GURPS General

Man, I do really like KYOS, shame it doesn't mean well with the rest of the system. If they did a GURPS 5e, KYOS as default, and a little streamlined, would be one of the changes I'd want. I think a less drastic thrust/swing divide could allow them to make some really interesting balance changes, and allow stuff like unarmed warriors to be a bit more viable.

For some reason I never noticed how versatile the Sickle is. It can be swung for cut damage at decent damage, it can be used as a pick at -1 relative damage and has a hook.

Whats up with the dueling halberd? Why would anyone take the long axe if given the choice?

They wouldn't, simple as that.
Dueling Halberd belongs in the Fantasy Tech's Ethnic Cool section under the name of "Swiss Halberd" or something.

I don't mind if its a work in progress, its a still a good read and I like your take on things. Its along the same lines as what I've been thinking but your implementation is way better. Quick question, I was trying to figure out the base devices you used for the implant examples and I figured out the thermal cloaking pretty easily but the internal radar and commplant are escaping me. What did you use for those exactly?

Wow I totally forgot I said I was gonna post it. Commplant is a custom computer built using the “Thinking Machines” article from Pyramid with all the aspects described in the article. Internal Radar SHOULD be in Ultra-Tech, somewhere at least.

The long axe is pretty well established as one of the worst weapons you could take. It's poorly balanced and just a worse great axe.

All good, I went to bed right after that post anyway. Whenever you get a chance to post it I'll be keen to give it a read. Ah that would explain it, thanks. I was just using the ultra tech computers. I followed the reference in the Internal Radar write up, turns out I calculated the CF incorrectly when I was checking last night which would explain my confusion.

As well, the dueling halberd is just a pollaxe with a cutting head on it. It's fairly realistic and was a fantastic weapon.

How would you run a 5000 BC game (very very late neolithic/chalcolithic, very early bronze age)?

How useful the Sure-Footed perk is? It seems like one of these things the GM would forget and become a dead investment.

Honestly, the long axe was a good weapon as well. Why do you have to ready a long axe after each swing while the halberd doesn't have to be?

Depends if you want a serious game or cinematic stuff.
Depends if mana or no mana or superstitions-as-mana
Depends on world region (assuming real world setting or close enough to qualify)
Depends if neolitic or chalcolithic
Heavily depends on local fauna, too

Why would you ever use a shortsword over a longsword or broadsword (in game)

I don't know why it was designed like that, but if I had to guess it might be due to the early design and TL difference. It could be that the weight of the axe-head is heavier in the front rather than dispersed throughout the weapon.

Honestly, I wouldn't really blink an eye at a more balanced long axe TL3 and onwards.

Ice pick grip for close combat

A lot of ultratech batons and weapons also use shortsword to hit.

Broadswords might also be illegal in some cities to carry openly (restricted to soldiers and nobility). Shortswords were also used in cramped spaces, where a longer sword would be more of a burden than a help.

"Draft" of my Dragon-Blood Knight. He went through so many concept changes his consistency is off so I'll remake him.
The big decision I must make is about his weapon skill selection. I like Long Spear, its reach 3 allows me to outreach common foes and stay away from anything I don't want to get too close, but thr imp damage is not very good in fantasy and the parry U is not optimal. Flail also has parry U but I'm keeping it as a weapon to be used against sword autists relying on parry in which case the shield should suffice. I really want a longsword, I need some weapon with balanced parry and swing cut damage, also the reach 1,2 thr imp is a nice bonus.
Currently I'm considering dropping flail, spear and knife then become a sword autist myself. Shield bash/rush and fire breath should make up for the lack of a flail, the breath also replaces the long spear's function and the sharp claws and bites are good enough to drop knifes.
I think I always say it but goddamn those LT armors are *expensive*. Speaking of which, I'm using the semi-official alternative weights for the sgmented plates: forums.sjgames.com/showpost.php?p=1112312&postcount=192

Anyone ever played a game from Veeky Forums with a russian guy that seemed like he knew everything about gurps? i think his name was Nemo?

When is GURPS 5e coming out?

Range rules are kinda cumbersome, are there lighter range penalty rules, sorta like having it just cut down to modifiers for short medium and far?

...

Range Bands, son. Check Action 2.

What dont you even?

In ten years or so, if GURPS survives that long in the era of piracy.

Trips of truth. I was about to post this myself.

Cheaper, less suspicious, easier to transport, possible to hide, often perfectly legal to carry (but that depends on the setting), generally dismissed as "unarmed" despite having still a sword on you (helpful) and I once had a player who was arming himself purely on in-character styling choices and reasoning that was disjoined from game mechanics.
He ironically favoured kriegsmesser, not knowing how OP weapon it is in GURPS

Let's not pretend that the only fault of GURPS getting it current position is fault of piracy. SJG is literally doing their best to neglect this game into oblivion, too.

Where's the kriegsmesser stats for GURPS anyway?

23-30" sword is pretty handy to keep around and historically pretty popular. While not great, it's also pretty close to the broadsword and perfectly functional.

Most people that went for them were going for something a little less awkward to carry. Things like sword bayonets kept the shortsword on the battlefield beside the saber.

Cost, weight, ST requirements and defaults from other skills, basically. If using A Matter of Inches, then it might be slightly better for Fast Draw (but worse for stop hits).

I'm inclined to give the smaller sword skills (shortsword, smallsword and saber) half penalties for reach C.

>thrust weapon

One of the things that pisses me off in GURPS is that this is still a thing. You can thrust and impale people with a Viking era sword just as well you can with an estoc or a rapier, damn it.

What are non-thrust swords even supposed to symbolize? Executioner swords?

I'm guessing the original writers thought you couldn't stab with swords made between the gladius and... the knightly sword? Rapier? Dunno.

I fail to see your problem. Care to elaborate?

Thread was archived before I saw this, so relpying here.
I like what you've got so far, user. Please post a pdf when you finish. Also, morale can be done as a reacton rolls, per dungeonfantastic.blogspot.com/2018/02/morale-stat-or-reaction-roll.html

Swords which deal crushing damage on a thrust didn't exist outside of a few really odd cases, but being able to buy only the swing cutting part at a discount means they are a good choice in GURPS. Also, it's fucking weird that they are considered the 'default' broadsword / bastard-sword / greatsword type instead of thrusting ones being normal and them being called 'blunt tipped broadsword' or whatever if they were even included at all.

Because you can thrust and impale with all bloody swords, and for some reason the writers think standard swords (up to and including standard bastard swords, ie. swords of the era when you really wanted to stab people through the vulnerable parts of their armour) have blunt points and can't stab people properly, and it's more expensive to buy a sword with a sharp point. Perhaps they thought people forgot that you can thrust with the sword the moment the Roman Empire collapsed, even though they used stabbing spears, knives, etc.

Personally, I think the approach to the "problem" is faulty. Rather than simply providing all swords with thrust and then adding penalty to those unfit for it (and removing thrusting damage completely from the handful of types that can't be used like that) it's handled with crush damage

The joys of playing with home-made translation:
The problem can't exist, if you can't translate it. And since the concept of "thrusting broadsword" doesn't translate at all into Polish Well, you can, but that leads to overly long word salad that makes zero fucking sense, the "stabby one" is the default. Don't care if that's essentially a homebrew solution, nobody ever complained about it, and most players don't even know this is an issue in the first place

The real question is - why they are both so damn expensive? I never understood the logic behind making swords super-expensive, because in any other situation than TL1 and equivalent of Dark Ages, it just makes no sense.

The writers may have subscribed to the theory of "sword costs as much as a cow, armour as much as a horse/house/whatever". I just modify them according to period when I play: if it's Dark Ages Saxons or other tribal folk it's expensive or you need a Patron (who's given you the sword), otherwise it's the spear and long knife for you. But if it's the High Middle Ages when Joe Bloggs could buy a perfectly serviceable sword for a few shillings, I cut the cost down to 100-150.

Making a long blade with just the right amount of flexibility and rigidness to neither warp nor shatter when slamming into bone, armor, and other swung weapons while also keeping an edge is hard. Making a pointy slab of steel is easy, though, which is why we have the Cheap modifier. On a similar note, all armor by default is fitted to the user (at least somewhat), which is why the listed price is so expensive—mass-produced munitions armor is also Cheap.

I don’t get why everyone wants to outfit their PCs in high-quality gear right off the bat.

This! Please help? Is it just a matter of using the falchion rules from the LT companion on a longsword?

I think it's the long knife from Low-Tech, which is a very versatile close combat weapon you can use with knife or shortsword skills.

Kind of my point and how I "fix" it, too
The prices for melee weapons in TL4 are simply retarded, while still following the logic applied to "Dark Ages" tier industrial capacity and expertise. It is somewhat allevated by the fact TL4 gives you bigger budget for the start, but still makes melee weapons absurdly expensive. Same applies to jian and dao, even if they are TL3 weapons. They were essentially mass-produced, using high-grade metal. No, no "GLORIOUS NIPPON STEEL" type of bullshit, Chinese metalurgy was simply the most advanced one all the way until about mid 17th century, where 30 years war put pressure on getting more cheap metal easier in Europe.

>Making a long blade with just the right amount of flexibility and rigidness to neither warp nor shatter when slamming into bone, armor, and other swung weapons while also keeping an edge is hard
If you are in Bronze Age or are tribal-tier culture. No, really. This approach to weapon-making is something that really annoys me in Low Tech GURPS, because it treats a specific low know-how combined with low grade resources as standard, rather than phenomenons or exceptions.
And I fail to see how default-tier of gear is "high-quality". It goes completely bonkers when you apply Cheap to it, where the malnus from Cheap is minimal for weapon quality, but suddenly the weapon gets super-cheap.
Someone really fucked up that part of rules.

Did anything good or notable come out since Social Engineering?

Cheap as in Basic Set is still 40% of original price, so unless I'm missing something you are paying still around 200-250$ for a sword, while your starting wealth for TL3 is 1k. and 80% of it tied to possessions you already own, meaning you are spending your entire starting cash on shitty weapon.

Remind me when did Social Engineering came out.

>Remind me when did Social Engineering came out.
The PDF says "Version 1.0 - October 2011".

After the End for sure came after that. 2015? Or maybe even 2016? It's absurdly useful, even if you are not running post-apo setting, because it collects a lot of otherwise spread-out rules for crafting, supplies and survival, refines and simplifies them, so the applications are almost limitless

I would have to check through books to see what also came after '11

After the End is so good that Strelok adapted bits of it to his Post Apo Civ game and the guys who turned it into builder also extensively use rules from AtE

The meta of the builder, if you know After the End rules for supply gathering and scavenging in general, is pretty intense. I think the starting loadout rolls are also based on those tables, because there is a weird scaling effect in those.
Man, I would kill for anyone to run Post Apo Builder again on Veeky Forums

>it collects a lot of otherwise spread-out rules for crafting, supplies and survival, refines and simplifies them, so the applications are almost limitless
Ah shit, that sounds great

It's really, really fucking good. I ended up using it for colonial exploration type of campaign and it fit like a glove, despite being completely unrelated with post-apo stuff. It also makes Low Tech crafting and High Tech "MacGyvering" servicable without looking through three different books.

Now I'm even more interested since I've been dreaming about some colonial campaign in SEA for a while.

Are there any special rules you used to handle the colonial and native cultures coexisting, or was it more like settling empty land?

Thanks to After the End, I was finally able to switch from Twilight 2000 to GURPS, because I finally had decent ruleset for survival and gear maintance, not to mention excellent scavenging tables and rules. It's pretty sad thou it took SJG so many years to make it, while Reign of Steel was one of their "flagship" settings when they were still making settings.

Why are you a common yeoman with a full-sized broadsword? Wouldn’t a shortsword or a spear fit you better?

Not him and that's not the point.
Also, are you at least semi-aware there are OTHER forms of medieval society than English one?

In which one of them was it common for someone to carry a broadsword around?

It sort of is though. Bitching that broadswords cost too much when you’re playing a character too poor to have one is nonsensical.

That user also working with TL3, which stretches from 7th to 15th century CE. Most societies were certainly NOT walking around with full-sized broadswords before the turn of the second millenium.

$50 he’ll say vikings, not realizing that their go-to mass-produced weapons would charitably be catagorized as cheap long knives in GURPS.

Where are the rules for quality of items and how they affect weapons / armor?

Usually in the respective chapter. Basic Set’s weapon quality rules are right after the melee weapon tables. Armor quality didn’t explicitly exist until Low-Tech, and it’s at the end of that chapter IIRC. Low-Tech’s expanded weapon quality rules are in a textbox stuck somewhere in the chapter, so you’ll have to do some digging.

Why are you so obsessed with "b-but they weren't carrying it"? The point is the weapons are TOO EXPENSIVE.
And you are instead threading water how "no yeoman was having a broadsword anyway". That is completely unrelated
Also, explain me something:
GENERIC
UNIVERSAL
... and we are disuccing what exactly? Prices based on "historical sword cost as much as a cow", stretched over TLs where it makes no sense whatsoever. Prices for swords and bladed weapons in TL4 are bloated for no reason. Hell, it makes zero sense for TL3 too, because the societies it applies to were effectively TL2. And in case of TL2, unless you come from some backwater, the prices AGAIN make no sense.

I wish it only covered broadswords, you know? And again, why we are doing "b-but cultural norm..." bullshit? Swords weren't that expensive as the game pitches them to be, period.

Jump to retarded conclusions harder.

In other words, all three of you are pic related

Basic Set, page 274

Melee weapons: p. B274
Muscle-powered ranged weapons: p. B277
Firearms: p. B280
See also:
- Martial Arts: p. 216 (melee and muscle-powered ranged weapons)
- Low-Tech: p. 59 (melee and missile weapons, plus the missles themselves); p. 95 (firearms); p. 109 (armor)

>Prices based on "historical sword cost as much as a cow"

Not to mention swords being almost twice as expensive as mail shirt, when it was the other way round.

From the 11th or 12thC onward, cheap full-sized arming swords were relatively common for anyone with a mind to own one in England. Swords are not mentioned at all (even for knights) in the 1181 Assize of Arms that required all freemen to have a gambeson, spear and "iron cap" (Probably a kettlehelmet but possibly a skullcap), but I have read another local ordinance from the period that mentions all freemen being required to own swords and the acquisition of one was part of the ceremony of manumission from serfdom. There is plenty of literary and artistic evidence to support the idea of widespread sword use and little to suggest that the less wealthy used shorter blades rather than lower-quality ones. 28-33" arming swords were the most common type regardless of social background. I'm not so good on the details in the 1300 or 1400s so maybe shortswords were used then but I don't recall anything like that, daggers, long knives, arming swords and falchions were the main bladed weapons for less wealthy soldiers to my knowledge.

Essentially, in the High Middle Ages sword-usage was not uncommon among the soldiering classes. The average serf wouldn't have one, or be allowed one, but they are not fighting anyway.

Ideally there would be seperate price lists for each TL, taking into account changes in manufacturing processes and so on but that would be a lot of extra pages and in anycase vary massively by each culture/region and precise date within a TL.

B-but muh yeoman!

>Not to mention swords being almost twice as expensive as mail shirt
20 times more expensive in the Carolingian period, and that was when swords were still parttern-welded. Mail is an excellent armour but has the key downside of being mind-boggingly expensive. The precise ratio is going to vary by time and place, and this is an extreme but swords were always far cheaper than mail.

I'm well aware of that, but GURPS prices the "blunt" broadsword at $500 and a mail byrnie at $230. It should have been the other way round.

Again, are you aware world outside England existed? It at times feels like Veeky Forums, being part of Veeky Forums, and thus Anglosphere, is utterly unable to think in perspective other than English medieval history and society.
Not to mention this is another post that misses the point of the price of the weapon being roughtly three times what it should be, especially considering High Middle Ages scenario, instead focusing on everything else.

So to put it blunt:
1) Bladed weapons have stupidly high prices in Low Tech
2) Every other equipment that should be expensive is stupidly cheap in Low Tech
3) A lot of it is based on extremely narrow focus and feels like someone was trying to enforce cultural norms from RW with the prices, rather than actual technological capabilities of given TLs
4) This logic carries to settings where it shouldn't apply anymore, because the game has to remain consistent

tl;dr pricing for swords and bladed weapons in relation with everything else in Low Tech is simply borked.

>Again, are you aware world outside England existed?
No.

>Not having a coherent point and changing it whenever you’re opposed is the same as people not getting the point.

Bruh, you’re the one that brought up “IT WAZNT THE NORM, Y U JUST ASSUME ENGLISH.” Eat a fat dick.

>Not having coherent point
IT WAS ALWAYS ABOUT SWORDS BEING TOO EXPENSIVE YOU STUPID MOTHERFUCKER!
AND I AIN'T YOUR BROTHER

Do I need to remind you this is GURPS General, or we should simply forget about this thread, let it die on its own and then make new general few days later?

And your argument was HURR OTHER SOCIEITES. Which fell flat. So instead of presenting anything else to support your claim, you just tried to act smug and pretend everyone else missed your glorious point. And now you’re mad as hell about it.

Not even the user you are replying to, but it's like you are acting stupid on purpose or didn't even bothered to read his posts. He even made a point-by-point list about it.
So no wonder he's mad as hell for you acting like a complete idiot for the sake of nothing else than apparently trolling him

>Not even the user
Yeah okay, totes.

Guess you just sealed it

Even if you managed to ignore the entire technological argument going on and focus on your self-imposed HURR OTHER SOCIEITES, then it still means the argument is valid, because the price of weapons warried from place to place and from culture to culture. Something that GURPS doesn't even bother to try to cover, so you end up with all the non-European weapons having European prices, entirely for the sake of balance or any other bullshit argument, even if the local level of metal smelting and metal working was entire centuries ahead. We've got both Indian and Chinese weapons that cost as much, and often more, than European "counterparts", solely to avoid the problem with players getting their hands on cheaper, better weapons based on the weapon tables.
Basis in reality? None
Cheap rule patch? Of course.

>Again, are you aware world outside England existed?
Yes, I am. As a filthy sassanach history grad though I'm most qualified to talk about English history as that's where my knowledge is focused, which was relevant because the question of yeoman using shortswords vs. broadswords was mentioned in the post above the one I replied to. Further, pointing out historical patterns of sword-usage is helpful because it illustrates that the LT price does not adequately reflect reality, at least in this context, which is the point I supposedly missed. Considering how international the medieval arms trade was, with a large proportion of swords being made in a small number of continental production centres (especially in Germany) and then exported, the economics of sword ownership in England is not entirely irrelevant to discussing medieval Europe as a whole. If someone with a decent grasp of Spanish or French medieval history wants to jump in with more examples then that would be great and I'm not going poohpooh them out of Anglophilic chauvinism.

You also seem to have missed the part where I did not defend the current prices and infact suggested that equipment costs be tailored to time/place rather than a single price for all TLs. It would be a lot of work, but even if it was broken down by TL with no additional granularity it would be an improvement on the current system if it was based on period pricing in the cultures the average game for that era would be set-in. Popular alternative locales (such as Japan) could possibly get their own micro-supplement with price lists through the ages for that specific setting. If GURPS did more Hotspots or 3e-style historical culture books then those would be the perfect place to stick revised price lists. Or just have a giant fan project download slowly being filled in as relevant specialists and sources are contributed.

Just wondering: Has anybody actually done what's described in pic related?

>Distances are given in feet and miles, rather than arbitrary units
First, ALL units are arbitrary.
Second, the irony of praising retarded as non-arbitrary is lethal.

And I'm using GURPS for Twilight 2000 extensively.

I've used some other games as inspiration or to fill in the gaps in GURPS books. LT doesn't dwell much on the 1600s so a TYW game drew a lot of ideas, tweaks and material (including the magic systems, built via Thaumatology) from Renaissance D100 and it's ECW daughter-game.

Mostly though, it's the other way around. GURPS supplements are mostly well researched and packed full of useful stuff so I often have them to hand when planning campaignd in other systems.

How would I make an innate attack deal damage to fatigue as well to health? For example, the Frostbite power in Skyrim is sprayed at a person, and causes them to take damage to their health as well as lower stamina. How would I stat this power up?

I did at least three Eberron games using gurps!
Great games.

Link or follow-up, depending on your flavor of combination

Have you discovered any interesting books in GURPS bibliographies?
I haven't really taken the time to search through them, but I did buy the first book in the Xanth series when Goodreads told me it was on sale and I remembered that I'd seen it in the bibliography for GURPS Powers.

Sean Punch in 2004:
>Because this edition's Basic Set is comprehensive, there is no need to "bolt on" extra rules that will come to be seen as mandatory.
Has this declaration been borne out? Or are there some pieces of 4e that are "seen as mandatory" despite appearing outside the Basic Set?

See also, of course, the article Ten for Ten in Pyramid 3-70, which enumerates around twenty items that Punch "feel[s] would have been worthy of the Basic Set".