High Power GURPS: Where lies the problem?

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Eric Funk

That said, I am struggling to find rules to help a (different) gold-era supers campaign to help super heroes-in-training each have options to "incapacitate" criminals they foil crimes of (nonsupers being even more fragile)... (e.g., to just "knock out" foes to tie up and leave for the police?) (the flavour text narrates a taking a sorcerer unconscious! (Supers p.5)).

I suggested a Subdual Injury system here (go to posts 9 and 10 for the polished version). That's more complex than is strictly necessary, due to my own idiosyncrasies in what I wanted out of it. An easier option is to use the Lethal vs Subdual rules there as-is, but instead of the default 50% Lethal split, just have some weapons be purely Subdual, some purely Lethal, and impose a -4 penalty to switch to the other, just like how That Other Game does it (or at least did it back when I played; Baldur's Gate 3 implies they may have gotten rid of the penalty to swap).

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I’ve never come near to that. In my last GURPS session I gave all the characters 1 point for participation and 3 points for good role playing, and then gave one of them an extra point for solving a problem, for a total of 5. That’s more than I usually give. At that rate the issue is slower to arise, at least.

I have the impression that’s a more typical rate than 10/session.

For many years I was handing out an average of 3 points a session. Starting at 150 points that still comes to a lot of points after a few hundred sessions. I ended up introducing a scaling rate, so at 800 and 1200 points the award rate dropped by 1/session.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Varyon

I suggested a Subdual Injury system here (go to posts 9 and 10 for the polished version). That's more complex than is strictly necessary, due to my own idiosyncrasies in what I wanted out of it. An easier option is to use the Lethal vs Subdual rules there as-is, but instead of the default 50% Lethal split, just have some weapons be purely Subdual, some purely Lethal, and impose a -4 penalty to switch to the other, just like how That Other Game does it (or at least did it back when I played; Baldur's Gate 3 implies they may have gotten rid of the penalty to swap).

In D&D 5 (I don't know about the latest and greatest that's just out) you have the option when you drop an enemy to 0HP with a melee attack to simple declare that they're only knocked out. No risk, no cost. I do wonder if the designers ever considered the moral aspect of this rule.

Aftermath! way back when had 'lethal' and 'subdual' damage types and melee weapons might do all lethal (if a knife, sword, or spear), a 'combination' (half and half), or 'crushing' (50% subdual). Using a crushing weapon to knock someone out was usually reasonably safe.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Rupert

In D&D 5 (I don't know about the latest and greatest that's just out) you have the option when you drop an enemy to 0HP with a melee attack to simple declare that they're only knocked out. No risk, no cost.

That tracks. In BG3, it's simply a toggle you can turn on. With it on, a killing blow (with a melee weapon, it doesn't work for ranged weapons, powers/spells, etc) instead leaves the foe unconscious but with 1 HP (as the programming for the game has foes simply die at 0 HP). I think I prefer the version that Dan used in his "Who is Ellen?" sidestory for El Goonish Shive, where the titular character was DM for a pickup game of what was clearly a new edition of Legally-Distinct-D&D, and had it so every attack (unless doing ridiculous amounts of damage) had the option of being non-lethal without issue (one of the characters played as a half-demon Warlock Sorceress and blasted a foe unconscious with her Eldritch Blast).

Originally Posted by Rupert

I do wonder if the designers ever considered the moral aspect of this rule.

Probably not, or at least not seriously. They probably assumed enemies would typically be irredeemably evil, where killing them isn't much of a concern and the only reason you wouldn't is if you need to take them alive for tactical/strategic reasons (or if they're actually a brainwashed innocent villager or something).

Originally Posted by Rupert

Aftermath! way back when had 'lethal' and 'subdual' damage types and melee weapons might do all lethal (if a knife, sword, or spear), a 'combination' (half and half), or 'crushing' (50% subdual). Using a crushing weapon to knock someone out was usually reasonably safe.

Good to know I'm not the only one crazy enough to think splitting Injury into Lethal and Subdual is a good idea. I will note that, as someone suggested in my linked thread, this becomes a lot easier if you just have all attacks deal full Subdual Injury, then have some fraction (ranging from 0% to 100%, although I suggested a floor of 10% and ceiling of 90%) also count as Lethal, then just track the two separately (Subdual is used for checking for stunning, reeling, unconsciousness, and momentary crippling; Lethal is used for bleeding, death checks, and upgrading crippling to temporary, lasting, or permanent/severed).

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Good to know I'm not the only one crazy enough to think splitting Injury into Lethal and Subdual is a good idea.

Separate stun and lethal tracks dates back to at least Champions in the early 80s, and was present in GURPS Supers for 3e. I'm not sure of its value for tracking, though. There are basically two features of lethal damage: it can cause the victim to make death checks, and it recovers slowly. The thing is, in cinematic genres:

Risk of lethality is not actually a function of the damage type of prior injury -- it's very unlikely to occur unless the character is on the verge of defeat, but defeating someone by beating them up with your fists, and then as a finisher pulling out a gun, is actually just as dangerous as a finishing shot at the end of an extended gunfight.

Slow recovery is uncommon but can happen for any type of injury -- you generally see someone out of action either at end of story arc (and therefore not actually relevant) or the character temporarily being removed for plot reasons (and they will recover when plot convenient). A likely gaming equivalent of this is the player being absent for a session -- guess he spent that session recovering from his injuries.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Separate stun and lethal tracks dates back to at least Champions in the early 80s, and was present in GURPS Supers for 3e.

Sorry, that wasn't clear - I was specifically talking about splitting a single attack into having a portion of it be lethal and a portion subdual, rather than just tracking lethal and subdual attacks separately.

Originally Posted by Anthony

Risk of lethality is not actually a function of the damage type of prior injury -- it's very unlikely to occur unless the character is on the verge of defeat, but defeating someone by beating them up with your fists, and then as a finisher pulling out a gun, is actually just as dangerous as a finishing shot at the end of an extended gunfight.

This is a good point. It does get to what I always thought was odd about the way D&D 3.5 handled it, where you can basically just hit the target for subdual damage a few times at the start of the fight, then switch to full-fat lethal damage with confidence they'll fall unconscious without risk of death. My system tries to avoid this by not making unconsciousness automatic and having large amounts of lethal damage be dangerous on its own (via bleeding - also unconsciousness is a more serious concern when below 0 HP, particularly if at or below -HP).

Originally Posted by Anthony

Slow recovery is uncommon but can happen for any type of injury -- you generally see someone out of action either at end of story arc (and therefore not actually relevant) or the character temporarily being removed for plot reasons (and they will recover when plot convenient). A likely gaming equivalent of this is the player being absent for a session -- guess he spent that session recovering from his injuries.

Well, Subdual Injury healing faster was a necessary part of the system I was designing (part of it is to make turns "wasted" on things like Aim, Ready, Evaluate, etc more interesting by having them allow for a roll to recover Subdual Injury), so at the very least there would need to be separate tracking for that purpose.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Well, Subdual Injury healing faster was a necessary part of the system I was designing (part of it is to make turns "wasted" on things like Aim, Ready, Evaluate, etc more interesting by having them allow for a roll to recover Subdual Injury), so at the very least there would need to be separate tracking for that purpose.

I would argue that, in cinematic genres that allow in-combat recovery to be relevant, the damage type still doesn't matter.

[thalcos]

I think it's specifically high-powered Supers that gets challenging, not high-powered campaigns in general. I ran a high-powered campaign where the PCs were 500-point rulers of kingdoms and it worked fine (well, other than you do start to get a lot of IQ 15, DX 15 experts who start to do everything equally well...)

But with high-powered Supers, you really need to start picking some optional rules to use: Knowing Your Own Strength, Impulse Buys, damage scaling, Buckets of Points (i.e. thinking about character points differently), etc. You and your players really need to know how to build complex abilities to recreate common hero tropes - like modular abilities, afflictions, shapeshifting, etc. GURPS Supers does a pretty great job navigating through a lot of this stuff, but in the end, all of this requires strong familiarity with the ephemera of GURPS, which can get difficult for inexperienced or even moderately-experienced players.

Also, I find the 1-second turns gets in the way of recreating the FEEL of a lot of big superhero battles, like the ones at the end of Marvel movies. You generally want heroes punched through buildings, civilians rescued in mid-air, and hordes of minions everywhere. A good GM can hand wave this by just arbitrarily compressing and expanding turn lengths ("sure you can punch that thug and race across the football field to catch the crashing helicopter, make a DX roll!"), but again, it's an area where the RAW ruleset works against you compared to other super systems where turns are closer to 10 seconds.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Rupert

For many years I was handing out an average of 3 points a session. Starting at 150 points that still comes to a lot of points after a few hundred sessions. I ended up introducing a scaling rate, so at 800 and 1200 points the award rate dropped by 1/session.

How many sessions you run makes a difference. I typically run one session a month, and for two years (or three in a long campaign). That comes to 70-100 points, which is a significant change from a start of 150, but not overwhelming.

[Eric Funk]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

I dunno, why not drain FP?

In fact, I'll go one better: we've got TV Action Violence on BS417. Why not make antagonists use it?

(Also, ditch the restraint in the second paragraph except probably the final sentence.

Aha, I like it. It still keeps high HP relevant while having something that already "heals" fast.
It /does/ cause you to miss your next turn ("stagger"?) (B417). I'll have to ponder some skirmishes...

My gut instinct is to add a multiplier to the FP cost based on the tier of foe... perhaps
1 (boss) even (1FP each event)
2 (miniboss) FP/3 ? (two events has them "weak" at 1/3FP)
3 significant npc - 1 hit to "Weak" at 1/3FP
4 mook - 1 hit KO

I'm pondering calling it a use of "Extra Effort" , so it will slot in where one can only use Extra Effort defense once per turn. (MA131)

Thanks!