GURPS | Pilot NET | Page 1

mighty hinge Jun 15, 2025, 4:04 AM

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Gaming's Ultimate Role Playing System

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realized i should probably make this, even if it's not going to get used much

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(and yes, the description is a joke)

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mostly making this just because I was messing around with the weapon creation system from 3e Vehicles again and made/updated/finished a bunch of electromag guns https://i.imgur.com/Q6semtX.png

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(cartridge is just flavor text and the barrel length is flavor text beyond the category itself)

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for some scaling on the damage values, a normal pistol is around 2-4 dice, a 7.62mm rifle or machine gun is around 7d, .50 BMG is usually around 13d.

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120mm Tank Gun loaded with APFSDSDU is 6dx30(3), so comparable to my 48mm Cannon

astral fox Jun 15, 2025, 7:28 AM

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so,

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what is GURPS?

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we've heard of it, a little bit, but very very little about it

mighty hinge Jun 15, 2025, 7:33 AM

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3d6 roll under, point buy, generic with a strong preference for "action movie realism". LOTS of optional rules and supplements and customization.

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its basically a toolbox that you build your own game from (within the bounds of the system)

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4e is the current edition, significantly streamlined and improved, though a handful of more complex systems (like custom vehicles and robots) havent been ported over still and may never be.

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i actually dont fully understand 3e but im basically just using its systems for personal worldbuilding stuff so the game mechanics dont matter too much

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like SS, snapshot, is a stat 3e weapons have. no idea how that works.

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its something to do with how quickly you can react but 🤷

true talon Jun 15, 2025, 10:40 AM

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👀

gaunt knot Jun 15, 2025, 3:27 PM

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I've been having the GURPS brainworms returning as well

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reading malazan has put me in the mind of it

mighty hinge Jun 15, 2025, 9:24 PM

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https://i.imgur.com/T7kxYKm.png https://i.imgur.com/9jgQHDU.png

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sweating

mighty hinge Jun 15, 2025, 10:00 PM

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anyway, have some hypersonic missiles https://i.imgur.com/n8CLcqF.png

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despite what seem like extreme damage values (avg 581 on impact plus avg 1855 explosive accounting for the armor divisor), the sample vehicle V/STOL Fighter-Bomber, described as being comparable to a Harrier II, has 1500 HP on the body. and the Main Battle Tank, comparable to a Leopard II or M1 Abrams has 2400 turret HP and 3000 body HP.

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(neither has enough armor to significantly change things except for the tank's front plate)

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oh also the multi-warhead versions can hit targets up to 62 or 125 miles apart (1/10th max range)

mighty hinge Jun 15, 2025, 10:58 PM

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also the reason that stealth is just the description is because i have no idea how to actually include it

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the missile rules say https://i.imgur.com/WpHtenA.png

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but Surface Features are priced based on surface area, which wasn't calculated for the missile https://i.imgur.com/ogZ58zu.png

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although... they do have volumes, so i can just use that

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okay, adjusted for stealth

mighty hinge Jun 16, 2025, 10:08 PM

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so im building a tank now, and i am eternally amused by the juxtaposition presented in gurps books

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detailed description of semaphore on one page, FTL radios on the next

mighty hinge Jun 17, 2025, 7:46 PM

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parachute discussion in technical has made me think about this tank air deployable thanks to nanofiber parachutes or whatever supermaterial makes sense for parachutes

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"air deployable light tank" i sleep
"air deployable main battle tank" real shit?

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awkwardly, while 3e vehicles does have a vehicular parachute, i dont think its really intended for air drops, though it can be used that way

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for an idea of how big of a chute is needed, a fully upgraded Abrams would need a ~1500 lb chute

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(assuming the 73.6 ton weight on the wikiped is just the vehicle, that leaves up to 1.4 tons for crew, ammo, supplies, etc)

mighty hinge Jun 18, 2025, 2:15 AM

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anyway, tank design, this is a robot tank with the best cameras in the game, but the idea of giving it a searchlight so it can do the classic Patrolling Enemy In A Stealth Game bit is tempting
https://i.imgur.com/ARDn0LS.png

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(you do get headlights for free so its not strictly required)

mighty hinge Jun 18, 2025, 6:01 AM

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okay, tank more of less complete. 96mm Railcannon in the turret [100 rounds], a pair of pop-up turrets with the 8mm Gatlings [20k rounds each], all fully stabilized, AESA and PESA sensors, full spectrum of ECM, guidance, etc, very powerful robot brain to run everything (incl. regular software but not the skill programs because i didnt feel like calculating those), a 9 ton fusion plant to power everything (and 1 ton of batteries as a 20 minute emergency backup), maximum stealth package (radical infrared cloaking, radical emissions cloaking, radical sound baffling, radical stealth and intruder chameleon), thermal superconductor armor to block heat rounds, the most hit points it can have and more than triple the armor of the provided TL7 MBT [600 on the underside and tracks, 3000 on the body sides, 4500 on the turret sides and 6000 on the turret and body front]

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final stats compared with the Generic TL7 MBT and what wikipedia had on the latest Abrams https://i.imgur.com/OqFlwxE.png

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with the note that this thing has dramatically more armor and very powerful guns and is a robot

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the generic tank uses the TL7 Tank Gun, which does 6dx30(3), this things gun does 8dx58(3), so about 2.5x damage

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also it fires 1 round per second and has 100 rounds in the mag

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not to mention the dual gatling guns that hit like 20mm AP

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the stealth upgrades are definite overkill but they only add ~1.5 tons and ~$2M

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also this thing is fucking 2/3rds armor

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https://i.imgur.com/foRD8Ue.png

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oh also the TL7 MBT has 1680 DR on its body front and 1500 on its turret front and 200 or less everywhere else, for comparison

mighty hinge Jun 20, 2025, 11:27 PM

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im designing (or attempting to) a maglev train now, where do yall think a train would be on this scale https://i.imgur.com/1MKOywV.png

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oh wait, they put locomotives at extra-heavy

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hmm, ill consider it

mighty hinge Jun 21, 2025, 1:29 AM

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okay a funny thing, TL11 fusion power is so good that using electrical contact power is worse under 2.5 MW

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(except for cost)

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at 2.5MW they're both 2500 lbs and 50 cf, with the fusion costing $162.5k and the ECP $20k

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but at, say, 10 MW, the fusion is only 4k lbs, 80 cf and $200k while the ECP is 10k lbs, 200 cf and $80k

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so yes, i will be powering this high speed maglev train with an onboard fusion reactor

mighty hinge Jun 21, 2025, 1:57 AM

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hmm, this thing is actually ending up way too small unless im doing something wrong

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maglev system, a pair of roomy crew stations with bridge access, a pair of bunks with a small galley, the fusion reactor, Very Good streamlining, access space for the maglev and reactor (essentially doubling their volume) and it still comes out to 800 cf

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(for reference they stat a four person compact car at 215 cf)

mighty hinge Jun 24, 2025, 12:17 AM

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working on robots now (mostly the same rules as vehicles)

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ambassador android with one of these in the mouth as an emergency "fuck you" weapon would be very funny https://i.imgur.com/ly9dB7s.png

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true talon Jun 24, 2025, 5:59 AM

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Are you using Gurps 3e or gurps 4e?

mighty hinge Jun 24, 2025, 5:41 PM

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im much more familiar with 4e but this is the vehicle/robot design stuff from 3e since besides Spaceships, its never been updated

true talon Jun 25, 2025, 6:19 AM

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Bit of a follow up question does the Gurps Vehicles rules for 3e work with 4e?

mighty hinge Jun 25, 2025, 6:45 AM

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the book? 3e

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oh, you mean compatibility

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yes*

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some of the stats are different so you might need to make some adjustments or just make up new values. there was some kind of recalculation for HP that i dont remember the details of. DR is mostly fine i think, though you may have to adjust certain types based on new 4e stuff. the speed and handling stuff should be fine since i dont think those changed too much? and basically every other stat is just a description of the vehicle

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as an example, heres all the Actual Game Statistics from the sample Jeep https://i.imgur.com/QLR0oOx.png

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oh and PD ("Passive Defense") was removed

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there is a very basic vehicle creation system in a pyramid article, but its basically just "describe the vehicle and write down stats that feel right" and mainly intended for making stats for real world vehicles

mighty hinge Jun 26, 2025, 6:58 AM

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a little experiment with the robot design rules, a minimum-viable-product human-passing android designed at TL8, TL9, TL10 and TL11.
Small Brain, ST 12 arms, 0.2 KW legs, basic jaw, a single rechargeable E cell for power, Light structure, Realistic Flesh and Surface Sensors (a sense of touch) and absolutely nothing else. Targeting a 150 lb weight and using "filler" to achieve that because they all come in much lighter.

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https://i.imgur.com/qUGBBnq.png

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the "realistic flesh" is basically just a thin surface layer of fake skin/muscle/fat, which is why its only 12 lbs, no fake organs or anything. so im going with the idea that the "filler" is some kind of plastic or whatever in all the space that organs would go in a person so that the robot isn't just a thin shell of fake skin over a robot skeleton

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no structural or mechanical function, just filling space and adding weight, also gives an idea of just how much you can upgrade them as you go up in TL

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also for an idea of just how much armor you could shove in there (though assuming full and uniform coverage is generous, of course) ~~https://i.imgur.com/dMBUNqp.png~~

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actually wait, i forgot how nonrigid works, one second

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while Reflex would probably work better, its TL10, so we'll just do Metal so everyone's the same https://i.imgur.com/uVSXibI.png

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for scale, a thick modern Kevlar vest (or similar) is about ~10-15 DR, ceramic or metal plates add ~30-35

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the Glock 17 is statted at 2d+2 so 9 damage on average, max 14, so its almost never hurting the TL8
most 5.56 rifles are statted at 5d so 17.5 damage on average, max 30, so its usually hurting the TL8 and almost never the TL9
the Barrett M82 is 13d, 45.5 average, 78 max.
M82 with (good) AP rounds is 13d(2), so effectively doubled, and that doesnt even achieve average penetration against the TL11's armor

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is there really anything to learn here besides "higher tech weapons and armor are very scary"? idk, maybe, not sure what though

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oh, a point of clarification that i just remembered, which is also relevant to the earlier question about compatibility with 4e, they changed the tech levels between editions. so 3E TL7 = 4E TL8 = "Roughly Now"

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(mostly they just compressed the future TLs because going all the way to 16 was very silly)

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so the TL8 android on the chart above is "near future", so to speak

mighty hinge Jul 6, 2025, 11:12 PM

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so, per Space 3e (and Vehicles 3e), a cabin for 1 or 2 people is 2 tons and 500 ft3 (Space's spaceship building system uses "Spaces" instead of cf to slightly simplify things, because of how big they can get). thats about an 8 foot cube. https://i.imgur.com/JDbUva2.png

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Space also offers a selection of Habitat Modules for things like space stations and colony ships, so you dont need to build them room by room, the Housing Module is 10,000 Spaces (5 million ft3) and 40,000 tons https://i.imgur.com/OtXiilC.png

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now where it differs is that its only 100 people, which is a pretty big difference! https://i.imgur.com/XvD3TVG.png

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except then you think about it, obviously not all of the volume is for livable "interior" space (the actual houses), its got to include plumbing and maintenance and the mentioned grounds and walkways and so on

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if we assume a 50/50 split, thats 2.5 million ft3 of housing, divided among 100 people, and if we assume about 20 ft of total height, thats only 1250 ft2 per person, which is generous (for one person) but certainly not huge

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also the Suggested Hull Sizes, for scale on ship size https://i.imgur.com/zgbETpp.png

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and for an idea of just how comically massive a proper city-sized spacestation would have to be, the dreadnought's 100 million ft3 -> 200k spaces -> 20 housing modules -> 2000 people

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for just 1 million people, you'd need at least 50 billion ft3

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which actually isnt that big, an O'Neill style cylinder (5 mi diameter, half window, half "land") only needs to be 12 miles long or 6 miles if its all "land", if we assume the same 20 ft "total height" for the housing

mighty hinge Jul 7, 2025, 10:34 PM

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and to be clear, the actual volume of the entire O'Neill cylinder [5 mi x 12 mi] would be 35 trillion ft3, im just counting the human-accessible volume near the "ground"

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this is actually sort of a gray area but also one i dont really care about

mighty hinge Jul 12, 2025, 8:16 PM

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mighty hinge anyway, have some hypersonic missiles https://i.imgur.com/n8CLcqF.png

whoopsie! i miscalculated the damage on these by a factor of 6!

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they are not doing 581 impact + 1855 explosive, theyre doing 6 times that because i did the math based on 166 and 106 dice, not 6 TIMES 166 dice and 6 TIMES 106 dice

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theyre actually doing an average of 3486 and 11130 damage, so they fucking VAPORIZE an MBT

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instead of doing roughly 25-40% of the HP of [Generic MBT] after armor, because i messed up the damage calculation, theyre doing 400%+, whoopsie. even the minimum possible damage is 80-110%

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also while the laminate armor of the MBT should be doubled against the shaped charge effect of the HEDP warhead and that would have that actually reduced the original damages effect to nearly nothing, it barely changes anything now because of the ridiculous damage

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it would have made the combined damage 1508, blocked almost completely by both body and turret front armor. now its "only" 9051, which still splatters the whole vehicle

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now the caveat is that obviously you shouldnt be trying to shoot through the tanks frontal armor in the first place. its only got between 90 and 200 armor on its other sides of the body and turret so even the actual TL7 ATGM or TL9 SRGM (both 6dx10(10), averaging 1050 after halving for laminate) can do some serious damage

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so my missiles were always ridiculous overkill but i didnt intend for this much overkill

compact garden Jul 17, 2025, 9:20 PM

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Oh hey a new GURPS thread

mighty hinge Jul 17, 2025, 9:20 PM

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yeah!

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i realized we never made a new one once the forum got added

compact garden Jul 17, 2025, 9:21 PM

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Oh wait the old one was a channel thread and not a forum thread, wasn't it?

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Yeah

mighty hinge Jul 17, 2025, 9:21 PM

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ye

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currently like 90% my ramblings while i play around with the 3e vehicle rules

mighty hinge Jul 21, 2025, 7:41 PM

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okay so i had been intending to design some magitek robots/mech but in my continued reading Magic Items 3 actually has extended rules on Golems including using technology to make them cheaper (energy-wise) and make mecha/exosuits out of them

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and the modifier, say x0.75 at TL5, is for each of the 4 parts replaced, so for all four its a final modifier of x0.316

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so a 1000 energy golem goes down to 316

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it takes 5x as long but the longest base time is 6 weeks and larger golems (also in MI3) don't take longer than normal they just cost more

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even something like the Steel Golem is 1000 energy and 5 weeks, so it'd be 316 and 25 weeks if it had all 4 mechanical parts

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relatedly this spell from Grimoire (which was mentioned in MI3 so i decided to look it up) has made me want to make a golem-wizard now

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"yeah, i was getting old so i decided to just make a golem copy of myself and just replace my body"

mighty hinge Jul 23, 2025, 7:39 PM

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more technomancer posting, this timean interesting dragon situation

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three kinds, blue dragons (the government ones), wild dragons (basically the same) and black dragons (magically modified mecromantic stealth dragons made by Lockheed for the CIA)

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heres a catman army man yelling at a black dragon

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also interesting to see faeries replace aliens as the major conspiracy theory

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(theres also a series of sidebars about it but makings all hose sceeenshots on my tablet would be annoying so it shall remain a mystery to you... for now?)

mighty hinge Jul 23, 2025, 11:07 PM

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https://i.imgur.com/L9eoQ05.png https://i.imgur.com/AdoM8Ol.png https://i.imgur.com/diX6y3O.png

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based on the rules for Industrial Alchemy, an OTC Elixir of Health costs $414, Healing is $103.50, Birth Control (which is 100% effective for 90 days) is $21.75

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(1998 dollars)

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frankly a lot of stuff is fairly cheap

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the complete list (from Magic and Technomancer, since it added a few) https://i.imgur.com/qzfVdcw.png

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and most of them dont even have drawbacks besides variable duration

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like Fire Resistance is complete immunity to most normal heat (anything less than "a blast furnace or volcano") for 1d6 hours

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Transformation allows you to turn into an animal of your choice (max 2x weight, min 1/10th weight) for 2d6 hours

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Youth makes you a year younger permanently, no downsides

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you heard right folks, eternal youth costs $1k a month

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Regeneration allows the regrowth or an arm, leg, hand, foot, finger, eye, ear, etc

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you get the idea, theyre powerful stuff

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oh actually, weight loss is an insane one

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https://i.imgur.com/XpCYN7v.png

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$2k to go down a weight category in a week

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as an example, for ST 10, 5'9"
Fat [-20] = 300 lbs
Fat [-10] = 225 lbs
Overweight [-5] = 195 lbs
Average = 150 lbs
Skinny [-5] = 100 lbs

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so you could theoretically lose 200 lbs in a month with no health risks

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the 90s, folks https://i.imgur.com/jocpL3q.png

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mighty hinge Jul 24, 2025, 12:54 AM

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anyway i decided to do this [meant to reply to the elixir chart] but for the Golems as well, since while Magic Items 3 did have listed prices they were based on fantasy wealth and costs

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https://i.imgur.com/EXUi1b8.png

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Resilient Golems are an optional rule from ME3, normally golems die at -1 HP, this allows them to go dying like humans with a second optional rule to have both versions exist with Resilient being more expensive

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also if no Body Cost is listed its because no specific price is given for the materials

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(also scarecrow's "special" is To build the body requires a set of clothes, a quantity of straw to stuff the clothes with, and a sack with a face drawn on it.)

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which i have just replaced on the chart with "a scarecrow"

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so most of these prices are technically wrong because the materials cost isnt included but theyre generally ballparks, i think

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especially in Technomancer where you can just conjure most of these materials on the spot for nearly free

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this also doesnt account for the Mechanical Golems option, which could reduce costs in certain situations but thats very complicated to figure out

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i think really only useful on the very high energy ones, given the additional work and material requirements

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okay no, i forgot how huge the savings was

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everything goes down in by by 70-80% if you got for all four mechanical options

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though not accounting for the cost of those components, obviously

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but also the golem isnt actually using those components so much as absorbing them into its being so their actual stats don't matter so much as the fact that they function

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so its less "highly sophisticated billion dollar robot brain" and more "mass produced thousand dollar brain shaped computer"

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also did i mention before that you can make golem mechs and power armor https://i.imgur.com/siNVMrH.png

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anyway, criminal enchanter who learned Soul Jar (known but classified) and developed Soul Golem and successfully transferred themselves into a custom made mecha-golem body

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even the most expensive (by energy) golem [besides the TL9 MMC] is the Resilient Titanium, which is only 429 energy if its fully mechanical, which is a completely reasonable, if large, amount of energy for a single enchanter to work on themselves

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the cheapest good option [for housing your soul forever] is... hmm...

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if you can conjure it, gold is a hell of a choice (only 76 energy)

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i mean, you'll wind up weighing 4000 lbs but like, you're also a solid gold statue so that's cool

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heres the full list with the 4x mech option added https://i.imgur.com/7BKBEm2.png

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compact garden Jul 24, 2025, 4:02 PM

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mighty hinge also did i mention before that you can make golem mechs and power armor https://...

The golem-as-armor actually sounds like a pretty strong power armor option

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Also damn 2 tonnes of gold (which I guess is about the weight of a man-sized gold statue) would be 200 million dollars at current market prices

mighty hinge Jul 24, 2025, 6:27 PM

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compact garden The golem-as-armor actually sounds like a pretty strong power armor option

the downside is that golems have very low DR for balance reasons (steel only gets 8 DR, titanium gets 12, etc), but you could just bolt or wear a bunch of regular armor on top

mighty hinge Jul 24, 2025, 10:51 PM

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oh also an enchantment that i'm surprised Technomancer never discusses because its extremely good if used correctly

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https://i.imgur.com/CQF42qJ.png

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regular .50 BMG is $1 so 100 energy so $1500, AP is $3 so 300 so $15,000
High-Tech says 40mm is $10 (1960) which would be 1000 so $50,000
you get the idea

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expensive for an individual but as a piece of equipment for the military? thats a damn good deal IMO

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especially since its a "container", so it can just be a vest pouch that always has another round in it

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worlds most expensive vest pouch but look

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also like, tank shells + autoloader

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it'd probably cost millions given per round costs on those but you literally only need to provide one for each tank and then it has infinite ammo forever

mighty hinge Jul 24, 2025, 11:21 PM

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also on the subject of "stuff you can just buy in Technomancer"
https://i.imgur.com/vCyoYrx.png https://i.imgur.com/szI5oDF.png

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$900 (manufacturing cost) for a magic pot that turns raw ingredients into a finished hot meal in a minute up to twice a day

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(why not Create Food? because that starts at 200 energy per meal per day, so at least $10k)

compact garden Jul 25, 2025, 12:32 AM

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mighty hinge also like, tank shells + autoloader

It says removed by hand so I think you could have infinite rounds in an Abrams but not a T-84

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I do think it’s funnier that .50 BMG is cheaper than arrows

mighty hinge Jul 25, 2025, 12:37 AM

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ah but the question is what counts as a hand

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golem loader built into the tank thinkaboutit

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also this is actually true

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the absolute cheapest archery arrows are like $10 each and .50 BMG is $4/round for the bulk civilian stuff

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a golem loader would probably be one of the cheaper parts of the tank, procurement cost on even a Resilient Titanium Golem is only $195k

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and thats assuming you get the whole thing and dont simplify it for purpose

compact garden Jul 25, 2025, 5:00 PM

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mighty hinge ah but the question is what counts as a hand

For some reason I feel like a hand in a glove or gauntlet counts, but one of those grabby sticks doesn't

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A golem feels fine too? But then it feels weird again if it's only enough of one to handle tank ammo

mighty hinge Jul 25, 2025, 5:01 PM

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extensive research at the golem labs to determine exactly how much golem you need to operate cornucopia

mighty hinge Jul 25, 2025, 9:18 PM

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also, something i somehow missed https://i.imgur.com/Klbe1w1.png

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https://i.imgur.com/v3hqWll.png

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a baseline blue dragon has ST 25, so this is a viable pistol for them

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actually, god, i should see what else they could use

mighty hinge Jul 25, 2025, 9:51 PM

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relatedly, some of the golems have very high ST scores (20+) so they can use some scary weapons too

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like the Steel Golem has ST 45

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which is a one handed lift of 270 lbs, a two handed lift of 1125 lbs and an extra-heavy encumbrance of 900 lbs

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as golems do not have fatigue and cannot spend it, they cannot move while overloaded

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but also they dont suffer encumbrance-based fatigue at the end of combat, so the only downside of higher encumbrance is the move penalties

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ah, here we go, the Browning M2 has an ST of 39

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(thats including a 100 round belt box)

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unfortunately a lot of heavier weapons in 3e dont have ST requirements listed

compact garden Jul 26, 2025, 12:09 AM

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Ultra-Tech power armor I think can hit ST 25 too

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Okay you need to be a reasonably strong baseline human but +10 or +12 ST is available with TL9 exoskeletons

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The chunkier combat walkers (eight feet tall and SM+2) get +20 ST

mighty hinge Jul 26, 2025, 12:49 AM

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oh yeah, its achievable no doubt

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but Technomancer is a TL7 [3e] setting, since its an alternate 90s

mighty hinge Jul 26, 2025, 5:10 AM

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so, magical mass manufacture in 4e rules

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while there arent detailed rules themselves, Magic provides the math to calculate a standard $/energy cost

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for both "Slow and Sure" and "Quick and Dirty" enchanting

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Thaumatology: Urban Magics then offers a fairly straightforward "just divide that by 10 for factories" ("or 5 if the mages have to use their own energy instead of tapping a power line")

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then, while Magic only provides rules for the clay golem, there is an Appendix Z from 2005 that provides basic statlines on a ton of golems, including energy costs

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https://i.imgur.com/rkBfKGG.png

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(golem prices at TL8) https://i.imgur.com/IhNyfOx.png

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honestly, even the normal prices are much lower than i expected

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$124 per point and the most expensive is only $156k

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but these also don't include material costs

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but most of these won't be dramatically increased by that

mighty hinge Jul 26, 2025, 5:53 AM

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i was able to (VERY ROUGHLY) estimate some prices, mostly based on commodities data or "[material] bulk price" searching on google until i could find something i felt was close enough

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https://i.imgur.com/E1YMXhx.png

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a few obviously cant have good prices; adamant, orichalcum, MMC are fictional, flesh (flesh, flesh) is just like, go buy some ground beef my man, i dont think they make actual bakelite anymore, etc

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in an actual campaign, for a lot of these if the players really want one, you'll just have to go "they dont mass produce those so you'll have to either make it yourself or hire someone and you'll need to supply the materials yourself" which is a whole quest all on its own

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price also depends on the required quality of the material

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like the diamond price is based on a wholesaler of industrial quality diamonds ($3.50 per carat)

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if they need to be actually nice diamonds, it'll be a little more expensive

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also the low price of steel makes steel golems a seriously good brgain

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though aluminum also isnt bad (saved by being 1/3 the weight)

mighty hinge Jul 26, 2025, 11:53 PM

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also from Urban Magics (Magical Reliability; Enchantment and Reliability) https://i.imgur.com/eiU1y11.png

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at first its not too much of a change, but because of how insanely the prices originally scaled, its a MASSIVE reduction when they get big

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"Listed Cost" is the book's simplified price, Exact is based on the provided math and the reliables are just those multiplied by (53/54^P)

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https://i.imgur.com/lgMjDdd.png

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so a 10 point stone gets 17% cheaper, a 100 point stone gets 85% cheaper and a 1000 point stone gets 99.999999% cheaper

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and a 10,000 point stone gets... uh well it goes from 1.5 novemvigintillion to only 1 billion so, a lot cheaper

#

also the "material" cost is just "any object worth X dollars", traditionally gemstones because theyre valuable and small but it can actually be anything, if its not at least that valuable, the energy cost for the spell is quadrupled

#

ah right

#

i was wondering "wouldnt that mean it would become cheaper to use non-valuable objects pretty quickly?" except the Powerstone spell is 20 energy, so x4 means its 80, which is past the threshold for cheap enchanting

#

so its actually (at original energy prices) x132 in price, which means it doesn't break even until... 70 points

mighty hinge Jul 27, 2025, 1:25 AM

#

anyway, doing the math for various enchanted items at the TL8 prices i calculated, Penetrating Weapon is rather expensive for most weapons but given that it applies to effect to all ammunition it fires, potentially worth it https://i.imgur.com/xrwOvL7.png

Imgur

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and $8 per bullet to make them armor-piercing is actually cheap!

mighty hinge Jul 27, 2025, 1:50 AM

#

okay, Lighten is quite good, especially since this is the price for a full suit of armor https://i.imgur.com/7pDe4JX.png

Imgur

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https://i.imgur.com/sNBlouq.png

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Lighten 50% on a full helmet would only be 50 energy, so $164.11 to $16.41

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same with Lighten 25% on front and back torso+vitals armor

mighty hinge Jul 27, 2025, 11:18 PM

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okay i already knew about this but i hadnt previously considered it in the context of Powerstone prices https://i.imgur.com/6RGI3Sd.png

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As a rule of thumb, each amount of treasure equal to the campaign’s average starting wealth provides one point of energy.

#

this scales linearly! therefore past a certain size, the hoard is cheaper than an equivalent powerstone

#

fairly early at low TLs and slower as you progress but always by 200 https://i.imgur.com/1MPbYFz.png

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percentage of hoard value relative to powerstone total price (labor and material)

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exact values

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https://i.imgur.com/e6ttgoQ.png

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(also im using the 4e starting wealth since 3e's rules on that are... basically useless)

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oh right, im using 4e salaries to calculate the $/energy anyway so it works out

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also if you were to spend your entire starting wealth on your hoard, Average gets you a 1 point, Comfortable gets you 2, Wealthy gets you 5, Very Wealthy gets you 20, Filthy Rich gets you 100, Multimillionaire 1 gets you 1000, because those are just the multipliers

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which like, youre a dragon, you should probably be doing that anyway, or close to it

#

this is actually relevant to me because i have a standing OC concept of "dragon who came out of hibernation to find that a country was founded in their former territory so they just moved in and started a magic college" and I wanted to do something fun with their hoard and "huge private library/museum/collection that acts as a reserve of magical energy" is very good

mighty hinge Jul 29, 2025, 9:26 PM

#

okay, actual gurps rules question for once (because im thinking dragon wizard thoughts)

#

#

do we think this should be treated as a Regular spell for cost purposes? so minimum 5 multiplied by (1+SM)

#

for a large caster transforming into a small race

#

(obviously the cost of going up in size would be covered by the original math)

mighty hinge Jul 29, 2025, 11:09 PM

#

in that regard, this is nice to find (in Thaumatology: Magical Styles) https://i.imgur.com/lV0znyD.png

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lowers the multiplier for his favorite spells from 5 to 4 or even 3

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oh yeah, i decided he's SM+4 because 1. dragon 2. too much larger and he can't reasonably interact with people

mighty hinge Jul 29, 2025, 11:22 PM

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mighty hinge https://i.imgur.com/rkBfKGG.png

oh, i just accidentally found 4e rules for industrial enchantment https://i.imgur.com/3mMK2VD.png

Imgur

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these arent too far off from my numbers using the 3e math- okay its not exactly CLOSE

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https://i.imgur.com/eHiiTzL.png

Imgur

mighty hinge Jul 30, 2025, 12:22 AM

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a hilarious way to save tons of points on a dragon PC, no hands!
before: https://i.imgur.com/53zvZJa.png
after: https://i.imgur.com/uZBr946.png

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went from 240 points on ST 50 (already reduced by SM+4) and 80 points on DX 14, to 80 and 48, because No Fine Manipulators is both a -30 disadvantage and a modifier for ST and DX worth -40%

mighty hinge Jul 30, 2025, 11:24 PM

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okay, going through all the Regular spells now to see what's actually impacted by Dragon Wizard's SM+4 raising the costs, the only potential problem so far is that unfortunately the healing spells (Stop Bleeding, Minor Healing, Major Healing, Great Healing) are Regular, so they're all 5x as expensive (which raises Great Healing to a whopping 100)

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unfortunately theres a lot of spells where its sort of vague as to what the actual "subject" is thus whether or not the multiplier applies

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like, here https://i.imgur.com/kzzfUnV.png

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is the caster the subject, meaning he'd have to pay 20 to cast and 10 to maintain, or is the chosen location the subject, so its the base cast?

mighty hinge Aug 4, 2025, 9:02 PM

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decided to say fuck it and make my dragon archmage 2k points because its not like hes a PC for an actual game

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and like 1/3 of that is just knowing nearly every spells (because theres like 900 total)

#

i just gave him all of them normally instead of bothering with the modular fuckery

#

anyway, im going to fuck around with magitech ideas

#

part one? TL4/TL3+1 magi-mech, which means having to invent some stuff

#

like extending the scaling on Leg Drivetrains down that far, since they normally appear at TL7

#

#

thankfully the scaling seems pretty straightforward, even if it does result in some extreme weights

#

(the two weights align at 5 kw, which is why i used that)

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so its 180xKW for <5 and (18xKW)+810 for 5+

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but it tracks for the TL, a magically powered mech but its a lumbering behemoth made of wrought iron with a thin layer of steel on top

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Hopefully the mana engine can actually produce enough power to get it moving

mighty hinge Aug 4, 2025, 11:28 PM

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https://i.imgur.com/KPHodSO.png so thankfully mana engines are fairly lightweight

Imgur

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though i noticed something strange about the Elemental Furnace, https://i.imgur.com/jzdZvH4.png

Imgur

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while its cheaper on its own, the energy requirement means that its strictly worse than a mana engine

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they have identical weights and volumes, but the elemental furnace is always more expensive unless the $/energy is extremely low https://i.imgur.com/rFbY72s.png

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($15 here, it'd have to be ~$4 for the furnace to win out at 1-5 KW and ~3 above that)

mighty hinge Aug 5, 2025, 12:04 AM

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okay this actually works out fairly well https://i.imgur.com/mQaoBFT.png

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~14 feet tall and a little over 3 tons but the massive fucking legs (80% of the price) mean it actually has reasonable ground pressure and its relatively quick

#

ST 20 is fairly low at this size/weight but it was just a random number

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but even a significant increase to that doesnt change much (especially with Bad Grip and Cheap)

#

but overall, while its theoretically possible (with lots of magic), its just WAY too fucking expensive

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$250k is an insane amount of money at TL4 for a single vehicle

#

thats enough to raise two elements (at least 20 guys) of Medium Infantry [Elite Troop Quality, Very Fine Equipment] (per GURPS 4e Mass Combat)

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8 elements of standard Medium Infantry

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i mean, i guess as a magical equivalent to the early tank, its not overly expensive

#

especially if you can mount a good gun on this thing (but thats seriously limited by TL4 weapons tech)

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as an example of (3e) TL4 guns https://i.imgur.com/3lsYDCN.png

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those 60 second reload times are killer

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cornucopia (plus stuff like create water and create food) means they don't need logistics to stay supplied at least, but i dont think theres any relevant magic for increasing the reload rate

mighty hinge Aug 5, 2025, 12:49 AM

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okay, dont actually need guns

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vehicles includes repeating bolt throwers, which can have up to 50 shots and TL4 allows up to ST 20, which means 4d+2 damage out to 400 yards

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https://i.imgur.com/De8qrnl.png

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yeah it weighs 112 lbs and costs $10k but it goes on a 3 ton mech that costs $250k so its fine

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wait sorry, the RoF should be 1/9, not 9

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(so it takes 9 seconds to reload after each shot)

#

which is still fairly good

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ah, okay, Dancing Object (Air-Golem in 3e) allows an object to operate itself as if by a person of ST 15, which is sufficient for the bolt-thrower

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and it only costs... $6500 to make permanent on an object, plus the Link to allow it to be activated on command for another $3k

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so essentially double price

mighty hinge Aug 6, 2025, 6:33 PM

#

i just had a horrible thought ill need to investigate when i get back from work

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gurps 3e gives all its batteries actual capacities
therefore energy weapons all use exact amounts of power
every point of energy used for spellcasting is exactly 360 kWs
therefore i can convert energy weapons to be magically powered

mighty hinge Aug 7, 2025, 12:25 AM

#

okay first bit of math, powerstones (and manastones) are not very competitive against power cells in terms of price https://i.imgur.com/aL3jP8L.png

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for kWs/$, they only beat out most of the AAs, some of the As and the rechargeable TL9 B

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but also thats fine because these are not remotely competing against those (though the fact its close is impressive) since we're talking TL3/4 magic vs. TL9 tech

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minor problem, the efficiencies on the energy weapons are all over the place https://i.imgur.com/UXDXGof.png

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(kWs/shot and kWs/die are the relevant figures here)

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though the powerstone capacity one is also significant, because i remembered to reread how manastones work and they dont interfere with powerstone recharging (since they're single use), so for a hypothetical mana powered energy weapon, it would be best to just have a ton of Capacity X Manastone, where X is however much it needs to shoot

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basically "mana cartridges"

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though i think given how quickly the price would add up for that, just using Power would be better

#

okay yeah, Power wins out easily

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Power 1 is $7500, which only buys 134 Manastone 1s
Power 2 is $15k = 111 M2s
Power 3 is $30k = 127 M3s

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makes sense though, its the whole reason Power exists

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okay yeah, Power easily runs most of my selected energy weapons https://i.imgur.com/8Fuzwdq.png

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(Power 8 is $960,000, Power 40 is........ no.)

mighty hinge Aug 7, 2025, 2:51 AM

#

figured id just do the math for regular magic items for various Missile spells with Power included https://i.imgur.com/NVeaeRu.png

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all of these are infinite ammo ranged weapons that deal the listed damage and can be charged for 2 seconds for double or 3 seconds for triple damage

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(normally Power wouldn't work for higher casting costs but because of how missile spells work, its explicitly "up to X energy per second for up to Y seconds", so Power is applicable)

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((...probably...))

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at the bare minimum, it's sufficient to do the listed damage once per second forever

#

the main disadvantage is the short range on these

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Fireball is 1/2D 25, Max 50, Sunbolt is 75/150, Acid Ball is 20/40, Lightning is 50/100, Ice Dagger is 30/60, Ice Sphere is 40/80

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in terms of damage and range for cost, stone missile is probably the best

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also for a point of comparison https://i.imgur.com/NeDd2oV.png

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https://i.imgur.com/7j3zhJW.png

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so generally comparable damage and drastically higher fire rate but extremely short range and extremely expensive

compact garden Aug 7, 2025, 4:27 AM

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IMO, Guns (Gonne) should be usable at Guns (Musket)-2

mighty hinge Aug 7, 2025, 4:30 AM

#

mighty hinge Aug 7, 2025, 7:24 PM

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actually something else to consider is that its not just crossbows and early guns

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its enchanted crossbows and early guns

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because stuff like this is an option

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and cornucopia can similarly provide unlimited ammo (and the "must drawn by hand, one at a time" restriction doesn't really effect them)

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low tech doesn't list exact prices for early gun ammo but it suggests that $20/lb is close enough for most metal ammo

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which gives the muskets per shot prices around $1 to $3

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so $750 to $2250 for a Cornucopia

mighty hinge Aug 8, 2025, 1:36 AM

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anyway, because i mentioned worldbuilding in the main chat earlier, i decided to actually do some, firstly, giving all (some) the ranks in the mage's guild names and associated jobs https://i.imgur.com/Sm69Lnj.png

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"possible" is "how many people of this Rank/with this level of Magery are actually in the Guild"

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also Myriarch is because 1. i found it on wiktionary and it sounds cool 2. they have about 1300-1400 subordinates each, so its close enough

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not counting apprentices

mighty hinge Aug 8, 2025, 1:54 AM

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actually i decided to change some numbers and make that also true for the Pentarchs https://i.imgur.com/0rla9pq.png

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also now each local council is exactly 100 mages and each regional council is exactly 20 local councils and slightly over 5000 (5068.75) mages (because of ranks 5 and 6)

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oh also a bunch of the math for how i got to these numbers https://i.imgur.com/5PceNTK.png

Imgur

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oh and the mentioned hexes are 6 mile hexes, so 31.18 mi2 or ~20,000 acres each

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the numbers for how many of each type of town/village are in a hex are based on a chart in... Fantasy, i think, that was not remotely intended for this purpose but that wont stop me

mighty hinge Aug 11, 2025, 8:45 PM

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forgot about this spell, its so funny when thinking about it being used by a massive dragon whos just swatting people around from across the room

compact garden Aug 11, 2025, 10:50 PM

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Does "defends as if attacked by an invisible double" include the penalties for defending from invisible attacks?

#

I feel like it should but it doesn't explicitly say so and it tends to usually say so

mighty hinge Aug 11, 2025, 11:04 PM

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i would assume so but its "only" -4 if they can also see you, technically

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Cannot see foe: -6, or -4 if you know his location to within 1 yard* but also the * means modified skill can't exceed 9 anyway

#

ah actually thats for attacking

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the active defense modifier is Can’t see attacker: -4, and a block or parry requires a Hearing-2 roll but logically that second part doesn't apply

#

now the funniest way to do this

#

is to ALSO be invisible

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(or otherwise concealed)

mighty hinge Aug 15, 2025, 7:37 PM

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from Fantasy, a good sampling of why a single mage with a handful of spells can be life altering for a community

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i think bless plants is the longest to cast, 50 minutes with the ceremonial multiplier.

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but it lasts the entire season, so i think a village could manage multiple at the start of the season

#

even just taking one workday to go around and do a few fields is 50+ acres

#

(3.5x8=52)

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oh and Rain can also prevent rain, if youre in an area where that can be an issue

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and Storm can dispel worse weather (and its actually cheaper!)

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Purify Earth is probably the best when it comes to acquiring new farmland because it can make almost anything into suitable terrain

#

#

and for high value farms with serious budgets, you can even invest in Essential Earth

#

(its a Regular spell so the cost is based on SM but the base cost generally gets you a cubic yard)

compact garden Aug 15, 2025, 8:00 PM

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mighty hinge but it lasts the entire season, so i think a village could manage multiple at th...

Yeah doubling the crop yield for 6.5 acres seems more productive than spending another hour in the field

mighty hinge Aug 15, 2025, 8:01 PM

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mighty hinge (its a Regular spell so the cost is based on SM but the base cost generally gets...

100 points gets you... SM+11 (12x cost), a cube of that size is 70 yards to a side, so 343,000 cubic yards. if you do a rectangular prism to a depth of a foot, thats 114,333 square yards or 23.6 acres

compact garden Aug 15, 2025, 8:01 PM

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Even for 100 people spending an hour, that's just 15 man-hours per acre

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Also yeah essential earth for cash crops is serious cashmoney

mighty hinge Aug 15, 2025, 8:03 PM

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and it stacks!

#

Bless+Essential = 6x yield

#

im imagining the Imperial Agricultural Model is something along the lines of "find and clear okay land for a farming town, use Purify Earth and Essential Earth on the fields to make it as good as possible and then maintain it with seasonal Bless Plants and maybe repeat Purify/Essentials as needed"

mighty hinge Aug 15, 2025, 8:16 PM

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mighty hinge 100 points gets you... SM+11 (12x cost), a cube of that size is 70 yards to a si...

also this is basically the most generous possible way to price this, i think practically speaking, itd be more reasonable to do something use (SM of the intended areas longest dimension)+1 instead, which would be significantly more expensive but more accurate for how SM is supposed to be used

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so for that, itd get you (SM+10 = 100 yards, plus 1 to 11, = 10,000 yd2), just over 2 acres

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which is still pretty good!

compact garden Aug 15, 2025, 8:24 PM

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This sidebar doesn't even mention using earth magic for clearing and leveling fields

mighty hinge Aug 15, 2025, 8:24 PM

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thats a bit trickier with the existing spells

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Shape Earth exists but its 1 per cubic yard effected, Create Earth is 2 per cubic yard conjured, Stone to Earth is 6 per cubic yard effected

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Alter Terrain is probably the best because its an area spell with extremely broad and powerful effects and base cost of only 1 (so 100 points gets a 100 yard radius circle) but it fades after 2d6 days unless you pay 100x as much to make it permanent

compact garden Aug 15, 2025, 8:27 PM

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It seems pricey but 100 man-hours of ritual to move 100 cu yds of dirt? Not a bad deal

mighty hinge Aug 15, 2025, 8:29 PM

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shape and create are actually cheap enough that its reasonable to make casting them someones job

#

since the skill reduction for spells is flat, so at Shape Earth-15 costs nothing for a single cubic yard, 1 for 2, 2 for 3 and so on

compact garden Aug 15, 2025, 8:31 PM

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Or yeah one mage just doing it themself at however many FP you get per hour

mighty hinge Aug 15, 2025, 8:31 PM

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by default, you recover 1 FP for every 10 minutes of rest

compact garden Aug 15, 2025, 8:32 PM

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looks at item rules for Shape Earth

#

Behold, a $200 magic shovel

mighty hinge Aug 15, 2025, 8:32 PM

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but if it's zero cost, its no more tiring than just walking around and waving your arms

compact garden Aug 15, 2025, 8:33 PM

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Wait no that's in energy cost, not dollars, whoops

mighty hinge Aug 15, 2025, 8:34 PM

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under my current rules, it is actually $0.50 per point up to 200 energy so youre close by accident

compact garden Aug 15, 2025, 8:35 PM

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Ah yeah you're looking at an easier enchanting paradigm than the default

mighty hinge Aug 15, 2025, 8:35 PM

#

but the user would still have to expend energy at the normal rate, they just don't need to be a mage or know the spell

compact garden Aug 15, 2025, 8:36 PM

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Still though, which such a shovel a non-mage can move 6 cu yds of dirt and then rest for an hour and repeat

#

If you have Fit, only need a half-hour rest for that

mighty hinge Aug 15, 2025, 8:37 PM

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and move it a good distance too! 120 yards if they use the full minute

#

or know Recover Energy

compact garden Aug 15, 2025, 8:37 PM

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Wait forgot Fit doesn't apply to FP spent on spellcasting

mighty hinge Aug 15, 2025, 8:37 PM

#

compact garden Aug 15, 2025, 8:37 PM

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But yeah recover energy exists if they have Magery

#

I'm looking at "day laborers with magic shovels"

mighty hinge Aug 15, 2025, 8:38 PM

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yeah, thats limited to just 6ish per hour without complicated shenanigans

compact garden Aug 15, 2025, 8:39 PM

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You can even have several laborers take turns on the shovel

mighty hinge Aug 15, 2025, 8:41 PM

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the real limit on ubiquitous enchantment is Power

#

which provides 1 energy per second to the functions of an enchanted item... but its 500 energy so $15,000

#

(while my setup has made cheap enchanting cheaper, it also made expensive enchanting more expensive)

compact garden Aug 15, 2025, 8:46 PM

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Honestly, even at $33/pt a magic shovel of Shape Earth is probably an investment worth paying that 6.6x starting wealth at TL3 if you're making good use of it for more than a year

mighty hinge Aug 15, 2025, 8:47 PM

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yeah, i imagine most towns and villages have a handful of expensive items for the really useful magic

#

since while theyre expensive to one person, its not too bad for the community

compact garden Aug 15, 2025, 8:49 PM

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If you assume a laborer can move 1 cu yd of dirt in 8 hours by hand, then 1 magic shovel lets 6 laborers do the work of 50 or so

#

Damn I put it like that and wow

mighty hinge Aug 15, 2025, 8:50 PM

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magics good!

#

theres a reason i basically immediately went "okay so the empire controls like a quarter of the world and has guild mages in every village..."

#

which... hmm

compact garden Aug 15, 2025, 8:55 PM

#

compact garden If you assume a laborer can move 1 cu yd of dirt in 8 hours by hand, then 1 magi...

Wait a sec, I was assuming 10 minutes at a time instead of 6. It could be 10 laborers doing the work of 80

mighty hinge Aug 15, 2025, 8:55 PM

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okay not every village

#

my current math is 80k Mage 1s and ~200k villages

compact garden Aug 15, 2025, 8:56 PM

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So like a rural county has a few mages but not every town

mighty hinge Aug 15, 2025, 8:57 PM

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(48k small market villages, 24k large market villages, 4k towns, 250 cities and 50 major cities)

compact garden Aug 15, 2025, 8:58 PM

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I was using village/town interchangably but sure

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If we assume that a county seat is a town or larger that does mean like 20 mages/county, that's enough to make a proper coven or circle or whatever

mighty hinge Aug 15, 2025, 8:59 PM

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there are about 80k people with Magery 1 who aren't guild mages that id previously mentally allocated as "has a better job or doesn't care about being a Mage" so they can pick up some of the slack

compact garden Aug 15, 2025, 9:00 PM

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Given like... TL3 distribution of what labor needs doing I could totally imagine a third (or more) of mages being farm specialized

mighty hinge Aug 15, 2025, 9:02 PM

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overall, about 1 per... 1250 people has Magery 1+

#

no wait, thats guild mages

#

1 per 770

compact garden Aug 15, 2025, 9:03 PM

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And then a war happens and the mage draft is like "okay, your job is to stand around and look impressive with a staff, don't get shot with arrows, don't let them know you can't shoot fireballs, and occasionally we'll call you over to help the real battle mages power something big"

mighty hinge Aug 15, 2025, 9:04 PM

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and yeah, ranks 1-4 are mostly working at or adjacent to farming communities in some capacity

#

with thoee ranks tending towards the larger communities and being advisors to local rulers and such

mighty hinge Aug 15, 2025, 9:10 PM

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mighty hinge actually i decided to change some numbers and make that also true for the Pentar...

did i post the... i did!

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i had actually described rank 1 as "town mage" so that works out accidentally

#

the combined population of towns and villages is 100 million, theres 101 thousand mages between ranks 1 and 4, so thats about 1k per mage

mighty hinge Aug 15, 2025, 9:21 PM

#

compact garden Given like... TL3 distribution of what labor needs doing I could totally imagine...

also irt tech level, im sort of doing TL4 but its sort of a mix of 3, 3+1 and 4

#

most people are functionally TL3, with help from guild mages and enchanted items and long-lasting spells granting a loose 3+1 while the important towns and most of the cities and their immediate surroundings are TL4

mighty hinge Aug 16, 2025, 1:17 AM

#

okay yeah, theres:
1 rank 1 mage per 2.4 villages
1 rank 2 per 3 small market villages
1 rank 3 per 6 large market villages
1 rank 4 per 4 towns

#

which works out to
[1] per 600 people
[2] per 1,500 people
[3] per 4,500 people
[4] per 10,000 people

#

so smaller communities are actually overrepresented in a strictly linear arrangement

#

but this also assumes both; 1. 100% of mages of these ranks are assigned to work in a specific set of towns/villages and 2. there's no overlap in work between the ranks

#

though it does accurately reflect mages from those smaller communities being moved up the hierarchy and concentrating in larger population centers

#

and it completely breaks down past the town level, but thats even less surprising

mighty hinge Aug 16, 2025, 1:51 AM

#

also turns out ive been calculating the number of mages per rank wrong as well

#

not like, significantly but enough to be annoying

#

it was the left, it should have been the right https://i.imgur.com/HpjJQeN.png

Imgur

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now thankfully this doesnt actually mess with the number in the guild or any of the math from that since i just picked those numbers arbitrarily, it just means theres more non-guild mages and would-be-mages

mighty hinge Aug 17, 2025, 11:40 PM

#

thinking about other Rank/Status stuff https://i.imgur.com/5ApK9CT.png

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(everyone except the nobility would have Status at least 1 less than their Rank)

#

(Status 0 and 1 are blanked out for the nobility because thats like, regular people Status)

#

(also the military and noble ranks are like, at least 20% bullshit but its Fantasy Land, dont worry about it)

mighty hinge Aug 18, 2025, 8:04 PM

#

trying to think about ways to arrange standardized large but cheap Energy Reserves

#

#

most recent thought, based on Thaumatology; Minor Spell Variants; Energy Sources; Meditation, Holiness or Study, each day focused on magical study or meditation produces a single Energy Point for the reserve, thus allowing both "Slow Recharge, One Point/Day (-60%)" and "Special Recharge (-70%)", obviously limited to -80% overall but with the potential for a +50% enhancement (none at hand at the moment)

#

Slow, 1/day + Abilities Only is actually sufficient to get it under 1 character point per energy point (0.9/level) but that feels little too simple

mighty hinge Aug 20, 2025, 2:10 AM

#

late night thought prompted by https://xkcd.com/3129/

xkcd: Archaeology Research

#

what if The Empire never developed past a certain level of traditional technology because magic filled the gaps? late medieval/early Renaissance but almost everything metal is still made out of copper or bronze

#

armor can get up to +2 DR from Fortify under the cheaper prices, +1 is 50 so $25, +2 is 200 so $100, both for full coverage so individual pieces are cheaper, which also means you can push for +3 (800) and maybe even +4 (3000) on certain items (a front only breastplate is 25%, "face" and "skull" are both 5% so you can just do two part helmets, etc)

#

its a bit harder for weapons since Accuracy and Puissance are both 250 for a +1 but they're /10 for missiles, so 25 for +1 arrows and 100 for +2 arrows, same with Penetrating, 250 for a 2 divisor but 25 for a penetrating (2) arrow

#

however the Bane enchantment is 100 and it can divide the costs of other enchantments if you apply suitable restrictions

#

and even Against a specific nation, religion or race divides by two, and I think "enemies of the Empire" or something similar would fall into that tier

#

(and theres technically no rule against multiple Banes...)

#

other relevant "cheap" items https://i.imgur.com/KjTsNMS.png

Imgur

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(resist water has a material component which is why its >$100)

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also Adjustable Clothing but its really complicated because it depends heavily on both size and construction of the item

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https://i.imgur.com/74IOaN8.png

Imgur

mighty hinge Aug 20, 2025, 11:00 PM

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Low-Tech Companion 2 has one of the funniest sets of weapon stats ive seen https://i.imgur.com/RTO0Fwd.png

Imgur

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"okay but how huge could they really", here's the Tsar Pushka https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/030522-Moscow-IMG_8819-2.jpg

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(and for ranges, 1760 yards is a mile, ~1093 yards is a kilometer)

compact garden Aug 20, 2025, 11:04 PM

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Surprised they're still pi++ and not cr

mighty hinge Aug 20, 2025, 11:05 PM

#

crushing is the same tier as regular piercing for wounding

#

pi- < cr, pi, other < cut, pi+ < imp, pi++

#

though anyone directly struck by one of these is just gone anyway so it doesnt really matter

mighty hinge Aug 23, 2025, 8:36 PM

#

had a thought at the back of my mind and ive confirmed its correct; i forgot that having high HP increases how quickly it recovers https://i.imgur.com/J3mKCF9.png

Imgur

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so my dragon having 50 HP means he heals 5x faster/more

#

the question (which i am now investigating) is whether this applies or should apply to FP, since he has 20 FP (2x?) and 100 ER (10x???)

#

i dont think so, though

#

...actually the real question is that since this boosts Regeneration and Fatigue Recovery is You regain lost FP at the same rate as you recover HP., does that get increased by having high HP?

compact garden Aug 23, 2025, 9:53 PM

#

IIRC it gets increased by having a large FP pool instead but I'd have to check

#

Okay it doesn't say so

#

I guess the affordability of Fit might be a stand-in

mighty hinge Aug 24, 2025, 2:40 AM

#

okay, another useful thing i found while looking for other stuff, Social Engineering has further rules on Allies, specifically on those worth <25%, which is useful for a 2000 point character

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https://i.imgur.com/Fde7Wmn.png

Imgur

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the costs out to 500 of them https://i.imgur.com/dbx8Lp1.png

Imgur

#

(without rounding, obviously)

mighty hinge Aug 24, 2025, 11:19 PM

#

also, sanity check, does Making the gate permanent instead costs 100 times as much. mean the progression should be 3/30/300 (100x the cost of Teleport) or 3/30/3000 (100x the cost of Gate)

#

im pretty sure its the former

#

especially since you cant do it via enchantment, its just a very very expensive spell (which means ceremonial casting)

#

and even the minimum 300 (for 10 yards) isn't easy

#

for the enchanting rules, im assuming that 20 energy (~10 FP + ~10 ER) is commonplace, so thats at least 15 mages just for that

#

though one important question is how Beacon works for permanent Gates

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https://i.imgur.com/Mxhidcp.png

Imgur

#

for normal Teleport and Create Gate, sure, halved penalties and costs. but if you cast Beacon normally and then someone else tries to make a permanent Gate to that Beacon, you'd logically pay the reduced cost but does it remain functional if the Beacon spell ends?

#

though "permanent Gates can only benefit from permanent Beacons" isn't exactly onerous

#

1k ($30k) is a lot for a 1 yard radius but like, it benefits all teleportation to that location which is pretty good!

#

not to mention it halves the costs of permanent gates, which is a major savings

#

a 1000 mile permanent Gate goes from 1k energy (50+ mages) to 500 energy (25+ mages)

#

and the skill penalty goes from -7 to -3

#

and the extra energy required to cancel that -3 is only another 60%/300, so 40+ mages to cast at no penalty

mighty hinge Aug 25, 2025, 8:39 PM

#

#

at an inch every five seconds, thats a foot per minute so the item makes your hair grow at least sixty feet

#

one of the rare items which obviously just an old school cursed item with no real regular use, even offensive/harmful ones like a lot of the debuff Body Control spells usually have a use case where its like "yeah this would help keep a prisoner in check" or something

#

or at least they shut off instantly if you (can) remove them

compact garden Aug 25, 2025, 10:22 PM

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Yeah and the hour delay makes the item un-useful for even like a barber shop

mighty hinge Aug 25, 2025, 10:34 PM

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the wand version is however, because anyone can use it and 1 energy is perfectly affordable

#

and the next spell is Haircut

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https://i.imgur.com/StjPeGV.png

Imgur

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the Hat of Specific Haircut is also itself affordable ($75)

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hair salon that is actually just a showroom with various hats on mannequins with wigs showing the styles and you just pay to use the hat

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and if you dont like it or your hair is too short, they have an attendant to use the Wand of Hair Growth on you as well

compact garden Aug 25, 2025, 11:34 PM

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Two months later the well-to-dos are going "pssh you can tell she got one of those off the shelf haircuts..."

mighty hinge Aug 25, 2025, 11:42 PM

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pretty much

mighty hinge Aug 26, 2025, 3:24 AM

#

also realized that i can use equipment modifiers in GCS to do magic item effects and prices as the same thing, so here's a very very expensive magic item for my dragon (total price so far $1,695,000) https://i.imgur.com/38C6kx9.png

Imgur

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i didnt include Wisdom +5 because the spell stipulates "The subject’s IQ cannot become higher than the caster’s." and he's already IQ 18

#

while higher IQ people may exist, its a complication im ignoring for now

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(and also it doesnt effects spells so id have to also include a penalty to those and also it'd raise all his skills to ridiculous levels since even with only 1 or 2 points theyre all already 17, 18 or higher, etc, etc)

#

also because Grace and Vigor both boost basic speed, it adds a full 20 MPH to his flight speed (68 MPH -> 88 MPH)

#

though only 3 to basic move (12 to 15)

dreamy sleet Aug 26, 2025, 4:48 PM

#

I LOVE GURPS

mighty hinge Aug 27, 2025, 6:34 PM

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mighty hinge the costs out to 500 of them https://i.imgur.com/dbx8Lp1.png

also, on the subject of Allies, default golems are 0 points

#

I think i may design a custom golem for my dragon tonight after work

#

i wonder if i have any good art for that...

mighty hinge Aug 27, 2025, 8:45 PM

#

heres a fun little thought (that im pretty sure is mentioned somewhere)

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plate armor with solid but invisible "visor"

dreamy sleet Aug 27, 2025, 9:00 PM

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Finally, an explanation for anime bikini armor

mighty hinge Aug 27, 2025, 9:21 PM

#

someone has read the Bulletproof Nudity optional rule

dreamy sleet Aug 27, 2025, 9:22 PM

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also that :3

mighty hinge Aug 27, 2025, 9:23 PM

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i meant to say "hasnt" but whatever

dreamy sleet Aug 27, 2025, 9:23 PM

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:3

mighty hinge Aug 27, 2025, 9:24 PM

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and actually, you can make your armor look like whatever you want pretty easily

#

mighty hinge Aug 28, 2025, 3:52 PM

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okay, modified 200 character point golem (650 energy, $19,500) https://i.imgur.com/tjZ5UZH.png

Imgur

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removed Fragile (Unnatural) and Disturbing Voice, gave it +2 IQ, DR 8, MR 5, and 60 points of skills (instead of the default 10)

mighty hinge Aug 29, 2025, 10:05 PM

#

also i reworked the enchanting prices, again, firstly because i realized that ER recovers separately from FP, so the recovery time for Q+D is actually much shorter, secondly because of... Pyramid 3/43; Magic as Technological Progress; Advantages of High Sorcery Levels https://i.imgur.com/E2lvNkO.png

Imgur

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specifically SL10, so replacing the normal 0.9547 odds of success in the calculation with 3 for both S+S and 1 for Q+D

#

also by having S+S be 20 work-days per month and Q+D be 22, that results in prices of $13.33 and $0.33 respectively

mighty hinge Sep 1, 2025, 12:26 AM

#

looking at the aging rules...
conceptually interesting but also iterative probability math...............

#

heres most of the relevant information, at least https://i.imgur.com/mZbcErP.png

Imgur

#

the problem is that aging isn't just "when you fail, move up an age category"

#

(i mean, that'd still be complicated to math out but-)

#

you roll once for each basic attribute (ST, DX, IQ, HT, in order) and a failure lowers that attribute by 1, crit failure lowers it by 2 (longevity ignores regular failures and makes crits only reduce by 1) and you die if any attribute reaches 0

#

some basic math though, with Longevity and HT 16-, you have a 92% chance of complete success (each 17 or 18 is a 1.85%, 4 of them is 7.2%), if you have Longevity and HT 17+, you have a 98% (each 18 is 0.46%, four is 1.83%)

#

for reference, a normal person (HT 10 with a +1) only has 15% odds for four successes

#

(theres a reason i just gave my dragon Unaging instead of longevity and/or extended lifespan, just completely ignores all this nonsense)

mighty hinge Sep 1, 2025, 11:46 PM

#

now for something completely different (again)

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https://i.imgur.com/GzxnCSw.png

Imgur

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Ornate (+3) Masterfully Tailored Fluted Orichalcum Plate Armor, in Heavy/Medium and Superheavy varieties

#

(the medium pieces dont have heavy version in Instant Armor, superheavy is from fantasy-tech 1)

#

oh and Ornate is from DF1

mighty hinge Sep 2, 2025, 12:13 AM

#

for an idea of just how expensive this is, MM1 gives you $2M total assets, so you could get this instead of an estate, if you wanted

#

even just the full set of orichalcum plate with nothing else is $289,500, which is more than Filthy Rich's total assets ($200k)

gaunt knot Sep 2, 2025, 12:02 PM

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mighty hinge at an inch every five seconds, thats a foot per minute so the item makes your ha...

60 feet of rope

mighty hinge Sep 2, 2025, 10:59 PM

#

also decided to just go Modular and have a spellbook, 60 points is enough have any two spells with complete prerequisite chains and it saved almost 600 points (689 -> 93) https://i.imgur.com/3ElHfTA.png

Imgur

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as for the actual book, Huge Tome https://i.imgur.com/1aLAUYK.png

Imgur

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im assuming 1 page per spell, mostly because i dont want to look up every spell i gave him and write down all their prereq numbers

#

proportionally in regards to encumbrance, its about as heavy to him as a ~7 lb book to an ST 10 human

#

no wait, i did the math wrong, its literally just the original weight

mighty hinge Sep 3, 2025, 2:37 AM

#

related, Dungeon Fantasy has rules for "manuals", which either grant Scholars temporary points in skills or spells, or allow someone who studies them to spend points on those (which is just normal gurps mechanics but its presented differently because DF)

#

so here's the Archmage's Personal Library https://i.imgur.com/XBxwuTW.png

Imgur

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Primers give 1 point, Textbooks give 2, Thesis give 3+ but ive just done 3 here for simplicity
Common skills is all the normal stuff
Obscure is "dead languages, cultural familiarities for lost civilizations, mundane IQ, Will or Per based skills without defaults [big list of examples] or with few legitimate uses [small list of examples]"
Esoteric is "Thaumatology or any IQ, Will or Per based skill normally restricted to individuals with powers"

mighty hinge Sep 8, 2025, 12:03 AM

#

actual character stuff again, ive decided to consider Alternate Form again (this time with Absorbtive Change to avoid inventory shenanigans and Once On, Stays On for ease of use), total of 24 points

#

conveniently, taking the custom Dragon racial template and removing all the stuff that doesn't make sense for human form and adjusting the increased attributes to match up points wise results in costs of 562 vs. 550 (so no extra cost on AF)

#

https://i.imgur.com/JYkkNKC.png https://i.imgur.com/seOX28g.png

Imgur

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the DRs are the same, just removed Can't Wear Armor and added Tough Skin
Dexterity goes from +6 (NFM) [72] to just +4 [72]
Strength goes from +40 (NFM, Size +4) [80] to +8 [80]

#

also no increased move in human form but its still 8 which is pretty fast

#

oh also light encumbrance is 130 lbs in human form, 1000 lbs in dragon form

#

oh i forgot Magical on AF, its [23] actually

#

also still at "only" 1647 points total, which is part of why i added AF

#

(i considered Morph instead but being able to turn into almost anything was a bit much)

mighty hinge Sep 8, 2025, 8:16 PM

#

so Imbuements (Power Ups 9), skills that let you modify your weapons (incl. unarmed, if appropriate) to do various cool new things

#

ex:

#

trying to think about how some of these would work for my dragon or if just using spells and/or custom attack advantages would be better

#

on the one paw with Magical, they benefit from Magery
on the other, they're skills so they have a chance of failure
on the third, that chance is low bc Magery 8
on the fourth, they're premade, cool and i don't need to rebalance them

mighty hinge Sep 11, 2025, 5:19 PM

#

so the Granted By (Other) limitation from Power Ups 8 is pretty interesting

#

especially since it doesn't really require the (Other) to actually have that power, just be able to grant it. so in principle, two (or more) people could each have powers granted by the other such that they only work when theyre together

#

additional idea is

Person 1 takes Ally (Person 2) at a level where the point value allowed by Ally is greater than Person 2's current value.
Person 2 takes abilities with the Granted By Person 1 limitation sufficient to raise their value to match Ally

#

youd have to restrict that obviously because its trivial to get an infinite loop

#

(since Ally allows allies up to 150% of your points)

mighty hinge Sep 12, 2025, 8:20 PM

#

so Armor Enchantments (again)
https://i.imgur.com/QRLyRin.png

Imgur

#

i havent done the math to further subdivide the pieces but i think the concept is fairly clear?

#

by enchanting armor in sections instead of as a full suit, you can use the lower set of costs

#

potentially down to even +5 for only... $2,640 for a full suit

#

though this would obviously only work for armor with sufficient... "segmentation" i guess

#

sections of mail or the pieces of an armored glove, sure. the helmet and visor being separate, okay. but a solid breastplate is a single piece with a minimum size of at least 37.5% (chest but not abdomen)

#

yknow?

#

this does lead to stuff like mail, segmented armor, brigandine, etc actually being better than plate if enchanted during construction

#

okay yeah, it works out fairly well

#

(these are just approximate costs, i know Instant Armor provides specific costs and restricts certain armors by location but thats way more work)

#

https://i.imgur.com/NnnU6ui.png

Imgur

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(the fortify cost is the lower one)

mighty hinge Sep 15, 2025, 12:42 AM

#

totally unrelated to everything else; ive been playing Cronos (pretty good so far) and now I'm thinking about weird scifi survival shooter GURPS

#

also the whole "people (from your organization) before you on other missions in the same region have established safe areas and set up equipment for you to use" thing is also a good concept, not sure how you'd represent that in GURPS

compact garden Sep 15, 2025, 10:02 AM

#

Could be a form of Claim to Hospitality

#

If nothing else seems like a good jumping off point for a similar new advantage

mighty hinge Sep 27, 2025, 9:10 PM

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been watching Minecraft ARG documentaries (mostly mediocre but its interesting to watch during downtime at work) and yknow, Minecraft Player (or just Videogame Player) would be a really funny GURPS Supers powerset

#

you have the power of "its just a videogame bro" but about real life

#

youre not actually particularly tough but you have a vast extraspatial inventory, you can pick up and move objects of incredible weight (though its extremely arbitrary), you can almost instantly put on, take off and swap equipment, etc

compact garden Sep 27, 2025, 9:46 PM

#

Regeneration (Very Fast) (HP Only, Costs FP, Only at high FP)

mighty hinge Sep 27, 2025, 10:16 PM

#

yeah but you can also recover FP super fast by just eating a ton

#

oh actually, Regeneration (X) (Fatigue Only, Temporary Disadvantage (Consumption X)

#

you can rapidly recover FP but it requires you to eat an enormous amount of food

compact garden Sep 27, 2025, 10:25 PM

#

I might do it as Trigger instead of Temp Disadv, but yeah

mighty hinge Sep 27, 2025, 10:26 PM

#

oh true

mighty hinge Oct 2, 2025, 3:10 PM

#

okay i may have to revise my GURPS Supers character concept for Literally Unkillable Man

mighty hinge Oct 11, 2025, 3:20 AM

#

another one of these again, this time a fairly arbitrary selection of guns from High-Tech https://i.imgur.com/VOQtEUQ.png https://i.imgur.com/8euPdrq.png https://i.imgur.com/cm4PVDS.png

Imgur

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because im thinking about near-future mil-SF (former military power armor trooper operating as a freelance mercenary in the ruins of America)

#

the PCA's 70/50 is actually quite scary against TL8 small arms, like even an AK-47 (and friends) with API can't penetrate it by default

#

(only maxes at 23 damage against DR 50 reduced to DR 25)

#

even .50 BMG out of an M2HB only penetrates half the time (though anything that does get through will seriously hurt)

#

high tech also doesn't have any ammo (other than HEAT, MS-HEAT and HEDP) that have a divisor over 2

#

though some specialist ammo does increase damage in addition to the divisor

#

APDS is x1.3, ADFSDS is x1.5, APDU is x1.2, APDSDU is x1.5, but they reduce the level of piercing by a step and also they dont exist for most small arms anyway

#

hell, even allowing TL9 stuff from UT, there's only APEP which gives a divisor of 3 (and pi down a step) at 10x cost

#

TL9 shaped charge is 25mm minimum, TL9 SEFOP is 15mm minimum and homing only [read: theyre for gyrocs and missile launchers]

#

the TL9 shaped charge is scary as fuck though, 15d(10) at 25mm, 24d(10) at 40mm, which is a massive step up from TL8 40mm HEDP's 7d(10)

#

like, fuck, 15d(10) against the Walker, reduces DR 200 to DR 20, averages 52.5, so 32.5 gets through

dreamy sleet Oct 11, 2025, 3:44 AM

#

gurps my beloved

mighty hinge Oct 11, 2025, 3:46 AM

#

anyway, this is all to say im considering downgrading the concept to the Hardsuit (DR 50/30) since while thats still extremely good, its not quite so invulnerable to modern small arms

#

though still not-vulnerable enough that one man army shit is feasible

#

DR 30 bounces 5.56 out of everything other than the AUGA1 w/ the 24 inch barrel and the L86 LSW, which at max damage can get 1 point through

#

but the worst 7.62x51mm gun (MK 17 CQC) is at that, with most doing ~7d

#

so 7d penetrates about... 9% of the time doing 1 to 12 damage

#

(also, GURPS doesn't differentiate between 7.62x51mm and .308 Winchester, so things like the Model 70, Model 700, etc also do 7d, so it is a relevant damage value for this situation)

mighty hinge Oct 18, 2025, 10:49 PM

#

very funny building an OC in GURPS thinking they wont be that expensive and then https://i.imgur.com/xRJd5EM.png

Imgur

dreamy sleet Oct 19, 2025, 12:17 AM

#

Holy attributes

mighty hinge Oct 19, 2025, 12:24 AM

#

look, hes a very smart and very strong lad

mighty hinge Oct 19, 2025, 12:50 AM

#

also im buying equipment for him because its a fun exercise and i love stuff like this because GCS just has absolutely everything with any stats listed https://i.imgur.com/izu44bY.png

Imgur

#

i love Ultra-Tech because why the fuck would you ever need a Pocket X-Ray Laser Torch

#

(and dont even get me started on the Pocket Graser Torch)

mighty hinge Oct 19, 2025, 3:25 AM

#

somehow even with all the shit i bought, not even 1.5 million https://i.imgur.com/Ieigg6L.png

Imgur

#

now the excellent part of having 30 ST (20 + 10 lifting) is that you can wield the Heavy Fusion Gun (ST 15†) like a pistol and the Semi-Portable Fusion Gun (ST 27M) like a rifle

mighty hinge Oct 19, 2025, 11:02 PM

#

relatedly, im pretty sure it exists somewhere but does anyone know about rules for very high ST reducing penalties like Recoil for guns? or is it only the standard stuff (weapon needs two hands and X ST, if you have 2X you can one-hand at no additional penalty, etc)

mighty hinge Oct 19, 2025, 11:55 PM

#

second question for folks more familiar with Styles, for determining how many perks you can take, do points in the optional skills count?

mighty hinge Oct 21, 2025, 8:19 PM

#

mighty hinge somehow even with all the shit i bought, not even 1.5 million https://i.imgur.co...

also this accidentally works out if i can build him a spaceship for under $6M

#

because TL11 Filthy Rich is $7.5M, so the 20/80 split is $1.5M/$6M

mighty hinge Oct 21, 2025, 9:56 PM

#

forgot my own limits for a second and built it at $7.5M because im dumb but i fixed it so here we go https://i.imgur.com/5I2sk4j.png https://i.imgur.com/4idrnM7.png

Imgur

#

(the FTL rules are my own)

#

the Robofac actually saves me money on the gear end since i did buy a Nanofac Workbench and probably also replaces the Workshops too

#

so savings of... $292K

#

dropping those also brings the total weight of the gear under 2 tons, so plenty of cargo space

#

(and one ton of that is MREs)

mighty hinge Oct 21, 2025, 10:10 PM

#

mighty hinge (the FTL rules are my own)

oh also this would be a jump drive so that range math is jump distance and jump time

true talon Oct 22, 2025, 3:28 PM

#

From the Gurps discord. We are getting a GURPS Revised edition

mighty hinge Oct 22, 2025, 4:17 PM

#

oh nice

compact garden Oct 22, 2025, 5:39 PM

#

"Everything stays on the same page number" is very funny to me

#

Like it's a reasonable thing to do considering the GURPS ecosystem, but it's funny

mighty hinge Nov 14, 2025, 2:16 PM

#

working on a supers character (for funsies) and somewhat disappointed by the default throwing ranges

#

#

(plus 1 and plus 2 are with the bonus range from the throwing skills)

#

even something like a conventional javelin is only 5d+3 (thr+1) and 75/125 (1.5x/2.5x)

#

this is just basic set though, i need to look around and see if theres maybe variant rules for exceptional ST or special huge throwing weapons

#

(the super in question is 12 feet tall so carrying around a bunch of 100 lb spears wouldn't be difficult)

#

theres something special about a giant man throwing a spear through a tank, yknow?

#

(he's obviously not that strong but still)

mighty hinge Nov 14, 2025, 2:58 PM

#

i also need to workout custom armor but thats very complicated

#

and then maybe also custom guns, which will be basically entirely by hand since 4e still doesn't have gun design rules

#

the gun is the tricky part because im not sure how i feel about it and because its gonna be a weird design no matter what

#

but i am imagining him using a cut down .50 BMG rifle (or something similar) as a pistol

#

while i haven't decided on overall setting tone yet, i think "everybody without ranged attack powers just has guns" is probably... not it

compact garden Nov 14, 2025, 9:24 PM

#

mighty hinge working on a supers character (for funsies) and somewhat disappointed by the def...

Yeah I remember discovering this while looking at the rocket striker rules in Ultra Tech, because they also let you use them as a rocket booster on spears

#

But also that said if your 50 ST guy can casually throw things a hundred yards that is a whole football field

#

And also your distance penalty to accuracy is gonna be like -5 at that range and you don’t have sights or anything

mighty hinge Nov 14, 2025, 9:38 PM

#

problem is spears are 1. super light even when scaled up 2. the weapon ranges are shorter than the generic ranges

#

a javelin is 2 lbs which scales to 12.5 lbs, and has a range of 1.5x/2.5x so 75/125

#

thr+1 imp scales to thr+3 imp, so 5d+5 or 6d+1 or +2

#

(per LTC2's weapon and armor scaling rules)

#

spear damage scales better but it's worse range
thr+3 becomes thr+8, range is 50/75, weight is 25 lbs

#

what i need to do is find if there is an alternate range scaling option that favors higher strength

#

its good damage, i won't lie, i just really wanted range competitive with guns without needing super throw

mighty hinge Nov 15, 2025, 5:03 PM

#

more thinking

#

instead of a flat ST 50, 40 + 10 with super effort, meaning 50/140

#

so these numbers for throwing

#

(the damage math for thrown objects is weird)

#

(an object traveling 490 yards in one second is moving 1470 feet per second, just over 1000 MPH or Mach 1.3)

#

i think at this point the objects are large enough that doing collision damage would probably be more accurate but thats very complicated

compact garden Nov 15, 2025, 10:05 PM

#

mighty hinge (an object traveling 490 yards in one second is moving 1470 feet per second, jus...

GURPS doesn't really think about that for guns either

#

Like a Browning M2HB has a statted range of 1800/7600 but its IRL muzzle velocity is only 2,910 ft/s (970 yds/s)

#

So if you're hitting someone at that 1800 range that's almost 2 seconds IRL but GURPS handles it in the same turn

#

(Assuming you're using turn-by-turn rules at that range, which you very well might not)

mighty hinge Nov 15, 2025, 11:14 PM

#

true enough

#

(though i do remember seeing time of flight stuff at some point, probably in TS, because TS)

#

still, 5d-1 minimum for throwing stuff is quite good

#

and 14d for hurling a car at someone ~250 feet away is also very good

#

only downside is that lowing ST from 50 to 40 and adding Increased ST (Size 2, -20%, Increased Effort +300%) is a net increase of 300 points

#

i mean theres no actual hard limit because theres no game for this guy but still

#

doing only Striking ST [240] instead of just Increased ST [380] makes it net +160 points but does also mean "only" 40 base ST

#

the "One Attack Only" modifier for Striking ST from Powers is intriguing but im not entirely clear how/if that would work for throwing

compact garden Nov 16, 2025, 12:53 AM

#

It occurs to me that such a throwing arm, if you can hit a person-sized target at that distance, outperforms grenade launchers for both range and accuracy

#

Also payload I guess, that's a few hundred pounds

mighty hinge Nov 16, 2025, 1:17 AM

#

yeah i'd thought about that as well

#

even the no-super-effort version is extremely efficient at delivering non-kinetic ordnance

#

25 lbs out to 500+ feet is a lot!

compact garden Nov 16, 2025, 2:04 AM

#

200-300 lbs is also high enough to pull off fastball specials if you have a friend who's good at "landings"

mighty hinge Nov 16, 2025, 2:37 AM

#

oh absolutely

#

even only ST 30 gets you 270 lbs out to 12 yards, ST 40 gets you 320 lbs to 24 yards

#

if i did go with 50/140, even ST 50 as shown before manages 500 lbs to 30 yards or 200 lbs to 50 yards

#

actually on the subject of delivering ordnance

#

i didnt mention a second concept for the "spears"

#

bolt on guidance systems, JDAM style

#

even literal JDAMs, in theory

#

the smallest with known specs is the GBU-38/Mark 82 at 559 lbs, so a horizontal range of 280 yards

compact garden Nov 16, 2025, 2:48 AM

#

Oh also this is what I was talking about before, it's in the "rad as fuck but what are you doing with melee weapons in TL9?" zone

mighty hinge Nov 16, 2025, 2:49 AM

#

oh yeah, the rocket striker rules

#

also the GBU-38 for reference

compact garden Nov 16, 2025, 2:51 AM

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mighty hinge oh yeah, the rocket striker rules

Yeah and right above it there's a device for sticking time-fused 25mm grenades to people in melee. And it's cheaper than a rocket hammer

mighty hinge Nov 16, 2025, 2:51 AM

#

everyone loves punching with mines

#

its literally always good

#

its the, what, limpet mine gauntlet or something?

compact garden Nov 16, 2025, 2:51 AM

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Limpet Mine Dispenser, yeah

mighty hinge Nov 16, 2025, 2:52 AM

#

just slap somebody with a shaped charge

#

get fucked idiot

compact garden Nov 16, 2025, 2:52 AM

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Yep

#

Not even hard to use, just straight Brawling or DX

mighty hinge Nov 16, 2025, 2:53 AM

#

yeah you really just need to make contact with that kind of weapon

#

oh, also, part of the reason why im not giving him melee weapons or something like a giant bow or sling is im assuming (i think somewhat reasonably) that he's strong enough that regular materials probably can't hold up under the strain involved in that kind of thing

#

like at most, really really really heavy duty gauntlets or gloves with reinforced knuckles or something

#

hmm, so there's an Overhead modifier for attacks and an imbuement called Arching Shot that lets you do overhead attacks but i cant seem to find rules for just doing that with thrown weapons

#

although, i guess, the range would probably be quite similar or just shorter because physics

#

ah, actually it was High Tech that has time of flight stuff and also immediately tells you to ignore it unless it really matters

#

https://i.imgur.com/GHF21c3.png

Imgur

#

okay everything relating to indirect fire i can find (less than i expected) seems to imply that range is range, regardless of direct or indirect fire

compact garden Nov 16, 2025, 3:13 AM

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Yeah more or less

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Since you get max ballistic range at a gun elevation of 45 degrees in a vacuum, or somewhere around 30 degrees in atmo

mighty hinge Nov 16, 2025, 3:15 AM

#

also a basic sized up weapon to consider the effectiveness and (basic) size https://i.imgur.com/pgeNzue.png

Imgur

#

oh original ST req. was 13 so that becomes 33, which i think means he cant actually use his full ST? i dont remember how the limits work

#

okay no, the limit is triple minimum so he's fine

#

though it means he'd need a weapon with at least... req. ST 47 to use it effectively at ST 140

#

oh right, supers actually has huge improvised weapons

compact garden Nov 16, 2025, 3:27 AM

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Get yourself a sword the size of a car

mighty hinge Nov 16, 2025, 3:27 AM

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lets see. a three yard long version of the Cudgel, 12" at end weighs 72 lbs, requires ST 39 and does sw+12

#

3 yd, 36" weighs 648 lbs, requires ST 114 and does sw+36

#

i can't see him practically wielding (and transporting) a melee weapon larger than himself regularly so thats about the maximum

compact garden Nov 16, 2025, 3:29 AM

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mighty hinge lets see. a three yard long version of the `Cudgel, 12" at end` weighs 72 lbs, r...

Which at minimum ST comes to 7d+11 damage

mighty hinge Nov 16, 2025, 3:29 AM

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(the cudgels are the heaviest and do the most damage)

compact garden Nov 16, 2025, 3:30 AM

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mighty hinge 3 yd, 36" weighs 648 lbs, requires ST 114 and does sw+36

This one at ST 115 does 14d+38

mighty hinge Nov 16, 2025, 3:30 AM

#

but this also assumes they're improvised generic weapons, not something specifically made for him

compact garden Nov 16, 2025, 3:31 AM

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I remember Low Tech Companion has rules for big weapons but I don't think that big

mighty hinge Nov 16, 2025, 3:31 AM

#

they have rules for scaling up existing weapons

#

and theres some giant (Berserk-style) swords in Fantasy-Tech

#

thing is the heaviest weapons intended for humans are around ST 16, which scales to ST 40 at SM+2

#

that maul for example was originally ST 13

#

he's strong enough that to push the limits on his strength even at 50 he needs a REALLY big weapon

compact garden Nov 16, 2025, 3:33 AM

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Oh it goes up to SM+6 and says a typical ST for that is 100, time to do a huge greatsword

mighty hinge Nov 16, 2025, 3:35 AM

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heres the ones from FT2 https://i.imgur.com/8fXASVa.png

Imgur

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ST 18 scales to 45, ST 42 scales to 105

#

but also the Gigantic Sword is already 10 feet long, so it'd become 20 feet for SM+2

#

(overall length)

compact garden Nov 16, 2025, 3:39 AM

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LTC2-scaled SM+6 Greatsword, swing profile: sw+30 cut damage, reach 5-9, $80,000, 700 lbs, ST 120†

mighty hinge Nov 16, 2025, 3:39 AM

#

hell yeah

compact garden Nov 16, 2025, 3:41 AM

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The minimum reach actually feels really punishing to me but otherwise yeah it slaps

mighty hinge Nov 16, 2025, 3:41 AM

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i think thats mainly because at SM+6 thats like, inside the swing of your wrists

compact garden Nov 16, 2025, 3:41 AM

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Ah right

mighty hinge Nov 16, 2025, 3:42 AM

#

remember the user would be ~60 feet tall

#

so ~15 feet is... probably closer to like elbow distance

#

if anything its a little generous

#

also surprisingly light weight

#

at ST 140 its ~18% of BL, which is the same as 3.5 lbs for an ST 10 human

#

at 120 its 24%, 4.9 lbs

compact garden Nov 16, 2025, 3:44 AM

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Yeah realizing even a dagger for SM+6 is reach 2 by these rules, so yeah I guess fair

mighty hinge Nov 16, 2025, 3:44 AM

#

big folks got big bodies!

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(this is in fact half this guys premise)

compact garden Nov 16, 2025, 3:46 AM

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And also the Cinematic Weapons section of LTC2 is like "yeah go nuts, here's some guidelines"

mighty hinge Nov 16, 2025, 3:47 AM

#

ye

#

for an actual game, i'd probably spend some time working with the GM to design all his weapons completely custom

#

well, besides the balls, those are just balls

#

(and as far as i can tell, there's no special rules or existing weapons that model that specifically)

compact garden Nov 16, 2025, 3:48 AM

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"Really really really big greatsword" just goes from sw+3 to sw+7

mighty hinge Nov 16, 2025, 3:49 AM

#

i mean... they put the Titanic Sword at sw+8 so...

#

anyway, for this guy i'd probably go with something vaguely like a splitting maul and/or pulaski

#

axe, hammer, wedge, maybe also a spike

#

multifunction, yknow but also very smashy

#

probably also carry something like a halligan bar too for rescue work but thats a separate matter

#

he doesnt need the strength, obviously, he needs the precision, big arms, big hands, big fingers

compact garden Nov 16, 2025, 3:53 AM

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A Halligan bar is basically an axe+pick with a spike on the other end

mighty hinge Nov 16, 2025, 3:53 AM

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prying open a car door without smashing the whole car aint easy with giant hands

#

or forcing open doors in a building without demolishing the walls

compact garden Nov 16, 2025, 3:54 AM

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(IDK if there's a specific rule for a duckbill but an axe is pretty close)

mighty hinge Nov 16, 2025, 3:57 AM

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for anything other than combat its just "equipment for Forced Entry with X bonus"

#

anyway because i had HT open, here's a basic "just stuff from the book but bigger" using LTC's rules https://i.imgur.com/1cJ8D4j.png

Imgur

#

thats the Advanced Body Armor, Deltoid and Axillary Protectors, Ballistic Leggings, Blast Boots (EOD style), Sharp-Protective Gloves (since theres no real armored gloves in HT) and the standard Ballistic Helmet

#

i might play with the armor design rules tomorrow if i can design on a fair number for his surface area

#

quick check suggests somewhere around 100 sq ft, which is less than id have expected

#

compared to the default 21.35 sq ft

#

though id have to adjust for removing the head and figuring that out seperately

#

(since he has a zebra head)

mighty hinge Nov 16, 2025, 6:24 PM

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okay yeah, roughly 100-105 sq ft seems about right based on how BSA is calculated https://i.imgur.com/2kM182p.png

Imgur

#

GURPS official number is 21.35 sq ft for Generic Human but they seem to have sourced that directly instead of calculating it (and it does seem to pop up in some other places)

#

a rough first pass estimate https://i.imgur.com/XAXWyDz.png

Imgur

#

oh also the official math in the armor design rules is multiplying the base values by (weight/150)^(2/3) which gives a total of 120.05 sq ft

#

obviously 150 (average human weight) is low so replacing that with the 178 lbs from my sanity check math gives 107.1 sq ft, which is much closer

#

honestly 120 isn't that much higher and he is a big guy so i might just go with that

#

https://i.imgur.com/E4KlOOT.png math about math for math fuckers

Imgur

#

i think <5% per location in the worst case is Good Enough to just pick whichever, y'feel?

#

even for the example outfits it's still fairly close https://i.imgur.com/Er7i1W9.png

Imgur

mighty hinge Nov 16, 2025, 8:36 PM

#

okay yeah, i think ill go with 120 because i can round everything to whole numbers fairly easily

#

https://i.imgur.com/boW6NL8.png

Imgur

#

the only numbers that had to be adjusted from what they should round to is lowering chest from 30 to 29 (so C+A=T) and lowering Shins to 19 (so T+K+S=L)

#

anyway, as for the actual armor itself https://i.imgur.com/qymxzc6.png

Imgur

#

20 is mostly arbitrary, its enough to protect against most rifles (read: greater than or close to average damage) and block nearly all handguns (greater than max damage)

#

like the S&W Model 29 (6" barrel) does 3d+2, so max 20 damage

#

the M4 does 4d+2, so average 16, max 26

#

you get the idea

#

the Browning M2HB does 14d, so 49 average, 84 max

#

actually i should check HT for the actual stats on the AP rounds

#

okay
API-T is 5dx2(2), so effective 20d, which means 70 and 120
APHEX-T is 7dx2(2), effective 28d, 98, 126
APDS-T is 6dx3(2), effective 36d, 126, 216

#

there, a full spread https://i.imgur.com/zFixwen.png

Imgur

#

now the problem, the armor materials in P3/85 only go up to a max DR of 70 (the TL9 Titanium Nanocomposite)

#

though i could use that for a trauma plate on top of very thick flexible armor

#

how actually having multiple layers of different materials works in the design rules is.... not clear honestly

#

a Titanium NC plate that covers only the front chest at DR 70 weighs 122 lbs and costs $30,000

#

a total coverage suit of TNC DR 70 plate armor would weigh 810 lbs and cost $1,000,000

#

which is honestly less than I'd have expected

#

though the equivalent suit of ultra-strength steel weighs 780 lbs... at its max DR of 23

#

a more modest max protection bodysuit of STF Liquid Armor at DR 45 is 140 lbs and $22,000

#

that with the TNC trauma plate is 115, meaning a total of 135, which is quite good!

#

though i mean, the Max DR rule is explicitly "this would be too thick and heavy for a normal person" so...........

mighty hinge Nov 16, 2025, 10:09 PM

#

anyway, TL9 and TL8 versions of the basic concept https://i.imgur.com/VUNiJdh.png

Imgur

#

TL8 means only 100 total DR but thats still very good

#

and even 56 (20+36) is enough to protect against regular .50 BMG and even totally block a lot of other stuff

mighty hinge Nov 17, 2025, 12:18 AM

#

also

#

spears and javelins, again

#

wait

#

okay, i just swapped the names https://i.imgur.com/VEC233q.png

Imgur

#

balanced gives +1 to skill, fine gives +1 to damage (not included)

#

very fine could give +2 to damage but it'd be +49 CF so... no thanks

#

this is also the low tech fine multiplier, per basic, it should be fine for free at TL7+ at which point very fine is only +3 CF (so very similar in price)

#

TL7+ very fine and balanced raises the final costs to $2000 and $1500

#

no wait

#

thats the sword version of very fine

#

https://i.imgur.com/npbcYSP.png https://i.imgur.com/j51hPMh.png

Imgur

#

so maybe +9 CF for a spear? ill have to see if i can find an update on that

#

high tech includes titanium as an option, very fine for breakage at double cost and 75% weight, not really relevant since im assuming these spears are probably wrecked on impact anyway

#

FT2 has "full metal weapons" and while it includes spears, it doesnt have rules for thrown weapons specifically

#

superfine from UT is potentally a good option, +5 CF, +2 to damage and adds an armor divisor of 2

#

its not realistic but it fits in a supers setting

compact garden Nov 17, 2025, 1:00 AM

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mighty hinge high tech includes titanium as an option, very fine for breakage at double cost ...

You could probably do the breakage math once just to find the odds for it

mighty hinge Nov 17, 2025, 1:11 AM

#

oh huh

#

breakage actually only matters for parrying

#

Quality influences the odds of breakage when you parry a very heavy weapon; see Parrying Heavy Weapons (p. 376).

#

https://i.imgur.com/Ek4EpQx.png

Imgur

#

that note about unarmed attacks is slightly relevant, it means my guys punches are the equivalent of a 5 (or 14) lb melee weapon for people trying to parry them

compact garden Nov 17, 2025, 1:19 AM

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mighty hinge breakage actually only matters for parrying

Also for attacks targeting weapons I’m pretty sure?

#

But yeah largely parrying

mighty hinge Nov 17, 2025, 1:27 AM

#

yeah but not for being thrown, which is what actually matters

#

i imagine a "can i get my thrown weapon back" rule has to exist somewhere

#

but again, im mostly assuming these are single use weapons for simplicity

#

(either destroyed or just not retrieved)

mighty hinge Nov 17, 2025, 1:41 PM

#

rereading Supers at work, realized i completely forgot to include source/power modifiers

#

so my guy is probably a fair bit cheaper

#

Biological and Super are both -10%, though I'm not fond of Biological

mighty hinge Nov 18, 2025, 7:54 PM

#

thinking about sourcing for the armor. Patron (Special Equipment) or just buying it obviously works but gadget limitations could be good

#

#

obviously 0% on durability, maybe the -15% on repairs? -25% for size of course. -10% on stolen but it might get halved because it definitely won't fit anyone else.

#

so anywhere from -30% to -50%

#

oh and probably a little more for partial coverage, haven't decided how much coverage to go for

mighty hinge Nov 18, 2025, 8:43 PM

#

boots and pants, obviously
torso is probably required unless i make him a lot tougher
sleeves and gloves are a maybe because why not bring the gun show
helmet, im mixed on

#

2 is the big one, honestly. how tough is tough enough

#

i picked DR 20 and DR (5) pretty arbitrarily but i dont think i can get a better answer without an actual GM

mighty hinge Nov 18, 2025, 11:50 PM

#

okay, i had a thought on the drive home and i was right, ST 50 is sufficient to use a minigun (M134) like a handgun
req. ST 20M, so one handed becomes ST 40. the gun is 61 lbs, a 4500 round belt-in-can is 322 lbs, the battery pack (6000 shots) is 35 lbs for a total of 418 lbs, even assuming another 82 lbs of gear to make it wieldable in one hand, thats only 500 lbs, equal to his BL and less than half his one handed lift.

mighty hinge Nov 19, 2025, 2:49 PM

#

oh also the ST reduction for hip shooting (0.8x) means he can hip fire all the Cannons in HT except the D81TM

#

#

not actually very practical but still neat!

mighty hinge Nov 19, 2025, 8:50 PM

#

also to drive home the point of just how big my zebra guy is; here's Armenian weightlifter Varazdat Lalayan (152 kg/336 kg) scaled to 12 ft alongside an M134 and M61 https://i.imgur.com/fapexfh.png

Imgur

mighty hinge Nov 19, 2025, 9:58 PM

#

also Super Throw is insane

#

doubles range and plus 2 damage per die

#

if my dice math is correct https://i.imgur.com/96K87J0.png

Imgur

#

(50/140 is ST 40 with ST +10/100 from Super-Effort)

#

and the ranges https://i.imgur.com/FfHJHQk.png https://i.imgur.com/VbOwU29.png

Imgur

#

so with ST 50 and Super-Throw 1, 11d out to 250 yards with a 26-50 lb object
with ST 140 and Super-Throw 1, 30d out to 196 yards with a 1961-2940 lb object

mighty hinge Nov 19, 2025, 10:46 PM

#

also i was originally trying to stay with I-scale (from Supers) and ST 50/140 is actually the limit for that. since it's +10/+100 and results in basic swing of 15d

#

https://i.imgur.com/ZBUu9Gq.png

Imgur

#

ive decided to also just max out his DR and DR as well since at 1600 pts its affordable

#

DR 50 [Tough Skin] is only 150 and Damage Reduction 10 is only 250

#

i could upgrade it to Flexible at 200 or just flat for 250, but idk

mighty hinge Nov 19, 2025, 11:04 PM

#

mighty hinge so with ST 50 and Super-Throw 1, 11d out to 250 yards with a 26-50 lb object wit...

realized i fucked up this math, for ST 50 it should be 11d out to 60 yards with a 376-500 lb object

#

(i put BL 50 instead of BL 500)

mighty hinge Nov 19, 2025, 11:14 PM

#

mighty hinge there, a full spread https://i.imgur.com/zFixwen.png

also how DR 100 changes this https://i.imgur.com/sMyKxzG.png

Imgur

#

barely even needs armor at this point

#

especially since IT(DR) 10 means...
APDS-T does a max of 216 damage, reduced to 116 by armor, worst case x2 for Imp/Pi++, divided by 10, resulting in 23.2 damage

#

though that is simplified since im not actually handling the armor divisor correctly but it should work out very similar

mighty hinge Nov 19, 2025, 11:37 PM

#

so with with 100/(10), as little as 6d can hurt him if it has a divisor (3), 8d+3 with (2) and 17d with no divisor https://i.imgur.com/tI5Ucg4.png

Imgur

#

note: the only rounds in HT with divisors over (2) are HEAT, HEDP, MS-HEAT, Shaped Charge and they're all (10)

#

with (10) you only need 2d to get through on max, 3d to get through on average, 8d+3 always

#

oh, huh, injury doesnt really effect the numbers

#

i guess that shouldnt be too surprising with the scale

#

(for any dice or divisor)

mighty hinge Nov 20, 2025, 12:12 AM

#

okay remembering how blunt trauma works, i definitely want flat DR

#

because a whopping 5 points of crushing becomes 1 injury with blunt trauma and reduction can't reduce below 1

#

or at least some flat DR, idk

#

actually, i guess keeping his natural DR flexible/tough skin gives a reason to still have actual armor on top

mighty hinge Nov 20, 2025, 12:47 AM

#

okay i put the (ST 50 with Super-Throw 1) throwing damage into GCS as a single weapon with a ton of modes so this should be actually correct damage now https://i.imgur.com/pRufc2l.png

Imgur

#

and at ST 140 https://i.imgur.com/QbvDIo3.png

Imgur

#

so i was mostly close with my damage math, i think doing the adds twice is what fucked me up

#

i did discover something awkward while setting this up, because of how the range and damage math work for throwing, 1 of these 20 options is out of step with the rest

#

the third, specifically, the only one where range repeats

#

its light enough to not get the better damage but heavy enough to use the lower range

#

since the damage thresholds are BL/8, BL/4, BL/2, BL, BLx2, BLx4, BLx8

#

but the range steps go from BLx0.1 to BLx0.15

mighty hinge Nov 20, 2025, 1:35 AM

#

oh!

#

Action 5 actually has Baseball weapon stats

#

thr-1, Range x6/x10, not bad

#

so with ST 50 and Super-Throw 1, 5d+1 with range 600/1000

#

and a scaled up baseball would be about ~6 inches wide and weigh ~2.5 lbs

mighty hinge Nov 20, 2025, 3:52 AM

#

anyway, this mostly just goes to show why melee weapons aren't actually very useful for this guy, even with scaling up, the best case would probably be less than or similar to the second level of thrown weapon damage

#

especially at 140

#

sw+5 at ST 50 or sw+10 at ST 140 to match those thrown objects

mighty hinge Nov 20, 2025, 4:00 AM

#

compact garden LTC2-scaled SM+6 Greatsword, swing profile: sw+30 cut damage, reach 5-9, $80,000...

even this is only sw+30

#

so... 23d+2? the same as throwing a random object weighing 981-1960 lbs

#

and its a ~27 foot sword

mighty hinge Nov 20, 2025, 4:04 AM

#

mighty hinge 3 yd, 36" weighs 648 lbs, requires ST 114 and does sw+36

the three yard cudgels from supers were +12 (ST 50) and +36 (ST 140) respectively

#

so very similar to tier three thrown object damage

#

but also a massive object he has to haul around which is inconvenient

#

like maybe if he knows he's gonna be fighting someone who's similarly tough up close, but thats about it

#

even against like armored vehicles, he'd probably prefer to maintain his distance

#

unless it weighs less than 15 tons, then he can just toss it if he's that close

compact garden Nov 20, 2025, 4:31 AM

#

mighty hinge so... 23d+2? the same as throwing a random object weighing 981-1960 lbs

Also remember that cutting is twice as good against soft targets as crushing

#

But yeah I guess 700 lbs swung at someone is not that much more force than 700 lbs hurled at someone

mighty hinge Nov 20, 2025, 4:48 AM

#

compact garden Also remember that cutting is twice as good against soft targets as crushing

1.5x but yeah I did think about that

#

(cut and pi+ are 1.5, imp and pi++ are 2x)

#

cut/imp/pi are also half as effective for blunt trauma (1 per 10 instead of 1 per 5)

compact garden Nov 20, 2025, 4:50 AM

#

Oh right yeah cut is just 1.5

mighty hinge Nov 20, 2025, 4:52 AM

#

also, if he does get custom spears/javelins/etc made, those would be impaling

#

they'd need custom damage since the official scaling only brings the spear up to... well it was 7d+3 at 50/75 but now that's boosted by super throw

#

ill have to put that into GCS tomorrow at some point

#

(and thats for an SM+2, 25 lb spear)

#

quick rough math, 7d+17 becomes... 9d+3 at 100/150

#

which is good damage and slightly better range that the thrown objects of that damage and considerably lighter than those of that range

#

but a thrown object of 25 lbs would normally have a range of 350 even if it only did 5d+2 so...

mighty hinge Nov 20, 2025, 12:48 PM

#

also had an idea for a very basic tier system within I-Scale

#

#

200 damage, minus the DR, divided by Reduction, then divided again by 20 and rounded up to get a number between 1 and 10

#

so a score of 10 means between 181 and 200 damage gets through, a score of 1 means 10 to 20 damage gets through

mighty hinge Nov 20, 2025, 2:48 PM

#

i should also investigate knockback reduction, because any damage strong enough to hurt him will also knock him back multiple yards (1 yard per 48 basic damage)

#

oh, actually you get super effort ST for free against knockback according to Supers

#

so 1 yard per 138 damage, that's much better

#

or, well, if you can brace, which is good enough

mighty hinge Nov 20, 2025, 4:55 PM

#

okay you can just buy Resistant to Knockback

#

#

though the biggest actual bonus being +8 means it's not really worth it

#

and total immunity might be a bit much

mighty hinge Nov 21, 2025, 10:35 PM

#

mighty hinge

so expanding this out to D, C and M scale is... complicated, this is just the raw damage (out of 100,000) https://i.imgur.com/EgZVVGa.png

Imgur

#

reduction is in the actual steps but resistance is log because i aint writing all that out and it'd be impossible to look at otherwise

#

even increments as small as fifty (which makes I-scale three steps) would still require 1001 rows

#

i think ill probably restrict my guy's setting to D-Scale, if only for my own sanity

mighty hinge Nov 21, 2025, 11:20 PM

#

actually, maybe this is a better scaling, the damage needed to deal 1 point of damage (left) and how many dice that is on average (right) https://i.imgur.com/Y95V5dn.png

Imgur

mighty hinge Nov 21, 2025, 11:51 PM

#

also point costs and the minimum power level (<200, 200-400, 400-1600, 1600+) each fits in alongside its scale (C or D) https://i.imgur.com/nKsEaJs.png

Imgur

#

is this useful information? i have no idea!

mighty hinge Nov 22, 2025, 12:46 AM

#

also watching this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llmTufyNyxI

YouTube

Emil Abrahamsson

Pro Strongman Shocks Skinny Guys At Climbing Competition

Get a free Magdust on orders over $150, AND use code EMIL for 10% off all products ▶︎ https://rungne.info/emil

Today I've gathered some of the strongest people in Sweden, and some of the strongest grips in the world, to try rock climbing. The twist? They're also competing in front of a live audience. Enjoy!

Thank you to Klättercentret Tel...

▶ Play video

#

thinking about how my guy would actually be severely disadvantaged at a lot of things, climbing, obviously, but also just generally interacting with human scale objects

#

can't use almost anything intended for human-sized bodies; ladders, stairs (unless the steps are very big), keyboards, phones of any style, etc

#

you get the idea

#

he could maybe use some door knobs if he just used a few fingers and lever style handles wouldnt be a problem

#

but then theres the issue of actually getting through the door

compact garden Nov 22, 2025, 1:12 AM

#

I could get myself through a 1:2 scale of a standard door, I wouldn’t need to outright crawl but it would not be convenient

mighty hinge Nov 22, 2025, 1:29 AM

#

yeah, not impossible but not easy

#

his mobility would be pretty severely restricted inside most buildings unless the ceilings were pretty high

mighty hinge Nov 22, 2025, 7:02 PM

#

actually, a project for myself when i get home from work. add some real world objects and vehicles and maybe some fictional ones too to the height chart

mighty hinge Nov 22, 2025, 11:30 PM

#

okay, standard door (80 inch height), the Mk 44 Bushmaster 2 (with 10 rounds of 30x173mm) and a Ford F-150 (Super Cab, Short Bed, 14th Gen) https://i.imgur.com/kuVRjr8.png

Imgur

mighty hinge Nov 24, 2025, 12:17 AM

#

so, a custom gun, mostly just eyeballed, a 40mm self-loading ""pistol"" that does 6dx4 (bc high velocity cannon, not low velocity grenade, but also short barrel) https://i.imgur.com/f1vXWLU.png

Imgur

#

same damage as the 25mm Gatling included in 3e Vehicles

#

comparable range to the 7.62mm MG listed next to it as well

#

really the only problems are the low ammo and high recoil

#

only having 5 rounds is because according to the book
Decide how many shots it holds. The number for internal magazines or box magazines intended to fit within a pistol grip may not exceed one-quarter the empty weight of the weapon divided by the weight per shot of its ammunition.
108 / 4 / 4.8 = 5.625, so 5 rounds

#

without reducing the barrel length and/or damage, raising the weight and/or changing the form factor, that recoil wont really change unfortunately

#

but also its ROF 1 so i dont think recoil actually matters?

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okay per 3e Core, you need one second between shots to lose the penalty, in 4e it doesnt generally matter for ROF <2 weapons

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Recoil 5 is extreme but not unfounded

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the 3e H&H Double Express rifle in .600 Nitro Express has Recoil 6

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also 3e ST 101 is 4e ST 32

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40mm is probably too big honestly but 3e's weapon design system is obviously pretty wonky

mighty hinge Nov 24, 2025, 7:25 PM

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irt power scaling, i just remembered theres a combat power rating thing in one of the pyramid issues, I think originally intended for DF, but i can probably repurpose the math for a very rough tier system

mighty hinge Nov 24, 2025, 8:13 PM

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also, more basic physical calculations. 50 ST is BL 500, so 125 ft3 per hour, /4 for using his hands, /3600 results in 60 in3 per second. he's got very big hands so say his fists are about 1 foot wide and 6 inches high, that's a crater of 0.8 inches with each punch

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and possibly faster given his high DR

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for hiking, Move 9 and EM1 means 180 miles per day "under ideal conditions", even under absolute worst case conditions (Very Bad terrain and deep snow) is still 9 miles a day

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for a scale a normal person would be 50 and 2.5 miles respectively

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so hes 3.6 times as fast, which i think is reasonable

mighty hinge Nov 24, 2025, 9:11 PM

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oh right also i forgot to post some actual (wip) lore for this guy https://i.imgur.com/PIb17NE.png

Imgur

compact garden Nov 26, 2025, 10:20 PM

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Also Dogs at some point I need to dig up and share the jankiest character I ever made

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Because I wanted to make an AI tank... in a TL9 setting... on 125 pts

mighty hinge Nov 26, 2025, 10:25 PM

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that sounds...... less than ideal

compact garden Nov 26, 2025, 10:25 PM

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It was absolutely non-ideal

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Compromises include not having a gun an only 25 DR frontal armor

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Oh wait does have a gun, the laser

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And being complexity limited means not being very smart

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Has an Intimidation SL of 6

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Which means more or less relying entirely on the circumstance bonuses of "I am 10 ton armored vehicle with a light laser cannon"

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Should I have picked the 100mmCL tank cannon instead? Maybe

limber mason Nov 26, 2025, 11:12 PM

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kf89OHkNgcc

YouTube

Feral Sword-Wielding Wizard

GURPS Combat Breakdown: Gara vs Rock Lee

GURPS is a tabletop role-playing game known for its granularity and verisimilitude.

Clip is from Naruto Episode 48
Songs are Maniac by Michael Sembello and Maniac by Carpenter Brut

▶ Play video

mighty hinge Nov 26, 2025, 11:49 PM

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25 DR at TL9 is a big oof

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you can buy a trench coat with that much DR

compact garden Nov 26, 2025, 11:58 PM

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Yeppp

mighty hinge Nov 27, 2025, 12:17 AM

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i think any vehicular PC concept should just be allowed to buy their body as equipment

#GURPS