Skills and Techniques are too expensive

[hal]

Originally Posted by ErhnamDJ

I'm confused. What do character point costs have to do with the representation of the world? As I understand them, they're entirely about character creation.

And therein lies one of the flaws of GURPS overall. Your post was strait to the heart of the matter and something that is missed in the grand scheme of things.

Prices for things are arbitrary. That's a fact of life. But what is also being missed is that GURPS didn't start out as GURPS 4e, but as GURPS 1e that quickly turned to 2e, evolved into 3e, and finally 3e Revised.

Then came 4e to turn things on its head.

I still miss the tiered pricing for attributes the further you got away from 10. I still think it was a bad idea to cap the increased cost of skills at 4.

Skill levels of 16 are supposed to be "Masters" or "Experts". How many points does it take to create a skill 16 character with a single skill? What is the most EFFICIENT (ie lowest) point cost to get there?

Now, toss in campaigns in which a player gets to spend 250 points. Now try it with 500 points.

Yes, I know the GM can limit how things are spent etc - but that is something that should have been emphasized with GURPS 3e Revised! If GURPS 3e Revised worked well enough at 100 points to 200 points for starting builds of characters, and the excesses or breakdown in the rules only happened for specific "powers" or "advantages" once you get into the 300+ point character territory, then the problem should not have been fixed with GURPS 4e, it should have been fixed with GURPS PSIONICS 2nd, 3rd, 4th edition etc until they got it right. It should have been fixed with those things most specifically abusive - or, by telling the GM "These things can be abusive at X level of points, you may want to limit this"

What do you think the "pool points" approach is when you break it down to its component parts? It is a process by which the GM says "you can do this, but not this when building your characters". That should have been evident from the start with GURPS 3e.

So, it is stated up front - point costs do not reflect rarity, they do not reflect (in some instances) the utility of something. That by its very definition - indicates that prices for things is arbitrary.

[ErhnamDJ]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

Right now?

I like skills the way they are.

I'm confused. Are you saying you think skills are priced based on some objective measure right now? I don't understand what that could be.

Sure. That's your opinion. And in a game where gunplay matters more than coming in first in the Maui Surfing Championship, it's even a valid one!

Which is most games.

Surfing should cost less than Guns for the same reason that Speak Underwater should cost less than Unkillable 3. There will be games where Speak Underwater turns out to be worth more, somehow, but that doesn't mean they should both cost the same.

If the GM knows that somehow Speak Underwater will be an exceptionally valuable trait in their game, then maybe the price should be increased.

Universal pricing causes a lot of problems. An advantage that's worth a huge amount of points in some games (such as DR 5 in a low-tech game) might be worth almost nothing in another (the same DR 5 in an ultra-tech game). Look at the combat robots in Ultra-Tech. If I want to play a combat robot as my character, do you really think I'm getting 450 points worth out of DR 150 (Cannot Wear Armor, -40%) [450] at TL12? You can be the ruler of the galaxy for that many points. DR that's ineffectual against anyone seriously trying to destroy you isn't worth the same amount of points as Multimillionaire 10, Status 12, and Rank 12 (or whatever other ridiculous things you can buy with that many points).

By charging the same price for the traits in each game, regardless of how much it's actually worth in that game you create terrible incentives. You either incentivize players to purchase severely underpriced abilities, and skew their character concepts toward them, or you disincentivize them from choosing certain character traits, thus skewing their character concepts away from them.

For instance, I'm not going to play a combat robot and spend 450 points on ineffectual DR. I'm just not going to do it, no matter how much I want to play a combat robot. I'm instead going to choose to play something else--something that gets a lot more bang for its buck from its character point expenditures.

If your China Beach soldier wants a high surfing, even if it doesn't really matter at all, he pays the price for the skill.

And as a GM I'll do my best to try to find a way for him to use it in a meaningful manner at least once. If i think making the skill matter would be meaningful to you.

This is an argument for all traits costing the same amount. If this is a justification for Surfing being the same price as Guns, it's also a justification for Unkillable 3 being the same price as Speak Underwater.

If I ever had to pay 150 points for Speak Underwater, I would feel ripped off--which is, not coincidentally, the same way I feel whenever I pay 20 points for +5 Surfing.

So no, I don't want to see different skills priced differently based on subjective utility.

If not subjective utility, how do you think the prices of advantages should be determined?

How should we determine which of Speak Underwater and Unkillable 3 should cost more (if they aren't the same price), and how much more?

If there is some objective standard you would like to see applied, what could that standard be? I'm stuggling to come up with any conceivable objective standard.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by ErhnamDJ

Surfing should cost less than Guns for the same reason that Speak Underwater should cost less than Unkillable 3. There will be games where Speak Underwater turns out to be worth more, somehow, but that doesn't mean they should both cost the same.

If the GM knows that somehow Speak Underwater will be an exceptionally valuable trait in their game, then maybe the price should be increased..

Been there, done that, decided not to run BESM because of it. Because the value of a feature is not necessarily inversely proportional to how much you want your characters to take it. Crank up the costs of a feature and you are reducing the number of players who find that it fits in their budget. That's why Combat Reflexes is cheap, because regardless of it's utility almost nobody would buy this feature which is ubiquitous among action-adventure leads if they had to pay for each component of it.

What's more if you make it cheap to achieve exceptional expertise in a "useless skill" you will inevitably run into the players who will take that exceptional expertise and make it useful. For an example take the reboot of Charmed, where even though a GM would surely think that "Science" is a useless and therefore cheap skill in a campaign about three ladies each with a super power and the ability to cast spells and do research out of a magic book in order to defeat a plethora of demons infesting the town, the player who cranked her Science skill is constantly coming with excuses for how it will somehow be useful, leading to her being the scene stealer of the show with her constant "Back off, man I'm a scientist" b.s..

[ErhnamDJ]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Been there, done that, decided not to run BESM because of it.

How do you think we should determine the relative costs of Speak Underwater and Unkillable 3?

If Speak Underwater was [150] and Unkillable 3 was [15], would you think that's wrong? How about if they both cost [75]?

Assuming you find something wrong with that, I don't know how you would go on to think that Surfing and Guns being the same price is correct. It seems to have the same problem as giving Speak Underwater and Unkillable 3 the same price.

That's why Combat Reflexes is cheap, because regardless of it's utility almost nobody would buy this feature which is ubiquitous among action-adventure leads if they had to pay for each component of it.

I'm surprised to see you take this position. If you priced the advantage's component parts correctly (according to their utility), I think you would see players take those traits quite often. If the only way to get immunity to surprise was to purchase it for five points, I would often do so.

If you're saying that players wouldn't purchase those constituent parts if they were priced as Enhanced Defenses, I would agree--because Enhanced Defenses is overpriced.

If you priced out its constituent parts in such a way that they all added up to twenty or thirty points, I think you would see them purchased quite often. Once you get into the forty or fifty point range, it becomes overpriced. Combat Reflexes is cheap at fifteen points and overpriced at fifty points, in the same way that Surfing is overpriced at four points per level and underpriced at one point for each five levels of skill increase.

For an example take the reboot of Charmed, where even though a GM would surely think that "Science" is a useless and therefore cheap skill in a campaign about three ladies each with a super power and the ability to cast spells and do research out of a magic book in order to defeat a plethora of demons

I'm not familiar with that example, but I certainly wouldn't make that assumption. In the modern world, "science" taken in the wildcard sense, is going to be quite powerful as long as the campaign involve violent conflicts (rather than conflicts only in the form of chess matches, surfing competitions, romance, etc.).

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by ErhnamDJ

If you're saying that players wouldn't purchase those constituent parts if they were priced as Enhanced Defenses, I would agree--because Enhanced Defenses is overpriced.

Though the reason it's overpriced is actually relevant to this thread -- it's mostly overpriced because the single-skill combat build is viable, and at 4 points per level it just clobbers all competitors for cost effectiveness. If the max cost per level was [8] (like 3rd edition), enhanced defense would be a far more appealing option.

[Brandy]

Originally Posted by ErhnamDJ

By charging the same price for the traits in each game, regardless of how much it's actually worth in that game you create terrible incentives. You either incentivize players to purchase severely underpriced abilities, and skew their character concepts toward them, or you disincentivize them from choosing certain character traits, thus skewing their character concepts away from them.

As a GURPS GM, I'm not seeing the first part of this as a terrible at all.

I know for any campaign that I am planning to run the kinds of situations and challenges that I'm wanting to put front and center in the campaign. If I have a campaign idea that I've placed in a Skyrim-like setting and want to revolve around monster hunting, then I want players to create characters who are able to confront the kinds of challenges that the campaign is about. The presence of incentives that skew character concepts towards certain kinds of builds is a feature, not a bug.

As to the second part: I pare down the skill list for my campaigns. If I cannot imagine a way that a skill would be used in an adventure, its not on the list. That doesn't take away, at least in my view, from a player's ability to build a strong characterization. Not every relevant part of a character's background has to be represented by a trait on the character sheet.

[ErhnamDJ]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Though the reason it's overpriced is actually relevant to this thread -- it's mostly overpriced because the single-skill combat build is viable, and at 4 points per level it just clobbers all competitors for cost effectiveness. If the max cost per level was [8] (like 3rd edition), enhanced defense would be a far more appealing option.

I don't disagree. It very well could be the case that the more powerful skills are underpriced at 4/level. I wouldn't be opposed to raising the price of the better skills.

But if we do as most of the posters seem to prefer and charge the same price for each skill, this is only going to make the less powerful skills even more overpriced. If I don't want to pay 4/level for Surfing, I sure don't want to pay 8/level for it.

I'm just very confused how people can think that the skills are each worth the same price. There isn't anything about skills as a category that would lead me to think that all of its members are of equal worth.

We wouldn't consider that the members of other categories are all worth the same. That two traits are both advantages doesn't imply that those two traits are worth the same amount. No one suggests that all leveled advantages should be the same price per level. And yet it seems most players have somehow concluded that we ought to treat skills that way. I don't understand. What is it about skills that makes them different from all the other traits in the game? What am I missing? What makes someone think all skills should cost the same amount per level, but not that all attributes or advantages should cost the same amount per level? If Surfing and Guns ought to be the same price per level because they are both skills, why shouldn't Will and DX both cost the same price per level because they are both attributes? I don't get how people can look at all the different skills and conclude that each one is of the same worth as the others, when they understand why that doesn't apply to any other category of traits in the game.

[Brandy]

Originally Posted by ErhnamDJ

I don't get how people can look at all the different skills and conclude that each one is of the same worth as the others, when they understand why that doesn't apply to any other category of traits in the game.

Here's how I see it. As always, YMMV.

I think there's a part of your argument that hinges on "I want my character to be amazing at surfing and at broadswording and those two things shouldn't cost the same".

The thing is: they don't, at least in the games I run (well, the hypothetical games I might run where surfing is a thing).

Being amazing at surfing requires raising one skill, and raising it to somewhere in the 12-16 range (higher for some GMs and settings), so that you can overcome whatever situational DMs are put in front of you.

Being amazing at broadsword takes quite a bit more than that. When I think of the characters that have gone all in on Being Amazing at Broadsword, they have all of this:
Broadsword at 18-20.
Weapon Master
Strength of at least 13.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Brandy

Being amazing at broadsword takes quite a bit more than that. When I think of the characters that have gone all in on Being Amazing at Broadsword, they have all of this:
Broadsword at 18-20.
Weapon Master
Strength of at least 13.

In my experience being amazing at such things usually also requires Combat Reflexes, and decent levels in Tactics and Observation (and probably basic Perception as well). If the Broadsword guy doesn't have Tactics and Observation, it's because they're relying on someone else in the party having invested in those skills and doing the work in those areas. Doing this is fine, but one shouldn't make the mistake of thinking that the dude with just a massive level in Broadsword is amazing at anything other than the final stage of the 'get to enemy and kill them' thing.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Brandy

When I think of the characters that have gone all in on Being Amazing at Broadsword, they have all of this:
Broadsword at 18-20.
Weapon Master
Strength of at least 13.

ST 10 and Broadsword-32 is reasonably competitive with ST 13, weapon master (broadsword), and Broadsword-20, though the first build is likely overall a bit better.