Monster: Zeitgeist

Monster: Zeitgeist

Cityscape is a useful D&D supplement that might be useful to read even to GURPS GMs. Also, it has a few new monsters, some of which I've already converted, so let's do the rest. Zeitgeist is an uber-powerful fey that I dreaded to convert. However, when I started I quickly realized that it's basically a slightly reflavored spirit of the land from Monster Manual II.

Pantheon: Sumerian Pantheon

Pantheon: Sumerian Pantheon

And here we have the Sumerian pantheon from On Hallowed Ground.

Pantheon: Pharaonic Pantheon

Pantheon: Pharaonic Pantheon

And now let's do the same to the Egyptian pantheon from Deities & Demigods and On Hallowed Ground.

Pantheon: Babylonian Pantheon

Pantheon: Babylonian Pantheon

The Great Wheel cosmology of D&D houses not only the made up deities (some of whom were inspired by the ones from the real world mythos), but also several pantheons directly borrowed from the real world mythos. On Hallowed Ground for Planescape describes them, albeit shortly. I have a need for the Babylonian pantheon, so here's the conversion.

Alchemy: Psionic Alchemy

Alchemy: Psionic Alchemy

Dragon Magazine #358 has a short article about psionic alchemy - an alchemical tradition that deals with rare substances that react to the presence of psionic energies. Why haven't I noticed that article before? This post will detail all the elixirs from that article converted to my metatronic alchemy system. These elixirs might use a new skill specialty - Alchemy (Psionic). I will also retroactively assign some psionic elixirs from Dungeon Fantasy to this specialty.

Why play D&D in GURPS?

Why play D&D in GURPS?

I think a better title would be "Why do I play D&D in GURPS?" If you follow my blog, you should know that I'm mostly preoccupied with porting all kinds of D&D content to GURPS. Why do I do that instead of just playing D&D? And why do that when GURPS already has the Dungeon Fantasy line and even DFRPG? I'll try to divulge my thoughts on the matter. Things will get rambly.

Sorcery Spells Overview: Air

Sorcery Spells Overview: Air

This is a very experimental post. In this post, I will go over every Air sorcery spell and discuss its usefulness (by default D&D-style fantasy setting is assumed). The college of Air is quite big, overlapping with the Weather college. I feel that the college is so big that you can safely create the college of Lightning and move all the Lightning spells there. I was reluctant to write such posts, because it feels masturbatory, since I made most of these spells. Should people like this, I'll write more.

Languages in GURPS

Languages in GURPS

I've always enjoyed the study of languages. I even almost applied to study linguistics at a local linguistic university, but at the last moment decided that engineering would give me a better chance to find a job. My love of all language-related things extends to tabletop gaming as well. When I read the D&D supplements and, for example, see that treants or worgs have their own language, I always think of various translation-related situations or why would anyone who does not belong to these races learn this language. I remember that when I was playing D&D 3.0 as a kid, I had a huge list of languages, believing that every race must have its own languages. It did not make sense to me that, for example, frost giants and fire giants speak the same Giant language despite living in diametrically opposed environments and probably not ever being in contact. My players did not like it, but we still had some amusing situations that have arisen from it (the one I remember the most clear is a player taking the Giant Eagle language randomly as a joke, but it coming in handy later in the game). Only yesterday I found out that that's actually how languages worked before D&D 3.0 - in AD&D every sapient species had their own language. So, let's take a dive into the linguistics of GURPS.

Why limit Sorcery?

Why limit Sorcery?

By default, Sorcery allows the character to buy whatever spell he wants. The only limit can easily be overlooked if you are not reading the book thoroughly. It's in the bottom right corner of page 7.

D&D Feats in GURPS

D&D Feats in GURPS

It is no surprise that GURPS allows much more freedom of choice in terms of actions and maneuvers when compared to D&D 3.5. The latter often either forbids some actions or heavily penalizes them, unless the character has a specific feat. And that's okay - different systems do things differently. In this post, I will go through the feats from the Player's Handbook and see how to represent them (if there's a need for that) in GURPS. Some feats will have analogues in form of techniques or skills, while some of them might make some nice power-ups for your characters.

Source-Specific Rules for Powers

Source-Specific Rules for Powers

I've seen many people treat GURPS Powers as just something like an expansion for the advantage section of GURPS Basic Set. This is a big mistake, in my opinion. The book provides much more than that, and while it does expand the advantages and modifiers, it also is an extensive resource that is immensely useful for any game that uses supernatural powers of any kind. If a GM reads GUPRS Powers from start to finish, he will be able to create any advantage-based magic system or power framework that he wants. The book has answers to practically all powers- and advantages-related questions that I've seen pop up online, unless the question is really esoteric. But for some reason people just do not want to read the book. It's a very entertaining read too, so I just don't get it. But that's just my venting some of my salt. What I want to talk about here is the source-specific rules for powers.

Monster: Vacuum Quasi-Elemental

Monster: Vacuum Quasi-Elemental

At last, I'm done with the quasi-elementals. I think I should take a break from monsters now, that was one hell of a workload.

Monster: Salt Quasi-Elemental

Monster: Salt Quasi-Elemental

Salt quasi-elementals can restructure their bodies, just like the mineral and ash ones. Also, they constantly drain moisture from everyone around them.

Monster: Dust Quasi-Elemental

Monster: Dust Quasi-Elemental

Dust quasi-elementals are very similar to air elementals despite being related to the earth elementals. Basically, they are slightly different air elementals with powers of disintegration.

Monster: Ash Quasi-Elemental

Monster: Ash Quasi-Elemental

Ash quasi-elementals are somewhat similar to the ice paraelementals. They drain heat, but they are diffuse and can rearrange their bodies (which makes the template very expensive).

Monster: Steam Quasi-Elemental

Monster: Steam Quasi-Elemental

The last one of the positive quasi-elementals. This one is quite simple.

Monster: Radiance Quasi-Elemental

Monster: Radiance Quasi-Elemental

Oh boy, this one was not difficult to stat up, but it sure did take me a long time because of all these beams. Also, the original description says that the radiance quasi-elementals are hurt by darkness, but they also subsist on darkness. How does that work? I decided to just remove the "food" requirement.

Monster: Mineral Quasi-Elemental

Monster: Mineral Quasi-Elemental

For this one, I decided to remove the ability to merge (as that one would be a nightmare to stat up), and instead improve their body rearrangement ability from being cosmetic to being fully functional.

Monster: Lightning Quasi-Elemental

Monster: Lightning Quasi-Elemental

One category of monsters that I wanted to convert for a long time is the quasi-elementals. This is going to be a lot of work. Here's the first one - the lightning quasi-elemental.

Monsters: Monster Manual II Leftovers II

Monsters: Monster Manual II Leftovers II

At last, I'm done with Monster Manual II.

Monsters: Monster Manual II Leftovers I

Monsters: Monster Manual II Leftovers I

Here we have the leftovers from letters N and P. Only a single post left.

Monsters: T-Monsters

Monsters: T-Monsters

And here we have monsters from the Monster Manual II that start with the letter T.

Monsters: R-Monsters

Monsters: R-Monsters

I'm just trying to finish converting the Monster Manual II monsters. This post has all the monsters that start with the letter R.