Quote from: gleichman;661574Real world research on this matter has little use in Middle Earth, a place where a skilled human can match a Elf hundreds of years old. Or even between men whose life span can be half or less than of another. Just try and build the Fellowship using GURPs time training- and they will be nothing like the fellowship that appears in the book.

GURPS can handle this as well same way you handle it in HERO. By imposing rules on how points may be earned and spent. GURPS 4e handles real world character better and HERO 5e handles powers better but the difference is one of inches. Any setup in HERO 5e can be handled in GURPS 4e and vice versa.

Quote from: gleichman;661574Here genre is more important than realism, and GURPs inability to adapt is nothing but an additional failure.

4e was designed to make GURPS more flexible in this regard. The company to use this to setup a series of products to support various genres like GURPS Action, GURPS Monster Hunters, GURPS Dungeon Fantasy, among other. They coexist alongside the more gritter rules of Martial Arts and Technical Shooting. In short the situation is not what was back in the days of 2e or even 3e.

One of the goals of 4e redesign was to make genre support easier than in 3e particularly for powers. With that being said it is still not as easy or intuitive as HERO but again the gap is one of inches.

Quote from: gleichman;661574Always has been, it's one of the two major failures I noted for GURPS. Things that are just modifiers for HERO makes the problem in GURPs worse.

OCV 9 vs. DCV 9 plus 2 for Shield is 9 vs. 11 or a 9-, which is acceptable. Meanwhile a GURPS Defense roll of 15 becomes 17 which is silly.

GURPS is fine in a narrow range, but fails at the edges and is limited at the top. HERO continues without issue for as high as you need to go.

Your math is right but the numbers are wrong. The Shield bonus on defense is less significant because defense values are considerably lower. It takes a lot of points to get a ridiculously high defense in GURPS 4e. The average character is lucky to get a defense up into the 9 to 11 range even with a shield. A supernormal character may have a defense in the 14 to 16 range.

Even then there are a variety of tactical options to overcome a high defense just like there is in real life and within myths and legends. A monster could avoid blow 253 times in 256 tries with a dodge of 16. However if the hero is smart he can negate the defense and still bring down the monster in a manner consistent with either realism or myth. For example GURPS Actions is filled with the stuff that Movie Action hero use to bring down their "unstoppable" opponents. Which is different than what Monster Hunters, Dungeon Fantasy Heroes, or realistic heroes do.

In addition unlike Hero system not every GURPS stat is jacked up for supernormal characters. Strength, Will (based on IQ), and Hit Points (based on Strength) are often jacked up for supernormal characters.

But Dex, Health, and IQ only get into the 20s for supernormal characters. And that is a very high end. For example a Giant would be ST 45, DX 12, IQ 8, HT 13. The Supreme Brain of the universe would have ST 5, DX 10, IQ 20, HT 9, Will 30.

You are just focusing on the math without considering the system. Which is understandable because you haven't looked at GURPS in a while. I have and today the end both systems do the same things with the same flexibility.

However while the result may be the same the approaches are different and some folks like one over the other. While I think your criticism of the math of GURPS not accurate, I do understand why you prefer HERO.

Quote from: gleichman;661574BODY for humans was limited to the 8-12 range range, STUN Max wasn't touched, but tended to be figured +10 or so. Weapon damage was increased in very specific ways.

You can see most of the differences on my website here.

Thanks for sharing that.

Quote from: gleichman;661574END Reserve is great for a lot of things. In a build of Godzilla for example I wanted to reflect the fact that he generally doesn't just stand there blasting things with his flame attack after attack (instead he mixes it up with mostly punches and the like).

So I bought his breath weapon with an END reserve large enough for one full power blast, and gave it a REC that recharges completely at the end of each turn. So (in general) he can fire once out of his four actions per turn.

HERO is amazingly flexible when you are able to wrap your head around the powers system. From the moment I read 2nd edition I "got" it. I feel bad that I don't have much else to share in the way of builds. I only used for two years before switching to GURPS in 87 and don't have the volumes of notes like I do for GURPS.

Quote from: estar;661731GURPS can handle this as well same way you handle it in HERO. By imposing rules on how points may be earned and spent.

I already said that GURPs works fine *IF* you limited things to a narrow range.

However I don't really have to do that in HERO. I run a single meta-setting were everything exists in the same world. I have characters built on 0 points, and I have characters built on thousands.

They all scale correctly with each other producing exactly the effects I want.


As you continue you say this:

Quote from: estar;661731"Any setup in HERO 5e can be handled in GURPS 4e and vice versa."

and then you say this:

Quote from: estar;661731Your math is right but the numbers are wrong. The Shield bonus on defense is less significant because defense values are considerably lower.

Sorry, but I want your first point- that is I want characters with a high Defense- and I want a lot of them. And you say I can have them.

And then you say that I can't.

Which is it?

Quote from: estar;6617314e was designed to make GURPS more flexible in this regard.



In short the situation is not what was back in the days of 2e or even 3e

Another example of design by exception. Why should I trade something HERO does in its core for something that requires multiple expansion books?

You keep saying it's a matter of inches, when in fact it's page after page and $20 book after $20 book (just picking a price, I didn't look it up).

Quote from: estar;661731Even then there are a variety of tactical options to overcome a high defense just like there is in real life and within myths and legends.

Not interested in a style of play where if player A does Option B it negates advantage X. Again, exception based gaming.

I want balance in the core, and around that core tactical choices that depend not so much on the characters but upon their actions.

And I most certainly don't want special rules designed to deal with shortcoming in the core design.

Quote from: estar;661731In addition unlike Hero system not every GURPS stat is jacked up for supernormal characters. Strength, Will (based on IQ), and Hit Points (based on Strength) are often jacked up for supernormal characters.

I'm unaware of what you are speaking of. As GM, I control the value of every stat that appears on the character sheet- the game mechanics don't require or set anything.

Perhaps you're referencing their published examples. I find them rather useless myself for the most part.

Perhaps you're talking just numbers and how big they appear, say STR 80 vs. STR 45. Given the choice, I like more fine grained systems.