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Old 12-27-2015, 11:14 PM   #1
Verjigorm
 
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Default Double HP, Double DR, Fix ST based Damage

Melee damage, or actually, any damage based on ST has a problem in that, over the scale of "human" ST(6 to 20) scales far too much in comparison to other forms of damage, such as firearms damage, that we have very solid benchmarks for. This creates weird situations where armor sufficient to defend against modern pistols is insufficient to protect against a sword. Armor as Dice is a concept that I think works fairly well, but I have trouble selling it on my players, as they like rolling dice, and it doesn't work so well below 16. Edge Protection does a good job at "patching" this issue at lower tech levels, but once you put guns into the affair, you still run into the problem of people with maces and picks doing as much damage as powerful modern handguns, and I simply don't believe that's realistic.

One solution is to sharply limit ST scores to the "realistic" ranges, or to slow down the progression of damage. I've tried both, and I've found problems with them. A hard limit to ST has usually not been well received by my players, and it doesn't actually fix the problems with ST scaling, it just tries to keep ST scores low enough that they are not as problematic. Of course, this can be a problem if you have a player who wants to play a character who is "as strong as three men". Limiting the rate at which damage scales up has the problem of creating numerous "bad breaks" where a level of Striking ST or full ST provides no benefit other than as a stepping stone to a higher level of ST.

Now, not too long ago(ok, it's probably been a year, I just have a terrible sense of time), Dan Howard off handedly remarked that Doubling the Hit Points and DR would go a great deal towards normalizing the way st based damage scales. Of course, this hits a big stumbling block in you would have to increase firearms damage, but I'm not going to talk about that right now. At first, I thought he was crazy, then I sat down and though about it and started to like it. Then I ran some arena games* with it, and I decided that I really liked the idea in practice.

I really enjoyed the change, as I found ST scores of 14 and 15 to be much less powerful than previously, but still viable. This also had the side effect of reducing the "agility" creep in previous arenas, where players would skew one their builds towards really high dodges, to allow them to avoid those killer attacks that armor wouldn't protect against. When I doubled the DR values of armor(AND the skull), I found a lot more of my players started fielding armored PCs, rather than skewing for dodge.

However, I wonder if I should also revisit the weapons table and fiddle with modifiers for weapons. I've done some preliminary testing, simply by doubling the weapons modifiers, but I have gone rather further with swords. However, I do worry that if I increase the modifiers too much, I'll just return the the old status quo.

Has anyone else experimented with, or put any though into this?

*Actually, more and more, "Arena" games pitting the small teams of PCs against NPCs or another group of PCs, or perhaps some sort of dangerous animal or monster, are about the only GURPS playing I can keep up these days.
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Old 12-28-2015, 01:30 AM   #2
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Default Re: Double HP, Double DR, Fix ST based Damage

I worry that doubling HP (as in, HP of everything is doubled, and paying [2] gives 2 HP) and DR would make ST a less cost-effective investment.
So the question is, do you consider ST underpriced, or do you just feel uncomfortable with ST levels around the human maximum doing more damage than guns?
Because it seems that for the former, changing the price of ST can achieve similar results (and doubling HP/DR achieves results similar to changing ST price), while the latter will essentially still require a fix like a cap of some sort (hard or soft).

Also, are we dismissing Kromm's LogST variant completely?
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Old 12-28-2015, 01:52 AM   #3
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Default Re: Double HP, Double DR, Fix ST based Damage

Quote:
Originally Posted by vicky_molokh View Post
I worry that doubling HP (as in, HP of everything is doubled, and paying [2] gives 2 HP) and DR would make ST a less cost-effective investment.
So the question is, do you consider ST underpriced, or do you just feel uncomfortable with ST levels around the human maximum doing more damage than guns?
Because it seems that for the former, changing the price of ST can achieve similar results (and doubling HP/DR achieves results similar to changing ST price), while the latter will essentially still require a fix like a cap of some sort (hard or soft).
I think ST is, probably, over priced, if anything. However, that's really neither here nor there. However my primary concern is that ST scores of 13+ greatly invalidate most armor options, and lead to ridiculous 80 lb outfits just to get armor that can protect against hand weapons. Also, that there is no way a man can punch harder than even a .22.

I have already tried a variety of "ST taxes" that produced similar results and while it worked alright, I ultimately did not like it that much. Because, as both you and I will acknowledge, ST is not very cost effective for increasing damage.

However, that leads me towards tinkering with other attributes(IQ and DX are probably TOO powerful for their cost). Once I started using a unified Fight Skill, rather than basing melee skills off DX, I realized that I have no idea if ST and DX are balanced now.


Quote:
Also, are we dismissing Kromm's LogST variant completely?
Only because I am not familiar to it, lacking the copy of pyramid that it was published in.
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Old 12-28-2015, 02:30 AM   #4
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Default Re: Double HP, Double DR, Fix ST based Damage

Quote:
Originally Posted by Verjigorm View Post
I think ST is, probably, over priced, if anything. However, that's really neither here nor there. However my primary concern is that ST scores of 13+ greatly invalidate most armor options, and lead to ridiculous 80 lb outfits just to get armor that can protect against hand weapons. Also, that there is no way a man can punch harder than even a .22.

I have already tried a variety of "ST taxes" that produced similar results and while it worked alright, I ultimately did not like it that much. Because, as both you and I will acknowledge, ST is not very cost effective for increasing damage.

However, that leads me towards tinkering with other attributes(IQ and DX are probably TOO powerful for their cost). Once I started using a unified Fight Skill, rather than basing melee skills off DX, I realized that I have no idea if ST and DX are balanced now.
I still don't really get what you want to get as an end result, or what exactly you want to change.

Current situation is that:
  • ST is expensive as a damage-dealer.
  • There is no ST cap to speak of (you can normally buy more than 20 ST); 20 can be treated as a soft cap, but it really isn't.
  • It takes a lot of points to reach the alleged soft cap.
  • ST20 does about 3 dice of damage, which is more than the cheaper guns.

You say that ST is overpriced, and that ST does too much damage. So if those two points were changed, you'd get into a situation where something like the following is true:
  • ST becomes relatively cheap as a damage-dealer.
  • A hard or soft cap appears roughly equivalent to ST13 in the original system.
  • It takes less than 30 points to reach the cap.
  • The cap does a couple of dice of damage at most.
End result: playing the "Konnan, the Strongest Human in the World" becomes (a) very cheap and (b) very useless.

Is this the desired outcome?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Verjigorm View Post
Only because I am not familiar to it, lacking the copy of pyramid that it was published in.
The curve differs, but the big points are that a level of ST now consists of a level of innate-attack-like-priced damage boost (1 or 2 points), a hit point, and the rest spent on logarithmic lifting ability. This is oversimplified, of course.
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Old 12-28-2015, 02:57 AM   #5
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Default Re: Double HP, Double DR, Fix ST based Damage

While I agree with a lot of the premises of the OP (I err more towards limiting ST, but I'm doing so partly for the the reasons stated and for the type of game I run)

I think current damage of Hand held weapons against naked HP to be about right. (I suspect that if you double HP as ST increases it's ability to withstand it's own ability to inflict damage will increase)

But I agree the issue is with hand held weapons against armour, especially in conjunction with AoA(s)*.


Now while I usually argue that higher ST's allow for the to wearing of thicker armour solving the problem, I realise that's not the most satisfactory fix for some.


So I'd maybe go with just doubling DR against hand held weapons (and if you don't use the "the deadly Spring" for bows etc, count them as hand held)


If I was going to go more detailed I would apply different mods for different damage type, so for example:

DRx2 vs. Cutting (still keep edge protection on top of this)
DRx1.5 vs. Imp
DRx1.5 vs Cr

Actually my ideal solution would be to have different multipliers for different damage types for armour materials, as that would give more tailored results and give more combinations of armour vs. weapon.

If you do any of these you will increase the value of armor (as HP's vs. damage stay the same)



I am a big fan of the Pulver armour design articles in Pyramid (not that I don't like LT, and I really like load outs, their level of detail expresses in a different way though), a lot of the time armour was bespoke, so I like a bespoke design system.


One other thing, I find at this level the Armour Divisor system tends not to work well (it's a bit all or nothing). I'd rather model it by being able to ignore a set number of DR, and the corollary of that is I have hardened** amour modelled by being able to ignore a set amount of that!

This again will allow for more nuance in defining the combined results of different factors.


*in my head decent armour (and why would you wear anything but) should need someone doing an AoA(s) vs. weak spots and hoping for good roll to get even small way past it. i.e it really should take a combination of favourable things to beat armour at all.


**in terms of the GURPS enhancement

Last edited by Tomsdad; 12-28-2015 at 09:28 AM.
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Old 12-28-2015, 03:01 AM   #6
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Default Re: Double HP, Double DR, Fix ST based Damage

While I'm well aware that's a given (specially in these forums) that ST scaling is wacky, would you mind elaborating what exactly are the problems you're incurring in your games and table?

The reason I ask this is that my group and I have played GURPS in fantasy settings for some years now and we don't have much of the "broken" kind of problems with ST...just the "Ok, we'll accept that as that" kinda of problem...

What I mean is, we had couple times fighter-like characters rolling double or even triple the amount of dice of a modern pistol with their Bastard Swords, Warhammers and Halberds...but for us that was simply "Oh, nice!".

It's a genre thing.

My fantasy setting has weapons, gunslingers and all that jazz and we don't really have a problem with strong fighters doing more damage with a melee weapon that a gun.
Gunners have faaar more range, can do all sorts of crazy stuff with their ammo (exploding, incendiary, snaring, webby, binding, turning-bullets, heat-seeking...)that simple, raw damage falls short in many cases.

On the regard of DR X ST damage and melee weapons, we also didn't encounter much problem...but it might be how we play and how our settings are done...

Our campaigns tend to last really, really long and eventually reach "epic" level, with characters at 500+CPs mark with our toughest player character fighters usually decked around 20-30 DR when fully geared on double-layered setup with heavy plate armor (which is really, really expensive and very hard to craft...but players eventually find their way to amass enough resources and qualified crafters to get it), coupled with 20+ or even 30+ HP, supported with mild healing magic and/or some regeneration depending on their race...and they keep going for quite some time even when clashing against similar levels of damage potential.
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Old 12-28-2015, 03:09 AM   #7
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Default Re: Double HP, Double DR, Fix ST based Damage

Quote:
Originally Posted by vicky_molokh View Post
....

Is this the desired outcome?
...
I think the point of the OP is to fix a perceived problem, not worry to much about pricing of ST (or the implications for it's pricing subsequent to proposed changes).


Personally as a GM who runs low powered low fantasy/historical stuff, CP pricing of various things are pretty low on my priority list as stuff tends to be limited by the setting (aka my fiat) than it's price in the book.


I.e I tend to limit ST (for many reasons but some are the ones mentioned here) even if the price of ST was halved or doubled, it wouldn't make much difference to me.


Equally if I was to increase the protective value of Low tech armour in a low tech setting I wouldn't worry about changing it's prices either, or the comparative costs of natural DR as an advantage.


The thing is GURPS default to a pretty heroic/cinematic handheld weapon vs. armour balance point. That's fine for a lot of different game types. The issues big raised are only issues for some of us and in some of our games. So therefore the solutions don't need to fit into a much broader GURPS pricing structure.
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Old 12-28-2015, 03:25 AM   #8
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Default Re: Double HP, Double DR, Fix ST based Damage

Quote:
Originally Posted by T.K. View Post
While I'm well aware that's a given (specially in these forums) that ST scaling is wacky, would you mind elaborating what exactly are the problems you're incurring in your games and table?

The reason I ask this is that my group and I have played GURPS in fantasy settings for some years now and we don't have much of the "broken" kind of problems with ST...just the "Ok, we'll accept that as that" kinda of problem...

What I mean is, we had couple times fighter-like characters rolling double or even triple the amount of dice of a modern pistol with their Bastard Swords, Warhammers and Halberds...but for us that was simply "Oh, nice!".

It's a genre thing.

My fantasy setting has weapons, gunslingers and all that jazz and we don't really have a problem with strong fighters doing more damage with a melee weapon that a gun.
Gunners have faaar more range, can do all sorts of crazy stuff with their ammo (exploding, incendiary, snaring, webby, binding, turning-bullets, heat-seeking...)that simple, raw damage falls short in many cases.

On the regard of DR X ST damage and melee weapons, we also didn't encounter much problem...but it might be how we play and how our settings are done...

Our campaigns tend to last really, really long and eventually reach "epic" level, with characters at 500+CPs mark with our toughest player character fighters usually decked around 20-30 DR when fully geared on double-layered setup with heavy plate armor (which is really, really expensive and very hard to craft...but players eventually find their way to amass enough resources and qualified crafters to get it), coupled with 20+ or even 30+ HP, supported with mild healing magic and/or some regeneration depending on their race...and they keep going for quite some time even when clashing against similar levels of damage potential.
To be honest I think you answer your initial question in the rest of your post, it is a genre thing, and a clash of expectations thing.


Basically take your ST14 chap with a normal broad sword he's doing 2d+1 average 8 damage. Even with edge protection he can expect to physically cut through DR4 or less every time. But in terms of weapon vs. armour he's using a rubbish weapon (one handed sword) in a rubbish way (cutting) to do so.

God help you if he picks up a duelling Halberd and starts really going for it with AoA(s) he's averaging 13 points

(actually where he get's really bad is doing defensive attacks with that halberd as he's doing 9 points on average and removing that 0U)



Now I kind of get round this by saying at my table a ST14 chap is very, very strong and thus very, very rare (but that is a limitation of my play-style, that would not be acceptable to many tables).

Last edited by Tomsdad; 12-28-2015 at 09:21 AM.
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Old 12-28-2015, 03:30 AM   #9
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Default Re: Double HP, Double DR, Fix ST based Damage

ST 13 is noticeable. Maybe they get asked to do a lot of menial work or treated as stupid?

Is the character fast? Opponents may run around and stab them in the back?

Maybe there is a ST 13 archer!

IIRC the Halberd is the ST13 scary weapon.

Use thrown weapons against the big guy, entangling weapons and throwing stuff into their faces. etc
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Old 12-28-2015, 04:31 AM   #10
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Default Re: Double HP, Double DR, Fix ST based Damage

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Originally Posted by smurf View Post
ST 13 is noticeable. Maybe they get asked to do a lot of menial work or treated as stupid?

Is the character fast? Opponents may run around and stab them in the back?

Maybe there is a ST 13 archer!

IIRC the Halberd is the ST13 scary weapon.

Use thrown weapons against the big guy, entangling weapons and throwing stuff into their faces. etc
It's not so much a question of finding ways to beat a ST13 chap, it's more that serous armour should be pretty much resistant to hand held weapons in all but the most unusual circumstances.

The thing is we don't bat an eye at modern ballistic armour completely stopping rounds it's rated against, (and the system gives us that). It's really the same for LT armour vs. LT weapons in terms of excepted affect

Last edited by Tomsdad; 12-28-2015 at 09:23 AM.
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