C31R07 (AKA the Killbot Turned Budhist) as a Pilot rather than a War Machine

One of the favorite Iconic characters in the back of the Gurps:Characters book is C31R07, a high tech robot programmed for war that discovered a noble streak and ran away to join a Buddhist monastery. His story is fun, his character engaging, and his point cost prohibitive. His point cost is described as 'Godlike'. C31 is tough, but he isn't godlike.

I think this is because he's using points in a setting where everyone else uses gear. His highest point advantages aren't those that define who he is or his skills, they're just his gear. I'm fond of building characters with gear rather than points, so I'm going to convert him.

If you just want to see the result, skip to here. This article is about the process and the why I made the changes I did.

Invasion of the Hawfax: Hawfax City

The capital of Hawfax civilization, Hawfax City is a shining paradise where about half of all Hawfax live, as well as a substantial number of humans. Hawfax is among the most alien places on earth. Its also one of the most important: the decisions made in the city affect the rest of the world just as much as those in London or Paris. Adventurers in the Hawfax universe hoping to make a difference will eventually make their way to the capital!

Vasic Stones: Combative Transportation

Vasic Stones can do a lot. They can bring stuff to you, change the nature of the universe around you, and even transport you anywhere you need to go. Larry Niven once said that if you have receiverless teleportation (which vasic stones has) you will have a short war.

This article is about how Vasic Transport Stones can effect others in the void, and how to fight back against that. This article should be considered an extension of Vasic Stones: Transportion, and builds upon the rules given there.

Vasic Stones: Teleporation

Vasic Stones are all about moving things from place to place, be it energy, matter, or properties of the universe. But the pinnacle of  their use is teleportation. This uses the largest stones and skilled navigators.

Simple Alchemy

This is a system of alchemy made for low to limited magic systems. It intentionally doesn't have the breadth of ability that you fill find in something like the alchemy section of GURPS: Magic. Instead, it focuses on poisons and other simple body-oriented changes.

These items may appear to be quite cheap. Its worth noting that most of them require an alchemist on the site to use for best effect, and that all of them are consumable: they are used once and then they are gone.

More emphasis is placed in this system on how alchemists interact with each other than on the effects an alchemist can make. It's about preparing antidotes, masking attacks, and interacting with the alchemy of your foes in ways other than simply countering the effects

Death Magic as a Power

Sometimes your dark mage is a necromancer, and sometimes he just likes playing around with death. In either case, he needs the power of death magic. This is perhaps the most combat oriented power imaginable -- the only thing you cause with it is death.

Costs ER as a Cost Reduction

My greatest frustration with 'costs FP' is that it reduces a set percentage of the ability cost, no matter how large or how small. This makes spending the FP for cheap abilities, like a minor attack, almost prohibitive in cost, while costs FP on something like jumper is nearly a point crock, particularly if you have lots of points to spend on an energy reserve. A lot of attention is placed on how small of a discount costs FP gives in the first place, but the real issue is that costs FP doesn't care about how many points the ability cost in the first place.

For example, Sardon half-demon has 3 levels of telescopic vision, but he has to draw on his unholy power to use them. This costs 3 ER. Sardon's ability is Telescopic Vision 3 (costs 3 FP per minute -15%) [13]. He only saved 2 points on this ability, which normally costs 15 character points. And he has to pay 3 FP each time he uses an ability he paid almost full price for. Elidoran the elf can slip between worlds, but it costs him 1 FP. His Jumper (costs 1 FP -5%) [95] is a solid 5 points under what he would have paid without spending FP. Is that price wrong? probably not, but Elidoran gets a 5 CP discount from spending 1 fatigue point while Sardon got a 2 point discount from spending 3 fatigue points. Its not worth it for Sardon. Why? because FP cost CP. Sardon's player and the fluff would like to just buy more ER to reflect growing closer to his demon roots. but it costs more to buy a single point of ER than to remove the limitation on telescopic vision.

This is a limitation on player concepts. They are told what they want to do is expensive, when it really shouldn't be. Its not about munchkinry, its about making wizards limited mainly by the energy pool viable.

Having identified this problem, I will now fix it: