Price Efficiency of Super-ST [Powers/Supers]

[naloth]

Originally Posted by Mark Skarr

An RPG-7 does 6d x 4 (10). That's enough damage to kill the tank (take it to below -HP) in a single shot with average damage. When it shouldn't be able to penetrate the front armor of the tank.

Seems like that is the first point of misunderstanding. I applied the same log conversation to the damage weapons do as well. "Equipment" is a broad term that I apply to stuff bought with $$$ rather than points.

Otherwise, yes, it would be a problem to have linear equipment but just log ST and log DR.

Considering that the WWII tank you were talking about only had a DR of 24 . . .. 15 would be in the same vein as an APC.

Ah, so it was a strawman. The WW2 era tank had DR 39 with the modern one coming around 51. If you've managed to do that damage with a 2d - 5d attack you probably aren't using d6 dice like the rest of us.

But, again, if it's working for you, go for it. I've played Hero, and your method is just a GURPS-y method for doing the same thing. It's an innovative way of doing it. But, there are a lot of things (like existing damage codes) that are going to give you way more trouble than your ready for.

The problem with assuming you know everything, but not even reading/understanding means that you make a lot of arguments that don't even apply. It may not be to your taste, but it's obvious you haven't even tried anything similar because you bring up non-issues or suggest that I mix and match in ways that is not happening.

[naloth]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Side Effect is a penetration modifier

Where do you see that? It's not in the description of Side Effect or Cosmic.

You may only add this enhance-
ment to an Innate Attack, and you
cannot combine it with penetration
modifiers other than Armor Divisor.

Like Cosmic, this ability may not be combined with Penetration Modifiers, but it doesn't say it is one anywhere.

As for the rest, Malediction has a better range and ignores active defenses. It, of course, has the drawback that often powerful targets will defend with >50% chance of success per attack whereas if you can get a hit the other attack will almost always work.

If you are concerned with hitting a target or the target defending, slap on a bit of Rapid Fire or Super Luck.

[AlexanderHowl]

Which increases the cost even more, so we are rapidly going away from efficient ways of dealing with characters with Super ST. The Affliction is a relatively cheap way of dealing with the issue, the Side Effect, not so much, and the Affliction is permanent while the Side Effect is not. The amusing thing is that a character with the Affliction could use it to cripple the character with the Side Effect, after getting paralyzed by the Side Effect, because Malediction does not normally require speech or movement.

As for the 50% probability of failure, Selectivity allows you to target HT or Will, so take a look at the character templates from Supers. The majority of them have a HT or Will of 12, which means that they will fail by four on average (translating to a 75% of success). With No Signature, you also usually get to try again, as your opponent is unaware of the attack until you succeed, so a 50% success rate is acceptable.

[naloth]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Which increases the cost even more, so we are rapidly going away from efficient ways of dealing with characters with Super ST.

True, the only relevance is that it usually doesn't cost more than 100-200 points to disable characters in GURPS.

The amusing thing is that a character with the Affliction could use it to cripple the character with the Side Effect, after getting paralyzed by the Side Effect, because Malediction does not normally require speech or movement.

Eh? Using the malediction would require a Concentrate maneuver which you couldn't while dead or dying. In any case, you could just as easily downgrade it from "kill" to to incapacitate by taking sleep/unconsciousness instead.

As for the 50% probability of failure, Selectivity allows you to target HT or Will, so take a look at the character templates from Supers. The majority of them have a HT or Will of 12, which means that they will fail by four on average (translating to a 75% of success).

I wouldn't count on most 500+ point characters ending up like those templates. Even so, unless you peek at the character sheet you wouldn't necessarily know which if any stat would be easier to beat. <edit> Perhaps a better way of saying this is that we are looking for an attack that would reliably take down the most powerful bricks (Superman) rather than a guy that invested in mental powers and ended up in a wheelchair. It doesn't matter if it works on "average" people, since equipment or even normals can deal with such targets if they can get the drop on them. </edit>

No Signature works the same way for either ability. It's just as easy to have a surprise attack with either ability that they don't know to defend against that you can use over and over. Your chance of success is better trying to get them to fail a heavily penalized roll than trying to to get a target to lose a capped contest.

If incapacitating the target was the only goal, I imagine I could even get the total cost down around 100 points. As it was, this was just an alternate example of how enough points gives you other options than raw damage for taking down a high value target.

[naloth]

Originally Posted by Anthony

There are problems with using logarithms for damage, because logarithms make multiplication and division easy, but addition and subtraction hard.

I generally provide new players a few hints for layering and combine abilities. It's about 4 sentences to summarize.

To look at your example, your WWII tank has DR 35 and HP 34.

Most of this is fairly accurate.

It means that Thing/Colossus type (original, they have grown in power) would be a match for a WW2 tank but it would take them several seconds to deal with it after closing.

Movie Superman at ST80 would take a few turns to shred a modern tank. Supers has other options than punching (with ST80 vs DR, he could rip pieces even of the front armor and would be able to yank and pull side pieces in a turn after grappling).

Given that even in almost every cinematic story it usually take a few seconds for any character to bring their abilities to bear on a foe I don't see it as a big problem that one-shotting important enemies is hard.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by naloth

Given that even in almost every cinematic story it usually take a few seconds for any character to bring their abilities to bear on a foe I don't see it as a big problem that one-shotting important enemies is hard.

There is no guarantee that a tank is an important enemy. "Hit points are based on plot importance" is a perfectly reasonable rule for supers and similar cinematic settings, but comes with its own bag of issues.

[naloth]

Originally Posted by Anthony

There is no guarantee that a tank is an important enemy. "Hit points are based on plot importance" is a perfectly reasonable rule for supers and similar cinematic settings, but comes with its own bag of issues.

That's not what I meant. HPs should be consistent for record keeping. You wouldn't necessarily use them for every foe (mook rules).

As for "one shotting" being a one second, one attack kill - I don't see that as a necessity. Movie Superman/Wonder Man often spends what would be a few seconds of actions picking up and throwing or ripping apart things that are obviously no match for them. It's not necessary to boost stats to the point where they can dispatch them in a second of action, guaranteed. You can if it suits your tastes.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by naloth

That's not what I meant.

It's the logical implication of what you're saying.

One-shotting a HP 10 human requires 30x the strength required to major wound them. One-shotting a HP 34 tank requires 630,000x the strength. That obviously doesn't make sense. Your response to this is "I don't see it as a big problem that one-shotting important enemies is hard." The only way I can interpret that is that the tank is important and the human is not.

That's both weird and genre-wrong (humans in supers are actually ridiculously durable compared to objects).

[naloth]

Originally Posted by Anthony

It's the logical implication of what you're saying.

One-shotting a HP 10 human requires 30x the strength required to major wound them. One-shotting a HP 34 tank requires 630,000x the strength. That obviously doesn't make sense. Your response to this is "I don't see it as a big problem that one-shotting important enemies is hard."

That's a rather convoluted argument to get to a ratio that doesn't have any real bearing on play that also doesn't involve anything I've said.

The only way I can interpret that is that the tank is important and the human is not.

The mook rules are about what's important to the character/plot/story. It could be henchmen, some robots defense guards, or perhaps a few army tanks. It's not about the power level of the "mook" in question, but about if it's worth spending play time on resolving.

That's both weird and genre-wrong (humans in supers are actually ridiculously durable compared to objects).

In play, that's how this works.

With only 30ish HP, such a tank would only be x3 as tough as a human with HP10 for taking damage. Damage is purchased for a fixed linear cost (+1 per point of ST or +1d per level of IA), so it gets relatively easier to hurt the tank for the cost.

Compared to the present system where the tank has at least 13 times the HP of a human, any attack that can bring even an armorless tank to half health will have already reduced a human to -5xHP.