/gurpsgen/ - GURPS General

Does a Martial Artist fill any role in a DF party? Besides overall lackiness in combat compared to knights and swashbucklers and out of combat compared to a wizard, they're also useless for 1d hours per day. Even if a player enjoys playing this class, they would be a deadweight for the rest of team to carry.

Considering that DF is based pretty explicitly off of 3.5, you could just say they're staying true to the source material.

Jokes aside, though, MAs seem weird but not necessarily bad. Had one in my campaign, and he started out very mediocre. After a few dungeons, though, he had enough points to pull off his Chi skills regularly and do some amazing shit with them too--with Light Walk and Flying Leap (and Lizard Climb from Martial Arts), he became stupidly mobile, Power Blow let him temporarily hit harder than the Barbarian, and one time he combined it with Breaking Blow to straight-up destroy some armored fuck.

Once the MA has enough points to git gud with Chi skills and/or buy decent Chi abilities, optimizing does sort of require them to cross-class into Swashbuckler or Knight. Still, MAs are highly-mobile fighters that trade extreme levels of skill or durability for exotic tricks and abilities. I think that's a decent enough niche.

Yes; according to Powers: Enhanced Senses, Vibration Sense (as well as Detect and normal hearing) works in 360 degrees.

Yes because then you can have monsters use it.
It took be a bit to get my head around TG, but that's not because it's complex, it's because like most GURPS books, vital information is spread out over multiple pages. That said Douglas has posted some quick fixes to make it even simpler. This is how it basically works:

>Attack
>(assuming success), either apply (ST + wrestling RSL) /2 in control points (CP)
You now have CP, every 2 CP gives -1 to DX. Penalise all grappled parts at that level, and everything else at half that.

You can use the normal techniques like Wrench Limb and such, except that you can spend CP to FURTHER penalise your foe, but if they've grappled you they can spend their CP to do the same.

That's the core of it.

>I wanna run an alt history
I formally give you my blessing.
>Halp
With what? You know exactly what you want. You got this. Go do it.

How do I stat up Marilyn Manson?

Hey /gurpsgen/ I could use a set of critical eyes.
Found across Star Trek and other scifi worlds is the idea of the telempath (telepathic empath) that has trouble separating the emotions of others from their own, There wasn't an existing disad for this so I mashed several things together and this is the result. Does this seem like the right balance? I'm quite happy with the modifiers but I'm not totally sure on the base cost. Here's the writeup.
>New Disadvantage: Telempathic Susceptibility
Base cost: -25pts* (Modified for self control roll)
You can detect the emotions of yours around you, but unfortunately you have trouble separating your emotions and can be overwhelmed. Make a self control roll when those around you experience strong negative (and certain positive) emotions. On a failure you act as though you had an disadvantage appropriate to the emotion. Bad temper for anger, bloodlust for rage, overconfidence for euphoria, lecherousness for lust, phobia for mass fear, sadism for revenge, jealousy and greed for their respective emotions. Failure by 10+ on checks against terror or overwhelming sadness can give nightmares, flashbacks, or depression for 1d days.

The number of people experiencing strong negative emotions provides an added penalty to the self control roll.
1 -0
2 -1
3 -2
4-5 -3
6-10 -4
11-20 -5
31-50 -6
51-100 -7
101-200 -8
201-500 -9
501-1,000 -10
1001-2,000 -11
2001-5,000 -12
5001-10,000 -13
10,001-20,000 -14
20,001-50,000 -15

Distance provides a bonus to the self control roll, but Empaths can be long ranged. Multiply disadvantage cost for the following:
x1 +1 per yard to the edge of the group, (Inverse of regular spell penalties)
x2 Speed/Range Table modifiers (as bonus)
x3 Long Distance modifiers (as bonus)

Oops, just to clarify I mean the stand and not the rockstar.

1. Open the book.
2. Pick appropriate abilities and values.

(Reached character limit)
The logic behind the cost is 20pts for a very common phobia (because anyone with a phobia around you suddenly can apply it to you unintentionally), plus another -5 for all the other things that it could potentially be. The multipliers for distance are based on the "long range" modifier from Powers, except as multipliers, and of course the # of people penalty is based on maintenance.

I have no idea how to stat it up. Some insubstantial ally that has a vow to take payment for debts?

What exactly is Marilyn Manson the stand? I'm not being intentionally obtuse, maybe it would be better to wait for another user who's already familiar.

GURPS DF: Treasures 1: Glittering Prizes suggests that FP could be used as the basis of a currency. Has anybody actually tried this in a campaign?

jojo.wikia.com/wiki/Marilyn_Manson
Basically, when you make a bet, the guy will extract payment from the loser. you can't stop him, he just takes the value, whether that be through taking their money or taking their body parts to be sold. It can't be harmed while taking rewards.

Insubstantiality (Cosmic, Defensive, +50%; Only when rendering unto Miraschon what is Miraschon's, -20%) [104]

How do I make the blowpipe a viable combat option?

Are there other settlement building rules other than what's in Low Tech?

It's not "viable" in face-to-face combat in your typical dungeon crawl. It's certainly "viable" if you are ambushing or assassinating people. Anything can be "viable" with enough skill and/or magic.

Low-Tech pyramids cover this, as do the companions.

1d-3 pi- is Bad Damage, but it's not awful. Targeting the vitals on an unarmored target can result in 3-9 wounding. Repeated shots, or 3-5 people shooting together from ambush can bring down a target this way (somewhat absurdly).

More realistically, with enough skill/luck they can blind with a hit to the eyes.

Or of course, hit and run. Use them to deliver a dose of a drug then run while it takes effect.

Brainstorming your setting a little. Fluff ideas..

624 CE

Heavy maglev trains prove every road leads to Rome, delivering shipments from all over Europa and Asia Minor to the Imperial City. It's the center of the world but, ironically, native Romans are outnumbered there by Gauls. The second cities of the Empire, Byzantium and Alexandra are the hearts of Asia and Africa, and the nexus of those far land's networks of maglev trains.

Red cloaked legions with magnetic impeller rifles protect the purple cloaked civic leaders, under the blessing of the white cassocks of the Church of Rome.

Praetorian agents report directly to the office of the Emperor and are selected from the very best of Prefects, Centurions and Inquisitors and charged with matters too sensitive for anyone else.

I have been invited to my first GURPS game. It is going to be an action-adventure type game set in Sengoku era Japan. I was planning on being a cool action oriented ninja, GM approved.

The problem is, I have no idea where to go for character creation. Do you guys have any tips that could be helpful? The game is 250 points, with up to -75 from disadvantages. I was hoping to use Kunai, because I think they're really cool, and I was hoping to be able to use hand-to-hand martial arts effectively.

Is there something like a GURPS Ninja book I can read? I really have no idea how to build this guy mechanically

Sort of. There’s a 250-point Ninja template in Dungeon Fantasy: Ninja, though it is totally unrealistic and meant for hack n’ slash not!D&D campaigns. I think there’s also a SLIGHTLY more down-to-earth one in Action 3: Furious Fists, and it’s also 250 points, though it assumes cheesy 80s action movie ninja.

If neither of those templates are what you want (or don’t get the GM’s approval), here are some general notes.
-Kunai/shuriken are the best thrown weapon by weight, so you’re able to take a bunch without getting weighed down. This is especially nice because you can lob a handful at a time, making them the only weapon that can have a RoF higher than 1.
-Invest heavily into Poison for two reasons: lacking enough points for high ST and relying on shuriken/kunai means shit damage which poisons can help with, and poisons mean you can strike the killing blow without the target realizing and get the hell out before he even dies.
-Disguise+Acting/Fast Talk>Stealth. This is true for historic ninja and for GURPS ninja. Stealth shouldn’t be ignored, obviously, but beong able to walk in to areas unopposed with only 10 minutes of work and a set of stolen clothes is phenominal.

Crib what you can from the templates even if the GM won’t let you use them fully.

GURPS Lowtech and Martial Arts are your best bets. Martial Arts has some tips on a Ninjitsu skillset too.

I've read pyramid article about ACTION cyberpunk hacking, and there was nice thing like skills (or they was more likely techniques) as programs, which you can buy and buy more expensive versions if you want high skill. No character points payed, it just gear.
So how to adapt that idea to talismans where you should socket that talismans in your weapon/gauntlet to have access to that imbuement skill and his effects.

I'm currently setting up for a Sci-Fi game set in TL 10. Its gonna be a space Sci-Fi game based around the players who are basically free-lance drifters flying around doing work, pretty simple stuff.

The problem I'm having right now is it seems that the spaceship rules are extremely complicated and will take more time to learn then we will spend playing. Am I just being retarded? Does anyone know of any rules for spaceships that simplify the spaceships rules in the books or will it be just best to Homebrew something up?

Just use reactionless drives. Not having to fuck with delta-V alone is huge.

I'm on the verge of it, but my idiot brain tells me I need to be realistic. I may just bullshit the system and ignore the velocity crap and just say that a Regular reaction drive uses a tonne of fuel per day.

So like FFVII's materia?

And yeah, they're techniques; PCs still need to buy the base skill with points, and improving the base skill improves the techniques. As an example, while you cannot improve Breach from its default of Computer Hacking-2 with points, you CAN improve Computer Hacking from 14 to 18, increasing Breach's final skill level from 12 to 16.

Still, it's an interesting concept. Ritual Magic would work amazingly with this. Characters learn colleges and cast specific spells at a default penalty based on the spell's prereqs, and they also need the appropriate talisman/materia/whatever. Casting a spell without the materia would be much more difficult, adding a further -4 and requiring a special advantage to even attempt it, but those that could pull this off regularly would be master mages with a TON of flexibility.

This may be a bit trickier with Imbuements--maybe base it off an Imbue! wildcard skill?--but I would love to see the results.

This: . Put all 10 of your (assuming the Action 3 Ninja template) Martial-Arts Abilities points into Throwing Art and scrounge a point from somewhere else to put there too so Throwing Art is at the all-important DX+1.

I'm 90% sure that most people either handwaive it like that or straight-up use reactionless engines but call them a reaction drives.

>So like FFVII's materia?
With quick wiki check, yes, something similar.
>This may be a bit trickier with Imbuements--maybe base it off an Imbue! wildcard skill?
Specializing by weapon should be cheaper than unversal -- it is something like -0.2CF.
Main issue is to define base $-cost progression for +1 to skill, as imbuements really shines at high skill, or at least if you can spend lots of FP and activaton time.
I'm planning to make that tassel/sword knot things, as the only way to get Imbuement skill.
Oh, just like skill chips from UT!
Writing ideas in gurpsgen always clear my thoughts...

>Ritual Magic would work amazingly with this.
Spell components was in D&D, yeah.

Reaction drives aren't that hard, but it plays into the problem of needing to do Hard Maths if you want to figure out travel times directly. If you want to fluff them a bit then X amount of delta-v to go from point A to point B isn't really a problem. Just make sure that there are lots of people selling water or hydrogen you can tank up at.

What traits does a character have if they cannot themselves turn insubstantial, but they can touch some or all entities that are insubstantial to other people? Imbue and the imbuement skill Ghostly Weapon seems like the canonical answer, but it seems absurd to force a character to roll Ghostly Weapon (Wrestling) to shake a ghost's hand.

I can think of two ways to do it, but one is only fuzzy ruling. Buy ST and DX with an "Affects Insubstantial" modifier. The other is to just make an Advantage called "Touch Insubstantial" or something, and price it accordingly.

There is a pyramid article which expands on blowpipes, albeit with a cinematic slant. Unfortunately I can't remember the issue, perhaps one of the Dungeon Fantasy ones.

A Killing Breath in Pyramid 3-33

You can give him ghostly weapon-16 and no nuisance rolls, so he need to roll only when his skill below 16.
Or you can build affect insubstantial advantage from difference [insubstantial (can affect substantial (reversed)) and not insubstantial]

>You can give him ghostly weapon-16 and no nuisance rolls, so he need to roll only when his skill below 16.
Ugh, that'd make the template for people with this ability (along with more traditional medium/shaman stuff) rather awkward, with the overall cost being dependent on their dexterity of all things.
The other option seems difficult and confusing so I'll think about it when it's not late at night.

Insubstantial (Only to Interact with Insubstantial)? Not sure what price to put on that, but building it from an 80 point base advantage means it is likely to be expensive.

You can also use From Skills to Advantages (Pyramid 44) and the modifiers from Sorcery to make an imbuement into a normal advantage; this would work out at 25 points to be able to touch insubstantial beings with your own body (i.e. unarmed imbuement) or 60 points to be able to do it with any item you hold (wildcard imbuement).

...

Power Ups 4, page 9, Modifying Existing Damage.
It would most likely cost 1 or 2 points unless you have high ST, so I'd say just treat it as perk if character doesn't need to actually punch ghosts.

>I'd say just treat it as perk if character doesn't need to actually punch ghosts.
Eh, ghosts can get pretty belligerent sometimes, I fully expect characters with this ability to punch at least some ghosts.

I've checked costs.
Insubstantial (affect substantial, reversed, +40%) [112], not insubstantial [-80]
And after round up (you can call it as UB [3]) it will look like -- Affect Insubstantial [35] -- while you are totally substantial you, but not your gear, can touch or otherwise interact with insubstantial beings like both of you are material things in material world.

>Anti-ghost tanks with inbuild FoF.
First time GURPS caugth my interest.

investopedia.com/terms/l/labor-theory-of-value.asp

Currency values (with The Last Gasp)
5 AP = 1 FP
5 FP = 1 workday (mild fatigue recovers in 10 hours)

Nice

See, I was thinking a bit sideways to that though. I was seeing dirigibles and aircars not trains, not true guns but spear chuckers, and powered armor making the scene as the elite device.

Maybe a blend of the two. Rome is the capital, air the commanding terrain. Magtrains the new hot shit, but still being hammered out by the slave corps. There's a new wild west frontier with centurions in red cloaks laying down the law in gleaming silver and brass armor, sword and pilum launcher on each hip, air-chariot at their beck and call

What're better, star shurikens or spike shurikens? Spike do one less damage, but are impaling rather than cutting.

They both use the same skill, right? And not too expensive? Go for both, using star against limbs and more armored targets (though being shuriken, they wont pierce serious armor regardless) and use spike against unarmored torsos/vitals.

Bodkin shurikens.

>... that DF is based pretty explicitly off of 3.5...

It's more inspired by old school D&D and roguelikes.

You don't, any more than it was viable in the real world. So, if you have access to horrifying toxins and are shooting at unarmored targets, go for it.

>Limbs
On that note, shuriken to the limbs, feet, or hands cannot be overlooked. You won’t be dealing a ton of damage with shuriken, and any serious armor stops them flat; targetting hands and feet mostly sidestep this as you don’t need a ton of damage to cripple and armor tends to be much thinner there. Rather than trying to kill your target outright, aim to disable them before moving in for the kill.

Actually the Neck tends to be lightly armored too. Maybe do just go with cutting star shuriken and aim for neck (kill), hand (disarm), or foot (immobilize). Neck’s -5 is a pretty hefty penalty though, so only try it if you have time to aim from ambush or if you REALLY invest in shuriken (which isn’t super recommended).

In tone, yes, but with Druids being explicitly separate from Priest and the inclusion of Monk/Martial Artist which was not in AD&D core IIRC, I can’t see anything other than 3.X’s influence on the class list.

Wow I almost forgot Barbarians, so add that to the list as well.

Agreed. Go for both. And use poisons, as recommended by other anons.

Where are Kunai in the books? I can't find a seperate statistic block for them in martial arts or low tech. Is it just a large throwing knife?

AFAIK, they aren't statted anywhere. The author of DF Ninjas suggested using a small knife. IIRC, the range and damage for a spike shuriken is the same. However, the spike shuriken costs less, so I'd go with the spike shuriken and call it a kunai. If you envision a larger kunai, then use a large throwing knife.

Spike Shuriken do one less damage, but they're also 3x cheaper, and weigh 20% of what a knife does.

>The kunai was conventionally wrought in lengths ranging from 20 cm to 30 cm. It was used by peasants as a multi-purpose gardening tool and by workers of stone and masonry. The kunai is akin to a crowbar.
>crowbar
IIRC (Modern) Crowbar is improvised Small Round Mace with +1 damage and -1 to hit.

A kunai used as a weapon was generally sharpened though.

Okay. I was off on the damage, but I'm pretty sure the range is the same. The price makes the appealing, and I think you could add the "cheap" quality to them. Depending on your setting, this would be legitimate, since ninjas repurposed a lot of different things to make shuriken, and those things weren't made from weapon-quality steel.

Cheap theown weapons suffer -1 Acc; while this isn’t a deal breaker, it may be worth considering.

Though if you’re using the rules for fistfuls of shuriken, RoF bonus easily makes up for that, and cheaper means you can throw fistfuls more freely.

Are attacks of opportunity a thing in GURPS?

I think you're looking at Cheap (Balance). I'm referring to Cheap (Quality).

Not exactly, but there are wait maneuvers which you can trigger on the first guy to come in reach, as well as hitting people from behind(with penalties to defend or outright no defense allowed) as well as the foibles of parrying(resulting in hand or arm cuts and all the shenanigans that implies)

Nope.

“A cheap weapon is +2 to break – and if it can be thrown, it has -1 Acc” (p. B274).

“For melee weapons, thrown weapons, and ammunition (arrows, bolts, etc.), balance modifies the user’s weapon skill for all purposes. For missile weapons, it adjusts Accuracy” (p. MA216).

Cheap (Materials) shuriken are at -1 Acc while Cheap (Balance) shuriken are at a flat -1 to skill.

So what advantage (as a Sorcery spell) is suitable for storing FP and AP in small, portable objects?

Thanks, user. I haven't read that section in a long time. I should have reread it before posting.

Not by default, but there’s a powerup in DF that lets you “parry” people that try and walk past you, dealing some damage in the process.

IMO, it’s not even wholly unrealistic, so it could be used in non-DF games. Parries are all about moving your weapon to stop things and already deal damage when parrying unarmed attacks, so just define “attack” a bit more broadly and you’re golden. From a balance perspective, parries alreasy have lower skill levels compared to regular attacks and take cumulative penalties. I’ve actually considered running a fecht or two treating Parry as the Counter reaction; if it worked out well, I may make a Pyramid article.

Probably Leech with Cosmic, +300% (or more!) as the FP can be stored indefinitely and there’s no cap to how much you can hoard up. The spell would have to be incredibly well regulated because otherwise killing someone with this spell would be too tempting and economically dangerous.

No problem. There’s a lot of stuff in GURPS, and it’s not like stuff doesn’t slip through my weaponized autism from time to time.

What rules are involved in throwing multiple weapons a turn?

Martial Arts, p. 120-121. Covers Rapid Fire (fistful o’ shuriken) and Rapid Strike (throwing things one at a time, just really really quickly).

Hmm... Maybe it would make more sense to have single-use ("projectile") enchanted items. Creation requires FP expenditure, and the item grants Regeneration (Fatigue Recovery) when used.

Is there a way to make unarmed fighting competitive with TL 4 combatants with no access to plate?

Grappling. If they don't have plate (rigid armour) nothing's going to protect them from wrenching limbs. Grapple their faces off. Grappling is a force multiplier for striking too since it can be used to mitigate the penalty for targeting hit locations.

Not as an every time thing, no. Treat it as a special bullet time/limit break type thing.

When that player has the spotlight--climax of the arc, they can do it. Heavy situation, the guy has a detonator and such. Forced into a fight club with the other players being held hostage.

Pic Related

Halp, my player wants to do ramming boarding actions in sphess. Is this covered anywhere?

Alright /gurpsgen/, what is the most overpowered character you can make with the Dungeon Fantasy box set (and low tech if you want a dueling glaive) (using the points that are expected of that box, 200/ -50

I thought the default assumption was 250 points?

What would I do to make an Energy Reserve recover quickly?

Regeneration; use the rules for FP only, but make it ER instead.

Why is FP regeneration the same price as HP regeneration? Surely one that recovers naturally every 10 minutes is worth less than one that recovers daily?

Yeah I know right? It makes sense with like, The Last Gasp, but otherwise well, high levels of FP regen let you use Extra Effort freely, that's about it.

You're right, 250 / -50

I think the logic is that people that need FP regen at all need a *ton* of it, and they're using the FP for spectacular effects. Like says, most people use FP for Extra Effort and that's about it. In that case, there's no reason for them to buy Regeneration (FP Only); they don't use enough FP to make it worth it. However, the wizard that likes dumping 8 FP into every fireball or casting Mass Invisibility + Mass Flight + Might + etc. etc. etc. would DEFINITELY be willing to buy Regeneration (Extreme; FP Only) [150].

Nope, Monks were a 1st ed class in the PHB and Barbarians were in Unearthed Arcana.

Stealth, mobility and picking your targets is vital in late TL 4, as otherwise you are going to get shot before you can lay a hand on anyone.

Early TL 4? Everyone should have grappleing training. Effective and compatibility cheap armor makes killing a man hard, it's often easier to grab him and beat him down then to try and finish him with a sword.

Are there rules for fire hardened wood spears / Rock spearheads? I want to get in on that spear action in TL0

>And the dragon's name? Albert Einstein.
Jokes aside pyramid Combat II comes with a Wrestler template with a few interesting stuff. I don't really think wrestling is that good compared to cutting legs, especially considering there will be a lot of things you can't grapple in DF (diffuse, insubstantial, aura) but the template definitely helps making a nice luchador.