the T-rex what the .22 is to the human (20% of HP), at no point is the 20mm the same to the human and the T-rex (200% vs. 20%).


Which is why damage mods tend to be related by the fundamental nature of what's being hit (homogeneous, diffuse, no vitals etc) or the fundamental nature of the wound (Imp, Pi, Cut etc) but not the size of the target (the effect of of which is modelled by how the damage effects HP).

Which is why a .22 delivers the same force in the same way (2 pts of Pi-) to a T-Rex as a human, but the effect of that damage on the target very much depend on the Targets HP, which gives us the overall effect on the target.


Tl:dr it wouldn't be "the same amount of hurt" as the "amount of hurt" is a factor of the damage & HP, not just the damage.

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Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth View Post
HP is already tied to depth of wound in RAW.

Which goes on to not make the adjustment you refer to, because simplification happens.
It's partially tied to it, but not just to it. If nothing else there are a whole load of situations were just depth of wound isn't the only HP effect (or even a a relevant one), and some other effects of depth that are included elsewhere (damage limited by over penetration).

Last edited by Tomsdad; 11-08-2014 at 10:10 AM.
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Old 11-08-2014, 12:00 PM   #59
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Default Re: Balancing High Size Modifier

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That's OK because so does HP (in theory , we now the Human HP scale is wonky, but it's true for objects). You adjustment for differing sizes in all done through HP.
No, HP doesn't go as the cube. HP scales with dimension, not volume.
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No it wouldn't because the proportional damage (as in to total HP and thus over all effect on the target) of the amount of damage wouldn't be the same.

Say the Human is has 10 HP and the t-rex has 100 HP the .22 does 2 damage and the 20mm does 20 damage
Nope nope nope.

Both bullets shoot through. That was the premise.

The .22 hits the human for 10 damage, just barely passing through the body and causing 5 injury, or 50% of HP.

the 20mm hits the dino for 100 damage, just barely passing through the body and causing 200 injury, or 200% of HP.

For bonus points, if you somehow projected the .22 round through the dinosaur (!) it does 50% of HP...just like it would to the human. Despite being a proportionately much smaller hole.

Oh, and a .22 round is over 5mm, so given these numbers we really ought to be talking about about a 56mm shell going through the dino...but that wouldn't matter since you never rate higher than pi++.
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Which is why damage mods tend to be related by the fundamental nature of what's being hit (homogeneous, diffuse, no vitals etc) or the fundamental nature of the wound (Imp, Pi, Cut etc) but not the size of the target (the effect of of which is modelled by how the damage effects HP).
Except that pi-, pi, pi+, and pi++ differ only by absolute size of the wound channel. Which makes no sense.
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Originally Posted by Tomsdad View Post
It's partially tied to it, but not just to it. If nothing else there are a whole load of situations were just depth of wound isn't the only HP effect (or even a a relevant one), and some other effects of depth that are included elsewhere (damage limited by over penetration).
No, it's just tied to it: cover DR = HP. That's all there is to the assertion.
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Old 11-08-2014, 02:55 PM   #60
Anthony
 
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Default Re: Balancing High Size Modifier

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How is that relevant to the point about adjusting wounding mods for larger targets?
Simple: let's say I have two objects. One is 6" across, one is 12" across. They have the same density, so the larger object has 9x the mass and 2x the hit points of the smaller object.

Now, let's say I make a hole that is 3" deep and 1/2" wide in the 6" object, and a hole that is 6" deep and 1" wide in the 12" object. Would you agree that these are equivalent 'injuries'?

Based on the way piercing injuries work, and assuming the bullet size is about 3/4 the hole size (so 0.37 caliber and 0.75 caliber), the first attack is roughly 3 points Pi (3 points wounding), the second attack is roughly 6 points Pi++ (12 points wounding). Therefore, at least in the case of piercing attacks, to get the injuries to be equivalent, we need to reduce that pi++ to pi (or increase the pi to pi++).

This doesn't obviously apply to other wound types, but either we have to assume that piercing damage is an anomaly, or we should use the same rule for all attack types. Since large objects tend to be unrealistically vulnerable to a swarm of tiny attacks in GURPS, I prefer to apply this adjustment to all damage types.
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