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Old 05-01-2016, 08:16 AM   #21
CoyoteGestalt
 
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Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Mount and Riding

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Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
Not if the teammate is held in their arms. That's just ordinary lifting and carrying, or maybe Lifting skill. If they're flying horizontally, and the teammate is on their back, Mount might be suitable.

Or I suppose you could give Mount to an acrobat whose stunts include being on the bottom of a two- or three-man stack of people. That would be an entertaining use of the skill.
Ooh, I may need to try that! Thank you!
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Old 09-21-2018, 09:00 AM   #22
ericthered
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Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Mount and Riding

As a weird question, does any book have rules for how long it takes to get on a horse, and what techniques and skills can improve that? Quick mounting and dismounting seems to be a staple of westerns.
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Old 09-21-2018, 09:23 AM   #23
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Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Mount and Riding

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Originally Posted by ericthered View Post
As a weird question, does any book have rules for how long it takes to get on a horse, and what techniques and skills can improve that? Quick mounting and dismounting seems to be a staple of westerns.
Basic, p. 396, "Mounting Up." If the horse is saddled and has stirrups, getting on in 1 turn only requires a roll vs the best of Acrobatics, Jumping, or Riding. I'd let you buy an Average Technique to improve that by up to +4. I'm not sure if it would be a different technique for no-stirrups mounting, which is the same roll at -3.
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Old 09-21-2018, 09:27 AM   #24
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Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Mount and Riding

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Originally Posted by johndallman View Post
Basic, p. 396, "Mounting Up." If the horse is saddled and has stirrups, getting on in 1 turn only requires a roll vs the best of Acrobatics, Jumping, or Riding. I'd let you buy an Average Technique to improve that by up to +4. I'm not sure if it would be a different technique for no-stirrups mounting, which is the same roll at -3.

the mounted combat section. Of course. I was looking in skills and in the animals section. Thank you very much!
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Old 09-21-2018, 11:25 AM   #25
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Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Mount and Riding

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Riding isn't like sitting in a car. You need to use your legs fairly continuously to keep from being jolted to a pulp. This is simple enough that you learn it in your first day's familiarisation, but it's why people who have never ridden at all find the first day so bad.
But it takes years to become a good rider. Use IQ-based Riding skill to determine another rider's level of skill!

If you want to treat riding animals as something other than cars/tanks with hooves, then the GM can be downright sadistic with use of riding skill.

Riding animals can be unpredictable and even the best mount can stumble. Those are the situations where a high level of Riding skill becomes critical if you want to keep your seat. (Rodeo sports like bull-riding or bronco-busting could be modeled as Hard techniques based on the appropriate variation of Riding skill.)

If you want to be brutally realistic, Riding skill might be required to realize just how much you can "push" your mount without injuring or killing it, especially if you're in difficult terrain, extreme weather, and/or in a hurry. Realistically, horses and similar creatures can literally run themselves to death.
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Old 09-21-2018, 11:27 AM   #26
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Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Mount and Riding

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Originally Posted by johndallman View Post
Basic, p. 396, "Mounting Up." If the horse is saddled and has stirrups, getting on in 1 turn only requires a roll vs the best of Acrobatics, Jumping, or Riding. I'd let you buy an Average Technique to improve that by up to +4. I'm not sure if it would be a different technique for no-stirrups mounting, which is the same roll at -3.
There's a technique called "Quick Mount" in GURPS Martial Arts which covers this.
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Old 09-21-2018, 04:12 PM   #27
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Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Mount and Riding

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True, it does have a fair number of things you can roll it for

Still seems its primary purpose is to add a surcharge for a wannabe mounted combat character, as every single time want to raise a weapon skill need to raise riding first. Gets very irritating.
This seems fair to me, as being a mounted fighter who is effective when mounted (i.e. not just a warrior who used a horse for faster movement) was always a full-time job historically, and mounted troops always needed a lot of training compared to equally effective infantry.

One thing I'm not convinced is reasonable is that Driving and Piloting do not affect firing from a vehicle the same way.


An alternative if it's too hard for your games might be something like: Weapon skills are limited to DX if Riding is at DX+0 or less, to DX+4 if Riding is at DX+1, and unlimited if Riding is at DX+2.

Another option would be to make it a combat perk, and not having it apply a large penalty to all weapon skills when mounted, though this reduces the value of Riding (and presumably Battlesuit/Vaccsuit) skill quite a bit.
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Old 09-21-2018, 04:15 PM   #28
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Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Mount and Riding

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Originally Posted by johndallman View Post
Riding isn't like sitting in a car. You need to use your legs fairly continuously to keep from being jolted to a pulp. This is simple enough that you learn it in your first day's familiarisation, but it's why people who have never ridden at all find the first day so bad.
Well, it's not just that - if you don't ride for a long period your muscles become unaccustomed to the work, and after an hour or more of riding when you dismount your legs a likely to be very painful for the rest of the day (and possibly the next one as well). It's not just about knowing how to ride, but about staying in 'riding shape', as with any physical activity.
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Old 09-22-2018, 12:15 PM   #29
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Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Mount and Riding

The offensive value of Mount in the quick contest to throw unwelcome riders is interesting, because it means the more a horse is trained to help you ride, the more it also is trained to impede your riding if it wants to. Is there a technique just for helping or just for throwing?

Horses with a quirk of Incompetence: Mount wouldn't be useful in helping unskilled riders, but would be horrible at throwing unwelcome riders, which could be preferable to riders who simply want to overwhelm and bully their horses instead of befriending them.

Fright Check Table 13 or 16 can give new mental quirks, so maybe the abusive "breaking" of a horse through isolation/exposure/starvation/whipping (like in Spirit : Stallion of the Cimarron) can be perceived of mental torture of horses until they acquire that quirk and their Mount defaults to DX-9 instead of DX-5, making it very hard for them to throw off the undesired rider. Direct penalties to DX from injury and penalties to all rolls from failed social contests probably also contribute and can succeed even when the quirk doesn't show up.

Mount-Incompetents who can still buck off undesired riders could maybe do something ST-based instead of DX-based? Stronger horses should be able to buck harder, but it seems like the ST 15 DX 10 Donkey would do better in the Quick Contest for trying to throw off undesired riders than the ST 25 DX 9 Draft Horse would, since Donkeys have default 5 while Draft Horse has default 4.

If you simply did "ST-based Mount" it would be very easy to win the contest and throw riders, at skill 20 for Draft Horse. That could work as a good explanation for why someone shouldn't try to ride an unwilling draft horse, or grapple/Intimideto inflict skill penalties first. It seems wrong for DX not to contribute at all, so what about an option to have Mount based on average of ST and DX? That would be 12.5 for donkeys, 17 for Draft Horse giving a default of 7.5 and 12.
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Old 09-22-2018, 12:57 PM   #30
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Default Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Mount and Riding

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Originally Posted by Plane View Post
The offensive value of Mount in the quick contest to throw unwelcome riders is interesting, because it means the more a horse is trained to help you ride, the more it also is trained to impede your riding if it wants to. Is there a technique just for helping or just for throwing?
I'd describe that apparent paradox as the mount being more and more aware of the rider's balance. I created a technique for throwing a while back. I doubt there could be one for helping, because that's the major use of the skill.
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