Superior Experience

[AlexanderHowl]

As the old saying says, "age and treachery will beat youth and luck every time", so superior experience should give better results than just superior talent. I have been developing rules to reflect that in GURPS, and I just wanted to share them and receive comments from the community.

Superior Experience

1. Characters reduce any skill penalties by one for every 4 CP invested in a skill (including techniques) during any use of the skill. For example, a character with DX+6 in Guns (Pistol) will reduce any skill penalties by five.

2. Characters reduce their opponent's effective skill by one for every 4 CP invested in a skill (including techniques) when resisting during Contests of Skill. For example, a character with Will+2 in Intimidation would reduce their opponent's Intimidation by two.

3. Wildcard skills grant similar bonuses, but they are per 12 CP rather than per 4 CP.

[DangerousThing]

Interesting, but too generous, in my opinion.

You are giving a bonus which is almost equal to the skill level per point of skill. This is doubling the value of a skill. Going from skill 13 to skill 14 already effectively lowers any penalty by 1. You would reduce it by one again.

I could see reducing penalties by one for each 8 cp in a skill, though. And also give a similar bonus in a quick contest of skill.

I do like the idea.

[Rupert]

Well, that certainly makes ranged combat easier.

[AlexanderHowl]

Originally Posted by DangerousThing

Interesting, but too generous, in my opinion.

You are giving a bonus which is almost equal to the skill level per point of skill. This is doubling the value of a skill. Going from skill 13 to skill 14 already effectively lowers any penalty by 1. You would reduce it by one again.

I could see reducing penalties by one for each 8 cp in a skill, though. And also give a similar bonus in a quick contest of skill.

I do like the idea.

I can see the argument for 8 CP, though I think that there is an argument for 4 CP. You could even split the difference, reduce skill penalty by one per 8 CP invested for any roll and reduce opponent's skill by one per 4 CP invested during Contests of Skill (where superior experience should really matter). That would translate to 24 CP/12 CP for Wildcard Skills.

[Donny Brook]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

As the old saying says, "age and treachery will beat youth and luck every time", so superior experience should give better results than just superior talent. I have been developing rules to reflect that in GURPS, and I just wanted to share them and receive comments from the community.
...

1. Characters reduce any skill penalties by one for every 4 CP invested in a skill (including techniques) during any use of the skill. ...

2. Characters reduce their opponent's effective skill by one for every 4 CP invested in a skill (including techniques) when resisting during Contests of Skill. ...[Boldface added]

I'm not sure I accept the premise, but that's not the conversation you're looking for, so let's accept it for discussion.

The two boldface passages are not exactly equivalent, the former covering a more specific range within the second. If you were wanting to simulate only the adage, I would say whatever measure you use would apply only to Contests (in which regard, see * below). But I think your real objective is the more general representation of the second passage.

To start with a digression, note that there are structures in the existing rules that already serve the objective of making experience better if you recall that CP themselves can represent experience, such as progressive skill costs, Techniques, and the Perk limits from Martial Arts.

So, that said, if I wanted to further boost the benefit of experience over raw talent, it seems to me the justification for wanting to do it would have to be based on simulationist thinking. And with that reflection, I would say your rules seem a little too gamist.

Simulationism urges a more specific assessment of what experience does differently than talent. Your idea of looking at skill penalties makes sense, but there is a devil in the details of which penalties interact with experience. That analysis quickly made me see that a straight sliding penalty cancellation like you are proposing ends up being basically free points that make many Perks and Techniques redundant.

A way to ameliorate this, and one that draws from GURPS canon, would be to adapt the damage bonus model from Brawling and Karate, so skill levels of DX+1 and DX+2 would provide boosts in experience-relevant things, but cap there.

So, then, what should that bonus be? As implied above, I think it would be best to not impinge on Perks and Techniques so some kind of broad benefit that experience could explain may be best. And it aligns with a damage bonus which is a culminational boost on the output of using the skill. I'd think in terms of things like saving rolls against critical failures ('seen it all before'), a half-step for the first extra-time-spent bonus to kick in ('the best first step is always ...'), reduced penalties on repeated attempts ('the thing that usually goes wrong is...'), or other things on that general level of skill use and resolution.

*To simulate the maxim of age and treachery, I'd use the Technique creation rules to build one or more appropriate ones by skill and apply an Attribute+ minimum prerequisite.

[AlexanderHowl]

The problem with Techniques as they stand now is that they are often not worth the points. Characters gain more from investing in one level of skill that investing in more than two techniques. With the options that I proposed, they gain additional benefits that are additive with the skill, so there is less incentive to only invest in skills.

Of course, it is possible to apply the rules only to Contests of Skill. If that was the case though, I would have every 4 CP invested in Skills reduce an opponent's effective Skill by one in Contests of Skill while every 4 CP invested in Techniques would increase the character's effective Skill by one in Contests of Skill. That way, we give the two types of experience different but equivalent bonuses. Wildcard Skills would get both bonuses, though only for every 12 CP.

[Aldric]

I could see giving a small bonus to the character that had invested more in a skill in a Contest, but it wouldn't probably be 1 point per 4 CPs spent.
Btw, something like this has been proposed before and the answers always end up looking the same.
Mine is soft and hard caps on attributes and skills, but I've yet to test it accurately.

[RyanW]

The issue I have with ideas like this is that Broadsword DX+4 [16] is not necessarily twice as much experience as Broadsword DX+2 [8]. It's merely what +2 skill costs you, regardless of whether you've fought with a sword in you hand for years, intensely trained for months, or just discovered you were a natural with the sword. 200 hours is worth 1 CP, but 1 CP does not necessarily represent 200 hours.

[DangerousThing]

Something easier to play: make it a flat +1 bonus for the character with the higher number of CP in the skill for any contest.

[AlexanderHowl]

Originally Posted by RyanW

The issue I have with ideas like this is that Broadsword DX+4 [16] is not necessarily twice as much experience as Broadsword DX+2 [8]. It's merely what +2 skill costs you, regardless of whether you've fought with a sword in you hand for years, intensely trained for months, or just discovered you were a natural with the sword. 200 hours is worth 1 CP, but 1 CP does not necessarily represent 200 hours.

Natural talent, even in combat skills, is probably better represented by Talent. For example, Natural Swordsman would give +1/level for Broadsword, Force Sword, Jitte/Sai, Knife, Shortsword, and Two-Handed Sword. It would give a reaction bonus from people who have witnessed your prowess in combat or an alternative benefit of giving a bonus to Intimidation while using the above weapons.