Test Characters: Fighter as Baseline, Long Lived Races Amnesia

The Fighter is the Baseline

So I should balance the Professions and Specialists against this. From the looks of things I'm going to have to Defer a lot of Abilities and space them out.

Specialized Abilities (like Fighting Style) need some notation. You'll notice [X-Y] notation. X is the level its available. If there is a Y this means its part of a set of options. I plan to make abilities like Fighting Style. A set of options. This set of rules is basically like Taking the Fighter, Paladin, Ranger, and Rogue and making them into - something for more like fighting board game. 

Note the following Changes on the Mechanics* You see Numbers in Parenthesis to mark Conditions and Effects. I don't normally read "prose" anymore I usually prefer reading Bulleted Items where Ideas are as Discrete as Possible so that less is left to interpretation and

2 weapon fighting[1-1]. (1) Roll both Weapon Damage Dice during attack rolls, (2) but choose one. (3) Roll effects Die, (4) on a Successful Effects Roll, the Character can keep both Damage dice results. (5) Note you don’t add a second strength damage modifier. 
Great weapon fighting [1-2]. Damage advantage when using a 2-handed Weapon.
Protection[1-3]. (1) When wielding a Shield or Reach weapon. (2) On successful attack impose a disadvantage (3) on an Adversary’s attack against the adjacent Allies or Oneself.  (4) On a Successful Ready against Attack (5)  impose a Damage Disadvantage to the Adversary along with the Damage.  (7) On a Successful Defend impose a Damage Disadvantage to the Adversaries affected.
Dueling [1-4]. On the Character’s turn choose an Adversary - Increase Proficiency modifier by 2 against that Adversary, reduce Proficiency modifier by 2 to all other adversaries (this lowers the character’s defense). 
Ranged Speciality [1-5]. Increase Ranged Proficiency Modifier by 2.

Second Wind[1]. For this encounter, reduce the Wound Condition Penalty by 2. recover this ability after a Long Rest. 

Action Surge [2]. Declare a second action, on a successful difficulty roll, include the outcome to the result. 

Martial Archetype: Champion [3]. on a 16 to 18 check effects die for critical. 

Attribute Increase [4]. 

Extra Attack [5]. check the effects die for secondary attacks hitting (allows dealing damage to a second target when facing superior numbers). 

*Changes to Mechanics

1. One-Side-Rolls. no interruptions. one roll per turn (Characters can simplify 1 roll for a Group; effects die determines how many additional attacks hit). 
1. Costly Failure means taking Damage threats. 
2. Defense = Lethality. which also means that Ranged Defense is your ability to avoid getting hit. 
3. Defense Margin. Defense = proficiency modifier. The amount of Failure that doesnt result into being hit. Regular Failure. Shields Increase this Value. 
4. Costly Success. On a Regular Failure the Option to have a Costly Success. the outcomes of the Success while taking damage. 
5. Trying to Simplify it to One action per turn, dealing with Actions and Effect as "added Scope" or added Effect. 
6. Successful Attack is defined as a Clean Hit. regular failure is missing, and a Costly Failure is taking damage. 
2. Bell Curve Random Number Generator. Using a 3d6 for Rolls (Less Wild Result).
1. Using the Effects Die. Rolling a D20 along with the 3d6, and the d20 is used for various things like Confirming Criticals, Effecting Additional Targets, if Additional Attacks Hit. etc... 
3. Limited Modifiers. Dice + Proficiency Modifier + Stat Modifier + COndition
1. Con Modifier Reduces Condition Penalty
2. Difficulty (DCs) also have this Limitation: broken down to Scope and Odds. 
1. Odds is a Difficulty Modifier when facing Superior Numbers (or having Superior Numbers lowers the Difficulty IF you're rolling for a group). 
4. Armor Reduces Damage. about 50% their AC modifier. 
5. Defending has a Roll. Considering doubling Proficiency modifier when attempting a Defend action. 
6. Damage Advantage or Disadvantage. Rolling additional damage dice and getting the better or worse one. 
7. Simplified Modifier to Stat. Stat is 10+ modifier. So a +4 modifier is a 14 and not an 18-19. 
8. Condition Mechanics. Having death spiral effects in the game. Encumbrance and Wound Threshold 
   

   Mod	0	-1	-3	-7	-10
   Wnd	10	20	30	40	50
   Load	10kg	20	30	40	50

1. Which ever is the worse puts the character at that Condition. A dwarf with +3 Con modifier and 13 for Wounds. A dwarf can carry more without penalty and take more damage without taking that much penalty. In a Death Spiral. Armors like Full Lamellar and Scale Armor (Armor 8) 60kg (with Armor as a Primary Proficiency this counts as 30kg)
   

   Mod	0	-0	-0	-4	-7
   Wnd	13	26	39	52	65
   Load	14kg	28	42	56	70

2. Mooks, Mobs, Minions - only take 1-3 levels of Wounds. Tougher foes have higher. Role-playing that Minions, Mooks and Mobs have more to lose (their life) and will give up after 1-3 levels of damage. While some Bosses and Mini-Bosses can afford to take more risk. 
3. Problem (WIP) Hit dice does not Increase. 4th level can take as much Damage as 1st level. Should high levels mean more damage? 

Long-Lived Races Amnesia

I'm an Anki Users , I subscribe to the science regarding how memory works in Spaced Repetition (See also Supermemo's Articles about memory stabilization). I've also experienced it as an Multi-Media Artist and Wannabe Game designer going into the Family business. So its not far fetched for me to sometimes feel like I'm waking up in some kind of Amnesia where I can go into great detail about my Art Techniques and 3d Modeling, which was not so long ago  (2005-2008).

Imagining a more basic living and having learned to forget an irrelevant past is like forgetting I wanted and trained to be an Artist but because it was far harder than I could endure I chose to go into the family biz.  A dwarf or Elf, or Half elf who was once some great Manor or Mine holder becoming an Adventurer or a homesteader in some distance frontier.

Resettling conquered peoples was a practice in Rome, and goes back to even before First Empires of Sargon (lessons from Ancient Empires before Alexander; the City States of Mesopotamia). If a character can live for hundreds of years I can imagine having been transformed every time (like the movie The Man from earth)  what is immortality when our brains still pretty much the same brain from a hundred thousand years ago. Our sense of time is still distorted.

Elves and Dwarves are seemingly finding themselves in different lives. There is a lot of Tragic roleplaying there - forgotten lives (loves and losses) for Elves, and Long grudges for Dwarves. Especially if you get the "Man from Earth" type of migration where elves are moved around.

1. 150428 GITB Gaming Ideas Repository
1. 200410 GITB Combat System Only
2. 200419 GITB Combat Only - Combat Mechanics
3. 200413 Weapons and Armor
4. Open Gaming License for D&D5E
5. 200410 GITB Quick System Exercise
6. 200419 Test Characters

Merchant Skill decoupled in GURPS

Merchant Skill is calibrated for Combat focused game and has been built in too many capabilities that should be delegated to other skills. I would say that the Merchant skill is actually a Profession (Merchant) skill. I would like to talk to the GMs if I'm the player about the abuse of this skill.

Often Skills are supposed to have a form of Niche Protection. That's why skills like Psychology, Merchant, and Survival kinda run into some problems because they do a lot of what other skills can do - not just by their default options but by the wording and real world meaning of the skill. This also creates a problem in talents, which is my favorite munchkin move. I get one of these skills as my talent and I can default to them easily.

Typically its reasonable to get a 6 skill talent at +4 for 20 points. It would be a simple optimisation move to try to get two of these skills in the talent. A Nordic Viking would possibly Merchant and Survival with 4 other skills. A Merchant can easily justify Merchant and Psychology in the talent.

Negotiating and Bargaining (Fast Talk, Diplomacy).
Hard bargaining is a Fast Talk skill, Soft Selling practise is the Diplomacy Skill. Its easier to leave all the social strategies to the Social Skills. Courtesy aka Savoir-Faire would be defaulted to the "Profession" skill. Other Hard bargaining skills is Intimidation, Creative Bargaining leans more to Interrogation (since its the inquiry skill in gurps). See seth freeman on the Art of Negotiating a better deal. 

Industry Knowledge (Professional skill) helps in bargaining if there is antagonistic or predatory pricing. It also helps in narrowing the scope of the product or service to be the minimum of  what the PC needs.

Value and Industry Knowledge  (Housekeeping, Expertise, Profession, or Production Skill)

Note that Soldier is a Profession skill and should provide the character with such a skill knowledge of how much products soldiers tend to buy. Merchant being a "retailer" tends to know the most prices around, but they will always be limited to an Industry. 

Accounting (Writing or Research)
Accounting is an activity that can be traced back to the first Empires (See History of accounting). This is really just the skill of note taking a lot of quantities and tracking the many transactions. With that in mind maybe Writing or Research would be more appropriate with a Optional Speciality (B169).

Obviously accounting requires literacy (B24) and numeracy (see innumerate B140). While the accounting skill is a Hard skill, there are a lot of reasonable tasks in accounting that is not that difficult. I would recommend accounting skill^2 words per minute of researching with the accounting skill. Using writing or research would be at (skill-4)^2 while in the absence of writing or research the default (IQ-6)^2.

Operations, Bureaucracy and Organization (Administration, Leadership, or Profession)
Use Administration for levels of bureaucracy in operations of greater than 2 levels (10-15 elements or a team of teams under the leader) otherwise the Particular Profession skill is sufficient. Every level beyond 2 levels is a magnitude of difficulty wielding an organization by -2. Raise the penalty when there is limited literacy in the group.

See rule of 3 and 10 (this rule of thumb makes organizational sizes at 3^X where X is the level of organization. An organization that is 3^3 is a platoon sized organization up to the level it is 3^4; use this as determining the challenge in Administration and it has some factors in leadership. Will be covered in another topic)

Leadership is managing team members. Lubricating teamwork through various leadership styles (influenced by the other skills the leader has).

Economics. Use TL penalties (B168) for the concepts  and practices one is trying to use. For GMs wondering how to use this skill in a game this helps in Navigating the Tides and Winds of trade and economics. This allows the PCs to find what opportunities exist, supply chains, and the streams of commerce and how these all interconnect.
This in knowledge of other businesses, margins (profit), seasons, and more importantly the Opportunities or Threats to their business.

Marketing (Propaganda and Politics)
This is an out of place default skill and should not overlap with Merchant. A merchant may have the network to use these skills but executing it would be Propaganda and Politics. (Then there is the complicated decoupling and re-assessing how these skills are used and their niche protection for another time). Just having a network to attempt to spread misinformation or information is a good start.

Some basic leadership
"Practical Leadership" as defined in Michael Roberto is simply leading because you happen to know what you're doing. This is a very easy kind of leadership where others are given roles or assisted in their roles. This allows a person to lead small group of 2-6 other people but with a -1 penalty after the first person to coordinate in tests of leadership.

I will tackle leadership in games in general and how it can be applied to gurps in another post.

Job Rolls. 
My job rolls have changed to be more annual or seasonal (quarterly). Its so much easier to deal with things annually since many operations try to make enough money to survive the year in years of operations.

• Job Rolls is 3d against 10. 
• +1 if the key professional has an average of level-13 in 6 key skills. -1 if the average of the 6 key skills are below 10. 
• The TDM is the Economic Cycle. Times of War, Famine, Recession, etc.. are at -2 to -6 and Stability, Peace, New Markets, Growth is at +2 to +6.

I would like to tackle Psychology, Survival, Administration and Leaderships in the future so that the challenges regarding the skills reflect the mastery of its techniques in my studies while leaving the decision making to the controlling Player.

Wealth Checks with the Speed/Range Table

Simple resource system for GURPS for less Bean Counting. Use the Speed and Range Table in B550. Basically

Begin with a Professional Skill, Merchant related Skill, or Administration. The GM sets a bonus or a penalty depending on the skill used. Typically Merchant or Administration is used. The farther the skill is from some fiscal management role, the more the skill becomes a default. Someone completely clueless of fiscal management has -5 default to their Highest professional skill. So a bartender with skill-15 still has a clue regarding finances at 10.


Looking at/Using the Range/Speed Table Yards in B550 x500USD to set the Task Difficulty modifier. The assumption is an Average Person of Status 0, Wealth Average has a very poor chance of scraping up $1000 USD. After a transaction the margin of failure plus 5 becomes a Future penalty to resources checks. On a success, Half the Margin of Success reduces the -5 penalty in future rolls. The resource penalty diminishes every month with another Job Roll for every margin of 2 success.

Before every income period, for every transaction has a Time Cost. Typically 40 hours, borrowing from GURPS Traveller Interstellar wars. Allow for Extra Time and Hasted Action rules in Basic Set. You can allow for -10 for almost instantaneous or within the hour.

Basically this Follows the Size Modifier to hit in B550
Poor -4
Struggling -2
Average -0
Comfortable +2
Wealthy +4
Very Wealthy +8
Filthy Rich +12
Millionaire +18
Multi-Millionaire 1 +24
Multi-Millionaire 2 +30 

Debt 
1-3cp -1
4-6cp -2
7-9cp -3
10-12cp -4
13-15cp  -5
16-18cp -7
19-20cp -10

Independent Income
+10cp +1
20cp +2

Cultural Familiarity Penalties also apply to this and so will Reaction Roll penalties B560.

So example The Prince and the Knight (GURPS modern fantasy) are Filthy Rich. 

So they are +12 modifier to Resource rolls, but have 10points of debt at -4 to the resource rolls. This totals to +8 (their lifestyle and resources are as though they are Very Wealthy since with 10cp of debt they have 60,000/mo left; 60k/2600 = 23 so roughly like a x20 wealth modifier). 

The Knight has Merchant-18 with +8 to his resources he can a total resources score of 26 when making deals. If he is dealing with Banks and Financial Companies his Merchant Defaults to Finance-4 at skill 22. The prince on the other hand has a Merchant of 13 with the same debt at +8 modifier (total of +21).

Resource Rolls are useful for bribes and a lot of circumstance in a Technological Setting with Financial Instruments, Credit, and a Complex Economy.  

Example.
Thomas is trying to source Peiter some NVG equipment. The cost is about $5,000 USD but x2 its cutting edge and needs to be imported. So Thomas has a -6 penalty for a total of 20. Thomas Rolls a 9! an 11 margin of success, he does it without a dent to his finances. He knew a guy working in one of the multinational who wanted to trade for a rack of old Avayas and a Ciscos that was getting old in his storage. 

Example 2
The Prince is in a party, and uses his Politics to look for someone in the group to influence. He finds Lady Palatabalanza and notices the strained smile in her eyes. He approaches her, and graciously wards off her sycophants with a Performance-16, spilling some drinks on them and embarrassing them(TDM -4; (critical success at 6). The sycophants seem outraged, and he calls his manservant who brings him his Tablet. He sweet talks them helps them repair their attire, while calling his manservant to seek help from the Host's servants to mend the circumstance. He makes a grand show of using his tablet to peruse a worthy reparation to the slight, (part of the performance) bringing the Lady Palatablanza in the joke as they choose the clothes of for their helpless victim. The new attire ends up costing $15000 -7 penalty, but he Fast Talks the sycophant into getting something else at Fast-Talk-16+8 -10 hasted for 14. He rolls a 6 (I was using the Roll20 dice reference and it came out a 6! lolz) with a margin of 8. While he fast talks the sycophant, he gives well placed nudges and winks to Lady Palatabalanza who almost cries out laughing hiding her expression behind her fan.
The prince manipulates the sycophant to owe him, wins lady Palatabalanza's humour, and it didn't make a dent on his pockets. Until the end of the month, after his job roll he has a -1 penalty to succeeding Sourcing rolls. 

Example 3.
The Legba group, has Antonio Ugandale taking point in a financial acquisition of Dawn's Light Holdings. The Legba Group has resources of +24 and a Antiono has expert staff +2 to his Merchant skill of 15 and while the DLH has resources of +18, a merchant staff of +1 and a CFO who has Finance of 14. A total of 34 for DLH and LG 41. DLH choose to fight out in the backroom while Ugandale chooses to the boardroom. LG rolls 9 for a whopping MoS of 25 while rolls also a 9 for a 32. They have MoS of 6 over the other. This lets them acquire 60% of DLH, a controlling interest, if they want more they have to spend 40% more translating for a 4 added penalty to the -5 to future rolls until they recover their resources as they streamline DLH for their own uses. 

  

Open RPG update,

Wow, there are a lot of mechanics to cover. I also pegged it down until gunpowder becomes common use in militia.


Character Creation - Random Character creation and Point Buy.
Trappings - Food and Drink, Containers, Clothing, Tools and Equipment, Weapons, Armor and Shields, Animals, and Household. the household covers servants, and will also cover various laborers, specialists and professionals.

Social Mechanics -  These are tools and benchmarks for Gms to adjudicate social interactions and long periods of relationship building. Includes favors and network.
Combat Mechanics - Broken down into Two systems: Narrative and Tactical.
Character Mechanics - Character "physics" like Fatigue, Work, Status Effects, Hazards, recovery, and Character development.
World Mechanics - this deals with technology, economics, and how the world "works".
Entity Mechanics - the creation of organizations, factions, businesses, institutions, governments, etc... the system is guidelines in how to "black-box" these details or remove the opaque nature to get into the gritt. This includes some mass combat mechanics.
Meta Game Mechanics - mechanics that deal with incentives for players to role-play and help the GM.

I'm using the Style found in LibreOffice documents.

I wish I could predict what "fluff book" will I work on next, if or when i finish this? Despite my expertise is in lower tech, I would love to have my first fluff book to be Mahadlika - simply cause it is a setting that NEEDS it more edit: BUT i need to learn mandarin so running Qin the Warring States would give me additional hours practice in my mandarin by exposure to so many chinese words and trying to pronounce them.

Alternate Sneak Attack rules when there are no HP rules

Sneak Attack - roll an extra amount of your weapon damage dice equal to the number of d6s you would have rolled for sneak attack. Keep only one attack dice from those rolled. Every time you rolled max value, past the first, you divide the DR by 1 plus the no. of times you rolled max value on a die.
Use the 1d notification to show how many additional dice you would have rolled.

Ex. With a long sword and +2d sneak attack, a rogue rolls 3d8. He rolls 8, 8, & 3. He takes the 8 and deals max damage but since he rolled another 8, he divides the DR by 2.
With daggers and low value die there is a higher chance to make an armor piercing strike vs larger weapons which bigger die values.

A very skilled rogue uses a shorts word or rapier and has +3d, he has the feat deadly precision. He makes a successful sneak attack - he rolls 4d6: 3, 1, 6, and 1. He retools the two 1s: 3, 4, 6, & 6. So the rogue deals 6 damage and halts the DR.

It's funny that smaller characters with their smaller die like d2, d3, d4 and d6 have much higher chance to make an armor piercing strike. If the character has rapid shot, and two weapon attack there are numbers to play.

Monetary Option for D20 DnD 3.5

Home brew excerpt regarding the value of gold. I know the ratio of gold to silver and to copper is based in modern market value, but I want players to transfer their appreciation of gold to the setting.

1gp = 10sp = 100cp is still the same, I just changed the weight.

I tried converting the prices
This version keeps the prices more or less intact. A backpack costs about $40 in this system,
○ 1 silver piece is 2 grams of silver (about USD $2) 20mm diameter but 0.5mm thick, 1lb of silver has 240 silver pieces.
○ 1 gold piece is a 0.36 gram bead. a 3.2mm diameter bead (half the size of a BB; USD $20)
○ 1lb of gold has 1250 gold beads.
○ 1 copper piece is 13.2 gram (USD $0.2), 1lb of copper has 34pcs. 30mm
diameter and 2mm thick. 1 copper piece if called a Farthing.

in this system, a backpack costs about $120 sounds about right.
○ 1 silver piece is 12 grams of silver (about USD $6) 20mm diameter but 0.5mm thick, 1lb of silver has 240 silver pieces.
○ 1 gold piece is a 2 gram bead. a 6mm diameter bead (half the size of a BB)
○ 1lb of gold has 225 gold beads.
○ 1 copper piece is 80 grams (USD$0.6), 1lb of copper has 5pcs. 47mm diameter x
5mm

A pony costing 3,000 farthings or 30 gold costs about 75,000 pesos is about right.