Skills vs Base Stats

[electrum]

Okay, so my friend and I have spent probably two months learning how to GURPS, and we've spent quite a lot of time designing our own universe, and it seems to us that we are a little confused.

We've just done our first real session with meaningful combat with characters we designed, and it became clear to us that the Orks in the party (who racially get -1 DX and +2 STR) were very incapable in unarmed combat. As the GM, he ended up using people's base stats to determine checks, such as picking a man up. For example, our human smithy had roughly equal success picking up an average farmer as did our 6'8" wargod-worshiping Ork, who's a decent wrestler. We felt this was a little strange, and have been thinking about it, and have come up with two theories:

1. DX is far more useful than we anticipated, and gimping Ork DX is damning, or
2. Characters are meant to have a lot of skills, and whenever you lack that skill, you're supposed to metaphorically eat it with that default.

As a diagnostic step for next week, we've upped Ork DX to the normal 10, and reduced STR to 11. Is that a good idea, or should we play it out and see what happens?

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by electrum

. We felt this was a little strange, and have been thinking about it, and have come up with two theories:

1. DX is far more useful than we anticipated, and gimping Ork DX is damning, or
2. Characters are meant to have a lot of skills, and whenever you lack that skill, you're supposed to metaphorically eat it with that default.

Both of these are true. DX is the core combat score, with ST and HT coloring it. Gurps also plays were one solid hit ends a fight, which makes being able to hit and block more important than being able to deal or take large amounts of damage.

Characters are meant to have lots and lots of skills. exactly how many is a matter of taste, but we talk about 'skill bloat' as an issue.

For example, our human smithy had roughly equal success picking up an average farmer as did our 6'8" wargod-worshiping Ork, who's a decent wrestler

ST is funny. you generally shouldn't roll against it. If you're just lifting things, check what ST level you need (table in chapter 1) and if you need just a little more oomph, see the lifting skill and page 353 (rules for lifting and moving things)

[Anaraxes]

Characters are meant to have a lot of skills, and whenever you lack that skill, you're supposed to metaphorically eat it with that default.

Yes. Skill matters more than stats in GURPS. DX is important because it's the base for most combat skills. And even 150-point characters tend to have quite a lot of skills. (Probably at least 20-30 CP worth, including a lot of 1-point skills to make sure to avoid those defaults.)

HT is more than just hit points. Death checks, shock, stuns, and wounding / crippling thresholds are other important combat effects of the stat.

You can do a lot with ST, and something like 13 is useful for warriors, but awesome damage doesn't help if you can't land a blow, nor if you get taken out before you can swing because you can't Parry, Block, or Dodge. But ST isn't the uber-stat for melee combat that it is in D&D. There aren't really any dump stats in GURPS; you'll notice the a lack somewhere.

[Captain Joy]

Originally Posted by ericthered

Characters are meant to have lots and lots of skills. exactly how many is a matter of taste, but we talk about 'skill bloat' as an issue.

A rule of thumb is to have twice as many points in skills as your age.

Btw, welcome to GURPS and the forums. I think you will find the forums most helpful.

If you're new to GMing GURPS, I would recommend How To Be A GURPS GM.

[The_Ryujin]

Originally Posted by electrum

As the GM, he ended up using people's base stats to determine checks, such as picking a man up. For example, our human smithy had roughly equal success picking up an average farmer as did our 6'8" wargod-worshiping Ork, who's a decent wrestler

You normally don't roll against ST to pick up things, generally a character can lift up to around 8× their basic lift with both arms. As long as somethings weight is no more then that there's no need to roll bar "boosting" your ST for a second to lift something more quickly. Also keep in mind that ST isn't linear but quadratic, that means ST 12 isn't 1.2× stronger then ST 10, it's 1.2^2× stronger or almost 1.5× stronger.

Originally Posted by electrum

1. DX is far more useful than we anticipated, and gimping Ork DX is damning

Yep, DX costs 20pts a level for a reason. I higher DX means you're faster, more likely to go first in combat, more likely to hit and more likely to dodge.

Originally Posted by electrum

2. Characters are meant to have a lot of skills, and whenever you lack that skill, you're supposed to metaphorically eat it with that default.

Also yep. If defaults weren't harsh there would be no point in having skills. If you want a character to be good at hitting things with a sword he needs to have a skill high enough to do so reliably (at lest a 14).

[Sam Baughn]

Originally Posted by electrum

For example, our human smithy had roughly equal success picking up an average farmer as did our 6'8" wargod-worshiping Ork, who's a decent wrestler.

A decent wrestler as in someone with lots of points in the Wrestling skill? He should probably be rolling against Wrestling rather than DX to grab people and move them about.

[simply Nathan]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

HT is more than just hit points. Death checks, shock, stuns, and wounding / crippling thresholds are other important combat effects of the stat.

HT isn't about Hit Points, it's about resilience and stamina. ST is about Hit Points, armor, and damage.

Originally Posted by The_Ryujin

Also keep in mind that ST isn't linear but quadratic, that means ST 12 isn't 1.2× stronger then ST 10, it's 1.2^2× stronger or almost 1.5× stronger.

1.5x as strong, not 1.5x stronger. 1.5x stronger would be 2.5x as strong, twice stronger is three times as strong, four times faster is five times as fast, etc. Not trying to be confrontational, it just always bugs me to see people get this wrong. It's my literally-means-literally vs literally-can-mean-figuratively-if-you-want-it-to.

Originally Posted by Perfect Organism

A decent wrestler as in someone with lots of points in the Wrestling skill? He should probably be rolling against Wrestling rather than DX to grab people and move them about.

I concur with this. Part of the issue sounds like the GM might not quite understand how GURPS handles skill checks.

[electrum]

Originally Posted by ericthered

Both of these are true. DX is the core combat score, with ST and HT coloring it. ...

ST is funny. you generally shouldn't roll against it.

As soon as I started writing it out, it occurred to me that something was terribly wrong with our scenario, and I realized that both indeed were true. I have duly noted the ST comment, too.

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

And even 150-point characters tend to have quite a lot of skills.

Well, we're running 55-point characters. It's a low-fantasy world where we're just "regular joes", because we're all very accustomed to super high-powered worlds like War40K to the point that nothing feels very tangible, so we're trying the other side.

Originally Posted by Captain Joy

A rule of thumb is to have twice as many points in skills as your age.

If you're new to GMing GURPS, I would recommend How To Be A GURPS GM.

So my Ork is 30, and he only started out with 55 points to build on. So older characters should have (slightly?) more character points than younger ones?

I'm not the GM of the game, my friend is, but I will definitely forward this to him; he'll be glad to read it.

Originally Posted by simply Nathan

I concur with this. Part of the issue sounds like the GM might not quite understand how GURPS handles skill checks.

This is true. After we became disillusioned with our aforementioned high-powered worlds, I found GURPS and began a bit of an ideological crusade in our group to play it, harping heavily on GURPS's repeated claim of "the rules are optional and if you don't like one, don't use it. The smallest rulebook is only 30 pages!" Because my group of friends is, to put it lightly, "resistant", the GM and I (as I have studied GURPS more) have devoted a large amount of effort to brainstorming about the rules and thinking about what needs to be integrated. However, there are simply so many that we haven't had time to consider many of them, such as shield rush, blunt trauma damage, feint and telegraphing attacks, called hit locations, damage multipliers due to hit location, etc.

We've essentially taken GURPS Lite and added the fewest possible rules we feel are necessary to making the gameplay work. We've been afraid that adding too many rules to the system would make our players reluctant to play because they don't want to put in the effort to learn.

It is suddenly clear that skills (and the associated defaults) are a part of that core set, which poses a problem because virtually none of the current game's PCs have more than four skills. I'm the exception at six.

[weby]

Originally Posted by electrum

Well, we're running 55-point characters. It's a low-fantasy world where we're just "regular joes", because we're all very accustomed to super high-powered worlds like War40K to the point that nothing feels very tangible, so we're trying the other side.

Starting with 55 total available points is perfectly fine. But such characters should then likely have about 20-30 points in attributes 0-10 points in advantages and 15-35 points in skills.

That basically means the stat differences will be minimal. (+/- 1 mostly)

But normally a better feel for normal people while still allowing for more diversity is achieved by allowing slightly more total points in disadvantages, specially allowing lowering of stats. As in say you could have 0-25 points as character value, allow 25-50 points in disadvantages, but break out the lowered stats stats from that disadvantage limit, allowing say 20-30 extra points in lowered stats(I recommend a minimum of 8 or 9 as stat) that could only be used to raise stats further. That would allow someone who wanted to say be intelligent easier to get IQ 12 and still have points over for skills, but he could then be slightly clumsy only DX 9 to compensate as paying half the total cost of the raised IQ.

In general a fairly good normal person feel can be gotten with stats in the 9-12 range with most of them in the 9-11 range, not having too many points in any single skill and making sure there are some suitable disadvantages that come into play.

We've essentially taken GURPS Lite and added the fewest possible rules we feel are necessary to making the gameplay work. We've been afraid that adding too many rules to the system would make our players reluctant to play because they don't want to put in the effort to learn.

That is a good way to start simply.

It is suddenly clear that skills (and the associated defaults) are a part of that core set, which poses a problem because virtually none of the current game's PCs have more than four skills. I'm the exception at six.

Skills is what you should normally be rolling against. Any time you have to roll against a default you are doing things you have no clue in (as in I am not a doctor, but I play one on TV, so I can do a brain surgery just fine....)

I have never seen a GURPS player character in any of the games I have played or GMind in with less than about 20 skills. General starting range seems to be 20-50 different skills with only people like technicians at the upper end.

[sjard]

Originally Posted by electrum

So my Ork is 30, and he only started out with 55 points to build on. So older characters should have (slightly?) more character points than younger ones?

Not particularly. Use the amount that feels right for the character. Within the starting point limit of course.

The concept of twice the characters age is a hold over from GURPS 3rd Edition, where the rule was a character could not, at character creation, have more points in skills than twice their age.

As I recall, it was removed from 4th Edition, because it tended to have some really odd results that weren't always fun to play.