Lifting ST

Lifting ST

3 points per +1 ST

You have lifting capacity out of proportion to your mass. This is common for vehicles and supers. Add your Lifting ST to your ordinary ST when you determine Basic Lift for the purposes of carrying, lifting, pushing, and pulling. Lifting ST also adds to ST in situations where you can apply slow, steady pressure (grappling, choking, etc.). Lifting ST does not boost ST (or Basic Lift) for the purpose of determining HP, throwing distance, or damage inflicted by melee attacks or thrown weapons.

If you bought your ST with the Size limitation, apply the same limitation to Lifting ST. The No Fine Manipulators limitation does not give a discount, however.

Powers Book

Comic-book supers are often capable of extreme lifts; see the Super-Effort enhancement (below) for a way to handle this.

Alternatives

Lifting ST only augments basic ST for lifting, pushing, etc. – and for grappling and choking in combat. To increase damage with melee weapons, take Striking ST. Those who want all of these benefits and more HP should just improve their ST.

New Special Enhancement

This optional enhancement is intended for demigods and supers. With it, Lifting ST becomes more efficient than usual after eight levels...and gets better from there. Thus, it's only of value to heroes with a significant investment in Lifting ST. If the GM sets a limit when using this modifier, it should be at Lifting ST +8 or higher.

Super-Effort:

You can make truly heroic lifts! Your Lifting ST works as usual except when you use extra effort. Then ignore the ordinary extra effort rules. Instead, find your Lifting ST level in the Size column of the Size and Speed/Range Table, read across to the Linear Measurement column, and use that number as your ST bonus for the lift. For instance, Lifting ST +20 gives +5,000 ST. This costs 1 FP per lift. Once you've made the lift, use Abilities and Exertion for ongoing FP costs. Walking around with or pulling the weight counts as "intensive use" (1 FP/minute); just holding it up is "long-term use" (1 FP/hour). You can't take Reduced Fatigue Cost to eliminate these costs unless you also add Cosmic (+50%). Super-Effort never benefits chokes or grapples. +400%.

Powering Up

Lifting ST could belong to a biological body-control power or a matter-control power that affects mass or density. Divine and chi powers might use Lifting ST – perhaps with Costs Fatigue or Super-Effort – for the ability to perform "heroic feats."

Talent modifies Will and HT rolls for extra effort and to avoid self-inflicted injury while lifting.

Supers Book: Strength and Super-Strength

Superhuman strength is one of the most common superpowers in the comics. But it's not discussed at great length in GURPS Powers, which mostly treats it not as a power (based on an advantage) but as a larger amount of an attribute. Unfortunately, increasing ST in this way makes it extremely expensive, if not impossible, to match the feats of comic-book crime-fighters. The rules presented here make it feasible. They're based on the treatment in GURPS Powers, but extend it in ways that only make sense in a four-color campaign, or possibly an extremely cinematic one. Don’t use them in a realistic game.

In four-color campaigns, the enhancement Super-Effort (above) can be applied to the attribute of ST, not just to Lifting ST. It has a different cost in this case: +300% rather than +400%.

Under the Hood: The Cost of Super-Strength

Why is the cost of Super-Effort +400% for Lifting ST, but +300% for overall ST? In GURPS Powers, Super-Effort only applies to Lifting ST. To buy +1 to ST, but be capable of Super-Effort, you have to buy Lifting ST, Striking ST, and HP separately and apply the modifier to Lifting ST. A +1 to Lifting ST costs 3 points; with the +400% Super-Effort modifier, that increases to 15 points. In four-color and ultraviolent campaigns, Super-Effort also affects Striking ST; applying the same +400% bonus raises the cost of +1 to Striking ST from 5 points to 25 points. Super-Effort does not affect HP; to gain the ability to withstand massive damage, take Injury Tolerance (Damage Reduction) as discussed on pp. 118-119 of GURPS Powers. So +1 HP still costs 2 points.

Putting the three back together, +1 ST with Super-Effort costs 15 + 25 + 2 = 42 points, as opposed to 10 points without Super-Effort. That's a +320% increase. To make the calculations simpler, this is rounded down to +300%. That is, each level of super-strength costs 40 points.

In four-color campaigns, the applications of super-strength in combat are restricted to avoid injuries to normal human beings (see p. 117). This is a matter of campaign style and doesn’t affect the value of the enhancement.

It has the following effects:

Lifting: As described in GURPS Powers, it allows heroes to lift extreme weights. Find the number of points of ST bought with this enhancement in the Base Value column of the Super-Abilities Table, look across to the Supervalue column, and use that number as your ST bonus for the lift. For example, a base value of ST +10 (Super-Effort, +300%) gives +100 ST as a supervalue.

Striking: When you are striking a blow with Super-Effort, use dice of damage based on the supervalue. When you are engaged in any ST-based attack, add those dice of damage to the normal damage from the attack. This also affects knockback from the blow.

Throwing: When you throw an object, use your supervalue bonus to figure throwing range, use the thrust damage based on it in figuring out damage from thrown objects, and use the BL derived from it in figuring out both of these.

Knockback Resistance: When something collides with you, if you have time to brace yourself, include your supervalue bonus in the ST score you use to resist knockback. This is a passive use of super-strength and does not cost FP.

Fatigue Cost: Using Super-Effort costs 1 FP per lift, throw, blow attempted, or brace against knockback. Walking around with or carrying a weight counts as intensive use (1 FP/minute); standing and holding it up counts as long-term use (1 FP/hour). This replaces normal Extra Effort, but it doesn't require a Will roll. You can't take Reduced Fatigue Cost to eliminate these penalties unless you also take Cosmic (+50%). For various reasons, a character might spend some points on ST without the Super-Effort modifier, and then add on more ST with the modifier. For example, he might be big and strong, even apart from his superpowers; he might be a giant, and need the extra ST to function at all. It's plausible for many characters to start by buying ST up to 20, the limit of normal human ST, without the Super-Effort modifier, and then to take the modifier on ST higher than 20. In other words, a character that has super-strength is stronger than any normal human being even without the benefits of Super-Effort. The columns for ST in the Super-Abilities Table are based on this assumption. There's no rule against raising ST higher than 20 without the Super-Effort modifier, or scores less than 20, or even lowering it to below 10, but such designs require calculating Basic Lift and damage from the rules rather than looking them up in the table.

For such a character, list the ST that benefits from Super-Effort as an advantage, with its own point cost. Under Attributes, give two total ST values, separated by a slash: total ST without using Super-Effort, and total ST with Super-Effort. Show only the cost for the ST without Super-Effort in this section. For example, the Archetype Template has base ST 20 and ST +13/+300 with Super-Effort; its attribute block lists ST 33/320 [100], with the note "Includes +13+300 points of super-strength bought as an advantage."

In a four-color campaign, most “super-strong” characters simply buy ST with the Super-Effort modifier. A hero who specializes in massive lifting might buy extra Lifting ST, probably with the +400% Super-Effort modifier defined in GURPS Powers; this does not affect striking, throwing, or knockback. A character might also take Striking ST, possibly with modifiers like One Attack Only (p. 79 of GURPS Powers) or Super Throw (see p. 30). This fits a hero whose muscles contract rapidly against light loads, but no harder than normal against massive loads – such as a speedster (see the Speedster template on p. 53). It's also legal to raise or lower HP relative to ST. The Super-Effort modifier has no effect on HP; to get a character who can withstand massive blows, take Injury Tolerance (Damage Reduction) as defined on pp. 53 and 118-119 of GURPS Powers. The Super-Abilities Table gives point costs for Injury Tolerance factors higher than (4).

Strength and Weight

Increasing ST by adding muscle, bone, and sinew normally adds to body weight; see the Build Table on p. B18. Acquiring ST with a source modifier normally doesn’t add to body weight. In a physically realistic treatment of superpowers, don’t take the extra HP from such added ST into account in figuring slam damage (p. B371) or damage suffered from falls or collisions (pp. B430-431), and disregard it in figuring knockback (p. B378). The size of a dose of poison (p. B438) also is unaffected by ST or HP with a power source.

On the other hand, in a four-color campaign, heroes with enhanced ST or HP may be able to function as if they had increased weight, even if they don't. This amounts to a +0% modifier to ST or HP, because the advantages (improved slam damage and knockback resistance; withstanding greater doses of poison) roughly balance out the disadvantages (taking more damage in falls). Players may designate ST or HP with a power or source modifier as granting virtual weight or not, though the GM may override this and have all super ST and HP work one way or the other.

Heavy Lifting

Mecha and supers often lift extreme weights. Vehicles are especially popular! The following table gives the total ST – basic ST plus Lifting ST – needed to lift a few items of interest. If using Super-Effort, remember to add the enhanced ST bonus to basic ST.

Weight (tons)	Total ST	Example
1	36	Small car
2	50	Large car
5	79	Ship’s anchor
10	112	Private jet
25	177	Fighter jet (loaded)
50	250	Main battle tank (loaded)
100	354	Space shuttle
500	791	Heavy passenger jet
1,000	1,118	Small freighter
5,000	2,500	Frigate
10,000	3,536	Light cruiser
50,000	7,906	Battleship

These weights assume a two-handed, overhead lift. For other items, total ST required equals the square root of (1,250 × weight in tons).