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Old 01-07-2007, 12:58 AM   #1
TheQuestionMan
 
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Default [GURPS] Powers - What have you used it for?

Greeting GURPS Fans, I do not know enough about GURPS Powers 4e, but I have the entire GURPS Supers line and GURPS Psionics.

My Top Ten Questions are:
01. What Setting have you used GURPS Powers for? (I.S.T., Wild Cards, DC Univers, Marvel Universe, etc...)

02. What Genre it is best suited for? (Fantasy, Modern, Superhero, Space, Cyberpunk, Castle Falkenstein, etc...)

03. What are your Top 5 Favourite things about it?

04. What are your Tops 5 Least Favourite things about it?

05. How difficult is it to Convert from Supers 3e to Powers 4e?

06. What have you used it for in game so far?

07. When did you buy it? (1 Week ago, 1 month ago, etc...)

08. What can you not build with it?

09. How good is the layout?

10. Would you recogment it?




Cheers

QM
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Old 01-07-2007, 01:44 AM   #2
Dormammu
 
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Default Re: [GURPS] Powers - What have you used it for?

I can't answer all 10 of those because they don't all apply to me. I think it is beyond useful if needed... I couldn't set up my current Fantasy project without it. Period. Too many things are in there you can't do without. In my case, I needed it to flesh out Psionics with more than what was in the basic book and to provide an "Invocation" system for priests (I didn't want spells).

If you need any kinds of powers, this book is indispensible. Many campaigns besides Supers would need powers. Pretty much anything supernatural is likely to apply, such as Horror and Fantasy (for the more exotic monsters if nothing else).
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Old 01-07-2007, 02:52 AM   #3
Kelly Pedersen
 
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Default Re: [GURPS] Powers - What have you used it for?

Quote:
Originally Posted by TheQuestionMan
01. What Setting have you used GURPS Powers for? (I.S.T., Wild Cards, DC Univers, Marvel Universe, etc...)
So far, I've used Powers extensively in my Naruto and Starcraft campaigns, and to a lesser extent in my Shadowrun campaign.

Quote:
Originally Posted by TheQuestionMan
02. What Genre it is best suited for? (Fantasy, Modern, Superhero, Space, Cyberpunk, Castle Falkenstein, etc...)
I'd say that Powers is best suited to any genre that involves paranormal powers. Fantasy, psi, supers, and so forth, genres with lots of unusual abilities, will get the most out of it, but Powers is useful for building weird alien racial traits, wacky bionic enhancements for cyberpunks, etc.

Quote:
Originally Posted by TheQuestionMan
05. How difficult is it to Convert from Supers 3e to Powers 4e?
I don't own Supers 3e, I'm afraid. However, I have heard a fair bit about it, and what I've heard suggests that the best solution would be to simply ignore most of the costs and so forth suggested by Supers. It would probably be best to simply decide what the power does, in setting terms, and then try to build it with Powers - this will probably result in point totals rather different than 3e, but the general consensus seems to be that 4e is better in this regard.

Quote:
Originally Posted by TheQuestionMan
06. What have you used it for in game so far?
I used it to build powers for the various characters in my Naruto campaign, and the extensive list of new modifiers has proved extremely useful for building all kinds of characters for all three of my campaigns.

Quote:
Originally Posted by TheQuestionMan
08. What can you not build with it?
Powers tends to ignore "passive" advantages, such as Acute Senses, or Eiditic Memory. Not many new modifiers are provided by the book, though they're still included in the sample powers and guidelines for including them in new powers are provided.

Quote:
Originally Posted by TheQuestionMan
09. How good is the layout?
Quite good indeed - the book has the usual "different colors for different chapters" feature of GURPS 4e books, and the chapters themselves are well organized and attractive. Powers also has fewer, and smaller, art pieces than most 4e books, in order to fit more wordcount in, a feature I appreciate.

Quote:
Originally Posted by TheQuestionMan
10. Would you recogment it?
Oh, lord, yes. Frankly, I'd reccommend it if you're doing anything other than plain vanilla, no-wacky-stuf-at-all realistic roleplaying. You'll probably find a use for it in pretty much any other campaign. It's generally considered the "third Core book", for good reason.
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Old 01-07-2007, 02:57 AM   #4
David Johnston
 
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Default Re: [GURPS] Powers - What have you used it for?

1: So far I haven't "used" it as such. I've yet to start a game since I got it. However I have been designing some characters using it, mostly for a hypothetical World War II supers game.

2. Obviously it's superfluous for mundane games. But it's almost as valuable for space science fiction games as it is for superhero and psionic games. It's not totally useless for swords and sorcery but it depends on how interested you are in advantage-based magic.

3. Obviously my favourite thing about is that it fills in the holes in the system as a supers system. I need illusions and weather control before I'm ready to run supers. I also like the power sources complete with beneficial and limiting options to make their respective natures distinct. It keeps GURPS powers from falling into generic Champions hell. The alternate Fright check table for things that aren't so much frightening as just mindblowingly impressive or weird is a good idea.

4. My least favourite thing is that to create one character you have to keep switching between books. Finding what you want can be a problem. Too much "see page B. 140" and "is that limitation in Characters or Powers"

5. Ehn. Not impossible, but you can't just import characters right over.

6. Redundant question.

7. A bit more than a month ago.

8. Someone who just plain understands all spoken and written language.

9. A bit iffy. I think maybe it suffered from the rush to get the new edition out.

10. Sure. If you want to use GURPS for Supers it's definitely a must-have.
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Old 01-07-2007, 04:24 AM   #5
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Default Re: [GURPS] Powers - What have you used it for?

Quote:
Originally Posted by TheQuestionMan
Greeting GURPS Fans, I do not know enough about GURPS Powers 4e, but I have the entire GURPS Supers line and GURPS Psionics.

My Top Ten Questions are:
01. What Setting have you used GURPS Powers for? (I.S.T., Wild Cards, DC Univers, Marvel Universe, etc...)
  • Cross dimensional supers (so I had characters that originated in the Marvel universe, some from the DC universe, some from manga universes,...)
  • Valdemar (The book series from Mercedes Lackey), basically Fantasy with good psis against evil mages, telepathic animals, fantasy raves abundant,...
  • Generic fantasy race creation in a custom world
Quote:
02. What Genre it is best suited for? (Fantasy, Modern, Superhero, Space, Cyberpunk, Castle Falkenstein, etc...)
Any genre where your characters aren't completely realistic humans (so, if they are mages/psis/chi-powered martial artists/fantasy creatures/people with superscience implants,...)
Quote:
03. What are your Top 5 Favourite things about it?
  • The fact that it takes nearly every advantage in the basic set, and gives you new specific modifiers for it. It also goes through most general modifiers in the basic set and gives them a review, sometimes with more aded options
  • Even more general modifiers to apply to every ability
  • The fact that it gives you suggestions on alternatives to using a given ability to model a given effect
  • The Power stunt rules (So, under periods of stress, you can turn increase the power of your ability/add enhancements and remove limitations/use it in place of a different advantage you do not posses but that makes thematic sense)
  • Illusion, Create, Control and Energy Reserve, that fill the few holes left by the basic set advantages
Quote:
04. What are your Tops 5 Least Favourite things about it?
  • Too much page flipping for my tastes, i.e. when you wish to build one ability, you need to go through the basic set to find the base advantage, look at the modifiers there, turn to Powers and search for that advantage, look at the other specific modifiers there, go back to the basic set for the general modifiers, and then to Powers for more general modifiers
  • Energy Reserve is segregated from the main body of advantages, in an easily ignored box, while being one of the most important additions in the boom IMHO
  • Some modifiers seem to be costed using a different set of guidelines from those in the basic set. Still, it isn't that obvious, and it isn't that unbalancing, though it can lead to WTF moments (Limited use vs Maximum Duration)
  • There is no plan for an unified Characters advantage chapter+Powers advantages and modifiers chapter, so you can have all those options in a single volume (even if it's a PDF or some other sort of electronic document)
  • It takes a while to get our head around the whole Power concept (The psi system in the basic set isn't nearly enough preparation for what comes with Powers). You'll need some time to digest it (but when you do, you'll have one of those DOH! moments when you start to see that it was simpler than you though)
Quote:
05. How difficult is it to Convert from Supers 3e to Powers 4e?
I never used GURPS Supers but the conversion will not be direct, that I'm sure. You'll have to go back to the character concept and rebuild, and costs might change significantly. You should be able to stick to the concept very closely though, nd probably get closer than under 3rd ed. I think that every character can be converted without that much effort once you understand the basics of the new system
Quote:
06. What have you used it for in game so far?
Yep, see question 1, as all those settings correspond to actual games. If you wanted to ask me about what settings I had used Powers for without actually GMing in them, I would need far more space than what fits in a single post
Quote:
07. When did you buy it? (1 Week ago, 1 month ago, etc...)
I preordered it
Quote:
08. What can you not build with it?
In my experience, very few things. Biotech adds a couple of modifiers that should have been in Powers, but for the rest, I have yet to see a character concept from anywhere that I could not translate into GURPS Powers (The point cost is another matter though, but even the movie magneto using the Golden Gate Bridge as an attack craft can be made at reasonable point levels)
Quote:
09. How good is the layout?
Excellent. It's the standard 4th edition layout, but the art is smaller than in other books to fit more text, and it's quite good. It's 3 columns in order to fit all the text, but so where the previous 4th ed books.
Quote:
10. Would you recogment it?
Quote:

Cheers

QM
Wholeheartly. It's Basic Set Volume 3
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Last edited by Kuroshima; 01-07-2007 at 04:39 AM.
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Old 01-07-2007, 09:50 AM   #6
Kelly Pedersen
 
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Default Re: [GURPS] Powers - What have you used it for?

I forgot to mention it in my origial response, but I feel there's another place that Powers sort of fell down for building abilties. Specifically, it gives no particularly good way of creating a character who can enhance an otherwise-normal weapon (the paladin who can pick up any sword and make it holy, for example, or the psi who can use telekinetic force to give their weapons an armor divisor). There are several proposed ways of doing this sort of thing, but I find none of them really satisfying, I'm afraid.
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Old 01-07-2007, 10:05 AM   #7
David Johnston
 
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Default Re: [GURPS] Powers - What have you used it for?

Quote:
Originally Posted by kelly_pedersen
I forgot to mention it in my origial response, but I feel there's another place that Powers sort of fell down for building abilties. Specifically, it gives no particularly good way of creating a character who can enhance an otherwise-normal weapon (the paladin who can pick up any sword and make it holy, for example, or the psi who can use telekinetic force to give their weapons an armor divisor). There are several proposed ways of doing this sort of thing, but I find none of them really satisfying, I'm afraid.
Innate attack, only while holding a weapon.
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Old 01-07-2007, 10:38 AM   #8
Kelly Pedersen
 
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Default Re: [GURPS] Powers - What have you used it for?

Quote:
Originally Posted by David Johnston
Innate attack, only while holding a weapon.
This solution fails to model a large selection of the things I'm thinking about - the holy weapon paladin, for example. Essentially, the character would apply the "Good" power modifier to any weapon they picked up, bypassing DR with "not against Good" limitations automatically. Or the Armor Divisor model I mentioned. How do you design an Innate Attack that will cover shooting someone with a pistol (small piercing damage), stabbing them with a spear (impaling damage), and cutting them with a sword (cutting damage)? Even using alternate attacks, it still gets rididculously expensive, since you'd have to buy attacks for every single damage type in the game, with sufficient dice to cover all levels of damage. Far more expensive than the utility provided, and this is speaking from the experience of a couple of attempts to actually build abilities like this.
Further, even the case of enhancing a single weapon type is not particularly well-balanced, IMO. If Player A can pick up a normal sword and do 1d+1 damage with it, and Player B can pick up a normal sword and do 1d+1 (2) damage, why should Player B be forced to pay for the dice of damage they do? Player A is getting it for free, after all. There should be some practical way of paying for just the armor divisor, not the damage dice.
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Old 01-07-2007, 10:59 AM   #9
David Johnston
 
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Default Re: [GURPS] Powers - What have you used it for?

Quote:
Originally Posted by kelly_pedersen
well-balanced, IMO. If Player A can pick up a normal sword and do 1d+1 damage with it, and Player B can pick up a normal sword and do 1d+1 (2) damage, why should Player B be forced to pay for the dice of damage they do? Player A is getting it for free, after all.
You could apply that same arguement to all innate attacks. But the person getting the innate attack is getting an attack more powerful than any conventional attack. One of the problems with GURPS Supers is that tacking powers onto a conventional item was too big a price break. Oh, by the way, the Paladin who makes all of his attacks Good? I'd call that a Blessed but in most uinverses it's too feeble so it would probably be a perk.
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Old 01-07-2007, 11:26 AM   #10
Kelly Pedersen
 
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Default Re: [GURPS] Powers - What have you used it for?

Quote:
Originally Posted by David Johnston
You could apply that same arguement to all innate attacks. But the person getting the innate attack is getting an attack more powerful than any conventional attack.
Yes, but the power is all in the damage divisor, not the dice itself. I simply don't feel it's fair to have one character be able to pick up a sword and just get damage, and have the other player have to pay for all that damage, even though they're holding the same sword.
As I said, I run a couple of campaigns where this sort of power is an issue. When I proposed the "Innate Attack with Accessibility" solution to the players, the pretty much universal reaction was "Eh, too expensive for what you get." And this is with a pool of ~10 players. Not a statistical sample, I'll admit, but good enough to suggest to me that the utililty of the solution is poor.

Quote:
Originally Posted by David Johnston
One of the problems with GURPS Supers is that tacking powers onto a conventional item was too big a price break.
How much did it cost in Supers?
In any case, though, 4e still has advantages that apply bonuses to all weapons, or at least a large subset. Weapon Master, for example, which effectively gives you a decent damage bonus if your skill is high enough. If that's balanced, then surely there's some way to balance the ability to apply an armor divisor to all weapons.

Quote:
Originally Posted by David Johnston
Oh, by the way, the Paladin who makes all of his attacks Good? I'd call that a Blessed but in most uinverses it's too feeble so it would probably be a perk.
Blessed isn't a bad idea for that specific example, but it fails to cover other, similar traits. For example, a mage-warrior who can imbue their weapons with a touch of magic, making them bite on monsters that normally have an immunity to non-magical weapons. Or a psi who can do something similar. Lots of settings will have things that have defenses that can only be penetrated by a specific power source. I'd like an elegant way of modeling the ability to enhance your weapon with any power source, not just Divine or Moral.
And I completely disagree about the Perk. This is a fairly potent ability. In the Shadowrun setting, for example, spirits (and a good number of other magical critters) are highly resistant to normal weapons. And spirits are a major opponent. Letting a character take the ability to affect spirits normall with all their weapons for one point would be seriously unbalanced - probably everyone would take the perk, and that's a good indication that it's unbalanced.

In any case, this is rather a serious digression from the original poster's questions. We should probably take this to another thread if we're going to keep discussing it.
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