Impact of Alternate HP Formula

[JCurwen3]

If I calculate creature ST has the normal 2*cube_root(mass_in_lbs) but their HP as 0.85*sqrt(mass_in_lbs) (as per Eidetic Memory: Extreme Damage on Pyramid #3/34: Alternate GURPS, p. 25), what might the impact of this be? More realistic, or less?

For instance, an elephant - ST 45, but HP ~93... sounds realistic? By the way, both formulae produce roughly 10 for humans in both ST and HP.

[JCurwen3]

Speaking of elephants, I found this tale of the struggle to take one down...

(Yahoo! Answers)
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110524125348AAMniqM

"Eventually, 40 rounds were fired into the animal's head (mostly police 9mm), including two shots from a bystander's deer rifle and the fatal two shots from a .308 caliber rifle with armor-piercing bullets, police said. And that was an Indian Elephant (African elephants are even bigger)."

So... how much HP does this seem to justify? The smaller (45) or the larger (93) value?

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by JCurwen3

Speaking of elephants, I found this tale of the struggle to take one down...

(Yahoo! Answers)
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110524125348AAMniqM

"Eventually, 40 rounds were fired into the animal's head (mostly police 9mm), including two shots from a bystander's deer rifle and the fatal two shots from a .308 caliber rifle with armor-piercing bullets, police said. And that was an Indian Elephant (African elephants are even bigger)."

So... how much HP does this seem to justify? The smaller (45) or the larger (93) value?

I suspect you need a "minimum penetration before it counts as vitals or brain" thing.

[Seneschal]

The most obvious effect is "cars provide more Cover DR", making it slightly more plausible to hide behind one in a gunfight. It's not a big difference, just a few DR points more. In Spaceship combat, it makes ships more durable. Generally, objects won't get shredded by gunfire quite as easily, though if you want a ship to survive a hail of bullets, you're better off with those Wound Size Modifier house rules.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by JCurwen3

So... how much HP does this seem to justify? The smaller (45) or the larger (93) value?

Mostly, it justifies a significant amount of DR (the easiest way to deal with accumulating of hits that are too minor to matter is by giving stuff DR), but I suggest expanded wound size modifiers rather than an alternate hit point formula.

[JCurwen3]

Originally Posted by Seneschal

The most obvious effect is "cars provide more Cover DR", making it slightly more plausible to hide behind one in a gunfight. It's not a big difference, just a few DR points more. In Spaceship combat, it makes ships more durable. Generally, objects won't get shredded by gunfire quite as easily, though if you want a ship to survive a hail of bullets, you're better off with those Wound Size Modifier house rules.

Well I'm thinking of using this way to generate HP in addition to the Wound Size Modifier house rules. I think this will still keep mundane (large) animal killability within roughly realistic rates... and I'm sort of thinking that the standard HP associated with most large animals makes them cinematically easy to kill (could be wrong though).

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by JCurwen3

Well I'm thinking of using this way to generate HP in addition to the Wound Size Modifier house rules.

I wouldn't do that -- the existing rules (with or without WSM) keep durability and weapon power largely in line with one another, which is realistic, so unless you want to restat all weapons I wouldn't change the HP formula.

[Langy]

Originally Posted by Anthony

I wouldn't do that -- the existing rules (with or without WSM) keep durability and weapon power largely in line with one another, which is realistic, so unless you want to restat all weapons I wouldn't change the HP formula.

Er.

Isn't the issue that the alternate HP scaling is trying to fix the fact that weapon power has almost nothing to do with the durability of large, realistic things?

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Langy

Isn't the issue that the alternate HP scaling is trying to fix the fact that weapon power has almost nothing to do with the durability of large, realistic things?

Yeah, but that's already covered by relative size modifiers (which, incidentally, already restats all weapons by giving them a wound size modifier -- but does so in a way that's easier to compute than switching the HP model).

[Seneschal]

Originally Posted by JCurwen3

Well I'm thinking of using this way to generate HP in addition to the Wound Size Modifier house rules. I think this will still keep mundane (large) animal killability within roughly realistic rates... and I'm sort of thinking that the standard HP associated with most large animals makes them cinematically easy to kill (could be wrong though).

You could use both, but for different targets. WSM only applies to Unliving and Homogenous targets (though there are expanded rules if you want to use it for everything), so perhaps you could use WSM on those (to prevent guy-with-Uzi-topples-skyscraper incidents), and Alternate HP when it comes to living beings (so that the aforementioned elephant doesn't die from a few bullets).