Sunday 31 May 2020

How to: Sorcerous Communions

How to: Sorcerous Communions

Have you ever missed casting spells ceremonially with GURPS Magic? Have you ever looked at the three-digit sorcery spell and thought that such a spell would be impossible to cast in an actual game? Have you even played Dominions 5 and wondered how to make communions in GURPS? Apparently, there is a way to accomplish that.

Saturday 30 May 2020

Monster: Li Lung (Earth Dragon)

Monster: Li Lung (Earth Dragon)

Li lungs probably are the weirdest looking dragons ever, looking more like a cross between a lammasu and a peacock.

Friday 29 May 2020

Arena: Troll Hunter vs. Gnoll Band

Arena: Troll Hunter vs. Gnoll Band

In this installment of the arena, we decided to try a "one versus many" scenario - a troll hunter versus a band of two gnoll warriors and two gnoll slave-takers (marked with purple dots on the map). 

Thursday 28 May 2020

Monsters/Racial Templates: Apes and Monkeys

Monsters/Racial Templates: Apes and Monkeys

I've decided to convet some monsters and races from D&D and Pathfinder unified by a common theme - they are all simian-like. I combed through the books and found a surprisingly high number of them, but probably missed some too. I omitted unique beings, such as Demogorgon, General Monkey, and Monkey (Greater Spirit).

Wednesday 27 May 2020

Monster: Tatalla

Monster: Tatalla

Tatalla, whose name means "the eye", are malicious little creatures often employed as spies or assassins by larger creatures. Tatalla reside only in urban areas, where their services are often desired, and where they are never far from vermin to aid them in their tasks. Tatalla are scavengers, living off the remains of society. They steal what they need and give nothing back to society or to their environment.

Tuesday 26 May 2020

How to: Negative Energy Affinity

How to: Negative Energy Affinity

D&D has two damage types that are quite special - positive energy and negative energy. Positive energy heals living beings and harms the undead, while negative energy heals the undead and harms living beings. What are some ways of doing that in GURPS?

Monday 25 May 2020

Treasure: Epic Rings

Treasure: Epic Rings

This post concludes the conversion of magic items from the Epic Level Handbook for D&D 3.0. Finally.

Sunday 24 May 2020

Martial Arts: Monstrous Styles

Martial Arts: Monstrous Styles

My friend who goes by the moniker of Comrade Point and who helped me a lot with various issues on this blog and also was a participant of arena combats wrote up a couple of martial arts for monsters - imps and aboleths. Check them out!

Saturday 23 May 2020

Treasure: Epic Staffs

Treasure: Epic Staffs

This post will detail magic staffs from the Epic Level Handbook for D&D 3.0.

Friday 22 May 2020

Treasure: Epic Rods

Treasure: Epic Rods

Let's finish converting magic items from the Epic Level Handbook for D&D 3.0. This post will cover rods.

Thursday 21 May 2020

Monster: Unbodied

Monster: Unbodied

The original unbodied were humans who became too smart for this world and ascended to a higher plane of existence. The remaining unbodied are beings of pure mind that can assume any illusory form.

Wednesday 20 May 2020

Monster: Udoroot

Monster: Udoroot

Udoroot is a sessile monster whose main part is buried underground. Its sunflower-like crows manifest psionic abilities and use other creatures as fertilizer.

Tuesday 19 May 2020

Monsters: Thought Eaters

Monsters: Thought Eaters

Thought eaters are bestial aberrations with transparent flesh. They can drain mental energies and shift between the Ethereal and the Material planes. Thought slayers are stronger, bigger, and scarier.

Monday 18 May 2020

Monster: Temporal Filcher

Monster: Temporal Filcher

This is a fun psionic monster than grapples its prey and timeports it 7 minutes in the future, where (when?) its likely to be without its companions.

Sunday 17 May 2020

Powers: Sapient-Only Telepathy

Powers: Sapient-Only Telepathy

By default, telepathic abilities from GURPS Psionic Powers affect all creatures with a mind. The book provides an option to add Racial, -20% to all mind-affecting abilities, if psis in the setting can only affect creatures of their own species or very close species. The book even provides recalculated costs for this option. However, what if we want to do what GURPS Magic does with the Mind Control college and limit mind-affecting abilities to sapient subjects? Then we have to apply Accessibility, Only on sapient beings, -10% and recalculate the costs again. Here's the result for convenience.

Saturday 16 May 2020

Powers/Treasure: Psychobotanics

Powers/Treasure: Psychobotanics

The Psi, -10% power modifier consists of -5% for the existence of anti-powers and -5% for the existence of psychotronics that can hinder the use of psionics. But what about low-TL games? You could rework the power modifier (like in Dungeon Fantasy), but there is also a sidebar in GURPS Psionic Campaigns that suggests to change the psychotronic part to its low-TL equivalent - psychobotanics. However, it doesn't really provide any guidelines.

Friday 15 May 2020

Powers: Alignment Languages

Powers: Alignment Languages

The first edition of D&D had a peculiar concept - alignment languages. As far as I know, most players weren't content with it, and these languages were discontinued in the later editions. However, I find this concept fascinating. Let's try to convert these languages into GURPS.

Thursday 14 May 2020

Powers: Psychokinetic Stomp

Powers: Psychokinetic Stomp

When I was making the half-giant racial template, I wasn't content with making stomp a unique racial ability. Let's rework it as a generic psychokinetic ability.

Wednesday 13 May 2020

Sorcery: Unofficial Sorcery Errata

Sorcery: Unofficial Sorcery Errata

I spent more than a week looking through all of my sorcery spells and updating them. Some changes were minor, some spells have been reworked completely. While doing this, I noticed that some of the officially published spells seem to have some mistakes or inconsistencies - missed No Signature, +20% on Buffs and Resisted spells, ability to affect non-sapient creatures with Mind Control spells , and other minor stuff. GURPS Magic allows Mind Control spells to affect only IQ 6+ beings. I am of the opinion that this is done as a form of niche protection for Animal and Plant colleges, but I can see that this is a very setting-dependant limitation. Nonetheless, I decided to include it in this list.
Here's a list of my suggestions.

Tuesday 12 May 2020

Sorcery: Assorted Spells VI

Sorcery: Assorted Spells VI

I found two spells that I forgot to convert and several spells that I deemed inconvertible before.

Monday 11 May 2020

Arena: Titan vs. Marut

Arena: Titan vs. Marut

This time we decided to have two big, strong creatures fight each other - a titan and a marut.

Sunday 10 May 2020

Arena: McBoon vs. Frost Giant Jarl

Arena: McBoon vs. Frost Giant Jarl

This installment of the arena pit against each other a frost giant jarl and McBoon, Reaper of the Arena - an illithid proficient in psionic martial arts.

Saturday 9 May 2020

Monsters: Puppeteers

Monsters: Puppeteers

Puppeteers are tiny creatures that attach to living hosts, drain sustenance from them, and control them. Flesh harrowers (also known as dire puppeteers) have a big maw.

Friday 8 May 2020

Lens/Monster: Phrenic Creature/Phrenic Manticore

Lens/Monster: Phrenic Creature/Phrenic Manticore

At first, I didn't even want to include this as a lens. A phrenic creature is just a psionically gifted and psionically resistant normal creature.

Thursday 7 May 2020

Monster: Gray Glutton

Monster: Gray Glutton

The gray glutton is a biological weapon created by some unknown arcane spellcasters (probably elves, considering the racial quirk) who were persecuted by the psis in the ancient past. Fun!

Wednesday 6 May 2020

Monster: Crysmal

Monster: Crysmal

This is probably my favorite monster from the Expanded Psionics Handbook. It's relatively simple, can be used both as an ally or an enemy, has some psionic abilities, and it looks very pleasant. What is not to like?

Tuesday 5 May 2020

Treasure: Epic Artifacts

Treasure: Epic Artifacts

In this post, I will convert artifacts from the Epic Level Handbook for D&D 3.0 to GURPS. As before, items whose effects cannot be replicated properly with advantages, or those that can be replicated, but cost so much that the price is way off the chart, will be without the statblock.

Monday 4 May 2020

How to: Summoner Abilities

How to: Summoner Abilities

The summoner class from Pathfinder is a weird one. It's highly customizable, but requires a lot of preparation to play properly (i.e. without combats becoming a slog). Let's try to convert summoner's class abilities to GURPS.

Sunday 3 May 2020

Hazards: Psionic Maladies and Horrific Diseases

Hazards: Psionic Maladies and Horrific Diseases

This post converts psionic diseases from Extended Psionic Handbook and horrific diseased from Horror Adventures.

Saturday 2 May 2020

Monster: Brain Mole

Monster: Brain Mole

Brain moles are pests that are attracted to psionic energies, but themselves are invisible to psionic detection. They spread cascade flu - a contagious disease that makes psionic powers manifest uncontrollably.

Friday 1 May 2020

Treasure: Epic Wondrous Items

Treasure: Epic Wondrous Items

Yet again, the Epic Level Handbook for D&D 3.0 doesn't provide many items, except for normal wondrous items, but with bigger numbers.