Pyramid #3/83: Alternate GURPS IV

[Peaches]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

It functions largely like Extra Effort, because it's more or less the skill of applying extra effort more carefully, controlledly, and safely.

The problem here is that skill does not take precedence over strength. Proper lifting technique will optimize your effort spent and mitigate potential injury.

Game mechanic wise, I see it doing the following:

• Roll periodically to reduce FP loss akin to Running/Swimming/Hiking skills.

• Mitigate injury from critical failures.

• Training in Lifting skill be a prerequisite to purchase additional Lifting ST and perhaps ST.

"Extra effort" is basically already accounted for already in the feats described on pg. 353 of Campaigns, e.g. any weight above BLx10 is already costing FP.

That's just how I see it, YMMV.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Peaches

The problem here is that skill does not take precedence over strength. Proper lifting technique will optimize your effort spent and mitigate potential injury.

IME, me being clumsy and unskilled was a reason why I could lift (particularly bench-press!) significantly less than would seem possible for my muscle mass. The Lifting skill is supposed to fix that, that increasing effective lifting ability.

[Peaches]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

IME, me being clumsy and unskilled was a reason why I could lift (particularly bench-press!) significantly less than would seem possible for my muscle mass. The Lifting skill is supposed to fix that, that increasing effective lifting ability.

What I'm trying to say is that lifting technique will optimize your strength so you can use your full Basic Lift for the feats of strength; say, if you don't have at least one point in Lifting skill, you might only be functioning at 80% of your normal Basic Lift, where as someone with a point in Lifting skill could function at 100%. It's only trained ability to optimize the strength you already have, not supersede it. It makes far more sense to me that way.

[OldSam]

Originally Posted by Kromm

FWIW, rethinking weapon damage and armor DR would be a separate article or three. The focus of mine was mostly to correct Basic Lift and encumbrance, rescaling ST to a level where you don't need three-figure values for living things. It's a partial patch with a narrow focus. Overhauling everything would take a few more pages than I was allocated. ;)

Well, does it mean, e.g. for a new typical and "realistic" fantasy campaign, your recommendation would be to avoid touching ST until the following article is finished, too? In my experience weapon damage had more focus in typical games than Basic Lift... Or would you recommend something like only re-calculating BL so far, leaving the calculation of weapon based ST in the old way...?


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One specific question:
When using the rulings in the article like revised ST table etc., some notes about melee weapons are given. Are they also some implications for muscle-powered ranged weapons or can we assume everything to stay consistent there? Thanks!

[Langy]

Originally Posted by Peaches

What I'm trying to say is that lifting technique will optimize your strength so you can use your full Basic Lift for the feats of strength; say, if you don't have at least one point in Lifting skill, you might only be functioning at 80% of your normal Basic Lift, where as someone with a point in Lifting skill could function at 100%. It's only trained ability to optimize the strength you already have, not supersede it. It makes far more sense to me that way.

I'd argue that that's exactly what Lifting is, it just has you exceed BL because BL is calibrated to people who are not trained at Lifting.

[mlangsdorf]

Originally Posted by OldSam

Well, does it mean, e.g. for a new typical and "realistic" fantasy campaign, your recommendation would be to avoid touching ST until the following article is finished, too? In my experience weapon damage had more focus in typical games than Basic Lift... Or would you recommend something like only re-calculating BL so far, leaving the calculation of weapon based ST in the old way...?

If you're looking to do fantasy, and you don't need to worry about guns, you could just double armor DR and use the current damage tables. DR10 heavy mail is reasonable impenetrable by swords swung by strong men (DR10 vs 2d+2 damage) and field plate (DR12) requires focused attacks by warhammers.

Of course, if you do this, people in really good armor are going to invulnerable to scrubs. You said you wanted realistic, and that's what realistically happened.

For a more D&D sense of realism, intended specifically for fantasy games, you may want to look at Better Fantasy Armor. It's a relatively simple set of house rules that handles layering and scaling armor, provides a simple system for purchasing and weighing armor, and has lots of serious and semi-serious armor qualities, so you can have monks in Athletic, Meditative Fine Giant Spidersilk Robes, oversized barbarians in Crude Dragonscale over leather, and knights in fluted plate harness, and everything (mostly) make sense. It all depends on how house rule tolerant you are.

[OldSam]

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

If you're looking to do fantasy, and you don't need to worry about guns, you could just double armor DR and use the current damage tables.

Do you mean the standard armor values from the Basic Set? ATM I'm using the Low-Tech stuff... If I correctly understood your approach for "Better Fantasy Armor", than you try to be more compatible to common fantasy genre assumptions, with lesser priority for realism than Low-Tech, right?

[chandley]

Okay, having more or less groked Timothy's excellent article on Technical Possession (and Mind Control, and Mind Reading, and...), what I really want to do is change the QC of a malediction into a application of Malediction points (MDPs?), that can then be spent to apply whatever it is the Malediction does.

Im not sure if I would have MDPs reduce stats like CP or MCP do. If they dont, this would reduce the cost of the malediction enhancement, as you lose one of the big balancing factors for having delayed gratification to your effect. I'd get rid of the state reduction because stat reduction is a big part of what an Affliction does (and is one of the big users of Malediction), and there is no need to double dip on this.

Maybe borrow from Side Effect: 1/3 of Will (or HT, whichever the QC targets) in MDP costs such and so, 2/3 more, and so on. Reach your threshold in MDP to inflict whatever you inflict... hrm...

[wellspring]

It's worth mentioning that with the rise of modern scholarship on arms, armor, and western martial arts, we are starting to recalibrate out notions of just how weapons and armor are supposed to interact on the tabletop.

There's a big difference between the "feels right" mechanics implied by movies and TV shows, and what we're starting to reconstruct about how things might have actually gone historically. RPGs like GURPS are a big part of driving the demand for this kind of scholarship, and it's a work in progress.

Does plate armor stop an arrow from an english longbow? How were those bows shot? This week on scholagladiatoria (where I get all my news on world events) I saw totally different answers from what I've previously read. The age of the 20 lb greatsword-as-can-opener is only recently passed.

So long as it works in-game for story purposes, I think this is a case where we need to wait for the cutting edge to advance a little further before we can definitively say what the right values should be.

[mlangsdorf]

Originally Posted by OldSam

Do you mean the standard armor values from the Basic Set? ATM I'm using the Low-Tech stuff

Low-Tech, in my experience, does not noticeably improve armor DR, and in some cases makes it worse: heavy mail is DR 5/3*, while a double mail hauberk is also 5/3*. Full body DR4 scale weighs ~70 lbs in the basic set, and 84 lbs in Low Tech.

Originally Posted by OldSam

If I correctly understood your approach for "Better Fantasy Armor", than you try to be more compatible to common fantasy genre assumptions, with lesser priority for realism than Low-Tech, right?

Right. I didn't take as my baseline assumption that leather armor wasn't any good at all and that scale was an inferior technology. More expensive armor weighs less per pound of DR, but plate is only about twice as good, on a pound per pound basis, as leather (except plate is inflexible and has no DR penalties, and leather is flexible and worthless against piercing and impaling). Given the option, people who want the best protection will probably edge toward plate, but things like Athletic Thieves Dragonhide are actually worthwhile if you want to be a swashbuckler or other high mobility character.

But now we're moving off the topic of the thread.