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Old 04-02-2013, 07:47 PM   #21
Fred Brackin
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Default Re: Some notes on Lensman for 4e

I came up with a few more weapons notes.

GP Armor includes a "big knife". big enough that a motivated Velantian can behead a servant-class Delgonian in one flying strike anyway.

This could be either a Large Knife or a Long Knife. No specifics are given in Lensman. However there are some knives described in other Smith works.

In Spacehounds of IPC, when the hero is outfitting himself with a homemade low tech arsenal his left hand weapon is a 14 inch poignard with serrated edges. Turned out to be just the thing for sawing at tentacles. If anyone ever complies the 10 Rules of Space Opera remember that "There Will Be Tentacles" is #7.

When Blackie DuQuesne was creating all the personal artifacts of an imaginary culture he gave that culture a ceremonail "knife" that had a 15" curved blade.

So a Long Knife is certainly not out of the question. It might have serrations too.

There are other energy weapons in the Lensman series. The claim-jumpers who tried to bushwhack Wild Bill Williams were armed with what that eloquest worthy decribed as "cap pistols". Certainly not as hot and tight as Delameters. Perhaps a non-Heavy energy pistol.

The Delgonians have whole arsenals of inferior energy weapons. None is even remotely close to being equal to a Delameter. They only cause targets to smoke and burn. Full out Delameters will vaporize unprotected organic beings.

In Triplanetary (and only there to my memory) energy weapon power cells explode when destroyed. Doc describes them as liberating the "thousands and thousands of stored kilowatt-hours".

This is a bit too much by the usual Gurps standards. The most efficient rechargeable C cell from Ve2 holds 2.5 kilowatt hours and still makes a pretty good bomb if it releases all of its' energy when destroyed.

To go at power consumption from another angle, what was probably the main power plant for a Delginian servant city will support the continuous output of 4 Delameters with some left over.

So we Google "etectric power generation megawatts" and get....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...ns_in_New_York

.....which suggsts a range of hundreds of MW to a low number of GW. Let's try 800 MW and only use half of that for the Delameters. There are 4 such guns firing at ROF 10 so we take 400 MW and divide it by 40 and get 10 MW-seconds per blast.

That's still a lot. Ve2 numbers had consumption of hundreds of KJ (or kilowatt-seconds).. If Delgonaan servants have litte energy spent on comfort or entertainment we could reduce by an arbitrary amount. Apparently US electricity production was only 1/13th as much in 1950 too.

Semi-portables are run off beamed power. Note that the exotic wavelengths used in the process do not seem to require an unobstructed line of sight.

I did leave out needle beams too. These come in ship and semiportable sizes and are more of less the only other energy weapons besides priamries that are both tightly focussed and of short duration. They are effectively the sniper weapons of the Galactic Patrol era.
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Old 04-08-2013, 04:01 PM   #22
Fred Brackin
 
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Default Re: Some notes on Lensman for 4e

Let's try a first pass at the psionics.

First, just a note that Psionic Powers doesn't seem a particularly good fit. Especially as regards range. There do not seem to be any telepaths in the Lensman universe with ranges as short as envisioned by Psionic Powers. The power level of the offensive abilities is aimed rather lower as well. So we might as well go straight to Powers.

There's still a range problem there. Telesend starts out at Long distance Modifiers with several ways to shorten range but just Long Range I to increase range to no penalties at any distance.

Fairly average seeing Rigelliians and Palainians appear to handle Telesend at continental and probably planetary ranges as ordinary tasks. No evidence of Interstellar though Worsel could probably have done it even before he got his Lens. Even simple Tellurian L1s appear to manage interstellar range easily. Helmuth appears to have needed an amplifier to reach the Second Galaxy though.

<shrug> We may not get a particularly good fit without creating custom Advantages and/or Limits.

Mind Reading, Mind Probe and Mind Control probably have similar range issues. Direct Zones of Compulsion or other forms of overt mind control might be restricted to L2s and advanced Boskonians but lesser entities described as "therapists" appear capable of subtle manipulations of the type in the Mindwipe section. They might be limited to relatively close ranges.

Bolts of Mental Force Calculated to Slay Any Living Thing are probably Innate Attacks with the Toxic type and Malediction II. Going to be really expensive and we may have to look in to appropriate forms of DR too. A Mind Shield that only increases Resistance rolls does not seem to be a good fit. This is the sort of place where I miss the 3e Psionics system.

The Sense of Perception makes you understand why in the old Gurps;Lensman book they wrote a short paragraph of descriptive text and charged 100pts.

There are probably three main avenues of approach and all will become phenomenally expensive and may not fit well either.

The first is "simple" boosted vision. This might start All Around Vision with Panoptic II then add in Penetrating Vision, much Acute Vision and/or Telescopic Vision, Microscopic Vision w/ Range and probably both Dark Vision and Hyperspectral Vision w/Extended High and Low.

This could come close if you spent enough pts but the actual Sense of Perception has little or no limits on how much ordinary matter it can pierce. Even a simple Rigellian's SoP_ can go deep under ground.

The second approach is Pararadar with all available Enhancements. This misses some things and has the same problem with piercing solid matter.

The third approach is based off of Clairvoyance and this solves the penetration problem but requires much modification to use it as easily as regular vision. It also has sharp limits in range. It would still need some Enhancements to regular vision to see through nearby walls and see all possible forms of energy after you've moved your viewpoint to a distant location.

Lastly (for now at least) we have an odd little ability. Third level minds simply can't be killed by physical force. That's probably Unkillable III. However, while L2s can be killed by physical force they can't be rendered unconscious by things that leave them alive. Explicitly not recreational drugs, surgical anesthesia and probably trauma too.

I've ben puzzling at this one in Gurps terms since the first version of G:Lensman came out and the best I've gotten so far is Immunity to Unconsciousness (Mental Only).

I could go on about possible abilities of Third Stage abilities but L3 PCs seem unlikely.
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Old 04-08-2013, 05:47 PM   #23
jeff_wilson
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Default Re: Some notes on Lensman for 4e

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Originally Posted by Fred Brackin View Post
The third approach is based off of Clairvoyance and this solves the penetration problem but requires much modification to use it as easily as regular vision. It also has sharp limits in range. It would still need some Enhancements to regular vision to see through nearby walls and see all possible forms of energy after you've moved your viewpoint to a distant location.
Try one of the abilities that has a tunnel enhancement, like Warp, then sell back the ability to work with anything but sense impressions.
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Old 04-08-2013, 06:17 PM   #24
Fred Brackin
 
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Try one of the abilities that has a tunnel enhancement, like Warp, then sell back the ability to work with anything but sense impressions.
Perhaps Permeation (Fabric of Space/Time) Sense Only might work mechanically if not conceptually but Warp appears not a good match in game mechanics even if you do bend the concept enough.
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Old 04-08-2013, 06:50 PM   #25
Fred Brackin
 
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Default Re: Some notes on Lensman for 4e

Some notes about a Lensman template.

Lensmen have 15pts of Law Enforcement Powers. If Gurps gave out 20pts they'd have that much too. Probably Legal Immunity too.
r
Some sort of omnibus Rank covering Military and Administative (possibly multiple types) at 10 pts/level or more.

The only real limits on a Lensman's conduct are self-imposed ones. Definitely Sense of Duty (Civilization) for 20 pts and perhaps a 15pt Code of Honor.

Not Honesty though. That's effectively a Compulsive Behavior and Lensmen throw laws to the winds (even Trenco's winds) whenever truly necessary. "Never violates laws except when there's a good reason" doesn't even make a good Quirk. Besides a Gray Lensman literally can't commit a crime even if he tries. That'd make Honesty a 0 pt feature even if he had it.

G:Lensman's notes about Attribute requirements above Racal norms is probably still good. Definitely at least one level of Charisma. That's "The Look of Eagles" Doc was talking about.
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Old 04-09-2013, 09:33 AM   #26
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Default Re: Some notes on Lensman for 4e

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Lensmen have 15pts of Law Enforcement Powers. If Gurps gave out 20pts they'd have that much too. Probably Legal Immunity too.
Lensmen generally, or Unattached Lensmen?

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Old 04-09-2013, 02:51 PM   #27
Fred Brackin
 
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Default Re: Some notes on Lensman for 4e

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Lensmen generally, or Unattached Lensmen?

Bill Stoddard
Any Lensman is legally entitled to act as Judge, Jury and Executioner without nay regard for local laws. That's fairly extreme.

Also, Kinnison pulled his "Thionite for Helmuth" stunt before he got his Grays. The main limit on a regular Lensman's authority seems to be that it has to make sense to some more senior Lensman either before or after. The Laws of Civilization don't really seem to apply.
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Old 04-09-2013, 03:36 PM   #28
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Default Re: Some notes on Lensman for 4e

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Also, Kinnison pulled his "Thionite for Helmuth" stunt before he got his Grays. The main limit on a regular Lensman's authority seems to be that it has to make sense to some more senior Lensman either before or after. The Laws of Civilization don't really seem to apply.
Kinnison becomes unattached in Chapter XIV of Galactic Patrol. He gets advanced training from Mentor in Chapter XVIII. He stops by Trenco and asks Tregonsee for 50 kg of thionite in Chapter XXIII—and Smith says "Tregonsee did not flinch or question—he was not even surprised. This was a Gray Lensman." That sounds as if it's specifically Kinnison's unattached status that lets him set aside ordinary laws.

It's true, though, that a normal Lensman has authority to act as judge, jury, and executioner (Chapter XIX). Perhaps then the difference is that the ordinary Lensman has very high Legal Enforcement Powers but the Gray Lensman also has a very high Legal Immunity?

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Old 04-09-2013, 03:44 PM   #29
Fred Brackin
 
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Default Re: Some notes on Lensman for 4e

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It's true, though, that a normal Lensman has authority to act as judge, jury, and executioner (Chapter XIX). Perhaps then the difference is that the ordinary Lensman has very high Legal Enforcement Powers but the Gray Lensman also has a very high Legal Immunity?

Bill Stoddard
I don't think Gray Lensmen lose any Legal Enforcement powers and no one really has any authority over a regular Lensman except a higher Ranking Lensman.

You might end up with something complicated like Omnibus
Rank 8 for any Lensman with a separate Lensman Rank until he gets his Grays when he's Rank 9 for everyone everywhere.
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Old 04-09-2013, 03:53 PM   #30
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Default Re: Some notes on Lensman for 4e

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I don't think Gray Lensmen lose any Legal Enforcement powers and no one really has any authority over a regular Lensman except a higher Ranking Lensman.
Nor was the loss of LEP implied by what I said. I said that gray lensmen "also" have Legal Immunity.

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