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Old 06-12-2015, 05:02 AM   #16
T.K.
 
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Join Date: Nov 2013
Default Re: Armor for points, not money

Quote:
Originally Posted by Smeette View Post
Fair question. This stems from a few thoughts about abstracting away some areas of GURPS. In this case money during character creation, or advantages that add money.

That lead me to ponder... If you're spending cp to get money, and that money is used to buy benefits for the character, then are you actually getting your cp's worth? I thought armor was a good place to start as it's a big-ticket item and relatively simple to design. (I wouldn't want to see all equipment as points, just some of the character-defining items that are so important during character creation).

So, a suit of basic plate costs, say, $2500, then, that would be 5pts of signature gear... How does that compare to ~5 DR with those heavy parentheses of limitations.



Ultimately I think you're right, the advice not to do this is sound. But curiosity got the better of me, and I thought some of you GURPS forum regulars might enjoy the challenge.



That's very much the kind of thing I was hoping for. Thank you. I especially like the 'looking for trouble' penalty.

If we really get into the mechanics, could 'weight' as a nuisance effect become -1 move? Or even a modified ST penalty? (oh, wait. No, that's terrible. That's bypassing the encumbrance system, which is an entirely different kettle of fish).
Well, you see...the exact description you gave of "character-defining items" is Signature Gear niche.

I would only go the route of building items as powers/abilities for characters if they're indeed intended to be said powers and abilities, much alike Marvel Iron Man, for example where his equipment is what grant him the ability to fly, withstand heavy punishment, shoot beams...

On the weight... well, the reason why I went with weight instead of any shenanigans of Move or ST modifiers is imply that due to weight you get secondary effects on all of that:

Depending on your ST level, you'll get encumbered and move less due to the heavy weight ( a ST-10 character would be moving at 2 or even 1hex per turn with that most of the time); You'll loose Dodge if you're not strong enough as well, so I believe it suits all the hindrances such armor should bring.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Joe View Post
Yes - that's definitely the more fundamental question. Putting it really roughly: if points=character power, but also money=character power, then you really start to wonder "how many points=how much money? - and you don't want to just handwave it and declare a value, because getting it right matters for all sorts of bigger issues.

I often think that many of the more complex puzzles in GURPS design would be easier to solve if we had a different solution to this kind of problem.

The obvious snarls are with the value of signature gear and points-for-cash, but there are also a whole bunch of less obvious run-on effects. For example:
  • In the Wealth system
  • In any attempt to make a magic-as-powers system balanced in relation to having gear.
  • In everything relating to TL (e.g., high TL gear is vastly, vastly more effective than low TL gear, and the two thus compare very differently to buying powers with points)
  • It also causes problems whenever you try to compare the effectiveness of gear-heavy character archetypes with gear-light character archetypes: just sticking with Dungeon Fantasy, comparing the Knight to a DF Conan-style Barbarian is one example, but the relative combat ineffectiveness of the DF Martial Artist is also very much related to this. In some respect, teh same applies to traditional wizard-types, also.

I wouldn't want to go all the way over into the points-for-all-equipment territory, but I often want to find some way to move a little more in that direction.
Well...at the end of the day...why not go with the simplistic approach and going the other way around and use the ratio found on Wealth or Signature Gear for CP > $ ?

What I mean is: 1 CP > 50% average starting wealth, per Sig Gear.

I understand trying to calculate and evaluate if that balance is indeed adequate, but besides the exercise to see if the system is balanced between its multifacets, I find it not adding anything valuable to the game, plot or history, that it shouldn't be bothered with.
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