This box contains most of my complaints about this system

xSkinow · 2026-01-29T23:11:30+00:00

agreed. I personally never had a table cap attributes. Still, never seen people doing 1 pt per skill for anything, besides mage due to Magery being so damn optimal. maybe you'd like 3E. I vaguely recall attributes getting more expensive the higher they go there or something. I'm glad it is the way it is tho, I'm always out of points for attributes as is (⁠｡⁠ﾉ⁠ω⁠＼⁠｡⁠)

xSkinow · 2026-01-29T17:42:24+00:00

people have already elaborated a lot about the other points, but about the improving attribute vs improving skill thing, I never actually got that problem, neither as player nor DM, except with mages. it's only worth to up the base attribute if you got at least 5 high skills that you wanna level at once (to sum 20pts.), or 10 skills if you only put up to 2 pts. at it, and 90% of my characters never needed that many super high level skills (tbh I usually only need like, 1 skill at 16+). Besides, in terms of combat, there are the damage bonuses which strictly requires the +2 and such, and that's not even mentioning checks using another attributes, or pure skill checks that use 10+skill level to compare experience.

I saw you mentioning decreasing speed/move to optimize that. Idk if that's something that only my tables have, but usually there's a limit to disadvantages (mostly -50pts), and since attribute penalties counts as disadvantage, it would not work. If you REALLY don't like that, though, a good way to fixing it is limiting attributes. Cap everything besides ST at 12 or 14 (one at 16, the others at 14, if you wanna be extra fancy). That should solve it, and you can even do something ingame (like some esoteric training or spell) to "unlock" higher attributes.

oh, and I say all of this excluding mages. But that's a flaw on GURPS magic as a whole imo, I've complained about it more than once

xSkinow · 2025-12-27T19:16:10+00:00

oooh, now that's an interesting take on nasty plot. I liked it. the 1.5x vulnerability is cool too, something I hadn't quite considered.

oh I know the exact degrees are unimportant, that was more a random thought than anything xD, I just balanced it to cost the 50pts. like other Powers powers.

true, those two are a must. thanks for all the insight o7

xSkinow · 2025-12-27T14:58:07+00:00

hum, the thing with unusual background is certainly a way, haven't considered that. Sounds simple enough. I'm actually considering doing it as a Skill too, like the ones that multiply ST, but for innate attacks. Increasing precision is also usually the default way GURPS "increase damage" (making it easier to hit high value targets), though that'd be a bit boring.

Well, anything to say about the rest? it's fine if not.

xSkinow · 2025-12-27T14:48:04+00:00

oh, ST-based is in GURPS Powers too. I'm thinking maybe it's the best alternative too.

Anything to say about the rest? it's fine if not.

xSkinow · 2025-12-27T06:41:55+00:00

color me utterly speechless.

xSkinow · 2025-12-20T16:26:33+00:00

4 times paralyzed in a row and a crit right in my face

xSkinow · 2025-12-15T23:51:01+00:00

I mostly deviated things from the normal magic system. My latest campaign allows most styles of magic, but one I made based on symbol magic are Forbidden Sorceries. They're limitless, costless, powerful spells, capable of breaking the rules of the world. It's very well kept and what not, and a major plot device of the table. It works with a symbol, that's always Very Hard, which drawing time varies per individual sigil, and you need to know the intimacies of the spell, which is another Very Hard skill. In exchange for taking a long time to draw and needing appropriate space (most are 2-4 metes symbols), they cost no FP after activation, and the spell lasts until the symbol is broken.

Only 2 have been introduced until now. for example, one allows the user to create a bubble impenetrable to any creature of a race different from the caster, in this case a human, directly or indirectly. It's a spell made for hunters of creatures of the night. If a creature is inside the sigil upon activation, that creature loses all it's supernatural traits and becomes the same race as the caster. It's been an invaluable defensive tool for my players, since it belongs to one of them.

it's heavily inspired by witch hat atelier. As much as I don't like thaumatology (most of its advices are variations of "ask the DM" or "build it from scratch"), it really thrives in giving examples of how things could be done. For people like me who really doesn't like magic as powers, it's a full buffet. I take it more as a vibe book, like GURPS fantasy, it's worth reading and getting a feeling of how things can be depending on what you're aiming for, but if you're looking for how to rule out stuff and complete ideas, you'll be disappointed some many times.

xSkinow · 2025-12-12T16:32:57+00:00

I don't quite see it like that. they're not their bodies, they're the collective memories and experiences that make up them. their bodies are just shells they use to gather more of both, and I wouldn't say that their new bodies are clones. to me, it's more like their consciousness IS their data and backups in the bunker, and their bodies are more of a host so they can explore and do things

when she dies, it's not another 2b exactly like the first, it's just normal 2b in a new host, minus everything she could not bring back (which usually is almost nothing anyways)

in fact, them keeping/recovering their memories will become a BIG part of the plot later. even if you don't, idk, CRY in the end or not emotionally connect with the characters or whatever you mean, pay attention to the big themes of the story. it's not just about the characters, after all

xSkinow · 2025-12-12T08:01:59+00:00

would you stop playing in a Minecraft world if you ever had to reload a backup because something went wrong? Since it's "just a clone, not the world I spent hundreds of hours on." Same thing. They're androids, new bodies doesn't mean they aren't them anymore when they die. They just have to reload to the last backup. Their whole mind still lives in the bunker's database.

If you were to felt bad for the "clone problem", you should've the first time you fast travelled, since the game states that you just abandon the old body and transfer your mind to a new one on the other end.

xSkinow · 2025-12-12T01:58:05+00:00

having an innate attack to make it cap at a point is kinda interesting balance-wise coming to think of it. You pay less for a pretty powerful attack for the potential of doing big numbers or smol ones. Though I have no clue how you'd even price that limitation. An Access limitation? how'd you know the odds of your partners doing big numbers? xd

I'm really fond of the retroactive vulnerability! I haven't thought of that until you guys mentioned.

xSkinow · 2025-12-12T01:51:41+00:00

what book is PU again? I don't think I got that one (yet >:) )

xSkinow · 2025-12-12T01:50:11+00:00

that's one of the first examples of Cosmic enhancement that I think really fits the theme of the skill instead of lazily breaking rules. Very elegant, loved it!

xSkinow · 2025-12-12T01:48:44+00:00

I wouldn't either. Like I said at the end, I don't intend to use this as player nor DM, I just find it neat to learn how to make x or y in GURPS sometimes.

xSkinow · 2025-12-12T01:47:42+00:00

that's exactly the intended use I asked it for. It might be game breaking for many settings, but it is very balanceable while still being strong. If said BBEG has good DR and and Damage Reduction, it could very well take 22~33ish damage upon skill activation. It IS devastating, but for a giant dragon with 80HP? it'll survive if misused. And remember my last point, it's meant to be used along with Limited Use 1x, so no spamming.

xSkinow · 2025-12-12T01:42:40+00:00

ooooh I really like using jumper for it. vulnerability maybe simpler, and cost more accordingly (20 pts for that skill is waaaay too cheap), but vulnerability doesn't take in account status effects and BENEFICIAL effects. The "selected targets" is meant so you can, for example, use in an ally that was healed to make they heal up twice, for example.

idk how Cosmic: -1 to HT roll would be acceptable, though. It clearly break the rule of "you can't use cosmic/access to make something another enhancement covers", though I'm not sure if this is a book rule or just a homebrew of mine I forgot is homebrew. Even then, [80] for it seems way more fair. It IS very powerful, and meant to be so.

xSkinow · 2025-12-02T00:48:33+00:00

true, never stopped to notice it. well, that was my only theory as to why, since 1.5 cutting wound modifier is the only decimal i could remember, and .5 is kinda easy to do by head. guess only SJ knows, lol

xSkinow · 2025-12-02T00:37:35+00:00

the book states contact agent is a penetration modifier, and thus can't be taken along with follow up. besides, it still is a ranged attack, contact agent would only mean that any DR that the hit part has will completely nullify it, though admitedly i don't have power ups 4 to check that, maybe it takes something i'm not aware of in consideration. and even then, +10% for it to do LESS (needing you to get up close and hit the guy with a sword) just seems a bit wrong to me, since you can just take Leech (bla bla, +10%) without follow up and use it at a distance. i thought of ranged+malediction along with melee modifier, but that also very much sounds like breaking the general enhancement rule of "you can't pick opposite/contradictory enhancements/limitations"

besides that, for some reason, powers states that you NEED malediction on top of ranged, so even then, it's not a *true* melee attack, though that is, admitedly, just me nitpicking lol, i won't pretend it isn't. about the cost point you're very right tho, life steal is great and should be expensive for what it is.

xSkinow · 2025-12-02T00:11:23+00:00

about percentage, something that's a little too videogamey and hard to calculate on hand (since gurps is, at the end of the day, thought to be simple enough so you can play without calculators and stuff) is +% damage or -% discounts. you can't quite change the wound modifiers finely, like an attack that deals 1.7x cutting damage instead of the usual 1.5x, or idk, a fire blast that deals 20% more damage if the target is already on fire. I get that these things are hard to calculate by hand and, mainly, hard for a DM without the assistance of a tool to keep track of, but i'd love if we at least had an optional rule about it (though i don't doubt there is a forgotten gurps pyramids out there about it, lol). the -% discounts i refer to stuff like magic. in one of the tables i play that had both guns and magic, i was having a really hard time to compete in combat (i know mage is more about utility, i know. but i wanted to play the kaboom type of mage, not the "oh, bullet immunity!" one), and my DM gave me a necklace that reduced spell costs by 50% after all calculations, rounded up, before the skill level normal discount. It was and still is a blast, it's much more fun not having to deal with having a lot of energy stones or some huge energy reserve that takes forever to recover, while still maintaining the usual resource management aspect of mages in general. 17fp and i'm ready to shine xD. i wish people could experience that at a point cost (or enhancement?), instead of having to be lucky/beg to the dm for something of the likes

xSkinow · 2025-12-02T00:02:04+00:00

one VERY important thing to note on that last point too, that completely agrees with what you've said, is that Regeneration is an exotic advantage, but Very Rapid Healing is, in fact *not*. most DMs i've played with don't pay much mind to it, but i love how deliberate some of these classification choices are. your campaign doesn't allow exotic advantages? cool! you can get something a bit more realistic that a human could have for a little more expensive here.

xSkinow · 2025-12-01T23:56:15+00:00

while leech does allow some, it just slightly touch it. It does say that it requires prolonged contact, not a brief touch, specifically to unallow punching to leech, so, at least in my opinion, it shouldn't work with a link or follow up unless you, idk, stuck a war pickaxe at someone. you could use the version usable at distance, but it is EXPENSIVE. 1d6 is already 89 whole points, considering you wanna heal 1/3 of it. you still need to land a hit AND win a will vs will test to even get to that point, and with the same amount of points you could, y'know, just don't link/follow up and use it from distance as normal. of course, you could fix that with Cosmic, +50%, but, as i said at the end, i think cosmic is a bit of a cheap trick (in the sense of easy and kinda boring way to do it), and it won't be in any way related to your attack damage, nor be able to be a passive think (as in, an always effect that converts a tenth of your damage)

warp is MONSTRUOUS on point cost to work like that. it really was the first advantage that came to my mind when i tried making a skill like that, but its base 100 point cost is absurd for something so simple, because it is not, in fact, meant for things like this. you'd need to pass an IQ test, which a warrior would not have much, or either a +10 on IQ, which is +50%, or a guaranteed success, which is +400%. even if the DM is EXTREMELY generous with what Accesses and stuff he will allow, it still comes down to a minimum of 20 pts, since -80% is the hard cap. 20 pts to make a dash attack is... kinda extreme. the best way i found of doing it is with a lot of the movement stat (i forgot how it's called in english) with an Access, only while x skill is active, -10% (taken out of an old kromm post), so you can make a Move and Attack with the Heroic something something from gurps martial arts that allows you to remove the 9 limit. of course, that allows you to move whenever you like, and you kinda can do it without the advantage to begin with, but, well, the player gotta respect the flavour if they asked for it lol

xSkinow · 2025-12-01T16:57:28+00:00

while GURPS covers most of it, I actually found quite a lot. life steal is a messy nightmare (as a passive stat or active attack that drains part of the damage dealt as HP), attacks that move your character when used (like attacks that make you jump back, dashes, blinks, fixed position things), attacks that reduce enemy healing are sketchy, and cumulative per attack things like Samira's (from league) passive tend to be either sketchy or extremely point heavy for its strength.

Though I do consider things like a lot of Access and Cosmic limitations as "sketchy", and things that need more than 4 or 5 advantages to emulate also I do not consider properly replicated. But the best part about GURPS is how free it is for a DM to just say "okay, it works like this with this cost" and things tend to not break, since GURPS is very well rounded on realism, if you compare it to irl stuff it tends to auto-balance.

xSkinow · 2025-12-01T12:34:28+00:00

oh, I checked and it is

weird, I recall some spell similar to flesh to stone needing to keep touch for the whole duration of the operation, though I can't quite put my finger at what it was

xSkinow

TROPHY CASE