Build a Bard, in GURPS!

[mikeejimbo]

You know what system doesn't get much attention on these threads? Anything but d20. Now, that's not a bad thing, it's on a site that's mostly devoted to d20 stuff, after all. But I know that a number of you also know GURPS, and I thought it'd be a fun project to try to emulate a class in it.

My current favorite class to play is the Bard. I don't really know why - play along with me. Clearly, skills like Public Speaking and Enthrallment are necessary. However, how would you re-create the ability to motivate his allies to perform better?

[Cybren]

To model the D&D style of "sign and grand allies bonuses" i would consider looking into just using the magery with musical limitation and selecting skills from the communication and empathy, mind control, and movement colleges. The spell selection in the Basic Set is fairly anemic, but usable. GURPS magic will expand it quite a bit. GURPS Fantasy and GURPS Dungeon Fantasy will help for the genre.

If you want to go with a Powers based solution, i would use Affliction. GURPS Powers describes using an Affliction for a beneficial effect.

Affliction 1 (Advantage DX + 1 +200%, Area Effect 16 Yards + 200%, Malediction + 100%, Selectivity +20%, Sense-Based (Hearing) -20%, Only While Playing Instrument -20%, Magical -10%) [47]

You wind up with a 47pt ability that lets you bestow +1 DX to all your allies in an area effect as long as you succeed on a Will roll, with range penalties equal to 1 per yard they are away from you. Since it's a malediction, the person can waive their resistence roll, and since it's an emanation with selectivity you can pick anyone and everyone (including yourself) withing sixteen yards to effect. You can change out the advantage, or buy more afflictions as Alternative Attacks, which would model how a D&D Bard works since they can only do one 'song' at once.

In a search I found this GURPS thread, which has a host of abilities for bards and some neat flavor
http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=29749

[mikeejimbo]

The Affliction with the DX bonus was kind of along the lines of what I was thinking, but I didn't look it up in Powers. I also considered magery with the musical limitation, but I only glanced through the Basic Set spells. I'll have to check through Magic too then. I don't think anyone I know has Fantasy, but that's something to think about getting.

Thanks for the link, it looks neat. I haven't been to SJ's forums in a while.

[HawkBob]

SJ Games has a new PDF book called GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Adventurers that has templates for bards (including advanages that work with bards) and alot of the D&D classes it's only 8 bucks and has alot of good info for dungeon crawling in GURPS.