High HT

[kure]

Interesting, here are my 2 cents.

First from player side. when I make up warrior char, I start with HT13 and with fit (when I am not Realy short of Pts).
Why? With HT you get 3 important things, FP (to burn in fights) BS and BM to be fast and HT itself to can Stay long in battle.

I will be very angry to GM who will forbid or penalty HT13.

Have you guys ever try to play HT10-11 FIGHTER?
Its not fighter its Joke. In Any fight on any TL except barehanded unskilled you can get full HP damage in one hit. And then what? Just lay down?

Last Time I have played Dwarf "warrior" at 120pts on Yrth.
We made big mistake and three of us were surrounded by 15 tough orcs.
We tried to hide, to run away, but bad luck, so I start to fight and my Dwarf died at -5xHP. That's bad you said, no! Thanks to my long fight, others (and more important for mission) can reach help and safety. So this was GOOD death.

Why dont just forbid IQ13+ ? Ist much more dangerous, any Mage with this high IQ and some magery can get spell by 1pt on decent level, that can be abuse.

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Well, and from other side when I am GM I don't forbid Attributes.
And I'am not force my players to fight either.
So they know that fights can be deadly, and if they loosing, they sometimes try to leave. High HT only give them Choice.
Choice to run to fight to play dead to whatewer.

IF your playerc cannot retreat from battle, you have to learn them to.
Just let them way to escape.

And if you need to knock out PC for epic reason, it is so simple.

Kromm's headshot is good, but hit to groin is much easier and have same -10 to knockout. Face is also -5 and so on.
Be creative.

If you BAD guy is stupid thug who only can stack damage to the torso, you are in trouble.

Have you ever tried to grapple PC instead of knock out him?

Your players are invincible on battlefield? Give them something into beer and kidnap them from bar.
Use a net.

Be creative. Short of Ideas? Give to your players mission to get somebody alive, ant they will find some way. And you can use a same against them. :o)

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Luther

r u kidding? 1-20 is human, 21+ is superhuman...

Well I guess, I just out stat normalized Luther. Seriously I should have said exceptional.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by JoelSammallahti

Except that my players are aware of the issue and consider it a problem just like I do, both with their own characters and with enemies.

If your players really want it to be possible to lose a fight without dying, then they just have to roleplay it: retreat when clearly getting trounced but still able to flee, surrender when badly wounded, play dead when too hurt to negotiate (or lacking a common language), and accept that imprisonment, loss of equipment, and perhaps even torture are all "less bad" than being dead. To encourage this, you in your role as GM have to make sure that the foes don't consistently chase retreats, reject surrenders, slit the throats of corpses, and/or execute prisoners. If the players are unwilling to do anything but fight to the death, and their foes are unwilling to settle for any outcome less than TPK, then the problem is less with HT rolls and more with your gaming contract.

Likewise, if your players truly desire outcomes other than "We killed every man jack! Arrh!", then they must roleplay: let beaten foes retreat, accept surrenders, and consider how much more valuable ransom and prisoners for interrogation are than a stack of rotting corpses and an endless supply of vengeful eldest sons. Again, you have to encourage this as the GM by having foes retreat or surrender before dying. If all baddies always fight to the death, then the problem once again has more to do with how you're running the game than with HT rolls.

The fact that GURPS has rules for being knocked down, stunned, knocked out, crippled, and killed doesn't mean that affrays need to end only when one or more of these things has happened to everybody on one side. Very few realistic conflicts of any kind -- from street fights to total war -- go that way in reality. Most battles end inconclusively with a few percent to a few tens of percent casualties, and the rest end conclusively with surrender and/or retreat.

Save the total bloody slaughter for situations where a specific group of foes is a mindless horde (e.g., zombies), a supernatural abomination (e.g., a summoned demon who at worst will lose an avatar and return to Hell), or the direst kind of scum. It'll make such foes scarier and boost the campaign's drama level considerably.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

Players who want to play either can bloody well learn cunning. That's what these games are about.

(If you're feeling kind as a GM, allow them a Tactics or Common Sense roll to think of the trick, or invoke the Serendipity effect. If they didn't take any of these things, what sort of legends-in-the-making do they think they are?)

I find that one thing that works is to hit the players in the face with the Rancid Cod of Immediacy: "Right, you're going to die after a few more like that, whether or not your legs still hold you up and your arm can still swing the sword. Make an Acting roll right now and you might be able to play dead. I'll give you +5 for being mostly dead already."

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by kure

Your players are invincible on battlefield? Give them something into beer and kidnap them from bar.

Oh, there are lots of cheats in this general area. :) One of my favorites is the arrow with Elixir of Unluckiness (p. 215 of Magic) on it. As soon as the PC is below 0 HP, invoke the Unluckiness to have him miss a HT roll and drop. It's perfectly legal; see Unluckiness (p. B160).

[Brandy]

Originally Posted by Kromm

"I'll give you +5 for being mostly dead already."

Priceless! I shall therefore definately steal it. ;)

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Likewise, if your players truly desire outcomes other than "We killed every man jack! Arrh!", then they must roleplay: let beaten foes retreat, accept surrenders, and consider how much more valuable ransom and prisoners for interrogation are than a stack of rotting corpses and an endless supply of vengeful eldest sons. Again, you have to encourage this as the GM by having foes retreat or surrender before dying. If all baddies always fight to the death, then the problem once again has more to do with how you're running the game than with HT rolls.

When I did this for a D&D campaign, even though I explained that this was how fights would be, my players started hunting down and killing all those enemies who fled, and later complained when the bad guys stopped taking PC prisoners. Silly players.

The fact that GURPS has rules for being knocked down, stunned, knocked out, crippled, and killed doesn't mean that affrays need to end only when one or more of these things has happened to everybody on one side. Very few realistic conflicts of any kind -- from street fights to total war -- go that way in reality. Most battles end inconclusively with a few percent to a few tens of percent casualties, and the rest end conclusively with surrender and/or retreat.

Just yesterday I had a bunch of NPCs (TL8 light infantry, not very well equipped) do that after they were ambushed by the PCs (who had TL9/10 gear, including combat hardsuits and gauss rifles). Half the players were upset they didn't get to kill all the NPCs, and the other half were surprised that the NPCs had stayed round until they took 50% losses (actually, they didn't, but the fight lasted such a short time that they lost a number of guys as they turned to run).

[JoelSammallahti]

I appreciate your helpfulness, and that of everyone who has replied, but I don't really see how "you're playing the game wrong" is going to be of much use to me. I'm neither a newbie GM nor a stranger to GURPS, and am more than satisfied with the roleplaying abilities of my players and our shared enjoyment of my campaign world.

I started this thread because I and my players in this campaign have felt that the standard rules do not simulate something we would like to simulate. I formulated a house rule and asked what sort of problems people could see it leading to. I was answered, alternatives were proposed, and I decided to try out one of these alternatives when I get the chance. This is nice.

How I gave the impression that in this campaign, the only way a fight can end is total annihilation, and that every character, both player and non-player, behaves like a mook in an FPS, I really don't know. If I had a problem of that nature, I'd certainly need to look no further than this board for advice. But I don't have such a problem.

[Pagan]

I have a house rule that I use which gives a -1 to HT rolls to stay conscious for every full 5pts of negative damage. Thus a character with HT 10 who suffers 15pts of damage must make a HT -1 roll to stay conscious. If he only took 12pts of damage he would make a straight HT roll. If he took 27pts of damage he would need to make a HT -3 roll (of course, this poor sap would also have to make a death check). This way, even high HT characters will usually fall unconscious before they just drop dead. Usual cause of death in my campaign is from characters bleeding out.

Note: The other usual rules for taking the Do Nothing manuever apply, so no action, no roll required.

You might want to try something similar.

[Extrarius]

Originally Posted by JoelSammallahti

[...]But I don't have such a problem.

The problem is that you say "High HT lets you keep fighting until you die!" and when everybody says "well, yeah, thats kinda what it's there for" you don't respond favorably. "Hard to Kill" simulates cinematic action heros that can be knocked out normally without making them too fragile, and it sounds exactly like what you want. To me, it sounds like you're stuck on "HT" for some reason when it's not really what you're looking for. It would be much better to use "Hard to Kill" than to make HT entirely overpriced by nerfing it into uselessness.