The Importance of Modified ST-Based Damage?

[Wavefunction]

There was a thread recently on Natural Weapons from Pyramid Alternate GURPS III, that got me thinking. Natural Weapon takes the few that if you enhance the Natural Weapon, say with Armor Divisor, you don't also charge for modifying ST-Based damage, in a departure from the normal rules.

I wanted to discuss the validity of this, because it made me consider a certain point, I'll just quote my post in that thread to demonstrate it:

The thing here is that there is a kind of double-standard going on.

The argument for modified ST-based damage is that you're getting full value for whatever enhancement you're getting, it effects all your damage, so you should pay points based on the amount of damage you have. Makes sense.

However, Striker already breaks this rule, and to a lesser degree so do almost all the other 'natural weapon' type advantages. They change your damage type, which changes your wounding multiplier, which multiplies the injury you inflict, for a flat cost you get something that effects all the damage you do. Striker goes a step beyond this, it gives you +1 damage per die, so regardless of what you're base damage is, it's now gone up by roughly +30%, again for a flat cost.

So you can make an argument for or against modified ST-Based damage. If you're using Natural Weapons it adds a bit more weight to the against argument, since it gives a flat base cost regardless of the natural weapon. In the current system if you ignore modified ST-Based damage then you can have teeth that do cutting damage and ignore DR for 4 points (Sharp Teeth (Cosmic, Ignore DR, +300%)).

The gist of that is that there are already plenty of advantages that give you a variable amount of value dependent on your strength, but have a flat price. Is there anything wrong with that? And if there isn't, couldn't you extend it to other enhancements.

[Anthony]

It's a problem when the effect you're enhancing has a base cost of more than 20-25 points per die -- 1d of thrust damage on ST is 40p, even if you use martial arts and talons, at most you're getting 1d+3 Imp worth about 15p. On the other hand, if you start allowing enhancements on claws, those talons can be doing 1d+3(10) Imp, worth about 45p -- which is more than the cost of ST.

[munin]

It's only a problem if you think it's a problem.

All trait costs in GURPS are averaged over characters/genres/settings/etc., so it's not that big of a deal to decide that a certain amount of ST is the average across characters/genres/settings/etc., and use that to choose a flat cost for traits which modify it like Striker.

[GodBeastX]

I'll happily admit I'm on the side of the double standard where I feel ST should be allowed to add damage.

Rules that say you can "Buy attacks up to ST" tend to feel off to me. You can put an equipment piece in your hand, but the moment you pay points for the object it cannot benefit from your ST?

Natural Weapons fills in a big correction to that problem for me. I will always advocate using it.

[dfinlay]

Originally Posted by GodBeastX

I'll happily admit I'm on the side of the double standard where I feel ST should be allowed to add damage.

Rules that say you can "Buy attacks up to ST" tend to feel off to me. You can put an equipment piece in your hand, but the moment you pay points for the object it cannot benefit from your ST?

Natural Weapons fills in a big correction to that problem for me. I will always advocate using it.

I don't think he's talking about "Buy attacks up to ST" style models, but rather, "to add AP2 to a ST based attack, compute the cost it would have if you bought it up to ST, then pay for the enhancement on that". Natural Attacks is somewhat inconsistent with the latter. While a good model, the issue with the latter in my mind is that it then effectively increases the cost of raising ST for that character (or rather, the cost of this trait increases every time you raise ST). It seems problematic to me that attribute cost will be higher for some characters than others based on what advantages you have (though it maybe could solve some issues with IQ being OP for mages as well).

[Wavefunction]

Meant to reply sooner, I kind of forgot I'd started this thread (I've been a little busy just recently).

Originally Posted by Anthony

It's a problem when the effect you're enhancing has a base cost of more than 20-25 points per die -- 1d of thrust damage on ST is 40p, even if you use martial arts and talons, at most you're getting 1d+3 Imp worth about 15p. On the other hand, if you start allowing enhancements on claws, those talons can be doing 1d+3(10) Imp, worth about 45p -- which is more than the cost of ST.

Of course to get +1d+3 (10) with ST-Based damage, even without modifying your basic thrust you need Long Talons (Armor Divisor (10), +200%) [33] + Striking ST +8 [40], still plenty more than the equivalent impaling attack.

Originally Posted by GodBeastX

I'll happily admit I'm on the side of the double standard where I feel ST should be allowed to add damage.

Rules that say you can "Buy attacks up to ST" tend to feel off to me. You can put an equipment piece in your hand, but the moment you pay points for the object it cannot benefit from your ST?

Natural Weapons fills in a big correction to that problem for me. I will always advocate using it.

I have a similar view, I'm just trying to see whether I'm missing anything important.

Originally Posted by dfinlay

I don't think he's talking about "Buy attacks up to ST" style models, but rather, "to add AP2 to a ST based attack, compute the cost it would have if you bought it up to ST, then pay for the enhancement on that". Natural Attacks is somewhat inconsistent with the latter. While a good model, the issue with the latter in my mind is that it then effectively increases the cost of raising ST for that character (or rather, the cost of this trait increases every time you raise ST). It seems problematic to me that attribute cost will be higher for some characters than others based on what advantages you have (though it maybe could solve some issues with IQ being OP for mages as well).

Yeah, agreed.

So far I'm getting the overall vibe that it's not a problem, which surprises me, I was expecting far more people telling me it was terribly unbalanced.

[GodBeastX]

Originally Posted by Wavefunction

So far I'm getting the overall vibe that it's not a problem, which surprises me, I was expecting far more people telling me it was terribly unbalanced.

I think that is unbalanced! Paying for ST higher!