[GURPS] Space Marine Help

[Abaddon87]

In advance, sorry about the wall of text... I am about to play in my first GURPS game (4e if I remember correctly). It will be one other player and myself in the game. The GM indicated it will be a hi-tech space game. TL is 10. Here is the basic rundown my GM gave me:

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Mankind has spread through the galaxy. Many worlds are under the wing of the Empire (think 40K). Life is "good" until contact is made with a less sophisticated species that seems bent on war. The Empire has advanced tech and ships and such and wins every space battle hands down, but the enemies are in greater number. Worse, the one tech they do hold that is more advanced is in bioweapons. They have been dusting planets with this weapon that kills everything. The Empire is slowly being pushed back, losing world after world, and now the Emperor has issued disperse and retreat order. All ships are to be loaded with people, tech and resources and are to disperse into space. Scientists will be assigned to each ship to study the bioweapons used by the alien race in hopes of finding a cure/antidote. Until that time, mankind is to go into hiding to avoid complete extinction.

Our characters are slated to be included in one such transport, chosen because of our skills/background (advanced soldier and servant of the Empire for my character, acclaimed doctor and student of the arcane for my friend).

My partner player will be bringing a Doctor/Medic type character with some magic/spells mixed in. From what he described it would be mostly fire spells (so a Pyromaniac Doctor ). I know his character won’t be able to pull a ton of weight in combat in normal situations so I want to make a Space Marine based off the 4K universe. My GM has cleared this build idea (armor and all!) but I get the feeling that we may not always have access to the high tech supplies (power cells, ammo and such), so I want to make sure my character is effective in suit and find a way to make the suit self sustaining. We get to start with 100 character points and 50 disadvantage points and 10 points for quirks. Obvious ones like Rank and maybe Signature Gear are advantages that stand out, but I’m new to this GURPS thing so I’m not sure what would work and what is a waste of points. Any advice for armor/weapons would be great too!

Thanks a million playgrounders!

Edit: The alien race we fight mostly uses flamethrower type weapons that spray a highly corrosive form of the plague contagion, so recomendations for how to combat this through armor/skill would be extra helpful!

[Hades]

Not to be a party pooper, but you are going to have a very difficult time making a full-on Space Marine at 100/-50/-10 points - really, it would be a stretch to make an Imperial Guardsman at 100 points (even if we go with the Flashlight Gun version instead of the Gaunt's Ghosts version). For instance, GURPS canonically builds a realistic version of a Navy SEAL on 240 points, and a Space Marine would of course be much more capable than a simple human SEAL (unless, of course, the game takes place in an Imperial Guard novel).

Here is an excellent thread on the SJgames forum in which one of the forumites* converts various aspects of the Warhammer 40k universe to GURPS while maintaining a high level of fidelity to the source material. Vehicles, weapons, races, lots of great stuff in there. From the thread: An equipment loadout for a Guardsman (lower tech level and armour and such, but it shows the kind of equipment you might wind up with). A base template for a Space Marine, with no training (320 points), and a possible equipment loadout for him. A discussion of which Cinematic rules should probably apply to the setting. And, finally, a worked generic Space Marine (450 points), and a renegade World Eater (500 points). This is just to give you an idea of what Space Marines look like in GURPS if you try to bring everything across 100%.

Now then, if we set aside the requirement of trying to emulate a Space Marine as much as possible, we can try to make a character who is combat focused and survivable. Sci-Fi/Ultra-Tech is not my preferred genre, so others may have more focused suggestions. If you happen to have GURPS Space, the Space Knight template comes to 150 points (so if you took your max disads and quirks you could have 10 points left to customize things), and replicates some of the feel of Space Marines - Code of Honor, Duty, that kind of thing.

Really, at 100 points you're going to have to choose between ranged and melee combat, and you'll probably want to go with a ranged focus - GURPS combat is of course deadly by default, and high tech weapons throw out a lot of damage, so staying as far away as possible is always a nice idea. This means you can focus on DX and leave ST mostly alone - HT is always nice, as well. Combat Reflexes and High Pain Threshold are pretty much mandatory for combat characters, after that it's more or less up to you. Also, don't forget Luck. Ever. It will save your bacon more than once, but if it's hard to fit it in go for the other advantages first (they are 'always on'). Assuming standard Starting Wealth for TL 10, 4 points in Signature Gear gets you enough for a Commando Battlesuit & Helmet (p. UT 183) with $10,000 left over for the rest of the "Space Marine" equipment load (weapons and whatnot), and still leaves you with your regular starting wealth for other stuff.

I'm not sure about how to make the suit self-sustaining power/repair wise, maybe somebody else will have an idea, or you can ask (or search?) over on the GURPS forum. As for the corrosive plague contagion weapons, it really depends on what precisely the effect they are applying is, probably some version of corrosion and/or toxic damage - a "sealed" suit like the Commando Battlesuit will protect against the toxic/bio-Agent bit, and the DR protects as normal against attacks with the corrosive damage type, though it does get reduced by 1 for every 5 points of damage it takes, which may wind up being a bummer if you get hit a lot. I'm not sure if there's any way to prevent that, have a look through Ultra-Tech maybe?

So yeah, that's about all I've got at this point, hopefully it's vaguely helpful. Mostly, I just have access to pretty much all of the books, and remembered the thread on WH40k, heh.


*Note: I am not Perfect Organism, he's just done a fantastic job of GURPSifying 40k.

[Abaddon87]

So what if we tweeked the "Space Marine" from 40K? Maybe used a combination of Ultra Tech rules for robots/cyborgs and the Power Armour item to make a character who has super low ST and DX (like a 1 to 5) and a High INT and HT? We could play this off as the character being intigrated into the armour. If he ever left the suit, he would be extreemly weak and almost helpless, but the suit gives him super ST and DX abilities. Ignoring some of the stuff like the Space Marine's acid spit and judo training, just making a soldier in a battle armour suit who is good with his gun and maybe an energy shield on the other hand with a sword of some kind for close combat too. I would see a good amount of points going into Signature Gear to pay for the armour, weapons and maybe a power source that is infinite/easily replenished. Would this basically be a cyborg character? Would that be doable with the points I'm given?

[Hades]

I personally would be wary of reducing Attributes that far - it seems like a recipe for disaster, particularly if the bad guys are throwing around corrosive damage that eats away at armour. Low attributes count against your Disadvantage limit in any case, so that won't work right (unless, of course, they are part of a racial template).

Really, though, we out to be able to do OK with what we have, let us try (I tend to be both a Stat Normalizer, and not very good at points optimization, so keep that in mind):

Space Marine Type Dude

Attributes: ST 11 [10]; DX 13 [60]; IQ 11 [20]; HT 11 [10]. Sub-Total: 100 pts.

Secondary Characteristics: Damage 1d-1/1d+1; BL 24 lbs.; HP 11 [0]; Will 11 [0]; Per 11 [0]; FP 11 [0]; Basic Speed 6 [0]; Basic Move 6 [0].

Advantages: Combat Reflexes [15]; High-Pain Threshold [10]; Signature Gear (Space Marine Loadout: Suit, Helmet, Weapons) [5]. Sub-Total: 30 pts.

Disadvantages: -50 points from Code of Honour, Duty, Pacifism (Cannot Harm Innocents), Sense of Duty, etc. etc. to flavour, though you'll want to max these out.
Sub-total: -50 pts.

Quirks: 10 quirks are a lot, but take them all for the precious, precious points.
Sub-total: -10 pts.

Skills:
Battlesuit - 15 [8] (Remember that your Battlesuit skill effectively caps all your DX-based skills while you're in the suit, so keep it on par with the others).
Broadsword - 14 [4] (Pick any sword you want, really - all can be made into Superfine Vibroblades).
Beam Weapon (Rifle) - 15 [4].
Beam Weapon (Pistol) - 13 [1].
Shield (Force) - 14 [2] (you always want a round number here, Block is Skill/2 +3).
Brawling - 13 [1] (it's always good to have at least a little hand-to-hand ability).
Armoury (Battlesuits TL 10) - 11 [2].
First-Aid - 11 [1].
Stealth - 12 [1].
Driving or Piloting (Whatever) - 12 [1].
Interrogation - 10 [1].
Forced Entry - 13 [1] (For kicking in doors or whatever).
Observation - 11 [1] (For noticing hidden/tactically interesting things).
Savoir Faire (Military) - 11 [1].
Computer Operation (TL 10) - 11 [1] (Your default would be 7 in this, so with normal everyday bonus mods you could get by without it, if it ever did come up).
Sub-total: 30 pts.

Points total: 100.

The signature gear:
5 points gets you $150,000, so Commando Battlesuit & Helmet ($90,000), Superfine Vibroblade Thrusting Broadsword/Longsword ($21,000), Force Shield Bracelet ($1,500), and your choice of Pistol and Longarm Lasers or Blasters or whatever (varies, $37,500 left over).

Some notes:
The Commando Battlesuit is Sealed, has plenty of DR, and gives you Lifting and Striking ST +15 (for a total of ST 26, very nice), as well as Super Jump.
Technically, the Force Shield Bracelet is TL 11^, so you'll have to ask your GM about that.
As for making the suit and such self-sufficient, a Solar-Power array would take care of that, but that's really a leave-it-at-the-ship-to-use-as-needed type of thing, so I would talk to your GM about what to do there - the infinite power source thingies tend to be higher TL, as well.
You'll see I've suggested a bunch of 1 point skills - I operate under the idea that it's better to have a little bit of it and not need it, than have the Pilot get shot or whatever and crash because there's no backup (10 on 3d6 is a 50% chance of success, much better than nothing).
This character should be decently effective both in and out of armour, and should hopefully not run into too many situations where he is unable to contribute.

As for making a cyborg type character, I'm not really familiar with those rules, but it seems like it might be doable - mucking about with the Machine meta-trait and the cyborg-brain lens would be the way to do it, probably, or just getting a bunch of cybernetics.

[Abaddon87]

That is very close to what I was comming up with trying to throw some ideas together! I was maybe thinking about asking my GM if I cut some of the stuff like Super Jump and the Laser Radio etc and just making it a big suit of tough armor thats ups my ST and DX it could be cheaper or maybe have a better power source. I agree with your point on the skills as in its better to have some rather than none. I like the idea of having the actual character have low ST and DX because it gives him at least one big weakness outside of his power armour. Is there a Advantage for resistance against certain attacks? Like one I could take to resist the corrosive attacks from the aliens?

[Hades]

You could take some Damage Resistance (Corrosion only, -40%), as corrosive is a damage type in GURPS, so you can't really "resist" it, just take less of it, but that is of course an Exotic advantage - normal humans aren't generally allowed to take it, and that would protect you, not your armour. It could be some sort of mutation or some such, however.

I can't really think of anything else at the moment, there might be something in Powers or Supers, but I haven't got those with me.

[Abaddon87]

What about the Living Metal from Ultra Tech? Would that work? I got the okay from my GM to use Personal TL to up my TL to 12 for equipment so could I have the suit made of that? It says the stuff is self healing, and I could upgrade the suit with the nanoswarm channels and fill it with repair swarms? Would this basically counter any corrosive damage my suit takes, or at least repair the suit after combat? Im using the Dreadnaught Battlesuit btw .

[Hades]

That seems like it might work, but really you should check with your GM to make sure and not "waste" the points/$. The way I read Living Metal is that it contains "repair swarms" sort of by default (see p. UT190), so you might not need the Microbot Arteries and Repair Swarms - on the other hand, both Microbot Arteries and Repair Swarms are TL10, so you could potentially avoid having to pay points for increased TL beyond the 11 needed for the Dreadnought Battlesuit.

Also, I just noticed that the Heavy Battlesuit (TL10) p. UT184 has a generator that powers it for 10 years, just like the Dreadnought. So maybe you could avoid having to increase TL at all? You will, of course, need more points in Signature Gear to afford either the Dreadnought or the Heavy suits.

[Starshade]

If you see on page 190 in Ultra tech, it say under Living Metal Armor, armors made from living metal comes with layers of cells filled with nanoassemblers for repair, and feedstock pipes. As far I understand of the book, the repair nanobots in living metal comes with arteries(or got something simmiliar), but you could pay for microbot arteries to add a different type of nanobots, as paramedical nanorobots.

[Abaddon87]

Hmm I'll have to ask, but I'm sure the extra nanoswarms could be used for extra repair/cleaning/decontamination. Oh and my GM corrected me, we are at TL 11 by default so I only need 5 points for one level of Higher Personal TL.

I'm working on my final build and I got the Character Assistant program (man that thing rocks!) so I'll post my build soon for feedback