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Old 09-11-2013, 06:55 AM   #71
vicky_molokh
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Default Re: Daring to ask the what does SM do question.

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Originally Posted by DouglasCole View Post
It's mentioned in the box called Bigger and Stronger on page 9. It's referenced in the section on "Understand Relative Size Modifier and Weight Advantage."

Exactly where it should be.

As far as the weapons/hands thing, the rules should be exactly the same: Relative Size Modifier applies when rolling to hit. After a grapple has occurred, regardless of weapons or no, the LARGER fighter gets the DX and ST bonuses.
Point is that Bigger And Stronger's wording is somewhat unclear in this sense. Doubly so because that's the reading that would seem consistent with Basic Set (B402: "You also get +1 to hit when you grapple per +1 SM advantage you have over your target").

I get that this is the intent is to fix the Grappling-a-Fly issue. The problem is it further skews the badness of being higher-SM. (Related: Slithers now grants permanent Prone-like penalties in combat, as opposed to originally trading away the right to Kick / use legs in grapple in exchange for not having cripplable Legs.)
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Old 09-11-2013, 07:00 AM   #72
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Default Re: Daring to ask the what does SM do question.

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Originally Posted by vicky_molokh View Post
Point is that Bigger And Stronger's wording is somewhat unclear in this sense. Doubly so because that's the reading that would seem consistent with Basic Set.
The wording is absolutely clear. Until you have scored a hit using DX or a grappling skill, you are not grappling. You are standing around.

Quote:
I get that this is the intent is to fix the Grappling-a-Fly issue. The problem is it further skews the badness of being higher-SM.
This makes no sense. Before you're grappling, nothing has changed with respect to rules-as-written. Once you're grappling, bigger is better, and smaller does not change.

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(Related: Slithers now grants permanent Prone-like penalties in combat, as opposed to originally trading away the right to Kick / use legs in grapple in exchange for not having cripplable Legs.)
Slithers appears exactly once in the entire manuscript, in the context of No Legs (Slithers) for snakes. Can you refer me to the part of the text from which you're making this inference?
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Old 09-11-2013, 07:08 AM   #73
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Default Re: Daring to ask the what does SM do question.

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Originally Posted by Aneirin View Post
If you enforce the fighting at different heights for the smaller characters, they will be at -1 to all their defenses against big people, and SM0 people will get +1 to their defense.

This means that the +2 to hit will need to be eaten up in a level of deceptive attack to get rid of the bigger dues parry bonus.

And the -2 for thebig dudes hit, it is just a forced deceptive attack as they have 1 less to parry.

Being little shouldn't be giving them a bonus in combat, and comes with other drawbacks (being grappled, being slammed and run over)

And also the fact that they will be at a penalty to hit anything higher than the legs, meaning they will have to take further minuses to their skill to attack the chest and more juicey targets such as neck, face, head and vitals and what not (unless they want to just go around lopping off legs)
You're assuming the smaller SM characters aren't using weapons. Simply using a Reach 1 weapon (scaled to SM-2, anything that had Reach 1+ still has Reach of at least 1) completely negates the larger character's defense bonus and the smaller character's penalty to target the head/neck (straight literal reading also means it gets rid of the +2 to target the legs, but that doesn't make a lot of sense). The character's defense penalty should still apply, and the larger character gets a +1 to target the head/neck, for a net slight disadvantage there.
Were we to be a bit more realistic and note that an SM-2 character's broadsword is probably a little more than 1.5 feet long (decreasing the height difference from 3 to 1.5, rather than from 3 to 0), the smaller character still suffers the penalty to target the head/neck - but why bother going after those when you can attack the legs at a net +2 to skill (-2 hit location, +2 SM, +2 for Combat at Different Levels) and force the enemy down to your level?
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Old 09-11-2013, 07:16 AM   #74
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Default Re: Daring to ask the what does SM do question.

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Originally Posted by Varyon View Post
You're assuming the smaller SM characters aren't using weapons. Simply using a Reach 1 weapon (scaled to SM-2, anything that had Reach 1+ still has Reach of at least 1) completely negates the larger character's defense bonus and the smaller character's penalty to target the head/neck (straight literal reading also means it gets rid of the +2 to target the legs, but that doesn't make a lot of sense). The character's defense penalty should still apply, and the larger character gets a +1 to target the head/neck, for a net slight disadvantage there.
Were we to be a bit more realistic and note that an SM-2 character's longsword is probably a little more than 1.5 feet long (decreasing the height difference from 3 to 1.5, rather than from 3 to 0), the smaller character still suffers the penalty to target the head/neck - but why bother going after those when you can attack the legs at a net +2 to skill (-2 hit location, +2 SM, +2 for Combat at Different Levels) and force the enemy down to your level?
Well I was assuming that each character was using a weapon at their reach.

I.e., smaller person with smaller weapon has reach c,1 due to SM-2

Bigger person with bigger weapons has reach 1, 2 (or 2, 3 with extra reach from SM+1 dude in the example previously given), with SM-2 v SM-0 characters this would differ depending on what weapons they are using.) And so by keping the little dude at reach ,the little dudes reach is aimed at just getting within range, he needs additional reach to negate the height bonus (I think from my reading of the rules)

i.e. having a 1 yard reach weapon and being one yard away from a dude on a 3 foot table. You are at a penalty as your reach just get you to the feet.

If you had reach 2, you would have additional reach over the 1 yard which could go up to reach him (holding the weapon at an angle requires it to be longer to get the same reach)

In the previous post (2 SM-2 characters being murder machines and getting a lot of benefit from their negative size modifier due to being difficult to hit, I can't comment too much because I don't know how they fight, do they just rely on decpetive attacks? What weapons do they use? What armour? What is their dodge scores? Shields?)

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Old 09-11-2013, 07:26 AM   #75
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Default Re: Daring to ask the what does SM do question.

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Originally Posted by DouglasCole View Post
This makes no sense. Before you're grappling, nothing has changed with respect to rules-as-written. Once you're grappling, bigger is better, and smaller does not change.
B402: "You also get +1 to hit when you grapple per +1 SM advantage you have over your target". TG changes the bonus from To Hit to After Hitting. Which makes perfect sense from a realism standpoint, but does nothing to compensate that point-cost imbalance.

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Slithers appears exactly once in the entire manuscript, in the context of No Legs (Slithers) for snakes. Can you refer me to the part of the text from which you're making this inference?
My mistake. I apologize. Indeed, it is not Slithers itself, but rather Horizontal: "Your default posture is considered crawling: a three-point,
full-height posture. See Posture (pp. 9-10) for more details." Since crawling gives -4 to attacks and -3 to defences, and has other drawbacks specific to TG . . . well, that hurts. (The entry on Horizontal in MA115 is actually about appropriate to its point cost.)

The nasty bit about Slithers comes from MA116:
"Slithers: As Legless, unless you have both Constriction
Attack (p. B43) and Double-Jointed (p. B56)."
"If you’re Legless, you must fight from the ground at
the usual penalties (-4 to attack, -3 to defend)."
What this means is that Bounces/Rolls and Slithers cost the same, but Slithers is brutally worse!
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Old 09-11-2013, 07:31 AM   #76
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Default Re: Daring to ask the what does SM do question.

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Originally Posted by vicky_molokh View Post
B402: "You also get +1 to hit when you grapple per +1 SM advantage you have over your target". TG changes the bonus from To Hit to After Hitting. Which makes perfect sense from a realism standpoint, but does nothing to compensate that point-cost imbalance.
As RPK pointed out, I'm not terribly concerned with the point cost imbalance being discussed. Wasn't my mission. I happily stop at "makes perfect sense from a realism standpoint."

Quote:
My mistake. I apologize. Indeed, it is not Slithers itself, but rather Horizontal: "Your default posture is considered crawling: a three-point,
full-height posture. See Posture (pp. 9-10) for more details." Since crawling gives -4 to attacks and -3 to defences, and has other drawbacks specific to TG . . . well, that hurts. (The entry on Horizontal in MA115 is actually about appropriate to its point cost.)

The nasty bit about Slithers comes from MA116:
"Slithers: As Legless, unless you have both Constriction
Attack (p. B43) and Double-Jointed (p. B56)."
"If you’re Legless, you must fight from the ground at
the usual penalties (-4 to attack, -3 to defend)."
What this means is that Bounces/Rolls and Slithers cost the same, but Slithers is brutally worse!
And this one is my bad, and you'll see why in the Designer's Notes. There was going to be a section on Horizontal creatures that showed that such creatures are at NO PENALTY using their "default posture." That was removed, since I wasn't writing "GURPS Animal Design."
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Old 09-11-2013, 07:42 AM   #77
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Default Re: Daring to ask the what does SM do question.

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Originally Posted by Aneirin View Post
Well I was assuming that each character was using a weapon at their reach.
Right, my mistake. Our smaller character would need to get into CC to make use of his Reach 1, which would cause some penalties (although, arguably, a 0.6 yard sword should be Reach C,1). He could manage it more easily if using a Reach 2 weapon (originally Reach 3), but those aren't typically "adventurer" equipment.
I still don't think bonuses to defenses should really apply to the larger character (from a realism standpoint - from a balance standpoint they help make high/low SM more equal), although I could be mistaken.
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Old 09-11-2013, 10:58 AM   #78
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Default Re: Daring to ask the what does SM do question.

Combat at Different Levels seems like the ruleset to use, but there's nothing in Basic that tells us how to apply those rules where characters of different SM fighting at the same level are concerned. One issue is that those rules measure differences in feet, not SM. SM+1, for example, can range from 6 feet to 9 feet tall, and if you're applying differences in height between characters as the basis of bonuses/penalties rather than differences in SM, then height in feet is not so much of a "feature" anymore, and should be bought with CP...
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Old 09-11-2013, 11:20 AM   #79
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Default Re: Daring to ask the what does SM do question.

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Originally Posted by Aneirin View Post
And so by keping the little dude at reach ,the little dudes reach is aimed at just getting within range, he needs additional reach to negate the height bonus (I think from my reading of the rules)
From my reading of the rules (Effects of Reach, B403), you're both wrong. You need reach 2+ to reduce the effects of relative height, and it does so regardless of your opponent's reach -- the advantage of reach for the person who's higher up is that they can still attack at, say, 9' of vertical distance.
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Old 09-11-2013, 11:24 AM   #80
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Default Re: Daring to ask the what does SM do question.

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Raising more than one weapon skill (past 2-4 points) is almost always a mistake in GURPS.
That certainly hasn't been my experience. It's not an aesthetic choice, either, as you suggest. In the games I've seen, having one combat skill markedly higher than any other applicable skills has created a glaring gap in their abilities that generally cause more problems than the high skill solves. They're more limited in what they can do, and more vulnerable to their opponent's choice in tactics.
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