Skills and Techniques are too expensive

[AlexanderHowl]

One of the perennial problems with GURPS is that Skills and Techniques are too expensive compared to Attributes and Advantages. If a player wants to be a really good fighter, it makes more sense to invest CP in DX than it does to invest CP in more than four DX skills beyond DX+1. If a players wants to make a really good scientist, it makes more sense to invest CP in IQ (especially given the associated increase in Per and Will) than it does to invest in more than two IQ skills beyond IQ+1.

Now, people have suggested fixes, but they tend to be fixes that make Attributes and Advantages more expensive or Skills and Techniques cheaper rather than fixes that make Skills and Techniques more worthwhile. I have even offered a passable solution where every CP in Skills gives one point of Techniques, but that tends to produce situations where you end up with some odd Techniques for non-compete skills. What I want is a situation where people purchase Skills and Techniques because they are worthwhile, not because they are cost effective.

What are your suggestions? I am thinking that one possible solution would be to reduce any penalties associated with a Skill by one for every 4 CP spent on the Skill and its associated Techniques. So a character who spent 40 CP on a Skill and its Techniques would reduce their penalties by ten. What do you think? How would you solve this issue?

[JazzJedi]

Double the cost for attributes.

[Stormcrow]

I don't see the problem. If you want to be better at lots of DX-based skills all at once, raise your DX.

Why not? The basic attributes are skills too! You roll against them like skills. They can be raised. They represent an amalgam of a bunch of different abilities of a character. They are not just an inherent feature of your biology.

Dexterity is "a combination of agility, coordination, and fine motor ability." If you're not good at these things, then you're going to have to spend a lot of extra time learning skills that require it. If you can train yourself to have better agility, coordination, and/or fine motor ability, then you can spend less time training skills that require Dexterity.

It makes complete sense to me that someone with poor basic abilities would learn less efficiently than someone will excellent basic abilities.

If you want people to take skills and techniques because they are worthwhile instead of being cost-effective, you're basically saying, "I don't want to use the character-point system." Just let them propose characters to you, which you approve or not as you see fit.

[vicky_molokh]

In a nutshell:
The utility of a number of skills does not scale linearly with the number of skills, especially for closely related skills. Having Brawling [8] and Karate [8] is not twice as good as having one at [8]. And at some point, the linear cost hits the breakpoint where an attribute is cheaper.

A smooth curve of cost as one increases breadth would solve the issue.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Power-Ups: Wildcard Skills proposed a system where for every 12 points you spent in the wildcard you got a metagame point (similar to the system proposed on p B347) to spend on influencing rolls using that wildcard.

I remember proposing something similar for making skills worth buying. You only get the metagame points for spending character points in a skill (not because you have a default from attributes or talents) it means that if you want extra insurance you buy skills. (I think I also proposed that to make the metagame points competitive they shouldn't be limited to just one skill. I can't remember how broad I proposed they should be: it's possible I said that you could spend them on any skill roll.)


Other than that maybe cap attributes.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Now, people have suggested fixes, but they tend to be fixes that make Attributes and Advantages more expensive or Skills and Techniques cheaper rather than fixes that make Skills and Techniques more worthwhile... What I want is a situation where people purchase Skills and Techniques because they are worthwhile, not because they are cost effective.

So if I understand your request correctly, you want ways to increase the value of skills and techniques relative to attributes and talents without increasing or decreasing the point value of skills, techniques, talents, or attributes?


This means you have to make skills do more. That's really the only way to handle it.



The classic solution is to float skills to other attributes more, but that doesn't work for talents.


I actually don't see DX bought up super high for primary combatants the way I see it for other stats. This is because combat can be handled by just a few skills. So one way to encourage high skills is to let them handle tangential situations more/better.



Wildcard skills offer "wildcard points" in some supplements (like Monster Hunters). You could offer a similar deal for normal skills.

[Brandy]

Originally Posted by ericthered

This means you have to make skills do more. That's really the only way to handle it.

The classic solution is to float skills to other attributes more, but that doesn't work for talents.

I actually don't see DX bought up super high for primary combatants the way I see it for other stats. This is because combat can be handled by just a few skills. So one way to encourage high skills is to let them handle tangential situations more/better.

Agree with both of these. I've run all my 4e games this way.

I know that I'm in the minority, but I'd much rather see characters who have a small number of broadly applicable skills than a large number of narrowly defined skills. I encourage the use of Professional and Expert skills to serve as mini-Wild-Cards, and also make sure that there are a number of 5 point talents available that are appropriate to the setting.

[whswhs]

I've run fifteen GURPS campaigns so far, of which campaign 14 is still going on. I haven't actually found this to be a problem; it rather seems to me that what you're calling for is a "solution" to a theoretical problem that doesn't hinder play.

In what way has the current cost structure hindered an actual campaign in terms of either character creation or actual play?

[Plane]

The inverse of this is to perceive attributes as too cheap. You can't really make techniques cheaper than 1 per point unless you want to deal with decimals, but if you wanted to do something like "multiply all standard point costs by 10" (200 per IQ/DX, 100 per HT/ST) as well as other advantages/disadvantages, everything would remain balanced in relation to each other but then you could opt to multiply skill costs by a smaller amount, like say 5, so that it is 20/skill or 5/technique, basically halving their costs.

That or just keep usual prices and lower costs of skills/techs to where you think appropriate and deal with a single decimal place. I think +1 to a technique should be worth at least 0.1, no need to go to two places.

You could even add an aura of rules-derivedness to depricing by treating skills/techs as advantages and allowing limitations to be placed on them.

I think I understand why game designers made them so expensive though, especially with combat skills or combat techniques, because they're sort of an "I win" if you pump it high on the cheap.

Limitation-based discounts would be less of an I-win due to drawbacks. If you had +5 to karate (20 points assuming you have the basic +3 which is cheaper to acquire) with requires IQ roll -10% it would only cost you 18.

[Ashtagon]

Another approach is to introduce campaign-based restrictions on training attributes, just as many campaigns do with training skills. If you want to improve your Swimming skill, you find an instructor; same for if you want to improve your HT.