GURPS - What is it?

[Victim]

Points in GURPS equate not just to ability scroe points but also to level. I have no idea what 1st level, 32 point characters would be. However, keep in mind that first level characters are pretty inept at many things.

 

[Doc_Klueless]

I think GURPS Traveller is possibly the best incarnation of Trav. to date.

I'm not sure what this has to do with anything.

 

[WizarDru]

If you "fix" it so that it's not as tedious, it's not GURPS, it's a homebrew system based on GURPS... and I would rather play DnD where I don't need to revamp the whole system.

Who said anything about revamping? GURPS is a modular system. Don't like the advanced rules for combat? Drop em. Using the basic rules will increase the speed of combat by a factor of ten. There are easily a dozen ways suggested to speed combat from SJG alone, such as the options that remove defense rolls, which RADICALLY speeds combat up.

I've found D&D 3E to be full of just as many headaches as GURPS when the combat gets complex (i.e. a variety of magic, setting factors, special powers and skills, etc.). However, I prefer the d20 system for many settings...it's much better balanced, particularly at higher levels, where WOTC has done a lot of work to make it that way.

 

[WizarDru]

How many GURPS character creation points to you need to be equally powerful a 32 point D&D character? 100? 120? 150?

That is, what is a good starting point pool?

This all depends on your campaign design and type. For a standard GURPS Fantasy campaign, 100 points is ideal, with up to 40 points in disadvantages and 5 points in quirks.

Generally speaking, 100 point characters are more powerful than low-level characters in D&D, but they scale much slower. I ran a GURPS Fantasy campaign that ran over 10 years, and by the end of the decade, the characters had risen from 100 points to roughly 250 points (making them heroes of legend). 500 point characters are superhumanly powerful, and 1000 point characters are off the map.

Now, change all that to a 4-color super-hero setting, and 500 points becomes the baseline, and 1000 becomes truly powerful, but not outrageously so. But at those levels, GURPS can become horribly, horribly broken...and generally is not as well suited as a system designed for it, like Champions. On the other hand, if you're playing a game like GURPS Wildcards...it's perfect. Just don't expect a long life.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

I think GURPS Traveller is possibly the best incarnation of Trav. to date.

I'm not sure what this has to do with anything.

I wholeheartedly agree with you. I hope Traveller d20 emulates the quality of GURPS Traveller.

 

[reapersaurus]

My impressions about GURPS limitations are:

There are only 4 base stats.
And 3 of them are physical.
Therefore, GURPS concludes that everything that can possibly do with the mind is an INT-based skill.

BS

If you want a durable, dexterous, strong fighter, you gotta pump in too many points that you don't have at creation to distinguish yourself from the normal person (10 in a stat).

If you want an insanely intelligent PC that can be incredible at MOST of the skills (including things like Intimidation), all you need is one stat.

also, the Health stat (which only affect hit points and endurance, basically) is just as expensive to pump up than DEX or INT (the god stats in GURPS).
Therefore, you see a lot of PC's with 10 in Health.
And not too many really strong PC's, since all it does is affect damage.

Add in the fact that a combat-oriented character will by default have less willpower than a bookworm with high INT, and you see the limitations of a 4-Stat system.

Having said that, the game seems much "free-er" with what you can do, and there are fewer preconceptions about characters.

If you get a DM that really knows the rules, so you can just concentrate on role-playing your character and his abilities, then GURPS does many things better than D&D.

 

[Cyragnome]

reapersaurus said:

Therefore, GURPS concludes that everything that can possibly do with the mind is an INT-based skill.

I don't agree, IMO, that's what advantages, disadvantages, etc are for. Need a Willpower Boost, buy Will +x, need charisma, buy Charisma or Attractiveness. Actually, I like it better than the DND Wis and Cha characteristics that until recently were "sub-characteristics" in my book (some of this has been changed with some of the balancing in 3E).

Again, I disagree on the assessment of other characteristics. Yes with DX and IQ you can min-max the heck out of a character, but people do that with DND and other games all the time. ST and HT have many things dependent on them (just not as much as DX and IQ) such as a number of skills (Carousing, Jump, for example), hit points which can be raised in other ways, melee damage (in a non-slugthrower campaign a big deal).

I'm not saying there aren't problems with the system, but many can be mitigated by the GM (like many other games).

 

[WizarDru]

If you want a durable, dexterous, strong fighter, you gotta pump in too many points that you don't have at creation to distinguish yourself from the normal person (10 in a stat).

A fairly valid criticism, and the fact that IQ/DX can be more valuable than ST/HT is a weakness of the system. However, this is also dependent both on GM and setting.

I often see GMs in GURPS who fail to make the HT stat more than a dump stat, which is a mistake. Given the number of situations that come up in the game where it SHOULD be important and isn't used, it can easily be seen as not important.

ST, on the other hand, is EXTREMELY valuable for a melee game, particularly for a fantasy or martial arts setting. In a high-tech setting, much less so. I made a ST 16 character in a modern-day martial arts GURPS game (think 'Bloodsport' here), and believe me, he was pretty darned effective. He was a dirty street fighter, and had a bad habit of snapping necks unintentionally.

 

[bret]

Well, if I recall correctly you can buy two 18s and 4 8s with 32 points. We will drop Charisma and average Wisdom & Int for the conversion, bringing us down to 4 stats. Assume that those three stats were all 8s.

An 18 in DnD is about equivilent to a 14 in GURPS. Cost is 45 points, so a total of +90. The 8s would convert to 9s in GURPS, paying you back 10 points each.

So it would cost you a total of 70 points for those attributes. Well within the range of a 100 point character.

You would be more effective than a first level character if you started at 100 points, probably about equivilent to a 3-4th level character. Using the standard GURPS Magic system, your Mages would be slightly weaker than this since it costs additional points to be able to cast spells.

You can see the attribute costs and how the basic character creation works in the GURPS Lite rules and see some example characters here:

http://gurpsnet.sjgames.com/Archive/Characters/
http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/characters/
http://angelwerks.com/GURPS/cotw.htm

Many of the characters in the above examples will probably use stuff not listed in the GURPS Lite, but they should give you a better idea of what is possible.

 

[bret]

also, the Health stat (which only affect hit points and endurance, basically) is just as expensive to pump up than DEX or INT (the god stats in GURPS).
Therefore, you see a lot of PC's with 10 in Health.
And not too many really strong PC's, since all it does is affect damage.

I have seen a number of players die because they never chose to take a Health score (HT) higher than 10.

When you are rolling against HT, it is either to stay concious after going below 0 hit points, resisting a disease, or to attempt a death check. Failing these rolls can end the character's life.

If you don't raise your strength, you are not going to be able to wear the heavier armor. The armor in GURPS works like D20 DR, subtracting from the amount of damage a weapon done. Weapon damage is directly related to your strength (ST) score. Without a good strength, you aren't going to be able to hurt anything with a melee weapon.


In a Modern or Science Fiction setting, you will generally see higher IQ and lower ST. Still should watch how low a HT score you take. You will also see a general trend towards needing a greater number of skills, so this isn't all bad.

In a lower tech setting (pre-gunpowder), the ST is very important.