From Tab Wiki

For the sake of reference and comment I will elaborate upon a number of house rules for GURPS that we either are using or may potentially use.

Character Creation

Attribute Limits

Standard: No character may start with more than his racial attributes +3 or -1.

Alternate: In campaigns with races with high attribute bonuses, it may be better to allow +3 or -3, provided buying the attribute down counts against the disadvantage limit. Also, in higher-powered or ultra-cinematic campaigns, it may be good to do +5 instead of +3.

Skill Limits

Standard: No character may start with more than 4 points in any given skill.

Alternate: In higher-powered campaigns, it may be good to relax this limit. The earlier limit probably works for 100 to 150 point characters. For 200 point characters, a limit of 8 points; or a limit of 12 points for higher character starting point totals.

Talent Limits

Characters may only start with one level of any talent. This prevents abuse of getting around the skill limit. Characters also may not start with multiple talents that give bonuses to the same skill. This rule also applies to quasi-talents like Magery and Power Investiture.

Split Disadvantage Limit

Standard: No character may have more than -30 points of Disadvantages; this is called the "True" Disadvantage limit. Lowering Attributes has its own disadvantage limit of -20 + the difference between the character's Disadvantages and the "True" Disadvantage limit.

Alternate: In high-point or cinematic campaigns the disadvantage limit might be raised to -50 for Disadvantages and -50 for Attributes.

No "Jerk" Disadvantages

Some Disadvantages work well for NPCs, but not for PCs. These usually involve Disadvantages that cause the PC to be hard to work with. While personality traits of this sort may be occasionally played out, I am not giving characters points for them. Disadvantages that fall under this category are: Bad Temper (GM's discretion), Bully, Callous, Delusions (GM's discretion), Fanaticism (GM's discretion), Greed (GM's discretion), Killjoy, Kleptomania (GM's discretion), Megalomania, Sadism (GM's discretion), Selfish (GM's discretion), Stubbornness, Workaholic.

Character Traits

Extended Lifespan and Longevity [1 points/level]

No matter how many levels you have of this, it is now considered a Perk, worth 1 point. This advantage is one that may occasionally justify remembering things from way back when or bragging about the "good ol' days" a thousand years ago, but it has little mechanical game effect in most campaigns.

Reduced Lifespan and Terminally Ill [-1 or -10 points]

These traits are now a quirk and thus worth -1 point. There is an exception, however: In the case of Terminally Ill, if the effects are so imminent that you are estimated to die 2/3 the way through the campaign or earlier (consult the GM on this one), then you may purchase Terminally Ill (Imminent) [-10] which is not a quirk, but worth -10 points. The reason for this change is that even though your impending death is a bummer and good for lots of role-playing angst, it has little mechanical benefit unless if actually occurs in the campaign.

Luck (Points) [5 points/level]

This system is meant to replace the standard GURPS Luck, Serendipity and Super Luck advantages. You may buy Luck Points. Each point is an advantage costing 5 character points. Luck points may be either spent before a roll is made to make that roll 4d drop 1, or spent after the roll is made to roll another 1d, taking the best 3d. This is not possible on a critical failure. Only one Luck points may be spent on a single roll. They replenish at the beginning of each session; unspent points do not carry over between sessions. If a character has 2 luck points available, he may suggest some positive coincidence happens; if the GM accepts the suggestion, the player spends the 2 points and the suggestion occurs. This is meant to be exactly like the Serendipity advantage, except triggered through Luck points. Additionally, by spending 10 luck points a character may dictate the result of a given roll--as in Super Luck.

• Transferable, +20%: You are not only lucky, but bring luck to those around you. In game mechanic terms this means you can transfer a luck point with this modifier to an ally for the session at any time, at your option.
• Stackable, +40%: Luck points with this enhancement allow for the use of more than one luck point per roll; this lets a roll be extra lucky.

Gunslinger [15 points]

The Gunslinger (which normally costs 25 points) is overpriced and instead costs 15 points.

Custom Talents [5, 10 or 15 points/level]

Plays may have only one custom talent made for them. Custom talents must be a set of either 5, 10 or 15 skills. That Talent will have a Custom, +100% enhancement on it that will effectively double the cost of the Talent. This prevents the abuse of Talents in excessively raising skills.

Divorced Will & Per

Normally Per and Will are based off of IQ, however, with this house rule they are based of 10, like all primary attributes and consequently are bought up and down independently. This is particularly of interest in games that feature an overwhelming number of IQ-based skills.

Game Play

Simplified Extra Effort

Version 3

A fatigue point can be spent to give +2 to any attack, damage or defense rolls--whether in or out of combat. This allows for fatigue to be mostly relevant to combat, but avoids the "are we in combat mode or not?" problem of Version 2 without allowing characters to spend fatigue on any important skill roll that comes up. Spending fatigue on digging and hiking (as described in the Basic Set) still works as described. Fatigue is regained at the usual rate.

Version 2

Fatigue points can only be spent in combat to give any roll +2. They cannot be spent outside of combat for a bonus. In this way they can be thought of as a "combat pool" -- a way to "give it your all" on individual maneuvers in the heat of the moment. This makes FP a combat balancing point, as they will also be used (as normal) in combat to power spells, special abilities or drained through fatigue attacks. After combat they are regained at the usual rate (1 per 10 minutes of rest), which means they'll usually be fully refilled after combats, unless another such fight happens shortly after the first. This also keeps FP from being abused in situations where they're only 1 or 2 important rolls in a day.

Version 1

Instead of the standard Extra Effort rules, FP may be spent to give a +2 to any roll. If the FP is spent in combat, this represents a short-term burst of extra effort and the FP can be regained as normal. If the FP is spent outside of combat, this represents a long-term expenditure of energy and the FP is regained only through sleep, much like FP lost to sleep deprivation.

Variant Fright Checks

Fright check rolls occur as normal, however, instead of rolling on the fright check table on a failure, you instead are frightened and unable to do anything but take Do Nothing, Change Posture or Move (away the source of fright) maneuvers for a number of rounds equal to your margin of failure. If you suffer a critical failure, roll HT. On a success you merely suffer the normal effects of a failed fright check, on a critical failure you suffer a heart attack (B429).

You may spend 1 FP to suppress your fear for that round and take your choice of maneuver for the rounds you are effected, however, you act at -2 from the fear.

Combat Simplification & Revamp

The combat system has been revamped somewhat to be better simplified and and to achieve a better balance relative to my personal preferences and feedback I have received from players.

Three Second Combat Round & Simplification

The GURPS combat round now encompasses three seconds rather than the standard one second. This effects somewhat what can be accomplished in a given round. For long actions that normally require multiple rounds to accomplish, as a general rule of thumb, to figure out how many rounds these actions require now, divide the number of rounds required by 3, rounding up. I have revised the combat maneuvers to be somewhat simplified, combining Aim with Evaluate, and Move with Move & Attack. What can now be accomplished with the various combat maneuvers is listed in the table below.

Maneuver	Description	Defense	Movement
Aim/Evaluate	Aim a weapon to get a +2 or Acc bonus to attack first round; a +1 bonus for each rounds thereafter.	Any1	Full Move
All-Out Attack	Give up your defense for a round to choose an option: • Determined: +2 to hit. • Feint: Make one feint than a melee attack against foe. • Strong: +2 damage or +1 per die damage in melee.	None	Full Move
All-Out Defense	Gain the benefit of one of the following options: • Increased Defense: You gain +2 to one active defense (parry, block or dodge) until your next turn. • Double Defenses: Apply two different active defenses against the same attack.	Any2	Full Move
Attack	Attack unarmed or with a readied weapon.	Any	Full Move
Change Posture	Stand up, sit down, etc.	Any	Full Move3
Concentrate	Focus on a mental task.	Any1	Full Move
Do Nothing	Take no action, but recover from stun.	Any4	None
Feint	Fake a melee attack.	Any	Full Move
Move	Do nothing but move.	Any	Move Plus6
Ready	Prepare a weapon or other item.	Any	Full Move
Wait	Act on a specified trigger; must be a single motion.	Any	Varies5
1. Taking an active defense may spoil your concentration and requires a Will-3 roll. 2. Gives +2 to an active defense or allows for two defenses against each attack. 3. Move provided the posture allows movement. 4. Defenses are at -4 if taking Do Nothing due to stun. 5. None until your wait is triggered, then move as per the maneuver you take. 6. Make a DX roll; you may move an additional number of yards equal to your margin of success.

FP for Initiative

Characters may spend a fatigue point to gain +2 to their Basic Speed for the purposes of initiative for that round.

FP for Move

Characters may spend a fatigue point to gain +2 to their Basic Move for one round.

Shield Blocking Bonus

Instead of shields giving a defense bonus to all active defenses, they instead only give their defense bonus to the Block defense. This prevents the abuse of simply taking shields for an increased bonus to Dodge (which unlike other defenses never goes down with use).

Attack Lowers Defense Variant

For every 2 points of margin of success a character has in her attack, the target's defense is lowered by 1. For example, say you have Attack-14. If you roll a 10, you succeed by 4, giving your target a -2 penalty to her defense. In the case of attacks with a high Rate of Fire (RoF), your target's defense is lowered by 1 for every 2 points on your margin of success past what is needed to score all your hits. For example, say you have Attack-18 on a weapon that is RoF 3 and Rcl 2. You roll a 10; your margin of success is 8. You needed a margin of 0 for one shot to be good enough to hit, a margin of 2 for two shots and a margin of 4 for 3 shots to be good enough to hit. Your margin of success was 4 above this, giving your target -2 to defense with the defense roll otherwise being resolved normally.

Alternate Wound & Fatigue Penalties

Instead of the normal penalties, characters suffer a -1 penalty to all skill, defense, IQ, DX, Will and Per rolls per 1/2 max HP lost. In addition, their basic move decreased by a number equal to the penalty. For example, a 10 HP character would suffer -1 at 5 HP, -2 at 0 HP, -3 at -5 HP, -4 at -10 HP, etc. At a -2 penalty the character is considered to be in moderate pain, severe pain at -4 and terrible pain at -6. (As per the rules for pain; B428). High Pain Threshold halves these penalties, rounded towards 0.

Penalties for fatigue accumulate similarly. Characters suffer -1 for every 1/2 max FP lost to all the rolls listed above, plus ST. The penalties for HP and FP do not stack, take whichever penalty is highest (in an absolute value sense).

Finally, ignore Knockback (B378) and Knockdown (B420), except in the case of specific attacks made for the purpose of their effects, as otherwise we are not using them.

GURPS Uber-Simple Combat

A lot of the complexity of GURPS combat comes from the fact that we play with a lot of optional rules. This alternate mode of combat has almost all those optional rules stripped off and a couple judiciously-made house rules. This allows the game to be used with genres and settings that would benefit from a faster and more abstracted combat system.

Optional Rules Modified

• No Hit Locations: There is only one hit location: the torso.
• No Damage Multipliers: These technically are optional, too.
• No Hex Grid: Using the tactical grid is an optional rule that adds complication.
• No Knockback or Knockdown: We're already playing without these anyway.
• No Shock: This can be done away with.
• Keep Armor Divisor: This is technically optional too, but given modern armor values, I feel it's best to keep it for balance.

Preexistent House Rules

• Use Simplified Extra Effort (Version 3) as above
• Use Three Second Combat Round & Simplification as above
• Use FP for Initiative and FP for Move as above
• Use Shield Blocking Bonus as above
• You may or may not use Attack Lowers Defense with this system.

Simplified Status

In this system you always have one of the conditions detailed below:

• Fine: No penalities.
• Wounded: At 1/2 HP you're wounded and considered to be in Moderate Pain (B428; -2 to all attribute, skill and defense rolls, and -1 Move).
• On the Brink: At 0 HP you're on the brink of going unconscious and considered to be in Severe Pain (B428; -4 to all attribute, skill and defense rolls, and -2 Move). You must also make HT rolls each turn or go Unconscious.
• Death's Door: At -1 x HP you're at death's door. You automatically go unconscious and must immediately roll HT vs. death, and again each time you suffer more damage beyond this point. If for some reason you regain consciousness at this level of HP (through time or magic) you are in Terrible Pain (B428; -6 to all attribute, skill and defense rolls, and -3 Move).
• Fatigue: You get these same penalties for 1/2 and 0, respectively. They do not stack with the penalties for low HP.

Optional: Tactical Attack Strategies

This adds back some complication, but I feel it is still fairly simple and adds back some tactical interestingness and lethality into the combat system. It also assumes you're not using the "Attack Lowers Defense" house rule. It also gives people with high combat skill something to use their excess skill on.

• Do away with the feint maneuver.
• Deceptive Attack: You feint and otherwise make your attack hard to see coming. You may take increments of -2 off of your attack; each increment gives -1 to your target's Defense.
• Power Attack: You put more force and power into your swing to cut into your opponent with more damage. You may take increments of -2 off of your attack; each increment increases the damage multiplier by 0.5. So, for example, taking off -4 would increase your damage multiplier to x2.
• These two strategies may be combined for as much you have skill to combine them.

Damage to Mooks

Version 2

The GM may sometimes designate certain characters as "mooks"--underlings and extras to the story. They are treated mechanically just as any other characters, however, they have the Mook Template. This template is below:

Mook Template [-20 points]

• Disadvantages: Easy to Kill 5 [-10]; Easy to Subdue 5 [-10].

Version 1

The GM may sometimes designate certain characters as "mooks"--underlings and extras to the story. In order to prevent combats with these characters from dragging on in a session, these characters automatically go down at 0 HP. They then make a HT roll. On a success they're merely unconscious; on a failure they are dead.