Modifiers to skills

[cabaiomonte]

Good day, GURPSer.
I had an idea, i wanted my buitler's skill of fast talk to work only on his master and, generally, the high class, because of his high value of semantic i thought commoners would simply not understand what he means. are there any way to apply modifiers to skill like it's usual to advantages (ex. limited school of magic for sorcerers) and disatvandages?
Otherwise i think it would be a cool topic for a pyramid article.
Here is my general idea, instead of giving percentages instead he change the hardness of the skill, maybe avarage to easy for limitations and the opposite for augmentations (i can't think of any). with supereasy and superhard which i have to think how they should work

Edit:
And now i read B169 option specialities. it works like i thought but now i have two questions. this feel like a little bit limiting, what if i have a Dx skill that have some limitations like (working only at 0G, or something)? or what about easy and hard/very hard skills? it's ok how it works but modifiers are one of the things i love the most in gurps. it's sad to see all the love for Ads and Disads and skills getting so little.

[Maz]

You can change a skill to have an optional specialty. This does indeed reduce difficulty by one step.
So you could have Fast Talk (high society) (IQ/Easy).

There are also the option of techniques.

[Refplace]

Most nodifers would not apply to skills and the idea was to keep skills pretty simple.
So you can design a skill by the optional specalties and by applying Techniques to raise a broad skills ability into a very narrow one if you want.
Also Wildcard skills let you come up with very broad variants.

[Phantasm]

Two methods come to mind:

1. Use Savoir-Faire as a complementary skill, with a success on Savoir-Faire giving a bonus to his Fast-Talk.

2. Give him a Talent, then modify the Talent to apply only in those situations.

Hope this helps.

[weby]

Nothing stops a GM from adding modifiers to skills as house rule.

RAW methods are:
Using From skills to advantages in pyramid 3/44 and the modifying the advantage.
Making the skill be mostly talent and modifying the talent.
Using alternate methods to get the skill like modular abilities or wild talent and modify that.
Use other modifiers to give penalties/bonuses in specific situations. Like Disturbing Voice/Voice with limitations for your example.

[Captain Joy]

Originally Posted by Maz

You can change a skill to have an optional specialty. This does indeed reduce difficulty by one step.
So you could have Fast Talk (high society) (IQ/Easy).

There are also the option of techniques.

I've seen Maz, Refplace, Phantasm, and weby's responses so far, and Maz's is getting my up vote. It is easy to implement and would create a 2 skill level difference between the two uses of the skill.

If you really want him to be nerfed when dealing with non-high-class people, I think a technique is a way to go. This is also easy to implement and could result in a 4 skill level difference (the RAW max for a technique that defaults off a skill at no penalty).

E.g. if it's an easy technique:

[20] IQ 11
[4] Fast-Talk - 12
[4] Fast-Talk Technique (Hoodwink High-Class) - 16

[cabaiomonte]

Thank you all, in the end i simply applied the manual version and i'm really happy with my Pc's Butler ally.