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Old 05-18-2022, 05:12 AM   #1
CarrionPeacock
 
Join Date: May 2018
Default What has high SM ever done for us?

Higher SM makes you an easy target, hitting average sized foes harder, require more food, armor and weapon are more expensive.
Yes, it increases the cycle of poisons, makes indirect magic more expensive to affect you and grappling better but that's trading serious constant disadvantage for minor situational advantage.
So really, what has high SM ever done for us?
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Old 05-18-2022, 05:27 AM   #2
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Default Re: What has high SM ever done for us?

It lets you buy ST at a reduced cost. That' s not negligible, especially in a pre-gunpowder game.
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Old 05-18-2022, 05:34 AM   #3
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Default Re: What has high SM ever done for us?

Depends on you games setting

In a low TL melee based setting high SM allows for cheap ST (so more HP), more inherent Reach, and quite likely longer weapons adding more reach on top of that. That ls a lot of advantage in Melee. If you have grappling it helps and if you use the TG supplement high SM grapplers can be downright terrifying! If you have magic I think higher S make it more costly to effect with some spells (I don't really do magic so not 100% sure)


But yeah run a WW2 campaign and you are a target
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Old 05-18-2022, 06:01 AM   #4
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Default Re: What has high SM ever done for us?

There are also benefits that aren't game mechanically defined that people seem to miss. Many obstacles that would be a problem for smaller folk may not even be noticeable for you, you can reach things that others may need to climb, you can apply leverage with better advantage. Obviously these are zero point features that exactly balance the similar advantages smaller folk have with tight spaces.
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Old 05-18-2022, 06:04 AM   #5
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Default Re: What has high SM ever done for us?

Quote:
Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
It lets you buy ST at a reduced cost. That' s not negligible, especially in a pre-gunpowder game.
One thing I've considered, although I suspect it would go too far, is instead of giving a straight percentage discount, give characters a set ST (following the Size and Speed/Range Table) for each SM, and it's [+10] for every +10% to ST. So an SM -2 halfling has ST 5 [0], and every +1 to ST is worth [+20], while an SM +2 giant has ST 20 [0], and every +1 to ST is worth [+5].


To OP, this thread is likely to be of interest to you.
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Old 05-18-2022, 06:07 AM   #6
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Default Re: What has high SM ever done for us?

It isn't a great deal if you're playing some SM+1/+2 huge knight who now needs special armor and equipment, and also can't usually use magical equipment the group finds.

If you're playing as some Attack of the 50-foot Whatever then it suddenly turns into a pretty good deal or even amazing deal.

I think it is a great deal if you're playing as some Godzilla-like monster (SM8, 50 meters tall). You can now Buy ST and HP at a -80% reduction. This means +90 ST costs 180 points instead of 900 points f.ex.. If you're using Logarithmic ST (Know Your Strength) this (-80% limitation) can make enormous characters surprisingly cheap. Since you're a monster anyway you can get a lot of points back for Monstrous Appearance, Ham-Fisted, DR without ability to wear armor, etc. Most people will treat you as a walking-disaster-monster and run the other way (huge Intimidation bonus from size and appearance!), but even a secret super-hero Godzilla would benefit from that since it means innocent people will get out of the danger zone as fast as possible while secret super-hero Godzilla does whatever he needs to do.

A 50-meter giant-human is less of a great deal though. First off, it doesn't matter if you're playing some super-hot scantily clad 50-meter heroine, as soon as you start trampling peoples' fields or worse abandoned wagons/cars roads the public opinion of you will turn very sour very quickly (and you might be asked to compensate damage which will of course be an outrageous amount), which means you might well have to intimidate your way anyway, and then you might as well look like a scary monster instead since you'll soon be dodging siege weapons/bombs anyway. In addition to this, in most settings you're not going to find 20 meter tempered swords*, or chain vests for 50 meter heroines lying around in random lich-tombs (that you can't fit inside). Still even with all this in mind you could still be valuable (if odd) party member for a group of heroes since you pay fairly little character points for the ability to be a walking siege engine. You just have to settle for securing the outside of evil tombs and great citadels.

The by-far greatest win is to have the Giant Form and Human-sized form by using Shapeshifting/Alternate Form (Growth/Shrinking is a pretty bad deal though) since this lets you be a siege-engine mostly only when you need to. Either a character that just changes from big to small and vice versa, or f.ex. a giant that can project a small human-sized form to run around in dungeon (maybe some sort of soul-possessed-golem body?)

Anyone with even a tiny amount of power-gamer in them will probably want to find some excuse for "Doesn't Eat or Drink" or otherwise reduced food consumption. You get huge value from it, or rather you pay very little to get rid of what is otherwise practically an outrageously enormous disadvantage. I don't even want to think about how many cows a 50 meter Godzilla (or the up-sized human) would need to eat per day. Even a Blue Whale is only 16 meters or so. I guess Godzilla doesn't care about bills though.

*In some Evangelion-like/Giant Mech setting where equipment or even power-armor for 50-meter humans is available giant-humans get better than giant monsters, but then again, if regular-sized human can pilot giant Mech then you're basically paying for the privilege of not being able to fit indoors while everyone else has their Giant form as simple equipment. Well, depending on how the GM handles it, I guess.

As you move down from absurd 50-meter monsters I find SM turns into less and less of a good deal unless you add other limitations such as "No Fine Manipulators" to get back to ~2 points/ST. Being a 5 meter Yrth Giant is a giant pain for you, and a giant target for your enemies, that in no way compensates to -20% to ST costs. At least not unless you can expect to find SM+2 weapons/armor with comparable quality and frequency to what a SM+0 human might. Oh, and a 5-meter giant is still enough to be unable to fit indoors mostly which is a terrible disadvantage.
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Last edited by RedMattis; 05-18-2022 at 06:19 AM.
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Old 05-18-2022, 06:35 AM   #7
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Default Re: What has high SM ever done for us?

Quote:
Originally Posted by RedMattis View Post
I don't even want to think about how many cows a 50 meter Godzilla (or the up-sized human) would need to eat per day.
In GURPS Bio Tech, consumption scales with the square of height. Treating a human as 2 meters tall (close enough), that means a 50 meter whatever would need around 625x as much as a human. LTC2 has a human needing to eat around 3 lbs of meat a day, and the cattle there are 800 to 1000 lbs. Maximum harvestable meat on an animal is 80% of body weight, and I'd say literally eating a whole cow (which a 50 meter whatever should be able to manage) gets you that full 80%, or 640 to 800 lbs of meat per cow - call it an average of 720 lbs per cow. The 50 meter whatever would need 1,875 lbs of meat per day, which calls for around 2.6 cows per day. Of course, being so large, it can eat quite a bit in one go - a "meal" for it would be 15,625 lbs of meat (meal size scales with the cube of height). That means it could eat (the harvested meat of) around 22 cows in one go, but given it's devouring them bones and all, lets drop that to 18 cows - enough to sustain it for a week.
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Old 05-18-2022, 07:31 AM   #8
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Default Re: What has high SM ever done for us?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Varyon View Post
In GURPS Bio Tech, consumption scales with the square of height. Treating a human as 2 meters tall (close enough), that means a 50 meter whatever would need around 625x as much as a human. LTC2 has a human needing to eat around 3 lbs of meat a day, and the cattle there are 800 to 1000 lbs. Maximum harvestable meat on an animal is 80% of body weight, and I'd say literally eating a whole cow (which a 50 meter whatever should be able to manage) gets you that full 80%, or 640 to 800 lbs of meat per cow - call it an average of 720 lbs per cow. The 50 meter whatever would need 1,875 lbs of meat per day, which calls for around 2.6 cows per day. Of course, being so large, it can eat quite a bit in one go - a "meal" for it would be 15,625 lbs of meat (meal size scales with the cube of height). That means it could eat (the harvested meat of) around 22 cows in one go, but given it's devouring them bones and all, lets drop that to 18 cows - enough to sustain it for a week.
That's a lot less than I was expecting considering a SM 8 creature would probably end up weighing about 2000 ton, and by your measurement a cow is less than half a ton of meat.

I know large creatures need less food, but ½ton of meat for a 2000 ton being would probably be like a human eating two peanuts a day. I guess realism is already out the window when we're talking about 50 meter creatures jumping around and kicking rocks at people, but I do wonder if the math would really work out that way realistically?

Either way, I guess by GURPS RAW this makes food a lot less of a concern than I thought.
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Old 05-18-2022, 07:39 AM   #9
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Default Re: What has high SM ever done for us?

It's also worth noting that high SM also exists as a game tool for representing things bigger than the average human (bears, giants, trains, etc), not simply as an advantage for characters.
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Old 05-18-2022, 07:51 AM   #10
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Default Re: What has high SM ever done for us?

Quote:
Originally Posted by RedMattis View Post
That's a lot less than I was expecting considering a SM 8 creature would probably end up weighing about 2000 ton, and by your measurement a cow is less than half a ton of meat.

I know large creatures need less food, but ½ton of meat for a 2000 ton being would probably be like a human eating two peanuts a day. I guess realism is already out the window when we're talking about 50 meter creatures jumping around and kicking rocks at people, but I do wonder if the math would really work out that way realistically?

Either way, I guess by GURPS RAW this makes food a lot less of a concern than I thought.
The creature needs just shy of a full ton of meat each day - 1,875 lbs. And an SM+8 creature would - assuming we're going with 150 lbs for SM+0 - weigh a bit north of 1,000 tons. So it's more like a human eating 7 peanuts a day.

Interestingly, in terms of encumbrance, this work out to be equivalent for each SM, provided they scale ST with nominal height. An SM+8 creature should have around ST 250, for BL 12,500 lbs. An ST 10 human carrying a week's worth of fresh meat would be carrying 21 lbs of the stuff, which is 1.05xBL. Our 50 meter whatever carrying a week's worth of fresh meat would instead be carrying 13,125 lbs of the stuff, which is again 1.05xBL*. Of course, the human has to actually carry that stuff around as encumbrance, while the giant can just eat that much as a meal (actually a bit more) and be good for a week. The disadvantage of being so massive here, of course, is that you've got to pay a lot more for food - 625x as much. Which is why, as you noted, Doesn't Eat Or Drink is a great investment for such a character - you'd need to spend markedly more on Wealth just to be able to keep up with food costs from your monthly wages.

I'll also note that this is using the cattle from LTC2, which represent cows that are smaller than modern breeds. A quick Google search indicates a typical cow raised for meat gets to around 1,210 lbs - 80% of that would be 968 lbs, just shy of half a ton.
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