Path of Houserules

Now, in Dungeon Fantasy GURPS, people can Attack and Step all they want, and sometimes they can Move and Attack too-even well, depending on if Heroic Charge is being used or not. How aggressive a PC is mostly comes down to how they position themselves in a fight, be it near major enemies or further away for ranged fights, and if they use All Out Attacks or C omitted Attacks. There's FP based abilities for casters, but they can recover between rests.

The Last Gasp serves to introduce penalties to very high levels of aggression. Spending FP to get AP after AP and keep up a non-stop attack is certainly something you can do...but it's going to take hours to recover that FP, and progressing with it will rapidly start penalizing your attributes. This leads to lulls in combats, time spent moving carefully and positioning oneself, people taking breaks. Do you want to try to recover AP with Waits, or use Destiny Points to get a Second Wind? There's a decision to be made there, though in default TLG I feel like there's not enough reason to bother spending FP. It's risky, it almost always hurts you, and it doesn't always get you close enough to winning to justify itself.

At least in the soulsborne games, I start to feel in control of the fight whenever I can take the fight at my own pace. For Heian Twilight, there aren't going to be very many fights, so I'll want some major ones to remain tense. A way to do that is to make the fight encourage a certain level of aggressiveness from players - TLG penalizes you for taking it too fast, so something that makes taking it too slow a bad idea could help amp up the tension and make for a more interesting fight. Shamelessly stealing from videogames, here are some ideas I have on how to encourage risky, aggressive play from PCs.

Mooks In The Last Gasp, weak enemies always take at least 1 AP to remove from the fight...but leaving them alive means having to spend AP turn after turn defending from their attacks. Even heavily armored PCs may have to worry about mooks shoving, grappling, or tripping them. Going after the mooks hard and early means you're more freely able to focus your energy at the big guys. If there are campaign switches that get PCs back resources on a kill, mooks then encourage chaining attacks to get as much of that stuff as you can at once.

Recovering Enemies PCs can take time away from attacking to rest and recover their breath. There's no reason enemies can't do the same - and no reason they can't be better at it, either. If the boss monster can recover more quickly than PCs, time is no longer on their side and they'll need to fight faster than the monster's pace. Regeneration (AP) can promote this, especially if it takes a recovery action. On a recovery action success a PC gets back 1 AP, but a tough enemy might get 4 or more! Regenerating HP enemies fall under a similar umbrella.

Limited Openings If an opponent is only easy to hurt every few turns, PCs are encouraged to make the most of the chances they get. The crudest way to do this is invincibility phases on a boss, but it can be more subtle than that. If there's a barrage of attacks that makes the PCs have to spend all their time defending, then they'll want to hit hard during what gaps in the attacks they can find.

Time Limits If the PCs only have so much time to defeat the enemy, then recovery actions (and anything else that doesn't immediately help them win) becomes a more tricky choice. Time limits don't have to mean a literal ticking clock, and probably shouldn't. If the enemy can consistently damage the PCs, instead of a countdown clock they have a countdown HP bar. If there are strong Afflictions or poisons at play, then fighting too slowly could see the PCs lose their ability to fight effectively before they win.

Including elements of these should make for more tense fights under The Last Gasp. I'll probably try out a few in play, and I'd like to hear other people's ideas as well.

Each spell starts off with a base cost of 2 energy. To make one, a player chooses which of the seven Verbs they want to build it from: Sense, Strengthen, Restore, Destroy, Control, Create, or Transform. Spells that combine multiple effects still only have a base cost of 2, unless the GM rules it a particularly complex working (often at 3+ realms or with Transform effects being combined to things) - in which case add +1 energy for each extra effect past what a 'simple' spell would have. This, and what counts as ‘simple’, is a campaign switch.

Modifiers add energy to the base value. Here they are: Damage:

+1 point for 1d damage malediction, or 2d explosive indirect (requires an attack roll), or 3d for non-explosive indirect.

Progresses as in RPM.

Bestows Bonus/Penalty:

+5 x bonus/penalty for a Broad category

+2 x bonus/penalty for a Moderate category

+1 x bonus/penalty for a Narrow Category

Providing (Dis)Advantages:

+1 tally per 5 points

Afflictions:

+1 per 5% an affliction is worth as an enhancement

+0 for stun

Duration:

Inst: 0

1min: +1 - half to maintain

In Energy Accumulation mode (see below), RPM progression in duration costs are allowed (May need to check this, long-duration spells can be a problem to balance vs. Powers)

Speed (as for teleports, gates,flight):

Look up speed in yds/sec on size/speed range table, add the "size" value worth of energy

Weight:

RPM progression (For now - this will need to be fixed so people can't minmax their weight for easier buffs)

Summoning:

+8 for each 125 points the summoned creature is built on; finer gradations possible. Stronger summons may need negotiating or Control effects to keep in line.

Special note: summoned things can’t summon other things.

Area of Effect:

Circle or sphere: look up the radius in yds on the Size/Speed Range table, add twice the "size" value in energy

Other shapes: use the square root of the area or cube root of the volume to do the above

+1 energy for every 2 people you exclude from the area

Shapes need to be compact; no gerrymandering to avoid the above extra energy cost

Blocking:

+5 energy

to cast, roll vs. Realm Skill/2 +3

Energy can be provided in one of two ways: Tally or Energy Accumulation. To use tally, simply add the spell's energy to your tally. This form of energy gathering takes no time, but as tally lowers slowly it can cause trouble. The maximum you can add to your Tally with a single spell is 10 times your threshold. For Energy Accumulation, simply declare that you are doing so. It takes 10 minutes to gather (Realm Skill Level - 11) points of energy.

You then roll against your realm skill to cast. Maledictions, Afflictions, and Bestowing Penalties take their range penalties here, like a regular spell would. Spells with multiple realms involved also face a penalty equal to the number of realms past the first; that's -1 for a two-realm spell, -2 for a three-realm spell, so on and so forth. Casting the spell itself takes 1 second for each Verb included in it. Verbs from different Realms count twice. People can't be buffed by multiple spells of the same type (only one Strengthen Body per person). Magic can't buff magic, though it can debuff it.

Examples: A PC body mage finds themselves ambushed. They want a short-duration buff to even the odds, so they decide on a Strengthen Body effect that will provide them some stat boosts. DX+2 and ST +1 would cost them 50 points to buy, so it takes 10+2=12 points of energy to cast. With no time to do energy accumulation, they throw it all into their Tally. In another minute, they'll have to pay half that cost to maintain it, so they need to win the fight quickly... A PC knows they're going into a fight and wants some extra defense to help them out. They settle on using a temporary force construct to absorb incoming blows. It's a Destroy Energy effect to do the absorption, but a Create Magic effect to make the item itself. Shields give a bonus to all defense rolls, so they have a Bestow Broad Bonus parameter. For +3 DB, that's +15 energy over the base cost of 2 to cast their spell. 17 energy is a fair amount, so they decide to use energy accumulation. However, the complexity of two realms means they roll against the lower of Magic and Energy, -1. This penalty will effect their energy-gathering too. Since this effect is an item and not a buff intrinsic to them, they could pass it around to other PCs or be disarmed of it during the adventure. Final Thoughts

The Realm Magical Talent from earlier posts in this series should exist if you use these rules, to help ease the life of multi-realm casters. They already have to buy many realms and associated skills, so be nice to them. Increased Threshold from Thaumatology should be a buyable advantage, and the point sink for more narrowly-focused mages. Mages are very powerful under this sort of setup; they have good burst potential and wide range of flexibility. That’s not a problem for me, but if you don’t want an all-wizards game this may not work for you. Blocking spells are expensive, but mean a rested mage is a durable foe on top of their other abilities. If using this with The Last Gasp (and for the first part, I will), casting and holding on to missile spells should probably take AP. For energy-accumulators, especially long workings should start requiring will rolls or draining FP; maintaining precise focus for an hour straight is hard.

This system seems to get out what I wanted from it though, and in particular it makes "skill vs. power" a real choice when building a magician. One needs high skills and tends to do energy accumulation, the other needs high threshold and tends to use tally. Either can focus on one realm or multiple, but it's easier to get a high threshold if you have fewer realms taking up your points.

Continuing from last time, we figured on Verb-Noun magic as being a good candidate magic system. However, its emphasis on skills will require most wizards to have similar attribute spreads. That's not as good for a game of action; while a party of IQ 15 kung-fu masters would certainly be a treat, I don't think I'd want to do it all the time. So we need support for magicians to be more varied in their attribute spreads, which implies an advantage-based focus. Thaumatology comes through here with Realm Magic.

We'll assign each of our Nouns from last time a Realm, giving us 8 'standard' ones (Mind, Body, Spirit; Matter, Energy; Magic, Crossroads, Chance). Another strength of this approach is that accessibility can be used to mash together realms into interesting combinations. We just have to figure out how to price each level of the realm, and what kind of controlling skill to have.

Lifting RPM's verbs and saying each takes a level to get gives us a nice spread of 7 levels for each realm. Since the top level of realms usually includes "make electricity a liquid that flows uphill", we'll say there's 1 or 2 extra 'hidden' levels barred to anything but deities. There's no specific aspects of reality that can't be messed with by magic (yet), so with 8 Realms with 9 levels each Thaumatology recommends a cost of 6.66 points a level. For clarity's sake I think I'll round that down to 5 points/level instead of 7 or 6, at least for early testing. Over the course of a full realm it's an extra 14 or 7 points, not a huge saving for someone who's gonna be that deep into things.

An example, then: Realm Of Body [5/level] Provides magical abilities tied to the Realm of Body. To use requires the expenditure of energy/tally as discussed in Threshold Magic, and a roll against Realm of Body (a Will/Hard skill). Each level grants access to a new class of effects:

Lvl 1: Sense Effects

Lvl 2: Strengthen Effects

Lvl 3: Destroy Effects

Lvl 4: Restore Effects

Lvl 5: Control Effects

Lvl 6: Create Effects

Lvl 7: Transform Effects

There is also a talent: Realm Magic Talent [10/Lvl] +1 to all Realm skills, Symbol-Drawing, and Thaumatology. No cap on levels.

It may also be an option to allow different paths of effect progression, i.e. some mages learn how to Control before they Restore, or Create before they Destroy. This is particularly helpful for Energy mages, who like to use Create Energy to attack. However it's done, Sense should come first; I want the magic system to have a sense of academic progression and deepening understanding to it. Transform should be near the end, as well.

Now, I said that I wanted to apply the power of accessibility to create different realms, so let's do two examples of that.

Realm of Undead is a combination of Body, Spirit, and Mind that functions only on undead. It starts with a base cost of 15 points/lvl, but then takes an accessibility modifier of -50% (depending on undead populations). That gives you a final cost of 8 points/level.

Realm of Weather is a combination of Matter and Energy, so it has a base cost of 10 pts/lvl. It only functions in atmospheres, or large bodies of fluids that can sustain currents, eddies, gyres and the like. Given that adventurers in Crossroads almost always work inside atmospheres, it has a much smaller accessibility limitation at -20%. This isn't just -10% (like 'only on sea creatures' on a world covered in water) because there is a lot of overlap between Control Matter and Create Energy when it comes to weather-working; the given PC isn't necessarily getting their full 10 points worth out of the base cost.

Ultimately combining Realms to make new ones is a matter with a lot of GM judgement required.

Final Thoughts This system seems like a good idea. In particular, it makes it very expensive to have more than 3 or 4 realms at a high level, and through the use of Talent it should allow for less 'academic' mages. There's also a sort of natural niche protection in the realm subdivisions - if players avoid overlapping realms, they're going to have very different ways of applying their magic. Body has a lot of self-buffing and debuffing applications, while Energy can function as an artillery piece and block with kinetic-energy draining shields.

Next time I'll try working some example castings, and fine-tuning the threshold-powered nature of the system.

The Animate: Mind, Body, Spirit

The Material: Matter, Energy

The Ephemeral: Magic, Crossroads, Chance

Magic is a big focus in the game; it is the predominant form of supernatural/exotic power on Homeline, it fuels the shifting across different worlds, and it is common among both heroes and villains. So it deserves some care.

Crossroads is basically a Supers/Action style of game, so wizards have two big approaches that need to be effective. The first is the Batman Wizard, who has a wide range of spells and pulls out just what they need at the right time. They might cast only one or two spells an entire combat, giving the party an advantage they wouldn't otherwise have. They load the dice, as it were.

The second is the blaster wizard. This one uses magic to directly defeat enemies, working many small spells during a given fight. They'll generally go straight for damage, but a similar principle applies to someone blinding or disabling enemies one by one (instead of in a big area spell). Instead of breadth of abilities, they have depth in a single one. This is the one who 'wins against the odds'.

So this means the magic system needs to have an option for rare but big spells, as well as spamming weaker things. It needs to have a simple approach as well as a way to generate lots of flexibility for a given mage. And lastly, it should be easy to understand for my players.

For the time being that means I'm going to try a Verb And Noun magic from Thaumatology, with a Threshold-limited power source.  Verb and Noun is set up so that getting flexible costs a lot of points compared to a narrow focus, and Threshold lets you do a BIG spell every now and then - very helpful for those fight-changing area spells. It also helps amp the mythic nature of strong casters - each one of them can be a major threat to themselves and everyone around them!

Advantages First off, they get -1 ST [-10]. ST's not as important in low or micogravity environments, and since it's a proxy for mass/height, it'll help keep them small. That'll be helpful when it comes to maximizing space inside their hulls, though it needs to be prepared for and built around - not having a wall in reach is a problem when you're in 0-g.

They get Radiation PF 2 [5], to help with many spacewalks they're likely to do over life. Radiation PF 5 is probably overkill, but might become dominant by the next generation - I don't like expensive racial templates, so I'm trying to keep it cheap. Reduced Consumption 1 [2] is standard, and frees up a huge number of resources by making everyone just eat less. Then they get Prehensile Toes [4] from biotech, giving them an extra set of grasping limbs to work with.

Rounding out the 'proper' advantages we have Longevity [2], which will almost never matter but is a nice thing to give your kids, and Hermaphramorph. I'd wanted some form of gender-oddity with them since the beginning of development, since it's a good way to make the future weird. For a generation ship, it also increases the number of potential sexual pairings, which helps with the management of the gene pool. However, Hermaphramorph as writtin in Basic I don't like very much - it's extremely fast (5 minutes) being my main complaint. So eventually I come around to Limited Use (4/day) with Slow Reload. Together, that emulates having a 'bank' of transformation juice somewhere in their bodies, which is depleted through changes. It can be replenished slowly through regular diet, or quickly through the use of specialized vitamin/hormone supplements. Tack on an accessibility (only while not pregnant, -20%) for a final cost of [4] and we're good to go.

Perks, Quirks, and Features I give them No Degeneration in 0-G [1], Reproductive Control (Fertility Control) [1], and after some thought, Extended Fertility [0]. These are all just nice things to have, ranging from 'extremely important' to 'convenient'. Lastly there’s Taboo Traits - Genetic Disease and Psionics. The first is the result of a lot of effort by doctors and scientists; the latter is tied in to how I want psionics to work in this game.

Disadvantages The abuse of biotech and inheritable genemods doesn't jive well with the more bio-conservative majority in the game. So, they get Social Stigma (Minority Group) [-10] - I'm not currently interested in a game set purely on their ships and settlements. Finally the physical results of many generations of isolation and divergent aesthetic tastes has given them Unnatural Features [-1]. In the case of Vayr, the only 1st fleet member the PCs have met so far, this takes the form of eyes with completely black irises.

I don't have great logs for some of these side sessions. Olwen and Eoghan talk some stuff out in the ship's gym, which is hot and uncomfortable in the grand tradition of submarines gyms. I think the purpose was for Olwen to scope out how well she could trust her new mercenary companion? Either way it didn't end in them fighting, so probably a good sign.

The other short side session that happened is Eoghan getting flagged down by Reiho for some help. She's decided to organize the civilians on the ship to assist the understaffed crew. While she and Eoghan go over schedules and lists of skills and such, they get to chatting. Eoghan's kind of pissed the Princess isn't in the lists, and appears to be just dead (royal) weight. Reiho explains that she's trying to be considerate because Fionnoula's been depressed, what with the losing her country and some of her family being hurt and all. No real agreement is reached on how to deal with that; Eoghan is playing up his Intolerance (nobility) to the max and Reiho is not going along with it.

Eventually they finish the work and table their discussion for another day. Reiho gets to ask him some about his Gadgeteering project, and they split.

When the team approaches the northern border, there's a short briefing before everything gets underway. Vayr is back out of hiding in their computer-cave, and leads the first part. Comms traffic indicates the various mobile firebases up ahead are patrolling, as well as the existence of a pursuit force dogging their tail. Eventually it's decided to try for a full-speed breakthrough, with the protagonists deploying their mecha on the outside of the ship's pressure hull. They head north with a moutain range to their right, so they won't have to worry about attack from that direction. Reiho is handling the comms, under the callsign ‘Masthead’; the PCs are each assigned their own monikers after a short discussion. (Merlin, Joker, Hunter, and Lynx for Alastar, Eoghan, Einar, and Olwen, respectively). The ship’s now staffed enough to be a viable combatant.

Not too much later and at considerable range, they notice a weird haze of white close to the ground. Alastar spots it first, and decides to take a rather cautious approach, doing his best to scan it passively but the haze of kicked up snow is just not cooperating with him. Eventually he reasons that a flying submarine is about as conspicuous as you can get and uses his mecha's laser sensors to try to scan the thing, right as the haze stops moving and starts to thin out.

Within that haze is their main obstacle, one of the mobile firebases mentioned last time around. Its movement had kicked up the ice and snow around it, reducing visibility & sensor range - and without any scouts outside to report back, the Sima Yi was able to get much too close for comfort. Promotions are not in the enemy commander's future.

As the haze cut both ways and both sides have effectively surprised each other, combat quickly becomes a mess. The first exchange of ship-bound weapons blows apart one of the firebase's turrets and makes the Sima Yi start crashing. PCs either jump off or brace for impact, while the enemy starts deploying their tanks.  They're able to get two out before Eoghan blows up the departure ramp, leaving their further tanks stranded inside the base.

The ship-to-ship side of combat stalls almost immediately. The firebase is unwilling to bring its three remaining turrets to bear on the grounded Sima Yi for fear of hurting the princess. The Sima Yi keeps bombarding the firebase, but that anti-ballistic missile laser is more than capable of point-defencing the incoming shells to oblivion.

On the mecha side, things are going pretty well for the PCs. The first tank suffers heavy damage fast, with direct hits on its crew compartment killing most of the crew and an 'eyes' (-9) hit from Alastar effectively crippling it. The second tank is doing better, and opens fire on Eoghan (he dodges) while Olwen rushes towards it and the base.

That's about where the session wrapped up; Alastar was able to get a bucket of 11 (!!) tactics points for the team. Depending on when the pursuit force shows up/how fast Eoghan can fix the engine, there may be a lot of need for them.

GM THOUGHTS

I expected the tanks to fare a lot better against laser sniper rifles at range than they did. Maybe I need to up their armor?

Having Reiho not be a huge jerk about Fionnoula is important characterization for her, but might have put some pressure on Eoghan's player to take the contrary view. Perhaps I'll have him deal with some people who are such big jerks even he can't handle it.

Should either avoid vast flat, featureless plains in the future or reduce their vastness by letting faster movement modes have more effect.

Need to check for disadvantages before sessions more, until I can remember what the PCs have easily.

This time around I wrote the occupant hit threshold for each vehicle in their statblock. It helped so much.

Having now fended off the coup forces, the PC team is able to escape from Harhaven Harbor. Their sub, the Sima Yi, is home to themselves, a skeleton crew, and a number of fleeing civilians.

The first bit is a smaller scene for Alastar and Olwen, occurring later in the day. The two of them help make breakfast for Princess Fionnoula, and try to comfort her about all that's going on. It's somewhat successful. They also meet a Yean student, fleeing the coup d'etat forces due to their extreme hostility to her own country. That student, Reiho Song, was kind of an antagonist to Fionnoula during their time in school. Reiho gets along decently with Alastar, much less decently with Olwen, and offers to help around the sub with comms operation and the like. Alastar gets a message to her parents (and embassy) that she's safe moved up the ship's comm queue. Reiho's family, it turns out, has major ties to a large Yean defence contractor, which may or may not be relevant later.

The bulk of the session comes down to a strategy meeting, with the PCs, the sub's captain Cerys Gordon, and Fionnoula present. As Harhaven was a harbor on the Empire's Inland Sea, which is inland, they've got a long way to go and two broad options.

Flee like a normal sub underwater, pass the Alor Straits, and break into international waters

Use the ship's Tesla-Rosenkroft engine to fly, and flee between the foothills of the occidental mountains until they reach the arctic

Players have been informed OOC that both options will involve a boss fight. On the Alor Straits side, it's the most badass naval fort in the whole empire, the place where Alastar earned his Reputation + 4 Imperial Cross, and the obvious route out. On the northern route they will have to face the Strategic Missile Defence wing of the army, their very large tanks (for shooting down missiles), and the regular-sized tanks that ride around on them.

After some discussion, the players decide that if they can't get past the straits undetected (they can't), they might as well go the north route. It's also decided that for politics reasons (not wanting to look like traitors) they'll be avoiding the other major superpower on-planet. Instead the destination is Outremer, a northern, partially theocratic state with a love of ESPers; naturally, the players have taken to calling it 'Land Zeon'.

With that decided, the session kind of winds down. Everyone has a week and a half of downtime until the next big stuff, so Eoghan decides to do gadgeteering, and things grind to a screeching halt. Some examples of things that cropped up, with varying levels of incredulity:

The workshop needs how many dollars worth of tools?

How complex is complex? How average is average?

1d6 months!?

A prototype costs how much?

Skill levels for assistants need to be over 20?

Eoghan's planned invention is pictured at the top of the post; it's an interface for controlling mecha with brainwaves and without any sort of cyborg implants, as well as amplifying psi powers. Eventually I set it up as a Complex, TL 11^ invention, but on the lower end of price and time spent for such things. I let the Engineering (Psychotronics) roll default off of Engineering (mecha), as it is a mecha interface and I want to be generous, and let it use a shorter time ( ~10 days) for a prototyping phase, since that's the length of the timeskip we're dealing with and I want gadgeteering to be fun. I don't like having to fight books like this, but since I have so much control over what the result is, it seems fine to make the process more bearable by rampant fiat.

ADF-15 Falcon dST/HP 10      Hnd/SR +3/3      HT 10 Move 15/15     dDR* 70/50      SM +4 Lwt. 25            Load .4            Occ. 1 Cost 1.5m       Locations 2A2Lt

Standard Design Features: EMA Laminate, Ejection Seat EMA Laminate multiplies DR by 5 against shaped charges, and by 2 against plasma weapons. *Higher DR applies to the front of the torso and turret (head), lower DR elsewhere.

Summary The Falcon is the mainline combat mecha for the Danu Empire, a cheap and effective Mobile Tracer. A standard 3rd-generation mecha, it has an internal skeleton wrapped with artificial electromuscle, all controlled by a Mobile Trace system that mimics the pilot's motions and protected by EMA laminate armor. While not a huge leap over earlier mecha, it's generally lighter and more maneuverable. The biggest asset of the design is the "Modular Block" concept used in its construction, which sections off various systems so it's easy to repair and upgrade. Compared to other mecha of the same generation, it's also cheaper to produce. Capable of using the full suite of Danu mecha arms, it's a dangerous opponent in the hands of a skilled pilot.

There are various plans to upgrade its armor and overall stability. A number of export versions exist, sometimes with extra features and such added on. Common upgrades include +2HT and Jump Jets. Commander variants usually add a Tactical ASEA. A non-export commando variant includes Foot Rollers, +2HT, Stealth and sometimes Submersible or Airborne (depending on the service/mission). All versions can also be fitted with a Man-Machine Interface jack without much difficulty.

Operational History Most of the action the Falcon saw was during the Inter-Continental war with the Yean federation. While it was deployed in large numbers, the necessity of dedicated transport craft and the low skill of Danu pilots hampered its effectiveness. Early Danu armor doctrine also called for it to replace more-expensive tanks when none were available, and the Falcon's comparatively light armor did it no favors in that realm. Once some more skilled pilots and better tactical deployments were used, they proved a capable threat to the Yean Federation’s more advanced “Kumiho” mecha.

Lessons learned from the Falcon and its variants are being incorporated into the ADFX-17 Gyrfalcon, its planned replacement.

Last time, the PCs got together and used some of their tactics scene editing points to establish that a narrow mountain pass was the only way into the city. Their first actions this time around consisted of getting into position on the mountainside. Olwen takes a forward position, Alastar is at a more medium range from the road on the same side and further back. On the other side, Einar is at Medium range from the road and the direction of enemies, while Eoghan goes all the way to the mountaintop so as to better be sniping in the area. Various trees in the forest are converted into makeshift mecha camoflauge for the PCs.

The first enemies that show up are a pair of attack helicopters. Rather than let them get through and potentially harass the sub they're here to protect, the PCs open fire. A brutal surprise round sees one heli lose its tail rotor, while the other loses its main rotor and then has its cockpit perforated by laser fire before it hits the ground.

That effectively defeats the laser imaging active sensors of the helicopters, and informs the enemy commander (Cmdr Gerald O'Niell) he's not going to be having the milk run he thought he would. Olwen switches what side of the road she's on, and everyone does their best to re-camo before the next enemy offensive.

Olwen spots the next enemy movement, 3 Falcon combat mecha moving through the forest on her side of the road. Things get a little hectic here; while she and Einar start to engage, Eoghan's mountaintop perch lets him notice some Tank Destroyers heading their way, and Alastar spots 3 more Falcons on his side of the road. The players aren't aware of this, but Gerald has decided to have his mecha suss out their location, then have the TDs use their cannons to blow them away.

It doesn't go so great for him. While Olwen's first shot fails to penetrate the lead Falcon's leg armor, Einar unloads and manages to blow off both its hands. Everyone else on PC team spends their time aiming. The two Falcon pilots in close range panic and spray fire uselessly, while three across the road aim.

Come back to PC team and the slaughter begins anew. Olwen does a Heroic Charge and slams a plasma fist into one of the Falcons in front of her, instantly knocking it to -2xHP and forcing occupant hit checks. Somehow the luckiest mook ever passes all those checks, so he's fine and technically still able to fight. Maybe he'll show up later to use that absurd luck against the PCs. Einar puts his gunslinger to good use and move-attacks the tank destroyers with his box rocket launcher. One goes up in a fireball after getting blown to -1xHP, the other survives intact but has a rocket gib its crew. Eoghan's aim goes off and he blows apart the head of the last remaining Falcon in front of Olwen, and Alastar does the same to one in front of him - they were too focused on Olwen and Einar to realize there might be someone in front of them.

At this point it's very late for some players so we call it for the night; the enemy force is more or less toast, so we agree to pick it up another time instead of going through a few rounds of finishing them off.

ENEMY LOSSES

2 helicopters, destroyed

1 Tank destroyer, destroyed

1 tank destroyer, disabled

3 Falcons, disabled

1 Falcon in need of serious repairs, miraculously not disabled

1 Helicopter crew (3 men)

2 Tank Destroyer crews (3 men each)

Furthermore a stretch of forest was well-chewed up by the various weapons fire. Part of the road's on fire from the TD that blew up. The other helicopter crew might not be doing so well either, but that's more the landing's fault than the player's.

TAKEAWAYS:

Vehicle hit locations and occupant hit checks take up extra time and I need to get good at them. I love the results they give too much to drop them; it's good to see how vehicles can be taken out of the fight without just going up in a pretty explosion.

Between the above, ejection seats, and fire suppression systems coming standard on mecha, it is hard to kill a mecha pilot, even a mook one. You have to blow through the higher DR and get a 7 or less on the 3d6 occupant hit check.

All but one of the players use or have expressed a desire to use laser weapons. This doesn't seem to be a balance issue with the expanded weapons options; rather, it's that they offer intense accuracy, and that's what those PCs want. The Box Launcher and Plasma Fist both made good showings as well, each causing immense damage.

AP ammo and extra warhead options are a thing I need to finish writing up. They'll let Olwen's shotgun do better on armor penetration.

If there isn't an option in modular mecha to increase mecha HT, I should make one. Heroic Charging/Redlining your mecha is a very in-genre thing to do.

Vehicles with large crews (TDs, Helicopters, Tanks) should be getting a move and an attack action each turn. This time around it wouldn’t have changed anything, but it'll help make tanks appropriately scary.

Gotta memorize the Injury to Unliving targets multipliers.

Passive sensors are just not gonna be finding these PCs. Active sensors are a big threat.

Vehicle hit locations don't map well to humanoid mecha. Humanoid hit locations map better, but have an odd prevalence of groin hits.

Gotta get good at assigning vehicle hit locations.

Surprise, skill, and a slight equipment edge turned into a devastating victory for the PCs. So the houserules are working as intended.

First, the PCs:

Alastar Ua Brian : Diplomat for the Danu Empire, war hero, and strategic mastermind. Went "Face" so hard he's basically worthless from the neck down. Doesn't sleep (wideawake is a hell of a drug).

Olwen ferch Llewelyn: Bodyguard to the youngest royal family member, Princess Fionnoula. Has a man-machine interface and low-key newtype abilities. Close combat expert. Helicopter mom.

Einar Osmund : Out of work mercenary with a pile of debts. From the nearby civil war planet. Has a pile of Abnormal Survivor/Cinematic Luck abilities. All-around gunsman.

Eoghan Wallace : Formerly known as Golonzo Esplin (thanks, GCS random name generator). Hasn't had much time to be developed, but has a dislike of nobles stemming from bad experiences in the past. Engineering and artillery/long range specialist.

The hook of the campaign so to speak is that the PCs find themselves in the middle of a coup, with the last free royal in hand. The first session mostly consisted of their characters finding that out. Establishing motivation, etc.

Big highlights include:

The sub that the players will be based out of has a computer made of meat. A quantum meat computer, no less.

Alastar can apparently drive like he's in Initial D.

Einar is surprisingly non-adversarial with the shady megacorp debt collectors he has to deal with. They end up suggesting he goes along with the PCs so their company will have a point of contact with the burgeoning counterrevolution.

Eoghan makes a snide comment about the princess in the strategy/planning meeting and everyone tries to stare him to death.

For the strategy meeting, I let the players use tactics rerolls to do scene-editing instead of just rerolling. Since I hadn't established much about the surroundings and Alastar rolled well enough, the town is now accessible only by a narrow mountain pass.

We're using Modular Mecha (Pyramid 3/51) with a few tweaks and a lot more weapons; the players seemed to get a kick out of hashing out their design points/weapon options. Everyone went for the Multispectral Chameleon surface, so between that and Olwen's Danger Sense they should be able to pull off some real nasty surprises.

Next session (once scheduled) is going to cover the combat, a stalling operation while civilians and supplies are loaded onto the ship. I should try to include a bunch of fun enemy radio chatter...

The Place New Port City is a dense, urban area situated at the mouth of a river. It opens onto a large bay, which is straddled by a long suspension bridge. While the city suffered in the initial landings and associated bombardment, many of its skyscrapers and the bridge that straddles the river remain intact. Its downtown and beachside areas are home to an 18th century sewer system, which is large enough to walk around in and which reaches the ocean.

The Enemy The force that's landed in New Port City is a well-equipped, well-trained late TL9 military. They've already sent most of their forces inland; what remains in New Port City is effectively a supply garrison, there to protect the beachhead and supply routes for the forces further inland. They're not expecting a fight, but their guard isn't down either.

Ground forces consist of infantry, battlesuits, and mechanized support units (APCs, Tank destroyers, and tanks or small mecha). They've installed SAM batteries on some taller buildings, helping protect against an air attack. The naval forces are the high-value targets; they consist of supply ships in the port itself, and a battleship berthed outside the bay. A small force of helicopter gunships is based in the portside area as well, because helicopter gunships are high-speed air taxis and cool boss fights.

Protagonists will want to either disable the battleship and the SAM batteries, or destroy the supply ships and battleship outright, or some combination of both. Disabling the SAM batteries and the battleship's air-defence missiles will allow their air force to

How They Fight New Port City is  too large for the garrison forces to secure its entire perimeter. They've formed a 3-layer defence network to try to compensate. The outermost layer covers the suburbs and outskirts of the city, and is only monitored; UAVs roam the skies here, on the lookout for any odd movements. The second layer is monitored and patrolled, and consists of the city proper until the downtown area. Patrols generally consist of  infantry or battlesuits driving around in trucks or APCs and being very unhappy with their lot in life. The third layer is the downtown and portside area; here there are roadblocks, checkpoints, killzones and snipers set up. It’s the only area that’s actually entrenched.

Aside from charging in straight-on, enterprising heroes can try sneaking. Roof-hopping over the heads of roadblocks and checkpoints is one option, as is sneaking in through the sewers. These aren't without their own risks; UAVs watch the roofs, while motion sensors and mines protect the sewers. The defenders don't know how strong the protagonists are, so any response will be keyed to the apparent threat they present. The scale of response roughly goes infantry->battlesuits->tanks, helicopters, and armor units->naval bombardment. The defenders have very good communication with each other, so raising the alarm is liable to make things escalate very quickly.

New Port City has been seized by a hostile landing force. They've got an army and a battleship, while the forces to push them out consist of the PCs. So, fair odds.

PCs are decade-scale heroes, which GURPS supers defines as having:

150d Maximum Innate Attack/Swing Damage

500 maximum dr

100 maximum IT: damage reduction

+16 maximum Super-Effort ST

And they operate in such ways their dice should be treated as "15dx10" instead of "150d" for easier rolling. I'd like to add a few more restrictions, based on the suggestion in Supers that such heroes are on par with tanks:

maximum sprint/flight speed of 82mph in good conditions (Move 40)

Invisibility restricted to visual or IR (not both)

Chameleon Level 4

ATR 1

I would also seriously restrict Warp if a player really wants to go for it; it should require an extremely difficult teleport if the player wants to skip past the ground forces to the enemy ships in the bay.

Being a near-future (TL9) setting, players can get the equivalent of some powers through equipment. Powered armor suits clock in at 70/50 DR, with the higher number covering piercing damage. Rifles, rocket launchers, and stolen enemy guns can provide up to:

4d for pistols/SMGs

3d(2) for rifles

2d(2) for automatic rifles

7d(2) for anti-materiel rifles

4d(2) for light machine guns

7d(2) for vehicle-mounted machine guns

6dx2 for a mortar box

These serve as useful benchmarks for how much DR or dice of IA damage players want to buy. Additional rules in effect are:

Godlike Extra Effort (Powers 163) Piercing causes knockback All attacks have double knockback TV action Violence, Flesh Wounds (Basic 417) Temporary crippling on critical failures from Godlike Extra Effort, Stunts (Powers 156) One-Use Powers (Supers 112) Skills Enhancing Abilities (Powers 161) Infinite Clips (Gun-Fu, Basic 417) Survivable Guns, Simplified Guns (Pyramid)

Players should be allowed to use Godlike Extra Effort or One Use Power to exceed the normal decade-scale limits for damage, as long as they're not solving the adventure in five minutes. It's okay to end the adventure with some cataclysmic use of power if you've already fought your way through most of it. Points level I’m not sure on, but Supers recommends the 400-1,600 point range.

Fitting powers for the Hanged Man include:

Extra Option (Flesh Wounds Rule)

Injury Tolerance (Redundant Organs and Unliving)

Unkillable 1

Compartmentalized Mind

Blessed (guidance; use a Meditation roll)

Resistant to Pain

Serendipity

As well as the following attack power:

Curse of Reciprocity (Variable) By inflicting wounds on yourself, you are able to directly and unavoidably damage another. Stabbing yourself in the leg will cause cuts to open on your target's leg, with no projectile for them to dodge or trace back to you. This ability requires one second to use, it will not passively activate when you take damage. You can, however, use a wait action to activate it when you do take damage, using your enemy's attack to pay the activation cost. This ability works off of the injury you take in lost HP, not raw damage before wounding.

Obviously risky, it's most useful when paired with high HP, Unkillable, or some form of regeneration. Injury Tolerances reduce its effects

Statistics: Toxic Innate Attack (Costs HP, Variable - 10% per level, take half as many levels of this limitation as the advantage; Malediction, +100%; Cosmic, no resistance roll, +300%; Environmental (objects to hurt yourself with), -10%; Selectivity +0%, same hit location as where you take damage; No Signature +20%;)

To price this, buy a number of levels at a base cost of 6 points/level equal to your HP; then, divide your HP by 2 and apply that many levels of the Costs HP discount. So, a 10 HP person ends up paying 30 points (60-50%), and can do at most 10 HP of damage in a single attack.

Designer’s Notes

The curse of reciprocity is a not entirely uncommon fictional ability but a weird one to work with in GURPS; the focus on fixed damage instead of dice doesn’t play nice with Innate Attack and Costs HP pricing guidelines. The door is open there for changing up the price per point of damage inflicted, following rules under Costs HP Variable in Limitations; still, I think a 1hp taken for 1hp inflicted forces some fun constraints on the user. Seeing it in action for the first time should be fun/spooky for my players, it’s a very “stand-like” power.

True Faith - an unshakeable belief in your rightness

Higher Purpose - a bonus to pursuing your goal

Mind Control (esp. Emotion Control and Suggestion)

Charisma (Sense-Based, Auditory or Visual)

Waking Nightmare (75/100/188) You're able to manipulate other's sense of reality, with enough force to injure and knock people unconscious. Level 1 allows you to target people at range, at -1 per person targeted. Success lets you seize control of their senses, and inflict damage equal to your margin of success. Should your victim fall unconscious, you can no longer harm them.

Level 2 allows you to heal injuries as well as cause them; furthermore, you now can target unconscious characters as well, though they still get a roll to resist.

Level 3 extends your ability from manipulating senses to manipulating the illusory world perceived by senses itself. You can interact with the world as if it were a lucid dream, allowing you to warp, transmute, and manipulate inanimate objects. This is functionally identical to the "Demiurgy" ability from page 33 of GURPS Powers: The Weird, with the addition that it can target the unconscious for healing or damage.

Statistics: Illusion (Stigmata, +100%; Mental, +100%) [75]. Level 2 adds Cosmic, Can heal as well as harm (+50%), and Cosmic, Can Target Unconscious (+50%). No power modifiers are included in this calculation.

Designer's notes This post grew out of my Taisho-era persona game. In thinking about that game, I realized that I didn't want endgame powers to be variations on explosive fireball; I wanted endgame attacks and utility abilities to operate in weird ways. Even if the destructive power is lower, it's much scarier if the ability kills people in a way the victim can't comprehend.

Bravo Company in the Rapid Deployment Orbital Task Force is a TL10^ mechanized infantry unit with an integrated close air support (CAS) unit. Its emphasis is on deploying into enemy territory via orbital drop, then causing chaos until reinforcements arrive. It’s not meant to fight air superiority battles, so they rely on ground units for their transport capability.

The Federation Military is well-funded, well-equipped, and conducts frequent training exercises. Thus, their units all have Fine equipment, Good troop quality, and the Night feature. Heaven’s Fists units further improve on the training quality by increasing it to Crack ( 175% TS, +150% raise cost, +30% maintain cost). They are also Airborne for all units, and their transports and mecha are also Sealed, letting them use smaller dropships than normal for the Federation.

Normally they would be accompanied by a sizeable logistics force, but for the Santa Custores drop all that’s been left behind. The plan is for them to meet up and resupply with the Federation Espatier corps, once they make landfall (and after the current mission is completed). Capturing local material (esp. helicopters) is an option, but Santa Custores is only up to TL 9 locally and has lower-quality equipment for its military.

Wyvern Land-Air Mecha (TL10^) Flying Tank TS 4400 WT 8 Classes Air, Armor, Cavalry, Fire Mobility Slow Air Quality Fine Equipment, Crack troops. Features Night, Sealed, Airborne Cost Raise 17M, maintain 455K These are humanoid mecha equipped with contragrativy thrusters for continued flight. Their primary armaments are carried laser rifles, with secondary arms including tactical missile launchers, a CIWS laser, and plasma thrusters built into their feet and palms. While capable of transonic flight, they don’t have the mobility to compare to same TL jet fighters or the armor for ground mecha. They’re still some of the strongest units B company has on their hands. B company holds 3 total, each crewed by a pilot/gunner and an electronics officer.

Barn Owl Air Hardsuit Squadron (TL10^) Flying Battlesuits TS 2200 WT 1 Classes Air, Fire, Recon, Neutralize Armor Mobility Slow Air Quality Fine Equipment, Crack troops. Features Night, Airborne Cost Raise 10M, maintain 1M New to deployment in the Santo Custores war, this is a squad of light battlesuits equipped with contragravity lifters. Bravo company has 2 squads; they’re by default attached to the air wing for lack of a better place to put them.

Wombat APC Large APC TS 1375 WT 8 Classes Armor, Cavalry, Fire, Transport 2 Mobility Mechanized Quality Fine Equipment, Crack troops. Features Night, Sealed, Airborne Cost Raise 1.7M, maintain 46K A large, lightly-armored APC. Attached to the air wing, they’re used to ship around support equipment for the Hardsuits, giving the base for them better mobility. Bravo company has one for its Air Hardsuits, and one more for its command detachment, for a total of 2.

Ibis Hardsuit Squad (TL 10) Battlesuit TS 4,400 WT 1 Classes Fire, Recon, Neutralize Air and Armor Mobility Foot Quality Fine Equipment, Crack troops. Features Night, Airborne Cost 1.015M raise, 133K Maintain A squad of battlesuit-equipped infantry, their enhanced strength lets them carry around far more firepower than a rifleman squad. Tend towards railguns, auto EGMLs, and multi-shot tactical missile launchers. Each Bravo company infantry platoon has one element of these, for a total of 2 squads.

ORDTF Infantry Squad (TL10) Riflemen TS 2475 WT 1 Classes Fire, Recon Mobility Foot Quality Fine Equipment, Crack troops. Features Night, Airborne Cost 15M raise, 333K maintain The bulk of Bravo company’s infantry force, these are soldiers equipped with gauss rifles and underbarrel grenade launchers. Each Bravo infantry platoon carries 2 of these, for a total of 4. Commando Mortar Team Mortar Team TS (825) WT 1 Classes Artillery Mobility Foot Quality Fine Equipment, Crack troops. Features Night, Airborne Cost 126K raise, 17K maintain A squad of 3 centered around the use of a 64mm mortar system. Each infantry platoon packs 1, for a total Bravo company complement of 2. Dassie IFV IFV TS 2750 WT 8 Classes Armor, Cavalry, Fire Mobility Mech Quality Fine Equipment, Crack troops. Features Night, Sealed, Airborne Cost 2.3M raise, 60K maintain An IFV, armed with tacical missile launchers and a laser cannon. Also carries smoke dispensers; uses a crew of 3. Bravo company has enough of these to transport all its infantry platoons (8), plus one more for the command platoon, for 9 total. Forward Infantry Command Post Command Post TS (660) WT 1 Classes C3I Mobility 0 Quality Fine Equipment, Crack troops. Features Night, Airborne Cost 304K raise, 40K maintain A barrage of electronics, communications, and meteorlogical equipment used to help coordinate infantry. Bravo company has 2; one tends to ride in a Dassie while the other rides in a Wombat with two missile teams. Groundhog Combat Engineering Vehicle CEV TS 1375 WT 4 Classes Armor, Engineering Mobility Mech Quality Fine Equipment, Crack troops. Features Night, Airborne Cost 866K raise, 28K maintain A tank-based CEV with a bulldozer and excavator. Its real strength lies in its crew, a driver, a commander, and a five-man sapper squad. They’ll be instrumental in safely demolishing the orbital guns without damaging the surrounding city, as well as subverting enemy fortifications. Bravo Company has but one of these. Tactical Missile Team MANPAD TS (1375) WT 0.5 Classes Neutralize Air Mobility Foot Quality Fine Equipment, Crack troops. Features Night, Airborne Cost 190K raise, 25K maintain A 2-man team armed with an anti-air homing missile launcher. Two of these accompany the command detachment. All together, the combined force has a TS of 65,175. It has special class TS as follows: Air 17,600 Arm 42,075 Art 1,650 C3I 1,650 Cv 40,700 Eng 1,375 F 63,800 Rec 23,100 Neutralize classes Air 10,175 Arm 13,200 Special thanks to Mark Langsdorf of No School Grognard for the “Crack” troop quality modifier, and an army tracker excel sheet I used to speed up all my calculations.

Regarding TS calculations: low-TL elements had their TS doubled for the first step up from their base TL, then doubled again, but afterwards each step only gave +25% to TS. The percents were handled last, so a Main Battle Tank at TL 10 has its TS multiplied by 4, then by 1.5. This should even out, since the enemies use the same rules. This was primarily done to keep main battle tanks from being overwhelmingly powerful, and to keep the TL-based TS difference smaller.

Pitch: Players consist of commanders and members of an orbital drop strike force, tasked with sabotaging and disrupting an enemy force before a large-scale invasion. They are outnumbered and on a time limit, but have superior technology and training. With good planning, heroism, and just enough luck, they’ll prevail.

Tone: High stakes, High heroics - PCs are Good Guys fighting Bad Guys, with a lot on the line.

Backstory: Two years ago the space colony Santo Custores was taken over by a breakaway rebel group, the Nationalist Purity Party (NPP). a brutal and regressive regime. Harsh sanctions were applied in response to reports of political purges; they continued unabated. One month ago, a team of negotiators sent to try to temper the NPP and arrange for sanctions relief were killed as their ship took off, killing all 150 aboard. Those lost were ambassadors, negotiators, lawyers, economists, and even a few chiefs of staff. Thus, United Federation of Planets Resolution #109-4B7 was adopted, formally directing the federation military to intervene. Santo Custores will be freed.

[inspiring music link]

The 3rd Rapid Orbital Deployment Task Force, “Heaven’s Fists” will be the first confederate forces to make planetfall. Local guerrilla units in contact with the Federation forces will disrupt the orbital defence network, opening a small window for the Fists to land. Consisting of 4 mixed infantry/air companies, they will target and disrupt NPP orbital defences, paving the way for a full offense by the Federation Navy and Espatier corps. Upon completion of their primary objective, they are to disrupt enemy supply lines, command structures, and cause havoc wherever possible until their reinforcements arrive. The NPP has built a number of orbital defences in populated areas; should this primary mission fail, the Navy will be forced to choose between direct orbital bombardment of population centers, a suicidally-dangerous landing plan, or turning back empty-handed.

Targets consist of several locations featuring orbital gun emplacements. At least one must fall for the mission to be successful. Mission failure occurs when the Fists are wiped out, or three weeks* [Note: time limit subject to change until day of first session] pass with none of the guns destroyed.

Novo Libre - an industrial and manufacturing center, home to one of the planet’s most productive nanoforges. Surrounded by woodlands. Civilian population: approx. 50,000

Cho’Lan - One of the busiest ports on the West continent, and the base for much of the NPP naval strength in the region. Near mountainous and cold areas, it needs icebreakers and a lot of dedication to remain navigable during the winter.  Civilian population: approx. 1,000,000.

Riviera Principio - Located at the meeting of two great rivers, this central city serves as a center of trade and finance. Its waterways allow the NPP fast access to much of the continental interior, at least when it comes to supplies and light units. It’s not far from the ocean, but too shallow by far for naval ships to arrive. Civilian population: approx. 350,000

Players will be commanders and officers in the Fists B Company (Bravo). They are TL 10^ characters built on 200 points. There are no cybernetics, psionics, or the like - just some minor genefixing. It is a very “safetech” future, quite recognizable to anyone from the present.

Roles:

Commander - does the commanding. Needs Strategy and Leadership, possibly Intel. Analysis, very maybe Administration. Rank 5.

Recon Chief - does the spying. Needs Intel. Analysis, possibly also Strategy/Leadership. Administration is tertiary.

Quarter Master - handles logistics, finances, supply. Much less important (this is a one-shot!). Uses Administration.

Hero Unit - a particularly badass soldier. Needs at least one relevant fightmans skill at 15+ (mecha pilot/jet pilot/batlesuit/guns, etc).

Players may take on multiple roles - if you want to split your forces, having more than one commander-capable PC is pretty important! Similarly, there’s nothing preventing you from being the Commander *and* a Hero Unit.

What skills do

Strategy and Leadership let you command your own forces in battle.

Intelligence Analysis helps you surprise, outmaneuver, and out-know the enemy.