Where's my GURPS? [GURPS Thread]

[Morty]

I have a question for the more experienced GURPS players - why is the Enchanced Defenses advantage cinematic? It adds +1 to your defense of choice, which doesn't strike me as too unrealistic.

[Manwhoisthisman]

Thanks for the insights on lightning calculator. That makes much more sense now.

[Inglenook]

I have a question for the more experienced GURPS players - why is the Enchanced Defenses advantage cinematic? It adds +1 to your defense of choice, which doesn't strike me as too unrealistic.

Eh, I don't find it terribly cinematic either. It represents really good reflexes or whatever, but definitely within the realms of human ability. I guess they count it as cinematic because it's slightly above-and-beyond, but I'd probably allow it if a player in a realistic campaign really wanted it and had a good reason for it.

[Spamotron]

The GURPS books themselves are inconsistent about it. In the GURPS Martial Arts book there are marital artist templates with lists of regular advantages to represent "realistic" martial artists and cinematic advantages to represent "extraordinary" martial artists. All three Enhanced Defenses are on the "realistic" lists.

[Chemiisan]

Eh, I don't find it terribly cinematic either. It represents really good reflexes or whatever, but definitely within the realms of human ability. I guess they count it as cinematic because it's slightly above-and-beyond, but I'd probably allow it if a player in a realistic campaign really wanted it and had a good reason for it.

Trained By A Master would probably be the appropriate advantage to take if you wanted to take Enhanced Defenses. And for the matter of it being cinematic, it is a tad cinematic. Enhanced Defenses at a single level could boost your chances by more than 11% (8->9, 9->10, 10->11, 11->12). To put that into perspective, a +1 bonus in a d20 system offers a mere 5% bonus. That's twice that for the most common of stat blocks (most players base defenses will end up in the 8-12 range). Once you take that into consideration, you realize this player is going to be taking a LOT less damage than they would normally. For balance purposes, this is 100% cinematic.

HOUSERULES BLOCK

I'm actually a bit adverse to the concept of minions in GURPS. You shouldn't have to make the enemies so weak they are made of cardboard: if your players have a character designed for combat like a Super or a Ninja, 2 turns should be more than enough to kill or knock out a 10 HP NPC. To give an example, one of my character players used the spell 'Stun' to good effect, taking the next turn to grapple the NPC. She eliminated him with a single knife roll turn 3, and the worst she received was a 2 HP wound because the NPC had the first attack. Given that you don't give them any defensive body armor or such, the players should have some combination of moves or attack that is more than enough to take out an average health NPC. I've seen this demonstrated in many occasions in both my Supers game, Fantasy games and the campaigns I joined as a player. 50 point NPCs are pushovers.

[jindra34]

I have a question for the more experienced GURPS players - why is the Enchanced Defenses advantage cinematic? It adds +1 to your defense of choice, which doesn't strike me as too unrealistic.

On its own Enhanced Dodge is the only edge one. The others in essence represent training which normally means a higher skill level. Dodge is based of off basic speed which has no training equivalent and therefore it might be reasonable to call it training to dodge. Or factoring in a high Perception. The other two not so much. And then there is also the 'realistic' form of combat reflexes which is about the same price, does the same as all three put together and then some.

[TalonDemonKing]

Enhanced defenses, at rank 1, isn't cinematic in it's self -- Any martial artist could easily have this. What happens is when you start stacking it -- A good martial artist may have 16-20 points in his skill, giving him a parry of 11-12; plus an extra 1-3 depending on how many ranks you put into the skill.

This means that, the majority of the time, players will be actively mitigating your defenses. To puncture throught them, you'll need an enemy whos using some form of Deceptive Attack to mulch their defenses, meaning that they, in themselves, will have to have a high skill. As you escalate power between players and NPCs, the 'idea' behind what the skill numbers means (In terms of training/experience) means that even your lower level mooks might have a stronger weapon skill + the knowledge to use deceptive attacks. This escalation of force is definitively cinematic. Think to a kung-fu movie where a hero simply defeats a ton of mooks, before fighting with the other strong kung-fu guy.

Additionally, the advantages are pretty cheap compared to normally raising them; meaning that you're getting more defensive bang for your buck.

---

On Minions for GURPS: Alot of my games are based off of high fantasy, cinematic movies (Matrix, Akimbo stuff, Kung fu Hustle), as well as Super Heros. Minions all make sense here, A basic encounter from my Supers group looks like:

3 Players (Range/Damage, Melee/Leader, Melee/Assassin)

Bank Robbery:
1 Champion (Tagged Extra life(+Strength); Gunslinger)
4 Lieuts
A handful of minions (Literally; I believe it was around 15)

Players chewed through the minions and had a blast doing it, with some creative thinking (Riding a grenade into a leap attack, collapsing roof sections on the enemy), and managed to confront the champion around 50-75% HP per individual. It made the fight tough, but they succeeded in the end, and feedback was positive. The entire counter took about 15 seconds to set up, if you don't count drawing the bank/placing the minis. Combat can get slogged down rolling damage for each individual minion, so it's easy to say '1hp unless damage rolls are terrible', but still retains the fun of mowing down mobs of creatures. My players like 'On-kill' effects as well, so it's an easy way to enable those abilities.

For a more grittier game, I wouldn't do minions, but my group doesn't find Gritty 'fun', instead prefering dozens of minions and a few challenging fights.

----

On the subject of books: If players are looking to purchase, Basic Set: Characters/Campaign is a basic must. I'd also suggest Powers, as it fits damn near any setting with powers in them. From there; GURPS Martial Arts, Action, Magic, and Power-Ups 1 (Perks) are what I'd suggest, depending on what the players wish to run. Perks goes with everything and was really cheap, Martial arts has alot of good info for low tech, but a suprisingly good info about making techniques, which can be applied to other skills (Leadership; Gun skills; Cooking). Action has a good amount of spy/gunslinger/Modern tech ideas; and Magic is the full Magic set for spell-casters.

[Morty]

Hm. Yes, I can see the reasoning behind making it cinematic. I suppose I'm still thinking in d20 terms, where a +1 bonus is tiny. I don't think I'd disallow a single rank in a realistic campaign, though.

[DigoDragon]

List 3 sourcebooks beyond the basic set that are a must-have for Game Masters. I'll give the top 5 a space in the books section.

Powers and High-Tech are popular with my GURPS campaigns.

[Kaun]

I am struggling with adding a size modifier to a template, how much does it costs and what effects does it have?

[Ts_]

I am struggling with adding a size modifier to a template, how much does it costs and what effects does it have?

SM has no cost according to the rules, so you just say "SM +4" in the template. Note though, that besides the size (in foot), you can keep everything on the the character sheet the same when switching from SM -7 to SM +10, if that's what you want. You are not forced to make characters stronger or more clumsy when you enlarge them.

However, there are lots of situations spread throughout the combat system and individual skills etc, where the size modifier makes a difference:
http://ottgaming.grimoire.ca/Borderlands/Size_Modifier

One of the main things SM does it to make you easier to hit and makes it harder for you to hit others. That pretty much justifies a houserule to price a large SM as a disadvantage, worth about -5 per 1 size step, while a small SM costs +5 per step. Large SMs already give a discount when buying strength, but being large might still be unattractive mechanically.

Regards
Ts

[Manwhoisthisman]

Size modifier costs 0, but certain stuff comes with it. I generally look at growth and shrink to see all of the stuff that should go with it. However, an excellent summary is provided as GURPS Gulliver, which I recently found and quite enjoy.

[Kaun]

Cheers mate, that link is exactly what i needed.

[Kaun]

I am a little under the pump at the moment and i have a GURPS game starting on Saturday. If any playgrounders want to give me a little help it would be very appreciated.

Basically its a low power supers fantasy game (TL4), and one of the players has taken [2] points worth of signature gear. He wants a magical axe or maybe some magical plate armor and has asked me for suggestions.

at [2] points worth that is $4000 value correct me if i am wrong?

If anybody is bored and wants to make some item suggestions it would be wonderful!

He hasn't really given me much to work off except that.

Any suggestions welcome!

cheers in advance

[Ts_]

Basically its a low power supers fantasy game (TL4), and one of the players has taken [2] points worth of signature gear. He wants a magical axe or maybe some magical plate armor and has asked me for suggestions.

at [2] points worth that is $4000 value correct me if i am wrong?

Signature Gear gives 50% of starting wealth per point. For TL4, starting wealth is $2000, so 2 points give you 2x $1000.

That probably isn't enough for both. Axes cost next to nothing, but plate is expensive even if normal. I'd suggest buying only one of them as sig gear, and buying the other one with regular money. (It's not a good idea to use sig gear for half-good items because the points are lost when you find and start using a better weapon.)

Do you have Dungeon Fantasy 1? It nicely summarizes fantasy options for gear, including typical enchantments. (The Magic book also enchantment prices in it.)

In any case, a good choice is a fine (B274), balanced, and dwarven (DF 1, p26) axe. That costs $900 (so only Signature Gear [1]), but gives +1 to skill for this particular user, +1 to damage and removes the "U" from the parry property of the axe. Also -1 to breaking. (A two-handed axe like this would cost $1800, but he would need ST 18 to avoid it becoming unready.) Magic effects on melee weapons are too expensive, though.

For armor:
A good suit of plate armor is probably around $2000 by itself. But because some of the magic spells fall below the "quick & dirty" threshhold (at least in a dungeon fantasy world), they are affordable: Using DF pricing again, you can get a +1 DR armor for just $50 extra! And +1 DB (= +1 defenses to parry/dodge/block !) is $2000. (Those prices are for applying the effect to a full suit.)

Regards
Ts

[Ts_]

One more thing:
Weapon Bond perk (+1 to weapon skill for one specific weapon, that is, the sig axe) is also worth it. For just [2] in total, you get a much, much better weapon.

But then, maybe you want something more colorful ... Try reducing the cost of magic properties by limiting them: +1, but only vs Orcs. Glows in the dark like a torch (freeing a hand), but costs FP, etc. Then go wild.

Ts

[TalonDemonKing]

Of all things, I find the GURPS enchanting really dissapointing, especially for running something close to a D&D high fantasy type thing. Everything is extremely expensive, so I've been using the 1 energy = 1$ quick & dirty enchanting for... everything, really. Also it helps alot if you make up alot of enchantments when handing out gear; which makes it a bit more memorable.

Wrappings of Create water for the party water bender, Apron of Create Kitchen Utinsils for the party cook (Barbarian), and I'm still thinking for the party rogue. Maybe a blink item? (Just got finished playing Dishonored, so my preferences might be skewed).

[DigoDragon]

Of all things, I find the GURPS enchanting really dissapointing, especially for running something close to a D&D high fantasy type thing.

Same here. Last time Enchanting was used, we did the "Quick & Dirty" method on a daily basis, but failures only mean no progress and quirks happen solely on Critical failures.

[Shoot Da Moon]

GURPS Thaumatology does touch on tweaking Enchanting - usually, it suggests halving the energy cost of enchanting across the board to get magic items that are cheap (since prices are based on energy/days/labour) and fast to create (since energy to create pretty much equals days needed).

Also, it suggests that using special materials (think ADAM, Azoth, Ohricalcum, Adamantine, Mithril, etc.) could reduce the energy cost, I think.

[Ts_]

I agree on enchanting: The standard gurps enchanting system isn't really that useful or interesting. I think part of this is deliberate to make permanent enchanting unattractive to players. Still, a flavorful variant would be nice to have. I like the idea of requiring some generic magic materials.

i have a GURPS game starting on Saturday.

Do you want to tell us how it went?

Ts

[Kaun]

Do you want to tell us how it went?

Ts

Yeah sure; regarding the signature gear he ended up re jigging the character a bit and taking a better set of mundane armor.

As to the session on the whole, it seems to have been well received.

The theme for the game is "Ninja Scroll" meets "Song of Ice and Fire", or supers birthright as i call it in my head.

Out of the 4 players, only 2 of them had any experience with GURPS. After there initial frustration with character gen (mainly because of the amount of options presented to them) they were surprised by the ease at which the game ran. I did run it fairly lite, mainly because i am going for a heroic style game.

300 point characters, this is what i ended up with.

A Dwarf Samurai? based off the Bleach characters in This video (kinda of both of these character from what i understand.)

A Half giant military general/walking fortress. With his high DR and and stack of HP he is a hard one to bring down.

A wereChimera... Yeah i know, little odd but what the heck. He is blessed by the Goddess of the hunt and the Chimera thing is his hunting form.

And finally a T1000 inspired spy. Limited morphing, blade arms, chameleon... etc.

Started them off in the military camp of a new and struggling King. He had made a proclamation that any volunteers that came to his countries aid and distinguished themselves during the pending battle would receive land and title as reward. What can i say, his back to the wall, better to be a king with a few new jerk lords then not a King at all.

Long story short the PC's were answering this proclamation.

The battle was stacked against the PC's side but thanks to their exploits they were victorious.

It gave me a chance to introduce a couple of antagonists, (mainly the Kings bastard half brother who also wants the throne & a flaming werewolf sorcerer (by flaming i mean on fire, not the other type. )) The players got to try out there new powers and get a feel for the mechanics, smash through some gumps and fight a few harder champions.

fun had by all.

[Ts_]

Out of the 4 players, only 2 of them had any experience with GURPS. After there initial frustration with character gen (mainly because of the amount of options presented to them) they were surprised by the ease at which the game ran. I did run it fairly lite, mainly because i am going for a heroic style game.

I think a good way for character gen is to put an inexperienced player with a more experienced/rules-inclined player in front of a PC running the free Gurps Character Sheet and then hand each team one book out of Characters, Powers, the free Skill Categories PDF, Magic or a genre book. I then run back and forth between these groups to clarify things. Books need to be switched occassionally.

Because Gurps Character Sheet includes a pretty good list of skills and (dis-)advantages, even without the right book they often find something they think sounds cool. (Sometimes, the name is misleading, but there usually is something else that does what they thought that other thing would do.)

In any case, char gen takes about one session ...

A Dwarf Samurai
A Half giant military general/walking fortress.
A wereChimera...
And finally a T1000 inspired spy. Limited morphing, blade arms, chameleon...

That almost sounds like a stereotypical game of gurps ... ;) But it's good to hear that you had fun.

Regards
Ts

[Kaun]

I think a good way for character gen is to put an inexperienced player with a more experienced/rules-inclined player in front of a PC running the free Gurps Character Sheet and then hand each team one book out of Characters, Powers, the free Skill Categories PDF, Magic or a genre book. I then run back and forth between these groups to clarify things. Books need to be switched occassionally.

Because Gurps Character Sheet includes a pretty good list of skills and (dis-)advantages, even without the right book they often find something they think sounds cool. (Sometimes, the name is misleading, but there usually is something else that does what they thought that other thing would do.)

In any case, char gen takes about one session ...

Regards
Ts

Meh when it comes down to it, i ran a character gen session a couple weeks back + i had given them a copies of the books a month ago. That combined with the fact that they have over 50 years of rp experience between the 4 of them, they should have been able to figure it out.

It's mostly just laziness that spawned their frustration. They new what they wanted, they just couldn't be bothered figuring out how to do it.

[TalonDemonKing]

Awww yeah GURPS thread. Thinking about drumming up some interest on teaching players on the worst system the best system. I usually run SUPER HEROES for newbie games, but I'm thinking about running some Dungeon Fantasy instead, considering the website we're posting on.

Anyone see any preference either way?

[Science Officer]

Ran the first session of my GURPS campaign.

Things went well. Had some difficulty coming up with an omen for player with the Oracle power that would be useful but also not ruin everything.
Another issue was the player with Telekinesis used it to choke out a guard, and rip out a cybernetic eye.

I wasn't too sure about those, (I guess the choking could have used the regular rules for choking), but I let them slide since I hadn't prepared too much, and all the NPCs had stats of either 10, or "Because I Said So".

Anyways, was fun even though we disregarded most of the rules after character creation.

[TalonDemonKing]

Has anyone had any experience with the Words of Power alternate magic casting system discussed in GURPS, magic?

If so, how did it work for y'all? I'm thinking about lifting the system wholesale for a different mechanic in my game world, but I wanted to know if anyone else ran into any unforseen problems with it.

[rorikdude12]

Awww yeah GURPS thread. Thinking about drumming up some interest on teaching players on the worst system the best system. I usually run SUPER HEROES for newbie games, but I'm thinking about running some Dungeon Fantasy instead, considering the website we're posting on.

Anyone see any preference either way?

Dude, if you run GURPS on here, I will owe youa life-debt. Now go, run Super Heroes or Dungeon Fantasy! Go!

[TalonDemonKing]

Dude, if you run GURPS on here, I will owe youa life-debt. Now go, run Super Heroes or Dungeon Fantasy! Go!

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...9#post14116899
'Heroes' never have fun anyways.