geek 'til you can't geek no more

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 07:19:15 GMT

...I was flipping through the GURPS campaign book, just as something to do, and my eyes hit upon the rules for using the Gadgeteer advantage to build and invent things. What happened next was mostly inevitable.

Milale, the Very Bitchy Sorcerer - 150 points

Basic Stats
ST 8
DX 12
IQ 13
HT 7

HP 8
Will 13
Per 12
FP 6

Basic Speed 5
Basic Move 7

Advantages
Beautiful (Androgynous)
Dream of Kaser - Great Destiny
Sorcerer's Hands - High Manual Dexterity
Magery - level 5
Mana Stone Cuffs - Mana Enhancer - level 1
Shacrui - Modular Abilities/Cosmic Power 10 (Emergencies Only, Unconcious Only, Preparation Required - 8 hours)
Sorcerer - Social Regard (Feared) +2
Raised by the Tower - Unusual Background

Disadvantages
Bitch Out The Tides - Bad Temper (self-control roll 6)
Mana Stone Burn - Chronic Pain (severe, 2 hours, affects on 9 or less)
Isieldar - Enemy (150% or more of Milale's power, hunter, appears on 6 or less)
Gluttony
Greed
Always plunder... - Kleptomania (self-control roll 15)
The Pride of the Cacire - Overconfidence (self-control roll 6)
Selfish
Skinny
Stubbornness
Dalmatian Hair - Unnatural Features - level 2

Skills
Area Knowledge 15 (The Tower)
Carousing 10
Connoisseur 12
Dreaming 14
Escape 11
Politics 11
Thaumatology 15

Milale is a standing 150 point character who can be used straight out as he is - if, and only if, the GM will let you use any spell based on Thaumatology. If the GM insists on making you buy each spell individually, then bump Milale up to 200 points, knock off a level of Magery and buy another point of IQ, and spend your remaining 40 points on spells, to represent Milale's general abilities from "light a candle" to "drop a mountain on the bastards". If you really want to be bone-stubborn about this, you could play him as he is now, and simply get all his spells using Shacrui. This is probably a pretty good way to get Mil killed.

Ciera, the Slightly Less Bitchy Inventor - 100 points

Basic Stats
ST 9
DX 11
IQ 12
HT 9

HP 10
Will 11
Per 12
FP 9

Basic Speed 5
Basic Move 7

Advantages
Attractive
Gadgeteer
Sensitive (Empathy)
Artificer (Talent) - level 2

Disadvantages
Charitable (self-control roll 15)
...before you burn. - Kleptomania (self-control roll 15)
Post-Combat Shakes
Stubbornness
Workaholic

Skills
Area Knowledge (Sardria and surrounds) 12
Armoury/TL3 (Heavy Weapons) 14
Artillery/TL3 (Catapult) 11
Engineering (Artillery) 14
Engineering (Clockwork) 15
Finance 9
Housekeeping 12
Machinist/TL3 15
Mechanic/TL3 (Clockwork and Gears) 15
Club Him With A Wrench - Axe/Mace 10
Politics 12
Teaching 11

Ciera is a workable 100 point character right there, with no modifications needed to fit her in to any 100 point campaign. Her self-control disadvantages are unlikely to cause major problems, as she's quite good at resisting them (Milale's influence, no doubt).

Now, with that out of the way, let's talk about what the hell is going on here.

Despite sorcerers being godlike in their abilities in this world, I figured that Pale Sky was mostly about normal people running around being jerks at everyone and throwing pumpkins at knights; this is why I picked point values at 100 and 150 points. (I'd actually thought that Milale might need 200 points, but his general uselessness balanced that out nicely.) 100 and 150 are recommended for average-level people - 200 points is about the upper level before you start getting into superhuman. If I'd wanted to build Isieldar, Kaser, or even Tessan, I'd be looking at 200 points at least... but Milale and Ciera are more reasonable, more down-to-earth.

Their stats are nothing too special, unless by "special" you mean "not very good". Well, that's a lie. Both of them have quite good Intelligence (IQ) and Dexterity (DX) - 11 and 12 are listed as "above average", and Milale's Intelligence of 13 is "exceptional". While Ciera lags behind the Queen Bitch of the Universe in those respects, she's on top of them in Strength (ST) and Health (HT)... which is still nothing to be proud of, as 9 is "below average". Milale's Health of 7 is listed as "poor" with the note "This is the lowest score you can have and still pass for 'able-bodied'." He's tiny, skinny, and crippled, so this was quite intentional. It's very likely that he had to roll several times to avoid dying horribly after Kors beat the crap out of him.

Due to Milale's horrible Health, I spent points to buy his Basic Speed up to 5. (Which is average.) If Milale and Ciera got into combat, they'd be outmaneuvered and have to go last or close to last every round. But if Milale and Ciera got into combat they'd pretty much be dead anyway, for reasons that will be explained later. I spent a couple of extra points to buy their Basic Moves up to 7, which is a land speed of 7 yards per second and around 14 miles per hour, because I figured they would be doing a lot of running away from things in the story. It would be nice to have them able to run away really well.

Normally Hit Points (HP) are derived directly from Strength. Ciera gets an extra one, because she's tough like that. (Or, as Milale would prefer, her natural armour on account of being so damn fat.) Will and Perception (Per) both derive directly from IQ. Milale loses a point of Perception for reasons of not noticing anything he can't immediately eat or bitch at. Ciera loses a point of Will because she's kind to tiny handless sorcerers that she should really allow to die as Darwin wishes. FP, the last derived stat, is Fatigue Points, and deals with how much you can do before you pass out. FP derives directly from Health. Milale loses a point because he is Milale, and doing any work at all would coarsen his delicate skin.

On to Advantages. Most of these should be self-explanatory. Milale is Beautiful (Handsome, strictly speaking, but when I add the "Androgynous" modifier I prefer to use the word beautiful) because Ciera made that immediate assumption that he'd been a courtesan. He's Androgynous because his looks do appeal to both sexes. Ciera is Attractive because Calseth was constantly after her hand in marriage; sure, he was probably also after her catapulty skills, but he's quite superficial, innit?

Magery 5 is a ridiculously high level of Magery and will allow Milale to blow the arse out of any country he so chooses; the Mana Enhancer level given by the welded cuffs will allow him to use his magic no matter how much the environment sucks. Strictly speaking, those around him will be able to gain the Mana Enhancer advantage; this probably won't be the case in the actual story, since Ciera specifies skin contact. I should have bought that down, but what the hell; if you're playing Milale in a GURPS game, here, have a nice bonus over Pale Sky Milale. (I'm sure he won't mind. Why would he want to help others use magic?)

Gadgeteer is a cinematic advantage that lets Ciera invent things on the fly, even things outside her tech level. With enough work, that mecha she rides in in the chibis is all hers. There are two levels of it, Gadgeteer and Quick Gadgeteer; the latter is completely unrealistic and would let her "aha!" her way to fully working siege towers in the course of ten minutes. Taking the lower level more accurately represents her abilities; she can build just about whatever she wants, but it takes her weeks or months.

Shacrui was not easy to represent in game terms, and as it is, it's not easy to explain. Modular Abilities is a way of setting aside a certain number of points that you can later twist and turn into whatever abilities you like. Cosmic Power is a modifier to Modular Abilities that essentially means you pluck those abilities out of thin air; you don't need to memorise them, or be programmed with them, or plug chips into your head. Emergencies Only means that the ability only shows up in emergencies; Unconscious Only means that it's not under the player's conscious control; Preparation Required - 8 Hours means that it'll take 8 hours of downtime before the ability will work. So, to sum it up, in an emergency, Milale will fall down for eight hours whether he wants to or not, and when he wakes up, he'll have some new skills or spells or something. That sounds like Shacrui as Milale described it to me, so I'm happy.

Ciera's Artificer talent at level 2 gives her +2 to a certain set of skills - Armoury, Carpentry, Electrician, Electronics Repair, Engineer, Machinist, Masonry, Mechanic, and Smith - allows her to learn those skills in 80% of the normal time it would take, and gives her a +2 to the reaction roll of anyone who appreciates those skills and has seen her work. She's got those kind of skills, so...

Milale gets Social Regard - Feared, naturally. "That's the sorcerer's woman, there." And then Ciera has to kill everybody.

Onto Disadvantages. I gave them both Kleptomania largely because it was funny, but partly because of the bit at the end of Chapter 16 where they rob Calseth blind before moving on. The "self-control roll" number represents the number they have to roll or roll under on three six-sided dice in order not to indulge. On a roll of 3-18, 15 is not hard to roll or roll under; as such, they'll probably be able to resist robbing everyone blind. At least until the good parts.

Bad Temper: "You are not in full control of your emotions. Make a self-control roll in any stressful situation. If you fail, you lose your temper and must insult, attack, or otherwise act against the cause of the stress." How could I not give it to Milale? Note that he must roll under 6 on three six-sided dice to control himself.

I gave Ciera Charitable because of her care for the disadvantaged in her village at no benefit of her own (again, 15 is not hard to roll or roll under, so she's also pretty good at saying "screw you" if needed), Post-Combat Shakes because of her reactions after the MBPV moment, and Stubbornness and Workaholic because... well, yes.

Isieldar as an Enemy is pretty straightforward. Enemies can be on a level Watcher, Rival, or Hunter. Watchers just spy on their target, Rivals want to upstage or discredit them, but Hunters want to kill, disable, or otherwise destroy their target. So. Isieldar will only appear in the adventure on a roll of 6 or less on three six-sided dice, because he's busy ruling the Tower and trying to destroy Parra.

The rest of the Disadvantages, I think, explain themselves... but wait! Why only one "Unnatural Feature" on Milale? (The Unnatural Features, by the way, do not injure others' reactions to him - the Stubbornness, Overconfidence, Bad Temper, Gluttony, Greed, and Selfishness do that - but they do make him easier to find and harder to disguise.) Surely he has glass-like glowy cuffs and ghost hands! Well, see, for the most part, he hides them under long sleeves and gloves. As such, they're easily hidden; they don't count as an Unnatural Feature.

Milale is useless, skill-wise. He has very few skills and most of them are at terrible levels; you can't even count on him to properly party. What you can count on him for is knowing about the Tower (and, to a lesser extent, Kada as a whole), remembering his dreams and/or prompting vivid dreams - which I gave him because of his frequent dream sequences and connection to Shadow - and knowing about magic. Thaumatology is his most important skill, boosted by his IQ and his Magery.

Ciera, on the other hand, might not have Milale's battery of Advantages, but her skill load made her very difficult to keep under 100 points. She has the only combat skill either of them have, and it's not at a very high level - as far as clubbing people with a wrench goes, she can, but it helps if they stand still. In combat, they would mostly rely on Milale's magic. What she does have, however, is the ability to pretty much single-handedly lay siege to a reasonably-sized city. Engineering allows her to design and build catapults and clockwork devices; Machinist allows her to put together little parts of bigger machines; Armoury and Mechanic allow her to maintain and repair machines; and Artillery lets her operate a catapult herself. (It's one of her weaker skills; she's much better at building them and making them better.) The other smattering of her skills would mostly allow her to keep her house of refugees in order, as well as serve her reasonably well when jockeying for position in military or noble politics.

It was surprising, actually, how easy these two were to adapt to GURPS. I'll have to do Liden when he shows up, if only so that the two of them have something to do in combat besides "squawk", "hope for magic", and "run away".

High Quality Post-it-Note

Thu, 17 May 2007 17:37:42 GMT

My Beloved Peasant Village should SO be a shirt. It should be very Penny-Arcade style. I have done my best to recreate the awesome image in my head in stick figure format.