Talents & Martial Arts

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

Does your setting have other similar Talents, for other character concepts? Or is Experienced a unique thing?

I generally allow any Talent that can be described as competence in a field smaller than the broad categories of DX or IQ.

The rogue-type character has been raising Smooth Operator and Business Acumen, for example. As I recall, I allowed Psychology (Human) to fall under Smooth Operator, as well.

[DangerousThing]

Originally Posted by scc

OK, in response to the OP. There's a limit to how much you can improve your DX, Talents gets you past this. This is more of a Ritual Magic thing, but the Rule of 20 says that your default, before defaulting penalties is 20 if the base stat is higher then 20, again Talents gets around this. Talents can probably also be used against penalties

My first reaction to this is "of course they can be used against penalties, just like other means of raising skill." Then I realized that my second clause was an assumption of what I thought you meant. Since I don't have Mindreading (Over forums), I thought I'd ask.

What do you mean by Talents being used against penalties?

[Þorkell]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

100 to 200 for typical career adventurers as written in Basic.
I've read that 150 is equivalent to the very common 100 of 3rd edition.

In the bit about power level several power levels are mentioned. Nowhere in the text is it claimed that one point range is the standard.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Þorkell

In the bit about power level several power levels are mentioned. Nowhere in the text is it claimed that one point range is the standard.

That's being a bit willfully ignorant, don't you think? The majority of players play pseudo-medieval mid fantasy similar to D&D.
Whether T.P.T.B. want to admit it or not, Gurps makes many assumptions that aren't clearly spelled out.
But that's drifting far afield of the thread topic.

[Þorkell]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

That's being a bit willfully ignorant, don't you think? The majority of players play pseudo-medieval mid fantasy similar to D&D.
Whether T.P.T.B. want to admit it or not, Gurps makes many assumptions that aren't clearly spelled out.
But that's drifting far afield of the thread topic.

Annoyingly literal, perhaps.

Ah.. But Peter claimed RAW, and the W in that means written. I have nowhere seen it spelled out in a GURPS book that 150 points is the standard.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Þorkell

Annoyingly literal, perhaps.

Ah.. But Peter claimed RAW, and the W in that means written. I have nowhere seen it spelled out in a GURPS book that 150 points is the standard.

You don't think, "being typical for career adventurers" is almost synonymous with standard for posting here?
It's not like I agree with Peter much of the time, though.

[Þorkell]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

You don't think, "being typical for career adventurers" is almost synonymous with standard for posting here?
It's not like I agree with Peter much of the time, though.

Like I said, annoyingly literal.

Also that sentence suggests a range of 100-200 points as typical. What makes 150 points more typical than any other point total in that range?

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Þorkell

Like I said, annoyingly literal.

Also that sentence suggests a range of 100-200 points as typical. What makes 150 points more typical than any other point total in that range?

It's been a rule of thumb that 150 is the new 100 (e.g. http://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.p...00&postcount=8), but that's quite far from an actual official statement that 150 is average.

[Infornific]

Originally Posted by Anthony

It's been a rule of thumb that 150 is the new 100 (e.g. http://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.p...00&postcount=8), but that's quite far from an actual official statement that 150 is average.

It mutated over time. 3e defaulted to 100 points (150 4e points.) The 4e rules were vaguer but a lot of the early supplements implied a 150 point default - most of the templates were under 150 and sample characters for GURPS Fantasy were built on a 150 point budget. When Dungeon Fantasy came out, the default power level was 250 for reasons detailed elsewhere by Kromm and later supplements (Action, Monster Hunters) went with higher power. So I'd say nowadays 200-400 is assumed to be the common starting point - larger than life but not superhuman - with 150 as a low powered option (DF Henchmen etc.)

[Xplo]

ISTR that back when 4e was new and SJG was talking it up and doing Q&A about the new rules, it was observed that the equivalent to a 3e 100 point character was ~150 points. People may be thinking of that.