GURPS Fading Suns Conversion
 

I've begun to get interested in a GURPS Fading Suns conversion again, and I will post various thoughts on it in this thread - since there are a lot of issues to cover.

Let's start with energy shields. I'm trying to come up with a good way to model the energy shields of Fading Suns in GURPS, but this is fairly tricky.

This requires some explanation of the Fading Suns damage and armor system:

Every character has a number of "Vitality" points before he dies - 10 for a "typical" human.

Each weapon has a damage value. A Dagger might have a base damage of 5, a Rapier of 6, a laser rifle of 7, a sniper rifle of 8, and so forth. Depending on how well a character hits, he might also add bonus points to that damage value - anywhere from 0 to 9, although only very skilled people will be able to get one of the higher values.

The actual damage is then determined by rolling a number of d6 equal to the damage value, counting each 1,2,3, or 4 as a point of damage.

Then the damage is reduced by armor. Armor has ratings ranging from 2 for heavy clothing, 4 for synthsilk, to 10 for plate mail or 14 for powered armor. As with damage, you roll a number of d6 equal to the protection value, and each 1-4 reduces the actual damage by one.

Energy shields function a bit differently. Normal energy shields don't function well with armor - synthsilk that's worn under normal clothing works, but actual bulky armor requires special assault shields. All energy shields will trigger when the damage roll ends up with 5 or more points of damage, but before armor is subtracted. They then reduce the damage of the attack - by 10 for standard shields, though advanced shields intended for use with battle armor might substract as much as 20. If the attack does more damage than the shield can absorb, it burns out temporarily for a number of rounds equal to the excess damage. It also protects against broad impact damage like falls, but in this case the shield has a 1/3rd chance of temporarily burning out after use.

Each shield can absorb a number of hits before its power cell needs to be recharged or replaced - ranging from 10 for standard shields to 30 for battle shields.

Certain types of damage can also "leak through" an energy shield - plasma weapons leak one point of damage through the shield for each 1 or 2 rolled on the damage roll, while flame weapons leak on damage rolls of 1.


So, how to represent all this in GURPS terms? While velocity-limited Force Screens are a good start, I feel that energy weapons should provide some protection in melee, especially against particularly powerful hits. Yet I don't want to render someone completely invulnerable in melee who is wearing an ultra-tech body stocking.

Re: GURPS Fading Suns Conversion
 

Wow, that's complicated. But it sounds like all you really need to do is slap GURPS units on that description, possibly like this:

An energy shield triggers when an attack does more than X points of base damage. Set X appropriately; 5 sounds like a good value, but this suggests the possibility of "tuning" a shield for a higher or lower threshold for more protection but less endurance, kinda like adjusting an insurance deductible for an inversely expensive premium. If triggered, it provides Y points of DR. If breached, roll against its HT to avoid shutting down for (penetrating damage) seconds. A battery also provides a limited number of points of protection. You'll need to calibrate total DR provided to batteries. 10 points for a B cell, 100 for C? Something else? Anyway, there have been some weapons, flame weapons even that "leak" through DR anyway (a point on every 6 rolled), so that sounds appropriate. The triggering threshold is probably sufficient to allow some but not total protection from melee weapons.

Re: GURPS Fading Suns Conversion
 

5 seems to low to me, since adding some decent ultra-tech body glove will make someone pretty much invulnerable, as long as the shield holds.

Re: GURPS Fading Suns Conversion
 

You could declare that the screen doesn't trigger for melee weapons, but really, if the target has access to damage-reducing force screens and ultra-tech armor, why shouldn't it be invulnerable to standard melee weapons? The ultra-tech armor alone should be pretty good for stopping most melee attacks anyway.

Ultra-tech melee weapons, I'll note, might fare better. For example, something with an armor divisor (for example, UT's superfine and monowire blades) is still going to shrug off lightweight physical armor. I might apply the energy screen's DR and trigger conditions to base damage, not damage bonuses from weapon quality, so if, say, a superfine weapon comes through a force screen, it still has that +2 damage.

Re: GURPS Fading Suns Conversion
 

Most of that persnickity stuff is an attempt (bad one IMHO) to create game balance. I personally think GURPS is pretty well balanced in it's own right. Also, the FS people we're trying to make combat work "just right". There's lots of ways to challenge a combat trained party of PCs... outside combat.

I wouldn't even TRY and emulate game mechanics from a setting. The shields and armor are not really what makes Fading Suns. The style of that armor is (the somewhat fantasy-esque armor worn by the inquisitors (sp?), etc.).

GURPS already has ablative force shields. Make them rechargeable. Add a limitation "only stops ballistic attacks" or some such for the flavor (I swear that one is mentioned in the section on DR). Don't sweat the numbers. Lean towards GURPS rules for the mechanics (ignore all the picky number stuff in FS).

GURPS has rules for stacking armor. Weight and flexibility should impact characters. Fine tune if you think the combinations make characters invincible (for instance, increase bulk of all armor by factor X when combined with shields due to the unique vibrations causing a stiffening effect on materials... something...).

Steal the flavor from the setting, use the GURPS mechanics because they make WAY more sense and actually WORK versus the headache of trying to make characters "just squishy enough".

Just my two cents...

Re: GURPS Fading Suns Conversion
 

The main problem you have here is relative scaling of melee weapons to ranged; in GURPS, anything that might let rifle bullets through will always let melee weapons through unless you have superhuman strength. Other than that, it's really just "shield has DR X, and hits doing Y or less are unaffected by the shield", plus a note that shields can only be layered over nonrigid armor.

Re: GURPS Fading Suns Conversion
 

"Kinetic only" energy only" "high velocity only", these are all discussed possibilitiies on UT p.92.

Not trying to port over particular game mechnacis is good advice. Even if the game in question actually is like Gurps in that every bit of damage is lethal and really counts the numbers and proportions aren't like to match up.

This is especially true if the original game's ratios of fist damage to bullet damage to armor don't match up with Gurps.

I don't own Fading Suns. The two tiem a buddy of mine has tried to start a game I borrowed one of his copies to make a character and familiarize myself with the game. We ended up plyaing only a single session one time. I don't really think it's a good system in a mechancial sense.

Re: GURPS Fading Suns Conversion
 

Because the setting has a vibrant duelling culture between nobles who fight with energy shields and melee weapons, and I want to keep that for the GURPS conversion.

I am not trying to convert everything 1:1 to GURPS, but important bits of the flavor should be kept.

Re: GURPS Fading Suns Conversion
 

I've been using Gurps for Fading Suns for almost two years and I still have several issues.

I've divided the shields in four categories. Usable only with clothes that doesn't give DR (Standard), usable with concealable and flexible armor (Dueling), usable with flexible armor (Assault) and usable with hard armor (Battle).

Their thresholds are: Standard (6/24), Dueling (6/24), Assault (6/36), Battle (6/48). They are fully hardened against all kind of damage except that with the "burning" or "surge" modifier. Burning damage leaks 1 point for every 10 dealt, and burn + sur leaks 1 for every 5.

They have "HP" equal to: Standard and Dueling (240), Assaul (540) and Battle (960), altough they use their full max.threshold for every impact, so they endure 10, 15 and 20 impacts rerspectively.

Re: GURPS Fading Suns Conversion
 

Now I am considering allowing all melee attacks without any triggering base damage values... but someone wearing an energy shield gets an additional Defense Bonus against larger/heavier melee weapons (like two-handed swords, warhammers and the like). If the defender avoids the attack within the margin of this Defense Bonus, it counts as a shield activation.

Re: GURPS Fading Suns Conversion
 

Then what about Flux and Mist Swords? and mele weapons with Shocker or Vibrating?.

What would happen if you can't take any active defense against that attack?

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These are plasma weapons and should probably trigger the shield automatically, like ranged weapons... but the shield will be less effective against plasma.

Their whole point is that they can "slip through" shields, so no extra Defensive Bonus.

Then you are screwed.

Re: GURPS Fading Suns Conversion
 

But the shield would activate against explosions and firearms, wouldn't it?

Re: GURPS Fading Suns Conversion
 

Exactly.

OK, I think I've come up with the basic mechanics:

Basic energy shields are the equivalent of Personal Force Screens (UT191) with the Velocity variant. They have the normal DR60 which can slowly be reduced by the usual means.

They are less effective against plasma and flame weapon. With plasma weapons, one half of the basic damage leaks through the shield. With flame weapons, one-fourth of the basic damage leaks through the shield. The basic damage still counts for full when it comes to weakening the shield, though.

Area-effect damage, such as from explosions or falls, counts as double for the purpose of weakening the shield only.

Against melee attacks the shield does not trigger automatically. Against small or lightweight weapons such as knives, daggers, or unarmed attacks as well as fencing weapons the shield provides no particular bonus. Against larger, one-handed weapons such as broadswords, axes, maces and so forth the shield provides an additional Defense Bonus of +1, analogous to conventional shields. Against two-handed weapons it provides a +2 Defense Bonus. If the defender avoids the attack with a margin of success equal to the Defense Bonus provided by the energy shield, the energy shield has triggered and it is weakened, if applicable.

Against plasma-based melee weapons such as force swords, the energy shield activates automatically, just as with ranged plasma weapons.

Standard energy shields are incompatible with heavy personal armor. When using the armor types from Ultra-Tech, neither assault boots, tactical vests, nor any type of rigid armor nor environmental suit may be worn in combination with standard energy shields. If using the Style options from UT175, no "Heavy" armor may be worn with it.

I think that should largely maintain the "swashbuckling" feel of the setting, at least regarding energy shields.

Another question: Are there some options in some supplement or Pyramid article somewhere for further modifying gear than described in Ultra-Tech? For instance, giving equipment a longer endurance and the like...


Finally, I think I will make the "default" TL of the setting TL5, with TLs reaching up to TL10 for the best Engineer enclaves. The Second Republic was mature TL11 with some rare TL12 stuff (especially regarding energy fields), as are the Vau.

Accordingly, starting wealth is $5000, with 1 firebird = $10. Equipment more advanced than TL5 will cost more, with the following multiplier:

TL6: x2
TL7: x5
TL8: x10
TL9: x20
TL10: x50
TL11: x100
TL12: x200

(assuming that the latter two are available at all).

The exception to this are personal energy shields - they were produced in mass numbers during the Second Republic and are thus fairly affordable to the upper classes. They cost their normal base value.

Re: GURPS Fading Suns Conversion
 

Have you thought about giving modifiers to the shield's defense bonus if the attacker uses all-out, commited, or defensive attack options?

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Hmmm... I'd say that all-out with damage bonus gives +1 DB, while deceptive attack reduces the shield DB bonus first - people in the setting are taught how to attack someone with an energy shield...

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Deciding TL for Fading Suns can be very tricky. For my game I've decided to use TL 8 as standard for the PC, because most of the the enemies, allies and technology available will be this TL. Also the players themselves are more familiarized with this level, altough sonner than later they increase their own TL at least to 9 so they can use without penalty a better and not so scarce technology as TL 10.

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Many deceptive attacks use speed - would this be affected, or is it still too slow to activate it?

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Presumably they've figured out deceptive techniques to avoid just that.


Though after talking to my players over this, I think I will discard all those rules I've come up with to keep things simple:

Fading Suns energy shields are velocity-limited conformal force shields. Personable energy shields (as opposed to tactical ones) can only be combined with armor that also counts as Concealable, whether or not it actually is concealed. If using the "Tailoring Armor" options from UT174f, up to "normal" armor styles count as concealable, while the "heavy" style does not.

Furthermore, while energy shields protect against the initial damage of liquid projectors (such as flamethrowers), the target still counts as hit and thus suffers secondary damage on subsequent rounds, as per the normal rules.

Re: GURPS Fading Suns Conversion
 

I've created a Google Documents Folder for my Fading Suns conversion - you can find it here.

You should be able to read it without logging in to Google... I think.

Re: GURPS Fading Suns Conversion
 

I think I am largely done with the occult powers. Take a look at this document.

Re: GURPS Fading Suns Conversion
 

And now I have finished up the various alien races available as player characters. They can be found in this document.

Re: GURPS Fading Suns Conversion
 

Looks very nice :)

Re: GURPS Fading Suns Conversion
 

I have just realized that while I had enabled public viewing for my GURPS Fading Suns conversion folder, I hadn't enabled editing... which is necessary for adding comments to the document.

So, comment away...

Re: GURPS Fading Suns Conversion
 

Question: While converting spaceships is not a priority right now, which of the supplements in the GURPS Spaceships line features spaceships especially appropriate for Fading Suns?

Re: GURPS Fading Suns Conversion
 

I don't think Spaceships divides up that way. You need the first book for the basic rules and you need 3 or 4 for the mapped tactical combat system. You need 7 for weird stuff.

Other than that ships in particular are exemplars of a general purpose or a series of linked purposes across multiple TLs and a wide variety of enabling technologies. No one volume would give you more than a few ships particulary suited to Fading Suns.

Also, Spaceships designs are really, really easy to make. With a gneral idea of how the system works and a particular understanding of hiow ships ina given fictional universe work designing your own for whatever purpose is necessay should be cake.

Re: GURPS Fading Suns Conversion
 

I have updated the character creation document with appropriate advantages, disadvantages, and skills for all the noble houses, guilds, and Church sects.

Please tell me if I am missing anything.