D&D 3E/3.5 GURPS 3e vs 4e

[Jürgen Hubert]

I also believe 4e is a substantial improvement over the already great GURPS 3e. Jurgen's pretty much covered all the reasons why.

Well, I could also mention the improved autofire rules (now shotgun damage makes sense!), the reduction and simplification of the different types of damage, the new and improved GURPS Banestorm, the Modular Ability advantage which allows you to do D&D-type spell memorization, and a bunch of other things...

 

[Voadam]

- The whole system has also been reworked so that it works well for more cinematic or high-point games. Characters with 300-400 points shouldn't be too troublesome now.


Really, I think the new edition is just an all-around improvement over the old (which already was pretty good). But if you have more specific questions, don't hesitate to ask!

Could you expand on this point? D&D style games using GURPS was always a little tough with the low GURPS hp IMO.

 

[Kafkonia]

You know, you lot are actually coming close to selling me on buying the new books...

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Could you expand on this point? D&D style games using GURPS was always a little tough with the low GURPS hp IMO.

Well, Extra Hit Points only cost 2 CP/level now. So having characters with lots of hit points is fairly easy now.

But it's now also possible to attack twice per round without sacrificing defense. Sure, this will result in a penalty to your attack roll - but really good sword fighters should be able to manage this. You can also reduce the defense values of your enemy by taking a penalty to your attack roll, making it much harder for mooks to avoid your blows. And Strength is cheaper now (only 10 points/level), so really strong fighter types who dish out lots of damage are viable character builds.

And combat mages get more powerful, too. In 3E, they had to pump up their spells for three turns so that they could cast a Fireball doing 3d6 damage.

In 4E, while they can still pump up missile spells for up to three turns, they now can put a number of energy points into the spell each round equal to their Magical Aptitude. That means that someone with Magical Aptitude 3 could cast a 9d6 Fireball from the start!

And Magical Aptitude now can be increased beyond 3. This not only allows you to cast more powerful missile spells, but also can increase the "upper limit" of non-combat spells as well. With Magical Aptitude 5, for example, you could cast Major Healing for 10 hit points, or a Shield spell for +5 to your Defenses...

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Another change worth mentioning:

Passive Defense is gone. Instead your Defenses are calculated in the following way:

Dodge: 3 + Basic Speed (rounded down)
Parry: 3 + Weapon Skill/2
Block: 3 + Block Skill/2

Makes everything much simpler, and your Defense values don't change depending on which part of your body is attacked...

 

[The Cardinal]

what Jürgen said - and don't forget to buy GURPS Powers!!!!!

 

[Karl Green]

Another change worth mentioning:

Passive Defense is gone. Instead your Defenses are calculated in the following way:

Dodge: 3 + Basic Speed (rounded down)
Parry: 3 + Weapon Skill/2
Block: 3 + Block Skill/2

Makes everything much simpler, and your Defense values don't change depending on which part of your body is attacked...

This is perhaps my favorite change in 4th - note I like all the others you mentioned also it is just this one that really helped sell me on 4th ed. Oh yea and Banestorm is very cool, although I have been thinking about Roma Arcana (the "setting" found in GURPS Fantasy) and I have been thinking about running something in that setting. Of course that might have something to do with the fact that I just got the Rome DVD and it is sweet!!!!