Fallout: Errata

[Tectuctitlay]

I'll be uploading another GURPS: Fallout adventure in a few days (it involves Junktown, Clint Eastwood and a treasure hunt.... pretty nifty) and I'd like to include an errata document for the primary GURPS: Fallout setting. Has anyone noticed any errors or inconsistancies that havn't been reported yet?

[makke]

I think the vehicle prices are too low.

The AM General m1025 costs 70k according to High Tech 4e - thats ten times more than your price and I would expect it to be much cheaper nowadays - same with the "Armored Personnel Carrier" - 12k for a heavily armored vehicle is quite a deal.. sure its no tank but the DR is high enough to stop anything short of AP-Ammo/rockets.

Markus

[Tectuctitlay]

The story on vehicle prices is that I divided the cost by either 10 or 100 (I forget which)... I rationalized this by the fact that there haven't been many new vehicles made in the last 100 years, and they are bound to be chock full of mechanical problems.

Besides, according to the Basic Set, an APC costs $120,000, while a large utility helicopter (read vertibird) costs 8 million. Since there are no longer any banks, I couldn't see ayone lugging 20 or 30 garbage bags full of bottlecaps down to their local chopper-dealer for a new rig.

[makke]

Originally Posted by Tectuctitlay

I rationalized this by the fact that there haven't been many new vehicles made in the last 100 years, and they are bound to be chock full of mechanical problems.

Sure, the vehicles still in existence aren't going to be of the highest quality but nevertheless they are the only vehicles around and that should make them quite valuable. (even a chock full of mechanical problems is better than walking)

I couldn't see ayone lugging 20 or 30 garbage bags full of bottlecaps down to their local chopper-dealer for a new rig.

That means if you want to buy something really expansive you would need more than cash - you could trade other valuable equipment for it or maybe some kind of (major) favor. (I'll get you your kingdom and you give me this precious little chopper of yours ;) ) I think that would be quite beneficial for the flair of the setting.

Do you want the vehicles to be more available to the players or what are your reasons for reducing their value?

[Tectuctitlay]

I can see what you're saying, but I still don't think I want to charge full book price on the vehicles... You made a good point with the barter idea, but you would still need quite a bit of equipment (or land) to equal a 8 million dollar helicopter... and the barter thing runs both ways (actually giving a PC a kingdom in return for the shiny new vertibird is never a good idea, in my opinion). So what do you suggest?

[The Colonel]

I'd be surprised if a lot of that technology was actually marketable ... the Vertibirds in particular are top level strategic assets and unlikely to sell well.
You would also need a source of spares, skilled mechanics for the near constant maintenance rotary wing aircraft require and, of course, a source of rotary wing pilots. Who are much harder to train.
Likewise I can't really see the BOS voluntarily surrendering their edge in AFV and dirigibles to any other faction.
Whole adventures might be set around technology recovery - or at least destruction of leaked data.

This might be the sort of thing that is either built at cost by your faction or not availabe at all.

[makke]

The question is how often you want those vehicles to appear. (if you turn realism mode off the question boils down to that) An aircraft for 80k is quite affordable (if I remember correctly I bought a Super Sledge for 40k in Fallout 1 :) ) and should therefore be fairly common - lets say most of the bigger groups have one.

In my opinion it would be the most sensible thing to follow The Colonel's advice. Erase the values (or make them astronomically high - e.g. the society isn't able to build anything higher than TL7-Tech that would double the prices of anything tl8 or higher) and say they are too rare to be bought with anything short of all the money of the world. That would lead to a setting where high-tech vehicles are in existence but will be guarded stuff exists but the people who own them will guard them thoroughly. Consequently a PC who wishes to own a chopper would need to something really important (like destroying the greater part of the enemies army - Fallout 1) or plot to steal it.

Another point.. have you playtested the weapon-stats? sw+8 for the Super Sledge is .. wow.. =)
There wouldn't be any reason for anyone to carry something but a Super Sledge (okay the price is steep but still affordable for the typical adventurer) - I would at least give it a very low CR ... btw did you leave those out on purpose?

[krapou]

Originally Posted by makke

Another point.. have you playtested the weapon-stats? sw+8 for the Super Sledge is .. wow.. =)
There wouldn't be any reason for anyone to carry something but a Super Sledge (okay the price is steep but still affordable for the typical adventurer) - I would at least give it a very low CR ... btw did you leave those out on purpose?

The SuperSledge was playtested with sw+1d+2 and was just fine.
IMHO sw+8 will penetrate armor too often (especially since many armors have a lower DR againts cr damage)

[Tectuctitlay]

The errata document is away... Unfortunately the super sledgehammer thing surfaced too late for me to include it (it's a pretty minor issue anyway, IMHO). I also received some good advice from Jim Bob that it was too late too include... Thanks to everybody else for submitting errors (and solutions), you have been fully credited in the document.

Along with the errata, I've included a short adventure (A Vatful of FEV) and new meta-traits converted from Fallout: Van Buren ("Feral Child" is my personal favorite).

Sound good? Grab it here.

[cjbeiting]

Just finished reading your Gurps Fallout product over the weekend. Very nice! I didn't check it for rules, but I noted a number of typos (lotsa places where you needed to add an apostrophe to make something possessive, and a number of places where you used "it's" where you should have used "its"). So, whenever you do a revision, do another spell check.

And on the subject of revisions . . .

I don't have Fallout 3, but am quite looking forward to it. Do I take it that, whenever the game is released, you'll eventually be upgrading your supplement to take more full advantage of the material in Fallout 3? I'm hoping so.

Oh, and one other suggestion: possibly include a link in your Bibliography to the "Cardboard Heroes"-esque Fallout minis that were included in one of the games. I'm sure Gurps fans would find them useful.

Anyway, keep up the good work!