Skills, Techniques, and Abilities

AlexanderHowl · 01-05-2019, 01:16 PM

In yet another attempt to make skills and techniques matter more in GURPS, I am thinking about using the following house rule and I was wanting feedback from the community. Please feel free to be critical, I want people to be ruthless, as I do not want to introduce an untested house rule to new players without at least some feedback from experienced GURPS players and GMs. Thank you ahead of time.

So, I call the house rule 'Learned Abilities' and it gives characters one bonus CP per CP invested in skills and techniques that may be used to purchase abilities. In the case of unpowered characters, characters may spend the bonus CP to develop mundane mental advantages and perks (in the case of skills related to IQ, Per, or Will) and mundane physical advantages and perks (in the case of skills related to DX or HT). In the case of powered characters, characters may also spend the bonus CP to develop mental abilities (in the case of skills related to IQ, Per, or Will) and physical abilities (in the case of skills related to DX or HT) related to their powers and/or theme. Characters could not use bonus CP to purchase power talents and unspent bonus points could be saved for later purchases. Characters are only allowed to develop abilities through using the bonus points gained from purchasing skills and techniques.

For example, a character with Magery (Path/Book) 0, Ritual Magic (Voodoo) at IQ+6, and one Path at IQ+6 would gain 56 CP to develop mental abilities related to her Magery and/or Voodoo theme and/or mental mundane advantages and/or perks. Since languages and memory are valued by her patron loa of Legba, as the guardian of the crossroads must understand all travellers in death and life, the character spends her bonus CP to develop the mental ability of Modular Abilities (Cosmic Power; Languages Only, -50%; Reflexive, +40%) 4 [36] and the mundane mental advantages of Language Talent [10] and Photographic Memory [10].

What do you think? Do you think that it a balanced house rule or a broken one? What would you change about it?

ericthered · 01-05-2019, 01:34 PM

The 1 to 1 ratio is a little tricky to work with. If I've got a 100 point character built this way, I should spend every point (or almost every point) as a skill before I spend it on attributes. As a degenerate example, a warrior who spends 80 of his points on buying broadsword DX+8, Acrobatics +2, Judo +4, and Karate +4, then buys DX up to 14 with all of the bonus points.

I'm not so sure that people not buying skills is the problem. People sink lots and lots of points into a single high point skill all the time, and frequently put lots of 1's and 2's into skills. What most characters lack is the middle ground: lots of 4's and a few 8's. So you may want to look into giving that situation a bonus, not skills in general.

AlexanderHowl · 01-05-2019, 01:49 PM

Attributes and secondary characteristics cannot be purchased with the bonus points, only mundane advantages, mundane perks, and, for powered individuals, abilities related to their powers and/or themes. The concern about skills is not that people are not buying enough skills, just that skills are not worth what people are paying for them.

Bengt · 01-05-2019, 02:59 PM

If people are buying skills instead of other things it would seem to me like they do think the skills are worth the points.

Boomerang · 01-05-2019, 03:31 PM

I have downtime in my campaigns where players can train in existing skills or find teachers to learn new skills. It’s basically just free CPs that can only be spent on skills.

My concern with the proposal in the opening post is that it could lead to hyper-specialisation.

SilvercatMoonpaw · 01-05-2019, 03:44 PM

It would certainly explain why badass normals always seem to have more traits than the people who bought powers.

edk926 · 01-05-2019, 03:49 PM

I'd say that skills are readily bought. It's Techniques that need an overhaul. I mean why would you spend 4 points on a technique when you could spend those 4 points increasing the main skill by one, which in effect increases every possible technique by one via an improved default.

Maybe it could work in a bit of a reverse, where you give a X amount of 'Technique Points' per every earned CP they spend improving a skill or ability.

naloth · 01-05-2019, 04:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by edk926

I'd say that skills are readily bought. It's Techniques that need an overhaul. I mean why would you spend 4 points on a technique when you could spend those 4 points increasing the main skill by one, which in effect increases every possible technique by one via an improved default.

Maybe it could work in a bit of a reverse, where you give a X amount of 'Technique Points' per every earned CP they spend improving a skill or ability.

Yes, this has been my experience as well. There are a few techniques (Dual Weapon Attack, for example) that are popular, but the rest get pretty neglected.

Perhaps it might be better to just ditch Techniques in favor of a few varieties of skill perks and better specialization rules?

whswhs · 01-05-2019, 04:08 PM

I must confess that I'm still puzzled as to why you suppose that skills don't matter enough.

In my current campaign, Tapestry, the PC builds started out with 200 character points. The original five PCs started with 58, 71, 85, 88, and 48 character points in skills, an average of 35%. And the one with 48 points in skills was built with a racial template costing 60 points, which lowered her budget.

What percentage of character points do you think a player ought to put into skills?

AlexanderHowl · 01-05-2019, 05:46 PM

In the majority of higher value games, it is more cost effective to purchase attributes than skills past a certain threshold, especially when you factor the other bonuses that come from increasing attributes. With DX, a character only needs to invest 16 CP in a minimum of four skills with 4 CP each to make it more worthwhile to increase DX than to increase individual skills. With IQ, a character only needs to invest 12 CP in a minimum of three IQ skills with 4 CP each to make it more worthwhile to increase IQ than to increase individual skills. With HT, Per, or Will, a character only needs to invest 4 CP in one skill with 4 CP to make it more worthwhile to increase the underlying trait than to increase individual skills.

The most that characters should invest is between 40 CP for a minimum of ten skills at 4 CP each (if they care about the secondary characteristics) and 60 CP for a minimum of fifteen skills at 4 CP each (if they do not). If they invest more than that, they should really look at whether it would make more sense to increase their attributes and/or secondary characteristics rather than their skills. If they have powers, they should look at whether they would get more benefit from abilities than skills at that point as well.

01-05-2019, 01:16 PM	#1
AlexanderHowl Join Date: Feb 2016	Skills, Techniques, and Abilities In yet another attempt to make skills and techniques matter more in GURPS, I am thinking about using the following house rule and I was wanting feedback from the community. Please feel free to be critical, I want people to be ruthless, as I do not want to introduce an untested house rule to new players without at least some feedback from experienced GURPS players and GMs. Thank you ahead of time. So, I call the house rule 'Learned Abilities' and it gives characters one bonus CP per CP invested in skills and techniques that may be used to purchase abilities. In the case of unpowered characters, characters may spend the bonus CP to develop mundane mental advantages and perks (in the case of skills related to IQ, Per, or Will) and mundane physical advantages and perks (in the case of skills related to DX or HT). In the case of powered characters, characters may also spend the bonus CP to develop mental abilities (in the case of skills related to IQ, Per, or Will) and physical abilities (in the case of skills related to DX or HT) related to their powers and/or theme. Characters could not use bonus CP to purchase power talents and unspent bonus points could be saved for later purchases. Characters are only allowed to develop abilities through using the bonus points gained from purchasing skills and techniques. For example, a character with Magery (Path/Book) 0, Ritual Magic (Voodoo) at IQ+6, and one Path at IQ+6 would gain 56 CP to develop mental abilities related to her Magery and/or Voodoo theme and/or mental mundane advantages and/or perks. Since languages and memory are valued by her patron loa of Legba, as the guardian of the crossroads must understand all travellers in death and life, the character spends her bonus CP to develop the mental ability of Modular Abilities (Cosmic Power; Languages Only, -50%; Reflexive, +40%) 4 [36] and the mundane mental advantages of Language Talent [10] and Photographic Memory [10]. What do you think? Do you think that it a balanced house rule or a broken one? What would you change about it?

01-05-2019, 01:34 PM	#2
ericthered Hero of Democracy Join Date: Mar 2012 Location: far from the ocean	Re: Skills, Techniques, and Abilities The 1 to 1 ratio is a little tricky to work with. If I've got a 100 point character built this way, I should spend every point (or almost every point) as a skill before I spend it on attributes. As a degenerate example, a warrior who spends 80 of his points on buying broadsword DX+8, Acrobatics +2, Judo +4, and Karate +4, then buys DX up to 14 with all of the bonus points. I'm not so sure that people not buying skills is the problem. People sink lots and lots of points into a single high point skill all the time, and frequently put lots of 1's and 2's into skills. What most characters lack is the middle ground: lots of 4's and a few 8's. So you may want to look into giving that situation a bonus, not skills in general. __________________ Be helpful, not pedantic Worlds Beyond Earth -- my blog Check out the PbP forum! If you don't see a game you'd like, ask me about making one!

01-05-2019, 01:49 PM	#3
AlexanderHowl Join Date: Feb 2016	Re: Skills, Techniques, and Abilities Attributes and secondary characteristics cannot be purchased with the bonus points, only mundane advantages, mundane perks, and, for powered individuals, abilities related to their powers and/or themes. The concern about skills is not that people are not buying enough skills, just that skills are not worth what people are paying for them.

01-05-2019, 02:59 PM	#4
Bengt Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: Ronneby, Sweden	Re: Skills, Techniques, and Abilities If people are buying skills instead of other things it would seem to me like they do think the skills are worth the points.

01-05-2019, 03:31 PM	#5
Boomerang Join Date: Feb 2016 Location: Melbourne, Australia (also known as zone Brisbane)	Re: Skills, Techniques, and Abilities I have downtime in my campaigns where players can train in existing skills or find teachers to learn new skills. It’s basically just free CPs that can only be spent on skills. My concern with the proposal in the opening post is that it could lead to hyper-specialisation. __________________ The stick you just can't throw away.

01-05-2019, 03:44 PM	#6
SilvercatMoonpaw Join Date: Jun 2017	Re: Skills, Techniques, and Abilities It would certainly explain why badass normals always seem to have more traits than the people who bought powers.

01-05-2019, 03:49 PM	#7
edk926 Join Date: Jan 2017	Re: Skills, Techniques, and Abilities I'd say that skills are readily bought. It's Techniques that need an overhaul. I mean why would you spend 4 points on a technique when you could spend those 4 points increasing the main skill by one, which in effect increases every possible technique by one via an improved default. Maybe it could work in a bit of a reverse, where you give a X amount of 'Technique Points' per every earned CP they spend improving a skill or ability.

01-05-2019, 04:08 PM	#9
whswhs Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Lawrence, KS	Re: Skills, Techniques, and Abilities I must confess that I'm still puzzled as to why you suppose that skills don't matter enough. In my current campaign, Tapestry, the PC builds started out with 200 character points. The original five PCs started with 58, 71, 85, 88, and 48 character points in skills, an average of 35%. And the one with 48 points in skills was built with a racial template costing 60 points, which lowered her budget. What percentage of character points do you think a player ought to put into skills? __________________ Bill Stoddard I don't think we're in Oz any more.

01-05-2019, 05:46 PM	#10
AlexanderHowl Join Date: Feb 2016	Re: Skills, Techniques, and Abilities In the majority of higher value games, it is more cost effective to purchase attributes than skills past a certain threshold, especially when you factor the other bonuses that come from increasing attributes. With DX, a character only needs to invest 16 CP in a minimum of four skills with 4 CP each to make it more worthwhile to increase DX than to increase individual skills. With IQ, a character only needs to invest 12 CP in a minimum of three IQ skills with 4 CP each to make it more worthwhile to increase IQ than to increase individual skills. With HT, Per, or Will, a character only needs to invest 4 CP in one skill with 4 CP to make it more worthwhile to increase the underlying trait than to increase individual skills. The most that characters should invest is between 40 CP for a minimum of ten skills at 4 CP each (if they care about the secondary characteristics) and 60 CP for a minimum of fifteen skills at 4 CP each (if they do not). If they invest more than that, they should really look at whether it would make more sense to increase their attributes and/or secondary characteristics rather than their skills. If they have powers, they should look at whether they would get more benefit from abilities than skills at that point as well.