Pyramid #3/120: Alternate GURPS V

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by dataweaver

2. “Supernatural” doesn't necessarily work best as a category. Consider a game that has chi powers, psionics, and spirit magic: in such a setting, it might make more sense to have supernatural attributes in each of three categories: Body for chi powers, Mind for psionics, and Spirit for spiritual powers. Bardic magic might work better drawing off of social traits instead of dedicated supernatural attributes. Divine favor may be best left completely divorced from attributes. And so on.

My thinking as well. That's why I prefer to leave 'Supernatural' aside for genre specific treatments.

[Jinumon]

Sorry if I'm necro-posting, and sorry if this question has already been answered. I've done a preliminary search through this thread but there's an awful lot to sift through.

First I just want to say that I love "The Fifth Attribute," might finally give me the answer I've been looking for for Divine Magic in my Fantasy setting.

Under the "Campaign Feature or Altered Mechanics" sidebar, it mentions applying the "Based on Quintessence" (+20%) enhancement to abilities to base them on Quintessence instead of their originally listed Attributes. If I am applying blanket changes to systems to include Quintessence, should I still use the enhancement or consider it more of a setting design switch? I.e. If all Clerics use Quintessence instead of IQ for their magic, does their Magery need to be purchased with "Based on Quintessence" (+20%) or does the base of Quintessence just become the new standard?

I realize this is largely up to me as the GM, but I would defer to those more well-versed in game- and point-balance than myself before making slap-dash assumptions.

Jinumon

[Celti]

Originally Posted by Jinumon

Sorry if I'm necro-posting, and sorry if this question has already been answered. I've done a preliminary search through this thread but there's an awful lot to sift through.

First I just want to say that I love "The Fifth Attribute," might finally give me the answer I've been looking for for Divine Magic in my Fantasy setting.

Under the "Campaign Feature or Altered Mechanics" sidebar, it mentions applying the "Based on Quintessence" (+20%) enhancement to abilities to base them on Quintessence instead of their originally listed Attributes. If I am applying blanket changes to systems to include Quintessence, should I still use the enhancement or consider it more of a setting design switch? I.e. If all Clerics use Quintessence instead of IQ for their magic, does their Magery need to be purchased with "Based on Quintessence" (+20%) or does the base of Quintessence just become the new standard?

I realize this is largely up to me as the GM, but I would defer to those more well-versed in game- and point-balance than myself before making slap-dash assumptions.

Jinumon

The way I see it — if all magic of that type is going to be using Quintessence, then just make it a setting switch. If some Magery is going to be QN-based, and some will remain IQ-based, then start buying Based on QN.

[Refplace]

Definately a GM call but I would say Magery is bought without the enhancement and if I (as ) allowed some to work off IQ and some of QN I would just call them different types.
Other powers I wold be more inclined to use the enhancement but again up to the GM and setting flavor your going for.

[DouglasCole]

I got a quick bit of feedback on using Conditional Injury in actual play. Recall this article was not playtested, and mostly theoretical. Granted I was musing on it for years, but it never really got a good stress test. So someone wrote me with one:

Conditional Injury Actual Play (Pyramid #3/120)

[Pseudonym]

I made a cheat sheet for the conditional injury article. It puts all the tables on one page for less page flipping.
https://pseudoboo.blogspot.com/2019/...al-injury.html

[edk926]

Okay so Quintessence replaces Magery after 0. This means you need QN of 11 in order to cast Magery 1 spells, right? If so, the spells would be based off of QN, which means you want a QN of 17 to hit that sweet spot. I like the general idea because it means you can have naturally magical beings that are sentient but not really sapient in a traditional sense, like some sort of orb of raw magic with spell abilities. Also you can do some DnD style magic users that don't rely on Intellect.

[Hide]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

I got a quick bit of feedback on using Conditional Injury in actual play. Recall this article was not playtested, and mostly theoretical. Granted I was musing on it for years, but it never really got a good stress test. So someone wrote me with one:

Conditional Injury Actual Play (Pyramid #3/120)

Douglas, do damage-type multipliers apply under this system (e.g. cutting x1.5, impaling x2, etc.)?

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Hide

Douglas, do damage-type multipliers apply under this system (e.g. cutting x1.5, impaling x2, etc.)?

Yes. You can see the tabulation of them in the cheat sheet posted above.

[Plane]

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3IUqfw9HJ...255B1%255D.png says "Damage Modifiers" in the blue chart, but going by what's said on page 29 I think the proper term that you used is "Damage Type Modifiers" which're actually "Severity Modifiers" since it is added to calculate Severity after doing Wound Potential minus Robustness Threshold (in the case of HP 1 creatures that's subtracting a negative so it's actually +2 to Wound Potential)

I was wondering... give the Thrust 1d-6 of ST 2 creatures resulting a high frequency of penetrating damage 0... how would hypothetically assigning a Wound Potential to 0 damage work?

Since the previous hop was by 2, I assume it would have a Wound Potential of -4 or less (perhaps -5?) and this could give some purpose to actually making a d6-6 roll if you lacked damage bonuses.

Since the threshold for Severity's effects s -6, 1 damage (beginning -2) results in Severity 0 for HP 1 creatures, meaning any hit is that does anything at all is Crippling-tier for them, and you can't get scratch/minor/major/reeling status except perhaps with a Small Piercing weapon. It would also mean a minimum of Major Wound (Sev -2) for HP2 creatures, or Minor Wound (Sev-3) for HP3 creatures.

To get that full interesting spectrum, what about something like the following:

PenetratingDamage / Wounding Potential
PD +1 gives WP of -2
PD +0 gives WP of -3
PD -1 gives WP of -4
PD -2 gives WP of -5
PD -3 gives WP of -6
PD -4 gives WP of -7
PD -5 gives WP of -8

This would create an interesting severity spectrum of -3 to -8 against HP 1 (RT-2) creatures, so they could still be scratched by a d6-6 attack where a 1 was rolled (negative 5) because WP -8 when adding two (subtracting negative two) results in Severity -6.

The -7 or less threshold could still be attained by going lower than d6-6 through penalties from stuff like defensive attack or various lower-damage techniques like ear clap.

Getting something for zero/negative damage would be even more important if we wanted to combine this with the Alternate GURPS IV's "Revised Strength Table" on page 17 of Pyramid 3/83 which goes all the way down to 1d-11 thrust for ST 1. In fact if using that you could extend the table even further into the negative...

PD -6 gives WP of -9
PD -7 gives WP of -10
PD -8 gives WP of -11
PD -9 gives WP of -12
PD -10 gives WP of -13

We may as well stop there since 1d-11 will always produce at least -10.

That or, if using the "Fractional Damage" system to do away with 0s (inflicting a tenth of what you roll under ST+10 means ST 1 has 1d-1 so only a 1/6 chance of 0) the table could be constructed based on fractions. As an example it might look like...

PD +2 gives a WP of 0
PD 1.5 gives a WP of -1
PD +1 gives WP of -2
PD 0.9 gives a WP of -3
PD 0.8 gives a WP of -4
PD 0.7 gives a WP of -5
PD 0.6 gives a WP of -6
PD 0.5 gives a WP of -7
PD 0.4 gives a WP of -8
PD 0.3 gives a WP of -9
PD 0.2 gives a WP of -10
PD 0.1 gives a WP of -11
PD 0 gives a WP of -12
PD -0.1 gives a WP of -13

In the -13 case I'm taking into account the possibility of -1 to thrust from a punch (1 minus 7 then divide remainder by 10)

Why I think Wound Potential of such severity is still important to calculate (since -2 RT from HP 1 can only shift that two places is due to all the super-interesting Severity Modifiers.

Even with a -13 merely increased to -11 from RT-2, you said you can buy RT down 2 points, meaning you could have a baseline severity of -9. Or, even if yuo only bought RT down 1 point (like the Gnome) page 33's Variable Injury (failed HT roll) means a +1 to severity from critical failure!

If this was a Vitals hit (+3 Hit Location Modifier to Severity in most cases) this would bring Severity from -9 to -6 meaning it would qualify as a scratch.

...actually I just overlooked "Eye Hits" on top-right of pg 29 being +6 Severity for purposes of determining blindness. I think maybe Pseudonym forgot to include that in the blue table? It looks like there's room to squish it in there.

Eye hits are probably the most important reason to have subzero/fractional Wounding Potentials for small creatures trying to blind each other.

Another would also be the "Wounds to Extremities" rule below it, +2 for limbs and +3 for extremities. Not for shock/pain/healing, only for "gross effects" (though I'm not really sure what GE refers to...as to how it's used in the column heading I would guess it means whether it's Major Wound / Reeling / Crippling? since you can't get Mortal Wound / Instant Fatal from limb/extremity hits as far as I know, and Scratch/Minor don't mean anything beyond the shock/pain which we're told not to apply)

So if I understand the WtE rule right, I think it means Severity of -3/-2 is needed to cripple extremities/limbs, -4/-3 needed to reel, -5/-4 needed to Major.

I do like that you incorporate a 'major wound' threshold prior to crippling, it's good that there's a chance of a blow to the hand being so painful you might get knocked down from it, but not so damaging that it's a guaranteed crippling effect.

I also like the new "Reeling" middle ground, though I'm not certain I understand how long reduced Move/Dodge lasts... until damage is healed (like with pain) I guess?

Mortal / Instantly Fatal / Total Destruction might have an application to extremities though... like instead of having "Mortal" be the "destroyed" have it be "dying" (make HT rolls like torso/head, your limb will actually become a necrotic corpse and need to be removed, not merely a non-threatening crippled thing) and "Instantly Fatal" can be the new mangled/severed tier (instantly begins to go necrotic, attached or not) and "Total Destruction" being the "vaporized" part.

Cutting attacks should probably be limited to the "Instantly Fatal" part (severing) and not capable of "Total Destruction" unless they subsequently target a severed limb for further dicing.