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 12-18-2018, 06:44 AM   #11
munin
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Vermont, USA
Default Re: An idea for gods and cosmic beings

Quote:
Originally Posted by Whoisme View Post
… If I wanted to make a character like Zeus, who can control all weather on Earth, in the traditional way, I would have to use 1,970,000,000 levels of control: natural phenomena costing 39,400,000,000 CP…
GURPS Supers (p. 26) introduced Super-Effort for the Control advantage. Could be useful for other gods as well:

Control 30 (Common: Weather; Cosmic, No die roll required, +100%; Natural Phenomena, +100%; Super-Effort, +400%; Super-effort only increases area of effect, -50%) [3,900]. You have total control over the weather in a 3-mile radius, and can spend 1 FP to control the weather over the entire Earth. 3,900 points.
munin is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-18-2018, 06:49 AM   #12
Plane
 
Join Date: Aug 2018
Default Re: An idea for gods and cosmic beings

Quote:
Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl View Post
No, I do not think that would work. First, a ST 0 entity can be wrestled to death by an infant and cannot do anything back. Second, DX 0 entity cannot move or attack, so people can just avoid the space it occupies.
Even an infant with "Affects Insubstantial" would take a while to deplete 154 HP. I think a good guideline if using Technical Grappling would be to allow "using ST as mass" to have an alternative "using HP as mass" as well.

Being a high SM also gives you a bonus to grapple small things, so that would artificially pump up his DX.

Wouldn't he end up having a Basic Spd of 5 (DX 0 + HT 20 divided by 40) and be able to move because of that? You can still move if Shock or an Affliction reduce DX to 0 I think.

Quote:
Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl View Post
always on and trigger are mutually exclusive modifiers (as are always on and selective effect), so it is an illegal build.
Good catch! Easy to forget to check for incompatible modifiers like that.
Plane is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-18-2018, 07:31 AM   #13
Culture20
 
Join Date: Feb 2014
Default Re: An idea for gods and cosmic beings

Quote:
Originally Posted by Whoisme View Post
I'm not too worried about characters avoiding it considering it would take up the entire universe.
So the force of nature has Size Modifier: Infinite? This means players can’t miss with their fiendishly over-designed force-of-nature nerfing attacks, and the force can’t aim at them.

I also forgot about the DX 0, which exacerbates this.

Last edited by Culture20; 12-18-2018 at 07:40 AM.
Culture20 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-18-2018, 09:32 AM   #14
AlexanderHowl
 
Join Date: Feb 2016
Default Re: An idea for gods and cosmic beings

For example, you could have a PC with Toxic Attack 1 point (Affects Insubstantial, +20%; Cyclic, 200 daily cycles, Cured by Esotetic Medicine, +1990% No Signature, +20%; Melee, C, -30%) [200].
AlexanderHowl is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-18-2018, 10:18 AM   #15
bert
 
Join Date: Dec 2016
Location: Southern Sweden, possibly on an Alternate Earth
Default Re: An idea for gods and cosmic beings

I would not design gods properly. Just write down in clear text what the god can do, and cannot do. The PCs can still interact with the god, but if it cannot be defeated it does not need stats.
bert is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-18-2018, 10:27 AM   #16
Flyndaran
Untagged
 
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
Default Re: An idea for gods and cosmic beings

At most I'd design avatars of gods. The actual gods for whatever reason cannot or will not manifest fully in the lands of mortals. These avatars are more physical and therefore beatable. Of course defeating avatars merely sets the gods back and ticks them off.
__________________
Beware, poor communication skills. No offense intended. If offended, it just means that I failed my writing skill check.
Flyndaran is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-18-2018, 10:52 AM   #17
khorboth
 
khorboth's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Denver, CO
Default Re: An idea for gods and cosmic beings

When I ran an ancient Greece campaign, I leaned somewhat on the 3ed Greece supplement. It's mostly fluff, and good stuff.

For the gods, I didn't make specific stats, but basically ran them as if they all had appropriate wildcard powers which were fueled by energy reserve. The gods had no effective cap on the reserve, but it had special recharge: sacrifices. A really earnest prayer might give one point. Grain gives a handful, and a strong bull gives a hundred. Then, allow power stunts with few restrictions and give gods high stats and they are pretty good.

I, further, as a special effect, made gods aware of the sacrifice and allowed them to manifest powers at the location of that sacrifice for the expenditure of one energy point.

This resulted in the feel of gods as they existed in mythology without being too unwieldy. My PC (singular) was, in fact, a god herself and went about discovering this fact as well as these mechanics. They were simple enough and worked well enough to play with.
khorboth is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-18-2018, 11:07 AM   #18
Dalin
 
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Saint Paul, MN
Default Re: An idea for gods and cosmic beings

Quote:
Originally Posted by bert View Post
I would not design gods properly. Just write down in clear text what the god can do, and cannot do. The PCs can still interact with the god, but if it cannot be defeated it does not need stats.
In the OP's case, I would do this for the cosmic level powers of each god, but I would stat out their basic abilities so that if it came to combat I would know what could happen. Their point values don't really matter, so why fiddle around with figuring out how many points it costs to be God of the Ocean or whatever? You really just need to know how strong Poseidon is and how much damage he can do with his trident. Plus whatever powers he could bring to bear in a specific contest with the PCs (whether martial or some other sort).

For abilities that could manifest in a standard melee, I would convert the uber ability into bite-size chunks. Maybe give Poseidon a bunch of water spells at high-skill. Yeah, he can "control all the waters of the world," but in practice, he blasts uppity mortals with water jets and whatnot. If you want it to feel more godlike, just change the fluff or make a few sweeping adjustments by fiat (e.g., no penalties for multiple spells on, casts all spells in zero time, etc.).
Dalin is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-18-2018, 11:13 AM   #19
bert
 
Join Date: Dec 2016
Location: Southern Sweden, possibly on an Alternate Earth
Default Re: An idea for gods and cosmic beings

I agree Dalin. Everything of course depends on power level of the god. I wouldnt bother calculating damage if great cthulhu steps on you, even less if a god like the biblical god creates rainfall that kills all life.

An avatar or manifestation of a god is an entirely different matter!
bert is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-18-2018, 11:54 AM   #20
AlexanderHowl
 
Join Date: Feb 2016
Default Re: An idea for gods and cosmic beings

In my games, gods are optimized characters that range from 1600 CP to 6400 CP (in a previous thread, I had pointed out that a 6400 CP god can create a universe, though there was an argument about the minimum penalty to skill required to visualize everything in a universe). In any case, a 6400 CP optimized character is going to pretty much dominate a particular aspect of reality.
AlexanderHowl is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

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 06:26 PM.


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