Previous Thread: >>94270718GURPS is a modular, adaptable system, capable of running a wide range of characters, settings, and play styles, with a level of detail varying from lightweight to completely autistic.Optional rules allow you to emulate different genres with a single system, or even switch genres within a single game.A nearly complete archive of GURPS books can be found by those who pay attention to file extensions.Never post direct links to the archive anywhere.If you're wondering where to start:- The Basic Set covers everything, including a lot of optional rules you probably won't use.- A genre guide can be found in the archive, under Unofficial/GURPSgen. It tells you what extra books and articles you may find useful for many common genres.- How To Be a GURPS GM is a good read even for players.- GCS (gurpscharactersheet.com) is an excellent character-builder software, with page references to all the books and the option to export to both Foundry and Fantasy Grounds.TQ: How much does stealth come up in your games?
I'm interested in using Meta-Tech to let players from different TLs build their own gear for my gonzo science-fantasy campaign. But I find the price scaling with TL to be rather backwards. I'd rather the price of Meta-Tech match closer to similar mundane tech from the Low-, High-, and Ultra-Tech books, where many items retain a constant price or even get cheaper at higher TL. But I don't know what price scaling to apply that would be satisfying.
>>94405654Find a couple of devices you are happy with the pricing for in ultra-tech or high-tech, work out how to do them in meta-tech, see what price scaling gives the right price, then take an average of that.
Quarterstaff has ST7 and crest symbol †. There is a rule on B270: "If you have at least twice the listed ST, you can wield it one-handed with no readiness penalty". Does this means that ST 14 character can use both Quarterstaff and Shield with Parry bonus from the weapon and Def.Bonus from the shield?If I'm to make a "warrior" character for the relatively low-magic fantasy campaign, what would you say about this base? Are my calculations correct (I played GURPS only twice, both games were modern day one-shots)? Let's say it's a 120\50 character for a TL3 fantasy game. I take - ST: 14 [40], DX: 12 [40], Skill Shield: 14 [4], Skill Staff: 16 [16], Combat Reflexes [15]. Buy Quarterstaff and Medium Shield, or maybe even a Large one, I'm not sure. Maybe I'd take a "buckler" since I don't need a "free" sheild arm. With this I should have - Quarterstaff attack at 16, Parry at 16 (8+3 +2 staff +2 shield +1 reflexes) and Block at 13 (7+3 +2 shield +1 reflexes). So I can effectively swing for 2d6+2 damage then parry-block-parry with 16-13-12 skill. It's not a panacea, ofc, but I think it sounds pretty good for a 115 points? I'll have 55 points to spend on Fit [5], High Pain Threshold [10], +2 HT [20] and various adventuring and social skills [20, with mostly 1 point per skill]. Does that sound reasonable?
>>94408042>Quarterstaff has ST7 and crest symbol †. There is a rule on B270: "If you have at least twice the listed ST, you can wield it one-handed with no readiness penalty". Does this means that ST 14 character can use both Quarterstaff and Shield with Parry bonus from the weapon and Def.Bonus from the shield?No. The Quarterstaff skill can be used only with two hands. If you wield a quarterstaff in one hand, you must use the Broadsword skill, which does not grant a bonus to your parry defense.
>>94408078(This is spelled out on Martial Arts p. 220.)
>>94408042Sadly, Martial Arts says that one-handing a staff uses the Broadsword skill. I guess that sort of makes sense; if you hold a staff with one hand in the middle, you effectively will just have a wooden rod wielded normally albeit with an awkwardly-long protrusion out the back.However, you could argue that wielding a staff in such a way should count as having a Light Club wielded simultaneously in the normal grip and the reversed grip (since again you basically have a large hunk of wood sticking out in both directions. This does have the benefit of letting you "use" either side when beneficial.
>>94408101I think a staff wielded in one hand by a strong character would be held near the end, not in the middle. You could argue for Reach 2 in that case.You also could make an argument that a General Grievous-style character with 360-degree wrists could use Staff skill one-handed. (I'm not sure what advantage would represent 360-degree wrists. Maybe Double-Jointed.)
>>94408096>>94408101Another point for segregating weapon skills by lenght and weight.
>>94408078>>94408101Thank you! I see, it was too good to be true, I guess. Didn't read Martial Arts book. I didn't see any other "parry +1\+2" weapons in Basic. In that case any non-unbalanced weapon will be worse, but will do anyway, I guess. Excluding expensive swords, hatchet looks alright. Everything else is reasonable as a plan?
>>94408258Or maybe I should ditch the shield and use a quarterstaff instead. And in both cases 13 ST should be enough
>>94408271If you want better defenses, you are allowed to wield TWO shields. See Pyramid vol. 3 iss. 118.
>>94408278(As well as the third-party book Shields Up.)
>>94408278There is a well known joke in my group about me playing Elder Mok from Descent board game with two shields. It lives for years already, lol. Nah, I'd rather not
>>94408278>two shields>attack using brawling so you can kick, bite, etc
>>94408258>>94408271Yeah innate parry bonuses are rare, basically solely limited to staffs. Hatchets are basically the ideal one-handed cutting weapon on a budget, but clubs and shortstaffs are usually fine if you're okay with crushing--and because they use the Broadsword or Smallsword skill, you can easily upgrade to actual swords once you've got some cash after an adventure or two--and spear+shield is a classic combo for a reason.Quarterstaffs are really damn good. On top of the parry bonus they're light, have great reach, are dirt cheap, and deal decent damage even without the cutting injury type. However, I do think the benefits of shields just barely edge them out. Shields might be really heavy and take up a hand, but they provide a defense vs ranged attacks that'll be higher than your Dodge and the bonus is added to all active defenses. If you're planning to build a low-tech, low-power warrior I highly recommend taking a shield.ST13 is considered a breakpoint for warriors, since that second die of damage on swing attacks has a big impact on damage consistency (it's also great for per-die damage bonuses like from Weapon Master, but that's a bit outside your budget at the moment). If the campaign lacks omnipresent healing magic, you may want to swap Fit for Rapid Healing, since crippled limbs can end a career. I would consider dropping HPT too, since at your point value you probably shouldn't be trying to brute force your way through too many exchanges; 125-point characters will not be walking away from many DPS races, even if they win. If you're hit, back off, and Evaluate or Ready a new option or All-Out (Defend) rather than jumping right back into the fray. That seems like a decent number of points to set aside for skills.
>>94408540Thank you for the detailed answer
What benefits can Sealed confer to a conventionally robotic character?
>>94408278
>>94410149Robots should already have Immunity to metabolic Hazards, so likely just immunity to Corrosion and DR reduction coming with it. You could fluff it as a specially treated outer layer.
>>94410149Technically it should protect you from stuff like acid rain or chemical solvent spills, but honestly it's one of those leftover advantages from some random 3E book. I'd ignore it and resist acid damge with DR and acid effects with Resistant. Much cleaner.
Are there any special rules for jousting?
>>94412331https://www.sjgames.com/gurps/roleplayer/Roleplayer24/1MinuteJoust.html
>>94408278Just make sure you add blades to your shields per LT Companion 2, which lets you do swing cutting damage with a bash for some reason
>>94412449>https://www.sjgames.com/gurps/roleplayer/Roleplayer24/1MinuteJoust.htmlthanks!
>>94405581Is it as fun though?
>>94414262I mostly play mainstream RPGs and so far gurps is more fun than>genesys>D&D/pathfinder (all editions, only edition I never played was AD&D 2e)>vampire the masquerade>shadowrun>Cyberpunk>Icons
>>94414262Depends more heavily on the GM being decent than other systems. A competent and sufficiently motivated GM can either excise all the parts of the system you or other group members dislike, or at the very least hide them behind the curtain and leave you with the parts you enjoy. An incompetent or lazy GM can make things awful.Obviously any system can be ruined by a bad GM, but I feel that GURPS is uniquely vulnerable to them because unlike games like D&D, there's no real "default." A GM would have to go out of there way to fuck up a system with restricted character creation, an established setting/genre/tone, and everyone starting at Level 1, but those guard rails are missing in GURPS. Someone that wants, for example, a slightly-gritty WWII game can easily overshoot their target and run a campaign that's outright mudcore but with guns that blow you to bits, or throw the book at their players and go "learn all of these subsystems (even though we won't be using most of them) and have a character ready by Friday."
What books should I look into for "realistic" space stuff and mechs?
>>94415059Ultra-TechSpaceSpaceships
>>94415059VehiclesTranshuman Space
>>94405654Here's my haphazard attempt to rebalance Meta-Tech costs.Multi-Millionaire multiplies wealth by 10 for 25 CP, so that means the cost of Meta-Tech should multiply by 10 per 25 CP.Ultra-Tech says that the cost or weight of things in general are reduced by 1/3rd per TL, so that means that the cost of Meta-Tech should be be multiplied by 2/3rds per +1 TL or by 1/3rd per +1 SM.And thus we arrive at my most unholy of equations:>Meta-Tech Cost = 10^(CP/25) * (2/3)^(TL) * (1/3)^(SM)Testing it out, it doesn't work at all. It costs countless quadrillions of dollars to build a battlesuit. Although, that might be because Ultra-Tech weapons and armor scale logarithmically, while PC Innate Attacks and DR just don't, which is a different problem. Ah well, I tried.
>>94414262That was the objective.
>>94414262Most my fun as a GM comes from seeing how my players interact with the world and simulating the outcomes. So yes.
What light spell would you need to power a solar panel? Would any spell that can get as light as day do it, or would you need a Sunlight one specifically?
>>94420319I'm pretty sure there's a spell that is specifically as good as real sunlight, so that one.
>>94420319The Sunlight spell>The area is illuminated in full day-light – even underground! The area extends skyward, stopping only when it hits some sort of ceiling. If cast in a cave, the area is a huge shaft of light extending upward to the rock. If cast on a cloudy day outdoors, the light appears to break through the clouds above. If cast at night, the light appears to come from an overhead star which brightens to sun level for those inside the area.>Treat the light as natural sunlight for all purposes – it can be used to grow plants, get a tan, etc. Creatures who are susceptible to the effects of sunlight (such as vampires) are fully affected.It's on page 114 of Magic
>It's another tinkering with an idea but have no one to play test it with episode
>>94421010Then post your thoughts, homie. Slam us with your giga mind bullets.
Ninja character for Monster HunterOnce a street urchin from Neo Detroit, the renowed Karate Master Miyagi took him out of the streets to train him. He was talented and soon he had a solid career that would take him into the Super Taikai, the most important event in the Greater American Co-Prosperity Sphere.All that was ruined when his mentor was killed. His vengeance led him into a journey of revelation: First, Miyagi wasn't a simple Karate Master but actually a mythic Ninja Lord, and his goal was to train main land Americans to fight the Bakemono Syndicate, an association of ancient monsters that conspired against humanity. The man who killed him was a Master Vampire, a man formely known as Edward Teach and one of the chairman of Bakemono Syndicate.He took the mantle from his mentor and will dedicate his life into fighting any monster that he can find.
>>94422200PW10 brought back my old idea of advocating skills from attributes, with trunks being the central pivot for that. Going into experiecne levels:Intuitive = 7 (default) [0]Newbie = 9 [5]Competent = 11 [15]Especialist = 13 [24]Master = 15 [34]Ace = 17 [55]Twigs, branchs and leafs still cost the same. IQ and DX now just cost 10. I was also thinking in making IQ be sort of a threeshold for the number of trunks, like how TFT does with Talents but that got a bit faded because I thougt it would make IQ cost more and I wanted the attributes to be all the same old price like 3e.
>>94420319Artificial light can power solar panels, it just isn't usually as intense as sunlight and the panels aren't optimised for it. So any would do, but Sunlight would probably work best.
Getting really sick of Rice just using the discord to shill whatever he feels like.
>>94426033Why are you on DEIscord?
>>94426033What is it this time?
Can I combine "Required Meditation Roll, -10%" and "Requires Concentrate, 10%" on Regeneration (Fast) to make a character that can sit down and meditate to heal himself by 1 HP/minute?
>>94426574The limitations are valid to combine and create the effect you want, but your pricing is wrong. Since Meditation is based on Will, Requires Meditation Roll is priced like Requires Will Roll, or -5%. Requires Concentrate is -15%, but you could easily justify All-Out Concentrate for -25% or add a nuisance effect of not being able to move without breaking concentration.
Calling all anons who know about guns and GURPShttps://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=201024
>>94427147>Pulver making gun autismoMy body is ready.
Out of all the GURPS magic systems what is the best for the high powered wizard character? Somebody like Elric or Dawn Star from the Lone Wolf series. IE you use magic nearly constantly to devastating effect.
>>94427147>is Low-Tech, High-Tech, Tactical Shooting, Gun-Fu, Pulp Guns 1, Pulp Guns 2, Adventure Guns enough?>No, we need another gun supplementUS! US! US!
>>94427273sorcery
>>94427273It’s been a while since I read the Elric of Melnibone books, but if I’m recalling them correctly magic is very powerful and very unstable, ultimately as fickle as the chaos gods that wizards make pacts with. For something like that, I’d use Divine Favor as a baseline. Mechanically, Divine Favor is Patron (Deity) with the limitation that you need a reaction roll every time you ask for a miracle on top of making an appearance roll like normal with Patrons. Because your Patron is so powerful, almost anything can happen, and the better the reaction roll the stronger and more blatant the effect; you can also buy “learned prayers” as reliable, stable alternative abilities, like in Sorcery. While learned prayers/spells have to be built with advantages, effects where you beseech your patron to intervene on your behalf are more open-ended, so GMs don’t need to have a billion different effects written up; instead they can use the example miracles as guidelines and safely wing it. PC rolled an Excellent reaction when asking for help against an invading army? Lucky him, some world-shaking legend-starting you-could-make-a-religion-out-of-this thing is going to come save his bacon. He gets a Neutral reaction instead? Ehh, enjoy this +2 to combat rolls for the rest of the fight, GLHF lolololHigher levels of Divine Favor affect the appearance roll but not the reaction roll; Dungeon Fantasy lets you buy a reaction roll bonus, but by default the only way you can get a bonus is by living in accordance with your Patron’s decrees, so a novice may not have the most reliable magic (low appearance chance and limited power of learned spells) but if they’re devout they can still be very powerful (big bonus to reaction).
>>94427273>Dawn Star from the Lone Wolf seriesDid you mean Gray Star?Anyway, Sorcery is probably the best system for being an absolute fucking powerhouse of a wizard, able to throw huge amounts of damage around for relatively low cost. It will take a lot of points to achieve that, but that's fair because it's a big deal to be capable of a wide range of extreme effects.Basic magic can be more points-efficient, but requires pushing beyond what the system is really designed for to achieve that; e.g. with IQ 17, Magery 10, Mana-Enhancer 2, Compartmentalised Mind 3, Energy Reserve 100, and Wild Talent 2, plus a hundred points in spells you will be very formidable but keeping track of all that shit will be painful.Chinese Elemental Powers are relatively modest, but can be used pretty much whenever you like with no cost, and they all stack.For magic which can engage with abstract concepts, syntactic magic offers some possibilities. The rules are very vague, which might not suit everyone.The abilities in Powers: The Weird aren't strictly-speaking 'magic' but they offer examples of some serious reality-bending effects built from advantage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaI-EOVpDvoIn this trailer, at 0:50, the knight character strikes the enemy with the pommel of his greatsword then punch him in the face.Is this a rapid strike of two actual Attacks or a Feint followed by an Attack?
>>94427876Not super experienced but it looks like it'd either be a rapid strike or dwa to me. He does physically strike them with the pommel.
>>94427876He definitely connects with the pommel strike, so I wouldn’t call it a feint. Rapid Strike (or maybe DWA, since the knight’s using two different hands) certainly seems the most appropriate.
>>94427993>>94428017It does hit but it doesn't seem to have been done to damage the opponent but to open him to the punch to the face (-5 to hit against someone with likely high defenses).
>>94427876we need the equivalent of that one dude that breakdown movie firefights into gurps rules for fantasy/medieval swordfighting>and here we can see all combatants evaluating each other for a couple of seconds, probably up to the max...
>>94428259There's thishttps://youtu.be/jRedhZkICPg
>>94428359that's impossible to follow lol
>>94428223GURPS's decision to not have shock penalties affect defense rolls is reasonable from the perspective of wanting to keep the PCs alive, but it's not very realistic. Realistically, that pommel jab would open the target up to further attacks at least as much as a feint would, but that's not how it works in GURPS by default. Alternatively, you can use Conditional Injury, which has the option of replacing shock penalties with Pain levels that *do* affect active defenses, another reason why CI is based :pAlso, technically speaking the kidneys are part of the vitals hit location, and as per Martial Arts you can target the vitals with crushing attacks. Any vitals hit, even a low-damage one, forces an HT roll vs knockdown and stunning. We could assume the pommel strike did that and the target is currently suffering shock, which means -4 to active defenses. This isn't perfectly RAW--if he's shocked he should also already be falling prone--but it's an option.>>94428409Viewing at half-speed makes it more legible. Also the alternative for that style of video is freezing every 12 frames to throw up the maneuver for a second before continuing on and that sounds *way* more annoying to watch.
>>94427876You could also model it as a beat, though that would be a less autistically rigorous way to do it
>>94427366There is a big gap in TL5 for all kinds of experimental nonsense before people figured out proper gun design. Was it mainstream enough to warrant entire table on its own? Not really. Would I use it in steampunk game over regular ass derringers? Absolutely!
>>94427730>Did you mean Gray Star?Yes.>>94427534Not exactly what I'm looking for. This is kind of the opposite of curbing excess abuse of supernatural power. PC should be able to reliably kill a swarm of monsters with correct positioning and spell usage. Specifically I'm looking for the narrative effect of a powerful, pulp wizard.>>94427730To the rest of your post. I'd like the spells to be a wide range effects like Gray Star's magical disciplines. I mentioned Elric because his appeal to the element/demon lords was similar, but a bit too broad.
>>94429678Wide range of effects suggests a flexible magic system (unless you are willing to deal with hundreds of known spells). Syntactic magic and the Discworld RPG magic system allow both fast and flexible spells. Incantation magic and RPM with all the options for speeding up casting enabled are similar, but a lot more fiddly in play.
>>94427147>this is not a gun design systemBack to 3G3 I go, then.
I read GURPS Adaptations and its got good advice for writing campaigns in general, not just for adapting fiction to the table. I really enjoy reading about game mastering so I'm looking for other books on the topic that are recommended.
