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Old 06-22-2012, 01:59 PM   #21
DouglasCole
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/44: Alternate GURPS II

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Originally Posted by vierasmarius View Post
Sounds like I may need to do some tweaking before implementing it in-game, especially when it comes to normally FP-powered options like Extra Effort, spells and chi skills (ie, the "powers" most often used in DF-style games). I'm assuming since you made no mention of Energy Reserve that its recovery rules are unchanged, and anything powered by ER should retain its normal energy cost. Abilities powered by FP may either see their cost drop by a factor of roughly 10, or else rise by a factor of 10 as an AP cost. This does leave a precarious middle ground of about 3-5 FP, where it doesn't feel right to charge a whole FP, but 30-50 AP is beyond what can be spent in combat. Hmm... I suspect that there's an appropriate exchange rate somewhere in there, maybe something like 5 AP + 3 AP per FP (since a lot of AP all at once is harder to deal with than the same amount spread over multiple seconds).
I speak to this a bit in the section where I talk about Enthrallment type skills.

If something costs (say) 5 FP, you'd expect to be able to use it roughly once an hour. That translates to HALF a FP, more or less (or 1FP and Fit).

So an AP cost would be appropriate here, and it should probably be about 5-10AP. If it's 5 AP, Joe AVerage can do it back-to-back twice before having to rest for 2 hours. (average use rate 1 per hour, then!) which seems to match the frequency of the original ability.

Edit: That's probably how I'd try and price these. How many times can you use them per hour with the original ability, and how many AP (more or less) does that equate to. So if something used to cost 9 FP (huge), that means you can use it twice every three hours, or four times every 6 hours.

So 6 hours is 3 FP. If you assume 10 FP to start, spending 3 FP back to back will give you back 15 more AP. So 25 total AP spent over four uses . . . 6 AP per use.

Now, that DOES mean that if you're careful with your AP and recovery, you can probably recover those 6 AP in less than 10 seconds! THAT probably means that using the ability probably requires some long concentrate maneuvers (during which you can't recover AP) to balance things.

Tweakage will likely (certainly!) be required, since GURPS is a big system and many funky powers and abilities can either coexist, or not, by GM decision.
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Last edited by DouglasCole; 06-22-2012 at 02:03 PM.
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Old 06-22-2012, 02:16 PM   #22
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/44: Alternate GURPS II

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Originally Posted by vierasmarius View Post
Sounds like I may need to do some tweaking before implementing it in-game, especially when it comes to normally FP-powered options like Extra Effort, spells and chi skills (ie, the "powers" most often used in DF-style games). I'm assuming since you made no mention of Energy Reserve that its recovery rules are unchanged, and anything powered by ER should retain its normal energy cost. Abilities powered by FP may either see their cost drop by a factor of roughly 10, or else rise by a factor of 10 as an AP cost. This does leave a precarious middle ground of about 3-5 FP, where it doesn't feel right to charge a whole FP, but 30-50 AP is beyond what can be spent in combat. Hmm... I suspect that there's an appropriate exchange rate somewhere in there, maybe something like 5 AP + 3 AP per FP (since a lot of AP all at once is harder to deal with than the same amount spread over multiple seconds).
While Doug decided that there wasn't space in the article (it's a very long article) for it, I told him while he was writing it that he should have a section on FP-powered abilities. In the end all we got was a note stating that the GM can convert them to APs, and proposes a single ratio (a cost of 1 FP turns to a cost of 10 AP), though making it clear that it's not set in stone. I personally think that the ratio is too punishing, and would feel much more comfortable with a 1:5 FP:AP conversion for costs. Maybe 1:4 conversion.
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Old 06-22-2012, 02:19 PM   #23
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/44: Alternate GURPS II

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Oh, this reminds me of another thought I had, something along the lines of a Vitality Reserve, an extra pool of "green chips". This would certainly be more valuable than simply Extra FP, which would be distributed 1/1/2 into the green/yellow/red piles. Maybe Extra FP (Cosmic, +50%)? Or should they just boost their total FP by 4 if they want the +1 mild fatigue? Hmm... I suppose it could be something like Extra FP 4 (Mild only, -X%), but that's getting kinda wonky.
Um, unless I'm misunderstanding the article, "deep" fatigue is negative FP, so you automatically get 1 "red" fatigue every time you get a "green" or "yellow" FP. So you only only need to buy 2 FP per "green" FP (a 1/1 distribution).

Or did I misunderstand you?
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Old 06-22-2012, 02:23 PM   #24
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/44: Alternate GURPS II

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Um, unless I'm misunderstanding the article, "deep" fatigue is negative FP, so you automatically get 1 "red" fatigue every time you get a "green" or "yellow" FP. So you only only need to buy 2 FP per "green" FP (a 1/1 distribution).

Or did I misunderstand you?
No, you're right. Thinking about it as 3 separate pools made me forget that the combined total is 2 x FP. Which brings to mind Doug's first mention of this article, when he was planning on an even more dramatic rewrite of the fatigue rules...
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Old 06-22-2012, 02:32 PM   #25
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/44: Alternate GURPS II

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Originally Posted by Kuroshima View Post
While Doug decided that there wasn't space in the article (it's a very long article) for it, I told him while he was writing it that he should have a section on FP-powered abilities. In the end all we got was a note stating that the GM can convert them to APs, and proposes a single ratio (a cost of 1 FP turns to a cost of 10 AP), though making it clear that it's not set in stone. I personally think that the ratio is too punishing, and would feel much more comfortable with a 1:5 FP:AP conversion for costs. Maybe 1:4 conversion.
The 1:4 to 1:6 range seems to work for abilities that can be used in the "a few times per day, possibly in combat" range. If you want something that is usually only used once or twice per day, you'll want something closer to 10 AP.

Just remember that the thing about AP is that someone with HT 10 will have a 90% chance of recovering an AP every second using Do Nothing maneuvers. So you can, by resting for 11 seconds, pretty much guarantee that you're fresh up.

This impacts Combat abilities far more than non-combat ones. If you have to cast several spells in lethal combat in a row, you're going to be TIRED (since you'll drain your AP, and start burning FP or destiny points to keep going).

For buffing spells and stuff you can do outside of combat, you almost NEED the "punishingly high" level of AP expenditure to slow down the rate at which you can do things.

So AP costs low enough to allow an adventurer to rap out several uses within a single combat engagement are crazy low if used in non-combat time.

This might say that, for example, you can EITHER spend 10 AP to power (say) a fireball spell for 1d, or 1 FP to power it for 10d Explosive! (or something like that). So if you choose to take the "yeah, I can do this over and over, with 10 sec between each one" route, you get a reliable, steady, low-level effect. If you do something that takes 2 hours to recover, you scorch the battlefield.
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Old 06-22-2012, 02:37 PM   #26
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/44: Alternate GURPS II

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No, you're right. Thinking about it as 3 separate pools made me forget that the combined total is 2 x FP. Which brings to mind Doug's first mention of this article, when he was planning on an even more dramatic rewrite of the fatigue rules...
I can tell you what happened here.

My original proposal, and the way the article was written, was that it took longer and longer to recover FP. EACH ONE took longer to recovery by roughly 1.5x as the one before it (they followed the speed/range progression). Recovering all 2xFP that you have to spend (from FP to -FP) took the same roughly three weeks, but each one recovered at a different rate.

This appealed to me sense of having "analog" equations. It made each FP worse than the one before it, though the first significant bunch recovered just fine in a few hours.

Problem was, it was STUPIDLY COMPLEX in even "thought experiment" play. The tiered approach that made it into the article achieved more or less the same goals, but required way less thought from players, and with the red/yellow/green token idea for mild/severe/deep fatigue, it really shines as "yeah, this is just not an issue" even if you're keeping track of AP and FP.
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Old 06-22-2012, 02:40 PM   #27
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/44: Alternate GURPS II

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Originally Posted by DouglasCole View Post
The 1:4 to 1:6 range seems to work for abilities that can be used in the "a few times per day, possibly in combat" range. If you want something that is usually only used once or twice per day, you'll want something closer to 10 AP.

Just remember that the thing about AP is that someone with HT 10 will have a 90% chance of recovering an AP every second using Do Nothing maneuvers. So you can, by resting for 11 seconds, pretty much guarantee that you're fresh up.

This impacts Combat abilities far more than non-combat ones. If you have to cast several spells in lethal combat in a row, you're going to be TIRED (since you'll drain your AP, and start burning FP or destiny points to keep going).

For buffing spells and stuff you can do outside of combat, you almost NEED the "punishingly high" level of AP expenditure to slow down the rate at which you can do things.

So AP costs low enough to allow an adventurer to rap out several uses within a single combat engagement are crazy low if used in non-combat time.

This might say that, for example, you can EITHER spend 10 AP to power (say) a fireball spell for 1d, or 1 FP to power it for 10d Explosive! (or something like that). So if you choose to take the "yeah, I can do this over and over, with 10 sec between each one" route, you get a reliable, steady, low-level effect. If you do something that takes 2 hours to recover, you scorch the battlefield.
The thing is, a spell can easily cost 5+ FP. That's once per hour (though with Recover Energy 20, you recover 5 FP in 10 minutes). However, 5+ FP under a 1 FP->10 APs exchange rate results in a 50 AP cost, that back converts to 9 FP for an HT 10 individual. Mind you, a 5 FP cost spell isn't a particularly strong one (you need to go to 8-10 FP ones for that).
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Old 06-22-2012, 02:45 PM   #28
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/44: Alternate GURPS II

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Originally Posted by DouglasCole View Post

So AP costs low enough to allow an adventurer to rap out several uses within a single combat engagement are crazy low if used in non-combat time.

This might say that, for example, you can EITHER spend 10 AP to power (say) a fireball spell for 1d, or 1 FP to power it for 10d Explosive! (or something like that). So if you choose to take the "yeah, I can do this over and over, with 10 sec between each one" route, you get a reliable, steady, low-level effect. If you do something that takes 2 hours to recover, you scorch the battlefield.
How about a meta rule?
In Combat your adrenaline allows you to convert FP spent on selected combat abilities (spells and advantages but not Extra Effort) to AP at the approved ratio. Ratio being as a possible example 5 AP per 1 FP.
Outside of combat and stressful urgent situations you use normal FP rules and costs.
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Old 06-22-2012, 02:47 PM   #29
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/44: Alternate GURPS II

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How about a meta rule?
In Combat your adrenaline allows you to convert FP spent on selected combat abilities (spells and advantages but not Extra Effort) to AP at the approved ratio. Ratio being as a possible example 5 AP per 1 FP.
Outside of combat and stressful urgent situations you use normal FP rules and costs.
Note that this makes the costs for non-combat use cripplingly bad, pretty much making it so that mages would actively seek out combat so they can, for example, heal someone without being completely unable to use magic for the next week or so.
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Old 06-22-2012, 03:47 PM   #30
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/44: Alternate GURPS II

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I only realised this year that SJG and e23 have two different password logins. If you change one, forget which it was, then sign in to the other... Hilarity ensues.
Do you mean the forums and e23? If so... yeah, you're right; that's rough. :-) They use separate login systems.

If you mean you have a separate login for (say) e23 and W23/JTAS/whatever, that shouldn't be the case; there's a (mostly) unified login system for them. If need be, I can merge two accounts... email me at the address below, and we can sort it out.

(This is an open offer to anyone who finds themselves with multiple e23/SJG/JTAS/whatever accounts.)
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