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Highlander Immortal R.C.C.
By Brisco, some elements based on "GURPS Highlander," written by Mark Chase.
This conversion is based on the Highlander universe (as of right now all I have seen is the first movie and some of the TV series, and a couple episodes of the Raven). I will update this as I see more.
"I am Duncan MacLeod, born 400 years ago in the highlands of Scotland. I am immortal, and I am not alone. For centuries we have waited for the time of the Gathering, when the stroke of the sword and the fall of a head will release the power of the Quickening. In the end, there can be only one."
-Duncan MacLeod
Immortals have the power of the Quickening. It gives them their powers. It calls them to combat. It pulls them to the Gathering. In the end, there can be only one.
The Quickening is what gives an immortal their immortality. There is Quickening in everything. But immortals have more Quickening than everyone else. When an immortal dies, his Quickening exits his body violently, shorting out all nearby (2D6x10 yards) and rendering them useless. An immortal senses another immortal (the buzz) by sensing his large amounts of Quickening.
Holy Ground
The immortal code of honor does not allow them to fight on holy ground. This covers holy ground of any religion.
The Gathering
The Gathering is when there are few immortals remaining, and they are drawn together to fight for the Prize. The winner of the Gathering, the last remaining immortal, wins the Prize. The winner undergoes the Great Quickening (as is Highlander 1), and then has the Prize
The Prize
The prize is what the last remaining immortal wins. No one knows what it is. It is believed that once an immortal wins the Prize, he could rule the universe.
Swords
Because immortals fight with swords, they need to have a good one. Any sword that an immortal uses automatically does mega-damage in their hands (for example, an immortal picks up a typical sword that does 1D6 SDC. In his hands, the weapon does 1D6 MDC). Many immortals use rune swords. If an immortal is psionic, he will often use a psi-sword. Typical damage for an immortal's sword should be between 1D6 MDC and 2D6x10 MDC.
Immortal Combat
When immortals fight, the goal is for one to cut the other's head off. To do this, they must make a called shot to the neck (-3 to strike). For the head to be cut off, it must take half of the immortal's MDC. (example: Mike the immortal is fighting Ted the immortal. Mike has 50 MDC. Ted hits Mike's neck and does 20 MDC. Mike now has a large gash in his neck, but he is still alive. The next time Ted hits Mike's neck, he does 5 MDC. Mike is now dead, because Mike's neck has taken half of Mike's MDC in damage.)
However, for an immortal to be beheaded, he must be disarmed, incapacitated, restrained, or slipped up in some way. Otherwise, he will always have a parry (won't run out of attacks), and his neck won't be able to be severed.
Immortal Powers
1.) PPE Stuff: Immortals start with 5D6 PPE at level one, and gain 3D6 per level. They also get +4 to save vs PPE being stolen. They also regain their used PPE at a rate of twice the normal rate.
2.) Immortal Abilities: The immortal has certain psionic abilities. Instead of using ISP to use them, they use PPE.
Bio-Manipulation: spend PPE instead of ISP.
Bio-Regeneration (Super)*: spend PPE instead of ISP.
3.) Immortality: An immortal is immortal (duh). This does not mean that he can not take any damage. He still takes damage, and will still die when he reaches 10 hit points below zero. His body will then take damage forever and ever. He will automatically Bio-Regenerate until his hit points are up to zero when he will "wake up." He will then have to regenerate more to be fully healed. An immortal's immortality is given to him from the Quickening. Immortals die from having their head's cut off, which releases their Quickening. This is why immortals fight with swords.
4.) The Quickening: An immortal's Quickening is his PPE. When an immortal is beheaded, his Quickening exits his body in a violent fashion, shorting out all electronics. When an immortal is killed, the winning immortal, if he is of a higher level, gets some of the other's PPE. Remember that a person's PPE is doubled at the time of death. To find out how much, find the difference from the loser's PPE (doubled because of death) to the winner's, and divide it by 4 ((loser's PPE - winner's PPE) / 4). The winner gets this amount of PPE. As another bonus, do the same thing with experience points, except divide the difference by 5 instead of 4.
5.) The Buzz: An immortal receives a "buzzing" sensation in their brains when they are within 2D6x10 yards of each other. Immortals can also sense holy ground at this distance. Immortal's range to sense each other is extended to 2D8x50 while on holy ground.
6. Code of Honor: The immortals' code of honor is very simple. Rule 1: No fighting on holy ground. Rule 2: Immortals are only to be killed by a sword. Rule 3: Combat is only to be one on one. This means that once an immortal starts fighting another immortal, no one else can interfere. This code of honor is never broken by any immortals.
7. Ancient Immortals: If an immortal character kills an ancient immortal (1000 years or over) who has an extreme alignment (principled or diabolic), the character must make a saving throw vs possession, at a difficulty of 18. If he fails this roll, he takes on this attribute. The character may try this saving throw again once per level of advancement to return to his original alignment.
8. Sterile: Immortals can not have children.
9. Secret: It is an immortal's duty to keep his secret of immortality from the public. An immortal can tell a close friend or spouse, but that is about as far as it goes.
10. Unaging: Immortals do not age after their first death. They will look the same age for the rest of their lives. Take note of the immortal's real age and apparent age.
11. Charge Sword: If the immortal uses a physical sword (not Psi-sword), he may use some of his Quickening to charge the sword and make it do more damage. (This is what the sparks flying from the swords in the series and movie) The level of bonuses to the damage depends on the amount of Quickening used. Use the table below. This can only be performed once per day up to level 8, and only twice after that. The effects last for four melee's.
PPE Bonus
10 +1D6
20 +2D6
30 +3D6
40 +4D6
50 +5D6
60 +6D6
12. Breath Water/Earth: Immortals can breath under water and they can draw air from the earth, thus they cannot drown or die of suffocation from being buried.
13. Animal Powers: Immortals can gain special abilities from using their Quickening in conjunction with animal aura's. They can sense the animals when they are within 2D8x50 yards of them. The powers listed below are invoked by expending 15 PPE and being within range of the corresponding animal. Effects last for one hour.
-Stag (or other related beast): doubles Spd and it takes them twice as long as normal to tire.
-Bear (or other large, strong beast): Doubles PS and PE.
-Eagle: Doubles MA.
-Fish (or any other swimming sea creature): Triple swimming speed and automatic success on all swimming rolls.
-Cat (or other feline): Character has night-vision. This ability lasts until it is light again.
-Bull (or other pack animal): Doubles ME.
-Monkey: Allows fast climbing and automatic success on climbing rolls.
14. Holy Ground: The immortals' code of honor will not let them fight on holy ground. This is because of a practical reason: that both parties will lose Quickening after a head is taken. In game terms, when an immortal's head is taken on holy ground, he is dead as normal. However, the winning immortal does not get any of his PPE or experience points. Instead, he loses 10% of his experience points, and permanently loses 10% of his PPE. So fighting on holy ground is not a good idea.
15. *Bio Regeneration: An immortal will Bio-Regenerate as to the Bio-Regeneration (Super) ability. Any scars that are not on the neck will heal. And if an immortal has a body part, except for the head, he can re-attach it. This must be done within 1D6 hours of the time when it was cut off, and is accomplished by holding the extremity to where it was cut off, and expending 10 PPE.
16. Bonus vs horror factor: Immortals get a +4 bonus to save vs horror factor at level 5.
17. Ley Lines: An immortal's range of sensing immortals is doubled when he is on a ley line, and quadrupled when he is at a nexus. His PPE is also temporarily doubled while at a ley line, quadrupled at a nexus. The immortal has the following abilities involving ley lines, stemming from their PPE:
None of these abilities cost any PPE.
-Sense ley line: The immortal is able to sense ley lines at 10 mile per level of experience. He can tell weather it is near or far, and he can locate ley lines at 30% + 5% per level.
-Sense ley line nexus: Once an immortal is on a ley line, he can sense the nexus points at 40% + 5% per level.
-Sense rift: Immortals can sense rifts opening, at a distance of 50 miles per level. He can tell if it is near or far, and if it is big or small.
-Sense magic: An immortal can sense a mage at 2D6x10 yards, unless the mage is using an aura altering ability.
-An immortal can sense magic being used, with a rage of 100 feet per level. He will only know that magic is being used in this range, nothing more.
Race Restrictions: Almost any species can become immortal. The only restriction is that the species have one definite head (no two-headed immortals and no no-headed immortals).
OCC Restrictions: Immortals can be almost any OCC. The only restriction is that they cannot be Juicers of any kind.
Attribute Requirements: ME of 12 or higher. A high PP and PE are recommended but not required.
RCC Skills:
Recognize Weapon Quality (+10%)
Lore: (one of choice at +15%)
WP (one of choice)
WP Sword
RCC Related Skills: Choose 12 other skills, plus two more at every level starting at level three. All new skills start at level one proficiency.
Communications: Any
Domestic: Any (+5%)
Electrical: Any
Espionage: Any (+10%)
Mechanical: Any
Medical: Any (+5% to First aid and Holistic medicine.)
Military: Any
Physical: Any (+5% where applicable)
Pilot: Any
Pilot related: Any
Rogue: Any (+10% to all but Computer hacking.)
Science: Any
Technical: Any
WP: Any
Wilderness: Any (+5%)
Secondary Skills: The character also gets to select 10 secondary skills from the previous list, although without the bonuses listed in parenthesis.
Experience Points: Use the experience point table listed below:
1 0,000-3,000
2 3,001-5,000
3 5,001-10,000
4 10,000-20,000
5 20,001-30,000
6 30,001-50,000
7 50,001-80,000
8 80,001-120,000
9 120,001-170,000
10 170,001-230,000
11 230,001-300,000
12 300,001-380,000
13 380,001-470,000
14 470,001-600,000
15 600,001-800,000
(this is quoted directly from GUPRS Highlander, by Mark Chase (mchase@cdc.net):
LopFest 2000
And How to Avoid it
A big problem with a game such as GURPS Highlander is that
it can easily become a hack and slash game. Kill immortals, get
more powerful. Pick on mortals, cause havoc, and kill more
immortals to get more power to do more of the same. Welcome to
LobFest 2000: Where both the character and the player loses his
head.
To keep this from happening, the GM must be ready with a
good, strong game plot, lots of characterization and NPCs
(mortals and immortals) to interact with, not hack with.
Watching two or three TV episodes should show what I mean by
this. In a typical episode, several good immortals get together
to solve a problem. Perhaps a bad immortal is after one of them,
as is the case most of the time, or it could be something else
entirely. An investigative reporter is on their trial looking
for a story, a sleuth has traced a chain of decapitation murders
to one of the PCs. A mystical item has been discovered by some
mortals (or yes, an evil immortal) and the PCs have to get it or
destroy it. The PCs finds one of his old priceless possessions
which was stolen a hundred years ago in a museum and he and the
rest of the gang go out to steal it back. And so on. There are
thousands of none-hack-and-slash possibilities.
Another problem is the one-on-one combat rule. If there are
five players, this means, to be fair, there must be five one-on-
one combats against evil immortals in each adventure so that the
PCs will gain power at about the same rate. This is obviously
not possible. It would make the game purely hack and slash, and
eventually boring.
There should be only one, two at the very max, immortal
combats per game, if any at all (none is really best). One
character will have a combat in one game. The next game when it
is time to fight the evil immortal, a different character will
step forward to fight. Then, the next game, the next character
will engage in the immortal combat. Of course, if one of the PCs
is killed, the next PC (if he is around, which he should not be!)
will have to fight that immortal, either in that game or an
upcoming one. It is perfectly fine to let the bad guy go, of
course.
During a one-on-one combat, the other players should not be
around, though they can be. A single immortal will not attack a
group of immortals, because even if he fights them one-on-one, he
will eventually get worn down. If the group shows up, the bad
guy will probably run away. A weaker PC immortal may be nearby
if the bad guy sees him as insignificant.
As always, it is incredibly important to keep the PCs from
becoming power hungry. The best way to do this is let them each
take some heads to get their power up, but put them on more down
to earth (or wherever) adventures. Keeping their secret is
always an adventure.