Rejiggering Muscle-Powered Weapon Damage

[ErhnamDJ]

So, for fine/very fine weapons, I'll have those not count for armor penetration.

Also to take care of the variability problem, and since my players love rolling d20s so much already, I'm thinking of repainting some of them with the following numbers:

1
2
2
2
3
3
3
3
3
3
4
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4
4
4
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5
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6

[Ze'Manel Cunha]

Originally Posted by ErhnamDJ

So, for fine/very fine weapons, I'll have those not count for armor penetration.

Also to take care of the variability problem, and since my players love rolling d20s so much already, I'm thinking of repainting some of them with the following numbers:

1
2
2
2
3
3
3
3
3
3
4
4
4
4
4
4
5
5
5
6

Heh, that's one way of doing it.

[jacobmuller]

Originally Posted by Landwalker

able to "resist all but the heaviest sword cuts and spear thrusts,"
Here are a few examples:
ST 10
Cinematic Broadsword: 1d+1 (4.5) cut / 1d (3.5) imp
Cinematic Spear (1H/2H): 1d (3.5) imp / 1d+1 (4.5) imp

Based on your key criteria, the quote and average damage, I don't see the problem. Average or weak blows are stopped. Only the heavier blows can penetrate.
But, if RAW is wrong, then would creating a ST/Damage chart based off Swing damage dice = ST/15 and Thrust = ST/20 do what you want?
If you're putting it in-line with muscle powered missile, would making the weapon damage mods per 2 dice fit better with the new ST/damage?

[Landwalker]

The more I think about the "eliminate variability" side of things, the more I'm drawn towards it. Like a moth to a flame, no doubt. And that leads me back to the "Margin of Success" ST Roll idea.

Unfortunately, I don't think I'm quite clear on how it's supposed to work. Is damage still rolled, and then further modified by the MoS for the ST Roll? Or (and this is how it works in my head), is there a "base" damage point across all ranges, and on a successful attack, the character deals the base damage (say, "3", just to have a number to use in the below example), modified by the weapon modifier and by the MoS roll?

So, going back to Ze'Manel Cunha's MoS table, if a ST 10 Broadswordsman made a successful cutting attack, and if we say that a one-handed cutting attack has a base damage of 3, then the swordsman's final damage would be 4 (base 3 + 1 for the broadsword), then modified based on the MoS for a ST roll: On a ST roll of 3, he gets +1 damage (MoS 7) for 5 total ("all but the heaviest sword cuts"); on 4-5, he gets +0 (MoS 5-6); on a 6-7, -1 damage; 7-8, -2 damage; etc.

So, two questions:

(1) Is that, conceptually, how a MoS-based damage approach would work? Constant Base Damage + Weapon Modifier + ST MoS Modifier? Or is it Variable Base Damage (by roll or by ST) + Weapon Modifier + ST MoS Modifier?

(2) What happens if you fail your ST roll? No damage, or just an extension of the damage penalties?


Edit:

Originally Posted by jacobmuller

Based on your key criteria, the quote and average damage, I don't see the problem. Average or weak blows are stopped. Only the heavier blows can penetrate.

The problem (or, at least, my problem) is that I don't consider "The upper 50% of blows by a person of wholly average strength" to constitute "the heaviest sword cuts."

I believe that at some point I've tried looking at the "ST/X" approach. For some reason I'm not coming up with off-hand right now, I eventually threw my hands up and walked away from it.

[jacobmuller]

MoS based: KISS ie don't add extra dice rolls.
Have the attack roll decide the damage.
You could push it to margin of difference but only successes count, ie attacker's MoS - Defender's MoS equates to die result for damage, eg from 0 = 1/2 up to whatever MoD you want to be 6, so 2d damage would give 1 to 12 damage.
Which combines ST and Skill as damage.

Re: Modified damage table = it sucks large lol, eg ST9 to 11 all do Th/Sw 1d-3/1d-2; you have to have the ST of three men to get 1d-1/1d+1 where RAW has 1d+2/3d-1.

[DouglasCole]

This is a draft of a Pyramid article that I decided opened up too many cans of worms, and pulled it.


RESCALING MELEE WEAPONS

While firearms are explicitly on an energy-based scale that doubles penetration for every quadrupling of energy, melee weapons do not scale this way, and the raw damage rises much faster, making high ST unrealistically effective when applied to hand weapons and muscle powered ranged weapons.

For an alternative take that scales the same way as firearms, consider rescaling thrust and swing damage. A cinematic scale would have thr equal to ST/10, and swing equal to ST/5; a more realistic one might have thrust as ST/20, and swing as ST/10.

Oddly Small Damage Increment Table
Roll one off-color die, and adjust the number rolled to the table value. The Notes entry shows where rules of thumb can be used to more quickly interpret the roll of the odd die. Each entry is scaled to give an average result consistent with a fractional d6.

		                Roll on 1d6
Dice	Avg. Dmg.	1	2	3	4	5	6	Notes
	0.1	0.35	0	0	0	0	1	1	1d/5, drop fractions
	0.2	0.7	0	0	1	1	1	1	1d/5, round normally
	0.3	1.05	0	1	1	1	1	2	1d/4, round normally
	0.4	1.4	0	1	1	2	2	3	1d/2, drop fractions
	0.5	1.75	1	1	1	2	2	3	
	0.6	2.1	1	1	2	2	3	3	1d/2, round normally
	0.7	2.45	0	1	2	3	4	5	1d-1
	0.8	2.8	1	2	2	3	4	5	
	0.9	3.15	1	2	2	4	4	6	
	1	3.5	1	2	3	4	5	6	1d6

Implications for Play
Using the “realisitc” scale with ST/10 for swing damage has many repercussions, which must at least be considered before adopting these rules.

Devalued ST
ST is “the attribute that you use to buy damage” in GURPS, with a healthy side-order of “lifting heavy stuff” and “more HP.” The realistic scale requires ST 20 to do 1d thr and 2d sw, and probably calls for a price break. HP are 2 points each; Lifting ST is 3 points per +1 ST, and Striking ST 5 per +1. HP and lifting are as valuable as ever; reducing Striking ST to 2 per +1 ST in realistic campaigns, with overall ST at 7 points per +1 ST, seems appropriate.

Hand Weapon Damage
Weapon damage is lower, and thrust weapons in particular will have limited penetration capability. This takes what was the historically preferred method of punching through heavy armor and nerfs it further. To compensate, add a (2) armor divisor to weapons with a sharp, narrow penetrating surface. Consider optionally allowing a still more impressive construction, buying a fine (hardened) penetrating point that gives a (3) for ¥4 cost. This would not be available for arrows (see The Deadly Spring, Pyramid #33, for suggestions concerning bows and arrows).

Armor
With most hand weapons using the realistic scale, personal armor just got a whole lot more valuable at low DR, especially using the revised armor weights from GURPS Low Tech. This isn’t a bad thing; in fact, it might make a campaign world more closely resemble what we know about our historical real one . . . on didn’t need to lather on 80 lbs. of mail, leather, and plate to protect against basic cuts from swords, or long-range shots from flight or hunting arrows.

Character Differentiation
With thrusting damage at ST/20, and swing at ST/10, there will be very little differentiation between average, fairly strong, and even very strong characters. Weapons rated at sw+2 or sw+3 (maces, axes, and falchions, for example) have their damage almost all defined by the weapon, not the user.
Consider treating the “adds” as an indicator of the power of the lever arm being applied. Treat each +1 as adding +1/3 to a ST multiplier – a sw+2 weapon instead multiplies ST by 1.66. A ST 14 warrior swinging a falchion (sw+2) will do damage as ST 23.2, or 2.3 dice.

One would thrust using the same calculations: a short spear thrust by the same warrior for thr+1 imp would multiply ST by 1.33, for ST 18.6; damage would be ST/20 (2), or 0.9d (2) imp. Note that same spear using the Damage Table (p. B16) would do 1d+1 imp, an average of 4.5 points of penetration. Even the realistic scale here will do 6.3 points, thanks to the armor divisor.

Coup de Grace
The changes to melee damage on the realistic end would bring GURPS damage on the hand-to-hand scale more in line with firearms damage. For a character to do as much damage with a punch as with a 9mm pistol would now require about ST 52 . . . well into supers territory. Even a strong character with ST 20 (1d thr) will be out-penetrated by a .22 LR (1d+1 pi-). For those who want a more realistic scaling for penetration, this may be more satisfying.

[jacobmuller]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

Character Differentiation

feels like overkill after the ST adjustment. Would the weapon mods as per die be enough? eg 2d-1 with a +1 mace becomes 2d+1?

[ErhnamDJ]

I'm not sure what that means, with the dividing ST.

Here's the table I came up with:

ST
..... Thrust - Swing
10 - 1d-3 - 1d-2
11 - 1d-3 - 1d-1
12 - 1d-3 - 1d-1
13 - 1d-2 - 1d
14 - 1d-2 - 1d
15 - 1d-2 - 1d+1
16 - 1d-1 - 1d+2
17 - 1d-1 - 1d+2
18 - 1d-1 - 2d-1
19 - 1d - 2d-1
20 - 1d - 2d

The numbers look about right. Just looking at various weapons, I think they work out about right without changing any numbers. A strong man with a mace (ST 12) doing an All-Out Attack (Strong) is doing about what I want against a man in medium plate.

A regular soldier (ST 11) with a longsword in a reversed grip, and doing an AoA (Strong), does about what I want against medium plate. I can also use this table for ranged weapons as printed in Basic to get realistic-ish results. The ST 12 man with Arm ST 2 and Strongbow is still only doing 1d+1 with a longbow, or 1d with a regular bow. Which seems about right to me.

My major problem with all this is that it's not really based on any testing. I don't know how much damage an actual knight would do in reality against these various armors with various weapons.

As for variability, I'm thinking of possibly reworking my previous die using 3d6 and checking a chart.

3d6 Result - Damage Roll
3 - 1
4 - 2
5 - 2
6 - 2
7 - 3
8 - 3
9 - 3
10 - 3
11 - 4
12 - 4
13 - 4
14 - 4
15 - 5
16 - 5
17 - 5
18 - 6

I could even use this for firearms and not get too upset with the results. The London Lobsters do about right against men with arquebuses, for example. And against men with swords or axes or maces, if I use my adjusted ST damage table.

I think it would be easier to memorize using a d100, though. I could use that without even needing to check a table.

d100 roll - Damage Result
1-2 - 1
3-10 - 2
11-50 - 3
51-89 - 4
90-98 - 5
99-10 - 6

Short of getting some actual armor, putting it on some pigs, and having people swing weapons at them a couple of hundred times to check the results, I don't know what else to do. How common is a result of '6' on the damage roll in reality? And is there any way to know? Is it once every six attacks? Once every fifty? It makes sense intuitively to say that such is possible. You're not striking the same flat surface repeatedly; there is variation in reality, in both the angle at which armor is struck and the force with which it is struck. It's just a matter of figuring out what that means, and how often it occurs.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by ErhnamDJ

I'm not sure what that means, with the dividing ST.

Divide ST by 20 (or 10) and roll that many dice. Using the /10 example because it's easy:

ST 10 = 1d
ST 20 = 2d
ST 56 = 5.6d

Converting 0.6d to dice, roll 1d, and add the numbers on the 0.6 line. It averages 2.1 points per die.

So 5.6d will average 3.5 * 5 = 17.5 + 2.1 points = 19.6 points per roll, as it should.

[Kuroshima]

Part of the problem is that GURS, as a universal system, need to cater to both gritty realistic low tech games, and 4-color Supers games. It needs to keep characters differentiated at the low tech angle (so the big strong guy is different that the small agile one). having each point of ST increase swing damage by 1 step (slightly less than 1 point of average damage) on the table (in the 10-27 range) makes a lot of sense.

Also, I remember hearing that low tech deal much of their damage as a function of their momentum, instead of their kinetic energy (the main component of the damage for bullets). Since you're much more knowledgeable on this, can you chime in, and either confirm or dispel this, DouglasCole? It also makes the weapons act as an ST multiplier much more sensical...