This is a monthly r/GURPS thread for anything and everything related to your own campaigns. Tell us how you and your friends are making out. Update us on the progress of your game. Tell us about any issues you've run into and maybe we can help. Make suggestions for other players and GMs.

This is a monthly r/GURPS thread for anything and everything related to your own campaigns. Tell us how you and your friends are making out. Update us on the progress of your game. Tell us about any issues you've run into and maybe we can help. Make suggestions for other players and GMs.

So in the Magic expansion there are enchantment spells that can well enchant weapons, making them magic and so forth. Is there a way to do something like that using advantages?

I'll start by quoting relevant rules:

Basic Set p 381:

Follow-Up Damage
Some attacks, such as poison darts and exploding bullets, have “follow-up” damage: a second type of damage that occurs an instant after the primary effect. The primary effect is always ordinary damage of some type – piercing, impaling, etc.
If the primary damage penetrates the target’s DR, the follow-up effect occurs inside the target. DR has no effect! Follow-up effects that occur internally never inflict knockback or blunt trauma – even if their damage type usually does.

Basic Set p 414:

Fragmentation Damage
Many grenades, bombs, and artillery shells have metal casings designed to shatter when they explode, producing a storm of sharp fragments. Some are packed with Scatter extra material (pellets, nails, etc.) to enhance this effect.
Fragmentation damage, if any, appears in brackets after explosive damage; e.g., “[2d]” means 2d fragmentation damage. Everyone within (5x dice of fragmentation damage) yards is vulnerable. For example, that [2d] attack would throw fragments out to 5 x 2 = 10 yards.
The farther a target is from the blast, the less likely the fragments are to hit him. A hit is automatic if the explosive attack actually strikes the target. The fragments attack everyone else in the area at skill 15. Only three modifiers apply: the range modifier for the distance from the center of the blast to the target, the modifier for the target’s posture (prone, etc.), and the target’s Size Modifier. It is possible for several fragments to hit! For every three points by which the attack roll succeeds, one additional fragment strikes the target.
The only active defense against fragments is to dive away from the explosion that produced them; see Dodge and Drop (p. 377).
For each hit, roll hit location randomly. If that location is behind cover, the fragment hits cover.
Fragmentation damage is cutting. Note that if an explosive attack has an armor divisor, this does not apply to the fragments it produces.

Basic Set p 415:

Internal Explosions: If an explosive goes off inside someone – e.g., a follow-up attack penetrates the target’s DR, or a dragon swallows a hand grenade – DR has no effect! In addition, treat the blast as an attack on the vitals, with a x3 wounding modifier.

Ultra-Tech p 152:

Armor-Piercing Hardcore Explosive (APHEX) (TL9)
A warhead with a high-density penetrator and a small charge fused to explode after penetrating. APHEX inflicts normal piercing damage with a (2) armor divisor, along with the damage shown below as a follow-up attack:
10mm 1d-4 cr ex [1d-2]
15mm 1d-2 cr ex [1d-1]
18.5mm 1d-1 cr ex [1d]
25mm 1d cr ex [1d+1]
40mm 2d cr ex [2d]
64mm 4d cr ex [3d]
100mm 8d cr ex [5d]
Damage in brackets is cutting fragmentation damage.

My question is how to calculate how many fragments hit if an APHEX round penetrates armor and detonates inside the target. From RAW "a hit is automatic if the explosive attack actually strikes the target" there's no roll to attack and thus no way to score more than one hit but it makes no sense.

I'm also confused by damage multipliers: if the round penetrates the Skull, does it still get x3 for Vitals instead of x4 for Skull? And what about the fragments, do they also get a flat x3 for Vitals or a location-based multiplier?

A player in a new game I'm running has been putting together a 'gunmage', and came up with the following cheap yet powerful ritual as part of their starting list of rituals:

Bullet shield (14 energy): Lesser destroy energy (5), area 1 metre (+2), duration 12 hours (+6), weight 30lb (+1) The dissipative powers of air resistance are greatly enhanced around the caster, reducing deadly projectiles to mere annoyances. While the ritual is in effect, all unpowered objects that pass within 1 metre of the caster and that are moving at more than 1m/s are reduced to that speed, up to a total mass of 30lb (equivalent to approximately 960 bullets). 

This follows my reading of the rules in GURPS Thaumatology: RPM very closely but seems disproportionate in its effects compared to other rituals of similar cost. Of course I could just use GM fiat to boost the cost by for example saying this needs to be a greater effect, or imposing a speed modifer of +13 for the reduction of bullet speed from approx. 300m/s to 1m/s, but both those approaches go directly against what is written in the book:

 Modifiers--Speed: For **movement spells** look up the speed in yards/per second and add ...to the energy cost. 

and

Lesser destroy energy can stop energy completely if there is a natural means by which that could happen. For example, it can put a fire out completely because fires die naturally. 

Opinions welcome!

How would you represent a military officer who refuses to risk civilian casualties? "Cannot Harm Innocents" seems too strong: "you may only use deadly force on a foe that is attempting to do you serious harm. Capture is not “serious harm” unless you are already under penalty of death [...] You never intentionally do anything that causes, or even threatens to cause, injury to the uninvolved – particularly if they are “ordinary folks.” - that reads like attacking unsuspecting enemy combatants is out of the question so wouldn't work for that character.

However I think this restriction is too severe for a quirk, especially for a professional soldier who might be court-martialled for flat out refusing actions that risk collateral damage.

hello. I'm the GM at a table of hxh for about 6 years now, and I wanted to share my rules for it. I made two versions, one is crunchy and long tested, the other is simpler, but not as tested, it's a recent change at the table. I'll be posting the first version first. I apologize for the lack of formatting (typing on the phone) and the names of some characteristics might be roughly translated, as I very rarely use the English version of 4ed. I promised to share this months ago in this sub, I might make a more edited and more readable publication in the future. I'm open to discussion and feel free to ask questions, as I said, we have been playing this for many years, if you can think of a problem, we probably ran into it. I gave to my players an in depth description of everything, this is more of an overview, but I'll be talking more details when I have the time.

Basic NEN V1.0

- A new attribute: NEN reserve. it starts as the sum of all your 4 basics attributes (around 40). It costs 1 character point to increase.

- A New skill: Aura Flow Will/easy. used for most stuff.

- A new mechanic: Aura allocation. You can invest aura as if it were character points for buying ST and DX temporarilly for their usual price. The damage reduction (ten) is free, automatic, flexible and ablative.

Your Skill level with aura flow represents how much in % you can output of your reserve. So a character with 40 nen and 15 Skill can use up to 6 points at a given time. You can go up, but you receive a -1 on your flow checks for each +1% you are using.

You don't expend that Nen. You pay an upkeep of 10% you current aura. Going above your cap requires a check for every change in your aura scheme, this means you might fail if you go to high above your limit, the failure margin adds to the upkeep in 10%. (So failing by -5, means you loose 60% of your current invested REN.)

When are we rolling and paying upkeep? When something breaks your concentration, when you are making big changes (above your skill level), when using hatsu, every 10 seconds of intense actions, minutes of less intense moments, when the gm feels like your concentration could be challenged or the use would strain your vitality.

This output zone where your aura is invested is nicknamed REN in our table. You never use nen directly from your reserves, you always need to bring it out into your REN zone, declaring your intended use for it.

Keep in mind it's very important in this system that you don't ask for too many skill checks and upkeeps. The challenge of this system is to balance offence, defence, hatsu use and the longevity of your aura. You really only ever run out of aura if you are going crazy above your skill level and failing too many control checks. The catch is how many stuff can you do in a short time, and how do you adapt your strategy mid battle.

At the beginning, most players bursted out all their aura in the first rounds. But as fights and situations started getting complex, this strategy quickly turned against them, and they naturally started planning more and kiting the enemies. Aura output is a much more fun resource to manage than aura reserves alone.

- Gyo/Ko/Ryu/Ken

Multiply NEN invested in single body parts by 4 if it's a hand or smaller, by 3 if a member or 2 if two members.

Our example of someone with a maximum 6 in REN, it's not enough to protect against bigger attacks on the whole body, but 6 aura becomes 24 points if focused on the hand.

Gyo needs 3 aura for the eyes (see the invisible [15] divided by 5, a special assumption because the eye is so tiny as to multiply aura by 5, and gyo is so vital to the battle). I allow creative uses like enhanced movement [20] on legs costing 10 points and etc...

Moving aura from one place/function to another takes a penalty equals the total amount moved this turn.

Each second of concentration gives +3bonus on the test, but you cannot get a bigger bonus than your skill level.

With those rules the players come up with their own interpretation of the mentioned techniques: Moving aura quickly between attacks ? Ryu. Focusing on your striker arm? Ko. All out defence with all my aura out as DR? Ken.

-- Special home rule: sloppy defence.

You get a +3 bonus in an parry or dodge, even at a success you take damage, but you may choose the part of your body to take the damage.

This added a lot of cool anime moments of character pulling all their aura to block an incoming fatal attack and being nockedback a couple of meters behind, revealing a broken arm under the cloud of smoke.

- En, Zetsu and In

Special versions of Dectect, camouflage and rapid recovery

HATSU

This was tricky. Nen feels already very gurpsy, so you think the jump would be seamless, and it really was. But I did some special rules for advantage buying.

Hatsus are a group of advantages you buy and slaps the hatsu modifier (like magic or psionic), and that assumes the price for all the special ways that hatsu works, like needing nen, being cancelled by zetsu, etc...

- the affiliation chart:

Your nen category gives you a -100% modifier on advantages of your type (Remember limitations can't go below -80% of the og price, so the extra -20% is an incentive for players to pick enhancements for it.)

The adjacent categories give you a -50% mod.

The almost opposite ones give you a +50% mod.

The polar opposite gives you +100% mod.

But what makes an advantage emission or manipulation? Well, the gm is the final judge, but if it has the ranged or distance, it's emission, mostly. If it is materialization, give it the object acess limitation (last ones in the book). If it increases physical capabilities, it's probably enhancement. Talk it out with the player.

If it uses more than one category, use the average.

This is a roleplay rule also, the player needs to get into the mindset of an transmuter when making his hatsu, pick to many characteristics of the opposite category and you are automatically in a disadvantage. the +100% price tag will impose you a point tax, a longer learning time, or the need for crippling limitations in order to compete with someone that just went nuts with their -100% natural gift.

What about specialists? Do whatever. We don't pick nen category in our table, we roll the dice during the ritual, no one ever got specialist, but I would just ignore those rules, they get no bonus or penalties and can use whatever advantage combinations.

Keep in mind you need to keep the final point cost of the skill relatively small, because that will need to fit into your REN for you to use. A professional hunter might have 80 nen reserve and 20 skill level of aura flow, so 20 points in an advantage would make a professional stress his aura output in other to "equip" it. It only adds 2 to his nen cost upkeep if he passes the skill check, but if he needs to use TEN or normal REN enhancements during the fight, they would start risking losing the smooth aura control, as the stress leaks clumsy aura during failed rolls.

Overall roleplay vibe

The system is too complex and doesn't make sense. But it gives what we wanted, the emulated vibes of HXH. The day to day play of the game is thinking, using tactical use of the powers and of everything in the universe. My players went nuts, they be doing goofy travel stuff and the moment they set on a battle they all receive the ghost of sun tzu. Nen battles are just too dangerous, they analyse every nook of an enemy behaviour to get an insight of their powers, their aura limits, their tactics, they plan like crazy, they hide the conditions of their hatsus and use their resources with unparalleled strategic depth. We also do occasional heavens arena fights, so they can have fun with pvp, and again, every battle is 4d chess with nen powers. This set of organic rules gives a lot of room for them to improvise, exploring the nen system is pretty fun.

I started it in 2019 with a different group of players, and changed a couple of times due to life reasons, but 90% of people enjoyed it. Even a bunch of people that didn't even knew the universe before joining the table.

One tip: I used a libre office calc sheet that did the % calculations on the fly for each player reserve, current output and upkeep.

I only made a V2 because I've come up with a more elegant design using the extra effort rules, and we got in a point of the story (TPK) that was appropriate for a rework. Also TEN is overpowered as you can deplete your aura defensively, we eventually adapted our tactics to punish defensive players, but the second system corrects that imbalance. I'll be posting about that new version soon.