GURPS General /GURPSGEN/

GURPS general

I'm trying to find a suitable advantage for Sirens or similar, where they can lure humans in with song and by looking pretty.
Some kind of hypnosis.
Any hot tips?

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Some sort of affliction. Not sure exactly what limitations you would use for it.

Any new word on Dungeon Fantasy? I'm thinking about getting it once it comes out depending on how the rules are. I want to introduce it to my Pathdinder group, but if they Don't streamline character creation then I don't know that it would be worth it

How is GURPS for space operas compared to something like Traveller?

There's always Sex Appeal (The skill) enhanced by high Appearance and the Voice advantage. It's not magic, but could still lure the unwary to their death.


You could do Sense Based (Hearing) on a Mind Control, or allow them to take Bardic Skills like Enchantment.

>DF box set

It's coming out in the fall. They have one (ONE) fucking editor, so they have to wait all summer to get it done.

Still looks pretty good. DF characters are easy to make, being a matter of applying templates, so I'm sure your pathfinder group can handle it.

Pretty well. There's a strong dislike of GURPS's Spaceships (4th edition) space combat rules, but people tend to like it's very flexible options for spaceship creation.

Unlimited acess to Ultra-Tech weapons out of the Basic Set or the UT book quickly turns combat into crawling around trying not to be seen because one shot can atomize you. Holding things down to more reasonable civilian weapons most of the time avoids this.

GURPS lacks the detailed rules for life paths or financing spaceships that are iconic to Traveller, but it's a BLAST to get stranded on a stone age world with limited high tech supplies in GURPS.

Why do people not like the space combat rules?

The ships are too fragile for their own weapons not to bust them in a single hit.

Ah I see. How's the vehicle combat? Tanks and all that?

I'm planning my first gurps campaign set in a world that's early TL4, with muskets being available but still some armored knights and such running around. From just looking in the book muskets seem pretty deadly. In play are they pretty much one shots on light/no armored enemies? And how easily can you actually dodge gunshots?

>And how easily can you actually dodge gunshots?

Since most will have Dodge 8 or so, fairly tough unless they Dodge and Drop. But the musket takes 30+ turns to reload.

Is there a 4e adaptation of the 3e's Space Opera Combat System? It's in GURPS Lensman and in GURPS Compendium II. I'd rather not touch the 4e Spaceships combat system, wondering if that means I should just play 3e instead.

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Wtf?
Since when Combat Reflexes are a game-breaker?

Muskets generally need to be set on a shooting stick (2 turns) then aimed (at least 1 turn) before being fired. In mass combat and open areas they can be very deadly, but in closed areas or anywhere with hard/tall cover a person can often find cover before a shot gets off. Ligher guns can fire faster, but typically do less runious damage.

For player characters, setting up and getting a good musket shot is a hell of a lot of fun and rewards planning.

Their damage is quite high, but decent plate armor can greatly reduce it and make being shot survivable, if not pleasant.

Gunshots are the same dodge as everything else (-0 from the front, -2 from the sides, no defense from behind) but this represents less sidestepping a shot then moving to avoid being an easy target.

Avoiding bullets gets easier with Damage to Shield rules, as it gives you another 2-3 points of Dodge that provides some solid DR when compared to primitive guns. A musket bullet will still go though a DR 8 shield, but won't do nearly as much damage after.

I don't know. It's 'broken' if you consider it bad that it's iconic of people that get into combat often.

I feel like that's just the breaks. If you are going to be a warrior you need the basic aptitude and instincts for it. It's also a great bump in the direction of player character survival, as PCs have it but only some NPCs will. I see his point, but don't agree.

Game-breakers by TV Tropes definition cover also all sort of easy-to-get, super-useful bonuses. Basically - when you cheese up with something cheap to gain massive boon.
So I don't see any problem with CR listed as such.

The smallest kinetic energy missile can kill the largest space battleship, despite having far too little energy to meaningfully damage something that size.

The other rules also run into problems with the writer having no idea what he was talking about, like nuclear thermal rockets given thrust-to-weight ratios of .2 to 1, something that is wrong for the NERVA from the 1970s (with a thrust to weight ratio of 1 to 1) and really wrong for theoretical gas core reactors (thrust to weight 4 to 1 or higher).

The most laughable is likely fusion rockets given thrust-to-weight of 0.1 to 1 or lower. IRL, pessimistic projections are 40 to 1.

That's disappointing to hear. Could work in some settings though.

Can you fix it by giving the ships loads more health/armour or something?

Combat Reflexes only costs 15 points, even though it includes all the benefits of Enhanced Dodge [15], Enhanced Block [5], and Enhanced Parry (All) [10].

IIRC, it's intentionally underpriced so low-level characters don't die as much.

Thanks for the input, I'm working on a rough draft (still new to GURPS so its taking some time), Affliction based with a Hallucination / Daze effect with some custom effects and heightened cost.
Changed the defense to IQ instead of HT, when failed the target just kind of walks slowly toward the attacker in a daze.

1. Let's say I want to make character who can temporarily become much stronger. Limited Use from BS gives -40% discount for one minute of use per day. Maximum Duration from Powers gives -65% for one minute of use, with 5 minute cooldown. Question: am I missing something here?
2. Do I correctly understand that before rifled slugs were invented, you couldn't use solid projectiles in shotguns (paradox guns aside)?

Thanks. I feel better about using them in my game.

>But the musket takes 30+ turns to reload
Unless, you know, fast-draw it with paper cartridge

>Combat Reflexes on the list
>Not High Pain Threshold
At least Magery and Gizmo are there

1. Nope
2. Yes, no solids

A mental exercise:
How would you make a nurse character?Alternatively, just stat her

A basic fix is to just have every weapon use the Energy Weapons table by size. The energy weapons table is a lot closer to sane damage for the DR of targets, so you end up with more reasonable combat.

Note that the damage in the book isn't realistic. The energy release from a light gun on a 30 ton fighter can't hurt a three million ton steel object in any meaningful way IRL..

We know this because we get the projectile velocity, but not mass. But we do know the loaded weight of the fighter is 30 tons.

So screw the bullets, you can find the energy of the bullets, the gun, the pilot, engines and kitchen sink hitting at the velocity the bullets are supposed to be at, and it's still way lower then you'd need to crack a million ton steel sphere.

There's nothing stopping you from shooting a smooth-bore slug from a shotgun before rifled slugs were a thing, though many shotguns had a choke built in that would be fucked up by a slug. You'd also have limited accuracy.

People made slugs like this, but not very often. A 12 gauge sphere of lead at 1.3 ounces could and was loaded into shotguns, but it's performance was meh and the accuracy sucked.

Here is a nurse I played in a (sadly!) short game.

The big takeaway I had with her is that IQ 12 and DX 12 is really nice for a character you want to be able to perform a lot of different task. Talent (Healer) is nice, but I'd stick to one rank of it.

This is sort of a Nurse Practitioner badass, however. Many nurses have limited training in a smaller area of specialty, and aid in those areas. This is a place you can save points and focus only on basic First Aid, one or two points of Diagnosis and other points to invest in things like Kill Zombie.

Should nurse have Surgery? I mean Physician is already problematic for such character

I feel like 1-4 points makes sense for a Nurse Practitioner, especially at TL5-6 where acting as an assistant to a doctor could easily see a trauma nurse performing minor surgery.

Note though that Coss there is quite gifted. Her stats would, were she male and had a point around to buy Status 1, be suited to a young doctor.

A modern triage nurse or surgical nurse might have surgery at 1 to 8 points invested. Especially if they have an interest and seek out training for it.

But I need it for TL8 nurse, doing shifts outside operating block. So the closest I've got is Diagnostics, First Aid, Sewing and obligatory level or two of High Manual Dexterity.

Sounds good. You could also grab Administrator or something, but that is enough to be able to say "I'm a nurse" and have that as your Status 0 job.

I've done a bit with muskets before; on a hit, they can be super deadly, but Acc 2 means that range penalties are a bitch, and long reload times mean you only get one shot. In other words, just like IRL, it's most effective with a lot of buddies or in close range ambushes and a gamble otherwise.

Dodge vs. firearms are the same as dodges vs. any other attack*; you roll 3d6 and try and get under your Dodge score. Like mentions, this leaves mostly-average people up a creek, but exceptional individuals (i.e. PCs) may be agile enough to reliably avoid lead.

*GURPS is nothing if not a repository of optional rules; there are a handful of rules that change how firearms and dodges interact, but the basic version works well enough for most games as it is mostly realistic (based on statistical data), easy enough to game out (no special changes for dodges vs firearms), and it slightly favors character survival.

There's a Pyramid article, "So You Want to Build a Spaceship," that covers what rules tweaks you need and what tech to disallow to hit certain tones in terms of space combat; IIRC, it covers LoGH-style space opera with broadside exchanges of blue lines, not!submarine stealth warfare, fighters-and-motherships style fights, and ultra-gritty re-purposed civilian ships.

Affliction with Lecherous and Xenophilia. I don't recall exactly how bard song is represented in PU4, but it should fit for the most part.
Otherwise it's just your normal seduction package.

Limited Use is fucked up but SJG will never admit that and change the cost.
One suggestion I saw quite often is to treat it as "per scene", similar to how periodic recharge works. True "per day" would cost twice as much.

Oh shit. There's a problem with Limited Use now? Do tell.

Did you try to read conversation, nigga?

I love Sorcery!

You're right in your calculations, but it's not really an issue like pointed out. It's like that super cheap universe killing ability. Sure, you're allowed to build such an ability within the rules of the system, but the GM is the final arbiter when it comes to what's acceptable.

Limited Use with Slow Reload represents a slow recharging ability just fine.

How would you simulate Alice Margatroid using GURPS? Is it even possible?

From a very brief reading of the touhou wiki, she controls dolls, so this is Telekinesis with Animation, limited to dolls (probably), compartmentalized mind a bunch for multiple dolls (probably), and, if she powers them up, buffing afflictions.

Hey gurpsgen, my players is divided by things they want from new campaign.
One part want vanilla katana & trench coat cyberpunk (or plain 3e cyberworld), other part want Mad Max style post apocalyptic game with some settlement management.
And one dude with me OK for anything, just add Gang Wars.
There are good ways to mix cyberpunk clean white collars with post apocalyptic wasteland freaks?

Outside the sprawl is a Somalia-tier wasteland. Inside the sprawl it's katana and trenchcoat cyberpunk.

Cyberpunk characters in a Ghost in the Shell/Appleseed anime setting, where everything outside the major cities is a chaotic Mad Max / Somali pirate wasteland

These, plus the party's employer has a vested interest in setting up company towns to reclaim they wasteland (maybe it's some madman's attempt to corner an untapped market, or maybe it's legitimately philanthropic, or maybe it's just a slightly sinister mystery) to allow for more settlement-building.

>maybe it's some madman's attempt to corner an untapped market, or maybe it's legitimately philanthropic, or maybe it's just a slightly sinister mystery
Why not all three?

Major cities connected by heavily guarded maglev trains that bring in the things they need, while everything else is ruined and barbaric.

Occasional sweeps by high tech military forces to keep people in the sprawling wasteland from developing anything that might threaten the cities. Explosives and heavy weapons might be tempting for wastelanders, but can bring down the wrath of god.. in the form of a drone fired missile.

I'm running a Western Horror campaign for my group. I've found horror to be interesting because you as the GM are trying to scare the players, and the players have to want to be scared. If you have players who want to don't invite this into the game, and just want to crack wise jokes the entire time, the game falls flat quickly.

One thing I did to set the tone for this campaign was make a video movie style trailer for my players to help set the mood and get them excited. I simply pieced together a bunch of clips from horror and westerns. Yes I know the voice acting is bad. I'm not asking for criticism. I'm just sharing an idea that came into fruition to get people/players excited about a game.

Here is the link:
youtube.com/watch?v=ndfamjxsP0A

I'm curious to know if there are any GMs here that do stuff like this to pitch, or excite their players? Or perhaps get new players interested?

It doesn't have to be a video of course, it can be a short comic, small drawing, or concept art.

I've done things like this before. As a player I've done things like police files on my characters, short stories and journals.

I tend to like this sort of thing. Even when it's amateurish it helps people relax and feel uninhibited, something that can really help with role playing. There's nothing worse then people being shy or nervous that they will be silly.

Two things. Does anyone have any good profiles for "low powered" vampires? I am planning to run a modern day game where the players are a special ops who run into a vampire nest who they think are arms smugglers, so it needs to be able to be killed with difficulty by tl8 military hardware. Also, how many missions against normal humans should I run them up against so as to lure them into a sense of false knowledge about what they are doing. I was planning three, but Im thinking that might not be enough.

>"low powered" vampires
>be killed with difficulty by tl8 military hardware
So u need low powered or hard to kill?
Anyway no vitals, no brain and no wound modifier for bullets.

What I mean by Low-powered is not using the more weird powers of vampires, like shapeshifting into bats. So Low-powered for a classic vampire, but still tough enough to scare a bunch of professional soldiers. I have a rough outline that has Regen based on if they have drank blood, and I've also got some pretty high stats on them as well as the vitals stuff.

Go for standard story building. Mission 1 should establish what is normal for them. Mission 2 should hint at what is to come and subvert normal just a little. Maybe vampire's human servants, or a body that is out of blood.

For modern vampires..

I'd say Injury Tolerance (Unliveing), ST 15, HP 20, Fragile (Unnatural). This makes them hard to kill with modern firearms and very tough in close combat, but not impossible to overcome. Weapons like shotguns loaded with slugs, buckshot at point blank range and antimateral rifles can do a lot of damage to them. When they do go down, they go down hard. Unnatural means they crumble to dust at 0 HP.

Weakness (Sunlight), Night Vision 5, Fangs, Vampirc Bite and Unnatural Hunger (Blood) to round things out.

I'm not sure how much sweeps would be needed. We're already seeing it now - rural areas (especially ones that have lost their economic axis) can't maintain their 20th century infrastructure. We're seeing states reduce the number of paved roads.

The notion that you've got cities, megafarms, factories & mines. Anyone else... the areas can't sustain a population that would be of notice to the corps.

The wastelanders couldn't hope to take over a city, but they could make themselves very annoying with IEDs and anti-aircraft missiles if they had military hardware.

Sweeps would not be vital, but would be economical at reducing the security needed for corporate assets.

>Erotic Art

Have you looked at Autoduel? Because I think you should look at Autoduel.

...

>liquid projector

What is that even for?

Pepper spray bottles and things of that nature.

Flame throwers

Still don't get why it doesn't fall under Guns (Rifle)

Why not Melee Weapon (Broadsword)?

Why not (Guns) Flamethrower

There is no more Guns (Flamethrower).

>Flamethrower
>Rifle
>Gun

I dunno, looks like rifle to me.

>big two-handed thingy you pull a trigger on to make shit shoot out the front.

Shooting a continuous spray and aiming and shooting a single projectile sound like different disciplines to me, mate.

So I'm working on a game for GURPS in which players each make a fantasy race then control a group of them to build a civilization from the ground up. I'm currently working on formulas to relatively easily calculate the amount of Man-Days it takes to construct buildings based of Low Tech Companions 3. Do you think stronger things should count towards more man days of work, somethings like 1 man day of work for every 10 ST. This makes sense as stronger beings would be able to lift and stack bigger amount of materials in construction. For instance one of the races that has been made are giants with a base ST of 25 so they would count towards around 2 man days of work or 2 and a half if you get really specific.

That's a fun and clever idea, though it runs into a problem that ST isn't liner. ST 10 has a Basic Lift of 20 pounds, while ST 25 has a Basic Lift of 125 pounds.

You could use Lifting ST as a base for the amount of work can be done for simple construction, much like is done for task like digging.

So an ST 25 brute can dig foundations, stack rocks, haul trees, drive piles and mix concrete 6.25 times faster then an ST 10 person.

>Shooting a continous stream of burning liquid
>Shooting a spray of bullets or even a single one
>This is somehow similar

GURPS, 100 point modern world game, I want to give my players a spell that would let them take some damage for a temporary DR+STR buff, how should I balance this? It doesn't have to be damage but the theme of the spell is "sacrifice".

By this definitions, canons, mortars and improvised hand catapults are all rifles

Of course it is, how is it any greater than the difference between riding a bike and a war elephant? If you can do one, the other is natural and GURPS just adds needless complexity to the situation.

You know, the scary part about your bait is that there are people who think like this.

As the poster that started this issue, I saw that the thread was on page 11 and about to be killed, so I made a random comment without taking half a second to think about it; my apologies.

I would go with temporary bonuses followed by an hour or so delayed lost HP. So if you use it and get hurt in the fight you have the reaping hanging over your head and need to find some healing or a safe place before you get dropped to negative HP

Didn't work after the initial reaction died.

Also, bump

I've ran a campaign in a TL4 setting where I had arquebus and wheellock pistols available. In theory, they would allow an average NPC to be pretty deadly, even to PCs. In practice, I found that they did far too little damage given how they were meant to be shot once before you went into melee. You could forget using them as a consistent ranged weapon, due to their massive reload times.

The only advantages I found with guns were

> Easy skill compared to a bow or crossbow's Average skill,

> Not strength-based.

> Does more damage in the hands of an unskilled user.

And these are good when making realistic NPC enemies. The party is rarely going to find fighters as skilled as they are in their travels, after all.

BUT, the problem still remained that guns were simply not a useful option to players over using more traditional ranged weapons.

So, in my next campaign in this setting, I've decided I'm going to up the ante from arquebus and wheellocks, to muskets and calivers. I'm also going to introduce expensive but powerful breechloader options with reloads times of 15 seconds for the musket, and 10 or so for the pistol.

I'm hoping the increased lethality will make guns much more viable. Will it? Is it even a good idea to try and make them more lethal? It will mean that the players will move away from more medieval-style melee combat and have to maneuver around a more deadly battlefield. Is this a good change?

Crazy idea
As an armor divisor of (2)

It seems odd but I find anyone with an AP option throws it at every single opportunity they get. Without fail

I can think of an exploit/something awesome, depending on what kind of game he wants to run.

Use the Sacrifice spell, get DX or Striking ST or some other powerful blessing. Lose 5 HP in an hour..

Then use it again like 10 times so you become a superhuman for an hour and go on a rampage to beat the shit out of every enemy you couldn't overcome before then die a hero.

Crossbows are also DX/E, but your point is solid. You typically won't see early, primitive guns outside battlefields when a bow or crossbow is a valid alternative.

>Do I need to make them more lethal?

Nope. Not if you don't fight people in very heavy armor or much tougher then a normal human. A musket's 4d+2 is more then enough firepower. If you want to encourage players to use and fear them it's better to increase the fire rate then to add even more damage on top. Things like double-barreled Jager rifles (Low Tech page 94) are a great option for players.

An 18th century style battlefield dominated by muskets and rifles isn't a bad thing. Most people will skip armor and swords will remain useful for cavalry and men that fight in close quarters, like ships and cities, while the pike is replaced by musket and bayonet. You lose some of the fun, brutal combat of early TL 4 where heavily armored knights battle with big fucking swords and hammers and can resist gunfire at anything but point blank range, but gain a fun sort of age of exploration style.

What could I do to justify such a change, though? Archery has barbed arrows, but it's not like you can have a barbed bullet.

It's a gamists solution, not a simulationists solution.

The reasoning is purely Fiat and deus ex machina.

Non-historical steel pointed tip bullets?

Almost missed this, thought it was just directed at the other player.

Didn't know Crossbows were Easy, so thanks.

And I wasn't suggesting making Muskets more lethal, I was suggesting introducing them in the first place. I had only been using the arquebus and pistol, not the musket and caliver, which do far more damage, and thus are a problem even for armored characters.

But as you said, I think a lot of the fun of that campaign came from the mixed and brutal combat. Random bandits with pistols would fire off before going up and dueling the players at swordpoint, posing a challenge for the ranged weapon user, while guards with spears, pikes, and halberds could provide a challenge for strictly melee-based characters with their range. It was a mess of medieval and gun combat that really worked well.

I was more just worried about the general usefulness of guns in the campaign, both for NPCs and players. If you're saying they're fine as they are right now, with just arquebuses and pistols, then I suppose that solves things neatly. But what would you say about that option for faster-loading arquebuses? Do you think that would change things significantly?

No, no, no, you don't understand. TL4 firearms are bad option for designated ranged fighter, I agree, but you should not use it as such. Instead, you should give them to every party member EXCEPT designated ranged fighter. So as soon the combat starts, party greets the enemy with gun salvo and then goes into melee. Same goes for crossbows - both are good backup ranged skill (though keep in mind that firearms are better than crossbows in every way). Consider the historical use of firearms - sure, bows could fire faster, but it was just easier to train soldiers to use guns. Training, however, is not a problem for an adventurer.

Then there is another option - pistols pack quite a punch, and you can carry several of them. So you fast-draw a pistol, shoot it, drop it, fast-draw another, and so on until you run out of pistols, and then you proceed to melee. This tactic was used in real life (except maybe for "drop it" part).

Then there is a fun thing about loading guns with shot.

Dude, even crossbows are essentially single shot weapons because no one would spend 4 turns reloading in close quarters.
You want to make guns more viable for solo fighters - give them blackpowder revolvers. Because even with light pistols only absolute madman would carry more than four at once.

These were all tactics used to deal with early firearms' downsides throughout history, it's only natural that you'd use them. The multiple pistols trick is a bit crazy but it did happen and it was pretty popular for pirates (at least, those that could afford to buy more than one of them).

>Faster loading guns.

I think it's fine. The breach-loading carbine could be expanded to other weapons, offering people a weapon that can, with paper catrages, be reloaded in 5 seconds, or 3 seconds with a Fast Draw (Ammo) roll. Doing this with double barrel weapons would just about allow an adventurer to keep up a steady rate of fire that would be slower then what a bowman can manage but not unreasonable in a game without heroic archer as an option.

Otherwise, you can get most guns down to 12 seconds with a flintlock, paper cartages and fast draw. This is more then most people will want to spend reloading unless they can do so in a safe place, like a fortified building that people are trying to enter.

These are the sorts of things my players did to combat the problem of it, yes.

I should have mentioned, one of the party members got their archery skill up to 18, so they regularly outclassed gun users by being able to shoot quickly AND do high damage by always aiming for the vitals. This made the problems with guns in my campaign prominent.

Not saying it was a problem the player did so well, just mean that the character's badassery couldn't have been replicated with firearms. High skill adventurers are going to do better with bows 'n such if arquebuses and pistols are your only options for firearms.

I thought revolvers might be a bit much for an early TL4 setting, but hey, this is fiction.

Again, one of my players did try and do this. Got bad luck and never ended up hitting anything, but it was cool nonetheless.

Aye, I guess I'll just have to experiment.

Would any of you chaps be willing to do a test run avec moi? Over roll20?

Sure, I could help with a playtest. The archer vs gunner thing can be tweaked by putting heavier armor on people. DR 3-5 plate or chain on the torso and vitals takes a lot of the shine off of arrows.

Dungeon Fantasy update: It's off to the printers, having cleared editing and review. For those that diden't know there's also a bunch of GURPS books back in print in POD paperback form.

For some reason they don't have Martial Arts, but it's a chance to get Spaceships, Thamatolgy or High Tech in dead tree form without fucking around at Lula.

Still haven't managed to get in on a game, but it's always nice to drop by and see the threads. You guys are creative. Keeps my hopes for a game alive.

Someone stat Medusa's turn to stone ability.

Affliction X (Cone, 15-yard width, +200%; Extended Duration, Permanent until cured with Stone to Flesh or Remove Curse, +150%; Increased 1/2D x10, +15%; Paralysis, +150%; Unconscious Only, -20%; Uncontrollable, -30%; Vision-Based, +150%) [72/level]

The first level causes anyone within 100 yards who can see your face to make a HT roll or turn to stone. (Turned to stone is considered the equivalent of Permanent Paralysis -- it's a special effect.) Every additional level reduces that HT roll by 1. Since hardly anyone could resist the medusa's gaze, she probably had at least six levels (for HT-5 to resist), costing 432 points.

>Jason Levine on SJG fourm

>I'm also going to introduce expensive but powerful breechloader options with reloads times of 15 seconds for the musket, and 10 or so for the pistol.
Fast-Draw and paper cartridges allows to go to 18 seconds and 7-9 (depending on pistol type), respectively. So barely any difference for long arms and actually harming your players over pistols, which are great precisely because how fast they are

What does Uncontrollable do in this situation? I thought that only abilities trigger when a Will roll is failed?

She can't help using it all the time.

Except this is not how Uncontrollable works. You make Will roll and, if you succeed, nothing happens. Meanwhile Medusa doesn't seem to stop her ability at all, which is Always On.