Quote:
Originally Posted by Alonsua
Personal skill of 18 is considered to be "the bests around", i.e. exceptional hostage-rescue operators and snipers or exceptional role-players, pyramid regulars and Kromm impersonators. By TL8 the maximum equipment bonus is +4 and by the invention rules you can receive support for at least an extra bonus of +4, which stands for 18+4+4 = 26, thus I think that a cutting-edge or peak present-day Earth organization should be able to reach 24, dont you think so?
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No, I don't.
The Basic Set provides for up to effective skill 21. While GURPS calls itself "generic" and "universal," that has to be assumed to apply to present-day Earth. Therefore effective skill 21 is the highest that's properly available on present-day Earth. It's reasonable to suppose that the same limit would apply to an ancient empire or medieval kingdom or church; they wouldn't be better than the present day.
Remember that a Contact is someone who has a position in a local organization: a large business firm, a military base, a crime family, or the like. There's nothing in the description that implies that it's a cutting edge organization, or that it has access to the most highly skilled people on Earth. You can suppose, if you like, that that effective skill 21 represents actual skill 18 with +3 from organizational support, or actual skill 15 with +6 from organizational support; but it's not reasonably probable that you will have that confluence of extreme skill and huge resources in one organization.
I don't know where you get the +4 to inventors. I don't see such a rule in the Basic Set chapter on gadgets.
Now, yes, you might have a Contact who is a member not of a typical business firm, military outfit, police force, or the like, but of an extraordinary one. There's a comparable rule in the Basic Set: Unusual Background (Gadgeteer Friend) for 15 points. Paying 15 points is probably fair for having a Contact with skill transcending the normal limits—one who has actual skill 18 or higher AND extraodinary organizational support.
Or you could say that an organization with such amazing capabilities, and one that is willing to put them at the PC's disposal in adventures, is not a Contact but a Patron, and a fairly high-end one.