GM WhtKnt's GURPS Infinity Unlimited (Inactive)

Game Master WhtKnt

I guess that's just a very different take on a magical geisha than what I expected to see. And I may have had a bit of a knee jerk reaction because I just noticed that I'm no longer the only applicant that's an intuitive mathematician, and now my piloting skills are covered somewhere else too... I know some people like to have redundant coverage for skills, but with as many options as there are in GURPS I kind of thought maybe people would spread out and cover different things instead. Of course, now that there's like 8 of us not everyone will get picked so I guess that'll probably clear some of that up.

Oh, I didn't realize you'd covered piloting. I only put it in because I didn't know we had a pilot.

What pilot skills do you have? I honestly wasn't trying to override your character. Sorry, I was up late, couldn't sleep, to excited about seeing Infinity War this morning.

Edelsmirge? Let's make some tweaks to get you off Nate's concept ok?

I mean, I could change it too... I’m not specialized in it. It’s part of my background (as an Air Force pilot) and I took it because we didn’t have a pilot. I was just surprised to see it on the geisha.

Right now I have 12 in high performance aircraft (which gives me 10 in aerospace, light, and heavy), and 10 in helicopter and vertol (which gives me 8 in autogyro and contragravity). None of those are great, obviously, but they should be ok for most mundane things. And, like I said, i’m willing to move stuff around if someone else wants to handle piloting.

Nah, I added it, not at Edelsmirge's request because I missed your character. I can give him language talent and languages instead, as you suggested.

I haven’t played GURPS in a few years, do you think those scores are high enough starting out or should I maybe rearrange things a little bit to get them up?

Ah, that's why I missed your character! You got yours done way early, before I started helping people, and the skills were in a link, so I missed them! Good, I thought I was going nuts. :P

I think your stats are pretty good for your character. Stats are expensive in GURPS. You put over half your points into them. I think you're good.

Just waiting for Edil to post to see if he's good with a switch to more languages. It'll be interesting to see how an ex-slave handles being the face of the group. :) C'deth can handle back up face duty, although he's more of a con man than a face (fast-talk to get himself out of trouble, and adjust gender/looks).

Amos could probably only Face if lesser military rank than his is involved. :P

I meant the scores in my piloting skills. which, I actually listed the wrong numbers for... I'm at 13 high performance; 11 aerospace, light, heavy, helicopters, and vertol; and, 8 autogyro and contragravity.

Thom's not a face at all... he can decrypt and analyze data like it's his job (which, until very recently, it was) but between the lack of social skills and the stutter he's not going to talk his way into or out of anything.

@mdt- i know you're putting a lot of time into helping others already but if you have a chance to look over my whole build I'd appreciate your feedback. Like I said, its been a few years since I played this system (like, probably 10 years, maybe more).

Sure, I'll plug it in tomorrow. Basically, you want to be 13+ in your primary skills, and 12+ in your secondary skills. Any thing else can be less than 12.

C'Deth's primary skills are physician, and con-man. So his First-Aid (which gets used the most) is 15, and his fast-talk is also. Beyond htose, his physician and acting are 14 (secondary skills for his primary skills), and his secondary physician skills are in the 13's. Given his secondary is infiltratin/scouting, he has a smattering of skills to aid in that, and some minor combat skills. C'Deth is a skill monkey so he's spread out a bit more than he needs to be, but that's sort of what I do with my characters, I prefer broad range skill monkeys over hyper specialized in one skill. :)

Your guy's primaries are in the 16's and 17's, which means you're even better at your primaries than C'Deth is. Which is no big deal, as C'Deth's background makes him a recent traveller and so he's not expected to be a super expert. You shouldn't have any issues in game. Remember, by default, you're looking for your skill or less on 3d6, which is 3 to 18. Right now, you're auto succeeding on routine stuff with your skills.

Yeah- in game I figured 16-17 was probably around where I needed to be to get recruited by the NSA and then poached by Inifinity; out of game, I’m guessing that penalties from unfamiliar systems will be pretty common, and probably TL penalties some of the time, so i was hoping to get my primary skills so that they’d be around 13-14 after some of those penalties. I was a little more concerned about the ones that are around 12-13 starting off, like piloting...

Yeah, fast talk doesn't care about tech level, mostly, and his med skills will only be affected by tech level if he's forced to use primitive tools, but even then, it's not like a tech skill penalty (building a flux capacitor with stone knives and bear skins)

@Nate, the intuitive Mathematician was only flavor for IBAN. I do not want to step on any toes.

@mdt, thank you very much for the help. I forgot Languages, I think I might go with the Pandora to have some points in a second language. What languages do we have covered? I was thinking German or Arabic.

All of the limitations have me a little confused about how my ego whip will work. Malediction says it will be IQ vs. HT -1 I see you purchased the Whip skill, is the Roll IQ modified by whip?

Languages are great do English Japanese, German, italian, Spanish, chinese

I will have a finalized Iben by tonight, Interrogator/Security second.

@Mr Stranger - The Melee limitation makes it a weapon power, so you'd use the whip skill to hit, instead of the IQ. At least, that's how I read the rules, the GM can confirm (I've not done a lot of Afflictions before, so this is new for me too). If nothing else, it would make sense that you'd know how to use whips based on the fact it's a neural whip, even if you use IQ for it. Also, they get a HT - 0 check (it starts at HT + 1 - Affliction Rank, since you have rank 1, it's HT + 1 - 1 = HT + 0).

Right now I have English and German, because I was stationed in Germany for a while in the Air Force... but if a bunch of other people have German I could switch that pretty easily. Depending on the geo-political landscape in Homeline when we start (aka who the NSA has been watching most) something like Arabic or Chinese would make plenty of sense for me too.

@Stranger- yeah, my guy is a normal Homeline human so being an intuitive mathematician is kind of the only thing special about him. I guess if we both get picked it might make for some interesting RP as Thom finds out there really is nothing at all special about him.

Actually, that would be the thing special about him, he's a Homeline Human. There's a lot to be said about being the local. :) Everything makes sense to him, when they go out to dinner between missions, he's the only one that understands why things are happening, because he understands the local culture.

Hey Idelsmirge, try this one

More languages, took off the pilot and perfect balance, and tossed on 2 more levels of charisma, along with some more points in skills.

When directly speaking with someone :
Diplomacy : 14-22 (depending on situation)
Fast Talk : 14-22 (depending on situation)
Sex Appeal: 15-20 (depending on situation)

Spells :
13 or less normally

Honestly not sure the combat reflexes make sense for a face/mage, I'd put those points into spells/skills, but it was an advantage you wanted so it's still in.

Don't underestimate being the "ordinary guy." There are a lot of instances wherein you play a role of importance, especially with this group (as varied as their backgrounds are). There will be at least one adventure (possibly several) that takes place within Homeline, so there's also that.

Sure, I picked the ordinary guy because I liked the idea of being the normal one from Homeline, the one who's more in touch with the company and what's going on (I think I'm the only one with any security clearance still), and the one who's sort of the straight man to everyone else's weirdness. I was just kind of thinking/talking through what it might be like for someone who their whole life was 'special' because of their mathematical ability and then meets some alien who's like 'oh yeah, everyone in my world does that, I can do it and math doesn't even matter to me' (I'm an external processor so often I think through things by talking or writing about them). It seems like it would be a pretty big deal... like either he'd be depressed or resentful, maybe feel like he didn't belong on the team, or like he had to undermine his rival to prove that he did deserve a spot... I don't know.

Amps might be able to get some kind of clearance depending on how long he's been with Infinity. Maybe.

He could also be jealous, his mathmatical ability always made him an outsider, and people resented him for it, so finding out it's a common thing on another world (or even gengineered into people) might make him wish he had been on that world instead, so he wouldn't be the 'unique' one. Uniqueness is a double edged sword.

@Nate, if you're wanting to do piloting, you might want to free up 10 points to do Perfect Balance, it gives a flat plus 1 to all piloting skills, and would make you more special to boot. If you make your character Iriquois (Mohawk), he could have done some high iron work before he signed up with the air force. I don't think they have a 'no vertigo' advantage, but perfect balance is pretty darn close, and would work for that.

And yes, I know that is a story the Mohawk's encourage, but is really not true, but in a game world, it could be.

For that matter, it could even be a racial (Mohawk) template.

I don’t think he’d be jealous... he blames the stutter for feeling like an outsider, being a math savant is the thing that makes him feel like ‘normal’ people aren’t better than him. And the Mohawk angle doesn’t really fit with my background (I have a little bit fuller version up now), although I appreciate the suggestion. We don’t need to figure all this out right now though- if me and the other guy who took intuitive mathematician too both get picked we can figure it out then.

It's past Saturday! Does that mean Selection is soon?

By my calculations, I have seven possibles with at least semi-complete characters (Grimdog never submitted a character), so I'll run with that group. Everyone finish up your characters and transfer to an alias (if you haven't) and I'll open up the Gameplay and Discussion threads. For clarification, the people I have as interested are:

Choon
mdt
Edelsmirge
The Lion Cleric
nate lange
MrStr4ng3
Iazulion

W00t! Let's get this party started!

I wanted to have a combat mage feel so I could stand in with the group when the thunder rolled, but go ahead and take it off if you think its not needed.

Could you also post my character in complete form in the forum so I can copy and paste it into an alias please?

Does that mean its too late to make changes? I was thinking about how much I like the sort of insider/company man angle and I had an idea to play that up and also drop the mathematician stuff so we don't have that overlap. Basically, I'd drop the math genius stuff and focus on piloting; and I'd buy up some rank and another level of security clearance, so I'd be an active Air Force officer attached to Infinity for mission support. Would that be ok? Also, I know there's a piloting talent but its in a book I don't have access to... can anyone post it? Or would it be ok to just do: boating, driving, gunner, navigation, and piloting for a talent?

I only had the Math genius as flavor, nothing applied, and after completing my Character last night I realized that I wan really functional, I have done some tweaking so I am an effective Psy Agent. Lost the math, and I think we will miss having a hacker. But you should play what you want to play.

Hot Pilot : +1 to "SK:Gunner", +1 to "SK:Navigation (Air)", +1 to "SK:Navigation (Space)", +1 to "SK:Piloting"

It's in the GURPS POWER UPS 3 booklet, and also in GURPS SPACE.

that's a terrible talent, lol. The core rulebook says not to include specializations in the talent, so that's only 3 skills...

I have both versions of the character ready, obviously only one of them is in the alias right now though. And, I'd have to tweak the pilot version's skills depending on what version of piloting talent was acceptable. But I'm cool with either build for Thom... GM, other players, anyone have really strong feelings on which one would be better for the group?

Not for you it isn't. Think about it...

Gunner (MG)
Gunner (Rocket)
Navigation (Air)
Pilot (Heavy Airplane)
Pilot (Helicopter)
Pilot (High Performance)
Pilot (Light Airplane)
Pilot (Vertol)

For 5 pts, you get a +1 to each of those skills. For 10 pts, you get a +2 to each skill, for 15 pts, you get a +3 to each skill. Buying them up individually would be : 8 Pts for a +1 to each, 16 pts for a +2, and 32 pts for a +3.

That talent is awesome for a pilot...

Don't get me wrong, I'm going to take it either way! if I switch to the pilot version

I guess I was just a little disappointed because most of the 5 point talents have 6 skills... I stopped at 5 in the version I asked for because I do recognize you're covering a fair bit of territory with some of those skills, but only half as many skills as are usually in one talent seemed a little low?

Most talents don't have 3 skills with multiple specializations, and Pilot and gunner are two of the biggest lists of specialization in the book. Only Electronics has more.

Does very beautiful 15 pts stack with charisma? If it does I will chuck combat reflexes like a hot potatoe

Depends on the situation. And you already have 'very beautiful', if you chuck combat reflexes, I'd split the points between more charisma (which is useful in more istuations than appearance is) and more skill points/skills.

Here is the current Iban, I would love some feedback.

Questions :
Mind Probe : -30% Contact Agent : What is this contact agent? You spit on them?

(Talent) Engineered Interrogator [10]:Detect Lies, Intelligence Analysis/TL8, Interrogation, Law (Home Quanta), Law (Homeline), Psychology (Human) : You don't break law down, law is the base skill. It applies to all Law specialties.

Talent Telepathy? What is this? What's it doing?

Why do you have Whip twice?

What does everyone think combat reflexes or no?

There's an old rule of thumb in GURPS. "If you are in a firefight, something has gone wrong." Not saying that Combat Reflexes aren't useful, but you generally want to avoid gun combat in GURPS.

Oh. I never intend for it to be a fight. :P

I wanted the mind probe to be Touch only, but on re-reading it already is. It looks like I need to free up 8 points.

Telepathy Talent from the psionics section, +1 to rolls with things that have the Telepathy Tag.

I liked the Idea of knowing how to use a real whip, and while they don't exist in Homeline I liked the idea of knowing how to use a force whip. but I do need to find 8 points.

Ok mdt please remove combat reflexes and give me one more version of Mei.

@GM- I never saw an answer to either of my questions... is it too late to make (significant) changes to our characters? And, do you have a preference between the original Thom posted in the alias- primarily a computer hacker/secuity guy with some secondary repair skills and tertiary piloting ability and Major Andrews posted in the spoiler below- a decorated pilot and active Air Force officer attached to Infinity for mission support?

PS- feedback on which version the other players like better would be appreciated as well...

@Thom - I think the second one is a better pilot/soldier. I think the first one was more unique. :P I think you should play the one you like better.

Mei

@Thom - I think the second one is a better pilot/soldier. I think the first one was more unique. :P I think you should play the one you like better.

lol- i like them both...

Reminds me of the red-eye flight I used to take to Seattle back in the 2000's on Sunday night.

Flight attendant : If the oxygen masks come down, and you are travelling with children, affix your own before affixing theirs. If you're travelling with more than one child, decide which one you like best, and affix theirs second, then on in descending order.

@GM- I never saw an answer to either of my questions... is it too late to make (significant) changes to our characters? And, do you have a preference between the original Thom posted in the alias- primarily a computer hacker/security guy with some secondary repair skills and tertiary piloting ability and Major Andrews posted in the spoiler below- a decorated pilot and active Air Force officer attached to Infinity for mission support?

No, it is not too late to make changes. You can alter them up until the start of the first mission. I have no preference, both are good characters. Like mdt said, you should play the one that YOU like. Whatever would be the most entertaining for you.