/GURPSgen/ GURPS general; 3d6 roll under to initiate cultists

>fapbait
Please post examples.

To be fair, they had Phil Foglio illustrate it, so the women tend towards buxom an curvy. I still read XXXenophile on occasion.

Why are these generals always so dead?

What books would people need for a Dieselpunk?

Discord, blogs, weekday, not much in terms of creation going on with GMs. Players asking for character creation advice is the majority of our traffic, along with discussion technical and historical minutiae. There also just aren't a lot of GURPS people.

Steampunk (both 3e and 4e) have stuff for that. High-Tech has plenty of TL6~ stuff, which is about where I'd peg dieselpunk. The rest of it is refluffing and changing some mechanics, like, having diesel engines instead of steam engines powering everything.

So I'm trying to build a TL 10~ish setting. I have two of the factions down, but the third faction is going to be super-heavy magitech, so they're a TL 3+7 faction. In order to play that up, I don't want them to just have "laser guns, but you know, magic", so what sort of advice do you guys have for me for the sorts of stuff I should give them?

Ah, as a note: Everyone in the Magitech faction has Magery 0, access to Effect Shaping Ritual Path Magic (Basically the magic system in Dungeon Fantasy 19), and telesend.

For reference, the other two factions are basically a biotech one, which uses mass based weapons and defenses, and then a "standard" TL 10 one, which uses normal electricity/engineering/whatever and makes heavy usage of laser weapons.

I'm planning on doing a Red Alert 2 style game, with players being Allied agents behind soviet lines.
Is GURPS the right game for it? I'm looking for a large variety of archetypes, high lethality, ease of character generation for players, and fairly fast moving map-based combat.

Based on what I've seen in other generals:
-Lack of personalities. Other major generals tend to have a few posters with more extreme individuality (obsessive focus, recognizable writing style, namefagging, avatarfagging, etc.). These guys can be relied on to keep the threads active for better or worse.
-Lack of controversy. Broken shit, old vs new editions, awful fluff, dev drama, and similar features keep the posts coming. GURPS is not a perfect system, and we have a few issues worthy of contention (TL's effect of skills, SJGames's allergic reaction to marketing and business decisions, etc.), but for the most part, I've never seen an argument last for more than a thread. Even that fight over Pharmacy and TL, which got nasty by GURPSgen standards, ended with the thread. On that note, that thread was one of the fastest ones we've had... ever, I think. Shitposts and rageposts are still posts.
-System is antithetical to "builds." Since GURPS's key feature is that GM's pick and choose what is acceptable for their specific campaign, there's basically no reason to post or compare builds, army lists, or decks like other generals do. We post the shit out of potential builds when someone asks for help realizing a character concept, but there's very little of it otherwise.
-No players. It breaks my little autistic heart, but GURPS simply doesn't attract the same number of players as D&D, Pathfinder, Exalted, etc., and this means there are fewer Anons to post in the general. We've got one group doing storytime, but that's it; /pfg/ and /5eg/ are constantly storytiming, advertising for roll20 games, etc.

Magic lets you get really creative. Just for starters, you can probably bend laser beams with magic, magic EMP, have magic factor into agriculture, sex, hygience, and aging, various area effect spells disguised as small charms (meaning it's hella easy to commit atrocities, especially if the other factions can't detect magic), etc.

Large variety and high lethality are two of the big reasons to play GURPS. Character generation is difficult if you don't heavily scaffold it for new players with templates and lenses. For a big bunch of lenses probably relevant to Red Alert, look at GURPS Space. Combat is fairly fast if you use the Lite version of combat at the back of Characters, and just put tokens on a hex map. You can include tactical movement, but that'll slow things down for new players.

3+7? Sounds like you need technoknights with magitech adimantium vibroblades riding atop robogolem steeds.

For real though, I'm not quite sure. What do you mean by "mass based weapons and defenses"? Guns and gauss weapons? Gravatic bullshit?

80 points in guns dude needs to step up his game

forums.sjgames.com/showpost.php?p=239055&postcount=216

Ah, perhaps I should clarify my question: I'm looking for aesthetic suggestions. I'm planning on dipping into Nanoha-style magitech AI's and casting assistants at least a bit, but beyond that, I want to play up the fact that they never really ran into the sorts of problems that other civilizations did, and just brute-forced it with magic. So maybe they never developed, say, cars, because "gotta get there fast!" just means you use an enchanted staff of Gate, or you summon a demon and ride it or something.

Biotech faction mostly uses Gauss weapons, yes, though there's a handwave pseudo-science bullshit, "the guns are actually bioengineered animals that generate the magnetic fields within their bodies" thing to make them into biotech guns.

Technoknights with magitech is the sort of aesthetic idea I'm looking for, thank you!

Actually, to adjust my question for greater clarity: I'm basically running off the assumption that the average person is, I dunno, a skill 12 caster with Magery 0. So what sorts of problems can they brute force with RPM, and what sorts of things will they actually have technology doing for the average citizen?

What I'm trying to do is make it so that when the players go into there, there's very obvious effects on how society looks because everyone is literally a wizard.

>I'm planning on dipping into Nanoha-style magitech AI's and casting assistants at least a bit
Then there'd better be some SHOOT THE BULLET and STANDBY, READY going on.

That's been brought up before. Something about the area effect and invalid modifiers being smashed together, not that I can recall. I personally think perks make better abuses than 50-point behemots, since most everybody can afford perks.

For example, Attribute Substitution letting you float something like Guns to Per, and Technique Mastery lets you pump up Kicking and Judo Throw and stuff like Arm Lock. Those are some legal uses of the rules that are clearly abusive. Rules Exemption perk can also be abusive, like exempting you from critical failures with RPM. Extra Option (Extra Effort in Combat) can be a huge boon in games that don't normally allow it.

Imagine if a society was run entirely on computers and everyone had Computer Hacking-12. That's basically what you're doing here. Everyone can rewrite or alter the rules of "reality" as they see fit. I suggest looking at the safe threshold for Skill-12 and looking at the very basic effects - Sense, Strengthen, Create, Destroy, or whatever Incantation Magic uses. People never lose anything because they can just Sense it. People never get sick because they can just Strengthen their immune system during flu season, if it even exists anymore. Food always tastes better, so they can afford really cheap shit. Everybody has half a dozen charms on hand for making calls, or summoning a servant to take things home, etc.

Yeah I'm thinking magically-enhanced knights in ultra-heavy power-armor with magitech swords, battlefield wizards, and--if you want to bring the TL3 base to the forefront--peasant levies right out of the Stalingrad Playbook. If you're thinking of army-vs-army stuff, the faction would rely more on individual hero units than general infantry, and archmages can be one-man flying C3I artillery. With magic, flexibility is always going to be the faction's biggest strength.

Effect Shaping RPM allows taking extra time, correct? This would mean everyday people probably use magic as a backup; flipping a light switch or lighting a candle would be the norm, but people can always cast Light if they really need to. Military mages would probably be a bit more trained and able to work together to cast major spells; disrupting casting circles replaces preventing missile launches.

I feel like character creation isn't too hard as long as the GM has clearly stated what the rules are for this game and what he expects from the players.

>Then there'd better be some SHOOT THE BULLET and STANDBY, READY going on.

Devices are going to be a thing, yes! Storage Devices just give functional Ritual Adept, Intelligent Devices can give functional compartmentalized mind and can train you, Unison Devices are basically an additional caster on your side.

All of them can give you bonuses to casting depending on what programs they have installed, and they're universally designed to auto-invoke all 4 Deacons for your path (thus the light show- the runes in the magic circles are actually the Device invoking the appropriate Deacons on your behalf).

>Imagine if a society was run entirely on computers and everyone had Computer Hacking-12. That's basically what you're doing here. Everyone can rewrite or alter the rules of "reality" as they see fit. I suggest looking at the safe threshold for Skill-12 and looking at the very basic effects - Sense, Strengthen, Create, Destroy, or whatever Incantation Magic uses.

Looking at the Safe Threshold's a good idea, I really should have thought of that, thank you.

>If you're thinking of army-vs-army stuff, the faction would rely more on individual hero units than general infantry, and archmages can be one-man flying C3I artillery. With magic, flexibility is always going to be the faction's biggest strength.
Playing up Hero Units sounds like a good idea, it'll help explain why PC's are special!

>Effect Shaping RPM allows taking extra time, correct?
Yup, although it also lets you buy techniques, so I was thinking that trained military mages would, rather than group-casting, trend toward picking up 2-3 Techniques as their signature spells, so they can toss them out quickly and reliably. I don't think group-casting grants too much of a benefit in Effect shaping (Make a check to give the leader a +1, so another 10 mana worth, IIRC), but I'll have to play with it to see if it does or not.

Thank you both for your help!

Hey! First time posting in tg ever! Long live kromm!

Can anyone here tell me if sunbolt works underwater ? Should I use the laser rules to add DR based on visibility penalty, and if so, how to assign it deep under the ocean ?

How do i do fate universe/holy grial war with GURPS?
I want my players to be obviously the mages, also how could i restringe the use of servants so it's not just them roleplaying their fucking waifus?

Agreed, but for completely new people there's no reason not to use templates or pre-gens. Character creation is basically its own game, unless you make efforts to tone it down, like Wildcard skills and such.

Be sure to tell us how the game goes here. We could use more replays.

Depends on the GM. Personally, I'd say it's magic, fuck physics. If you want to be somewhat realistic about it, humans can see about 80 meters in clear water, and seawater as low as 50 meters. Let's call that -10 to vision rolls at that distance, so anything beyond it is basically invisible. -10/50 is DR 1 per 5 yards in seawater, and DR 1 per 8 yards in clear water.

Don't know anything about fate, but keeping people from roleplaying their waifus is going to be difficult. Try making use costly, dangerous, illegal/socially unacceptable, or a mixture of the three.

I dont really have the choice of saying 'fuck it' as im not the GM in the campaign where this question came up. In doubt he always goes by the canon, so im trying to figure out what the canon is..

You reasoning is good tho ... I have sent kromm an email and am still waiting for the answer

We do have that 3DPD avatarfag, but he's the only one and isn't always online. And while there might not be conventional reason for posting builds, people do often post templates to ask for help if they've covered everything and it fits the concept. The real lack of people is what hurts us the most.

I'm fine not having constant shitposting. There was that thread yesterday where the 80guns guy took on five or so people at once, and it reached over 500 replies. That was something else.

Well, in addition to your other direct replies, which cover a lot of ground for a complete answer, I didn't provide any interesting prompts in the OP. That usually helps.

Isn't the point of Fate the servant waifus though? Like, I've never gotten into the series, but the little I've picked up as an outsider makes them seem like they take center stage.

Trying to make them not a big thing in a Fate game seems like trying to make mecha not a big thing in a Gundam game; even if you could, what's the point?

>I've never gotten into the series, but i'm gonna talk about what i don't know anyway

Are there any guidelines for creating and pricing gear?

Nope. Best you'll get is "use real-world prices" for modern day stuff. Other than that, you'll have to eyeball or rely on specific item creation things, like laser design and armor design from the pyramids.

No, I'm going to state what I know. If I'm wrong, tell me what I have wrong instead of getting defensive.

On this note, I feel GURPS doesn't go far enough to be considered truly universal or generic. Consider Mutants and Masterminds 3e, while they do have a default gear list, it's all just various powers put into a different form (a pistol is blast 3 or something like that) and then bought with the equipment quality. GURPS meanwhile requires that gear be statted up separately, largely eyeballed into existence and given a fair price, and then jammed into a tech level framework that has little to do with the core feature of the system (the point buy generation). The net result is that gear really doesn't follow the same baseline framework, and someone from a different tech level wont fit into any other tech level of game, which can't be said of Mutants and Masterminds, since all the gear in M&M is just powers bought through a points framework (higher tech gear costs more points, and so self-balances).

As a new GURPS GM I feel like a lot of the issue GURPS has with building its player base comes down to:

a)The way the information is presented in the basic set
b) Relative lack of modern play/learning aids, like wikis in particular.

Help please: Trying to make an Ice Beam spell. Spell should do damage + freeze target in block of ice. Is there a way to make the Binding effect an enhancement on the Innate Attack like Affliction --> Side effect, or should I just make Linked/Follow Up?

Thank you.

I see your point, though M&M3 has serious problems with things like a smart phone being able to literally use up half of a character's point allowance.

GURPS works far better then M&M3 when a setting has a uniform tech level for the player characters. The fact that a TL 6 person has more versatile and powerful equipment then a TL 3 person isn't a problem, and doesn't require the TL 6 person be given far more points.

Pyramid 3/48 has rules for creating some kinds of gear.

>100 point character
>leave all stats at base
>set aside 20 points for peripheral skills
>put 80 points into Rifles
>now have DX+21 in Rifles since skill cost doesn't escalate
>can take a couple minor disadvantages to have DX+25 if I feel like it
>now I have a 35 in Rifles skill
>WITHOUT aiming I can headshot a running target at 200 yards and still be rolling against 17
>with aiming I can do it even further out, or in darkness

Explain why this game ISN'T broken. The "GM fiat" retort is not an argument, by the way. We are discussing RAW (which means rules as written), not the GM's desperate attempts to make this shit-mess of a game work properly despite the developers' inability to understand what soft caps are.

M&M was built around the assumption that characters very likely wouldn't be built at the same tech levels, what with you having backwards primitives of alien races hobnobbing with the guy who built something beyond modern science in a cave out of a box of scraps. Which to be fair, GURPS bills itself as a game meant to do such a thing with that weird dimension hopping setting where the same characters include greek robot and elf archer.

That approach doesn't quite work for GURPS, though, because it errs on the side of historical accuracy (for the most part; the devs have admitted that pricing on low-tech armor is mostly a balance thing because hard data was hard to come but and was so varied). The Points*Value=Equipment_Cost works for M&M because it's a supers game that really shouldn't give a shit about stuff like that.

All that said, if you're making up new equipment that has no given equivalents you can base pricing off of, you may find Metatronic Generators useful as it literally IS Points*Value=Equipment_Cost and is meant for weird or superscience devices a'la comic books.

Vehicles 3e has rules for making guns that you can convert to 4e, and there are Pyramid article for custom lasers, bows, and ancient to sci-fi armor (no power armor though).

You can do fatigue damage or burn with No Incendiary (-10%) as a base and make freezing the target in a black of ice either a Side-Effect (every time you hit them, they roll HT at -1 per 2 damage they took) or Symptom (the secondary effect occurs once they've lose 1/3 to 2/3 of their HP/FP to this attack). Both are viable, as is a Linked OR Follow-Up Affliction

Remember the ABCs of power design. If you have multiple ways to build a power, go for whichever is more Accurate; Side-Effect requires penetrating DR, Link means there's no relation between damage and freezing, Follow-Up means the freezing is easier if the attack penetrates DR, and Symptom links freezing to total damage done. You need to decide which of the four most accurately represents what YOU want the ice beam to do. If there are multiple equally accurate options, go for whichever is more Basic; depending on what you're trying to build, one option might have half-a-dozen modifiers for it while another is very straightforward (take the latter one). Lastly, if you STILL have options, go for whichever is more Cheap; no reason to spend more points than you have to.

Page 14, third bullet point. Your character is not legal by RAW

And on that note, when the setting was assumed to be inherently at the same tech level (Warriors and Warlocks) an alternate system utilizing money was put forth.

For stuff like that, I just make judicious use of the Gadget limitations. If we're playing a modern supers game and someone wants to be an alien from a spacefaring, disintegrator-laser-using, highly advanced race, his tech is not gear in the traditional sense because it is unique to him--it is a part of his character and his theme, and as such should be statted out with character points just like not!Superman's strength and not!Raven's telekinesis.

From the point of view of the group, is it a bad idea to play as a horse archer? The strategy (Rider waiting an attack until passing near an enemy while the Mount is moving) and mechanics (range, speed, penalties mitigated by techniques like combat riding and horse archery) seems rather complex and disrupting to the flow of the game.
Just for the sake of saying it, the simulationist in me really likes the mechanics.

M&M works only if equipment is an intrinsic part of a character. It's like buying everything in GURPS as signature gear.

More realistic games where people can buy a smart phone and a handgun with the money they make in a week, it's a hell of a lot harder.

I'm not seeing what you're talking about. Not him either, I just want to know why that pasta is bullshit (I'm pretty sure it is bullshit, I just don't know why).

In a roleplaying game, your gear is always going to be an intrinsic part of your character, since you don't stand the same likelihood of losing it, absentmindedly forgetting it, or doing something totally moronic with it that could require its replacement as you do in real life. For the most part, once you have gear, assuming it's not a consumable, you'll continue to have that gear. I've had full campaigns with players forgetting about gear on their sheets only to come back to it long after it had effectively ceased to be in everyone's mind.

Accurate fire from a horse at a run is pretty damn hard.

Note that the complexity of this maneuver in game would slow things down a few times, but once the player and GM are used to it the attack should run pretty fast, especially if the player and GM have all modifiers and the range/speed table open and ready to go.

Like other forms of mounted combat, it takes a lot of set up to make happen and it's a big investment that you might not get to use that often.

>"Be sure to match your skills to your occupation and character type."

You can't arbitrarily assign skill points in GURPS.

It's bullshit because A) GURPS chargen can't be done in a vacuum. 80GUNS works in some games (notably supers and silly games) and not in others (anything within spitting distance of heroic realism); B) Points are not a balancing mechanic. Even if you only gave 25 points, you'd still be able to have Guns-17, which is going to murder other characters built on 25 points. Do you think DR 4 is worth the same as +1 to DX is worth the same as Modular Abilities (Cosmic Power) 2? No, they're not. DR 4 is worth more than either of those at low TLs, +1 DX is worth more than either of those if you have a dozen DX-based skills (in addition to every other benefit +1 DX gives), and Modular Abilities (Cosmic Power) 2 is worth more than either of those in a game where you rely on a wide variety of skills to accomplish goals.

Besides, it's way better to put 20~30 points in an unavoidable, unerring, ignores DR, homing Innate Attack then giving yourself Hypervision so you can target any foe you want,

It's bullshit because GURPS is built on Rule 0. He can cry about GM fiat as much as he wants, but the system covers everything from spaceships to spear-chucking; it obviously requires GM oversight because not everything is acceptable in every campaign. It's also nonsensical and would be nearly impossible to justify in-universe.

Beyond that, it's just a shitty idea because dumping so many fucking points into a single skill means you will likely be incompetent in other vital areas. For example, the character with Rifles-35 can totally eat the -18 to shoot at a dude running 200 yards away form the hip... but he can't fucking see the target because his Per would take the same penalty, and even with the +10 for the guy being in plain sight, his basic bitch Per of 10 is at 2, so he literally can't succeed.

All that said, I do sometimes employ 3e's rules where you can only have points equal to twice your character's age invested in skills; everything else has to go into advantages and attributes. Mr. 80-points-in-Guns would need to be 40 years old and would be literally incompetent in any other area. They dropped that rule in the transition to 4e because they figured GURPS was played by adults and didn't require handholding--though certain asshats suggest otherwise--but I find the limit flavorful and a major reason to take stuff like Unaging.

If points aren't a balancing mechanism, than what exactly is their point?

>Accurate fire from a horse at a run is pretty damn hard.
I'm sorry if I sounded like I complained about the difficulty of horseback archery but I'm actually not. As far as I understand, in a small scale skirmish-like situation (most trpg combat) a horse archer would keep harassing by closing by, shooting and running away until he get a lucky hit, am I wrong?

>Note that the complexity of this maneuver in game would slow things down a few times, but once the player and GM are used to it the attack should run pretty fast, especially if the player and GM have all modifiers and the range/speed table open and ready to go.
Nice to hear that.

>Like other forms of mounted combat, it takes a lot of set up to make happen and it's a big investment that you might not get to use that often.
Yeah, I can see why. The skills invested to be a better horse archer becomes useless once you get into the inevitable indoors combat and even outdoors you might not get a suitable terrain to benefit from it. Throw in the fact that its mechanics requires some getting used to from the other players and GM, I don't think it's a good idea to use this archertype. Oh well...

That said, just for the sake of curiosity, how would a warhorse be bought? Can it be acquired as Signature Gear or Ally?

Points are a balancing mechanism. They're also abuseable which is why GMs are allowed to tell you to fuck off when you show up with obviously broken shit.

It's not GM fiat, it's encoded in the rulebooks.

Hand-holding and/or ascribing general competence of characters within a narrowly defined scope. Notice that DR, DX, and Modular Abilities were intentionally chosen because most games I've been in, those were not all on the table at the same time. Those are three very different flavors of advantages, and aren't going to all be available at the same time. When they are, it's a Supers game, and at that point you can just use "point-bands," say, baseline 1,000 with +/-50% variability. The GM then scrutinizes the character sheet to make sure everyone has a niche and can contribute meaningfully with that niche.

It's also good from a "limitations inspire creativity" perspective. "I only have 150 points, can I make this concept work?" is very inspiring and can let you discover characters that you wouldn't have otherwise thought of or played.

Personally, I just use them for vetting players before going pointsless and say "Be about as competent as you expect someone with 250 points/mystical dojo sensei/x-men in training to be." If people can't work like that (either because they abuse it or actually can't come up with a concept), then they get a points limit.

Just wanted you to know that it's going to be hard to land hits from horseback. Calibrating expectations. The points in Ride, Mounted Archery and perks are useless when you end up on foot, but your points in Bow are still useful and you can still get your archery on.

This could be very fun, but only if the game suits it.

>How to get a horse?

You can pay for one with cash, or buy it as Signature Gear. Ally is only allowed with GM permission, but can get you a very powerful and reliable horse.

I think he's oversimplifying it by saying they aren't a balancing mechanic. They are a balancing mechanic in terms of overall ability and competency, BUT that does not mean that every character is just as "powerful" as another character with the same point value in every situation. The classic example is the argument against using points to balance encounters: a 150-point lawyer will get his shit absolutely kicked in by a 25-point thug with a zipgun. A 250-point adventurer is equivalent to a different 250-point adventurer but will leave a 250-point merchant that spent all their shit on Wealth and Status and social connections and influence skills in the dust because the merchant is not a good fit for an adventuring game.

Points are points and are ideally balanced against each other, but with a system that has as wide a scope as GURPS has, it requires GMs to vet sheets not just for exploits but also for appropriateness.

>Your character is not legal by RAW
Nope, it is. I did build my character to fit his occupation, which is shooting the shit out of everything in existence. Deal with it.

>(I'm pretty sure it is bullshit, I just don't know why).
It's not bullshit. GURPS is so easy to break you don't even have to try. There is no reason why the game couldn't have soft caps on skills. You're looking at a table for the costs anyways.

>You can't arbitrarily assign skill points in GURPS.
Yes you can. Do you have to justify every skill purchase in GURPS by RAW? No? Then your choices are just as arbitrary as mine. You just don't pick high shooting skill because you don't want to be good at anything.

>GURPS chargen can't be done in a vacuum. 80GUNS works in some games (notably supers and silly games) and not in others (anything within spitting distance of heroic realism);
Then they should have built the rules of the game to reflect that. They didn't, they fucked up, and now that they've made their bed, they need to lay in it. I can play a character with a 35 in Guns and if the GM rejects that, then he is a pussy for rules-fiatting away something that he has a GM lacks the skill to accomodate. That's HIS fault, not mine. I could accomodate such a character just fine, even embrace it. But the kind of GM who runs GURPS tends to be a snivelling, inflexible pussy, obsessed with his own vision of what the game should be, and thus railroading the shit out of the game and banning anything he doesn't like.

Also, Guns 35 is NOT a supernatural skill. You can accomplish it without access to ANYTHING supernatural or superhuman. Whereas the DR shit you just mentioned requires being a special race, or supernatural in some way. Therefore your argument is BTFO before it even got off the ground. Nice try, though.

Dummy-chan is back!

>All that said, I do sometimes employ 3e's rules where you can only have points equal to twice your character's age invested in skills;
See, this was a good rule. Or hell maybe just a slowly escalating skill cost to keep things in line. Bounded accuracy. Even the worthless fucks at Wizards of the Coast understood how it worked when they made 5e.

Not an argument

...

Bounded accuracy doesn't work in a game like GURPS because the system *needs* to be able to handle 800-year old sci-fi vampires and ultra-tech turret AIs that *would* have Guns-35.

Like I said in the rest of the post you selectively ignored, the devs assumed GURPS would be played by adults that didn't need handholding, so they prioritized being generic and universal over restricting Timmy's attempt to make a totally super-awesome broken thing that won't pass GM vetting anyway.

Like, if I ever saw anyone trying to pull this idiocy during a game, that'd be one thing--you'd have a point that the game had issues that needed to be dealt with--but I haven't. I haven't because it obviously runs counter to all common sense AND is a bad idea from a mechanical standpoint (which you also ignored).

>Do you have to justify every skill purchase in GURPS by RAW?

Yes. Pages 167, 14, 172, 48, 487 of the basic set. Page 487 explicitly covers why your idea is stupid and what a GM should do if a retard tries it.

That's the funny part. It's not even a good build, this guy would get shrecked.

See, I think the problem is that people are trying to talk to you as though it's broken. It really isn't. An experienced sniper or military rifleman could conceivably hit a running target at 200 yards, assuming they can even see the target. I'm totally fine with somebody investing that many points into one thing, if that's what their character should excel at. At the cost of not diversifying your skillset, that's fine.

However, sinking so many points into only one skill is just a bad decision as a player. Like said, that character would be fucking destroyed in any situation where they weren't firing over flat terrain from elevation with no obstacles. They're also not at all equipped for socialization, or grappling, or being without their gun. The better reason for a GM to reject the character is not because they're OP in one stat, it's because that character is not even resembling rounded, and is wholly inappropriate for any game where you aren't explicitly doing wartime operators.

He's getting defensive, because you're kind of right. Fate started off solid, but the waifu-shit quickly took over like a tumor, and it's 85% of why people partake in Fate media anymore, especially shit like F/GO

In my gurps UTopia book I'm writing(ultra tech companion I'm writing), I'm making a tech level called TL^

What kind of stuff should they have?

I'm making a bunch of more generic weapons inspired by paranoia. And a weapon and armor generator. As well as high tech level low tech weapons. Anything else I should do?

Converting some PCs from a 5e campaign to learn GURPS's chargen.

How should I stat a character who has one arm that can become insubstantial? He can partially change that arm back to unlock doors, poke people, etc, but items he picks up don't become insubstantial.

There's the Insubstantial advantage, and the Partial Change enhancement (which makes you able to shift parts of you substantial while otherwise wholly insubstantial), but I don't know how to create a limitation for it just working for one limb.

He has special spooky rune tattoos on that arm, which is why it works, if that's somehow relevant. I'd also like him to be able to make an attack with it that ignores resistances and stuff (i'm guessing Cosmic or something), maybe have it cost FP. If the attack part is super-complicated I'd probably eschew it.

Pic related is the character.

One Arm. -40% (based on whole body being 0% for Damage Resistance, Arms being -20%, and One Arm being -40%). Seems about right to me.

TL ^ is generally used for stuff like Dean drives, Psionics, Magic and other things that don't work in the real world. It's also a great place for things like anti-gravity materials used for steampunk airships.

Waifu is a big part of Fate, of course. It started as an eroge and the PC could dick Arturia and Medusa in the first game for fucks sake.
That said, trying to reduce it as purely waifu material is a very biased way of looking at the franchise. As a man, I find some male characters like Cu Chulainn, Siegfried and Karna awesome. They have interesting stories and personalities that can enrich any story (recently I read a FGO/Zero no Tsukaima crossover with Saint Georgius that was very entertaining and had not a single romantic plot).
This is subjective but I really like most characterization, even the wildest ones. Gil and Alexander is shit though. (by the way I suspect Kintoki is based on Decors from FSS but I have no proof).

I think my favorite part is the interaction between characters though, I really like to see unrelated characters crashing with each other, not just in form of combat. In fact, I think Nasu's brilliance is found when he's writing about ideals crashing. The last dialogue between Zepia and Sand of Osiris in MB, PC and Karna in Extra and the fracture of the Round Table in FGO comes to mind.

By the way, the last paragraph also explains why I don't like Fate/Zero. There's no real crash of ideals. Lancer, Assassin, Caster and Berserker has no really meaningful role in this regard. This leaves Saber, Rider and Archer. Rider and Archer talks big time about what they want but Urobuchi kinda simply made them respect each other for that while making Saber hold the Idiot Ball. Go fuck yourself Urobuchi your over reliance on gritty edgy shock value can't mask the lack of wit in your stories (admittedly Kikokugai and Blassreiter were good though)

Cosmic, Ignores DR is +300%. Cosmic, Ignores Active Defenses is another +300%. GURPS doesn't allow you to ignore resistance rolls, but you can add Cosmic, No Rule of 16, +50%. Costs Fatigue is -5%/FP, and it's in Basic. The other three are in Power-Ups Enhancements, which is a really good series overall and I highly recommend it.

Alright. I'm getting 64 points total for One Arm -40%, Partial Change +20%. Does that seem right still? Seems a bit high compared to some other things I've done. I might have to include some limitations for the social reaction or something.

Pyramid #1 has Ectoplasmic Arm, you might get some inspiration from that.

You're missing a power modifier. They're usually -10%. As far as further limitations go, Limited Use, Preparation Required, Takes Extra Time, and Takes Recharge are all options. It makes it harder to use constantly or use without having the time to do so, but if you add the Power Modifier, Takes Extra Time 1, and Takes Recharge, 15 Seconds onto that, you're adding -40%, which takes it down to 32 points. I think that's more reasonable.

Something else to consider is making it (or other things) Alternate Abilities of the most expensive power he has. AAs cost x1/5 as much. It means that he can't use other powers while using that one, and if one of those powers can't be used, none of them can be used. Takes Recharge, 15 Seconds would mean that he can't use any AAs for 15 seconds, for example. Powers, p. 11 goes into detail on this.

Using Basic Set and Magic, just wanting to see if this is correct. It's just a super bare-bones template to see if I understand buying spells.

If the character has IQ 11 with this template, his skill with Ignite Fire would be 13 because he has Magery 2?
And his Fireball would be Skill 15, right? And because it's at 15, he would be reducing the energy cost by 1?

Neat, looks like it's built with telekinesis and stuff to make it grab things

Ok, cool. I'll be reading Powers and Power-Ups Enhancements next. Thanks a lot everyone.

Yes. To both.

Powers is really dense. I recommend just reading Power-Ups Enhancements and Limitations. Those are dense, but not nearly as formidable. Powers has a lot of crunch and detail you probably don't need.

That's a relief. Thank you.

The chapter of advantages isn't any worse IMO than the Basic Set, and PU: Enhancements only covers generic enhancements, not ones specific to a given advantage.

*puts 1 point into Camouflage*
*shoots you while you can't see me*
Nothin personnel, kid.

You can just stat all gear as powers with Gadget limitations, you know.

Everything looks good skills-wise, but limitations only apply to cost of levels after level 0 (it's right at the bottom of p. 66; really easy to miss), and One College only is -40%, not 40%, so your one-college mage pays 5+(10*.6), or 17 points for Magery 2 (College of Fire Only, -40%).

Heres Kromm's answer

"> Is it possible to use the sunbolt spell underwater?

Nothing says that Missile spells *don't* work there, so I'd allow it.

> And if so, should I use the laser rules for calculating extra DR thro
> the visibility penalty?

Personally, I would not do that. Missile spells are supposed to share a
common rules set, and as far as I can tell, they "just work" underwater
-- there's nothing in the rules to suggest otherwise.

> Finally, what would be a standard visibility penalty for being miles
> deep under the ocean?

Miles deep? There's no visibility there because sunlight doesn't reach
beyond 200 metres except in ideal conditions; it never goes past 1,000
metres. If you bring a light source, of course, it works. Whether it's
rapidly absorbed depends mainly on suspended solids (turbidity). Depth
isn't the main factor except when considering sunlight.

> If its really high ratio of penalty/yards, and the laser rules apply,
> it could make it useless.

As I said, I wouldn't apply the laser rules here. I'd treat all Missile
spells as working at their usual ranges, except perhaps for those from
the Fire college, just because water is the opposite of fire in magical
theory.

SP."

>It's magic, fuck physics
Good to see that Kromm and I agree, although he does it by providing a RAW answer.

Didn't know about the level 0 no-reductions, and embarrassed by the math fuck up. Thanks.

Fucking captcha better not freeze this time.

Heat/Fire Only for DR is -40%. -20% is reserved for super-broad categories like "Physical," "Energy," "Magic," "Ranged," etc.

Yes, ive gotten so much great counsel from him over the years

Mistake corrected. I think I mistook the overarching category Energy for its components.

I think you should add magery 0 separate from the magery 2 (aspected)

Understandable. Any other questions or weird bits you don't fully have down pat?

I think it's customary to include Magery levels when writing out the skill level for spells. (i.e. 4 points with Magery 2 gives you IQ+2, 12 points gives IQ+4)