GURPS Fantasy Question

[Brandy]

Originally Posted by InspectorGeneral

Beautiful! That is what I wanted to hear. Truth be told, I don't want stats for hundreds of monsters I won't use. I just want some of the core ones - simple fantasy staples. Thank you for mentioning that.

Also, don't forget that point costs are only really required for PCs. If you're building a "monster" or any other sort of adversary, you really only need to jot down the relevant characteristics -- there's no need to calculate the total points of the creature down to the last decimal place or even at all.

[demonsbane]

Hm... I like the magic system. I am the only one? Perhaps there is a bit of exaggeration about the theme?

Here is Collective Restraint site, with several official templates indexed by book and page number, and including conversions: GURPS dedicated page

And keep in mind a lot of threads in these forums contains invaluable info and resources, including templates and conversions!

EDIT: Ok, the web site doesn't work today... However it would be fixed.

[Pesterfield]

A point budget can be useful for monsters, a good way to make sure you don't accidentally go overboard with abilities.

Trying to fit certain abilities into a budget might also generate ideas about modifiers or different ways to do things.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Pesterfield

A point budget can be useful for monsters, a good way to make sure you don't accidentally go overboard with abilities.

But the point value of a monster is a much less useful gauge of its abilities than, well, actually looking at its abilities.

The question 'How does a 250-point monster match up against 4 150-point characters?' is essentially unanswerable and meaningless. Too much depends on what those points were spent on, situation, terrain, goals and uncounted other factors.

It's much more useful to look at the monsters relevant combat statistics and compare those to the PCs.

[Sadurian Mike]

Originally Posted by Icelander

But the point value of a monster is a much less useful gauge of its abilities than, well, actually looking at its abilities.

The question 'How does a 250-point monster match up against 4 150-point characters?' is essentially unanswerable and meaningless. Too much depends on what those points were spent on, situation, terrain, goals and uncounted other factors.

It's much more useful to look at the monsters relevant combat statistics and compare those to the PCs.

Very true.

If your 250-point Archon of Universal Truth is the greatest tracker in the world, can live without food, speaks every language known telepathically, is a sage beyond compare and happens to be a whizz at calculus....

...He is still going to have the snot beaten out of him by some jumped up 100-point combat fiend PC.

I must admit that a lot of the time I just decide on a "reasonable" weapon skill roll and damage, and then make the rest up on the fly. Is the ogre capable of detecting the sneaky PCs? Yeah, it should have a +3 bonus to smell Perception but only an IQ of 8. PCs want to bribe him with food? Okay, it's reasonable for an ogre to have Gluttony so I'll allow it.

In scenarios I pre-write for online publishing, of course, things are a little more formalised, but the nature of GURPs is that any given party of PCs will have wildly differing skills and specialisations, so I like to mould any encounters to allow the players to take advantage of them.

[Collective_Restraint]

Originally Posted by demonsbane

Hm... I like the magic system. I am the only one? Perhaps there is a bit of exaggeration about the theme?

Here is Collective Restraint site, with several official templates indexed by book and page number, and including conversions: GURPS dedicated page

And keep in mind a lot of threads in these forums contains invaluable info and resources, including templates and conversions!

EDIT: Ok, the web site doesn't work today... However it would be fixed.

Thanks a lot for the reference. I know my page doesn't work, looks like the provider I have is experiencing problems :( I can't wait for it to come back up.

[InspectorGeneral]

Original Poster Here.

Thank you all so much for the advice! There are definitely some gems in there that are going to help me out. Wish me luck!

[kmunoz]

Originally Posted by InspectorGeneral

Original Poster Here.

Thank you all so much for the advice! There are definitely some gems in there that are going to help me out. Wish me luck!

I didn't catch this thread the first time around, but I noticed there was a question about statting monsters, creatures, races, etc. In my .sig there are links to 2 documents that have quite a few ready-to-go critters, and "pointers" to all the templates in all the GURPS 4e books and Pyramid articles.

[jSarek]

Originally Posted by InspectorGeneral

Beautiful! That is what I wanted to hear. Truth be told, I don't want stats for hundreds of monsters I won't use. I just want some of the core ones - simple fantasy staples. Thank you for mentioning that.

You might also take a peek at GURPS Banestorm - there are lots more races and an entire chapter of creatures in that book, if you don't mind some of the more unusual assumptions of the setting (more than one person has looked at me with pure bewilderment when I've told them the setting's goblins have a *higher* IQ than humans).

[blacksmith]

Originally Posted by InspectorGeneral

Wow. So everyone that runs GURPS Fantasy makes up their own stats for most creatures? I appreciate customization, but that seems excessive.

Well there are some stats out there. But think of this, what Elf do you mean when you say Elf?

Tolkien Elves?
DND Elves?
Shadowrun Elves?

There are so many takes on any specific fantasy creature that only real world creatures can be covered in any detail and not be setting specific.