Speeding up melee combat? No surprise...

[OldSam]

IMHO the single most important one is effectively using deceptive attack!
(In case you missed doing this "more intensively" like taking a -6 penalty for applying -3 to the opponent's defense etc.)

---

Another a bit more tricky approach with experienced players I use to do, is "timing" the rolls of different players/GM... If I am the GM and my players start an attack against an NPC it works like that:

PC:
"I attack the orc, striking with my broadsword to his right arm..."
*Player starts to look up the values on his sheet, the penalties and starts to roll*
--- In the meantime(!) GM "just" rolls the active defense already, because chances are good that it is needed immediately, if not skip the roll! ---
"Success by 2!"
GM/Orc:
*immediately without doing anything, leads over to narratation* (Background: He already knows the successful dodge he rolled a few seconds earlier! :))
"...you nearly had him, but he just evaded your blade by an inch! The Orc roars loudly while raising his saber and strikes strongly towards your chest..."
*rolls attack*
--> "He would hit you! How do you defend?"

That way you can definitely save time! :)
...but be sure to explain the concept to your players before, so that they understand and do not feel like you are not taking their attacks seriously or something like that.

[AlexanderHowl]

AOA are best when attacking an unsuspecting target. In that case, you might as well go for the Telegraph and gain a +4 to hit so you can hit something good and a +2 damage so you can make it hurt.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

AOA are best when attacking an unsuspecting target.

… who doesn't have any friends close to hand. Then it's just fine.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by rerednaw

and humans are capped with 14 max stats

I'm a normalization cultist, but I don't go that far (for me it's 15, with one 16 allowed with an Unusual Background).

But overall it sounds to me like the adventurers are getting themselves into situations that are beyond them. Or you have a bad GM, if you were railroaded into it, or this was the punishment for leaving the rails.

[AlexanderHowl]

I never really understood stat normalization myself. If you want average characters, give players a 100 CP, cap them at 50% CP negative traits, and tell them that they can only spend 50% of their CP on attributes and secondary characteristics. At worst, you get someone with ST or HT 15 and not much else.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

I never really understood stat normalization myself. If you want average characters, give players a 100 CP, cap them at 50% CP negative traits, and tell them that they can only spend 50% of their CP on attributes and secondary characteristics. At worst, you get someone with ST or HT 15 and not much else.

The intent is not "average characters". Your suggestion results in a small number of skills and advantages as well, as there are not many points to go around.

The concept is not "I want average characters", it is "I disagree that IQ 12 or 13 should within the range of average". Meaning that an IQ 14 character fits in better in games with 100 points of skills plus 20-40 points of advantages than in that 100-point-total game.

[AlexanderHowl]

IQ 11+ are not average though, that is IQ 10. If we assume that each point of GURPS IQ is equal to a standard deviation of real world intelligence, someone with IQ 11 is likely the smartest person in the average nuclear family while IQ 12 will likely be the smartest person in the average extended family. IQ 13 is likely the smartest person in a small town while an IQ 14 would represent the smartest person in a large town. IQ 15 would represent the smartest person in a small city while IQ 16 would represent the smartest person in a large city. IQ 17 would represent the smartest person in a small nation while IQ 18 would represent the smartest person in a large nation. And so on.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

If we assume that each point of GURPS IQ is equal to a standard deviation of real world intelligence

Wait, stop. Why would you ever do that? Is there any reason to believe that at all?

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Wait, stop. Why would you ever do that? Is there any reason to believe that at all?

Not from the rules. Some people really want IQ to be linked to real world statistics and measurements somehow. I'm never clear what "real world intelligence" is supposed to be, anyways.

[hal]

Originally Posted by Bruno

Not from the rules. Some people really want IQ to be linked to real world statistics and measurements somehow. I'm never clear what "real world intelligence" is supposed to be, anyways.

In linking Stat normalization with the original poster's intent for this thread...

One of the issues with GURPS that oddly mirrors that of Dungeons and Dragons is this...

How does a GM challenge a 10th level fighter or a party of 10th level characters? If you were to reword this for GURPS, it would be...

"How does a GM challenge a high stat character"?

The answer to both questions is essentially this: "You escalate the abilities of the major NPCs or monsters".

If there was a solution - the answer would be that by making the abilities of average fighters be average, and the above average characters be above average, then things would work out reasonably well right? The problem is this...

How many GMs out there, have watched their players role play a mage using GURPS MAGIC - only to see a proliferation of Magery 3 characters? How many parties have had more than 1 magery 3 characters? Magery 3 was supposed to be statistically rare within any given population (at least in the early days of GURPS 3e).

And here is the final piece of the puzzle as far as Stat normalizers are concerned...

GURPS got into a phase where advantages started to be priced higher and higher. The only way to bring those into game play was to increase point budgets - which in turn, brought into sharper focus, the issue with character creation, and ultimately, a side issue that the original poster of this thread notes...

When 30 points is 20% of your point budget, buying too many of those 30 point things would take up your budget way too quickly and force the player to rethink their design strategy for the character. But when you have 20% of 400 points to spend - now you can buy quite a few things for 30 points and not feel the budget pinch so badly. In a campaign where you have a Psionic character with a Super strong character along with a mage character etc - high point budgets can create some major problems - especially if one wants to be a "Normal" in such a campaign.

So - the one way to avoid having issues with time spent in a combat simulation between two characters with skill 18 in all the critical combat skills - is to remember that a LOT of the characters SHOULD be around at best, skill 14 or so, and the legendary ones shouldn't be at skill 22!

So - that's my take on Stat normalization. Yes, GURPS was originally billed on "realism" and later became GURPS 4e after many many years. It has gotten to be somewhat less realistic than its origins suggest, and now people here on the net talk routinely of 400 point character builds. In theory, a 400 point 4e character is roughly the same as a 267 point 3e character (ratio of cost for the basic starting character). I wonder however, what would happen if someone built a character in GURPS 4e, and then tried to build its 3e analog. Would the 4e version be close to, inferior to, or superior to its 3e version?

Hmmm

There's an idea for a new thread!