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Old 03-04-2018, 10:55 AM   #6
Apollonian
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Shoreline, WA (north of Seattle)
Default Re: GURPS Cabal for 4th Edition: Notes and Thoughts

Quote:
Originally Posted by Refplace View Post
GURPS Cabal would make a good setting to convert to a Monster Hunters setting book. And there could be some supplementary material or even adventures easily adde to that combo.
MH give you the baseline party comp and Cabal interesting adventure hooks.
W.A. Frick's already done that, pretty much, in "Hunting the Cabal," Pyramid 3/58.

Moving on, one of my tricky bits in setting up a new campaign is always to establish the points budget for players. This is especially tricky for a monster mash game like the Cabal, where templates like Gothic Vampire can run a couple hundred points easy. So... I decided to stat up our viewpoint character, Brian McAllen, at the start of his career in the Cabal, to represent a possible Initiate.

Quote:
BRIAN MCALLEN, INITIATE
This character sheet represents Brian McAllen shortly after the first flavor text in GURPS Cabal, as a new Initiate in the Cabal. He’s a talented human (soldier, successful writer, and occultist) with potential for greater things, but hasn’t yet received any magical training from the Cabal.

190 character points.

Attributes [100]: IQ 12 [40], DX 12 [40], ST 11 [10], HT 11 [10]

Damage 1d-1/1d+1; BL 24 lbs.; HP 11 [0]; Will 12 [0]; Per 12 [0]; FP 11 [0].
Basic Speed 6 [5]; Basic Move 6 [0]; Dodge 9; Parry 9 (Brawling).

5’10”; 185 lbs

Languages: English (native) [0]; Assyrian (broken, written only) [1]; Arabic (broken) [2]; Latin (broken) [2]

Advantages [60]: Combat Reflexes [15]; Contact Group (Occult Weirdos; Occultism and Conspiracy skills-18) [10]; Independent Income (royalties, pension) 10 [10]; Luck [15]; Wealth (Comfortable) [10]

Disadvantages [-40]: Curious [-5]; Duty (the Cabal, 9 or less) [-5]; Secret (Member of the Cabal, possible death) [-30]

Skills [60]: Acting (A) IQ [2]-12; Brawling (E) DX [1]-12; Camouflage/TL8 (E) IQ+1 [2]-13; Computer Operation/TL8 (E) IQ-1 [1]-11; Detect Lies (H) Per-2 [1]-10; Driving (Automobile) (A) DX [2]-12; Electronics Operation/TL8 (Communications) (A) IQ-1 [1]-11; Explosives/TL8 (Demolitions) (A) IQ-1 [1]-11; First Aid (E) IQ [2]-12; Forced Entry (E) DX-1 [1]-11; Guns (Rifle) (E) DX+2 [4]-14; Guns (Pistol) (E) DX+2 [4]-14; Hidden Lore (The Cabal) (A) IQ-1 [1]-11; Hiking (A) HT [2]-11; Knife (E) DX [1]-12; Navigation (Land) (A) IQ [2]-12; Observation (A) Per+1 [4]-13; Occultism (A) IQ+2 [8]-14; Research (A) IQ [2]-12; Savoir-Faire (Military) (E) IQ [1]-12; Scrounging (E) Per+1 [2]-13; Shadowing (A) IQ [2]-12; Soldier (A) IQ+2 [4]-13; Stealth (A) DX+1 [4]-13; Streetwise (A) IQ-1 [1]-11; Throwing (A) DX-1 [1]-11; Wrestling (A) DX-1 [1]-11; Writing (A) IQ [2]-12.

Equipment: Mysterious soapstone pendant (warns of magic directed at the holder); Colt .45 with silver-and-mercury bullets; book of occult and conspiracy notes.
Based on that barebones writeup (discounting the Cabal Duty and Secret, Brian only has -5 points in disadvantages), it looks like 200 points is a good starting point for a Cabalist Initiate with some training and some natural aptitude. However, it doesn't leave a lot of room for monster templates. Conveniently, it also means I can just yank the Monster Hunters Sidekicks templates to modify for my players, and the GURPS Action templates make for some decent mundane-yet-dangerous opponents/allies. I may make a Patron a required advantage for Initiates, to represent their sponsor in the Cabal.

Going up to the Novice level means adding magical abilities, but non-magical abilities can probably stay around the same competence level. That means Magery 0 [5], one or two levels of Ritual Adept [20], and Thaumatology and Path skill levels around 10 or 11 - which is to say, around [15] for 9 Paths + Thaumatology. That's another 40 points, and gives us characters who still rely largely on mundane means but can supplement them with a bit of magic if they prepare carefully.

Adepts who are Ritual Magicians should have the full Ritual Adept advantage [40], another couple levels of Magery [20], and push their general Path skills to 13-14, probably with a specialist Path they take up to 15 or 16. Call that another 20 points or so. We also need to account for some extra social advantages - Allies, Rank, and so on - which are probably balanced by similar disadvantages (Enemy, Reputation). That pushes an Adept into the 300 point range, minimum.

Monster templates skew this all pretty hard, though. The werewolf template I started this project out with costs 123 points... More on those later, after some more revisions. As Ken Hite puts it on p. 94 of Cabal, non-humans may follow their own hierarchies and still be recognized as equivalent ranks by the human-centric Cabal.

Coming up next, probably: The difference between Astral and Ethereal, dimensional travel, and the Four Realms.
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