/gurpsgen/ - GURPS General

Self-Fulfilling Prophecies Edition

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Anyone ever used this in campaign? Seen it floating a bunch of times.

Here are the updated Tome of Battle disciplines. Thanks to the provided feedback in the previous thread, I reworked Death Mark, changed some core skills to make disciplines more thematic, inserted missing skills, missing new imbuements, and three sample martial adepts.

I will next time I'm running on earth, during or after ww2. Maybe a Hellboy game based around it?

That is really cool. Definitely goes into my next game (whenever it happens)

You can also check Psionic Powers for Powers Technics.

(I really dislike Imbuements and cant understand it advantage and why so many people call it so good, sorry)

You're not alone. I don't like Imbuements, either, user.

Looks good! If I had to add anything, I would include some sort of Imbuement for every path as they can all get up to some cuhrayzee stuff (sans White Raven, which is aptly covered by the teamwork-focused traits). I'd rip from p.14-15 of Imbuements, which recommends imbuements by template; for example, the Iron Heart discipline would probably follow the recommendations for the Knight, being "effects that could pass as pure skill at arms," Shadow Hand can round out its list with imbuements from the Thief list, etc. I'd also consider adding something like Chilling Strike to the Shadow Hand style, as I remember that discipline having a very strong link to cold damage.

Personally, I like the feel of the skill-based approach; I think it makes it more martial (here's a skill I have to train up to be good with) and less supers (here's a 30-point advantage that's all or nothing). Admittedly, though, it did take a while for me to warm up to them, and I do think the tiers of imbuements locked behind advantages are hella dumb.

I play a little with Weapon Master who have modular imbuements (changing evey second, effective skill ~19). It was funny, but i feel more restrained(?) restricted(?) than while i played with (less points) similar type karateka builded around enhancements on his unarmed attacks.
Maybe it my HEROlegacy resists in me or i had wrong games with wrong GMs.

>I like the feel of the skill-based approach;
Psionic Powers about that -- you buy ability and you buy skill to activate and control it. (And i feel very ok with it). And with buying style as AAs -- fairly cheap way.

Yeah but you're still buying the power and then the skill to control it; there's still that point wall at the beginning. I know that Imbuement has prereq advantages too, but again I think those are dumb and often waive them in games I GM.

I found a happy medium, breaking the imbument levelled advantage down a bit, and then coupled it with the talent. Just in general reducing the cost makes it a more lucrative comparable choice.

This isn't explicitly GURPS, but seeing as it's for a GURPS game, I'm posting it here.

Any advice on keeping combat maps varied and fun? I grew up on 30'x30' empty dungeon rooms, so I'm worried I won't be able to supply the sort of rooms the Tactics skill assumes for its mapped version. I'm actually tempted to use the mapless version that grants luck rerolls instead because I don't want to make the skill useless on accident.

Stop using empty rooms. Have obstacles and opportunity for cover. Have varied terrain. Have your NPC's use these features intelligently.

Dungeons should never really be a series of unconnected rooms with nothing but monsters and treasure chests in them unless you're playing a roleplay-less hack-n-slash game. Build places that have a purpose - prisons have narrow corridors lined with small cells, storage vaults have huge rooms whose ceilings may have caved in, castle undercrofts might lead to caverns as an escape route, caves lead to underground rivers.

Thinking of the dungeon as a place with a use, or a place with context within the world, rather than a place to contain monsters, generally gives you a better way to fill them. Dungeon features emerge naturally. An abandoned dwarven city will have a plaza with a central fountain, spewing forth foul, poisonous water. A wizard's vaults for terrible experiments will have chambers for containing abominations and traps for keeping them from escaping. The purpose of the dungeon doesn't have to relate to why the player characters are there, it's just a background feature to make more interesting locales to fight in.

Is it weird to love a system you've never had a chance to play? For all I know GURPS could fuckin' suck.

Have lots of places lit by clay or glass lamps filled with oil, so there are basically Molotov cocktails hanging from the walls and roof just waiting for a shot to break them or someone to grab them and throw them.

Put bad guys up on fragile walkways that let them shoot down at things, with crude supports. Let players break them or knock them down to send bad guys sprawling into the dirt, injured and stunned.

Slippery floors, from water, blood or slime, force people to go slowly and carefully or bust out skills to stay standing. Heavy wind and hail or rain can make ranged attacks more difficult and keep it very hard to hear anything far away.

Just fighting in a badly lit area can complicate things, especially if there's a few strong light sources.

>tfw have 5+ ideas for GURPS campaigns
>moved away from my great GURPS group in hometown
>not enough people to play with
>work schedule is random and shitty
>frequently spending 2-3 weeks working abroad

I had that same problem, and then I played it. Goodbye, lesser systems, GURPS is all I will ever need.

I wouldn't call it love. You're infatuated with the system, or have a crush on it at best.
The hype for your first campaign is the honeymoon, and if your group and the system are a decent match, the honeymoon period will continue for quite a while. Eventually, though, you'll see the flaws, the clunky bits, things that *need* to be changed.

That's when love comes in. Loves comes after knowing the system's flaws inside and out and still wanting to play it forever.

Thanks again. Here's the new version with only a slight change - Chilling Strike added to the Shadow Hand style. I do not want to add any imbuements to Iron Heart, because judging from the description, it's supposed to be entirely mundane, and Imbue requires a power modifier.
I think this little project of mine can be declared finished.

I'll be honest with you, I'm not a big fan of Imbuements either. But my players love them. Recently I've warmed up to the Imbuements, so I do not see a problem with them. I absolutely love Psionic Powers though.

Do you perhaps have a repository of real-world maps of dungeons and prisons and such I could peruse? I don't want to end up on another list by googling "prison map" or "bank map".

Try online play. It's not the same but it can be fun and it allows a much looser schedule and ease of play.

I'm looking at running my first game with GURPS, but I'm looking through my PDFs and I'm not seeing many advantages and disadvantages...yet when I look at other universal systems, such as BESM, there's near 100 pages of them.

Am I missing something?

Yo, that's deep.

Basic Set: Characters, pg. 32-166.

Are you using the Basic Set or Lite? Lite is the slimmed-down starter-friendly version, so there's obviously less there. Or are you trying to use a splat on its own and not with Characters/Campaigns?

The "Advantage List" and "Disadvantage List" sections in the Basic Set are over 100 pages long in total.

Turns out I was looking through the Basic Set and Lite, not the Characters PDF. I got lost in my 100+ GURPS PDFs.

Much obliged, Anons.

Oh gosh, I was looking at the 3rd Edition basic set.

My apologies for being retarded.

So you can cripple a hit location by doing a fraction of total HP damage to it, such as:
>Extremity(hand, foot, tail, fin, or
extraneous head): Injury over HP/3.

There's also this rule:
>Dismemberment: If injury to a body part before applying the above limit was at least twicewhat was needed to cripple it, the body part is not just crippled but destroyed. A cutting attack or explosion severs a limb or extremity; otherwise, it’s irrevocably crushed, burned, etc.

So does this mean that, for an average person with 10hp, anything over 8 damage to the skull is instadeath? So basically any gunshot wound?

I think so.

You cannot cripple the neck, face, or skull, so no you cannot insta-kill via dismembering those hit locations either.

The lethality of axes to the neck and bullets to the brain are more than covered already by the wound multipliers.

Where does it say that you cannot cripple those locations?

I'm trying to figure how to kill someone with 1 shot to the head via .22 pistol, which is perfectly realistic. .22 pistol does 1d+1 Pi- damage, meaning it would average 10 damage to the skull (average damage of 4.5, DR 2, x4 multiplier). With that, you're almost certainly stunning the guy and maybe knocking him unconscious. You'd have to roll max damage of (6+1-2)*4=20 to even force a save-or-die at -1x HP on an average person.

Hit 'em in the eye instead? That nearly does it on an average damage roll.

Since it explicitly says extraneous head, I don't think that works if the target only has one head.

It says "sufficient injury to a limb, extremity, or eye may cripple it", and the neck, face, and skull aren't mentioned at all in that section.

Also, are you including damage from bleeding?

>Where does it say that you cannot cripple those locations?
Look at the list on p. B398-399.
>Arm or Leg: Any major wound [...] cripples the limb
>Hand or Foot: Damage over 1/3 HP in one blow inflicts a crippling major wound.
The entries for the Neck, Face, and Skull hit locations do not mention crippling, thresholds, or effects beyond modified wounding multipliers. Eyes can be crippled though.

A bullet to the brain may not instantly kill at that caliber, but it *will* kill; you can't dig a bullet out with First Aid, you need Surgery, and the bleeding rolls are more frequent (every 30 seconds), meaning you're very liable to hemorrhage to death long before the doctors have a chance to save you.

>Also, are you including damage from bleeding?
I wasn't. The average guy has a good chance of getting to -1x HP with bleeding, since he's rolling against 8 and needs to either succeed 3 times in a row or crit-succeed to stop bleeding.

While the neck cannot be crippled...
MA138.

Yeah, that's a 0-point special effect, though; you already have to die normally for decapitation to occur.

Bio-Tech *did* however include rules for crushing the windpipe; it's a cr-only crippling that causes suffocation with no save RAW. While it's realistic, it's pretty fucking brutal, so most GM's give an HT roll to resist suffocation if they include crippled necks at all.

Can you divide imbuement skills and Martial powers to their own categories, that they dont messed with basic advantages and skills?
Thanks.

I dunno about you fuckers, but I decapitate shut that takes enough cutting damage to cripple.

I have pcs that live to choppy chop. They make heads roll. Fuckers drink out of the leftover skulls.

That there skull seems mighty hard to drink outta.

Cutting gets a whopping 2x multiplier on the neck. Combine that with the high ST values and heavy weapons you see with "choppy chop" PCs, the general lack of neck armor, and mook rules for 0 HP = instadeath, and yeah most blows to the neck *should* decapitate RAW. It is a little harder for worthy monsters of lieutenant-tier enemies, but I feel that's fitting.

A wise man invest in a bit of chainmail for his neck. DR 4 and HP 10 means it takes 9 cutting damage to the neck to take off the head with crippled=decapitated. A strong man with a heavy weapon can manage that kind of hit, as can a monster, while an average guy will find that kind of damage unlikely even with a All Out, unless he gets a very heavy weapon.

As you note, high HP shifts the math. An HP 15 brute needs 12 CUT to the neck to go full Highlander on him if he brings his chain-mail collar.

>A wise man invest in a bit of chainmail for his neck

A soldier fighting in a war, for sure. An adventurer, bandit or deserter might not be able to be so choosy.

Rapier on the left hip.
Long falchion-style "knife" on the right.
Large knife in one boot with handle sticking out a bit, but it shouldn't hinder movement.
Balisong is hidden in another boot.
Two small knives are either hidden in sleeves or just sit in forearm sheath.
Now, where should I put my armor-piercing katar? Would it be too inconvenient to just strap it to the thigh?

Pretty sure it should be super hard to decapitate someone with chainmail on their neck.

Small of the back, above the ass, laying parallel with the belt, hilt facing dominant hand

A bit of leather gives you DR 2. Collars and makeshift protection for the throat could also be fashioned from scraps of armor. While the basic set is very, very stingy on throat armor (the Greathelm and full sets are your only option) IRL it's pretty common and easy.

GURPS agrees with you if you use the optional rules for armor penetration by cutting weapons then even what gets past the DR, under a high threshold, is Crushing rather then Cutting.

Indeed, IRL it takes a strong man to remove a human head, and a good, solid swing. Even bound people on a cutting block often required several wacks.

That works. Or chest sheath, inverted diagonal angled to the dominate hand, behind the shoulder or under the arm.

Or, because you've already gone crazy, strap it to the forearm and rig it to drop into your hand.

Thanks. Actually, chest or stomach seems to be the best place.

Wouldn't leather stiff enough to provide DR impede neck movement?

...

Rather than a contentless bump, have a reminder that Bio-Tech is a deeply magical realm, with some wonderful accompaniments to the Skullcat:

Fleshbed (TL10)
This is a biogenetic mass of flesh, tailored for spinal sup-
port and comfort. It’s alive, warm, and you’ll never want to
leave. $7,500, 60 lbs. LC4.

Garbage Disposal (TL10)
This lives under the kitchen sink, digesting all organic
scraps and excreting partially treated waste into the sewer.
It might be biogenetic, or based on a small omnivore.
$1,000, 8 lbs. LC4.

Smart Rug or Bathmat (TL10)
This slowly tugs itself across the floor, slurping up dirt,
puddles, soap, hair, etc. ST 4, DX 2, IQ 1, HT 12; Move 1.
$500, 4 lbs. LC4.

Squidpack (TL10)
This resembles a squat squid with four arms. It wraps its
tentacles around the user’s body and forces water out of its
natural hydrojet for propulsion. The wearer’s body tension
guides the squid, but it takes practice to steer accurately
(treat as a familiarity of Swimming; Aquatic and
Amphibious users instinctively know how to use it). The
pack provides Move 5 in water. It needs to be fed daily, but
is happy with table scraps and vitamin supplements. $300,
10 lbs. LC4.

Not so much. DR 1 is thin leather or duck cloth, and it doesn't have to be very tight. A posture collar would be quite stiff, but there's a fair number of neck-armor options.

How much is the Limitation "Accessibility: Not versus silver" worth for the Insubstantiality Advantage?

>fleshbed
I read that doujin. More than one of them, even.

For real though I love Biotech's devotion to magical realming-like come on, you know someone's gonna that sort of thing.

So the being in vulnerable to the effects of silver?
Use the inverse of the limited Dr scale?

Being insubstantial to everything except for silver (and, by extension, silver weaponry).

I'd say -5% for having an uncommon bane, but I'd be willing to move it up to -10% if the weakness was a common part of the lore and people knew to exploit it.

>you will never be able to hug soft warm bed and it will hug you in response

Also, Garbage Disposal should be TL0, I saw it in Flintstones.

LMAO

"It's a living."
*laugh track*

>you don't need swimming skill to actually swim

You don't need Erotic Art to fuck either. You just need it to not suck.*

*Well, I suppose to not suck or to suck really well, given what erotic art covers. **

**Dose anyone else think it's weird that Erotic Art is a core book skill? You'd think they'd just fold it into Sex Appeal. †

†How many footnotes is too many? I'm asking for a friend

Well, you can be good at getting people into bed, but suck at figuring out what to do with them.

I find that erotic art is really only required for people who get out there-for BDSM stuff an unmodified roll would be needed to not fuck up and somehow piss someone off.

How would you stat up a weapon for a PC which, with a Ready action, can be morphed into other kinds of weapons? E.g. a shield to a spear to a sword...

Because normal fuck between two people who both just want to got some pleasure is at +5, thus negating defaulting. Which means you usually got everything right if you are not too clumsy.
I agree that just not drowning is can be done without swimming. But it should affect speed at least.
>†How many footnotes is too many? I'm asking for a friend
You have one more special symbol before you have to switch to [0] notation.

Depends how you did it. Programmable matter with a handle and the ability to change shape on command could be TL 9 or 10.

I'd make it weigh 3 pounds and able to become anything you can make with a solid or hollow object, highly durable once it's set to solid mode with DR and HP as steel, with different software defined shapes. Weapon apps range from crude to good, but most result in a Fine quality melee weapon or tool. A few moments with a computer can define a new shape.

Cost $300 gurpsbucks or so. Too much and it wouldn't made sense to make them often.

Magic? Err, I don't know. Depends on the setting.

It gets a bonus from Flexibility and stuff, it helps even if you are vanilla as the icecream on apple pie. If you are just trying to get a healthy young male off, yeah, that should give you like +20 to the roll.

>$300 for weapon that can be anything
>when simple rapier costs $500-$1000

>Buying a rapier
>TL 9 or 10

Anything is pretty limited. It's 3 pounds, so you can't make a good splitting maul or hammer.

It's just stupid when morphing blade costs less than a relatively primitive steel one.

By TL 9 a good stamped steel rapier should cost about $80.

I think that this is spelled out in Social Engineering in an aside titled "Fade to Black." I think it said something similar to what you said that everyone has a huge cultural familiarity bonus with "normal sex" that you don't need "200 hour of rigorous professional training" just to have nominally enjoyably sex. It's meant for tantric stuff and ritual magic.

This is not how gurps bucks work. You just got more money, not make old items cheaper. The only difference is default quality.

The Swimming Skill is at a HT-4 Default (Easy difficulty). This makes sense, given that once you've really learned how to swim, it sticks with you for a long time.

Sort of. That is the cost of a rapier at any tech level, built by hand by a skilled craftsman.

Things where the way they build them changes dose have the price change. Soap, for example, goes from $20 a pound to .25 a pound.

complete newbie to gurps, our group is looking at getting into it.

One of our members will be re-DMing after a 20 year break, and he wants to do a small zombie-survival campaign, 2 sessions or so.

I want to do a complete unknown campaign, basically start with a character, and I'd use the splat books to throw them into an unexpected genre after the first or second session... anyone else do this? Is it a bad idea? I'm new to GURPS, but I've been told that it's all very good at mix-and-matching. I want them to make modern, beleiveable characters, and then throw them into something unexpected.

Also, new to GURPS general threads... is their a resource link at all?

Okay, that's a point.

But about morphing blade again. If you stat it as advantage, it will be something like this:
Modular abilities (Cosmic, 1 second to switch) 10 points per point of ability
Physical only +50%
Focus-limited: shaping metal -15%
Trait-limited: Innate Attack, melee only -40%
Gadget limitations:
Something for durability -5% or -10%
Can be stolen (must win quick contest on ST) -30%

So it will -40-45%, 5-6 points per level.

Something like sw+3 cut would cost 7 points +100% for ST based -20% for melee = 12-13 points.

So it can be from 60 to 80+ points advantage. And I have no idea how to convert it to item, lol.
I would suggest the following: take the most expensive melee weapon you can do with this thing, and multiply its cost by 5.5.
I also have no idea how much base price should be reduced. But since I wrote this shit, I'm gonna post it.

Unexpected can work well in GURPS, just make sure your players are okay with suprises and the fantastic.

Check the image on the OP! It's a PDF file with lots of delicious links. DEVOUR THEM.

Zombie survival GURPS can be fun. Fighting zombies is a treat because they are durable, but don't defend themselves.

So many files, it might actually be worth creating a mega account.

Is mega safe? Or should I create a secondary email for it? I normally dl them one-by-one, but that would take ages with this system.

mega isn't aweful but I'd use a throwaway that I diden't mind haveing spammed the fuck out of.

I never receive any message on email I used specifically for mega.

Do you NEED Acting to convince others that you've been shot as part of a fake fall to the ground if you successfully Dodge/Parry a bullet?

>mfw I thought it was Bowie from the thumbnail

You can default but it won't be convincing. Ever watched a game of football (soccer)? When players are faking injury, that's what defaulting on Acting looks like.

I'm a BLACKSTAR

Honestly, I'd just stat it out with Innate Attacks and other applicable Advantages, using Alternate Abilities and Gear limitations, then figure out a good discount for requiring a Ready maneuver to switch between "modes". Using Preparation Required and Takes Extra Time as (very) loose guidelines, I'd suggest -5%.

If you don't want to make it cost actual character points, you could just reverse-engineer points-for-cash, having it cost 10% of the TL's Average starting wealth per CP it would normally cost.

I got the impression this was supposed to have a preset list of forms, not just anything you want it to be at all. That's why I figured Alternate Abilities would be the better option.

So, what, the refs are all just defaulting on Body Language, too?

The refs don't seem to care, from what I've seen.

The consequences of erring on the side of the faker are much lower then accusing someone of faking it.

Everyone loves Bowie.

I love Sorcery!

I would stat ritual that completely destroy your silly abilities, but I'm too busy collecting rare pepe guano.

I've given it a thorough peruse, and it is indeed excellent.
Currently Re-jiggering the DF Wizard to use Sorcery (and the Cleric to use Divine Favor) rather than the standard magic system. And yes, I've seen the Sorceror template - i just want to replace the magic system mechanics, not the character template in it's entirety.

I'd be interested in seeing your results when you get done re-jiggering.

I think there is a pyramid article that does the Cleric -> Divine Favor thing, and I'm not positive, but I think there is one that also does the Wizard -> Sorcery thing too.

There are articles for both. However, the Sorcery one gives you the Sorcerer template which differs quite a bit from the Wizard, and I only want to replace the magic mechanics. The "dungeon saint", or whatever it's called, I haven't given a proper look over yet.

Thanks though!

>replacing 30yo virgin bookworm with freak-of-nature magic cannon
>wanting them to be the same
For what purpose?

Not the user you're responding to, but a learned bookworm still brings a lot to the table — that's why the Sage template exists in the first place — so that may be worth preserving as a secondary role.

Skeletons animated by fell magic
>super realistic DR 2 and low hp but injury tolerance (homogenous) due to being bone puppets?
Or
>injury tolerance(unliving) on an "all 10s" statblock?

Grim fantasy game, bordering on heroic fantsy game, so I'm on the fence.