Knowing Your Own Strength

[Ji ji]

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

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.

A new system should solve the old problems, not leave them untouched.

[mhd]

Going back to the original argument, isn't there also an argument to be made for replacing the 3xST maximum with ST+5, as this is "triple strength" in Log ST terms?

Althought "triple" seems to be mostly about Lifting ST, as a +5 increase doesn't exactly triple damage.

Which brings me to a somewhat related topic, that being the "0.5 x ST" for one-handed grip ST in Technical Grappling. As grappling actually is all about (trained) Lifting ST, my gut instinct would suggest that this should be replaced with ST-3.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Ji ji

A new system should solve the old problems, not leave them untouched.

Your definition of a problem is other peoples definition of a desirable feature.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Ji ji

A new system should solve the old problems, not leave them untouched.

The proposed logST does solve the problem (that the thr vs sw relationship is different at high ST than at low), just not in the way you (or I, for that matter) would prefer.

Originally Posted by mhd

Going back to the original argument, isn't there also an argument to be made for replacing the 3xST maximum with ST+5, as this is "triple strength" in Log ST terms?

That's probably going to exacerbate the problem. As I noted, the 3xST limit is a hack meant to address a number of issues, from realism to gamism. With ST 40*, the +3 sw cut of a Broadsword relative to a Large Knife is only a 12% difference, which isn't enough to justify the x15 price and reduced ability to conceal. If we restrict damage to MinSTx3, the Broadsword does over twice the damage of the knife - 6d (or 5d+4) compared to 3d-1. Meanwhile, that large knife isn't physically long enough to cut off an elephant's leg in one slice, but without the MinSTx3 limit a character with ST 95 can pull it off reliably. The Broken Blade encourages strong characters to use weapons that match their strength. Limiting damage would be much more of a finicky exercise, as I noted upthread, but so long as you avoid indestructible materials that problem should remain an edge case (and, honestly, indestructible materials are kind of an edge case themselves).

Originally Posted by mhd

Which brings me to a somewhat related topic, that being the "0.5 x ST" for one-handed grip ST in Technical Grappling. As grappling actually is all about (trained) Lifting ST, my gut instinct would suggest that this should be replaced with ST-3.

I can see that being the case. That said, half ST under Basic Set is 1/4 BL, so under the logarithmic scale you'd instead use ST-6. Similarly, if you did decide to maintain the 3xMinST rule, that would instead be somewhere between ST+9 and ST+10 (STx3 is BLx9; logST+9 is right around x8, while logST+10 is x10)

[Mithlas]

Originally Posted by Varyon

the 3xST limit is a hack meant to address a number of issues, from realism to gamism. With ST 40*, the +3 sw cut of a Broadsword relative to a Large Knife is only a 12% difference, which isn't enough to justify the x15 price and reduced ability to conceal. If we restrict damage to MinSTx3, the Broadsword does over twice the damage of the knife - 6d (or 5d+4) compared to 3d-1.

I don't have the article with "Know Your Own Strength", so I can't comment specifically on how that works, but I know I've calculated some odd and probably unintended problems at very high strength, so limiting damage to MinST*3 does seem both simple and solves that strength-damage problem.

[Mateus]

These two topics made me think again if "Knowing Your Own Strength" is a good solution for the ST problem:

http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=142171

http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=141809

I am runnig a MH game right now, so ST above 20 is, definily, something that happens a lot. I have a Muscle/Golem pc that have ST 30, so if I have to change things It is better to change soner than later. ST up to 20 seens to do not bring problens but it seens that when it get above 20 (and when we put natural weapons in the equation) things continue to get weird. I am using the Pyramid article that covers Natural Weapons and I normaly consider "monstrous attacks" as strikers.

But to the point: has the community came to a conclusion about how to use "Knowing Your Own Strength"? Or do we have some sort of agree about if it brings more solutions than problems?

[AlexanderHowl]

Hm, I really do not see ST as being 'lamely' priced. ST includes HP, Striking ST and Lifting ST, which adds up quite well without any major problems. If you use Log ST, instead of normal ST, your characters turn into glass cannons because they cannot tolerate damage or knockback.

A ST 100 person would have an average of 11d+11 crushing damage with a kick with a Brawling of DX+2, which would be an average of 49.5 crushing damage. The average ST 100 person would be able to tolerate two punches from an equivalent ST person before risking unconsciousness while a ST 30 person would be risking death with two punches. In addition, a ST 30 person would go flying back one yard while a ST 100 person would only risk knockdown from losing one-half of their HP. A ST 100 person would also survive a Lethal Kick to the vitals from a person with equivalent ST and Karate at DX (an average of 145.5 HP of damage) without issue while a ST 30 person would be nearly at HP*-4.

[Mateus]

My big question is: can I use the Knowing Your Own Strength in games that ST gets up to 50 without breaking the game? ST50 will put the melee damage in the same scale as the bigger weapons (10d if I am not doing the math wrong). But lift seens to be a big over the top (200k?)

[Leynok]

Originally Posted by Mateus

My big question is: can I use the Knowing Your Own Strength in games that ST gets up to 50 without breaking the game? ST50 will put the melee damage in the same scale as the bigger weapons (10d if I am not doing the math wrong). But lift seens to be a big over the top (200k?)

Going up that high will probably break something. For Log ST you need to also reduce the DR and Damage of most prestatted weapons.
It isn't that the lift is over the top, it's that with the log scale, it assumes each extra point of damage will require more and more strength to pull off, and trying to use log scale with the (don't really know the terms, insert not log here) scale will produce weird results, especially when you're reaching high numbers like 50.

[naloth]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Hm, I really do not see ST as being 'lamely' priced. ST includes HP, Striking ST and Lifting ST, which adds up quite well without any major problems.

Judging by the quantity of post discussing the price vs utility, I'm going to suggest that's not a widely held opinion. The default pricing scheme has discussed as being inadequate for many genres since 4e has been released.

If you consider Striking ST to be half the value of ST and it takes 2 points to raise your thrust +1 (or 10 levels to raise it 1d at ST50+), it doesn't compare favorable or reasonably to how anything else such as Innate Attack is priced. Perhaps the most useful component at the higher ranges is HP, and that is the least expensive component.

ST is the poster child for diminishing returns, especially since at higher levels a single point really doesn't do anything.

If you use Log ST, instead of normal ST, your characters turn into glass cannons because they cannot tolerate damage or knockback.

The damage progression is usually adjusted a bit as well. IIRC from the other thread, I calculated that ST100 (~10 ton lift guy, 11d+11 dmg by your numbers) would work out to ST30 and 7d punches while ST40 guy (~100 ton lift, normally 23d+23) would be ~12d. Overall, it's much more survivable for the "normal" ST10-15 heroes running around without the ST to bench press a vehicle.

The alternative canon means of getting up to ST100+ affordably is SuperST. SuperST does help the cost issue, but SuperST doesn't leave you with an large pool of HP nor should it help with knockback unless you blow fatigue to stand your ground.

Log costs seem like they could be reasonable for what you get. Where you can buy 200-300 points of ST it should be as impacting as 200-300 points of other game changing advantages such as Warp, Mind Control, TK, Morph, Snatcher, DR, or Innate Attack.