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Old 01-17-2019, 11:24 AM   #21
RyanW
 
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Default Re: Returning to GURPS - 3rd Edition or 4th Edition

On the matter of skill points, Physical skills went up at the high levels, Mental skills went down at the high levels, and there are no longer half-point levels so characters with lots of low skills probably went up.

Skills with one or two points wouldn't change at all, unless the specific skill was reclassified as a higher or lower difficulty.
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Old 01-17-2019, 01:08 PM   #22
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Default Re: Returning to GURPS - 3rd Edition or 4th Edition

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Originally Posted by RyanW View Post
On the matter of skill points, Physical skills went up at the high levels, Mental skills went down at the high levels, and there are no longer half-point levels so characters with lots of low skills probably went up.

Skills with one or two points wouldn't change at all, unless the specific skill was reclassified as a higher or lower difficulty.
Don't forget Eidetic Memory. A properly optimised 3e character with many mental skills would have Eidetic Memory and a lot of IQ-based skills bought at very low levels. In 4e, without that point crock available, such a character would become rather more expensive.
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Old 01-17-2019, 01:27 PM   #23
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Default Re: Returning to GURPS - 3rd Edition or 4th Edition

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Don't forget Eidetic Memory. A properly optimised 3e character with many mental skills would have Eidetic Memory and a lot of IQ-based skills bought at very low levels. In 4e, without that point crock available, such a character would become rather more expensive.
Yep. I always found it funny that people would flip out over excessively combat-effective characters. In my long experience, it was those with huge IQ, Eidetic Memory, and dozens (even hundreds) of 1/2- and 1/4-point Mental skills that broke the game every single time.

I still remember playing in a campaign where the GM was fine with 1/4 points. Somebody had 100 skills for 25 points, Eidetic Memory II for another 60, and IQ 15 for a further 60, which was just possible in a classic 100-point campaign with -40 points of disads and -5 points of quirks. Them having every Mental skill that mattered at 13-15 is what killed the campaign. Nobody else was useful outside of a fight, really, and when the GM started tossing out big penalties to curb this character, the rest of us were hosed through no fault of our own. Yet the GM's ire was mostly directed at the character with Karate-25, who aside from being really good at reaming bad guys, was kind of subtle and understated.
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Old 01-18-2019, 01:28 PM   #24
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Default Re: Returning to GURPS - 3rd Edition or 4th Edition

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FWIW, recommended point totals were increased because I converted dozens of Third Edition characters – I believe over a hundred – from my various campaigns and found that for characters equivalent in concept and capability, the average Fourth Edition point total divided by the average Third Edition point total was ~1.5 (I think it was actually 1.47 or something, but you get the idea)...

(SNIP)

For most intents and purposes, 150-point Fourth Edition characters are 100-point Third Edition characters, and very close to equally capable. The only reason to stick to 100 points is because you're superstitious about the number 100.
For my Facets campaign, I started the characters at 125 points, for several reasons.

First, I'm definitely a member of the Cult of Stat Normalization. I have no problems with the notion that noticeably smart people have IQs of 12 or 13, while geniuses start at 14. Stats for stronger, healthier and more agile characters should lie in the same range.

(Yes, professional athletes might have 16s in ST or HT or DX -- and there are only about 800 active players with the U.S. National Football League in any year. That's out of a population of a bit more than 325 million. That's how rare that should be.)

Secondly, I wanted characters similar to the First-Responder Search-and-Rescue people I'd gotten to know as a general news reporter out in northeast Colorado.

Mostly, those were "regular folks" with regular jobs. However, they were a little more fit than most people, had an extra skill-set and frequently had military backgrounds.

Thirdly, I knew I'd drop Magery 0 on every character sheet no later than the second session.

Finally, I wanted the players to feel overwhelmed by the circumstances in which the characters found themselves.

All told, I'm pretty pleased with how that worked out.
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Old 03-07-2020, 08:13 AM   #25
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Default Re: Returning to GURPS - 3rd Edition or 4th Edition

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I used to GM GURPS 3rd edition back in the day. I have a metric ton of sourcebooks for 3rd edition, I collected some during my break from RPGs including the 3rd edition Compendiums which were after my time as a GM. I don't remember too much about the specifics of how the game was run.

My question is- with a roleplaying group that's probably not going to invest much effort in learning a new system themselves, certainly not at first - if I have a hankering to play Traveller or Mage the Ascension or other 3rd edtion sourcebooks that I own... would you just relearn 3rd edition, or is 4th worth the effort?

Thanks
In all fairness, if a person is truly vested in wanting to play a pen and paper RPG they will take the time to learn the mechanics regardless of how old it is or how in depth the system is. I started off with D&D 3.0 and worked into 3.5 then was shown the white wold d10 system for vampires and loved that more so than the simplified D&D system. I recently picked up the 1993 edition for GURPS Vampire: Masquerade and will be investing a lot of time getting a campaign set up for people who are eager to revisit the classics.
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Old 03-07-2020, 09:15 AM   #26
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Default Re: Returning to GURPS - 3rd Edition or 4th Edition

While I have bought 4th, most of the books I have are 3rd ed., or from other systems altogether, mostly for some inspiration.

So, our games are either old and long-running, so 3rd; or I use the 4th ed. character build program to give players the character they want, up to a point.

We have a simplified set of rules, that usually comes into play in combat or negotiations, so most system-specific stuff is guidance rather than written in stone.

We're happy with it, and this has lasted quite a while now, sooo...
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Old 03-07-2020, 10:47 AM   #27
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Default Re: Returning to GURPS - 3rd Edition or 4th Edition

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Originally Posted by Isosceles View Post
My question is- with a roleplaying group that's probably not going to invest much effort in learning a new system themselves, certainly not at first - if I have a hankering to play Traveller or Mage the Ascension or other 3rd edtion sourcebooks that I own... would you just relearn 3rd edition, or is 4th worth the effort?
When 4e came out, I was running a 3e cyberfantasy campaign with origins going back to 1991. It was not worth my time to convert a large number of my 100+ 3e books to 4e.

Additionally, the campaign used psionics and I didn't like the 4e change to them. Over the previous decade I had made many little tweaks to the overall system, most of which were not reflected in 4e. In many ways, I was running 3e Lite with a few advanced rules tossed in.

For anyone interested, my 3e house rules:

http://copeab.tripod.com/Campaigns/houserules.htm
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Old 03-07-2020, 12:56 PM   #28
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Default Re: Returning to GURPS - 3rd Edition or 4th Edition

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Originally Posted by Rupert View Post
Don't forget Eidetic Memory. A properly optimised 3e character with many mental skills would have Eidetic Memory and a lot of IQ-based skills bought at very low levels. In 4e, without that point crock available, such a character would become rather more expensive.
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Originally Posted by Kromm View Post
Yep. I always found it funny that people would flip out over excessively combat-effective characters. In my long experience, it was those with huge IQ, Eidetic Memory, and dozens (even hundreds) of 1/2- and 1/4-point Mental skills that broke the game every single time.
I surprised Kromm. Certainly you of all people should know that little point bonanza was largely eliminated by 3e (1988), though it many have been nixed as early as 2e (1986) though i may be remembering the "GURPS Update - Rule Changes from the 2nd Edition to the 3rd Edition" book. I say largely as the +1 and +2 Eidetic Memory gave to spells remained.

So in a high point magic campaign you had Eidetic Memory mages all over the place. Note I am reinforcing my somewhat vague memory based on the versions of Third Edition Revised 6th printing and the errata for it and the older Third Edition; the double/quadruple point thing was definitely gone by the time the 6th printing rolled out. On a side note I would love to know the logic of printing that in the same year as 4e (2004). Just why?!?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kromm View Post
I still remember playing in a campaign where the GM was fine with 1/4 points. Somebody had 100 skills for 25 points, Eidetic Memory II for another 60, and IQ 15 for a further 60, which was just possible in a classic 100-point campaign with -40 points of disads and -5 points of quirks. Them having every Mental skill that mattered at 13-15 is what killed the campaign. Nobody else was useful outside of a fight, really, and when the GM started tossing out big penalties to curb this character, the rest of us were hosed through no fault of our own. Yet the GM's ire was mostly directed at the character with Karate-25, who aside from being really good at reaming bad guys, was kind of subtle and understated.
As I pointed out above this nightmare was effectively shut down by the time 3e came out. Walter Milliken seemed to either have forgotten this or 3e wasn't out yet when doing his Using (and Abusing) Eidetic Memory article That article does point out that 1/4 points in a skill was not possible as do many of the Q&As that appeared in Roleplayer.
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Last edited by maximara; 03-07-2020 at 01:47 PM.
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Old 03-07-2020, 03:25 PM   #29
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Default Re: Returning to GURPS - 3rd Edition or 4th Edition

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Old 03-07-2020, 03:48 PM   #30
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Default Re: Returning to GURPS - 3rd Edition or 4th Edition

<Moderator>
Just as a notice, until this morning (Saturday March 7th, 2020), this thread had not been posted too since Friday January 18th, 2019.
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