Outdoorsman seems overcosted

[WhiteLily]

Adventurers P.51 gives us:

Outdoorsman (10 points/level): You get +1 per level (maximum of 4) to the Camouflage, Disguise (Animals), Fishing, Mimicry (Animal Sounds and Bird Calls), Naturalist, Navigation, Survival, Tracking, and Weather Sense. You also got +1 per level fo HT rolls to avoid harm when failure with those skills exposes you to cold, poisonous berries, etc.


I'm not a fan of this one at all. Maximizing a lot of those skills seems of dubious game benefits and the +HT seems like it would come into play so rarely as to not matter.

All of the skills relate to either IQ or Perception. So if you just boost IQ instead, you get a bonus to all of the skills of Outdoorsman plus a bonus to Perception and Willpower.

I find the Advantage quite underwhelming and I will encourage my players to never take it.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by WhiteLily

I find the Advantage quite underwhelming ...

Recognizing that this is the DFRPG, rather than DF...there's a box text on Outdoorsman, suggestively titled "Outdoorsman is Too Expensive!" in the book Dungeon Fantasy Denizens: Barbarians on p. 21.

It notes that GURPS Power-Ups 3: Talents has an alternative cost for Outdoorsman, which also has a suggested "add this skill." It also explains why some Talents are "chunky" in price, and an alternative pricing scheme on p. 25 of that book. Basically, instead of 5-, 10-, and 15- point talents, it allows intermediate values.

Of course, if you're all dungeons, all the time, without any outdoor component, Outdoorsman will always be a waste of points.

[Kalzazz]

To my mind the price isn't to horrible, but, it feels oddly wedged into things. It's mandatory for Strong Guy and Bow Guy, so if you wanted to make Strong Guy or Bow Guy it just feels like suffering

[WhiteLily]

Awesome. Thank you!

[tbone]

DFRPG's Outdoorsman isn't bad, covering nine skills. That's better than the GURPS version, which heads indoors after just 7 skills.

Still, I'd like to see the advantage's 10 points haul in a full 10 skills. Here's a full article on beefing up Outdoorsman:

https://www.gamesdiner.com/2017/03/t...r-outdoorsman/

As noted there, I like to simply add a tenth skill to DFRPG's Outdoorsman. Hiking seems the best fit to me.

(If a fully-rounded Outdoorsman still leaves players uninterested in the advantage, well, I guess their adventures just don't have much of an outdoor component! My recommendation is to pick up the Wilderness Adventures book in the DF line. It'll inspire any GM to move the action outdoors.)

[WhiteLily]

IQ offers a boost to all the same skills, plus a bunch of others, as well as boosts to Willpower and Perception.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by WhiteLily

IQ offers a boost to all the same skills, plus a bunch of others, as well as boosts to Willpower and Perception.

This is pretty much true of *all* talents relative to IQ or DX. Or indeed for buying up skills relative to IQ or DX.

It's a general problem really. The truth is that in any game where attributes (like IQ or DX in GURPS) contribute to skill levels in a major way, you can't really price them "fairly" relative to skills without making all the other stuff they do "unfairly" expensive for attribute based character concepts that care about the other stuff without having a lot of skills. You have to decouple them. Some games do (FUDGE for example) but that always draws complaints about "lack of realism".

[Rasputin]

Originally Posted by WhiteLily

I find the Advantage quite underwhelming and I will encourage my players to never take it.

I almost always see at least one player taking this advantage in my campaigns. Why? My campaigns play out the process of going to the dungeon, and these skills are more valuable than combat skills in doing this.

This is like Language Talent. Do your campaigns feature loads of NPCs not speaking the same tongue as the PCs? Then it's a great buy. Otherwise, it isn't worth anything. A blanket statement of value isn't warranted; it's only applicable to your campaign.

[zoncxs]

Originally Posted by Rasputin

...A blanket statement of value isn't warranted; it's only applicable to your campaign.

This.

I have, in my own games, changed the cost of several advantages because they are either irrelevant or something that is very helpful OR something that everyone should have.

Irrelevant advantages and skills tend to get the cost cut by a lot. You want your character to have the fishing skill? even though that may never pop up in the game? Ok, sure, take it as a perk and if there is ever a moment where your character can fish, just describe what happens, no need to roll.

Combat heavy game, ambidexterity gets a bump up in cost since it is very helpful. Same with fit/very fit, etc.

everyone is capable of using imbuement skills? 0 points, its a feature of the setting.

If something costs too much (or too little!) in YOUR game, then ask if it would ever come up? Do you want players to take it?

[Black Leviathan]

If you don't think the advantage is worth it.. don't buy it?

None of the talents are very economical unless you think you'll get use out of the skills. Outdoorsman has a number of pretty useful skills adventure-wise. It's also skills mostly based on IQ, which a lot of Nature type characters often sacrifice for DX. If you're going to put points into three of the skills in a 10 pt talent then you're making CP back plus getting a good reaction mod, another thing nature-type characters can end up short on.