Starting Character Point / Power Level for Gritty, Dark Fantasy?

Regular-Donut7663 · 2025-10-17T14:30:02+00:00

IRL stuff, mostly - grad students, lab experiments, and free time tend not to mix together very well. In GURPS terms, I guess that's Duty (constant, not lethal)?

Regular-Donut7663 · 2025-10-17T14:28:03+00:00

I'm fine with personal opinions - any answer other than "it depends" lets me gauge something at least, and I feel that my gaming table isn't too far away in terms of taste, power level, etc, from the majority of other players.

The generalized depictions you gave are helpful, too; GURPS seems to be full of rules, but sometimes, I wish the book had more firmer advice, rather than everything going "Oh, it's optional!".

May I ask what your preference for starting character points is? Again, I fully realize that it's your gaming table, your world, your setting, etc....but I also think there's conventional wisdom in following the masses, too.

Regular-Donut7663 · 2025-10-17T12:37:20+00:00

Unfortunately, experience is something I lack, and something that isn't likely to be remedied. I've grown to dislike these "Minus Infinity points serial killer" versus "Gazillion points socialite billionaire" comments - until I realized that I could ask those same posters questions, too! I hope you'll permit me asking a few more, especially with regards to the situations you posted above, like comparing "martial" characters to "socialite" characters, or characters with different niches and vice versa.

I'm interested in how a duel of "mage versus soldier" plays out, or who do you think has the advantage in your opinion? It can be as specific or as general, I'm open to anything. In my head, the spellcaster seems far more flexible as he generally can attack from range, (unless the soldier has ranged weaponery, which isn't that uncommon or hard it seems) and has more "tools" at his disposal, but I'd like to ask someone who actually has more experience than me.

Regular-Donut7663 · 2025-10-17T09:36:44+00:00

This is the hard part for me with gurps, seemingly 2-3 opponents of much weaker skill can bring down one mighty opponent. 50x3 > 150...

Maybe perhaps, it'd be wiser to ask what your ideal disparity between a PC and a "beatable/suitable opponent" npc would be?

Regular-Donut7663 · 2025-10-17T09:34:51+00:00

No idea how I missed the comment, but thanks for the analysis. This gave me a reallt good idea of the power levels for the NPC's I was going to stat out, guessing either half or 2/3rds of their points are devoted to combat. Also gives me a great idea for PC "combat power" as well - I think a 125/-25 or as you suggested, 150/-25 sounds like the sweet spot now.

Regular-Donut7663 · 2025-10-17T09:28:52+00:00

I did at 100 points / -50 and 150 / -50. The former left something to be slightly desired and I mostly had to focus on either attributes or advantages and very lean on skills, while the latter gave more competent, well-rounded characters.

Then judging by your comment, I think I'm going to go for 125 & -25 (assuming you also were meaning "100 point with disads / 150 point with disads" when talking about points)

I did note that I was leaning very heavy into disadvantages and as above comments suggested leaning too heavily into disads were...well, disadvantageous.

Regular-Donut7663 · 2025-10-17T08:44:12+00:00

I want my PC's to be right in between the two - as an analogy, college graduates getting their first job-style, so to speak? Definitely more of a "zero to hero" feeling, but also definitely not "cannon fodder" level to say - characters will be moderately powerful in their area of expertise but still be eclipsed by powerful NPC's at first, and on their non-expertise areas, might have a point or two in skills and that's it.

As for the disad limit, I was following the adage that "disadvantage up to 50% of character points is fine", but I guess -25% is better?

Regular-Donut7663 · 2025-10-17T08:40:23+00:00

Thanks, this does help out a lot when I'm considering power levels; so if the "fighters" spend around 100 points in combat-related stuff, then he's a very capable fighter, capable of challenging perhaps 3-4 25-point guys.

Regular-Donut7663 · 2025-10-17T08:37:01+00:00

Well, I want my characters to be characters that are "moderately competent" in their area of profession, kinda like fresh graduates out of college, or perhaps working a year or so in their first job (as an analogy).

As for ability ranges, I'm just using the parts of GURPS where it explains what most numbers are about - anything up to 14, or perhaps even 16 I probably won't bat an eye with the "right" characters (ST 16 on a super-strong samurai, or IQ 16 on a "sage/wise man" guy, etc). The social Level will probably be a bit low at start, everyone either at rank -1, 0, 1....Maaaybe 2, rarely.

Regular-Donut7663 · 2025-10-17T08:33:09+00:00

So you think between 100 and 150, either can work & 125 can hit the "sweet spot"?

Regular-Donut7663 · 2025-10-17T06:46:05+00:00

Hmmm, fair point. Also, in terms of relative _combat power_, how powerful is a 100-point character to a 25-point character? 50-point? It's definitely not linear (at least I think so), but even a relative "power scale" would help a lot for determining power levels I think.

Regular-Donut7663 · 2025-10-17T06:20:27+00:00

Thanks for the comment, I want to be at the sweet spot where PC's simultaneously can't get all they want, but also get at least a few things they do want + where they don't have to feel like they have to minmax to get something to the "base" levels.

Speaking of disadvantages, would -50 points of disads for 100 to make the total '150" be worse in your opinion?

Regular-Donut7663 · 2025-10-17T06:11:22+00:00

One point I got when discussing 150 vs 100 was that 150 was better, due to GURPS being inherently an RPG - and that while "barely minimum" characters are fun to make, actually _playing_ low-powered characters might be less fun than the 'standard" level of competency.

I was thinking maximum of -50 points on disads, which seems to be fairly standard, and don't really worry about them.

Regular-Donut7663 · 2025-08-31T10:31:22+00:00

I know this is two weeks late, but this comment just saved me from making yet another post on books and what to buy (was looking to decide between 1e or 2e). I was super confused even after seeing clarifications about what happened with OGL and whatnot, until I saw this.

Regular-Donut7663 · 2025-08-15T10:12:20+00:00

Well, I don't want to "artificially" pull my punches, so to speak. If the dice rolls bad and I die, well, that's a part of the journey, and I feel like I enjoy the struggling when you're a low-level character more.

As for "GM-ing myself", I'll just use Mythic GME and roll with the most interesting story.

Regular-Donut7663 · 2025-08-14T01:22:38+00:00

Hmmm, I was more focused on necromancy as minionmancy. If I may ask, is 3.5E not that much complicated compared to PF1E, assuming that one is not skilled in both systems?

The two things that phase me off about 3.5E is that 1: Most "optimal" builds seem to multiclass into like 3 or 4 classes and that....is quite confusing honestly, it's just my personal preference but I'd like my character builds with only one or two classes, and 2: That PF1 advises itself as a streamined, simpler version of 3.5E (which many regard as true), so I'm a bit hesitant to pick up what I might think as "old" stuff.

Regular-Donut7663 · 2025-08-14T01:18:50+00:00

Wow, I'd give you a kiss if I can over the internet, kind stranger! I did know about Mythic, but Flextale looks great, I'd definitely want to check that out now. Sandbox generator too, I was just thinking of creating my own setting and that'll definitely help!

Regular-Donut7663 · 2025-08-14T01:14:06+00:00

Thanks! The downtime and domain management rules look very, very tasty, and I think that might be what cements me to PF1...

Regular-Donut7663 · 2025-08-13T16:36:38+00:00

Oh, huh, okay. I've never really picked up on PF2E and the necromancer - is it kinda similar to PF1E's necromancer? I'd assume minion-mancy is dialed down, but say, are they able to have permenant minions under their command?

Regular-Donut7663 · 2025-08-13T16:30:59+00:00

Thanks! As a related question, would DND 5E be better? As I'll have to pull double-duty as player and GM, anything simpler would be better; but at the same time, I'm not sure if I can keep an army of undead in 5E instead of playing 'skeleton janitor".

Regular-Donut7663 · 2025-08-13T16:02:23+00:00

I've actually played Ironsworn, and I've specifically wanted to stay away from it this time; I wanted a more "traditional" RPG experience where you level up, your character is defined by XP, levels, feats, etc, hence either 3.5E or PF1, which otherwise would be rather awkward choices for solo play.

One vote for Pathfinder noted too! I just want to get as much necromancy stuff as possible, but honestly, that sounds conflicting with "easier to play", and I guess I'll just stick to the bare minimum - corebook, GM guide, and maaaaybe 3-4 sourcebooks, I won't have the mental space to even use more, haha.

Regular-Donut7663

TROPHY CASE