Jediphile

Yeah, that's the good thing about open endings - it leaves a lot of interesting speculation. After Episode V, people were really going crazy over whether Vader was really Luke's father or not. Not quite the same with KotOR2, though. KotOR2 isn't just open-ended - if it had been that would have been okay - it's unfinished and cut to pieces. The Nihilus bits all still being there is interesting, though... Yes, that's an interesting aspect, isn't it? I don't think it was planned as such, since that would indicate that Visas knows of the Exile/Nihilus connection (if that presumption is correct), and I doubt she is, but it does work well to also suggest the connection on a more subtle level. It can definitely be construed as another clue.

Fun... An alternative: Exile: "Kreia, are you Handmaiden's mother?" Kreia: "I could tell you, but you would be weakened from it - such answers you must discover yourself. And you'll make the Handmaiden weaker too, if you discover the answer for her..." Exile: "Okay, that's it - I've had it with all the cryptic mumbo-mumbo! Now give me a simple yes or no already - are you her mother or not? I WANT THE TRUTH!!" Kreia: "YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!!!" -- Okay, that was a cheap shot - my bad :"> " :D

Thanks for the link and the path to the voiceover. Why would those be opposed? Besides, I'm not so sure Nihilus is destroyed. The way he dissolves could mean anything. For example, rather than being destroyed, he could have 'reconnected' with the Exile. That way the Exile has regained his ties to the force again, and note how that conveniently coincides in the plot with the point where the Exile and Kreia separate - Kreia leaves just as the confrontation with Nihilus comes, so the bond may have been severed without the Exile ever realizing it. After all, he wasn't even aware that his connection to the force had remained lost, and that he used force powers only through his force bonds with other people. What I find interesting in the cut Vash dialogue where concerning Nihilus is this: "Look within for the answer. We are each solely accountable for everything in our lives. Nothing ever happens to us unless we allow it." By this comment it is clear that the Exile has accepted a lot without being aware of it. What else has he accepted without realizing it?

I play almost exclusively with the same old crowd I've known for years and years, and even then I tend to be choosy about who I play with. If I meet new players, it's usually because someone in the group wants to introduce someone else to the game, but that doesn't happen very often. A notable difference was about five years ago, when I met a guy in the local gaming store (which is now closed ) and got to talk with him. We both liked Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and he tried to get me to join the Last Unicorn Games version of Star Trek, that I already knew, but hadn't actually gotten around to playing. So I said yes, and we played Trek RPG for years. Can't complain since my PC ended up in the captain's chair, but the others seemed to think it was fun also. That added many new players to the people I game with, and those are mostly the same people I've played Exalted with until recently.

But did we? He strikes him down, and then Nihilus disappears in some strange haze of red, while the protagonists don't even raise an eyebrow... And the Exile takes the mask, but can't even be bothered to look at Nihilus' face? Odd... After all, since they were both at Malachor V, Nihilus might have been someone he knew, perhaps even an old ally, yet Nihilus' face is never revealed. Why? Probably because Exile had confronted Nihilus by then. As for the Lonna Vash explanation, do you have a reference to that (sound files or in the dialogue)? I'd really like to see or hear it.

Yes, but don't you see that this is precisely why Nihilus is connected to the Exile - he is, to use your own terms, the part of the Force that the Exile rejected on Malachor V. He is not whole. He is a void. Thus the name Nihilus - "Nihil" meaning 'nothing' in latin, as others have also correctly pointed out. And while the two 'halves' have been separated for a decade, Nihilus has survived by stealing the life force of force sensitives like some 'force vampire'. Since the will of the force was for the Exile to embrace the dark side on Malachor V, this is why Nihilus is a Sith and kills only jedi. He is powerful, but he is nothing at his center, because his real self, his real individuality, is running around in the outer rim as the Exile. Nihilus shouldn't exist, and he is constantly draining away - he needs to consume force in order to exist, but he cannot drain the Exile because that is himself - he is drawn to the Exile, his true self, not the other way around. And as for them both being tainted, that's another clue - the Exile isn't tainted, is he? He just lost his connection to the force, until the game begins. But as soon as he enters the republic again and so gets closer to Nihilus, poof, his force powers begin to return...

:D Thanks. We aim to please

Great list! I really like all of those planets! <{POST_SNAPBACK}> All the planets I want to see are there, except for Khar Delba/Khar Shian. Not sure about Ossus, though - it doesn't seem to make much sense so shortly after it became a casualty of Exar Kun during the Sith War...

True, but 2e is a decade and a half old, so of course it's going to outdated - what game of those days isn't? Besides, I've never said 2e didn't have flaws. I know it does. The ability to exploit the system with the dual-class system was awful, for example, and we all fixed those rules. What I'm criticising is that 3e isn't really that much better even after 10+ years of experience to draw on. The mulit/dual-class system is better now, but there are still major gaps in the rules, and then new and flawed rules are thrown in there on top of the old ones. Eeeeek... Yes, level limits are stupid and gone in most campaigns - they certainly are in mine (though I do use them as a starting point for xp penalties...). The progressive element to advance in levels is one of the strongest features of any edition of D&D, and a GM would be crazy to throw it out, since nobody would play. One of my players considered retiring his 12th-level minotaur fighter simply because that was the level limit under the rules, even though I said I wouldn't put a firm level there and only penalize his xp progression a little. That tells us something about how strong the progressive element really is. 3e was an improvement, but I wouldn't say it was a big one. Certainly not as big as it should have been with ten years of practical experience with 2e flaws. As for players switching over, yes and no. The majority of players I know have tried 3e and play it on occasion, yet I know that if I began a new 2e campaign, then they'd still rush to my table and leave 3e behind. I know that because they have all said that, so my GM style is obviously far more important to them than playing 3e instead of 2e, which tells me something about the "quality" of the system...

It was definitely annoying in the earlier incarnations of WoD. The Storyteller game I've played most recently was Exalted, and there some of the problems were fixed. 7 was now the golden number you needed to pass in order to get a success, each and every time. However, Exalted also fixed another really annoying problem in the WoD system - if you got just one success, then all 1s (failures) were completely ignored. One big problem with the system earlier was that it sometimes wasn't in your own interest to build higher dice pools, since that just increased the chance of rolling that elusive 1 that ruined your result. I must confess, though, that I don't like the whole idea of rolling all those d10s, then counting successes, then having the opponent try to resist, then seeing how many successes got through, and then rolling damage for that number... Very cumbersome and annoying when doing combat, though I guess you can accuse me of just being infected with D&D syndrome... That said, I cannot believe that it is impossible to make a combat system that is fast and useful and yet allows many options. Heck, Storyteller's combat doesn't even allow a lot of options, but it still takes hours to go through major battles...

Except that it backfired completely. Hard 2e fanatics were never going to switch, and those of us who might have considered it couldn't be bothered because 3e just wasn't enough of an improvement - you can't have your cake and eat it too. As for weapon finesse, I doubt very much many take it, since it's just too costly. The problem with feats is that they all 'cost' the same no matter how useful or slightly practical they are. WotC just basically set the system up and then claimed they were all exactly equal in value, which is obviously absurd to anyone bothering to study those feats for a few minutes. Improved Initiative is far more useful than Weapon Finesse in any case. Add to that that you have to take Weapon Finesse for each weapon you want to use it with and the idea that it's balanced really loses touch with reality. And it seems every time someone voices criticism of stupid 3e rules, someone says to just introduce a house rule. No offense, but I only hear this argument when it concerns 3e, and I really don't understand why. What makes it okay for d20 to have flawed rules and yet have that be acceptable, since people can make their own house rules, but it's somehow not okay in other RPGs? To put it bluntly, saying "make up a house rule to fix it" sounds to me like someone knows the rule is broken and that the system is therefore flawed, but they don't really like admitting it...

Except that Lancer and myself aren't playing 3e anyway, so what's the difference? We saw that the 3-18 scale was just a cover for a calculation, and that the claim of preserving the old scale was, shall we say, less than truthful. It annoys me more that WotC claims it's the same when it's not than it would have if they'd just said that they had changed it because it worked better and that we should try to get used to it. Now the 3-18 scale has meaning only when you roll up the numbers (character creation) and nowhere else. In all other cases it's the underlying modifiers that dictate the game, while the 3-18 scale has no meaning at all.

What bothers me is that they've set it up to look like the classic D&D 3-18 stat range, but don't use it for anything but numbercrunching. It's simply just untrue to claim that the 3-18 range is preserved, when it has been completely rewritten and how the numbers themselves don't mean anything. Want to know what your modifier is? Subtract 10 from your stat and then take half of the result, rounding down any fractions - there's your modifier. Now, that being the case, why didn't they just use those numbers instead of the 3-18 range? It might take a little time for players to get used to his 17 being only 3

What I don't get is why they didn't just fix it. I've been toying the idea for the five seconds or so, when I actually considered switching to 3e, and it doesn't seem that hard to fix at all. Just drop the rule saying that Strength affects to-hit at all and instead let Dexterity modify it. If that's too harsh on warriors, there's a solution to that, too. After all, you can make an argument for hitting stronger to indicate greater chance for hurting opponent or penetrating his defenses, though not as great as the precision suggested by high Dexterity. Simply take half the Strength modifier and round it down, then use either that or the Dexterity modifier, whichever is higher, but not both. That should fix the matter quite nicely without unbalancing the game.

Yes, that's the other side of 3e for 2e vets - it's different enough to us to be annoying, but is it really that much better? As others have said, it is certainly both more streamlined and more polished, but better? Not really. It's pretty much the same old thing on new bottles, only with a few more annoying rules and with 'streamlining' that means we don't know the rules by heart anymore. So why switch indeed? The 3e players won't get this part, though. If they hear us talking like this, they might look at 2e and be horrified that we like it. I mean, we actually SUBTRACT our to-hit from the THAC0? Armor Class goes DOWN? You have to roll below your proficiency to succeed, so that low die results are good, whereas with a to-hit roll high die results are good? How utterly confusing! And why are thieves suddenly using percentile dice instead of the d20? To you and me this is all natural and second hand, but to a 3e player, it's just confusing and silly - all of the above can be done according to the same mechanic, so why make them all different? Personally, I do sort of appreciate that high die rolls aren't *always* good. There should be times when they're not, methinks, but I do see their point. That said, I have put some of these mechanics into my 2e campaign. No, I don't play 3e, I've just restructured the 3e mechanic to suit my 2e campaign in some cases. For example, THAC0 has been replaced by a 'class to-hit modifier', and AC of armors have been recalculated to go up instead of down. Want to know what the 'class to-hit modifier' or new AC of an armor is? Subtract the old value from 20 and there you go. This way I've also been able to reincorporate the "Weapon Type vs. Armor" modifiers. I mean, do you ever use them? Few did, because they were very cumbersome in 2e, but we can use them quite easily in my campaign now. How? Well, take the place mail armor. It is AC 3 with +3 to THAC0 against slashing weapons. A main problem of the Weapon Type vs. Armor list is that they were given as penalties in one edition of the 2e PHB and as a bonus in another - I have two editions of the 2e PHB, and they are exact opposite in those, because one says they should be added the THAC0 (thereby making THAC0 higher and so more difficult to hit), while another says they should be used as modifiers to the attackers to-hit roll. It all comes down to the same thing, but the fact that it's inconsistent is so annoying it's mind-boggling! Anyway, we have a plate mail armor of AC 3 with a +3 to THAC0 against slashing weapons. Now, to convert the armor, we subtract it from 20. That gives plate mail a new armor class of 17. Now how about the Weapon Type vs. Armor modifier? Well, since it's a +3 to THAC0, that means the amor is more difficult to hit for the weapon type, so it should be added the armor class, giving us AC 20 against slashing weapons. It's still AC 17 against other weapon types (piercing and bludgeoning), so I'll note it down as AC 20/17/17. Since it is always listed in the order of slashing/piercing/bludgeoning, it will be clear which numbers are which. I my campaign we did that for all the armors and wrote out the list, and we now use it without second thought. If I ask a player, "What is your AC", he'll say, "It's 23/20/20" or whatever. This way I've introduced a 3e mechanic into my 2e game and used it to repair a broken rule that nobody used, because it didn't work. But it does now. And there is no question, than it's easier to roll the die and add a bunch of number than it is to constantly have to remind myself, whether it's the die roll I need to subtract from my THAC0 or vice versa. 3e uses the same mechanic for both attacks and skills, and that is more polished and streamlined. So I have accepted that and brought it into my campaign. I've left the thief abilities on percentile, though - never saw much point in changing them - everybody understands what 80% chance to hide in shadows means...

I can see it now... "Dejarak installed on your ship early next millennium - sorry for the inconvenience. Please direct any objections to our kiosk on Coruscant." :D

<{POST_SNAPBACK}> Yes, I think you're right there. A big part of the problem is that many of us have simply become so used to 2e or even 1e rules, that we find it difficult to accept that fundamental things have changed. But while 3e is more streamlined, it IS a very different game, and we all notice that. WotC made a big deal of "not slaughtering all the holy cows", but IMHO they should have gone ahead and gotten rid of all the stupid rules if they were going to change this much anyway. 3e is far more streamlined than the AD&D editions, but it is not a evolution upon those games - it's a completely different system that just tries like Hell to look a lot like 1e and 2e. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Yes, but this is actually one area where having the whole thing being streamlined is just silly. Why is the to-hit and damage modifier for Strength the same now? That makes no sense whatsoever. Besides, Strength shouldn't affect to-hit probability at all - it was stupid in the first place, so why put it in 3e? Another thing I find really annoying is that only even numbers of a stat are different - you can go from Strength 18 to 19, and it won't make any difference at all. In the days of 2e, having 19 Strength was a big deal, but now it's just a number and nothing more. Yes, it's easier to change your stats in 3e now, but it doesn't matter since they also have to change far more before you see any significant difference. Well, it's actually still there on 3e character sheets. No, I think us old 2e vets really have learned all those tables by heart, and now we find it difficult to accept that it has all changed. Suddenly the game is not what we thought it was, and we can't quite get used to it, and it's bloody annoying, and so we think "why couldn't they just keep it the way it was?" Not saying I embrace 3e, but this is one area where we must admit that we're just set in our ways, I think. One thing I really hate about 3e is new rules that were added for what doesn't seem to be any particularly good reason to me. You've mentioned Attacks of Opportunity (AoO), so I'll skip ahead. But under that heading I really hate the way spellcasting grants these to nearby enemies - it bugs the game down and keeps the spellcaster from doing what he should be doing, which is casting spells. Lots of people argued back in the day that this was reasonable because nobody can cast a spell without someone else hitting him before he finishes it, but that totally ignores how fast AD&D spells really were - those casting times actually meant something. In 2e casting a Magic Missile took 1 segment, whereas swinging a long sword took 5 segments. In 3e they said dropped the guard to cast spells invited attacks, but then they also bulldozered all over the intiative rules and conveniently removed all casting times and speed factors - foul, I say! It also makes the whole spellcasting thing pretty silly. After all, Magic Missiles is supposed to be cast during combat, isn't it? Or what about the wizard who wants to Teleport or Dimension Door to safety when things go bad? There is a reason those had casting times of 2 and 1 respectively - there was strategy in those casting times. 3e torpedoed that strategy by brutishly removing initiative modifiers at the same time - it doesn't matter now that Magic Missile or Dimension Door are supposed to be fast spells, because the rules won't allow you to cast them without letting someone with even the slowest weapon in the world get a chance to push it up your wizard's nose or wherever. It was a very ugly and unbalancing way to do it. Now, I know people will argue that spellcasters now have the ability to concentrate on spells in spite of being hurt physically. That's true, though it's not very logical. In 2e your spell was gone if someone hit you. Even if the wizard was protected by Stoneskin or similar, it was still gone, because it was the question of being hit and not whether you took damage that decided the matter. That rule was a bit cumbersome, but the 3e solution is even worse, and even more unbalanced. I'll tell you why... Take the standard low level wizard (mageling). He has no time for casting warding spells, so he is doomed if surrounded by enemies - he won't be able to concentrate on his spell when hit, and can't cast very powerful spells yet anyway. Now take the archmage. He is probably already protected by several warding spells, but even if he is surrounded, he can probably concentrate his way through most damage and still teleport to safety or whatever. So in short, the archmages are now even more powerful, while the magelings are even more puny than ever before. Trouble is that that is about the last thing we need - archmages were without doubt among the most powerful characters in the game already. We really didn't need another rule that made them even more invincible. Just the opposite with the mageling - low level wizards are babies, since they have no AC, no HP to withstand damage, and no spells yet to protect themselves with. They also don't have high concentration yet, since the rules won't allow that, and so they're even more helpless than before. That's just the wrong way around. Add to that the rule has thereby effectively forced building of the Concentration skill upon a spellcaster, and the rule has not only unbalanced the game, but also served to enforce the already restrictive class system even further by forcing any mage to build that particular skill

Yes, I found the ending of that conflict anti-climactic and half-baked. What are your thoughts regarding their relations??? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Well, in short, Nihilus *is* the Exile, or rather a part of the Exile. On Malachor V the Exile created a wound in the force by resisting the will of the force that dictated he/she should turn to the dark side for what he/she had done in the Mandalorian Wars. The Exile, however, refused and denied the will of the force. In doing so, however, he/she also shed the part of him/herself that had already fallen to that dark side. This 'evil self' survived by claiming the dead or near-dead body of a fallen jedi and then became Darth Nihilus (a friend or old master of the Exile would make the most sense, since the connection would be stronger). Note how Nihilus and the Exile share the ability to resist the will of the force, though that ability is said to be unique. By resisting the will of the force, the Exile simply split him/herself in two in spite of the actions that had been taken on Malachor. You might not call the Exile light side (as opposed to Nihilus being obviously dark sided), yet note how the jedi masters say that the Exile was the only jedi to ever return to face their judgment after leaving for the Mandalorian Wars. According to Revan's plans, the Exile should never have been able to do this (as per HK-47's comments about Revan 'cleaning house" on Malachor V), and yet the Exile resisted this fate. So the Exile is not whole, which explains the wound in the force and the need to rely on force bonds to other in order to gain access to the force. The Exile's fate was to turn to the dark side, and therefore the force powers have remained with the side that became Nihilus. For the Exile to become whole, he/she must embrace the side that he/she denied on Malachor V. However, since that side is Nihilus, this will mean turning to the dark side. Think of it as someone who denies someting, but still carries it with him. As time passes, it gets worse and becomes a mental disorder. Finally it begins to manifest itself until it can no longer be denied. Since Nihilus was born from a conflict with the force itself, he/she (it?) is far more powerful, and by the time KotOR2 begins, the Exile has been denying his/her other self for almost a decade - no wonder Nihilus has grown powerful! Besides, it's an excellent excuse for having Nihilus return in KotOR3

Agreed. I want levels, but only for my skills!

Well, yes, an excellent GM can turn any horribly flawed rpg-system into pure gold. The problem in d20 is that it is so geared towards hack'n slash and dungeon-crawls, that it becomes difficult to use it for something else. I miss the idea of optional disadvantages, for example (they were there in 2e Player Option rules), since that's one thing that helps to give the characters, welll, character... I'd probably want to play with a good GM in most campaigns too, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't think twice, when I heard we'd be played a d20 system. A successful campaign is impossible without a good GM. I pride myself on being a good GM for being able to run a campaign for ten years and counting in spite of playing 2e. Some of the players have tried more advanced systems, such as Vampire or GURPS, and early on there were moaning about the very simplistic and utterly unrealistic and ancient principles of 2e. But once we got past that and became involved with the game, we didn't think about it so more. It does annoy me as a GM, however, but I have to stick with it for now, since converting the PCs to a better system is impossible - I'll never be able to do the characters justice, not even in 3e. Ah, yes - house rules. I'll tell you exactly why house rules are a mixed blessing, because I have made extensive house rules myself. Changing a few rules is fine, but the trouble with it is, that rules should be consistent. I was a player in a campaign, where the GM altered the rules without telling us about it. We played a mix between 1e and 2e, but he didn't write it down, so we had no idea what was changed and what wasn't. He let his rulings be on the whim, since he couldn't be bothered to write the changes down, and so there were times when a situation was resolved one way one week and another way the next. I remember seeing other players getting certain results in specific situations, but when I tried the exact same thing in the exact same way, my results were different. That's not okay. So when began my own campaign, I dicided that I would be consistent - if I changed rules, I would write it down and make these available to the players, so that they could see for themselves what had changed and how things would be resolved. To that end, I began writing a document in Word, and every time I changed something, that document became longer. As we speak, this document is now 43 pages long. Hasn't changed much in the last few years, but still. That's a lot for players to go through, and it's tightly written in order preserve space. I have little doubt it would fill twice as much or more if published. A friend of mine once joked about how I should published as the 'Complete Book of House Rules' Since we play 2e Player Option, these house rules are also pretty annoying. I mean, if you have to look up something, then you begin in the PHB. Then you check in any relevant Player Option book (Combat & Tactics, Skills & Powers, Spells & Magic, or High-Level Campaigns) to see if there are revisions, and then you finally check my house rules for final revisions... That's a lot, and several of my players have given up looking through it all, and instead just ask me. Of course, they could just blindly be trusting my judgment, knowing that I'll get my way in any event, but somehow I doubt it Truly, throwing out all my old house rules was a major reason why I looked forward to 3e - finally all the old and antiquated stuff was going to be updated, it was going to be in one book, and I could do with very few house rules... Oh my how I was mistaken Actually I'm considering doing my own system and have been working on it for a while. It's met with trouble, however, since there are areas that I find it difficult to approach. A main one is combat. I want the system to be relatively fluid and usable, but I also want combat to be far more strategic and have better options than in D&D, so that's a real tall order. Besides, it's all going to look a lot like GURPS in many areas, so I've considered just using GURPS instead. It's not without it's own flaws, but they are few enough that I can overlook it.

Nobody's tried it, so that's a poor argument. Take an asperin and call me in the morning... I am. I'm disagreeing. There is a certain "let's just drop the bomb and be done with it"-mentality going on, as if peace is somehow impossible. I will not support that. Yes, I showed trued cowardice by speaking my mind here and sticking with it... " That's only a valid argument if everyone who has tried it "first-hand", as you put it, agree with you. That is not the case, however. No, I don't, but since you do it's interesting that you don't share that wisdom with all us dumb saps out here. Well, you claimed that my position wouldn't save me from shrapnel, and I responded that things in Iraq don't exactly suggest that your aggreesive view is helping any either. But then you don't seem to like that perspective either, so... Yes, because they are not beyond understanding. However, you are determined that they are just evil people of evil convictions and doing things for evil reasons that we cannot ever understand, so let's not even try and instead just kill them... Not quite as bad a position as the extremists themselves, but still pretty far gone - it's becoming clear that arguing with you is about as hopeless as arguing with the terrorists themselves, which should tell you something. You say that your position will create more terrorists, but that they won't be able to retaliate. And then you accuse me of contradiction? Thanks. I needed a laugh, and that was pretty good

Oh, so no point in pursuing it I guess... I'm glad I'm not quite that defeatist... I don't agree with that position. The US has had bases in many other countries without being suspected of enforcing totalitarian regimes, so I don't see why Saudi Arabia would be such a special case. Don't accuse me of imperialist tendencies, when I've actually criticized US behavior. And what's with all the "you" - I'm not even an american! But if you cannot accept the mere possibility that I might support change for idealistic reasons over convenient ones, then you're beyond reasoning, since anything I say will automatically be vowen into the lie of self-supporting arguments that you seem to impose in me. In that case there is no point in arguing, since you are clearly seeing anything I say as coming from a bias that you must oppose, no matter what I say.

Not saying Russia and France don't share the responsibility. They do for their part. And as has already been said, the sanctions were hurting Iraqi civilians more than they were hurting Saddam - if he needed the money for his weapons program, then he was perfectly willing to take the food out of his people's mouthes and let the all starve to death... But there is enough blame for the rest of us as well. For example, Reagan removed Iraq from the list of terrorist countries over the objection of congress in 1982, and in 1983 Iraq got about 5 billion in unreported loans through certain banks (apparently from Italy), which was then promptly used to equipment for Iraq's missile, chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs with the approval of the US government. Point being that the west either supported the wrong side or did nothing. We were perfectly content to let Saddam butcher whomever he pleased. So long as it was in our own interests, we really couldn't care less...

Discovering life on other planets is a good start. It will explode the human idea of self importance for one thing. As well as give religion a bloody nose which is never a bad thing. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Amen!

I've enjoyed playing Exalted myself, but I wouldn't say it's without its flaws, though it is certainly better than d20 to near-infinite degrees! For one thing, the difference between the usage of 'freebie points' during character creation and the use of xp during the actual game brings about an awful lot of min/maxing... I don't find min/maxing bad in general, but we don't want the rules to encourage it. Cumbersome though GURPS might be, this is one area where it is better, since there is no "creation vs. play" conflict of point-usage - the costs during character creation are exactly the same as during play in GURPS, since you use the same character points in both instances. A very easy solution that many games forget. d20 doesn't use character creation with point-costs, but that's not to say it doesn't have flaws there. No, one thing I really dislike in d20 is the way you must effectively decide your entire progression of abilities and particularly feats, if you're going to make the most of the rules. While planning ahead should always be rewarded in RPGs (and always will be), I don't need the system to encourage a philosophy, where I'm actually rewarded for effectively deciding my character's progression through levels 1 to 20+ during character creation. In d20 you earn xp and then buy whatever you want when advancing. I'd much rather have the skills you actually used in the last adventure improve, as they did in 5th edition Call of Cthulhu. Why should my wizard get better at hitting a troll with his staff, if all ever does is to lob spells at the monsters, and hasn't used his staff once in the last seven adventures? Peculiar idea...