Star Trek Phasers for GURPS?

[Darekun]

Originally Posted by umbros

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

Well, that middle one is kinda incompatible with the others. A simple and accurate model would be a "dial-an-Affliction" weapon, but there's a reason RPGs use hit points, and it sure ain't realism.

For a model that's fun and true to the spirit, use Combination Gadgets(p16, Ultra-Tech) to combine IR, aqua, UV, and X-ray lasers, a stat gun, and a disintegrator. Use Exploding Power Cells(p19, Ultra-Tech) to convert energy consumption between TLs, and to model the overload setting. Add hotshots(p133, Ultra-Tech), and "coldshots" consuming half a shot and dealing -1 damage per die. Make it one Ready maneuver to change all these settings around. It's deliberately not simple, though; this is not a weapon for going out and making people miserable with, it's an energy swiss army knife which necessarily includes lethal settings.

[makke]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

Given canon presentation, even in the recent Abrams ST movie, Brett's exactly right. One hit, and you're either KO'ed, dead, or both dead and vaporized. No fuss, no muss, no stats required for dropping 'em. Only possible stats needed for the stun setting are how long you stay down; define it as either a HT roll at a penalty that reduces for duration (use, perhaps, the speed range table on the speed setting rather than range) or "you're out for 30-HT minutes" for simplicity.

In the last episode of series one of TNG the "infested" humans aren't dropped by one (or even several) shots of the phaser on stun setting iirc. I guess you could call that a special feature of the creature but to be honest I don't see the difference between saying "~190pts of damage" and "you die" in most cases... That's why I would stay with the Disintegrater and handwave most damage roles if there is no chance the hit is survived (e.g. you are hit and are a normal human and have no further protection)... So I guess I'm with Fred Brackin here.

Markus

[Mr Frost]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Fer cryin' out loud.

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 ...

Unless the rules changed in 4th edition , it takes 20 x H.P. damage to actually disintergrate a person , not 10 x .

Average person 10 H.P. , takes 240 H.P. cor damage to disintergrate .
Holdout Disintergrator {UT 4th.ed p.130} average damage 122.5 H.P. cor .
Even hotshotted it dinna hav tha poower Jim .


He would need to double damage and given Star Treks Plotonium power suppily technology use some sort of "cosmic" power cell that has Plot number of shots per cell .

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by Mr Frost

Unless the rules changed in 4th edition , it takes 20 x H.P. damage to actually disintergrate a person , not 10 x .

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)

[Mr Frost]

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)

Why 11 ?

Was 10 insufficient , but 12 excessive ?

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by Mr Frost

Why 11 ?

Was 10 insufficient , but 12 excessive ?

Well, I wasn't involved in the rules revision in any way, so I'm just guessing. But I expect that "-10 * HP" was a nice round number that seemed roughly right.

To go from +HP to -(10 * HP) involves losing 11 * HP hit points.

[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.

[Mr Frost]

Originally Posted by Brett

Well, I wasn't involved in the rules revision in any way, so I'm just guessing. But I expect that "-10 * HP" was a nice round number that seemed roughly right.

To go from +HP to -(10 * HP) involves losing 11 * HP hit points.

Yes , but therein they turned it from round into an ovoid .

The huge manatee !

Aspers , we likes round round numbers :)

[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.

[cmdicely]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

Given canon presentation, even in the recent Abrams ST movie, Brett's exactly right. One hit, and you're either KO'ed, dead, or both dead and vaporized.

That may be true of the Abrams movie (I haven't watched it with an eye to "how are phasers presented"), its not even remotely true of the rest of canon -- there are references to non-lethal "phaser burn" injuries where the actual shooting occurred off-camera, and there instances of non-lethal injuries (not stuns) on camera (though I'm not sure if there are any instances of that happening to normal humans; probably the best known example is the Horta in TOS), there are instances where the stun and kill settings don't do what is advertised in other ways, and there are instances where phasers are used to do things other than stun or kill (heat rocks, disintegrate objects, cut through objects without disintegration, etc.)

The best model for the way it seems to work in canon -- i.e., doing whatever the plot needs that can be justified by beam-weapon SFX -- is probably a a gadget with a Cosmic, Physical-only, focus-limited (things that can be justified by dumping energy into the target without any manipulation more than aiming the phaser, explicitly including Unconsciosness Affliction, which might be marginal by that description), Advantages-only Modular Ability, with the number of points in it depending on whether its a Phaser 1, Phaser 2, Phaser Rifle, etc.