10-17-2011, 07:56 AM | #31 | |
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: Cambridge, MA
|
Re: [DF] Maximum Skill Levels?
Quote:
|
|
10-17-2011, 10:49 AM | #32 |
Join Date: Feb 2007
|
Re: [DF] Maximum Skill Levels?
I find this a tricky issue and would happily buy a DF book that gives advice about things like this.
In most games, realism imposes a vague cap on wild levels of skill and the variety of things PCs get up to makes hyper-specialization less attractive, but DF characters are wildly unrealistic and combat is the heart of the genre. My gut response, if I was going to try to produce a formal policy, would be to tie maximum stat levels and skill levels to point total. That's a very old-school, D&D sort of approach, which could be a good thing or a bad thing in the context of GURPS DF.
__________________
GURPS Settings Beneath Castle Everglory: A Dungeon, Lineage (Modern Fantasy) Paradise City (Cyberpunk), The World of Kung Fu (Modern Martial Arts Setting) |
10-17-2011, 10:51 AM | #33 | ||
GURPS Line Editor
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
|
Re: [DF] Maximum Skill Levels?
Agreed! This is DF! The design assumes that if a 250-point PC can have, say, 24 points in a DX/A weapon skill for skill DX+6, a 500-point PC ought to have at least 48 points in that skill for DX+12. Maybe more, actually, since most players find it easier to raise skill in small steps than to save up points for big chunks like attributes.
Quote:
Quote:
In practice, the skill 35/DX+20 master is chiefly a solution to being swamped by hordes of third-rate, weapon-using fighters. It lets the hero slay several such foes a turn with deadly Deceptive Attacks to vital areas. However, it's a non-solution to problems with slimes, intangible life-draining specters, invisible eyeballs that shoot death rays, psionic assassins asleep a continent away, traps, pits, etc.
__________________
Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch <kromm@sjgames.com> GURPS Line Editor, Steve Jackson Games My DreamWidth [Just GURPS News] |
||
10-18-2011, 07:45 AM | #34 |
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Salodurum, Confoederatio Helvetica
|
Re: [DF] Maximum Skill Levels?
Thank you all for your contributions. I will not impose a skill limit after studying your posts and will try to deal with it.
I guess I was afraid to deal with very high level skills. I'm sure I will be able to challenge my players with the good advice I got from your replies. Thanks a lot! |
10-18-2011, 08:37 AM | #35 | |
Fightin' Round the World
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: New Jersey
|
Re: [DF] Maximum Skill Levels?
Quote:
But I had to really give it a couple of tries to explain to a new DF player (but long-time GURPS player) that "this is how my character of template X stacks up against characters of template Y in a fight" was useless. You don't take your barbarian and knight against an assassin and a swashbuckler, you take all four of them up against invisible vampire lich-trolls and their phase zombie orc cannon fodder on the way to fighting their flying kraken god's tentacles off as they emerge from the Gate to Beyond. Which is a valid and valuable niche in the party. My old non-DF GURPS game had a fencer who was hard to swamp and could eye shot anyone under skill 16 with total ease and parry dozens of attacks (net -1 per additional parry, two rapiers). Her role was to kill off massed weaker opponents. That's very useful in a DF game, because it lets the knight and barbarian types aim for smashing through high DR opponents and wizards and clerics deal with magic-only vulnerable foes.
__________________
Peter V. Dell'Orto aka Toadkiller_Dog or TKD My Author Page My S&C Blog My Dungeon Fantasy Game Blog "You fall onto five death checks." - Andy Dokachev |
|
10-18-2011, 10:13 AM | #36 | |
GURPS Line Editor
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
|
Re: [DF] Maximum Skill Levels?
Quote:
__________________
Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch <kromm@sjgames.com> GURPS Line Editor, Steve Jackson Games My DreamWidth [Just GURPS News] |
|
10-18-2011, 10:19 AM | #37 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: The ASS of the world, mainly Valencia, Spain (Europe)
|
Re: [DF] Maximum Skill Levels?
Quote:
|
|
10-18-2011, 10:22 AM | #38 | |
GURPS Line Editor
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
|
Re: [DF] Maximum Skill Levels?
Quote:
Very roughly, how often you can cast a spell corresponds to how often you can attack successfully. The former depends mainly on high spell skill (for which there is no limit in any DF book), which reduces energy costs (allowing more castings) and casting times (allowing more-frequent castings). The latter depends on high weapon skill, which makes Rapid Strike workable and allows potent Deceptive Attacks that lower the number of attempts needed per foe. I really do think that open-ended melee weapon skill is completely justifiable at higher levels of play. The "natural level" in my former campaign was skill 25-30, past which things like Extra Attack started to look attractive.
__________________
Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch <kromm@sjgames.com> GURPS Line Editor, Steve Jackson Games My DreamWidth [Just GURPS News] |
|
10-18-2011, 10:41 AM | #39 |
GURPS Line Editor
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
|
Re: [DF] Maximum Skill Levels?
In particular, consider that a wizard by the book(s) can have:
* In DF, the +30% limit does not exist for FP! Check out the templates for casters and martial artists.Note that this is before racial modifiers! In principle, a celestial or a high elf could have another level of IQ, and all elves can add an extra three levels of Magery. Going just with human wizards, though, we're talking about 44 energy points (plus whatever is in a power item) and effective IQ 31 for spells, giving spells at level 28-29, which means -3 to energy cost and 1/4 casting time . . . or -4 and 1/8 for a small additional investment. Thus, I don't especially think that skill 30-ish for warriors is silly. If anything, I think it's "keeping up with the Joneses."
__________________
Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch <kromm@sjgames.com> GURPS Line Editor, Steve Jackson Games My DreamWidth [Just GURPS News] |
10-18-2011, 12:45 PM | #40 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: The ASS of the world, mainly Valencia, Spain (Europe)
|
Re: [DF] Maximum Skill Levels?
Quote:
Also, warriors can get skill 30 rather easily. They just need to hunt for the bonuses a little harder. Racial talents help a lot, as do balanced weapons, racial attribute bonuses, etc etc... Hell, there's a race change potion in my universe, made by gnomish alchemists, that is only hideously expensive, and just has some quirks (race determined randomly, you gain disadvantages equal to the difference in cost between your current and new race, often manifesting as weird side effects like sex changes, ending with technicolor or rainbow hair even if you don't end up as an elf, etc etc. Unnatural features 5 is almost always part of the pack). Oh, and you keep your racial talents if you bought them over the racial base. |
|
Tags |
challenge, dungeon fantasy, kromm explanation, skill levels |
|
|