As some posters above, I wouldn't say that
GURPS is more balanced or easy to play than
Pathfinder. I never played
Pathfinder (though I played and run a lot of
D&D games, from the Basic Set Red Box to the 4th edition; so I know the D20 system quite well).
Pathfinder has a lot of fans and did sell so well that I'm sure it is a very balanced and good game.
Of course,
GURPS is much more flexible. Just because it has been designed from the very start to be more flexible. It is a universal and generic roleplaying system, while
Pathfinder is a fantasy heroic one. So, with
GURPS it will obviously be much more easy to play in different universes and genres.
If you want to run a spaghetti western game with cthulhu monsters and steampunk gadgets, for instance, you've already got everything you need while, with Pathfinder, you will have a lot of rule work to make, starting from all the character classes and their development.
As you probably noticed it, the main differences are the following ones ...
GURPS is not a system based on character classes and levels. It is a game based on skills and advantages. This is the first and the most important way of thinking change you will have to do. No more "Warrior level 12" but a Warrior which has Combat reflexes, High Pain Threshold, Broadsword 17, Knife 15, Axe/Mace 18, Shield 16 and so on. That is what makes
GURPS character much more flexible: you can create exactly the character you want to play.
You would like a warrior which is able to pick locks, heal his friends and play pan flute? No problem. Just give him the Lockpicking, First Aid and Musical Instrument (Pan Flute) skills.
But it is also what makes
GURPS character creation more time consuming. You've got dozens of options, from the very start, and it is not always easy to choose.
Templates help a lot here. But they remove that amazing flexibility.
The second more important way of thinking change is combats. True,
GURPS has a lot of combat rules, and it can also be played as a hack-and-slash game if you want to, but characters advantages and skills are not all designed for combats. There are a lot of things outside of combats. Really a lot. If you want your character to be good at convincing others or to investigate, for instance, it won't just be a matter of role playing between combats. Your character will need the good skills: Diplomacy, Fast Talk, Streetwise, Psychology, Search, Research, and so on.
A whole game can be played without the least combat because relationship and investigation in GURPS are as developed and interesting as combats. And players, with the right skills and ideas, can even turn a combat situation in a non-combat one.
The third way of thinking change is the defense. In
Pathfinder and
D&D, the attacker makes a roll and, if he succeeds to beat his foe's Armor Class, he hits him. In
GURPS he doesn't yet. There is the defense roll. And defense is as important as attack: there are as many advantages and options to improve once defense roll than there are for attacks.
The fourth way of thinking change is Hit Points. In
Pathfinder or
D&D, your Hit Points improve with experience because they also represent luck and ability to avoid blows. In
GURPS, they don't. Hit Points only represent your ability to sustain injury, mainly due to bulk. A Halfling won't ever have as many Hit Points than an elephant ... So, a battle axe swing, if you failed to defend yourself, will always be very dangerous. It can kill an experienced warrior master as well as a rookie.
GURPS is, on that topic, less heroic and much more realistic. There are optional rules to make things more heroic if you want to, though.
And the fifth way of thinking change is the game turn. It probably is what confuses newcomers the most. In
GURPS there is no general combat turn. Each combat turn is the turn of one character and, so, character turns do overlap.
It is not:
Combat turn 1:
- Character 1
- Character 2
- Character 3
- ...
Combat turn 2:
- Character 1
- Character 2
- Character 3
- ...
Etc.
But:
Character 1's combat turn 1
-| Character 2's combat turn 1
--| Character 3's combat turn 1
---| ...
----| Character 1's combat turn 2
-----| Character 2's combat turn 2
------| Character 3's combat turn 2
-------| ...
--------| Etc.
Which means (among many other things) that if character 3 chooses the All-Out Attack option (a combat option in which he gives up every possible defense to improve his attack) it won’t last until the end of a general turn, but until his next turn: every other character (including characters 1 and 2) will have the opportunity to attack him before he can defend again!
Here is what I wanted to add to what has been said above. Hoping it will be useful to best understand
GURPS, and that it wasn’t to long.