GURPS 3ed-D&D 3.5 Conversion: The Soulknife

[Greyling]

Originally Posted by Say, it isn't that bad!

This series of questions may be useful:

1) "Are your characters in a dangerous and deadly profession where death can lurk around every corner?"

2) "Do your characters want to die?"

3a) "Oh, good. Then they're going to learn things that help them survive."

3b) "The suicidal disadvantage should give you lots of points to put into the Bad Poetry skill."


Edit: You may want to be less sarcastic when you ask the questions. YMMV.

Tried that already, with minimal sarcasm:-D Let's see. The druid won't use anything better than light leather armor, nor does he use a shield because it won't fit his character concept. Yet he ALWAYS gets into melee.
The bard/warlock is an eggshell armed with a spitball gun, so to speak. A very thin eggshell that actually got a lot tougher with conversion to GURPS. ( he had 6!! hit points when the rest of us had 35-40 doing 1d6 with his eldritch blast, which is pitiful at level 4.)
The thief, well, really good at picking pockets and gambling, lousy at stealth with a skill of 13.
The ranger/scout is about the only character I wouldn't mind playing myself, with a good bow skill and auxilliary skill like fast draw.
And then there's me:-D Soulknife/fighter. at least decent HT, some extra hit points, chain mail shirt and a weapon skill of 15:-D And stealth 15:-D

[Say, it isn't that bad!]

Originally Posted by Greyling

Tried that already, with minimal sarcasm:-D Let's see. The druid won't use anything better than light leather armor, nor does he use a shield because it won't fit his character concept. Yet he ALWAYS gets into melee.
The bard/warlock is an eggshell armed with a spitball gun, so to speak. A very thin eggshell that actually got a lot tougher with conversion to GURPS. ( he had 6!! hit points when the rest of us had 35-40 doing 1d6 with his eldritch blast, which is pitiful at level 4.)
The thief, well, really good at picking pockets and gambling, lousy at stealth with a skill of 13.
The ranger/scout is about the only character I wouldn't mind playing myself, with a good bow skill and auxilliary skill like fast draw.
And then there's me:-D Soulknife/fighter. at least decent HT, some extra hit points, chain mail shirt and a weapon skill of 15:-D And stealth 15:-D

...Well...At least you didn't have to worry about 3.5's tier system (unofficial, I know, but it fits) letting the players horribly break the game?

[Greyling]

Originally Posted by Say, it isn't that bad!

...Well...At least you didn't have to worry about 3.5's tier system (unofficial, I know, but it fits) letting the players horribly break the game?

Yes, that was really a worry. There are so many ways to break the game in D&D it's not really funny. I just try to urge them to build more survivability ( if that's even a word) in their chars and not relying on my char to save their behinds every time there is a fight.:-D
On the other hand, it is really relaxing to play with people who put character story ahead of efficiency. I had some really bad experiences with powergamers in Shadowrun and D&D.

[Say, it isn't that bad!]

Originally Posted by Greyling

Yes, that was really a worry. There are so many ways to break the game in D&D it's not really funny. I just try to urge them to build more survivability ( if that's even a word) in their chars and not relying on my char to save their behinds every time there is a fight.:-D
On the other hand, it is really relaxing to play with people who put character story ahead of efficiency. I had some really bad experiences with powergamers in Shadowrun and D&D.

There is that.

But we should probably stop taking your thread off-topic. :)

[copeab]

To be honest, it's really not possible to do a strict conversion and have all the characters ens up at the same point total. Your GM really has two choices:

1) Convert the character concept, not the character, aiming for the same point total

or

2) Convert the existing character in detail and forget about matching point totals -- the character costs what the character costs

Honestly, I'd go with #1 to create characters loosely based on the originals. I'd also rather not bother converting than doing #2. I've found it's usually better to stay with the original system thsn move characters to a new one.

[Greyling]

Originally Posted by copeab

To be honest, it's really not possible to do a strict conversion and have all the characters ens up at the same point total. Your GM really has two choices:

1) Convert the character concept, not the character, aiming for the same point total

or

2) Convert the existing character in detail and forget about matching point totals -- the character costs what the character costs

Honestly, I'd go with #1 to create characters loosely based on the originals. I'd also rather not bother converting than doing #2. I've found it's usually better to stay with the original system thsn move characters to a new one.

My GM also went with #1. He/we just tried to stick as closely as possible to the original concept. Some things just convert badly:-(

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Greyling

As soon as I can convince my GM and the other players to switch to 4ed, than this is definitively the way to go. A-working on it:-D But I don't want to get my hope up too much, as my GM is pretty much wedded to 3ed, having bought nearly every sourcebook there is. And he simply doesn't want to invest a lot of money (again) for a complete collection.

He wont have to rebuy most of the books.
Basic set is of course essential.
Magic is pretty much the same, few fixes and updates but easily compatible with 3E.
Psionics is majorly different but covered well enough in Basic to start.
Martial Arts would be the next book for the GM.
Players can buy books for thier special tastes as well and share for the table.
As mostly a GM I have bought most of the books but I have had players buy thier own copies before or after me for various things.
But most new books could be used to tweak a character with the GM only needing to worry about the used bits.
And with PDFs books are lots cheaper then they used to be!

[Nereidalbel]

Originally Posted by Greyling

As soon as I can convince my GM and the other players to switch to 4ed, than this is definitively the way to go. A-working on it:-D But I don't want to get my hope up too much, as my GM is pretty much wedded to 3ed, having bought nearly every sourcebook there is. And he simply doesn't want to invest a lot of money (again) for a complete collection.

Best plan to convert? Have him buy the Basic Set, then have the players buy the books to cover their own niches. Your Soul Knife may want to take a look at Power Ups 1:Imbuements, and a couple Pyramid articles that expand on it. (Haven't played the source game, but it could be useful to you).

[copeab]

Originally Posted by Refplace

Psionics is majorly different but covered well enough in Basic to start.

Or he can keep using the 3e psionics rules ;)

Martial Arts would be the next book for the GM.

Other than renaming 'maneuvers' to 'techniques' was there that much change?

And with PDFs books are lots cheaper then they used to be!

Call me a dinosaur, but i find dead tree books easier to read than ebooks (and at least on a Kindle ebook, unlike a PDF, I can make it white letters on a black background for reduced glare).

Some 3e books won't be very useful: Compendiums I and II, Wizards, Warriors, Rogues, Vehicles, Mecha and (somewhat) Robots. Historical books, which tend to have much more fluff than crunch, should work well. Worldbooks are variable -- Discworld wouldn't need too much work, Ogre would.

[Nereidalbel]

Originally Posted by copeab

Call me a dinosaur, but i find dead tree books easier to read than ebooks 9and at least on a Kindle ebook, unlike a pDF, I can make it white letters on a black background for reduced glare).

While I love the Search feature of a PDF, those who like dead trees can always print their PDFs.