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Old 12-13-2016, 09:11 AM   #1
phayman53
 
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Default [MH] Thoughts on replacing Wildcard Skills in Monster Hunters Templates

I may be running a Monster Hunters game soon and I was considering replacing the wildcard skills in the templates with either a set of regular skills for the same number of points or more restrictive wildcard skills. I don't dislike wildcard skills per say, but some of them in MH, like Lore! and Blade!, are too broad for my taste. I know they are supposed to be really powerful for the nature of the game, but I like things a little more specialized.

Has anyone had any experience doing this, either replacing the wildcards with more restrictive ones or replacing them altogether with regular skills?

Also, for anyone who has run the MH templates "as is", did you find that Lore! made most of the other player's monster related knowledge skills (including things that Tactics for outsmarting a monster) redundant? This one in particular seems to almost completely overlap with Detective!, but also replaces Tactics, social manipulation, and tracking skills as they relate to monsters, as well as magical knowledge (but not casting ability).

Thanks!
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Old 12-13-2016, 10:01 AM   #2
ericthered
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Default Re: [MH] Thoughts on replacing Wildcard Skills in Monster Hunters Templates

The overlap between detective and lore is fairly small.

Lore! helps you know what you are hunting, and possibly who. It also lets you know what you need to fight the monster.

Detective! helps you know where, when, who, and why. Its not as good with what, and doesn't let you prepare near as well as lore.

Lore! can be very annoying though, because monster hunters makes sure everyone has "know thy enemy skills", and Lore completely makes everyone else's redundant. It reduces everyone else to using detective type skills, and the while the templates ensure everyone has lore replacements, detective replacements are less common than lore. Detectives tend to less stomping for the same reason.

Blade! isn't broken at all. You spend most of your time with one weapon, and if just put half of that pile of points into broadsword, you'd do better most the time with weapon skills to spare. Yes, uber-competence is nice, but with weapons depth usually trumps depth. Guns! is worse (Easy skills that all default generously to each other). Dropping them results in more power, not less.

I'd keep Inventor! It stays in its own little corner and people struggle with techies as it is.
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Old 12-13-2016, 10:23 AM   #3
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Default Re: [MH] Thoughts on replacing Wildcard Skills in Monster Hunters Templates

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Originally Posted by ericthered View Post
The overlap between detective and lore is fairly small.

Lore! helps you know what you are hunting, and possibly who. It also lets you know what you need to fight the monster.

Detective! helps you know where, when, who, and why. Its not as good with what, and doesn't let you prepare near as well as lore.
That is not the way that I read the description of Lore! in Champions. It specifically says that it works "in place of Criminology, Intelligence Analysis, Observation (with Per-based roll), Psychology, and Tactics when attempting to outwit a supernatural foe, divine its motivation, or predict its actions". It also says, "When combing through a former lair or a scene where monsters attacked, you may use this skill as Forensics and (Per-based) Search." So basically, in terms of finding evidence at the scene of a crime and figuring out motivations, it seems to overlap almost completely with Detective! except for the (important) category of interviewing witnesses and observing the non-monster aspects of a crime scene. So the overlap is not complete, but it is rather large.

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Originally Posted by ericthered View Post
Lore! can be very annoying though, because monster hunters makes sure everyone has "know thy enemy skills", and Lore completely makes everyone else's redundant. It reduces everyone else to using detective type skills, and the while the templates ensure everyone has lore replacements, detective replacements are less common than lore. Detectives tend to less stomping for the same reason.
Sorry, I seem to have failed my reading comprehension roll: what do you mean by "Detectives tend to less stomping for the same reason"? Do you mean that Detective! tends to not step on others as much or that they do not get stepped on by others as much?

Otherwise I agree, it does seem to make everyone else's "Know they Enemy" skills redundant. I guess it is supposed to replace a Giles type character from Buffy who really does not ever have anyone inform him about a point of lore (except in the first episode of Buffy when she tells him something he does not know about vampires are created, but that never happens again and was probably only there as explanation for the audience), though he has to do research or talk to contacts sometimes. Still, I guess the Lore! roll will fail at least sometimes, then someone else's roll would be useful as a backup.

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Originally Posted by ericthered View Post
Blade! isn't broken at all. You spend most of your time with one weapon, and if just put half of that pile of points into broadsword, you'd do better most the time with weapon skills to spare. Yes, uber-competence is nice, but with weapons depth usually trumps depth. Guns! is worse (Easy skills that all default generously to each other). Dropping them results in more power, not less.

I'd keep Inventor! It stays in its own little corner and people struggle with techies as it is.
Good to know. Yeah, Inventor! seems to be pretty much covering a niche that no one else really covers. Plus, it would be almost impossible to replace with the points since inventions require so many different skills.

Thanks for the input!
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Old 12-13-2016, 10:26 AM   #4
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Default Re: [MH] Thoughts on replacing Wildcard Skills in Monster Hunters Templates

I'm running a MH game in 3 stages. The first stage starts with 100 point characters learning the Truth. The second will add ~200 points to each character, and the 3d ~150 points. As a result, I have declared that there will be no Bang! skills at all. I don't think this will cause any problems as characters will grow semi-organically. However, as much as I'm not a fan of Bang! skills, I think dropping them from a starting 400 point character would be a problem, at least for the Inventor! skill even if I dropped all of the others, as there are dozens of potential engineering / mechanic / electronics / scientific skills that could conceivably come into play on a given invention.
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Old 12-13-2016, 12:19 PM   #5
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Default Re: [MH] Thoughts on replacing Wildcard Skills in Monster Hunters Templates

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Originally Posted by ericthered View Post
Blade! isn't broken at all. You spend most of your time with one weapon, and if just put half of that pile of points into broadsword, you'd do better most the time with weapon skills to spare. Yes, uber-competence is nice, but with weapons depth usually trumps depth. Guns! is worse (Easy skills that all default generously to each other). Dropping them results in more power, not less.
I completely disagree with this assessment.
While it is true that you will get a higher base skill level in broadsword or Guns (Rifle) there is so much more that the wildcard skills have to offer.

1) If you mess up your parry & take heavy damage, you can use a Blade! point to bring it down to 1 point.

2) You can use deceptive attack to bring your skill down to 10 & give the other guy almost no chance at defending. If you miss your attack at 10, spend a Blade! point to hit anyway.

There are other uses too, but you get the idea. The wildcard points all refill at the start of each game session so there's no reason not to use them.

When my group was playing our MH campaign (it lasted 2 years) the players loved the wildcard points. The Which hated that he did not have any.
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Old 12-13-2016, 01:37 PM   #6
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Default Re: [MH] Thoughts on replacing Wildcard Skills in Monster Hunters Templates

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Originally Posted by Tinman View Post
I completely disagree with this assessment.
While it is true that you will get a higher base skill level in broadsword or Guns (Rifle) there is so much more that the wildcard skills have to offer.

1) If you mess up your parry & take heavy damage, you can use a Blade! point to bring it down to 1 point.

2) You can use deceptive attack to bring your skill down to 10 & give the other guy almost no chance at defending. If you miss your attack at 10, spend a Blade! point to hit anyway.

There are other uses too, but you get the idea. The wildcard points all refill at the start of each game session so there's no reason not to use them.

When my group was playing our MH campaign (it lasted 2 years) the players loved the wildcard points. The Which hated that he did not have any.
Use luck or destiny for similar effect, and they're more flexible anyways. Everyone has luck and can buy destiny.

for 48 points you can get 4 wild card points a session and a 16 in all blades. Compare to destiny 3 [15], broadsword 20 [24], and various quick draw and armory skills. In most situations I'd prefer the guy who can attack twice at higher skill (weapon master lets him attack twice at 17). Sword skill in the 20's is a crazy thing to watch in gurps, particularly when someone knows what they are doing. Its the point at which you can start targeting limbs at will, multi-attacking, and not really worrying about getting hit.

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Originally Posted by phayman53 View Post
That is not the way that I read the description of Lore! in Champions. It specifically says that it works "in place of Criminology, Intelligence Analysis, Observation (with Per-based roll), Psychology, and Tactics when attempting to outwit a supernatural foe, divine its motivation, or predict its actions". It also says, "When combing through a former lair or a scene where monsters attacked, you may use this skill as Forensics and (Per-based) Search." So basically, in terms of finding evidence at the scene of a crime and figuring out motivations, it seems to overlap almost completely with Detective! except for the (important) category of interviewing witnesses and observing the non-monster aspects of a crime scene. So the overlap is not complete, but it is rather large.
That does start to make things look a little more overlapping. Though a lot of it will depend on how often you interact with humans rather than murder scenes and monsters.

Quote:
Sorry, I seem to have failed my reading comprehension roll: what do you mean by "Detectives tend to less stomping for the same reason"? Do you mean that Detective! tends to not step on others as much or that they do not get stepped on by others as much?
"The same reason" is that every template has "know thy enemy skills" but not detective skills. A lot of them have detective skills, but they're a standard part of the template, not an overt choice made during character creation, and a lot of things that lean towards the detective side of things tend to advantages, not skills.
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Old 12-14-2016, 07:50 AM   #7
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Default Re: [MH] Thoughts on replacing Wildcard Skills in Monster Hunters Templates

For the record, if you want to replace Blade! in the warrior template (the only one for which it's mandatory), I recommend applying the Focused Warrior lens (MH5: Applied Xenology, pp. 11-12); I created it with the goal of not letting the loss of a wildcard skill nerf the warrior.
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Old 12-14-2016, 09:11 AM   #8
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Default Re: [MH] Thoughts on replacing Wildcard Skills in Monster Hunters Templates

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Originally Posted by PK View Post
For the record, if you want to replace Blade! in the warrior template (the only one for which it's mandatory), I recommend applying the Focused Warrior lens (MH5: Applied Xenology, pp. 11-12); I created it with the goal of not letting the loss of a wildcard skill nerf the warrior.
Ah, thank you for the heads-up. It might be a little while before that one is in the budget, but good to know it is in there!

Just to let you know, I really like the MH line, great job! My prospective players all really like it too, so far it is the common denominator in the campaign proposals I sent them...
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Old 12-14-2016, 09:19 AM   #9
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Default Re: [MH] Thoughts on replacing Wildcard Skills in Monster Hunters Templates

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Ah, thank you for the heads-up. It might be a little while before that one is in the budget, but good to know it is in there.
Just in case you didn't know, GURPS stuff is 40% off till the 15th of December.
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Old 12-14-2016, 01:01 PM   #10
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Default Re: [MH] Thoughts on replacing Wildcard Skills in Monster Hunters Templates

What the captain said. If you need to wait, then wait, of course -- but if you do grab it today or tomorrow it's just $5.99 instead of $9.99.

http://www.warehouse23.com/products/...plied-xenology
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