Talents & Martial Arts

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Talents are official and in the rules. Asking for a character that mechanically conforms to the description given does not strike me as 'whiny', it strikes me as what players are supposed to do with the character creation system.

Indeed!

The merituous approach might be to move one's attention away from the game mechanics, and look instead at the character as envisioned and described and defined by the person (author, GM or player) who created the character, and decide whether that character is appropriate or munchkinny.

It's probably the case that the GoT character in question is not suitable for a standard GURPS campaign, standard being RAW-defined as 150 CP, but would be perfectly legit in a higher-powered campaign.

He'd be legit in my Ärth setting, of course, a place for gifted heroes with great or broad competences. It's just that if all he can do is fighty fighty, he's likely to be boring or end up bored. But perfectly legit (assuming the players don't vote for a low or moderate point level) and - I have reason to believe - also perfectly creatable.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Why would we use a Talent? Sounds to me like a character who has lots and lots of points in the actual skills.

Yup, it does.

The problem is player choice. Player reluctance to make certain choices, certain combinations of choices.

The problem is that in some cases the player wants one thing, but the structure of the character creation system being used acts as a "force" on the player's choices pushing in another direction, often a starkly other direction. That is uncomfortable for the player, sometimes even extremely uncomfortable.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by aesir23

But this limits several legitimate character concepts, as well as making it sub-optimal to emulate the skills and abilities of real historical warriors, who often were trained in 4 or more weapons skills.

Yes, prexactly!

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

If you can get a Wildcard Skill, why would you want a Talent instead? You can't beat Wildcards for simplicity.

Wildcards are simple in one way, but complicated in another way.

[Anders]

How about Wildtalents? So Animals! would give a bonus to any roll that includes animals, and Cars! gives a bonus to any roll that includes cars? A bit like Higher Purpose.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

Also, of course, the "threat" from the player to the GM: If you don't let me buy All Weapons Talent for 15 CP/lvl, I'll simply buy up my chracter's DX for 20 CP/lvl instead. Is that what you want me to do?

.

Probably yes. It's not much of a threat any6way. If I'm at all worried about PC's power level I've set a cp ceiling. Unless I've set a very high one spending 60pts on an All-Weapons Talent or an additional 3pts of DX is probably over-concentration.

I'd also want to advise the player that he is _extremely_ unlikely to actually fight with 5 different Melee weapons much less gain a critical advantage by attempting to do so.

[Xplo]

I've long supported a learnable 10-point Melee Talent (and yes, I'm well aware there are enough melee skills to make it a 15-point Talent; I'm also aware that once you have a few melee skills the utility of additional melee skills falls nearly to 0, so charging for all of them seems like a point trap).

Obviously this isn't the same as a Martial Art Talent, but the effect would be pretty similar.

[Þorkell]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

It's probably the case that the GoT character in question is not suitable for a standard GURPS campaign, standard being RAW-defined as 150 CP, but would be perfectly legit in a higher-powered campaign.

Really? I challenge you to find that reference!

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Þorkell

Really? I challenge you to find that reference!

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.

[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