Hello and welcome back to Only the Parts You Need; a GURPS Podcast. In this Episode I will be giving a review of Pyramid 3/44 Alternate GURPS II. I'll also be mentioning various blog posts in relation to the articles, which will be linked in the description.
This is one of my favourite Pyramid Issues, I've used many of the articles within, which I'll talk about in order.
In the issue are
The Last Gasp by Douglaus H Cole, providing advanced fatigue rules. I've used this, and liked it..
From Skills to Advantages by Sean Punch. This does exactly what it says, rules for creating an advantage out of skills. Very useful for certain character concepts and campaigns.
Colorless Green Ideas Sleep Furiously, which is an alternate language module for GURPS, by Roger Burton West
Tactical Mass Combat, by David L. Pulver. I've used this to great success in a long campaign.
Abstract Wealth, by Jason Brick.
Niche to Scratch, by Steven Marsh, Pyramid Editor, which provides rules for protecting the thing you're supposed to be really good at, but in a way that isn't heavy handed
And Appendix Z, Survivable Guns. Also by Pulver. I've used this in the past and use it now in a current game as of this episode.
So first up is Last Gasp. While I'm not using it currently I have used it in the past. Full disclosure, I love what Last Gasp does to combat. It's not suited for every campaign or every group but if you're the type that likes a bit of extra detail, and grittiness you'll love it too.
The overall point of Last Gasp is to make players treat being tired and fatigued far more seriously.
How are we to represent these three things in GURPS?
This rules module is composed of multiple smaller rules modules that are semi independent of each other. Not all have to be used, only the parts you need. Douglas Cole's rules here are detailed and satisfying, in my opinion, and provide gritty and combat focused campaigns with extra flavour, it can benefit both high and low fantasy.
As a preface; if you like the concept but you find that the rules are too complex, Douglas Cole has a blog post titled "Gasping Simplified"; the rules therein tame some of the extra crunch and crank to a more manageable level. Other tweaks that may change the system more to one group or another's liking are also included.
Onto the system itself.
There are two core components to this new fatigue system. Long Term Fatigue, and Short Term Fatigue. Long Term Fatigue makes spending losing, and regaining Fatigue more important. Instead of sudden large penalties at less than one third fatigue, the Gradual Impairment due to Fatigue rules under Long Term Fatigue means that fatigued characters are weaker, slower, and unfocused; lower attributes. Being Fatigued is someone that everyone wants to avoid, but may sometimes be unable to.
For a GM, this can be very interesting; it is now possible to wear player characters down. To make them feel the weight of battle after battle with no rest. Whereas in standard GURPS characters can fully recover from general fatigue from most battles in under an hour, now they may be required to fight below their peak.
For Players, it means that more options are viable. Because one's attributes may vary at different levels of fatigue, you may not always be strong enough to use your two handed sword that requires strength 12. But that shortsword that only requires strength 8 can be used without penalty even when you're partially exhausted. Furthermore, character archetypes such as the warrior who simply outlasts his opponents through superior stamina are now viable.
Of course, this comes with the downside that sometimes players will find their characters are worn out and tired. This is suboptimal for them. But is it fun? It can be. Scraping out by the skin of your teeth, fighting desperately against foes through exhaustion; these are dramatic scenarios. So the rules increase dramatic potential, and drama is fun and memorable.
Furthermore, FP recovery is long term. There are three stages, mild, severe, and deep. Mild FP is quick to recover, severe is slower, and deep is the slowest. Deep Fatigue is negative fatigue. Mild is half max FP, and severe is below max but not negative.
The way this is written is a little unintuitive in the book, but with a bit of thought you can grasp it. Someone with 10 FP can spend 5 fatigue points and recover them quickly; it is mere mild fatigue. However if they spend six, they will still recover 5 quickly. But the sixth fatigue point spent was severe fatigue, so they will not gain that final FP point back as fast as the others. Therefore players can always expect to regain some FP when resting if they've recently spent some.
I mentioned impairment due to fatigue. This lowers attributes and skills but, notably, this doesn't necessarily lower these for every purpose, losing strength doesn't lower your HP, and losing FP doesn't lower your maximum fatigue points due to lower HT either; that'd be double dipping. There are also various custom rules here; such as capping attribute penalties, and alternate rules for losing HP when below zero fatigue points, or not.
That's Long Term Fatigue, The second part of the Last Gasp is Short Term Fatigue. This introduces Action Points or AP; these track moment to moment fatigue and are the core of changes to combat. Characters have AP based on HT, and some combat maneuvers such as attacking, moving and others cost AP, some such as evaluate and concentrate, do not cost AP. Still other manoeuvres recover AP. This makes maneuvers like Evaluate more attractive, as it is away one might gain an advantage without spending AP.
This drastically changes the pacing of combat. Though I will note now that there rules also include methods to deal with groups of NPCs and AP included so the GM does not have to do excessive book-keeping.
AP can be recovered by doing nothing, though you can move at a walking pace for free too; a character doesn't rapidly expand points just for walking around the house! There are variant rules for moving that allow sprinting to be better represented, which I like. Some players have suggested online that AP shouldn't be charged for moving at all. I have actually tried this and found that it makes the Last Gasp rules irrelevant because most characters will be able to end most combats before fatigue becomes relevant, as movement is a large factor in usual FP drain. So I strongly advise against making movement free. In Gasping simplified, Douglas provides some good more simplified rules for accounting FP, including movement, which I like the look of. (Though I haven't used them myself.)
Douglas Cole has also suggested on his blog, Gaming Ballistic that when using Last Gasp it is balanced to lower the penalty for rapid strike as Last Gasp's Action Points appropriately penalise rapid strike via AP loss.
So how does this affect combat? It takes more turns. There are luls in combat now. GURPS combat can be lethally fast, but now chewing through a crowd of enemies may leave a character panting for breath; as it should! As I mentioned earlier, more dramatic potential is available to the GM now. Enemy reinforcements arriving can now be treated as a serious threat without increasing their actual power; relatively fresh troops arriving to face player characters who have already partially expended themselves are a threat simply because they are fresh and can afford to exert themselves more. For players, they can do such things as attempting to tire enemies out, sending them running about the place with distractions. Stimulants, and fatigue recovery potions become more important.
On that note, in order to prevent magic in fantasy games from re-trivialising fatigue, Game Masters may wish to inspect Salving Magic from Pyramid 3-13, Thaumatology, and apply its rules to Fatigue points. Furthermore, enemies might be able to dispel magically recovered fatigue, making it a more risky option.
Existing advantages have new variants, such as Regeneration with Fatigue Recovery, and an Action Point variant too. Fit and Very fit only affect FP, not AP since they are so cheap. Douglas Cole has mentioned this on his blog and essentially said that without changing the price, Fit and Very Fit cannot provide bonuses to action points beyond their HT bonus to rolls to recover AP.
But what of Spells, and Extra Effort? There are rules for those too, and this is where it can make fantasy games rather interesting. Most spells should be using AP, unless a variant Mana system such as threshold limited magery is used instead. I personally prefer to use Quintessence, Threshold Magery, or other kinds of mana rather than the Basic Fatigue powered magery anyway.
Now, final thoughts.
The way that the Last Gasp is laid out in the books can make it seem unintuitive. This is because essential information is spread out amongst the explanations. This is often a problem with GURPS books but fortunately, Pseudonym, of the Let's GURPS blog has made a cheat sheet available for free that provides. I'll link it in the description, or you can find it on Pseudoboo dot blogspot dot com. I recommend it.
In conclusion, Last Gasp adds a lot of flavour, and dramatic possibility. It is more bookkeeping but for a group of experienced GURPS players that shouldn't be a problem. There are many tweaks available to customise it to your liking and I've even made a little webapp for play that works on mobile and desktop.
Last Gasp links
https://gamingballistic.com/2016/07/06/fit-and-last-gasp/
https://pseudoboo.blogspot.com/2018/01/last-gasp-cheat-sheet.html
https://gamingballistic.com/2015/08/13/action-points-and-exhausting-defense/
https://gamingballistic.com/2016/07/06/fit-and-last-gasp/
https://legendsmith.github.io/technicolor-dream-GURPS/lastgasp
By Sean Punch, Aka Kromm
This article is rather straightforward. It's for converting supernatural and exotic skills into advantages.
As the issue states, when you have something you want as an innate power rather than a learned improvable skill, it's far more appropriate for it to be an advantage rather than a skill. When a skill has many prerequisites when what you really want is solely what the skill provides and not the other things that go along with it, then you want an advantage version.
There are many applications of this. Including advantage-izing the ability to recognise magic on sight, like what Thaumatology provides mages. Power blow is another great candidate for this. Kiai, even the ability to guess passwords as a cinematic advantage are also examples in the article.
Spells usually aren't good candidates for balance reasons, but the article talks about that subject too.
As Enraged Eggplant has noted to me; Imbuement-based Sorcery spells are made with the rules from this article. So it has many useful applications.
There's not much more I can say here without explaining the rules, other than it's functional and it works.
By Roger Burton West.
The title of this doesn't give much away but as I mentioned at the start, it's advanced rules for Languages with GURPS. It's a rather curious system. Languages are skills, and are not dependent on IQ. I of course don't want to give away the system here, so I'll talk about what I'd use it for. These rules I view as an enhancement for types of games. They don't exactly fill a hole but provide new gameplay possibilities in the right scenarios.
While I haven't used these rules myself, I'd say that this detailed system is most useful when meaning, writing, and messages are important in the campaign. Campaigns that feature the spread and dissemination of ideas as core plot points may benefit from these rules, especially if taking place in worlds with language barriers. Archaeological games, with their focus on ancient scripts, languages, and such things have room for enhancement with these rules. So too will spy games
Learning languages costs more points since they're skills now, improvement via study is vital, and game masters using these rules should allocate a pool of points specifically for languages, increasing the total point value of the campaign.
Comprehension rolls became far more common with this system, though for mundane and day to day rolls there are large bonuses; while it's possible to stumble over one's own words, it's not that common. Furthermore, it makes education more attractive since books and other messages have target comprehension levels. This may make learning magic in fantasy settings particularly interesting if one finds a book of ancient advanced magic instead of magery 101. Characters who do not have the requisite skill to understand advanced texts will be unable to fully comprehend the contents. This is great for discovering ancient magic, learning of forbidden lore and such, as characters can slowly piece together the true meaning.
In conclusion; if you want language skill to matter, really matter, these rules are right up your alley. Otherwise you'll find them needless.
By David L Pulver
Anyone familiar with OGRE or G.E.V, tactical wargames by Steve Jackson Games will find Pulver's Tactical Mass Combat for GURPS extremely familiar, because it's literally a simplified version of G.E.V. These tactical wargames, including Tactical Mass Combat are hex grid based games. So Tactical Mass combat is a bit like GURPS the tabletop wargame. Chits or tokens are required and so is a hex grid, just like the regular tactical combat. If regular GURPS Mass Combat is the mapless theatre of the mind, then Tactical Mass combat is quite literally the hex grid based, mapped version.
That said, Tactical Mass Combat is built on, and does seamlessly integrate with Mass Combat, providing rules for the appropriate setup of forces depending on the type of battle, movement, types of units and more.. There are rules for terrain types, roads, fortifications and urban hexes, as well as off map support elements like artillery, and even aircraft. I will note that GURPS Mass Combat is required to use Tactical Mass Combat.
How does Tactical Mass Combat perform as written? Quite well! I've used it in a past campaign on multiple occasions with the players commanding armies while I commanded enemies.
Troop strength serves as both attack and defence. Units do not have hit points, they are simply alive, pinned, or eliminated. Destroyed doesn't necessarily mean totally destroyed narratively; it's up to the GM to work out after the battle what percentage of eliminated are actually dead.
Pinned is like a status effect that can be inflicted by ranged attackers, it's used as a mid point between no effect, and target eliminations.
Combat is resolved in a simple but intuitive way; dice are rolled, the strength of each side compares, and a simple table determines the outcome. It's a proven system, as OGRE and G.E.V use virtually the same table as Tactical Mass Combat, though without the pin status.
Since minor advantages in numbers are not particularly advantageous, especially with terrain as a factor, there is a focus on maneuver and the proper use of one's forces; not merely mashing armies together and letting bigger numbers win. Units may be stacked up to four, which is advantageous for melee but means that ranged firepower can be more effective, though not unreasonably so. Units can be transported as well by those that have transportation capacity.
I also must mention that there is another article in this Issue which covers Multi-sided battles when using the Tactical Mass combat rules. There's not much to say about these other than that they work, and it's good to have them in case you get a 3 way battle or something.
Now, what of commanders and heroes in Tactical Mass Combat?. Characters can command units but this requires tactics and/or leadership skills, and having both is preferable. Alternately, using the party, or individual members as troops is possible; you'll either have to just estimate their troop strength as GURPS Mass Combat states, or use Heroes on the Mass Scale in Pyramid 3/84: Perspectives for an accurate stat block.
Commanders exist too, which must accompany some combat element. Leadership and strategy skills determine how many command points the commander has. These points can be spent in a number of ways to alter the flow of battle. Depending on tech level, the commander may or may not need to be in proximity to the unit he wishes to spend CP on.
Aircraft and air units are one area that may be particularly unsatisfying for some; aircraft definitely are treated as support units. Turns in Tactical Mass Combat are about five minutes; aircraft are assumed to be able to dive down from above to conduct attack runs anywhere on the map, though they do not leave the field until the end of the enemy's turn, giving the foe a chance to fire back. Five minutes is certainly long enough for an aircraft to do this. However, Aircraft only have a 50% chance to be able to re-enter battle though after being utilized! I understand why, Air needs to be limited in some way, especially with its high mobility.
I've found that Tactical Mass Combat is relatively fast, faster than GURPS combat can be. I think this makes it particularly appealing. As the book notes, the GM can break to regular GURPS combat at any point, so it is possible to have the battle going on, while the player characters occasionally fight in regular GURPS combat! If doing this, the GM should keep in mind that if the enemy or players is forced back 50 yards which about half a hex they are pushed out of that hex, and that it is possible for combat to take enough time to increment a Mass Combat turn as well.
A final note. As I said before, this system is like OGRE and G.E.V. But unlike G.E.V and ogre, units only have troop strength rather than attack and defense strength. This is because Mass Combat only has a single number Troop Strength too. However if one wanted to go to the effort Heroes on the Mass Scale in Pyramid 3/84: Perspectives has rules for converting Character sheets to Mass Combat stat-blocks, and rules for raising said characters as troops. So one could stat up troops, and obtain attack and defense numbers from that module, you may find that Pyramid 3-77 is helpful there as the Heros on the Mass Scale article is based on Its A Threat article from Pyramid 77.
G.E.V also has some units with split movement; their second movement number is how far they can move after attacking. I think this could be a great way to make cavalry more distinctive; allow them to move either 3, or 2+1. There are many houserules, fan rules, and more out there for G.E.V and an industrious game master can adapt these to Tactical Mass Combat with a bit of work.
In conclusion, I like it, and I will be using it again in the future.
By Jason Brick
Are you afraid of numbers? Do you want your characters to be killing things rather than doing accounting? Do you just wish you were playing d20 Modern? Then Abstract Wealth is for you.
From what I've heard, D20 modern uses a similar system, and is one of the few good features that system had. The GURPS version looks quite good. Wealth is a score, almost like another attribute. It is rolled against for buying items, with cheaper items being an easier roll and more expensive items being harder. Certain things like buying items temporarily lower the wealth score, or might not.
There's levels from "Homeless" all the way up to "Galactic Empire."
I haven't used this myself but I am interested in using it in the future. If your group doesn't want to track specific wealth numbers this is a great choice. I'm told from people who have used it that it is quite good for the right kind of campaign, or group.
It's also useful for Game Masters in political games where there's large cash flows by major nations and other large scale groups. Rather than tracking how many millions of dollars a corporation has in liquidity, you can simply assign an appropriate abstract wealth score and roll.
However this article does mention that Abstract wealth does not mesh well with campaigns where loot and other such cash infusions are a regular part of the game, because getting splitting, spending loot is an important reward. It suggests that cash could be just spent normally. So perhaps this is more suited to games with steady income streams for the players. Games where player characters are working regular jobs such as colonial or frontier games could be appropriate. As could modern games where large cash rewards are not part of it, such as superheroes, who usually aren't paid.
So in conclusion, it's worth checking out.
Niche to Scratch by Steven Marsh, the Pyramid editor is an interesting one. These rules are for a special meta-advantage perk. Meta advantages are things like Luck which affect the game via meta effects, in the case of luck it's dice rolls.
Niche Protection is similar, but with both effects meta, and in-character. It is a specialized perk that in the game world, makes the character with it the leading figure at the Niche defined by the perk's specialisation in the minds of characters in the game. They become the world expert on their Niche, whatever it may be. This doesn't actually provide them with skills or advantages. They're simply thought of as being the best at their niche. Even if they are not. Such as a detective who doesn't really solve things via sleuthing but is still considered the best detective in the world.
The rules for this are to prevent other players, and even NPCs from stepping on the toes of a Niche protected character's niche, whatever it may be. This can't cause failure though, it just changes the margin of success for other characters who do not have Niche Protection.
Another factor of Niche protection is that every adventure or so there must be an opportunity for that Niche to shine.
So these three factors:
These 3 factors make this a very odd rules nugget. The effects are subtle from moment to moment but have the potential for large impacts on the tone of the campaign. Don't think I'll use it as it's not my style of GMing.
Guns by default are very deadly, too deadly in my opinion, and apparently David L. Pulver agrees. Damage in GURPS is largely modelled off penetrating power vs hard armor. Since modern firearms are great at penetrating armor, determining their damage results in rifles dealing lethal damage with even a single non-vital torso shot. This is rather odd, even though longarms are powerful, are they really two or three times more deadly than a sword? More deadly, sure. But that much more? That is debatable and in any case
Survivable Guns is the solution, and it's quite simple and elegant. Lowering damage but keeping armor penetration about the same for high velocity firearms is the name of the game here. While this is called cinematic, it's arguable that this is actually more realistic in some ways, and that guns were too deadly before, as there are many examples of people being shot in the chest but surviving, as the shot missed anything vital. Terminal ballistics is a contentious subject.
I've used Survivable guns extensively in my games; whether or not the game is supposed to be cinematic or realistic, I find that these rules are worth using because it means that heavy armor is not required to live, but at the same time it doesn't make said armor redundant, or useless. A fully armored soldier will still enjoy protection, but it means that the gunslinger wearing a cotton shirt won't instantly die the moment he fails to dodge.
An alternative to this is Optional Wounding Rules on High Tech page 162. However while these are functional they involve more book-keeping, more dice rolls and I feel don't really emphasize the importance of shot placement much.
Whereas Survivable Guns front loads the effort because it solves the problem at the source. My players have found these rules good, as they don't have to worry about instant death, yet at the same time guns are still capable of crippling wounds, and targeting the vitals is still deadly. For example, the 5.56mm assault rifle deals five damage dice in the basic set. With Survivable guns it deals 2 dice plus 2, with an armor divisor of two.
Let's compare that same gun, in Basic Set, and Survivable guns
I'll assume an average damage roll for both, against 6 DR, which is medium plate armor.
The Basic Set assault rifle deals 11 damage, which can instantly send an average person unconscious with a failed HT roll, or kill them on a vital hit.
The Survivable Guns assault rifle deals 6 damage through the armor. This is still a major wound for an average human, and likely to cause knockdown. It's not instantly deadly on a vitals hit but it would quickly lead to death by bleeding if using bleeding rules.
Without armor on non-vital hits, the basic set rifle would deal 17 damage, which is crippling and puts the target near death, while the survivable guns rifle deals 9 damage. This is significant, while it's still a major wound, a followup shot is unlikely to be instantly lethal. A big difference comes with vital hits; the basic set rifle is instantly fatal to an average person on a vitals hit, with 51 damage. While the survivable guns rifle can kill on a vitals hit at 27 damage, it's not a sure thing, though with bleeding rules this wound is quite serious. This is as it should be, I think. This means that a lightly armored player character, say one who wants to survive via speed, is not at risk of instant death from a failed dodge roll.
In conclusion, highly recommended.
So, that was Pyramid, Series 3, Issue 44. If you'd like to hear me review more Pyramid issues, let me know in the comments or email us.