Knowing Your Own Strength

[wellspring]

Originally Posted by 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)?

I haven't used it yet, but I'm watching this thread closely. Along with Christopher Rice's character building article in the same issue, I consider this one of the most exciting changes to the core rules in a long time.

[Mateus]

Originally Posted by Nereidalbel

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.

Ignoring DR the punch will do 8 points of injury (3.5+3.5+1) and a harder strike with a wooden stake to the vitals (-3 is not exactly a small penality) will do 10 (3.5 x3). Two points of injury is something but if the character know Boxing at just DX+1 level he do the same 10 points, 12 if he is a very well trained boxer. I dont know... for years I find a bit hard to see this working. So a very strong and trained boxer will, by average, do 2 less points of injury to someone if he chooses to stab in the vitals and not punch in the torso?

[Anders]

Originally Posted by Mateus

Ignoring DR the punch will do 8 points of injury (3.5+3.5+1) and a harder strike with a wooden stake to the vitals (-3 is not exactly a small penality) will do 10 (3.5 x3). Two points of injury is something but if the character know Boxing at just DX+1 level he do the same 10 points, 12 if he is a very well trained boxer. I dont know... for years I find a bit hard to see this working. So a very strong and trained boxer will, by average, do 2 less points of injury to someone if he chooses to stab in the vitals and not punch in the torso?

Possibly the damage multipliers need to be tinkered with?

[Mark Skarr]

Originally Posted by Mateus

Ignoring DR the punch will do 8 points of injury (3.5+3.5+1) and a harder strike with a wooden stake to the vitals (-3 is not exactly a small penality) will do 10 (3.5 x3). Two points of injury is something but if the character know Boxing at just DX+1 level he do the same 10 points, 12 if he is a very well trained boxer. I dont know... for years I find a bit hard to see this working. So a very strong and trained boxer will, by average, do 2 less points of injury to someone if he chooses to stab in the vitals and not punch in the torso?

Don't forget that a hit to the vitals, if enough to cause a Shock Penalty requires a knockdown and stunning roll. For 10 points of damage, that's probably enough for a major wound, which means the roll is at -5. The punch, which is also, probably, a major wound, makes the same roll, only it doesn't have that -5.

If the stake and punch both did only 1 point of penetrating damage, the stake would still cause a knockdown and stunning roll, but the punch would not.

[Anthony]

So, here's a variant that keeps damage on roughly the same scale it used to be. First, we have a table that maps ST to HP, as follows:

ST   <-19 <-9  <-2  <=0  1-3  4-5  6    7    8    9
HP   0    1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8    9
ST   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19
HP   10   11   12   14   16   18   20   22   25   28
ST   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29
HP   32   36   40   45   50   56   63   71   80   90

That tells you how many hit points a given level of ST has. Now, to determine damage, make a ST roll, at -5 if Thrusting. Look up your degree of success on that same table. That's your damage (you can either add weapon damage bonuses manually, or give bonuses to the ST roll, or do some variant).

[Mark Skarr]

Wow. That's just way more complicated than it needs to be, and damage ramps up wa-a-a-ay to fast for my taste.
No thanks.
I'll stick to either the regular ST damage or the Log ST damage, depending on the game I'm running. And I will advise others to do the same.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Mark Skarr

Don't forget that a hit to the vitals, if enough to cause a Shock Penalty requires a knockdown and stunning roll. For 10 points of damage, that's probably enough for a major wound, which means the roll is at -5. The punch, which is also, probably, a major wound, makes the same roll, only it doesn't have that -5.

If the stake and punch both did only 1 point of penetrating damage, the stake would still cause a knockdown and stunning roll, but the punch would not.

A punch can also target the Vitals, and while it doesn't get the Wounding Modifier, it does get the benefit of knockdown.

The 3xST rule is, as I understand it, essentially a hack to prevent an event like Superman cutting off Godzilla's arm with a pocket knife (due to sheer mechanical concerns; such a knife isn't long enough to even reach Godzilla's bone, let alone cut through it). As of LTC2, it's also to cover the fact that a really strong character has to check their strength to avoid breaking certain weapons. For the former, you'd need some sort of length/width based rule for maximum damage from an attack, which would be difficult to work out*. For the latter, Douglas Cole's The Broken Blade from Pyramid #3/87 may have you covered, although I haven't had a chance to really dig into that article yet. At a glance, a wooden stake (with MinST 5 under normal rules) can deal up to 7 damage (2d) without risking breakage, and can deal any damage beyond this but runs the risk of being damaged. For your altST 17 character, an average thrust will deal 8 damage, which would require an HT+1 roll to avoid damage. On a maximum damage roll of 13, you'd be rolling against HT-4.

*There wouldn't be such a limit for crushing weapons - those would really only be limited by how much they can handle without breaking. For impaling, you'd use the maximum length that can go into the target, eyeballing things as every 1 inch is 1 penetrating damage (but note that's only for normal flesh; a 6-inch dagger could only deal 6 damage - 12 injury - to an unarmored person, but if that person were protected by a 1 inch plate of steel it could deal 75 damage - 70 to get through the armor, then the remaining 5 inches could deal 5 damage - 10 injury - to the guy behind it), and damage beyond this would become crushing (as the weapon's hilt/haft and/or the characters hand hits the target). For cutting weapons, you've got how deep the weapon can actually penetrate (as a function of its length), but also how far along the outside of the body the actual cut is, which I don't really know how to account for. I mean, if we assume an impaling weapon is around an inch wide, that implies a 2-inch deep, 1-inch wide wound is 4 HP Injury, but then what is a 2-inch deep, 2-inch wide one, or a 2-inch deep, 12-foot wide one for that matter?

[Dustin]

Originally Posted by Mateus

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

Only with that stake, which at MinST 4 is small and light enough that it can be wielded without penalty by a child less than 5 years old (B20) or a ST4 housecat (B456) who somehow acquires hands. It's not made to stand up to a ST17 user, and faces breakage. A Large Knife (MinST 6) can stand up to the force, and doesn't suffer the problem you're seeing here with damage output because it won't break. Presumably beefier wooden stakes with a higher MinST are also possible.

Similarly for supers-level strength, I don't expect an ordinary greatsword to be able to withstand being used full-force by Superman or the Hulk (assuming it hits enough resistance to make it an issue). Arguably, one of the reasons super bricks use their fists is because not much else can withstand the force they can generate.

[Mateus]

Thank you guys again for all the input. This sunday or the next I will begin to test the "Know Your Own Strength" rules and see first hand how it works in game. About the minSTx3 I think that I will look the Douglas article indicated. I am definily fine with a weapon be broken in the first use because too much strength was used. Thank you.

[mhd]

Originally Posted by Dustin

or a ST4 housecat (B456) who somehow acquires hands.

Now I've got this idea for a Buffy & Burrows campaign...