GURPS Character Creation: Just the Basics! Part 4

Hello, gamelings and welcome to another edition of "Let's make a character!"

When we last saw our hero, (S)he was obtaining Social Background, Wealth, and Influence!
This episode we will focus on Advantages!

(PSA: This post will be longer than most due to the number of advantages that exist!)

Advantages:

Advantages are just that, a trait that gives you a 1-up on others in a mental, physical, or social way. As usual, the GM has final say on whether a certain advantage suits the character/campaign.

Let's go through the advantage list, shall we?

Acute Senses:

This boosts your senses and adds +1/level to your sense rolls or sense rolls made for you by the GM.

Acute Hearing-2 points/level

Acute Taste and Smell-2 points/level

Acute Touch-2 points/level
Acute Vision-2 points/level

Ambidexterity:

This is the ability to fight, write, work, etc. with both hands equally. This advantage costs 5 points and saves you from the -4DX penalty for using the "off hand" if anything should happen to one hand.

Animal Empathy:

This advantage lets you be the Dr. Doolittle of your campaign! When your party encounters an animal, the GM rolls against your IQ and tells you what you “feel.” You can't read animal thoughts. The animals can't talk to you. You just read animals like an open book. You can also

use your Influence skills on animals just as you would on people. This costs 5 points. 

Catfall:

This advantage costs 10 points but it lets you subtract five yards from a fall automatically. (This is treated as an acrobatic success). Also, a successful DX roll halves damage from any fall. Of course, all of this is only possible if you are free to move and twits about.

Combat Reflexes:

You have lightning fast reactions in battle and are super hard to stun. You get +1 to all active defense rolls and +2 to Fright Checks. You also get +6 on all IQ rolls to recover from surprise or mental stun. Super cool, right? Well it costs a whopping 15 points.

Danger Sense:
You know that feeling you get when you are watching a horror movie? The hair on the back of your neck stands up, your heart races, your breathing gets heavy, etc. Yea, that. It's not 100% reliable but you have a tendency to just KNOW when danger is near. The GM will secretly roll once against your Perception in any situation involving an ambush, impending disaster, or similar hazard. with a successful roll, you get enough of a warning that you can take action. A roll of 3 or 4 means you get some small detail as to the nature of the danger. This badboy is 15 points!

Daredevil:
No, not the blind vigilante hero. This advantage makes all of your stupid and unnecessary crazy actions work in your favor. If the GM believes you are taking an unnecessary risk, you get a +1 to  all skill rolls AND you can reroll a critical failure that occurs during your risky behavior! This advantage costs 15 points!

Empathy:
This is much like the Animal Empathy but... you know... not for animals. You have that crazy awesome sense. You can read people and their intentions! You ask the GM to roll against your IQ for this and the GM will tell you what you "feel". HOWEVER, if that roll fails the GM will LIE! (What a butt, right???) This advantage costs 15 points.

Enhanced Defenses:

Look at you blocking and dodging left and right! No one can touch you! This may be due to careful observation of your foe, focusing chi,or anything else that fits your background. There are three kinds: 

Enhanced Block: You have +1 to your Block score with Shield skill. This costs 5 points. 

Enhanced Dodge: You have +1 to your Dodge score. This costs 15 points. 

Enhanced Parry: You have +1 to your Parry score. 

You may take this advantage for: 

                             bare hands (5 points)

                                                                for any one Melee Weapon skill (5 points)

                                        for all parries (10 points).  

Fearlessness:

Nothing scares you! You laugh at horror movies and taunt serial killers! Add your level of Fearlessness to your Will whenever you make a Fright Check or must resist the Intimidation skill or a supernatural power that induces fear. You also subtract your Fearlessness level from all Intimidation rolls made against you. This is 2 points/level.

Flexibility:
You are basically a contortionist! This advantages has two different kinds!
Flexibility: 

 +3 on Climbing rolls; on Escape rolls to get free of ropes, handcuffs, and similar restraints. You may ignore up to -3 in penalties for working in close quarters. This costs 5 points.

Double-Jointed: 

You cannot stretch or squeeze yourself abnormally, but any part of your body may bend any way. You get +5 on Climbing, Escape rolls, and on attempts to break free. You may ignore up to -5 in penalties for close quarters.  This costs 15 points.

Hard To Kill:
This advantage costs 2 points/level. Each level of Hard to Kill gives +1 to HT rolls made for survival at -HP or below, and on any HT roll where failure means instant death. If this bonus makes the difference between success and failure, you collapse, apparently dead, but come to in the usual amount of time.

High Pain Threshold:

 You still get hurt just like any normal character but you don't seem to feel it as much. You never suffer a shock penalty when you are injured. In addition, you get +3 on all HT rolls to avoid knockdown and stunning and if you are tortured physically, you get +3 to resist. The GM may let you roll at Will+3 to ignore pain in other situations. This costs 10 points.

Jumper:

This bad boy costs 100 points but there is a good reason for it. With this advantage, you can travel through time or to parallel worlds merely by willing the jump. You must decide whether you are a time-jumper or a world-jumper. It is possible to be both but you would have to buy Jumper

(Time) and Jumper (World) separately, at full cost. That would be 200 character points! Holy cow!

To initiate a jump, you must visualize your destination, concentrate for 10 seconds, and make an IQ roll. You may hurry the jump, but your roll will be at -1 per second of concentration omitted. Regardless of IQ, a roll of 14 or more always fails. 

On a success, you appear at your target destination. 

On a failure, you go nowhere. 

On a critical failure, you arrive at the wrong destination, which can be any time or world the GM wishes! 

You appear at your destination at exactly the same place you left your previous time or world – or as close as possible. If there is no corresponding “safe” location within 100 yards of your destination, the jump will fail and you will know why it failed. 

This ability always costs at least 1 Fatigue Point to use, succeed or fail. Any super distant times or worlds might cost more; how much is up to the GM. 

Language Talent:

You have a knack for languages. When you learn a language at a comprehension level above None, you automatically function at the next higher level. This advantage costs 10 points.

Luck:

We should take you to the racetrack because you are one lucky S.O.B. The luck advantage comes in three levels:
Luck: For every 1 hour of play, you may reroll a single bad die roll twice and take the best of the three rolls! You must declare that you are using your Luck immediately after you roll the dice. This costs 15 points.

 Extraordinary Luck:Same rules apply, but it's usable every 30 minutes. This is 30 points. 

Ridiculous Luck: Again, same rules apply, but usable every 10 minutes! This is 60 points. 

Your Luck only applies to your own success, damage, or reaction rolls, or on outside events that affect you or your whole party, or when you are being attacked. That means that you can make the attacker roll three times and take the worst roll!

Night Vision:

This advantage costs 1 point/level (Max 9 levels). You can see in the dark... not pitch black, mind you, but dark. Each level of this ability allows you to ignore -1 in combat or vision penalties due to darkness, provided there is at least some light.

Perfect Balance:

You are the tightropiest walker in the history of balance! You keep your footing perfectly under normal conditions without having to make a die roll. If the surface is wet, slippery, or unstable, you get +6 on all rolls to keep your feet. In combat, you get +4 to DX and DX-based skill rolls to keep your feet or avoid being knocked down. Finally, you get +1 to Acrobatics and Climbing skill. 

Resistant:

You have a natural resistance or immunity to diseases or poisons. This gives you a bonus on all HT rolls to resist incapacitation or injury..

Resistant to Disease: You may take a +3 bonus for 3 points or a +8 bonus for 5 points. 

Resistant to Poison: You have a +3 bonus, costing 5 points. 

Talent:

You are naturally skilled or talented. “Talents” come in levels, and give a bonus of +1 per level with all affected skills, even for default use. You may never have more than four levels of a particular Talent. However, overlapping Talents can give skill bonuses (only) in excess of +4.

The cost of a Talent depends on the size of the group of skills affected. 

Some examples: Artificer covers Armory, Electronics Repair, Engineer, Mechanic, and others. 10 points/level. 

Outdoorsman covers Camouflage, Naturalist, Navigation, Survival, and Tracking. 10 points/level. 

Smooth Operator covers all Influence skills, as well as Acting, Carousing, Leadership, and Public Speaking. 15 points/level. 

You have so many more options,too! GMs are encouraged to create their own Talents as needed.

Whew! You made it through! Thanks for hanging in there!

I know that is a lot to go through and you stuck with me through it all.

So those are the available Advantages. Now that we've covered them, you may have noted a few that suit your character! Go ahead and add them to your sheet in the proper area. Then subtract the point values from your available points total.

Next time we will cover DISadvantages.

Heads up: That one will be long, too. o.O

See you all next time! We are almost done creating our characters!!!