Pixie Weapon Damage

[Colarmel]

Originally Posted by ravenfish

There doesn't have to be a lever involved. A katar thrust, which amounts to a punch with a blade on the end, will do far less damage when wielded by a pixie than a bladeless punch made by that same pixie. Thia strikes me as failing a sanity check.

I agree that thrusting damage shouldn't be hugely affected by SM changes, except that it may move down a wounding category - a pixie's rapier probably ought do piercing rather than impaling damage on SM 0 creatures.

But a swung staff? That's never going to be an effective choice.

[Kalzazz]

Thats why I suggested using LTC 2 rules and somehow getting rid of the Min ST problem

A ST 5 pixie wielding a SM -6 katar would do 1d-4 Imp in that case, compared to 1d-5 cr for a punch

Even if you keep the Min ST rule, you are doing 1d-5 imp vs 1d-5 cr

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by ravenfish

There doesn't have to be a lever involved. A katar thrust, which amounts to a punch with a blade on the end, will do far less damage when wielded by a pixie than a bladeless punch made by that same pixie. Thia strikes me as failing a sanity check.

Don't forget a katar being imp* will be doing a minimum 1 point of damage for a 2* point injury. but a successful cr punch can be reduced to 0 or less damage (and often will be at this level). for instance a ST5 pixie will be punching at 1d-5 unless they have skill bonuses or doing an AoA etc.

This raises it's own question of course, but basically GURPS combat at this level raises lots of questions!



*although if you adjust injury mods due to low SM this might change

[ravenfish]

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

Don't forget a katar being imp* will be doing a minimum 1 point of damage for a 2* point injury. but a successful cr punch can be reduced to 0 or less damage (and often will be at this level). for instance a ST5 pixie will be punching at 1d-5 unless they have skill bonuses or doing an AoA etc.

This raises it's own question of course, but basically GURPS combat at this level raises lots of questions!



*although if you adjust injury mods due to low SM this might change

Fair enough, but that doesn't help with thrust/crushing weapons. Moreover, the results become very odd when dealing with very small creatures who aren't very weak (which might be due to magic or cinematic reality, but might also be realistic for technological constructs powered by something other than muscle). A ST10, SM -5 creature (whether he's a Nac Mac Feegle or a small but powerful robot) would punch for 1d-3 (and be capable of harming unarmored and even lightly armored opponents), but, if he strapped a cestus over his fist, would suddenly deal 1d-7 damage (and be literally incapable of hurting a fly).

My instinct is to go with the Low Tech Companion scaling rules as causing less ridiculous results, or to use T-Bone's GULLIVER if I am particularly concerned about scaling. I have a suspicion, in fact, that the Dungeon Fantasy scaling rules were at least in part designed as a "nerf" to small characters (who get useful bonuses in combat and, particularly if not restricted to realistic strength, remarkably few penalties- "harder to hit in combat" tends to be much more important in Dungeon Fantasy than "has trouble reaching the top shelf") rather than for plausibility or even playibility.

[Bruno]

Re: GURPS Fantasy Tech 2

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

This is why I think the rules for, I'm guessing, Buster-Swords-with-the-serial-numbers-filed-off in the new book might be appropriate

For what its worth, it covers two kinds of giant weapon:

1. A very long blade, but not a thick cleaver of a blade. Its width is still measured in inches (although more inches than a "regular" two handed sword) and its thickness is no more than a regular sword. This is the "semi-realistic" version, where part of the "semi-" comes from a very big sword being able to support itself in combat with such a thin cross section.
2. The Buster-Sword style where the blade may not be that much longer than a sensible two-handed sword, but its width is measured in feet and it may be rectangular with a clipped point, rather than tapered. This is the "I really don't care about realism version", which ironically is at least more plausible when it comes to surviving being used as a weapon... but it's a ridiculous weapon.

Michael Cthulhu on Youtube makes Buster Sword replicas (along with other big giant swords, and similarly oversized fantasy weapons) at correct proportions, out of serious steel (not, eg, honeycomb aluminum or something else more lightweight). And then he "demonstrates" them. By this point he's got quite a bit of practice in swinging around ridiculously huge and heavy weapons, but in the demonstrations its more "Michael getting swung around by the weapon".

And then sometimes he puts flamethrowers on them. He has all the fashion and design sense of a DF PC.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by ravenfish

Fair enough, but that doesn't help with thrust/crushing weapons. Moreover, the results become very odd when dealing with very small creatures who aren't very weak (which might be due to magic or cinematic reality, but might also be realistic for technological constructs powered by something other than muscle). A ST10, SM -5 creature (whether he's a Nac Mac Feegle or a small but powerful robot) would punch for 1d-3 (and be capable of harming unarmored and even lightly armored opponents), but, if he strapped a cestus over his fist, would suddenly deal 1d-7 damage (and be literally incapable of hurting a fly).

My instinct is to go with the Low Tech Companion scaling rules as causing less ridiculous results, or to use T-Bone's GULLIVER if I am particularly concerned about scaling. I have a suspicion, in fact, that the Dungeon Fantasy scaling rules were at least in part designed as a "nerf" to small characters (who get useful bonuses in combat and, particularly if not restricted to realistic strength, remarkably few penalties- "harder to hit in combat" tends to be much more important in Dungeon Fantasy than "has trouble reaching the top shelf") rather than for plausibility or even playibility.

To be honest if I had a ST10 1' tall humanoids, then I really wouldn't worry too much about the MinST Rules anyway.

I have to say though if I was going to have lots of very small action I would just recalibrate the SM scale, because as I mentioned above so much gets problematic at this scale. And I think baseline vs. big works better than baseline vs. small or small vs. small.