Parry { And various other questions }

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by Redbeard78

Now, a question about the Melee Weapons Groups, in this case fencing. If I buy the group at say, Fencing weapons 14, regardless of the dex, then ALL weapons in that group would be at 14 or better to use yes?

Sorry, this one's completely off. The Melee Weapons and Fencing Weapons sections in the book are just categories of skills, grouped for convenience. You can't buy skill in the whole category, you still have to buy the skills individually. So you could buy Rapier at 14, or Saber at 14, and so on (and given they tend to have defaults to one another, you'd probably have other fencing skills at a lower level, effectively). But to have all fencing weapons at 14, you'd have to spend the points on buying all the skills in that category to that level.

Originally Posted by Redbeard78

can someone explain how Psionics is supposed to work?

Are you talking about psionics as they appear in the Basic Set? Or psionics as they appear in GURPS Psionic Powers? Because that's two slightly different (and more complicated, in the second case) questions.

In the Basic Set, psionics are pretty simple - you buy advantages and define them as "psionic" by applying the Psionic power modifier to them. This modifier is worth -10%, and means that any advantage with it can be negated by anti-powers like Neutralize or Psi Static, and by some technological countermeasures (so an inventor could build a psi-damping collar and slap it on you to neutralize your powers too).

You can also buy what's called a Power Talent for psionics. This is an advantage that costs either 5 points per level (if it applies to a narrow set of abilities within psionics, like "Telekinesis" or "Telepathy"), or 10 points per level (if it applies to all psionic abilities). For every level you have in the Talent, you get a +1 to all rolls to use the relevant abilities.

So, for example, you could buy Mind Control with the Psionic, -10% modifier. That would make it "psionic mind control". It acts just like Mind Control in the book, but if someone else with Neutralize showed up, you couldn't use it, or if they put the aforementioned psi-damping collar on you, you'd also be shut down. You could buy Telepathy Talent 3 for 15 points as well, in which case, when you rolled the Quick Contest of your IQ vs. the target's Will to activate Mind Control, you'd get a +3 to your IQ.

The system in Psionic Powers is broadly similar to what I've just described, but with some added complexities. Was what I've just explained enough, or do you need some help with Psionic Powers?

[roguebfl]

No you do not buy group skills like that. The group only exists as way to spell out what the skills have in common so they don't have repeat the text over and over for each skill. You still need to by each individual skill. Though GURPS has a cinematic option called Wild Card Skills where you buy one expensive skill and it lets you use that one skill for everything in the theme of the wild card skill.

Psionics is an example of subsystem that got fully explain latter in GURPS Powers. Psionics is just away to group a theme of otherwise normal advantages, gives them a "power modifier" that makes them cheaper because the fit the theme and because it opens them to counter mentions like Neutralize and Static [similar to the ways spells can be dispelled and countered] but also open them you buy a "Power Talent" that has the same focus as the them (Telepathy, ESP etc) the gives you a bonus when you try to use the Psionic modified advantages

For example you can buy Mind Reading without modifier and it behaves exactly like the advantages says it does or you can buy [I[Mind Reading (Telepathy, -10%)[/I] making it cheaper and getting to ad you Telepathy Talent to any rolls you make to establish contact with it, but at the cost that there will be people out there the block your ability to do so.

[Redbeard78]

Thanks for the head's up on the "Grouping" I think I either read it wrong, or they worded it in a weird way to my line of thinking. Also, I was referring to the Gurps Basic Psionics, because, I know you buy Magic spells as IQ/Hard skills unless stated otherwise, but, if I 'm reading you right, you buy whatever advantage, Flight, Mind Control, etc, and you get it cheaper by assigning it the Psionic Limitation, then you would buy, say, Psychokinesis at level 2 (10) pts, and if you had Int at 12, would give you Flight Psionic at 14?

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by Redbeard78

Also, I was referring to the Gurps Basic Psionics, because, I know you buy Magic spells as IQ/Hard skills unless stated otherwise, but, if I 'm reading you right, you buy whatever advantage, Flight, Mind Control, etc, and you get it cheaper by assigning it the Psionic Limitation, then you would buy, say, Psychokinesis at level 2 (10) pts, and if you had Int at 12, would give you Flight Psionic at 14?

I'm a bit confused here about what you mean. In the Basic Set version of Psionics, there are no skills involved at all just to activate a psionic ability. If you bought the Flight advantage with the Telekinesis limitation (a specific form of the Psionic limitation, so -10%), that would cost you 36 points (Flight's normal 40 points, -10%). If you didn't buy anything else, that's it, you'd just be able to fly.

The GM can call for skill rolls to use your ability with more finesse - if you needed to roll against the Flying skill to fly for a long distance, or Aerobatics to do fancy maneuvers while in flight, you'd roll them at whatever level you had bought those skills at (and they'd be based on the normal attributes, HT and DX respectively, as well). If you had bought some level of Telekinesis Talent, you could add that level to the skill rolls to use the ability.

[Redbeard78]

I was verifying that they aren't skills like magic spells are, they're ONLY powers, and you would roll against the power, which, depending on talent level, you roll against IQ plus whatever the level of talent was that you purchased, i.e. IQ of 12, but you bought Telepathy at 2, you would roll 14 or less to use the Psionic ability related to Telepathy, unless you bought the power advantage also for said ability

[roguebfl]

Originally Posted by Redbeard78

I was verifying that they aren't skills like magic spells are, they're ONLY powers, and you would roll against the power, which, depending on talent level, you roll against IQ plus whatever the level of talent was that you purchased, i.e. IQ of 12, but you bought Telepathy at 2, you would roll 14 or less to use the Psionic ability related to Telepathy, unless you bought the power advantage also for said ability

Yes in the Basic set it shows two ways GURPS can handel such special abilites. there is the skill bases system Like Magic spells, or exotic martial arts like "Flying Leap" or via Advantages using the Powers stem, like Psionics

But no you don't buy a generic "power skill" like Telepathy, what you buy as Advtages, Like Telecomuncation(Telesend), Mind Reading and mind Probe and put the in the Telepathy power group which allows you to by a Telepathy Talent that adds to the rolls described in the advantages.

There ARE optional rules in GURPS Powers "called skills for every one" that can add such skills to the system, and rule for "defualting" to other adantage in the power group, but they don't work like you describe

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by Redbeard78

I was verifying that they aren't skills like magic spells are, they're ONLY powers, and you would roll against the power, which, depending on talent level, you roll against IQ plus whatever the level of talent was that you purchased, i.e. IQ of 12, but you bought Telepathy at 2, you would roll 14 or less to use the Psionic ability related to Telepathy, unless you bought the power advantage also for said ability

Actually, unless the underlying advantage already requires a roll to use, you wouldn't even need to roll. Going back to Flight, it doesn't require any rolls at all to just start flying, and the Psionic limitation doesn't change that.

[Redbeard78]

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

Actually, unless the underlying advantage already requires a roll to use, you wouldn't even need to roll. Going back to Flight, it doesn't require any rolls at all to just start flying, and the Psionic limitation doesn't change that.

Right, Flight as a skill would only be for doing things other than just flyilng in an essentially straight line, Acrobatics and things of that nature would be for doing fancy things or evasive maneuvers. Thanks everyone for everything so far, it helps to illuminate some of the things that I'm finding murky.

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by Redbeard78

Thanks everyone for everything so far, it helps to illuminate some of the things that I'm finding murky.

Glad to hear it's helped!

[OldSam]

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

Sorry, this one's completely off. The Melee Weapons and Fencing Weapons sections in the book are just categories of skills, grouped for convenience. You can't buy skill in the whole category, you still have to buy the skills individually.

Yes, but there is of course an exception with the "wildcard skills", which are a kind of super-group-skills if you want to have it that way... ;-)

@Redbeard78:
For instance "Fencing! 14" (note the exclamation mark "!") would mean that you really have a skill level of 14 for _every_ kind of fencing weapon, saber, rapier and what have you... Moreover your character would _know_ everything about fencing weapons, e.g. where in the town can you get the best rapiers at a fair price etc. Or you could easily identify the fencing style of that strange saber fighter to know where he comes from... and things like that.

But wildcard skills ( or bang! skills as they are also called) are a very expensive special thing, not often used in common games more typical for supers, high powered cinematic campaigns etc. If you're interested, they are described in the Basic Set, too.