Rules you ignore/alter.

[AlexanderHowl]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Just for the record, How are you getting an average of 9 out of a weapon that's 2D-1 P usually?

Apologiea, meant 9mm.

[Fred Brackin]

I thought of one but a lot of you may not be using it either.

When you're attacking an unarmored human with a weapon that has an armor multiplier like a hollowpoint bullet you're supposed to subtract 1 from the damage before you apply penetration modifiers.

I've nerver read an explanation of why you're supposed to do this but what I eventually worked out in my head is that someone long ago assigned human skin a nominal 0.5 pts of DR which the HP ammo type multplied into a 1.

So I ignore this one because I beelive the underlying principle is wrong. I wouldn't rate bare human skin above 0.2 DR. DR 1 is decent shoe leather and DR 2 is something you make heavy boots with.

[cdru]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

I thought of one but a lot of you may not be using it either.

When you're attacking an unarmored human with a weapon that has an armor multiplier like a hollowpoint bullet you're supposed to subtract 1 from the damage before you apply penetration modifiers.

I've nerver read an explanation of why you're supposed to do this but what I eventually worked out in my head is that someone long ago assigned human skin a nominal 0.5 pts of DR which the HP ammo type multplied into a 1.

So I ignore this one because I beelive the underlying principle is wrong. I wouldn't rate bare human skin above 0.2 DR. DR 1 is decent shoe leather and DR 2 is something you make heavy boots with.

I think this deal with AD is that some weapons might be sharp, but bad at penetrating, so weak blows will simply cause a 0-injury scratch that is below GURPS resolution

[smurf]

Originally Posted by Aldric

My guess is regrowth, which seems to be overpriced anyway, according to several posts on this forum

Originally Posted by Anders

Which level of regeneration? Or do you mean Regrowth?

Yes, sorry my mistake.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Dustin

I think that's actually pretty straightforward -- use the Recoil stat. If Alice shoots Bob in the Torso with a Rcl 2 weapon, and succeeds by 5:

• first shot hits by 5 - Vitals
• second shot hits by 3 - Vitals
• third shot hits by 1 - Torso
• fourth shot misses

If Bob dodges, his margin of success removes hits. I would start with the Vitals hits because gunfights are already sufficiently lethal, but I can see an argument for doing it the other way too.

That has a couple of problems. Firstly, it means that Rcl 3+ weapons will only ever hit the Torso with one round and the rest will go into the Vitals, while Rcl 1-2 weapons despite being more controllable put more shots into the Torso. Secondly, and more importantly, multi-round hits stack in the Vitals, which makes little sense and is incredibly lethal.

[Ejidoth]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

I thought of one but a lot of you may not be using it either.

So I ignore this one because I beelive the underlying principle is wrong. I wouldn't rate bare human skin above 0.2 DR. DR 1 is decent shoe leather and DR 2 is something you make heavy boots with.

Keep in mind you're not just attacking a sheet of skin with nothing behind it. It makes sense that muscles and other tissues provide a tiny bit of resistance, at least versus something that's bad at penetrating in general.

I can see cases either way for the DR 1 vs. fractional armor divisors, but I don't think there's necessarily a logical error here.

[Raekai]

This has been my favorite thread in quite some time! I mean, it's bad for a compulsive tinkerer like me, but oh well. I apologize in advance for what's about to be a wall of text. I'll save my personal rule alterations for later as that would only make this wall of text so much worse.

Originally Posted by Mark Skarr

• Increasing the versatility of Side Effect. (B109/P106) Basically, we just use this to turn an Innate Attack into a more-useful version of Affliction. It makes ability-creation much easier and most abilities then follow the same mechanics. Only some abilities require the use of Affliction.
  
• You can’t block bullets/beam weapons with a shield. (B327, 375) Enough examples exists in media of this being invalid. It’s as valid to block a bullet/beam with a shield as it is to dodge them—the same logic applies to both: If bullets/beams are too fast to block, they’re too fast to dodge with human reflexes. Instead of erring on the side of “you can’t do that,” we’re erring on the side of “this will be more fun.”
  This really only tends to come up in Supers games, but even so, we’ve allowed the use in non-supers games.
  
• Allowing Extended Duration on Create. (P92) It’s our opinion that the “creation pool” (P93) is an incredibly poor kludge that just doesn’t work. We allow the addition of the Extended Duration enhancement on Create. While it has potential for abuse, just getting a character with Create past the GM requires extensive work, and the GM has general oversite on the power. And, Extended Duration, Permanent is a pretty huge modifier that counter-balances the need for the creation pool.
  
• Reliable not allowed on ranged attacks. (P109) Contrary to popular belief, Accuracy (B102/P99) is not Reliable (P109) for ranged attacks, it does a slightly-different thing. You can put Reliable on a melee attack—only ranged attacks are forbidden. Accuracy is Reliable with Takes Extra Time.
  Allowing the addition of Reliable on Ranged Attacks to represent increased-accuracy attacks hasn’t negatively-impacted our games at all. That said, changing Reliable to +10% for offensive abilities seems to be a better price-point. We also allow the inclusion of Reliable on Afflictions because otherwise, it’s prohibitively-expensive.
  
• Margin-Based is Awesome! (CotN1; 4) This enhancement is awesome and a blast. If you don’t use it, give it a try. Spoon it right in! How this didn’t make it into PU4 is beyond me.

I love all of these. What a great start to the thread!

Originally Posted by ericthered

• Altered trait costs. Per and Will start at 10 rather than basing of off IQ, ST costing a different amounts (usually 5), regrowth costing 10, occasional fiddling with DR and TK costs, having teeth and claws is just a perk. A lot of these are less of rule breaks than before Power Ups 9 came out, and a lot of these have their basis in MyGurps. (holy color change the site got redone).
• Setting the point costs of racial templates to arbitrary(low) amounts. Racial templates are cool, but often they have features that are less than optimal. Lowered costs funnels character points in game encouraged directions.

I've also used the Per and Will split from MyGurps forever. It spiraled out of control, and I now have eight attributes each worth 10 points. Oops.

I like that thought about racial templates. I've never found a good way to handle it.

Originally Posted by Ejidoth

I pretty much always extend the ST damage linearly for high values instead of referring to the damage table--so +8 ST is pretty much always +1d thrust and +2d swing, basically, rather than the numbers slowing down and getting closer to each other as ST rises.

If the game really isn't about challenge and conflict and stuff directly, sometimes I'll skip implementing Rule of 16 for resisted abilities like spells.

I often keep skill points separate from other character points, like the buckets of points pyramid article suggests. It mitigates the 'just take a point in each skill you want, then focus on raising DX/IQ/HT/etc. instead' issue.

If I were using dice for damage, I'd probably stick with Douglas Cole's recommendation of ST/20 for thrust and ST/10 for swing.

I'm also working on getting rid of the Rule of 16 by using (you guessed it) Douglas Cole's ideas behind Control Points.

Also, the idea of keeping skill points separate is a really good simple idea. I've read the Buckets of Points stuff, but something about seeing it again right now really got it to click better with me (for skills, at least).

Originally Posted by Dustin

• Ambidexterity costs 10, not 5. Off-hand use requires the Technique and not just a Perk. (Just seems underpriced.)
• Nerfed Extra Effort: Heroic Charge so it still eliminates the skill cap of 9, but retains the normal skill penalty of -4. (The action was just getting overused.)
• Guns (Longarms) replaces all of Guns (Musket/Rifle/Shotgun) -- there's no need for those to be separate skills.
• Parrying Unarmed Attacks (B376) does half damage, not full damage.
• Skill Assistance is more effective: When applicable, two characters may assist each other on a skill roll. The character who succeeds best has their result modified as follows:
  Helper critically fails: Critical failure affects both characters.
  Helper fails: Margin reduced by 1.
  Helper succeeds by 0 to 4: Margin improved by 1.
  Helper succeeds by 5 to 9: Margin improved by 2.
  Helper succeeds by 10+ or critically: Margin improved by 3.

I love all of these too.

Originally Posted by Otaku

It took a while before my original gaming group, back in the 90s and using 3e, learned you weren't supposed to get an Active Defense against a Critical Hit. We let you roll. Critically Success on the defense basically neutralizes the critical success on the attack. Normal success mostly adds flavor, except where the rules could be interpreted otherwise. Critical Failure on Defense against a Critical Success attack results in the most epic of fails. XD

I like to resolve this by rolling the defense before rolling the attack. It's definitely not my idea, but I can't remember where I got it from.

Originally Posted by Tinman

I use Pee Kitty's house rule that costs FP is -10% instead of -5%

I've used that one for so long that I often forget that's not RAW.

Originally Posted by Anthony

I find a lot of things work better if the time to turn an advantage on/off is instant (can be increased with extra time) rather than requiring a ready action. This means that power limitations that change an advantage from "harmless to leave active 100% of the time" to "only use when needed" (such as costs fatigue) have their "not always on" fairly priced.

This is a neat idea, and it was no surprise to see that it came from Anthony. Thanks for sharing!

Originally Posted by zoncxs

• Dual weapon attack and rapid strike are stackable.
• Boxing, Karate, and Brawling are now rolled into one skill called Unarmed Striking. It is an average skill.
• Wrestling, Sumo Wrestling, and Judo are now rolled into one skill called Unarmed Grappling, it is an average skill.

I definitely use these as well! Awesome.

Originally Posted by Harald387

I'd been playing Dungeon Fantasy (and more recently DFRPG for years before I learned that you're supposed to drop everything you're holding when you fail a check for knockdown and stunning after a major wound (B420).

Once I learned about it, I promptly decided to ignore it. Being knocked down and stunned is bad enough without forcing people to pick up weapons as well.

I'll admit that I usually don't even check for knockdown and stunning. Everyone is also assumed to have High Pain Threshold (and beings with Low Pain Threshold just use the normal shock penalties) because my players can never be bothered to help me remember shock penalty!

[kirbwarrior]

There's a lot of optional rules that make things just more inconvenient for everyone. While I get some people like that, I'd rather find a way to simplify it and get back to roleplaying.

Similarly, I try to put all complicated processes in character creation to streamline the actual roleplaying part. I'd far rather spend an extra four hours before starting than gum the game up for an hour trying to figure something out.

I entirely ignore the creation pool of Create. It's permanent. If that's a problem, Wealth or Vow solves the problem neatly.

Duplication gets Signature Gear copied for free. The enhancement instead covers everything else. Kromm made a great point about Gadgets at one point and how you keep them when you duplicate.

Trained By A Master and Weapon Master are the same trait now. Taking WM for 45 means you have TBAM. Taking WM: Unarmed is basically the same thing as TBAM (and it honestly still feels a little overpriced at 15).

Very Attractive seems necessary? I don't know why it doesn't exist, and the way other traits interact with appearance (like Classical Features) seem oddly powerful when you have exactly Attractive.

Signature Gear is just a perk. Buy the item normally. Oh, and Wealth now can be split in two with limitations for if it applies to what you start with vs what you make. And in campaigns where the second doesn't matter, it basically just costs half as much.

SM doesn't affect ST prices. Having a positive SM is now a non-afflictable disadvantage (you still need Growth). For humans, Gigantism would give you that extra level. Oh, and ST costs are different, dropping as it goes up.

Contrary to the first points, Trading Points for Cash is more complicated in play, but is easy enough to figure out. If you are spending actual cp, you just increase Wealth with Starting Only, giving you money equal to the difference. The same for Impulse points (from Destiny, Bang!, etc) but your actual total doesn't go up so later points don't give you increasingly more money.

[AlexanderHowl]

One that I use is that beneficial cumulative Afflictions are limited to a number of instances at any given time by their 'resistance' trait. It tends to cut down on the people who want to buff themselves to near infinity (not a difficult thing to do if you design the ability correctly). It is especially important to have such limits in supers campaigns.

For example, a super with a beneficial cumulative Affliction with Melee, 1-4, Dual (-0%) can target friends up to four yards away twice per turn (and will allow their users to defend themselves twice per turn). A cumulative beneficial Affliction with Extended Duration (x100) that gave DR 1 (Absorption, +100%; Bane, Afflictions, -20%) could transform a fighter into a literal tank with just a couple of minutes of effort (a HT 12 super with Very Fit would receive an average of five hours of buffing). Without any limitations of instances, the user could give each of their allies (and themselves) one hundred successful cumulative buffs within one minute, given them DR 100 with Absorption (+100%). If it is limit to HT though, it would max out at a maximum of 20 instances and probably much lower than that.

[Ejidoth]

Originally Posted by Raekai

I like that thought about racial templates. I've never found a good way to handle it.

A 10% discount on positive-value racial templates might be about right, by analogy to the 90% pricing of a single alternate form. As long as the racial templates aren't super optimized, it shouldn't break anything.