[DF] Maximum Skill Levels?

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by scc

Kromm, that's the point where all the PC's should look into becoming enchanters, so they can MAKE better enchanted weapons.

I speak with confidence when I say that none of my players would find that enjoyable. Enchanting, inventing, market speculation, netrunning, vehicle construction, and other long tasks that don't accommodate much colorful PC-PC or PC-NPC interaction aren't fun for my players. I just make sure that the PCs have suitable employers, Patrons, etc. to provide these kinds of support in the background, and let the players concentrate on chasing, demolishing, fighting, observing, sneaking, stealing, etc. The only large-scale task in which they ever took a real interest was leading armies in mass combat.

To be honest, this supports my leanings as a gamer anyway. GURPS is generic and therefore needs rules for such things, so as its developer I make sure that there are suitable supplements, but my personal view is that these things are better left out in the realms of hand-waving NPC stuff.

[Peter V. Dell'Orto]

Originally Posted by Kuroshima

Caps are an interesting tool for the GM, because IME, they tend to make people try and reach the cap, even if they would otherwise not invest that heavily in that area.

Maybe so, but I prefer to avoid the whole "I'll max out X" issue that comes with skill caps.

I do cap other things, though, so I'm not totally loose on this. I cap HP, for example. You and Kromm see an increase in ST - I see an increase in HP. Many PCs have extra HP, and more than one has increased ST to increase the cap on HP. They already have enough damage to one-shot many things, and skill enough to hit anything. Their main concern is surviving heavy hits, not being bigger cannons. I keep the HP limits because while increasing skill has its own practical limits of real utility (winning a Feint by 15 isn't much less effective than winning a Feint by 20, practically) but HPs have a linear increase in utility (better slams, better survivability, better crippling levels), and that's worth capping to me. Skills . . . not at all. Not at 4/level for a mere +1 to rolls.