Pyramid #3/120: Alternate GURPS V

[SteamBub]

Originally Posted by Tyneras

Not an actual play session, but tinkering with Quintessence feels good....

For example, the DF wizard with IQ 12 (still smart) Will 15, FP 11 and QN 15 has 4 points left over, more spell-juice (since it's not split with physical demands) and just as much resistance to mental assault as before. The only drop is in IQ-based skills, spells are unchanged.

Hmm, now I think about it, I can see it working with GURPS DF because of all of the power-ups, magic types, and psi stuff in the game. I may use it in my next campaign.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by SteamBub

Hmm, now I think about it, I can see it working with GURPS DF because of all of the power-ups, magic types, and psi stuff in the game. I may use it in my next campaign.

I think I will try it for my martial artist types.

[scc]

Originally Posted by SteamBub

Hmm, now I think about it, I can see it working with GURPS DF because of all of the power-ups, magic types, and psi stuff in the game. I may use it in my next campaign.

Not really, this is for settings with a single indiscriminate source of mystical power, where sometimes the characters will cast spells, other times they will have psychic powers, and yet still other times they have martial arts abilities. Other settings, like DF, will have a complex interplay between abilities and some people be very good with one powers, but unable to use another.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by SteamBub

Hmm, now I think about it, I can see it working with GURPS DF because of all of the power-ups, magic types, and psi stuff in the game. I may use it in my next campaign.

Let us know how it goes!

I almost added a fifth attribute to the DFRPG but decided against it, both to maintain compatibility with GURPS and to avoid actually increasing system complexity. But I've always felt that brains and a gift for the supernatural would work well as separate concepts. If nothing else, having artificers, innkeepers, scholars, and thieves be "cunning" or "educated," while people who possess strange powers and cast spells are more "attuned," might make the former group more desirable as PCs.

I have no real problem with it being the same attribute for bards, clerics, druids, elementalists, incanters, mentalists, necromancers, shamans, and wizards. That's already the case anyway: They all base their special abilities on the same IQ score and spend energy from the same FP score. At least with QN and QP, supernatural skills and energy would be separated from mundane IQ-based skills and ordinary physical FP. "Sensitive to unnatural forces, regardless of type" seems no more over-general than "smart, regardless of field of endeavor," and separating the two feels less top-heavy.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

The downside here is armor, though. Subtraction and logs are not terribly friendly, but with armor as dice, you'd subtract armor from dice (or DR from average damage of 17.5) and look up the remainder on the Wound Potential table.

I was looking at a loharithmic damage system and found you could do something like "If logDam exceeds logDR by one, treat the injury as logDam-3. If it exceeds by 2 or 3, treat it as logDam-1. If 4 or more, armor doesn't meaningfully reduce the damage."

Numbers are untested and from memory (posting from work).

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by RyanW

I was looking at a loharithmic damage system and found you could do something like "If logDam exceeds logDR by one, treat the injury as logDam-3. If it exceeds by 2 or 3, treat it as logDam-1. If 4 or more, armor doesn't meaningfully reduce the damage."

Numbers are untested and from memory (posting from work).

I did exactly that for healing, I believe, and it works out mathematically if not being super-simple.

I'd have to think a bit (I'm significantly ill right now; brain not working) on Anthony's suggestion to ensure that it doesn't turn the Severity ratings, which are basically the equivalent of HP/2, 0.7xHP, HP, 1.5xHP, 2xHP, etc into, say, (HP+DR), 1.5x(HP+DR), 2x(HP+DR) because that overcounts DR. If his suggestion is the equivalent of adding DR once to each level, it works.

[bert]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Let us know how it goes!

I almost added a fifth attribute to the DFRPG but decided against it, both to maintain compatibility with GURPS and to avoid actually increasing system complexity. But I've always felt that brains and a gift for the supernatural would work well as separate concepts. If nothing else, having artificers, innkeepers, scholars, and thieves be "cunning" or "educated," while people who possess strange powers and cast spells are more "attuned," might make the former group more desirable as PCs.

I have no real problem with it being the same attribute for bards, clerics, druids, elementalists, incanters, mentalists, necromancers, shamans, and wizards. That's already the case anyway: They all base their special abilities on the same IQ score and spend energy from the same FP score. At least with QN and QP, supernatural skills and energy would be separated from mundane IQ-based skills and ordinary physical FP. "Sensitive to unnatural forces, regardless of type" seems no more over-general than "smart, regardless of field of endeavor," and separating the two feels less top-heavy.

Did you ever decouple Will and Per from IQ in your games? If specifically Will was decoupled from IQ, would you still consider adding an attribute like QN?

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by bert

Did you ever decouple Will and Per from IQ in your games?

Nope.

Originally Posted by bert

If specifically Will was decoupled from IQ, would you still consider adding an attribute like QN?

Yep. I think IQ comes close to being way too good a deal. However, I don't think Will-as-resistance-to-strange-powers is the sole reason for this.

I see IQ as being at least four things in one: mundane skill base, supernatural skill base, Will, and Per. Moreover, "mundane skill base" still feels over-broad, as personal experience suggests that social intelligence has little or nothing to do with the classic kind. If the latter were strictly its own thing, I'd have less difficulty using it for artistic, scientific, and technical skills. Personal experience also suggests that while some people have narrow talents, smart money is on the person who's good with one of, say, astronomy, computers, drawing, household repairs, math, and writing being good at most of the rest; that's based on not one but several real people.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Nope.

Yep. I think IQ comes close to being way too good a deal. However, I don't think Will-as-resistance-to-strange-powers is the sole reason for this.

I see IQ as being at least four things in one: mundane skill base, supernatural skill base, Will, and Per. Moreover, "mundane skill base" still feels over-broad, as personal experience suggests that social intelligence has little or nothing to do with the classic kind. If the latter were strictly its own thing, I'd have less difficulty using it for artistic, scientific, and technical skills. Personal experience also suggests that while some people have narrow talents, smart money is on the person who's good with one of, say, astronomy, computers, drawing, household repairs, math, and writing being good at most of the rest; that's based on not one but several real people.

In a very real way, the more I have studied disparate martial arts, the more I feel this is true for some physical activities as well. I was selected to be a viking martial arts instructor after having had only a few weeks or months of training in that particular style. But my teaching skills were good, and over a decade of movement and general distance and situational awareness training made me one of the better students in the class. Not the best one, but close.

Picking up an axe, one-handed sword, spear (that one was a direct transfer of other knowledge with staff) and other weapons required only a re-learning of certain stance-based body mechanics that work when you've got a defensive object (shield) you want to constantly keep in the way, and a slightly different order of operations for striking.

In any case, I think you're on to something broader than IQ here, and would be fascinated to look at alternate ways of handling such. I've even got ideas...

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

I'd have to think a bit (I'm significantly ill right now; brain not working) on Anthony's suggestion to ensure that it doesn't turn the Severity ratings, which are basically the equivalent of HP/2, 0.7xHP, HP, 1.5xHP, 2xHP, etc into, say, (HP+DR), 1.5x(HP+DR), 2x(HP+DR) because that overcounts DR. If his suggestion is the equivalent of adding DR once to each level, it works.

It's a bit complicated to get it to work well with armor divisors and wound modifiers. Here's a low resolution system:
Wounding Thresholds

• ST/5: -1 Shock penalty
• ST/5+1: (same as above)
• ST/5+2: -2 Shock penalty
• ST/5+3: -3 Shock penalty
• ST/5+4: Major Wound
• ST/5+5: Crippling Wound (equivalent to being at 3 hp or less)
• ST/5+6: Disabling wound (equivalent to being at 0 hp or less)
• ST/5+7: (same as above)
• ST/5+8: Mortal wound (equivalent to being at -HP or less)
• ST/5+9: Mortal wound 2 (equivalent to being at -2x HP or less)
• ST/5+9: Mortal wound 3 (equivalent to being at -4x HP or less)
• ST/5+10: Dead

Armor Ratings and Additions
Armor Rating is 4 + range/speed modifier for legacy DR. If multiple layers of armor are present, find the strongest armor layer and adjust for the weaker as follows:

• Difference 0-1: +2
• Difference 2-4: +1

If more than two layers are present, add one layer at a time, using the combined AR.
Armor Adjusted Wound Thresholds
Use the rules for armor addition to add your armor rating and your wound threshold -- so someone at ST 10 in DR 1 (AR 2) armor has layers as follows:

• -1 Shock penalty: combine (2) and (2) for (4)
• -1 Shock penalty: combine (3) and (2) for (5)
• -2 Shock penalty: combine (4) and (2) for (5)
• -3 Shock penalty: combine (5) and (2) for (6)
• Major Wound: combine (6) and (2) for (7)
• Crippling Wound and Above: no change

Attacks
Attacks are noted as 1d+X[+Y]. For attacks with no armor divisor, X is 4 + range/speed modifier for legacy dice, Y is +2 for Imp or Pi++, +1 for Cut or Pi+, -2 for Pi-, and 0 for all other attacks. For attacks with armor divisors, modify both X and Y as follows:

• (0.1): -6 X, +6 Y.
• (0.2): -4 X, +4 Y.
• (0.5): -2 X, +2 Y.
• (2): +2 X, -2 Y.
• (3): +3 X, -3 Y.
• (5): +4 X, -4 Y.
• (10): +6 X, -6 Y.

Example: a sword doing 1d+2 cut becomes 1d+3[+1].
Damage Resolution
Roll 1d+X and compare to AAWS to determine base wound level. If Y is not 0, count up or down Y rows. Thus, if our sample above gets hit by a sword and rolls a 3, we look up 6 and discover a basic level of (-3 shock), but wounding modifier is +1 so we count down a level to (major wound).