Character Construction Notes

Converting d20 characters to GURPS characters

Roughly speaking, heroic characters are built on 100 points (as a baseline) plus about 25 character points per experience level. Thus, a 1st-level character is about 125 points, a 5th-level character is 225, and a 9th-level character is 325.

Well-known and experienced iconic characters in the 18-20 level range would be 550-600 points, equivalent in power to a capable modern superhero. Highly capable supernatural beings, such as dragons, may range into thousands of points.

Building super-competent or super-tough characters

To build characters who are just "really good" at something, over and above their basic stats, buy one or more appropriate Powers and Talents. These will give dice bonuses to a wide range of advantages and skills. This is the sort of quality possessed by many of the iconic characters in the setting - Malfurion Stormrage, for example, has a great deal of innate druidic power, represented by a "Power of Nature" Power and several relevant advantages.

To build characters who are exceptionally tough, buy HP, High Pain Threshold, and Hard to Kill.  You can also consider the Damage Reduction option from GURPS Powers, which divides incoming damage by some percentage amount.

To build characters who are especially formidable in combat, buy any of the above, plus one or more levels of Enhanced Defense and Innate Attack.  This makes characters extremely hard to hit or hurt and lets them inflict more actual damage than their ST or weapons would indicate.  This models heroes such as Tirion Fordring or Bolvar Fordragon, who are capable of engaging multiple supernatural opponents and holding their own.

Building magic-using characters

For an arcane caster, buy one or more levels of Magery.  You can then either buy spells directly, or buy a Spellbook advantage.

Spellbook pricing: Allowing a mage to buy X spells at a time, with Y character points in each spell, costs X * (5 + 3Y) * 0.8 character points, rounding up.  For example, 10 slots with 1 character point in each slot costs 64 points: 10 * (5+3) * 0.8.

For a priest, shaman or druid, buy Power Investiture.  Then buy spells directly.  Ignore spell prerequisites; other prerequisites (like minimum levels of DX) still apply.

Spellcasters of any type may optionally buy a Mana Pool, at 3 points per extra FP available to them for spellcasting.

Building cinematic warriors

GMs should strongly consider the Imbuement advantage (GURPS Power Ups I: Imbuements) as a way to simulate combat characters with special abilities.  For example, a hunter's stings are easy to model using Imbuement and the Crippling, Drugged Weapon, Envenomed Weapon, etc. skills.

Wizards may also apply imbuements to their Missile spells at the GM's option.