10-30-2016, 02:24 AM | #71 |
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Central Europe
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Re: Banestorm Navies
Another possibility for a magical hull might be shaping stone into the right shape. That is No Mana Zone proof (the transformed shape is not magical) but choosing a shape which is buoyant enough but light and not too fragile could be a challenge.
Yet another would be magically cooled ice or an ice-sawdust mix. That has been toyed with as recently as WW II, I think.
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"It is easier to banish a habit of thought than a piece of knowledge." H. Beam Piper This forum got less aggravating when I started using the ignore feature Last edited by Polydamas; 10-30-2016 at 02:29 AM. |
10-30-2016, 02:28 AM | #72 |
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Central Europe
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Re: Banestorm Navies
I don't own Pyramid 3/54, but SJ Games describes it as "an assortment of optional rules for making multilingual settings easier (and cheaper for heroes), by GURPS guru Jason "PK" Levine." RPK's house rule was explicit that he was mashing together loosely- or unrelated languages (and completely ignoring the way that an Ossie and a Schweitzer may not be able to understand each other unless they make a point of speaking Hochdeutsch) based merely on the map of the world as seen in American, Canadian, and British adventure fiction and a desire to limit the total number of languages.
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"It is easier to banish a habit of thought than a piece of knowledge." H. Beam Piper This forum got less aggravating when I started using the ignore feature |
10-30-2016, 03:03 AM | #73 |
Wielder of Smart Pants
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
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Re: Banestorm Navies
Sure, but people who invest in languages being able to communicate makes games fun. Presumably modern people being able to manage in Yttaria is also fun; so the decision to forbid that seens unfun, and thus surprising.
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10-30-2016, 03:14 AM | #74 | |
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Central Europe
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Re: Banestorm Navies
Quote:
It seemed to me that you criticized the language rules in Pyramid #3/54 for not being realistic, so its not fair to turn around and criticize them for being realistic at the expense of pulpy fun. In our world, lots of people spend six months in a strange culture until they learn what GURPS would call Broken proficiency in the local lingua franca. Living through that is no fun, but in retrospect (or in stories) it tends to blur together.
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"It is easier to banish a habit of thought than a piece of knowledge." H. Beam Piper This forum got less aggravating when I started using the ignore feature Last edited by Polydamas; 10-30-2016 at 03:18 AM. |
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10-30-2016, 03:26 AM | #75 |
Wielder of Smart Pants
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
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Re: Banestorm Navies
I don't recall ever criticizing it. I am currently using those rules.
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10-30-2016, 05:19 AM | #76 | |
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Central Europe
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Re: Banestorm Navies
Quote:
But Pyramid #3/54 "Speaking in Tongues" is one work by one author which offers one set of choices about where to set the balance between realism and fictional conventions, and Banestorm is another work by other authors which offers another set. Just like Tactical Shooting and Gun Fu! SJ Games does not force one set of choices on all works by all authors, because the right choices for a pulp game about treasure hunters and Lovecraftian horrors are different from the right choices for a "slice of life in the Old West" game.
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"It is easier to banish a habit of thought than a piece of knowledge." H. Beam Piper This forum got less aggravating when I started using the ignore feature Last edited by Polydamas; 10-30-2016 at 05:22 AM. |
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10-30-2016, 06:33 AM | #77 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: U.K.
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Re: Banestorm Navies
Quote:
My impulse to realism there may be annoying to people who'd much prefer Anglish to be modern English with a few cod-Shakespearean sirrahs and zounds, and I guess I should have anticipated this. It seems to have been a convention of 3e worldbooks that modern English is in fact a strange attractor in linguistic n-space - never mind Yrth, we have Centrum speaking it - but I've read just enough Chaucer to suppress that reflex.
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10-30-2016, 07:09 AM | #78 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Buffalo, New York
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Re: Banestorm Navies
Quote:
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10-30-2016, 09:20 AM | #79 |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: Banestorm Navies
It's a non-applicable can of worms. Essential Wood isn't an Area Spell. As previously stated it's a Regular one.
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Fred Brackin |
10-30-2016, 01:17 PM | #80 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Buffalo, New York
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Re: Banestorm Navies
Quote:
If you have the PDF for GURPS MAGIC for 4e, and do a search on "exclude", the following spell types do allow for excluding things that the spell affects at the wish/desire of the spell caster: Area Information Regular (specifically page 94 for Cleansing) Special One spell in particular can NOT exclude anything in its area of effect, and that's Suspend Magic (see page 123). If you look at page 11 under spell classes, you can find in the middle top page the following: "• Name a subject; e.g., “The closest person in the next room,” or, “George, who I know is around here somewhere.” The GM determines the actual range to the subject. This is risky! If the subject is farther away than you think – or simply absent – you are inviting failure or even critical failure!" In theory, could one cast the spell on "Only Oak" within a target as a Naming the subject and bypass entirely, any other non-oak wood? If paper is left aboard a ship with a size 7 modifier, would it too be turned into essential wood? How about paper that is suspended in mid-air by a spell, not in contact with anything of the ship at the time it is turned into essential wood? Would Rope be turned into essential wood at the time of casting, or can someone specify "only wood" being turned into essential wood? The implications of those questions such that they don't seem to be addressed by RAW is one of the reasons why Sean Punch became THE KROMM in the heyday of GURPSNET mailing list. Heck, even Sean has made some off the cuff comments about "I don't see why not" when someone asked if they could treat the shape of an area spell as being mutable/variable. Sean's comment along the lines of "Seems like a good idea" was responded to by myself privately along the lines of "You do realize that mages who can cast say, a 7 hex radius spell, and starting one or two hexes from their current location, can hit a target that is approximately 127 or 128 yards away with zero or -1 skill penalty." Taking a few mages working a "Volley fire" type tactic using rectangular shaped spells instead of circular area effect spells, makes it unwise to use mass formations in battles against magic enhanced armies. In the end, it will be up to the GM to decide whether they wish to adhere to a given standard for their game world or not. Simply specifying that excluding things from a spell effect is strictly the domain of area or informational spells is not entirely correct. |
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