Monster: White Dragon

Monster: White Dragon

Dragons are iconic monsters of fantasy, and I'm sure that they are one of the first things that comes up in peoples' minds when they hear "fantasy". Sometimes they are just flying reptilian beasts, sometimes they are sentient and cunning. For more information about dragons, one can read GURPS Dragons. Dragons in Dungeons and Dragons are divided into several categories: chromatic, metallic, gem, lung, ferrous, planar, etc. White dragons are considered to be the weakest of the evil chromatic dragons. They aren't very bright (when they are young, at least), but they are strong nonetheless. KYOS makes them deal ridiculous damage with their natural weapons and have huge HP. The racial template is provided only for the adult age category.

Sorcery: Cryomancy Expanded

Sorcery: Cryomancy Expanded

Even though I have already posted some ice spells, there are many other cool possible spells left. Let us expand the ice spell list even more, looking in GURPS Magic and other RPG works for inspiration.

Monster: Twig Blight

Monster: Twig Blight

These weak plant monsters appear in a low-level D&D module The Sunless Citadel, but they were Monster Manual II. Since I'm preparing to run this module in GURPS, I have to convert it. Looks like the racial template is cheap enough to use for PCs, but IQ-3 is not everyone's cup of tea.

Sorcery: Ice Spells

Sorcery: Ice Spells

Ice magic probably is my favorite elemental magic, even though ice sometimes is separated from water. GURPS Thaumatology - Sorcery has the Icy Weapon spell, and this post has the Body of Ice spell. Let's make some more!

Sorcery: More Body of (Element) Spells

Sorcery: More Body of (Element) Spells

In the last post I have converted the primary four elemental Body of (Element) spells. But there are some more. Body of Leaves and Body of Slime I already have converted in this post. Body of Wind ended up being ridiculously expensive.

Sorcery: Elemental Body Spells

Sorcery: Elemental Body Spells

A staple of fantasy elemental mages is transforming their bodies into the corresponding element. GURPS Thaumatology - Sorcery has the Body of Wood spell, so let us build the variations on it, using the existing Body of (Element) meta-traits.

Monster: Quasit

Monster: Quasit

The weakest of demons, quasits are tiny flying beings that can turn invisible and deliver poison. They
are weak in combat, but mobile and hard to hit. More useful as spies or familiars for evil wizards.

Sorcery: Weather Spells

Sorcery: Weather Spells

First thing that comes to my mind

I always liked the college of Weather magic. I feel like mages who have power over the weather are invaluable in low TL societies. They could help with farming, traveling, sailing, or hinder their enemies. Statting up these spells was a difficult task, although most of them look identical aside from a couple of words. Control advantage is not my forte.

Magic: Gravity College

Magic: Gravity College

Gravity manipulation is barely covered in GURPS Magic, so I decided make a new Gravity college with some appropriate spells from the Movement college. Gravity mages may be very useful in settings with space travel, but in other settings usefulness of this college is determined by the popularity of the college, because the spells manipulate gravitational anomalies that can only me created by other gravity mages. This is my first serious attempt at creating new Magic spells, using existing spells as the guidelines, as well as the guidelines in Magic, so I'm not sure if I did a good job.

Monster: Water Mephit

Monster: Water Mephit

I think the one we're looking for is on the right

I always liked the mephits. They are small impish-looking humanoids from the elemental planes. Let's start with the water mephit. I have always wondered why they need wings, when they live on the Elemental Plane of Water, but whatever. The template is cheap enough to be used for characters.

Sorcery: Even More Acid Spells

Sorcery: Even More Acid Spells

That's right, there's more to acid than just throwing balls of it or produce acid fog. You can also simply create is with Create Acid, spit it with Spit Acid, produce jets with Acid Jet, rain it on your enemies with Rain of Acid. If you want acid that dissolves even glass, then you can produce it with Essential Acid.

Sorcery: Cloud Spells

Sorcery: Cloud Spells

There are many spells in fiction that produce clouds with some additional effects. What these spells have in common is that they affect an area, obscure vision, and drift with the wind. Fog Cloud simply obscures vision. Hallucinogenic Cloud causes hallucinations. Sleep Cloud makes the creatures caught within it to fall asleep. Stinking Cloud produces a horrible smell that makes the victims cough.

Sorcery: Necromantic Spells

Sorcery: Necromantic Spells

Just three necromantic spells from GURPS Magic. Death Vision frightens the target, Final Rest prevents a body from being reanimated or raised, Sense Spirit detects undead and spirits.

Monster: Thoqqua

Monster: Thoqqua

A thoqqua is a worm-like elemental creature of magma. It tunnels through rock by melting it, and senses its surroundings via vibration sense. The monster is quite neat, but not very interesting. Still, I like it, although I have never used it yet.

Eggplant Strategy

Eggplant Strategy

by Enraged Eggplant

Play-by-post turn-based strategy system

Version 0.2

The rules you see below are not tested, and do not have enough content. It's just a framework, that will be expanded if I ever find somebody to test it with.

Monsters/NPCs: Goblinoids and Kobolds

Monsters/NPCs: Goblinoids and Kobolds

I am preparing to run a conversion of a classic D&D module. Having made the goblinoid and kobold racial templates, now I can convert some NPCs too! They are weak, but I always felt that there needs to be more weak monsters for low-level play.

Monster: Arch-Vile

Monster: Arch-Vile

"One of the worst of a bad lot. You can't think of enough rotten things to say about him. He's fast, hard to kill, casts spells, and resurrects dead monsters! At least these suckers are rare."

― Doom II Manual description

I couldn't have said it any better. I hate these guys, and always will. They are primary targets, but they are hard to hit if they are surrounded by other monsters. They do not have any problems hitting you back though. And if you clear out the monsters in the way, the arch-viles just resurrect them back.

Here's my GURPS adaptation of this truly vile monster. His supernatural abilities are presented in a form of Sorcery spells, so they may be useful even for those who won't use the monster.

Ultra-Tech: Modern BFG9000

Ultra-Tech: Modern BFG9000

We all know and love the classic BFG9000, but its modern (Doom 3 and 4) variant is easier to use, has less unique mechanics, looks less cool, but is deadly as ever. Let's take a look!

Sorcery: Suspension Spells

Sorcery: Suspension Spells

I had difficulties coming up with a theme for a post, but then I glanced at my converted spells document and noticed Suspend Enchantment among the spells. So I decided to convert every other GURPS Magic spell with the word "suspend" in it (except Suspend Time, because it is already presented in GURPS ThaumatologyL Sorcery).

Monster: Shadow

Monster: Shadow

Shadows are lesser incorporeal undead creatures that can create shadows from killed victims. Never been fond of these things in D&D. Also, I find it peculiar, that the shadows did not have anything like Shadow Form advantage/disadvantage in the original source, even though they look two-dimensional on their art.

Monsters: Rats

Monsters: Rats

I bet you all have heard stories of low-level adventurers clearing out basements from rats. Of course, most adventurers succeed, unless there's a giant fire-breathing rat in the basement. Here are some rat templates - a common rat, a cave rat, and a dire rat. Their only difference is their strength and size, but you can add some variety by altering some attributes. For example, you can increase a dire rat's HP, make it Fat, and lower its DX and/or Basic Speed to create bloated dire rats. Common and cave rats are not formiddable opponents, but they can be used as familiars, pets, or food.

Racial Templates: Kobolds

Racial Templates: Kobolds

Kobolds, just like goblins, are commonly used low-level emenies. These small scaly humanoids are draconic descendants, masters of trapmaking and mining. Unlike the goblins, the kobolds are much more social and open to negotiations and trade. I like kobolds, but who doesn't?

Racial Templates: Goblinoids

Racial Templates: Goblinoids

Goblins are a common "bad guy" race for low-level adventures to deal with. But there is much more to goblinoids than just the small weak goblins, and some of the goblinoids actually are formiddable opponents. Here I present you all goblinoid racial templates from D&D that I've converted. As a side note - after looking some things up, I found out that I missed some obscure subraces of orcs, dwarves, and gnomes, so I updated those posts too.

Ultra-Tech: BFG9000

Ultra-Tech: BFG9000

Sometimes you need a big gun. And do you know a gun bigger than BFG9000 from Doom? Here's my attempt to convert it to GURPS and this is probably the case where you shouldn't convert the exact mechanist and just stat it up as a cone attack, but I decided to try to make it closer to the original source. Some numbers probably should be tweaked, mechanics simplified, but it still works, although clunky, right?

Monster: Athach

Monster: Athach

The athach is a hulking, misshapen giant with a poisonous bite and three arms. Despite their humanoid appearance, they are not giants, but abberrations. This monster deals huge damage, especially when wielding three clubs and taking advantage of Ambidexterity and Extra Attack 1.

Also, I'm done with letter A of Monster Manual!

Sorcery: Modifying Sorcery

Sorcery: Modifying Sorcery

The Sorcery system out of the box provides a way to make spellcasters that fling spells quickly and almost effortlessly, as if it was their second nature. It does provide an option for limiting spell access, but does not go beyond that. Many stories and settings feature many different magical traditions, and while you can represent them with different magical systems in GURPS, you could even make unique traditions or subsystems just by modifying the Sorcerous Empowerment advantage and/or spells, available to this traditions. Let's look at the appropriate enhancements and limitations that will help us accomplish this task!

Monster: Azer

Monster: Azer

Azers are dwarf-like outsiders from the Elemental Plane of Fire. They are skillful smiths, armourers, engineers, and they have a fiery aura. The template is cheap enough to be used for some player characters too.

Monster: Animated Manacles

Monster: Animated Manacles

Monster Manual provides statblocks for animated objects of various sizes, but does not specify the type of the object in question. Pathfinder RPG, on the other hand, provides several statblocks for
specific animated objects. Let's try to stat up something weird - the animated manacles. I was not sure how to represent their ability to actually shackle people, so I decided to give them Accessory (Manacles). Thus, the manacles are incapable of damaging anyone, unless they use All-Out Attack (Strong), but can shackle people like Iron Shackles from GURPS Low-Tech, page 130.

Sorcery: Creation Spells

Sorcery: Creation Spells

And here's the second and last part of the college of Illusion & Creation. Create Object can be found in GURPS Thaumatology - Sorcery, page 18. Create Mount can be found in this post.

Sorcery: Illusion Spells

Sorcery: Illusion Spells

Let's tackle the first "half of the college of Illusion & Creation from GURPS Magic, the college with the most ridiculous art piece in the book. Complex Illusion appears in GURPS Thaumatology - Sorcery, page 18, and Inscribe appears in this post. Some of the following spells were quite difficult to stat up. Independence and Initiative seem to be included in Complex Illusion and hence the other illusion spells. Phantom Flame appears in Pyramid #3-63, page 9.

Ultra-Tech: DR/Damage Comparison

Ultra-Tech: DR/Damage Comparison

So many times have I heard people complaining about GURPS Ultra-Tech. One of the most common complaints is the so-called "rocket tag" firefighting. Weapons are far ahead of body armor, which makes body armor pretty much useless. The worst offender is the HEMP warhead, that shreds even battlesuits to pieces easily. At least this is what the complainers claim. I've GMed 4 or 5 TL 10 games, and I have encountered this problem too. It can be partially mitigated by restricting available gear (LC is here for a reason) and using optional rules from GURPS High-Tech. But it's still not enough. To see how the issue can be fixed, we have to do some research first.