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sonofzeal
2008-07-21, 06:23 PM
So I'm trying GURPS for the first time, and I like what I see so far. There's a few niggling little shortcomings (no pre-built flavour for inspiration, less room for character personality to evolve naturally since everything's mechanically mandated), but my overall experience is positive so far. Still, nobody in my circle is a GURPS 4e veteran, so I thought I'd turn to my wonderful friends here for tips and advice. Many pardons if some of these come off as naive or powergame-y; I'm still mostly in the D&D mindset, and it's always been frustrating for me if my character could have been better-built mechanically. IMO, pre-session is the time for powergaming, but once the session starts the emphasis is much more on RP. Anywho, so here goes....

1) How do you budget your character's points? Specifically, how do you prioritize between stats, advantages, and skills? I mean, obviously some character concepts are going to be biased one way or another, but is there any sort of a baseline? The character I'm building has invested 161 points into his base stats (out of a total 325 points after disadvantages), 96 points into Advantages, and 68 points into skills; is that a potentially reasonable balance for an army-type character?

2) How do you distribute your points within your skills? Should most characters expect to have a point or two in 20-30 skills, or is it better to focus within a relatively narrow speciality like in D&D?

3) How common are roll penalties? If I have a 13 in, say, Forced Entry, should I expect a high degree of success, or am I just asking to get screwed by -5 modifiers? Obviously a higher number is better for emergencies, but are those hefty penalties things I should expect to see on a regular basis?

4) Any other tips, tricks, illuminating anecdotes, musings, etc?

Cybren
2008-07-21, 06:51 PM
1) How do you budget your character's points? Specifically, how do you prioritize between stats, advantages, and skills? I mean, obviously some character concepts are going to be biased one way or another, but is there any sort of a baseline? The character I'm building has invested 161 points into his base stats (out of a total 325 points after disadvantages), 96 points into Advantages, and 68 points into skills; is that a potentially reasonable balance for an army-type character?
Generally it's more "efficient" to spend your points on stats over skills. There are also talents, which improve a variety of skills, and make them faster to learn and give a small reaction bonus. Other advantages also give situational bonuses to skills. That 'spread' is pretty normal.

There are also cases where the number of points you have in skills is important. For example, the damage bonus from karate or brawling only comes in when you spend enough points to get past your DX. In addition, access to Style Points (found in GURPS Martial Arts) is dependent on the total number of points you have in combat skills.


2) How do you distribute your points within your skills? Should most characters expect to have a point or two in 20-30 skills, or is it better to focus within a relatively narrow speciality like in D&D?
Characters should have a group of advantages they use and are related, this way you can make use of talents. Certain skills are general skills that really, anyone in a given adventuring group should have. These vary by the campaign type but, for example, in a fantasy game certain skills are only as good as the worst person in the group. Hiking and stealth come to mind in that regard. Other skills like first aid are also useful.


3) How common are roll penalties? If I have a 13 in, say, Forced Entry, should I expect a high degree of success, or am I just asking to get screwed by -5 modifiers? Obviously a higher number is better for emergencies, but are those hefty penalties things I should expect to see on a regular basis?
Situational modifiers are entirely up to the GM, but in general the basic use of the skill will be unmodified. If you want to do more complex things or if there are greater obstacles you could get hit with a penalty. A good rule of thumb for skill levels and their competency is that a skill of 12 is 'professional', whereas 14 is 'expert', and 16 will be 'master'. Beyond 16 your basic chance of success doesn't increase but you can soak up more penalties and will critically succeed more often.


4) Any other tips, tricks, illuminating anecdotes, musings, etc?
don't be afraid to take one or two skills out of no where, like "Games(Chess)" or "Falconry". You'll never know when you need to send a trained bird to move your rook into checkmate. Obviously don't spend too many points (like, more than four or five) since these aren't part of your character concept, but incorporating them into the campaign will give the GM more options.

Also, the Steve Jackson Games forums are of course a great resource for GURPS information.

Dr.Gunsforhands
2008-07-21, 07:03 PM
I've played GURPS exactly once and never found out much about the mechanics. I have the Chargen book, though, so let's see...


1) How do you budget your character's points? Specifically, how do you prioritize between stats, advantages, and skills? I mean, obviously some character concepts are going to be biased one way or another, but is there any sort of a baseline? The character I'm building has invested 161 points into his base stats (out of a total 325 points after disadvantages), 96 points into Advantages, and 68 points into skills; is that a potentially reasonable balance for an army-type character?

It depends. The ones in the back of the book use about half of their points for stats, if I recall, and it's probably worth it to boost a whole mess of skills at once. Otherwise it's a matter of how talented/weird/skill-intensive you want your guy to be.


2) How do you distribute your points within your skills? Should most characters expect to have a point or two in 20-30 skills, or is it better to focus within a relatively narrow speciality like in D&D?

Define "better." If you want to have the skills for every situation that might reasonably come up, then buy them; if you want to be ridiculous at a narrow set thereof such that you can use them all of the time, do that. Whether or not either version turns out to be optimized depends on what your DM throws at you more than anything.


3) How common are roll penalties? If I have a 13 in, say, Forced Entry, should I expect a high degree of success, or am I just asking to get screwed by -5 modifiers? Obviously a higher number is better for emergencies, but are those hefty penalties things I should expect to see on a regular basis?

I don't own the campaigns book, but my own sense of game balance tells me the proper answer to this already: these come up pretty danged often. Otherwise, those ridiculous specializations from earlier would never matter. That said, think of it this way: a "normal" amount of ranks in forced entry will probably get you through a high wooden fence in a hurry, but not through, say, a cast iron security door. If you want to do something like that, go the crazy route.


4) Any other tips, tricks, illuminating anecdotes, musings, etc?

Gurps requires a lot of work to get running properly. Characters take forever to design, as do campaigns; all pre-existing gurps campaigns suck, apparently, so no shortcuts there, I guess.

In my experience, the most important piece of advice I can give is this: Do not use the 'default' rules for magic and spellcasting given in the gurps core book. Ever. It's useless and it makes no sense and seriously don't do it. Instead, make up magicky goodness from the crazy ability list and modify them to your liking. Make magery a prerequisite for learning such abilities, maybe add the mana-dependant mod to all of them for a little extra twinkishness. It might take forever, but everything takes forever in this game anyway, so there you go.

If anyone is making a gurpsy mage, they should do this even if they're not the GM and the GM is already using the standard magic stuff; just be sure to take magery anyway so as not to look like some kind of twinkish harlot.

Cybren
2008-07-21, 07:09 PM
In my experience, the most important piece of advice I can give is this: Do not use the 'default' rules for magic and spellcasting given in the gurps core book. Ever. It's useless and it makes no sense and seriously don't do it. Instead, make up magicky goodness from the crazy ability list and modify them to your liking. Make magery a prerequisite for learning such abilities, maybe add the mana-dependant mod to all of them for a little extra twinkishness. It might take forever, but everything takes forever in this game anyway, so there you go.

If anyone is making a gurpsy mage, they should do this even if they're not the GM and the GM is already using the standard magic stuff; just be sure to take magery anyway so as not to look like some kind of twinkish harlot.

that's one way to do it, but spell-mages play differently from power mages. It's an option though. A lot of groups use both. Magic for minor effects but create custom powerful effects using Powers.

mikeejimbo
2008-07-21, 08:10 PM
You'll never know when you need to send a trained bird to move your rook into checkmate.

*rimshot*

But seriously speaking, the way I suggest spending your points is to design everything around a character concept. At least, that's how we do it in my group.

warmachine
2008-07-22, 05:14 AM
Ask your GM why you don't have a set of templates that exemplify the kind of characters that would work in his campaign. It's considered essential, especially for beginners. While he's at it, ask him for a set of Talents that would be useful. Tell him to use this thread (http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=3127) if he's short of ideas.

1. The distribution of points depends on the campaign. Combat oriented campaigns mostly need points in weapon skills but investigative campaigns are more skill heavy. For an army type character, I'd be more inclined to put 40 into skills and pump up stats.

2. It is generally better to put a point into a number of skills and pump DX, IQ or, better yet, Talents. However, you'll be up against nasty penalties and you need a few good specialties. In your case, weapon skills and Tactics.

3. Is this a 250 point campaign? If so, the PCs are beyond realistic human, so expect beyond realistic challanges, such as -5 or -6 modifiers.

4. Be careful with Disadvantages: you are in a contract that you get points because they hurt you. Someone with Truthfulness really does insist on telling the truth to the bad guy he knows will **** him over with it. A wheelchair bound PC must pay back the points if he buys bionic legs. If you want to roleplay but don't want to be mandated to do it, especially when it's stupid, just take them as Quirks.

Use a Talent or two. Seriously. Everyone being high DX and/or IQ generalists is boring! Talents let you specialise and, more importantly, is cheaper.

Know the genre conventions. You can't bring a gun to a kung fu fight. You're supposed to spout technobabble in Star Trek. You don't charge machine gun posts in World War II.

Cybren
2008-07-22, 05:24 AM
4. Be careful with Disadvantages: you are in a contract that you get points because they hurt you. Someone with Truthfulness really does insist on telling the truth to the bad guy he knows will **** him over with it. A wheelchair bound PC must pay back the points if he buys bionic legs. If you want to roleplay but don't want to be mandated to do it, especially when it's stupid, just take them as Quirks.
Good advice (though the bionic legs would only be a mitigator on his disadvantage, he wouldn't have to pay back everything unless the legs were as likely to fail as regular legs)

JellyPooga
2008-07-22, 06:01 AM
1) How do you budget your character's points? Specifically, how do you prioritize between stats, advantages, and skills? I mean, obviously some character concepts are going to be biased one way or another, but is there any sort of a baseline? The character I'm building has invested 161 points into his base stats (out of a total 325 points after disadvantages), 96 points into Advantages, and 68 points into skills; is that a potentially reasonable balance for an army-type character?

For a "realistic" character, I've found that if you divide your points into 30%/30%/40% in any combination over Stats/Skills/Advantages (e.g. 30% spent on Advantages, 30% on Stats and 40% on Skills), it produced satisfactory results and a well-rounded character. Obviously this is only a guideline and isn't strict. If you spend too much on a single area (e.g. stats), you end up with grossly unbalanced characters (not necessarily overpowered or powergamed, just unbalanced); for example, if you spend 80% of your points on Advantages and only 10% on each of Stats and Skills, you'll probably have a character with a myriad of bizarre and or powerful abilities, but will have practically no knowledge of anything beyond how to pick their nose and will be cripplingly weak, clumsy or dim.

However, you've got 325 points to spend....this is the realm of superheroes and film protagonists, so we're not really looking at realism. So the question I pose to you is who is this character? If he's a Superhero, then he'll probably be quite biased towards Stats and/or Advantages (for Super Strength, Spidey Sense, Flight, etc.); perhaps 45/45/10 on Stats/Advantages/Skills respectively. If he's more of a Film Protagonist, then his physical stats aren't likely to be that high, nor is he going to have a huge amount of special abilities, but he will be extremely competent, thus high Skills; perhaps 30/20/50 to Stats/Advantages/Skills respectively.

Also remember that at this 'level' of play, you are likely a mover and shaker of whatever world you occupy, whether that be a Sci-Fi Galaxy, Post Apocalyptic Earth, Modern day New York or the Battlefield of the Somme during WW1. With that in mind, it is a given that you are more than competent, so try to have a weakness of some kind beyond or incorporated with your Disadvantages...DisAds speak for a lot, but their not worth the points they give you unless you actually play to them (so don't take them if you can't or wont play them) and you can have disadvantages without taking a DisAd...personality quirks, nervous ticks or habits that might, in the crucial moment cause you to act in one way when another might be better...


2) How do you distribute your points within your skills? Should most characters expect to have a point or two in 20-30 skills, or is it better to focus within a relatively narrow speciality like in D&D?

Again, it depends on the 'realism' factor you want in the character...a very realistic character will probably have a large range of skills at low-ish levels; very few people are extremely specialised and even those people have hobbies, or use several Skills as part of their specialisation. For less realistic or downright fictional characters, specialisation is more the norm...for example, Blade is very good with a sword and a gun but not a lot else.


3) How common are roll penalties? If I have a 13 in, say, Forced Entry, should I expect a high degree of success, or am I just asking to get screwed by -5 modifiers? Obviously a higher number is better for emergencies, but are those hefty penalties things I should expect to see on a regular basis?

If you're making a roll against a skill, you're usually assumed to be under some kind of duress already...in combat, under pressure, in a hurry, etc. Penalties are most common for people doing things they don't know how to do (i.e. using a Default Skill) rather than for actions you're likely to be taking...to use the example from the book, you'd take a -6 penalty to your Drive skill for driving in a high speed chase through a blizzard with your feet whilst aiming a bazooka through the window! I wouldn't expect high penalties unless your DM is a git and/or contrives truly bizarre situations for you to solve. A character with 12-14 in a skill is a professional in that field and could easily do it for a living; as such, in most situations, you won't have to worry.


4) Any other tips, tricks, illuminating anecdotes, musings, etc?

Like with any RPG, GURPS is best learned by diving in and just playing it, so go play and enjoy!

warmachine
2008-07-22, 07:29 AM
Silly me forgetting that bionic legs are vulnerable to EMP, unlike normal legs.

More advice: GURPS is a munchkin's wet dream but there can be no rules to stop them because it's so campaign specific. Rapier 24 (can be bought for 56 points) could break a 100 point dungeon hack but be required in a 300 point swashbuckling game with lots of guards. If the GM has not explicitly stated the campaign numerical limits, don't wreck the campaign because you're better at maths than him.

Also, GURPS relies more on RAI, not RAW, than D&D. There are simply far too many rules abuses to patch. If a rich PC subsidises a poor PC, the rules suggest the NPCs have attitudes like "Oh! So you're the hired help." However, if a Time Jumper makes himself rich by playing the lottery, there are no mechanical rules to stop this and the GM must get inventive. The player could pay the character points for his new wealth, the money could be stolen, taken as taxes, his superiors confiscate it or it's assumed he gets drunk and gambles it all away. Indeed, there shouldn't be mechanical rules as this stifles player invention. After all, why stop Doctor Who inflitrating a school by buying a winning lottery ticket, posting it to a teacher and applying for her job?

Jayabalard
2008-07-22, 08:09 AM
So I'm trying GURPS for the first time, and I like what I see so far. There's a few niggling little shortcomings (no pre-built flavour for inspiration, less room for character personality to evolve naturally since everything's mechanically mandated), There are character templates in most of the genre/setting books, and most of the settings have plenty of flavor so I'm not entirely sure what you're looking for as far as pre-built flavor.


1) How do you budget your character's points? Specifically, how do you prioritize between stats, advantages, and skills? I mean, obviously some character concepts are going to be biased one way or another, but is there any sort of a baseline? The character I'm building has invested 161 points into his base stats (out of a total 325 points after disadvantages), 96 points into Advantages, and 68 points into skills; is that a potentially reasonable balance for an army-type character?I haven't moved to 4e, so this could be different, but that character would have to start at 34 or older (1/2 the points in skills at chargen = minimum starting age). 325 is a pretty high starting point value, so it looks like you're going to be doing a highly cinematic game; how much of that is disadvantages?


2) How do you distribute your points within your skills? Should most characters expect to have a point or two in 20-30 skills, or is it better to focus within a relatively narrow speciality like in D&D?This depends alot on your campaign. Dumping lots of points into a single skill will make you very effective at a single things, but you wind up with fairly a one dimensional character. If your GM is running a game where that works, then you can do that.

Sure, Johnny-one-spell can be death incarnate, dishing out 3d6 damage at no cost ... but since all he can do is kill people he can't function in society, or in most games. Most GURPS people that I've played with want a more realistic game, so the expectation is going to be that everyone has general skills for most situations that they are running into.

I generally do skill heavy characters, fairly knowledgeable people, so I prefer to wind up with a couple of specialized skills along with a whole slew of other skills.


3) How common are roll penalties? If I have a 13 in, say, Forced Entry, should I expect a high degree of success, or am I just asking to get screwed by -5 modifiers? Obviously a higher number is better for emergencies, but are those hefty penalties things I should expect to see on a regular basis?Penalties are generally just there for the difficult stuff; if you are highly skilled, then you will probably wind up trying the difficult stuff and will wind up with those high penalties. Also, a GM will have to put you in more difficult situations to challenge you as you become more skilled.

With a good GM, you should generally expect a good success rate out of things that you know well, and you should also expect to have some difficult situations where you'll be completing skills with high degrees of penalties.

Leewei
2008-07-22, 09:43 AM
Character advancement in GURPS is through character point awards. In general, you raise the skills you use or see in use. For this reason, I tend to spend very few points on skills (20-30 max) during character creation. Attributes and Advantages get the majority of my creation points (in a roughly 2:1 ratio for most characters).

Talk to the other players about their backgrounds and concepts. Come up with your own concept that fits in with them.

Oh, one last thing. Coming up with a good set of Quirks is only worth 5 points, but choosing the right ones makes your character fun and memorable. Mixing in one or two funny ones for a bit of flavor, as long as it isn't disruptive, can liven up the game nicely.

mcv
2008-07-22, 01:30 PM
But seriously speaking, the way I suggest spending your points is to design everything around a character concept. At least, that's how we do it in my group.

Exactly. This is especially true in GURPS 4th edition. In 3rd edition, stats were king, and almost every character ended up with very high DX and IQ, and tons of skills with a single point each. In 4th edition, DX and IQ were doubled in cost, and high skills were halved in cost. Now it pays to be a specialist with only a few skills but lots of points in each. Ofcourse you can still boost DX or IQ and buy lots of skills, but it's more expensive to be really good at them. Or you can take moderate IQ/DX, lots of points in a handful of primary skills, and lots of secondary skills with a single point each.

Which is best depends on personal taste and character concept. In my current Traveller campaign, the pilot has very high skills in Piloting, Guns (pistol) and Fast Talk, and moderate levels in a couple of other social and shipboard skills. He's a specialist in three skills, and it's fitting, because he's an action-hero hotshot pilot. He even has a "Natural Pilot" talent, despite it being a bad investment for him (he has only a single piloting skill), but in the future he'll learn to pilot different vehicles with little trouble.

The group also has a more traditional GURPS-style character with more skills than fit on his character sheet, but because he also put quite a lot of points in psionic abilities, none of his skills are particularly high. Even so, a few XPs will allow him to quickly specialise in whatever it is that the rest of the group isn't good at.

In any case, my most important guideline for making a GURPS character is:
Make sure you can do something in the most important situations that are likely to come up. In other words:

Make sure you've got at least one combat skill. With 2 points in Broadsword or Pistol you may not be the biggest fighter, but at least you can defend yourself. A bit. (In fact, in a PBeM I'm playing a tough barbarian fighter whose highest combat skill is 14. So you can get by without super high skills.)
Have at least one social skill. For a combat specialist, that's probably going to be a few points in Intimidate or Carousing (a very underestimated skill), whereas the party Face will have very high skills in Diplomacy, Fast Talk and Acting.
If investigation plays a role, have at least one investigative skill. (Although that could also be a social skill.)
Have an environmental skill. If you're flying around in a ship, make sure you've got a role on board. If you hike around the country, get Survival, Hiking, Ride (horse), or whatever.
In general, make sure you can handle yourself in different situations, particularly when you're a specialist for only one of them.



Use a Talent or two. Seriously. Everyone being high DX and/or IQ generalists is boring! Talents let you specialise and, more importantly, is cheaper.

Depends. Yes, Talents are cool, and the small (5pt/level) Talents are IMHO way too cheap, but the expensive (15pt/level) Talents are way too expensive (I think 6/9/12 would have been a better cost progression). Some character concepts really need a good Talent to work.

For example, my current Traveller campaign has a brilliant (but deranged and creepy) physician who is great at all medical skills. Instead of sinking tons of points into Physician, Surgery, First Aid, Diagnosis and Electronics Operation(medical), he has 4 levels of Healer talent and a few points in each skill. Another possibility would have been to buy one of those skills really high, and let the others default from that one, so there's more than one way to do it.

I also very much encourage custom Talents, but you need to be careful here (and you need GM fiat): a Talent is not a class, so it should never give a bonus simply to all skills that a particular profession needs. For example: a Knight Talent that boosts Broadsword, Shield, Riding (horse), Heraldry and Savoir Faire should not be allowed. However, a talent that makes you good at every skill related to machines is perfectly reasonable. It'd boost Engineering, Electronics, Electronics Operation, Armoury (only the machine-related specialisations), Mechanic, and probably a few others.

According to the rules, bonuses to weapon skills are not allowed, but I disagree: a talent that makes you really good at using weapons without being particularly agile makes sense, but it would have to boost all weapon skills, so it'd probably cost 15 pt/level, making it nearly as expensive as DX itself. Even at 10 pt/lvl it wouldn't be unbalancing, because most of the time you're using just a single weapon skill, and boosting a single skill to superhuman levels only costs 4 pts/level. The extra points are for variety and flexibility, not for more munchkin power.

sonofzeal
2008-07-22, 06:19 PM
Wow, thanks for all the responses! I'll be forwarding this link to the rest of the group. ^^


Ask your GM why you don't have a set of templates that exemplify the kind of characters that would work in his campaign. It's considered essential, especially for beginners. While he's at it, ask him for a set of Talents that would be useful. Tell him to use this thread (http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=3127) if he's short of ideas.
I believe the DM's fairly new to 4e too, which might be why he hasn't done that, so I'll pass that along. And what are these "Talent" things? I only have the base two books and I don't see them listed in the index. Am I right in assuming that they let you buy up a bunch of related skills at the same time?

Also, I don't really have any of the setting books, which might be why I haven't seen much flavour yet. It seems more of a "build your own flavour" so far, which isn't bad at all, just different.

Anyway, here's my attempt at a (plain text) character sheet, for those who are curious. Some still needs rewriting/tweaking


Name: Tankli
Quick Concept: Rather sociopathic Dwarven Defender with some psi skills from an old D&D campaign, who got tossed through a magical portal at the end. Has little memory of his prior life and is now working for ISWAT, but is just as hate-filled as ever. Is extremely durable, has a little TK psi (DR, Binding, but no fine control), and is trained in certain appropriate forms of information gathering and application.


BUDGET: 250 points plus up to 75 in disadvantages, 325 total

STATS

ST 13 (+30)
DX 13 (+60)
IQ 10
HT 13 (+30)

HP 25 (+20)
WILL 12 (+10)
Per 11 (+5)
FP 15 (+6)
Speed 6.5
Move 4.5 (-10)

= +161 (-10)


ADVANTAGES

Binding (+28 = lvl 14 Binding)
Damage Reduction (+20 = +4 DR)
Hard to Subdue (+6 = +3 on rolls)
Hard to Kill (+2 = +1 on rolls)
Magic Resistance (+10 = -5 to mage rolls)
Rank (+5)
V. Rapid Heal (+15 = 2x heal, +5 on rolls)
Resistant (+10 = +3 on rolls)

= +96

DISADVANTAGES

Bad Temper (-10, self-control) [note to self - change?]
Code of Honour (-1)
Duty (-15)
Odious Personal Habit (-15; -3 NPC reactions)
Overconfidence (-5, self-control, -2 reaction from pros)
Paranoia (-10, -2 NPC reactions)
Stubbornness (-5, -1 NPC reactions)
Sense of Duty (-5)
Tone Deaf (-1)
Unnatural Features: teeth/hair (-3)

= -65 (-75 after move)

SKILLS

Diff Pts Level Mods TOTAL
Autohypnosis Will/Ha 1 Wi-2 10
Brawling DX/Ea 1 DX+0 13
Breath Control HT/Ha 1 HT-2 11
Camouflage IQ/Ea 2 IQ+1 11
Criminology IQ/Av 4 IQ+1 11
Fast Draw DX/Ea 1 DX+0 13
Forced Entry DX/Ea 1 DX+0 13
Freight Handle IQ/Av 1 IQ-1 9
Gesture IQ/Ea 1 IQ+0 10
Intelligence IQ/Ha 2 IQ-1 9
Interrogation IQ/Av 2 IQ+0 12
Intimidation Will/Av 4 Wi+1 13
Meditation Will/Ha 1 Wi-2 10
Mental Strength Will/Ea 4 Wi+2 14
Tonfa Dx/Av 4 DX+1 14
Observation Per/Av 2 Pe+0 11
Religion Ritual IQ/Ha 1 IQ-2 8
Rifle Dx/Ea 4 DX+3 15
Search Per/Av 2 Pe+0 11
Shield DX/Ea 8 DX+3 16
Sociology IQ/Ha 1 IQ-2 8
Soldier IQ/Av 2 IQ+0 10
Strategy IQ/Ha 4 IQ-2 10
Sumo DX/Av 2 DX+0 13
Tactics IQ/Ha 12 IQ+2 12

points: 68

MISC
DODGE 12 (note to self - these might need to be recomputed)
BLOCK 14
PARRY 13



GEAR
Tonfa (Tonfa 14)
- thrust 1d6+1, crushing
- OR swing 2d6-1, crushing
- reach 1, parry 0, $20
Assault Rifle
- can be used one-handed
- 5d pi, acc 5, range 500/3500, 9lb, RoF 3
- shots 30+1(3), bulk -4, $600, LC 2
Tactical Suit
- DR 20 vs piercing and cutting
- DR 10 otherwise
- $3000, 15 lb
Ballistic Helmet
- DR 12 skull
- DR 10 eyes/face
- 6 lb, provides Protected Vision

Ulzgoroth
2008-07-22, 06:32 PM
Talents are a family of advantages, found in the usual chapter under the name 'Talent'. They provide benefits to clusters of skills, including a straight bonus, a bonus to training time, and a reaction bonus if you can show off your talent. (That may not be all, away from book.)

(If they're really not in the index, that's embarrassing, for a book that has gerbil in the index, referencing a single, jokey example in one of the limitations.)


Wow, that looks like a lot of hit points. As in shrugging off getting run through with a broadsword, without armor or innate DR. :smalleek:

sonofzeal
2008-07-22, 07:21 PM
Talents are a family of advantages, found in the usual chapter under the name 'Talent'. They provide benefits to clusters of skills, including a straight bonus, a bonus to training time, and a reaction bonus if you can show off your talent. (That may not be all, away from book.)

(If they're really not in the index, that's embarrassing, for a book that has gerbil in the index, referencing a single, jokey example in one of the limitations.)


Wow, that looks like a lot of hit points. As in shrugging off getting run through with a broadsword, without armor or innate DR. :smalleek:
Really? I was worried it was too low. Still... he's the kind who, if there's no rogue around, routinely and deliberately disarms traps with his face (there should be a disadvantage for "no sense of self preservation", but I haven't seen one). One of the other people in the party went for "Unkillable 2", but I think I like this approach better; he's not immortal, just very very hard to take down.

As for Talents... do you mean Templates? They're in the index, and have their own chapter. Are the two the same?

mikeejimbo
2008-07-22, 07:26 PM
Talents are just a bonus for a group of related skills, and are bought as Advantages. I believe one of them is called "Green Thumb". A few sample talents are sprinkled around the Character's book, but the GM can make more.

Wait! Are we talking about 3rd Edition or 4th here?

Ah, 4th. Yeah, talents should be in there in the Advantages section.

(Yeah, we can tell just by looking at your character sheet :smallwink:)

ShneekeyTheLost
2008-07-22, 07:46 PM
Silly me forgetting that bionic legs are vulnerable to EMP, unlike normal legs.

More advice: GURPS is a munchkin's wet dream but there can be no rules to stop them because it's so campaign specific. Rapier 24 (can be bought for 56 points) could break a 100 point dungeon hack but be required in a 300 point swashbuckling game with lots of guards. If the GM has not explicitly stated the campaign numerical limits, don't wreck the campaign because you're better at maths than him.

Also, GURPS relies more on RAI, not RAW, than D&D. There are simply far too many rules abuses to patch. If a rich PC subsidises a poor PC, the rules suggest the NPCs have attitudes like "Oh! So you're the hired help." However, if a Time Jumper makes himself rich by playing the lottery, there are no mechanical rules to stop this and the GM must get inventive. The player could pay the character points for his new wealth, the money could be stolen, taken as taxes, his superiors confiscate it or it's assumed he gets drunk and gambles it all away. Indeed, there shouldn't be mechanical rules as this stifles player invention. After all, why stop Doctor Who inflitrating a school by buying a winning lottery ticket, posting it to a teacher and applying for her job?

Actually, as a veteran GM of GURPS, I'd either require him to pay the character points for his wealth, or use the 'Butterfly Effect' clause of time travel to prevent abuse of time travel to gain significant wealth.

Really, I've found that it is more effective to spend more on good stats, then purchase a number of skills at a lower base cost for the same effective skill. For example: Having a Dex of 14 costs points, but then you can purchase 20 skills at Dex for minimal cost (1-4 points, IIRC), and have them all at 14, which isn't a bad number. The really important ones you might want to bump up to Dex+2, or 16, but you shouldn't need to do this for many. This would be FAR cheaper than having a dex of 12 and buying most of your skills up to Dex+2 and a few up to Dex+4, and MUCH cheaper than spending nothing on Dex, then buying up the skills at Dex+4 or even +6.

Advantages are fun, but they can add up quick. Best limit yourself here, or you're going to be in trouble, and make sure they all significantly benefit your character.

Cybren
2008-07-22, 08:01 PM
Well you don't have High Pain Threshold, so HP 25 means that you take half the penalties from shock. Not bad at all. In addition, you recover HP at double the rate. Since you also have Very Rapid Healing you'll be getting back 4(!) HP each night. You have a good HT score and Hard to Kill, so you could easily survive into the negative HPs. Your character isn't "automatically dead" from damage until -5 * HP, in your case -125, or a total of 150 damage sustained. This is on top of any active defenses and Damage Resistance you have.


Looking over your character sheet, some points- you bought Binding and Damage Resistance as telekinetic abilities, so you should take them with the Psychokinetic modifier, which will reduce their cost by 10%, the offset being that it is psionic and thus things can interfere with its operation.

Your character doesn't have Combat Reflexes, which is useful for experienced soldiers. (bonus on all active defense rolls, to reacting to surprises, fast draw)


(there should be a disadvantage for "no sense of self preservation", but I haven't seen one)

Try combining Curious with Impulsiveness and Overconfidence. If it's just a tendency to do things that will be inconvenient but not really harmful, and it's not strong, buy it as a quirk.

In addition, some minor issues
1) The advantage is Damage Resistance, not a major issue but in Powers and Supers they detail a variation on Injury Tolerance called Damage Reduction.
2) Your Dodge does need to be recomputed, it's 9 (basic speed +3, dropping fractions). Likewise your Block is only 11 (1/2 skill +3, or 16/2= 8, 8+3 =11). Your Parry with your Tonfa is thus 10, and Brawling and Sumo will be at a 9.

sonofzeal
2008-07-22, 08:31 PM
Well you don't have High Pain Threshold, so HP 25 means that you take half the penalties from shock. Not bad at all. In addition, you recover HP at double the rate. Since you also have Very Rapid Healing you'll be getting back 4(!) HP each night. You have a good HT score and Hard to Kill, so you could easily survive into the negative HPs. Your character isn't "automatically dead" from damage until -5 * HP, in your case -125, or a total of 150 damage sustained. This is on top of any active defenses and Damage Resistance you have.

Looking over your character sheet, some points- you bought Binding and Damage Resistance as telekinetic abilities, so you should take them with the Psychokinetic modifier, which will reduce their cost by 10%, the offset being that it is psionic and thus things can interfere with its operation.
Ooo, that saves me a few points! Thanks!


Your character doesn't have Combat Reflexes, which is useful for experienced soldiers. (bonus on all active defense rolls, to reacting to surprises, fast draw)
Good idea, I'll try to reorganize and get that!


Try combining Curious with Impulsiveness and Overconfidence. If it's just a tendency to do things that will be inconvenient but not really harmful, and it's not strong, buy it as a quirk.
Well, it's partially his faith in his own survivability (Overconfidence), partly because he sees it as his job in the group (Sense of Duty), but mostly this masochistic urge to prove himself as more "dwarven" then the dwarf societies which expelled him as a monster. That said, I just found "On The Edge" which seems to do the job just swimmingly.


In addition, some minor issues
1) The advantage is Damage Resistance, not a major issue but in Powers and Supers they detail a variation on Injury Tolerance called Damage Reduction.
2) Your Dodge does need to be recomputed, it's 9 (basic speed +3, dropping fractions). Likewise your Block is only 11 (1/2 skill +3, or 16/2= 8, 8+3 =11). Your Parry with your Tonfa is thus 10, and Brawling and Sumo will be at a 9.
Ah, I forgot to list his Riot Shield (+3 to all active defences). That's why those numbers are so high.

All in all, thank you muchly for an excellent and quite helpful post!

Cybren
2008-07-22, 08:47 PM
Ah, I forgot to list his Riot Shield (+3 to all active defences). That's why those numbers are so high.


I figured, just remember, if you're using tactical combat that the defense bonus only comes from attacks from the front or shield side.

warmachine
2008-07-22, 08:59 PM
The disadvantages are a problem. Bad Reputations are capped to -4 but your combined reaction penalties are -6. (What is the Odious Personal Habit anyway?) That means you REALLY p*** people off. How you managed to get a Rank is beyond me. You are going to roleplay a -3 OPH, clinical paranoia, hard stubbornness and frequent bad temper. You're going to REALLY p*** the other players off! Are your friends ready for this or are you ready to have those points taken off you for failing to roleplay them?

Also, take Combat Reflexes and High Pain Threshold. They're considered standard for combat characters. You might even consider Lucky.

I'm also wondering how a person who's an average intelligence grunt (albeit powerful) ended up learning the academic skills of Criminology, Intelligence Analysis and Sociology. I can see ISWAT teaching him Observation and Strategy (and Stealth) but not those. What's even weirder is that a church thought someone with the charm of a brick in the face should be taught Reigious Ritual so he can lead a congregation.

sonofzeal
2008-07-22, 10:14 PM
The disadvantages are a problem. Bad Reputations are capped to -4 but your combined reaction penalties are -6. (What is the Odious Personal Habit anyway?) That means you REALLY p*** people off. How you managed to get a Rank is beyond me. You are going to roleplay a -3 OPH, clinical paranoia, hard stubbornness and frequent bad temper. You're going to REALLY p*** the other players off! Are your friends ready for this or are you ready to have those points taken off you for failing to roleplay them?
His OPH and Unnatural Features both trace back to the D&D character, who was a dwarf with gnollish ancestry. As a result he's shaggy even for a dwarf, and has predatorial teeth. He also has a taste for raw humanoid flesh, and a tendancy to cut fingers off of fallen enemies to chew on. DM ruled that as a -3 OPH, and I have to admit I agree. I'm dropping Bad Temper though; he's surly and slightly sadistic, but that's more of a bad attitude than a temper thing, maybe worth a "quirk" but nothing serious. Also, his Sense of Duty counteracts his Stubbornness to a degree; he won't give in to most people, but he'll follow orders from superiors well enough (but if he really believes a commanding officer is jeprodizing the mission as a whole, his grudge might build up into a potential muteny). We'll see how this goes though.


Also, take Combat Reflexes and High Pain Threshold. They're considered standard for combat characters. You might even consider Lucky.
I'm definitelly taking CR. I don't think I can get the points for HPT though, and he should be resistant enough without it anyway at this point.


I'm also wondering how a person who's an average intelligence grunt (albeit powerful) ended up learning the academic skills of Criminology, Intelligence Analysis and Sociology. I can see ISWAT teaching him Observation and Strategy (and Stealth) but not those. What's even weirder is that a church thought someone with the charm of a brick in the face should be taught Reigious Ritual so he can lead a congregation.
The criminology stuff was personal interest on his part, more than deliberate training given to him. I don't know how ISWAT functions, but I wouldn't be surprised if they'd encourage him in building up skills that might be useful.

As for Religious Ritual... in his prior life he was a member of an underground militant cult/offshoot of a major religion. I figure he'd gravitate towards that again, something akin to a heretic-hunter sect. And Ritual seemed more his style than Theology. It's not necessary for the character, but it's a fun little oddity like Cybren's chess-playing bird.