[supers] [powers] super strength; treat me like I have non-sapient IQ

[Johnny Angel]

After noticing a few other threads, I'm relieved to find that I'm not the only own who feels that the Super ST charts are somewhat difficult to understand.
I'm not complaining; I'm sure that the system works fine. However, I have to be honest and say that I'm a little lost when it comes to applying Super ST to a character. I've been using GCA as an aid for me to learn more of the system, but adding Super ST to a character in GCA produced numbers which I'm not sure that I understand.

So, if someone would be so kind as to break things down for me and help me to understand Super ST, I'd appreciate it.


What I understand: Super ST is kept track of seperately from regular ST. I understand also that Super ST allows someone to do more damage, lift more, and etc while using Super Effort.

What I don't understand: How the math behind Super ST works. I'm not fully understanding where some of the numbers come from when I quick view the character I made using GCA. I also don't quite understand what some of the numbers mean.

If it would help, I could post the character I made pre-Super ST and use that as a common reference point...

[nick012000]

From my brief reading of it in Supers, I think it's basically just "Work out how many yards a Size Modifier equal to your Super Strength equates to. Add this you your regular Strength."

So, for Super Strength 1, you get +3 ST, since SM +1 is 3 yards long.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by nick012000

From my brief reading of it in Supers, I think it's basically just "Work out how many yards a Size Modifier equal to your Super Strength equates to. Add this you your regular Strength."

So, for Super Strength 1, you get +3 ST, since SM +1 is 3 yards long.

Yep, Super-ST is confusing because it uses the utterly non-intuitive Speed/Range chart.

It boils down to "pts of ST that you can use only at x pts of FP per time unit, see the Speed/Range chart to determine how many pts of ST you get at level x" .

If you wonder, Super-ST is basically a bad idea pointswise at less than 7 levels.

It ought to say, in triple-size type, somewhere in the front part of the Gurps book that people actually look at "You Must Read The Text In This Book. You Can Not Rely On Trait Names ,Computer Programs Or Other Play Aids. Important Rules Information Is Found In The Text.".

Some of this _is_Gurps' fault when it gives bad names to traits (Honesty) or gives individual traits idiosyncratic rules (Invisibility) and to cut the OP some slack when Super-ST is not just like regular ST only "Super". If Super-ST simply added 10 pts of ST to your regular ST per level it'd be a lot easier to explain.

I see it happening in other games too. Too many people try and run their D&D characters straight off their HeroForge print-out without reading the text in that book either.

[roguebfl]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Some of this _is_Gurps' fault when it gives bad names to traits (Honesty)

There is NOTING wrong the the trait name for Honesty. Even before I played GURPS an Honest person was some who played by the rules/laws without threat of enforcement. They just happen to also tend to be Truthful. The FIRST defintion listed in the dictionary for Honesty is "1. the quality or fact of being honest; uprightness and fairness." the defintion of it being truthful is secondardy to that.

it the same the with Celibacy. Celibacy does not mean you will not have sex, that's Chasity. Celibacy means you will not marry. it just happens that most people that talk about Celibacy are working from a frame of an expectation of Chasity outside of marriage.

As to the Speed/Range Table being 'utterly non-intuitive' a take it your school failed you by never introducing you to the concept of logarithms?

[PK]

GUYS, please stop threadcrapping. There's other threads about nonintuitive trait names where this would fit just fine. But none of it is helping the OP understand Super ST any better.

(I'll try to help, in a second post.)

[Johnny Angel]

It has nothing to do with trait names. I'm just trying to bring myself up to speed as quickly as possible, so that I can provide a better experience for the group I'm gaming with. I expected them to like GURPS, but I didn't expect their interest to take off as quickly as it did. A few weeks after giving the people I know a quick taste of GURPS (I ran a few arena battles and things of that nature to show them the system) I now find myself running three different games on fairly regular basis. Learning everything for fantasy, everything for a supers campaign, and everything for a space opera game all at the same time is bit on the difficult side for someone who is still learning some of the system while trying to help other people run it.

It's not even that I don't necessarily understand the concept of the rules. For me personally, looking at several different charts just to get the idea that "this much super ST allows you to do X" wasn't exactly something which appealed to my fairly-new-to-GURPS mind. Honestly, I think what confused me the most was trying to use GCA as a learning aid in this case. I ended up with numbers being added to the character which didn't seem to have a pattern I was familiar with compared to the numbers which were already there. For fantasy, space, mystery, and everything else the pattern was more or less the same; even for most of the super stuff it was the same, but Super ST -when I saw the numbers generated by GCA- was a bit of an oddity.

[SuedodeuS]

Originally Posted by roguebfl

As to the Speed/Range Table being 'utterly non-intuitive' a take it your school failed you by never introducing you to the concept of logarithms?

First off, that's a bit unnecessarily hostile. Secondly, most people cannot do logarithms in their heads, which does indeed make it non-intuitive. If it were intuitive, I'd be able to rattle off the appropriate lengths for each SM just by giving it a little thought. As it stands, I need to either use the table or whip out my calculator.


Now, I've never bothered with Super ST, but from the text it looks like, as others have pointed out, you essentially take the amount of ST you've applied the enhancement to and use this for the size modifier on the Speed/Range chart. Look at the length this corresponds to, in yards, to determine how much ST this value actually is. Super ST 1 equals 3 ST, Super ST 2 equals 5 ST, Super ST 3 equals 7 ST, and so forth.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by SuedodeuS

First off, that's a bit unnecessarily hostile. Secondly, most people cannot do logarithms in their heads, which does indeed make it non-intuitive. If it were intuitive, I'd be able to rattle off the appropriate lengths for each SM just by giving it a little thought. As it stands, I need to either use the table or whip out my calculator.

I don't do logarithms in my head. But I can work out the pattern of a geometric (multiplicative) progression and iterate it in my head.

A simple example is the Enhanced Move progression. Each level is x2. So you double for one level, and repeat: x2, x4, x8, x16, x32, x64, x128, x256, x512, x1024, and so on. If you want to simplify you can say that the tenth step is x1000 and then the eleventh step becomes x2000 (or x2 x1000) instead of x2048.

The Super-ST progression is the same trick, but every SIXTH step is x10. So you have to memorize the intermediate steps: +3, +5, +7, +10, +15, +20, and then you repeat at +30, +50, +70, +100, +150, +200.

Working out the optimal intermediate steps for a new series requires a calculator. But for an existing series, you just have to identify the multiplicative pattern and repeat it.

Bill Stoddard

[vitruvian]

Originally Posted by SuedodeuS

First off, that's a bit unnecessarily hostile. Secondly, most people cannot do logarithms in their heads, which does indeed make it non-intuitive. If it were intuitive, I'd be able to rattle off the appropriate lengths for each SM just by giving it a little thought. As it stands, I need to either use the table or whip out my calculator.

Actually, even just going by the table, that should be possible with just a little practice. The progression goes 1, 1.5. 2, 3, 5, 7, 10 - each six steps makes the value 10x larger, so just rinse and repeat - 15, 20, 30, 50, 70, 100 - another factor of 10 - 150, 200, 300, 500, 700, 1000. I'm sure you can handle powers of 10 from that point on.

Going negative and figuring out what that means in terms of feet or inches is a little more difficult, but not a concern for Super-Strengt.

[PK]

Johnny, here's how Super ST works. I'm going to keep it simple by assuming that you'll be following the GURPS Supers suggestion of buying ST 20 + Super ST. (It's a good suggestion -- if you use it for everyone with Super ST, their relative "normal STs" are properly balanced against each other.)

Anyway:

To build a brick, first you buy your ST up to 20, which costs 100 points (minus any discounts for Size and other limitations, of course). This is just normal ST, like you'd buy for any character, at 10 points/level.

Then you add extra ST with the Super-Effort enhancement. Because this is a +300% enhancement, the ST ends up costing 40 points/level (minus any discounts for Size and other limitations, of course). That's really expensive, so you don't want to buy Super ST for anyone who isn't going to be a serious powerhouse. (As a rule, if you're not willing to drop about 400+ points into ST, don't bother with Super ST.)

Let's take some examples. Moxie buys ST 20 [100] and then ST +10 (Super-Effort, +300%) [400]. That's ten levels of normal ST for 100 points, and then ten more levels of Super ST for 400 points, for a total of 500 points.

On the bad guy front, Grak is super-strong, but if someone nullifies his powers, he's only ST 10. So he buys ST 20 (Super, -10%) [90] and then ST +11 (Super, -10%; Super-Effort, +300%) [429]. That's ten levels of normal ST for 90 points, and then eleven more levels of Super ST for 429 points, for a total of 519 points. He's stronger than Moxie, but if you hit him with Neutralize (Super), he goes right back to ST 10.

Now, that extra ST that we added can be used two ways. Most of the time, it's just treated like regular ST. So Moxie normally has ST 30, his normal ST 20 plus the extra +10, as seen above. And Grak normally has ST 31.

But both have serious "reserves" of ST that they can call upon. You find the value of this "reserve" by using the Size and Speed/Range table on p. B550. Why that table? Because it's a handy example of what we call a "logarithmic progression" -- notice how every +6 to the size column translates to exactly x10 to range. This makes for a smooth progression that gets bigger faster as you move along the table.

Anyway, you get the reserve ST (or "super ST") by looking up your Super ST on the Size column of the table. So Moxie has Super ST +10, right? Look at the listing for Size +10, then look over to the "yards" column. See how it says "100 yards"? That means Moxie has a reserve of +100 ST. And Grak has a reserve of +150 ST. It has nothing to do with actual yards, mind you -- we're just using this table because all of the complex logarithm math is already done for us.

That's where the numbers come from. Moxie will actually list his Super-ST as "ST +10/+100", to show that it's normally +10, but it can be raised as high as +100 when necessary. And Grak writes "ST +11/+150", for the same reason.

So when do you use the higher ST? Whenever you want, but it costs you 1 FP per use. That's 1 FP per punch, 1 FP per lift, 1 FP per throw, etc. When you do this, you use the higher value for your extra ST.

So let's say Moxie is trying to kick down a door. He has ST 20 and +10 extra ST, for ST 30 (as we calculated, above). So he kicks the door for 3d damage. It should fly open, but the "CLANG!" tells him that it's actually an armored, reinforced door! So he pays 1 FP to kick with Super ST instead. Now he has ST 20 and +100 extra ST, for ST 120 total. (Note that the +100 replaces the +10, it doesn't add to it.) Now when he kicks the door, he does 13d damage, easily knocking it in.

If Moxie and Grak are wrestling on the street, they'll normally use ST 30 (Moxie) against ST 31 (Grak). But if they start taking it seriously enough to use super strength, both can pay 1 FP and now it's a contest of ST 120 (Moxie) against ST 170 (Grak).

Is that more clear?

Now for one last bit of advice: Make sure you understand the above, and you know where the math comes from and what it means. Once you've got it down, you can skip it. Just open GURPS Supers to p. 146 and use the table there. The first six columns (but not the last two!) are explicitly for super strength. See how Moxie's ST is represented with Base Value 10 (because he bought +10 Super ST) and Grak is the same as Base Value 11 (because he bought +11 Super ST). If you make sure that all of your bricks buy ST 20 normally, and then add Super ST on top of that, you've got all of the work already done for you by a Mr. William Stoddard, right there.