Simplified Jumping?

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Depends a great deal on situation. In an arena fight the guy who put 15 points into 3d innate attack beats the guy who put 15 points into DR 5 (cannot wear armor) and uses his fists to attack, and both of them beat the guy who put those 15 points into Striking ST +3.

That's because it's an arena fight, that is just going to lean on IA for most useful. DR is great for characters who are facing damage from threats they either can't kill (traps and OP villains), won't kill (trying to capture or escape), or don't want to or can't dodge.

Plus, in this situation you might as well slap on Tough Skin too and get DR15 to ignore the IA, especially if you are using Armor as Dice to just ignore 4d of damage.

I'm not saying Striking ST is properly costed exactly as it is (I've seen good arguments for 2/lvl and 3/lvl), but being able to wield different weapons and the ability to slap it onto IAs is definitely more versatile than a single IA... except in a situation that blatantly rewards the IA user. But then, I feel Affliction (Daze, Fixed Duration) can do wonders for 15pts because in a duel it is a fight ender and you don't have to kill them (you can since they can't do anything until struck so you might as well make any attack at the brain, you've got 180 seconds).

[naloth]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

Sorry, I'm not sure how this applies to what I was saying.

I was just looking at the scaling of damage overall.

I've been mostly okay with Striking ST due to it's ability to do damage in a multitude of ways. A single IA should be cheaper than Striking ST, regardless of what the price difference would be to be most fair.

While I'm not exactly disagreeing with this Striking ST is way too high compared to IA. ~4 pts of Striking ST (20 pts) is equal to about 1d of the avg IA value (5 pts). If you put Striking ST at about 2/lvl it's "only" about +50% more than an IA for the same damage.

That presumes the +50% you're paying for allows you to:
- Get a (flat) damage bonus using weapons
- Get a variable reach with weapons
- Use range weapons

It carries the drawbacks of:
- Melee (CC) if you don't have a weapon.
- Exposing your limbs to risk if you don't have a weapon.

There's also the added complication of per die bonuses which effectively increase your Striking ST damage by +33% per +1/die. I'd replace those with two separate rules. Damage bonuses based on having points in skill (perhaps a flat +1 per 4 or 8 points of skill?). AoA (strong) becomes a type of Extra Effort.

I've definitely found DR to be much more useful than IA.

Useful how? Here's the comparisons I make for DR:

The first is to other relative defenses. Speed is usually a better deal. Dodging an attack (no damage regardless of power) is better than hoping your DR will deflect it. You also get bonus to get away from combat and get to cover (free DR, makes you harder to hit).

The second it to what you can buy to defeat DR. For the same point value you can do x3 the damage that DR protects against. DR guy tends to lose to the same PV or IA guy if all other things are held equal.

The third comparison is relative to equipment. Is armor + DR going to protect you well from the weapons and advantages in play? At TL8+, not likely. At TL5-, quite often. For TL6-7? Maybe.

I keep forgetting RAW has a minimum 1 damage, I always buy it off. In fact in my house rules it currently is just gone. Your point about suffocation to me is an odd quirk in the rules, especially since people die without air in 4 minutes in RAW.

Conversely, I rarely if ever allow the 1 min damage to be bought off. Even so, I'd still charge the +50% since it's an optional rule on top of an optional rule that balances higher levels.

As for suffocation, it usually works by doing HP damage after you run out of fatigue. Did you take away the danger of taking HP damage when out of fatigue? That changes quite a few things...

[naloth]

Just for fun here's a relative look at the various ST proposals we've been discussing and how they relate:

KYOS: From Alternate GURPS IV. This scales very fast for lift (every +10 multiplies it by a cumulative x10) and linearly for thrust (+1 thr/lvl). ST costs 10/level.

"Scale": ST decreases in cost as it goes up such that 50 points moves you up each step on the speed range chart starting at 10 and following the progression from there (10, 15, 20, 30, 50, 70, 100, 150, 200).

Super-ST: The solution presented in supers. You can use Super-Effort instead of Extra Effort costing 1 fatigue/use but giving you a speed/range value to add to your lift, damage, etc for that use.


BL.........KYOS..................Scale (50/+1 speed/range)..Super-ST
50 lbs.....ST 14 Thr 1d+2 [40]...ST 16 Thr 1d+1? [60].......ST 16 Thr 1d+1 [60]
500 lbs....ST 24 Thr 4d [140]....ST 50 Thr 5d [200].........ST 27/50 Thr 5d+2 [380]
1 ton......ST 30 Thr 5d+2 [200]..ST 100 Thr 10d [300].......ST 29/90 Thr 10d [460]
10 tons....ST 40 Thr 8d [300]....ST 300 Thr 30d [450].......ST 33/320 Thr 34d [620]
100 tons...ST 50 Thr 10d+2 [400].ST 1000 Thr 100d [700].....ST 36/1020 Thr 103d [740]


Super-ST obviously costs the most, costs fatigue/use, only works for a limited set of functions (no extra HP, doesn't add to enc, etc), and replaces Extra Effort (which is often overlooked). Super-ST also offers very little benefit until you get above ST100. Cost-wise, it's less than a +20% cost to double going from ST50 to ST90. Below ST50 it's often cheaper just to buy ST.

Scaling the cost of ST gives you similar values to Super-ST but all the advantages of actually having that ST value.

KYOS is obviously the best lifting for a point budget, but you don't get damage or lots of HP for that value.

Thoughts:
KYOS costs feel about right for lifting capacity. You can compensate for the lack of damage and HP by taking HP, IT:DR, and either IA or Striking ST as desired with the points you save. The biggest drawback here is that you'd have to buy multiple traits to get what you want.

Progressively decreasing cost (scale) seems to be the simplest solution for buying everything as one stat. The costs seem a bit high compared to what you could get in the i-range, but it progresses well for Supers in the d and higher range. Decreasing costs for other traits would be necessary to keep them in line with the progression of this one.

Other than being the "official" solution, I can't see a reason to use Super-ST. There are ways to do almost everything it does using other abilities for less cost, and it doesn't compare favorably in cost or function except at really high levels when it's better than everything else.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

DR10 means ignoring mundane enemies in low TLs

Unless they crit you in the face, one of the results on that table is ignoring DR completely.

Gotta invest in No Head w/ No Sig to avoid that, most likely.

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by naloth

While I'm not exactly disagreeing with this Striking ST is way too high compared to IA. ~4 pts of Striking ST (20 pts) is equal to about 1d of the avg IA value (5 pts). If you put Striking ST at about 2/lvl it's "only" about +50% more than an IA for the same damage.

That presumes the +50% you're paying for allows you to:
- Get a (flat) damage bonus using weapons
- Get a variable reach with weapons
- Use range weapons

It carries the drawbacks of:
- Melee (CC) if you don't have a weapon.
- Exposing your limbs to risk if you don't have a weapon.

The first is to other relative defenses. Speed is usually a better deal. Dodging an attack (no damage regardless of power) is better than hoping your DR will deflect it. You also get bonus to get away from combat and get to cover (free DR, makes you harder to hit).

In combat. Dodge is particularly only useful if you both know the attack is coming and are able to dodge it. I think that's a large thing people miss about DR is that it's always useful; DR protects against attacks you don't know about (but Danger Sense is super useful here) such as sniping, traps, drugged darts, etc. DR protects against non-attacks that you might even intentionally go for such as falling, climbing over barbed wire, walking through fire, avalanches, etc (Assuming you don't play with GMs who say "Rocks fall, party dies").

Further, enough DR to protect against commonplace mundane attacks can do a lot even when a super can easily overcome it. Enough DR to stop melee attacks means far less potential threats in TL4. Enough to stop bullets applies in TL8.

There's also the fact that DR is actually cheaper than it looks. Take away the downsides of Flexible in Tough Skin and your DR is strictly DR with no other side effects. Get Can't Wear Armor if you aren't planning on weighing yourself down (and Kromm even suggested a further -20 disad for CWA on top of the limitation). And combining CWA with Tough Skin isn't unreasonable, unrealistic, or outside of genre so the 1pt per level actually scales hard against, say, Cutting which does less damage unmodified than the DR you buy with the same points.

Originally Posted by Plane

Unless they crit you in the face, one of the results on that table is ignoring DR completely.

Gotta invest in No Head w/ No Sig to avoid that, most likely.

Or just be immune to crits ;) (Luck is generally good enough for that considering how rare they are, but I worked out a variant that makes you immune to crits for 15pts)

[naloth]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

In combat. Dodge is particularly only useful if you both know the attack is coming and are able to dodge it. I think that's a large thing people miss about DR is that it's always useful; DR protects against attacks you don't know about (but Danger Sense is super useful here) such as sniping, traps, drugged darts, etc. DR protects against non-attacks that you might even intentionally go for such as falling, climbing over barbed wire, walking through fire, avalanches, etc (Assuming you don't play with GMs who say "Rocks fall, party dies").

Dodge is useful when it applies, just like DR is useful when it's useful. DR may always come into play, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's really that useful. DR 10 (50 points) may protect you against pistols, but if someone snipes you in the head with a sniper rifle (32 damage -10 DR -2 skull DR, 20 damage x 4 = 80 damage) it only matters how much you splatter. A battle rifle may take a few more shots to put you down while assault rifles with AP ammo will still chew you to bits in about the same time.

Further, enough DR to protect against commonplace mundane attacks can do a lot even when a super can easily overcome it. Enough DR to stop melee attacks means far less potential threats in TL4. Enough to stop bullets applies in TL8.

Sure, but since DR doesn't scale with TL you don't necessarily have protection against those attacks at an affordable level.

Take away the downsides of Flexible in Tough Skin and your DR is strictly DR with no other side effects.

GMs can also fait that bullets automatically miss to encourage melee fighting. It's not much of a commentary on how the system works.

Get Can't Wear Armor if you aren't planning on weighing yourself down (and Kromm even suggested a further -20 disad for CWA on top of the limitation). And combining CWA with Tough Skin isn't unreasonable, unrealistic, or outside of genre so the 1pt per level actually scales hard against, say, Cutting which does less damage unmodified than the DR you buy with the same points.

Tough Skin (-40%) has some serious drawbacks even if you're allowing CWA essentially as a pact (which I've done liberally). It makes it ineffective against anything that only needs to touch your skin and also means you take blunt trauma. That latter effect is pretty serious when you get into high DR. You might take enough blunt trauma to still put you at -HT.

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by naloth

Sure, but since DR doesn't scale with TL

Which is an issue with a lot of combat stuff in general. A modern day sniper is just in a better position than someone with affordable DR, Striking ST, IA, Dodge, etc. I don't see an issue with the proposed (TL - 4, min 0) * -10% limitation I've seen around these boards as a houserule. If anything Dodge in particular scales better with TL.

Originally Posted by naloth

GMs can also fait that bullets automatically miss to encourage melee fighting. It's not much of a commentary on how the system works.

What? What does this have to do with what I said?

Originally Posted by naloth

Tough Skin (-40%) has some serious drawbacks even if you're allowing CWA essentially as a pact (which I've done liberally). It makes it ineffective against anything that only needs to touch your skin and also means you take blunt trauma. That latter effect is pretty serious when you get into high DR. You might take enough blunt trauma to still put you at -HT.

Right, which is why you take off the Flexible downside for +20%. Yes, every limitation is a limitation, but this is no different than making Healing "Injuries Only" for a power that doesn't heal disease because you want a power that specifically heals HP. Tough Skin without Flexible becomes a trait that only decreases damage dealt and nothing else.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by naloth

Tough Skin (-40%) has some serious drawbacks even if you're allowing CWA essentially as a pact (which I've done liberally). It makes it ineffective against anything that only needs to touch your skin and also means you take blunt trauma. That latter effect is pretty serious when you get into high DR. You might take enough blunt trauma to still put you at -HT.

A great many touch attacks just have to touch you or your clothes/armour, so it's not a huge drawback over normal DR in many settings. To really be protected from such things you want Force Field.

[naloth]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

I don't see an issue with the proposed (TL - 4, min 0) * -10% limitation I've seen around these boards as a houserule. If anything Dodge in particular scales better with TL.

Arguably ST, IA, and other abilities should qualify as well since equipment affects the usefulness of those as well. I'm not sure I really want to worry about available equipment, though.

What? What does this have to do with what I said?

It sounded like you giving the -40% Tough Skin limitation but not having the drawbacks of "skin" and "flexible".

Right, which is why you take off the Flexible downside for +20%. Yes, every limitation is a limitation, but this is no different than making Healing "Injuries Only" for a power that doesn't heal disease because you want a power that specifically heals HP. Tough Skin without Flexible becomes a trait that only decreases damage dealt and nothing else.

If you're only getting -40% CWA and -20% Doesn't protect against things that only need skin contact DR would be 2/lvl not 1/lvl like you implied above. I'm not sure where the extra -20% is coming from?

Originally Posted by Rupert

A great many touch attacks just have to touch you or your clothes/armour, so it's not a huge drawback over normal DR in many settings. To really be protected from such things you want Force Field.

If it's not really an issue, then it's not really a valid limitation in that campaign.

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by naloth

If you're only getting -40% CWA and -20% Doesn't protect against things that only need skin contact DR would be 2/lvl not 1/lvl like you implied above. I'm not sure where the extra -20% is coming from?

Two different things. It's 4pts per level with Tough Skin and no Flexible. That's the actual cost of DR if we're looking at DR for only decreasing damage. Full CWA and Tough Skin is 1/lvl and absolutely still worth it. The 2/lvl version (-20%+-40%) is still very cheap.

Originally Posted by naloth

If it's not really an issue, then it's not really a valid limitation in that campaign.

Or it's a required limitation. Using my healing example again, a setting without disease means you can't get the most out of Healing, so I'd have players take a limitation to show that.