4E's hit point philosophy

[JP42]

Originally Posted by Icelander

I'm hoping David Pulver will, if he sees interest, come up with an adaptation of his Spaceships system, though, incorporating his fixes from Pyramid for large, more-or-less homogenous things. That has potential to be elegant, playable and realistic enough to be useful.

Emphasis mine.

This, I think, hits on the disconnect that I'm seeing from Andrew. We're not (at least not all of us, and all the time) asking for a system that requires a scientific calculator during play to calculate damage - what we are saying is that the current system is a curve that doesn't fit the data when some additional data points were plotted. All we're after is a function that more closely fits observable data.

[Pragmatic]

I'm going to take another tack at it...

SJ Games has limited resources. They must allocate those resources (the most limited being human resources) to the maximum extraction of profits, given some artificial limitations (e.g., "Steve Jackson, the owner, really likes GURPS, so even though it'd be more profitable to dump GURPS in favor of more card games, he continues to support it"... and thanks, Steve! :-).

Given the scarcity, and the requirement of relatively-efficient allocation of resources, they have to measure whether a project is worth the effort. There's lots of GREAT IDEAS that are posted to these forums, daily. But experience has taught them that some things just don't sell enough to be worth spending the time on.

There are some things that are either going to remain in the realm of "fan works," or are going to get short articles in a future Pyramid. SJ Games isn't going to be able to devote any more time to them than that.

Perhaps the number of people who want detailed "crunch" about vehicle combat isn't enough to get a supplement? Perhaps most people prefer to just "wing it"? It'd most likely not enough to revise the core rulebooks, prior to some hypothetical Fifth Edition (and please don't start a tangent on THAT topic...!).

Anyway, that's my two cents. But with inflation, we'll have to up to two drachma! :-)

[tbone]

Originally Posted by hal

What started this whole train of thought, is the issue that stems from why Age of Sail ships in history could take the pounding that they did historically, but can't take with the current rules in GURPS 4e.

I might be the only one reading the thread who's pretty ignorant about big gun stuff and vehicle stuff (just not my area of play). But in case others like me wander by:

It'd be interesting to see a simple example of the problem you mention. That is, I know that cannons do a lot more damage than muskets in GURPS, and that ships definitely have more DR and HP than sailors, so without knowing anything more, I wouldn't have guessed there's a big issue. What numbers are you looking at that suggest something's off?

This curious gamer would be thankful if you could jot down a quick example involving pirate ships or bomber plans or whatever's unsatisfying. (Nothing time consuming needed; if I want detail I should get out the books and research on my own!)

[Andrew Hackard]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

There is no need to be so defensive. We aren't calling your children ugly, for goodness' sake.
The game isn't perfect, and has its flaws. Pretending they don't exist is actually rather disrespectful to the areas that it excels in.

You're misreading my tone; I'd say other posters in this thread have been far more defensive than I have been, to be honest. All I'm saying is that, in my opinion, what some people are calling flaws are more correctly termed design choices.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by tbone

It'd be interesting to see a simple example of the problem you mention. That is, I know that cannons do a lot more damage than muskets in GURPS, and that ships definitely have more DR and HP than sailors, so without knowing anything more, I wouldn't have guessed there's a big issue. What numbers are you looking at that suggest something's off?

The rabinet, a very small cannon, does 5d pi++, because that's the measurable penetration against RHA steel. A typical flintlock musket does 4d+2 pi++. By the rules, they are almost equivalent for destroying a wooden warship. In reality, of course, the larger and heavier projectile is much more effective against wooden decks and sides.

That's... less than excellent. On the other hand, the rabinet is not meant for destroying warships anway, so maybe it doesn't matter.

On the other hand, the fact that 24-lb and 42-lb cannon do the same damage is kind of wacky.

Or that when shooting at a sloop of war, it takes, on average, about nine 12-lb shot for it to be at serious risk of sinking (ca -x1 HP) and 25 twelve-pounder shot for them to be completely destroyed. Even worse, using 42-lb shot, you still need 7 to be likely to sink it and 20 to destroy it, while you can also sink it by managing to hit it with a volley of musket balls, since 55 of those will have a good chance of sinking it and 165 of them will destroy it completely.

Does it make sense to anyone that 165 one-ounce musket balls (at lower velocity, to boot), have the same effects as twenty 42-pound cannoballs?

Does it seem to fit with descriptions of fictional or real naval battles to have a couple of good musket volleys from the marines and sailors sink the opposing ship? Is that the kind of naval action that anyone is aiming to emulate?

[hal]

Originally Posted by tbone

I might be the only one reading the thread who's pretty ignorant about big gun stuff and vehicle stuff (just not my area of play). But in case others like me wander by:

It'd be interesting to see a simple example of the problem you mention. That is, I know that cannons do a lot more damage than muskets in GURPS, and that ships definitely have more DR and HP than sailors, so without knowing anything more, I wouldn't have guessed there's a big issue. What numbers are you looking at that suggest something's off?

This curious gamer would be thankful if you could jot down a quick example involving pirate ships or bomber plans or whatever's unsatisfying. (Nothing time consuming needed; if I want detail I should get out the books and research on my own!)

I have a book that relates of a battle involving a 98 gun ship of the line. The crew of said ship removed 200 balls from its hull after a battle, and within a fortnight, were back up and running ready for any further missions. Ships of the line fought only other ships of the line with comparable gun throw weights. If you were to ask me what a given ship carried in the British Navy during say, 1802, I probably could get you the breakdown of how many guns it carried capable of of any given weight of projectile. In addition, we have historical accounts of ship of the line battles in which ships endured hours of punishing bombardment without sinking. There were those who questioned the accuracy ratings of guns firing from a range of say, 50 yards, without realizing that these shots are nearly point blank in terms of naval warfare in the day. 50 Yards is nothing when you consider the fact that often times, the yardarms of ships extended half again as far as the width of the hull. Quick rule of thumb? Yardarms extended twice the width of the hull (not entirely accurate, but close enough for government work). So two ships that are yardarm to yardarm, with three gun decks, aren't going to miss with all too many (if ANY!) shots at 50 yards.

In short - my observation regarding ships of the line is that you can't call the weight of a ship X, which includes the masts, the lines (rope), the tackle, the reinforcements for hull construction, the equipment used to repair the ship and cook food etc, along with the guns themselves - and merge it all into one hit point pool and be done with it. A cannonball that penetrates the hull loses energy penetrating the hull, then flies through the hull in search of something else to damage. It might lop off a limb, disembowel a human being, or strike a support beam within (inflicting some structural damage to the wood, but not structural damage to the hull itself) or even strike a bronze or iron cast cannon or its truck. If each cannon had its own hit points separate from the ship - then the damage inflicted by a cannonball would be more "manageable" relative to the ship itself.

What is perhaps even worse in all of this? The mathematical philosophy of "The sum is equal to the whole of its parts" does not hold true in GURPS 4e. Don't believe me?

Try this on for size...

Take a ship, and assume that the water it displaces is its true weight/mass overall. Then add in the cannons, supplies, rigging and mast, etc - and add the mass together and determine the hit points of the ship per the rules given.

Now, take the time to determine the hit points of each singular cannon by weight. Compute their hit points via the rules as written, but treat their hit points as separate from that of the ship's. Add up the total hit points per cannon to the hit points of the ship, and the total hit points for the ship with cannons does not equal the hit points of the combined mass of ship plus cannons. In this instance, the whole is NOT equal to the sum of its parts.

[Ulzgoroth]

That conflates the piercing type cap problem with the damage aggregation problem some. Both exist, but they are at least partially separable...

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

That conflates the piercing type cap problem with the damage aggregation problem some. Both exist, but they are at least partially separable...

Well, sure.

But I think that a system for damage against large targets ought to include a solution for both. If it weren't for this pesky work, I'd have tried continuing Pulver's work in Pyramid and see if I couldn't figure something out.

Of course, if you extend pi damage to larger stuff, you have to account for larger imp, at least. There's a world of difference between the wounding and structural damage potential for a narrow-pointed arrow for small game (however fast it may be going) and a giant's broad-bladed spear.

Rather than change HP for large stuff, I was thinking about reducing WCM (i.e. the damage modifier) for weapons that are not sized for use on that SM. It looked promising, but too much work to do for free.* On the other hand, do it with others as part of playtesting or contributing material to a larger book and it's much less like work, more like play.

*Or the kind of pay gaming companies offer, which is more or less the same thing.

[rust]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Does it seem to fit with descriptions of fictional or real naval battles to have a couple of good musket volleys from the marines and sailors sink the opposing ship? Is that the kind of naval action that anyone is aiming to emulate?

Hardly, but there are only very few roleplaying game combat systems where
the authors succeeded to create one system for the different scales of any
potential combat, from human scale to small vehicle scale to ship / starship
scale - frankly, I have yet to see a truly convincing example, in the end it al-
ways comes down to two separate systems for human scale and big vehicle
scale. In my view the standard GURPS combat system does acceptably well
for human scale combat, which in my experience almost implies that it is less
able to deliver equally good results on the big vehicle scale, this would requi-
re a second, differently scaled system. Unfortunately such a system seems
to be missing (I do not know all GURPS materials), but this is not a fault of
the human scale combat system which obviously was designed for a different
purpose - using it for a bigger scale just does not make much sense.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Rather than change HP for large stuff, I was thinking about reducing WCM (i.e. the damage modifier) for weapons that are not sized for use on that SM. It looked promising, but too much work to do for free.*

Huh? Change damage notation from 'Pi++', etc, to 'Pi+2' or whatever, apply it to all attack types instead of just Pi, compare the wound class modifier to the SM of the target, and do a table lookup. Add some special processing for area effect attacks (most likely, they simply ignore target SM unless the target is larger than the area effect). A simple table would be:

• [B]WCM-SM >= 2: wounding multiplier = (WCM-SM)
• [B]WCM-SM == 1: wounding multiplier = 1.5
• [B]WCM-SM == 0: wounding multiplier = 1.0
• [B]WCM-SM == -1: wounding multiplier = 2/3.
• [B]WCM-SM == -2: wounding multiplier = 1/2.
• [B]WCM-SM == -3: wounding multiplier = 1/3.
• [B]WCM-SM == -4: wounding multiplier = 1/5.
• [B]WCM-SM == -5: wounding multiplier = 1/7.
• [B]WCM-SM == -6: wounding multiplier = 1/10.
• etc...
• Attacks get +4 WCM vs the brain, +2 vs the vitals.
• Cutting attacks get +1 WCM, Impaling attacks get +2.
• For firearms, look up size (in mm) on the size chart and subtract 3, so 7-10mm is +0.
• Unliving is -2 WCM for piercing and impaling, Homogenous is -4.
• IT(DR) subtracts from WCM on a 1:1 basis.

This makes SM significantly better, but IMO SM is currently a net penalty, so no big deal.