Math, GURPS, and its reputation for complexity

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Rupert

Then there's the amount of falling damage someone in a decent suit of ultra-tech full-body armour can take.

All armor counts as flexible to fall damage so they will get hurt by a significant fall...but preventing 80% of the damage is pretty generous.

Originally Posted by Anthony

The problem with hordes of low level monsters is mostly that it's extremely tedious to resolve, not whether it's actually that likely to defeat the PCs; PCs with the defenses to only get hit on a 20 are likely to have access to other effects that allow avoiding or dealing with the occasional critical hit.

Plus of course the ability to delete dozens of closely-packed under-level targets in a single move, for usually 1-3 characters per group.

Originally Posted by Anthony

This shows up in GURPS as well; even though skill 12 mooks doing 1d6+1 damage can eventually drop a PC in DR 6 plate, is that really a fight you want to play out?

Honestly has potential to be cool, but not for very long if the mooks are exclusively swinging basic attacks.

That situation could get pretty desperate if they're going to grapple on or try to get behind and stab the PC in the armpit with Telegraphic AoA.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Honestly has potential to be cool, but not for very long if the mooks are exclusively swinging basic attacks.

That situation could get pretty desperate if they're going to grapple on or try to get behind and stab the PC in the armpit with Telegraphic AoA.

If I were running that kind of fight, I think I'd use a variant on the swarm rules to portray the mooks.

[kenclary]

Originally Posted by Outlaw

Regardless, the realism of GURPS is off putting to many b/c, lacking supers, a mook can easily kill even high point value, human-ish characters.

<snip>

So, to mburr0003's point, GURPS is more realistically deadly, and based on my experience, contributes (among many other things), to the popularity level of GURPS.

It is part of GURPS' market reach.

(For me, I loathe games where a "mook" just can't take out a knight/hero/whatever. Watch your backs, characters; don't assume you're safe. Even the Sword of the Morning dies if you stab him in the neck at dinner.)

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by kenclary

It is part of GURPS' market reach.

I tend to agree with this. I find the very idea of "mooks" slightly unpleasant. Partly because I don't think killing people who are too weak to fight back counts as "heroic," and I don't find a story about such endeavors appealing; but partly also because there is always a chance that the apparently weak character might get in that one lucky hit, and the prudent hero doesn't let down their guard even against weak foes (see for example the story of Baldr and the mistletoe). So I prefer rules that leave a small but finite risk. GURPS provides for that, and that's something I like about it.

[RGTraynor]

Originally Posted by Outlaw

Regardless, the realism of GURPS is off putting to many b/c, lacking supers, a mook can easily kill even high point value, human-ish characters.

+1 to the responses on this one; that high point characters aren't invulnerable is a feature of the system, not a bug. To those who can't stand that their PCs can't wade through hundreds of mooks like squashing so many roaches, well, it's not as if there aren't plenty of systems that cater to that.

I'm quite the opposite. Let me tell you about the last day I DMed D&D. I'd been dissatisfied for a while at how easily PCs could handle mooks, and wondering, decided on a test. I ran my brother's Conanesque fighter (at that time, the highest level character in my campaign's history) against a horde of orc spearmen, coming from all sides, to see how many he could take down before he fell.

The battle took a good while. The total number of orc dead: one hundred and sixty-seven.

That was, to understate things considerably, offputting to me. My search for a better mousetrap eventually led me to TFT, and from there ... Anyway, I don't consider it unreasonable for there to be systems catering to my preferences. That 1st level types aren't speedbumps and 10th level types aren't quasi-immortal is one of them. And for GURPS players who want lower PC mortality rates, good grief, there are so many instant fixes. Triple or quadruple HP. Remove the ability of NPCs to get critical hits. I could think of a dozen such gimmicks within a minute's time. So could most of you.

[Outlaw]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

I've had genetically human characters who could not only survive but technically could not be killed by 38 pts of damage (22 HP). With his HT 14, Very Fit and 3 pts of Tough Skin he'd be very likely to survive 134 pts. I didn't have Martial Arts back when I made him or he'd have even more HP.

Maybe you don't need to calculate falls like that for a "human" but I suspect you're only allowing very limited characters compared to what Gurps is actually capable of.

My initial comparison was real world so obviously, yes, I am comparing human-ish characters. 22 HP for a human is not reasonable for such a setting. Also, I would not allow the DR from tough skin for a fall from that height b/c much of the damage from a fall that high will be your organs smashing into your skeleton, each other, and/or your OWN tough skin. Tough skin is still flexible enough to allow movement so it will not prevent broken bones due to the massive bone deformation caused by such a fall. And don't forget joints. Tough skin does nothing to prevent massive hyper extension, ligament tears, and cartilage destruction.

Regardless...survive, sure, jump up and continue fighting just as you did before the fall? Nope. Jump up at all, almost certainly not.

Originally Posted by Anthony

This shows up in GURPS as well; even though skill 12 mooks doing 1d6+1 damage can eventually drop a PC in DR 6 plate, is that really a fight you want to play out?

I retract my statement on hordes of mooks since it seems to be the only thing on which anyone can focus...

ONE SINGLE mook, mag dumping 7.62x39 rounds blindly down an alley from 5 yds behind a PC (who will get no active defense) has a decent chance of getting at least ONE hit. That ONE SINGLE hit will, at the very least, cripple any limb it hits. It if's a torso hit, the PC is in way more than serious trouble. GURPS is more realistically deadly.


Admittedly, to me, the concept of people walking around all the time in full plate is a bit ridiculous so PCs in the campaigns I run don't get that opportunity. With that in mind, a SINGLE MOOK, hitting with a ST 15 crossbow (2d+1 imp) FROM BEHIND a PC (who will get no defense) with DR 3 armor, will most likely do 8 pts of damage resulting in 10 [(8-3)*2] points of total impaling damage. Brutal to any reasonable human character even at high point values. A lucky hit to the vitals and you're totally out of any fight. Even with DR 6 plate on the back, it's still 4 points of total impaling damage with the most likely damage outcome. With a bit of luck on the damage roll, it can really suck. Of course, bad luck on the damage roll will suck as well considering how long it takes to reload a crossbow! Replace the mook with a skilled shooter and you're looking at an impaling hit to the vitals.

A 10th level unarmored D&D wizard with 42 hit points can take multiple heavy crossbow hits to the back and fight until they fall unconscious (assuming no crits, a test set of d10 rolls took 9 hits to drop said wizard to 1 hit point).

I believe the majority of the world's TTRPG players will go for the D&D fight every time because GURPS is more realistically deadly. Combined with its reputation for complexity.........

[Frost]

Originally Posted by Outlaw

I believe the majority of the world's TTRPG players will go for the D&D fight every time because GURPS is more realistically deadly. Combined with its reputation for complexity.........

While I agree that we could use some new blood in our community (I think the number and tone of my posts in this thread has made this clear) I don't really think that treating D&D as our primary benchmark is going to create something that will help with that. Even if you overcome the reputation GURPS will still be a minority taste and that is perfectly ok.

Personally I do consider the idea that the veteran warrior can still die at the hand of a lucky peasant a feature rather than a bug, but I know it's not for everyone.

But this might be one of the few places where I would add a definite rules change using the rule for rescaled firearms damage from pyramid as the default (with the current system as an option) this should fix the most examples of this tendency without resorting to surreal mass of hit points model.

Other than that I think the solution is better communication. Maybe suggest that cinematic PC's (and major NPC's) should have some combination of extra HP, luck and a level or so of hard to kill probably given free as a campaign feature.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Outlaw

My initial comparison was real world so obviously, yes, I am comparing human-ish characters. 22 HP for a human is not reasonable for such a setting. Also, I would not allow the DR from tough skin for a fall from that height b/c much of the damage from a fall that high will be your organs smashing into your skeleton, each other, and/or your OWN tough skin. Tough skin is still flexible enough to allow movement so it will not prevent broken bones due to the massive bone deformation caused by such a fall. And don't forget joints. Tough skin does nothing to prevent massive hyper extension, ligament tears, and cartilage destruction.

Regardless...survive, sure, jump up and continue fighting just as you did before the fall? Nope. Jump up at all, almost certainly not.

Not that bad a chance really. You're ignoring the rules for what feels truthy to you again. Even a pointless 10/10/10/10 human taking 38 damage and eating two death checks has a significant chance to not be dead, and a non-trivial chance to not be unconscious. Any kind of bonuses to the death roles has a huge impact So you'd better roll that damage!

...Of course, everybody engaging with this seems to have been trusting your presented numbers, and you haven't been pointing out their limits either. I'm not sure what you did there. It appears to me that if you actually apply the falling rules from Campaigns 431 to a 200 foot (67 yard) fall, you'd hit at 38 yd/s and get either 4d (for a softer surface) or 8d-1 (for a harder one) for a 10 HP character. 4d is unlikely to even cause one death check, 8d-1 will almost certainly cause one but is moderately unlikely to cause two. Adding HP doesn't really help, since the damage scales with HP, unless you're adding massless HP which gets out of GURPS model of normal humans. More HP actually makes it worse if you have any DR, since the damage scales with the HP and the DR doesn't.

(Of course, if you use hit locations for the fall, roll, and take it on the skull or neck that makes things appreciably worse. And failing that there's a significant risk of breaking some limbs which might impede jumping up.)

[Outlaw]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Not that bad a chance really. You're ignoring the rules for what feels truthy to you again. Even a pointless 10/10/10/10 human taking 38 damage and eating two death checks has a significant chance to not be dead, and a non-trivial chance to not be unconscious. Any kind of bonuses to the death roles has a huge impact So you'd better roll that damage!

Less than 1/3 HP and you're in trouble in GURPS. Less than 0 HP, sure you can make a HT checks at -multiples of HP, but you must roll EVERY TURN to stay conscious. Without help you won't last long, even if you're at the bottom of a ravine alone. If you're not alone, you're also at half move so practically anyone can stay out of range of a melee weapon and simply wait until you drop. If you choose do nothing to avoid the roll then they are quickly behind you.

In D&D, that fighter is raring to go two turns after impact assuming standing up requires full move.

IIRC there is another thread here about HT rolls to stay conscious once you're out of combat time but I would say you're not out of combat time if you have to make a roll every second so you'd better have some magic available or super high tech first aid kit you can reach for before you fail that check.

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

I'm not sure what you did there.

My bad, I should have noted that that calc is for a 15 HP character (trying to make some kind of match to a high level D&D fighter) which, admittedly, makes falling damage worse for higher HP characters. I'd be happy using base ST for that calc now that I think about it since, if HP are higher than ST, you bought HP and did not necessarily increase mass (noting that the build table uses ST, not HP). That would make it a 9d fall, if, say a 12 ST character bought 3 extra HP.

Regardless, I don't think anyone would argue that GURPS is much more realistically deadly than D&D, which, even if you don't agree with/like my examples, is my only point.

[mburr0003]

Originally Posted by Outlaw

I believe the majority of the world's TTRPG players will go for the D&D fight every time because GURPS is more realistically deadly.

And?

As I, and multiple people have said, "That's why we play GURPS". We're okay with that reputation, with the game being a niche system in a media full of niche systems, and since a 4e release didn't change GURPS fundamentally, I strongly suspect so is SJGames.

I understand the desire to pull GURPS into the limelight, to maybe market it to appeal to a greater fanbase, but not to change it to appeal to those who wouldn't like it the way it is.


And as RGTraynor said:

Originally Posted by RGTraynor

And for GURPS players who want lower PC mortality rates, good grief, there are so many instant fixes. Triple or quadruple HP. Remove the ability of NPCs to get critical hits. I could think of a dozen such gimmicks within a minute's time. So could most of you.

That's easily fixable. Heck, I run games where completely normal joes could fall from the top viewing platform of the Empire State Building and survive, with the right explanation and the use of enough Impulse Points (and not just survive, but dust themselves off and walk away). Who could easily 'be missed' by that 'mook doing a full mag dump from an automatic rifle', or any other scenario you'd like to present, because I use High Cinematic rules in those games.

I have effectively run D&D style using GURPS (the largest difference being no classes - this was before GURPS Dungeon Fantasy existed).


My point is, all of GURPS complexity* is frontloaded, to fix this the GM or a genre author needs to do a lot of work; and all of GURPS deadliness is GMs not understanding that's completely in their hands to dial up or down as they please.



If I had millions of dollars to give to Steve and make requests for a new edition, the only changes would be to strip Magic from Basic† and include more direction on how to dial the settings into being the game the GM wants to run.

And then put out a Power-Ups: Rules Settings book that points to all the other ways (and books) to tune the game.


So... largely just a 4.5 GURPS Basic Set, and a few more books made... maybe throw a few million at some freelancers who like to write settings and adventures so we'd have more "table ready adventures and settings" which is the third "big issue" I keep seeing brought up by the New Edition Warriors.



* Coming back to the titular reason for this thread.
† And have Magic be brought more in line with an updated system. So a GURPS Magic 4.5 as well. Heck, edit High-Tech to bring it inline with Cost Factors and "fix" the Ultra-Tech weapons and I think we're done.