Five Earths, All in a Row

[Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

... and a thing I'm having trouble defining, where they 'learn' each opponent, thus getting a bonus when facing them later (like when Buffy meets the Monster of the Week, does badly in the first fight and either escapes or forces a retreat, and then dominates the second fight)...

Wouldn't that be a variation of Wild Talent specialized for combat? Or perhaps Visualization, specialized for combat against a previously-opposed enemy?

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

There's probably ways to make that cheaper, but other than using (arguably abusing) the Alternate Abilities rules or Modular Abilities, all I can think of is to give him Language Talent, which I'm not sure existed in 3e.

Language Talent existed in 3e. It was on the Basic Set 3e pg 20 and was 2 points/level and Sir Richard Burton had it at +3 (I missed converting that)

But even with it his Language point total is still nuts as he knows 42 languages (besides his native English which he gets free) at, based on skill, the native level which clocks in at 168 points. Even if you assume he can only speak those languages you are still talking about 84 points. Heck, his attributes alone clock in at 200 points.

I have finished the conversation and he clocks in at 524 points (Wow. Just wow)

Originally Posted by dcarson

Omnilingual from Supers is 40 points to know every language that you happen to need to. So I'd say that with a -10% to -20% for a fixed list.

Given Sir Richard Burton was a real person I would be very wary of using anything presented in Supers to bring his point total down Besides the description suggest that Omnilingual is highly cinematic and would, therefore, be off the table for GURPS write-up of a real person.

Yes, I know that the point totals could be reduced by realistic advantages that didn't exist in 3e but these conversions stick to what was presented as much as possible though I sometimes have had the tweak the skills - I had to give Sir Richard Burton Mathematics/TL5 (Applied).because i it is required in 4e for Astronomy. In some cases I found the point totals given were wrong even by 3e standards - Savoir-Faire-17 [0] on an IQ 14 character? Uh how?!? Oh you aren't telling us. Wonderful. There are another 8 points to what is already an insane point total.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by Mysterious Dark Lord v3.2

Wouldn't that be a variation of Wild Talent specialized for combat? Or perhaps Visualization, specialized for combat against a previously-opposed enemy?

Hmm. That makes sense, but how big a limitation is 'Only against previously-opposed targets?'

Wild Talent doesn't exactly work, as it grants new skills, and this seems to add to existing ones. Modular Abilities limited to existing skills and previous opponents might also work.

[Prince Charon]

Third Operation Pencil Sharpener expedition, Work in Progress

(This will be a lot more detailed, or at least list a lot more spacecraft, later on; it's how I'm organizing my thoughts on the expedition, which will probably have more than a hundred spacecraft, not counting the fighters.)

American

Heavy Combatants:

Space Shuttle


Carrier & Tender Spacecraft:

MSFB, Boeing Dreamlifter (modified for combat launch of fighters, but non-combat retrieval) & 747, Lockheed C-5 Galaxy


Transport Vehicles:


Bombers:

1 constellation B-52, 1 constellation B-1, 1 flight B-2


Fighters:

Starfury, Starfighter, Millenium Falcon, Space Eagle


Civilian Space Vessels:

Boeing 747, 767, 777, 787


Russian

Heavy Combatants:

An-225 (modified for combat)


Carrier & Tender Spacecraft:

An-225 (modified for combat launch of fighters, but non-combat retrieval)


Transport Vehicles:


Bombers:


Fighters:

2 squadrons Soyuz-Kazakov (Starfighter-upgraded Soyuz ACTS w/ armed Orbital Module)


Civilian Space Vessels:


European

Heavy Combatants:

Nimrod


Carrier & Tender Spacecraft:

Airbus Starwhale (modified for combat launch of fighters, but non-combat retrieval)


Transport Vehicles:


Bombers:


Fighters:


Civilian Space Vessels:

Airbus


Commonwealth

Heavy Combatants:

Nimrod


Carrier & Tender Spacecraft:


Transport Vehicles:


Bombers:


Fighters:


Civilian Space Vessels:

Airbus


Japanese

Heavy Combatants:


Carrier & Tender Spacecraft:


Transport Vehicles:


Bombers:


Fighters:


Civilian Space Vessels:


Other

Heavy Combatants:


Carrier & Tender Spacecraft:


Transport Vehicles:


Bombers:


Fighters:


Civilian Space Vessels:

[maximara]

Finished the conversion of the Old West section of Who's Who 2.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by maximara

Finished the conversion of the Old West section of Who's Who 2.

Personally, if I were doing conversions like that, I'd collect the 1/2-point skills in Dabbler perks, probably two or three to a perk, unless some of the skills are especially important or unimportant to the character.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

Personally, if I were doing conversions like that, I'd collect the 1/2-point skills in Dabbler perks, probably two or three to a perk, unless some of the skills are especially important or unimportant to the character.

There are ffive main problems with this idea:

1) The Hobby skill in 3e was sometimes used in a manner way similar to Dabbler (most of the time it changes into an actual skill ie Hobby (Darts) becoming Sports (Darts)) while a 1/2 meant you are trained in the skill. Dabbler expressly states "The selected skills still count as defaults, not as studied skills."

2) Never mind the gap between the 1 point and the Dabbler improvement (+3 to the usual default for four skills) is vast (2 to 4 skill levels per skill in many cases as most of these are Average to Hard skills). Also based on the way the perk is described you need at least four related skills (default+3) as any less makes the bonus too generous and it is recommended you just buy the skill (ie put the 1 point in it)

3) In most case the relationship between the various 1/2 skills is effectively nil. Take Hamingway who has Area Knowledge (Europe), Area Knowledge (Italy)-Bicycling, Singing, Musical Instrument, Survival all at 1/2. Sure Area Knowledge could qualify but Singing and Musical Instrument is iffy and the rest cannot really be combined. At best you are saving 2 points in what under 3e was already a 147 point character. To be overly sarcastic here 'Big freaking deal'. Sorry, but I saw enough of that micro point managing in Champions/Hero back in the 1980s to last me the rest of my life and I see no reason to inflict that abomination on 4e GURPS players (especially as one of the goals in all this conversion is to make things easier for both new and old players).

4) Besides most of the points are coming from the change in skills past the 4 point cost. For example Robert Ervin Howard's Writing 17 goes from from 12 to 20 (!) points...and that is with retaining his IQ 12. For the 1/2 point 3e skills it is easier (and saner) to put 1 point into the skill as is then trying to kludge something out of Dabbler.

5) Finally I think you are looking at all the 1 points and assuming they were 1/2 points. In reality, many of them were 1 point to begin with.

Take Grant's 1 point skills for example: Only Administration, Agronomy (farming in 4e), Animal Handling, Savoir-Faire (Military), and Survival (Woodlands) were 1/2 point in 3e. Not only are these five skills not really related (at least not without some seriously LSD fulled Moon Logic) but it can be demonstrated that Grant definitely had all these skills. The remaining six 1 point skills (Brawling, Broadsword, Engineer/TL5 (Combat), Leadership, Mathematics/TL5 (applied), and Writing) were that way in 3e Who's Who.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by maximara

5) Finally I think you are looking at all the 1 points and assuming they were 1/2 points. In reality, many of them were 1 point to begin with.

Five is inaccurate, I was assuming that some of the 1-point skills were 1/2-point skills before conversion, I just wasn't sure which or how many. I'd have to think more about the other points, but in regard to 4, it might help with some characters to give them Talents for the areas where they have several important, related skills. I suggest asking AlexanderHowl about that if you want to go that route, as he's quite focused on point-efficiency (to the point that it can be hard to take sometimes, but he is fairly skilled at it).

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

Five is inaccurate, I was assuming that some of the 1-point skills were 1/2-point skills before conversion, I just wasn't sure which or how many. I'd have to think more about the other points, but in regard to 4, it might help with some characters to give them Talents for the areas where they have several important, related skills. I suggest asking AlexanderHowl about that if you want to go that route, as he's quite focused on point-efficiency (to the point that it can be hard to take sometimes, but he is fairly skilled at it).

These are quick and dirty conversions. As the main Who's Who pages point out:

"Due to the changes of 4th edition the point totals given are no longer correct and some skill levels change as half points for a skill no longer exists. Talents for the most part didn't exist in 3e and so the conversions stick to the original attributes even if using a talent would reduce the point cost."

The ironic part of that last sentence is the one 3e Talent that shows up regularly (Language Talent) isn't a Talent in 4e. IMHO SJG should have renamed it to something like Language Ability rather then keep the old name which just causes confusion (It has "talent" in the name but it isn't a talent.
Uhhhh Yeh).

[maximara]

Added relevant Historical People to the Steampunk Earth and Dieselpunk Earth.

Those without links haven't been converted....yet