A question came up in my game on what to do with ranged critical failures (specifically for a crossbow).

The basic book has a critical fail tables used in general for all weapons including ranged, though some of the crit failure results don't seem to apply (or seem less reasonable) for ranged weapons.  Basic also talks about malfunctions for firearms, though other ranged weapons are not included.

I think the intent of the book is pretty clear especially when Low Tech says that crossbows only have malfunctions if they are of cheap quality - but has anyone seen any other rules or house rules for a critically failed crossbow attack?

What it means is that the Malf number only causes a malfunction for cheap weapons.

Malfunctions caused by critical fails don't use that rule.

You are suggesting that means crossbows malfunction on crit failures?  Where are you getting the crit fail tie to malfunction in the first place.  Basic seems to say that the two are independent and that malfunctions are even independent from a successful skill roll.

Not all critical failures result in a malfunction; just those that clearly state that that's the result. If a crit fail results in a malfunction, it's a malfunction.

The Malf malfunction rules are optional anyway.

Crossbows are man made and suffer failures, perhaps not many, but some regardless. It has several parts under stress and any one of them could break, for instance the sear (holding the bow string back) has two fingers, one on either side of the quarrel, if one broke, the quarrel would get an uneven push and go who knows where.

See, this is just my point.  It looks like there are no critical failures that result in a malfunction, because they are two independent things.  There is no critical failure table (that I can find) that has malfunction anywhere on it.  The only place they seem to exist is on the low TL firearms table (which gives each TL a malfunction number) or in low tech for cheap mechanical weapons.

and I totally agree with you Aethulred, in real life there are enough moving parts in a crossbow that it seems pretty reasonable that one of them could stop working.  A savvy GM could easily deviate in any direction here and have an argument to back up his call.  I'm just wondering if there are any rules that support it.

Hey, I have a question on how to model something for a character concept.

A little background...  I have gamer friends who are interested in GURPs, and I'm getting ready to introduce them before long.  We originally met playing World of Warcraft, and the lady I am specifically thinking of has had a lifelong love of Druids.  To be specific, she wants none of this healing nonsense.  Pretty much all she wants to do is bear out and give somebody the business.  Her character in GURPs will probably be no different.

To give you some background, I have specifically not read a ton of the Dungeon Fantasy stuff.  My experience with GURPs started in 3E, so I know the system well.  As a current player, I want to know the basics for DF, but not read ahead on the material.  The new experience has been refreshing.  In theory that will be changing here in the not-so-far future.  I'll need to put together a balanced combat, and then potentially adopt a campaign.

To try and accommodate what my friend will want to do, I read up on bears in the Monsters PDF.  I'm playing a priest in one of my games to make sure I'm familiar with that infrastructure as well.  That doesn't answer my real question, though.  How would you go about giving her an alternate form as a bear?  Yes, it can be done via priest spells, using Shapeshift.  However, looking at the form in the PDF, a bear is...huge.  Even with power investiture and the spell point, I think it would be overpowered.  I want to try and maintain game balance, although if I make her OP then I'm much more likely to get a game...  :D

How would you guys do this?

Well Gurps has several different sized Bears... so she could theoretically choose which one she wishes to be. Bigger = more fatigue cost and the issues that come from being really big, or not.

 A Black Bear is 250-350 pounds [ST-14; DX-11; IQ-4; HT-13 & 300 pounds per GURPS] and reasonably common. They aren't especially aggressive unless they feel endangered or a sow has cubs.  Still, not an animal you want to wrestle with!

A Grizzly is 800 pounds anyway [ST-19; DX-11; IQ-4; HT-13] and usually more vicious although less common near larger human habitations.

The Polar Bear is bigger at 1,000 pounds  [ST-20; DX-11; IQ-4; HT-13].

The "Cave Bear" is larger yet at 1,400 pounds [ST-23; DX-11; IQ-4; HT-13], and since it is mostly fantastic, you can make it what you wish, I'd assume slower and much more powerful.

Black Bears and Grizzlies can move surprisingly quickly for short distances (say 100 yards at most). They have been measured at 35 MPH (56 KPH)!

All of this is from page 456 of the BASIC SET - Campaigns

I'd probably use some function of ST to determine the cost of assuming that shape.

I really appreciate that.  I'll go back and review that.  I'm planning to start them off as weaker characters, so they can grow.  Leaning Black Bear to start off, but that also depends on what the point investiture ends up being, and all of that.

That's an important point on the fatigue cost as well.  If the spell costs a lot of fatigue, then we're really looking at more short term usage.  That might balance it out a lot better.

I'll have to think about it some, to see if I'd rather do it that way, or do something like an alternate form.

Alternately, and more in line with how Druids in WoW shapeshift, you might allow Shapesifting - Alternate Form.

I used the advantage Shapeshifting for a Beorning’s alternate bear form in LotR:

Shapeshifting: Alternate Form (Kodiak Bear) [159]

Notes:
The rare lords of the Beornings, like Beorn himself, have the ability to transform into a large bear [190 points].

When a Beorning is in bear form, he has ST 20 [100], DX 11 [20], IQ 10 [0], and HT 13 [60].  Traits:  Blunt Claws [3]; DR 2 [10]; No Fine Manipulators [-30]; Semi-Upright [-5]; Sharp Teeth [1]; Temperature Tolerance 2 [2], Brawling-13 [4].  SM +2 (10').

Teeth do thrust-1 cutting damage; blunt claws add +1 per die to damage inflicted with a punch or kick.

In addition, he has the following advantages: Combat Reflexes [15], Perception +2 [10], Speak with Animals [25]; and Disadvantages and Quirks:  Cannot Speak (grunts and growls) [-15], Bestial [-10].

You could scale that down or add limitations like Costs Fatigue, Limited Use, or Pact.

From Characters p. 84:


This message was last edited by the GM at 11:05, Tue 23 Apr 2019.

Thank you for that.  More is better.

My players and I have been discussing the Disadvantage of Resents and Resists authority. I am not aware of such a DisAd in the rules.

I know such people and so feel it's a valid DisAd, but what is it worth?  for "controls his instincts often on a 12 or less" perhaps a -5?
Say -10 for a control on a 9 or less; -15 for a control on a 6 or less?

Thoughts? Ideas? Discussion?

They have made a lot of good comments, but I will let them post them here rather than trying to post a long thread. But it was pointed out that in the Medieval Period, it could get you summarily killed.

Intolerance (Authority) [-5].

Normally since the scope is very rare it would be a quirk, but as the drawback tends to be fairly major, as in the reaction is often worse than another type of Intolerance class, I feel it warrants being -5.


And if it's a campaign where the PC will be butting heads with authority a lot (like say a military campaign, or politics when he isn't the topmost dog in charge) it might even warrant being -10.
This message was last edited by the player at 05:21, Wed 31 July 2019.

In reply to evileeyore (msg # 949):

I think the ability to bite your tongue (control number) is a bigger factor too ... but it can be a real problem when dealing with the police/city guard, Nobles, Military superiors, bureaucrats etc.
Having someone with this issue in the Family really makes it understandable; but that's another long post...

That's why Control Number has a multiplicative effect on the cost.

Being one of the players in this discussion, I'll say that I like evileeyore's comments.  I'd say got with that, which is pretty close to what we had been thinking (except he nailed the Disadvantage to call it).

OK, Let's try it..

Question. I've never used GURPS but someone suggested it would work for my needs. My question may seem basic but I just don't know anything about how GURPS works other than it's supposed to fit any game's needs.

I'd like to run a low-tech, no-magic, post-apocalyptic game in the vein of the Fallout or Wasteland games. But not just "in the vein", I kind of want to do a game based heavily on Fallout. I think some changes would need to be made because (IMO) Bethesda has kind of broken the lore in ways that ruin my suspension of disbelief, but I would want to use vaults, super mutants, centaurs, rad-x, etc.

If I were to get the two base game books http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/basic/ and the After the End supplements http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/aftertheend/, how adaptable is the game? Could I create super mutants, radiation rules, power armor, robots, ghoulification, etc. from those books pretty easily? Or would there be a lot of heavy lifting on my part to select and adapt rules and create enemies from scratch?

Short answer, absolutely.

Long answer. Depending on the level of realism and grit you were hoping to attain, there are a number of people here that can suggest official GURPS resources and homebrew rules to get the "feel" you are shooting for.

Feel free to PM as well if that's more comfortable for you.

And GURPS Light will let you get a feel for how everything works for free! Just download from SJGames.
You could even limit the game to those rules, others have before.

In reply to habsin4 (msg # 954):

If you do make a GURPS Fallout game, you should use Vault 13. Just for the nod to the early link between GURPS and Fallout.

Also, you'll want to look at this if you haven't already:

http://gurps.fallout.free.fr/d...lout_compilation.pdf

In reply to gorchek (msg # 957):

Ah, perfect!!! Thanks.
Actually, I live in DC and I’m considering using the Capitol wasteland but I’ll probably go somewhere not already used in the end.

In reply to habsin4 (msg # 958):

The other book that has some useful stuff in it is High Tech...they have a lot of the lower tech than today, including improvised steam engines and stuff.

Glad to see you made it!

"Low-tech"... so, you're going more for Raiders or boot-strapped up villagers with less "pre-war" tech lying around to scavenge than Fallout usually allows for?  No pip boys (or back to Fallout 1 type PIP Boy)?

Doable.  It helps to keep the arms race from going crazy, that's a given.

But if you do decide to add in that stuff, toss me a PM, I'll copy over the relevant weapon stats from Ultra-Tech.  And like they said, if you're aiming at 'modern' tech, High Tech is a great book, as is Low-Tech for things like alternative iron-age weapons and armors.

If you like the fan made Fallout stuff, a lot of the heavy lifting is done.  If you don't, then... we'll, at least you can look at what they've done as a jumping off point, and we're here to help.



Mad Mick (or other narrators):  We're nearing 1K messages.  Maybe a new "GURPS 4e Rules Chat" thread?