GURPS 40K RP conversions
 

Hey, anyone one ever tried to do 40k RP to GURPS or vice versa conversions? One of my friends is thinking of converting his campaign over because he thinks as we get further on the system is kinda restrictive. I have found some stuff someone wrote up for it but it seems pretty asinine on some things. Like strength 50 in 40k RP being equal to 25 in GURPS! that makes no sense. That would make my Dark heresy character, a normal human who I rolled high on his strength stat then bought two advance for, greater in strength then a 650 point superhuman melee specialist I have from an old campaign and I call total ******** on that.

Re: GURPS 40K RP conversions
 

Yes, a GURPS ST of 25 seems like too much for a 40k Strength of 50. I would suggest looking the Carrying, Lifting, and Pushing table in Dark Heresy for this.

50 in all characteristics allows a character to lift 157kg. That is almost as much as GURPS ST 15 allow you to lift with a two-handed lift, so it might be fair to say that ST 15 corresponds to 40k Strength 50.

Re: GURPS 40K RP conversions
 

Direct numerical conversions are generally not useful. It's usually better to remake the same character concept in the new system.

I've been working on a GURPS Action 40k concept for a while, but I'm not sure how generally applicable it would be. I'm going for more a Ravenor/Eisenhorn style experience, so it's generally more cyberpunk than the 40k RPs.

A more traditional version of GURPS 40k can be found here. It's vowfully incomplete, but makes a decient starting point for anyone attempting to do a conversion.

Re: GURPS 40K RP conversions
 

First off, it's a topic that's been discussed a lot before. You might be able to find something useful in older threads: http://forums.sjgames.com/search.php?searchid=4715357


Secondly, some general advice: Do not try to translate directly. I have run a Dark Heresy Campaign. It worked really well in GURPS. In fact, we felt it worked much better than the original system. But I didn't attempt to translate things directly. Instead I went for the feel of the game.

Acolytes are above average humans, but they are not action heroes. Built them on 150 pts and you get characters that fit the powerlevel Acolytes are supposed to start at.

Weapons aren't that powerful. even though wh40k is sci-fi and they have laserguns, they really are not that impressive. The stats should reflect this. wh40k battles are more like World War I battles. The stats of the weapons should reflect this. If you just use "lasgun stats" from GURPS:Ultra tech you will find that they do not behave like in the wh40k lore.
I once made an attempt at statting up the weapons from Dark Heresy to GURPS: https://www.dropbox.com/s/exgj5y0do2...0gear.pdf?dl=0 (Not sure if that link works or not).


Finally you WILL run into one major problem in GURPS. As soon as the players put on some full body armour, they will become pretty much immune to any sort of "natural attacks". Assuming you use Ultra-Tech inspired DR-levels. This means stuff like orcs or tyranids won't be able to hurt them in melee combat. The fix I made for that is to be very liberal with giving all sorts of critters Armour Divisor. So Orcs can channel "Waaagh" into giving their choppers an AD(2) or AD(3) and homagaunts scythes are simply naturally AD(3) and genestealer claws are AD(5) or even AD(10) so I'm sure they can get through even terminator armour. And so on.

Re: GURPS 40K RP conversions
 

One possibility is to give Orks and Tyranids cinematic advantages and cinematic skills. Orks with Weapon Master, Power Blow, and Breaking Blow would be really scary, especially if the Waagh gave them bonuses to cinematic skills. Tyranids with Trained By a Master, Power Blow, and Breaking Blow could would also be really scary, especially if the Hive Mind gave them bonuses to cinematic skills. In either case, I would give a bonus equal to the log of the Orcs/Tyranids within the same system to all cinematic skills for Orks/Tyranids.

Re: GURPS 40K RP conversions
 

Hmmmm I'm not sure how hes gonna feel about that suggestion. From a lot of what I have read the 40k community for the most part thinks that the weapons are far more powerful then that and this friend of mine is rather fund of some of the more extreme high end feats for pretty much everything in 40k

Re: GURPS 40K RP conversions
 

In 40k, melee weapons are overpowered compared to ranged weapons. One way to preserve the flavor of that type of thing would be to allow any character to purchase cinematic advantages so that they could purchase Breaking Blow and Power Blow (in which Breaking Blow-25 and Power Blow-25 might become quite common).

Re: GURPS 40K RP conversions
 

There is a huge difference between 40K The Game and 40K The Novels. It is in the latter that the high end feats, etc. are found. The former better matches the toned down approach in this thread, because 40K The Game has to work on small tables and in sponsored tournaments.

Re: GURPS 40K RP conversions
 

But wouldn't using the novels be more appropriate?

It's like trying to do a GURPS WW2 game and then basing everything off of Medal of Honor or Call of Duty if you're going for the tabletop approach.

It just strikes me as a weird thing to do, not using the fluff or "actual effects" for a game.

Re: GURPS 40K RP conversions
 

The game considerably pre-dates the novels. The novels were mostly written by people who had never played the game: authors who expressed interest when the word was put out were sent a mass of published game material and made what they could of it.

Either is possible to use as a source, but you can't expect the novels to be particularly consistent with each other, or the game. The game puts numbers on things where the novels don't, and gives you a clear way of comparing weapons with armour.

Re: GURPS 40K RP conversions
 

Ultra-Tech and other GURPS scifi supplements try to keep within shouting distance of realism, and Warhammer straight up doesn't give a hoot.

If I were doing this, I would throw out all the Basic Set and Ultra-Tech stats for guns and post-TL4 armor. I'd make up my own stats for the more common guns on the basis of how they compare with melee weapons in the 40k RPGs and the miniature rules. Power fists, chainswords, power armor etc. likewise; I might look into treating special tech like that as magical enchantments.

And I'd consciously keep all the numbers pretty modest, so characters with exceptional personal abilities could still shine even against superior gear. Like, a run-of-the-mill gun would do 2d pi, and a bolter would do maybe 2d+2 pi+. Enough for the players to get excited but not enough for the latter to completely invalidate defenses that work against the former, or to discourage the ST 20 space marine or the ST 15 ork from pulling out a sword or choppa when the enemy gets close.

And, yeah, 2d pi for a military weapon from a spacefaring future sounds absolutely ridiculous considering TL6 pistols do more. But 40k and realism just don't go together.

Re: GURPS 40K RP conversions
 

Of course that's fine too. If you want to go that way, build high end PCs, take what you want out of Ultratech without lowballing weapon effectiveness and give the PCs good kit. The net effect will be that they walk through armies of mooks but fighting equivalent enemies will be somewhat rocket tag. That still leaves melee weapons in the dust, so that will need some work.

As this thread implies, the way to convert 40K is decide on the feel you want and then build your setting to match that.

Re: GURPS 40K RP conversions
 

Dark Heresy, The RPG follows the toned down approach.

Re: GURPS 40K RP conversions
 

Gw is notorious for creating highly partisan fluff. Orcslais routinely slaughter marines in the fluff from orc source books. Marines do the same to orcs in marine source book fluff. I take the view that fluff and novel are "some one in universe really wrote and or belives this". That doesn't mean it really works that way. It's mere propaganda.

Re: GURPS 40K RP conversions
 

Does that mean you take "lasguns only have 6" of range because it's a tabletop game" as the truth then?

Oddly enough, tabletop games aren't able to quite show off how dangerous or deadly things can be. It's why in WW2 video games, rifles have a combat range of like 20 feet.

Re: GURPS 40K RP conversions
 

Yeah, that is always a problem with video games. The later Fallout games tended to be more realistic, as I managed sniper shots at a quarter of a mile in Fallout 3.

Re: GURPS 40K RP conversions
 

I feel like I maybe wanna step away from this, because I tend to lean more towards the lower end of things here but the person in question I was helping is the opposite to a ridiculous extreme, (Like Imperator titans being hundreds of meters tall instead of about 50.) So i'm thinking that trying to involve myself here is gonna devolve to scub.

Re: GURPS 40K RP conversions
 

That depends. Do you want to retain melee weapons as a viable combat choice? Then you need ranged weapons to be kind of naff.

Re: GURPS 40K RP conversions
 

Melee weapons in the novels are generally used at extremely close range during boarding operations, or for specialized assault marines. And various other species use equivalents like teleportation or superscience crazy biology to allow them to get in close enough that a pistol & melee weapon can be useful.

Powerfists are generally used during boarding operations to make new doors for example. They're heavy enough that Terminator armor is used with them during boarding operations because both armor and powerfist are generally considered too sluggish outside of really close quarters.

Terminator armor sensors are sort of interesting:

Re: GURPS 40K RP conversions
 

I take those ranges to be the limits of effective accuracy. The actual projectile flies much farther,but loses accuracy beyond that point. Basically, by the 40k era, melee weapon technology became so advanced that there was no desire to restore/improve long range weapon tech.

Re: GURPS 40K RP conversions
 

I have done Warhammer 40k short campaigns as imperial guard, space marines and Orks.