Steve Jackson Games GURPS – Generic Universal RolePlaying System

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9. Supers

9.1 Are there any adventures available for GURPS Supers?

Yes. GURPS Supers Adventures is a book of four adventures. Other GURPS Supers adventure supplements exist: "Deathwish," by Loyd Blankenship, is a 32-page adventure book, as is "School of Hard Knocks," by Aaron Allston. Note that these were written for first-edition Supers rules, so some work is needed to use them with Supers, 2nd Edition. "Aces Abroad," by Kevin Andrew Murphy is a GURPS Wild Cards adventure supplement.

There is also a 5-page Supers mini-adventure in IST Kingston, published by Modern Myth, set in Jamaica of the IST world.

9.2 What does Invulnerability to "Any Kinetic Damage" protect against?

It only applies against damage caused by macroscopic physical objects impacting with your body: collision and falling damage, blows, projectiles and so on. Although heat is "kinetic" in a physical sense, this is not how the word is being used here.

9.3 Ablative DR.

Here's a capsule review of the problem: Attacks that don't penetrate ablative DR cannot reduce it; therefore, by taking an extremely high ablative DR, one can almost completely eliminate the likelihood of ablation occurring - making it as good as regular DR. However, the "Ablative" limitation makes DR very cheap, so it is very easy to obtain a huge DR in the first place. Moreover, even when ablative DR is penetrated, it absorbs damage for the character, effectively doing double duty as Extra Hit Points. This makes ablative DR quite a bargain!

The solution is to scrap the existing rules and use the ablative DR rules from the latest revision of GURPS Robots instead. Under those rules, every 10 points of damage inflicted by an attack removes one point of DR, regardless of whether or not it penetrated DR. This DR has a -15% limitation - just as in Robots - and "heals" at the same rate as lost HT. Characters who want their DR to regenerate more quickly may take Regeneration.

9.4 How does Morph work?

You assume only the exterior physical appearance of whatever you Morph into; you gain none of that form's special senses, movement abilities, et cetera, unless they are purely an effect of body shape. For instance, a super in the shape of a snake could slither; one in the shape of a bird could fly (if he were light enough). These are issues of shape. On the other hand, most special abilities - unusual senses, venom, et cetera - require special internal organs or adaptations that Morph cannot provide.

9.5 How does Super Weapons work?

If I make a Super weapon and buy it at a certain skill level from base 12, does my Attributes and/or advantages influence the roll I need to make to fire it?

Canonically, no. But you could just record a relative skill level (DX+4 or whatever) and use the wielder's DX to determine the effective skill. Sharpshooters would gain an instant benefit from the Accuracy enhancement, but that is all.

Does the Super weapons automatically get the Instantaneous power?

Nope. If you make a gadget without giving the power Instantaneous, then it really does take a turn of concentration to activate.

Would it be legal to buy only the Super Power for the weapon as a Super Item, and have the related Super Skill learned by the character?

I would allow it, personally. It makes a lot of sense to me.

Source: Dr.Kromm


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