The Problem With Magic

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

I don't understand, what do you mean by "GM budget"? And why wouldn't they be different with a point-buy system? When building traits, I don't often give in-game costs since the point is buying the trait instead of having to spend FP.

<waves hand airily> Details. I didn't "decide" have it cost fatigue. That decision was made for me by it being a spell. The points is you decide what you want the effect to be in advance and then you "design" it. It just takes more work when you also have to do arithmetic.

What is the system you used to determine what effects of the spell you wanted? For instance, my idea for the spell was something along the lines of "Decide a specific poison, then this spell to give it to them". I don't care what the cost or time is when conceptualizing the spell, I just want a cost and time that is correct.

I would have decided on a specific poison except that GURPS doesn't have a list of the effects of specific poisons so I went with with a more generic somatotoxin rather a neurotoxin. Which is more appropriate anyway because I'm poisoning blood, not the victim's brain.

I've almost never had this problem with point-buy, while I've almost always had this problem with vague systems. With point buy, there is plenty of baseline to base spells around, it also happens to be the same baseline used to make any character.

I always have that problem with point buy except now I also have to do useless arithmetic. (Useless as a GM since I'm not actually buying this crap.)

That makes sense conceptually. Does Drunkeness actually make them drunk?

It actually affects brain chemicals to give you the sensation.

[VIVIT]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

I've yet to GM or play in a campaign with default Magic where the wizard wasn't basically better in almost everyway to any other character... in almost any system. The progression really seems to be (from worst to best) Warrior -> Rogue -> Wizard -> Face. Maybe I'm doing things wrong, but it really seems that Rogue and beyond can just avoid combat and get to where they want with their respective skills (just as Wizard does for Rogue and Face often gets better results than Wizards if with less spectacular effects). The only time this seems to be false is when both GM and Player force the moment to be combat without a way to avoid it (which has always felt artificial).

This is class-based thinking. Skills to avoid combat are something that any adventurer who values his hide would have, even if they do specialize in the fighting. One of the biggest complaints people had when the thief class was introduced to OD&D was how the thief's d% sneaky and lockpicking skills implied that fighters, MU's, and clerics couldn't sneak around or pick locks. Up until that point, things like that were handled with a d6 roll, with a base chance of success of one-in-six. One great thing about GURPS being classless is that there is no such implication anywhere. Buy whatever skills you want! You might not have the niche protection that classes give you, but you also don't have the tiered imbalance they often bring with them.

You're also making a lot of assumptions about the nature of the adventure. A face in particular is powerless in many situations, because although combat may be avoidable in that situation, a face might not be able to help avoid that combat. What can a face do against a dire wolf? A face can only help avoid certain types of combat encounters, and is very vulnerable in any combat encounter that does eventually happen. And if no combat encounters ever happen at all, maybe combat is a little too easy to avoid. Combat doesn't ever have to be unavoidable for it to sometimes happen, it just needs to be difficult enough to avoid that sometimes it happens! Again, what's so artificial about dire wolves?

[Flyndaran]

This sounds dangerously close to a failure of thinking in a "first world problem" kind of way. Combat is trivial to avoid? No, even mundane civilized reality is chock full of times and places where violent confrontation is unavoidable.

I'm non-confrontational and bland looking... but this year I was attacked by a dog without provocation or warning. No Face skills could have prevented that.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by maximara

"Wildcard skills include and replace all specific skills within their area." (sic) Basic Set 175.

Right, that's what I thought you were doing. I was checking because not everyone builds a Wildcard the same way.

So I reiterate, you want me to spend 4 more points than I did and add more utility than I wanted just to save space on the sheet? Because that's what is happening.



Now, don't get me wrong, at some point I might trade up for a few Widlcards* (particularly Connoisseur, possibly Megadungeon or Hidden Lore), but as I'm also looking a future Jack Of All Trades build... I might not. This might end up being a "I roll at default and succeed anyway" character.



* Despite my dislike of them, they are sometimes a better option.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

It actually affects brain chemicals to give you the sensation.

It's magic. So I always figure it isn't affecting 'brain chemicals' so much as "mimicking the effects of affecting brain chemicals". Since the moment the spell ends so does the drunkenness (no hangover).

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I'm non-confrontational and bland looking... but this year I was attacked by a dog without provocation or warning. No Face skills could have prevented that.

Minor quibble.

I consider Animal Empathy and Animal Handling to be 'Face' skills (of a variety) so....

But as this might have been ambush, you might not have had time to assess and apply your default Animal Handling (Canine) to the situation and instead fell back on your trait of "Flyndaran is easy to maul". A lot of people do this. ;)

[AlexanderHowl]

Strange, I have combat training (classical, military, and self-defense) and it has been fifteen years since I last got into a fight. Even when I was in the military, I did not fire a weapon except during training (one of the benefits of being in the Navy), and we had more to fear from careless peers than we did from any enemy. While drone combat blurs the boundaries of combat, I think that using personal weapons in combat will become rarer and rarer, as drones replace soldiers (there are aerial drones in the works that will be capable of replacing four teams of snipers each, as they will be able to engage targets from a height of 2,000 meters above the ground).

Of course, there are areas in the world where combat is a daily occurrence, but I imagine that the majority of the people in the forum do not live there. The majority of the world is relatively peaceful, with interpersonal violence being uncommon in daily life, with violent events during on a monthly or annual basis. There are situations where violence is a daily occurrence, even in the developed world, but the majority of those conflicts tend to be personal tragedies rather than epidemics of violence.

[VIVIT]

bbbut the GM deciding what happens to characters is a violation of muh player agency!

[Flyndaran]

Games don't cover the hours it takes me to walk to the grocery store, buy some sodas, and walk back, because that would be very boring. (It's 8 miles total.)
Games would cover the few interesting active events in my life like the dog attack.

And GM's are supposed to tailor the game to give everybody and their abilities screen time. For the most part, problems should be either solveable or at least avoidable with what the PCs have available.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

Sure and that distinction has been made since the initial claim I responded to.

At that moment the OP wasn't making that distinction (and I'm not sure he even meant it then) and I don't make that distinction when making Characters (unless I'm using a template, which I abhor doing and did not do for the above posted Sage).

Sure I'll have 'primary' skills and 'secondary' and 'background' skills... but my definition for 'background' does not match up with the writers of these templates. (At least as far as I can tell)

I'm not sure what you're trying to address here. I was merely pointing out published templates recommended for player characters (in a simplified context even where chunks of the skill list are excluded) had substantially more skills than the proposed number that you were objecting to.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

I'm not sure what you're trying to address here. I was merely pointing out published templates recommended for player characters (in a simplified context even where chunks of the skill list are excluded) had substantially more skills than the proposed number that you were objecting to.

The people saying "I only have 4-10 skills max" weren't saying "4-10 primary and then some unaccounted for secondary and backgrounds". They were saying (and have since expounded upon) "4-10 skills on a Character max".

Your response to me sounded like you were defending them with a "they probably have 4-10 primaries and then a bunch of secondary skills, like most templates".

I get now that that wasn't the argument you were making.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

Right, that's what I thought you were doing. I was checking because not everyone builds a Wildcard the same way.

So I reiterate, you want me to spend 4 more points than I did and add more utility than I wanted just to save space on the sheet? Because that's what is happening.

You don't want more more utility for just a little extra? You have more restraint then most players I know.

I should mention Power Ups 7 presents the concept of Ultimate Template Wildcards which "enables a character built using the associated template to perform every skilled task definitive of whatever the template represents."

One of the these is Sage!

Sure if you aren't careful as GM this can become problematic real fast but it is an option.