Know You Own Strength and Power Blow
 

I love the "Know Your Own Strength" article from Pyramid #3/83. Multiplying logarithms gives wonky results, however, so anything that multiplies your ST has to be replaced with fixed bonuses.

Power Blow doubles your ST, which gives a quadruple Basic Lift. In KYOS terms, this corresponds to a +6 bonus, but I think I'll raise that to +8 to give an easy +2d to damage. The same thinking gives +9/+10 to KYOS Strength for tripling "ordinary" ST... again, I increase that to +12 to give an easy +3d to damage. Does that sounds reasonable?

Re: Know You Own Strength and Power Blow
 

I went a little lower. That little bit extra your giving to keep the damage bonus simple adds quite a bit to Lifting ST.

Re: Know You Own Strength and Power Blow
 

I think it mostly comes down to whether you think of Power Blow to be more about delivering damage dice, or more about increasing BL.

I tend to think of it as being about hitting (ie damage dice) - a bias I know to be entirely shaped by the name. So I look at the "and you can use it to pick up the giant cast iron cauldron full of coals" factor as an incidental effect. So I'm in favor of a round number for damage dice.

If you think of it as primarily about the BL, then it's best to get a round number for lifting.

I propose, however, a compromise: give +6 ST, and +2 Striking ST. :) (And +10/+2 for the "tripling" level.)

Re: Know You Own Strength and Power Blow
 

I'd probably change it from 'double your ST' to 'Add your MoS to your ST', and then change the modifiers to '-5 if used instantly, no penalty after 1 turn, +1 after 2 turns, +2 after 4 turns, +3 after 8 turns, +4 after 16 turns, +15 after 32'.

Re: Know You Own Strength and Power Blow
 

That's an interesting, if fiddly approach.

Re: Know You Own Strength and Power Blow
 

EDIT: Sorry, realised this morning my comment is daft - I'm confusing square root HPs* with KYOS - Doh!

I loved that article
Intended to integrate it
Then a little ocd alarm bell rang: square-cube law.
Doesn't KYOS make it square-square?
Realistically, bears can't lift bears but
KYOS means they can.
Chaos ensued.
KYOS dropped (mostly). Adopted Sw is just Th+2.

*and my attempts to have HP = ST and ST derived from wgt.

Re: Know You Own Strength and Power Blow
 

No - KYOS really has little to do with scaling? The Strength number means something different now. Bears would not have the same amount of strength under KYOS - it would be reduced to match their old BL.

It actually makes scaling a little easier as you can, say, add +6 to anything's ST and get consistent results - it *always* doubles.

Re: Know You Own Strength and Power Blow
 

Yes, but realistic scaling is neither one; if you map actual creatures lifting is around the 0.8 power of mass.