Knowing Your Own Strength

[Mateus]

Hello Hive Mind!

I plan to begin to use the article "Knowing Your Own Strength" of Kromm that was published in Pyramid #3-83 but want to listen to you guys first.

Has anyone tryed to use it? It worked?

Now my doubt. The article changes the way the system manages some rules but it do not talk about the rule of "max ST for weapons". Does it still apply?Using this system we still need the STx3 limitation or we can ignore (or put a higher maximun)?

[Mark Skarr]

Originally Posted by Mateus

I plan to begin to use the article "Knowing Your Own Strength" of Kromm that was published in Pyramid #3-83 but want to listen to you guys first.

Has anyone tryed to use it? It worked?

I'm using it for a GURPS Wild Cards game right now. Well . . . not right now, I'm getting ready for work actually. It works great for supers.

Originally Posted by Mateus

Now my doubt. The article changes the way the system manages some rules but it do not talk about the rule of "max ST for weapons". Does it still apply?Using this system we still need the STx3 limitation or we can ignore (or put a higher maximun)?

I haven't tried using it outside of a supers setting. With the altered damage increase, I'd say that Max ST for Weapons should probably be limited to STx2. Swing damage will be, markedly, lower, but that's part of the point.

[Ottriman]

You get roughly the same lift increase from tripling your ST in the old system as to adding +9-10 to your ST in knowing your won strength. +6 ST in this system works out pretty close to x2 ST in the old system.

I have replaced regular ST with this in my games, ST costing linearly with such lame diminishing returns and what not had been bothering me for a long time.

I suggest you not keep up the linear damage increases for ST past 20. Instead I like using a simple formula. This is because lift increasing incredibly quickly while damage stagnates is not a reasonable state of affairs.

Find the ST in the 11-20 range with the same last digit and multiply thrust and swing by 3/10/30/100/300/1000 for +10/+20/+30/+40/+50/+60 ST. I suggest you also treat hp like this such that it keeps pace.

Mind you this does cause a bit of weirdness when the last digit is 1-2 so in those cases you could use a linear increase when doing so would produce the higher damage.

Using these rules for ST 21-30 we get the following thrust/swing.

21: 3d+1/3d+3
22: 3d+2/4d+2
23: 3d+3/5d+1
24: 4d+2/6d
25: 5d+1/6d+3
26: 6d/7d+2
27: 6d+3/8d+1
28: 7d+2/9d
29: 8d+1/9d+3
30: 9d/10d+2 (alternatively for damage normalisers (4d+2) x2 / (5d+1) x2)

BL of 30 is 2000, which is the same as old ST 100, which has damage of 11d/13d.

So you see how this multiplication is important for high powered games.

Edit: I also multiply the cost of ST by 2 past 20 to make super strength still be expensive and hard to get outside of such games.

[mlangsdorf]

I didn't use the new lifting rules, but I have house-ruled that Thrust damage is Swing damage -2. All in all, I'd rather have said that Swing damage is Thrust damage +2. Putting both swing and thrust damage on the same progression is great, but having strong PCs hit for 1d+3 with their bare hands is a little weird.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

I didn't use the new lifting rules, but I have house-ruled that Thrust damage is Swing damage -2. All in all, I'd rather have said that Swing damage is Thrust damage +2. Putting both swing and thrust damage on the same progression is great, but having strong PCs hit for 1d+3 with their bare hands is a little weird.

The gamist reason is that, using the Swing progression, you get basically +1 damage for +1 ST. It dodges "breakpoint" levels.

Doesn't help with the actual numbers coming out, but that could be done by shifting the entire scale down by a few points, if you don't mind ST 10 people doing "not very much at all" when punching.

[Dustin]

I'd be inclined to keep the cap of MinSTx3 for weapon-based damage. Also, rather than sw damage being thr+2, I would have sw be +1 per die, so a super with 10d thrust damage has a reason to pick up a telephone pole or motorcycle to swat for 10d+10, rather than just 10d+2 which might be not worth bothering with.

[Ji ji]

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

Putting both swing and thrust damage on the same progression is great

I think that's the huge weak point of the whole know your ST system.
GURPS is a game and mechanics are the tools to play. The "swing = thrust+2" thing means that swing damage is a big affair for normal ST guys (low damage and HP) and it is nothing for supers (high damage and HP). Men got an edge by swing damage; two titans don't.

The fact that swing multiplies force and that this becomes a straight addition in logarithmic scale is really amazing. In physics. In game is an Adrianopolis.

[mlangsdorf]

Originally Posted by Ji ji

I think that's the huge weak point of the whole know your ST system.
GURPS is a game and mechanics are the tools to play. The "swing = thrust+2" thing means that swing damage is a big affair for normal ST guys (low damage and HP) and it is nothing for supers (high damage and HP). Men got an edge by swing damage; two titans don't.

The fact that swing multiplies force and that this becomes a straight addition in logarithmic scale is really amazing. In physics. In game is an Adrianopolis.

Swing damage at high ST levels (70+) is already thrust damage +2 dice. Know Your Own Strength didn't change that, it merely brought a similar mechanic down to normal human range.

The mechanics of damage penetration are so non-obvious that I'm not going to really argue that a lever should increase your damage by 50%. I will argue that game mechanically, it's a poor decision to have swings do so much more damage than thrusts, because it means past ST12 or so, there's never a reason to thr/im damage when you could do sw/cu damage: the latter is preferable against any expected DR. Toning down sw damage or bringing up thr damage means that stabbing people is viable tactic.

[Mateus]

Thank you all for the replies! Another question regarding the "min STx3". If I have a ST17 character using a Wooden Stake (ST4 in these rules) I will do just ST12 damage (1dimp). But if I just punch the enemy I do 2d+1cr (not counting bonus from training). This do not sound right to me... so to a human size but very strong guy (lets think about Fantasy or Supers here) is better to punch someone than to stab someone... If you put the ST in the Supers level it is better to punch than to use a Greatsword. I cant see the logic here.

[Nereidalbel]

Originally Posted by Mateus

Thank you all for the replies! Another question regarding the "min STx3". If I have a ST17 character using a Wooden Stake (ST4 in these rules) I will do just ST12 damage (1dimp). But if I just punch the enemy I do 2d+1cr (not counting bonus from training). This do not sound right to me... so to a human size but very strong guy (lets think about Fantasy or Supers here) is better to punch someone than to stab someone... If you put the ST in the Supers level it is better to punch than to use a Greatsword. I cant see the logic here.

Looking at numbers, sure the punch is better. Looking at mechanics? Yeah, I'll take the -3 and jam that stake right into the Vitals, causing more injury and a harsher Knockdown/Stun penalty.