Eventually, however, I began to want something that was even more flexible than DQ, which had few skills outside those explictly part of the professional skills (Alchemist, Mechanican, Troubadour, etc.) and the combat skills. I also became dissatisfied with the many independent formulas that had to be calculated when updating characters. These formulas were scattered through the rulebook so it was painful to find them and then painful to actually do the calculation.[39]
In some ways then it is ironic that the next system used was GURPS 3rd edition, from Steve Jackson Games. (See Section 5.27, “Monsters and Merchants Under Seagate”.) It has lots of skills, which also need to be calculated when characters gain experience. However, at least in GURPS all skills (which includes magic) have costs that are figured off one table, and it is the actual skill number that goes up, rather than the skill rank and then some other number figured by a (often) unique formula.
In any case, I converted[40] all the characters from DQ to 3rd edition GURPS (they ended up around 350 points, and were probably a little more powerful and considerably more well-rounded) and important NPCs over (the chief villain of the campaign ended up at well over 1000 points), and the players were able to adjust pretty quickly. (They were already used to a detailed tactical hex-grid combat system from DQ, so adapting to GURPS wasn't that much of a stretch.) All in all, it worked out very well.