Would the peasant railgun be possible in GURPS?

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Rupert

D&D3.x was very clear that the GM could, and should, rule on ambiguous situations, and that they could and should change rules that were resulting in dumb outcomes. I don't know of any GM that's ever allowed instantaneous message movement via chain readies, let alone a 'peasant railgun', nor even teleporting samurai (there was a class feature for them that allowed a step between each blow of a great cleave, so as long as they never missed and every hit dropped someone they could 'teleport' across crowded battlefields).

I would totally allow teleporting samurai.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Anthony

I would totally allow teleporting samurai.

My recollection is that the prestige class in question was fairly rubbish (in that iteration, at least), so it never came up for us.

[Anders]

Originally Posted by Anthony

I would totally allow teleporting samurai.

Teleporting samurai are tight.

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by Rupert

D&D3.x was very clear that the GM could, and should, rule on ambiguous situations, and that they could and should change rules that were resulting in dumb outcomes. I don't know of any GM that's ever allowed instantaneous message movement via chain readies, let alone a 'peasant railgun', nor even teleporting samurai (there was a class feature for them that allowed a step between each blow of a great cleave, so as long as they never missed and every hit dropped someone they could 'teleport' across crowded battlefields).

In the days of 3e and 3.5e D&D, I met some players online who seemed to think that they had a right to buy arrows enchanted with Defending Weapon and get armour class infinity by shooting lots of arrows and getting an AC bonus from each. And some who felt entitled to bring in and combine any third-party supplements they could find. I did not sit in on their table to see how things worked in practice.

[Jack Sawyer]

I never cared for the peasant railgun idea. Apart from feeling too 'rules-lawyerly' it also relied on ignoring real life just enough to make the game-mechanics internal logic to work, then act as if the results had meaningful impact in real life. I mean once it achieves a certain momentum its going to cause problems for handover unless you're also assuming progressively more superhuman peasants.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

shooting lots of arrows and getting an AC bonus from each

D&D 3e was pretty clear about the same bonuses not stacking (one of the benefits of their attempt at rigor).

Never much cared for the notion of pickup games of random characters and players, though. Characters and their stories fit into the world they're designed for, not necessarily very well outside of that. Setting everything in Faerun only solves part of their problem.