Moving Mountain (Weapon Master's opposite)

[kirbwarrior]

Moving Mountain - [20]

You know how to wear armor to its fully potential! Your opponents don't receive damage bonuses from Weapon Master, Throwing Art, and other cinematic effects* when they are striking anywhere you are armored. Other attacks do -1/die of damage**.

Further, you receive no penalties for wearing armor except from encumbrance and half penalties for layering armor. Your armor is considered to be a higher step in quality and is automatically assumed to be maintained even when circumstances would make that impossible. And any chinks in your armor are at an additional -4 to strike.

Lastly, your armor can be used to Block attacks with HT-based Shield***. It also counts as a weapon that can be used to slam and you can purchase Weapon Master: Armor.

The point of making this trait was thinking about ways for armored (not dodgy!) characters to keep up with Weapon Master and I liked the idea of character concepts that just wade through basic attacks. But I'm not completely certain if I like it as is;

*The main point is to avoid removing Boxing and Karate's bonuses since those seem balanced already, it's massive weapons with swing getting the bonus that shreds armor apart.

**Another thought was to just make all attacks do -2/die damage. It's simpler.

***I like the idea of being encumbered helping here somehow. Maybe how much the armor would weigh you down could add to the Block?

I'm also not worried too much about cost, I just through on 20pts because it's the same cost as Weapon Master: One Weapon. I'd like the end result to be worth between 20 and 45pts to keep it relevant with WM.

Thoughts? I'd like to also hear if people have come up with other ways to 'keep up' with WM directly. Thanks ahead of time.

[Varyon]

While I have to go off of memory here, I think there's a way to roughly estimate the "appropriate" cost for this trait.

First, that -1/die to damage. That's roughly equivalent to IT:DR (1/1.5), which IIRC costs [25]. This version has an Enhancement that it applies before DR, but a Limitation that it only applies if the opponent hits armor. If we assume those work out to roughly a net +20%, that puts us at [30]. We'll let the improved functionality against WM stand (basically, we'll assume it's a built-in Limitation on that part of WM that it only serves to negate the -1/die of MM).

Lacking penalties for armor other than encumbrance is arguably worth [5] (basically a handful of Perks), and we can probably throw in the halved-layering penalties while we're at it. Armor being a step higher in quality is going to make it weigh less, which is something akin to a limited form of Payload. That and the -4 to target chinks can probably be rolled together for another [5]. Turning armor into a shield could probably be rolled into the previous, but if we let heavy armor grant a bonus based on encumbrance, another [5] might be appropriate (it's a highly-limited form of Enhanced Block). This would be +1 for Light, +2 for Medium, +3 for Heavy or worse. This should probably require a sizable fraction - at least 50%, and I'd lean more toward 80% - of your encumbrance be from armor, although that may be finicky in play.

So, that gets us to your upper limit of [45]. You could reduce it by allowing it to only apply for certain types of armor, although given GURPS armor generally has a set progression (plate is better than brigandine is better than segmented is better than scale, using LT), this won't be as simple as for weapons.

[Sam Baughn]

My first instinct is that it is underpriced at [20] and [~40] is closer to fair.

I'm going to see if it is possible to build something similar with existing rules and see how that compares...

Reducing damage is essentially a form of DR with limitations like 'only against damage with a cinematic bonus of +2 per die or greater' and 'only against attacks doing more than one (or 2, etc.) dice of damage'. They also qualify for 'only while wearing armour' of course, but may have to also pay for Force Field. Combining them all, I suspect that your DR could come out fairly cheap. The first point is likely close to full cost, but the 2nd, 3rd and 4th (assuming we expect to only face attacks up to 4 dice) will be progressively cheaper and the 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th will probably be very cheap. If we go with [5]+[4]+[3]+[2] + [3]+[2]+[1]+[1] that's a total of [21]. A flat -2 per die would a bit more expensive at [28] (twice the first half of the previous build).

'No penalties for wearing armour except for encumbrance' is equivalent to buying off Hard of Hearing and Tunnel Vision (which I think should include No Peripheral Vision) with a discount for only working when those are inflicted by armour (I'd peg that as a pretty substantial discount). That should be at least 8 points, probably more. On the other hand the Green Eyes perk from Tactical Shooting eliminates NPV from gear and slightly reduces the penalty for No Depth Perception, so it could be argued that a perk or two might be enough to handle this.

EDIT: Halved layering penalties is comparable to the Suit Familiarity perk which allows ignoring 1 point of penalty (it's either a bit better or a bit worse, depending on how you round off and how many layers you expect). You also need to offset reaction penalties up to -4, which is probably going to be worth [4]. So that's another 5 points.

Being treated as a step better in quality (what does that even mean in the context of armour?) and not needing maintenance are probably perks. An extra -4 to chinks is pretty good; I'd call it a perk for each -1. So this part seems like maybe six perks.

Being able to block with your body and slam as if with a weapon seem very close to Striker, which allows you to parry and attack as if armed. A weak crushing striker is just 3 points even before adding an 'only in armour' limitation, so final cost is likely to be [2] at most, maybe just [1].

Allowing Weapon Master (Armour) is probably just a feature.

[Gnome]

I love this idea and will continue to monitor this thread with interest!
I agree with others who say this should be worth way more than 20. In general, the system makes defenses more expensive than attacks, DR more expensive than damage, etc. WM already costs 45 (unless you specialize by weapon), so this could even cost more than that.
To create cheaper specializations (akin to WM), you might specialize my armor location; for example, Moving Mountain (arms only) should cost a lot less, but only give you the benefits on your arms, where you'll presumably wear big, heavy bracers which which to defend yourself.

The idea of getting a bonus to Block for being encumbered feels counterintuitive to me. Maybe a bonus equal to 1/3 the DR of the armor instead (round up)? Heavy armor tends to have more DR, but that way you're not getting punished for high ST...

[Sorenant]

How about increasing the damage of Spiked armor?

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Armor being a step higher in quality is going to make it weigh less

I agree with a lot of your points, but this one struck me as bizarre, is that actually true? I was just thinking it's basically akin to something like a bonus to HT and other situations of wear and tear.

Originally Posted by Gnome

The idea of getting a bonus to Block for being encumbered feels counterintuitive to me. Maybe a bonus equal to 1/3 the DR of the armor instead (round up)? Heavy armor tends to have more DR, but that way you're not getting punished for high ST...

Well the idea is getting rewarded for wearing heavy armor, or more accurately to not be as penalized for wearing heavy armor. Someone with high ST can just wear heavier armor which not only gives more DR but also allows more layers. Having the max also be 4 seemed like a good idea. I'm pretty sure you can get DR17 with Low-Tech rules alone (that's ignoring things like enchantments) and much higher with Ultra Tech.

Originally Posted by Sorenant

How about increasing the damage of Spiked armor?

Is that a thing? I'd definitely allow WM: Armor to do that. I even like the above idea of WM: Armor being included freely in this 45pt package.

[ericthered]

You may want to look at this blog post by Christopher Rice:


Other trained by a Master Advantages


It may help with constructing the exact cost.