Quote:
Originally Posted by Kalzazz
ST is definitely emphasized for slugging purposes
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Slugging is both the most realistically important capacity of a warrior and the most underrated one in RPGs. A large part of the explanation for the latter can be found in the love affair gamers and other nerds seem to have with nimble "finesse fighter" archetypes: unarmored swashbucklers, cowled assassins who faff about with knives and pistol crossbows, barely clad women who do gymnastics in combat, ninjas, etc. But of course that's silliness that merits a "DYEL?"
Mass, strength, cardio, and toughness are eminently achievable goals. You can get them by working out. Then you can swing whatever comes to hand with devastating effect, and clank about in enough armor to shrug off most of the response.
Agility and speed can be developed, of course, but are far harder to maintain. Skill is harder yet. All of them are far closer to being a game of soft percentages than hard hits and hard stops: Skilled at what, and relative to whom? And you can only dodge or parry what you see coming.
Of course, some would say
GURPS gets it wrong because skill is so much cheaper than ST. "ST 20 or skill 35? Is this a trick question?" But that's precisely because ST is, in fact, better . . . it's more useful, so it costs more.
The catch is convincing the GM to disappoint the assassins and ninjas by (1) establishing sensible skill caps, (2) being a lot more generous with ST caps, (3) routinely setting up encounters where competent foes get the first shot from surprise, and (4) generally making all the non-hitting-people aspects of ST (wearing heavy armor, lugging backup weapons, having enough HP to eat a surprise hit, breaking free of grapples from behind when mobbed, etc.) as important as they should be.
When I run fantasy, I pull no punches: Fine rapiers get Disintegrated. Spiders drop down and web people with ST 15-20 webs, and too bad if you can't break free. Some traps can't be disarmed . . . bring DR and HP, or go home. Certain goo monsters have no vital spots at all, and just roll up and "grapple" automatically by filling the entire hex, so your options are "do enough raw damage to one-shot them before that happens" (like, ST 20-level damage), "be beefy enough to break free," or "run away and be useless."
I'm all for niche protection and spotlight time, but soi-disant finesse fighters don't deserve an extra helping of that simply because they're showoffs. I give equal glory to beefy, high-ST, fighters with layered armor, backup weapons, backup-backup weapons, and backup-backup-backup weapons, and grappling skills. Smart players usually learn to hedge their bets rather than fall into either camp.