/gurpsgen/ GURPS general

More of what I'm looking for, I guess, is how do you decide what out of the pile of rules you're actually going to use? "Only use what you need" is all well and good once things are underway, but there's a hell of a lot of basic-seeming rules in GURPS.

Join us and die.

Smells like a rule-lawyering meme spouting fucktard

>Whips up a basic Transformer character sheet in five minutes

Start off by figuring out roughly how long you want the campaign to last. Something like six sessions is probably good for a first-time campaign.

Then you work out what style of game you want and what the end-point is going to be. For example it could be 'a struggle to escape from a hostile place' and the end-point would be when you finally get away.

Then decide on the setting and the kind of characters you want. For example, you might want a sci-fi game and to have the characters be spaceship crew. You can do this before the previous step if you like.

Figure out what the final exciting scene might be like. It might not work out exactly as you planned and you may want to have several alternatives available but always try and have some idea of an ending before you start doing the rest. For example, you might want the final scene to be a race to get to the only serviceable spaceship on the planet before it is destroyed by lava. Possibly while being chased by alien monsters.

Then you have to figure out the pieces which are necessary to get the characters to a final scene. They have to be racing to get to the last spaceship, so there has to be a reason the spaceship is there. Who does it belong to? Is it their spaceship that they just got repaired or someone else's? Why is the spaceship near an active volcano? Why is the volcano erupting just as they arrive? Why are they on this planet?

Then take all of those elements and try and break them down into things that happen to the PCs. How do they find out about the spaceship? Why don't they just use their own spaceship to escape in session 1?

Try to have a few branching paths which lead to roughly the same point. Put multiple opportunities for them to get every clue and proceed to the next part of the plot. Have a plan for when they come up with something completely unexpected.

Break it all down into chunks and split those chunks up into sessions.

Yup. I was just polling for more opinions.

This is good to hear. I'm worldbuilding, and some of my economics is based around people not actually wanting to go "full von Neumann" since the maintenance "cost" is unsustainable compared to just trading for the shit you can't manufacture efficiently yourself.

Maintenance on space machinery wouldn't be a problem though if you have a bunch of nanoswarms fixing everything up, since nanoswarms are pretty fucking great at that.

Question. Is there any way to make it so you don't kill yourself when doing a slam attack? My first intuition is that Drop-kick from MA doesn't make you take damage, but it's unclear.

I just write a setting I like, then I apply the mechanics I think are appropriate for realizing the setting I want.

If you want an easy way to start, just use a premade setting. Your friends will probably like playing Cowboys in the Shell in TRANSHUMAN SPAAAAACE

Sure. Either wear enough armor to ignore the slam damage or you use a shield rush/weapon slam

I guess I need to clarify. I've successfully GMes multiple campaigns before. I have no problem writing a campaign or its plot. I have a LOT of problems with trying to hash out GURPS mechanics from a GM perspective. I'm used to systems that are more... Setting-tight, I suppose. (Not D&D.)

Shield slam. Pack on the DR. Use the rules from Martial Arts that lets you slam with a thr weapon (e.g. you hold a spear ahead of you and run at the bitch).

This advice is basically just rewording what you just said but...

1. Start with only the rules from lite. (but maybe the list of advantages/disadvantages and skills from basic set)
2. Focus on one extra special thing you want to do on top of that (Detailed combat, magic, special powers, in-depth social engagement)
3. Find the rules for that one special thing in the Basic Set, and apply the ones you like.

Like this guy said, start with a short campaign because you might find that one interesting special focus is a bit too vanilla and get bored fast. Maybe a "one adventure long" campaign like:

Solve a simple murder case (using detailed social engineering)
Double elimination combat tournament (practice using detailed combat rules from the basic set and potentially martial arts)
Bank Heist (Exercises a little bit of everything)

Alright, thanks. And, was my interpretation of Drop-kick wrong then? It doesn't stop you from taking damage?

I have a Reach 3 weapon, can i attack a enemy behide another enemy? or do i get a penalty?

The premade settings have readily applied character creation guidelines that the players can read and apply. The most popular ones are Dungeon Fantasy, though I'm sure GURPS Transhuman Space or GURPS Traveler are easily accessible as well.

As for the mechanics in play, it's honestly not that different from any other game. Players want to do something? Make them roll the appropriate skill or a default, success they get to do what they want, failure there are negative consequences.

As for combat, if you don't attach a lot of bells and whistles it's fairly straightforwards. If the players got multiple defenses in the +12 range and DR equal to the average damage of the opponent's weapon, they will likely roll said opponent (exception: automatic weapons are hella scary. Take cover!).

Guns are sorta scary but if you just learn the Rate of Fire rules they become very simple. I suggest having a GM cheat sheet that got the range/speed tables and RoF bonuses handily nearby since they tend to come up a lot when ranged weapons are used.

I can't remember. Check Martial Arts. A drop kick is either a sort of flying tackle or it's a special technique (probably flying attack/flying kick something).

Oh, I know it's a thing in MA, I meant I can't quite tell how to rule that, based on the description.

This attack uses two feet in an attempt to injure and
knock down an opponent. It’s a special option for Move and
Attack. Use the following rules instead of the normal rules
for that maneuver. A Drop Kick is a type of slam (p. B371). You must move
at least a yard towards your target. The kick itself has a reach
of 2 yards. Roll against Drop Kick to hit. Damage is as for a
slam, at +2 for going feet first (or +3 if wearing heavy boots).
Brawling, Sumo Wrestling, or Wrestling adds its usual damage bonus. Succeed or fail, you immediately fall down. Until
your next turn, you may block or parry from the ground at
the usual penalties, but you can’t dodge or retreat.
In a cinematic game, GMs may allow an Acrobatics-5 roll
for the attacker to land on his feet after a successful Drop
Kick. A miss results in a fall!

It's a slam then.

I believe so. The entry says a drop kick is a kind of slam, but does not say that it ignores any of the slam rules. HOWEVER, the damage would likely be applied to your feet; a pair of solid boots with thick soles would be able to grant enough DR to negate most of the slam damage, and better yet would do so cheaply. I still recommend a shield slam if you're intending to go slam heavy; dropkicks leave you prone, even in a cinematic game if you fail the acrobatics roll.

Nah, doesn't quite work. I was making a speedster, and figured a slam would be a good way to do an "Alpha Strike" as I close distance, but it's basically suicide at that value, it seems.

This is helpful. Thanks.

whats the best way to mix guns and magic?

Ritual Path Magic and Imbuements both come with abilities to enchant bullets by default.

what said.
but if you want to play some thing like the pic go play exalted it more suited for that kind of play.

Man, now you've got me wanting to do urban fantasy Payday as a campaign. Thanks for that.

How good is RPM for enchanted bullets, actually? Seems like the charm system would make it extremely slow and costly to make them for anything other than a single-shot or bolt-action rifle.

>I have a LOT of problems with trying to hash out GURPS mechanics from a GM perspective. I'm used to systems that are more... Setting-tight, I suppose.

OK, I'm not quite sure what you mean. Can you give an example of the kind of thing you are stuck on?

Most of the time, I find just using the rules from Action 2 works fine. It's abstract enough that it's fairly fast to play but gives enough detail to be satisfying.

One thing to bear in mind is that you're not committing yourself to using a rule for the entire campaign because you used it once. I switch between using the size/speed/range table, Action's abstract range and just flat out ignoring all modifiers and rolling against skill, sometimes with a penalty I just made up. Basically use what you feel like at the moment and if it doesn't work, stop using it.

>Not spending all your downtime casting charms on individual bullets
>Not RoF:ing bad luck charms at people

Do you even wizard?

You can and there is no penalty.

All-Out Attack (Strong) helps put more damage on the target than the slammer, but if you collide at high enough speed you are going to fuck yourself up.

Okay, an example. Let's say I'm and want to do "urban fantasy heist film: the tabletop game". One player wants to be our Danny Ocean, our smooth talker.

Do I go with the most basic social rules there is? Do I wildcard-skill social rules? Do I have a few of the base social skills, but not all of them? Do I let all the base social skills have a use? How far do I go with modifiers? Am I limiting my players from playing the character they want if I say "no, I'm not using the full social rules, so your smooth talker's going to be a little abstract in skill" while combat still has decent depth?

Apply that to every field of the game, including even deciding on a magic system and how detailed to go with it (ritual path magic, but you'd be surprised how confusing that is to some players I've shown it to in the past). Then dump that on top of actually, well, figuring out the campaign, which isn't all that hard. It's a lot of unanswered questions and thoughts.

Compare, say, Shadowrun (which I've played but never GMed). There's a hard distinction between each skill, each skill is useful (barring some of the technical skills) without having to faff about with it, and you can't really add more skills or remove what you have already without causing a problem. Magic is well-defined, if not well-implemented; so on and so forth. The mechanics reflect the setting and system, a generic system inherently can't, so I'm having trouble adapting my mindset. Dark Heresy's largely the same way, and that's the one I have experience GMing.

The simplest answer seems to be "just go with what's in Lite", but I don't know if that's the best answer. Does Action 2 cover more than combat? Seemed like that was most of what there was when I read over it, but it's been close to a year now.

I've only just started playing GURPS and, correct me if I'm wrong, isn't the standard magic system kind of weak? At least combat wise?

The way I'm seeing it, melee and missile spells are going to be garbage in most settings because they are more expensive point wise than most weapon skill due to being IQ/Hard (and have prerequisites), take at least two turns to cast with no way to reduce the time, have three chances to fail (roll to cast, roll to hit, opponent's defense roll) compared to most other attacks' two, can be interrupted, cost FP, and for all these limitations don't actually deal that much damage, being limited to 1d per Magery level (limit of 3 in standard settings according to the book.) It seems like even TL3 melee weapons are dealing more damage given a good ST score, more often, without all the limitation. Not to mention tech and guns, which missile spells don't seem to be able to compete with at all.

Then Regular spells have huge range penalties and Area spells cost massive amounts of FP for a decent radius, but those aren't that bad and can be mitigated to a degree. Even though Advantages seem to be cheaper and less limited.

The thing I'm really confused about, though, is the Enchantment college. If I'm reading it right trying to make an item by yourself can take literal years, requires a specialized lab, and is impossible to do while adventuring. Meanwhile a cinematic Gadgeteer can whip up something presumably equivalent in minutes to hours.

Is it just impossible to be an effective blaster mage that flings fireballs? Is magic's strength supposed to be in utility (in which case the spells in GURPS Magic aren't that impressive)?

What am I missing here that makes magic good? Why is being a wizard so hard for so little payoff?

>Not running an animal sacrifice production line.

OK, for skills you pretty much just need to decide if this is going to be an over-the-top game or not. If it is, allow everything, if not, disallow any that are classed as cinematic (including wildcards). That's basically it. You don't need to decide on a case-by-case basis most of the time. Cinematic or not. If in doubt, go with not-cinematic, because basic skills will work fine in a cinematic game.

Magic is unfortunately a big choice, but some of the systems are relatively simple. Go with Path and Book or Chinese Elemental Powers and you should be fine.

>Does Action 2 cover more than combat?

Way more. Seriously, it's pretty much the one-stop guide to running a GURPS game with minimal hassle.

Yes - in THS, nanosymbionts are used in several spacefarering characters (just been reading Personnel Files).

However, that's for devices inside people, inside hulls.

For things expected to work on the outside of a ship, I'd imagine you'd want larger micromachines instead (and to keep them out of direct exposure where possible).

Dude.

Dude, naw. If you're trying to do blasty things with a standard GURPS mage you're Doing It Wrong. You wanna shoot shit, play a Heroic Archer with Weapon Master (Bow).

Use Flash, it's freaking terrible. Use Glue and Stench. Use Daze, Stun, or Sleep. Turn their best fighter into a Body of Air. Use See Secrets to find ALL THE TRAPS. Use Mage Sight to see who's got Magery on the other team and get your fighters to kill them. Use Illusion Shell to disguise a cart as a boulder and hide the whole party beneath it.

There are about 400 decent, useable spells out of the 700 or so in Magic. There's a LOT you can do.

There're ways to make pretty good blaster mages.

In the Epic Magic pyramid, Essential Spells are a pretty big upgrade to regular blasting spells (though Hellfire is overpriced), and it improves the rules for modding spells (which can make a lot of damage spells much better).

In Pyramid 28, Yellow Goblin Magic has a very decent blasting spell (more of an artillery spell really) with uncapped damage and an impaling explosion effect. With a good powerstone, or enough Wealth to have it as a powered item, you can do some nasty things.

Slam people smaller than you and be tough as fuck. Slam hurts you, but it hurts then more.

I was hoping GURPS was a system where there wasn't really much Doing It Wrong. I just don't think it should be wrong to want to blast people with magic. Or Enchant things while also adventuring.

Still, I'm not seeing a lot of great spells.
>Flash
2 second casting time unless 20+ skill, expensive to do on an IQ/Hard skill and starting to concentrate is a giant "kill me" sign that lets whatever you're doing be interrupted.

>Glue
Seems decent, though Area spells get expensive very quickly.

>Stench
Damage is a little low, but I like it. Seems useful.

>Daze
2 second casting time.

>Stun
Probably the best spell on this list.

>Sleep
3 second casting time.

>Body of Air
5 second casting time, practically unusable in combat.

>See secrets
Pretty good.

>Mage Sight
>Enchanted (or magical) beings also
glow, though mages themselves do not
unless they actually have spells on them
at the moment
Useful for other reasons, though.

>Illusion Shell
Illusions in general seem pretty useful with creativity.

So yeah, what I'm getting from this is that magic is terrible for actually dealing damage and fighting and is instead utility focused with some debuffs being potentially good if you've got time to cast. Still don't like the idea of doing nothing for two turns while everyone else acts, and then maybe my spell works, though. Assuming I don't need to use a blocking spell and ruin my concentration for what I was casting before, too. Mages don't fight, they just help other people fight, I guess.

A lot of these sound like personal decisions based on what you want. I started GMing GURPS several months ago, and my no-magic fantasy setting runs solely on the Basic Set and Low-Tech.

But in terms of your mechanics questions: How many rules you decide to implement depends on their role in the campaign. Using the full social-engineering book is unnessary if only one person in the party is a smooth-talker, and the campaign does not focus on that stuff.

But that said, if you want social mechanics to be more defined in the game, it would be recommended to use all the social rules in the Basic Set, then getting more detailed if you don't feel like that's enough.

Regarding combat, just use the Basic Set. If this is your first campaign, please don't go full tactical combat, especially for a high-tech setting. That probably sounds like a disappoint answer, but you'll be all the better for it. Do use all the appropriate modifiers within the Basic Set, but discourage using Martial Arts, and other such combat-related add-ons. They don't add anything to campaigns with people who aren't there specifically to get their TacOps on.

I too have played and GM'd Shadowrun. Extensively. Given that, I still don't understand 100% what you mean. Shadowrun is an awful, clunky junk of a system. There is no hard distinction between each skill, it can get very confusing which is more appropriate when it comes to non-obvious things. Magic is not at all fucking well-defined.

But I can understand your confusion in which Magic to add and such. I haven't added magic to my game, obviously, but as other anons have said, look up what other premade GURPS stuff has done, and go from there.

Hope that helps!

The basic magic system is especially prone to being outclassed by technology, but it does offer a lot of utility in a low-tech game.

For example, sonic stun weapons are TL10. A TL8 or less gadgeteer couldn't build one while a mage could easily get far more versatile mind control spells. In a TL 3 typical fantasy game, gadgeteers are restricted to inventing things like slightly less shit blackpowder weapons. Although direct damage spells tend to be fairly underwhelming, they can often be picked up for a similar investment in points that a weapon would need. It's also worth noting that you can cause a lot of havoc with magic which might not be great in a 'damage per second' way, but can seriously weaken targets for a warrior to finish off. It's relatively easy to disarm someone with magic, for example, or give them a significant skill penalty. Note that burning damage can set fire to things, including clothing, so while a fireball might not kill someone instantly they will be taking damage every turn and is at a penalty to DX. God help anyone carrying black-powder facing off against a fire mage.

Use the Energy Accumulating variant of Ritual Magic and have spells stored in Ready-Fire charms, then.

Poppycock. You want to be a blasting mage? I believe there are several Pyramids with spell options for just such a magic motherfucker.

Don't let your dreams be dreams!

I'm joining a campaign where our modern day (2016, TL8) PCs end up in a fantasy setting.

I want to play a /k/ommando gunsmith grad student who'd end up being one of the first gunslingers, so I took Armory (TL4, 5, 6, 7) and Engineer Small Arms (TL4, 5, 6, 7). Combine that with needing Mathematics of each TL and Machinist of each TL and that adds up. I especially did this because I can't start with any portable tool-kits.

Someone is telling me I only need TL8 Engineer Small Arms to make a musket, but I don't think I would if I only have TL3 infrastructure available? I could see myself building up in tool kits/infrastructure, but not TL8. There's no way I'd have a TL8 machine shop available for me at any point in the campaign.

Sounds like you're going to be Banestorm'd.

One thing to consider, is that if you buy equipment as Signature Gear, then it's a part of your character - if he's a devoted convention-going hobbyist or over-equipped handyman with a portable machine shop in a van, then that should end up dumped with you into fantasyland.

It's perhaps a bit too obvious, but if the DM's down with it (and it's a very classic idea for ISOT games) then I don't see any real problem.

What about Page 513? It says "all relevant skills at 12+" Does that mean I need 12 points in them, or I can go by with 12 IQ and then 1-2 points in the skills? I dont fully get what page 513 means but it sounds like I may not be able to build myself a cap & ball revolver like I want to.

>One thing to consider, is that if you buy equipment as Signature Gear, then it's a part of your character - if he's a devoted convention-going hobbyist or over-equipped handyman with a portable machine shop in a van, then that should end up dumped with you into fantasyland.

Can't take any tool kits or weapons. It's just anything someone would reasonably have on a cruise.

Don't think the setting is Banestorm either since the GM likes making his own settings.

It isn't that bad a deal to simply make a blaster mage. Magery 6 (Fire College Only) [39], FP 26 [48], Recover Energy 15 [2], Ignite Fire 14 [1], Create Fire 14 [1], Shape Fire 14 [1], Fireball 15 [2], Flame Jet 15 [2], Explosive Fireball 15 [2] and Innate Attack (Beam and Projectile) 14 [24] comes to 122 points and lets you fucking annihilate your enemies. With three seconds of prep time, you've got the ability to chuck a 18d explosive fireball which basically kills everyone within a yard of it's impact point, ruins the day (3d damage and a 50% chance of clothes catching fire) of anyone a yard further than that away and cause some degree of crisping a couple of yards further than that. That's enough to win most squad-level combats by yourself.

If you get attacked without time to prep a spell, you can just whip out a 2 or 3 dice flame jet and do more damage with better reach than most fighters. If you need to control an area, you can cast create fire and cover hundreds of square yards in fire.

You can do all this with no equipment, so you can look perfectly harmless up until the point you set fire to the entire village. Alternatively, you can put a few points into wealth and ST and gear up like a fighter.

Even if you can't quite get Magery 6, keep in mind..

You can charge up in the seconds before a fight. Not helpful if you are ambushed, but quite often you will be able to begin a fight with a spell ready to go.

Many of your spells will force the opponents to move, divide them, and disorganize them. Battlefield control is somewhat hard in GURPS.

You can deal lots of elemental damage, something that can be very useful at targeting weaknesses in some creatures.

I'll give it to you that you can't throw around a spell every second, but you also can't fire an arrow every second.

Remember: GURPS turns are very small. It's just one second.

To compare, 122 points in cinematic archery gets you Weapon Master (Reflex Bow) [20], Heroic Archer [20], Striking ST 9 [45], Strongbow [1], Bow 15 [20] and Fast Draw (Arrow) 15 [16].

That lets you fire an arrow doing 2d+6 imp every turn, while the mage takes at least two turns to launch a fireball (doing up to 6d burning which does slightly less injury to unarmoured targets but has better armour penetration and can set them on fire). The archer has higher skill than the mage for direct fire, but has no area-effect abilities. Facing a horde of normal foes the archer is better if they are spread out, but the mage is more efficient if they clump together. The mage can also pick up additional spells quite easily, giving him more options and doesn't need a bow to hurt people. On the other hand, he does need mana and can run out of FP more easily than a well-prepared archer will run out of arrows.

ok im kind of new gurps. I wanted to play a doom game. What books woud work best?

Asked this in the last thread but it died.

For grenade launchers does the round always go off on impact I can't find anything saying it does or does not.

Basic Set, Ultra-Tech (scifi stuff), and I /think/ Horror.

pls respond.

Also, Striking ST, especially 9, is exotic and a GM might refuse to allow a person to get that disproportionate base ST to Striking ST ratio.

Seriously, that's 'wearing powered armor' territory.

Basic Set and High Tech can cover most of it. Not a very hard setting to do, given you really don't need that much. Maybe use Wildcard skills to have all Guns at the same level.

>terrible for actually dealing damage
You can build artillery mages but you're somewhat fighting the system in doing so. The magic-as-skills system really is designed around the idea of utility mages.

If that doesn't fit you can do one of three things: Build a limited (one-college for example) blaster mage, Buy spells normally then add Innate Attack (a 3d imp IA is 24 points without limitations), or use one of the magic systems that does fit your view of how magic works.

If you're stuck with the basic magic system then go the Innate Attack route.

Grenade launchers shoot grenades.

That means the ammunition is grenades.

Look up grenades; look at the options for fuses. Usually it's a 1-5 second mechanical fuse. Ultratech expands on possible payloads/modifiers for those grenades.

Does this help you?

Yep - although it does change somewhat when you take Enchanted Items into account. A level or two of Power is very expensive... but creates an instant and reliable source of free damage with special effects.

For example, one of the better blasting items (the base spell was mentioned above).

Eh, Basic Set/High Tech grenades are impact fused, like modern grenades. They are designed to arm after 10 meters when fired and detonate, dealing full damage to objects they hit and explosion and fragmentation damage to nearby objects.

I understand that the normal grenades (throw) did have fuses but I just wasn't sure if 40mm grenades last week we had a player who had one and we wasn't sure if it went off as soon he fired it or not.

Did the gm make a judgement call at least?

As far as I can tell, there's no rule for grenade launchers firing dud shells. The only thing even close to it is a rule in High-Tech for early semi-armour-piercing low-explosive shells.

Since grenades do sometimes fail to detonate, I'd simply say that result 15-18 on the malfunction table result in the grenade being launched but not going off, doing 1d crushing damage to whatever it hits.

Same round it's fired. The one in the core book seems like a 40mm High Explosive Duel Purpose grenade like a M433.

This explodes on impact, generating a jet of copper capable of breaching 5cm of steel and spreading fragments with a 5 meter causality radius. It's good for attacking light armor and equipment or hard points like bunkers and people inside rooms. Be aware the in the open it's fragments can be dangerous to the person that fires it.

That seems to corroborate with the notes, pity it's no explicitly described. Look at 1 6 7 and 8

GURPS Doom (1, 2, 4):
Books Required: Basic Set (Everyone), Gun Fu (Everyone).
Characters should be 250~350 point combat-focused characters, having high DX, Move, and Guns skills. High Acrobatics will help with dodging, and can be fluffed as "strafing". They should buy a level or two in Enhanced Dodge, and everyone should have Gunslinger. Also consider giving them Regeneration, to help keep them alive.
Don't bother with Tactical Combat, since it'll just slow down the game. This might lead to some homogeny with your players' characters, but that should be fine if you let them have a niche (This guy's great with explosives/grenade launchers, that one's strong enough to run around with dual-wielded LMGs, that one has a chainsaw and battle rifle, etc.). Consider having Wildcard skills tied towards specific jobs - Demo-man! for the explosives dude with a LAW, Heavy Weapons Guy! for Mr. Twin MG, etc.

GURPS Doom (3):
Books Required: Basic Set (Everyone), Horror (GM)
Characters should be 125~175 points, specialized in some job that whatever shithole space coffin they've found themselves buried in needs. Try to include more non-combat challenges, like the engineer of the team needing to kitbash repairs for the comms relay to signal for help, and the janitor with a chip on his shoulder has to unclog the plumbing to drain a section of the station to progress, etc.. GM should try to play up atmosphere and enforce darkness penalties (-3 for by flashlight (supersedes other penalties), -5 for backup lighting, -7 or more for working by red emergency lights).

Don't use GURPS Magic. Just buy some Innate Attacks, put Magical on them and whatever other modifiers you want for the spell, and call it a day.

yeah it went off as soon it landed
Ok I forgot what type he was using but it was older but I make sure to bring it up.

>I took Armory (TL4, 5, 6, 7) and Engineer Small Arms (TL4, 5, 6, 7). Combine that with needing Mathematics of each TL and Machinist of each TL and that adds up.
Check with your GM, but I wouldn't require a matching Mathematics skill for each TL. Also, do you really need engineer in every TL? A serious gun-nut might well have armoury for everything from muskets to assault carbines, but it seems unlikely that they would be designing anything that wasn't either up-to-date or so old that they had to 'reinvent' the methods of building them.

Try to pick up a talent which helps with armory, engineer and mathematics. I'm sure there is one. Or see if you can get a wildcard skill which covers it all.

>I especially did this because I can't start with any portable tool-kits.

I think I'd invest in Engineer (Tools) in that case. Also, take a multitool as signature gear so you aren't completely fucked.

>Someone is telling me I only need TL8 Engineer Small Arms to make a musket, but I don't think I would if I only have TL3 infrastructure available?

TL8 skills working with TL3 tools will take a hefty penalty unless your GM is being co-operative and ignoring the standard rules (pretty fucking unlikely in a modern-people in fantasyland game).

>What about Page 513? It says "all relevant skills at 12+" Does that mean I need 12 points in them, or I can go by with 12 IQ and then 1-2 points in the skills?
It means you need skill level 12; the total number you roll against, not the number of points in the skill. So with a decent IQ and/or talent and a couple of points in each skill you should be OK.

>...it sounds like I may not be able to build myself a cap & ball revolver like I want to.

Good fucking luck making percussion caps with medieval technology. If at all possible, loot flare gun rounds from the ship's lockers or do whatever you can to get access to fire magic (GM might be nice and let you buy magery despite living in a world where it doesn't work).

I guess I could go with TL4 - 6, or just TL 5 & 6?

>TL8 skills working with TL3 tools will take a hefty penalty unless your GM is being co-operative and ignoring the standard rules (pretty fucking unlikely in a modern-people in fantasyland game).

Yeah, though I could re-allocate skill points. Here's my sheet. I have 5 points left atm.

>It means you need skill level 12; the total number you roll against, not the number of points in the skill. So with a decent IQ and/or talent and a couple of points in each skill you should be OK.

Well, I only start with 30 points and a 15 disadvantage limit.

>GURPS Doom (1, 2, 4)
I completely forgot. You should definitely use the Flesh Wounds rule and Extra Effort in Combat (B417 and B357, respectively). Enemies shouldn't use either of those rules unless they're very dangerous.

Enemies might be the hardest to stat up. Guns in GURPS are generally lethal; getting shot with one will put you down to bleed out. Something that can take a lot of punishment should have higher HP (Less than 50 but more than 15), DR (Ablative works well to represent "big pool of HP"), and possibly an Injury Tolerance. Unliving is in Basic Set, and it's what undead use. Damage Reduction from Powers (P53) should be used for really big bads like Cyberdemons, dividing all injury by 2, 3, or 4.
Fodder like Imps should just die at -1xHP, as per Fragile (Unnatural), and only have one or two additional HP and some DR. Non-fodder enemies such as Pinkies should die at -5xHP, but have higher HT scores (12~13) to represent their hardy nature, keeping them conscious longer. They should also have higher HP and more DR. Cacaodemons should make use of Ablative DR to stay functioning. Boss monsters should most or use all of the options above.

>GURPS Doom (3)
Enemies should be able to take pistol shots and maybe a rifle shot or two. They should be played a bit smarter, attacking in dark hallways when the party is at a disadvantage. Don't be afraid to scale up the encounters if they get serious hardware; it is still Doom. You can use the rules above, but toned down, as your characters will still be squishy.
Now that I think about it, these characters might have some Regeneration, as well, or access to cool medical tech that heals them up.

That should be enough information to get your game going, whichever you choose.

>30 points and a 15 point disadvantage limit

Damn, I've never seen that low of a points level game.

Before you put too much time into writing your character, make sure the GM is onboard with what you want to do. It's really easy for a GM who doesn't want guns in his fantasy setting to stop you building them. Apart from anything else, is he going to give you the months of downtime needed to set up a workshop, gather all the materials and actually manufacture these things? Because if you're fighting goblins every week, chances are you will never get your guns and you will have invested half your points in stuff you can't use.

Yeah. So how can I make the best of what I got, keeping in mind I likely can't learn modern skills after chargen?

Well, he's okay for it but the cruise set up (which he told us about before I told him what I wanted to do) and low point limit makes it difficult.

I got an important question:
How do you simulate the Magic the Gathering magic system-with PCs as planeswalkers-into GURPS? I've found a bunch of dead links to supposed conversions but have been unable to find any of them.

I don't know it. Could you describe? Like, what its effects are, and what steps are taken to achieve those effects?
Example from D&D: Wizards have to study spells, and have a limited number of spells they can cast per day, and have to spend time preparing those spells. Those spells can be as powerful as stopping time to as weak as cleaning their socks.

Can I add the Reduced Fatigue Cost to Magery so that I can spam cheap blast spells? It feels slightly better than just buying Innate Attack with Malediction.

>Well, I only start with 30 points and a 15 disadvantage limit.

Merciful Christ, he's either a serious member of the Cult of Stat Normalisation, you're in for a brutal low-fantasy buttfucking or you're expected to add a bunch of stuff after character creation. Hopefully the latter.

The Artificer talent isn't a great deal, but it might save you a few points. Ask your GM if you can modify it to include Mathematics and see if he is using alternative talent benefits (if he is, it's fucking fantastic, because it offsets improvised equipment penalties).

Does your GM consider lowered attributes to count towards the disadvantage limit? If he does, you're over it. If he doesn't, buy Per and Will down a bit to save points.

HT 8 seems likely to cause trouble. If he's running a gritty realism kind of game, you're going to be rolling to resist disease and/or poison fairly soon after arriving in a strange environment.

Basically, it's hard to advise you how to proceed without knowing what your GM is like. At a guess, he's probably going to be handing out xp by the bushel-load and you should invest in attributes and talents which will make the relevant skills more effective when you learn them rather than sinking all your points into skills.

But what you really need to do is talk to your GM about your concept. If he's onboard with it, maybe he'll let you convert your TL8 skills to TL4 ones after a few weeks living at TL4 or take a perk to ignore the TL rules for skills or something. If he seems hesitant about you making a gunsmith, it might be wise to have a backup plan.

>Merciful Christ, he's either a serious member of the Cult of Stat Normalisation, you're in for a brutal low-fantasy buttfucking or you're expected to add a bunch of stuff after character creation. Hopefully the latter.

I believe we're meant to be youngish normal people who grow into proper Player Character adventurers through play.

>see if he is using alternative talent benefits (if he is, it's fucking fantastic, because it offsets improvised equipment penalties).

Can you talk more about this? Like page and stuff? I'm new to GURPS and I think the GM has only played a couple of sessions.

>Does your GM consider lowered attributes to count towards the disadvantage limit? If he does, you're over it. If he doesn't, buy Per and Will down a bit to save points.

Don't think so?

>Basically, it's hard to advise you how to proceed without knowing what your GM is like. At a guess, he's probably going to be handing out xp by the bushel-load and you should invest in attributes and talents which will make the relevant skills more effective when you learn them rather than sinking all your points into skills.

Well, I can increase my attributes but not my modern day skills.

This is the only one I know of. It's decent, if a bit sparse on some details (and modified RPM fits much better than the default magic system).

...

...

Edited my sheet.

Fuck I forgot to include it.

Amazing, dude. Thanks.

>Can I add the Reduced Fatigue Cost to Magery so that I can spam cheap blast spells?
No. Reduced Fatigue Cost affects the advantage, not the spells which the advantage helps you buy.

Consider a heavily limited Mana Enhancer as an option; it's a lot of points, but it basically lets you cast anything for free if you can get the local mana level high enough.

Also take a look at the options in Thaumaturgy; even if your campaign doesn't use them as standard, it may be possible to unlock them with the Perks form Magical Styles.

>It feels slightly better than just buying Innate Attack with Malediction.

You don't need to put malediction on an innate attack to turn it into a missile spell. Just add 'mana sensitive, -10%' and it's good to go. See page 34 of the basic set.

And there's no reason to not use innate attacks as spells. There are multiple official magic systems which use them. It's perfectly legit.

>Can you talk more about this? Like page and stuff?
It's in the supplement Power-Ups 3: Talents. Basically, it's an alternative to the usual bonus to reaction rolls that a talent gives you. Instead you get a bonus to some other roll or reduce a penalty. The artificer alternative benefit offsets one point of the penalty for using improvised tools per level. So if you are always using inadequate tools, it's effectively +2 skill per level instead of +1, which makes it cheaper than raising IQ and dropping Will and Per.

Holy shit, this looks incredible. I just wish I had players that knew how to read...

>Innate Attack with Malediction
>Blast spells
What?

Explosive Fireball: Burning Attack 3 (Explosion: 1 +50%; Increased 1/2D Range, x2, +5%; Magical -10%) [22] - 3d burning attack that can be thrown at a hex for +4 to-hit; Divide damage by (3*Yards from center hex of blast). Uses Innate Attack (Projectile) to hit. Accuracy 3, Range 20/100, RoF 1, Rcl 1.

Firestorm: Burning Attack 1 (Accessibility, Only in areas with high ceilings, -10%; Area Effect: 4 yd radius +100%; Bombardment, Skill 12, -10%; Increased 1/2D Range, x10, +15%; Magical -10%; Overhead +30%; Rapid Fire, 5 RoF, +70%) [2*] - 1d-2 burning attack that targets an area up to 4 yards wide from above, bypassing cover and negating to-hit penalties for non-standing targets. It attacks them with Skill-12+1 (RoF bonus). For every point of MoS beyond 0, you hit an additional time. I believe you roll to hit the target hex, and then the spell takes it from there. Accuracy 3, Range 100/100, RoF 5, , Rcl 1.
*Bought as an Alternate Ability of Explosive Fireball - 7 * 0.2 = 2 (round up).

Burning Touch: Burning Attack 5 (Magical -10%; Melee Attack, Reach C, -30%) [3*] - 5d burning Reach C attack. Used when someone gets too close for comfort. Brawling to hit.
*Bought as an Alternate Ability of Explosive Fireball - 15 * 0.2 = 3 (round up).

Ray of Fire: Burning Attack 1 (Accurate 2, +10%, Increased 1/2D Range, 5x, +10%; Magical -10%) [1*] - 1d-1 burning attack. Aim before you attack. Use Innate Attack (Beam) to hit. Accuracy 5, Range 50/500, RoF 1, Rcl 1.
*Bought as an Alternate Ability of Explosive Fireball - 4 * 0.2 = 1 (round up).

Total cost: [28]. That's a pretty good blaster right there. Area attack, area denial, melee, and a single-target that you can melt faces with.

Hmm... you could maybe make him a pike-and-shot or napoleonic era re-enactor or something. That would justify a few TL4-5 skills. I'd drop as many of the TL-dependent ones above TL5 as possible without breaking concept if I was you. If it's anything like the 'standard fantasy' setting it's going to be hard enough making corned powder and flintlock mechanisms and I wouldn't have any hope at all of primers and so on. Of course, it could equally well be a steampunk world just ripe for the invention of the automatic rifle or a stone-age setting where anything made of metal is a big deal.

Just how well do different edition splat books work the 4th edition Basic Set? Are they easy to convert? Do they even need conversion?

Use the stats from the current edition and the fluff from the previous.

For most things you honestly don't even need to change that much stat wise. The only thing that'll be different is HP (based off strength now) and the HT will be weird for some animals.

Relatively new to GURPS and wtf are innate attacks basically?

Do I just think up some bullshit and then add modifiers to the advantage and make it a thing or what?
How many can I have?

>Do I just think up some bullshit and then add modifiers to the advantage and make it a thing or what?
It's a generic damage ability. The modifiers give it shape. You can have as many as your GM thinks are appropriate for the campaign, which can range from 0 to a thousand.