A Question of Strength.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Without spending FP +100% lift only arrives reliably at HT-based Lifting 36. If you do spend FP you can do it at Will-based Lifting Skill 26.

Many unrealistic things occur at Skill levels of 26 to 36.

That's what I get for going from memory without first verifying specifics.

[AlexanderHowl]

Originally Posted by RyanW

I would take that as a sign that that combination of options is not realistic. +30% is the absolute limit of what might be considered realistic. That adding +30% to something that already has +30% breaks suspension isn't that shocking.

Basic Speed and Basic Move do not have a +/-30% limitation. I am just showing that it is possible to create a world class athlete without too many points in 4e. The same individual would be capable of pretty good jumps as well, a 50"/100" high jump or a 17'/34' broad jump.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Yeah, but the level of variance is generally much too high. Max lift is slightly variable, but only by a few percent.

I think in reality training, technique and effort adds a lot, because it's all about using the strength you have as efficiently as possible.

But I kind of agree the way the system implements skill rolls even with the bell curve can put a bit too much variability into these results. However you could argue that of all skill roll results, and it is a RPG game designed to give an in game interesting range of results with skill rolls!

As ever for me one answer is to limit your skills and and stats, to limit how much range the results can give you in terms of expressed end result*. As pointed out getting a 100% increase requires very high skill even by GURSp cinematic levels.

But maybe another way is to bring in the "Trained ST" concept from TG for lifting. Still have skill roll but reduce the MoS benefit to truncate the variability.

However this all said there is one big issue with how we look at the system and try to compare it to reality in these discussions.

In the system it's very simple to separate and individually assess Basic ST, Lifting ST, Lifting Skill, (lifting techs if you use them) Will (when used for lifting EE rolls). In real life it is not only much harder to separate them in the specific action but even more so when developing them. Because when they all go towards the same goal they are hard to split out. Perhaps more relevantly it maybe sometimes they can't be split out in terms of developing them separately!

For instance if you go to the gym with the sole purpose to increase your max overhead press and only your max overhead press. If you are a GURPS character then the GM might say:

"OK after x00 hours in gym you have spent 5CP on a Overhead press technique based on lifting skill"

And yeah OK for a RPG that works time plus CP = an increase in the specific thing you wanted to improve. But in real life if you spend X00 hours lifting heavy weights in a gym even if you solely practice for one lift yes you will improve your real life technique in that specific lift. But you'll likely see at least some improvement in other related areas. In GURPS terms Basic St, lifting St , lifting skill, possibly even will based Lifting EE etc. Especially as improving you body for overhead lifts in the most efficient way possible ins't likely going to just involve overhead pressing things! Your body and ability is an integrated system and it really hard to truely isolate whole body activities off like this, and ultimately that's exactly what the GURPS CP buy system allows you to do at times.




*this is actually another point about RPG system perception vs. reality. In the system we can see what part each bit of system played in getting a final result. We know what the basic BL was and what that means for a lift, what benefit the lift skill in combination with a will based EE roll had in terms of value adding etc. etc. And that's fine that's what an easy to use but detailed system should do!

But In reality we see a strong, skilled and determined lifter pull off a great lift of 360lbs and while we know it combination things it much harder to say "yeah the 1st 200lbs was basic ST, the next 40lbs was thanks to Lifting ST, they'd have added 80lbs with that roll result on just on skill skill, but instead it was 120lb because it was a Skill based EE roll off Will".

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Basic Speed and Basic Move do not have a +/-30% limitation. I am just showing that it is possible to create a world class athlete without too many points in 4e. The same individual would be capable of pretty good jumps as well, a 50"/100" high jump or a 17'/34' broad jump.

I think the point here is that the costing of things in CP is a really, really bad way to compare excellence and rarity in RL over a range of activities. Not least because the system concentrates and weights some thing's more than others. So yeah 55CP in system likely does go further creating a world class sprinter than it does world class adventurer. But that doesn't mean anything for judging RL scarcity of either. Because CP is a game mechanic not a real world demographic tool. What it likely means is that sprinting isn't a core activity the system was set up to spends a lot of time and range of relevant abilities defining. Unlike adventuring related ability overall (even if a good adventurer can remove themselves from danger quickly if the need arises!)

You are right there's no overall +/- 30% on both, its +2 on Basic speed and +3 on Move what doesn't help is that they add to each other for a total +5 to Move over what your basic stats give you.

However as always GM interpretation is key, and basically see above regarding splitting things off in RL

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Anthony

What would actually help is a 'controlled conditions' modifier that dramatically reduces the variance of die rolls; most things don't actually have intrinsic variance at the levels RPGs assign them, it's just that there are lots of environmental modifiers that would be a hassle to track directly so we just add randomness.

That is a very good point!

I kid of wish I'd spotted that post before replying above ;-0

it's part of what I was getting at with trained ST / reduced MoS effect, idea

[AlexanderHowl]

Extra Effort can be quite problematic for predicting performance. Professional athletes (and even serious amateurs) will usually not risk career-ending injuries and will almost always perform below their maximum capabilities. After all, winning one record or one event is usually not worthwhile if you destroy your chances at future events.

I generally figure that a conservative and safe estimate of Extra Effort (and related phenomena) would assume a roll of '12', so I calculate performance based on a result of '12' without forcing a roll as long as the individual has the appropriate trait at 16+. For example, a character with Lifting-20 could increase their BL by 40% without a roll or by 80% without a roll by spending 1 FP. It allows people with exceptional skill to perform exceptionally without unnecessary variability or risk.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Extra Effort can be quite problematic for predicting performance. Professional athletes (and even serious amateurs) will usually not risk career-ending injuries and will almost always perform below their maximum capabilities. After all, winning one record or one event is usually not worthwhile if you destroy your chances at future events.

Generally speaking I agree with you, but when push comes to shove some have risked injury to pull of PBs under competition pressure*, and injuries in general do happen (not that every injury is due to trying to go too heavy)! But I also think that the EE system by itself might err on the more exciting/gameable end of the spectrum of realistic injury risk. Either way I think one solve it to allow proper equipment to mitigate injuries. e.g maybe it coverts an automatic injury into a HT check to avoid it.

There is also the question of what "maximum capabilities" means in RL. Is it your PB (but PBs can be weird), your max with no risk of injury, your max with an acceptable risk of injury etc (what's acceptable) And how that translates into game terms. In theory in GURPS game terms it's a roll of 3 on a EE/lifting roll, but yeah no chance of that ever being a consistent max! (but I like your idea below for this)


*lets face plenty of injuries happen in training without the extra competition pressure

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

I generally figure that a conservative and safe estimate of Extra Effort (and related phenomena) would assume a roll of '12', so I calculate performance based on a result of '12' without forcing a roll as long as the individual has the appropriate trait at 16+. For example, a character with Lifting-20 could increase their BL by 40% without a roll or by 80% without a roll by spending 1 FP. It allows people with exceptional skill to perform exceptionally without unnecessary variability or risk.

I like the idea of 'taking 12'* , it certainly allows for more consistency of performance while also allowing skill and extra effort and all the things that implies. And in game terms gives an incentive to risk the roll if you need that little but more! Which I think is pretty in keeping to knowing your own comfortable limits and choosing to risk going beyond them.


*I used to do pretty much the same with a house rule for drawing bows using a ST based skill roll.

[JazzJedi]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Extra Effort can be quite problematic for predicting performance. Professional athletes (and even serious amateurs) will usually not risk career-ending injuries and will almost always perform below their maximum capabilities. After all, winning one record or one event is usually not worthwhile if you destroy your chances at future events.

I generally figure that a conservative and safe estimate of Extra Effort (and related phenomena) would assume a roll of '12', so I calculate performance based on a result of '12' without forcing a roll as long as the individual has the appropriate trait at 16+. For example, a character with Lifting-20 could increase their BL by 40% without a roll or by 80% without a roll by spending 1 FP. It allows people with exceptional skill to perform exceptionally without unnecessary variability or risk.

My wife is ranked 3rd in the world in Olympic lifting, and I can tell you that on the podium, athletes will push it as far as they can, especially on their last lifts, striving to achieve a personal record. If you have good lifting technique, the risk of injury is not that high. Poor technique and poor body condition (low HT) is a much higher predictor of injury than the amount of weight lifted. You can throw your back or neck out putting on your seatbelt, if you are in bad condition. If you are in good condition and have good technique, you can try to lift your max capacity over and over without much risk - but usually without much success after the third attempt in the same day...

The problem with extra effort, is that it is cinematic. An easy solution is to cap the benefit from mundane extra effort at 10%. The difference between an elite athlete's everyday training ability and their absolute maximum capacity is 10% (at the most), at least as far as weightlifting is concerned.

[AlexanderHowl]

Well, a 10% cap would force GURPS Lifting ST 28+ for Olympic athletes. A possible solution would be to have athletic skills replace attributes or secondary characteristics. For example, Lifting could replace Lifting ST and Running/2 could replace Basic Move.

[Black Leviathan]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

For example, let's say we want to do a champion sprinter. That means we want a sub 10 second 100 meters. The first step is to convert 100 meters to 110 yards because Gurps uses yards.
Let's try a Ground move of 10. In his first second of movement the sprinter covers 10 yards. On the second one his sprint bonus kicks in and he's going at 12 yards per second. If he continues thusly he'll do 110 yards in 9.33 seconds.
Google says the current World's Record is Usain Bolt at 9.58 so you've broken his record by 0.15 seconds.

How about 200 meters? Just keep sprinting at 12 yards a second and you'll break 220 yards at 18.50. The World's Record is again Bolt at 19.19.
Yet if you run a 40 yard dash as seen in the NFL combine your Move 10 guy should be able to do it in 3.5 seconds. I'm not sure I've ever even heard of a sub-4 second 40. 4.2 is usually considered wicked fast.
You can keep going at different distances but I've never found one where Gurps Move model matched the Real World at all well.

Oh, and it gets even worse at distance running.

The 40 Yard dash is probably the better measure of speed, at more than 10x your speed in yards you're probably looking more at the running skill than movement. Usain Bolt's speed is approximately a Move of 9 at a Sprint, because of his build and notable musculature he likely has one or two extra levels of Move, one of them could even be a whole additional level of Basic Speed to represent his ability to be fast off the line. So that would put his stats at DX/HT balance of about 14, or maybe 16.

[Flyndaran]

I thought one of Usain's "issues" was that he wasn't as fast off the block as other Olympic sprinters. I also remember reading that he doesn't have the optimal proportions for sprinting. So that a future perfectly optimized and trained but still natural human could noticeably beat his records.
Of course I don't know if such improvements would rise to a full or even half level of Move or not.