GLAIVE Mini: Weapon Builder System for GURPS

Don’t settle for off-the-rack weapons from the local blacksmith. Build your own! T Bone’s Games Diner is proud to present GLAIVE Mini, your super simple, single page weapon builder system for GURPS – now updated to version 2.4! 

The old prototype

The full (non-Mini) GLAIVE (GURPS Light Arms Invention Expansion) for GURPS 3e is a complete design system for low-tech melee and ranged weapons of any shape and size, generating unique thr and sw damage, readying time, Reach, and more, based on the inputs you provide. As you’d expect, though, a universal system like that won’t fit into a short page or few. And while you can mostly use GLAIVE with GURPS 4e, it’s still awaiting complete modernization.

For the simplicity mavens, GLAIVE also offered an alternate system so simplistic as to be almost non-existent, amounting to little more than a suggestion to read weight and damage right off of GURPS‘ Size and Speed/Range Table. But with a little hammering and varnish, that turns out to be a surprisingly useful tool.

Modern steel

That simple core is what I’ve extracted from GLAIVE to create GLAIVE Mini. At its heart remains a single table tying weight to damage, but you now get weapon ST as well. From there you modify damage and ST up or down for simple considerations like unbalance, length, and two hands, and then… well, that’s actually it. A new weapon, built in mere seconds. (The latest version, 2.4, places those mods into logical groups for quicker identification.)

It’s very simple (and similar to building combat skills with COSH). Yet GLAIVE Mini will recreate most existing GURPS weapons with no change to stats (while recreating a few with changes that are arguably improvements). Best of all, like GULLIVER Mini it’s a whole system in one page, with a bonus page offering system customization notes, ideas for handling a couple of oddball weapons, and a fully-developed new goodie for GURPS that even the full GLAIVE barely touches on: semibalanced weapons, great for heavy-chopping machetes, agile polearms, and other all-new instruments of mayhem.

It’s a free PDF download (below) made for GURPS 4e (though you can hammer the rules to fit 3e where necessary). Pick up your blacksmith hammer (i.e., your pencil) and churn out some custom steel!

Is GLAIVE Mini right for you?

Now that you know what GLAIVE Mini is, let me note clearly what it isn’t:

• GLAIVE Mini is not my proposal for an ideal weapon design system for GURPS.
• GLAIVE Mini is designed to recreate existing GURPS weapons (primarily from the Basic Set, with a nod to Low-Tech as well), not to rethink weapon stats from the ground up.

As such, here’s why you might not get big use from it:

• GURPS’ weapon tables are pretty darn packed as they are! Whatever sort of weapon you’re looking for, chances are you’ll find something close in Basic Set or another book.
• While GURPS’ weapon stats were (apparently) generated by the “eyeball it” method of balancing properties, not through some consistent system, they do a pretty good job with consistency! There are some rough spots, but overall it’s hard to find a listed weapon that’s inexplicably inferior, or one so superior within its category that other offerings seem moot. New rules releases generally keep improving things, too. (An example: The Basic Set’s cutlass provides one minor peeve, in that it offers the same goods as a shortsword, plus free brass knuckles, at a lower price and with no drawbacks. Low-Tech nicely remedies this with a higher price for the cutlass.)
• GURPS has been rolling out rules for creating tiny or huge versions of weapons, one of the original omissions GLAIVE sought to fill. GURPS’ rules are squirreled away here and there, and we may have to wait for Basic Set 5E to get them all in one place, but official rules do exist now.
• GLAIVE Mini doesn’t attempt to solve all the oddities and mysteries of GURPS’ weapon offerings. For example, I’m not a fan of how the move from a short unbalanced weapon to a long unbalanced weapon in GURPS generally hits the wielder with a sudden triple whammy: higher required ST, plus a requirement for two hands, plus unreadiness after a swing. GLAIVE Mini doesn’t fix this with a smoother progression for these criteria. Likewise, it doesn’t codify the seemingly-haphazard appearances of the “U” Parry on GURPS weapons, or provide a systematic way to determine a unique design’s usable skills and appropriate defaults to other skills. These, and many other properties, remain something you’ll have to eyeball.
• Generation of weapon cost would be a fine addition to GLAIVE Mini, but that’s not part of the offering now!
• By intentionally trying to replicate existing weapon table stats, GLAIVE Mini is decidedly human-centric. That is, unless you break out GURPS’ separate rules for tiny beings’ weapons, a 0.25-lb. blade using GLAIVE Mini will – just as on GURPS’ tables – inexplicably require a very human ST 5.

All right. That said, here’s why you might find GLAIVE Mini useful after all:

• It remains a fine way to fill in gaps on the GURPS weapon tables. If you want a Pixie’s or Giant’s sword, GURPS’ weapon scaling rules may be your best bet. But if you want, say, a human-scale longsword that’s just a wee lighter or heavier to custom match a given PC’s brawn, GLAIVE Mini lets you create such a design with systematic consistency.
• Likewise, where GLAIVE Mini results do veer a bit from the GURPS weapon tables, you may prefer its results! Redoing your campaign’s weapon table entirely, knowing that all of the listings (as well as any future additions) are generated via a consistent design scheme, is the sort of thing some GMs like.
• The new Semibalanced weapon option is nifty, and is simply right for designs like hard-chopping machetes or agile polearms. Give it a try!
• Even where GLAIVE Mini doesn’t address all the questions to be found in GURPS’ weapon table stats, it does offer a few tools for standardizing things a bit. These include suggestions for handling stat oddities in flails and 1-hnd bastard swords, and the Semibalanced option for reworking other designs that seem a bit out of place.
• As noted earlier, while GURPS does a pretty good job of balancing its myriad weapons in terms of their merits and demerits, a few stand out as perhaps over- or under-powered. GLAIVE-based recreations of the weapons may yield improvements. 

So. If this sort of thing interests you, give GLAIVE Mini a shot!

GLAIVE Mini needs your help!

No amount of time and testing reveal every flaw. Do you spot any design mistakes in GLAIVE Mini? Are there any important considerations left out?

And here’s a good question for you. GLAIVE Mini is built on a reverse engineering of existing GURPS weapons, which is why it can recreate so many of those with no change in stats. Do you see a different set of modifiers and rules that does an even better job of recreating existing weapons?

Thank you. Now go treat your mightiest-thewed character to a real barbarian’s axe.

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Downloads

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Appendix

A mini armory

The PDF download contains several sample weapons. I’ll start listing a few more here.

Hatchet

So, why is the hatchet exempted from Parry 0U? In response to cries of “unfair!” from its less-wieldy Axe/Mace compatriots, let’s knock it at least a little off balance. The Semibalanced mod calls for +1 (sw) Dam Add row…. which still leaves this 2-lb weapon unchanged at damage of sw cut (plus thr cr should you want it) and ST 8. So that’s not exciting, but just a little more weight will get you sw+1… Meanwhile, Parry slows a bit to Parry 0S (but, optionally, still Parry 0 after a thrust). Keeping the skill at Axe/Mace, the hatchet also gains a default from Shortsword at -2.

Now go do the same for the knobbed club (add the Stick mod to get the published stats’ improved damage!) and for the sickle/kama, to get all your Axe/Mace weapons behaving the way they should.

Katar

This “push dagger” knife from Low-Tech and DFRPG would use the Stabber and Thruster mods, for a net +4 (thr), -2 (sw) Dam Add rows. With a weight of 1 lb, that yields damage of thr+1 imp, sw-2 cut and ST 6. Just a little less weight would yield the same thr+1 thr, sw-3 cut of the published stats. Pretty close!

Large Katar

For this Shortsword version of the katar, the only difference from the above is the weight of 2 lbs, yielding final damage of thr+2 imp, sw-1 cut and ST 8 – just what the published stats ordered.

Pata

For this long, Broadsword version of the katar, the 3.75-lb weight from Low-Tech yields final damage of thr+3 imp, sw cut and ST 10 – again, right on the nose.

Kukri

This hard-chopping knife from Low-Tech and DFRPG sounds like a good candidate for a semibalanced weapon. Starting with the Thruster mod prescribed for all knives and adding the Semibalanced and Poor Stabber mods nets +0 (thr), -1 (sw) Dam Add rows. With a weight of 1.5 lbs, that yields damage of thr-1 imp, sw-1 cut and ST 7 – bingo, right on the published stats. Parry suffers a bit, though, becoming Parry 0S. Keep Knife as the main skill; Axe/Mace can be used at -2.

Monk’s Spade

This odd, double-ended Polearm weapon from Low-Tech and DFRPG shares length and heft with the naginata, dueling bill, and dueling glaive, but falls behind its fellows in the damage department. So I’m curious as to whether GLAIVE Mini would treat it more kindly.

The relevant mods start with Center Grip, Two-handed, and Long. Having weights at both ends may give the weapon balance of sorts, but not in the same way as a sword; it’s still a polearm. Let’s try Semibalanced.

The mods net +0 (thr), +1 (sw) Dam Add rows and -4 ST rows. With a weight of 6 lbs, that yields damage of thr+2 cut, sw+3 cut, sw+3 cr and ST 9† (sw ST 9§). It’s a good match for the published stats, except for an improvement from Parry 0U to Parry 0S – and swing damage much better than the published sw+1 cut, sw+2 cr!

Future hacks?

Mod for odd-shaped blades?

GLAIVE Mini arguably improves monk’s spade damage a bit too much. A new mod may be in order, reducing Dam Add rows a bit for the unusual blade shapes of the monk’s spade, combat shovel, scythe, and so on. Something to think about.

About those unbalanced parries…

The above reworking of the hatchet asserts that as a heavy-headed Axe/Mace weapon, the hatchet should have some degree of impaired Parry, not the Parry 0 of a balanced baton or shortsword. To which one might respond, “But wait – even if it’s not a balanced weapon, shouldn’t the hatchet have a normal Parry 0 because it’s so light?” Well, yes, that makes sense to me as the explanation for the seemingly-odd Parry 0 – but “light” means nothing if not in comparison to something (e.g., ST).

You can see where this is going: the “U” Parry is fine as a rule, but I see zero reason why high enough ST in excess of weapon ST shouldn’t lessen or even eliminate the “U” Parry (or my semibalanced “S” Parry). A proper rant can come later. For now, note that if you give all hatchets a properly slowed Parry, but let sufficient extra ST compensate for that, then little fighters with barely the ST to wield a hatchet will suffer the slowed parries, but those with more reasonable ST will get back the Parry 0 that hatchets have (rather unfairly) enjoyed all along. Sensible!

The same will of course apply to the hatchet-like knobbed club and sickle/kama, too. And then even bigger axes – and even polearms. If you’ve got big enough muscles, you’ll be able to overcome any “U” Parry. This is how things should work.

More on that another day, maybe!

More weapons!

I’ll add more GLAIVE Mini designs later – and will add your designs, if you care to submit ’em. In the meantime, if you want lots more new melee weapons, check out GURPS/DFRPG resource: New weapons. The entries there aren’t built using GLAIVE Mini; they’re just shoehorned by feel into the “gaps” in existing weapon tables (e.g., a “medium katar” shoved in between the regular katar and large katar). But you can, of course, try rebuilding those new entries using GLAIVE Mini, and the results should match up pretty well…