02-15-2018, 12:40 PM | #51 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ronkonkoma, NY
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Re: A Dungeoneering Fan, but a Total Gurps Newbie
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Also, in most of those early versions, level 14 or 15 was insanely high for a character. Levels above this weren't even considered until the D&D Companion and Masters Sets came out, which went to level 36, and assumed that 36 was the maximum possible human achievement. Beyond this you had to become an Immortal to advance. If we call that "godlike" in the GURPS scale, that's "over 1,000 points." So "veteran of a few battles" at 75 points to "freshman Immortal" at 1,000 points. D&D didn't start taking level 20 as a stopping point until AD&D Second Edition, and so far as I know this wasn't a point easily described by something specific. By this time the various editions were splitting far apart in what power levels they supported. I'd hazard a guess that a D&D Third Edition fighter level 1 was about equal to a GURPS 150 point character, but that's just the flimsiest of guesses. |
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02-15-2018, 05:18 PM | #52 |
Join Date: Feb 2016
Location: Melbourne, Australia (also known as zone Brisbane)
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Re: A Dungeoneering Fan, but a Total Gurps Newbie
I'm a fan of Pathfinder, it has a really strong community that supports the product really well. But the rules are like a overly complex straight jacket. It is difficult to take a character concept and accurately reflect that concept mechanically. There is tonnes of pointless duplication, for a simple example the traits reactionary and elven reflexes both grant a +2 bonus to initiative, why have both?
Gurps has more options than Pathfinder but they are expressed more simply and logically. If for example you want to be an excellent sword fighter in Gurps simply increase sword skill to the appropriate level, done. In Pathfinder you have a number of parameters to consider: BAB through class selection, attribute bonuses, feats, traits, racial bonuses and class features. What should be simple is a convoluted mess.
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The stick you just can't throw away. |
02-15-2018, 06:57 PM | #53 |
Join Date: Mar 2013
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Re: A Dungeoneering Fan, but a Total Gurps Newbie
My biggest issue with D&D is that the combat system is dull, abstracted and kind of silly. It's not really fixable either because it's baked in at the ground level. A big factor with switching to GURPS was that its immensely better for combat.
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02-15-2018, 09:14 PM | #54 |
Join Date: Feb 2016
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Re: A Dungeoneering Fan, but a Total Gurps Newbie
I am one of those few people who started with GURPS and then expanded to other systems (White Wolf, Shadowrun, etc). Pathfinder is a fine system, the archetypes give the classes a lot of flexibility, but it is only one way of playing. GURPS allows you to play a hero from day one, which is one of its best features.
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02-16-2018, 08:52 AM | #55 | ||
Join Date: Dec 2012
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Re: A Dungeoneering Fan, but a Total Gurps Newbie
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In re-thinking this since my earlier post I think I would have to agree. In 3.5 the elite array for stats, which represented a 25 point buy (supposedly what the system was designed around), was 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, and 8. While stats do not translate that well across systems to GURPS, that is clearly well above average just in physical and mental abilities, with the exception of two stats, without any class abilities at all [Monsters were apparently designed with a base array of 11, 11, 11, 10, 10, 10 before racial modifiers). I expect that to translate this to GURPS with other basic abilities for the level 1 class would require something like 150 points to start with, though maybe it could be done with fewer. |
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02-16-2018, 09:03 AM | #56 | |
Join Date: Sep 2010
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Re: A Dungeoneering Fan, but a Total Gurps Newbie
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There is also the notion (which may not be entirely accurate, across all classes) that in 3rd edition D&D, every two character levels represents a doubling in the power of the character. So point totals for characters above first level will escalate rapidly. |
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02-16-2018, 09:31 AM | #57 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ronkonkoma, NY
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Re: A Dungeoneering Fan, but a Total Gurps Newbie
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02-17-2018, 03:00 AM | #58 |
Join Date: Mar 2013
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Re: A Dungeoneering Fan, but a Total Gurps Newbie
OK on the comparison of GURPS points to D&D levels, the DF line codified it at 50 points to a level.
As for starting points, GURPS 3rd ed set it at 100 points, when GURPS 4th ed came around and many abilities increased in cost that was upped to 150 points, and when the DF line was launched with its 250 point templates that seems to have became the default standard, because it allows the characters to actually do things. For someone coming coming from D&D, GURPS' magic is better balanced so that monsters don't need to be given protections against magic because it's inherently self-limiting, this means that psi and other powers aren't effected by anti-magical effects, so a ninja isn't stopped by anti-magic. And I'd advise using the Ritual Magic rules from either page 242 of Characters or page 200 of Magic, their the same either way. The key point is that they allow you to cast spells without knowing them, but at a penalty, which is great for new players and GM's, because that way if you forget to include a spell it isn't a major problem. |
02-17-2018, 07:39 AM | #59 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ronkonkoma, NY
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Re: A Dungeoneering Fan, but a Total Gurps Newbie
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And 250 points is not the "default standard," unless you don't pay attention to anything outside of the preconfigured genre series. The third edition definitely assumed a 100-point default, The fourth edition doesn't assume any default, but it has been said that the old 100-point default is now approximately equal to 150 points. See page B487 for the discussion on "power level." |
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02-17-2018, 08:03 AM | #60 | |
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Re: A Dungeoneering Fan, but a Total Gurps Newbie
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I don't know any 3e, so there is no chance that I am talking about 3e rules by accident. |
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