Gaming Ballistic - GURPS Content Posts

[Anthony]

Some number crunching on the value of critical hits, with some made-up numbers added for normally unavailable effects:

• Triple Damage(3,18): +200% x 2 / 216 = +1.85%
• Halve DR(4,17): +50% x 6 / 216 = +1.39% (running total: +3.24%)
• Double Damage(5,16): +100% x 12 / 216 = +5.56% (running total: +8.80%)
• Max Damage (6,15): +70% x 20 / 216 = 6.48% (running total: +15.28%)
• Auto-MW (6,13,14): +50% x 51 / 216 = 11.81% (running total: +27.08%)
• Double Shock (7): +20% x 21 / 216 = 1.94% (running total: +29.03%)
• Drop Weapon (12): +50% x 25 / 216 = 5.79% (running total: +34.81%)

If we assume that normally half the damage of attacks is lost vs DR, and no critical hit effects are likely to be lost, that basically doubles it and says a critical hit is worth about 1.7 normal hits, meaning going from 16 to 14 is effectively about as valuable as a 5.2% increase in hit probability. That pretty much eliminates any cases where reducing effective skill below is is valuable.

[DouglasCole]

Maybe a starting point for a unification of the Camouflage and Stealth rules into something clear and easy to adjudicate.

Thanks to Kallatari for the inspiration.

[DouglasCole]

My daughter says something insightful enough about good guys and bad guys that I had to blog about it. Writing and RPG campaign advice from a nearly-5yo that seems to get it.

[DouglasCole]

I follow up my comments about characterization and motivation for bad guys - inspired by my 5yo daughter's comments on watching the Lego Movie - with more details, borrowed from a structure used by the McChrystal Group.

[DouglasCole]

Aaron McLin made a good comment about how "the bad guys don't think they're evil" doesn't really work in the context of cosmologies where Actual Evil is a real, tangible, objective thing.

A fair point! But does that render the McChrystal characterization technique I proposed yesterday unusable?

Turns out it does not.

Thanks to Aaron for inspiring this third post in the series!

[DouglasCole]

The Leg ST and Lifting/Arm/Striking/Regular ST threads on the forums made me think about why The Deadly Spring and Technical Grappling both focus on Lifting ST rather than Striking ST or "all-in" ST.

[DouglasCole]

Again as part of a forum thread, this time on how strong a realistic warbow would have been, the concept of Trained ST to represent sport-specific movement and power comes in handy.

[DouglasCole]

Shawn Fisher asked what I'd do about compressing the range of bow draw weights into a smaller actual range of ST for a GURPS character, because while I like The Deadly Spring, the implications for how strong you have to be to pull a higher-end warbow are pretty extreme. I came up with several options, probably not an exhaustive list, and found two I like most of all, since they work with both TDS as well as RAW.

[DouglasCole]

Fan service! I respond to a bunch of good comments by Sean Powell on my post on drawing heavy bows for fewer points in GURPS.

[Kalzazz]

Hey, neat!

The lifting ST for bows is definitely cool and interesting, but, does seem to lead to the notion of extremely well armored archers akin to Fantasy Assault Guns . . . is this a real thing that existed? My vague grasp of history seems to fuzzily indicate that archers were not prone to wearing heavy armor, and that heavy armor users were not prone to archery

While realism is something I tend to shy away from, I like the idea of Trained ST in Archery pretty decently (or in other fairly constrained areas where only one skill really seems to be called for), and have not encountered any problem whatsoever when allowing it for archers even in blatantly realism defying games.

Consider, if the DM can find it valid for say Bella Parati the Anti Dragon War Golem to have Bow at DX+10, Bow ST (combination of Striking ST and straight ST) 25, and wielding a SM+1 reflex bow with arrows attended with a Dwarven whetstone, heroic archer, weapon master (bow) and Dual Weapon Attack (Bow) and Strongbow, to hit for 3d+11 wallop (quite useful for fulfilling her intended purpose of poking holes in dragons), subbing the +10 for Trained ST with DX+10 and 25 ST instead of Strongbow allows her to hit for . . . . 4d+13. A very nifty 5.5 or so increase, but, not a huge huge game changer

So, it feels okay in a fuzzy sense of feel logic, and lets characters be cooler when buying up their skills, and who doesn't like extra plusses?

- note, not using TDS, though it would actually be amusing to see the what such a bow would be in TDS