Unluckiness be a Lady

     As it stands, in GURPS 4th Edition, Unluckiness is poorly priced. At least, this is the consensus that I have reached, which people that I play with on the regular agree with. The hard part is striking a balance between "I should always take this" and "I should never take this". Some disadvantages, which I usually ban from my "Level 0" templates, do have their uses, but I have almost never taken Unluckiness without it being an absolute pain in the butt.

    There was ONE character where it wasn't an issue, but it was his core concept. He was a gambler, who had both Extraordinary Luck and Unluckiness, which went hand-in-hand with his compulsive gambling and impulsive personality. Since then, however, I have not even thought about taking it as a player... mostly because I don't play enough games to be able to make enough characters.

    The reason why this is important is because of curses; who doesn't like a good curse that screws with the party? I also tacked on a repriced and mildly reworked Jinxed as well. There are other options out there, but I tend to not like Traits that are a word-salad of traits and enhancements/limitations that I need to go look in a Pyramid for explanations on. For repricing Unluckiness and adding Jinxed back into the mix, I suggest the following:

Unluckiness, -15 or -30 points

    As on B160. If you choose the -30pt option, instead record "Total Unluckiness", which lets the failed roll be lethal. (This is distinct from Cursed, as you are just unlucky, and it only happens once per session. Cursed is a different can of worms entirely.)

Jinxed, -25/-50/-75 points

    This is like the disadvantage in GURPS 3rd Edition, Revised, pg. 240. Everybody in your immediate vicinity takes -1 to all rolls per level of this disadvantage. On the other hand, you get off scot-free. Anyone who knows of your Jinxed nature reacts to you at -1 per level of this disadvantage. Attempts to get hired for jobs are at -2 per level of this disadvantage (meaning a totally Jinxed character will have trouble finding any work without the help of his ill-fated party.)

Edge Protection and the Armor Spell

     This is a short, sweet, and silly one. We had a situation last session where a player asked how the Armor spell (Magic, pg. 167) interacts with T-Bone's Edge Protection system. So, I got to thinking. Initially, I wondered if it would be fair to treat it as Rigid Armor, set DR to 1/5th and EP to 2/3rds, but that seemed like an inelegant solution for it. So, I came up with two solutions.

    The first, is short and simple. Armor grants an equal amount of Edge Protection as Damage Resistance, at no extra cost. The magical force can soften blows past the DR. We also decided that inherent Armor Divisor does not affect magical armor through these means; your sword slash is just as good as a spear point when it comes to penetrating magical armor.

    The second is a new spell, which is a silly one. What it does, is it grants a number of Global EP equal to double the energy cost, up to 10 EP (or 5 energy). Again, it probably won't have a use, but hey, what if you really want to take damage but can't bleed! See below for both the new spell and the change to the old Armor spell.

Soften Blows

Regular 
    Adds a number of Edge Protection globally to a living subject. EP granted like this is treated the same as EP granted from armor and is cumulative with that from actual armor. Magical EP granted this way has no interactions with Armor Divisors.

Cost: Half the ER given to the subject, rounded up, to a maximum EP of 10 (cost 5). Half that to maintain
Time to cast: 1 second
Duration: 1 minute
Prerequisites: Clerics: PI 2, Magic-users: Armor

Armor (Magic, pg. 167)

    Armor now grants EP equal to the DR granted. DR and EP granted this way has no interactions with Armor Divisors.

Conditional Injury, The Last Gasp, and Bleeding

     A few weeks ago, I got to thinking about how The Last Gasp interacts with Conditional Injury when it comes to the pain of wounds in TLG and how that turns into a nightmare with a conditional injury system like CI. That got me to thinking today, when I was brainstorming some Combination options with my players. How does bleeding in CI work? Well, the short answer, is it doesn't; which is fine, Douglas has said it himself! CI is a thought experiment after all. So, I got to thinking: how could you make bleeding work in CI and keep it conditional?

    Well, duh, use the Last Gasp! Joking, but what I do already meshes great with The Last Gasp's long-term fatigue system. Instead of using what CI suggests originally, which is losing maximum Fatigue and treating each location as its own wound with slightly unclear rules, I devised my own rules not long ago, which in my opinion, fixes a lot of the issues with Bleeding in CI. For this, you will need to ignore "Deadly Fatigue", present on Py. #3/120, p. 33.

    So, how does it work? Well, it is simple. When you get hit with a cutting, piercing, or impaling attack, it bleeds. I opt to not roll against HT to see if it bleeds or not as long as it is a wound that would cause significant bleeding, but you are free to. It is easier to assume getting cut or stabbed makes you bleed. When a wound bleeds (in either 60-second, 30-second, or 2-second intervals, depending on location), roll an HT check. On a fail, you lose 1 FP. On a success, nothing happens. You can see where this is going; see B420 for the old system. Replace any mention of HP there with FP, and instead use the penalty for bleeding rolls present on Py. #3/120, p. 33. If you are using my remapped system, the modifier is instead HT + 7 - Severity.

    Once you hit zero FP, the fun begins! Mark down the negative FP for the purpose of recovery later on, and so you can determine the wound for the next step. Once you start taking negative, find the absolute value of the negative FP you have taken as a wound for your entire body. Once you reach a Severity +0 (or Sev. 7 in my remapped scale, if you are playing in my games), you die. Wounds taken like this do not give pain; instead, you just take the FP loss and modify attributes accordingly. It is pretty simple, in my humble opinion, and is significantly less prone to situations where you do tons of record keeping.

    Now, how does this interact with The Last Gasp's long-term fatigue? Well, it does already. It gives you recovery times for your lost blood, attribute modifiers for having lost a lot of blood, and any extra rules. As a note, when recovering the lost FP, also modify the blood loss wound, to show your blood replenishing. I think there is probably an easier fix to this (other than ignoring bleeding) that I might not see, but we will have to wait for Mission X to see what Douglas has cooking on the topic of bleeding and blood loss. 

    As always, questions or comments are always welcome; I am always looking to improve my systems and rules that I am cooking up, as I actually use these every week, so fixing issues is always extremely important to me. I can also clarify why I chose certain thresholds here, if needed. If you have your own fix, let me know! I am interested in seeing other people's takes on this. Now, finally, here are two quick and dirty examples below, using both my remapped scale and the original scale:

    Example A: Darius the Daring just got shot in the neck; oh no! This comes out to a Severity 7 (Sev-0) wound. He makes an HT check for bleeding, adding a -1 penalty for piercing damage. His HT is 10, meaning his target is 9. He rolls an 11, failing. He bleeds. He continues to bleed for three minutes, critically failing two checks and failing one. His critical fail costs him 4 FP. At the end of his bout of bleeding, he takes 6 FP damage, meaning he has a -30%* reduction to his attributes. No wound is obtained here. 
*: Note, I use a percentage reduction to all attributes instead of a flat modifier. If you are using the original article as written, this is instead a -3. Personally, the percentage maps better, but it is your choice, as everything in GURPS is.

    Example B: Benjor is getting attacked by a Draug, and gets a deep slash across his chest. This comes out to a Severity 8 (+1) wound. Benjor has HT 10. He makes an HT check for bleeding, with a -2 for bleeding and a -1 from the wound severity. He fails, meaning he is bleeding. This bleeding is fast as well, with 30-second intervals. When he manages to have it treated, he has bled for four minutes, and made eight checks. One critically failed, one succeeded, and six failed. His critical failure came out to 6 points of FP damage. This means he took 12 points of FP damage. He takes a Severity 2 (-4)** wound from this!
**: Note, it has been a long time since I have used stock Conditional Injury's Robustness Threshold system, so I might have messed something up here, but the general idea still gets across.

Conditional Injury and The Last Gasp

     Recently, I have been doing some work on my house-rules, and I have come to some odd issues when trying to make Conditional Injury (herein CI) and The Last Gasp (herein TLG) work together. Obviously, the articles weren't meant to be used together, and were not designed for it. So, after some work-shopping with Douglas of Gaming Ballistic over on the GURPS Discord server, this is what I came up with.

Mines of Korth Templates III

    Yet again I am posting new templates for my players. The first game with hopefully more players is coming up, so I wanted to round out the list with some more advanced templates. Below are three new templates: the Acrobat, the Wildling, and the Wizard. Traits marked with a "^" require GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 11: Power-Ups.

Mines of Korth Templates II

    Last night, I published the first part of this. I then realized that there was no options to play demi-humans, so I decided that I should get to work immediately. In this post, there will be four classes once again. There will be a classic Dwarf, my take on Halflings (southern Dwarves), as well as a Priest and a Scout. Something I forgot to note in the previous post is that GURPS Magic with Wizardry Refined is in use. This modifies all kinds of things, but mostly makes spell casting more fair. Elves are absent from these classes. I hate Elves enough to not let players play them, period.

Mines of Korth Templates I

     In my IRL DF game, I have realized that being at 70/-30 provides odd situations for the players. While I could use something like Delvers to Grow, I don't have a print copy of that, and I tend to play a more "low magic" game. Thus, I decided to make some templates for them to quickly make characters and get to playing. Below are characters based around 70pts, with -30pts in disadvantages. Quirks are not provided, but could be used to increase point values. It is suggested to have at least one warrior in each party! Listed disadvantages with a "*" require resistance rolls vs. 12. Repeated entries of skills mean you can put more points into skills from different "point pools/sources".

    Note: If you are playing within the World of Zirkeon, being my fantasy roleplaying world, female characters must take "Social Stigma (Second-Class Citizen)". All characters can also take Status -1 as part of their character creation, taking up [-5] points.

"...and the wind said nothing."

     "Imagine a world like ours, where the wind and rain spoke to us. Generations of magical innovations built upon this, bringing us into the far future. As we grew mad with wealth and power, the wind and rain quieted until no peep could be heard. The snow and cold grew thicker, and our joy and wonder faded. Societies collapsed as the cold killed our youth and the snow buried our cities. Few still survive in the reaches of humanity, but the bitter cold and harsh snow have made us bitter ourselves. We have paid for our sins, and the wind said nothing."

    "...and the wind said nothing." (hereon referred to as ATWSN) is a post-apocalyptic setting set in northern-midwest North America, where a once magical society of unity and creation collapse into greed and envy, causing the magical landwights to fade, making cold and snow envelop the world. Survive as a band of raiders, scavengers, thieves, looters, heroes, saints, or trespassers, any way to survive is your way to survive. Every bullet, match, bottle of water, and can of food matters as much as the life of another.

    It is not about killing the most enemies or hoarding the most loot; no, it is about moral dilemmas and harsh survival instead. A single bullet can end your life, and cause you to melt into the snow like your ancestors did before they tamed the wind. Will you relearn how to tame nature, or will you die like all the rest that have come before you?

    Now, the reason why this is being posted here is because I am thinking about running a game in this setting soon. Keep an eye out in many social places that I am active in. The setting is going to be really weird and RP-oriented, with characters having very limited equipment and supplies. Open-World Exploration oriented as well.