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nefele
2009-06-15, 08:22 PM
So, I've decided to try GURPS. My first step was to take a look at the Basic Set and make a character, and I would appreciate it very much if you savvy folks could check it out and see if everything is in order, or if I have horribly misunderstood something.

Concept: The character is based off Atalanta (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atalanta), a legendary huntress with a deadly aim who can run like the wind, and a King's daughter who was nevertheless raised by bears. Pretty simple, fitting a low-magic setting (age of mythology - lots of supernatural powers from otherworldly beings, rare but not unheard of for characters, no magick shoppes, perhaps an artifact here and there).

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a1/Atalanta_Lepautre_Louvre_MR1804.jpg/360px-Atalanta_Lepautre_Louvre_MR1804.jpg
ATTRIBUTES
Basic Attributes:ST 12, DX 17, IQ 10, HT 14 (20+140+0+40=) [200]
Lifting Capacity: 144
Damage: 1d-1/1d+2
Basic Lift: 29
Hit Points: 12 (+/-2 per 1 HP)= 12
Will: 10 (+/-5 per 1 Will)= 10
Perception: 10 (+/-5 per 1 Per)+5= 15 [25]
Fatigue Points: 14 (+/-3 per 1 FP)+2= 16 [6]
Basic Speed: 7.75 (+/-5 per 0.25 sec)+1.25= 9 [25]
Dodge:11
Basic Move: 9yards/sec (+/-5 per 1 yard)+1= 10 [5]
Water Move: 2 yards/sec (+/-5 per 1 yard)= 2
Physical Appearance: Attractive [4]

Setting Tech Level: Iron Age, TL2
Character Tech Level: Low Tech TL1 [-5]
Semi-Literacy [-2]
Wealth: Wealthy(x10) [20]
Status: 1 (+/-5 per 1 Status) +3= 4 [15]
Independent Income: 1 point/level ?????

Reputation
Details: Famed huntress, but in a man's world. Male warriors, nobles, hunters etc are jealous, the rest are positive.
Reaction modifier: -3[-15] (jealous) / +1 (positive) [+5]
People affected: Large class of people (Male warriors etc) jealous [x0.5] / Everyone except one large class (positive) [x0.66]
Frequency of recognition: all the time (mortal chick with bow! dead give-away) [x1]
So, jealous: -15x0.5= -7 and positive:+5x0.66=3 --> [-4]

ADVANTAGES
Absolute Direction [5]
Acute Hearing 2/lvl: +2 [4]
Acute Vision 2/lvl: +4 [8]
Animal Empathy [5]
Claim to Hospitality (err... in this world, technically all strangers have a claim to hospitality, but being friendly and helpful to them is not stirctly necessary. I'll give it a 5?) [5]
Combat Reflexes [15]
*** reads the Common Sense advantage. dies laughing ***
Danger Sense [15]
Very Fit [15]

ENHANCEMENTS
Accuracy +5% /lvl Ummm... How do I apply that to shooting arrows?

DISADVANTAGES
Destiny, Great Disadvantage (a horrible fate awaits her when she marries) [-15]
Hidebound [-5]
Impulsiveness [-10]
Light Sleeper [-5]
Loner [-5]
Mundane Background [-10]
Sense of Duty (small group:kin) [-5]
Sense of Duty (individual: Meleager) [-2]
Mild Shyness [-5]
Truthfulness [-5]

QUIRKS
Dislike (crammed cities) [-1]
Incompetence (cooking) [-1]
Incompetence (housekeeping) [-1]
Obsession (hunting) [-1]
Proud [-1]

SKILLS
Animal Handling (dogs, bears)
Area Knowledge (Arcadia)
Body Language
Bow
Climbing
Fast Draw (arrow)
Gesture
Jumping
Melee weapon (knife)
Mimicry (animal sounds)
Naturalist
Running
Stealth
Survival (woodlands)
Tracking
Weather Sense

So, ummm... I almost reached 300 points and I haven't even calculated skills yet. Is that normal? This isn't a superhuman character. It is a legendary one, from an Age of Heroes and all that, but significantly less powerful and versatile than her more famous companions, and without any supernatural abilities (there can be oracles and sorcerers in this setting, as well as hundreds of people who are "favored by the gods"- but she's completely mundane). No social skills to speak of, either.

The weirdness about her is that she was raised in the wild (I picked several traits and skills that seemed to reflect that) but is also a King's daughter, already reunited with her family when the story begins - so she has status and wealth etc. Maybe that's why I used so many points? Or maybe I skipped applicable disadvantages? Or went overboard with attributes and advantages?

And finally, would that character survive in a normal game? Or is "optimization" desperately needed here? (After all, it's basically an archer who can do next to nothing in melee, and I'm guessing I should have invested in hit points...)

I'd appreciate some input. Thanks in advance. :smallsmile:


P.S. - The character isn't made for a game, it's just an exercise in something at which, IMHO, D&D sucks big time: simulating a hero from a NOT generic fantasy setting.

P.S. 2 - Then again, a simple spell-less Ranger was all I would ever need for Atalanta, and the only problem would be the possibly crippling lack of magic items. Ugh... Should I go back to 3.5 after all???

Jayabalard
2009-06-15, 09:11 PM
~400 points is supposed to be sufficient for many comic book super heroes... you're way beyond "cinematic hero" at 300 points.

Tsotha-lanti
2009-06-15, 10:08 PM
Pretty sure you're running on fewer points than King Conan from GURPS Conan, there, and 300 sounds great for ancient Greek heroes, but let's see...

You have 200 points in attributes. That's way out there. If you want a 200-point character (i.e. a cinematic hero), the first thing to do is cut down DX.

Wealth will probably do you no good, and unless you're actually living on your island or whatever, you probably have no access to it. Cut that.

Why do you have a Claim to Hospitality if the social norms already suggest one? Scratch that. And do you really need Hearing 17 and Vision 19? Your Perception is already way high, halve or remove those. Values above 16 are only useful if you want to try tasks with BIG penalties (like -4) and still succeed 90+% of the time.

Bad news about Disadvantages; at -77, you're over the limit (is it 50 or 40 now?), unless it's raised for the campaign (which it probably should be, if it's a 300-point campaign).

Note that with DX 17, you will be literally a master of all physical DX-based skills. Is that actually necessary? If you cut DX to 14 or 15 and focus on one or two skills (Bow, Running), you'll be better off. Also, cut down on the Speed attribute increase and focus on running. (Admittedly, it is a fact that GURPS is borked in a way where boosting attributes beats boosting skills, and I can't do the math just now on whether boosting Speed or Running gives you a better return-on-investment.)

GURPS has no "balance" and therefore optimization is not needed. Your character, as she stands, would whip incredible amounts of ass (high Dodge means no one hits you, high Move means no one catches you, and high DX plus a focus on Bow means you'll shoot them through the heart every time with 90% accuracy).

oxybe
2009-06-15, 10:29 PM
disadvantages are at 50% of the point total, so a 300 pt character can have up to an extra 150 pts via disadvantages.

Tsotha-lanti
2009-06-15, 10:55 PM
disadvantages are at 50% of the point total, so a 300 pt character can have up to an extra 150 pts via disadvantages.

I had to look that up, and sure enough, it's the rule of thumb they give. I'd definitely go with 33%, tops - min-maxing disadvantages is one of the main problems of GURPS, and limiting points from them is pretty necessary.

dariathalon
2009-06-15, 10:56 PM
Yeah, I would definitely agree with the too-high-attributes argument. The numbers are no where near the same meaning as they would have in D&D. While 10 is the "average" in both systems, each one above or below average in GURPS is worth a lot more. DX 17 is very high. Most characters I've created have had one attribute at 14 or 15 level and the rest lower. (If I had a 15, the rest were significantly lower). I'll admit that in GURPS it is more cost efficient to invest in attributes than in skills, but you've gone a bit overboard.

Move of 10 yds/second. That is about twice what the average character has. Investing in basic speed is again a good idea since it affects so many other things, but you've taken that to an extreme. You've done this with many of your secondary attributes. Having a 15 in perception isn't bad, but adding acute senses on top of that goes a bit far. Not having invested in hp is probably not a problem. 12 is very respectable for a ranged character especially one with sky-high active defenses.

Your advantage list isn't bad. I'd leave the wealth on there since you're actually trying to emulate a character. If you were just creating a character and needed to cut points, you could drop it, but like you said this is more a mental exercise than anything. The claim to hospitality could be dropped though given what you've described. It would be what is usually referred to as a campaign assumption, all characters get it for free without spending points on it. This would have been something your GM informed you of before the game began.

Accuracy cannot be applied to shooting arrows. The bow already has its own acc rating that can't be modified with enhancements. The enhancements are primarily for modifying advantages. So, for example, if you had built a character with an advantage of shooting flame jets from his fingertips, the accuracy of those flames could be enhanced. Normal weapons can't get this.

The disadvantage list seems fine. As a side note, the disadvantage limit is set by the GM, but the current suggested guideline is 1/2 the allowed point total for the campaign. If I were running this game, based on the power level your character implies, I probably would give 200 points or so (maybe as high as 300 points). This means that you could have up to 100 (or 150) in disadvantages. Since you're below that limit, you'd be fine. I wouldn't necessarily suggest taking any more disadvantages. It isn't always worthwhile to take all that you're allowed anyway.

Balance is a very hard to measure thing in GURPS. This is where a GM would really come in handy. He or she could give guidelines as to how specialized or broadly skilled the characters are expected to be. I would say in general remember the guideline that 15 is supposed to be very skilled in something. Remember you're rolling 3d6 instead of 1d20 to determine success. The probabilities of success are very different. A skill 15 for example is about 90%likely to succeed on an unmodified check.

Tsotha-lanti
2009-06-15, 11:10 PM
It all really does depend on power level, though. I mean, King Conan has... what, ST 19, DX 15, HT 18, and IQ 12? Those are incredible stats, and that'st just the start. You can absolutely play 400-point low-magic realistic sword & sorcery with 400-point characters - they're just going to be really exceptional ones, but still die when you bash their head with a mace (a few times).

If you were going to play this character with the likes of Hercules and Odysseus, 400 or even 500 points would be just fine, and you wouldn't even need to include actual "superpower" powers or advantages.

Jayabalard
2009-06-16, 06:56 AM
Bad news about Disadvantages; at -77, you're over the limit (is it 50 or 40 now?), unless it's raised for the campaign (which it probably should be, if it's a 300-point campaign).Disadvantages generally get bumped up in higher point levels, so it seems fairly reasonable to me.

warmachine
2009-06-16, 09:36 AM
As others have pointed out, the attributes are too high for a non-superhuman and that 14 or 15 is the highest, realistic limit. One way to check the power level of an attribute is to check skill defaults. IIRC, Teamster(Equine) defaults to DX-5, so at DX 17, her skill level is 12. Despite never having driven a chariot before, she can instantly drive it like a pro. That's fine for a superhuman or god because such beings are supposed to be awesome but too much for a merely legendary person. DX 14 cuts her down to merely brilliant and her untrained DX skills to merely barely usable.

Also, give her Luck. That's a standard Advantage for cinematic heroes. She can pretty much negate a lucky enemy hit, do something she's never done before with an untrained skill or succeed with a trained skill at something really hard; but only so often. This makes her legendary as this increases her survivability and helps her succeed where other mortals have given up.

High Pain Threshold is standard for warrior types and so is the Tactics skill.

Decoy Lockbox
2009-06-16, 11:38 AM
My group is starting a new low fantasy/magic gurps game tommorow, and our characters are human with 70/30 pts/disads....this makes me feel inadequate :smallfrown:

So at what level do stats become "superhuman"? I played a 20 strength, halberd-wielding warrior before and he felt more like a really strong guy than a superhuman.

Satyr
2009-06-16, 12:06 PM
The number of used points and the actual feel of the campaign can often vary widely.. I am currently playing in a supposedly D&Dish Gurps Fantasy campaign with characters between 250 and 300 CP's and pretty much everyone agrees that it is a gritty as hell campaign where life is cheap and characters die and suffer easily...

From a "realistic" point of view, individuals with any stat higher than twelve are highly extraordinary.

Tsotha-lanti
2009-06-16, 12:18 PM
My group is starting a new low fantasy/magic gurps game tommorow, and our characters are human with 70/30 pts/disads....this makes me feel inadequate :smallfrown:

So at what level do stats become "superhuman"? I played a 20 strength, halberd-wielding warrior before and he felt more like a really strong guy than a superhuman.

I was going to tell you to check the book because it's very verbal in describing, but turns out the 4th edition just says "15 or more: Amazing".

The 3rd edition book is maybe more helpful... ST 20 is an Olympic weightlifter. Sure, you can play one, but you're pretty much one in millions or tens of millions. The 3rd edition book also tells us that "Any score over 20 is superhuman", so that's pretty much it.

Scores over 15 are pretty much absolutely astounding already. The 4th edition book tells us that attributes at 13-14 are immediately apparent, as bulging muscles and the like. ST 20 would look like Mariusz Pudzianowski (6'1" and over 300 pounds). You're four times as strong as average, as lifting capacity goes. The book does say that record-breaker humans could have ST even higher than 20, but at ST 20 you could clean-and-jerk 640 lbs., which is well over the world record - and that's not accounting for the Lifting skill, which could raise that by 20% or more... so you'd be clean-and-jerkin close to 800 pounds with a decent roll, and over half a ton with a great one.

nefele
2009-06-16, 01:32 PM
Thank you very very much for the responses, they were extremely helpful. :smallsmile:


It all really does depend on power level, though. I mean, King Conan has... what, ST 19, DX 15, HT 18, and IQ 12? Those are incredible stats, and that'st just the start. You can absolutely play 400-point low-magic realistic sword & sorcery with 400-point characters - they're just going to be really exceptional ones, but still die when you bash their head with a mace (a few times).
This! This is exactly what I was looking for, apart from full customization (and by that I mean a classless system with lots of options).

I think I'll try it once more, with 250 points. (400 would be reserved for folks like Ulysses - who can at the same time fight, wrestle, sail, engineer and think/bluff their way out of pretty much anything). I'll take all your suggestions into consideration - beginning with lower stats. But I'll keep the speed as high as possible, because "one in a million" is what I was aiming for.

Oh, and does anybody know an online character sheet that can calculate points (and perhaps attributes, where applicable)? Myth-Weavers was a bit lacking in that regard.

Thanks again. :)

Tsotha-lanti
2009-06-16, 02:11 PM
Remember that if you're going for movement speed, picking up Running is probably cheaper than raising Speed or Move.

fusilier
2009-06-16, 04:26 PM
Oh, and does anybody know an online character sheet that can calculate points (and perhaps attributes, where applicable)? Myth-Weavers was a bit lacking in that regard.

Thanks again. :)

Gurps Character Sheet is available for download (I think the latest version works on PC's and Macs).

http://gcs.trollworks.com/Welcome.html

I've been very happy with the older versions for Gurps 3rd edition. But you have to do some of the work yourself (like adjustments from other skills). So you do need the books handy. I really like the fact that it provides page numbers for all the skills and ads/disads, it makes character creation very easy.

warmachine
2009-06-16, 05:22 PM
Also, visit the SJG forums (http://forums.sjgames.com/) for more advice.