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Old 11-11-2022, 10:33 PM   #141
DouglasCole
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/120: Alternate GURPS V

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kaslak View Post
...The implication is that, as excessively robust enemies cannot be anymore grinded to negative hp, it favors hitting where it hurts.


Thank you for your replies.
I'm super busy this weekend, but I wanted to "answer the last part first."

Your summary is exactly right. I'm not sure I set out with a list of design criteria that included this, but during play (in fairness, in play after the article was published, as it was more of a thought experiment than anything else) it came out that yeah, this system encouraged headhunting and other vital locations. This was an emergent behavior of the system, and after a little thought, we said "yes, this reality checks, or is at least believeable." You can whittle someone down with cuts or blows to the arms or legs, but it's the exception rather than the rule. The preparation for the final opening and blow to a vital target that truly ends the fight.

So yeah: the system encourages going for high-value targets.
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Old 11-11-2022, 11:25 PM   #142
DouglasCole
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/120: Alternate GURPS V

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kaslak View Post
I apologize for the necro-posting, but I think this is the best thread to follow up on this with related questions:
Heh. It's been years since I really read this, and I'm going to need to read it again and clean it up and simplify it when I do Mission X, so this is actually on point.

Quote:
A) On the quoted above text, does this apply also for extremities and eyes, where the wound severity is modified for gross effects determination (and less damage is needed to produce severity 0 and 1 wounds)?
I had a big answer before I realized it wasn't what you asked.

Based on the rules in the Basic Set, I'd say you don't check and re-check for crippling effects to limbs and eyes. That being said, if you use the pain rules and take a Sev 0 crippling wound, the HT-fail state is "Agony," which is incapacitating. If you succeed, you "only" suffer Terrible Pain, with a crit success only being Moderate Pain. So the Concentrate to make a HT roll to master the pain (p. 32) and the fact that the pain lasts both sub in for those effects. If you want.

Quote:
B) Mortal wounds

B.1) The mechanics at pg. 30 require a modified HT roll with death on failure. "If the victim does not die, check for unconsciousness, knockdown and stunning", so it seems that it does not incapacitate the character by default, unless agony is caused, which could create some interesting situations.
In Basic set campaigns pg 423, "you are instantly incapacitated" (My assumption is, until the wound is stabilized or you crit. succeed). Is the effect of severity 2 and 3 modified w.r.t. Basic Set?
No, you've jumped too far ahead. First, you need to check p. B419:

0 HP or less (meaning Sev 0), roll for HT every second or collapse.
-1xHP or less (Meaning Sev 2 or you check for death ONCE, but if you make it, then you can continue to act until you pass out (since you're checking for KO each second)

Only if you fail the death roll by 1 or 2 are you instantly incapacitated.

Even so, this looks like I was being a tetch too casual, perhaps, with the effects of crippling injury. You're looking for details, and I'm too tired to grab for them right now. Looking at the pain rules, though, you're looking at being in Agony at anything more than Sev 0, and a Sev 2 wound puts you in Agony unless you critically succeed on the HT roll (then you're only in Terrible Pain, woo hoo).

Quote:
B.2) The timing of HT rolls do avoid death subsequently, after the first three rolls, is once every 12 hours, while in the basic set it was every 30 minutes. In basic set, trauma maintenance had the effect of allowing to use the caregiver Physician skill instead of HT, and doubling the interval from 30 minutes to 1h, or from 30 minutes to 24 h if sustained by heart lung machine. Are the new roll intervals in CI likewise rescaled, or the being attached to a machine simply doubles the interval to 48h?
I absolutely didn't think it through that far - thought experiment. But the rules seem fine to me. The real point of checking at 1 minute (for massive trauma), again after the "golden hour," and then every day after that was to allow for lingering death. And frankly, "roll every 30 minutes" strikes me as sketchy from a "rolls interfering from fun" perspective. It also doesn't usualy mimic the fiction well.

Quote:
C) Wounds to extremities/limbs

2 cr damage to an extremity for a HP15 creature (i.e. robustness th 5) means a wound potential of 0, with +3 "when determining the gross effect only", that means a major wound => roll vs KD/stunning, possibly causing mild pain.

3 cr damage to the same extremity => as above, but the creature is reeling unless healing, and possibly in moderate pain

With basic rules, a major wound to the extremity would happen together with crippling (at least 6 dmg, for an extremity), and reeling would require accumulating 11 dmg (for instance getting 2 crippled extremities)

Am I reading this as intended? The implication is that, as excessively robust enemies cannot be anymore grinded to negative hp, it favors hitting where it hurts.
As noted in my prior reply, this is accurate. However, there are some tweaks required to make injury accumulation work better, and the Chaotic GM and I discuss them here: https://chaoticgm.wordpress.com/2020...ns-and-tweaks/

Also a playtest report here: https://gamingballistic.com/2018/11/...pyramid-3-120/

You'll want to keep scrolling: It's near the bottom.
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Last edited by DouglasCole; 11-11-2022 at 11:47 PM.
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Old 11-12-2022, 12:27 AM   #143
Kaslak
 
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/120: Alternate GURPS V

Quote:
Originally Posted by DouglasCole View Post
Heh. It's been years since I really read this, and I'm going to need to read it again and clean it up and simplify it when I do Mission X, so this is actually on point.
Thank you very much for taking the time to answer, really appreciated. Especially given the fuse differences :)

Quote:
Originally Posted by DouglasCole View Post
I had a big answer before I realized it wasn't what you asked.

Based on the rules in the Basic Set, I'd say you don't check and re-check for crippling effects to limbs and eyes. That being said, if you use the pain rules and take a Sev 0 crippling wound, the HT-fail state is "Agony," which is incapacitating. If you succeed, you "only" suffer Terrible Pain, with a crit success only being Moderate Pain. So the Concentrate to make a HT roll to master the pain (p. 32) and the fact that the pain lasts both sub in for those effects. If you want.
Essentially I was referring to the rolls vs unconsciousness happening at 0 or less HP in the basic set. This is definitely more clear, thank you!

The only point I have to raise in this answer is that, as the increment in severity (+3 for an extremity) is for gross effects only, not including pain level, so a crippling inj. to an extremity would be moderate pain (-3) on failed HT roll.

Quote:
Originally Posted by DouglasCole View Post
No, you've jumped too far ahead. First, you need to check p. B419:

0 HP or less (meaning Sev 0), roll for HT every second or collapse.
-1xHP or less (Meaning Sev 2 or you check for death ONCE, but if you make it, then you can continue to act until you pass out (since you're checking for KO each second)

Only if you fail the death roll by 1 or 2 are you instantly incapacitated.

Even so, this looks like I was being a tetch too casual, perhaps, with the effects of crippling injury. You're looking for details, and I'm too tired to grab for them right now. Looking at the pain rules, though, you're looking at being in Agony at anything more than Sev 0, and a Sev 2 wound puts you in Agony unless you critically succeed on the HT roll (then you're only in Terrible Pain, woo hoo).
Indeed, based on the naming convention I extended all the consequences of fail by 1 or 2 as outlined in the basic set, to the full span of success of CI, because that failure span is what causes a "basic set mortal wound" in the first place.

So if I understand correctly, the mortal wound in CI mostly covers the single HT vs death roll in the basic set, plus (I'd say I definitely like it, in the spirit of making massive damage more deadly) that even if you pass, you still need to be stabilized and have to check vs death at subsequent intervals (as if it was a 1 or 2 failure in the basic set), and likely be incapacitated by pain.

Quote:
Originally Posted by DouglasCole View Post
I absolutely didn't think it through that far - thought experiment. But the rules seem fine to me. The real point of checking at 1 minute (for massive trauma), again after the "golden hour," and then every day after that was to allow for lingering death. And frankly, "roll every 30 minutes" strikes me as sketchy from a "rolls interfering from fun" perspective. It also doesn't usualy mimic the fiction well.
Definitely I like the change, especially that the rolls are more adapt to travel time in different scenarios, reducing to a few, important rolls - I can foresee that the golden hour is the most important in modern scenarios where you have access to vehicles and hospitals, and the following longer intervals scale well with a low tech transport, rushing to get to the nearest healer before the next interval expires.

I was just wondering about the implication in a modern setting. Without scaling up also medical support intervals, the relative impact of trauma maintenance is reduced from a 1/48 reduction of the roll rate to 1/2, and negates completely the impact of a Physician (except for the skill roll in place of HT)

Quote:
Originally Posted by DouglasCole View Post
As noted in my prior reply, this is accurate. However, there are some tweaks required to make injury accumulation work better, and the Chaotic GM and I discuss them here: https://chaoticgm.wordpress.com/2020...ns-and-tweaks/

Also a playtest report here: https://gamingballistic.com/2018/11/...pyramid-3-120/

You'll want to keep scrolling: It's near the bottom.
Thank you very much for the link. Indeed I remember finding them when I was gathering information on the system. Being endorsed by the article author himself, I'll definitely implement them.

Last edited by Kaslak; 11-12-2022 at 12:35 AM.
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