GURPS Project Strength (Fixing ST and ST-based damage and more!)

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by TheVaultDweller

:sigh:
It's 2:30 AM here and I have stuff to do tomorrow, but I can't resist.

I feel there's a bunch of us seeing the same things and coming to very similar results with a few twists here and there. I actually feel a bit frustrated because I've spent a good portion of the last few days hammering a VERY comprehensive overhaul of ST-based damage just to come here and see that either I did some unecessary work because the information was buried in here somewhere, or someone else did the unecessary work because I did it first but hadn't posted yet. Anyway, someone ended up doing double work.

I feel we could use some structure in combing the best pieces of each other's work and submitting it to critique. When I was doing MY changes I kept coming up with fringe cases where things broke down and had to think on a solution. I belive this process could best be done in some collaborative way. Anyone interesting in doing this?

Anyway, I have a LOT of thought behind my system that I can't post right now, but this is gist of what I've come up with. I've ran a few combat scenarios and it seems solid. So, here it goes:

• Assume Last Gasp and Technical Grappling rules are in effect.
  
  
• Make normal humans have HP equal to STx2
  
  
• Fix ST-based damage at 1d Thrust and 2d Swing for ST-10. Swing gains +1 per point of ST and thrust gains +1 for every other point of ST (with ST 11-12 being 1d+1 already). This is actually the realistic scale from DouglasCole work rebalanced for 20HP humans.
  
  
• Double DR of all armors and other DR-giving traits.
  
  
• Firearm damage remains the same, but adds a (2) Armor Divisor.
  
  
• Use the Trained ST table for ALL combat skills. Swords and knives would be on the fast progression, most other melee weapons would be on the average progression and unwieldy things like Whips and Flails on the slow. For unarmed, Boxing and Karate on the fast progression, Brawling on the average.
  
  
• Humans have DR 2 (Crushing only) on the chest/abdomen and DR 1 (crush only) on the limbs. DR 4 on the skull (this is the RAW DR 2 just doubled for the new HP scale). Hands, feet, neck and face have no DR.
  
  
• Unarmed attacks by fists/kicks have an Armor Divisor of (0.5). Anything that gives a tougher surfaces gets rid of this modifier (i.e, boots for kicks, any fist-load on the hand, etc).
  
  
• Divide Cut attacks into Cut-, Cut, Cut+ and Cut++, just like with piercing attacks. Same damage multipliers as the piercing ones. Good kutting swords (sabers, katanas, falchions, longswords, etc) have Cut++. Most other bladed weapons have Cut+ (which is the same as the 1.5 wound modifier we have now) and some marginally cutting weapons (like edged rapiers or knives) have Cut. Almost-blunt things technically capable of cutting, like smallswords, claws of small animals and stabbing knives will have Cut-.
  
  
• Make impaling weapons all be Piercing. The size of the piercing modifier will depend on lenght and width of the penetrating point. Small, hard points have a (2) armor divisor but tend to be pi or pi-. Most swords are Pi++ or Pi+, except fencing weapons (who tend to be pi). A halberd will be a Swing, pi++, hardened (2) Armor Divisor attack. Scary.
  
  
• Use the edge rules from low-tech against cutting attack. That is, if a cut attack of any kind is less then two times the target DR, it counts as a blunt (crushing) attack.
  
  
• Make blunt trauma from flexible armor be 1 for every five points of damage the armor stopped. Count the DR 2 of the human torso against crushing attacks as flexible for this purpose and "layer" it with whatever armor is used on top of it.
  
  
• Body Hits to the torso (from High Tech) applies like this: piercing attacks to the torso can't cause more then 1xHP of damage per attack, but attacks to the vitals have no such limit.
  
  
• Any piercing attack to the chest has a 1-in-3 chance of hitting the vitals. You can also target the vitals normally, of course. This makes the Vitals easier to hit.
  
  
• No C-range attack can use Swing damage. A knife at close quarters can cause both cut and piercing wounds, but all based on Thrust damage. Swing damage represents attacks with some mechanical leverage. Also, generally reduce the Swing damage bonus that weapons have to either zero or negative numbers. Only unbalanced weapons should have substantial swing damage bonuses.

If you do this, you will find these results:

For unarmed combat: Two equally barely trained (Brawling-10), ST10, opponents will be largely innefective at actually injuring each other. They will probably be throwing a lot of Telegraphic AoA (Strong) unaimed attacks at each other. Combat will be decided by whomevers get tired first (suffers crippling FP loss from Last Gasp) and gives up, or whomever first lands a critical hit or a luck blow to the face that forces the other guy to make a knockdown test. Better trained fighters will be more likely to be able to get those face shots to end the fight, and they can be dangerous with brass knuckles or any kind of fist load. If you want to hurt someone bare handed, grapple them, get a joint lock and start twisting or do a throw from lock. This is realistic, IMO.

Armed combat without armor: This is scary as hell. Swords in particular will be deadly. Figthing defensively and hoping for luck are your best bets. Injuries will be quite brutal. Fencers who keep their distance will be VERY dangerous.

Armed and armored combat: Cuts become largely useless. Damage happens mainly by high-damage crushing attacks (which don't cause a lot of wounding at any one time, but can batter the enemy down even in armor), specialized thrusting weapons with (2) armor divisors and targetting chinks in armor (combine with the specialized thrusting weapons, for even greater effect). Warhammers and poleaxes will be VERY scary. Grappling the guy in plate armor and getting a dagger in his armpit is very good as well. Again, realistic.

Firearms: Shooting a guy in the torso with a 9mm (2d+2 pi) will result in an average of 9 damage, which is significant but not a "manstopping" injury. For that, you need a Vitals hit. With a vitals hit the same shot now causes 27 points of injury, which is a Major Wound and drops a normal 20HP man to minus HP territory and that means he's going to fall unconcious right away or in the next few seconds (HT rolls every second). That means that shot placement is necessary to reliably stop people with handguns and, at the same time, it's quite possible to survive being shot a couple of times in the chest, as long as you're lucky enough for not getting hit on the Vitals and the attacker rolling Medium-to-Low results for the damage (this is also realistic). For rifles and shotgun, for the most part, if you hit them, they will drop. Rifle shots to the vitals will most likely result in actual instant death.

There's a lot of good stuff and I think it works well in combination there.

One thing you've got the same DR on chest and abdomen against Cr. Had you considered reducing the DR on abdomen to models the lack of ribs which would balance against the lower chance of hitting the vitals in the abdomen?

Mainly thinking about the difference between punching a chap in the stomach/abdomen than chest here.

I do like the reach stuff especially.
And I really like the Cutting stuff as well, really makes the point they're good against flesh but not so good against DR, as well as giving more variation in blade types and variation in effect.

What were the fringe issues you came up with, though. You seem to have compensated for a lot of issues IMO so I'd be interested in what's left?

And how do you add in the skill progression bonus to damage on bows? do you directly add to damage, or do you give bonuses to ability to pull heavier bows?

FWIW I at the moment I run drawing heavier than normally allowed bows as lifting/ST & archery skill based 'lifting' roll to get bonuses on basic BL (just as lifting skill on lifting roll would) to allow skilled experienced archer to draw heavier bows than they otherwise could.

I find this combines nicely with other archery advantages like strong bow. Problem is it is an extra roll (although I often let archers takes a '11' and assume successes based from that without rolling, in order to model heavy bows they have got comfortable drawing without issues). I also use this to have them drawing bows in 1 second which would otherwise take 2 seconds as per DS.

Of course part of the reason I do this is because I limit ST in my campaigns for issues that you're getting around. But I like it for reasons of verisimilitude as I like the idea of long term specialised training in drawing heavy bows allows you do that without giving you an equal bonus in the more general benefits of high basic ST in wider areas. But the skill progression could just as easily model that depending on how it was applied.

[Tomsdad]

Actually the more I think about your stuff here, the more I really like it! You've solved a lot of issues here (and solved/avoided some of the regular issues that come when trying to solve other problems).

Quick question, with the ST being 1d +1 per point of ST for Sw (or +1 per 2 points of ST for Thr) I assume you be converting that into dice, not just having 1d+X?

I'd definitely be using the partial injuries wounds from MA since a 9mm in the torso that doesn't hit a vital will on average not do a major injury.

And I like that you've put more differentiation between rounds before they hit the over penetration threshold (although over penetration will occur less often now).

[TheVaultDweller]

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

Actually the more I think about your stuff here, the more I really like it! You've solved a lot of issues here (and solved/avoided some of the regular issues that come when trying to solve other problems).

Thanks. Like I said, I wish us folks trying to deal with this issue of deadliness in general and ST-based damage in particular could work together in coming up with some sort of consensus design (as close to RAW as possible) that we could, I don't know, publish on Pyramid or something. This is my contribution and I'm willing to work with someone more established (DouglasCole, most likely?) towards that, if there's any interest.

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

One thing you've got the same DR on chest and abdomen against Cr. Had you considered reducing the DR on abdomen to models the lack of ribs which would balance against the lower chance of hitting the vitals in the abdomen?

Mainly thinking about the difference between punching a chap in the stomach/abdomen than chest here.

That makes sense. Consider it changed. :)

I also forgot to say that you CAN target the Vitals on a hit to the abdomen with crushing attacks (at -4) or on a random 1-in-6 chance on any abdomen hit. Ruptured spleens and stuff like that. Realistically, fat people should have more DR here, but that's a minor detail.

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

I do like the reach stuff especially.
And I really like the Cutting stuff as well, really makes the point they're good against flesh but not so good against DR, as well as giving more variation in blade types and variation in effect.

I'm particularly proud of the reach stuff as well, glad to see someone liked it. Like I said, it combines beautifully with that rule in Pyramid 3-34. It adds a ton of options when it comes to spacing and movement in combat without having to add a lot of rules. The deadliness of close quarters is emphasized as well. I remember I saw a video on youtube once that the guy suggested giving a eraser pen to a 10 year old and telling him to stab at you with it for all he's worth and see if you could avoid getting any bit of ink on you. He said that should demonstrate how scary knives and daggers are, because even against a child you would have some trouble avoiding getting tagged. OTOH, to get to Reach-C you have to Slip or Charge, which can lead to you being stop-thrusted and skewered by the sword-yielding guy. Checks and balances :)

And, frankly, I'm astounded why they didn't generalized the piercing damage types before. I mean, they go to the trouble of defining "Impaling", which is EXACTLY like pi++. I don't know, it just felt like common sense. I saw some other people were messing with different damage modifiers for cutting, but I haven't seen anyone doing the full -,base,+,++ treatment for it, but it felt to me to be the most logical answer.

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

What were the fringe issues you came up with, though. You seem to have compensated for a lot of issues IMO so I'd be interested in what's left?

Let's just say this is not my first draft :)

I'm pretty happy with it as is, now. The boxing match problem has been greatly reduced, but not eliminated, but I think we can just agree that heavyweight boxers have one or two points of DR (crushing only) on the face, torso and abdomen to represent the fact that they are used to "taking a beating". Perhaps trough a perk like "strong jaw" or somesuch.

Firearm stopping power has been reduced a bit, but I think that's not all that bad. Vital hits become more important, which tallies with reality.

I've been considering SM differences as well, and I think there's some deep issues there in RAW that my system only partially adresses. I have a few ideas, but since these don't crop up on my campaigns much, I haven't dedicated the same time that I have to the basic design which I presented here.

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

And how do you add in the skill progression bonus to damage on bows? do you directly add to damage, or do you give bonuses to ability to pull heavier bows?

FWIW I at the moment I run drawing heavier than normally allowed bows as lifting/ST & archery skill based 'lifting' roll to get bonuses on basic BL (just as lifting skill on lifting roll would) to allow skilled experienced archer to draw heavier bows than they otherwise could.

I find this combines nicely with other archery advantages like strong bow. Problem is it is an extra roll (although I often let archers takes a '11' and assume successes based from that without rolling, in order to model heavy bows they have got comfortable drawing without issues). I also use this to have them drawing bows in 1 second which would otherwise take 2 seconds as per DS.

Of course part of the reason I do this is because I limit ST in my campaigns for issues that you're getting around. But I like it for reasons of verisimilitude as I like the idea of long term specialised training in drawing heavy bows allows you do that without giving you an equal bonus in the more general benefits of high basic ST in wider areas. But the skill progression could just as easily model that depending on how it was applied.

I've put Bows on the Fast progression, pending playtesting. I haven't considered what to do with Bows much, now that I think. The Deadly Spring bows were balanced to be realistic at a HP10 scale, so I guess I should use those but double the damage? Or perhaps with the new ST-based scale the RAW bows could work as they are? DouglasCole's input would be greatly appreciated here.

What I can tell you is that I don't like damage adds. I prefer, where possible, to use Trained ST modifiers. My exceptions are AoA (Strong) and Commited Attack (Strong), where I add +1 per die and +1 per each other die of damage. I haven't decided yet, but I believe I'll let Trained by a Master to be a flat bonus as well. Pretty much everything else just increases your effective strength.

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

Quick question, with the ST being 1d +1 per point of ST for Sw (or +1 per 2 points of ST for Thr) I assume you be converting that into dice, not just having 1d+X?

Yes, and I've rounded it a lot. It goes like this:
ST Thrust Swing
9 1d 2d
10 1d 2d
11 1d+1 2d+1
12 1d+1 2d+2
13 1d+1 3d-1
14 1d+2 3d
15 1d+2 3d
16 2d-1 3d+1
17 2d-1 3d+2
18 2d-1 4d-1
19 2d 4d
20 2d 4d

If people want to be more fine-grained about it, it's easy. As long as Thrust is equal to ST/10 and Swing is ST/5, and HP is STx2, it works. I'm cool with using the same range of progression as RAW, just shifting the break-points.

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

I'd definitely be using the partial injuries wounds from MA since a 9mm in the torso that doesn't hit a vital will on average not do a major injury.

And I like that you've put more differentiation between rounds before they hit the over penetration threshold (although over penetration will occur less often now).

The 9mm issue is actually something that I considered quite a lot. As it is, it has a little over 40% chance of producing a Major Wound on a chest hit (without vitals). That would already force Knockdown rolls on ordinary ST10 humans. Higher-powered handgun calibers would do this more reliably and also be better against larger guys. You do have to consider that the basic damage is standard ball ammo. Hollow Points will most likely lead to Major Wounds on most calibers. I also consider that many good factory loads are the equivalent of +P in High Tech. So, a 9mm on +P HP, which I consider to be a good self-defence load used by police, would be doing 3d-1pi+. That's almost certainly going to inflict Major Wounds and has the potential to drop people to 0 HP. If you hit the Vitals, most people will drop instantly or near so.

Remember that nothing of this is adressing lethality, but stopping power. If you're shot for anything over 5 HP (which most handguns will do reliably) you're going to bleed and have a fair chance of dying from that if you can't receive medical care.

And, yes, I also like that there's more variation in overpenetration too. Before I did this change, I was playing a game where I stopped rolling damage for non-Vitals hit and just applied a 1xHP damage (they were using rifles). This makes things more interesting.

[Tomsdad]

Hi, sorry for long gap in replying!

Originally Posted by TheVaultDweller

Thanks. Like I said, I wish us folks trying to deal with this issue of deadliness in general and ST-based damage in particular could work together in coming up with some sort of consensus design (as close to RAW as possible) that we could, I don't know, publish on Pyramid or something. This is my contribution and I'm willing to work with someone more established (DouglasCole, most likely?) towards that, if there's any interest.

well I'd certainly be interested in reading it, what I think you've done well here is tackled the two separate issues of ST and deadliness without causing a knock on effect on either. This is normally my issue with the fixes that have previously been given. What I think happens people see a problem that is actually fairly narrow and give a wide ranging solution that ends up causing other problems elsewhere.

The first thing is I think to narrow down to exactly what is causing an issue, and I think you've done that.

Originally Posted by TheVaultDweller

That makes sense. Consider it changed. :)

Cool, what nice about your adaptation is because it's a combination of effects you can adjust it several ways to tailor the fix to a specific question (which is actually why I like GURPS in general).

Originally Posted by TheVaultDweller

I also forgot to say that you CAN target the Vitals on a hit to the abdomen with crushing attacks (at -4) or on a random 1-in-6 chance on any abdomen hit. Ruptured spleens and stuff like that. Realistically, fat people should have more DR here, but that's a minor detail.

That's true about cr and vital. What would you say about cutting and vitals by the way with a reduced chance from Imp & Pi, you can collapse lungs and target organs with cutting attacks after all.

As to fat people I tend to allow higher HP to account for padding (this works well with last wounds which will discount less than more wounds and the major wound threshold will go up). Higher HP being closely tied to higher mass in the system. It also directly effect over penetration.

Originally Posted by TheVaultDweller

I'm particularly proud of the reach stuff as well, glad to see someone liked it. Like I said, it combines beautifully with that rule in Pyramid 3-34. It adds a ton of options when it comes to spacing and movement in combat without having to add a lot of rules. The deadliness of close quarters is emphasized as well. I remember I saw a video on youtube once that the guy suggested giving a eraser pen to a 10 year old and telling him to stab at you with it for all he's worth and see if you could avoid getting any bit of ink on you. He said that should demonstrate how scary knives and daggers are, because even against a child you would have some trouble avoiding getting tagged. OTOH, to get to Reach-C you have to Slip or Charge, which can lead to you being stop-thrusted and skewered by the sword-yielding guy. Checks and balances :)

Yes the marker drill, is pretty telling isn't it, but don't forget a lot of the tags would be modelled by defensive wounds (so parryinging weapons when unarmed)

Originally Posted by TheVaultDweller

And, frankly, I'm astounded why they didn't generalized the piercing damage types before. I mean, they go to the trouble of defining "Impaling", which is EXACTLY like pi++. I don't know, it just felt like common sense. I saw some other people were messing with different damage modifiers for cutting, but I haven't seen anyone doing the full -,base,+,++ treatment for it, but it felt to me to be the most logical answer.

I agree, at some future point it might be worth adding in Cr-, Cr, Cr+, Cr++ as well to model different attacks vs. DR to.

Originally Posted by TheVaultDweller

Let's just say this is not my first draft :)

I'm pretty happy with it as is, now. The boxing match problem has been greatly reduced, but not eliminated, but I think we can just agree that heavyweight boxers have one or two points of DR (crushing only) on the face, torso and abdomen to represent the fact that they are used to "taking a beating". Perhaps trough a perk like "strong jaw" or somesuch.

TBH as I said in the other thread, I think trying to model a 12 round sporting event between two very evenly matched competitors* in a very tightly controlled situation, is never going to work well with a combat system.

*less evenly matched opponents tend not to go 12 rounds of course

If nothing else two heavy weight boxers bare knuckle fighting is a very different thing (hell just look at the difference in effect between punches in MMA and WBA and that's just different gloves at work and MMA fighters are less specialised punchers). And of course don't forget boxing gloves give an extra 2pts of DR which would be DR4 in you system.

Also a lot of landed punches in boxing are actually parried punches (think of parrying with the body from TG).

But yes a +1 to resist cr knockdowns from the face would seem to be fit nicely.

Originally Posted by TheVaultDweller

Firearm stopping power has been reduced a bit, but I think that's not all that bad. Vital hits become more important, which tallies with reality.

yes I agree. One thing I've toyed with is making the heart a similar location to the brain/eye. Just to model the difference in how immediately 'vital' the heart is from the other vitals. If nothing else this will model the "rebar with two tennis balls threaded on" that snipers refer to in TS. It will also stop people running around so often with arrows and small calibre bullets lodged in their hearts.

Originally Posted by TheVaultDweller

I've been considering SM differences as well, and I think there's some deep issues there in RAW that my system only partially adresses. I have a few ideas, but since these don't crop up on my campaigns much, I haven't dedicated the same time that I have to the basic design which I presented here.

Yes its bit messy, I tend to let common sense rule in specific situations,

Originally Posted by TheVaultDweller

I've put Bows on the Fast progression, pending playtesting. I haven't considered what to do with Bows much, now that I think. The Deadly Spring bows were balanced to be realistic at a HP10 scale, so I guess I should use those but double the damage? Or perhaps with the new ST-based scale the RAW bows could work as they are? DouglasCole's input would be greatly appreciated here.

Maybe you could use the cinematic values (x2.5 damage mult) rather then the realistic 1.75 in DS. what will make a difference is combining different armour piecing heads with different Imp ratings here.

One of the problems with arrow heads and AD is its rather all or nothing (i.e all DR is halved, which gives variable results by situation*). Douglas Cole himself says AD2 is rather over stating the real life effect and suggests comparing metal quality to vary the effects application. Another solution is to say add 1 or 2 to damage, but reducing the Imp multiplier down. This allows you to adjust results more finely.

However this strays away from the RAW of reducing armours effectiveness, another way to do it might be a range of AD's between 1 and 2, say AD(1.25) or AD(1.5). Given that DRs will be increasing in your system you would have less issues with fraction at that point. (It also would give a bit of variation on you your AD2 imp polaxe's)

Originally Posted by TheVaultDweller

What I can tell you is that I don't like damage adds. I prefer, where possible, to use Trained ST modifiers. My exceptions are AoA (Strong) and Commited Attack (Strong), where I add +1 per die and +1 per each other die of damage. I haven't decided yet, but I believe I'll let Trained by a Master to be a flat bonus as well. Pretty much everything else just increases your effective strength.

TBH adds to trained St and damage adds basically come out the same (although I like that the effect of damage adds to Thr are halved). I can't really comment on TbaM (or Weapon Master as I well I assume) since I tend not to run cinematic stuff.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by TheVaultDweller

Yes, and I've rounded it a lot. It goes like this:
ST Thrust Swing
9 1d 2d
10 1d 2d
11 1d+1 2d+1
12 1d+1 2d+2
13 1d+1 3d-1
14 1d+2 3d
15 1d+2 3d
16 2d-1 3d+1
17 2d-1 3d+2
18 2d-1 4d-1
19 2d 4d
20 2d 4d

If people want to be more fine-grained about it, it's easy. As long as Thrust is equal to ST/10 and Swing is ST/5, and HP is STx2, it works. I'm cool with using the same range of progression as RAW, just shifting the break-points.

Cool that's what I thought.

Originally Posted by TheVaultDweller

The 9mm issue is actually something that I considered quite a lot. As it is, it has a little over 40% chance of producing a Major Wound on a chest hit (without vitals). That would already force Knockdown rolls on ordinary ST10 humans. Higher-powered handgun calibers would do this more reliably and also be better against larger guys. You do have to consider that the basic damage is standard ball ammo. Hollow Points will most likely lead to Major Wounds on most calibers. I also consider that many good factory loads are the equivalent of +P in High Tech. So, a 9mm on +P HP, which I consider to be a good self-defence load used by police, would be doing 3d-1pi+. That's almost certainly going to inflict Major Wounds and has the potential to drop people to 0 HP. If you hit the Vitals, most people will drop instantly or near so.

True (and fair enough about good factory loads)

Originally Posted by TheVaultDweller

Remember that nothing of this is adressing lethality, but stopping power. If you're shot for anything over 5 HP (which most handguns will do reliably) you're going to bleed and have a fair chance of dying from that if you can't receive medical care.

Yes absolutely (I have my own issues with the 1 sec scale of staying concious*, but it works well here for modelling 'instant' stopping.

You've reducing the danger from bleeding so I'd certainly run bleeding separately from separate wounds under this system.

(and I might consider making bleeding from certain specific locations quicker/worse since you've doubled HP without doubling bleeding which allows more room for variable effects)

One thing I tempted with bleeding is to to increase the amount of blood loss by some factor of the wound size (larger wounds are not only harder to stop bleeding, but blood loss is faster) difficulty is your double dipping, but I was thinking maybe a multiplier along the lines of injury/8 or 10. which man large wounds against vitals blood vessels etc are not only harder to stop bleeding but you have less time too (and also I think is more realistic for bleeding out quickly form such wounds)

*i've played with making it HTxSec cycle but doubling AP costs while acting at negative HP which stops people still acting at normal speed(especially as they are already taking an AP hit from the wound that took them to -HP)

Originally Posted by TheVaultDweller

And, yes, I also like that there's more variation in overpenetration too. Before I did this change, I was playing a game where I stopped rolling damage for non-Vitals hit and just applied a 1xHP damage (they were using rifles). This makes things more interesting.

It also for me solves the whole 'do you apply the damage multiplier before or after the over penetration limit' question. Because the over penetration limit doesn't kick in so quickly.

Anyway cheers, TD.