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Old 04-01-2017, 12:34 PM   #31
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Default Re: Character Creation: "Realistic" Sci-Fi

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Fireball spells and cruciatus curses don't have much to do with laws of similarity and contagion or runic alphabets either (at least, no more than psi phenomena), yet people still talk about that stuff as magic.
The lists of powers in books like GURPS Psionic Powers, or the abilities of characters in comic books, don't have much to do with J.B. Rhine's work, or that of his predecessors in the Society for Psychical Research. But people still talk about them as "psi" and not as "magic." It's partly a matter of ancestry.
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Old 04-01-2017, 02:49 PM   #32
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Default Re: Character Creation: "Realistic" Sci-Fi

Thanks a lot for you insight, it's been very enriching! I've got some questions:

(1) Do you think "Soldier" can substitute Brawling, Climbing, Driving, Hiking, and Stealth? I mean, I am spending CP on a PC that is trained and (that seems as a routinary set of abilities for a soldier).

(2) Regarding stealth, in the book I read stealth is: DX/Average and Defaults: DX-5 or IQ-5. Then, if stealth defaults to IQ, is stealth also IQ/Average? Or what's the point of listing DX/Average and that it defaults to DX & IQ?

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Old 04-01-2017, 03:05 PM   #33
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Default Re: Character Creation: "Realistic" Sci-Fi

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Thanks a lot for you insight, it's been very enriching! I've got some questions:

(1) Do you think "Soldier" can substitute "Brawling", "Climbing" and "Stealth"?
no.

Quote:
(2) Regarding stealth, in the book I read stealth is: DX/Average and Defaults: DX-5 or IQ-5. Then, if stealth defaults to IQ, is stealth also IQ/Average?
no.

Quote:
Or what's the point of listing DX/Average and that it defaults to DX & IQ?

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The point is twofold, both to do with high IQ low DX characters.
First: Someone with good IQ gets high skill even if they not trained. Thus someone with IQ 20 would get stealth 15 without training.
Second: With the improving from defaults rule increases are in such cases counted from the default not base.

Thus someone with IQ 20 and DX 10 would have skill 15 at no points in skill and 16 at 4 points, 17 at 8 points and so on. As they gain the DX+5 level for "free" due to the high IQ.
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Old 04-01-2017, 03:12 PM   #34
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Default Re: Character Creation: "Realistic" Sci-Fi

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(1) Do you think "Soldier" can substitute Brawling, Climbing, Driving, Hiking, and Stealth? I mean, I am spending CP on a PC that is trained and (that seems as a routinary set of abilities for a soldier).
No. It doesn't substitute for all uses of those skills; it substitutes for routine, nonrisky uses—uses where a person who actually had the skill would roll at +4 or better because the task was easy. That wouldn't apply to any serious use of Brawling or Stealth! I would let you use it to drive a jeep across the base, but not for pursuit driving. So it's really a question of whether you're going to be using these as "adventuring" skills to perform risky tasks.

Quote:
(2) Regarding stealth, in the book I read stealth is: DX/Average and Defaults: DX-5 or IQ-5. Then, if stealth defaults to IQ, is stealth also IQ/Average? Or what's the point of listing DX/Average and that it defaults to DX & IQ?
Those are two different concerns. Defaults measure how well you can do it if you have no significant training; Stealth gets an IQ default because a smart person could probably figure out a path where they wouldn't be noticed. But skills are assigned to stats because those stats are what success or failure mainly depends on once you're trained. So Stealth is DX/Average because being able to control your body's movements is the most important thing in sneaking around.

On the other other hand, Stealth can be "floated" to other stats. If you have 4 points in it, and normally roll vs. DX+1, you might roll vs. IQ+1 if it's a question of planning a slow sneak and choosing the best path, or HT+1 if you need to breathe slowly and quietly, and so on. See "using skills with other attributes" on p. 172 of the Basic Set.
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Old 04-01-2017, 04:50 PM   #35
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Default Re: Character Creation: "Realistic" Sci-Fi

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I don't think that's the case.

The nineteenth century saw attempts to do scientific research on thought transference, second sight, speaking with the dead, and all that sort of thing; the Society for Psychical Research dates from then. And between the World Wars, J.B. Rhine started investigating what he called "psi," attempting to use the statistical methods of the social sciences (though he didn't understand them properly, and ended up doing things like choosing his hypothesis after the data were collected). All of this was an attempt at scientific research. Coming up with fiction that supposed it paid off was no more fantasy than coming up with fiction that supposed atomic energy could be liberated, or that Mars was inhabited and could invade the Earth, or that submarines could explore the deep oceans—the people who speculated about these things couldn't know in advance which ones would pay off and which wouldn't, after all.

And fantasy was not especially unfashionable in the 19th century. This was the era when William Morris was inventing heroic fantasy, and when writers such as George MacDonald and E. Nesbitt and L. Frank Baum were giving us some of the tropes of fantasy. For that matter, Ibsen's early play Peer Gynt and many of Wagner's operas were clearly what we would now call "fantasy," so if anything it got more recognition as high art than it gets now.
Quite but I was thinking of a lapse between the wars. At the least much of what would have been fantasy was written in sci fi periodicals. Anderson claims that Broken Sword ran into a publishing brick wall that was knocked down by Tolkien's wake.
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Old 04-01-2017, 07:52 PM   #36
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Default Re: Character Creation: "Realistic" Sci-Fi

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Quite but I was thinking of a lapse between the wars. At the least much of what would have been fantasy was written in sci fi periodicals. Anderson claims that Broken Sword ran into a publishing brick wall that was knocked down by Tolkien's wake.
That may have been referring to paperback books. There were dedicated fantasy magazines (and not just Weird Tales and other horror) before WWII.
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Old 04-01-2017, 08:57 PM   #37
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Default Re: Character Creation: "Realistic" Sci-Fi

I wouldn't substitute Soldier for Driving at all, since vehicle certification isn't basic training.
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Old 04-02-2017, 05:21 AM   #38
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Default Re: Character Creation: "Realistic" Sci-Fi

Essential skills for commandos:

Camouflage
First Aid
Gesture (military field signals)
Guns (rifle)
Land Navigation
Observation
Soldier
Stealth

Other skills I would consider:

Area Knowledge
Armoury
Boating
Brawling
Climbing
Diplomacy
Demolitions
Driving
Electronics Operation (communications, sensors and security)
Fast Talk
Forward Observer
Guns (all the others)
Hiking
Intelligence Analysis
Intimidation
Leadership
Mental Strength
Naturalist
Parachuting
Running
Search
Swimming
Survival
Tactics
Throwing (grenade)
Tracking
Traps
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Old 04-02-2017, 09:06 AM   #39
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Default Re: Character Creation: "Realistic" Sci-Fi

I'd definitely move Hiking to the upper list - walking places is kind of the main infantry activity! I'd also possibly move Observation to the lower list.

If someone was trained to be an XCOM assault team member without being drawn from an elite infantry unit, though, Navigation, Observation, Camouflage, and Hiking would be optional at best. XCOM troops are delivered to and recovered from the scene by airborne transport and generally don't have the time or posture to leverage Camouflage.
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Old 04-07-2017, 01:04 PM   #40
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Default Re: Character Creation: "Realistic" Sci-Fi

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No. It doesn't substitute for all uses of those skills; it substitutes for routine, (...) On the other other hand, Stealth can be "floated" to other stats. (...)
Thank you very much for this, now I understand this much better than I did!

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Essential skills for commandos: (...)
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Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth View Post
I'd definitely move Hiking to the upper list - walking places is kind of the main infantry activity! I'd also possibly move Observation to the lower list. (...) .
I see, That list is pretty handy indeed. ¿What about the skill "escape"?

Updating the setting: Regarding the PCs setting, it seems we are going to be covert agents. We are going to engage against infiltrated spies and sometimes a few aliens. Something between James Bond & MIB.

How about advantages? I am thinking of these:

Group 1
  • Ambidexterity
  • Combat Reflexes
  • Common Sense
  • Eidetic memory, Photographic
  • Fit
  • Flexibility
  • High Pain Threshold

Group 2
  • Deep Sleeper
  • Eye for Distance
  • Ground Guard
  • Penetrating Voice
  • Power Grappling

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Last edited by Hide; 04-07-2017 at 03:29 PM.
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