My Blog -- The Phantom's Belch

[Phantasm]

Not a GURPS post, just wishing people - especially my fellow pagans - a very Happy Halloween on my blog. :)

[The_Ryujin]

Happy hallow-birthday man!

[Phantasm]

More Ranoc goodness today. This time, I decided to explore how I chose the races, and how I altered the races to make them unique without losing what makes the classic races identifiable to others.

[Emerald Cat]

Originally Posted by The Phantom's Belch

The first blow to Ranoc being a D&D world was, of course, the really poor handling of firearms in D&D and D20 games in general.

What were the problems you encountered with firearms in D20 systems?

Personally, I think most problems with firearms in D&D/Pathfinder come from abstract HP. HP increases every level. Most high level characters can soak ridiculous amounts of damage. In fact, high level melee characters can survive falling from terminal velocity!

This works fine for melee weapons because most people have no frame of reference for their lethality. But most people expect firearms to be deadly. To the point that a single well placed shot can kill you. So the HP system breaks suspension of disbelief when the target is getting shot with firearms.

[Emerald Cat]

Originally Posted by The Phantom's Belch

The third blow was the insistence on using Vancian magic, which I was growing increasingly annoyed with.

Yeah, the flaws of D&D's Vancian magic system wouldn't bug me as much if there were alternatives. Pathfinder did publish a syntactic magic system. But that just had you building your own spells to slot into the vanilla Vancian magic system. I might have used it if the system weren't so convoluted.

What do you think about RPM?

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by Emerald Cat

What were the problems you encountered with firearms in D20 systems?

Mostly that I had to house-rule the snots out of it to get them to work. Remember that at the time this was 3.0, not 3.5 or Pathfinder; those came much later. D20 Modern was out, but the low-damage/high-crit stats for their firearms didn't seem right to me, nor were there rules for waiting in order to get the better shot. A few D&D-ites at the time said, "just treat them as refluffed crossbows", meaning use the exact same stats as a crossbow; I hated that method. (I also seem to recall that method being proposed by a few of the "how dare you have guns in your fantasy!" crowd, too....)

Your point about massive HP scores compared to firearms' low damage was also a factor. It's not easy pulling a rifle on a dragon, after all.....

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by Emerald Cat

Yeah, the flaws of D&D's Vancian magic system wouldn't bug me as much if there were alternatives. Pathfinder did publish a syntactic magic system. But that just had you building your own spells to slot into the vanilla Vancian magic system. I might have used it if the system weren't so convoluted.

What do you think about RPM?

RPM is a wonderful system; I'm rewording part of my chapter on magic in Ranoc to permit the setting's sorcerers to use it as a complement to or replacement for the Path/Book magic they usually use. I just haven't had the opportunity to use it in a game as yet.

[Phantasm]

More on my Ranoc Muskets-and-Magery Renaissance Fantasy setting!

Today, I detail my takes on the classical fantasy races for my Ranoc setting: Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Halflings, Half-Elves, Half-Orcs, and Orcs.

[Phantasm]

Even more Ranoc goodness today, just in time for GURPSDay!

Last time I looked at the classic player races. Today I look at the classic monster races that are available to players! You want to play a Centaur? No problem! A gentle giant Minotaur? Easy peasy. How about a savage Lizardfolk, colloquially called Mohani? Or a barely-sapient Ogre? Both are available! Goblins and Hobgoblins? Certainly!

Most commonly, though, my players gravitated towards the leezard Kobolds. No barking or yipping here; these Kobolds hiss!


Three more races to go!

[Phantasm]

The last in the Ranoc racial write-ups series! Today, I cover those races unique (mostly) to the Ranoc setting. Enjoy!