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Message: <blockquote data-quote="stonehead" data-source="post: 9785194" data-attributes="member: 7047885">IMO, the big advantage of point-buy systems is the greater level of flexibility you get. Not just because you don't have to adhere to one of a finite list of character archetypes, but because you can freely determine their strengths and weaknesses. It's basically impossible to build a modern DnD character who isn't good at combat. If you do manage to build such a character, they'll be basically useless.In GURPS, you can build a pacifist who hates combat, but still meaningfully contributes to the party in other ways. A side benefit of this is that it allows the game to meaningfully focus on other things. This can also be a flaw. If the party hyper specializes, they can really destabilize the campaign. You're going to want to use your strengths to solve problems, no matter what the nature of the problem is. The classic example is the guy who spends all 200 points on one huge attack, but lots of abilities fall afoul of this. Teleportation, insubstanciability, jumper can even give you time travel.[HR][/HR]It's interesting that no one has called out what my friends and I consider the biggest advantage of GURPS, which is the enhancements and limitations. Being able to stack all these modifiers on advantages opens up so much room to be creative. You can make a character who chops off his limbs and uses them as minions, or one who transforms into a magic weapon Soul Eater style, or an astrologer, who gets different abilities based on the current star sign.The most important question for any system to answer is "When would I pay this instead of other systems?" For GURPS, the answer for us is obviously when we want to play a character who couldn't be built in a different system.</blockquote>

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