Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > GURPS

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 06-14-2014, 07:32 AM   #1
RainbowFactory
 
RainbowFactory's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2014
Default Making Tornado from onepunch man?

I have been reading a Manga called one punch man for some time now and there is one character with astounding telekinetic abilities. The best example of her power that I can think of is when the earth comes under attack by aliens and they attempt to bombard the city by firing VERY large ballistic shells at it.

http://www.mangahere.co/manga/onepunch_man/c034/21.html

The character uses TK to bring the bullets to a dead stop, reverse them and Bombard the aliens ships with its own shells.

How many levels of TK would be needed to pull off a feat like that?
Is it unrealistic?
RainbowFactory is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-14-2014, 07:40 AM   #2
Nereidalbel
 
Join Date: May 2013
Location: Ellicott City, MD
Default Re: Making Tornado from onepunch man?

This definitely falls into the realm of "really really stupid levels with Super Effort, and a bit of power stunting that just happens to fit the plot."
Nereidalbel is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-14-2014, 07:51 AM   #3
RainbowFactory
 
RainbowFactory's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2014
Default Re: Making Tornado from onepunch man?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nereidalbel View Post
This definitely falls into the realm of "really really stupid levels with Super Effort, and a bit of power stunting that just happens to fit the plot."
So you think it would be a waste of time to make this then?
RainbowFactory is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-14-2014, 07:55 AM   #4
Nereidalbel
 
Join Date: May 2013
Location: Ellicott City, MD
Default Re: Making Tornado from onepunch man?

Quote:
Originally Posted by RainbowFactory View Post
So you think it would be a waste of time to make this then?
It's just a ridiculous level of TK with enough Area Effect to catch the entire salvo. Without knowing the total mass of the shells, you're just guessing how many levels is enough.
Nereidalbel is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-14-2014, 08:10 AM   #5
RainbowFactory
 
RainbowFactory's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2014
Default Re: Making Tornado from onepunch man?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nereidalbel View Post
It's just a ridiculous level of TK with enough Area Effect to catch the entire salvo. Without knowing the total mass of the shells, you're just guessing how many levels is enough.
Yeah, I figured.
RainbowFactory is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-14-2014, 08:30 AM   #6
whswhs
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
Default Re: Making Tornado from onepunch man?

Use Ultrapower from GURPS Supers; that's the kind of thing it's there to emulate.

Bill Stoddard
whswhs is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 06-14-2014, 08:52 AM   #7
Mailanka
 
Mailanka's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Eindhoven, the Netherlands
Default Re: Making Tornado from onepunch man?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nereidalbel View Post
This definitely falls into the realm of "really really stupid levels with Super Effort, and a bit of power stunting that just happens to fit the plot."
Quote:
Originally Posted by RainbowFactory View Post
So you think it would be a waste of time to make this then?
As a power? Yes. As a concept? No.

Shonen anime is full of this sort of thing and I think it's wise to encourage your players to experiment this way with one-off uses of their powers.

How does this sort of thing work? GURPS Powers page 173 tells us what we need to know: You can do anything as long as it's appropriately related to its power, provided it doesn't exceed the point-cost of the ability itself.

So say your character has 100 points worth of TK (which, I believe, gives him ST 20). He might try to stop bullets by erecting a DR 15-ish force field. He doesn't have the ability to make a DR 15 force field, but it fits within the concept of telekinesis. So, according to the above page, we pay one 3 fatigue and roll against Will at -10 (-8 because we're ~around 100% of cost, and -2 because we're using a utility ability to create a defense). We can spend additional fatigue to drawn down that penalty a bit.

That's tough but doable, especially if we allow some sort of skill (say, Power Blow) to stand in place of the Will, and especially if we have energy reserves. But typically, shonen anime features a character achieving greater than normal power. The character might wrap the shield around himself and augment his own ST by 20 points as well, so we get a DR of 20 and +20 ST. That's not 100 points of ability, that's ~300. This is not possible with the above.

However, in GURPS Power-Ups 5, page 13, we have "Improvisations." For every character point we spend, the hero can temporarily gain 5 points of ability. So, if we want to telekinetically empower ourselves as above, we subtract the existing 100 from the new advantage (leaving us with 200) and divide that cost by 5: 40. That's how many character points we have to pay to activate that temporarily.

That seems ridiculously expensive, but we can cut that to 1/25th if we argue that this isn't a new ability but an "alternative" to an existing ability. It's too expensive, and thus not within the rules, but it's your game and nobody is going to break down your door and drag you off to GURPS prison if you make it 1/25th of the cost. So, in this case, 8 points.

That's a little more doable, but players aren't going to want to burn their own store of points very often, But we can fix that. Power Up 5: Impulse Buys has the answer!

Shonen Anime is full of training montages and deep relationships. Shonen heroes have only to be reminded of how their father has pinned his hopes on them, how his love interest needs him, how his teacher has trusted him, how his friends look up to him, and suddenly he burns with inner might. So, we give him 1 "Spirit Stone" everytime he has a deep/cool RP scene with a relationship, or a few "Spirit Stones" whenever he does a training montage, or 1 spirit stone whenever he does something very dramatically appropriate or is very poetically descriptive of what he does. These "Spirit Stones" or "Spirit Points" act like character points, but they are never spent to improve the character. Instead, they are saved in a separate pool, and used whenever your character needs to be awesome. You can use them to power the tricks above, or apply them as a cost to certain powers (Say, you have a transformation to a more powerful state. Divide its cost by 5, and you have to pay a Spirit Stone whenever you want to change into that form), or for Bullet Time (GURPS Martial Arts), for Flesh Wounds, for automatic successes in battle, and the list goes on. If you want some niche protection, require perks for certain uses (Only speedy characters can get the bullet time, for example)

The only remaining problem is that you want all of this stuff to come out when it's dramatically appropriate. That's easy enough! Require a Will roll for all of these abilities (That means players are likely to be highly willful, but that's quite in genre), and apply a heavy penalty to that roll... but add a bonus whenever the situation becomes more intense or dire. If the hero wants to form the TK-armor when he faces some cowering pickpocket on the street? -10, as usual. When he faces a dangerous assassin for the Order of Fallen Pillars? Then -7. After said assassin has revealed that he has taken the hero's father prisoner? -4. After his best friend has taken a wound to protect the hero, and after the hero himself has been wounded badly? +2.

If the player does want to spend out of his reserve, allow him to go into "point-debt." Reckon the cost later. Once the player has finished the battle, you can assess the permanent damage. Say the player is now at -5 points. Don't let the player just pay for that with points! Either save up that debt, or negotiate with the player as to what might be a cool, long-term consequence to enjoy as a result of pushing their powers too far. Perhaps his control begins to fray (Bad-Temper (15)), he's beginning to go mad (Phantom Voices) or it caused some kind of lingering wound (Wounded).

Finally, I recommend defining powers with your players, as suggested in GURPS Powers. Include power-modifiers, talents, ability-lists, everything. Allow the players to develop and explore their powers, especially with perks and unique skills, so their development parallels martial arts development. I also suggest a unique energy reserve to cover the fatigue costs of improvisation, power use, and other Powers tricks. Spending Spirit Stones can replenish up to 25 points of this energy reserve.

The net result will be players who are heavily encouraged to have social ties around them and to interact with their fellow students/allies/soldiers/teammates/whatever, to fall in love, to have families, and who will eagerly give you hooks to exploit for dramatic necessity (since that only empowers them to be even more awesome!) Players will hesitate to use their epic powers when they face minor challenges (though expect it at least once or twice, because players will want to power-trip-out at least once, and that's also in genre). But when the chips are down and the players really need to excel, they will flip out in dramatic, poetic ways, and you should get a very shonen fight.

TL;DR: Use GURPS Powers to define the powers your PCs have. Give them Energy Reserves. Allow Power Improvisations and other options from Powers. Give players "Spirit Points" whenever they fulfill the tropes of a shonen anime, go through a training montage, or interact meaningfully with a character with whom they have a relationship. Allow them to use these spirit points to pay for Power Improvisations and other options, and make it easier to do so whenever the stakes get high enough.
__________________
My Blog: Mailanka's Musing. Currently Playing: Psi-Wars, a step-by-step exploration of building your own Space Opera setting, inspired by Star Wars.
Mailanka is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Tags
telekinesis

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 05:09 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.