View Single Post
Old 02-06-2015, 12:29 PM   #6
vicky_molokh
GURPS FAQ Keeper
 
vicky_molokh's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Kyïv, Ukraine
Default Re: GURPS Powers: Enhanced Senses

Cool book. Has lots and lots of neat stuff related to its title.
Of particular niceness are:
  • The fact that it listed all/almost all non-Basic sense advantages.
  • Ways to modify existing senses, e.g. enhancing Vision with Time-Spanning or Long-Range for those weird ESPers.
  • The new perks are neat. Okay, I'm actually talking primarily about the scent-related perk directly related to the above bulletpoint. Awesome for wolves, bloodhounds, Short Canadian Foul-Tempered Antihero etc. I wonder if some sharks qualify for two levels?
  • Some extra definition clarifications are neat.
  • Some extra rule clarifications are neat.
Things that I don't quite like:
  • Ultraviolet Sight is possibly an oversight: "Ultraviolet penetrates water to greater depths than visible light, halving Vision penalties underwater – but in total darkness (-10), you’re still blind!" will likely spark protests. In fact, I find it something of a flaw that while IR vision got two new variants of the trait, UV vision didn't get; this was a nice place to put in a more realistic variant of the trait.
  • The original Scanning Sense (Field Sense) didn't make it into the book, which would be okay on its own, but the closest analogue costs the same [10] while being inferior in almost every way.
  • The light/darkness modifiers seem off by one line: should a normal day really be -1?
  • The sound volume table and the lines about Stealth. If read literally, they produce odd results and break down in situation of high-Observation-vs-high-Stealth duels. I suppose it should be read as 'success by +0 provides a noise level this loud/quiet', 'critical success provides at least this level' etc. Otherwise the table not only breaks down at high point totals, but also becomes incompatible with the game mechanics of Stealth everywhere else in the books.
  • I'm not sure if the +5 to some skills attributed to ETS is balanced. In fact, that seems to run counter to what has been said about ETS before. (I suppose a +4 for Powers Boosting Skills is plausible.)
  • ETS or the quick-reading perk makes Speed-Reading essentially useless, it seems.
__________________
Vicky 'Molokh', GURPS FAQ and uFAQ Keeper
vicky_molokh is offline   Reply With Quote