Quote:
Originally Posted by kate_unknown
Well at the very least they need points conversions. The only rule I know of from 3e that is completely gone in 4e is passive defense, not sure what the fix for that would be.
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Passive defense was a good general idea which broke down in specific instances.
The idea was that due to hardness of armor and/or angle at which an attack hit there was a chance that an attack would "slide" or "bounce" off the armor rather than digging into the material and penetrating. On a low tech level, this was the difference between a helmet with smooth, sloping surfaces (e.g., a 14th century Bascinet helm) vs. one with flat angular surfaces (e.g. a flat-topped Great Helm). On a high tech level it's the difference between an armor piercing shell which hits hardened tank armor sloped at 60 degrees vs. one which hits the same thickness of armor at a perfectly right angle.
The problem was that for things like force fields and low tech armor it gave really bad results.
GURPS 4e handles the real life variations in Passive Defense as good or bad damage rolls. A critical hit or just a higher than normal damage roll means a hit which just happens to hit a weak spot in armor or just happens to hit at optimal angle for penetration.
The legitimate "passive defense" benefits of shields are covered by the Defense Bonus (DB) stat.
Other aspects of Passive Defense could be treated as a Supernatural advantage, based on the GURPS 3e Passive Defense advantage (at 25 points/level, up to 6 levels, found in GURPS 3e Compendium I or Supers) with each level of PD giving a 3+n chance on 3d that a given attack "bounces off" or misses regardless of the amount of damage it would normally inflict. That is, for 150 points (6 levels of PD) any attack has a 40% chance (<=9 on 3d) of somehow missing or being deflected.
For sanity, the GM could put limits on just how much damage Passive Defense can deflect. For example, it might not deflect damage in excess of DR x 10 or x100 of associated armor.
Other changes from GURPS 1e and 2e are mostly additions rather than changes to existing rules. I stand my my statement that 90% of GURPS 1-3e material is "fluff" which doesn't require any changes to be adapted to GURPS 4e, the other 9% is easily adaptable, and only 1% is stuff which requires serious understanding of GURPSology.