The Witcher

[Grunker]

Originally Posted by Maz

Ok looked them over, and I'm sorry to say, but they are extremely overpowered for a very low pointcost.

And in addition they do not follow normal GURPS rules (example: normally knocback distance is based on "damage" vs. ST, and you get a DX roll at -1/y knocked back to keep standing).

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Before trying to recreate them using powers we need to figure out a few things.

Alright, one by one:

Originally Posted by Maz

First off is: I would suggest you do not try to replicate it's exact abilities in the game/books "to the letter" but rather jsut keep the general feel and ability of them.

I agree, and probably would have, but my extreme limit as to the knowledge for powers and effects (see: Knockback) hindered me in this. I consider my ability to read rules fairly good, but I must admit I'm having difficulty deciphering the Basic set when it comes to powers. I've looked at it a couple of times last week, but I can't really find anything; the same applies for the general rules on the effects you mention.

Originally Posted by Maz

Secondly: It might be a good idea to figure out roughly how many points it may costs, the rough powerlevel we are aiming at. Is a sign supposed to be only 5 pts per level, so it only costs 25 pts to be "the best there is" in a single power? Thats not very many points for mastermanship. But it allows any witcher to master all of the signs for only 150 pts. Are all experienced witchers supposed to be good at all the signs? What points-level do you expect a witcher game to be played at?

My game starts off with PCs build for 110-125 points. The Witcher is build for 155 points. A few notes on the power level: There really aren't very many witchers, so sadly, we can't say that much about them in general. However, three or four of the Witchers are at least trained in all the signs. Geralt's overpowering combat abilities to boot, I'd say he was build for 500-600 points maybe... And that's with training - not mastermanship - in all Signs.

So I guess we're aiming at 5-10 points per level... It wouldn't bother me if they had differantiated cost - that is, Aard maybe costing 5 points per level, and Yrden 10, for example?

Originally Posted by Maz

Third and last: "Signs cannot be used while wearing armor of material heavier than leather!". For one "heavier" doesn't make much sense as a leather comes in many variants, where the heaviest leather is heavier than chain or even some plate armour. It sounds all too much like an artificial D&D/Computer game excuse for making balance. GURPS handles this by basing spells on FP, and wearing heavy armour (steel, iron, leather or kevlar) is all heavy and would so drain your FP jsut as Magic does, so you usually have to choose. So there is no reason for this limitation

Okay, this is pretty lame granted, but I have an excuse :P

I found out I was running this campaign the week before we had to build characters - which means both the Redania setting and the rules were developed in one week (while I was both working and studying). Slipups such as that one should be removed now, with the exception of the armor limitation (which I didn't notice was still there).

I appreciate your help very, very much! I would be great if I could perfect the compendium, and as I'm probably going to spit out more of these kind of projects, it's probably good that I get the full understanding of the rules now rather than later.

- Casper

PS. Can you point to the relevant chapters in the Basic set? I'll read those, then try to make the Signs and powers, and you can maybe take a look at them then?