Skills for a hypothetical Lab Work talent

[Anders]

Or you could make a Higher Purpose "work in labs".

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Captain Joy

With the exception of Job Training talents, of course: "You’ve received the intensive training necessary to do a demanding job."—Power Ups 3: Talents, pp. 25–26.

I partly agree with that. But that pseudo-talent comes with loads of limitations making it a very setting-specific niche use.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Anders

Or you could make a Higher Purpose "work in labs".

RPM really genericized that advantage, didn't it. I'm not complaining, but my brain still holds onto the now outdated meaning.

But that would be perfect for C.S.I. games, if only to keep the super lab techs from needing super high IQs.

[Xplo]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

I don't think this is necessarily true, often getting a bonus to defaults of a few of the skills and putting points in the rest is enough. DF Scouts don't have Naturalist on their template, for example, but still usually have a pretty good default thanks to Outdoorsman.

Relying on Talents to boost defaults is the worst possible use of Talents as you would get far more benefit putting the points you're spending on Talent into the skills directly. 1 CP in Naturalist gets you what, +5 to your default?

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Xplo

Relying on Talents to boost defaults is the worst possible use of Talents as you would get far more benefit putting the points you're spending on Talent into the skills directly. 1 CP in Naturalist gets you what, +5 to your default?

Yes, but you can have points in like 9/10 of the skills and still get a benefit from the talent.

[Flyndaran]

I love talents for when simply boosting a character's IQ or single skill may be more points efficient but break my suspension of disbelief.
Putting more than 12 points in a skill smacks of obsessive study that doesn't fit most concepts, for example.

Of course, talents costing 10, and certainly those costing 15 points, are horribly inefficient, but I'm willing to suffer a little for concept. But on the other hand, I like massaging the rules to garner some of that back.

[fifiste]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Research
Writing (reports, presentations, papers)
Poisons
First Aid (for treatment after accidents)

Well ... that's technically one way to get ahead in academia ..

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Xplo

Anyone who doesn't buy all or nearly all of the skills in a talent is probably throwing away CP.

If you have [4] or more points invested in a single skill in the Talent, then a [5] Talent is a better deal than boosting that skill further if you have even so much as [1] invested in a single additional skill (and if you don't, the extra [1] you're paying is arguably worth it for the bonus to defaults, decreased study time, and Reaction Bonus/alternate benefit). For a [10] Talent, you need to have [4] or more points in each of 2 skills and [1] or more in each of 2 others. For a [15], it's three and three. That is, so long as you have around 1/6 of the skills involved as primary skills and 1/6 as secondary, the Talent is worth it. That hardly strikes me as "all or nearly all."

[Flyndaran]

Raising IQ only costs 10 points making talents that only cover mental skills inefficient for anything more than 9 points.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Raising IQ only costs 10 points making talents that only cover mental skills inefficient for anything more than 9 points.

Per can also be of great use at the lab, for avoiding accidents and making novel observations you didn't actually design an experiment to look at, and DX (particularly Manual DX) can be useful for certain applications, but in general IQ! alone can get what you're looking for, yes. If using the Talent rules from Basic Set, you'll want to limit yourself to 6 skills; if using the expanded rules from Power Ups 3, you'll want to limit yourself to 9 skills. The Reaction Bonus/Alternative Benefit and reduced learning time may make it still be viable at [10]/level, but that may be pushing it.