Star Trek Phasers for GURPS?

[martinl]

I second the mention that "stun" won't necessarily work on nonhumans, or humans modified to be "ridiculously tough" by some form of physical or mental manipulation. "Stun setting doesn't work" is almost as much as a trope as "throws Worf around like a child" to indicate ST toughness.

I may be better to model this with resistances though.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Brett

The rules changed in 4th edition.

It takes a total of 11 * HP to achieve "Total Bodily Destruction, if that makes sense given the source of the damage)". (GURPS Basic Set p. 419)

They probably didn't. I suspect Mr Frost's memory is corrupted by something, probably a House Rule.

-10x HT (when HT and HP were indistinguishable a la 1st edition) has always been "beyond even magical Ressurection". I think it was back in the the example fight in Man-to-Man (and reprinted many times since) when it talked about Frederick being dead regardless of HT at -5x and nothing but unressurectable Frederickburger at -10. For some reason that stuck in mind.

Some GM somewhere, some time may have ruled that "Well, -10x HP means you can't resurrect him but there's a body still there! You have to go to -_20_x HP to completely do away with the body!".

That hypothetical GM was within his rights but it was never in the RAW, not even in the 1st edition of Basic.

[Captain Joy]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

They put a TL 12 weapon called a Disnintegrator in the new UT and one shot from even the holdout model will indeed completely disintegrate a normal human and no one makes the connection from this to the phaser....Let disintegrators fire at partial power for reduced use of energy/charges and you have half of the mods you need.

For what it's worth, here is what I use in my Star Trek campaign:

These weapon descriptions are based on the weapons from GURPS Prime Directive published by the Amarillo Design Bureau, but have been converted to align themselves more with GURPS Ultra Tech.

Phaser-1 (Based on the Holdout Laser (see GURPS Ultra-Tech, p. 115))
--------
Setting  Damage  Acc(a)  Range   Weight    RoF(b)  Shots(c)  ST  Bulk  Rcl  Cost  LC  TL
                   3           0.45/0.05(B)  1       33(3)    3   -1    1  $1100  3

Stun-1  HT-1 aff         10/30                        1@                              11^
linked  1d-3 burn

Kill-1  2d(2) burn      100/300                       2@                              10

Phaser-2 (Based on the Heavy Laser Pistol (see GURPS Ultra-Tech, p. 115))
--------
Setting         Damage  Acc(a) Range  Weight  RoF(b)  Shots(c)  ST  Bulk  Rcl  Cost  LC  TL
                          6         3.5/0.5(C)  3      130(3)    6   -2    1  $7400   2

Stun-1          HT-1 aff       23/70                     1@                              11^
linked          1d-3 burn

Stun-2          HT-2 aff       23/70                     2@                              11^
linked          1d-3 burn

Kill-1          2d(2) burn    300/900                    2@                              10

Kill-2          4d-1(2) burn  300/900                    4@                              10

Disintegrate-1  4d-1 cr ex    600/1800                   4@                              10

a. The visible beam itself provides a +1 to skill (and a +1 to dodge it) if the weapon was fired the previous turn. [p. B412]
b. The Rate of Fire is a measure of how long you engage the beam. E.g. If you choose a RoF of 1 on a RoF 3 rated weapon, it means you discharged the weapon for 1/3 of a second.
c. All except the Stun-1 setting use up more than 1 “Shot” of energy. E.g. Stun-2 and Kill-1 use 2 “Shot”’s.

Weapon Setting
It takes a ready maneuver to switch from setting to another.
Stun
If the victim fails his HT roll, he is unconscious (usually for 15 minutes). Note that DR offers no protection, unless the armor is sealed; in which case the stun setting will have no effect (unless the 1d-3 damage manages to burn through the armor). If they are beyond 1/2 Damage ranges, they get a +3 on their HT roll. They may also feel the 1d-3 points of burn damage, whether they make their HT roll or not; DR protects against this with its full value.
The Stun setting is a Neural Weapon superscience! improvement of Electrolaser technology (see GURPS Ultra-Tech p119-122)
Kill
This is a focused electromagentic (i.e. light) beam.
High-energy Laser (see GURPS Ultra-Tech p114-116)
Disintegrate
This setting fires wide, higher-energy beams in short duration pulses. This changes the damage type from burning to crush with explosive which may actually cause knockdown.
Pulse Laser (see GURPS Ultra-Tech p118-119)

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Captain Joy

For what it's worth, here is what I use in my Star Trek campaign:

[I]These weapon descriptions are based on the weapons from GURPS Prime Directive published by the Amarillo Design Bureau, )

Yeah, this is one of my prime issues with Prime Directive.

The Stun setting frequently fails to to do more than annoy. The "Kill" setting usually doesn't kill and the Disntegrate setting doesn't disintegrate either.

Add in the armored uniforms (yes, they have Starfleet wearing armored uniforms) and it's no wonder people resort to fisticuffs so often.

[Captain Joy]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Yeah, this is one of my prime issues with Prime Directive.

The Stun setting frequently fails to to do more than annoy. The "Kill" setting usually doesn't kill and the Disntegrate setting doesn't disintegrate either.

Add in the armored uniforms (yes, they have Starfleet wearing armored uniforms) and it's no wonder people resort to fisticuffs so often.

This was initially frustrating for my players as well. It's very important to, up front, let them know how your Star Trek (or any other campaign based on a known fictional setting) differs from the TV (or movie or book, etc.) Star Trek.

In my case, I wanted the combats to have more give and take than merely being a contest of who landed the first hit. Also, in my Star Trek campaign, body armor does not protect against the stun setting (unless it's sealed). This makes the stun setting a nice thing to have against foes wearing body armor. I also enjoy playing the quartermaster who must be convinced, every time, why OUR HEROES need type-2 phasers when everybody else makes do with type-1. :)

[umbros]

Thanks for all the great comments everyone.
For my group,

• kill setting kills, disintegrate setting disintegrates, stun setting stuns is tooo simple. I want a gun with proper weapon stats.
  
• Prime Directive style phasers just don't do it for me (or what they are supposed to do.)
  
• Disintegrators from UT feel a bit much but might be fun. It is just so vastly more powerful than anything else.
  
• A "realistic" treatment with more than a dozen settings is probably a distraction, my players wouldn't take the time to learn it all.
  
• My players will want a phaser that disintegrates a target, but it must have drawbacks (power consumption or whatever) or that is all they will use.

How about something like the following;

Each type of phaser has 4 damage settings
Type 1: 1d, 3d, 6d, and 6dx3.
Type 2: 3d, 6d, 6dx3, and 6dx6.
Type 3: 6d, 6dx3, 6dx6, and 6dx18.

Each can be set to one of: stun (Max -10), burn, or corrosive.

Each can set there ROF from 1 to 10.

Each die of damage consumes 1 "shot" with the following capacities:
Type 1:~50
Type 2:~100
Type 3:~200

Overload setting would be dice of damage remaining in the weapon in burn, explosive.

[cmdicely]

Originally Posted by umbros

What do you think is the simplest, most fun, truest to the setting, way to handle Phasers in GURPS?

That...depends. Phasers work differently from episode to episode within the same series, so its not like there is a good fixed reference point. If you want something that has all the features phasers have at one point or another, you want something that:
* might be FTL (or maybe that's just the mounted version)
* can stun, so something like the stun setting for omni-blasters is needed.
* can disintegrate all or part of a target
* can inflict injury without disintegrating (sometimes cauterizing, sometimes not.)
* can be used as a tight-beam, continuous cutting tool
* can be used to heat objects
* can be set for varying areas of effect -- on most settings
* can sometimes cause very substantial knockback

[quarkstomper]

A couple years ago I ran a ST:Next Gen-era campaign and I made up my own damage table for phasers. I might have based some of the numbers off of existing weapons, but mostly it was pulled out of my hat.

I gave the phasers four settings: Heat, Stun, Kill and Disintegrate, with a fifth setting, "overload", that I didn't bother defining because it was essentially a plot device. And I had four different types of phasers: Type I, the standard issue Federation phaser; Type II, a more powerful hand phaser, and the Phaser Rifle. (In retrospect, I see that I was basing this on how the phasers were depicted in TOS; I don't know if phasers had these distinctions in Next Gen). To these three standard classes I added a fourth: The "Bunny Phaser", a low-powered phaser with only the heat and stun settings, issued to non-Starfleet personnel; (my wife's character was a civilian on board a Galaxy-class ship so I figured they wouldn't let her have a standard phaser).

These are the damages I came up with. Once again, these were just numbers I pulled out of a hat with little to no play-testing or relation to existing weapon stats:

Bunny Phaser
Heat: 10 degrees per second
Stun: Target must roll vs. HT to avoid Stun; stunned for (Margin of failure) seconds.
Kill: None
Disintegrate: None

Phaser I:
Heat: 20 degrees per second
Stun: Target must roll vs. (DR+HT-4) to avoid stun; stunned for (10xMOF) minutes
Kill: 3d burning
Disintegrate: 10d

Phaser II:
Heat: 50 degrees per second
Stun: Target must roll vs. (HT-4) to avoid stun: stunned for (30xMOF) minutes
Kill: 4d burning; reduce DR by 1/2
Disintegrate: 15d

Phaser Rifle:
Heat: 100 degrees per second
Stun: Target must roll vs. (HT-10) to avoid stun; stunned for (MOF) hours
Kill: 8d burning; reduce DR by 12
Disintegrate: 20d

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by umbros

What do you think is the simplest, most fun, truest to the setting, way to handle Phasers in GURPS?

Simple, and true to setting: ignore GURPS damage rules. A phaser hit stuns if the phaser is set on stun, it kills if it is set on kill, etc. You don't need damage rules to represent that. Rules would only be a complicated way to sometimes get simple things wrong.

[Qoltar]

Forum member Gold & Appel posted a good suggestion in one of my STAR TREK-related threads. He said go with the Omni-blaster from Ultra Tech.

Since it was available when running the GCA - thats what I went with.

So far TWO game sessions, one in June and one in December using that shortcut....and so far no problems as far as the players are concerned.


- Ed Charlton