D&D Skills and Feats in GURPS

This is regarding an unofficial conversion of D&D material to GURPS.

Skills

While D&D skills convert reasonably their expertise is a little hazier. The best solution to note what skills the character has and figure out their base level based on the information in the “Choosing Your Skill Levels” box. Remember skill levels represent adventuring conditions and that there are Task Difficulty Modifiers that can improve effective skill as well as those that diminish it. Techniques allow one to negate certain penalties so having skills past 20 (master) is very unusual and should be reserved for major heroes on par with Conan in his early 30s (27 levels D&D, 640 or 645 points 4e GURPS aka Legendary) or Conan in his early 40's (36 levels D&D; 811 or 817 points 4e GURPS aka Superhuman)

Suggested Skills

Kromm suggested the following guidelines regarding adventuring skills:

"Relying on defaults -- whatever the game system calls them -- is rarely fun. In 'GURPS, I hint that certain skills are necessary for adventurers, true action heroes or not, to keep the story flowing without annoying breaks caused by PCs being incompetent at tasks that adventure fiction commonly treats as "everyman" skills:

• Carousing, Diplomacy, Fast-Talk, or Interrogation -- Eventually, everybody wants to interrogate NPCs. I'm generous about what skills work, but some skill is required.
• Climbing, Hiking, and Stealth -- The party is only as good at these things as its worst party member, and nearly every party has to move around as a unit at some point.
• Driving or Riding -- Travel is vital to adventure, and while "every hero can drive/ride a horse" is often assumed, it isn't automatic in games that have skills for these things.
• First Aid -- Effective bandaging isn't an unskilled activity, AD&D notwithstanding. Non-action heroes often want to do this to "contribute" to party combat effectiveness, so they especially need this skill.
• Gesture -- Sooner or later, communication without making a sound will be vital to almost any party's survival.
• Observation, Scrounging, or Search -- Noticing interesting things takes training, and finding clues and useful items is so central to adventures that no PC should lack at least basic training here.
• Savoir-Faire or Streetwise -- Everybody came from somewhere. It's passing annoying when a player just assumes that her PC would "get on with folks in her element" without having any practical social skills to back up the assumption.I further suggest -- strongly -- that action heroes have this list as well:

• Axe/Mace, Broadsword, Knife, Shortsword, or Staff -- Wielding a stick, knife, or heavy tool to any real effect requires practice. These common improvised weapons are not idiot-proof, trivial, or safe to use without training.
  
• Beam Weapons, Bow, Crossbow, or Guns -- However easy "point and shoot" looks, it's quite tough in reality. No credible action hero lacks competency at all ranged combat.
  
• Boxing, Brawling, or Karate -- Fisticuffs are the worst place to be untrained. Your fists are the only weapons you always have, so learn to use them.
  
• Forced Entry -- No, it isn't easy to kick in a door. Actually, unless you know how, you'll hurt yourself.
• Holdout -- "Concealable" equipment only works if you have skill at concealment, and frustratingly few players realize this.
• Judo, Sumo Wrestling, or Wrestling -- The number of people who think they should be able to grab others automatically is astounding. In fact, this is a difficult feat, trickier than hitting people, and absolutely requires training.
• Throwing -- Whether you're tossing spare magazines to friends or grenades at enemies, this is a trained skill, so it pays to know it.

I think that players would be far less unhappy about surprises if more GMs made lists like this and did everything possible to get players to take them seriously. A PC with Brawling, Fast-Talk, Forced Entry, Holdout, Knife, Scrounging, Stealth, and Wrestling should be able to make and conceal a shiv, overpower a guard, steal his clothes, sneak away from the scene, talk his way past the other guards, and leave through an inadequately bolted back door."

Feats

Feats are a little harder to equate as many are a mixture of built-in GURPS rules, advantages, skills, and techniques. For example, 5e feats like Heavy Armor Master, Lightly Armored, and Moderately Armored are effectively built in to the GURPS rules. The best option here to look at what the Feat does and choose the closest "fit" in GURPS terms. For example, Alert can be modeled with Combat Reflexes; Crossbow Expert can simply be high Crossbow and-or Fast-Draw skill, Weapon Focus is simply +1 to skill, Healer is First Aid, and ritual caster is simply the Ritual Magic or Thaumatology skill,

With so many choices a few advantages and skills deserve mentioning:

Affliction, Binding, Innate Attack advantages and Innate Attack skill

One of these GURPS advantages and the Innate Attack skill is going to be your most used combination in converting D&D monsters because so many have it whether it be the crushing mandibles of a giant ant (Innate Attack), the web of a giant spider (Binding), the gaze of a medusa (Innate Attack and Affliction), or the breath weapon of a dragon (Innate Attack). The advantage is the attack itself while the Innate Attack skill is hitting something with it. The Innate Attack skill is also used for certain spells.

Alchemy/TL

Also see Alchemical Items

Alchemy is the skill that is used to make elixirs (potions, powders, pastilles, and ointments) as well as alchemic magic items. It also helps in identifying elixirs. Anyone can learn Alchemy. It replaces the Brew Potions Feat

Spells

The spell systems GURPS allows are detailed enough that they are dealt with separately in a GURPS magic systems in D&D page. The general advice here is to compare how spells function effect wise rather then focusing on individual spells. For example the D&D spell Leomund’s Secret Chest is roughly equivalent to the GURPS spell Hideaway.

Trained By A Master and Weapon Master

These two advantages are similar in that they reduce the penalties for Rapid Strike and multiple parries and are the prerequisites for a host of cinematic skills. However they differ in several key areas. Trained by a Master has a larger skill list while Weapon Master not only allows more fine tuning (from one weapon all the way up to every muscle powered weapon in the game) but it reduces skill defaults for muscle power weapons and at high skill level actually adds to damage. Usually a character will have either Trained by a Master (most cinematic Kung Ku characters) or Weapon Master (Conan, Thundarr, and Zorro) though there are a few that have both like Scorpion of Five Deadly Venoms and Xena. Weapon Master on its own effectively replaces Point Blank Shot, Weapon Finesse, Weapon Focus, and Weapon Specialization

Unkillable

Nearly every high level Undead monster and many demons in D&D will have this advantage. Unkillable 1 allows the monster to remain fighting all the way to -10*HP without a single HT roll and Unkillable 2 and 3 allow the thing to come back! Dracula in the Hammer horror films had Unkillable 3 with the Achilles Heel (wood, running water), Hindrance (wood, frozen water), Trigger (blood) limitations.

Magic

GURPS has so many ways to do magic that this material is handled on its own page: GURPS magic systems in D&D.

On a side note. There is conflicting information regarding the enchantment of items in GURPS Dungeon Fantasy - Dungeon Fantasy 1 specifically refers one to the Basic Set's version of the "default" GURPS Magic system of enchantment but Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch has stated "We're saying that in books labeled "Dungeon Fantasy," Enchantment spells are off-limits because they aren't how magic items are created in GURPS Dungeon Fantasy. That genre treatment assumes that most magic items worth owning are forgotten artifacts made by lost races, ancient relics from an age when magic worked differently, gifts from gods, oddities from other dimensions, etc. The low-end ones available in shops are mass-produced by non-adventuring guilds using methods that don't closely resemble Enchantment spells. GURPS Thaumatology is full of likely candidates for the latter."