In that I now have been playing with GURPS

[xiphias]

I've started writing up a spreadsheet to do calculations for me.

I honestly think this used to be easier. As I'm sure you all know, writing up spreadsheets is a lot easier than programming, but it uses the same sorts of thought processes. And I'm sitting here working out mathematical formulas to calulate things instead of looking them up off of tables (because it's more fun), and I really think I used to be better at this.

Like, okay, ST is mostly easier to calculate these days. It's a flat 10 points per level. With a value of 10 being the average, the one that doesn't cost any points to get, and 10 points to get a +1, and -10 points to get a -1. So a ST of 8 gets you back 20 points, and a ST of 14 costs 40 points. Pretty simple, right? But they've now given a discount, up to 80%, for larger creatures.

You get a 10% discount on your strength cost for every size modifier you are over human normal. Up to an 80% discount. If you've got a +9 or higher SM, you still only get the 80%. You don't have to pay extra for being extra-strong if you're smaller than human normal -- it's NOT extra points to be a super-strong dwarf or pixie or something.

So, in Excel spreadsheet language, the point cost would be something like
=(((ST-10)*10))*(MAX( (MIN((1-(Size_Modifier/10)), 1)), 0.2) )
right?

It took me like half an hour to figure that out. And I think that sort of thing would USED to have been almost instinctive.

This is actually a lot of fun -- I feel like I'm knocking the rust off of my brain and getting it working again. Things are getting easier as I work with them.

Comments

[mattblum.livejournal.com]

Your formula looks right, except possibly for one thing: Suppose you're a really large creature, but with lower than average strength. Your formula will result in the negative points you should be getting being reduced by the same percentage that the positive points you would be spending would've been reduced by if you had greater than average strength.

Now, I don't know what the rule is, but it seems to me that, if you're larger than human normal size, and yet have lower than average strength, you should be getting back at least as many points as you would if you were human normal size, if not more.

[mattblum.livejournal.com]

Assuming that you don't get any extra points back for being extra-large and weaker than average, your formula should be (I've distributed the 10 in the middle expression because I thought it was a little cleaner, but that's just my preference):

IF((ST > 10), ((ST - 10) * MAX(MIN((10 - Size_Modifier), 10), 2)), ((ST - 10) * 10))

If you get a bonus for being extra-large and weak (as opposed to normal size and weak), that would of course be a different formula, and would depend on what that bonus was.

[hangedwoman.livejournal.com]

I miss being able to do even remotely complicated things with Excel. There's a payroll person here who's leaving in a couple of weeks to ride a bicycle around Europe for 8 months (bitch), and I'm taking over one of her client reports. We hadn't worked together much before, and she was showing me some things in Excel, and I sped right past her and did it in a much simpler way. I started to say, "Yeah, Excel's my bitch", but thought better of it and instead said, "Yeah, Excel is ... something I'm pretty comfortable working with."

[anhelometuo.livejournal.com]

Wahoo for GURPS! I just got the GURPS: Magic (for fourth edition).

Personally, I'd find programming easier, but then again, I haven't worked with excel in years. I can also program a project for my advanced cpp class in four to five hours, though it doesn't have graphics (could add some, but that'd take far more time than I'd care to invest). Blah, this class is easy.

Anyways, its a lot easier, so I believe, to program things using an actual language cause you have control over everything, and don't have a set rule system that you must obey (ie, that problem could be a set of commands, instead of having to make it one command as in excel).

Then again, you could always use visual basic. *cough, vomits, falls over and dies*

Maybe its just that I love programming so much? hahaha

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

See, what I'd want to do if I had access to a real live language would be to download the free PDF of the character sheet, and use that as the framework, so that I could type directly into the character sheet and have the calculations made. Maybe put it so that EVERY spot on the character sheet was enter-able -- so you could put down a ST score and have it fill in the points it cost, OR put down a points you want to spend on ST and have it fill in the ST score. . .