Methods of pricing higher-TL gear.

Michael Thayne · 01-02-2019, 11:09 PM

Different GURPS supplements provide different methods of pricing gear from TLs higher than the campaign TL, and I thought it might be worth comparing them, using the commando battlesuit (UT183) as an example. The standard one applies a standard multiplier of x2 per TL. This puts a TL10 commando battlesuit at $360,000. Monster Hunters 5: Applied Xenology adds another doubling, for $720,000.

Other methods tie dollar cost to the point cost of the advantages a piece of gear provides. The advantages granted by a commando battlesuit come to roughly 890 points: Detect (Radar and Radio, Reflexive, +40%) [14]; Doesn't Breathe [20]; DR 75 [375]; DR 30 (Skull and torso only, -5%) [143]; Hyperspectral Vision [25]; Obscure 6 (Infrared; Defensive, +50%; Stealthy, +100%; Always On, -50%) [24]; Obscure 6 (Radar; Defensive, +50%; Stealthy, +100%; Always On, -50%) [24]; Pressure Support 2 [10]; Radiation Tolerance (10) [15]; ST without HP +15 [120]; Super Jump 2 [20]; Telescopic Vision 1 [5]; Temperature Tolerance 90 [90]; Vacuum Support [5].

Once you have a point cost, one approach is to treat the item as a metatronic generator (Pyramid #3/46: Weird Science). The size categories for metatronic generators of course often don't exactly match real gear. It's up to the GM whether to go with "closest size" or "smaller and therefore more expensive". Using the latter approach, the commando battlesuit would cost ~~$178,000, which somewhat to my surprise is cheaper than in the standard system.~~ $1,780,000, which feels more balanced if PCs are buying as signature gear, and even feels right in terms of balance vs. paying cash for a military vehicle.

I had an idea for a third approach: model the pricing on that of enchanted sorcerous items (specifically ones built with weapon buffs) using the rules GURPS Thaumatology: Sorcery. To get EP, you can use 10 + granted advantage value (as if the advantages were granted via an Affliction with no modifiers other than Advantage). This yields prices lower than metatronic generator prices for advantages only worth a few points, but can get very expensive for powerful items because of the "objects of value" rule. In the case of the commando battlesuit, it would have 810 EP, the cost is beyond prohibitive: $4 * 10^29, beyond the price range of the wealthiest real-world governments. This might be a feature if the GM wants the PCs to have free access to laser pistols while effectively prohibiting potentially game-breaking gear. As an aside, if you cheat a bit and price each function of a multi-function item separately, you can get a price for the commando battlesuit of "only" a few trillion dollars.

I honestly don't know which approach is best. Approaches that tie price to point cost seem appropriate for superhero games, but both metatronic generators and my quasi-sorcery system often seem to produce wonky costs. Advice from people who can speak with experience on this would be appreciated.

AlexanderHowl · 01-03-2019, 06:33 AM

I generally think that an additive doubling scheme works best (2× for +1 TL, 6× for +2 TL, 14× for +3 TL, 30x for +4 TL, etc.) when combined with a requirement that higher TL equipment must be purchased as Signature Gear (with disposable equipment like ammunition being purchased at 5× normal cost if characters have the ability to replace them every session). In that case, a TL10 Commando Battlesuit with the associated helmet and other various bells and whistles would cost a TL8 hero 60 CP ($600,000 worth of Signature Gear at TL8). This presumes that the TL8 hero can recharge the power cells with TL8 tech, otherwise add another 1 CP for the each E-cell that is replaced every session. They would also need Gadgeteer or a relevant UB.

Rupert · 01-03-2019, 06:59 AM

I'm not a fan of requiring Signature Gear for this. For one thing, it's actually cheaper than Wealth until Very Wealthy, and if characters are otherwise limited to 20% of starting wealth for adventuring kit it takes Multimillionaire 1 to make Wealth worthwhile. As making Wealth advantages worth having is tricky already, and Signature Gear grants very strong plot protection to the gear, I think that's incentivising the wrong purchase. Also, Signature Gear locks the character into a particular 'build', because it's really a way of making gear into a fixed ability of the character, and unlike normal gear your lose points when you trade it for other gear.

Combined with your increased costs for high TL gear you reduce the value of the High TL advantage, as well as Wealth, and weld high TL characters to their gear. This might be fine in a supers or one of those anime-style mecha games where the heroes stumbled onto their suits, but I don't like it as a generic set of house rules. I presume Your Mileage Varies.

Stormcrow · 01-03-2019, 08:45 AM

It all depends on how easily one can obtain higher-TL technology, doesn't it? In a realistic game with no time travel, aliens, or super-geniuses, a genuine piece of higher-TL gear is priceless. In a game with all of those elements, people probably get hold of them all the time, so the market for them would be much cheaper. You may not understand the principles on which they work, but if they do work and there's a supply of them, someone will be able to buy them.

I think the rule on page B27, in which the cost of higher-TL equipment is doubled for each level of TL it is higher, represents a campaign in which higher-TL equipment is relatively hard to come by. "Once it's gone, it's gone..."

Regarding pricing gear as advantages: I don't subscribe to the notion that all GURPS supplements are equal to the Basic Set in importance. An article in Pyramid is a nice idea if you'd like to use it, but it's not The Rules. Supplements that are clearly expansions of things that just couldn't fit in the Basic Set — Magic, Ultra-Tech, etc. — are more "canonical" than worldbooks that study a particular setting, or magazine articles that present alternative rules.

Under that condition, I'd understand that a battlesuit couldn't be gotten with character points except with Signature Gear — in which case it has to be an important part of your character, not just useful equipment. And it would require GM approval, and possibly an Unusual Background to explain your access to higher TL effects.

Rupert · 01-03-2019, 09:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

Under that condition, I'd understand that a battlesuit couldn't be gotten with character points except with Signature Gear — in which case it has to be an important part of your character, not just useful equipment. And it would require GM approval, and possibly an Unusual Background to explain your access to higher TL effects.

The RAW say that you can buy gear with starting money up to your personal TL, which you can buy up (or down), as discussed on B22-23. That's your UB that grants access to the high TL gear. The RAW assume that you but it like any other gear, so Signature Gear would only be if you want it to be a special part of the character and to have plot protection.

I prefer the DFRPG Signature Gear - pay a point per item for plot protection, but you have to buy the item normally. DFRPG gives out 50% of starting wealth of 'Extra Money' purchases, rather than the 10% GURPS normally does, though, so you don't need to use Signature Gear to afford major special items.

AlexanderHowl · 01-03-2019, 10:30 AM

In my campaigns, a character without Signature Gear for higher TL equipment is going to find it destroyed or stolen within the first couple of sessions. Now, if they have High TL, they might be able to repair or replace it, but it is not going to be available for purchase, as it is effectively priceless. Of course, this assumes they are on a world with lower TL than their own, as everything is relative to the setting rather than the character

Michael Thayne · 01-03-2019, 11:33 AM

Whoops, I dropped a zero in my cost calculation for battlesuit-as-metatronic-generator. Fixed it in the OP. One thing I wonder about: the rules for metatronic generators don't say anything about DR. There's a case that for game-balance reasons items with unusual amounts of DR should be more expensive due to being harder for enemies to destroy in combat. But maybe ignoring DR in cost calculations was intentional.

Stormcrow · 01-03-2019, 12:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rupert

The RAW say that you can buy gear with starting money up to your personal TL, which you can buy up (or down), as discussed on B22-23. That's your UB that grants access to the high TL gear. The RAW assume that you but it like any other gear, so Signature Gear would only be if you want it to be a special part of the character and to have plot protection.

I believe that's what I said.

I think the main point of this discussion in the rules is dealing with High TL characters. You're from TL7 and you get transported back to TL0, and the campaign starts as you wake up in the Land of Cavemen. Whatever starting equipment you have is going to be multiplied by 128 because all your stuff is going to be WAY better than anything the cavemen have. Want a cigarette lighter? $1,280. Sorry, but characters of Average Wealth only start with $250, so you can't start with a lighter if you're Joe Average fallen into the Land of Cavemen.

The GM is free, of course, to arbitrarily give your group any stuff he or she wants ("You find a first aid kit in the raft..."). It's just the independent adventurer out of context who's limited in this way.

A TL10 character in a TL8 setting wanting to start with a commando battlesuit will need to spend $320,000 on it, plus $40,000 for a helmet. Average TL8 starting wealth is $20,000, so Joe Average can't afford to take a commando battlesuit to a TL8 campaign.

If the argument is simply that this seems unfair, that high-TL characters should start with more stuff, then the GM can just arbitrarily give them more stuff. I'm not sure the value in cobbling together and stretching various extended rules to try to simulate or balance some kind of equipment-reality. Clearly, you know what you want better than some formula. You would get the best results from just deciding on what you want.

~~evileeyore~~ · 01-03-2019, 12:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rupert

I prefer the DFRPG Signature Gear - pay a point per item for plot protection, but you have to buy the item normally.

That's how AtE does it as well (and did it first*) and yeah, that's how I roll with (and with DF's Extra Money option being 50%).

* Just giving PKitty credit where credit is due.

AlexanderHowl · 01-03-2019, 12:35 PM

The rule is not that it is doubled, it is the base cost, plus double base for +1 TL, plus 4x base cost for +2 TL, plus 8x base cost for +3 TL, etc. The sequence is 1-3-7-15-31-63-127-255-511-1023-2047-4097-8195. If you have a $10 TL12 device in a TL0 campaign, it will have an effective value of $81,950.

01-02-2019, 11:09 PM	#1
Michael Thayne Join Date: May 2010	Methods of pricing higher-TL gear. Different GURPS supplements provide different methods of pricing gear from TLs higher than the campaign TL, and I thought it might be worth comparing them, using the commando battlesuit (UT183) as an example. The standard one applies a standard multiplier of x2 per TL. This puts a TL10 commando battlesuit at $360,000. *Monster Hunters 5: Applied Xenology* adds another doubling, for $720,000. Other methods tie dollar cost to the point cost of the advantages a piece of gear provides. The advantages granted by a commando battlesuit come to roughly 890 points: Detect (Radar and Radio, Reflexive, +40%) [14]; Doesn't Breathe [20]; DR 75 [375]; DR 30 (Skull and torso only, -5%) [143]; Hyperspectral Vision [25]; Obscure 6 (Infrared; Defensive, +50%; Stealthy, +100%; Always On, -50%) [24]; Obscure 6 (Radar; Defensive, +50%; Stealthy, +100%; Always On, -50%) [24]; Pressure Support 2 [10]; Radiation Tolerance (10) [15]; ST without HP +15 [120]; Super Jump 2 [20]; Telescopic Vision 1 [5]; Temperature Tolerance 90 [90]; Vacuum Support [5]. Once you have a point cost, one approach is to treat the item as a metatronic generator (Pyramid #3/46: Weird Science). The size categories for metatronic generators of course often don't exactly match real gear. It's up to the GM whether to go with "closest size" or "smaller and therefore more expensive". Using the latter approach, the commando battlesuit would cost ~~$178,000, which somewhat to my surprise is cheaper than in the standard system.~~ $1,780,000, which feels more balanced if PCs are buying as signature gear, and even feels right in terms of balance vs. paying cash for a military vehicle. I had an idea for a third approach: model the pricing on that of enchanted sorcerous items (specifically ones built with weapon buffs) using the rules *GURPS Thaumatology: Sorcery. To get EP, you can use 10 + granted advantage value (as if the advantages were granted via an Affliction with no modifiers other than Advantage). This yields prices lower than metatronic generator prices for advantages only worth a few points, but can get very expensive for powerful items because of the "objects of value" rule. In the case of the commando battlesuit, it would have 810 EP, the cost is beyond prohibitive: $4 10^29, beyond the price range of the wealthiest real-world governments. This might be a feature if the GM wants the PCs to have free access to laser pistols while effectively prohibiting potentially game-breaking gear. As an aside, if you cheat a bit and price each function of a multi-function item separately, you can get a price for the commando battlesuit of "only" a few trillion dollars. I honestly don't know which approach is best. Approaches that tie price to point cost seem appropriate for superhero games, but both metatronic generators and my quasi-sorcery system often seem to produce wonky costs. Advice from people who can speak with experience on this would be appreciated. Last edited by Michael Thayne; 01-03-2019 at 11:27 AM. Reason: Dropped a zero in the metatronic generator cost calculation.

01-03-2019, 06:33 AM	#2
AlexanderHowl Join Date: Feb 2016	Re: Methods of pricing higher-TL gear. I generally think that an additive doubling scheme works best (2× for +1 TL, 6× for +2 TL, 14× for +3 TL, 30x for +4 TL, etc.) when combined with a requirement that higher TL equipment must be purchased as Signature Gear (with disposable equipment like ammunition being purchased at 5× normal cost if characters have the ability to replace them every session). In that case, a TL10 Commando Battlesuit with the associated helmet and other various bells and whistles would cost a TL8 hero 60 CP ($600,000 worth of Signature Gear at TL8). This presumes that the TL8 hero can recharge the power cells with TL8 tech, otherwise add another 1 CP for the each E-cell that is replaced every session. They would also need Gadgeteer or a relevant UB.

01-03-2019, 08:45 AM	#4
Stormcrow Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Ronkonkoma, NY	Re: Methods of pricing higher-TL gear. It all depends on how easily one can obtain higher-TL technology, doesn't it? In a realistic game with no time travel, aliens, or super-geniuses, a genuine piece of higher-TL gear is priceless. In a game with all of those elements, people probably get hold of them all the time, so the market for them would be much cheaper. You may not understand the principles on which they work, but if they do work and there's a supply of them, someone will be able to buy them. I think the rule on page B27, in which the cost of higher-TL equipment is doubled for each level of TL it is higher, represents a campaign in which higher-TL equipment is relatively hard to come by. "Once it's gone, it's gone..." Regarding pricing gear as advantages: I don't subscribe to the notion that all GURPS supplements are equal to the Basic Set in importance. An article in Pyramid is a nice idea if you'd like to use it, but it's not The Rules. Supplements that are clearly expansions of things that just couldn't fit in the Basic Set — Magic, Ultra-Tech, etc. — are more "canonical" than worldbooks that study a particular setting, or magazine articles that present alternative rules. Under that condition, I'd understand that a battlesuit couldn't be gotten with character points except with Signature Gear — in which case it has to be an important part of your character, not just useful equipment. And it would require GM approval, and possibly an Unusual Background to explain your access to higher TL effects.

01-03-2019, 10:30 AM	#6
AlexanderHowl Join Date: Feb 2016	Re: Methods of pricing higher-TL gear. In my campaigns, a character without Signature Gear for higher TL equipment is going to find it destroyed or stolen within the first couple of sessions. Now, if they have High TL, they might be able to repair or replace it, but it is not going to be available for purchase, as it is effectively priceless. Of course, this assumes they are on a world with lower TL than their own, as everything is relative to the setting rather than the character

01-03-2019, 11:33 AM	#7
Michael Thayne Join Date: May 2010	Re: Methods of pricing higher-TL gear. Whoops, I dropped a zero in my cost calculation for battlesuit-as-metatronic-generator. Fixed it in the OP. One thing I wonder about: the rules for metatronic generators don't say anything about DR. There's a case that for game-balance reasons items with unusual amounts of DR should be more expensive due to being harder for enemies to destroy in combat. But maybe ignoring DR in cost calculations was intentional.

01-03-2019, 06:59 AM	#3
Rupert Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Wellington, NZ	Re: Methods of pricing higher-TL gear. I'm not a fan of requiring Signature Gear for this. For one thing, it's actually cheaper than Wealth until Very Wealthy, and if characters are otherwise limited to 20% of starting wealth for adventuring kit it takes Multimillionaire 1 to make Wealth worthwhile. As making Wealth advantages worth having is tricky already, and Signature Gear grants very strong plot protection to the gear, I think that's incentivising the wrong purchase. Also, Signature Gear locks the character into a particular 'build', because it's really a way of making gear into a fixed ability of the character, and unlike normal gear your lose points when you trade it for other gear. Combined with your increased costs for high TL gear you reduce the value of the High TL advantage, as well as Wealth, and weld high TL characters to their gear. This might be fine in a supers or one of those anime-style mecha games where the heroes stumbled onto their suits, but I don't like it as a generic set of house rules. I presume Your Mileage Varies. __________________ Rupert Boleyn "A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history."

01-03-2019, 12:35 PM	#10
AlexanderHowl Join Date: Feb 2016	Re: Methods of pricing higher-TL gear. The rule is not that it is doubled, it is the base cost, plus double base for +1 TL, plus 4x base cost for +2 TL, plus 8x base cost for +3 TL, etc. The sequence is 1-3-7-15-31-63-127-255-511-1023-2047-4097-8195. If you have a $10 TL12 device in a TL0 campaign, it will have an effective value of $81,950.