AMPLIF

YBy DakkaBoyzRool, AKA that cunt who sometimes thinks he has any idea how GURPS works.

GURPS is one of the most versatile systems I have ever seen in operation, capable of everything
from scantily-clad busty barbarians to massive stellar armadas, from multiversal travel to
adventuring bunnies and from accurate medieval economic models to sentient blueberry muffins.
However, I have found that GURPS has struggled with very high power levels; with planets and
mountains having HP in the ranges of hundreds of thousands to many millions it's hard to model
planet-busters such as the characters in Dragonball Z accurately without rolling an unfeasible
amount of dice and having to have multiple sheets of paper handy to write out current HP values, let
alone truly cosmic- or diety-level beings. (Admit it, everyone's thought about how Cthulhu would
do in a fistfight with Galactus at least once in their lives.)

There is a system in GURPS: Supers for calculating massive damage using Super Effort,
however that system still requires keeping track of massive numbers and points costs which many
people will quickly tire of after a session or two. I have found the most workable solution would be
to “squish” the numbers down into different Power Scales, similar to the decade-scale used in
GURPS: Spaceships; only with the scales reaching, far, far higher into the millions and billions,
then quadrillions and quintillions, until you start getting into the multiples of infinity and maybe
start thinking of toning it down just a tad. (Or not, if roleplaying as Abrahamic dieties is something
your gaming group is into.) For example, working off page 235 of Supers, the Earth has around
1.88 billion HP in normal-scale GURPS. In the American system of reckoning large numbers, a
billion is a thousand millions, so on the million-scale the Earth has 1,880 HP; still a very large
amount, but still within the realms of reason for a party of high-powered would-be world-enders to
try to destroy. On the billion-scale, however, the Earth would only have 2 HP rounded; it would be
barely a speedbump to these beings as they go on to punch minor cosmic deities or whatever.

Most beings exist on only one Power Scale at a time, and pretty much utterly curbstomp
anything on lower Power Scales to them without even trying as they get annhilated by beings on
higher Power Scales to them in turn. The different Power Scales almost never properly interact with
each other however, the same as you never register bits of dust floating in the air unless you actively
search for them and can't see molecules and atoms at all unless you use extremely high-powered
observational equipment to do so. A being on a different Power Scale than you does not merely
have a higher “Power Level” or equivelent than you; it is on a level far above your very
understanding, so far off the charts that any attempt to fight it would only result in your instant
excruciating demise. (Of course you could always drop Yog-Sothoth onto your players and tell them
to have fun.)

Most beings that exist on a certain Power Scale tend to stay on that Power Scale with
occasional brief forays into the ones on either side, but many also have the ability to change their
Power Scale by “Powering” up or down either at will or with certain conditions. Modelling this in-
game and keeping it balanced can be complicated, as there's not much challenge in a fight if your
PCs can just power up and flick the threat into the stratosphere. If you do this, make sure to give
their enemies this ability as well so even if they change their Power Scale they will still be a
reasonable challenge to them. Or you could pull a Dragonball and have each enemy be
progressively stronger and stronger, and having the PCs have each Power Scale as different “Final
Forms” that they can only use for a limited time until it inexplicably becomes their new base form
and they get a nifty new haircut.

But with these characters' massive increase in speed, strength and durability, there doesn't
always seem to be that much increase in other areas such as sight or general intelligence; I belive
that while some things are amplified others are left pretty much as they are. For these characters, I
suggest a new Advantage: Amplify. When you take this Advantage, you must choose at least one
and up to as many as you like from a Basic Attribute, Secondary Characteristic, the damage and
affected area from another Advantage/Spell/Psi Power/Attack/Weapon/etc. or a Skill of your choice.
Then you choose the maximum Power Scale that that can reach, and pay the points for it equal to
twice the scale chosen.
E.G.: You take Amplify (ST, Million-Scale). This means that your maximum ST when Amplified is
whatever your ST is times a million in regular scale, but only counts as your regular ST in million-
scale, and costs 2 million points.
So if you want to be able to Amplify all your stats to the maximum of million-scale, it would cost
you 20 million points, not including Striking-ST or Lifting-ST as they would be covered by regular
ST. If you do this, give every player this, and ignore the cost for Amplify as long as everyone's
totals for it as the same and build the rest of your character normally. This lets you play a relaively
normal 450-point character, for example, and still be able to punch gods and other cosmic dieties in
the face for looking at you funny. And if you fight beings from lower or higher Power Scales
because your GM hates you, simply use the lowest Power Scale there and multiply the stronger
being's stats by the difference to find out their stats at your power level; so a being a hundred times
stronger than you but on a different Power Scale would multiply their effective stats by 100 while
fighting you.

However, not every character starts out at this level and their “default” scale may be much
lower than their “combat” scale, and these beings that can change their Power Scales must do so
quite often and this usually takes time. To change your Power Scale then, you must use the
Concentrate maneuver for as many turns as Power Scales you go up or down by from your
“default”. At the end of each turn of concentrating your Power Scale goes up by one. If you are
interrupted during this, you stop concentrating at the Power Scale you moved to at the end of your
last turn and you must make a Will Roll; on a failure, you are considered Mentally Stunned. You
may stop “Powering Up/Down” at any time, and may act normally on the next turn with much more
power in your hands. If you find yourself going to a particular Power Scale often during the
campaign, the GM might consider making that the base Power Scale, with the players assumed to
be starting at that scale for most things. Some beings to do not require multiple turns to fully
“Power Up” and can do so in only one-then the cost of Amplify is five times the maximum scale
rather than twice. Others can do so instantly-Amplify for them costs ten times as much but does not
even require a turn to “Power Up”! Some beings also “Power Up” slower than others (Heh),
requiring five turns to move up one Power Scale. Amplify for them only costs half the maximum
scale they can reach.

Here is a handy list of common Power Scales for use in your planet- and sanity-busting campaigns:

Normal Scale-x1
Decade-Scale-x10
Century-Scale-x100
Millenium-Scale-x1,000
Deca-Millenium-Scale-x10,000
Century-Millenium-Scale-x100,000
Million-Scale-x1,000,000
Billion-Scale-x1,000,000,000
Trillion-Scale-x1,000,000,000,000
Quadrillion-Scale-x1,000,000,000,000,000
Quintillion-Scalex1018
Decillion-Scale-x1033
Googol-Scale-x10100
Googolplex-Scale-x10googol
Infinity-Scale-x∞
Infinity/10-Scale-x∞/10
Infinity/100-Scale-x∞/100
Infinity/1,000-Scale-x∞/1,000

You can go higher, but when you get into multiples of infinity that approach infinity either
something's gone horribly wrong or something's gone horribly right.

Also, having big numbers for stuff and having to do a little bit of maths kind of contradicts what
this was supposed to do, but hey, it's GURPS. This stuff kind of comes with the territory.