Capping Skill Default Levels

[Otaku]

Originally Posted by Sindri

There is no GMing to be improper.

Okay, "hypothetical GMing" then; you're worried about potential outcomes. If you're designing characters to reference while writing a story or some other non-standard usage of GURPS, read accordingly such as "properly setting the scene and describing the action."

Originally Posted by Sindri

What am I trying to do here but come up with an appropriate penalty?

So far you've been describing complicated rule changes. You've been altering game mechanics and trying to change defaults... not assign appropriate penalties based on what is actually happening, where because Character A has studied using Weapon X* his whole life that knowledge should benefit him in some way going head to head with Character B, who has never actually studied using Weapon X but instead is a master of Weapon Y, from which Weapon X can default.

Not liking the Skill system in general is something of a "separate matter". I know it isn't perfect, but I've seen far, far worse.

*Why resist, true believer! ;)

[Sindri]

Originally Posted by Otaku

So far you've been describing complicated rule changes. You've been altering game mechanics and trying to change defaults... not assign appropriate penalties based on what is actually happening, where because Character A has studied using Weapon X* his whole life that knowledge should benefit him in some way going head to head with Character B, who has never actually studied using Weapon X but instead is a master of Weapon Y, from which Weapon X can default.

Not liking the Skill system in general is something of a "separate matter". I know it isn't perfect, but I've seen far, far worse.

*Why resist, true believer! ;)

There's not much difference between changing how defaults work and adding a scaling penalty to accomplish the same thing.

I don't think that Character B should only suffer penalties when fighting Character A. If his defaults are too high then they are too high no matter what his opponent is doing. On the other hand if his defaults aren't too high they are still acceptable when fighting against Character A.

The only reason penalties should appear because of what is actually happening is if it's actually harder than other situations. Throwing in penalties to fix a general problem only when it becomes highly apparent is a bad strategy.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Sindri

Making the lower level defaults easier while not changing the higher level defaults is also giving "poor" defaults at higher levels.

I suppose it's a semantics argument, then. Also, while I said I could see a case for it, I would need more convincing before I implemented such a rule - I'm perfectly fine with defaulting working the same at every level. A character who hasn't put a lot of points into a combat skill doesn't get the benefit of the doubt, and will need to invest a bit more (possibly in the form of a Dabbler Perk) to get competent with a wide range of weapons.

Originally Posted by Sindri

Who said anything about five of them? As I said before you only need one case for it to be problematic.

"Five" is my generic assumed party size. You heavily implied there would be multiple characters at such a level but, regardless, I don't see a problem with an extremely skilled character being extremely skilled. We'll likely just have to agree to disagree on this point.

Originally Posted by Sindri

Not engage with the weapon, engage with his mastery of the weapon. It's trivially obvious that he would use his weapon of choice if he had the ability to.

I have difficulty understanding what you mean here. If he isn't using a weapon with which he has achieved mastery, he isn't using his mastery - but he can "float" the lessons from that skill for using a closely-related one (that is, get a default).

Originally Posted by Sindri

Musashi is irrelevant until you demonstrate that he only had points in one or a small number of those skills. I am not objecting to people who are experts at multiple weapons.

The way I would build Musashi (using my Overhaul), he'd likely have Broadsword as his primary skill, and most else would be defaulting off of that (possibly with a few bought up from default). If a character's default is higher than it would be just from skill, I assume they essentially have points invested in it - that is, Musashi's Polearm skill represents him having trained with such weapons, despite not having any explicit points invested there.

Originally Posted by Sindri

I on the other hand do. Aside from being aesthetically unpleasant for people to be permanently working off of defaults in core competencies it is vital that the trained/not trained distinction be usable for rules purposes and reflect incentivized behaviour.

Again, we'll have to agree to disagree. If for some reason a player wanted to build a Musashi-clone who had never touched a Polearm-type weapon, I'd probably let them go back to their DX-based default with a Quirk (which would need to be bought off before they could start advancing in the Polearm skill). Alternatively, they could make it a flavorful Feature, wherein they'd simply suffer Familiarity penalties if forced to use a Polearm. I would not, however, make this state of incompetency the default.

[Sindri]

Originally Posted by Varyon

I suppose it's a semantics argument, then. Also, while I said I could see a case for it, I would need more convincing before I implemented such a rule - I'm perfectly fine with defaulting working the same at every level. A character who hasn't put a lot of points into a combat skill doesn't get the benefit of the doubt, and will need to invest a bit more (possibly in the form of a Dabbler Perk) to get competent with a wide range of weapons.

The best kind of argument :). I also need more convincing. I'm far from certain that defaults need to behave like this. The discussion has already helped my thoughts upon the matter.

Originally Posted by Varyon

"Five" is my generic assumed party size. You heavily implied there would be multiple characters at such a level but, regardless, I don't see a problem with an extremely skilled character being extremely skilled. We'll likely just have to agree to disagree on this point.

I'm not sure where I implied that, I've attempted to stay consistent in maintaining that one person is enough to make it matter.

If I'm being honest it's a bit cinematic to have a group of typical PCs hanging out together rather than dispersed around the world doing seperate things no matter how varied their skills, but while you can get rid of that it's inexpensive in terms of suspensive load as a convention of the medium.

I'm fine with agreeing to disagree on this point though.

Originally Posted by Varyon

I have difficulty understanding what you mean here. If he isn't using a weapon with which he has achieved mastery, he isn't using his mastery - but he can "float" the lessons from that skill for using a closely-related one (that is, get a default).

I was just musing that it would be nice for him to be able to try using stuff built around the mechanical precedent of resisting feints where he is attacking them where he is strong (in highest combat skill) rather than attacking them where they are strong (in combat skill of weapon used). Just an idle sidetrack, not really significant to the discussion at hand.

Originally Posted by Varyon

The way I would build Musashi (using my Overhaul), he'd likely have Broadsword as his primary skill, and most else would be defaulting off of that (possibly with a few bought up from default). If a character's default is higher than it would be just from skill, I assume they essentially have points invested in it - that is, Musashi's Polearm skill represents him having trained with such weapons, despite not having any explicit points invested there.

I presume you mean just from attribute. It's not a bad method, you could even make "going above attribute default" what makes one trained in a skill.

Originally Posted by Varyon

Again, we'll have to agree to disagree. If for some reason a player wanted to build a Musashi-clone who had never touched a Polearm-type weapon, I'd probably let them go back to their DX-based default with a Quirk (which would need to be bought off before they could start advancing in the Polearm skill). Alternatively, they could make it a flavorful Feature, wherein they'd simply suffer Familiarity penalties if forced to use a Polearm. I would not, however, make this state of incompetency the default.

Sure, my argument against using Musashi as an example was that since we can't drag him over here and put him through the GURPS Stat Scanner 2000 there are lots of way to represent him ruleswise. This goes both ways though. I have my personal preferences but the single skill defaulting method is a legitimate method and I'm fine agreeing to disagree.

[pfharlock]

Originally Posted by Sindri

I on the other hand do. Aside from being aesthetically unpleasant for people to be permanently working off of defaults in core competencies it is vital that the trained/not trained distinction be usable for rules purposes and reflect incentivized behaviour.

If I understand what you are saying (my grasp of the thread of conversation being admittedly pretty shaky), I think the game system disagrees with you.

That's why when you start buying up skills that have been raised using defaults, you only pay the difference.

Example, legendary fighter shiro is a master of the katana at 24. Once he fought with a Chinese jian (which for the sake of argument will say defaults to katana at -4, I'm not sure if it does by the rules or not). So he swings this thing at a 20, the default. He decides he really likes the jian and decides to practice with it. If shiro wants to raise his skill to 21 he only has to pay 4 points rather than paying the truckload of points it would take to get it to 20 if he didn't have his katana skill.

[Mathulhu]

...or he could spend 4 points and up katana to 25 and jian to 21.

I noticed the gcg requires one to have at least one point in a skill to buy techniques that default from it. That might be a useful thing to enforce.

Does the technique feint (katana) default to feint (jian) in any way?

[pfharlock]

Originally Posted by Mathulhu

...or he could spend 4 points and up katana to 25 and jian to 21.

I noticed the gcg requires one to have at least one point in a skill to buy techniques that default from it. That might be a useful thing to enforce.

Does the technique feint (katana) default to feint (jian) in any way?

Not to my knowledge. I know there are some benefits that actually having the skill conveys that merely defaulting does not, it sounds like techniques may be one of them.

Interesting point though, you could probably spend one point in jian and even though you are still swinging at a 20 (ie the skill didn't go up) you could probably start using the techniques.

(Please someone correct me if I'm wrong about which abilities you don't get from defaults, or feel free to mention what they are. That's a bit of crunch I don't have occasion to dig into much)

Edit: also it's worth noting that I don't know if either katana or Jian are real skills, I made them up to serve as placeholders for two skills from the book that do default to one another.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Sindri

Skills are blatantly not utility costed and there isn't any cost difference based on what and at what penalty of defaults a skill gets.

Maybe not explicitly, but the reality of it is you pay the 67 pts for a skill of 24 in Broadsword, then you get some pretty respectable score is lots of combat skills.

The whole concept of defaults in general points to the idea that certain skills share fundamentals, and the the fact that some skills default more widely points to the idea that some fundamentals are widely shared. What a skill defaults to and by how much is an aspect of the skill just as its difficulty is.

[Sindri]

Originally Posted by pfharlock

If I understand what you are saying (my grasp of the thread of conversation being admittedly pretty shaky), I think the game system disagrees with you.

That's why when you start buying up skills that have been raised using defaults, you only pay the difference.

Example, legendary fighter shiro is a master of the katana at 24. Once he fought with a Chinese jian (which for the sake of argument will say defaults to katana at -4, I'm not sure if it does by the rules or not). So he swings this thing at a 20, the default. He decides he really likes the jian and decides to practice with it. If shiro wants to raise his skill to 21 he only has to pay 4 points rather than paying the truckload of points it would take to get it to 20 if he didn't have his katana skill.

If the game system disagrees with me it's not the game system that wins :). I'm fine with people not having to spend as much raising a skill from default, that doesn't mean people should be in perma-default for core skills.

Originally Posted by Mathulhu

...or he could spend 4 points and up katana to 25 and jian to 21.

I noticed the gcg requires one to have at least one point in a skill to buy techniques that default from it. That might be a useful thing to enforce.

Does the technique feint (katana) default to feint (jian) in any way?

Yes, you must have at least a point in a skill to buy techniques. Techniques don't default to their siblings among other skills at least by RAW. Personally I'd like to avoid a situation where a character has the skill level he is otherwise happy with but needs to raise it to achieve the trained status if possible.

Originally Posted by pfharlock

Not to my knowledge. I know there are some benefits that actually having the skill conveys that merely defaulting does not, it sounds like techniques may be one of them.

Interesting point though, you could probably spend one point in jian and even though you are still swinging at a 20 (ie the skill didn't go up) you could probably start using the techniques.

(Please someone correct me if I'm wrong about which abilities you don't get from defaults, or feel free to mention what they are. That's a bit of crunch I don't have occasion to dig into much)

Edit: also it's worth noting that I don't know if either katana or Jian are real skills, I made them up to serve as placeholders for two skills from the book that do default to one another.

You can still use techniques without points in a skill. Personally I would ignore any points spent on a skill until it raises the level if I was playing with normal raising skills from defaults. Technically katana and jian aren't skills (well... isn't a skill anymore in the case of katana) but they perform fine for examples anyway.

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

Maybe not explicitly, but the reality of it is you pay the 67 pts for a skill of 24 in Broadsword, then you get some pretty respectable score is lots of combat skills.

The whole concept of defaults in general points to the idea that certain skills share fundamentals, and the the fact that some skills default more widely points to the idea that some fundamentals are widely shared. What a skill defaults to and by how much is an aspect of the skill just as its difficulty is.

There is no explicitness about it. Two skills with the same difficulty levels do not cost differently based on the defaults they grant. Full stop. The difficulty levels are too coarse and too not utility costed to argue that they are changed by the defaults available either.

[DangerousThing]

When skill B defaults to skill A, by RAW all you need to do is put one point in the skill to be trained.

Also, even untrained I believe that you can use the techniques, but you can't raise them from default unless you are trained in the skill.