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

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

Now, if I can only work transcendental equations in there somehow . . .

Well you only did that once, so I think that's just bonus points.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Well you only did that once, so I think that's just bonus points.

Yeah, but it got me on TVTropes for the third time!

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

Yeah, but it got me on TVTropes for the third time!

A search for "Douglas Cole" on TVtropes is useless. :(

[Landwalker]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

A search for "Douglas Cole" on TVtropes is useless. :(

But there's quite a page for GURPS in general, which does reference both Technical Grappling and Transcendental Equations (as well as a horrifying amount of tropes in general)! Not sure what mention #3 is, though.

I've edited my original list to change AoA and CA from +2/d and +1/d to their RAW values (+1/d and +1/2d). I started crunching some numbers, and quickly became alarmed by the jumps I was seeing from ST14 to ST15 and ST19 to ST20 as a result of that extra die. I realized that by doubling the RAW bonuses the same way I was doubling HP and DR, I was essentially double-counting-the-doubling (since they already have RAW per-die bonuses, they should scale up with anything that increases the number of dice without any issue). (Edit #2: Even the RAW progression results in wonky jumps and stops. Still trying to figure out what to do about that...)

Still haven't figured out what to do about blunt trauma, but something's definitely going to need to happen. I don't think I'll be able to squeeze the Range/Speed table into whatever that something is... =P

(Edit: My tempt is to say that for cutting weapons, any post-armor damage is halved and converted to crushing unless the post-armor damage itself exceeds the DR value of the armor, or 50% of the DR value of the armor, or something along those lines. No bright ideas on what, if anything, to do with impaling weapons for your run of the mill "Cave troll stabs mithril-clad halfling, fails to penetrate the armor, breaks the halfling's ribs" scenario. Maybe a "Cuts must beat 100% DR, Impaling must beat 50% DR" rule or something...)

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

A search for "Douglas Cole" on TVtropes is useless. :(

First mention: Arbitrary Gun Power. The link goes to my ballistics article.

Second Mention: Grappling with Grappling Rules. Calls out TG in a not-terribly-nice way.

Third mention: Writers' Cannot Do Math. Calls out the "nasty transcendental equations" phrase explicitly.

And I'm done derailing the thread. Sorry. :-)

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Landwalker

Still haven't figured out what to do about blunt trauma, but something's definitely going to need to happen.

I'm going to want to spin this into my answer somehow. :-)

[Landwalker]

One thing I'm realizing tabling these things out is that using a /d or /2d progression for both Maneuver-based and Weapon-based modifiers is simply not going to work. The progression of an All-Out Attack gets bizarre because of the granularity of it, with lulls and sudden, ridiculous jumps. (For example, using a Broadsword with AoA, for ST values 10-20 and 2d+1 Fine Mail, yields the following progression of after-armor damage rolls: 1d-1, 1d-1, 1d-1, 1d, 1d, 1d+3 (that's at ST 15), 2d, 2d, 2d+1, 2d+2, 3d+1 (at ST 20).)

To break that down into marginal benefit: 0, 0, 1, 0, 3, 1, 0, 1, 1, 3

The only way I've come up with at the moment for smoothing that out is to change the maneuver-based modifiers to a multiplier of base ST (Committed Attack would be +15%, and All-Out Attack would be +30%). Such multipliers would retain the foundation of the RAW progression (+1/d for All-Out Attack is a +28.5% damage boost if you spread it out, and +1/2d for Committed Attack is +14.3%), but would ease the distribution of that bonus instead of tying it to dice-based demarcations. In this instance:

• Post-Armor Damage for ST 10-20
  • 1d-1, 1d-1, 1d+1, 1d+2, 1d+3, 2d, 2d+2, 2d+2, 2d+3, 3d+1, 3d+2
• Marginal Benefit
  • 0, 2, 1, 1, 1, 2, 0, 1, 2

The downsides are that 1) That's still not especially smooth, and 2) I would prefer to avoid anything that requires that players have a calculator by their side. "Okay, you're making an AoA (Strong), so multiply your ST 13 by 130%, divide 16.9 ST by 5, use the integer (3) for your number of dice, multiply the remaining decimal (0.38) by 3.5 (1.33) and round to get your add (3d+1)."

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

I'm going to want to spin this into my answer somehow. :-)

An interesting idea! I'll have to mull on it... though since 100% of my gaming is done via web-based media, I don't know how much additional cumber it might add.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Landwalker

The only way I've come up with at the moment for smoothing that out is to change the maneuver-based modifiers to a multiplier of base ST

One of the reasons I favor the ST/N method, esp with N being 10 (and do whatever we need to do with HP and DR to make that work) is that the method you describe is very smooth, and easy to apply. The various bonuses for AoA and Committed Attack (etc) can work out pretty well if they're pre-calculated (and the maneuvers themselves can be) or use increments of 10% multipliers to ST. Then, divide by 10, and 0.3 is +1, 0.6 is +2, etc. is pretty easy.

The downsides are that 1) That's still not especially smooth, and 2) I would prefer to avoid anything that requires that players have a calculator by their side.

Pre-calculation can be your friend here, and there might even be a way to put it into one of the charsheet programs.

[Landwalker]

Warning: Data Dump / Brain Vomit Ahead

Just tried this using a ST divisor of 4 and an HP-and-DR multiplier of 2.5 (similar to what was suggested by Zoncxs previously), just to see how it progresses:

Shortsword (sw+0) vs. Fine Mail (DR 10/5*)

• Regular Attack
  • Post-Armor Damage
    • 1d-3, 1d-2, 1d-2, 1d-1, 1d+0, 1d+1, 2d-2, 2d-1, 2d+0, 2d+1, 3d-2
  • Marginal Benefit
    • 1, 0*, 1, 1, 1, 0.5, 1, 1, 1, 0.5
      * Between ST11 and ST12, but this is unusual in the progression—ST11 works out to (2d+3)-(2d+2) = (1d-3)+1, while ST12 comes from (3d+0)-(2d+2) = (1d-2)
  
  
• All-Out Attack, using a ST multiplier of ×1.3
  • Post-Armor Damage
    • 1d-1, 1d+0, 1d+1, 2d-1, 2d+0, 2d+1, 3d-1, 3d+0, 3d+1, 4d-1, 4d+0
  • Marginal Benefit
    • 1, 1, 1.5, 1, 1, 1.5, 1, 1, 1.5, 1
      Look at that beautiful progression!

I used Shortsword above mostly because I messed up my first pass at the spreadsheet and omitted the per-die effects of the Broadsword. =P

However, going back in and adding in the broadsword bonus (+1/2d) yields the following:

Broadsword (sw+1) vs. Fine Mail (DR 10/5*)

• Regular Attack
  • Post-Armor Damage
    • 1d-2, 1d-1, 1d, 1d, 1d+1, 1d+2, 2d, 2d+1, 2d+2, 2d+3, 3d+1
  • Marginal Benefit
    • 1, 1, 0, 1, 1, 1.5, 1, 1, 1, 1.5
  
  
• All-Out Attack, using a ST multiplier of ×1.3
  • Post-Armor Damage
    • 1d+1, 1d+2, 2d, 2d+2, 2d+3, 3d, 3d+3, 3d+4, 3d+5, 4d+3, 4d+5
  • Marginal Benefit
    • 1, 1.5, 2, 1, 0.5, 3, 1, 1, 1.5, 2

As you can see, once weapon modifiers get involved, the progression and marginal benefit start jumping around quite a bit, especially on the All-Out Attack.

I think that, despite some understandable reservations, treating weapon modifiers as ST multipliers is the better (read: smoother) way to go. As Mr. Cole said: Math Weenies can just pre-calculate it and throw it on the spreadsheet, as the math involved isn't terribly difficult and the constants involved aren't likely to change in play unless you're in the habit of quaffing elixirs of strength on a regular basis, so it seems like doing it beforehand for each of your weapons would be a fairly negligible inconvenience.

So here's the version in which a +1 weapon modifier is equal to a +15% increase in ST:

Broadsword (sw+1) vs. Fine Mail (DR 10/5*)

• Regular Attack
  • Post-Armor Damage
    • 1d-2, 1d-1, 1d, 1d+1, 2d-2, 2d-1, 2d, 2d+1, 3d-1, 3d, 3d+1
  • Marginal Benefit
    • 1, 1, 1, 0.5, 1, 1, 1, 1.5, 1, 1
  
  
• All-Out Attack, using a ST multiplier of ×1.3
  • Post-Armor Damage
    • 1d, 1d+1, 2d-1, 2d+0, 3d-2, 3d, 3d+1, 4d-1, 4d, 4d+1, 5d-1
  • Marginal Benefit
    • 1, 1.5, 1, 1.5, 2, 1, 1.5, 1, 1, 1.5

That's a pair of solid progressions. The anomalous 2 in the AoA progression between ST14 and ST15 is just the byproduct of a very close cutoff happening to come out in the attacker's favor (ST14 yields 5.075d, or 5d+0, while ST15 yields 5.4375d, which is just barely 5d+2 by a decimal of less than 1/100).

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

One of the reasons I favor the ST/N method, esp with N being 10 (and do whatever we need to do with HP and DR to make that work) is that the method you describe is very smooth, and easy to apply. The various bonuses for AoA and Committed Attack (etc) can work out pretty well if they're pre-calculated (and the maneuvers themselves can be) or use increments of 10% multipliers to ST. Then, divide by 10, and 0.3 is +1, 0.6 is +2, etc. is pretty easy.

I do really like ST/10 mathematically. Base-10 math is pretty straight-forward. My only quibble is that it seems to result in a lot of ST levels that have no marginal benefit to damage. (Which I know isn't a necessity, but you know how players are. At least in my case, they're far more concerned with Beatdown Capacity than they are with Carrying Capacity.) Even using ST/5 would turn out "problem points" with no marginal benefit. ST/4 gives +1 damage on almost every ST level, and +0.5 every fourth level when it jumps up a die.

For Maneuver-based, Grip-based, and Weapon-based damage modifiers, I like +15% per +1. It comes very close to mirroring the RAW effects of the Maneuver-based modifiers, and I think it also translates well to the weapon modifiers. (And it also avoids the extremely-edge-case of someone with a Sw-5 Light Whip potentially coming out at negative damage—instead they're "only" at a -75% multiplier. And that's what they get for attacking with a Light Whip.)

It's getting late, but I like how this is looking progression-wise. I'll have to do some more numbers-crunching, and see how things go with different types of weapons (spear (still planning on THR = 2/3×SW, so ST/6, which might get a little funky), axe, knife, halberd, stuff like that). Plus figure out what to do with blunt trauma and potential armor divisors. Mr. Cole's "roll with it" approach to soaking minor blunt damage is smelling appealing at the moment, and just looking at the tables I'm coming up with strongly suggests the need for cutting damage to have some sort of adverse armor divisor, but we'll see where it goes.

[zoncxs]

I'll post what I got here since I won't be writing any articles. This is what I came up with after a year of fiddling.



BASIC LIFT, DAMAGE, AND RATIOS

Basic lift is found by squaring ST and then dividing by 5. The ratio of any given level of basic lift when compared to ST 10 basic lift is found by dividing said level by ST basic lift of 10 (20 lbs), Thus ST 20 basic lift is 4 times greater than ST 10. The Damage ratio is the square root of the basic lift ratio, so the damage of an ST 20 person should be twice that of an ST 10 person.

Basic Lift (BL)= STxST/5
Basic Lift Ratio (BL.R.) = BL/20
Damage Ratio (D.R.) = (BL.R.)^(0.5)


With this damage ratio you then need to find a number that keeps this ratio while giving an increase in damage with every ST raise. Using 1 first, if we multiply the damage ratio by 1 we end up with 1d for ST 10, 2d for ST 20 and so forth. This gives us gaps in ST where there is no increase in damage. If we use 2 we end up with the same problem, gaps with no increase. 3 gives us a different problem, we end up skipping some damage. After testing various numbers "2.5" does the job, it keeps the damage ratio while allowing an increase in damage by +1 for every ST increase. When we multiply this number with the damage ratio, which also equals ST/10, we find a simple equation, ST/4.

Damage in dice (d)= (D.R.)x(2.5)d = (ST/10)x(2.5)d = (ST/4)d


Convert whole numbers into dice and treat fractions as follows. Round down for fractions less than .25. If the fraction is .25 or greater, treat it as +1 damage. If the fraction is .5 or greater, treat it as +2 damage. If the fraction is .75 or greater, add another die and -1 damage. This pattern repeats itself every die, or every 4 ST, (n)d, (n)d+1, (n)d+2, (n+1)d-1 etc.

For fractions:
n = nd
n.25+ = nd+1
n.5+ = nd+2
n.75+ = (n+1)d-1



CONVERTING EXISTING DAMAGE

Existing damage calculations, like firearms, should be converted to a number then multiplied by 2.5. A pistol which normally does 2d+2 would then become 6d+1 (2d+2 is 2.5 multiplied by 2.5 gives 6.25, that becomes 6d+1).

(n)d+C -> 2.5((n).(C/4))

This makes firearms superior to muscle bound weapons. In order for a person to achieve the same amount of damage as a pistol, using the new damage table, they would require an ST score of 25. Compared to the normal table, which requires ST of just 16! Like wise Bows now also deal less damage when compared to firearms.



CHANGES TO EXISTING ADVANTAGES

Damage Resistance gets a face lift. Before it cost 5cp for 1 DR, with the new damage table DR needs to increase in order to be as effective as before, therefore we increase it by 2.5 as well. This gives us 2.5 DR per 5cp, with a little math we can see that Damage Resistance now cost only 2cp per level. Convert existing DR by multiplying it by 2.5 and round up. This allows for a more gradual progression of DR that was not possible before with armor.

DR = 2cp/level


Hit points are now calculated by multiplying ST with 2.5, the cost is changed to 1cp per level.

HP = STx2.5
HP = 1cp/level


Knockback calculation has changed as well due to the increase in die. Before it was the total amount of damage rolled divided by the targets ST-2, for every multiple of that they were pushed back a yard. Now you must divide the damage first by 2.5.



DR value of armor is increased by 2.5, round up.

normal value = revised value
DR 1 = DR 3
DR 2 = DR 5
DR 3 = DR 8
DR 4 = DR 10
DR 5 = DR 13
DR 6 = DR 15
DR 7 = DR 18




Weapons flat bonuses are "either/or" now following the below table.

-3 or -2 per die
-2 or -1 per die
-1 or -1 per 2 die
+0
+1 or +1 per 2 die
+2 or +1 per die
+3 or +2 per die
+4 or +3 per die
+5 or +4 per die
+6 or +5 per die