[D'sP] Jump Strength - Chapter 335 (Patreon)

Doyle decided to make the jump transitions look more natural. Well, make it look better to those of an appropriate level for the floor. There is nothing he can do about someone coming through that is over leveled.

Though even with that intent, Doyle is a bit stuck on how to manage it. After all, level doesn’t actually have some sort of max strength attached to it. At level twenty, someone might have their starting Strength or they might have been buying per level Strength paths since the start. In fact, the only consistent thing to measure against is his own monsters. Though even they can change since his level is so low compared to them.

Doyle shakes his core, thinking of it like this is just a waste of time. Instead, he focuses on the present, leaving any future changes to exactly that, the future. So that meant making use of his kobolds. Which seeing as he couldn’t exactly bring in one of the delvers to test things, would have probably been the only option, anyway.

With a plan figured out, Doyle creates a simple rectangular room and then stretches it upwards to about the height of a three story building and applies the two gravitational fields needed to make it work. Though as he looks the room over, he decides to increase the length of the room as well, in case the kobold needs some space to jump. And speaking of kobolds, he spawns a lady for the tests and checks her stats.

{Kobold

S[87] A[256] C[119] I[95] W[221] P[50]}

Doyle paused after seeing the numbers. Two of the stats had broken 200? What did that even mean? As a dungeon core, Doyle didn’t exactly have a good feel for the changes brought on by the physical stats. Though he should have felt the change brought on by the mental ones whenever he leveled up.

Of course, the system generally tried to prevent the classic trope of someone destroying the stuff around them after a sudden power up. Whether that was from Strength or otherwise. This meant that even if a person’s status showed them being a hundred points higher than a moment before, the system would trickle them in unless the person needed it right then. After all, a fighter that gets a level up in the middle of a fight isn’t going to want everything thrown off during said fight. So even if Doyle’s mental stats increased by leaps and bounds, it wasn’t something you could feel.

So here was a kobold with nearly 90 Strength and he had no clue how high it would be able to jump. One command later, and she is able to easily hit the midpoint and then fall to the roof. An extra story and another command? Still easily able to make the jump. Again and this time, the kobold actually has to put in effort.

Doyle turns to Ally, ‘Why can my kobold jump two and a half stories up, yet the people in town don’t seem to manage similar feats of strength?’

Ally shrugs, ‘They need training to break their misconceptions of what is possible. Oh, and jumping multiple stories high isn’t exactly effective in combat. That is more of a thing used to travel distances. If you can’t change directions in mid air, long jumps make you an easy target.

‘If the jump takes longer than one of your attacks, you’re better off not bothering. Though with greater strength, that, of course, changes. It can be quite impressive to see someone with a jump skill take on a field of enemies. Sure, they tend to jump forward instead of upwards, but it’s still worth seeing.’

Doyle, ‘So with that in mind, should I just have the two sides of the floor close together? I want people to switch from the ground to the ceiling more often than not.’

Ally took a look at the kobold jumping back and forth. ‘I don’t think you can force it. At least not easily. You might need to add in shifting hazard zones. So like, with the myconids, you could have dense spore clouds that shift around. Though you might also consider instead of focusing on them jumping around, maybe have giant mushroom stalks for them to climb.

‘After all, people have figured out the folly of jumping long distances in active combat. That zero-g room has definitely hammered it home. Though I guess there are some who haven’t learned it, mostly dead, but some survived the experience.’

Doyle tilts back, ‘I can see that. Plus, I was going to need to do something for those who didn’t focus on Strength. My kobolds have the physical stats spread focused on Agility, but can still manage it. And any delver we might get? They should in theory have more stats level for level compared to my monsters.

‘At the moment, my kobolds on the thirteenth floor are doing gangbusters only because they’re level 21 and last time they talked about it, Ace and company are closer to 15. Oh, and is that fast?’

Ally nods, ‘That is extremely fast for normal people and still more than the norm, even for the newly integrated. The system aims for most newly integrated people to be around level ten, plus or minus two levels, at the end of the first year. And of course, for those who grow up with the system, it wants them to be around level 10 at adulthood. With that in mind, your tenth floor is going to be the goal for those who just have been recognized as adults and want to be adventurers.’

Doyle, ‘Isn’t five levels and more for the boss a little much?’

Ally shakes her head, ‘Not five, more like three. And the boss is meant to be taken on by a group. Plus, that doesn’t count all the advantages they’ll have, such as higher skill levels and generally higher stats.’

Doyle nods, ‘Okay, fair enough. Now, how about you help me figure out what stats represent? My kobold there is jumping multiple stories in a single leap with only 87 Strength. That makes it feel like Strength is going up faster than I expected.’

Ally, ‘There is no set growth pattern for any stat.’

Doyle shakes his core, ‘That doesn’t make sense. There has to be some sort of average growth pattern.’

Ally shrugs, ‘Well yeah, there are average growth patterns, but you already know the reason why there isn’t one average growth pattern for everything.’

Doyle takes a moment to think before it clicks. ‘Of course, I’m a great example since Cores use Strength differently from a human.’

Ally rubs the bridge of her nose and then shakes her head. ‘No, the sort of Strength you are referring to is actually pretty consistent. Sure, you might not have muscles to flex, but the ability to move a certain amount of mass under a specific amount of gravity is easy to compare.’

Doyle, ‘But I can’t move anything?’

Ally, ‘And so you have a zero for it. What you’re missing is an ability you gained.’

Doyle takes a moment to go over everything he can do at the moment. There are a bunch of niche things kicking about. He can adjust a monster pattern, prevent his creatures from gaining sapience, and of course all the generic dungeon stuff.

Ally watches as he does this and gets quite frustrated. ‘It’s under the monster pattern adjustment stuff!’

Doyle just shakes his head, ‘Whatever it is, I’m missing it.’

Ally sighs, ‘You can view the stat specializations. Remember how you described them?’

Doyle paused and instantly felt like he was blind for missing it. ‘Derp, you’re completely right. Okay, yeah, I understand what you mean. A species will have a growth pattern to a stat, but different things will show up for another species.’

Ally throws her hands up, ‘Finally! Yes, exactly that. Maybe humans get a certain amount of lifting power with every point for the first hundred points, but after that it changes. Or maybe the amount of lifting power gained shrinks each point.’

Doyle, ‘So, what are humans like for that?’

Ally rolls her eyes, ‘I am just going to take that to be you asking how humans from this planet grow in muscle power. The answer is it depends. There is a slight variance between people depending on hormones and such, but none of that matters even in the short run.

‘However, humans on this planet show an overall tendency to hit superhuman muscle power, but generally stops before it exceeds muscle power. Humans will tend to only get as strong as non-magical physics allow. Sure, their muscles will mutate and change to allow for them to get as strong as theoretically possible and not just as strong as baseline human physique would allow.’

Doyle, ‘So, normal humans won’t ever be able to move around mountains?’

Ally shakes her head, ‘I’m not explaining this very well. You need to divide Strength into a number of buckets. What we are talking about is physical strength derived from muscles or the equivalent. A high enough Strength will make those muscles as powerful as muscles can be when not counting supernatural shenanigans.

‘However, that is not the end of how powerful muscles can be. Rather, after that point, you get into empowering the muscles in a way that requires Qi, Mana, or whatever resource you might choose. A popular one being the power of the soul as while limited by how much excess power your soul makes, is always available.

‘Well, always available as long as the supernatural is allowed. A no magic zone? A-okay. A zone that denies magic? Well, then you’re in just as much trouble as everyone else.’

‘Humans don’t tend to go for that. You could strip most humans of all supernatural power and toss them on your pre-system world and they’d be just as strong. Their muscles will be at least. Do the same thing with an elf and they’re going to be weaker than a child. An elf’s muscles depend too much on magic.

‘This does not limit how much a human can grow to lift. Rather, we dip into other forms of strengthening. Stuff like touch telekinesis. Which, despite being called telekinesis, isn’t actually a psionic power. Oh, and there is, of course, touch telekinesis that actually is psionic and a completely separate thing.

‘Anyway, Strength bases touch telekinesis is the part of system Strength that allows people to lift things that structurally should not lift as one thing. It reinforces both the body and whatever you’re trying to lift if you don’t want to damage it. Almost every species develops touch tk because it is an important add on to Strength so the world doesn’t feel like it is made of clay.

‘So, anytime you see someone managing to make an absurd jump, but they don’t leave a crater behind or someone manages to walk on grass without it being trampled? That tends to be an application of touch tk. Not always, as some like to do fancy things such as making themselves as light as a feather. However, touch tk is just so much more efficient.

‘Anyway, humans go heavy into that once they max their muscles out instead of continuing to improve the muscles beyond what is physically possible. Oh, and this same sort of dichotomy tends to show up in most stats and humans follow the same pattern with them. After all, your physical brain can only think so fast and so to think faster you either need to supercharge it with magic or offload the thinking to non-physical options.’

Doyle, ‘Okay, that makes some sense. Still doesn’t really tell me if I should be expecting my delvers to be able to lift multi-ton weights any time soon.’

Ally shrugs, ‘I have no clue. After all, it isn’t like we know their Strength scores or some such.’

An Overview - Chapter 334

Ack - Chapter 336