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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tratyn Runewind" data-source="post: 451278" data-attributes="member: 685">Hello again!There is indeed a core mechanic for wound recovery - it involves Health rolls, the campaign-setting Tech Level, and preferably lots of bed rest and medical care.  The First Aid skill handles hasty battlefield medicine, and magic, psionics, super-powered Regeneration, or wonder technology may also be available for healing, depending on the campaign.  All like most other RPG's, so far - the "Flesh Wounds" thing is just an additional, cinematic emergency option.Well, I do tend to view "staying alive" as being to a character's long-term benefit (depending on availability of returning-from-the-dead magics <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />), and a slight slowing of his advancement rate as being worth the expenditure.  Remember, it's not something a cinematic character should be doing often, given cinematically high defenses - it's an emergency measure, to save your character during those times when the dice are being cruel (and don't forget, the really cinematic character will have insane amounts of the Luck advantage to help with that, too).The pricing of abilities is a deep issue with any point-based character creation system, and GURPS does have more trouble than some here because of its divided approach to the matter - it has wanted point costs to reflect both the utility of an ability, and the rarity of that ability.  Thus players in GURPS are sometimes hit with a double-whammy - as higher abilities become less and less useful (what economists call "diminishing marginal utility", and players call "overkill"), their point value often actually increases.  Somewhat kludgy steps have been taken to try to remedy the worst of this in the rules compendia, but a well-integrated, coherent resolution will probably have to wait until the next edition.  Also, the multitude of authors who have added bits and pieces to the system over the years, some with cavalier attitudes towards balancing their material with stuff outside the genre they're writing on at the moment, have not always helped matters, either.With that said, though, it's still not hard to build decent cinematic characters for most genres, given appropriate point totals.  The key to staying alive here is cranking up the character's Dodge by any means the GM allows (and these should be generous in a cinematic campaign), and, like the heroes of movies and books, trusting in Luck to save you when the going gets rough (like when an opponent critical-hits).  The highest level of Luck (admittedly, not found in the Basic Set, though it is part of the GURPS "core rules" by its presence in GURPS Rules Compendium I) lets the player force a (retroactive) re-roll every 15 minutes of real time, or 16 times in a 4-hour gaming session.  If opponents are surprising, critical-hitting or otherwise besting a character enough to get past that with any regularity and force significant expenditure of CP on "Flesh Wounds", I'd have to question how cinematic the character really is.First off, just as a baseline, 100 points is the recommended starting level for novice realistic characters, and 200-250 is the ballpark for beginning cinematic characters.  Intense training, such as that for soldiers in GURPS Special Ops, can allow starting characters even in highly realistic campaigns to begin with 200 or more character points.  As to your martial arts example - well, I don't see anything wrong with the idea that the guy studying ch'i flow theory and deep meditation to gain the esoteric martial arts skills has less raw combat skill than the one who spends the same time actually sparring with the unenlightened roughnecks on the dojo floor.  The actual point differentials may be debatable, for the reasons I went into above, but the general concept seems OK to me.  To use a cinematic example (that will probably date me <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />), I would estimate that Bruce Leroy of The Last Dragon had lower raw combat skill but higher cinematic skills than Sho'nuff, on similar point totals...I think you have this backwards.  All Physical Skills wind up costing 8 points per Skill Point to increase past the DEX+3 level (at most), while most Mental skills top out at 2 points per Skill Point, with even the Very Hard only going to 4.  So for the IQ 16 guy to get (Mental/Hard) Math-20 is 12 points, while for the DEX 16 guy to get (Physical/Hard) Karate-20 is 32 points, or to get (Physical/Average) Fencing-20 (the most cinematic of the Basic Set Combat/Weapon skills) is 24 points.  Guns and Beam Weapons skills are easier, and get small bonuses for above-average IQ, to boot, but even hordes of low-rent mooks with guns will have problems hitting a character with a cinematic-level Dodge defense and good Luck, before he takes them down with grenades, or his front bumper, or called-in orbital fire support.You're right, it's certainly possible, and not even unlikely, for ill luck or questionable decisions to put a GURPS character in a hard spot.  And "tanking up" cavalier-style in GURPS is indeed highly advantageous in open battle; certainly enough to justify the massive expense of heavy armor and a warhorse.  My point was, the same thing can be said of D&D characters, and really, all role-playing characters, especially those just starting their careers.  And GURPS characters improve too - usually in smaller but more frequent increments, though cinematic campaigns tend to be more generous in this regard.Believe me, I know the feeling <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> - I have my own reservations about GURPS, some of which I've mentioned both here and in previous posts, in this and other threads.  Still, the system seems to be doing a bit more for my interest than for yours, so hopefully these posts will help you squeeze a little more fun out of your GURPS books - that's what they're there for, after all!  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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