The Energon Pub

Yeah first new topic!

Anyway I never saw a answer to my last question from the last thread. Reposting just in case.
Do you have the GURPS character assistant program? If so I can send my files to you or I could just post the info here. Now that I think about it that may be better because then others may give thier 2 cents.

Which I'll do this weekend at some point.

Can't help you, but I gotta say I tried doing a write up for Soundwave with GURPS and it was tremendously time consuming - so many abilities to begin with, and GURPS brings up many more that are just as approp. I think he wound being a 2500 pt character, or near that! I think I prefer the more simplified and condensed BESM rules to handle TF's best. I would like a more clarified version of Savage Worlds to try with too. Food for thought.

G

At the moment my basic Cybertronian templant is about 800 points, my basic Car Autobot templant being about 1000 and the Seeker templant being about 1300. And that's keeping in mind that the Autobots and Decepticons on the Arc were elites ,so they would be much higher point characters, so yeah 2500 for Soundwave sounds about right to me.
It's involving alot of advantages but many of them are stuff that is semi background.

Ok ,I'm mainly baseing this off of the Dreamwave comics esp the War Within storylines. They are currently my favorite vrs. of TF. I came to the realization early on that I had to keep to one vrs and run with it. I am taking the tack that TF are mechanical being that sort of mimics organic beings. They feel pain , can "bleed" to death ect.

This is a basic Cybertronian Templant, before the points for custumization and remembering that the Autobots as we know them and the Decepticons are upgraded to various amounts for war.

Str 55 (puts max lift at about 2.5 tons)
uping HP to 100 (ten times a humans base, HP goes into multiples of your HP before getting knocked out ,dying ect)
Base mv 10. (which puts them about 2times a humans walking speed.
Fatige points:20 (twice human, see the energon stuff at bottom)
Advantages
absolute timing
DR 60 semiablative (so every 10 points of damage destroy 1 point of DR untill repaired, so small damages will slowing do damage, an M-16 will damage thier armor but is EXTREMELY unlikely to do real damage)
Digital mind (so they can be transfered to different body, inherent computer)
Doesn't breath, eidetic memory, Vision from infrared to ultra violet, lightning calculator (player can use a calculator), Pressure support 1 (function on continental sea floor and reverse w/o any issues), divide radiation by 5, ultra/sub sonic speech/hearing, built in radio (w/ digital mind allows downloading), telescopic vision 2 (modern scopes are = to 4),
temp tolerence 15 (roughly 200 degree comfort range),unageing, vaccum support
injury tolorence-unliving (mechanically just changes certain damage types to being less exasgerated.
microscopic vision 1 (X10 mag)
occasional sleep (required downtime every 3 days ,instead of 1 as default for system, personally made up)
Immune to metabolic disorders (bends, motion sickness ect)
Unkillable 1 vul. spark/laser core/personality matrix (basically means that they don't die untill they take 5 times thier HP ,body destroyed, or if a vital hit destroys the spark.
Universial Translator (it bypasses the what language they speak and makes sence with either major creation myth, and the way I built it they can only do 1 language at a time)


Disadvantages
No wealth (system assumes a money system0
electrical (ignore name, it means that ion type weapons affect them)
Unhealing total (any actual HP damage must be repaired ,assuming self repair functions fixing normal wear and tear)


Energon
Retricted diet (energon)
only regain FP while "eating"

basically I'm using the normal FP system to represent energon , because the fuel system for robots makes them recharge every so often (set times) no matter how much or little they do in that time period.

After you get the details worked out, could you not give all players a transformers racial package for free and let them build their individual abilities using a more manageable amount of points. Build the basic minibot with no bells or whistles, no special abilities, and no perks. Then call that baseline, give it to your players for free. In this package, you will already have defined what a transformer is, at least on the racial level. Then provide points for the players to customize their characters, make the upgrades they want to create a character they can play and enjoy.

Effectively that is what I'm doing. Technically the players will have over 1000 points to build thier char. but about 800 or so will be going to the racial templant, so really they will have about 300 points to build thier character, get his skills/schickes ect. I want to get the templant worked out without heavy interest in point total because the players will have the same amt to customize thier char. no matter how much/little the racial templant costs. Actually if it gets real expensive I may give them a little more to custimize.

Any problems with the rough templant as is though?

I need to get home and reference my gurps books before I can be of any help, can't do much from work. However, everything sounds good so far.

How much damage can a transformer heal up with out being repaired, assuming he had enough energy? Does Gurps have any provisions for different forms. More armor in dino mode, faster in car mode? Cyberlink for computer connections? I really need to read my books before I ask more. thanks, thundermace

This looks very interesting to me, just found it the other day.

http://www.angelfire.com/ak4/ratman/TFRPG.html

As is they can not heal at all except the background healing of they don't require routine maintance. However they can perform first aid (Cough, Cough repair ) on themselves. To my knowledge the self repair to the point of human style healing is a beast wars additiion (they are technologically more advanced).

Cyberlink -having digital mind and Telecommunications allows them to download programs ect.

I'm planning on doing the alt modes as Shapechange (alternate form-racial) it tech. is for when an entire race changes into the same form ,but I figure a race that all of them shapechange fits as well. Basically you make another "racial" templant to represent the alt mode ,you lose anything from the base racial templant so anything you want in both forms you have to buy over again. But anything not in the racial templant carries over to both forms, like Mirage's invisiblity or Hound's holos.
It basically come up to about 15 pts for each alt form plus however much the alt mode "racial" templant exceeds the base one. Example from the book forest gnome racial templant 25 pts. ,they can all turn into a brown bear 125 pts. So the cost is 15 +(125-25)=115. But with the raw cost of cybertronian templant most alt modes will cost 15 points.

I'm thinking about putting costs FP on the shapechange (but that makes it last one minute, maybe I can figure a cost to switch but not to stay in it) and reduceing the time to shift (defaults to 10 seconds) I think most TF change in more like 4 or 5 and the Battle chargers shift in ...what .86 seconds?

I looked at the above link. It's an iteresting system. As far as I can tell END is only used to determine max energon capacity. And I don't like how energon expenidure is dermined. Other than that I may try it.

So change the END rules to better match your needs. Explain it to your players. I'm sure they will understand and agree for the need to change a few rules or procedures to better fit the game and you don't want to reinvent the wheel by making an entirely new system. I say change the rule and run a few play tests to make sure it works the way you think it should. It is all about having fun, not fighting with the rules.

True ,true. But one of my players is gripping about learning a new system. I don't know, sigh.

If they want to play, then they will learn the system. Besides, many rpg systems contain universal elements that make it easier to learn new systems.

Sort of ,I'm the one who wants that do this game the most ,most of the guys in my game group are willing but not as ready to go as I am.

Besides I have other issues with it too. It was written back in the '80s and has alot of conventions that aren't used anymore for good reason. For instance you add your stat, skill, and eq bonus (built in or not) ,then comsult a chart. This chart tells you how many and of what kind of dice you roll. Nobody does this kind of stuff anymore for good reason ,it's really annoying. The rules are assumeing that you are basically playing a Battletech style game with some roleplaying thrown in and has some wierdness in movement and energon consumption because of that.

I think I'm going to go with GURPS, the guys at the Steve Jackson forum gave me an idea about scale shifting. It bypasses the things I have had the most issue with Str, balanceing DR and damage. And since noone has made comments other than those things I guess I'm good.

Can you post what you learned from steve jackson's people regarding scaling. I managed to dig out my gurps books and did some reading between bouts of shoveling snow and chopping firewood. If it requires too much, don't worry about it but I'm interested in learning how you take a system built for humans and scaled it up for giant killer robots. I have a small, infrequent, group of players that would love to get into a TF RPG. As I have the basic set, the ultra tech, and the supers set, we could get to town with some serious cool stuff. Have you solved the "How much can I lift," question? Thanks

Basically you set the "average" str to be 10 and set an "average" str of say 1 for a "normal" scale char. You then set DR and weapon damage based on that. I'm keeping movement on the normal scale but the book that involves this "Bunnies and Burrows" ,going the oposite way with the scale, does speed too.

Also anything on a lower scale has to be really big to hurt and you just ignore anything else. So vehicle mounted .50 cal weapons can think about hurting them ,but the TF would have to be just standing there letting them shoot him or have ALOT of guns fireing at him to be in any real danger. You fudge things alot when dealing with different scales.

What I did was build the templant for what I saw as the basic stuff every TF should have and zero it out. So the "average" TF is 0 points on this scale. I have makeing 3 autobot and 2 decepticon templants that have the TF templant added (zeroed out) with what I think all of that type should have.

Autobot templants Car (prowl, jazz, wheeljack)
"Van" (Ironhide, Rachet, Inferno)
minibot (bumblebee, huffer, gears)
Decepticon templants Seeker
"tank" (basically any armored land vehical)

There are obviously members of each group with templants of the other ,but to encourage the players to keep to alt mode type that tend to be in each faction I am doing it this way. Making these racial templant for each faction gives them a noticable discount on the alt mode due to the way I'm building them. So they don't have to take "normal" alt modes but I'm counting on gamer min-maxing to keep most of them there.

I would like some input on the Faction racial templants and will elaborate on them more ,but I need to get to class.

If you have the character builder program I can send the file to you by email.

I'm working on downloading the program now. I can't do it at work because of security settings and I only have dial up at home, it may take some time.

thundermace_2000@yahoo.com

Car Autobot
Normal Cybertronian with DR and hardpoints on shoulders. Normal alt mode is a non-armed land vehicle.

"Van"
Slightly bigger. The DR has some hardening. Has built-in tools. Tend to have training in technical jobs or emergency work. (Doctor, civil engineer, fire fighter)

Minibot
much smaller. Weaker (on ave), noticably more energon effiencent.


Decepticon "tank"
noticably bigger, stronger, slower movement rate, high DR with hardening.

Seeker
Well everyone know this one.

Any ideas?

Leader class characters will be popular, Optimus Prime, Megatron, Soundwave, Jetfire, Grimlock etc... But that may be for later.

I understand that not all characters are equal in terms of physical power, but all pc characters should be equal in terms of points, at least in the beginning. So, does it cost more to choose an autobot car racial package than a minibot one? Example, autobot car starting characters have an additional 400 points to spend on skills and other things while minibots, while limited in size and some physical stats, may have more skill points or some other off set. What are your thoughts?

The templants will cost points so more expensive templants take a bigger chunk out of your points. So the slightly less expensive minibot templant allow them to have more points in other things.

I don't see "leader types" as a racial templant ,a templant maybe but racial templants influence the cost of alt modes. I'm using racial templants to influence players into playing character of simular types to the bulk of the Autobots (or Decepticons). Though maybe I could come up with a Leader templant for the autobots... Optimus, Ultra Max, the leader of the Protectobots and I'm sure there are others. They are bigger ,stronger and don't have built in tools. Hmmm.

I may take the faction limit off of the templants to an extent and make it an unusual background to be a cross faction templant. Most of the Dinobots defintly would count as a "tank" templant ,just fairly high point ones with some extra stuff like mouths. I mean what is Slag but a flame tank with a ram that walks?

I'm sorry it's taking so long to get those files to you but my home internet is being wierd. Will get them to you soon.

Time is not a big deal regarding the files. I don't yet have the application to open them. Thanks though