[Basic] Skill of the week: Climbing

[Otaku]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Free-Climbing as a Technique? That sounds unbalancingly tempting.

Is that because it is too broad? I won't pretend I'm well informed on free climbing and I suppose climbing without aides is the default GURPS use... but now we are getting to how a basic hand strike for Karate can't be learned as a Technique but Kicking can. @_@

With Rope-Up and Scaling as Techniques, it doesn't seem too far fetched.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Otaku

Is that because it is too broad? I won't pretend I'm well informed on free climbing and I suppose climbing without aides is the default GURPS use... but now we are getting to how a basic hand strike for Karate can't be learned as a Technique but Kicking can. @_@

With Rope-Up and Scaling as Techniques, it doesn't seem too far fetched.

The problem with Free-Climbing is indeed that it starts out at Climbing+0, so either it cannot be raised (in which case there is no point writing it up as a Technique), or it can be, in which case it is very much a 'Technique of using the skill most of the time' (because after raising it, you will be, barring a minority of cases).

[Last Pawn]

I'd argue that Free-Climbing is in fact the core of the Climbing skill and, as such, is prohibited from being a technique.

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

So cats that know Climbing must by R.A.W. know how to rappel, use spikes, harnesses, etc.? That makes sense to everyone here?

Heh! Same issue with low-tech burglars, mountain-scrambling shepherd boys, and birdsnest-raiding hunter-gatherers. Unless we make it "Climbing/TL" (which does not appeal to me) free-climbing has to be the core task for Climbing in a generic universal game. As Last Pawn says, you don't make the core ability of a skill into a Technique.

It seems to me that climbing gear started out as safety equipment to mitigate failure, and that once its use was established people started working out ways to use it first to assist difficult climbing tasks and them to accomplish climbing tasks that aren't even possible to a free-climber. I'd consider the use for safety as a familiarity — not even charge a point for it, the price of an SOP. And I suggest that the use of climbing equipment to cancel difficulty penalties and allow otherwise-impossible climbs to be a TL-limited Technique, or perhap a family of them for different equipment such as gecko gloves.

[RogerBW]

Part of the difficulty here is that we may be asking GURPS to go beyond its useful resolution. A Climbing roll determines whether you crossed the distance you needed to, safely: a failure may mean that you didn't get started, or that you made it most of the way, but lost your footing, and the safety line caught you, so you didn't make any overall progress.

[Mr_Sandman]

Originally Posted by RogerBW

Part of the difficulty here is that we may be asking GURPS to go beyond its useful resolution. A Climbing roll determines whether you crossed the distance you needed to, safely: a failure may mean that you didn't get started, or that you made it most of the way, but lost your footing, and the safety line caught you, so you didn't make any overall progress.

By RAW, "Any failure means you fall." I think it's a common house-rule that failure means no progress and only critical failures result in falls.

I have a few questions about climbing.

How often do people here call for rolls and how do you assess fatigue, for climbs using the "Combat" column? The Basic Set says at least one FP, or double the FP cost determined by the adventure or GM. But it doesn't give any other guidance.

'Regular' climbs call for rolls every 5 minutes. But 5 minutes seems too a long a time frame to be meaningful for 'Combat' climbs. Also, since the movement is usually about 3 times faster on the 'Combat' column, using the same five-minute climb would let you get 3 times as far with the same success rate by climbing faster, which logically should penalize your success. However calling for a roll every second someone is climbing in 'Combat' mode doesn't make sense either, and would result an way to many falls. Dividing the time between rolls by three (rolls every 100 seconds) would make the distance covered between rolls the same in most cases. This is still too long to track or be meaningful in actual combat, but at least it removes the unintended benefit.

Does extra-effort work for climbing? It seems like using the 'Combat' column covers going faster but spending FP to do it, potentially at much lower cost than extra-effort - tripling speed, rather than increasing it by 5%. You could argue that the 'Combat' column is only available in actual combat situations or when fright checks or self-control rolls for appropriate disadvantages are failed, that would leave some space for extra-effort to be useful in other situations.

By the chart, Basic Move doesn't impact climbing speed at all. Should it, and by how much? Realistically do you think someone who can run twice as fast as an average person could climb any faster over 5 minutes? Or does a fast climber need to take "Enhanced Move (Climbing)"

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Agemegos

Unless we make it "Climbing/TL" (which does not appeal to me) free-climbing has to be the core task for Climbing in a generic universal game. As Last Pawn says, you don't make the core ability of a skill into a Technique.

It seems to me that climbing gear started out as safety equipment to mitigate failure, and that once its use was established people started working out ways to use it first to assist difficult climbing tasks and them to accomplish climbing tasks that aren't even possible to a free-climber. I'd consider the use for safety as a familiarity — not even charge a point for it, the price of an SOP.

Pretty much this.

—

A skill does not get a "/TL" merely because equipment exists to make it easier or safer to use. That's true of just about all tasks . . . it isn't as though you need Brawling/TL to account for brass knuckles and sap gloves, or Hiking/TL to get the benefit of better boots, or Writing/TL to exploit word processors. GURPS assumes that higher TLs bring better tools for almost all skills. Certainly, such devices can raise issues of familiarity, but going all the way to designating the skill as "technological" (or "/TL") only happens when using technology is the whole of the task. This is true of, say, using a car (Driving/TL) or a sensor (Electronics Operation/TL), because those tasks don't exist without technology. It is not true of Hiking to cover the exact same ground as Driving/TL, or Observation to watch the exact same objective as Electronics Operation/TL; while good boots or binoculars, respectively, could aid those efforts, the tasks themselves remain possible without the tools.

And of course using tools at all is dependent on having IQ 6+. To quote p. B15: "Sapience is defined as the ability to use tools and language. In GURPS, this requires at least IQ 6." Thus, IQ 1-5 creatures can still have tool-assisted skills like Brawling, Climbing, Hiking, and Observation; they just can't benefit from the tools. And they can't have tool-use skills like Driving/TL or Electronics Operation/TL, or for that matter language-use skills like Writing.

(Obviously, there are exceptions for specific tools in particular situations. Some IQ 1-5 animals do poke at termite hills with sticks or "pick locks" with their beak. These would be racial perks of some kind, akin to Cutting-Edge Training, Special Exercises, or Unusual Training. Think of each one as 1/20 of a level of IQ if you want. The IQ stat is broad and sweeping, so tweaks will be needed for the things it covers.)

The upshot for Climbing is that IQ 1-5 animals will always do it "free." Tech level 0 sapients (IQ 6+) will most likely do so as well. However, higher-TL sapients will have access to the climbing aids known up to their TL, giving them an advantage. This is part of why having IQ 6+ costs more than IQ 1-5, and why TLn costs 5 points more than TL(n-1).

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Kromm

Pretty much this.

—

A skill does not get a "/TL" merely because equipment exists to make it easier or safer to use. That's true of just about all tasks . . . it isn't as though you need Brawling/TL to account for brass knuckles and sap gloves, or Hiking/TL to get the benefit of better boots, or Writing/TL to exploit word processors. GURPS assumes that higher TLs bring better tools for almost all skills. Certainly, such devices can raise issues of familiarity, but going all the way to designating the skill as "technological" (or "/TL") only happens when using technology is the whole of the task. This is true of, say, using a car (Driving/TL) or a sensor (Electronics Operation/TL), because those tasks don't exist without technology. It is not true of Hiking to cover the exact same ground as Driving/TL, or Observation to watch the exact same objective as Electronics Operation/TL; while good boots or binoculars, respectively, could aid those efforts, the tasks themselves remain possible without the tools.

And of course using tools at all is dependent on having IQ 6+. To quote p. B15: "Sapience is defined as the ability to use tools and language. In GURPS, this requires at least IQ 6." Thus, IQ 1-5 creatures can still have tool-assisted skills like Brawling, Climbing, Hiking, and Observation; they just can't benefit from the tools. And they can't have tool-use skills like Driving/TL or Electronics Operation/TL, or for that matter language-use skills like Writing.

(Obviously, there are exceptions for specific tools in particular situations. Some IQ 1-5 animals do poke at termite hills with sticks or "pick locks" with their beak. These would be racial perks of some kind, akin to Cutting-Edge Training, Special Exercises, or Unusual Training. Think of each one as 1/20 of a level of IQ if you want. The IQ stat is broad and sweeping, so tweaks will be needed for the things it covers.)

The upshot for Climbing is that IQ 1-5 animals will always do it "free." Tech level 0 sapients (IQ 6+) will most likely do so as well. However, higher-TL sapients will have access to the climbing aids known up to their TL, giving them an advantage. This is part of why having IQ 6+ costs more than IQ 1-5, and why TLn costs 5 points more than TL(n-1).

Is there any particular reason this needs to be the case, though? I don't see any definition-level problem with Climbing being a /TL skill. It's probably not a good fit to bring in all the weight of the TL differential penalties for Climbing with wrong-TL gear, but there are official /TL skills for which that objection applies.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Is there any particular reason this needs to be the case, though?

Largely "a playable game needs cutoffs." Specifically:

• IQ 6 is where tool-use becomes possible.
• Technological vs. non-technological skills designate mandatory vs. optional tool-use.
• TL rates tool quality.

Any player can look at character IQ, look for the "/TL" on a skill name, look at the number after the "/TL," and immediately know how that skill will interact with gear and with that particular character. There's no ambiguity in the system. A questioning reader may find arbitrariness that raises doubts in his or her mind, but that's inevitable in any effort to approximate reality with a few numbers, as in game design.

You're free to disagree with the specific implementation, but as designers, we like it. It's simple, clear, and does a good job of rating who can do what. It also shuts down rules lawyers who want to do the illogical – like have their IQ 3 Ally animal use climbing gear – because nothing in the rules says they can't.

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

I don't see any definition-level problem with Climbing being a /TL skill.

I do: Climbing is not an equipment-operation skill that becomes impossible without equipment. It's an athletic skill that's optionally assisted by tools. To me, the distinction is as clear as day.

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

It's probably not a good fit to bring in all the weight of the TL differential penalties for Climbing with wrong-TL gear, but there are official /TL skills for which that objection applies.

Sure, sometimes the nature of tool use just doesn't change that much with TL; Guns/TL provides an ideal example. Still, if the task itself is impossible without the tools (try shooting a gun without, you know, a gun!), we bite the bullet and call the skill technological. The problem there isn't with technological skills vs. non-technological skills but rather with the one-size-fits-all nature of TL penalties. Given infinite page count, each /TL skill would have its own progression . . . but in the real world where games take time to design and edit, a single progression is a forgivable crime.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Kromm

I do: Climbing is not an equipment-operation skill that becomes impossible without equipment. It's an athletic skill that's optionally assisted by tools. To me, the distinction is as clear as day.

Neither is Mathematics, as the most dramatic example. Physical science skills only are when you're using them to operate scientific equipment, not when you're using them for a knowledge base. First Aid scarcely qualifies and Physician is dubious.

And on the flip side, Melee Weapon skills clearly are equipment-operation skills...


That distinction might be moderately clear, but it doesn't seem a great fit to the actual usage of /TL. (I don't think sciences being /TL is at all a problem but I think it serves a totally different purpose than this.)