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GURPS lite should include a few more things, and should be the core book for the system.

The other stuff in gurps basic set that doesn't get added into lite should be in separate booklets grouped by category.

Finally, gurps seriously needs something like d20pfsrd or dndtools so it's not such s pain in the ass to find three option your looking for.

I like the way it is now with the core book being able to cover a huge number of things.

I know you can't take "Negated disadvantages" normally but what if a situation forces them on you?
If i have acute hearing and hard of hearing (such as from wearing a helmet) do both apply?

Gotta admit it scares new people away the way it is now. Not accessible enough.

Fuck you im a new person and the only reason I'm playing this shit was that i had everything i needed in the rules. I don't want to have hit locations and shit off in some combat supplement!

Those would be the things I was suggesting adding into an updated gurps lite.

People seem to be put off by the game when I or to them, including people who play a variety of other games

Show it to them*

Yeah, just apply them as logically as you can. If conditions make you deaf you can't make any use of Acute Hearing, but otherwise it offsets the penalty from hard of hearing.

I feel like a expanded GURPS not-so-lite or GURPS lite 2.0 could be good. A condensed basic set that can work as a player's handbook, with basic but complete combat rules and character creation rules. There's no real need for another edition.

The basic rule book says on 208 that knifes have -1 to parry, is this the -1 to parry mentioned on the equipment page for some knives or is it a separate penalty?

Could use some brain storming ideas. I'm trying to come up with a set of optional upgrades for a war-wagon in an After The End game.

To start it's basically going to be an open frame built on an old pickup chassis with a dinky 4 cylinder engine and the most "cover" provided by a fabric top, no doors, windshield, ect.

It's the same penalty, so if you parry with a knife it's typically at just -1.

Oblivious ones are body panels, armor, a bigger engine.

A lift kit or bigger suspension too. More ground clearance should give a handling bonus to rough terrain.

Mounted weapons. Potato gun style gas gun to shoot Molotov, spears or dynamite at people, big fucking crossbows, spiked bumpers.

A wench, lots of headlights, spare tires, extra fuel cans and water tanks.

In my fantasy setting, there's a MAD-like cold war thanks to every nation magically and mysteriously getting their own pair of gigantic human beings to 'protect the land'. Just how big should they be, for them to properly induce that? I'm thinking 10 stories high might be big enough. They're also supernaturally durable, long-living, but also high-maintenance to the nations, each requires food for 20 people every (day? week? month?). I know how to make these in GURPS, but I want to make sure they're the right scale. How strong? How big? How taxing? How durable? I don't want them to be world ending, but very powerful and destructive, able to create this status-quo between the nations.

Running my first Scifi campaign with a dash of Western feel. Here's hoping it goes well.

My only worry is whether I made the right decision or not with how I'm doing equipment. TL11 is daunting with how much tech is available and I might regret letting my players have Hyperspectral glasses and the like.

So today I just joined a gurps game today the setting seems to be a modern day war. But I wanted to ask what would be some good skills and what skill level should they be at for someone who wants to be a combat medic? we have 150 points to play with and -25 for disadvantages.

I have stuff like first aid/surgery along with some weapon skills but is there anything else I should get or keep in mind?

Soldier(ing?). Its a skill that allows you to do things anyone whose been through basic to do.

I'd have other suggestions but I think Soldier covers it. Maybe Hiking since it helps during long forced marches.
Physician? It helps for long term care for sick and injured.
Diagnosis. Find out where and why he's bleeding on the battlefield.
So on so forth. Just give all the skills a little perusal and look up ones that seem to fit.

How would you build actual d20 style spell resistance in gurps?

A separate optional defence you have vs magic

Do you mean in addition or instead of any Resistance roll of the magic spells?

No idea what a MAD-like cold war means, but I'm going to give a shot helping you out. Which, in this case, means asking you tons of questions.

For one, what's the tech level of this setting? What's the strongest weapon besides these giants? Siege weapons? A large magical ceremony that summons Satan himself, or drops a mana nuke on a country? Are these giants meant to be able to stand up against one of these? Ten? Do these giants have supernatural powers (i.e. they have eye lasers, wide-cone fire breath, terror, etc.)?

A lot of the questions you're asking are dependent on the type of game you want to have. Look at the weapons available at the TL with the material you're using, and gauge the giants against that. Do you want them to trample cavalry? Make them big enough to do so. Do you want them to throw boulders the size of a shack? Make them strong enough to do so. Consider how expensive the infrastructure, buildings, people, etc. that these giants would invariably cause collateral damage to.

Like, really, I can't tell you how your giants should be. I hope some of those questions help narrow your answers, though.

Remember, as the GM, you can arbitrarily decide what tech you want to use from UT. Just allowing everything in the book is a very, very bad way to go about it. Treat equipment in UT as a privilege, not a right.

Static (Magic) - P98 (Powers, pg. 98). It isn't leveled, though. You could make it Reflexive and a Power Block, but that's the creature with Spell Resistance rolling a defense, instead of a static target number that the caster is trying to meet/beat. GURPS doesn't really do static defenses you need to roll over to beat.

Reposting my old question from ded thred. I'm doing some preliminary worldbuilding stuff for a setting idea, based on a post-terraformed, post-apocalyptic Mars and want a bit of help. I'm combing through both After The End and Ultra-Tech for resources, but I've got two questions I need help with:

How do I stop there being guns at TL6? I'd like guns to be artefacts of the old world, not something that can be replicated. I was thinking of some way to prevent gunpowder production being viable. Sulphur is not only abundant on Mars but also biologically necessary, so that's out. Charcoal is easy to produce from trees, coconuts or whatever. So that leaves saltpeter. Is there a way to restrict or prevent access to that? Or some other way to prevent guns being made?

What kind of advancements would TL6 give for melee weapons if there were no guns? Is it the same basic things just with better materials, or are there some new technology paths one might be able to take with the focus taken off firearms?

>MAD-like cold war
It means a cold war (as opposed to a shooting or 'hot' war) that came about because of the consequences. Those being M.A.D. or Mutually Assured Destruction.

Gunpowder is TL3, my man. Do you mean that guns stop existing at TL6, but existed beforehand? I'm not quite sure I understand your question. This might be due to my lack of knowledge on AtE.

If it's a post-terraformed, post-apocalyptic Mars, why not just say that the art of guns are long gone? Like, as a GM, just say that they're lost technology. That'll solve your problems, and if a player questions you why, just say that that's not information the players can have.

As for 'no guns', you need to remember that other, non-black powder guns existed. Air rifles and crossbows are two big alternatives that I can see would still be around and used, and the technology for them advancing.

Just as an aside, why don't you want guns? IIRC, After the End makes them heavy, their ammunition scarce, and their carrying capacity awful, not to mention very expensive. Wouldn't those already make guns much less viable compared to something like a good club?

>So that leaves saltpeter
Which you can get from urine.

Restricting firearms by limiting chemical precursors is a losing proposition (as are metallurgical and industrial reasons). Instead, perhaps, make it social as that doesn't have to make sense except by its own internal logic. Something like "Only degenerates and criminals would even consider them. Even the cruelest poison is less disgusting. And nobody would ever dream of crafting one anew! Aside from the penalty of death that carries the cost is their immortal soul!"

>No idea what a MAD-like cold war means,
You have never heard of Mutually Assured Destruction? The basics is that, in a world where every global power worth their salt has a nuke, no one wants to use it because the retaliation from the other powers (and the retaliation against those from the rest of the powers) would probably destroy the earth. The Cold War in our reality had quite a bit of that, for a while the world looked like it would end any day, one wrong move and the missiles would start flying.

My world would be a medieval fantasy setting, like I mentioned, a bit stock-fantasy if anything. TL3-TL4 and all. There's magic, but it's not at the 'summon satan'or 'magic nuke' level, the giants are the most powerful right now. And regarding the giants, they're almost like humans in almost every way beyond their size and durability. And collateral is to be expected, they're almost literally like letting an elephant loose in a porcelain shop.

I realise I should have mentioned that the collapse was several centuries ago, so it falls into the "ten generations or more" category of AtE. Society collapsed back to TL6 from TL9+ (haven't decided exact TL yet) and stayed there. So it's not that they never discovered gunpowder or guns, it's that all the people who knew how to make them died. I don't want NO guns, I just don't want the population to be able to make new ones. I wanted a strange mix of vaguely-modern technology but with everyone using melee or muscle-powered ranged weapons.

>If it's a post-terraformed, post-apocalyptic Mars, why not just say that the art of guns are long gone? Like, as a GM, just say that they're lost technology. That'll solve your problems, and if a player questions you why, just say that that's not information the players can have.

I was going to fall back on this if I needed to. I wanted a more robust reason to prevent that player who will take it into their own hands to try to make it. Nearly every fantasy game has someone who tries to do it. But yeah "no-one knows how to make cordite anymore" is good enough.

>As for 'no guns', you need to remember that other, non-black powder guns existed. Air rifles and crossbows are two big alternatives that I can see would still be around and used, and the technology for them advancing.

Crossbows were part of my intention. Any ideas off the top of your head what crossbows might look/act like if they're actual weapons of war, rather than purely a hunting weapon or hobby?

I remembered one component was made from urine and thought it was saltpeter but Wikipedia wouldn't tell me. I had considered a cultural taboo, but it feels like a cop-out to me , so I didn't want to use it.

>several centuries ago
And nobody's been able to reverse-engineer a gun?

I just wasn't familiar with the acronym, thanks (and thanks to as well) for explaining.

>10 stories
At SM+7, these things are practically colossi. You'd be justified in giving them a few hundred ST (making them capable of picking up and using something like a trebuchet as a weapon), plenty of DR, Supernatural Durability for whatever keeps them going. You could even make them use the Decade-scale rules for damage, HP, and DR (B470).

>almost like humans in every way
Do they have human-like intelligence? Their own free will/motivation? Can they betray their country, or are they slaves to them? Can they make alliances with other giants, or refuse to work with one even if their countries are allied?
I trust that you're already considering all of this, and it's accounted for or being made into plot points for your campaign/world.

>Nearly every fantasy game has someone who tries to do it.
It sounds to me like a player problem, at this point. Or, perhaps, what the player(s) want from the game isn't what you want. Have you considered asking them to not do that, just for this game? Maybe branch out and play a wise-yet-uneducated character that uses primitive inventions, like ambushes and pit traps and such, than an inventor hellbent on advancing the technology of war? Personally speaking, I find that my players are willing to have a suspension of disbelief for a game as long as the world's internally consistent.

>Crossbows as weapons of war
I just searched for compound bows and crossbows, but I... cannot find find them anywhere in GURPS. Ah! Here we go. The Deadly Spring, Pyramid #3/33 - Low-Tech, page 14. I haven't read the article, so I can't speak for it, but that would be a good place to start for stats. You could also design your own, if you're ready to do all of the work.

Con't.

Crossbows as weapons of war: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossbow Go read up.

No, really. I could repeat a lot of what the article says, but it does a good job all on its own. Stuff to consider: More efficient transfer of energy, alternative uses of projectiles such as grappling hooks, machines that can draw a poundage far above what the average citizen can to damage engine blocks of cars. Get creative!

>Cultural taboo as a cop-out
It really isn't. Every culture the world-over have taboos. Giving the cultures in your game their own taboos can work wonders for verisimilitude. Guns could easily be one of those taboos. Just make it internally consistent with the culture, and nobody will bat an eye. The characters can insult their culture, and reap the benefits of penalized reaction rolls, angering authorities, or even getting in trouble with the ruling class/caste. Don't be afraid to give consequences for actions.

Also, what this guy said. You'd have to make guns rare, possibly holy artifacts (or evil things that need to be sealed away/destroyed) in order to really keep those keen on rediscovery from doing so.

Saltpeter is potassium nitrate. It's potassium, nitrogen and oxygen.. if you don't have those, you don't have people.

That said, Mars is a bit nitrogen-poor, as planets go. It's not enough to keep people from making black powder.

Cordiete and modern smokeless powder is harder then black powder. If you don't mind switching your idea, primative black powder guns aren't that much better then crossbows.

I imagine with Titans being irreplaceable each group with one would be very, very careful about attacking with them, drawing them back if there seems any danger of losing one and in general deployments becoming very defensive. A kingdom without a titan would be pretty doomed.

Or have gun-control drones roam the sky and kill anyone seen using one. Long after they made sense for police reasons, still operational, still deadly, and still driving everyone to think of guns as a terrifying weapon used only by the desperate, willing to risk the wrath of daemons.

You could get a hell of a taboo if people think that just making a gun can summon daemons.

>It sounds to me like a player problem, at this point.

The players are theoretical, I'm just prepping some worldbuilding. But I've had several experiences of players who attempt to create gunpowder firearms in fantasy settings, usually with characters that aren't particularly inventive or scholarly.

>Crossbows as weapons of war: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossbow

Okay, I'm being bad at communicating today. What I meant to say was crossbows as weapons of war with modern technology. We have modern crossbows with carbon-fibre bodies and synthetic fibre strings, but those are almost always hobbyist hunting weapons as far as I've seen.

>Also, what this guy said. You'd have to make guns rare, possibly holy artifacts (or evil things that need to be sealed away/destroyed) in order to really keep those keen on rediscovery from doing so.

Given that it's been at least 300 years since society collapsed, most guns would probably not function any more. There are sure to be exceptions, like Colt Single Action Army or AK-47s, but most aerospace-grade machinery (like Mars rovers) can barely stand 10 years of the Martian dust before breaking down, let alone 300. Guns preserved in underground vaults and habitats would still work, but most would have been looted and used to the point of breaking centuries ago. So yeah, pre-collapse guns are meant to be rare.

I think I've found my answer there. Early survivors were dependent on existing stocks of firearms and ammunition and were focused more on returning the world to how it was than producing sustainable economies. As restoration became increasingly less viable and those survivors kept dying, the number people with the knowledge of how to make guns decreased. As the existing guns kept breaking and the ammunition kept being used, there were fewer and fewer examples for reverse-engineering until there were basically none left. This still leaves the possibility for rare pristine firearms in untouched vaults.

Martian dust would be way less a problem on a terrofirmed mars. The hydrosphere and thicker atmosphere would take all the sharp edges off fine dust, and turn a lot of it into mud and dirt that won't blow around.

If you chose to go with 'new guns are taboo because of security systems that hate them' you could have relic guns have a identification and licencing chip that the drones respond to and keeps them from attacking.

Those chips could have become holy seals now. Ones that can 'bless' even a fallen, new production weapon to keep it from summoning 'deamons'

Or.. yeah. Though a society that can't make flintlock rifles is one that has fallen a long, long way from humanity today.

>300 years since society collapsed
Carbon fiber and synthetic strings aren't going to last that long and be in anything resembling a usable state. You could probably find some analog that would but they crossbows aren't going to be significantly better (maybe a bit different in weight) than a contemporary one built with game appropriate TL6 materials. IIRC, the biggest advance in crossbows was the trigger and string release after the materials engineering in TL2 (don't quote me there) that made the bows heavy enough to require mechanical aid to draw.

You could pretty easily at TL6 have a repeating crossbow powered by compressed air. I haven't actually done the engineering but it should (warning, SWAG) be good for at least 3 shots if you keep the draw weight down and put compound bow cams on the arms.

You should also be able to use battery packs and an electric motor but that will drive the weight way, way up.

You could make a very good TL 6 bow with a mechanical pump that allowed 4 x 50 pound repetitions to draw a 200 pound bow. It would be much faster and more ergonomic then a crank. I guess you could also have a accumulator to let it cock again quickly after a, or even a spring-driven wench that could repeatedly cock the weapon several times, allowing a fast reload.

I'd refuse to use one though. Putting a spring with hundreds of pounds of stored energy near your face is a quick recepie to become 'that guy that used to have a face'.

Just wear plastic mask or something.

D&D Sorcery user here.
Posting updated ToM Shadow Magic to Sorcery conversion. Just some minor fixes.

Switch surgery to the optional Trauma Surgery speciality which is only hard instead of very hard. That covers extracting projectiles, dealing with combat injuries and stopping people dying from mortal wounds before they can get to a hospital. First aid should be at least IQ+2 and you want a full crash kit/EMT kit. Diagnosis is good and maybe Electronic Operation (Medical) if its high tech enough.

If you want general solider template advice look at the Soldier in the Space book or the SS Raven Trooper in Infinite Worlds, ignore anything relating to TL9+/outerspace/Nazis.

And now something new.
ToM Truenaming to Sorcery conversion.
I don't know what I'm going to tackle next. Maybe Incarnum or just some normal Sorcery spells.

I wouldn't use a spring either. That's why I suggested compressed air or electric crank.

The TL5 air rifle in High-Tech says 30 shots for the rifle. 5-10 for moving the mass required for cocking is probably reasonable.

The penalty is inherent to some knives, but not all. If you ever use Martial Arts or Low-Tech, you will note that the Kukri and Long Knife have no penalty to Parry.

It's the same penalty: it does not double up. If you have Knife at 14, your parry would be (14/2) +3 -1 = 9.

>Do they have human-like intelligence? Their own free will/motivation?
Yes, they can decide by themselves, but are relatively docile and have little wants, for the 70~ years since their arrival none of your questions have really been answered though, but this is a plot point in the campaign, since for the first time someone does find out if a giant can be killed, which turns the cold war hot, and even all of the giants start to reevaluate their alliances and how much they do and should care about the humans.

>At SM+7, these things are practically colossi. You'd be justified in giving them a few hundred ST (making them capable of picking up and using something like a trebuchet as a weapon), plenty of DR, Supernatural Durability for whatever keeps them going. You could even make them use the Decade-scale rules for damage, HP, and DR (B470).
Thanks, friend.

>I imagine with Titans being irreplaceable each group with one would be very, very careful about attacking with them,
This is true as well, people are too damn afraid of losing theirs even if they don't know if they even can lose it, and the giants fighting each other always tends to end in a draw, after a fight that spans kilometers and leaves heavy casualties on both sides.

This is great, user, thank you.

In addition to what the mage would normally roll, and your normal roll against it. So he'd have to beat not only the normal defense roll of whatever kind applies, but also your spell resistance on to of that.

I'll check it out and see how that would work, thanks!

Yeah the same issue has plagued spears/staves for a while, but in reverse; do staves innately have +2 to Parry as their statline implies, or does any weapon wielded as a staff have a +2 to Parry as the skill description implies?

Staves only get +2 when wielded that way though, the bonus disappears when you grasp it like a sword under its Two Handed Sword skill stats.

Whats the best way to make a sniper tl8 operator and shit?

You don't. GURPS may be able to handle operators operating operationally better than any other game I'm familiar with, but it can't make a character concept that requires being away from the party for 90% of the action work in a cooperative group-based game. You'll either end up splitting the party ("You guys storm the building, I'll be in the highrise across the freeway lining up a shot") or be forced into situations where your sniping is moot ("Man I sure am glad I decided to bring my heavy slow-firing rifle that can make shots from 10km away; it's so useful in these cramped hallways swarming with enemies!"). Best case scenario is that, occasionally, your sniping gimmick will be the intended solution for a scene, like taking the bad guy out as he escapes in a car, but that's still after entire sessions of faffing about as a character poorly suited for the vast majority of modern day adventurers.

>splitting the party is bad

Do people still believe this?

Be flexible. Much of the time you will be moving with the team and not setting up. Other times, the team will set up to defend you while you settle in and engage from extreme range, creating a scene where you are the star of the show and they are your backup if anything gets close.

Stay in support of your team. This doesn't mean you have to be right together, but they should be able to see you, so you can engage people targeting them and they can do the same for you.

Also, when you've got someone in your sights hum on the radio so they know what's up.

A sniper can work with a M14 with a decent optic. It's less then ideal for either long ranged shots or close ranged firefights, but lets you play designated marksman for the group on the move and still get your sniper on when required.

I mean perks and shit.i already figured most of that .

Oh I know my rights as a GM. HS Glasses are something that would logically exist in my setting.
I specifically cut them off from all lasers and rays due to in-game laws against them.
It's just I'll miss catching them unawares at night.

This probably comes up a lot but how is that online Fallout sourcebook?

Guns (Rifle) is your bread and butter but you also want Observation, Camouflage, Stealth and enough ST / Lifting ST to not get too slowed down carrying your kit.

Weapon Bond (your rifle) is worth it as a perk. Otherwise, get SOP (knowing where exits are) and SOP (move with stealth) so you don't have to say to your GM you are doing those all the time.

Most of your points should go into Guns (rifle). Put 4 points into Observation, then increase Perception instead (it's 1 point more then more Observation and gives you extra everything)

At creation, acute vision is a obvious choice for a sniper.

Really he's right though, Sniper takes a level of game and tactical awareness that you likely don't have. Play something else.

Don't see how it isn't true; splitting the party means splitting the DM's attention and forcing them to juggle two possibly very different scenes. It also splits screentime; it's one thing to wait for a party member to take their turn, but a split party often means waiting for a party memeber to finish an entire scene. It's a huge pacebreaker in my opinion.

Skills: Observation for scoping (hue) the scene; Climbing and Fast-Talk for getting to your shooting spot.
Techniques: Precision Shooting (I think; there's a blurb in High Tech about getting a higher aim bonus with more time and a penalized IQ-based Guns roll, and this technique buys off that penalty).
Perk: Deadeye (Precision Shooting -- or whatever it's called -- normally requires lots of shit to work, but not if you have this perk); the SOP perk in general is great for the little things.

Check Gun-Fu and Tactical Shooting; I think both have sniper templates, with Gun-Fu being more cinematic and TS being more realistic, and you could steal liberally from both.

Most 'sniping' in films, games and books is not real sniping, it won't be in RPG's either.

You will instead be a designated marksman for which any .308 rifle with a 4x optic or equivalent will more than do the job while not limiting you as much as a dedicated sniper rifle.

SOP?

Those ones have the advantage that they do normal 7.62x51mm NATO rifle damage and deal 1d+2 with 1 linked burning damage to anything standing directly to your right.

Standard Operating Procedure. It's a perk that lets you define a default action your character takes without you saying so.

Like "SOP: Check containers and doors for traps" or "SOP: Find out where the exits are and have a bag packed and ready to go"

They can't be big, but unless you deliberately break your SOP it applies. (IE: If you have SOP: Move Stealthy you are moving with Stealth.. unless for some reason you want to run or draw attention.

Standard Operating Procedure. You do something automatically without having to tell the GM. It's part scene control (I'm not supply-less, I ALWAYS have a bugout bag ready) and part insurance against the player's Absent Minded disadvantage.

What book is Eye For Distance in?

There really isn't much in the sniper skill-set which isn't also generally useful in adventuring situations though. Camouflage, Stealth, Observation and Guns (Rifle) are all good skills to have in general. Sniper rifles are still decent as general purpose killing tools. The precision aiming technique and a couple of perks are really all that distinguish a sniper from an elite infantryman and they will only suck up a small fraction of your points total.

Power Ups 2: Perks, on p13 under Mental Perks.

Power-Ups 2 only, I think.

Deadeye from Gun-Fu or Tactical Shooting might be a better choice for a sniper, since it covers both the rangefinder and other equipment needed for precision shooting.

Mechanics-wise, I totally agree. However, they would play differently, and I don't imagine someone that sets out to be an elite sniper will be content footsloggin' with standard infantry.

Keep the long gun in the drag bag until that one perfect scenario comes up where you can reach out and touch someone.

tldr: play designated marksman, not sniper.
Why would you want to be one of those creeps in the first place?

I like how the Symbol magic system looks, but what are it's trappings? Any words that encourage creative use?

Watch TV shows that split the party. The way they cut between each group. You don't have to resolve a scene to switch focus. Getting the pacing right takes a little practice but done right it works really well.

Transform is expensive (requires two nouns minimum) but very useful; you can remove something bad AND make something good simultaneously. I'm away from my books, so that's all that springs to mind at the moment. Note that the lexicon is up to you and the listed words are only an example.

As for trappings, that's all on you user. Will you go with Hermetic Decans? Chinese Elemental Cycle? Sephiroth? Or will symbol magic stem from the homestead and do away with the technical relationships and tracking of the stars in favor of something more basic like contagion, sympathy, and the law of three?

Actually I mean words other than the example ones. Something that encourages creative use. Magic, Transform, Move, all words that I feel really reward creativity (and tend to be expensive as a tradeoff), I was wondering if anyone had new words that did that too. The words I think of tend to be too specialized. I thought of [Advance], but it's a bit too specific, it's essentially a bundled combination of [Time] and [Move].

Is there anything I should look out for though? I'm pretty in love with the flavor and the mechanics, but what are the bad bits of it?

If I succumbed to an Affliction that applies an irritating or an incapacitating condition, or a disadvantage, do I roll every second to recover, or does this apply only to stun?

Only to stun.

Thanks. I always had doubts about that.

I'm basically just restating the pastebin which makes sense seeing as how I wrote it in the first place, but the main "drawback" of Symbol/Syntactic is the load it puts on the GM and its focus on versatility over raw power (neither of which I consider significant, hence the quotation marks).

If I had to add something to the list, I'd say that, after RPM's fine-tuned parameters list, I find Symbol/Syntactic's a little too loose and lacking for my tastes, the biggest offender being S/S's lack of Bestow a Bonus/Penalty parameter, which I find super useful (it's also great if you want magic to have a more down-to-Earth day-to-day tone; Old Man Klok may not throw fireballs, but the talisman he gave the village hunting party will be a great boon and help them find large game, and now he's going around the farmsteads, scratching runes for a good harvest onto all the fenceposts). It's an easy fix, though, and definitely one I recommend.

>It's an easy fix, though, and definitely one I recommend.
What's the easy fix? I don't want RPM, I want S/S.

Sorry, it's an easy fix to port some of the parameters from RPM over to S/S. IIRC, I halved the energy cost of a parameter and treated it as the skill penalty (though making it the FP cost or required MoS should be okay).

Anyone's got problems with Potential Advantages? My GM is pissed because instead of buying Filthy Rich [50] i bought Multi-millionaire 2 (Heir -50%) [50].

They create more work and stress for the GM. They have to pick when it comes up.

If they never give it to you, you are getting screwed.

If they give it to you too fast, it's too easy.

That said, they can do fun things for a story so I don't mind them much.

I love Sorcery!

It's a trap!

Is there any good guide to polearm fighting in Gurps? Having to take a ready to change range seems really dangerous, how am i supposed to stop people closing into 1 hex or even C?

Martial Arts p.106

>Good guide to polearm fighting
Fight with friends. Pretty much a universal combat rule for GURPS, but especially good for someone who can reach past his friends and attack.

Use Waits and stop thrusts (B366) to attack an enemy closing in on you to keep your reach advantage.

If you're using a polearm with a ‡ after the ST listed for an attack, it's going to become unready after every attack, unless you have 1.5x that ST (B270).

Make liberal usage of Defensive Attacks (MA100). It allows you to parry with an unbalanced weapon (U after the Parry modifier) for an easily eaten damage penalty, since polearms do great damage.

Have fast-draw (knife) and knife at a decent level, preferably using either a kukri or a long knife (MA228). Both are superior to a large knife (better swing damage, no parry penalty, weigh slightly more so they can parry some axes, clubs, and swords without risking breaking).

Take Wrestling or Judo or Sumo Wrestling, as the worst thing a melee fighter can be is grappled (the absolute worst being grappled with no grappling skills).

>pic related
Great perk for anyone that uses reach weapons that require a Ready maneuver to change reach.

Fight with friends, seriously. Especially someone with a shield that can do sacrificial blocks for you. You don't want to be the frontliner, you want to be the just-behind-the-frontliner.

...

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Martial Arts has rules for shoves with long weapons; if some dude gets up in your face, shove his punk-ass back with a sizable bonus for using a far-reaching polearm.

>The last paragraph
That's fucking hardcore.

Anyone got GURPS Villains? Doesn't seem to be in the OP.

If i wear hand armor wouldn't it be more reasonable to use unarmed skills? The penalties for parrying barehanded wont be too bad if I'm wearing plate gauntlets right?

Thank you very much all for your advice. I think I'll stick with my knife fighting grappler and play a polearm fighter later on when i understand melee better.

Love this perk. For one point, you can get on with the game and not get bogged down with micromanaging bullshit.

Transhuman Space

As a GM, I am completely fine with splitting the party when there's a good reason. Sure, there will be a lot of waiting between scenes, but there is nothing wrong with it narratively speaking.

You're still penalized unless you're using Karate to party, but gauntlets do protect you in case your parry fails and they hit your hand instead.

From my experience from firing an HK G3, the burning hot empty cartridges are thrown forward and to the right, not directly to the right. But otherwise, your point stands.

Judo and Karate are in a lot of martial arts styles and if you aren't planning to be encumbered seem very good.

Do you have to roll an active defense even if the incoming attack misses? Do you have a page reference for that? I'm trying to settle a friendly argument with another player.

I haven't ever seen a scan and I know it hasn't been officially released electronically.