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Old 04-14-2022, 10:16 AM   #141
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Default Re: Spear vs Knights... am I missing something?

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Originally Posted by lugaid View Post
Acting, in GURPS, is the ability to deceive other people. You may be thinking of Performance, which is the ability to put on a good show. I think that's what you were getting at, right?

No, no, Acting would be it. Performance lets you put on a good fixed show, sure. But if I wanted to give people the impression I was a legendary martial artist, I'd want Acting. That would let me walk the walk and talk the talk in all situations, so I'd stay in character all the time.
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Old 04-14-2022, 10:24 AM   #142
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Default Re: Spear vs Knights... am I missing something?

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No, no, Acting would be it. Performance lets you put on a good fixed show, sure. But if I wanted to give people the impression I was a legendary martial artist, I'd want Acting. T
No, acting would be for the comparative handful of persons you met in person. Performance would let you succeed at cutting pigs in half and proclaiming "It Will Kill!"on TV and hey! you've got a cult following. :)

Just for the record, Acting and Performance have good mutual Defaults.
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Old 04-14-2022, 11:49 AM   #143
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Default Re: Spear vs Knights... am I missing something?

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Originally Posted by RGTraynor View Post
No, no, Acting would be it. Performance lets you put on a good fixed show, sure. But if I wanted to give people the impression I was a legendary martial artist, I'd want Acting. That would let me walk the walk and talk the talk in all situations, so I'd stay in character all the time.
It's not playing a character if it's who you actually are.
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Old 04-14-2022, 02:43 PM   #144
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Default Re: Spear vs Knights... am I missing something?

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It's not playing a character if it's who you actually are.
Yeah but it is not who I actually am.

I might be almost everything else but legendary fighter never ever.
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Old 04-14-2022, 03:09 PM   #145
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Default Re: Spear vs Knights... am I missing something?

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I'm more interested in at what point buying ST is worth it (ST 11 and skill 15 vs ST 10 and skill 17)
Well, going on the assumption that both sides just wail on each other until one side is knocked down or out, it's still a kind of complicated question. I ran some simulations, and the ST10 SK20 guy fared best against the ST10 SK20 guy both had no armor (there were five others, each with 1ST higher and 2 skill lower). But when they were wearing DR5 armor, the ST14 SK12 guy fared best.

A skill 12 character that outperforms a ST10 SK20 character (in a fight against a copy of that character) has a strength of about 40. Of course this also ignores the "Parrying Heavy Weapons" rule.
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Old 04-14-2022, 03:30 PM   #146
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Default Re: Spear vs Knights... am I missing something?

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*snip* But when they were wearing DR5 armor, the ST14 SK12 guy fared best. *snip*
What you can carry (and still move) and how you spend those pounds can be pretty important. In some character designs I have bought to min ST for damage I could tolerate (almost always odd number) then looked at buying a couple of levels of Lifting ST to get the movement numbers closer to what I want.

Indeed to go back to OP 'knight'.

I would go with ST 11 a thrusting sword and some Lifting ST and light high quality Armor (bonus DR and -10% or -15% less weight) to lower the Enc penalties. With the bonus that Imp damage is nice and the flexibility to go swing/cut (against that Spear say) is always good.
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Old 04-14-2022, 03:39 PM   #147
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Default Re: Spear vs Knights... am I missing something?

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Originally Posted by TGLS View Post
Well, going on the assumption that both sides just wail on each other until one side is knocked down or out, it's still a kind of complicated question. I ran some simulations, and the ST10 SK20 guy fared best against the ST10 SK20 guy both had no armor (there were five others, each with 1ST higher and 2 skill lower). But when they were wearing DR5 armor, the ST14 SK12 guy fared best.

What weapons were the combatant's using? And were you using deceptive attack? The armor result is quite interesting.



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A skill 12 character that outperforms a ST10 SK20 character (in a fight against a copy of that character) has a strength of about 40. Of course this also ignores the "Parrying Heavy Weapons" rule.
Wow that's a scary high number!
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Old 04-14-2022, 10:19 PM   #148
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Default Re: Spear vs Knights... am I missing something?

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What weapons were the combatant's using?
Broadswords (sw+1 cut). I assume the ultra-strong ones are just using a hypothetical huge broadsword with the same stats and higher minST.
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And were you using deceptive attack?
Yes, but only to 16. So someone with a skill of 18 would only take one step of deceptive attack. And if you were hit with -1 shock then you'd do no steps of deceptive attack.

I'll also note that I ignored critical hits misses though I don't think it would make much of a difference either way.
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The armor result is quite interesting.
Given I just assume a combatant wins if they inflict a major wound, I think it may have more to do with the fact that the weaker combatants cannot inflict major wounds at high levels of DR.

So under my model, there's basically two ways to win:
A) Inflict a major wound to your opponent and the suffer knockdown
B) Inflict enough damage for your opponent to fall unconscious or die

The ST10 combatant can't win by A when DR is high or if their opponent's ST is high enough. So instead they have to chip away at their opponent until they get down to 0 HP, which will likely take a while, as with DR5 they're doing 2/3 damage with every successful hit and 6.5 damage with DR0.

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Originally Posted by ericthered View Post
Wow that's a scary high number!
I think it has less to do with how strong they are and how much punishment they can take. An ST20 combatant is going to kill the ST10 combatant dead if he makes a hit, the problem is he won't live long enough to hit him.
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Old 04-15-2022, 07:07 AM   #149
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Default Re: Spear vs Knights... am I missing something?

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Originally Posted by TGLS View Post
Broadswords (sw+1 cut). I assume the ultra-strong ones are just using a hypothetical huge broadsword with the same stats and higher minST.
IIRC, the guidelines from LTC2 have the damage bonus scaling linearly with MinST; in the case of sw+1 with MinST 10, that makes it sw+2 at MinST 20, sw+3 at MinST 30, etc. There would typically be Reach effects, but I think that's not strictly necessary (you can just increase dimensions other than length). That probably wouldn't have any real influence on your results, however.

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Yes, but only to 16. So someone with a skill of 18 would only take one step of deceptive attack. And if you were hit with -1 shock then you'd do no steps of deceptive attack.
I believe one of the forumites (Anthony IIRC) ran some tests a while back and determined that, generally speaking, dropping your skill to 13 or 14 (or was it 12 or 13?) with Deceptive Attack tended to be the optimal way to go, even considering Critical Hits. Might be worth giving a look, although I doubt it will make any serious changes to the results.
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Old 04-15-2022, 10:55 AM   #150
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Default Re: Spear vs Knights... am I missing something?

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Originally Posted by TGLS View Post
Yes, but only to 16. So someone with a skill of 18 would only take one step of deceptive attack. And if you were hit with -1 shock then you'd do no steps of deceptive attack.

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Originally Posted by Varyon View Post
I believe one of the forumites (Anthony IIRC) ran some tests a while back and determined that, generally speaking, dropping your skill to 13 or 14 (or was it 12 or 13?) with Deceptive Attack tended to be the optimal way to go, even considering Critical Hits. Might be worth giving a look, although I doubt it will make any serious changes to the results.
I think several of us have done that. I remember the 12 to 13 rule, for what-ever reason...I found my old analysis, which disagrees. That sheet roughly says you to lower the total of the two numbers until they are below 25, unless facing a defense of 14+, in which case you want an attack of 16+ in order to fish for crits. Might be worth presenting that formally sometime.



The 12-13 rule is correct for defense scores between 10 and 11, which is not exactly uncommon.


Quote:
The ST10 combatant can't win by A when DR is high or if their opponent's ST is high enough. So instead they have to chip away at their opponent until they get down to 0 HP, which will likely take a while, as with DR5 they're doing 2/3 damage with every successful hit and 6.5 damage with DR0.
Makes sense. And reminds me that my proper test is against an array of "Typical" mooks a GM might throw at the character. I wonder how HT effects that... one more thing to look at.



Gurps combatants are a fairly complex design space.


Quote:
I think it has less to do with how strong they are and how much punishment they can take. An ST20 combatant is going to kill the ST10 combatant dead if he makes a hit, the problem is he won't live long enough to hit him.
So they really perform as a ST20 HP 40 combatant. Armor is really needed to leverage ST in melee... which makes thinks a touch complicated, because Armor in gurps scales differently depending on what you have access to and there is no simple formula... but I think I can work with it? we'll see.
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