Thanks for making these videos. I was one of those people who was overwhelmed by the level of complexity in the GURPS rules when I first tried to learn the game. I grew up with Basic Dungeons and Dragons and Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, and because of the way I was introduced to those games, it wasn't obvious to me that I could (should!) choose to not use every rule in the GURPS books.
You and me both... I started with AD&D in 1982 and at that time, I loved all of the nooks and crannies... but now, 40 years later, I like the ability to streamline rules to fit the situation. We play the RPG side pretty loose, and the tactical combat side with the full rules. IMHO, it is the best of both worlds ;-)
One point is that any given character generally won't use all the complexity. So for instance, if you're a wizard you'll be doing the "Concentrate" maneuver a lot, but since you use fatigue to cast spells, you probably won't be burning a lot to add damage to your melee attack or whatever. If you're mostly hand to hand, you won't be worrying too much about aim and range modifiers. And so on. When I have a big strong fighter, one maneuver I like to use that wasn't mentioned here is the Slam, which lets you ram into people and try to knock them over . . . but light, nimble fencer types probably won't have much luck with that one.
You are correct, of course. My druid mainly used attack (aiming for the vitals), and dodge. Occasionally, all-out-attack strong and Mighty Blow when I thought I could administer the coup de grâce. Of course, it is up to each player. In our GURPS Newbies "Oneshot" (czcams.com/play/PLqckpAfDuMM_rdWCJEoLG0qkDJ9b-M3ns.html) Penzel the wizard did an overhead smash to the back of the head to down one opponent. It was pretty cool.
Honestly, having come from DnD (unforunately)---the relation you make between GURPS and DnD really helps, like when you relate the position modifiers for attacking to the flanking rules in 5e; all that adds up to make it a lot easier to transition to this system, I really appreciate the effort you put into these!
Mr "the Humble", you are very welcome. You are my target audience. I too was once a D&D player. But also, it comes down to basic numbers... there are a lot more D&D players out there, then not. So it doesn't hurt to relate to it ;-) Thanks for watching, and I hope it helps!
@@chrisnormand Hedrix the Humble was my first DnD character and it's a bit of an ironic title because the character gave it to themselves and in my own opinion, anyone willing to name themselves, "the Humble" is anything but humble, and humble he was not. In all seriousness though, these videos really do help and there is indeed a large margin between DnD players and other TRPGs, but hopefully these wonderful videos can help balance those odds.
@@hedrixthehumble5316 Thank you again... and yeah, it is slow going, but more and more people see these videos, and seem to keep watching. So I must be doing something right ;-)
GURPS 3e holds a special place in my heart, not the least is the combat system... Especially given the 90's cRPG Fallout initially being developed with GURPS as it's RPG engine until licensing issues popped up. Thanks for making good GURPS content!
I have tried to choose for the last 2 years. D&D, VtM WoD, now G.U.R.P.S. The funny thing is my Dad had G.U.R.P.S. Books and I was sold at the age of 6 I just did not know it Thank you for making me realize this
Yeah, it is an odd ecosystem.... GURPS is old, the last edition was published in 2004... but they constantly make content for it, so really, it never gets old ;-) Once I found GURPS, I decided that I liked having one system that could do any genre that I wanted. Yeah, it doesn't do every genre perfectly, but I am fine with that. One thing you learn when using GURPS, is that you become a game designer. "GURPS is a Toolkit" is a common saying... meaning you are meant to build your own game system from the various tools provided, and once you start doing that, you find that you can build any game you want.
LOVE this series! It's been so helpful to my new players. Just a note: I got super excited when you brought up deceptive attacks for ranged weapons since my newest character is a gunslinger and I hadn't come across this yet. However, I had a hard time finding it. Turns out it's in the Martial Arts book in the Combat chapter in the "Ranged Attack Options" section under the title "Tricky Shooting" and is labelled as "Prediction Shots" not "Predictive Shots". Hope this clears things up for anyone else looking for it.
Very good video. I never liked the idea of a character always attacking first; at the same time I wanted to grant an edge to the faster ones. So, after years of play, me and my friends decided for this compromise: roll a dice and ADD the movement of the character. Once the order of action is rolled, it goes one the same until the end of the combat.
In one of my campaigns, I also created my own initiative order, but it didn’t give enough benefit to overcome the varying order. Plus, one of the players purposely purchased Speed to be able to go earlier in the round, and the randomness sort of ruined that. So since then, I’ve been using GURPS standards turn order (based on Speed).
:-) It is a version of our Users Guide tag line "Your GURPS, Your Way": bit.ly/2JaSlQd And the focus of all of these videos... customizing GURPS to fit your gaming style.
Keep this up man! I love these videos. I started D&D 3.5 when I was 3, and now I’m 18 and have branched out to find GURPS a lot more open and free than d&d. This is helping a lot!
Having started with 5e when a couple friends invited me to join them for a One Shot, I fell in love with it because it was a character building game that I could play with friends. Up until I joined the one shot, I was just playing Skyrim and making new character after character. Now I've been playing D&D 5e for almost 4 years now and I'm wanting something that can do a little more than just Tolkien fantasy or Magic The Gathering creatures, I want something that can handle me wanting to have a party of adventurers traveling across Skyrim and Morrowind, clearing out dungeons and defying the Daedra, and then use the same set of rules and play a Wild Western Gunslingers campaign. I'm really liking this system so far from your series, I just hope my friends are as intrigued as I am
That is fantastic... and like you, I also love to build characters. You can make such interesting choices and create some very in-depth characters. I hope it works out for you and your friends!
These videos are fantastic. Really makes me want to re-examine GURPS as a system to run more games on. The combat choices really look amazing to use. Even at the more complex level….it’s does not seem that much once you familiar. Look forward to more.
Exactly how I feel. When playing (or running) GURPS, I prefer a rules-light version for role playing, and a rules-heavy version for combat. I love the level of tactical combat that we can get with GURPS. As I mentioned in the video... GURPS combat is better than most of the board games that I own.
Now down a set of preferred combat manoeuvres for each character. Ie, the high-skill swordfighter uses deceptive attack and feint a lot, but the armoured grunt with the mail likes committed attack and all your attack: strong and extra effort. This is similar to picking techniques in martial arts, and gives a discernable combat style.
Thank you so much for this!!! I was trying to find an easy way to help teach my friends and this is perfect. Edit: Besides combat and general rule mechanics, one thing that would be very helpful I think are how to make quick NPC's/Enemies (and maybe explain the short form "stat block" I see for them sometimes). One general thing I keep seeing when people talk about this is to ignore build points entirely and just make em how you want. Thats great and all, because it does make it easier to generate them quicker... but I grew up with DND and Pathfinder where everything essentially has a power level. To me, thats incredibly hard to gauge in a point buy system as open as GURPS. A 100 point character's abilities might very wildly from one to another, with some being good at combat and others being good at more peaceful vocations. The same thing can be said for NPC's/enemies, making it doubly difficult for me to decide how to make them to balance them against the party and how quickly I can since its so involved in the first place.
Not using points do build NPCs was a hard thing to wrap my mind around in the beggining. But oh boy, it is way simpler and will save you a LOT of time. Imagine trying to create a monstrous giant spider and having to factor in all the points - consider something very basic like clinging on a wall, it's a 20-point advantage that you will have to factor in your point budget. Or even an enemy mage with an explosive fireball spell (imagine all the pre-requisites you will have to buy so he/she can use that spell). And then why are you tracking those points anyway? It's not like someone's gonna audit your NPCs/enemies. For any enemy, I only bother writing down the attributes, combat abilities and equipment (armor, weapons, potions and any other item useful for the party), without ever worrying about point cost - because as you said a 100-point character can be either a soldier or an accountant. If you're worried about "challenge rating" and balancing combat, there's Pyramid Magazine #3/77 which introduces "Combat Effectiveness Rating - CER". But I don't think it's worth the trouble, as it is too much math - you'll have to calculate it for each party member and NPC... and keep it updated as characters evolve or acquire new gear. I used it for a while until I realized it wasn't very precise. So, if I want a "balanced combat", what I do is create enemies that can at the same time hurt the PC with the highest DR and still do not kill the PC with the lowest DR in one hit (I'm not considering critical hits or called shots here). The contrary is also true, they should have a DR high enough to not be killed by the srongest PC in one hit but at the same time that the weakest PC could hurt them.
Yeah this always tripped me up to. Easy to make barebones but then I always need more meat and get lost in the weeds. Oh and now I need 3 more NPC's ughhh, let me start again.
@@chrisnormand totally! What I would be looking for is some examples on how to assemble different source books to create your own GURPS "setting". Ideas, dos and don'ts etc.
Hey Chris. One of the best ways to learn how GURPS works is to watch actual gameplay examples. There is a channel called “easyGURPS” (or something like that) where the guy runs various combat scenarios, but it’s unedited, he makes quite a few mistakes with the rules, and he uses rather simple scenarios. With your knowledge of the system, I think a lot of would-be gamers would greatly appreciate your setting up a wide variety of scenarios (from prehistoric to fantasy to modern to far future combat examples) to help illustrate the advanced rules details in an easy-to-grasp fashion. Lots of video opportunities there, if that interests you.
@@chrisnormand You’re most welcome. I ran into many little but troublesome problems when I first played GURPS (like I thought character turns all occurred at the same instant, for example) that would have been cleared up with an example or two. The combats wouldn’t even have to be “real,” in that you could choose the roll results that would best illustrate the lessons you’re teaching. Or perhaps run the same scenario a few different ways to show different results-like a simple, bare-bones combat followed by the same scenario using every advanced rule you can find. Or a shootout where a gunslinger goes for speed, followed by the same situation only taking his time. Or the same armored knight scenario played out with several different weapons. Or a swashbuckling tavern fight with a variety of combatants. Or a bunch of street thugs ganging up on an expert Muay Thai practitioner. Or a single WWII soldier ambushing a squad of unprepared enemy soldiers. Or a time traveling cyborg with future weaponry beset by a group of bandits. The list is endless! Make them instructive and entertaining enough and I wouldn’t be surprised if Steve Jackson Games offered to sponsor you in some way. Just spitballin’ here….
An idea: actual plays. It would be great to see how everything works actually. But no matter if you or your players don't want to do it, your videos are amazing. Many thanks for them.
Great video! I like how you explain the basics but include enough complexity for a long time of playing. I've been comfortable with GURPS combat rules for quite some time, but just in theory. I ended up GM'ing other systems more for many different reasons, and just now I've been able to actually run a full GURPS campaign like I wanted to. One of the challenges is running combat sessions, because as a GM I want to give cool options to my players but not overwhelm them. At the same time, I need to be able to help them use those options, and it's not easy to remember everything. Thankfully, using the GURPS Game Aid has been a breeze. I have made some journal "cards" with the images from GURPS combat cards and labeled them with sentences that help them choose their maneuvers during a battle. The damage calculator indeed helps me to include the damage multipliers without forcing people to do too much math. I've sent this video to my group, because there are a lot of cool ideas for them here. Things they've been introduced to but haven't used yet.
So I tried GURPS when I was 10 years old. Then again when I was 17. Then again at 29. And now I'll try again at 33. The hardest part of GURPS is finding a (good) group.
Agreed... but the world has changed a lot in 23 years... and Foundry VTT is a great way to play GURPS online. Even our local group plays remotely most of the time (no driving, can play in pajamas, etc.). And we use Discord for audio and video.
Great videos! In my experience, GURPS focus on realism actually makes it less deadly than D&D as long as the characters are smart and wear armor. To use your example of the goblin in GURPS terms getting a small humanoid that is weaker than a human to do enough damage with a thrusting weapon to get through chainmail is pretty tough and not something that will happen very often. In D&D (especially 5e) they can wear PCs down through attrition if there are enough of them as they're guaranteed to do at least one damage per hit and their chances of hitting are generally better since the PCs don't have active defenses. GURPS is only really more deadly if someone insists on doing something like running around bare chested in furry underwear. If you're running something like Pendragon or Game of Thrones and the characters are all knights in armor, they are much less likely to die unless you start throwing elite enemies at them or you add in a lot more complications like hit locations to subvert the armor value.
Very good point! I was thinking my target audience was D&D players... so I really wanted to get it across that they won't have piles of hit points to protect them. Hopefully I was able to get across the immense customizability of GURPS combat, which will hopefully appeal to a wide variety of players.
I really appreciate what you are doing here. Thank you for making it patently clear that one can strip out all the complexity for a streamlined gameplay. I still have my original D20 from 1977 and am getting into introducing some friends to a home-brewed game based on my favourite SFF novels. Cheers for making it approachable with GURPS. Happy Holidays!
One thing you can do though is layer armor, add flexible armor such as chain mail under your plate. You can also use larger shields and give yourself better chance of blocking by putting more points in skill
I just always felt that "extra effort" was a neat game idea that gave the players more choices (and allowed them a new "pool" to spend from (FP)). Fortunately, you can do it in whatever order you like!
Great video! Easy to follow and very helpful for getting my footing in the system. :> Also, not to be an "um actually" guy but I think the concept of "hit points" actually predates dnd entirely; there are naval wargames that date back decades and decades before that which used that term to refer to how many artillery shell hits a vessel would conceivably sustain before sinking! Idk if it's exactly what inspired Gygax but it would be a massive coincidence if it was unrelated, especially since he was such a fan of wargames.
Still loving it. I could use one about dual weilding and two attacks while duel weilding, and both of those with ambidextrous advantage or other advantages that might minimize the minuses. PS: That croc battle sounds 🔥. I'd love to play in a GURPs game with an experienced DM so I could get a handle on it better. We've played 2 sessions and they've gone well, but a lot of rules searching between sessions.
Yeah, it can be daunting if you don't have anyone familiar with the rules, but it sounds like you have the gist of it. "Wing it" during the session, and then look it up afterwards... or not. You can go with your "house rule" as long as you like. If you notice, our combat cheat sheet is "Version 4", and that should be "V4.0.0"... we went through a lot of iterations as we slowly added in the rules that we wanted to use.
4:10 wow, Warren Spector was on the GURPS team? I never knew that, but it's a huge bonus to have THE Deus Ex man himself help you out with your system.
One very simple and blunt way to make the game less deadly as the GM is to multiply the HP of every character at the end of character creation. I am thinking of doing this with a multiple of 1.5x or 2x for a more heroic campaign.
I have thought of that, but I am also a bit wary. I’ve tried other modifications to GURPS through the years, thinking that I did something interesting, only to find out that it really didn’t work out as well as I had hoped. So now I tend to keep with the Rules As Written, but include things like story points, to allow the player characters to correct when they make a mistake. This way, I don’t worry that I may be unbalancing some thing, and I still have a way for characters to get themselves out of trouble. Although, I think your suggestion isn’t that far-fetched. My current character Grend, purchased extra hit points (he has 20 now.) specifically, so that he would have a little bit more cushion. And of course it depends on your group. If they are used to having a lot of hit points, than playing GURPS to the rules can be quite a change. And increasing the hitpoints might be a good way to get them into the system. I wish you luck, and please post back how it goes. I would love to hear.
A year late but I'll say what everybody else has already said, it helps the algorithm if nothing else. Thank you for this video, it's easy to understand and has really helped me to finally take the plunge and learn the system. Can't wait to host a World War 2 game for my friends in a month or so, using these videos as a foundation and then building upon it with additional rules as and when necessary!
Wow, thank you. And yes, I am amazed at how many times these videos get watched... I am just glad they have been helpful! Good luck with your new campaign!
Very interesting, I've been looking for ways to make 1v1 combat in my dnd games more dynamic and the one second one action a round thing might actually help with this!
D&D makes a lot of assumptions in a round... and abstracts the actions and results into game terms. GURPS decided to try to keep their model close to reality. Unfortunately, this means that there are no "magical-like" maneuvers... but the maneuvers that do exist are easily understandable. It is up to the players to combine the maneuvers into something more that "swing and hit". IMHO.
I never realized the concept of dnd hit points till you actually mentioned it, this will make story narrative go so much better with dnd tbh. Tbh, I'm picking up this system cause I wanted to take a step back from the growing and blatant magic in dnd that I think really makes magic less impactful. I also wanted modules I could shape to modern eras with different rules and systems.
I think you have made a great choice (of course, I would say that), but you have hit the nail right on the head. With GURPS, you can control the setting completely. If you don't want any magic, then "poof", no magic. If you want "some" magic, you get to decide how much that is. The same for combat... and I LOVE GURPS combat... it is its own mini-game. We play it just tactical enough for our liking... and I know people that play it even more so. Again, you get to decide how many rules you want to incorporate.
Another very cool game is Mythras. I think it does a lot of GURPS combat stuff but might be slightly easier in actual play: Roll your combat skill to attack, a hit is usually assumed Enemy can choose to roll to parry (this actually takes an action point, most characters get 3) If one of you rolls way better than the other, the winning roll gets a Special Effect. These can be just about anything and only a few are restricted to specific weapons. Choose a hit location (wear a helmet or die), trip the enemy, damage their armor (with something like a mace), there's LOTS of them and the one downside is analysis paralysis. Upside is you don't need any GM fiat if someone wants to, say, grab a sword swinging at them while they're unarmed. That's a special effect. Since special effects happen after rolling and can easily put anyone's life in danger, fights are complex but end quickly. Which is rad. There's also optional rules for tracking weapon ranges, so someone with a dagger needs to close in on a spear and that's dangerous. And the math all works pretty well. A character in plate armor can avoid parrying strikes to attack more, because guess what, without special effects to bypass armor very few hits will hurt them. Just kill the enemy ASAP so they don't start grappling you. And magic... there's five magic systems. Mix and match as you wish. -Folk magic is "everyman's magic", not very powerful but you can hand it to characters without worrying -Mysticism is "monk magic", lots of stat buffs, fun but gets wonky if you're not careful -Theism, self-explanatory, really captures magic from the gods well - Animism, connecting to the spirit world, good for ancestor worship / totem gods -Sorcery. It's the most "classic fantasy", but you basically choose how poerful your own spells are. A lot of it is intended more for BBEGs than players. And if you want classes, balanced spell lists, more specific rules for races, magic item lists n' stuff: the book Classic Fantasy is Mythras remixed to be more like old school D&D while retaining the rad combat.
@@chrisnormand Yeah, GURPS seems good enough generally, the comment about narriative made me think of Mythras because it's very good at combat that plays out like a movie duel.
Only skimmed through some comments, but wanted to point out a rear attack has no defense roll, not a -4. Unless someone runs from in front of you to the back, then it counts as a side attack (-2) as you know where the person is. (Was watching the video and had to pull out my book to make sure I hadn't been playing 4e right, as I started my GURPS love during 3e, which had a tad difference in combat...
We had always played that you only the "no defense" ruling if the attacker started in the rear, and attacked in the rear. But since that can be hard to determine (for the player and the GM), I just said that attacking from the rear gives a -4. It is still a great advantage, without having to worry about the added complexity. But as I have always said, you do you! GURPS is the ultimate homebrew system.
@@chrisnormand Funny, the main reason I love it is because you don't have to make up your own rules as it covers pretty much everything. I actually don't remember the -4 option from 3rd edition, I only remember the proper backstab option... something I still find frustrating with how Pathfinder 2e does it... 6 second rounds makes sense to not havw facing, but then how would you properly 'sneak' attack that way? So much easier in my mind of figuring out what is going on with 1 second segments of time over 6 seconds.
@@slaapliedje I too love that fact that GURPS has a well thought out and research rule for just about anything! But if/when it becomes too much to remember, I am fine with bypassing some of those rules. Trust me, as the players get more and more into GURPS combat, we will introduce that rule for those characters that want to take advantage of it.
Was scrolling for this especially after hearing it in the Actual Play video and this video reinforcing it, though RAW I found a different ruling. But this cleared up my confusion, RAW is a suggestion anyhow.
@@TheOnly0rion To be fair to the rules, it is a lot more difficult to actually run around and behind someone to get an attack at the rear, since that would usually require a full move, then a wild swing. So, while your opponent would have a penalty to defense, you would have a huge penalty to your attack roll as well.
I whanna say, big thanks man... i snitched 4th edition basic, and feel overhelmed. I feeled like quite skilled player and GM but, i was humble by this book. Its clarify soo much... Plus as foundry user... great nod to you. The import from GCS to character sheet is god send. When i end my savage worlds campagin i know GUPRS will be next.
Yeah, diving into the GURPS manual is a bit overwhelming. I don't feel that they organized it very well... and they really should have had a "Getting Started" section so people could understand how everything is optional.
I quite like feint actually it's especially useful for chaining with Deceptive Attack because you can't decrease your skill bellow 10 with deceptive attack
And I don’t disagree. But if this is your first time into GURPS combat, then I feel comfortable in suggesting that people hold off on that maneuver. I say it many times, once you feel comfortable, you can add as much complexity as you want. GURPS will let you do that.
Yeah, after I made the video a few people pointed out that hit points didn’t originate with dungeons and dragons. Interesting, I didn’t know they came from naval war games. Especially pre-1900. That’s pretty cool.
"You can have very exciting combats just using the first few stages that I've described." Truth!! But there's always that one player who wants to bring in skills and techniques from Martial Arts or Action... I've played long enough I'm comfortable using all the combat options, including wounding modifiers, targeting hit locations, shock, etc. -- but I'm also not afraid (as a player) to go out of my way to *avoid* combat if the option exists...
My first bit of advice to new players "If you wouldn't do it in real life, don't do it in GURPS!". As for new rules... if a player can show me a new rule, we usually include it. I trust the GURPS authors enough to know that one of their rules probably isn't going to completely derail the system.... and if it makes it more interesting (and the player happy), then I am all for it. And heck, I get to learn a new rule myself!
Great video! And great foundry module! Actually I started to roleplay on Foundry and loved it. Next I looked for the perfect system for foundry (dnd combat was boring) and found it in gurps. Its perfect for tactical battlemap combat and as you say, you only need to use some manovers and already can create a lot of fun and excitement. Dont need 20 different classes. The only con of gurps is the math, but thats irrelevant for foundry. For me, gurps is the perfect system for foundry and foundry the best platform to play gurps :) Just a shame that you dont get official support =/
I'm just happy that they allow us to continue. We spent 5 months under a DMCA takedown notice until we could convince them that we weren't re-implementing GURPS... we were just allowing people to play GURPS online, using their PDFs.
That sounds like a 3rd edition question. 4th edition did not have PD. In 4th, armor does not affect the parry chance, but I don’t know how it works in 3rd.
@@chrisnormand In 3rd, armour has Passive Defence, usually quite low unless a high tech item such as an energy shield. I haven't had chance to check out 4th
From the OGL controversy? Maybe. While I wish no one ill will, if it happens to bring people to try new things, then great. And if I can happen to convince a few people to play GURPS, then even better :-)
Chris, this sounds like many of the "tabletop miniatures skirmish" game combat rules. Which I like. But it is not well described in GURPS Lite. Does the Basic book and or the supplements describe this better in writing or even in a flow chart? I like the idea of combat run like a tabletop skirmish game, like Infinity, Warhammer, En Garde or Ronin.
Yes, the Basic Set covers this very well. With cool additional features in the Martial Arts supplement. Here is our cheat sheet: docs.google.com/document/d/1IyN2C1jlfu9UehfdumFXSy_SesaV-_Cl0YczlVJKTgE/edit
I know this is for beginners which i'm as well but i would love to watch you discuss some of those advance mechanics like flying that you mention before how does that work & how does that work in combat?
That is definitely on the list... but to be honest, I am not an Advanced GURPS GURU. I've only been playing seriously for a few years, and there are people out there (like Enraged Eggplant), who know the system so much better than I. But flying in combat is mainly just speed. An opponent may have a flight speed of 12 (and a ground speed of 6). Which means they can move a lot more hexes... but they are still limited to "Move and Attack" maneuvers (or Heroic Charge, if you use/allow extra effort for NPCs). And for range, just google "pythagorean theorem calculator" and enter in the A (height) and B (distance) values and round up C. or just fudge it... it doesn't need to be perfect.
I'm not too keen on how HP is a fixed value from when you create your character to when the campaign ends. But I do like how GURPS uses 1 meter hexagons for the terrain. I'm assuming, with how modular GURPS is, it's possible for me to work in a way for HP to go up over time?
Of course... and HP isn't fixed. It starts equal to Strength. But HP can be purchased for 2 cp (up to a max). Normally, the max is 130% of ST, but some races (like half-ogres) can go up to 150%. And, of course, you can increase ST, which automatically increases HP. So over the course of an adventure, the characters HP can steadily rise as they gain in ST and bulk up their HP. As the GM, can could increase (or remove) the upper limit of HP, but I would caution against that. One of the great, tense, moments of GURPS is that it ISN'T like D&D with its ever increasing HP. Players become very crafty when they know they can't just rely on "taking" the HP damage. But each group is different, and if you would like to play that way, then go for it!
just beat a giant zombie bear through tactics. the thing had like 70 HP. if your ever up hosting another oneshot. i got 2 other willing players. but i guess that you always has enough of!
The beauty of GURPS... you can mod it however you like. Personally, I never liked the name "move and attack", even though it was very informative. But YMMV.
Your cheatsheet helped me a lot! Although I still don't know what DFE means. I thought maybe Dungeon Fantasy Encounters but they are only a few pages long and I saw abbreviations like "DFE100", "DFE40"... Does anyone know what it means? Thanks in advance.
Ah yes, sorry. DFE is the Exploits book in the Dungeon Fantasy RPG www.sjgames.com/dungeonfantasy/ As I understand it, they took most(all) of the stuff from the various DF supplements and made this all-in-one version. So DFE and DFA refer to the DFRPG ;-)
Correct. Moving your full move (15-18 ft) in one second and attacking means that you can’t attack very well. Unless you use Extra Effort “Heroic Charge” (pay 1 FP to ignore the “move and attack” limitations).
Yes. We never use it, and we found these articles gamingballistic.com/2014/08/07/gurps-301-evaluate and dungeonfantastic.blogspot.com/2014/08/gurps-301-revising-evaluate.html sort of confirming our suspicions... unless we house-rule it, it isn't really worth it, for us.
Correct! Small Piercing (Pi-) is for small and slow bullets/projectiles. The full damage is applied to the DR, to see what gets through... and the damage that gets through is then halved (round down) to indicate that the bullet had a lot of force to break through the armor, but one it hit flesh, it was small and slid into the flesh with less damage. But AFAIK, PI- is the only damage type below 1.0... and it is for specific types of attacks.
LOL! Our GURPS group's combat flows pretty well because each player knows they can only make a single maneuver, and they (usually) have it figured out beforehand. But each group is different.
From the Basic Set: 0 FP or less - You are on the verge of collapse. If you suffer further fatigue, each FP you lose also causes 1 HP of injury. Thus, fatigue from starvation, dehydration, etc. will eventually kill you - and you can work yourself to death! -1xFP - You fall unconscious.
By default, all attacks hit the Torso. You would only hit a different location if the player took the appropriate negative modifier to their "to hit" calculation. Like -3 to hit the Vitals, or -9 to hit the Eye.
@@flowersinathens102 exactly! For the most part, people attack the torso. But if you are trying to do something specific (like cut and arm or a leg, or jam a spear through someone’s guts/vitals), then you take the minus to hit (based on hit location).
@@chrisnormand ah, so not full bonus but yet a bonus. Sweet. Thank You Mr Nose. You have no idea how I feel now! I just made one person to be interested in GURPS and I feel like Mad Prophet. See You on Discord :)
Agreed! I look back and I think it was the concept of a fantasy RPG that was so exciting. Not the rules themselves. I can distinctly remember getting into an argument with my DM about parrying with a quarter staff. It seemed completely illogical, and yet, those were the rules. Another reason I went searching for a different system. And I haven’t found a better one than GURPS for tactical combat.
A GURPS character has a chance of falling unconscious when they get to zero hit points, and then a chance of dying when they get to minus HP hit points. They do not die at zero HP. Is that what you are asking? (Sorry, I’m on my phone and don’t have access to my computer).
@@Katie-hj5eb Oh, I understand... and no. I did really mean to have the NPCs die at 0 HP. A PC can go unconscious at 0 HP if they fail their HT roll, effectively out of the combat. But as "heroes", they could "dig deep" and manage to stay conscious until -1xHP. And "dig even deeper" to manage not to die at -1xHP. All of these are "heroic" things... something we don't usually apply to our run-of-the-mill NPCs (plus, it just makes it easier for the GM).
I don't think a lot of D&D players know that fact... and if you play with the "tired" and "reeling" rule, going below 1/3 FP or HP becomes a bit of a downward spiral. Yeah, you can take this hit... mainly because you can no longer move or dodge ;-) But in all, it makes for an interesting combat. Do you stand there and possible go below 1/3 HP (where you can't defend as well in future attacks), or do you try something else?
You are what a game player needs in understanding a system. Entertaining and clear. Says the guy who drew a lot of the 3rd edition gurps books.
From your lips to SJG’s ears 😝
But thank you. I do appreciate the recognition.
Thanks for making these videos. I was one of those people who was overwhelmed by the level of complexity in the GURPS rules when I first tried to learn the game. I grew up with Basic Dungeons and Dragons and Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, and because of the way I was introduced to those games, it wasn't obvious to me that I could (should!) choose to not use every rule in the GURPS books.
You and me both... I started with AD&D in 1982 and at that time, I loved all of the nooks and crannies... but now, 40 years later, I like the ability to streamline rules to fit the situation. We play the RPG side pretty loose, and the tactical combat side with the full rules. IMHO, it is the best of both worlds ;-)
My home brew D&D rules have been gurps all along, and I never knew?
LOL, now that is cool!
One point is that any given character generally won't use all the complexity. So for instance, if you're a wizard you'll be doing the "Concentrate" maneuver a lot, but since you use fatigue to cast spells, you probably won't be burning a lot to add damage to your melee attack or whatever. If you're mostly hand to hand, you won't be worrying too much about aim and range modifiers. And so on. When I have a big strong fighter, one maneuver I like to use that wasn't mentioned here is the Slam, which lets you ram into people and try to knock them over . . . but light, nimble fencer types probably won't have much luck with that one.
You are correct, of course. My druid mainly used attack (aiming for the vitals), and dodge. Occasionally, all-out-attack strong and Mighty Blow when I thought I could administer the coup de grâce.
Of course, it is up to each player. In our GURPS Newbies "Oneshot" (czcams.com/play/PLqckpAfDuMM_rdWCJEoLG0qkDJ9b-M3ns.html) Penzel the wizard did an overhead smash to the back of the head to down one opponent. It was pretty cool.
Honestly, having come from DnD (unforunately)---the relation you make between GURPS and DnD really helps, like when you relate the position modifiers for attacking to the flanking rules in 5e; all that adds up to make it a lot easier to transition to this system, I really appreciate the effort you put into these!
Mr "the Humble", you are very welcome. You are my target audience. I too was once a D&D player. But also, it comes down to basic numbers... there are a lot more D&D players out there, then not. So it doesn't hurt to relate to it ;-) Thanks for watching, and I hope it helps!
@@chrisnormand Hedrix the Humble was my first DnD character and it's a bit of an ironic title because the character gave it to themselves and in my own opinion, anyone willing to name themselves, "the Humble" is anything but humble, and humble he was not.
In all seriousness though, these videos really do help and there is indeed a large margin between DnD players and other TRPGs, but hopefully these wonderful videos can help balance those odds.
@@hedrixthehumble5316 Thank you again... and yeah, it is slow going, but more and more people see these videos, and seem to keep watching. So I must be doing something right ;-)
Nothing wrong with dnd, it got people into the ttrpg scene and nde it popular to the masses
GURPS 3e holds a special place in my heart, not the least is the combat system... Especially given the 90's cRPG Fallout initially being developed with GURPS as it's RPG engine until licensing issues popped up. Thanks for making good GURPS content!
You are very welcome! And I couldn’t agree more, I love GURPS combat ( as compared to other RPGs).
I have tried to choose for the last 2 years. D&D, VtM WoD, now G.U.R.P.S. The funny thing is my Dad had G.U.R.P.S. Books and I was sold at the age of 6 I just did not know it
Thank you for making me realize this
Yeah, it is an odd ecosystem.... GURPS is old, the last edition was published in 2004... but they constantly make content for it, so really, it never gets old ;-)
Once I found GURPS, I decided that I liked having one system that could do any genre that I wanted. Yeah, it doesn't do every genre perfectly, but I am fine with that. One thing you learn when using GURPS, is that you become a game designer. "GURPS is a Toolkit" is a common saying... meaning you are meant to build your own game system from the various tools provided, and once you start doing that, you find that you can build any game you want.
LOVE this series! It's been so helpful to my new players. Just a note: I got super excited when you brought up deceptive attacks for ranged weapons since my newest character is a gunslinger and I hadn't come across this yet. However, I had a hard time finding it. Turns out it's in the Martial Arts book in the Combat chapter in the "Ranged Attack Options" section under the title "Tricky Shooting" and is labelled as "Prediction Shots" not "Predictive Shots". Hope this clears things up for anyone else looking for it.
Thank you for the heads up!
Very good video. I never liked the idea of a character always attacking first; at the same time I wanted to grant an edge to the faster ones. So, after years of play, me and my friends decided for this compromise: roll a dice and ADD the movement of the character. Once the order of action is rolled, it goes one the same until the end of the combat.
In one of my campaigns, I also created my own initiative order, but it didn’t give enough benefit to overcome the varying order. Plus, one of the players purposely purchased Speed to be able to go earlier in the round, and the randomness sort of ruined that. So since then, I’ve been using GURPS standards turn order (based on Speed).
“All GURPS, your way.”
:-) It is a version of our Users Guide tag line "Your GURPS, Your Way": bit.ly/2JaSlQd
And the focus of all of these videos... customizing GURPS to fit your gaming style.
Keep this up man! I love these videos. I started D&D 3.5 when I was 3, and now I’m 18 and have branched out to find GURPS a lot more open and free than d&d. This is helping a lot!
Fantastic! If you are on Discord, join the unofficial GURPS Discord. Thousands of GURPS players hang out there and can answer any questions.
Having started with 5e when a couple friends invited me to join them for a One Shot, I fell in love with it because it was a character building game that I could play with friends. Up until I joined the one shot, I was just playing Skyrim and making new character after character. Now I've been playing D&D 5e for almost 4 years now and I'm wanting something that can do a little more than just Tolkien fantasy or Magic The Gathering creatures, I want something that can handle me wanting to have a party of adventurers traveling across Skyrim and Morrowind, clearing out dungeons and defying the Daedra, and then use the same set of rules and play a Wild Western Gunslingers campaign. I'm really liking this system so far from your series, I just hope my friends are as intrigued as I am
That is fantastic... and like you, I also love to build characters. You can make such interesting choices and create some very in-depth characters. I hope it works out for you and your friends!
These videos are fantastic. Really makes me want to re-examine GURPS as a system to run more games on. The combat choices really look amazing to use. Even at the more complex level….it’s does not seem that much once you familiar. Look forward to more.
Exactly how I feel. When playing (or running) GURPS, I prefer a rules-light version for role playing, and a rules-heavy version for combat. I love the level of tactical combat that we can get with GURPS. As I mentioned in the video... GURPS combat is better than most of the board games that I own.
Now down a set of preferred combat manoeuvres for each character. Ie, the high-skill swordfighter uses deceptive attack and feint a lot, but the armoured grunt with the mail likes committed attack and all your attack: strong and extra effort.
This is similar to picking techniques in martial arts, and gives a discernable combat style.
Thank you so much for this!!! I was trying to find an easy way to help teach my friends and this is perfect.
Edit: Besides combat and general rule mechanics, one thing that would be very helpful I think are how to make quick NPC's/Enemies (and maybe explain the short form "stat block" I see for them sometimes).
One general thing I keep seeing when people talk about this is to ignore build points entirely and just make em how you want. Thats great and all, because it does make it easier to generate them quicker... but I grew up with DND and Pathfinder where everything essentially has a power level. To me, thats incredibly hard to gauge in a point buy system as open as GURPS.
A 100 point character's abilities might very wildly from one to another, with some being good at combat and others being good at more peaceful vocations. The same thing can be said for NPC's/enemies, making it doubly difficult for me to decide how to make them to balance them against the party and how quickly I can since its so involved in the first place.
Great minds think alike, I've been working on an NPC video script. Because Yes, a lot of people have problems with NPC creation, especially in GURPS.
Not using points do build NPCs was a hard thing to wrap my mind around in the beggining. But oh boy, it is way simpler and will save you a LOT of time. Imagine trying to create a monstrous giant spider and having to factor in all the points - consider something very basic like clinging on a wall, it's a 20-point advantage that you will have to factor in your point budget. Or even an enemy mage with an explosive fireball spell (imagine all the pre-requisites you will have to buy so he/she can use that spell). And then why are you tracking those points anyway? It's not like someone's gonna audit your NPCs/enemies.
For any enemy, I only bother writing down the attributes, combat abilities and equipment (armor, weapons, potions and any other item useful for the party), without ever worrying about point cost - because as you said a 100-point character can be either a soldier or an accountant.
If you're worried about "challenge rating" and balancing combat, there's Pyramid Magazine #3/77 which introduces "Combat Effectiveness Rating - CER". But I don't think it's worth the trouble, as it is too much math - you'll have to calculate it for each party member and NPC... and keep it updated as characters evolve or acquire new gear. I used it for a while until I realized it wasn't very precise.
So, if I want a "balanced combat", what I do is create enemies that can at the same time hurt the PC with the highest DR and still do not kill the PC with the lowest DR in one hit (I'm not considering critical hits or called shots here). The contrary is also true, they should have a DR high enough to not be killed by the srongest PC in one hit but at the same time that the weakest PC could hurt them.
Yeah this always tripped me up to. Easy to make barebones but then I always need more meat and get lost in the weeds. Oh and now I need 3 more NPC's ughhh, let me start again.
This definitely appeals to my tactical side.
Oh yeah.... if you like tactical, you will definitely get into this. For me, it is like a chess match, but with weapons, magic and blood. ;-)
This is probably the best video on GURPS combat I watched so far!
Thank you! I am trying to make GURPS more accessible... and people seem to like it ;-)
@@chrisnormand totally! What I would be looking for is some examples on how to assemble different source books to create your own GURPS "setting". Ideas, dos and don'ts etc.
Hey Chris. One of the best ways to learn how GURPS works is to watch actual gameplay examples. There is a channel called “easyGURPS” (or something like that) where the guy runs various combat scenarios, but it’s unedited, he makes quite a few mistakes with the rules, and he uses rather simple scenarios. With your knowledge of the system, I think a lot of would-be gamers would greatly appreciate your setting up a wide variety of scenarios (from prehistoric to fantasy to modern to far future combat examples) to help illustrate the advanced rules details in an easy-to-grasp fashion. Lots of video opportunities there, if that interests you.
OMG!!! That would be perfect! Thank you. I shall add that to the “to do” list!
@@chrisnormand You’re most welcome. I ran into many little but troublesome problems when I first played GURPS (like I thought character turns all occurred at the same instant, for example) that would have been cleared up with an example or two.
The combats wouldn’t even have to be “real,” in that you could choose the roll results that would best illustrate the lessons you’re teaching. Or perhaps run the same scenario a few different ways to show different results-like a simple, bare-bones combat followed by the same scenario using every advanced rule you can find. Or a shootout where a gunslinger goes for speed, followed by the same situation only taking his time. Or the same armored knight scenario played out with several different weapons. Or a swashbuckling tavern fight with a variety of combatants. Or a bunch of street thugs ganging up on an expert Muay Thai practitioner. Or a single WWII soldier ambushing a squad of unprepared enemy soldiers. Or a time traveling cyborg with future weaponry beset by a group of bandits. The list is endless!
Make them instructive and entertaining enough and I wouldn’t be surprised if Steve Jackson Games offered to sponsor you in some way.
Just spitballin’ here….
Wouldn’t that be nice! 🤓
An idea: actual plays. It would be great to see how everything works actually. But no matter if you or your players don't want to do it, your videos are amazing. Many thanks for them.
It is definitely on my list! Now to find the time ;-)
@@chrisnormand Great! Thank you very much.
Great video! I like how you explain the basics but include enough complexity for a long time of playing. I've been comfortable with GURPS combat rules for quite some time, but just in theory. I ended up GM'ing other systems more for many different reasons, and just now I've been able to actually run a full GURPS campaign like I wanted to. One of the challenges is running combat sessions, because as a GM I want to give cool options to my players but not overwhelm them. At the same time, I need to be able to help them use those options, and it's not easy to remember everything.
Thankfully, using the GURPS Game Aid has been a breeze. I have made some journal "cards" with the images from GURPS combat cards and labeled them with sentences that help them choose their maneuvers during a battle. The damage calculator indeed helps me to include the damage multipliers without forcing people to do too much math.
I've sent this video to my group, because there are a lot of cool ideas for them here. Things they've been introduced to but haven't used yet.
DWARFY
@@Leverquin hehe ;-)
@@Shishnut armok all the moghty
@@Leverquin Always!
So I tried GURPS when I was 10 years old. Then again when I was 17. Then again at 29. And now I'll try again at 33. The hardest part of GURPS is finding a (good) group.
Agreed... but the world has changed a lot in 23 years... and Foundry VTT is a great way to play GURPS online. Even our local group plays remotely most of the time (no driving, can play in pajamas, etc.). And we use Discord for audio and video.
Great videos! In my experience, GURPS focus on realism actually makes it less deadly than D&D as long as the characters are smart and wear armor. To use your example of the goblin in GURPS terms getting a small humanoid that is weaker than a human to do enough damage with a thrusting weapon to get through chainmail is pretty tough and not something that will happen very often. In D&D (especially 5e) they can wear PCs down through attrition if there are enough of them as they're guaranteed to do at least one damage per hit and their chances of hitting are generally better since the PCs don't have active defenses.
GURPS is only really more deadly if someone insists on doing something like running around bare chested in furry underwear. If you're running something like Pendragon or Game of Thrones and the characters are all knights in armor, they are much less likely to die unless you start throwing elite enemies at them or you add in a lot more complications like hit locations to subvert the armor value.
Very good point! I was thinking my target audience was D&D players... so I really wanted to get it across that they won't have piles of hit points to protect them. Hopefully I was able to get across the immense customizability of GURPS combat, which will hopefully appeal to a wide variety of players.
I really appreciate what you are doing here. Thank you for making it patently clear that one can strip out all the complexity for a streamlined gameplay. I still have my original D20 from 1977 and am getting into introducing some friends to a home-brewed game based on my favourite SFF novels. Cheers for making it approachable with GURPS. Happy Holidays!
You are very welcome. You are exactly the person I am hoping to help.
Thanks! Could you also Do a short introduction to ranged combat and weapon stats? Sorry to bother...
Absolute best video I've seen on this subject
Thank you! I’m glad it helps!
One thing you can do though is layer armor, add flexible armor such as chain mail under your plate. You can also use larger shields and give yourself better chance of blocking by putting more points in skill
So true. And one of the things I love about GURPS combat, is the incredible level of detail that you can go into, if you want.
Excellent stuff! I'm going to start running a campaign soon so it's nice to go over combat again
I love the idea of introducing Extra Effort before introducing All Out maneuvers.
I just always felt that "extra effort" was a neat game idea that gave the players more choices (and allowed them a new "pool" to spend from (FP)). Fortunately, you can do it in whatever order you like!
Great video! Easy to follow and very helpful for getting my footing in the system. :>
Also, not to be an "um actually" guy but I think the concept of "hit points" actually predates dnd entirely; there are naval wargames that date back decades and decades before that which used that term to refer to how many artillery shell hits a vessel would conceivably sustain before sinking! Idk if it's exactly what inspired Gygax but it would be a massive coincidence if it was unrelated, especially since he was such a fan of wargames.
No worries. I didn’t do any actual research, so it is cool to know where the concept actually came from. Thanks!
Still loving it. I could use one about dual weilding and two attacks while duel weilding, and both of those with ambidextrous advantage or other advantages that might minimize the minuses.
PS: That croc battle sounds 🔥. I'd love to play in a GURPs game with an experienced DM so I could get a handle on it better. We've played 2 sessions and they've gone well, but a lot of rules searching between sessions.
Yeah, it can be daunting if you don't have anyone familiar with the rules, but it sounds like you have the gist of it. "Wing it" during the session, and then look it up afterwards... or not. You can go with your "house rule" as long as you like. If you notice, our combat cheat sheet is "Version 4", and that should be "V4.0.0"... we went through a lot of iterations as we slowly added in the rules that we wanted to use.
Yoo this video is amazing, I haven't seen anyone else besides probably gurps explained do such a good video on the gurps system. Thanks so much
You are welcome! Combat is one of the funnest parts of GURPS, for me. And I wanted to show how we went about learning it.
4:10 wow, Warren Spector was on the GURPS team? I never knew that, but it's a huge bonus to have THE Deus Ex man himself help you out with your system.
One very simple and blunt way to make the game less deadly as the GM is to multiply the HP of every character at the end of character creation. I am thinking of doing this with a multiple of 1.5x or 2x for a more heroic campaign.
I have thought of that, but I am also a bit wary. I’ve tried other modifications to GURPS through the years, thinking that I did something interesting, only to find out that it really didn’t work out as well as I had hoped.
So now I tend to keep with the Rules As Written, but include things like story points, to allow the player characters to correct when they make a mistake. This way, I don’t worry that I may be unbalancing some thing, and I still have a way for characters to get themselves out of trouble.
Although, I think your suggestion isn’t that far-fetched. My current character Grend, purchased extra hit points (he has 20 now.) specifically, so that he would have a little bit more cushion.
And of course it depends on your group. If they are used to having a lot of hit points, than playing GURPS to the rules can be quite a change. And increasing the hitpoints might be a good way to get them into the system.
I wish you luck, and please post back how it goes. I would love to hear.
Great videos, Chris! Keep 'em coming!
Thank you. I hope to have another one soon (on NPCs). But family comes first.
Thanks Nose! Great material for my new players in my new campaign (and also to shake off my rust)
A year late but I'll say what everybody else has already said, it helps the algorithm if nothing else.
Thank you for this video, it's easy to understand and has really helped me to finally take the plunge and learn the system. Can't wait to host a World War 2 game for my friends in a month or so, using these videos as a foundation and then building upon it with additional rules as and when necessary!
Wow, thank you. And yes, I am amazed at how many times these videos get watched... I am just glad they have been helpful! Good luck with your new campaign!
Very interesting, I've been looking for ways to make 1v1 combat in my dnd games more dynamic and the one second one action a round thing might actually help with this!
D&D makes a lot of assumptions in a round... and abstracts the actions and results into game terms. GURPS decided to try to keep their model close to reality. Unfortunately, this means that there are no "magical-like" maneuvers... but the maneuvers that do exist are easily understandable. It is up to the players to combine the maneuvers into something more that "swing and hit". IMHO.
I never realized the concept of dnd hit points till you actually mentioned it, this will make story narrative go so much better with dnd tbh. Tbh, I'm picking up this system cause I wanted to take a step back from the growing and blatant magic in dnd that I think really makes magic less impactful. I also wanted modules I could shape to modern eras with different rules and systems.
I think you have made a great choice (of course, I would say that), but you have hit the nail right on the head. With GURPS, you can control the setting completely. If you don't want any magic, then "poof", no magic. If you want "some" magic, you get to decide how much that is. The same for combat... and I LOVE GURPS combat... it is its own mini-game. We play it just tactical enough for our liking... and I know people that play it even more so. Again, you get to decide how many rules you want to incorporate.
Another very cool game is Mythras. I think it does a lot of GURPS combat stuff but might be slightly easier in actual play:
Roll your combat skill to attack, a hit is usually assumed
Enemy can choose to roll to parry (this actually takes an action point, most characters get 3)
If one of you rolls way better than the other, the winning roll gets a Special Effect. These can be just about anything and only a few are restricted to specific weapons. Choose a hit location (wear a helmet or die), trip the enemy, damage their armor (with something like a mace), there's LOTS of them and the one downside is analysis paralysis. Upside is you don't need any GM fiat if someone wants to, say, grab a sword swinging at them while they're unarmed. That's a special effect.
Since special effects happen after rolling and can easily put anyone's life in danger, fights are complex but end quickly. Which is rad. There's also optional rules for tracking weapon ranges, so someone with a dagger needs to close in on a spear and that's dangerous.
And the math all works pretty well. A character in plate armor can avoid parrying strikes to attack more, because guess what, without special effects to bypass armor very few hits will hurt them. Just kill the enemy ASAP so they don't start grappling you.
And magic... there's five magic systems. Mix and match as you wish.
-Folk magic is "everyman's magic", not very powerful but you can hand it to characters without worrying
-Mysticism is "monk magic", lots of stat buffs, fun but gets wonky if you're not careful
-Theism, self-explanatory, really captures magic from the gods well
- Animism, connecting to the spirit world, good for ancestor worship / totem gods
-Sorcery. It's the most "classic fantasy", but you basically choose how poerful your own spells are. A lot of it is intended more for BBEGs than players.
And if you want classes, balanced spell lists, more specific rules for races, magic item lists n' stuff: the book Classic Fantasy is Mythras remixed to be more like old school D&D while retaining the rad combat.
@@colbyboucher6391 Wow, that sounds cool! But for me... I am going to have to stick with GURPS... I'm too old to learn a new system ;-)
@@chrisnormand Yeah, GURPS seems good enough generally, the comment about narriative made me think of Mythras because it's very good at combat that plays out like a movie duel.
Thank you so much for making these. The advice is so basic and helpful for a first timer
You are so welcome! If you have any questions, Don’t forget to join the GURPS Discord.
The best tutorials available 🙂👍
Only skimmed through some comments, but wanted to point out a rear attack has no defense roll, not a -4. Unless someone runs from in front of you to the back, then it counts as a side attack (-2) as you know where the person is. (Was watching the video and had to pull out my book to make sure I hadn't been playing 4e right, as I started my GURPS love during 3e, which had a tad difference in combat...
We had always played that you only the "no defense" ruling if the attacker started in the rear, and attacked in the rear. But since that can be hard to determine (for the player and the GM), I just said that attacking from the rear gives a -4. It is still a great advantage, without having to worry about the added complexity.
But as I have always said, you do you! GURPS is the ultimate homebrew system.
@@chrisnormand Funny, the main reason I love it is because you don't have to make up your own rules as it covers pretty much everything. I actually don't remember the -4 option from 3rd edition, I only remember the proper backstab option... something I still find frustrating with how Pathfinder 2e does it... 6 second rounds makes sense to not havw facing, but then how would you properly 'sneak' attack that way? So much easier in my mind of figuring out what is going on with 1 second segments of time over 6 seconds.
@@slaapliedje I too love that fact that GURPS has a well thought out and research rule for just about anything! But if/when it becomes too much to remember, I am fine with bypassing some of those rules.
Trust me, as the players get more and more into GURPS combat, we will introduce that rule for those characters that want to take advantage of it.
Was scrolling for this especially after hearing it in the Actual Play video and this video reinforcing it, though RAW I found a different ruling. But this cleared up my confusion, RAW is a suggestion anyhow.
@@TheOnly0rion To be fair to the rules, it is a lot more difficult to actually run around and behind someone to get an attack at the rear, since that would usually require a full move, then a wild swing. So, while your opponent would have a penalty to defense, you would have a huge penalty to your attack roll as well.
Me: Mom, I wanna play Rolemaster!
Mom: We have Rolemaster at home.
At home:
I've never played Rolemaster... does it have a complex combat system?
I whanna say, big thanks man... i snitched 4th edition basic, and feel overhelmed. I feeled like quite skilled player and GM but, i was humble by this book. Its clarify soo much...
Plus as foundry user... great nod to you. The import from GCS to character sheet is god send. When i end my savage worlds campagin i know GUPRS will be next.
Yeah, diving into the GURPS manual is a bit overwhelming. I don't feel that they organized it very well... and they really should have had a "Getting Started" section so people could understand how everything is optional.
Thanks for the effort!
Such a good tutorial video! Thank you so much!
You are welcome! I hope the other videos are useful also.
I quite like feint actually it's especially useful for chaining with Deceptive Attack because you can't decrease your skill bellow 10 with deceptive attack
And I don’t disagree. But if this is your first time into GURPS combat, then I feel comfortable in suggesting that people hold off on that maneuver. I say it many times, once you feel comfortable, you can add as much complexity as you want. GURPS will let you do that.
Hit points come from pre WW1 naval wargames in the late 1800s.
A hit point represented a hit from a single 3 inch gun.
Yeah, after I made the video a few people pointed out that hit points didn’t originate with dungeons and dragons. Interesting, I didn’t know they came from naval war games. Especially pre-1900. That’s pretty cool.
"You can have very exciting combats just using the first few stages that I've described." Truth!! But there's always that one player who wants to bring in skills and techniques from Martial Arts or Action... I've played long enough I'm comfortable using all the combat options, including wounding modifiers, targeting hit locations, shock, etc. -- but I'm also not afraid (as a player) to go out of my way to *avoid* combat if the option exists...
My first bit of advice to new players "If you wouldn't do it in real life, don't do it in GURPS!". As for new rules... if a player can show me a new rule, we usually include it. I trust the GURPS authors enough to know that one of their rules probably isn't going to completely derail the system.... and if it makes it more interesting (and the player happy), then I am all for it. And heck, I get to learn a new rule myself!
Great video! And great foundry module! Actually I started to roleplay on Foundry and loved it. Next I looked for the perfect system for foundry (dnd combat was boring) and found it in gurps. Its perfect for tactical battlemap combat and as you say, you only need to use some manovers and already can create a lot of fun and excitement. Dont need 20 different classes. The only con of gurps is the math, but thats irrelevant for foundry. For me, gurps is the perfect system for foundry and foundry the best platform to play gurps :) Just a shame that you dont get official support =/
I'm just happy that they allow us to continue. We spent 5 months under a DMCA takedown notice until we could convince them that we weren't re-implementing GURPS... we were just allowing people to play GURPS online, using their PDFs.
Fantastic video. Such a great system.
Thank you! This video is literally the steps we took as we learned more and more about GURPS.
All your GURPS vids are very well structured Chris. I have a question : if I have parry 12 & my armour gives PD 2, is my parry therefor 14?
That sounds like a 3rd edition question. 4th edition did not have PD. In 4th, armor does not affect the parry chance, but I don’t know how it works in 3rd.
@@chrisnormand In 3rd, armour has Passive Defence, usually quite low unless a high tech item such as an energy shield. I haven't had chance to check out 4th
Great. Thank you.
You are welcome, again! I see you are progressing through the videos ;-)
Oooooh, I think these videos are going to get a LOT more views coming up here.
From the OGL controversy? Maybe. While I wish no one ill will, if it happens to bring people to try new things, then great. And if I can happen to convince a few people to play GURPS, then even better :-)
Chris, this sounds like many of the "tabletop miniatures skirmish" game combat rules. Which I like. But it is not well described in GURPS Lite. Does the Basic book and or the supplements describe this better in writing or even in a flow chart? I like the idea of combat run like a tabletop skirmish game, like Infinity, Warhammer, En Garde or Ronin.
Yes, the Basic Set covers this very well. With cool additional features in the Martial Arts supplement. Here is our cheat sheet: docs.google.com/document/d/1IyN2C1jlfu9UehfdumFXSy_SesaV-_Cl0YczlVJKTgE/edit
Gurps could simulate what if a modern army invaded the DnD universe hahaha
Exactly! I love the fact that you can realistically mix genres. So a modern weapon would be very powerful in a medieval setting... as it should be!
I know this is for beginners which i'm as well but i would love to watch you discuss some of those advance mechanics like flying that you mention before how does that work & how does that work in combat?
That is definitely on the list... but to be honest, I am not an Advanced GURPS GURU. I've only been playing seriously for a few years, and there are people out there (like Enraged Eggplant), who know the system so much better than I. But flying in combat is mainly just speed. An opponent may have a flight speed of 12 (and a ground speed of 6). Which means they can move a lot more hexes... but they are still limited to "Move and Attack" maneuvers (or Heroic Charge, if you use/allow extra effort for NPCs). And for range, just google "pythagorean theorem calculator" and enter in the A (height) and B (distance) values and round up C. or just fudge it... it doesn't need to be perfect.
try GURPS Tiamat vs AD&D Tiamat
LOL
I'm not too keen on how HP is a fixed value from when you create your character to when the campaign ends. But I do like how GURPS uses 1 meter hexagons for the terrain.
I'm assuming, with how modular GURPS is, it's possible for me to work in a way for HP to go up over time?
Of course... and HP isn't fixed. It starts equal to Strength. But HP can be purchased for 2 cp (up to a max). Normally, the max is 130% of ST, but some races (like half-ogres) can go up to 150%. And, of course, you can increase ST, which automatically increases HP.
So over the course of an adventure, the characters HP can steadily rise as they gain in ST and bulk up their HP.
As the GM, can could increase (or remove) the upper limit of HP, but I would caution against that. One of the great, tense, moments of GURPS is that it ISN'T like D&D with its ever increasing HP. Players become very crafty when they know they can't just rely on "taking" the HP damage.
But each group is different, and if you would like to play that way, then go for it!
@@chrisnormand Oh, good to know. Thanks for the quick response!
@@zuttoaragi8349 of course!
just beat a giant zombie bear through tactics. the thing had like 70 HP. if your ever up hosting another oneshot. i got 2 other willing players. but i guess that you always has enough of!
One of the things I like best about GURPS, is the combat. I love the myriad of options.
Hmm, what about attempting a wounding modifier costs a fatigue point (even if you fail)...
Interesting idea... but it might be hard to describe thematically. For example, if someone swings a club, how would they afflict cutting damage?
as an ex sc2 player i kinda wanna call the charge attack an a-move and have charge attack be a name for some kinda babarian or ... zealot spell
The beauty of GURPS... you can mod it however you like. Personally, I never liked the name "move and attack", even though it was very informative. But YMMV.
Your cheatsheet helped me a lot! Although I still don't know what DFE means. I thought maybe Dungeon Fantasy Encounters but they are only a few pages long and I saw abbreviations like "DFE100", "DFE40"... Does anyone know what it means? Thanks in advance.
Ah yes, sorry. DFE is the Exploits book in the Dungeon Fantasy RPG www.sjgames.com/dungeonfantasy/
As I understand it, they took most(all) of the stuff from the various DF supplements and made this all-in-one version. So DFE and DFA refer to the DFRPG ;-)
@@chrisnormand ooooh nice! Thanks a lot.
move and attack: its skill-4 but how you mean max skill level of 9? is that means can't be over 9 even you have 15-4 = 11?
Correct. Moving your full move (15-18 ft) in one second and attacking means that you can’t attack very well. Unless you use Extra Effort “Heroic Charge” (pay 1 FP to ignore the “move and attack” limitations).
Hey Nose - it looks like your cheat sheet is missing the "Evaluate" maneuver - is that intentional?
Yes. We never use it, and we found these articles gamingballistic.com/2014/08/07/gurps-301-evaluate and dungeonfantastic.blogspot.com/2014/08/gurps-301-revising-evaluate.html sort of confirming our suspicions... unless we house-rule it, it isn't really worth it, for us.
@@chrisnormand Good to know, thanks!
If I do 2 damage and have a wound modifier of .5, my damage would go DOWN?
Correct! Small Piercing (Pi-) is for small and slow bullets/projectiles. The full damage is applied to the DR, to see what gets through... and the damage that gets through is then halved (round down) to indicate that the bullet had a lot of force to break through the armor, but one it hit flesh, it was small and slid into the flesh with less damage. But AFAIK, PI- is the only damage type below 1.0... and it is for specific types of attacks.
Dnd does let you do that though
LOL! Our GURPS group's combat flows pretty well because each player knows they can only make a single maneuver, and they (usually) have it figured out beforehand. But each group is different.
if FP drop to zero, do you drop on knees or fall a sleep?
From the Basic Set: 0 FP or less - You are on the verge of collapse. If you suffer further fatigue, each FP you lose also causes 1 HP of injury. Thus, fatigue from starvation, dehydration, etc. will eventually kill you - and you can work yourself to death!
-1xFP - You fall unconscious.
@@chrisnormand damn i guess i should be lazy GURPS character 😁
What is a way to know what body part an enemy is going to hit?
By default, all attacks hit the Torso. You would only hit a different location if the player took the appropriate negative modifier to their "to hit" calculation. Like -3 to hit the Vitals, or -9 to hit the Eye.
@@chrisnormand Oh okay, so i can control what part of the body an enrmy is going to hit and apply the respective modifiers?
(Me as a gamemaster)
@@flowersinathens102 exactly! For the most part, people attack the torso. But if you are trying to do something specific (like cut and arm or a leg, or jam a spear through someone’s guts/vitals), then you take the minus to hit (based on hit location).
Does aiming for more then one turn gives you two or more times acc bonus ::D
Per the Rules As Written, aiming for one round gets you the ACC bonus, additional rounds just get you +1.
@@chrisnormand ah, so not full bonus but yet a bonus. Sweet. Thank You Mr Nose. You have no idea how I feel now! I just made one person to be interested in GURPS and I feel like Mad Prophet. See You on Discord :)
Gurps is better because of the danger and the realism. I look back at D&D with fondness but no desire to return.
Agreed! I look back and I think it was the concept of a fantasy RPG that was so exciting. Not the rules themselves. I can distinctly remember getting into an argument with my DM about parrying with a quarter staff. It seemed completely illogical, and yet, those were the rules. Another reason I went searching for a different system. And I haven’t found a better one than GURPS for tactical combat.
3:30 do you mean die at -hp hit points or 0?
A GURPS character has a chance of falling unconscious when they get to zero hit points, and then a chance of dying when they get to minus HP hit points. They do not die at zero HP. Is that what you are asking? (Sorry, I’m on my phone and don’t have access to my computer).
@@chrisnormand yeah you said in your games npcs might die at 0 hp for simplicity and I am wondering if you meant -hp.
@@Katie-hj5eb Oh, I understand... and no. I did really mean to have the NPCs die at 0 HP. A PC can go unconscious at 0 HP if they fail their HT roll, effectively out of the combat. But as "heroes", they could "dig deep" and manage to stay conscious until -1xHP. And "dig even deeper" to manage not to die at -1xHP. All of these are "heroic" things... something we don't usually apply to our run-of-the-mill NPCs (plus, it just makes it easier for the GM).
@@chrisnormand okay thank you!
You can fight to negative 60 HP and yet D&D players still call it too deadly? What does this tell you about 5e?!!
I don't think a lot of D&D players know that fact... and if you play with the "tired" and "reeling" rule, going below 1/3 FP or HP becomes a bit of a downward spiral. Yeah, you can take this hit... mainly because you can no longer move or dodge ;-) But in all, it makes for an interesting combat. Do you stand there and possible go below 1/3 HP (where you can't defend as well in future attacks), or do you try something else?