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Old 10-28-2019, 04:06 PM   #11
Refplace
 
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Default Re: Fixing Injury Tolerance [Basic/Powers]

Quote:
Originally Posted by DouglasCole View Post
It's a bit of an extrapolation from the Build Table (p. B18) and Object Hit Points, p. B558, where if someone of average ST 10 and mass (115-175 lbs) follows the same base progression of N x cube root of weight, then HP are roughly 1.78 to 2.06 times the cube root of weight for living creatures.
I think this is really the best fix.
Instead of extrapolating that objects have more HP, assume they have the appropriate Injury Tolerance. They dont have twice as many HP, they just take less damage. Of course most machines are made of denser materials so they would still be heavier.
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Old 10-28-2019, 04:08 PM   #12
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Default Re: Fixing Injury Tolerance [Basic/Powers]

Alternately, you can throw out the idea that you can calculate hp based on weight without caring about material (there is no particular reason 100 lb of iron should have the same hp as 100 lb of ice), and while we're at it, get rid of scaling collision damage on hit points.

To the degree a dead body is more durable than a living body, it's because we no longer care about "damage required to cause cease of function", for the simple reason that it doesn't function in the first place, and can probably be solved by giving most objects Unkillable 1.
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Old 10-28-2019, 04:13 PM   #13
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Default Re: Fixing Injury Tolerance [Basic/Powers]

Quote:
Originally Posted by B430
Mass only matters indirectly: massive objects usually have high HP, but it would hurt more to collide with a locomotive than with a pillow of the same mass! HP take into account both mass and structural strength.
For some reason I'm having visions of the scene in Antman involving the toy train scene.

Pillows are usually homogeneous while a locomotive is a machine/unliving. If you have a pillow that's 5 lbs and a train that's 5 lbs, GURPS would imply the pillow does more slam damage? Something seems off that the pillow should have should have x2 the HP for a potential collision given the same weight.
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Old 10-28-2019, 05:17 PM   #14
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Default Re: Fixing Injury Tolerance [Basic/Powers]

Why multiply HP for Unliving, etc.?

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Originally Posted by David L Pulver View Post
This doesn’t explain anything, since this was never in question. The question is “why do Unliving, Homogenous things etc have more HP than living things of the same weight?” not “What are HP?”

*Living thing: vulnerable to system failure from destruction of a small part. There are multiple internal organs any of which if damaged or destroyed will cause incapacitation or death, not to mention pain, shock, etc.
* Unliving thing: Less vulnerable. An airplane or car can be shot full of holes, but still function. Tear the doors of a car and it will still work fine. Tear the skin off a person and he's moaning in pain. Tear the skin off a zombie and he's a skeleton and still coming... Or think Terminator (arnie-model).
* Homogenous thing. You can keep smashing it to bits, but it doesn't matter until you've structurally destroyed it. A block of wood. A golem. A raft. Or think a terminator (liquid metal model) .

Now, there are also *damage modifiers* for each type of damage. So burning damage is fully effective vs. all three types as it affects a larger surface area, but piercing damage is most effectively against living things, because the damage area is relatively small. You are perhaps arguing for a big damage divisor. But a big damage divisor (homogenous takes x1/4 damage from everything) not only loses the flavor - the current system encourages you to choose your weapons and deal with zombies with axes and flamethrowers - but also is essentially identical to giving 4x HP anyway.

So, the system simply recommends that anything that is homogenous have 4x HP and anything unliving have 2x HP and then piles on additional divisors as necessary.
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Old 10-28-2019, 05:27 PM   #15
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Default Re: Fixing Injury Tolerance [Basic/Powers]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gnome View Post
Can you provide a citation for this?
Page 13 of Template Toolkit 2: Races:
Quote:
Humanlike races have typical values of weight, ST, and HP for each SM, shown in the Size and Weight Table (below); the table gives different ST and HP values for living, Unliving, and Homogenous/Diffuse races.
I'm not copying the table, buy the book for that.

Also see:
ST & HP formula from Fantasy page 51, and page 2 of GURPS update, and also Object HP table, Basic page 558.
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Old 10-28-2019, 05:40 PM   #16
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Default Re: Fixing Injury Tolerance [Basic/Powers]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Anthony View Post
Alternately, you can throw out the idea that you can calculate hp based on weight without caring about material (there is no particular reason 100 lb of iron should have the same hp as 100 lb of ice), and while we're at it, get rid of scaling collision damage on hit points.
Why do that? Are you forgetting that Iron is much denser than Ice, therefore 100lbs of Iron will be a much smaller volume than 100lbs of Ice? The ice should have 8.587 times the volume of the iron. And the Iron will also have a higher DR than the Ice.
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Old 10-28-2019, 05:57 PM   #17
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Default Re: Fixing Injury Tolerance [Basic/Powers]

Quote:
Originally Posted by NineDaysDead View Post
Page 13 of Template Toolkit 2: Races:
I'm not copying the table, buy the book for that.

Also see:
ST & HP formula from Fantasy page 51, and page 2 of GURPS update, and also Object HP table, Basic page 558.
Sorry, I don't have the template toolkit.
Fantasy pg 51 seems to be about SM, ST and HP but doesn't mention Unliving or Homogenous. And in fact, none of the Unliving or Homogenous templates in that book appear to come with extra HP.

I usually think of HP primarily as a measure of how much damage it takes to kill something and only occasionally as mass--I feel like ST might have been a better GURPS analog for mass, since you have to have ST that's at least in some minimal way proportional to your mass in order to carry yourself around.
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Old 10-28-2019, 05:57 PM   #18
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Default Re: Fixing Injury Tolerance [Basic/Powers]

Quote:
Originally Posted by NineDaysDead View Post
Why do that? Are you forgetting that Iron is much denser than Ice, therefore 100lbs of Iron will be a much smaller volume than 100lbs of Ice?
No, I'm not forgetting that. Figuring out resistance to deformation is tricky, but looking at the simpler case of melting things, melting ice that starts at 0C requires 333J/g, melting iron that starts at 0C requires 938J/g (which is nowhere near the max; graphite would requires about 12 kJ/g to force it to sublime).
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Old 10-28-2019, 06:15 PM   #19
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Default Re: Fixing Injury Tolerance [Basic/Powers]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gnome View Post
Sorry, I don't have the template toolkit.
Fantasy pg 51 seems to be about SM, ST and HP but doesn't mention Unliving or Homogenous. And in fact, none of the Unliving or Homogenous templates in that book appear to come with extra HP.
I won't risk copying the table here but I think it's the least "important" part of that book (which is excellent by the way, definitely worth the purchase), as it's just a more convenient form of showing that Basic already covers:
Living has HP equal to 10*(2/Longest Dimension), Unliving doubles that while Homogeneous quadruples.
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Old 10-28-2019, 10:25 PM   #20
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Default Re: Fixing Injury Tolerance [Basic/Powers]

I like this fix. It addresses the obvious problem of collision damage, which was based on HP, and a problem, and fixes it without actually changing the relative HP of unliving or homogeneous. Nicely done.
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